Restoring Humility To Our National Psyche In The Face Of Nihilism (Repeat)

 

Preparing for travel, hence not much time for blogging right now, I am re-posting something I wrote last year, on a subject dear to me, as relevant today as it was when I first thrashed it out on my keyboard.

Victor Davis Hanson has a fine essay out called "The Prison of the Present".

I rarely disagree with him and on his many brilliant insights, especially when put so expertly in historical context, as Hanson has again succeeded to do.

The question "..aren't choices usually between the bad and the far worse?.." leads to very relevant historical comparisons, which do not seek to "..excuse present mistakes by citing worse ones from the past--or to suggest that all wars are always the same. Much less should history's examples be used to stifle necessary contemporary criticism that alone leads to remedy."

Instead, Hanson believes that "..knowledge of the capricious nature of wars of the past can restore a little humility to our national psyche":

We need it. Ours is the first generation of Americans that thinks it can demand perfection in war. Our present leisure, wealth, and high technology fool us into thinking that we are demi-gods always be able to trump both human and natural disasters. Accordingly, we become frustrated that we cannot master every wartime obstacle, as we seem otherwise to be able to do with computers or cosmetic surgery. Then, without any benchmarks of comparison from the past, we despair that our actions are failed because they are not perfect.

The key question to me, one which is constantly on my mind these days, is the one concerning the level of the current collective "Confidence" in ourselves as a Nation and whether such confidence or the lack of it, if this is indeed the case, lies at the heart of the acrimonious divide which has beset our nation in the face of the war on terror.

Hanson certainly seems to think so and believes that we as a Nation are less confident than our fathers and forefathers were decades ago under far worse circumstances and he provides very compelling arguments to support his view:

But why did a poorer, less educated, and more illiberal United States in far bloodier and more error-ridden wars of the past still have greater confidence in itself? Was it that our ancestors, who died younger and far more tragically, did not expect their homeland to be without flaws, only to be considerably better than the enemy's?

Perhaps we have forgotten such modesty because we have ignored the study of history that alone offers us guidance from our forbearers. It now competes as an orphan discipline with social science, -ologies and -isms that entice us into thinking that the more money and education of the present can at last perfect the human condition and thus consign our flawed past to irrelevance.

The result is that while sensitive young Americans seem to know what correct words and ideas they must embrace, they derive neither direction nor solace from past events. After all, very few could identify Vicksburg or Verdun, much less have any idea where or what Iwo Jima was. In such a lonely prison of the present what are historically ignorant Americans to make of a Fallujah or an Iranian madman's threat of annihilation other than such things can't or shouldn't or must not happen to us?

So, of this present war, I think our war-torn forefathers would say to us that both messy Afghanistan and Iraq are better places without their dictators even if they never will resemble Carmel or Austin.

They would add that it is not unusual to be confronted with new crises even after such apparently easy victories. And they would shrug that however scary Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran now appears, it poses nothing new or insurmountable to a confident and strong United States that has dealt with far more serious enemies in the past with its accustomed wisdom and resolve.

Which begs the question, how would those opposed to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, those opposed to the use of military force to depose dictators no matter how much blood they have on their hands and those who subscribe to the notion of an 'imperialistic' America respond to such history lessons. What would their reaction be, after they'd learned about the immense heroism on both the U.S. side and that of Japan during the Iwo Jima campaign? Would it make any difference?

I fear not. I rather suspect, it would be dismissed outright and all involved derided as 'fools' and 'idiots' at best and 'war criminals' at worst.

Which leaves me in doubt as to whether the lack of 'National Confidence', if indeed found to be true, is in fact an important reason for the opposition and divide. Furthermore, I am not at all sure whether we suffer from a lack of confidence; on the contrary, I believe we suffer from acute self-aggrandizement and individualistic hyperbole, which in the final analysis is nothing but ignorant arrogance as it is both hollow and superficial in all its aspects.

All the more reason why Hanson's call for humility is absolutely key. I just don't believe, that there is anything anyone can do or say that will instill a growing sense of humility other than a growing belief in the power of faith in God the Almighty. And that isn't exactly a convincing argument is it...

In many ways, the term 'Clash of Civilizations' contains the seeds of a most comprehensive truth. I am afraid though that we will have to come to terms with the fact, that the lines will prove to be much more blurred and drawn criss-cross throughout our society. Just when we reluctantly acknowledge the reality of a long-drawn-out conflict centering around religious beliefs; just when we thought that the factions could be limited to those of Judea-Christian beliefs versus Islamic ones, must we realize, that the scope is far wider: Faith versus Skepticism with all its variations such as cynicism, pessimism, disbelief, agnosticism, atheism, and anti-Semitism. In short, the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless, otherwise called Nihilism.

Comments

[rich]

Here is a link to the original review of Witness in Time Magazine in 1952. It is about 10 typewritten pages long and probably scanned. There are two instances where a date like the 1930s is 19305; and headings seem to be printed as ordinary text.

http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/printout/0,8816,859675,00.html

A shorter article followed in Time recounting the many reviews (left and right) of Witness. It gives a flavor for the emotions and partisanship of the times. Many of the reviewers are still famous.

http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/printout/0,8816,806492,00.html

It looks like things have not changed much.

The May 25, 1952 review with its characterization of the book as the story of a plebeian versus a patrician may be the start of the notion that the conservative movement is basically anti-establishment. Something that is basically lost in media coverage of conservatives.

[Ariel]

Personally, I consider most of GDs posts as scroll-over country, primarily because they are too often "summaries from" her "chosen safe filters". Also, any one that constantly conflates various versions of liberalism as the same just drives me nuts. But best wishes to her regardless.

[rich]

GD

You state: "His later utterances suggested he had distanced himself from the role he played in his work "The Witness" with an apparent critique of the Right, and some sort of acquiesence to the consequences of Liberalism in American Liberal Democracy"

Chambers never distanced himself from his role and testimony as a witness.

If you read "Witness" and "Ghosts on the Roof" (1989), a collection of his journalism from 1931-1959, you would realize that.

Your use of the word "suggested," "apparent" and "acquiesence" (sic) show that you are stating your own opinion which is not factual and to the extent you think it is factual is a fabrication.

You are imputing to Chambers things he never advocated, and then saying he repudiated them. A straw man argument if there ever was one.

You lack understanding of Chambers because you do not read original texts for yourself, preferring to accept summaries from your chosen safe filters. Then you expand on what the summaries say, offering unsupported conclusions in a manner that just turns the subject upside down.

And when called on to support the unsupported conclusions you just change the subject.

Not honest argument.

[gringoman]

GD,

I rest my case. And even though many others here have made related points about your abuse of the COMMENTS section, I won't bother to initiate a class action suit against you. After all, the ultimate judge in this matter is and must be Alexandra. If she doesn't think you're log-jamming the COMMENTS section into a wiki wilderness under the guise of "substance," you may be home free. Instead of url-assisted logic and your own words and your own mental effort and maybe even your own flashes of Democratic whatever, in frank and honest (dare I say manly?) polemical combat, you are free to turn much of COMMENTS into Liberal Landfill, thanks to the magic of search engines and the Beltway Bufoonery, where they understand why mind is best served numb. You won't even have to dot the "i's,"---just glaze them, or ours.

Be grateful to Alexandra that it's not my call, or that of many other site owners, or other posters here. Your constant search- engine-driven Landfill technique would not be tolerated on most sites. Abuse is recognized as abuse. Url's exist for a reason. You know that, don't you? You should consider sending Alexandra at least a special note of thanks---especially if it's in your own words, not wikified. Oh, all right. Go to wiki or something. Search-engine a mountain of gratitude. But do see if you can condense it for COMMENTS, and then supply the url for the in toto experience. Could you do that?

