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

[LAURIE]

Interestingly and ironically, I am inclined to agree with everyone here with
respect to the basics of the argument and with each regarding some of the
divergent points.  

 

First, the notion of "Liberal", which from my understanding stems from the
old English Utilitarians (Jeremy Bentham, James Mills, and J.S. Mills), has
totally lost any meaning in today's political environment philosophically as
a political, economic, or social label defining an ideological perspective.
Indeed, today's Republican Conservatives probably best represent the old
Liberal tradition of the Utilitarians.  There are no Conservatives in either
party anymore who represent the old Burkean Conservative political
philosophy; just as there are not any longer any radical left wing
Socialists, Communists, or Anarchists to be found in the U.S.  Thus from a
philosophical and ideological perspective the terms are merely contemporary
labels with positive and negative connotations attached to them but
representing no historic traditions.  This was also true in the 1960's; but
to a lesser extent in that the labels still had some connections to
philosophical traditions. In short, there no longer is any Conservative to
Liberal to Socialist continuum along which people can be ideologically or
politically measured in philosophical terms.  Yesterday's moderates and
center of the roaders are today's conservatives. And yesterday's Liberals
are today's moderates. There really is nothing left of center.

 

Second, I am reminded of the Phil Ochs song, "Love me I'm a Liberal" when
discussing who are calling themselves Liberals in today's world and the
types of values they support and behaviors they exhibit.  As the Och's song
suggests, this is not a new phenomena; it existed in the 1950' and 60's.  It
is interesting that it appears that the only ones who discuss, debate, or
even are concerned about the label of Liberal are those who have the
discretionary free time and money, luxury of an unregimented academic ,
artistic, or bureaucratic life style, or a polemical political
predisposition.  I have found it to be the case that many so-called
liberals, as they get older, become more and more intolerant, egoistically
self centered and self-interested, dogmatic, and resistant to change which
might affect them or theirs negatively.  They become less open to new ideas
and patterns of behavior, less willing to be involved in the down and dirty
nitty-gritty of community life in which they may not be seen in a high
visibility light as charitable public spirited actor, and less willing to
engage in substantive discussions and actions if they may have negative
consequences for their own self interests and life styles but more willing
to engage in symbolic and verbal combat with real and phantom enemies.

 

At any rate that is my two cents plain and simple.

 

 

 

 

 

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of John W.
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2008 6:12 AM
To: Peace Discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Response to Just Foreign Policy - J Street 

 

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 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20080427/9e796988/attachment-0001.html