Peace dividend, hah!:
Getlein, Frank
and scrupulous about not simply asking others-whether a burst of rhetoric was successfully resisted; and though the bishops or some undefined audience of Christians-to...
...They are No, it...
...are as slow learners in geography as they Of several minds: Frank Getlein are in history...
...Again the music is the domestic needs or even back to the poor alerted...
...Albanians, who, as soon as they can get don't even need a Soviet Union...
...The awful truth is that that thirty years...
...Besides, they were busy rewriting World War II to reveal that the Germans were all good Germans who hadn't a clue as to what bad old Hitler PEACE DIVIDEND, HAll...
...With that explosion of popular Irish pubs, ranging something in the military megabucks of celebration the Irish experienced a con- from the homey, multiroomed Dubliner yesteryear devoted to containing the Yel- firmation of their country's identity as a near the capitol to the Irish Inn, low Peril...
...The signs are many...
...Give us your all collapsed...
...The same principle applies "Mammy, Mammy, I can't get the wa"China" for the purposes of American to the Leningrad-Stalingrad to Berlin ter, there's an alligator in the bayou...
...though not quite enough reason to im- The third explanation was, if anyThe evidence of such Communist in- pose wage-price controls that control thing, even more unthinkable to those tent was as follows: The Soviet Union prices as well as wages, nationalize Gen- present at the creation, so to speak, of our had driven deep into middle Europe in eral Motors and Boeing and ration adoption of national bankruptcy as the closing years of World War II, seiz- gasoline...
...freedom-loving Germany...
...The Pentagonians don't even need don't want to use that water for washing neglect the threat of, say, the Commie an Albania or a Cuba...
...gards Iran...
...what the real strengths of Ireland are- far-off suburban Silver Spring...
...We do understand that it is did for the white folks...
...That they find the Commonweal: 200...
...As a kid, Louis picked going back to the young Andre Malraux Russia and pursuing them.back into up and delivered the laundry his mother and all that, seized control of China, Germany...
...If they But if you think the mighty minds of their hands on a boat .. . can get Jimmy Carter to raise their budget worldwide anti-Communism here at the Or how about the Cubans...
...Need you ask...
...Patrick" "Oh well, we do a few of these-we military had barely got themselves back there were as many people present whose have to," said one group leader as he from the debacle than they discovered ties to Ireland were cultural, economic, launched his fellows into a medley of that in the course of blowing the wad in or in the context of world organization, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, My Wild `Nam, vital, essential, frighteningly as there were politicos or other Washing- Irish Rose, and Galway Bay, a bow to the necessary war works had been postponed tonians with ties of blood...
...After all...
...Mammy, if that alligator is So here...
...It's Red Independent China, or China from the ranks of our implacable FRANK GETLEIN Red Friend of the West China, which makes it more like Red Skelton than Red Russia...
...Dismantle a single rifle...
...So ied backgrounds-who have studied Pentagon has been throwing an Ar- thinks Sean Donlon, Eire's thought- Irish traditional music and like to play mageddon and nobody came...
...The Soviet first was simply that they got there in the There's an old Louis Armstrong story Union then, bringing to fruition plans course of chasing the Germans out of that applies here...
...Just remember, that al- ling arms or the Russians would be in enemies anymore than there was a peace ligator is just as scared of you as you are Tenafly on Tuesday...
...foreign policy...
...The continuing Russian occuourselves against the hideous threat of indeed have a lot to worry about and pation, while indefensible, is certainly Communist takeover of the rest of the more than enough reason to spend our- no novelty...
...One day he came runNew York Times now spells his name) to ter, Mass., without going through or over ning back without water, without bucket...
...All and have been...
...are unthinkable, to be sure, but surely we Eire itself came of age, he said, with the In Washington -never a city of ethnic should be able to cut down on the military celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of enclaves-there has been a surprising handouts a little...
...Suppose it thaws...
...They probably clothes in...
...The celebration of "the month of St...
...Any nation substantially while cutting everything fudge factory are any quicker at jazz that violently rejects Howard Hunt in his remotely connected with positive human anecdotes than they are at geography or red fright wig and funny voice machine values even as Jimmy Carter is preparing history, you don't want to use that water as emperor is a dangerous nation, must for the agape with China, then the loss of for washing brains in...
...The preoccupation with the tagon from its adventures in Southeast just as scared of me as I am of him, you threat of the Red Chinese caused us to Asia...
...Three explanations, in fact...
...and sing it...
...It's like Vietnam...
...A LIHOUGH it is still unrecognized "China" thus remained part of the free The second explanation for the infuanywhere, American foreign pol- world and a bastion against the Soviet sion of Soviet soldiery into East Europe icy is shadowed by a cloud now no drive for global conquest, there were still and the Balkans is simply that many of bigger than the clenched fist of the an awful lot of Chinese over there on the those countries had at one time or another Communist salute but destined soon to mainland in what must thenceforward be been owned by Russia, and Russians refill the sky, perhaps even to rain upon the considered Russia's largest province, or garded their independence as stolen parade to national bankruptcy our foreign "republic" as the Russians outlandishly property, rather as Henry Kissinger repolicy has been conducting lo, these styled their captive nations...
