The shiny
Some brief points, since apparently the shiny distracts people.
1) This is not the 60s and 70s. This is not then. Repeat after me, “this is not the 60s”. The US then was much richer and fundamentally much stronger and more prosperous. There were many complaints behind the Arab spring, but at bottom people were willing to put themselves on the line for one reason: food prices. Food prices for the laboring class.
2) When Americans can’t afford to eat, they’ll either starve or revolt. And yes, you are going to get there. Barring an unlikely turnaround of current long term trends, you will eventually be forced to choose: to live or die on your bellies, like worms; or to fight and in many cases, die, on your feet.
3) You’re not the only country in the world, and I am not writing just about or for you.
4) When you deny the legitimacy of people fighting for their rights, we’re not on the same side (that’s fine, just noting it). That is true if you deny the rebels in India, the Palestinians, the Syrians or the Libyans. Or Americans, for that matter.
5) Everything is about trade-offs. People are dying right now because of the way the world and specific countries are being run. People get distracted by explosions and words like violence, me, I look at the people dying for lack of health care, food and housing. The people who commit suicide because of the financial downturn. The wives and children being beaten because their husband or father cracked under financial stress that needn’t exist. The trillions spent on bankers and wars which could have been used to make people lives better, healthier, and yes, save lives. Westerners are already dying. You’re already dying. You’re already being killed. You or your friends or loved ones already don’t have jobs because of the oligarchy. And you means Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Afghanis, and on and on.
Any moral calculus has to take into account the people already suffering, the people already dying. Every year it goes on, the list of dead and walking wounded grows. It is not a question of violence vs. non-violence. The damage, the violence, is already being done. And everyone who cries for incrementalism must understand that every year adds to the list. “Try everything else first” condemns those people to die. The longer we don’t fix our problems, don’t fix our elite, the more people die. If 10X as many died in a revolution as the yearly burn rate (which is going up), would that be more than have died, will die, while we sit on our thumbs and rotate?
But my best guess is this. The US will get a revolution, and it will come from the right. I’m not even particularly concerned about it at this point. The US is as close as a country gets to a write-off, because that’s what Americans want (for example, a majority not wanting to raise the debt ceiling) and a culture with majority approval for torture isn’t high on my triage list. Sure, it’d be nice to save America, plenty of good Americans, but the culture is now beyond corrupt and into evil. The question is whether everyone else goes down with America. So far everyone else (except Iceland) seems to be chaining themselves to the Titanic.
So be it. Plenty of folks knew WWII was coming and couldn’t stop it. Sometimes what will be will just be, not because it couldn’t be stopped, but because people just refuse to do what it takes. And there is nothing Westerners won’t do, no trouble or expense in blood or gold, to not solve a problem.
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>>>4) When you deny the legitimacy of people fighting for their rights, we’re not on the same side (that’s fine, just noting it). That is true if you deny the rebels in India, the Palestinians, the Syrians or the Libyans. Or Americans, for that matter.<<<<
For a long time, America has not had a conscious. It has not only denied the legitimacy of the struggles of many, it has acted against those very struggles to put them down just as all the colonial powers that preceded it did. Ultimately, empire becomes unwieldy and it creates the weight under which it own collapse is all but guaranteed. This is where we're at and now the rapaciousness with which it has attacked the rest of the globe will turn inward against its own citizens. We're seeing this beginning now, but most people are clueless about what's about to beset them as they've firmly planted their glance out of the rear view mirror and are assuming the recent past will also be the future. They don't realize that all of the things we've visited on people around the globe will now come home to roost.
A couple of minutes ago, I was reading about how the US is now discarding the UN mandate to "protect citizens" in Libya and is now going for straight up killing Ghaddhafi. Whether or not he's a dirtbag or not is beside the point. We're invading a nation to kill it's leader, install our own economic and political regime and simply take that nation's resources. The citizens of this nation should be outraged and perhaps more than we know are, but these voices won't be heard because the government, the media and big business are now fused as one. They always were to some extent, but at least we were entertained with the pretext of it being otherwise. Now, even that pretext has been removed. These people will create any reason to justify what they want to do, that much is clear.
The one thing that has sealed the faith of western citizens is their unawareness, their uncaring attitude and their lack of sense of justice as hell has been visited on all other peoples around the globe. That silence has enlarged the power and expertise of the oligarchs. They have long experience manipulating, raping and pillaging resources so it is no big deal to do it here and throughout the west. The same game that has been pulled in the third world for years while hopes, dreams and aspirations of those people were dashed is now being brought home. That much is clear.
The revolution, if there was to be one, should have started decades ago in response to what was happening to other people. The system was never sustainable even then. Anything based on war, exploitation and abuse never is.
What do you do when you are one of the few who even realizes this? Those who are aware of this are few and the vast majority are clueless. I just think the most viable path now is reduce one's dependence on the system as much as you can. That alone can take some power from them and put it back into one's own hands at least for now. There is a movement afoot to keep folks from getting too far off grid and that involves enforcing the use of digital money so you can't run outside the system. That system will likely be justified in the same manner that all the groping and feeling in the airports was–the war on terror. If it comes to that, my own position will need some reconsideration.
Jesus christ you’re grim, Ian. And I can’t really disagree with anything you say. So it goes.
I think the political parallel to the current US situation is the 1950s: an irrational, authoritarian conservative dominance. The economic parallel, of course, is the 1930s.
Not like the 1960s, no, not at all.
The USA had its right-wing revolution with Bush II; the question is how long the right will stay in power. My impression is the radicals will be out in 2012–the Tea Party Republicans have made themselves unpopular. But I think the coalition of Wall Street Republicans and conservative Democrats is likely to last until 2020.
It’s not the least clear that anyone has any idea how implement even moderate liberal solutions, let alone radical ones. I am puzzled as to why you are objecting to incrementalism: ideological incrementalism is not the problem. The wrong people are in charge, that’s all. If you’ve got a solution, I’d like to hear it.
Raven, I don’t understand how GWB’s term in office can be termed a revolution. When did revolutions become top-down affairs? (And yes, I suppose Bush v. Gore in Dec. 2000 could be regarded as a coup of sorts, but only in a qualified way; both candidates represented the US overclass.)
As far as the tea-partiers go, they’ve served their purpose, to help define Obama’s faux-progressivism as liberalism, so that most ordinary Americans don’t know what US liberalism means anymore. (Obama would have happily thrown Eugene V. Debs in prison.)
Personally I would not use the word evil. Not because I don’t think what you are talking about is morally reprehensible, but because I think it’s sort of like the word Nazi and all that Godwin’s law shit. What you see is small minded selfishness and ignorance and/or rationalizations for that selfishness. It’s completely banal, and of course many before have pointed out the banality of evil. But the word evil is loaded like the word Nazi, and most dumbshits think that Satan and Hitler etc personify evil and calling Dick Cheney evil, for instance, is over the top hyperbole for them (certainly not to me). Evil also seems to connote (to most people) some sort of genius for scheming, as well as a desire to harm others merely for the sake of doing evil. That to me gives too much credit to the Nazis or Republicans or Blue Dogs for having principals (even “evil” ones) or intelligence. Petty, small minded selfish assholes, that’s all they are. And they’re all around you, in every city and country -you’re soaking it it, as Madge the manicurist used to say.
Ian, I disagree that we will ever see a right-wing revolution in the United States. Although it certainly is subject to all the failings which you have mentioned, America is moving further and further from a consensus on conservative values. Homosexual rights continue to broaden, church attendance is not increasing (and those churches which are growing are themselves rather permissive compared to any previous generation), abortion will never be much further restricted, television has become more permissive than ever, drugs flood both city and country, homeschooling remains limited and restricted, religion is still excluded from public schools, women have no legal restrictions and fewer hidden ones than ever before. There is no turning back the clock.
Your last two paragraphs were what I was holding out on saying the entire time, because I was sitting back to see the Pavlovian reaction to the concept of coordinated and directed violent direct action. It was all quite predictable and I believe you have sized the situation up quite nicely, especially your characterization of, and prediction for, the U.S. That’s the part I was eventually going to say in all this. The U.S. will get a violent destabilization and quasi-revolution, but it won’t come from a coordinated action from the “Left” because there is no such thing in the U.S. There’s really no such thing as the “Right” here either, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s the perception that counts and as we have seen, those who consider themselves the “Right” are easily cajoled and manipulated. That senselessness will be used by the MIC to misdirect any potential violence. If things deteriorate enough, I can see a race war unfolding, scapegoats will be found and pogroms will be launched. A new Jew will be erected, but it won’t be the Jews who are to blamed…..it will be an issue that has never really been resolved and/or reconciled. It’s the issue of race. Despite Civil Rights, race is still a very serious issue in the U.S. For example, Blacks and Whites, outside of D.C., still don’t mix, socially. If you think otherwise, you’re an elitist intellectual who is out of touch with Main Street. As things tighten further and further, that tension that has always lurked underneath the surface will bubble to the top, a narrative will manifest, and senseless violence from the disenfranchised, gun-toting White Americans will ensue, and the Plutocracy will eat it up because a culling is in order, and what better way to conduct one. It’s great theater for them….one only need look at history to see that this is the Elite’s most favored form of entertainment. Disaster Capitalism on steroids.
Let me cherrypick a few quotes. Welsh then:
Welsh now:
I take “effete leftists” as de-legitimizing language, and I further read “learning the lesson the hard way” as delegitimizing non-violent efforts used by people fighting for their rights. I think the non-violence is a legitimate strategy, and conclude that Welsh is not on my side.
If this reading is wrong, please correct.
Welsh in between:
But now we have this:
So now the multiple strategies are off the table. If this reading is wrong, please correct.
* * *
If, like me, Welsh is just a blogger, then there’s no obligation for internal consistency. Positions evolve; maybe I’ll evolve to Welsh’s position. Heck, I’ve got a trail of posts seven years long, and anybody could pick a bushel of cherries from them. If, however, Welsh considers himself a strategist, then I think the baseline for coherency needs to be a little higher.
Finally, if Welsh’s recommendation, as a strategist, is that his readers become killers, then I go back to the lack of seriousness given this venue: The first person to call for violence is either a cop, or not competent at executing the strategy.
Lambert, in no way does Ian’s statement that “’Try everything else first’ condemns those people to die.” entail that non-violent methods are off the table. Ian has repeatedly endorsed the use of multiple, simultaneous methods of resistance.
The pacifists’ demand that we try every non-violent method first may be appealing morally, but it’s bad strategy. When a foreign army is marching across your borders, you sometimes have to forego negotiations, protests, boycotts, and the like and just hit the bastards hard bfore they control all the strategic assets on the ground.
Similarly, waiting until the middle classes of the West are gone, and the majority of its people rduced to illiterate slum-dwellars before taking up arms against the banking oligarchs will guarantee that any revolt that does occur will fail.
I miss America – the America I grew up with. Even if it “wasn’t really real, or was real but it wasn’t really there.”
To this, I would like to deliver a line from The Road to Wigan Pier, different context but still applicable:
Therein lies your problem. You think, no strike that, you demand that everyone have a position, pinning them down and straight-jacketing them, when this was always just a discussion…..a serious discussion, a discussion of general strategies, wherein no one called for violence, but where the strategy of violent direct action was posited as something that has been used in the past, and sometimes successfully. Ian’s observation that the mere mention of violence amongst those who consider themselves to be on the “Left” results in automatic defensiveness, and a default repulsion of the notion, and that attitude and stance, specifically, will come back to haunt those on the “Left” in the not too distant future. I believe he’s right about that. If you don’t work through these things, mentally and psychically, you won’t be prepared mentally and psychically, and your visceral response to events will most likely be misdirected, counter-productive and ultimately ineffective.
