News & views …
Back to Main
September 23, 2006
Weekend OT
Comments
@citizen k
“I accept as an empirical fact that the state operates on the level of a criminal enterprise because the data requires it.”
And, again, I reject that premise as unsound.
We support the state simply because, and only as long as, it is in our interests to do so. This is the crux of what Rousseau and Locke
That is the social contract. I abide by the laws, pay the taxes and assume the responsibilities of being a member of the state, and in return, the state provides me with protection for both myself and my livelihood. When the state provides no protection whatsoever (I had to move to another country in order to obtain health insurance), squanders my taxes without providing any material or emotional benefit to me, decreases my security, refuses to abide by sets of laws that bind its voiceless constituents, and in every other way treats me as a hostile entity, then I do not owe it any support or loyalty. As a human being, I owe it contempt… and in the tradition of and in precedence with my forebears, I owe it opposition.
A state does not exist merely to benefit a small leisure class. It exists to serve the many. A criminal enterprise is precisely the reverse. When a state becomes a criminal enterprise, it is not only no longer “realistic” to continue to lend it one’s support, it is, by definition, criminal to do so. I don’t know what “data” you are looking at that requires a state to be an abusive bully both internally and externally, but we apparently have vastly different ideas about the role and function of a government. Any state that can not even go through the motions of honest governance is not worthy of the name.
To return to the original comments, I do reject the state you have painted… wholeheartedly and with every fiber of my being. My life is finite and it won’t be spent in support of an organised body of tyrants.
Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 26 2006 15:26 utc | 101
not sure where i copied this stmt from, but it seems appropriate here
to chastise the abuses of a structure which depends on abuse is off the mark
can’t have a state w/o some form of abuse – whether theft, violence, oppression, repression, etc – no matter how well it’s hidden from the citizenry.
Posted by: b real | Sep 26 2006 16:40 utc | 102
It is the responsibility of government, Madison declared, “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” To achieve this goal, political power must rest in the hands of “the wealth of nations,” men who would “sympathize sufficiently” with property rights and “be safe depositories of power over them,” while the rest are marginalized and framgemnted, offered only limited public participation in the political arena. Among Madisonian scholars, there is a consensus that “the constitution was intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratic tendencies of the period”, delivering power to a “better sort” of people and excluding “those who were not rich, well born, or prominent from exercising political power.”
— chomsky
Posted by: b real | Sep 26 2006 17:04 utc | 103
Well, it appears I’ve gotten all uppity and forgotten my station.
Thank you, citizen k, for pointing out that I haven’t the “standing” to speak ill of my betters.
And thank you, b real, for pointing out that dabbling in the realm of political thought is out of bounds for the low born like me.
Now I’m left to wonder what the point of this blog is at all since it takes away from the time that I could be toiling away for the landed class like a good little serf.
It has become increasingly clear to me that there is no place for me in the happily corrupt scheme you describe as a state, except to be stripped of my humanity and treated as a commodity. Your states offer me nothing but contempt and I reciprocate that sentiment in full. I will no longer be a willing participant in a process that compromises my very humanity.
Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 26 2006 20:20 utc | 104
madison was a tricky devil, including his acolyte “civic republicans” like cass sunstein.
but if you spend more than 20 minutes at little green footballs, your devotion to democracy will disappear.
Posted by: slothrop | Sep 26 2006 20:21 utc | 105
you are inextricably involved in fine moral distinctions and you don’t have the standing to dismiss Clinton as equivalent to Bush.
whether i agree clinton is the equivalent of bush or not is besides the point. nobody around here except b has the standing to say who has standing or not.
I will no longer be a willing participant in a process that compromises my very humanity.
here here. as long as you aren’t talking about all present company. heavens no. your voice is way to valuable to exit. you have too much standing!
my impression from chomsky’s quote was not that he was in agreement, nor b real.
Guthman Bey: You make utterly no sense.
citizen k, you made a similar statement to me once, well w/out the ‘utterly’. i made the effort to break it down for you, step by step. you didn’t bother responding. if you disagree, you disagree, but obviously GB’s pov make sense. if i can follow it, you can too.
Muhammed Ali always thought of a good answer, kid.
well, that settles it, you are no muhammed ali. telling someone they are making no sense is not an answer. can you follow that?
I accept as an empirical fact that the state operates on the level of a criminal enterprise because the data requires it.
try thinking outside the box. a state is not required to operate the way it has in the past. data does not require, it exists. we can apply it or not.
Posted by: annie | Sep 26 2006 21:02 utc | 106
fwiw Mono, I found myself very uncomfortable hearing our elected leaders openly talk about killing their opponents. I believe this started with Swartzkopf in GW I when he described finding the head of the Iraqi forces and killing it. It seemed so out of place, I mean we always understood that was what was going to happen without them saying so in such a blunt way. Now our politicians talk just like gang bangers.
And yes, I agree it is wrong to support a government that is dirty and unhealthy. Tacit approval is still approval.
keep fighting the good fight, there will always be those who will tell you it won’t work or it has always been like this. They simply choose to remain mediocre, there is safety there.
Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 26 2006 21:16 utc | 107
I’m beginning to dig the cockburn guy:
I’m sure that the Bush gang, and all the conspirators of capital, are delighted at the obsessions of the 9/11 cultists. It’s a distraction from the 1,001 real plots of capitalism that demand exposure and political challenge.
Posted by: slothrop | Sep 26 2006 21:34 utc | 108
slothrop
Having not yet, read your link, and going by your excerpt my question is why can’t we focus on both? Are we not big enough to see around the ‘either or’ game?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 26 2006 22:35 utc | 109
i don’t think you’re the intended audience of cockburn’s screed. but i can think of many who are.
Posted by: slothrop | Sep 26 2006 22:38 utc | 110
it doesn’t matter if cheney paid bin laden chump money to provide the thrilling diversions needed for some other republican apparatchiks to detonate those ugly buildings in order to set the magus-like super conspiracy in motion. it’d all make an interesting miniseries written by tom clancy. but, truth is, they were always already a pack of war criminals w/out the grand narratives.
