The problem with a certain type of American isolationist is that even when they’re right (no pun intended), they’re horribly wrong. Such is the case with Cal Thomas, whose syndicated columns are inflicted on anyone who picks up the Boston Herald as it’s thrown around for free across the city to inflate circulation numbers (why doesn’t the Herald just start begging for alms instead?) In the article ‘Getting serious about energy’, Thomas follows the rest of his conservative colleagues in taking White House marching orders to paint Iran’s existence as some horrid aberration, writes lifeless sentences like “Americans have always responded to major threats and challenges” (what is there to do regarding a major threat besides responding to it?), and tries to draw an analogy between the success of JFK’s moon mission in response to the ‘Soviet threat’ and a need to educate Americans about the necessity of energy independence as a security matter. Ok, that analogy and proposed tactic is sensible. Except that his reasoning with regards to Middle Eastern states follows disgusting thought processes like: “To become energy independent and no longer rely on foreign oil would be like depriving Dracula of his blood supply: he would shrivel up and die.” WTF?
“Americans have always responded to major threats and challenges.” What the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway? They ‘responded to the challenge’ of pre-existing native peoples by perpetuating the largest genocide in recorded history. They ‘responded to the challenge’ of British colonialism by eight years of war and strife. They ‘responded to the challenge’ of conflicts between southern business interests and northern ideas by collapsing into civil war and annexing The Confederacy. They ‘responded to the challenge’ of socialist thought by leaving the national artistic community in fear for their livelihoods. They ‘responded to the challenge’ of the USSR by aiding the slaughter of tens of millions of bystanders in proxy wars in Asia, Africa and South America. Their rich ‘respond to the challenge’ of forced desegregation by moving out to the suburbs and producing a strange inversion of the usual demographic patterns of affluence vs. geography. These moves aren’t ‘rising the to challenge’. They’re tactics born of lashing out in hoarse desperation, the same way any other nation does.
Here’s the article’s conclusion:
We’ll need a slogan. Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon were “That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.” How about this one for Energy Independence Day: “Let ‘em Eat Sand.”
This paragraph literally juxtaposes the sane way of thinking about technological independence with the the racist way. How did Cal Thomas miss the difference? Notice that Armstrong didn’t say “Let ‘em Guzzle Vodka”.
