[A week ago, I read this post from friend of ABLC, @smartypants32 and thought it was too good not to be widely shared. So read it, love it, share it. And then bookmark Smartypants's eponymous blog. You won't regret it. -ABLxx]
I had a very strong reaction to reading Glenn Greenwald’s latest article titled Progressives and the Ron Paul Fallacies. But if you’d like a raging post about the evils of Greenwald, I’m afraid you’re going to have to look elsewhere. My plan is to try to respond reasonably – whether or not he would be inclined to do so in return. I’ll also fall short of tackling everything Greenwald said that I disagree with. Instead, I have a particular point to make and for today, I’ll stick with that.
It was when I got to the part in Greenwald’s article where he extolled a piece written about Ron Paul by Matt Stoller that I thought of Reinhold Niebuhr.
As Matt Stoller argued in a genuinely brilliant essay on the history of progressivism and the Democratic Party which I cannot recommend highly enough: “the anger [Paul] inspires comes not from his positions, but from the tensions that modern American liberals bear within their own worldview.” Ron Paul’s candidacy is a mirror held up in front of the face of America’s Democratic Party and its progressive wing, and the image that is reflected is an ugly one; more to the point, it’s one they do not want to see because it so violently conflicts with their desired self-perception.
He then goes on to list all of the “heinous” things President Obama has done – mostly in his execution of the battle against al Qaeda.
I won’t claim to be an expert on Niebuhr’s philosophy, but I did spend some time reading both his work and things that were written about him when I heard about this exchange between then-Senator Obama and David Brooks.
Out of the blue I asked, “Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?”
Obama’s tone changed. “I love him. He’s one of my favorite philosophers.”
So I asked, What do you take away from him?
“I take away,” Obama answered in a rush of words, “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away … the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”
Niebuhr was a Christian theologian/philosopher who lived from 1892-1971. He began his career as a pastor committed to the social gospel and pacifism. The rise of fascism and the events of WWII caused Niebuhr to question these commitments in a way that holds the tension between “the world as it is” and “the world as we want it to be.’
The most cogent description of this tension comes from Wilfred M. McClay who surrounds it with alot of verbiage that is steeped in religion. As someone who doesn’t hold to the Christian faith, I find this a powerful statement when I exchange the word “Christian” with “liberal” or “progressive.”
Niebuhr dismissed as mere “sentimentality” the progressive hope that the wages of individual sin could be overcome through intelligent social reform, and that America could be transformed in time into a loving fellowship of like-minded comrades, holding hands around the national campfire. Instead, the pursuit of good ends in the arena of national and international politics had to take full and realistic account of the unloveliness of human nature, and the unlovely nature of power. Christians who claimed to want to do good in those arenas had to be willing to get their hands soiled, for existing social relations were held together by coercion, and only counter-coercion could change them. All else was pretense and pipedreams.
This sweeping rejection of the Social Gospel and reaffirmation of the doctrine of original sin did not, however, mean that Niebuhr gave up on the possibility of social reform. On the contrary. Christians were obliged to work actively for progressive social causes and for the realization of Christian social ideals of justice and righteousness. But in doing so they had to abandon their illusions, not least in the way they thought about themselves. The pursuit of social righteousness would, he believed, inexorably involve them in acts of sin and imperfection. Not because the end justifies the means, but because that was simply the way of the world. Even the most surgical action creates collateral damage. But the Christian faith just as inexorably called its adherents to a life of perfect righteousness, a calling that gives no ultimate moral quarter to dirty hands. The result would seem to be a stark contradiction, a call to do the impossible.
Niebuhr influenced many of the people who went on to influence President Obama, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Saul AlinskyOn the later:
Alinsky was a self-described radical and Niebuhr was a devout Christian but neither man was an idealist. Both tended to see morality as a kind of cover story used by groups who, in Niebuhr’s words, “take for themselves whatever their power can command.” That doesn’t mean that these two men believed that nobody had the ability or will to change the world for the better. However, anyone who attempts to do so better be ready to get his hands dirty.
