After the Future

Rumsfeld's American Legion Speech

Rumsfeld thinks he's Winston Churchill, but he's really Captain Ahab, and the "Islamo-fascists" are his Moby Dick. He wants us to believe that we're in a titanic Manichean struggle with the forces of evil embodied by people like Ahmadinejad.  His American Legion speech the other night is nutty on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. But what I find most interesting about this whole right-wing Islamo-fascist meme is that it's another example about how the hardliner right, whether consciously or unconsciously, projects its own motivations on those it perceives as its enemies. This from his speech to the American Legion Tuesday night:

That year -- 1919 -- turned out to be one of the pivotal junctures in modern history with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the creation of the League of Nations, a treaty and an organization intended to make future wars unnecessary and obsolete. Indeed, 1919 was the beginning of a period where, over time, a very different set of views would come to dominate public discourse and thinking in the West.

Over the next decades, a sentiment took root that contended that if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be accommodated, then the carnage and the destruction of then-recent memory of World War I could be avoided.

It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and Nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored. Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else's problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace, even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear. It was, as Winston Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

There was a strange innocence about the world. Someone recently recalled one U.S. senator's reaction in September of 1939 upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II. He exclaimed:

“Lord, if only I had talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided!”

I recount that history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. Today -- another enemy, a different kind of enemy -- has made clear its intentions with attacks in places like New York and Washington, D.C., Bali, London, Madrid, Moscow and so many other places. But some seem not to have learned history's lessons.

We need to consider the following questions, I would submit:

• With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?
• Can folks really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?
• Can we afford the luxury of pretending that the threats today are simply law enforcement problems, like robbing a bank or stealing a car; rather than threats of a fundamentally different nature requiring fundamentally different approaches?
• And can we really afford to return to the destructive view that America, not the enemy, but America, is the source of the world's troubles?

These are central questions of our time, and we must face them and face them honestly.

For this nonsense he gets a standing ovation.  I won't even go near the absurdity of the historical analogy and the straw-man argument he makes, but let's get some perspective here.  If the proverbial Martian came down to earth on a fact-finding mission and was given an objective account of the last 2500 years of world politics with all its wars and intrigues, what is the pattern that he would see?  Those nations which have power use it to dominate weaker nations.  The aggressors use their power to achieve their interests, usually more wealth and more power.  The defenders, because of their power disadvantage, will use any  trick in the book to try and outwit and outmaneuver the aggressor. Their survival depends on it.

This same Martian would learn about all the noble justifications the leaders of the aggressive powers--from Alexander to Napoleon to Hitler--and observe how eager their own people were to believe them and how those justifications never seemed to be accepted by those they sought to dominate. Patriotism is strange that way.  There is this tendency among the weak to feel just as patriotic as the strong, and to fight for their country no matter who's ruling it. 

And then this Martian would look at the current situation in the Middle East, let's say this most recent confrontation with Iran.  And then if asked which country goes in the powerful aggressor column and which in the  weak defender column, in which column would he be likely to put the Americans, and in which the Iranians?  It's obvious. Obvious to everybody except Americans.  Americans always think they are the exceptions to the rule.  Americans just want everyone to enjoy freedom and democracy.  Everybody knows that.  That is to say, everybody who knows nothing about American history knows that.

To listen to Rumsfeld, you would think the U.S. was the poor, innocent victim here.  But who has the more legitimate reason to think it must defend itself against aggression?  Did any Iranian ever engineer a coup to have a democratically elected leader removed as the U.S. had Mossadegh removed?  Are there Iranian armies lined up on U.S. borders?  Do Americans have anything to fear from their airforce or their ICBMs? 

I'm not for a nuclear Iran.  I don't want to see any more proliferation, but if we're honest, we have to see why Iranians feel a need to have one, and it's ridiculous to think that they would use it in a first strike for the same reason that no one else ever has.  They know they would be obliterated in a retaliatory strike if they did so. But if you have a nuclear bomb, people tend to leave you alone. If you were a reasonable, moderate Iranian, wouldn't the U.S. threat make you want a nuclear bomb to defend yourself against it?   Wouldn't American aggression push you to embrace the hardliners rather than the moderates?

"Oh," Americans say to themselves, "after 9/11 everything has changed."  We Americans are the victims now, and we have the right to force the world to bend to our will.  We have the right now to dictate what is in the world's best interests. As we have treated Latin America for almost two hundred years, now we think we have the right to treat the Middle East.  We're the good guys.  These beknighted Muslims, these haters of freedom, must be forced to do what we know is in their best interest, because whatever is in the best interest of the U.S. is in the world's best interest.  It's global trickle down. 

Why are we really there?  Why do we care about the Middle East in a way that we don't care about Africa? Why is our being there worth the cost to us? What do we really want there? Does anybody really believe that if we withdrew our troops from the Middle East and let the countries there work their way into the modern world on their own that we would ever again be attacked by terrorists?  Why would they care to?  What other motivations do they really have to hate us except our own history of aggressive behavior in the region?  Doesn't it underline the point that what Islamic extremists are doing is motivated primarily by what is in their minds defensive--a desire to repel the invader?  If we were they, would we not feel the same way? I know it's complicated, but the point is that we look at everyone else as aggressors and don't see how our own bullying incites those we push around to push back.

