Views » July 1, 2008 » Web Only

Earth to Ken Brociner

By Martha Biondi and James Thindwa

In The American Left: What Progressives Can Learn From Obama, Ken Brociner claims that the U.S. left, especially the progressive media, has devalued political discourse by intentionally mischaracterizing conservatives and questioning their sincerity. Hello? What political universe does he live in?

That is a charge more applicable to the pundits on the right than the journalists and activists on the left, who labor in the trenches challenging right-wing dogma.

Brociner invokes Barack Obama’s commitment to “a different brand of politics” as a foil to bludgeon such respected progressive voices as MoveOn.org, and In These Times Senior Editor and bestselling author David Sirota. However, these charges lack merit. Brociner provides no evidence that leftists have mischaracterized or defamed their opponents.

For starters, Brociner finds the use of the term “warmonger” to describe neoconservative champions of the Iraq War to be outside acceptable parameters of debate. This would be laughable was it not so tragically misplaced. This war was sold to the American people with lies and falsehoods. That is beyond dispute. Republican presidential candidate John McCain has himself asserted that the United States might occupy Iraq for another one hundred years. Why then, is the term “warmonger” equivalent to assigning, as Brociner puts it, “a consciously malevolent motive”? Doesn’t the term “warmonger” depict “the world as it really is,” a quality Brociner inexplicably finds lacking in progressive media?

Indeed, it was the Bush administration, not “the progressive media” that distorted the truth. Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly, and falsely, charged that Saddam Hussein had “reconstituted nuclear weapons.” Richard Perle, the then Defense Policy Board chair, asserted falsely that “Mohammed Atta met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad prior to September 11.” And on PBS’ NewsHour, National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice declared that the administration’s nuclear assertions were “absolutely supportable.” In each case, these declarations were made in spite of evidence to the contrary. What then, was the motive behind these utterances, if not a desire for war?

Brociner castigates MoveOn.org for the “General Betray US” advertisement, claiming that it was “widely … interpreted” as accusing David Patraeus of “consciously and deliberately betraying the United States.” Not only does he offer no evidence of such a backlash, but in his pique, he seems to have misunderstood MoveOn’s main point: the general had betrayed the American people, not committed treason. In fact, the view that General Petraeus’ professional objectivity was compromised in his authorship of the Petraeus Report is not new. Tom Lantos, the late California congressman, no flaming lefty, charged that the administration had sent Petraeus “to convince members of Congress that victory is at hand” and that this “contrasts sharply with the deeply pessimistic reports of the independent Government Accountability Office.” Given the White House’s record of politicizing governmental appointments, doubting the independence of an appointee whose report validates a dubious war is only logical.

But Brociner’s most serious — again unsubstantiated — charge against the MoveOn ad is that it undermined “congressional efforts to set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.” To blame progressive activists for the failure of the Democratic Congress to halt funding for the war is intellectually dishonest and downright bizarre. Congressional Democrats have a long history of capitulation on national security. They voted for this war and its funding way before the MoveOn advertisement. The failure to end the war after the 2006 election victories can hardly be blamed on a one-page ad in the New York Times.

Brociner assails David Sirota for failing to consider that Obama might actually be a true believer in centrist economic policies. But as those of us in community organizing in Chicago know, Obama has been “silencing his populist rhetoric” of late, especially on NAFTA. But, it’s not just us. Time’s Massimo Calabresi makes this very point (“Obama’s Supreme Move to the Center,” June 26), writing, “while Barack Obama may be ranked as one of the Senate’s most liberal members….he is carefully moving to the center ahead of the fall campaign.” However, even if Obama does share the economic philosophy of his Wall Street donors, it is a fact that for a generation or more our government has been shaped by pay-to-play politics. It is this underlying reality that Brociner denies. Since when has it been “dogmatic” for the left — or anyone else, for that matter — to suggest that candidates receiving large corporate donations might become beholden to those interests? Indeed this aspect of American politics is taught in introductory political science classes.

Brociner also sees dogma in David Sirota’s view that “Clintonism … is about trying to appease Big Money while pretending to serve ordinary people.” But it was commonly acknowledged in both the mainstream and independent media that Clinton governed through a strategy of triangulation. The Clintons in fact epitomized the dissonance between rhetoric and practice. Bill Clinton implemented neo-liberal policies, including ending welfare and enacting NAFTA, and Sen. Clinton voted for the infamous bankruptcy bill that made it difficult for average people to seek relief through the courts. Yes, they did all this while claiming to serve ordinary people.

