Radical Leftovers
Yikes! I had a software meltdown and lost a 1500 word post I just did on the wonderful work of Michael Berube. I’ve had a 16 hour day and I’m way too tired to reproduce the whole thing. So you’re off the hook.
Let me just say that Michael has taken on and accomplished the most thankless task of all: explaining in an extended and finely argued series of witty postings why he — and sometimes folks like yours truly– take so much time to criticize fellow lefties, especially those of the more exotic, radical species.
While I’m a lowly journalist, Michael is a distinguished professor of literature and cultural studies and belive me the difference shows. So please go to his blog and look at his multi-part series – which has been running all week– in which he explains why it is, indeed, important to take on ANSWER, Chomsky, Roy and others like Ed Herman.
Unforunately, Michael and I still can’t agree on the latter. I think Herman’s a fourth-rate hack. Berube insists on ranking him in the third tier of intellectual dead wood. We probably agree, however, that Michael Parenti is in some category all by himself.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:56 am
I didn’t see M Berube say it was important to “take on” Chomsky. I see, however that he points out a logical error – a single one – made b
August 11th, 2006 at 9:02 am
(hit send) mad by him.
I respect what Berube is trying to do, and most of the left actualyl agrees with him. I’m glad he is actually quite respectful of Chomsky.
In terms of his other tarets, I don’t necc. agree or disagree, I just think that it says more about Berube than it does about his targets that he chooses to attack them now, esp using words said by targets that may not be relevant to the current conjuncture. There is also a plurality of voices in many of the circles he attacks, and not all of the attributed views are shared by all “adherents” of one left or another.
I’m glad he sticks by RFK and Gene McCarthy. They really would have helped the Palestinians.
August 11th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Admirable thinking but, alas, nearly impenetrable leftjargon prose (“Rather, recognition politics have consequences for the redistribution of social goods and resources even though they cannot be reduced to their redistributive effects”).
P.S. RFK would have helped the Palestinians if one hadn’t murdered him.
August 11th, 2006 at 11:53 am
What have Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky said that was as outrageous as Alan Dershowitz? And who is a bigger ass, Ward Churchil or David Horowitz – another Berube target?
(I believe Berube made crazy Dave’s list as one of the 101 most dangerous lefty profs)
August 11th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Marc, you and Berube both make me laugh, and on certain days, that’s all that matters.
While I agree about taking on the left (Michael LeVine’s piece, you pointed out earlier..
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-levine/has-the-left-gone-mad_b_26505.html
.. was also a perfect example of why this is true), some of these same writers make a point that needs to be read in the 18-writer open letter published in the Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/petition
(Plus, while one might sometimes take issue with Roy, Zinn and Naomi Klien, the brilliant poet of witness, Carolyn Forche, who also signed the letter, is IMHO beyond reproach.)
August 11th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
One of the few measurable effects liberals have had on American foreign policy since the Reagan years has been to help the right promote the demonization paradigm.
Marc and fellow Euston Manifesto demonizationists have yet to acknowledge any of their responsibility in this.
The two-year Cheney-Bush campaign to transform the need to protect ourselves from terrorists into the need to invade Iraq only worked because Saddam Hussein had been so thoroughly demonized, it became impossible to question the WMD myth and others without being labeled a sympathizer, apologist or worse.
As long as it’s impossible to say, wait a minute, maybe everything we’re being told about Saddam, or Slobo or Castro isn’t true, without being called an apologist or a wingnut, there is little hope of preventing the next Iraq war.
Where was the opposition to the Iraq war back when it could have been prevented? A big part of it was either assenting to or even joining in on the overwrought propaganda campaign to make Saddam look like the devil’s evil twin.
But the horror film didn’t start with Saddam; it started in Afghanistan. Back then, the devil’s wicked cousin was Leonid Brezhnev, who was said to be dropping bombs shaped like toys so the children of Afghanistan would pick them up and get their faces blown off.
So when the Reaganut’s came up with the plan to fund radical Islamic terrorists through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, mainstream liberals declined to oppose it. Why? They believed they could not risk being called Stalinist dupes. The stupendous cost of liberals’ failure to challenge the demonization of the Soviets is now obvious. The Taliban, bin Laden, the Islamic radicalization of Pakistan’s intelligence service are all by products of this. (Again, the Reaganites were the drunks here, but liberals were enablers.)
The style of rhetoric and commentary that demonizes America’s military opponents absolutely must go. We really can’t afford it.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
not sure how marc’s praising a post that, in the course of expressing reservations about chomsky’s work, suggests nominating him for a “lifetime achievement award” is demonization. (or when he became a democrat.) criticism is not synonymous with demonization, particularly when it expresses a thoughtful appreciation for the person being criticized. demonization would involve saying things like “chomsky is a self hating jew who despises america and supported the khmer rouge,” something berube’s piece explicitly refuses to do.
August 11th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
“So is this “one out of four ain’t bad school of thought? ”
Pubius. You sometimes make the weirdest objections.
18 writers signed the letter. I simply singled out Carolyn Forche arbitrarily because I love her work, and she’s not as widely known as some of the others. Toni Morrison also signed it, as did Harold Pinter, Gore Vidal and 15 more—including Thomas Keneally who wrote the Booker prize winning fictionalized account of Oskar Schindler’s life on which “Schindler’s List†was based.
August 12th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Lucas: I’m not suggesting Marc is demonizing Chomsky.
I’m suggesting his primary, chronic objection to fringe lefties is that they fail to assent to the demonization of foreign leaders who refuse to go along with American power, e.g. Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosovic.
Marc’s unsubstantiated ad hominem attack on George Galloway is, perhaps, the best example of this. Because Galloway refused, and refuses, to demonize Saddam enthusiastically enough, Marc condemns as a Saddam supporter/apologist/lackey.
There has to be room in the American media for more circumspect views of people like Hamas, Hezbollah, Bashir and so on. They are far from democratic and many associated with them are no better than murderers. But it just doesn’t do to paint them as something other than humans.
August 12th, 2006 at 4:08 am
“I’m not suggesting Marc is demonizing Chomsky.”
Why not? He has done so repeatedly, for instance
http://marccooper.com/chomsky-in-right-field/
“it looks like he’s got the usual case of Manichean Anti-Yankeeism i.e. there’s a lot of evil in the world but no evil greater than U.S. Imperialism, period.”
August 12th, 2006 at 5:23 am
i thought that marc attacked galloway for licking saddam’s boots, y’know, the whole “sir, i salute your courage, your indefagitibility…” bit, but hey…(note. i don’t mind anyone marching in the same crowd as galloway, or, sleazy though he is, even giving him a place on their platform. the man knows how to work a crowd, and if you’re trying to, say, draw attention to the destruction of lebanon, someone with that kind of ability can be very useful. but to say that galloway merely refuses to go along with saddam’s demonization, when the man has spent a great deal of time and energy actually praising the ba’ath in iraq and syria, is to slightly miss the point.)
August 12th, 2006 at 8:46 am
“I’m not suggesting Marc is demonizing Chomsky.â€
Why not? He has done so repeatedly, for instance
http://marccooper.com/chomsky-in-right-field/
“it looks like he’s got the usual case of Manichean Anti-Yankeeism i.e. there’s a lot of evil in the world but no evil greater than U.S. Imperialism, period.â€
(end clip from “truth machine”)
If that kind of critical comment is seen as “demonization”, I’d have to say that for all of the bravado, the hard left are pretty big babies and don’t seem to be able to stand any heat without getting their feelings hurt. As for Galloway, I’ll admit I’ve taken guilty pleasure in the guy’s grandstanding performance debating Hitchens for it’s sheer entertainment value (he’s a master of a the British parliamentary tradition of attack rhetoric) and it seems certain of his opponents in the Brit press have stretched some facts in their efforts to indict him, but Galloway’s a smarmy, one-note hack of the worst sort (as, unfortunatley, his arch-critic on these shores, Comrade Hitchens, has increaslingly become) and he seems never to have seen a dictator he couldn’t work up an apology for as long as they stand in opposition to the U.S.
