Dont get it twisted, in terms of the progressive silence on the new Cold War. For nearly a century, commentators have closely associated liberalism with progressivism. For instance, in a 1931 piece in The New Republic, Edmund Wilson identifies the latter as that which which has generally become known as liberalism to contemporaries. Liberal philosophy also contains what its supporters would consider a benevolent nationalism, that is, a system to both export self-determination to indigenous peoples and produce abundance at home. This abundance would be spread out benignly enough, thanks to an American spirit strong enough to compel Capitalism to restrain itself. Of necessity, then, the liberal makes the moral assumption of an underlying harmony of interests, in which, in the phrase of C. Wright Mills, greed and ruthlessness are reconciled with justice and progress.
On the other hand, journalist Gerard Colby-Zilgalso identifying progressivism with corporate liberalismdefines the first as an instrument of conservatism, in the sense that it is the rationalization of the old order to meet the needs of the new monopolistic order. This radical view presupposes a psychological derivation of the idea of progress in terms of political ideology, as in Karl Polanyi: Hopethe vision of perfectibilitywas distilled out of the nightmare of population and wage laws, and was embodied in a concept of progress so inspiring that it appeared to justify the vast and painful dislocations to come. This interpretation locates a cynicism at the heart of the modern liberal project, a dark twin to its much-vaunted idealism, and would therefore read the original progressive rhetoric for empire as textbook delusions of grandeur. These delusions would be leveraged to crush indigenous initiatives toward self-sufficiency around the world while hiding behind platitudes of support for the self-determination of all peoples.
Consider that the archetypal elements of American Third World thuggery emerge fully formedlike Athena from the head of Zeusin the period 1898-1901, between the dust-up to the Spanish-American War and the defeat of the Filipino insurrection:
* The inevitably debunked pretext for a declaration of war
* American dismissal of natives capacity for self-governance
* Hints of treason against dissenters over American war dead
* The rhetoric of disinterested dedication to the regeneration of humanity
This last is suddenly flipped into barbaric atrocities once met with native resistance, which presumably does not feel the need to be regenerated. Thus, resonating across a whole century is the U.S. Senate Investigating Committee on the Philippiness conclusion on Aug 29, 1902 that the destruction of Filipino life during the war has been so frightful that it cannot be explained as the result of ordinary civilized warfare. Let us find other explanations, then.
The unexamined gargoyles that lay between what Henry Cabot Lodge called the world-redeeming work of our imperial race and his anticipation of a vast future trade and wealth and power through Chinas illimitable markets, lead us off the psychological grid, and here, rusticating, lurk those primordial American delusions of grandeur. Sen. Albert Beveridge, in an iconic speech on the Senate floor in 1900, reveals the basis for the expansionists rhetoric of historical mission:
It is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation. He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction. He has made us adepts at government that we may administer government among savage peoples. He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America.
The delusions of grandeur at the root of the progressive campaign for an overseas empire presume an unquestioned morality of war which, of necessity, refuses to acknowledge a legitimate basis for dissent; a built-in, hermetically-sealed intolerance prefiguring the paranoia that would drive the moral repugnance of both the war hysteria and the Red Scare a generation later, and the Cold War beyond. In his speech, Beveridge draws the association, with subtle misdirection, between dissent and treason: The Filipinos do not understand free speech, he begins, explaining that when the anti- expansionist critique was revealed to the natives, their takeaway was that our President is in the minority or he would not permit what appears to them such treasonable [emphasis added] criticism.
The presumptionand, eventually, the paranoiaof a conspiracy lurking behind dissent, sinister and beholden to alien interests, is mere psychological projection. What is it that supporters of the wars of empire cant bear to hear? At the heart of the civilizing mission lies the necessity for the dispossession of others, a job made easier through the psychological mechanism of dehumanization. A grotesque distortion of the humanity of others. Those seeking to unmask the hypocrisy behind the platitudes mustanother necessitybe simply unhung traitors, as TR referred to the anti-imperialists of his day.