What is the U.S motivation?  Why are we willing to invest this much blood and treasure in this region?  Do you really think the official explanations account for it?  If you're inclined to accept the official justifications, ask yourself if it even begins to make sense.  This has very little to do with terrorists or in bringing democracy to the heathen--they are second- or third-tier issues.  It would not be worth the cost to us to do that.  It has mainly to do with establishing American hegemony now that the Russian sphere of influence in the region has collapsed. It has mainly to do with our seeking economic and geopolitical power advantages.

I think the argument could be made that after dropping the bomb on  Japan, we've proved that we're just like everyone else now. I don't want to think so, but if you look at it dispassionately, it's hard to refute.  We haven't incinerated millions of Jews, but we did incinerate hundreds of thousands of Japanese.  Is the moral difference only one of scale--their millions to our hundreds of thousands?  Was it morally less grisly because we did it from an airlplane rather than herding them into the ovens?  Does it lie in the fact that although we herded Japanese American citizens into concentration camps, we didn't gas them?

There is a difference, but it's not so big as we'd like to think. How would the Martian look at it?  Would he look at the way we wiped out the American Indian and treated African slaves and see this wonderfully morally superior nation?  Would he see such a huge difference between us and everyone else as we automatically assume?  My point here is not to beat up the American character, but to point out that it is a huge mistake to think we have any reason to believe we are incapable of the kind of atrocities we always accuse others of committing.  By this time we should know better.  We have a duty to guard against the tendency in the American character, particularly on the harliner right, that lead us to do horrible things.

For me the difference lies in the fact that while we Americans allow the right-wing hardliners have their day, we still haven't given them carte blanche.  Although we are guilty of terrible crimes, we still have had the ability to rein in this worst element in our national character.  That's what sets us apart.  The countries that lose their moral compass are the ones which when they feel angry or fearful, give carte blanche to the hardliner, militarist right factions in their society.  When we've done it in the past, they were not a proud moments. Nevertheless, we've always found a way to recognize our error and change course. That's what we're called upon to do now.

I suppose there is still reason for hope that we can get hold of our fear and anger, to recognize that these demagogues are playing us for Pavlovian idiots, and to put somebody with more sense into power.  But the fact is that the bloody-minded hardliners are in control now, and Rumsfeld exemplifies the type. When people like him are directing policy, American policy is not impelled by any fundamentally different motivation than that which impelled aggressors in the past.  We're playing by the same rules that the powerful have always played by: The powerful dictate, everyone else submits. The Japanese would not submit, so we used disproportionate force to make them do so. Rumsfeld's Islamo-fascists will not submit, so we are threatening likewise to make them do so. It's complex in the details, but pretty simple at the fundamental level of motivation. 

And so long as we have the power, the mentality of leaders like Rumsfeld make them feel compelled to use it for fear of losing it.  Losing power and prestige is the worst possible outcome, and the the failure of his policies in the Middle East I suspect is a humiliation he is psychologically incapable of facing.  So the only alternative is to up the ante, and to expand the aggression.  That's what's so disturbing about what's going on in the Middle East right now.  We have people who are truly not in their right mind with their finger on the trigger.  I'm not saying that America has no role to play in the Middle East, but better we do nothing than let people like Rumsfeld direct our activities there.

Update:  When it comes to appeasement, I guess it takes one to know one. Some good links here. 

Some Questions for Moderates/Independents

Is it just a matter of voting for the moderate no matter which party he or she is in? Is it then a matter of indifference to you which party controls the House or the Senate?  Can Moderates have any moderating effect whatsoever if the Republicans continue to control all three branches of the government?  Why is it so difficult to see that moderates have a role to play only when there is a stalemate between two opposing power centers? Why is it so difficult to grasp that individuals by themselves have no power and that any individual office holder must play for one team or the other?  Why is it so hard to see that the Republicans have no reason to compromise unless they are forced to and that the cannot be forced to unless there is a power strong enough to do so?

If Independents really want to have an impact, they have no other choice but to vote Democrat this November.  Once the Democrats control the congress, then moderates/independents will have a mediating role to play.  Until then, they are irrelevant pawns in a power game they must play on terms defined exclusively by the Republicans.  They are nowhere men like Joe Lieberman.  That's why the GOP is supporting him.  They'll support anybody who will prevent the Dems from seating a majority.  They understand how power works.

We see what a mess letting the Republicans have all three branches has led us into.  There is no more important issue that faces us than simply to take away one or both of the Congressional majorities from the them.  The situation looks good for Democrats to succeed this November, but we should never ever underestimate the Republicans' ability to manipulate the system to insure that they hold on to their majorities. 

If Independents have a case to make for hoping that moderate Republicans or Independents win, I would like to hear your rebuttal to what I have said in these posts over the last week or so.  For the life of me, I can't see how anybody can think anything is a higher priority than taking away Bush's congressional majority.

