My Left Behind III
By Callimachus | Related entries in Blogging, General Politics, Media, The War On Terrorism, The WorldOK, way too much blather. I’ll wrap this up as quick as I can. You want to know how I arrived where I did, this is the story. It’s not everyone’s story, it’s not supposed to be universally resonant.
When I was a liberal newspaper editor in the 1980s and ’90s what I saw as the opposition was … well, everything opposite to me. It was many things: Hidebound religious orthodoxy, knee-jerk refusal to think and apply one’s mind to political and social problems, insistence that any change only would make things worse. These attitudes often huddled under the label “conservative.”
I spent much of the ’80s and ’90s in active, public disputation with “the right.” When I thought of “them” I pictured zealous, pious, ignorant, self-assured demagogues of crusading ideologies, inflexible mean men clad in expensive suits and cheap ethics.
Yet, as a small-town newspaper editor, the people I dealt with on the “right,” with three or four odious exceptions, were fine and decent. The head of the local anti-abortion group was a soft-spoken young widowed mother of two. A school-prayer advocate was a cheerfully avuncular man who always asked about my son and would as gladly sit in my office and chat about the things we agreed on — such as the genius of George Washington — as the ones we didn’t. The ex-mayor, a hardcore law-and-order cop, used to regale me with stories of law enforcement in the old days. I welcomed visits and phone calls from them.
On the whole, my old adversaries never forgot that their opponents were human beings. And thus they never stopped being human themselves. I wish I could say the same of the humanists around me today.
I work in the kind of office where you can’t escape anyone. There are no partitons or Dilbert-cubicles. The desks literally jam against one another and the computer monitors aren’t big enough to shrink behind. So people are in your face, whether you want them there or not.
Which is why it’s good that we’re not a diverse crew. White, educated, middle- and upper-middle-class college graduates, secular, of more or less liberal leanings: you guessed it; it’s a media newsroom.
We had a black reporter for a while. He moved on but the demeaning stories and jokes about him still abound. You would have thought true liberals wouldn’t behave like that, but since I saw Condi Rice called a “monkey on a chain” on the “Guardian” Web site, I lost the last of that delusion. One or two sincere people of faith, Catholic or Protestant, work among us. They keep their lips shut tight when religion-bashing, a popular theme, comes around again in the office conversation.
Lately I feel an identity with them. By “lately” I mean since 9/11 and especially since the drive began to go to war in Iraq. I don’t know the opinions of every co-worker on this issue, but there are a couple of very vocal, rabid anti-war people who won’t shut up about it. They rarely take the direct approach of hectoring (I’d actually prefer that, since it invites response), but these people will do the passive-aggressive thing and find one another and yap for a long time, very loudly and publicly, execrating the stupidity and venality of enyone who could possibly support the U.S. military effort.
Or they take every encounter with a news story about Bush, or Cheney, or Rumsfeld, or Iraq (and there’s one every 15 minutes), as an excuse to light up the roman candle of snide remarks and stale jokes.
The talk is peppered with meaningless references to WMD and bloodforoil, and it’s as uninformed as it is opinionated, deeply sarcastic and highly illogical, all pomp and few facts. This is the way people talk who are only in the habit of talking to people who agree with them. (How sad that this is something I now associate with universities, and sure enough the most vocal anti-war baiter has a college teaching background.)
No insight, no skill, all blunt points and phony presumption. If there had been no Iraq, we’d be having the same discussion about Afghanistan, or the West Bank; certain groups insist on seeing the United States as the only agent in the world. All violence and all blame traces back to Washington, D.C. It’s intellectually flabby, and a pinprick could deflate it. But I don’t do it. I come to work to do a job and collect a check. I don’t expect to have my thinking corrected by PC deprogrammers. I extend them the courtesy of keeping my trap shut, in hopes that someday they’ll decide to do the same.
Oh, I’m not trying to hide anything. I know my lack of anti-war correctness has been noted. I’ve been exposed by my refusal to join in the vulturing over American dead and my failure to laugh at the lame jokes about “Georgie” or “Bushie Boy.” In the Christmas pollyana this year, when my co-workers put in their requests for the latest Michael Moore video on Jon Stewart book, I was the one who asked for a donation to “Spirit of America,” which helps average folks in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[I shouldn't have to explain that helping average folks in Iraq and Afghanistan is seen by my peers as helping George W. Bush, which is a no-no. There are not really 6 billion people on the Earth they inhabit. There's only one.]
