I'm not a journalist so I can't say for sure but I think it's just not in their interest to remember. Remembering means asking hard questions of the people in power they rely on for scoops and access. It also might mean telling their audiences things they don't want to hear about their government and society (which we know won't help the sales of their sponsors).
I also think it's an illustration of why we need the Glenn Greenwalds of the world who are willing to give platforms to alternative views (like Edward Snowden's, like Julian Assange's). I'm interested to see how public opinion plays out. I was impressed in 2013 that a lot of people remembered even if the government and the media didnt. At least some Trump supporters seem to remember now. Time will tell I suppose.
I just don't get the criticism of Obama's handling of Iraq. For one thing we didn't really leave, we just pulled out of the cities. For another you don't even address the status of armed forces issue. You're crazy if you think any president was going to allow American soldiers to be tried in Iraqi courts which was the sticking point. Trying to operate under those circumstances would have quickly forced us to chose between tolerating US soldiers prosecuted in foreign tribunals and overthrowing the very government we installed.
Part of reigning in our foreign policy excesses requires accepting that we can't help them. If they make it here on their own they can be treated as asylum seekers.
That's why it probably won't ever happen. The way anti-war voices are scattered around the far left and libertarian/isolationist right leaves no constituency for it. The only thing that I think could potentially change that is sustained economic crisis that forces people currently living comfortably to ask why we'd rather spend money in adventures abroad than take care of our own. As much as I hate our foreign policy that's not something I'm about to wish for.
Great post. I say that even as someone who wouldn't support using our military to evacuate refugees or create safe zones. In our current paradigm mission creep would ensure that it was step 1 to actual involvement in the hostilities (see Iraq 2).
We're propagandized from a young age to see ourselves as liberators in these situations, always fighting for the side of virtue. The reality of course is much different but it's hard to get the masses to understand that. It isn't helped that we've shifted from citizen conscripts to a pseudo praetorian class for war fighting and that our corporate media is dominated by sycophants, so addicted to access that asking hard questions can kill their careers.
I too wish that the anti-war position was better represented in regular partisan discourse but I'm not sure how we get there from here. Yesterday a friend from high school who I know to be very progressive posted that he reluctantly backed yesterday's bombing. I posted an article questioning the efficacy on his post and suggested he consider it for perspective. I was immediately accused by a large number of people of posting 'fake news' and being callous about the death of children. The ensuing conversation was as productive as any political discussion on social media, which is to say, not at all.
It's a foolish position. I think there might be an argument that the Assad government is the least of the many evils currently vying for control of Syria but that's an extremely low bar. It's certainly not a regime that should be celebrated (and I'm hoping my earlier comments in this discussion don't suggest that I think otherwise).
As I said to Kolohe above I think we work to overthrow it at our own peril. Even if Assad himself has to go I think the nominally secular Ba'athist state, repressive as it is, is a better starting point for the future than what the militias have on offer. After Iraq there should be no illusions about what happens when you purge the secular nationalist class from the government of a country seething with sectarian strife.
Where are you seeing definitive evidence that it was delivered by aircraft? Chemical weapons can be delivered with mortars and rockets. There's also the possibility that it wasn't released intentionally (I'm seeing some sources that say Assad forces bombed a rebel chemical weapons site and gas was released).
Now the Assad government obviously lacks credibility but I don't really get why equally sketchy groups invested in the conflict somehow have more credibility. No one really knows what happened at this juncture.
This is one of the reasons I think that jumping to the conclusion that Assad's forces were behind the attack is premature. There have been articles over the last couple years suggesting al-Nusra and other rebel groups may have chemical weapons of their own. Another interesting article from a less partisan source:
Simple answer- yes and I think his failure to obtain it violated the Constitution. The fact that war making has de facto become the decision of a single person and almost totally divorced from the democratic process is terrible for our country.
I don't think we should prop him up (the Russians can do that if they want) but nor do I think we should do anything to hasten his demise. I also wouldn't be so quick to say he, or someone else from the Allawite class operating in his place, can't keep the (relative) peace as long as he has support from Russia, Iran, and other regional actors. At the very least I think the government headed by Assad or part of his clan has a better shot at it than the possible alternatives.
All of this assumes that removing Assad is sound strategy. Don't take this as an endorsement of his government but I don't believe there is anything better available to replace him, now or in the future. At absolute best you get another sectarian government, beholden to foreign powers and unable to control it's own territory, much like the regime at Bagdhad. The likely outcome is something like Libya.