August 12th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Reg, am I wrong or does this stuff bring to mind the spliter groups in “Life Of Brian?”
Is it the fact that most of these people make a buck or two of their writing that makes it impossible to say “I think you’ve oversimplifing there” rather than “you Stalist tool, your the epitomie of everything rotton, moronic piece of filth I was making a case for five minutes ago! Rot it hell!” I don’t know.
I’m still looking for the quote that would show Cynthia McKinny said anything about Bush that would be considered outrageous
by the 9-11 commission. We should also note this stuff is always primed by naked special pleading, like when Cooper tells me I shouldn’t agree with Galloway about Iraq because he’s anti-abortion.(!)
August 12th, 2006 at 9:22 am
“We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11… Those engaged in unusual stock trades immediately before September 11 knew enough to make millions of dollars from United and American airlines, certain insurance and brokerage firms’ stocks. What did the Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?”
That’s McKinney on Pacifica, of course, and it’s not the kind of speculation on 9/11 that I find convincing or useful. Not that there aren’t plenty of GOP congressmen who run their mouths even more flagrantly – but frankly I hold people who speak for “the left” to a higher standard. My own estimation of McKinney was based on the fact that she had become a lightening rod, not because she’d made a few mistakes or misstatements, which is only human. When a wingnut like Woody starts to support the re-election of a particular Democrat because she’s fodder for his ideological icons, I would have to say that the person’s effectiveness is in serious question.
August 12th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Incidentally, it’s my understanding that Galloway’s “Respect” group in England is a major magnet for those “Life of Brian” splinter groups you mention.
August 12th, 2006 at 9:34 am
It’s not an objection of sorts as much as an appeal to inappropriate authority. These writers may feel it, but I find the idea of an overall goal of eliminating the Palestinians when a state has been offered repeatedly, and declined, as blatant bias and an ignoring of any hostile actions on their part. They are free to believe anything they want; perfectly allowable in fictional venues.
August 12th, 2006 at 10:15 am
“a state has been offered repeatedly, and declined”
well, this is just a lie, as I and others have pointed out many times (eg my references to Tanya Reinhardt’s book). The only issue is whether Publius is lying deliberately or simply taken in by Israeli lies.
August 12th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Reg.. thank you for fighting my battles for me. Im far too weary and bored to respond to the idiocies of bunkerbuster or wall. Galloway was most recently on the stump saying he wanted to “glorify” Hezbollah. I don’t know, but I THINK that sentence alone ought to be sufficient reason to chuck him into the dustbin of history.
Unfortunately for the soft headed types like Mr. Wall, they dont seem to understand the damage wrought by the “life of Brian” types as they put it. There are actually INDENTIFIABLE REASONS why, for example, at a time when a majority of Americans oppose the war we have no visible peace movement. One of those reasons is that antiwar people early on ceded the leadership of the movement to sectarian cults like ANSWER who are in fact politically radioactive.
I would point to this piece by Mark Levine who is far more indulgent of the far left than I am but who, yet, frets out loud about some of the recent statements made by Chomsky-Zinn Etc.
—> http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/28864.html
August 12th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
P.S. people are free to do what they want. But “Publius” really is a harrassment sort of poster who is so obsessed and compulsive that he has actively eluded every blocking measure I have taken. He has some dark and compelling need to seek attention and for that I feel sorry for him. But I would strongly suggest to other commenters that he just be ignored. Please do not encourage him if you can help it.
As I said before, because of software ambiguities if I totally block him out it will take others out with him. Sort of the IDF model — one I dont wish to employ.
August 12th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
“If that kind of critical comment is seen as “demonizationâ€, I’d have to say that for all of the bravado, the hard left are pretty big babies and don’t seem to be able to stand any heat without getting their feelings hurt.”
I would say that it’s such immature writing and thinking that indicates big babyhood. And regardless of my political views, which you have no way of knowing, I am not in my own self “the hard left”, so no generalization from my statement to some grand truth about “the hard left” would be valid — even if what it takes to hurt people’s feelings had any relevance (other than to demonization). In any case, well-poisoning accusations about what cases people have is not properly characterized as “critical comment”.
August 12th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
P.S.
If Cooper’s ad hominem doesn’t count for you as demonization, how about “Chomsky Hugging Hezbollah”? At
http://marccooper.com/hari-and-hugo/#comment-41804
Michael Turner debunks that while at the same time making it clear that he’s no Chomsky-hugger himself.
OTOH, I just ran across
http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/film/left-footed/3220/
in which Cooper is slightly critical (although I think his criticisms only reflect his own ideology and intellectual confusion — that the Soviet Union was a worse terrorist state does not in itself imply that the U.S. is not +one of+ the worst) but primarily highly complimentary of Chomsky. So if I gave an impression of characterizing Cooper as +generally+ a Chomsky-demonizer — and I surely did — I retract it and apologize.
August 12th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Reg, her comment does use a fallacy to leap from a silly claim that some had prior knowledge to SUGGEST (but not state) that Bush had prior knowledge. She should have been called on it and apoligized. But outrage? How many speeches by Dick Cheney jumped from 9-11 to Iraq to create the impression the invasion was a direct and valid reaction? This fallacy was at the heart of the White House’s PR campaign to sell the war.
So yes, it’s the “lighting rod” part that smells of payback, and seems to get a response from impressionable types across the spectrum (My, isn’t our host fussy today… maybe he’s colicky).
Levine’s piece is a lot closer as far as holding the left to a higher, but fair, standard. Levine, by the way, seems “indulgent” of Hezbollah as well. What this proves about the far left destroying any chance for a substantial peace movement seems dubious; but I’d be happy to listen to the reasons if you’d care to identify them.
When some pretty big peace rallies seemed to come out of nowhere around the time of the Iraqi invasion, all I can remember out of Cooper, Eric Alterman and others is a lot of tsk tsking about people behind the scenes, whom almost all Americans never heard of and couldn’t care less about if they did. I just think a lot of people relized the war was a God awful idea.
If all those spliter groups unite under Galloway’s group, then ARE they still splinter groups, or one big splinter? Recently, Cooper answered Woody, quite accuratly, pointing out that his “with us or against us” stuff puts the U.S. in the posisiiton of being entirely reactive to the Terrorists, essentaily allowing them to dictate policy. Cooper never suggested, however, that their was anything WRONG with claiming those who disagree with you are dupes of the killers, weaklings, or traitors. So Mr. Cooper need never worry about his lack of indulgence of the far left. His indulgence of the far right covers all bases.
August 12th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
But “Publius†really is a harrassment sort of poster who is so obsessed and compulsive that he has actively eluded every blocking measure I have taken.
—
Scratch the surface of any liberal and you’ll see the totalitarian that lurks beneath.
August 12th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
P.P.S. On Cooper’s criticism of Chomsky on a matter of fact in that piece:
Here is what Chomsky writes in “The World After September 11″:
“The atrocities of Sept. 11 are regarded as a historic event, which is true, though not because of their scale. In its civilian toll, the crime is far from unusual in the annals of violence short of war. To mention only one example, so minor in context as to be a mere footnote, a Panamanian journalist, condemning the crimes of Sept. 11, observed that for Panamanians the “sinister times” are not unfamiliar, recalling the US bombing of the barrio Chorrillo during “Operation Just Cause” with perhaps thousands killed; our crimes, so there is no serious accounting.”
So Chomsky is relaying (with acceptance) the statement of “a Panamanian journalist”. His acceptance of the statement may be naive, but he may have other reasons for accepting it. For instance, in “Deterring Democracy” he writes
“The CODEHUCA report emphasizes that a great deal is uncertain, because of the violent circumstances, the incineration of bodies, and the lack of records for persons buried in common graves without having reached morgues or hospitals, according to eyewitnesses. Its reports, and the many others of which a few have been cited here, may or may not be accurate. A media decision to ignore them, however, reflects not professional standards but a commitment to power.
