Stop Me Before I Vote Again

You are too rough on Achcar. He is far from an excuse-maker for Western liberal imperialism, nor is this the first step of his traversing a path trod by the likes of one C Hitchens. A couple of weeks ago he staked out a vaguely defensible though ultimately wrong position, and unfortunately has clung to it, despite mounting evidence that Libyan rebel forces are increasingly being reduced to playthings of NE Virginia. (Achcar should have foreseen this once the opposition came to rely on NATO air cover, but stupidly did not.) At this point I suspect the poor guy is mainly attempting to save face. But familiarize yourself with his oeuvre before you subject him to unfair characterizations. Yes, the past does not guarantee the present or the future, but I think (or perhaps I hope?) that the record will suggest that this is a terrible aberration on Achcar's part, and nothing more. However, since many at this site have an abiding hatred of Trots -- despite the fact that the UK's highest profile Trots have come out in staunch opposition to this murderous intervention -- I'm quite sure you're not inclined to give Achcar the benefit of the doubt.

And egads, MJS, isn't it a bit rich to malign Achcar because you suspect he's "a bit of a contrarian." Regardless of whether the shoe fits, if that's a crime, you've just refuted 2/3 of what you've posted to this blog from its inception. In fact many a time you've proudly flown the contrarian banner. I guess you're immune from the calumny you direct Achcar's way because your knee jerks in response to a different stimulus, namely mediocre left-liberal conventional wisdom...

I wasn't aware that Achcar was a votary of Comrade Bronstein. However I regard this as a mere peccadillo; some of my best friends are Trots.

You're quite right that I don't know his work at all. He only came to my attention in connection with his recent cheerleading for the mad bombers of NATO. I'll probably have to encounter something less discreditable from him before I'll be much inclined to revise my impression that he's at best a fool -- and a preening, self-satisfied, academic fool, to judge by his prose style.

What I have seen doesn't motivate me strongly to seek farther, except perhaps to find fodder for slow days when I've overworked Melissa Harris-Lacewell-Peary-Amundsen-Codswallop. But on your recommendation, gl, maybe I'll bestir myself and do a bit more research.

I wasn't suggesting that contrarianism was reprehensible; it seemed possible, though, that it might go some way toward explaining Achcar's otherwise puzzling stance, which would be routine for a garden-variety liberal but does seem a bit odd in somebody who thinks of himself as a Marxist.

Placing Achcar and Ms H-P-L in the same sentence, even if no direct comparison or contrast is being made, is heresy.

Lebanese-born, for years Achcar was active in Lutte Ouvriere circles in Paris. Frankly I don't know how he managed to score a gig at SOAS. I first came across his stuff eight or nine years ago. It's funny that you indict him for tending towards self-important stuffed-shirtedness. He penned a fantastic screed against the olympian pessimism of Perry Anderson and the "new" NLR about ten years ago:

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj88/achcar.htm

For Achcar one-stop shopping, go here:

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?page=recherche&recherche=Achcar&submit=SEARCH

I've really liked his insights over the years, so I'm desperately hoping that he redeems himself on this one. (And I DON'T mean that on this one he'll be redeemed by history. Clearly that is not in the works.) Otherwise I might have to start referring to Achcar as "Ashcan." Gladly I'm not nearly there yet.

gl, I've read that attack on olympian pessimism before. It's a good one. There's a point past which pessimism and skepticism become pyrrhonian self-indulgence.

