Andrew Sullivan has this map posted at the Dish today, which he found via Open Left.  What I take from Open Left’s analysis is that by and large white men are not all that progressive.  Why this should be “discouraging” to Sullivan is beyond me, unless we’re conflating a lack of progressiveness with out and out racism.  Which I think would be a mistake.  The second map shows the non-white-male voters who picked Obama.

I also wonder if Yglesias is all that correct with this assessment:

I would say that another message is that progressive politics is badly disadvantaged by a situation in which the overwhelming majorities of political leaders and prominent media figures are white men. There are plenty of white men with progressive views, but in general the majority of white men are not progressive and the majority of progressives are not white men.

I think a lot of minority voters aren’t so much “progressive” as they are in favor of more direct government assistance, something Democrats have promised to do better than Republicans.  A lot of minorities and union members also happen to be staunch social conservatives.  Support for things like gay marriage is very low among black and Hispanic populations.  Union members and minorities just have populist tendencies when it comes to economics. [Read more →]

“While I agree that it’s fairly pointless, as a tactical matter, for dissidents to attack the talk radio giants, this comes, I think, out of a deep frustration that people with little more than slogans and attitude have bigfooted discussion among conservatives, and have helped turn the GOP and the movement into something that’s extremely hostile to change (as distinct from skepticism of it, as all real conservatives should be), and almost fanatically opposed to dissent from within. A fairly conservative friend of mine and I were talking the other day about something Glenn Beck had said, and my friend looked disgusted, saying, “I’m sick of being associated with conservatives.” The impulse to take on the Becks and the Limbaughs comes from a sense that these guys are hurting us bad, and preventing the kind of clear thinking that we need to get back in the political game. I’d love to know how Mark and the League propose for dissident conservatives to “engage” the base when the kind of people the base trusts and takes its cues from demonize dissidents as RINOs, closet liberals, squishes, wets, suck-ups, and so forth. I’m asking seriously. I don’t know how to go about this in the current climate.” ~ Rod Dreher

There’s no easy answer to this question, of course.  Dreher and other critics of Beckian talk-show conservatism are right: the talking heads do hurt the  cause.  Think of William F. Buckley back in the days leading up to the launch of National Review.  Imagine if he’d had to compete with Fox News for the heart and soul of conservatism.  It wouldn’t have been easy.  Indeed, on the field of battle, Buckley with his more reasoned and polite approach to political discussion (which isn’t to say he always threw soft punches, the man could be rather straightforward after all) may very well have lost to the populists now manning the airwaves in defense of “true conservatism.”  Buckley would be painted like every other East Coast Elite.

But I doubt very much that Buckley would have taken to that particular field.  He was too canny to become embroiled in a fight he couldn’t win, and too immersed in ideas to need to resort to those measures – at least until he was sure of victory.  What’s the point in taking on the Goliaths of the conservative movement anyways?  They have a higher bully pulpit, a wider audience, a louder megaphone.  And they’re okay fighting dirty, and dragging you down to whatever level they need to drag you in order to win.  Wait until they’re marginal players.  Wait until they’ve outworn their welcome.

Conservative dissidents these days have nowhere near enough patience.  Impulsively, they attack the easiest and biggest targets they can find: the talking heads.  As Dreher points out, the impulse for this fight is two-fold.  On the one hand it’s the impulse to remove Rush and co. from the conversation, because they’re “preventing the kind of clear thinking we need to get back in the political game.”  But much, much more importantly, I think, is the desire to simply not be associated with that particular brand of conservatism.  Guilt by association.  We’re not with them, we say.  And to prove it, here’s post after post on just why this is so, on why we hate Limbaugh even more than you do.

And it works.  Nobody who knows Conor or Rod would ever couple them with Limbaugh or Levin – right?  Only, it has unintended consequences.  Sure, you’ve blacklisted the pundits, but you’ve also been blacklisted, by a pretty significant portion of the conservative base.

Isn’t there a better way?

I think there is.  Let’s call it the Trojan Horse strategy. [Read more →]

John Judis would like to have more discussion about the possibility of ditching the CIA, or at the very least completely restructuring it:

The question that Congress might ponder, but won’t, is whether the structure of our foreign policy apparatus – the power and responsibility vested in a secret branch of government –  invites abuse. That was the position of the late Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan who argued for abolishing the CIA.  He didn’t want to eliminate intelligence, but he wanted to return it to the purview of the State Department, while giving the armed forces the responsibility for overseas intervention.