And so I sit here, hour after hour, having to smell this intellectual clogged drain. I hear things that are flat-out wrong, over and over, but out of politeness I say nothing. It’s gotten to the point where I actually look forward to the days when certain people aren’t on the schedule to work, and I hope that my days off never coincide with theirs.
So on Saturdays, Luke and Amy and I go downtown to do our market shopping. And there they are again, in front of the courthouse or on the town square, with signs and banners. This time they’re with others, who run the diversity gamut from white upper-middle-class aging hippie to white upper-middle-class aging hippie.
I have to pass by and acknowledge them. They’re looking for me. If we have other things to do and don’t get to market in the hour when they’re out, I’m sure to get asked about it on Monday. Like the minister who corners you in the grocery and makes sure he knows you know he knows you weren’t in church on Sunday.
In fact, it all reminds me very much of the cheap proselytizing of a Bible society tract. I deeply resent the presumption that I’m too stupid to have made an intelligent decision, and I need to be guided on the paths of righteousness by these pure souls. I’ve educated myself on these issues for years, read everything from the Quran to Gertrude Bell to Francis Fukuyama to Abdolkarim Soroush to Victor Davis Hanson. I’ve sought a path through tough choices that was consistent with adult compassion and national honor and personal values, and come to certain conclusions.
But my co-workers seem to expect that, if I stare at that big “Bush Lied” sign long enough, I’ll be like Scrooge on Christmas morning. I’ll have an epiphany right there in front of the Cal-Mart and fall on my knees weeping and blubbering hosannahs to Tim Robbins. Ain’t gonna happen.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 20th, 2005 and is filed under Blogging, General Politics, Media, The War On Terrorism, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 20th, 2005 at 11:07 pm
Amazing story. I truly appreciate you sharing it with us.
July 20th, 2005 at 11:42 pm
This was an inspirational series of posts, Cal’. I feel lucky to have read it.
If I might, in case you haven’t visited, I’d like to suggest an essayist I believe you may find to be a kindred spirit and whose writing I hope you will enjoy:
http://www.ejectejecteject.com/
July 21st, 2005 at 12:08 am
The most inspirational read of the day. Thank you. I appreciate your intellectual honesty, fostered by your vast experience.
I too worked in a situation where the only way to get along was to keep your mouth shut. It is quite like living with a thug’s boot on your throat.
I hope you are someday able to free yourself from the yoke of oppression you find yourself under. I did. And I am now free.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:27 am
Those three articles really hit close to how I’ve felt about this since 9/11 and probably earlier.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:29 am
Great series of posts, Callimachus. Thank you. I linked to them here.
July 21st, 2005 at 1:15 am
Thanks, folks. VP, good to see you again. Don’t be a stranger. Goy, the Bill Whittle essay is one of the first I read online and felt the identification. But perhaps others here haven’t encountered it. One of the good qualities of a watering hole in the center is that people come to it and bring their own favorites along. I meet liberal-side posts and sites I wouldn’t otherwise run across in my usual rounds. It’s not a matter of the echo chamber; I read stuff from all sides; it’s just that there’s so much of it, and so much is good, you literally can’t find it all on your own.
But that’s also one of the reasons I’m finding it easier to post here than at my own shamefully neglected site. Anything I can offer there, the regular readers likely will have seen it, and seen it done better, in a number of other like-minded blogs. Here, though, it has a chance to be fresh to more folks.
July 21st, 2005 at 1:28 am
What can I say, soul brother – you described myself. My wake-up, my transformation and my determination to fight against the post-modernist, moral-relativist and America haters.
I amsuper glad I discovered your blog – and there are many of us around. I found out that we are a force, an intellectual force which switched from the left to real, true liberal tradition. Keep up the good work, brother!
July 21st, 2005 at 2:44 am
This the power of a site like ours.
Some will call us apologists. I’m prepared for that.
However, you can’t deny the logic of reading the other side of the spectrum and learning from it. The point we’re trying to make is not to agree with everything that is said “over there.” More likely, the point is to consider and make your positions that much stronger and diversified. Personally, I’ve learned a lot already in this short week we’ve been up and running and I’m a better, more informed person because of it.
