Never get out of the boat: Dinesh D’Souza searches for the roots of Obama’s “rage.”
Last night, while many of you were watching what Badass Digest writer Devin Faraci, invoking The Simpsons, aptly characterized as “Old Man Yells At Chair,” I was succumbing to what I can only call a morbid curiousity and checking out 2016: Obama’s America, the documentary that made box office news last weekend by taking in sufficient millions of dollars that prior skeptics were compelled to sit up and take notice. I wish I had read a little more about the movie before I gave in to that curiousity; had I known that it’s essentially Dinesh D’Souza pressing harder on the pedal to get more mileage out of the fumes of his 2010 Forbes article “How Obama Thinks” and its offshoot book The Roots of Obama’s Rage, I could’ve saved myself twelve bucks.
“Obama’s rage,” I love that. During what appeared to be an ad-libbed section of his speech at the Republican National Convention last night, Clint Eastwood said to a chair that was supposed to represent the President, “don’t tell me to shut up.” The general equanimity of Obama’s public bearing may confound Eastwood into seeing things, but it doesn’t in any way fool D’Souza, who finds much in Obama’s memoir Dreams from my Father with which to damn his subject, including a passage in which Obama describes teaching himself how to be “nice.” This is, indeed, a frank admission that a to-the-bone-politician would be too too savvy to make—that is, admitting that one learned how to be a politician. For the crime of having deigned to attempt something like literature, Barack has earned the most malevolent interpreter/deconstructor possible. Certain conservatives tend to sneer or smirk at psychological models used to explain behavior or inclination, but for the screen version of his thesis D’Souza applies a sort-of inverted Ordinary People/Good Will Hunting model and enlists a psychologist to explain how a largely ABSENT father can be an even stronger influence on a child than one who regularly participates in his child’s upbringing.
I gotta tell you: aside from being somewhat ill-qualified to speak with absolute authority about some of the policy wonkery in this movie, I also have to admit that 2016: Obama’s America really filled me in on some things about Obama’s background. For one thing, I had NO IDEA that Barack’s dad got around so much. On a journey to Kenya, D’Souza seeks out an Obama grandmother, or rather not REALLY an Obama grandmother: “just one of [Obama’s] grandfather’s five wives.” As Dave Weigel astutely points out in his account of the film for Slate, D’Souza’s thesis deftly avoids such obvious traps as going full birther. This doesn’t mean it’s not ridiculous, though.
Of course, with production value courtesy, at least in part, of Schindler’s List co-producer Gerald Molen, D’Souza knits the various threads of ridiculousness together rather deftly. After an introductory section in which conservative pundit D’Souza limns all of the personal similarities between himself and Obama—it’s like that whole Constantine angel-devil thing I guess—he starts in on naming all of the horrible things the anti-colonialist Obama is doing to transform Our Great Nation into an America So Weakened That It Cannot Lead. And his first item of busines is…wait for it…that stupid crap about Obama returning a bust of Winston Churchill to Great Britain. Talk about these-guys-are-from-England-and-who-gives-a-shit, literally! (See Jake Tapper’s amusing unraveling of this bogus controversy here.) But wait. Did you know that Obama’s also on Argentina’s side in the conflict over the Falklands? And that he once sang “Shipbuilding” at a karaōke bar? (Okay, I made that last bit up, but it coulda happened.) Cinema allows co-director D’Souza to make connections in a more uniquely immediate fashion than print does, and in this section he takes advantage of this capability by inserting a soundbite from Obama describing one of his grandparents as “a domestic servant to the British.” THOSE FUCKING LIMEYS I’LL SHOW THEM. No, D’Souza doesn’t extrapolate EXACTLY that from his researches, but it’s pretty close. Just as his depiction of Hawaii spares no rhetorical turn to paint that state as so mired in its own native “oppression studies” so as not to be a part of the U.S. of A. at all.
I gotta hand it to D’Souza: his dog whistle is a really finely tuned instrument. Speaking of the relationship between Obama’s mother and his stepfather Lolo Soetero, he says, “What attracted Ann to Lolo was that he was a Third World man, like [Barack Sr.],” which, let’s face it, is much nicer than saying, for instance, that she had jungle fever. (Or saying something else, for that matter.) When interviewing Obama’s half-brother George, D’Souza, who mostly comports himself throughout in a soft-spoken, civil, considered manner, lets the mask drop a bit, coming on like a real condescending prick as he presses the blissed-out-looking Kenyan about how things really WERE better under colonialism. The phrase “White man’s burden” is not uttered, and even if it had been, D’Souza has what he considers an automatic out: “I’m the same color as Obama” he demonstrates in a side-by-side forearm comparison.
The elephant in the room, if you’ll excuse the phrase, is the fact that the radical Obama has not, as his first term approaches its close, transformed the country into some kind of Stalinist-Sharia mashup. BUT THAT IS ONLY BECAUSE HE NEEDS MORE TIME. After invoking “the card-carrying Communist” Frank Marshall Davis, Edward Said, Jeremiah Wright, and Bill Ayers, and after Shelby Steele tells D’Souza via cell-phone conversation (you know shit’s getting real in this movie when it cross-cuts between D’Souza and his interview subject speaking via phone) that Obama “was naturally born to bargaining” (just like, again, most competent politicians might be, only with Kenya-boy it’s SINISTER), D’Souza explains that the problem is he needs more TIME. He then drags out arched-eyebrow pundit Daniel Pipes to complain that, sure, Obama DID commit more troops to the war in Afghanistan, but he wasn’t SUFFICIENTLY ENTHUSIASTIC about doing so. The movie cuts away from the intense Pipes before he can discuss the fact that he saw an Islamist peeping out of his wife’s blouse.
The movie was showing in a theater in the rafters of a 25-house Times Square multiplex, number 23 it was; I think 24 and 25 were showing Kansas City Bomber and Trog respectively. Going down one of the fifty or so escalators to the street exit, I heard a short, buff bulletheaded man in his 30s explaining to his howitzer-busted Euro date that the movie’s most salient point was that Obama got himself elected “while nobody was looking.” For better or worse, I myself recall the dustups involving Obama’s associations with Wright and Ayers playing out in a fair amount of detail prior to Obama’s winning the 2008 election and/or taking office. Just like the closing of that GM plant in Jamestown Janesville did.
GM plant in Jamestown?
Oops, fixed.
“Last night, while many of you were watching what Badass Digest writer Devin Faraci, invoking The Simpsons, aptly characterized as “Old Man Yells At Chair,”
If I were running the DNC, I’d see if I could slap together a 10 minute scripted routine, for network-coverage-hour TUESDAY NIGHT, instead of Thursday night, of Morgan Freeman talking to an invisible Romney in an empty chair.
They could get big laughs, big echo-chamber coverage, and slip in a key policy point or two they want to get heard loud.
I predict this movie will be about as effective in removing Obama from office as Fahrenheit 9/11 was in removing Bush. This one probably won’t win an Oscar though. Take that as you will.
Ah, I stand corrected. It was Bowling that won. Fahrenheit didn’t get nominated, I think because Moore himself wanted to focus on the Best Picture category (for which it didn’t get nominated).
At any rate, what’s interesting to me about all this rabid (and completely perplexing, given his low-key personal demeanor) Obama hatred is how it’s really a desperate attempt to cover up the increasing ideological incoherence of the Right.
I mean, for all D’Souza’s attempts to outflank Obama on national security, conservatives tend to hypocritically criticize him from an isolationist perspective rather than a neoconservative one. Meanwhile, for all the heated liberterian rhetoric of the Tea Party, the unpopular specter of social conservatism keeps rearing its head.
The biggest issue, to me, is that self-described conservatives generally tell you the distinction between left and right is not based on ends (we all want to reduce poverty, suffering, etc. as much as possible, they’ll tell you) but on means. They just don’t trust government to do a good job; and anyway, however well-intentioned, government action infringes on individual freedom, and conservatism is all about freedom.
Well, except when it isn’t. Notice how quickly this philosophical starting point falls apart when applied to other areas of conservative policy, where the focus is on limitations and security and order. Outside of the economic arena, “conservatism” (in quotes because its questionable if this is an apt term for the ideology, however fashionable among its acolytes) seems to be more a matter of fundamental values than practical means. Or rather, of opposition to CERTAIN values, which brings together many people whose core values are, in fact, quite different.