The disproportionate revenge meted out against Filipinos in the Balangiga Massacre of 1901, in which Gen. Jacoby Smith declared that he would accept no prisoners, like the gay moral imbecility of indiscriminate napalming of Koreans later documented by I.F. Stone, and, most famously, the atrocities at My Lai, for which, as Noam Chomsky reports, charges were dismissed on the grounds that this was merely a normal operation in which a village was destroyed and its population murderedthese supposedly rogue, yet persistent, atrocities suggest an inscrutable linkage between hypocrisy and slaughter.
Even before the outbreak of the First World War, the Nationalist Progressives at the New Republic viewed war as a regenerative crusade, and put indecisiveness or pacifism down to an abject moral failure, writes Randolph Bourne. Historian Jackson Lears observes that they considered the conflagration to be a great lab for social engineering; the ultimate marriage of management and morality. As he concludes, War permitted the realization of the management dream: an administrative state that would supervise and cooperate with Big Business.
Since World War I, modern liberals have displayed a natural ability to transpose universal moral ideals onto arguments that align unquestioningly with the war aims of the American empire. In 1917 Bourne remarks that these youngish war liberals acquiesced so naturally that it seemed as if the war and these men had been waiting for each other. In fact, they carried themselves with conspicuous unease when outside the patina of powerEdmund Wilson remarks that in the extreme illiberalism of the 1920s liberals felt increasingly conscious that no one was paying any attention to them.
Bourne was the first critic to note the moral squishiness of modern liberals. He perceived in real time the well-appointed critical abilities of liberals like Herbert Croly at TNR and eminent philosopher John Dewey vaporize in the face of the rising War Hysteria. Bournes disenchantment with the eminent liberals of his day crystallized into radical misgivings about the warp-speed mobilization of the American war machine not least because he was documenting the freshly-sprouted tentacles of the modern surveillance state.
A generation later TNR exhibited no hesitation whatever in differentiating between the airborne terror of the Allies and the Germans, its editors glibly announcing that the robot bomb [used by the Nazis to terrorize Britain] is far more savage than our saturation bombing of German cities. And according to historian Richard Pells, in The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age, already by World War II the liberals at TNR were prepared to inflate even the most questionable operator [like Chiang Kai-shek] into a visionary leader as long as he attached himself to the Allies.
Subsequent wars, like those in Korea and Vietnam, contained important motifs directly related to the ambiguity between Americas moral conceits and her actual material ambitions. The liberal establishment was instrumental in developing, shaping, presenting and defending these war policies and somehow their cynicism and ambiguity managed to go over for a few generations as cold-blooded expertise.
The maintenance of tension was a prime objective of Trumans foreign policy, writes I.F. Stone, in The Hidden History of the Korean War. The peace talks were regarded by these leaders as a kind of diabolic plot against rearmament. The Establishment dreaded the consequences that peace would have on the economy, namely shutting off its inflationary narcotic. Essentially Truman wished to perpetuate a climate of fear in order to maintain rearmament and thus full employment by a pose of brinksmanship that would nevertheless try, as Stone describes it, to halt at measures short of [nuclear] war.
Stone reveals another aspect of the presidents indecision: Just as Truman opposed war but wasnt quite sure he wanted peace, so while crusading for democracy he wasnt quite sure he wanted to take the risk of permitting free elections if peace came. The palpable fear that the communists would win the elections led Truman to support the program of a man he ought to have despised, Syngman Rhee. This plan was based upon a naked gerrymandering that would have allowed the Southern regime to supervise the election, bringing the North under its jurisdiction. Subsequently, U.S. unwillingness to tolerate free elections would become widely recognized, infamously in Vietnam and literally all across Latin America.
When OnContact host Chris Hedges interviewed Professor of International Law Richard Falk regarding his experience with the power elite in the early days of the Vietnam War, Falk recalls that since it was important to the liberal sensibility of the day to reconcile foreign policy with international law, it became necessary for policymakers to stretch and manipulate its interpretation rather than to acknowledge that their geopolitical strategies transcended law. Dr. Falk goes on to comment that it was customary among his liberal Ivy League colleagues to sell their souls to centers of power, and he emphasizes their inability to resist being useful in these circles by remarking that they were waiting for the phone to ring.
