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| 1. Sunday, December 10, 2006 2:39 PM |
| nuart |
Seeds of Intellectual Destruction |
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I liked this article. It was sent to me via email by two different people I respect immensely before I got the chance to read it. I have sent it along to others and now to the Gazette. With love. Susan December 08, 2006 Seeds of Intellectual Destruction By J.R. Dunn
It's always amazed me how quickly the American left managed to twist the 9/11 attacks into a club with which to beat their own country. I recall watching the smoke from the towers late in the day, exhausted from stress and emotions I could scarcely identify, and thinking, "They'll never be able to defile this." It was the end of the postwar flirtation with apostasy, I thought, the end of political frivolity, the birth of a new kind of patriotism, one annealed by fire, one that would become part of framework of the country, one that would last.
Well - they proved me wrong. True, for a few days they kept quiet, scattering like roaches when caught in the public spotlight mouthing the old slogans. Michael Moore was forced to back up quickly after his first remarks, and there was that aide to Willie Brown ("What did you do, America?") never heard of before or since, and of course, Noam Chomsky, pleading that we "enter the minds" of Mohammed Atta and company, but apart from that, most of them kept their counsel. For a while, it really seemed that things had changed.
But after what in retrospect appears to be a pitifully short period, they were back, and in force, and they have never retreated since. Contrary to consensus belief, it didn't begin with Iraq. It began with Afghanistan, starting only a month after the attacks, and built up from there. Moore, the Dixie Chicks, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Durbin, Murtha... The list could go on for page after page, all of them speaking in identical terms, all repeating the same code words - Halliburton, blood for oil, Abu Ghraib - all tearing into their country in a fashion unseen even in the Vietnam era.
And where the trendsetters have led, the public has followed. If the polls can be trusted (a bit of a leap, it's true) something like over half the American people believe that the War on Terror, far from being a response to an unprovoked and atrocious attack, is a war of aggression fought on behalf on industrial capitalism in the form of George W's oil buddies.
This is not a natural response. Countries fighting legitimate defensive wars don't suffer this kind of erosion of public support in the midst of hostilities. Particularly as involves a war that began with an atrocity committed against fellow countrymen, an atrocity that could be (and eventually will be) repeated at any time. Such a reaction should not have occurred.
The reason it happened this time was the result of fifty years of conditioning that any and all American activities overseas, whether diplomatic, commercial, or military, are fundamentally illegitimate. American wars, no matter what their cause or nature, are viewed through the same prism, one created on the left for the purpose of undermining the country's commitment to the Cold War, but useful in any context. Call it the "Imperial" or "Hegemonist" doctrine. Simply put, it holds that no American war (and little in the way of any interaction on the international level) is ever justified. All such ventures are wars of imperialist aggression, commonly carried out against helpless innocents in defiance of the wishes of the American people (at least the true American people - that is, left-wing Democrats), on behalf of secretive, sinister interest groups.
Unlike most left-wing doctrines, this one is not a European import but fully home-grown. It was incubated in the universities, developing over several decades in response to U.S. efforts against the Soviet Union. Like any such doctrine it was the product of many hands over a considerable period. But for our purposes, two of the major figures, C. Wright Mills and William Appleman Williams, will serve as examples. Williams was a revisionist historian based for many years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, one of the nation's premier radical campuses. His field was American diplomatic history. In works such as The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1958) and Roots of the Modern American Empire (1969) Williams depicted the U.S. as an imperial state basing its policies on relentless economic expansion and distracting the masses with a series of overseas military adventures. The Cold War, according to this view, was instigated by the U.S. to protect its markets, with the Soviets as much victims as perpetrators. It comes as no surprise to discover that Williams is Gore Vidal's favorite historian. (Ironically, Williams was eventually driven from Madison by the activities of the very New Leftists he'd done so much to influence.)
C. Wright Mills was a sociologist specializing in the study of elites. His major thesis was presented in a book titled The Power Elite (1956), in which he contended that the U.S. was run by a political, military, and corporate ruling class that shared the same concepts and goals and had converted the U.S. to a "permanent war economy". The mass of citizens, as described in an earlier work, White Collar (1951), were effectively mindless androids bullied and channeled by the bureaucracy. Mills later turned to the international arena in the book Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba (1960), one of the earliest works written in support of Castro.
Though by no means bestsellers, Williams' and Mills' books were widely read in the academic world, by both faculty and students (I recall as a young child seeing paperback editions floating around during the 60s). They were influential far beyond the number of copies printed - the kind of books that are talked about much more widely than they are read. They were further popularized by various acolytes such as Lloyd Gardner, Walter LaFeber, and Howard Zinn in the academic world, and Tom Hayden (who wrote the most recent biography of Mills) and George McGovern in the political sphere.
Their first vector of influence was the New Left. The Port Huron Statement of 1962, usually regarded as the movement's foundation document, is steeped in the ideas of Williams and Mills. From there the Students for a Democratic Society, which had branches and offshoots across the country, spread them throughout the higher educational system. In the hothouse atmosphere of the 60s, and with the impetus of the Vietnam War, the hegemonist doctrine became the standard model for evaluating U.S. policies. The New Left grew into The Movement, encompassing tens of thousands of students, academics, and hangers-on and dedicated to shutting down the war using whatever means came to hand. Hegemonism, holding that the United States was effectively a force of evil with nothing humane to be expected of it, comprised a basic tenet of the counterculture. The potency of the doctrine rose not from any innate theoretical brilliance or predictive power, but from the fact that it embodied a number of impulses (usually involving petty resentments) as old as human nature itself. The notion that some vague "they" - usually identified with politicians and industrialists -- were running things for their own benefit. That "they" had it in for the little man. That wars were good for business. That such cynicism meant one was in the know, and couldn't be fooled. It was a doctrine that appealed to fundamental human failings - hatred, envy, smugness, and paranoia.
A doctrine based on such elements has a very strong foundation, and hegemonism did not fail the New Left. Incompetent execution along with a complete inability to articulate its aims left the Johnson Administration with no public support for the war effort. The New Left swept in to fill the vacuum.
