Thursday, March 27, 2003

Richard Perle Resigns? When I first saw this news item, I thought it must be too good to be true.  And it is.  He's resigning as chairman, but he is still staying on the committee.  So we only mind if the committee chair has conflicts of interest, not the committee members? And how appropriate is it that the NYT is placing this article in its business section?  We have an unprecedented political alliance between big business and the right-wing administration in this country.  Between that and reading reports of people burning Dixie Chicks CDs, the historical echoes anre scaring the shit out of me.  I hope I don't have that dream about people handing out brown shirts on the street corner again.  Forgive me,  I'm a historian.   I screwed up and lost all my previous postings.  Better now than a month from now, I guess.  Here they are: 3/27/03 COALITION OF GOVERNMENTS, NOT POPULATIONS The government of Spain, one of the premier members of the Coalition of the Coerced, is still having trouble convincing its public of the virtues of following the whims of George Bush. 91% of the population still disagree with the government, and protests are now getting violent. http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2003/03/27/espana/1048763322.html 3/27/03   HISTORIANS AGAINST THE WAR Historians Against the War, an organization founded at the January meetings of the American Historical Association which I am a member of, is planning nationwide teach-ins for April 9 and 10. Visit their website at http://www.yachana.org/haw/ I am helping to organize a teach-in at Macalester College on those dates. If you are in the area and would like information, get in touch. 3/26/03   IS DICK CHENEY AN 'ANALYST' FOR THE ADMINISTRATION? So I am listening to Donald Rumsfeld's press conference on NPR in my office. He was asked several times about whether the Pentagon, with all of its talk of 'shock and awe', had inflated expectations. He denied having created high expectations himself. A reporter then quoted Dick Cheneys remarks on a sunday talk show saying he expected even the Republican Guard to surrender quickly. So Rumsfeld gets noticeably impatient with the reporters, saying that "some analysts" may have inflated hopes, but they at the Pentagon had not done so. Excuse me? Is the Vice President of the United States an 'analyst'? 3/25/03   Another of my 'Letters the Editors Didn't Publish." This one regarding two recent salon articles. So we have our embedded reporters on CNN donning fatigues and glorifying the war as 'our' cause, always addressing troop movements in the collective 'we'. Now we have our 'alternative' media bashing anti-war movement in this country. Et tu, Salon? Between Suzy Hansen's interview with Paul Berman to the most recent posting of Michelle Goldberg, where she goes out of the way to quote any idiot she could find in the crowded streets of New York City--I feel like I could be watching the brainless communications majors-turned anchorbabes on CNN. But no, wait, I[base ']ve seen more sophisticated analysis coming from that Land of Embedded Reporters. During the same event reported by Goldberg, I saw CNNs Maria Hinojosa pick people randomly off the street as they marched past her and asking them why they were demonstrating, given that the war had already begun. Almost to a person, the interviewees had more interesting, nuanced things to say than the glitter-spangled drag queens Goldberg seemed so attracted to (I love street art but to suggest by inference that they it is the whole picture is preposterous). Hinojosas interviewees spoke of their presence as being not just about the war but about the direction of this countrys foreign policy. They did not look gleeful or happy but upset (although I have a feeling that if Goldberg had found somber people she would have mocked them as being humorless lefties). For someone Suzy Hansen describes as 'one of the most elegant and provocative thinkers to emerge from America's New Left,' Paul Berman sure gives an intellectually bankrupt interview. Mr. Berman admits to not having 'paid special attention' to Islamism and Baathism before September 11, 2001 and then proceeds to project his own, previous ignorance about these subjects onto the entire, undifferentiated 'left.' Berman asks why there are not any marches of millions in support of the Iraqi people. For twelve years there have been peace activists around the world speaking out against UN sanctions precisely because they starved the Iraqi people and had the unintended effect of strengthening Husseins iron fist. No, they were not marching then, but peace marches occur at moments of drama, moments of, say, war. These activists were doing something more proactive: trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to effect policy changes. Just because Berman was not a part of that movement does not mean it did not exist. The same can be said for his portrayal of Afghanistan. His depiction of that conflict as the 'first feminist war' would be laughable were it not so sadly misinformed. It was feminists, Afghani and not, who brought attention to the Taliban[base ']s war on women before the end of the regime and who are still working to show the world that we must look beyond the dispatches coming from Kabul to understand the situation of the country and, in particular, of women there. The Bush administration who fought that war ignored them before and seem to be doing so now. Using Berman[base ']s criteria, any war where political leaders claimed to be saving 'women and children,' which is to say, every war, could be classified as 'feminist.' We should judge wars not just by declared intentions but by real effects [^] and since the U.S. has largely abandoned the Afghan cause because it had other fish to fry in Iraq, it[base ']s hard to classify that war as a success, 'feminist' or not. Both Berman and Goldberg turn to that old right wing canard of suggesting the protesters should be ashamed to see images of Iraqis grateful for their liberation. But even ABC has provided a more sophisticate analysis of this.  