Partial Readings: Contrarian Contortions
Partial Readings: Contrarian Contortions
Partial Readings: Contrarian Contortions
Contrarian Contortions
Writing a book called Liberal Fascism doesn’t just earn you lots of royalties; it also forces you into a spiraling search for ever-more contradictory theses. The latest example of Jonah Goldberg’s unerring counterintuition is his argument at the National Review that “oil is a green fuel, while ‘green’ fuels aren?t.” Including the sentence “If you remove the argument over climate change from the equation…” in a panegyric to fossil fuels might seem a little dodgy, but it should seem familiar to readers of Liberal Fascism, where he argues that liberalism is exactly like fascism, if you remove racism and death camps from the equation.
America’s “Right-wing Desert”
“The general unsightliness of [Phoenix],” writes Ken Silverstein in Harper’s, “makes it a fitting home for Arizona’s legislature, which is composed almost entirely of dimwits, racists, and cranks.” Arizona, ravaged by the financial crisis and unsuccessful tax cuts, has a legislature largely comprised of conservatives backed by Tea Party enthusiasts, who have put all their energy into focusing on “matters that have little to do with the crisis.” For example: the introduction of a bill that would prohibit “intentionally or unknowingly creating a human-animal hybrid,” or a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns on university campuses so as to “eliminate gun-free zones.” But one congresswoman’s concerns top all the others: State senator and chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Welfare, Sylvia Allen, suggests that trees are “stealing Arizona’s water supply.”
The Informant
May 27, 2009. Carmichael, California. Starbucks. The setting of a meeting between an ex-computer hacker, Adrian Lamo, and the FBI, during which he revealed to federal agents that Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning is responsible for leaking 260,000 classified U.S. embassy dispatches and several incriminating videos of combat incidents. The meeting led to the arrest of SPC Manning by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Manning, who claimed to have been rummaging through classified military and government networks for more than a year, said he found ?incredible things, awful things?that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC.? Of the unofficially declassified materials, he wrote, ?It?s open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It?s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It?s beautiful, and horrifying.? Said Lewis Coser, in Dissent?s inaugural issue:
Lack of knowledge fosters irresponsibility. Bureaucratic masters thus confront an anxious and fearful mass of men who do not dare to act because they “don’t know the facts,” “can do nothing about this,” are “only little men who follow orders.” Anxious, fearful and ignorant men turn to leaders and experts who “know the facts” and thus “can be trusted.” In this manner secret knowledge generates further power.
Dignity
The New York State Senate recently approved labor rights for domestic workers?the first bill of its kind anywhere in the country. A recent New York Magazine article told the story of those who have fought for it:
After fourteen years as a domestic worker, Francois has little to show for her efforts. No savings, no job, no leads. In recent days, though, she?s had reason to feel optimistic. Over the past six years, she?s made some 25 trips to Albany to lobby for the Bill of Rights. When the State Senate passed it last week, she was looking down from the balcony, tears in her eyes. ?It will be reversing decades and decades and decades of injustice,? she says. Now she had something to show for her years of hard work, something more than the photographs of the children she helped raise.