By the late 60s, hegemonist doctrine was stripped of any academic or intellectual pretensions whatsoever, becoming little more than a set of slogans. But as Cardinal Newman once said, "Men will die for a slogan who will not stir for a conclusion." And while very few died, The Movement succeeded in infecting the middle class with its own mix of paranoia and defeatism, shutting down American participation in Southeast Asia just as the South Vietnamese were beginning to find their feet. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were thrown to the wolves, the Movement collected a pair of presidential scalps in the persons of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, and then moved on toward broader horizons. Hegemonism became institutionalized in the Democratic Party when the New Left effectively took over during the McGovern campaign of 1972. Politicians espousing the doctrine, among them Hayden, Ron Dellums, Frank Church, and culminating at last with Jimmy Carter, became the new face of the party. At the same time, the doctrine infiltrated a number of other institutions, including the news media, the entertainment industry, the unions, and much of the governmental bureaucracy. By the mid-70s it was the currency, having replaced the earlier consensus view of the United States as a unique nation standing aloof from the sleazy operations of older states while willing to lend a hand to emergent or established democracies. The thesis of the United States as predator, as an international outlaw state whose every action was suspect, had become the operating worldview of the educated American public.
But the doctrine failed in its primary aim, that of wrecking American efforts in the Cold War. By the time the 80s began, hegemonism was beginning to look a little ragged around the edges - it's hard to lend conviction to a theory that the U.S. is the source of all international evil when the world insists on rolling noisily down the road to Hell despite American hands being tied. The ascension of Ronald Reagan put a temporary quietus to the concept. Reagan's traditional view of the United States, his simple faith and confidence in its destiny, galvinized support from the vast and often ignored masses of middle America. His success in rolling back and at last cracking the facade of the Marxist tyrannies undercut the entire basis of the domestic left-wing program.
There seemed to be no point - and no future - for the hegemonic doctrine in the afterglow of 1989 and the prosperous, relatively quiet 1990s. It appeared to be as obsolete as brinksmanship, detente, Mutual Assured Destruction, and other concepts derived from the Cold War, for all that, a pair of true believers were running the White House for most of the decade.
But no ideological construct dies before its time. Hegemonism was kept alive by people like Noam Chomsky in his endless series of books and pamphlets, Howard Zinn, whose "People's History of the United States" is the standard classroom history, and Oliver Stone's paranoid cinematic fantasies. It remained a central concept of the entertainment world and the media, was encysted within the Democratic Party, and acted as the motivating force of the anarcho-syndicalist anti-globalism movement.
When the towers came down and the U.S. went on war footing, it emerged intact and complete in every detail, as if it had never lain dormant. It has set the terms of the argument since late 2001 - unspoken, unacknowledged, and undebated. The conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, with their faceless mass murderers manipulating a cooperative military and intelligence sector, are purely hegemonist. So is the entire effort to undermine the Iraq War, with the endless echoes of Blood for Oil, accusations against Halliburton, and attacks on "neocons" by people who have no idea what neoconservatism is or could name a single one of its tenets.
The Iraq War was a godsend for the American left, something they'd have had to invent if it hadn't happened on its own. It allowed the entire War on Terror to be chopped and fit into the already existing intellectual template, enabled all the old slogans to be revived, all the dusty concepts to be trotted out anew. It has turned the overall war, one of the most justified conflicts in this country's history, a belated defensive response against an ugly and murderous enemy, into the traditional shadow play of murderous military officers, bloody-handed CIA operatives, and cackling businessmen, all overseen by a bulging-browed Karl Rove, operating from some Goldfingeresque headquarters buried far beneath the Crawford ranch. The result is a nation slowly edging toward the same paralysis that afflicted it during the 1970s.
The U.S. remains the world's hyperpower. We have no blatant military weaknesses, our economy is sound, our political system more solid than any in the world. (As was proven last month, where a contentious wartime election overturned the status quo without a shot being fired or a jackboot being stamped. So much for the Bushitler thesis.) We are the foremost element in any contemporary nation-state's international calculations, friendly or hostile. We (and not the UN, God forbid) are the nation everyone turns to when things go wrong.
Our fatal flaw involves our national will, our apparent inability to take on any necessary task, however lengthy, dirty or unpromising, and finish it satisfactorily. Our enemies have noted this and target it as a matter of course. Our friends - to perhaps stretch a term - have learned to manipulate it to their advantage.
As we have seen, this is no natural turn of events. There is nothing inevitable or unavoidable about it. It is entirely synthetic, the byproduct of an effort by our intellectual elite to serve an ideology now long dead. Our belief in ourselves as a nation, in our role and mission on the international stage, has been undermined for fifty years and more. There is not a level of society, from day laborer to corporate CEO, who has not been touched by this dogma. Not a single institution (with the professional military perhaps excepted) has been unaffected.
There are politicians now serving in Congress, intelligence agents investigating overseas threats, diplomats working in embassies, bureaucrats handling the day-to-day business of the government, who fully believe that the country they serve is a criminal enterprise. And this is not even to mention the millions of students, professionals, housewives, officials, clergymen, and citizens of all types who labor under the idea that their country is an international tumor worthy only of defeat and punishment, because they have never heard it argued otherwise. The United States, the most powerful nation in the memory of man, is proving unable to correct a situation that led to the greatest crime ever committed against its citizens because of the doubts and anxieties engendered by this empty dogma.
And it is empty. The hegemonist thesis was worked out for one purpose. Not for reform -- no serious reform has ever been associated with it. Not for political guidance -- it leads nowhere. Not for enlightenment - it was designed to blind and confuse. It was intended solely to toss a wrench into American efforts against the Soviet Union. A short glance across the international landscape will reveal that no such entity now exists. The USSR is dead and gone and no one possessing a soul regrets that fact. Instead we are confronted by something else - something unforeseen and unimagined by the intellectuals who engendered the doctrine of the U.S. as monster state.
Hegemonist doctrine has no place in it for phenomena like Al-Quaeda and the Jihadists. There is no way to fit them into the theory, because to acknowledge that a tangible, undeniable threat exists is to negate every other element of the thesis. So they are ignored. No solution is offered, no suggestions are made. They are simply pushed aside as irrelevant. The doctrine that underlies all opposition to American policies in the War on Terror has absolutely nothing to say about the forces that triggered the war, forces that have already attacked two American cities and have promised to return.