The CIA, of course, was born after World War II, when the sudden lack of a real war rendered the OSS irrelevant.  President Truman was reluctant to charter an intelligence agency to replace it, so former members of the OSS started what was essentially a private spy agency and then – for lack of a better word – forced their way into government.   From that point on, clandestine operations have been largely out of the hands of the State and War Departments, and certainly out of the control of Congress. [Read more →]

Let’s start with “isn’t” first:

________________________________________

• It’s not a war just about spreading democracy.
• It’s not a war just about oil.
• It’s not a war just about stopping a brutal dictator who supposedly had weapons of mass destruction.
• It’s not a war of humanitarian intervention.
• It’s not a plot cooked up by some secret cabal of Israeli Zionists and American neocons.

***

• It is a war partially about oil, partially about spreading democracy, and partially about ousting a brutal dictator.
• It is a war that reflects poorly on the cultural shift toward perpetual growth and expansion of American economic and military interests.
• It is a war fueled by skewed notions of national security and humanitarian intervention.
• It is a war about American military dominance in a region that has American economic interests – in oil, trade and so forth, at its heart.
• It is a war pushed very strongly by the brand of politics known as neoconservatism, which most blatantly embraces such military and economic expansion, but which is certainly not unique in this – only, perhaps, more unabashed.

Look, I opposed the Iraq War in the beginning.  I thought it was ludicrous, and the government’s case seemed paper thin.  Later, I opposed artificial time tables for withdrawal of American troops, because it struck me as cruel and imprudent and even cowardly to leave a nation in a state of civil war that we essentially instigated.  I still oppose withdrawing too quickly, lest the country be sucked into an ever more brutal cycle of civil war and chaos.

But I become more and more dubious that our continued presence is anything more than prolonging the inevitable; that no matter how long we stay, in the end we’ll have to exit, and when we do, the Iraqis will simply have to figure things out on their own.  And it will be bloody, and awful, and the violence will last a long, long time.  Likely enough, the “democratic government of Iraq” will become ever more despotic, and the country will become even more divided along sectarian lines.  No length of stay on the part of the American military can avoid that.  Even if we do achieve stability that lasts beyond our own occupation, the only way that stability will be achieved for long will be through the suppression of the Sunnis by the Shiite majority.

[Read more →]

“When conflict becomes a business, a nation’s business becomes conflict. When mighty industries are built on war, only a fool will expect peace.” -Philip Primeau

Philip’s larger point – that a privatized national defense, and a national acceptance of mercenaries as a tool for the public defense is very, very troubling – is one worth heeding.   I’ve made similar points about the privatization of other industries (our prisons for instance, where we essentially make crime profitable, and imprisonment an end within itself) but there is very little more troubling than privatizing the war industry, or transferring the common defense into the hands of corporations.  The defense apparatus – that military/industrial complex Eisenhower warned against decades ago – is already too powerful.  The manifestation of private armies will only compound this further, making the federal government even more dependent on contractors.

Philip writes:

Tens of thousands of mercenaries fought alongside our proper troops in Iraq, and it’s hard to believe that soldiers of fortune won’t play a significant role in future military endeavors.

It’s a distressing phenomenon, a development that betrays a lot about the state of the American empire, including just how thoroughly militarized we’ve become. Once, we relished the ideal of the “citizen-solider.” Now, most people don’t so much as bat a lash at the thought of privateers fighting under our flag, even as their antics cross moral and ethical boundaries here and there, here and there. (But perhaps that’s the point exactly . . .)

A standing army of professional soldiers is bad enough. The emergence of a martial caste, with certain families giving generation after generation of sons to arms, is a problem for anyone who desires internal and external harmony. The public’s acceptance of mercenaryism further complicates any hope for a relatively bloodless twenty-first century.

The advent of private armies in Africa has only led to increased destabilization on that continent.  The use of private firms in our own efforts abroad is a bad sign.  Then again, it does fit into the mythos surrounding government’s inability to do anything properly; until now, only defense seemed impervious to this claim.  With the rise of firms like Blackwater – what are they called now after their recent rebranding? – that last realm of public faith may start to crumble.  If private companies can provide for the common defense more efficiently than our own military, then we will begin to see this sort of partnership more frequently.  Make no mistake, I doubt that private firms could do a better job than our own military, but the larger fear is a trend toward further privatization and the creation of a “martial class” as Philip terms it, that would also add even greater voice to the already too-strong defense lobby.  Whether or not these firms do a better job it’s hard to say, but it’s easy enough to claim they do.

Remember, in the private world, actions should be determined by supply and demand; but in private/public partnerships often the demand has to be created in order to justify the supply.  Translate that in terms of defense, and you can see where this sort of partnership leads.

…but it seems like a lot of trade-offs rather than any real measure to slash the slush-fund that is our defense budget. [Read more →]