I have no personal animus toward Markos Zuniga; I don’t know the guy personally, and up until now, my major Post-It abut him was that I thought it was cool that someone was bridging the gap between this amateur political discourse we do in the blogosphere and electoral politics.
He’s always been a bit strident and chest-beating, but I’ve chalked that up to personal style (or, on my more cynical days, the kind of extreme posturing that gets attention).
He crossed a line with his now-infamous comment, and that’s changed my view of him.
Since we don’t know each other, that’s a kind of ‘so what?’ comment. Except for one big and one little thing.
The big thing is simple; in my view, there’s good and bad. Good involves peace, justice, liberty (from exploitation as well as oppression), and the fundamental acceptance of the humanity and value of everyone – and bad involves the opposite. In my view, the constructive dialogs are ones among people who have different views of how to attain Good, and different visions of exactly what it looks like, manifested in the messy world of reality.
Was invading Iraq the best path from here to there? Were there better alternatives? What are the alternatives today, and how do we decide among them? Those are things that I believe people on the side of Good can discuss – even debate heatedly and struggle over politically.
But, in my mind, there’s a pretty clear line between Us and Them. Being with Them is about supporting blowing up busses and pizzerias – not as criminal acts, not as errors of negligence or simple chance, but as core acts; acts that define who you are and what you do. Being with Them is about torturing and murdering captives, not fattening them up and teaching them to snorkel (and yes, I know Guantanamo is worse than that – but it’s better than the fate of the soldiers in the Ramallah police station).
On this blog, one of our co-bloggers crossed that line with a comment extolling the terrorist bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq. Joe, to his credit, asked Trent to step away from the blog for a while because the sentiments he expressed were so deeply against what Joe and this blog (and by extension, I) stand for that no other reaction was possible. Trent was (and is) a valuable member of this community, as much as he and I may disagree, but with that comment…
And similarly, Kos stepped neatly across the line with his comment, and has only walked further away from it with his actions since (redirecting the link to the comment, pulling the post it was attached to off his blog, his non-apology, and his most recent response, in which he says something stupid and the evil minions of the underworld attack him for it).
Does that mean we’re better than he is?
I’ll step up and say yes.
Look, we all say and do stupid things on occasion (some more than others, of course). But what’s missing in Kos is the notion that what happened to him is anything except a political ambush by his enemies.
And that, in turn matters because Kos is plugged deeply into current Democratic electoral politics, as one of Joe Trippi’s advisors in the Dean campaign, in the Clark campaign, in the Joe (“it’s the Jooos”) MBNA Moran campaign.
I’ve said in the past – and been harshly criticized by people who probably agree with most of my policy beliefs (except Iraq, no doubt) – for criticizing the left for ‘not loving America’. I’ve talked about what a left that does love America might look like – or what it’s philosophical roots might be.
And I’m told, over and over again, that I’m setting up straw men.
No, I’m not.
And that matters, both because many of those I oppose are, I believe, on the wrong side of the divide above – but because they have and will take the left down with them.
Reading the comments on the Kerry blog about the delinking of Kos is informative.
If I were a GOP tactician (and I assume they already are, because they do this for a living) I’d be planting the seeds about the cash Kos had bundled for Kerry, and asking ‘will it be returned?’
And if it is, we’re about to see an internecine battle which will guarantee the White House to Bush.
(it’s late, and I’ll add links in this tomorrow morning)
Heard a couple of presentations tonight on several books that seem out of the 2D political space the flatlanders have identified as our gameboard. One was titled (if I remember correctly) The Rise of the Vulcans, which souded like a book about the Bush administration that didn’t make most of the conventional assumptions of either pro or con camp. The other was a book titled The Real State of the Union, which was a compilation of about 30 essays on various policy prescriptions that, likewise, avoid the conventional tug-o-war.
But it’s late and I’m going to bet. Demosophia will get here.
I had never posted to a Blog until I came across this one a few months back. One of the most compelling reasons that made be decide to post was the open discussions and intelligent discourse found among this site’s bloggers. I just want to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, for protecting these great aspects of your Blog. Keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
SBD
‘in my view, there’s good and bad.’. True, but there is no absolute ‘good’ or ‘bad’. These are relative terms. Everyone can justiably claim to be for ‘peace’but on ‘their’ terms.
To claim that the US is in Iraq for moral reasons is to fly in the face of history. Experience shows us that nation states act out of self interest first and then find the principles to justify their actions. A good case in point would be World War I. The Allies started out by acting in defence of Belgium. By the time the war ended it was a ‘crusade for humanity’, ‘The world must be made safe for democracy’.
I would like to think we are acting in Iraq for good and proper reasons. Like a lot of people, these have not be expounded to our satisfaction.
“…there is no absolute ‘good’ or ‘bad’. These are relative terms.”
I know this position is not rare, but it is tragic. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone proudly claim moral relativism as a legitimate philosophy in such stark terms. Sad.
I’m going to beat a dead horse here about the Trent T. bit. I was (still am) on Trent’s side on that one.
The UN is a corrupt terrorist supporting organization even if many of those who support it are inoffensive dupes. My joy at seeing them take a hit is similar to my current joy at seeing what is going on in Spain re: more bombs. It would be a shame to see any one killed by those bombs. But in a very real sense the Spanish are getting what they asked for and I’m not sorry about that one bit. It is a lesson in practical international politics in this day and age.
As Winne once said (aproximately): They had the choice between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war anyway. [BTW that goes double for the genocide enablers of the UN.]
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As an occasional guest blogger here I do appriciate the measured and intelligent discourse.
In any case as a member of the American warrior class I honor the enemy who honors the rules of war. I am against mutilation of the bodies of our dead enemies unless we were to follow the Black Jack Pershing lead and bury them in pig carcasses as an anti-dote to religiously inspired murder.
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We ought not fire indisciminately at women, children, and livestock. And generally we stick to that rule. Making the innocent the target is not our way. It is not our rule. Has it been done. Yes. The Moro Crater in the Phillipines, Mai Lai in Vietnam. But such actions are not our rule. They are the exception to our rules.
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Never forget that we are in a fight for civilization and some very uncivilized things will have to be done to win that fight. When it is won our enemies will not be our dihimmis. They will be first class citizens of their part of the world. Just like the Germans and Japanese before them.
Why do uncivilized things need to be done to protect civilization?
It is the #1 political question in America.
It is probably the most asked political question of the last four or five thousand years.
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That question is at the heart of the political divide in the world.
There are some who believe that to be civilized means never acting in an uncivilized manner.
For me it is what happens after the war that is most important.
WW1 was an uncivilized war. The enemies did not resolve their differences in a favorable way. WW2 was a civilized war. WW3 (the Cold War) was a civilized war. WW4 (the War On Islamic Fascism) will end the same way. Why you ask? Because Americans don’t like to hold grudges. Americans are not like the citizens of Arabia who are still fighting a war in Spain that they lost 500 years ago. Americans are not like the citizens of the Balkans who are still fighting WW2, WW1, and the many wars great ans small preceeding and following.
So I expect a certain amount of excess brutality from our side. I expect that brutality is the policy of the opposing side.
This is war.
Post war (and the odds are that I will not see it in my lifetime 30 to 40 years hence) I expect to return to a life much like the “end of history” time. Peace, prosperity, and presidential sex scandals.
We are not fighting to end our enemy’s culture (as they wish to end ours). We are fighting so that they will give up the part of their culture that leads to civil discord – the predominance of violence as a problem solving tool, internally and externally.
BTW I’m in the absolutist side on the good bad question.
Blowing up civilians going about their business is not in the morally neutral column for me.
9/11 changed a lot for me. Up until that time I was content to let the Islamics attack American interrests. They don’t want us in their world. Fine. I can understand that.
Why 9/11 changed everything is that it was an announcement that not only were we not welcome in teir world. We were to be made unwelcome in our own.
For me that is over the top and as far as I am concerned it has sealed their fate. A lot of very ugly shit will need to be done to fix this problem and the bad philosopy behind it. Because I am not willing to become a nigger in my own country. I didn’t fight for the civil rights of all citizens to just give it up for a whole culture of misguided men with bombs.
I am made of sterner stuff than that. It is my good fortune to know that I have (for now) the majority of Americans beside me.
Once my college roommate and I were listening to a Beethoven piano sonata, and I remarked that I didn’t like this particular work. Seemed treacly. Lars responded, “Great composers write bad music, too.” If we forget that, we forget our own humanity.
Particularly in political discourse, we need to realise our opinions are heavily weighted towards what we have personally seen and read. Others, with differing backgrounds, simply see things differently. That does not definitively say either opinion is historically probative, and most likely both are wrong and right at the same time in various ways. But over time, what is correct will be found to be intellectually useful to many people, many of whom didn’t start agreeing with what became seen to be correct in the first instance.
To claim that the US is in Iraq for moral reasons is to fly in the face of history. Experience shows us that nation states act out of self interest first and then find the principles to justify their actions. A good case in point would be World War I. The Allies started out by acting in defence of Belgium. By the time the war ended it was a ‘crusade for humanity’, ‘The world must be made safe for democracy’.
Huh? Which of these do you believe was not a moral reason?
Hi.
Welcome, SBD. 🙂
ExpatEgghead, I disagree with pretty much everything you said. Including this: “To claim that the US is in Iraq for moral reasons is to fly in the face of history. Experience shows us that nation states act out of self interest first and then find the principles to justify their actions.”
That is a rule of which competent historians are unaware. Actually, states, including nation states, act on many motives, often mingled and conflicting. Of course, self-interest is right up there. But moral considerations also may be potent.
Hi again.
M. Simon, I’ll take issue with you too. (Hey, I’m on a roll.)
“I was (still am) on Trent’s side on that one.”
Trent’s a great contributor, but he was wrong that time.
“The UN is a corrupt terrorist supporting organization even if many of those who support it are inoffensive dupes.”
OK.
“My joy at seeing them take a hit is similar to my current joy at seeing what is going on in Spain re: more bombs.”
That’s a Dark Side point. Don’t worry, they scrub off leaving no stain.
In World War Two, our gift from the Great White Father in Washington, Douglas Macarthur, believed that Australians were insufficiently zealous in fighting the Japs. What he wanted was a punishing Jap bombing raid to wake those sleepy Aussies up. This is a minor one of many reasons why Macarthur has never been as popular with Australians as he is with some Americans. You can have luck, talent, great oratorical skills, and a mighty commitment to the right cause, and still have an attitude that sucks. We’re never going to change our minds about that.
In a similar way, Trent was wrong on the UN blast, and you are even more wrong on Spain. I can’t see why any Spaniard, including a PP voter gung ho for Aznar and the Global War on Terrorism, would think what you said was good stuff. Nor do I.
It’s a tough balance to strike. I think Winston Churchill got it just right in Pearl Harbor (and Hitler’s declaration of war on America). He took no joy in American deaths, but he was overwhelmingly happy and grateful that the Yanks were in the war, because that meant that Great Britain would be saved and Naziism destroyed. I’ve never heard an American object to that. Sometimes getting the nuance right does count. (Also, Americans seem not to be prone to hair-trigger historic resentments.)
Anyway, I agree with you and Armed Liberal about the solid good/evil thing. And that there may be hell to pay before this is over. Trent Telenko has good reasons for his gloomy ideas on what may come.
ExpatEgghead, it may well “fly in the face of history” to claim that the U.S. is in Iraq for moral reasons, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Indeed, the U.S. flies in the face of history all the time, as the leading force for real democracy in a world full of tyrants. Dictators and absolute rulers of surpassing cruelty are more the norm in history than is the U.S. leadership, who this year will face the voters, just as presidents have done every four years for more than two centuries.
A few years ago, I had dinner with a man I had known casually for some years. He had been a teenaged soldier in Hitler’s army in 1945, though he had never spoken of it before. That evening, he spoke of what it was like in Germany in the spring of 45, with the Russians advancing from the east and the Americans from the west. He told of being on the east side of a river, with a great many other German soldiers. The Russians were behind them, the Americans somewhere across the river. He described how he and so many others swam the river, under fire from the Russians, to get to the American side. Like so many others before and since, they wanted to be taken by the Americans and they wanted it enough to die trying if necessary. He was about 17 at the time, but he knew the difference between good and evil, and he staked his life on it.
In my understanding, one of the most important elements in the Sufi tradition is intention, which is inseparable honesty. One Sufi epigram that I consider frequently is the following: Sufism is the easiest thing in the world, all you have to do is be honest with yourself.
When people place themselves in opposition to the stated intention in Iraq, i.e. helping to establish some sort of decent government, they are suggesting that they know what the real intention is, in which case they must already be Sufis. Thus Mr. Zuniga implies that he knows the real intentions of the four men who were murdered, as many of his devotees, to read the traffic, purport to know those of President Bush.
Another Sufi admonition, not for the squeamish, is: Unless you have real knowledge, what difference does it make what you do? I most certainly do not have such knowledge so the best I can do is formulate intention based on whatever self-knowledge I possess, factoring in my own conditioning and self-righteous hypocrisy. Thus my intention is to do whatever I can to help the process in Iraq, believing that it was and remains the best thing to do.
Now, if the intention of some people is to do whatever they can to sabotage that effort then the best I can do is to quote from the Qu’ran: You to your way, me to mine.
The question of absolute good and evil is also one of knowledge. Several stories included in the Sufi tradition refer to this, all of which follow the parable in the Qu’ran of Moses and Khidr, in which Moses is admonished not to question Khidr’s seemingly unjust actions, all of which turn out to have been for the greater good. But Khidr is Khidr.
