Monday with McKenna: Philosophy vs. Punditry

We're going back to back with Terry McKenna to start the week. He'll be with us today and Tuesday. You may recall Terry's piece on McCain from a few weeks back. As Frank Rich observed Sunday, McCain's lies (the subject of Terry's piece) have finally caught up with him (and W.R. Pitt of Truthout also weighs in with a similar insight).

Being a philosophy graduate myself, I feel a particular resonance with Terry's theme today. So here comes Part 1 of Terry's reflections on philosophy and punditry.


It’s the day after Easter; what better day to consider man’s search for meaning? Sadly, our era no longer values such a search. In an earlier era, the philosopher Rene Descartes corresponded with nobility and was granted a pension by the king of France. Half a half century later, Isaac Newton was England’s man of the age. But today, if a bright high school student admitted an interest in the study of philosophy as their college major, surely he or she would be vigorously discouraged.

Philosophers seem as irrelevant as poets and goldsmiths, though perhaps not quite so irrelevant as alchemists. We’ve replaced philosophy with journalism, and replaced philosophers with opinion makers such as newspaper columnists and the like. If philosophers created works of permanent value, today’s columns and OP-ED pieces are mere ephemera. If likened to food, the works of Plato nourished generations of scholars, today’s writings are mere snack food; useful only to fill our flabby minds with empty calories.

This week was a good one for our bloviators. In addition to the Iraq war and Nancy Pelosi’s unscripted comments during her middle east trip, we had the resolution of Iran’s seizure of fifteen British sailors and marines.

I’m happy for the sailors. Though their professional rigor turns out to be less than impressive (come on, you guys gave up about three days!) still they came home alive and unharmed, and in the middle east, maybe that’s remarkable enough.

Fifteen sailors and marines and a minor border incident don’t mean much in the scheme of things, but you wouldn’t know it from all the noise in the news media. For the bloviating class, the past two weeks became just another opportunity to show off in print, on the radio, or on camera. Were their guesses on the mark? Thing happened so quickly that it’s easy to check. It turns out no one was right (except maybe Tony Blair when he attempted to cool the rhetoric). The end came much sooner than anticipated. And – although there may have been some behind the scenes bargaining - it doesn’t look like either side gave away much. It could be this simple: Iran recognized that it got as much mileage as it could and ended it. But look at the headlines from a sample of articles (I selected a screen shot of sample articles via Google). Note the breathless energy (click graphic to enlarge).

So, if our pundits are full of shit (and if you track almost any issue, you’ll see that they are) then whither the search for information at a deeper level?

Sadly, the search for a deeper understanding of current affairs is led by the self same bloviators who are so disappointing. I had the opportunity to hear one of them on two occasions this past week, John Bolton. If you don’t remember him, he’s the hardliner that Bush appointed as UN ambassador (in a recess appointment). Though he’s a bully, he is also considered a serious man. He has spent a lot of time in and around government working on international affairs - particularly arms control. At the risk of over simplifying his position, he is suspicious of attempts to sign treaties with rogue states that have no intention of doing what they promise. His bottom line is that negotiating with such states quickly morphs into an attempt to reform them, and such efforts are doomed to failure. He prefers instead a policy of regime change.

Regime change sounded good until we found out that regime change is only half the battle. And war itself is much more complicated than just sending out a bunch of smart bombs. With the disaster in Iraq, we are now faced with the recognition that war is a dirty business that almost never yields the desired outcome. The deeper lesson is that the US is not quite strong enough to remake the world on its own terms.

—T. McKenna

Tomorrow: Part 2

Why Diplomacy is Stronger Than War

We're going to return to Jimmy Carter's book tonight, but first I thought I'd have a quick look at how the righties are taking the Scooter verdict. Over at FOX, it was hard to find a thing: plenty of stuff about Rosie bashing FOX; various murders; and a cat surviving a 75 foot fall. Finally, I found that Gibson is calling for a do-over based on the fact that one of the jurors is a reporter.