More on Robust Opposition

Arianna Huffington gets this right:

Republicans realize that Lamont represents a re-energized opposition, a reinvigorated Democratic Party fueled by progressive ideals, a willingness to stand up to the GOP smear machine, and a motivated netroots. This scares the hell out of Bush and company, which is why they are throwing their support behind Lieberman. They already know how to beat Lieberman Democrats. Indeed, they beat Lieberman Democrats in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Lamont Democrats are a whole different story. The jump in new Connecticut Democratic voter registration and record turnout in the primary are telltale signs for all to read.

That's why the stand Democratic presidential hopefuls take in Connecticut is so vital. The Lamont/Lieberman battle is no longer a Dem vs Dem race. The facts are clear: Lieberman's campaign is running on Republican resources, Republican consultants, Republican voter files, Republican swift boat groups.

So any Democrat who isn't standing strong for Lamont is, in effect, providing cover for the Radical Right -- Lieberman's vows to caucus with Democrats notwithstanding. Do you really think Rove and the NRSC aren't expecting some future quid for their quo? And how surprised would you be if, in exchange for some plumb committee chairmanship, Lieberman ends up caucusing with Republicans -- and sanctimoniously justifying it as for the good of bipartisanship and the good of the country?  Read more.

The middle is only useful if there are two sides to mediate.  As I said the other day, in a de facto one-party system, there are no moderates, only collaborators.  That's what the DLC Dems have become, no matter how differently they think of themselves as bi-partisan idealists.  Even if you don't agree with the "progressive ideals" that Huffington hopes will animate a reinvigorated Democratic party, the country still needs a healthy Democratic Party.  So hold your nose if you must, but vote for the candidate with the D next to his name this November.

Outfoxed, Outmaneuvered, and Outclassed

It was pretty clear in May 2004 when the Chalabi/Iran connection came into clearer view:  the neocons had been played by the Iranians.  Chalabi, a Shi'ite with ties to extremists in Tehran, seduced the neocons with visions of happy, liberated Iraqis flooding the streets waving American flags. And Perle, Kristol, and their boy in the Pentagon, Wolfowitz, with visions of hegemonic glory throbbing in their overactive imaginations, fell into the trap. Chalabi, like the good con man he is, told them what they wanted to hear, told them about all those WMD hidden throughout the country, and they took the bait. They didn't  bother to do their due dililgence.  Why should they?  They were the most powerful military force in the history of the world.  Ain't nobody gonna mess with them.  And so Iran/Chalabi played them for the arrogant fools that they were.

Now with the latest fiasco in Lebanon, the perception that Iran is really controlling the agenda is finally filtering into the mainstream press, for instance in today's Christian Science Monitor:

WASHINGTON – Even before this summer's war between Israel and Hizbullah, American influence in the Middle East was seen to be waning, with the US bogged down in Iraq and the Bush administration's signature vision for the region - democratization - increasingly controversial.

But as the US joins international powers in attempts to bolster a shaky cease-fire in southern Lebanon, American leverage is seen by many to be even weaker. That could have deep consequences in a tinderbox region that has long looked to US leadership to pull it back from the brink, analysts say.

One of those consequences, they add, is that with America no longer setting the agenda as it once did, the way is clearer for other influences - for example, Iran and radical Islam - to move in.  Read more.

Iran got us to get rid of its mortal enemy, Saddam.  It got the U.S. to hold elections, which means a Shi'ite majority will dominate Iraqi politics, and will naturally ally with Shi'ite Iran.  And now that America has completely discredited itself in the eyes of the world and especially moderate Muslims, we have created a power vacuum which will now be filled by fanatics like Ahmadinejad. 

Brilliant work, guys.  Way to promote the forces of sanity and moderation in the region.  You've played right into the hands of the extremists, and set back the schedule for real progress in the region by decades. The Iranians must look at U.S. leadership as big, dumb oafs with a lot of muscle but not very much brain power.  They see the U.S leadership as if it were a big, angry lummox. They know how predictable he is.  They know that all you have to do is ring the bell and like Pavlov's dogs he'll come running for the food. Or just say something insulting about his mother, and he'll lunge at you swinging his fists, and then you jump out of the way to let him plunge into the pit you dug behind you.  That's where the U.S. is now--deep in that pit, and the Iranians must be having a good laugh. 

Iran is playing a high stakes game, but it has shown that it can run rings around the delusionary blunderers in the White House and civilian leadership in the Pentagon. I don't think the Iranians are too worried about payback.  The more aggressive the U.S. policy toward Iran, like a jiujitsu master, Iran will find a way to turn U.S. aggression against itself. The neocon mafia along with Rumsfeld and Cheney have been out-maneuvered and outclassed; they are a disgrace and an embarrassment for anyone who still has a shred of genuine American idealism (as contrasted with the mindless jingoism that passes for it). They're responsible for Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq, the loss of American prestige and influence, the squandering of the world's goodwill after 9/11, and of the crudest fearmongering and thuggery in domestic politics.