To wonder if there is not some greater good behind terrorist acts, for example, is to suggest that terrorists may somehow be the instruments of greater knowledge. I suspect that this plays well amongst some Moslems, simply because they have been conditioned to the possibility of such things; such stories do not occur in the Christian tradition.
Whatever a person’s religous persuasion, the minimal requirement for a civilized human being is to apply reason to unfettered emotion. The shrill denunciations of the more apocalytpic members of the left (and right)do a disservice to both causes. Nothing however, can approach the damage that terrorists have done to Islam.
What constantly strikes me about reading and dealing with angry-left[1] commenters is how thin and restricted their conceptual spaces are. Everything has to be reduced to binary: Capitalist Imperialist Oppressors (an atomic term, despite requiring three words to depict it) and Oppressed Proletarians (again, a single concept). They cannot attain a different vision of what Good looks like, any more than A. Square of Flatland can comprehend a sphere. It’s not so much that they can’t see anything different, though they clearly cannot; it’s that the space they live in doesn’t have enough dimensions to permit them to attain a different viewpoint.
Case in point, from ExpatEggHead: “Experience shows us that nation states act out of self interest first and then find the principles to justify their actions.” Well, certainly. But EEH is clearly arguing from a perspective in which “self-interest” only allows what might be called material goals — to get the oil, to compel submission, to be Capitalist Imperialist Oppressors. The notion that the United States might see its self-interest served by establishing a strong, prosperous Iraq not only lies outside EEH’s concepts, the dimension in which it exists is not one in which EEH can move or see.
I don’t know how to fix that. Sphere was able to convince A. Square of its existence by a patient and probably uncomfortable demonstration; but at the end, A. Square remained confined to its plane, still unable to fully comprehend. How does one provide a completely new dimension of conceptual space to people who are so involved with tracing the intricate arabesques of their self-restricted confinement that they won’t even ask Sphere to clarify? Rotation? Projection? It’s a conundrum.
Regards,
Ric
[1]I use the term “angry left” to avoid tarring all leftists with the same brush. There are enough leftists for which this is true to make it a useful generalization, though.
I thought Kos’s remark was in very bad taste. It actually seemed lower than the Fallujah imams, who at least condemned the mutilation of the corpses. From a practical standpoint, such a sensationalist comment also diverts attention from what I see as legitimate questions like
Having said that, two further remarks: Kos’s website is remarkable not so much for Kos as a commentator (even before he was vulgar, he was way over-optimistic on liberals’ chances), but for its technical prowess: rated comments, automatical troll suppression, diaries, comprehensive blogroll, posts with extensive links. Second, it’s nice to see Kos held to a higher standard than conservatives and Ann Coulter, but it would even nicer if you-all acknowledged that.
Second, it’s nice to see Kos held to a higher standard than conservatives and Ann Coulter, but it would even nicer if you-all acknowledged that.
Hmmm, speaking of ideological blinders…
I’ll repeat here what I said on Little Green Footballs:
Marcos Zuniga is a very young man who gave into his emotions.
He was born in Central America and emigrated to the US, where he served honorably in our armed forces. More than I can say for the vast majority of the people who comment on this site.
He clarified his emotions in a post today. He felt angry that the deaths of five SOLDIERS went unremarked upon, while the deaths of five highly-paid mercenaries were so played up.
While I think that the amount of attention paid to the merc-deaths was understandable due to the horrific nature of their deaths and the media-genic mob violence, I find Zuniga’s feelings entirely understandable. Soldiers (and Iraqis) die every day; we just shrug.
Spare us the fake outrage. But then, you’d have to get lives.
I trust that no one will respond here as they did on LGF. I emailed Charles to ask him to remove comment #76, he neither acknowledged my email nor removed the comment. Another comment was deleted, which gives you an idea of his priorities.
I stand by what I said about Zuniga.
Let me get this straight, A.L…
So because the Kerry campaign may or may not return funding that has been given by individual donors- who may or may not agree with a comment made by Zuniga on his blog, an internecine battle will erupt between Dems effectively electing Bush?
Sorry, no.
Seems like the same battle between the mainstream dems and “progressives” we’ve had going back since the 70’s. It’s pretty obvious that the far left has a lot of anti-American types who will agree with Zuniga’s comment.
And for the record, here’s some rather *mild comments* glorifying the slaughter of women and children, from the racist hate propaganda site you link to, Armed Liberal:
Look at arafat’s little fat boy military uniform, the other guy has less of a uniform and the last guy, screw it, just has a sport coat.
And check out the genius’s in waiting in the second tier.
This entire room needs to be made into a Yassin-like pile of arms and legs.
In other words: Zuniga’s an ass, but you’re a complete hypocrite.
Sorry, itals should have ended after the words, “get lives.”
My comment about the response on LGF may seem cryptic, as I now see that Charles doctored the comment that began with the obscenity. But he didn’t remove the comment itself, and he didn’t leave any indication that the commenter scraped the bottom of the barrel.
Looks like he engages in a bit of weblog doctoring himself, while criticizing Zuniga for same.
David Blue,
I changed my mind. You are right. Bombing of Vichy France by America was wrong. If that event was more parallel to this war we would have bombed the UN ourselves. But you are right gloating over terrorists bombing their enablers is quite wrong and I apologize.
We should just kill terrorists and no one should do anything to harm the enablers. And for terrorists to do it is wrong. And to cheer the terrorists for killing those helping them is wrong.
And I’m deeply sorry.
From now on I will treat the UN and their people with the respect they desereve.
From now on I will not cheer on indiscriminate bombings. The UN deseerves our respect. How about summary trials and firing squads?
Personally I had questions about economics of contractors because I hate fucking contractors. What’s that? Four human beings were beaten to death, dismembered and dragged through the streets?
Who cares, let’s bash corporations. Ooops, I mean nobody deserves to die, but sometimes people do (if they are corporate).
I’ll end with my Dean Scream: WHAT ABOUT RACHEL CORRIIIE????? YARRRAAHAHHAHHAGGHHH!
How many times have you said about somebody whom you were angry at, “I’m going to kill him!” It doesn’t mean you actually want them dead, it just means you’re really, really angry.
You can claim that he had no reason to be so angry at the contractors, and we can debate that, if you want. But making a huge deal out of the fact that he overdramatized his anger is silly.
I wrote this in my head while driving home from the racetrack last night, and it shows I’ll get some time today and do some editing.
For my views on Ann Coulter, go here, or here, or here.
I haven’t really taken on the UN issue yet, but suffice it to say that I personally think we ought to once again withold our dues pending substantial reform. In reality the diplomatic fallout from that would probably be unsustainable, so that’s not a policy suggestion (personal feelings != policy).
A.L.
David Blue,
Of course what I said about Spain is not good stuff. To wish other people ill is not very nice.
The deal here though is that the Spanish people have wished upon themselves way more ill than I could ever manage in several lifetimes.
I know wishing Islamic bombs on them is indiscrete. Yet the bombs are coming. They will keep coming for years until Spain has shown steady backbone.
Very sadly Spain is getting what it asked for. Spain is getting what it deserves. They are going to have to show sustained bottom now to get the terrorists interested in elsewhere.
My condolences to the dead and the soon to be dead. And damn the murderers and their Spanish enablers.
Diana, there’s a key distinction that you’re missing; I’ve talked about it before and I’ll set it out again.
First, I don’t hold Kos (or Charles) responsible for the more asinine comments their readers place on their sites, because they (unlike me) have chosen to let their comments be pretty much a free-for all. I assume they both have limits, but their limits are so far past anything I would tolerate that they are in effect unbounded.
Charles himself is pretty hostile to the Arab regiemes, but limits himself to translations, links, and pointed commentary that doesn’t sink to the level of debasement.
I’m not happy with the community he’s built (note that I don’t participate in it), but that’s a more indirect criticism than if he himself were staking out those fairly horrible positions.
Kos himself wrote the comment that he’s being chastized for, and himself elected to follow it up with stupid damage control.
He builds a pretty good website, and for those services, he’s probably pretty valuable. But…any halfway person acting from a moral basis (rather than an instrumental one), or even anyone with basic PR sense would have responded completely differently to the situation.
A.L.
America invaded Iraq in its own self-interest. And that interest is to have a less violent, less threatening world. As a side effect, most people in the world will benefit by it.
That’s complete and utter B.S., A.L.
You know as well as I that Charles puts those pictures up in order to feed the racist views of his community. When the racist comments go on for 3 years there is no line drawn between the author of the post and the filth underneath.
Sad equivication coming from someone supposedly so hostile to “moral relativism.” Honestly, I expected more from you.
I guess since it’s only “comments” you wouldn’t mind if I posted some trash here, right?
Here’s some more “mild” stuff, comments made about the rape and murder of a 16 year old Palestinian girl:
Raped and killed at the age of 16? The Prophet would not approve. You’re supposed to rape and MARRY them, and at a much younger age.
Rape, if not by the father, is against Islam. Doncha know?
The Palestinians aren’t really concerned with the rape and murder, after all it was just a girl. The reason they’re screaming for blood is because before the men murdered her and while she was raped they made her take her hajib off
“Spain is getting what it deserves.” – M. Simon
Sounds exactly like the loonyleftists who claim 9/11 was just the chickens coming home to roost for the US. Spain stood by the US in Afghanistan. The fact that the majority don’t support the Iraq war doesn’t make them complicit in their own victimization. There were and are plenty of good reasons not to support the Iraq war. They may be outweighed by reasons in favor, but Iraq is not central to the conflict with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda could be beaten without invading Iraq. The notion prevelant among the extreme hawks that either you’re on board with the neocon view of the world or you’re aligned with the enemy is both stupid and counterproductive.
SAO –
I’ve actually discussed this issue with Charles in person; I’ve pointed out to him that he’s donne a good thing by bringing direct Arab sources to the light of day, but that he devalues it by allowing his site to become a focus for a stupid, racist point of view.
He acknowledged that, and expressed some frustration about it.
Based on that talk, I have no problem as tagging him culpable for a sin of omission – failure to control the unruly mob that hangs out at his place – but distinguishing it from a sin of commision – being part of that mob.
By that standard, every blogger ‘owns’ the comments at their sites; that’s B.S. People have said things here that I bitterly disagree with, but as long as they say them with an eye toward making an argument and some measure of personal civility, I let them go.
A.L.
No way. There’s a difference between allowing outright racism to be spread on your site for 3 years and having an occasional whacko who needs to be banned. He is entirely culpable for the comments regularly made on his site and does nothing to stop or discourage them. The fact that Tacitus is banned from LGF, not the racists is exemplary.
He acknowledged that, and expressed some frustration about it.
You really aren’t that naive. Notice you’re demonstrating the same type of stubborness, equivication, and excuses that got Kos in trouble after his comments. You’re walking further away from that line. You can’t simultaneously denounce Zuniga and link to LGF, A.L.- not if you want to make any moral argument.
SAO –
You raise a point that needs some thought and better argument than I can make over the morning chores. I owe a response.
First, I need to go read LGF a bit and think; I haven’t been there in a while.
A.L.
Ok, good.
And for the record I think this site is “better” than Daily Kos.
I’ve talked about what a left that does love America might look like – or what it’s philosophical roots might be.
And even though I’m grumpy most of the time, I’ve read and truly appreciate this.
A.L., got an observation for you.
On the liberal blogs that I frequent, we have our share of conservative visitors who like to make their opinions known in the comment sections. (Much as I like to make my contrary views known here). Since the Fallujah killings, a lot of the conservative comments have sounded like this one:
“The killing of innocent Americans in Fallujah can have only one reasonable response, kill everyone in the town, screw them. Only that way will they understand how seriously we take the sanctity of innocent life…”
I then saw your post here:
“On one of my email lists, the discussion is between those who want to respond with massive destruction and [other views].”
Which seems to confirm that this isn’t an isolated view, but rather, pervasive among the right. That doesn’t mean you all share it, not by a long shot. Clearly, many of the posters on this website are sensible and level-headed.
But I do see a dangerous dynamic at work. A substantial proportion of those on the right are barely able to control their anger – they seek vengeance and destruction. Those of you who are more level-headed saw this chaotic anger and viewed it as an opportunity. You whipped your base even further into a frenzy, then directed that anger at Hussein. Good job, dictator removed. But now you find yourselves in a difficult situation. Hussein is dead, but your consitutency is still screaming for blood and death.
All of a sudden, four guys get killed in Fallujah. On a geopolitical scale, this is a microscopic event. But the orgiastic violence faction latches onto it as an excuse to raze an entire city. Now you find yourselves in the position of having to try to control your own members, cool them back off.
A liberal would say that this was a dangerous game you’re playing. It’s not at all clear that you can control the fire you’ve lit.
SAO, can you explain why the ugly little comments you quoted from LGF are racist in your view? They are nasty descriptions of Palestinian and Muslim culture, but they aren’t directed at genetic makeup. Wholesale condemnation of Palestinian culture may be over the top, but it isn’t as uncontroversially wrong as a condemnation of a race. I’ve seen bonafide racist comments at LGF, but I’ve also seen racist commenters get trounced there, too. Vitriolic, wholesale condemnation of Palestinian culture may be extreme, but, whether or not it’s bad form, it doesn’t seem to cross the line. Isn’t its thesis within the realm of remote plausibility, broadly construed? We certainly can’t assume a priori that no culture is ever worthy of wholesale condemnation.
