[Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Greenwald continues to to say important things. Here he skewers the favorite 
self-protective move of the US political establishment. --CGE]

"...those on the Right and Left devoted to civil liberties and limitations on 
executive power find more common cause with each other than with either of the 
two parties' establishments.  The same is true on a wide array of issues, 
including limitations on corporate influence in Washington and opposition to the 
National Security State.  That's why the greatest sin, the surest path to 
marginalized Unseriousness, is to stray from the safe confines of loyalty to the 
Democratic or Republican establishments.  To our political class, Treason is 
defined as anyone who forms an alliance, even on a single issue, with someone in 
the Crazy Zone..."

	Glenn Greenwald
	Friday, May 28, 2010 10:29 ET
	Who are the real "crazies" in our political culture?
	By Glenn Greenwald
	(updated below - Update II)

One of the favorite self-affirming pastimes of establishment Democratic and 
Republican pundits is to mock anyone and everyone outside of the two-party 
mainstream as crazy, sick lunatics.  That serves to bolster the two political 
parties as the sole arbiters of what is acceptable:  anyone who meaningfully 
deviates from their orthodoxies are, by definition, fringe, crazy losers.  Ron 
Paul is one of those most frequently smeared in that fashion, and even someone 
like Howard Dean, during those times when he stepped outside of mainstream 
orthodoxy, was similarly smeared as literally insane, and still is.

Last night, the crazy, hateful, fringe lunatic Ron Paul voted to repeal the 
Clinton-era Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (or, more accurately, he voted to allow 
the Pentagon to repeal it if and when it chooses to) -- while 26 normal, sane, 
upstanding, mainstream House Democrats voted to retain that bigoted policy. 
Paul explained today that he changed his mind on DADT because gay constituents 
of his who were forced out of the military convinced him of the policy's 
wrongness -- how insane and evil he is!

In 2003, the crank lunatic-monster Ron Paul vehemently opposed the invasion of 
Iraq, while countless sane, normal, upstanding, good-hearted Democrats -- 
including the current Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, 
Senate Majority Leader, House Majority Leader, the 2004 Democratic presidential 
nominee, and many of the progressive pundits who love to scorn Ron Paul as 
insane -- supported the monstrous attack on that country.

In 2008, the sicko Ron Paul opposed the legalization of Bush's warrantless 
eavesdropping program and the granting of retroactive immunity to lawbreaking 
telecoms, while the Democratic Congress -- led by the current U.S. President, 
his Chief of Staff, the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, and 
the House Majority Leader -- overwhelmingly voted it into law.  Paul, who 
apparently belongs in a mental hospital, vehemently condemned America's use of 
torture from the start, while many leading Democrats were silent (or even 
supportive), and mainstream, sane Progressive Newsweek and MSNBC pundit Jonathan 
Alter was explicitly calling for its use.  Compare Paul's February, 2010 
emphatic condemnation of America's denial of habeas corpus, lawless detentions 
and presidential assassinations of U.S. citizens to what the current U.S. 
Government is doing.

The crazed monster Ron Paul also opposes the war in Afghanistan, while the 
Democratic Congress continues to fund it and even to reject timetables for 
withdrawal.  Paul is an outspoken opponent of the nation's insane, devastating 
and oppressive "drug war" -- that imprisons hundreds of thousands of Americans 
with a vastly disparate racial impact and continuously incinerates both billions 
of dollars and an array of basic liberties -- while virtually no Democrat dares 
speak against it.  Paul crusades against limitless corporate control of 
government and extreme Federal Reserve secrecy, while the current administration 
works to preserve it.  He was warning of the collapsing dollar and housing 
bubble at a time when our Nation's Bipartisan Cast of Geniuses were oblivious. 
In sum, behold the embodiment of clinical, certifiable insanity:  anti-DADT, 
anti-Iraq-war, anti-illegal-domestic-surveillance, anti-drug-war, anti-secrecy, 
anti-corporatism, anti-telecom-immunity, anti-war-in-Afghanistan.

There's no question that Ron Paul holds some views that are wrong, irrational 
and even odious.  But that's true for just about every single politician in both 
major political parties (just look at the condition of the U.S. if you doubt 
that; and note how Ron Paul's anti-abortion views render him an Untouchable for 
progressives while Harry Reid's anti-abortion views permit him to be a 
Progressive hero and even Senate Majority Leader).  My point isn't that Ron Paul 
is not crazy; it's that those who self-righteously apply that label to him and 
to others invariably embrace positions and support politicians at least as 
"crazy."  Indeed, those who support countless insane policies and/or who support 
politicians in their own party who do -- from the Iraq War to the Drug War, from 
warrantless eavesdropping and denial of habeas corpus to presidential 
assassinations and endless war in the Muslim world -- love to spit the "crazy" 
label at anyone who falls outside of the two-party establishment.

* * * * *

This behavior is partially driven by the adolescent/high-school version of 
authoritarianism (anyone who deviates from the popular cliques -- standard 
Democrats and Republicans -- is a fringe loser who must be castigated by all 
those who wish to be perceived as normal), and is partially driven by the desire 
to preserve the power of the two political parties to monopolize all political 
debates and define the exclusive venues for Sanity and Mainstream Acceptability. 
  But regardless of what drives this behavior, it's irrational and nonsensical 
in the extreme.

