I haven’t weighed in on the Boston conference or meeting the Iraq The Model guys too heavily – I came back to consultant heck, one contract finished early, the next one delayed, the fallback uncertain and have been playing air traffic controller to try and get things sorted out – and meanwhile the mortgage is still due…sigh.
Mohammed and Ali were in fact amazing. The most incredible thing about them, to me, is their ordinariness. The courage it must take to do what they do is remarkable – and yet, they are on the surface unremarkable men. What does that mean about the reserves of greatness within each of us?
I wrote about soldiers on Veteran’s Day, and suggested that “they are just like me, except better.” That wasn’t meant as a slam on me or anyone else who isn’t serving in some way (and there are many ways to serve). It’s about the notion that we are a nation of ordinary men and women who do extraordinary things – in fact, we depend on our ordinary people to accomplish the extraordinary.
Mohammed and Omar (and, I’m sure Ali, who I did not get to meet) are ordinary men from Iraq, who are setting out to do extraordinary things. And if our efforts can help them in some small way, then that’s bitchen’.
Speaking of bitching, Juan Cole picks up uber-troll Joseph “ALL CAPS” Mailander’s paranoid rant suggesting that the brothers are somehow CIA disinformation – his evidence? They don’t agree with him.
Note: there’s an interesting blog post on the subject of astroturfing and blogs. Daschle v Thune figure in it – but so does Oliver Willis and Eschaton.
But, since I’m the guy who connected Spirit of America to the brothers – by contacting and then recruiting Kerry Dupont, who I found from a link on Jeff Jarvis’ website in which she took on the project of getting them laptops – may I suggest that I have direct experience that contradicts this fantasy?
I had an interesting correspondence with Professor Cole after I criticized him for having engaged in SLAPP activity while reaching out to the blogging community to defend him against someone else’s SLAPP threat.
And both the correspondence, and his bizarre logic here point out something that actually frightens me.
I regularly read a number of lefty antiwar blogs – I still consider myself a leftist, and understand that there are people who disagree with me about the war. I read these blogs – including Professor Cole’s, MyDD, TPM, Eschaton and others because I want to learn. I want to check my assumptions and test my beliefs. I’ve changed my mind on things based on what I’ve read there, and believe that I’m likely to do so again in the future, which is why I’ll keep reading them.
But as the comments flap with TalkLeft shows, and as Professor Cole shows in his assertion (couched in careful rhetoric so that he’s not saying it, he’s just – you know – passing it along) that Riverbend must be the voice of the real Iraqi citizens because she agrees with him while ITM must be disinformation because it doesn’t – they’re more interested in shaping information to meet their beliefs than their beliefs to fit information.
And, sadly, that’s the germ from which totalitarianism springs. Because you need the power to shape information to keep your beliefs intact, which means you need power over people as well. And meanwhile, Winston Smith just sits there, trembling.
They? Who besides Cole and Mailander made these silly charges?
Why people lose money in the markets and why AL should be a financial advisor:
bq. _Conservatism Bias and Confirmatory Bias: Once we form opinions, we tend to overvalue information that reinforces them and undervalue information that undermines them (conservatism bias). We even tend to seek out supporting information (confirmatory bias). Thus, we irrationally cling to incorrect conclusions, and, to paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel, hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest._
(http://slate.msn.com/id/2110977/)
praktike –
‘they’ is aimed primarily at folks like Cole and Jeralyn, who believe they have to insulate themselves in oder to sustain their beliefs.
Reynolds linked to her on the Petersen case, and she had this as a part of her post:
A.L.
Has Jeralyn weighed in on the Fadhil brothers?
c’mon praktike – I’m broadening the argument past the brothers.
A.L.
AL,
I fully support the condemnation of Juan Cole’s charge. It’s stupid, and incomprehensible.
But Praktike is also correct in, why generalize/demonize to this vague “left”. Other than as a political polemic, what’s the point?
“I’m broadening the argument past the brothers.”
I can see that. Why?
It’s not the “left” – it’s the sad fact that the people I see closing themselves off from argument who, so far, have been mostly of the left.
I don;t see any contradiction between open argument and left positions. Cole and Jeralyn do, and tobe honest, I’m more interested in that question than I am in Cole’s lame-ass efforts to dicredit anyone.
A.L.
Winston Smith is tired of this shit and is not going to take it any more.
Winston Smith is tired of living in fear. He is no longer willing to be broken. Killed. Not broken.
A million and a half Americans shifted away from fear. That is all the shift it took in 120 million votes.
To me that represents the ten good men of Sodom. Enough to save the city. For all our wickedness there is enough good to save us. Fear rules the left. Because in reality for their core of economic socialism there is no hope. They deny the war as a means to bring hope to the down trodden of the earth.
Very cliched’ but America is a hopeful country. We do not for long stay afraid. We have been meeting these military/cultural challenges for quite a long time.
We will not live in fear. We will not be ruled by fear. We will make our mistakes and learn from them without fear.
–==–
No fear.
–==–
To broaden even further, this is exactly what Rather did concerning the memos: heard what he wanted to hear and disregarded the rest. As I understand it, several experts warned that there may be problems with his “evidence” days, maybe weeks, before the program aired. He and his producers ignored their warnings and focused on the “experts” that supported their view. It wasn’t a search for truth, it was a search for anything that fit their preconceived notion of the truth, or the truth as they wish it were.
Luckily for us, today’s Winston Smith has recourse. The powerful no longer have a monopoly on information distribution.
Lunacy
“the people I see closing themselves off from argument who, so far, have been mostly of the left.”
Can you prove that? 15% of Americans believe in the Rapture.
