Thursday, August 31, 2006

"Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby" (Dana Milbank)

As I mentioned in a recent post, ever since Mearsheimer & Walt published their shoddy and outrageous tract denouncing the "Israel Lobby" and its alleged stranglehold on US foreign policy back in March 2006, they have largely refused to discuss or debate or even be interviewed about their arguments in any forum where they might be heard by English-speaking listeners who could offer informed criticism and debate. (For some reminders and details of what their "Israel Lobby" manifesto was about, see here and here and here.)

A few days ago, they did agree to talk about their arguments publicly, but in a 'safe' forum--not an academic or scholarly setting or one where they might have to face critical questions, but at an August 28 propaganda event sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.)

Before leaving for an interview with al-Jazeera, Mearsheimer accepted a button proclaiming "Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby."

"I like it," he said, beaming.

Unfortunately for them, one of the people in the audience was Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, who is not a formal expert on international relations or the Middle East (come to think of it, Mearsheimer & Walt aren't Middle East experts either)), but who is a knowledgeable and acute political journalist who knows something about US politics. His conclusion was that their arguments sounded careless and often unconvincing at best--and sometimes involved dodgy use of alleged evidence--and also that Mearsheimer & Walt don't always give the impression of having such a solid grasp of the workings of the US government as they might like to believe.

"Whatever motivated the performance," Milbank observes, "the result wasn't exactly scholarly." The vignette quoted above comes at the end of Milbank's Washington Post article about the event. The rest of his assessment can be read below.

--Jeff Weintraub

P.S. If you want to buy the "Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby" button, "it turns out that there is an entire line of Walt-Mearsheimer/Israel Lobby merchandise, courtesy of Carol Moore--the very same person who gave Mearsheimer his button at the D.C. event." (Thanks to Stuart Elliott for the tip.)
====================
Washington Post
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 (Page A2)
Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby

It was quite a boner.

University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer was in town yesterday to elaborate on his view that American Jewish groups are responsible for the war in Iraq, the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and many other bad things. As evidence, he cited the influence pro-Israel groups have on "John Boner, the House majority leader."

Actually, Professor, it's "BAY-ner." But Mearsheimer quickly dispensed with Boehner (R-Ohio) and moved on to Jewish groups' nefarious sway over Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who Mearsheimer called " Von Hollen."

Such gaffes would be trivial -- if Mearsheimer weren't claiming to be an authority on Washington and how power is wielded here. But Mearsheimer, with co-author Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School, set off a furious debate this spring when they argued that "the Israel lobby" is exerting undue influence in Washington; opponents called them anti-Semitic.

Yesterday, at the invitation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), they held a forum at the National Press Club to expand on their allegations about the Israel lobby. Blurring the line between academics and activism, they accepted a button proclaiming "Fight the Israel Lobby" and won cheers from the Muslim group for their denunciation of Israel and its friends in the United States.

Whatever motivated the performance, the result wasn't exactly scholarly.

Walt singled out two Jews who worked at the Pentagon for their pro-Israel views. "People like Paul Wolfowitz or Doug Feith . . . advocate policies they think are good for Israel and the United States alike," he said. "We don't think there's anything wrong with that, but we also don't think there's anything wrong for others to point out that these individuals do have attachments that shape how they think about the Middle East."

"Attachments" sounds much better than "dual loyalties." But why single out Wolfowitz and Feith and not their non-Jewish boss, Donald Rumsfeld?

"I could have mentioned non-Jewish people like John Bolton," Walt allowed when the question was put to him.

Picking up on the "attachments" lingo, Mearsheimer did mention Bolton but cited two Jews, Elliott Abrams and David Wurmser, as "the two most influential advisers on Middle East affairs in the White House. Both, he said, are " fervent supporters of Israel." Never mind that others in the White House, such as national security adviser Stephen Hadley, Vice President Cheney and President Bush, have been just as fervent despite the lack of "attachments."

This line of argument could be considered a precarious one for two blue-eyed men with Germanic surnames. And, indeed, Walt seemed defensive about the charges of anti-Semitism. He cautioned that the Israel lobby "is not a cabal," that it is "not synonymous with American Jews" and that "there is nothing improper or illegitimate about its activities."

But Mearsheimer made no such distinctions as he used "Jewish activists," "major Jewish organizations" and the "Israel lobby" interchangeably. Clenching the lectern so tightly his knuckles whitened, Mearsheimer accused Israel of using the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah as a convenient excuse to attack Lebanon.

"Israel had been planning to strike at Hezbollah for months," he asserted. "Key Israelis had briefed the administration about their intentions."

A questioner asked if he had any "hard evidence" for this accusation. Mearsheimer cited the "public record" and "Israeli civilian strategists," then repeated the allegation that Israel was seeking "a cover for launching this offensive."

As evidence that the American public does not agree with the Israel lobby, the political scientist cited a USA Today-Gallup poll showing that 38 percent of Americans disapproved of Israel's military campaign. He neglected to mention that 50 percent approved, and that Americans blamed Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Lebanon far more than Israel for the conflict.

Walt kicked off the session with a warning that we face a "threat from terrorism because we have been so closely tied to Israel." This produced chuckles in the audience. Walt allowed that this was "not the only reason" for our problems, but he did blame Israel supporters for the hands-off position the Bush administration took during the Lebanon fighting.

"The answer is the political influence of the Israel lobby," Walt said. He also hypothesized that if not for the Israel lobby, the Iraq war "would have been much less likely."

Up next, Mearsheimer ridiculed U.S. leaders for "falling all over themselves to express support for Israel." And he drew groans from the crowd when he spoke about a lawmaker who, after questioning Israel's policy, "met with various representatives from major Jewish organizations, who explained to him the basic facts of life in American politics."

When the two professors finished, they were besieged by autograph- and photo-seekers and Arab television correspondents. Walt could be heard telling one that if an American criticizes Israel, "it might have some economic consequences for your business."

Before leaving for an interview with al-Jazeera, Mearsheimer accepted a button proclaiming "Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby."

"I like it," he said, beaming.

Lebanese ambivalence - A week with Fuad Siniora

Did the recent conflict lead any significant sectors of Lebanese politics and public opinion to begin to wake up to reality? A week ago, that seemed half-possible, and some interesting and unprecedented statements by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora sounded as though they might be signs of underlying shifts in Lebanese opinion. (See Lebanese Prime Minister - Hezbollah can't do it again & We should make peace with Israel.) When Siniora didn't immediately retract his statements or claim that he had been misquoted, I was intrigued. A week later, Siniora seems to have backed down and repudiated his more daring suggestions about negotiating peace between Lebanon and Israel.

I indicated at the beginning that I was skeptical about whether Siniora's (apparent) initiative would lead to anything concrete--and at first I was skeptical about whether he really had even said what he was quoted as saying--so I am not startled by his (apparent) retreat. Nevertheless, even when talk is just talk, it may nevertheless be significant.

Siniora's equivocations are probably one sign of the extent to which important tendencies in Lebanese politics, and many individual Lebanese, are deeply conflicted about these issues. I still suspect that Siniora's earlier statements do tell us something about the inner feelings of a lot of Lebanese who don't want to go through something like this again, and who may be starting to face the reality--however tentatively and ambivalently, and however painful the idea might be--that the only way to avoid it is to (finally) end the formal state of war with Israel. Whether or not such feelings and second thoughts lead anywhere is another matter. For the moment, that seems doubtful.

The Israeli government did respond to Siniora's earlier statements--which is a good sign, given how hopeless the Israelis usually are at public diplomacy and public relations in general. Perhaps, as Ami Isseroff suggested to me a week ago, it should have done so even more loudly and dramatically (e.g., have the Foreign Minister offer to fly to Beirut, or something?). That wouldn't have accomplished anything concrete in the short run, and might even have gotten Siniora blown up by a car bomb, but at least it might have attracted some international attention to what he was saying and broken through some of the standard clichés. As it is, as soon as Olmert did respond to Siniora's suggestion, that seems to have killed the initiative (such as it was).

(For a more recent follow-by Ami Isseroff, see his post on Lebanon - Last to make peace with Israel.)

