[Peace-discuss] Response to Just Foreign Policy - J Street

Sun Apr 27 10:54:26 CDT 2008

I think it's important to address the current connotations while keeping in mind the historical evolution of these terms. The criticism liberals get from the right is of course distorted and polemical, but keeping the limits of debate within this conservative-liberal dichotomy serves them both--that is, the two-headed corporate party. Liberals are more comfortable with being criticized from the right than the left, because the left threatens to expose their lack of commitment to peace and social justice, and in some way to usurp their pretenses toward offering an "alternative" (or "change", as in the current campaign rhetoric). Liberal hatred toward the left is more intense than toward the right, because their role in the system is more threatened by the left.

  The image that John's message evokes in me of the conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein hosting a legendary cocktail party for Black Panthers in his New York apartment. He was of course ridiculed by both liberals and conservatives, but it's hard to know what could have come out of this relationship. I think that Chomsky and others would have been more inclined to go to jail with them. The question fairly becomes: What privileges are either liberals or the left willing to give up for social justice?

  DG

"John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
  At 01:24 PM 4/26/2008, David Green wrote:

  Point taken. Unfortunately, it was the cold war liberals who won out, in a pretty decisive way. And even so-called social democrats like Irving Howe, Michael Walzer, etc. vehemently opposed the New Left and stereotyped the student antiwar movement in a really ugly way. That of course includes Martin Peretz, first publsiher of new left Ramparts, later of the Zionist New Republic. They were just uncomfortable with a clear challenge to authority, again on a principled basis, which was seen as a threat to all authority. The Old Left had a more top-down, authoritarian, sectarian culture, in spite of their careless accusations that the New Left was captivated by Maoism--just an insult, really. Again, liberals and even some socialists chose to maintain their identity by rejecting the antiwar left, even if they had to do so not by arguing in favor of the Vietnam War, but by means of cultural stereotypes defining those who on a more principled basis opposed that war. These folks
 were truly elitist. They just hated the counterculture.
This is pretty much all over my head.  I basically agree with Mort, that "liberal" and all of the other related political buzzwords are amorphous in their definition.  

We young anti-war, anti-Military Industrial Complex "radicals" in the late 60s took our cue from the Black Power movement in looking down on "liberals" as (predominantly white American) individuals who were somewhat well-meaning but basically didn't have a clue about "the war on the ground", broadly speaking.  White individuals who "talked the talk" about equality, but didn't really "walk the walk" if it meant that they might have to give up some of their own precious privilege.  That today is still essentially my own definition of a liberal.  Al Gore is an example of a "limousine liberal".  Champaign-Urbana is fairly bursting with 'em.  They're slightly preferable to neo-conservatives, but not by terribly much.

I THINK this is essentially what Carl is saying when he rails against the Democrats, and what David is saying when he excoriates "liberal" Jewish organizations.  With a "liberal", hypocrisy of the most basic sort is never far away.  But, of course, each of us clearly perceives the splinter in our brother's eye while being blissfully ignorant of the log in our own eye.  Which is why the labelling of other people and groups is so problematic and elusive.

All of this other stuff just sounds like so much academic gibberish to me.  Maybe it informs the thinking of Carl and David, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand it.  I vaguely remember the internecine ideological squabbles among, for example, the SDS leadership in the 60s and early 70s, but all that didn't have any particular impact on the "radical on the street" like me.  I didn't know much about politics per se, but I knew a liberal when I smelled him (or her).  And I like to imagine that I still do.

John Wason 

  "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel at uiuc.edu> wrote: 

   Language is often deforming. "Liberal", "left", "conservative", etc., are words often without any definite meaning, often used only in order to excoriate or praise. There is no politically homogeneous block of "liberals", although  as used in current discourse, those who promote aspects of domestic social welfare, but who are aggressive in, or passive about, expanding U.S. hegemony, are often called "liberals".  But there is a continuous spectrum of beliefs of those characterized as "liberal". I've known (self described) "liberals" who indeed were against American foreign wars and interventions, against the cold war actions of our foreign policy, against McCarthyism, but indeed there were "liberals" on the other side.  

   ("Liberal" in the European sense is used as an economic moniker to indicate those generally promoting free trade and capitalism (albeit with exceptions); we don't usually use the term in that way. ) 

   So, I guess I'm saying that the critique of liberals or liberal ideology in the following is overly broad brush, and hence disputable. 

   On Apr 26, 2008, at 9:17 AM, David Green wrote:

   Because liberal ideology, which includes a desire to control global resources, during the 20th century invested a lot in anti-communism and the  Cold War, on the basis of which we entered World War I, undermined the Greek revolultion after World War II, Vietnam, etc., right up to Serbia. Which is to say that the sort of liberalism you're referring to is probably of the 18th century Jeffersonian sort, or at least that aspect of the Hamiltonian version that, by the time of Roosevelt, saw the federal government as an agency of general social welfare, which of course it should be. That version has since competed with foreign adventurism, the latter obviously undermining the former during the Vietnam War/War on Poverty era. In the final analysis, liberalism as it has evolved has been more comfortable with real rather than symbolic wars. Maybe the war metaphor ought not to be used anymore, just in case it pales in comparison to the real thing.

   DG

   Stuart Levy <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> wrote:

   > I fear, however, that instead of the Left, it is now the U.S. that is giving war a bad name.

