Liberal Hawkus Pawkus, Continued
I see that the very even keeled, and quasi-liberal hawk, Kevin Drum, tackled the Beinart column Thursday night. Although I disagree with Mr. Drum on a great variety of issues-- usually a matter of degrees, not whole cloth-- he's a very good blogger, and this is another good post that's well worth reading. Today, I see that Atrios has taken a chunk out of the Beinart influence in lefty blogville here, here, and here.
In my previous post, while in the throes of a self-induced froth to take on Beinart, I had determined to dissect his piece argument by argument, word by word. I really haven't the time or energy for all that nitpicking, so I've decided to concentrate on his main thesis, which is that liberals need to purge themselves of the "softs" (i.e. pacifists) among us, and in so doing, promote fighting totalitarian Islam to the top of our agenda, reframing the issue as we do so as a liberal struggle against the ravages of reactionary policy and dogma.
To make his point, Beinart employs the writerly device of conflating the totalitarian threat represented by the Soviet Union with the one that is today represented by totalitarian Islam. He doesn't go so far as many on the Right do when they conflate the "War on Terror" with World War II (Just last week on Meet the Press I heard Jerry Falwell, of all people, respond to a question being asked as to whether the Iraqi war adequately meets the Christian standard of a "just war" by admonishing Al Sharpton that if he had his way then the Nazis would have won the second world war-- or some such nonsense [Surely Russert-- or somebody-- should have jumped in to remind Herr Reverend that the main domestic resistance to military intervention in WWII came from the isolationist Republicans]). Beinart does this by highlighting the ADA's (Americans for Democratic Action) opposition to communism and communists during the Cold War, and then by decrying the lack of a similar group on the Left today-- one that would put anti-Islamo totalitarianism at the center of its radar. He then sheepishly tries to innoculate himself against the obvious criticism of this device-- namely, that the respective threats represented by Soviet totalitarianism and by Islamo totalitarianism are in no way equal-- by offering this caveat: "Obviously, Al Qaeda and the Soviet Union are not the same. The USSR was a totalitarian superpower; Al Qaeda merely espouses a totalitarian ideology, which has had mercifully little access to the instruments of state power." Well, thank you, sir. Our own president frequently espouses a desire to be dictator rather than president, but he has had mercifully little success in running roughshod over the executive limits outlined in the Constitution... D'oh! Bad example.
This, though, is where I tend to disagree with Beinart vis-a-vis the nature of the Al Qaeda threat. Does Al Qaeda really espouse a totalitarian ideology? Maybe. But as Kevin Drum points out, there seems to be nothing fundamentally expansionist about their ideology. And furthermore, I'm really not so sure that what they espouse is any different than what fundamentalists of all stripes espouse everywhere-- and I mean everywhere. Everything I've read about them suggests that they have specific grievances with the ruling factions of various Middle Eastern and Western countries, and that if they were able to procure the instruments of state power somewhere, the resulting state would probably look not that different from what we saw with the Taliban in Afghanistan-- a very strict theocracy that is more than shitty for its women, stifling to intellectualism and the arts, and generally a fucked up isle of Mesozoic sensibilities-- not, though, a highly technical and expansionist Nazi-like army ready to reap carnage and doom on all "evil doers" in every corner of the world (though power does corrupt).
Beinart also has grievances, and these are twofold-- Moveon.org and Michael Moore. These are the twin pillars of the "soft" elements on the Left that Beinart wants to see cleansed from mainstream American liberalism. In another exercise of conflation, he seems to think that these two bodies (and I use the term "bodies" advisedly) are the equivalent of a State Department and Minister of Information for the Left. He is all over them for not supporting the war in Afghanistan, and he throws out the disses in such a way as to suggest that the virtues of that war were/are self-evident. He uses the perjorative term "soft" as a taunt. He seems to have trouble making the crucial distinction between somebody that makes policy decisions and somebody that makes movies. He thinks they are gutless and clueless. He thinks that these flower children prefer "pie-in-the-sky" pipe dreams to serious, well-considered solutions. In short, he thinks these voices must be shut out. (These, of course, are standard rhetorical weapons in the Right's arsenal. They win elections because of this nonsense, and they get to have proxies [poor, brown and black] fight their wars for them because of this horseshit. I'm glad to see that this weaponry isn't solely reserved for use by the Coulterites.)
