Before commenting on the substance of your post, Matt, let me say this:

Holy crap! You're 17?! My son is 17, with an interest in politics, and I'm going to direct him to your blog forthwith.

Now for the substance. You say:

Ducat and Faludi would tell us that our jingoistic reaction to 9/11 and the Iraq War were inevitable outcomes -- because that's how Americans from as far back as Puritan times respond to attacks.

Although one can't be sure just based on the fragments of their thinking that have been posted here, I didn't get the impression that either one of them thinks the US post-9/11 reaction was inevitable, or that they think the process by which individual or mass psychological reactions rooted in emotion, fantasy and "phantasmogoric eruptions" influence national decisions is a wholly deterministic one. The point is that there are both rational and irrational (or non-rational or pre-rational or a-rational) elements to individual and group psychology, and I believe Ducat is right that some liberals, with their generally rationalistic and even technocratic outlook, are prone to overlook the role of the irrational.

My own view is that the decisions of various agents, both individual and collective agents, can act can act as "accellerants" or "deccellerants" to these phantasmogoric brushfires. So really the impact of such an outbreak has much to do with the way in which power happens to be distributed in a society when the outbreak occurs.

There is, of course, no one "national reaction" to 9/11. Like you, I think that the emotional reactions of conservatives were better able to manifest themselves in the form of actual government decisions because conservatives were in charge of the government at the time these reactions occurred. They deliberately worked to feed and accellerate the reaction, and that has something to do with their success in recruiting the public to support them.

My opinion: best post of this Book Club so far. This boomer feminist, one who also has long had a serious interest in American cultural history, agrees with your well-argued and succinct skepticism. Based on what I've seen here so far, I've not been convinced that Faludi's book (nor Ducat's for that matter,) is a must-read. On the other hand, looks like I may have found another good "reality-based common sense" young blogger whose work I'd be interested in following.

P.S. I find it helpful to always consider something along the line of these two ideas: we are all free agents who do not necessarily have to follow someone else's "narrative;" history never repeats itself the same way twice because the people in different time spans are different people, with variable nature/nuture makeup, not a single one of them were/are robots. In short: things change. :-)

Not only do I believe that there would have been no Iraq war had Gore been inaugurated, I believe there would have been no 9/11 period.

What, pray tell, is the reasoning behind this absurd claim, which ignores the fact that al-Qaeda had been bombing us every couple of years all through the time Gore was VP, including the first WTC bombing, and that the plot was already in progress when Gore would have become president?

Are you seriously claiming that Gore would have leaped at what insight we had, put two and two together despite the Gorelick Wall, FISA and other Clinton-era impediments to intelligence gathering and sharing, busted up the Atta ring and, maybe for kicks, flown into outer space and smashed that meteorite that was heading toward us with his fists?

I think Bush's people were neither as bright as they could have been or as dumb as some claim about the dangers leading up to that day, but the idea that Year 9 of the Clinton-Gore era would have seen a wholesale, and fabulously effective, reversal of the whole "end of history" and Sandy Berger legalistic mindset is about as likely as saying that if only Alf Landon had won in '36, Pearl Harbor would have been prevented. 30s isolationist Republicans would have been LESS likely than the guy who was in office to accomplish anything, not more, and the same is true for 90s Democrats.

Oh, and SPHealey, instead of littering all my posts with 1 and 2 ratings like little mouse droppings, perhaps you'd like to be a grownup and actually respond to something thoughtfully for once?

Rehashing all of the intelligence failures of the Bush administration prior to 9/11 has gotten boring. It's fair to say, though, that the failures were failures of focus, not that FISA was a problem or that there were Clinton-era impediments. I don't think I'd go so far as to repeat MJ's claim because that would take a certain amount of clairvoyance.

I am sure that even if 9/11 had happened that Gore also would have taken us to war in Afghanistan but not Iraq.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

It existed in the Clinton era, no?

Actually, beyond that it doesn't sound familiar-- can you substantiate your apparent insinuation that the Bush administration has used it against any domestic political adversary?

