Where Neoconservatism and Neoliberalism Blur
Ours is such a dispiriting time politically that it’s probably unfair to fault The New Republic for being so often demoralized and confused. But the magazine is offering us no “new republic” partly because it has been a little too busy protesting too much that it isn’t neo-conservative and isn’t envious of inroads on public discourse by the dread “netroots” commentaries and analyses on its left.
Leave aside the meltdowns of TNR editor Martin Peretz (who announced in 2001 that Harvard had “a spring in its step” with Lawrence Summers as its new president and has yet to admit that Summers was ousted because he betrayed civic-republican liberal education). TNR’s younger savants sound almost desperate, too, in their own whining way, to regain high ground by complaining about “the thuggery of William Kristol” (by Jonathan Chait) or -- coming this Sunday in the Neo-Conservative Damage-Control Gazette (aka The New York Times Book Review) -- by dismissing the neo-cons’ biggest embarrassment, Norman “Bombs Away” Podhoretz (in a review by TNR’s Peter Beinart).
Sorry, but this fastidious narcissism of small differences undercuts itself outside the Beltway and Manhattan: Beinart doesn't liberate himself by sniffing that the apocalyptic Podhoretz portrays domestic politics as violently as if he were “dodging I.E.D.’s on his way to Zabar’s." Beinart himself led TNR in supporting Joe Lieberman for President in 2004, and he cast Michael Moore, Ned Lamont, and the netroots left as greater dangers to America than Donald Rumsfeld. This is hardly balanced by nudging gross embarrassments like Podhoretz off stage, and Times Book Review editors would recognize this if they meant to be less clever and more clear in their own political arbitrage.
Beinart notes that Rudy Giuliani named Podhoretz to his campaign foreign-policy advisory board. Giuliani also named, as his “Statecraft, Human Rights, and Freedom Advisor,” Peter Berkowitz, a long-time (though not so recent) TNR contributor and callow Straussian historian of political thought who is always “on message” for neo-cons, amid great clouds of pious citation from the Ancients. The title “Senior Statecraft, Human Rights, and Freedom Advisor,” is the more amusing when pondered against Berkowitz's essay for the Wall Street Journal of July 16 denouncing liberal atheism and praising a truly embarrassing book by fellow neoconservative David Gelernter, who champions Americanism as a religion. (Berkowitz reviewed Gelernter’s book in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. I reviewed it in the Boston Globe.)
I’d like the see The New Republic and the Times Book Review indulge less whining and disdaining and give us more original thinking and affirmation. The lesson of serious American political movements like those of Eugene V. Debs and Martin Luther King, Jr., and of serious American political writing and even reviewing, should be that even the most necessary, scathing deconstructions of lies and buncombe are more effective when they couple condemnation with the courage of affirmation, even the kind that often leaves the critic vulnerable in the short run.
Good advice for all of us, but especially for those who, behind all their public protestations, will make the mistake of pulling the lever for Giuliani in the privacy of the voting booth because they think that he means business in the war on terror.
Whinning has been a staple of the right for decades now. Even more so now because their movement is crumbling down around them as more Americans pay attention. I'm sure that with the decline of the Republican brand they will continue to be more and more shrill in their protestations of their percieved victimhood.
The self destruction of an un-American political movement based in hatred and bigotry has been and will continue to be quite amusing.
September 6, 2007 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why does it matter what The New Republic chooses to publish? It's not like TNR is a public institution with an obligation to serve, or the flagship journal of progressive thinking and change. They are a privately owned magazine. If they want to spend their efforts and print space getting into intramural spats and identity struggles with their neoconservative counterparts, allies or rivals, that's their business. Nobody has to read that stuff if it doesn't interest them.
September 6, 2007 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
It matters because TNR is widely read and respected by influential people. It matters because, as someone recently pointed out on these pages, TNR is perceived by these influential people to be a respected liberal voice, so when it attacks the Left, promotes war, supports Lieberman, etc., it can be cited as the liberal voice which has seen the light and moved to the center. It matters because it has lived all these years off of a reputation it long ago ceased to deserve, and used it to promote a bloody and unrealistic American foreign policy, especially with respect to the Middle East.
