Whose World?
As with many things these last couple of weeks, I missed this wonderful essay by Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged on one woman’s liberal odyssey and her reluctant acceptance that we need the self-righteous bullies of the left. It is simply brilliant. And, for the many of you who likely read it back on the 29th, read it again. This is where we’re at folks. We do not have the luxury of marginalizing our best fighters in a world where the other side rules by sheer intimidation.
We’re So Good
Many nice people feel the need to remind those of us who opposed the Iraq invasion that freeing the Iraqi people is a good thing. I understand this, but I think it needs some examination.
(In any event, for any visiting freepers, I would just like to say that going forward, any discussion by me of foreign policy and war on this blog implicitly carries the disclaimer that I am happy that that bastard Saddam is gone, I believe that it is wonderful that the Iraqi people at least have a chance of a government of their choosing and of course, I support the troops and hate the Dixie Chicks.)
Under different circumstances, I would have supported deposing Saddam purely on the basis of his horrifying human rights record. However, as much as I agree that a free Iraq is a good thing, just as free North Korea or free China or free Sudan or free Tibet would be good things, I believe that allowing the Bushies to get away with using that argument is a mistake for all people who believe in human rights.
By agreeing that the ends justify the means in this case we are allowing them to pretend that the motivation of the US was always to free the Iraqi people (a fact which is clearly untrue since they haven’t even seen fit to free the Cuban people who live just 90 miles off our shores and whose exiles are a powerful political constituency.) Their arguments must be evaluated on their own terms by what they hoped to accomplish and what the results have been.
In that light, the best they can claim is that freeing the Iraqi people was a collateral effect of whatever it was we really wanted to do, whether it was eliminating the threat of WMD or terrorism or something else entirely that was never mentioned. Personally, I believe the administration officials who now admit that they were “sending a message” to the world that we are not soft. In fact, it’s the only thing that makes complete sense. (We could have easily cut lucrative deals for the oil by lifting sanctions.)
So, on their own terms of “sending a message,” was the end achieved and was it worth it? Was that a justifiable reason to flout international law and severely damage our relationships with allies? It’s too early to know for sure but regardless of the ultimate result, it is unprecedented and many, many people around the world are not likely to understand or support it.
There is already some collateral damage from this action, one of the most serious of which is the disintegration of American credibility. That means nothing to those in power who believe that “might makes right.” But, I don’t believe we are omnipotent and this administration, in behaving as if we are, may have set a very dangerous series of events in motion. By creating an order in which the United States does not believe that credibility is important and one in which the rule of law is inconsistently applied, we have made ourselves difficult to understand and predict.
Those who believe that force is the only viable way to ensure security think this is a good thing. But, history suggests that it invites miscalculation and overreaction. Therefore, because the stated goals of Iraq were so confused, I believe that in addition to freeing the Iraqi people, the “ends” are also likely to be an escalated arms race and a breakdown of the international rule of law among powerful and near powerful nations, on top of the “rogue” states who already flout the rules.
The people of the US deserved to know that in order to “send a message” (and incidentally free the Iraqi people) we may have destabilized the world and made it more dangerous than it has been since the height of the cold war, if not longer. Perhaps the American people would have sanctioned freeing the Iraqi people anyway, in which case I commend them for their generosity and compassion. But if that’s true, it seems strange that on the heels of our great victory over tyranny (at very little cost to ourselves in lives) we aren’t seeing a groundswell of sentiment to free any of the other of the billions of oppressed people on this earth.
Which then begs the question of whether we are also, after the fact, “sending a message” to ourselves — of warm and hearty congratulations for our righteousness and good intentions. The fact that it was all based on lies will not be allowed interfere with the overwhelming good feeling and love we now have for ourselves, regardless of the real means or the real ends.
Depends On What The Meaning Of Pervert Is
Sam Heldman, in his invaluable ongoing expose of Federal Court nominee Pryor, linked today to this article in the Washington Post that points out Pryor’s use of almost exactly the same language to describe the effects of a right to privacy, (in an amicus brief he filed in the Texas sodomy case) to the language Santorum used in his AP interview.
Pryor:
“Petitioners’ protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, a constitutional right that protects ‘the choice of one’s partner’ and ‘whether and how to connect sexually’ must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia (if the child should credibly claim to be ‘willing’)”
Santorum:
If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
And, of course, Santorum also mentioned that the right to “man on dog” and “man on child” sex would inexorably follow any ruling upholding a right to privacy.
