The final proof of Obama's red sympathies

Apparently an upcoming Rolling Stone article has Barack Obama citing For Whom the Bell Tolls as one of his favorite works of fiction! Ah ha, we finally got him! Citing this novel I believe gives us a clear insight into the dangerous leftist politics of Senator Obama. After all, this is a novel written by a man who consorted with known communists and the book itself details the story of a man participating in a known communist front group, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, fighting for a totalitarian communist state as oppossed to the softer, cuddlier tyranny represented by Franco and the fascists. Seems like perfect Jonah Goldberg material to me!

Of course, the article says the novel is also one of McCain's favorites, but that just shows what a true maverick he is.

Don't You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)

Stanley Kurtz over at The National Review has been writing article after article portraying Barack Obama as a secret leftist who, if elected, will institute some sort of vaguely defined radical social and economic change which you should be afraid of. In Kurtz's latest article (which synthesizes previous works) he brings up an important point about how social change happens, even as he uses it mainly to bludgeon Obama further.

Near the close of the piece Kurtz directs our attention to an essay Obama wrote almost twenty years ago for a book entitled, After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois. Kurtz finds particularly revealing a passage in Obama's text criticizing "the false dichotomy between radicalism and moderation." Kurtz obviously believes he has flushed out the true Obama: a far-left radical whose moderate image is just a pose to rise to power. This is not a totally crazy idea, after all, a certain Texas governor recently pulled that trick. However, more importantly, the relationship between moderates and radicals is a more nuanced one than Kurtz gives credit for, something which can be clearly seen in the post-war rise of conservatism here in the United States.

The recent upsurge in scholarship on the modern American Right (and remember, "recent" means something different in academia than other places) has been an incredibly valuable addition to our understanding of American history and American politics. For conservatives, it has meant that older historians who dismissed the American right as "status obsessed" or their beliefs as some psychological anomaly have been replaced by serious studies of the historical context, ideas, and movements which define American conservatism. For liberals and progressives, this bevy of new works has forced us to take a harder look at conservatism, as well as providing inspiration for rebuilding a progressive counterpoint in the U.S.

Among other points addressed in this scholarship has been the fact that modern American conservatism's opening salvos were often launched by radical groups. As historians like Lisa McGirr point out, organizations such as the John Birch Society were absolutely fundamental in building the American conservative movement. Her book describes how John Birch Society members played a crucial role in the conservative takeover of the California Republican Assembly and helped to ensure Barry Goldwater's primary victory in that state, and thus, his nomination as the Republican standard bearer in 1964. As McGirr describes them, the "John Birch Society was the most vital organized grassroots conservative force of the era." Yet, McGirr also understands the nuances of these relationships that are lost in Kurtz's "guilt by association" attacks on Obama. As she further argues, "it is misleading to equate the whole movement with the [John Birch] society." Conservatives like Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley, Jr. were not secret Birchers, but rather shared some similar views on some issues, while holding sharp disagreements on others. They appreciated the Birchers' organizing abilities, but pushed them out of the movement when they became a liability.

Moderates (broadly defined) have almost always needed radicals. It is usually the radicals who first identify a problem and begin organizing to fix it. Radicals often provide the passion and organizing expertise (just look at the Communist Party's role in the CIO) required to start building movements for change. More moderate elements come in not necessarily to co-opt radical passions, but also because they usually have the knowledge and access to major power centers that allow for reforms to actually be carried out. There is no simple formula to understand the radical-moderate relationship; sometimes moderates really do just co-opt and weaken important causes (after all, not everyone who was anti-slavery was an abolitionist). At the same time, radicals can also help destroy movements by launching internecine conflicts and by, well, being stupid (thanks Weather Underground!) And my guess is, this will be how it is for the foreseeable future, at least until humanity makes some really big mistake.

Tuesday is the New Monday

Last week some conservative blogs caused a bit of a stir by trying to downplay the 75,000 person Obama rally in Portland claiming that people actually came to see Portland based indie rock band The Decemberists (a fantastic band to listen to, especially for the historically minded). Of course it didn't take long before they discovered that The Decemberists also hate America, because, well, they have a song critical of the war in Iraq.

But do conservatives realize that The Decemberists have also sung anti-French songs? Would that change their opinion? Probably not, since that song, "Legionnaire's Lament," is actually criticizing French imperialism in North Africa, which is probably one of the few things that American conservatives do like about France.

Turn Your Back on Their Framing

It's always worrisome when a trope on the right-wing blogs enters the mainstream and today we have a fine example with Nathan Thrall and Jesse Wilkin's op-ed in The New York Times entitled, "Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed." The two argue that Kennedy rushed into the Vienna Summit in July 1961 too quickly and, to quote Kennedy himself, the result was that Khrushchev "just beat the hell out of me." This historical example is then analogized to Obama's current stance on negotiating with U.S. opponents, with the authors ending their piece by warning that "sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate."