All this is not entirely (or even mostly) the fault of the Lebanese. They face too many external pressures, and have too weak and fragmented a political system, to be able to take the lead in acting sensibly and constructively in terms of making peace. One also has to admit, though, that many figures in Lebanese political and intellectual life who would like to see more constructive solutions nevertheless continue to think and talk in self-defeating and self-indulgently delusional ways that help to intensity their own problems--a point that Walid Jumblatt, of all people, has been making more and more explicitly lately. As long as the other Arabs are willing to fight Israel down the the last Lebanese, and as long as much of Lebanese public opinion colludes with them by endorsing or semi-endorsing the thoroughly fictitious Lebanese "grievances" against Israel used as pretexts for open-ended conflict by groups like Hezbollah ... they're stuck.

We all know that in politics a week can be a long time. The following items by the Beirut-based journalist Michael Totten capture some of the possible implications of this particular scenario--with Totten's August 17 item providing some useful background. As Totten (correctly) concludes the first and last of these items:
Saad Hariri [leader of the anti-Syrian political bloc and son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri --JW] enables Hezbollah and echoes Hassan Nasrallah by declaring a Lebanese “victory” against Israel. Enough “victories” like that one, Saad, and Lebanon will turn into Gaza.
and:
Even so, there are many in Lebanon who really don’t want peace with Israel, who really do prefer the state of perpetual war. They are the ones who enable and allow pressure from the Syrian-Iranian axis. Now is the time for Lebanon’s other friends, its real friends, to ask Dr. Phil’s favorite question: How’s that working for ya?
--Jeff Weintraub

=========================
Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal
Thursday, August 17, 2006

Gearing Up for the Next Disaster

[BEIRUT] Beirut Daily Star opinion page editor Michael Young says Hassan Nasrallah sounds “ominously” like a president now while Bashar Assad effectively calls for a coup d’etat against the elected Lebanese government. Syria, predictably, feels emboldened by Hezbollah’s “victory” and says it will create its own version of Hezbollah. The Damascus-based terrorist army will be trained by the original.

Saad Hariri [leader of the anti-Syrian political bloc and son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri --JW] enables Hezbollah and echoes Hassan Nasrallah by declaring a Lebanese “victory” against Israel. Enough “victories” like that one, Saad, and Lebanon will turn into Gaza.

====================
Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Latest from Fouad Siniora


I wanted to make sure you know, since I posted this over at Andrew Sullivan's place, that Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora is now talking about a peace treaty with Israel. See here and here. This is huge, really, even if it's only talk and even if Hezbollah can unilaterally jam up the deal by shooting more rockets. No Lebanese politician would have dared to say such a thing two months ago with a Syrian gun pointed at the right side of his head, a Hezbollah gun pointed at the left side, and the reactionary mentality that prevails in certain Lebanese quarters.

=========================
Michael Totten (guest-posting on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish)
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Fouad Seniora: Lebanon Will be the Last Country to Make Peace

by Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV -- You never know what, really, to make of official rhetoric coming out of Beirut unless you’re inside Lebanon and know what the “street” thinks. The Lebanese government often makes public statements that are designed strictly for public consumption in foreign capitals, primarily Washington, Damascus, Paris, Tehran, Cairo, and Riyadh.

Last week Prime Minister Fouad Seniora said he was interested in peace talks with Israel. Today he said Lebanon will be the last country to make peace with Israel.

Who is the real Fouad Seniora? I’m in Tel Aviv right now, not in Beirut, so it’s hard to read the geopolitical tea leaves and entrails. I suspect Seniora got himself in a bit of, um, trouble in certain quarters and felt the need to “clarify” his position. Lebanon’s government is only slightly stronger than the governments of Somalia and Colombia, and is under constant pressure from foreigners to join the West, the pan-Arabists, and the jihad.

Even so, there are many in Lebanon who really don’t want peace with Israel, who really do prefer the state of perpetual war. They are the ones who enable and allow pressure from the Syrian-Iranian axis. Now is the time for Lebanon’s other friends, its real friends, to ask Dr. Phil’s favorite question: How’s that working for ya?

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

My BBC Persian Service interview on Mearsheimer & Walt's "Israel Lobby" manifesto

For any of you who might be interested (and who understand Farsi) ...

Back in July I got asked to do two telephone interviews with the BBC Persian Service (which broadcasts in Farsi to Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Iranian diaspora in Europe & North America). Obviously, the interviews themselves were in English (a little over 20 minutes apiece), but snippets of them, translated into Farsi, were picked out to be woven into each broadcast report.

These were my first contacts with the BBC Persian Service, and I was happy to participate in the interviews--one reason being that I have generally warm feelings toward Iran and Iranians (with the obvious exception of the lunatics who currently happen to be ruling the country).

Here's the outcome of my first interview. This report dealt with the question of the "Israel Lobby" and its influence in American politics, particularly with reference to controversy surrounding Mearsheimer & Walt's notorious March 2006 paper on the subject, in which they claimed that the Israel Lobby (sometimes broadly, sometimes narrowly conceived) has a stranglehold not only on US policy concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict, but on all US policy in the Middle East. (For some reminders & details of what all this was about, see here and here and here.)

One of the interesting features of this report was that the BBC journalist who did it was able to get an interview with Mearsheimer & Walt themselves, who until very recently have refused to publicly debate or be interviewed about their arguments. I suppose they figured that a Persian-language broadcast would be 'safe', since there was little danger of its being heard by English-speaking listeners who might be in a position to offer informed criticism and debate. (More recently, they did talk about this publicly in another 'safe' forum, an August 28 propaganda event sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.) The other two people interviewed for this BBC radio program appear to be the Middle East expert Gary Sick and myself. Here is the link:

ايپکلابی اسرائیل در آمریکا
لابی طرفدار اسرائيل چگونه عمل می کند؟

Alas, my own participation in this report is largely a closed book to me, so I can only guess what the Persian-speaking audience took away from my remarks. As I said, the BBC people picked out only a few snippets from the interview, and I get the impression that they may have focused a bit too exclusively on my points about the influence of oil-related concerns on US foreign policy--which were true enough, I think, but which could easily have coveyed a misleading overall picture when taken out of context, especially for a Middle Eastern audience. But I can only guess, since I am almost entirely quoted in Farsi translation (and who knows what those translations have me saying?).

So if any of you are fortunate enough to be fluent in Farsi, and if you feel at all curious to know what Mearsheimer & Walt, Sick, and I have to say on these subjects, this broadcast is for you. Since I am also curious to know what I was quoted as saying here (and, of course, I say this not only with curiosity but with some trepidation as well), any information on this score from you Farsi speakers out there would be appreciated.

Yours for international understanding,
Jeff Weintraub

P.S. For the relevant BBC Persian Service web-page, with an accompanying article in (Farsi) text, see here.

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http://www.bbcpersian.com

21:16 گرينويچ - چهارشنبه 23 اوت 2006 - 01 شهریور 1385

داريوش همايی
بخش فارسی بی بی سی - واشنگتن

لابی اسرائيل چگونه عمل می کند و متشکل از چه نهاديی است؟

آمریکا سالیانه سه میلیارد دلار کمک بلاعوض به اسرئیل می دهد. اگر این مبلغ را بین مردم اسرائیل تقسیم می کردند هر سال به هر اسرائیلی پانصد دلار می رسید.

به علاوه، آمریکا متحد اصلی اسرائیل در عرصه بین المللی است و در جنگ اخیر هم حاضر نشد تقاضا برای فشار بر اسرائیل در جهت آتش بس سریع در لبنان را بپذیرد.

ايپک
برخی صاحب نظران می گويند شماری از اعضای متنفذ کنگره هم بخشی از لابی اسرائیل هستن

بعضی تحلیل گران می گویند علت نزدیکی اسرائیل و آمریکا را باید در قدرتمندی لابی یا مجموعه محافل طرفدار اسرائیل در آمریکا جستجو کرد. نظری که توسط دولت های اسرائیل و آمریکا رد می شود.

اما لابی اسرائیل چگونه عمل می کند و متشکل از چه نهادهایی ست؟ در مطالبی که در باره لابی طرفدار اسرائیل در آمریکا نوشته شده نام بعضی نهادها مرتب تکرار می شود.


بعضی از آن ها به نحو آشکار سیاسی هستند، مثل "سازمان صهیونیست های آمریکا".
بعضی دانشگاهی و تحقیقاتی هستند، مثل "انستیتوی سیاست خاور نزدیک در واشنگتن" که شماری از تحلیلگران می گویند در لابی اسرائیل نقش نظری ایفا می کند.

در مقالات مختلف از جمله نوشته مایکل مسینگ از نویسندگان نیویورک تایمز از نام شماری از اعضای متنفذ کنگره هم به عنوان بخشی از لابی اسرائیل نام برده می شود.

اما گفته می شود سازمانی که نقش هماهنگی این نهادها و افراد مختلف را بازی می کند و نامش با لابی اسرائیل همخوان شده است ایپک یا "کمیته آمریکایی روابط عمومی اسرائیل" است.

ایپک روی سایت اینترنتی خود می گوید هدفش استحکام بخشیدن هر چه بیشتر به روابط آمریکا و اسرائیل است و صدهزار نفر از اعضایش را آمریکایی هایی تشکیل می دهند که به حساسیت خطراتی که متوجه اسرائیل است آگاهند.

گری سیک، عضو پیشین شورای امنیت ملی آمریکا، در مورد ایپک می گوید: "ایپک یک سازمان بسیار بزرگ، متشکل، و موثری است که اغلب نظرات اسرائیلی ها را منعکس می کند اما در بعضی موارد حتی از سیاستی که خود اسرائیل در پیش گرفته افراطی تر بوده است. ایپک به طور اخص روی کنگره و دولت آمریکا متمرکز است. این سازمان ترتیب سفر نمایندگان کنگره آمریکا به اسرائیل و تورهای آن ها در اسرائیل را می دهد، در تماس مستمر با دفاتر اعضای کنگره است و برای افراد خاصی که نامزد نمایندگی در کنگره شده اند فعالیت انتخاباتی می کند، یا علیه نامزد های خاصی فعالیت می کند. نتیجه این شده که بسیاری از نمایندگان در مجالس آمریکا فهمیده اند که مخالفت با ایپک ممکن است در دور بعدی انتخابات برایشان گران تمام شود. به این ترتیب شیوه های ایپک در حمایت از اسرائیل بسیار موفق بوده است."

استیون والت استاد دانشگاه هاروارد هم که مقاله اش در این باره بحث برانگیز شده می گوید تمهیدات ایپک بخصوص در ارتباط با نمایندگان مجالس آمریکا تاکنون بسیار موفق بوده است:

"اگر شما یک نماینده در کنگره آمریکا هستید و در زمینه مسائل مربوط به اسرائیل نظر خاصی ندارید، ترجیح می دهید زرنگی کنید و از اسرائیل حمایت کنید و وقتی کسی می آید از شما می خواهد به این یا آن مصوبه یا قطعنامه رای بدهید، این کار را بکنید. بخصوص که اگر این کار را نکنید ممکن است عواقب خطرناکی برایتان داشته باشد. اگر شما به عنوان کسی که از اسرائیل حمایت نمی کند مشهور شوید، ممکن است در انتخابات بعدی با دردسر مواجه شوید، مثلا ممکن است پول بیشتری به حساب رقیب انتخاباتی شما سرازیر شود. برای همین بود که ارنست هالینگز، سناتور پیشین، گفت که در مجالس آمریکا شما نمی توانید در قبال اسرائیل سیاستی متفاوت با سیاستی که ایپک به شما می دهد اتخاذ کنید."

اما آلن درشویتز از حقوقدانان مشهور آمریکا و استاد دانشگاه هاروارد با این نظر مخالف است. او می گوید مخالفان لابی اسرائیل در آمریکا سعی می کنند شیوه های این لابی را غیرقانونی جلوه دهند.

"این اظهارات بی پایه است. ایپک قانون را رعایت می کند و از همان شیوه هایی استفاده می کند که هر لابی دیگری استفاده می کند. سازمانی که برای بازنشسته ها در آمریکا فعالیت می کند یا انجمن معلمان آمریکا همین تمهیدات را به کار می گیرند، آن ها منافع اعضا و طرفداران خود را به طرق مختلف ارتقاء می دهند و با مخالفان خود مخالفت می کنند. این همان چیزی ست که باید در یک دمکراسی انجام بگیرد."

این اعضا و طرفداران ایپک که مورد اشاره آلن درشویتز هستند، چه کسانی اند؟ سازمان هایی که از سیاست های اسرائیل در آمریکا حمایت می کنند اغلب خود را یهودی یا متشکل از یهودیان معرفی می کنند.

اما جان مرشایمر استاد دانشگاه در شیکاگو معتقد است که بیشتر این چهره ها یا سازمان ها، غیرمذهبی هستند و حمایتشان از اسرائیل به دلایل غیرمذهبی است.

او به عنوان مثال از نومحافظه کاران در دستگاه دولتی آمریکا نام می برد: "در مجموع نو محافظه کاران افرادی غیرمذهبی هستند. تلاش های آن ها در حمایت از اسرائیل و هر چه بیشتر نزدیک کردن آمریکا و اسرائیل ربطی به دیدگاه های مذهبی ندارد."

استیون والت هم با این نظر موافق است. او می گوید در مقاله خود در این باره هیچگاه از عنوان لابی یهودی استفاده نکرده است چرا که در اغلب موارد آرا اکثریت یهودیان آمریکا با آرا لابی اسرائیل متفاوت است.

به عنوان مثال او می گوید: "یک نظرسنجی عمومی پیش از جنگ عراق مشخص کرد که به نسبت جمعیت عمومی آمریکا، در واقع حمایت از جنگ در میان یهودی های آمریکا کمتر است. حال آنکه لابی اسرائیل حامی جنگ عراق بود. به این ترتیب لابی اسرائیل نوعی ائتلاف است از مجموعه سازمان هایی که مواضعی اتخاذ می کنند که ممکن است از نظر اکثریت یهودی ها افراطی به نظر برسد."

در گزارش آینده که آخرین بخش از این سلسله است به نقش سازمان های مسیحی و کلیساهای آمریکا در لابی طرفدار اسرائیل خواهیم پرداخت.


توضیح:

گفته های جان مرشایمر و استیون والت از مصاحبه آنان با شبکه خبری سی اسپن وابسته به کنگره آمریکا برداشته شده است.

آدرس اینترنتی "کمیته آمریکایی روابط عمومی اسرائیل" موسوم به ایپک: www.aipac.org

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

End Genocide in Darfur (Sen. John Edwards)

Below is a petition circulated by Senator (and former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate) John Edwards. It asks for something concrete: "Urge President Bush to lead the effort to create a NATO force to stop the genocide in Darfur now."

For a similar call by Senators Barack Obama & Sam Brownback, see HERE. Members of the US Senate who are willing to take some initiative to try to end this atrocity need and deserve support. Please sign this petition. and forward it to others.

--Jeff Weintraub
====================

End Genocide in Darfur

Urge President Bush to lead the effort to create a NATO force to stop the genocide in Darfur now.

U.N. troops are on their way, but will take at least five more months to arrive in Darfur. NATO forces -- if the U.S. stepped up to moral leadership -- could end the conflict immediately.

[JW: Well, probably not immediately. And I'm afraid the Europeans need to show a little "moral leadership"--or just elementary moral decency--too, as Howard Dean eloquently pointed out as far back as 2004. But the involvement of NATO forces is almost certainly a crucial requirement for serious action to stop the Darfur genocide. To find out why, see HERE. To sign the petition, go HERE.]

Dear President Bush:

You said that genocide would not happen on your watch. Please make good on that promise and lead the effort to create a NATO force to stop the genocide in Darfur.

A militia group backed by the Sudanese government has slaughtered an estimated 400,000 people and driven 2.5 million people from their homes since 2003. U.N. troops are on their way, but will take five more months to arrive in Darfur. NATO forces -- if the U.S. stepped up to moral leadership -- could end the conflict immediately.

America's military is the finest fighting force in the world. The U.S. should apply its unique military assets -- our airlift capabilities, logistical support and intelligence operations -- to aid NATO peacekeeping in Darfur.

The time to act is now. Thank you.

Sincerely,

[your name]

Speak Out


[To sign the petition, go HERE --JW.]

Got an idea? We want to hear from you.
Paid for by One America Committee. Contributions to One America
Committee are not tax-deductible for federal income tax purposes.
One America Committee, 1001 G Street NW, Suite 400 West-B, Washington DC 20001
© 2006

Brad DeLong on the dangers of reading Marx

Another postscript to Marx & me (& Norman Geras).