Again, great post.
July 21st, 2005 at 8:34 am
Great job, as usual. Love reading personal sketches involving intellectual change. David Horowitz comes to mind in ‘Radical Son’. As neoneocon says, “the mind’s a hard thing to change.” Most don’t- it’s fascinating watching one that does. (BTW, VDH is amazing.)
July 21st, 2005 at 8:52 am
A great read . . . I’ll be bookmarking you.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:19 pm
…United States as the only agent in the world.
That’s an indicator of how self-absorbed they can be.
And really. Based on your fine illustration of the newsroom being full of undeterred leftists mascarading as liberals, do you think they will be attracted to centrism? Will any of them read a Donklephant-type blog? It seems unlikely.
And, for what it’s worth, I wrote a similar essay as this a few months ago, about my own political awakening, called ‘Decency’:
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006302.php#comments
July 21st, 2005 at 12:31 pm
Isn’t amazing how different the world around us looks when we change our world view?
As a former Democrat, I too was decieved by my perspective of the world around me. But as I looked beyond the rhetoric, I found that I had been lied to about a great many things.
Great Piece!
I will be linking to at my site!
July 21st, 2005 at 2:16 pm
This is pretty much the sort of story I’m hoping for from the liberal point of view, as I asked back in the Lakoff thread. Your story moved me. Liberal politics, if it is to have a foothold today, ought to have a similar moving story.
(Justin Gardner, thanks very much for responding back there, by the way. In case you were wondering, I’m still mulling over that thread.)
July 21st, 2005 at 2:35 pm
Excellent, excellent, excellent! I was just having a discussion with my wife, trying to explain the sea change among many people’s attitudes post 9/11. I think I will print out your essay and show her as a prime example.
When speaking to her, however, I came to a realization. Have people on the left/liberal side have not really gone right, or has the center shifted dramatically?
If the political spectrum with a left and right wing then the center lies dead center of the two (brilliant concept, right?). One way to move to the right of center is to alter your personal worldview, obviously.
Another way is to have the center change on you. What happened after 9/11 was that for some reason, the left wing lurched headlong to the extreme left. Or, some would say, it was exposed as being much further to the left than thought. Take your pick.
Anyway, by doing so, the spectrum was extended immensely to the left, dragging the center with it. Thus, without even having to move, many of those who were center, or center-left, suddenly find themselves on the right to some degree or another. Thus, while events certainly altered their viewpoints, moving them rightward, the greatest change was actually brought about by others pulling in the opposite direction.
The question is, how and when will the left snap back, and how do we make sure the right does not pull to far to the extreme? Being on the right myself, having a vibrant extreme left-wing is good for building a consensus for getting things done which are vital for the country. I would just like to think that for the long-range good of the country, many of those on the extreme left snap out of it, and move back toward the center. I’ll do my part to make sure the right does stays away from the extreme.
Again, great essay, thanks.
July 21st, 2005 at 4:03 pm
I’m a “centrist” in the sense that I identify with ~50% of the Democrat’s positions (eg, balanced budget, social issues like abortion) and ~50% with the Republican’s (reduced budget, social issues like elimination of affirmative action, Iraq strategy). I am not centrist on each of these particular concerns: I strongly support women’s option to abort a pregnancy, for example.
When balancing the relative importance of these issues, I came down for Al Gore in 2000. I expected him to hew to fiscal balance and support for gay rights, for instance, and was willing to trade away my preference for lower spending, etc.
Since 2000, I feel betrayed by the Democrat’s feckless responses to 9/11, and equally betrayed by the GOP’s reckless abandonment of fiscal restraint — betrayed, in the sense that I didn’t expect their behavior. (I was not so betrayed on other hot-button issues. I expected Republicans to exhibit their offensive wingnuttery on the Schiavo case.)
For me, the main effect of the 9/11 attacks was not to shift my position on any of these issues, but to re-allocate the weight I attach to each of them. The necessity to confront the political dysfunction of the Arab/Muslim world moved front and center and pushed my other concerns to the margins. In 2004, the continuation of Bush’s forward strategy of freedom, for all its tactical blunders, coupled with Kerry’s unwillingness to tell the loony left to get lost, sealed my vote for Bush. So long as militant Islam continues its existential threat to the West, this issue will remain determinative for me. But the GOP should not interpret the centrist vote of folks like me as support for their cultural agenda. And Democrats can forget about my vote until they jettison the Chomsky/Moore wing and get serious about confronting the Islamists.