Posted by: slothrop | Sep 26 2006 22:47 utc | 111
Uncle, do read Cockburn’s screed. He buys the 911 horseshit & rips those challenging it. It’s not clear that he’s ever seriously studied it – as compared to say D.R. Griffin – a debate bet. them would be good fun – or a debate w/Gore Vidal. Unfortunately, these guys don’t seem to realize that pulling out that lynchpin is the fastest & probably the only way to restore the republic. It’s absurd to recognize that history of false pretexts for luring the country into war over & over again, but be so closed-minded on this.
Posted by: jj | Sep 27 2006 1:02 utc | 112
“I accept as an empirical fact that the state operates on the level of a criminal enterprise because the data requires it.”
And, again, I reject that premise as unsound.
We support the state simply because, and only as long as, it is in our interests to do soWe’re talking past each other. I say that something has a particular behavior in observed reality and you tell me whether you approve or not.
Even a “realist” like Hobbes suggests that the only reason to support a state is because it’s preferable the “nasty, brutish and short” alternative. When the state descends into a paranoid, self-abusing dictatorship that tyrannizes it’s own citizens (or, in other words, becomes a criminal enterprise that benefits only the top criminals), it is no longer in our interests to support it and the “nasty, brutish and short” alternative is no longer the greater evil.
Yes? And so what? I’ll try once more: I am not defending Clinton or Bush or the bloody history of the American or any other state. I am not advocating resignation or acceptance. And basically, I agree that Clinton’s efforts at putting a hit on Bin Ladin were morally
and legally and tactically dubious. But your rhetoric is misleading and, in my ever so humble opinion, self-defeating.
Posted by: citizen k | Sep 27 2006 2:16 utc | 113
I accept as an empirical fact that the state operates on the level of a criminal enterprise because the data requires it.
try thinking outside the box. a state is not required to operate the way it has in the past. data does not require, it exists. we can apply it or not.
Thinking outside the box? So trying to understand how the world works is just a failure of imagination?
Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 27 2006 2:22 utc | 114
trying to understand how the world works is just a failure of imagination?
no, understanding how the world works is a creative challenge. it requires suspending preconcieved notions about how it has always been. thinking the world was flat was a failure of imagination. but considering the data they had collected, i guess it was all they thought they had to work with.
Posted by: annie | Sep 27 2006 3:29 utc | 115
We’re talking past each other. I say that something has a particular behavior in observed reality and you tell me whether you approve or not.
sort of. you claim something to be empirical fact, by acknowledging that it is so and reject monolycus’s response as misleading ‘rhetoric’ that merely ‘disapproves’ of your theory (observed reality) . you of course never have to be defeated because you aren’t ‘approving’ of your position, merely stating it is so.
let’s be honest about the moral basis of the critique.
Either you side with the saints like Dorothy Day, and you pay a huge price for that high moral standard, or you are down in the sewer with the rest of us killer monkeys arguing about when it is ok to murder other people. I’m not dismissing this sewer debate. I believe that it is possible to and essential to make distinctions between “necessary” and “unecessary” murders – but let’s not pretend.
you claim you are not dismissing the ‘sewer debate’, yet your framing says you are. there is no grey area. no only killing in self defense. no ‘defense’ department. either saint, or in the sewer because there is no difference.
no difference between a policy w/checks and balances and a backwater assassination school of the americas, corporate hitmen, regime change via flying planes etc.
I am not advocating resignation or acceptance.
really? it seems to me you are advocating we accept your viewpoint that we are resigned to both resignation and acceptance that there is virtually alternative. no difference( morally) between a defensive or offensive assault any approval places the society in the ‘sewer’. and to be a dorothy, or ‘saint’ is in all practicality absurd.
But modern post-cold-war “progressivism” is a mishmash that is full of self-defeating false premises and unacknowledged acceptance of state lies.
I don’t have to approve it to acknowledge that it is so.
We agree that states should exist and that they should operate military forces whose purpose is to murder people and destroy things – we are only able to argue about the rules of engagement. That is we have already agreed on principle to applaud some kinds of murder: we’ve settled the issue of who we are, and argue only about price.
A Murder is the unjust, immoral and/or illegal killing of another human being.we have not all already agreed on principle to applaud some kinds of murder. i believe that is the point.
for someone who criticizes another for rhetoric, you employ it quite handily. we do not have to belong to a state whose military engages in murder. for some people this might seem ‘outside the box’.
Posted by: annie | Sep 27 2006 3:49 utc | 117
i apologize and offer a note of disclaimer before starting. had i the time i would address each of the points made before me, but mondays and tuesdays are my longest and most challenging days with work and school back to back. so i am going to bring this down to my current level. but if you break this down, don’t you end up back at citizen’s ursula le guinn link ? or whether or not we look at the world from a utilitarian point of view? i am paraphrasing from an ethics class, so please bear with me, but an example of this from Bernard Williams is of the man who finds himself in the center of a south american town (please i am paraphrasing williams not casting aspersions on south america nor defending cortina) and comes upon a group of indigenous men lined up against a wall guarded by and to be shot by several armed men in uniform. the man is questioned by the leader of the armed, uniformed men and it becomes clear he has come upon the scene by accident in the course of botanical studies. the leader explains that the indigenous men about to be executed are dissidents who have been protesting against the government and that he will execute them as an example to others of the advantages of not protesting. he proposes to the man – as a foreign guest – that he should have the privilege/honor of killing one of the indigenous himself. if the man accepts all of the others will be let free. if he refuses, then they will all be killed. it is clear that there is no recourse or way to overpower the leader and he must make a decision. the men about to be killed and the other villagers understand the situation and are obviously begging him to accept. what should he do? a utilitarian would see his way clear to shooting one man and thereby save the others.
i am not a utilitarian and would not be able to do this. even if i was able to do it, i expect that i would take my own life not long after. i would not be able to give in to the system simply because it exists.
and a somewhat related true and current story. there were two additional sago mine related deaths this week. two men who worked with those who died in the accident last year killed themselves: the dispatcher on duty the morning of the accident and the fireboss who had discovered a buildup of methane days before the accident. while i doubt that either had the greater happiness principle in place, i don’t doubt that when they allowed the mine to operate under compromised conditions that they did so thinking that they were doing the right thing by allowing people to continue to make money – everyone from the miners to themselves to the executives who run the company to the man who heads it. wilbur ross is not suicidal afaik, so obviously not all men have difficulty with or experience remorse after making life/death decisions for others.
personally, like monolycus, i could not separate those who deserve to live from those who do not even if it meant that more would survive. and i cannot capitulate to a system (or data) simply because it exists, even if the evil in the world is irrefutable. and yes, i was appalled to find another president of this country on television talking about assasinations and killing as if it was commonplace and expected. i also cringed inside when john kerry would talk about hunting down and killing bin laden during the election system. mentally, i was able to write it off as election year politicing, but it still wears on me when i recall his speeches. what a horrific place we have come to. it is almost as if in its extreme, the hobbesian desire for security has created a more potent, concentrated source of violence in its own constructs.
not sure how well i have said what is on my mind.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 27 2006 3:50 utc | 118
that was supposed to read ‘there is virtually no alternative.’