So it should come as no surprise that you can hear the echos of Niebuhr in Obama’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.” As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there’s nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.<…>
So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another — that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier’s courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.
So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly.
You see Glenn, the tension Stoller thinks is generated by Ron Paul is present in any liberal who has actually had to get their hands dirty with the work of facing down the realities of power, coercion and evil in the world. We don’t need Paul for that.
What folks like you seem to be saying is that we should just ignore those realities and live in some kind of naive liberal/libertarian nirvana. In doing so, you demonstrate your own lack of experience with taking on the world as it is and simply pine for the world as you want it to be.
To tell you the truth Glenn, I’ve struggled with some of the decisions President Obama has made. When I watch him closely, what I see is that he has struggled as well. When you take on the mantle of leadership and all of the responsibilities that go with it – that’s part of the price you pay. As Niebuhr pointed out so well, there aren’t any clean hands around when it comes time to take on those very real challenges. Your options rarely come without some kind of collateral damage. An example would be the question of whether or not the US should take military action in Libya or watch a potential massacre.
After 9/11 President Bush declared a “global war on terror” and invaded two countries killing hundreds of thousands of people. Almost immediately after assuming office, President Obama rejected the GWOT and instead began to work on getting us out of those two wars. And yet he obviously supported the idea that it remained important to defeat al Qaeda as the perpetrators of 9/11 and other acts of terrorism. It is true that the drone strikes he’s used against them in Pakistan and Afghanistan have killed innocent people (including children). But I have to wonder if you can imagine a humane way of taking on an avowed enemy like al Qaeda. Or, as I said before, should we just run the risk of ignoring them in search of our liberal/libertarian nirvana?
These are exactly the kinds of choices Niebuhr was talking about that President Obama faces every day. And yes, I struggle with them. There is no comfort to be found in any of this. It reminds me of a quote from another philosopher, Bertrand Russell:
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
Niebuhr would tell us that facing the world as it is involves giving up the comfort of surety and learning to live with the tension, doubt and collateral damages of our choices…all while remaining resolute in our commitment to our ideals. To me, that is the true calling of any liberal.
[via Smartypants]
Right on. As an atheist fan of Niebuhr, I couldn’t agree more. Act as morally as possible within the reality in which you live. There are just wars. All wars, unfortunately, create collateral damage and casualties. Minimize them as much as possible.
Unfortunately for people like Greenwald, the world is not black and white. There are shades of gray and compromises that must be made. I wish it was as simple as GG and his compatriots seem to think it is, but adults know that the world and its problems are complex and the solutions sometimes unsatisfactory. Obama gets that and that is why I still admire him and support him, despite the things he’s done with which I don’t agree.
GG and his like are just idealogues, pining for a fantasy world that never did or will exist. I think Obama and I are realists. We look at the world around us and try to do the best we can with what we have. I’ll rake a realist over an idealogue any day.
Hooray! My favorite blogger on my favorite blog! Smartypants should be a household name among Obama supporters.
And what fucking existential war are you talking about? Because there is only one type of just war–self defense. The preemptive one we are engaged in, is not what I think anyone, would call just. So, with that in mind maybe you can explain why within the sterile and philosophical context you’ve couched this argument does Obama get a pass when arguing and expanding this so called war on terror? Or is it just…Dude, naw.
Did Obama actually extend the “war on terror” or is this just more BS from Glenn Greenwald? And given your definition of what constitutes a “just war,” you really shouldn’t have a problem with us going after Al Qaeda.
Also, Greenwald has yet to answer why his favorite politican, Ron Paul, voted for AUMF in the first place.
As a matter of fact, President Obama’s administration stopped using the phrase “global war on terror” almost from the moment he was inaugurated. Instead, he has focused exclusively on the battle against al Qaeda – which most would consider an act of self-defense.
Well, when you say, “Global War on Terror,” a war started on false pretenses is easier to justify. So, this term being immediately dropped by Obama makes perfect sense.