July 21st, 2005 at 5:52 pm
db, that’s pretty much me. In 2000, I was all set to throw in a protest vote for Nader until my then-girlfriend “talked” me out of it literally the day before the election. (She’s deaf-mute but she’s all girl, and was extremely persuasive). I thank the gods she did. The guilt would have haunted me. As it was, we both ended up voting for Gore as the least-bad viable candidate. And we both ended up galvanized after 9-11, supporting Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan while wishing he did better and wishing it didn’t entail swallowing so much social policy we disliked.
She even enede up in Iraq herself, helping her bosses as they re-built port aN
July 21st, 2005 at 5:53 pm
db, that’s pretty much me. In 2000, I was all set to throw in a protest vote for Nader until my then-girlfriend “talked” me out of it literally the day before the election. (She’s deaf-mute but she’s all girl, and was extremely persuasive). I thank the gods she did. The guilt would have haunted me. As it was, we both ended up voting for Gore as the least-bad viable candidate. And we both ended up galvanized after 9-11, supporting Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan while wishing he did better and wishing it didn’t entail swallowing so much social policy we disliked.
She even enede up in Iraq herself, helping her bosses as they re-built port and dock facilities up and down the two rivers.
July 21st, 2005 at 5:54 pm
Ugh. Fumble-fingers. I was going to say, I’ll post some of her e-mails sometime. They make fascinating readeing.
July 21st, 2005 at 11:39 pm
Michael Totten’s Pacifism thread has more like this.
Please note that there are now 3 axes, not 2, as the Bush-Kerry election shows.
Bush was pro-War, pro-Tax Cuts, pro-Morals. Those folks who were not radically anti-Tax Cuts, nor radically anti-Morals (pro-abortion), might well decide tha Bush’s pro-War was the most important issue.
The Dems need to become pro-Democracy War, because it’s too late for any other strategy other than appeasement/ surrender.
Dems can’t be so attractive on the economy until they start reducing spending.
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:44 am
OK, fine, you’re a bright boy, you’ve read Fukuyama, Hanson, hell, probably even zipped through William F. Buckley’s Blackford Oakes novels, from the sound of it. No one puts Baby in a corner. We get it.
But that doesn’t change the fact that George W. Bush IS demonstrably stupid, much stupider than someone holding the most important job in the world ought to be, and that by marginalizing those who bother to point that out, you are NOT being a good citizen.
July 22nd, 2005 at 1:56 pm
“probably even zipped through William F. Buckley’s Blackford Oakes novels”
Never heard of them. Stereotypes aren’t serving you very well, sport. Perhaps try to get past them.
“demonstrably stupid”
Go on, demonstrate it. You’ve got the floor.
“by marginalizing those who bother to point that out, you are NOT being a good citizen.”
How am I marginalizing them? By failing to be convinced by them? So good citizenship means being converted by their dissent?
Or by writing that I think they’re blinded by bile? So to be a good cirizen in your country one can’t critique protesters? Glad I don’t live in your country.
July 22nd, 2005 at 5:44 pm
Even before discussing Bush’s stupidity, or not, there are some “value” questions.
If a “stupid” president means a 4 year avg. of 5.5 unemployment, but a “smart” president means a 4 year avg. of 6.5 unemployment, isn’t stupid with low unemployment better?
Similar questions can be created for education, social security,
July 23rd, 2005 at 11:38 am
I can relate to this article so well. It seems these days that the lines have been drawn in the sand, and the prevailing attitude is ‘if you’re not with us, you’re agin’ us’. The idea that each individual should be allowed to draw his or her own conclusions and entertain his/her own ideas has somewhere flown by the wayside. I guess we still have freedom of speech, but it is often putting one’s reputation, sometimes one’s life, in jeopardy if one chooses to exercise it.
I worry about this. We seem to be turning into a nation of lemmings. How can there be only two sides to each issue? Why do we have to choose between only two stances? Our people seem to have lost the ability to think for themselves, and simply latch on to whichever doctrine, or propaganda, that most closely echoes one’s choice of ’sides’. If one doesn’t ‘toe the party line’, he finds himself an outcast, at the best. At the worst, he is perceived to be ‘unAmerican’.