No disagreement from me. What I think is good is the overview of the sketchy sources policy makers and American journalists rely on when making hysterical claims and urging military action. It's maddening to me that even after Iraq supposedly reliable media will spoonfeed the claims of activists and charlatans with stakes in the conflict to the public as objective and unbiased.
Joyner and everyone else knows exactly what happens now. Now we do the same stupid thing we always do every time our government intervenes in messy civil wars across the globe. We destabilize existing states and feed the chaos and fanaticism that sets the stage for the next intervention, heedless of the humanitarian cost and whether or not any of this is actually in the interest of the American tax payer.
The gas attack (assuming it was a gas attack and it was carried out by Assad forces, both things which are far from clear) is just a pretext for what establishment hardliners have wanted from the beginning. The fact that the mainstream media immediately trumpeted this as an Assad atrocity and began beating the drum for war shows why, despite all their crying to the contrary of late, they don't deserve the trust of the public.
Edit to add, anyone who thinks its clear that the gas attack, again, assuming it was one, was committed by Assad should read this analysis of the sources of information that the government and mainstream media are relying on:
I think the 13th Warrior is criminally underrated in some respects. They sliced and diced it so much that it was never going to be good but I thought it had a lot of cool concepts, including the educated, urbane Arab scholar among barbarian Vikings. I liked it even more when I found out ibn Fadlan was an actual historical figure.
I'm a bit of a hater on the super hero movie genre but my understanding is that Hollywood tried to include a cameo of famous Chinese actors in one of the Iron Man movies and it was so unsubtle that it blew up in their faces. They've probably learned their lesson and are now trying to weave stars from each country into films so that they can emphasize accordingly in the advertising. I bet all of the posters over there for Independence Day 2 prominently featured Angelababy for this reason, while ours prominently featured the American cast. Same deal with this. We see a Matt Damon movie, they see a movie starring a prominent Chinese actor.
Precisely. Its why I think a lot of post-modern cultural criticism on this issue strikes me as off the mark, or at least (perhaps ironically) ethnocentric. The majority of the profits on blockbuster movies aren't being made in America, or even necessarily the West.
It's also quite possible for violence to be remote. 1984 doesn't dwell on life in the trenches for those in the perpetual war between Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, but it isn't really the point of the story. Maybe the remoteness of the violence is itself illustrative of something.
I haven't seen the movie but it's funny how that can happen. Based on your assessment I'm guessing they put Matt Damon in it to get American (and to a lesser degree European) asses in seats for a movie otherwise designed to get Chinese asses in seats.
I tend to agree and have a similar discomfort with it. I also think that we haven't yet adapted well to the realities of social media. A chuckle to yourself at someone else's expense in the circumstances described is ugly and wrong but also human. It can be a teachable moment. Something about making someone else's shame go viral just to get kicks, and the popularity of it, says something very ugly and harder to remedy about human society more generally.
Berlatsky would have a much more interesting point if he didn't veer off into intersectionality foolishness at the end. The threat of violence is real in totalitarian societies, and I think it's fair to consider its absence in some of our more famous allegories (1984, Brave New World). However in his zeal to he misses how arbitrary, inane, and stifling modern attacks on free speech can be, from the illiberal campus left, to British libel law, to German comedians facing charges for mocking Recep Erdogan. You don't need highly personalized torture to stifle free thought any more than you need a body count (though the latter no doubt helps).
He also needs to update his research on World War 2. Now that we've got records from former Eastern Bloc countries Auschwitz really should fade from the forefront as our image of the holocaust. The better one is a silent forest and men with rifles herding civilians to be shot into cold, unmarked graves. Of course considering historical research might also require him to try to square the fact that most civilian deaths caused by Soviet and Nazi policy in eastern Europe were white Christians (Kulaks, ethnic Poles, Ukranians, Belarussians, and Baltic peoples). God forbid we consider the limitations of modern American identity politics in explaining history.
The places the author warns about sound a lot like what other parents have described to me. My cousin's wife told me their son is coming home from 6 hours of kindergarten with several hours of math homework. No idea if this is an exaggeration but I just don't see that as productive for most 5 year olds.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “A Confession of Bias”
I'm not a journalist so I can't say for sure but I think it's just not in their interest to remember. Remembering means asking hard questions of the people in power they rely on for scoops and access. It also might mean telling their audiences things they don't want to hear about their government and society (which we know won't help the sales of their sponsors).
