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abuelita42pj on "Smoke over the Vatican"

abuelita42pj — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:41:54 +0000

As I learned in my Catholic Catechism classes a decade before Vatican II conference, in politics one "renders unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's". That didn't apply just to taxes for Phillistines etc 2000 years ago or all of the New Testament is out of date. Pope Benedict is too heavily blinded by medieval ideas in central Germany and forgets there is another world out here for everyone--not just Catholics. As President John Kennedy told the Vatican prior to being voted into office--his religion was personal, his politics were for governing the country as a whole. No one questioned his taking of the Eucharist while he was president, why do that to Obama now???

Jim Sleeper on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

Jim Sleeper — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Thanks for this note. I was quoting from what I heard Tanenhaus say in the videotape of his lecture. Apparently he was referring to Buckley's publication of the letters. I appreciate the clarification and ought to have wondered about the date myself, since I do know that your grandfather did not live to see the late 1960s, let alone 1970.

Not logged in Lawrence Efana on "Obama's Bush-like foreign policy"

Not logged in Lawrence Efana — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Indeed a paper with a great deal of useful insights. Here one is reminded of the election-campaign statement of the new president: "I want a vice president who will not only agree with my perceptions, but one that can argue and dialogue with me on issues" - not quoted as such but 'reconstructed' somehow!

Definitely rational to try to appreciate geopolitical realities and the constraints rained on nations in the field of foreign policies. An old and traditional way to understand and play diplomacy in international relations, and still the question must be asked: how far have we gone until now; what are the consequences; and how do we interpret them? A few if not all would say a question of the kind certainly invites a fundamental reappraisal.

With the contemporary legacy, it just happens that the Obama administration is the one challenged with its task. The writer of this paper agrees, that has started with a redefinition of the diplomatic approach; much in its youth. Considering the debris, the path needs to be carefully traded, no-less thinking about the president's approach to "a government of national unity".

Under the circumstances, his new culture of diplomacy must caution "holding on" with details: intensify instead building and consolidating the paths to mutual feelings of trust. Clearly therefore, it would seem premature to go too far with comparison and drawing conclusions.

Thus the vice president, Joe Biden's recent foreign-policy speech outlines were in place on the themes: Iran, US and Russian relations, NATO-Defensive Missile systems in Central Europe, and Afghanistan War, etc., About latter however, portrait of German Chancellor, may obviously not worry those thinking that after seven years there, a way for lasting peace is a better alternative, more-so in these economic "bad times".

Turning to a possible sense of "solace" in 'personality types' theory in politics: on national/international arenas is helpful depending on interpretation. Both geopolitical interests and attitudes to 'products' of 'psychologically' derived 'frustration-aggression' thesis, might be rated 'variables' on this spectrum of leadership challenges! In the end the constraints and pressures driving foreign policy in the US like elsewhere are by-the-way not unique but it seems the time is ripe to re-evaluate.

Thank you for your nice article.

David Chambers on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

David Chambers — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:10:46 +0000

Mr. Sleeper,

You might rephrase, "In response to a question from AEI vice president Henry Olsen, Tanenhaus mentioned Whittaker Chambers' observation to Buckley in 1970 that, as he paraphrased it, 'You can't build a clear conservatism out of capitalism because capitalism disrupts culture.'"

My grandfather made no observations to Buckley in 1970; he died in 1961. Perhaps you (or Tanenhaus) are referring to one of the letters by my grandfather to Bill Buckley, which Bill published in Odyssey of a Friend in 1969 and 1970.

Jim Sleeper on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

Jim Sleeper — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:17:00 +0000

A few very interesting observations here prompt me to add a few more of my own. In response to Jac Llosin, I think that the term "new class," as Irving Kristol urged it upon American conservatives, was a more colloquial, perhaps euphemistic term, referring to the chattering classes, including academics, whom conservatives perceived to be hopelessly "liberal" in the American, big-government sense of the term.

