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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
I agree with Armed Liberal's post but I understand exactly why "Spengler" can reach the conclusion he does.
Physical ability to do something isn't the whole story regarding whether one can do it or not. If push came to shove, we have the material capacity to shove harder than anyone can push us. Willingness to live with ourselves afterwards or not is contingent on living afterwards or not.
My point has always been that not only can we defeat the enemies we face - even if it's all one billion Moslems (something I don't believe to be even close to true). I don't mean that simply in a military sense, but in the wider sense of spiritual, philosophical, moral, and intellectual conflict because we can only lose to Islamist Totalitarianism in the same way that more moderate Moslems might - by letting them win in effect by not being firm in our own convictions and believing them to be valuable enough to defend against intellectual and moral assault.
How well are we doing in that? Armed Liberal's conversation with Sumi is instructive. The counterparts to the nineteen year old driving a Hmmwv and listening to Limp Bizkit are the young Americans that puzzle Sumi so much in their lack of faith in the virtues of their own nation. Yes, there are those of us who hold the beliefs of the value of Western Civilization and our own to be self-evidently valuable and worth championing, but there are others, many others, who lack such confidence.
Will we win over Radical Islam when we have left anti-Western Radicals take over so many of our cultural institutions and not been willing to engage in what it would take to confront them, root them out, and restore those institutions to what they should be? That is a question that is independent of whatever capacity we have to inflict military suasion on anyone. How we answer that will be critical in this conflict, but it is not something we have so far shown much capacity to rise to the occasion for. It's not a matter of whether a handful of political leaders have the fortitude for that, but whether our civilization as a whole - that is, the people who make it up will or will not stand up for it as valuable enough to preserve against the forces, either foreign or domestic, who assault it.
Some of us, especially the sort of people who congregate do, are willing, but are enough people?
If we do, then we will not only win decisively, but we will do so in a way that is remarkable not for the level of gratuitous devastation we inflict on our foes, but for its opposite. Not only do we have the material and technical capacity to inflict massive, unrestrained destruction (something we have eschewed), but we and we alone have developed the means to win battles with the least amount of gratuitous destruction (something we have so far shown a preference for) and a genuine willingness not to leave our defeated foes in a state of utter destruction and deprivation, but, again, for its opposite - to invest in lifting them back to their feet and a sincerely felt desire to help them to achieve better lives than they had before.
To the degree to which there is debate in our Civilization on that, it is tilted not towards "are we killing enough of them, leveling their cities enough, looting them of their wealth and listening to the lamentations of enough of their women?" but, rather "are we doing enough to rebuild them? To provide security in the lands of the defeated? To implant civil society? To build up their economies? To help their women?" - our Civilization, assailed by both foreign and domestic critics for its cruelty, racism, and indifference for the "other", spends its time wringing its hands over whether we're doing enough, not to destroy, but to rebuild and help. That's a quality I value and it is a good thing - it is also not something inherent to all parts of the world. But many of our fellow citizens, instead of understanding this, have nothing but criticism and scorn for us and take little or any notice of what is positive about our civilization, seeing only negative qualities in it, that are unworthy of defense.
Given that, there is some question regarding whether, overall, we have the confidence to sustain our civilization in the face of those, be it radical Moslems or Cultural Marxists, who wish to see it overthrown and replaced with something else.
Howard Dean is claiming he will be straightforward and honest. But he isn't.
Now, if we hold Dean to the same standard as he holds others to - and his fans should hold him to the same standard he and they hold others to as well, then this cannot be a mistake, it must be deliberate misrepresentation of the facts in order to try to mislead the American people. Dean and his supporters can accept no other explanation for this, or offer one, since that is the standard they have set for others.
Anyone want bet they will be consistent, though? *Laff*
Also, we peons must understand that the convenience if the Liberal Elect is very important, more important than facilities for the constituencies they claim to be concerned about (compared to conservative's heartless indifference to the working class):
"We do not favor this option. It would absolutely complicate our lives and make it difficult for our employees and our guests," Rockefeller said.