I'm not familiar with Achar beyond that. For whatever it's worth, I'm prepared to chalk his latest up to a ghastly, compounded mistake and I share your hope that he finds his way clear to a change of heart.

achie's compound mistake
hardly comes from being contrary
like darkness at noon trot trotery

it comes from an absurdly easy to manipulate
first world chuch lady goo goo
social imperialism

an absolutist set of enlightened
"rights" notions
that preceeded the french revolution( FR )
informed its first stage
and got itself properly devoured by history
in the FRs second stage
and yet lives on as
the moe howard ghost
of humanist socialism

yes its to early to draw up final acounts
on the FR
on the down side
looking at
simply the radiation from 18th century notions
like the universal rights of man
we find in fact a growing counter revolutionary obession
from
body count utilitarians
and other breeds of scrambled egg social liberalism
to
whatever these independent pink spirits
like achie suggest we face here
inside the flap of the open tent left

at the least
a nasty sanctimonious civilizing rain
of fall out from '89
a fall out
with a very long half life indeed
at least as long as
the unburied wandering petty burgher spirit
haunts
our hapless
one brain one result
"findings" in fact and value

--------------

as to body count utilitarianism
there are bodies and there are bodies
unlike souls
not all types of bodies weigh the same

"You are too rough on Achcar"
who cares about achcar if not
a man for all seasons at least a man for many seasons

this season he's fucked !!!!
we don't know him or need to know him to judge this outpouring of his ..no ??

we hardly sit in judgement on his "soul"
this isn't part of an ongoing case
for the always in session
kafka-oid
court of virtual pink purges

in fact the whole business of one spirits view
lacks standing here

the question for a citizen of the emmpire state
is uncle's action
supported oppossed

seems a plague on both house
hand sit rules this spirits action department

he calls on us to "stay out of this scrap"
let the dirty sovereign types like hugo and fidel and danny
oppose a cobbled up "moral action"
by the sanctimonious potus gang

let them expose their "inconsistency "
their squalid traducing of
both high principle and righteous sentiment

we of the non state non combatant left
can simply stay in our sanctum sanctorum
praying to Clio for a better world
when we're not at our vocation:
preaching
universal uncompromising humanism
from our soap box on the digital side walk

the elephant shits his pea:

"Nevertheless revolutionary socialist currents are still very much in evidence in the universities. Above all, there is the well attested development of semi-anarchist currents, or substitutes for political parties in the form of networks and associations, which testify to a radical opposition to neo-liberalism and its destructive effects.

If we take the situation in France, certain facts come to mind, such as: the December 1995 movement; the numerous sectional strikes which keep on bursting out (teachers and financial civil servants have recently brought down two ministers); the continuing development of new trade unions to the left of the traditional ones (eg SUD); the unprecedented electoral advances of the Trotskyist far left; the distribution rate of nearly a quarter of a million for a radical but not popular-looking monthly paper opposed to neo-liberalism (Le Monde Diplomatique); the near 20,000 membership of a campaign organisation against neo-liberalism (ATTAC); the huge commercial success of the cry of disgust at neo-liberalism (The Economic Horror), and so on. Who from the French side of the Channel could subscribe to Perry Anderson's diagnosis?"

doubtless many here are bucked up by this rallying call eh ??

"...development of semi-anarchist currents, or substitutes for political parties in the form of networks and associations.."

a post party era ...now 20 years old
aren't we ready for another pre party period ??

"well not 'subjectively' comrade ...
not yet at least "

as the old mechanist agnostics might
shout
in radical self contradiction
hoping this time history might repeat itself with a real hard rhyme

doubtless many here are bucked up by this rallying call eh ??

Not so much by a rallying call, but yes, even if it has a touch of "the grass is always redder somewhere else" in it. The anglospheric left excels in self-defeat and preemptive, self-inflicted fizzle. Even with the gift of the most cretinous, mind numbingly stupid reactionaries, self-defeat gets grasped with masochistic glee. It doesn't happen by accident or through the sinister cunning of the neolibs and neocons.

Actually, I think George Carlin summarized the reason for our involvement in Dubya Dubya Two quite elegantly: Hitler's regime was involved in racial and religious hatred turned up to eleven; he was basically horning in on the USA's territory in that regard, and we opened up a can of whup-ass on Hitler because, as Carlin so beautifully put it, "That's our fuckin' job, buddy! That's OUR FUCKIN' JOB!"