Posted by: annie | Sep 27 2006 3:56 utc | 119
you claim you are not dismissing the ‘sewer debate’, yet your framing says you are. there is no grey area. no only killing in self defense. no ‘defense’ department. either saint, or in the sewer because there is no difference.
no difference between a policy w/checks and balances and a backwater assassination school of the americas, corporate hitmen, regime change via flying planes etc.
The debate starts with Monolycus stating there is no difference between Bush and Clinton. I disagree strongly. One can only honestly make a claim that the two are equivalent from the Dorothy Day perspective. If you accept the state and armies and laws that in their majesty forbid both the rich and the poor from sleeping under the bridges, then you are in the shades of gray business, the business of distinguishing between necessary and un-necessary murders. From my point of view, there is a world of difference between Bush and Clinton, even though I approve of neither. Far from claiming there is no
difference, I claim that the difference is critical.
Murder is the unjust, immoral and/or illegal killing of another human being.we have not all already agreed on principle to applaud some kinds of murder. i believe that is the point
Really, that’s so easy? Do you think that even with the best intentions, it is possible to fight a war without killing the innocent? Do you think that the beggar on the street is guilty of something that makes him deserve to be homeless and cold while your house is warm or that the cops who protect your door from unwanted entrance do so by kind and loving methods? Do you think that the millions of Bangladeshis and Mexicans and Guatemalens have less of a claim to life than do those who possess citizenship papers or that they stay where they are because they acknowledge your moral right to be rich while they starve? You are trying to use a process of law as a moral foundation and I don’t see how that can work.
I’m thinking about the Neumann article that Mistah Charley found and why “progressive” politics is such a marginal force in most of the world. And one explanation that you can’t make a powerful moral story from process arguments. The story of the evangelicals or the paranoid power story of Sharon or Milosovich or the realpoliticks of machiavelli are all internally consistent – you can see why people flock to those stories. But a process story just won’t do – and I think it has an appeal limited to people of a certain paper pushing class. Obviously, I’m not smart enough to come up with the solution or to even explain the failure I see clearly.
Posted by: citizen k | Sep 27 2006 6:05 utc | 120
I don’t bear any animosity towards citizen k, and she or he is correct to say that, on one level, we are “talking past one another”. We are looking at the same picture, and we acknowledge the same abuses. The difference, as I understand it, is that citizen k is prepared to excuse some level of systemic abuse as unavoidable, whereas I am not.
On a purely quantitative assessment, Clinton’s crimes do not nearly approach the magnitude of Bush’s crimes and there is no equivalence (as many here, including Bernhard, have observed). But I do not judge the situation purely quantitatively. It is the quality of their behaviour that I am judging and not the relative severity. What I am saying is that the willingness of a representative to commit a crime is enough, and when we excuse “minor” deviances of the law, our standards become more and more elastic until we are dealing with the situation that we are currently see with the Bush administration. Bush’s quantitatively greater crimes are the legacy of years of excusing “relatively minor” crimes from our leadership.
I acknowldege the abuses within the systems as we see them, but I do not accept them for precisely the reason I just stated. If I accept that any level of abuse is inherent within the institution of statehood, I begin the process of accepting greater and greater levels of it as both necessary and unavoidable. To me, that acceptance leads us to absolute defeatism.
I understand citizen k’s concern with being realistic, but I am convinced that “realism” in this case is tantamount to ethical relativism, which we have seen does not improve anyone’s lot in life. Rather, I see the excuse of “relatively minor” infractions as being the obstacle to reform, and not a stringent idealism. This is primarily where citizen k and I differ, I think.
Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 27 2006 7:39 utc | 121
f I accept that any level of abuse is inherent within the institution of statehood, I begin the process of accepting greater and greater levels of it as both necessary and unavoidable.
I think you want it both ways. You want to avoid the personal costs of the moral absolutism of Day or the anarchists or other people who actually refuse to cooperate with the state, but you still want to be able to stand above it all. Your insistence that I am excusing the state is just plain wrong. I’m not excusing anything. Instead, I’m insisting that those of us who accept the state have a moral duty to make those fine distinctions between different shades of wrong instead of pretending an olympian detachment which we do not merit.
Posted by: citizen k | Sep 27 2006 14:26 utc | 122
I’m insisting that those of us who accept the state have a moral duty to make those fine distinctions between different shades of wrong instead of pretending an olympian detachment which we do not merit.
i hear what you are saying, and my intention is not to discount your concerns w/a complete dilution of distinctions. but i do not equate making those distincing w/joining in some sewer w/those who elasticize morals in order to commit crimes against humanity. just because we have no models or data confirming we can exist in a state form w/justice that does not include these crimes doesn’t mean one cannot exist. to write this off as seeking moral absolution discounts the drive will and true intentions of people who have faith in our greater potential thru experience, evolution, defeat, creativity and persistence to strive for and achieve a more just future.
Do you think that even with the best intentions, it is possible to fight a war without killing the innocent?
not likely i agree. but i do think it is possible to defend ourselves without committing murder,applauding it, or using it as a form punishment or solution.
w/regard to war, i do not believe all acts of killing are tantamount to murder nor do i think making these distinctions distances us from moral absolution or necessarily exposes us to ‘minor infractions’ against the law.