And yet there they are, still respected by the media as if simply having power were reason enough to be respected.  There they are still directing policy. And so many Americans shrug their shoulders and say, "It's just politics as usual."  It amazes me how many intelligent, thoughtful Americans have failed to grasp the enormity of what this administation has accomplished. How have we let this happen? They are thugs who represent everything that is worst in the American character.  What does it say about us that we gave them this opportunity?  That we believed them and trusted them?  It's bad, folks.  And we're just beginning to scratch the surface of just how bloody awful it really is.

Update:  This Guardian article supports the Iran wins/America loses thesis.

Robust Oppposition Postscript

I had already started this postscript to yesterday's "Robust Opposition" post when I came across this piece at Hullaballoo.  I think it captures well what I am trying to get at.  Please read the whole thing, but here's the gist:

Those of moderate political temperament are naturally resistant to the rather radical belief that politics have become an ugly, bare knuckle battle in which winning is defined as stopping the other side cold --- or winning elections and passing legislation through brute partisan force if necessary. I suspect that many people are resistant to this idea and for good reason. While there are some on the right who enjoy getting in others' faces, most people prefer a peaceful existence and avoid confrontation until they are absolutely forced to do it.

It took me a little while to recognize what was happening too. I was a Clintonite who was willing to see if the third way could work. But I've got a strong streak of anti-authoritarianism in me that viscerally recoiled at the conservative movement's partisan misuse of the congress and the legal system during that era. Perhaps because I grew up in a rightwing household I understood that the bipartisan rules we had all assumed were a permanent fixture in American politics were no longer operative. By 2000, I was thoroughly radicalized and believed that Democrats had to play a different, more disciplined, brand of politics even if it meant losing in the short term (which, after 9/11, I figured would happen anyway.) It was clear to me that third way politics had no future once the Republicans had a taste of power and revealed themselves.

The point I was going to write about today was precisely the point Digby makes, which is that moderates by nature are "moderate."  Moderates, after all, are typically conservative. Being rash or hasty is not in their natures.  "Alarmist moderate" is an oxymoron, and they are ill-disposed to anyone whose message they perceive to be alarmist. They are inclined instead to think that our current experience with the Bush administration is just politics as usual, nothing to be alarmed about. The thinking goes something like this:  "If the Democrats were in, they'd screw things up in a Democratic way just as the Republicans are screwing things up now in a Republican way.  It's six of one, half dozen of another.  Get the knot out of your shorts, Bush haters.  This is America--everything is going to be ok in the long run. The worst thing we can do is pour gas on the fire by reacting to this mess in a partisan way.  We can work it out by being moderate and reasonable."

Well my argument is that moderates play right into the hands of the far right which hopes that no one mounts a serious opposition to their agenda. The longer the hard right can keep the moderates diverted in "reasonable" conversation, the more time it gives it to consolidate power.  That's why moderates need throw their support to partisan Democrats, whether they like them or not.  There is no other way to create a potent counterbalance to the power-grabbing agenda of the right.  The right works hard to present a reasonable facade, but feels no need to negotiate or compromise unless it is forced to do so, and at the moment there is no political power potent enough to force such negotiations.

So my point is that moderates, if they really understood how serious the threat we are facing, would have no choice but to become partisans in opposing the current power grab by the far right. There is no way to communicate the seriousness of this threat moderately.  And since moderates are inoculated against immoderate language, they cannot hear the alarm because it is alarmist.   As such they are vulnerable to manipulation by the far right who achieve their ends precisely by playing moderates for the moderates that they are. 

Josh Marshall put it well here in a post Digby links to:

The president twice took the presidency with a divided electorate -- first a minority president, then a 51% president. And he proceeded to govern as though he had a mandate to completely remake it, often in what appeared to be profoundly destructive ways geared to short-term political benefit and intended to consolidate power. The folks who've made efforts toward bipartisan compromise have again and again, in this era, been played for chumps. And that's one of the reasons President Bush has had a much harder time in his second term (one among many): he made it too clear too many times that he'll take anyone who'll give him an inch or lend him a hand and use them up and toss them when he's done.

Moderates may not want to hear it, but by now there is too much evidence to deny it.  They are being played for chumps. The right tells them what they want to hear and then does what it wants.  And then the moderates like Andrew Sullivan complain that Bush isn't a true conservative.  Of course not; he's a power conservative.  The only prinicple for power conservatives is power.  And people like that don't respond to reason, and they don't negotiate unless they are forced to do so, and right now no one has the power to force them to. The right has no reason to compromise, and they have shown no inclination to do so.  Supporting moderate candidates like Lieberman is the same as supporting far right candidates because such moderates do not provide enough of a counterbalance or push back. They have become for all practical purposes coopted.

And that's why independents and centrist Republicans will play a critical role in the election this November.  It's up to them to take away the Republican majority so that finally there will be a counterbalance to this administration's abuse of power. Once a counterbalance is established, the moderates can move in and do their moderate thing to help work out a compromise between two power factions. But their moderation is useless unless there are at least two opposing parties to moderate.  There are no moderates in one-party systems; there are only collaborators. 