Oh, and I note you've changed your rating to a 0, evidently in order to prevent at least some readers from seeing that I called your thuggish censorship out. I have reported this abuse of the system to the management. If someone else would rate it at least a 2, just to render his inappropriate behavior ineffective, I would greatly appreciate that.

I really don't think it has anything at all to do with powers.

I also don't think I can convince you on this one because it's going to come down to "who do you believe." If the outgoing Clintons really told the incoming Bush administration that terrorism was going to be a #1 priority, then that's a clue that Gore would have put more focus on it. Also, seems that Richard Clarke felt he had more influence in the Clinton White House than in the Bush White House, and that's a clue that he'd have had more influence with Gore.

Enough to stop 9/11? Like I said, it'd be unfair of me to go so far. But my gut says there's something to it.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

If the outgoing Clintons really told the incoming Bush administration that terrorism was going to be a #1 priority

Exactly. If they'd really believed that they would have acted like that-- and Gore would have run on it. The evidence you need is in plain sight.

Then why did Sandy Berger steal copies of Richard Clarke's report condemning how the Clinton administration handled the "millennium plots"?

I'm trying to be fair in discussing how our entire government, elected and unelected, handled things poorly prior to 9/11. You're giving every benefit of every doubt to Clinton, and painting the worst possible picture of Bush. Surprise.

I am sure that even if 9/11 had happened that Gore also would have taken us to war in Afghanistan but not Iraq.

That's my guess too. But aside from the question of how Gore would have responded in specific countries, the more interesting question for speculation is what kind of global strategy Gore would have formulated and promoted.

Given his background and intellectual orientation, I believe Gore would have used the 9/11 crisis to revive the dormant internationalist tradition in US politics, moving quickly to negotiate and expand structures and compacts for collective international security, intelligence and law enforcement, and to forge co-operative treaty-based arrangements addressing energy security and also the related environmental concerns close to his heart.

Rather than focus solely on failures of US intelligence or law enforcement, he would have stressed deficiencies in international cooperation on intelligence-sharing and law enforcement He would have taken the opportunity to arrest the post-Cold War drift and global malaise. He would have worked to re-focus attention on lingering regional conflicts, and the permanent threat these pose to global security. The overall message would have been that terrorism is one of many global problems requiring a global solution, and that we need to band together with our many neighbors abroad to address this and other collective threats to our globalized economy and the emerging global community.

Rather than hunkering down in Washington, and pushing a nationalist message, he would have hit the road and become the prophet of internationalism. Rather than dismissing old allies, he would have reached out to them and also cultivated new allies. Rather than exploiting 9/11 to recruit the public into an effort to solidify US hegemony and forge a unipolar world, he would have exploited the opportunity to recruit them into the effort to build a new, more unified, more co-operative world.

Every crisis is fraught with potentialities, and can produce energetic movement in any one of several directions, depending on how leaders seize the day and mobilize their publics. There was a post-9/11 moment when the world's attention and sympathies were focussed on the events in Washington and New York. If a US leader had grasped that opportunity, and moved swiftly to consolidate an international agenda more in line with the aspirations of other countries and peoples, we would have had an entirely different ball game, and a much more favorable global reastion.

The immediate post-9/11 environment was filled with all sorts of excited declamations from every political quarter, pushing and pulling in a variety of competing directions. It took a few months for the Bush-neoconservative strain to establish itself firmly as the dominant voice in the media and political establishment. With a different political culture in place, we would have had different results.

That was a very good post. I was not able to argue so cogently as a senior. Fortunately, I don't here have to show whether I can now. I also read it just after I'd come to similar conclusions in commenting on the preceding post.

Dan K sums it up quite well this: "I think that the emotional reactions of conservatives were better able to manifest themselves in the form of actual government decisions because conservatives were in charge of the government at the time these reactions occurred." And it's not just, as he says, that they could drive hysteria that mimics the symptoms Faludi outlines clearly. It's also that the hysteria may not always match the symptoms. That is, we got cowboy mentality in our leaders not entirely because they'd turned us all into cowboy worshipers, but because our leaders had a cowboy mentality anyhow.

