Decency Redux
Tom Deveson
mentions Orwell and uses the 'D' word.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/wwwboard/wwwboard.shtml
Tom (by way of *Arts & Letters Daily*)
Gene Zitver
>What do people think of this? It deals with some of our recent topics,
>mentions Orwell and uses the 'D' word.
>
>http://www.dissentmagazine.org/wwwboard/wwwboard.shtml
Thanks, Tom. I'd read it and was going to post the link, but you beat me to it.
I think that Walzer's piece makes so much sense that most of the people at whom
he's aiming his criticism are sure to ignore it or ridicule it.
Gene
Ben Brumfield
> What do people think of this? It deals with some of our recent topics,
> mentions Orwell and uses the 'D' word.
>
> http://www.dissentmagazine.org/wwwboard/wwwboard.shtml
>
that may turn potential readers off. Still, the article was
excellent, and I was especially impressed with his observation that
much criticism is partially fueled by the knowledge that it will have
no effect whatsoever. Didn't Orwell write something about the
left-wing intelligensia of his day caring only about their position
among other leftists, as opposed to actually convincing non-leftists?
Re: Blogs, I spotted the link on Andrew Sullivan's website, and then
saw it on the Opinion Journal's "Best of the Web Today" column. Has
anyone seen any mention of it at all among the left, though?
-Ben
Paul Sebastianelli
"Gene Zitver" <gzi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020316064049...@mb-fa.aol.com...
I would choose a little of both. I thought it had quite a few false
assumptions.
paul.
Gene Zitver
>> I think that Walzer's piece makes so much sense that most of the people at
>whom
>> he's aiming his criticism are sure to ignore it or ridicule it.
>
>I would choose a little of both.
See, I was right. :-)
Gene
Martha Bridegam
Gene Zitver wrote:
The Walzer article is a tough one to chew on. It makes some unfair assumptions,
I think -- in particular, I'm tired of seeing this "blame America first" phrase
used against U.S. dissenters -- but there's good sense in it too.
I like this one better:
<http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020217-prayer.htm>. It's a nice sign of
vertebrate activity in the U.S. Congress.
/MAB
Gene Zitver
>The Walzer article is a tough one to chew on. It makes some unfair
>assumptions,
>I think -- in particular, I'm tired of seeing this "blame America first"
>phrase
>used against U.S. dissenters -- but there's good sense in it too.
The problem is, "blame America first" is all too accurate a description of how
people like Chomsky, for example, operate. When did he ever *not* blame America
first? Just because a phrase is appropriated (or misappropriated) by the right
doesn't make it completely invalid.
I'll get back to you on Kucinich.
Gene
Tom Deveson
>The problem is, "blame America first" is all too accurate a description of how
>people like Chomsky, for example, operate.
In today's *Observer* there's a spoof supplement by Armando Iannucci and
Chris Morris covering the last six months.
'Christopher Hitchens' is credited with an article on "How to drink
Kabul dry in 72 hours and still keep your forelock fetchingly draped
over your forehead." 'President Bush' commissions a new book of the
Bible, called The Acts of the Folks, praising those who turned their
babies into flags; 'Tony Blair' supports the bombing of Afghanistan
during Ramadan "but confirms that out of respect for Islam, all food
parcels dropped during this period will be empty."
Concerning September 11, 'John Pilger' asserts that "I have seen nothing
to convince me that all these attacks were not the work of one lone
American madman." 'Noam Chomsky' says: "If you run the twin towers
footage backwards, the towers stand up again - we need to ask why has
the footage only ever been run backwards?"
etc.
c/o Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Rowland McDonnell
> What do people think of this?
[snip]
Smells of serious navel-gazing to me.
Rowland.
--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland....@dog.physics.org
PGP pub key 0x62DCCA78 Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org
UK biker? Join MAG and help keep bureaucracy at bay
Gene Zitver
>I like this one better:
><http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020217-prayer.htm>. It's a nice sign
>of
>vertebrate activity in the U.S. Congress.
I promised (threatened?) a response to the Kucinich speech.
I'd guess that on specific issues, you, me, Kucinich and Walzer all agree on a
lot more than we disagree. And Kucinich is right that the US government has
done a lot of troubling and questionable things, especially domestically, since
9/11. But his rather self-satisfied speech works better as rhetoric to rouse
the faithful than as a serious analysis of where left-liberals go from here.
Even a hint of self-criticism, of serious rethinking in light of 9/11, would
have been nice.
As Walzer wrote, "They [left intellectuals] talked and wrote as if they could
not imagine themselves responsible for the lives of their fellow-citizens. That
was someone else’s business; the business of the left was...what? To oppose
the authorities, whatever they did. The good result of this opposition was a
spirited defense of civil liberties. But even this defense displayed a certain
willful irresponsibility and ineffectiveness, because so many leftists rushed
to the defense of civil liberties while refusing to acknowledge that the
country faced real dangers--as if there was no need at all to balance security
and freedom. Maybe the right balance will emerge spontaneously from the clash
of rightwing authoritarianism and leftwing absolutism, but it would be better
practice for the left to figure out the right balance for itself, on its own;
the effort would suggest a responsible politics and a real desire to exercise
power, some day."
Gene
Gene Zitver
Alan Allport
> As Walzer wrote, "They [left intellectuals] talked and wrote as if they
could
> not imagine themselves responsible for the lives of their fellow-citizens.
That
> was someone else's business; the business of the left was...what? To
oppose
> the authorities, whatever they did. The good result of this opposition was
a
> spirited defense of civil liberties. But even this defense displayed a
certain
> willful irresponsibility and ineffectiveness, because so many leftists
rushed
> to the defense of civil liberties while refusing to acknowledge that the
> country faced real dangers--as if there was no need at all to balance
security
> and freedom. Maybe the right balance will emerge spontaneously from the
clash
> of rightwing authoritarianism and leftwing absolutism, but it would be
better
> practice for the left to figure out the right balance for itself, on its
own;
> the effort would suggest a responsible politics and a real desire to
exercise
> power, some day."
As someone else wrote:
"[Kipling] identified himself with the ruling power and not with the
opposition. In a gifted writer that seems to us strange and even disgusting,
but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality.
The ruling power is always faced with the question, 'in such and such
circumstances, what would you *do*?', whereas the opposition is not obliged
to take responsibility or make any real decisions. Where it is a permanent
and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought
deteriorates accordingly."
Alan.
Ben Brumfield
> I like this one better:
> <http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020217-prayer.htm>.
> It's a nice sign of vertebrate activity in the U.S. Congress.
>
The speech lost me when Kucinich went sedevacantist.
I tend to think that vertebrate activity would be something other than
embracing orthodoxy wholesale, whether it be majority or opposition
orthodoxy.
I note it was delivered to an audience I can only assume to be
"choir", though, so it's probably silly to point out that this would
sway nobody who didn't already agree with Kucinich.
-Ben
Martha Bridegam
Ben Brumfield wrote:
> Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3C93F2B5...@pacbell.net>...
>
> > I like this one better:
> > <http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020217-prayer.htm>.
> > It's a nice sign of vertebrate activity in the U.S. Congress.
> >
> The speech lost me when Kucinich went sedevacantist.
Huh?
>
>
> I tend to think that vertebrate activity would be something other than
> embracing orthodoxy wholesale, whether it be majority or opposition
> orthodoxy.
>
> I note it was delivered to an audience I can only assume to be
> "choir", though, so it's probably silly to point out that this would
> sway nobody who didn't already agree with Kucinich.
>
> -Ben
Yes, but at the moment I get the impression a fair number of people in politics would agree more
loudly with Kucinich if they weren't afraid of being unpopular. At the moment it seems pretty
useful for dissenters to reassure each other that they're not alone.
/MAB
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> "[Kipling] identified himself with the ruling power and not with the
> opposition. In a gifted writer that seems to us strange and even disgusting,
> but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality.
> The ruling power is always faced with the question, 'in such and such
> circumstances, what would you *do*?', whereas the opposition is not obliged
> to take responsibility or make any real decisions. Where it is a permanent
> and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought
> deteriorates accordingly."
Curiously, while the main opposition party in England - the Tories at
the moment - does seem to suffer from that, the Lib Dems do seem to me
to have a pretty firm grip on reality for some reason.
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> I note it was delivered to an audience I can only assume to be
> "choir",
What does that mean?
[snip]
Henry
> Ben Brumfield <old...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > I note it was delivered to an audience I can only assume to be
> > "choir",
>
> What does that mean?
'Preaching to the choir' means addressing comments to those who are
certain to agree with you.
cheers,
Henry
Ben Brumfield
> Ben Brumfield wrote:
>
> > Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3C93F2B5...@pacbell.net>...
> >
> > > I like this one better:
> > > <http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020217-prayer.htm>.
> > > It's a nice sign of vertebrate activity in the U.S. Congress.
> > >
> > The speech lost me when Kucinich went sedevacantist.
>
> Huh?
>
the belief the the Pope is not really the Pope. Plop it into Google
for some entertaining reading.
I've found the term useful after the 2000 election. I find myself
utterly turned off by this particularly unproductive manifestation of
waving the bloody shirt, and tend to stop reading when the phrase
"unelected" is used to describe the current administration, as in
Kucinich's speech.
> >
> >
> > I tend to think that vertebrate activity would be something other than
> > embracing orthodoxy wholesale, whether it be majority or opposition
> > orthodoxy.
> >
> > I note it was delivered to an audience I can only assume to be
> > "choir", though, so it's probably silly to point out that this would
> > sway nobody who didn't already agree with Kucinich.
> >
> > -Ben
>
> Yes, but at the moment I get the impression a fair
> number of people in politics would agree more
> loudly with Kucinich if they weren't afraid of
> being unpopular. At the moment it seems pretty
> useful for dissenters to reassure each other
> that they're not alone.
>
Does Hitchens qualify as a dissenter under this metric?
-Ben
Rowland McDonnell
Martha Bridegam
Ben Brumfield wrote:
> Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3C969D5B...@pacbell.net>...
> > Ben Brumfield wrote:
> >
> > > Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3C93F2B5...@pacbell.net>...
> > >
> > > > I like this one better:
> > > > <http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020217-prayer.htm>.
> > > > It's a nice sign of vertebrate activity in the U.S. Congress.
> > > >
> > > The speech lost me when Kucinich went sedevacantist.
> >
> > Huh?
> >
> Sedevacantism is a bizarre traditionalist Catholic heresy involving
> the belief the the Pope is not really the Pope. Plop it into Google
> for some entertaining reading.
Thx. This must be where the Gide stuff comes from, then.
>
>
> I've found the term useful after the 2000 election. I find myself
> utterly turned off by this particularly unproductive manifestation of
> waving the bloody shirt, and tend to stop reading when the phrase
> "unelected" is used to describe the current administration, as in
> Kucinich's speech.
Sheesh, you're almost sounding like Bayle today.
It's not every day a presidential election gets stolen. Only happens every 124 years or so. So you'll
have to pardon some of us for objecting. I don't care whether it's "unproductive" to object or not.
It's the natural reaction of any thinking American.
<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&c=1&s=bugliosi>.
/MAB
Martha Bridegam
Gene Zitver wrote:
> Martha Bridegam wrote
>
> >I like this one better:
> ><http://www.house.gov/kucinich/press/sp-020217-prayer.htm>. It's a nice sign
> >of
> >vertebrate activity in the U.S. Congress.
>
> I promised (threatened?) a response to the Kucinich speech.
>
> I'd guess that on specific issues, you, me, Kucinich and Walzer all agree on a
> lot more than we disagree. And Kucinich is right that the US government has
> done a lot of troubling and questionable things, especially domestically, since
> 9/11. But his rather self-satisfied speech works better as rhetoric to rouse
> the faithful than as a serious analysis of where left-liberals go from here.