"I don't think it's going to be a very open and welcoming environment for very high office holders in the United States," she said, referring to the frequent guests at the WETA building.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy said clearly for the first time yesterday that he opposes a plan to build the nation's first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. . .[Kennedy blows some smoke up people's fundiments, then:]
Kennedy has previously hedged his position on the Cape Wind Associates proposal to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, about 6 miles off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport. A proponent of renewable energy, he has voiced specific concerns about the Cape Wind project. . .
Without promising to take any specific actions himself, Kennedy said the government should develop a zoning policy regulating offshore wind projects
So that they're not put near the estates of the Elect.
The disappearance of the big-spending American tourist on the Champs Elysées - predicted since the diplomatic fracas over Iraq - is now a statistical reality.
Overnight stays by American tourists declined nearly 40 per cent in May compared with last year. Upmarket hotels saw their business with foreign customers tumble 15 per cent year-on-year at the start of the summer, while occupancy rates for the greater Paris region have fallen a full six points to an unhealthy low of 67.4 per cent.
The decline will be acutely disappointing to the finance ministry as foreign visitors - who last year numbered 77m - have helped turn French tourism into a €100bn ($114bn) industry, which accounts for 7 per cent of gross domestic product.
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving people.
There is a fairly common theory used to explain the antics of Democratic politicians at the moment. It goes something like this:
Sure, they're running Left for the primaries, but they'll return to the center for the General Election.
the implication being that they're doing what they need to appeal to and placate the Left-core that forms the donor, activist, and organizational base of the Democratic party, but their "real" beliefs will be what they run on in the General Election.
However, how does that explain Gore's recent antics at MoveOn's cattle call? Which is the real Gore? Gore says he isn't running for anything - he has no reason to placate the hard Left with insincere comments to raise funds for a campaign. So if he's speaking like this, the reason has nothing to do with tacking to woo support for the primaries - unless, as is possible, he's lying when he says he's not going to run.
I don't believe that, though; I don't think he intends to run. That means he's a private citizen and has no electoral reason to say what the Left wants to hear, unless that's what he believes. Gore is - supposedly - a "moderate" Democrat as well. However, I think what this reveals is the theory is flawed. What the Democrats are saying now is more representative of their true methods and views. It is what they say in the General Election to appeal to a broader constituency of the American people and win votes where they aren't being straightforward.
What follows is a letter to the editor I just fired off to the Financial Times. Regular readers of this blog will remember the huge number of FT pieces we have had the ocassion to analyze over the life of this blog. I wrote the FT as follows:
I've been truly grateful that you have published so many commentary & analysis pieces over the last couple years like that of Anatol Lieven's "America's freedom is a divisive concept" - especially when alternating with pieces like the one praising Ba'ath National Socialist ideology which appeared the previous day.
I always remember the pieces dripping with contempt for American society (not just the current Government) every time I read the other sort of commentary you favor publishing - passive-aggressive invocations of "we're allies, but America isn't listening"; with friends like these. . .
The pieces are infinitely instructive because they reveal assertions that
Americans aren't listening to their "allies" and consulting with them (which also means "not doing it the way we want") for what they are - hollow claims of friendship and alliance invoked as a weapon against a nation that you are openly contemptuous of. Thus your distain for those, like Blair, who are true allies and thus do get consultation - their behavior is seen as "questionable".
In this regard, the specific points of any one article, like Lieven's, aren't as important as the pattern that reveals the attitude of the Financial Times' editorial staff, and thus exposes their claims that it is America who is not behaving as a ally to you, our European "friends", as the charade it is. However, if you are interested in a dissection of Lieven's piece I have published one myself.
Tony Blair said in that speech that Lieven and the FT found so questionable and divisive, "To be a serious partner, Europe must take on and defeat the crass anti-Americanism that sometimes passes for its political discourse." Well, over the last two years the Financial Times has made its choice clear through the preponderance of the commentaries it has seen fit to publish: it would rather take this anti-Americanism on as a cause to champion than take it on and defeat it.
