General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChris Hedges: The Treason of the Intellectuals
from truthdig:
The Treason of the Intellectuals
Posted on Mar 31, 2013
By Chris Hedges
The rewriting of history by the power elite was painfully evident as the nation marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Some claimed they had opposed the war when they had not. Others among Bushs useful idiots argued that they had merely acted in good faith on the information available; if they had known then what they know now, they assured us, they would have acted differently. This, of course, is false. The war boosters, especially the liberal hawkswho included Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Al Franken and John Kerry, along with academics, writers and journalists such as Bill Keller, Michael Ignatieff, Nicholas Kristof, David Remnick, Fareed Zakaria, Michael Walzer, Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, George Packer, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Kanan Makiya and the late Christopher Hitchensdid what they always have done: engage in acts of self-preservation. To oppose the war would have been a career killer. And they knew it.
These apologists, however, acted not only as cheerleaders for war; in most cases they ridiculed and attempted to discredit anyone who questioned the call to invade Iraq. Kristof, in The New York Times, attacked the filmmaker Michael Moore as a conspiracy theorist and wrote that anti-war voices were only polarizing what he termed the political cesspool. Hitchens said that those who opposed the attack on Iraq do not think that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy at all. He called the typical anti-war protester a blithering ex-flower child or ranting neo-Stalinist. The halfhearted mea culpas by many of these courtiers a decade later always fail to mention the most pernicious and fundamental role they played in the buildup to the warshutting down public debate. Those of us who spoke out against the war, faced with the onslaught of right-wing patriots and their liberal apologists, became pariahs. In my case it did not matter that I was an Arabic speaker. It did not matter that I had spent seven years in the Middle East, including months in Iraq, as a foreign correspondent. It did not matter that I knew the instrument of war. The critique that I and other opponents of war delivered, no matter how well grounded in fact and experience, turned us into objects of scorn by a liberal elite that cravenly wanted to demonstrate its own patriotism and realism about national security. The liberal class fueled a rabid, irrational hatred of all war critics. Many of us received death threats and lost our jobs, for me one at The New York Times. These liberal warmongers, 10 years later, remain both clueless about their moral bankruptcy and cloyingly sanctimonious. They have the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents on their hands.
The power elite, especially the liberal elite, has always been willing to sacrifice integrity and truth for power, personal advancement, foundation grants, awards, tenured professorships, columns, book contracts, television appearances, generous lecture fees and social status. They know what they need to say. They know which ideology they have to serve. They know what lies must be toldthe biggest being that they take moral stances on issues that arent safe and anodyne. They have been at this game a long time. And they will, should their careers require it, happily sell us out again.
Leslie Gelb, in the magazine Foreign Affairs, spelled it out after the invasion of Iraq.
My initial support for the war was symptomatic of unfortunate tendencies within the foreign policy community, namely the disposition and incentives to support wars to retain political and professional credibility, he wrote. We experts have a lot to fix about ourselves, even as we perfect the media. We must redouble our commitment to independent thought, and embrace, rather than cast aside, opinions and facts that blow the commonoften wrongwisdom apart. Our democracy requires nothing less. ..............................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_treason_of_the_intellectuals_20130331/
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)I also wonder if it's a conscious decision ("I need to support this war to maintain my lifestyle even though it's clearly wrong." or if it's just going along with the flow.
Bryant
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)if I don't, they won't invite me to their parties anymore, and they'll talk about me behind my back."
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)Although the consequence of exclusion are somewhat greater than they would be on the playground - i.e. a reporter who can't get access doesn't have stuff to write about and a politician who can't get others to work with him doesn't accomplish much.
Bryant
yurbud
(39,405 posts)"if I don't go along, I'll be back to waiting tables to support my writing."
"Next thing you know, I'll have to return the BMW."
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Go along to get along, as the saying goes.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Willful Noncompliance Until Disclosure.
Willful Noncompliance.
Disclosure Now.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)[center][/center]
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)[center][/center]
xchrom
(108,903 posts)malaise
(269,054 posts)Rec
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)on the fetid, bulshit cake they left on the table, buzzing with flies and emitting a stomach-turning, pervasive scent is that we will be paying for this for decades.
The assistance to the many veterans and the required support will continue to accrue over time -- a long time.
Meanwhile, the profiteers, not really, (ever) satiated by the orgy of contracts and vampire-like draining of our national blood in a host of ways, dance madly away from the mess knowing that their coffers full of trillions are safe from the victims of their parasitic entitlement.
Bless the wealthy and their cronies! They are the future. Get over the "our children are the future" romantic claptrap. No. Our compliance and internalization of the corporate control system assures a future of neo-Serfdom for them and some Gigeresque culture of technical chains that may eventually make us pine for the Middle Ages.