I'll add only something I didn't note earlier: it's not unreasonable to find some of the symptoms in the media, because we can expect the media to play up some of the symptoms. They love cliches, because they're prewritten narrative. BevD listed quite a few movie and TV oaters that didn't meet the standards of Ford and Hawks. In part, as she's arguing, they testify to a different 1950s than mgmax or I may wish to remember. But in part we've forgotten them for good reason: the movies and TV will turn out cliches whether we wish them or not, and we may not wish to judge a generation by them.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

It's perfectly open for debate and it's a reasonable criticism, don't get me wrong. Especially when we're in the realm of symbols, archetypes and myths it's important to ask rigorous questions or else anyone would be able to assert just about anything.

Don't take my defense of it as an attempted repudiation of him (or you, for that matter).

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

"You're giving every benefit of every doubt to Clinton, and painting the worst possible picture of Bush. Surprise."

A bigger surprise is why anyone doesn't.

A bigger surprise is why anyone doesn't.

This comment makes no sense. Why would anyone rate it high? Mgmax said that "you" (at least three bloggers) gave something, and then you state that it's a surprise "why anyone doesn't (give)".

Good post, Don. I don't agree about Afghanistan and I think that Al Gore would not have made the false link between Al Qaeda and Hussein but the "stab in the back" theory is spot on.

BevD,
Thanks. Afghanistan has been 'off the table' at TPMCafe for some time now. I look forward to revisiting the scene of my greatest 0 and 1 collections.

As for Al Gore and Iraq, the AQ/Hussein link didn't even occur to Bush/Cheney until after the WMD justification faded, right? In any case, Gore supported Iraq. Gore in 2002: "In 1991, I crossed party lines and supported the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but he was allowed to survive his defeat as the result of a calculation we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade. And we still do. So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts."
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/gore021202.html

=== it is a disaster because we we failed and have failed all along to listen to what these people have been saying to us - get out and quit interfering in our domestic affairs. ===

While there is a good arguement that we are still a Calvinist imfluenced culture among professional historians the Puritans are seen not a typical of colonial America but outliers. There previous central role due more to their vast writings than their being like their more southern brethern.

What was the impact of Pearl Harbor. The entire United States geared itself for war and all of our resources were brought to bear. More Americans were killed on 9/11 than 12/7 and it occured in two major continental cities. Is there really any doubt that any American president would not have launched an attack on Afganistan?.

Reading any of the books of recent history for example Ghost Wars and Cobra II to name two would suggest, with all due respect to Larry Johnson, that the CIA is incompetent and needs to be destroyed and started over. According to Coll one of the problem during the Clinton administratio was that Clinton was so skeptical of the CIA, with good reason, that he did not pay enough attention to them as it was necessary for them to really gear up to go after Bin Laden, esepecially after the African Embassy bombings. Even so Clinton's CIA had a bin Laden Unit and they made a number of efforts to get him.

Finally, there is a real problem with Islam and especially Sunni Islam. These problems resemble those that followed WWI with gave rise to Bolshevism, Fascism, and Nazism. The problems of the Middle East only get America's attention when Israel or oil is involved. That has been nearly no interest in the region and no effort to encourage liberalism, not democracy tothe region. That a president like Clinton and a would be president such as Gore might have been more open to the need to forge links with the liberal voices that do exist in the Middle East and perhaps help negate the need to get rid of Saddem and perhaps even prevent Musharriff's coup. Big ifs but having Presidents who think about the future and are globalists in their visions would be a key to a differnt response to 9/11.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I don’t think that you can associate an increase of intolerance of gays with 9/11. I think there was a backlash against gay marriage due to the Mass. Court decision mandating gay marriage. Gays seem to be more and more accepted in society even after 9/11, the majority are just not ready for gay marriage yet.

Plenty of evidence that during last 1-2 yearsr of Clinton admin. Al Queda was recognized as a (the) priority threat to the U.S. And Gore and his people were a major part of this. See for example Richard Clarke's book. Remember they told incoming Bushies. And Bushes went out of their way to ignore and downgrade it.