[gringoman]

GD,

I rest my case. And even though many others here have made related points about your abuse of the COMMENTS section, I won't bother to initiate a class action suit against you. After all, the ultimate judge in this matter is and must be Alexandra. If she doesn't think you're log-jamming the COMMENTS section into a wiki wilderness under the guise of "substance," you may be home free. Instead of url-assisted logic and your own words and your own mental effort and maybe even your own flashes of Democratic whatever, in frank and honest (dare I say manly?) polemical combat, you are free to turn much of COMMENTS into Liberal Landfill, thanks to the magic of search engines and the Beltway Bufoonery, where they understand why mind is best served numb. You won't even have to dot the "i's,"---just glaze them, or ours.

Be grateful to Alexandra that it's not my call, or that of many other site owners, or other posters here. Your constant search- engine-driven Landfill technique would not be tolerated on most sites. Abuse is recognized as abuse. Url's exist for a reason. You know that, don't you? You should consider sending Alexandra at least a special note of thanks---especially if it's in your own words, not wikified. Oh, all right. Go to wiki or something. Search-engine a mountain of gratitude. But do see if you can condense it for COMMENTS, and then supply the url for the in toto experience. Could you do that?

[Ghost Dansing]

Dominque

[Ghost Dansing]

...The interest and polarization caused by the case were reinforced by a set of political and cultural factors dating from the 1930s. Indeed, much of the duration and bitterness of the debate about Hiss's guilt was the result of political battles that, even when he was convicted, were almost 20 years old.

Which Side Were You On?

Communism and radical leftism were, in 1930s America, prominent and respectable to an extent that now appears incomprehensible. The Depression, many politically active intellectuals believed, showed that capitalism was collapsing. In contrast, the Soviet Union's apparently successful revolution and industrialization demonstrated the vigor of socialism. Moscow's prestige among liberals and intellectuals increased further when, unlike the Western democracies, it seemed to take a firm stand against the spread of Fascism. Similarly, the CPUSA was well respected by many American liberals, for they and the Party made common cause to promote unions, civil rights for black Americans, and to oppose perceived domestic rightwing threats. Although the CPUSA's prestige suffered greatly when the Party slavishly supported the Nazi-Soviet Pact, liberals and Communists again worked together once the United States and Soviet Union joined forces against Hitler. Indeed, the success of the struggle against Nazism led many liberals to expect that, after the war, Washington and Moscow would maintain friendly relations while the United States embarked on a fresh round of New Deal-style economic and social reforms.

These hopes went unfulfilled, and instead American liberals descended into a state of civil war. Rather than the anticipated postwar cooperation, US-Soviet relations became increasingly tense. At home, Americans proved to be far more conservative and interested in building quiet, normal lives after 15 years of war and Depression than they were in embarking on new social projects. Faced with the questions of how to deal with Moscow and keep reform alive, liberals divided into two camps. On the left were the Progressives, led by former Vice President Henry Wallace, who viewed Soviet intentions as benign, advocated reaching an accommodation with Moscow, and remained willing to work with American Communists on domestic issues. To their right, but still in the center of the political spectrum, were moderate liberals. They supported President Truman and his policy of containing the Soviet Union, accepted that reform would have to come slowly, and refused to work with Communists, who they believed would try to take over any common efforts and use them to support Moscow. By late 1946, the two groups were engaged in a struggle to control the direction of American liberalism, with each claiming to be the legitimate heir to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. 3

By the time of Hiss's conviction, however, Progressivism had collapsed as a serious political force. During the previous two years, a series of events--the overthrow of the democratic government of Czechoslovakia by Communists loyal to Moscow; the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb; and Mao Zedong's Communist takeover of China--made the Progressive argument that Moscow did not threaten the United States seem unreal. At the same time, President Truman responded vigorously to the Soviets with the Marshall Plan and the creation of NATO. In November 1948, Truman won a resounding endorsement from the voters while Wallace, running for President on the Progressive ticket, received only 1.1 million popular votes.

Progressives at Bay

In this context, Progressives understandably perceived the Hiss case as only the latest in a series of assaults on their views. They believed that an innocent man had been convicted on the word of a mentally unstable liar and that the case was being used by moderate liberals to further discredit Progressivism. A writer in the moderate liberal magazine Commentary declared that the Hiss case showed the need to "move forward from a liberalism of innocence to a liberalism of responsibility." Hiss's conviction also set the stage for, and seemed to lend credibility to, rightwing charges that New Deal liberalism often had been a cover for treason, and moderate liberals, in turn, used their attacks on Progressives to protect themselves from conservatives' accusations of disloyalty...

CIA Studies in Intelligence 

[Ghost Dansing]

Gringo is pretty funny....all that hubris about his "point of view" while the ships of modern Republicanism (not conservative by the way) wash up on the rocky shoals of reality all around him. From a guy who thinks another ten or twenty years in Vietnam would have saved the South from Communists.... I'll take it with a grain of salt.

I was engaged in a discussion with (R)rich about the value of Whittaker Chamber's opinion about America. I think I showed ample reason why people like Chambers became the darlings of McCarthy Rightests in the 50's, and get eulogized by modern Republicanism as some sort of prophet.... He was a conflicted figure who first chose Communist leftest polarities in his politics and espionage activities in his battle against Liberalism and Rightests. Then he became a Rightest on a crusade to save America from Liberalism and the Leftests.... then he became dejected and delusioned by his perceptions of inevitability, fate, and sense of doom rejecting all but his personal opinion....

His later utterances suggested he had distanced himself from the role he played in his work "The Witness" with an apparent critique of the Right, and some sort of acquiesence to the consequences of Liberalism in American Liberal Democracy:

"Fearing the ''crackpotism'' of the right, Chambers now retreated from the apocalyptic absolutes of ''Witness.'' ''A conservatism that cannot face the facts of the machine and mass production, and its consequences in government and politics,'' he wrote, ''is foredoomed to futility and petulance.'' The New Deal was here to stay. He rejected Ludwig von Mises, denounced Ayn Rand and praised John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1959 he defended the issuance of passports to Paul Robeson -- and to Alger Hiss. He welcomed Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States, opposed the nuclear arms race and, wondering whether Mr. Buckley's National Review looked forward to World War III, stopped writing for it."

Yet it is the insights and position of "Witness" that rich was proferring as a definitive revelation on the American psyche that persists today.

It's all there, gringoman.... and just a little research reveals Chambers to be far more enigmatic, and far less definitive than rich originally held.

Now, I would be the first to admit that my form is seldom if ever perfect.... however, I wouldn't take that as a criticism from you (gringoman) since you often express yourself in ways that are so idiosyncratic as to be incomprehenisble.... your above post is one of your more clear headed ones, though it is taking up an extraordinary amount of bandwidth for what it actually states. :)
 

[gringoman]

Gringo...instead of Ghost constantly doing her cut and paste, why doesn't she just add a link to her point of view? I know that she knows how to do it. Perhaps we can all suggest this to her, so that she isn't hogging up the bandwith???

Come on Ghost???? Please start just linking????

Posted by: Liquid | Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 01:02 PM

Liquid,

As this is Alexandra's site, I would not presume to tell her how to manage it. I can only say what I would do with the GD Problem. GD represents an alternate worldview here, and that's okay. Alexandra's tolerance of GD's obvious agenda, even of her Democrat Talking Points, is in itself laudable. It's another indication that Alexandra, unlike so many of the idiotlogues, is about Western Civilization and Greco-Roman freedom of the mind, which the Left at bottom fears and hates but tries to be more "sophisticated" about its fear than are the usual thugs of the Left, the Fanatics and occasionally on the Right (as we saw in the 10-year reign of the Nazis.)

However, GD reveals her desire to squash real debate, real give-and-take. A chief tactic of hers is to hijack the Comments section with her obnoxious reams of (largely un-professionally edited) wiki swill. Such a ploy is well known in Washington where the smarty-pants weasels conduct their ïnvestigations" which are essentially cover-your-ass operations. The idea is to drown you in tons of factoids. This shows how "thorough"the clowns are, while at the same time numbing anyone who is still awake. Such "smart" weaselhood.

GD obviously thinks she's just as smart as the Beltway buffoons. And here's another reason why. She knows she's got Alexandra in a dilemna. If Alexandra tosses her out on her hijacking rump ( like some impatient guys would)GD can spread the word of ATB's wingnut-like intolerance for "views in opposition." Clever, no?