The important thing is that it isn’t just the term he’s dropped, but the outlook. He ended the Iraq War, he’s announced a timeline and engaged in negotiations to end the Af-Pak War, he hasn’t started any other geopolitical wars in the Middle East (Remember the On to Syria! cover of National Review). At the same time, he’s refocused efforts leading to the death of capture of almost all of al Qaeda’s leadership, and left then unable to operate on a global level (or, frankly, to do much other than keep their heads down).
The phrase “War on Terror” was invented for the purpose of conflation – of allowing the government to expand its military response from the appropriate target (al Qaeda) to whatever the Bush administration wanted to knock over. Obama has rejected that notion in both word and deed.
I’ve asked Paulites this question many times, and if they bother to answer, it’s usually something incoherent about how he couldn’t POSSIBLY have known that a bill called “Authorization to Use Military Force” might actually result in the authorization and use of military force.
If you think the war against al Qaeda is preemptive, you need to do some reading. Start with the WTC (both attacks), the read up on the embassy bombings, the USS Cole, and the attempt to bring down ten planes over the Pacific on New Year’s Eve 2000.
Ah, I see the flying monkeys have arrived. As far as I can see, the only preemptive war the US has been involved in lately is winding down. And as for what constitutes just war, you should probably read some Niebuhr.
So the only preemptive war we’re in is in Iraq? Jesus fuck knuckle if this is your perception and you’re one of the enlightened libs/progs/pragmatists, then the poor and brown are so fucked. Repeat after me…bombs dropped on anyone constitutes war. For fucks sake, and for Niebhur’s, where’s your compassion?
Your brilliant parody of rude assholes who worship Glenn Greenwald as their Messiah may be too subtle for some, but I salute you!
No. We’re in Afghanistan — a war that Ron Paul voted for. Funny how Greenwald and his flying monkeys consistently ignore that inconvenient truth in order to keep their ODS in the red zone.
Afghanistan isn’t a preemptive war. The war there is part and parcel of the retaliatory/defensive war launched against al Qaeda.
We didn’t invade Afghanistan in order to stop some force, with whom we were not at that time engaged in hostilities, from attacking us.
True. And yet Greenwald and Paul now both paint Afghanistan as a disaster that they had nothing to do with, though GG wrote in the intro to his book that he supported the invasion of Afghanistan AND Iraq, and Paul voted for the AUMF. So where the hell do they and their supporters get off talking about Obama’s militarism? He spoke out against the Iraq invasion while he was running for the U.S. Senate.
Don’t get me wrong — I think we need to be out of Afghanistan, but getting out of a war is far easier than getting into one. And perhaps if Bush had had the same focus on Al Qaeda, rather than his amorphous “global war on terror/Axis of evil” fearmongering BS, we wouldn’t have been there as long as we have been.
So the only preemptive war we’re in is in Iraq? Jesus fuck knuckle if this is your perception and you’re one of the enlightened libs/progs/pragmatists, then the poor and brown are so fucked. Repeat after me…bombs dropped on anyone constitutes war.
You don’t know what the word “preemptive’ means, do you?
For real, you need to stop talking down to people.
I’m going leave ‘Tossed Greenwald Salad’ alone, because his parroting of the PL’s overall arguments without a hint of self reflection that would make the poster’s screen name rather farcical if not downright embarrassing…
Anyway, the reason why guys like Greenwald, Kuicinich, Paul, West and Nader can wag their fingers at the hypocrisy and tough choices that come with leading the Western World is because they never had to make any real life of death decisions, unlike Obama. Its easy to live in pie in the sky idealism and po-po people who make real decision for not living up to your idealism. Its another thing, as Niebuhr points out, to live in the cruel and harsh realities of now.
I’m not going to bother reading Greenwald’s BS, again, about how progressives should ignore the mean spirited, racist, xenophobic, homophobic or outright bat guano crazy ideas that comes from the mind of “Dr. No”, because he won’t start any wars and let everyone smoke pot. You’ll probably need some medicinal weed to help with the food poisoning and water born pathogens you’ll get if we get a President Ron Paul who will summarily dismantle the EPA and FDA because the ‘evil government’ shouldn’t tell you what to eat or drink.
