Editorial/Bouquets for the Israelites/Animal Rights
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
.............................................................................................................................................................. E D I T O R I A...
...Certainly their behavior this summer has been piggish...
...Now we have discovered that there are also animals amongst the management...
...They want to be at war with Israel...
...George F. Will would have it...
...Hence they are condemned to a defensive strategy, and their air strike last month was a masterful show of defense...
...PHRASE MATING A s I write, there is still a certain amount of distant rumbling, as of a receding thunderstorm, in the wake of the Israeli raid on the French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad...
...Many arrests will be made and a goodly number of fans could be socked away in the calahoose for years...
...By way of example, turn back to almost any issue of the New Republic edited by Michael Kinsley...
...and provoked a strike by trying to renege on their player compensation agreement...
...The characteristic feature of those who toil away with abstract nouns at places like the United Nations is that they believe there is no problem in the world that cannot be solved by rewording a communique or rewriting a resolution...
...nattotkif J t iotcr ~~ttlntu .y -- What Women Read r It FP, i'I~f~ ' ..,k•.Lpi=wnt...
...Saddam Hussein seems to relish war as fondly as the late Benito Mussolini, though Hussein butchered a lot more of his countrymen in pursuing high office than did Mr...
...Many of those now ardently criticizing Israel apparently are ignorant of the vicious and mercurial nature of Israel's enemies...
...The phrase-mating internationalists naturally spend a good deal of time meeting other people, and thus sustain in themselves the illusion that they live in the real world...
...Had Allah smiled on the Iranian bombers, would the UN have convened another of its hot-air confabulations...
...His pitch is melodic and often unique...
...Life is sweet...
...More Arabs today view the Israelis as tolerable than ever before...
...They believe all disagreements are reasonable disagreements...
...In fact the Hon...
...George Ball, I notice, writes in all seriousness about "international rules," as though they-really existed outside the imagination of deluded diplomats...
...Why the anguished chorus over the Israeli attack...
...Furthermore, they are in a better position to spend their earnings than, say, the winning horse at the Kentucky Derby...
...liberation theology and the future of capitalism...
...A nation of under four million, they have endured in an ocean of 134 million hostile faces...
...Similarly, it is an odd budget cut that is billions higher .. . Before this was published, the copy editor suggested to me that "wife" be changed to "spouse"not, I hasten to add, in any spirit of dogmatic allegiance or ideological solidarity with the feminist cause, but simply, as she wearily explained to me on the telephone, to prevent the hail of angry feminist missives that inevitably would come flying airmail into Harper's offices...
...Would Jordan's King Hussein...
...feminism and the role of Christian women...
...As the strike moves on let us keep things in perspective...
...And if we really must take sides consider championing the cause of the ballpark vendor...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1981 43...
...The truth, of course, is that it is a world inhabited by abstract nouns, passive verbs, participial phrases, and gents in pinstriped suits...
...There is au fond very little of the higher intellection involved...
...been most comfortable with over the past 35 years...
...residents call 213-553-4911) Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of first issue...
...Sport should be enjoyed for what it is...
...During this time dozens of peoples have had their culture snuffed out...
...The nations of the Middle East and for that matter all the peace-loving nations of the world ought to be sending the Israelis bouquets...
...The difference is between choosing an offensive or a defensive policy...
...Always they counsel restraint...
...I cannot recall a game during which some unknown vendor did not astonish and improve me with a unique yell, a reassuring insult, a gift for changing a dozen five-dollar bills with one hand and in lightning speed...
...swing and follow through...
...They deny that there are malevolent forces...
...Because the news doesn't take a vacation...
...And let us be spared any more of the Arabs' emotional sonorities about International Law...
...As the citizenry of the West continues to cut deals abroad and live the high life at home more and more woebegone immigrants from foreign barbarism drag themselves to Western shores...
...Their average salary is almost $180,000...
...The noblest of the animals are, of course, on the field...
...They do not want to become the next wave of boat people...
...So are the criminal psychiatrists...
...As it manifests itself in sport it is often an attempt by intellectuals to get into the ballpark and hog the show...
...This is the option that the West has by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Now add young, committed correspondents like Bob Eldridge, Mary Dunn and Greg Erlandson...
...Such people are simply ignoring the nature of international politics...
...authority and dissent in the Church...
