On Conspiracy Theories, "Neoconservatives" and the War for Iraq

A libertarian defence of the Iraq intervention by Sam Wells (ewillers@swbell.net)

The exaggerated role of some "neoconservatives" in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy has been a central theme of certain populist and hard left conspiracy theories about the Bush Administration. The "neoconservatives" have been described over and over as "carrying the water for Israel's Likud Party" in conspiring to drag the U.S. into military involvement in the Middle East in general and in Iraq in particular. Some populist-left-wing conspiracy theories would even have us believe that the entire impetus for the Bush Administration's decision to send troops to Iraq to topple the corrupt Saddam Hussein regime was totally engineered by "neocon" plotters. Yet, the more I look at it, the more I am convinced that it is much more complex than that simplistic scenario. While it is true that some neoconservatives have been writing about just this sort of agenda for more than a decade, the assumption that U.S. military intervention in the Middle East would necessarily benefit Israel is questionable -- especially if the whole efforft backfires by Iraq becoming a shi-ite ally or client state of Iran and Red China.

When I read the articles and books of the "neoconservatives" (Podhoretz, Kristol, Perle, et al), I discern an almost naive crusading optimism about both the possibilites for and salutary results of something they call "democracy" all over the world in general and in the Middle East in particular, despite the cultural and religious differences involved. This naive idealism about the spread of democracy in the Middle East -- and its consequences necessarily being supposedly in America's long-term national self interest -- is something apparently shared by President Bush after having read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. (It was apparently this book rather than anything written by our domestic neoconservatives that moved Bush to such an optimistic scenario.)

Now, of course, as libertarians, we champion freedom and capitalism rather than democracy if by "democracy" is meant majority rule across the board; however, as is often the case in political discussions, when Sharansky and others use the term "democracy" they seem to mean more than majoritarian tyranny. He apparently means some combination of freedom and some kind of "representative" government. Certainly the relative elements of freedom and capitalism imposed on or developed by Japan after its defeat in World War II have benefited greatly both the Japanese people and the rest of the world -- and made Americans safer from attack than before. But can such traditions as private property rights, the rule of law, constitutonalism, due process, etc. be successfully grafted onto a culture very different from that in which those values and institutions developed in 18th Century England, Holland, and the United States? Can Douglas MacArthur's feat be duplicated in Iraq? That remains to be seen, of course. Any rational American can at least hope that it can succeed to some extent or another.

So, is it conspiracy or unintended consequences? Or a combination of both? But wait -- it's even more complex than even that. The choice to invade and liberate Iraq is part of a wider geopolitical strategy to put pressure on other regimes which have been involved, directly or indirectly, in supporting or sanctioning terrorist activity -- such as the Saudi soft policy concerning the extremist terrorist Wahhabist cult. While it is not true that Saddam had anything directly to do with the attacks of 9/11/01 -- a connection which the Bush Administration never claimed -- there was definitely evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, as documented by Stephen F. Hayes (The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America) and others. But even without such connection, there were still more hidden geopolitical strategic reasons for American liberation of Iraq as part of this wider game plan of pressuring our "friends" in Saudi Arabia to do more in helping in the war against terrorism..

Given the immense complexities in the Middle East, it is clear to me that neither the neocons nor anyone else could know with any degree of certainty what would be the result of U.S. military intervention in Iraq. No one can know for sure whether Operation Iraqi Freedom, costing over $100 billion, will result in a more peaceful situation for either the Middle East in general or Israel in particular -- or even ultimately be in the interests of Americans. It was a gamble. We probably won't know whether the gamble paid off or not, in terms of a more peaceful and less terrorized world, for several more years, perhaps decades down the line. There is complex geopolitical strategy at work behind this operation as well as the more simplistic "neoconservative" zeal for spreading democracy into places heretofore thought by many "White folk" to be too primitive or culturally immature to support such institutions and values. But, just as Japan has turned out to be a resounding success story, so may be the case in the Middle East.

This complexity and uncertainty causes me to cast serious doubt on the left-wing / populist conspiracy theory that suggests that neoconservative crypto-zionists or Likud partisans manipulated U.S. foreign policy to get us into Iraq to somehow help out Israel strategically. If that was the original intention of some, it certainly has not panned out so far to be much of a boon to Israel, as far as I can see. It is far too easy for the anti-American Left and the pro-American populists to blame the Jews for everything that goes wrong in the world. That kind of thinking lacks credibility. Plus, it should be kept in mind that a true conspiracy exists as a secret operation, but those who have advocated liberation in the Middle East for over a decade have not made their views any kind of secret but have published them for any and all to see. Some "conspiracy"!

