perfidy

I see in our comments that Ross Judson has levelled a challenge to Buckethead, pursuant to our discussion last week on whether the Left hates America:

Hate America, Hate American. If you get to pick the set of concepts that define America, you can manufacture a hater out of anyone! Why not do a little subdivision...just so we can be clear on exactly what kind of America you think is most American.

How about it, Buckethead? It's an incredibly interesting question, on several levels.

What is "American," and what is "un-American?" Just how big is this tent? It's obviously a complicated question. Just this weekend came the news that Eric Rudolph was found hiding out in the very woods he grew up in. From his point of view, Rudolph has been arrested for fighting the good fight against encroaching un-Americanism, and some members of the community have acted in his defense. (Although, many may have helped him hide out because of family or community ties, while still thinking he was a nut). But was Eric Rudolph actually acting in an "American" fashion? I'd say absolutely not, yet many other people see him as a patriot and defender of true Americanism, holding the line against moral decline and globalism. (After all, he did bomb abortion clinics, gay bars, and the Olympics, which makes his agenda pretty darn clear.) Who is right, and is there room for both camps under the rubric of Americanism?

[moreover] Answer: Terrorism is terrorism. The American Revolution was settled in 1865. Or 1876, either way, it's done. Period.

Well, they done gone and did it. The FCC voted today 3-2 to ease ownership restrictions on media outlets. There's a great deal of debate over whether this is a good or bad move, and some good points have been made on both sides.

However, the right answer is that it's a bad move. Period. I'm right. In a perfect world, where the ineffable guiding hand of the market nurtures the good, kills the week, and makes things beautiful, the new vote would be endorsing good policy.

Unfortunately, the media world in general is more like the way Hunter Thompson describes it: "The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason." Whereas media companies control information in the grubbiest and least-glorious sense, I'm fine with keeping a leash on their behavior. I know some of these people personally, and their commitment to "integrity" (*chuckle*) is entirely nonexistent. This decision by the FCC: will prevent new entries into the media-ownership market at any level; will, along with other FCC decisions, further freeze local, independent providers out of the bandwith and license auctions; will lead to an integration boom much like the music industry has seen, where four companies control the mainstream and most of the fringe with a concomitant rise in quantity and decline in overall quality; and will be my personal punching bag until I'm too old to care anymore.

I will blog more on this at a later date, but I cannot today. I sprained my wrist in a freak baking accident on Saturday (shut up.... it's not what you think. I'm a klutz. It's not what you think, the bread was delicious), and typing is rather painful. It's actually a benefit for you, dear reader that I am so disabled, as I'm sure reading my drivel is also rather painful.

[moreover] Time will prove me right or wrong on this count. Except that I'm right.

Nat from I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, is back from his self-imposed exile (some would call it "vacation") in the American Southwest. He has left in our comments this thought in response to our discussion on Reagan/Thatcher's role in toppling the Eastern Bloc and ending the Soviet Union.

Hey, John--this is related to a subject from further down on the page related to Reagan et al and the Cold War. 

The weaknesses of the Soviet bloc economies did not develop until the mid 1970s. The period of detente allowed the communists countries to attempt to solidify some bases of popular support by introducing some elements of consumer production. Furthermore, they attempted to engage in more legitimate finance in order to gain loans from international banks. Correspondingly, these countries lowered their investment in arms production. However, they were always limited in their economic performance. Reagan et al took advantage of these NEW CIRCUMSTANCES in order to bankrupt the communist economies. 

My point: the necessary conditions for "winning the Cold War" did not exist before Detente. No American leader could have done what Reagan had done because the consumerization of communist economies had not yet occurred. Even conservative stallwarts like Kissinger were prepared to compromise with the Soviet Union in order to assure US survival. 

(see Kaser, Economic History of Eastern Europe, 3 vols, 1986.)

Well, then. Good point. Still, I can't really envision Jimmy Carter, Jerry Brown, or Walt Mondale going down the same road with any aplomb. Reagan did come from show business and timing, as they say, is everything. 
 

Via Winds of Change comes this post on Fearful Symmetry (permanent link broken: visit main page and scroll down to 5/31). It's an attempt to categorize the various types of Leftism in America, breaking the Left down into four movements: Intellectuals, Social Democrats/Liberals, Bureaucrats, and Democrats. 

He focuses exclusively on foreign policy, but I think the larger analysis holds, at least in a cafeteria discussion. There are some points to disagree with (strongly, depending on who you are), but an interesting article nonetheless, and quite germane to our recent discussion about whether the Left is Anti-American. His closing line: "Perhaps the left and right can come to some accommodation in this regard. If leftists won't claim that the editors of Southern Partisan speak on my behalf, then I won't claim that Noam Chomsky speaks for them. Is it a deal?" 

