I just finished listening to Scott’s interview with David P. Goldman. Man, the zionist/neocon worldview is such a mess!
What I noticed about Goldman was the border between his worldview and Scott’s. Both pushed each other to that border, thankfully. It was a good and amicable discussion, and both participants were widely read and thoughtful. Probably, Goldman is sincere.
However, Goldman stuck up on two issues. He hit a wall, and he couldn’t cross it. These walls, incidentally, are where his ideological perspective stands or falls.
On Israel, Goldman kept repeating that Arafat never offered a counter proposal to any unfair peace deal. Thus, he wasn’t serious about peace. Somehow, the whole of Israeli and Palestinian history can be backstopped by this one notion. In truth, it seems like what he’s really saying is that, “in the mix, they don’t really want peace, so everything that’s happened to them is their fault.” As he goes on to challenge Scott’s interpretation of events, it all hinges on this unspoken back-assumption that there is no real solution, and it’s the Palestinian’s own fault.
For instance, did Ariel Sharon plan to squeeze out Palestinians through settlements from the beginning? Doesn’t matter, don’t know. Regardless of that, Israel has at other times advanced peace prospects which the other guys rejected.
Isn’t Israeli treatment of Palestinians a little unfair, maybe? Well they kind of asked for it, so…
I sometimes think the Zionist mentality is to just wait until the Palestinians simply go away. Every fact is framed in that context.
As for America, Goldman kept talking about how America’s a democracy and that’s preferable to Russia. How Putin kills opponents, which just doesn’t happen in America. Hey, whatever dude.
Regardless, I realize most Americans have trouble accepting that our political and military system is dirty. Even so, on this Russia and democracy question, I keep wondering what “American style democracy” would look like in Russia? Okay, someone replaces Putin. But what if that guy kills journalists? Ah, but I keep forgetting, yeah, most Americans can’t admit that the phenomenon of political assassinations exists in the USA. Well, anyway, just sic the IRS on someone, or kill ’em with lawyer fees with a false indictment, or tell them what their 6-year old ate for lunch today, and what color socks they were wearing. Or – ah, I digress.
What about what American covert operations have accomplished in foreign “democracies”?
He also calls Russians a “nationalistic people who don’t take to kindly to people meddling in their elections.” Wait, what? I guess Americans are like super-people who don’t actually exist in the world and can’t be related to other people in the world.
In the end, he seems to focus on a notion of American exceptionalism. America is not, here, the indispensable nation. Here, America is simply removed from world politics. The world, and America, are two different realms, and are judged differently.
Thus, any problem in the world isn’t a “world” or “human” problem, it’s “their – those foreigners’ ” problem. Wow, those foreigners are unruly, they might even come interfere with or attack us like we do them. Let’s build a ton of missiles!
I don’t know what more to say about this except that the things this Goldman guy believes wouldn’t make any sense if it wasn’t absolutely true that: it’s the Palestinians’ fault, and America is exceptional.
I don’t think either idea is true, but I know that these ideas sure help some people make a lot of money selling drone swarms and stuff.
Hmm, I used to care about neocon ideology when I was in high school But I was very naive then, just learning about the world. I can’t actually conceive of how to translate that view into an adult mindset. Perhaps the neocons are more disingenuous than we give them credit for. Perhaps they’re greater realists than we admit. Perhaps their ideology is a highly crafted means to an end.
That is, I think they believe – as they admit – that the world is a violent and brutish place. They don’t actually think the neocon ideology is true. They simply think it’s the best bullshit anyone’s ever crafted to manage the brutishness effectively. Democracy is totally a lip-service thing. It means: “societies that work like America”. This means neoliberal style worker bees, public education and mass media, the perception of freedom and political involvement by the people.
It also means a vast administrative state intermixed with private wealth controlled industries.
Anyway, whatever. My history professors never talked this way, but the sociology guys sometimes did…