But as far as whether Bush or anyone else had a legitimate and moral justification for using force to drag Saddam Hussein off the back of the Iraqi people, there is no question in my mind that he did have such justification. Saddam had initiated coercion against others all over the place -- including his own fellow Iraqis as well as the people of Kuwait. According to libertarian principles going back to John Locke and America's founding fathers, he had thus lost -- totally forfeited -- his right to be left alone long ago. Contrary to what some libertarians seem to believe, it is not necessary for Saddam to have initiated forfce against the U.S. itself to make it a legitimate target for forceful overthrow -- any more than you have to be attacked if a mugger attacks your girlfriend (or a complete stranger for that matter), you still have a right to step in and use your own violent force to defend her from that attack even though the mugger never attacked you personally. If a big bully is beating up on a little kid on the school grounds, there is nothing in libertarian philosophy that says no one -- either a teacher or another big kid -- should intervene forcefully by dragging the bully off of his victim. Once coercion is initiated on anyone, the initiator forfeits (loses) his right to be left alone by the coercion of others. This is basic libertarian rights theory going all the way back to Locke's Second Treatise. (The only libertarian thinker I know of who disagreed with this was Robert LeFevre, who explicitly denied the idea that rights are ever forfeited no matter what acts a criminal may commit.)

Moreover, Saddam was in violation of the terms of the peace/cease fire following the first Gulf War. He was obviously playing a shell game with the international inspectors concerning development of weapons of mass destruction. There is no question that anyone had a moral and legal justification to taking out Saddam's regime. If the U.S. Government chose to do so for its own perceived strategic reasons, so be it!

And those who claim that Bush "lied" about the existence of WMDs in Iraq conveniently forget that the previous Clinton Administration, as well as the British and other European governments, shared in the same belief that Saddam possessed WMDs or was working on them. We had good reason to believe he at least had bio-chem weapons because the U.S. had sold some of those materials to Saddam back when he was at war with our enemy the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran -- with the stipulation that he only use them in that war and not against his own people or his peaceful neighbors, both terms of which he violated. So, whether the belief that Saddam had WMDs was based on faulty intelligence or global incompetence among intelligence agencies or even if anti-Bush Democrat partisans within the CIA were trying to set Bush up, the fact remains that there were reasons to believe Saddam had WMDs -- wherever they may be today. Whether they were buried in the sand or moved (with the help of the Russian military) elsewhere is not known by the West. But even if there were never any WMDs at all -- which is nonsense -- the Bush Administration still had moral and legal justification for its action there.

What about the "international community" you ask? Well, if by "international community" is meant the corrupt United Nations, then it should not be forgot that Saddam Hussein was in violation of several UN resolutions as well as the terms of the cease fire.

So, any way you want to look at it -- basic classical liberal or libertarian principles or international law -- the Bush Administration has as much right as anyone to overthrow Saddam and his regime. (For the Objectivists among us, it then only becomes a question of whether it is self-sacrificial or not, and that is something that is not always easy to judge. Whether it will be considered worth it or not in the long run -- or one of the biggest miscalculations in modern times -- is yet to be determined. But, again, given the complexities of the Middle East, no one now knows for sure what the outcome will be.)

The only other possible objection to Bush's sending of troops to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein is one of a constitutionalist nature -- that some have claimed that Bush should not have committed troops to what amounts to a war without an explicit and formal declaration of war -- using the word "war" -- by Congress. Yet, others disagree, citing the War Powers Act and amendments thereto as sufficient warrant from Congress. Certainly, at the time Bush committed troops, the vast majority of both houses of Congress supported him in that action.

It seems to me that since Libertarians are divided on the issue of the war in Iraq, that it is better that we should agree to disagree on that for now instead of pretending to the public that there is a party unity that does not exist on that issue.

Conservative Blogs Falling Behind?

I received a number of interesting comments on my post about this article I reproduce the comments concerned below:




My first thought is that a 'community' site is next to impossible. When leftist feel it necessary to protest a graduation commencement by the governor of California ruining the special day of all in attendance, how can you open up a site to such ignorant trolls? They quickly ruin such efforts by posting horrific expletives and goading unnecessarily without intellectual give-and-take. Plus, the Right is not as monolithic as the Left as they appear to goosestep all over themselves with asinine conspiracy theories and rabid diatribes of little value.

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I doubt that different formats are the principal explanation for the recent upsurge of hits on Leftist blogs, though. I think that the recent conservative advance in the Anglosphere -- decisive election wins by GWB, John Howard and Tony Blair in America, Australia and Britain -- is the reason. Leftists are getting demoralized and are looking more and more for talk that will help prop up their views. They NEED blogs more than conservatives do.

Yes:

(1) From what I've seen there are more conservative blogs than leftist ones. If there same number of people are looking, that means that there will be more hits per blog -- especially for the top-rated blogs.

(2) In my experience, conservatives are more independent thinkers. I could open a conservative blog if there were none others in the entire blogosphere. In fact, I'd write more, probably, since I currently pass up many articles as I think someone else covered them well enough. I don't need someone else to tell me how to think about it. If you're an insecure herd-follower these days, you're not a conservative. And see #1 for more evidence of this.