While Larry Rohter’s visits to the slums destroyed by U.S. bombardment located only celebrants, or critics of U.S. “insensitivity” at worst, others found a rather different picture. Mexico’s leading newspaper reported in April that Rafael Olivardia, refugee spokesman for the 15,000 refugees of the devastated El Chorrillo neighborhood, “said that the El Chorillo refugees were victims of a `bloodbath’ during and after the invasion.” “He said that those victims `saw North American tanks roll over the dead’ during the invasion that left a total of more than 2000 dead and thousands injured, according to unofficial figures.” “You only live once,” Olivardia said, “and if you must die fighting for an adequate home, then the U.S. soldiers should complete the task they began” on December 20.”
So while Chomsky’s statements about El Chorrillo may be factually wrong, it’s not correct to say that they are “off-the-wall”.
August 12th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
I’ve been critical of glorious george in the past for embracing the most reactionary elements of briotish muslim society as well as stumping for noxious dictactors in the middle east like assad. That said, this interview is simply stunning. Far too often when north american progressives speak about palestinians rights (if they can even make it that far) they do it in a pathetic and apologictic tone, undermining their case along the way and reinforcing dominant discourse which always emphasizes Israel’s need to “defend itself” even as palestinians dispossesion continues unabatted. Im sorry but on the question of palestinians rights galloway has been far more morally consistent than people like marc’s euston buddy, Waltzer. Yet i havent seen any snarky post dirented towards him from these quaters. Here’s, at least, a man with fire in his belly, my criticisms notwithstanding
http://tinyurl.com/zxd4w
August 12th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Great post. Berube is right on point on this. His writing on culture is not my cup of tea, but he sure is right about the Left.
The one depressing part of this state of the Left is that with all the failings of the “washington consensus” on economic and foreign policy matters, the Left is still invisible. The Left has actually become MORE marginalized as the “war on terror” continues to fail.
It is sad actually. In the years since Seattle, the Left has become a mute voice in global politics.
I just wonder if the left has any possibility of regeneration in the years to come. Probably not, given the hackiness of many “radicals” and liberals for that matter. They seem to be wastefull and foolish in a way that can only make the Right happy. The modern University is a great example.
August 12th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
I’ve heard this kind of thing from you before Josh. many times over. i guess i share your dismay at the state of the american left although im guessing we come at it from much different perspectives. But it seems to me that you say the same things over and over again without so much as a new thought. alot of generalisation not much specific insight. Being off topic is fine but boring, thats where i drw the line. Let me approach you from another angle then. Whats the answer? whats your popularity thse days with the disgruntled masses these days? instead of carping all the time maybe you can lay out a map, offer those who are seriously interestd in “regenerating the left” some tools to go about things. Ive heard what you dont like, well i think i have (“new left sentimentality”, seattle) now lets what you like instead. lay out the legere manifesto so to speak
August 12th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
Off topic… You are blabbering on about Palestinian rights again (something you would do if the post was on Pirates of the Caribbean). The post is on the state of the Left… How Walzer came into this! You have a bit of an obsession with the topic. Not much new thought on the subject!
Let me get specific with you. Check out the approval rating on the war in Iraq. Now look around and see if a viable anti war movement exists.
The minimum wage has not gone up in almost a decade. The economic condition of the working class and poor is pretty awful. Take a look around and see if a viable movement exists.
The rate of incarceration is increasing tenfold. Environmental degradation. Katrina. etc… No movements. Nothing.
The weight is not on me to come up with policy recommendations or organize a movement. Plenty of people at Universities, NGO’s, etc… Are getting paid to do just that. And failing.
The reality is that the radical intelligencia is fully institutionalized in the University system. These are highly paid professional scholars (someone recently ranked college teacher as one of the most desirable jobs) that spend time working on “whiteness studies” and the like.
Where the left has power and resources, they waste it. This has much to do with the vanity that the 60′s injected into the left. Either way they are failing.
I am not paid to come up with manifestos on how to regenerate the left. I will leave that to someone else. I am sure that I could not do any worse.
August 12th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Marc and reg’s Swift Boating of Galloway is a telling example of how the demonization of Saddam Hussein plays out.
Galloway has made clear in plain English that he is not and never was a supporter of Saddam Hussein. He did seek an end to the sanctions against Iraq and, in the process of that, engaged in rhetorical excesses. But no serious person can read what he says and conclude that he supported Saddam. The charge is scurrillous and those who make it should be ashamed.
Galloway’s goals were and are progressive and salutary and he was far more effective than most in confronting the total standard view that Saddam was a demon that could only be dealt with through violence. Had he been more successful, the false allegations about WMD would have received the scrutiny they deserve.
Here’s what Galloway says about Hezbollah in a television interview:
“Hezbollah are a part of the Lebanese national resistance who are trying to drive, having successfully driven most Israelis from their land in 2000, Israel from the rest of their land and to get back those thousands of Lebanese prisoners who were kidnapped by Israel under the terms of their illegal occupation of Lebanon. It’s Israel that’s invading Lebanon, its Israel that’s attacking Lebanon, not Lebanon that’s attacking Israel. You‘ve just been carrying a report of 10 Israeli soldiers on the border, getting ready to invade Lebanon, and you ask us to mourn that operation as if it were some kind of war crime. Israel is invading Lebanon and has killed 30 times more Lebanese civilians than have died in Israel. So it’s you who should be justifying the evident bias which is written on every line on your face, and is in every nuance of your voice, and is loaded in every question that you ask.”
If Marc and/or reg want to rebut that, I’d love to hear it in place of the name calling that has characterized their complaints so far.
August 12th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
bunkerbuster: you really are a piece of work. The translation of Hezbollah is Party of God. I wonder how soft you would be on them if they were Christians in the US instead of Muslims in Lebanon. They are judeophobes who believe, as doctrine, that not only Israel but in fact all JEWS are teh enemy of humanity (alonng with queers, atheists, christians and most women). If you believe that firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian population centers are some sort of resistance then you really need your head examined. Galloway’s “party” is full of muttonheads like yourself. No wonder you find him such a fit leader. You deserver each other.
In the meantime, see if you can find a single word Ive written that justifies Israeli war policy. You won’t. That says nothing of me. It only means that I can chew gum and walk at the same time. Not a big accomplishment. But you should try it sometime. No rush.
Ahmed… your comments about Walzer are kind of silly. Your asking me to prove a case by omission. I havent written much anything critical of Walzer, nor anything critical of him. That must mean I dont pay attention to him.
As to his influence… Im sure he would be happy to hear how much clout he has an individual… perhaps enough to water down an entirely otherwise militant leftist movement by your implication.
One thing we know, he hardly has the logistical power of the yik-yaks in ANSWER who seized control of the anti-war movement and went unchallenged until very recently.
August 12th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
“The only issue is whether Publius is lying deliberately or simply taken in by Israeli lies.”
By whose definition MB? I mean I really am interested at this point. A state has been offered, but I postulate it is in the extensive internal caveats you and yours have signed onto in which it hasn’t. Why not provide a quick start list so we can have them handy?
August 12th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Marc i put so little effort into this tread because, frankly, i find the topic so damn boring. Personally i like Michael Berube but the the hyper focus on Chomsky from certain segments of the American left borders on phychotic. Here, i think your colleague and perhaps the nation magaines most dynamic writer at the present time, Adam Shatz, got it right a while back when he said at times it feels like the editorial board at dissent magazine considers noam a greater threat than bush and cheney. Here’s Norman Finkelstein’s on the Noam obsession
“Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated, apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction, discovering the virtues of the status quo. “The last thing you can be accused of is having turned your coat,” Thomas Mann wrote a convert to National Socialism right after Hitler’s seizure of power. “You always wore it the ‘right’ way around.” If apostasy weren’t conditioned by power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in both directions. But that’s never been the case. The would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power’s magnetic field, rarely away. However elaborate the testimonials on how one came to “see the light,” the impetus behind political apostasy is–pardon my cynicism–a fairly straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in, on earthly pleasures. Indeed, an apostate can even capitalize on the past to increase his or her current exchange value. Professional ex-radical Todd Gitlin never fails to mention, when denouncing those to his left, that he was a former head of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Never mind that this was four decades ago; although president of my sixth-grade class 40 years ago, I don’t keep bringing it up. Shouldn’t there be a statute of limitations on the exploitation of one’s political past? In any event, it’s hard to figure why an acknowledgment of former errors should enhance one’s current credibility. If, by a person’s own admission, he or she had got it all wrong, why should anyone pay heed to his or her new opinions? Doesn’t it make more sense attending to those who got there sooner rather than later? A member of the Flat-Earth Society who suddenly discovers the world is round doesn’t get to keynote an astronomers’ convention. Indeed, the prudent inference would seem to be, once an idiot, always an idiot. It’s child’s play to assemble a lengthy list–Roger Garaudy, Boris Yeltsin, David Horowitz, Bernard Henri-Levy–bearing out this commonsensical wisdom.