The hard right in power knows that it depends on moderates to maintain its power.  It doesn't need them all--just 18% of the electorate to supplement their 33% of die-hard supporters. That moderate support is going to come from independents and centrist Republicans who are disinclined to think too negatively of anyone, particularly those they helped to get elected in the first place. These moderates tend to see less danger from the radical right than they see from the radical left.  This never ceases to amaze me because the extreme left wing in this country has no power and no credibility, especially when it's contrasted with the power and influence of the far right. The extremist left has no representation in congress; has no significant media presence; it has no spokesperson in the courts; it has no well-funded lobby on K Street.  And yet the radical right has significant influence in all these venues. But in blog after blog and article after article I read about how, for instance, Lamont is the captive of the radical left!?!? Who specifically are the power brokers of the radical left?  MoveOn?  DailyKos?  What is their radical, democracy-undermining agenda? Who do they control? Disagree with them if you will--I do on several counts--but don't characterize them as radical left.  That's just silly. 

America is a conservative country dominated by a conservative news media.  If it were otherwise, the very word "left," even when used in the phrase "center left," would not have such a pejorative ring to it.  It does, though, and while there are complex reasons to explain it, the main point is that the center in this country has been drifting rightward for the last twenty-five years.  And so now basic things like a sane tax code, health insurance system, energy policy, and a non-bullying foreign policy have become associated in the mind of too many "moderates" with the flaky left.  It's crazy, and too many intelligent moderates have become a captive of this right/center/left scheme as it has been defined by media conventional wisdom.

The real center is, therefore, not defined by splitting the difference between left and right when the left has no power and little credibility when contrasted with an empowered, media-savvy, radical right which is working hard to maintain this power unbalance. The real center is the one that serves the common good of the majority of Americans--and we can debate how that best might be served, but right now there is no debate because any common-sense approach that has the odor of programs as conventional as those developed during the New Deal has to fight against being labeled "radical left". 

And so the current power configuration defines the center far to the right of what it would have been even in the 1950s.  And if is clear as it should be that this power configuration does not serve the common good, it is equally clear whom it does serve--special interests, usually ones with lots of money. 

So summing up:  If you think of yourself as a moderate, your moderation is useless unless there are two sides to moderate.  Right now there is only one side with  real power, and it is doing everything it can to aggregate to itself more.   The fate of the country lies now in your hands.  My fear is that too many moderates will recognize their essential swing role too late.  There is a season for moderation, but this is not it.  This is the season to say No, to resist.  As Josh Marshall closes the piece excerpted from above:

In any case, this is all a way of saying that in this all-or-nothing crisis the country has been passing through, I think it's made sense to line up with those who say, No. I guess I'm one of those partisanized moderates Kevin Drum has spoken of (not sure that's precisely the phrase he used.) That leads to a certain loss of nuance sometimes in commentary and a loss in the variegation of our politics generally. As a writer, often it's less satisfying.

But I cannot see looking back on all this, the threat the country is under, and saying, I stood aloof.  Read more.

I consider myself a centrist, but I know many readers consider me alarmist. If so, this is my justification for being so.  And I am particularly alarmed that moderates are still sitting on the fence because they think that's the grownup, reasonable thing to do.  On the contrary, it's time to get alarmed, very alarmed.

Healthy Politics Needs a Robust Opposition

I am concerned that this November too many center-right independents and moderate Republicans who have come to disapprove Bush's policies will nevertheless vote for Republican candidates because they like them as individuals. But it's not about the individual. The individual candidate by him or herself is powerless.

The individual candidate cannot be considered in isolation from his political allegiances. What matters most in politics is not the individual, but which faction has the power to implement its  (overt and covert) agenda. The individual matters primarily in relationship to which power faction's agenda he aligns with, strengthens by his allegiance, and is in return empowered by its support. Every individual candidate is beholden to the factions with which he aligns. Our votes are not about electing individuals, but about empowering or disempowering factions by strengthening or weakening their ability marshal majorities to support their legislative and other policy agendas.

We know what the concrete agendas of the factions that empower the Bush administration are now. We know their culture, and we know the interests that they serve. We have a choice in November either to continue to empower these factions or to disempower them by either sustaining or taking away the GOP congressional majority. That should be the primary consideration for all voters this November.  It's not about liking the individual candidates, but about whether the candidate will align with or oppose the factions that empower Bush administration policies.

Any candidate, Republican or Democrat, who continues to support the administration's failed policies, should be removed from office if he can be replaced with a candidate (unless he is criminally bad) who promises to oppose it. A faction to counterbalance the extremism of the current GOP leadership might emerge from within the Republican Party at some time in the future, but there is no such GOP faction now strong enough to push the administration in a saner direction.  The only realistic counterbalance comes from the Democrats.

In any event, this is why I think Lieberman deserved to be removed. The primary last week was not a referendum on whether he's a good guy or not.  It was about his past and continuing support for a failed policy that a majority of Democrats  in Connecticut (and Americans in general) no longer support. Hillary Clinton and other Dems who continue to support Bush's war should be removed for the same reason. One could argue that Lieberman supports the war for principled reasons and Clinton for reasons of political expediency.  But the more important factor here is that both supported a failed policy and both refuse to admit it and work to support another approach. Their motives matter less than their actual positions.