And you're correct about many on the left being demoralized: after the election here, a lot of leftists got together and had group pity-parties. I was listening to a narrative of one -- written by a liberal -- and she was describing how they'd get together and tell each other they were all good people. (I find the idea revolting, personally, right or left.) Again, this is what happens when your self-image is based on subjective judgements. You need your affirmation, whether positive (we're good!) or negative (they're bad!).

(3) I've noticed that many liberal narratives are simply lies. For example, I've heard many liberal friends ranting that Bush cut arts funding. I just looked up the numbers. So if you left those numbers alone, the evidence would lead on naturally to a conservative conclusion. Since the liberal is often at war with reality itself, it takes a LOT of words -- written and read -- to overcome that data, and make the lie accepted as true.

(Aside: In general, I like to tell people that lies are weaker than truth. This is what makes evil so intolerant and dangerous. The king can sent his pages and heralds, poets and bards to convince the crowd of the beauty of his attire, but all it takes is one little boy in the crowd yelling: "The emperor is naked!" and the gig is up. Is is this assymetry of power which drives the left to be so intolerant and repressive: one Fox News channel, here in the US, can undermine the entire liberal narrative. Even, back in the 90s, having a conservative voices on AM radio stations was entirely too scary for the left.)

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I just read your "Conservative Blogs Falling Behind?" entry on Dissecting Leftism and I couldn't agree more with your theory that leftists feel a need to congregate with others who agree with them. They seem to crave having as many voices as possible screaming their unbalanced, illogical drek to drown out any refutation of their viewpoints. This is why many large left-wing blog sites allow comments, but then delete the comments of (and often ban) anyone who pounds a chink in their delusions (no matter how polite the hammer swinger may be). In all fairness, not all leftist blogs do this, but many of the biggest, like Daily Kos, often do. Democratic Underground is infamous for not only banning those who disagree with them, but those who don't drink from the fountain of liberal idiocy deeply enough.

Where most conservate blog authors are confident enough in their views and let their arguments speak for themselves, leftists need a constant flow of reenforcement to keep irritating things like facts or logic from dissuading them from their path. Most conservative bloggers who do allow comments don't delete anyone who disagrees with them unless those people are excessively rude, profane, etc.

The rise of humanism and secularism in Iran

Below is a speech given by Maryam Namazie at the British Humanist Association conference held during June 10-12, 2005.

* Iranian New Year in March is a celebration of the first day of spring. This is obviously not an Islamic holiday and one that had initially been banned by the Islamic Republic of Iran and denounced as pagan over the past years but to no avail. On the last Wednesday of every year (called Chahar Shanbeh Suri), people come onto the streets, build bonfires and jump over them - a ritual from pre-Islamic times to basically receive the warmth of the fire for the upcoming year. This year, there were reports of Korans being burnt in the bonfires!

* On March 8, International Women's Day, a day not recognised by the Islamic regime, which has its own Islamic women's day, men and women gathered in the streets to celebrate. There were a large number of reports of women pulling off their veils and setting them alight.

* In February on Ashura, the tenth day of Moharram which is a month of mourning in the Shia calendar and especially important because it was the day that imam Hussein (a grandson of Mohammed and the third imam) was killed, there are often scenes of men and boys out on the streets, self flagellating with chains and even beating themselves with the edges of swords. It is a scene from the Middle Ages with bloodied men and even children parading through the streets. During this month, it is even illegal to wear bright clothing in Iran. But this year, young men and women came out onto the streets, blasted rock music and danced!

I want to remind you that these astonishing examples are taking place in a country where it is illegal to listen and dance to rock music, remove or even `improperly' wear the compulsory veil, and mix with the opposite sex, let alone to speak, organise, associate, etc. freely. In all the examples I gave, there were also clear expressions of opposition to the government. For example on International Women's Day, the slogan of `neither veil nor submission' was heard across the country - the same slogan used in mass protests in Iran when the government initially imposed compulsory veiling over two decades ago.

What's most interesting is that these examples are not isolated incidents but are fast becoming a norm. People, particularly the youth, are using every opportunity - from one of the `holiest' days of mourning to a football match win on June 9 to the upcoming so-called presidential election in Iran to express their human desire to live in the 21st century free from religion and superstition.

I can imagine that for some these examples may sound extreme and shocking in its opposition to the current state of affairs. If it happened here in Britain, it would immediately be labelled `racist' and `Islamophobic' [though a critique of religion or any belief has nothing to do with racism], and even `incitement to religious hatred' - allegations often flung at those of us in exile who speak out against Islam and political Islam. But in Iran, a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its government is a reality, and even an inevitable necessity.

