Stop, Hey, What's That Sound

By DAVID COLLINS
Day Staff Columnist
Published on 5/21/2004

George Bush's War in Iraq hasn't uncovered any weapons of mass destruction, and it certainly hasn't, as the president's wildest hopes would have it, done much yet to inspire democracy in the Middle East.

The war, though, is at least partly responsible for some of the political stirrings seen lately on college campuses here at home, where there does seem to be increasing interest, not just in the presumed fruits of democracy, freedom and civil liberties, but the nitty gritty of it all, discourse and debate.

On the Connecticut College campus, for instance, trafficking in political ideas appeared to spike over the last year, not as obsessively perhaps as song trading in the Napster revolution of old, but encouraging nonetheless.

When college Republicans hosted a visit by conservative Dan Flynn, author of “Why the Left Hates America” members of the college's new CCLeft Club turned up wearing “Ask Me Why the Left Loves America” T-shirts and handed out pieces of pie on plates printed with political slogans. Not-so-humble pie.

The Flynn lecture attracted about 400 people and turned a bit acrimonious, when a CCLefter stood up to show his back to the speaker.

Student Republicans turned out for their own, albeit more subdued, protest later in the year, when CCLeft sponsored a screening, also very popular, of a movie from the pro-Democrats MoveOn.org. This month, college Democrats sponsored a well-attended debate for the state's Second District contenders.

The College Voice, the student newspaper, has been balancing liberal political commentary with a regular op-ed piece by a board member of Connecticut College Republicans.

CCLeft has organized a voter drive on campus and sent members to join pan-banging World Bank protesters in Washington. They've been working on war protests, too.

The enlivened political exchange at Conn has been fertilized by the increasingly unpopular war, and it portends even more unrest, not just on college campuses, as the end of the war becomes as murky as the justification, and the casualty count keeps climbing.

But even before the Iraq invasion, Americans were becoming more politically polarized. John Kerry tapped into this reservoir of hardened thinking in the primary, when voters rallied around the idea that they needed someone, anyone, who could beat Bush.

Political chit chat in offices has turned tense. Politicians are more thin-skinned. (Except for Gov. John Rowland, who just puts a shoulder to whatever comes down the pipe.)

Investigations and hearings, like those into 9/11 and prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, have more than just a partisan tinge. We're seeing a strange and fast-paced writing of history, even as it unfolds. We examine what went wrong before 9/11 as we pursue the perpetrators. We're prosecuting war crimes, our own, before the war is over, all with political spin.

Expect the pace to quicken as the election nears. Don't be surprised to see not only more discourse and debate, but disquiet and discord. This looks like it's going to be one of the more tumultuous and polarizing election seasons in modern American history.

You can see it already incubating on college campuses, where a new generation seems to be tackling it with determination, humor, balance and, most of the time, respect. Good goals for us all.

This is the opinion of David Collins.