Btw, yes, I do plan on doing Part IV of my American's 21st Century Foreign Policy posts when it comes together. ("I love it when a post comes together").
The Financial Times is unhappy with the content of Blair's speech before the Joint Session of Congress and the warm reception it received. These aren't the sort of things Tony Blair should be saying. But the reasons for their furrowed brows are interesting and also instructive.
Regular readers of this blog will recall the thesis I laid out in my post on Collectivist Internationalism, pointing out that the invocation of "divisiveness" is used as a tool by the proponents of the "World Community" - a corporatist ideology of collectivism, to browbeat others into accepting a consensus that is defined by those invoking the charge of "divisiveness" to delegitimize positions, points of view, or policies that differ from theirs.
The article is written by Anatol Lieven, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and published in the Financial Times, an institution of Establishment EU opinion. The article expresses the usual conceits:
For while many US values may be virtuous in themselves, they can also be terrifying in their naivete. . .
They are also relatively new to the business of empire and can be excused a certain naivete when it comes to the extension of their values. British public servants, with 200 years of imperial history, conquests and revolts behind their country, have no excuse for encouraging such illusions or such national messianism.
So here we have American naivete vs. superior European experience and wisdom. The superior European expertise must be why the two major crises of the 20th Century in which the European Powers took the lead resulted in catastrophically bloody wars, while those naive Americans bungled the one they took the lead in (the Cold War) so badly that it didn't even result in a major Great Power war. This simply is not how things are done, and if Americans weren't so naive, they would have known that.
Then there is the invocation of a Marxist interpretation of history as if it were the only basis of knowledge and the One True Lens through which to view America from:
As Eric Foner, the US historian, reminds us
That would be the same Professor Foner who said "I’m not sure which is more frightening, the horror that engulfed New York City [on September 11] or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House," and he was the organizer of the event at which Nicholas DeGenova called for "a million Mogadishus". During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Foner had more sympathy for "their concept of freedom" than for ours. So when it invokes Foner as the suma of insight into American freedom, it indicates where the critique in the piece is coming from - and why it characterizes them as it does.
But most significantly and tellingly is the contemptuous distain for liberty that infuses the entire piece, and is its raison d'etre:
[America's] vision of a simple, eternal, universal and universally accepted version of "freedom" is not true and never has been true, not only internationally but within the US as well. Far from being straightforward and self-evident, the meaning of freedom has always been and remains ambiguous and contested.
Take note as well of the scare quotes around the word freedom in the first sentence of the second paragraph:
This is above all true of "freedom".
Then there is the contempt for the composition of American society, so common to European reactionaries since the 19th Century, if not before:
Americans need to profess absolute belief in their contradictory creed in part because a shared allegiance to it is one of the things holding their disparate society together.
By the by, how's that EU going? Got a monolithic society there, eh?
Also, given the audience for this, the supposedly more educated, sophisticated, and wise-in-the-ways of the world, for the article to speak of America's past flaws "only recently corrected" to a continent that were "only recently" gassing unwanted racial minorities and waging bloody wars for Liebenstraum or engaging in brutal colonial reigns in places like Congo (Belgium), Ethiopia, (Italy) Algeria (France), and elsewhere is rather rich. They are in a position to condescend, no?
The article does give some insight into why progressive thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic are much more sympathetic to the concepts of social freedom embodied by, say, Fidel Castro than they are to America's "authoritarian" freedom (the piece, in addition to owing much to Foner, owes everything to Adorno; see also here).
One can compare the attitudes on display in the "American freedom is a divisive concept" piece to those in the piece published just the other day that portrayed Ba'ath National Socialism as the embodiment of freedom and unity. Ba'ath ideology is liberation and unity. America's is authoritarian and divisive. One might be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that O'Brien from Ninteen Eighty-Four was Editor in Chief of the Financial Times.