Their correspondent in Safwan reports that a day after the images were sent across the world of Iraqis grateful to their liberators, he encountered a lot of people expressing hostility toward U.S. forces and suspicion of their intentions--this a day after the images Goldberg and Berman found so compelling! And it is concerns about that day after that had me joining a peace march last Saturday. I do not see my participation as part of a weird, fringe minority voice, as Goldbergs report would imply. Nor do I see myself as snookered by Saddam Hussein, as Berman might suggest. I am trying to look internationally, seeing myself and my fellow marchers as part of a world majority that questions whether this was the right way to proceed. Perhaps it is many of the marchers, thinking of the long term consequences of these actions, who are being 'elegant and provocative thinkers' by expressing their disgust with the Bush administration and putting it on notice that, in the days and years after war, we will be watching. 3/25/03   THE SO-CALLED-LIBERAL ACADEMIA Why Brindle Planet, no one has asked? Allow me to explain the subtitle of the blog first[~]and I can do it in the form of one of my man [OE]Letters the Editors Did not Publish'. Below are excerpts of a letter I wrote to Alterman after reading his on his blog on 28 February: First the part of his blog that inspired me to write: *Don Kagan was my professor at Yale. He is a brilliant scholar and a terrific guy and I[base ']m happy to see him win this award. He is also a right-wing hawk on just about everything. Now Kagan was dean of Yale College and is liked and admired throughout the profession. The idea that conservatives find themselves persecuted in the academy is nonsense. Yes, they are a minority there [~] perhaps the only place in the U.S. they are, save perhaps NPR. But they are treated extremely pretty well as such and the ones who complain are, more often than not, complaining about their own lack of success, not any larger condition.* (Link: http://www.msnbc.com/news/752664.asp#030228 ) My letter: I find your kind words about Donald Kagan odd given the incredibly reactionary role he has played at Yale throughout the years. I was an undergraduate there when he was Dean of the College, and I remember distinctly the divisiveness that he fostered among the faculty and the student body with his confrontational manner. He practically invented the myth of the Oppressed Campus Conservative, having allowed himself to be photographed for the cover of a radical right magazine under a headline that suggested he was a lone crusader against the 'P.C. Thought Police.' His scholarship may be respected among classicists, but to suggestion that he is widely admired 'throughout the profession' seems a stretch given that he was eventually ousted by a rebellion by faculty tired of his reactionary policies. Although you claim to disbelieve the notion that conservatives are oppressed in academia, you nonetheless perpetuate one of the central tenets of this myth, writing, 'Yes, they are a minority there.' I beg to differ, and I think you might want to apply the same kind of methodology you use analyzing the US media in your discussion of academia. David Horowitz and others constantly blather on about how conservatives are a minority in academia, but what they most often mean is that they are minorities in the humanities. Surveys that purport to show liberal bias in academia rarely ask the political affiliations of departments in the hard sciences or social sciences such as political science; instead ideologues such as Horowitz and Camille Paglia prefer to caricature all of academia as full of whacky postmodernists intent on indoctrinating the youth of the nation in Foucaultian philosophy (although I try to keep up with the rantings of both those writers, I have yet to find any evidence that either has read, or understood, the 'postmodenists' they spew about.) So you might not find a lot of conservatives in a theater department [^] but how about looking in on all the research labs at major universities that depend on Department of Defense money to fund their research? You think that just maybe you might find some Republican-leaning academics there? How about political science departments? Economics departments? Try to find someone in an econ department getting tenure on scholarship that takes a critical look at globalization. You are right that conservatives are treated well in academia. Don Kagan is a perfect example of another important aspect of the myth of the so-called-liberal-Academia: it focuses a lot more on humanities scholars and not on administrators, at people who have the power to enforce rules on campus. Have any studies been done about the politics of those sectors of academia [^] the sectors which have led Kagan's Yale to once again face, as of yesterday and for the eighth time since 1968, an employee strike? Administrators there have written the book on how to alienate local labor and sour town-gown relation. Yale's strikes offer another way to question the myth of the so-called Liberal Academy. During the last worker action at Yale, when graduate students went on a grade strike, several of the 'Liberal' faculty turned their students in to face punitive actions by the administration. Where do you place on the 'Liberal' to 'Conservative' spectrum someone like Professor Sara Suleri of the English Department at Yale. Her scholarship distinguishes her in the field of postcolonial literary criticism--one of the fields often on the hit lists of right-wingers putting for the Myth of the Liberal Academia. She, however, was also one of the professors who acted as informants to the reactionary administration, turning her graduate students in for disciplining. Alas, my ranting is not simply about Yale but about the Academy more generally. I currently teach at a Liberal Arts college at the Midwest and have, since my days at Yale, found the caricatures of Academia as hotbeds of socialist thought just plain laughable. Universities in this country, especially prestigious ones, are elite-making machines. I mean come on, how many of your Yale classmates do you see leading rebellions against social injustices? 