Also, are we sure that Charles Johnson’s failing to condemn the odd racist comment on his site is a “sin of omission”? The argument to the contrary would be that it’s a large comments section, and the odd racist nutjob showing up on it is of so low profile as not to matter. On the other hand, Kos is high profile; allowing his hideous remark to stand is not a good idea. It’s a question of which expressions of belief count in the forum and which don’t. There may be no duty to lambaste those that don’t count in the first place.
This is why I’m under the impression that Charles Johnson is at the edge but has not crossed the line and has no desire to do so.
I’ve talked about what a left that does love America might look like – or what it’s philosophical roots might be.
Um, A.L.? You’re soaking in it.
Josh,
That comment you cited is hilarious (in a sick sort of way). As Bugs Bunny would say, “What a maroon!” On a more serious note, though, as a member in good standing of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, I understand the knee jerk response of “turn Fallujah into a parking lot.” But I don’t think that’s a practical solution, much less a moral one. And I believe cooler heads will prevail. I don’t think Fallujah is in any danger of being flattened. I do believe the people responsible for that atrocity should be captured and killed. And I believe they will be. But while the dimwit you quote may be representative of the gut feeling of conservatives, I don’t think he represents the thought of any intelligent conservatives (not an oxymoron). Nor do I believe that such ranters will have much if any effect on policy.
> [with respect to the conservative hawks] Nor do I believe that such ranters will have much if any effect on policy.
I remember saying this exact same thing about the liberal extremists, the peaceniks. I believe it about as much as the locals believed me.
> I don’t think Fallujah is in any danger of being flattened.
From the Chicago Sun-Times: “American bodyguards in Iraq want to strengthen their weaponry with hand grenades and high-powered machineguns.”
This is going to escalate, like any feud.
Jim, it doesn’t take a genious to find the racism in those comments, but it does take a little intellectual honesty. Whether you want to call them “racist” or just “ugly”– I’ll leave that little word game to you.
I do agree that we cannot “assume a priori that no culture is ever worthy of wholesale condemnation.” But the Palestinians are not there yet, nor would I ever revel in the murder, rape, and massacre of my worst enemies’ women and children. Would you?
And trying to draw a line between Charles and his reader’s regular comments is about as fallacious a ploy as they come. After 3 years of the same “ugly” filth, they are one and the same.
Josh, you’ll notice that US forces have not, in fact, turned Falluja into a parking lot. Saner heads are running the show. I don’t fear that mobs of skinheads are going to commandeer SAC and nuke Iraq. Maybe I have too much faith in my fellow citizens, but there it is.
Anger at what happened there is a human response. Who you’re angry at says a lot about your underlying world-view. How you respond says a lot about your moral bearings.
My advice to promote a healthy moral environment is this; whenever something viscerally shocking happens, take a moment to inspect your immediate response. Imagine the same situation, but change the hats on the actors so your side and the other side are switched. If you find your response now looks repulsive, it’s time to get your anti-Moral Relativism booster shot.
Conservatives (whatever that means) as a class are no more hate-filled than Liberals (whatever that means). Examples of abhorent statements from both sides are abundant. Those examples do not invalidate the (sane) arguments on either side.
AL, thanks to you and Winds of Change for running an excellent forum for discussion.
Mark, you can have confidence especially in our professional military.
As some of you know, for the last few years I’ve been an interim instructor at one of our military academies. I’ve seen close hand how seriously the military demands discipline and character in its leaders.
“A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do.”
West Point cadets learn that it is precisely when there is great danger, or great temptation, that character is required. Example: a first year cadet (senior) reports that she contributed in a small way to a misdeed during a team trip. The cadet is a leader in the corps, highly regarded. She does not graduate on time as a result.
It is when horrible things happen, when a great deal is at stake in public policy or during a war, that similar regard for truth and discipline is needed by us all. I don’t much care for the tone at lgf, although I understand the frustration with years of biased reporting that underlies some of the triumphalism there.
One reason I was willing to join the team here at Winds of Change is that Joe and the team do try to facilitate a balanced view of events, based on acknowledging facts and crediting well-grounded arguments on all sides of the issues.
One reason I have contempt for Kos is that he does not seem to care much about anything larger than short-term partisan advantage. There is too much at stake for any of us to indulge in such childish and ultimately damaging abdication of all citizens to contribute to the serious decisions that face us as a country.
That should read, “the need for all thoughtful citizens to contribute to the serious decisions that face us”.
The corrosive partisanship of Kos and his ilk – or of Ann Coulter as well – eats away at the pillars that make representative government work. That is the most damning indictment of them both, in my mind.
AL:
I accept the distinction between a post that a blogger writes and comments.
However, LGF’s comments section effectively functions as an adjunct to the blog. It’s a virtual echo chamber of obscenity, hatred and vitriol. Johnson is the one who sets the tone. He’s responsible for the guests in his house.
Secondly, please check out his blog today, where he links approvingly to
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12852
an article that recommends we raze Fallujah, that is, commit genocide.
Would you consider de-linking to him, as you have delinked to Kos?
> Josh, you’ll notice that US forces have not, in fact, turned Falluja into a parking lot.
No. At the moment, things seem to be marginally under control, although it is unclear whether the US forces are going to make any real effort to stop the mercs from going back in with hand grenades and anti-tank machine guns.
My point was only about the extremists within our two parties. In my party, it’s the pacifists. In your party, it’s the nuke-em-all society. Joe spent a great deal of time arguing that liberals can’t act with resolve because we have a pacifist constituency. Liberals, similarly, argue that conservatives can’t act with restraint because of your violent lunatic consituency. Obviously, both arguments are overstated: the truth is that liberals can use force, as demonstrated by our unanimous support for Afghanistan, and conservatives can show restraint, as demonstrated by the fact that Fallujah is not a parking lot. But it’s also true that our extremist constituencies do color our actions: we have a tendency to be overcautious, you have a tendency to be randomly destructive.
Yuk, just thinking of a partnership between Kos and Coulter. ;->
Diana –
Well, first, it’s Joe’s blog and I’m a guest; that’s not to evade responsibility, because whatever my positions are is typically public (you’ve noticed?). But I’m still chewing on the issue raised by SAO; which I’m taking to mean that at some point, if the comments are tacitly smiled upon, the proprietor bears some responsibility.
Having said that, I wouldn’t delink _anyone_ who I felt was a meaningful part of the debate. We’ve had an abbreviated blogroll here for a variety of reasons; one of the projects on the ‘we’ll get to it’ shelf is to extend it.
I oppose symbolic delinking (ala Capizolla) for a variety of reasons, mainly that within this little clubhouse that makes up the blogosphere, it’s silly.
A.L.
I completely agree with what Robin just said about corrosive partisanship.
As a self-described politics junkie, I feel that I have the right to make the following assertion: “Politics is for people who aren’t well enough adjusted to enjoy sports.”
One of the problems that we as a species are facing is that we evolved to live in groups of 20-200 other humans. This whole “global village” thing is really messing with our minds and instinctive responses.
One of the causes of violence in the world today is that we have taken our territoriality and aggressiveness, and attached them to ideas and ideals, instead of just land. This is (part of) why 15 Saudi citizens attached the US from half the world away, and why the US, again from half the world away, invaded Iraq.
Speaking of Fallujah:
Has any one connected the cordon on Fallujah with the unrest in the remainter of Iraq?
Lots of riots. Attacks especially fierce on the Spanish and Iraqi police stations.
This looks to be a Tet like roll of the dice for the insurgents. My guess it they are tring to make things so hot in the rest of Iraq that the Marines will be forced to go back on the defensive.
Evidently it is not working well because the insurgents don’t seem to have taken anything, let alone held on to it.
My guess is that is their last major push before the 30May handover.
In my estimation this is a major critical point in the battle of Iraq.
Hi again M. Simon.
I like your second answer to what I said better.
“The deal here though is that the Spanish people have wished upon themselves way more ill than I could ever manage in several lifetimes.”
Sadly that part is true. And as you said: damn the murderers.
Sometimes I get angry about the worst sort of Europeans too. It’s hard not to let it affect your thinking when people behave so badly and speak so dishonestly and hurtfully, when the consequences are obviously about as serious as they could be, for us and especially for Europe.
> Has any one connected the cordon on Fallujah with the unrest in the remainter of Iraq?
Juan Cole seems to think they’re unrelated, because the Fallujah riots were Sunnis, and the others were Shiites.
In his theory, the Shiite attacks were a reaction to the shutting-down of that newspaper. Having been denied a voice via the newspaper, they took to the streets. He speculates that the shooting was initiated by a lunatic in the crowd or an inexperienced coalition soldier.
Um, sorry to disappoint you, but Bush and Republicans generally don’t love America, either. I’m afraid few groups have a monopoly on this one — to assert so, however indirectly as you did in this post — is lame.
The idea of turning Fallujah into a parking lot should not be meant to kill a lot of people. It should be meant as a fine. Attacks will be punished by turning your material wealth into rubble.
Now. I personally think from the standpoint of the war in Iraq and the wider war where we are trying to drive a wedge between the violent Islamics and the rest (if any) that the tactic advocated will not help.
Clearing the city bolck by block and arresting perps and installing police we can count on should be preferred to raizing the city.
I would have no problem with razing a few blocks and perhaps the bridge where our guy’s were hung with engineers building a bridge and bypass road to the north or south.
Andrew,
In a sense America got what it deserved on 9/11 but not in the way you think. We got what we deserved in the same way Spain did. Our weakness (appeasement in the case of Spain, indifference in the case of America) invited attacks.
So in a way your characterization of my point is correct.
It is just that your point of view is colored by those presenting the argument for inaction.
I say we got struck because of inaction. The anti-war types say we got struck because of our actions and our nature (capitalism, globalism, greed for oil, too many Jews etc.)
“Speaking of Fallujah …” (nods)
To tell the truth, I don’t feel too much about Fallujah as such, except sorry for the people involved and their families. (I don’t share any negative attitudes to so-called “mercenaries” at all.)
What happened was unforgivable, but I frequent Little Green Footballs, so I know we have to expect this stuff. (In contrast to how other people seem to react, I find LGF takes away my anger. I see that the bad guys are doing their worst, and I start to think about how we can meet their challenge by doing our best.)
The bottom line is that we are winning and they are losing. The bad guys have to change that, or democracy is going to stifle them. So they have to do their worst now, and they’re going for it. And the American response seems to me to be just right.
I’ve seen a lot of intemperate demands for blood right away in Fallujah. I think that reflects the distorting effect of fear. People got used to a game where the American government would promise revenge – later, someday. Of course someday never came. So now, because they have a fear that they will be betrayed (again), people shout intemperately for blood now. But because I’ve learned to trust that George W. Bush and his subordinates will do the right thing in good time, I feel no need for them to do silly stuff immediately.
Hi.
A.L. said: “I haven’t really taken on the UN issue yet, but suffice it to say that I personally think we ought to once again withold our dues pending substantial reform. In reality the diplomatic fallout from that would probably be unsustainable, so that’s not a policy suggestion (personal feelings != policy).”
Not funding the U.N. (yes, Australia too) works for me.
Only, as soon as you do that, they may say: “We are ready to reform. Just tell us what you want, and after we do it, no more yanking on the purse strings.”
That’s a problem because I can’t think of a reform that would make the U.N. anything but a sewer of corruption. The rot has gone too far, for too long, the whole culture of it is corrupt.
And if we can yank the purse strings hard (at all) it would probably only be once. There are too many countries like New Zealand (unimportant to America I know but important to Australia) that are generally respectable but orient on the U.N. as their patron. We can’t hit the U.N. hard enough to make it change /repeatedly/ and maintain even decent relations with such countries.
We need a once-and-for-all institutional fix as our “do this” when (and even if) we gird ourselves to apply a big “or else.” And I can’t see one.
Josh, they aren’t mercs. That is being disingenious. That piece of disinformation has been rebounding all over the left side of the blogosphere. I find it offensive. It diminishes thier humaity and allows one to quibble over their deaths as mere “taking out of garbage”.
Those contractors (unless you think the people fixing dams are mercs also), carrying arms are security guards. They do not act in offensive military operations, and thier usage in defnsive ones is strictly limited.
You ask what is to stop them from loading for bear and heading into fallujah? The US military would stop that. And they would too, so don’t even pretend that it would not happen. There isn’t even enough of these armed civilian personnel to be able to effectively do that anyway.
lets lay off the labels, ok
SAO,
I suppose you’re right about Charles Johnson being “one and the same” with the general tone of his commenters, responsibility-wise.
Whether you want to call them “racist” or just “ugly”– I’ll leave that little word game to you.
It isn’t a word game. It’s extremely important. We mustn’t hobble our ability to criticize cultural values by supposing that harsh – or even ugly and over-the-top – such criticism is likely racist. There is a distinction between racism and denunciation of a culture; one goes to genetics, the other does not. The reason this is important is that if a culture is bad, this fact should become known, both to its members and to everyone else.
I do agree that we cannot “assume a priori that no culture is ever worthy of wholesale condemnation.” But the Palestinians are not there yet….,
So, you’d argue against Charles et al; but you don’t place their view beyond the pale. This is my point.
…nor would I ever revel in the murder, rape, and massacre of my worst enemies’ women and children. Would you?
By all means no. That’s why I said, “ugly” and “nasty”. Charles et al may be in form beyond the pale more often than not. But their thesis isn’t racist. Don’t try to goad people into thinking otherwise by charging “intellectual dishonesty”. If my culture is a bad one, I hope its critics are shamed into silence by such a charge.
