Cannon Fodder

Jow Doakea from Como Park emails:

Secretary of State Kerry’s remarks about Paris. Revealing quote:

“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration. It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, “Here we are.” And for what? What’s the platform? What’s the grievance?”

The official representative of the Obama Administration says the cartoonists deserved it, but shooting up a rock concert – that’s just wrong. This is a perfect example of the elitist attitude and a perfect explanation why American public policy is so messed up.  

There was no urgency to address terrorism when the people being killed were Jews or ambassadors or cartoonists. There was no problem because it did not involve an elitist, safe in the cocoon of privilege and tucked away in government offices or behind Ivy League walls. But now there is a problem: now, Islamic terror could harm people in Kerry’s strata of society. Now, terrorism is indefensible and intolerable.  

It’s the same elitist attitude towards gun control. 50 young Black men shot in Chicago ghettos is part of their colorfully diverse culture, 100 rural White men committing suicide were probably hateful racists anyway, but one nut with a gun at college or a theatre – that’s indefensible and intolerable because he might accidentally harm one of the elite. 
And swarms of immigrants/refugees aren’t a problem – on the contrary, they provide a ready supply of nannies and gardeners, meat packers and computer programmers, cheap and disposable and if you don’t like it, you should leave – but wait until we suffer a European-style invasion and suddenly there are millions of scruffy people camping on the golf courses, beheading policemen, breaking into gated communities to loot homes for food and clothing – then it’ll be a problem requiring immediate action. Then, Korematsu will be dusted off and acclaimed as binding precedent. Mouthing pious platitudes about diversity and tolerance will become as unfashionable as waving a Confederate flag.
For people like Kerry, society must act when someone threatens their lifestyle, but not before.  
Elitism; it’s an ugly thing.
Joe Doakes

As I pointed out immediately after Sandy Hook, every year the equivalent of several classrooms full of children are killed in Chicago.  But since they don’t look like the children of NPR executives –  being all black and brown and all – nobody pays much attention.least all our “elites”.