All that being said, I believe people, like Zebras, have unique stripes, and those stripes remain with them. I think your stripes are quite clear and are not going to evolve. It’s not a matter of “position,” as you say. That’s intellectual speak. The fabric of your being precludes you from considering the notion of violence, and also compels you to admonish the talk of it. There it is. You’re certainly not alone. The Jews faced the same dilemma in Nazi Germany. Most, non-violently and incrementally acquiesced all the way to the Gas Chambers, and some saw it for what it was and decided to exercise violent direct action…..The Bielski Brothers, for example, and against all odds. Yes, their backs were against the walls, and they were left with only two options….violently resist, or die on their bellies. I’m not blaming the victims here either, because my next point is where the blame should be leveled, and that is appropriate action was never taken before the Nazi Party became too powerful…..and I’m sure there were many having this very same argument, and look how it turned out.
Morocco Bama: appropriate action was never taken before the Nazi Party became too powerful…..and I’m sure there were many having this very same argument, and look how it turned out.
That’s actually not true. There was a lot of political street violence in the 20’s in Germany. The trade unions in particular fought against the Nazis. The middle classes, as is often the case, ended up more worried about working class rule than about the authoritarian option that the Nazis offered. This was true even among German middle class Jews prior to the Nazis actually seizing power.
The first reaction to actual physical violence is fear and flight to the arms of the authoritarian leader. As Ian points out, there’s enormous institutional violence from which we all suffer, but it isn’t perceived in the same way as the boogeyman who’s coming after you with his bomb! A reason for violence to come rather late in a struggle is that it may drive to the enemies’ arms the very people you want and need to support you, unless the other means of creating solidarity have been successful.
Nihil, your examples are not examples of appropriate action. Now, if you want to argue that appropriate action may not have been possible in Post WWI Germany because of complex societal fragmentation, that’s one thing, but your examples of street violence by various groups and sub-groups is not an example of “appropriate.”
I will point to, once again, the Cuban Revolution. What was successful there I don’t believe could be successful in the U.S. The U.S. is far too factionalized and fragmented. Combine that with an educational system designed to make people slaves to the system combined with crumbs in the form of 24/7 entertainment distractions, and there does not exist the ingredients of Revolution. When things get desperate, and they will, the scenario I outlined earlier is much more likely.
I differ with some of your points about the US, Ian. On almost every position, the US public is to the left of its leadership. We are not a “center-right’ nation; we have center-right leadership, because they are the best leadership money can buy. Americans are not voting for what is in store for them, and should not be held accountable for it.
But your point about the “silent deaths” and silent suffering as the “normal” state of affairs vs those from more violent, well-publicized, means is well taken. It’s the same old argument about what is worse–the number of deaths during the French terror vs all those peasants dying year after year silently under the ancien regime. And there’s no a facile answer for that one.
I do not see, however, how some social change could have happened in world history without violence. Southern slaveowners would have never given up slaves sans the outcome of the Civil War.
-StewartM
Jonathan Versen, “Raven, I don’t understand how GWB’s term in office can be termed a revolution. When did revolutions become top-down affairs?”
Since fascism. Fascist leaders arise with support from the wealthy and powerful, and then proceed to tear down law, fight wars abroad and implement authoritarian policies at home. Sounds pretty familiar, no? Internationally, at least a million have died. Domestically, US citizens at home have so far gotten off easy, but the economic policies we are now seeing, if protracted, will lead to great hardship.
It is not clear to me what strategy, violent or non-violent, our marginalized political movement could use to affect the course of events. Violence seems to me likely to lead to greater oppression: consider how severely environmental radicals who commit crimes only against property have been punished. You can feed us corvids through violence, but I do not think you will achieve your own freedom. There is more hope in non-violent action, but where are the leaders? What are the goals? And without those, no strategy and no victory.
Morocco Bama, damnit man, do some homework! No conceivable violent revolution can fight off the enormous military and police capabilities of the US Federal and state governments; any possible revolution is outgunned and would end by making matters worse. This was a factor in the Indian independence movement and the civil rights movement in the US South. Both movements were outgunned. Non-violence was in the end the only possible strategy.
StewartM, “Southern slaveowners would have never given up slaves sans the outcome of the Civil War.” Even if most of the slaves went on strike? There would have been violence on the part of the slaveholders, but in the end, the slaves would have won, they had the numbers and the food.
There is some hope in the social order arising from modern communications technology: it is much, much more difficult to deceive people who want to be informed in these times.
This was a factor in the Indian independence movement and the civil rights movement in the US South. Both movements were outgunned.
Neither were Revolutions in the true sense of the word. India may have cast out the Brits, but the factions that were in bed with the Brits took the helm because they were always exercising the power with the blessing of the Brits as Overseers. The Civil Rights movement was just that….a Movement, and ultimately it is a failure because it was not part of a larger Revolution. It never addressed the Class issue….or, when it did, MLK was murdered, and any chance for that movement to spread to Revolution, was buried with him. Cuba is the best example, but not applicable to the U.S. A Revolution is improbable in the U.S. for the reasons I stated, not because you say it couldn’t be successful because the state is too powerful. Also, just because the Cuban Revolution involved violence, doesn’t make it a “violent” Revolution. The Revolutionaries used all manner of tactics, as Ian outlines in his post. Pressure was applied everywhere and anywhere. All tactics were on the table at all times.
Here’s some appropriate thread music. Isn’t it a beautiful song? Could you imagine someone composing this about Bush or Obama?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxtwzU0-wPM
Whew. I still haven’t finished reading all the comments in the previous two posts — mammoth threads — so I’m jumping in before this one gets too long.
I’ve been saying many of the things Ian says in this post for quite some time (to the derision of my friends). I do fear for the future of this country. I do think our overlords wouldn’t hesitate to crack some skulls if things got out of hand — as someone pointed out above, look what they’re doing to environmental activists and whistleblowers, let alone people who would dare be more destructive. And I do often say, “this country is going to get exactly what it asked for, and what it deserves.”
All I know is I can’t sit by and watch. I’ll at least go down fighting. Yes, in my non-violent way. There are many ways to protest, not just one; always have been, always will be. And of course the more “extreme” forms make the others look more reasonable by comparison. That’s a time-honored practice.
And despite my pessimism, there are a few things that give me hope: the reaction of the police in Wisconsin, for example — the chief, when asked by the Governor to push back the protesters, refused and said: “We’re not your palace guards.” Will other police forces around the country have the same attitude? Certainly not all of them. Look how they behaved at Quantico on March 20th.
The Raven asks: “There is more hope in non-violent action, but where are the leaders? What are the goals?”
I’ve talked about the October 6th action on this blog before. I will continue to talk about it (link at my sig). I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know how it will evolve, how long it will go on, what might come of it. But there’s a lot of anger in this country (along with a lot of apathy, much of it coming from privileged so-called liberals who have the means to act but don’t give a shit), and I believe we can tap that anger.
Take a look at the website. Read our statement. Maybe you’ll decide it’s full of shit. Maybe not. But we’re not all burying our heads in the sand. We see what’s going on.
If you knew my neighborhood and my current circumstances, you would know that I am acutely aware of these painful realities. We have not reached the stage of children with matchstick legs and swollen bellies, but if there are further cuts to food stamps we will quickly reach that. And we may be like Chile or Argentina, go through a long period of right wing dictatorship before freedom is restored.
Lets look at the struggle for freedom in the 20th century. We have the oppressed Palestinians, Catholics of Northern Ireland, Basque country of Spain, and the Kurds. All of these groups faced, still face, terrible oppression of brutal dictators. All embraced violence. How did it work for them? Right.
Now lets look at those who embraced non-violence, India (and we can easily overestimate the civilized character of British Imperialism), Black Americans, Philippines, South Korea, Eastern Europe, and Russia. All of these people not only over threw their dictators, but got something better in their place (with the arguable exception of Russia).
Lets look at two mixed cases, Argentina and South Africa. In Argentina a guerilla war ignited a dirty war on the part of the government. Only when the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and similar groups began a sustained campaign of non-violence did the tide turn. The Falklands war gave these groups their opportunity, but had they not been place, they would not have been able to seize that opportunity.
In South Africa I would argue that the ANC war pro-longed Apartheid and part of what brought international opinion around was the sustained non-violence of the United Democratic Front and COSATU, even though there was a great deal of violence going on at that time.
One thing that is critical is a united front between labor and the intellectuals. That is part of what fell apart in the post WWII period in the US. Part of what I like about blogosphere is that for the most part it has been very supportive of organized labor.
Just on a pragmatic basis of who has won and who has lost, violence is a losing proposition, putting aside the question of moving from French colonialism, to American occupation, to Pol Pot. Let’s face it, the Congress Party of India had the better program.
Arguably what we have been experiencing in the US is a domestic version of what we did to Chile, right down the role of the University of Chicago.
The Raven:
StewartM, “Southern slaveowners would have never given up slaves sans the outcome of the Civil War.” Even if most of the slaves went on strike? There would have been violence on the part of the slaveholders, but in the end, the slaves would have won, they had the numbers and the food.
How exactly are the slaves going to organize amongst themselves a general strike, in the ability of being denied even the ability to read? (It was illegal in most Southern states for even a slaveowner to teach a slave literacy). Moreover, due to fear of any particular slave revolt spreading, Southerners repressed the news of them to such an extent that even today, we’re unsure of their numbers or frequency.
Also, using a metaphor from the era, your proposed action fails the “blood and flesh” test. In theory, as the military historian Paddy Griffith has been wont to argue when critiquing (unfairly and inaccurately, I believe) the leadership and tactics of Civil War troops, all those bayonet charges they made across open ground into the teeth of massed rifle musket and artillery fire *should* have succeeded more often. Griffith calls this failure one of leadership and training, and implies that if Civil War troops had been as well-trained and as well-led as Napoleon’s or Wellington’s by god, they would have done it. Griffith tries to debunk the more common argument that Civil War technological innovations such as rifled musketry and artillery made a significant difference and invalidated Napoleonic training and tactics.
I think Griffith’s wrong, for reasons I won’t go into. But a phrase from that era was that “blood and flesh can only endure so much” in reference to those charges. Charge across that open ground, and you’d see your comrades and leaders get blown to smithereens by artillery and musketry (descriptions said that when the canister hit, arms and legs and heads could be observed flying into the air in every direction; the aftermaths of such charges left gruesome remains). If you’re one of the lucky survivors after taking such blasts, the intimidation and desire to survive becomes rather overwhelming, causing you to hit the ground and hug every bit of cover you can find, and stop the charge. At most you start trying to shoot back at your tormentors from cover, but if they’re dug in it’s mostly ineffective return fire. It’s why so many of Pickett’s men did exactly that on that hot July day in 1863, at the Emittsburg Road.
Let’s move on to your proposed slave strike. If Civil war soldiers, people who may have had experience doing such charges in the past, and who had the training to know what they might expect, couldn’t persevere past a certain point, how are you expecting a comparable response from the slaves, who have had no training at this at all? Do you think it’s realistic to expect them to continue the strike passively, after they watch comrade after comrade suffer an ugly end in front of their very noses? Unlike the Civil Rights movement a century later, there are no TV cameras rolling so you don’t even know that your death will ever serve any purpose.
StewartM
Morocco Bama
Afghans and Pakis and Iraqis would love to see significant instability here, necessitating the removal of US troops.
OTOH, the white working-middle class has benefitted neither from the Plutocracy’s affirmative action, junior partner Israel’s manipulated wars and the false intelligence created to push the US into them, their jobs being outsourced enmasse by that Plutocracy, or the Hollywood financed and exalted hip hop subculture.
What is needed is a revolt from the founding core.
The Raven:
I am puzzled as to why you are objecting to incrementalism: ideological incrementalism is not the problem.
The only incremental movement I see is ever rightward. We have the choice between going slowly rightward (the Dems) vs quickly rightward (the Repugs).
