A wink and a nod
Jonah Goldberg wonders at how anyone like William Ayers could be so proud about what he did.
'Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon."
This excerpt from William Ayers' memoir appeared in the New York Times on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 -- a few hours before Al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ayers, once a leader in the Weather Underground -- the group that declared "war" on the U.S. government in 1970 -- told the Times, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough."
Ayers recently reappeared in the news because Politico.com reported Friday that Barack Obama has loose ties to him. ... I don't think Obama supports domestic terrorism, and I'm sure he can offer eloquent explanations for why he shouldn't suffer any guilt by association. ...
What fascinates me, though, is how light the baggage is when one travels from violent radicalism to liberalism. A local Chicago activist told Politico's reporter that Ayers "is one of my heroes in life." Cass Sunstein, a first-rank liberal intellectual, added, "I feel very uncomfortable with their past, but neither of them is thought of as horrible types now -- so far as most of us know, they are legitimate members of the community."
Why is it exactly that Ayers and Dohrn can be seen as "legitimate members of the community"? How is it that they get prestigious university jobs when even the whisper of neocon tendencies is toxic in academia?
I must stop at this point because the formidable Jonah Goldberg has already gone hopelessly off the track. What part of "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough" doesn't he understand? Ayers is under no compulsion to feel shame. It's all he can do to contain his pride.
Now as to why reputable academics should admire the likes of Ayers and Dohrn the answer is equally simple: solidarity. It's a solidarity that exists not only in the present but goes back through history. To wonder why Adolf Hitler is reviled while Josef Stalin is still held in high regard by the Left may be seen by logical minds like Goldberg as a contradiction. It is no such thing. It's just a fact. The Left isn't stupid. It's just on the other side.
Goldberg goes on to marvel at the total absence of remorse for past murder and mayhem.
I don't think such associations should cost people their careers or place in polite society. But shouldn't this baggage cost something?
Why is it only conservative "cranks" who think it's relevant that Obama's campaign headquarters in Houston had a Che Guevara-emblazoned Cuban flag hanging on the wall? Indeed, why is love of Che still radically chic at all?
Che never went out of style at all. And those too obtuse to grasp the point will be sent away with this laughing admonition. "It's time to move on." It is this inability to get into the mind of the Left that is the undoing of most conservatives. They are unable to get past appearances and look into a world where ideas have unlimited power, no matter the human consequences. Many conservatives think dangerous ideologues have bad haircuts and cheap clothes. And just as journalists abroad are often swindled into thinking that outwardly Westernized, smooth-talking jihadis are moderates so rarely do we suspect that the worst enemies of polite society are some its most glamorous, best bred and expensively clothed members. Not because they are physically tough; they are not. But because they are so far above us that we count for nothing in the balances of the grand schemes. It's not the worst members of humanity who are the greatest menaces. It is those who have left it altogether.
People who live on the hard edge of society are often better able to recognize the wolves under sheep's clothing. It's a skill that better-bred conservatives, who believe there are limits to behavior, have long lost. Rick Moran retells a Mike Royko story of the unnecessary confusion over remarks by Chicago's Mayor Daley to an rough audience which understood him perfectly.
Several theories have arisen as to what Mayor Daley really meant a few days ago when he said:
“If they don’t like it, they can kiss my ass.”
On the surface, it appeared that the mayor was merely admonishing those who would dare question the royal favors he has bestowed upon his sons, Prince Curly, Prince Larry, and Prince Moe.
But it can be a mistake to accept the superficial meaning of anything the mayor says.
The mayor can be a subtle man. And as Earl Bush, his press secretary, once put it after the mayor was quoted correctly:
“Don’t print what he said. Print what he meant.”
The day conservatives truly understand the polished euphonies uttered by the immaculately dressed candidates that oil their way across the stage is the day when they comprehend Ayers and Dohrn. Don't listen to what they say. Listen to what they mean.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/27/2008 12:21:00 AM
35 Comments:
This goes back to the Treason of the Clerics. Is it worth the cost of protecting these people? Like a rude child they push the edge, daring the larger society to slap them down. We forbear, leaving them inside the bright line that protects our rights. But the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
In an article at www.timesonline.co.uk, David Finklestein considers a similar topic—why the Left is perfectly willing to make excuses for murdurous dictators such as Stalin, Mao, or Castro. At the conclusion of his article, he hits a theme that helps explain why the Left can unapologetically support home grown terrorists like Bill Ayers or murderous thugs like Che Guevara :
Which leaves me with one final reason for the Left's attitude to communism - that anyone who defies the United States is somehow seen as a valiant progressive, whatever their crimes. I am sure that Castro's resistance to the US is a major reason for Harriet Harman's [a member of the British parliament who suggested that Castro is a “hero”] admiration.
From time to time, Left thinkers make an effort to reconcile liberals and America. From Tony Crosland in the Fifties to Jonathan Freedland's admirable and convincing book Bring Home the Revolution, the efforts have failed. Almost anyone - a homophobic, misogynist Islamist cleric for example - is given some credit if the US is their punchbag.
It’s equally fascinating to ask why the US media gives Barack Obama a pass for his association (however, indirect) with Ayers and his display (however, indirect) of a Che poster. Barack provides us with latent signals of his far-Left roots, but his political brilliance allows him to escape any attempt to tie him more closely to people like Ayers.
Note that Ayers and his ilk are not just still proud, they are still proud after they lost, utterly, totally, and irrevocably.
We did not emerge into the sunshine of a beautiful post-Vietnam War world in which people sang about Coke - or even about coke – atop some mountaintop while wearing their traditional costumes.
