Comments on: Hate-Filled Stupidity from Right-Leaning Academics

By: x

Sun, 06 Feb 2005 14:09:21 +0000

“He exploits the Native Americans, and fraudulently claimed to be Native American in order to get a faculty position. ” Good point. As we all know, for Native Americans, anyone who is not 100% pure native all the way for forty generations is only a fake. They are more scrupulous about it in Hollywood casting that in leftist academia. Says a lot, doesn’t it. “Regarding Moore and Falwell, the point is that both have political agendas.” Yeah, good point, too. It should also be noted that they’re both male. And they both drive cars. And speak English. The similarities are striking.

By: melissa

melissa — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:17:53 +0000

Ajax – does it matter to you that Native Americans denounce Churchill’s opinions when he pretends to speak for them? Check out today’s edition of Indian Country Today, article by Jim Adams. Churchill claims to be a Native American, only because his former in-laws had some ancestry. He exploits the Native Americans, and fraudulently claimed to be Native American in order to get a faculty position. Regarding Moore and Falwell, the point is that both have political agendas. You cannot argue that Moore does not, he is very clear on that point. Both pretend to preach the truth-loving gospel for purely political profit.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 14:29:50 +0000

In all seriousness, Uncle Kvetch does not want to “play.” I only want to second The Navigator and X. The notion that Michael Moore is so beyond the pale that he needs to be “denounced” by all right-thinking folk is ludicrous. The notion that Moore has been given any kind of imprimatur from the Democratic Party analagous to that given to, say, Sheri Dew or Trent Lott by the Republicans (see my posts above) is equally ludicrous. And the notion that Glenn Reynolds can still hold any claim to the adjective “reasonable” is most ludicrous at all. Finally, Jet, you asked where-oh-where were the good, sane Democrats who would step up to the plate and do the right thing—i.e., just agree with everything the President does in Iraq. I suggest you try Joe Lieberman.

By: x

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 09:56:52 +0000

That anyone would think of putting Falwell and Moore on the same level, as if the only difference was left/right political association and degree of “marginalisation” or mainstream presence… A mysoginst homophobic reactionary fundamentalist preacher vs. an award-winning film-maker. I understand some sophisticated souls may not like to be associated with fat populists who make it big and are loved in France, quelle horreur. But that anyone should feel the need to “denounce” Moore as if he was anywhere near as insane as Falwell, well… It’s a bit like all the fuss about Kerry’s wounds, while the President gets away with desertion, nepotism, corruption, financial scandals that never actually made it to scandal status, and that’s only the activities before he became President. It’s always going to be a winning game for the right, as long as the opposition plays along. Deflect and conquer.

By: Ajax Bucky

Ajax Bucky — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 07:19:48 +0000

Mrs T. - Reynolds gets his steam from Churchill's use of the term "little Eichmanns"

Churchill:
"Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies."

The point of contention between you and I, or you and Churchill through me, is the "collateral damage" aspect. What Churchill's really doing in that essay is trying to redirect the natural outrage at the horrifying event toward its root cause - because it was plain to many of us at the time that it would be used, as I said above, as a cudgel and as a goad, to get the already bewildered American public to bankroll and emotionally support actions that were, and are, creating violent resentment in other parts of the world. As it has and continues to be.

Churchill again:
I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

Analyzing the violence from the safety of your parlor gives you a latitude of perspective that the participants obviously don't have. It also allows you to make fatuous statements about South Africa that ignore completely the violence of the resistance to Apartheid, that predates the contemporary phenomenon we think of as Apartheid South Africa, violent resistance that was so thoroughly shattered there remained nothing strategically effective for those who continued but non-violence and hope. In your version of the timeline there was

native Africa, all primitive and everything
then the colonial invasion
then an indistinct blank period
then the settled and colonized South Africa with its well-behaved, though horribly suffering, non-lethal resistance to the sadistic racism that we think of as Apartheid