I've been writing for several years about this destructive dynamic:   whereby 
people who embrace clearly crazy ideas and crazy politicians anoint themselves 
the Arbiters of Sanity simply because they're good mainstream Democrats and 
Republicans and because the objects of their scorn are not.  For me, the issue 
has nothing to do with Ron Paul and everything to do with how the "crazy" smear 
is defined and applied as a weapon in our political culture.  Perhaps the 
clearest and most harmful example was the way in which the anti-war view was 
marginalized, even suppressed, in the run-up to the attack on Iraq because the 
leadership of both parties supported the war, and the anti-war position was thus 
inherently the province of the Crazies.  That's what happens to any views not 
endorsed by either of the two parties.

Last week in Newsweek, in the wake of the national fixation on Rand Paul, Conor 
Friedersdorf wrote a superb article on this phenomenon.  While acknowledging 
that Rand Paul's questioning of the Civil Rights Act (and other positions Paul 
holds) are "wacky" and deeply wrong, Friedersdorf writes:

     'Forced to name the "craziest" policy favored by American politicians, I'd 
say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable. 
Asked about the most "extreme," I'd cite the invasion of Iraq, a war of choice 
that has cost many billions of dollars and countless innocent lives. The 
"kookiest" policy is arguably farm subsidies for corn, sugar, and tobacco -- 
products that people ought to consume less, not more. . . .

     'If returning to the gold standard is unthinkable, is it not just as 
extreme that President Obama claims an unchecked power to assassinate, without 
due process, any American living abroad whom he designates as an enemy 
combatant? Or that Joe Lieberman wants to strip Americans of their citizenship 
not when they are convicted of terrorist activities, but upon their being 
accused and designated as enemy combatants?'

He goes on to note that "these disparaging descriptors are never applied to 
America's policy establishment, even when it is proved ruinously wrong, whereas 
politicians who don't fit the mainstream Democratic or Republican mode, such as 
libertarians, are mocked almost reflexively in these terms, if they are covered 
at all."  Indeed, this is true of anyone who deviates at all -- even in tone -- 
from the two-party orthodoxy, as figures as disparate as Dennis Kucinich, Noam 
Chomsky, Howard Dean or even Alan Grayson will be happy to tell you.

* * * * *

The reason this is so significant -- the reason I'm writing about it again -- is 
because forced adherence to the two parties' orthodoxies, forced allegiance to 
the two parties' establishments, is the most potent weapon in status quo 
preservation.  That's how our political debates remain suffocatingly narrow, the 
permanent power factions in Washington remain firmly in control, the central 
political orthodoxies remain largely unchallenged.  Neither party nor its 
loyalists are really willing to undermine the prevailing political system 
because that's the source of their power.  And neither parties' loyalists are 
really willing to oppose serious expansions or abuses of government power when 
their side is in control, and no serious challenge is therefore ever mounted; 
the only ones who are willing to do so are the Crazies.

Thus, for the two parties to ensure that they, and only they, are recognized as 
Sane, Mainstream voices is to ensure, above all else, the perpetuation of status 
quo power.  As Noah Millman insightfully pointed out this week, those on the 
Right and Left devoted to civil liberties and limitations on executive power 
find more common cause with each other than with either of the two parties' 
establishments.  The same is true on a wide array of issues, including 
limitations on corporate influence in Washington and opposition to the National 
Security State.

That's why the greatest sin, the surest path to marginalized Unseriousness, is 
to stray from the safe confines of loyalty to the Democratic or Republican 
establishments.  To our political class, Treason is defined as anyone who forms 
an alliance, even on a single issue, with someone in the Crazy Zone.  That's 
because breaking down those divisive barriers can be uniquely effective in 
enabling ideologically diverse citizens to join together to weaken power 
factions, as Alan Grayson proved when he teamed up with Ron Paul to force the 
uber-secret Fed to submit to at least some version of an audit (backed by 
several leading progressives joining with Grover Norquist and other Crazies to 
support it), or as Al Gore proved when he brought substantial attention to 
Bush's war on the Constitution by forming an alliance with Bob Barr and other 
right-wing libertarians.  Preventing (or at least minimizing) those types of ad 
hoc alliances through use of the Crazy smear ensures a divided and thus weakened 
citizenry against entrenched political power in the form of the two parties. 
Obviously, the more stigmatized it is to stray from two-party loyalty, the 
stronger the two parties (and those who most benefit from their dominance) will be.

If one wants to argue that Ron Paul and others like him hold specific views that 
are crazy, that's certainly reasonable.  But those who make that claim virtually 
always hold views at least as crazy, and devote themselves to one of the two 
political parties that has, over and over, embraced insane, destructive and 
warped policies of their own.  The reason the U.S. is in the shape it's in isn't 
because Ron Paul and the rest of the so-called "crazies" have been in charge; 
they haven't been, at all.  The policies that have prevailed are the ones which 
the two parties have endorsed.  So where does the real craziness lie?

* * * * *

Just to preempt non sequiturs, this isn't a discussion of Ron Paul, but of the 
irrational use of the "crazy" accusation in our political discourse and the 
effects of its application.



UPDATE:  I'll try this one more time:  for those wanting to write about all the 
bad things Ron Paul believes, before going into the comment section, please read 
and then re-read these three sentences:

     'There's no question that Ron Paul holds some views that are wrong, 
irrational and even odious. But that's true for just about every single 
politician in both major political parties . . . My point isn't that Ron Paul is 
not crazy; it's that those who self-righteously apply that label to him and to 
others invariably embrace positions and support politicians at least as "crazy."'

This is a comparative assessment between (a) those routinely dismissed as Crazy 
and (b) the two party establishments and their Mainstream Loyalists who do the 
dismissing.  Assessing (a) is completely nonresponsive and irrelevant without 
comparing it to (b).



UPDATE II:  One other point:  intense, fixated mockery of marginalized, 
powerless people has the benefit of distracting attention from the actions of 
those who are actually in power.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/28/crazy

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