My esteemed friend Brad DeLong, who read a lot of Marx & Marxism quite seriously in his youth on his way to becoming a social-democratic Democrat, prominent non-orthodox neo-classical economist of the Stiglitz/Krugman variety, broadly erudite intellectual, and influential left-of-center Alpha Blogger, had a different reaction from Norm's or mine. Immersing yourself in Marx at a young and impressionable age, Brad warns, means Introducing Serious, Permanent Bugs into Your Wetware. Why, he wonders, would anyone do that voluntarily?
Here we find Michael Fitzgerald, a man who has seriously misprogrammed substantial chunks of his frontal lobes by reading Karl Marx's Capital--something that, I am becoming convinced, should only be done by somebody with immunity to the mental virus--by a trained intellectual or social or economic historian, or by a trained neoclassical economist. [Etc., etc.]
--Jeff Weintraub

Lieberman cruising to victory?

Perhaps that's putting it too strongly, but right now it does look likely that Joe Lieberman will win re-election as Senator in the end, running as an independent. On balance, I think this would be a good thing.

I have my own reservations about Lieberman, mostly because he has often been too much in the pocket of big business. And I think to some extent he has himself to blame for his humiliating loss of the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont--not because he supported the 2003 Iraq war, which was correct, but because he's been an excessively uncritical cheerleader for the Bush administration, which has made a spectacular mess of things in Iraq and everywhere else. But for him to be knocked out by a candidate who favors simply abandoning Iraq to catastrophe--a position that I happen to believe is politically irresponsible and morally indefensible--would be another matter.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether this whole experience will lead Lieberman to take a more critical tone toward the Bush administration or whether it will push him closer to the Republicans since he needs Republican voters to get re-elected. At all events, the November election is still three months away, so at this point all this is a matter of tentative speculation.

On the other hand, Joseph Britt (guest-blogging on Eric Umansky's weblog) is more willing to make a flat prediction: "Lamont is Toast". Maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll see.

=> Britt also makes a larger point that perhaps should be obvious but is rarely heard. The Connecticut race has generally been discussed in terms of the Democrats' internal divisions and other problems. But it also highlights the pathetic shape that the Republicans seem to be in as the November elections loom--at least in Connecticut, and probably elsewhere as well.
Second, under ordinary circumstances a split in the Democratic Party, with two candidates running for in the general election, would represent a golden opportunity for the Republicans to pick up a Senate seat; a 51-48 split, which is what last week's primary produced, ought to be platinum.
And third, that either gold or platinum turn alike to dross when the White House and GOP Senatorial Committee together can't recruit any better Republican candidate than a nondescript state legislator with a gambling problem, now sitting at 4% in a leading state poll.
--Jeff Weintraub

[Update 10/5/2006: It appears that Britt may not have been exaggerating after all. A Reuters/Zogby poll shows Lieberman leading Lamont by an astounding 20%--53% to 33%. The Republican candidate seems to have pretty much disappeared from sight.]
====================
Joseph Britt (guest-posting on the weblog of Eric Umansky)
August 20, 2006
Lamont Is Toast

Talk about your anticlimax:
Ned Lamont, whose anti-war campaign rattled the political landscape with a victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary, is gaining voter support — but Lieberman still leads the race by double digits, a poll released Thursday shows...
Now, the latest poll shows Lieberman at 49 percent, Lamont at 38 percent and Schlesinger at 4 percent.
But Poll Director Douglas Schwartz stresses that those numbers only scratch the surface of how voters really feel about this race.
One potentially troublesome indicator for Lamont lies in voters' opinions of the candidates: Only 23 percent in the new survey had a favorable opinion of Lamont, while 28 percent had an unfavorable opinion and the rest were mixed. Meanwhile, 43 percent viewed Lieberman favorably and 28 percent viewed him unfavorably, with the rest mixed.
"Lamont needs to be concerned because he has actually negative favorability right now statewide," said Quinnipiac Poll Director Douglas Schwartz. "He's popular among Democrats, but he's not doing well among Republicans and independents."
"There is still time for Lamont to make this up," he said. "Lamont has to figure out a way to peel some of those soft supporters away from Lieberman."
Soft supporters, eh? Another way to put this is that Lamont needs to peel some of the Republicans and people who vote for candidates with familiar names away from the guy who has been Connecticut's Senator for the last eighteen years. Good luck.

The bottom line isn't complicated: Ned Lamont could win a three-man race. In a two-man race without a viable Republican candidate and with the White House nudging GOP voters toward Lieberman, his chances of getting elected are not much better than mine. And I live in Wisconsin.

For the White House this is great news, because Joe Lieberman has been very good about not saying mean things about the President or the war in Iraq. My own observations are, first, that on just about everything except those two doubtless crucial issues Lieberman has been a fairly conventional liberal Democrat (for which reason, incidentally, reported talk about Lieberman suffering some kind of reprisal from Senate Democrats should he win reelection is probably just that -- talk). Second, under ordinary circumstances a split in the Democratic Party, with two candidates running for in the general election, would represent a golden opportunity for the Republicans to pick up a Senate seat; a 51-48 split, which is what last week's primary produced, ought to be platinum.

And third, that either gold or platinum turn alike to dross when the White House and GOP Senatorial Committee together can't recruit any better Republican candidate than a nondescript state legislator with a gambling problem, now sitting at 4% in a leading state poll. In a year when any one race could end up determining partisan control of the Senate, I'd call that a major failing. It appears as if, when Lieberman finally wins, the White House will spin it instead as a major victory. As President Bush might say, what we have here is a difference...in...perspective.

August 20, 2006 at 01:06 AM |

Monday, August 28, 2006

Darfur - Last Chance or Final Solution?

Straight talk from Joseph Britt (in a guest-post on Eric Umansky's blog to which I was alerted by Brad DeLong). This cuts to the heart of the matter, so it should be read fully and carefully ...

... and then, as Britt suggests, read the important report on Saturday by the indispensable Eric Reeves from which he quotes, "Darfur: The Final Decision" (August 26), as well as Reeves's August 11 piece on "Darfur's downward spiral". As Reeves concludes his cogent and anguished analysis in "Darfur: The Final Decision":
If under these circumstances the international community is unwilling even to threaten non-consensual intervention to protect civilians and humanitarians in Darfur, then Khartoum may rightly, in full throat, exult in its savage triumph. It is a triumph that has been long in coming; one that might have been stopped with sufficient will at any point; but one that is now terribly close to culmination.
--Jeff Weintraub
====================
Joseph Britt (on the weblog of Eric Umansky)
August 27, 2006
NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

Darfur's nightmare was always bound to end in some way.

It could end in a peace agreement honored by all sides in the conflict that began in early 2003, or through the intervention of a strong peacekeeping force from the civilized countries. Or, it could end with the civilian population of Darfur being mostly wiped out, either killed or starved or driven into permanent exile. The United States gave the first possibility its best shot last year, and failed; it is now calling, more than a little ineffectually, for the second. But the third is more likely at this point.

Eric Reeves explains why, per usual for him at great length and in great detail. His account nonetheless deserves to be read in full:
All evidence suggests that the international community is prepared to acquiesce before the military onslaught Khartoum’s National Islamic Front is preparing for North Darfur, an offensive that will target both rebel military forces and non-Arab civilians who do not support the deeply flawed “Darfur Peace Agreement” (May 5, 2006, Abuja, Nigeria). Fighting in North Darfur over the past two months has increasingly involved collaboration between the forces of Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction leader Minni Minawi (a member of the Zaghawa tribe and the only Darfuri signatory to the Abuja agreement) and Khartoum’s regular military. This collaboration has produced attacks that have focused primarily on Fur villages. As Refugees International President Kenneth Bacon reports in a July 21, 2006 letter to President Bush (following an eleven-day assessment mission to Darfur):

“Minawi’s forces are attacking Fur villages in North Darfur. According to the United Nations, some of these attacks show the same signs of genocidal intent demonstrated by the government-back Janjaweed militia---the targeted killing of young men.”
Who decides that this should continue? The government in Khartoum does. How can one government, ruling a weak and deeply divided country, wield such authority? Because it is not isolated and left to face the international community (where human rights are concerned "the international community" essentially means the North American, European, and Pacific democracies plus a scattered few other countries) alone. China has evidently placed its UN Security Council veto at Khartoum's disposal should a resolution calling for UN peacekeepers in Darfur come to a vote, but China would not so exert itself about a conflict in Africa for the sake of just one government there.

