« This Is Radio Matt | Main | The Coming Multipolar World? »
No Enemies On The Left
I appreciate what Max is trying to get at here but irrespective of the right wing's motives and irrespective of the tactical issues in play, there is a very wide spectrum of views that counts as "on the left" in the United States (in part because the center of public opinion is pretty far to the right on a bunch of issues) which means that many people on the left are going to have very serious disagreements with other people elsewhere on the left and I don't see why those disagreements shouldn't be voiced. I wouldn't say I spend a great deal of time discussing Noam Chomsky's views about foreign policy on this blog, because I hardly think there's a substantial risk that his policy preferences are going to be enacted in the near future, but were I inclined to discuss them I would discuss them unfavorably. Not because I think I need to "distance" myself from Chomsky for some reason, but because I think his views are wrong. Pretending that I do agree with him for the sake of solidarity would make no sense. Nor, needless to say, would or does Chomsky (or Max Sawicky or anyone else who's to my left) refrain from criticizing people he disagrees with on the more-moderate left.
That's really all I have to say about that, since I think it's more worthwhile to talk about the people who hold the power right now and those forces aligned with them. Apparently, they think the White House needs to do a better job of offering "a clear delineation of what's permissible and what's out of bounds in dissent on Iraq." My proposal would be this: Lavish praise of the administration's policies is permissable. Also permissable are denunciations of the administrations failures to launch wars with, for example, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and China. Other than that, any dissent will be permissable only with advance clearance from Bill Kristol and/or Rupert Murdoch. The rest is out of bounds. The war is all about freedom, after all, and freedom is very important.
February 1, 2005 | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345160fd69e200d83457a90a69e2
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference No Enemies On The Left:
» Matthew Yglesias: No Enemies On The Left from Jake Savage
Matthew Yglesias comments on partisan loyalty and why it shouldn't trump honest opinion. I disagree with Yglesias on many issues, but I respect him because of statements like this, and I think many on the right and left could learn [Read More]
Tracked on Feb 1, 2005 10:43:08 PM
» The Pragmatic Approach from Whom Gods Destroy
I don't often pay a whole lot of attention to American political blogs primarily due to the fact that there's... [Read More]
Tracked on Feb 1, 2005 11:01:50 PM
Comments
I see the "Giblets" model of free discourse is gaining traction...
Posted by: Wrye | Feb 1, 2005 5:32:59 PM
The freedom to dissent is like a fine set of china: it should be put on display and admired, but never actually used.
Posted by: Kuas | Feb 1, 2005 6:17:27 PM
Wow. Chomsky's wrong. Big courage there, chief.
Except, at least this time, he was right. You were wrong.
If you guys keep trying to work the "center," too damned blase about the suffering of others to admit that blowing up innocent people in foreign countries at our pleasure might not be an acceptable policy, I don't think you have much gravitas when, without a word of explanation, you write off a guy who's been saying for a coupla decades that U.S. explanations for American foreign policy are completely without credibility.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 1, 2005 6:18:48 PM
A stopped clock is right twice a day, Bobo. I, like Matthew, disagree with Chomsky as often as with Bush. There's nothing wrong with that, and it shouldn't prevent us from working together on the things we do agree on.
Posted by: Dave | Feb 1, 2005 6:25:25 PM
Before the war, Matt kept exhorting us unreasonable lefties to think about this war pragmatically, and drop all our foolish sentimental attachments to the ever-so-passe United Nations notion of International Law.
Imagine his fucking surprise when--holy shit!--war didn't magically fix the Middle-fucking-East!
It doesn't take even broken clockwork to figure this shit out.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 1, 2005 6:29:05 PM
Dude, there's no need to get all worked up! Chill out. This isn't Usenet.
Posted by: Dave | Feb 1, 2005 6:41:47 PM
Yer right; it's not like anybody died.
Oh, wait.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 1, 2005 6:43:26 PM
bobo--if I'm not mistaken, MY ended up opposing the war, although he supported it it for an indfensibly long period of time, so in fact he and Chomsky were both right in the end. Nontheless, reasons matter; a Chomskite position that opposes virtually all uses of American force is more likely to be wrong than a careful, pragmatic approach (although, inevitably, the latter will make misjudgments as well.) In addition, I also think that the pragmatic arguments against the war were clearly the most useful ones...
