Left Coaster: Why the outrage about this Steele obscenity?
Which is to say: by your lights, what differentiates Steele from any other Bushite?
By my lights, the answer is very simply: nothing whatsover.
Posted by Sonoma at May 2, 2006 10:14 PM
I believe there all too few people who 1. have a reasonably original thought or idea of 2. some substance who 3. can express it with clarity. Mr. Steele is 0 for 3.
Posted by dus7 at May 2, 2006 10:44 PMShelby Steel talks as if the U.S. has gotten less imperial instead of more:
Why this new minimalism in war? It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty. This idea had organized the entire world, divided up its resources, imposed the nation-state system across the globe, and delivered the majority of the world's population into servitude and oppression. After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West--like Germany after the Nazi defeat--lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority.
The philosopher of religion, David Ray Griffin, has the opposite view of the U.S. empire:
7. How Should Christians Respond?
I come now to the main question of this essay: How should Christians respond to this realization? The key consideration in answering this question, I suggest, is the evidence that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out for the sake of preserving and extending the American empire. This means that there is a two-way relation between 9/11 and this empire. On the one hand, understanding the ideas driving the present phase of US empire-building enables us to understand why 9/11 occurred. On the other hand, 9/11 serves as a revelation of the nature of the American empire---an empire that has been in the making, on a bipartisan basis, for a long time. 9/11 reveals the nature of the values that have underlay this empire-building project for over a century, especially the past 60 years.
Evil Empire?
If so, then we must ask whether the term "evil," which US leaders have used so freely to describe other nations, must be applied to our own. There can be no doubt about the application of this term to 9/11. We can here quote President Bush himself, who on the evening of 9/11 said: ""Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. . . . Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature."80 No explanation of why the attacks were despicable was necessary. The proposition was self-evident. This proposition is even more self-evident, of course, if the attacks were orchestrated by our own government.
Accordingly, if we accept 9/11 as a revelation of the American empire---of the basic values it embodies---must we not conclude that this empire is itself evil?
This suggestion, of course, runs directly counter to our deeply inculcated self-image, which has embodied the notion of "American exceptionalism."81 According to this view, America is qualitatively different from other countries, hence its empire is qualitatively different from all prior empires. Americans in the 19th century said that whereas other empires were self-seeking, greedy, and brutal, the United States had an "empire of liberty," an "empire of right."82
Neoconservatives have recently revived this idea. According to Ben Wattenberg, "The American empire is not like earlier European imperialisms. We have sought neither wealth nor territory. Ours is an imperium of values."83 Robert Kagan calls the United States "The Benevolent Empire."84 Dinesh D'Souza describe America "the most magnanimous imperial power ever."85 Max Boot says: "America isn't like the empires of old. It does not seek to enslave other peoples and steal their lands. It spreads freedom and opportunity."86 Charles Krauthammer says that America's claim to being a benign power is verified by its "track record."87
But many other commentators, who base their views on an actual examination of this track record, have come to opposite conclusions. Andrew Bacevich, in his book American Empire, rejects the claim "that the promotion of peace, democracy, and human rights . . . --not the pursuit of self-interest--[has] defined the essence of American diplomacy." Against those who justify American interventions on the grounds that America's foreign policy is to promote democracy, Bacevich points out that in previous countries in which America has intervened, "democracy [did not] flower as a result."88
Many other intellectuals have similar views. Chalmers Johnson, who like Bacevich was once a conservative who believed that American foreign policy aimed at promoting freedom and democracy, now describes the United States as "a military juggernaut intent on world domination."89 A recent book by Noam Chomsky is subtitled America's Quest for Global Dominance.90 Richard Falk has written of the Bush administration's "global domination project," which poses the threat of "global fascism."91
Bacevich sums up the nature of the American empire by employing the statement, made in 1939 by the famous historian Charles Beard, that "America is not to be Rome."92 In the 1990s, Bacevich says, most Americans "still comforted themselves with the belief that as the sole superpower the United States was nothing like Rome." But, he says: "The reality that Beard feared has come to pass: like it or not, America today is Rome."93
This comparison is helpful. To begin answering the question how those of us who are Christians should respond to the realization that we are living in the new Rome, we can ask how Jesus responded to the original Rome.
Jesus and the Roman Empire
This question has been treated by New Testament historian Richard Horsley in his book Jesus and Empire. Horsley's short answer is that Jesus preached an "anti-imperial gospel," which called for the reign of Caesar to be replaced by a reign of God.94
To understand why this would have been central, we need to understand something about Rome and its occupation of Palestine.
