It’s a moderate start

The New Neo Posted on by

Good news–I think.

Apparently, according to the Boston Globe, there is a middle-of-the-road coalition being formed in the Senate, and it has some chance of tempering the polarization there. Could this be the start of something big?

An excerpt from the article:

The group of about 15 senators has been quietly forging a compromise even as their more partisan colleagues bludgeon each other daily on the Senate floor. They comprise at least six members of each party, the current margin of power in the Senate, and thus could decide any vote that falls along party lines.

Close Senate observers say the coalition’s work could shift power from the majority and minority leaders and revitalize the political middle, with moderates who have found themselves out of the mainstream of their own parties enjoying heightened influence on major legislation.

If they are able to work productively together on other issues, their influence could expand, with the docket including such contentious issues as Social Security, stem cell research, reauthorization of the Patriot Act, and John Bolton’s nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations.

Here are the names of some of the Senators involved:

The Democrats include the longest-serving senator, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, and one of the newest, freshman Ken Salazar of Colorado. They are joined by Democratic centrists, such as Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Those on the Republican side include such moderates as Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island and Susan M. Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, as well as independent-minded conservatives, such as John W. Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona, and Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina.

I don’t know about you, but I like the sound of this development.

German election results: Schroder on the ropes

The New Neo Posted on by

As I said, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Via Instapundit, I havelearned that the results of the election in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia have come in, and they look very bad for our friend Herr Schroder.

Despite Schroder’s recent anti-American and anti-capitalist efforts, his SPD party came in approximately eight points below the CDU in the most populous area of Germany, an SPD stronghold for the past four decades. Although national elections had not been scheduled until 2006, Schroder is now calling for the elections to be held within the next four months.

However, there’s possible trouble ahead. I don’t pretend to understand German politics, but this sounds rather ominous to me:

With the bitter election result for my party in North Rhine-Westphalia the political support for our reforms to continue has been called into question,” Mr Schré¶der said. Pursuing these policies required “clear support from a majority of Germans”.

However, with many in the SPD demanding a shift to the left in a bid to win back core voters, Mr Schré¶der could face a bruising battle with his grassroots as he draws up the party’s election platform. In recent weeks senior party members have vilified short-term investors as “swarms of locusts” descending on German companies and many party members credit that aggressive rhetoric with its success in closing the gap with the opposition in the run-up to yesterday’s vote.

So, the left wing of Schroder’s party thinks the problem is that he wasn’t tough enough in his rhetoric. Maybe within the next four months he’ll manage to close the gap by getting even clearer about just who those “locusts” might be.

Fasten your seat belts, Germany. I think you may be in for a bumpy ride.

Radical Son: on “progressives” and conservatives

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Many people have suggested I really need to read David Horowitz’s book Radical Son, so many that I decided to take them up on it. I just got the book out of the library and have only read a bit so far–and done this in my usual fashion, which involves skipping around rather wildly, reading the parts that interest me most first.

It is a long book, and a rambling one. But some of his words really leapt out at me with great power. My impression, based on just the little bit I’ve read so far, is that Horowitz’s story is a sad one. Disillusionment with beliefs, and the resultant ostracism by one’s former “comrades,” is always sad. My story differs a great deal from Horowitz’s, especially in two particular points: Horowitz was a well-known public figure and activist both before and after his “conversion,” and he began from a far more radical position than I–hence the title.

But the book is still of great interest to me; those who suggested it were right. I only hope I can find the time to read the whole thing. One of the points that Horowitz drives home is how unforgivable his apostasy was to people who had formerly been his friends, many of whom ruthlessly cut him out of their lives with great bitterness solely because of his new political opinions.

The following struck me as so on-target that I wanted to quote it here. It explains the power of the Communist leftist dream to generations of poor immigrants during the early decades of the twentieth century. Horowitz is describing his own father, who was a committed Marxist–and I believe he is also describing an immigrant grandfather of mine whom I never knew, since he died in the 1920s:

Political utopians like my father had a master plan. They were going to transform the world from the chaos we knew into a comfortable and friendly place. In the happy future they dreamed about, there would be an end to grief from life out of control, life grinding you down and smashing your gut when you expected it least. Human cruelty would go out of style and become a memory in the museum of historical antiquities. In my father’s paradise there would be no strangers. No one would feel like an outsider, alienated from others and at odds with themselves.

