By Steve Weissman,
Reader Supported News
In August 1984, Ronald Reagan’s outspoken U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick thrilled the Republican National Convention by attacking liberal Democratic opponents as “the blame America first crowd.” A former young socialist (YPSL) and self-styled “AFL-CIO Democrat,” she had become an intellectual leader of the neocons and brought a convert’s passion to her attack.
Historically, she was only plowing old ground. From Federalist attacks on Thomas Jefferson to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting witch hunts, American conservatives and reactionaries have all too often smeared their political rivals as unpatriotic and disloyal, and in some way agents of the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, and even European Social Democracy. But Kirkpatrick contrived a powerful weapon that still packs a wallop.
One sees it most recently in the debate over the NSA’s surveillance of foreign political leaders. Why blame the United States, ask defenders of the indefensible. Everyone spies on everyone, and critics are only haters of our country who always blame America first. So powerful is Kirkpatrick’s continuing hold that a small, infantile minority on the left even take the insult as true and see themselves as primarily anti-American.
But, at its root, the smear is silly. In spreading her poison, Kirkpatrick twisted the truth. Progressive Democrats and those farther to the left have long felt a responsibility to put their own house in order and let its example inspire the world, finding imitation more effective than forcing other nations to do what Washington and Wall Street want them to. Call this progressive approach “Fix America First!”
From the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, patriots of this persuasion have put their bodies on the line to force the United States to live up to its highest principles. We have cherished and defended the First Amendment protections of free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, which necessarily embraces freedom from religion for those so inclined. And we are still working to stop the U.S. government from being, as Martin Luther King Jr. called it a half century ago, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” If Dr. King was “blaming America first,” Kirkpatrick and her followers have tabooed the simple act of telling the truth.
Like an Old Testament prophet, Dr. King was sounding the alarm “to save the soul of America.” Kirkpatrick chose instead to defile any sense of human decency with her die-hard defense of rightwing dictatorships that tortured, killed, and “disappeared” their local Communists, along with far greater numbers of dedicated democrats. At least initially, she also joined with fellow neocons and liberal interventionists to promote George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, though she came to have second thoughts without ever opposing the war publicly. The war inevitably fueled Sunni-Shia conflict throughout the region and strengthened the hand of the Shia theocracy in Iran. Dumb! Very dumb! With patriots like Kirkpatrick, who needed enemies?
Dr. King points us in a very different direction – toward a new international system that, with the rise of China, will inevitably become “de-Americanized.” How do we apply his prophetic patriotism to create a way of the world that treats all nations fairly and enables their people to determine their own destiny – both national and individual – without the constant threat of violence, whether from Washington or anyone else?
Don’t look now, but nonviolent activists on the left are already starting to do it, as RSN is working hard to report. We just have to see more clearly how separate threads of our activism are coming together to create a powerful global movement for social and economic change.
- Efforts of Code Pink, filmmaker Robert Greenwald, and others to stop the use of drones for “targeted assassinations.” Their work will not only save lives, but it aims directly at the arrogance of American leaders who think they have a God-given right to strike wherever, whenever, and against whomever they want.
- Growing opposition to the NSA’s worldwide surveillance and their no-longer secret cooperation with local spooks in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. Thanks to the inspired journalism of Glenn Greenwald and those who follow his lead, even at Fox News, we just might be able to slay the serpent in its nest.
- An increasing willingness on the left to speak out against violations of civil liberties and human rights, be they in China, Britain, Russia, the United States, Israel, or anywhere else. Many more activists now stand up for truth without worrying that they might provide ammunition to the bad guys. Old habits die hard.
- A major success in stopping imperial efforts to impose human rights by force of American arms, as urged by “humanitarian hawks” like Hillary Clinton, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power. Only two months ago, Secretary of State John Kerry was self-righteously defending a not-so-limited military strike on Syria and accusing opponents of being “armchair isolationists.” Faced with overwhelming opposition among voters, Obama and Kerry are now working with the Russians to stop Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Score one for the good guys.
- Bill McKibben and others are finding transnational ways to fight climate change and the environmental devastation of our planet. This is showing new strength in cross-border protests against the Keystone XL pipeline and could spread to more international protests against fracking.
- Growing recognition worldwide that we should reward rather than punish the patriotic truth-telling of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, the intellectual daring of Julian Assange, and the dogged anti-nuclear determination of Mordechai Vanunu.
These six are the easy part. Far more difficult – and in many ways more defining – will be a seventh: If, as many of us fear, both Beijing and Washington have been sowing the seeds for a new and completely unnecessary Cold War in Asia, we need to hold both sides accountable and resist the temptation to join forces with either one or the other. Massive non-participation in the games nations play is a form of nonviolence that Kirkpatrick’s generation of young socialists and AFL-CIO Democrats never learned, and they were, in fact, some of the strongest supporters of the first Cold War, the Garrison State, and the military-industrial complex. We are still paying the price for their moral failure.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, “Big Money: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How To Break Their Hold.”
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