This reminds me of a recent discussion that has taken place in the Guardian about the 21st century atheist where Dylan Evans has criticised Jonathan Miller and Richard Dawkins for being `virulently anti-religion', saying they are old atheists and that new ones should value religion. Salman Rushdie appropriately responds by saying that in some parts religion is not a `polite set of rituals' or a dead religion like Greek mythology where one can enjoy reading it and gives examples of where this is not the case.

In Iran, too, Islam is a state power, which has executed over 100,000 people in two decades, slaughtered an entire generation, and actually stones people to death for sex outside of marriage with the law even specifying the size of the stone to be used. In the 21st century, it hangs people from cranes in city centres, and won't even allow choices in dress and music. In Iran, we're talking about a situation where Islam and its state have been imposed by sheer brute force and violence. It is, therefore, natural and rational to respond to the situation with an anti-Islamic backlash. As the late and eminent Marxist and humanist, Mansoor Hekmat has said: `.when you come face to face with movements, which threaten freethinkers like Taslima Nasrin with death, you are obliged to once again refer to the Koran and say that this reaction is feeding from a well, which exactly formulates all this backwardness. The Koran could have been a historical book like many other historical books; people could look at it and not show much sensitivity but when a movement makes it the banner of a contemporary political struggle, then people are forced to take its banner from it, review it, look at it .and discredit it.'

The backlash and opposition in Iran is at its essence strongly humanist, secularist and modern. You can see it clearly in the examples I have given but also in a much more deep-seated way - in rational, popular, and spontaneous acts and the establishment of hundreds of organisations outside government structures and restrictions that are non-religious and purely for the defence of the human being via reliance on human will. For example, there are children's organisations in many major cities in Iran calling for a secular education, an end to corporal punishment, child abuse and punishment, differentiation between parental and children's rights and even exerting pressure on the Islamic regime to announce an end to the execution of minors. In practice, when 15 year old Zhila Izadi was arrested and flogged for allegedly having sex with her brother, for example, a committee was formed in her defence; people visited her, supported her and intervened on her behalf with her family.

In all of these, there is an immense sense of solidarity and daily acts of intervention on behalf of humanity - whether it be to rescue someone being arrested for `improper' veiling from the clutches of the pasdaran or revolutionary guards or collecting support for the victims of the Bam earthquake with the stated purpose of helping especially because the government was not.

Again, don't forget we are talking about a country that has been under Islamic rule for 25 years; a country that has been labelled Islamic by the media and western states day in and day out; a country where half the population are between 14 and 24 and were born under Islamic rule! And still - not only have they not been Islamicised as government officials often complain - but are actually going on an anti-Islamic offensive.

In countries like Iran I think you can often see the real state of affairs by statements made by people affiliated with the government or those who were in the inner sanctum and now want to save their hides. Mohsen Sazegara, for example, a member of Khomeini's inner sanctum, who helped write the regime's constitution and set up the notorious pasdaran - revolutionary guards - is now speaking of secularism in this issue's New Humanist magazine! Aghajari speaks of `Islamic humanism'. If you read their statements carefully you see how they attempt to co-opt people's language and desires but in fact only to save Islam and they say as much.

But it is to no avail. If I can quote Mansoor Hekmat again: `.mullahs would at one time come and get paid to read religious sermons and go. They had a role in society. But when they come to the fore, organise society based on their views, turn their internal moralities into external laws for all to observe and we see all of their filth everywhere, then it's not possible just to permit them to go back into their previous hole. When the wave sets off and people's anti-Islamic offensive begins, then Islam cannot retreat to its position and stance of two decades ago.'

You also have diehards, such as Ayatollah Hamedani who mention humanism and secularism but in a different context saying: `The spreading of prostitution and evil things. and the propagation of crazy ideas such as secularism, liberalism and humanism are part of our enemies' plans to sow disunity in society.' But the enemy is society itself, completely home grown, courtesy of the Islamic Republic of Iran; a direct result of naked, bare theocracy.

Of course you can see humanism in other countries in the Middle East, basically because human beings are humanists at heart when you scratch the surface but it is in Iran where it has gained momentum and is significant and historically unprecedented.

We are watching history in the making. Iran a place where a defeated 1979 revolution has been labelled an Islamic revolution by official journalism; an Iran, which has been a pillar of political Islam over the past two decades is now today at the crossroads of a social, political and cultural upheaval against Islam and political Islam and for humanism, secularism and modernism.

Several decades ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran kick-started contemporary political Islam and religious revival. Today, what is taking place in Iran will kick-start a humanist, secularist revival in Iran and across the Middle East. Its effects will be felt across the globe and in the west - adversely affecting Sharia courts in Canada and Britain to the deceptive notion of Islamophobia as racism and child veiling in Europe. It is crucial to for people everywhere to recognise and unequivocally defend this movement.

Is the Pope Catholic?