In my humble opinion, America is regressing, not progressing. That there have always been issues which tend to divide us is a given, however over these past years we seem, as a nation, to be taking two or more steps backwards for each step forward thus far taken. A person who insists on thinking for himself these days is considered neither fish nor fowl. Anyone who has read history or philosophy knows that this is usually the ‘beginning of the end’ of most societies. Anarchy and chaos soon follow when the majoritiy of the people insist on seeing each and every issue as ‘black or white’.
The writing’s on the wall, people. I hope at least some will slow down to read it, or our once proud nation, once looked- up to by the majority of the free world, will soon self-destruct. All of this screaming and shouting lately is only another form of apathy. Choosing a side, and being vociferous in it’s defense may seem like participation to most, but following the flock is truely the worst sort of apathy indeed. I hope most people see the cliff they’re about to jump over before it’s too late.
July 23rd, 2005 at 10:18 pm
First congrats on the wonderful essay, and congrats on having found your way to the political center. It can be tough, as you no doubt know, taking flak from both sides, but this is a healthier place to be, intellectually.
I live in solid blue land, so even as a centrist I need to keep very quiet around the neighborhood, and I know those loud, passive-aggressive types all too well. You’ve painted the picture with remarkable verisimilitude.
Congrats also on the new blog, great to see a center-left voice of such quality, and I applaud the willingness to post a lengthy essay. We cannot conduct the whole conversation in soundbites and three line quips.
July 26th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Calimachus,
tried to look for a bio but didn’t find one. So I don’t know who you are or how long you have been in the news business but over at Jay Rosen’s blog I pasted a link to your Left Behind III post and told them to read your description of your news room. This was as part of a discussion in which I said that the news media needed more people who have done some thing other than be in the news media. You can read the responses, very polite but basically said that they didn’t believe you. (scroll all the way to bottom of the 84 comments)
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/07/21/schl_jsc.html#comments
Of the four reporters/editors who directly responded to me about my previous comments three had military and other experience before becoming reporters. The general argument they gave is that their is no problem with a lack of diversity in the media and besides a good reporter can write a story on anything as long as they ask enough questions etc
Now I am curious. How typical is your newsroom do you think?
I googled and couldn’t find any good data on previous experience of news media. Couple good surveys on their political views and values but nothing on how many actually have done something other than journalism.
July 26th, 2005 at 4:26 pm
Patrick, thanks for the tip. How frustrating. “It doesn’t fit my experience, therefore it can’t be true.” And these are the leading lights of American journalism?
I even tried to post a comment, but it was denied for “objectionable content” or some such thing. Here’s what I wrote. Maybe you can discern what was objectionable about it:
Mr. Lovelady,
I’m sorry I didn’t pass your “smell test.” I used to work at a newsroom close enough to the Philadelphia Inquirer to remember a certain editor there who used to be in charge of punching up copy for the front page. Would that be you? If so, I knew many of your work-mates, including Jim Naughton.
No, I don’t. I’m there to do a job, not to pick fights. And having already been threatened with firing for my political beliefs, I’d be rather foolish to further disrupt the place by defending them.
The people who talk politics here are not political reporters. Why would you presume that only “political reporters” among all the denizens of a newsroom take an interest in politics? Where I work, the political reporter largely is concerned with local politics, and doesn’t have to know or care much about the national and world issues. The copy desk, however, is full of them.
I am still wondering whether you think I’m a fraud, as you suggest, and why you might think that. Because my experience didn’t mirror yours? I wouldn’t have considered my newsrooms particularly partisan or biased places, either, until I found myself on the other side of the prevailing belief system. From what I can read of your posts here, I suspect you’d feel right at home and happy where I work.
July 26th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
Yeah, I don’t really see that being objectionable. It is pointed, of course, but he made the same sort of pointed comments so it seems equitable.
Perhaps Patrick could post it for you?
July 27th, 2005 at 2:22 am
Justin and Callimachus,
I too, do not see anything objectionable. I am applying the 24 hour rule on my reply to Mr. McElmore and Mr. Lovelady. I have imagined posting a lot of things but I think I should wait. I am glad you appreciated the tip. I appreciated what I have read here. Thanks for the response and keep up the good work.