Let's pretend it wasn't a broken and degraded underclass stripped of its dignity and pride and resources to the point it couldn't fight back, shall we? After the violent resistance to colonization was annihilated by superior force.
Closer to home we have the savage conflicts of 19th century America, with its bloody battles and cowardly massacres, that resulted in total defeat for the invaded and total victory for the invader.
Great men had to make humiliating choices to allow their people to survive, at the cost of their freedom, and it's a testimony to their greatness that they did; Chief Joseph and Red Cloud being but two of many men who had no equal on the other side, in wisdom or integrity. It was not a question of the superior morality of non-violent compromise, it was pragmatism and a responsibility toward what could be saved.
-
"Poles and East Germans and Czechs and Hungarians were under the thumb of The Man as certainly as were non-white South Africans, and they too deposed The Man without going to the length of killing individual men and women who The Man might be seen as comprising." I think what you mean there is something like "they didn't use the excuse of collateral damage, because they didn't have to, because they didn't cause any, because they were morally superior though in an oppressed position". I think. Wasn't it mostly because the situations they were in made it impossible to attack "The Man" as you term it, at his base, his home - in the case of the East Europeans that would have been Russia - and the idea of some radicalized Hungarians smashing a 707 into Moscow doesn't seem outlandishly implausible to me, except that strategically it was undoable and it would have likely been met with cruel reprisals. To say that it not happening was evidence of moral restraint is specious and naive. The French Resistance during and immediately post-WWII might open your eyes to the idea of "the length of killing individual men who The Man might be seen etc..." The bombing of Dresden fits in here somewhere, possibly, as well. Of course eventually I'm in the corner defending all forms of violent resistance in a black-and-white schoolboy view of the world, much like the one Reynolds and his detractors, and the still-conscious but timid left, accuse Churchill of advocating. The truth is not so pat. Viet Nam. Nicaragua. El Salvador. Guatemala. Chile. Iran. Iraq. The Congo. Kenya. The Philipines. That's just the 20th century, and it's a very incomplete list. The body count is in the millions. And the blood is on the hands of what you snarkily call "The Man". I don't have a name for it. It isn't America, I'm an American and I know lots of Americans who are decent moral people, we didn't do that. Ward Churchill wasn't defending the suicide attacks on 9/11 and he wasn't excusing the deaths that resulted. Calling something inevitable doesn't equate to saying it's OK. There are events that I see as nearly inevitable still to come, that I reject with every ounce of my being. It's why I'm writing this.

By: The Navigator

The Navigator — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 03:33:33 +0000

OK, I don’t really give a flip about playing the who’s-condemned-who-in-a-sufficiently-loud-voice pissing contest. Uncle Kvetch can play, but it’s a child’s game and I wouldn’t recommend it. You’ll just be drawn into an endless morass of demands for further denunciations of people you’ve never heard of before your opponents will agree to concede that you’re a decent human being. It’ll never stop, and if you don’t believe in guilt by association there’s no reason to let it start. I just want to respond to the “Glenn Reynolds has written thousands of words of reasonable argument on the topic of the descent of the left, and posted hundreds, if not thousands, of examples on his blog” bullshit. What Glenn Reynolds wrote, without irony or exaggeration, is that “There was a time when the Left opposed fascism and supported democracy, when it wasn’t a seething-yet-shrinking mass of self-hatred and idiocy. That day is long past, and the moral and intellectual decay of the Left is far gone.” IOW, he did not, as Jet implies, write that certain respectable leaders on the left have permitted the implication that they agree with Michael Moore. Rather, he wrote that the left does not oppose fascism, does not support democracy, and is a seething mass of self-hatred and idiocy. There is no need to prostrate ourselves and beg forgiveness from such a juvenile taunter.

By: jet

jet — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:55:27 +0000

Uncle Kvetch (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=kvetch) Very interesting, but something tells me something is lost in translation. Perhaps we should look at this from a different angle. How many examples can we find of those on the right criticizing those on the far right for speaking outside their secret meetings? Michael Moore was probably the widest heard whacky lefty of the last few years, and I don’t recall many on the left telling others he wasn’t one of them. Just as a public apology helps soothe a mistake, publically admonishing your fringe helps distance you from the fringe.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 01:52:57 +0000

