…in Blueprint, a magazine sponsored by the DLC. Blair’s article is called “Fighting for Values.” He writes:

Over the past nine years, Britain has pursued a markedly different foreign policy, justifying our actions at least as much by reference to values as to interests. The defining characteristic of today’s world is its interdependence. Whereas the economics of globalization are well matured, the politics of globalization are not. Unless we articulate a common global policy based on common values, we risk chaos threatening our stability, economic and political, through letting extremism, conflict or injustice go unchecked.

The consequence of this thesis is a policy of engagement, not isolation; and one that is active, not reactive.

Confusingly, its proponents and opponents come from all sides of the political spectrum. So it is apparently a “neoconservative” or right wing view to be ardently in favor of spreading democracy around the world. Others on the right take the view that this is dangerous and deluded — the only thing that matters is an immediate view of national interest.

For his “resounding defense of civilization and globalization…scathing attack on obscurantism and protectionism [and the case he makes] for the Iraqi invasion and occupation,” Blair is attacked by Harold Meyerson of Tapped as worthy of

the Great Transatlantic Insufferable Moralist With Blood On Their Hands Swap Meet

Blair is an insufferable moralist with blood on his hands and should be swapped with Joe Lieberman.

This politicking can only be described as depraved. In this week alone, I have read

• that Salman Rushdie, who lived for years in fear of his life from Islamist radicals, is an Uncle Tom for supporting Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a problem and that if you remove her from Holland you remove the problem
• that the rumor about Jews in Iran having to wear Yellow Badges was started by neocons (i.e., Jews and/or Jew-lovers) in order to get “us” to go to war against Iran

I am sick to my stomach.

Al-Jazeera has gotten caught in the cross-fire between Hamas and Fatah, a battle that is heating up, unfortunately:

Three cars belonging to the al-Jazeera news network were torched in Ramallah on Saturday night.

Incredibly, the arsonists were angry at the absence of media coverage:

Sources in the city told The Jerusalem Post that Fatah supporters were behind the torching of the al-Jazeera cars.

The sources said the Fatah supporters were angry with al-Jazeera because it had not covered an anti-Hamas demonstration in the city by Fatah earlier in the day.

Anyone who doubts the extraordinary power of the media in the worldwide conflicts we’re engaged in should think long and hard about this incident.

Without regional and international media coverage (which Al Jazeera provides), the conflict between Hamas and Fatah is reduced to exactly what it is: gang warfare between local groups of thugs who hold their people hostage while they fight to see who will have the right to line his pockets with the most shekels (because that is how things will turn out: peace will be bought—mark my words).
Publicity is the lifeblood not just of Hollywood and Washington and New York. We need to get wise to the media-savviness of the people who live outside our borders. We don’t pay enough attention to that.

Andrew Sullivan wonders why, if the story turns out not to be true, the Iranians would want to release disinformation about a new nationwide dress code that is purportedly under consideration by the Iranian “parliament.”

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear “standard Islamic garments” designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate “the influence of the infidel” on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public.

I say it’s how the Iranian rulers distract and deceive—and how they will divide and conquer if we continue to fall for it every goddamn time.

Read this from someone who thinks the Yellow Badges for Jews story is neocon propaganda aimed at snookering “us” into going to war with Iran:

It never ends with the neocons—illusory weapons of mass destruction, aluminum tubes, yellow cake, Mohammed Atta in Prague, argumentum ad nauseam, ab ovo usque ad mala—they are seasoned and pathological liars. “Iran’s announced intention to force non-Muslims to wear an identifying badge is causing many to make the comparison to Hitler and the Nazis, who forced Jews to wear badges in the shape of the Star of David,” declares the American Thinker, or rather non-thinker since there is a good chance the story is nonsense, a cheap and gaudy propaganda contrivance, another log tossed on the attack Iran pile.

Meanwhile, the Iranians are laughing at us as we fulminate. Because we have fallen into their trap. They want nothing more than for us to fulminate over the fate of the Jews. It only “proves” their point—that all “we” care about is the Jews (not, for example, the Palestinians).

And meanwhile, in our outrage over the purported Yellow Badge for Jews—which is a hideous, stomach-churning thought but nevertheless a distraction—we are missing the real story.

Which is that the Iranian people are the first victims of the perverse power-mongering thugs who rule them. The proposed legislation will require all Iranians to all dress alike, in a manner decreed by their totalitarian torturers. That’s why it’s called a theocracy. That’s why it’s called Islamofascism.

And that is why we must find a way to give hope and courage and support to the democrats in Iran.

Meanwhile, another note: we are all so savvy—MSM and blogosphere alike—when it comes to discerning spin from every quarter in America. It’s time to cast that same skeptical eye on spin, propaganda, and media-savviness that originates in parts abroad.