M. Simon:
I say we got struck because of inaction. The anti-war types say we got struck because of our actions and our nature (capitalism, globalism, greed for oil, too many Jews etc.)
And I say we got struck because a group of fanatics decided to attack us.
M. Simon, I agree with you a substantial part of the time. But some time we need to have a discussion on this site about causality. The proximate cause of the strike is what I just said. I really believe we’ve got to keep our eyes on the ball on this.
Armed Liberal:
Thanks for hosting a surprisingly reasonable discussion of this incredibly contentious inter-blog issue.
To those talking about how Kos “runs a good website” with all these fancy features, suppresses trolls etc., I believe that all of this a reflection of is that it’s not really a “blog” but some kind of forum-like thing more like kuro5hin. (I’m a technical moron, so I don’t really understand these kind of sites). The effect is that it’s not as readily readable and that there are multiple levels of different types of entries: front page entries, diary entries, comment entries, etc. and also that you have to have an account to participate. This, and(from my technically moronic perspective at least) that the architecture of the site is incredibly complicated. The difference between front-page posting and comment is minimal. Everything seems to have equal weight. It also makes it significantly easier to disappear things down memory holes. That, in my view, is one of the worst aspects of Kos’s behavior, that he didn’t technically “delete” his vile words but made it so it was incredibly difficult for someone who isn’t an habitue of his site to find them. This sort of having it both ways is made a lot easier with his type of site.
The other feaute of his site, having to register an account in order to comment, certainly makes the site more “troll proof”, by pretty much guaranteeing that all commenters agree with Kos’s politics. In fact, as with most stridently partisan sites, the comments function as mostly a more rabid, cruder echo of the blogger. They were even more bloodthirsty and gloating over the deaths of the civilian contractors than Kos himself, if you can even conceive of anyone being that morally depraved. (Since we’re indulging in an orgy of sanctimonious finger-wagging over LGF comments this is obviously fair game to point out). They also stridently objected to Kos backing down from his hateful comments at all, not that he actually did in his mealy-mouthed “apology”. I’ve heard anecdotal information that anyone who tried to make any kind of dissenting comment on his site is summarily banned. The irony of this coming from the type of person who is likely to whine about violations of free speech, “McCarthyism” etc. (watch for him to use that word in the next few days) scarcely needs to be commented on. Charles Johnson, on the other hand doesn’t employ such strong-armed tactics with his commenters, and dissenters are allowed to speak until they break out the racial epithets and physical threats, which happens far more frequently than the core group of commenters sinking to such a level.
Shaun Evans said: “One of the causes of violence in the world today is that we have taken our territoriality and aggressiveness, and attached them to ideas and ideals, instead of just land.”
I think you have to take into account whether those ideas are good or bad.
The Americans certainly have “territorial ideas”. They have the strength to take more land, but what they want instead is more freedom. Problems arise when you fill in the content of “freedom” because it includes kick-em-in-the-guts capitalism. But on the whole American-style freedom is a great thing. The world is lucky that this is what the Americans want.
On the other hand, the world of Islam seems to be coalescing, and has been doing so since (at latest) the Khomeni revolution in Iran, and its core idea is sharia. Which of course means they want purity (e.g. removing the Bamiyan Buddhas) and the land too (e.g. Palestine, all of it). That’s not to my taste, in fact I’ve come to be against it, morally.
I don’t think you can say the problem is that we are fighting over ideas. (When what we ought to be fighting over is land?) The problem is bad ideas.
(SAO: I meant “aren’t shamed into silence”.)
LGF is a site that attacks Arab culture. A search for the word “Arab” brought 7080 matches, for “Palestinian” brought 5544. Last time I checked, the Arabs were a race of people.
Diana, SAO
The issue whether Charles Johnson’s blog is beyond the pale has come up a couple of times here at Winds of Change. Johnson often seems to revel in throwing a lot of red meat into the festival of hate – excuse me: “anti-idiotarianism” – going on back in the comments section. I would also add, contra those who draw a distinction between Johnson and his fans, that the distinction only goes so far: Johnson takes a very active role in the LGF comments section, mocks dissenting posters (including those who object to the racist/religious bigotry) and even bans many he calls “pc trolls” while keeping around the most hateful bigots who continue to spew their venom. This process of ‘natural selection’ tends to widen even more the gulf between the sewer out back and the presumable reasonable Mr. Johnson.
I must say that I am less sure that Johnson himself is an outright bigot. LGF will draw attention on occasion to positive developments, views, etc. expressed by Muslims. I also don’t recall seeing an example of Charles Johnson reveling in the death, maiming, desecration of innocents (but please correct me if I’m wrong). Still the tone is very one-sided and all of my Muslim acquaintances (all of whom are moderates and many of whom are pro-American) find it highly offensive.
Now we’re on to brass tacks. The Arab people are a race. But the Arab culture is not a race. If their culture is bad, this fact will go unknown if exposing it is shamed as racist. If the fact goes unknown, it will go unchanged.
Gabriel: Still the tone [at LGF] is very one-sided and all of my Muslim acquaintances (all of whom are moderates and many of whom are pro-American) find it highly offensive.
Yes, it is, and yes, they should find it offensive. It’s in horrendously bad form. I hope you can see that this doesn’t rebut my point.
There are a lot of sites on both the left (Kos, DU) and the right (FR, LGF) that I just find too stomach-churning to visit. Frequently, although not exclusively, this is due to the commenters.
It’s why I like this site. Thanks, Joe.
Josh: “But it’s also true that our extremist constituencies do color our actions: we have a tendency to be overcautious, you have a tendency to be randomly destructive.”
And our labels color our perceptions. I’ll leave it to others to suggest alternatives to the word “overcautious”. As for “randomly destructive”, that only applies to me when I’m in the kitchen.
Josh,
In my opinion the attacks are too wide spread to be a bunch of isolated incidents. Remember every good military plan has a cover plan. That goes double for terrorists.
> In my opinion the attacks are too wide spread to be a bunch of isolated incidents.
Bear in mind that Arab hatred for Americans is at incredibly incendiary levels. Under these circumstances, if somebody throws a rock at somebody, it ends in gunfire.
Dave,
We have to keep our eye on why the attack was an attractive option considering Al Q’s goals.
I go with the strong horse/weak horse theory expounded by our enemies and explained really well by Belmont Club’s exposition on the weakness of Spain.
The goal of Al Q et. al. is to not only attack their enemies but to appear to be the strong horse by causing a change in policy.
The attacks are really not nihilistic violence. They are designed to cause a change in policy. Spread of the ummah etc.
Appearing to be a weak horse is what invites attack. That explains 9/11 – where the jihadis were mistaken and 3/11 where they were not.
When dealing with any bully weakness invites attack. Sad but true facts of life. Did we deserve the attacks in an ultimate moral sense – of course not. We deserved them because in a dangerous world we let our guard down.
But, A.L., you’re a liberal, remember? So your condemnation of Ann Coulter doesn’t count. More relevant, maybe, are the condemnations at Volokh, Balloon-Juice, etc. Good on them. That’s why I read them. Now, are you ready for a list of conservative blogs that don’t condemn or even support Coulter?
I don’t share Kos’s dismissive attitude towards the death of the mercenaries, and I think his posting was obscene. I also don’t want to obscure the tremendous service Kos does for the liberal community.
Josh,
Do you suppose the fever pitch of hatred could have been coordinated? I think a paper got shut down for the reason that it was coordinating a campaign of hatred.
All the details of course will not come out until we get the after action reports.
I think Fallujah was just the opening stroke.
My guess would be that compromises were made for policy reasons: first we drive the Americans out then we fight over the spoils.
Eric Deamer, do you think registration at Tacitus is going to guarantee that his commenters follow his politics?
I submit myself as a counterexample. At least a fifth of his commenters are liberals.
I think it’s too bad that conservatives don’t visit Kos, because it’s a very educational site (at least it used to be).
Oh, I just realized I’m the Dave you’re talking to, M. Simon. (OK, who else would you have been talking to, since I’m talking to you …)
“When dealing with any bully weakness invites attack. Sad but true facts of life. Did we deserve the attacks in an ultimate moral sense – of course not. We deserved them because in a dangerous world we let our guard down.”
What you say makes sense, but I disagree anyway. 😛
I have been thinking about this, because of Mark Latham’s confused and confusing but clearly irresponsible promise to bring home Australia’s troops if he (or rather Labor) wins the next Federal election. In other words, he’s set us up for a Spanish election, by showing weakness, and by giving the bad guys a clear objective to achieve by hitting us.
So, if there’s a blast (or with AQ multiple simultaneous blasts planned for synergistic effects) before our next election – who’s to blame?
I think it’s got to be Al Qaeda. I don’t want us ripping into each other.
I know Latham and the loony left losers are doing stuff that’s putting us in harm’s way. But my bottom line is that the enemy is out there. It’s the terrorists. It’s not us, even those of us who are being staggeringly irresponsible, dishonest and you name it.
I just don’t want us to be ripping into each other.
The fact is the hate he displayed is exactly what’s been driving the Democrats for decades.
Everyone who makes the distinctions between Charles Johnson and his dittoheads should check out the link (today) where he links approvingly to the Tammy Bruce article in Frontpagemag.
Then judge whether or not Johnson is “part of the debate.”
What debate?
Josh,
I don’t think the anti-war extremists have had any effect on policy. That might change if Kerry is elected, but I’m not even sure about that, although it’s a risk I personally am not willing to take with my vote. The rabid LGF types (with whom, I confess, I have some degree of sympathy on a visceral level) aren’t driving and won’t drive the Republican party. I don’t think Bush is going to do anything rash in Iraq to satisfy them, why should he? Where the hell else they gonna go? To Kerry?
(after more thought)
M. Simon, here’s the historical context of the moral conflict as I see it. The prime precedent is the crusades. I see the crusades as primarily a good and justified thing, because they were a necessary reaction to Islam eating two thirds of Christendom, and being out to devour the rest as well. But the crusades became disastrous, because they got diverted to fighting the wrong people, most spectacularly but not only with the fourth crusade. It’s a lot easier to attack us, especially classic scapegoats like the Jews, than to take on them, those guys we’re really scared of, and whose aggression is driving this. So the worst people take the easiest way, and that’s how it all ends in tears.
I think we are being pushed into a crusading age again. They (Islam) hit us, and we must hit them, and win. They are fighting a war of ideas, and we must too. So in doing that, I think we have to be very, very aware of what history proved was the main pitfall that can trap you when you play this game, and that is fraticide.
Sure, I like my neighbors, including the lefties, and I prefer civility and good will, but it’s the historic context as I see it, and not just a spirit of kindness that sets my priorities here.
What do you see as the historical context for this moral conflict? What is the main lesson you draw from how the war was then won or lost?
Oh yeah, I forgot. Re the racism debate, there is absolutely a distinction to be made between the Arab race and Arab culture. A teller that works at my bank is named Freddy Kawaja. I asked him what kind of name that was (I’m interested in ethnicity) and he replied “Arab.” Freddy is from Texas. He sounds like he’s from Texas. He acts like he’s from Texas. Culturally, he’s as American as mom, apple pie and baseball, but he is racially Arab. It’s perfectly possible to believe the Arabs have a barbarous culture, but that when born and raised in a civilized culture, they become civilized people.
Exactly, Fred. Ruthless criticism of a culture is no more evidence of the critic’s racism than it is evidence of his belief that people of any genetic makeup are capable of measuring up to high moral standards.
FWIW, my thoughts on Kos:
Two points:
1. never blog in anger is a pretty good motto, though not one I follow. Lincoln, when he was angry at something or had the vapors, would apparently write thundering, furious screeds, and then when he had blown off steam, would burn it. I wonder what we would have thought of Lincoln if we could read his rants.
Kos, when he wrote that post, was angry that the deaths of five uniformed soldiers were ignored while the deaths of four contract soldiers were given great publicity, and motivated by that anger, he allowed himself to ignore human decency towards the soldiers and their families in their time and grief, as well as to make ugly, inaccurate, wildly inappropriate accusations as to the motivations of the private soldiers. They are *not* mercenaries. Mercenaries are people who don’t care what side they’re on. If you pay them enough money, they’ll switch sides. These contract soldiers, are people, who so to speak, wanted to do well and do good at the same time. Most of them probably wouldn’t have gone to Iraq if the money wasn’t good, but if your alternatives are halfway decent, as was surely the case, no amount of money will make your run great personal danger for a cause you don’t believe in. These contract soldiers were risking their lives to protect people who needed protecting from criminals, brigands and terrorists. They’re morally equivalent, perhaps, to private security guards, and nobody calls them “mercenaries”.
If you want to make this about left and right, Rachel Corrie, the Paul Wellstone memorial, etc. are pretty good comparisons. Ralph Peters, a conservative I kind of like, mused that the Fallujah deaths might be Darwinian selection at work. In context, these remarks are not so outrageous, but as we keep being reminded by Kos’s attackers, who needs context?
*Everyone* is vulnerable to this. Everyone. The “What’s an Arab?” joke, again taken out of context, might be enough to make someone radioactive in a sound-bite environment.
2. James Carville, on Larry King in august 1998, said “When I look just at Clinton’s actions in the Lewinsky scandal, I can’t defend them. But when I look at Clinton’s whole life, his Presidency and his actions as a whole, not only could I defend him, but I would be proud to defend him.” People who are making the jump from saying that because Kos wrote an ugly, insensitive-to-the-point-of- cruel, “unpatriotic” post, that Kos is therefore an ugly, cruel, “unpatriotic” person, are making a much bigger moral error than Kos is doing in not properly apologizing.
