America bashing - the opium of the intellectual
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One of the best analysis on America bashing so far, it is long but it is worth reading to the last letter - http://www.policyreview.org/DEC02/harris.html[^] Tomaz
I think this article hits the nail on the haed in many respects--though I do somewhat agree with jan's critism about some aspects. Never the less, I think it does bring up an important point that many America fails to understand. Its goal is not to advise, but to condemn; not to fix, but to destroy. It repudiates every thought of reform in any normal sense; it sees no difference between American liberals and American conservatives... He said this was like painstakingly assembling the first layer of a house of cards, then boasting that the next 15,000 layers were a mere formality.--The Code Book, pp. 331 Toasty0.com The Recipe Project
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Here you go again. The article isn't very interesting, but it sure is long. A thing I wonder about: Why, when you point to an article, does it always assume that America (USA) bashing is performed by socialists and why does it always contain something irrelevant stuff about communism? I stopped reading when I came to the chapter named 'Marx’s political realism', at that moment I knew the rest would be silly nonsense, as always... "After all it's just text at the end of the day. - Colin Davies "For example, when a VB programmer comes to my house, they may say 'does your pool need cleaning, sir ?' " - Christian Graus
jan larsen wrote: I stopped reading when I came to the chapter named 'Marx’s political realism', at that moment I knew the rest would be silly nonsense, as always... Maybe you shouldn't have stopped. If you had not stopped you would better understand that the author is not ascribing Marxism to those who are America bashers, but is discussing their use of the Marxist style of logic. Go back and finish the article. Jerry He said this was like painstakingly assembling the first layer of a house of cards, then boasting that the next 15,000 layers were a mere formality.--The Code Book, pp. 331 Toasty0.com The Recipe Project
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One of the best analysis on America bashing so far, it is long but it is worth reading to the last letter - http://www.policyreview.org/DEC02/harris.html[^] Tomaz
Another on the nose quote form this article: In other words, the only effect on America of a continuation of September 11-style attacks would be an increasingly repressive state apparatus domestically and a populist home front demand for increasingly severe retaliation against those nations supporting or hiding terrorists. But neither one of these reactions would seriously undermine the strength of the United States — indeed, it is quite evident that further attacks would continue to unite the overwhelming majority of the American population, creating an irresistible “general will” to eradicate terrorism by any means necessary, including the most brutal and ruthless. He said this was like painstakingly assembling the first layer of a house of cards, then boasting that the next 15,000 layers were a mere formality.--The Code Book, pp. 331 Toasty0.com The Recipe Project
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One of the best analysis on America bashing so far, it is long but it is worth reading to the last letter - http://www.policyreview.org/DEC02/harris.html[^] Tomaz
Negating there's a right-wing anti-americanism[^] is either stupidity or disinformation.
Fold With Us! That's what military intelligence does: fail. They should just drop the facade and call MI the "Department of 'Whoops!'" - Gary Brecher, aka The War Nerd
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One of the best analysis on America bashing so far, it is long but it is worth reading to the last letter - http://www.policyreview.org/DEC02/harris.html[^] Tomaz
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Very good read. Thanks. The left will always reject that such analysis has merit, but considering how flimsy a grasp they have on reality in the first place, their criticisms do more to confirm these conclusions than to contridict them.
That was me, BTW, in case there were any doubts! "The Yahoos refused to be tamed." from 'The Right Nation'
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One of the best analysis on America bashing so far, it is long but it is worth reading to the last letter - http://www.policyreview.org/DEC02/harris.html[^] Tomaz
I didn't think it was particularly insightful. It draws the almost childish conclusion that all America bashing is done by socialists without anything to support it "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory."
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Negating there's a right-wing anti-americanism[^] is either stupidity or disinformation.
Fold With Us! That's what military intelligence does: fail. They should just drop the facade and call MI the "Department of 'Whoops!'" - Gary Brecher, aka The War Nerd
From your article: "Considering that the Right and Left anti Americanisms share common grounds in imposing planned economies, their hatred is consequently fueled by the hatred for democracy and the liberal economy. So, while the Right would subjugate the individual and precious social institutions to an omnipotent state with a “quasi-religious dogma”, it is fundamentally leftist and shares the totalitarian-chiliastic underpinnings of Marxism-Leninism. Hence, suggests the author, the Anti-American Right could be described as leftism with a racist face." Tomaz
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I didn't think it was particularly insightful. It draws the almost childish conclusion that all America bashing is done by socialists without anything to support it "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory."
