ROCKS OFF - The Rolling Stones Message Board
A Bigger Bang Tour 2006

[ ROCKSOFF.ORG ] [ IORR NEWS ] [ SETLISTS 1962-2006 ] [ FORO EN ESPAŅOL ] [ BIT TORRENT TRACKER ] [ BIT TORRENT HELP ] [ BIRTHDAY'S LIST ] [ MICK JAGGER ] [ KEITHFUCIUS ] [ CHARLIE WATTS ] [ RONNIE WOOD ] [ BRIAN JONES ] [ MICK TAYLOR ] [ BILL WYMAN ] [ IAN "STU" STEWART ] [ NICKY HOPKINS ] [ MERRY CLAYTON ] [ IAN 'MAC' McLAGAN ] [ LINKS ] [ PHOTOS ] [ JIMI HENDRIX ] [ TEMPLE ] [ GUESTBOOK ] [ ADMIN ]
CHAT ROOM aka The Fun HOUSE Rest rooms last days
ROCKS OFF - The Rolling Stones Message Board
Register | Update Profile | F.A.Q. | Admin Control Panel

Topic: Liberal Hawks (NSC) Return to archive
8th June 2006 09:52 AM
Chuck WHAT WENT WRONG? (excerpt)

Steven M. Levine takes on the liberal hawks, their mythos and their war

(clip)

The Bush Doctrine of militarized democratization in the Middle East is very powerful because it ties nationalism and imperialism to a kind of liberal progressivism normally thought of as "Wilsonian," which is to say, internationalist and pro-democracy, if belligerent. The result is to make the critic seem like a critic of freedom. The critic is often trying to point out that we should untangle these aspects of our policies, supporting genuinely pluralistic movements abroad without resorting to unnecessary and counterproductive wars. Here, however, the negativity of critique collides with certain facts on the ground. The pro-Bush partisan can always say: "Look. We're in the Middle East already. Surely you don't want to be on the side of the Baathists? Surely you want to support democracy and freedom?" And then the critic is going to say: "Right, I support freedom; I support the troops, really I do!" But once that is said the real argument is over, for now we have already committed ourselves to a directly imperialistic position in the region, even if it is "liberal." Here, however, the terms "democracy" and "freedom" have been deftly assumed by the other side.


I think it is safe to say that between 9/11 and the start of the Iraq War many liberal intellectuals collapsed when confronted with this logic. Some liberals did not have the resources or the mental armor to resist this logic, while others willingly and enthusiastically submitted to it. As Lieven argues, they not only missed the malignant nationalism at the core of the administration but also positively embraced the messianism and utopianism implicit in the rhetoric of the war. One would have to go back to the timorous liberal response to WWI to find a useful precedent. This collapse aided and abetted the Iraq disaster and strengthened the hand of radical conservative power in its ongoing quest to entrench itself permanently in American political life. Since Bush's reelection, many reflective liberals have begun to grapple with this problem. Many have not, or have done so only in a superficial way.


Liberals who submitted to the logic of Bush's foreign policy, the so-called liberal hawks, do not, of course, see things this way. They do not see themselves as having collapsed. Many liberal hawks, especially the ones who are refugees from the left, take themselves to be part of an embattled and heroic minority who perform the thankless task of seeing through the shibboleths of the left while criticizing the excesses of the right. They feel that they are a part of an embattled minority because in breaking with the left they are attempting "a revolution within the revolution," trying, in other words, to reform the left from within.


However, the liberal hawks were not just part of a nice Habermasian dialogue on the left; they were an essential element of a hegemonic political class whose symbol capital enabled and underwrote a disastrous and reactionary policy. While it is probably the case that the Bush administration would have gone to war no matter what the liberal hawks said, one should not pretend that Thomas Friedman, David Remnick, Fareed Zakaria, Peter Beinart, George Packer, Richard Cohen, Jonathan Alter, Michael Ignatieff, Samantha Power, Kenneth Pollack, Christopher Hitchens, Fred Kaplan, Mitchell Cohen, Paul Berman, and company were a heroic minority. They, along with prowar conservatives such as Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, David Frum, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Norman Podhoretz et al., made up the mainstream opinion on Iraq, not the dissenting view. Until Congressman John Murtha spoke up, only one or two leading Democratic politicians vocally opposed the war. Bush has been proven right in pointing out that the Iraq War is not just a Republican war. It is, indeed, America's war.

full: http://www.radicalsociety.com/article_32_01_01.html

8th June 2006 10:07 AM
Chuck What? No liberal hawks here?

8th June 2006 10:21 AM
Jumping Jack Liberal intellectuals are an oxymoron just like jumbo shrimp, LOL.

Most live in an idealistic world (universities) or make believe world (Hollywood), prefer what should be rather than what is, and have great difficulty with the details reality. They are dreamers rather than doers, whiners rather than achievers, and prefer to avoid problems rather than solve them.
8th June 2006 10:24 AM
glencar They invented "The West Wing" because the other guy couldn't keep it in his pants. Reality is too tough for H-wood loons.
Search for information in the wet page, the archives and this board:

PicoSearch
The Rolling Stones World Tour 2005 Rolling Stones Bigger Bang Tour 2005 2006 Rolling Stones Forum - Rolling Stones Message Board - Mick Jagger - Keith Richards - Brian Jones - Charlie Watts - Ian Stewart - Stu - Bill Wyman - Mick Taylor - Ronnie Wood - Ron Wood - Rolling Stones 2005 Tour - Farewell Tour - Rolling Stones: Onstage World Tour A Bigger Bang US Tour

NEW: SEARCH ZONE:
Search for goods, you'll find the impossible collector's item!!!
Enter artist an start searching using "Power Search" (RECOMMENDED)