...Please enter my subscription to the NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER for: H 1 year (52 issues} for $23.00 C 6 Month (26 issues) for $12.00 U7 New Subscription 1-1 Renew my subscription Name Address City State Zip L I Payment enclosed ll Bill me LI Bill my VISA/Mastercharge B Expiration date FOR FASTER SE R VICE call toll free 800-421-3230 (24 hours) • (Calif...
...Their critics wish they had exercised the third option and done nothing...
...I think he actually believes that if "he or she" appears in print frequently enough then the glorious day will arrive when babes emerge from the womb with genitalia 5 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1981 EDITORIAL (continued from page 5) about moving spring training to the south of France...
...The activity of the athlete is basically the activity of an animal...
...George Ball is not without his skills...
...A few months ago I wrote in a by Tom Bethell Harper's magazine article about budget cuts: If your wife were to come home with assorted packages under her arm, claim ing that she had just saved you money by foregoing even more expensive pur chases, you would probably think this was an odd way of getting richer...
...1] Consider the Issues...
...BOUQUETS FOR THE ISRAELITES Why all the rending of garments over last month's Israeli air strike...
...E D I T O R I A L...
...John Lukacs made this point very well in his recent excellent article, "Easter in Warsaw," in National Review...
...The Lebanese understand this...
...The Israelis appreciate this...
...And top it off with weekly question-and-answer "dialogues" with some of the most interesting and controversial women and men of our era: Mother Teresa of Calcutta, guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi, Russell Kirk, Michael Novak, Greek Orthodox Archbishop lakavos, American Communist leader Gus Hall, Zehdi Terzi of the PLO...
...swing and follow through, does the catcher sneeze inopportunely...
...By practicing restraint the West has prospered...
...Yet by the time Issues that bring you the best in news and analysis on the modern Catholic Church - corporate ethics and third world development...
...Any coach worth his salt knows that an athlete's performance depends on his ability to execute consistently a certain range of moves regardless of conditions: swing and follow through, does the crowd jeer...
...His poise is amazing...
...Would manage ment in any other labor dispute expect such a gift...
...The Israelis will never be powerful enough to subjugate their enemies, and they cannot opt out of their political situation...
...They like to be at war with Israel...
...I speak of the owners, many of whom are apparently quite piggish...
...Now consider subscribing to the National Catholic Register - one of the very best Christian publications available anywhere, the voice of Catholic faith...
...semantic world has a tangible, external reality...
...powerful to subjugate one's enemies, one scales down one's ambitions...
...I thought about this and eventually decided that I had already seen too much truckling, and too many white flags of surrender run submissively up various editorial flagpoles-"he or she," "congressperson," etc...
...Would the Saudis sleep as comfortably then as they do now...
...Thus they favor ceaseless dialogue and public relations as instruments of diplomacy...
...an animal highly trained, occasionally an animal of noble mien, but an animal...
...Yet the irony is that by accepting the imperatives of their political condition the Israelis have actually gained a degree of acceptance in that hostile ocean that their present critics would never have prophesied...
...But the grim truth is that in an increasing number of countries around the world life has become hellish...
...The Israelis, with their brief and yet ancient history, are realistic enough to understand that all the diplomatic initiatives, peace accords, treaties, dialogues, negotiations, and quiet diplomacies in the world cannot parse away the hatreds and enmities that boil inside the human heart...
...He is the only consistently civilized performer at these debauches anyway...
...The Iranians tried to bomb this very same Iraqi nuclear plant last September, and I noted no uproar...
...While the owners and the players count their gold he is out of work...
...Mail order to: Circulation dept., 1901 Ave...
...The third option is taking no action at all...
...As recompense they offer the players nothing...
...And what of public safety...
...Do the diplomats of the West understand?LJ 4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1981 ANIMAL RIGHTS As the baseball strike lengthens and our national despair grows, let us never forget that what brings most of us out to the great baseball pastures of the major leagues is something more than ancient ritual or starspangled existentialism, as the learned and profound Dr...
...I for one do not like the drift of things...
...New vision...
...the Christian family in a secular world...
...Every year more and more fashionably dressed people parade along the Champs Elysees, the Via Veneto, and Central The goal of all serious political activity is control, generally control of one's enemies...
...It is at the heart of most of our social and political confusions...
...The Egyptians understand it...
...For over three decades the Israelis have steadfastly accepted the imperatives of their political condition...
...all is well...
...They imagine that the real emotions of love, fear, hatred, hope, and envy that animate people can somehow be transformed by syntax, or brought into more harmonious relationship by a mere show of hands...
...Those who prescribe it essentially see foreign affairs as apolitical...