Beinart, for his part, envisions a new, ambitious, expansionist liberalism in which young people would flock to the Middle East, Peace-Corps-like, and a new Middle East Marshall Plan would be born to try to change the hearts and minds of Middle Easterners on the ground (Neoliberalism wrought large). It's pretty lofty stuff, and I applaud him for that, but it also makes me cringe with the same bile that burbles up when some ass-fuck or another on the Right wants to constitutionally outlaw burning the American flag. What Beinart fails to understand is that many of us on the Left, Michael Moore included, see something much more fundamental, though relationally causal, to the threat posed by Weird Al Yank-Qaeda and its satellites, which is the unsustainable and expansionist thrust of Western-dominated global market capitalism. Yes, it's the oil, douchebag. That was my first thought that Tuesday morning when the planes hit (I've just violated a personal axiom that says, "The next person that tells me what they were doing or where they were on 9/ll gets a fistful of guitar-playing knuckles in the xiphoid process"). It's the fucking oil. And it's fucking Israel. And until mainstream liberals and mainstream ass-bitches learn this from the Left, we, as in all of us, will continue to be on the wrong side of history; we will continue to be a step behind some fucking ass-tards who want to blow themselves up so that they can fuck some virgins in the afterlife (Who likes fucking virgins anyway?); and we, as in me, will continue to be lectured by Peter Beinart on why we need to purge ourselves from something of which didn't even know we were a part.
A big shout out to Pablo in San Francisco for his cogent comments in the previous posting on this subject. You're right, Pablo. There are ugly forces that want to do us harm, I have no doubt. I just tend to see this threat as something that can be, as Kerry suggested, reduced to the level of a nuisance. I don't see it as a clash of civilizations, or as the defining issue of the 21st century or anything like that (though our actions, as in our government's actions, are making this an ever-increasing likelihood).
In my previous post, while in the throes of a self-induced froth to take on Beinart, I had determined to dissect his piece argument by argument, word by word. I really haven't the time or energy for all that nitpicking, so I've decided to concentrate on his main thesis, which is that liberals need to purge themselves of the "softs" (i.e. pacifists) among us, and in so doing, promote fighting totalitarian Islam to the top of our agenda, reframing the issue as we do so as a liberal struggle against the ravages of reactionary policy and dogma.
To make his point, Beinart employs the writerly device of conflating the totalitarian threat represented by the Soviet Union with the one that is today represented by totalitarian Islam. He doesn't go so far as many on the Right do when they conflate the "War on Terror" with World War II (Just last week on Meet the Press I heard Jerry Falwell, of all people, respond to a question being asked as to whether the Iraqi war adequately meets the Christian standard of a "just war" by admonishing Al Sharpton that if he had his way then the Nazis would have won the second world war-- or some such nonsense [Surely Russert-- or somebody-- should have jumped in to remind Herr Reverend that the main domestic resistance to military intervention in WWII came from the isolationist Republicans]). Beinart does this by highlighting the ADA's (Americans for Democratic Action) opposition to communism and communists during the Cold War, and then by decrying the lack of a similar group on the Left today-- one that would put anti-Islamo totalitarianism at the center of its radar. He then sheepishly tries to innoculate himself against the obvious criticism of this device-- namely, that the respective threats represented by Soviet totalitarianism and by Islamo totalitarianism are in no way equal-- by offering this caveat: "Obviously, Al Qaeda and the Soviet Union are not the same. The USSR was a totalitarian superpower; Al Qaeda merely espouses a totalitarian ideology, which has had mercifully little access to the instruments of state power." Well, thank you, sir. Our own president frequently espouses a desire to be dictator rather than president, but he has had mercifully little success in running roughshod over the executive limits outlined in the Constitution... D'oh! Bad example.
