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

[John W.]

At 10:54 AM 4/27/2008, David Green wrote:

>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?


That IS the question, isn't it?

I'd be very interested to hear what some of the readers of this list feel 
they've given up for social justice, whether they think it was worth it, 
what they'd do differently if they could do it over, and what they would or 
do advise young people in terms of trying to balance their own 
self-preservation against the desire to effect social change.  It would be 
very interesting if we could actually have an honest, candid conversation 
about it.

John Wason




>"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.
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