It follows that hegemonist doctrine has no meaning in the 21st century - but on it goes, like a rogue missile that has missed its target and now traces an unguided trajectory, tearing a swath across the national psyche, derailing our sense of purpose by the very fact that it exists.
And that's yet another reason why it's going to be a long, long war.
J.R. Dunn is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.
“Half a truth is often a great lie.” Ben Franklin
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| 2. Sunday, December 10, 2006 5:30 PM |
| JVSCant |
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And that's another difference between liberalism and conservatism: it's never amazed me how quickly the American right managed to twist the 9/11 attacks into a club with which to beat their own country... But then you've heard me tell that story once or twice, haven't you Susan? :)
 
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| 3. Sunday, December 10, 2006 5:31 PM |
| nuart |
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And therein lies the clarity of difference in world views, my dear Jamie. One time freaky anomoly at its worst a criminal matter vs. loosely connected international Islamic network committed to destroying the West.
Susan
“Half a truth is often a great lie.” Ben Franklin
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| 4. Sunday, December 10, 2006 10:13 PM |
| John Neff |
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Wow, that article is the truth. It's hard to believe that this Iraq war has lasted longer than WWII (for us), with such an indecisive position. I know we should not have invaded Iraq, but once there, we should have decisively dealt with the internal situation, which instead has dragged us to the edge of despair and delusion. And Iraq to the edge of destruction... Still, I believe that we ought to get out of there not with our tail between our legs, but with a firm Iraqi government in place, able to determine its own future.
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| 5. Monday, December 11, 2006 11:58 AM |
| nuart |
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I'm glad you enjoyed it, John. I sent it out to a couple of my former comrades and got in return the essence of... Lies! Evil! Forces! Savage! Primitive ignoramuses! Poisonous hate! Bush is a criminal monkey. Primitive too. Not rational (like some). Murdering criminal chimp crook. Hasn't evolved (like some people have) to seeing the Big Picture. Others are too caught up in the rapture of the Theocratic Fascists. They're stoopid too. Stoopid liars who revile edukashun. Reactionaries who hate now-ledg. ...and I shudder at the rage while chuckling at being to so easily elicit such a reaction. Snicker softly. Susan
“Half a truth is often a great lie.” Ben Franklin
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| 6. Tuesday, December 12, 2006 2:49 AM |
| RazorBlade |
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| QUOTE: I liked this article. It was sent to me via email by two different people I respect immensely before I got the chance to read it. I have sent it along to others and now to the Gazette. With love. Susan December 08, 2006 Seeds of Intellectual DestructionBy J.R. Dunn
It's always amazed me how quickly the American left managed to twist the 9/11 attacks into a club with which to beat their own country. I recall watching the smoke from the towers late in the day, exhausted from stress and emotions I could scarcely identify, and thinking, "They'll never be able to defile this." It was the end of the postwar flirtation with apostasy, I thought, the end of political frivolity, the birth of a new kind of patriotism, one annealed by fire, one that would become part of framework of the country, one that would last.
Well - they proved me wrong. True, for a few days they kept quiet, scattering like roaches when caught in the public spotlight mouthing the old slogans. Michael Moore was forced to back up quickly after his first remarks, and there was that aide to Willie Brown ("What did you do, America?") never heard of before or since, and of course, Noam Chomsky, pleading that we "enter the minds" of Mohammed Atta and company, but apart from that, most of them kept their counsel. For a while, it really seemed that things had changed.
But after what in retrospect appears to be a pitifully short period, they were back, and in force, and they have never retreated since. Contrary to consensus belief, it didn't begin with Iraq. It began with Afghanistan, starting only a month after the attacks, and built up from there. Moore, the Dixie Chicks, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Durbin, Murtha... The list could go on for page after page, all of them speaking in identical terms, all repeating the same code words - Halliburton, blood for oil, Abu Ghraib - all tearing into their country in a fashion unseen even in the Vietnam era.
And where the trendsetters have led, the public has followed. If the polls can be trusted (a bit of a leap, it's true) something like over half the American people believe that the War on Terror, far from being a response to an unprovoked and atrocious attack, is a war of aggression fought on behalf on industrial capitalism in the form of George W's oil buddies.
This is not a natural response. Countries fighting legitimate defensive wars don't suffer this kind of erosion of public support in the midst of hostilities. Particularly as involves a war that began with an atrocity committed against fellow countrymen, an atrocity that could be (and eventually will be) repeated at any time. Such a reaction should not have occurred.
The reason it happened this time was the result of fifty years of conditioning that any and all American activities overseas, whether diplomatic, commercial, or military, are fundamentally illegitimate. American wars, no matter what their cause or nature, are viewed through the same prism, one created on the left for the purpose of undermining the country's commitment to the Cold War, but useful in any context. Call it the "Imperial" or "Hegemonist" doctrine. Simply put, it holds that no American war (and little in the way of any interaction on the international level) is ever justified. All such ventures are wars of imperialist aggression, commonly carried out against helpless innocents in defiance of the wishes of the American people (at least the true American people - that is, left-wing Democrats), on behalf of secretive, sinister interest groups.
Unlike most left-wing doctrines, this one is not a European import but fully home-grown. It was incubated in the universities, developing over several decades in response to U.S. efforts against the Soviet Union. Like any such doctrine it was the product of many hands over a considerable period. But for our purposes, two of the major figures, C. Wright Mills and William Appleman Williams, will serve as examples. Williams was a revisionist historian based for many years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, one of the nation's premier radical campuses. His field was American diplomatic history. In works such as The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1958) and Roots of the Modern American Empire (1969) Williams depicted the U.S. as an imperial state basing its policies on relentless economic expansion and distracting the masses with a series of overseas military adventures. The Cold War, according to this view, was instigated by the U.S. to protect its markets, with the Soviets as much victims as perpetrators. It comes as no surprise to discover that Williams is Gore Vidal's favorite historian. (Ironically, Williams was eventually driven from Madison by the activities of the very New Leftists he'd done so much to influence.)
