so much for free and balanced western journalism... Russian press is now more balanced than American
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The Defiant Ones
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One wishes we had American statesman today who better understood the dynamics of defiance, and its dangers. There was a time when we did, and it's not surprising that some of the most notable came from the South. George C. Marshall, whose roots were in Virginia, used American wealth to alleviate the suffering and diminish the resentments of the defeated peoples in Europe after World War II. Sen. William Fulbright of Arkansas denounced the arrogance of power that "confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence." As Fulbright wrote, "Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great power assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work"--and lesser powers and peoples come to believe they must defy it in order to maintain any dignity or independence. Such good judgment led Fulbright to promote multilateralism and the international fellowship program that bears his name, as well as to oppose the Bay of Pigs and the escalation of the Vietnam War. Yeah, we could use more like him today.
In the meantime, a hopeful sign, perhaps, could be another current of defiance I found among Southerners I met on my travels who were proudly living Blue in the Red States. My 82-year-old cousin, Jean Dickey White in Murphy, N.C., said she was raised voting for Democrats, her people had always fared better under them, and, even though it was hard to vote for someone who seemed as different from everyone she knew as Barack Obama, she was going to vote Democratic this time around, too. Jay Srymanske, 58, who runs river trips on the rapids of the Cartecay and what's left of the Coosawatee in north Georgia, says he's "a yellow dog Democrat," who'd just as soon vote for that yellow dog on the porch as for a Republican. When I went up to Kathryn Heath and Sarah George at a Starbucks in a posh suburb of Charlotte, N.C., they had books piled high in front of them, exchanging favorite titles. They said they were Obama supporters. I said I thought that might be the case somehow. "You mean because we read?" said Heath, a corporate leadership consultant.
But one of the most memorable moments came in Spartanburg, S.C., after eating dinner with John Lane and his wife, Betsy Teter, who are pillars of the town's art and culture scene and who dare to put magnetized OBAMA '08 stickers on their cars. It was late. We'd been talking to a young waitress whose boyfriend is dying of cancer, and we were all moved by what she had to say about the need for better health care. And then as Betsy walked toward her car, she said, "It's gone," and we all knew what she meant: the Obama sticker. "Happens all the time," she said. "Wait." She started looking around the parking lot as if she'd dropped her keys. And sure enough, about 20 yards away, there it was on the ground. Somebody had flung it away like a Frisbee. Betsy just put it back on her car, in her quiet way defying the old defiance of the South.
© 2008
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