Now I've been through a jury trial (take me out for a few drinks some night and I'll tell you to whole sorry tale), and I seem to recall both the prosecution and the defense being allowed what are called "peremptory excusals". That's when you kick a juror out just because you have a feeling about him, or have heard something. And even before that, there's a prolonged period of questioning from both attorneys and the judge. If the legal power of the White House couldn't tease out what Gibson calls a "smelly" coincidence in a juror's professional background, then maybe that's simply yet another instance of the Bushies' total incompetence. Thanks, John, for pointing that out for us.
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I want to stay with Jimmy Carter's book this week, first because of the unfounded attacks it has received, but also because it's so topical. Today, the King of Jordan appeared before Congress, asking them to focus on Palestine, and reminding them that "a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was more urgent than the conflict in Iraq." (watch video of this speech, here).

What he is recommending to Congress as a solution is basically what Carter proposes in his book: support for a 2002 Saudi plan that calls for universal recognition of Israel as an independent nation by all her Arab neighbors, in exchange for the formation of a viable Palestinian state in the region that would be freed up by a rollback to 1967 borders. Until this is done, said King Abdullah, the situation in Iraq would not improve, and "we are all at risk."

This moderate message seemed to accord with what Carter's impression is of the Jordanians:

...many Jordanians feel that a failure to resolve the Palestinian issue may lead to the destruction of their own nation, and they listen with anger and concern to some extreme Israeli spokesmen who say "Jordan is Palestine." The threat is real and vital to Jordan's leaders...Abdullah II...has seemed to continue his father's [King Hussein] attitude of cautious idealism. Despite limits to his influence, his personal integrity and commitment to Middle East peace are acknowledged.

In his description of his own talks with the likes of Arafat, Assad of Syria, and Begin, Carter reveals the strength of a statesman. This is what we need now, particularly with Iran. It is only a sign of mewlish weakness to threaten an adversary with bunker-buster nukes and aircraft carriers; it takes strength and intelligence to actually talk with some of these hombres. As we have seen time and again, Bush refuses to do it, because he can't; he simply lacks the ability and the experience to do so. Thus, we see more flag-draped boxes being returned to devastated families, with no end in sight.

Yet Bush is not unique in this incapacity for statesmanship. Sharon and Olmert have been (to be charitable about it) inconsistent on this front, and obviously the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have been unequal to the challenge of diplomacy. War is easy: you either kill or you die. Statesmanship takes a deeper, less brutish, and more enduring strength.

What everyone in power needs to remember, and what I think Abdullah was implying yesterday, is that these thugs don't represent the people. But killing them only makes more of them: the lesson of Iraq in a nutshell.

You see, people, when you wish death upon a tyrant, you distract urgently needed attention and energy from the work of weakening him. I'm sure most of you have seen the foolish comedian, Bill Maher, have to defend himself before Bill O'Reilly and the court of public opinion. Does this help weaken or stop Dick Cheney? No: it only gives him more power.

So while no one will pretend that what Jimmy Carter did in his presidency was faultless, his approach was and remains the only one that makes sense. You have to talk to the bad guys if you really want to stop them. There is no time when sanity is more essential than when you are surrounded by madmen.

"The Wall as Prison"

Here's a telling snippet from Monday's White House press briefing; the discussion is about the latest in the long train of the incompetencies and oversights of tyranny, the Reed Army Hospital scandal—you might call it the military's version of Katrina-FEMA:

MR. SNOW: ...So we take a very exhaustive look at this. It is very important to figure out what's wrong, and get it fixed. And the President is committed to that.
Q But the President hasn't said in any way, shape, or form, this is my responsibility, this is on me?
MR. SNOW: Okay, well, I'll take the rhetorical flourish under advisement.

In other words, the admission of failure, even of simple error, is still, to this administration, beneath one's lorgnette to even discuss. Anyone who suggests that it might help for the powerful to start admitting to their mistakes is lightly accused of engaging in "rhetorical flourishes." It has gone so far past the point of revulsion that I can no longer come up with an appropriate rhetorical flourish of disgust to do it all justice. So we may leave it there, I suppose, but with a reminder that what follows below is all related to the sacrifices that these soldiers of ours have made, only to be treated little better than POWs in an enemy camp once they come home wounded from their service.
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Introduction: check here for the results of the latest worldwide poll on public perception of various nations. Israel, Iran, and the U.S. rank #1, 2, and 3 for "most negative image." This may help to explain much of what follows.

