Postive plan for the Middle East (Re: Hitch on Hardball

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Oct 19 04:42:09 PDT 2002


On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Nathan Newman wrote:


> If you can give me the "Left position" on Egypt, Syria, Iran, OPEC et
> al, I'd be shocked-- it's all over the map.

This is raising the bar absurdly, IMHO, Nathan. The left has more of a plan, and a more coherent plan, than the right, which is all you need to win a debate. And as for a comprehensive workable plan on the entire middle east, for christ's sake, god doesn't have one of those. But a conviction that democratization and secularization can only be produced by soft power is a good first principle and once again one that divides the left from the right to the left's advantage.


> And the problem on Palestine is that most of those promoting Palestinian
> statehood have trouble fully articulating a two-state solution . . .
> This isn't an accidental vagueness on the Left-- it stems from the fact
> that these sectarian groups still dominate concrete organizing on the
> issues of foreign policy.

Yeah, we've got our idiots and they've got theirs. Your point being? We've also got our intelligent people and they've got theirs. Compare apples to apples and this dispute fades away. Our smarties are smarter than their smarties. And our dummies are at least harmless. I wish I could say the same for theirs.

As for dummies dominating debates, I daresay ours are dominating less. Nobody reads signs at demos except people who've already made up their mind. Not so for Rumsfeld's press conference on the so-called occupied territories. And the WWP line is not what you find in esteemed left writing. But Rumsfeld line is what you find in the writing of the right.

Michael



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