> Even a hint of self-criticism, of serious rethinking in light of 9/11, would
> have been nice.
Rethinking of what? What does Mr. Kucinich have to apologize for?
>
>
> As Walzer wrote, "They [left intellectuals] talked and wrote as if they could
> not imagine themselves responsible for the lives of their fellow-citizens. That
> was someone else’s business; the business of the left was...what? To oppose
> the authorities, whatever they did. The good result of this opposition was a
> spirited defense of civil liberties. But even this defense displayed a certain
> willful irresponsibility and ineffectiveness, because so many leftists rushed
> to the defense of civil liberties while refusing to acknowledge that the
> country faced real dangers--as if there was no need at all to balance security
> and freedom. Maybe the right balance will emerge spontaneously from the clash
> of rightwing authoritarianism and leftwing absolutism, but it would be better
> practice for the left to figure out the right balance for itself, on its own;
> the effort would suggest a responsible politics and a real desire to exercise
> power, some day."
>
> Gene
A few comments on the Walzer article, which I've finally had a chance to digest
seriously:
- "Well, what exactly would *you* do?" is so frequently an effective defense for
people in power because, by virtue of being in power, they know which choices are
practical, and the folks in power tend not to tell the rest of us (and, yes, they
are sometimes not safely able to tell the rest of us) what we would need to know
to second-guess their decisions. This doesn't mean we should defer to the people
in power because they have more information. It means we should make the best
criticisms we can based on the information we have, and those of us who are out of
power should *not* in fact feel we are failures or children or dilettantes if we
have to phrase our objections in general terms, and sometimes even in terms that
seem unrealistic. "Realism" can be overrated. It has to be tempered by principle.
- Walzer takes a number of cheap shots at a caricatured "left" that I don't
recognize. For example:
"...and that the war, if it was fought at all, had to be fought without
endangering civilians. The last point was intended to make fighting impossible. I
haven’t come across any arguments that seriously tried to describe how this (or
any) war could be fought without putting civilians at risk, or to ask what degree
of risk might be permissible, or to specify the risks that American soldiers
should accept in order to reduce the risk of civilian deaths. "
and
"...But among last fall’s antiwar demonstrators, “Stop the bombing” wasn’t a
slogan that summarized a coherent view of the bombing--or of the alternatives to
it. The truth is that most leftists were not committed to having a coherent view
about things like that; they were committed to opposing the war, and they were
prepared to oppose it without regard to its causes or character and without any
visible concern about preventing future terrorist attacks...."
I don't know who "most leftists" are or where Mr. Walzer was last fall, but there
has been extensive discussion of the dangers to innocent people that are inherent
in the U.S. pattern of trying to win wars from the air, and of the need -- if
there is to be a war at all, yes -- to put soldiers on the ground where they can
at least acquire some general idea of who it is they are attacking.
- What the hell does he mean by this? -- "Maybe festering resentment, ingrown
anger, and self-hate are the inevitable result of the long years spent in
fruitless opposition to the global reach of American power. Certainly, all those
emotions were plain to see in the left's reaction to September 11, in the failure
to register the horror of the attack or to acknowledge the human pain it
caused,the schadenfreude of so many of the first responses, the barely concealed
glee that the imperial state had finally gotten what it deserved...."-- !!?? This
is deeply insulting and in my experience false. If there was any "barely concealed
glee" running around in the United States last September I would like to know
where on earth Mr. Walzer found it. The initial reactions I saw involved shock,
sadness, worry, and fear both of further attacks and of the official suppressions
of rights that did in fact follow in the U.S. and elsewhere.
- Walzer compares "the" U.S. left response to Sartre's "Third Worlders Are Always
Right" fallacy. This is profoundly unfair. Again, I wish he'd name the American
people or organizations he feels have taken such a position. For example, who
specifically does he think is so confused as to think the Taliban are leftists? As
far as I know the only folks making *that* particular mistake are the ones who
blame John Walker Lindh on Marin County liberalism.
- "...Many left intellectuals live in America like internal aliens, refusing to
identify with their fellow citizens, regarding any hint of patriotic feeling as
politically incorrect. That’s why they had such difficulty responding emotionally
to the attacks of September 11 or joining in the expressions of solidarity that
followed." This is a near-paraphrase from 1940 Orwell. I don't think it's fair at
present, and I'm not even sure it was fair when Orwell said it. So leftthinkers
unbellyfeel Americanism? Dammit, does he think we believe in the Bill of Rights
purely out of self-interest or broadmindedness? Does he think we can't love the
American democratic experiment and want to preserve it unless we are out happily
cheering for the commercial/militarist displays at the Super Bowl? Why does he
think lefty American folk musicians keep writing "alternative national anthems" if
the left doesn't have its own love of country? Have Republicans scrambled this
man's brain?
... and, all right, he has half a point here:
"... The sense of not being entitled to criticize anyone else: how can we live
here in America, the richest, most powerful, and most privileged country in the
world, and say anything critical about people who are poorer and weaker than we
are? This was a major issue in the 1960s, when the New Left seemed to have
discovered “oppression” for the first time, and we all enlisted on the side of
oppressed men and women and failed, again and again, to criticize the
authoritarianism and brutality that often scars their politics. There is no deeper
impulse in left politics than this enlistment; solidarity with people in trouble
seems to me the most profound commitment that leftists make.
But this solidarity includes, or should include, a readiness to tell these people
when we think they are acting wrongly, violating the values we share...."
He's right about the emotional fallacy, yes, but only partly in his application
thereof.
Yes, I've seen left-wing arguments that excuse violent acts by Palestinians while
failing to excuse correspondingly violent acts by Israelis. Yes, I think leftists
ought to condemn both sides' gratuitous killings equally, & often they don't.
This part is true.
It is also true that lefty criticism of the Iraq sanctions often fails to note the
brutality of the Iraqi regime itself -- when the more sensible approach is to
point out that the sanctions have done nothing to decrease that brutality.
Yes, the same pattern fits the rare but unpleasant lefty defenses of Milosevic.
I have *not* however seen any "left" apologists for Islamic fundamentalism since
Michel Foucault made the appalling mistake of supporting the 1980s Iranian
revolution. Again, who on earth are these people Walzer is talking about?
Could his problem be that he thinks most people on the left are doctrinaire
Marxists? How old are the people he has been talking to? Isn't he attacking a
fairly old-fashioned Old Left or Old New Left segment of the intellectual
community here?
egggghhh...
/MAB
Alan Allport
> I don't know who "most leftists" are or where Mr. Walzer was last fall,
but there
> has been extensive discussion of the dangers to innocent people that are
inherent
> in the U.S. pattern of trying to win wars from the air, and of the need --
if
> there is to be a war at all, yes -- to put soldiers on the ground where
they can
> at least acquire some general idea of who it is they are attacking.
Actually, the use of precision air power almost certainly saved thousands of
civilian lives in Afghanistan. The USAF's targeting and communications
capabilities have vastly improved even since the Gulf War. The suggestion in
some quarters that a more conventional ground assault on the Taliban would
have been more humane or caused less collateral damage is frankly bizarre
when one thinks about the realities of 'low-tech' warfare in the modern age,
and more a combination of ignorance, wishful thinking and knee-jerk
opposition to the establishment than a serious counter-strategy.
Alan.
Paul Sebastianelli
Alternatives to military action have been offered by the left.
I offered some myself when asked to by my cyber-friend Lord J. Rennie.
As I stated then, these may not be the greatest ideas ever, but instead
of debating the merits of them, folks like Dissent magazine pretend they
have never been offered.
It's strange.
> - Walzer takes a number of cheap shots at a caricatured "left" that I
don't
> recognize.
This was my problem with it. It's what I meant by false assumptions.
<snip>
Walzers claims are very insulting. I have never seen any glee,
barely concealed or otherwise. And even if there were any, it
can in no way be said to represent any significant portion of
anybody. "Failure to register the horror" ?? The statement is
inflammatory.
<snip>
> Could his problem be that he thinks most people on the left are
doctrinaire
> Marxists? How old are the people he has been talking to?
Out of touch.
As Jello Biafra puts it: "You don't even know we exist."
I would put it another way: "Don't trust anyone over 30."
If the current climate in my political neck of the woods is anything,
it's not doctrinaire. Doctrinaire Marxist? It's laughable.
paul.
Ben Brumfield
[snip]
> Ben Brumfield wrote:
>
> > I've found the term useful after the 2000 election. I find myself
> > utterly turned off by this particularly unproductive manifestation of
> > waving the bloody shirt, and tend to stop reading when the phrase
> > "unelected" is used to describe the current administration, as in
> > Kucinich's speech.
>
> Sheesh, you're almost sounding like Bayle today.
>
> It's not every day a presidential election gets
> stolen. Only happens every 124 years or so. So you'll
> have to pardon some of us for objecting. I don't
> care whether it's "unproductive" to object or not.
> It's the natural reaction of any thinking American.
Martha, I have no desire at all to get into a debate with you (or
Bayle, for that matter) over the 2000 presidential election. So I'll
confine my reply to a defence of my completely subjective reaction to
the link you posted, and thus hopefully defend my status as a
"thinking American."
Mainly, I read the article first without spotting who its audience was
(Lower California Democrats or some such). As a result, I evaluated
it in the same context as the Walzer article -- something intended for
consumption by the general public, offering what I assumed would be
some sort of attempt at dispassionate analysis.
It is certainly unfair to judge a pep talk to the home team by the
same standards as a public statement, but that's what I ended up doing
(albeit partially thanks to your posting it as an alternative the
Walzer article).
The reason I objected to the "unelected" comment as unproductive is
that it is simply unpersuasive to any audience outside of people who
have already decided vote against Bush in 2004. I myself am one of
that group, which I suspect is in the majority (irrelevant morally,
but very relevant pragmatically). For the record, I voted for Nader
as an alternative to not voting at all. Bush and Gore really were
balanced on issues that they differed on and that I cared about.
Neither addressed (or both were unanimous) on my hot-button issues.
As a result, I really didn't care who won, and was dismayed when it
appeared that both were trying to steal the election. From my
not-very-close following of the Florida mess, it appeared that Bush
succeeded in stealing it, but I really don't feel that the level of
theft would have been less had Gore won based on his selective
recounts.
I will grant, however, that for people who think Gore should have won,
waving that bloody shirt is probably an effective way of getting out
the vote of the party faithful. Based on that, and on the audience
the speech was addressed to, I retract my criticism of the
effectiveness of the Kucinich speech.
So did that sound like Bayle?
-Ben
Martha Bridegam
Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
> ...
>
> > Could his problem be that he thinks most people on the left are
> doctrinaire
> > Marxists? How old are the people he has been talking to?
>
> Out of touch.
> As Jello Biafra puts it: "You don't even know we exist."
> I would put it another way: "Don't trust anyone over 30."
...
Hey, waitaminnit, Jello Biafra is over 30 (and so am I).
.... so maybe you're only as old as the ideals you feel, or something like that
(Karl meets Groucho again).
/MAB
Martha Bridegam
Ben Brumfield wrote:
> Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<3C97CA14...@pacbell.net>...
> [snip]
> > Ben Brumfield wrote:
> >
> > > I've found the term useful after the 2000 election. I find myself
> > > utterly turned off by this particularly unproductive manifestation of
> > > waving the bloody shirt, and tend to stop reading when the phrase
> > > "unelected" is used to describe the current administration, as in
> > > Kucinich's speech.
> >
> > Sheesh, you're almost sounding like Bayle today.
> >
> > It's not every day a presidential election gets
> > stolen. Only happens every 124 years or so. So you'll
> > have to pardon some of us for objecting. I don't
> > care whether it's "unproductive" to object or not.
