can fight it out among themselves.”rnFittingly, the deciding vote in favor of the 1941 draftrnextension, which passed the House 203-202, was cast by thernfox-hunting lord of the Genesee Valley, Congressman JamesrnW. Wadsworth, Jr., who for bucking his party and authorizingrnthe abduction of thousands of his farmboy constituents wonrnthe obscene sobricjuct “Conscience of the House.” ThernWadsworths were famous for their superciliousness: they oncernfired an uppity hired hand who dared purchase a Model T. Butrnwops and micks and appleknockcrs made fine fodder for thernwar machine, and though my great-grandmother died of arnbroken heart, her beloved sons thousands of miles removed . . .rnwell, such is the price of being a Great Power. Empire kills andrnEmpire deracinates.rnProverbs promises that when a wicked man dies, his hopernperishes, and all he expected from his power comes to nothing,rnand I suppose we can take solace that I htler and Stalin are playingrnRisk in Hell and FDR is playing with his toy boats in, atrnbest, Purgatory.rnOnce upon a time in America there existed political figuresrnwho spoke for the tens of millions of normal Americans—rnHenry Clune Republicans, Paulina Stella Democrats, FrankrnCapra populists—who did not want to squander blood andrntreasure in un-American wars on distant shores. This was, inrnfact, the original rainbow coalition: black Americans have generallyrnbeen wholesomely isolationist, and for the last tworndecades virtually the only congressional opposition to foreignrnaid and our never-ending series of massacres of dark-skinnedrnpeople has come from the black left. (The Haiti occupationrnhas Httle support among ordinary blacks; it is the fever dream ofrnthe bootlicking Uncle Toms of the Ron Brown Democracy.)rnOne of Henry Glune’s contemporaries, the late poet-folkloristrnCarl Carmer of Oak Orchard, just up the road from me,rnrhymed:rnLate June he diedrnDon’t mourn, said shernThings keep onrnThat folks don’t seernGood old American isolationism has kept on, and will keeprnon keeping on as long as we have enough “insubordinate Americans,”rnto use Robert Frost’s self-description, who still value thernimportance of “doin’ your own thing in your own time,”rnas those two deeply American filmmakers Dennis Hopper andrnPeter Fonda (our Kansas-Nebraska Act-ors) said in theirrnwonderful movie about the perdurability of pioneer virtues.rnEasy Rider.rnWhat we need to do is find our way back to an America inrnwhich a William Jennings Bryan and a I lenry Clune understandrnjust how common are their interests as frecborn Americansrnaligned against a ruling class whose rapacity and bloodlustrnwill not be sated until every last Angolan and aborigine andrnAbyssinian is either dead or watching Ricki Lake, and everyrnAmerican native is disarmed, docile, and ductile, pledging allegiancernto the U.N. flag and never forgetting, as the scent ofrncharred flesh from the Waco holocaust drifts across the land,rnthat there, but for the grace of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, go you,rnwhite trash.rnAn incendiary band of the late 1970’s used to end its chaoticrnconcerts with a declaration—”we mean it, man”—that appliesrnto us as well, and explains why we, the faithful sons ofrnBryan and Mencken, of Lindbergh and Debs, of John C. Calhounrnand Silas Wright, of Robert A. Taft and Thomas P. Gore,rnare all outlaws in the eyes of our un-American rulers. Because inrnour fealty to our American ancestors, our steadfastness in upholdingrnthe flags of the 13 stars and the coiled rattlesnake, ourrndedication to a peaceful America of healthy self-confident regions,rnuntainted by militarism, untempted by imperialism, wernare, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh described Senator Wheelerrnand his wife, “American, American, American.” And we meanrnit, man. crnL I B E R A L ARTSrnJUDICIAL TYRANNY IN CALIFORNIArnAccording to the Los Angeles Times, federal judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer has ordered the state of California to post notices at schools, medicalrnclinics, and welfare offices stating that Proposition 187 will not be enforced before a hearing can be held on the legality of the initiative.rnPfaelzer issued this injunction at the request of the ACLU, which feared that illegal immigrants might not know that they stillrnqualify for many services paid for by the public. Of course, the statewide notices will be posted at public expense.rnUpon learning of Ffaelzcr’s injunction, Horacio Grana, a legal immigrant from Mexico, wrote her a letter decrying her lack of respectrnfor the voters who overwhelmingly approved Proposition 187. “What I do not understand,” he said, “is that if we pay the salaries ofrnjudges that represent the laws of our nation, how is it possible that judges like yourself. . . attempt to support those people that breakrnour laws? . . . I feel that you are not aware that you are the one who is committing unconstitutional acts.”rnAfter reading Grana’s letter, Pfaelzer dispatched Federal Marshals to investigate and question the citizen. “What are you guys,” askedrnGrana’s friend Glen Spencer, “the Gestapo?”rnMeanwhile, another federal judge in California, Stephen V. Wilson, barred the government from deporting two members of the terroristrnPopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, on the grounds that classified information about their membership in the organizationrnhad not been turned over to the two men. Eligible for deportation under a 1990 law, they will nonetheless be permitted to remainrnin the United States. “It’s a great decision,” said David Cole, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights in Manhattan.rn—Ruth Coffeyrn20/CHRONICLESrnrnrn