George Clooney: Liberal…
…and proud of it! By God, who knew? What a courageous man, to align one’s politics with 96% of one’s peers, what a martyr, to take the stance that women should be able to vote (hey, George, what about the women of Afghanistan?), what a hero to, in this day and age, go out on a limb and say that black people shouldn’t have to sit at the back of the bus, what an artist, to make a movie about McCarthy that doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that, despicable though we may find his tactics, Soviet archives have proven him almost 100% right on the facts…
…what an overpaid jackass…
As greatful as I am to Clooney for defending my right to vote (although I can’t really imagine W&Co want to take MY vote away), besides neglecting the enfranchised women of Afghanistan and Iraq, had he nothing to say about rights of the women of Iran? How about what Hugo Chavez does to women who express dissenting opinions in Venezuela? How about them, George? Babs? Anyone?
It does not even approach Clooney-esque levels of profundity to observe that Liberal and Conservative do not, in the modern idiom, often equate with liberal and conservative. Think Geena Davis in Commander in Chief. Were these ideological pacifists as we expect Bush era libs to be? Oh no. They are Wilsonian to the point of being… NEOCONS! Hilarious. The sad fact is that George C., like the vast majority of even consistent voters, bases his views on justifications that are demonstrably vapid, only barely rational, overwhelmingly emotional and prejudicial and nothing; no event at home or abroad, no insight, no analysis, no new fact or condition is going to change them. Electorally he and his ilk (and me and mine) are irrelevent except as regards turnout. Despite our dimples George and I vote only once (we hope). Though the media megaphone is placed to his pouting lips with nauseating frequency no one votes on the basis of what George Clooney tells them. Or not enough to matter, anyhow. I wonder if he aspires to a single-name level of celebrity? Perhaps he enjoys it now in Hollywood but who can doubt that in the future, oblique references to a “George” moored to our current timeframe are to W. Bush, not Clooney Jr.
Whenever I see one of these “I’m proud to be liberal” defenses, what strikes me is the degree to which the writers think that the reason it’s become unpopular as a label is because of some sneaky conservative plot. This is Kos’ entire raison d’etre – the mighty Republican noise machine. How conservatives have been able to trick the populace while liberals have not been able to do the same thing is never explained, presumably because the writers presume liberals are much too virtuous to do such a thing. After asserting this, they go on to the usual historical defenses (Liberals gave women the vote! Liberals supported Rosa Parks!).
Nowhere in there is there any attempt to face the real reasons why liberalism has gotten a bad name. It’s the things like social spending programs that seem more designed to fill the pockets of certain public union constituencies, rather than actually address problems. It’s the reflexive “Blame America first” crowd that Jeanne Kirkpatrick thundered about over 20 years ago. It’s the forever sophomoric cynical attitude that we’re all pawns of some corporate titans. And when you combine it with the smug self-righteousness that such liberals find infuriating when it comes from religious conservatives, you make for a combination that gives liberalism a bad name, and one certainly far removed from a movement nominally about personal freedom.
The end of the Cold War and the Clinton administration did a lot to divorce mainstream Democrats from these more electorally obnoxious attitudes. Whether they’ll go back, I don’t know, but it certainly doesn’t help them to ignore what gave the term “liberal” its bad vibes in the first place.
(And incidentally Mark, while the Soviet archives have indeed proved communists were doing their level best to infiltrate American institutions, I wouldn’t give McCarthy much slack. He was a lout who leached onto a legitimate issue, made up allegations and thoroughly discredited a good portion of the anticommunist cause, so much so that 50 years later people are still making movies about it and ignoring the extent to which the Soviets were spying.)
Dennis, agreed – I’ve seen some conservatives (Ann Coulter comes to mind) who have been ready to give McCarthy the keys to the city – my point is merely that Clooney’s movie did not include any context, such as the very real infiltration of the government, Hollywood, and all points in between by the Soviet Union…
McCarthy did overstate the point, but the interesting fact that came out of the archives was not only that many levels of government were infiltrated by spies, but that Red Channels was fairly accurate as well. The pinnacle of the archives was the incontrovertible proof of the Rosenberg’s guilt – you can argue that Ethel could have been spared the death penalty, but her husband was beyond contempt in his actions. But just try telling Tony Kushner and his ilk about this inconvenient fact – the way he beat that dead horse in Angels in America was truly a grotesque scenario.