For thirty-five years I followed my father’s footsteps and believed in his earthly redemption, until a day came when I realized that there are tragedies from which one cannot recover, and alienation that no revolution can cure. That we are the mystery, and this is the only truth that matters.

This is a fine description of the tragedy of the Utopian, who believes in the perfectibility of human nature and thus often commits (or at least condones) great evil in the name of an only-imagined good. To these people, faith in Communism replaced faith in religion, and was going to make up for all the disappointments of their lives. Some of them managed to abandon the dream when the excesses of Stalin were finally revealed in mid-century; others could not give it up, but instead gave up their hold on reality. I knew some of these people.

Horowitz also has a fine passage on the difference between those who like to call themselves “progressives” (read: leftists) and conservatives:

In December 1992, I was invited to give a lecture at the Heritage Foundation, the right’s most important policy think tank. The subject was, “Are We Conservatives?” The very posing of the question was interesting. It was difficult to imagine, for example, a parallel forum asking, “Are We Progressives?” I explained this anomaly to my audience by pointing out that conservatism was an attitude about lessons from an actual past. By contrast, the attention of progressives was directed towards an imagined future. Conservatism was an attitude of caution based on a sense of human limits and what politics could accomplish. To ask whether conservatives were conservative was to ask a practical question about whether particular institutions were worth conserving…

The reason why progressives were unable to ask a similar question went to the root of their intolerant attitudes. Because the outlook of progressives was based on the idea of a liberated future, there was no way to disagree with them without appearing to oppose what was decent and humane. To criticize the radical project places one in opposition to a world in which social justice and harmony would prevail.

No wonder “progressives” ended up hating this guy. In this particular passage, Horowitz gets to the heart of a matter I’ve often thought about, and he explains it with a fine economy of expression. In summary, he is saying: how can you argue with a dream? Although dreams ordinarily don’t hurt people, this one has caused profound harm to untold millions of people during the course of the twentieth century, and is still causing misery in certain places.

“Progressives”–boy, do I hate that word, although now I finally understand it better, because it expresses very well their focus on a dream of the future in which things, including nasty old human nature, will have progressed and been perfected. “Progressives” feel that conservatives, and even moderates and neocons, are the ones Frank Sinatra was talking about in the song “That’s Life” when he sang: some people get their kicks from stomping on a dream.

No, we “non-progressives” [sic] don’t get our kicks that way. But we, like Hobbes (as opposed to your Rousseau), see human nature as an imperfect given, something that needs to be taken into account when advocating a plan for society, or attempting a remedy for social ills.

David Brooks: in defense of Newsweek

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Yesterday, NY Times columnist David Brooks wrote a column defending Newsweek against the bloggers. Brooks writes that, instead of criticizing the media, we need to focus on “the extremists, the real enemy,” the ones who bear the true responsibility for the deaths.

As I wrote previously, however, there are two separate issues raised by the Newsweek/Koran story, issues that have been lumped together by many commentators. And Brooks, unfortunately, is ignoring them both, as well as setting up a false “either/or” dichotomy of responsibility.

The first issue has to do with practicality–what was written and what were the consequences of publishing it. Questions about the information’s truth or falsehood don’t enter into this first consideration. Even if it had been true, an argument could be mounted against the need to print it. In the last analysis, that’s a judgment call, as I wrote in my previous post on the subject.

The second issue has to do with what’s called “process”: how was the information authenticated, and was this in agreement with commonplace journalistic standards that are (or used to be) in place to make certain that anything printed in an article is likely to be correct? The answer in this case is “no.” But this is a separate issue, and has nothing to do with either truth or consequences–although, of course, we are only talking about the issue because of the dire consequences of publishing this particular poorly-researched article.