Rome was not nice. Although Rome's rulers spoke of Pax Romana, with one of its emperors even calling himself the "Pacifier of the World,"95 this pacification was achieved by means of Rome's overwhelming military might, which it used ruthlessly. As a Caledonian chieftain put it, the Romans "rob, butcher, plunder, and call it 'empire'; and where they make desolation, they call it 'peace.'"96
By the time of Jesus, Palestine had been under Roman domination for almost a century.97 Rome ruled through puppets—first Herod the Great, then Herod Antipas in Galilee and Pontius Pilate in Judea--and this rule was devastating.
Roman legions killed tens of thousands of people and enslaved many more. One traumatic attack was the burning of Sepphoris, only a few miles from Nazareth, near the time of Jesus' birth.98 Some 2,000 rebels were crucified at about the same time.99
Besides killing and enslaving the Palestinians, the Romans taxed them severely, pushing many of them permanently into debt. By the time of Jesus, there was "a crisis of debt and dispossession that touched and transformed the lives of nearly every peasant family in Galilee."100
Jesus' anti-imperial gospel is apparent in what we call "the Lord's Prayer," which is a modification of the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the establishment of God's kingdom. The central phrase of Jesus' prayer was, therefore, "thy kingdom come"--an abbreviation of the Kaddish's petition, "May God establish his kingdom in your lifetime." That Jesus was not talking about some exclusively otherworldly realm is shown by the next line: "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Thus, says Horsley, "God's activity was political and Jesus' preaching of that activity was political--with obvious implications for the 'imperial situation' then prevailing in Palestine." The reign of the Roman emperors was to be replaced by the reign of God, which would transform "the social-economic-political substance of human relations."101
The centrality of the economic issue is shown by two other elements in this prayer: the petition for "our daily bread" and the idea that we should "forgive our debtors"—an allusion to the fact that unjust and unforgiven debt regularly forced peasants into servitude to rich landlords (as reflected in the parable of the wicked tenants).102
That Jesus opposed Roman rule even more directly is suggested by evidence that Jesus challenged the payment of the Temple tax and the tribute to Rome103 and that he protested the Temple's system of collecting money.104
That Jesus was regarded as a rebel against the empire is implied by the very fact that he was crucified. The death penalty could be authorized only by the Romans, and crucifixion was an exclusively Roman manner of execution, used primarily for those regarded as challengers to Roman authority. "That Jesus was crucified by the Roman governor," says Horsley, "stands as a vivid symbol of his historical relationship with the Roman imperial order."105
One dimension of the Roman imperial order that particularly offended Jesus and his fellow Jews was Rome's claim that its empire was divinely authorized.106 Early Christians had a very different view, as shown by the final book of the New Testament, which portrays Rome as a dragon, symbolizing Satan.107 For the early Christians, Horsley says,
Rome was the Beast, the Harlot, the Dragon, Babylon, the Great Satan. They knew that Rome's empire was made possible not by divine order but by the acquisition of vast territories through the deadly violence of the Roman legions.108
America as the New Rome
Is Bacevich right to say that today America is Rome? One way to answer this question is in terms of four commonly accepted features of the Roman empire.109 First, it portrayed itself, as we have seen, as guided by divine providence. Americans have said the same about their own empire. In 1850, an American editor wrote: "We have a destiny to perform, a 'manifest destiny' over . . . South America, . . . the Chinese empire . . . and the . . . Japanese. . . . The eagle of the republic shall poise itself over [the rest of the world] and a successor of Washington ascend the chair of universal empire!110 The Christmas card sent out by Dick and Lynne Cheney in 2003 asked, rhetorically: "[I]f a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"111
A second feature of the Roman empire was the development and employment of overwhelming military power. Bacevich, summing up this feature of our own empire, says that the present aim of the U.S. military is "to achieve something approaching omnipotence: 'Full Spectrum Dominance.'"111
A third feature of the Roman empire was rule through puppets, such as Herod, backed up by the empire's pervasive military presence. Some of the most notorious US puppets have been Batista in Cuba, Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier in Haiti, Marcos in the Philippines, Diem in Vietnam, and Suharto in Indonesia. More recently, America has installed a puppet regime in Afghanistan and has been trying to do the same in Iraq.
A fourth feature of the Roman empire was that through its imposition of exorbitant taxes, it impoverished the countries it dominated. America's taxation is more indirect, being exercised through the global economy enforced by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. But it impoverishes just as effectively.