I would not give GD and the Dem hacks that satisfaction. These clowns and Soros workers do not deserve it. I would instead demand that she, as you suggest, do what is expected of the Internet decent: give the link to whatever twaddle she feels is essential to the logic she feels insecure about on her own. She might even, if she has the intelligence, give a succinct synopsis of the twaddle, boiling it down, showing how it's not really the lard we might expect from her. In other words, let her reduce her mind-numbing and obnoxious hoggery of the Comments section to a few sentences. That would be the decent and respectful thing to do.

If GD was willing to demonstrate that elementary respect for the Comments section, I would welcome her to try out her delusions and platitudes with one and all here, mano a mano. Who knows, this might even give her a chance to show the wit she's been hiding from us under piles of, well, wiki. She might even get a chance to show that "opinion,"while often dumb and useless (another truism she's fond of so as to excuse her wiki swill) can also be well-argued and cogently put and logically sound. In any case, under my aegis, I assure you her hijacking of Comments would end, and rather soon, and the Comments section would be much better--and livelier--for it. She would act mature, or she would not act at all, around here.

[rich]

GD

None of your definitions of paraphrase mean saying something that was not originally said, or imputing to people things they did not originally say.

Clearness refers to the original text not to what your opinion of the original text is.

And still you remain nonresponsive.

Unable to substantiate your charge that Chambers was a McCarthyite.

Seems to fit another definition you provided:

2. making poorly supported accusations,

Nice touch of irony for you.

After the next time you lose it in a political argument, please remember that over 50 years ago in a different context, someone named Chambers described your condition:

". . .like most people who have substituted the habit of delusion for reality, they became hysterical whenever the root of their delusion was touched, and reacted with a violence that completely belied the openness of mind which they prescribed for others."

Gringoman and others thanks for the information!

[Ghost Dansing]

Woody Guthrie

Guthrie originally wrote and sang anti-war songs with the Almanac Singers, but after America's entry into World War II he began writing anti-fascist tunes. Guthrie famously wrote the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar. He joined the U.S. Merchant Marine, where he served with fellow folk singer Cisco Houston, and then the U.S. Army.

[Ghost Dansing]

I do link Liquid.... I just post the juicy parts.

Actually I use the wiki because it often provides good context and background.... and is certainly more substantial than the truly unsupported opinions found on BLOGS.

My first impression when reading many BLOGS is that the posters really need to do some encyclopedic research on their subject. Often posters are simply regurgitating partisan political themes like "Wittaker Chambers is a Great American".... my butt.

Rich accuses me of being unresponsive. I am simply not allowing him to
frame the discussion. His tacit assertion is that Chambers is this great man with all this insight and that we should accept his critique of America and Liberalism.

What I brought out was the fact that not only did Chambers hold many opinions in his Communist and Rightest "conservative" modalities (he renounced the "conservative" moniker to Buckley in his resignation), his true target was American Liberalism itself.... a point often glossed over by his "conservative" devotees; Reagan among them.

Rich also glossed over the fact that despite his new found "patriotism" and concern for America, he actually waited quite awhile to finger Alger Hiss as an actual agent of the Communists, and provide evidence.

The case continues to be steeped in controversy, Chambers was an enigmatic and conflicted man, possibly prone to depression.... dramatic probably self-promoting....

The question I was answering was: "Why should Americans accept the opinion of Whittaker Chambers?"

ATB was discussing modern issues regarding the American (and Western) psyche in the face of cultural challenges, and rich hauls-out Whittaker Chambers, a man who had major problems with America.... chose Communism.... chose Rightest political philosophy.... but always had problems with America, founded as it was in Liberal governance and philosophy.

I answered rich's question multiple times in multiple ways.

"How do you substantiate your claim that Chambers could be paraphrased as saying ".... America is wrong and stupid....whether I am a Communist or a McCarthy Republican."

....a careful reading of Witness complicates the story of its influence. Chambers had profound doubts about modernity and modern America. He thought that a secular capitalist modernity had undermined Western culture and America alike. Capitalism and technology may yield great power, but they also corrupt cultural integrity. Witness is as much the record of spiritual anguish within the modern world, of modern conservatism experienced as dilemma, as it is a Cold War call to arms....

Or when you say "paraphrase" do you really mean "fabricate.""

paraphrase

noun
1. rewording for the purpose of clarification

verb
1. express the same message in different words

The term "paraphrase" is frequently used to refer to a synoptic summary of a core theme or message....

par·a·phrase (par'?-fraz') Pronunciation Key
n.
A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning.
The restatement of texts in other words as a studying or teaching device.

par·a·phrase /'pær??fre?z/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[par-uh-freyz] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -phrased, -phras·ing.
–noun 1. a restatement of a text or passage giving the meaning in another form, as for clearness; rewording.
2. the act or process of restating or rewording.
–verb (used with object) 3. to render the meaning of in a paraphrase: to paraphrase a technical paper for lay readers.
–verb (used without object) 4. to make a paraphrase or paraphrases.

[BlackOps]

Your blog is quite interesting as well as appealing.

[BlackOps]

Your blog is quite interesting as well appealing.

[BlackOps]

Your blog is quite interesting as well appealing.

[BlackOps]

Your blog is quite interesting as well appealing.

[igout]

Possibly GW feels a calling to dwell amongst us heathens and win souls. I see that her ministry isn't exactly prospering.

[Liquid]

Gringo...instead of Ghost constantly doing her cut and paste, why doesn't she just add a link to her point of view? I know that she knows how to do it. Perhaps we can all suggest this to her, so that she isn't hogging up the bandwith???

Come on Ghost???? Please start just linking????

[gringoman]

GD

You are nonresponsive.

How do you substantiate your claim that Chambers could be paraphrased as saying ".... America is wrong and stupid....whether I am a Communist or a McCarthy Republican."

Or when you say "paraphrase" do you really mean "fabricate."

Posted by: rich | Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 10:18 PM

Rich,

The thing about GD, as one discovers, is that she is a true devotee of the Liberal Faith, a half-thought-out credo typified by the knee-jerk anti-Bush Democrat (as opposed to those who can criticize Bush independently, without the Dems' hack agenda.)

This fact about GD becomes embarrassingly clear as she reveals herself to be a dedicated wikipedia cut-and-paster (a trait about her that everyone here knows all too well, as she consumes so much of Alexandra's bandwidth via this outlandish wikification of ATB.)

It's well-known that wikipedia's success is founded on its being un-professional and almost totally un-edited. Anyone can post virtually anything there. You can post, for example, a penetrating insight into Whitaker Chambers, and GD can follow up immediately and post a refutation built on "facts" with no professional substantiation at all. It's very, very democratic--and not just with a capital "D." (I'm not saying that GD herself would do such a thing, but anyone can and many do. Her wikipedia source of substance didn't reap such success by hiring and paying a staff that can rank with scholars and experts of the Encyclopedia Brittanica etc etc.)

It's no wonder that the faithful lib, such as self-styled progressive "Christians" like GD, would go to wiki. It's their way of "substantiating" a lack of substance and logical coherence. It helps to shield them from the harsh realities of reason,and honest polemic, and having to stand up in the dialectical arena and actually defend the received wisdom, or Talking Points.

GD "non-responsive"? I think she's just being a good liberal. I've followed the liberal "train of thought"for years now on the Internet (as I used to share it to a degree, once upon a time.) They can sound smart and knowing with the Talking Points, the wiki servings etc. But what happens when you try to engage them in a real logical give-and-take? Nine times out of ten they fold. The lower grades throw their stupid little med pies, or worse. I don't put GD in that disgusting category. She's not one of THOSE. She does try to maintain standards, in her fashion. I think of her here as the Bandwidth Bandit, i.e. the SUV from wikipedia.

[rich]

GD

You are nonresponsive.

How do you substantiate your claim that Chambers could be paraphrased as saying ".... America is wrong and stupid....whether I am a Communist or a McCarthy Republican."

Or when you say "paraphrase" do you really mean "fabricate."

