Tough-minded liberalism erupts...again
With Bush firmly ensconced in the Whitehouse, warrior liberals attack leftward
In the three-plus years since 911, a powerful strain of thinking that demands genuflection before the altar of American military force has held sway amongst establishment liberals. Now writers including Peter Beinhart of The New Republic have called for "a fighting faith" in a new liberalism after the defeat of John Kerry. He means military flailing against terrorism, not fighting for the working person, health care, or some quaint idea like that.
Suddenly losing sight of the Anybody But Bush (ABB) theory of the 2004 election, these "Tough-Minded Liberals" (TMLs) now are left with their favorite sport -- attack Nader, Chomsky, and anyone else holding anti-war views. Roots in this struggle to destroy anti-imperialism, non-violent resistance to war, and radical pacifism reach back to post-WWII Democratic-Party-based anti-communism. Nowadays, the target includes the Deaniacs and Kucinichites who offered in varying measures alternatives to Democratic business-as-usual.
Go here for a link to the Beinhart article.
This all has set off a minor wave, with many bloggers weighing in. I'd love to put up a huge post myself, as I have a lot to say about this. For example, I'd like to explain why I subscribe to the Chomskian heresies that both the Kosovo war and Afghan war were illegal, immoral, wrong, destructive, and did pretty much nothing but harm both to the people that were bombed and to America's own future. But I can't take the time now.
Instead I'll defer to some fine rebuttals to the general outlook of the TMLs.
The first I'll mention goes back a year, but it's one of the best. Following a provocation by Michael Tomasky, then freshly minted as American Prospect chief, Mark Hand at Press Action wrote in October 2003,
The anger against the likes of Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal has been building among the liberal missionaries since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Out of this anger emerged the tough-minded liberals who now feel they must loosen their chains in order to confront their enemies on the left....The whole thing is well worth the read.
Another showdown is brewing for 2004. In his American Prospect essay, Tomasky lobs a grenade toward his enemies on the left. "Nader is obviously out to kill the Democrats", he writes. The collateral damage, to regular citizens whose lives are directly affected by which party is in power, is not his concern. He has long since quit caring about that. It's time a Democrat killed back....
Yesterday, Steve Gilliard had a good post on "Vichy Democrats". Check it out. I dislike Gilliard's constant axe grinding against Counterpunch and Pacifica (exactly the people who are at once the movement counter and target of the Vichy Democrats, or TMLs), but the value of what he offers outweighs this flaw.
Finally, Neiwert takes on the TMLs on their own terms. He reminds us that we have homegrown terror threats! I don't like the civil liberties implications of some things he says, but this dispassionate piece is quite interesting nonetheless.
