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CounterPunch
February
10, 2003
Not Another
Leftist Ideology Czar!
Kazin's Ground Rules for Dissent
by MARK HAND
Is Michael Kazin proud to be among the long list
of writers sent to the frontlines of the Washington Post's propaganda
war against anyone opposed to a U.S. invasion of Iraq? In the
run-up to the U.S. government's planned massive military strikes
on Iraq, virtually every column inch of the Post's op-ed pages
related to the Iraqi issue has been devoted to blood-thirsty
ravings in support of the War Party's agenda or to liberals and
leftists attacking their own for not meeting their tortuous criteria
for becoming an authentic antiwar activist.
Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown
University, must have known the odds of getting the Post to publish
his piece were far greater if he lectured the U.S. peace movement
on its faults rather than followed the much riskier course of
attacking the U.S. establishment for its militaristic ways. Given
his usual sensible assessments of the current state of the world,
one has to wonder why Kazin wrote an article -- adapted from
a piece he wrote for the fall issue of Dissent -- entitled "The
Best Dissent Has Never Been Anti-American" for the Post's
Feb. 9, 2003 Outlook section that clearly draws an inaccurate
and generalized portrait of the antiwar movement.
The level of McCarthyism on the left
continues to grow in tandem with the rising discontent with Washington's
imperial policies. In his Post piece, Kazin inexplicably makes
some broad generalizations about the left that exist only in
the fantasies of Bill O'Reilly and his fans. Sadly, in recent
months, we've grown accustomed to Kazin's crowd creating straw
men on the left so that they can easily knock them down and look
reasonable in the eyes of the major media.
Early in his article, Kazin, who sits
on the editorial board of Dissent magazine, says "no one
in the current peace movement has put forth a moral vision that
might unite and sustain it beyond the precipice of war."
Of course, many people involved in the
peace movement are putting forward arguments that could sustain
the movement beyond the issue of U.S. government aggression against
Iraq. That the U.S. government should stay out of the affairs
of other countries and should call its troops home is one of
the most compelling arguments currently being forwarded by many
in the peace movement. The vision of the U.S. government practicing
what it preaches, as the peace movement has forwarded, could
serve as a unifying force in the United States. Most rational
Americans would agree that other countries and terrorist groups
should not send agents to kill people on our soil and should
not send troops to occupy our land. So why does our government
continue to pursue a policy that we find abhorrent when others
do it?
Washington officials and pundits argue
that, in the name of national security, the U.S. government should
continue to enact policies that essentially infringe on the freedom
of Americans and people around the world and that end up bolstering
only the goals of the U.S. elite. Are advocates for these types
of measures traitors to the American ideals of democracy and
freedom? Many of those in the peace movement embrace the pursuit
of freedom and democracy for all, concepts that certainly are
more aligned with the ideals of America than any of the current
policies emanating from Washington.
In a wonderful piece on the ZNet website,
Brian Dominick challenges the assumptions of "former leftists"
David Corn, Christopher Hitchens, Marc Cooper, and Todd Gitlin.
"Each man has published at least one commentary (in LA Weekly,
The Washington Post, The LA Times and Mother Jones, respectively)
taking cheap shots against the Left and regurgitating standard
establishment lies about subjects like September 11, Afghanistan
and Iraq," Dominick writes. "It's no surprise that
a bunch of white men might want to hijack or undermine the Left
while currying favor from the liberal establishment."
I'm not sure of the relevance of these
writers' gender or race, but Dominick's description of them wanting
to curry favor with the liberal establishment also appears to
apply to Kazin.
As with the four "former leftists,"
Kazin cannot resist the urge to take aim at Noam Chomsky in the
pages of the Post. Chomsky's crime is that he developed a definition
of patriotism that does not conform to the patriotic message
conveyed by the U.S. elite. Kazin says that Chomsky describes
the establishment's patriotism as the governing elite's way of
telling the American people, "You shut up and be obedient,
and I'll relentlessly advance my own interests." This is
a perfectly acceptable definition of the elitist brand of patriotism,
and Kazin actually does a service by highlighting Chomsky's view
on patriotism. Kazin's intent, of course, was to argue that Chomsky's
view is out of the mainstream, even on the left.
Toward the end of his Outlook piece,
Kazin implies that the antiwar movement does not care enough
about the security of its neighbors here in the United States.
He writes that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 will "inevitably
force activists to clarify how they would achieve security, for
individuals and the nation. How can one seriously engage in this
conversation about protecting America if the nation holds no
privileged place in one's heart?"
Once again, Kazin joins the establishment
chorus by questioning whether the peace movement really is concerned
about the safety of Americans or if they care only for those
harmed by the U.S. government's imperial policies. Any honest
assessment of the situation would recognize that people in the
peace movement are patriots, even if they eschew the ugliness
that's attached itself to the word over the years, because they
understand that the security of Americans will be significantly
jeopardized if the War Party in Washington continues its belligerent
ways.
The peace movement recognizes this. Apparently,
the likes of Michael Kazin are blinded to history's lesson that
bullying eventually proves counterproductive and often leads
to fits of rage, irrational or not, by those who perceive themselves
to be on the receiving end of a bully's wrath.
Mark Hand is
editor of PressAction.com.
He can be reached at mark@pressaction.com.
Today's Features
Linda Heard
Powell
at the UN: Spiel, Stunts and Special Effects
Anthony Gancarski
Peggy
Noonan, Space Case
The Columbia and the Manufacture of Tragedy
Robert Fisk
You Wanted
to Believe Him: Powell Does Beckett
Robert Jensen
Powell
at the UN:
Smoking Guns and Big Guns
William Hughes
Colin
Powell's Big Flop
Ali Abunimah
Dissecting Powell's Speech:
Hearsay and Old Allegations
Phyllis Bennis
Powell vs. Blix
The Case for War Remains Unmade
Rahul Mahajan
Responding
to Colin Powell
Is This All You've Got?
Paul de Rooij
Where Are the Incubators, Gen. Powell?
Website of the Day
Iraq:
the War Game
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