September 6, 2007 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jim, it's bracing to hear that the TNR is "demoralized and confused." What it needs most is one of those signs on its front door that reads "The New Republic, Now Open Under New Management." But, like a restaurant known for its sour meat and roach-filled kitchen, even that probably would not help its credibility.
The brand itself is sour, not just the meat.
Unfortunately, TNR is still, as you point out, a useful tool for the NeoCons, so it will be with us for some time to come. The bright spot is that serious, thoughtful and effective voices for liberal philosophy and politics are emerging on the Web, and someday they will replace TNR. Sooner, one hopes, rather than later.
September 6, 2007 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm even more concerned for the Times, and I appreciate your pointing that out now more than once recently. TNR has a preposterous reputation and perhaps influence in a very small circle that perhaps has already made up its mind anyhow. The Sunday paper reaches millions, and it's been nagging at me for a long time now.
The magazine section, too, has had a serious imbalance. Contributing editors have included people like Caldwell of the Weekly Standard, but "balanced" only by someone like Matt Bai, who hates the left; Noah Feldman, whose only serious interest is compromising on separation of church and state; and Jeffrey Rosen of, well, TNR. But the book section has been even more consistently ideological, and no one beyond Jim seems to have commented on, well, either section. Last Sunday's book reviews included raves for Bai's views and for a Blair spokesman, balanced only by a nuanced but hardly dogmatic discussion of Jean Kirkpatrick.
What happened? Even in the world that's had concern for breakdowns in objectivity of the news section (Judith Miller, Michael Gordon, Frank Bruni), it's always been about a paper of liberal views with passive reporting of Bush's pronouncements. How did we get an actively conservative organ, and how did it happen with so little recognition?
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 6, 2007 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno. I've never read the New Republic. Probably most people haven't.
It's circulation has been dropping relentlessly, as I understand it.
It's lived off a reputation it didn't deserve. Well, that doesn't last forever.
Bury it.
September 6, 2007 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why even fight it? The Money will just buy up the media outlets that are not towing the line, just like Murdock intends by buying the WSJ.
Since the Civil War, media has figured out that they aren't in the business of selling information, they are in the business of selling entertainment.
Meanwhile the progressive movement stares at its navel and wonders what it can do about it. As long as free enterprise is the name of the game, there's nothing that can be done, willful ignorance is the siren song of this country.
September 6, 2007 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
. . . we shall be as a city upon a hill . . . .
"Any country that allows the curse of Slavery and Amalgamation as this has done, should be cursed, and I believe in my soul that God allowed this war for the very purpose of clearing out the evil and punishing us as a nation for allowing it." Capt. Amos Hostetter, 34th Illinois (January 29, 1863)
"If all this untold expense of blood and treasure, of toil and suffering, of want and sacrifice, of grief and mourning is . . . to result in no greater good than restoration of the Union as it was, what will it amount to?" Pvt. Leigh Webber, 1st Kansas (July 24, 1862)
[The blood of the fallen will] "flow and mingle . . . to nourish and water the tree of liberty, whose leaves are the healing of the nations." Pvt. L.C.N., 1st Wisconsin (September 9, 1862)
[I fight to] "sustain a principle, to protect a right, and secure the liberties of the oppressed. [Emancipation constitutes] "a check to the tyranny of European monarchs" [and a step in] "establishing free government throughout the earth." Pvt. John Strayer, 12th Indiana (March 23, 1863)
A few quotes from the letters of Union soldiers in What This Cruel War Was Over.
Are Beinart, Berkowitz, and Gelernter that far off base?
September 6, 2007 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
1. The media, most of it, is in the business of selling advertising. It is advertising revenue that pays most of the bills.
2. Large corporations buy most of the advertising.
3. Large corporations want to stay large, therefore they are against any changes which might affect their income negatively or which might increase insecurity, and for any changes which increase profits. A happy audience buys more.
