Blog and Manifesto

by Henry Farrell on October 18, 2006

Blog: Marc Lynch of Abu Aardvark has set up a new group blog-journal, “Qahwa Sada”:http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/qahwa_sada/.

Why a new blog-journal by Middle East experts? Because Middle East studies specialists have a phenomenal amount of quality knowledge about the Arab and Islamic world… Many are out there in the region, seeing things happen and talking to people over a sustained period of time. But they often have trouble getting that knowledge out into the public realm. Part of the problem is that there just aren’t nearly enough of the right kind of outlets. Academic journals are not well suited to getting information and analysis out to a wide public, and many have yet to adapt to the internet era. Blogs are wonderful, but not everyone wants one or has the time to run one. … That means that debate is too often dominated by people with, shall we say, a less empirically rich or theoretically sophisticated understanding of the region. Qahwa Sada aims to fix this market failure by providing a public forum for Middle East studies specialists to talk about what they know.

Manifesto: Bruce Ackerman and Todd Gitlin have written a forthright (and in my view, excellent) “manifesto”:http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12124 for liberalism in the US, as a response to Tony Judt’s accusation that US liberals have been supine in the face of the conservative onslaught over the last several years. Those who aren’t allergic to signing these things on principle should seriously consider signing it – it isn’t the usual pablum. A lot of people whom I respect have signed up already (Yochai Benkler, Josh Cohen, Robert Dahl, Margaret Levi and Charles Tilly to name a few).

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1

otto 10.18.06 at 8:40 pm

Sadly the Israel reference – “within secure borders close to those of 1967” – is enabling of the permanent Israeli policy of putting 100,000s of settlers into the land conquered in 1967 and trying to expell arabs from Israel as part of a colonialism-for-ethnic-cleansing swap. You can’t be a liberal of even the most minimal variety and support keeping a single Jewish settler on the territory conquered in 1967, since the values of chauvinist nationalism which have put those settlers in are entirely antithetical to liberalism.

So Judt’s accusation of US establishment liberals having blind spots in relation to Israel stands reaffirmed by this manifesto, I would say (despite the criticism re. disproportionate response in Lebanon).

2

Matt McIrvin 10.18.06 at 8:41 pm

I cannot in good conscience sign it, because I would be pretending to a virtue I do not possess: I supported the invasion of Iraq for several months, from sometime in 2002 to mid-2003, by which time the invasion had already happened and the ultimate failure of the enterprise started to become evident even to the dim.

So I am afraid that Judt’s accusation of complicity applies to me. I would require a weaker manifesto merely stating that the signatories acknowledge the moral shadow upon them but believe themselves to be capable of learning from mistakes.

3

Greg 10.18.06 at 9:32 pm

Matt,

I don’t see how the manifesto excludes those who once supported the invasion. Some might think I’m playing semantics by saying there’s no prohibition against you. But given the misinformation thrown about during the time you supported the war it seems likely they’d accept your signature warmly.

4

engels 10.19.06 at 2:15 am

I don’t see how the manifesto excludes those who once supported the invasion.

I’m guessing that would be this part:

We have all opposed the Iraq war as illegal, unwise, and destructive of America’s moral standing.

More generally, I don’t like the tone of this manifesto. It’s almost triumphalist. Take this:

The important truth is that most liberals, including the undersigned, have stayed our course throughout these grim five years. We have consistently and publicly repudiated the ruinous policies of the Bush administration, and our diagnosis, alas, has been vindicated by events.

Sorry, but no. Judt is not an intellectual hero of mine but he’s dead right about this: you guys fucked up big time. I’m angrier with you than I am with the rightwingers, only because there’s a chance you’ll listen to me. You let your country go to hell in a handbasket. You fiddled while Rome burned. Judging by this manifesto, you’re not even ready to admit it.

5

abb1 10.19.06 at 4:18 am

As Judt’s essay accuses them of becoming a service class, their opinions determined by their allegiance, I find it interesting that their manifesto puts so much emphasis on America: America’s moral standing, American freedom at home, American ideals.

“The Bush administration disgraces America” – oh, that’s just terrible, who can imagine anything worse than America in disgrace?

Well, I thought it’s people like Pat Buchanan who are supposed to worry about America’s standing ‘n stuff like that. Shouldn’t the liberals be more, like, humanists?

