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This hypocrite, whose holy look and dress
Seem Heaven-born, whose heart is nothing less : He preaches, prays, and sings for worldly wealth, Till old sly Mammon takes it all by stealth, And leaves him naked on a dreary shore, Where cant and nonsense draw in fools no more. -- Timothy Bobbin, The Human Passions Delineated (1773) |
Al Schumann earlier posted an LA Times article explaining how Obama is going to continue kidnaping people and shipping them off to secret dungeons in friendly dictatorships (a practice known by the somewhat sanitized term "rendition").
Al's normally aquiline eye seems to have overlooked what was, for me, the best part of the story:
The decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human rights groups. Leaders of such organizations attribute that to a sense that nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.In the meantime -- which may be quite a long time -- the tender-hearted Mr Malinowski can live with the dungeons, the torture, etc. All in the name of "combatting terrorism." Malinowski would probably deploy the word "realistic" if you taxed him about this."Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured -- but that designing that system is going to take some time."
Malinowski, like many liberal-schmiberals, has put himself in the position of serving two masters, a thing we are warned against on good authority. One of his masters is the rather nebulous but earnest ideal of "human rights". But the other, it would appear, is the Empire and its mendacious categories: "fighting terrorism", for example, is what a truthful person would call "suppressing resistance." And once you allow the validity of the Empire's claims and categories, you've given the game away.
This little item came along, happily, as I was pondering the dissociation of consciousness that my incurable-Obamaphile friends seem to be practicing. They won't actually defend any of the things I enjoy mentioning to them -- rocket attacks on Pakistani villages, for example. But there's a look on their faces that suggests I'm somehow being pedantic, or silly, or rude.
This is why I'm sometimes tempted to argue that people like Obama are actually worse than people like Bush, at least for the moral character of liberals. Back when Bush was kidnapping and torturing pro imperio, my liberal friends were quite willing to deplore these things. But now that Obie is doing it, it's sorta tacky to bring it up in good society, and there seems to be a tacit agreement that it would be asking far too much to demand that he stop it.
In practice, my friends' love of Obama has reconciled them to activities that they would otherwise reprehend.
This can't be comfortable for them. So they seem to have had recourse to what old Dr Freud referred to as a splitting of consciousness. The split components then pursue independent and indeed contradictory courses of action. One side tends the flame of high humanitarian moral standards -- by contributing, for example, to groups like Human Rights Watch -- and the other side kicks back in a cozy, well-lit, tastefully-appointed, book-lined living room of the mind with a big portrait of the Kidnapper-In-Chief above the mantelpiece.
Neither component wants to be reminded of the other's existence, and so when one is tactless enough to bring them into contact, they agree -- temporarily -- in exasperation at one's ham-fisted gaucherie.
It will be interesting to see how long they can keep this up.
Comments (16)
I'm tempted to take your argument further and say that not only are liberals dyed in the wool authoritarian followers, they independently and diligently create high quality justifications for remaining that way. They are actually "better" at it than conservatives: they've struggled with doubt and overcome. They're at peace, enough so that they can generously condescend to the poor benighted refuseniks.
Posted by Al Schumann | February 2, 2009 12:58 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 12:58
Ah, yes, happy days are here again, as the old "democratic" party mashers used to carol. There's nothing quite like going to a middle aged keg party and finding out how many of one's erstwhile allies, who were aflame when the Bushites indulged in butchery, are now smothering the coals for the Obamite honeymooney looney drag. And it am definitely a drag.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | February 2, 2009 2:10 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 14:10
"designed"
As Gordon Gekko might have observed, WASPs love animals, and liberals love "designs."
It's the perfect gestalt for staying happily bowing and kicking on the Adornian bicycle.
"Our leader has designed it!"
Thought bubble: "(And just wait til He summons me to help with the plans!)"
Posted by Michael Dawson | February 2, 2009 2:35 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 14:35
"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
Yes, like with Pinochet. "Rendition" can mean handing an international criminal over to a legitimate court of law to face a well-deserved trial. Those who chant, as I have, "Bush to the Hague!" should wonder how we're going to get Bush to the Hague. The answer is rendition. Dungeons and torture are optional. I think this is what Malinowski was getting at.
Posted by SteveB | February 2, 2009 3:15 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 15:15
do we now see a second liberal split ???
like the now lammented
harry vs henry kampf ???
in 46-48 the kold war liberals emerged
as the robust anti totalitarian
jacob to the one worldy hairy red Esaus
from the one tent liberalism of the fdr era
they were delighted to top off the new deal
Along with harrys prag queens
and to enter a no holds barred
scrap with the soviet menace
okay so...
well a later generation of liberals weened on the viet tango
saw this epic struggle between freedom and totalizing state machine
as well ...
the no big deal of the kold war
'what me worry ...'bout commie ism ...
forget about it ..not my hang up man "
irony alert:
the nambo-ree
was joined by the closing
of jim crow's books
in the great woodstock regathering
of the libs back in the sublime 60's
and wow
and after that luv festival
of lights over blights
Clio
by crook of bend and swerve of stream
has led us to the present
obama nation where
low and behold
though "..Back when Bush was kidnapping and torturing pro imperio, my liberal friends were quite willing to deplore these things."
"... now that Obie is doing it..."
so what's up ???
another splitski in the works ????
surely the GWOT hasn't
the threat board rating
of the socialist kamp ???
errumm... does it ????
Posted by op | February 2, 2009 3:36 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 15:36
now surely billy clintox
did the big nasty
with his bomb rack humanism
but i guess the liberal kamp
was so rubbery with repeated defeats
his acts of empire
just couldn't define a basis for split ...
even peopled by the likes
of madame secretary elsa klebb
and ivanhoe holbrooke
just a reversion to double think
the stage we're at now ..
can this double thoink not eventually manifest itself
in a shadow figuring of the lesser tendency ??
stereo or cross eyed
which will it be ???
even
in the head of the chocolat emperor hizzseff
more
of the ersatz abe act
or
more
jfk all the way
Posted by op | February 2, 2009 3:51 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 15:51
Why not try war criminals here? Why would that be a problem? Seriously.
It's no less realistic than "Bush to the Hague!"
Don't you think good international citizenship starts with straightening out your own act first? The world would applaud the righteousness of it! It would drive a stake through the heart of Vichy liberalism.
There's no external fix for our problems. There's no symbolic act that will set us on the right path. At some point, we're going to have to get our shit together.
Posted by Al Schumann | February 2, 2009 3:54 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 15:54
i say
to hell with the hand maidens lets string up the patriarchs themselves
on to wall street boys and girls
there's an auto de fa up there
just itchin' to happen
Posted by op | February 2, 2009 8:00 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 20:00
This sounds like classic doublethink.
Apparently it is a state of mind that can be maintained indefinitely--speaking to those old enough to have been politically conscious during the Clinton era its clear of many liberals it has been in operation since his inauguration if not longer. If anything the Bush years provided a nice break-period where one could be both liberal and free from self-imposed schizophrenia.
The potential silver lining, such as it is, of the economic crisis is that people who represent the effective left will be affected directly by liberal policy (at this point amounting to looting public funds to pay off private fiance corps who fucked up through every fault of their own). Whether sensitive bourgeoisie liberals will wake up before their heads are being shoved into the ovens, on the other hand, I have my doubts (they didn't in Nazi Germany for one thing).
Posted by Peter Ward | February 2, 2009 8:15 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 20:15
The answer is rendition. Dungeons and torture are optional. I think this is what Malinowski was getting at.
Quite possibly.
I still don't understand two things about the process as we currently use it:
1. Why do we need to hand prisoners over to, say, Egypt? Can't they get their own prisoners?
2. Why do the identities and numbers of rendered prisoners need to be kept secret? If the purpose of rendition is to prevent the world's worst criminals from hiding in out of the way areas, why do we need to keep it secret? Why not say, "We've apprehended such and such and he will be shipped to location X for trial"?
I can make a guess about the reasons we might do all of those things. My question is, are there answers to those questions that would be at all satisfying to somebody who wants to champion human rights?
Posted by Christopher | February 2, 2009 8:49 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 20:49
SourceWatch
No wonder he's able to find a "legitimate place" for renditions. His previous jobs included flacking for the people who order them! Putting him in charge of advocacy at HRW is like putting a coal mining lobbyist in charge of donor outreach for the Sierra Club. It just doesn't work somehow.
Posted by Al Schumann | February 2, 2009 10:14 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 22:14
A good illustration of the difference between the human rights industry and the human rights movement. The revolving door for propagandists in this industry is little different from the green apologists for energy companies that inhabit NGOs after careers in the Department of Interior. You might enjoy the following HRW "analysis" from 2006:
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/11/02/how-put-un-rights-council-back-track
Posted by Jay Taber | February 2, 2009 11:06 PM
Posted on February 2, 2009 23:06
human rights watch
is zionic/vatican labor
wearing its foundation pinz nez
the kold war never ended
it just morphed into gwot
since the final solution
these types have used horror
as
the necessary claptrap
of any human rights empire
imagine
they support the employee rights act
here in america
fair play for kulack labor
but ...
actually
i have no stomach for researching
the archives of such corporate poliwogs
and holy ghost grubs
i just torch em as i see em
not persuasive of course
but
i must leave their surgical dissection
and full removal from the body politic
to more disciplined minds
such outfits are the children
of
mindless self righteous
matronly ignorance
by way of
round about
corporate injection
lopsided punch pulling decency
is no kind of decency at all
Posted by op | February 3, 2009 6:51 AM
Posted on February 3, 2009 06:51
Seen, op.
Although sometimes the crocks still fool me with their teary-eyed gumbo.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | February 3, 2009 10:18 AM
Posted on February 3, 2009 10:18
Speaking of perky propaganda, have you been following the new US State Department blog?
http://blogs.state.gov/
Posted by Jay Taber | February 3, 2009 12:13 PM
Posted on February 3, 2009 12:13
"by a commodious vicus of recirculation", indeed! I'm getting to like this guy, OP!
Remember Uncle Karl says our thought is determined by our place in the economic order. Hence, by definition, liberals (who generally occupy the higher rungs on the ladder) must be hypocrites. They just can't really believe all that stuff about liberty and justice for all.
Posted by seneca | February 3, 2009 12:55 PM
Posted on February 3, 2009 12:55