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August 14, 2006
WB: Rootless Cosmopolitans
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I suppose it never dawned on this pin-head that exceptionalism was first itself identified and expounded upon by the European intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville. Which is of course, the least important anti-intellectual, clod-hopper, david brooks like down home back-water brackish sage wisdom born someplace late on the back nine after the martinis have kicked in, and brought with it the enlightenment born from a fit of fruitless, handicap crashing, cussing and hacking out there someplace in the brush laden rough — kind of gulp, humility. If for a minute, their think-tank take on the notion of exceptionalism, itself, nothing more than a hyped ad-hoc socio/political assumption at best, were ever to elicidate anything more than the typical ad-hominum attack potential, they would have to fess up to the glaring obvious prima-facie evidence that it is they THEMSELVES that have destroyed american exceptionalism. It is they, who have reduced the power of the individual, they, who have ennobled the presidency, they, who have endorced imperialism, they, who have diminished the judiciary, they, who have at every step have destroyed the affects of egalitarianism. Billmon is right on to equate that pissing and moaning screed with stalanist tyranny, because thats what it is.
Posted by: anna missed | Aug 14 2006 7:55 utc | 1
Iraq according to the neocon view (which was, it turns out, entirely and completely a construct of Iranian intelligence) was supposed to morph into a ground invasion of Iran about 4 weeks after the beginning of the invasion.
Iraq was “On to Iran” in the neocon mind.
But not just any “On to Iran”. This was to be an “On to Iran” in the air and on the ground. Perhaps on the ground with a large dose of Iraqi troops, but nevertheless on the ground.
A colonial war, just like the Iraqi colonial war.
So, yes, Israel in Lebanon was to be Spanish Civil War before the main event, but it was to be a prelude to the ultimate colonial war in Iran.
Now, Israel’s utter failure to do anything substantive to Hezbollah makes the Iranian colonial war somewhat dicey.
After all, the Bush Administration has been led down the garden path by Iranian intelligence in Iraq, and, now, Israel has been beaten like a gong by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and far more important public opinion, in each case, has been almost universally against it, in the US and abroad.
So, bomb Iran? Sure. But only in the same way that angry children throw their toys. The colonial war for Iran has experienced the ultimate birth pang, namely death. Sure, they may drop their bombs on Iran, but it is conceivable that somebody, somewhere in the Bush Administration is beginning to understand that throwing good money after bad is not absolutely, completely necessary.
After all, you can win elections by making soccer moms empty Evian into plastic tubs at almost no expense. Why make things more difficult than they have to be?
Posted by: arbogast | Aug 14 2006 8:00 utc | 2
Billmon needs to add a few more quotes.
“Rootless cosmpopolitans” was also Nazi and Soviet shorthand for “Jews”.
If this term is now being used in this country, it is cause for grave concenr.
Posted by: hopping madbunny | Aug 14 2006 9:09 utc | 3
Today the underlying shorthand would probably be “Europeans” instead of “Jews”. The strange thing is until the very last paragraph i didn’t realize that the author of the Wall Street op-ed meant that as an insult and not as a good thing.
Posted by: waldi | Aug 14 2006 9:28 utc | 4
“Rootless Cosmopolitan” certainly WAS the code word for a Jew.
But then, the Jews were just the Enemy of the Day. Those ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ could just as well have been some other recognizable segment of German or Russian society, as long as it served as a scapegoat.
The Enemy of the Day in America, in the GOP view, is the Liberal. Secular, humanist, relativist, questioning, thinking, not joining up, war resisting — Liberals.
The fact that about 70% of Americans are moderates politically, willing to live and let live, escapes the GOP.
The fact that the “Liberal” they describe — who has no ethics, morals, values, religion, purpose or goals other than the aimless pursuit of pleasure and the wanton disregard of norms — is a figment of their fevered imaginations also escapes them.
“The godless Liberal” is a straw man, par excellence. Most Americans like to live free, work hard, obey the law, be fair and friendly. We’re a Norman Rockwell nation to this day. If Norman was still around, he’d be doing a mural about Wal-Mart shopping.
You have to lie, cheat and scare Americans to get them into a war. You have to scare them with the Other.
Rootless Cosmopolitans? You mean all those people who are not afraid, who are not voting GOP. Them.
They are the Other. And they smell bad. And they look like rats. They’re everywhere. And we hate them. Jesus God, how we hate them!
