Hitchens' Caveat

By John Ballard

Christopher Hitchens is at his sharpest commenting on Saturday's Washington Beckfest, calling it "the Waterworld of white self-pity."

One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realization that white America is within thinkable distance of a moment when it will no longer be the majority....

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This summer, then, has been the perfect register of the new anxiety, beginning with the fracas over Arizona's immigration law, gaining in intensity with the proposal by some Republicans to amend the 14th Amendment so as to de-naturalize "anchor babies," cresting with the continuing row over the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque, and culminating, at least symbolically, with a quasi-educated Mormon broadcaster calling for a Christian religious revival from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

At the last "Tea Party" rally I attended, earlier this year at the Washington Monument, some in the crowd made at least an attempt to look fierce and minatory. I stood behind signs that read: "We left our guns at home�this time" and "We invoke the First Amendment today�the Second Amendment tomorrow." But Beck's event was tepid by comparison: a call to sink to the knees rather than rise from them. It was clever of him not to overbill it as a "Million"-type march... The numbers were impressive enough on their own, but the overall effect was large, vague, moist, and undirected: the Waterworld of white self-pity.

His column is a delicious diatribe, but he ends with a serious thought.
After noting the upsurge of anti-immigrant sentiment globally, he says...

The ugliness of Islamic fundamentalism in particular has given energy and direction to such movements. It will be astonishing if the United States is not faced, in the very near future, with a similar phenomenon. Quite a lot will depend on what kind of politicians emerge to put themselves at the head of it. Saturday's rally was quite largely confined to expressions of pathos and insecurity, voiced in a sickly and pious tone. The emotions that underlay it, however, may not be uttered that way indefinitely.

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Puzzling together with this year's manifestation of the Dog Days of August are Digby's links flagging Palingenetic ultranationalism.

No, not THAT Palin -- although the shoes seem to fit comfortably -- but developments leading up to a toxic politic in Germany. 

It's the "rebirth" theme along with the flag-waving that characterized the Beck Rally yesterday. The religious rhetoric is the common vocabulary of the American radical right and the talk of exceptionalism and the Black Robed Regiment, with its combination of Calvinism and the Founders, is a perfect American rendering of rebirth and ultra-nationalism.

If you haven't seen this movie in a while, you should. If you can get past the frightening symbols you'll see that the "rebirth" theme is central. (The ultra-nationalism we already knew.)

The movie linked by Digby is a black and white feature length film in German with subtitles. An hour and a half invoking the same themes hinted at toward the end of Cabaret. Advance the time bar to about 41 minutes and compare this from Cabaret. (English version with embedding disabled by request. Recommended.)