The new neo-cons
Everywhere you look, things are back to normal.
The savvy people of the center-left who read Marc, Spencer, Juan, Helena and the others all know that AlQaeda-affiliated honchos are somewhat impressed with Obama and are urging that he be given four months to decide what to say about the killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians and the laying waste of Gaza and its blockaded and starving 1.5 million people, after he has already said "our hearts go out..."
They also know that Israeli democracy is back on track, now that the court has ruled out a proposal to ban Arab parties from participating in the coming Israeli election, and "the peace-process" is about to resume.
All's right with the world, as long as the extremists aren't allowed to make a comeback.
Or to put it another way, the racist militarism of the Israeli regime doesn't exist; the devastation of Gaza will soon be forgotten; and as for the jihadi reaction, the fact is that the statement by Abu Yahya al-Libi hasn't been reported anywhere the above-mentioned savvy readers would see it, so it is definitely marginal--certainly not part of the overall drift to normalcy.
So it is that the savvy readers of the center-left have been put on an information diet that somewhat resembles that of the neo-cons during the Bush years: Whatever the American administration and the American president does is to be honored for the good intentions that they represent: Allies like Israel are to be supported; expressions of the "hearts-go-out" type are to be accepted as if they were "overwhelmingly significant" policy statements; "racism" and "militarism" in connection with American policy are expressions that are to be avoided. And so on.
My theory is that what was called the center-left has become the new neo-con movement. It says--by what it collectively trumpets and by what it collectively leaves out--that what has been achieved in our democracy is a sufficient remedy for the major ills of the present, provided that our institutions, and particularly our president, are given sufficient time to proceed in their deliberate fashion. Everything else is overblown rhetoric.
The savvy people of the center-left who read Marc, Spencer, Juan, Helena and the others all know that AlQaeda-affiliated honchos are somewhat impressed with Obama and are urging that he be given four months to decide what to say about the killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinians and the laying waste of Gaza and its blockaded and starving 1.5 million people, after he has already said "our hearts go out..."
They also know that Israeli democracy is back on track, now that the court has ruled out a proposal to ban Arab parties from participating in the coming Israeli election, and "the peace-process" is about to resume.
All's right with the world, as long as the extremists aren't allowed to make a comeback.
Or to put it another way, the racist militarism of the Israeli regime doesn't exist; the devastation of Gaza will soon be forgotten; and as for the jihadi reaction, the fact is that the statement by Abu Yahya al-Libi hasn't been reported anywhere the above-mentioned savvy readers would see it, so it is definitely marginal--certainly not part of the overall drift to normalcy.
So it is that the savvy readers of the center-left have been put on an information diet that somewhat resembles that of the neo-cons during the Bush years: Whatever the American administration and the American president does is to be honored for the good intentions that they represent: Allies like Israel are to be supported; expressions of the "hearts-go-out" type are to be accepted as if they were "overwhelmingly significant" policy statements; "racism" and "militarism" in connection with American policy are expressions that are to be avoided. And so on.
My theory is that what was called the center-left has become the new neo-con movement. It says--by what it collectively trumpets and by what it collectively leaves out--that what has been achieved in our democracy is a sufficient remedy for the major ills of the present, provided that our institutions, and particularly our president, are given sufficient time to proceed in their deliberate fashion. Everything else is overblown rhetoric.
posted by badger at 5:24 AM
10 Comments:
It makes no sense at all to group Cobban with the others. She has no preference for the US over other counties. The rest all operate under the logic of American nationalism. Lynch is one step removed from a foreign service officer. He's an advisor for the propaganda ministry. Cole has to maintain his status as respectable liberal etc.
Cobban is a smiling christian and her response to crimes with a "tisk, tisk" can be annoying. She's a bit fuzzy sometimes, but don't link her wit Cole and Lynch.
And Ackerman's an idiot.
They are all individuals, as you say, each with their own individual aspirations and perhaps ambitions, just as each and every one of the thousands of butchered Palestinians is or was an individual each with their own aspirations and ambitions. What I am talking about is not the special individuality of these special center-left Americans, but what they have in common as a group. I do not care which one is a sellout, or which one is an idiot, or a smiling Christian for that matter. You will find that kind of thing anywhere. What I am talking about someting else, something that makes them special as a group. And I don't think you can take a few words and say that wraps up the entire reality. What I tried to do in recent posts is to highlight the picking and choosing that goes into their pontifications, and in particular the discarding--sometimes knowingly sometimes unknowingly--of whatever doesn't fit within their cultural comfort-zone, unaware of the fact that their own comfort-zone is a limited part of the world, and not the whole world. You say American nationalist, I say neo-con. You may think people can be wrongly identified with that group, but to me that is a little like saying that the 876th person murdered in the recent war was wrongly hit. I think we have to keep our priorities straight.
"...All's right with the world, as long as the extremists aren't allowed to make a comeback.
Or to put it another way, the racist militarism of the Israeli regime doesn't exist; the devastation of Gaza will soon be forgotten..."
"...the picking and choosing that goes into their pontifications, and in particular the discarding--sometimes knowingly sometimes unknowingly--of whatever doesn't fit within their cultural comfort-zone, unaware of the fact that their own comfort-zone is a limited part of the world, and not the whole world..."
I totally agree: could call it the "neocon-lite" line: supremacism with a smiley-face?
" What I am talking about is not the special individuality of these special center-left Americans"
She's not American and she carries no brief for America or American policy. The others do.
The distinction is clear its importance obvious.
I disagree.
I don't think you have to actually be American to participate in pulling the wool over Americans' eyes. While the rest of the world recognizes that the white phosphorus and the rest of it has something to do with the racist and belligerent nature of the Israeli regime; and that splitting the Arab world and fostering disunity has been a US/Israel joint venture, there is this group that--each in their own way to be sure--propounds a message of American benevolence. The group has more in common than they have differences.
Neo-con lite; supremacism with a smiley face; sums it up nicely, I think.
"there is this group that--each in their own way to be sure--propounds a message of American benevolence."
This is a woman who compliments Walid Jumblatt for sending her such a nice christmas card and then in her best church lady tone add that it would would be nice if he didn't behave so much like a warlord.
She's a Quaker and a pacifist, and she's not center left. And I trust her on Hamas much more than I do you. She's probably to he left of you on most things. But she's a reporter and reporters have to negotiate. And she believes in negotiation.
Lynch et al. ignore her about as much as thy do you.
Short version: "How dare you?!"
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anon/DG: You have posted three comments on this already, to say what you had to say, and I think it is time to turn the page. Thanks
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