In response to Michael Calder, American liberals came to believe, after the Great Depression and via Roosevelt and the New Deal, that there can be neither communal solidarity nor Lockean individual liberty without government intervention to shore up both individual rights and the minimum sustenance that saves people from becoming so "necessitous," in T.H. Marshall's term, that they are no longer really free. Liberals in America therefore defend not only individual rights but what they consider the economic underpinnings of liberal rights. In that sense, they have sometimes been akin to Labourites, not to conservatives. They are not "liberals" in the continental and European sense.

Most conservatives in America have remained classical, free-market, bourgeois (or petty-bourgeois) liberals, angry at big-government social engineering. They defend of a somewhat libertarian, free-market strain that they connect to the American Lockean, entrepreneurial spirit. At the same time, though, many conservatives are civic republicans or even Burkean, "great melody" communitarians of a certain sort.

When Thatcher said, "There is no society," she surprised American conservatives (except the diehard liberatarians) almost as much as she shocked and offended American liberals. Ronald Reagan, that spinner of civic-republican myths, would never have said what she did. Ironically, it was American liberals who were successfully cast by Reagan in the popular mind as sterile, bureaucratic destroyers of social solidarity.

The main reason for this was that American liberals were extending social provision to a black "underclass" that conservatives believed would never become self-sustaining in the Lockean sense, let alone solidaristic in any civic-republican sense. For anyone really interested in this matter of how racism derailed both "liberals" and "conservatives" in America, I'll commend my own The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York. (W.W. Nortion, 1990). I got a lot of unwanted support from neo-cons because I argued that American liberals and leftists had over-racialized their remedies for racism and had therefore become justly susceptible to conservative charges that they were dissolving the American civic-republican balance of individual rights and social responsibilities, of capitalism and comity.

But that is a longer story for some other time. I will, though, also mention my latest short statement on this, an essay posted the day Obama was inaugurated, as part of a symposium on equality in America; http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/20/to_help_the_minority_reach_for_the_majority/

Jac Llosin on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

Jac Llosin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:30:31 +0000

If the 'new class' being talked of is analogous with Milovan Djilas' use (even his invention) of the term then we can only be talking of a corrupt and self-perpetuating political and social elite that overthrew and replaced an equally unpalatable hierachy, but promised change. Is this valid? For the point being made by Djilas was that nothing had really changed, certainly not for the vast bulk of the population still debarred from the upper strata.

As for comparisons between Thatcher and Disraeli, there is a term - less frequently used since the advent of New Labour - that was often employed to describe a Conservative with a social conscience. That term was, 'One Nation Tory'. Thatcher washed away such ideas; her attitude encapsulated perhaps in the frightening remark: "There is no such thing as society", merely greedy individuals in the aggregate. Unfortunately, and confusingly, 'the Tories' long ago became journalistic shorthand for 'the Conservative and Unionist Party'.

I say "confusingly" because where this debate seems to take us is back to the old - and now little understood - distinction between conservative or Conservative and Tory. If the latter label were used more correctly this side of the Atlantic and understood better in the US it might make life, and political commentating, even name-calling, a lot easier.

michaelcalder on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

michaelcalder — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:06:02 +0000

I become more and more confused what a "conservative" actually is, let alone a "neo-conservative". As labels, they seem to be used by many (I do not here accuse the author of the column above) as a convenient shorthand excuse for failure of precise definition or thought. The picture appears to be worse in the USA than Europe; in the USA all are apparently conservatives, and "liberal" is now meaningless, having become a term of mere abuse.

Speaking of the economic axis, the conservative is usually pictured as belonging somewhere on the free-market, unregulated, right wing, as opposed to regulated or planned collectivism of whatever kind (note to right wing polemicists; Marxism is not the only collectivism, just as Thatcherism is not the only free market-ism). On the control axis, the conservative is supposedly free to wander between autocracy and liberty; in reality, most are in practice autocratic or very autocratic - probably a natural conclusion of their free-marketism; control is necessary when you use the market to enrich one small sector massively at the expense of the bulk of the population. I know that there are some conservative "libertarians", but most seem to be marginal lunatics in the mountains with squirrel rifles.