A fundamental problem with Brociner is the mindset that assigns good intentions to everyone, including those who want to roll back our most basic rights. There are people who reject equality for everyone, economic and environmental justice, healthcare for all, peace (yes, they want war!), children’s rights and the right of workers to organize. Calling them out is not “demonizing” them. It is calling a spade a spade.

The forces of reaction are on the march and they don’t operate with good intentions. Recently, black and Latino workers at a Comcast facility on Chicago’s South Side voted 79 to 99 against unionizing. It was not a free choice. Comcast officials intimidated and threatened them. Three weeks prior to the vote, they were subjected to daily captive audience meetings and shown videos of unions as a subversive force. Nationally, one in five workers who openly support a union during a union drive is fired — this in a country ostensibly fighting a war for “freedom and democracy.” To what motive does Brociner think we should attribute Comcast’s conduct? What kind of “good intentions” underlie the actions of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who earns $34.4 million per year while his workers are underpaid but can’t organize?

After thirty years of a well-funded conservative media machine that has institutionalized distortions, fear mongering, race-baiting and anti-union propaganda, it is stunning that Brociner would blame progressives for coarsening the public discourse. As a self-identified progressive, he should have aimed his ire at the right, which has made truth a casualty of its political agenda. Our problem has not been lack of civility, but our inability to vigorously challenge the right’s reactionary agenda. Brociner’s criticism of the progressive media confuses hard-hitting political analysis with incivility and divisiveness. But it is precisely the left’s willingness to fight back that has laid the groundwork for Obama’s rise and the possibility of a new direction.

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• Reader Comments

  McCain is not only a warmonger; he is a war criminal.

  To evade discussing this only plays into the hands of the neoliberal, conservative agenda.

  Dropping bombs on the innocent Vietnamese people who never harmed anyone as they scurried for cover hardly is an action one can describe as “heroic;” it certainly needs to be decribed adequately. Refusing to acknowledge that we have a war criminal running for the highest office in this country certainly needs to be stated.

  “Heroic” is the term for those who shot down McCain and the invaders trying to occupy their country.

  To try to coerce us to engage in a campaign of chauvinism where the facts are skewed by suggesting we need to try viewing conservatives as human beings with honest motivations of trying to make the world a better place to live is very dishonest.

  No one doubts McCain, like Bush and Hitler, is a human being.

  The question is, should these human beings be allowed to lead countries and escape having to explain their actions which are detrimental to the rest of the human race.

  Yes, I begrudgingly acknowledge McCain and the conservatives supporting him to be human beings… however, their actions require clear articulation… just what do you call someone who climbs into the cockpit of a fighter jet; flies this plane loaded with death over rice patties and without any concern bombs these “targets” and strafes these rice paddies and the villages with machine gun fire killing innocent people? And make no mistake--- everyone McCain killed, maimed and injured in his many “flights” over Vietnam killed only innocent people--- including the armed Vietnamese resistance who were heroically defending their homeland. Certainly McCain was no ambassador of goodwill for our country in Vietnam. McCain was part of a well thought out campaign of criminal, senseless and illegal death and destruction which was clearly articulated by the war’s generals--- including the Commander in Chiefs--- of destroy everyone and everything.

  What is McCain if he is not a warmonger and war criminal who justly got shot down while caryying out his dirty deeds?

  How does one give such conduct a “human face” or forgive anyone of such responsibility? Why would anyone even suggest that calling McCain and his conservative supporters anything other than what they are: war mongers and war criminals.

  What we really need in this country is a good heavy dose of anti-imperialist education not admonissions to treat war mongers and war criminals with respect because they simply don’t deserve any respect for what they have done and continue to do.

  The last time I gave any thought to all of this it was still wrong to invade the countries of other peoples killing them to coerce them to go along with the expoitation and rape of their peoples and their countries. Last I heard these were actions of imperialists and not a bunch of conservatives with just another view on life and a political outlook aimed at making life better for everyone.

  Alan L. Maki
  Warroad, Minnesota

  Posted by alanmaki on Jul 1, 2008 at 9:16 AM

  Alan,

  This is the kind of rhetoric that Ken (I think) would oppose and I’ll explain why I believe it isn’t justified.