Instead we fought our way through the choking clouds of smoke and dust that came from the rotting corpse of Communism. A world in which thousands were slaughtered and many more “reeducated.” A world in which desperate people clambered into boats to escape, all the way the waters of the South China Sea to those of the Florida Straits. A world in which Ronald Reagan gave one good push and knocked the Wall down. A world in which people got rid of Communism in every case they had the chance.
And world in which even a North Vietnamese general officer testified in the U.S. Congress that the U.S. had won the war.
And a world in which a compatriot of Ayers, a draft dodger to boot, became President of the U.S. and sent the U.S. Military out into the world on even more missions than before.
A world in which we saw the End of History - but it was the End of Communist History.
And he is still proud. I guess we should not be surprised. The escaped Nazis from Germany sat in cafes in South America and bragged about how many Jews they had killed, too.
Hopeless.
The Left considers the US and conservatives who are it's defenders to be their mortal enemies. Politics is a war to them. A struggle to the death. Ayers is to them an old warrior who fought the "good" fight and should be given "honor" for his actions against the enemy.
Too bad most conservatives can't see that they are in a war whether they want or like it or not.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 02/27/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Absolutely.
"People who live on the hard edge of society are often better able to recognize the wolves under sheep's clothing."
It can expensive to be generous to your enemies. Under the wrong circumstances, it can cost you your life.
soflauthor,
it's not at all fascinating why the media give Obama a pass--- they simply agree with him (and Ayers) but know better than to be explicit about his and their beliefs. Isn't that the whole point of this post and thread?
btb, for you non-Chicagoans, Ayers's father was Chairman of Commonwealth Edison when Bill was arrested, and pulled strings to get him off---it's not like Ayers actually suffered for his cause.
-Marty
If 'they're' spoiled they'll consider anything that they do to be right and proper. Then, in their ego bound mania, they'll feel that making their mark on society will merely be a function of direction not magnitude. If it sounds good - do it!
I was at a conservative website the other day and they were offering bumper stickers proclaiming "Obama '08" but were emblazoned with Che Gueverra icon.
The manufacturers obviously thought this was a good way of slyly criticizing Obama, but it occurred to me that the joke would be lost on 90% of the people who saw it. They would simply see a pro-Obama bumper sticker.
Dr Sanity has a shrewd insite into liberal culture, but he is actually writing about Arab jihadi culture. I've taken the liberty of changing a few words (those in parentheses) in his observations:
If you understand that safeguarding honor, avoiding shame, and protecting the image of (Liberalism) are absolute imperatives for the (leftists), then you will understand why that world is prone to falling back on the most primitive and infantile of psychological defenses--including denial, distortion, and projection.
Even more honor can be accumulated if one can deftly turn the tables and insinuate that the shame that rightly belongs to you really belongs to the enemy! Thus, you can describe yourself as the "freedom-loving", while your enemy is the "real" malignant terrorist. You can pretend your (philosophy) is one of "peace"; and all others are evil, crusading and genocidal dogmas (even as you loudly and vocally proclaim the goal of establishing a world-wide (liberal utopia)). Rhetorically speaking, there is no end to the number of ways you can distort or invert reality!
You can do all this not only with a straight face, but with a sincerity and righteousness that would make the most ruthless and brutal dictator humbled and proud to be associated with you.
What does truth matter, when honor is at stake? Who cares about logic or reality when you have the world to conquer and (right-wing fanatics)to force into submission.
And, it doesn't even really matter if anyone actually believes your lies and distortions or not; as long as they keep quiet and don't contest it, you're home free--with your honor intact and your enemy's in tatters.
Isn't (Obama) just great?
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/search?q=shame+cultures
It is at heart a class struggle.
Rich people like Ayers, and other radicals of means (Che, etc.) wish to have their power fantasies fulfilled. What better way to display your power over people than to KILL THEM? This is why the Left is so sadistic, so brutal, so deranged.
Their needs are for power, dominance, control and abuse of others. Like Che enjoying executions, they have this deep need to be ... GOD.
Meanwhile most conservatives are not like Goldberg. The Conservative Base in America is class-based on middle and working class people. Who don't want power over others, no life-and-death decisions, but merely to hold on to what they have and accumulate a little bit more. Like Napoleon making peasants landowners, homeowners, property owners, small businesspeople, professionals etc. are profoundly conservative in the small "c" way. They wish to conserve principles, values, social relations and standards that have allowed them to own their own homes, cars, and sometimes take a vacation. Their overwhelming need in a rapidly changing environment is security.
Whereas Leftists (and the Media and Hollywood) have no real risks to their wealth and power and so have needs based on domination and control of others.
It's really that simple.
"To wonder why Adolf Hitler is reviled while Josef Stalin is still held in high regard by the Left may be seen by logical minds like Goldberg as a contradiction. It is no such thing. It's just a fact. The Left isn't stupid. It's just on the other side." Jesus Wretchard that's unworthy of you. And (sorry) a DEEPLY ignorant turn. The problem with the standard left now isn't that they let Stalin off the hook. (Though it's right to complain they don't quite equate him with Hitler.) The problem is they pretend he's responsible for all that went wrong in the "Workers' State." When it was (LENIN'S) notion of the VANGUARG PARTY that was the killer from the jump. Here's what Rosa Luxembourg said in 90 years ago...
Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party -- however numerous they may be -- is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently... because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic....
The tacit assumption underlying the Lenin-Trotsky theory of dictatorship is this: that the socialist transformation is something for which a ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately -- or perhaps fortunately -- not the case.... What we possess in our program is nothing but a few main signposts which indicate the general direction in which to look.... The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history... socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force -- against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways. Only unobstructed, effervescing life falls into a thousand new forms and improvisations, brings to light creative new force, itself corrects all mistaken attempts. The public life of countries with limited freedom is so poverty-stricken, so miserable, so rigid, so unfruitful, precisely because, through the exclusion of democracy, it cuts off the living sources of all spiritual riches and progress.... The whole mass of the people must take part in it. Otherwise, socialism will be decreed from behind a few official desks by a dozen intellectuals.... [Lenin] is completely mistaken in the means he employs. Decree, dictatorial force of the factory overseer, draconian penalties, rule by terror.... It is rule by terror which demoralizes.