I suppose I am making a plea for two things; the first is more clarity in explaining precisely what agenda we're talking about; what particular variety of -ism and what it means. Only with greater clarity can we distinguish between the traditional conservative, the neo-conservative (and what broad churches they are) and any yet newer variety.

The second is that if capitalism is to evolve or die, or to be challenged by some new paradigm in addition to collectivism, or divide into yet more competing varieties, as well as a clear definition of the paradigm or variety we need a new geometry to replace the traditional left-right model, just as that model only began to make sense when market capitalism was first invented.

I suspect the control or autocracy/liberty axis will remain, but perhaps in the future we need to consider a higher number of dimensions than two.

Clear skies!

Tony Curzon Price on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

Tony Curzon Price — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:11:50 +0000

I very much like the suggestion that civic republicanism needs to be rediscovered by right and left. I think that the two great failures of the post cold war -- represented by Iraq and the financial crisis -- will be seriously faced by enough on both left and right that there is a real chance for a wise, open, de-gigantified civic republicanism to emerge. After all, much of the left embraced the market after '89, just as much of a traditionally isolationist conservatism embraced neo-con foreign adventuring. Iraq and the Economy shout out to us how badly false our post-89 moral and ideological maps had become. In both cases, serious re-appraisal is in order. And, as we come out of the "denial" phase on both mistakes, new attempts at constructing a "best of" will be made. Non-manageerlist and yet collectivist; libertarian yet non-corporate; culturally rich yet not exclusive; open yet autonomous. These are not oppositions---there is a path.

tony

Jim Sleeper on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

Jim Sleeper — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:28:38 +0000

As Mr. Continental European Catholic noted at the start of his message but seems to have forgotten before he reached the end, Mr. Sleeper made quite clear that he was writing about American conservatives and therefore did not say or imply that British or other conservatives cherish "individualism" and "liberty" in any (American) liberal understanding of those terms.

Non-American conservatives have different conundra to resolve, not to mention self-contradictions that cannot be mediated by faith. But that was not a proposition Mr. Sleeper put forward or pursued in this column about U.S. neo-conservatives and their departure from the American conservative movement.

Also of interest may be Mr. Sleeper's concurrent column, in Talking Points Memo, entitled "The Pity of It All" and available at

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/10/the_pity_of_it_all/index.php

Jim Sleeper

A Continental European Catholic Conservative on "US neo-cons jump the conservative ship"

A Continental European Catholic Conservative — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:17:26 +0000

Since when do the so-called "neoconservatives" have anything to do with conservatism?

Ah, I see Mr Sleeper writes about somebody called "American conservatives", who are in fact just free-market liberals or even libertarians.

I have recently attended a lecture on Edmund Burke given at the AEI by Gertrude Himmelfarb.

It was really amusing to see her using the most cautious words to explain to the surprised "American conservatives" gathered in the room that Burke actually did not really like the idea of democracy. That Burke actually opposed and abhorred the idea of democracy...

Of course conservatives (as opposed to "American conservatives") are sceptical if not hostile to capitalism, financial speculators and the globalisation promoted by them. Of course conservatives (as opposed to "American conservatives") are highly suspicious of democracy. And of course conservatives (as opposed to "American conservatives") do not "cherish individualism" and "liberty" as Mr Sleeper believes.

zindadil on "American perceptions of the Mumbai attacks"

zindadil — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:40:11 +0000

this is internal, the hindu fascist,

Prgaya case mystrey

Three Police officers killed for investigating the Pragya case.

Indian army personnel caught collaborating with Pragya(BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal, Sangh Parivar)

Underworld was tired of the above police officers being very just, shoot at sight and these police officers did not take prisoners. Hence a collaboration.

These elements got together and created a scene just to get rid of the three police officers. (the families of the slain police officers refuse to take the charity money from Modi)

Why Mumbai? Why not Kashmir? Why Not Gujarat?

