[Peace-discuss] Tony Judt in London Review of Books - Bush's Useful Idiots

[Morton K. Brussel]

I don't know that Judt has a "too-romantic view of American  
Llberals"; I think he is just hung up on the word liberal, whose  
meaning has changed due to the positions of former "liberals" such as  
those he mentions—the Commentary/New Republic/NYT/WP…  crowd. The  
point is that that crowd has ceased to be liberal in the traditional  
(non-economic) sense of the word. That folks change is not  
unusual.This may be said to be a natural consequence of the cold war,  
when Jews especially, prominent in the liberal intellectual world,  
came to identify themselves tightly with American foreign policy  
against the USSR, especially so because the USSR hindered emigration  
of Jews to Israel to a large extent because Israel had aligned itself  
(in this cold war) with the United States. Similarly for the east  
Europeans, who, in their antagonism to the USSR's hegemony in Eastern  
Europe, swung crazily to the other side. Both illustrate a bipolar  
sickness.


Why Judt does not mention the present opposition to American foreign  
and domestic imperial policy is strange. They are too "radical"?

There are other things to be said, such as "wealth woos", the  
corporatization of the media, etc., but Judt has his points, in  
particular the quiescence of so many in the face of outrageous  
policies by the US government.

--mkb

On Sep 28, 2006, at 9:42 AM, David Green wrote:

> Judt has in my opinion a too-romantic view of American
> liberals. Nevertheless, after the Vietnam War it was
> no longer easy to justify support for American
> imperial doctrines, especially for Jewish democratic
> socialists. Judt claims that liberalism provides a
> figleaf for neoconservative policies. I've claimed for
> years that support for Israel has provided a figleaf
> for Jewish intellectuals--liberals to social
> democrats--who have supported not only Israel's
> criminal behavior, but what Edward Herman calls
> "cruise missle liberalism" in Iraq and Kosovo, etc. He
> mentions Michael Walzer and Paul Berman, and to that
> list I would add my personal favorites Todd Gitlin and
> Leon Wieseltier. The same pattern is followed locally,
> for example, by upcoming AWARE panelist Michael
> Shapiro in his claim that while he was once considered
> a "dove," he is now on the right. It's all Arafat's
> fault, of course. Nevertheless, Shapiro provides a
> figleaf for the more avowedly right-wing members of
> the Jewish community like Fred Gottheil, Fred Jaher,
> and Norman Klein. Meanwhile, self-described leftists
> like Matti Bunzl have remained essentially silent
> through all of this on the most important issues of
> our time.
>
> DG
>
> Bush’s Useful Idiots
>
> Tony Judt on the Strange Death of Liberal America
>
> Why have American liberals acquiesced in President
> Bush’s catastrophic foreign policy? Why have they so
> little to say about Iraq, about Lebanon, or about
> reports of a planned attack on Iran? Why has the…