When you put the two issues together, and look at what Newsweek has done here, you have an affront to both common sense judgments and time-honored journalist practices. Brooks’ analysis in his column ignores all of this. I am, quite frankly, really surprised at his lack of intellectual rigor. I think it only shows that, in this case, he is letting his identity as a journalist trump his ability to think straight. And it’s not just his identity as journalist–it’s his identity as a former writer for Newsweek, and a colleague of Isikoff and the rest. My guess is that he has an emotional allegiance to them, and doesn’t like seeing them bashed by those mean old bloggers, and this is clouding his judgment.

The liberal media doesn’t have to be way out there with Chomsky to be negligent nevertheless. I wonder whether Brooks ever heard of the old concept of “contributory negligence”–meaning one can still be responsible for something without being 100% responsible. There is a partial responsibility. In this case, of course the fundamentalist Moslems who were all riled up about this and went on a rampage bear the greatest responsibility. That goes without saying, and that’s why no one felt the need to say it.

But the fact that others–the ones who committed the acts–bear the greater responsibility does not in any way absolve Newsweek of its partial responsibility in the matter. We expect more from Newsweek–we expect them to use good judgment, and to follow proper journalistic safeguards before they publish a story–and yes, to think about the possible consequences of that story vs. the public’s need to know. Is that too much to ask?

Crisco through the ages

The New Neo Posted on by

I was suprised at the depth of feeling evidenced in the recent Crisco cookie wars (if you are unaware of what I’m referring to, see here). I hope we have reached the point where we can now call a truce by stating that the real difference between the two sides appears to be one of dunkers vs. non-dunkers. Simply put, those who dunk cookies prefer them to be made with Crisco; those who don’t, don’t.

But the whole cookie discussion started me thinking about Crisco itself. This is unusual; Crisco, like Spam, is something I don’t ordinarily think about. We didn’t use either one all that much in our house when I was growing up, even though it was the Fifties–except, of course, for the obligatory piecrust (made with Crisco, that is, not Spam). And meditating on Crisco made me think of a very odd but strangely fascinating book I once read.

The book is called Perfection Salad. Written by Laura Shapiro, it’s a history of the “Scientific Cooking” movement, in which a group of women of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s tried to revolutionize American cooking, introducing the idea of order and form as paramount considerations. Sounds rather dull, but I found the book surprisingly riveting.

It turns out that these ladies were trying to tame food and civilize it. The goal was to make it an esthetic and refined experience, as far from its “animal” roots as possible, and devoid of any “low” and ethnic influences–such as, for example, that tiny detail known to us as taste (if you are of a certain age, like me, and you wonder why the food of your youth was so uniformly bland, these ladies share some of the blame). Color was elevated to a matter of extreme importance, and white was the very best color of all.

It’s hard to imagine exactly what this entailed in practice, so to get an idea to what lengths the advocates were willing to go, here’s an excerpt from the book:

Color-coordinated meals enjoyed a surge of popularity…Mrs. Lincoln once shared with her readers the description of a green-and-white luncheon created by a subscriber. Grapefruit, lightly covered with white frosting and pistachio nuts, opened the meal; cream of pea soup with whipped cream followed; and the main course was boiled chicken with banana sauce, accompanied by macaroni, creamed spinach, potato balls, and parsley. Green-and-white ices and cakes completed the picture…Mrs. Rorer had a special fondness for the all-white meal, which she didn’t mind going to some lengths to achieve. Cream soups, cream sauces, boiled poultry, and white fish dominated her dinners, with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and angel cake for dessert.

I don’t know about you, but this is my idea of revolting. And where does Crisco come in? In 1911, to be exact–as the makers of Crisco inform us, having thoughtfully provided us with a timeline on the Crisco website. Crisco was the quintessential white, pure food, the dream come true of the scientific cooking movement. Leached of taste, smell, and the ability to spoil, it was lauded and embraced by these women.