C. Wright Mills was a sociologist specializing in the study of elites. His major thesis was presented in a book titled The Power Elite (1956), in which he contended that the U.S. was run by a political, military, and corporate ruling class that shared the same concepts and goals and had converted the U.S. to a "permanent war economy". The mass of citizens, as described in an earlier work, White Collar (1951), were effectively mindless androids bullied and channeled by the bureaucracy. Mills later turned to the international arena in the book Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba (1960), one of the earliest works written in support of Castro.
Though by no means bestsellers, Williams' and Mills' books were widely read in the academic world, by both faculty and students (I recall as a young child seeing paperback editions floating around during the 60s). They were influential far beyond the number of copies printed - the kind of books that are talked about much more widely than they are read. They were further popularized by various acolytes such as Lloyd Gardner, Walter LaFeber, and Howard Zinn in the academic world, and Tom Hayden (who wrote the most recent biography of Mills) and George McGovern in the political sphere.
Their first vector of influence was the New Left. The Port Huron Statement of 1962, usually regarded as the movement's foundation document, is steeped in the ideas of Williams and Mills. From there the Students for a Democratic Society, which had branches and offshoots across the country, spread them throughout the higher educational system. In the hothouse atmosphere of the 60s, and with the impetus of the Vietnam War, the hegemonist doctrine became the standard model for evaluating U.S. policies. The New Left grew into The Movement, encompassing tens of thousands of students, academics, and hangers-on and dedicated to shutting down the war using whatever means came to hand. Hegemonism, holding that the United States was effectively a force of evil with nothing humane to be expected of it, comprised a basic tenet of the counterculture. The potency of the doctrine rose not from any innate theoretical brilliance or predictive power, but from the fact that it embodied a number of impulses (usually involving petty resentments) as old as human nature itself. The notion that some vague "they" - usually identified with politicians and industrialists -- were running things for their own benefit. That "they" had it in for the little man. That wars were good for business. That such cynicism meant one was in the know, and couldn't be fooled. It was a doctrine that appealed to fundamental human failings - hatred, envy, smugness, and paranoia.
A doctrine based on such elements has a very strong foundation, and hegemonism did not fail the New Left. Incompetent execution along with a complete inability to articulate its aims left the Johnson Administration with no public support for the war effort. The New Left swept in to fill the vacuum.
By the late 60s, hegemonist doctrine was stripped of any academic or intellectual pretensions whatsoever, becoming little more than a set of slogans. But as Cardinal Newman once said, "Men will die for a slogan who will not stir for a conclusion." And while very few died, The Movement succeeded in infecting the middle class with its own mix of paranoia and defeatism, shutting down American participation in Southeast Asia just as the South Vietnamese were beginning to find their feet. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were thrown to the wolves, the Movement collected a pair of presidential scalps in the persons of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, and then moved on toward broader horizons. Hegemonism became institutionalized in the Democratic Party when the New Left effectively took over during the McGovern campaign of 1972. Politicians espousing the doctrine, among them Hayden, Ron Dellums, Frank Church, and culminating at last with Jimmy Carter, became the new face of the party. At the same time, the doctrine infiltrated a number of other institutions, including the news media, the entertainment industry, the unions, and much of the governmental bureaucracy. By the mid-70s it was the currency, having replaced the earlier consensus view of the United States as a unique nation standing aloof from the sleazy operations of older states while willing to lend a hand to emergent or established democracies. The thesis of the United States as predator, as an international outlaw state whose every action was suspect, had become the operating worldview of the educated American public.
But the doctrine failed in its primary aim, that of wrecking American efforts in the Cold War. By the time the 80s began, hegemonism was beginning to look a little ragged around the edges - it's hard to lend conviction to a theory that the U.S. is the source of all international evil when the world insists on rolling noisily down the road to Hell despite American hands being tied. The ascension of Ronald Reagan put a temporary quietus to the concept. Reagan's traditional view of the United States, his simple faith and confidence in its destiny, galvinized support from the vast and often ignored masses of middle America. His success in rolling back and at last cracking the facade of the Marxist tyrannies undercut the entire basis of the domestic left-wing program.
There seemed to be no point - and no future - for the hegemonic doctrine in the afterglow of 1989 and the prosperous, relatively quiet 1990s. It appeared to be as obsolete as brinksmanship, detente, Mutual Assured Destruction, and other concepts derived from the Cold War, for all that, a pair of true believers were running the White House for most of the decade.
But no ideological construct dies before its time. Hegemonism was kept alive by people like Noam Chomsky in his endless series of books and pamphlets, Howard Zinn, whose "People's History of the United States" is the standard classroom history, and Oliver Stone's paranoid cinematic fantasies. It remained a central concept of the entertainment world and the media, was encysted within the Democratic Party, and acted as the motivating force of the anarcho-syndicalist anti-globalism movement.
When the towers came down and the U.S. went on war footing, it emerged intact and complete in every detail, as if it had never lain dormant. It has set the terms of the argument since late 2001 - unspoken, unacknowledged, and undebated. The conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, with their faceless mass murderers manipulating a cooperative military and intelligence sector, are purely hegemonist. So is the entire effort to undermine the Iraq War, with the endless echoes of Blood for Oil, accusations against Halliburton, and attacks on "neocons" by people who have no idea what neoconservatism is or could name a single one of its tenets.
The Iraq War was a godsend for the American left, something they'd have had to invent if it hadn't happened on its own. It allowed the entire War on Terror to be chopped and fit into the already existing intellectual template, enabled all the old slogans to be revived, all the dusty concepts to be trotted out anew. It has turned the overall war, one of the most justified conflicts in this country's history, a belated defensive response against an ugly and murderous enemy, into the traditional shadow play of murderous military officers, bloody-handed CIA operatives, and cackling businessmen, all overseen by a bulging-browed Karl Rove, operating from some Goldfingeresque headquarters buried far beneath the Crawford ranch. The result is a nation slowly edging toward the same paralysis that afflicted it during the 1970s.