“Is the Pope Catholic? How can this be?” seems to be the attitude of The World’s commentators towards the new Pope. One such World contributor, Mort Kondracke, rebuked his new Holiness on April 29 for his failure to get along with other religions like Islam. Kondracke chides the former Cardinal Ratzinger for calling such other religions “deficient”. Apparently the Pontiff should adopt the journalistic attitude that all faiths are equal. That Benedict XVI disagrees may have something to do with Jesus’ admonition that no one comes to the Father except through Him. But Kondracke – who claims to be a church-going Protestant – seems to think the Vatican should lengthen its list of Saviors, perhaps by adding Mohammed and Buddha. Honor diversity

More apoplectic yet are Cokie and Steve Roberts, in a column of April 25, also in The World. The famous media couple wonder if Benedict XVI can: “…impose a rigid worldview on unwilling followers?” And Cokie and Steve disclose their answer: if he doesn’t loosen up, financial reality will come down hard on the new Pontiff who “…won’t be able to control the laity, the people who fill the pews and collection plates every Sunday.” In exchange for their nickels and dimes this laity will insist on Benedict’s blessing of Catholic birth control, feminist nuns and feminist priests, abortion, homosexuality – in short, the Vatican must join the parade pushing all the latest notions of social progress. The two Roberts also think his new Holiness should be less judgmental – like them: “…as a mixed religious couple – Cokie is Catholic, Steve is Jewish – who respect and embrace each other’s traditions, we find this element of his theology particularly disturbing.”

Actually, plain facts and figures show that these literary luminaries have things completely backwards. The Presbyterian Church USA, the Methodists, the Episcopalians – all of these mainstream denominations have turned liberal along the lines of the Kondracke/Roberts prescription, and a powerful lot of good it has done. All have lost millions of members and tons of money. Many of these churches are now in danger of being ripped apart by disagreements between evangelical conservatives and the honor-diversity-crowd, which is led by left-wing elements ensconced in each church’s central bureaucracy. A good deal of the conflict was sparked by the efforts of militant lesbian “theologians”, a few years ago. With the financial support of these mainstream Protestant denominations they had a big meeting of far-left earth muffins at which they prayed to Gaia the Earth Goddess and set out to “re-imagine” Christianity. The dust has not settled yet, and if the Vatican wants to kill the Catholic Church, it should go down this same road.

That Cokie Roberts (Catholic) and Steve Roberts (Jewish) “respect and embrace each other’s traditions” is nice; so is respecting the Easter Bunny and Santa. But do Cokie and Steve respect and embrace each other’s theology? That is hard to believe, since the two have big disagreements, far bigger than, say, those between Presbyterians and Methodists. So the likely answer is that Cokie and Steve don’t care very much. Because they worship cultural diversity, their priority is “traditions”. With respect to theology such people are willing to believe anything, which means they believe nothing. But if you believe nothing, why bother going to church on Sunday? (or Saturday, as the cultural case may be.) Don’t waste your time and money: spend it on an extensive – and expensive – Sunday brunch. That many people do so is one reason membership and attendance are down at so many churches; the other is that serious worshippers have left for other churches, ones that take the Bible seriously and make moral demands of their members. Those churches are growing by leaps and bounds; unlike what modern journalists think, no Church can afford to be a democratic institution, forever changing its core beliefs to accommodate the latest fads.

(Letter from Wim de Vriend, Oregon. cooscoos@coosnet.com)

THE "NO" VOTE IN FRANCE ON THE EU REFERENDUM

Next May 29, France will decide once again, as so often in history, the destiny of the Old World. It is a question of the plebiscite on the new European Constitution, which in order to go into effect needs the unanimous ratification of the twenty-five member countries of the Union.

The constitutional text, which occupies no less than 474 pages of the Official Newspaper of the Union, contains numerous contradictions and ambiguities, and therefore it is no surprise that vast sectors of the French center and the right give weighty reasons to vote for the "No." Diverse opinion polls indicate that at least half of all Frenchmen are inclined to vote "No."

In administrative and economic matters, the Constitution establishes a gigantic supranational bureaucracy with headquarters in Brussels, a species of neo-totalitarianism with powers to intervene in all economic life, with regulations without end, of which not even the famous French Camembert and "foie gras" will be saved. An omnipotent Leviathan, capable of suffocating with its regulations all free initiative, but at the same time useless for promoting authentic economic progress.

In matters of historic roots, the Constitution, to describe the philosophical origins of Europe, avoids any reference to the Christian substratum of the Old World, as if almost twenty centuries of her history (and fifteen of France, since the conversion of the Franks in the fifth century) could be erased with a single stroke.

In moral matters, the Constitution, at the same time that it injures the concept of the family based on marriage between a man and a woman, opens the doors to pseudo homosexual marriage, abortion, euthanasia, etc.