6

david 10.19.06 at 6:17 am

Todd Gitlin’s I was left, so I know just how wrong you leftists are schtick is almost the definition of supine in the face of the conservative onslaught.

7

Greg Hunter 10.19.06 at 6:47 am

We believe that the state of Israel has the fundamental right to exist, free of military assault, within secure borders close to those of 1967…

That is the kicker line in this manifesto. I have never understood the legal justification for Israel’s re-creation unless the Bible was used as some sort of title document. I am hoping there was some other precedent utilized for the justification. Was the argument the same as the US for setting up Liberia, or was the Indian reservation model utilized?

I hope most would agree that carving out the State of Israel has given the evangelical Christians and the Muslims the same rallying point with opposite goals; the ultimate quagmire.

8

Matt McIrvin 10.19.06 at 7:33 am

Sorry, but no. Judt is not an intellectual hero of mine but he’s dead right about this: you guys fucked up big time. I’m angrier with you than I am with the rightwingers, only because there’s a chance you’ll listen to me. You let your country go to hell in a handbasket. You fiddled while Rome burned. Judging by this manifesto, you’re not even ready to admit it.

I think that those of us who fucked up and those of us who are claiming not to have fucked up are different people.

9

Uncle Kvetch 10.19.06 at 7:33 am

I find it interesting that their manifesto puts so much emphasis on America: America’s moral standing, American freedom at home, American ideals. […] Shouldn’t the liberals be more, like, humanists?

An excellent point, abb1.

10

Matt McIrvin 10.19.06 at 7:41 am

I find it interesting that their manifesto puts so much emphasis on America: America’s moral standing, American freedom at home, American ideals.

“The Bush administration disgraces America” – oh, that’s just terrible, who can imagine anything worse than America in disgrace?

I think that’s legitimate. If you look at US history, every liberal movement that has increased genuine justice in American society has used this tactic. Look at, say, Frederick Douglass: the point he kept hammering on was that the founders of the US claimed to support certain ideals that were logically inconsistent with slavery, and the hypocrisy had to end. The appeal to American ideals was the lever. You point out the disconnect between patriotic feelings and the reality: this sounds silly to people outside the US who have perfectly good free societies of their own, and to people whose criticism of American hypocrisies has led them to think of the whole project as fundamentally ill-conceived, but it is an extraordinarily powerful argument in the United States.

11

chris y 10.19.06 at 8:05 am

greg,

It’s perfectly consistent to say that the creation of the State of Israel was misguided in 1948 but that it has a fundamental right to exist now. So does Australia, and every modern state on or near the American continents. And England and Scotland, for that matter. The question of when a colonial settler state becomes a fait accompli is a little too metaphysical for me, but surely by the time the third generation has been born there, we must concede it some degree of permanence.

Which doesn’t mean that you have to forgive retrospectively the behaviour of the original colonists in any of those cases.

12

abb1 10.19.06 at 8:29 am

1948 is a bit late for Captain Cook, though. About 200 years too late.

13

Aaron Swartz 10.19.06 at 8:39 am

Where do we sign on to Judt’s essay?

14

chris y 10.19.06 at 8:43 am

abb1, are you suggesting that the colonising activities of the Europeans in the new world were in some sense less reprehensible because they were a long time ago? Captain Cook Joseph Banks had access to the same theories of justice as you do, saving a few refinements.

15

Steve LaBonne 10.19.06 at 8:52 am

I just want to state that Matt McIrvin has said everything I might have said in commenting on this post, only much better than I would have done.

16

abb1 10.19.06 at 9:08 am

I’m saying that if colonization of Australia started in 1948, we wouldn’t be so emphatically insisting today that the militant British colony there has the right to exist.

In fact, most likely we would be saying exactly the opposite. So, I think your argument works in exactly opposite direction than you intended.

It doesn’t mean there aren’t other arguments, for example: ethnic Jews have often been persecuted, so they need a refuge – which, I suppose, was the main rational for creating this state in 1948. But I don’t see how this gives it the right to exist in that particular geographical location. That would seem difficult to explain without the bible.

17

engels 10.19.06 at 9:18 am

I think that those of us who fucked up and those of us who are claiming not to have fucked up are different people.

I’d probably better make it clear that my rant was not directed at Matt McIrvin (!) and others here but at the authors of this manifesto.

