by Edgar J. Steele
June 14, 2007
My name is Edgar J. Steele. This is a Nickel Rant.
"Do anything you want! You can do anything! You can throw me in the water.
You can throw me off the cliff. But please don't throw me in the briar
patch!" Thus pleaded Bre'r Rabbit, who had become stuck to the lump of tar
dressed up in clothes and set out as a trap by Bre'r Bear.
An overly-proud Bre'r Rabbit had taken silence from the "tar baby" in the
face of his own greeting as a personal slight and kicked out in retaliation.
His foot stuck, then his fist. The harder Bre'r Rabbit struggled to free
himself, the more securely he became entrapped.
Bre'r Bear slowly drew up to the normally-elusive Bre'r Rabbit and
considered what to do, now that he finally had captured his nemesis.
America's current predicament in the Middle East is quite like that in which
Bre'r Rabbit found himself. The harder the Bush Regime struggles, the more
firmly stuck America becomes with problems of her own creation. Problems
stemming from vanity, greed and overweening ambition.
Suddenly, we find ourselves eyeball to eyeball, once again, with Mother
Russia. America's media is demonizing Russia's president, Vladimir Putin,
and refusing to accurately report the warnings he has given: "for the first
time in history - and I want to emphasize this - there are elements of the
U.S. nuclear capability on the European continent. It simply changes the
whole configuration of international security," said Putin at his recent
press conference that you never read about.
Has Putin any choice? We have backed him into a corner by installing
military bases throughout the Middle East, taking the old Iron Curtain
satellites into NATO and, now, seeking to install missiles all around Russia
herself. But they are merely defensive missiles, you say? There is no such
thing as a defensive nuclear weapon, grasshopper. Just what do you suppose
JFK might do in Putin's place?
Bre'r Rabbit's entreaty to Bre'r Bear is an American classic, one that
imparts an important moral lesson, like all good fables and folk stories,
yet one that is disappearing down the memory hole, pushed there by those who
seek to eradicate America's sense of her own origins. One might well infer
that there is no room in politically-correct America today for morality.
For younger readers unacquainted with fictional narrator "Uncle Remus," the
Bre'r Rabbit stories are a compilation of Deep South folk tales, allegedly
originating in Black plantation-slave oral traditions, but preserved in
writing by White writers, most notably Joel Chandler Harris.
Mine was the last generation to receive full exposure to traditional fables
and folk stories. Just try to find the originals of Aesop's Fables or Grimm
Brothers' Fairy Tales or, even, the more recent "Uncle Remus" stories in
your local book store or school library. "Too racist," say the polyglot
engineers of American education today as they toss out literary classics
from the likes of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), as well.
Even Bre'r Rabbit now has fallen victim to American social engineers.
Disney refuses to re-release "Song of the South," the single best-known
version of the Uncle Remus stories. And you won't find it on DVD.
But, getting back to the Bush Baby ... er ... tar baby ... to which we have
become stuck. What now? How on earth do we get out of this predicament?
The answer comes echoing up to me out of my childhood.
Our escape route was charted clearly by Bre'r Rabbit: "Please don't throw
us in the briar patch!"
Bre'r Rabbit knew he would survive being thrown into the briar patch, where
Bre'r Bear dared not follow, and that the thorns would scrape off the tar
baby, as well. Bre'r Bear, thinking that being thrown into the briar patch
really was the last thing Bre'r Rabbit wanted, did just that, of course. In
quick order, Bre'r Rabbit was free and off down the road, casting a scornful
laugh over his shoulder to Bre'r Bear, calling out, "...us rabbits was born
in the briar patch."
That's what we must say to Bre'r Putin: "Please don't throw us in the briar
patch!" Is it simple coincidence, do you suppose, that the Russian animal
icon is the bear? Or that America's is the ultimate airborne predator?
It will be painful and difficult, escaping from the briar patch, but its
barbs and thorns are just what will be necessary to scrape off that with
which we so thoroughly have become enmeshed. And what, exactly, is the
briar patch, you ask? Good question. Here's the answer: Nuclear war.
Win or lose, America will be decapitated. Of that you can be sure. Then we
can round up what's left of the criminals who have stolen our America, try
and execute them, then start over. I no longer see any other possible way.
Like it or not, that is exactly where the new American tar baby, George
Bush, is taking us.
If you have not yet left the major cities and moved upwind of likely fallout
zones, now would be a good time.
New America. An idea whose time has come.