> > It's the natural reaction of any thinking American.
>
> Martha, I have no desire at all to get into a debate with you (or
> Bayle, for that matter) over the 2000 presidential election. So I'll
> confine my reply to a defence of my completely subjective reaction to
> the link you posted, and thus hopefully defend my status as a
> "thinking American."
OK, and for the record I have no desire at all to aggravate the distinguished gentleman from
Texas.
>
>
> Mainly, I read the article first without spotting who its audience was
> (Lower California Democrats or some such).
Lower California. Heh. Being in Upper California, I like that.
> As a result, I evaluated
> it in the same context as the Walzer article -- something intended for
> consumption by the general public, offering what I assumed would be
> some sort of attempt at dispassionate analysis.
>
> It is certainly unfair to judge a pep talk to the home team by the
> same standards as a public statement, but that's what I ended up doing
> (albeit partially thanks to your posting it as an alternative the
> Walzer article).
>
> The reason I objected to the "unelected" comment as unproductive is
> that it is simply unpersuasive to any audience outside of people who
> have already decided vote against Bush in 2004. I myself am one of
> that group, which I suspect is in the majority (irrelevant morally,
> but very relevant pragmatically). For the record, I voted for Nader
> as an alternative to not voting at all.
Same here. And John Rennie will never forgive either of us.
> Bush and Gore really were
> balanced on issues that they differed on and that I cared about.
> Neither addressed (or both were unanimous) on my hot-button issues.
> As a result, I really didn't care who won, and was dismayed when it
> appeared that both were trying to steal the election. From my
> not-very-close following of the Florida mess, it appeared that Bush
> succeeded in stealing it, but I really don't feel that the level of
> theft would have been less had Gore won based on his selective
> recounts.
>
> I will grant, however, that for people who think Gore should have won,
> waving that bloody shirt is probably an effective way of getting out
> the vote of the party faithful. Based on that, and on the audience
> the speech was addressed to, I retract my criticism of the
> effectiveness of the Kucinich speech.
>
> So did that sound like Bayle?
>
> -Ben
Nope.
/MAB
Paul Sebastianelli
"Ben Brumfield" <old...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:ccbfb77e.02031...@posting.google.com...
Wasn't the walzer article written for _Dissent_? I assume he was
therefore writing for the subscribers of that magazine. Isn't that
preaching to the choir?
paul.
Bayle
I thought Ben did a pretty good job, as he always does. But perhaps a little
of the real thing to remind you of the old days.
So once again we have an article from Dissent. I'm no longer "A Leftist
After All". You may not recognize the left as detailed in Walzer's article,
but I do (as do most Americans) and I want no part of them. And thanks to
some of the wondeful guests you've had in your living room the past few
months on abgo, it makes the choice even clearer. Some of the nonsense that
you have tolerated here is truly staggering.
John Rennie
"Bayle" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:u9meiof...@corp.supernews.com...
snipped
>
>
> So once again we have an article from Dissent. I'm no longer "A Leftist
> After All". You may not recognize the left as detailed in Walzer's
article,
> but I do (as do most Americans) and I want no part of them. And thanks to
> some of the wondeful guests you've had in your living room the past few
> months on abgo, it makes the choice even clearer. Some of the nonsense
that
> you have tolerated here is truly staggering.
>
>
This is an unmoderated news group, Bayle, therefore
toleration is not a factor, one way or the other. All
opinions are welcome including yours which, personally,
I have missed over the past few weeks. With regard
to Walzer's article, you say you recognise the left
as portrayed by him. How about the right as portrayed
by my Daily Telegraph cite? (See thread: War against
Irak - a right wing reaction) Is that recognisable by you?
If not, why not? It is possible that right wing reactions
in the USA and the UK differ? Is it even fair to say that
this particular right wing reaction is even more critical
of American policy than most American left wing reaction?
You are guilty of only one error and that is generalisation.
Mr Walzer is guilty of the same error, a urge to lump a
whole lot of opinions into one bag and call it 'the left'.
Alan Allport
news:qoHm8.3725$bh1.2...@news11-gui.server.ntli.net...
> This is an unmoderated news group, Bayle, therefore
> toleration is not a factor, one way or the other. All
> opinions are welcome including yours which, personally,
> I have missed over the past few weeks.
Ditto.
Alan.
Ben Brumfield
> Wasn't the walzer article written for _Dissent_? I assume he was
> therefore writing for the subscribers of that magazine. Isn't that
> preaching to the choir?
>
Dunno. What's the audience for Dissent? I've found that some
articles I really enjoyed (Walzer, Genovese) were published in it, but
never really been that impressed when I pick it up at a newsstand.
-Ben
Martha Bridegam
Bayle wrote:
> ...
>
> So once again we have an article from Dissent. I'm no longer "A Leftist
> After All". You may not recognize the left as detailed in Walzer's article,
> but I do (as do most Americans)
Tell me, do Most Americans also share your favorite color?
/MAB
Martha Bridegam
Ben Brumfield wrote:
Was just surprised, per a Google "link: " search, to find only 474 online links to the magazine's home
page. See:
<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=link%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dissentmagazine.org%2F>
Odd. It's widely respected, isn't it? -- so why so little attention on the Net?
/MAB
Ben Brumfield
> news:3C982206...@pacbell.net...
> >
> >
> > Ben Brumfield wrote:
> >
> > > The reason I objected to the "unelected" comment as unproductive is
> > > that it is simply unpersuasive to any audience outside of people who
> > > have already decided vote against Bush in 2004. I myself am one of
> > > that group, which I suspect is in the majority (irrelevant morally,
> > > but very relevant pragmatically).
Quick clarification -- "that group" refers to "any audience", not to
"people who".
> > > So did that sound like Bayle?
> > >
> > > -Ben
> >
> > Nope.
> >
> > /MAB
> >
>
> I thought Ben did a pretty good job, as he always does. But perhaps a little
> of the real thing to remind you of the old days.
>
Hey, Bayle! I wondered when you'd drop back in -- figured you'd
gotten caught up in a long game of EU2.
> So once again we have an article from Dissent. I'm no longer "A Leftist
> After All". You may not recognize the left as detailed in Walzer's article,
> but I do (as do most Americans) and I want no part of them. And thanks to
I have no idea what most Americans think. Based on my own experience,
I suspect that most Americans have had little contact with the left
at all, save as a Limbaugh-created strawman. Then again, I might
think the opposite if I'd lived all my life in the outskirts of
Boston.
That said, the article did ring true to me, and if you were to replace
"the left" with "Chomsky and his dittoheads", I'd buy it. Swap it out
with "Hitchens" and it's nonsense. Which is what I think folks have
been pointing out.
> some of the wondeful guests you've had in your living room the past few
> months on abgo, it makes the choice even clearer. Some of the nonsense that
> you have tolerated here is truly staggering.
Particularly amusing has been the challenging of regulars' leftist
credentials based on their support for NATO action in Yugoslavia, as
if support for the action had been a cause of the right!
-Ben
Martha Bridegam
Ben Brumfield wrote:
> ...
>
> That said, the article did ring true to me, and if you were to replace
> "the left" with "Chomsky and his dittoheads", I'd buy it. Swap it out
> with "Hitchens" and it's nonsense. Which is what I think folks have
> been pointing out...
Well, yes, in that "the left" is not a monolith, and Mr. Walzer sounds like he is
specifically upset with particular people or organizations, and it would help the discussion
if he would name them. It would also help if he would explain what basis he has for claiming
they sympathize with Islamic fundamentalism.
But I don't think the divisions at the left of the spectrum are exactly between Chomsky's
and Hitchens' loyalists either. Not to necessarily accuse Ben of thinking this -- I'm
guessing Ben was just using those names as shorthand in his comments here -- but Chomsky and
Hitchens really do get cited around here (and I think not just on abgo -- ?) as
representatives of two major lefty tendencies -- possibly even "the" two major tendencies --
and it's troubling that such a diverse movement is getting to have just two spokesmen of
national stature (someone please tell me this isn't true!), since the implication follows
that even those of us who regularly disagree with both of them should somehow be enlisting
behind one or the other -- that, or turn in our hypothetical membership cards. This was
especially distressing during the few months when the choice these two fellows seemed to be
offering was between absolute pacifism and uncritical support for the Bush Administration's
air war tactics. I dunno, I don't think there are only two lefts. I think there are at least
three or four, and none of them make a right.
Maybe the real lesson of Mr. Walzer's article is that people who think they're on the left,
and yet don't recognize themselves in public depictions of "the left," could maybe put more
attention into public discussion of what else the term can mean.
In particular, the most appalling feature of U.S. public discussion in the last several
months has been the failure to understand that national security and the maintenance of
democratic institutions are mutually dependent, not mutually exclusive. The unconstitutional
detentions without trial of immigrants described at
<http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/2002/usa03142002.html>, for example, are a case of the U.S.
government not only undermining the great American democratic experiment, but also
needlessly offering fodder to anti-American propagandists.
Which does bring us back to decency and the need for more public discussion of what "the
left" is and what individual people who see themselves as "left" actually want. As I said,
Mr. Walzer is half right.
BTW this effort of defining "the left" does affect a fair number of people -- possibly even
an increasing number. Hitchens reports at
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4368451,00.html> that The Nation's
circulation has increased by 30,000 since September.
/MAB
Alan Allport
> BTW this effort of defining "the left" does affect a fair number of
people -- possibly even
> an increasing number. Hitchens reports at
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4368451,00.html> that
The Nation's
> circulation has increased by 30,000 since September.
Well, let's not get carried away. _The Nation's_ circulation usually hovers
a little over the 100,000 mark. _Golf for Women_ sells over three times
that.
Alan.
Martha Bridegam
Alan Allport wrote:
ow.
BTW I was just trying to figure out the circulation of the National Review (I
can't -- Alan, do you have the figures?) & ran across this sententious bit of
praise for the "Decent Left" article at
<http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-hayward032202.shtml>.
/MAB
Alan Allport
news:3C9BC48A...@pacbell.net...
> BTW I was just trying to figure out the circulation of the National Review
(I
> can't -- Alan, do you have the figures?)
Around 160,000 as of last August, though it was closer to 250,000 during the
twilight Clinton years. I would expect it's risen since 9/11 also.
Alan.
Bayle
85% to 90% do. Red, white and blue. "A Patriot After All"
Bayle
> "Bayle" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:<u9meiof...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > "Martha Bridegam" <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
> > news:3C982206...@pacbell.net...
> > >
> > >
> > > Ben Brumfield wrote:
> > >
> [snip]
> > > > The reason I objected to the "unelected" comment as unproductive is
> > > > that it is simply unpersuasive to any audience outside of people who
> > > > have already decided vote against Bush in 2004. I myself am one of
> > > > that group, which I suspect is in the majority (irrelevant morally,
> > > > but very relevant pragmatically).
>
> Quick clarification -- "that group" refers to "any audience", not to
> "people who".
>
>
> > > > So did that sound like Bayle?
> > > >
> > > > -Ben
> > >
> > > Nope.
> > >
> > > /MAB
> > >
> >
> > I thought Ben did a pretty good job, as he always does. But perhaps a
little
> > of the real thing to remind you of the old days.
> >
> Hey, Bayle! I wondered when you'd drop back in -- figured you'd
> gotten caught up in a long game of EU2.
I wish. The game is too hard for me. I find it very hard to figure out
what's going on. The other day I played Savoy and attempted to carry out a
mission and was promptly stomped by Spain and Austria. I obviously need to
take the Allport-Brumfield EU2 seminar.