It would be childish to say that the 474 pages of the Constitution do not have anything acceptable. What we do affirm is that they contain sufficient contradictions and ambiguities so as to stir up thoughtful and serious motives for voting "No." If the "No" succeeds, it will be possible to open up in France and in Europe a healthy process for a reformulation of the constitutional text, which would at least make it acceptable.

In addition to the above, a paradox exists in the French debate about the European Constitution: among the followers of the "No" are the clear and healthy elements of the center and the right to which reference has been made - but also active are anarchist groups of the extreme left, linked to the World Social Forum, which have even assumed the leadership. A noisy left, discredited and losing more prestige, which is engaged in the triumph of the "No," without being worried about the sovereignty and independence of France, desiring in reality that this nation and all Europe be directed along the path of chaos and of fragmentation, because for them "the worse it becomes, the better."

A certain part of the French press that is partisan to the "Yes" has also taken advantage of that paradox, and the consequent confusion created, to try to discredit the healthy sectors of French public opinion that will vote for the "No," identifying them as allies of the extreme left and presenting them as primitive, reactionary, against economic progress and the interests of Europe.

It is our desire that in the current French battle over the plebiscite, truth, common sense and lucidity predominate, and that public opinion in that country know how to differentiate the wheat from the chaff.

The above text was emailed to me from "Destaque Internacional - Year VII - No. 168 - Buenos Aires / Madrid - May 13, 2005 - Coord.: Javier González. (nv33134@yahoo.com)

Why "Media Watch" needs watching

Viewers of ABC television's "Media Watch" program last week must have felt that The Australian's columnist Janet Albrechtsen had done something really wrong. For the "soft left" journalism of Media Watch, her real crime was to contest the media focus on the bad news out of Iraq. But, rather than substance, Media Watch searched for a chink to smear Albrechtsen. It came in an Albrechtsen quote: "When something positive does happen it either gets filtered through the anti-war eyes of the media or is all but ignored. And that's what the terrorists are counting on. They must detest The Wall Street Journal. Each fortnight the paper's website (www.wsj.com) includes a round-up of good news from Iraq..."

Gotcha, suggested Media Watch's Liz Jackson. Media Watch couldn't find the good news round-up on wsj.com. That was until it linked to a "spin-off site", a "sister site" or a "Dow Jones" website OpinionJournal.com. There, the round-up of Iraq good news was the work of a Brisbane blogger, not a WSJ journalist. His blog was not edited, nor paid for. Albrechtsen had falsely given it the credibility of The WSJ.

No Liz, the OpinionJournal editor, James Taranto, points out that OpinionJournal is in fact a WSJ website. It's the website of the paper's highly influential editorial page. Both he and its assistant editor work for the WSJ print edition as well. They pay the Iraq good news contributor a modest fee and edit his work. Taranto would have told Media Watch this if they'd have rung. Albrechtsen was correct to say The WSJ's website carries the Iraq good news round-up. Her "honest, and very small error" was to refer to the wrong WSJ website. "Since the goal was to make another journalist's honest mistake look like a deliberate misrepresentation, one cannot credit Media Watch with acting in good faith," Taranto says. The Australian looks forward to Media Watch's correction on Monday night.

The above editorial appeared in "The Australian" of May 14, 2005 but such editorials tend not to stay online for long so I have reproduced it here

Chilean martyr advocated surgical 'cure' for homosexuality

Berlin: Salvador Allende, the socialist president of Chile who was killed during a CIA-backed coup in 1973, was an anti-Semite who held fascist ideas in his youth, says a new book which has split Chile.

The book, Salvador Allende: Antisemitism and Euthanasia, will shock those around the world who revere the late president as a socialist martyr deposed by the right-wing General Augusto Pinochet with the backing of Washington and big business.

The disclosures come from Allende's 1933 doctoral dissertation which had been kept secret. In it he asserts that Jews have a disposition to crime, and calls for compulsory sterilisation of the mentally ill and alcoholics.

Victor Farias, the book's Chilean-born author, said Allende quotes approvingly a "cure" for homosexuality, which was then a crime: "It could be corrected with surgery - small holes would be made in the stomach, into which small pieces of testicle would be inserted. This would make the person heterosexual."

Farias, who teaches at the Latin American Institute of Berlin's Free University, says only opposition from medical associations prevented Allende, a medical doctor, from introducing a compulsory sterilisation program when he was Chile's health minister from 1939 to 1941.