Is he never allowed to allude to all his past work. Must he build the entire structure up anew whenever he repeats the point? No. I never argued anything of the kind. All I’m saying is that the single most prominent political blogger in the blogosphere might attempt a reasoned argument, instead of talking trash. If you look at my earlier comments, I’m taking specific issue here with Reynolds’ argument that the American right marginalizes its most extremist voices, while the left embraces its own. I provided several examples that, I think, serve to refute that notion, and Katherine contributed another one. If you care to respond to any of that, please feel free. As to why the left is so important when it is shrinking: the point is that as it shrinks, it gets worse. It’s like a brine lake that is cut off from its water source. As the lake evaporates, it becomes more briny because the poisons become a larger part of the remaining whole. Wow…very evocative imagery. Can I play too? Here goes: the right is like the crusty stuff that forms on my cat’s canned food after it’s been sitting out overnight. Your turn!

By: jet

jet — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 01:44:05 +0000

I vote Mrs. Tilton commenter of the year. Sorry Sebastian. But as far as Reynold’s comment goes, what do Americans see on tv or read in the news that would lead them to believe that Kennedy, Boxer, and Pelosi aren’t the face of the Democratic party/Left with a sympathy for Michael Moore’s ideas? Kerry sounded defeated over the Iraqi election. Kennedy might as well have worked “American puppet” into his speech about the Iraqi election. I’m listening. Who’s the face of the Democratic party? Now that we’re stuck up to our balls in Iraq, the “Left” can’t even throw in full support for Iraq even though there isn’t another option. Who are these unheard leaders?

By: Doc Rampage

Doc Rampage — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:58:39 +0000

Uncle Kvetch: Glenn Reynolds has written thousands of words of reasonable argument on the topic of the descent of the left, and posted hundreds, if not thousands, of examples on his blog. Is he never allowed to allude to all his past work. Must he build the entire structure up anew whenever he repeats the point? That would sure make it harder to criticize the left, wouldn’t it? As to why the left is so important when it is shrinking: the point is that as it shrinks, it gets worse. It’s like a brine lake that is cut off from its water source. As the lake evaporates, it becomes more briny because the poisons become a larger part of the remaining whole.

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:15:43 +0000

The School of the Americas, John? Turned out lots of literary theorists and the like, did they? Spot on, that analogy. While you’re at it, you should probably cast a gimlet eye at the College of Cardinals and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

By: John Thacker

John Thacker — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:00:11 +0000

Professor Reynolds is apparently more of an American Indian than Professor Churchill, according to various reports. Hmm. I wonder if Mr. Farrell has ever engaged in "hate-filled stupidity" by noting that many graduates of the School of the Americas went on to engage in terror in their home countries, and thought that that was a telling argument? It seems to me that the arguments are quite similar, with similar rebuttals. (Would've done it anyway, the people who have the ability to go to either school are simply more likely to engage in such acts becaue they have the means and opportunity, etc.) It is generally a sign of open societies that they have academics and others who openly question and attack the society. The US has many such. Overall this is beneficial, but it's unremarkable when such criticisms get taken and used by those in other countries, and with other agendas.

By: old maltese

old maltese — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 22:35:50 +0000

In the interest of appelational accuracy: it’s Hoover Institution.

By: chris waigl

chris waigl — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:40:52 +0000

Gracious. Mohammed Atta studied civil engineering/urbanism, a tedious, technical, bureaucratic, stuffy subject if there ever was one. I’d be very surprised if he’d ever gotten within 100m of any professor who was in any way recognizably anti-American. (He probably never had a female professor either.) His final thesis topic was about some urban development project of a middle-eastern town. His thesis advisor was reacting in a very professorially-befuddled tone to the concept that his student became or was a radical islamist, let alone a terrorist. It does appear significant that terrorists often come from a privileged background and have had the occasion to broaden their horizon. You need power and a trained mind to take any particular brand of extremism a step further. Untrained, poor, uneducated young men without the experience of the western lifestyle would simply have been unable to carry out (or plan) the 9/11 attacks.

By: lunacy

lunacy — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 17:14:00 +0000

“Reynolds is, of course, speaking as an heir of the perpetrators in those cases, and defending the richness of his consequent inheritance against all comers.” Reynolds is American Indian too.