They have a right to their opinion; they have a right to argue for it and try to convince their constituents that they are correct, but if the voters disagree, the candidates should surrender with grace. If anything disqualifies "good guy" Lieberman from serious consideration for re-election, it is his choice to run as an Independent, which proves he is not a good guy.  This is not about him as an individual; it's about the health of Democratic Party and the country's need for it to provide a robust opposition. His repudiation of the election results shows that he cares about himself more than he does his party. This is not an isolated incident. His refusal to give up his senate seat while running for Vice President in 2000 demonstrates the same kind of selfishness, because had Gore/Lieberman won, the seat would have gone to a Republican appointed by the GOP governor. 

The independents about whom I spoke earlier might argue that he has a right to make his case to the broader Connecticut voting public.  Why shouldn't Connecticut voters beyond the Democrats be given the chance to retain their three-term senator?  Fine. But I would question the thinking of any voter who would support him unless such a voter wants to continue to empower the current GOP power structure in Washington. A vote for Lieberman now has become essentially a Republican vote. The Democrats need seats, and if Lieberman wins, he will be preventing them from holding on to a very important one. If I'm a Bush-supporting Connecticut Republican, I'm voting for Lieberman, not my party's candidate.   

In American politics there has been way too much attention paid to individual personalities.  Standing alone, no politician can accomplish anything; his or her power lies in the factions with which he  or she aligns.  It's the faction that gets particular policies enacted, and so the primary consideration for electing, re-electing, or voting someone out of office is not individual traits of the individual  candidate, but the faction with which she aligns herself.

Now both  Lieberman and Clinton are currently aligned with the DLC faction within the Democratic party.  Many in the media punditocracy have tried to make the case that the DLC offers a middle choice, and that the more Democrats move away from DLC positions, the less likely they will win in November.  I find the logic ridiculous. The DLC, in effect, has become a faction supporting failed GOP  policies, and the failure of the GOP is a failure shared by DLC Democrats.  But their failure is worse, because in their compliance with the GOP agenda, they have failed the entire country. They have promoted a homogenization of politics so that now when the country needs an alternative, none within the Democrat party has been able to get its legs. The Dems are so subordinated to the GOP agenda, that they cannot extricate themselves effectively enough to offer an alternative when GOP policy and governance fails. 

The health of the system requires that robust parties counterbalance one another and offer the electorate alternatives.  The DLC approach blurs differences and relegates the Democrats to a passive and ineffectual political role.  There is a robust counterargument to be made by Democrats, but the DLC has promoted a compliant, emasculated role for Democrats, and Joe Lieberman is the posterboy for that emasculation.

The mistake made by those who think the Democrats will lose if they move away from the center is their assumption the the DLC defines the center.  They don't.  They represent an emasculated opposition that nobody can support with enthusiasm.  There are sensible alternative positions on the central issues of the day that a majority of Americans will accept if someone has the courage, imagination, and communication skills to present them.   Feingold,  Edwards, Gore, Obama are Dem leaders who have the potential to do this, and everything I've heard from Ned Lamont so far suggests that he can make the case as well.

To characterize Lamont as a radical lefty is facetious, and it is simply to accept what GOP propagandists want you to believe.  And that's what worries me about November.  The Dems have not figured out how to defend themselves yet from GOP propaganda and negative branding.  The polls might say that people prefer Democrats now, but come November voters in the undecided middle who determine electoral outcomes see the election as this candidate vs. that candidate, and party affiliation is not their primary consideration.

It should be because the most important issue this November should be empowerment of disempowerment of the administration. But I fear that too many people will chose individual Republicans once again, not because they like their party's policies, but because the Democrats who make the most sense are the ones who will be most energetically vilified by media pundits circumscribed by Beltway conventional wisdom,  and the GOP domesticated candidates like Clinton and Lieberman will continue to define the pundit-defined center whose main role is to empower a disaster-prone GOP.   

The point is that Democrats will not be taken seriously if they are not serious.  They will be taken seriously, not to the degree that they rubber-stamp GOP policies, but  to the degree that they fight to make the case for a sensible alternative to the current insanity that all sane Americans would repudiate if given a choice.  Until they do, the GOP remains for too many the default.
 

Housekeeping

I've been working to update the "Don't Miss" and archival lists.  If you click on "Archives" you'll be sent to a page that gives you the choice of looking at them either choronologically or by category.  I've been working to make the categories more useful, so if your interested in my pieces trying to understand what's going oin with out culture, click that button.  If you're interested in the more philosophical pieces, click "Thinking about Thinking."  And so on.

I'll probably be making some adjustments to the "Don't Miss" page, but for now I'm emphasizing some of the the essays that are more about the conceptual framework that shapes my thinking. 

Also not that I've tried to improve the feed link in the upper left hand corner.  I was having some trouble with it, but it should be ok now.  Although for some reason my most recent piece isn't up yet.