The U.S. remains the world's hyperpower. We have no blatant military weaknesses, our economy is sound, our political system more solid than any in the world. (As was proven last month, where a contentious wartime election overturned the status quo without a shot being fired or a jackboot being stamped. So much for the Bushitler thesis.) We are the foremost element in any contemporary nation-state's international calculations, friendly or hostile. We (and not the UN, God forbid) are the nation everyone turns to when things go wrong.
Our fatal flaw involves our national will, our apparent inability to take on any necessary task, however lengthy, dirty or unpromising, and finish it satisfactorily. Our enemies have noted this and target it as a matter of course. Our friends - to perhaps stretch a term - have learned to manipulate it to their advantage.
As we have seen, this is no natural turn of events. There is nothing inevitable or unavoidable about it. It is entirely synthetic, the byproduct of an effort by our intellectual elite to serve an ideology now long dead. Our belief in ourselves as a nation, in our role and mission on the international stage, has been undermined for fifty years and more. There is not a level of society, from day laborer to corporate CEO, who has not been touched by this dogma. Not a single institution (with the professional military perhaps excepted) has been unaffected.
There are politicians now serving in Congress, intelligence agents investigating overseas threats, diplomats working in embassies, bureaucrats handling the day-to-day business of the government, who fully believe that the country they serve is a criminal enterprise. And this is not even to mention the millions of students, professionals, housewives, officials, clergymen, and citizens of all types who labor under the idea that their country is an international tumor worthy only of defeat and punishment, because they have never heard it argued otherwise. The United States, the most powerful nation in the memory of man, is proving unable to correct a situation that led to the greatest crime ever committed against its citizens because of the doubts and anxieties engendered by this empty dogma.
And it is empty. The hegemonist thesis was worked out for one purpose. Not for reform -- no serious reform has ever been associated with it. Not for political guidance -- it leads nowhere. Not for enlightenment - it was designed to blind and confuse. It was intended solely to toss a wrench into American efforts against the Soviet Union. A short glance across the international landscape will reveal that no such entity now exists. The USSR is dead and gone and no one possessing a soul regrets that fact. Instead we are confronted by something else - something unforeseen and unimagined by the intellectuals who engendered the doctrine of the U.S. as monster state.
Hegemonist doctrine has no place in it for phenomena like Al-Quaeda and the Jihadists. There is no way to fit them into the theory, because to acknowledge that a tangible, undeniable threat exists is to negate every other element of the thesis. So they are ignored. No solution is offered, no suggestions are made. They are simply pushed aside as irrelevant. The doctrine that underlies all opposition to American policies in the War on Terror has absolutely nothing to say about the forces that triggered the war, forces that have already attacked two American cities and have promised to return.
It follows that hegemonist doctrine has no meaning in the 21st century - but on it goes, like a rogue missile that has missed its target and now traces an unguided trajectory, tearing a swath across the national psyche, derailing our sense of purpose by the very fact that it exists.
And that's yet another reason why it's going to be a long, long war.
J.R. Dunn is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.
|
Bushitter thesis? Another example of the CHM. The whole article. I'm a liberal and I don't blame America first. I don't blame America last, but I don't always blame her 1st. Most of my liberal friends don't either. I don't agree with the few nut jobs who do. I don't agree with everything that comes out of the American Left's mouth. I abore Political Correctiness to the point you would think I was Rush Limbaugh's drinking buddy. I'm not, btw, I'm not into the pills the way he is. But I digress. This article and the author's arguments are rubbish. But that's all.
We kissed Buffy. I may be love's bitch but I'm man enough to admit it.
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| 7. Tuesday, December 12, 2006 8:24 AM |
| jordan |
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So the whole article is wrong because you and your liberal friends don't blame America first for most things? thanks for the anecdotal proof.
Jordan .
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| 8. Tuesday, December 12, 2006 9:43 AM |
| nuart |
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Hmmm, I'm wondering who it is that supercedes America in those cases where America isn't blamed second? UK? Israel? Australia? Or maybe Canada??? Sorry, Razor, but that was a completely inadequate explanation. Your use or disuse of alcohol and/or pills notwithstanding. Care to be more specific? Susan
“Half a truth is often a great lie.” Ben Franklin
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| 9. Wednesday, December 13, 2006 1:26 AM |
| RazorBlade |
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Jordan and Susan you are both correct when you indicate that I could be clearer. My apologies. I work at night, frequently get interrupted when I try to write, well enough... I should say that the article is an example of the CMH. There are so many outlandish allegations made toward "The Left" that is it hard to counter everyone. So I will stick with examples. "The U.S. remains the world's hyperpower." Most folks around these parts say Superpower. "We have no blatant military weaknesses-" our generals say it will take 4 to 6 years to recover and reequipt after Iraq. "-our economy is sound," let's see, median income for the middle class has fallen every year for the past 6 years, our currency is losing value around the world, the Federal debt is climbing at record levels- sing along everyone, you know this song. "-our political system more solid than any in the world." Really? Doesn't the government interferrence in the personal lives of citizens qualify for a lack of solidarity? Our government tells us what to watch on TV and the movies by threatening to fine prodcos over content. Our government tells us if we can live (no abortions, no euthenasia, no pulling the plug on coma victims) or die (go to war, state excecutions). We are told who we can marry. Or not. There are other examples but a government that is so controlling can't be stable. "So much for the Bushitler thesis." What did that have to do with what the aurthor just said? "We (and not the UN, God forbid) are the nation everyone turns to when things go wrong." Yeah, speaking of blaming America first. As for blaming America for anything. We are a Superpower. We are made up of very lovely yet flawed people living in a spiritually corrupt world. We didn't become a Superpower by playing nice or by being a bunch of Boy Scouts. I don't think we get very far by sugar coating what we, as America have done in the past. We have destroyed the enviroment, expoited the workers, kidnapped Africans, made them slaves and nuked a bunch of very lovely yet flawed people living on the other side of our spiritually corrupt world. That's just a start. Maybe I'm not so much a liberal as a realist who longs to see the best brought out in us. I'm not so sure the views made by this author quoted above is going to help us bring out the best in ourselves.
We kissed Buffy. I may be love's bitch but I'm man enough to admit it.