Pryor, as hideously theocratic as he is, isn’t quite as stupid as Santorum (even a sea anemone isn’t quite as stupid as Santorum) so he didn’t add bigamy and polygamy to the list of clear and present dangers to America, seeing as they are matters of contract law in which the state has an interest. (As, it would seem to me that adultery is as well. Any lawyers out there who can let me know if that’s correct?) But, he neglected to mention the serious threats of prostitution and necrophilia.
Does Rick Santorum think that prostitution and necrophilia aren’t among the serious problems affecting America today?
Perhaps he believes that prostitution is not a threat to his definition of what a politically correct family should be. Perhaps he doesn’t view it as consensual, since it’s obvious that many fine religious Republican men are bewitched by scantily clad women into doing things they shouldn’t do.
But, what to make of his not mentioning the immediate danger to our children by necrophiliacs?
Why wouldn’t he be concerned about people who might expose their small children to corpses, make them handle them and talk to them in strange and unusual rituals that the mainstream Americans find deeply disturbing?
Any ideas?
Soft Underbelly
This article by Michael Tomasky in The Prospect is great. (In fact, his column is a must read every week.) I agree with everything he says except the argument that the uproar over the Santorum remarks only benefits the gay community.
I think the uproar should be aimed at all Americans who believe in the constitution and don’t practice bigotry for fun and profit. But, it also should be aimed at Americans who don’t like the idea of the government intruding on their private lives. And, I would suggest that is most of them.
The GOP is revealing itself as the anti-privacy party. They are enabling the state to rummage through everybody’s medical records, they want corporations to be allowed to buy and sell your purchase records and any other information they may have, they are more interested in medical marijuana than the serious issue of identity theft, and they want to make permanent the ill considered Patriot Act which gave the government vast new surveillance powers.
Now, along comes Lil’ Ricky telling a reporter outright that he doesn’t believe there is any right to privacy (an article of faith in the anti-abortion cult), that he thinks gay civil rights are a slippery slope to perversion and that he further believes his view of sexual morality should be enshrined as the law of the land for everybody.
This desire and ability to invade the homes and private lives of our citizens is UnAmerican. It goes against every tenet of freedom that George W. Bush constantly preaches about, particularly the All American belief in individualism and the inalienable right to life, liberty and happiness. Who the hell gave John Ashcroft and Rick Santorum and Jack Welch and Dick Cheney the right to information about me without my permission, to investigate me without probable cause or to tell me what I can do in my own home?
The Republicans do not believe in freedom any more than they believe in equality. This negation of the right to be left alone is coming from all GOP quarters — religious, government and corporate and it is a potent example of their lack of patriotism and any sincere belief in traditional American values. Just what do they think liberty consists of? The freedom to be harassed and coerced by every interest group in the Republican Party until you either join up or shoot yourself in the head?
Jeez. Even France has more respect for individual rights than Republicans do.
Loyalty Oath
Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf”
“… in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.
Smart guy, no doubt about it. That surely explains why so many Americans believe that Iraq and 9/11 are connected and why many probably believe that WMD have been found or that they were destroyed in the days before the war or any other of the improbable explanations as to why the fundamental rationale on which this war was based simply must be true in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. A good number of people simply do not want to believe that the President of the United States would blatantly lie over and over and over again on a subject of such importance.
(It also explains the seemingly incomprehensible fact that a president was just recently impeached for supposedly lying about a consensual sex act, a crime Republicans considered to be so heinous that it had to be prosecuted or risk undermining the entire concept of the rule of law.)
But what to make of this? I read that editorial (courtesy of the indispensable Mediawhoresonline) and found myself staring off into space trying to understand how we will be able to function as a society when we finally cast off even the pretense of a requirement for honesty in democratic leaders.
”Would it bother you if we were to discover that George Bush lied about the case for going to war?” I asked.
He knew what I was referring to. His blunt answer left my jaw hanging.
“Everyone knows he lied about weapons of mass destruction being the point of the war.”
Just a few weeks ago, any statement from me that Bush’s case for war was riddled with inconsistencies and illogic would have brought swift and fierce condemnation from this fellow.
Now, basking in the glow of military conquest — and confronted by a thus-far futile search for chemical and biological weapons — this hawk breezily conceded the point while also waving it away as inconsequential.