4. So the media (except perhaps for some privately-owned media like The Nation) will not tend to engage in original thinking and/or promote radical changes. In this environment, giving two examples, patriotic war is good and new political movements are bad.
Could a new Debs or MLK arise and survive in this environment? It doesn't seem likely, does it, not in our new national security state with its elevated threat level. Will the internet be better? It's possible, but even I, little ole harmless me, have been shut out of three blogs for my apparently dangerous rants. In these cases advertising revenue wasn't an issue, pride was. So there's some of that too.
September 6, 2007 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that this might be part of a general American Cultural meltdown. Maybe it started in the 70's, in mourning of the death of disco. Maybe it started in the 80's with the fashionable birth of neo-greed. Maybe it started in the "everything is a brand" dot com-apolooza that was the trademark of at least the better half of the 90's. I'm not sure when it occurred but somewhere along the way we all simply stopped really caring. And I think that this happened because we stopped holding people accountable. Maybe saying we stopped caring is overstating things. Maybe what we stopped doing is really expecting anything to actually be done about it. There is no more visceral consequence. It is now treated some sort of side effect that is more often than not left unobserved as we press forward with our "great experiment".
Our legal system has been turned into a frustrating and twisted game of loop hole jumping. It's not about whether a person is guilty or not, especially if they are, it's about getting off on a technicality or pleading out. And apparently instead of fixing the problem we simply threw our hands in the air and said "F" it. And the people in powerful positions who can do the most serious damage by breaking the law have seen it and have "Capital"ized on it. I used to be astonished at the flagrance in the latest waves of scandal and corruption inundated our nation's capital but it's now so pervasive that it is received with a blasé shrug and then it withers on the news grapevine. Does anything even matter anymore? And justice? Oh that's dead, stuffed, and put in some storage facility off some random exit on some random freeway (somewhere in the Midwest I think).
What does all of this rambling of mine have to do with this? Well for me I think that these neoconservatives, the media, all of our politicians, and even we the citizens are all simply staggering around in a daze where our words and actions are completely detached from our hearts and minds. Words and actions have lost their true meanings are now shaped and sculpted to mean whatever we want them to at any given moment - thus creating portable, ready-for-daily-use loop holes. And because no one is ever really held accountable for even the most outrageous and sinister of words or actions, there's a futility to it all. There's a general fog of apathy that occasionally smells a little bit like despair. And in this environment, people with truly dark motives are virtually free to operate with impunity. And so they do with great vigor.
We really need an alarm clock to ring. A very big and very loud one. And on that day maybe all that is obvious will finally be obvious once again. The citizens will be outraged and demand (and get) action. The politicians will feel a love of country and a sense of duty to it that rises above the cynical shallowness of a buck and an opinion devoid of rational thought. And everyone will finally realize that doing the right thing - and I'm talking about the real right thing not some ideological "right thing" that someone's "God" told them about - is not only easy and profitable for all but it feels pretty damned good too.
I sometimes wander into these idyllic ramblings when I hear and read some of the truly cynical and broken thought and rationale that comes out of the beltway, the think tanks and our rotting press. I get overwhelmed so I dream, sort of misty-eyed, that it is not really happening but rather it's just a terrible nightmare and that soon that giant alarm clock will ring. And then I'll wake up to find I once again live in a country with a heart and a brain.
I'll apologize now for my typed out therapy session!
September 6, 2007 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
You could say media is in the business of selling you and me. They generate, manipulate, and sell consumers. They deliver eyeballs to their masters, be it corporations advertising products or groups pushing ideologies. The print press is paid by its circulation or readership. TV is paid by its viewership or ratings. The news media was largely independent of this scheme at one time. That the owners of big media now infuse their corporate or political agendas into what used to be fairly impartial information and analysis is just accepted now, but this is where I think public interest has to be restored.
September 6, 2007 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
While some movers and shakers may be moved or shaken by a well-written piece at TNR, it's mainly diagnostic, I'd say. That is, it is an indicator of attitudes but not likely a determinator.
I'll let the hardy souls like Mr. Sleeper keep us up to date on the feelings of the folks there. It's not on my reading list.