So, yes, under a Gore presidency it Al Queda would have continued to be, or even more ramped up, as target. Just one example... Richard Clarke would have been a leader at NSC, not shunted aside and deliberately ignored. Similar priorization, instead of being dismissed off top-10 priority list, at CIA and FBI (was top a priority in DOJ under last year of Clinton; Ashcroft took it completely off list on 9/10).

So, yes, good possibility under a Gore presidency 9-11 does not happen. That they were caught or otherwise disrupted.

Well, obviously, there will never be a foreign policy that will please all people, all of the time, but this is a message that they have been trying to get across to us for the last three decades and the fact that we left permanent troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and have invaded Iraq and are trying to destabalize Iran would tend to support their grievance.

It's like the Mid-East disaster - we're the only people in the Mid-East who still consider the U.S. to be honest brokers in peace negotiations. No one else does, and yet Americans still persist in the belief that the U.S. can broker an effective peace plan.

Untrue. Also known as lying. Get a new talking point.

You're wrong. Gore obviously was advocating force in Iraq: "In 1991, I crossed party lines and supported the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but he was allowed to survive his defeat as the result of a calculation we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade. And we still do. So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts." Subsequently that was the Dem position, that they could have done it better, using more troops.

the war in Iraq was being thought up and advocated for well before 9/11. The infamous PNAC letter was written in 1998 and the neoconservative intellectual and policy foundations for war with Iraq were in place before the attacks. Moreover, there were those like Bernard Kouchner, Paul Berman and Kenan Makiya who all supported the war for ostensibly humanitarian and liberal reasons. Would Faludi really chalk up liberal hawks like Peter Beinart, Michael Ignatieff and Kenneth Pollack (and dare we forget Josh Marshall) support for a war as the inevitable result of the narrative America adopts when under threat?

Or more specifically, would Faludi and Ducat claim it's all this cult of "hypermasculinity" whatever that's supposed to mean? Thats just radical feminism and counterculture for their own sake, reheated.

Faludi's theory is a fictional narrative, not a comprehension explanation which seeks to reconcile facts like those, but to forget them because they're inconvenient to her thesis. Which is exactly how we got into Iraq, by cooking the books with such fictional narratives, and following kooks with agendas.

People such as the NeoCons had an obsession with Iraq. People like Faludi and Ducat apparently have issues with men and masculinity. Whenever something goes wrong, such people always seize upon it to claim it as evidence of their personal monster under the bed at the root of all evil.

It seems fairly accepted that US spied on UN Security Council members.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/53312

Then there was that flap over Bolton asking for phone identities associated with intercepts.

Then there is the accepted finding that if one knows absolutely one will never be caught, one tends to go ahead and do the otherwise prohibited action. And since sweeping is lousy at finding new stuff, but targeted surveillance is easy, it does stretch the imagination to hope that unwarranted snooping was 100% proper.

I have no opinion as to whether bin Laden is a legitimate representative, in fact, that is my point - it is not up to us to decide those matters. Bin Laden, though, isn't the only person in the Mid-East to complain of our mischief in their domestic affairs. From the Iranian hostage crisis to this current debacle the problem hasn't been their meddling in our affairs, but our meddling in theirs.

No, Don, that's not true. In his 2002 speech he specifically denounced the policy of "pre-emptive war" and he said the Bush policy would be a mistake of the greatest magnitude.

The "lol" actually refers to another thread that was active yesterday - I don't think you were participating in that one.

sPh

BevD,
I quote Gore on Iraq and you say that it's not true? Say what?
And how about some quotes from his 2002 speech on your other claims? I don't see them.

Yes, he supported the first Gulf war. No, he did not support the second Gulf war. His first speech on the issue, Sept. 23, 02, he spoke out very firmly on this second war as a serious mistake.

Come on. Speaking of hot air, that's splitting hairs and nitpicking.

He's clearly using "we" in the sense of a nation adopting policies, which is accurate. That doesn't in any way imply "we" are monolithic in approval of them.