You are trying to use a process of law as a moral foundation and I don’t see how that can work.
i hear you making a distinction between the law, and the process of law. i suspect clarity comes from the unification of the two. perhaps my desires spring from hope, i know that sounds weak but i do have faith there is the possibility it can work even if past data doesn’t confirm this. in other words i do not think deviation from law is in our collective dna.
citizen k, when you say make those fine distinctions between different shades of wrong there is an automatic assumption all the alternatives to choose from include a wrong. perhaps it comes down to making the distinction between right and wrong.
Posted by: annie | Sep 27 2006 15:33 utc | 123
would like to say thank you to all for ignoring my late night delirium.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 28 2006 0:19 utc | 125
late night delirium.
even in delirium you make more sense than me, i am barely afloat here. hope, jeez.
Posted by: annie | Sep 28 2006 0:55 utc | 126
Annie: I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but in the nature of the world we live in there are often times no good answers. For example, we cannot expect that anyone who has a chance to be president of the USA will not be terribly flawed morally – the process of reaching such a position seems to require it. So if we don’t reject the entire system, we gotta navigate. I think that moral purity, especially moral purity that involves no personal sacrifice, is a way of evading obligation. I want the US to completely live up to the ideals of the declaration of independence, but I don’t think I have the right to throw up my hands and withdraw when it’s clear that there is no plausible way that will happen soon.
Posted by: citizen k | Sep 28 2006 1:40 utc | 127
citizen k, just checked in for a moment. i must admit that i haven’t followed this as closely as i would like, so my comment may not make sense in this context. that said, it has never been my impression that although monolycus has left the u.s., i have never felt that he has withdrawn from the battle for rights and what is right. there seems a difference of perspective here, but i have never gotten the impression that he had simply thrown up his hands.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 28 2006 1:47 utc | 128
…Wow them israelites is way bad…
It is interesting to read how several of you naively follow citizen k into his seemingly abstract relativistic morass. It was of course a complete coincidence that k’s latest barrage of political sophistry was once again triggered by a critical remark about Israel. So one more time he jumps into the breach and conjures up a world of shit to indirectly justify the Zionist shit state: If everything is more or less shit, well then more or less anything goes. All standards are corrupted. Two plus two then potentially equals any old number between, say, two and a half and ten thousand. The offical result of the equation is determined by corruption, by legalistic haggling, and if need be, by guns. Fuck reason and objectivity.
What I find very interesting about k’s arguments is that they inadvertently offer a good explanation for the worldwide come-back of religion (not least of all in Israel). The secular order is fucked to the exact same extent as reason and objectivity are fucked.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 28 2006 3:41 utc | 129
citizen k, while reviewing conchita’s earlier post w/thoughts on omelas i ran into her motivation for crediting william James instead of dostoyevsky.
Le Guin was intrigued by James’s theory of pragmatism, which states that a person’s thoughts should guide his or her actions, and that truth is the consequences of a person’s belief.
now, in no way do i propose or support (although in my own actions i am often guilty) moral purity that involves no personal sacrifice
i see a divorce between our intended system, and the system we have now, including the degradation daily of that system. i am not sure we can navigate the present system and i’m not sure i want to. i am searching for a way, aware of risk, to reject it, and navigate our way to implement the intended system. if one thinks, as you do, the system has become immoral and your actions are guided by your thoughts one of the options is rejection. the other being navigation. the system is becoming so divorced from the freedoms and justice the country was founded upon i hardly recognize it. personally i think corporate personhood put a nail in the coffin we cannot negotiate with or navigate. at some point i think we become obligated to revolt.
I don’t think I have the right to throw up my hands and withdraw when it’s clear that there is no plausible way that will happen soon.
funny, my local listserve sent out a post by kos today that basically said the exact same thing about throwing in the towel w/regard to the dems. my response was yuk! i think at this point working w/in the system for change could be a lost cause. there is so much corruption it feels like i am feeding it. i will vote, but i have no confidence the tally will reflect the will of the voters.
anyway, basically i agree w/your post w/the exception of your navigation/rejection interpretation. w/agreement i don’t think any of us should throw up our hands and give up, but who’s leading the revolution?
i also consider, if negotiating w/the devil only feeds it, is doing nothing (while surely not morally courageous) better than engagement. or do i have to lead the revolution if no one else does? if one’s truth is to disengage, isn’t one demonstrating a moral flaw by remaining an appendage of the current system?
Posted by: annie | Sep 28 2006 3:55 utc | 130
hmm, i meant ‘as morally courageous’. because sometimes disengaging from the system require massive sacrafice.
Posted by: annie | Sep 28 2006 4:04 utc | 131
@conchita (#128)
“… i have never gotten the impression that he had simply thrown up his hands.”
The only thing I am simply throwing up my hands and walking away from is this particular palaver. I’ve said my piece in this thread and haven’t been persuaded yet that wallowing in the sewer is anybody’s last, best hope, so I don’t reckon there’s much more point in dissecting this one any further.
Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 28 2006 5:12 utc | 132
ah, why did i have to come into the kitchen to fill my water glass after my bath knowing full well that there was no way i would not check my computer. another late night delirious rant.
guthman bey, since you have brought this full circle, i will attempt to duplicate the post that typepad managed to devour on me the other morning.
yes, what sparked this off to an extent was citizen k’s remark about the joe cortina post. and it is ironic because my goal in posting joe cortina’s open letter to george bush was to suggest the possibility of congruence of progressive and conservative views and this requires a relativist approach. yet citizen k chose to focus on cortina’s rejection of the israeli brutalizing of the palestinians. perhaps s/he did not read the original comment and therefore did not understand that the second cortina comment was to fill in the blanks regarding the reason for his rejection of the israelis. if you follow the link you realize it was cortina’s firsthand experience in israel in 1989 and personal exposure to the situation in gaza that lead him to write the piece. however, i am not writing this as an apologist for joe cortina. i don’t know what cortina saw and did in the salvadoran jungles because he was not writing about it in this instance. cortina’s description of himself did give me pause, but it was not the topic under discussion at the moment. for citizen k to bring it up as a counterpoint to cortina’s criticism of the israelis, as he so frequently likes to excuse or justify other israeli atrocities by pointing to the u.s. as equally culpable, reminds me of how a republican i used to work with would respond to criticism of bush – by bringing up clinton. similarly, as tom delay’s many nefarious acts became irrefutable, rather than acknowledge them, he would bring up teddy kennedy and chapaquidick. while citizen k has acknowledged israel’s failings, i do not understand why the constant comparison with the u.s., particularly when i doubt there is an apologist for the u.s. amongst us. if anything, many of those who comment here have written scorching diatribes against the u.s.