The difference between the gullible average guy who refuses to believe his President would lie and the guy quoted above is significant. The first holds that honesty is so important that he must cling to a belief in the honest nature of his leader even in the face of evidence to the contrary. The latter thinks honesty or even logical consistencies are unnecessary.
Instead of insisting that WMD were present and then manufacturing the evidence to back up that claim, which is what I expected in the event that the WMD claim proved bogus, we now find the administration and Jack Straw in the UK beginning to indicate, like the fellow above, that we lied about the WMD and it doesn’t matter, either in practical terms or as a matter of principle or that what they plainly said was not what they plainly said. Josh Marshall points out that Ken Adelman is even claiming that the UN forced us to lie about WMD.
The editorial writer of the piece quoted above calls it hypocrisy, but that’s really not completely correct. It’s hypocritical in the sense that these people all lie yet proclaim themselves virtuous and honest, yes. But, the phenomenon of lying to persuade people of the rightness of an action you wish to undertake with their permission and then saying later that what you said never mattered at all is something else entirely.
My first reaction was to see it as yet another audacious display of arrogance and privilege. They simply believe they can get away with anything. But, after thinking about it, I actually think it is far more insidious than that. It is an insult designed to get a particular reaction.
Like the boss who requires his staff to obsequiously and insincerely flatter him (because he delights in forcing them to say something they don’t believe purely to please him, and knowing they know it) it is less an act of narcissism than a demonstration of power. Regardless of whether they had bad intelligence or just bad intentions, for the administration to straightforwardly say to their supporters that the arguments they had them put forth with such fervor prior to the war were never correct and don’t matter anyway is, in effect, demanding a loyalty oath that says they are willing to give up any claim to personal integrity in support of the party. You can believe me or you can believe your lyin’ eyes.
And to those who expressed skepticism about the imminent threat presented by Saddam, these people are saying , “We have demonstrated that we can get away with lying outright, over and over again and no one has the courage or the will to hold us accountable. You are powerless to defeat us through logic or rational argument. Might makes right.”
When you add this to the ongoing and systematic attacks against any criticism of the President or his policies, you have the makings of a new order. From this, Brownshirts are made.
This gentleman has a choice to make.
Swallowing the “News”
I honestly don’t know if it can get any more surreal than what I am seeing on television this afternoon. In fact, the Fox AllStars are more restrained than CNN and MSNBC in their prostrate, hysterical reaction to seeing George W. Awol alight from his “fighter” plane that you would think he just flew single-handedly, one engine on fire, from the war zone where he shot Saddam Hussein right between the eyes.
I have never seen a more sickening display of pandering penis envy from a bunch of pasty faced, bespectacled, doughboys in my life. Some Bozo on MSNBC could hardly keep from pleasuring himself under the desk as he swooned on and on about how “great the President looks in that flight suit.” It’s so tight and form fitting and he looks so potent. Why, he’s just like Tom Cruise in “Top Gun.” Ooooh baby.
He does like his costumes, doesn’t he? If he can find a reason to wear that Calvin Coolidge Indian headdress, he’ll be a one man version of the Village People.
Democratic Unity
During my little hiatus I received a lot of great e-mail, many of them asking why I made the assertion that the Democrats (and a majority of the country) are unified in support the democratic agenda, and wanting me to provide some back-up for that claim. I base some of my belief on this analysis and some on my own observations of the nature of the internecine warfare within each Party.
I never said that the Democratic Party is one big happy family. I said that we have a remarkably coherent philosophy and agreement on policy for such a large coalition of interests and that this is a great strength. Our disagreements, and they are significant, are about strategy.
First, let me reiterate that the unified support within and outside the party does not apply to national security. Americans (including many Democrats) have consistently said that the Democratic Party is weaker than the Republicans on national security for more than 30 years. It is why Democratic politicians twist themselves into pretzels on the issue, trying to be sane and tough at the same time while fighting off the charges of cowardice and fecklessness by the manly GOP. It is a huge problem for us.
But, the fact that George W. Bush ran as a “compassionate conservative” with a program of “affirmative access” and “saving social security,” and even the red, white and blue mid-term campaign featured Republicans across the board pushing their phony prescription drug program is evidence that they know that they cannot win elections on their program of tax cuts, Jesus and the flag alone.