>
> > So once again we have an article from Dissent. I'm no longer "A Leftist
> > After All". You may not recognize the left as detailed in Walzer's
article,
> > but I do (as do most Americans) and I want no part of them. And thanks
to
>
> I have no idea what most Americans think. Based on my own experience,
> I suspect that most Americans have had little contact with the left
> at all, save as a Limbaugh-created strawman. Then again, I might
> think the opposite if I'd lived all my life in the outskirts of
> Boston.
>
> That said, the article did ring true to me, and if you were to replace
> "the left" with "Chomsky and his dittoheads", I'd buy it. Swap it out
> with "Hitchens" and it's nonsense. Which is what I think folks have
> been pointing out.
>
I haven't been reading abgo as constently as I used to, but what I see is an
abandonment of "Left" or at least a distancing from their standard
reactions. Something the more "realist" wing is starting to do with a
vengance. Which was a prediction I made when I saw the earlier editorial in
Dissent that made the same point. The weaker minds remain, but the stars who
haven't already left, like Genovese, are heading for the exits. Because the
main fetishes of the Left have become irrelevant. They are not serious
players. My point about what most Americans think, is that most Americans do
not consider them serious players either. They deserve no seat at the table
and will have no seat at the table.
> > some of the wondeful guests you've had in your living room the past few
> > months on abgo, it makes the choice even clearer. Some of the nonsense
that
> > you have tolerated here is truly staggering.
>
> Particularly amusing has been the challenging of regulars' leftist
> credentials based on their support for NATO action in Yugoslavia, as
> if support for the action had been a cause of the right!
>
Quite amazing isn't it? And pathetic too. Like talking to Nazis and trying
to understand them.
I have also realized that I have become a Zionist after all, after 30 years
of supporting a Palestinean state. If they adopt non-viloence as a tactic,
like King and Ghandi, they should get their state. If not Israel should
attack and destroy them. No country should be expected to live under such
circumstances. And endless repetitions about the Balfour declaration and Dir
Yassin will change that basic fact.
My point about Israel, is that the time has come to find core values. To
state the obvious. I saw Jerry Falwell, of all people, on TV. He was asked
about whether the Koran and Islam preached violence. He said that he wasn't
an expert on the Koran but he did know that in the 30 Islamic countries
around the world there was no religious freedom. Christians and Jews could
be put in jail for preaching their religion. So the enemy isn't us. It's
them. And anyone who pretends different, like the international Human Rights
movement and other fools on the Left ... well they should just be (and are
being) ignored.
I would love to know if Genovese has weighed in on any of this. I still owe
you a commission, though unfortunately my giant stack of books on the South
and Slavery are unread since being sidetracked by Sept 11.
Martha Bridegam
Bayle wrote:
> ...what I see is an
> abandonment of "Left" or at least a distancing from their standard
> reactions....
A subsidiary rhetorical advantage to setting up straw men that don't resemble
real people: you can congratulate the real people you know for "giving up"
their resemblance to a caricature that never looked like anybody real in the
first place.
/MAB
tom .
> "Martha Bridegam" wrote
> > Bayle wrote:
> > > So once again we have an article from Dissent. I'm no longer "A Leftist
> > > After All". You may not recognize the left as detailed in Walzer's
> article,
> > > but I do (as do most Americans)
>
> > Tell me, do Most Americans also share your favorite color?
>
> 85% to 90% do. Red, white and blue. "A Patriot After All"
and it's not too late to sign up . . .
http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/patriot/index.asp
John Rennie
snipped.
>
>> I have also realized that I have become a Zionist after all, after 30
years
> of supporting a Palestinean state. If they adopt non-viloence as a tactic,
> like King and Ghandi, they should get their state. If not Israel should
> attack and destroy them. No country should be expected to live under such
> circumstances. And endless repetitions about the Balfour declaration and
Dir
> Yassin will change that basic fact.
>
> My point about Israel, is that the time has come to find core values. To
> state the obvious. I saw Jerry Falwell, of all people, on TV. He was asked
> about whether the Koran and Islam preached violence. He said that he
wasn't
> an expert on the Koran but he did know that in the 30 Islamic countries
> around the world there was no religious freedom. Christians and Jews could
> be put in jail for preaching their religion. So the enemy isn't us. It's
> them. And anyone who pretends different, like the international Human
Rights
> movement and other fools on the Left ... well they should just be (and are
> being) ignored.
Become a Zionist by all means but don't start believing the likes
of Falwell. I have in Cairo seen synagogues and christian churches
and I believe they can been seen in Baghdad. Both Egypt and Irak
together with Arab countries like Algeria are anti fundamentalist Islam.
This is not a fact that is being trumpeted at the moment because
it is not convenient. Please read the Telegraph comment that
I drew your attention to.
Gene Zitver
>> BTW this effort of defining "the left" does affect a fair number of
>people -- possibly even
>> an increasing number. Hitchens reports at
>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4368451,00.html> that
>The Nation's
>> circulation has increased by 30,000 since September.
>
>Well, let's not get carried away. _The Nation's_ circulation usually hovers
>a little over the 100,000 mark. _Golf for Women_ sells over three times
>that.
Yes, but you've got to remember, that was just for their special "Women's Golf
and the Left" issue.
Gene
Gene Zitver
>> Dunno. What's the audience for Dissent? I've found that some
>> articles I really enjoyed (Walzer, Genovese) were published in it, but
>> never really been that impressed when I pick it up at a newsstand.
>>
>> -Ben
>
>Was just surprised, per a Google "link: " search, to find only 474 online
>links to the magazine's home
>page. See:
>
><http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=link%3A
+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dissentmagazine.org%2F>
>
>Odd. It's widely respected, isn't it? -- so why so little attention on the
>Net?
474 seems a pretty respectable number to me for a quarterly magazine that's
basically run on a shoestring. Its outlook (earnest, scholarly, democratic
socialist and anti-Communist) has tended to limit its appeal. It probably gets
more flack from the anti-anti-Communists on the left than from people on the
right (many of whom are probably unaware it exists).
Gene
Gene Zitver
>The weaker minds remain, but the stars who
>haven't already left, like Genovese, are heading for the exits. Because the
>main fetishes of the Left have become irrelevant. They are not serious
>players. My point about what most Americans think, is that most Americans do
>not consider them serious players either. They deserve no seat at the table
>and will have no seat at the table.
Do you consider Michael Walzer, Paul Berman and Christopher Hitchens to be
among the "weaker minds"? They consider themselves part of the left, and I'm
sure would resent your efforts to define them out of it. They may disagree
passionately with the likes of Chomsky, but they aren't likely to pull a
Radosh, let alone a Horowitz.
In fact there once was a guy named Orwell who passionately opposed some of the
prevailing trends on the left of his time, but never for a moment thought of
himself as anything but a leftist.
Seems you've bought into the Limbaugh-created carricature of the left which Ben
referred to. But since most Americans do the same, I guess that's OK.
Welcome back.
Gene
Gene Zitver
>> I promised (threatened?) a response to the Kucinich speech.
>>
>> I'd guess that on specific issues, you, me, Kucinich and Walzer all agree
>on a
>> lot more than we disagree. And Kucinich is right that the US government has
>> done a lot of troubling and questionable things, especially domestically,
>since
>> 9/11. But his rather self-satisfied speech works better as rhetoric to
>rouse
>> the faithful than as a serious analysis of where left-liberals go from
>here.
>> Even a hint of self-criticism, of serious rethinking in light of 9/11,
>would
>> have been nice.
>
>Rethinking of what? What does Mr. Kucinich have to apologize for?
Mostly for his vague and cloudy rhetoric, I think. He makes it hard to pin down
exactly where he stands, so I really can't agree or disagree with much of what
he says. What bothers me most, I suppose, is what he *doesn't* deal with, e.g.
specific hard-headed ideas for how to deal with people like bin Laden, Saddam
Hussein, etc.
>A few comments on the Walzer article, which I've finally had a chance to
>digest
>seriously:
>
>- "Well, what exactly would *you* do?" is so frequently an effective defense
>for
>people in power because, by virtue of being in power, they know which choices
>are
>practical, and the folks in power tend not to tell the rest of us (and, yes,
>they
>are sometimes not safely able to tell the rest of us) what we would need to
>know
>to second-guess their decisions. This doesn't mean we should defer to the
>people
>in power because they have more information. It means we should make the best
>criticisms we can based on the information we have, and those of us who are
>out of
>power should *not* in fact feel we are failures or children or dilettantes if
>we
>have to phrase our objections in general terms, and sometimes even in terms
>that
>seem unrealistic. "Realism" can be overrated. It has to be tempered by
>principle.
Finding the proper balance between realism and principle is no cinch, but that
doesn't give leftists the right to opt out of the effort entirely, as they too
often do. Simply opposing is a luxury the left can no longer afford (not just
for its own sake, but for the world's). As Todd Gitlin wrote in Mother Jones,
"...those who evade the difficulties in their purist positions and refuse to
face all the mess and danger of reality only guarantee their bitter
inconsequence."
Gittlin's article makes a lot of the same points as Walzer's, but he names some
names:
http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/JF02/blaming.html
>- Walzer takes a number of cheap shots at a caricatured "left" that I don't
>recognize.
<snip>
Agreed, Walzer's failure to name names and give specific examples is a serious
weakness in his case. And I think he exaggerates the level of glee over the
attacks, even on the hard left (maybe there was more of it in Europe than in
the US). But what *was* fairly common among the Chomskyites (sorry) in the days
after 9/11 was a rather bloodles and pro forma expression of shock and
disapproval followed by the real business at hand: a slashing and predictable
attack on US and Israeli imperialism. For examples see:
http://www.counterpunch.org/wtcarchivesept.html
>- Walzer compares "the" U.S. left response to Sartre's "Third Worlders Are
>Always
>Right" fallacy. This is profoundly unfair. Again, I wish he'd name the
>American
>people or organizations he feels have taken such a position. For example, who
>specifically does he think is so confused as to think the Taliban are
>leftists?
I scanned the article again, but couldn't find where he says this.
So
>leftthinkers
>unbellyfeel Americanism? Dammit, does he think we believe in the Bill of
>Rights
>purely out of self-interest or broadmindedness? Does he think we can't love
>the
>American democratic experiment and want to preserve it unless we are out
>happily
>cheering for the commercial/militarist displays at the Super Bowl? Why does
>he
>think lefty American folk musicians keep writing "alternative national
>anthems" if
>the left doesn't have its own love of country?
Do they still write such songs? A serious question-- I've been out of the folk
music loop for awhile.
>Could his problem be that he thinks most people on the left are doctrinaire
>Marxists? How old are the people he has been talking to? Isn't he attacking a
>fairly old-fashioned Old Left or Old New Left segment of the intellectual
>community here?
Again, I agree he should have been more specific. But I suppose the same point
could have been made about Orwell. He frequently attacked "left-wing
intellectuals" rather indiscriminately.
Gene
Martha Bridegam
Gene Zitver
>In today's *Observer* there's a spoof supplement by Armando Iannucci and
>Chris Morris covering the last six months.
>
>'Christopher Hitchens' is credited with an article on "How to drink
>Kabul dry in 72 hours and still keep your forelock fetchingly draped
>over your forehead." 'President Bush' commissions a new book of the
>Bible, called The Acts of the Folks, praising those who turned their
>babies into flags; 'Tony Blair' supports the bombing of Afghanistan
>during Ramadan "but confirms that out of respect for Islam, all food
>parcels dropped during this period will be empty."
>
>Concerning September 11, 'John Pilger' asserts that "I have seen nothing
>to convince me that all these attacks were not the work of one lone
>American madman." 'Noam Chomsky' says: "If you run the twin towers
>footage backwards, the towers stand up again - we need to ask why has
>the footage only ever been run backwards?"