United by opposition to the end-goal of the Left in all its forms (and the Left is, whatever its other qualities, quite a bit more coherent in what it sees as fundamental values), but for different reasons, this bizarre coalition of isolationists and neocon hawks, Randians and Religious Righters, law-and-order authoritarians and paranoid militiamen doesn’t really have a firm leg to stand on.
No wonder it’s reduced to yelling at a chair.
MovieMan; you said it better than I could.
Two interesting convention moments to illustrate my point (or two points really, one that conservatism – and perhaps American political ideology in general although conservatism’s the big game in town right now – is rooted more in emotions than ideas; and the other that, particularly on foreign policy, conservatism is a house divided):
‑From 2008. McCain gave what I thought was an excellent speech, a moving account of his time in Hanoi which, rather than heroicize the experience, humanized it. In some ways, it was classically conservative – about human limits, about the importance of social cohesion, about stoicism and doing your duty and being responsible in an almost existentialist fashion. Unfortunately, these themes have little currency in the conservative movement today, which is more about self-satisfaction and guilt-free judgement of others. McCain’s speech was received with tepid applause, without the full-throated enthusiasm that greeted his running mate, whose speech was a vapid celebration of SUVs and hunting and stickin’ in to those liberals. It was largely devoid of substance and far more about style (indeed, policywise Palin had not been uberconservative in office: but she looked and spoke the part of Red America – a cultural rather than truly ideological identity). And the crowd ate it up.
‑From 2012. Condoleeza Rice’s address (which contrary to the pundits’ opinion, I found rather terribly delivered; while the content was well-written enough, she didn’t seem at all comfortable with public speaking, odd because she is or was a professor, wasn’t she?). The crowd doesn’t seem to know how to respond to her warnings that conservatives, tired as they are of nation-building and the costs of war, can’t turn their back on shaping the world stage. Applause is pretty hollow until she gets to her punchline: “We must lead, and we can’t ‘lead from behind’ ”. Finally the crowd lets loose, and you can almost hear a collective sigh of relief from everyone: phew, she took a potshot at Obama! Never mind that her point is only effective if you embrace the internationalist pretext on which American leadership relies, something Rice does and most conservatives no longer seem to or at least would rather awkwardly ignore while bellowing about taxes and spending. (On a related note, the New Republic had a great piece on how remarkably ignored Bush has been at the convention, like those 8 years were just completely forgotten.)
For the sake of equal opportunity, and because this was actually one of the most embarrassing political moments I’ve ever seen (seemed like a slyly satirical moment from an Altman film, perhaps Tanner ’88):
‑The 2000 Democratic convention. Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant men alive, appears in a video to address the convention. It’s a slower moment in the day, folks are milling about, but then suddenly scattered cheers and thunderous applause break out. That’s nice, I think, they’re paying this man the respect he deserves. But as that computer voice continues on about global warming and respect for science the CSPAN camera finally follows the flow of the noise and slowly pans away from the monitor…to catch Joe Lieberman working his way through the crowd, high-fiving delegates before exiting to rapturous glee, as if it was ’64 and the Beatles had just made a surprise appearance at a teenybopper slumber party. When the camera panned back to Hawking’s address it was over. But, hey, at least they caught what was important.
Btw, MovieMan0283 = Joel Bocko. Sorry for the confusion.
“.… Obama got himself elected ‘while nobody was looking.’ ”
This is so true. Think about it for a minute: Do you, or anyone you know, even really remember 2008 taking place AT ALL????
I rest my case.
Dinesh D’Souza is lower than pond scum. The roots of his rage are obvious. While hailing biologicallhy from Indai he is several shades darker that I am, not to mention the POTUS. Being Indian he won’t “count” as “black” by our “scientific” raicst lights. Yet this certainly didn’t stop anyone from caling him a “nigger” his whole life.
Back when he was at Dartmouth, Dinesh and his then-grlgriend, Laura Ingraham, got the names and home phone numbers of gay and lesbian students. They would then call up the parents of said students and denounce them.
IOW a typical Republican.
Here’s Dinesh’s model
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZzrpp7UAjQ
Yeah, Dinesh has some dark shit in his past from his college Young Republican days. Rhetorically they were like the Weathermen (though luckily they didn’t build bombs; at least not then – instead they grew up to encourage the U.S. government to use its own in an unnecessary war). Self-satisfied excessive bellicosity for self-satisfied excessive bellicosity’s sake.
Indeed, the intellectual façade of present-day conservatism’s rhetorical tenor is largely derived from the gleefully look-Ma-I’m-subversive-while-still-playing-it-safe Young Republicanism of the early 80s. And that, in turn, is heavily influenced by the form, if not the content, of 60s student radicalism. Here’s a great piece on how and why a lot of far left-wingers shift all the way to the right instead of mellowing into moderation:
http://www.tnr.com/article/extreme-makeover-how-heather-mac-donalds-stolen-bicycle-ledto-guantanamo-bay
All of this is not to say radicalism, in a good cause, doesn’t have its virtues (or that we couldn’t use some of it right now), but it is to note that the radical tendency to see the world in black-and-white is ironic, given that ultimately the two extremes may have more in common with each other than with the vast middle ground they try to either claim or, more often, consign to the other side.
(Also, this is not an attempt to say “both sides are to blame” although in the big picture Leftist ideologues have done as much damage as Right-wing ones; at the present moment, in America, the far Left’s influence is virtually nil while conservatism’s obsession with ideological purity is perhaps unprecedented.)
Also, and I’m far from the first to note this, for all their screaming about Saul Alinsky and his dire effect on the president, it’s the Right that has (sometimes openly; see Dick Armey) used the tactics endorsed in Rules for Radicals. Obama doesn’t seem to follow Alinsky’s approach at all. Which, frankly, might be the problem.
“Also, this is not an attempt to say “both sides are to blame” although in the big picture Leftist ideologues have done as much damage as Right-wing ones”
Yes it is. That’s PRECISELY what it is.
How old are you Joe? I’m 65. I remember the 60’s and more important the 70’s quite well, being a gay activist and all. Among ogther things.
Scum like Dinesh have nothing to do with the left in any of its forms.
Oh come on, David, you can’t tell me Stalin and Mao never did any damage? Both were members of the Left, and more importantly (since one can contest if authoritarian leaders can ever TRULY be left-wing) they were embraced by many on the Left.
Please keep in mind that by the “big picture” I mean globally and historically, not just America in the past 50 years. Any ideology that suggests the end justifies the means, that individual people are pawns to some greater purpose, is inevitably going to cause suffering and quite possibly not even achieve its aims in the process. It’s a historical fact that there are ideologies on the Left which reached that point. They don’t form an entirety or even a majority, but they’re there and they’ve been very powerful at times.
Also, the connection between the New Right and the New Left is pretty clear and in some cases pretty explicit (as I said, Tea Party leaders have been quite open about borrowing Alinsky’s strategies). The point is less about content than form, and hence in that arena my observations are less about judgement than observation. Indeed, I kind of wish Obama would return to his supposed “roots” and fight fire with fire more often.
As for age, I’m 28 but have much respect and admiration for the 60s generation, which doesn’t mean I’m uncritical of it.
If I had the time, resources and money, I’d love to be making a doc right now about the (seemingly) successful “whisper campaign” the right is waging to paint Obama as “other.” It’s so disgusting yet so obvious and brilliant. Since calling him the “n‑word” outright won’t work, there’s a constant stream of allegory for what Mr. Obama “is.” I’m sure it started long before but I first noticed it when McCain snapped in 2008 and referred to him as “that one.”
D’Souza’s film seems to tie into this (both in topic and success…preaching to the choir, anyway) and it’s frankly a little scary. I think race is a huge elephant in the room and the GOP’s platform is basically “do we want this house N*****. running our country for another 4 years?? He can do what he wants since he doesn’t have to risk wrecking his re-election…” Cue “Putney Swope.”
And sometimes the allegory drops; I heard someone the other day, after a few drinks, growl the “n” word as punctuation to an anti-Obama rant. Followed, of course, quite promptly by “I’m not a racist; I use that word around my black friends all the time” etc.
There’s really no other explanation for how VISCERAL the hatred is. I understand how, say, Clinton or Bush, who had charisma but also an in-your-faceness about them, could garner this kind of reaction. But Obama? He goes out of his way to appear conciliatory and genial, does not relish strident partisanship (indeed, his campaign was partly built on overcoming that tone of debate), and has a low-key, professiorial demeanor that simply doesn’t invite the fierce hatred he’s encountered. I can understand people disagreeing with his policies, but the amount of vitriol in some quarters goes beyond that. Unless the temperature on the Right has just become so heated that anyone leading the “other side” is viewed as the Devil Incarnate.