Poll after poll suggests that support for individual policies as well as measures of trust on bread and butter issues accrue to the Democrats. Even on the hot button issue of crime, the Democrats managed to pull even in the last decade. People expect service and support from the government and consistently seek more as the need arises. This is certainly true of Democrats and a large percentage of the independents required to gain a majority as well.
So, to the extent that disagreement within the Party exists, it is strategic not substantive – pragmatism vs principle, accommodate the middle or lead from the left. Certain politicians from red states often accede to their brainwashed constituencies on taxes and some other right wing issues, but with the exception of Zell Miller who seems to really believe in a Republican agenda all of a sudden, I believe this almost always in the context of a sausage making deal or other practical considerations. The basic philosophy of the party is not really in contention. Democrats of all stripes share the same goals of ensuring a stable society through a reasonable redistribution of wealth, equality of opportunity, respect for civil rights and civil liberties, a social safety net, and environmental and consumer regulations to protect the health and welfare of the citizenry.
Certainly, there are those who would like to see more done in certain areas but if one has a philosophical disagreement with those principles, one is highly unlikely to be a Democrat. Our internal battles on policy are almost always a matter of intensity and focus, not policy goals themselves.
Granted, welfare reform was a very divisive issue as was NAFTA. Clinton tried to realign the party and neutralize the image of Democrats as being big-spending protectionists. I believe those issues have largely been settled, unhappily in some cases. There are continuing sharp disagreements on guns as well as this ongoing Wurlitzer induced skittishness at being labeled a “liberal” or “feminist” or “politically correct,” or “outside the mainstream.”
In my opinion, trade is an issue that continues to require attention. Democrats have an affirmative responsibility to workers here and elsewhere and we must fashion a coherent policy on this issue. It is moral as well as practical. If Democrats don’t stand for unions, we have lost our souls (and our best organizers.)
Guns, I’m afraid, should be viewed in the context of civil liberties. In the era of John Ashcroft and terrorism, it is probably a mistake to advocate fooling with the bill of rights in any way, even if the interpretation of the 2nd amendment is contentious. In my view it’s not worth it.
These are issues that I agree still cause some serious disagreement within the party.
As to the third, the discomfort some people feel with being labeled “kooky” or “deviant,” I would suggest that this is the ultimate strategic issue. It’s a result of the silly culture war that has been used to great effect by the other side; it has no basis in reality. Democrats are Americans just like Republicans. We share the same culture, we eat the same food, we watch the same television, we shop in the same endlessly boring mall stores. None of us are exotic foreign creatures who don’t belong, not even the crazy kids on campus and the so-called extremists of the National Education Association or Greenpeace. We should reject this labeling outright. Besides, everybody’s got their weirdoes and the GOP glass house is crawling with them. It’s time to shine the spotlight in their direction.
And finally, the left end of the spectrum is extremely distressed (the centrist faction being typically only somewhat distressed) at the extent to which the party is dependent upon big business donors and the resultant necessity to pay heed to their requests. However, I would suggest that this also is a strategic issue, not a substantive one. Unlike the Republicans, whose governing philosophy is inherently plutocratic, the Democrats have competing constituencies such as unions, consumer advocates, lawyers and civil rights groups which balance their obligation to business donors. Like most other contentious issues within the party, this seems to me to be one of emotional intensity rather than a serious philosophical difference. Our political system has become quite obviously corrupt in a perfectly legal way which is outrageous and unacceptable to some Democrats and regretfully necessary to defend against a very frightening and dangerous GOP to others. The Republicans, on the other hand, comfortably see it as the natural and correct order of things.
Nobody really has the answer to how to stop the ungodly flow of corporate money into politics. It seems to be like water — if you plug up one route, it finds another. It’s doubtful that even public financing or free TV time could do much more than temporarily plug the dyke. Until a politically possible answer can be found, there are those who believe that the Democrats should just say no to corporate money and people would reward them with their votes. Others call that unilateral disarmament. But the vast majority of Democrats, even DLCers, agree that massive corporate donations taint the system.
Contrast that with the Republicans who, for all of their Stalinist group think have some serious fissures in their coalition that are only held together by a phony and incoherent fealty to tax cuts as the answer to every problem. Their problem is not strategic, it is deeply philosophical and it is a train wreck waiting to happen.
The Republican coalition primarily consists of business and wealthy interests, social conservatives, libertarian individualists, movement ideologues and moderates. Very few of them are truly “conservative” in the traditional sense of the word. (And if conservatism isn’t traditional, it isn’t conservative at all.)