18

chris y 10.19.06 at 9:36 am

abb1, no, we’re arguing in the same direction. We differ in that I’m suggesting that after three generations it’s too late to roll back history, however obnoxious that history may be, and that to do so would be to compound one injustice with another.

19

stostosto 10.19.06 at 9:41 am

Like, for instance, France and the pieds-noir were rolled back in Algeria after some 130 years.

20

Dmitri Petrov 10.19.06 at 9:44 am

I find it ratheer bizarre that the second paragraph of a rather long manifesto is about Israel. Why? What is this obsession? Can somebody explain this? It follows the paragraph about Iraq and is entirely disconnected from it.

21

chris y 10.19.06 at 9:44 am

The pied noirs could have stayed in Algeria AFAIK. The white South Africans continue to prosper.

22

chris y 10.19.06 at 9:47 am

Algeria is in fact a false parallel, since the colonists were never the majority population there, as they became in the new world and in Israel.

23

stostosto 10.19.06 at 10:03 am

Bar South Africa, right?

As for the pieds-noir, they certainly didn’t perceive they had an option to stay, fleeing head over heels from an FLN whose policy against them came under the slogan: Suitcase or coffin. (aa href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War_of_Independence#The_pieds-noirs.27_and_harkis.27_exodus”>source: Wikipedia)

Anyway, I agree to Israel’s right to exist on the same basis you do: It’s there.

24

abb1 10.19.06 at 10:14 am

Chris, certainly there has to be a compromise of some sort, no question about that, but I think that’s quite different from what the code-phrase “the right to exist” usually means. It’s not as if people objected to any kind of state in Palestine called ‘Israel’. The phrase “the right to exist” signifies the insistence on officially ethnocentric Jewish state, or at least that’s my impression.

25

RobW 10.19.06 at 10:16 am

States do not have rights; people have rights. The existence of Israel might be a fact, the people of Israel may have a right to self determination, but the state of Israel has no more right to exist than the Austro-Hungarian empire did. I’m also fascinated to know how you can start a sentence talking about “the fundamental right to exist” and end it with “secure borders close to those of 1967″. Presumably military assaults tend to cross borders – can Israel really have a fundamental right to be free of such assaults if no-one’s entirely sure where those borders are going to be?

Be that as it may, what the hell’s that paragraph doing there anyway – in a manifesto about American liberalism? It’s the second paragraph there, only the Iraq war takes precedence. What on Earth is one to make of that?

The rest’s not much better – very woolly, which, given the subject matter, is a worry. And, yes, as always, platitudes underscored with the delusion of American exceptionalism.

As for the issue of Judt’s j’accuse, I suspect much of the irritation can be traced yet again to American confusion over the terms ‘leftist’ and ‘liberal’.

26

Steve LaBonne 10.19.06 at 10:32 am

Be that as it may, what the hell’s that paragraph doing there anyway – in a manifesto about American liberalism?

I think Mearsheimer and Walt could explain that one pretty easily…

27

engels 10.19.06 at 10:42 am

As for the issue of Judt’s j’accuse, I suspect much of the irritation can be traced yet again to American confusion over the terms ‘leftist’ and ‘liberal’.

Could you explain this? I’d always thought of Judt himself as a typical “liberal”, because he seems to have an equal antipathy towards socialism and conservatism.

28

Henry 10.19.06 at 11:15 am

As for the issue of Judt’s j’accuse, I suspect much of the irritation can be traced yet again to American confusion over the terms ‘leftist’ and ‘liberal’.

As with some of the irritation here – at least one of the ‘liberals’ who has signed up is an unrepentant Marxist. Nor are these the ‘liberals’ as best as I can tell, who even lent tacit assent to the Iraq war.

This debate looks as though it’s about to go in the usual direction of debates about Israel – which is to say that I’m going to shut comments down if people want to start getting stuck into the does/does not Israel have a right to exist question. Your choice.

29

Greg Hunter 10.19.06 at 11:23 am

we must concede it some degree of permanence.

Which doesn’t mean that you have to forgive retrospectively the behavior of the original colonists in any of those cases.

WE (US, Judeo Christians) may agree, (I do not for the reason that I stated earlier. Liberals cannot argue for the Bible as a Title document on one hand and then disregard the book on every other point. It is classic hypocrisy as I accuse the evangelicals at all points.) but the rest of the World, fat chance.