I live in a true melting-pot style neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. On my block, there are Chinese, Italians, Poles, Russians, and of course, Arabs. Most of the folks here are, in fact, Palestinian or Lebanese. The memory of 9/11 is still painfully fresh here, because we unwittingly harbored one of the terrorists, about a block and a half from where I am sitting now.

I forget the guy's name, but I remember recognizing his face when someone showed me a grainy picture of him in the Daily News, about a week after the attacks. He had lived among us for months, and no one was the wiser. FBI-looking types were here for a long time after that—maybe they still come around now, though more furtively and in fewer numbers than they did 5 and a half years ago.

This is to introduce what is to follow this week, so that you know how we came to our little book of the month selection here. One day, a few weeks back, a Lebanese fellow I know from the neighborhood handed me a book. I'm not going to identify him except to note that, like many of his countrymen here in Kensington, he has a deep personal history in the Mideast and its conflicts; and he is one of the most patriotic, as in pro-American, people that I know.

So he handed me a book and said, "Brian, if you want to know what's truly going on over there—you know, in the Mideast—please read this man's book. This is the most accurate account of what's happened there and what's going on now that I've seen."

I've been reading bits and pieces from this book—Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, but have been hesitant to write about it, because as much as I respect my Lebanese friend, I thought maybe he was pursuing a private agenda. Then something else happened.

Another friend came by one evening to pick up his daughter, who had been playing with my kid that day. He's Jewish, and he saw the book lying on my desk. "Ah, you're reading Carter's new book? I haven't read it myself, but I hear it's very accurate historically and has a lot to teach us about what's going on there."

I asked him if he found the imputation that Israel engages in apartheid, or is headed in that direction, offensive.

"No, not at all," he said. "After all, Israel is a country with a government and politicians who are trying to gain and hold power—you think they care what Americans think of them? Jimmy Carter has always stood firmly for Israel's right to exist; he just doesn't think they should dominate the region."

Indeed, as I came near the end of the book, I found Carter's list of "key requirements" for peace. Bullet point A of these reads as follows:

The security of Israel must be guaranteed. The Arabs must acknowledge openly and specifically that Israel is a reality and has a right to exist in peace, behind secure and recognized borders, and with a firm Arab pledge to terminate any further acts of violence against the legally constituted nation of Israel.

So why was this guy attacked as he was for this book? One FOX News pundit openly accused Carter of plagiarizing "his" maps! And an entire chorus of others called Carter's book "shameful" and an "attack against Israel". Those were the reasonably civil voices raised against this book; I won't even bother to cite what has been heard from many others since last December.

But one criticism I can't find of Carter's book is any fault with its history. More than half the book, I'd say, is a recounting of the history relating to the current nexus of conflict as it exists now (Carter was writing in 2006, amid the most recent occupation of Lebanon). Of course, since Carter himself was at the center of much of this history, as President during the talks that led to the Camp David accords, his accuracy is hardly surprising, though it is noteworthy.

I have discovered through personal experience that people who have the clearest view of the past tend to be right about the present and even the future. So overall, I found Carter's book to be just as my Lebanese friend had predicted—a lucid, balanced, and passionate plea for sanity and diplomacy before it becomes too late for peace to have a chance. Indeed, I found none of the supposed over-the-top hatchet job on Israel that the mass media (most of whom probably hadn't read it) reported. If anything, Carter is especially harsh on—guess who—the American government, as in this:

All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace...The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.

Meanwhile, the killing, the escalation of violence , and the insanity of conflict over 40-year old wounds continue apace—right in today's news.

We'll have more on Jimmy Carter's book later this week. Meanwhile, if you have thoughts on the matter, even if it's to call me a friend of the terrorists (I've heard it before), by all means post a comment.