LENIN'S TOMB

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Richard Seymour and his critics posted by Richard Seymour

I suppose I should have something to say about this, inasmuch as it briefly reviews my contribution to 'Christopher Hitchens and His Critics'. The author of the review, Max Dunbar, describes my piece as 'scatological', which is true to the extent that it contains one swear word near the end. But I'm sure he meant to say 'abusive', which is far more to the point. He says that my critique of Hitchens is that he changes his mind a lot. It is not that. It is, partially, that he fabulates, retrospectively adjusting his positions so as to render them a great deal more coherent than they actually are (the tale of his Damascene conversion in a Kurdish jeep is the key example). This is not the end of Hitchens misrepresentations, but since the author of the Butterflies and Wheels article doesn't bother to deal with these, neither will I.

Dunbar says that I claim "that the jihadis and ex-Baathists in Iraq are a ‘grassroots guerilla movement, one that has arisen because of the brutality of the occupation’", and that my "sources for this statement are the CIA (!) and a bunch of antiwar websites similar to his own." In fact, the antiwar websites mentioned just provide graphics of data gathered by the Multinational Forces in Iraq and supplied by the US Department of Defense, which I have cited directly elsewhere (Dunbar could have asked me, or he might have checked the dossier in the sidebar). The statistics speak for themselves: the vast majority of attacks by insurgents are directed against occupation troops, not against civilians or even America's local auxiliaries. The exclamation mark beside 'CIA' is also unwarranted. In this case they provided 'evidence against interest'. In other words a branch of the American state supplied information about the nature of the military opposition to the occupation that directly contradicted a case being produced and disseminated energetically by that state.

Dunbar accuses me of "believing that the murder of young working-class Americans is somehow understandable". I don't. I think the killing of occupation soldiers (which is presumably who he means) is more than understandable - it is an absolute necessity. I am not persuaded, as Dunbar appears to be, that one should not defend oneself against an armed occupation soldier because he may be working class. He adds that I "perceive the killing of trade unionists and aid workers and the bombing of mosques and UN buildings as mere collateral damage." Not only did I not say this in the article, but I don't think I've ever said it. It isn't even implied, so far as I can tell. That exhausts Dunbar's engagement with the article in question, but there is one other thing. He mentions, before he gets to discussing my piece, that I run an "unreadable" weblog. On this evidence, it would be more accurate to say that he finds it unreadable, because he is demonstrably incapable of properly reading what he purports to be criticising.

Labels: belligerati, christopher hitchens, the liberal defense of murder

Friday, December 14, 2007

Muslims - not coming after all. posted by Richard Seymour

BBC Newsnight has taken a holiday and decided to investigate some news - credit where it's due, they've come up with the goods. The story in question is the revelation that this year's Policy Exchange report on Islam in the UK was a dangerous fraud (watch here). It transpires that one of the key elements of the report - an alarmist claim that a quarter of UK mosques sell 'hate literature' (which is still well below the 100% rate at which UK newsagents sell hate literature) - was backed up by a bunh of phoney receipts, suggesting that the researchers had confected evidence for a pre-conceived thesis.

Osama Saeed hints at further skullduggery:

Edinburgh Central Mosque was one of those fingered by the report. I said at the time that the mosque had no idea how this literature was supposed to be on their premises. A strange thing then happened a week or two later. A stash of the pamphlets in question were dropped just inside the doorway to the mosque. No one has any idea how they appeared there, as certainly none of the mosque authorities ordered them. Someone clearly outside dumped them, and they are currently investigating who that could be.