I was for the war in Iraq (ran for Congress, editorial interview) as long as America marched into Palestine first and sorted out that mess. Then we could go to Iraq. The response… America cannot invade a sovereign nation. HA

I like the 3 generation idea. Hmm I wonder how many generations of Indians lived in Oklahoma when we reneged on that deal? WAIT That is the answer, WE WILL GIVE ISRAEL OKLAHOMA!

We are the same now as we were 200 or 2000 years ago, if we can use the law, we will, if we can use economics, we will, if we can use force, we will. We will always win and rationalize our actions. Amen!

30

engels 10.19.06 at 11:49 am

As with some of the irritation here – at least one of the ‘liberals’ who has signed up is an unrepentant Marxist. Nor are these the ‘liberals’ as best as I can tell, who even lent tacit assent to the Iraq war.

But is is a “manifesto for liberals” whose aim is to enable “liberals to define ourselves”. Surely it is supposed to be speaking for liberals as a whole. Many liberals did not oppose the Iraq war. Most of those that did were hardly “steadfast” in their opposition. Ditto for many of Bush’s other administrative abominations. Is the manifesto claiming that such people are not “liberals”?

31

engels 10.19.06 at 11:57 am

(BTW

at least one of the ‘liberals’ who has signed up is an unrepentant Marxist

If you are trying to say that Louis Proyect signed it, that would not exactly inspire me with confidence.)

32

Chris Bertram 10.19.06 at 12:06 pm

btw, I see that H.E.Baber (San Diego) has signed both this manifesto and the US statement in support of the Euston Manifesto. Of course she’s entitled to sign whatever she likes, but I’m guessing that the sort of people that would sign Euston are exactly the ones Tony Judt had in mind.

33

eweininger 10.19.06 at 12:25 pm

The Judt piece isn’t really much of a pretext for this manifesto. IIRC, it basically excoriates those “liberals” whose visible support for the invasion created the shabby appearance of a consensus across the political spectrum–e.g. I think he talked about Thomas Friedman, etc.

Personally, I think the Judt piece was more interesting than the Ackerman/Gitlin document, since it did at least make a cogent argument that could be debated. The question Judt raises, at least implicitly, is why anti-war types in the US (esp. “intellectuals”) performed so poorly in the public sphere in the run-up to the invasion. My answer, when it was discussed in a CT thread a few weeks ago, was genuine confusion over Bosnia and Rwanda at the time. And of course, other people had other answers.

I suspect much of the irritation can be traced yet again to American confusion over the terms ‘leftist’ and ‘liberal’.

It’s interesting to note that right at the time he published the LRB piece in question, Judt also published this.

34

abb1 10.19.06 at 12:29 pm

Louis would never sign this, it must be the Miracle Max.

35

Henry 10.19.06 at 1:18 pm

If you are trying to say that Louis Proyect signed it, that would not exactly inspire me with confidence

There are unrepentant Marxists and there are out-and-out lunatics.

36

engels 10.19.06 at 1:39 pm

IIRC, it basically excoriates those “liberals” whose visible support for the invasion created the shabby appearance of a consensus across the political spectrum—e.g. I think he talked about Thomas Friedman

I don’t think that would be a very accurate reading. Judt’s article is bylined “the strange death of liberal America”. He lambasts the “‘Clinton generation’ of American liberal intellectuals” for not living up the ideals of their intellectual forbears. He laments the fact that the “critical intelligentsia once so prominent in American cultural life has fallen silent”.

And yes, Judt also has some rather crude, and, in my blunt opinion, frustratingly stupid, mainstream American ideas about Evul Soshulism. That means that he doesn’t really have any place from which to mount a critique other than one which says “things were a lot better in the 80s”.

37

engels 10.19.06 at 2:10 pm

Let me clarify my snark again. I don’t have a problem with people who would choose to define themselves as liberals rather than socialists. I do have a problem with the (usually American) liberals who are as dismissive of anyone to the left of them, and especially socialists, as Judt is.

38

Donald Johnson 10.19.06 at 2:36 pm

“I do have a problem with the (usually American) liberals who are as dismissive of anyone to the left of them, and especially socialists, as Judt is.”

That’s very common in the US. However, one way in which Bush has been a uniter rather than a divider is the way he’s brought centrist liberals and many much further to the left into an uneasy alliance. I think some former centrist liberals have even moved noticeably to the left, though not just because of Bush. (Krugman strikes me that way on globalization issues–he used to be quite the critic of the globalization protestors, but since Stiglitz came out of the closet he’s changed his tune somewhat.)