on the other hand, i do not disagree with citizen k regarding the need to acknowledge that governments and politicians are by nature imperfect and even tainted, and that we must accept this limitation and work within it in order to effect change. however, i do not believe it follow from there that accepting this requires relaxing principles or standards. just because you are able to find enough common ground to work with others or within an imperfect system does not mean you have to become them or become lost within a corrupt system. isn’t it possible to have consensus about some issues and differ about others? why not a pluralistic approach? my personal goal would be to work with others to make change happen, but not to compromise/corrupt my ideals in the process. certainly there must be a place where we can work together but at the same time draw the line when necessary.
lastly, on a very personal level. i currently work for a conservative libertarian who wrote in an amazon book review that be believed reagan to have been the greatest president ever. i wondered how i could ever work with someone like this. (interestingly the other day we had our first brush with a political conversation where he went off about al gore being the most mendacious something or other – much like what i have read here from some of the more extreme bar patrons.) however, as the ceo of this company he is genuinely concerned with how he treats its employees and he is a highly ethical person. as a result i do not feel as if i am compromising my principles nor my political beliefs in working for him. i also have come to believe that there may be considerably more common ground between us than i would have had i simply dismissed him based on the book review.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 28 2006 5:22 utc | 133
Conchita,
I completely agree. Empiricism (reality feed-back) is what keeps us sane and its fuel is curiosity. Lack of curiosity is perhaps the biggest problem “secularist liberals” have nowadays. They know very little about what is going on on the other side since they dismiss it altogether after quickly labelling its many components with a few dismissive tags. Mainstream culture, since it is dominated by secularist liberals, reflects very little of the other side either. As a result, conservatives simply know a lot more about liberals than vice versa. The Rovian method is not only dirty tricks and Diehbold, it is also fanatically empiricist. Paradoxically the more intelligent conservatives, though their stock-in-trade is prejudice, are themselves a lot less prejudiced than liberals. How so? Well they are always ready to go have a look.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 28 2006 16:15 utc | 134
Guthman Bey: My reluctance to accept your vapid cheerleading for a disastrous Palestinian “resistance” that has become the poster child of failed national liberation movements, does not in any way constitute a defence of Israel. If the Palestinians had spent less time playing to their first world admirers who search for authenticity in the sufferings of others, they might have been able to do something to save their people from 50 years of misery leading to high prospects of total catastrophe. The reliance on morally and logically incoherent concepts like “international rule of law” and on stupid cliches has not been effective. Rather than dealing with it, you want to whine that I’m not waving my fist in the air and expressing my solidarity like the other people who get some moral satisfaction out of symbolic politics. Yoou insist that by refusing a manifestly stupid and counter-factual construct in which the evil Israelis are standing out as exceptions to a purely imaginary rule of law, I am justifying Israeli atrocities. On the contrary, by framing the debate within the impotent hand-wringing ideology of the middle class “left”, you validate the idea that success means nothing as long as the correct slogans are mouthed.
Conchita: Anyone who explains that his work with Salvadoran terror squads was a defense of freedom has zero credibility in my book and his statements to that effect make his moral pronouncements about Israel or anything else completely valueless.
It’s a common error to believe that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Some asshole who thinks that the rapists and mass murderers of the Salvadoran dirty war were freedom fighters is not my ally.
Posted by: citizen k | Sep 30 2006 14:15 utc | 135
citizen k, i understand. his statement about hunting “REAL terrorists in jungles with Salvadorian Rangers and Marines” although it was meant to clarify that he was not “a stranger to dangerous environments and [was] familiar with basic protocols of civilized conduct regarding civilians and the military” did give me pause. there is every possibility that he and i would disagree about many things, but we do agree strongly about this administration and that is why i posted his open letter to george bush. i remember my brother telling me i sounded like pat buchanan when we argued about going into iraq. in that case, pat and i agreed – it was the wrong thing to do. for my brother, that meant that because we agreed on this point, i was meant to adopt all of his positions. not so. when marches occur in new york, they are often cosponsored by groups with which i have no affinity, but we march together in the name of a cause we can both support.
citizen k, i suspect you might be a professor, and if you teach in new york, i would like to be in your classes. i might be the older student in the first row who is not afraid to question some of your arguments, but i respect how you build them and believe i might learn new ways of thinking from you.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 30 2006 15:55 utc | 136
Mmmm, mmmm, had me some good ol, joe bageant for breakfast, care for some?
Poor, Poor, White and Pissed
When the heartless American system is done reducing us to slobbering beer soaked zombies in the American labor gulag, your sweet ass is next.
A Guide to the White Trash Planet for Urban Liberals
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 30 2006 16:30 utc | 137
@Uncle $cam, #137:
I love to read Joe Bageant, because he makes me stop feeling guilty about despising rednecks. I mean, look at this:
Yet most of the poor people in the United States are white (51%) outnumbering blacks two to one and all other minority poverty groups combined.
Poor white folks! How terrible! Oh, wait, according to the 2000 census, that would have to be closer to 80% to be in tune with general U.S. demographics. Despite what Joe says, as far as race goes, which isn’t far, it’s not the white people who are getting it in the shorts.
Joe’s articles on working-class America are always the same. To paraphrase: “We’re evil-minded, stupid, nasty people who hate you and would be happy to shoot you if we could get away with it. We’re fat, wasteful warts on the face of the planet. We talk about self-reliance, but not once in ten years will you see one of us get up off our asses to actually try to improve our own lots. We’re easily manipulated, we believe in a mean little God, we’re smelly and stupid. This is all your fault, you middle-class liberals. Why aren’t you doing something about it?”
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 30 2006 16:58 utc | 138
@Conchita, what does yr. boss think of the Gut the Constitution bill passed the other day.