Ramanan Sivan wrote: It draws the almost childish conclusion that all America bashing is done by socialists without anything to support it I did not get the impression the author tries to attribute all America bashing to socialists. I got the impression he is instead interested in presenting relations between various anti american ideologies with focus on Marxism. Especially insightfull is the symbolism surrounding 9/11 attack. Tomaz
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From your article: "Considering that the Right and Left anti Americanisms share common grounds in imposing planned economies, their hatred is consequently fueled by the hatred for democracy and the liberal economy. So, while the Right would subjugate the individual and precious social institutions to an omnipotent state with a “quasi-religious dogma”, it is fundamentally leftist and shares the totalitarian-chiliastic underpinnings of Marxism-Leninism. Hence, suggests the author, the Anti-American Right could be described as leftism with a racist face." Tomaz
You know life me that FrontPage magazine is an ultra-conservative media, so they have to find an explaination they can accept. The way they find was to tell right wingers are in fact left wingers, where's the surprize? IMHO, right-wing anti-americanism is less about economical ideology than about a feeling of cultural superiority and a disdain towards America.
Fold With Us! That's what military intelligence does: fail. They should just drop the facade and call MI the "Department of 'Whoops!'" - Gary Brecher, aka The War Nerd
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Ramanan Sivan wrote: It draws the almost childish conclusion that all America bashing is done by socialists without anything to support it I did not get the impression the author tries to attribute all America bashing to socialists. I got the impression he is instead interested in presenting relations between various anti american ideologies with focus on Marxism. Especially insightfull is the symbolism surrounding 9/11 attack. Tomaz
But why pick Marxism in the first place ? It has no place in actual American ideology (beyond a nameless hatred of the USSR). Note that he is speaking of America bashers inside the United States as well. Since there is so significant Marxist presence inside the USA where is the logic of drawing parallels between Marxism and America bashing ? "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory."
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One of the best analysis on America bashing so far, it is long but it is worth reading to the last letter - http://www.policyreview.org/DEC02/harris.html[^] Tomaz
yes, it was long. But this investment of world-historical significance to 9-11 is simply wishful thinking on the part of the left. It is an effort to transform the demented acts of a group of fantasists into the vanguard of the world revolution. ... Any realistic assessment of any possible scenario will inevitably conclude that nothing that al Qaeda can do can cause the collapse of America and the capitalist system. luckily, that's not a feeling shared by many people on the American left. the American right, on the other hand, has taken that feeling to heart and has given us three years of dire warnings of Arabs overrunning western civilization, wrapping western women in burkas, and forcing all to worship allah 5x/day. while chastizing the left for not being properly worried by the threat, they themselves have gone screaming off to the other extreme, where Islamist terrorism is a mortal threat to the very foundations of western civilization. see the soapbox for any number of variations on this, if you doubt me. as far as the rest of it goes... well, i'm not familiar enough with the thought processes of the average European leftist to know if this writer's thesis is strong enough to support his use of all those 20kg words. [ok, i give up. why the votes?] Software | Cleek
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But why pick Marxism in the first place ? It has no place in actual American ideology (beyond a nameless hatred of the USSR). Note that he is speaking of America bashers inside the United States as well. Since there is so significant Marxist presence inside the USA where is the logic of drawing parallels between Marxism and America bashing ? "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory."
The whole idea of modern left, including fundamental terms, such as class struggle, derives from Marxism. It is the ideological foundation of the entire construct. The article then traces the path of this ideology explaining how it has reinvented itself by focusing on third world and fictional exploitation once the domestic worker was due to higher standard of living no longer interested in the revolution. Tomaz
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The whole idea of modern left, including fundamental terms, such as class struggle, derives from Marxism. It is the ideological foundation of the entire construct. The article then traces the path of this ideology explaining how it has reinvented itself by focusing on third world and fictional exploitation once the domestic worker was due to higher standard of living no longer interested in the revolution. Tomaz
I challenge the premise of the writer in assuming a strong correlation between the American Left and Marxism. While this may be true for many other countries the long history of acrimony between the United States and the USSR makes it extremely unlikely that there are endorsers of Maxrist theory even among the American Left. "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory."