***
In 1957, I.F. Stone castigated American liberals for having abdicated their responsibility in dealing with military spending. A report by liberals in response to Eisenhowers proposed budget had treated the Pentagon as a sacred cow and produced statistics arguing that real military spending as a percentage of total national production had fallen by 31 percent. The report concluded by asking, wink-wink, whether we are risking our lives by these slashes. Stone concludes: It is a melancholy day for American liberalism when its leading spokesmen act as a sounding board for the military budget makers. Yet there they were. Today, we recognize the penchant of liberals to give more to presidents for defense budgets than they actually request as a ritual de lo habitual.
See the rest here:
Liberalism and the Morality of War - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch
- Have the Liberal Arts Gone Conservative? - The New Yorker - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Letters to the Editor: 'I see myself in Katie Britt' what liberal critics missed in the senator's response - Los Angeles Times - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Even when it criticizes Israel, the liberal world is not against us - opinion - The Jerusalem Post - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Former Trump Aide Alyssa Farah Griffin Becomes a Liberal Favorite - The New York Times - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Renowned author, liberal arts proponent to deliver annual Lester Lectures - Mercer University - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- NYU to Host Zaheer Ali at the Annual Liberal Studies Student Research ColloquiumApril 5 - NYU - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Power to the Neighborhoods!: New York City Growth Politics, Neighborhood Liberalism, and the Origins of the ... - Joint Center for Housing Studies - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Canada's Conservatives back NDP-Liberal anti-scab legislation that undermines the right to strike - WSWS - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- The Surprising Left-Right Alliance That Wants More Apartments in Suburbs - The New York Times - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- PARKER: Clarence Thomas, liberal racism and the ongoing denigration of Black conservatives - Kankakee Daily Journal - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Liberal Media Scream: Hollywoods freaks over Trump - Washington Examiner - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Why liberals failed in the fight against antisemitism - JNS.org - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Liberal Renew manifesto sneak peek and bits from Bucharest congress - EURACTIV - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Katie Britt calls on liberal media 'to pay attention' to border - 1819 News - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Liberal truck wash cited $171k for OSHA violations - KSN-TV - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Over 30,000 Killed in Gaza, but Even Israel's 'Liberal Left' Says: That's War - Opinion - Haaretz - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Liberal Man Injured in Beaver County Accident - KSCB News.net - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- What is the Market's View on China Liberal Education Holdings Ltd (CLEU) Stock's Price and Volume Trends Monday? - InvestorsObserver - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- German liberals send defence expert into tripartite EU election leadership team - EURACTIV - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Ramaswamy warns liberal justices 'buying political latitude' with 9-0 ruling as more Trump cases lie ahead - Fox News - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- How much of this is propelled by white liberal guilt from executives?: Gutfeld - Fox News - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Liberals and the Libel of Christian Nationalism - The Imaginative Conservative - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Liberal Arts & Science Academy - Austin extends home winning streak to seven - MaxPreps - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Liberal Racism and the Denigration of Black Conservatives - Daily Signal - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- Watchdog group exposes radical, liberal ideology of school-based health centers - The Lion - March 12th, 2024 [March 12th, 2024]
- What happens when a liberal learns her family owned slaves? - Leader & Times - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Is it Liberal Arts, Without the Arts? - Xavier Newswire - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Quebec Liberal Party would be more popular with Denis Coderre at the helm: poll - Montreal Gazette - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Maine's Liberal Members of Congress Stand by Biden After Disastrous, Confused Press Conference - The Maine Wire - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Liberal Media Scream: Kristen Welker likes to lecture Republicans, too - Washington Examiner - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Australia's only Liberal government lives on - for now - Yahoo News Australia - February 11th, 2024 [February 11th, 2024]
