[Peace-discuss] The Nation betrayed

Mon Feb 22 22:22:40 CST 2010

For once I almost agree with you, John. There are however, two problems:

   (1) was set out by J. M. Keynes in the 1930s.

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right 
and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed 
the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be 
quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some 
defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are 
distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."

That's what the Berubes of this world live in hope of.

   (2) is deducible from the one great contribution of the American 20th century 
to modernity: propaganda/PR.  Even something as full of historical ignorance and 
furry self-congratulation as the passage quoted may have some effect on the 
tertiary bourgeoisie (= those able to afford a 'good education' after secondary 
school), especially if it escapes into the public press via organs such as
The Nation.  Of course you have to be highly educated to believe such tripe, so 
hoi polloi is insulated from it (which is why they are so hated and feared by 
said t. b.).

David is right that it has to be exposed and destroyed by sweet reason.  --CGE

John W. wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto: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 <mailto:unionyes at ameritech.net>> 
> *To:* Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net 
> <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>; C. G. Estabrook 
> <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto: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
> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> To: "David Green" <davegreen84 at yahoo.com
> <mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com>> Cc: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel at illinois.edu
>  <mailto:brussel at illinois.edu>>; "Peace Discuss" 
> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto: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
> <mailto:brussel at illinois.edu>>
>>> *To:* David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com
> <mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com>>
>>> *Cc:* C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu
> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>>; Peace Discuss 
> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto: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> <mailto: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> 
> <mailto: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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