[Ghost Dansing]

....a careful reading of Witness complicates the story of its influence. Chambers had profound doubts about modernity and modern America. He thought that a secular capitalist modernity had undermined Western culture and America alike. Capitalism and technology may yield great power, but they also corrupt cultural integrity. Witness is as much the record of spiritual anguish within the modern world, of modern conservatism experienced as dilemma, as it is a Cold War call to arms....

Link 

Elizabeth Terrill Bentley (January 1, 1908- November 18, 1963) was an American spy for the Soviet Union from 1938 until 1945. In 1945 she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence and became an informer for the U.S. She exposed two networks of spies, ultimately naming over 80 Americans who had engaged in espionage for the Soviets.[1] When her testimony became public in 1948 it became a media sensation and had a major effect on the popular anti-communism of the McCarthy era.

A sad and lonely girl 

[Ghost Dansing]

A careful reading will reveal Chambers actually changed his point of view quite a bit throughout his life... like a chameleon.

He was a very conflicted man. 

 

[rich]

GD

Even your selective quotes refute you.

You stated

"Whitakker Chambers: paraphrase.... ".... America is wrong and stupid....whether I am a Communist or a McCarthy Republican"

Your later quote from a secondary source who did not agree at all with Chambers: "One might have supposed, for example, that Chambers would become a cheerleader for Joe McCarthy. In fact, Chambers detested McCarthy . . ."

Which is true? Your statement or the quote you used? For both cannot be true. And if the quote is true, do you retract your statement?

As for Tanenhaus stating that Chambers world view "had helped bring McCarthyism into existence."

The world view being that Stalin's government was fascist and must be opposed.

Would you explain how recognition of that fact, which I assume even you would accept as true, assists bringing McCarthyism into existence?

With such reasoning the victory of the Soviet Union in WW II assisted in bringing McCarthyism into existence.

And on McCarthyism, your cite from wikipedia lists its characteristics as:

1. . . . aggressively questioning a person's patriotism,
2. making poorly supported accusations,
3. using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to adhere to conformist politics or to discredit an opponent,
4. subverting civil rights in the name of national security and
5. the use of demagoguery . . .

Which of these acts do you ascribe to Chambers as a private citizen?

What primary sources support such an accusation?

Do you even read what you cut and paste?

[Ghost Dansing]

Chambers-Hiss

Chambers 

[Ghost Dansing]

..."Then came Chambers's best-selling memoir of 1952, ''Witness,'' a powerful book, but a powerfully overwrought and wrongheaded one too. As Mr. Tanenhaus writes, ''In Chambers's world, only the Communist and the ex-Communist speak with full authority, and no one else can be taken seriously. Chambers's greatest contempt is reserved -- as always -- for liberalism.'' Social reform in the New Deal manner, he argued, put a country on the slippery slope toward totalitarianism. As absolutist on the right as he had been on the left, he was an ideologue with no mercy for the pragmatisms of democracy.

In a characteristically apocalyptic mood, Chambers saw the final conflict as ''between the two great camps of men -- those who reject and those who worship God,'' forgetting Mr. Dooley's definition of a fanatic -- one who ''does what he thinks th' Lord wud do if He knew th' facts iv th' case.'' And he was dramatically pessimistic about the outcome. As he had told his wife when he broke with the party, ''I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side.''

What is most novel about Mr. Tanenhaus's book is his account of Chambers's existence after Hiss. One might have supposed, for example, that Chambers would become a cheerleader for Joe McCarthy. In fact, Chambers detested McCarthy and, though he adored William F. Buckley Jr., declined to endorse Mr. Buckley's eulogistic ''McCarthy and His Enemies.'' ''For the Right to tie itself in any way to Senator McCarthy is suicide,'' Chambers said. ''He is a raven of disaster.'' But the ''awful fact,'' observes Mr. Tanenhaus, ''which Chambers could not admit -- and never did -- was that his own worldview, stripped of its lyrical refinements and humanist vibrato, had helped bring McCarthyism into existence.''

Fearing the ''crackpotism'' of the right, Chambers now retreated from the apocalyptic absolutes of ''Witness.'' ''A conservatism that cannot face the facts of the machine and mass production, and its consequences in government and politics,'' he wrote, ''is foredoomed to futility and petulance.'' The New Deal was here to stay. He rejected Ludwig von Mises, denounced Ayn Rand and praised John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1959 he defended the issuance of passports to Paul Robeson -- and to Alger Hiss. He welcomed Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States, opposed the nuclear arms race and, wondering whether Mr. Buckley's National Review looked forward to World War III, stopped writing for it."

The Truest Believer, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.  

''I am not a conservative,'' Mr. Buckley quoted Mr. Chambers as writing in his letter of resignation from National Review in 1959. ''I am a man of the Right. I shall vote the straight Republican ticket for as long as I live.''

 G.O.P. Devotees Pay Honor To Whittaker Chambers

Chambers developed increasing reservations in his later years about the direction the American right was taking, distancing himself first from Joe McCarthy, then from Richard Nixon, and even from William Buckley Jr.'s National Review. But Chambers' importance lies, finally, not in his politics but in his romantic penchant for the extremes of the psychic and political undergrounds. With his susceptibility to ridicule and parody, his air of furtive portentousness, his apocalyptic Manichaean vision of purity overtaken by disease, his dazzling displays of the uncanny intuitive skills that sometimes accompany obsession, he was a pulp-fiction Dostoyevsky, an author he admired above all others.

Though he would have considered himself a champion of high art, melodrama was Chambers' medium. The roles he picked for himself were Dostoyevskian ones--the doppelgänger, playing unheeded guilty conscience to a modern Mephistopheles; the high-pitched prophet, trying to break what he saw as the "invincible ignorance" of a nation blinded to the "crisis of history" by its prosperity and misguided generous-mindedness.

Whittaker Chambers: A Biography By Sam Tanenhaus; Review by Ann Douglas

[Ghost Dansing]

On August 3, 1948, Chambers was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Here he gave the names of individuals he said were part of the underground "Ware group" in the late 1930s, including Alger Hiss. He thus once again named Hiss as a member of the Communist Party, but didn't yet make any accusations of espionage. In subsequent HUAC sessions, Hiss testified and initially denied that he knew Chambers, but on seeing him in person (and after it became clear that Chambers knew details about Hiss's life), said that he had been known Chambers under the name "George Crosley". Hiss denied that he had ever been a Communist, however. Since Chambers still presented no evidence, the committee had initially been inclined to take the word of Hiss on the matter. However, committee member Richard Nixon received secret information from the FBI which had led him to pursue the issue. When it issued its report, HUAC described Hiss's testimony as "vague and evasive."

The country quickly became divided over the Hiss-Chambers issue. President Truman, not pleased with the allegation that a prominent official with his State Department was a Communist, dismissed the case as a "red herring." In the atmosphere of increasing anti-communism that would be later be termed McCarthyism, many conservatives saw the Hiss case as emblematic of the Democrat's laxity towards Communist infiltration and influence in the State Department.

Hiss filed a $75,000 libel suit against Chambers on October 8, 1948. At this point, Chambers finally retrieved his envelope of evidence and presented it to Hiss's lawyers and to HUAC. It contained four notes in Alger Hiss's handwriting, sixty-five typewritten copies of State Department documents and five strips of 35mm film with photographs of State and Navy Department documents. The press came to call these the "Pumpkin Papers" referring to the fact that Chambers had briefly hidden the microfilm in a hollowed out pumpkin. These documents indicated that Hiss knew Chambers long after mid 1936, when Hiss said he had last seen "Crosley," and also that Hiss had engaged in espionage with Chambers. Chambers explained his delay in producing this evidence as an effort to spare an old friend from more trouble than necessary. Prior to this time, Chambers had repeatedly stated or testified that Hiss had not engaged in espionage, and this fact would be used by Hiss's defenders to impugn Chambers's credibility.