It's a deal.
 

Buckethead wrote that, "In our country, the federal workers' and teacher's unions are far more powerful than they should be." 

A teacher's union is currently attempting to secure better wages for me and other adjunct professors. A powerful teacher's union can help me and others.
 

Buckethead wrote that, "Considering the vast expansion of the investor class, ironically one of Marx' dearest hope - that the proletariat would own the means of production, has kind of happened." 

Even though this was an off-hand remark, I'm still going to comment. As I've argued before, the world has changed a great deal since the mid-late nineteenth century. At this point, in the United States, there are very few urban industrial workers involved in manufacturing thanks to globalization, environmental restrictions, the shortsightedness of unions in the 1950s and 1960s, and other factors. Workers, and members of the working class, are now overwhelmingly people involved in the service sector. They are waiters, busboys, pizza deliverers, janitors, auto mechanics, grocery store personnel, etc. They, and educated, therefore technically middle class people, who nonetheless have a low income such as archivists, adjunct professors, and the like, do not have excess capital for investment.

Investors, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly middle and upper income middle and upper class people who, while they work, are involved in white-collar office, financial, business, and other professions. Workers are wage-workers. They don't have salaries. They have no capital for investment, they are not investors, therefore, the workers, overall, do not kind of own the means of production. 

There are and have been manufacturing plants, and some other businesses, that are employee owned, but they are few and far between. They also have a tendency to go under since the white-collar types would sooner buy cheaper goods made in other countries where operating costs are lower due to a lack of minimum wage, fewer, if any, environmental restrictions, etc. Hence, globalization rears its ugly head to defeat employee owned businesses in the United States. But back to the aforementioned workers in the first paragraph, janitors do not own the businesses they clean. Busboys and waitstaff do not own the restaurant. Auto mechanics do not usually own the shop, but are rather employed by it. Therefore, it is not fair to say that the workers even kind of own the means of production. The vast majority of wealth and the means of production that exist, in whatever form, are largely concentrated at the top of the pyramid. Besides, Marx prophesied total worker ownership of the means of production, and society is very far away from that. 

Anti-Irish-Americanism in the Ivory Tower 

In case anyone is interested, I'll explain the presence of anti-Irish-Americanism within American ethnic history. Since the 1960s, with the birth of new social history, American ethnic history became a heavily studied field. As such, Irish Americans have historically been the whipping boy of American ethnic history. For example, Oscar Handlin in Boston's Immigrants painted the Irish as racist, mean-spirited, and money-grubbing. Hasia Diner in "Erin's Daughters in America" painted Irish immigrant women as insane, perpetually drunk, and morally bankrupt. Irish men were painted as drunken wife beaters who often abandoned their families. Noel Ignatiev in "How the Irish Became White," argued that Irish-Americans, get this, entirely and consciously made an effort to become white by hating and mistreating African-Americans. The notion of an entire ethnic group consciously and totally making an effort to do anything is absurd. Did all the Irish in America get together at a caucus and unanimously vote to become white? I'd like to see the minutes of that meeting. The whole whiteness concept is equally absurd, but perhaps that's a post for another time. 

Other historians not even dealing with Irish-American topics nevertheless can't resist taking a swipe at American ethnic history's favorite target. Deborah Dash Moore, in "To the Golden Cities," chronicling primarily Jewish migration from New York to Miami Beach and from Chicago to California, quoted several people who felt they just had to get out of Boston because of Father Coughlin. He lived in Detroit. How was he a threat in Boston? According to Moore, each and every Irish-American in Boston was a raging anti-Semite who worshipped Father Coughlin. Robert Orsi, in "The Madonna of 115th Street," claimed that Irish Americans dominated the Catholic Church and virulently hated Italian Americans for being such bad Catholics. Hence, Irish Americans are evil. By the way, Irish Americans were always virulently conservative in their political views according to many ethnic historians, who argue that conservatism makes them evil. I'm sure Buckethead will enjoy that. But, these historians say, you'll never find, say, a socialist or even an MADL Irish American. They're like Santa Claus. 

But, Mike, you might ask, why aren't the WASPs hated and reviled by American ethnic historians? Simple. When the parents or grandparents of many historians arrived in the United States, they never saw any WASPs. The Irish, however, as previous arrivals, occupied many foreman and floor management positions in industry, and therefore created closer quarters and opportunities for conflict. Many Irish-Americans not of the middle class were also in very close quarters with the new immigrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

But there's something deeper here. New social historians have glorified and lauded the actions of reformist WASPs, such as Jane Adams, while failing to recognize that those reformists were attempting to forcibly assimilate their grandparents. But the new social historians still just can't get enough of those temperance/abstinence advocating, evangelizing, criticizing progressives. No, no. The progressives were great. Irish Americans, according to the aforementioned and other historians, were more evil than Satan himself. 

