[Peace-discuss] The Nation betrayed

[John W.]

So is this it?  Is this all the antiwar movement is up against?  Some
"postmodern" academics who write arcane ideological stuff that is read and
pondered over and pontificated on by a handful of other academics?

Whew!  For a while there I thought we were up against a much more formidable
force that THAT!!



On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 9:09 PM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>   As an example of Berube's serious derangement, the quote below was
> written by him in the Chronicle of Higher Education, November 29, 2002. This
> is somebody who is considered an academic superstar. Cary Nelson, one of his
> local cronies, has a blurb on the cover of Berube's book that Carl referred
> to. These are both highly respected individuals in "cultural studies."
>
> I think it's important for the antiwar movement to know exactly what we're
> up against in dealing with liberal academia, among other things. Both
> Alterman and Gitlin have academic sinecures. We shouldn't be surprised.
>
>
>
> DG
>
>
>
> "And yet I find that, even as I have deep respect for all the tens of
> thousands of people who have signed a September "Statement of Conscience,"
> put out by Not in Our Name to oppose war in Iraq, I cannot quite join
> them, even though I, too, oppose the war (and endorse most of the
> statement). Partly that's because the statement condemns the U.S. strikes in
> Afghanistan, which (yes, I know) killed civilians and failed to capture
> Osama bin Laden, but which also destroyed the Al Qaeda terror camps, brought
> down the Taliban, and (even more important) slowed down the growing
> radicalization of Pakistan -- a radicalization that, ideally, should be
> opposed by all secular democrats. It's on the latter grounds that I
> supported the war in Afghanistan.
>
> But mostly I cannot sign Not in Our Name's statement because it declares,
> in its third sentence, "We believe that peoples and nations have the right
> to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great
> powers." It's a euphonious phrase, to some ears, but what happens, may I
> ask, when a "nation" decides that its "destiny" lies in the extermination of
> a "people"? The sentence reads like a leftover shibboleth from Kosovo, when
> one wing of the antiwar left devised the argument that the United States and
> NATO had no business intervening in a matter internal to Serbian affairs.
> That antiwar faction crafted a new "sovereignty" rationale that, in my
> opinion, turned its back on decades of left internationalism in order to
> oppose U.S. military action in Kosovo in whatever terms came most readily to
> hand.
>
> The appeal to "sovereignty" sounds fine to many leftists when it's a
> question of defending developing nations from the United States (nations
> that should be "free from military coercion by great powers"). But should
> that principle be applied when Saddam Hussein kills Iraqi Kurds? Or when
> Milosevic kills Kosovar Albanians? Or when Suharto kills the East Timorese,
> or Rioss Montt the indigenous Guatemalan Indians, or Hitler the Jews? Nazi
> Germany saw the killing of Jews as absolutely central to its "destiny," but
> one would not want to have seen a sane and serious left defending the
> enterprise on those grounds. I would prefer to see great powers exercising
> military coercion to prevent such nations from determining their own destiny
> (especially in cases like Suharto and Montt, whose regimes the United States
> had supported), and I would be all the happier if the great powers did so in
> my name.
>
> I have dear and trusted friends who tell me that I'm reading the Not in Our
> Name statement far too closely, that I'm turning into a caricature of a
> literary theorist parsing the textual resonances and antecedents of a
> document whose primary purpose is simply to rouse people to action. The
> charge hits home: Perhaps I am just an armchair activist, sitting at home in
> my study, jawing over the fine points of texts, when I should be organizing
> teach-ins and rallies. After all, I know the antiwar movement in the Vietnam
> era began with a handful of loopy Maoists and did not win the hearts and
> minds of most Americans until the early 1970s. And we forget all too easily
> just how courageous it was for Martin Luther King Jr. to declare that he
> wasn't gonna study war no more at a time when the declaration placed him far
> to the left of establishment opinion.
>
> But sometimes even armchair activists have their place. I believe the
> legitimacy of the leading antiwar groups is a real issue, for two crucial
> reasons. The first is pragmatic: The antiwar movement is never going to be a
> mass movement if it is led by defenders of Milosevic and the Shining Path.
> The second is moral: It would be a terrible dereliction of duty if American
> intellectuals, whether in their studies or on the streets, failed to ask
> about Americans' rationale for opposing this war."
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* unionyes <unionyes at ameritech.net>
> *To:* Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>; C. G.
> Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
> *Sent:* Mon, February 22, 2010 7:06:57 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] The Nation betrayed
>
> Carl and David,
> '
> I did some brief research on this Michael Berube character and his new book
> you mentioned.
>
> What a piece of work ! ( or should I just say what I really mean.... what a
> piece of SHIT ! ).
>
> Him and that Tim Wise fellow who wrote that stupid article right after