Such semantic games make no contribution.

There is no conceivable US policy (foreign or domestic) that could satisfy all of these groups simultaneously.

Thats a false premise. I'm not aware of any major policy initiative to attempt to please everyone.

You're using infinitive rhetoric to break a utilitarian equation. One doesn't have to satisfy everyone to find utility in reducing enemies by inflaming them less via policies which predictably produce long term blow back for short term gain.

BevD,
I understand why you haven't offered quotes. Here's one from Gore's Sep 23 02, his second (at least) speech on the issue (I quoted from the Feb 2002 speech, remember?): "The President should be authorized to take action to deal with Saddam Hussein as being in material breach of the terms of the truce and therefore a continuing threat to the security of the region. To this should be added that his continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially a threat to the vital interests of the United States."

"In 1991, I crossed party lines and supported the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but he was allowed to survive his defeat as the result of a calculation we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade. And we still do. So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts." --Al Gore

Touche'

You're attempting to conflate a bunch of issues to simplify things to polemic. Nice demagoguery, but vapid.

No, ObL is not representative of "these people" if that refers to Arab Islamic people generally, who do have some legitimate petitions against American and generally Western European meddling and exploitation in the region. Those are issues we could address better, both from a utilitarian and moral standpoint.

ObL is a product of that situation multiplied by his own particular psychology and tendencies.

That doesn't make him "representative" of the general public. It makes him one predictable outcome that will occur in a small percentage of a large population subjected to inflammatory events.

Anyways, one should get one's own house in order, not throw stones from glass houses, and such. there are certainly things we do in the ME that are lacking from a moral and utilitarian standpoint. We should correct those, regardless of ObL.

"I don’t think that we should allow anything to diminish our focus on avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists who we know to be responsible for it." --Al Gore

First the goal was to attack OBL and his network, then to overthrow the Afghanistan government, then to kill as many Taliban as possible, then to do the same to villagers who supported the Taliban, then to kill those who resisted our doing the above--the beat goes on. Six years and counting.

I think you, and Zeitlin, are misreading the reference to the Frankfurt School. Ducat said:

The work of the Frankfurt School, and more contemporaneously, that of George Lakoff, Thomas Frank, and Drew Westen notwithstanding, a surprising number of progressives are still embedded in the naïve rationalism that has plagued liberals and Marxists for generations.

The reference here isn't about "inevitability," but of rationality and Enlightenment, and how little they have to do with the practice of politics. 

The right understands this; the left doesn't. The Right has played the affective side of politics much better than their opponents. 

That's why putting a photo of Osama bin Laden next to Max Cleland works, and it's why Rudy Giuliani is at the top of the Republican polls right now.

Rudy knows how to make people cry. 

Don, if you're offering quotes you must have read the speech and you know exactly what he was saying. I don't want to argue this point, because I believe that Gore set out a forceful argument for resolving the problem of Al Qaeda and terrorism without going to war with Iraq.

We're intelligent people, we should be able to identify the meaning in a speech and we both know that any statement without context is subject to interpretation which may not be the meaning intended.

I agree that Faludi's theory is too insubstantial to take seriously, and the same for Ducat. And technically Zeitlin is correct the theories aren't formally falsifiable.

But it's still clear they're cherry picking historical anecdotes which they see plotting a large historical arc, and then directly applying their theory to specific recent events. Which seems an inherently flawed methodology crossing domains from the general and long term, to the specific and short term, without due diligence to either.

But... it's effective for some patients. Even if it's not strictly true, or strictly science, some patients say "You know, I should really let those anxieties go, it's just something that happened in childhood." It can work.

That seems a rather dangerous line of thought applied to politics and the deliberate manipulation of people. I don't think the placebo effect is a good political strategy or healthy for democracy. Once you accept the premise that it's good to manipulate the rubes, where does it stop?

In this case for example, if manipulating some women into gender hostility and mobilization, on bogus theories can be reasoned to possibly, maybe, produce a net positive outcome for humanity, is that really a wise course? Will it really produce a good long term result? Will the ends we've chosen to justify the means, really be the end of it?