September 6, 2007 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is amalgamation? Is it race-mixing, and if it is race-mixing, is he objecting to rape or intermarriage? In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln conceded that he was not in favor of intermarriage. This is typical of the quaint ante-bellum Northern mixture of abolitionism and racial discrimination.
Since Capt. Hostetter is from Illinois, the state where the Lincoln-Douglas debates were held, it seems likely that he is fomenting against racial intermarriage at least as much as he is objecting to the abuse of slave women by white masters.
They called racial intermarriage "miscegenation," and it was illegal.
It seems to me that Capt. Hostetter was fighting for union and racial purity. A prime objection of Capt. Hostetter to slavery, in my opinion, was that it brought the races into close contact.
For more information about the discriminatory Black Codes in the North, I recommend the web-site, Slavery in the North (www.slavenorth.com). There are long sections devoted to specific Northern states. If I am wrong, that web site would be a good place to look for proof.
I am surprised to see at this site such direct documentation of Northern racism. What a howler! I bet most of you people don't even know what you are reading.
September 6, 2007 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is TNR the magazine equivalent of Alan Colmes? More a neo-con enabler than anything truly liberal? (Yeah, I don't read TNR either.)
-- ARG
September 6, 2007 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does northern racism make southern racism more palatable?
I have no problem with acknowledging northern racism.
In Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada in the basement of a museum is the statue of a slave from 1820. Slavery existed in Canada in 1820, at least among loyalists, though likely there was not much of it.
The New England states and the Canadian Maritime Provinces, all British colonies for a time, participated in the slave trade up to the 1830's, when this trade was suppressed.
Black racism existed in Canada, as well as French racism and Indian racism.
Nevertheless, this does not change one whit of the toxic nature and unique character of the 'peculiar institution' of slavery in the American south, nor the horrific history of lynching, the klan, race riots, and casual physical and legislative brutality which was the hallmark of the American south, nor the legacy of this in the Southern states in peoples lives, in peoples attitudes, and in the very economy and infrastructure and demographics of these states.
There is no defending the indefensible, there is no exusing the inexcuseable. Anyone who imagines that the legacy is not still there, and not still toxic only needs to look at the legacy of Katrina... At the colour of the corpses floating in the waters, of the refugees still displaced, of the colour of the armed men barring the path of refugees in the town of Gretna.
It may be fair to point out that others have their sins. The Northern states have their own shame, past and current. Lincoln may be regressive by some lights. But so what?
It does not lighten the burden or shame of anyone else's sin.
September 6, 2007 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Does northern racism make southern racism more palatable?"
Of course not. I am a contributor to the Obama campaign, and a happy one at that.
I believe that Illinois was a state where it was illegal for a black person to enter the state. You could check that out. There was at least one Northern state that avoided racial problems by that particular expedient.
It is absurd and hypocritical to absolve a place for its racial prejudice when they deliberately kept another race out of its boundaries. You are condoning apartheidt, sir.
Of course there are fewer racial problems when the minority race is greatly outnumbered by deliberate design!
You must be a great admirer of South Africa. Perhaps you could give them some advice on how to defend their old way of doing things.
In a conflict between slavery and apartheidt, yes, slavery is worse. Does that make you proud to have chosen the side of apartheidt?
September 6, 2007 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your lips say no,
But your hips say
'yeah, baby, strap one on
and ride it like bronco'
Do you really want to get into it?
September 6, 2007 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not that I disagree with your analysis, but it is the tone of despair, resignation, and even nihilism, that I don't share.
No there is not going to be a wake up call by a magic alarm clock. We are headed into an era of moral decline brought to us by the very people who as they were destroying the moral fiber of our country were/are proclaiming to "restore" morality. What was that about? It was a joke. No more blowjobs in the oval office.
What has to be understood about the right is that they actually believe in a future where the rich prevail over the poor, whites prevail over blacks and other colored people, right wing JudeoChristians prevail over secularists, men prevail over women, and all of this will be enforced by ironclad power in perpetuity.
