Glenn nails Glenn
Greenwald nails Beck, that is, and the whole overlap of inchoate protest politics that bedeviled the antiwar movement too. Michael Lind also had a very smart piece the other day – “the teabaggers are the Yippies of the right”.
I also just now saw Beck on his show jump on the Obama-is-surrendering-in-Afghanistan bandwagon, in case anyone still wants to argue he’s the new face of the Ron Paul Revolution.
Here’s to hoping that both of these thoughtful pieces can lead to an enlightened discourse on the anti-Obama hysteria that will spare us the Morris Dees and Chip Berlets of the world.
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“– it wasn’t all that long ago that he was advocating exactly the opposite: paying homage to the Patriot Act, defending the Wall Street bailout and arguing it should have been larger, and spouting standard neoconservative cartoon propaganda about The Global Islamo-Nazi Jihadists and all that it justifies. Even the quasi-demented desire for a return to 9/12 — as though the country should be stuck permanently in a state of terrorism-induced trauma and righteous, nationalistic fury over an allegedly existential Enemy — is the precise antithesis of the war-opposing, neocon-hating views held by many libertarian and paleoconservative factions with which Beck has now associated himself.”
Greenwald is right to note the dissimilarities between Beck views before his putative volte-face and those of paleocons. By the same token, it must also be acknowledged that–and this is not an apologia for interventionism–jihadists might in actuality be an “allegedly existential enemy” insofar as they are imbued with the ideology of modern republicanism, as Daniel McCarthy illustrates. I expound on this further in my latest post “Listening to Evil”.
Pons,
We should just commit a massive genocide and kill every man, woman and child in the Muslim world to solve all of our problems. Wouldn’t you agree?
No, Salman, I would not recommend that course of action. What is advisable, however, is being wary about jihadists movements even if America absconds from the Middle East entirely. In the past, neutral nations have been subject to their warpath without any provocation on their part. America can still be the target of their ire, while having done nothing blameworthy or censurable. Conservatives need not be surprised if this materialized notwithstanding Western non-interventionism.