StewartM
OTOH, the white working-middle class has benefitted neither from the Plutocracy’s affirmative action,
baloney
White women have been the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action
moreover, the economic boom of the South came in the late sixties and early seventies, in the immediate aftermath of civil rights. Opening up the old Good Ol Boy economic oligarchy was the best thing that happened to the south in my lifetime.
Affirmative action did not move the textile mills to China, that was done by the oligarchy, which used racial resentment over the imaginary abuses of affirmative action to distract ordinary workers, most especially white men, from the fact that it was the oligarchy who were destroying the economic life blood of the town, not the NAACP.
Same goes for moving the northern Auto Factories to Mexico. Affirmative action didn’t have anything to do with it.
The South is a toxic wasteland, at this point. I don’t call that progress. The Oligarchs sent manufacturing, first to the South before heading to Mexico and China, for the same reasons, which were cheap labor (no unions), tax concessions from the states and lax environmental laws….and you want to call that progress. Bullshit! The Southern states prostituted themselves out to the Corporatocracy, trading one ill for another, but don’t give me that shit that it was progress. At one time in this country, one salary could pay the bills for most, now it two salaries can’t get the job done. Wow, women can now work like slaves in Corporate World too. Now that’s progress…..equal on paper all the way to the poor house. Once again, it failed because it wasn’t a holistic, comprehensive to the bread & butter issue of Class.
A quote that seems pertinent in light of the recent nazi/incrementalism discussion:
I tend to come down between Ian and Lambert, at least in their present incarnations. Maybe violence will prove unavoidable. There is little doubt that a large-scale, sustained and peaceful protest movement will result in (further) state repression. When the baton-wielding thugs start the beatdown and loved ones are injured, incarcerated, or killed, how is one to react? With a candle?
And while some of the violence against us may yet seem abstract, our government is actively murdering people around the world as well as funneling cash and munitions to petty tyrants who do the dirty work for us, keeping markets and resources available to an insatiable empire. If the victims of such exploitation abroad are our brothers and sisters, are decades of incremental progress sufficient, particularly when the left’s objectives are almost always focused on their domestic condition.
That said, “effete” is an obnoxious and condescending term. While I remain open to the need for violence, folks like Lambert should not be alienated or insulted.
And Ian you do yourself no favors when you says things like this:
“The US will get a revolution, and it will come from the right. I’m not even particularly concerned about it at this point … Sure, it’d be nice to save America, plenty of good Americans, but the culture is now beyond corrupt and into evil.”
Such a dismissive take on violence, which always harms the least fortunate members of a society the most, is repugnant. In fact, it sounds like it’s coming from someone who relishes the prospect. “Plenty of good Americans”–well, that sure establishes genuine, humane concern. Out of 300 million, I’ll grant you “plenty,” maybe even a bushel.
Sorry, as anyone who’s met “plenty of Canadians” or any other people, there is no monopoly on goodness or evil. Americans no more equal their government than Iraqis did Saddam’s regime, Russians Stalin’s …
A majority of Americans approve of torture. Even if you decide that the US is completely unresponsive to democratic pressure (you can make this argument, are you?), Americans are still ok with the worst moral outrages of the Bush and Obama admin. Iraqis, btw, revolted against Saddam, straight up. They failed, but they did try.
In 2004, enough Americans voted for George Bush, fully knowing that he was torturing, to reelect him.
It is just not clear to me that torture approving Americans are that upset with the worst parts of their government’s policies.
No, sorry, at this point America is just not my primary concern. We tried to save America, we failed. Maybe other people will succeed. But saving America was always about saving everyone, not just Americans, as the hegemonic power if America could be turned around it would have helped more people than just Americans. Now we’re into triage. America might be saveable, but the odds in America are much lower than in various other places. Certainly I hope Americans make it, but it’s not where I’d put my money. This is why I have been, for the last two years, warning my readers what is coming, so they can make personal preparations. I also have stated the strategies needed to change things, and why I think they will not be done (and that, in fact, they are low probability in any case, though low probability is better than no probability, which is what mainstream “progressive” have chosen.)
Also, I don’t care about doing myself favors. I’m not writing for myself, I don’t need to write this stuff, this is not shit I don’t know. And no, being “reasonable” doesn’t necessarily work better. I know, I’ve done both reasonable and in your face, and reasonable 4K essays explaining how the world works did not do the job. I wrote plenty of them back in the day. Hell, I put out a 2K essay on options just the other day, and all people can do is “he said the word violence!” Reminds me of adolescents and the word “sex”, say the word and no one can hear anything else. Most of the essay isn’t about violence, but no one can hear any word but that.
Shiny! Shiny!
“When the baton-wielding thugs start the beatdown and loved ones are injured, incarcerated, or killed, how is one to react?”
If one reacts with violence, it just becomes the excuse for more violence on the part of the thugs and no-one can match their capabilities for violence. When MLK and the other leaders of his movement settled on non-violence, they decided they could not even use violence in self-defense.
Non-violence is hard.
I think none of us here are “incrementalists;” the people who are are still loyal Democrats. This is none of us. For me, my radicalism means both voting for the lesser evil and working toward the greater good. The question, since we have decided to take radical stances, is how to act on them. Without goals, strategies, and leaders we have nothing. Violence without these is simply mindless violence.
Well, certainly a good deal of the energy and discussion that this blog generates is among Americans (we the “plentiful”).
Speaking only for myself, your diagnoses/prescriptions would carry even more weight if you could resist the temptation to distill us down to a loathsome carciature.
It seems to me that the inclination of humans to respond to the ‘shiny, shiny’ is too deeply wired to change much. The prefrontal lobes can overide the response, if they have an opportunity to process it. But for most humans, the ‘shiny, shiny’ generally wins the moment.
That response served pretty well for a lot of human evolution. Now, not so much.
I am pretty much on board with Jay Hanson’s ideas about energy, the human condition and America. I also respect him for not lapsing into hopeless nihilism but still working to put forth some possible solutions.
Interesting piece.
For a while now I’ve been asking when the great american public are going to wake up and see through the monstrous bs they are being fed every day. Diversions, misdirections, scandals, whatever ‘gate’, and meaningless diversionary infotainment, etc.
All around the world we see citizens rediscovering their backbones and standing up in the various uprisings e.g. Arab spring, Jasmin revolution, Orange revolution etc. We recently saw Wisconsin begin to take a stand and I began wondering if that was finally the long awaited tipping point america has been waiting/looking for. But it seems not quite yet. And as the rich own the media one should ask will the revolution be televised (as most seem to get their information from TV it is thus easy to simply not report it) or should we expect the bloggers and grass roots organisations to lead the charge.
How many millions and billions do the rich need? Will it ever be enough? Financial institutions and instruments are there to serve the few. Bill Gates has finally started to see sense and begun giving back. He is encouraging his ilk to do the same. This is a start. This does not however bridge the inequality and much more needs to be done by government to protect all its citizens at all times – i.e. education, health, economically, etc. The millionares and billionares remain such as long as we allow them to. There is a time for non violent demonstrations as long as the current leaders listen. History tells us time and time again that this can easily change . People are prepared to die for their freedoms, and we see this now, and the sooner the folks at the top of the pile realise this the better. There’s a whole lot more of us then there are of them…
Scruff,
Thank you for the Derrick Jensen excerpt. It’s apropos.
I value the high level of discussion at this blog and appreciate the fact that even vehement disagreement is welcome (a rarity in the blabbosphere). It’s also one of the few places where one can make perfectly reasonable comparisons to history, including the ugly parts of history, without being hooted off as “hysterical,” “shrill,” or “paranoid.” Or for committing the dreaded Godwin violation.
“Jesus christ you’re grim, Ian. And I can’t really disagree with anything you say. So it goes.”
Me too. Could possibly add that after decades of watching those I love being wrecked, I might as well die off too, because I won’t live long enough to get past my outrage.
P.S. And we get the news this morning that, surprise surprise, the FBI is ratcheting up its abuse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/us/13fbi.html?hp&gwh=AFBE226BBC6CDD10189E469FB919D18B
Oops! Did I say “abuse”? Silly me. I meant Reasonable And Appropriate Actions Against Potential Dangers For The Times In Which We Live, Which After All Aren’t Ordinary Times But New Times That Call For New Measures And New Cooperation And New Sacrifices From Us If We Want To Be Safe.
So where will triage do some good? Where do you think people have a better chance than in the U.S.?
I’m one of those people who have taken your advice to heart and already made changes that have improved my situation as much as possible.
If there is some place where people are fighting the oligarchs and do have a chance to prevail, tell me where that is so I can retire there and spend my last years helping them.
I’ve already provided thread music, so here’s a thread movie suggestion. I love this movie…..and hey, the guy was a non-violent Pacifist….or at least he was…he underwent a transformation. The movie’s germane to this topic, so when you get a chance, watch it, I think you will like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiYf97IddK0
JUNE 20, 2008
Prefatory Thoughts on the Enablers of Evil
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/06/prefatory-thoughts-on-enablers-of-evil.html
Ian Welsh:
A majority of Americans approve of torture.
They do? I don’t buy that. For one, there have been past polls which show the opposite. And there’s this:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/07/study-majority-support-for-tor.php
But this view was a misperception. Using a new survey dataset on torture collected during the 2008 election, combined with a comprehensive archive of public opinion on torture, we show here that a majority of Americans were opposed to torture throughout the Bush presidency. This stance was true even when respondents were asked about an imminent terrorist attack, even when enhanced interrogation techniques were not called torture, and even when Americans were assured that torture would work to get crucial information. Opposition to torture remained stable and consistent during the entire Bush presidency. Even soldiers serving in Iraq opposed the use of torture in these conditions. As we show in the following, a public majority in favor of torture did not appear until, interestingly, six months into the Obama administration.
This was true among all groups surveyed. Even Republicans. Military personnel opposed torture at higher rates than civilians.
In 2004, enough Americans voted for George Bush, fully knowing that he was torturing, to reelect him.
But did Kerry and the Dems make ending torture a big issue? You know as well as I do that it’s dangerous to try to compress any Presidential election down to any single issue—especially when the opposition scarcely mentions it.
Even among Americans who say that they support “extraordinary interrogations”, I would bet that’s because the subject has been euphemized so that they don’t realize what is actually being done. If you watch Fox News, you’d get the impression that all is being done is making is making defendants a mite uncomfortable, not subjecting them to procedures that could *kill* them if a mishap occurs. The fact that we’re being lied to is another factor.
I stand by what I say: Americans did not vote for or choose what is coming to them. The problem is that we have a center-right government and a center-right media–which, in the terms of the political dynamics in the rest of the developed world, represents a “right-far right” instead of “center-right” spectrum. Most Americans would want the US out of its wars, they want SS protected if not expanded, they want universal health care. I see this even among many self-identified conservatives. The problem is that there’s no one to vote for at the ballot box who will even advocate, much less implement, such changes. This country is so *bought*.
StewartM
passive aggressive sabotage and anonymous cyber monkey are on the table
I second the arguments of Lambert Strether, and repeat myself:
a) appeal on shame (which I learned here and add as a useful concept to the toolbox)
b) work on betterment of the electoral process (without corporate interference etc)
c) insist on the law and due process
d) exercise passive/unviolent resistance
e) exercise active resistance, if everything else fails.
Although I understand Ians frustration or even furor, to generalize or boil down to a too tiny set of options is not the way to go.
Remember Stephane Hessel: Time for Outrage! (Indignez-vous!), which is somewhere between (a) and (d).
Trying to judge the situation in the US –I suppose it IS grim– choose from your set of options.
It is difficult enough to choose the appropriate response in one’s own country, much less so concerning other countries.
Is graduated outrage the solution?
Probably not. Outrage works differently.
Listen to Arundhati, or Hessel, or internalize all those sufferings of the people we care for: the Palestinians, Lybians, Egyptians, Chinese …, and choose your methods.