When all this is eliminated, what really remains?... Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Among them, in reality only a dozen outstanding heads do the leading and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously -- at bottom, then, a clique affair -- a dictatorship, to be sure, not the dictatorship of the proletariat but only the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is a dictatorship in the bourgeois sense.... Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc....
You really think your "side" has improved much on Rosa L (who was a woman of left)?
Come on Wretchard - Thought the idea was to challenge people - to get them THINKING not simply confirming "conservative" prejudices? Or am I'm giving you too much credit?
On to Ayers (quickly). Look this guy obviated himself when he published that memooir on 9/11. He had to cancel his damn book tour. He got exactly what he deserved. A dose of ignominy. He's not a hero of (even) the academic left. He gets dissed now bv some of them who lack the courage of their compulsions. (I'll take him over them in a hot second.) And - Be clear man. Bill Ayers is NOT Osama Bin Laden. He's not even, Trent Fucking Lott!! Ayers (for a time when it mattered) was on the right side of the big question of the 60's. Most conservatives were on the wrong side. How much have THEY paid for their failings on that front!!!!!!!! As an upper middle class suburban white boy in the early 60s, it wasn't the MOST obvious choice for Ayers to identify with black people. He actually had some, yup, courage. But at a certain point he began equating physical bravery with moral couage...And the rest is sad history...
Ayers is now a guy with a growing sense of how wack his "politics" once were. But he's probably NEVER going to get all clear. Especially if he can gird up his loins - avoid confronting the horrors of third worldists and vanguard partiers - and focus on "right-wingers" who see no diff between him (now) and Brownshirts.
Re Wretchard's invocation of "dangerous ideologues" - Seems there's one cat who's looking a little like that...What's with all this about "wolves in sheeps clothing" etc. And how are you going to simply pass by Mr. Goldberg's disingenous line "I don't think Barack Obama supports domestic terrorism" - THAN why bring it up!! I quoted the following line from Obama's AUDACITY OF HOPE before in a recent post on Obama/Spengler. It is the final line in the book and it's still on time - "My heart is filled with love for this country." Obama's earned that line. Don't mean to go all ad hominen on you but since you just trashed him as on oily, if euphonious, demogague, what have YOU done for the USA lately?
William F. Buckley - RIP
When it was (LENIN'S) notion of the VANGUARD PARTY that was the killer from the jump. Here's what Rosa Luxembourg said in 90 years ago...
The idea that it's always the fault of someone who betrayed the revolution, never the revolution itself is by now, after the failure of every socialist country in history, not a very credible idea.
It is the final line in the book and it's still on time - "My heart is filled with love for this country." Obama's earned that line. Don't mean to go all ad hominen on you but since you just trashed him as on oily, if euphonious, demogague, what have YOU done for the USA lately?
I'm not running for anything. Obama is. As for Obama's heart being filled with "love for this country", that is what is at issue in the elections and it is not settled by quoting the phrase from his book.
Speaking of leftist activists getting violent, I'm wondering why the media hasn't picked up on what happened in Santa Cruz, CA over the weekend.
A group of animal rights activists engaged in a home-invasion assault on a UCSC bio-medical professor in her home with the family present! If anyone wants to find out more about the incident, link over to the www.sanatcruzsentinel.com. There are several stories on the incident posted there.
The level of personal violence involved with this attack sets a new precedent for the animal rights movement. The lack of national coverage of this story makes it seem as if the mainstream media is deliberately trying to cover up stories like this.
Well I responded to your first one-line post - "I'm not running for president" below... Glad you gave me a little more to work with - But I'll add my original response to your first thought below as an addendum...Forgive me for trying to call and respond to a moving target …
As for your new point re the Revo: I cited Lux precisely because she didn’t blame in on an individual AND because she knew (as many leftists now still don’t) that it wasn’t all about Stalin. (Maybe you’ll allow your knowledge of arguments on the left is not all that extensive.) Lux wasn’t complaining about Lenin (or Trot) as bad personalities, but about their concept which RULED for decades. It has a name - Leninism - As in Marxist-Leninism...The break that matters in this world is the divide between democrats (small d) and EVERYBODY else. Leninists may claim to be on the Left. But I don’t see them as being on my “side” to use your language. If you believe in Demos we can talk, if not...
Obama clearly believes in Democracy in America. Read his books and observe his career in the State Senate and U.S. Senate. There's a reason why those republican senators in Illinois (and the Chicago Tribune, a Republican paper since the dawn of time) grew to respect him. It wasn't that they were under any illusions about his politics. He was candid with them. He was NOT personally contemptuous of them. Same deal when he deals with folks in the Senate. Or with people in the Bush Administration. Here's a straight up question: Have you read his books? If the answer is no. Maybe that should give you pause for a moment. This is a guy who wrote a 400 page memoir BEFORE he was in politics. If you're offering opinions about his ESSENCE, maybe you should have taken a look at it?
Here's my response to your first one-line post:
"I'm not running for president"...Damn, that's not even clever man. And it don't get you off this hook. You're not writing poetry (or arguing with yourself), you're engaging in a political act when you try to take down Obama in this kind of public forum. Too late to punk out now.
Tempted to go home and play some Merle Haggard: "When you're running down our country man, you're gettin on the fighting side of me." But we all should resist narrow calls for patriotism from either the left or right...unless it's got a good tune! (Anyone who wants clarity on this front AND enjoys seeing the conventional liberal mindset get its head handed to it - check out this piece by another occasional Belmont Club reader: - )
But let's get back to the Cat in question: Until I hear about some extraordinary service you've rendered America, I'm going to wonder at your trashing of Obama.