And funny, I thought back in ’08 that one reason to vote for Obama over Hillary was that he wouldn’t, that he COULDN’T, provoke the same intransigent hatred that she did – that his calming presence would work to make more room for debate. Boy was I wrong.
The ghost of Winston Churchill says: I wouldn’t piss on 9 out of 10 of the know-nothings who pass for the modern American Right even if they were burning like Dresden.
I’m not talking about Stalin and Mao. I talking about the knee-jerk false equivalency you and your kind traffic in so glibly.
The Tea Party was created by the Koch Brothers not Saul Alinsky. Why are you feigning abject stupidity? All you know of the left is what scum-sucking Trotskyites like the late and unlamented (at least by me) Christopher Hitchens have told you.
Good God! http://cityarts.info/2012/08/31/dreamcatcherbubbleburster/
“The one thing D’Souza’s theory is not is conspiratorial”
BULLSHIT!!!!!
Sure, David, whatever. I’ve evinced no sympathy for the Tea Party whatsoever, I’m merely noting that they (opportunistically) use Alinsky’s strategies, while (glibly) condemning Alinsky and attempting to tie Obama to him. It’s classic political jujitsu. I’m not even sure what were supposed to be disagreeing about but apparently you are so enjoy your secret and have a nice day.
What “secret”?
You tell me. I came here to criticize D’Souza and somehow wound up cast as the standard-bearer for the Koch brothers.
That’s what flse equivalency gets you baby!
I noted an similarity in FORM between Dinesh and the very left-wing extremists he claims to oppose. And I also noted that in the big picture left-wing extremists have done as much damage as right-wingers, which is where Stalin and Mao come into it. Both points are pretty unarguable.
I went out of my way to note that I do not consider Right and Left to be anywhere near equally baleful in American politics. Bringing up the Weathermen, a group I would assume most liberals and radicals scorn, was meant to reflect badly on D’Souza, and point up his ironic hypocrisy; I’m not sure why you took it as an insult to people marching for gay rights in the 70s. The Weather-type folks were too busy holed up plotting harebrained revolution to take part in those events.
So again, what false equivalency?
Oooh, I’d pay money to see Trog.
Joel Bocko, I had exactly the same thoughts about Obama vs. Hillary Clinton in 2008, that her past history of being hated by the GOP vs. his conciliatory tone and senate career suggested he could usher in a fresh bipartisanship. That all changed sometime in early 2009 when the GOP decided on a scorched-earth campaign and the Tea Party magically came into being.
I also don’t understand what Mr. Ehrenstein is upset about beyond taking issue with a clearly qualified general statement.
Dammit, Glenn, how dare you get my hopes up for a Times Square showing of Trog?!??!
Mr. Ehrenstein does not need an “about” to be upset.
Fuzzy–
Surely that fact is not in dispute.
Yeah, naivitee. Bipartisanship is ultimately impossible with this GOP. Or maybe any incarnation of the modern GOP – Carter and Clinton certainly had fiercer opposition than Reagan or Bush I (who took as much flak from his own right-wing as from Democrats), or even Bush II until 2006.
It’s less that the Democrats or liberals are inherently more conciliatory (although there are tenets of liberalism which make conciliation palpable, there are tenets of traditional conservatism which – theoretically – should also make conciliation palpable, such as caution, weariness of excess, a desire for checks and balances – yet somehow they never come into play).
It’s that, I think, the Democratic Party psyche, since the fallout of the 60s and ESPECIALLY since Reagan, just assumes – rightly or wrongly – that the U.S. is majority conservative, and that its popularity is tenuous, so it’s always willing to compromise. Republicans tend to govern and especially to run on the same premise, full of confidence that their ideas are embraced by the American mainstream (even though, really, they aren’t). When Democrats lose, they have a tendency to push for the center – even the relatively liberal candidacy of Obama was marked (as you and I noted) by a can’t-we-all-come-to-the-table spirit of post-partisanship. Whereas when Republicans lose, they double-down as we are now seeing.
If in the long run they continue to lose it will be interesting to see if they ever change their approach; how much will it take to remove the ideological blinkers and get some pragmatism going? Of course if Romney wins in the fall, we can expect a further escalation of the Tea Party rhetoric, even though we can probably assume that any potential victory would be in spite of the right’s extremism, rather than because of it. One of many reasons to hope for an Obama victory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riJ4LPzHppg
Bringing up the Weathermen, a group I would assume most liberals and radicals scorn, was meant to reflect badly on D’Souza, and point up his ironic hypocrisy; I’m not sure why you took it as an insult to people marching for gay rights in the 70s. The Weather-type folks were too busy holed up plotting harebrained revolution to take part in those events.
Ever hear of CONTELPRO?
Um, yes, I’ve heard of COINTELPRO. Since I’ve never heard anyone accuse Terry Robbins, Cathy Wilkerson, Kate Boudin, Diana Oughton, or Ted Gold of being government plants I really have no clue where you’re going with this, David.
Is there a way to insert a program in the comments that just posts “Sure, David, whatever” after every David Ehrenstein comment?
Thanks for this post, Glenn. I’m sure you don’t enjoy wading into these waters, but hey, we’ve all got our combustion point. Mine will be exceeded well before November.
This garbage is sadly playing at my local arthouse multiplex – to an audience that no doubt has never been to the place before. Can only hope it’s gone before THE MASTER or something else good arrives, as I don’t relish absorbing the chatter in a lobby full o’ birthers.
Consider that your job “otherbill.” It’s a lot easier than sticking your head up your ass, as you usually do
David cited his age and asked me my own in a different discussion in a different forum when I took exception to his calling me and others in that discussion “breeders.” Not that it makes a lot of difference, but I’m not actually straight.
I actually know Joel, had some excellent discussions with him about film and other subjects back in the day, and am pleased to see him chiming in here. I can assure you he is not a man of false equivalencies. As a matter of fact, he’s the kind of guy who abhors logical fallacies. We had a debate with a mutual friend once about whether Mystic River was believable that turned into a much larger debate about the importance of plot vs. character. That discussion has stayed with me longer than Mystic River, actually.
Hey Andrew – I never forgot that one either; I’ve had film discussions that extensive on movie forums but rarely in the flesh! Although when it does happen, Max is usually involved, haha.
Also, nice to see the discussion coming full-circle to Mr. Eastwood…
I thought I was totally burnt out on Bill Maher’s smug BS until a more smug dick was on his show tonight in Dinesh D’Souza. What a bottom feeding asshole prick. Maher pwned him in every way possible. Including, and I didn’t know this till Maher reminded D’Sousa and his audience; the comments on ABC that got Mahaer fired, etc were actually recapitulations of a comment D’Souza said!
Please, everyone who might want to see a car wreck, do NOT give this Dinesh D’Souza guy your money. Please.
“Not that it makes a lot of difference, but I’m not actually straight.”
It makes a lot of difference. Now more than ever.
I’d certainly pay to see “Kansas City Bomber” again on the big screen. Kevin McCarthy, Norman Alden, little Jodie Foster, not too mention Raquel Welch.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/31/dinesh-dsouza-tell-bills-maher-obama-has-sublimated-charles-bronson-rage/
Too bad this stuff is better read about than actually watched. I would download this, but I know I would be severely disappointed:
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/12853/rumors-of-war-iii-a-glen-beck-crazyfilm/
“Fact: Did you know there are twenty billion people on the planet? One third of them are terrorists, and the other third are Mexicans!”
WAIT.
David Ehrenstein is GAY?!
Like IKEA on Superbowl Sunday.
“It makes a lot of difference. Now more than ever.”
I really don’t want to completely derail this, David, so this is the last I’ll say on the matter (you’re welcome to e‑mail me if you’d like to continue the conversation). However, you’re way off the mark. To be a part of the gay rights movement since the ’60s and ’70s is a remarkable accomplishment. Thank you for fighting to make the world a better place. High school is still hell for LGBTQ kids, but we felt safe, at least, to be open with and support each other, and to promote gay rights and tolerance at our school with the support of teachers and administrators. I don’t think I can properly convey our gratitude for everything your generation accomplished.
That said, you’re picking fights with people who agree with you in every meaningful way. I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, and I’ve done nothing to earn your disdain. I think if you actually knew me, we’d get along famously.