An increasing number of commentators have come to speak of "global apartheid," thereby pointing to the fact that the world as a whole reflects the same kind of systemic inequality that characterized South Africa under apartheid. In a 1992 book on global apartheid, Titus Alexander said:
Three-quarters of the land [in apartheid South Africa] and all its natural resources could only be owned by whites, a sixth of the population. The West also has a sixth of the world's population and commands over three-quarters of global resources. . . . [In South Africa,] democracy for a few meant oppression for the many. So it is for most people in the global economy. . . . Free trade and consumer choice for a few means low incomes, long hours and a struggle for subsistence among the many.113
The only difference between the two systems is that---as Gernot Köhler, who coined the term, put it--"global apartheid is even more severe than South African apartheid."114
What is the relevance of this to the nature of the American empire? This question can be answered in three points. First, global apartheid did not exist three centuries ago but is a product of European colonialism.115
Second, since the end of World War II, when the United States replaced Britain as the leader of the global capitalist economy, it has become increasingly responsible for the state of this economy.
Third, during this period, the gap between the rich and the poor has become much greater. As John Cobb has pointed out: "The disparity in per capita income between the US and the undeveloped nations is estimated as having been about thirteen to one in 1947. In 1989, . . . the disparity had reached around sixty to one."116 According to the Human Development Report of 2005, moreover, the situation is now still worse, with the richest 10 percent of the world's population receiving 54 percent of the world's income and the poorest 40 percent---meaning 2.5 billion people---receiving only 5 percent of the total income.117
The poverty in which billions of God's children on this earth live has dire consequences. Every year, starvation and other poverty-related causes take the lives of about 18 million people, 11 million of whom are children under the age of 5. This means that about 180 million people are dying from poverty-related causes every decade.118
We have rightly considered the Nazi and Stalinist regimes evil, in large part because each one was responsible for the deaths of some 60 million people. But then what term do we use for an empire that is ultimately responsible for three times that many deaths each decade?
Part of the reason we call the Nazi and Stalinist regimes evil, of course, is that many of their victims were killed deliberately. Do American leaders realize what they are doing?
There is evidence that they do. For example, in 1947, George Kennan, who was Director of the Policy Planning Staff in the U.S. State Department, said in a "top secret" memo:
We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. . . . In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.119
A more recent example showing that our leaders know what they are doing is provided by a 1997 document of the US Space Command entitled "Vision for 2020." This document, explaining why the United States needs to dominate space so as to have "full spectrum dominance," says: "The globalization of the world economy . . . will continue with a widening between 'haves' and 'have-nots.'"120 In other words, as the United States and its rich allies become still richer while the rest of the world becomes still poorer, the United States will need to be able to attack from space to keep the have-nots in line. In 2005, the head of the US Space Command said that by putting weapons in space, the United States will have the ability to destroy things "anywhere in the world. . . in 45 minutes."121
As these parallels between Roman and American imperialism show, we can speak of the latter as evil without even bringing 9/11 into the picture. But the awareness that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out to further America's global domination project, and hence increase global apartheid, helps us, as I have suggested elsewhere, to "fully grasp the extent to which this project is propelled by fanaticism based on a deeply perverted value system."122 9/11 can thereby serve as a wake-up call to Christians in America, forcing us to ask how to respond to the realization that we are citizens of the new Rome.
Christians and the New Rome
Any attempt to answer that question would be very long. I will here simply suggest a first step: the formation of an anti-imperial church movement, in which the rejection of America's imperial project is considered a necessary implication of Christian faith. Such a movement would be analogous to the movement of "Confessing Christians" formed in Germany in 1934, a year after the Nazis had come to power. This movement, two leaders of which were theologians Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, opposed the movement known as the "German Christians," which treated Hitler as a new messiah who would bring Germany the greatness it deserved. In their famous Barmen Declaration, the Confessing Christians said that support for National Socialism violated basic principles of the Christian faith. One had to choose either Christian faith or National Socialism. One could not affirm both.123
Later in the century, some Christian bodies decided that rejection of the system of apartheid in South Africa was a necessary implication of Christian faith. In 1977, the Lutheran World Federation declared that although with regard to most political questions, "Christians may have different opinions," the system of apartheid in South Africa was "so perverted and oppressive" that it "constitute[d] a status confessionis"—a confessional situation. The Christian faith, these Lutherans declared, required that "churches would publicly and unequivocally reject the existing apartheid system."124
An analogous question before churches in America today is whether the American empire, with its imperialism and global apartheid, is "so perverted and oppressive" that the public rejection of it should be regarded as an implication of fidelity to God as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, who died on a Roman cross.
Posted by at May 3, 2006 12:43 AMSo it was guilt that made my liver turn white?