Oh, and btw: I love the tie on that Columbia U. twat in that Annie Hall scene -- my favorite scene from one of my favorite Woody Allen films.

Yesterday afternoon, as the DW and I were on our way home from Vallarta, waiting around to catch our connecting flight home from DFW, I happened to catch a segment on the Libyan rebel forces on CNN (not that I could avoid it; what's the deal with the big-ass TV set infesting departure lounges these days?). Among other interesting factoids, along with little bits of revelations about CIA assets embedded in the Libyan rebel army, was the mention of a high-ranking Libyan rebel commander who had defected from Gadhafi's regime some years back and fled the country and, until recently, was living in the Northern Virginia 'burbs, when he apparently felt the call to aid his mother country in its most desperate hour and returned to take a command position in the Libyan rebel army. I almost missed the boarding call for our flight because the alarms in my head were clanging so loudly.

As soon as I finish doing my past month's laundry, there'll be a cartoon about this (in case anyone gives a shit).

let me submit these claims to the assembled harvesters and weed killers

the key flub here is within the dogmas of the 4th international

the left circa 1956 to 1976
could look first world or third world

maoist or trot

----

the self determination of nation states their with their various self iberation organizations
is a very different paradigm from
world revolution first world centered
that lies behind the notions of perminent revolution
-----

that is all
begin to chew and spit as needed and wanted
i'm off to sell cheap mattresses to innocent immigrant souls

Much as one would like to regard this as a temporary loss of reason, this French-Lebanese member of the generation of Marx and Coca Cola comes from a tribe whose members tend to hang on to their "reasoning" with the tenacity of Christian sectarians of Roman coliseum days. This can happen even if they end up wearing their coat "the 'right' way around" in later life, as is the case with Neocons many of whom were Trots in their salad days. More likely he will end up solidifying his post at SOAS and build on his insight like the recently departed LSE perched Fred Halliday who too came to see the light of reason in the shape of an overriding concept of human rights, which for him trumped any notion of collective agency or agency itself when it came to 'backward' societies:

[Halliday] supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as well as the two Gulf Wars, the interventions in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999, and the American-led war in Afghanistan which began in 2001. Influenced by Bill Warren, he came to consider that imperialism plays "a progressive role in transforming the world".

"I really wish somebody would undertake a thorough cold-hearted debunking of World War II's moral grandeur."

Human Smoke? I also seem to recall reading something of Zinn's in my teens that made me rethink my feelings on WWII like wo but I don't remember what it was or what it said.

Nurse Ruth debunked that grandeur, almost every day she bought cigarettes from me.

"We poisoned those German POWs," she said. Glass fragments in their milk, poison in their bread.

She was perverse enough to honestly revel in it. And honest enough to admit she was under orders.

Mentioning whatever Ash-Can has done in the past is irrelevant flycasting** on the point of defending Murdering Civilians So That Civilians Can Be Free.

___________

**The equivalent of throwing size 22 pale morning duns over a muddy 80degF river devoid of trout.

Another debunking of the moral grandeur of WW II is Peter Hehn's book, A Low Dishonest Decade, which recounts among other things, the role of the London banks in postponing a clear decision on Hitler until it was too late.

"Perhaps he gets tired of being a peace weenie"

It IS tiring to be a peace weenie. It requires persistence amid a culture ever frothing for the next war. It demands that one be "predictable," "dull," and drearily "consistent" regarding one's views of events. No counterintuitive surprises allowed.

It lacks the adrenaline rush, the frisson, of the occasional embrace of couch-potato hawkishness, the contrarian-lefty variety being particularly sexy. There's no emotional "upside" to it, no fun, no opportunity to stick out the chest and proudly proclaim, "Well, just because Paul Wolfowitz believes it, doesn't mean it's wrong....and he has an Arab girlfriend!"

What's more, one is endlessly asked to bear the burden of proof...."Well, whattya think we should DO? What's YOUR solution???"