Here is Perfection Salad on the subject of the introduction of Crisco:

Crisco had been tested extensively in the laboratory ever since its discovery…Now it was ready for the public: “Dip out a spoonful and look at it. You will like its very appearance, for it is a pure cream white, with a fresh, pleasant aroma….Crisco never varies…[it] is put up in immaculate packages, perfectly protected from dust and store odors. No hands ever touch it…”

Some early Crisco recipes:

Caramel Sweet Potatoes could be glazed with brown sugar and Crisco; stuffed onions could be filled with bread crumbs and Crisco; sandwiches could be spread with Crisco mixed with an egg yolk and seasoned rather highly with Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, and vinegar; and finally, a pure and tasteless white sauce could be prepared by melting two tablespoons of Crisco, adding two tablespoons of flour, and stirring in a cup of milk.

I do believe I have finally found the source for the recipes used by the chefs (I use the word advisedly) in the dining hall at my college dorm.

Let freedom ring–Carnival of the Revolutions

The New Neo Posted on by

Calling all bloggers who might be interested in sending posts to the recently reinaugurated Carnival of the Revolutions. Hosted by a consortium of bloggers, the idea is to give a home to stories about the growth of freedom worldwide. What more could a neo-neocon (or a neocon, or even just a freedom-lover) want? Please take a look–and send a post, if you’re so inclined.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy: Schroder

The New Neo Posted on by

Quite a few bills seem to be coming due lately: first, Australia’s Howard; then, America’s Bush; next, Britain’s Blair; and now our dear friend and ally, Germany’s Schroder, who is about to be presented with a small but pressing little bill of his own.

The pending German election is not a national one–that won’t happen till 2006–so it hasn’t gotten much media coverage here. I didn’t even know about it until I caught this in the New Republic. As it turns out, according to TNR assistant editor Clay Risen, even though the election is only local to the state of North Rhein-Westphalia, there are national repercussions. The indication is that Gerhard may be in more than a little bit of trouble. And, like so many politicians, he is doing and saying whatever he can to stay in power.

Here’s an excerpt:

Largely ignored on this side of the Atlantic, German state elections this weekend in North Rhein-Westphalia could be the beginning of the end for Chancellor Gerhard Schré¶der. Germany’s most populous state and home to Dé¼sseldorf, Cologne, and Bonn, NRW, as it is known locally, has been governed by the Social Democrats (SPD) for 39 years. Polls, however, show the party headed for an embarrassing defeat by the right-of-center Christian Democrats (CDU). A loss in NRW could render Schré¶der a lame duck between now and the 2006 federal election–not only because of the region’s symbolic value as a longtime SPD stronghold, but also because a win there would give the CDU enough of a parliamentary majority to veto the chancellor’s agenda.

Both friends and enemies regard Schré¶der as an enormously skillful and ruthless politician, so it’s been no surprise to see his party’s leadership take a sharp populist turn over the last few weeks, lashing out at “international capital” and the “Anglo-Saxon” business model as a threat to the German social system. In some ways it’s a repeat performance of his 2002 federal election strategy, in which to save his post he demonized Bush on Iraq and all but tanked U.S.-German relations. Fortunately, Schré¶der has been able to repair some of the damage done by that first attack, sending soldiers to Afghanistan and training Iraqi troops. This time around, though, the debate engendered by his party’s rhetoric is both more virulent and more likely to spread uncontrollably, influencing not just bilateral government relations but business relations as well. And that’s bad news for both sides of the Atlantic.

Although I have my usual difficulty evaluating the actual economic arguments on the merits, it does seem pretty clear that Schroder’s stance is a strategic one, designed to cover his political hindquarters, but shortsighted and potentially damaging to Germany’s already at-risk economy. And furthermore, it doesn’t seem to be working; the polls show his party likely to lose the upcoming North Rhein/Westphalian election.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Blogger Problem

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m trying to fix a problem with Blogger. The blog is coming up on the screen as a blank white page. I’ve been told that, when that happens, if you manage to post something, the blog content usually shows up again. So, this is a test to see whether that works.