And if you actually knew me I don’t know what you’d say. This being a movie blog I should probably advise you to consult the two movies in which I appear: “Vito” and “Making the Boys.” They’ll provide you with some idea of the working model.
As for “picking fights with people who agree with you in every meaningful way” I abhor false equivalence and will attack it whenever it raises its ugly head.
Part and parcel of all this is the “Mainstream Media” notion of “both sides” to any story or issue. There may in fact be four or five sides – and sometimes only one. But there is an absolute insistence on two. And it is against the unwritten media law to “comment” on eiger. Therefore one one side lies and the other tells the truth Leslie Blitzer (“Wolf” being a fake name confected to make him sound more butch) won’t dare to mention the lie
When so eone DOES mention the lie, the’re attacked by the res of the media, both barrels blazing:
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2012/09/01/reince-and-shinola/
Ugh, for the last time you just keep shouting “False equivalency! False equivalency!” without even once demonstrating how or where I did so. At this point at least 3 or 4 other people have noticed this as well. Since I agree with all your points about the media and your defense of Matthews, and since every point I bring up is met with some bizarre quippy non sequitur (you still haven’t explained the whole “ever heard of COINTELPRO” head-scratcher) I was kind of hoping at this point we could just let the silly non-argument drown in mutual admiration for Oshima. At this point, this will be my last comment on the thread unless or until you make a salient argument that isn’t quixotic or simply declarative.
As nothing I say won’t be regarded as “quixotic or simply declarative” let’s end this.
Until next tim.e
Catherine Seipp.
What about her?
And while we’re on the subject –
http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2012/09/02/defacing-occupy-unmasked-andrew-breitbart-s-final-opus-is-a-steaming-pile-of-propaganda.aspx
Maybe this is nitpicking but Joel, I think your statement that the Far Left has done much damage is ridiculous. First of all I don’t see how Stalinist purges in the Soviet Union matter in the context of a discussion of American politics. I’m not going to blame the Republican party for the Holocaust. If anything, the labour movement parts of which supported Stalin was a major factor in giving us the New Deal so I’d say the Far Left influence in the US was far more beneficial than the Far Right (which has given us what exactly?)
Furthermore, while supporting Stalin in the US would put you on the far left, it seems you were equating Stalin himself with the Far Left which is incorrect in the context of the Soviet Union. The late 20’s and early 30’s – the early part of Stalin’s rule – were largely taken up by the struggle with the Left Opposition. So Stalin was actually on the Right of Soviet Politics.
Fair questions, Ilya although I disagree with your interpretation of my comments. First of all I was explicitly NOT saying that the American Left or the center-left (the Democrats) are responsible for the crimes of Stalinism.
Here is my relevant passage again:
“(Also, this is not an attempt to say “both sides are to blame” although in the big picture Leftist ideologues have done as much damage as Right-wing ones; at the present moment, in America, the far Left’s influence is virtually nil while conservatism’s obsession with ideological purity is perhaps unprecedented.)”
Hopefully it’s clear that the “in the big picture” statement is an aside, meant NOT as a comment on American particulars but on the entire historical global context. If you slice off America and focu on it alone I think it’s quite clear that the Right has a far more damning history than the Left. Partly due, of course, to the fact that the Right has always had more power than the Left in the US, and thus more opportunities to abuse it, but also for reasons that reflect pretty positively on the American Left in and of itself, which we could get into if we wanted to extend the conversation.
As for your point about who is actually on the far Left in a given national context, that’s an interesting point but one that touches on something a bit different than what I was going for. I am using the term “far Left” in absolute, rather than relative terms, not in terms of who is on the “far” side in any given debate or conflict (which can br a contentious issue – after all, both sides in the 20s claimed to be on the left of the other) but rather in an overall sense. In THAT sense both Stalin and Trotsky, or at the very least their followers, we’re all branches of Bolshevism and thus all on the far side of the Left. Maybe a good analogy (not, note, an equivalency!) would be the HBO film Conspiracy, where a group of Nazis plan the Holocaust. One tries to prevent it, the other is trying to push it, but in the grand scheme they are both clearly on the far Right (well, unless you’re Jonah Goldberg).
Hopefully that clears things up somewhat.
A word of advice, Joel, if I may: you gotta take Ehrenstein with a grain of Xanex. He means well, but, alas…
As for Dinesh; In college I had the exquisite displeasure of seeing him speak. He was on one of those quixotic “take back the Academy from the Socialist multiculuralist tree-hugging gay marrying Chomskyites” and it was pretty dreadful. The most poignant moment in my recollection came when he remarked, amidst a long and utterly batshit litany of Ways the World is Better Because of America, that our Hydrogen-bombing of the Japanese in WWII had turned them (the Japanese) from a belligerent, backwards feudal empire to “a nation of photographers.” He said this, as I recall, accompanied with the miming of snapping a photo. It’s possible that he also pulled back the corners of his eyes and said “ding dong dang!” but if that did happen, I have repressed it.
To wit; yes, he’s as low as they come, but impressively brazen about his unctuousness.
Zachary, what kills me is the hypocrisy of it all. When defending what he calls “America” (the United States’ national security state and property laws and the Republican Party’s policy positions) D’Souza can paint himself as an unashamed patriot while his opponents are not only anti- but in-American. But when he criticizes American pop culture or aspects of the government he doesn’t like, or the policy positions of the other major American political party he is somehow STILL Mr. Patriot; somehow dissidence is patriotism when HE decides it is. Cognitive dissonance, thy name is Dinesh. Though it has many other names too, unfortunately.
I mean the dude wrote a blame-America-for‑9/11 book for God’s sake.
*not only anti- but UN-American
And I think my iPhone is also responsible for the “Zachary” rather than Zach. Apologies.
Joel – yes, I agree that the hypocrisy rankles. When I saw Dinesh speak, it was the first time I’d been directly exposed to that kind of weak-tea propagandizing, and what amazed me was just how transparently specious it all was. It mostly seems designed to provoke, to push what are believed to be liberal hot-buttons. The formula, as far as I can tell, was to keep as far away from relevant facts as possible, in favor of shit-stirring and mud-slinging, and Glenn’s review leads me to believe that it hasn’t changed one iota.
Yeah in a way his real audience is liberals, same as at Dartmouth. That’s one of the big differences between the New Right and the Old – the old presumed its own predominance and feared an upending, whole the new assumes an underdog, we’re-the-minority status and delights in playing both sides – assuming an oh please, we’re all intellectuals here indignance when it suits them while flirting with a populist common-sensual eye-rolling at those ‘pretentious elites’ they distance themselves from. Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, And Dinesh D’Souza all play this game (Jonah Goldberg is a more of a straight apologist, tsk tsking the faulty arguments of liberals while pretending not to notice the more egregious examples in his own backyard). The funny thing is that while these people are by and large the public face of American conservatism, they don’t particularly seem to be representative of it as a whole – in the strongholds of ‘Red America’ there seems to be a far less ironic, self-conscious sensibility, less of a concern with playing jujitsu with the left, and more of an instinctive recoiling from liberal principles and policies. In other words the 80s+ intellectual conservatives, the ‘new right’ seems to be little more than a postmodern tail on the same old dog.
This is especially noticeable on Internet forums – Big Hollywood is a good example of Writers assuming a kind of an eye-rolling ‘liberals call us bigoted and angry and dumb just so they don’t have to argue with us’ while immediately below in the comments section the cretins come out of the woodwork. And of course the writers pretend not to notice.
Here’s a great example; scroll down to the comments section and note the responses to one ‘jasonc.’ The arguments take two wildly divergent tacks: one loftily declares itself ‘shocked, shocked’ that anyone would accuse a conservative as racists and argues that au contraire it is the liberals who are bigots (one poster even declares that Obama has taken over for Goebbels and solemnly ends with ‘1945: Jews. 2011: conservatives and Jews’. No, really). And then, freely interspersed with these holier-than-thou comments are a number of blatantly racist, homophobic, and xenophobic remarks. Sometimes a single comment contains both arguments without blinking.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-hadro/2011/06/17/fareed-zakaria-rips-conservative-movement-time-magazine-piece
It’s remarkable that conservatives don’t give themselves whiplash.
