Our politics lately is so full of knaves, grifters, pathological liars and fake Indians (#wemustneverstopmockingher) that following it can dent the optimism of even the best of us. Mocking the bad guys takes some of the edge off of that for me, but it also helps to focus on the many positive stories that are happening all the time, too.
Here are a few of those stories from the last couple of weeks:
Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to our congress last week was moving and inspiring, and perfectly emblematic of the courage of a people who gave us the story of David and Goliath. After the atrocities of October 7th, the Israelis have made great sacrifices to minimize their enemies’ civilian deaths as they wage a war every bit as righteous as our fight against the Nazis and Japanese in WWII.
And for that they’ve been slandered and lectured by leftists — in the press, in the UN, and in much of the West generally. They’ve endured condemnation for responding “disproportionately,” and have been told that they must unilaterally cease fire, leaving their hostages in slavery and Hamas terrorists in control in Gaza.
And then when Netanyahu comes to address the congress of his great ally, the president and VP and around 50 Democrats shun him and boycott his speech. And the one anti-Semite who does show up is Rashida Tlaib, sufferer of the worst case of “resting jihadi face” in the world! And the slogans on the stupid little ping pong paddle sign she was holding up were as tough to look at as she is.
And still Bibi was able to give that speech. If you didn’t watch it yet, you should. He pointed out and honored some of the battle-scarred Israeli heroes, and the young woman hostage who was rescued by the IDF and reunited with her dying mother, who feared that she would never see her again.
The kind of moral clarity he displayed is bracing, and its virtue even more impressive when contrasted with the shameful reactions of many of our pitiful elected Democrats. I love knowing that when a nation is threatened by evil enemies, there are still brave citizens around who will rally to their country’s defense.
In other good news, we appear to be winning many battles in the culture war.
Just a few short years ago, the defund the police movement was sweeping across our nation, and DEI propaganda was a dominant force in academia and in most of the corporate world. But now the “defund the police” mobs have been routed nearly everywhere, including even in deep-blue states and cities, and you can’t find a nationally important Democrat who supports that disproven and delusional cause.
DEI is just as clearly in retreat, too. Universities in several states – Florida, of course, and most recently Alabama, among many others – have gotten rid of their DEI emphasis and are dismantling their DEI departments and terminating or reassigning their DEI employees. In the leftist enclaves of the universities, this is a nearly miraculous development!
Within just the last month, giant corporations including Tractor Supply, John Deere and Microsoft have also all explicitly renounced DEI. The latter used some sweet corporate-speak to announce the falling axe, with euphemistic phrases such as “[DEI programs] are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020.”
In a perfect world, they would admit that such policies were NEVER smart, and they sure as hell were never “business critical!” But a win is still a win.
Tractor Supply and John Deere were even more blunt, admitting that they’d screwed up their priorities and insulted their customers, then apologized, and then laid out the specific steps they were taking to completely eliminate DEI from their operations.
The fact that companies like that – whose products are bought disproportionately by straight males with a Liz Warren-esque complexion – had been putting their employees through idiotic diversity training and racial struggle sessions in the first place shows how far the DEI rot had spread!
I was raised in Midwestern farm country, and I never heard a farmer, grain elevator worker, or farm equipment salesman involved in a heated discussion of pronouns. No fights in a detassling crew ever included the words, “You’re gonna acknowledge your privilege right now, or I’m gonna whip your arse!”
In fact, no detassler on his first day of work ever challenged a farmer by saying, “You’re telling me to pull the tassles out of the plant because that’s the male part. But what if that corn stalk doesn’t identify as male? Won’t misgendering the crops make the harvest inedible?”
Even prominent Democrat pols now implicitly acknowledge the danger that DEI poses to their plans, by trying to defend the concept while simultaneously denying that it has influenced any of their candidates.
When MSM talking heads howl that it is horribly racist to say that DEI is responsible for Ketanji Jackson being on SCOTUS or Que Mala being their candidate – even though Biden openly said he was making a DEI pick in both cases, by choosing only from among black females for those positions – they give the game away.
Being called a DEI hire is now clearly recognized as an insult, and that’s a good sign for our culture.
Finally, to prove the main point of this column, as I was finishing it I was interrupted by the news that Israel has just given a big ol’ “ballistic Shalom” to top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.
(Have you noticed how the names of these terrorists often sound like insults? “You’re nothing but a damn Shukr! Why don’t you go fuad yourself?”)
On Saturday, Shukr masterminded the Hezbollah missile strike on a soccer field in Israel, killing 12 Druze children. And I’m sure that made him feel like a bad-arse jihadi warrior, bravely taking on those soccer-playing kids from the safety of his home in Beirut.
Annnnnndddddd cue the transition card and the French-accented voice-over from Sponge Bob: “Three days lay-ter…”
…an Israeli drone flew over Shukr’s shack and fired three missiles that collapsed the building on his evil head, before shooting some video of the chaos and then flying away, pumping out a couple of jaunty verses of “Hava Nagila” as it departed.
(Yes, I love the scene in Apocalypse Now where Duvall leads the helicopter attack while they’re playing “Ride of the Valkyries” to frighten the Viet Cong. And I love the idea of Israeli fighter jets or drones screaming in low over terrorist bases while blasting a shofar.)
And THEN, as I was putting a few final touches on this column – “ballistic shalom” doesn’t just pop into your head on a first draft, people – I was preparing to post this at around 3:30 a.m. Because I never stop working for CO nation.
Does that mean you should hit my tip jar at Martinsimpsonwriting.com?
Probably.
Where was I?
Oh yeah. Just before I posted, I took a quick look through the headlines and saw “Israel Takes Out Top Terrorist in Air Strike in Iran.”
I started to move on, until I remembered that Fuad achieved room temperature in Beirut. What’s this about Iran?
So I read the article, and lo and behold, the Israelis got a two-fer within 12 hours, taking out an even bigger terrorist piece of merde, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh not long after he arrived in Tehran. There is no info yet on how they killed him, but I bet the details are hilarious.
It’s been a tough stretch for terrorist scumbags lately. Most of Hamas’ fighters are either dead or cowering in tunnels and pooping in buckets. Then Iran’s leader decides to take a ride in the mountains on a rickety helicopter and turns into hummus on a hillside. Then the Iranians pick a new top weird beard, and Ismail comes to town for the big celebration, and…
Like I said, there are a lot of great things going on, if you just look for them.
Defund the police is dead, DEI is dying, Fuad is flattened and Ismail got Is-nailed.
Say it with me, CO nation…
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 