Hiss could not be tried for espionage at this time, because the evidence indicated the offence had occurred over ten years ago, and the statute of limitations for espionage was five years. Instead, Hiss was indicted for two counts of perjury relating to testimony he had given before a federal grand jury the previous December. There he had denied giving any documents to Whittaker Chambers, and testified he hadn't seen Chambers after mid 1936.

Hiss was tried twice for perjury. The first trial, in June of 1949, ended with a hung jury. In addition to Chambers's testimony, a key piece of evidence was a typewriter that had belonged to the Hiss family, and which analysis indicated had been used to type the documents Chambers had produced. An impressive array of character witnesses appeared on behalf of Hiss: two U. S. Supreme Court justices, Felix Frankfurter and Stanley Reed, former Democratic presidential nominee John W. Davis and future Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. Chambers, on the other hand, was attacked by Hiss's attorneys as "an enemy of the Republic, a blasphemer of Christ, a disbeliever in God, with no respect for matrimony or motherhood." In the second trial, Hiss's defense produced a psychiatrist who characterized Chambers as a "psychopathic personality" and "a pathological liar." The second trial ended in January of 1950 with Hiss found guilty on both counts. He was sentenced to five years in prison....

In the years since the Hiss trials, the debate about Hiss's guilt and Chambers's truthfulness has continued. Both Hiss and Chambers still have their defenders and detractors, often divided along liberal/conservative political lines.

Chambers's book Witness is on the reading lists of the Heritage Foundation, The Weekly Standard, and the Russell Kirk Center. He is regularly cited by conservative writers such as Heritage's president Edwin Feulner.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his contribution to "the century's epic struggle between freedom and totalitarianism." In 2001, members of the George W. Bush Administration held a private ceremony to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Chambers's birth. Speakers included William F. Buckley Jr.

Wikipedia 

Many of the hearings and trials of McCarthyism featured testimony by former Communist Party members such as Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz and Whittaker Chambers, speaking as expert witnesses. Despite the obvious contradiction, these ex-communists were the source of some of the most vivid descriptions of how the Party permanently enslaved its members....

Since the time of McCarthy, the word "McCarthyism" has entered American speech as a general term for a variety of distasteful practices: aggressively questioning a person's patriotism, making poorly supported accusations, using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to adhere to conformist politics or to discredit an opponent, subverting civil rights in the name of national security and the use of demagoguery are all often referred to as McCarthyism.

 McCarthyism

You're right rich.... I should have paraphrased you: "Whether my hero, Whitakker Chambers was a Communist or a McCarthy-Republican sympathizer, I (rich) still value his expert opinion on America and Americans, and wish you would too.... Americans are stupid because they are Liberals, and as we know, stupidity and Liberalism go together."

Reagan and Dubya positively eulogized Chambers to vindicate McCarthyism.... actually, even as a "Communist Defector" it would appear Chambers witheld important evidence on the alleged spying of Alger Hiss, allowing Hiss several more years to do damage to America in his spying for the Communists.... gee not sure what to make of that.... oh, he had apparently lied at first also.... real crediblity builder, I can see why you admire his opinion rich.

 The Pumpkin Papers and the Baltimore Documents

 

[rich]

GD

You are refuting things I did not say ("hero")and Chambers did not write ("I am a McCarthy Republican.") (A paraphrase of something not written is not a paraphrase it is a deception.)

Simply not honest argument.

But your whole thrust is simply wikipedia shallow.

Your time line is wrong. Chambers was a man of the 1930s and 1940s. McCarthy was of the 1950s.

Chambers was the opposite of a McCarthyite in that he was not a government investigator or prosecutor. Chambers never exercised the power of the government against a witness, rather he was the subject of a smear campaign because he was a witness.

Chambers was not an aggressor. If you are familiar with the facts you know that Chambers was the defendant in a libel case brought by an aggressive accuser. This was before New York Times v. Sullivan, when a libel case could destroy someone. It was in response to discovery requests by the accuser in the libel case that evidence of the espionage by his accuser was produced.

So it was the aggressiveness of Chambers accuser that led to the conviction of the accuser.

You have tried to change the subject. You have made false statements. You have misrepresented facts.

GD have you no shame?

Or do you demonstrate what Chambers said:

". . .like most people who have substituted the habit of delusion for reality, they became hysterical whenever the root of their delusion was touched, and reacted with a violence that completely belied the openness of mind which they prescribed for others."

[Ghost Dansing]

". . .like most people who have substituted the habit of delusion for reality, they became hysterical whenever the root of their delusion was touched, and reacted with a violence that completely belied the openness of mind which they prescribed for others.""

I suspect your habit of delusion is that my response reflected any of this. I'm simply suggesting that reactionary swings to rightest ideologies in response to leftest ideologies does not tend to preserve the Liberalism upon which this Nation was founded.

Defining Chambers as some kind of great "hero" is suspect at least.... He simply became a darling of the McCarthy crowd because he turned, probably to save his own skin, and was spilling his guts.

What did Chambers think was wrong with America when he was a Communist? What did he think was wrong with America when he became a Rightest?

The critique is indistinguishable from either polarity:

"...the total failure of the West to grasp the nature of its enemy, what he wants, what he means to do and how he will go about doing it. It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of mans fate and future are involved, and, hence, their conflict is irrepressible."

". . .like most people who have substituted the habit of delusion for reality, they became hysterical whenever the root of their delusion was touched, and reacted with a violence that completely belied the openness of mind which they prescribed for others.""

Whitakker Chambers: paraphrase.... ".... America is wrong and stupid....whether I am a Communist or a McCarthy Republican"

That pretty much sums it up.

[rich]

GD

"Chambers simply swung from being a Leftest operative, to being a Rightest operative.... no hero, he was obviously a man who never felt comfortable with America.... we had to be changed, either to Communists, at first, or to a fearful trembling mass of jelly willing to sacrifice our rights and liberties for "protection" provided by the State.... Part of the Rightest phenomenon we called McCarthyism."

Your unfounded assertions of McCarthyism demonstrate the validity of Chambers critique:

" . . .like most people who have substituted the habit of delusion for reality, they became hysterical whenever the root of their delusion was touched, and reacted with a violence that completely belied the openness of mind which they prescribed for others."

[Saul Davis]

Somewhat off topic, but very powerful:

http://www.roty.com/DoYouRememberMe/DoYouRememberMe.html

Hat tip:

http://www.nicedoggie.net/2007/?p=140

[igout]

Humility? Hell, that's why we pay those bums and traitors of the MSM, to keep us humble by telling us how bad and wrong America is. But I do think we need a good General Patton slap in our collective mug.

[Ghost Dansing]

Alan Charles Kors is an intellectual historian, specializing in French intellectual history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He holds the George Herbert Walker Endowed Term Chair in History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kors has also been active in the defense of academic freedom since his arrival at Penn. In the widely covered 1993 "water buffalo incident," he defended Eden Jacobowitz against charges that he racially harassed a group of black sorority sisters. In the very early morning hours, the sorority was celebrating loudly just outside the dorms. Multiple students had yelled from their windows, in various ways, for the sorority to cease. When the police later came to question students, Jacobowitz volunteered that he yelled, "Shut up, you water buffalo." The sorority members eventually dropped the charges.

Kors co-founded---with civil libertarian Harvey A. Silverglate---and served from 2000-2006 as the chairman of the board of directors Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is an occasional contributor to Reason magazine.

In 1992 President Bush named him to Council of the National Endowment of the Humanities. He was confirmed by the United States Senate and served on the committee for six years.

In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded Kors the prestigious National Humanities Medal for his "scholarship, devotion to the Humanities, and...defense of academic freedom." In 2006, he was the T.B. Davie Memorial Lecturer on academic freedom at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Kors has written on the emergence and flourishing of heterodox thought in eighteenth-century France, on the Enlightenment in general, on the history of European witchcraft beliefs, and on academic freedom.

He has served on the boards of several scholarly organizations, including The Historical Society and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

Interestingly, Kors is at least a Libertarian, and probably a Liberal. Libertarians are people who simply value the individual freedoms, but don't have a good sense of what type of governmental structure would actually support that.