“I am using the term “far Left” in absolute, rather than relative terms, not in terms of who is on the “far” side in any given debate or conflict (which can br a contentious issue – after all, both sides in the 20s claimed to be on the left of the other) but rather in an overall sense. In THAT sense both Stalin and Trotsky, or at the very least their followers, we’re all branches of Bolshevism and thus all on the far side of the Left. Maybe a good analogy (not, note, an equivalency!) would be the HBO film Conspiracy, where a group of Nazis plan the Holocaust. One tries to prevent it, the other is trying to push it, but in the grand scheme they are both clearly on the far Right (well, unless you’re Jonah Goldberg).
Hopefully that clears things up somewhat.”
Well it doesn’t.
Why are you reaching back into Soviet history to describe the Left? Are you unaware of the massive cultural changes that came about as a result of massive opposition to the Vietnam war? That’s why the right created propaganda “thing tanks” – to wipe out that history and replace it with the likes of Davi Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, and the late and nlamented Andrew Breitbart.
David, that comment was directed at Ilya, not you. However since it’s a reasonable response, I’ll return the favor.
I am a history buff. Most of my knowledge on the subject comes from books written by mainstream or even left-leaning historians, not Andrew Breitbart. I bring up history, sometimes in asides, because it interests me. I think drawing analogies and looking at a wider context than the present can be illuminating, as do you since you brought up the 60s and 70s movements. I made one very brief comment about the ‘big picture’ (which naturally must include Soviet history, as well as American, and Chinese, and Italian, and Nicaraguan, and so forth, all the way back to the French Revolution). And I did so for one purpose: to contrast with the present day in America where there was NOT an equivalency in damage between left and right.
In other words here’s what we are saying:
YOU: The American right is far worse than the American left.
ME: I agree; even though historically and globally both left and right have caused a lot of damage, clearly the right is more powerful and more damaging today.
Our real disagreement is whether that “even though” represents a strengthening of the argument since it acknowledges complexity but STILL asserts the same fundamental point as you, or if it is an irrelevant hedging that dilutes the important point about the present.
It’s a disagreement, sure, but worth all this back-and-forth? Probably not.
Being part of history I am more than just a buff. Talking about history requires care and your attempt at a “wider context” casts too far a net. You ralk as if the left were tied to Stalin and Trotsky in perpetuity with nothing that came after these dinosaurs roamed the earth deserving more than a footnote.
As for the French Revolution –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcJKxrDczSo
By “the massive cultural changes that came about as a result of massive opposition to the Vietnam war”, you mean the movement to end the war, which is the most pathetically failed social movement in American history? The old Left was in thrall to a régime that murdered millions, but it achieved some positive change in America. The new Left never could accomplish much beyond waxing the occasional security guard and inspiring such disgust in most of the country that it ushered in decades of destructive right-wing ascendancy. Most of the social changes that made American life more liberated happened in spite of new Left radicals, thanks to the efforts of the mild-mannered popularizers that lefty armchair marchers always despised.
David, I barely mentioned those ‘dinosaurs’ – you are the one who keeps harping on – really minor point in my overall argument. You are responding to an imaginary Joel so that you can grind your ‘false equivalency’ ax in lieu of a better opportunity. Well, maybe now Fuzzy can give you a more suitable sparring partner since he actually seems to more fundamentally disagree with your point of view than I do. Enjoy.
“you mean the movement to end the war, which is the most pathetically failed social movement in American history?”
Such a pathetc failure that it ended the war.
“The new Left never could accomplish much beyond waxing the occasional security guard and inspiring such disgust in most of the country that it ushered in decades of destructive right-wing ascendancy.”
Ah yes, another disgruntled Sibiones Liberaton Army member I see.
“Most of the social changes that made American life more liberated happened in spite of new Left radicals, thanks to the efforts of the mild-mannered popularizers that lefty armchair marchers always despised.”
Where they watched that flaming radical Lawrence Welk.
How old are YOU, Fuzzy?
@SJ, re: the City Arts review of this movie – I think Gregory Solman wrote the né plus ultra commentary on A.I. –
http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/27/steven-spielberg/ai/
– but this review of his is just a hash, all talking points rather than actual rhetoric.
Also, the commenter who wrote, at the end of the review: “Gregory Solman’s exhilaratingly executed opening ‘run-on’ sentence had me cheering at its audacity–like the opening shot of Altman’s THE PLAYER.” – I know that guy, and he’s not making a joke.
Thanks Sean. That’s quite an insightful review of a grievously overlooked Spielberg.
@ Sean, amazing how Solman accepts D’Souza’s ‘calm, curious intellectual’ posture as if he’s completely unaware of who he actually is. Plays exactly into the phenomenon I described a few comments back – thoughtful rationalist hat on, thoughtful rationalist hat off. I just hope that eventually, like Charles Laughton at the end of Isle of Lost Souls, these guys get devoured by their own creations (if they even deserve that much credit for rising the wave).
*riding the wave
I’ll get off this topic in just a moment, but can’t resist:
“Such a pathetc failure that it ended the war.”
The Vietnam War was the longest war in U.S. history. The movement to end it, therefore, failed miserably. The war was ended by the politician who owed nothing to the counterculture, demonstrating dramatically how the movement against the war failed even to influence politics. If anything, one could argue that by turning a foreign policy question into a cultural question, the movement did as much as Kissinger to prolong the war. Anyone who actually cares about the victims of imperialism should look to the movement against the war as an object lesson in what not to do; how you can produce a social movement which achieves the exact opposite of its objective.
@ Fuzzy – I know you want to get off this topic, but I can’t resist either: where the hell are you getting this stuff from? Even if it were somehow true – this idea of yours (and I say ‘yours’ considering that I’ve never heard anyone else express anything close to it before) that the counterculture somehow prolonged the Vietnam war – your first sentence doesn’t even make basic logical sense, unless we’re working with different definitions of the word “failure.” As for how long it took, well, a basic awareness of history would lead to very different conclusions. There was virtually no anti-war movement for several years into the Vietnam invasion. It only began to escalate towards the wars end, and in fact is virtually solely responsible for the war’s finally ending. As for Johnson being the reason the war ended; that’s just silly. He ended it because of the massive agitation and demonstration had significantly shifted public opinion away from support. Johnson and others were seriously concerned about escalating social unrest, which was a valid concern, given how radically the opinion had shifted in a few years. The idea that the anti-war mobilization prolonged the war isn’t just ignorant, it literally defies common sense.
Er, Zach, Johnson didn’t end the war. American troops were removed by Nixon (4 years after he took office). The anti-war movement caused Johnson not to seek re-nomination, putting a much less experienced and less popular politician into the race against Nixon. Thus, Nixon won the presidency, in large part on a “fuck the hippies” platform, and commenced to expand the war into Cambodia.
The anti-war movement’s goal was to end the war. All wars end, of course. But the Vietnam War *escalated* as the anti-war movement grew. One more time: As the anti-war movement grew, the war got worse. It finally ended long after the movement had petered out (four years after its largest demonstrations). If that’s not failure, what metric are you using? The fact that the war eventually ended? If that’s your standard, my efforts to oust George W. Bush were wildly successful, as he is clearly no longer president, and I would like to sell you some elephant repellent.
(man, this thread is starting to resemble the climax of Russ Meyer’s UP! But I suspect we are all much less sexy)
The anti-war movement greatly dissipated once the draft was revoked. Which kind of illustrates how it was more about white college students not getting killed rather than concern for poor inner city draftees (or their Vietnamese counterparts).
Well, Fuzzy, again, I’m not sure where you’re getting this stuff (yes, you’re right, I meant Nixon.) Nothing you mentioned changes anything regarding your initial point; the causality you imagine runs from nonexistent to incoherent. The war got “worse” because of US escalation; blaming that on the anti-war movement makes about as much sense as blaming WWII on the pacifist movement. The fact is, widespread opposition to the war kept building until the end; the demonstrations went down in size as the overall societal disenchantment continued to mount, all the way until the end of the war. Either the war ended by accident, or the benevolence of Nixon and his cronies, or you’re just wrong. But no biggie – there’s plenty of time still to get out in front of the “OWS made us invade Iran” meme.
Btw it’s been discussed here I think but not linked yet. A perfect skewering not just of D’Souza’s specific arguments but his entire premise.
Oops – here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwOy4F53rSg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
“The Vietnam War was the longest war in U.S. history. The movement to end it, therefore, failed miserably.”
Welcome to Fuzzyworld – where Success is Failure.
“The anti-war movement greatly dissipated once the draft was revoked. Which kind of illustrates how it was more about white college students not getting killed rather than concern for poor inner city draftees (or their Vietnamese counterparts).”