The Allende family accused Farias of "manipulating documents". Allende's supporters say such views were common in the 1930s, and insist he should be judged on his political record, not early writings.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/05/13/1115843371706.html

When Bigots Become Reformers

The Progressive Era's shameful record on race


REVIEW of The Progressive Era and Race: Reform and Reaction, 1900–1917, by David W. Southern, Wheeling, W.V.: Harlan Davidson, 240 pages, $15.95 -- by Damon Root

The Progressive movement swept America from roughly the early 1890s through the early 1920s, producing a broad popular consensus that government should be the primary agent of social change. To that end, legions of idealistic young crusaders, operating at the local, state, and federal levels, seized and wielded sweeping new powers and enacted a mountain of new legislation, including minimum wage and maximum hour laws, antitrust statutes, restrictions on the sale and consumption of alcohol, appropriations for hundreds of miles of roads and highways, assistance to new immigrants and the poor, women’s suffrage, and electoral reform, among much else.

Today many on the liberal left would like to revive that movement and its aura of social justice. Journalist Bill Moyers, speaking at a conference sponsored by the left-wing Campaign for America’s Future, described Progressivism as “one of the country’s great traditions.” Progressives, he told the crowd, “exalted and extended the original American Revolution. They spelled out new terms of partnership between the people and their rulers. And they kindled a flame that lit some of the most prosperous decades in modern history.”

Yet the Progressive Era was also a time of vicious, state-sponsored racism. In fact, from the standpoint of African-American history, the Progressive Era qualifies as arguably the single worst period since Emancipation. The wholesale disfranchisement of Southern black voters occurred during these years, as did the rise and triumph of Jim Crow. Furthermore, as the Westminster College historian David W. Southern notes in his recent book, The Progressive Era and Race: Reform and Reaction, 1900–1917, the very worst of it—disfranchisement, segregation, race baiting, lynching—“went hand-in-hand with the most advanced forms of southern progressivism.” Racism was the norm, not the exception, among the very crusaders romanticized by today’s activist left.

At the heart of Southern’s flawed but useful study is a deceptively simple question: How did reformers infused with lofty ideals embrace such abominable bigotry? His answer begins with the race-based pseudoscience that dominated educated opinion at the turn of the 20th century. “At college,” Southern notes, “budding progressives not only read exposés of capitalistic barons and attacks on laissez-faire economics by muckraking journalists, they also read racist tracts that drew on the latest anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, eugenics, and medical science.”

Popular titles included Charles Carroll’s The Negro a Beast (1900) and R.W. Shufeldt’s The Negro, a Menace to American Civilization (1907). One bestseller, Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (1916), discussed the concept of “race suicide,” the theory that inferior races were out-breeding their betters. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of many Progressives captivated by this notion: He opposed voting rights for African-American men, which were guaranteed by the 15th amendment, on the grounds that the black race was still in its adolescence.

Such thinking, which emphasized “expert” opinion and advocated sweeping governmental power, fit perfectly within the Progressive worldview, which favored a large, active government that engaged in technocratic, paternalistic planning. As for reconciling white supremacy with egalitarian democracy, keep in mind that when a racist Progressive championed “the working man,” “the common man,” or “the people,” he typically prefixed the silent adjective white.

For a good illustration, consider Carter Glass of Virginia. Glass was a Progressive state and U.S. senator and, as chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, one of the major architects of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of his state’s massive effort to disfranchise black voters. “Discrimination! Why that is exactly what we propose,” he declared to one journalist. “To remove every negro voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate.”

Then there was political scientist John R. Commons, an adviser to the Progressive Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. LaFollette and a member of Theodore Roosevelt’s Immigration Commission. Commons, the author of Races and Immigrants in America (1907), criticized immigration on both protectionist grounds (he believed immigrants depressed wages and weakened labor unions) and racist ones (he wrote that the so-called tropical races were “indolent and fickle”).

Woodrow Wilson, whose Progressive presidential legacy includes the Federal Reserve System, a federal loan program for farmers, and an eight-hour workday for railroad employees, segregated the federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. “I have recently spent several days in Washington,” the black leader Booker T. Washington wrote during Wilson’s first term, “and I have never seen the colored people so discouraged and bitter as they are at the present time.”

Perhaps the most notorious figure of the era was Benjamin “Pitchfork” Tillman, a leading Southern Progressive and inveterate white supremacist. As senator from South Carolina from 1895 to 1918, Tillman stumped for “Free Silver,” the economic panacea of the agrarian populist (and future secretary of state) William Jennings Bryan, whom Tillman repeatedly supported for president. “Pitchfork” Tillman favored such Progressive staples as antitrust laws, railroad regulations, and public education, but felt the latter was fit only for whites. “When you educate a negro,” he brayed, “you educate a candidate for the penitentiary or spoil a good field hand.”

Nor did African Americans always fare better among those radicals situated entirely to the left of the Progressives. Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs, though personally sympathetic to blacks, declared during his 1912 campaign for the presidency, “We have nothing special to offer the Negro.” Other leading radicals offered even less. Writing in the Socialist Democratic Herald, Victor Berger, the leader of the party’s right wing, declared that “there can be no doubt that the negroes and mulattoes constitute a lower race—that the Caucasian and even the Mongolian have the start on them in civilization by many years.” The celebrated left-wing novelist Jack London, covering the 1908 heavyweight title bout between black challenger Jack Johnson and white boxing champ Tommy Burns, filled his New York Herald story with lurid ethnic caricatures and incessant race baiting. “Though he was a committed socialist,” observed Jack Johnson biographer Geoffrey C. Ward, London’s “solidarity with the working class did not extend to black people.”