  There is a bigger picture to war than just one person serving as the cog in the machine. All the “war criminal” and other accusations you pin on McCain could just as easily be charged to many leftist that have served in war. After WWII ended people like Howard Zinn (a great progressive today) and Kurt Vonnegut called into question the use of fire bombing civilian cities in Germany and Japan. They came later to understand that they were a cog in a machine that had practiced a form of genocide by targeting civilians rather than military targets. Like McCain, Zinn was a pilot, just a human driving a plane following orders. The only difference between the two is that Zinn later became uncomfortable with his role in that war, and good for him, and then spoke honestly about it.

  Viet Nam had plenty of progressives and leftist emerge after-the-fact. The things they saw and/or did eventually appalled them and they later spoke out about it. It was probably these men (women didn’t do war back then) that were the real catalysts behind the anti-war movement as they had more credibility than college students protesting. But they weren’t war criminals because they were doing what they were essentially forced to do.

  There are many reasons that soldiers become afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder. But one factor is the confusion of ones personal ethical or moral belief and belief in “defending ones country.” Some people can only “survive” their PTSD by making the argument within themselves that they were being patriotic. Those of us that haven’t gone through the horrors of war don’t really have the right or the empathy to charge them as war criminals and war mongers.

  The war criminals and mongers are those that set the war policy, those that wield the power from the political arena, those that can start and end wars, those that make the decisions that cause war crimes.

  Now, McCain can be described as a war monger as he is in a position of power that has impelled the Iraq War although he still is not a top monger (a minor player) as being a Senator he didn’t set the policy, didn’t do all that the Bush Administration did to start and process the Iraq War. But if elected president, all criticism of his policies as to war and war mongering/criminality will be plausible arguments. Certainly he already is open for charges from day one if he continues Iraq unabated and most certainly if he “bomb, bomb, bomb...bomb Iran,” as he once sung.

  But his Viet Nam experience isn’t rightly characterized as war mongering or criminality, otherwise all those who fought in Viet Nam (no matter their political leanings) would need to be “McCained,” as you’ve done.

  Posted by Jon B on Jul 1, 2008 at 12:48 PM

  Thanks for an excellent article!

  Posted by Nevada_Ned on Jul 2, 2008 at 12:20 AM

  Alan, Jon -

  The Vietnam War was started by a Democrat, continued and escalated by a Democrat, and ended by a Republican.  The Democrats found that intolerable and unforgivable, and destroyed the Republican, who was criminally and politically less culpable than either Kennedy, who stole the 1960 election and damn near got us in a nuclear war, and Johnson, who pissed away $6 trillion (six trillion dollars) on the War on Poverty Socialist experiment that resulted in the near-total destruction of black family life in the United States for generations. 

  So, it is with some amusement that I observe the continuing and escalating internecine warfare among the Democrats, as in this article.

  When Willy Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied that, “That’s where the money is.”

  The center is where the votes are.  After winning the Democratic nomination, Obama inartfully pivoted to the center on a whole range of subjects, drawing the fury of Kos, NYT, and a host of other Leftist Puritans.  And now we see the early stages of a collapsed Leftist candidacy, as it tries to enfold diverse principles (?) and followers.  We have seen this before: McGovern, Dukakis, Mondale.  There are not enough gullible people to vote in a Marxist president.  The chasm between the Marxist true believers and the American people is simply too great. 

  But our system is far superior to previous Socialist experiments.  Stalin really did rob banks to finance the Bolshevik Revolution.  Then he killed his rivals to consolidate his power.  Then he killed great swathes of the population. 

  There are serious arguments that you Socialists kill the innocent civilians under your power because those civilians do not live up to idealistic Socialist expectations.  Do you have a better explanation for the deaths of 100 million innocent people under the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Eastern Europe?  I.  Think.  Not.

  I am a productive, moderately well-off American with what you Marxists call bourgeois morality, such as those moral values enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States.  I am absolutely certain that I do not live up to your Socialist expectations, so I would expect any future Socialist regime in the United States of America to target me. 

  Jon, if you and Blondemike seriously want to target me, you will have to do much better than Blondemike’s genuine .357 Mag popgun.  Bourgeois morality includes a serious commitment to self-defense, as in the bourgeois Second Amendment.  Unlike the poor Kulaks, who were attractive targets for Socialist exploitation and death because they had no means to defend themselves.

  Posted by scorp on Jul 5, 2008 at 10:11 AM

  scorp, “Jon, if you and Blondemike seriously want to target me,...”

  Where did you see that I’m targeting you? You have some sort of paranoia. Is it that anyone that disagrees with you is out to get you? You should get some help. Seriously. Get some counseling.

  Posted by Jon B on Jul 5, 2008 at 7:35 PM

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