Hey they tried draftingme dear. I’m black.
Luckily I’m also gay. I checked the Whoopie Box (“Do you have homosexual tendnecies”) and as there was a pile=up at the shrink’s that day they stamped me “4F” and let me go – to return to the anti-way and gay liberaton movement (things about which Fuzzy doesn’t give a shit.)
I won’t bother responding to the rest of D.E.‘s usual dippy rantings, but I do want to note that I consider the gay liberation movement one of the great moral and political triumphs of our era. Which is why a poseur like David always tries to take credit despite his lack of effectual activism.
For those who want to find out more about my lack of effecgtual activism I reccomend they see the documentary “Vito” about the life and work ofthe late great Vito Russo in which I am featured.
Oh hell… David, I’m sorry. No disrespect. You were publicly out at a time when that just living in public was an act of activism, and I don’t want to denigrate that.
I do, however, stand by my conviction that if the movement against the Vietnam War had copied the buttoned-up, top-down tactics of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, American troops would’ve started to leave in 1968, and would’ve been gone by 1970. Instead the movement went with the revolutionary militancy of SNCC and the expressiveness of the counterculture, turned a political battle into a cultural battle, and bequeathed to history the longest war in the U.S. ever fought and a model for activism that’s racked up a steady list of failures yea unto Occupy Wall Street’s petulant left-deviationism.
Fuzzy, I think to a certain extent the antiwar movement DID imitate the buttoned-up style of SCLC. While I wasn’t there a lot of what I’ve read – particularly primary source material – leads me to suspect the image of a predominantly far left-wing, almost exclusively young/student movement is at the very least an exaggeration. Due to 3 factors: it’s easier to villainize a far-out opposition so both during and after the fact pro-war forces focused on the fringe; New Left veterans themselves, plus a lot of boomers who were ‘there’ more in spirit than flesh, cultivate an image of a wholly countercultural anti war movement for political and/or nostalgic reasons; and the media (particularly trying to create colorful history in retrospect) focuses on the carnivalesque hippies, yippies, and weatherfolk because their better copy. Lately though I’ve been reading Time Magazine articles from the 60s and 70s and the contemporary reporting generally presents the Moratorium and similar events as very much mainstream, even Middle American affairs with the more extreme elements as an interesting sideshow. Not that that’s 100% reliable either but it’s interesting to see how perceptions change over time.
In a lot of ways, boomers were riding the 60s wave rather than creating it: I wrote about this recently via a via Big Chill and Return of the Secaucus 7; a lot of what my (our?) generation thinks about the 60s has more to do with a mythology created in the 80s. Indeed to take just one example the term ‘baby boomer’ seems to have been a creation of a 1980 book, and not a term at all in currency in the 60s or 70s. Which is a minor fact but revealing, I think, for a variety of reasons.
I also don’t really agree with your timetable; even with so many ordinary Americans opposing or at least having major doubts about the war, a reflexive Cold War and America-always-wins mentality would probably have made a 1970 withdrawal impossible.
Rely the best and easiest time to stop a war is before it happens. Vietnam was too gradual for that bit in Iraq I think you actually have a much better example of the kind of blown opportunity you’re talking about: I still remember with immense frustration how unable and unwilling anti war leaders were to present their movement as mainstream, common-sensical, and centrist in 2002/2003 which should have been easy given how far-out the whole idea of an invasion really was (Obama’s rhetoric of the time gives a good example of how this could have been done).
Oh and one last note on D’Souza; in the realm of assuming sinister motivations, what’s more plausible: that the estranged son of a Kenyan anti colonialist secretly wants to subvert America from within, or that a writer/filmmaker who demonstrably believes slavery was not racist, and that the Civil Rights Act should be repealed, might not be so race-blind despite the fact that his forearm is the same color as the president’s?
I’d never figured out before that the biggest share of blame for the Holocaust lies on the Polish cavalry due to their failed efforts to stop the Wehrmacht. Oh, well.
@Sean The Solomon A.I. piece has some strong points, but it makes the mistake of suggesting that Kubrick would probably have ended the film with David frozen forever, the same assumption that the films detractors (such as Gilliam and Rushdie) say they would prefer, which has been disproven from Spielberg interviews along with materials from Ian Watson and Chris Baker who worked with Kubrick on the film.
The mentioning of Kubrick’s artistic downfall as an unceasing irony, is also extremely suspect, trying to downplay the impact Kubrick/Watson had on the film (I highly recommend the book A.I.: From Kubrick to Spielberg to see exactly how much of the Kubrick/Watson treatment made it on screen). It makes sense that Armond White would hire a writer with such absolute devotion to Spielberg (who I do like), and a contrarian conservative streak.
The true Né Plus Ultra commentary’s on A.I. come from Rosenbaum http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6306 Naremore: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=mqr;c=mqr;c=mqrarchive;idno=act2080.0044.210;rgn=main;view=text;xc=1;g=mqrg
and yes, the Stan Brakhagehttp://books.google.com/books?id=FXB_CnrvbpMC&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=the+hidden+god:+film+and+faith+brakhage+a.i.&source=bl&ots=C7MIQM_7Jk&sig=A7sAAlS3OL7HmTqVRf4miF25inQ&hl=en#v=onepage&q=the%20hidden%20god%3A%20film%20and%20faith%20brakhage%20a.i.&f=false
Fuzzy your history of th anti-war movement follows the fanciful lines of the “Mainstream Media.” The radicl offshoots like the Weathermen and later the Simbionese Liberation Army were the boogeymen the status quo clamed we were. They were alos so small you could fit them into a single room.
Or rather you could pile their bodies into a single room as hey’re almost all dead now – mostlyby their own hand.
To the ant-wa mobemtn they were NOTHING.
Incidentally, you brought upNixon without mentioning that instead of ending the war he expanded it into Laos nd Cambodia – before finally shutting the war down BECAUSE WE FUCKING LOST!!!!!!!!
“it’s easier to villainize a far-out opposition so both during and after the fact pro-war forces focused on the fringe; New Left veterans themselves, plus a lot of boomers who were ‘there’ more in spirit than flesh”
Precisely Joel – see above.
@ SJ, to me, no matter who wrote it, the end of AI is something of a downer. I guess one could argue that ‘we all die eventually’ so the night with his mother outweighs the fact that it’s only gonna be one night (although as I misremembered it, David wakes up alone again the next morning, for all eternity, which would have been even more tragic rather than mercifully shutting down while he sleeps). But the fact remains that the ‘happy ending’ is essentially an illusion which, among other things, is an interestingly ironic comment on what we think of as Spielbergian story values.
Re: anti war movement,
I’d also like to offer a word in defense of the youthful, more radical element of the Viet protests which, as I’ve noted, weren’t as central as many make them out to be but were still important (and here I’m not talking about the super-extreme violent fringe, like the weathers, but students who protested the war early, let their freak flag fly, and eventually spoke of revolution without wanting to build nail-bombs in daddy’s townhouse to kill and mutilate dancers at Ft. Dix).
The more radical students did, it was true, alienate many people who might have leaned anti war otherwise, but they also served positive purposes: as the vanguard, protesting in ’65 – ’67 they helped lead the way (along with pacifists and some more Old Lefty type groups, but I’d guess student radicals formed a bigger percentage) although by the end of ’68 I think they were more marginal. Also when their rhetoric and actions turned more incendiary at this point they made the mainstream movement seem even more reasonable and moderate, and thus more appealing to some who might have otherwise ignored the movement but feared something more extreme arising. So it works both ways.
It’s the historical context too; in the late 60s thanks to the legacy of the civil rights movement and other factors, both direct action and purist rhetoric had a kind of cache with the public and media. When leftists tried this approach again in 2002 it fell flat. I remember protests at which speakers focused as much on Palestine and Israel as Iraq and where truant high-schoolers we’re invited onstage to shout ‘Fuck Bush!’ into an open mic. Neither approach seemed remotely designed to win over the undecided or convince the media that it was invasion opponents who were the sober mainstreamers not neocon ideologues. I remember criticizing this approach at a teach-in and one 60s vet practically tripped over himself racing to the microphone so he could announce self-righteously ‘That speech is protected!’ (of the teenage tirades) to thunderous applause. As if the First Amendment prevented message discipline at your own event.
It was only years later, when activists and the media finally took the normal-citizen-outraged-at-chicanery tone that politics and eventually even policy were effected.
