As I was shuffling up the steps of Allen Hall the other day, I noticed the September 20th edition of Eugene Weekly, slathered in hues of green, instructing me to “Give Peace a Chance.” I was in a tolerant mood, so I picked up a copy to see what the extreme left has to say about the attacks.
The article mentioned a recent demonstration in Portland where more than 1,200 people gathered to voice their desire for a peaceful solution to our nation’s current crisis. I first heard about this demonstration the day after it happened while visiting my pre-college home in deep East Texas. My mother is in the habit of keeping a radio in the bathroom, tuned to her favorite local country station. I was in the habit of tuning out said station while getting ready in the morning, but I heard the words “Portland, Oregon,” and, because my new home might as well be a different country to most Texans, I turned off my electric razor to get a better listen.
A middle-aged man with a thick accent coating his words like old suede, his voice ravaged by Marlboros and Jim Beam, was giving an editorial of sorts. I could almost see him, leaning back in his chair, his boots propped up haphazardly on an expensive piece of radio equipment, slouched down low to keep his enormous belt buckle, emblazoned with a lone star, from slicing into his stomach. My memory is a bit foggy in the a.m., but the following is more or less what was said:
“We have something to say to all those pansies up in Port-land, Orah-gone: The only ‘peace’ we want is a piece of ol’ Oh-sama flapping from a flag pole.” Right underneath Old Glory.
The play on words and the reference to a flagpole are just as I heard them. The rest is paraphrased.
Crude, ignorant and shortsighted? Perhaps. Disturbing? Definitely. Still, the statement contains a certain wisdom in its offensiveness, even if the speaker isn’t aware of it. This is the opinion of the working class, the salt of the earth. “You know, morons,” as Gene Wilder so eloquently puts it in “Blazing Saddles.”
Yes, this is the closed-minded opinion of a closed-minded man, but a closed mind is a relative thing. Just take a look at the Taliban. These are the kind of religious zealots that make Arthur Dimsdale look like a Unitarian.
The international community donated a soccer stadium to the Afghan people, in hopes that entertainment would mask the horror of their everyday lives. The Taliban used the stadium for public executions. Seriously, I saw a tape of it on CNN the other day — the crowd seemed to like it.
My point is this: Even the most venomous, hateful anti-Islamic American is only a small fraction as closed-minded as an Islamic extremist. The man on the radio wants to inflict pain on the people who inflicted pain on us. The people who inflicted pain on us only wanted to inflict pain. They are evil, plain and simple.
All Oregonians who claim to fight for human rights, all Oregonians who claim to advocate for an open mind, should rejoice at the prospect of our involvement in Afghanistan. Put down your protest signs for just a moment and satisfy the hunger of your already-bloated social consciences with the knowledge that, for once, we are not the bad guys. They are. We did not start this. They did. And now it’s time we finish it. Peace has had its chance.