- Liberal institutions are the threat to liberal institutions Claudine Gay is warning about - Washington Examiner - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Elon Musk, the "free speech absolutist" kicks liberal journalists off Twitter - Daily Kos - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Liberal Arts and studies in humanities under attack on college campuses - The Community Word - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Liberal candidate for federal byelection planned to run for Conservatives last year - National Post - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Bill Barton: 'The Liberal by the Bay' - Redheaded Blackbelt - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- OPINION | Female-dominated liberal arts imperative in male-dominated tech world - Tulane Hullabaloo - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Dean of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts job with Tarleton State University | 37572379 - The Chronicle of Higher Education - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Laughing Stock: 'A liberal agenda' may not be what you think - Tucson Weekly - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Justin Trudeau plays the Trump card - POLITICO - POLITICO - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Norman Lear, Producer Of TV's 'All In The Family' And Influential Liberal Advocate, Dies At 101 - Newstalk 750 - 103.7 ... - KFQD - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Kremlin Taps Liberal Businessman to Oppose Putin in 2024 Election Report - The Moscow Times - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Norman Lear, producer of TV's 'All in the Family' and influential liberal advocate, has died at 101 - WV News - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- MoveOn Carries Out Layoffs as Liberal Groups Struggle to Raise Money - The New York Times - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Norman Lear, producer of TV's 'All in the Family' and influential liberal advocate, has died at 101 - El Paso Inc. - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- UW System President suggests universities with high numbers of low income students should shift away from liberal arts - Wisconsin Examiner - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Norman Lear, producer of TV's 'All in the Family' and influential liberal advocate, has died at 101 - The Caledonian-Record - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Israels representative in New York resigned to protest Netanyahu. Now hes got some tough words for liberal New York Jews. - Forward - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- Neal Milner: Watch That Swinging Door, Liberals, Lest It Hit You On The Way Out - Honolulu Civil Beat - December 7th, 2023 [December 7th, 2023]
- The Liberal Answer to Cancel Culture - Manhattan Institute - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Study: Liberal US priests facing 'progressive' extinction - The Pillar - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Liberal Jewish U.S. Groups Are Walking an Oh-So-Thin Tightrope - The New Republic - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Why a liberal arts degree is often a ticket to career success - USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Open Forum: In their time, founding fathers were liberal - The Winchester Star - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Liberals announce National Campaign Committee Co-Chairs - Liberal Party of Canada - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- UT College of Liberal Arts hosts panel about Senate Bill 17 - The Daily Texan - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Liberal Arts student uses platform to educate others on the ... - Pennsylvania State University - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Stanford celebrates 50 years of Structured Liberal Education ... - Stanford University News - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Brookline homes: One wealthy liberal town reckons with its past - The Boston Globe - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- The Value of a Liberal Arts Degree: Whats the Return on Investment? - The New York Times - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- California Police Say Investigation Ongoing into Death of Liberal Pro ... - Crime Report - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Liberal Arts, IST student scores sports technology internship with ... - Pennsylvania State University - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- And the award for the worst Liberal Party leader goes to... - The New Daily - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Street fights over prayer offer liberal Israelis a chance to define a Judaism they can believe in - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Unmasking Hinduphobic Cartoons: The Liberal Media's Double Standard - The Jaipur Dialogues - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- UC presents lecture on liberal arts featuring Michael W. Twitty - University of Cincinnati - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- ISU makes progress on liberal arts cuts through incentivized ... - The Gazette - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Investing in the future of the liberal arts | Binghamton News - Binghamton - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Challenges to Liberal Democracy on Global Scale Is Topic of 2023 ... - University of Idaho - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Liberal Democrats edge ahead of Labour on charging, with free ... - Disability News Service - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- Kerry Washington Creates $1 Million Earl and Valerie Washington ... - GW Today - September 29th, 2023 [September 29th, 2023]
- LILLEY: Justice Rouleau may have old Liberal Party ties but he's not Justin Trudeau's uncle or related at all - Toronto Sun - February 20th, 2023 [February 20th, 2023]
- Brian Lilley: Justice Rouleau may have old Liberal Party ties but he's not Justin Trudeau's uncle or related at all - The Province - February 20th, 2023 [February 20th, 2023]
- force.com - November 27th, 2022 [November 27th, 2022]
- Liberal Party SA - November 25th, 2022 [November 25th, 2022]
- Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From ... - November 25th, 2022 [November 25th, 2022]
- Ex-VP Hamid Ansari's 'Challenges to a liberal polity' book review: The politics of being Indian - The New Indian Express - November 7th, 2022 [November 7th, 2022]
- English | Liberal Arts | UT - Austin - November 5th, 2022 [November 5th, 2022]
- Liberal values are absolute - The Tribune India - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Fixing another liberal tax burden - The Hill - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]