Expanding a bit on the last point, some people (not Tacitus, and not AL, and not some others) are trying to make this as big a deal as possible not because they are truly outraged, but because they’re “milking it”. There is no honor in kicking someone when they’re down. Which, when you think about it, is why Kos was so very wrong to denigrate contract soldiers and their motives and morality when 4 had just been murdered.
Oh, and when Ronald Reagan was facing attacks because of the racist, anti-Semitic, semi-fascist views of some of his ardent supporters, Reagan replied in a untroubled, assured, genial manner: “When someone supports or endorses me, I am not endorsing their agenda. They are endorsing mine.” When are we going to get some Politicians with balls?
There is some confusion of categories in this debate. SAO and Josh Yelon are castigating A.L – SAO going so far as to call A.L. a “complete hypocrite,” which seriously calls SAO’s judgment into question – for linking to Charles Johnson. The argument is that to condemn a particular post at DailyKos is bad unless you also refuse to link to LGF. But that’s bullshit. Notice the inequality: condemn a post vs. delink a site. If A.L. had said he was going to delink Kos, then SAO would have an argument. But A.L.’s post about Kos increases engagement and interaction. He was talking about something someone said, arguing. SAO’s challenge to delink LGF would, if enacted, decrease engagement and interaction.
And Josh, that line about the liberal fringe being “overcautious” while the rightwing fringe is “randomly destructive” was too cute by half. It suggests that the rightwing is dangerous, the leftwing merely dull. Not true, as those lefties in Boston who roughed up some counterprotesting conservatives last week, and the ANSWER stormtroopers, demonstrate.
A.L., your instincts are sound. You’re a sophisticated and subtle thinker. That’s why you’re an armed liberal. That’s why you like some aspects of George Bush’s program and dislike others. You weigh and measure and find the devil in the details. You and Joe are running a hell of a site here. For calling you a hypocrite, SAO should be ashamed of himself.
I believe Kos was delinked from this site.
Kos was never linked from this site in the first place.
Eric is correct. He was never linked here.
> Do you suppose the fever pitch of hatred could have been coordinated? I think a paper got shut down for the reason that it was coordinating a campaign of hatred.
Clearly, Sadr and Sistani aren’t coordinated: Sadr’s trying to whip up anger, Sistani is trying to calm things down.
However, I’d say that Bush and Sadr are coordinating. Sadr starts a paper that incites violence. Bush’s cronies play into his hand by obligingly shutting down the paper. Sadr responds that the US is trying to silence the Iraqis. Not that Bush is trying to coordinate with Sadr, he’s just doing so through complete lack of diplomatic competence.
While I don’t agree with Patrick’s arguement one bit, he’s right that I went too far in my rhetoric. I apologize to A.L. for what I wrote and will be more respectful in the future.
It doesn’t help to be rude when trying to make a point about decency on the internet, so in effect I was the hypocrite.
-SAO
“However, I’d say that Bush and Sadr are coordinating. Sadr starts a paper that incites violence. Bush’s cronies play into his hand by obligingly shutting down the paper. Sadr responds that the US is trying to silence the Iraqis. Not that Bush is trying to coordinate with Sadr, he’s just doing so through complete lack of diplomatic competence.”
Wow. Isn’t it amazing how everything can so easily be tied to Bush. Let me see if I get this straight:
1) Sadr – an individual who can in no terms be considered a crony of bush, or even an admirer starts a paper.
2) Said paper incites violence.
3) Paul Bremer – an admitted bush crony, shuts down the paper to prevent said potentialy incited violence. (Which by the way was a lie being told against the Americans, relating to who was responsible for a specific act of terror)
4) Bush lacks diplomatic competence based on these facts. His “crony’s” allowance of a free press, as long as it not be made of lies, somehow shows what a bungler the Bush cabal is? Further, the actions taken to stop the spreading of lies and furhter violence is a misstep in what way?
Wow. If this man cured cancer, ya’ll would accuse him of putting sceintists out of work.
David asks:
“What do you see as the historical context for this moral conflict? What is the main lesson you draw from how the war was then won or lost?”
The problem is that there are two historical contexts (since context is in the mind).
1. The Arab/Islamic context of conquering and subjugating the conquered. This goes to the foundation of Islam and it nurses grievances that are 1400 years old. Never forget.
2. The American context which is let us forget about the past and focus on business (i.e. the present and the future)
The Islamics think we have no honor and we think they have no sense. Which is not strictly true. We prefer to ignore honor until it interfers with business. When that happens we have way more honor than the most honor bound culture can manifest. Once the job of defending our honor is over it is back to business.
Of course the American habit of focusing on business without even a hat tip to honor is why our enemies underestimate us. They think because we will kiss ass for business we will kiss ass for anything. Sorry bub. Not even remotely true. Ask the Japanese. Ask the Germans.
As to the Crusades – I have no opinion.
The critical point in this war is that Islam when in control leads to despotism. Similar in its own way to communism. Compare Pinochet in Chile with Castro in Cuba. Pinocet is typical of right wing authoritarians America has supported. Their goal is to provide a stable violence free environment where business can flourish. Once that job is done (10 years? 30 years?) the authoritarians give way to the democrats because the authoritarians despite the lefty rhetoric really want to see their people prosper. For the communists and Islamics it is not about prosperity. It is about control.
This has been an ongoing human conflict for at least since the invention of the state.
For the most part only the despots could provide security so people were willing to give up their liberty for a chance of a less violent life.
With the invention of personal fire arms the equation changed. Suddenly if neighbors cooperated they could resist not only marauding gangs but governments too. This idea of cooperation with people who are unrelated for common political goals has made modern democracy possible.
The gun truly is the foundation of the democratic nation state. A nation disarmed will not long remain democratic.
Just because we are democrats in America doesn’t mean we have quenched the athoritarian impulse.
We have them on the left and right and they are almost as much danger to us as the Islamics.
So there is a reason to keep them off balance politically and morally.
This is why we have to beat down Kos as much as we go after Osama.
We will deal with each on their chosen battlefield. Kos has chosen words to fight with. Fair enough I will fight him with words. Despite many threats the odds of KOS getting hurt out of this little upset are slim indeed.
Compare that with Osama. He chooses guns. It is the gun he gets.
It is not that I hate Osama or KOS. It would be a very good thing to have either on my side.
But as long as they oppose liberty they will have me as an enemy. Each getting the kind of fight they asked for.
We prefer to ignore honor until it interfers with business. When that happens we have way more honor than the most honor bound culture can manifest. Once the job of defending our honor is over it is back to business.
There’s a slightly different way of looking at this. We are not a monolithic culture. There are a variety of forces at work. For Hamiltonian America business is pretty much all that matters. Jacksonian America is an honor culture. But the Jacksonian notion of honor differs dramatically from the Arab notion of honor.
The greatest danger that the Arab world runs is that Jacksonian America will be aroused here. For Jacksonian America an enemy that violates a flag of truce or mutilates the bodies of dead enemies is an enemy without honor. And for enemies without honor there is no such thing as limited war.
Just a couple of minor points, as I see a few side-arguments have come up as well:
– On the issue of Kos, pretty much everything that needs to be said has been said. Yes, he said something stupid and hasn’t improved his situation since; no, that doesn’t make him one of an archetypal “Them,” and campaigns to instate him as such have the ring of partisan hay-making. Of course he’s treating those attempts as a political ambush. That’s precisely what they are.
– The issue of Fallujah’s dead is whether or not they were mercenaries is separate, or at least separable, from the Kos debate, and it raises its own questions.
I have to say I’m not much interested in attempts to split hairs about the definition of “mercenary;” functionally speaking, if you have paid private soldiers bearing arms for you in a warzone, those people fit a basic description of mercenary. The word doesn’t necessarily involve judging them all as armed whores, but it does certainly carry some cautionary implications — and it bloody well should. PMCs have been mixed up in extremely dirty dealings in the past, sometimes while under direct contract to the US, and given the highly political nature of the conflict in Iraq, pro-wars should be very eager indeed to know what four hired soldiers were doing wandering through the hostile city of Fallujah.
It doesn’t matter whether their role is “defensive” or not. If the Fallujah incident inspires some interest in the whole issue of PMC oversight and the role these companies play in the war, then great, some good has come of it and I’ll look forward to seeing pro-war sites like this one focus some energy on the question. If it simply inspires a head-in-the-sand “oh they were just security guards” reaction purely driven by the impulse to damage Kos, that’s contemptible.
– I see the whole “Spain and appeasement” meme coming up again. There’s one key question all this stuff has seemed to overlook from day one: why on Earth should Spain refrain from doing what it thinks best to fight terrorism just because some terrorists might like it too?
WWII analogies are always thick on the ground in war commentary, so let’s try this one: if the Allies, in fighting Hitler, had based all their plans not on what was best for them, but on what Hitler might think of them, would they have had a better or worse chance of winning that war? It seems to me that much of the bloviating about Spain boils down to: “once you’ve done something, no matter how stupid it may be, you can never ever reverse that course of action in case it might please a terrorist somewhere — that’s appeasement!” Sounds like a recipe for paralysis to me.
– On racism, LGF and hypocrisy: SAO shouldn’t have backed down from his earlier strong claims. Linking to a site that promotes racism while sniping at Kos as one of “Them” for a single remark is indeed hypocrisy, and it needed to be said, and I’m glad SAO said it.
Oh wait, Arabs are a culture, therefore anti-Arab sentiment can’t be racism? Well, since Jews are not a race, I hereby declare that anti-Semitism does not exist. I’m sure Jews all over the world will take enormous comfort from this assurance.
Oh wait, Arabs are a culture, therefore anti-Arab sentiment can’t be racism?
I hope you don’t think anyone here made such a silly argument.
Oh, a supplementary point to my first comment about Kos: it’s instructive that A.L. thinks this issue will ultimately lead to Bush locking up the White House. Can’t possibly imagine why Kos smells a whiff of partisanship in all this so-called “outrage.”
Jim, from an earlier comment:
It’s perfectly possible to believe the Arabs have a barbarous culture, but that when born and raised in a civilized culture, they become civilized people.
It’s likewise possible to believe that Jews have a deviant and alien culture without believing they’re a “race.” Now, replace “Arab” with “Jew” in the above sentence and give me a reason not to assume it’s either racist, or close enough to racism not to be worth quibbling about.
Little Green Footballs / Beyond the Pale:
I read LGF a couple times a week, because about 25% of the posts are excerpts of primary sources (or translations thereof) that I think are fundamental to understanding Muslim and Arab cultures, and the relationship of these cultures to the wider world. Hyperlinks are always there, and they are always good.
If it wasn’t for LGF, I would miss most of these articles. They aren’t prominent in the American mass media. “Islam is a religion of peace” is, itself, a statement of faith, not necessarily a fact-based description. Bush’s belief seems widely shared by those with more politically-correct points of view, perhaps accounting for the reluctance of editors and journalists to give wide currency to many of the pieces that Charles Johnson highlights. In any case, I don’t know of a site other than LGF that showcases important and uncomfortable reports.
I don’t go into the comments threads there, for the reasons alluded to in this thread. I know there are thoughtful posters at LGF (and there are articles in the Weekly World News that are truthful, for that matter). But with excellent commentaries widely available elsewhere, why seek to read angry, sniping, emotion-driven, ignorant, uncouth sentences? Who needs it? I feel the same way about the unmoderated comments sections of many prominent left-leaning sites, such as the one that’s the subject of A.L.’s post here. I bypass them too.
Is the cherry-picking that I describe sensible? Racist? Something else?
I’d be interested to know how the LGF-boycotters who have posted here access the information that Charles Johnson brings to the foreground (if that’s important).
…give me a reason not to assume it’s…racist….
Because it pertains to culture, not genetics. Here’s an illustration: If someone told me – and I’ve been told this many times – that Western culture was crap and ought to be abandoned for, say, traditional Chinese culture (Confucianism and Taoism), I wouldn’t take this as racist. The criticism of Western or Arab culture maps onto cultural divisions. Whether these in turn map onto genetic ones is irrelevant to whether the criticism is inherently racist. It isn’t.
Notice that if what you say is true, then it is always wrong to criticize a culture, given that racism is wrong. But sometimes giving such criticism is not only right but a duty. So, what you say can’t be true.
By the way, I don’t know who said Arabs aren’t a race. I suppose they are.
AMac: LGF just isn’t the equivalent of DailyKos or Atrios. Their comments are partisan echo chambers — but unlike Johnson, the bloggers haven’t massively intervened to keep them that way. Johnson has intervened on behalf of the racists and against their critics, time and again.
Jim: Two problems here:
1) First of all, you’re using an artificially restricted definition of racism. “Race” is a cultural construct that predates genetics by quite a long time. Functionally speaking, the term “racism” tends to be applied to sweeping characterizations (especially denigrations) of an ethnic group. The average poor white farmer in the antebellum South would never have heard of genetics, but that wouldn’t have affected his ability to believe in racism. (Yes, we could coin a new, more precise term, like “ethnism,” but I think that would actually obscure the diverse breadth of thought about “race” in an unhelpful way.)