Posted by TIKI AL at May 3, 2006 01:58 AM>> An analogous question before churches in America today is whether the American empire, with its imperialism and global apartheid, is "so perverted and oppressive" that the public rejection of it should be regarded as an implication of fidelity to God as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, who died on a Roman cross.
although griffin's dissertation is brilliant (thanks for posting it... a link would be appreciated btw), the final paragraph nails the difference between evangelical "red" christians and us "blue" christians. few of the former ever wonder how the lamb of god was morphed into the avenging angel of colonialism/imperialism... the rest of us have been profoundly troubled by the perversion of a simple message of love and forgiveness from an itinerant first century ce rabbi hailing from the backwaters of judea. christianity will ultimately be relegated to the dustbin of failed religions unless it answers that fundamental question to the satisfaction of people of principle within it's own community and without. of note however is that shelby steele's article never approaches the christian roots of the western societies he seeks to speak for... just another of those things that makes you wanna go hmmmm.
joe
Posted by joe at May 3, 2006 03:43 AMWhen you have an event like 911 happen and the government says "keep shopping" and continues a policy of tax cuts coupled with no move to institute a draft nor make any other major war preparations, what are people to think. This is not WWIII and having a black apoligist from a right wing think tank try to play a reverse race card is not going to change reality.
Posted by herbal tee at May 3, 2006 03:44 AMThese guys keep stumbling across old copies of "Mein Kampf" and thinking they've found the answer to all our problems. A Nazi is a Nazi is a Nazi.
Posted by RAM at May 3, 2006 05:11 AMThat has to be one of the most insane and purposely inane commentaries I've ever read.
"White bigotry is dead bcause I say so and therefore we should blow the hell out of any Iraqi that gets in our way."
Jesu on a fucking pogo stick.
Try this one on for size, Steele: explain the number of people who are lining up against immigration reform after seeing the organized and peaceful demostrations that Si Se Puede organizers have assembled in the last month.
Posted by idiosynchronic at May 3, 2006 05:12 AMShort version: we have failed in Iraq because liberals tied our hands behind our backs.
Interesting that the author ascribes white guilt, "political correctness" and the apparently crippling sense of guilt imposed by "the left" as having an utterly devastating, incapacitating effect on people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who chose to go in light on soldiers despite pleas from "liberal" generals. Are these men really so weak that they succumb so easily to the finger-wagging of people like Al Sharpton? Yes, they could be really vicious if only Cindy Sheehan would let them. What a pitiful attempt at excusing an incompetent administration.
Of course, this is just one more line of bullshit intended to shift the blame for this disastrously executed war from the people who mounted it (the Bush administration) onto "the liberals."
So, does that mean the late pope John Paul II, who called this war a "defeat for humanity", is suddenly a liberal now?
Posted by raisin at May 3, 2006 05:25 AMYou have it exactly right raisin.
It's just a more provocative version of "liberals are to blame for everything".
Posted by AJ at May 3, 2006 05:45 AMLook, this is just the SS/DD. Ony this racist, murderous, ignoramous decided to put his sadistic, bigotted, hateful, warmongering ass out on stick for all the world to see. They aren't called RePigs for nothing. People like him are so repulsive its beyond words. God willing, he will come back as brown, red, gay or poor person and feel the wrath of his own misserable contempt for others. enuf.
Posted by oppressmenot at May 3, 2006 05:46 AMWhat a laugh riot of shitbrained illogic.
Yeah, there wasn't too much "white supremacy" in America when we quailed before what "needed to be done" in Korea in 1950-53. How old is this clown?
Surely it couldn't be that our military "restraint" and "failures" in the post WWII world had something to do with existing geopolitics---like the fact there was another superpower and we had to, like, try to avoid nuclear war. Or that in most of these failed wars we were prancing around in the backyard of nuclear power China.
Nah, it had to be the debilitating loss of white supremacy (which is the only reason we won all previous wars) and the unfortunate increase of white guilt. We just didn't hate and despise the North Koreans and Vietnamese enough, that's why we lost!! Fear of provoking Chinese intervention, that was just a smokescreen for the REAL reason we "held back": white guilt.
And clearly there were absolutely no geopolitical reasons not to topple Saddam in 1991, we just didn't want to look bad beating up on those defeated brown people. Because obviously liberating Iraq in 1991 and ushering in a new democratic regime would have been a piece of cake.
It's not like we would've needed some kind of established plan in place or a strategy of how to accomplish such a thing---democracy just flowers beautifully wherever it's imposed! That's how a white supremacist would have done it!
This is another feather in the brownshirted cap of the WSJ editorial pages---they are not a serious publication.
Posted by euzoius at May 3, 2006 06:12 AMmzng hw th rctns spprts hs thss tht th mpstn f cntrvd crprt glt cn cnflct wth xctng ntnl prrgtvs. Hw lbrtng tht th lnnst cnstrcts f mprlsm, mlnn bsd pprssn nd clss wrfr nd n lngr bnd th cvlzd t th dvntg f th brbrn.