Caught that baton

The New Neo Posted on by

Norm Geras tossed me the “10 things I’ve never done before” baton, and so I’ll catch. Norm has sometimes told me I should break down and write shorter posts (he knows I do have a very slight tendency to go on and on), so maybe this was his effort to help me out. Before Nov. 2004, the first entry in the following list probably would have been “voted for a Republican.” But no more.

10 Things I’ve Never Done

–bought a new car
–painted my toenails
–been fired, or fired anyone
–had my horoscope done
—eaten anything bigger than my head
–lied about my age
–worn a T-shirt that said anything
–kissed a man with a beard
–seen any of the “Godfather” movies
–owned a cat, or wanted to

And now it’s my turn to pass it on. So here goes–and you’d better make it funnier than I did. That shouldn’t be too hard!: TmjUtah, Dennis the Peasant, and Dr. Sanity.

Taking the cake

The New Neo Posted on by

While we’re on a Van Der Leun roll, see this (otherwise, the following may not make a whole lot of sense).

Gerard, I envy you. Not only did my mother not bake the Holy Cookies, she didn’t even bake. But I can still identify with the Quest. My brother and I easily found my mother’s hiding places for sweets–in her case, candy. She was nowhere near as creative as your mother at stowing the stuff away.

But in our house the real prize was cake. My parents entertained a lot, and they liked to have impromptu gatherings–a few good friends coming over for the four c’s of cards, cake, coffee, and conversation–lively talk and laughter that made it hard for me to do my homework as the sounds drifted up the stairs and straight into my room. I was usually allowed to come down and join them for at least little while (and a little cake).

The cake came in a variety of classic flavors–chocolate, lemon, coconut–always with thick frosting. It was purchased by my mother in quantity at a special bakery in Brooklyn and brought home in stacks of boxes, each box tied with string and then several tied together in a great pyramid-like structure. There were typically three stacks, for a total of fifteen cakes at a time, enough for a couple of months of guests, and stored in a large freezer that sat in our basement next to the washing machine (the dryer didn’t come till many years later).

There they sat, frozen but nevertheless burning large holes of desire in our brains. Until one evening when our parents were out and, maddened by greed, we decided we just had to eat one of the cakes. Like most thieves, we knew we needed to be quick about our work (who could predict the hour of their return?), and so we couldn’t take the time to defrost it. But we found, much to our astonishment, that frozen cake is really good. Really, really, really good.

After that, we had our m.o. down. Over the course of a couple of weeks, we would eat just a few of each batch, disposing of the boxy evidence by ripping it up and taking it to the outside garbage cans. My mother, I’m sad (or happy) to report, was none the wiser. She didn’t seem to keep count. When she noticed the stack in the freezer had dwindled, she just figured it was time to go back to the bakery to replenish it.

As for cooking, I ended up teaching myself, since my mother–although she had many other wonderful qualities–was not going to be any sort of guide in the kitchen, except for what not to do. And, having gone the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie route (and sorry, Gerard, but Crisco is heresy in my book), I am here to report that the right way, the only way, to eat them is warm from the oven, with the chips still slightly soft and oozy, and the cookies retaining a slight give, crunchy on the outside but tender on the inside.

Psychological history of WWII

The New Neo Posted on by

I recently came across this essay by Lee Sandlin, entitled “Losing the War.” It was recommended to me by the inimitable Gerard Van Der Leun, who is certainly no slouch in the essay department himself.

Sandlin’s article is well-written and insightful, and is somewhat of a psychological history of WWII, describing the reactions of those on the home front and those at the actual front. It is very lengthy–War and Peace without the “peace”—but well worth the read.

Sandlin does a phenomenal job of writing about a war we tend to think of as familiar, describing it in ways that are quite new. He shows us the war as experienced by those alive at the time, rather than the version that’s been wrapped up into neat history for those of us who came later.

