Q: What Does Appeasement Sound Like?

A: Silence.

Excerpts from the Islamic Republic of Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami speaking at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, this past Sunday, September 10. (As reported by The Harvard Crimson, via Hot Air and Alarming News.):

Khatami faced a relatively polite audience, a marked contrast to previous controversial visitors.... Khatami did not directly apologize for Iran’s human rights abuses....

In response to [one] question, Khatami also justified his country’s use of capital punishment for acts of homosexuality, but said that the conditions for execution are so strict that they are “virtually impossible to meet.”

“Homosexuality is a crime in Islam and crimes are punishable,” Khatami said. “And the fact that a crime could be punished by execution is debatable.”

The audience responded with silence to his remark.
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Having been through an interpersonal fisticuff or two with some of the Ivy League-bound friends of my youth, I thought that I already understood why Norman Mailer had the protagonist in The Naked and the Dead be an army lieutenant out of Harvard -- a Harvard man whom he had to kill off. Now I really understand.

You just never can count on Harvard to fight fiercely. Then again, the sound of appeasement may not necessarily be silence.  It could also be the sound of one crocodile munching. So, how do you like them apples [<-- click for audio]?

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Update (9/14): (Related) Tischgesprache on Vent with Mary Katharine Ham & Michelle Malkin. M&M clarify a "comparative religions" comment Rosie O'Donnell made recently on her talk show. Click for video; for stills & comments.

Comments

[Nick Masesso Jr.]

Res ipse loquitor

Neo-conservatives, having adopted the contemptible tactic of McCarthyism, render by spurious charge the rallying cry jingle of "unpatriotic" and/or "appeaser" at anyone who posits contrary views. A clever man, Samuel Johnson, a lexiconograper, addressed this most vulgar and undemocratic stratagem some 300 years ago when famously he said; "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel".

Neo-conservative flag wavers and slogan slingers under the age of 42, that same age recently deemed suitable by the U.S. military for enlistment in the armed forces, should prove that their implied patriotic fervor is real and match their blood curdling war whoops to their convictions by joining the very Army they so worship. These barco-lounger patriot police, battle field warriors in their masturbating fantasies, should make themselves available to swap bullets, bombs, rockets, blood, guts and limbs with who, they are wont to warn us is, our most dangerous evil enemy.

Men like Bush and Cheney and the other neo-conservative dead enders in their last throes as warders of our, of my, America, will be judged in decades to come by historians, bewildered that such hubris was tolerated from men who never did shed a drop of blood in anger. For them and the misguided zealots that blindly follow, in the words of Shakespeare’s Henry V; "I do believe they will eat all that they kill.

Copyright ©2006 Nick Masesso

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[Jeremayakovka]

There's nothing "McCarthyite" about accusing anyone of being unpatriotic: there are no Congressional subpoenas and no forced testimony. Anyone accused of being unpatriotic is entirely free to answer or to not answer the charge. Either way, there are zero legal consequences. This is a matter of rhetoric and public debate, not federal law and Congressional power. No major industries (such as Hollywood) are withholding work or recognition to anyone accused of being unpatriotic -- quite the contrary (e.g., George Clooney, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon).

People like you aggravate and degrade debate by equating a moderate but clear allegation for our times with the necessary and tedious -- indeed -- patriotic work of another era. Such work identified and eliminated Communists and their abettors from government (only a portion of them, actually), and had been underway for years before the Wisconsin Senator entered the limelight. You're screaming like Chicken Little.

That's two precise paragraphs to reply to one sentence of your copyrighted rant, Nick. I have to move on to other chores now.