...The impulse to wrap up the weekend's work in ing on this effort...
...Like their arts, the Soviets' world, followed immediately by the turn- selves bankrupt on arms, ruinously in- Eastern European policy is the continuaing of the entire rest of the world against flate the economy by so spending, con- tion of czarism by (slightly) different the United States, followed, probably, script our young men and send them to means...
...Among his duties ousting the famed freedom-loving extremely difficult, although it can be was hauling water from the bayou to the Chiang Kai-shek (I have no idea how the done, to get from New York to Worces- backyard boiler...
...At the embassy songs and "contemporary Irish...
...The IRISH AMERICA has come of age...
...anymore...
...But even though this route, but our foreign policy fabricators "Louis, go back and get the bucket and 13 April 1979: 199 fetch the water...
...But if China is split off from the Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy Kremlin's conspiracy to conquer the whole wide world in order to be able to conquer the United States, then the conspiracy itself isn't viable...
...dread threat of the godless atheists in the designs on Key Biscayne, site of the fu- So the coming ice age begins in RusKremlin getting ready to land in Hobo- ture Nixonland and waxworks Bebe Re- sia, freezes the Kremlin into immobility, ken any minute now unless we signed bozo and Henry Kissinger...
...The the only one that has dropped it...
...exile on the island of Formosa, renamed Connecticut...
...What happened...
...And their perceptions have the good music...
...Are you kidpaycheck to the Pentagon, suddenly it's The fact is there will be no peace divi- ding...
...To arms...
...Surely that could be pared nation among nations and began to sense California-like with brick and plants, in back, just a tad...
...The young generations cut off from their heritage by here and more money than ever had to be people who played and sang were not the famine and its aftermath, sustained handed over to retired generals now sel- Irish Americans-just Americans of var- by sentimental dreams...
...be prepared against...
...dividend from the withdrawal of the Penof him...
...was up to, while the Russians were all WAR IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER bad Russians who were well aware of and enthusiastically approved of Stalin's doings...
...If they fought us off Russia as enemy would probably be no Anyway, after this long history of the at the Bay of Pigs, they clearly have loss at all...
...by our ultimate defeat but if not, certainly die so that some corner of a foreign field But, again, State Department thinkers by our devastation in a war against the would be forever Nixon's, ignore grow- are as slow learners in history as they are rest of the world for the survival of free- ing social problems at home, all that, in geography...
...Clearly, if that huge mass and enor- part of the world for centuries was conFor those three decades, in case you mous population from Thuringia to stantly being carved up and redistributed hadn't noticed, American foreign policy Shanghai were indeed dedicated to the among Russia, Prussia, Austria, Turkey, has been to spend ourselves broke and destruction of the free world at large and at times even Sweden and, good grief, then some on fantasy weapons to defend the United States in particular, we would Lithuania...
...can't...
...over our houses, cars and next month's bucks...
...Twice...
...dom...
...Rebates ful new ambassador in Washington...
...People find them the war was over there would be a "peace many of Irish background, many not- welcoming and warm...
...and though the bishops or some undefined audience of Christians-to under- participants contented themselves with a modest affirmation of take what they themselves would not, the participants seemed the need and the difficulty of sustaining the laity's service in caught in a simmer of creative conversation that never quite the world, that in itself indicated their seriousness about carrycame to a boil...
...There must have been the Easter uprising in 1966...
...true traditional music, folk ballads, rebel old taxpayers...
...This is simply that the ing the briefly independent nations of the There was, of course, another, alterna- Russians were scared out of their britches Baltic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hun- tive explanation of why the Russians by America, to this day not only the gary, Roumania, Bulgaria and, poten- moved into all those East European coun- country that invented the atom bomb, but tially worst of all, a third of the famed tries...
...The monolithic threat ain't monolithic anymore...
...Red China isn't Red China dend from the withdrawal of massive dough, they're coming by frigid air...
...they like the simdividend" and money saved from the have become acquainted with the real ple food, the drink, the informality and military budget would be channeled into Ireland...
...To the Supreme Soviet into living statues...
...In the last fifteen years frequented by young and old-the mix of during that military version of "Laugh because of the great surge in international generations is one of the attractions-by In," we were assured monthly that once travel large numbers of Americans- Irish and non-Irish...
...foreign policy...
...Sooner or later, THE IRISH: L008 AGAIN even a country that eats Florida tomatoes AMERICA'S FIRST GENUINE PROLETARIAT believing they are tomatoes is going to catch up on that one...
Vol. 106 • April 1979 • No. 7
