January 30, 2004

Bakshi and More Politics (What Fun!)
Everett

Well, it seems one of my tomatoes landed. Funny thing is, I never meant for that particular comment to be a tomato in the first place. Oh well. Take what you can get, I guess.

Anyway, I see your point, Magic Fire: Bakshi's version has to be without a doubt one of the worst movies ever made. Its only positive is that it makes a great instructional video on how to milk giant cows. However, my comment has to be read in the context of the conversation which preceeded it, particularly my piece "Come to the Light, Brett. Come to the Light." Read in this context, it becomes not simply a sarcastic remark, but also a bit of consolation through understatement (albeit sarcastic understatement).

Also, my biggest objections to the trilogy (and RotK) as a whole lie not so much with the omissions as with the out and out changes. The omission of the Houses of Healing is less of a problem than Frodo telling Sam to go home or Gandalf despairing or Theoden's people losing faith in him at Dunharrow. Omission can be added into the EE or simply overlooked because of time constraints, but these changes and others undermine the movies' attempt to be an adequate adaptation of the book, and there is nothing the EE can do to change it. It was true of Faramir's character in TTT EE, and I see no reason why it will be any different with RotK EE.

That said, I greatly enjoyed the movies as movies. I have the first EEs on DVD, and I'll buy the third when it's released. Hey, at least it's (much) better than Bakshi's.

Anyway, on to politics. It is perfectly correct to say that the British and French were justified in not wanting another war after WWI. Where both come in for criticism, and quite legitimately, is that they allowed this desire to avoid war at all costs to blind them to the obvious fact that Hitler wanted to establish a continent-wide empire.

As for the US, it wasn't our fight, at least not until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. It was a European problem. From the War of 1812 until Pearl Harbor, the US attitude was basically live and let live with respect to Europe. During WWI, the US probably wouldn't have joined if the Germans hadn't forced our hand. Afterward, the US wanted nothing to do with the reconstruction of Europe because it wasn't our problem. In fact, we had already done our part. Our troops on the ground (over 100,000 dead) were what led to the end of the war that wasn't any of our business in the first place. Why should we sacrifice more? Hadn't Europe learned its lesson? The same probably would have been true after WWII, but for two factors: the feeling that Germany needed to be restrained; and the growing threat posed by the Soviet Union. Both of these factors, combined with the fact that the United States was the only major Allied power with its industry intact and with the military power to oppose the Soviet Union (The Soviet Union was only an ally because Hitler violated the truce between Germany and the Soviet Union.) put the United States in a position where it had to be involved in European affairs. Was the US right to maintain its isolationist stance with respect to Europe for as long as it did? That's a very difficult question to answer. Was it justified in doing so? Because a nation's foreign policy must be determined by what it deems to be in its own best interest, I say most definitely.

As to the fact that some Americans, particularly prominent ones (Lindbergh; Henry Ford; Joe Kennedy, father of JFK, RFK and drunken master Teddy) supported the Nazis, it's true. However, most of the American support evaporated overnight when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in violation of the aforementioned truce.* This is because most of the American support for the Nazis came from American Communists. Not that that's any better than being a Nazi, of course, but I think it important to note the source of Nazi support in the US.

Enough history. On to more pressing issues. I can't speak directly to how the call to war was made without a good idea of how you saw it. However, I can respond to some of your peripheral points. Your assertion that, if Clinton had made the same call, most would have backed him is absolutely correct. My only problem is that it is a trivial assertion to make. Clinton was and is concerned, above all, with appearances, especially his own. He never would have gone to war in Iraq without the veneer of respectability conferred upon it by the approval of the United Nations or the enlightened Western European elite.** Because of this, he never would have gone to war in Iraq. He may have launched, probably would have pressed for more futile inspections, and definitely would have bitten his lip; all in an attempt to appear to be doing something without actually having to do anything, especially anything that would tarnish his image among the enlightened ones. It's a shame, really. He could have been a great president. He's highly intelligent and highly gifted as a politician. Unfortuantely, he could find no good greater than making himself look good and has been belittled because of it.

On the other hand, President Bush isn't afraid to make others angry, though he doesn't do things simply to spite others. He knows what he wants to do and doesn't worry too much about what other people think. He'll convince who he'll convince, and thise he doesn't convince are fine, as long as they stay out of the way. I don't think it unfair to say that he's something of a cowboy. In fact, I'm kind of proud of that. He doesn't go looking for a fight, but when one comes his way, he doesn't back down. He tries to get as many people as possible to help, but if no one wants to help, he doesn't let that stop him. He may not be as polished as Bill Clinton, but he has a sense of direction and a sense of purpose that is higher than himself, and I'm proud to call him my president because of it.

As to the idea of Pax Americana: It's a joke. There is no Pax Americana. There never was a Pax Americana. The only place where a Pax Americana can be said to have existed outside of US territory is in what is now the EU, where the American military umbrella provided the condions which allowed most of Western Europe to neglect to one extent or another their own defense and build massive welfare states and concentrate on integration into a massive, undemocratic, opaque, centralized, inefficient, oppressive, unaccountable bureaucracy that erodes almost entirely the sovereignty of its member states.

Re: the bullying of allies and neutral countries, all I can do is assume that you're living in some sort of parallel universe. The US bent over backwards to get the approval of the UN Security Council (much to my dismay). They even went so far as to accede to the need of a second resolution to approve the use of force once Iraq was found in material breach of the resolution signed passed in November '02. The so-called rush to war lasted over one year, during which time he US tried to enlis as many nations as possible. despite the obstructions and obfuscations of the French, Russians, Germans, and Chinese. Indeed, France was the country who sought to persuade through bullying, making thinly veiled threats to those soon-to-be EU members who were supporting the US effort regarding their future membership in the EU.

All I'll say about the ever expanding American Empire is that I don't see Afghanistan becoming the 51st state any time soon. If the US were really interested in becoming an Imperial power, we'd take over Canada first, and start by nuking Quebec.