The fact is that Sudan, a member of the Arab League, has the unquestioning support of the League and of every Arab government for anything it chooses to do in Darfur. The same governments and Arab media that wail piteously about the suffering of Arabs at the hands of Westerners and Israelis are fine with genocide sponsored by an Arab government.

That is the root of the matter; that is why Khartoum is able to call on China to support its refusal to allow a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur, though UN peacekeepers already monitor the peace agreement between Sudan's government and former rebels in the south of the country. The government responsible for genocide knows, as Beijing does as well, that in standing up for murdering large numbers of Africans it will be seen in Arab countries as standing up for Arab dignity. [JW: On this crucial point, see here and here and here and here.]

Arab voices outside of government seem to know it too, something that drew comment as long as two years ago in one Arab publication. A few months ago an al-Arabiya editor suggested in a Washington Post forum that pressure from Khartoum was responsible for the paucity of Darfur coverage in Arab media. The whole situation has grim implications for the Mideast democratization strategy so beloved of President Bush -- how does it help us or anyone else if people tolerant of genocide get to vote in free elections?

That aside, though, now would be a good time to decide if we mean to let Sudan complete its final solution to the Darfur problem without doing anything at all. The least that ought to be done is to push the Anglo-American resolution calling for a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur to a vote in the Security Council. If China and the Arab governments are going to come out in support of mass murder and gang rape as weapons of warfare they might as well be forced to do so in the plain light of day.

After the Rwandan genocide of 1994 any number of people in Europe and America promised each other "never again." Well, "again" has happened at least three times since; a government-imposed famine in North Korea in the late 1990s and the maelstrom that has enveloped Congo for the last several years were the first two. Darfur is the third. It is possible to find fault with American and Western policy toward this massive ongoing human disaster in several respects, but perhaps the most important is that so little effort has been made to isolate a government recklessly pursuing a vicious policy that benefits no one else.

Too much time has passed for there to be anything like a good resolution to the situation in Darfur, but as Eric Reeves demonstrates we know what will happen soon if nothing is done. Perhaps a more forceful Western effort in the Security Council will accomplish no more than putting genocide's enablers on record. That's not much, but it's not nothing, and we'll never know if more is possible if the effort is not made.

JEB [Joseph Britt]
August 27, 2006 at 12:06 PM |

SAVE DARFUR Rally in New York City - September 17, 2006






Can you imagine facing the threat of torture, starvation, rape, and uprooting from your homes, family, and livelihood every day?

For many men, women, and children in Darfur, those are not just idle threats but a daily reality.

As if that weren't enough, the genocide in Darfur has nearly disappeared from the headlines and, alarmingly, has fallen off the agenda of many world leaders.

That is why we are counting on you to join us in New York City at the "SAVE DARFUR NOW: Voices to Stop Genocide" rally and concert.

We want to help connect you with others coming from your area.

Click here to let us know where you're coming from and if you're interested in traveling with others from your area.

In addition, we are seeking local transportation coordinators to help organize people who are interested in traveling together to New York City. We will provide transportation coordinators lists of those interested in traveling together, but rely on you to help organize carpools or buses to travel to New York.

Unfortunately, the Save Darfur Coalition itself is unable to provide buses for groups traveling to New York City but we are working to help connect people on the ground.

Thank you,
David Rubenstein
Save Darfur Coalition

P.S. If you are unable to make it to New York City, there will be other events held around the country and the world on September 17. Please check our web site at www.savedarfur.org for more information.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Marx & me (& Norman Geras)

A postscript to my recent item on Francis Wheen's "Biography" of Marx's Das Kapital. I included some personal reflectionshalf disclaimer and half testimonialabout my own intellectual relationship with Marx.

My remarks (which are reproduced down below) generated a number of interesting responses, analytical and confessional (or both).

I'm gratified to see that Norman Geras, whose association with Marxas a long-time Marxist and prominent scholar of Marxgoes back further and has been more intimate than mine, picked up my reflections (on Normblog) and endorsed them quite graciously and generously.
Sounds good - indeed, give or take a qualification here and there, like a model attitude.
I'm pleased to hear Norm feels that way, and I appreciate his saying so. (In return, I will take the opportunity to recommend one brief statement of Norman Geras's own take on these matters, Marx out of 10.)

=>  My esteemed friend Brad DeLong, who read a lot of Marx & Marxism quite seriously in his youth on his way to becoming a social-democratic Democrat, prominent non-orthodox neo-classical economist of the Stiglitz/Krugman variety, broadly erudite intellectual, and influential left-of-center Alpha Blogger, had a different reaction. Immersing yourself in Marx at a young and impressionable age, Brad warns, means Introducing Serious, Permanent Bugs into Your Wetware. Why, he wonders, would anyone do that voluntarily?
Here we find Michael Fitzgerald, a man who has seriously misprogrammed substantial chunks of his frontal lobes by reading Karl Marx's Capital--something that, I am becoming convinced, should only be done by somebody with immunity to the mental virus--by a trained intellectual or social or economic historian, or by a trained neoclassical economist. [Etc., etc.]
Jeff Weintraub

=========================
Norman Geras (Normblog)
August 27, 2006
Marx and him

Jeff Weintraub on his relationship to the old boy:

----------------------------------------
Maybe it would be appropriate to add a personal note, half disclaimer and half testimonial. Unlike many people who went through the 1960s and 1970s as undergraduates and/or graduate students, I've never been a Marxist, have never felt tempted to identify myself as a Marxist, and never even went through a phase of being marxisant. Of the major 19th-century social and political theorists, Durkheim and Weber, and then increasingly Tocqueville, struck me from the start as more exciting and convincing (in their different ways). On many crucial points where they differed from Marx, I found them more right, more profound, and more likely to be pointing us in the right directions. I don't say this either to apologize or to compliment myself, just to explain something about the role that Marx did and didn't play in my intellectual development. For very many people over the past century and more, a temporary or permanent conversion to Marx and/or Marxism has been crucial to their theoretical education and their intellectual & political formation. It so happens that for me, it wasn't.

At the same time, of course, it was impossible not to recognize Marx as an enormously important and powerful thinker, with remarkable depth and scope, from whom I would like to believe I have learned a great deal about the world. In fact, my appreciation of Marx has only increased over the years - a process in no way diminished by my growing awareness of the limitations, errors, weaknesses, and even dangers of his thought and influence. I have to confess that, rightly or wrongly, I still find it genuinely hard to see how anyone who hasn't seriously wrestled with Marx at some point can consider himself or herself a fully educated person.

The major complication was that for decades Marx and his thought were surrounded by a cult. At every level from students to professors and in between there seemed to be hordes of academic Marxists, semi-Marxists, neo-Marxists, Marxologists and the like (as well as non-academic Marxist scholars and intellectuals [...]), most of whom tended to assume that Marxism of one form or another had an exclusive lock on reality, and that no idea could be taken seriously until it had first been 'translated', however clumsily or implausibly, into Marxist (or pseudo-Marxist) idiom. I must admit that I sometimes found all this a bit irritating and distracting - and occasionally comic. And out in the larger world, of course, Marxism remained a major world religion with millions of followers. But then, sometime in the early 1990s, these hordes of academic [and] intellectual Marxists suddenly became almost extinct. Unfortunately, to a considerable extent they have been replaced by (or turned into) new hordes of "post-modernists," anti-political neo-Kantian legalists, and atomistic-utilitarian "rational choice" ideologues - so that, frankly, I find myself missing all those Marxists more and more, given the alternatives.

Be that as it may, now that the trendy and and quasi-theological auras surrounding Marx have fallen away so sharply, I now find it easier and more necessary to say unequivocally about Marx what Marx himself said about Hegel in his Preface to the Second Edition of Capital:
I criticized the mystificatory side of the Hegelian dialectic [JW: in my case, the Marxist dialectic] nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still in fashion. But just when I was working at the first volume of Capital, the ill-humoured, arrogant and mediocre epigones who now talk large in educated German circles began to take pleasure in treating Hegel in the same way as the good Moses Mendelssohn treated Spinoza in Lessing's time, namely as a 'dead dog'. I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker...
And I, for my part, feel proud to acknowledge the same for Marx - as a teacher and in some ways an inspiration, though never as a guru or a totemic object.
----------------------------------------

Sounds good - indeed, give or take a qualification here and there, like a model attitude.