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One of the best analysis on America bashing so far, it is long but it is worth reading to the last letter - http://www.policyreview.org/DEC02/harris.html[^] Tomaz
An interesting read. However, I find that the narrow definition of "America bashing" presented at beginning of the article serves to limit the usefulness of the concepts provided. For example: "It is not that America went wrong here or there; it is that it is wrong root and branch. The conviction at the heart of those who engage in it is really quite simple: that America is an unmitigated evil, an irredeemable enormity." The author sets forth a definition so limiting, that I cannot conceive of a person fitting into the category of "America basher".
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Negating there's a right-wing anti-americanism[^] is either stupidity or disinformation.
Fold With Us! That's what military intelligence does: fail. They should just drop the facade and call MI the "Department of 'Whoops!'" - Gary Brecher, aka The War Nerd
Does it really matter from whence it came, right or left? Isn't it all really just good old fashioned ethnocentrism? To quote the once wise philosipher :-D Jim Morrison[^], People are strange when you're a stranger[^]
Paul Lyons, CCPL
Certified Code Project Lurker -
That was me, BTW, in case there were any doubts! "The Yahoos refused to be tamed." from 'The Right Nation'
And amazingly enough, two 1 votes on both threads... People are fickle!
Paul Lyons, CCPL
Certified Code Project Lurker -
yes, it was long. But this investment of world-historical significance to 9-11 is simply wishful thinking on the part of the left. It is an effort to transform the demented acts of a group of fantasists into the vanguard of the world revolution. ... Any realistic assessment of any possible scenario will inevitably conclude that nothing that al Qaeda can do can cause the collapse of America and the capitalist system. luckily, that's not a feeling shared by many people on the American left. the American right, on the other hand, has taken that feeling to heart and has given us three years of dire warnings of Arabs overrunning western civilization, wrapping western women in burkas, and forcing all to worship allah 5x/day. while chastizing the left for not being properly worried by the threat, they themselves have gone screaming off to the other extreme, where Islamist terrorism is a mortal threat to the very foundations of western civilization. see the soapbox for any number of variations on this, if you doubt me. as far as the rest of it goes... well, i'm not familiar enough with the thought processes of the average European leftist to know if this writer's thesis is strong enough to support his use of all those 20kg words. [ok, i give up. why the votes?] Software | Cleek
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I challenge the premise of the writer in assuming a strong correlation between the American Left and Marxism. While this may be true for many other countries the long history of acrimony between the United States and the USSR makes it extremely unlikely that there are endorsers of Maxrist theory even among the American Left. "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory."
Ramanan Sivan wrote: I challenge the premise of the writer in assuming a strong correlation between the American Left and Marxism. While this may be true for many other countries the long history of acrimony between the United States and the USSR makes it extremely unlikely that there are endorsers of Maxrist theory even among the American Left. Perhaps than you could enlighten us as to the real intellectual origins of the modern left. If collectivism, secularism, and stateism are not the modern intellectual progeny of Marx, to whom than can they ultimately be attributed? "The Yahoos refused to be tamed." from 'The Right Nation'
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Ramanan Sivan wrote: I challenge the premise of the writer in assuming a strong correlation between the American Left and Marxism. While this may be true for many other countries the long history of acrimony between the United States and the USSR makes it extremely unlikely that there are endorsers of Maxrist theory even among the American Left. Perhaps than you could enlighten us as to the real intellectual origins of the modern left. If collectivism, secularism, and stateism are not the modern intellectual progeny of Marx, to whom than can they ultimately be attributed? "The Yahoos refused to be tamed." from 'The Right Nation'
Its possible to be Leftist without being Marxist. I would point you to the popular Left support that Lionel Jospin enjoys in France which is not really Marxist (though his views are, his support base is largely Leftist and non-Marxist). I believe the term Left is now being widely used to include all groups that advocate radical change of thought. Its no longer confined in its scope to describe only the Socialists. "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory."