“Let us move on together and create a real culture with a real future and abandon the culture of separatist victimization we were forced into years ago by a repressive society.”

So says one of Andrew Sullivan’s e-mail correspondents, a self-described “politically active, liberal, professional, educated, monogamous, partnered, JCrew/LL Bean wearing, HIV Negative man.”

I’m struck by how this is an argument in favor of the mainstream. Above all, Sullivan’s correspondent wants to belong. That’s unusual for a 21-year-old–and it says at least as much about young Americans as about young gay America, I think.

This young gay man has the opportunity to belong as a gay man. Thanks to those who came before him and fought for his right to have that opportunity. He credits them, but he wants to move on.

More proof–as if we needed it–that every revolution eats its own children.

Following the Golden Rule of Infotainment–stir up strong emotion–(I’ve never said I’m in favor of it over “straight news,” only that the Constant Infotainment Era is upon us and therefore that we need to get good at spotting agenda-laden infotainment, the better to counter it quickly and effectively when necessary and/or warranted**) one TV network is planning to do America a public service and expose its underside…by planting “Muslim-looking” men in Red America zones (NASCAR races, for example) to see what kind of prejudice they might stir up among the “locals.”

Michelle Malkin quotes an e-mailer who’s soliciting participants for a newsmagazine story:

Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:05:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Subject: Looking for Muslim Males to participate in NBC Dateline Segment
…

I have been talking with a producer of the NBC Dateline show and he is in the process of filming a piece on anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination in the USA. They are looking for some Muslim male candidates for their show who would be willing to go to non-Muslim gatherings and see if they attract any
discriminatory comments or actions while being filmed.

They recently taped two turbaned Sikh men attending a football game in Arizona to see how people would treat them. They set them up with hidden microphones and cameras, etc.

They want to do the same thing 2 or 3 other times (in various parts of the USA) with one or two Muslim men in each setting. They are looking for men who actually “look Muslim”. They want a guy with no foreign accent whatsoever, a good thick beard, an outgoing personality, and someone willing to wear a kufi/skullcap during the filming.

They also want someone who is fairly well accomplished and has contributed to American society at large in some meaningful way.

This seems pugnacious–a little proactive on behalf of the Victim du Jour, I mean.
But if these are the new rules of the game, it’s better we be aware of them.

Just about a week before it started to go into rotation in the news cycle, a sharp-eyed Christopher Hitchens had this to say about the term “Islamophobia”:

my attachment to free speech is at least absolute and consistent. Those who incite murder and arson, or who silkily justify it, are incapable of rising above the childish glee that culminates in the assertion that two wrongs make a right.

The silky ones may be more of a problem in the long term than the flagrantly vicious and crazy ones. Within a short while—this is a warning—the shady term “Islamophobia” is going to be smuggled through our customs. Anyone accused of it will be politely but firmly instructed to shut up, and to forfeit the constitutional right to criticize religion. By definition, anyone accused in this way will also be implicitly guilty. Thus the “soft” censorship will triumph, not from any merit in its argument, but from its association with the “hard” censorship that we have seen being imposed over the past weeks. A report ($$) in the New York Times of Feb. 13 was as carefully neutral as could be but nonetheless conveyed the sense of menace. “American Muslim leaders,” we were told, are more canny. They have “managed to build effective organizations and achieve greater integration, acceptance and economic success than their brethren in Europe have. They portray the cartoons as a part of a wave of global Islamophobia and have encouraged Muslim groups in Europe to use the same term.” In other words, they are leveraging worldwide Islamic violence to drop a discreet message into the American discourse. [emphasis added]

Few are as eloquent, and as relentless, as Hitchens on the topic of political speech. Here, he’s alerting us to a brand-new narrative-in-the-making.
—–

** I’ve referred to this as Bernays 101. The “father of PR” said that the most effective way to fight (bad) PR is with more PR.

Here’s someone who agrees with me about the Dems’ “Plan,” and he’s much funnier than me, too.

Noting that 2006 should be a great election for the Democrats even on the issue that did them in back in 2002–national security (see “War Torn” by Heather Hurlburt to get a clear understanding of why the Dems have been weak on national security)–Andrew Ferguson writes:

it was in hopes of cementing the lead that Pelosi and Reid released their “Plan to Protect America.”

Ordinary Democrats should ask their leaders for a do-over. The plan released last week consists of three pages of large type, laid out PowerPoint style, amounting to perhaps 300 words, the bulk of them devoted to listing Bush administration shortcomings.

There’s not much beyond the kibitzing. The plan contains several pledges that may be smart but have nothing to do with national security (“enact a GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century,” “Protect America from … the Avian flu”). Other pledges are pure bluster (“eliminate Osama bin Laden”). Some sound wonderfully tough but are impossible (“double the size of our Special Forces”).

Now for the serious part:

The plan does nothing to mute the real source of voter concerns about Democrats and national security: their natural tendency to minimize threats and underestimate the response required.

Agreed. “We can handle it” does not inspire confidence coming from the Democrats, as I wrote here.

Despite the conventional wisdom that it’s “too soon” for a movie that tackles 9/11 directly, Universal is going ahead with plans to show “an adrenaline-pumping trailer” for United 93, a film about the events on board one of the planes hijacked on that day.

Last night, on his MSNBC show Keith Olbermann showed the trailer in its entirety–it is disturbing, of course–and said several times that he thought it was “too early” for such a movie. Film critic Jeffrey Lyons, Olbermann’s guest, agreed. He said several times that he was definitely not looking forward to watching this movie but that he would “keep an open mind about it.”

How very noble of him. The New York Times reports:

One victim’s widow said she was surprised that the trailer had disturbed some moviegoers. “I did not anticipate the general reaction that I’m seeing,” said Sandra Felt, whose husband, Edward, a software engineer, was on United 93. “But I think of it as a good thing; it creates awareness about terrorism.” (emphasis added)

Yes, it most certainly does create awareness about terrorism. It reminds us that terrorism exists–an inconvenient fact. Particularly for, er, the Democrats.

Mrs. Felt said people who were upset by the trailer should avoid the movie. But she added: “9/11 is a fact. It happened. Running away from the movie isn’t going to resolve underlying factors of why we’re upset by it.”

I guess some of “us” are upset by it because we’d rather forget it ever happened. I include myself. Only, I recognize that we can never forget and that we must do whatever we can–proactively–to resist that urge.