Hasn't he already done more for American democracy than you (or I) will do in a lifetime? Any number of conservatives have acknowledged the amazement of seeing somebody who has the skills/imagination/organizing ability/black swan persona etc. to give America a chance to begin living down what it did (for centuries) to 1/10 of its population. But (apparently) the African American experience - and its centrality to the American experiment - is unimaginable to you. Which reminds me - at the risk of speaking ill of the dead - Your hero Mr. Buckley blanked out bigtime here too. Back in the day, Buckley was real good at thinking his way inside the heads of conventional bourgie liberals. Had no problem pointing out what was weak or conflicted in their worldviews. But Buckley NEVER pressed himself to imagine what it was like to be a black person in America (or anyone not born with a silver spoon in his/her smirking mouth). Hard to fathom how any, ah, humanist could heroicize someone who basically passed on the Civil Rights Movement. Or flat out opposed it! (BTW - I remember how ENRAGED Buckley was when a reviewer caught him praising (in CHAIRMAN BILL) the "bona fides" of the leaders of South Africa's apartheid regime. He threatened to sue - but his words were there in cold print. He had to shut it down.)
Since there are probably a few folks here who think Buckley was on their side because he had some of the right enemies - might be interested to consider this writerly response to his (deadly) prose by (an almost apolitical writer) Michael Lydon - Comes from a self-published pamphlet of his called "Bad Writing"...
I’s crop up inevitably in any first person narrative but William F. Buckley often pushes his “I” to the fore one, two, and three times a line:
"So I assembled most of the crew. This time I would take her to Mexico. During that trip I decided on its completion. I would experiment with a crewless boat. I would cut expenses…"
After a run of “I”‘s like that, a good writer might find a way to put it second in an upcoming sentence, for instance:
Reggie and I talked about it during the Mexican trip.
Not Buckley! His “I” must lead, must dictate:
"I talked to Reggie about it during the Mexican trip."
and his crew had better enjoy being dictated to:
“…At what time do we meet at my suite, Tony? Very good, Tony, 7 pm is not 7:30 pm, is it Reggie?” Of course, when you say things in that tone of voice, it pays to make the schoolmasterliness hyperbolic, in which case it is accepted in good humor by the kind of people I sail with, who are all splendid, having in common their recognition of my unique qualities."
Page after page this “I” marches by the reader in pompous parade. Buckley’s “I” makes sure we know he is no ordinary fellow. He was born to a wealthy family, had a pampered childhood, and he is wealthy today, though he proudly relates his penny pinching:
"…I had undertaken to provision the wine cellar of the Sealestial. This is a very serious business. On the one-hand, money is very definitely a consideration. Anyone can provision a wine cellar successfully by averaging ten or fifteen dollars per bottle. My aim is to average $3.50 per bottle, and I can report that superb wines were drunk for twenty-nine days…"
“I” has intimate dinners with famous people like Charles Chaplin. Besides his yacht and his houses in Connecticut and New York, he has a house in Switzerland, “(which is where I write my books)” – the parentheses stand like castle walls to exclude the reader from “I’s” privileged precincts. Even when “I” writes about religion, he still insists on center stage:
"It was over ten years ago that I was asked to write a book whose title would be “Why I Am Still a Catholic.” I demurred, using as an excuse that I had books charted for two book-writing seasons ahead. But after a month or so, I thought to accept…
…in midsummer 1992 I came disconsolately to a decision to abandon the project I had begun in January, despairing over the reading and studying I wished to do and had no time to reschedule. I returned the publisher his advance payment, put away the copious notes I had taken, filed away the only chapter I had actually written (it survives, slightly altered, the opening chapter of this book), and then proceeded to feel lousy about my capitulation. The reason for this you can probably guess: I felt I owed something to God."
“You can probably guess?” Speaking as one reader “you,” no, I hadn’t guessed why Buckley felt lousy – the “I” parade had already so bored me that I didn’t care enough to guess!
Buckley bores the reader because he loves himself more than his readers. He doesn’t write; he preens; instead of holding up a mirror to nature, he holds up a mirror to himself. Under all his prose, whatever its apparent subject or argument, runs a monotonous subtext: “Look at me, aren’t I wonderful?” This self-centered prose may charm some readers for a time. Like Buckley’s crew, they may find it good politics to laugh at the wealthy captain’s jokes. Yet time does not favor the fatuous ass, and soon enough Buckley’s writing will smirk its final smirk and rest in peace forever.
Left out the link to the critique of conventional liberal feints at patriotism - Just to be clear, the author is probably NOT on my side re Obama...Not dragooning him into this argument, but he's probably the sharpest polemicist so I take any op to introduce him to new readers...
http://www.firstofthemonth.org/archives/2006/07/moonshine_patri.html
Of prophets there are three kinds. The first sort is of the pronoun "you"; the prophet who talks to the people he meets. Christ in the Gospels is nearly always talking to someone else. A woman at the well. A tax collector. Lazarus. They are as a wind moving among the leaves.
The second sort is of the pronoun "I"; he talks about himself, a subject about which he at least knows something about. Their works are accounts of their experience with themselves at the center.
The last sort is of the pronoun "we". Those kinds of prophets talk about about what they are going to do with everyone around them. They say "together" but what they really mean is "together under my leadership".
Of the Christ I will say no more. But I think it's fair to say that people like Hillary and Obama are of the "we" sort. They have the way, the truth and the light. And no one is going to be left behind, if it takes garnishing your salary to do it.
Bill Buckley sailed where he listed. But he had the decency never to insist that we come along to crew the boat.
Do not assume that one’s record of patriotism is necessarily something that can be advertised in a newspaper or published like a doctoral dissertation. Sometimes, people act in the shadows. Some acts of patriotism never see the light of day.
My disagreement with Barack Obama is not whether he is patriotic but rather how he defines the term. Patriotism without liberty is not what our Constitution stands for. Liberty is about the right to walk alone. Liberty is about the right to walk alone without being pestered by tyrants. Liberty is about the right to walk in solitude or with others, for the freedom of association is fundamental to America’s system of government.
“The American Dream” does not exist, for there is no one American dream. America is a land of liberty where one can dream one’s own dreams and perhaps make them come true. Liberty isn’t only about saying, “Yes we can”, but also about saying, “No I won’t.” Not everybody wants a collectivist agenda. We would not be a free country if one didn’t have the right to reject a herd mentality and chart one’s own path. Don’t expect me to desire to live in your dream any more than you would desire to live in mine.
I notice there's an implicit answer in Wretchard’s post to one question I asked in my last one - Did you read Obama's memoir before you offered your opinion of his essence? That book is all about Obama's "I" - Not a lot of we'ing in it. Still there is a immense gulf between Obama's feel for American experience(s) and Buckley's class-bound instincts. O tells his own story. in part, by telling others' (but it is HIS story - and lord knows it's an exceptional one). The folks he encounters along the way are generally people who didn't grow up with mansions and yachts and the conviction that they were God's Gift to the world. But he's got a lot of range. He was a scholarship boy after all and he had a girlfriend in Buckley's class so he got a taste of that world too. O is not a great writer, but he has a real social imagination. And compared to Buckley, he's Tolstoyan, or at least Balzacian ...The fact that you could compare him to Hillary who has the imagination required of a corporate lawyer, is further evidence you ain't read him. Though I think we've already established that...Until you check Obama's life-story, maybe you'll allow you should hold back on your own faux-oraclar pronoucements on his devious character.
Oh yeah - just so we're all clear here about the how OBama differs from Hillary when it comes to visions of leadership, forgive me for posting a passage from a piece I've already stuck up on this site... -
Obama himself realizes exactly what he’s up against: “the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election.” But he’s more than an anti-Clinton who deserves credit for good behavior. One of his responses in the South Carolina debate helps define what makes his politics different not just from Clinton’s but every other presidential candidate of our time (including Edwards, Nader, Kucinich et. al.). Late in the debate, which was held on Martin Luther King’s birthday, the moderator asked each of the candidates why King would’ve or should’ve supported him or her. Edwards responded first. Invoking his commitment to “end poverty,” he offered “two reasons.” A more reflective Obama turned the question around:
"Well, I don’t think Dr. King would endorse any of us. I think what he would call upon the American people to do is to hold us accountable, and this goes to the core differences, I think, in this campaign. I believe change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up. Dr. King understood that. (APPLAUSE) It was those women who were willing to walk instead of ride the bus, union workers who are willing to take on violence and intimidation to get the right to organize. It was women who decided, “I'm as smart as my husband. I'd better get the right to vote”…Them arguing, mobilizing, agitating, and ultimately forcing elected officials to be accountable, I think that's the key...So that has been a hallmark of my career, transparency and accountability, getting the American people involved. That's how we're going to bring about change. That’s why I want to be president of the United States, to respect the power of the American people to bring about change."
If the conservatives were wrong in the 60's, it was in trying to suppress dissent rather than deal with it. It just made things worse. As today, the Right tends to demonize the Left, and vice versa. Guys like Spiro Agnew were no different than segregationists with baseball bats. Demagogues and bomb-throwers -- neither contribute in any positive way to the welfare of the country.
The Right made no distinctions among subgroups either. The hippies were different from SDS, who were different from the Communists and other hard left parties. The conservatives came down so hard on the hippies, who were typically considered a lower life form, that the hippies were glad to harbor the leftists. This is poor counter-insurgency technique if nothing else.
We all have to agree that our first loyalty is to America, and we all have to agree to conform to legitimately constructed laws. Waging guerrilla warfare against the US government, as Ayers has done, can only be explained by utopian lunacy and an arrogant will to overrule the carefully constructed compromises of the society as a whole. Why is your faction so much better than anyone else's? We are a nation of factions and we have figured out how to live together without violence, so why do these people think that they are so different?
On the other hand, I do believe that we need to develop new mechanisms for processing factional input. Michele Obama's lapse was telling. She's got a tranzi streak. But it was also telling in terms of her frustration level. She is not alone in thinking that government does not respond to the people. There should be no tolerance for political violence and little tolerance for limitations on free speech. But there should also be proactive initiatives trying to advance the cause of substantive communication across factional boundaries. Guys like Bill Buckley and John McCain have been doing just that. Obama, unfortunately, only seems to be doing it. Unlike McCain, he avoids saying anything that people might disagree with.
Benj -- Obama is neither patriotic nor filled with love for his country. Quite the reverse, like all in his wealthy, privileged class Obama HATES his country.
If Obama was patriotic why does he refuse to say the Pledge of Alliegance and slouch around uncomfortably (many pictures show this)? If Obama was patriotic why does he refuse to act respectful during the national anthem? If Obama was patriotic why does he refuse to wear a lapel flag pin and note he has "issues with the flag which has long stood for oppression?"
If Obama is patriotic why does he want to inflict defeat on the troops in Iraq when they've all but won?
If Obama is patriotic why does he want a "Muslim Summit?" What will he offer "Muslim Leaders?" Sharia in the US under his bidding? If Obama is patriotic why are so many around him anti-American radicals who hate their country, feel it racist and irredeemable (Michelle Obama) or worse (Bill Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, Jeremy C. Wright, all Obama's Nation of Islam staffers)???