The headline though is very telling; while the piece itself was written by Anatol Lieven, typically the staff of the paper that publishes it comes up with the headline. I'm also reminded that in that speech that Lieven and the Financial Times found so questionable, Blair said this as well:
To be a serious partner, Europe must take on and defeat the crass anti-Americanism that sometimes passes for its political discourse.
Well, the Financial Times has made its choice: it would rather take it on as a cause to champion than take it on and defeat it.
"We believe the recall will set a terrible precedent. It will essentially open the door to a new political weapon of mass destruction," Barnett explained. "Unfortunately, if this recall goes through, we are almost confident that the other side, the Democrats and labor, will respond against Republican leaders whether they're mayors or legislative leaders."
Hmmmn. . .where have I read that the recall is setting a bad precedent? Oh, yah, now I remember.
Rumsfeld thinks the military is big enough. . .but at least he adds this:
He said there were steps that could be taken to improve the efficiency of current troop levels, including putting civilians in jobs now being done by as many as 380,000 people in uniform.
"That's a pile of people," he said. "They need to be doing military functions."
He also said there should be a rebalanceing between reserves and active forces "so that we don't have to have the kinds of call-ups that we do now."
If he could really accomplish such a shift, that would result in an effective increase of force strength of considerable proportions. The question is how hard they are pursuing that. Read the whole piece, including what Gen. Keane says.
We've heard a lot about "censorship" in the U.S. from the usual suspects over the last couple years. Here's what real censorship is like - in Iran.
Those who are breezily suggesting we can go into Liberia and fix things and be out in a few months - often the same people who opposed going into Iraq - have it wrong.
Unless something really serious is pursued, involving a significant deployment and investment over a considerable period of time, "peacekeeping" in Liberia is just another of those self-congradulatory feel-good but ultimately empty missions that solve nothing which are so beloved by the UN and the "International Community". As bad as it may be, it would be better just to let the civil war play itself out and have one side win than to interupt it but solve nothing (like last time), which just drags out the destruction.
Human life may not be eternal, but U.N. projects are. The United States will strive to help Iraq, then leave. The United Nations would build yet another huge bureaucracy, employing out-of-work diplos and kleptos from Europe and the developing world. A U.N. administration in Baghdad (let's call it UNCARCI - the United Nations Coordinating Authority for Resurrecting Corruption in Iraq) would have no incentive to finish the job, but every reason to extend the mission indefinitely. Its primary interest would be self-perpetuation.
* The United Nations is blithely corrupt. Now, even America's best efforts will never eliminate corruption in any Arab society, including Iraq's. But good examples and firm policies can improve the situation. Iraqis need to learn a basic level of trust in their government, to gain some measure of confidence that not everything requires a bribe. It's a matter of degree, but a vital matter, nonetheless. Corruption, which we do not even consider as a strategic factor, has been the greatest single reason for the developing world's failure to develop. Does anyone in Washington really want a Nigerian to take Paul Bremer's place?
* The United Nations is anti-American. Sorry, but it's true. A U.N. mandate for Iraq's reconstruction would give our enemies a license to undo the considerable good we have done. The French, in particular, have no interest in democracy or human rights, preferring amenable dictators to any recognition of the popular will. Just ask the people of France's former colonies.
As for the evidence that this would happen, see here for just one thing they would want to do that would render it pointless.
The Euro elites and American university professors agree on one thing: National Socialism in "moderation" is a good thing:
The Ba'ath stands for secularism, socialism, anti-imperialism and Arab unity.
The National Socialist German Workers Party stood for the same things (replacing only "Arab unity" with "German unity"). By the way, yes, that included the anti-Imperialism when it came to other people's imperialism - "Pan-German unity", like Pan-Arabism, getting a special exemption (that's not imperialism, see? Ba'athist dreams of taking over neighboring Arab states and ruling them doesn't count).
Certain aspects of Ba'ath ideology are problematic.
Oh, yah think? At least the article does give one cursory nod to reason. . .before moving on in an apologia of the Arab version of National Socialism.