As Southern thoroughly documents, these examples just begin to scratch the surface. Progressivism was infested with the most repugnant strains of racism. But was there something more, something inherent in Progressivism itself that facilitated the era’s harsh treatment of blacks? According to Southern, who repeatedly maintains that racism derailed “the great promise” of Progressivism, the answer is no. “The ideas of race and color were powerful, controlling elements in progressive social and political thinking,” he argues. “And this fixation on race explains how democratic reform and racism went hand-in-hand.”

That is surely correct, but is it the whole story? As the legal scholar Richard Epstein has noted, “the sad but simple truth is that the Jim Crow resegregation of America depended on a conception of constitutional law that gave property rights short shrift, and showed broad deference to state action under the police power.” Progressivism itself, in other words, granted the state vast new authority to manage all walks of American life while at the same time weakening traditional checks on government power, including property rights and liberty of contract. Such a mixture was ripe for the racist abuse that occurred.

Take the Supreme Court’s notorious decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), a case that has rightly come to symbolize the South’s Jim Crow regime. In Plessy, the Court considered a Louisiana statute forbidding railroads from selling first-class tickets to blacks, a clear violation of economic liberty. In its 7–1 ruling, the Court upheld segregation in public accommodations so long as “separate but equal” facilities were provided for each race, setting off an orgy of legislation throughout the old Confederacy. South Carolina, for example, segregated trains two years after Plessy. Streetcars followed in 1905, train depots and restaurants in 1906, textile plants in 1915–16, circuses in 1917, pool halls in 1924, and beaches in 1934.

No doubt many of those businesses would have excluded or mistreated black customers whatever the law. But in a market free from Jim Crow regulations, other businesses would have welcomed blacks, or at least black dollars, forcing racist enterprises to bear the full cost of excluding or mistreating all those potential paying customers. (This was one of the chief reasons the segregationists pushed for those laws in the first place.) The state, in the eloquent words of the historian C. Vann Woodward, granted “free rein and the majesty of the law to mass aggressions that might otherwise have been curbed, blunted, or deflected.”

Furthermore, this tangled web of regulations, ordinances, codes, and controls was spun during the heyday of Progressivism, precisely when such official actions were least likely to receive any meaningful scrutiny. Southern, despite his otherwise close attention to the many permutations of race and racism, fails to recognize this major defect in the Progressive worldview.

A similar failure handicaps his treatment of one of the era’s rare victories for African Americans. In Buchanan v. Warley (1917), the Supreme Court unanimously overturned a Louisville ordinance segregating residential housing blocks by race. The case involved a voluntary contract between a white seller and a black buyer for a housing lot located in a majority-white neighborhood. Under the law, the new black owner could not live on the property he had just purchased.


Writing for the Court, Justice William Rufus Day held that “this attempt to prevent the alienation of the property in question to a person of color…is in direct violation of the fundamental law enacted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution preventing state interference with property rights except by due process of law.”

Yet Southern dismisses this rare and important victory as “hollow” and incorrectly asserts that it “was decided not on the grounds of human rights, but on those of white property rights.” In fact, the judicial recognition of black rights stood at the very center of the decision. Justice Day’s opinion clearly states that the Fourteenth Amendment “operate[s] to qualify and entitle a colored man to acquire property without state legislation discriminating against him solely because of color.”

Nor should Southern’s characterization of this victory as “hollow” pass unchallenged. As the legal scholars David Bernstein and Ilya Somin have argued, the Buchanan ruling played a major though sadly underappreciated role in the burgeoning fight for civil rights. “Buchanan could not force whites to live in the same neighborhood as blacks,” Bernstein and Somin write, “but it did prevent cities from stifling black migration by creating de jure and inflexible boundaries for black neighborhoods, and may have prevented even more damaging legislation.” It is well worth noting, they continue, that the South did not adopt South African–style apartheid at this time, despite widespread white support for such measures.

In addition, Buchanan was the first major Supreme Court victory for the four-year-old National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a huge boon for the organization that would go on to win the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954), overturning Plessy. W.E.B Du Bois, an NAACP founder and longtime editor of its newsletter, The Crisis, gave Buchanan credit for “the breaking of the backbone of segregation.”

Despite these significant shortcomings, The Progressive Era and Race deserves careful attention. The Progressive movement unleashed, aided, and abetted some of the most destructive forces in 20th-century America. The better we understand this history, the less likely we are to repeat it.

http://reason.com/archives/2006/05/05/when-bigots-become-reformers