July 27th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
The assertions set forth in this piece are entirely based on anecdotes. The author universalizes individual encounters he has had with liberals and claims that this applies to the entire democratic/liberal paradigm. While it is true that certain elements of liberal culture manifest the repugnant passivism the author describes, such passivism (passivity?) is by no means universal. I consider myself a centrist liberal, and I do not recognize the boogymen the author conjures up. This is the modus operandi of the right – take one idea or orientation expressed by the left, and universalize it to all democrats and liberals. It is a BS tactic. Rove does it, and many others do it as well.
Let me ask you, author – how would you react if I asserted that because you are trending to Bush and the republicans mindset on specific issues, you believe that gay marriage is the number one threat to America, as Santorum said? Or, if I attributed the Colorado congressman’s words to you, who said that if we were attacked again with bio/chem/nuke weapons by terrorists, we should bomb Mecca? How would you react? I suspect you would say BS, I am smarter than that, and I dont agree with that nonsense. You would say, hey, Im a republican, but I dont believe that insanity. This is precisely what these people do – take one example, and universally attribute it to the entire half of the country who know understands what a stupid debacle this war is, and who reject the illusions, inflexibility, and radicalism of Bush.
Examples from the piece:
(1) many liberals approve of burning flags. Look at a poll. Nonesense. This is true for the “America hatersâ€Â? accusation – take a poll. Liberals will tell you they love America. This is a beloved tactic of those who support Bush, the war, etc – liberals hate America. You masquerade as objective, but this tired old crap betrays you.
(2) liberals dont care about Kurds. Hello? Where does the author get this? It is a fabricated boogyman. What the hell? This does not describe me or many many other people who call themselves democrats.
(3) liberals approve of Castro. Hello? What the hell? What unaduletrated BS. I suspect that the author is dealing with the ghosts of his past, with the culture wars that existed decades ago, when in fact there were some leftists who thought the Soviets were right on. That is an element of the left, somewhat shameful, but by no means representative of the mainstream.
(4) The author assumes facts not in evidence. Iraq is, in the deluded minds of many who need war as a force to give meaning, a war on the “roots� of terrorism. BS. Thats a played out debate, but I dont consider the concept valid at all, and I perceive the question as settled.
Jean Michel Basquiat, a great painter, used to sign his early work “Samo.� That stood for same old shit. That is exactly what this article is. Once again, author, I ask you: do you believe that gay marriage is the #1 threat? Santorum does. Santorum is a republican, and so are you, so thus you must believe it too. The flaw in the syllogism is beyond obvious. Dont fall for it.
Let me tell you something: I am a democrat, Bush is liar, a radical, and deluded, and Afghanistan is something we had to do. We are at war. We must prosecute the war intelligently. I beleive, Callimachus, or whatever you call yourself, that you are one of those people traumatized by 9/11 who needs to see the country killing people to feel that we are reacting properly. We may need to kill, detain, do some dirty tricks, but if anyone thinks Iraq is helping us – delusions. Delusions. This is precisely why mass numbers of people have deluded themsleves into thinking Iraq had something to do with 9/11. But the tide is turning, my friend: the country is waking up. Look at the polls on Iraq.
But overall, I request that you keep your ghosts of the past to yourself. Your resentment at Marxists you encountered in your youth decades ago is irrelevant. Stop creating boogymen, stop pretending that people who are strongly against Bush’s Iraq policies are Castro-loving religion hating flag burning fools. You are not part of the reality based community, and it is sad that you call yourself a journalist.
Get real.
July 27th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Chris, Just because it doesn’t describe you doesn’t mean it doesn’t describe some people. Your blue staters ain’t like mine. But my experience is as valid as yours, as experience. As you rightly point out, this is anecdote, not argument. It’s my path.
Please show me where I claim this.
You really don’t believe there’s a large swath of self-identified liberals in this country who are enamored of Castro? Wake up. Here, I’ll give you just one example, courtesy of Nat Hentoff. The American Library Association — who scream bloody murder opver the Patriot Act:
And you again:
Now that’s a pretty typical reaction of the people around me who are self-identified liberals. “I don’t like your experience, so please keep it away from me. It disturbs what I wish to believe. Be silent.”
I don’t create such bogeymen. I don’t have to. They pop up all on their own.