For example, don't economic conservatives rationalize the manipulation of fundies, as being for their own good regarding matters beyond them? How has that worked out?

Weren't coups and actions against Latin America justified as being for their own good?

There probably was a time for Emperors, Imperialism, Kings, colonialism, and Machiavellian logic, when might equaled right, for the greater good, and all that. But surely we're supposed to be past that phase in history, and we shouldn't manipulate people out of their own ignorance or weakness, and rationalize it as for their own good.

Especially we shouldn't sacrifice important principles like truth, for at best marginal gains like mobilization, with the possibility for long term blowback, like militarism and strife.

What part of "informed consent" do you not get?

The American people could be described as supporting action in Iraq based on the information the administration and their nongovernmental advocates permitted us to see.

History has shown that the administration was either lying or criminally negligent in the decisionmaking leading to the debacle that is Iraq.

We as a nation did not adopt these policies. These policies were foisted on us under false pretenses. Under these circumstances, we want to shout form the rooftops that we were prevented from exercising our duties, from discharging our responsibilities as members of the republic.

Emphasizing the fact that the administration acted without the informed consent of the people is not by any stretch of the imagination "hair splitting", and is no semantic game.

Notice the word "IF." Which means it's a hypothetical. Which means it's not necessarily going to happen. (Duh!)

It was also a response to a question in the ether at the time, not a policy proposal for war as you're fabricating.

At the time, people were questioning what to do about Iraq. Mostly Republicans were in the military action camp, while Democrats generally favored continued targeted sanctions. Both were imperfect to say the least, after what HW Bush helped start but never resolved.

And from what is generally known about the use of force in GWI, it's generally considered a defensive and justified reaction. Contrary to GWII. Also importantly Gore also said people must be honest, careful, and realistic about war, which obviously we didn't have with Bush.

So that breaks the Gore GWI>GWII continuity you're attempting to fabricate.

Get a grip, Bacon. Your attempting to cherry pick and utterly distort this to read whatever you want into it, well it's just too pathetically self delusional.

That's a semantic argument that's just stupid on the face of it.

Specifically he said "as a Nation" to define "we" in that context.

One can for example say: "we as a nation are overweight." Meaning specifically that "as a nation" there is a propensity to be overweight. That could be a statistical argument for example. That doesn't in any way imply every individual is overweight or that it's monolithic. And saying "I'm not overweight, are you" would completely miss the point.

Bacon, it's one bone-head comment after another from you. I'm starting to think your brain, it ain't so great for these things. Maybe you should find some other hobby you're better at.

They would lose interest in us like Hitler lost interest in Poland.

Mgmax I don't think you help your cause by invoking Hitler."Hitler" stands for the holocaust of course and by unnecessarily using him as your poster boy you trigger an automatic response that rather than trying to argue your point you're implying , subliminally ,that your opponents would have attempted to placate Hitler .

I say "unnecessarily , because there are any number of other examples you could have chosen e.g. "like Galtieri lost interest in the Falklands"; like "Saddam lost interest in Kuwait"; like "BenGurion lost interest in Jerusalem" as illustrations of your argument that many political leaders , and especially dictators, seem to be wired to pursue a
particular goal irrespective of attempts to divert them.

While I'm at it: Gore v 9/ll.

On that very evening I was led inescapably to the
thought that a Pres Gore might have forestalled it when Condi said something along the lines of " No one could have anticipated that planes would be used to attack buildings". Which astonished
me since I(and millions of others I'm sure) had been anticipating exactly that since the thwarted attempt a couple of years earlier to fly an hijacked passenger plane into the Eiffel Tower.

It's not unreasonable to assume that a President Gore would not have chosen as head of the NSC someone so ill informed as to have been unaware of something that was such common knowledge.

And there's other data:the brush off of the Rudman/Hart Commission, the long August vacation when George Tenet's hair was on fire, the reduced access for Richard Clarke.