Of course, Tricky Dick was right all along – funny how history works out sometimes.
I’m not sure the definitive Rosenberg verdict is the highlight. Few folks who know the name seriously doubt the guilt of Julius anyhow; fewer doubt that any spying took place. The most important revelation was, I think from the Mitrovkhin archive, wherein a conversation between Roosevelt and Churchill was reproduced nearly verbatim for Stalin’s perusal. The only third party at this meeting? Harry Hopkins. Curse McCarthy all you like for his character. The New Dealers were chock full of Soviet directed agents. That is a fact. It is a hard fact, certainly, especially for aging Democrats but the fact must be faced. We deal even today with the repurcussions of this country’s half-assed response to the most murderous event ever to afflict mankind. That Marx is yet taken seriously… VERY seriously in academe and politics is a disgrace. That a proud defender of Communism in SE Asia came so close to the Presidency is an order of magnitude (or a few) more disgraceful still. This is not ancient history, folks. We may wish it so but the counter-revolution must be fought still.
“We deal even today with the repurcussions (sic) of this country’s half-assed response to the most murderous event ever to afflict mankind”
The most murderous single event (or two events) was dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — or the Nazis (if you consider a multi-year attempted genocide to be a single event) — surely this isn’t what you mean?
No hoss, that’s not what I mean. I’m thinkin’… hmmm. Well, for a starter I would to refer you to The Black Book Of Communism. No need to pollute your eyes with Witness or any thing like that as it was written (compiled, more accurately) by lifetime avowed Lefties (mostly French). Actually, if you are genuinely interested I’ll send you my copy. Let me know. The single event is the rise of international totalitarian socialism; we call it Communism. If you don’t know that even one single element of this putrid rise, like the collectivization of the Ukraine murdered people (and yes, murdered. The a-bomb attacks were no such thing. Just that discussion could occupy us indefinitely.) in numbers that require scientific notation, and that not with the justification of a global war, well, you don’t know much on the topic. No surprises there. Few do because few care. But yes sir, we certainly do struggle on in the shadow of Roosevelt’s unwise bargain with the Soviets. Details abound. Genuine inquiries will receive a genuine response.
If you aggregate all of the innocents who lost their lives under Communism into a single event, then we are in complete agreement – and as for the A-bomb, I certainly don’t mean to imply any kind of equivalence between Hiroshima/Nagasaki and Lenin/Stalin/Mao, only that as a single discreet event, more people died there than any other single discreet event –
I’m not sure how that jives with your proposition on the Nazis; maybe it doesn’t. How the basis of our current agreement was not plain prior to your above post is mysterious. Well, whatever. But what you say you didn’t mean to imply you said straight out. Didn’t you?
Oh, and quite famously, the Allied bombing of Dresden killed more than either a-bomb and possibly both together, not to sure. The “event” I have in mind is a political one, like the sweep of the Mongols through Europe, only worse.
I’m not sure I follow you in post #10: but if I was unclear, it is my fault. There is absolutely no moral equivalence between the holocaust and Hiroshima, the only comparison was in body count.
More people died in Dresden than Hiroshima/Nagasaki? Even including those who died years after the bombs, or from secondary effects? I’m not an expert, but it sounds off to me…
Wild Bill Donovan made many pacts with communist sympathizers who were operating in Nazi – occupied territory, so you could add him in to the mix here. But I admire the man for his ingeniousness and willingness to face the direst of situations for the Allies – “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” was about all the OSS had in the beginning, and the partisans helped immeasurably in the months prior to the landings at Anzio and Normandy.
I’m not making excuses for some of the individuals in FDR’s cabinet for their dewey – eyed romanticism of communism, but given the perilous nature of the war in the early years (who else was fighting two fronts over many years?), we should give some of his decisions the benefit of the doubt, in retrospect. Yalta was terrible, but without the Soviet’s willingness to let their troops suffer horrific casualties, we may not be having this conversation today. The fiction of America and England single – handedly winning the war is still with us today.