Is all this criticism fair? No. Particularly because the strokes are so broad. Of course there are Irish Americans who are racist. But what American ethnic group is utterly devoid of racism right down to every member? Are other groups entirely devoid of anti-Semitism? My mother used to tell me there's good and bad in all kinds. Apparently, other American ethnic historians weren't paying attention when their mother told them that.

Had Thatcher's Tory government made alternate arrangements for workers and miners that would have eased their transition. But they were pretty much just out on the street. It doesn't make much sense to solve high unemployment problems by creating more unemployment. As to Thatcher overhauling Britain and improving its economy, historian Kenneth O. Morgan, in The Oxford History of Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) argues that while Thatcher's policy did introduce some recovery to Britain's economy in the early 1980s, the economy tanked again in the late 1980s after a decade or so of Thatcherism. According to Morgan, 

"Most serious of all [difficulties], the apparent revival in the economy began to lose credibility. The tax-cutting policy of the Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, was now seen to have led to a huge balance of payments deficit, at 20 billion pounds the worst figure on record. Unemployment rose sharply and the pound came under pressure. Worse still, the conquest of inflation, the government's main boast, was now threatened by a consumer-credit and spending boom. Bank rate soared to 15 per cent, and the impact was felt by every mortgaged home-owner in the land" (Morgan 660). 

[Note: I tried to block this appropriately but can't figure out how. Apologies.] 

[ed: fixed it for you!]

Morgan goes on to describe the backbench revolt that removed Thatcher from Tory leadership, partially because of the economic dislocation, partially because her "imperious style of leadership now seemed more of a liability" (Ibid). Thatcher's government saw the same cyclical ebb and flow that affects market economies in general, with some policies reviving elements of the economy, and some policies injuring elements of the economy. But overall it trundled along, up and down, like any other market. Nonetheless, unemployment, particularly for laborers, was a perennial problem during Thatcher's government that she and her cabinet never really sorted out. 

As to the Falklands, given your comments, the inhabitants, the hundred or so sheep on the islands, must have declared themselves subjects of baaaritain. B'dom. Chish! 

While I appreciate your comments on British policy in Ireland, I'm not sure that they, the peoples of the Indian subcontinent, the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Iraqis, black South Africans, the Sudanese, or anyone who had to put up with Cecil Rhodes at some point would agree on their "largely positive impact on history in general." I'm sure you were referring to Britain's representative democracy as example, various contributions in letters, arts, and sciences, and such, which is true. For a small country, they made an indellible mark on the world and offered many positive contributions. But the aforementioned subject peoples were probably glad to remove that mark (work in progress for the north of Ireland), and wish that the British would have made their contributions from home instead of inviting themselves to dine at their tables.

Correct. The masses never got behind a global class war/revolution, or even in Imperial Russia. The Marxist prophecy never materialized. It didn't happen. Marx prophesied that the vanguard of the proletariat would initiate the class war and the rest of the proletariat would quickly follow. That did not occur. As far as I know, Jesus hasn't shown up again either. The Marxist prophecy will never happen because the world changed significantly after the mid-nineteenth century, and no, the workers never got behind it, nor will they ever.

The United States does have a class system, but as you indicated it is what the sociologists call an open stratification system. Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day so the sociology folks were bound to get something right thanks to law of averages. But still. Just because mobility is possible between classes it does not mean the classes do not exist. They are fluid, but they are there. Upward and downward mobility is possible, people can go from working to middle to upper and back down to working again. But at every step, there is a step. A permanent social structure is called a caste system. That's when the social ladder is entirely hereditary and is also known as a closed stratification system where no mobility is possible.

In the United States, classes are based entirely upon wealth and education. There is no hereditary aristocracy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a class structure. See, in Britain and much of Europe, with the industrial revolution, the hereditary aristocracy constituted the upper class, non-titled wealthy and well-to-do educated professionals, shopkeepers, etc. constituted the middle, urban and rural workers the working class. With the industrial revolution, Britain and Europe moved from a caste to a class social structure when mobility became possible between the working and middle classes. Not guaranteed, no, but possible. Hell, some people in the middle class even bought themselves a title to move into the aristocracy. Thus, it is mobility that distinguishes a class from a caste structure, and the United States holds the possiblity fo mobility, be it upward or downward. My terminology in describing the United States as a nation with a class structure was correct.

No one's perfect, sure. And you know that despite my anglophilia, I have always said that British policy in Ireland has been reprehensible for 800 straight years. It is the primary exception to Britain's largely positive impact on history in general. It is a black stain, in fact. No British leader, it seems, from the Plantagenets, to Cromwell, to Churchill, to Thatcher can ever think clearly or morally about Ireland. Granted. 

