Catapulting the Propaganda
I beg your indulgence, as I state the excruciatingly obvious. If Markos Moulitsas challenged even one significant aspect of "conventional wisdom," if he dared to question one critical element of what the Establishment itself regards as essential truth, he would not be provided with a megaphone in Newsweek.
Exhibit A, and the last exhibit you will need.
Moulitsas offers the standard bromides, the usual equivocations and evasions, and the typical lies that I have already discussed here, with a relevant followup essay, here. Is there any recognition of the criminal war of aggression the United States undertook in Iraq? No. Does Moulitsas dare to hint at the genocide the U.S. has unleashed? Of course not. Would Moulitsas be so bold as to express the slightest degree of concern that every leading Democrat has consistently only been making an attack on Iran more probable? Don't make me laugh. (A "principled Democratic caucus" would see the Iraq crime "defunded by default" -- at this lamentably, tragically, disgustingly late date? No: a "principled Democratic caucus" would have seen to it that this international crime against peace was defunded as its first order of business in early 2007, as the only moral and practical course to follow.)
Magazines like Newsweek are where what once may have been ideas of some value go for their final burial -- after they have been drained of all vitality, disinfected so that the faintest tinge of originality is extinguished, and bleached of even a single argument that might cause the vaguest distress in the corridors of power. All that remains is dull, safe, and thoroughly conventional. Did I mention dull? It deserves mention again. Over the last several years, Kos has enthusiastically made himself an element of the Establishment: intellectually inert, morally callous and blind, concerned only with amassing more and more political power for his tribe, with how various tactics "play," and with the dreaded "perceptions of Democratic weakness." Never mind the daily slaughter that is reality in Iraq -- and the even greater nightmare that will follow an attack on Iran, an attack that the Democrats encourage at every turn (and see here, and here, and here, too).
Newsweek, together with almost all of the American Establishment today, yields up nothing but the stench of death. Bury it, together with its new "contributor," as quickly as possible, before the lethal odor suffocates us all.
Exhibit A, and the last exhibit you will need.
Moulitsas offers the standard bromides, the usual equivocations and evasions, and the typical lies that I have already discussed here, with a relevant followup essay, here. Is there any recognition of the criminal war of aggression the United States undertook in Iraq? No. Does Moulitsas dare to hint at the genocide the U.S. has unleashed? Of course not. Would Moulitsas be so bold as to express the slightest degree of concern that every leading Democrat has consistently only been making an attack on Iran more probable? Don't make me laugh. (A "principled Democratic caucus" would see the Iraq crime "defunded by default" -- at this lamentably, tragically, disgustingly late date? No: a "principled Democratic caucus" would have seen to it that this international crime against peace was defunded as its first order of business in early 2007, as the only moral and practical course to follow.)
Magazines like Newsweek are where what once may have been ideas of some value go for their final burial -- after they have been drained of all vitality, disinfected so that the faintest tinge of originality is extinguished, and bleached of even a single argument that might cause the vaguest distress in the corridors of power. All that remains is dull, safe, and thoroughly conventional. Did I mention dull? It deserves mention again. Over the last several years, Kos has enthusiastically made himself an element of the Establishment: intellectually inert, morally callous and blind, concerned only with amassing more and more political power for his tribe, with how various tactics "play," and with the dreaded "perceptions of Democratic weakness." Never mind the daily slaughter that is reality in Iraq -- and the even greater nightmare that will follow an attack on Iran, an attack that the Democrats encourage at every turn (and see here, and here, and here, too).
Newsweek, together with almost all of the American Establishment today, yields up nothing but the stench of death. Bury it, together with its new "contributor," as quickly as possible, before the lethal odor suffocates us all.
posted by Arthur Silber at 5:24 PM
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