[Marxism] Mealymouthed, pathetic

[Sean Andrews]

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> wrote:
> http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/365222/verdict_on_obama_mealymouthed_pathetic
> Verdict on Obama: Mealymouthed, Pathetic
> posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 09/27/2008 @ 09:53am
>
> If, God forbid, foreign policy had to be the deciding factor in
> choosing between Barack Obama and John McCain, then last night's
> terrible showing by Obama would make me a Ralph Nader voter in a
> heartbeat.



Yeah, it was pretty bad.  Not mentioned here is the fact that he
didn't challenge McCain's assertion that Pakistan was a "failed state"
when Musharaf took power through a coup in 1999.  I wrote a little
about this in relation to the idea of hegemony for a blog I keep.

<open quote>

On foriegn policy, aside from the general argument that a belligerent
neo-con US is not the best way to engage the world, Obama is pretty
mainstream--which means he is pretty close to McCain. Sabre rattling
Liberals are old hat--argument being that, in order to not appear
soft, they tend to overemphasize their commitment to the use of force.
But the outlines of the discourse that McCain promotes are fairly
strict: and largely replicated not only in the Mainstream Media
criticized by the blogosphere, but also by the blogosphere itself,
with a few topical exceptions. (Juan Cole, for instance, has posts up
today pointing to two of the three points I make above:

Surge isn't really "working":
http://www.juancole.com/2008/09/debate-fact-check-2-surge.html

 and Pakistan wasn't a failed state:
http://www.juancole.com/2008/09/fact-checking-1.html

Likewise, Pepe Escobar on The Real News makes similar points.

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2428


Whether these are basically concessions because one has to choose
one's battles or not, the truth remains: in general, these kinds of
assertions go unchallenged and form a kind of factual background of
assumed denotative, objective facts.

The point about Russia seems apt here because the evidence seems to
indicate that, in his initial judgement, the polarized, recycled, cold
war frame used to describe the conflict didn't exactly gel with
reality. When McCain cited Obama's initial reaction that both sides
should show some restraint, Obama could easily have replied that, in
the situation, this seemed merited. After all, South Ossettia had
voted for independence, Georgia was trying to stifle this vote, and
Russia, while obviously the "Big" bad guy, wasn't necessarily doing
something that wasn't favored by the littlest guy, i.e. Ossettia. How
we parse these situations seems relevant and, except for the supposed
alliance the US has with Georgia, the nuance is warranted. If we are
acting in terms of principles rather than hypocritical power politics,
then there is something to be said for not relying on worn out
paradigms in a Post-Cold War world.

However, it would seem that the aforementioned alliance, and the cold
war, bipolar world that inspired the frame, which, likely, inspired
the alliance as well as the media reading of events, ultimately
trumped any honest reflection on this: instead of challenging McCain's
credibility on this issue--which could have been very interesting, and
not nearly as frought in contemporary domestic political discourse as
taking him on re: the surge--Obama simply noted that he had observed
last year it was odd to have Russian peacekeepers in S. Ossettia and,
instead, there should be UN peacekeepers. In other words, he had
already been pragmatically bipolar so his brief attack of nuance
should be forgiven. In doing this, he reestablishes the hegemonic
narrative McCain relies on for his legitimacy on issues of foreign
policy.

Likewise, in the only place he really attempted to challenge
McCain--on whether there should be direct talks with Iran (and by
extension, the new Latin American Axis of Evil--Chavez, Castro,
etc.)--Obama doubled back and relied not on his own personal judgement
but on the judgement of establishment foreign policy people like Henry
Kissenger and the Bush administration itself. In this, he
inadvertently plays to McCain's self proclaimed maverick label and in
continuing that portion of the debate, gave McCain way too much rope.
In any case, the basic premise here is that he wasn't going to
challenge the hegemonic discourse: he simply represented a clear-eyed
version of how that discourse had changed.

In one final example, where Obama and McCain typically seem to enjoy a
simple minded militaristic version of the dominant hegemonic logic
regarding Afghanistan, I see a rather clear way that Obama, with even
his own version of the narrative of "Hope" seems comepletely unable to
challenge basic premises about this argument. Aside from the argument
about "the surge" which, as mentioned above, is hardly some magical
formula to be replicated in every situation (not least because, in so
far as it appears to have worked the first time, it was largely due to
internal politics rather than the level of troops), they both seem to
have some fetish for saying that the issue of the gathering strength
of the Taliban is somehow an issue of there not being a US military
presence in the area. This is, of course, a fairly widespread
discourse. It represents one of those key arguments where Democrats
and Liberals in general can appear to be properly aggressive and
militaristic but mostly in retrospect. Here the argument is that Iraq
was a mistake because we should have been even more militarily
involved in Afghanistan. The assumption, therefore, is that, in so far
as Afghanistan as a mission has failed, it is because there wasn't a
complete stomping out of our enemies there.

This kind of logic replicates the hegemonic US understanding of what
is required in the War on Terror. Namely, it is that the only possible
way to make the US safe is to use overwhelming force wherever and
whenever necessary, sometimes before threats even really materialize
in a way that would make it "necessary." This is the only tool it
advises and anyone unwilling to use it--say in the use of force
against Iran or Pakistan or, originally, against Iraq. It has been, of
course, more of a domestic political tool--giving the GOP a front on
which they (supposedly) can't be challenged and, in the case of the
current administration, giving the executive vastly enlarged powers.
Here, belligerant, forceful power is supposedly the only effective
tool available.

It is completely in tune with the understanding of hegemony because,
in general, it only comprises a portion of what the US government is
actually doing--and in many cases the hegemonic discourse undermines
some of the diplomatic and aid based work done. McCain, of course, has
been (or "once was") a very vocal opponent of torture and rendition
practices--an issue which Obama, along with most of the mainstream
media (with the exception of the increasingly vocal Daily Show
critiques of McCain) have seemingly given him a pass on abandoning. In
other words, it is hegemonic in so far as it outlines what can
legitimately be said. And Obama basically didn't challenge this
interpretation, particularly on the issue of Afghanistan....
<CLOSE QUOTE>
a little more here:
http://overlynuanced.blogspot.com/2008/09/that-which-cannot-be-said.html