That's a radically different vision than we on the left have and there is no reconciling the two. My reaction to the situation is to prepare myself to do battle with these forces and not to concede an inch to the inevitability of right wing ideological triumph over the left. On the contrary, I see them as a last gasp of the unenlightened.
September 6, 2007 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could a new Debs or MLK arise and survive in this environment?
Debs and MLK did not even survive in their own environment.
September 6, 2007 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, Colmes is a timid, insecure nebbish. The New Republic is more like an arrogant, snotty New York club whose members think they are the legatees and protectors of the true American Revolution, and keepers of the primordial American stuff.
September 6, 2007 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your fundamental problem is that what you are trying to do does not meet the smell test.
I think it is amusing to see you attempt to deflect attention from Northern racism by throwing out red herrings. You are an unprincipled hypocrit.
September 7, 2007 6:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Until fairly recently I shared your more (optimistic?) or battle ready position. And I definitely agree with your assessment of the whole "Restore Morality" movement, it is a complete con. But I don't think that the blame rests solely on the heads of the politicians on the right or one or two specific segments of the population. And I think you're close with your impression of my tone - there's despair, frustration and even anger but I don't think I've resigned to it or that I'm nihilistic. I do want change for the better I'm just trying do decide when to stop talking and when to start swinging I guess.
This last weekend it was insufferably hot here in Los Angeles. On Saturday night it was still 98 degrees at 10:30 at night and my apartment usually averages 10+ degrees warmer (my A/C only works when it's not hot...). Obviously I was in hell so I found myself outside sitting in the courtyard talking with some neighbors as we suffered together. As I was talking to an older gentleman about the new rumblings over Iran and the similarities to the build up to Iraq, one of the young women (~35) that lives in my building heard me say Iran and just dove into our conversation. Within 5 seconds I was ready to choke her. To paraphrase the brief exchange -
That was definitely not the first time I've been tangled in that sort of unenlightened exchange with "just average people" here in this country. And this is the origin of my despair. It's not simply a cadre of twisted or unintelligent politicians that has caused our nation to begin spiraling down the crapper but it's also our completely bigoted and ignorant population. There's a lot of them out there and that's the battle I want to start fighting. It's as if they're all trying out for the new season of Jackass. Only this season we find not a couple of guys being pushed down steep hills in various wheeled objects but rather an entire nation pushed into bloody and inexcusable wars with a population of idiot cheerleaders waving flags while subcontractors steal everything that's not nailed down. Jackasses one and all.
I realize that there will be no magic alarm clock, as I said I was really just dreaming I guess. But we're going to have to get a hell of a lot smarter as a nation before we will even realize we're in the toilet let alone throw an arm over the side of the bowl and attempt to climb out. In the meantime I guess that's just rain trickling down all our backs...
September 7, 2007 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well now, if I was going to call names, I'd probably start by calling you a legless hippopotamus.
That would just be to confuse you. Then I'd call you a human racing stripe, a haemorhoid based life form, a churl, a twurle, and a hairy-backed sea turtle.
From there, I might call attention to your hygeine, your lack of friends, your obvious mental and physical deficiencies. I might make up a few songs about it, something catchy, witha beat.
Or I might just get serious, and point out the serious abberation, the fact that your post is off topic, the fact that you're a humourless obsessive monomaniac, seething with indignation of imaginary wrongs, dishonest in your arguments, evasive, facile and given to histrionics and invective.
Where I come from, calling names is an art form. So be glad I didn't open up on you. And don't go trying to make me change my mind.
As to the balance of your response, such as it is. I'm a Canadian from New Brunswick, and I quite openly acknowledged Canada's part in the slave trade and racism towards blacks.
I didn't mention that slavery was banned outright in Canadian provinces starting in 1806. That we were the destination for the underground railroad. That many or most blacks in Canada are descended from escaped slaves of the South, and therefore we've got certain attitudes. I wouldn't mention that one of the first Mayors of the Canadian City of Toronto was black, and that his daughter was abducted by Yankee slavers. I could go on, but what's the point?
