Presumptuous Beliefs

It is exceedingly difficult to come across an anti-Bush administration screed that makes the views of the scabrous MoveOn.org engine sound faintly reasonable. But for those interested in examining how the president has driven some of his opponents to unhinged distraction, turn to Garrret Keizer’s “Notebook” in the October issue of Harper’s.The monthly’s opening essay was, until last year, written by the longtime editor, Lewis Lapham, whose incendiary prose was memorable as much for his rhetoric about income inequality and the unspeakable evil that Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney embodied as for his name-dropping and references to dining at any number of Manhattan’s most exclusive, and expensive, restaurants.The good news is that Mr. Lapham has retired as editor of the decreasingly influential magazine — its circulation hovers around 220,000 — and his contributions have become scarce. On the other hand, the rotating group of writers who now author the “Notebook” column have kept the spirit of Mr. Lapham’s largely benign lunacy alive.Consider the topic of Mr. Keizer’s piece, calling for Americans to stage a “general strike” beginning on Election Day next month, and you’ll see what I mean. Because the foreign policy initiatives of the administration have left the “citizenry” of America “dead,” Mr. Keizer believes the most effective way to reclaim what has supposedly been lost is for a work stoppage on November 6.He suggests: “Not working until the president and the shadow president resigned or were impeached. Never mind what happens next. Rather, let our mandarins ask how this came to happen in the first place. Let them ask in shock and awe.”Those who are unable to join the masses in staying away from their jobs, could aid the cause by turning off their television sets, boycott the shopping malls, stop using cell phones, cancel airplane flights, and reserve consumption for the bare essentials.Not only would this strike cripple commerce and communication, Mr. Keizer theorizes, but also it would signal a “delayed message of solidarity to those voters in Ohio and Florida who were pretty much told they could drop dead.”At least Mr. Keizer, an author of several books who lives with his family in Vermont — dashing the notion that his words were the product of a rambunctious college student’s fevered imagination — has the grace to admit that as a writer it would be easier for him than others to participate in such madness.Yet what is more offensive than Mr. Keizer’s blueprint for a strike that would disrupt the country, not to mention his presumptuous belief that his views represent the majority, is the very impetus for his essay. According to Mr. Keizer, “Of all the various depredations of the Bush regime, none has been so thorough as its plundering of hope. Iraq will recover sooner.”Americans are so demoralized by the military’s presence in Iraq and Mr. Bush’s continual reminders that we’re engaged in a war against an enemy that aims to destroy Western civilization, this line of thought proceeds, that we’re all resigned to a reduced quality of life.This conclusion struck me, upon reading the “Notebook” column, as extraordinarily curious and so I canvassed many of my friends and acquaintances, mostly Democrats who don’t hold Mr. Bush in high regard. The unanimous reaction to both the “general strike” and Mr. Keizer’s contention that all hope has been “plundered” was one of astonishment. Stating the obvious, a former neighbor in Lower Manhattan, a lawyer who believes John Edwards is “too conservative,” told me that such articles do little to help the anti-war movement. When we speak on the phone or communicate by e-mail, we move to neutral corners on the topic of politics and instead discuss our kids, sports, new movie releases, and how our wives are getting along.This particular person may agree with some of Mr. Keizer’s opinions, but he’s as hopeful and optimistic as any person as I know. More broadly, can Mr. Keizer be so narcissistic that he thinks the nation’s citizens, who, excepting those who have family in the military, are so apoplectic over the war that they’ll ignore the daily ups and downs of earning a living, caring for sick relatives, fretting or exulting in their offspring’s progress in school, and striving for personal goals and accomplishments that they’ll join in his proposed shutdown of the country?World War II, of course, had a more profound effect on America and the daily routine of its citizens. Yet even then, despite the rationing of food and products, the constant worrying about loved ones overseas, people attempted, under far more dire circumstances, to lead as normal lives as possible.My own parents, who voted against Roosevelt four times, were involved in war effort, yet also had two of their five children during that time and though they struggled to get by financially, were not bereft of hope for a better future.Granted, we’re living in an emotionally charged and geopolitically dangerous era, but contrary to Mr. Keizer’s assertions, the majority of Americans, regardless of their political preferences, are not singularly focused on the machinations in Washington, D.C.Mr. Smith writes a weekly column for New York Press.

Presumptuous Beliefs

Presumptuous Beliefs

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