2) You’re missing the crucial distinction between abstract logic and cultural context. It’s technically possible for an abstract distinction to exist between the critiques of certain cultures and the broader, irrational that constitute racism and its functional equivalents. But in certain cultural contexts, it’s far from likely for this to be the case. Someone criticizing the “Jewish cultural” habit of using the blood of Christian babies in their religious rituals is clearly practising anti-Semitism, whether or not they’re explicitly arguing in genetic terms. The same with someone who believes that Islam or “Arab culture” (dividing line between usage of the two is often fuzzy) encourages deceiving the infidel, or that “Arab culture” doesn’t dissent from the brutality we saw in Fallujah.
I hardly ever visit LGF and never read their comments, so someone please clarify some things for me…
From ONLY the descripitions here, are most of the suspect pieces at LGF, directed at Arab culture or Islam?
What I’m getting at is this:
Is it automatically racist to analyze and discuss the written religous texts of other cultures, e.g. The Koran WRT Arabs?
Shouldn’t the wrtten creeds of any culture be fair game for critisism? If not, then is it the case that only true believers be allowed to comment on such documents?
Is it automatically racist to analyze and discuss the written religous texts of other cultures, e.g. The Koran WRT Arabs?
… which construction is meant to imply, no doubt, that anyone who criticizes LGF for merely “analyzing and discussing written religious texts” must just be overreacting.
Obviously, what matters is how analysis and discussion take place. This should not be too difficult to grasp, if you can acknowledge that there’s a difference between someone who points out there was violence in the Old Testament and someone who claims that such-and-such Biblical passage proves the immorality of Judaism. Or someone who knows that the Koran is a contradictory document that urges both tolerance and violence against unbelievers, and someone who cherry-picks the violent passages in order to cast aspersions on “Arabs.”
Thanks for your response regarding your view of LGF’s commenters, Dr. Slack (6:17pm).
Can you take a stab at my questions:
As an LGF-boycotter, do you have another way of accessing the information at the links that Charles Johnson posts at LGF?
Is that important?
Doctor Slack,
Actually, it wasn’t constructed with anything in mind other than the question. I have no interest in defending LGF.
I may, however, be interested in reading the Koran and seeing how it can be interpreted by some to mean that I must be conquered or destroyed. Why shouldn’t this be an appropriate topic of research and debate?
If I where a Federal employee, the documents that inspired Timothy McVeigh may be equally as interesting. Can we not talk about those? Or would that be racist?
Please try not see malevolence where there is only curiosity.
Dr. Slack –
I’m in a real-world frenzy today, and can’t get deeply into this (althoiugh I’m formulating a long post), but a few things:
1) there is real conflict between the West and the Islamist world (note that I’m not tagging the Muslim world, although Islamism is becoming more and more common through the Muslim world);
2) the nature of the conflict is such that we’re being exposed here in the 1st world to types and levels of violence that are alien to us, and go against deeply held ‘norms’ that we’ve taken a long time to develop. People in the West also violate these norms, but are sanctioned for doing so.
3) the issue is how to pick apart the Muslim and Islamist worlds.
LGF did a real service by taking the lid off Islamist and Muslim rhetoric, which is aimed both at our society and values.
Has Charles or his community taken this too far?
And what responsibility does Charles bear for his community?
….all good questions. But, in part, the positions on them are driven more by which side of the fence you’re on re the war (i.e. ‘it’s our fault, and/or the perps are isolated criminals who could be captured or otherwise blocked from attacking vs. it’s a cultural movement that needs to be changed.)
More later…
A.L.
AMac: Re LGF — actually, I don’t recall ever seeing much there that I couldn’t find from other sources. Even before I put it on my “total write-off” list, I thought it looked more like red meat for “clash of civilizations” enthusiasts more than anything else.
I may, however, be interested in reading the Koran and seeing how it can be interpreted by some to mean that I must be conquered or destroyed. Why shouldn’t this be an appropriate topic of research and debate?
I don’t recollect saying, or anyone else saying, the “research and debate” about the Koran or anything else is itself inappropriate. That you ask this question as though someone has said this is part of the reason I suspected your motives earlier. Apart from that, I think my earlier answer should be sufficient.
A.L.: While I’m not sure we agree about the usefulness of LGF at any point, that’s neither here nor there now. I think the main argument for Johnson having gone too far is simply his aggressive engagement with shaping the discourse in his “comments” section. It would be somewhat different if he were hands-off, but I think the crux of the matter is more than just that the comments are a cruder readback of what he says (that’s often the case with blog comments). It’s that he seems to have a very active hand in shaping the ugly and, yes, often racist tone there.
Doc sLack,
The critical point about Arabs and the Koran is not what is written. The critical point is what is being done in the name of what is written.
It is quite clear that what the Arabs are doing in the name of what is written seems to be gathering them a few enemies.
Evidently this is not the first time this has happened.
Well all I can do is wish them bad luck.
I used to like LGF when most comments were 4 deep and a heavily commented post had 20 comments. The first 100 comment post was a real mile stone.
Course back then the stuff was just as blood thirsty. And I gladly joined in. The Arabs deserve a serious butt kicking. If things get too nasty the dinner offering will be cloudy mushroom soup. One of my favorites.
Let us hope the Islamics surrender before it comes to that.
I’d advise you to focus your attentions on getting the Islamics to surrender before the glass parking lot option becomes viable.
I think it is valuable in war to get the blood up a little. It helps morale and keeps the troops energized. Not crazy mad. Just motivated mad.
Plus such a place is good for our enemies to see. We can tell them that most of us are quite understanding compared to the LGFers. God help us if they get in charge. So please be nice and surrender before we put the real bastards in positions of authority.
You see we are doing our best to restrain them but you got to give us something. How about a nice Islam – you know. Surrender.
Slack,
The point you miss here is that most of the current wars on this planet (80% plus I think) involve Muslims.
Is it racist to point this out?
I see M. Simon has obligingly provided a heaping sample of the kind of stuff I was referring to. Right down to the sweeping broad-brushes of “the Arabs,” conflation of the same with “the Islamics” (who as a culture are expected to “surrender”) and the marshalling of unrelated trivia to “support” the broad-brushing. Reasonable conversation about the political issues facing the Islamic world and their connection to religion are possible, but not, as far as I’ve seen, with people like this.
Josh Yelon,
There is a very dangerous dynamic at work here.
The best way to defuse it is to get all Muslims to practice their Islam – surrender.
LGF is not racist. They merely offer their informed views on all of them filthy bastard Muslim slimebags, who want to rape your sister, from the Islamic part of the world that we should nuke the shit out of. This is merely my “cultural” viewpoint and is not meant to cause offense.
Armed Liberal
Has Charles or his community taken this too far?
And what responsibility does Charles bear for his community
CJ actively moderates his comments section. He deletes posts and bans posters who repeatedly and strongly disagree with the prevailing viewpoint in the blog. His comments section encompasses a range of views he believes to be acceptable on his web-site. Most people find that range of views repugnant, but not Joe Katzman or A.L, I suppose.
The excuse that CJ must be linked to because he is part of the debate is ludicrous — Kos is a bigger ‘part of the debate’ according to the blog rankings.
Anyway, I rarely visit this blog, and the link to LGF is one reason. I’m sure Joe realizes that his link to LGF sends a message about the nature of this blog, and that this message is one Joe wants to send. He’s free to do that.
Hannan Ashwari is an Arab. She is also a Christian. Her politics are not far from those of any of her Islamic bretheren.
‘Course as soon as the Islamics stop acting like such and apartheid society, treat women like people and stop killing homosexuals I’ll stop with my racists comments about them – fair enough?
And you will find that it is quite possible to have an intelligent conversation from me.
But let us face a few facts – it is not just the governments of the middle East that are dysfunctional. They also have a dysfunctional culture. And that means they have a lot of dysfunctional people.
It is going to be hard on us to help them. It is going to be harder on us if we don’t.
I hate to speak for Joe, unlike some around here *ahem*, but I suspect that Joe and A.L. believe that the “message” of Winds of Change is “sent” by the postings herein.
I first found out about Joe from an LGF link.
Joe and I had a few private e-mail discussions and I guest blogged some energy issues here. Since then Joe has been kind enough to let me guest blog a whole series about drugs, the brain, and the drug war.
All because of LGF.
Charles is OK. The commenting is fun and if from time to time intemperate it is more venting than serious.
For me LGF is a one stop shop for finding out how the propaganda war is going.
In any case the answer to bad speech is more speech.
LGF’s comments are open. Have at it. In fact his policy is way more open than FreeRepublic or DU or IndyMedia. For that I think Charles is owed a vote of thanks not censure.
Doc,
Late to the party, but I hope you return, as I was a bit curious about one of your statements.
“Someone criticizing the “Jewish cultural” habit of using the blood of Christian babies in their religious rituals is clearly practising anti-Semitism, whether or not they’re explicitly arguing in genetic terms. The same with someone who believes that Islam or “Arab culture” (dividing line between usage of the two is often fuzzy) encourages deceiving the infidel, or that “Arab culture” doesn’t dissent from the brutality we saw in Fallujah.”
Am I reading to much into it, when I notice your comparison of something that is pure lie (which I assume by your use of sneer quotes that you know), using the blood of christian babies vs. your Islamic comparison of deceiving the infidels which is something actually written in their holy text today.
One pure bullshit and one based on the writings in the Islamic holy text. I am not accusing you of racism, and I believe you seek honest discourse on these matters. I do as well, and would await your response.
Hi.
M. Simon, I think the exercise of comparing historic contexts was useful, as it often is. We won’t agree, but now we can more easily see why.
From your point of view, the present situation suggests at least these points:
* Don’t disarm (probably in any sense).
* Take on all comers, extreme right, left and off the map Islamic terrorist, though the last most. All are threats to American freedom.
* Don’t sweat over honor when it’s just about making a buck, but when the line is crossed (which we all agree it well and truly was by 11 September 2001 at latest) fight like Hell.
You don’t have or need an opinion on the crusades.
From my point of view, the present situation suggests at least these points:
* It’s time to fight or die, and will remain so till the present Muslim surge ends in frustration or satisfaction, preferably the former. (Only, Trent Telenko is right, that weapons of mass destruction change the game. A fuse is lit, we have to move fast.)
* Avoid fraticide, classic crusader error #1.
* Avoid inhumane actions in the heat of the moment, classic crusader error #2.
* Worry a lot about demographics (because failure to populate Outremer is what really killed it).
I recognize that there is what J.F.C. Fuller would have called an “internal front” in Islam, and it must be used, but the above points are all more important.
I don’t have or need an opinion on Jacksonianism or a uniquely American way of war.
You can see from that where our agreements and disagreements will come, including over Kos. And I think that wraps that, for me.
Hi.
Lurker said: “I may, however, be interested in reading the Koran and seeing how it can be interpreted by some to mean that I must be conquered or destroyed. Why shouldn’t this be an appropriate topic of research and debate?”
Honestly, just buy a cheap translation of the Koran and read it cover to cover before you do anything else. The Penguin Koran will do. Then you can look up the sites that discuss this.
Little Green Footballs isn’t one of those sites. It focuses on current events, generally stuff that’s nasty and that conventional media don’t report. I’d say give it a miss, because it’s not what you seem to be interested in.
Good luck. 🙂
D.G.: Thanks for your reply. You’re right to note that the blood libel and the claims about Islam and deception aren’t precise equivalents. I do, however, regard superficial appeals to religious texts as deceptive on close to the same order, because these usually elide context and practice. The arguments given in favour of the supposed Islamic theology of deception are typically of that species of superficiality*; what distinguishes reputable criticism for me is that which pays attention to everyday practice rather than cherry-picking the sensational and building a distorted picture from that.
* – A closer equivalent might be watching people argue, based on the New Testament account of the Last Supper, that Christianity obviously endorses cannibalism; or reading the morality of Old Testament passages on the proper way to dispose of captured virgins into modern Christianity or Judaism as though they were directly applicable.
“Ralph Peters, a conservative I kind of like”
Heh. I think he, like Victor Davis Hanson and Armed Liberal is a Cold-War-Democrat.
Ursus Maritimus
Dr. Slack,
On your two replies to me:
1. You say I have a too-narrow concept of “racist,” but actually you have a too-narrow definition of “genetic”. It predates concepts of DNA.
2. If you’re arguing that people who criticize a culture are probably racist, have at it. It’s not an interesting debate to me. You’re earlier point that anyone who criticizes a culture is a racist until proven otherwise is what captured my interest. This view is widespread and has a grave chilling effect on inquiry.
Doc
I think that the general condemnation of Islam that you see on sites like LGF or the Rott, are due to the fact that those with the loudest voices (claiming to speak for Islam) are places like Iran, Syria, Saudia Arabia and others where the societies are oppressive, and messages of hate thrive.
I would ask you to point me to that loud voice (or any) of Islam that is not seeking to be oppressive in nature, but rather inclusive.
Thanks in advance, should you return here.
Jim: Many forms of racism have well-established and recognizable tropes. These can be usefully distinguished both from mere cultural criticism and from attempts to “play the race card,” and I see that as far more useful and honest than simply trying to pretend the whole mess doesn’t exist. (I note that, rather tellingly, you avoided engaging with my specific questions, which doesn’t help your case.) But, you know. Do what you gotta do.
DG:
I think that the general condemnation of Islam that you see on sites like LGF or the Rott, are due to the fact that those with the loudest voices . . . [are] where the societies are oppressive, and messages of hate thrive.
That’s certainly the reason, but it’s not an excuse. People like the Likud and the Gush Emunim claim to speak for Jews, but there’s no justification for pretending their views are actually representative of all Jews. We call that anti-Semitism when other people do it, and we should have no hesitation in calling Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in much the same way.