Put another way round:
Is the US electoral process a lost cause?
Is congress/senate a lost cause?
Is the supreme court a lost cause?
Is the brainwashing of 80% of the US-populace a lost cause?
Is ’empire’ a lost cause?
I am inclined to agree, but am an outsider.
We have (sorry to say: I am German and therefore not entiteled to teach anybody ) a quite good working supreme court- Verfassungsgericht, a MUCH better electoral system than the US has, 50% public media, which is already bad enough, and a populace which is at least not completely deluded, concerning global warming, peak oil etc, but we are not living on an island, and NOT VERY MUCH OF THE TOTAL is NOT OK, ofcourse. Germany is the central asset of US interests in Europe, and keeping the Germans in check is not complicated. Just remind them on their everlasting guilt,and Europe is blocked, as long as this works.)
There are some encouraging activities in Iceland, Greece, Spain and the UK. Next to NONE in the US (and in Germany, btw)
What -well- weakens the Left is its insistence on sensible reflection and coherence.
What makes the Right strong are the simple anwers and fragmentation of the mind, which is intrinsic to the workings of the authoritarian followers, with the the crocodile segments quite easily summonable to a common denominator, which is some subpart of the brain: Getting angry!
I am not yet ready to leave that to the drain and go with the right-wing flow.
And I do not have an easy answer.
Does that make me weak?
Uh huh.
“With just as much support in the poll conducted May 10-May 17, was the use of torture to get suspected terrorists to cough up info. Some 57 percent said that it is OK to use enhanced interrogation techniques or some forms of torture on suspected terrorists if they might have information that keeps America safe. Another 31 percent said no.”
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/05/25/public-backs-torture-patriot-act
Ian–you know that a single poll isn’t conclusive. You know a poll’s answers depend on its methodology. And you also know opinions can change even when it’s accurate.
But what I don’t understand is what I perceive to be a desire to essentially blame the majority of Americans as somehow deserving what’s heading their way. You say–and I agree completely–that the US has become a soft “fascist” state, that the American public receives skewed and inaccurate news reporting, that their welfare doesn’t matter to their elites, and more. And yet my interpretation of some of your more recent comments is one of blaming them (or some of them) for not seeing through the deceptions.
My moral compass: you don’t blame the deceived, you blame the deceiver(s). America is being dragged into a bad end game, true, but quite unwillingly. That’s what I see here on the ground, and moreover I live in the conservative South.
StewartM
This is a fascinating discussion, and some fantastic people doing the discussing. For those interested, I’ve put up a post on it:
Putting Clarity Into Your Revolution
You can beat me up over there, or over here.
(Gah – no preview. Hope that link is OK… here goes…)
Bill Gates has finally started to see sense and begun giving back.
No he isn’t. He education reform consists of privatizing schools and sending money that was going to teacher to companies controlled by Gates and Warren Buffett. Gates’ philanthropy consists of giving schools money to buy Microsoft technology instead of paying teachers. He has done nothing but harm the school system of Washington DC. Don’t turn your children over to a convicted monopolist.
I have to agree that Americans support torture. As soon as Bush announced that the Taliban prisoners were illegal combatants instead of prisoners of war and that the Geneva convection did not apply, we all knew that meant torture. We have chosen to look the other way, but we all knew what was going on. If we had a problem with it, we would have done something. If we cared the Democrats, who were the opposition party at the time, would have made an issue out of it. We don’t care and we have not made the connection between tolerating torture, the breakdown in law, and foreclosure fraud. We don’t yet get that law itself has been destroyed.
I agree with Ian that everyone with an option should leave the US. I myself would leave if I were younger or had a special skill. I would love to know how many people have left the US.
The situation in Wisconsin and across the Great Lakes is the best thing going on right now. There is a reason the national media is carefully blacking out all news of real popular protest.
@Ian,
It is not about this.
Americans BELIEVE in all sorts of idiocies, may it be terrorists, ‘freedom’ or God (THEIR GOD).
Not to bring owls to Athens-the shrine of the inner Ian.
I summon, that it is essential, keeping people educated in -ahem- the rule of law,
and its difference against the rule of the temporarily strong, or the rule of the jungle.
I strictly adhere to the Nuremberg laws, as the pinnacle of international law!
As a German, I accept this as completely coherent and logical.
AND I DEMAND THIS FOR ALL THE BUSHES OR GADDHAFIS OF THE WORLD.
The ”Law’ is an abstract principle based on concrete experiences.
(The Normative -human-, which hedges in the socalled ‘Real’ of Barbarism.)
Maybe this is the point, where the Underling (the Germans), the US-jurisdiction (the noble Victor) and the Jews (the ultimate sufferers) have to teach something to the rest of this damned world.
Interestingly enough it is currently the Germans, who keep up the law, which was their ultimate defeat.
With the other parties as Adversaries.
Amen.
Stewart, of course we’re also blaming the deceivers, and have been for some time. But Ian’s right that willful ignorance is also to blame. Hell, you can’t even talk about these things at all on some blogs that are ostensibly liberal — you’ll get shouted down. They don’t want to hear it. My circle of friends is full of privileged, hyper-educated people who are choosing to stick their heads in the sand. I just had a heated argument at a dinner party last weekend over all this shit, and I ended by saying, “If this were happening under Bush, you’d be screaming bloody murder. Bloody murder.”
They refused to acknowledge it. Just refused.
It’s gross hypocrisy. It all comes down to, “Because Our Guy is in the White House, it’s okay.”
One of the aforementioned blogs actually displayed the sentence the other day, “Obama is an intelligent and decent man.” Okay, he’s intelligent, I’ll give you that. But decent?? Are you fucking kidding me? After what’s been going on? This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about when I say “America is getting what it asked for, and what it deserves.”
And re torture, the polls I’ve seen have shown again and again that at least half the population is just fine with it, even when the word “torture” is used. The most recent one was about teenagers/college students — came out just a month or so ago. 60% were okay with torture. 60%!
I’m sorry, there is no excuse today for remaining ignorant, not with so many other outlets for information besides the MSM. Especially for so-called well-educated people. They have tons of alternative sources at their disposal. They refuse to use them. I refuse to make excuses for them.
“My circle of friends is full of privileged, hyper-educated people who are choosing to stick their heads in the sand. I just had a heated argument at a dinner party last weekend…”
No offense Lisa, but most Americans aren’t privileged or hyper-educated. And most Americans aren’t hanging out at sell-out liberal or radical left blogs. Most are busting their ass doing shit work, trying to pay their bills and raise their kids. Or they’re out of work. Their ignorance is a result of the gutting of K-12 and the obscenely out of reach college educations. Or the lack of energy or leisure time to better themselves.
Blaming our peers, our fellow pampered professional class, for being willfully ignorant and enabling is one thing. Blaming 10s of millions of Americans who’ve been raped by the parasitic ruling class for 30 plus years is quite another.
Any “movement” that turns on their ignorance, that excludes them from the word go, is a vanity project doomed to failure. You’re limiting yourself to the non-sell-out left, and god knows there are “plenty of them.” Any successful leftward campaign throughout history has done exactly the opposite, gone into their villages, their workplaces and organized, living and working among them. If we simply write them off as irreparably stupid, why bother at all. They’ll look on as the state mows us down, thinking those smug fucking elites.
@Lisa Simeone,
No.
This ‘right or wrong, its my country’ thing is definiteley a rightist habit.
Just shut down some parts of your brain and here you are.
To some lesser degree also the Lefties seem to suffer from that.
But this depends on the general climate, where the closing of the guards is very much earlier a right-wing habit.
It is quite inevitable, that at a later time the left wing also closes the guard.
Just leave this company.
“Obama is an intelligent and decent man.”
Well. ‘Intelligence’ as such does not qualify for much.
Concerning ‘Decency’, i cannot see much in him.
‘Oblabla’ seems to tell his character.
So:
Intelligence: OK
Decency: any Proof on that?
jcapan,
You are quite right and I didn’t mean to imply that people who are struggling just to get through the day are at fault. I think they’re just as observant as any theorist with time on his hands — they’re the ones suffering the most from being screwed by the oligarchs.
And forgive me, but I have less than full-on respect for education in its conventional sense. There are a lot of highly educated knuckle-heads and a lot of lowly educated savants. I’m sure I’ve brought up as example before my blue-collar father, equiv 8th grade education in war-ravaged Italy, a helluva lot smarter than the wankers in the White House and criminals on Wall Street. One of my fond memories is of being able to tell him on his death bed that Rumsfeld had resigned. “Really??! That son of a bitch. Now we have to get the other ones out of there.”
But the rest of my family is also full of blue-collar people who’ve had extraordinary good fortune (that they refuse to acknowledge), as well as offspring who’ve had good fortune, privilege, and education (that they refuse to acknowledge). There’s plenty of blame to go around.
I agree that no movement is going to succeed without the working class. The October 6th coalition is working on that. Many of our people are working class, and have devoted their lives to standing up for it.
Lisa Simeone:
Stewart, of course we’re also blaming the deceivers, and have been for some time. But Ian’s right that willful ignorance is also to blame. Hell, you can’t even talk about these things at all on some blogs that are ostensibly liberal — you’ll get shouted down. They don’t want to hear it. My circle of friends is full of privileged, hyper-educated people who are choosing to stick their heads in the sand.
Lisa, I had the same type of discussions, over ObamaCare, with similar ‘quiche liberals’–the Ezra Klein types who said “this is the best we can hope for” (NOT!! ObamaCare was in some ways worse than nothing (because it empowered even more those creating the problem) but also less than what was possible. Obama got exactly the HCR ‘reform’ he wanted, I’m convinced–a Republican one). And with those I would agree that there is a sizable element of self-delusion going on.
But let me introduce you to others–like a friend and her husband. They are surviving on some $20-25K a year. He has a heart problem; his medicines alone would cost twice their income if it wasn’t for dispensations and the Medicaid help they get.
They are not well educated. But they are smart enough to vote Democratic up to now, as they see what Republicans are all about. And they try to get out what vote they can. I have shown them clips of Michael Moore’s “Sicko” and they say: “That’s what WE need over here!!”.
But they tell me now “We can’t vote for Obama. He’s done NOTHING for us”. They looked into what the exchanges would cost for the husband (c. $600 a month, with possibly up to $13,000 a year in out-of-pockets) and that’s just for his insurance. They see that Obamacare, what Obama perceives as his crown jewel of accomplishments, is really worthless. These people with high school educations (or less) can see what my quiche liberal friends cannot.
And there’s more. Sometimes I talk to Republicans. Almost Tea Partier types. And yet, when I start talking about the cost of the US military (almost WWII levels!!) and what we get for it, they nod their head about the waste and the need to bring the forces home. When I talk about a modern WPA, or Medicare-for-all, they say things like “Yeah, we need stuff like that”. I had a conversation with a man just the other day which started out with with him asking me “Who do you think can beat Obama?” and wondering if Sarah Palin might be a better president, yet ended up with him advocating a WPA, advocating Medicare-for-all, and ranting about the price gouging of oil companies. I kid you not.
These people are the ones who will be hit by the Mack Truck first. And they’ve not been cheering that Mack truck on. They may be ignorant of politics and indoctrinated to believe that socialism is a synonym for “something bad”, but they certainly know that what’s about to hit them for sure ain’t good.
Americans have been bamboozled so much over the years. it’s hard for them to separate up from down in politics. One of the key reasons for this bamboozlement has been the Democrats’ (and the US left’s) cooperation in it. The Right in the US doesn’t have to emasculate the Left, the Left does it for them. The Left does it for them by forever shooting their own left flank. And I’m not just talking about the triangulation of Democrats like the Clintons and Obamas, supposedly left-liberal organizations and causes do it too. The Sierra club types shoot EarthFirst! The gay rights movement shot the gay liberationists and others. The AFL-CIO shot its communist and socialist members. Each and every “left” organization in the US triangulates to win what it perceives as short-term advantages and yet can’t see that the result of this is to move the Overton Window to the right another notch.