Thanks, Tom, but you made a little transcribing mistake. After puzzling over
Chomsky's "quote" for days, I finally looked it up on the web:
http://www.observer.co.uk/waronterrorism/story/0,1373,668764,00.html
It should read, "If you run the twin towers footage backwards, the towers stand
up again - we need to ask why has the footage only ever been run forwards?"
Now I get it.
Gene
Paul Sebastianelli
I don't recall this.
paul.
Martha Bridegam
Gene Zitver wrote:
>
> >Rethinking of what? What does Mr. Kucinich have to apologize for?
>
> Mostly for his vague and cloudy rhetoric, I think. He makes it hard to pin down
> exactly where he stands, so I really can't agree or disagree with much of what
> he says. What bothers me most, I suppose, is what he *doesn't* deal with, e.g.
> specific hard-headed ideas for how to deal with people like bin Laden, Saddam
> Hussein, etc.
Part of what he was challenging was the popular notion that the U.S. owes most of
its attention to the effort of bracing against outside enemies. I would bet he
decided not to talk about specific threats on purpose. His whole point was that
the country can't throw away democracy in the name of security -- and a corollary
to same is that, yes, Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are not the only subjects worth
discussing.
> ..."Realism" can be overrated. It has to be tempered by
> >principle.
>
> Finding the proper balance between realism and principle is no cinch, but that
> doesn't give leftists the right to opt out of the effort entirely, as they too
> often do. Simply opposing is a luxury the left can no longer afford (not just
> for its own sake, but for the world's). As Todd Gitlin wrote in Mother Jones,
> "...those who evade the difficulties in their purist positions and refuse to
> face all the mess and danger of reality only guarantee their bitter
> inconsequence."
It might be a better approach to ask again whether there is more than one "left."
I really think it's a serious problem that some time in the '70s or '80s,
theoretical and practical lefties went their separate ways. Some retired to the
universities to problematize each other's navels, and some got in over their heads
in practical social policy or social service work. They haven't talked with each
other very much in a long time. Some lefties are actually so practically oriented
that they don't have time to think through the big political or philosophical
issues on any level beyond grumbles over the morning paper. Others are so far
elevated off the ground that they aren't, as you say, realistic.
Re: Gitlin -- you mean the essay at
<http://motherjones.com/magazine/JF02/blaming.html>? If so, he's blurring a number
of distinctions. It's hard to tell just how many people he is angry at -- whether
he means to attack a few people or a whole end of the political spectrum. He does
name Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Arundhati Roy, and he does make a strong case
that all three can be wrong, but does he think these three are always in agreement
with each other, and always wrong? And who does he accuse of being among their
fellow "anti-Americans"? (Has he handed in his list yet?) In particular, I tend to
think Said is wrong a lot more often than Roy, & they shouldn't be lumped
together.
Overall, this discussion seems to suffer from cognitive dissonance: lots of real
lefties are busy on practical tasks like trying to save public benefits programs
and keep refugees out of trouble and maintain access to public information.
Meanwhile Gitlin and Walzer and folks to their right are yelling about another
unrecognizable "left" that they identify with airy absolutism and Noam Chomsky's
foreign policy.
Apparently some people are not talking to each other. That, or some folks who
should know better are swallowing the Rush Limbaugh line. Why aren't they/we
chatting at protests and electoral canvassing events and local public hearings and
speeches at universities? Is it that the different kinds of lefties have accepted
an absolute division of labor & don't speak much with each other at all?
<snip re: Chomsky stuff, on which I think we're converging>
> For example, who
> >specifically does he think is so confused as to think the Taliban are
> >leftists?
>
> I scanned the article again, but couldn't find where he says this.
I meant this bit, which tends towards what I said, though, OK, maybe it doesn't
quite get there:
"...Whenever writers on the left say that the root cause of terror is global
inequality or human poverty, the assertion is in fact a denial that religious
motives really count. Theology, on this view, is just the temporary, colloquial
idiom in which the legitimate rage of oppressed men and women is expressed.
A few brave leftists described the Taliban regime and the al-Qaeda movement as
examples of “clerical fascism,” which at least gets the adjective right. And maybe
“fascist” is close enough, even
if this new politics doesn’t look like the product of late capitalist
degeneration. It gives the left a reason for opposing Islamic terror, which is an
important achievement. But it would be better to find
a reason in the realities of terrorism itself, in the idea of a holy war against
the infidels, which is not the same thing as a war against inferior races or alien
nations. In fact, Islamic radicalism is not,
as fascism is, a racist or ultra-nationalist doctrine. Something else is going on,
which we need to understand.
But ideologically primed leftists were likely to think that they already
understood whatever needed to be understood. Any group that attacks the imperial
power must be a representative of the
oppressed, and its agenda must be the agenda of the left. It isn't necessary to
listen to its spokesmen. What else can they want except...the redistribution of
resources across the globe, the
withdrawal of American soldiers from wherever they are, the closing down of aid
programs for repressive governments, the end of the blockade of Iraq, and the
establishment of a Palestinian state
alongside Israel? I don’t doubt that there is some overlap between this program
and the dreams of al-Qaeda leaders--though al-Qaeda is not an egalitarian
movement, and the idea that it supports a
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is crazy. The overlap is
circumstantial and convenient, nothing more. A holy war against infidels is not,
even unintentionally, unconsciously, or
“objectively,” a left politics. But how many leftists can even imagine a holy war
against infidels?..."
>
>
> So
> >leftthinkers
> >unbellyfeel Americanism? Dammit, does he think we believe in the Bill of
> >Rights
> >purely out of self-interest or broadmindedness? Does he think we can't love
> >the
> >American democratic experiment and want to preserve it unless we are out
> >happily
> >cheering for the commercial/militarist displays at the Super Bowl? Why does
> >he
> >think lefty American folk musicians keep writing "alternative national
> >anthems" if
> >the left doesn't have its own love of country?
>
> Do they still write such songs? A serious question-- I've been out of the folk
> music loop for awhile.
OK, I don't know either. I sure hope so.
>
>
> >Could his problem be that he thinks most people on the left are doctrinaire
> >Marxists? How old are the people he has been talking to? Isn't he attacking a
> >fairly old-fashioned Old Left or Old New Left segment of the intellectual
> >community here?
>
> Again, I agree he should have been more specific. But I suppose the same point
> could have been made about Orwell. He frequently attacked "left-wing
> intellectuals" rather indiscriminately.
>
Yes, Orwell probably was unfair. He was 'a good hater' at times, if there is such
a thing.
Thx for detailed answer. This is worth talking about.
/MAB
Tom Deveson
>It should read, "If you run the twin towers footage backwards, the towers stand
>up again - we need to ask why has the footage only ever been run forwards?"
>
>Now I get it.
Double oops. Sorry for stupid mistake -- so obvious that I just didn't
see it even while on transcribing it.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Martha Bridegam
take from Walzer's: it suggests that the trouble isn't "the left," it's Chomsky, and
Chomsky's datedness ("...still talking about Nicaragua...") and the fact that Chomsky
is often taken as a spokesman for "the left" in general.
Especially telling phrase: "...there is an unmistakable stench of the Old Guard
arising from this book."
<http://eserver.org/bs/reviews/2002-3-11-4.49PM.html>
c/o MAB
Paul Sebastianelli
Erm...Actually, white isn't really a colour. I find it
hard to believe that more 10 to 15% of Americans
don't know this.
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
Article 24 of the Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
There are 157 churches, 17 Synagogues and 10 monasteries in Istanbul,
along with the 2000 mosques that make up one of the most beautiful
skylines I have ever seen.
http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/turkey-persecution.html
>So the enemy isn't us. It's
> them. And anyone who pretends different, like the international Human
Rights
> movement
How is the int'l Human Rights movement claiming the enemy
is us?
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
I can't help but note that the top selling book in
America currently belongs to Michael Moore.
> They are not serious
>players. My point about what most Americans think, is that most Americans
do
>not consider them serious players either. They deserve no seat at the table
>and will have no seat at the table.
I must admit I'm having a difficult time
understanding the point of this thread.
There seem to be a lot of generalizations thrown
around about very large segments of the population
- "the Left," "The American People," etc. - as though
300 million people can be categorized into 4 or
5 convenient pigeon-holes. "The left recovered their
moral balance," masturbates Walzer in his article.
A single person can be spoken of in this way,
a single publication can be - but a group of people
numbering, persumably, in the hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, cannot be. Often
Bayle likes to speak of the American people,
as though they are one inseperable mass of
carbon. For example "You may not recognize the left
as detailed in Walzer's article, but I do (as do most
Americans)."
How can anyone so glibly detail a point of view of, say,
170 million people? One can say that the North
Nibley Bookgroup, or the John Birch Society,
or the North Battleford Bridge Club recognizes
the left as described by Walzer, but most Americans?
I don't think it's possible.
There seems to be a lot of criticism of Chomsky
and his ilk for their views since Sept 11
being out of touch with American sentiment.
So, what else is new? They don't have
a "seat at the table," we are told. As if they ever
did. As if it's a remote possibility.
Does Dissent have a seat at the table? Has it
ever had one? For that matter, has Dissent had any
measurable impact on American thought over
the last thirty years? Has The Nation?
I would suggest that TV Guide and it's circulation
of 11 million has more impact on American thought
and politics than The Nation, Dissent and The National
Review put together. Perhaps that's who the left should be
taking its cues from.
The left as I know it - that is, organizations
based in Toronto and Ottawa, and, by extension,
some people and orgs in the States and elsewhere-
employ numerous different tactics to expand their
impact on public opinion. Of these, however, one of
the most common is trying to reach out to people who may
sympathize with their goals, who may be curious
or inclined to get on board, and then continuing to build
from there. I'm sure we are all familiar with examples
of this. None that I know of ever try to win over a
group of people numbering in the millions at one time.
This is a prospect that can only be seriously considered
by a professional intellectual, because it is an idea so
devoid of reality that it can only exist in someone's head.
paul.
John Rennie
>
snip
> ">
> I must admit I'm having a difficult time
> understanding the point of this thread.
> There seem to be a lot of generalizations thrown
> around about very large segments of the population
> - "the Left," "The American People," etc. - as though
> 300 million people can be categorized into 4 or
> 5 convenient pigeon-holes. "The left recovered their
> moral balance," masturbates Walzer in his article.
> A single person can be spoken of in this way,
> a single publication can be - but a group of people
> numbering, persumably, in the hundreds of
> thousands, if not millions, cannot be. Often
> Bayle likes to speak of the American people,
> as though they are one inseperable mass of
> carbon. For example "You may not recognize the left
> as detailed in Walzer's article, but I do (as do most
> Americans)."
> How can anyone so glibly detail a point of view of, say,
> 170 million people? One can say that the North
> Nibley Bookgroup, or the John Birch Society,
> or the North Battleford Bridge Club recognizes
> the left as described by Walzer, but most Americans?
> I don't think it's possible.
That's the trouble with generalisations, they over simplify.
I lost patience with Walzer rather early on when he mentioned
Orwell's interest in 'pornographic postcards'. Pornographic
indeed - what a twit.
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> Actually, the use of precision air power almost certainly saved thousands of
> civilian lives in Afghanistan.
More precise than the sort of air power which caused a First World War
Zeppelin raid to bomb Arras in Northern France rather than Birmingham in
the English midlands, for sure, but... I do wonder exactly how reliable
this `precision bombing' really is, and concluding `probably not very'.
Using visible light lasers for automated military targetting has never
struck me as a sensible idea, for example.
> The USAF's targeting and communications
> capabilities have vastly improved even since the Gulf War.
I suspect that any improvements are mostly due to training and
organization - vastly better? Mmm. Does anyone *really* know, one way
or another?
[snip]
Rowland.