In other respects, Ba'athism is consistent with the western vision of a secular, democratic state. The Ba'ath charter extols freedom of speech, assembly, belief and expression. It demands equality of all before the law, equal rights for women and sovereignty of the people. It envisages a parliamentary form of government, free and fair elections, separation of powers and a constitution that guarantees the rights and liberties of all citizens.
The Soviet Constitution guaranteed those same things! Yay! (Ignore the mass graves, please; that is much less important than the "text", whether it's followed or not).
Here's a better take, one that takes into consideration the real world, not just ideological statements and accepting fine words of would-be totalitarians at face value:
Another conclusion is that the U.S. presence in at least part of Iraq will be for the long term, whatever happens in Baghdad. U.S. soldiers will help ensure that Kurds and Shi'ites are not again coerced into submitting to another bloody military dictatorship like the one run by Saddam's Ba'athists. America's new, enduring strategic stake in Iraq was put bluntly in a Baghdad briefing by Gen. John Abizaid, the theater commander, as he spoke about terrorism:
"The heart of the problem is in this particular region, and the heart of the region happens to be Iraq. . . . You can't separate the struggle against the Ba'athists from the struggle against global terrorism." Those are not words spoken by a man looking desperately for an exit strategy.
But American Universities, and European elites, are as impervious to that as they are to the idea that Communists might have more problems than a few unfortunate experiments that haven't turned out right yet and the unfortunate tendency of bad apples to rise to the leadership of an otherwise noble experiment in "secularism, socialism, anti-imperialism, and human unity".
Gen. George Patton got relieved of command of the 15th Army in occupation duty in Bavaria for saying things like he thought there were moderate NAZIs we could work with, and leaving them in place to run things. If he did that today, I suppose it would get him tenure at an American University and the plaudits of enlightened European opinion.
The debate on the real issues splitting Americans down the middle opens. The politicians best able to exploit these "wedge issues" will have a significant advantage in next year's campaigns.
First, a very good Front Page symposium; bizzarely, I agreed with most of what Susan Estrich had to say. The two professors come off very well, too.
On another topic, Francis Fukuyama has a good piece on intelligence failure; instead of focusing on bogus scandals, people could and should be asking whether Bush is working to repair our intelligence agencies or not. You know, one might think his father could have some good advice to give on this.
Here is a piece on another failed institution in need of reform - the State Department. But the piece is mostly about what a different much-criticized Department is doing right.
This weekend the NFL inducted the class of '03 into the Hall of Fame, matriculating Hank Stram, Marcus Allen, Elvin Bethea, and Joe DeLamielleure into Pro Football's hall of heroes.
James Lofton played eight of his 15 years as a pro for the Green Bay Packers, from the late '70s to the mid '80s. I wish he could have gotten a Super Bowl ring in Green Bay, but throughout that period he excelled on teams that, in other respects, could not get their act together. But Lofton was always together, on the field and off, and gave nothing but his best. I was happy to see most of his family wearing Green Bay jerseys at the induction ceremonies - I had figured that they, and he, would have come to identify more as a member of the Bills team - after all, most of his children were too young to remember him playing in Green Bay, and the Bills are where he finally had an opportunity to play with a team that was, on both sides of the ball, up to the standards Lofton played at himself.
The whole thing also brought back memories of Lynn Dickey, the QB who threw most of the balls that Lofton caught in Green Bay and who unfortunately is largely forgotten now - Dickey managed the Packers' offense masterfully in the early '80s, but it is a team game.
In the comments section of this post, Joe Katzman writes:
Rome had its heart ripped out by a corrosive alliance of the upper and lower classes against the middle. Once that locked in, its fall was just a matter of time.
Lets look at a few of the social/class conflicts in Roman history that Joe might be talking about:
The Conflict of Orders: this one took place fairly early on (concluded by the 4th Century BC) (see here and here for some good web-based info); pitted the Patricians against the better-off Plebeians (mainly; lower classes were also involved but it was mostly a Bougieousie thing). Coincided with the rise of Rome.