Look at the Right by contrast–they *protect* their right flank. Even after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Republican Congress squashed attempts to investigate the neo-militia movement. Moreover, in the press Tim McVeigh’s favorite book, The Turner Diaries, was almost universally reported by the press as being merely “anti-government” when in fact it’s a neo-Nazi work by William Pearce and chilling in its unabashedly racist and anti-semitic fantasies of a bloodbath of blacks and Jews.
StewartM
@Lisa Simeone,
sorry, if I offended.
just seems to be in my ‘groo’ character to even offend decent people.
groo,
No, no, don’t worry; no offense taken. It takes a lot more than that to offend me!
Lisa, I bet Sarah Palin was part of the discussion.
I agree that no movement is going to succeed without the working class.
What is the “Working Class” anymore? I mean that sincerely. I’m not sure. It’s the first half of the 21st Century….not the first half of the 20th Century. The “Working Class” of the former is now the Chinese. The “Working Class” of the latter are now debt slaves.
MB,
Agree that the term is problematic but even Wiki offers a flexible definition:
“those employed in lower tier jobs (as measured by skill, education and lower incomes), often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes.”
Though it must be said that many highly educated individuals find themselves vying for lower tier jobs at present.
Wiki continues: “The cut-off between working class and middle class is more specifically where a population spends money primarily as a lifestyle rather than for sustenance (for example, on fashion versus merely nutrition and shelter). Problematically, relying on this method of distinction would rule out many of the people who are often identified as working class.”
Which is why I typically eschew the term–the burgeoning lower classes, peeling off sizeable layers of the middle class by the month, are focused on sustenance, not leisure or lifestyle (or, wink, blogging).
Precise terminology can’t hurt the cause, but we all recognize the downtrodden when we see them/are them.
MB: “What is the “Working Class” anymore?”
I answered this nearly three years ago on my own blog: I said that in the United States it was the undocumented aliens, the people who can’t ask for more wages, can’t negotiate for anything because their employers can have them deported at the drop of a hat. Anyone who’s working legally is of a higher class, even the people just scraping along. To which, though, I can add that after three years of depression, the situation of the people who are living hand to mouth on whatever they can bring in is getting very bad.
MB, sorry, confusion reigns. Which discussion? Do you mean at the dinner party where I was arguing with my head-in-the-sand friends? If so, no, Sarah Palin’s name never came up. Otherwise, I’m still confused!
Interesting discussion, all, re definition of working class.
Some 57 percent said that it is OK to use enhanced interrogation techniques or some forms of torture on suspected terrorists if they might have information that keeps America safe.
“If they might have information”? Everyone on the planet over the age of two might have information. Everyone who doesn’t have information might have information.
Hey 57 percent, what if they might not have information? What if there is no evidence that they do have information? What if you might have committed a crime? Can the gov’t. lock you up indefinitely if you might have committed a crime?
It looks to me like the pollster wants to torture and wanted to find some agreement.
I have to agree that Americans support torture. As soon as Bush announced that the Taliban prisoners were illegal combatants instead of prisoners of war and that the Geneva convection did not apply, we all knew that meant torture. We have chosen to look the other way, but we all knew what was going on. If we had a problem with it, we would have done something. If we cared the Democrats, who were the opposition party at the time, would have made an issue out of it. We don’t care and we have not made the connection between tolerating torture, the breakdown in law, and foreclosure fraud. We don’t yet get that law itself has been destroyed.
No. One alternative explanation to your view is that there is no choice in the u.s. You can only vote for the duopoly. And the duopoly does not represent the will of the majority. It only represents those who will pay for representation. Representative democracy has broken down in the u.s. (and possibly much of Europe, but I don’t live there and so won’t speak for them). You are free to vote, but representation costs money. If you have not paid, then your view will not be represented in legislation.
Also, there is not yet any organized opposition to the duopoly. So, while many people–possibly a majority–may be opposed to the use of torture, they are not organized and so do not speak with a effective, unified voice. Without that, they are ignored.
Just read this on the train:
“Public opinion polls are the critical instrument of imagology’s power, because they enable imagology to live in the absolute harmony with the people. The imagologue bombards people with questions: how is the French economy prospering? is there racism in France? is racism good or bad? who is the greatest writer of all time? is Hungary in Europe or in Polynesia? which world politician is the sexiest? And since for contemporary man reality is a continent visited less and less often and, besides, justifiably disliked, the findings of polls have become a kind of higher reality, or to put it differently: they have become the truth. Public opinion polls are a parliament in permanent session, whose function is to create truth, the democratic truth that has ever existed. Because it will never be at variance with the parliament of truth, the power of the imagologues will always live in truth, and although I know that everything human is mortal, I cannot imagine anything that could break this power.”
Milan Kundera, Immortality
That’s where we’re headed, anon2525. Actually, we’re already there. The latest outrage announced by the FBI confirms this.
Yeah, I take public opinion polls with a grain of salt….in fact, I don’t pay attention to them at all, for the very reasons jcapan posted, but just because I don’t pay attention to them, doesn’t mean that the opposite of them is necessarily true. I don’t think there is any such thing as “the American People” as politicians and their apparatchiks are so fond of saying, so there is no speaking as one, or a group consensus. I do believe that U.S. citizens, by and large, are led around by the nose and through propaganda techniques, to include public opinion polls, are told what to think and feel. If that’s the case, public opinion polls don’t serve to gauge the public’s opinion that has already been formed, but rather they’re a device used to form public opinion, and in that sense, they may be closer to accurate than I care to admit.
Yes, Lisa, Sarah Palin discussed at the dinner party. Jesus! Since you are still confused, like your friends at the dinner party, I will explain. It has been my observation that many “Liberals,” if not all of them, like your “hyper-educated” friends, have made it a habit to flaunt their superiority by flogging the caricature that is Sarah Palin. The irony of this is that the “Liberals” are so smart, they’re dumb, to fall into this obvious trap set by the Ministers of Propaganda, and so, like the chicken pecking the lever for food in the lab experiments, they make it a favorite pass time to peck the Sarah Lever in order to feel good about themselves. They could be using their time more wisely to entertain and explore the topics you bring to the table, but “Liberals” like “Conservatives” are so certain in their convictions, nothing can stand in their way…..not logic, nor truth.
MB,
Totally agree. Was just saying exactly this to hubby last night. That smug, self-satisfied sense of superiority. Makes my skin crawl.
That’s where we’re headed, anon2525. Actually, we’re already there. The latest outrage announced by the FBI confirms this.
“We” have “been there” since 2002. Most of the people held at Guantanamo were held with no evidence having been presented and were not kept as prisoners of war. They are political prisoners in that they were held because the right wing wanted them kept there for purposes of getting elected.
Ask your friends: “Should the gov’t. be able to spy on you for no reason? Should the gov’t. be able to lock you up for no reason? Not ‘can they do it’, but ‘should they be able to do it’, ‘should they be permitted to have that power’?” And then get a pollster to ask those questions.
Unfortunately, many people in the u.s. need to have their Bill of Rights explained to them. Once they understand what it means, they tend to agree with it. There are others (bush, cheney, and now, obama) who don’t. They are american citizens who don’t agree with the ideas that the country is founded on. In that sense–the one that matters–they are not Americans.
What the FBI is doing is unconstitutional. Courts need to order it to be stopped (which requires a case, which requires “standing”). People in the FBI need to protest. Maybe some are.
What has nonviolence actually accomplished? Indians killing Pakistani’s instead of both of them killing brits? White people having to be a little less public about their racism?
Seriously, you all act like you accomplished something lasting and epic, but nothing you’ve accomplished with this tool (which you insist must be the only one) actually measures up to that hype. You didn’t change the world. You didn’t make lasting change. Corporations didn’t tremble before you and the elite barely yawned (they were mostly on your side with the racism thing, or you wouldn’t even have gotten that much). All you did was push things forward a little tiny bit; you gained freedom for a country when many other countries were already gaining those same ‘freedoms’. You ended a system in the US that kept wages artificially high for the white working class, and in doing so, you assisted corporate America in destroying unions.
Stop believing your own BS.
And since for contemporary man reality is a continent visited less and less often…
We now have the word “truthiness.”
Polls about torture are not long lived, unlike, say, polls about the death penalty. Pollsters are asking this question only since bush/cheney attained power (which is not to say “since they were elected”). Had they been polling about torture since, say, the end of the second world war, then we might be able to draw some conclusions. At this point, we don’t have good data to know. (What I think most people believe about torture depends on my mood.)
Public opinion polls are a parliament in permanent session, whose function is to create truth, the democratic truth that has ever existed. Because it will never be at variance with the parliament of truth, the power of the imagologues will always live in truth, and although I know that everything human is mortal, I cannot imagine anything that could break this power.
Kundera says that he “cannot imagine anything,” but it easy not just to imagine, but to know what will: reality. Several polls over the past few years have announced that the majority of the u.s. population no longer “believes in” global warming and the consequent climate change. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and the sun do not obey this “democratic truth.” CO2 and the sun will bend the “truth” of public opinion to “believe in” global warming. Those who survive, that is. Those who do not survive won’t be polled.
You don’t get to torture someone because “they might have information.”
Are we even having this conversation? When I grew up, at least it was acknowledged that if you tortured, for whatever reason, you were evil. Period. Reminds me of rape apologists “well, she had it coming.”
No.
soullite,
Well, hell, let’s all just go to a disco, then, and forget about it!
Nobody’s claiming “we” (or anybody else, for that matter) has changed the world. The world changes with or without us. People are sometimes able to nudge it — or wrench it, depending on their power — in one direction or another.
As for the propensity of homo sapiens for violence, whether in the service of a cause or just for the hell of it, there’s nothing I can do about that. Except not add to it.
Ian Welsh:
Are we even having this conversation? When I grew up, at least it was acknowledged that if you tortured, for whatever reason, you were evil. Period.
Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann had a similar conversation of about “Why torture is wrong”. Maddow took your position–that torture should just be considered wrong and evil, period, as a moral absolute. Keith took the argument I would tend to take–that torture produces bogus and unreliable information, that mistreatment of captives causes your adversaries to resist you harder, that it’s counterproductive to your own side’s morale, that it ruins your reputation, among others. That it’s not only hideous morality, but bad policy.
Maddow’s objection to Keith’s argument went: “But what if you could find an instance of torture where none of these objections hold true? It still would not be moral.” Maddow thought it was better to simply argue “it’s wrong and just never justified”.
You might Keith’s argument a “rational” analysis of torture that rejects it by a cost/benefit analysis. Perhaps that is true. However, in my experience Keith’s argument is more persuasive than Maddow’s “it’s just wrong” argument, Maybe that’s because of the cynicism of international politics nowadays. Maybe it’s because now more know that in WWII, the “good guys” did occasionally mistreat prisoners (and thus, using simplified reasoning, become instantly “no different” than the Nazis or the Japanese, who did it on a mass scale). I don’t know.
StewartM
I’ve written the “rational argument” against torture a number of times. I don’t do it any more. Anyone who tortures is scum, whether they’re on our side or not. While I see the value of convincing scumbags not to torture, I also doubt it really takes, they’ll always be willing to be convinced that it’s acceptable under some circumstances, against “bad people.”
A friend of mine with a lot of military and intelligence experience puts it this way, you don’t torture to get information, you torture to send information, and the information you’re sending is “we torture people.”
I’ve become a lot less interested in being “reasonable” over the last 8 years, because what I’ve seen is that people who are reasonable have helped make monsters and monstrous policies possible over and over again. Don’t debate with evil or with bullshit, just call it out. All the fuckers who spent all that time acting as if Obama’s “stimulus” might work, and acted as if his appointees didn’t tell you he was going to fuck up the economy and continue (and expand) the wars, were enablers.
