Saturday night’s All Things Considered on National Public Radio came to an overtly pacifist conclusion. Substitute host Guy Raz (an NPR Defense Department correspondent) conducted a seven-minute interview with John Cusack on his satirical anti-war, anti-Bush film "War Inc.", and Cusack predictably denounced the war and Bush as absurd. Then came a six-minute interview with a smitten John Lennon fan who’s hoping to make a half-million dollars auctioning the original hand-written lyrics to "Give Peace a Chance," since she was there in Montreal for the original "bed-in" protest that produced the anthem. Then, as the music continued, Raz unloaded a little editorial.
Raz decided to read from Dwight Eisenhower, a "man who knew war better than most," on the need for peace: "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."
Pacifists never seem to care what the actual particulars are of a geopolitical conflict. They’re against conflict. For a bunch of liberals who would claim to be champions of nuance and sophistication, it certainly has an implacably crude see-no-evil, hear-no-evil cast to it.
I’d rather turn Eisenhower’s quote around on NPR: I’d like to believe that people are going to do more to promote radio than our government. Indeed, I think that people want radio so much that one of these days government better get out of it and let them have it.
For how many decades do we have to send our tax dollars to DC for a bunch of aging socialists and their children to decry the military-industrial complex?