On another note, I actually find Occupy to be one of the most refreshing developments in decades. Yes they have their flaws and in some ways seem the usual left-wing/youthful suspects (when I first heard about the movement, I was excited and then quite disappointed when I discovered they weren’t disgruntled workers, teachers, nurses etc protesting the 1%). However they had some exciting features I hadn’t seen in any left-wing movement for a long time: one, they were positive – instead of just whining about injustice and shouting slogans in lieu of conversation (some did, but from what I saw they were in the minority) they spoke in affirmative language and openly debated opponents instead of huddling together insularly. Two, they were confrontational in the best way – again, rather than whine on the margins they carved out a space right under the noses of what they were opposing and then defiantly went about their own business – a great ‘act as if.’ Finally and most importantly they spoke populist language. That is a HUGE step forward; probably not since the New Deal era had a major radical movement spoken in the name of the American majority and not since the late 60s had the left been presented as a gathering of diverse but common-caused individuals rather than carving out a bunch of little identity group niches. When I was in New York last fall I spent a few hours visiting Zuccotti Park and I have to say I was impressed. I realize Occupy’s fashion was brief bit of people can learn the right lessons they could have a very positive influence in the long run. Certainly for me they were the first far-left group in my lifetime that I would be even remotely tempted to identify with.
Since this has become a lively discussion, I’ll just add: although before I exaggerated my shock at Fuzzy’s idea that the counterculture anti-war movement actually prolonged and worsened the Vietnam war, the sad truth is that it’s a variation on a very familiar theme in American history (as David has pointed out); the systematic marginalizing of popular, grassroots movements from their actual role in social change.
The fact is, the agitation of student groups, radicals, counterculture activists, etc. – all of this (which, let’s not forget, had deep roots in American history, also frequently whitewashed by mainstream opinion-makers) played THE significant role in conclusively turning the tide of the Vietnam war. They raised public awareness of the atrocities, they popularized the idea of principled opposition (which was almost nonexistent in intellectual circles, who, when they did get around to opposing the invasion, did so on grounds that it was a “mistake” or poorly executed, or too costly), and, probably most importantly, they made it clear to the US Gov. that the risks of continuing or escalating the fight in Vietnam were real and urgent; there’s direct evidence that after the Tet offensive, when Nixon was rearing to send a couple hundred thousand more troops to fight, he was discouraged (if not outright denied) by the senior military officials on the grounds that those troops could be needed at home to enforce civil order, so great was the threat of social unrest.
But that’s not what much of the mainstream history says; instead, we’re supposed to believe (when we are reminded of it at all) that it was a few sober, courageous, pragmatic senators that took the responsible approach and finally stopped the nonsense.
(Not for nothing, but since Fuzzy has repeatedly mentioned the length of the Vietnam war, I feel I should point out that both Iraq and Afghanistan have outlasted it, although both of those conflicts haven’t been as brutal or bloody as Vietnam, for reasons having to do with Vietnam’s failure and the cultural shift that precipitated it.)
As for OWS; yes, it’s by far the most significant and important cultural movement to appear in a long time, and it’s influence in just under a year has been massive and unprecedented, and it is far from being over.
Just sayin’.
I love Occupy too. And the best thing about it is it’s adamnt refusal to supply the media with “leaders” or “spokesman.” Very telling and very important.
Occupy is awesome if you prefer drama, bright colors, and optimistic vibes to accomplishment, change, or political power. A movement that won’t tell anyone they can’t participate is a movement that has no intention of making a difference.
The labor movement of the 30s was a populist, effective mass movement. This is measurable by the number of laws it got passed (quite a lot). If the anti-Vietnam War movement is success, I shudder to imagine what failure would’ve looked like.
The movement does deserve credit, of a sort, for popularizing the idea that all political questions are cultural, which has brought us the endless disasters the Left has suffered ever since the 60s.
The problem with Occupy is that it still doesn’t have an actual goal, in terms of policy or legislation. Headless, mouthless movements are great up until you finally want to get something done. I’d like to add that the Tea Party movement doesn’t have a clearly defined ‘leader’ or ‘spokesperson’ either.
“The problem with Occupy is that it still doesn’t have an actual goal, in terms of policy or legislation”
Who do you work for? CNN? NBC? CBS? The New York Times?
@Joel Bocko One could also argue about the authenticity of a cloned “Monica” essentially programmed from David’s memories to be an idealized version of the real thing. The irony of a robot made for humans, having a human made for it in the end. Also, how many movies end with Humanity extinct? All of this is in the Kubrick/Watson treatment and Spielberg wisely chose to stick with it. The happy ending is indeed an “illusion”, and sort of subversive in regards to Spielberg’s perceived sentimentality (by being something actually bittersweet and tragic), and like all great subversive works many took it at face value unable to see the deeper currents. The film really is a blend of Kubrick and Spielberg, and the ending while seemingly Spielbergian at first, is actually straight up Kubrick (hell, it’s in a sense a variation of the Jupiter Room in 2001).
SJ: Bingo. Why we have is far more unsettling and emotionally provocative than a simple ‘and then he was stuck underwater’ ending would have been. It’s a pity more people don’t recognize that but I think subtle ambiguity has pretty much gone out of the window as far as mainstream American cinema goes, even when it comes to the supposedly ‘arty’ stuff.
@ Fuzzy et al, re: Occupy.
Here’s the thing: it’s a good thing Occupy doesn’t have leaders AND it’s not enough. That’s why we need Occupy PLUS other movements just as in the 60s we had ‘Clean for Gene’ types as well as freewheeling Yippies as well as disciplined radicals.
The ‘personal is political’ meme worked to a limited extent in the 60s because it struck a note with the zeitgeist (not a sufficient explanation, but I’ll have to delve deeper in another comment); however since then it’s been a major hindrance on the left, disconnecting it from the masses who should be their natural base of support. While Occupy might only be a baby step in the right direction, it’s still a step and the first there’s been in generations so I welcome it.
“The personal is political” is the beating heart of Gay Liberation and Women’s Liberation.
But it needn’t be the beating heart of the entire left in perpetuity.
Also, proviso: if the argument trends toward ‘the personal has been MADE political and we want to make it personal again’ (as this argument does at its best – see the ‘government off my body’ or ‘out of my bedroom’ civil libertarian arguments) it’s usually pretty effective. But when the purpose is to explicitly politicize personal life as some of the more tiresome cultural ideologues do – the Über-PC cultural studies types familiar to anyone who’s spent at least a week at a university – it usually kills any smidgen of potential effectiveness. It’s also, ironically, as distinctively a bourgeois concern as anything those folks are attempting to argue against. So I should make that qualification then – I’m fine with ‘the personal is political’ as long as the real meaning is ‘the political is personal.’ In terms of how issues are framed, I’d rather see the personal sphere encompass the political than vice-versa.
What’s so great about a political movement not having leaders? It mostly seems like a guarantee of chaotic ineffectuality.
If the goal is legislative or policy-specific than it is pretty dumb. I don’t think this is Occupy’s goal since a lot of the people central to it were anarchists, who obviously don’t have legislative or policy-specific goals. Since politics is not just about legislation but also societal attitudes and the public conversation Occupy can and did have a salutary public effect. Prior to OWS the media conversation was exclusively about the populist Tea Party and the elites in Washington. Occupy reframed that conversation. They also helped reposition the perception of conservatives as having a monopoly on dissent or libertarianism since the rhetoric of Occupy was more ‘don’t tread on me, Wall Street’ than ‘I want mine, government’ – bona fide libertarians even took part in Occupy in sizable numbers.
Occupy changed the conversation, drastically in the short term and subtly in the long. They also set an example of how direct action can get attention and shift perspectives, so that if someone does try to combine this approach with a within-the-system goal they have a recent model to build off.
Man, I may be young but what I kept on hearing in college was that the American left was fairly effective in making a few specific social changes (i.e. civil rights, gay rights, and women’s lib), some of which would not take hold for years or decades (we only now get gay marriage, for example, even though the language leading to that acceptance was made possible by the enormous struggles of the ’60s generation), but very ineffective in discussing social, political, or economic theory. I know the American left was laughed at by most of the European left during the events of ’68. The focus on Vietnam without focus on the economic or political signifiers drawing us to Vietnam in the first place is telling; a contrast with the French protest against Algiers (which also did not totally pan out on a political level but which was exemplary nonetheless, and made a good number of better films at that) is telling, I think.
“Leaders” are TARGETS, Fuzzy. The media eats epople and ideas up by encapsulating them in “leader” form.