The Optimates (Aristocrats) & their Clientela vs. the Populares & their Senatorial supporters (late 2nd Century BC - late 1st Century BC): played out over time (via the Civil Wars) as one Senatorial faction and its supporters against another Senatorial faction and its supporters. The Optimates certainly couldn't be classified as "the middle", but this conflict is probably what Joe is referring to. Coincided with the replacement of the Republic by the Augustan imperial institutions.
While certainly taking place within a context of internal social discord, what really played out here was the incapacity of the Senate and other institutions designed to govern a city-state to administer a vast Mediterranean-wide Empire and, perhaps most significantly, the fact that military units (the Legions) were, in the post-Marius era, giving their loyalty principally to the commanders who mobilized, equipped, trained, and paid them than to the central Senatorial government.
Neither Caius Julius Caesar nor Augustus Caesar waged war against or deprived the Roman middle class of anything - they instead subverted the institutions of Senatorial power, which was, even after the Conflict of Orders, run primarily by the wealthy. When it was all over, Augustus partially solved, rather than created, the problem that most afflicted Roman government in the century preceding him: henceforth the Legions would be paid by the State, not their commanders, and owe their principal loyalty to the central government rather than to provincial commanders. As I said, this was only partially successful - it tended to break down from time to time, but mainly in periods of misgovernment.
Augustus did plant the seeds for later problems, but not by attacking the Roman middle classes which he treated more as a pillar of his rule than an obstacle or enemy of it. The seed existed in the fact that he did not institutionalize succession; this lapse further encouraged commanders to try and emulate him and his adoptive father in times of misrule and, much worse, confusion over the Imperial succession (eras where there was no One Clear Choice and thus each field commander felt they had as much a claim to Imperium as any of their fellows).
In any case, the "inevitable fall" that Joe is referring to here took place 15 centuries after Joe says it became "inevitable" as a result of the rich and poor dog-piling on the Roman middle; that's quite a delayed reaction!
Even if we count only the poorer, less developed Western half of the Empire, it lasted half a millennium after Joe says its fall became inevitable for the reasons he cites; a period the same length as from Columbus' landfall in the New World to the present. Quite a lot of things happened in the interval.
It might even be more accurately said that the Civil War represented a championing of the desires of both poor and middle class Romans against the wealthy Senatorial land-owning class, in that one of the reasons the side that won did so is they stuck up for the desire of the soldiers loyal to them to receive land grants that the Senatorial class was resisting providing, and Augustus relied on Equestrians and Freedmen to staff his administration.
Note that I'll happily accept letters on this and respond to criticisms and quibbles in the form of a blog post. The Roman Republic of the 1st Century BC, however, for all of its virtues, should not be confused with a government of the people or by the people - even with the Assembly and the Tribunes Populares counted.
I do sort of wish "my side" would stop proposing amending the Constitution for picayune reasons - while also understanding that some think this is the way to prevent the Supreme Court from drafting legislation outside of the legislative branch.
However, such a belief is obviously fallacious - since when has what the Constitution said stopped the Supreme Court from doing what it wants? There's an "equal protection" clause in there somewhere, I'm pretty sure (check under "Amendments, 14th), but the Court recently ruled that if the State really really wants to, it can assert a "compelling interest" to void equal protection.
So if your problem is with the Court and Judges, beating up on the Constitution is missing the target.
As for Gay marriage? Really - what harm is it going to do to you, huh? That's also a reason I mentioned the equal protection clause. I mean, on the one hand conservatives (like myself) can go on and on about how marriage is a stabilizing force in relationships and much better than catting about, but on the other hand the same folks will decry the in-permanent relationships of Gays and simultaneously deny them access to the institution that we believe can help foster stable relationships that are good for the participants and for society as a whole.
But even if you're against Gay marriage, there's got to be a better way to pursue that end than amending the Constitution. Like, I donno; next year, elect more Senators who will actually approve judges.