I also think it's an illustration of why we need the Glenn Greenwalds of the world who are willing to give platforms to alternative views (like Edward Snowden's, like Julian Assange's). I'm interested to see how public opinion plays out. I was impressed in 2013 that a lot of people remembered even if the government and the media didnt. At least some Trump supporters seem to remember now. Time will tell I suppose.
"
I just don't get the criticism of Obama's handling of Iraq. For one thing we didn't really leave, we just pulled out of the cities. For another you don't even address the status of armed forces issue. You're crazy if you think any president was going to allow American soldiers to be tried in Iraqi courts which was the sticking point. Trying to operate under those circumstances would have quickly forced us to chose between tolerating US soldiers prosecuted in foreign tribunals and overthrowing the very government we installed.
"
Part of reigning in our foreign policy excesses requires accepting that we can't help them. If they make it here on their own they can be treated as asylum seekers.
"
That's why it probably won't ever happen. The way anti-war voices are scattered around the far left and libertarian/isolationist right leaves no constituency for it. The only thing that I think could potentially change that is sustained economic crisis that forces people currently living comfortably to ask why we'd rather spend money in adventures abroad than take care of our own. As much as I hate our foreign policy that's not something I'm about to wish for.
"
Great post. I say that even as someone who wouldn't support using our military to evacuate refugees or create safe zones. In our current paradigm mission creep would ensure that it was step 1 to actual involvement in the hostilities (see Iraq 2).
We're propagandized from a young age to see ourselves as liberators in these situations, always fighting for the side of virtue. The reality of course is much different but it's hard to get the masses to understand that. It isn't helped that we've shifted from citizen conscripts to a pseudo praetorian class for war fighting and that our corporate media is dominated by sycophants, so addicted to access that asking hard questions can kill their careers.
I too wish that the anti-war position was better represented in regular partisan discourse but I'm not sure how we get there from here. Yesterday a friend from high school who I know to be very progressive posted that he reluctantly backed yesterday's bombing. I posted an article questioning the efficacy on his post and suggested he consider it for perspective. I was immediately accused by a large number of people of posting 'fake news' and being callous about the death of children. The ensuing conversation was as productive as any political discussion on social media, which is to say, not at all.
On “OTB: Trump Orders Syria Strikes. So Now What?”
Interesting, I hadn't seen that. I guess time will tell.
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It's a foolish position. I think there might be an argument that the Assad government is the least of the many evils currently vying for control of Syria but that's an extremely low bar. It's certainly not a regime that should be celebrated (and I'm hoping my earlier comments in this discussion don't suggest that I think otherwise).
As I said to Kolohe above I think we work to overthrow it at our own peril. Even if Assad himself has to go I think the nominally secular Ba'athist state, repressive as it is, is a better starting point for the future than what the militias have on offer. After Iraq there should be no illusions about what happens when you purge the secular nationalist class from the government of a country seething with sectarian strife.
"
Where are you seeing definitive evidence that it was delivered by aircraft? Chemical weapons can be delivered with mortars and rockets. There's also the possibility that it wasn't released intentionally (I'm seeing some sources that say Assad forces bombed a rebel chemical weapons site and gas was released).
Now the Assad government obviously lacks credibility but I don't really get why equally sketchy groups invested in the conflict somehow have more credibility. No one really knows what happened at this juncture.
"
This is one of the reasons I think that jumping to the conclusion that Assad's forces were behind the attack is premature. There have been articles over the last couple years suggesting al-Nusra and other rebel groups may have chemical weapons of their own. Another interesting article from a less partisan source:
http://www.dw.com/en/is-assad-to-blame-for-the-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria/a-38330217
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Very astute, and accurate as well.
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Simple answer- yes and I think his failure to obtain it violated the Constitution. The fact that war making has de facto become the decision of a single person and almost totally divorced from the democratic process is terrible for our country.
"
I don't think we should prop him up (the Russians can do that if they want) but nor do I think we should do anything to hasten his demise. I also wouldn't be so quick to say he, or someone else from the Allawite class operating in his place, can't keep the (relative) peace as long as he has support from Russia, Iran, and other regional actors. At the very least I think the government headed by Assad or part of his clan has a better shot at it than the possible alternatives.
"
All of this assumes that removing Assad is sound strategy. Don't take this as an endorsement of his government but I don't believe there is anything better available to replace him, now or in the future. At absolute best you get another sectarian government, beholden to foreign powers and unable to control it's own territory, much like the regime at Bagdhad. The likely outcome is something like Libya.
