I don't get this post. It contains no facts. Just assumption and hot air.

The rally you refer to is from Dec 10 2003 so maybe it's not a surprise that the NYT times doesn't cover it jan 30, 2006. No?

Naah. That may have been an old march, but there are other things going on in Iraq or Afghanistan that never got reported. For example, literally no mention in the MSM of any of the gallantry awards that have gone to members of the armed forces. Why? Because, if it actually got reported on, it would validate the deed, and we can't have that now, can we? Or any of the reconstruction accomplishments, like the reflooding of the Iraqi marshes, or road building in Afghanistan, or any of that.

None of that would support that general "everything sucks" meme that is the default stance of the media in general.

A fascist insurgency is still an insurgency. We can know with some certainty what they are doing just by watching. They are revolting. We can figure out what they believe only by interviewing them and listening to their spokespersons and reading their books.

They don't grant interviews, they don't have a spokesperson (or a spokesmodel) and they don't write much. We've intercepted a letter or two and I'm sure the US gov't has intercepted some stuff they aren't making public. But us humble citizens have a right to be cautious and humble regarding the analysis of their so-called psyche.

So calling them insurgents is no more letting them off the hook than calling somebody a 'Murderer' without describing the motive for the crime. As a practical matter, fascist killers don't kill you any deader than any other kind of killer. So it's all a bit moot.

If the leaders of the "Insurgency" were thought to have great ideas, a Ghandi or an Einstein, we would all be very curious about what they believe. But since we're pretty sure they've got their heads about as far up their butts as it is possible to go, we don't feel much of a need to study up on the matter.

Now Osama told us nice and clear what he believes when he was killing our fellow countrymen so there are some of us who went out and asked, "What the heck is this Islam anyway?". But that's about as far as it goes.

Like I said, a fascist insurgent is still an insurgent, and after we kill him it won't matter so much whether he was a fascist or a vegetarian. No offense intended toward the vegetarians, by the way.

Great post! Human nature is self destructive, always has been and always will be. Human nature wants a free lunch and there is no free lunch. That elitist group you refer to lives and abides by the LIE. The lie, the most loathsome of human traits.

The media are in a state of yearning for the mud by default - "If it don't bleed, it don't lead."

ALL journalism is yellow journalism.

The self destructive trait of human kind is one trait that is difficult to break, yet somewhat easy to identify for those who have overcome it.

It is the rationalization of failure long before the battle is lost.

It is the excuse to quit when the going gets tough.

It is a lie, a cop-out, and the rallying cry of those who will never overcome their demons for fear of what new demons await them.

One problem is that this explanation does not account for partisanship. That is, every trait you note comes out during a Republican administration, but in a Democrat administration the positions are reversed: an aggressive and strong America is good, and the economy is great, and so forth.

This is a nice post. Those French terms really capture something (I know it's unfashionable, but I love the French).

The way I remember it -- and I had a nihilistic, atheistic, self destructive, Leftist youth (didn't almost everyone of a certain age?) -- was that underneath it all was despair. Like the Steward of Gondor, the feeling is that hope is foolish, everything is going to fail anyway, so why not save unnecessary pain and hasten it along.

I get an echo of that feeling in much of the argument of the Left about Iraq. It's not that most of them *want* it be Vietnam, but that they are convinced that ultimately it *must* be Vietnam. Vietnam is the way things are, the precursor of all else to come. The decadent West must inevitably decline and fall, and accepting failure now gives us our only faint hope -- the chance to engineer a soft landing. The more we struggle to stay on the road, the worse it will be when the inevitable crash comes.

Needless to say, neither history nor logic support this argument, but I suddenly had a vivid recollection of the days when I knew in my heart that it was true.

I thank God I no longer feel that way...