July 27th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Chris, if you’re going to make a point, make a point and leave it at that. Attacking the author with this nonsense completely destroys your credibility on Donklephant.
And as Callimachus has explained (in response to some similar questions posed by me) he was talking about the liberals that he grew up with, not the entire group. I know it might be tedious, but reading the comments section before you comment can oftentimes be essential.
But Callimachus, as far as your mention of a “large swath” of liberals for Castro, I still think this is a big stretch and bringing up examples of how Fidel is “loved” by liberal groups again and again isn’t worth your time.
I too think that the ALA screwed up big time for doing this (although I haven’t researched it), but what does “large swath” mean? I think the answer to that question is important to the point you’re trying to make.
July 27th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
I ought to include, in the “broad swath” generalization, a fondness for Che Guevara and the Cuban defiance of the U.S. generally, as opposed to the personality cult of Castro.
And I thought I took pains to write my piece so that in every instance the wording made it explicit that I was talking about self-defined liberals of my own acquaintance, or certain factions among the left. I don’t believe I painted with a mop. But people seem to be reading it otherwise. Who’s right?
July 28th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Upon re-reading all three pieces, I conclude that I may have discounted or missed certain points in the piece where you take pains to point out this is your own particular experience. That was sloppy of me, I apologize.
However, in the first installment, there are a few sections where my initial point is certainly implied, in certain degrees. Here are those sections:
“I didn’t see at the time how much of the “liberal” view was simply an anti-American one.” That sentence does state that you are talking about your experience in the past – however, whether it is past or present, I do think within that idea is a bit of generalizing. It strikes a nerve, and thus may be the cause of my unfair interpretation of the piece as a whole. It strikes a nerve because there really is a very significant section of the right that equates liberalism with anti-Americanism, and that whole game sickens me. Its the Rove game. And especially when it comes to Iraq. There are quite a few people who equate disagreement with invading Iraq as anti-Americanism. (Or maybe their voices are louder, the Limbaughs rule the airwaves, after all.) You personally are not advocating that view, but the statement I quoted above tends to imply it – you do say “much of the ‘liberal’ view.” The truth is, the hard-core leftists, the people who really can be said to hate America, are an extremely small group of people, in my opinion. And I think they always have been, notwithstanding other people’s experiences in the rarefied world of academia.
Another example: “the only indigenous people too many modern liberals approve of are those that burn flags.” This is similar to the statement above, in terms of the words “too many.” What is too many? I suppose one is too many. But “too many” certainly implies a substantial number of people. I know many, many liberals, and not one of them enjoys seeing a flag being burned. We may be neutral on it, being free from the nonsense of patriotic symbolism, but we dont endorse it. Do you really know of “too many” liberals who look with glee upon flag burning? I doubt it. Who knows, maybe Im wrong.
One more: “the heirs of the sixties in the west have little use for him. They cling to Castro.” Again, who are the “heirs of the sixties?” Explain that one. Maybe Im being unfair, but Im reading it to mean that the liberal tradition as a whole clings to Castro. I really dont understand where the Castro thing comes from, except, again, in the strange and rarefied world of academia. Outside of that, and hard core leftists, no liberals I know approve of this dictator who imprisons and kills dissidents.
Also, when you discuss your personal experiences, there is an inherent question that arises: why would you discuss your experiences UNLESS you believed them to have a more general relevance and to have some general application? It is inherent in your tone and implied in the entire piece – if you are talking about your personal experiences, then you must be doing so for a reason, and that would be because you find them representative, and thus indicative of a wide swath of liberal thinking. This interpretation is certainly open to debate, I recognize.
So, there you have it – I concede that I may have been unfair, but nevertheless, I still perceive shades of that same old stupid game people play. You know some liberals who dig Castro and thus “the heirs of the sixties in the west” cling to Castro.
The real thing that set me off, and again that may have been wrong, is the idea that Iraq is helping us become safer against terrorism. You believe that, I assume, as you generally support this. You believe that Iraq is going to be an example of great democracy and unravel the knot of violent jihad that infects the middle east: if so, god help you, because you deluding yourself. But thats not the debate, I suppose, and I wont get into it. The sentiment comes from my disgust at those who continue to believe, in the face of indisputable evidence to the contrary, that invading Iraq is going to benefit us. The issue is not academic – as you well know – our young people are being killed and maimed over this.