Posted by Norm at 12:08 PM |

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Offending the right people (for the right reasons) - I agree with Noam Chomsky

They say that even the devil can quote Scripture--or, if you prefer to look at it from the other direction, even the devil sometimes says things that are true and important, however suspect his intentions. So, in an open-minded and ecumenical spirit, leaving open the question here of whether I'm the one playing the devil's role or the one quoting the devil, let me agree strongly with something that Noam Chomsky said in an interview in 1995:
"If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you're doing something wrong."
=> That sounds right to me, as long as you not only offend the right people but also offend them for the right reasons.

Applying these criteria ... the following are a few of my recent items that offended especially significant numbers of people and/or offended some people especially strongly.

(But let me emphasize that not all of these were bad people--which is what Chomsky mostly has in mind here. Some of them were, indeed, people whose basic perspectives I believe are factually delusional, logically fallacious, and/or morally pernicious, so I certainly hoped to offend them, and their angry reactions were a sign that I had done something right. But in more cases they were intelligent people of good will, people with whose basic principles and sentiments I feel considerable sympathy--precisely the sort of people in whom I hoped my interventions might provoke reflection, rethinking, and perhaps even second thoughts.)

So it seems that these items hit a nerve in usefully thought-provoking ways. Those of you who haven't read them might want to consider having a look.

"Mass Murder: What Causes it? Can It be Stopped?" - Some afterthoughts on the ASA forum (8/15/2006)
"The outrage of so many outraged people outrages me" - André Glucksmann
(8/18/2006)
Lebanon/Israel - "Proportionality," war crimes, and international law (Doni Remba)
(7/21/2006)
What happened to the Genocide Convention?
(7/10/2006)
Ku Klux Klan & neo-Nazis rally against Iraq war
(7/6/2006)
The Chomsky problem (Peter Beaumont & Brad DeLong)
(6/23/2006)
Boycotts, blacklists, and anti-Zionist obsessions - Two thought experiments (6/13/2006)
"HUGE News" | Rule of Law - 5, Bush/Cheney - 3 (7/1/2006)

Yours for reality-based & morally serious discourse,
Jeff Weintraub

Truth in labeling from the "peace" movement?

No, people are rarely that honest in politics. The full-disclosure portion of this "Stop the War" placard is a parody addition. But it's right on target, of course.

(This comes from Britain, but it could just as easily have come from anywhere else in western Europe or North America. The only element missing here is that at "peace" demonstrations in Europe one would expect to find more "anti-Zionist" demonization of Israel mixed in, shading off at times into straightforwardly anti-semitic imagery.)

--Jeff Weintraub
------------------------------




















[From snedds.co.uk]
[Courtesy The Man Who Fell Asleep]

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Francis Wheen's "Biography" of Marx's Das Kapital

Intelligently reviewed and appreciated by Michael Fitzpatrick in spiked, with an evocative historical-ethnographic account of what the experience of seriously reading Marx's Capital was like.

Fitzpatrick also nicely reminds us of one of Capital's pervasive organizing themes, which Marx formulated this way in his earlier pamphlet on Value, Price, and Profit (quoted here from a slightly different translation):
"This seems paradox and contrary to everyday observation. It is also paradox that the earth moves round the sun, and that water consists of two highly inflammable gases. Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things."
=> Maybe it would be appropriate to add a personal note, half disclaimer and half testimonial. Unlike many people who went through the 1960s and 1970s as undergraduates and/or graduate students, I've never been a Marxist, have never felt tempted to identify myself as a Marxist, and never even went through a phase of being marxisant. Of the major 19th-century social and political theorists, Durkheim and Weber, and then increasingly Tocqueville, struck me from the start as more exciting and convincing (in their different ways). On many crucial points where they differed from Marx, I found them more right, more profound, and more likely to be pointing us in the right directions. I don't say this either to apologize or to compliment myself, just to explain something about the role that Marx did and didn't play in my intellectual development. For very many people over the past century and more, a temporary or permanent conversion to Marx and/or Marxism has been crucial to their theoretical education and their intellectual & political formation. It so happens that for me, it wasn't

At the same time, of course, it was impossible not to recognize Marx as an enormously important and powerful thinker, with remarkable depth and scope, from whom I would like to believe I have learned a great deal about the world. In fact, my appreciation of Marx has only increased over the years--a process in no way diminished by my growing awareness of the limitations, errors, weaknesses, and even dangers of his thought and influence. I have to confess that, rightly or wrongly, I still find it genuinely hard to see how anyone who hasn't seriously wrestled with Marx at some point can consider himself or herself a fully educated person.

The major complication was that for decades Marx and his thought were surrounded by a cult. At every level from students to professors and in between there seemed to be hordes of academic Marxists, semi-Marxists, neo-Marxists, Marxologists and the like (as well as non-academic Marxist scholars and intellectuals, such as Perry Anderson for most of this period), most of whom tended to assume that Marxism of one form or another had an exclusive lock on reality, and that no idea could be taken seriously until it had first been 'translated', however clumsily or implausibly, into Marxist (or pseudo-Marxist) idiom. I must admit that I sometimes found all this a bit irritating and distracting--and occasionally comic. And out in the larger world, of course, Marxism remained a major world religion with millions of followers. But then, sometime in the early 1990s, these hordes of academic & intellectual Marxists suddenly became almost extinct. Unfortunately, to a considerable extent they have been replaced by (or turned into) new hordes of "post-modernists," anti-political neo-Kantian legalists, and atomistic-utilitarian "rational choice" ideologues--so that, frankly, I find myself missing all those Marxists more and more, given the alternatives.

Be that as it may, now that the trendy and and quasi-theological auras surrounding Marx have fallen away so sharply, I now find it easier and more necessary to say unequivocally about Marx what Marx himself said about Hegel in his Preface to the Second Edition of Capital:
I criticized the mystificatory side of the Hegelian dialectic [JW: in my case, the Marxist dialectic] nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still in fashion. But just when I was working at the first volume of Capital, the ill-humoured, arrogant and mediocre epigones who now talk large in educated German circles began to take pleasure in treating Hegel in the same way as the good Moses Mendelssohn treated Spinoza in Lessing's time, namely as a 'dead dog'. I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker [....]
And I, for my part, feel proud to acknowledge the same for Marx--as a teacher and in some ways an inspiration, though never as a guru or a totemic object.

--Jeff Weintraub
=========================
spiked
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Capital: 'There's nothing remotely like it'
Francis Wheen's 'biography' of Capital – part of the Books that Shook the World series – reminds us why Marx's classic is so unique.
Michael Fitzpatrick

Marx’s Das Kapital: A Biography, Francis Wheen, London: Atlantic (Books that Shook the World series), 2006.

I first read Capital when I was a student in the mid-Seventies. The onset of recession and an upsurge of trade union militancy after 30 years of postwar boom and political stability provoked a wave of interest in Marxism and the Marxist theory of capitalist crisis.

In his excellent ‘biography’ of Marx’s classic work (to which he gives its original German title), Francis Wheen, following his sympathetic ‘carbuncles and all’ biography of Marx, notes how the popularity of Marx’s Capital has fluctuated according to the cyclical rhythms of the capitalist economy. In periods of slump, in the 1870s and 1880s, and in the interwar years, ‘catastrophist’ interpretations of Marx’s work as a theory of the inevitability of capitalist collapse were in the ascendant. While those of a conservative disposition supported whatever measures seemed necessary to bolster the existing order, many radicals believed that they simply had to wait for capitalist breakdown to usher in a new order of society. By contrast, in periods of boom, in the decades before the First World War and after the Second, ‘harmonist’ theorists argued that events had refuted Marx’s gloomy prognosis. They claimed that the capitalist system had overcome its disintegrative trends through imperialist expansion and state intervention. Many socialists now abandoned the goals of revolution in favour of the pursuit of reforms within the existing system.

In Britain in the Seventies the emergence of inflation and unemployment rapidly exposed the political weakness of the labour movement and had a disorienting impact on the left. While catastrophists greeted every bankruptcy as the harbinger of revolution, harmonists insisted that the welfare state and military expenditure had stabilised the system and bought off the working class, necessitating the quest for a new agency of change. It was at this moment that I fell in with a small group of people who repudiated both these facile arguments and the philistine approach towards theory on which they were based. They recognised that, if we were to acquire a deeper grasp of the dynamics of capitalist society, instead of merely spouting Marxist slogans it was necessary to embark on a deeper study of Marx.