Is it a sure thing that Gore would have been more effective ? Of course not.But we know Bush chose Condi for that position and we know that , amazingly , she was unaware of that Eiffel Tower incident.

That doesn't in any way imply "we" are monolithic in approval of them.

LongTom's annoyance was with the entirely too common usage of the collective "we" when referring to the policies of the administration, whose acts don't come close to representing the policy choices that a fully informed citizenry would approve.

Theoretically, this country holds together, however loosely, by the common will of its citizens. In that context, the use of "we" should, by and large, carry the correct connotation. You already know that's why the power to declare war is placed by the constitution in the house of representatives, not the executive branch.

So I share LongTom's annoyance with common use of the collective "we" when it should be applicable, but in this critically important policy realm, is most certainly not applicable.

I stand by my original response. Allowing that incorrect usage to stand without challenge diminishes the meaning the word. And comments that call attention to it are not hot air. "We" is the first word of the constitution for a good reason. This is no word game.

"We" ain't monolithic, nor does "we" imply that.

What part of that don't you get? Dunce cap for you.

Consensus on war policy? No. Informed citizenry participating intelligently in decisionmaking? No. The longer I think about it, the closer I get to admitting that your comments reflect the way things are today. I and many like me should have known that's how it really works, and trying to change that reality is unrealistic.

Do you know why I think that they want us out of there? Because that's what they SAID.

But bin Laden was the one who decided those grievances warranted a violent attack. I am sure many countries in the world have grievances with us give our economic power but they don’t resort to violence. That’s why I asked if bin Laden’s views were legitimate.

As I suspected you have no idea but are merely regurgitating mindless talking points.

kozmik,
Of course Gore said "if"--he was out of power and couldn't assume that Bush would definitely invade Iraq. It had to be conditional on US actions, which he was not a part of at that time.

When Gore made this statement everybody knew that Bush would probably go to war, and undoubtedly Gore had intelligence telling him what Bush had decided to do. But of course it's not definite, to Gore, until it happens.

I didn't fabricate any connection between the wars, I merely quoted Gore verbatim. He connected them. He said he regretted that the US didn't get Hussein in GWI and he (Gore) said that now it must be done properly: "this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts."

Gore's words speak for themselves for anyone not blinded by pre-conceived, false notions of Gore's sanctity.

I think Thomas Kuhn has shown that theories are not falsifiable per se. You can always apply ad hoc methods to explain recalcitrant data. Theories are overthrown during "revolutionary times" where scientist search for a new paradigm that will have such features as greater scope, more simplicity, etc, than the old theory.

Far too simplistic for my taste to pit the left against the right based on the former putting it's faith in "rationality" while the latter appreciating more of the irrational elements in human nature.

Well, that might be your taste, but since you can't give any examples of the Democrats using this kind of appeal other than the now-irrelevant 1960s, I'd say your taste alone probably doesn't stand up to a more empirical approach, such as Weston's.

The point is we have to accept that fact. To say that we should change our ideological positions based on what has more popular appeal is to turn everything upside down.

No one is suggesting changing ideological or political positions. But this position is defeatist, you're basically saying the Right is always going to win elections. That's not necessarily true. The point is, this approach is ignored by the Democrats, because of this belief in the rational. 

It's not that the affective approach always works in every case -- the Republicans are so utterly incompetent and the abuses of power over the last 7 years are so utterly grandiose, that stuff trumps whatever emotional appeal the Republicans might still be clinging to.

But that doesn't take away from the evidence over the last 20 or more years -- as you say, "emotive propaganda can, in principle, be used by both sides" -- but it's not. 

And, all that said, Rudy Giuliani might still get the nomination, and could even still win the Presidency. An affective campaign is all that he's got. So far, it's working well.  

Getting back to the real issue, do you disagree you are reading the Frankfurt reference incorrectly? 

Maybe I am. I remember in grad school having to do a stint with a team of sociologist as part of my gaining more interdisciplinary experience. We use to get together with George Simmel (Jr. that is) and a few of his acolytes and they would discuss the Frankfurt School and such. I always felt lost in the discussion because it seemed to me that they were making enormous leaps from one topic to the next. As an analytically trained philosopher, it was not to my taste.

