[Peace-discuss] Can America be Salvaged?

[C. G. Estabrook]

The editors of CounterPunch have always been catholic (lower-case c) in their 
tastes -- willing to publish a wide range of opinion on even the touchiest of 
subjects (abortion, e.g.) in order to promote discussion beyond the limits of 
allowable debate. It's hardly surprising that they include examples of the 
fascist tendency in American liberalism.

The only explicit positive reference in Green's ill-written philippic is to the 
"eloquent ... famous American diplomat, George Kennan."  What was Kennan's 
program?  He summarized the objectives of US policy clearly in 1948:

    "We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population 
... Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships 
that will permit us to maintain this position of disparity ... To do so, we will 
have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will 
have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives ... We 
should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, 
the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off
when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are 
then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."

Green apostrophizes Kennan familiarly -- "Sorry to say it, George, but you’re 
lucky to have died when you did.  It’s only gotten so much worse in just the 
last few years." (Is Green unaware that the "famous American diplomat" died just 
four years ago?) Then Green extends his analysis by speculating on the 
psycho-sexual maturation of media representatives of the American Right:

"I’m sorry Glenn, I’m sorry Rush, I’m sorry Newt.  I know when you were younger 
you were pudgy fast-talking smart-ass petulant pricks who made up in wedgies 
from bigger guys what you never got in attention from attractive women."

Now, that's political science. But I suggest we take our approach to Green's 
position from a poet, instead -- the late Phil Ochs, who said 40 years ago,

"In every American community you have varying shades of political opinion.
One of the shadiest of these is the Liberals..."

We need to shine some light on their positions. --CGE


Brussel Morton K. wrote:
> Touchy, touchy.  Linking him with fascism leads me to conclude that you don't
> understand, or are unwilling to understand what he's lamenting.
> 
> Far from me to defend (most) political scientists, but Michael Green is far
> from what most would consider typical. And he writes for Counterpunch!!
> 
> I can't believe you read either of his articles with an open, fair mind.
> 
> --mkb
> 
> On Sep 22, 2009, at 10:02 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> As "little more than [a] fat, white, Southern, sixty-something" despiser of
>> (most) political scientists, I find this screed bordering on fascism.  Who
>> else   joins contempt for the mob
> 
> His mob is well characterized. We are seeing it before our eyes in the 
> jackass fulminations on health care and socialism. He does not imply that
> everyone belongs.
> 
>> with a concluding asseveration that "What’s really wrong is the near total
>> absence of prominent political figures willing to sacrifice much of
>> anything to protect their country from these depredations"?
> 
> Yes, he's wishing for some humane and courageous, principled, politicians. He
> may be wrong in so wishing that , or that they could exist in our deformed
> political democracy, but the thought does not seem "fascistic".
>> 
>> Well, OK, Leninists, too, in certain situations.  But the last time this
>> call went out, some 80 years ago, "prominent political figures willing to
>> sacrifice ... to protect their country" stepped up.  And the result was the
>> characteristic Fuehrerprinzip politics of the 1930s, in the US, Germany,
>> and the USSR.
>> 
>> They all had the elitist intelligentsia behind them.  This guy looks 
>> familiar. ("Human beings, by and large, like to be led," he wrote in that 
>> earlier article.)  --CGE
> 
> So what? Our (and others') history, could be so interpreted.
>> 
>> 
>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>> Maybe not, he argues. This acidic article, reproduced below from 
>>> Counterpunch, follows naturally from Green's previous spirited, if 
>>> gloomy, prognostication at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/05-5 
 >>>  ...