So we read Capital. When I say we read Capital, I mean we read Capital, in a group, out loud, line by line, paragraph by paragraph (at least in the early chapters), discussing and arguing over every page, through volumes one, two and three, even unto ‘Theories of Surplus Value’, sometimes referred to as ‘volume four’. In retrospect, this approach sounds rather like that of students of the Bible, the Talmud or the Koran, but this was not a process of rote-learning, rather one of active collective engagement with the most important attempt to capture the process of capitalist development in theory. I have never read any other book in this way, but, as Wheen observes, Capital is unique, there is ‘nothing remotely like it’: Capital is ‘entirely sui generis’. Numerous academic commentators have observed that reading Capital is not easy, but, as Marx observed, ‘beginnings are always difficult in all sciences’, and Capital above all offers an intensive introduction to Marx’s dialectical method. ‘I assume, of course’, Marx wrote to Engels, ‘a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself.’

In Capital, subtitled ‘a critical analysis of capitalist production’, Marx does not present a theory of capitalist crisis as such, but seeks to capture the process of reproduction of capitalist society in its totality. Capital analyses the dynamics of capitalist production and reveals the limitations of capitalism as a mode of production in its incapacity to develop consistently the productive potential of society and achieve social progress. Marx’s dialectical method aims to depict in a theoretical form the development of a social system which is simultaneously a process of producing the material needs of society and a process for ensuring the profitable expansion of value.

Capital begins, famously, with the commodity, ‘the simplest social form in which the product of labour in capitalist society presents itself’. Marx explores the twofold character of the commodity, as use-value and exchange-value, revealing in an elementary form the contradictory character of capitalist production. This contradictory character deepens with the development of the money form, discussed in the third chapter. The separation of economic processes into two phases – production and exchange – implies ‘the possibility, and no more than the possibility, of crises’. However, ‘the conversion of this mere possibility into reality is the result of a long series of relations’ that are the subject of the rest of the work, as it proceeds from the simplest and most fundamental concepts to more complex and developed categories, ascending from the abstract to the concrete.

For Marx, the distinctive feature of capitalism is the way in which the labour of society is allocated between different branches of production through the exchange of commodities as equivalents, as exchange values. The law of value operates in capitalist society as the only possible, albeit indirect, mechanism through which social labour can be distributed. Hence under capitalism the social character of labour appears as the objective character of the products of labour; social relations between people appear – and can only appear – as relations between things. Just as market relations conceal the operation of the law of value, the money form conceals the social character of labour and the social relations between producers. As a result, human beings are dominated by the products of their own labour, objects are endowed with supernatural qualities and money acquires divine power. Marx emphasises that the objective economic basis of this ‘fetishism of commodities’ meant that it could only be abolished through a fundamental reorganisation of society:

‘[T]he life process of material production does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan.’

Marx shows how the process of capital accumulation tends towards falling profitability expressed in periodic crises. However, contrary to the interpretations of many admirers as well as critics, Marx does not advance a mechanistic thesis of collapse or predict the inevitable downfall of capitalism. He recognises that crises are both an expression of declining profitability and a mechanism for restoring it. He identifies a series of counteracting tendencies to the dominant disintegrative dynamic of capitalism. His analysis supports neither fatalists eagerly anticipating the fall of capital nor those who believe that revolutionary will is in itself sufficient to bring the system to an end. The key factor in the fate of capitalism was the role of class struggle, as the subjective bearer of change in the objective conditions given by the tendency towards breakdown.

Reading Capital provided an invaluable methodological training as we engaged in the campaigns of the late Seventies and the Eighties, seeking to give organisational expression to an anti-capitalist outlook. Having gone back to Marx, we were able to move forward to attempt to grasp new developments in capitalist society through discovering the mediating links between appearances and the inner movement of capital, in the process developing the basic elements of an anti-capitalist programme.

By the late Eighties, however, the dialectic of subject and object had swung decisively in favour of capitalist stabilisation. The historic defeat of the working-class movement that emerged in the 1840s, when Marx began work on Capital, became complete, inaugurating an unprecedented period of capitalist hegemony. Now that Capital had apparently lost its subversive potential, it once again became popular, even trendy. In that brief moment of capitalist triumphalism in the early Nineties, Marx was celebrated as the prophet of globalisation and patron of turbo-charged capitalism. Yet before long, Marx’s catastrophist themes were once again in vogue, as gloomy promoters of apocalyptic scenarios endorsed Marx’s warnings of the environmentally destructive and socially corrosive consequences of capitalist enterprise. Yet Marx anticipated the transcendence of the capitalist order through the quest for the higher development of the productive potential of society. He never envisaged an era of decadence in which the capitalist system would curtail its own development in the pursuit of fashionable nostrums such as ‘sustainability’ or ‘environmental protection’.

Francis Wheen provides a useful introduction to Capital, setting this great work in both its historical context and in the context of the life of its author. He writes perceptively on ‘Capital as literature’, noting its elements of the Gothic novel, Victorian melodrama, black farce, Greek tragedy and satirical utopia. He observes that Capital is ‘saturated with irony’, and that its metaphorical style, its ‘abstruse explanations and whimsical tomfoolery’, reflect Marx’s attempt ‘to do justice to the mysterious, topsy-turvy logic of capitalism’. Capital itself offers appearances that are paradoxical, mystifying, contrary to everyday observation. As Marx observed in an earlier pamphlet:

‘It is also a paradox that the earth moves around the sun, and that water consists of two inflammable gases. Scientific truth is always a paradox if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things.’
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Michael Fitzpatrick is a doctor and author based in London. Buy Marx’s Das Kapital: A Biography by Francis Wheen from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA).

Lebanese Prime Minister - Hezbollah can't do it again & We should make peace with Israel

Is this for real?

According to the present conventional wisdom, all Lebanese are now enthusiastic gung-ho supporters of Hezbollah who applaud it for having dragged the country into an unnecessary and destructive war with Israel. Could be. On the other hand, some Lebanese analysts (including Michael Young of the Beirut Daily Star) have suggested that this picture is a little oversimplified (and that not all Lebanese are quite so irrationally self-destructive). (See also this roundup of morning-after reactions assembled by Norman Geras.)

So are there any signs of sober second thoughts in Lebanon the morning after (or the morning after the morning after, as Tom Friedman puts it)? Maybe.

Michael Totten, who lives in & writes from Beirut, draws attention to a very intriguing interview with the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fuad Siniora, in an Italian newspaper. If this report of the interview is correct, Siniora's discussion included two potentially startling statements. First:
The Lebanese PM also told the newspaper he does not expect Hizbullah to drag Lebanon into a war again.
"I don't believe it can happen again," he said. "I don't think Hizbullah is in the same position where it was before the war, and won't be able to repeat what it did. It learned the lesson from what happened."
This may be no more than wishful thinking on Siniora's part, but it probably expresses a recognition shared by many (perhaps even most) Lebanese that Hezbollah deserves to be blamed, not applauded, for pushing the country into disaster.

However, the second statement attributed to Siniora carries an even bigger jolt:
Turning his attention to Israel, Siniora said he hoped a peace deal between the two countries can be reached.
A peace treaty with Lebanon is something that Israel has been trying to get for over a half-century. If Lebanon were really willing and able to agree to "a peace deal between the two countries," this would be an astounding act of political sanity with enormous benefits all around..

Back in the real world, we shouldn't start getting too excited. There are all sorts of reasons why this almost certainly will not happen any time soon, even if Lebanese political figures like Siniora genuinely desire it.. And, frankly, I can't help feeling skeptical about whether Siniora really said what he is quoted as having said here. (I would have to see the original interview to know whether this is a misleading rendering of some slightly different statement. That's not entirely implausible, since western journalists are usually tempted to exaggerate the alleged "moderation" of Arab political figures.) Furthermore, as we know from long experience, saying these things to Europeans means a lot less than saying them to a domestic audience in Arabic.

Nevertheless, if this report even vaguely approximates what Siniora actually said, then Michael Totten's assessment strikes me as on-target.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora said that Hezbollah will not start a war with Israel again.
"I don't believe it can happen again," he said. "I don't think Hizbullah is in the same position where it was before the war, and won't be able to repeat what it did. It learned the lesson from what happened."
I have a hard time believing this really is true. Syria and Iran are already resupplying Hezbollah for the next round.
But it’s telling that Seniora says he wants a peace treaty with Israel. No Lebanese politician could possibly have said anything like this two months ago without all but begging to be car-bombed on the way to work in the morning.
Straw in the wind or will-of-the-wisp? I guess we'll see.