J. Hoberman has, what I consider to be a better take on the film than Glenn’s here. A bit less outrage, and bit more context and insight.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/sep/05/obamas-evil-twin/
(I still love reading Glenn. But credit where credit is due.)
Of course leaders are targets. Because they make movements effective. That’s why the labor movement, with its gallery of colorful leaders, transformed the country’s legislative, political, media, and social landscape, while the leaderless Occupy has to settle for, I dunno, allegedly convincing the media to use the phrase “1%” or something equally ephemeral. If you’re not being targeted, that’s likely because no one considers you a threat.
Thanks for the link, Petey! I had no idea Hoberman was writing about new stuff anywhere!
Ok, look: comparing the Labor movement, which took place over decades and comprised various groups (many of which had anarchist, horizontal-organization philosophies and structures) to Occupy does nothing except illuminate, once again, the wrongheadedness of your ideas, Fuzzy. Occupy, in less than a year, has restructured the debate over social inequality in America. You can pretend that that’s “alleged” or “ephemeral”, but if you have any interest in facts, then you have to acknowledge it’s significance. The labor movement never had that kind of rapid crystallizing of public awareness; it didn’t even come close. We’re in, as some Occupiers have said, the end of the beginning. What happens next is anybody’s guess, but don’t give me this “well, if you were the LABOR movement, you’d have scored X amount of legislative victories at this point;” I have a hard time believing you don’t realize how nonsensical that argument is.
And yes, leaders can be effective, but they are always secondary to a massive, interdependent groundswell of people. Martin King and others would be the first to tell you this. And many movements have suffered greatly because their leaders were eliminated.
And as far as “if you’re not being targeted, that’s likely because no one considers you a threat” – think about that one for a sec. This leaderless, ineffectual, non-threatening movement (OWS) was subjected to a massive, coördinated campaign of state violence and repression that virtually eliminated the physical occupations (although not all of them, and it certainly didn’t get the country back on message, as they surely had hoped.) It continues to be heavily monitored and harassed – that’s obvious here in NYC, even after King Bloomberg sent his shock troops into the encampment.
I don’t really see where this scorn and dismissiveness for democratic, authentic social activism is coming from, from someone who is at least ostensibly progressive.
Agreed Fuzzy on Hoberman at least; nice to see he’s still around. But I didn’t really find Glenn’s review to be particularly outraged – in fact I think the general critical response to D’Souza has been pretty reasonable and curious while dismissive of its content. No doubt to the disappointment of conservatives who would like to paint an image of hysterical, overreacting ‘liberal elites’ (if the barely-hanging-on-by-it’s-fingernails critical establishment counts as such, especially in contrast to the cushy, paycheck-for-life institutuional backing supposedly entrepreneurial talking heads like D’Souza have). But then that perception of irrational hysteria is usually a case of projection, isn’t it?
And a side note: this thread’s been going strong for a week now; interesting (though no doubt due in part to Glenn’s light posting at the moment).
Zach, my dismissiveness is because I think OWS has hijacked a lot of genuine righteous anger for the purposes of a pathetic expressiveness guaranteed to disperse energy without result. My “interest in the facts” is an interest in the change a movement accomplishes. If three years from now, OWS has brought about a single law, or elected a single progressive, I’ll be happy to have been proven wrong about it. But so far, I see no indication that it will, and every indication that it won’t, because it’s copying the techniques of failed movements instead of successful ones (primarily leaderlessness and an open-door policy). The “fact” is that everyone who’s praising OWS is praising it for what it *might* do *eventually*, and I’m unimpressed by vague promises, whether they’re coming from hippies or bankers.
Yes but Fuzzy, in light of the past 30–40 years of almost total left-wing ineffectiveness and marginalization I’m not sure how Occupy isn’t a step forward. That might say more about the past 30–40 years of the left than about Occupy, but given the context you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth.
I’d love to be wrong, but so far OWS looks to me like one more chapter in the story of left-wing ineffectiveness and marginalization rather than a step anywhere; Jo Freeman’s excellent “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” was diagnosing the problems with their model forty years ago and it’s profoundly depressing to see how little has changed since then. For a moment, it seemed like OWS might really change the script by forming a united front with the unions and the IBEW, but they blew that with their insistence on leaderless, bottom-up planning, and now I fear it’s just another hippie fiasco, which might inspire some decent individuals to do nice things in Oakland and not much else.
The Hippies weren’t a fiasco either, Fuzzy. You stand on their shoulders.
Good god, I don’t want to get into a long political conversation with cinephiles. And I haven’t read the thread. But I will note one point of disagreement with TFB’s very recent comment:
“I’d love to be wrong, but so far OWS looks to me like one more chapter in the story of left-wing ineffectiveness and marginalization rather than a step anywhere”
As an aficionado of lefty political economy, the great divergence of the 1% from the 99% has long seemed to me the most important and least widely understood phenomena of the past generation.
To the degree that OWS managed to get at least get that message clearly and simply in front of a large audience for THE FIRST TIME seems a pretty MASSIVE success to me. Who knows how it’ll end up playing out over time in ballot boxes and the WH/Hill sausage machine, but I find it hard not to see it as a Very Good Thing moving forward.
It’s quite massive success– especially in light of the “Newspaper of Record’s” adamant refusal to mention Occupy at all for weeks.
Yeah, see, this is where we differ. I define “massive success” as changing people’s economic conditions. You define “massive success” as getting on television.
“I define “massive success” as changing people’s economic conditions. You define “massive success” as getting on television.”
Look at the long game. The Great Divergence between the 1% and 99% has been going on for 30+ years now. And until OWS, it was something that essentially no one was aware of.
I was aware of it. You may have been aware of it. But to a first approximation, it was an alien concept to THE ENTIRE ELECTORATE. OWS introduced the concept into the mass discourse. That’s a Very Good Thing in my book.
Now, of course that doesn’t mean that the current oligarchical setup will disappear overnight, or that GINI will reduce overnight. But at least the basic concept has been mainstreamed after a long period of being quite successfully hidden away in the shadows. That doesn’t solve the problem, but it does at least start to make solving the problem imaginable.
It took a long time to move from Mark Twain coining the Gilded Age to the FDR administration, y’know. It took a long time to move from the Fabian Society to the Clement Attlee government.
Again, as someone who has long thought this to be the most important and least widely understood phenomena of the past generation, merely getting it in front of the public for the first time really does feel like a massive success to me. I genuinely can’t imagine what OWS could have realistically accomplished beyond that, and I’m somewhat astounded they managed to accomplish that much.
(Hell, I’d obviously have preferred the alternate branch of the multiverse where Johnny Edwards kept his pecker in his pants and won the ’08 Democratic nomination and been able to work with the 111th Congress. It would’ve been a fantastic shortcut to a better American society. But that’s not our particular branch of the multiverse…)
Petey gets it (save for the John Edwards bit.)
“Petey gets it (save for the John Edwards bit.)”
As Pope of the Lefties, I actually get special dispensation to observe that branch of the multiverse. And Edwards along with the 111th Congress is a thing of beauty.
$2T+ stimulus bill pushed through the Hill using the Congressional Budget Act of 1973 to get it on the 50 vote-track in the Senate. Genuine public option in the healthcare bill. And between a robust recovery from the stimulus dealing with the aggregate demand problem, and Sunshine Johnny successfully selling lunchbox liberal populism, the D’s actually pick up seats in the 2010 elections causing a wholesale R rethink of ideology.
I’m also with Petey, although I share David’s reservations about Edwards, given my reflexive blanket contempt for politicians. But, yeah, Petey, that contingent reality you posit sure sounds nice…and yes, it’s astonishing that OWS could radically change the terms of the discussion as rapidly as they did.
I’d also like to draw attention to the Hot & Crusty unionizing struggle that is playing out RIGHT NOW in NYC, and in which OWS has directly participated, and which yesterday won a significant victory that both directly benefits real workers and could have major ripple effects around the city.
AND to the Chicago teacher’s strike, the public and community support of which can pretty easily be at least PARTIALLY attributed to the consciousness-raising of the past year.
So there’s some real, concrete change for ya, Fuzzy.
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Turns out D’Souza’s been fooling around with a woman not his wife. You’d have to have a heart of freshly-fracked shale not to laugh.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/16/1145334/-Dinesh-D-Souza-take-hiatus-to-spend-time-with-more-families
I supposed he’ll blame this indiscretion on the left?