--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland....@dog.physics.org
PGP pub key 0x62DCCA78 Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org
UK biker? Join MAG and help keep bureaucracy at bay
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> 85% to 90% do. Red, white and blue. "A Patriot After All"
Why all this US enthusiasm for France?
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> Erm...Actually, white isn't really a colour. I find it
> hard to believe that more 10 to 15% of Americans
> don't know this.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. In any case, it all
depends on how you define colour.
Martha Bridegam
Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
>
>
> There seems to be a lot of criticism of Chomsky
> and his ilk for their views since Sept 11
> being out of touch with American sentiment.
> So, what else is new?
That was Bayle, not "a lot" of us.
My own grounds for annoyance at Chomsky aren't primarily ideological, though I
do disagree with some of his views. Lots of good commentators are wrong part of
the time. The real trouble is, he's been crying in the wilderness so long he's
become a crank. He repeats himself. New events provoke familiar speeches from
him about How This New Event Just Goes To Show What I've Been Saying All Along.
Of course, sometimes the things he's been saying all along do still need to be
said. He does provide a genuine public service by making unpopular criticisms
of U.S. foreign policy, many of them valid. Free speech and public debate in
the United States are both healthier thanks to Mr. Chomsky's participation.
On the other hand he isn't *the* representative critic of U.S. foreign policy,
nor is he the only alternative to Hitchens. There are plenty of more
intellectually supple people who disagree with U.S. Afghan policy more strongly
than Hitchens and more persuasively than Chomsky.
What I really wonder is, why aren't folks like David Corn or Michael Moore
(currently a very popular author, as Paul notes) or Naomi Klein or Molly Ivins
or even Jello Biafra speaking & getting discussed at the level of the
Gitlin/Chomsky/Hitchens/Walzer debate (recently joined by Salman Rushdie and
Tariq Ali in the UK Guardian, per A&L Daily)? Is it maybe that Corn, Moore,
Klein, et al. aren't as easy to criticize because they're livelier thinkers
than Chomsky? Or maybe this whole "Direction Of The Left" debate is really
about a split that exists specifically within the Old New Left, & it's not
about the whole U.S./U.K. left at all?
/MAB
Rowland McDonnell
> "Bayle" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:u9pelbs...@corp.supernews.com...
[snip]
> > My point about Israel, is that the time has come to find core values. To
> > state the obvious. I saw Jerry Falwell, of all people, on TV. He was
> > asked about whether the Koran and Islam preached violence. He said that
> > he wasn't an expert on the Koran but he did know that in the 30 Islamic
> > countries around the world there was no religious freedom. Christians
> > and Jews could be put in jail for preaching their religion.
>
> Article 24 of the Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
Maybe so, but Turkey is not an Islamic country.
[snip]
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> What I really wonder is, why aren't folks like David Corn or Michael Moore
> (currently a very popular author, as Paul notes) or Naomi Klein or Molly Ivins
> or even Jello Biafra speaking & getting discussed at the level of the
> Gitlin/Chomsky/Hitchens/Walzer debate (recently joined by Salman Rushdie and
> Tariq Ali in the UK Guardian, per A&L Daily)? Is it maybe that Corn, Moore,
> Klein, et al. aren't as easy to criticize because they're livelier thinkers
> than Chomsky? Or maybe this whole "Direction Of The Left" debate is really
> about a split that exists specifically within the Old New Left, & it's not
> about the whole U.S./U.K. left at all?
Either that, or the editors in charge have decided to ignore what the
`quiet' ones are saying. I think Jello Biafra had it about right when
he said `Nazi pigs fuck off'.
John Rennie
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
news:1f9lhw4.1pz63j5hoth9hN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet...
> Paul Sebastianelli <paula...@look.ca> wrote:
>
> > "Bayle" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> > news:u9pelbs...@corp.supernews.com...
> [snip]
>
> > > My point about Israel, is that the time has come to find core values.
To
> > > state the obvious. I saw Jerry Falwell, of all people, on TV. He was
> > > asked about whether the Koran and Islam preached violence. He said
that
> > > he wasn't an expert on the Koran but he did know that in the 30
Islamic
> > > countries around the world there was no religious freedom. Christians
> > > and Jews could be put in jail for preaching their religion.
> >
> > Article 24 of the Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
>
> Maybe so, but Turkey is not an Islamic country.
>
I am sure that the Rev Falwell thinks it is.
Paul Sebastianelli
>
>
> Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > There seems to be a lot of criticism of Chomsky
> > and his ilk for their views since Sept 11
> > being out of touch with American sentiment.
> > So, what else is new?
>
> That was Bayle, not "a lot" of us.
>
> My own grounds for annoyance at Chomsky aren't primarily ideological,
though I
> do disagree with some of his views. Lots of good commentators are wrong
part of
> the time. The real trouble is, he's been crying in the wilderness so long
he's
> become a crank. He repeats himself. New events provoke familiar speeches
from
> him about How This New Event Just Goes To Show What I've Been Saying All
Along.
>
This is true, yes. It's disheartening.
> Of course, sometimes the things he's been saying all along do still need
to be
> said. He does provide a genuine public service by making unpopular
criticisms
> of U.S. foreign policy, many of them valid. Free speech and public debate
in
> the United States are both healthier thanks to Mr. Chomsky's
participation.
True again. I have _The Manufacture of Consent_ on tape, but it is
an abbreviated 90 minute version that I taped off TV a couple of
years ago. Annoyed at having many important parts of it missing, I
went to the library to rent it (so I could tape it). That was the beginning
of January, I'm still waiting. I am now 2nd out of 18 in line.
> On the other hand he isn't *the* representative critic of U.S. foreign
policy,
> nor is he the only alternative to Hitchens. There are plenty of more
> intellectually supple people who disagree with U.S. Afghan policy more
strongly
> than Hitchens and more persuasively than Chomsky.
>
> What I really wonder is, why aren't folks like David Corn or Michael Moore
> (currently a very popular author, as Paul notes) or Naomi Klein or Molly
Ivins
> or even Jello Biafra speaking & getting discussed at the level of the
> Gitlin/Chomsky/Hitchens/Walzer debate (recently joined by Salman Rushdie
and
> Tariq Ali in the UK Guardian, per A&L Daily)?
Or how about Lewis Lapham? Talk about a supple thinker. He's currently
one of my favourites, and there is a rather fawning article about him in
my morning paper:
http://globeandmail.ca/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/Full
Story.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&vg=BigAdVa
riableGenerator&date=20020325&dateOffset=&hub=headdex&title=Headlines&cache_
key=headdexThearts¤t_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1
An interesting article on a topic that is of interest here from time to
time;
that is, the Public Intellectual.
Is it maybe that Corn, Moore,
> Klein, et al. aren't as easy to criticize because they're livelier
thinkers
> than Chomsky?
I think you've got something there. What bothers me is
that the Walzer article does not seem to be interested in simply
saying "Here's why a segment of the left is wrong," so much
as "You people are ruining it for the rest of us. Think this or go
away," which also reminds me of that Biafra song. In fact,
shades of anti-Nader sentiment 2 years ago. Very condescending
and more than a little insulting. Those of us who agree with
Chomsky obviously cannot think for ourselves: we're "dittoheads."
We don't understand how _real_ politics work.
What a turn-off.
paul.
Rowland McDonnell
Paul Sebastianelli
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
news:1f9lhw4.1pz63j5hoth9hN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet...
>
> > "Bayle" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> > news:u9pelbs...@corp.supernews.com...
> [snip]
>
> > > My point about Israel, is that the time has come to find core values.
To
> > > state the obvious. I saw Jerry Falwell, of all people, on TV. He was
> > > asked about whether the Koran and Islam preached violence. He said
that
> > > he wasn't an expert on the Koran but he did know that in the 30
Islamic
> > > countries around the world there was no religious freedom. Christians
> > > and Jews could be put in jail for preaching their religion.
> >
> > Article 24 of the Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
>
> Maybe so, but Turkey is not an Islamic country.
I think I've misunderstood. I assumed that he meant any country whose
population is overwhelmingly Islamic. I suppose "Islamic country" is taken
here to mean a country without seperation of church and state, with a
non-secular
gov't?
Are there indeed thirty of those?
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
or rather, borrow,
>it (so I could tape it).
paul.
Ben Brumfield
> Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > What I really wonder is, why aren't folks like David Corn or Michael Moore
> > (currently a very popular author, as Paul notes) or Naomi Klein or Molly Ivins
> > or even Jello Biafra speaking & getting discussed at the level of the
> > Gitlin/Chomsky/Hitchens/Walzer debate (recently joined by Salman Rushdie and
> > Tariq Ali in the UK Guardian, per A&L Daily)? Is it maybe that Corn, Moore,
> > Klein, et al. aren't as easy to criticize because they're livelier thinkers
> > than Chomsky? Or maybe this whole "Direction Of The Left" debate is really
> > about a split that exists specifically within the Old New Left, & it's not
> > about the whole U.S./U.K. left at all?
>
> Either that, or the editors in charge have decided to ignore what the
> `quiet' ones are saying. I think Jello Biafra had it about right when
> he said `Nazi pigs fuck off'.
>
Erm, wasn't it "Nazi PUNKS fuck off"? As I remember, that was an anthem
calling for purging extremists from the ranks, since they ruin it for "the
rest of us."
Apologies if JB's recorded another version since the DKs.
-Ben
Ben Brumfield
> Paul Sebastianelli wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > There seems to be a lot of criticism of Chomsky
> > and his ilk for their views since Sept 11
> > being out of touch with American sentiment.
> > So, what else is new?
>
> That was Bayle, not "a lot" of us.
>
> My own grounds for annoyance at Chomsky aren't primarily ideological, though I
> do disagree with some of his views. Lots of good commentators are wrong part of
> the time. The real trouble is, he's been crying in the wilderness so long he's
> become a crank. He repeats himself. New events provoke familiar speeches from
> him about How This New Event Just Goes To Show What I've Been Saying All Along.
>
I'd say I've been more than "annoyed" by Chomsky since 9/11. I've
never had any respect for him as a linguist, which is probably a
function of studying in an anti-Chomskyist department. But I'd always
had a good deal of respect for him as a public intellectual.
Horowitz's Salon article about Chomsky's 9/12 statement really changed
my opinion completely. Of course, I check anything H says about
someone against the original, and that sent me off researching all C's
speeches made in the days following the attacks. Based on a few
glaring lies or distortions, I've come to the conclusion that Chomsky
has as little intellectual honesty as Horowitz.
The data points for my conclusion were C's statement about "the real
victims", his selective mention of the intellectual reaction to WWI,
his relentless touting of Nicaragua as a response to "what would you
do", and most especially his claims about 9/11 being the first attack
on the American mainlaind since 1812.
At the time, I happened to be reading about Pershing's Punitive
Expedition into Mexico in 1916. Obviously, it was a response to a
direct attack on the lower 48 by Pancho Villa, putting lie to
Chomsky's claims about no attacks since 1812. Perhaps more important
is asking why Chomsky would ignore it? The parallels to Afghanistan
were obvious, so why not mention it? The only reason I can come up
with is that he's either ignorant of US intervention in Mexico
(unlikely), or intentional misrepresentation of history for rhetorical
purposes.
Then came his response to Hitchens in The Nation, where his sheer
smugness was nauseating.
In short, I agree with your "crank" assessment completely, but have
decided that Chomsky is not a commentator who gets things wrong, but a
pure propagandist, willing to distort the truth or flat-out lie
whenever it suits him. In my opinion, he's much better at this than
Horowitz or Limbaugh because he chooses particularly obscure documents
and events to support his points, betting that his readers will be
intimidated into not checking his sources. No matter whether I agree
with his points, I just can't trust him. Ever.