If Obama is patriotic why does he want a "Global Tax on America" of over $800 billion for foreign aid? If Obama is patriotic why does he support Kyoto which puts American Manufacturing Jobs in China? If Obama is patriotic why does he believe that foreign courts should have jurisdiction over American Soldiers?
On all levels Obama fails the patriotic test. He NEVER puts America nor AMERICANS first. Rather foreigners.
I'm convinced, based upon the facts that are finally getting "out there" through the alternative media sources that Barack Obama is not proud of his country or its history. His choice of who to keep company with, the views of his mother and wife, his voting record, and the list of his current advisers - all together help to create the impression of a man who is more of an internationalist socialist rather than someone who puts his country first.
As one who used to be a Leftist many years ago, I would dearly love to have a conversation with him about ideas, his country, and what the world is really like.
Most of all, I along with the hundreds of thousands of military veterans would like to know ask him if he has any privileged understanding about what this nation means when he has never served in uniform. John McCain has bled and suffered for our country. I don't see anything in Obama's personality or ideological makeup that convinces me that he would truly understand how to be a Commander in Chief of our armed forces.
We veterans paid the freight for these anarchist clowns like Ayers. I doubt any of us would be caught keeping such disgraceful company.
But these people have no shame, and thus no honor.
Benj asks of wretchard, Hasn't he already done more for American democracy than you (or I) will do in a lifetime?
Obama has done nothing for American democracy, other than play his Pied Piper flute. Wretchard, however, with this forum is a true educator of substance and a beacon of truth.
Democracy to function requires an informed populace, not one deceived by rhetorical devices and symbols that feed its vanities.
The answer, therefore, is a resounding NO.
(If you don't think you've done much for American democracy I will not argue that point.)
Segregation was the creation of big government. Were it not for the tyrannical power of the states and the Supreme Court’s connivance illustrated by Plessy v. Ferguson, the liberty of people to freely associate would not have been impaired.
When Rosa Parks was told to give up her seat on the bus, her actions didn’t say, “Yes we can.” By her actions, she said, “No I won’t.” Sometimes, there is an occasional person who rises to the occasion and tells those in authority, “No I won’t.” Herds don’t create positive change any more than the bleating sheep from Animal Farm.
There are those who go off the beaten path, those who walk alone, those who seek a new frontier. Must all of America reject its pioneering spirit to embrace some collectivist utopia where all people walk together? Perhaps there is some lamb that does not want to lie down with the wolf. Perhaps there is some child who does not want to handle a snake. Liberty is about the freedom to reject utopia, whether it is a segregationist utopia, a globalist utopia, or a socialist utopia. Liberty is about the freedom to not live in a city upon a hill.
Brilliantly stated, alexis. Could not have composed a more incisive way to explain liberty.
But, if Georgy Schwartz (George Soros)has his way, our Constitution will be re-written as The Borg.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/george_soros_and_the_alchemy_o.html
Go google up, The Constitution in 2020, and see what these people have planned for us. I just wish more Americans did not have their brains ruined by the public education system and could think for themselves and inquire about what is happening behind the curtain.
On every blog I on which read the comments there is always one, at any given time, commenter from the left. A few are short and concise in their comments. Most however are very verbose. I've wondered in the past if someone somewhere is employing them to post on blogs. If they are I also suspect they are paid by the word.
Benj the verbose,
Your statement that a rich shallow utopian pseudo revolutionary like Billy Ayers was on the right side of history in the sixties is laughable.
On a day when a bright and influential thinker like Mr. Buckley died ;is it really the best you can do to engage in a semantic jerk off over his writing? Your heartlessness
is the Cain's mark on the soul dead ideologues the left in America has cursed us with for so long. Jackass.
Alexis -- more like Segregation after the end of Reconstruction was the creation of white vigilantes (which is why they have such a bad odor). The Klan was the odious creation of Nathan Beford Forrest, though he was quick enough to drop it when it cost him Northern Investment money for his various business schemes.
I've seen Plessy's grave in St. Louis Cemetary. Before Katrina. Forgotten next to the hype of Marie Laveau. The central issue of Rosa Parks and Dr. King's effort was to GET Big Government to back the (largely Black Christian and Jewish) efforts to exercise full legal rights in the face of vigilante intimidation.
Truman did the first move, integrating the Military by executive order. Which people often forget. Truman was derided then as a Missouri haberdasher, but had much common sense and empathy. Ike used the National Guard to enforce integration in schools in Little Rock Arkansas in response to lawsuits, breaking the power of the Klan vigilantes and locals. JFK mouthed platitudes but did little. LBJ used the full power of the Presidency to break segregation, for which he was rewarded by rich white youths afraid of combat in Vietnam by being called "baby killer." When he quite possibly could be one of the greatest Presidents of the Twentieth Century. And no I'm not joking.
It's one thing to have a court order. The law on your side. The moral force of the nation. It's quite another to be able to exercise those rights without an armed gang of vigilantes who will KILL YOU. Whether it's the Klan, Sendero Luminoso, Pablo Escobar, Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban, or your brother and father and cousins.
Big Government is of course the ENEMY of the private armies, militias, klans, vigilantes, etc. and will not if properly configured abide them. It will wipe them out and by doing so secure the most basic need of the people -- freedom from fear of being killed at any time on a whim.
Big Government does not have to equal the Welfare State. And it's interesting that Welfare States always fail to protect their citizens from private gangs, armies, militias etc.
But the Civil Rights movement only succeeded because the Federal Government restrained the local governments and private militias, along with private cars and air conditioning and television (which lessened fears of whites of payback for segregation -- they simply moved to the suburbs). New Orleans in 1948 was mostly white. By 1970 it was majority Black.