As I pointed out at the time, the report was written by a curious alliance of neoconservative reactionaries and Furedites. The latter, Trotskyists turned think-tankies (admittedly, always rather eccentric Trotskyists), now make their home at Spiked Online. They also host regular corporate-sponsored events attacking the scientific mainstream on 'climate change' and other ideas that may prove problematic for capital accumulation. The former are foils for the Conservative Party. Before neoconservative Michael Gove became a Tory MP, he was the Chair and co-founder of Policy Exchange. The current Chair is occupied by Charles Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and supporter of the Tories. Previous reports by the Exchange have been criticised for regurgitating a Tory agenda. One of the authors of the report who appeared on Newsnight is Dean Godson, a British neoconservative who fancies himself as a dispenser of wisdom on civilizational clashes. Of course, the Policy Exchange recognises allies when it sees them, and took the trouble to publish Martin Bright's Muslim-baiting report 'When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries' - which, summarising Observer wisdom on the question, was regarded by Britain's reactionaries as an instant classic.

Although this report and its producers have been comprehensively trashed, the ideological coordinates which produce this bilge are still being traversed daily. Hence, we are at war with Islam; Islam = 9/11; Muslim moderates aren't 'speaking out'; they must be punished; they're outbreeding us; their minarets are too bloody prominent, anyway. And so, the breathless anticipation of full-blooded cultural duel mounts daily in the neocon breast. If and when it finally comes to fruition, they will not forget the weaklings and capitulationists and fellow-travellers and fifth columnists on their own side.

Labels: belligerati, islam, islamophobia, neoconservatism, pro-war 'left'

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Bollinger imperialism and free speech posted by Richard Seymour

The President of Columbia University is being severely criticised by much of his faculty, in part for his preposterous, bellicose remarks when the Iranian president visited to chat with the kids. His defense:

Mr. Bollinger, who likened his experience at the faculty meeting to watching open-heart surgery on himself, said that in his remarks to Mr. Ahmadinejad he was simply exercising his free-speech rights.

The fact that he has such rights is evident in the fact that he didnt' get tased, but how is this for an academic standard? No one can mark me down, because - although I have got everything wrong and presented opinion as fact - to do so is injurious to my free-speech rights. No one can hold me accountable, whatever the responsibilities of my role, because I am owed completely unaccountability by the Bill of Rights. Nothing I say can ever be criticised, because it's just, like, my opinion man. I don't have to bow down to you truth-fascists. Imagine a university that worked like that: I suspect that Bernard-Henri Levy would be at home in such an instution, as would Alan Plagiaritz. (In fact, I'm convinced they'd both be at home in another institution I have in mind.) The next time some neoconservative blithers about academic standards being in decline, I suggest people remind them that they are the biggest beneficiaries of such a process.

Labels: 'free speech', belligerati, iran

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Mea Culpa, mea minima culpa posted by Richard Seymour

It is becoming a genre, this tearful backtracking from aggressive imperialism. Hitchens expressing his solipsistic distress about what happened to his democratic revolution, blaming bin Ladenist and Ba'athist 'riff raff' for its failure. Ignatieff taking on the mantle of the messiah, and blaming Iraqis for being incapable of self-government. Peter Beinart blaming Makiya for his military adventurism, and ditching his attempted resuscitation of Cold War liberalism. The neocons blaming Rumsfeld's lack of preparation. No one wants to take responsibility. And now Thomas Friedman 'apologising' for his post-9/11 descent into extremism. Friedman's energetic enthusiasm for sadistic violence long pre-dates 2001, of course, but like every other schmuck who has watched as one murderous fantasy after another was discredited in the grim destruction of Iraq, he needs an excuse - and as excuses go, 'Bin Laden Made Me Do It' is slightly better than 'Makiya Hypnotised Me'. RJ Eskow wants to 'forgive' Friedman. No. If you're worth anything as a human being, you should hate Friedman and all his kind forever. Through the centuries they have pathetically and sycophantically rented themselves to power, and have always sought excuses for their crimes and outrages. If anything, they have said, the Emperor has not gone far enough: he should have committed genocide. He was too enlightened, too moral, too zealous in his defense of goodness. And when at last their charlatanism has taken them to such lengths of absurdity that their earnings are threatened, they have simply cut loose and blamed the devil for their misdeeds. No forgiveness: let them stew in their own squalor.

Labels: belligerati, cruise missile liberals, culture of genocide, iraq, thomas friedman