Generally, I agree w/you that you are not compromising yr. beliefs. You don’t need to agree politically to work for someone. People of all political stripes can be intolerable. When I was a pup I thght. there was a correlation between people’s political views & how they related to people, but ’tisn’t necessarily the case. Political collectives are among the most insane places to work – it just wears you out over time, though they’re worth the experience. A friend of mine once was the architect for a fairly well run leftist magazine that was building new offices. He was excited to be able to do democratic architecture. Ha! The Editor immed. disabused him of that idea – she wanted the Corner Office, etc… And sexual harrassment knows no limits…just look at the sexism around here & at all the misnamed liberal blogs…
Posted by: jj | Sep 30 2006 18:50 utc | 139
Conchita – I may be pompous, but I’m no professor. Peace.
Posted by: citizen k | Sep 30 2006 19:08 utc | 140
@TGVWYCI:
There is apparently no limit on where the assholes come from.
Take a look in the mirror.
Posted by: Ms. M. | Sep 30 2006 23:16 utc | 141
jj, he is more like a client than a boss and i decided to not to bring politics up. al gore came up the other day when a copy of his book arrived at the office and marc was going to toss it. i spoke up in the name of the environment and he agreed that the issue was important but lambasted al gore. i said it would be best if we agreed to disagree and left it there and we did. i will be finished with the work there in a few weeks and before then will ask his opinion about this legislation and a few other things. my guess is that, as a libertarian, he will be opposed. he is a complex guy. with the exception of the reagan stuff i have been impressed with what i see – well-run business that takes extremely good care of its employees. he is world-traveled (with a backpack) and comes from a modest background. everything he has accomplished he has done through hardwork, intelligence, and strong ideas.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 30 2006 23:37 utc | 142
@TGVWYCI
Care to reword your point?; not sure I get what you are saying…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 30 2006 23:49 utc | 143
why won’t them rednecks give me no respec
I’m part of the vanguard
read my transcript to check
i go down to Trader Joes
in my volvo and jeans
while the rednecks are buying their pork ‘n beans
Got Amy Goodman ranting on the dial
and birkenstock sandals are never out of style
oh the workers at walmart should be kissing my ass
but they’re fat and ugly and got no class.
Posted by: citizen k | Sep 30 2006 23:53 utc | 144
TGVWYCI – could it be ms. manners is a southern belle and you owe an apology?
Posted by: conchita | Oct 1 2006 0:09 utc | 145
@Conchita, but does he understand that extending libertarian ideas to business destroys business – the large ones get corrupt w/out checks & balances, while they are free to destroy the smaller ones? That’s what I don’t understand about these guys. Don’t they understand that T. Rex died out, yet they’re breeding them in business; not to mention wiping out everything btw. T. Rex & protozoa – to continue w/the zoological metaphor. There’s a reason for checks & balances, anti-trust legislation & taxes…
I have to say it was disappointing learning that there is no necessary relationship between one’s politics & how well one relates to others in various contexts.
Posted by: jj | Oct 1 2006 0:40 utc | 146
jj, it will be interesting finding out. btw, you sound a lot like george lakoff in that last one. ;)>
is anyone else having trouble with typepad? i am losing about 30% of the comments i write.
Posted by: conchita | Oct 1 2006 1:04 utc | 147
@Miss Manners, #141:
I forget who posted the link, but I’m sure I discovered this page through this site, and I don’t see any reason to write it over again when that page does a good enough job. You don’t agree? Fine. It is — for the moment, anyway; Bush hasn’t signed that law yet, I think — a free country. Nobody forces you (or anybody else) to read my comments.
@Uncle $cam, #143
My direct points are twofold, with a third wedged in as well.
The first direct point is that this article starts with a plea for pity for poor whites above other poor folks, when in fact white people make up a disproportionately small percentage of the poor, and have done so for decades. The appeal of the beginning of this article is an inherently racist one — these particular poor people deserve your pity because they’re white, and it’s just so hard to be white in America.
My second point is that Bageant’s articles on this subject follow a predictable path. He writes approximately the same thing, over and over and over. When he gets on this particular soapbox — some of his other articles are okay, but he repeats this one — he says the same thing each time, and it was dumb enough the first time.
My last point is that Bageant’s ideas basically consist of making things worse. He talks about how awful the people around him are, in every way. Intellectually, religiously, even physically. (I’m not the one who said they were fat and ugly, he was.) He always throws in that not only do they have economic barriers to change, but they like to be the way they are. They repeatedly vote for people who screw them over, and are so mentally stunted that they can’t make the connection. He calls them names for being so awful. Then he proceeds to blame the “liberal elite” for it. It’s blaming the victim — the liberal elites didn’t say “okay, from now on, you’re going to be beer-swilling, SUV-driving, intellectually stunted, gullible, hateful people, or else we’re going to come over and beat you up.” This is by and large their choice, and Bageant is channeling their “boo hoo hoo I’m poor and fat and politically disadvantaged” cry, when the last two, at the very least, are because they threw away their chances to be thin and empowered. Boo hoo, indeed.
The solution is emphatically not, according to Bageant, for anyone to try and change these people. Let them continue to be as awful as they want to be. When Bush said that the American way of life was not negotiable, these are the people he was talking about, and Bageant agrees. Bageant’s solution is for liberals to change, instead. Let’s take the civilized people and make them behave badly, so that the rednecks can relate! Liberals ought to go out and buy SUVs, belly up to the bar, stop all this book reading and discourse, and go shop at Wal-Mart. That way, Bageant’s neighbors will be able to see that there’s no difference at all, and will come to trust liberals, and then we can effect change.
That won’t work. Do any of you have a conservative relative who has a similar lifestyle to your own? How successful have you been in trying to convince them not to be conservative? Not very, I’m betting, because I’ve been in that position before, seen too many other people do the same, and it just doesn’t work. Especially if the things you try to convince them not to do are the things they like to do. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the bar with them or not, they’re not going to listen to you when you start trying to get them to go against their perceptions of reality. Look at all the success Bageant himself has had!