"
And all without a single vote in Congress on the actual issue.
"
No disagreement from me. What I think is good is the overview of the sketchy sources policy makers and American journalists rely on when making hysterical claims and urging military action. It's maddening to me that even after Iraq supposedly reliable media will spoonfeed the claims of activists and charlatans with stakes in the conflict to the public as objective and unbiased.
"
Joyner and everyone else knows exactly what happens now. Now we do the same stupid thing we always do every time our government intervenes in messy civil wars across the globe. We destabilize existing states and feed the chaos and fanaticism that sets the stage for the next intervention, heedless of the humanitarian cost and whether or not any of this is actually in the interest of the American tax payer.
The gas attack (assuming it was a gas attack and it was carried out by Assad forces, both things which are far from clear) is just a pretext for what establishment hardliners have wanted from the beginning. The fact that the mainstream media immediately trumpeted this as an Assad atrocity and began beating the drum for war shows why, despite all their crying to the contrary of late, they don't deserve the trust of the public.
Edit to add, anyone who thinks its clear that the gas attack, again, assuming it was one, was committed by Assad should read this analysis of the sources of information that the government and mainstream media are relying on:
http://www.alternet.org/world/trump-going-commit-next-great-american-catastrophe-syria
On “Morning Ed: Society {2017.04.04.T}”
I think the 13th Warrior is criminally underrated in some respects. They sliced and diced it so much that it was never going to be good but I thought it had a lot of cool concepts, including the educated, urbane Arab scholar among barbarian Vikings. I liked it even more when I found out ibn Fadlan was an actual historical figure.
"
I'm a bit of a hater on the super hero movie genre but my understanding is that Hollywood tried to include a cameo of famous Chinese actors in one of the Iron Man movies and it was so unsubtle that it blew up in their faces. They've probably learned their lesson and are now trying to weave stars from each country into films so that they can emphasize accordingly in the advertising. I bet all of the posters over there for Independence Day 2 prominently featured Angelababy for this reason, while ours prominently featured the American cast. Same deal with this. We see a Matt Damon movie, they see a movie starring a prominent Chinese actor.
"
Precisely. Its why I think a lot of post-modern cultural criticism on this issue strikes me as off the mark, or at least (perhaps ironically) ethnocentric. The majority of the profits on blockbuster movies aren't being made in America, or even necessarily the West.
"
It's also quite possible for violence to be remote. 1984 doesn't dwell on life in the trenches for those in the perpetual war between Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, but it isn't really the point of the story. Maybe the remoteness of the violence is itself illustrative of something.
"
I haven't seen the movie but it's funny how that can happen. Based on your assessment I'm guessing they put Matt Damon in it to get American (and to a lesser degree European) asses in seats for a movie otherwise designed to get Chinese asses in seats.
"
I tend to agree and have a similar discomfort with it. I also think that we haven't yet adapted well to the realities of social media. A chuckle to yourself at someone else's expense in the circumstances described is ugly and wrong but also human. It can be a teachable moment. Something about making someone else's shame go viral just to get kicks, and the popularity of it, says something very ugly and harder to remedy about human society more generally.
"
Berlatsky would have a much more interesting point if he didn't veer off into intersectionality foolishness at the end. The threat of violence is real in totalitarian societies, and I think it's fair to consider its absence in some of our more famous allegories (1984, Brave New World). However in his zeal to he misses how arbitrary, inane, and stifling modern attacks on free speech can be, from the illiberal campus left, to British libel law, to German comedians facing charges for mocking Recep Erdogan. You don't need highly personalized torture to stifle free thought any more than you need a body count (though the latter no doubt helps).
He also needs to update his research on World War 2. Now that we've got records from former Eastern Bloc countries Auschwitz really should fade from the forefront as our image of the holocaust. The better one is a silent forest and men with rifles herding civilians to be shot into cold, unmarked graves. Of course considering historical research might also require him to try to square the fact that most civilian deaths caused by Soviet and Nazi policy in eastern Europe were white Christians (Kulaks, ethnic Poles, Ukranians, Belarussians, and Baltic peoples). God forbid we consider the limitations of modern American identity politics in explaining history.
On “The Reading Railroad”
@kazzy thanks for the insight and yes, please do shoot me an email if it isn't too much trouble.
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The places the author warns about sound a lot like what other parents have described to me. My cousin's wife told me their son is coming home from 6 hours of kindergarten with several hours of math homework. No idea if this is an exaggeration but I just don't see that as productive for most 5 year olds.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.