Because Pragya was being tried in Mumbai a State run by congress. Because Maharashtra is a Congress state and elections due in the near future, BJP wants to be a strong contender. And BJP needs money from underworld to spend on elections. Underword wants Mumbai to run it's dirty business without any obstacles.Obstacles were the three fine Police Officials.

Understand this. The LET wants Kashmir, attacks there would be understanding. Attacks in Gujarat by LET, may be. No link there, but then again maybe because Muslims were macassered by Modi. But it is highly unlikely. Mumbai too far for LET and no adwantage at all.

This has to be them i.e. the BJP and Underworld.

Kanishk Tharoor on "American perceptions of the Mumbai attacks"

Kanishk Tharoor — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:46:12 +0000

Good piece, Thomas.

McCarthy says: "local issues are fitted to an ideological framework that is global, hegemonic, and more about the ultimate triumph of fundamentalist Islam than, say, a Palestinian state, Kashmir, Danish cartoons, economic inequality, or whatever this week's complaint is."

This is fanciful nonsense, a template of a template. Militants aren't looking for an "excuse" to wage jihad. These attacks have a particular pre-history, rooted mostly in Pakistan. To dispense with the detail and go straight to the level of ideology simply betrays his distance from real issues, and a view of the world wishfully reduced.

opendemocracy on "Sidney Blumenthal - part one"

opendemocracy — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:15:21 +0000

comprehensive material

Not logged in Lawrence Efana on "Sidney Blumenthal - part one"

Not logged in Lawrence Efana — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:32:08 +0000

The "talk theme" is an exposition of open democracy, what many countries in the world still need to learn admiring: that makes American democracy relatively beautiful - I mean [that] 'openness' allowing one to see the 'breadths' and 'widths', or call it rationality of "civil liberties" not in the shadows of "political rights".

The theme is 'academic' and indeed 'issues-focused': a body of facts balanced historically as narratives. If it is assumed that every regime period is an experiment, the picture we now have is that the period and experiment under review produce "tragic plot reversals" from the point of view of (i) deepening democracy and (ii) making effective good governance exemplary. The reversals are therefore too unfolding to be comfortable for a great nation and that is sad at the same time as it is beautiful that it is democracy that is going to remedy the situation. What is sad but full of lessons relevant, in my opinion here seems well woven into the discourse of Lawrence Whitehead (1999-84-98), considering the insights to his "The Drama of Democratization". Here we are introduced in high academic language to the furry of transitions in politics that knows no boundary - less developed or developed states! It is about the reality of transition, and now we have simplified and called it CHANGE!

The DEMOCRATS, understand what it means, and I guess it is that, which the "talk-theme" aims at, so hopefully they are now united to win in the face of the REPUBLICANS capitalising on the same theme, with excuses for them as a party over the 8 years soon to end. There is a sense of awakening in American politics and democracy - one which would do well to search inwardly to come out strong outwardly, especially thinking of the verdicts as we are seeing them passed here and there now! I won't back out saying that there is "grace" this time cognizant of real politics for the democrats to go ahead with!

Lawrence Efana [Finland]

cherif.rifaat on "Afghanistan: state of siege"

cherif.rifaat — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:51:08 +0000

I would like the United States to behave itself and manifest its fabled self-correcting qualities, not to decline further or collapse a la Soviet union. There are ominous signs of military and economic difficulties.

It is currently pursuing 19th century style colonial wars which will fail because the colonial era has pased.

For those do not believe Afghanistan is a colonial war, consider:

- The "porous border" which is destroying any chance for "victory" by ISAF is not a border at all. It is an imaginary concept through the mountains called the Durand Line, invended by a British colonial civil servant, certainly not to help the Afghan people. It divides the Pashtun. They just ignore it and help each other any way the see fit.

- ISAF is protecting a corrupt government run by a former (some say also current) oil executive and employee of Vice President Cheney. If he were really democratically elected, then it is a coincidence verging on the miraculous that such a person who had been out of afghanistan for years should be chosen by the Afghan people.