Yet, an apostate is usually astute enough to understand that, in order to catch the public eye and reap the attendant benefits, merely registering this or that doubt about one’s prior convictions, or nuanced disagreements with former comrades (which, after all, is how a reasoned change of heart would normally evolve), won’t suffice. For, incremental change, or fundamental change by accretion, doesn’t get the buzz going: there must be a dramatic rupture with one’s past. Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse. A rite of passage for apostates peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. It’s the political equivalent of a bar mitzvah, a ritual signaling that one has “grown up”–i.e., grown out of one’s “childish” past. It’s hard to pick up an article or book by ex-radicals–Gitlin’s Letters to a Young Activist, Paul Berman’s Terror and Liberalism–that doesn’t include a hysterical attack on him. Behind this venom there’s also a transparent psychological factor at play. Chomsky mirrors their idealistic past as well as sordid present, an obstinate reminder that they once had principles but no longer do, that they sold out but he didn’t. Hating to be reminded, they keep trying to shatter the glass. He’s the demon from the past that, after recantation, no amount of incantation can exorcise.”
August 12th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
While the onus is clearly on Israel to knock off the bombing of Beirut and making life hell for people in southern Lebanon, can bunkerbuster say Galloway’s endorsement of Hizbollah was a reasonable disqualification of him being a reputable peace broker and wise man. Hizbollah is one of those special militias being unleashed by their supporters and directors, the Iranian mullahs and Ahmadie himself. Hizabollah in part is the Lebanese’s spirit of resistence, but that is because it commits social services and political support. If Hizbollah was really on the side of the Lebanese resistence, they wouldn’t be supported by the Syrians now would they?
August 12th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
For a, um, more nuanced view of Hezbollah, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah
August 13th, 2006 at 12:52 am
I don’t understand this need to chortle over a faux debate about whether Edward S. Herman is third rate or fourth rate as a hack. Has he fallen off his game? Yeah, and you will too, probably, by the time you reach “emeritus” years. Was he ever as illustrious a figure in the academic field of finance as Chomsky remains in linguistics? Apparently not–most of the published papers in his field that I can find now are from the late fifties and early sixties. But he’s not a hack, much less a hack of a lower grade.
Check this out — Domhoff (no rightwinger) on left media criticism. He cites a sociology paper (hardly the only one written citing Chomsky and Herman directly ) addressing what’s right and wrong about what might be called the Standard Left Model for media criticism.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/media.html
Now, this is interesting, isn’t it? We have professional sociologists, writing in peer-reviewed sociology journals, about what’s both right and wrong about theories of politically motivated media manipulation theories framed by a linguist and a professor of finance. So I think the argument comes down not to whether Herman is a third or fourth rate hack, but how Herman has somehow managed to become something approaching, say, a second-rate *scholar* in a field that isn’t even his academic specialty.
I agree with Domhoff that the Standard Left Model “overstates the case”. Nevertheless, there is something to it. Just the other day, in an article in the Herald Tribune about Khmer Rouge leaders possibly going to trial, I read, yet again, that the Khmer Rouge killed 1.7 Cambodians, about a quarter of the population at the time. Where does this number come from? Arguably, from U.S. policy maker attempts to do something like what Chomsky and Herman called “Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology.”
No serious study I’ve been able to find ever supported any figure higher than about one million from ALL causes of death combined. Census studies conducted by the U.N. combined with the last census study done before any extensive American involvement make it very difficult to explain how Cambodia could possibly have a population as high as it has now if the Khmer Rouge had killed even as many as half a million. Indeed, even that figure could only be explained by a demographic anomaly involving a sudden increase in birth rates to levels equal to the highest seen in the world today, from right after the supposed “auto-genocide” to just before the first U.N. census. The problem is: neither of the two post-Vietnamese-occupation U.N. census studies feature such dramatically high birth rates. Cambodians have the same birth rates now as they did in the early sixties.
So how do we get the typical “1.7 million” even now, when the evidence even 1/3rd that figure is sketchier than ever? Because what Chomsky and Herman talked about in their two-volume Political Economy of Human Rights actually works sometimes.
It appears that even a “fourth rate political” hack can be right twice a decade.
August 13th, 2006 at 1:21 am
Hmmmm, it seems like a good time for a musical interlude dont ya think. Caught this song while watching Mckinneys concession speech. enjoy
http://tinyurl.com/eavrh
August 13th, 2006 at 7:27 am
Legere asks Ahmed about an obsession with Palestinian rights. Any viable American left program has to have solidarity with oppressed naitonalities as part of its program. Not in a sort of fetishized “third worldist” sense but in that it calls fora policy that would implement freedom for Palestinians, etc.
The problem with the left is not radical university professors writing about identity politics. It is a combination of the power of sectarians – not surprising in a country that likes its leaders dumb and accessible – and others spending more time criticizing said sectarians than providing another program. I think authoritarian/ML thinking has too much power – though Lenin has a core that can eb extricated to deduce that modern Seattle anarchists, in Henwoods words are todays “Lenins”
We have to move back to real anticapitalism, but we can’t do it either with sectarian businessmen or scolds lie Walzer, a man who happens to have been a cheerleader for Israel’s latest atrocities. A litmus test? How about the Euston types acknowledging that they are not part of any real left, nor are the WWP.
August 13th, 2006 at 7:58 am
So MT are you saying this 1.7 is made up? Who did it and why? There was another number you didn’t buy but it escapes me now. I found that to be based on a thin allegation.
August 13th, 2006 at 8:09 am
This guy pegs it higher it seems. Is he supposed to be some US propagandist shill trying to cover up an “imperial” campaign?
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP4.HTM
August 13th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Michael Turner:
All of Domhoff’s premises are flawed. If you’re serious about studying the media, and are only interested in “scholars” whose “academic field” is journalism and media studies, check out Robert W. McChesney.
August 13th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I have just read the new post of Berube (all of them) and I am not really impressed. We seem to run the same course of what has happened to the “Peace Now” group in Israel, that was so effective during the last incursion in Lebanon. They now side with Zionism and are even party members, our left is as effective as their left.
What do we do? We parse the differences between progressive, central and radical left – while we are on the brink of possible world conflagration. We have a radical left in despair, which symbiotically feeds off resistance no matter what source – because they feel isolated, ineffective and useless in the face of these aggressions. We have a progressive and centrist left, an effete elite that would rather argue about political nuances while people are dying daily. We do and say anything and everything except that which would elicit change in the current status quo.
We have idiots denying that there is a process of imperialism that has and is taking place in the Middle East, somehow their minds just go back a few weeks – the rest went down the proverbial rabbit hole. So in various ways we have squandered the chance to bring effective resistance in the one country that could have made a difference, the United States. Hey, at least we know where we stand on the petty points of someone’s politcal scale. The radical has spoken, now go back to your pathetic infighting.
August 13th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
“If Marc and/or reg want to rebut that, I’d love to hear it”
There’s nothing much there to rebut, since Galloway offers a version of Hezbollah in a single dimension – their resistance to Israel – as opposed to the cauldron of Lebanese politics and what has happened to that country over the past 30-odd years. If you think that Lebanon’s biggest problem over this period has been periodic incursions by Israel against Palestinian or Hezbollah fighters – or that the Lebanese people benefit in any way, shape or form from Hezbollah’s opportunistic provocations and counter-provocations at the southern border – you really can’t see the forest for the trees. Galloway’s a one-note hack. Rebut that.
August 13th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Michael Turner…
A couple of points. I’m pleased it makes such a difference to you that perhaps only 1 million and not 1.7 million Cambodians were killed. I suppose it’s ok for you to owe that crucial fact to Herman.
Your request, by the way, that I be more generous and understanding of him in his waning years most definitely falls on deaf ears. He was certianly spry enough a few years ago to write completely fictional defamatory smears on me and several of my friends — really the worst kind of manufactured and baseless garbage.
He should consider himself lucky that someone didnt fly out to Penn and offer him some wall to wall counseling! If you believe I am too harsh in calling him a fourth rate hack then maybe I will consider calling him merely a stupid old man in future references — if u feel that is more appropriate. And for the record — no— I dont think he ever had much game to lose, frankly.
As to Ed Watters and his usual ideological posture: I know McChesney and have read him carefully. Likewise with Domhoff. I would give Domhoff the victory on this one. The Left needs to bash the media in order to justify its own shortcomings and failures. Almost every successful and profound social uphaeval and transformation has been carried out in an atmosphere in which the ancien regime completey controlled the media. Do you believe the Nation magazine has only 200,000 readers because? because? because? Because maybe that, for better or worse, reflects the real size of its constituencies? Do you concede that possibility?
To Virgil: You seem to be bathing in the perceived paralysis which no doubt reaffirms the purity of your positions. “Infighting” is hardly the word to describe what Berube has written. I grew up respecting and admiring those who could argue their positions and win influence by the strength and validity of their arguments. That’s how you define leadership by the way… You ability to present sound ideas in win a following. I have no more in common with george galloway and ANSWER than I do with George Bush and Dick Cheney. Challenging those first two is hardly infigting, Virgil. It is, rather, demanding some intellectual honesty.
I dare say that the conflict in the Middle East is a tad more complicated than “imperialism.” I will remind you that it was the Imperialsist who stopped Israel dead in its tracks in 1956. It was the imperialist CIA that trained and advised Arafat’s PA security force. And while the US has played a disonorable role in green lighting the IDF strategy, the conflict also involves religous fundamentalists and sworn judeophobes whose reckless actions cannot and should not be ascribed to US Imperialism.
August 13th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Cooper: ” I have no more in common with george galloway and ANSWER than I do with George Bush and Dick Cheney.”
Well, that’s pretty obvious. Your ideological stable mates are liberal Democrats, not radicals or the Republican Right. Nothing you have ever written here or in print would sound particularly out-of-whack with what one would hear on NPR or read in the Atlantic Monthly. The only puzzlement is why you would refer to yourself as a “leftist”. I don’t think that people in the Upper West Side Democratic Club refer to themselves in that manner. Maybe it is time to drop that pretension.
August 13th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
“I have no more in common with george galloway and ANSWER than I do with George Bush and Dick Cheney.”
Galloway may well be, as reg asserts, a one-note hack, but he is not a war criminal. Maybe he would be, given the power, but he isn’t and the comparison with Cheney-Bush is absurd.
If Marc would refrain from hyperbole and ad hominem in his attacks on Galloway, as he does in his attacks on Bush and Cheney, I’d take no issue with it. But there seems to be a kind of vendetta going on with Marc and rival lefties.
Where’s Marc’s criticism of Hitchens, whose crimes against truth and progressive values are far more obvious and important than Galloway’s unfortunate rhetorical flights?
And…Marc claims that I’d oppose Hezbollah if it were a Christian militia. But no hypothetical is necessary. There is a Christian militia in Lebanon, the fascists Phalangists, and we know their history includes massacres far beyond the scale of anything Hezbollah has attempted. Interesting that Marc would sidestep that historical fact in favor of a reductionist hypothetical barb worthy of Fox News Channel. I’m sure they pay a lot more than Pacifica and Marc definitely has what it takes.
We don’t have to agree with all of Hezbollah’s politics to acknowledge that it includes democratic and social welfare elements and that it is on the right side against Israel. That alone doesn’t mean that the threat the militarist ideologues within their ranks poses should be ignored. It does mean that the total standard position advocated by Marc (That Hezbollah is anti-woman, anti-Jew and anti-gay) invites correction.
While Hezbollah, much like the U.S. government, includes within its ranks all manner of prejudices and ideological sickness, it is not based on that and has not, for example, implemented sharia in the areas of Lebanon it has controlled.
August 13th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Other than the physical threat on an “old man,” that was a damn good defense, MC put out there. 10 points.
August 13th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
http://www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-265.htm
Friedman one a Pulitzer for trying to unscramble this one. Vying for “worst group” here is like trying to be the biggest liar at the liar’s yearly convention.
August 13th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
bb -
The Phalangists are now siding with Hez.
August 13th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Rudy Kazootie says:
“Your ideological stable mates are liberal Democrats, not radicals or the Republican Right. Nothing you have ever written here or in print would sound particularly out-of-whack with what one would hear on NPR or read in the Atlantic Monthly.”
Leaving regular readers of the blog to wonder, why do people waste their time pointing out that Marc does not fit in the category of the “Left” as they conceive of it? It is:
(1) an empty exercise from a logical standpoint, because it’s clear that even Naomi Klein, Doug Henwood, and Noam Chomsky have ideological differences that would exclude them from one or another conception of “true left”.
(2) completely ineffectual in somehow embarrassing Marc into, what, silence? Into hewing to a more doctrinaire left perspective (although meeting the purity test is impossible, see (1) above) ? He’s pointed out repeatedly that he’s indifferent to these labels, and by now, we should take him at his word.
(3) totally ineffective in, what, making blog readers feel that they’re reading some kind of milquetoast commentary that might be on (shock, horror!) NPR. Is the point that his stance must not overlap significantly with any bourgeois institution? In short: who cares if the posts here can or cannot go on NPR?
August 13th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Say what you will about Chomsky and others but on the question of Lebanon (and thanks to rosedog for posting that excelllent letter) at least these folks have the fortitude and honestly to call war crimes by their name. On the other hand I read Berube’s thoughts on the matter (and i like micheal alot) but it was one of the most tediously written things ive come across in along time. He mostly quotes other people, and loads every sentence with loads of quaslifications and reassurances. The thing boders on incoherant. Useless, for sure, but i also found the post quite disturbing. Perhaps this is what virgil’s gettign at
August 13th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Bunker, don’t you have homework to do?
August 13th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
The issue is not whether Cooper has something to say or not. He certainly does. I try to keep up with all of the radical-hating liberals on the Internet like him, Michael Berube, Norm Geras, Ian Williams, Oliver Kamm, etc. The main problem is that he tries to speak in the name of some “decent” left, when he is not part of the left at all. Doug Henwood, for example, has little in common with Cooper even though they both have written for the Nation. Indeed, Cooper has spewed hatred toward the Nation on several occasions here because it is not gusano enough for his tastes. I am sure that there would be a lot less acrimony if he stopped worrying about the radical left and focused on improving the liberal message, as his co-thinkers at Huffington Post do. You’ll note that they don’t waste time snarling at Edward Herman. They focus on the enemy.
August 13th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
To wit, someone may not be interested in labels, but whether one uses the phrase “left” or not, America needs a real left, with influence. This won’t come – never has come from – score settling and 5 day blog post hate-fests.
August 13th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Randy
You are living in a world of delusion. The biggest Radical poseurs around all live in BoBo luxury. Cooper ain’t the only one with a nice pad.
This is actually a point I respect about Cooper. He does not bullshit his readers by pretending he is living in South LA. But given his status, I am still willing to guess that NONE of the other contributing editors of the Nation will engage in something as boorish as fishing. Certainly not Katrina and the gang up in Manhattan!
All of you radical heroes are well off, and many of them are probably much wealthier than Cooper. Chomsky has sold a hell of a lot of books!
Leftists have become institutionalized in various institutions in America. You don’t have to be on Fox to acknowledge that reality. The careerism and professionalization of radicalism is also a reality.
Not that one cannot make a decent living and be sincere. But some are better at it than others. A lot of people are full of shit. I talked to one of Marc’s colleagues at the Nation a few years back (he had written something pertaining to my employer, so I thanked him) and he bragged to me about summering in the Hamptons. I work in a slimy industry where that kind of crass bragging is typical, but even that was a bit much for me.
Selling your opinion – if you have an interesting one – can be lucrative. You don’t have to actually believe what you are saying.
August 13th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
“at least these folks have the fortitude and honestly to call war crimes by their name”
Right, they’re authors of fiction. That’s like looking to Michael Crichton on Global Warming for “expertise.” Wait, the president did! These folks won’t have any such luck.
August 13th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Man, that Rudy Kazootie guy is really embarrasing me. I do in fact get up every morning asking myself if Im really a leftist or not. It’s a question that absolutely plagues me!
Anyway, Rudy, here’s one truth. I dont purport to speak in the name of anybody or anything — unlike say your good pals at ANSWER.
Indeed, I sign only my name to what I write.
Unlike you.
I’d love to have your real email address– then I could send you a solicitation to make a Paypal contribution to my summer pool heater fund. It’s a real bitch, the bill running sometimes $300 a month. The only consolation I have is knowing that the pool is filled with the sweat of oppressed workers (and peasants).
August 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Pardon me if I am not impressed with what I read a Berube’s site, or not moved by much of it’s ilk today. It’s time to pass the baton, but those in the race would rather hold on to it and equivocate. If there is no intention to address the pressing issue(s) at hand, than get out of the way.
If Israel does not wish to be the target of attacks nor give fuel to “fundametalists and sworn judeophobes,” than she should sit honestly at the negotiation table and stop being the agent for imperial design – and understand that in the long run her interest is in peace, rather than proffering inadequate deals. One may indeed point to a religious extremism and no one has denied it, but you do not need to throw fuel on the fire by murderous and illegal acts to give your enemies further credence to their warped position.
Am I supposed to be impressed by this 1956 reference to the CIA and PLO? Anyone worth their salt understands that this element took root because of fear of the Soviet Union.There was nothing but a minor element in American policy at this time that favored (reservedly) the PLO. They were quashed quickly, and what they had learned was turned against them as proof of their terrorist activity – please….this has always been the stock of that organization, to enrage one group against another (playing off their animosities).
By far the United States has been the most ardent supporter of Israel, almost without abate. The CIA, as well as the rest of the National Security Establishment needs to be dismantled. When I read the response to Berube’s posts from his students (no doubt) they dismissed the workings of the National Security State – no doubt, because of lack of emphasis an entire generation will grow up without a knowledge of what this government has clandestinely done in their name! Millions dead without an eyebrow raised – good job.
No doubt, the “Middle East is a little more complicated than imperialism,” yes, it is those complications that imperialism plays upon. In fact, it relies upon the unrest to throw thr region off balance, or plant leaders stamped with the USDA approved seal – otherwise, the resistant factions would gain a foothold – or they might become viable states, which are admired and supported by their people – god forbid they might become a real democracy.
The reason that Ahmed keeps striking the chord of the occupied territories is because this is the heart of the issue – drive the stake through this vampires heart and the rest is downhill from there. It will tear the rug from beneath the feet of these so-called leaders, because the law will finally have come to town. Roll back Israel to the pre-1967 borders and you take a great wind in the sails of these “islamofacsists” as some call them.
Stop supporting the U.S. approved governments that enslave their people, and you will have all the credibility necessary to put a stop to the rebels in the region (using the words of others) Iran and Syria. The only question you have to ask yourself is “why is this not done?”
It is at that point you fall on your own sword, because you have belittled the role of imperialism – and that is just fine with the powers that be. So you are no more effective than the neo-con’s which support the agenda, and are neutralized. So keep twirling, and be sure to debunk those who really know what is happening, and want change.
August 13th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
Reply to Marc Cooper:
Domhoff, in the article linked by Michael Turner, reduces the left agenda to third parties, the use of violent tactics, support for non-market planned economies and reliance on charismatic leaders. Thankfully, there is a little bit more to the left agenda and, also, that the left has no monopoly on violence or charisma.
In poll after poll, for decades and decades, it has been clearly shown that on both domestic and foriegn policy issues, a majority of the American public holds views that are well to the left of most of its politicians and media. The only exceptions to this well established phenomena are when certain politicians or sectors of corporate power wage a campaign (always with major MSM compliance) to shift opinion to the right (eg. the BushII administrations pre-Iraq war media blitz: the early 90s media smear campaign on the Canadian-style single payor healthcare system, back when Clinton was making some grumblings in that direction).
Domhoff’s facile, middle of the road assertion that both the “left and right consistently do attack the media (hoping) that they will bend in thier direction” is based on the dubious premise that the playing field is even close to being level.
GET REAL! The notion of “class-warfare” can’t even be mentioned in MSM discourse except of course when a Republican uses it in the context of defending regressive tax cuts (as in “soak the rich”).
Concerns about consolidation of media ownership, protesting third party exclusion from presidential debates and myriad, well-documented examples of right media bias are all just left-wing whining in the sociological viewpoint of Dumhoff.
I’ll stick with McChesney, thank you.
Supporting any argument using the fact that The Nation is not competitive in the marketplace assumes that the publication has, or ever had, the intention to compete. The wealthy benefactors that have supported the publication for well over a century don’t care whether it competes – why should anyone else. With it’s livelihood assured in perpetuity, why should it be anything more than what it is: a complacent, staid rag that shows no interest in even attempting to coalesce the disparate, progressive tendancies of mainstream America.
August 13th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
It seems we aren’t really ignoring the Lamont campaign after all. It appears Marc Cooper is the Joe Lieberman of the left! I love it.
It took a while, but I really enjoyed large sections of the Berube posts. Even though Berube typically spends his time “going after the enemy”, as it were, since he takes on figures of the left in this round of posts, he’s condemned. Not his ideas, but him.
Now I’ll grant that Marc’s something of a different case as, these days, it often seems he makes his living carping about his comrades and giving amunition to pals like Hitchens in Horowitz. But quite frankly, I don’t care if Marc makes money bashing Doug Henwood or whomever. If the critiques are salient, and they often are, then they least we can do is take them seriously and respond to them based on their merits. Not everyone has to “pick sides” and fight to the death.
August 13th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Here is an interesting article from the Guardian, perhaps teachers should pay attention to this:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1843543,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
August 13th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
“Right, they’re authors of fiction.”
What a bizarre interjection, wholly unrelated in any way to the content of the open letter psoted by myself and rosedog. For the ecord, not that it matters much some of the signers are fiction writers (Rusell Banks, Morrison et cetera) and some are not (Chomsky, Klein and Zinn..although the latter had a play Marx in Soho which i didnt much care for). Again this has nothing to do with anything really but i guess these kind of snippets is all youre able to muster. Pathetic “publius”. Pace, ahmed, no more responding to obsesive irrelevant trolls
August 13th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
“And while the US has played a disonorable role in green lighting the IDF strategy, the conflict also involves religous fundamentalists and sworn judeophobes whose reckless actions cannot and should not be ascribed to US Imperialism.”
Its not about ascribing points Marc. As the Lebonese bury their dead can we not begin to have a discussion about how we got here in the first place. The US and Israel are widely and correctly viewed as the regional bullies. That is not to say, it must be stated loudly, that those on the other side of the debate who use violence in the region have any credible leadership to offer or in any way respect human rights. On the contrary, placing these two dogmatic and ideological forces against one another produces rather predictable outcomes virtually every time. There are structural problems associated with this conflict that are directly reinforced by American foreign policy in the region. Once again, it is innocent Palestinian, Israeli and Lebanese civilians who pay the price of these power games. Why is that the narrative is defined by the combatants rather than by the civilians who are bearing the brunt of all this bullshit? Who left the idiots in Hezbollah and the IDF leadership in charge of international affairs? Why do the rest of us have to put up with this authoritarian nightmare driven by the lies and distortions of power? How could this escalation possibly have come as a surprise to those closest to the information? By superimposing the ‘War on Terror’ rhetoric, the US is continuing its bull-headed approach to foreign policy. Until Americans realize that their country is vehemently hated in this part of the world, and that only a fundamental shift in approach to the Middle East can alter this perception, its tainted role can only do more damage than good. Forget about imposing an outsider’s view of democracy – order, economic development and human rights would be sufficient in this region. The other changes must happen internally by the funding and development of civil society.