[snip]
>
> What I really wonder is, why aren't folks like David Corn or Michael Moore
> (currently a very popular author, as Paul notes) or Naomi Klein or Molly Ivins
Incidentally, has anyone read anything by Molly Ivins lately? She
appears to have been dropped from the Yahoo wirefeed I used to read
her at.
-Ben
John Rennie
about Chomsky and not to have one's opinions affected by Chomsky. Can not
have posters' own opinions about the perilous situation we now find
ourselves in?
Martha Bridegam
Ben Brumfield wrote:
explain?
>
> his relentless touting of Nicaragua as a response to "what would you
> do", and most especially his claims about 9/11 being the first attack
> on the American mainlaind since 1812.
>
> At the time, I happened to be reading about Pershing's Punitive
> Expedition into Mexico in 1916. Obviously, it was a response to a
> direct attack on the lower 48 by Pancho Villa, putting lie to
> Chomsky's claims about no attacks since 1812. Perhaps more important
> is asking why Chomsky would ignore it? The parallels to Afghanistan
> were obvious, so why not mention it? The only reason I can come up
> with is that he's either ignorant of US intervention in Mexico
> (unlikely), or intentional misrepresentation of history for rhetorical
> purposes.
>
> Then came his response to Hitchens in The Nation, where his sheer
> smugness was nauseating.
>
> In short, I agree with your "crank" assessment completely, but have
> decided that Chomsky is not a commentator who gets things wrong, but a
> pure propagandist, willing to distort the truth or flat-out lie
> whenever it suits him. In my opinion, he's much better at this than
> Horowitz or Limbaugh because he chooses particularly obscure documents
> and events to support his points, betting that his readers will be
> intimidated into not checking his sources. No matter whether I agree
> with his points, I just can't trust him. Ever.
Are there other examples of his being just plain wrong about facts? I mean, you've got a good
point about the Mexico intervention but I think Chomsky isn't the only one who has used the 1812
date. It seems possible he didn't remember or didn't bother to check in this particular case, but
if there are other cases of self-serving wrong facts of course it does matter.
>
>
> [snip]
> >
> > What I really wonder is, why aren't folks like David Corn or Michael Moore
> > (currently a very popular author, as Paul notes) or Naomi Klein or Molly Ivins
>
> Incidentally, has anyone read anything by Molly Ivins lately? She
> appears to have been dropped from the Yahoo wirefeed I used to read
> her at.
>
> -Ben
Try <http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv>
/MAB
Rowland McDonnell
> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
> news:1f9lhw4.1pz63j5hoth9hN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet...
> > Paul Sebastianelli <paula...@look.ca> wrote:
> >
> > > "Bayle" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> > > news:u9pelbs...@corp.supernews.com...
> > [snip]
> >
> > > > My point about Israel, is that the time has come to find core
> > > > values. To state the obvious. I saw Jerry Falwell, of all people, on
> > > > TV. He was asked about whether the Koran and Islam preached
> > > > violence. He said that he wasn't an expert on the Koran but he did
> > > > know that in the 30 Islamic countries around the world there was no
> > > > religious freedom. Christians and Jews could be put in jail for
> > > > preaching their religion.
> > >
> > > Article 24 of the Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
> >
> > Maybe so, but Turkey is not an Islamic country.
>
> I think I've misunderstood. I assumed that he meant any country whose
> population is overwhelmingly Islamic.
That's not any sort of definition which it would have occurred to me to
use. He might have meant that, but it's not the definition which I've
seen in use elsewhere.
> I suppose "Islamic country" is taken
> here to mean a country without seperation of church and state, with a
> non-secular
> gov't?
That's the kind of definition I'd use - with the additional point that
it'd have to be an *Islamic* non secular government; without that
proviso, your definition would make the UK an Islamic country.
> Are there indeed thirty of those?
I've not got a clue, but I don't see why not - Pakistan, Afghanistan
(still?), and Saudi Arabia are three which spring to mind; maybe
Bangladesh? And there are a *lot* of tiny countries in the middle east
which I can't name off the top of my head which might well be Islamic -
but I'd have to check.
Rowland McDonnell
> real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:
[snip]
> > Either that, or the editors in charge have decided to ignore what the
> > `quiet' ones are saying. I think Jello Biafra had it about right when
> > he said `Nazi pigs fuck off'.
>
> Erm, wasn't it "Nazi PUNKS fuck off"?
That's the name of the song, but in the live version I have, yer man
says quite clearly in the intro `Nazi pigs fuck off', and then uses
`punk' rather than `pig' for the rest of it.
> As I remember, that was an anthem
> calling for purging extremists from the ranks, since they ruin it for "the
> rest of us."
I wonder how many people get that joke?
[snip]
Rowland McDonnell
> How much better it is not to have heard of Chomsky,
I've heard of him, but...
> not to care twopence
> about Chomsky and not to have one's opinions affected by Chomsky.
...this certainly applies to me.
> Can not
> have posters' own opinions about the perilous situation we now find
> ourselves in?
Opinions? You want opinions? I got 'em - big ones, small ones, by the
dozen or by the gross. Even in purple if you like.
Paul Sebastianelli
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
My definition was any country whose population is overwhelmingly
Islamic. Is that the case in the UK?
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
That was the title. It was about thuggery and intimidation and
what Biafra calls "punk fundamentalism."
http://membres.lycos.fr/beckyduc/lyrics/DeadkenGod.html#6
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
Because he failed to mention Villa's attack in 1916? What are the
"rhetorical purposes" that such an ommission would serve?
Do your other data points represent distortions of truth or lies
or is this the only one?
paul.
Rowland McDonnell
> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> > Paul Sebastianelli <paula...@look.ca> wrote:
> >
> > > "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> > > news:1f9lhw4.1pz63j5hoth9hN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet...
[snip]
> > > > Maybe so, but Turkey is not an Islamic country.
> > >
> > > I think I've misunderstood. I assumed that he meant any country whose
> > > population is overwhelmingly Islamic.
> >
> > That's not any sort of definition which it would have occurred to me to
> > use. He might have meant that, but it's not the definition which I've
> > seen in use elsewhere.
> >
> > > I suppose "Islamic country" is taken
> > > here to mean a country without seperation of church and state, with a
> > > non-secular
> > > gov't?
> >
> > That's the kind of definition I'd use - with the additional point that
> > it'd have to be an *Islamic* non secular government; without that
> > proviso, your definition would make the UK an Islamic country.
>
> My definition was any country whose population is overwhelmingly
> Islamic. Is that the case in the UK?
You know it's not so why ask?
The UK does fulfill the requirement (if you look at it the right way) of
`Islamic country' using the definition you provided above:
`I suppose "Islamic country" is taken here to mean a country without
seperation of church and state, with a non-secular gov't?'
I was, obviously, not referring to `any country whose population is
overwhelmingly Islamic' - so what the hell are you playing at, eh?
Ben Brumfield
> Those of us who agree with
> Chomsky obviously cannot think for ourselves: we're "dittoheads."
> We don't understand how _real_ politics work.
>
Since I brought the "dittohead" term up, I would like to point out
that I certainly don't think it's applicable to people who agree with
Chomsky. There are some points on which I agree with Chomsky, after
all.
However, I did see quite a spate of people writing letters to the
editor and calling into radio programs here in Austin who were pretty
much quoting Chomsky verbatim, to the extent of answering WWYD (or
even "what should we do") with clumsily delivered non-sequiturs about
Nicaragua. This seemed to go well beyond mere agreement, and I
thought it deserved the term, as does equivalent behavior by partisans
of other causes.
Didn't Orwell write about people who sound like broken phonographs,
spewing an endless stream of party-line propaganda?
-Ben
Paul Sebastianelli
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
Right, sorry. I thought you meant the first definition.
paul.
John Rennie
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
> John Rennie <j.re...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> > How much better it is not to have heard of Chomsky,
>
> I've heard of him, but...
>
> > not to care twopence
> > about Chomsky and not to have one's opinions affected by Chomsky.
>
> ...this certainly applies to me.
>
> > Can not
> > have posters' own opinions about the perilous situation we now find
> > ourselves in?
>
> Opinions? You want opinions? I got 'em - big ones, small ones, by the
> dozen or by the gross. Even in purple if you like.
>
> Rowland.
I'll amend that request - can we have posters' own opinions
other than Rowland's. We've had enough of those to sink
this news group already. :-)
John Rennie
Who cares what Rowland means by an Islamic state or what you mean by it.
It's what the bloody Reverend Falwell means by it as interpreted by Bayle.
I can think we can reasonably assume that he, Falwell, is not one bit
interested in the distinction between the secular and religious state made
by Rowland.
Ben Brumfield
both. I don't have much time, so I'll cut and paste some chunks from
a letter I wrote to a friend who was unfortunate enough to forward me
a speech of Chomsky's that was making the rounds about 5 months ago.
Apologies for incoherence and such.
From Chomsky's 9/12 statement:
"The primary victims, as usual, were working people: janitors,
secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to be a crushing blow to
Palestinians and other poor and oppressed people."
Chomsky's statement is demonstrably false -- if the terrorists had
wanted the primary victims to be "working people", they would have
attacked in the evening or overnight, when janitorial crews were
populated the building and the professionals were back home in the
suburbs. Instead, they waited until after 9, when all the dirty
capitalists had already gotten to work, and if they'd had their way,
the buildings would have collapsed before any firemen could have
gotten to them. So WHY does Chomsky want to lie about this?
[snip]
<begin chomsky from http://www.zmag.org/chomint3.htm >
8. Do you believe that most Americans will, as conditions permit
more detailed evaluation of options, accept that the solution to
terror attacks on civilians is more terror attacks on civilians, and
that that solution to fanaticism is surveillance and curtailed civil
liberties.
I hope not, but we should not underestimate the capacity of well-run
propaganda systems to drive people to irrational, murderous, and
suicidal behavior. Take an example that is remote enough so that we
should be able to look at it with some dispassion: World War I. It
can't have been that both sides were engaged in a noble war for the
highest objectives. But on both sides, the soldiers marched off to
mutual slaughter with enormous exuberance, fortified by the cheers of
the intellectual classes and those who they helped mobilize, across
the political spectrum, from left to right, including the most
powerful left political force in the world, in Germany. Exceptions
are so few that we can practically list them, and some of the most
prominent among them ended up in jail for questioning the nobility of
the enterprise: among them Rosa Luxemburg, Bertrand Russell, and
Eugene Debs. With the help of Wilson's propaganda agencies and the
enthusiastic support of liberal intellectuals, a pacifist country was
turned in a few months into raving anti-German hysterics, ready to
take revenge on those who had perpetrated savage crimes, many of them
invented by the British Ministry of Information. But that's by no
means inevitable, and we should not underestimate the civilizing
effects of the popular struggles of recent years. We need not stride
resolutely towards catastrophe, merely because those are the marching
orders.
<end chomsky interview>
I'm only including this because it really stuck out at me. I may not
know that much history, but I find Chomsky's assertions here to be so
selective that they qualify as propaganda. Once again, Chomsky is
being selective and bluffing that nobody will check his story. What
he asserts about dissent during WWI is, so far as I know, correct.
The thing that's breathtaking, however is his sentence "Take an
example that is remote enough so that we should be able to look at it
with some dispassion: World War I." With the artistry of the
propagandist, Chomsky conceals his selectivity behind the veil of
'dispassion'. The fact of the matter is that WWI is unique in its
lack of dissent. Think about it -- In the revolution, loyalists
provided forces to the British; In the War of 1812, New England
threatened to secede in protest; In the Mexican War, intellectuals
like Thoreau were thrown in jail; In the Civil War, prominant
Southern intellectuals were Unionists, and in WW2 the Anglo- American
intelligencia was almost unanimous in pacifism and isolationism. (I'll
confess ignorance of the state of public opinion before the Spanish
War).