Historians generally concur that the Vienna Summit was not a high point for the Kennedy administration and that he came across as weak before an assertive Nikita Khrushchev. However, a closer examination of this history reveals that Kennedy's weakness derived less from his desire to talk and more from the baggage he brought to Vienna in the form of a failed U.S. intervention two months prior.

Recent scholarship on the Kennedy administration by scholars such as Timothy Naftali and Aleksandr Fursenko in their authoritative One Hell of a Gamble argue that Kennedy, upon coming into office, hoped to ratchet down Cold War tensions. Part of Kennedy's plan involved holding a summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, preparations of which went forward with the two sides agreeing on a June meeting in Vienna. However, in April of 1961 the administration (in a move that could hardly be called diplomatic) authorized the CIA, in conjunction with an army of exiles, to launch an ill-fated invasion of Cuba in hopes of overthrowing the still young Castro regime. As we know the subsequent Bay of Pigs landings proved an utter failure, mainly succeeding in tightening Castro's grip on the island.

While Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed to a meeting in Vienna before the Bay of Pigs, it was in the aftermath of this catastrophe that the Soviets pushed harder to ensure the summit would go forward. As described by historian Peter Luňák in a 2003 article for Cold War History one direct result of the Bay of Pigs intervention was that Khrushchev "must have thought that he was facing exactly what he had been striving for a year earlier in Paris - a weakened American president." At the summit itself Khrushchev hammered Kennedy on any number of issues and a number of historians trace Khrushchev's assertiveness afterwards on Berlin and even his decision to move forward with placing nuclear weapons in Cuba as linked to his perception of Kennedy's weakness.

Given all of this, it seems the lesson from Vienna is less that summits and negotiations inherently display weakness, and more that the U.S. should think through and not launch disastrous interventions in other nations which weaken our standing in the world and reveal the limits of U.S. power.

Patriotism and History

I spotted via TAPPED this David Frum column on progressivism, patriotism, and the Obama campaign through a discussion of Todd Gitlin's book, The Intellectuals and the Flag. Frum is (surprise) skeptical of Obama's understanding of patriotism, stating that Obama:

[T]ries to distinguish between the fearfully flawed United States as it is - and the reformed country into which the United States might evolve. It is the latter, hypothetical, country that deserves patriotic affection. But there is this one problem: that hypothetical country does not as yet exist. This is not patriotism - it is a wish fantasy.

Frum's comments reveal a somewhat baffling lack of historical context. While he may label Obama's patriotism as "without content and without qualities" one need look any farther than Obama's "Yes We Can" speech to comprehend how Obama understands patriotism. Doing so reveals a historically minded view of this issue and makes a mockery of those who would question Obama's love of country.

For Obama, patriotism centers on a devotion to the ideals of freedom and democracy that the United States was founded upon; this was the "creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation." That seems a pretty standard idea which certain presidents have reaffirmed in recent years. However, as anyone with any knowledge of American history knows, the actual social and political conditions of the United States upon its' creation did not match these ideals (see for example, slavery). To secure these blessing required (and continues to), centuries of struggle by political leaders and ordinary citizens. In Obama's speech those who embraced this patriotic mission were the ones making this ideal of America a reality: from the abolitionists to women's rights activists to union organizers. To Frum however it would seem these Americans were merely "shrinking from realities," while embracing a "wish fantasy." That is how Frum describes Obama, Gitlin, and other modern day progressives who he derides as attempting to sell a "whole new approach to patriotism." Yet, last I checked, the "realities" in America include women having the right to vote and slavery being abolished, among other changes since 1776. Thus, Obama is not pining for a fantasy America, he is rather situating his campaign and its' goals within this larger narrative of history.

Of course, Obama's reading of patriotism and history is nothing new. In fact, based on his remarks, one can imagine David Frum dismissing as "without content" and merely "hypothetical" the sentiments of a short piece of rhetoric delivered in a small town in Pennsylvania one June afternoon in 1863. It is in a way unfortunate that the Gettysburg Address is so famous as it gives us an excuse to avoid pondering its meaning, which Obama is very much attempting to emulate. Lincoln ascribed to a conception of patriotism emphasizing ideals, particularly "the proposition that all men are created equal." For him at that juncture, the Civil War did not just mean preserving a union and an old America, but rather redefining American ideals to be more expansive, to create in that worn but meaningful phrase a "new birth of freedom."

Of course there are a million more things to say about how the meaning and experience of freedom has been contested throughout American history. For the moment however, I'll leave by hopefully appealing to Mr. Frum from another angle and remind him of Rabbi Tarfon's old saying: "It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either."