For those who live it, war usually is utter chaos, and WWII was certainly no exception, as Sandlin makes clear. Ever since I first heard about that war when I was a young child, I’ve had one overriding personal thought about it, which is that I am extremely happy I was not alive during it. I simply don’t think I could have endured the fear and the uncertainty, not to mention hearing about the scale of the carnage in real time. I have often marveled at the courage of those who lived through it without knowing the outcome in advance; it was awful enough to learn about it ex post facto.

Sandlin’s article is nothing if not a demonstration of Churchill’s warning:

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

The only point of contention I can find with the article is that Sandlin calls the idea that Japan was unlikely to have surrendered prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs “preposterous”–and then he proceeds to give a fairly good argument as to why Japan was probably nowhere near surrendering at that point. His description of Midway will make your hair stand on end, and he adds new points of extreme creepiness to the familiar portrait we have of Hitler.

Illuminating and highly recommended.

The power (and the staying power) of the myth of desecration

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Ever since I heard about the violent reaction to the Newsweek Koran story, a little bell has been going off in the back of my head. One of those things that says, “This is familiar. This reminds me of something. What could it be?” You know how it is; you think and you think, but nothing specific comes up, just this general feeling.

This morning, though, it finally came to me, in that state of half-consciousness between sleep and wakening. The blood libel. The host desecration. Of course.

For those of you unfamiliar with the myth of the blood libel and the host desecration, please go here. These are two ancient and false accusations that seem utterly preposterous today, but were believed at the time by many Christians, and have caused widespread violence against Jews–for centuries, and in many parts of the world.

Please read the entire link to learn about it. But here’s a short summary:

In 1144 CE, an unfounded rumor began in eastern England, that Jews had kidnapped a Christian child, tied him to a cross, stabbed his head to simulate Jesus’ crown of thorns, killed him, drained his body completely of blood, and mixed the blood into matzos (unleavened bread) at time of Passover. The rumor arose from a former Jew, Theobald, who had become a Christian monk…
The host is a wafer used during the Roman Catholic mass…the church teaches that it is converted into the actual body of Jesus Christ, just as the wine becomes Jesus’ actual blood. These elements of the mass are then eaten by the believers….A variation of the blood libel myth developed in Europe early in the 11th century. Instead of accusing the Jews of killing an innocent child, they were accused of desecrating the host. Sometimes they were accused stabbing pins into the host, or of stepping on it. Other times, they were accused of stabbing the host with a knife until Jesus’ blood leaked out. Sometimes, they were accused of nailing the host, in a symbolic replay of the crucifixion.

The elements are very similar, particularly in the host desecration myth. In each case, we have believers in the sanctity of the object itself (for medieval Catholics, the host; for present day Moslem fundamentalists, the Koran), and a belief that another group showed lack of respect for the sanctity of said object and violated it in a terrible way. In the case of the blood libel, we also have allegations of an actual murder of an innocent for purposes of ritual desecration.

As in the present situation, we have a fundamentalist group deeply enraged that another group is said to have desecrated its most holy object. Just as many medieval Christians believed the blood libel and the host desecration to be just cause for killing Jews, so some Moslems of today think the penalty for the current charges should be death. In the case of the former, the Church tried to do damage control and say the rumor was a lie, just as Newsweek is attempting to do today. (Unlike Newsweek, though, the Church was not itself responsible for originally spreading the libel). And, as is true today, it is very difficult to clear the record once these things are in the public domain. In fact, it is amazing that, in an age of fairly primitive communications in terms of technology, these myths still had the power to get so far, to have such staying power, and to cause so much damage.

Of course, Christianity has changed a lot since those days. The blood libel and host desecration myths no longer have any traction for Christians, and haven’t for a long while. But the world of Moslem fundamentalism is still very susceptible to this type of thinking.

One very big difference, though–at least so far–is that the scope of the damage in the present case has been relatively small compared to its historical precedent. I sincerely hope it stays that way.

ADDENDUM: I wanted to add once again that I do not think this rumor was promulgated by Newsweek with any appreciation of its meaning in the Moslem world, or the severity of the possible consequences. Whether Newsweek ought to have foreseen these things is a question discussed here, including the comments section.