Greenwald is beating a very dead horse with his man crush for Ron Paul. At this point there’s nothing but a bunch of broken bones.
At this point, given the fact that both the Congressman and his Senator son have called for the dismantling of civil rights because it impedes individual liberty and his support of dismantling the basic social safety net even most right wingers won’t touch – only a political imbecile or a grifter like GG would support Ron Paul and call themselves ‘liberal’ or even politically astute.
Excellent points!
The fact that Greenwald can’t see the inherent contradiction between Paul’s supposed concern for civil liberties and his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 demonstrates that he can’t be taken seriously.
Yet, if Paul is holding up a mirror; it’s really the reflection of how of some liberals(thanks to privilege and racial attitudes) can easily be fooled by the likes of Ron Paul.
This is a BRILLIANT article. Just brilliant. Thank you!
Thanks ABL!
4thed the opinion that this is really very good.
Excellent piece! As a 15-year resident of DC, I can tell you right now that Niebuhr is right on the money. In order to get anything done in this town, you have to be pragmatic. And you have to roll up your arms and get your hands dirty. If you don’t, you will either be left feeling deeply disappointed and defeated or become jaded and cynical. Obama reminded me that neither of these states are good pieces to be when trying to bring about reform.
It amazes me how people who seem to be smart enough in other ways so often can’t–or maybe won’t–understand that we live in the world as it is and not in the one we’d like to.
Some months back I worte a screed about how Democrats shouldn’t be trying to run anybody against Obama in the primary. I brought up the fact that Obama isn’t a dictator and he can’t pass laws with a magic wand. I brought up how there are a lot of crappy Democrats in Congress from states like Arkansas and Louisiana and Nebraska who endlessly thwart the kind of laws most of us would like to see.
In answer I got people telling me that to just accept that Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson and congressmen and women like them are part of the system is just “giving up” or some such bullshit. I tried telling them that Nebraska just isn’t going to send Sherrod Brown to Congress in our lifetimes. It just isn’t. And they said I was weak-willed or a sellout or asked “Why even bother trying, then?” or some other shit like that.
I swear, I don’t understand this. I’m not the smartest guy in the world. I’m not the most perceptive guy in the world. But I can understand that wishing for something doesn’t make it so, however deeply and truly and abidingly we might hope and wish and want and dream. If I can understand this, why can’t Greenwald, who’s a pretty good lawyer from what I understand? I’m just some guy with a little non-profit that barely scrapes by. By any reasonable standard, he’s far smarter and accomplished than I am. How can he, and his followers, who I assume are every bit as kick-ass in every way as Greenwald himself is, not get this?
This is something that I think it would be helpful to have somebody with some understanding of psychology look into. These people aren’t going to go away, and flailing around in bitterness and anger, they have it in them to do some harm to our cause and our country. If we understood their thinking better, maybe we might find some way of reaching them and bringing them around. Arguing with them using facts in good faith doesn’t seem to be the answer, and I’ll be damned if I know what is the answer, but we’d all be better off if we could find one.
One reason they do it is money. A loud voice “speaking truth to power” makes a pretty healthy checking account. There’s no way anything can be perfect(whatever that is). So you have something new to bitch about almost every day. The first black president makes a pretty easy target. He’s getting it from all sides. What’s one more person dumping on him going to hurt?
My answer is that they are doing the same thing that the good reporters at Fix News are doing. They are manipulating a low info group to get paid. They’re just a gang of entitled jerkoffs and should be treated with scorn. You deal with them the same way that the great Dr. Harris-Perry did Cornel West. Another way to do it would be the way a few bloggers handled Joan on Twitter. If I had a heart I would’ve felt sorry for her.
They are not well meaning or misguided. They aren’t going to see any light. They’ve played this game so long that it’s finally coming back to bite them. Seeing them go down will give me the same sense of satisfaction I got when I saw Newt crying.