(There’s also the question of whether it’s worth anyone’s while to bother. These aren’t even the “Good Germans” — these are the core of the Nazi Party, the people who genuinely believe that Hitler is right and the Master Race Shall Conquer All! Why bail them out, just when they’re on the verge of running into a brick wall on their own? I don’t want the U.S. to succeed on the backs of innocents; why would I want to rescue the worst of the U.S. by ruining the best of it?)
Bageant may relate to others well, but it isn’t the only important thing there is. It isn’t even the most important thing there is. And Bageant doesn’t seem to care for any of the other important things. I don’t see any reason to listen to him.
@citizen k, #144:
Let’s see… no volvo (no car at all, in fact), no jeans, no Amy Goodman (never listened to her, although I’ve read a couple of transcripts), no birkenstocks (ick), never even been inside a Trader Joes (I have been in a WalMart, but not a Trader Joes). The workers at my local WalMarts, at least, do not fit Bageant’s description, or yours (not fat, mostly not ugly, and most of them probably have more “class”, or at least more style, than I do; whether they come from a higher socioeconomic stratum is not for me to say). I don’t have a transcript, although I confess that I didn’t drop out. For that matter, before you continue trying to mock me for despising rednecks by listing supposed liberal traits, let me add: I don’t drink coffee of any kind, let alone lattes, I don’t have a high-paying, or even a cubicle-based, job, for that matter I don’t work in academia, I don’t read political or economic theory if I can avoid it, I do volunteer work when I get the chance, and I am perfectly willing to be explicitly heartless if it means truly solving problems. (Ask Annie.) You have a problem?
@conchita, #145:
Okay, then, (*ahem*):
ms. manners, I’m sorry that you’re a southern belle, if you’re a southern belle. Otherwise, I’m sorry you want to waste your undoubtedly great talents trying to rehabilitate a section of the country which is not really worth the effort.
That’s as far as I’m willing to go tonight. Happy?
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Oct 1 2006 2:36 utc | 148
TTGVWYCI,
Simply put, Bageant is a socialist, what he is advocating is for the left to engage these people on their behalf. What you’ve written bears little (if any) correspondence to his piece — I dont get it.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 1 2006 3:16 utc | 149
TGVWYCI:
I’ve lived in the south and was horrified. But it’s true that any movement that writes off those people is doomed to powerlessness.
And not having a car is worse than having a volvo and wearing birkenstocks.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 1 2006 3:23 utc | 150
@anna missed, #149:
Oh really? Some select quotations:
[On poor white people:] To be poor and white is a paradox in America. Whites, especially white males, are supposed to have an advantage they exploit mercilessly. Yet most of the poor people in the United States are white (51%) outnumbering blacks two to one and all other minority poverty groups combined. America is permeated with cultural myths about white skin’s association with power, education and opportunity. Capitalist society teaches that we all get what we deserve, so if a white man does not succeed, it can only be due to laziness.
[On unattractive rednecks:] Our general ambience was well summed up by a visiting Atlanta lawyer who looked around town and observed: “Dumb lordee I reckon!” This from a guy who’s seen a lot of dumb crackers.
Those same ones who smell like an ashtray in the checkout line, devour a carton of Little Debbies at a sitting and praise Jesus for every goddam wretched little daily non-miracle.
One of the problems we working class Southerners have is that educated progressive Americans see us as a bunch of obese, heavily armed nose pickers. This problem is compounded by the fact that so many of us are pretty much that.
They are a symptom of the problems, and they may be making it worse because they are easily manipulated, or because they cannot tell an original idea from a beer fart.
[Blaming liberals:] He’s been losing ground for 25 years. Not that any of the tanned middle class suburban customers here or anywhere else give a good goddam.
Now, comfortably ensconced in the middle class, the American left sees the same working whites as warmongering bigots, happy pawns of the empire. That is writing working folks off too cheaply, and it begs the question of how they came to be that way — if they truly are. To cast them as a source of our deep national political problems is ridiculous.
Educated middle class liberals (and education is the main distinction between my marginal white people and, say, you) do not visit our kind of neighborhoods, even in their own towns. They drink at nicer bars, go to nicer churches and for the most part, live, as we said earlier, clustered in separate areas of the nation, mainly urban. Consequently, liberals are much more familiar with the social causes of immigrants, or even the plight of Tibet, than the bumper crop of homegrown native working folks who make up towns like Winchester. Liberal America loves the Dalai Lama but is revolted by life here in the land of the pot gut and the plumber’s butt.
Yet the cause of dick-in-the-dirt poor working white America is spoken for exclusively by educated middle class people who grew up on the green suburban lawns of America. However learned and good intentioned, they are not equipped to grasp the full implications of the new American labor gulag — or the old one for that matter. They cannot understand a career limited to yanking guts out through a chicken’s ass for the rest of one’s life down at the local poultry plant (assuming it does not move offshore).
As a noble and decent liberal New York City book editor told me, “Seen from up here it is as if your people were some sort of exotic, as if you were from Yemen or something.”
That isn’t all I could pull from the article, just a sampling.
Y’know, I’ve been thinking for a while about the similarities between the GWOT and the (second) Boer War. There are a lot of interestingly similar circumstances (see the Wikipedia article, making allowances for advances in military technology), and at the beginning of the Boer War, according to some memoirs I have read, it was practically taking your life into your hands to denounce the war in parts of England, but there’s a major difference: in Britain, popular support turned dramatically against the conservatives who were waging the war. Who are these hard-core current Bush supporters? Three guesses. Think they’re going to be in a hurry to throw in with a bunch of liberals?
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Oct 1 2006 4:04 utc | 151
When Bush said that the American way of life was not negotiable, these are the people he was talking about
these guys are talking about the ‘merikan way of free enterprise not being negotiable. they don’t give a flying fuck about people anymore than they do the environment, which is what prompted poppy to utter the phrase at the earth summit in rio in 1992 in order to make clear that capitalism-as-we-practice-it will continue unfettered in the united states, unaccountable to any international attempts to impose measures designed to address environmental damage.
Posted by: b real | Oct 1 2006 5:40 utc | 152
[…] My point being that there are and always have been a helluva lot of us know-nothing laboring sons out here, whether more fortunate Americans acknowledge our struggles or not. But they should. You see, it’s like this: When the heartless American system is done reducing us to slobbering beer soaked zombies in the American labor gulag, your sweet ass is next.
ct.)