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| 10. Wednesday, December 13, 2006 8:20 AM |
| jordan |
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Let's take it piece by piece: - "We have no blatant military weaknesses-" our generals say it will take 4 to 6 years to recover and reequipt after Iraq. Well, yeah, but that wouldn't be a blatant military weakness when you compare our military to the rest of the world. It IS a weakness but in comparison to others, it's not (except maybe for China). Plus it probably won't take that long in the end.
- "-our economy is sound," let's see, median income for the middle class has fallen every year for the past 6 years, our currency is losing value around the world, the Federal debt is climbing at record levels- sing along everyone, you know this song.
Median income for the middle class has fallen but that is because more families are better off, according to this article. Federal debt and the dollar losing value go hand-in-hand. It's time we start cutting ALL programs across the board in an effort to curb spending and bring down our debt and improve the dollar. True conservatives have been screaming for that for years from the current administration and the now dead GOP Congress. As the past handful of years proves, there's more than on way to increase federal revenue, and it ain't by raising taxes. - "-our political system more solid than any in the world." Really? Doesn't the government interferrence in the personal lives of citizens qualify for a lack of solidarity? Our government tells us what to watch on TV and the movies by threatening to fine prodcos over content. Our government tells us if we can live (no abortions, no euthenasia, no pulling the plug on coma victims) or die (go to war, state excecutions). We are told who we can marry. Or not. There are other examples but a government that is so controlling can't be stable. Laws made by the US govt back when radio started determined that the airwaves are public. And because they are public adn accessible by all, the govt determined that some controls needed to be made on the public airwaves. Cable and satellite do not fall under this because they aren't in the public airwaves. If you the govt to change this concept then govt must first take away the notion that public airwaves are public. You listed all of the "conservative" evils, but what about the liberal controls? Smoking bans? Telling businesses if they can or can't allow smoking? Taking away your property for tax dollars in the name of progress? Increase tax rates which control people because they have to work multiple jobs and can't spend as much? For every evil Conservative item, I could list you evil Liberal ones too. Actually, the govt also tells us that we can live or kill (having abortions) - that's what choice is. It's perfectly okay to pull the plug on coma victims - they do it all the time. It's up to the family to decide. The problem with the SINGLE MEDIA instance you are referring to is that there was a discrepency on what the coma victim wanted. My wife works in the hospital - there are pelnty of times in which she is the room and the family decides to pull the plug. Govt is not determining anything there. US govt has been telling Americans who they can and can't marry for years....ever hear how Utah got into the union?
- "So much for the Bushitler thesis." What did that have to do with what the aurthor just said? A "Hitler" type leader would stop the Congressional change from GOP to Democrat. Not a single shot was fired in November and the transition in the US is peaceful. This is more than we can say in some govts - like Mexico for example which got into fist fights on their congressional floor. This is also his example as to why US govt is strong - we can have peaceful govt transitions. This is actually a rarity in the history of the world - most govt transitions were usually surrounded with shots being fired. Only in recent Western Civilization History has this changed.
- "We (and not the UN, God forbid) are the nation everyone turns to when things go wrong." Yeah, speaking of blaming America first. That's true. The US is always looked at first. Kosovo - why couldn't Europe had handled that themselves? No, instead the US had to be involved for "humanitarian" reasons. And then when things go wrong (years later even), the US is viewed as the "real" problem. The Middle East for example. We heard if the Us would stop supporting Israel, or getting involved in ME affairs, then we wouldn't be hated as much. It was the US fault for creating terrorist groups, etc. Same song, different tune.
- We are made up of very lovely yet flawed people living in a spiritually corrupt world. We didn't become a Superpower by playing nice or by being a bunch of Boy Scouts. I don't think we get very far by sugar coating what we, as America have done in the past. We have destroyed the enviroment, expoited the workers, kidnapped Africans, made them slaves and nuked a bunch of very lovely yet flawed people living on the other side of our spiritually corrupt world. Yes, there's no dout we are a spiritually corrupt world. I think this may be the first thing I agree with you on. No, we didn't become a superpower by playing nice, but we also became a superpower because of capitalism and the striving for prosperity and much more. But let us not forget that it was only after WWI and even II that we because the superpower. There was over 100 years in which we were just barely making it. Once the world dealt with Germany and Japan, it gave the US the ability to push forward and become a superpower in the 50s and 60s. We've not been a superpower for that long. EVERYONE has destroyed the environment. Not just the US. In fact right now, India and China are destroying the environment more than the US. Furthermore, the UN just releaed a report taht shows that CATTLE ARE POLLUTING AND DSTROYING OUR ENVIRONMENT MORE THAN CARS BY THEIR FARTS!!!! So in other words, earth is destroying itself. Africans kidnapped Africans. Europeans kidnapped Africans. Americans kidnapped Africans. It was wrong, but let's at least put "kidnapped Africans" in its proper context of what was happening between the 1600s and 1800s. At the beginning of the US' birth there was a discussion about slavery and banning it from the get-go. Measures were put in place to help limit slavery (that's why the north didn't have slaves) and then it got to a point where the US wouldn't allow states to join the Union if it was a slave state. The US was not the first coutnry in the Western Hemisphere to outlaw slavery but we weren't far behind. And we may have done it sooner if it hadn't been for the Supreme Court deciding in the 1850s that slaves were actually property (one of the worst rulings in US history).
Jordan .
