Mudita Journal

America Ain’t Got No Problems Radical Muslims Can Solve

November 11, 2006 · Filed under: Intellectual, Politics
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Stephen Browne:

During the Second World War, boxer Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber” served in the US Army as a spokesman, or “propagandist” we’d say today.

Contrary to popular belief today, the 60s generation did not discover racial injustice. Watch old movies on TCM and you’ll see that plenty of people had been bothered by it for some time. Nor did the fact that America was fighting two viciously racist regimes while treating Black people as second class citizens escape everybody’s notice.

The story goes that at some point in Joe Louis’ army career, a journalist asked him how he felt about serving in a segregated army, fighting for a country that treated him as second class. He replied, “America ain’t got no problems Hitler can solve.”

So why is it that a pug with a high school education at best could see what a whole lot of highly educated and sophisticated intellectuals can’t?

Keep reading…

Posted by Joshua Zader · Trackback URL · Link
  • http://zenunbound.com/blogmandu.html Tom

    I don’t know of any Americans who are looking to Radical Muslims to solve our problems.

    Stephen Browne is using arguments from the Fifties, and complaints about pointy-headed intellectuals of that time and supposing it has something to do with what anyone is thinking today.

    We are in the 21st Century now, and Joe Louis’s comment isn’t good enough anymore. It is no longer OK, if it ever was, to be satisfied with the Civil Rights situation of the 1940s.

    Great inequities can be lessened such that freedom is enhanced for everyone. We have shown that this is so with respect to the rights, opportunities and cultural acceptance that has come to minorities, women and homosexuals.

    The idea that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good is valid — I only wish that that was Stephen Browne’s argument.

  • http://www.zader.com Joshua Zader

    Tom,

    You seem to be implying that there were Americans who were looking to Hitler to solve our problems. But of course there weren’t.

    The point of Louis’s comment wasn’t that people were looking to Hitler to solve problems; it was that Hitler is a much larger problem than segregation, and that addressing Hitler required Americans to pull together and overcome their smaller differences, in order to address the larger problem.

    And Browne’s overall point? That there is such thing as evil.

    …That in WWII, Americans largely were willing to recognize this fact and unite in their response to it.

    …And that this is not the case today — in part because multiculturalists and moral relativists spend more energy opposing Bush than opposing an enemy that truly desires to kill our troops, enslave us civilizans, and convert our children to their own twisted brand of religio-fascism.

    So while you say that Joe Louis’s comment “isn’t good enough anymore,” Browne and I seem to think it’s plenty good and just as applicable today as it was then.

    It has nothing to do with whether “the perfect is the enemy of the good” and everything to do with whether American liberals can recognize that evil is the enemy at all.

    And judging by the fact that terrorists in Iraq and Iran can openly call our elections a “victory” for their side, and American Democrats don’t even bother to distance themselves from such claims … apparently the answer is, “No — too many American liberals don’t recognize that the enemy is flat-out evil.”

    Browne and I see that as a big problem. If that’s “an argument from the 50s” then so be it.

    Joshua

  • Andrew Breese

    Great comment, Josh!

    The point of Louis’s comment wasn’t that people were looking to Hitler to solve problems; it was that Hitler is a much larger problem than segregation,

  • http://zenunbound.com/blogmandu.html Tom

    Again, I don’t know of any Americans who are looking to Radical Muslims for any guidance. And what there are of “moral relativists” have dwindled down to Danny Glover and a handful of others.

    The fight against Hitler would have been enhanced if segregation was not in place in America; if our army could have been composed of the best and the brightest without regard to race. So, looking back at Joe Louis’ statement today, it is ignorant, not wise

    You are supposing that problems that existed with regard to the unity of the country exist today that existed in the Fifties, and I say to you they don’t.

    The problem that liberals have isn’t that they welcome and support terrorism it is that Bush’s approach is ineffective and muttenheaded and works contrary to goals most all Americans share. You are just flat wrong to believe that Bush is the bulwark against terrorism; his policies have the effect of enlarging support for terrorism in the Arab world.

    I think that now even Bush is becoming aware of his many policy failures and will alter his them to those that have been suggested by Democrats.

  • http://www.zader.com Joshua Zader

    Uh, I hardly regard Bush as a bulwark against terrorism. I think he could become one, though, if he followed Bill Stuntz’s excellent advice.

  • http://www.QuerkeyTurkey.blogspot.com Catmoves

    I agree with the commentators above. And I will add “America ain’t got no problems Osama bin Laden can solve.”

    The U.S. finally woke up and used the very willing and very capable Blacks of the day in WW II. And the very willing and capable Japanese citizens (they supplied the most decorated battalion of the entire war).

    And in case you base your arguments on The History Channel, please let me assure that many of the canned shows they run on their channel are full of errors.

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