Thank you, Jeff Jarvis, book lover

In any bookstore, I could seek out Dickens or Kafka if it’s anger, cynicism, absurdity, or profundity that I want.
But I have always liked reading the new, the latest, the fresh.

for starting the needed conversation:

The problems with books are many: They are frozen in time without the means of being updated and corrected. They have no link to related knowledge, debates, and sources. They create, at best, a one-way relationship with a reader. They try to teach readers but don’t teach authors. They tend to be too damned long because they have to be long enough to be books. As David Weinberger taught me, they limit how knowledge can be found because they have to sit on a shelf under one address; there’s only way way to get to it. They are expensive to produce. They depend on scarce shelf space. They depend on blockbuster economics. They can’t afford to serve the real mass of niches. They are subject to gatekeepers’ whims. They aren’t searchable. They aren’t linkable. They have no metadata. They carry no conversation. They are thrown out when there’s no space for them anymore. Print is where words go to die.

And for continuing it:

Books do create conversations in our day and age. But most of them aren’t on the Internet. Ever heard of a book group?
They conversations are not on the internet because the book are not; there’s no permalink to act as a hub for that conversation. That’s what I want to see.

Hear, hear. And, no, it doesn’t mean the end of this:

Sheesh.

I often check out Democracy Arsenal *** to see what’s doing among the small number (or so it seems to me) of “progressive,” “Democratic,” or whatever you want to call them foreign-policy geeks.

There I found a link to an interesting-sounding collection of essays by people with progressive foreign policy ideas.
Subjects include:

• winning the war of ideas
• confronting global terrorism
• transforming our military

Contributors include: Reza Aslan, Kenneth Pollack, Daniel Benjamin, etc.

How very refreshing.

———-

***online “home” of Heather Hurlburt, who in 2002 wrote a very shrewd—and, unfortunately, widely ignored—essay about the Democrats and foreign policy. It’s called “War Torn”: check it out here.

Ann Althouse says the message out of Connecticut is that there’s no such thing as a liberal hawk. She wonders what Hillary is thinking. Good question!

Meanwhile, a commenter on her site nails it:

Pastor_Jeff said…

Kos’ personal appearance in Lamont’s commercial is fascinating. What’s the value of this from a marketing or political standpoint?

Is Kos personally a selling point for voters? What does it communicate that the consultant breaks into the commercial to deliver people for Ned, sits on the couch with him (while everyone else is standing), tells the candidate to “hurry it up” and has the final shot focus on himself?

The camera even moves away from Ned during his policy statements to follow the Kos crowd.You could not craft a more obvious statement about who really matters.

11:23 AM, May 19, 2006

In an interview later, Mr. Kerrey praised students for showing restraint. “They could have done all sorts of things under the umbrella of guerilla politics to destroy the event, and they didn’t,” he said.

Onstage, however, he challenged them to understand what it means to have the courage of your convictions:

Kerrey later retook the stage to praise McCain and Rohe’s speeches as “two acts of bravery,” while suggesting the hecklers weren’t nearly as courageous as those who took the stage.

“Will you stand and say what you believe when you know that heckling and loudness and boos will arise?” Kerrey asked.

Those are the words of a real “values” politician.

Bob Kerrey, or some Democrat like him—who challenges the assumptions of a self-satisfied, self-regarding culture and who leads by example—for 2008.

It’s all about them.

If you have opinions and beliefs contrary to theirs, your presence on “their” stage offends them:

Beginning by singing a wistful folk tune calling for world peace, [graduating senior] Rohe announced she had thrown out her prepared remarks to address the McCain controversy directly.

“The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded,” Rohe proclaimed to loud cheers, with McCain sitting just a few feet away.

Whatever it is you’re selling, they’re against it.

“He will tell us we are young and too naive to have valid opinions,” Rohe said. “I am young and though I don’t possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous.”

Because the policies you endorse don’t reflect well on them [emphasis mine]:

And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction.”

For the record, Ms. Rohe, the ideals upon which your university was founded were Enlightenment ideals, and you fail to understand them. From your university’s website:

In the aftermath of the First World War, much of America was playing it safe. Social criticism and modern arts were restricted or banished from many of the nation’s cultural institutions, including universities. In response, a small band of unconventional thinkers…imagined an educational venue where they could freely present and discuss their ideas without censure, and where dialogue could take place between intellectuals and the general public. In 1919, they… opened The New School to all “intelligent men and women.”

Trying to shut down the argument, Ms. Rohe, is not the act of an intelligent woman. It is certainly not the act of a democrat. That’s my issue—that closing your mind to ideas you don’t like (and encouraging others to close their minds too)—it betrays a totalitarian impulse.

We should all be worried about such tactics, whether they come from the left or the right, from Democrats or Republicans, from Muslims or Christians or Jews or Hindus or non-believers. Shutting down the argument—stifling speech—does not solve problems. It creates worse problems.

Professional Democrats are worried about a deeper problem. Paul Begala, who’s in a position to know, says they’re only bringing knives to a gunfight:

I am deeply frustrated with a party establishment that does everything except tell people what we stand for. They spend millions on voter files, field work, phone banks, staff, consultants, etc…and yet people don’t know what we stand for. I am not opposed to hiring organizers. I’m opposed to pretending that hiring organizers is in any way a substitute for having a message.