Posted by: Scott Lemieux | Feb 1, 2005 6:48:10 PM
In addition, I also think that the pragmatic arguments against the war were clearly the most useful ones...
Oh, yeah? Which votes did they win?
And now that we've given up on moralizing about the fact that unilateral war is, umm, evil? What are we left with? Hey, in another four years, we'll get another bite at the apple.
Woo-hoo!
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 1, 2005 7:02:24 PM
"but were I inclined to discuss them I would discuss them unfavorably. Not because I think I need to "distance" myself from Chomsky for some reason, but because I think his views are wrong."
Even if you thought he was right, if you were running for office, you would need to "distance" yourself.
Posted by: Petey | Feb 1, 2005 7:27:16 PM
See, "centrists" like Matt, who never had to take a position on Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Vietnam, etc. while they were happening, would like to pretend that U.S. policy after Korea was all a bunch of bipartisan idealism with just a couple tiny hiccups--you know, Death Squads and the like--sprinkled here and there in the middle. (Oops!)
But Chomsky, always insisting that we weren't spreading democracy, but waging an ongoing war to secure client states? Crazy bastard...
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 1, 2005 7:37:00 PM
Bobo, Matt's whole point is that he DOESN'T attack Chomsky much. He just cited him as an example of someone whom he doesn't talk about much because he isn't really that relevant. It wasn't an attack on Chomsky he posted. It was an explanation for why he doesn't attack Chomsky (in spite of disagreeing with him) more than, say, once every two years.
Posted by: Julian Elson | Feb 1, 2005 7:44:40 PM
I don't know that you do appreciate what Max is trying to get at there. What he's getting at is the hack gap. "I'm going to disagree with Chomsky because I think he's wrong"? Is there anything incorrect about Max's assertion that
The Right... casts slurs indiscriminately as a routine task of political warfare.... They're not using a faulty litmus test. They are trying to destroy political criticism.
If you agree with his analysis of right-wing intent, then, how would you say they are doing on this objective? I would say they are doing extremely well. And what they have done is create a national discourse in which the actual merits of one's position matter very little. And once it really just doesn't matter if you're right, because you've let them turn Chomsky into an anchor that's chained to your ankles, well, what was the point?
Should I discuss Chomsky's views unfavorably? Well, let's see... do I think he's right?
That's not the kind of thinking one employs if one realizes that what is going on is political warfare. Hacking is a necessary evil. If you aren't able, or can't bring yourself to be enough of a hack to guarantee your own future relevance, then you're a liability for all of us, every time you show up in the mainstream media. (I guess it's still pretty safe to be sincere here on the blog. You know. For now.)
Posted by: gee | Feb 1, 2005 7:45:31 PM
Petey,
Even if you thought he was right, if you were running for office, you would need to "distance" yourself.
It depends on the office.
If someone was running for a city council seat in Berkeley or Madison, or a far-left (or far-right) party in Europe, they'd do fine to embrace the Professor.
Posted by: SoCalJustice | Feb 1, 2005 7:46:52 PM
I think it's time to recall that when the term "Left" was invented in politics, the Republicans were the far left.
Posted by: John Isbell | Feb 1, 2005 7:47:19 PM
My point is, why, except to score points with those who think that militarism is A-OK, wouldn't Matt agree with Chomsky most of the time?
The U.S. does throw its weight around in all sorts of immoral (and largely self-defeating) ways, and the Yglesiases, Drums, and Marshalls of this world, in their haste to look like they "get" the importance of the U.S. retaining the "right" to blow other people up, continue to look down on those of us who continue to insist on a higher threshold for killing others.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 1, 2005 7:49:12 PM
I'm with bobo brooks on this. And I too self-described myself back then as being a Josh Marshall hawk. I did turn away from the war BEFORE it started, not because I didn't think that the war done right would still be wrong, but because I realized that the Chimp would never do it right.
Right decision, most likely the wrong reasoning.
Yglesias, Drum, Marshall, made the wrong decision for the wrong reasoning.
I still pwn th3m!