> Obama's election ( " The Election of Obama and The Rage of the Barbituate
> Left " ) that I was compeled to answer with my own article.
>
> These two must belong to the same neo-liberal elitist psychophant ( ass
> kissing )club.
> Hoping to obtain praise and fortune from the corporate  ruling class via
> their attacks upon real champions of the people and anyone who wants more
> democracy, economic justice, and an end to corporate globalization and
> imperialism.
>
> I would LOVE to get in this guys face if he ever somes back to C-U to speak
> publicly !
>
> David J.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" <
> galliher at illinois.edu>
> To: "David Green" <davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel at illinois.edu>; "Peace Discuss" <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 5:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Nation betrayed
>
>
> > I agree entirely with David on Alterman & Gitlin (and I would add
> ex-local boy Michael Berube, who desperately wants to get into that club
> with his new leftist-bashing book, "The Left at War").
> >
> > David puts the matter accurately and elegantly: "The ideological
> distinctions I'm getting at are not fine ones. They're fundamental:
> principled egalitarianism and democracy on the one hand, unprincipled
> authoritarianism and elitism on the other."
> >
> > I won't go quite so far as he, however, on the question of allies.
> Include the libertarian right, certainly (and the squeamish reluctance of
> some liberals to admit that Ron Paul et al. are principled opponents of the
> war does them no credit), without necessarily categorically excluding the
> "so-called liberal left."  They have some funny ideas, but they may be
> educable.  (And that last sentence applies to both groups.)  --CGE
> >
> >
> > David Green wrote:
> >> Mort, the angst to my anger is that in terms of political strategy, the
> antiwar left is going to have to realize that its allies are on the
> libertarian right, not on the so-called liberal left. This becomes more
> glaringly obvious when you look at the views of someone like Alterman
> regarding Israel/Palestine. If the purpose of a political journal is as a
> basis for organizing, then I'm really serious about making these
> distinctions clear. The record of people like Alterman and Todd Gitlin in
> the run-up to the Iraq War also makes it clear: they served primarily as
> leftist-bashers. The ideological distinctions I'm getting at are not fine
> ones. They're fundamental: principled egalitarianism and democracy on the
> one hand, unprincipled authoritarianism and elitism on the other.
> >>  DG
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> *From:* Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu>
> >> *To:* David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
> >> *Cc:* C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>; Peace Discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>
> >> *Sent:* Mon, February 22, 2010 12:14:30 PM
> >> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] The Nation betrayed
> >>
> >> It should perhaps occur to you that perhaps Naomi Klein and Jeremy
> Scahill (and others) continue to see the usefulness of /The Nation,/ and
> that is why they write for it. They are not stupid. As for Cockburn, who
> knows what goes on in his strange head: He has his own publication, so why
> continue writing for /The Nation?/  Finally, instead of just lambasting
> Alterman, it would be more useful if you told why you consider him an idiot.
> I suggest you subscribe to the English editon of Le Monde Diplomatique. They
> need support. --mkb
> >>
> >> On Feb 21, 2010, at 1:15 PM, David Green wrote:
> >>
> >>> After doing some research on the work and views of Eric Alterman this
> weekend, a regular Nation columnist, I've come to the view that people like
> Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill should (for good tactical reasons) seriously
> think about taking their work away from any possible association with this
> idiot. Hitchens was at least honest enough to become an official neocon. The
> Nation should not be supported or taken the least bit seriously on the Left,
> and I suspect Cockburn would rightly agree in spite of his association.
> >>>  DG
> >>>
> >>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> *From:* C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:
> galliher at illinois.edu>>
> >>> *To:* Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
> >>> *Sent:* Sun, February 21, 2010 11:16:30 AM
> >>> *Subject:* [Peace-discuss] The Nation betrayed
> >>>
> >>> The Nation magazine has moved steadily to "the center" from an earlier
> left-liberal position for some years now. They embraced neo-liberalism in
> the days of Bill Clinton (delicately referred to as a "DLC Democrat"), and
> some of us condemned them for doing it.
> >>>
> >>> But it keeps getting worse. As Doug Henwood of the excellent Left
> Business Observer points out, now not only has The Nation "given a column to
> the execrable Melissa Harris-Lacewell, they've cut Alexander Cockburn back
> to once a month ... These moves together have the net effect of moving the
> magazine to the right and reducing the quantity of stylish prose close to
> zero."
> >>>
> >>> With The Progressive joining the Israel Lobby in its condemnation of
> Norman Finkelstein, the current mode of official liberalism in the US
> continues on its regime-supporting way, providing only token opposition ("We
> have free speech!") as the Democrats (and the Republicans) move ever further
> right.  Toadies.
> >>>
> >>> --CGE
>

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