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| 11. Wednesday, December 13, 2006 10:53 AM |
| nuart |
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Valiant attempt to deal with each point, Jordan. I'm just sticking with my compassionate conservative stance -- or as I like to call it, my "CCS!" -- and giving the benefit of a doubt. Maybe it was one of those late nights with interruptions aplenty. Surely there's some good reason for the seeming incoherence. Then there was the neglected matter of which countries are blamed first by your basic leftist when/if it's not the US? I take from what sense I could make of your words, RB, that you believe the laser beam criticism by left-leaning citizens is what keeps the lovely flawed Americans on their toes, striving to improve. Ah, but the US misses the mark each and every time so it is also the task of the critical citizen to point out the flaws of the past as well as the present set of oppressions we all endure. And this serves the USA into not ever again importing African slaves or giving pox-infected blankets to the native American population. Okay. But I just think there is this constant struggle for balance. And I am in accord with JR Dunn that your basic leftist's scales are most often weighted against the US. This is born out in the most recent polls of conservatives and liberals where some 80+ percent of conservatives said they were proud of their country as compared to 50-something percentage. If you ask me, I think the 50% of liberals were fudging a bit too  and expanded the question to, "Are you proud of what your country COULD be?" I cannot even think of a Howard Zinn, a Noam Chomsky or a Michael Moore POSITIVE comment about anything that has to do with US policy. Perhaps it might be something along the lines of what RB proposed -- Americans are lovely flawed individuals. I'm blushing. And as opposed to Canadians, Mexicans, Brits, French, Germans, Saudis, Iraqis, or Chinese? Doesn't the government interferrence in the personal lives of citizens qualify for a lack of solidarity?
I don't even understand the question but my answer would be, "Uh, no." Government interference in personal lives such as what we watch on TV/film? Lack of solidarity. Sorry. I have no idea what you're asking but I still say "no." Our government tells us what to watch on TV and the movies by threatening to fine prodcos over content.
Nothing new here. Seems to me that back in the early 50s when our family first got a TV, the content was far more tame. I recall the Hays Commission with film and later in the 1960s, the ratings system. The fines were, as you know, as a result of the FCC (FEDERAL) enforcing existing laws regarding material suitable for the PUBLIC airways. Yes, there are limitations but I don't think they have been moving the country toward a stranglehold of morally upright material forced upon listening and viewing audiences. In fact, I think there is a thriving LEGAL porn industry that would have been verboten throughout every previous half-century in the US.
Our government tells us if we can live (no abortions, no euthenasia, no pulling the plug on coma victims) or die (go to war, state excecutions).
Laws that determine abortion, euthanasia, pulling plugs, execution are largely determined by the votes of the US citizens. Last I checked, there was a very liberal access to abortion throughout the country, euthanasia was approved in the state of Oregon (though these matters have been quietly handled by families and doctors for time immemorial anyway), death penalty was on the books in several states where the citizens wish to maintain it (the majority of Americans still favoring the death penalty for first degree heinous murders where the guilt is established beyond a doubt.) As for going to war, we have had a volunteer military since the 1970s which would arguably find the country moving in a direction you as a civil libertarian might applaud. But I wonder about your awareness of other countries and other civilizations. Are the hardships and examples of intrusive government you mention radically different from any others in establishing laws? If anything, I'd suggest that they are more democratic than most any other great civilization in history.
We are told who we can marry. Or not.
Of course we are! The limitations are not particularly daunting, however, and have remained unchanged for decades since the clearly racist marriage laws of a few states were lifted. Any ONE single male of a certain age determined by his state is free to marry ONE any single woman of a certain age determined by her state as long as they are not close blood relatives, as long as both of the parties are in agreement. Oppressive? I think not. Something new in the history of mankind? Well, relatively new. In ancient cultures marriage was more open between brothers and sisters. In some cultures, men are free to take several wives. Our society has deemed it in the best interest of society at large that each marriage has a commonality of one man and one woman not related by blood. That is how marriage has been defined in the modern era and not something the hateful Republicans suddenly imposed. I suppose highlighting the entire hateful history of forced heterosexual monogamy on the US citizenry could be viewed as a helpful hint from the vigilant left to move the nation toward its true Place in the Sun.
Susan
“Half a truth is often a great lie.” Ben Franklin
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| 12. Wednesday, December 13, 2006 12:56 PM |
| jordan |
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speak of blame America first rhetoric. Saw this over at the NY Sun today: http://www.nysun.com/article/44971 First couple of paragraphs from the paper (not me): An ethnic studies professor from the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill, received a standing ovation last night from a crowd of more than 200 New School students after blaming the 2001 World Trade Center attacks on America's support of Israel and its sanctions against Iraq in 1996.
In a two-hour speech at the New School titled "Sterilizing History: The Fabrication of Innocent Americans," delivered without notes, Mr. Churchill traced what he called a pattern of mass murder as American foreign policy from the time of the country's inception to the events of September 11, 2001, which he said the country was essentially asking for. This of course is the guy who referred to WTC victims as little Eichmanns - a comparison to Adolf Eichmann in WWII - inferring that WTC victims worked for any "evil" govt.
Jordan .
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| 13. Thursday, December 14, 2006 12:03 AM |
| RazorBlade |
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| QUOTE: speak of blame America first rhetoric. Saw this over at the NY Sun today: http://www.nysun.com/article/44971 First couple of paragraphs from the paper (not me): An ethnic studies professor from the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill, received a standing ovation last night from a crowd of more than 200 New School students after blaming the 2001 World Trade Center attacks on America's support of Israel and its sanctions against Iraq in 1996.
In a two-hour speech at the New School titled "Sterilizing History: The Fabrication of Innocent Americans," delivered without notes, Mr. Churchill traced what he called a pattern of mass murder as American foreign policy from the time of the country's inception to the events of September 11, 2001, which he said the country was essentially asking for. This of course is the guy who referred to WTC victims as little Eichmanns - a comparison to Adolf Eichmann in WWII - inferring that WTC victims worked for any "evil" govt.