This, though, is where I tend to disagree with Beinart vis-a-vis the nature of the Al Qaeda threat. Does Al Qaeda really espouse a totalitarian ideology? Maybe. But as Kevin Drum points out, there seems to be nothing fundamentally expansionist about their ideology. And furthermore, I'm really not so sure that what they espouse is any different than what fundamentalists of all stripes espouse everywhere-- and I mean everywhere. Everything I've read about them suggests that they have specific grievances with the ruling factions of various Middle Eastern and Western countries, and that if they were able to procure the instruments of state power somewhere, the resulting state would probably look not that different from what we saw with the Taliban in Afghanistan-- a very strict theocracy that is more than shitty for its women, stifling to intellectualism and the arts, and generally a fucked up isle of Mesozoic sensibilities-- not, though, a highly technical and expansionist Nazi-like army ready to reap carnage and doom on all "evil doers" in every corner of the world (though power does corrupt).
Beinart also has grievances, and these are twofold-- Moveon.org and Michael Moore. These are the twin pillars of the "soft" elements on the Left that Beinart wants to see cleansed from mainstream American liberalism. In another exercise of conflation, he seems to think that these two bodies (and I use the term "bodies" advisedly) are the equivalent of a State Department and Minister of Information for the Left. He is all over them for not supporting the war in Afghanistan, and he throws out the disses in such a way as to suggest that the virtues of that war were/are self-evident. He uses the perjorative term "soft" as a taunt. He seems to have trouble making the crucial distinction between somebody that makes policy decisions and somebody that makes movies. He thinks they are gutless and clueless. He thinks that these flower children prefer "pie-in-the-sky" pipe dreams to serious, well-considered solutions. In short, he thinks these voices must be shut out. (These, of course, are standard rhetorical weapons in the Right's arsenal. They win elections because of this nonsense, and they get to have proxies [poor, brown and black] fight their wars for them because of this horseshit. I'm glad to see that this weaponry isn't solely reserved for use by the Coulterites.)
Beinart, for his part, envisions a new, ambitious, expansionist liberalism in which young people would flock to the Middle East, Peace-Corps-like, and a new Middle East Marshall Plan would be born to try to change the hearts and minds of Middle Easterners on the ground (Neoliberalism wrought large). It's pretty lofty stuff, and I applaud him for that, but it also makes me cringe with the same bile that burbles up when some ass-fuck or another on the Right wants to constitutionally outlaw burning the American flag. What Beinart fails to understand is that many of us on the Left, Michael Moore included, see something much more fundamental, though relationally causal, to the threat posed by Weird Al Yank-Qaeda and its satellites, which is the unsustainable and expansionist thrust of Western-dominated global market capitalism. Yes, it's the oil, douchebag. That was my first thought that Tuesday morning when the planes hit (I've just violated a personal axiom that says, "The next person that tells me what they were doing or where they were on 9/ll gets a fistful of guitar-playing knuckles in the xiphoid process"). It's the fucking oil. And it's fucking Israel. And until mainstream liberals and mainstream ass-bitches learn this from the Left, we, as in all of us, will continue to be on the wrong side of history; we will continue to be a step behind some fucking ass-tards who want to blow themselves up so that they can fuck some virgins in the afterlife (Who likes fucking virgins anyway?); and we, as in me, will continue to be lectured by Peter Beinart on why we need to purge ourselves from something of which didn't even know we were a part.
A big shout out to Pablo in San Francisco for his cogent comments in the previous posting on this subject. You're right, Pablo. There are ugly forces that want to do us harm, I have no doubt. I just tend to see this threat as something that can be, as Kerry suggested, reduced to the level of a nuisance. I don't see it as a clash of civilizations, or as the defining issue of the 21st century or anything like that (though our actions, as in our government's actions, are making this an ever-increasing likelihood).
posted by captionjockey at 6:25 PM