I would ask you to point me to that loud voice (or any) of Islam that is not seeking to be oppressive in nature, but rather inclusive.
I suppose I’d start with a site like *Muslim Wakeup.* Canadian writer and broadcaster *Irshad Manji* is a good, trenchant introduction to Islam’s struggle to come to terms with the West’s Enlightenment rationalism (her book, The Trouble with Islam, is flawed but a must-read nonetheless).
The word “racist” has become a term used to suppress debate. It’s thrown about so freely as to have lost all meaning. It’s a pseudo-sophisticated ad hominem for the lazy to demonstrate their moral superiority.. It’s use in forums like this is not a whole lot different from making a comparison a certain German political party from the 1930s and its leader.
Doctor S –
I guess there’s a key difference between Hamas and Hezbollah and Gush Emunim; the Israelis arrest their terrorists, and the Palestinians laud and reward theirs.
And by extension, I think that the reaction of the U.S. government to racist violence (like the Leo Frank lynching) was to suppress it. The mainstream Arab governments – where they don’t openly encourage it as a way of diverting attention from their own kleptocracies – turn a blind eye.
So when you casually dismiss the attention we’re paying to Islamist terror as somehow unfair – given that we have nutjobs of our own here in the U.S. – I’ll point out that if the hate-site visitors were regularly blowing up pizzerias, mosques, and shooting up schools, my reaction would be different. And if our government didn’t do a pretty damn good job of catching these claowns and putting them in jail, my reaction would be extreme.
What Arab state does that (note two exceptions: against Islamist challenges to the state’s own legitimacy, and post-Iraq invasion)?
A.L.
Wow, I just read this entire discourse from start to finish and still have the same thought I had when I posted at the beginning, which was to say THANK YOU to AL and the rest of the Winds of Change Group for providing a place for such thought provoking conversations.
While reading through the blog, I went from being angry to laughing and also very confused. If you are not a regular on this blog, you know what I am referring too. I kept wondering why there were Little Green Footballs along the way and finally figured out that LGF is Little Green Footballs. Having said that, LGF sounds like a big joke. I have no idea why it is called Little Green Footballs, but somehow it surely does not sound like a place for intelligent discussions. The Winds of Change, however, not only gives the impression of a place for intelligent discussion, but it is inviting as well. I guess the saying that “The name says it all” holds true.
After getting to this post from Jim
“I would ask you to point me to that loud voice (or any) of Islam that is not seeking to be oppressive in nature, but rather inclusive.”
I remembered reading an article about the Iraqi Linux Group. So I thought I would go take a look, thinking that The Iraqi Linux Group had to be pretty tame. Boy was I wrong!!
Link
————-HACKED AGAIN BY IRANIAN HACKERS(K-A)——————-
Very disappointing to say the least. They even have the Iranian Flag waving behind the Penguin.
I hope the page is taken down soon, I am going to send them an email after this post but just in case anyone wants to know, this is what the entire site says..Why arabs are so stupid?
&STUPID ARABS ARE MOTHER F#&$ers on the entire page.
Why are people so ignorant?
Whenever I need to put things into perspective, I go to a mirror site I am hosting. The website is NeverMoveOn.Org
This is the best Tribute to 911 I have ever seen.
Take care everyone,
SBD
I guess there’s a key difference between Hamas and Hezbollah and Gush Emunim; the Israelis arrest their terrorists, and the Palestinians laud and reward theirs.
Come on, now you’re just being sloppy. I count at least three confusions in that sentence. (1 Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shiite group, not a Palestinian one. 2 Not like it’s a measure of his commitment to stamping out terrorism or anything, but didn’t Arafat arrest and detain more “terrorists” than the Shin Bet ever did? To the point where Palestinians were calling his PA a “police state”? 3 Come to think of it, isn’t there another rather “key difference” between the populations — namely that one of them has a fully functioning and mostly democratic state, and the other is living under a military occupation?)
You can do better than that.
So when you casually dismiss the attention we’re paying to Islamist terror as somehow unfair
Hang on a second. Where did I dismiss “attention to Islamist terror as unfair”? I recollect dismissing Islamophobia as unfair. Why should paying attention to terrorism imply having a phobia of the entirety of Arab culture or Islamic religious tradition? I’m not sure who or what you’re trying to defend at this point or what you imagine you’re defending them against.
Followup to A.L.: One thing I missed. If you think I’m saying that Arab states are directly equivalent to Western democracies or to Israel, I hope it’s clear that’s not what I’m doing. OTOH, there’s even less excuse to pretend that Arab governments are representative of Arabs (let alone Muslims) than there is to pretend the Likud speaks for Jews. The Likud, at least — fond though they often are of racist rhetoric (cf. Hazan, Yehiel) — have power via democratic processes. No government in the contemporary Arab world can say the same.
Dpoctor Slack – And you’re certainly knowledgeable enough to know that Hezbollah is active both in Gaza and the West Bank…or all those Arab News stories false?
You’re parsing pretty fine here when you say that it’s the Arab polity, rather than culture, that’s the problem. It’s fairly hard to pick those apart in the best of cases, but for argument’s sake, I’ll agree with you and suggest that it is the Arab polity that needs to be changed.
Still wrestling with a LGF post; it rasises a bunch of not-easy questions.
A.L.
You’re parsing pretty fine here when you say that it’s the Arab polity, rather than culture, that’s the problem. It’s fairly hard to pick those apart in the best of cases
Well, yeah, given the role geopolitics has played — and is still playing — in shaping the Arab world, I’d say it’s pretty problematic to judge Arab polities as reflecting Arab “culture” 1:1. That’s not to say that if everyone just left the Arabs alone they’d turn overnight into a string of liberal democracies, but one thing that’s been notable about societies outside the West that have liberalized or taken steps along that road is that they’ve done so largely because they had the chance to encounter the outside world on their own terms.
Anyway, good luck with the new post. Sounds interesting.
“I have no idea why it is called Little Green Footballs, but somehow it surely does not sound like a place for intelligent discussions.”
It isn’t. Not really. It is however a place where you can vent your rage against actual bad acts, bad men and bad ideas.
Thanks for the links doc. I will check them out when I have a moment here.
Thanks to WOC for allowing this forum.
Docter Slack,
I really don’t wish to join this debate, but I’m interested in which countries you were referring to when you said:
I only ask because I can’t think of any that either haven’t been colonized by the West or weren’t coerced in some fashion to liberalize.
Thanks.
A.L. wrote (3:14pm):
>Still wrestling with a LGF post
A ways up in this thread (4/5, 5:51pm), I gave my two-fold view of the LGF question:
1. Charles Johnson (and his readers) perform an invaluable service by highlighting links to important articles and essays on the web. Many of these make for uncomfortable reading, or are ‘politically-incorrect,’ and would, I think, attract very little notice were it not for LGF. I certainly wouldn’t have found many such links (examples below).
2. The comments threads on LGF are a mostly-anonymous jumble. Last I checked, I saw a share of intelligent and reasoned dialog (per M. Simon, above), but also an appallingly high proportion of anger-fuelled outbursts. Much of which (per Doctor Slack, above) was intemperate, or judgemental, or hate-filled, or racist, or intolerant, or trollish.
Many high-traffic political sites with unmoderated comments end up at this level, e.g. Atrios, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, and of course Kos.
I am grateful for LGF’s excerpts and often follow the hyperlinks, but I avoid the comments. Does this make me Sensible and Informed? Does it make me a Hypocrite, given my disdain for the sausage-making process that, presumably, yields many of the links I use?
Where do the LGF-boycotters and de-linkers go to discover the unconventional and provocative articles that Charles Johnson puts on his main page?
Doctor Slack answered (4/5, 7:55pm) that he “[doesn’t] recall ever seeing much there that I couldn’t find from other sources. Even before I put it on my “total write-off” list, I thought it looked more like red meat for “clash of civilizations” enthusiasts than anything else.”
Contra Dr. Slack, here are some stories I first learned about through LGF:
–That MEMRI translates Arabic press articles into English.
–That mainstream and government-owned newspapers throughout the Middle East are explictly anti-Semitic.
–That incitement for the murder of Jews (Israelis, Zionists) is routine in the mainstream Middle East press, and in Friday mosque sermons.
–That the details of the Iranian atomic energy program are not consistent with a commitment to civilian use.
–That the IAEA process is incapable of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states such as Iran and North Korea, and that the inspectors and the UN are blind to this fact.
–That US-based Islamic groups such as CAIR have deep ideological and financial connections with Wahhibism.
–That Rachael Corrie’s writings paint a picture of her anti-Israeli activism that is at variance with the reporting of her life and death by the mainstream media.
–That there are scholarly voices that dissent from the dominant, MESA-sanctioned view of Islamist ideology, such as Bat Yeor, Richard Pipes, Martin Kramer, and Bernard Lewis.
–That there are voices critical of increased Wahhibi and Saudi Arabian influence on American politics and culture, such as Steven Schwartz.
I think that Charles Johnson’s contribution to informed debate (point 1) greatly outweighs the damage to reasoned and civil discourse caused by a sizable minority of his commenters (point 2).
Dr. S,
I may be reiterating some things already said on this thread, but since it was my comment you used (out of context) to demonstrate the racism on the thread, I feel compelled to respond. I’ll start by conceding two points:
1. There is no such thing as “Arab Culture.” There are a number of cultures in the ME, not all of them Arab, and even the Arab cultures differ to some degree from each other.
2. The concept of “race” has complexities I didn’t consider.
Having said that though,
1. Cultures in the Middle East share enough features to usefully consider them a closely related family of cultures, a family for which, for brevity’s sake, I used the term “Arab culture.”
2. The category of race was not “constructed” _ex nihilo_. Since before Gregor Mendel much less Watson and Crick, race has been defined by heritable characteristics such as skin color, eye shape and color, hair color and texture, etc. A true racist believes that with these heritable physical characteristics comes an equally heritable “racial inferiority.”
A true racist would believe any attempt to reform an Arab culture (shorthand again) is futile. “That race” is “by nature” (what today we would call “genetically”) cunning, cruel, violent, excessively emotional, etc. Concomitantly, a true racist wouldn’t care if a person with olive skin, a prominent nose, straight black hair, etc spoke with a Texas twang, drank Budweiser, watched football on Sunday, and worked peacefully and productively as a bank teller. As a member of “that race,” he’s still inferior, cruel, emotionally immature or whatever. If you see no distinction between that and what I said, then I can only conclude that Raoul is right, you’re using “racist” as an argument stopper, not an argument.
AMac-
I agree with your points 1 and 2 re: LGF, and that is why I myself read LGF on occasion. You are missing a third point here however – an important one – that I will try to phrase in the most neutral way possible: Charles Johnson actively takes part in LGF’s comments section. He often joins in the mocking of dissident posters who are labelled “pc trolls” or idiotarians. This is often done in the case of dissenting posters who object to what they perceive as racist or highly offensive views expressed in the comments or on the blog itself. Johnson also bans quite a number of dissident posters, some of whom are true nuisance trolls, others of whom appear to simply have a strong disagreement. I have not seen Johnson ban the racists, even highly offensive ones or even object to their tone. (Although, neither have I seen him reiterate it.) This is all the more one-sided inasmuch as Johnson does not tolerate any anti-Jewish hatespeech, yet has no problem with the anti-Islamic kind. This double standard alone greatly encourages the latter.
Charles Johnson thereby exercises a fair degree of control over the identity of the posters themselves and therefore the content itself.
AMac: It’s fair to think that some people might not have encountered useful information on your list if they hadn’t found it on LGF — although most of them would (or should) be known to anyone who had read a few good books from the Zionist perspective on Israel and the Middle East.
The concern I’d have is that many of the items on your list sound like heavily pro-Israel spin (esp. the items re: the supposed useless of the IAEA inspection programme — hmmm, didn’t we hear this line about Iraq, too? — and Rachel Corrie). For example, I’m not convinced you would hear from Johnson about the heavy presence of anti-Arab racism in the Israeli press and synagogues, or cases where scholars have criticized and denounced anti-Semitism in Arab papers. That’s one of the reasons I view the focus solely on the negative aspects of any culture as a form of dishonesty — though it certainly helps to explain the tenor of the LGF comments section.
Fred: since it was my comment you used (out of context) to demonstrate the racism on the thread, I feel compelled to respond.
Hope you don’t think I was accusing you of racism. It wasn’t clear whether your comment was hypothetical or not. In any case:
The category of race was not “constructed” ex nihilo. Since before Gregor Mendel much less Watson and Crick, race has been defined by heritable characteristics such as skin color, eye shape and color, hair color and texture, etc.
Well, phenotype has been defined by heritable physical traits, but concern with “race” as a category primarily identified by phenotype is much more historically recent, I think.
The idea of the “Jewish race” is a good example. It’s long existed independent of any but the crudest notions of phenotypic “races” and has always had a fuzzy boundary with religious prejudice. Same goes for Islamophobia, which has a similar relationship to a founding “nation” and a certain physical type that intermixes fuzzily with religious prejudice. (Though it’s marginally different, since Islam has somewhat more formalized “universalizing” traits.) I think you’d find the same is true of gypsies in Europe as well (who were another prime Holocaust target).
In general, racism is a lot more malleable and chaotic than a lot of people give it credit for. Even where racist leanings were mostly defined by phenotype, such as the New World or with European settlers and explorers in Africa, people tended to be categorized into “races” partly on the basis of political convenience. 19th century Brazil had plenty of “white Europeans” who looked “black” to the eyes of American travellers, for instance.