I might have missed the import of what relevance the Frankfurt School has to my observation. My point is that regrettably bashing gays and blacks is a more potent poison than the good policies we on the left want to promote, say racial equality and toleration of sexual preferences.
Why this is the case I don't know. Hopefully not something hard-wired into human nature.

So really it is challenging for us to compete with the right in stirring up emotions in people for our cause. So we have to rely on reason and time to do the job. I think you and I would probably agree that in the long run the right wing agenda is doomed because it does not work as has been shown time and time again. Will we ( as humans) ever learn that lesson and relegate right wing ideology to the dust bin of history? I don't know that either, but I certainly hope so.

Not quite. The backlash was initially started because of San Francisco and Portland, OR briefly allowing gay marriage through council directives rather than legislation or elections. In both instances, SF and Portland feared lawsuits from gay rights advocates, so they preemptively passed ordinances allowing gay marriage. I don't know why SF feared the lawsuits. But, with Portland, the state constitution was vague on what constituted a marriage (which originally defined it as just a civil union between males at least 17 years old and females at least 17 years old). That's why there were so many state initiatives to amend their constitutions in order to define marriage as "between a man and a woman".

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I lose patience with Munich comparisons. They are quite irrelevant, since the inaction on Hitler was not due to the West thinking he was not a threat, but to the West being quite sympathetic to his goals, until it got late. Worth thinking about is what choices the West had.

After the Enabling Act, did we have grounds for a preventive war? Of course not, nor did we have the resources to take on Germany. At that point they had threatened no one.

After Czechoslovakia it looked a little scarier, but that time was when it was truly hopeless, without a long buildup of forces. At Munich, what was the alternative? Announce a state of War? With what army? It was probably easier to attack Germany after it had extended itself too far, into Africa, France, and Russia.

So it is not OK to remind people of an example that gives exactly the wrong message--attack now. Because we couldn't then, shouldn't have then, can't now, and shouldn't now. Unless you have a spare division or two to offer?

If only the passion of Bush to attack Iraq was directed against actual terrorists. Oops, too late now.

The fact that we could melt Iran argues we don't have a Hitler situation. We could of course work on getting a reputation like the Soviet Union used to have. No hijackings, remember?

You do know you're using the same words Nixon and Kissinger used about Vietnam? Is this because Rush has introduced the new line? The "we could have won the war but Democrats stopped us" bit?

"Let them hate, as long as they fear." Caligula.

It is not OK to be feared. The best defense against something you fear is sudden offense, so countries that fear us might also attack. (Cold War, etc.) Certainly countries that consider us their friend don't attack.

Tell me who is promoting defeat, Kiwi. (Mr. Mrs. Ms. Von Huber? We haven't been properly introduced.)

Tom, I agree that fear in a vacuum is dangerous and defeating.

Nonetheless, after they killed over 3000 of our citizens in New York and elsewhere and then danced in the streets and vowed to kill more, is it not foolish to fail to respond?

Politics aside, don't we really need to kill these terrorists and worry about "what the world thinks of us" later, if at all?

In response to your curiousity, Tom, I am just a lawyer in California with a sweet Austrailian Shepherd named Kiwi.

You are correct, Tom, in that these terroists are difficult to isolate and destroy. But just because it is difficult does not mean we should surrender.

We do know they are an enemy based upon a fascist type of Islam that is shared by most Muslims. It remains a challenge, especially when they hide within the civilian population and don't have a country.

There is no "alquaedastan."

So we do the best we can. Like Truman did.

At Hiroshima, we unfortunately killed a goodly number of nice 'ol Japanese gardeners, but it ended the war. The war would have been over at that point even if Hitler and Tojo had escaped.

This war needs to be ended and Bush has been far too "politically correct" about waging it.

It may be that Syria and Iran, again, unfortunately, need to be vaporized.

Sorry, Tom. War is hell. America needs to be defended...now you can take a breath.