[lbo-talk] Why they attack Noam

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Apr 13 18:40:02 PDT 2003


[I'm not saying Noam doesn't have his flaws. But he doesn't get attacked for his flaws. This passage I think sums up the need and motivation perfectly in its last sentence. The rest is prep. It's from a very good review by George Scialabba of Paul Berman's _Liberalism and Terror_ in the current (April 28) issue of The Nation.]

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030428&s=scialabba

<quote>

How did the United States come by this good conscience? According to

Berman, it results from an existential choice we made in our defining

national moment, the Civil War. The North might have chosen the path

of virtuous isolationism, letting the South secede and becoming an

egalitarian social democracy. Instead the North chose, at a great cost

in blood and treasure, to repair the Founders' mistake and render "the

whole concept [of liberal society] a little sturdier." In so doing, it

took on a "universal mission": "the defense of democratic

self-rule...for the entire planet."

This is a dubious interpretation of the Civil War, which was fought as

much to make the Western territories safe for capitalism as for any

"concept of liberal society." If the South had been defeated quickly,

the slaves might not have been freed for a very long time. Putting

that aside, did the United States really take on the "universal

mission" of "defending democratic self-rule" wherever possible? Did it

(as Berman recently wrote in a special March 3 issue of the New

Republic) become "more revolutionary, not less; by offering, in some

form or another, liberty and solidarity to the entire world"?

Though this notion virtually defines the conventional wisdom in

contemporary American political culture, I find it preposterous. In

the nineteenth century, as Henry Cabot Lodge acknowledged, the United

States compiled "a record of conquest, colonization, and expansion

unequalled by any people." Its record in the twentieth century was no

less execrable. The idealistic Woodrow Wilson made war on both Haiti

and the Dominican Republic, killing thousands, in order to block

constitutional rule and fortify the position of international

investors and domestic elites. In the 1920s and '30s the US military

occupied Nicaragua and Honduras for the same purpose. In 1954 the

United States organized the ouster of a moderate democratic regime in

Guatemala, and in 1965 invaded the Dominican Republic to prevent the

return of one, resulting, both times, in horrendous violence and

retarded development. In Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973 and Argentina

in 1976 the United States instigated or welcomed the overthrow of

democratic governments by murderously repressive (but

investor-friendly) military juntas. In the 1980s the United States

orchestrated fanatically bloody insurgencies and counterinsurgencies

throughout Central America, invariably against movements or

governments with more popular support than the US client. And the

United States casually disregarded international law in order to

invade Panama and Grenada, again with (in the former case) thousands

of civilian deaths resulting. I have already alluded to US terrorism

against Cuba.

This is a very partial list, restricted to US sins and crimes in the

Western Hemisphere. A global reckoning would obviously be much more

extensive. Not one of these episodes is mentioned in Terror and

Liberalism. I cannot imagine why Berman judged all of them irrelevant

to the question of whether the United States is truly dedicated to the

"universal mission" of "defending democratic self-rule...for the

entire planet."

Perhaps because Berman dislikes being reminded forcefully of the

enormous factual record that demonstrates the absurdity of this claim,

Terror and Liberalism includes a lengthy attack on Noam Chomsky.

<end quote>

Michael



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