I think you’re right, at least about the leaders; I’m more interested in why the followers swallow this shit, and how to reach them. The leaders are too far gone to change, I think, but I still hope that some of the followers might see reason…
The true believers follow these rather black and white characterizations of politics because the reality — American democracy can be cut throat but we have to work together and compromise to move forward, is just too much for folks to handle. They still hold on simplistic views of the world that are better suited for children than modern adults in the 21st Century. In other words, many of these folks refuse to grow up.
At the end of the people who worship Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Ayn Rand as they were visited by archangel Gabriel and given their political treatise after fasting under a fig tree are no different than people who quote Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader and Glenn Greenwald like their words were written on stone tablets by lighting and given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. They want quick, simple and ideological driven solutions to big, complex problems and they’re not taking ‘no’ for an answer. The worse part, whatever falls outside of their POV as the right answer mind as well be a ‘no’. And no president, Democratic or Republican, is going to give those quick answers. **
** And note the last two Presidents (Reagan, Bush II) who tried for those quick, simple ideologically driven ideas nearly drove the country off a cliff.
The problem is that the Firebaggers and the Teabaggers see politics like the playoffs for the Super Bowl and not the complex, messy and ugly world of law making that it is. Obama compromising with Republicans, even if its to save the working poor, is seen as Jordan leaving the Bulls for the Lakers. Bush working with Pelosi on immigration reform, even if its relatively weak, mind as well be Tebow losing the NFC wildcard game.
So long as we as nation wish to be spectators entertained by politics, instead of being citizens engaged in politics (and OWS doesn’t count as engagement, yet), the two Glenns will still have work, guys like Obama will continue to be pariahs and we Pragmatists will still be sitting here waiting for some adults to show up.
With the followers, they’ll have to get to that point on their own. You lose too much energy trying to convince them otherwise. It’s like trying to convince a Dominionist Christian to turn atheist. The best thing I see happening for them is to see the leadership delegitimized. I’m not saying that will change their minds. It would limit their potential damage.
ABL and co:
Good post as always. What I’m struck by most in the piece with David Brooks is perplexed that Obama gives complexed, thought out answers. Its strange that Brooks is fundamentally surprised and slightly frustrated that Obama is a man who actually thinks about what he says and engages in discussion about big ideas. In other words, even back in 2007, Brooks realized that he was talking to an intelligent, complex man about complex problems. Almost of decade of Bush cartoonish ramblings that were supposed to Presidential thoughts on world affairs can make reporters kind of lazy and cynical, even neo-cons like Brooks. Someone as smart as Obama talking to a stenographer from the Washington Press corp would be like a college age hip-hop head listen to a Miles Davis album, the layers of the work would probably blow their minds.
See, Obama is about solutions and thought, not merely shouting slogans and promoting said sloganeering as policy making. Hence, people from the Far Right and the Far Left a frustrated because he believes in working together and consensus is the best way to solve problems. The talking heads from the Right and Left are hopping that Obama actually gives nuanced, thought out solutions to problems rather than fall back on dead cliches from the past.
So, of course, the intelligence hates him, because, you know, he actually thinks about what he says.
Interesting, isn’t it, that I can find this in the original post:
It reminds me of a quote from another philosopher, Bertrand Russell:
And then that blithering, blathering idiot TGS shows up to prove beyond any question his own stupidity! (Obligatory note of halfhearted thanks…)
Greenwald and his mindless acolyte chorus seem to live entirely within abstractions carefully constructed in their own weak minds. They move blocks of words around like checkers on their own small board, never mindful of the numerous possibilities available on the three-dimensional Go board describing the real world nearby.
I’ve yet to meet one person who demands purity from someone in a leadership position who lives up to their own ideals, even though the challenges they face are far less daunting than, say, being the head of government for a world power with over 300 million people of wildly divergent viewpoints and needs.
And as always, anytime Glenn Greenwald wants to expand his Manichean focus of absolute good and absolute evil to talking about human rights violations that are occurring in Brazil, where he actually lives, that would be great.