Torture’s just evil. Anyone who does it, is evil. Period. A society which condones it has gone over the red line.
We act like any monster or moron who says something has a right to their opinion. They don’t. We need to stop acting as if they do.
Torture apologists are evil people.
Seconding Ian.
I’ve spent 30 years reading about torture, in accounts by victims, practitioners, family members, academics. Though it has always existed and, to the world’s misery, always will, we have to condemn it, again and again and again. And we have to quit with the grotesque “reasonable” arguments. They don’t convince people who don’t get it because those people don’t want to get it. They don’t give a shit.
It’s a sign of how far we’ve fallen as supposedly civilized human beings that we even have to discuss this in this country. In the ’80s we were propping up the most vile regimes in Latin America and not only casting a blind eye to but training torturers. So yes, the U.S. has engaged in it before (and what we did in the Philippines was horrific). But when news accounts about those incidents came out in the past, decent people were horrified. It wasn’t accorded any kind of respect as something to defend “in certain cases,” or fucking bragged about, or legalized in memos, or compared to a goddamn TV show, as some in Congress did with reference to “24.” It was considered shameful.
Now, we’ve run off the cliff, with “reasonable” conversations like that between Maddow and Olbermann, and that criminal John Yoo actually teaching at a major university. It’s unreal. It’s like we’re legitimizing the discussion.
Torture is wrong. It’s sadistic. It’s meant to humiliate and control. It is, as Ian said, meant to send a message. The fact that so many otherwise “ordinary” people can be brought to do it — that is worth discussing. For what it reveals about human nature. But no matter what, no matter where, no matter why, it’s wrong.
Apropos of this discussion:
Haunted by Homicide: Federal Grand Jury Investigates War Crimes and Torture in Death of ‘the Iceman’ at Abu Ghraib, Plus Other Alleged CIA Abuses
by Adam Zagorin
http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/06/13/haunted-by-homicide-federal-grand-jury-investigates-war-crimes-and-torture-in-death-of-the-ice-man-at-abu-ghraib-and-other-alleged-cia-abuses/
Torture is Terror, plain and simple. That’s its intent. It’s meant to strike fear into the heart of the target populace….to degrade them, to humiliate them…to demoralize them.
Considering that, let’s recalculate who the Terrorists really are in the WOT.
The U.S. government. The U.S. military. The TSA. The DHS. etc.
Are we even having this conversation? When I grew up, at least it was acknowledged that if you tortured, for whatever reason, you were evil.
As far as I am concerned, the answer is “No, we are not having a conversation about whether torture is acceptable.” Instead, the conversation is about the question “Has a poll result shown whether the majority of the u.s. population supports the use of torture on people who might be involved in terrorism?” My answer is, “Maybe. Measure it and find out. The current measurement is a ‘cold fusion’ declaration (“We’ve measured cold fusion!…No, wait. Never mind.”).”
You don’t get to torture someone because “they might have information.”
Leave aside the matter of torture for a moment.
Who does the gov’t. detain? Two classes of people: suspects in crimes and prisoners of war.
Suspects in crimes are held if the gov’t. has some evidence that they might have committed the crime. No evidence? Then the gov’t. has to release you. Even when the gov’t. has some evidence, the suspect is presumed to be innocent. This was thought about and decided long ago. The state has significant power (a monopoly) and cannot use it simply because some gov’t. official wants to. There is no reason and no justification for the state to be harming an innocent person. A case needs to be made and presented to convict a suspect. If the person is convicted, then it has been decided that they are guilty of the crime, and the law for punishment is applied. Except in death penalty cases, it has been decided that convicted prisoners will not be tortured (electrocution in death penalty cases is surely torture). This wasn’t always the case. Laws have evolved to the point where we are today in which prisoners are not tortured. History is full of examples where prisoners were tortured as part of their punishment for a crime.
Prisoners of war do not get trials (unless it is after the war, in which case they might also be war criminals). No evidence is presented to prove that they are guilty, and they are released once the war is over. Not every conflict has participants that follow these rules of war. Absent these rules, it could easily be argued by, say, a Yoo or Cheney, that POWs might have valuable information about the enemy. Torture is “justified”, they would argue, in order to get that information. For a long time in history, this logic was followed. The Geneva Conventions did not get written for no reason and they did not get handed down by Moses.
Now, we have bush/cheney/obama arguing that terrorists are neither crime suspects nor prisoners of war. A crime suspect requires that evidence be presented and a trial be held. Prisoners of war do not require evidence or a trial, but must be released once the war is over. B/C/O want to create a new (in fact, old) hybrid: someone does not require evidence or a trial (like a POW), but the prisoner is never to be released.
In other words, they want the right of kings/dictators: people are to be held indefinitely on the king/dictator’s say so (or that of his appointed governors, sheriffs, and so on). And Obama has claimed the right to have someone executed on his say so. Exhibit A: bin Laden gets two bullets in his left eye.
And why are we even having a discussion about whether a majority of Americans approve of torture? Hmmm? Let’s say you’re right, and it’s slightly under 50%.
Yay?
How did it even get that close?
And why are we even having a discussion about whether a majority of Americans approve of torture? Hmmm? Let’s say you’re right, and it’s slightly under 50%.
My concern/disappointment is a little different since I don’t have a good idea of whether it’s 30% or 70%. My concern is that we can’t simply dismiss it out of hand. We ought to be able to say, “Oh, no, that’s absurd.” That we have to wonder is a statement about how bad the “culture” has gotten. Although, if it were 20% I would say that, yes, that’s true about almost any terrible policy. There is 20% of the population that supports many bad policies. Usually, the same 20%. This is part of the 18% that supported Cheney no matter what.
It should be said that Bush and Obama have been afraid to come out and say that they support of policy of torture (they’ll use the “enhanced interrogation” dodge). Bush repeatedly said “We don’t torture.” I expect that he was advised to say that to keep himself out of legal jeopardy, but it was also because he knew that it is unpopular.
Relatedly, this expression of hope was published today: Torture Accountability After All?
The one avenue for accountability that wasn’t closed by the Obama administration was the investigation by Department of Justice prosecutor John Durham. Durham, readers may recall, was the Federal prosecutor originally tasked to investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes in apparent violation of a court order. In 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder expanded Durham’s mandate to include investigating incidents of detainee treatment that went beyond even those actions approved under the so-called “torture memos” of the Bush Justice Department.
…
If Mitchell and Jessen are indeed targets, that could well explain the near panic of the torture defenders when they refer to the Durham investigation. These former officials and their apologists may be worried that an investigation into the actions of Mitchell and Jessen will go higher up the chain of command. Reportedly, everything done in the secret CIA prisons was approved in Washington, sometimes even in the White House. And, as Watergate demonstrated, investigations, once started, can sometimes climb the command chain to the very top.
There are no certainties in human rights work. But this latest news about Durham’s investigation is a rare bright spot in an otherwise bleak picture of continued abuses and absent accountability. It now appears possible that we might have some torture accountability after all.
“As far as I am concerned, the answer is ‘No, we are not having a conversation about whether torture is acceptable.’ Instead, the conversation is about the question ‘Has a poll result shown whether the majority of the u.s. population supports the use of torture on people who might be involved in terrorism?’ [and if so, however questionable it might be relative to other polling, can that be used to grossly generalize about 300 million people and/or dismiss the terrible things coming their way?]
Let’s say it’s only 40% (still repulsive, I grant you):
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/22/torture
And then let’s say it’s a more modest 22% in your own country:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e380d404-cdec-4b1c-91ef-6c53914dafb1&k=360
At what point can the comforting term “evil” be used? At what point does concern over the innocent evaporate? Reminds me of the all Muslims support terrorism line. So much easier to stomach their bombed wedding parties.
And why are we even having a discussion about whether a majority of Americans approve of torture?
Another perspective on this is that Americans don’t approve of torture and the don’t disapprove of it. It has been put out of their minds.
– Two countries invaded and occupied — out of mind, rarely mentioned
Incidents that have occurred during those invasions and occupations — out of mind
– Huge industrial accident in the Gulf of Mexico that destroys the ecosystem there and harms people and their livelihoods — out of mind
– Huge flood in Pakistan and drought/fires in Russia — out of mind, rarely mentioned
– Huge earthquake, tsunami, and on-going nuclear accident in Japan — out of mind, rarely mentioned
– the Resident goes beyond any previously conjured rationalization for attacking a country, and the congress belatedly makes a squeak before meekly going back into its hole — out of mind
– Banks destroy centuries of real-estate law and corrupt the courts — out of mind, rarely mentioned
– Fed. reserve runs up trillions of dollars in a new, off-balance-sheet debt — out of mind
What do we hear about? You know: Charlie Sheen, the execution of bin Laden, and Weiner’s pictures&lying, and the debt and who’s running for president.
What are we worried about? Having a job, having a place to live, being able to pay for medical services and education.
“Secret” law? Domestic spying? Some people have been tortured? How can they have an opinion about something they don’t know anything about and have given almost no thought to?
Ian Welsh:
And why are we even having a discussion about whether a majority of Americans approve of torture? Hmmm? Let’s say you’re right, and it’s slightly under 50%.
Let’s not forget these polls were the ones taken right after the killing of Bin Laden, with a very loud persistent lie being told repeatedly over one of the 4 major networks by prominent people that torture somehow made this possible. (Aside from the fact that I believe like you, that Bin Laden should have been captured, not killed). Then it’s a poll “bump” in a long-term trend just like the similar and corresponding “bump” in Obama’s approval rating.
If popularity polls determine the “evil” of a country, then I must conclude that there’s not a country in the world that’s not “evil” because you can find opinion polls that say that a majority or plurality advocate a position I believe to be morally indefensible. I continue to insist that most Fox News-watching Americans have been propagandized and duped to believe that “torture’ when done by us (the “good guys”) just means inflicting mild discomfort or inconvenience on captives, as a reliable way to get precious information, instead of the truth—of subjecting them to potentially life-threatening procedures to get bogus information. If they simply knew the facts, our polling numbers would be more in line with Canada’s.
With Sean Hannity claiming on Fox that waterboarding is no big deal and that he’d willingly undergo it himself (of course, backing out of Keith Olbermann’s challenge that he actually follow through on his boast)–well, what other impression do you think is meant to be conveyed? That’s certainly the message I get the few time I have the stomach to watch Fox.
jcapan:
At what point can the comforting term “evil” be used? At what point does concern over the innocent evaporate? Reminds me of the all Muslims support terrorism line. So much easier to stomach their bombed wedding parties.
Very well said.
StewartM
Let’s not forget these polls were the ones taken right after the killing of Bin Laden, with a very loud persistent lie being told repeatedly over one of the 4 major networks by prominent people that torture somehow made this possible.
Let’s also not forget that when someone who is unarmed, is not resisting, and is not presenting a threat to anyone around him is killed, we call that killing “murder” or, possibly, “assassination.” And let’s not forget that pretty much everyone who spoke publicly in the u.s. approved of this murder or assassination. Not only did they approve of it, but those who disapproved were mocked or scorned.
The mob wanted a lynching. The mob got one. Unfortunately, the The Ox-Bow Incident is not shown on television annually in the u.s.