Most business interests and wealthy individuals see government as either a hindrance to their goals or a facilitator of their goals or simply as their goal. They all want to pay as few taxes as they can get away with and are more than willing to pay the chump change that amounts to contributions and lobbying expenses in order to use the government to their advantage in whatever way they need to. They are morally agnostic. Their job as businesses is to maximize profits and most wealthy individuals live in a world that doesn’t show any evidence of a need for government.
The social conservatives like Rick Santorum are in favor of a government that promotes and enforces their set of personal religious values for the common good. They believe in an activist government, but rather than providing a safety net they rely on coercion and police power to “guide” people into making the “right” decisions in the first place. They see government as a tool for radical social change. (I’m including the significant numbers of neo-confederates in this group, although it is an imperfect fit.)
The libertarians are the real small government “leave us alone”“coalition. This is the image of Republicanism that is sold to the public as being what the party is all about — the cowboy American, a rugged individualist who is self-sufficient and wants the least intrusive government possible. A Republican is strong, manly, confident, competent. Men want to be him and women want to pleasure him. In reality, they encompass the anti-UN black helicopter weirdoes and the intellectual utopians to be sure, but more importantly they also capture the regular Joe American who really just wants to be left alone to live his life unbothered by authority. But that includes religious zealots as much as do-gooders and the IRS.
The movement ideologues are the influential cosmopolitans like Peggy Noonan, Dinesh D’Souza and William Bennett, all of whom are really opportunists who have managed to make careers for themselves by working for the right wing message infrastructure. It also consists of the neocon faction who has transformed US foreign policy into an Imperialist wet dream.
The moderates are people who still believe that the Republican Party is prudent, fiscally responsible and traditional. They are not paying attention.
So, now that they are consolidating their power, how will the GOP reconcile the desire of social conservatives, who have an influence within the party that far outstrips its actual population in the country, with the “leave us alone” coalition? Rick Santorum was just given a big sloppy kiss by the Republican hierarchy after saying that he does not believe in a right to privacy and in fact believes that the government should outlaw any sexual behavior that he believes is harmful to the family values that he believes everyone should have. And the “leave us alone” faction should be repulsed by the idea that the government is seeking to inflict religious values on anybody against their will. If that is libertarian then I’m a John Bircher.
How do the movement ideologues and the social conservatives expect to pay for their enormous police state at home and Empire abroad if the corporations and people with money do not pay taxes? Supply side economics is a scam and they know it. If they remain in power they will have to find a way to raise taxes on the middle class and the poor, probably through a regressive consumption tax.
And at that point, the libertarians, who may have convinced themselves that the GOP will never be able to implement their police state and Empire as long as they are keeping taxes too low to pay for them, will see that they have been played for fools. The modern GOP does not believe in small government or rugged individualism. They simply use the imagery to sell their product.
As the social conservatives begin to flex their muscles, how are the cosmopolitans (who actually live in urban areas) going to feel when confronted with the mean bigotry of the anti-gay rights movement and the ugly intolerance of the still significant racist contingent of the GOP. They scurried like rabbits when Trent Lott embarrassed them. It is only a matter of time before the same thing happens with the gay rights movement. City girls like Peggy Noonan and Jonah Goldberg are embarrassed by the bigotry in their party.
In order to be coherent at all, the GOP must really believe in a huge, intrusive government that enforces religious values. One of their main targets for “reform” is the media. But, the media is big, big business, which has no interest in anything but profits. (Rupert Murdoch, after all, is the guy who publishes topless photos every day in the British tabloids.) If the social conservatives continue to gain real clout, how long before this confrontation happens?
In fact, how long can the Republican Party juggle the Big Government social conservatives and neocons with the valuable libertarian “leave us alone” brand and the big business moral agnostics?
And, how long will the Republican moderates stay in their nether world refusing to acknowledge that their party has become alarmingly radical and incoherent?
We Democrats have a lot of problems to be sure, not the least of which is that we are paralyzed by fear and indecision about how to fight the opposition. But, they have serious problems, too, and they are problems that the Democrats should exploit to the hilt. It’s called divide and conquer and it shouldn’t be too difficult to bring these conflicts into the open. Unlike the bogus wedge issues the GOP employed against the Democrats by demonizing straw men, these wedge issues are real.
Powell vs Rumsfeld is just the beginning. The GOP is on a collision course with itself.