Letting Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld loose in this part of the world to set American foreign policy is not only dangerous, it is terrible for American interests. That the Republicans have so successfully and pervasively taken over so many aspects of American political life says something about American culture that is not particularly flattering. Perhaps what is worse, is that most Americans still have not realized the extent to which their view of how the world works has been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the rest of the world – even amongst its allies. Those who still cling to a world shaped by “American values” is either deeply deluded, certifiably insane or a messianic force to be ignored. Even in the European Union, they have developed an internal gospel that they represent the highest order of ‘civilization’ which is still a rather post-colonial view that reeks of profound arrogance. The Middle East is a mess entirely created by US and European foreign policy negligence and weak leadership in the region itself. Without these factors, there would be no Hassan Nusrallah or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The West, by not confronting Israeli policy in an authentic or balanced manner, or by helping to impose a negotiated peace agreement, inadvertently set in motion a very predictable outcome which is manifested in the conflict that has transpired the last two weeks.
August 13th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Publius writes: “This guy pegs it higher it seems. Is he supposed to be some US propagandist shill trying to cover up an “imperial†campaign?”
No more so than Paul Berman, who finds the Cambodian “autogenocide” convenient for his own purposes. This guy’s got his own an axe to grind–”government kills.” Cases where government appears to kill a whole lot are his meat and potatoes.
While he is a political scientist with some significant quantitative analytic skills, there is no evidence that he has so much as cracked an introductory textbook on demography. One does not simply throw out low estimates because they are low–a number is not incredible simply because it is an outlier. You need to assess the probability of an estimate’s correctness based on the merits of the argument for it. And one does not do polynomial curve-fits when one should do exponential curve-fits. He’s got a hammer, he hits his usual nails–when he should be looking for screwdrivers and socket wrenches.
Besides, anybody who feels a need to mention both his high school honors and his status as a “Nobel Prize finalist” (he was forced to back off the latter claim) seems just a wee bit desperate for attention. I know the type well. They are no great respecters of truth, in my experience.
August 13th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
“The reason that Ahmed keeps striking the chord of the occupied territories is because this is the heart of the issue – drive the stake through this vampires heart and the rest is downhill from there.”
Thanks virgil and for what its worth let me quote a part of the previously mentioned open letter which strogly affirms this point
ps if i come across as a broken record, as josh legere suggests (odd charge since he has yet to express a new idea in some time) its because the occupation, brutality and humilation the palestinians have endured for decades on the land of their birth is so often normalised, apologised for or simply rendered invisible.
“That this “kidnapping” was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources–most particularly that of water–by the Israeli Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years. Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly–who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?
Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.
This has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted. “
August 13th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Ahmed: You are not really suggesting, are you, that I am somehow unaware of or blind to the realities of Israeli occupation? That would be ridiculous.
So Im not sure what your point is. One is not “allowed” to criticize Hezbollah without a long pre-amble about Israeli aggression and the role of US imperialism? How damn tedious.
August 13th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Marc writes: “A couple of points. I’m pleased it makes such a difference to you that perhaps only 1 million and not 1.7 million Cambodians were killed. I suppose it’s ok for you to owe that crucial fact to Herman.”
Differences in the estimates do make a difference to me, since the case for the American onslaught against Cambodia is so often framed in terms of a need to destroy in order to save, and vindication of the failure by pointing to the “millions” killed by the Khmer Rouge. Attributing mass slaughter to the Khmer Rouge far in excess of deaths caused by U.S. involvement supports that case–and that case was being promoted far in advance of any reliable numbers. Chomsky and Herman never said that the Khmer Rouge was a good government (quite the contrary)–they said it was the object of a propaganda campaign to make U.S. intervention look *relatively* good (or less bad.) If you don’t realize that this proposition is at the core of their argument, then you have no acquaintance with their argument worth mentioning.
“Your request, by the way, that I be more generous and understanding of him in his waning years most definitely falls on deaf ears.”
It was not a request for sympathy, it was my own observation–that he’s not as good a writer or analyst as he used to be. Neither is Chomsky. Both are old now. You can get set in your opinions, but also tired of repeating the same defenses over and over when people persist in getting you wrong.
“He was certianly spry enough a few years ago to write completely fictional defamatory smears on me and several of my friends — really the worst kind of manufactured and baseless garbage.”
The *worst* kind of manufactured and baseless garbage would be about your membership in an LA-based Klaven, and your diplomatic initiatives to mend fences between them and an LA-based Bund. Or perhaps that, rifle in hand defending the Allende government in its final hour, you took the opportunity to pick off random civilians on the streets below, cackling the entire time. If what you meant was “the worst that’s ever been written about you,” I’d say you haven’t been reading your own comment section very closely.
If you don’t like what Herman has said about you, in part because so much of it is not true, I can understand that you’d feel hurt. However, the high ground in any debate sparked by personal attacks is to avoid the kind of hyperbole your opponent engages in.
“He should consider himself lucky that someone didnt fly out to Penn and offer him some wall to wall counseling!”
However low he may have sunk, I’d like to see where he has written of a desire to fly to LA and punch you out.
“If you believe I am too harsh in calling him a fourth rate hack then maybe I will consider calling him merely a stupid old man in future references.”
You’d be at least two thirds correct–he’s old, and he’s a man.
“if u feel that is more appropriate. And for the record — no— I dont think he ever had much game to lose, frankly.”
Then I suggest reading both volumes of The Political Economy of Human Rights. (You haven’t, at least not with any attention–I can tell that from how you’ve gotten Herman wrong in the past.) I read it twice. I’ve also read Oliver Kamm’s attempt to sweep it under the rug by pointing out three errors, then say that those errors characterize the entire work. I was able to see how Kamm got it flatly wrong in two out of his three “error reports”, and without half trying. Kamm’s failure to turn up any other “errors” is typical of much Chomsky/Herman criticism–nitpick on a tiny handful of facts, often misinterpreting or even twisting words, then turn the focus on the authors and their presumed (and real) biases, rather than on the merits and demerits of the case they make.
August 14th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Ahmed: You are not really suggesting, are you, that I am somehow unaware of or blind to the realities of Israeli occupation? That would be ridiculous.So Im not sure what your point is. One is not “allowed†to criticize Hezbollah without a long pre-amble about Israeli aggression and the role of US imperialism? How damn tedious.”
Man i find you frustrating at times. As for your comment, here’s an idea, why dont you try actually reading, comprehending then engaging yourself with my thoughts. Just an idea. How damn tedious
August 14th, 2006 at 12:12 am
Wow,
First the corrupt ancien regime was overthrown. Then, in the aftermath, amidst great head-chopping, seating arrangements in various French legislatures gave rise to the Left-Right metaphor of a linear political spectrum. Fast forward to 2006. You can go onto a blog like this one and attempt to digest ardent arguments about whether Georgeous George offered provisional or unqualified support to Saddam Huessein. (Correct answer, as a strict matter of empirical, historical fact: unqualified).
So it goes, in Leftwingland. Before principles, let’s have political allegience to the idea of an allegedly coherent, allegedly transhistorical political movement . For the world to survive, the Left must thrive (Hi Jesse!).
Can anyone say “reification?”
August 14th, 2006 at 12:44 am
And did I mention fragmentary, out of context, tendentious quoting?
New Stateman interview with Chomsky:
—
“So later they added charges [against Milosevic] about the Balkans, but it wasn’t going to be an easy case to make. The worst crime was Srebrenica but, unfortunately for the International Tribunal, there was an intensive investigation by the Dutch government, which was primarily responsible – their troops were there – and what they concluded was that not only did Milosevic not order it, but he had no knowledge of it. And he was horrified when he heard about it. So it was going to be pretty hard to make that charge stick.”