Americas Founding Fathers were certainly Libertarian, however they crafted a structure of Liberal governance with checks-and-balances such that it would be difficult for any social "power block" to achieve hegemony over another, let alone fundamental individual liberties.

I classify modern Republicanism as "Rightest" versus "Conservative" or Liberal because the political philosophy that has culminated in this Republican administration is characterized by insidious erosion of the Liberal Democratic structure of the Nation.... an inexhorable drive toward Executive powers and discretion with an accompanying idea that democracy simply means electing a dictator King for the majority.

Regarding Civil Rights organizations that defend free speech for Republicans.... nothing inherently wrong with that.... it looks to me like most of the "cases" like "stomping on HAMAS and Hisballah flags at "Anti-Terrorist" demonstrations involved complaints about violations of University codes of conduct and were being reviewed by appropriate committee. The reality that such demonstrations were intended to trigger such complaints and responses should make them count as a great success by the organizers.

However, Dr. Kors's positions beg a few questions:

Dr Kors: "The Orwellian implications of today's college orientation"

From the evidence, most students tune it out, just as most students at most times generally have tuned out abuses of power and diminutions of liberty. One should not take heart from that. Where students react, it is generally with an anger that, ironically and sadly, exacerbates the balkanization of our universities. The more social work we bring to our colleges and universities, the more segregated they become, and in the classifieds of The Chronicle of Higher Education during the last few years, colleges and universities by the hundreds have advertised for individuals to oversee "diversity education," "diversity training," and "sensitivity training."

Orwell may have been profoundly wrong about the totalitarian effects of high technology, but he understood full well how the authoritarians of this century had moved from the desire for outer control to the desire for inner control. He understood that the new age sought to overcome what, in Julia's terms, was the ultimate source of freedom for human beings: "They can't get inside you." Our colleges and universities hire trainers to "get inside" American students.

Thought reform is making its way inexorably to an office near you. If we let it occur at our universities and accept it passively in our own domains, then a people who defeated totalitarians abroad will surrender their dignity, privacy, and conscience to the totalitarians within.

Universities and education in general has always involved broadening the individual student's exposure to diversity; literally to the world in general and certainly to the world of ideas.

The accusation that certain programs that encourage cross-cultural sensitivities are an afront to parochial weltanschauung and therefore "indoctrination" versus education is a suspect proposition.

Indoctrination is by definition a narrowing of perceptions toward a particular viewpoint... It is unclear how exposure to diverifying points of view constitute indoctrination as opposed to being simply a derivative of the liberalizing tendencies of education itself.

When the American culture was eventually brought around to thinking first, that slavery wasn't "OK".... and later that systemic and codified racial discrimination was not "OK", was that a suppression of "civil liberties" with respect to those individuals who held the world views supporting the original conditions?

That is the necessary conclusion to the faulty logic of Dr. Kors. "Education" itself becomes the enemy of the individual.... I would disagree, and Kors himself in that case is a walking contradiction.

I suspect Kors' thought is far richer and more nuanced than for which he is given credit by his Republican advocates, who are simply using him as a pseudo-intellectual excuse for maintaining backward ideas, and agitating on campus.

 

[carentan44]

GD:

With apologies to Thomas Wolfe--

"O lost, and by the wind grieved ghost [please don't] come back again."

Your thinking is pitifully stereotyped: Liberal Gooood; Others Baaad. Please try to get your mind around the fact that, on campuses from the Ivy League and Stanford and Berkeley all the way to Slippery Rock and Ball State Teachers' colleges, it is people infected by your strain of the virus Liberalis Sinister who impose the codes of speech and conduct that have to be fought at great trouble and expense by right-wing fascist groups such as F.I.R.E. & Campus Watch.

Groups the likes of those mentioned--not the A.A.U.P. nor ACLU nor the MLA--are the chief defenders of liberty today in academia.

[Ghost Dansing]

McCarthyism

[Ghost Dansing]

It's quite at the heart of the matter....

In 1924, Chambers read Vladimir Lenin's Soviets at Work and was deeply affected by it. He now saw the dysfunctional nature of his family, he would write, as "in miniature the whole crisis of the middle class"; a malaise from which Communism promised liberation. Chambers's biographer Sam Tanenhaus wrote that Lenin's authoritarianism was "precisely what attracts Chambers… He had at last found his church." In 1925, Chambers joined the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and wrote and edited for Communist periodicals, including The Daily Worker and The New Masses. Chambers combined his literary talents with his devotion to Communism, writing four short stories in 1931 about proletarian hardship and revolt. One of these was Can You Make Out Their Voices?, which has been described by critics as one of the best pieces of fiction to come out of the American Communist movement.

Chambers carried on his espionage activities from 1932 until 1937 or 1938, but his faith in Communism was waning. He became increasingly disturbed by Josef Stalin's Great Purge, which began about 1936. He was also fearful for his own life, having noted the murder in Switzerland of Ignatz Reiss, a high-ranking Soviet spy who had broken with Stalin, and the disappearance of his friend and fellow spy Juliet Poyntz in the United States. Poyntz had vanished in 1937, shortly after she had visited Moscow and returned disillusioned with the Communist cause due to the Stalinist Purges.

Chambers had resigned from TIME in December 1948. After the trial his close friend William F. Buckley, Jr. initiated the magazine National Review and Chambers briefly worked there as senior editor. He also wrote for Fortune and Life magazines.

In 1952, Chambers's book Witness was published to widespread acclaim. The book was combination of autobiography, an account of his role in the Hiss case and a pessimistic warning about the dangers of Communism and liberalism. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called it one of the greatest of all American autobiographies, and Ronald Reagan credited the book as the inspiration behind his conversion from a New Deal Democrat to a conservative Republican. Witness was a bestseller for almost a year and the royalties helped to offset legal expenses Chambers had been accumulating since 1948.

His second book, Cold Friday, was published posthumously in 1964 with the help of Duncan Norton Taylor. The book predicted that the fall of Communism would start in the satellite states surrounding the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

Wikipedia 

Many American Communists became disillusioned with Communism when they saw what Stalin did to Russia. Chambers was a zealot, an activist, an extremist, necessarily at odds with Rightest "Fascism" but also "Liberalism" as a Communist.

As frequently happens, dissillusionment with one extremist point of view often culminates in a polarizing swing.... the "Leftest" swings right over moderate, tolerant Liberalism and becomes the "Rightest", criticising both Communism and Liberalism.... In America, ironically, it is Liberalism that must be preserved.... is the basis of our American heritage.

Chambers simply swung from being a Leftest operative, to being a Rightest operative.... no hero, he was obviously a man who never felt comfortable with America.... we had to be changed, either to Communists, at first, or to a fearful trembling mass of jelly willing to sacrifice our rights and liberties for "protection" provided by the State.... Part of the Rightest phenomenon we called McCarthyism.

[rich]

"What Communists, Fascists, Islamic Extremists and modern Republicanism all have in common is their hate for Liberalism."

What a silly statement.

The logic works equally well in following statement. "What Communists, Fascists, Islamic Extremists and modern Democrats all have in common is their hate for Liberalism."

Both are sloganized polemic.

Neither statement makes any sense and neither statement is a serious argument about whether Chambers critique of America is on point.

GD you must be able to do better than that.

[Ghost Dansing]

Actually, I think we were agreeing on some points rich... I've said here many times that Communism and Fascism come full circle and meet each other; manifesting as extremist, totalitarian government regardless of the specific political theory they espouse. Both are essentially kleptocratic oligarchies designed to maintain power at all cost for an elite group.

However, in South America... I would say probably allies of convenience. I doubt Chavez or Castro has any interest in mass conversions to militant Islam.... Cooperation is more of an in-your-face spite against America. That can be a very dangerous game, actually... but we'll see how far he'll play that out.

I'm not sure I've misunderstood the reference.... it is essentially a replay of the theme that the "Liberal" West is too weak to adequately perceive threats.... My concern is that the extremist response to both Communism and the Islamofascist is often reactionary; advocacy of rightest militancy.

That is why I pointed out that Liberalism is the basic political philosophy of America... What Communists, Fascists, Islamic Extremists and modern Republicanism all have in common is their hate for Liberalism.