Getting back to Bush, though, it’s probably because his foreign policy horrifies so many mainstream liberals that you find Noam Chomsky being given semi-respectful treatment in the New York Times Book Review, for instance. And Robert Fisk as well.

39

abb1 10.19.06 at 2:58 pm

Yeah, there is certainly the ‘left’ vs ‘liberal’ dichotomy here, but maybe it’s just that this group is a part of the establishment. Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale. Sure they are liberals, but they are also a part of the system, they have a stake in the system, the system treats them well, and they know it. Don’t expect these guys to start rocking the boat.

40

nick s 10.19.06 at 5:04 pm

When the classic Sensible Liberal excuse — ‘well, they were right, but they were right in the wrong way’ — is co-opted by Jonah Goldberg, you know something’s fucked up.

As an expat Brit, Judt has a sense of how the anti-war left back home was a force within (and without) the governing party, making the dynamics more complex. Many liberals in the US rolled over in 2002, when they were already the opposition.

I find it ratheer bizarre that the second paragraph of a rather long manifesto is about Israel. Why? What is this obsession?

A case of ‘the lady doth protest too much, methinks’: because for a large number of Serious Liberals, attitudes towards Iraq were shaped by that point.

41

engels 10.19.06 at 5:31 pm

Can I just point out that the trackback at #40 is priceless?

The “discussion” devolved into the kind of impossibly precious wankfest Monty Python skewered so beautifully in “Life of Brian.”

Of course, dissent and discussion are the true enemies of liberalism. The nonsensically placed sneer quotes are just the icing on the cake.

42

RobW 10.19.06 at 9:51 pm

As for the issue of Judt’s j’accuse, I suspect much of the irritation can be traced yet again to American confusion over the terms ‘leftist’ and ‘liberal’.

I posted this at one in the morning local time and now I’m at a loss to know to which ‘irritation’ I was referring. Let this serve as a warning to those who would post while half-asleep!

Oh, well, at least it generated an interesting discussion.

43

koshem 10.20.06 at 4:05 am

Judt is not a Liberal; he is an Arabist from Greenwich Village.

Ackerman and Gitlin are Liberals, but what happened to the old Leftists. Those that don’t talk only about foreign affair and civil rights, but also care about laborers rights, right to unionize, health care and free higher education.

I guess it’s way too messy for academics.

44

Daniel 10.20.06 at 4:19 am

Henry – I think “Unrepentant Marxist” is the title of Louis’ blog. (btw, while I would not want to unreservedly defend LP’s style of online debate, I think it’s a bit unfair to be calling him a lunatic if we’re not going to let him respond)

45

roy belmont 10.20.06 at 5:17 am

What does this manifesto have in common with the Eustonites’?
What do the makers of this manifesto have in common with the makers of that one?
Well there you go.
What does Tony Judt have in common with Walt and Mearsheimer?
Well there you go, again.
Is the coast clear now? Can “liberals” crawl out from under the furniture and change their pants?
Is it time for the ol’ switcheroo?
Can we blame Iraq on Bush and lose him in the dust, while the evident gains of that quagmire/debacle still accrue to our various affinity groups?
Possibly Louis Proyect could be more aptly described, by those here wishing to describe him, as “a lunatic to the left of me, with whom I frequently disagree, and whose opinions and the expression of them I often find threatening and unsafe”.

46

engels 10.20.06 at 9:22 am

I think “Unrepentant Marxist” is the title of Louis’ blog

Yes, sorry, that was just my little joke and I wasn’t trying to bait people to slag off Mr Proyect behind his back.

That said, I can’t resist saying why that phrase always stands out for me, which is that I can’t think of many other people who would voluntarily describe themselves as an “unrepentant Marxist”. That does seem to imply that, yeah, you’ve read Solzhenitsyn and Applebaum but you just don’t think there’s anything there to feel bad about. That may not be at all indicative of his views, but it is what the title suggests to me. (And I think that Marx was right about lots of things, and I don’t think the Soviet Union “proved” that Marxism is wrong. All off-topic anyway. I’ll shut up now.)