There Is Much More to Say
In June 2002, FBI head Robert Mueller, in what the Washington Post described as “among his most detailed public comments on the origins of the attacks,” could say only that “investigators believe the idea of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon came from al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, the actual plotting was done in Germany, and the financing came through the United Arab Emirates from sources in Afghanistan…. We think the masterminds of it were in Afghanistan, high in the al Qaeda leadership.” What the FBI believed and thought in June 2002 they didn’t know eight months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence. Thus it is not true, as the President claimed in his White House statement, that “We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”
There has never been any reason to doubt what the FBI believed in mid-2002, but that leaves us far from the proof of guilt required in civilized societies – and whatever the evidence might be, it does not warrant murdering a suspect who could, it seems, have been easily apprehended and brought to trial. Much the same is true of evidence provided since.
anon2525
Let’s also not forget that when someone who is unarmed, is not resisting, and is not presenting a threat to anyone around him is killed, we call that killing “murder” or, possibly, “assassination.” And let’s not forget that pretty much everyone who spoke publicly in the u.s. approved of this murder or assassination. Not only did they approve of it, but those who disapproved were mocked or scorned.
I’ve not forgotten–indeed, I stated my own objection to his killing in my post. I agree with Ian on this, and with you.
But where are the cries of anger and protest and outrage over Bin Laden’s killing from the rest of the Western world? Maybe I’m tone deaf, but the voices from over there were just as muted as the objectors over here.
Well, heck. Here are their reactions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_death_of_Osama_bin_Laden
Most of them said “Way to Go!”: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the list goes on and on. Even the Dalai Lama approved. Those are the official reactions, true, but the protests of individual objectors seem to have little in the way of a geographical principle component.
So what now–now the “evil” label gets pasted on most of the world?
StewartM
So what now–now the “evil” label gets pasted on most of the world?
Ian Welsh has better examples available to make the case that the u.s. population, or a significant portion of it, has an arrested moral development (I would argue that many have stopped their moral development at around the age of 12 or 14).
1) The u.s. population still has millions of guns (some estimates say hundreds of millions) and use them to kill tens of thousands of their fellow citizens yearly (ranging from 20,000 to 30,000).
2) The u.s. population has been supportive of a death penalty for decades. This is a long-measured poll result, unlike the not-well-measured view that the population supports the use of torture.
3) The Resident is ordering attacks on countries without the authorization of congress, and congress is shrugging its shoulders. He has also been ordering the murdering of people, both in secret and now in public, for political gain.
More of that which is not the shiny distraction:
Fig Leaf Nation,
Shocking pictures of pollution in China (or, “How does Walmart keeps its prices so darned low?”),
Slideshow of environmental destruction in the U.S.
anon2525:
1) The u.s. population still has millions of guns (some estimates say hundreds of millions) and use them to kill tens of thousands of their fellow citizens yearly (ranging from 20,000 to 30,000).
True enough. But to play devil’s advocate, Switzerland has lots of guns too, as does Finland, yet both have homicide rates of approximately one-fifth and one-half of the US. I think that there is certainly an overall correlation between widespread gun ownership and homicide, but there are significant outliers and the fit isn’t perfect.
Why does the US has a culture of violence? There’s no easy answer for that question. But to talk of “arrested moral development” is unscientific and moralizing. Napoleon Chagnon’s Yanomani and Papau New Guinea Eastern Highlands peoples have far higher homicide rates still–perhaps upwards of 40 times the US (though to be fair to them, if you calculate in our wars into our homicide rates, like we do with them, the Western world loses much of its advantage). Even Richard Lee’s Kung! “peaceful people” had one about 4 times that of the US average. If you opened up an anthropology book to read about such cultures and the first thing you read was that they were in “arrested moral development”–well, MY first impression from reading such a book would be that the author was probably a racist, and certainly ethnocentric.
Cultures simply represent an adaptation of human behavior to a given environment using a given technology given certain antecedents. Cultures evolve like biological organisms, but like them their evolution is simply adaptation–there’s no progress. American culture is what it is because of these adaptations and antecedents, and if we don’t like elements of it it’s more fruitful to try to understand what those adaptations are in response to and how things got to be this way than to moralize about a whole culture.
2) The u.s. population has been supportive of a death penalty for decades. This is a long-measured poll result, unlike the not-well-measured view that the population supports the use of torture.
But even here has been change–down to the 60-odd % from its high of 80 %. American’s support for the death penalty is a consequence of the overall crime rate. It’s a fear reaction. If the US were to achieve lower crime rates, I predict that support for legalized killing would fall.
But I have to wonder, given our elites joy at incarcerating even the non-violent, that they want this to happen. Keeping a population fearful and afraid of their social peers has its advantages, you know.
3) The Resident is ordering attacks on countries without the authorization of congress, and congress is shrugging its shoulders. He has also been ordering the murdering of people, both in secret and now in public, for political gain.
The increasing power of the executive branch is not just a problem with the US, but in most countries. I asked a polysci friend of mine “Where in the Western world has the power of the executive branch declined?” and he couldn’t cite a single example–in fact, he said it’s increased everywhere he could think of. The US is just the apex of an unfortunate trend.
If you want to argue that the political system in the US is broken, be my guest. But don’t use that brokenness as an argument to trash Americans per se. Americans after all are among the prominent victims of their broken system.
StewartM
1. True enough. But to play devil’s advocate, Switzerland has lots of guns too, as does Finland, yet both have homicide rates of approximately one-fifth and one-half of the US.
I must be dense, but it appears to me that you are not playing devil’s advocate because you appear to be making the case that the u.s. does have a segment of the population that has arrested moral development. You provide the example of other countries that have high gun ownership, but have lower rates of homicide. A possible reason for that is that the populations in those countries have a more egalitarian society that better supports individuals and families which, in turn, better supports the maturation of humans.
There can be lots of explanations for the more egalitarian society (less racism and poverty and better education because there are fewer races, for example), but the end result is a less morally developed population.
2. Why does the US has a culture of violence? There’s no easy answer for that question. But to talk of “arrested moral development” is unscientific and moralizing.
I suppose, but, after all, this is a discussion on the internet, not a scientific journal. We’re attempting to connect dots that 1) the political and media world will not, and does not necessarily want us to, and 2) there isn’t necessarily enough data or science to know definitively.
Even so, I would argue that these are quasi-scientific claims in that 1) they are a hypothesis that we don’t necessarily know the answer to based on existing scientific knowledge and 2) it is a falsifiable claim, unlike, say, “I believe god put us here to conquer nature.” It’s not scientific in that I’m not going to be conducting research and taking measurements and gathering data, other than the data that comes from observing events.
3. Why does the US has a culture of violence? There’s no easy answer for that question. But to talk of “arrested moral development” is unscientific and moralizing.
…
If you opened up an anthropology book to read about such cultures and the first thing you read was that they were in “arrested moral development”–well, MY first impression from reading such a book would be that the author was probably a racist, and certainly ethnocentric.
I’m not sure that anthropology is the relevant science to use to determine whether an existing, living population (not the culture) is morally undeveloped. If I were to attempt to measure this scientifically, I expect that I would use psychology or maybe biology or even biochemistry. Then you would need to develop some tests to determine whether a person has a mature morality, and of course you would need someway of objectively defining what that means. Then you would need to measure lots of individuals to determine its prevalence in the population.
We don’t have that carefully measured data available to us, so we either shrug our shoulders and say “who can tell?” or we draw conclusions based on events. I’m of the second camp.
Cultures evolve like biological organisms, but like them their evolution is simply adaptation–there’s no progress.
While there’s a good argument to be made that human beings are as flawed and un-evolved now as they were, say, 1,000 or 5,000 years ago, that is, I think, irrelevant to my point. My point is that some (significant percentage of) people in our population don’t mature, (whether willfully or for other causes is up to science to determine). This maturing as a person grows from an adolescent to an adult was possible 1,000 years ago and 5,000 years ago. That is different from claiming that “humankind is improving.”
My mistake. I intended for my last post to only include point number 3. The discussion has become too diffuse, and I don’t want to open up many of the more wide-ranging points.
But I have to wonder, given our elites joy at incarcerating even the non-violent, that they want this to happen
This has the simple explanation that 1) the Culture War has been useful for getting votes and obscuring the Class War and 2) the Class War wants to make profits (private prisons, private schools, private armies, for example) off of those activities that the population considers a necessity function of government. The joy is the Joy of Profit.
First off, I’d like to say this is a profoundly timely and pertinent subject for discussion, and, while I’ve not had the time to read the thread conversations fully, I think the debate has been a healthy one. I understand and respect the arguments on both sides.
My sense is that most (not necessarily all) oppositional movements should, from a moral perspective, begin as movements of non-violence protest – as a testament to their moral high-ground. This places the question of a ‘moral’ response upon the oppressors, and puts the ball of morality in their court. From that beginning, each movement must follow it’s own unique trajectory towards success. Sometimes, perhaps often, such a movement must segue into violent opposition to achieve it’s ends. When and how this segue occurs is always dependent upon the unique situation in which the oppositional movement exists; any non-violent movement implicitly prostrates itself upon the wider populace and it’s willingness to identify with either the opposition or it’s antagonist. When the wider populace does not rally to the oppositional view in sympathy to it’s plight, the decision on how to proceed must be made by said opposition movement, to best serve it’s goals. Nothing political occurs in a vacuum; public sentiment and political realities should always be considered when contemplating an escalation of resistance from non-violence to active interference or outright violent protest.
@ jcapan & Ian, I generally agree with J on ““The US will get a revolution, and it will come from the right. I’m not even particularly concerned about it at this point … Sure, it’d be nice to save America, plenty of good Americans, but the culture is now beyond corrupt and into evil.”
Such a dismissive take on violence, which always harms the least fortunate members of a society the most, is repugnant. In fact, it sounds like it’s coming from someone who relishes the prospect. “Plenty of good Americans”–well, that sure establishes genuine, humane concern. Out of 300 million, I’ll grant you “plenty,” maybe even a bushel. ”
@ Ian: Even if you – understandably – view Americans as a lost cause, morally (I don’t mean to put words in your mouth), consider this: What happens when these same morally bankrupt Americans wind up in bread lines, with power brown-outs, operating in an economy that has left them behind… but still living in a country with an overwhelming global military dominance? I understand the “triage” thing and the possibility that the US is morally beyond repair in the short- or medium-term, but what of the consequences for the rest of the world? My fear is that the US will, in time of crisis, place a war-mongering demogogue in power who will in turn visit suffering upon the rest of the globe in a desperate effort to sustain the “American Way of Life” through resource wars. In this perspective, giving up on the “good Americans” may eventually condemn many non-Americans to a violent, imperialistic fate. My basic point here: the US is still too powerful (military and economically) to stop fighting for, not because of it’s internal consequences or lack thereof, but rather because of the global consequences.
My fear is that the US will, in time of crisis, place a war-mongering demogogue in power who will in turn visit suffering upon the rest of the globe in a desperate effort to sustain the “American Way of Life” through resource wars.
Um, “the US will”? I think that the tense here is incorrect. Why do you think that this does not describe the past decade up to the present?
Out of 300 million…
Census note: population of the U.S. — over 310 million
population of the planet — over 6.9 billion
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
I mention this because many people still hold in their heads the numbers from a decade ago. One day soon, when the world population passes seven billion, there will be a lot of mention of it, but 900 million and 10 million are worth some notice, too.
anon2525:
I must be dense, but it appears to me that you are not playing devil’s advocate because you appear to be making the case that the u.s. does have a segment of the population that has arrested moral development. You provide the example of other countries that have high gun ownership, but have lower rates of homicide. A possible reason for that is that the populations in those countries have a more egalitarian society that better supports individuals and families which, in turn, better supports the maturation of humans.
That makes a good argument, but it doesn’t contain all the variables. Why? Because the graph of violent crime in the US doesn’t correspond with wealth equality. The rates took off in the more egalitarian 1960s and then peaked in 1993 and has been in decline since, despite wealth inequality continuing to worsen, wages continuing to fall, and the safety net being shredded. I’m not saying that what you say isn’t part of the overall equation, but it can’t be the whole story. Hypotheses that have been floated to explain the decline include the baby bust, increased incarceration, cocaine use having peaked, even the reduction of lead poisoning.