A true racist would believe any attempt to reform an Arab culture (shorthand again) is futile. “That race” is “by nature” (what today we would call “genetically”) cunning, cruel, violent, excessively emotional, etc.
Not necessarily true. Many 19th century racists believed “lesser races” could in fact be “civilized” with enough effort. This was the whole point of the idea of “colonial tutelage” that Rudyard Kipling expressed in the infamous poem “The White Man’s Burden.” In a similar vein, many Israeli settlers today don’t think of Arabs as equals, but believe they can be “civilized” with the right cultural setting (e.g. one in which they accept that Israel has won).
Doctor Slack,
It’s obvious that you’ve given much thought to this subject. Can I ask you to clarify something for the sake of my understanding of your argument?
It seems that if we’re going to use a 19th century definiton of race, it is going to be very difficult to distinguish between race and culture as a basis of discussion.
Do you believe that these issues are seperable? If so, how?
Thanks.
Doctor Slack (8:07pm):
most of [the useful information on the list]would (or should) be known to anyone who had read a few good books from the Zionist perspective on Israel and the Middle East.
Should–arguably. Would–well, perhaps amongst your friends; certainly not with mine, where foreign affairs is a concern, not a vocation. I’d venture that much such information is unknown in most circles in the US and Europe.
…many of the items on your list sound like heavily pro-Israel spin…
Hmmm, cart before the horse, perhaps. I’d rather evaluate whether such items are true and truthful before moving to the (post-modernist?) question of “spin.”
…I’m not convinced you would hear from Johnson about the heavy presence of anti-Arab racism in the Israeli press and synagogues, or cases where scholars have criticized and denounced anti-Semitism in Arab papers…
Surely we are both convinced that one would not be wise to rely on LGF for such perspectives. But that’s a criticism for someone who gets most of their information and world-view from a partisan site; rather a straw-man argument in the context of this discussion.
Thanks, again, for your thoughtful comments.
ExpatEgghead:
It’s irritating historical pedantry time!
“The Allies started out by acting in defence of Belgium”
Wrong. Only Britain.
Upon the mobilisation of Russia (which was aimed at deterring Austria-Hungary from attacking Serbia) Germany demanded that Russia cease.
Upon Russian refusal, Germany declared war on Russia, 1 August 1914.
Germany demanded a French guarantee of neutrality; when this was refused, Germany declared war on France 3 August 1914.
To assist their attack on France, Germany invaded Belgium; Britain, which had guaranteed Belgian neutrality and independence, issued an ultimatum to Berlin 4 August.
As a larger point: the British decision to stand by its guarantee to Belgium was certainly motivated in part by self-interest, but the moral question was certainly prominent in discussions in Cabinet and Parliament. Had Germany not invaded Belgium, Britain would very likely not have come in (and Germany most likely won the war).
Doctor Slack:
You ask “why on Earth should Spain refrain from doing what it thinks best to fight terrorism just because some terrorists might like it too?”
I would reply, because it’s a daft way of fighting terrorism. Not necessarily being against the invasion of Iraq beforehand, or even deciding not to participate further in the occupation.
But loudly announcing a pull-out, after a major terrorist action that may have swung the election, is as great an invitation to further bombings, both of oneself and of other ‘waverers’ (Italy? Poland? Japan?) as I can imagine short of a handwritten note to Osama.
See recent events in Spain and elsewhere.
The Spanish are not to blame for such attacks; the terrorists are. But it was NOT good tactics.
In any case, the policy was not prompted not so much by a desire to fight terror in another way, but by political distaste for abandoning the ‘progressive’ path of ‘European’ solidarity for the ‘reactionary’ one of alignment with the US (especially the US under Bush).
On the issue of race, culture and the problems of the Arab-Islamic and some other Islamic societies. You are undoubtedly correct that a blanket condemnation of an entire culture can easily tip over into a form of racism, of writing off as somehow sub-human entire cultures, even if there is no ‘racial phenotype’ involved. And that is a dangerous road.
OTOH, it would be an error to gloss over deep societal problems because of a fear of being accused of ‘racism’ or a ‘colonial’ mentality. Due to a malign confluence of social traits predating Islam, certain concepts originating within Islam (I am not enough of an Islamic scholar to decide if they are inherent or the product of aberrant tendencies) and historical contingency (notably the recent oil-funded rise of wahabi salafism) there is a deep problem of political, cultural and economic stagnation, fuelling extremist ‘Islamism’. Non-objective cultural relativism is also a dangerous road.
The problem is how to respond; I can only suggest that cultural modification, rather than elimination, is the goal. We must all remain aware of the pitfalls on each side, and remember that there is only one race, the human.
Dr. S,
I’m glad you’re not accusing me of racism. Sorry if I misunderstood you. A couple of quibbles. Identification of race by phenotype may not be as historically recent as you think. Several times in _The Odyssey_, Homer refers to the “sunburnt races” to the east. He was probably referring to North Africans or tribes in what we call the Middle East. Now admittedly, the Greek word Robert Fitztgerald translates as “races” may have had somewhat different connotations to the ancient Greeks than the word “race” does for us. Nonetheless, it shows that at least as far back as Homeric Greece, people were identifying an Other by what you call phenotype. Secondly, you have to be careful about retrospectively (and anachronistically) applying contemporary standards of racial thinking to the 19th century. There were those European imperialists and Southern slaveowners that thought other races inherently inferior. They could perhaps be domesticated, like dogs, horses and cattle, but they could never be the equal of Europeans. There were others who subscribed to a theory of cultural evolution–a culture “progresses” through stages of hunter/gatherer, primitive agriculture, living in cities, and so on. Now the idea that some cultures are more advanced than others may strike some as racist today (I’m not one of them), but in fact, the theory of cultural evolution was developed, at least in the field of anthropology, explicitly to escape the idea of racial determinism. Those colonials aren’t inherently inferior to us, they’re just stuck in an earlier stage of cultural development. They are potentially our equals; we just need to help them advance to the proper stage. So even as early as the 19th century you can see the race/culture split Jim and I have been describing.
Just as you didn’t accuse me of racism, I don’t mean to accuse you of pomo relativism, but since John Farren brought it up, I will say this: Cultural relativism is worse than dumb; it’s reprehensible. It puts existing cultural mores ahead of human life and suffering: We can’t judge those Rwandans who commit genocide or those Arabs who conduct female circumcision and honor killings. That’s just their culture, and there are no objective, transcultural standards by which we can condemn them. Not only is it reprehensible in itself, but I’ve noticed that people who adhere to pomo relativism tend to do so extremely inconsistently. I’ve yet to meet a pomo relativist that hesitated to condemn Western culture as irredemably racist, sexist, imperialist, polluting, etc. Even assuming for the sake of argument that all that’s true of Western culture, by their own logic, the relativists can’t condemn it. It’s a facet of our culture. By what absolute, transcultural standard are you judging racism, sexism, and all the rest of it wrong? I haven’t gotten the sense that you are a pomo relativist, but I think John Farren has a point about its danger.
John Farren:
It’s worth pointing out at this point that Zapatero of course *did not* announce a complete pull-out — he simply held the Bush team to its June 30th deadline and said his forces would pull out if the handover hadn’t taken place by that date. So even if I believed that it mattered that much whether Spanish troops are there or not (and I don’t), it’s entirely false to accuse Zapatero of working to the al Qaedists’ schedule. If anything, he’s still working to Bush’s schedule. So, yeah. The whole “appeasement” flap just seems really silly.
(Someone asked the other day, in a context other than this one, why the June 30th date was supposed to be sacrosanct while everything else in Iraq is in flux. Good question.)
In any case, the policy was not prompted not so much by a desire to fight terror in another way, but by political distaste for abandoning the ‘progressive’ path of ‘European’ solidarity for the ‘reactionary’ one of alignment with the US (especially the US under Bush).
What exactly are you basing this assumption on?
there is a deep problem of political, cultural and economic stagnation, fuelling extremist ‘Islamism’.
Very true. And if “cultural modification” is the only feasible goal, the question then becomes: by whom? Propping up secular dictators to prevent Islamist takeovers hasn’t worked so well. Intervening directly doesn’t appear to be working so well. So, what are the alternatives?
There’s something else I suspect you’ll balk at but which needs to be said: it also doesn’t hurt extremist ‘Islamism’ one bit to have a ready source of red meat in a long-running regional conflict with a local nuclear power heavily beholden to apparent racist fanatics, and apparently bent on expropriating the land of several million Arabs. Nor does it hurt extremist Islamism to be able to point, with no small degree of truth, to the world’s only superpower as an almost unquestioningly partisan supporter of that local nuclear power. Some would go so far as to say that conflict is in fact the key to the whole Middle Eastern question, and that “cultural modification” stands little chance of getting anywhere so long as the status quo persists.
Lurker: It seems that if we’re going to use a 19th century definiton of race, it is going to be very difficult to distinguish between race and culture as a basis of discussion.
And indeed, I don’t think race and culture really are that separate when it comes to talking about how ethnic prejudice functions, either in the 19th century or the 21st. They tend to bleed into each other, and critiques of one often tend to function similarly to critiques of the other. (It’s a trap the unwary can fall into all too easily, as witness *this* egregious Adbusters feature.)
So, given that we obviously need to be able to talk frankly about culture if we’re going to get anywhere, how do we do this without sliding into racism? Or without someone “playing the race card” to stifle a criticism they don’t like? I guess the short, cheeky answer is “with difficulty.”
But I think the more serious answer is simply to be precise with our criticism of culture, which is what we should be doing anyway. In a rough sense, my own alarm bells will tend to go off when certain forms of basic intellectual honesty aren’t being observed, especially when I encounter people who seem monomaniacally focussed on the evils of a broad swathe of people.
Thanks to all for the interesting discussion. I’ve enjoyed it.
Dr. Slack,
Thanks for your reply. You’ve brought an interesting perspective here. Please continue.
Doctor Slack:
On Spain, I wasn’t really clear.
(This is based largely on UK newspapers and TV, so I haven’t got URLs)
It was why Zapatero made the announcement in the manner he did that I was referring to in my opinion that the “policy was…prompted…by political distaste“, not Spanish public opinion in general.
Zapatero has a reputation for, let’s say, speaking before he thinks. That could be part of it. Howver, he is also dealing with a number of political considerations:
– Within the Socialist party Zapatero only gained the leadership by one vote. A member of the Madrid group, he needs to conciliate and/or watch potential opponents from other groups, including the hard-left.
– The Socialist Party is the largest by seats, but not a mjority; Zapatero needs votes from other parties, and the Communists and Esquerra Republicana are prime candidates.
On both grounds, Zapatero is helped by appeals to the left (and I mean HARD left, hammer-and-sickle stylee, here); playing up oppostion to US policy is a big help.
Spanish have come to see the EU/Europe as emblematic of modernity and democracy. So playing up a nominally ‘European’ (objectively pro-Franco/German) policy has broad appeal. US/NATO don’t ring those bells (big contrast to Central Europe).
In European politics (and here’s where it gets really murky), aligning with Paris and Germany both over Iraq and EU affairs may lose Spain the votes the PP government had pursue on the Council (though in exchange they may get more in the Parliament).
But it still plays with the Left, and I suspect ther may be deals for Paris and Berlin to use their influence inside the Commission to push for extra EU-funded projects. And that equals patronage and pleased voters for Zapatero to dole out to political allies.
Hence not just Zapatero’s policies on Iraq, but also to bolt the UK/Polish camp on the EU draft constitution. Zapatero is causing more headaches in London and Warsaw than he is in Washington, I suspect.
EU politics. Gotta love it.
My post comes late to this thread on a most difficult topic in today’s blogdom.
There seem to be so few who actually think about what they write. Given the talent in writing and (apparent) intelligence of so many bloggers, why is there so much clutter and trash? Why articles that are merely rants that could have been written during the 1976 political campaign but for a change of names and numbers?
Bloggers seem to think they are writing to a receptive audience, a group of friends, who share every single thought and like the same buzzwords.
This blog is one of the rare ones. I thank the blogger for that. I enjoy my daily stop here. The same can be said of a few others like Andrew Sullivan where there actually seems to be a search for the truth, an examination of the facts, going on most of the time.
Why is this so rare? Are we really all so polarized inside our own little minds that there’s no real thought given to the subjects written about in blogs? Certainly the blogger pays the rent and has the right to say or do whatever. But if a blog which deals with political issues is little more than a mindless rant, what purpose does it serve? Does it feed egos? For what purpose? Does it serve as an outlet for frustration? Why not take up jogging or playing softball instead?
I find myself continually adding and deleting blogs from my RSS feed or list of blog bookmarks. I find a sane and interesting article one time, am apparently mislead, as the next five visits to the site I make turn up gibberish and trash.
One of the interesting things about this country is that we manage to survive most anything. We survived Nixon. We survived an assortment of fools in the 19th century who served as President. I suspect we will survive if either Bush or Kerry (or Nader for that matter) are (re)elected this November. There are certain to be losses, in each of our minds, if the “wrong” person wins. But we will survive. And we’ll do it by thinking and coming up with good and forceful ideas.
And while it’s certain that politics will continue unabated in the halls of our federal legislature, there no doubt will be some successes on both sides. There will be another election in four years and we likely will survive that as well.
So if we’re putting all this effort into writing blogs AND reading them, both of which take time that all of us steal from something else, why not make them have some value?