Pot: I’d like you to meet kettle.
The Register reports that Republican Representative Peter King has accused the New York Times of treason for reporting on the secret investigations that the US government is performing on financial transactions between Americans and citizens of around 200 other countries.
Kevin Baker’s incisive essay “Stabbed in the Back! The Past and Future of a Right Wing Myth” cuts to the core of this problem:
Since the end of World War II [the myth of the stab-in-the-back] has been the device by which the American right has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat.
This myth holds that America’s enemies within (in this case, the liberal media hell-bent on undermining the war - what exactly does that mean? - by questioning the questionable actions of an administration gone haywire) are far greater than our enemies without. It’s a disturbing phenomenon. Dissent is “allowed” but actually exposing the misdeeds of a laughably culpable President and his enforcers is considered treason worthy of jail, exile, or worse?
On a side note, I’m calling bullshit on the use of the word “terrorist.”
Here is Merriam Webster’s definition of terror in this context: “violence (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
Uh.
Given our own historical and current policies, we have no moral authority to use that word in accusation of anyone but ourselves. From a linguistic perspective, the word is commonly used to apply a specific set of images (beards, turbans, and scimitars come to mind) and concepts that map to a deceptively broad but easily stereotyped group of people in a way that simultaneously ignores the very behavior on our part that we so quickly condemn.
Bomb innocent people? Check. Massacre women and children? Check. Torture prisoners? Check.
I don’t want to hear that we’re off fighting terrorists anymore. Be more honest. We’re fighting people who oppose our economic and foreign policies. We’re fighting people who basically use the same tactics we do - on a smaller scale - to bring about the changes we desire in global policy.
June 26th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Ray, thanks for this post. Regarding your sidenote about terrorism: It seems there is no limit to the cruelty that most voters in the US and Europe are willing to tolerate, as long as the victims are far, far away. I’m not sure why all of this is being allowed to go on.
Chomsky says:
“Let me state a couple of simple truths. The first is that actions are evaluated in terms of the range of likely consequences. A second is the principle of universality; we apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others, if not more stringent ones.”
June 26th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Great post. Me likes alot.
p
June 29th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
I still read your blog from time to time just to check in on how people so different than me think. Typically I do not take time to comment. I’ll leave one today since I’m in the move process from Germany to the US and it might awhile until I have another opportunity.
Here it is …
Nope - I don’t follow you at all. While I struggle to fully support all that the US government does, I’m shocked that you can imagine it in the same category as those “other” terrorists. I’m not sure what your information source is but the data I see does not support that.
Separately, since I read this blog in an attempt to understand differing views (something moving to Europe 6 years ago has helped me with), I would find it easier if you wouldn’t refer to those like me as “ignorant”, “dishonest”, etc..
Clearly one (probably both) of us is wrong but I doubt we are ignorant, purposefully bad, whatever …
June 30th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Rick,
I’m glad I checked who you were via your url because I initially confused you with another Rick that used to post here. Your tone was markedly different than his, so I thought the “original Rick” had mellowed out significantly. I wasn’t sure how to respond.
First off, I don’t recall - and a quick text search supports this - ever labeling “those like you” as ignorant and dishonest. Many of my closest friends are “conservative” Republicans (an oxymoron these days), and I would trust them with my life. They are not dishonest and I’m sure you aren’t either.
Ignorant?
Let me put it this way.
There was a time that I considered myself conservative and basically voted Republican. I knew more about history and politics, was more well-traveled, and could argue better than most of my “liberal” friends, but I was, compared with where I see myself today, ignorant. The more I learned and saw, the less I bought the narrative and the myth that the Right (and the church that supports the Right) tries to sell us.
This myth in almost every way I can imagine because its core assumptions are mistaken. This narrative is fundamentally based on a dark, romantic, and violent view of the world. The only nuance it is capable of is one that rationalizes the crimes of its leaders.
If you don’t already think the data supports this, then nothing I can tell you, no history book I can recommend, and no news story I can point you to will ever convince you.
July 2nd, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Ooo! Ooo! What about _The People’s History of the United States_ by Howard Zinn? Or Zinn’s more recent compilation called “Voices” or something like that?
Granted, you can’t convince a man against his will. But, Ray, we have to admit that not too long ago, both of us would be almost willing to call someone a heretic, a liar, or worse if they professed to be Christians and yet voted for Democrats. Something must have convinced us that we were wrong then…what was it?
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Good question. Being willing to step out of our comfort zones has a lot to do with it.
How do you know if you’ve really stepped out of your comfort zone? If you’ve never questioned every single belief that you cherish, then you never have stepped out of your comfort zone. If you have never gone through an intense personal / spiritual storm that threatened to maroon you on an island of total despair and disbelief, then you never have. If you have done both of the above and yet come through it somehow believing exactly the same way you did before, then you never really have left your comfort zone. You chickened out. And I don’t trust your experience or your opinions on anything.
On another level, much of it had to do with the way this war has been handled. I was skeptical and naive at the same time but I really did think that we could pull off some sort of liberation in Iraq (this was before Bush became president and before 9/11 - a belief that stayed with me until about May or June of 2003). Then I saw that the war wasn’t about liberation at all. It was more bullshit capitalism and greed.
Another one was how people acted after 9/11 and after the war started. People who call themselves conservatives (and fancy themselves libertarians) were (and are) willing to sacrifice every freedom as long as the “war against terror” is invoked by some dumbass President because he calls himself a Christian. It makes me want to vomit.
So, a lot of it is personal experience and lot of it is just paying attention. Turn off Rush. Turn off O’Reilly. Read a book not written by some thinktank endorsed doorknob. Stop reading the Right-wing blogs*. Let the noise clear out of your head. Develop your own vocabulary. Stop using phrases framed by our ministers of propaganda. Take a look at what we’ve lost in the last 5 years and how little we’ve gained.
* I never read political blogs. I don’t listen to political talk show hosts. I read my own news. I read books written by real historians and journalists and I think for myself.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:30 am
….wait. Did you say “written by real historians…”? Does that mean that the field of history is good for something after all?
(I hope so. Getting paid $12k a year to read thousands of pages of history books seemed like a great idea at first, but i’ve come to learn near-poverty has its downsides too….
)
July 9th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
I’m just getting settled into the US now so I’m a little behind in my blog reading.
I agree with your statement about changing my mind - this would likely take a significant emotional event or an intervention by God. I assume the same is generally true of you.
On one thing we certainly agree. I am as far right as they get. I love listening to Rush Limbaugh and knew his brother/editor David. But like you I really hate the “marriage” between the US church and the republican party. It angers me that it seems that for someone to come to Christ in the US they must first register with the GOP. This is very, very wrong.