47

Henry 10.20.06 at 11:31 am

Daniel – As far as I remember, we didn’t actually ban him – one of us deleted a few of his more offensive remarks, and he huffed off. Or is my memory betraying me?

48

Nathaniel 10.20.06 at 4:50 pm

Louis Proyect comes from a Trotskyist background (USA SWP), so I doubt he’s an apologist for the gulags. I think it’s meant more as a response to the idea of having to be apologetic for being a Marxist in the “death of communism” atmosphere after the end of the Soviet Union. To return to Tony Judt, his NY Review of Books piece about Marx recently that someone linked above might be an example.

49

John Quiggin 10.20.06 at 6:41 pm

I deleted Proyect’s fifth pro-Milosevic comment on a thread and told him I’d do the same for anything further on the same lines, but I don’t think he was ever banned from commenting more generally.

50

engels 10.20.06 at 9:52 pm

Nathaniel – I can easily believe that is the intention. As I said, I wasn’t trying to draw an inference about his views. I just think that calling yourself “unrepentant”, when the first thing that comes into most people’s minds in the US when they think of Marxism is the gulags, is a little tone deaf. And as I also said above, essays in the mould of Judt’s NYRB piece irritate me too.

51

John Quiggin 10.20.06 at 11:16 pm

I see Proyect has a piece on his blog, describing CT as the kind of place that is “where you will find equal amounts of venom hurled at George W. Bush and Ward Churchill”. I’d agree that the two are equally deserving of venom, but the relative quantities hurled here reflect their relative (in)significance.

52

Barry Freed 10.20.06 at 11:40 pm

…. CT as the kind of place that is “where you will find equal amounts of venom hurled at George W. Bush and Ward Churchill”. IÂ’d agree that the two are equally deserving of venom…

Seriously, John? I thought much better of you than that. Or have I underestimated Prof. Churchill’s body count by many orders of magnitude?

53

John Quiggin 10.21.06 at 12:51 am

Maybe I wasn’t clear, Barry, though I thought my reference to relative quantities made the point reasonably well.

Obviously, Bush has had far more opportunities and done far more harm than Prof Churchill, and for that reason gets far more criticism. But the tone in which the two deserve to be discussed is much the same.

54

abb1 10.21.06 at 4:00 am

Churchill doesn’t believe in “the right to exist”, bastard. Hence he certainly deserves waaay more venom than Bush, who does.

55

No Preference 10.21.06 at 8:45 am

“I find it ratheer bizarre that the second paragraph of a rather long manifesto is about Israel. Why? What is this obsession?”

A case of ‘the lady doth protest too much, methinks’: because for a large number of Serious Liberals, attitudes towards Iraq were shaped by that point.

Hear, hear. I suspect that the vigor of the “nonsense on stilts” response is due to Judt’s making that obvious point in his LRB essay .

56

roy belmont 10.21.06 at 7:27 pm

“the tone in which the two deserve to be discussed”
But what you’ve got there really is two placeholders, the figures they are as they’ve been given to you – one, Bush, through a carefully controlled and constantly monitored set of media filters and buffers; the other, Churchill, through much the same process, with a lot of negative backspin, and of course far less attention overall.
The “deserve” part of that bit is an extension of the manipulative creation of image on both counts.
You’re being told what to feel about both men, by the same off-stage prompt.
Bush was expendable from the get. Anyone who thinks he’s presided over the clampdown of the polis and the gutting of the Constitution for his own accession to the throne is dangerously naive.
Considering the prominence and mainstream acceptance of grotesque actors like Dershowitz and so many others – considering the clear and full-system bias of American media, which is where both Bush and Churchiill exist, as they’re used here – it should be obvious that only someone like Proyect, already out at the thinnest margin of public discourse, is going to come in having Churchill’s back.
Repeating the mediated slanders and substanceless claims of Churchill’s detractors as though they’re proven fact is only possible in a climate where men like Alan Dershowitz have free and mostly uncriticizable rein at the public.
This doesn’t bode well for unprejudiced and furthering conversation.
I understand how difficult it must be to try and convince those to the right of you to get hold of some commonality before everything falls apart – with Churchill and really a very few others over to the left tossing Molotov cocktails into the dialogue – but he’s right in his main complaint, about the unaddressed genocide of aboriginal Americans – and that isn’t getting acknowledged, because it’s inconvenient, and there’s nothing driving the necessity for it, other than some vestigial moral regard.

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