[Editor: ignore=off]Does your programming permit you ever to make an actual argument, rather than cryptic, unfounded, unsubstantiated pronouncements?
just wondering.
Posted by euzoius at May 3, 2006 06:42 AMJournalism! This guy is foaming at the mouth. A black dude who wants to kill brown people. See what too much book learning and living in a think tank can do to you. He must be one of Hitchen's drinking buddies. Definitely a Bu$hCo rimjobber.
Posted by red_neck_repub at May 3, 2006 07:05 AMSteele says what the neo-cons want:
"Nuke the fucking Towel Heads! It's the white man's (and black-white supremacist man's) burden!"
When he claims there are no white bigots, he absolutely discounts all of the red state bastards who'll tell you, "I wouldn't mind if a black person lives in my neighborhood...if they had a good job and took care of their family." It's amazing how he ignores, disregards and minimalizes history. It's the only thing that makes his thesis plausible. Add historical facts and his argument becomes the same as a drunk pledge would make when trying to meet a paper deadline. You know, like the trolls amongst us. No facts, all blather.
Posted by phidipides at May 3, 2006 07:31 AMBandito: Why does the porridge bird lay its eggs in the air? Clone me, Dr. Memory... (;>
Posted by Donald Cormac at May 3, 2006 07:39 AMbendejo you have been infamous for your gibberish but you've outdone yourself this time...why not just fuck off?
Posted by headxray at May 3, 2006 08:31 AMI'm no psychiatrist either, but the thrust of the piece seems to have a subtext of "the white race is superior."
Some (not all) conservatives believe this. I think it allows them to march across the planet building their empires and torturing the less powerful.
I agree: it's pretty sick.
Posted by Christopher at May 3, 2006 09:08 AMBendito writes:
Amazing how the reactions supports his thesis that the imposition of contrived corporate guilt can conflict with executing national prerogatives. How liberating that the leninist constructs of imperialism, melanin based oppression and class warfare need no longer bind the civilized to the advantage of the barbarian.
I will gladly provide a translation. In my earlier days I spent some of my time amongst the neo-con tribe. An unfriendly people who eat the young of other tribes and overcome their small penis size by driving large SUVs. Indeed, their penises are so small, and the tendency to prematurely ejaculate, leading researchers have theorized that the only fashion in which the neo-con tribe can replenish it's numbers is through the females getting drunk at a country club and doing the zit-faced parking valet.
Translation:
Amazing how the reactions supports his thesis that the imposition of contrived corporate guilt can conflict with executing national prerogatives.
Trans: "Holy God! We knew the incompetence of the administration had nothing to do with the failures in Iraq. This adminstraion is still our Nazi God! We knew we weren't fuck-ups all along!"
Obs: Although seeming to be only so much grunting gibberish, this statement is thought to have great magical power with the the neo-con tribe. Notice how they proudly strut and preen. Many rub each others groins in silent affirmation.
How liberating that the leninist constructs of imperialism, melanin based oppression and class warfare need no longer bind the civilized to the advantage of the barbarian.
Trans: "Thank God we are white! Woe on the other fuckers! Even our blacks and hispanic attorney general are white! Will some woman please tidy-up the place?"
Obs: Notice how one of the neo-con tribe ritually slaughters a child, then passes its blood around for all to drink. "Leninist" appears to be a key trigger for the tribe. Upon shouting "Leninist," they will often take a functioning agency (eg. FEMA), make it dysfunctional, and then claim government doesn't work so they can then restructure the agency along neo-con lines. This implies raiding the Treasury and passing the money to Brown and Root.
Posted by phidipides at May 3, 2006 10:05 AMP-dippy, I'd offer to have your baby, but I'd probably be compelled to abort it willy-nilly. Still, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?
Posted by iamcoyote at May 3, 2006 10:25 AMI'm still waiting for that group hug.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 3, 2006 11:05 AMHow "white" is a white person anyway. A pbs program awhile back "The Real Eve" traced origins centuries back...we are all descended from only a few lines...fascinating stuff.
Posted by ironranger at May 3, 2006 02:14 PMparadox,
You are approaching the level of disconnect usually reserved by pessimist.
How do you reconcile your statement
"Basically it says that because whites have achieved a racial superiority they should feel to bomb brown people into oblivion..."
With a graph taken from the article that begins
"There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant."
And, by the way, I read this article yesterday: it seems that the Left's objection to this article proves the authors point.
Posted by Bagley at May 3, 2006 07:21 PM