What You Won't Read in the Liberal Media

Terror Arrests Bolster Democratic Case Against Bush

Democrats seized yesterday on the arrests of terrorism suspects in England to bolster their case against the Bush administration and the GOP leadership in Congress heading into the midterm elections, arguing that the terror plot showed that the administration's homeland security policies were woefully inadequate and that the GOP-backed Iraq war was a substantial drain on military resources which are required to combat other global threats.

The developments played tidily into the hands of Democratic strategists, who noted with glee that the arrests reinforced their argument that the GOP has placed America's national security at risk by getting the U.S military bogged down in Iraq when global terrorism is on the rise elsewhere. Polls show substantial erosion in the confidence Americans place in the Republican Party on matters of national security, which has slowly become a neutral issue and possibly a winning one for Democrats. While previous polls have shown the GOP with an advantage on terror, a recent Washington Post poll found that the trend has begun to reverse. Americans now trust Democrats to handle the war on terror better than Republicans by a notable margin, the poll demonstrated.

Democrats went on the offensive yesterday, firing off statements which hammered the GOP for failing the nation on national security matters at a critical moment. “The war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war against international terrorism, or very little to do with the war on terrorism,” said James Webb, a former Reagan administration official running as a Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia. “It has distracted our attention, it has pulled our forces in, and we are now in a situation where we have 135,000 on the ground, which affects our ability to do a lot of things that we would be able to do otherwise.”

The terror arrests also roiled Connecticut politics, placing incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman on the defensive for his pro-Iraq war views just days after his stunning loss to challenger Ned Lamont underscored the extreme political peril facing those who support the Iraq war. Lamont hammered Lieberman yesterday, linking Lieberman to the Bush adminstration and faulting him for supporting Bush policies which have bogged the U.S. down in Iraq while global threats elsewhere are ascendant. “Both of them believe our invasion of Iraq has a lot to do with 9/11," Lamont said, speaking of Lieberman and Vice President Dick Cheney. "That’s a false premise.”

Meanwhile, Republicans who have been on the defensive for weeks over Iraq didn't notably change their rhetorical approach yesterday, asserting once again that Democratic calls for a phased pullout from Iraq showed that the party was weak. Many political analysts have questioned the GOP's approach, saying it is unclear whether it will be effective at a time when the public overwhelmingly says that the Iraq war was a mistake and clear majorities want to pull out of it.

This clever article by Greg Sargent parodies the neutral, savvy reportorial style found in the so-called liberal-media coverage of the administration and Beltway politics in general.  His point is that if there were really a liberal bias, this is the article we'd be reading in the NYT or WaPo.  Instead we're reading articles that reflect the conventional wisdom, as shaped by administration spin, that the foiled terrror attack in England is a boon to the GOP. Read more about it at TAP.

Update: Daily Howler (scroll down to "End Time") and Columbia Journalism Review make similar points about Time's Mike Allen's "reporting" about how the Lieberman loss has put Democrats on the defensive:

From Washington State to Missouri to Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates found themselves on the defensive Wednesday as the Republican Party worked ferociously at every level to try to use the primary defeat of Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut to portray the opposition as the party of weakness and isolation on national security and liberal leanings on domestic policy. Doleful Democrats bemoaned the irony: At a time when Republicans should be back on their heels because of chaos abroad and President Bush's unpopularity, the Democrats' rejection of a sensible, moralistic centrist has handed the GOP a weapon that could have vast ramifications for both the midterm elections of '06 and the big dance of '08.

This is Time Magazine not Fox News, and it wasn't presented as an opinion piece.  As CJR's McLeary points out:

The piece quotes a veritable Who's Who of GOP agenda-setters, with RNC chair Ken Mehlman, Vice President Cheney and White House spokesman Tony Snow (more on him later) all mouthing obviously scripted Republican talking points, as they hammer home their Fall '06 rallying cry -- that the "radical left" has hijacked the Democratic party, and that Lamont's victory can only boost the spirits of -- Osama bin Laden?

Allen seems utterly indifferent about whether these charges are true or not. He shows an utter lack of curiosity about any possible Democratic rebuttal to the Republican spin until the final paragraph, when he mockingly writes, "Trying to look on the bright side, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued a statement this morning pointing to strong turnout in the primaries and declaring that Democratic voters 'are energized.' The challenge for Dean, and his party, is to channel that energy in a direction that makes victory more likely, not less."

 

The Certainty Fetish

Our relationship to the truth becomes perverse whenever we think we possess it.  I have written before that we only truly know what we truly love, and the quality of our knowing and loving is a function of the qualities of the soul who knows and loves.  To be concerned about whether something is true or false is only significant when it comes to matters of fact, but while the realm of facts is  important, it is at the same time a very limited part of what's important in our experience.  Our subjective, qualitative experiences and judgments are ultimately what really matter.  And we never have certainty about them.

We don't say that a poem is true or false, but that it is good or bad.  And good and bad are not absolutes but relative terms.  No poem is absolutely good or absolutely bad, but the excellence of a poem is judged by an innate disposition in the human soul that knows what is good and what is not. But that innate capacity for recognizing the good can only be awakened by exposure to it; it's a capacity that has to be awakened.  And a healthy culture is one which creates the conditions in which more people wake up to what is good than stay asleep to it. 