Broadly speaking, liberalism emphasizes individual rights. It seeks a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on power (especially of government and religion), the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market economy that supports free private enterprise, and a transparent system of government in which the rights of all citizens are protected. In modern society, liberals favor a liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law and an equal opportunity to succeed.

Many new liberals advocate a greater degree of government interference in the free market, often in the form of anti-discrimination laws, universal education, and progressive taxation. This philosophy frequently extends to a belief that the government should provide for a degree of general welfare, including benefits for the unemployed, housing for the homeless, and medical care for the sick. Such publicly-funded initiatives and interferences in the market are rejected by modern advocates of classical liberalism, which emphasizes free private enterprise, individual property rights and freedom of contract; classical liberals hold that economic inequality, as arising naturally from competition in the free market, does not justify the violation of private property rights.

Link 

[Liquid]

Political Islam continues to grow and bully...
It's goal is to dominate the world and have all bow down to "one religion" and worship their pagan moon god Allah!

Islam is a total way of life in that it cannot separate it's politics from it's religion.

Just ask those that are wanting sharia law...they will explain it to ya!

[rich]

GD you misunderstand the reference.

It is Chambers criticism of America that resonates today.

"The Popular Front mind dominated American life, at least from 1938 to 1948, and it still is premature to count it out. Particularly, it dominated all avenues of communication between the intellectuals and the nation. It told the nation what it should believe; it made up the nations mind for it. The Popular Fronters had made themselves the “experts.” They controlled the narrows of news and opinion. And though, to a practiced ear, they never ceased to speak as the scribes, the nation heard in their fatal errors the voice of those having authority. For the nation, too, wanted peace above all things . . ."

Does this not describe your argument from authority?

Of course Communism is not the same as Islamic fascism. Communism never attacked New York City and the Pentagon. Communism never repressed women in the manner of the Islamic Fascists. Communism did not have a dhimi status for people like us.

It is the height of illogic however to say that Islamic Fascism is not a serious threat to our nation, a threat that is different in nature but is at the level of the former Communist threat. .

Again Chambers critique of America resonates:

"the total failure of the West to grasp the nature of its enemy, what he wants, what he means to do and how he will go about doing it. It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of mans fate and future are involved, and, hence, their conflict is irrepressible."

Your reference to the rise of Fascism in South America is also revealing. For who are the allies of those Fascists? The answer, as you well know, is that the allies of the South American Fascists are the Islamic Fascists. You may call it a "red menace" but in reality it is Fascism. You call it "red" to set up a straw man to knock down. If you dared to face the facts you would admit that your position supports fascism.

[Ghost Dansing]

Interesting tract rich.... and with resurgent leftest extremism in South America, we may once again have the "red menace" as a national issue.... I is important, however, to realize that the basis of this Nation is Liberalism... anti-Communist sentiment is not simply replaced by rightest oligarchy.

Jihadism is not Communism

The comparison may suit Bush's short-term political interests -- particularly his attempt to resurrect his presidency and his party's fortunes by refashioning the terms of both the so-called war on terror and the diversionary war in Iraq -- but it's neither accurate nor wise, says former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in today's Washington Post. His piece is a must-read. Here's a key passage:

By asserting that Islamic extremism, "like the ideology of communism . . . is the great challenge of our new century," Bush is implicitly elevating Osama bin Laden's stature and historic significance to the level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal significance. Underlying the president's analogy is the proposition that bin Laden's "jihad" has the potential for dominating the minds and hearts of hundreds of millions of people across national and even religious boundaries. That is quite a compliment to bin Laden, but it isn't justified. The "Islamic" jihad is, at best, a fragmented and limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.

Communism, by comparison, undeniably had worldwide appeal. By the 1950s, there was hardly a country in the world without an active communist movement or conspiracy, irrespective of whether the country was predominantly Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Confucian. In some countries, such as Russia and China, the communist movement was the largest political formation, dominating intellectual discourse; in democratic countries, such as Italy and France, it vied for political power in open elections.

In response to the dislocations and injustices precipitated by the Industrial Revolution, communism offered a vision of a perfectly just society. To be sure, that vision was false and was used to justify violence that eventually led directly to the Soviet gulag, Chinese labor and "reeducation" camps, and other human rights abuses. Nonetheless, for a while, communism's definition of the future bolstered its cross-cultural appeal.

In addition, the intellectual and political challenge of the communist ideology was backed by enormous military power. The Soviet Union possessed a huge nuclear arsenal, capable of launching in the course of a few minutes a massive atomic attack on America. Within a few hours, upwards of 120 million Americans and Soviets could have been dead in an apocalyptic mutual cross-fire. That was the horrible reality.

Contemporary terrorism -- though nasty and criminal, whether Islamic or otherwise -- has no such political reach and no such physical capability. Its appeal is limited; it offers no answers to the novel dilemmas of modernization and globalization. To the extent that it can be said to possess an "ideology," it is a strange blend of fatalism and nihilism. In al Qaeda's case, it is actively supported by relatively isolated groupings, and its actions have been condemned without exception by all major religious figures, from the pope to the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia.

Brzezinski is a man of immense learning and political acumen. In other words, he knows where of he speaks. America's leaders would do well to listen to him. And so would everyone else. Where Bush and his desperate team of spinners (from Cheney on down to the talking-point-spewing hacks who populate cable TV, the right-wing op-ed pages, and the talk-radio airwaves) will distort the truth or manufacture rival versions of the truth simply for political gain and self-validation, Brzezinski and others like him are doing their best to see things as they are (and to deal with them as they are), not as they appear to be through the lens of willful misrepresentation and disfiguring partisanship.

Link 

[chrys]

Worth a "re-post!" Travel SAFE!

[rich]

Just finished reading Witness by Whitaker Chambers. It is a great book, one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written, and perhaps the greatest American spy story ever written. So if you are of the left do not read it. You will not be able to take it.

Here are three excerpts that seem to fit in with some of Alexandra's post:

Witness
Whittaker Chambers (1952)
Copyright 1952 Whittaker Chambers, copyright renewed 1980 Esther Chambers
Page 616

“You don't understand the class structure of American society,” said Smetana, “or you would not ask such a question. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists.”

Page 419-420

I have sometimes been asked at this point: What went on in the minds of those Americans, all highly educated men, that made it possible for them to betray their country? Did none of them suffer a crisis of conscience? The question presupposes that whoever asks it has still failed to grasp that Communists mean exactly what they have been saying for a hundred years: They regard any government that is not Communist, including their own, merely as the political machine of a class whose power they have organized expressly to overthrow by all means, including violence. Therefore, ultimately the problem of espionage never presents itself to them as a problem of conscience, but a problem of operations. Making due allowance for the differences of intelligence, energy, background and political development among the individual men involved, and bearing in mind that two of them (White and Wadleigh) were not Communists, but fellow travelers, the answer to the question must still be: no problem of conscience was then involved. For the Communists, the problem of conscience had been settled long before, at the moment when they accepted the program and discipline of the Communist Party. For the fellow travelers, it had been settled at the moment when they had decided to co-operate with the Communist Party. And of fellow travelers who co-operate to the point of espionage, it must be observed that in effect they have become Communists, whatever fictive differences they may maintain.

Faced with the opportunity of espionage, a Communist though, he may hesitate momentarily, will always, exactly to the degree that he is Communist, engage in espionage. The act will not appear to him in terms of betrayal at all. It will , on the contrary, appear to him as a moral act, the more deserving the more it involves him in personal risk, committed in the name of a faith (Communism) on which, he believes, hinges the hope and future of mankind, and against a system (capitalism) which he believes to be historically bankrupt. At that point, conscience to the Communist, and conscience to the non-Communist, mean two things as opposed as the two sides of a battlefield. The failure to understand that fact is part of the total failure of the West to grasp the nature of its enemy, what he wants, what he means to do and how he will go about doing it. It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of mans fate and future are involved, and, hence, their conflict is irrepressible.