Posted by: jerry | Feb 1, 2005 8:07:23 PM
Don't you love it when MY shows his privilege?
Bleed on paper, but let others bleed on the ground.
After all they didn't go to Dalton or Harvard and their future earning potential are far lower than MY's and his ilk.
If MY is an example of the New, New Democratic Party leadership, good feckin' luck gettin' votes.
Posted by: ed | Feb 1, 2005 8:09:23 PM
It's because Chomsky is a dishonest hack masquerading as an objective truth-teller. Chomsky is an apparatchik for a totalitarian party that exists in his own head.
Posted by: Walt Pohl | Feb 1, 2005 8:16:54 PM
This ISN'T usenet? Shit.
Matt should start off by calling himself a moderate, which he is. It's bad enough for me to see the left marginalized, but when the center starts claiming to be left, that adds insult to injury.
Posted by: John Emerson | Feb 1, 2005 8:24:14 PM
See, "centrists" like Matt, who never had to take a position on Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Vietnam, etc. while they were happening ...
(For the record, wasn't MY at most, say, five, when those things were happening?)
My point is, why, except to score points with those who think that militarism is A-OK, wouldn't Matt agree with Chomsky most of the time?
Because agreeing with Chomsky involves not just a set of policy prescriptions (however reasonable or unreasonable) but also a clinically paranoid set of views about the motivations of most of the country's foreign policy, military and media apparatus: to wit, that they lie about their intentions and motives and otherwise act in bad faith pretty close to all the time. (Indeed, "bobo" makes such claims about MY here -- "except to score points," etc.) As Aryeh Neier once put it, "Chomsky does not accept the possibility that anyone who disagrees with him could be ethically motivated."
A glancing acquaintance with the actual members of the foreign policy, military and media apparatus -- and I do mean glancing; e.g., a cousin who works at the Pentagon, a college roommate in the Foreign Service and a drinking buddy who writes for a newspaper -- together with a little of experience of how actual organizations operate demonstrates that that is simply not the case. By and large, people in those positions are not stupid and genuinely seem to be trying to do the right thing. They may be misguided, they may be misinformed, and what they actually choose to do may lead to catastrophic results -- but they simply aren't the corrupt class that Chomsky describes.
And if you don't buy that fundamental assumption, what does Chomsky's analysis have to offer?
Posted by: alkali | Feb 1, 2005 8:27:23 PM
"Matt should start off by calling himself a moderate, which he is."
Well, if he were in some other country, maybe. Wake up and smell the coffee, the political center of THIS country is so far to the right of most posters here you need a spyglass to see it.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | Feb 1, 2005 8:30:20 PM
(For the record, wasn't MY at most, say, five, when those things were happening?)
Yeah, which is why he has no cognitive dissonance when he rails against Negroponte yet seems to think that Chomsky was just being crazy when he said that our Latin American endeavors had nothing to do with beating Communism.
This war--this Iraq war--is the first time that he has had to come facetoface with what his government does in the name of "centrists" like himself.
Fun, ain't it, Matt?
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 1, 2005 8:32:49 PM
Well, I think we can stipulate that Chomsky was right about Iraq, but so were a lot of other people who disagree sharply with Chomsky in their overall worldviews. It's really opportunistic and dishonest to argue that since Chomsky was right here, that proves he's right about everything and anyone who disagrees with him ever is just a sellout trying to ingratiate himself with the right wing. By that logic, you could just as easily argue that Bob Graham is right about everything, and we should immediately declare war on Hezbollah and Hamas.
If I recall, Chomsky also opposed all of the Clinton-era interventions, i.e. Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti (all of which saved many lives), and attempted to justify that position with the ludicrous claim that the US foreign policy elite was trying to establish client states in the Balkans and the Caribbean. He also opposed the war in Afghanistan. The problem with Chomsky is that his views really aren't based on any analysis or understanding of the reasons why Foreign Policy X or Y is right or wrong. He just starts out with the predetermined conclusion that the US is wrong and fills in his rationale later.
More on Chomsky.
Posted by: JP | Feb 1, 2005 8:42:25 PM
JP-
That's pretty much it. But you forgot to add in something about East Timor ;-)
Posted by: Brad Reed | Feb 1, 2005 8:50:42 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
