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

[John W.]

At 11:04 AM 4/27/2008, LAURIE wrote:

>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.

Well, there's you and I, Laurie, and a few other readers of this list, for 
starters.  There's Kathy Kelly and people like her.  There's Noam Chomsky 
and a handful of other writers.  Or are you talking solely about the 
choices available to us at the ballot box?



>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 phenomenon; 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.

And worth every penny!!!!  :-P

John




>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.