My point is that in this, like is most everything else he's writing
about, Chomsky is cherry-picking.
The Punitive Expedition example is really one I'd expect Chomsky to
know, as someone who has written extensively about US involvement in
Latin America from the Revolution to the present.
> Try <http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv>
>
Much appreciated!
-Ben
Rowland McDonnell
> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
[snip]
> > The UK does fulfill the requirement (if you look at it the right way) of
> > `Islamic country' using the definition you provided above:
> >
> > `I suppose "Islamic country" is taken here to mean a country without
> > seperation of church and state, with a non-secular gov't?'
>
> Right, sorry. I thought you meant the first definition.
The bit of quoted text I'm referring to is the bit of quoted text
directly before my new text - *not* some arbitrary bit of quoted text
some stages before that. I'm not sure how you could get confused, but
just in case it helps:
<http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting>
Martha Bridegam
John Rennie wrote:
>
>
> Who cares what Rowland means by an Islamic state or what you mean by it.
> It's what the bloody Reverend Falwell means by it as interpreted by Bayle.
> I can think we can reasonably assume that he, Falwell, is not one bit
> interested in the distinction between the secular and religious state made
> by Rowland.
Reverend Falwell is in fact likely to care, in the sense that he seems to
disapprove of all forms of anticlericalism.
/MAB
Martha Bridegam
Ben Brumfield wrote:
> ...<snip explanation & quotes from Chomsky>
>
> ...My point is that in this, like is most everything else he's writing
> about, Chomsky is cherry-picking.
>
Thx -- what I meant to ask about was the WWI stuff. Cherry-picking, yes, and counting on his own
exceptionally large stock of fact sheets to impress people instead of engaging their interest by
commenting on the easily accessible daily news.
But do you really mean that "in WW2 the Anglo- American intelligentsia was almost unanimous in
pacifism and isolationism." -- !!?? That doesn't sound right. Also, pacifism is a different thing from
isolationism, and I'm not sure the two sentiments should be bracketed together.
/MAB
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> It's what the bloody Reverend Falwell means by it as interpreted by Bayle.
> I can think we can reasonably assume that he, Falwell, is not one bit
> interested in the distinction between the secular and religious state made
> by Rowland.
How come? The distinction I drew is the only one I would consider using
myself.
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> I'll amend that request - can we have posters' own opinions
> other than Rowland's. We've had enough of those to sink
> this news group already. :-)
<grin> I take it you've not visited the comfortably afloat
uk.comp.sys.mac?
Gene Zitver
>Horowitz's Salon article about Chomsky's 9/12 statement really changed
>my opinion completely. Of course, I check anything H says about
>someone against the original, and that sent me off researching all C's
>speeches made in the days following the attacks. Based on a few
>glaring lies or distortions, I've come to the conclusion that Chomsky
>has as little intellectual honesty as Horowitz.
If anyone needs more evidence of Chomsky's intellectual dishonesty, compare his
bland assertion last October that the US was "apparently trying to murder 3 or
4 million people" in Afghanistan...
http://www.zmag.org/GlobalWatch/chomskymit.htm
...with his dilligent efforts back in 1977 to minimize the extent of the
slaughter carried out by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/chombookrev.htm
I believe the estimates of up to 2 million killed by Pol Pot's forces-- which
Chomsky tried to discredit-- are now generally accepted as accurate.
Gene
Martha Bridegam
Gene Zitver wrote:
ouch./MAB
Ben Brumfield
I most certainly don't mean that, even though that's exactly what I
typed in a hastily-written 19K letter cranked out before work one day.
But I think you'll agree that that group was hardly a pack of
bloodthirsty warmongers, whipped into a frenzy by government
propaganda in WW2.
Apologies for the incoherence, again.
-Ben
Ben Brumfield
> "Ben Brumfield" <old...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:ccbfb77e.02032...@posting.google.com...
> > At the time, I happened to be reading about Pershing's Punitive
> > Expedition into Mexico in 1916. Obviously, it was a response to a
> > direct attack on the lower 48 by Pancho Villa, putting lie to
> > Chomsky's claims about no attacks since 1812. Perhaps more important
> > is asking why Chomsky would ignore it? The parallels to Afghanistan
> > were obvious, so why not mention it? The only reason I can come up
> > with is that he's either ignorant of US intervention in Mexico
> > (unlikely), or intentional misrepresentation of history for rhetorical
> > purposes.
> >
> > In short, I agree with your "crank" assessment completely, but have
> > decided that Chomsky is not a commentator who gets things wrong, but a
> > pure propagandist, willing to distort the truth or flat-out lie
> > whenever it suits him. In my opinion, he's much better at this than
> > Horowitz or Limbaugh because he chooses particularly obscure documents
> > and events to support his points, betting that his readers will be
> > intimidated into not checking his sources. No matter whether I agree
> > with his points, I just can't trust him. Ever.
>
> Because he failed to mention Villa's attack in 1916? What are the
> "rhetorical purposes" that such an ommission would serve?
>
Afghanistan, claiming that it was exactly what Bin Laden wanted. The
Punitive Expidition was an example of one such unilateral action
against a guerrila group in territory that most emphatically did not
want the US to intervene. It managed to anger Mexico, and did not
catch Villa. However, relations with Mexico were repaired, and
Villa's organization was pretty much destroyed, so that he wasn't even
a contender in the rest of the Revolution. Nowadays, I believe that
the operation is viewed as a success. Citing successful unilateral
actions hardly strenghtens the case that a proposed unilateral action
would be catastrophic.
In addition, Chomsky was touting the point of the US not having been
attacked in a very long time, hard enough to make his rather odd
distinctions about "the national territory" in order to rule out Pearl
Harbor. So I think ignoring another action more recent than 1812
helped along that rhetorical point, whatever it was trying to prove.
> Do your other data points represent distortions of truth or lies
> or is this the only one?
>
See what I posted in another message. Also, at the time I was riled
up about his phrasing that by asking Pakistan to seal its border with
Afghanistan, we were demanding that Pakistan murder millions of
victims of the Taliban. I can give the quote, if you like. I think
Gene has referred to it elsewhere in this thread.
-Ben
Ben Brumfield
Probably the sound quality on the dubbed cassette.
-Ben
John Rennie
Well now I have heard of Chomsky and, thanks to Gene, have had the
opportunity to read some of his views. He appears to be no better and no
worse than most political commentators. He's certainly no sort of Messiah
but then he doesn't seem to claim such eminence. I would just like to
comment on one phrase I picked up from the foregoing:.
Terrorism Works - Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak
Yes it works but it is a weapon of both the strong AND the weak. The
suicide bomber is the only way that has been left to the extreme wing of the
Palestinians to hit back at Israel - it is an expression of their weakness
just as the Kamikaze pilots exploits in 1945 were an expression of Japan's
weakness. Chomsky uses many such rolling phrases - they sound good but
don't bear close examination.
Gene Zitver
>What I really wonder is, why aren't folks like David Corn or Michael Moore
>(currently a very popular author, as Paul notes) or Naomi Klein or Molly
>Ivins
>or even Jello Biafra speaking & getting discussed at the level of the
>Gitlin/Chomsky/Hitchens/Walzer debate (recently joined by Salman Rushdie and
>Tariq Ali in the UK Guardian, per A&L Daily)? Is it maybe that Corn, Moore,
>Klein, et al. aren't as easy to criticize because they're livelier thinkers
>than Chomsky?
I find Moore pretty easy to criticize myself. For example, he seems intent on
perpetuating the myth of $43 million in US aid to the Taliban, long after it
was discredited by the Boston Phoenix and others. He's not the only one, of
course, but I think most of the others have wised up by now.
Unfortunately Salon.com wants you to pay money to read the whole thing:
http://www.salon.com/politics/col/spinsanity/2002/03/26/moore/index_np.html
The Boston Phoenix debunking from last fall is available for free at:
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/0
1839506.htm
Gene
Gene Zitver
>I find Moore pretty easy to criticize myself. For example, he seems intent on
>perpetuating the myth of $43 million in US aid to the Taliban, long after it
>was discredited by the Boston Phoenix and others.
Although to give him credit, I thought "Roger and Me" was a terrific film. I
saw it when he previewed it in person at a dissident United Auto Workers caucus
meeting in St. Louis. I wish he had stuck to making movies like that.
Gene
Paul Sebastianelli
"Gene Zitver" <gzi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020326115424...@mb-ck.aol.com...
> Gene Zitver wrote
>
> >I find Moore pretty easy to criticize myself. For example, he seems
intent on
> >perpetuating the myth of $43 million in US aid to the Taliban, long after
it
> >was discredited by the Boston Phoenix and others.
And? That's all you've got?
I like Moore a lot, although I carry an awfully bad taste
in my mouth regarding stories that he stifled a union drive
amongst his writers.
> Although to give him credit, I thought "Roger and Me" was a terrific film.
I
> saw it when he previewed it in person at a dissident United Auto Workers
caucus
> meeting in St. Louis. I wish he had stuck to making movies like that.
Did you ever watch "The Awful Truth?" There are some
real priceless bits that he did on that show. Like the time
he took a group of people who had lost their vocal cords
due to smoking - second hand smoke, at least one of them -
around to the offices of tobacco companies and tobacco
lobbying firms to sing Christmas carols. Gutwrenching.
There were a number of good, creative examples of
investigative journalism on that show - on factory
farms, on health insurance, for examples - that really
exposed light in some dark places, and also helped
correct some injustices. The main problem is, they
generally don't allow that shit on network tv anymore.
paul.
Paul Sebastianelli
Not just dishonest - lazy, too.
paul
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> The thing that's breathtaking, however is his sentence "Take an
> example that is remote enough so that we should be able to look at it
> with some dispassion: World War I." With the artistry of the
> propagandist, Chomsky conceals his selectivity behind the veil of
> 'dispassion'. The fact of the matter is that WWI is unique in its
> lack of dissent.
Er? Chomsky points out that the old lecher (before he became such)
Betrand Russell got locked up for dissent during the Great War (not so
far away that we can look at it with all that much dispassion if you ask
me and I've no idea why Chomsky says he thinks otherwise). `Conshies' -
consciencious objectors to the war - were common (persecuted, but
common) in Britain. *What* lack of dissent?
> Think about it -- In the revolution, loyalists
> provided forces to the British; In the War of 1812, New England
> threatened to secede in protest; In the Mexican War, intellectuals
> like Thoreau were thrown in jail; In the Civil War, prominant
> Southern intellectuals were Unionists, and in WW2 the Anglo- American
> intelligencia was almost unanimous in pacifism and isolationism.
This has got to be complete cobblers. The Anglo side of that
intelligentsia was too close to Hitler to think that isolationism could
possibly work even before the Second World War had started up. And once
the bombs had started dropping - well, pacifism might be fine-sounding,
but you've got to be a very strange person to think that it'll work when
the enemy is raining explosive death onto your home city every night.
O'course, if those attitudes *had* prevailed and Germany *had* invaded
Britain successfully, the American side of the intelligentsia would have
discovered the idiocy of attempting to maintain an isolationist policy
in the face of someone with nuclear warhead armed ICBMs and the
willingness to use them (i.e., Hitler - von Braun and Heisenberg were
(`maybe' in the case of Heisenberg - much about him is uncertain...)
working on those jobs and they'd've got there given a bit more time,
money, and a lack of the bombing which disrupted Heisenberg in
particular).
[snip]
> My point is that in this, like is most everything else he's writing
> about, Chomsky is cherry-picking.
[snip]
And making blatently false statements. But does it really matter?
What's so important about this propaganda artist that he needs
discussion?