Once more, I aplogize for my unfair treatment of your piece, but consider my points as well.
July 28th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
No need to apologize, Chris; I like a good row as well as anyone, though it seems to make my editor here tear his hair out. He wants me to be nicer to people. But I think you should call them as you see them. I’m glad you took the time to re-read the piece in the spirit I wrote it.
Normally I wouldn’t bother to put such a personal story on a purely political site. But this is a new site, and the regular contributors had been introducing themselves, and stating their positions on large issues, by way of letting the readers know from whence they came. It’s like the part at the beginning of the game show where the contestants state their hometowns and their hobbies. This was my way of doing that. My “positions” are products of the drift of my life (”evolution” is probably too loaded in that context).
As for the Castro thing, we’ve gone back and forth on that here, some people agreeing with you that he’s not a big deal to most on the left, others saying, with me, that we’ve encountered support for Cuba — or perhaps “opposition to American policies toward Cuba” as a steady thread.
It certainly is a bigger deal among academics than the general population of Democratic voters. It seems also to be a bee in the bonnet of people who were activists in the Bay of Pigs/Missile Crisis era, from my observation. But if that’s what surrounds you — and there are a lot of college towns in America — that’s what you deal with. Might be an interesting topic to break down further someday.
But — and I’m to lazy to go dig it out myself and confirm this — I think the reference to Castro and the heirs of the ’60s was a paraphrase of Christopher Hitchens. It seems to apply to his circle, too, though they are more British than American.
You’ve probably heard the cliche about “don’t assume.” I do not say, “There, now that we’ve invaded Iraq, we’re safer from terrorism.” Quite the opposite. If you can stand another historical analogy, invading French North Africa in 1942 didn’t make America “safer” from the Germans or the Japanese. But it was a step toward the end of the war.
There’s always a willingness to be self-deluded implied in the word “belief.” Only time will tell who’s right.
People in America once said opening equal opportunities to blacks and forcing equal rights on whites wouldn’t solve the problems of the African-American community, and the problems that minority failures and bad race relations create for all Americans. And certainly the record shows that many of those problems persist. But that doesn’t mean the effort was worth nothing, or that those who believed in it ough to be despised.
Iraq doesn’t have to emerge as perfect to do what I want it to do in the Mideast. But the people who live there — especially the huge under-20 population bulge now passing through — need something to do besides sit in squalor and repression and gnash their teeth over the Jews and the Crusaders and dream of ways to kill themselves and take as many of us with them as they can.
Helping just one country from that region become a true popular democracy, where people can put their efforts into a job or a dream and hope to see it come true, doesn’t just benefit us, it benefits them. That’s why I believe in it.
They don’t have to see it as a gift from us. I’d rather they saw it as their own effort. Hell, I expect they’ll still hate us just as much even if they do succeed. But by then, if my belief is correct, they’ll have something else to do with their lives.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:05 am
This statement is posted from an employee of Left Behind Games on behalf of Troy Lyndon, our Chief Executive Officer.
There has been in incredible amount of MISINFORMATION published in the media and in online blogs here and elsewhere.
Pacifist Christians and other groups are taking the game material out of context to support their own causes. There is NO “killing in the name of God� and NO “convert or die�. There are NO “negative portrayals of Muslims� and there are NO “points for killing�.
Please play the game demo for yourself (to at least level 5 of 40) to get an accurate perspective, or listen to what CREDIBLE unbiased experts are saying after reviewing the game at http://www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.com
Then, we’d love to hear your feedback as an informed player.
The reality is that we’re receiving reports everyday of how this game is positively affecting lives by all who play it.
Thank you for taking the time to be a responsible blogger.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:38 am
I am a Christian and a Pacifist. The LB Games “spamâ€Â? insinuates that there’s something wrong with this. This is the same thinking that led to the crusades and the inquisition. Doubtless, this is where these people want to lead us again. Through this game they’ve shown their hand. They are leading us to the Christian equivalent of jihad.
Jesus Christ was the ultimate “Christian Pacifist” – He laid down His life. I’m disturbed that SJR thinks that this is somehow a bad thing.
The hard right has shown its hand. Maybe a Christian jihad is not so far away if a game like this can gain so much traction.