Peace weenie-dom is joyless. No fun at all. At best, monastic; at worst, downright stressful.

Norman Finkelstein wrote a few years ago about the modus operandi of a particular breed of attention grabber:

Two altogether opposed political stances can each draw an audience's attention. One is to be politically consistent, but nonetheless original in one's insights; the other, an inchoate form of apostasy, is to bank on the shock value of an occasional, wildly inconsistent outburst. The former approach, which Chomsky exemplifies, requires hard work, whereas the latter is a lazy substitute for it. Thus Nat Hentoff, the hip (he loves jazz) left-liberal writer, would jazz up his interminably dull Village Voice columns by suddenly coming out against abortion or endorsing Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court nomination. The master at this pose of maverick unpredictability used to be Christopher Hitchens. Amidst a fairly typical leftist politics, he would suddenly ambush unsuspecting readers with his opposition to abortion, admiration of the misogynist and juvenile lyrics of Two Live Crew ("I think that's very funny"), or support for Columbus's extermination of Native Americans ("deserving to be celebrated with great vim and gusto"). Immediately the talk of the town became, "Did you read Hitchens this week?"

That's a nice catch from Finkelstein, a great favorite of mine. Kinda nailed it, didn't he?

Schumann:

...For whatever it's worth, I'm prepared to chalk his latest up to a ghastly, compounded mistake and I share your hope that he finds his way clear to a change of heart.

Yeah. Let's just hope it's sooner rather than later.

Good piece, MJS.

Kinda nailed it, didn't he?

Yes, it's interesting how easily and how many keep falling for Hitchens's contrarian schtick, when his actual needs were fairly prosaic:

Thirty years ago, when I called Hitchens to set up an interview from a gloomy radio studio in New York, his answering machine announced that anyone with news of fame or money was welcome to leave their number after the tone.

Facebook comrade Paul Street jumped on the bandwagon as well, I discovered today:

Some U.S. Web “radicals”...are uncomfortable with the notion that any U.S. and Western military intervention in what we used to call the Third World might happen to have a positive humanitarian impact in one instance. They are afraid that their core identity as bad-ass, hard-core enemies of Empire (and of Obama)will be compromised.

The burden of proof shifted to us ideologically fanatical radical posers from those calling for aerial murder.

aerial murder ??
come now

this operation is straight
out of
summer theatre
look last year our highway games killed 30 plus k drivers and riders
and that's way down on a per capita basis from the early post war days

of course people are getting killed over there
but check out the congo if you want some
real blood river runs and there's hardly
a yankee in the game
and yet uncle's global system clearly effectuates that slaughter bench in the darkest of black africa no ??

in the scheme of things this is exemplary
its an allegory its emblematics
its not a blood bath
why i suspect col Q hasn't even approached his personal best as man murderer
so obviously barry wqon't need to kill many folks there at all

not far beyond the bay of pigs
certainly not up to lebanon one or two
or panama or even grenada
once you factor out the exciting
expenditure of some over stocks
in hi tech munitions that is

Achcar must be operating in a frequency band I don't receive. I read that piece mentioned early on in the comments -- about Perry Anderson -- and found it not just deadly dull, but dull in the stiff, cuisine-minceur idiom that only academic prose seems able to attain.

Father that you can't enjoy the unintended comedy of that piece saddens me

It really is a monument to 4 th international gusto

Red spring along the seine 1995

A message for Ethan--
re "World War II's moral grandeur" check out the writings of John Spritzler (http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/War/good-war-myth.htm), including his book "The People as Enemy"

Could someone please tell me why my comment disappeared?

Well, I guess it didn't but I'd swear it wasn't there a few minutes ago. Sorry.

"That's a nice catch from Finkelstein, a great favorite of mine. Kinda nailed it, didn't he?"

Indeed. You should read the whole piece. Definitely a classic in the genre.

http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein09102003.html