And here’s Michael Berube’s version
—-
In his June 19 New Statesman interview, he’d said, in re the massacre of thousands of civilians at Srebrenica, ["]not only did Milosevic not order it, but he had no knowledge of it.["]
—
Yep, there you got it: a citation of a Duthc government report’s conclusion becomes a flat statement from Chomsky the Talking Horse’s mouth. Particularly shameful since Berube supplied a link to the New Statesman article that he (apparently) didn’t read carefully. Or did he?
Way back on June 22, on Brad Delong’s site, we have this:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/06/michael_berube_.html
—-
You know, when I first read the interview, I read this just as Charles and Tom do: Chomsky, I thought, was claiming that the Dutch were responsible for the investigation, not for the massacre. Then I recalled that there was, indeed, an report in 2002 that blamed the Dutch government for failing to prevent the massacre: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1933144.stm.
It was quite a controversial report, with regard to both the Dutch peacekeepers and the alleged innocence of Milosevic. But it seems quite clear to me that Chomsky is citing this report with full approval, not only to clear Milosevic’s name but also to insist that there were no Serbian atrocities prior to the NATO bombing.
—
Yeah, it was a controversial report–the entire Dutch cabinet resigned! And this still wasn’t enough to placate survivors of Srebrenica, who were livid that the report didn’t go so far as to *blame* the Dutch peacekeepers outright for failing to prevent massacres!
The context of the article makes it clear that Chomsky regards the case against the Bush administration as a provocateur of mass violence as being stronger than that against Milosevic as a direct perpetrator of Srebrenica. That’s a long way from trying to “clear his name”, i.e., saying that Milosevic was innocent of all charges against him.
Chomsky, Milosevic-lover? Well, try this on for size–his comments on Milosevic getting voted out:
http://www.zmag.org/chomskyonelec.htm
—
What happened was a very impressive demonstration of popular mobilization and courage. The removal of the brutal and corrupt regimes of Serbia and Croatia (Milosevic and Tudjman were partners in crime throughout) is an important step forward for the region, and the mass movements in Serbia — miners, students, innumerable others — merit great admiration, and provide an inspiring example of what united and dedicated people can achieve.
—-
August 14th, 2006 at 7:35 am
“case against the Bush administration as a provocateur of mass violence”
-> “Clinton administration”, excuse my French.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:15 am
I can remember verbally wrestling with Berube on this point regarding Chomsky – even though it was a terrible error we both agreed that he was still dealing with his frustration with the National Security apparatus. Of course, this is no excuse for such a large error – but the aftermath was no boon to this region. In fact, it was sheer hell afterwards for that region, in case you have forgotten. In my estimate, the cure in some ways was worse than the disease.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Rudy Kazottie really knows how to hurt a guy. Calling Marc a “Liberal Democrat”! I want to belatedly thank Michael Balter for his piece above about Chomsky and Herman. It is something that a professionaliguist and a Prof of Finance (!) are so often cited in political science and media studies literature. Anyone familiar with academic politics knows that the quickest way to be dismissed is to venture outside of one’s field.
I’ll say this for Herman. His writings in Finance have not explode the ways those of Scholes et.al did – see Long Term Capital Mananagement for an explication of what happens when CAPM is tried in the real world. It is why natural scientists look down on those posuers at the Swedish Central Bank who named their prize in Economics after Nobel
August 14th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
we have no visible peace movement
Huh. I could have sworn there were a couple of hundred thousand people on the Mall in DC last September, a Troops Out Fast hunger strike in DC this July, a camp in Crawford, and local vigils and demos all over the country.
What would constitute, for you, Marc, a visible peace movement in which you would be willing to take a visible part?
August 14th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
I gotta go with Nell, here. There’s been a lot going on here in NYC, Marc.
On another matter, I’ve met Michael Berube and I can tell you that he is one of the most intelligent, engaging and genuinely interesting persons I’ve met since I’ve been blogging.
Anyone who gives David Horowitz such fits is okay by me.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:04 am
anyone who hasn’t read Seymour Hersh’s piece on the Lebanon conflict should:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact
August 15th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
When I read the response to Berube’s posts from his students (no doubt) they dismissed the workings of the National Security State
Um, just fyi, this is really exceptionally foolish. So far as I know, only one of my students has ever commented on my blog — and he posted on something about academe. Nor is it true that the comments on that series “dismissed the workings of the National Security State.” My commenters are not, in fact, idiots.
Yep, there you got it: a citation of a Duthc government report’s conclusion becomes a flat statement from Chomsky the Talking Horse’s mouth. Particularly shameful since Berube supplied a link to the New Statesman article that he (apparently) didn’t read carefully. Or did he?
It never fails, does it? Chomsky cites X approvingly (choosing X carefully from hundreds of possible sources), his citation of X is criticized, and some utterly uncritical Chomsky fan comes along to say that Chomsky was only citing X, not endorsing X in any way. I wonder why anyone would stoop to — or fall for — this shabby old tactic. Shame on Michael Turner for being such a careless reader. And thanks to Marc and Randy Paul for the kind words. . . .
August 16th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
thanks for the reference to Michael Berube’s postings — I enjoyed all of them. One request and one suggestion.
Request: i know it’s a pain when you lose writing, but I’d be interested in some reconstruction of what your general thoughts were.
Suggestion: not trying to be snarky, but reconstructing your thoughts — or doing other writing — is probably a better use of time than responding to a swamp of comments. Am I the only one who, when delving into comments on blogs, wonders just where people get all that time? In any case, you’re more patient than I would be!
Thanks again for the reference to Berube’s well-written piece.
August 16th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Oh Jesus, Cooper. Ed Herman has about 50 times your intellect. In Herman’s league, you’d be lucky to play batboy.
August 18th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
“So Im not sure what your point is. One is not “allowed†to criticize Hezbollah without a long pre-amble about Israeli aggression and the role of US imperialism? How damn tedious. ”
Is it tedious or just an American predilection for not wanting to bother with messy matters like history and social context?
August 18th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Michael Turner is not a careless reader, he’s quite thorough and insightful actually. And he’s not the kind you can attack as a ‘hard lefty’ when you’re out of arguments in response to his devestating critiques.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
“What would constitute, for you, Marc, a visible peace movement in which you would be willing to take a visible part? ”
My sense is it would be a movement whose main slogan was, “More US Troops Now to Really do it Right!”. In other words, more of the same would be the key demand.
August 19th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
“Chomsky cites X approvingly (choosing X carefully from hundreds of possible sources) …”
There were “hundreds of possible sources” as potentially authoritative as a Dutch government inquiry into Srebrenica? Sources that came to significantly different conclusions? Do you mind listing, say, three?
“… his citation of X is criticized,”
You criticized Chomsky as if he were saying “X”, when what he was obviously saying was “The Dutch government found no evidence for X”.
“… and some utterly uncritical Chomsky fan …”
Google search suggested:
site:www.marccooper.com Turner Chomsky
I’m not an “uncritical” admirer of Chomsky. I just find that his critics tend to be much sloppier than he is, and often put words in his mouth (or take them out, if the subtraction is more pleasing somehow.)
“… comes along to say that Chomsky was only citing X, not endorsing X in any way.”
I didn’t mean that he was only citing, and not endorsing. I pointed out what he is (to me) obviously doing. He’s saying that a certain proposition (i.e., that Milosevic ordered the Srebrenica massacres and that they resulted in casualties as high as those uncritically reported) hasn’t found much factual support. As always, Chomsky’s game here is not to render final verdicts about crimes, but to prove a point about the distorted ways in which crimes are portrayed and attributed, distortions made with a political agenda.
Face it, Berube: the guy’s a lot more careful than you are. Chomsky’s general strategy for criticism is pretty efficient, I think. And it’s easily summarized: Truth is the first casualty of war, so if you want to find liars, just look in the general direction of those who claim, well before solid facts have emerged, that “the facts” point unambiguously to a certain conclusion.
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