The question of conscience can arise only when, for one reason or another, a Communist questions his faith, as I was about to do, or as later on, in different ways Wadleigh and Keith would do. Then it rises terribly indeed.

Page 499

. . . What made the Foreign News episode enlightening to me, and worth reporting in such detail, is the fact that the people who were implacably opposed to my editorial views on the Soviet Union and Communism were not Communists. Here and there, a concealed Communist may have been at work. But the overwhelming might of the opposition came from people who had never been Communists and never would be.

They were people who believed a number of things. Foremost among them was that peace could be preserved. World War III could be averted only by conciliating with the Soviet Union. For this no price was too high to pay, including the price of wilful historical self-delusion. Yet they had just fiercely supported a war in which one of their ululant outcries had been against appeasement; and they were much too intelligent really to believe that Russia was a democracy or most of the other upside-down things they said in defense of it. Hence like most people who have substituted the habit of delusion for reality, they became hysterical whenever the root of their delusion was touched, and reacted with a violence that completely belied the openness of mind which they prescribed for others. Let me call their peculiar condition which, sometimes had unconsciously deep, and sometimes very conscious, political motives that it would perhaps be unmannerly to pry into here—the Popular Front Mind.

Nor can it be repeated too often that most of those who suffered from it were not Communists. Yet Communists, at a critical spin of history, had few more effective allies. The Popular Front mind dominated American life, at least from 1938 to 1948, and it still is premature to count it out. Particularly, it dominated all avenues of communication between the intellectuals and the nation. It told the nation what it should believe; it made up the nations mind for it. The Popular Fronters had made themselves the “experts.” They controlled the narrows of news and opinion. And though, to a practiced ear, they never ceased to speak as the scribes, the nation heard in their fatal errors the voice of those having authority. For the nation, too, wanted peace above all things, and it simply could not grasp or believe that a conspiracy on the scale of Communism was possible or that it had already made so deep a penetration in their lives. . . .

[Liquid]

Thanks for "re" sharing this with us today Alexandra, and I wish you a safe and pleasant travel day. God Speed!

Our psyches are flooded with horrible images and negative news from the MSM and there is no doubt that there is dark forces working overtime against our perceptions and yet I still have great hope for tomorrow...if we get it, since we are not promised it. So whenever I get overwhelmed in all the pessimism that evil seems to dominate the moment, I am reminded of how "history shown via faith" enlightens the truth that good always will overcome evil if you keep watching and that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. It's in that bit of truth that comfort shines over all the gloomy chaos that floats inside the disguise of man's confidence and the lack of it.

[Ghost Dansing]

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism.

Link 

What we have going for us, though, is he fact that Human Beings spin meaning like Silk Worms spin silk.... Despite the ideas of Nihilism, the existential ground of human existence is actually quite meaningful, and grounded.

Religions themselves are artifacts of this Human striving-toward-meaning, in the face of the unknown void of existential terminus: death.

Christian existentialism describes a group of writings that take a philosophically existentialist approach to Christian theology. The school of thought is often traced back to the work of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855).

One of the major premises of Christian existentialism entails calling the masses back to a more genuine form of Christianity, i.e., the type of Christianity that existed during the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Christ in approximately 36 AD. With the Edict of Milan, which was issued by Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 AD, Christianity enjoyed a level of unbridled popularity amongst the Romans and later with the Europeans. And yet, by the 19th century, Kierkegaard saw that the ultimate meaning of New Testament Christianity (LOVE) had become incredibly skewed. And thus, Christianity today appears to have deviated considerably from its original threefold message of grace, humility, and love.

Another major premise of Christian existentialism involves Kierkegaard's conception of GodLove. For the most part, Kierkegaard equates God with Love and thus whenever a person engages in the act of loving, he is in effect achieving a piece of the divine. Kierkegaard also viewed the individual as a necessary synthesis of both finite and infinite elements. Therefore, whenever an individual did not come into a full realization of his infinite side, the he is said to be in despair. For many Christian theologians these days, this notion of despair can be viewed as sin. And sin is something that Kierkegaard heavily equated with the losing of one's self. A self for Kierkegaard is a free spirit that recognizes both the finite and infinite sides of his existence. and

A final major premise of Christian existentialism entails the systematic undoing of evil things already done. Kierkegaard claimed that once an action has been completed, it should be evaluated in the face of God. And therefore, he asserted that holding oneself up to the scrutiny of God is the only way to truly judge one's actions. Since actions constitute the way in which something is deemed good or bad, one must constantly be conscious of the potential consequences of his actions. Kierkegaard believed that the choice for goodness came down to each individual. Unfortunately, most people, especially in the increasingly secular post-modern era, decide not to make a choice. As a result, man will continue to relegate himself to his self-imposed immaturity and thus live in a state of both stunned apathy and agonizing inertia.

Link 

Gabriel Marcel

 

 

[me]

uh, you guys still think jesus was white? did anyone ever ask why the pope has a picture of an african depicted as jesus in his private quarters? Oh, wrong topic,
America's infrastructure is not secure. Immigration is out of control, we don't even know whos in the country. That accounts for lack of confidence, besides no one buying american goods and america owing damn near everyone in the world, everyone is just waiting for the day that they ask for their money instead of taking goods they don't want in the first place.
oh yeah, no one really cares about europe in the states, our president pimped your leader and thats why your in iraq too, if your familiar with rodney danger field "no respect"

[gringoman]

Alexandra,

First, Bon Voyage!

Secondly: Is lack of confidence or the over-confidence of hubris the key to the American psyche today? You and Professor Hanson are both right, describing different parts of the elephant (or donkey.) The over-confidence is mainly a cover for the lack of confidence. Americans know instinctively that they are still young and provincial (no matter what their chronology or geographic locale) and frankly, most would rather stay that way. It's more fun that way, isn't it? The hubris, of course, is largely a mask for the nagging feelings of insecurity. If you know Hollywood, for example, you would certainly know plenty about that, even among the mightiest and glitziest. Even the most successful Americans live by polls, ratings, box office, earnings reports, quarterlies etc etc. It's the price you pay for overcoming aristocracy and inventing yourself. Most Americans know instinctively that they've escaped the farm (or the pushcart and are living on the fat of the land, or at least got where they are due to parents who understood what sacrifice is, and didn't overly begrudge the kids. Unfortunately, it's probably too late to re-tool the over-fed, over-indulged, over-entitled American---whether they are part of the privileged minority or patronized big-rumped many. Nothing can shake them out of tbis now---except some kind of calamity. Even more unfortunately, the Islamic fanatic may be just what the gods ordered to get the job done and turn, once more, that cosmic wheel. Americans don't like history because it's far too revealing and sobering---and it might take you away from "Ámerican Idol" or the golf course.

3. On the "history" front, just a teeny anecdote. I recently saw The Killing Fields with a Dane who was quite impressive for her age, her bosom was exceeded possibly only by her mind---a powerful combination for some heterosexualists among us. Huguenot ancestry, well-versed in biology, yet interested in journalism etc. First time she saw this film. I, of course, was prepared to be something of a "guide," having been in Saigon at the time that the NY Times'Sidney Schanberg was in Phnom Penh as the Khmer Rouge came to town. An episode early on is about the tragic mistake made by U.S. B-52's, wiping out a wedding party in the ferry crossing town of Neak Luong (a town I go through by land.) I was ready to "ïnstruct" this very lively gal on the incident, Schanberg's getting the scoop, giving the U.S. another massive black eye and laurels to the NY Times etc etc. And what happened? She already seemed to know all about it! She knew already! How, Sweetheart, how? You said you never saw this DVD? How in the hail....? Her reply: In high school. They learned all about it in high school.

Oh, my God! Just when I was ready to taunt her about her lax semi-decadent attitude toward the coming Eurabia, I realize that her counterparts in the "less decadent" U.S.---most of them--can't even find Cambodia on a map, let alone demonstrate an understanding of the Neak Luong Incident! High-school? How about the ones in U.S. colleges today, majoring in drum studies, or the Philosophy of Single Parenting?

Fourthly, Bon Voyage again!