Ran Radosh takes on John Judis and Andrew Sullivan — the latter of whom seems now to be confusing Israel with Trig Palin, and AIPAC with Sarah Palin’s lying evil womb of Satan.
Most interesting about this piece, from my point of view, is that it illustrates how revisionist historians and politically-motivated “journalists” work to invert easily accessible fact into “conventional truths” that argue the inverse. And it is the repetition and institutionalization of these “conventional truths” — themselves born of flagrant and intentionally misinformation and misrepresentation — that create the ever-changing contours of the Israel-Palistinean narrative the revisionists introduce as the starting point for each subsequent endeavor to pressure Israeli capitulation.
It’s almost as if they are fascinated with the idea that, by way of will and language — and by virtue of their collective control over the narrative they themselves are working to shape and contort — they might be able to bring about the destruction of a country and the slaughter of an entire people, and do so without strapping on a vest lined with C4 and bags of bolts and nails.
Liberals like to push anti-bullying measures as part of their perpetual social engineering schemes — with the predictable result that, at its end point, the bullying hasn’t been eradicated so much as it has been purposely repositioned, with the “traditionally underrepresented” protected group given a kind of unspoken immunity, completing the power shift wherein the protecting client group of the left-liberal is given an artificial social and legal advantage in exchange for its political gratitude.
But mostly, anti-bullying measures are an attempt at reversing power dynamics and exacting some sort of artificial “payback” — a logical trajectory for those who cast society in terms of identity groups and political alliances rather than recognize individualism and personal autonomy.
And I don’t think — after all the layers of argument are removed from the left-liberal attempts to keep Israel demonized — the dynamic is much different. Israel is well-armed and prosperous, and most especially, it has been held in special regard by the American hyperpower.
This makes Israel a type of bully, and the left-liberal ideology demands that Israel, like the US, be humbled, humiliated, and taught to feel subjugation.
It’s a perverse position built on envy and scapegoating. And as such, there’s really no surprise that it would find its fullest expression during the tenure of a US President who has flooded the national ethos with just such sentiments. That the New Republic, who just a decade ago was a serious, centrist journal and a vocal critic of the Arab menace, has moved increasingly to the left, is a testament to the increasing conflation of the intellectual and activist strains of liberalism — and the revolting narcissism of those who tinker with creating and institutionalizing a “reality” they work hard to shape and sell as a kind of corrective to injustices and power arrangements that they believe it their duty to define.
Speaking of ethos…
Oh, and what happens when we modify the following ever so slightly. From this
To this
Well, I’ll be darned. Hello, SCOTUS?
I don’t read TNR, so I can’t say what they write, with what proportional attention and in what volume they write it. Still, I wonder, is Judis, or is TNR, as concerned with Bashar Assad murdering the people of Syria, just next-door to Israel, as he is or they are with the Israelis’ steadfastly seeking to co-exist in peace with the Arabs who surround them? Is the American political left in general as concerned with the tyrant carrying out a constant program of murder and torture for going on eight months now?
Often, it seems to me, what isn’t said tells as much as what is said.
Meet John Judis.
Progressivism began with somewhat better specificity, or clarity of purpose, something the modern proponents seem to have lost, along with any reflection on what it is they ought to seek. Not to say it’s our job to help them recover what’s missing, but it may be our job to grasp what Progressivism meant in order to better sniff it out when it creeps into our own political language.
If any country mortally attacks Israel, let’s hope she retaliates with vigor. A new glass plaza covering several of Muhammed’s cities might be in order.
There are a lot of self hating Jews at The New Republic. Seriously, some atonement for next Friday guys.
As for Sullivan, he is just pissed off that the Jooooos promote male genital mutilation.
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