I think that the US gun ownership rate and the support for capital punishment are due because, while the actual violent crime rate has declined, Americans have been blitzed by the media to think that it’s going up. I’m not just talking about Fox News; supposedly “liberal” Hollywood gives us each year fare that fairly scream a message how vicious criminal masterminds have the upper hand over overwhelmed police, bound by liberal judges and those silly constitutional rules. Often the hero “good guy” is the one who throws off the rules a la “Dirty Harry” to fight criminals who can’t be stopped any other way. Then I am reminded by Marvin Harris’s discussion in People, Culture, Nature” about art has been traditionally used to serve conservative purposes.
I’m not sure that anthropology is the relevant science to use to determine whether an existing, living population (not the culture) is morally undeveloped. If I were to attempt to measure this scientifically, I expect that I would use psychology or maybe biology or even biochemistry.
Psychology, no. Psychology like psychiatry is too wrapped up and blinded by our own cultural mores; too much psychology only looks at members of this culture at this time in history and then races to make pronouncements about “human nature” based on that.
Biology, specifically primatology, would be more useful. I am of the opinion that we’re Jared Diamond’s Third Chimp, but one much closer to bonobos than common chimps. That’s good news, as the hypersexual bonobos are peaceful and egalitarian, even emphatic, and hunter-gathering cultures are more peaceful than post-Neolithic ones. (Hard to say how peaceful; most hunter-gatherer cultures which survived long enough to be studied did practice low-intensity war, but they also were constant contact with post-Neolithic cultures so they might have adapted it as a response. At some point I personally think that in human prehistory human population density was so low that wars didn’t happen, no matter what you think about “human nature”).
However, the bad news is that humans are plastic enough that almost every instinct we have can be overwritten by our cultures, and replaced with emotional hardwiring that leads to responses usually worse. I have no doubt at all that vicious attitudes against say interracial couplings, homosexuality, celebrations of violence, and such are behaviors not arising from biology but taught by the culture. However, I also have no doubts that these emotional responses are truly genuinely and intensely felt. That’s why it’s never good to allow one’s warm fuzzies or repellant ickys emotional responses in the driver seat when it comes to making moral judgments. I say this despite the fact that I believe that biology gives us in essence a good set of moral instincts, in all cultures, these get oft overwritten and so one’s emotional hardwiring is not to be trusted. I don’t trust mine.
Finally–when you say “morally arrested development” I wouldn’t think that makes sense unless (like Maslow) you had a model of societies whose moral development wasn’t “morally arrested”. Can you name them?
For example, I highly respect Native American cultures. I think that they had a role in the development of democracy and personal liberty, simply because the culture of Europe was so top-down and *unfree* that most Europeans struggled to imagine what a freer society might look like before contact. Nor was this freedom for men only, women and children enjoyed freedom and rights unheard-of in Europe. There were taboos, to be sure, but the degree of personal freedom and autonomy granted to each member of their culture, ranging from matters of conscience to sexual expression, shame ours even today, and their social safety net was comprehensive. While our classical tales from Greece and Rome of heroes reinforce notions of inequality, theirs taught equality—a message of “even the seemingly smallest and weakest among you is important”.
Why am I telling you this? Because these cultures tortured too. Yes, the standard way of these cultures to deal with important male prisoners of war was to torture them to death. Often it was a long, involved, process with the women joining in with the men, thrusting burning sticks into various body orifices and other things I don’t care to mention. The scene in the Last of the Mohicans with the British officer about to die a long tortuous death at the hands of the Iroquois was historically accurate.
So, if cultures that have otherwise have many features I’d think we’d both say were attractive, even “morally mature” can also do things like that–well, how do you define “maturity” when it comes to morality?
StewartM
Psychology, no. Psychology like psychiatry is too wrapped up and blinded by our own cultural mores; too much psychology only looks at members of this culture at this time in history and then races to make pronouncements about “human nature” based on that.
Whether those fields are or are not “wrapped up and blinded,” I’m not going to discuss. (If they are, then it is up to scientific progress to improve them as more is learned.) But it appears to me that it is your view that this discussion is about a scientific determination of human nature. I do not think that anyone else is attempting to make such an objective determination. I am not. I only suggested a possible approach if someone wanted to. It was not a good suggestion? Fine. I’ll leave that up to those who want to attempt to make a scientific measurement of morality, if such a thing is possible.
Finally–when you say “morally arrested development” I wouldn’t think that makes sense unless (like Maslow) you had a model of societies whose moral development wasn’t “morally arrested”. Can you name them?
I’m not working from a societal model or ideal. But your assumption that comparison and contrast with other populations/societies/cultures is required in order to make sense is false. Although there are truths that can be learned by such comparison, it is also possible to know things about a society from comparing and contrasting behaviors within your own society. (Also, I’m not attempting to do science on the internet.)
We can look at people who live now and assessing whether they are moral or immoral. We can see that some people in our population have the same morality (make the same kinds of moral judgments) that they had when they were adolescents. It hasn’t developed beyond that age. There are others who grow (mature) beyond that morality that they had when they were adolescents. Does science describe what we have observed? It would be useful if it did, but I am not certain that it can and we do not need to wait until it does.
I’m excerpting bits — you can go read whole thing:
People Power
From Cairo, Egypt, to Madison, Wisconsin, civil society is fighting back through massive nonviolent resistance. But what makes for a successful campaign? The data are in.
By Erica Chenoweth
. . . A decade into the 21st century, successful “people power” revolutions in places such as Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Georgia, Ukraine, Nepal, and the Maldives have forced major changes to entrenched power by relying on “civil” resistance, a method of resistance in which civilians withdraw cooperation from oppressive regimes, often using a mixture of strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, stay-aways, and other acts of civil disobedience.
Civil resistance is not always the same as “nonviolence” — a practice that often evokes images of Gandhi . . . a principled aversion to using violence. But the history of nonviolent resistance reveals that many people have relied on civil resistance not for moral reasons, but because they thought it would be an effective alternative to violence in achieving their aims.
To find out whether civil resistance is generally a more effective option than violent resistance, between 2006 to 2008 I collected data from books, encyclopedias, news reports, archives, data sets, and scholarly journals to develop a new database of mass nonviolent resistance campaigns that involved demands for regime change or territorial independence. I looked at where and when the campaigns emerged, characteristics of the opponents they faced, and whether the campaigns succeeded or failed. I then compared these findings with data on the success rates of violent insurgencies.
. . . Nonviolent resistance campaigns are especially skilled at convincing security forces to stop their repression and — in some cases — to join the resistance . . .
. . . there is little truth to the claim that insurgents must use violence in order to get what they want. Many observers maintain that people resort to violence when they are forced to do so — by overly repressive circumstances, by injustices they can no longer tolerate — and after exhausting all other means of political influence.
. . . Contrary to these assumptions, nonviolent resistance has proved to be a much more powerful way to achieve political goals, even in brutally repressive environments . . . .
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj1105&article=people-power
anon2525:
Whether those fields are or are not “wrapped up and blinded,” I’m not going to discuss. (If they are, then it is up to scientific progress to improve them as more is learned.) But it appears to me that it is your view that this discussion is about a scientific determination of human nature. I do not think that anyone else is attempting to make such an objective determination. I am not. I only suggested a possible approach if someone wanted to. It was not a good suggestion? Fine. I’ll leave that up to those who want to attempt to make a scientific measurement of morality, if such a thing is possible.
You keep saying that the US is in a state of “arrested moral development”. I think it’s therefore incumbent on you to define what “arrested moral development” is, and show us a society that isn’t by comparison. You must contrast the US with a society that isn’t because you claim the US as a society is. IOW, apples to apples.
I’m not working from a societal model or ideal. But your assumption that comparison and contrast with other populations/societies/cultures is required in order to make sense is false.
Although there are truths that can be learned by such comparison, it is also possible to know things about a society from comparing and contrasting behaviors within your own society. (Also, I’m not attempting to do science on the internet.)
You keep saying that. We’re not “doing science” as in doing scientific research. However, we are compelled to offer of scientifically valid evidence when making claims.
Moreover–and this is my argument with you, and with Lisa, and to some extent with Ian–this fundamentally is what the tradition of Western progressivism is all about. The Western liberal tradition was born from the Enlightenment, from a belief that human lives could be improved by the application of the scientific perspective and methodology to the problems of human society.
I believe that is still true, and I also believe that elements of “the Left” went terribly wrong in the late 60s and 70s in rejecting a scientific perspective and discourse. Among other things, I believe that helped bring on Reagan. The only people making rational arguments, tailored to win people over, was the Right during that time, whereas the Left only responded with slogans and moralisms that only warmed the hearts of those already convinced. It didn’t matter that the Right’s arguments were flawed and false, they won people over because the Left never knocked holes in them and exposed them as false. Ergo, the Right won by default because the Left never showed up.
We can look at people who live now and assessing whether they are moral or immoral.
We can?
I mean, by the morality of the Christian right, most everyone participating on this blog is likely “immoral”. You might call them “immoral” in turn. Then it just boils down to a case of you say/they say.
This is why I believe Rachel Maddow’s absolutist approach to rejecting torture (It’s just wrong because it is”) fails. It might warm the hearts of those already inclined to agree, but pronouncements that something is moral or immoral “just because” fail to win over anyone else. I have found that making rational arguments based upon the empirical evidence (like Olbermann) is far more persuasive, even in winning over the passionately convinced.
Similarly, I don’t think that it’s a persuasive argument to tell someone that they’re evil or have arrested moral development. Yes, there are some I would define as “evil” because they knowingly, with full awareness of the repercussions, inflict harm on others for reasons of pure greed and self-interest (the sociopaths that Ian mentions–Hi Dick Cheney!). But I also believe these types are found everywhere, in probably similar proportions, across place and time. The vast majority of Americans who support torture do so not because they’re evil or are in a state of “arrested moral development”, but because they’ve been lied to and have been deluded into thinking that torture achieves what they’ve been told it achieves.
We can see that some people in our population have the same morality (make the same kinds of moral judgments) that they had when they were adolescents. It hasn’t developed beyond that age. There are others who grow (mature) beyond that morality that they had when they were adolescents. Does science describe what we have observed? It would be useful if it did, but I am not certain that it can and we do not need to wait until it does.
People’s sense of morality does change, but I see no developmental aspect to it towards some “higher” standard with age. By my definition, adolescents and even younger children are often more moral and act more morally than adults. This at is more in keeping with the fact that adults have undergone a longer period of indoctrination with false propaganda (see above) to be made to see that the buck naked emperor is sporting a fine new set of clothes. (Look at the Tea Party demographics). Children, bless their hearts, before they swallow the blue pill oft see the world more as it actually is.
StewartM
You keep saying that the US is in a state of “arrested moral development”. I think it’s therefore incumbent on you to define what “arrested moral development” is, and show us a society that isn’t by comparison. You must contrast the US with a society that isn’t because you claim the US as a society is. IOW, apples to apples
I would like to avoid being repetitious, but this comment above needs the same reply as I gave before: I am comparing a segment of the u.s., not the (entire) u.s. A segment of the adult population of the u.s. is in a state of arrested moral development. A segment is and so that segment may be compared with the rest of the population. (My guess is that this is true in many other countries, too, but I don’t live there so I’m not going to make that assessment.)
We can?
I mean, by the morality of the Christian right, most everyone participating on this blog is likely “immoral”. You might call them “immoral” in turn. Then it just boils down to a case of you say/they say.
By the morality of anyone who claims to be Christian, including the Christian right, the Christian right are both hypocritical and immoral–by their own principles of morality. It is not because they follow their principles, but because they do not follow them that makes them right-wing. So, it’s not “you say/they say”, it’s “they say/they don’t say.” I might be willing to have a discussion with them concerning morality when they start following their own principles.