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As for the above quote, what about that compassionate conservative Anne Coulter who called the wifes of 9/11 victims "godless whores"? Sorry, the "compassionate conservative" phrase is the spin doctor's dream. Don't believe in them myself. I go back to the conventional def of conservative- they politically support the status quo. Any attempt to help an individual or a people raise above their circumstances (heal the sick, feed the hungry- anything that compassionate people do) is a threat to social/financial status and something conservatives oppose. As for the unanswered question of what countries are blamed 1st if not America; you already did that Susan and Jordan. I singled out America because we were talking about the fautly assumptions about the American Left/Liberals. But of course while we, the USA, are acting up, so is everybody else. Who to blame? Depends on what you're talking about. I'm as mad at Paul Kennedy for blaming America the day after 9/11 at a chapel service at Yale University as any conservative. It was insensative and... words fail me. Don't know who this Ward Churchill fellow is, sounds like a nutjob to me. The thing is, I think for myself. I don't depend on Michael Moore or any of the other so-called liberals we've mentioned to tell me what to think. There is a cool quote from American writer Dashell Hammett. He was a founding member of the Communist Party USA and one of the first American Maxist to turn against the USSR. He was asked why he didn't mind going to jail for his political beliefs. He said, "I don't need a bunch of cops or some judge to tell me what democracy is." I have a lot of respect for Dash Hammett. Well said Dash. As for your comments on marriage, Susan, I must say that I hadn't quite thought of the subject in that way. In my defense for still mistrusting the government I will quote a conservative (unapologetically uncompassionate- don't agree but love the honesty) writer, P. J. O'Roark. He said, "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teen age boys." Amen Brother O'Roak. Here is a question for you; why would a self described liberal have any respect for a conservative writer like Paddy O'R? Shouldn't I believe everything Paul Kennedy or Ward Churchill say? I don't. They are nut jobs. But wait a minute, this isn't what Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh tell you. It can't be that they aren't telling the truth. Can it? It can. People, individually or in groups, or in families, are more complex than the simple generalizations of the spin doctors of the CHM. This is my whole point about the article is that the writer's characterization of liberals is completely false and sets up more antagonism which we don't need. Not all conservatives are evil either. There are a few cool ones left. Just not so many.
We kissed Buffy. I may be love's bitch but I'm man enough to admit it.
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| 14. Thursday, December 14, 2006 8:09 AM |
| jordan |
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"As for the above quote, what about that compassionate conservative Anne Coulter who called the wifes of 9/11 victims "godless whores"?" You know, I almost mentioned her quote above but decided not to. Ann Coulter got more flack from both Conservatives and Liberals about her stupid comment about some of the WTC wives than the guy above did from both sides of the aisle. When he made his Eichmann comment a couple of years ago, Conservatives screamed and hollered and the Left was pretty much quiet. "Any attempt to help an individual or a people raise above their circumstances (heal the sick, feed the hungry- anything that compassionate people do) is a threat to social/financial status and something conservatives oppose." LOL!!! Always love how some liberals define the right. You miss something VERY important. Cosnervatives do NOT want govt doing those things - if you are going to define Conservatives, at least do it justice!! We want to help individuals and help people raise above circumstances, but we don't want govt doing that. It's not the job of govt to pass out handouts. that's why we are in some of the messes that we are in. That's why we have such a huge federal deficit. Social programs to people and corporations is going to be the death of the Western World both in the US and in Europe. It's only a matter of time before it happens.
RB - you need to start taking your own words to heart when you start making blanket statements about Conservatives and the "CHM." You said this above: "People, individually or in groups, or in families, are more complex than the simple generalizations of the spin doctors of the CHM." and yet, in your post above, you generalized Conservatives and defined them (wrongly, IMO). You have made generalizations about conservatives continually in all of your posts and said in one post that Conservatives deserve it because of what they have done. Just because O'Reilly does it, or Rush does it, or anyone else does it, doesn't mean you, or I, or anyone else should do it. If you are going to point out what others are doing wrong, better not do it yourself, esp in the same post.
Susan, you can have the generalization comment. I know we've gone through this discussion a dozen times over the years regarding "generalization." LOL!
Jordan .
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| 15. Saturday, December 16, 2006 4:18 PM |
| Raymond |
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" Kidnapped Africans" ?? The people I know haven't kidkapped any Africans. And my ancestors were minding their own business in Europe 150 years ago. I for one have never kidnapped any Africans, now Razor is from the South so maybe he and his family has a different history. Is that the case Razor ? Seriously, just trying to understand your hatred and shame. It comes from somewhere. I guess Razor is trying to take this CHM acronym into the lexicon? And let's not forget it was the Republican Abe Lincoln who led the emancipation of the slaves, and the Republicans who overcame the Democrat/ Dixiecrats to pass the Civil Rights Laws in the sixties. NOT the likes of Robert KKK Bird and his segregationist Democrats.
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| 16. Monday, December 18, 2006 3:41 PM |
| jordan |
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RB - did you see this? The other day you said: "Any attempt to help an individual or a people raise above their circumstances (heal the sick, feed the hungry- anything that compassionate people do) is a threat to social/financial status and something conservatives oppose." Today, the Las Vegas Review Journal had this little article : Meetings in Washington last Thursday between rock star Bono and Democrats, including Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada, yielded a nice photo-op but not much else, according to Bono. Bono, the U2 frontman and anti-poverty activist, was on Capitol Hill to seek assurances that $1 billion in planned U.S. spending to fight AIDS and malaria in Africa would not be lost if Congress freezes agency budgets in the coming year. Bono said he also was seeking to close a "commitment gap" between what President Bush has requested for anti-poverty efforts and what Congress has agreed to spend in the past. After meetings with incoming Senate Majority Leader Reid, House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, Bono said he came away empty-handed. "I'm alarmed we could not get a commitment from the Democratic leadership to prevent the loss of $1 billion in the continuing resolution," Bono said Thursday in a statement. "I don't know who to blame. Democrats are blaming Republicans. Republicans are blaming Democrats. But the million people who were expecting (mosquito) bed nets don't know who to blame. They just know that a promise made by the United States to keep their families safe is in danger of being broken next year." (Jordan's Note - who is taking control of Congress next year? Oh that's right...."compassionate" people)
A day later, Bono reconsidered his tough comments and took a softer tone in a follow-up. Bono said Friday that Reid "acknowledged a difficult situation" with the congressional budget "but he sincerely pledged his best efforts to improve the situation." Bono said Reid "made my day taking me onto the Senate floor and leading me through the history of that great room." Reid spokesman Jon Summers said he could not provide details of the sessions, but said the Nevadan "enjoyed his meeting with Bono. They come from different places, but both share a true commitment to solving these critical problems." ----- So Democrats aren't willing to give Bono some money to "heal the sick" and "feed the hungry" - something that compassionate would people do, right? Now granted, the US can't afford $1 billion to "heal the sick" and "feed the hungry" and help fight AIDS, but that's coming from the likes of me - a non-compassionate Republican.
Jordan .
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