He Told Us So

I finally got around to reading Markos Moulitsas' American Taliban. If you haven't read it, turn off the computer right now, go get a copy, start reading and don't do anything else until you finish. It's only 237 pages and you won't be able to put it down anyway.

It's been out for less than a year, and already events have proven Moulitsas dead-on right and all the critics who berated him for overreaching by comparing wingnut freakazoids to the Taliban Dead. Wrong.

He warned about deadly violence, and we got the murder of a federal judge and attempted murder of a Congresswoman. He warned about obsessive control of other people's sex lives, and we got draconian anti-abortion laws. He warned about misogyny, and we got budget cuts aimed at destroying women. He warned about bloodthirsty warmongering, and we got secret military operations in Pakistan, Yemen and now Libya. He warned about anti-science, anti-facts crusades, and we got massive attacks on public education.

This book, condemned even by supposed liberals for being so rude, if anything actually understated the case.

The Af-Pak Taliban and their muslim fellow-travelers are a pathetic joke compared to the Xian American Taliban. It is the American Taliban that is the genuine existential threat to American liberty and democracy.

As Moulitsas concluded:

We understate the danger posted by their demands for uniformity of thought - their thought - at our own peril. By polluting out knowledge with misinformation and doubt, they create a climate of distrust around reason itself. By intimidating free and independent thinkers, they smother not just dissent by habits of thought that lead to creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. They long for a citzenry that is equal parts frighteed, ignorant, military and dogmatic, a citizenry eager to hand over the reins of power in exchange for the illusion of certainty and security.

Whether they succeed or not, whether the American experiment scceeds or not, may largely depend on men and women who are willing to relentlessly call out ignorance, who are willing to stand up to protect democratic ideals and processes, and who fight, dain and day out, to resist the imposition of a bloodthirsty, repressive, dogmatic worldview.

Recognizing the kinship between Islamic extremists and their American Taliban cousins may be only a first step in rolling them back, but it's the foundational one.