[lbo-talk] Fantasy That Drives US Politics

[Jerry Monaco]

On 8/7/06, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
>
> [WS:] It may be divorced from reality, but it certainly is not divorced
from
> the way a big chunk, probably the majority, of the US populace sees the
> world.  This point is explicitly made by Phil Short in his account of the
> rise of Pol Pot in Cambodia (_Pol Pot: The History of a
Nightmare_).  Short
> specifically argues that the tendency to see the world in black-and-white
> terms, shared by the US administration and the populace alike, caused the
US
> policy makers to miss a more nuanced approach favored by local players.
> This resulted in a blunt and heavy handed approach that eventually upset
the
> political "balance" (if it indeed is the right word here) in Cambodia and
> helped propelling Pol Pot from a relatively minor player to the leadership
> of a national movement.
>
>
Woj's comment is certainly an illustration of the divorce from reality he
gleefully observes.

So Woj, did the U.S. rulers see things in black and white during the period
when they were fighting their secret war in Cambodia or was it after Pol Pot
came to power and the our rulers were using Pol Pot as a form of imperial
revanchist ideological hucksterism to prove that the U.S. was "right" to be
in Vietnam all along.  Or were the U.S. rulers seeing things in black and
white when Vietnam invaded (liberated) Cambodia and the U.S. switch sides
giving support to Pol Pot's regime (a period in history usually conveniently
forgotten by all those who write about Cambodia)?

Were we seeing things in black and white during all of these periods, or
just one of them?  If we were seeing in black and white during all of these
periods is it then merely a coincidence that there is a consistent policy of
promoting U.S. ruling interests in all cases?

Or is it that you just see everybody else who lives in these benighted
states, with the exception of a few subtle intellectuals such as yourself,
as "seeing in black and white"?  If this is the way you see everybody else
isn't this just another example of seeing in black and white?

Like George Bush and my old boss Michael Walzer, Woj, is able to make such
blanket, "logically consistent", absurd statements because they are
completely divorced from anything that actually happens in history.  At
least here, in this case he puts a minor qualifier on his statement.

What, Woj, doesn't usually seem to get is the difference between the way our
rulers excuse and justify their actions and what they actually do.  The
current administration may actually be more of a group of true believers
than others.  But many of the people in the Reagan regime (though Reagan
himself seemed to believe the lines he was given to say) were quite cynical
about the fact that what they were  presenting a good advertising campaign
while actually "doing" the opposite of what they were saying they were
doing.  I don't find that this is "seeing in black and white".  I find this
to be the usual methods that the powerful use to justify themselves.

JM
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