Bill's Notes

Glenn Greenwald links to our humble site. He was responding to a series of a responses to a post of his on the thought processes of Bush supporters. His argument boils down to a very reasonable position, which is that generalizations are not absolutes. No argument here.

I recognize my post was disorganized and not that clear. It's also unclear how much Greenwald is responding to IndustrialBlog as opposed to other bloggers who took him to task for generalization.

My only quibble is this: What I was getting at in my earlier post was less about generalization or even fairness, but about the human tendency to demonize opponents and see them as unreasonable, benighted, wicked or stupid.

Greenwald insists that his conclusions are well-taken. I don't. But I do agree, however, that he has every right to draw general conclusions without getting criticized for "making generalizations."

Where I think he's gone wrong is at this point: He considers the Bush Administration to be a deep threat to the American system of governance and (possibly) appears to consider Bush's actions to be the precursor to some kind of dictatorship or some kind of radical departure with activities in the past.

Um. From about 1965 to 1975, our country engaged in a series of cloak-and-dagger games and we had trained, professional assassins on the government payroll. And these assassins were killing people. Around 1975 we stopped doing it, to the best of my knowledge. Bush is certainly not extreme in the historical context of the United States. Dear God — we invaded and colonized the Philippines. We exterminated the Indians. We were one of the last civilized nations to ban slavery, and it took a Civil War. We started a war with Spain. We invaded Latin America pretty much whenever the fuck we felt like it. Bush I did it. Clinton did it. Noriega pissed us off, and so did some tinpot dictator in Haiti, and we invaded and deposed them both. We grabbed a big-ass piece of Mexico in a war of aggression. We allowed refugees to invade Cuba from our soil. J. Edgar Hoover spied on all sorts of people, and the FBI papers on Martin Luther King's assassination are still sealed, so we don't know if the government is involved. WTF, over?

Anyway, here's what Greenwald says:

But the combination of factors and circumstances which have defined the Bush presidency — an extreme event (the 9/11 attacks), extreme imbalance in our government (accounted for by pro-Bush domination of all three branches of government), and extremists at the highest levels of the executive branch — have made the Bush movement uniquely radical and extreme.

The first item has nothing to do with Bush. The second is hyperbole used to describe the fact that Republicans control Congress and the presidency, but one would be hard-pressed to say "Pro-Bush" forces control the Judiciary. So it's arguable. The third point (extremists at the highest levels) is arguable and probably false. It's only extremism if you're standing where Greenwald is standing.

Next, let's look at this statement:

The "Left," or any other group, controls virtually nothing. Our country is governed with virtually no opposition by the Bush movement and its defenders, and as a result, the corruption, dishonesty and abuses of power which one finds among them are the ones which, in my view, are the ones most worth talking about and battling against.

Um, you have the press, the media, the N.Y. publishing industry and Hollywood, the universities, virtually the entire elite culture in all our major cities, and a good chunk of the blogosphere. Trust me. It's hard to see it. But you give as well as you get.

I was encouraged by Greenwald's post, for the most part. The point I'm trying to make in all this is this: We need to talk to each other like adults. And adults don't go around calling each other evil, wicked, benighted and stupid. Even if they're right and the other side is wrong.

And yes, I myself have violated this rule. It doesn't mean I think it's right to do so, or that I've forgotten it. It just means I don't always live up to my principles.