3/24/03   We are not seeing images that the rest of the World is seeing -- Even if we assume, as most of the media seems to have done, that the role of the press in this country is to serve as a mouthpiece for the administration, does it not make sense nonetheless that we should be exposed to images of civilian casualties that the rest of the world is seeing?, Maybe Wolf Blitzer could take out a couple of on-air minutes discussing how different the war is playing in other parts of the world--if only so that pro-War Americans might understand why others in the world might be appalled at US actions? The image in the following link has been shown around the world. Below it is accompanying an article in the Mexico City newspaper 'La Cronica de Hoy' http://www.cronica.com.mx/nota.php?idc=55805 3/24/03 With friends like these... The government of Jose Maria Aznar, US 'ally' who cannot get it together to send any troops to help in the war effort, is fiercely denying reports that US B52 bombers are flying over Spanish air space. In a statement on Spanish television, Minister Ana Palacios emphatically denied that the overflights were taking place. She also assured the Spanish public that Spanish troops (the token 900 they were eventually shamed into providing) would only be involved in providing humanitarian aid. Further confirmation that the Azores summit was nothing but an expensive, showy news conference. One thing you can say about Tony Blair is that he seems to be saying the same thing to his public as he is saying to the US. Not so with Spain, declaring allegiance across the Atlantic while trying desperately to prove to its electorate that they are not REALLY helping. See article (in Spanish, of course): http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2003/03/24/espana/1048509872.html 3/24/03 When I first posted my screed against CNN below, I misidentified the network's in-house himbo as Bill Keller rather than Bill Hemmer. Keller was on my mind, I guess, because of this great piece he wrote in his New York Times column listing all the reasons why Colin Powell, if he had any shred of integrity left, would resign. Well, he wasn't as bombastic as me, but check it out if you have not already. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/22/opinion/22KELL.html 3/24/03 GOING OFF ON ANCHORBABES AND NEWS HIMBOS I'm new to blogging, and technologically, well, I will call it unsophisticated. I guess I'll learn as I go along. This blog will be the random thoughts of yet another person who thinks that his access to a computer and the web gives him the authority to comment on all things political. Hey, when the standards of who can speak in the public sphere are set by mindless anchorbabes like Paula Zahn and himbo Bill Hemmer, and when Michael Savage is deemed proper television by MSNBC--well, hell, why not send my thoughts into cyberspace? Just days into the war, and we can already see the effects of 'embedded' journalists in the military. They are donning their fatigues, their gasmasks, Daryn Kagan is getting all turned on every time she hears a siren in Kuwait city. She is so brave. Pretty Bill Hemmer has declared that the dramatic images sent in by his colleague Walter Rodgers have so far made that journalist the 'star and story of this war.' Do you think Rodgers publicist will make headshots available on ebay for all us fans of the star? And are we not all glad that Nic Robertson and the other CNN staff made it safely into Jordan after being expelled from Baghdad? I am so happy the news ticker keeps reminding me. I mean, these journalists, they are the real story, and I am so glad they understand that. God Bless them. And does not CNNs Dr. Sanjay look even dreamier in a gasmask? (btw, why does he let them call him that instead of, say, Dr. Gupta? Am I the only one reminded of Samantha on Bewitched 'Calling Dr. Bombay, Calling Dr. Bombay'?) ****************** And I am so glad we have the 'alternative' media here to make all us silly peace marchers feel shitty about themselves? I sent a letter to Salon about Michelle Goldberg[base ']s ridiculous reportage from the New York City peace march yesterday, which I fully expect will not be published. If not, I will include it here in coming days (I imagine this blog will in part serve as a 'Letters the Editors Did Not Publish' column for me. It will save money for therapy and I can empty out the file in my computer with that title). I love myself a drag queen, but could Goldberg not find any coherent interviewees in a crowd of 100,000 people? See http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/03/23/ny_protest/index.html (sorry, have not yet learned how to do pretty, in-text links). And as long as I am on the subject of weirdos in protests, check out the Minneapolis Star Tribune article about a 'Support the Troops' Rally in St. Paul. The organizer was upset that the demonstration had turned into a 'pro-war' rally (it had been billed as a 'support the troops' demo with no position on the war). The crowd apparently had no patience for a Muslim speaker who, after beginning to read from the Qu'ran, was pelted with shouts of, 'Screw Muslims!' 'Screw the Qur'an!' and 'Go home!' Lovely. The Complete Link: http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3775195.html As for interesting media, I have to write to my cable company and thank them for offering News World International. CBC News from Canada has been a godsend. A couple nights ago they actually had a representative from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting expressing a critical view of 'embedded' reporters. (http://www.fair.org/ ) I actually heard a CBC anchor and another guest express some fair skepticism about how much of what we hear from the Pentagon might be disinformation. Hear that, Barbara Starr? Journalists are talking about the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Rummy might be lying to you! (gasp!) 3/23/03 9:54:49 PM    comment []