--Jeff Weintraub

P.S. Judging from other recent experiences, if this interview with Siniora provokes strong criticism from Hezbollah back home in Lebanon, Siniora will probably disavow these statements and claim he was misquoted by the Italian journalist. But that won't necessarily mean that he didn't actually say these things.

P.P.S. Incidentally, if Siniora is indeed expressing some wider feelings of post-traumatic realism and political sanity in Lebanese public opinion, he is not the only one. Another prominent Lebanese journalist with the Daily Star, Rami Khouri, has been writing pieces throughout the crisis that often showed a pronounced loss of contact with reality and exemplified the kind of world-view shared by many figures in the Lebanese political, cultural, and intellectual elites that helped to bring on this explosion. A lot of those elements are still present in Khouri's piece for Wednesday's Daily Star, "
Beirut's future: Paris or Mogadishu?". However, if one wades through the usual swamp of sloganeering, political delusions, disingenuously misleading formulations, and obligatory ritual Israel-bashing, one will find some outcroppings of political sobriety and emerging willingness to face reality (combined, appropriately, with the sense of alarm and anxiety captured in the title of his piece).

For example, if we ignore the standard propaganda clichés that surround them, the following reflections strike me as correct and important.
Tens of thousands of people walking through the rubble exhibited pride and achievement at having withstood the attacks, and at seeing Hizbullah fight Israel to a draw.
But I also had mixed feelings [....] I wondered: What if the war had not happened and Hizbullah had given $10,000 to each of the estimated 15,000 eligible families for some other use - to buy computer systems, encyclopedias, and poetry books, and to send thousands of deserving students to university? [....]
Public opinion in the Arab world, and among governments in Syria, Iran and a few other places, is prepared to fight Israel to the death - as long as that battle is waged in Lebanon. [....] These are uninviting prospects; we deserve better options.
This was a war that Hizbullah could wage only one time, to prove its capabilities and political will, which it did rather emphatically. If it happens again, though, Lebanon will be destroyed [....] Hizbullah would not be destroyed, and it will regroup and fight again, perhaps with more destructive power that penetrates deeper into Israel. But Lebanon would become a wasteland, a biblical desolation.
It will be interesting to see how far Khouri is willing to draw the conclusions of his own insights--something which the rest of his piece suggests he has only begun to do--and, even more important, whether people like Khouri are willing and able to help push Lebanese politics in a more constructive direction. I'm afraid it would be foolish to get too optimistic about the prospects that any of this will happen. But with the right kinds of external assistance and support, who knows ... ?

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Sociologists on Mass Murder (Butterflies & Wheels)

After all the years I've spent "fighting fashionable nonsense" and otherwise trying to cut through the bullshit that obscures so many important issues--intellectual, moral, and political--I notice that for the first time something of mine has been picked up and posted on the website Butterflies&Wheels.com - Fighting Fashionable Nonsense:
Sociologists on Mass Murder
Jeff Weintraub wonders how a panel can address mass murder without mentioning Darfur.
Date filed: 17-08-2006
Since I think that Butterflies&Wheels is a generally useful, intelligent, and intellectually stimulating website (despite some occasional quibbles), I am gratified. As for those of you who have never encountered Butterflies&Wheels ... have a look at it.

Yours for sociology (and I mean that seriously),
Jeff Weintraub

Coffee is a health drink - Science marches on (NYTimes)

A year ago, in a post entitled "Coffee is good for you (scientific proof)", I said:
Once again, my faith in science is vindicated--that is, if you wait long enough, it will eventually come up with the result you want. People are always trying to claim that coffee is bad for you. On the contrary, it seems that drinking coffee can help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease. (You should still eat fruits and vegetables, too. No problem.)
(I am now waiting for science to discover that a high-cholesterol diet is good for you, and that skim milk makes your teeth fall out.)
Long live science.
Well, science marches on. Read all about it below. For example:
Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver. [....] Coffee contains antioxidants that help control the cell damage that can contribute to the development of the disease [Type 2 diabetes]. It is also a source of chlorogenic acid, which has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations. [....] Some studies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. [....] In another analysis, published in July in the same journal, researchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges. [....] These same anti-inflammatory properties may explain why coffee appears to decrease the risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis and liver cancer. [....] This effect was first observed in 1992. Recent studies, published in June in The Archives of Internal Medicine, confirmed the finding [Etc. ...]
I was especially pleased to see that these studies also debunk all those killjoy maxims about doing everything in moderation.
Larger quantities of coffee seem to be especially helpful in diabetes prevention.
Just as I always suspected.

Of course, some scientists still seem determined to show, despite everything, that coffee is somehow bad for us:
Still, some experts believe that coffee drinking, and particularly caffeine consumption, can have negative health consequences. A study published in January in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, for example, suggests that the amount of caffeine in two cups of coffee significantly decreases blood flow to the heart, particularly during exercise at high altitude.
Yeah, yeah ... Really, is that the best you can do? Pathetic. I'll just avoid jogging in Bolivia.

At all events, even if we coffee drinkers aren't going to live forever, we can stop worrying about enjoying coffee while we're still around. Here's a parting message from "Rob van Dam, a Harvard scientist and the lead author of The Journal of the American Medical Association review":
“I wouldn’t advise people to increase their consumption of coffee in order to lower their risk of disease,” Dr. van Dam said, “but the evidence is that for most people without specific conditions, coffee is not detrimental to health. If people enjoy drinking it, it’s comforting to know that they don’t have to be afraid of negative health effects.”
I'll drink to that. --Jeff Weintraub
====================
New York Times
August 17, 2006
Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits
By Nicholas Bakalar

Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.

Among them is a systematic review of studies published last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that habitual coffee consumption was consistently associated with a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Exactly why is not known, but the authors offered several explanations.

Coffee contains antioxidants that help control the cell damage that can contribute to the development of the disease. It is also a source of chlorogenic acid, which has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations.

Caffeine, perhaps coffee’s most famous component, seems to have little to do with it; studies that looked at decaffeinated coffee alone found the same degree of risk reduction.

Larger quantities of coffee seem to be especially helpful in diabetes prevention. In a report that combined statistical data from many studies, researchers found that people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day had a 28 percent reduced risk compared with people who drank two or fewer. Those who drank more than six had a 35 percent risk reduction.

Some studies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. Using data on more than 27,000 women ages 55 to 69 in the Iowa Women’s Health Study who were followed for 15 years, Norwegian researchers found that women who drank one to three cups a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 percent compared with those drinking no coffee at all.

But as the quantity increased, the benefit decreased. At more than six cups a day, the risk was not significantly reduced. Still, after controlling for age, smoking and alcohol consumption, women who drank one to five cups a day — caffeinated or decaffeinated — reduced their risk of death from all causes during the study by 15 to 19 percent compared with those who drank none.

The findings, which appeared in May in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggest that antioxidants in coffee may dampen inflammation, reducing the risk of disorders related to it, like cardiovascular disease. Several compounds in coffee may contribute to its antioxidant capacity, including phenols, volatile aroma compounds and oxazoles that are efficiently absorbed.

In another analysis, published in July in the same journal, researchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges.

“We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.,” said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.

These same anti-inflammatory properties may explain why coffee appears to decrease the risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis and liver cancer. This effect was first observed in 1992. Recent studies,published in June in The Archives of Internal Medicine, confirmed the finding.

Still, some experts believe that coffee drinking, and particularly caffeine consumption, can have negative health consequences. A study published in January in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, for example, suggests that the amount of caffeine in two cups of coffee significantly decreases blood flow to the heart, particularly during exercise at high altitude.

Rob van Dam, a Harvard scientist and the lead author of The Journal of the American Medical Association review, acknowledged that caffeine could increase blood pressure and slightly increase levels of the amino acid homocysteine, possibly raising the risk for heart disease.

“I wouldn’t advise people to increase their consumption of coffee in order to lower their risk of disease,” Dr. van Dam said, “but the evidence is that for most people without specific conditions, coffee is not detrimental to health. If people enjoy drinking it, it’s comforting to know that they don’t have to be afraid of negative health effects.”