About Me

Name:Green Faerie
Biography
Loading...

Create Your Own Blog Find Other Townhall Blogs

Comments

Archives

Blog Search

Blog Roll

 

Oh No, Not Another Peace Conference!

What is it about every U.S. president since Carter and the delusion that some good ol' fashioned American diplomacy can singlehandedly solve "the mideast crisis," a polite and morally relativistic euphemism for the Arab/Islamic world's 59-year war on Israel?  It's like the Greek myth of Tantalus, the poor schlub condemned for all eternity to have grapes dangling just out of his reach and water that ducks down just out of reach as he wants to drink it.  Every administration, Democrat or Republican, thinks it has the magical solution that will bring hugs, kisses, and the Nobel Prize its way.  

And every single time, it ends the same way.  Israel--whether it's led by a center-right or center-left government at the time--makes concessions in return for intangible promises from the Palestinians, who never keep them.  The Palis make excuses and then make more demands.  More splodeydopes kill innocents on Israeli buses and in busy streets, more missiles end up in Israeli backyards, and Israel has less territory from where it can adequately defend itself.  Then our officials are shocked that somehow it didn't work out this time and worse yet, they sometimes scapegoat Israel for the last peace process's failure.

 

So pardon my lack of optimism about this latest joke of a peace conference in Annapolis, MD.  Look, I may not have a lot of fancy pants PhDs and the closest I've come to Foggy Bottom is taking the Metro when I used to live in the D.C. area.  But the whole thing can be summarizes as thus:  the Palis don't just want their own country.  If that's all they wanted, this would've been solved a long time ago.  They want one thing and one thing only:  the end of Israel.  You see, the Arabs/Muslims just don't want Jewish folks in their 'hood.  The fact that the postage stamp sized nation of 6 million or so has managed to hold off its enemies and thrive without a drop of oil to its name while most of its neighbors are living in crapitude just drives the Arabs even more crazy.  But they are also very patient.  As long as there is hope they can succeed at driving all of the Jews out of Israel, even if it takes 500 or a thousand years, they'll keep up with the merry-go-round of terrorism, caterwauling, demanding, and pretending to be reasonable on occasion.  Absolutely nothing is going to change.

There are only two ways this war on Israel will end:  a) Israel ceases to exist as a Jewish state or b) the Arabs/Muslims give up and accept Israel's existence.  I hope the former never happens, while I'm not optimistic the latter will happen any time soon.  So, just leave Israel be and let it do what it must to survive.

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Why Antiwar Movies Tank

Like the Queen song goes, "Another one bites the dust."

Redacted, an anti-Iraq war film described by liberal Slate.com as "antiwar porn" and by conservative movie critic Michael Medved as the worst film he's ever seen, enjoyed a craptacular opening this past weekend.  Last weekend, the bigger-budget star vehicle Lions For Lambs suffered a similar fate.  Other recent anti-war el floppos include Rendition and The Valley of Elah.  No amount of pre-release hype, major stars, big-name directors, or lavish praise from largely left-leaning film critics has drawn people into the theaters to see these films.

They say in the business that the audience votes with its feet.  Why did the audience then vote to take its feet to Bee Movie instead of Lions For Lambs?

I think I know what's going on.  It often takes a couple of years for a script to go down the pipeline from word processor to production to release.  At the time a whole slew of these movies were in development, popular opinion seemingly was against the war in Iraq, or at least the way things were going.  News reports were full of The Daily Carnage and hype of an impending civil war.  Hollywood saw this as an opportunity to return to the Good Old Days of the '60s and '70s, when faltering public support for our efforts in Vietnam resulted in a slew of movies that were antiwar and implicitly against the whole American Way of Life.  The Paul Haggises and Brian DePalmas and Robert Redfords rubbed their hands at the prospect of making The Film that finally sends Middle America into the streets to march alongside Cindy Sheehan and Co. and maybe even get Bush/Cheney thrown in the brig for good measure.

There were three problems Hollywood never forsaw.  One is that American taste for agitprop vanished sometime back in the '80s.  People don't want to be informed by movie stars and directors anymore.  They simply want to spend their ten bucks on being entertained.  Hollywood figured that perhaps the foreign market, eager for anything that makes America look bad, would turn out in droves for this stuff.  Except that even foreign movie goers would rather spend their euros and yen on Transformers than preachy pretentious crud too. 

Two, few Americans outside of leftist enclaves view the U.S. of A. as a pit of evil and the rotten treatment Vietnam veterans got from the antiwar crowd has permanently left a distaste for anything that makes a blanket slam against our military.

Three, Hollywood never thought to itself, "Gee, what if this Iraq thing turns around?"  It's almost hilarious to see a slew of these antiwar movies come out just as violence in Iraq is decreasing and stability seems to be a reachable goal.  You see, this is not a nation of navel-gazing pacifists.  We just wanted the mission to succeed.

Oh well.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

The Dog and The Rat

     The latest celebrity embarrassment involves Dwayne "Dog" Chapman, star of A&E's hit series Dog:  The Bounty Hunter.  Chapman was recorded speaking to his son on the phone (I don't think the kid's ever been on the show), urging him to dump a girlfriend.  Chapman apparently didn't trust this girlfriend but what stirred up the controversy was his frequent use of the n-word.  The kicker is that said girlfriend is black. 

     As Chapman figured in the recording, the fallout resulted in A&E putting the t.v. show on hiatus immediately.  A&E is a relentlessly p.c. network so don't go looking for the program to return any time soon.

     It's hard to defend Chapman.  I love Dog:  The Bounty Hunter.  It's always fun watching crooks get their just desserts and Chapman is portrayed as a tough guy who's lived a hard life but nonetheless has a heart of gold.  Often after they take down a fugitive, Chapman and his family are counseling him to change his life.  I still don't think he's a bad guy.  I know that in some socioeconomic circles, the n-word is just tossed around as no big deal.  They say it because everybody around them says it.  But Chapman knows better and the recording indicates he knows full well that using the n-word is at the very least controversial if not flat out wrong.  If he's so concerned with the public knowing he uses racist language, why not make a concerted effort to try and change it?  Is it really that difficult not to use the n-word? 

     Yet he's not the only pinhead in this situation.  The person who leaked the recording to the National Enquirer is none other than the son who was arguing about the girlfriend.  How bad is this young man's relationship with his father that he has to betray him like that?  For all of Chapman's faults, this was a family issue.  Now it's public and the entire family has to suffer.  What a selfish, vindictive creep. 

     If Chapman ever ends up back on the air, let's just hope that aside from the expected trips to rehab or some other sort of contrition, he gets some family counseling as well.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (9) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive
« Previous1Next »