I certainly am familiar with the history of the northern colonies and later states involvement with the slave trade. But I acknowledge that ended in the 1830's, and that through the 19th century, the northern states were a hotbed of moral abolitionists.
I'm also familiar with the regressive attitudes of even enlightened whites in the 19th century. As regressive as these attitudes were, they were still miles ahead of their conservative or racist contemporaries. They were not on a par. So even though they are not commensurate with modern standards, I'm inclined to give a little leeway.
And I suspect I'm as familiar or more than familiar with the racism of the northern states, which was often based on exclusion or keeping out/keeping marginalised, as opposed to the south, which was based on oppression, brutality, slavery and pseudo-slavery. I know exactly what sundown towns are, I'm familiar with the history of the ghettos as experienced by blacks, italians and irish.
I also know that while lynching was a staple of the southern culture, it was not only found in the south, but anywhere that blacks or minorities were to be found. Other charming features which were prominent in the south but not exclusive to it were the Klan and Race riots (including the infamous Zoot Suit Riots against assimilating hispanics).
As for Idaho... So what? I've never been there, and I have no idea why anyone would want to go there, apart from cruising airport bathrooms. Sure, it has potatoes, but everyone knows Canadian potatoes are better. I feel no need to defend or condemn Idaho, or even to think about it very much.
As to whether Idaho's exclusion policy was a crime against humanity... well, true, it tweren't very nice. But as repulsive as it is, it's small beans compared to the race history of the American south.
I'll say it again, freely acknowledging the Canadian history of racism, or the northern states history of racism does not mitigate or rehabilitate the south. Two wrongs do not make either of them right. But at the same time, introducing one wrong does not change the character or nature of another wrong. Putting a wrong beside a great wrong does not lessen the greatness of the great wrong.
Now, it appears that you have some notion that you're going to get on your high horse and tilt with me. That's a real bad idea. So step back and mind your manners.
September 7, 2007 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess that depends on your definition of survival.
Debs was probably the most successful socialist in American history. He helped found the Industrial Workers of the World, and organized one of the very first industrial unions, the American Railway Union. This union was sufficiently strong to wage a successful strike against the Great Northern Railway.
Convicted for the equivalent of sedition, he continued his work from prison, from which he ran again for President and garnered more than 3% of the vote. Harding (of the GOP!) commuted his sentence and he lived to 70.
You could say that he survives today, if only for this remark made at his sentencing hearing: "While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
Many a current congressional Democrat, though he or she live to 120, will survive far less successfully than the reluctant labor and socialist icon Eugene Victor Debs.
September 7, 2007 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you would enjoy being a slave owner. That would give you someone to browbeat and berate.
Seriously, there is no denying that slavery was a playground for psychopaths. But it is a mistake to give a free pass to genuinely serious oppression in any part of the country. Furthermore, it is more than a mistake. When you do that, it gives the impression that you have a regional axe to grind. And that subtracts from your credibility.
But I think that you are getting more credible now, and I appreciate that.
It seems clear to me that some people who post at this site do have a regional axe to grind. I don't understand why you would feel motivated to support them in that. Perhaps you are well informed about racism in the North, but many Northerners are not. Most of what the average person in the United States believes about this subject is influenced by regional propaganda. Neither side of this conflict is immune to rosy self-deceptions.
Modern scholarship takes the black perspective into account. The black perspective has no interest in choosing sides regionally. It was the influence of a black scholar which led to the study that resulted in the book, "The Meaning of Slavery in the North."
Why is this a recurrent subject? Because a war was fought on our soil about this subject. Given that your background does not impell you to defend the propaganda of either side in that war, I would think that you would feel more comfortable with the more balanced outlook of black scholars.
My understanding is that black people are very grateful for the outcome of that war, but that does not obligate them to be enthralled with everything that comes out of the mouths of the victors.
Some of what comes out of the mouths of the victors fails to appreciate the actual life situation of black people. For example, you mentioned the Underground Railroad, which I applaud. Recent scholarship has established that black people themselves deserve most of the credit for the success of the Underground Railroad. Until very recently, white people stole the credit from black people for the Underground Railroad.
September 11, 2007 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink