It's Unlikely You'll Read This

Would you like to read something dull? How about if it were both dull and embarrassing for me?

For some reason I just wasted precious hours of my life arguing with a stranger, via the website of the Washington Monthly. Even worse, the argument wasn't about something worthwhile, like who was the greatest hair band of the eighties. (Cinderella.) It was about politics in the broadest sense, where everything you say sounds vague and stupid.

The argument is in the comments section of something Kevin Drum wrote about Ronald Reagan. To see the original, you can go there. Below I've pasted the back-and-forth between my antagonist and myself, minus the comments of everyone else. It's also been edited slightly for clarity.

I'm putting this here for two reasons:

1. To remind myself never to do it again as long as I live.

I hate this kind of argument, and I hate people who engage in them, whether they agree with me politically or not. How did I become one of them myself? I blame Ronald Reagan.

2. Because the other person's argument seems preposterously weak to me, and I wonder if it does to others. To my mind he repeatedly makes assertions with no evidence, and repeatedly responds to arguments I haven't made. But perhaps I am the one making assertions with no evidence. Of course, even if this is true, it would be the fault of Ronald Reagan.

***

Posted by: mark on June 12, 2004 at 10:01 PM | PERMALINK

Judging from from some of the comments here the major beef the lefties have with Reagan was the Reagan Doctrine.

Checking the expansion of Marxist dictatorships - all of which shot their way into power as guerillas except the ones directly imposed by the Red Army - was something that was *not* supposed to happen. Nicaragua ws supposed to be followed by El Salvador, then Guatemala and so on with the West pulling up stakes and retreating each time.

That's what these commenters are really angry about, not dead bodies. The FMLN and the Afghan KHAD and the MPLA and Ethiopia's communist rulers all piled up dead bodies, in some cases by the tens or hundreds of thousands. Their moral outrage for these crimes were, for the most part, nonexistent, being husbanded only for the atrocities committed by the military forces resisting Marxist governments and guerillas.

The nature of war is that people die and that soldiers inevitably commit atrocities, a crime desrving punishment. If we fund those fighting the Marxists people will die though perhaps the Marxists will lose. Or we can stand aside and people will die and the Marxists will win...and then more people will die.

This argument is actually about what the Left once honestly called " counterrevolution" but no longer dare to do so directly. Reagan was a successful counterrevolutionary on a global scale and that's a large part of the hard left's residual hatred for the man ( though from their perspective there's lots to dislike ).

Humanitarianism or pacifism has very little to do with it - they're angry about who won.

***

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz on June 13, 2004 at 12:11 PM | PERMALINK

It's too bad Mark wasn't around in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. He could have pointed out the massive hypocrisy of Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel and other internal critics of communism. After all, where was the concern of Sakharov, etc. for the hundreds of thousands of corpses created by the running-dog-capitalist-imperialists in Central America, etc.? I can hear Mark now, saying, "Their moral outrage for these crimes is, for the most part, nonexistent, being husbanded only for the atrocities committed by the military forces supporting Marxist governments and guerillas."

Fortunately, there were many commissars available in the Soviet Union who did point this out. And they were well rewarded for their service to the powerful of that time and place. I'm sure Mark will be just as well rewarded for his service to the powerful of this time and place.

***

Posted by: mark on June 13, 2004 at 12:32 PM | PERMALINK

Jonathan Schwarz,

If you know a way to get the VRWC to cut me a few checks I'd be most appreciative ;o) Obviously I need some better representation because I've been left out of the feeding trough.

Sakharov was concerned with human rights everywhere and criticized the American role in the nuclear arms race BTW but his activism in the 1980's was a mite cramped by living in internal exile in Gorkii under continual KGB harrassment.

***

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz on June 13, 2004 at 2:07 PM | PERMALINK

Mark,

I suggest you just keep doing what you're doing. I'm sure the US foreign policy establishment will find a place for you.

Regarding Sakharov, he was indeed concerned with human rights everywhere. But he spent the vast majority of his time criticizing the Soviet Union and communism generally -- not all of his time, but the vast majority. And rightfully so. For this, he was continually attacked by the Soviet press, who asked why his outrage "for the most part" was husbanded for the Soviet Union. Why oh why did his Nobel acceptance speech only include the names of Soviet political prisoners? they would bleat.

Likewise, equivalent figures in the US are concerned with human rights everywhere but spend most of their time criticizing actions taken by the US. And people like yourselves attack them in precisely the same way as Soviet commissars. It's funny to see -- you just have to change a few words.

Of course, it's this way in every society, and always has been. You can read about it in the Bible if you're so inclined.

Lastly, your implication that Sakharov would have criticized the US during the eighties if only he could have is fanciful. The Soviet Union would have been delightful to have him do so. They would have put it on the front page of Pravda.

***

Posted by: mark on June 13, 2004 at 8:14 PM | PERMALINK

Jonathan Schwarz wrote:

"I suggest you just keep doing what you're doing. I'm sure the US foreign policy establishment will find a place for you"

And if not, there's always Barber College.

Regarding Sakharov perhaps most of his criticism was husbanded for the Soviet Union not merely because it was his own country or that the system was tormenting him and his wife but because, objectively speaking, the behavior of his governmen was systemically worse ? I note also that despite his critical dissent, or perhaps in part because of it, the Soviets did permit Sakharov abroad to lobby against SDI.

Your analogy with Soviet Commissars and people like myself is...well...not really analagous. Critics of the Soviet system could end up in jail, a lunatic asylum, a labor camp or dead. I'm not trying to silence anyone much less jail them - I'm simply making a point they do not wish to hear. Or have anyone else hear either.

Being criticized on the internet is hardly equivalent with what Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn or Scharanskii went through. It's part of political debate in a democratic society.

***

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz on June 13, 2004 at 11:02 PM | PERMALINK

Mark,

You write:

Regarding Sakharov perhaps most of his criticism was husbanded for the Soviet Union not merely because it was his own country or that the system was tormenting him and his wife but because, objectively speaking, the behavior of his government was systemically worse?

There are two questions here.

First, did Sakharov ever make the case like this? I've never heard of it, and I assume you haven't either, since you don't cite anything. However, while I don't remember where, I have heard of him saying he didn't criticize the US with anything like the intensity of the USSR because he was Russian.

Second, would such a case have been legitimate if Sakharov (or anyone) had made it? That's a question that would take much more time than either of us would be willing to spend. And we'd never agree anyway.

But it's worth saying a few things about it. Let's imagine Sakharov spent ten times as much time criticizing the Eastern Bloc as he did the US and our actions. Were conditions in the Soviet Union ten times worse than in the US? Let's say yes. Was the invasion of Afghanistan ten times worse than the Vietnam War? No. Were conditions in the Eastern Bloc ten times worse during Sakharov's main period of dissidence (the sixties, seventies, and eighties) than in Central America? No way. If Sakharov had been Salvadoran, let's say, he wouldn't have been exiled to Gorky. He would have had his balls cut off and stuffed in his mouth, and after he'd bled to death he'd have been dropped off at the city dump to be eaten by vultures. Then, two decades later, you would have referred to this as an "inevitable atrocity."

Next, you write:

Your analogy with Soviet Commissars and people like myself is...well...not really analagous. Critics of the Soviet system could end up in jail, a lunatic asylum, a labor camp or dead. I'm not trying to silence anyone much less jail them - I'm simply making a point they do not wish to hear. Or have anyone else hear either.

I didn't say you were exactly analogous to Soviet commissars. I said your argument was exactly analogous. It's also exactly analogous to that of Saudi pundits -- who, when another Saudi criticizes actions of the Saudi government, will immediately say: Where is this person's concern for the Palestinians suffering in Gaza at the hands of the Zionists? Their supposed humanity and pacifism are obviously just a cover for their hatred of their country and Islam.

And it's not surprising that you're making this argument, since it's been made in every country on earth throughout history. I'm just pointing that out, and suggesting that it's about as valid when you make it as it is in the millions of other cases.

Furthermore, while you don't have the power to put other Americans in jail or a lunatic asylum or a labor camp, or to kill them, I have no confidence the right in America wouldn't use that power on other Americans if it gains it. God knows the people in power have been delighted to do all those things to people in other countries.

So when you say "the Left" is only angry about "who won," it sure doesn't sound to many Americans that you're just "making a point they do not wish to hear." It sounds like you're one step away from branding huge swaths of America as traitors. And what do you do with traitors? Well -- as much of the right has been saying recently -- there's nothing we can do now...

Are you one of these people? I don't know. I hope not. So let me ask you this -- you defend past US foreign policy by saying: "The nature of war is that people die and that soldiers inevitably commit atrocities, a crime desrving punishment." What concrete steps have you personally taken to see that those responsible for atrocities in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc. have received punishment?

If the answer is "none," why should I believe you care at all that these atrocities happened in the first place? And perhaps more importantly, why should I believe you'd take concrete steps to prevent them happening in the US?

***

Posted by: mark on June 14, 2004 at 12:00 AM | PERMALINK

Jonathan Schwarz writes:

"Were conditions in the Eastern Bloc ten times worse during Sakharov's main period of dissidence (the sixties, seventies, and eighties) than in Central America? No way. If Sakharov had been Salvadoran, let's say, he wouldn't have been exiled to Gorky. He would have had his balls cut off and stuffed in his mouth, and after he'd bled to death he'd have been dropped off at the city dump to be eaten by vultures. Then, two decades later, you would have referred to this as an "inevitable atrocity." "

You must recall that Sakharov was also a world famous physicist and the father of the Soviet H-Bomb. Less famous dissidents, say Sharanskii or Amalrik were treated more roughly than Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn in the 1970's and 1980's. Non-famous dissidents were dealt with as the KGB pleased. Sakharov was not the paradigm for handling dissent in the USSR.

And of course this sets aside the Stalin years where things were incomparably worse - even moreso than in El Salvador under the junta or Guatemala's dirty war, which by any standard were quite bad. Many (though not all) Communist states went through a stage of mass murder matched only by the Nazis. I'm sure you are aware of the documentary record and the many books published from the Gulag Archipelago to the Black Book of Communism. If that hasn't affected your views by now then not much I can say will.

The difference between CA dictatorships and the USSR resides in the nature of the claims being made by the regimes. El Salvador, while oligarchical and consistently repressive throughout it's history, was not trying to export an ideology of death squads to the four corners of the globe. The Soviet Union did so on a regular basis until almost 1990 when the expense reached the point of ruin. Letting them do so unchecked would have been unwise in terms of our interests and harmful to the citizens of the countries where Communists siezed power.

Soviet Communism, like Fascism, was an active transnational threat to American interests in a way parochially inclined dictators like Pinochet or Mugabe or Burma's military rulers were/are not. Ideally, they should be toppled. When that would coincide with American interests so much the better.

Since you haven't volunteered much in the way of your curriculum vitae in terms of hunting down Nazi fugitives or bringing aged NKVD torturers to task, much less to justice, I'm really not certain why I need to " prove " anything to you before being eligible to comment here or anywhere else.

And to set your mind at ease, no, even if I had the power to send people I disagree with to concentration camps I would never do so. Nor is pointing out the nature of the arguments made by *some* on the Left a call for a rope and handy tree. It's dealing with a morally repugnant position by naming it for what it is.

***

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz on June 14, 2004 at 4:36 AM | PERMALINK

Mark,

You write:

You must recall that Sakharov was also a world famous physicist and the father of the Soviet H-Bomb. Less famous dissidents, say Sharanskii or Amalrik were treated more roughly than Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn in the 1970's and 1980's. Non-famous dissidents were dealt with as the KGB pleased. Sakharov was not the paradigm for handling dissent in the USSR.

Okay, let's compare apples and apples: Sakharov and Oscar Romero. One gets exile in Gorky. One gets his brains blown out while saying mass.

Furthermore, post-Stalin, non-famous dissidents were not tortured, brutalized and massacred in the Eastern Bloc with anything like the frequency of non-famous dissidents in countries where we were running things.

Post-Stalin repression in the Eastern Bloc never reached the heights that it did in locations under our rule. That's just a fact.

And of course this sets aside the Stalin years where things were incomparably worse - even moreso than in El Salvador under the junta or Guatemala's dirty war, which by any standard were quite bad. Many (though not all) Communist states went through a stage of mass murder matched only by the Nazis.

Untrue. Such stages of mass murder were reached numerous times under colonialism. Indeed, colonialism is viewed with just as much fear as fascism and communism by most people on earth. For instance, plucky little Belgium managed to kill 5-10 million people in the Congo. The US obviously did quite well with enslaved Africans and American Indians. Then there were numerous induced famines quite comparable to anything under Stalin or Mao. More recently, Suharto put up some impressive numbers in East Timor, not to mention within Indonesia in 1965.

So bring up Stalin if you want. Just don't forget the rest of it.

The difference between CA dictatorships and the USSR resides in the nature of the claims being made by the regimes. El Salvador, while oligarchical and consistently repressive throughout it's history, was not trying to export an ideology of death squads to the four corners of the globe.

Untrue. That is precisely what the World Anti-Communist League was about. That is precisely what Operation Condor was about. And Latin America dictators were quite happy to participate directly in installing new dictators. For instance, Somoza eagerly collaborated with us in the 1954 coup in Guatemala. It was run out of Nicaragua.

And none of that compares with the activities of the US, of course. If you want to claim it's all defensive, that's fine. Just remember the other people in history who made exactly that claim about their actions vis a vis communism.

Soviet Communism, like Fascism, was an active transnational threat to American interests in a way parochially inclined dictators like Pinochet or Mugabe or Burma's military rulers were/are not.

This is true only with the conventional usage of "American interests" -- ie, US corporate interests. If you consider the interests of actual Americans, they can be quite a threat. For instance, various American nuns had a keen interest in not being raped and murdered. Another American had quite an interest in not being blown up on Sheridan Circle in Washington DC. Yet another had an interest in not being murdered in a soccer stadium in Santiago.

Since you haven't volunteered much in the way of your curriculum vitae in terms of hunting down Nazi fugitives or bringing aged NKVD torturers to task, much less to justice, I'm really not certain why I need to " prove " anything to you before being eligible to comment here or anywhere else... And to set your mind at ease, no, even if I had the power to send people I disagree with to concentration camps I would never do so.

First, I'm not the person taking a mild view of "inevitable atrocities" in wars I support.

Second, I didn't say you needed to prove anything in order to comment. I said that if you want progressive Americans to believe you're not part of the American right that wants to string them up -- particularly after you've stated they just dislike Ronald Reagan because communism "lost" -- you damn well better prove you actually care whether atrocities that happen with your support get punished.

Let me put it this way: imagine there was a hard left administration in the US, made up of people who happily supported the most gruesome mass murder of foreign conservatives in the past, then lied about it both at the time and now. Meanwhile, there were huge bestsellers saying things like: We must kill some Americans in order to physically intimidate conservatives, because otherwise they will become full-fledged traitors. Then you met someone left-wing who says about the mass murders that had been carried out by the present left-wing administration: Atrocities happen in war. They can be punished, but of course I've never done anything to make sure that happens to the perpetrators of the atrocities I support. Then he adds: conservatives' only REAL objection to these murders is that their side lost.

Under those circumstances, would you feel like it was just part of "political debate in a democratic society"? Or would you require some sign that this person actually had some commitment to democratic norms?

So while you might not send people off to a concentration camp, I will say -- in all seriousness -- if it were happening to progressives, I see no evidence you would do anything beyond making ineffectual noises. After all, you seem to be fine with your government raping, torturing and murdering progressives elsewhere.

Nor is pointing out the nature of the arguments made by *some* on the Left a call for a rope and handy tree. It's dealing with a morally repugnant position by naming it for what it is.

Yet you have quoted not a single individual as evidence he or she holds this position. Nor did you initially refer to "some" on the left. Instead, you simply spoke of "the lefties" and "these commentators" without any specifics.

It reminds me of Michael Walzer after the September 11th terrorist attacks. His article "Can There Be A Decent Left?" spoke of the "glee" about the attacks felt by "so many" on the left. Yet he managed to write 3,000 words without quoting a single individual. I actually emailed him to ask for some specifics. He had none.

Anyway, this has gotten far afield from my original point, which I stand by: your argument is exactly analogous to the ones made by commissars in the Soviet Union (and by their equivalents in every country in history). And it has about the same validity.

***

Posted by: mark on June 14, 2004 at 3:46 PM | PERMALINK

Jonathan,

You want a specific example of a morally repugnant, anti-democratic Leftist argument ? Fine. Here you go:

Professor Nicholas DeGenova:

"At an antiwar rally De Genova, who teaches history and anthropology, began by denouncing U.S. flags as the "emblem of the invading war machine in Iraq today. They are the emblem of the occupying power. The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military." He then called upon American troops to murder their officers and expressed the hope "for a million Mogadishus."

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/2761.html

Casual comparisons between Adolf Hitler and George W. Bush:

Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01312003.html

MoveOn.org
http://www.thememoryhole.org/pol/bush-hitler-ads.htm

Neo-Stalinist Front Groups Active in Anti-War Events and Marches alongside democratic Leftists:

The International Action Center/World Worker's Party/ANSWER

How's that ? That was about 5 minutes worth of Google searching. I haven't read Walzer's article but I'm sure having spent his intellectual life on the Left, he could find more pointed examples than I did if he cared to do so. Of course, had Walzer done so and named names, he'd have been drummed out of the movement and denounced as a " neoconservative " by his former associates.

Or am I wrong ?

You wrote:
"So while you might not send people off to a concentration camp, I will say -- in all seriousness -- if it were happening to progressives, I see no evidence you would do anything beyond making ineffectual noises. After all, you seem to be fine with your government raping, torturing and murdering progressives elsewhere."

A recognition of the reality of the nature of war is not the same thing as an endorsement of atrocities. Lots of civilians were killed by american bombs in WWII but the alternative to bombing was allowing the Third Reich to rule over Europe. Seeking Hitler's defeat is not the same thing as revelling in the deaths of German civilians. Your implicit requirement of casualty-free resistance to violent subversion, terror or invasion is a de facto argument against resistance of any kind. When attacked, the free world should retreat to gain your moral sanction.

Perhaps you have an alternative strategy that the United States should have followed regarding Soviet expansion in the 1960's -1980's but that presumes that you saw Soviet expansionism as a problem and not just the reaction of the United States to that expansion.

Moreover, I'm not sure exactly how the United States acquired responsibility for the 19th century colonial exploits of King Leopold in the Congo or Hermann Goering's father in Namibia or any other European colonial war. Everything that is non-Communist is not automatically pro-American, capitalist or democratic.

Armed resistance to armed Communist movements or governments is not to be defined as "imperialism " or " colonialism" either.

***

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz on June 15, 2004 at 11:46 AM | PERMALINK

Mark,

This is really devolving.

The first thing you said was:

Judging from from some of the comments here the major beef the lefties have with Reagan was the Reagan Doctrine...That's what these commenters are really angry about, not dead bodies...Humanitarianism or pacifism has very little to do with it - they're angry about who won.

I noted you provided no evidence for this. In response, you provide four examples.

The number of them from "comments here"? Zero.

The number of them that have to do with Reagan or the Reagan doctrine? Zero.

The funny thing is that your style here is again exactly analogous to commissars and their many equivalents through history. First comes the broad attack against political opponents. Then comes the retreat to saying only some of the opponents feel this way. Then comes the citation from a samizdat document of some obscure figure saying something tangentially connected with the original accusation.

It's also funny that, regarding Michael Walzer, you construct an excuse for him that he himself did not make, either in the article itself or in his email to me. And of course it wouldn't be a legitimate excuse in any case. Being scared someone might call you a name does not entitle you to make accusations -- particularly incredibly stupid and offensive ones -- without evidence.

Next, you write:

A recognition of the reality of the nature of war is not the same thing as an endorsement of atrocities.

Uh huh. Well, I guess when the nature of war makes it necessary for the US government to kill Americans in the same way it's killed Vietnamese, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, etc., etc., etc., your fellow citizens can take comfort in the fact you don't endorse it.

More seriously, your general position regarding communism has lots of historical antecedents. I'm sure you know who they are.

Next, you write:

I'm not sure exactly how the United States acquired responsibility for the 19th century colonial exploits of King Leopold in the Congo or Hermann Goering's father in Namibia or any other European colonial war.

I'm also not sure how this happened. Certainly I didn't say it was so. Instead, when you stated that "Many (though not all) Communist states went through a stage of mass murder matched only by the Nazis," I simply noted it wasn't true.

The reason I did so was to point out -- since you'd brought up the Black Book of Communism -- that there's also an (unwritten) Black Book of Capitalism. (Obviously what happened in the Congo and Namibia is part of it.) I think it's good to be aware of both, rather than pretending that there's just one or the other... as commissars of various stripes tend to do.

Finally -- and I think we've both spent enough time on this now -- I will again reiterate that your argument is precisely that of commissars throughout history. As long as there have been governments, organized religions, etc., there have been people eager to defend them from any and all criticism.

First comes the criticism. Then the commissars swing into action, asking why the critic doesn't care about every misdeed happening on earth at the same time. How could anyone be so hypocritical as to criticize Soviet labor camps while the US is dropping napalm on infants in Vietnam! How could anyone be so hypocritical as to criticize dropping napalm on infants while there are Soviet labor camps! How could anyone criticize torture in Saudi Arabia when the Zionists are killing Palestinians! How could anyone criticize killing Palestinians while there's torture in Saudi Arabia!

Well, the answer is no one could be that hypocritical! It's obvious they say these things because... because they hate our country! They hate our country and love our enemies!

This kind of politics has all the sophistication of a third grader.

Posted at June 15, 2004 03:46 PM | TrackBack