...The problem is that they meet mostly with other people exactly like themselves, more often than not at the United Nations or some other such carefully constructed theater of delusion, the function of which is to benefit its occupants...
...They seem to doubt that any foreign peoples would ever be ruthless or unreasonable...
...Would the Syrian Machiavel, Hafez al-Assad, or anyone else in this enormously volatile area...
...Ball, Geyelin, and a small army of like-minded professors, have found that it is possible to make a decent living by trotting out a rather limited repertoire of wisesounding phrases with overtones of a laboriously acquired expertise"peace process," "initiative," "accord," and so on-and it is not long before they start believing that this Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington editor...
...If one is insufficiently Adapted from RET's weekly column syndicated by King Features...
...It is an insult to sport...
...Rather there is a large element of spirit, and it is that which makes the athlete occasionally so noble...
...Mussolini...
...What brings Ameri cans out to the ballpark is the spectacle of animals...
...They refuse to accept that there are struggles for influence going on in the world...
...There is artistry in his performance...
...After years of lavishly bidding up the value of their players they now rebel...
...Throughout this strike the carabinieri in all our major league cities are going to be kept jumping...
...It is an ominous sign...
...How about offering the players chauffeur-driven limousines to the ballpark...
...With so many baseball fans released from salutary confinement in the ballparks crime rates will soar...
...The tendency of intellectuals to transmogrify reality into something it clearly is not has grown to become the bane of American life...
...their paychecks have passed through the hands of their agents, lawyers, accountants, hairdressers, wives, and all the other handlers affixed to them, I doubt that they come away with much more than would a virtuous United States Senator or a San Francisco garbageman...
...Who doubts that the majority of baseball fans attend games as much for the spectacle provided by the animals in the bleachers as for the spectacle on the field...
...I know I do...
...But the cries of alarm now that we have one less atom-bomb manufactory to worry about strike me as being quite exceptionally absurd...
...The Iraqis are at war with Israel...
...They have built up a formidable strike fund by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Is it because the Israelis were successful and the Iranians missed...
...He can parley with a preposition, argue with an adverb, joust with a gerund...
...In this turbulent and bloodyminded area the Israelis have been the only truly effective peace-keeping force...
...Admittedly the major league players are highly paid animals...
...Hats off to the ballpark vendor...
...The Israelis understand the meaning of these signs...
...And as he capers about, balancing his colossal tray, he serves the commonweal, selling frankfurters to nourish the system and cold beer to stupefy the animals...
...r tpf t5ter Old truths...
...Not that he is truckling to anyone, of course...
...Park South...
...And as the Western powers withdraw their influence, allowing the liberal order in international relations to be extinguished, the future of world peace itself is increasingly left in the nervous hands of men like President Saddam Hussein...
...But I don't think he knows a great deal about what goes on beyond the confines of his briefcase...
...Fifty-two issues a year - once a week, every week...
...By the strike's end there may not remain enough fans at large to fill the bleachers and empty bleachers will mean financial disaster for professional baseball...
...Also consider the influential thinkers whose writings will appear in the Register in 1981: George Gilder, Joseph Sobran, Malcolm Muggeridge, James Hitchcock, Dale Vree, as well as critics like Paul Hallett, a 40 year veteran...
...The athlete applies muscle and instinct to a physical task...
...The owners, of course, have acted without any regard whatsoever for the thousands of individuals whose very livelihoods depend upon summer baseball...
...The main problem with people like George Ball, an eminent purveyor of this kind of thing, and a number of newspapermen, of whom Philip Geyelin of the Washington Post is characteristic, is that they live in a wholly paper world, the dimensions of which do not exceed a standardsized briefcase...
...of the Stars, /1511, Los Angeles, CA 90087...
...It is an attempt by the intellectually precious to impose their abstruse system of values upon an activity that eludes it...
...As for the players, I tire of all the intellectualizing spun about them...
...the most amusing are rioting in the grandstands, pouring beer on each other's tee shirts, braying at the undertaker behind home plate, and otherwise comporting themselves in ways that are marginally criminal...
...The outcome of the war in Southeast Asia should constitute the great political lesson of the late twentieth century...
...Writing about international affairs has always struck me as being more than normally fraudulent...
...The countries of the West abound with Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans who have lost the struggle for political control in their countries...
...Imagine, Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, in possession of atomic bombs...
...How (continued on page 43) C A P I T O L I D E A S...
Vol. 14 • August 1981 • No. 8