JJ BILL – You’re right that I should’ve waited before writing harshly about Buckley. “Heartlessness” seems a bit harsh – But since I was complaining about HIS heart, got to take my medicine..…
JJ - Hear you re substantive Communication - McCain and O are capable of it. Johnny Mac did fine with the blowhard radio man and O handled the Farrakahn thing well too...(His campaign promises to put the nail in that coffin.) God bless you for remembering baseball bats and Spiro. Might recall The Huston Plan as well - Nixon was rather more of a threat to the Constitution than a cat like Bill Ayers who blew up a damn bathroom stall in the Pentagon...
WHISKEY 1 - I'll have what you're having. The guy doesn't love his country because he doesn't wear a flagpin? Please. (Didn't Nixon invent the flagpin?) You're RIGHT, though, that there are lotsa folks voting for O who have ambivalent - even negative - feelings about the USA. You would too if you'd grown up knowing Afro American History from the inside. Check that Wiencek book on George Washington and the issue of slavery. (Might break your heart, and start you thinking re debts we owe black Americans that we'll NEVER be able to pay.) What's amazing about Obama is that he has the capacity to identify w/ folks who can't identify (yet!) with America. Yet he also feels - with absolute authenticity - the way any immigrant's son does about a country that's enabled him to live the DREAM. The Double Truth - Try it!! Beats hard liquor...
FRED - If you had that conversation with O, I bet he'd convince you. Look - one of the great things O has done in his speeches is connect traditions of American heroism that normally get divorced due to our politics. O , for example, regularly links the heroes of the Civil Rights Struggle with the Greatest Gen who beat down fascism. And he makes some of his own fans SWALLOW hard when he insists that they honor McCain's service in Viet Nam. By doing that he pushes Americans on both the left and right to appreciate AMERICAN struggles and achievements and PAINS that they might otherwise slight...PS Read O's memoir and you'll see he knows from SHAME.
RDS - "pied piper" "beacon of truth" "resounding no" – Sorry homie you're a cliche-monger...Wretchard must be thinking “With friends like him…”
ALEXIS - "Herds don't create positive change" - Yeah but the Civil Rights Movement was a, ah, Movement. Rosa Parks was not a lone soul. Check the following piece http://www.firstofthemonth.org/archives/2006/07/accidents_will_1.html
on how her actions have been traduced and (more importantly) try David Halberstam's "The Children." You'll begin to see that the Movement was about individual heroism AND (what MLK liked to call) the Beloved Community. PS Liberty is about...not having to say the Pledge of Allegiance?
GEOFFB – Not getting paid to post – And I’m going to have knock this off soon – no time!! – But if anyone wants to HELP out. Buy a copy this spring of FIRST OF THE YEAR: 2008 – Transaction Press anthology of 10 years of writing from FIRST OF THE MONTH – an occasional newspaper of the radical imagination I've been associated with...…You can check our website at firstofthemonth.org Just so you know - I started reading Wretchard when I was looking for fresh angles/facts on the Iraq War (which I supported).
WHISKEY - Glad to see you invoking LBJ positively in this context. But your vision of the history of the Civil Rights Movement is all top-down. It’s missing most of the action on the ground (and in the courts). Thanks for your lines linking the Segregationist vigilantes to the A Q and the various sectarian militias in Iraq...I'll end this with a few passages on this point by the journalist Stephen Vincent who was murdered in Iraq as he functioned very much like the journalists who reported on the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s…Below he describes actions by Moqutar Sadr’s militia and then links their (no)future to those who set the dogs loose in the American South.
Outraged at the sight of [700 young students in Basra] picnicking, listening to music and freely intermingling--worse, many women were not wearing hejab--between 20-40 of Sadr's blackshirts attacked the fete with guns, sticks and heavy electrical cables, injuring and robbing several, hauling at least 10 away in pick-up trucks.
The assault triggered several days of protests by students and their families, who demanded an apology and the disbanding of the school's morality police. Surprised at the public outcry, Sadr's office issued an apology--of sorts. "There was a mistake in our execution, but we had the right to intervene," said Mr. Jabari….
Oppression thrives in secret; exposure to the light of public scrutiny reveals the true face of illegitimate power and constellates perhaps the most potent and revolutionary reaction to its brutality--revulsion. No doubt many Basrans and Iraqis view Sadr's actions as necessary, if not admirable. But most, I'll wager, interpret the sight of masked armed men publicly beating helpless students--helpless female students--as despicable, contemptible, pathetic. The noble and strong do not act this way; the craven and cowardly do. Cravenness, cowardice--these are taboo, psychic stains to be avoided. Despite being armed with guns, truncheons and public sentiment that was hostile to civil rights, the reactionaries lost on the day that Bull Connor unleashed his dogs on peaceful marchers of Birmingham. Moqtada al-Sadr has taken another step into the barren wastes of Connor Country. It will take time, but he, like the Alabama sheriff and his ilk, will shrivel and die as well.
Geoffb said:
"On every blog I on which read the comments there is always one, at any given time, commenter from the left. A few are short and concise in their comments. Most however are very verbose."
I've noticed that lefties like the sound of their own voice (and often tend to talk too much). Likewise, they enjoy the sight of their own prose. Perhaps the best way to keep a left winger busy (and out of mischief) is to put him in front of mirror.
Liberty is about not being forced to worship any golden calf nor any piece of cloth. Our flag is not our transubstantiated liberty, but merely a symbol of our people. My allegiance is to our Constitution, not to a piece of cloth. I utterly oppose attempts by the American Legion and its allies to put flag worship into our Constitution. The American Legion does much good work, yet I fiercely disagree with treating our flag as sacrosanct and turning flag worship into America’s state religion.
