Bush’s personal motives are less important to me than is his role as a crucible, a figure that allows us to examine this latest ideological shift and its effect on our democracy and the world. However fascinating it is to consider Bush’s psyche and its bizarre public manifestations (and I truly have been enjoying the speculation here), I have to ask, as Glenn does, how far that will get us. And I say that even though I often feel a desperate need, when I see the inconceivable harm that Bush has done, to answer for myself--Why? Why?—as if explaining his personal motives will give me the illusion of some control over the situation. There is a tendency in our culture to draw social or political issues into the arena of interpersonal relations and individual psychology—I’ll call it the Oprah Effect—but ultimately, this cannot fully inform us when it comes to our role as citizens.

Of all the definitions of ideology I have come across, Althusser’s is the one that I have found most useful. As he writes, ideology “represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence,” but at the same time, ideology is always manifest in the state apparatus and in practices that have a material effect upon people’s lives. So I find analyses such as Glenn’s to be critical to our understanding of the policies of this administration as well as to considerations about presenting effective arguments to counter the various expressions of their ideology. We have seen, after all, how these Manichean concepts have become entrenched in the imaginary relationship of many Americans to their real conditions of existence, and how easy these concepts make it for them and their current leaders to simply dismiss reasoned arguments.

Tied in to their world view is the myth of American “innocence,” which, especially after 9/11, has made rational discussion of ME relations and diplomacy nearly impossible. But I think that this mindset is not confined to the right, and we must all be vigilant about accepting simplistic and self-serving constructs. For example, I see over and over people stating that the U.S. enjoyed the moral high ground in the world until this guy Bush came along and totally ruined it. This, to me, is a persistent illusion. I suggest as an antidote Stephen Schlesinger’s excellent book, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, which details the CIA operation to overthrow a democratically elected government in Guatemala in the 50s. The book not only tells the specific story of a coup, but it also shows in general the many avenues available to the U.S. for wielding undue force over other nations. We might also consider the pernicious effects of the World Bank and IMF which, driven by our ideology and interests, pressure the world’s poorest countries into adopting risky “free market” reforms such as the privatization of water and energy services, and interfere in the public policy-making of these sovereign nations through the threat of withdrawing funds. These are just a couple of examples of the real and symbolic violence that litter our historical landscape and counter the simple perception that we have, until now, been a moral force in the world.

But, of course, in the Neo-Manichean lexicon,

Critical thinking = Hating America first

Mentioning theory = Being an elitist blue-state Commie Pinko

Examining our foreign policy = Aiding and abetting the terrorists

Reading Glenn Greenwald = Wasting time on the whacko lefty bloggers that don’t count and who shouldn’t shine the light on things better left unexamined

I wonder if the assumptions about Digby's sex also have something to do with the fact that she is writing about politics? I don't have any statistics on this, but I have noticed, for example, that almost all of the people who are posted to Altercation are male (because they sign letters with their actual names). I don't know if that's an editorial bias or if it reflects the fact that most contributors are male.

But at televisionwithoutpity.com, where I have posted for some time, the posters are almost always assumed to be female. There are at least two forums that exist simply to critique TWOP, and at these forums, TWOP posters are almost invariably referred to as "she," unless the screen name is clearly male.

I don't know if the perceptions about who writes on "hard" and "soft" topics (for lack of a better description) actually reflect the reality, but it is interesting to observe what those perceptions are.

I study British women writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. At that time, women writers were called names such as "Amazons" if they ventured into the realm of politics; Anna Barbauld was excoriated for her anti-war poem, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, and she never published again.

I don't think we have overcome assumptions about the gendered compartmentalization of knowledge.

Where is that Ignore This User function?

I am begging you.

Maybe there is hope in the blueberries.

At least there are lots of anti-oxidants.

But when Podhoretz can utter these vicious calls for genocide without being greeted by a widespread public outcry, one has to wonder how we can ever turn back from this horrific path we are all being led down, willingly or not. Once a nation accepts lawlessness and xenophobia and brute violence in place of diplomacy, all of which redounds to its citizens' detriment, can there ultimately be any outcome for that nation other than a violent internal rupture? At this point I would welcome an EU occupation of our own rogue nation.

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