Healthy acculturation or education is not simply about conditioning children to be well behaved, but to come alive.  And I think it's possible to evaluate the health of a culture according to what proportion of its members who are not just nice and well behaved, but enlivened by their exposure to what is deeply and truly good.  When I look at my students I see nice, bright kids for the most part, but I also see kids who have been failed by their culture. 

Few of them are awake because they live in a world designed to keep them asleep.  Most are stuck sleepwalking in what Kierkegaard called the "aesthetic" in the Stages on Life's Way.  The consumer culture and economy could not exist if it were not for the inertia that keeps us asleep in the aesthetic.  Its thriving depends on the narcosis it promotes.

And so it follows that one's capacity for goodness, either to do it or to recognize it, is a function of the degree to which one has been awakened by it. To take an example from the world of literature, one can enjoy, even prefer, entertainments like the novels of Michael Crichton and Danielle Steele to those of Dostoyevski, but there is no question that the former are inferior in quality. Dostoyevki is simply more awake, and reading him awakens in us capacities that had lain dormant before the encounter.   

And so a consensus develops among those who are themselves more or less awake about what is mediocre and what is great, what is worth reading and re-reading, and what isn’t worth even the briefest browsing.  The pairs “important and unimportant”, “deep and superficial”, “morally serious or unserious”, are more appropriate qualifiers in matters of the deepest importance to us than “true and false”.  There is no certainty about these matters; there is only wisdom or the lack of it.

True and false are judgments we make that have usefulness only in the horizontal world of fact, and to live only in a world of facts is to remain asleep.  We are alive to the degree that we are awake in the vertical world of quality, and our desire for higher quality is rooted in our longing to awaken to what is truly good. And the more awake we get, the more intense the longing, and the more intense the longing, the more frustrated we become. And too often that frustration causes one to possess what he cannot, and that's when all the trouble begins. We either settle for possessing what is not really worth much--scientific fact.  Or we pretend that we own a truth that we don't--fundamentalism.  Or we decide that the whole business is impossible--skepticism.   

Because we cannot possess something we long for doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.  The more we grasp at it, the more it eludes us. True goodness is rather shy and will only show itself to those who want gently to enter into a relationship with it.  It is something that reveals itself as a subject, not an object.  It is something ultimately known only intersubjectively.  It can only be loved, and as anything or anyone who is truly worthy of our love is shrouded in mystery that eludes our grasp, so is anything worth knowing.  And we kill what we long to know when the compulsion to possess or control it enters into our relationship with it.  It's the story of the goose that lays the golden eggs told over and over. In the end, we possess the carcase of a dead bird, but no longer the mystery of its gifts. 

The choice between a rationalist skepticism and a fideist fundamentalism or dogmatism is a false choice.  Although the most important things cannot be known with certainty does not mean that we cannot know them.   But fundamentalism and dogmatism are not a form of knowing or really even of true believing. Certainty is way over-rated, but skepticism isn’t the only alternative to it.  Theology and Philosophy serve us best if we think about them as a kind of poetry. There is something objective there; there is something profound to which both scripture and dogma point, but to approach it in any way other than as one approaches a great poem leads to bigger problems than anyone inclined that way thinks he’s solving. 

As great poets reveal what is deep and true as expressions of their intuitions and their skill in using language to give some utterance to their moments of insight, so does any philosophy or theology that is worth reading.  And I would also argue the same is true for the sacred scriptures of any tradition.  These texts are important not for what they are in themselves, but in what they point to.  And their importance can be judged by their relative success in awakening its reader to dormant depths that lie within him. 

The text itself is but the product of a feeble attempt by a writer to articulate a pre-rational insight to which he has awakened to and which he seeks to share as best he’s able with others.  But as no one thinks of a poem or even the body of a poet’s work as some kind of possessable truth, so neither should we take the work of any philosophy or sacred text.  We need to approach them as lovers--shyly, gently, always with reverence.  Let them reveal their secrets to you gradually.

(In an earlier version of this post I had several paragraphs about "Nietzsche and the culture-wide Dark Night of the Senses."  It made this essay too long, and I'll develop it another time. )

Lieberman's Loss

Lamont’s victory isn’t just a win for the antiwar wing of the party. It’s a victory for Americans who fear the recklessness of the Bush administration, who feel the wheels are falling off the truck, and who want Democrats to fix it. Mainstream Democrats who can’t see that political reality are a threat to the party. The demonizing of Lamont voters and their lefty blogger-backers by some Beltway voices, including Beltway Democrats – based mainly on the words of anonymous posters in comments threads, by the way, Lanny Davis – is far worse for Democratic prospects than the random excesses of the antiwar left. Imagine a GOP in which Karl Rove penned op-eds in the New York Times savaging the Christian right. The notion that Lamont supporters are somehow “destroying the center” or killing bipartisanism is fiction; Bush did that. Lieberman is suffering the consequences.  Joan Walsh at Salon

I don't know that there is more worth saying than that.  I'm glad Lieberman lost, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory for Lamont tonight if he loses in November.  What matters most to me is working toward taking the majorities away from the GOP in both houses.