Government is no less powerful in the hands of criminals than when the reins of power are held by honorable men. The City of New York was still big government when Tammany Hall controlled it and the State of Louisiana was still big government when the Kingfisher sat in the governor’s chair. The State of Alabama’s oppression of American citizens was no less the power of big government than any federal government’s intervention on behalf of individual liberty.
It is no less big government when syndicates of terrorists, street gangs, and vigilantes assert control over the streets than when the long arm of federal power seeks to suppress their tyranny. The federal government is not perfect, yet its powers are circumscribed by its structure. It is the legacy of Alexander Hamilton to advocate a strong federal government to defend individual liberty against the tyranny of the majority.
The civil rights achievements of the 1960’s may seem like those of another era, yet segregation is as much of a reality today as it ever has been in America. The laws are in place and the federal government enforces those laws, yet with the assassination of Martin Luther King, something more than the man died with those bullets. The recent era of integration is a failure not because of any lack of federal intervention but rather because those agents of change refused to win the hearts and minds of fellow Americans.
Where segregation exists in America, it does not exist because of the laws of the land, nor does it exist because of the violence of terrorists, for segregation is at its core the segregation of the heart. Even as Barack Obama talks of unity, he divides his audience by race. How would it feel to be told we must all come together, Pueblo, Apache, Ute and Navajo? We’re Americans, despite how Barack Obama tries to slice and dice our electorate! Does he take a stand against America’s racial classification system? Why does the United States Census need to know my ancestry? Why shouldn’t our census be more interested in the content of one’s character than in the color of one’s skin?
America still has state sanctioned racism and electing Barack Obama to the Presidency would be unlikely to put an end to racial classification and discrimination, especially when that discrimination is proclaimed to be positive in character. Barack Obama is a descendant of slave owners, yet he would take money out of my pocket and yours to put it into his own pocket simply because his racial identity is black. He has made it clear that he supports reparations for slavery, yet he has not talked about giving up his own fortune to atone for the crimes of his own ancestors. Most Americans have mixed heritage and some of us are honest enough to recognize that, yet Barack Obama’s language is not about one America where we face our responsibilities to one another as citizens, but language still mired in the categorizations of the past.
Alexis - like your thought re "refused to win the hearts and minds of American people" - but think on that for a sec - put yourself in the head of, say, a young black kid back in that day - at a certain point it was hard to keep believing you ought to "win over" white folks (especially up South.) MLK himself wondered at the rage he and his marchers confronted in Cairo Illinois. Said it was worse than anything he encountered in the South... Which reminds me that Obama has, in fact, won over white folks in that neck of the woods. If I recall rightly, he writes about that (with some amazement) in his last book...
Folks who are buying Wretchard's view of Mr. OBama's (lack of) patriotism, might consider what the man said when he had his first shot to speak to a National audience. Check his words and I think it will be apparent O has a much deeper sense of the unities of American experience than Wretchard. Which isn't all that suprising given that O lives right here in the USA and has committed his life to public service in this country
Here's some excerpts from his talk beginning with the passages in which he introducted himself to America...
Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that's shown as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before him.
While studying here my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.
Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor, my grandfather signed up for duty, joined Patton's army, marched across Europe. Back home my grandmother raised a baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA and later moved west, all the way to Hawaii, in search of opportunity.
And they too had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream born of two continents.
My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or "blessed," believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success.
They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential.
They're both passed away now. And yet I know that, on this night, they look down on me with great pride.
And I stand here today grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents' dreams live on in my two precious daughters.
I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
That is the true genius of America, a faith... a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution; and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time. ...
You know, a while back, I met a young man named Seamus (ph) in a VFW hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid, 6'2", 6'3", clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he'd joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week.
And as I listened to him explain why he had enlisted -- the absolute faith he had in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service -- I thought, this young man was all that any of us might ever hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Seamus (ph) as well as he's serving us?
I thought of the 900 men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors who won't be returning to their own hometowns. I thought of the families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but still lacked long-term health benefits because they were Reservists.
When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they are going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return and to never, ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace and earn the respect of the world...
If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.
If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.
If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work.
It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: "E pluribus unum," out of many, one.
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.
Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.
There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.
We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.
We are one people…;
PS...When I asked O to autograph my son's picture after at a book-signing a couple years ago - he signed it (as I bet he signed lotsa others) - "DREAM BIG DREAMS" He was talking about American dreams!!
Benj says I'm a "cliche monger."
Perhaps.
But what I wrote is still the Truth, in spite of Benj's attempt to distract attention by attacking my style rather than substance -- Benj, such rhetorical tricks don't work, you wasted your time.
Benj, thanks for the extended quote from B. Hussein Obama. The words and thoughts are reassuring.
My family's history seems to include Native American, English, Irish, Italian, and some hispanic contributors. It is just as possible that my Native American forbears held slaves as any Europeans or latter-day U.S. citizens, so I see some difficulties at this late date in reckoning what debt I might owe to which victim group for injustices done many generations back.
But however eloquently B. Hussein Obama may describe present inequities, his solutions to all problems, as far as I've heard, are unacceptably dependent on the expansion of intrusive government programs and stifling taxes to support the expanded bureaucracies. Moreover, no amount of feel-good let's-all-get-along share-with-those-who-have-less exhortation makes up for his inability to grasp the urgency of the Jihadist threat.
After seeing reports for the last thirty years of thousands and thousands of acts of butchery committed in the name of their religion by Islamic terrorists and thugs, against their neighbors of all faiths in every country on the globe, there is no doubt left in my mind that such people will not hesitate to detonate a nuclear weapon in a city full of infidels as soon as they get hold of one, to glorify "Allah the Merciful." Anyone who will argue this is NOT true is plainly insane, and not worth wasting a single breath in argument.
For the foreseeable future, the urgency of the problem of Islamic Jihad overshadows all other issues.
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