“15% of Americans believe in the Rapture.”
And dont worship stalin ?
The sneer at christians reminded me of this:
“Being a lover of freedom, when the [Nazi] revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced.
Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks….
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth.
I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom.
I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.” –Albert Einstein
Leftist hate of Christians is nothing new.
Incidentally, Martin Luther, quite the subversive, can be seen as a main factor in the beginning of the overthrow of the old order of serfs and lords, and a new idea of freedom that has fully flowered in the United States, with its elevation of the single Individual in Liberty and personal rights that are his because they come from god ( not goverment) that leftists hate as idea because it conflics with marxist Slavery, the same Christian ethic that gave birth to the anti-slavery movement to free chattle blacks is properly seen by the marxist as opposing marxist slavery of everyone, so naturally, the left hates us.
This is also what the new leftist “Reality Based” is all about, its another swipe and sneer against Christians.
Ironic, given their general rejection of objective truth on every other subject.
Ive seen enough to see religion type doctrine in the global warming activists where marxist postmodern achedemic quacks apply a faith purity test to enter their jihad agaist capitalism by attacking its energy supply by choking off the economies tailpipe and generating large emission credit tranfer payments they will use to prop up their marxist totalitarian hellholes
When a volcano shows up and belches enough gas to render their global warming models a silly joke, and nothing happens, the data is cast aside, it dont fit their agenda, even the infamous “hockey stick” has been dicreted now as it has been shown the program is rigged to give you the same from white noise used as data, the gelologic record shows it has been warm before, and btw the ice caps are melting on mars, too many SUV’s on mars?
In otherwords, look at how leftism can be explained as a faith.
Socialism is a proven failure and look how many still cling to it.
Flavors leftism, from Facism to Pure communism, have been tested in an amazingly rich diverse sample of geographies cultures and peoples, and gave us mass graves gulags and iron booted oppression on a scope and scale that hopefully, will not be repeated in this galaxy.
A bit more dammning for the left than for Christians in wait for rapture, at least their modern record is in far better standing in relation to mans inhumanity to man.
And you dont need to be the Einstein I quoted above to see it.
I don’t hate Christians. I am a Christian, more or less. But people who believe in the rapture are simply crazy. I don’t hate them. I just think they’re crazy. In fact, I think you’re crazy. But I don’t hate you.
Folks, the truly wise person always knows he’s crazy. More to the point, he knows how and why.
Knowing how and why others are crazy is also a useful survival skill. Praktike’s point about the rapture types being dangerous, and even A.L.’s point about fitting information to one’s belief systems as the germ of totalitarianism, illustrates why it matters. Both assessments are off the mark, and _why_ they’re off the mark is important.
Personally, I can’t say that your average Marxist professor is any less delusional than a Christian who believes the Rapture is imminent. In fact, if I had to bet, I’d bet on the Christian’s predictions because at least there’s a possibility (in which case, some fast apologies to Jesus are in order and I’ll try not to bring up “South Park”).
It’s not like believers in the Rapture are alone in having odd beliefs unshakeable by evidence. I mean, the Hare Krishna freak some people out too. Others have issues with Mormon beliefs and think they’re nuts. In the end, however, so what? One believes yonder poodle may be a reincarnated relative, one believes Jesus came to America, one believes The End is nigh. All somewhat strange beliefs by society’s standards, and probably not much open to debate. And like I said, so what?
There’s a big difference between religious beliefs, or even religion informing democratic political choice (I guess if you believe in imminent Rapture, Social Security comes off the table as a big issue…), and the Marxist approach of making a religion OUT OF politics while acknowleging no higher morality and branding all dissenters as heretics. A practitioner of the first 2 categories can be crazy by your standards, without being dangerous in the sense of wanting to kill people. “Politicists”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/005986.php who make politics itself their God are necessarily both crazy AND dangerous.
The germ of totalitarianism is NOT squeezing evidence to fit one’s beliefs, or even immunity to reason – sad though either case may be. The germ is an all-embracing conception of politics that leaves no civil space outside of itself. Religion can have that attribute (some branches of Islam do), but it has to be demonstrated. Haters can have that attribute, too, but it has to be demonstrated.
There’s little doubt in my mind that Juan Cole is a hater. “This profile”:http://www.discardedlies.com/archives/2004/11/we_have_nothing_against_jews.php seems to be made for him, and his endless assignment of blame to Israel for all misfortunes is just a sideways way of saying “it’s all the Joooos”. He certainly fits right in amidst the fever swamps of the Mideast. Cole is also unethical. All this makes him loathsome.
But is he a potential killer? Maybe, but we haven’t shown that yet.
Cole may (like a Klan counterpart) even go to the extreme of denying the humanity of those he hates or disagrees with. If that denial can be demonstrated, it would make him potentially dangerous. Hate + dehumanization = violence waiting for an opportunity (or better yet, a proxy).
But even assuming all these things are demonstrated, is he a totalitarian? Maybe, but we haven’t shown that yet.
A Klansman is not necessarily a totalitarian (though if he’s a fascist, he would be one). Cole’s status is similarly unclear (though if he’s a Marxist, he would be one). Pinochet was not a totalitarian, either, though he was dangerous and murdered many. As you can see, it’s possible to stop short of a “totalitarian” charge and still talk about some very bad people.
That’s because Politicism/Totalitarianism is an evil with a unique nature and scope, and part of that scope is precisely its all-encompassing nature and the complete and utter denial of “ordinary men” as A.L. presents them here. That denial cost about 150 million lives last century, many of which came outside of war situations.
Which makes politicism/totalitarianism a serious charge. We would do well not to cheapen it by invoking it without the necessary prerequisites.