A Little Matter Of Genocide

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

[ this post was originally published on a weblog called What Is Liberalism ]

I am a little slow. And my politics are, apparently, a little out of date.

Last year, 2005, there was some sort of uproar regarding an essay by Ward Churchill. I did not follow it at the time. I had the sense that right-wingers were upset and felt that Churchill was saying things that were not true. I may have confused Churchill with some of the other scandals regarding journalistic integrity, like Jason Blair.

Only today did I realize that this was a writer I’ve long had a certain respect for. This is not a young kid, like Jason Blair. This is the author of A Little Matter Of Genocide, a book that has troubled me for years. That book, more than any other that I have read, makes it difficult to believe in a narrative of liberalism that begins in the 1600s in England and slowly spreads across the world, in a democratic revolution of which 1776, 1865, and 1945 were important milestones. Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History Of The United States also offers a challenge to the standard liberal narrative, but not nearly as strongly as Churchill’s book does. In Zinn’s telling of it, the American working-class is basically good, but the evil capitalists constantly manipulate public opinion and suppress democratic movements with violence. Ward’s book is much darker than Zinn’s, there is no good and bad conflict between workers and the elite, instead, in Ward’s telling, the evil impulse toward genocide springs up from every part of American society, both rich and working class.

Books like those of Zinn and Churchill offer challenges to progressive thinking. After reading such books, one is left sceptical about the possibilities for progressive change in America. Consider what Avedon Carol recently said of revelations that America has been guilty of torture:

We torture. We have broken our covenant with the people, with the world, with civilization. We are the barbarians. I know what it means.

But the evil of the Bush administration is minor compared to the large scale torture and murder that Churchill’s book documents. Although Churchill’s book is not focused exclusively on the United States Of America, the genocide of supposedly non-liberal countries is not much greater than the genocide of supposedly liberal countries like America. These books, read now, with Bush in power, will leave you with the impression that Bush represents the norm for American history, and democratic, progressive movements represent the exception. Zinn’s book leaves you feeling that, given a democratic revolution, America could be fixed. Churchill’s book is not so optimistic.

Obviously I believe in the standard liberal narrative – liberalism begins in England in the 1600s, with their twin revolutions, it then spreads, as an idea, across Europe, leading to multiple democratic revolutions in the late 1700s, it then slowly and painfully spreads across the world, with many reversals, but eventually winning out over most competing ideologies. This weblog is devoted to that narrative. But that narrative was not popular – was openly scorned – when I was politically active in the 1980s and 1990s. A simple, innocent, naive assertion of American liberalism would have brought laughter from most of the friends that I worked with on environmental and racial issues in the early 1990s.

But clearly, something has changed. There is something new in America today.

Glen Greenwald is angry that anyone would associate Ward Churchill with the Democrats:

My belief that Reynolds has an obligation to either denounce or defend Coulter’s comments is largely based on the fact that Reynolds routinely lectures Democrats on what he claims is their obligation to denounce “extremists on the Left” – even when the extremists in question are totally fringe and inconsequential figures who have nothing to do with Democrats… I specifically cited this post from Reynolds self-righteously taking Democrats to task for their grave moral failure in remaining silent about that oh-so-significant, long-standing icon of the Democratic Party, Ward Churchill.

Wow. So the radicals no longer matter? Reading Greenwald and others, one gets the sense that there is something new America, something America has not had since the mid-1960s: a progressive movement that rejects radicalism. I don’t say this is good or bad, I’m simply noting it. I don’t recall meeting anyone like Greenwald during the 1980s or 1990s. I can not even imagine someone saying these words – consider the absolute confidence with which Greenwald asserts that Churchill is irrelevant – nothing like that was possible in the 1980s or early 1990s, not among the people I knew, and I think I knew a pretty broad cross-section of activists, from moderate to extreme. Back then the struggle was to come to grips with the meaning that people like Howard Zinn and Ward Churchill held out for progressive politics.

Angelica at BattlePanda refers to Chruchill’s views as odious (she is addressing herself to Glenn Reynolds):

If you leave off assuming that the lack constant, self-flagellating condemnation of Ward Churchill and his ilk implies agreement to his odious views by commentators on the left, then maybe we’ll stop demanding that your explicit disavowal of Ann Coulter’s latest idiotic and bigoted comments

These last 5 or 6 years, I’ve been less politically active than I was during the 90s. When I was at my most active, in the early 90s, there was nothing out there that could be described as a mainstream liberal movement. If you went to rallies, if you were active for an environmental cause, or a labor cause, the only people you met at the rallies were people – I’m tempted to call them radicals, though that implies loyalty to strict ideology which no one I knew had – these were people who had a certain left-leaning militancy – I’ll call them radicals till I can think of a better word. Race issues were a little different – at civil rights rallies you’d run into older people who’d been active 25 years earlier, and then you’d meet the radicals again.

Why were conservatives so powerful in the 1980s and 1990s? Part of the reason was apathy – an apathy effecting the vast middle. Back then it was easy to be contemptous of those who called themselves liberal because they never seemed to actually do anything. What little energy existed for a more democratic, progressive politics, was all in the hands of people who were reading Zinn, and later Churchill, and taking such books seriously. The Democratic party inspiried no loyalty, it seemed too much in the pocket of corporate interests, as unresponsive to the public’s needs as the Republicans. Thus, among my politically active friends at least, there was a curiosity and hunger for alternatives, such as Ralph Nader, who at that time still had an unblemished reputation among progressives.

The issue is motivation. I want to use the word “militancy” but I’m worried that will lead to confusion. During the 1980s and 1990s people’s whose inclinations were moderate or mildy progressive did not get active in politics. Now they do. That changes everything. Again, I am not saying this is good or bad, I’m simply noting the change.

A tidal wave of traditionalism has swept over the Democratic party’s rank and file. I am not speaking of the elected politicans, whose politics continue to be a confused muddle. But of the rank and file (and this would include many of the webloggers we link to on the right, in the section titled “American Progressives”) old fashioned ideas of liberalism (as opposed to something more radical) seem to be in vogue now. I don’t say this is good or bad, I’m merely noting it.

Part of me is sad to see hopes for really radical change die away. Part of me is glad to see a coalition forming that seems able to, as in 1932, begin a long era of majority support for democratic, progressive reform.

Reading Zinn and later Churchill was de rigeur among a certain set of politically active people I knew during the 1990s. It’s odd to see these writers just fade away, not proven wrong or challenged, just made irrelevant by the changing fashions.

Post external references

  1. 1
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill
  2. 2
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0872863239/sr=8-1/qid=1140065742/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0469724-1004163?%5Fencoding=UTF8
  3. 3
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060528370/sr=8-1/qid=1140068151/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0469724-1004163?%5Fencoding=UTF8
  4. 4
    http://sideshow.me.uk/sfeb06.htm#02151251
  5. 5
    http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-ann-coulter-matters.html
  6. 6
    http://battlepanda.blogspot.com/2006/02/few-observations-is-all_14.html
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