[…]
A good start on healing this rift might be this: the next time those on the left encounter these seemingly self-screwing, stubborn, God-obsessed folks, maybe they can be open to their trials, understand the complexity of their situation, step forward and say, “Brother can I lend you a hand?” Surely it would make the ghosts of Joe Hill, Franklin Roosevelt and Mohandas Gandhi smile.
[…]
More crap about values
Before I am asked the more specific question, “What the fuck do you think middle class liberals should do then?” I’m gonna answer it. ORGANIZE! Quit voting for that pack of undead hacks called the Democratic Party and ORGANIZE! Howard Dean is just another millionaire Yale frat boy. ORGANIZE! Quit kidding yourself that the Empire will protect professionals and semi-professionals such as you and ORGANIZE! Spend time on a Pentecostal church pew or in a blue-collar beer joint and ORGANIZE! Join the Elks Club and ORGANIZE! Realize that there is no party whatsoever in the United States that represents anything but corporate interests and ORGANIZE! Start in your own honky wimp-assed white bread neighborhood and ORGANIZE! Knock on doors and ORGANIZE! Move heaven and earth and hearts and minds and ORGANIZE! And if enough people do it, it will scare the living piss out of the political elite and the corporations and they will come to club you down like they did in Miami and Seattle. But at least you will have been among the noble ones when the history is written.
[…]
And I think working class anger is about some other things too:
It is about…
It is about…
It is about…
It is about…
It is about…
It is about…
It is about…
It is about…
It is about…
Yes, it is about values. It is about the values we have forsaken as a people — such as dignity, education and opportunity for everyone. And it is about the misdirected anger of the working classes toward those they least understand. You. And me.
[…]
So the left must genuinely connect face to face with Americans who do not necessarily share all of our priorities, if it is ever to be relevant again.
Once we begin to look at the human faces of this declining republic’s many moving parts, the inexplicable self-screwing working class voter is not so inexplicable after all. God, gays and guns alone do not explain the conservative populism of the 2004 elections. College educated liberals and blue-collar working people need to start separating substantive policy issues from the symbolic ones. Fight on the substance, the real ground zero stuff that ordinary working people can feel and see — make real pledges about real things. Like absolutely guaranteed health care and a decent living wage. And mean it and deliver it.
[…]
Brotherhood. Solidarity. Compassion. Too idealistic? Futile? Maybe. But if these are not worthy goals, then nothing is.
…………………
So sure Bageant paints his redneck brethren in the unseemly fluorescent light that he encounters them in, he’s famous for it. And for the good reason that he is, in my estimation, the singular voice for the better part of it, because he can both identify with it and animate it with a personal and self depreciating humor, but more importantly, can also lay blame (accurately) on the abject failure of the liberal democrats to support labor and the social implications that flow from that failure. Its no coincidence that the the fall of labor is in direct correspondence to the rise in religion and other sectarian identification (redneck exceptionalism) — both in terms of social nexus and political orientation. The vacume created by the democrats abandonment of labor, has been eagerly been filled by fundy religion an its social tenticals which have strangled Bageants people stupid.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 1 2006 7:36 utc | 153
Thanks animist (#153) for giving better voice to my response to Vicious Truth’s #138 than I could have.
Annie made a comment about how posting here at the Moon is touching base with her “tribe”. I think that would be a great thing if my “tribe” weren’t so busy being “realistic” and “elite” that they cut their own throats and make everyone with the least perceptible difference want to jump ship. Before we ridicule Bush for not being able to hold together a coalition, maybe we might want to work on our ability to do that ourselves?
Yes, the Right are panderers. Yes, the Right cynically and hypocritically give lip service to the lowest dregs. It seems to be working out pretty well for them. So how has that open contempt you express for “poor, white rednecks” been working out for you for the past six years, Vicious Truth?
The “vicious truth” that has become apparent to me is that the Left are as hostile to human dignity and as hateful as the Right, but they are just more adept at cutting their own throats by holding themselves aloof from the plight of the rest of humanity (unless it is some section of humanity that can be called “exotic” in some way).
Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 1 2006 8:09 utc | 154
@Monolycus #154:
So how has that open contempt you express for “poor, white rednecks” been working out for you for the past six years, Vicious Truth?
Not too badly, actually. How has that “we are all brothers, let’s organize for peace” thing been working for you for the last, oh, twenty-odd years, Monolycus? You’ve convinced me: these people are actually just waiting to burst from their shells and become dynamos of social change. If embracing redneck culture is so successful in convincing people to join liberal causes, then between you and Bageant as seeds for change, the rural South ought to be a hotbed of progressive activity. Berkeley, CA is nothing to Armpit, VA. Why, I’ll bet there’s a whole slew of liberal members of Congress that represent the rural south. Can’t think of any names right at the moment, maybe you can help?
This is nonsense. You may be able to teach a Sneetch, but how, precisely, will you manage to convince a southern redneck to be liberal? You can’t appeal to reason — if they could reason, they’d be out organizing themselves, and we’d be the ones being courted. Appeal to emotion? Well, fine, if you think you can beat the hatred/racism/antisemitism/whatever the Republican noise machine is playing this week. Appeal to religion? The religious ones go to churches which might as well rename themselves “First Church of Bush Triumphant”. Maybe you can bribe them. (With what money, exactly? The country’s bankrupt.)
A few years ago, this board had a massive rant, with most of the familiar faces joining in, about how the Republicans are successful because they play to their base, and how the Democrats are failing because they keep trying to appeal to the Republican’s base, which means moving further right. Now, it seems, the people on this board not only want to make the same mistakes as the Democrats, but want to remake the Democrat’s old mistakes, the ones which are already proven to be wrong. What’s next, this board announcing that it did not have sex with that woman? Conceding a close election? C’mon, I’m sure we can make things worse! Let’s not focus on the intelligent, the urban, and the tolerant, who are likely to listen to us, let’s find the groups in America which are stupid, rural, and bigoted, and appeal to them! I’m sure if we just bang our heads against the wall for a few decades, it’ll all work out somehow!
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Oct 1 2006 18:50 utc | 155