The bravery of being out of range

Max Blumenthal has made a very interesting little film called 'Generation Chickenhawk', which he has posted at his blog. (It is also, in slightly rougher quality, embedded below.)

He visits the College Republican National Convention and asks a few questions of the eager young things who have gathered there to, apparently, root for America, hate gays, oppose abortion rights and (though this may be hearsay) drink lots of beer.

It makes for very good viewing.

The 'College Republicans' that he deals with are well known to yours truly...even, actually in the context of a war against Iraq. The one before this one, in fact. (It seems that every generation from now on may have its war in Iraq, the way things are going...)

And we certainly had a good old time back then in the late '80s and early '90s as we debated...well, pretty much the same things that are being debated today. (The more things change, eh?...)

Actually, as I recall, we debated and they just made lots of noise and threatened physical violence when they got frustrated that their stupid arguments didn't hold any water.

As Blumenthal's film makes clear, they remain the same jabbering cretins (with a latent tendency toward thuggishness when pressed) that they were back in my generation.




Blumenthal is, of course, in some ways unfair, and, of course, he has the power of the film editing room (or, more likely now, PC) to tweak things so that they look even more embarrassing and hypocritical than they undoubtedly did.

I also don't entirely buy the argument that if you think a war is just you have to automatically just head out there yourself and take part in the action. (This is, after all, perhaps the point of having a civilian controlled democracy and a professional army.)

But...I could feel more sympathy for Blumenthal's victims if they weren't quite so blindly gung ho about the whole thing and if they hadn't apparently had the same brain-chip implanted that made them spout puerile garbage like the 'We gotta fight 'em there so we don't have to fight 'em here' line so beloved of our chimp in chief.

(And, of course, if they weren't quite so fucking homophobic, religiously bigoted and arrogant).

See them for the insecure losers they are....