   Yes! Long may that bad name stick...

   But... how would giving war a bad name, *on principle*, threaten liberal ideology?

   This sounds like some understanding of liberalism that I wouldn't recognize...

   On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 05:13:43PM -0700, David Green wrote:

   > "5) The New York Times reports on the creation by several prominent American Jews of J Street, a new pro-Israel lobby that seeks to be an alternative to other organizations that often impede progress toward Middle East peace because of their reflexive support of Israel. For example, it seeks to support candidates who support Israel but question some of its policies, like maintaining and expanding settlements."

   > 

   > _______________

   > 

   > In their book "The Real Anti-Semitism in America" (1982), Nathan and Ruth Ann Perlmutter (the latter then head of the Anti-Defamation League) wrote in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, "What we are saying is that that in the defamations by the Left of the promptings for our warrings in Vietnam and latterly that in their sniping at American defense budgets, war as such is getting the bad name."

   > 

   > I think that the problem of liberalism in this country during the 20th century was how to maintain an increasingly threadbare appearance of progressivism while not "giving war a bad name." This has been primarily used, to put it crudely, as a way for liberals to distinguish themselves from the Left on the basis of not being unpatriotic wimps. Every opportunity is taken to display the macho mentality, from Panama to Serbia to Iraq, what Chomsky calls the "new military humanism."

   > 

   > But as a dominant and persistent theme, support for Israel has more recently been the mainstay in this regard. Beginning in 1967, and throughout the rest of the Vietnam War and beyond, support for Israel has been vital to maintaining liberal claims that there are a"good wars" and "just wars." In fact, the latter is the title of a book justifying Israel's 1967 invasion of Egypt, etc., by Princeton political philospher Michael Walzer. Ever since, he has been a staunch supporter of Israel, and liberal/left journals that he writes for like Dissent and The New Republic have conformed to the Zionist party line, and then some, combining nastiness and erudition in novel ways.

   > 

   > So now we find Walzer's name (and I must admit the names of a few decent people like Henry Siegman) listed as supporters of "J Street." I fear, however, that instead of the Left, it is now the U.S. that is giving war a bad name. The war in Iraq is going badly, at least for the general population, and opposition is pervasive if distracted. The antiwar movement is generally at loose ends, but it also cannot be framed by opponents or cynics in the manner that the antiwar movement was in the 60s, as unshowered, ungrateful, Mao-loving draft dodgers. Ironically, an ineffective antiwar movement has somehow given peace a good name, at least as an abstract concept, partly because the targets of 1960s liberal venom now spend more time with their pharmacist than their dope supplier, and the heirs of the most venomous liberals of the 1960s are now nasty neocons.

   > 

   > Liberals are not comfortable with this state of affairs. They don't want to oppose unjust wars on principle--that would be too Leftist. But their problem now is more to maintain their identity by distinguishing themselves from the nasty neocons who have gone to far and become "ideological," and there is no longer a basis in domestic policy to do this--they're all corporate. Regarding foreign policy, liberals are suddenly at a loss to triangulate.

   > 

   > So let's have a niche market strategy for unprincipled liberal peaceniks. Let's put the Iraq War on the back burner, as the Democrats have, because joining a broad, effective, serious antiwar movement might really give war a bad name on principle in ways that would threaten liberal ideology. But how to give peace a tentative good name, a positive brand identity that can be adjusted, if necessry, for changing market dynamics?

   > 

   > Oh yes, conveniently and always to the rescue, there is Israel once again. If it bailed out the liberal warmongers in the 1960s, why can't it bail out the pragmatic liberal peaceniks in 2008. What a brilliant idea: let's support Israel to promote "peace." Let's base our pragmatic dovish identity around "support for Israel." Let's use "support for Israel" to distinguish oursevles from both the nasty neocons and the pie-in-the-sky, clueless peaceniks who just don't understand that Israel is still truly a shining light. But let's do so by reassuring ourselves that if anyone is entitled to a violent swift sword, that would be Israel.

   > 

   > The bottom line, I fear, is that this movement is going to be both ineffective and pathetic. Yes, American policy is the key to ending the occupation, but JStreet can in no significant way shift the balance of power within Jewish institutions and Congress away from AIPAC. It is simply liberal Jewish identity politics, re-branding the nature of liberal identification with Israel (which has been going on since the mid 70s, in one form or another) while not challenging the central tenets of Zionism, and all of course without a word of compassion for the Palestinian people--shamelessly apparent on their website (sorry, I'm beginning to rant, I'm gesticulating at my keyboard, and my face is turning red).

   > 

   > This organization is not even about Israel, its about domestic politics. It's about triangulation. And as is always the case with professional Jews, it's about making a living. In the short to long run, I don't know what will distinguish these folks from Dennis Ross, or even from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy colonialist hack that spoke at Hillel on April 1st.

   > 

   > Sorry to be so cynical. It's been a rough week.

   > 

   > But really, liberalism is done for. Woodrow Wilson marched it out, Harry Truman blindfolded it, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson provided the rifle, and Bill Clinton murdered it.

   > 

   > Let's not waste any more time trying to clean up this mess. And please stop pandering to every Jewish liberal who claims to be a "moderate" supporter of Israel. It's unseemly.

   > 

   > DG _______________________________________________
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