Posted by: Antifa | Aug 14 2006 9:50 utc | 5
“the secular transnational professional class“.
This is very interesting analysis by Barone, since his transnational class is another term for “globalization winners.” The captains steering this globalisation push are perhaps less appreciative of the entertainment value of the GWOT than the average American. They prefer financial thrills to living real-life episodes of “24”.
Thus the Neo-Cons are joining the ranks of anti-Globalists. Move over José Bovais and Subcommandante Marcos!
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 14 2006 11:30 utc | 6
I spend a lot of time in Connecticut because I have relatives living there and my work takes me there. What Barone wrote is such a joke. I’m sure residents of the state are laughing their asses off. My sister-in-law is a physician living in rural Connecticut — not exactly some wacked out leftist — and she was appalled at the national media’s coverage of the election. They had no clue what really happened, she said.
Posted by: Phil from New York | Aug 14 2006 14:38 utc | 7
The world has suffered from various brands of exceptionalism justified by an assortment of reasons, all of them false. America is the rebirth of a republic in the modern world, 400 years after the still extant Swiss Confederation. Japan is the chosen of Ameratsu and Israel the chosen of Yahweh, both choosers still shy about answering questions in public, truth being the province of the chosen few. Spanish is the language of Art and Civilization, gringo. Moscow is the third and best Rome. If Jesus was here now he would be proper British, O Jerusalem, blah blah blah. Exceptionalism is not just harmless patriotic egomania, it is a creeping ethical lapse: Other’s crimes are awful, but ours are forgiveable, because the world is ruins if our team loses. I’ll take my ethics without self-anointed exceptions, period.
Posted by: Multisect | Aug 14 2006 16:30 utc | 8
Billmon needs to add a few more quotes.
“Rootless cosmpopolitans” was also Nazi and Soviet shorthand for “Jews”.
If this term is now being used in this country, it is cause for grave concenr.
No-one’s going to write “rootless cosmopolitans”, but Michael Barone’s talk of “transnational attitudes” does appear to mean much the same thing — unpatriotic traitors who are effectively foreigners because they don’t identify with their own country.
Posted by: Gag Halfrunt | Aug 14 2006 21:34 utc | 9
“The professional class Democrats of today . . . feel free to imagine that America cannot be threatened by implacable enemies. They can vote to validate their lifestyle choices and their transnational attitudes.
I think the translation of this is “Commie cocksucker Jews.” Fair takes me back…
(p.s. “rootlesscosmo” was my nom de blog on LiveJournal for a couple of years…)
Posted by: rootlesscosmo | Aug 15 2006 2:15 utc | 10
Anyone who wants to fulminate about “rootless cosmopolitans” as being unpatriotic traitors who are effectively foreigners has no understanding of history. The nation-state is relatively modern. Renaissance Man was more likely to have an identification to his city (or not if he felt it to be in the wrong hands) than a country.
Heck, there were tons of people running around Europe who used Latin as their major tongue for writing in and communicating in. We don’t seem to have done that badly by following men such as Erasmus.
Posted by: tzs | Aug 15 2006 19:45 utc | 11
Corporations, and those who are paid by them, which includes the State in many OECD countries, are determined to support that class. They need highly qualified, transferable workers, people who have no roots, that is, no territorial loyalty, therefore no understanding of on the ground politics; people who consider politics old-hat and whose only allegiance is to their present pay master. Their ideology thus has to be very general, neo-lib, but very flexible and sympathetic, that is the best word I can find – as it is theirs. Raving to go work for the Global Funds, paid for mainly by Bill Gates. (It aims to eradicate AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis..)
It is done by (Eu, not US):
1) Upping language courses and paying for them – helping student with lodging, always a problem in the EU
2) Seeing to it that scholarships are dependent on moving around; at least one year must be spent abroad
3) Offering the Erasmus program (free movement and credit accumulation all over the EU)
4) Making courses on a variety of topics mandatory; Microsoft products, self-presentation, study habits, basic economy, health – managing stress, superficial research skills, finding mentors, mostly in corporations, etc.
Posted by: Noirette | Aug 15 2006 20:14 utc | 12
And Rabbi Gellman has just criticized “cosmopolitan Jews” for not voting for Lieberman.
Somebody has been learning from the writings of Andrei Zhdanov.
Posted by: lysias | Aug 15 2006 23:32 utc | 13