But as for her activities outside Ireland, I must disagree. Britain's economy in the seventies was in even worse shape than in the United States. Industries nationalized by Labor governments after the Second World War were hemorrhaging taxpayer money, unemployment was high, inflation was high, things were generally shitty. The worst offender of the nationalized industries was the coal industry. The government was throwing hundreds of millions of pounds down the hole every year, maintaining mines and pits that could not ever make money. If you owned something that was losing you a third of your income a year, would you want to keep it? Thatcher's government closed unprofitable mills. What any sensible business owner would do. And, they sold off all the other industries - rail, steel, oil, the lot of them. It isn't government's job to run businesses. 

As in the United States, changing economies meant that some industries would be harder hit than others. Like the steel workers in Pittsburgh, the mine workers in England lost their jobs. But, it is not the government's responsibility to maintain unprofitable mines at the cost of the rest of the nation. If you lose your job, get another one. It happens to most people. You don't have a god given right to a job in the pits, or at the foundry. If the government provides unemployment benefits, and maybe some job training, that is appropriate. But it is not obligated to pay them to do a useless job. 

The mine unions violently opposed this plan - understandably, perhaps. Organized labor is far less important or needful today, or twenty years ago, than it was a hundred years ago. In our country, the federal workers' and teacher's unions are far more powerful than they should be. 

Dislocation happens to economies. Sometimes some bits get hit harder than others. But in a healthy system, like ours or Britain's, new things come along. Over the last twenty years, we have developed several whole new industries that didn't even exist in 1980. There are more jobs now than before. Unemployment has been very low in this country for most of the last two decades, thanks largely to the efforts of Reagan, and the British economy has been strong, thanks to Thatcher. While the mine workers lost their jobs, the rest of the economy benefited enormously, and in time, the unemployed mine workers joined the rest of the economy. 

On the war angle, if Hawaii was invaded, I think we'd take it back. The Argentineans invaded the Mavinas to detract from the baleful effects of their socialistic economic program. The inhabitants of the Falklands were British, and didn't want to be Argentine. The British went to war only after Argentina invaded - they did not provoke that war, as you imply. (Granted, she did use the big win for political purposes, but that was after the fact.) 

Further, the Soviets were a threat. And Cold War strategy was rather more complicated than you state it. Deterrence may have prevented a full nuclear exchange - but it almost didn't on at least two occasions. But the reason that we formed NATO, and had our troops right on the line, was so that any attack on Western Europe would be considered an attack on us. The reason for that was that if the Soviets, with their advantage in conventional weaponry in the fifties, sixties and seventies, had invaded, we would have lost. And losing Europe to communism would have meant that North America would be pretty much all that was left of the free world. From that position, it would be harder and harder for the United States to fight off the Soviet Union. That would be bad. Our nuclear arsenal kept that at bay. Also, building lots of nukes assured that he Soviets would not try a sneak attack - they were much more sanguine at the thought of losing a few million citizens, and might consider the losses if they could take us out completely. 

By finally driving the stake into the heart of Communism, Reagan and Thatcher removed that threat. Now, millions who lived under totalitarian communist regimes are now free, and some are even becoming prosperous. 

I don't know about the poll tax. I'll look into it. 

No leader or nation, is perfect - but I don't know that Roosevelt did a great deal to limit freedom in this country (though I could lose my membership in the vast right wing conspiracy for saying that.) Or Churchill either. The internment of the Japanese was wrong, certainly, as were the other things. But he did not leave this country substantially less free than when he found it. And some of those problems were solved later. The British lost much more of their freedom under Atlee than Churchill. Reagan did nothing that I can think of that reduced anyone's liberty in this country. Pissed people off, sure, but not limit their freedom. 

Defeating the Soviet Union and Communism was at least as important as defeating Germany and Nazism. The ones who finally managed it deserve credit for achieving it.

When the vaguard of the proletariat is doing the fighting? The masses don't seem very interested. And, what is this class structure you speak of? We have a capitalist economy, true (yea capitalism!) but there are no permanent classes. The vast majority of millionaires in this country are nouveau riche, from working or middle class families, not from the already rich. My grandfather's family was dirt poor, he hunted squirrels to put meat on the table, and was a hobo in the thirties. But he went into real estate, got reasonably rich, and retired to a brick Georgian mansion in Guernsey county, Ohio. His wife's father was a union organizer, worked with the commie John L. Lewis. Most of the poor in this country (lowest quintile of earnings) are not poor ten years later. Poverty in this country is more a matter of timing than anything else. I was poor, now I'm not. I hope to be rich. I am not the member of any permanent class. Nor is anyone else. We have no landed aristocracy, or hereditary rulers. Anyone can become rich, or president.