Great stuff, Mr. Greenwald; I heartily agree with everything you wrote, except for this key point...

A superpower -- especially the world's only superpower -- can be either respected and admired or despised and feared....America's strength has been grounded in the legitimacy and moral credibility of its power.

That's the trap that even liberals run into, with regard to American superpower.

I think a superpower can only truly be feared; only Americans have a vested interest in wanting to be respected and admired; the rest of the world finds the shadow of the colossus intimidating. Whether America is smiling or frowning diplomatically, it carries a civilization-busting nuclear arsenal, a monstrously large military, globally deployed, and a network of autocratic countries dependent on our aid. So long as we vastly outspend the world in such things, we'll always be feared and despised.

The way of earning respect and admiration as a society can't come through exporting our values, funding pro-US regimes, being the world's arms dealer, throwing foreign aid around to foster dependency on American hegemony and beneficence.

No, the strongest way of earning respect and admiration we want from the world is in the conduct of our domestic affairs as a country, how we treat our weak, our sick, our poor, our old, our young -- to build a just and generous society that inspires people in other countries to build just and generous societies of their own, to look at how we do things as a country and say "We want that in our country, too." That is the best demonstration of our values in practice.

From the late 20th century onward, the US has become increasingly mesmerized by the staggering growth of the wealth of the top 1%, and of the ever-advancing militarization of our society: the trappings of empire, while, at home, our society becomes ever less just, ever less generous, ever less worthy of respect and admiration, which erodes whatever legitimacy and moral credibility there is to our power.

You're right in your observations, Mr. Greenwald...

As I've argued many times before, the term "liberal" or "the Left," as used most commonly, now denotes "opposition to Bush radicalism." Anyone who meaningfully deviates from the worldview of the Bush movement, who devotes themselves to opposing it, finds themselves -- for that reason alone -- described as "on the Left."

It's just a sign of how far to the right the GOP has tacked, entering into fascist country, so anybody to their left is part of that "Left Bank." So commanding has their (mis)use of the language been that classical centrists and neoliberals are basically "the Left" and conservatives are "Moderates" and reactionaries are "Conservatives." They've dominated the dialogue, the Mainstream Media along for the ride, and dictated the terms of acceptable discourse.

There is no serious Left in mainstream American politics, measured in things like progressive taxation, national healthcare (only now, and very tentatively invoked), public financing of elections, internationalism, increased social spending, unionism, democratic socialism, curbing corporate power, demilitarization, and other classical leftist areas of concern. Without their feet in anything solid, the "Left" is at the mercy of the Right, who definitely know what they're about, even if they never deliberately speak the "F word."

The shrillness of the Right's attacks, as well as generations of thought policing throughout the Cold War pummeled the body politic into punch-drunkenness, while the Democrats and GOP hold onto the their dwindling percentages of voters, and "Independents" become the new, if ill-defined, majority.

A real Left, versus a relative Left, needs to exist in America, for honest progress to be attainable.

Gordon Wagner said...

This isn't news. It's standard operating procedure with fresh victims.

...and he's right. It isn't something the US just started doing.

Red squads go back to the late 19th century, when police formed special units to go after alleged subversives (usually socialists, communists, and anarchists -- hence the "Red") and strong-arm them, including infiltration, harassment, surely torture, likely murder.

They were illegal and Un-American, and they lasted until the 70s, and are likely enjoying a 21st century renaissance, judging from the Bush League's fondness for this kind of approach to government. The Red Squad model was central to the counterinsurgency tactics we taught at the School of the Americas, and is implicated in the horrible human rights records of various countries we've "helped" that way. They're political police, and their purpose is to crack heads and bust up groups the authorities don't like.

The only innovation in the Bush League's approach is trying to codify the criminality of the Red Squad concept, trying to make illegality the law of the land, and adding modern scientific methods to it, versus classic leg-breaking and "whoops, they fell out a window" kinda old-school thuggery.

Americans need to learn their country's own history, just to get a sense of how today makes a lot of sense, and isn't really a political aberration, but rather, is an extension and expansion of the worst impulses of our country's history.

Sadly, Tortureland USA is likely to garner two mainstream responses: 1) be sickened by it, but ignore it, don't think about it, pretend it's not there; and 2) support and defend it.

It's the vindication of Bush's tax policies! A billionaire is freed up to weigh an ill-conceived presidential run. Think of all the people who'll be employed in this windmill tilt!

Bloomberg's welcome to run; for all the talk of "buying the presidency" -- it's not like the presidency's been at risk of being occupied by anybody poor or even middle class, yes? Who has the time or money to run? Only the people with the money, and therefore, the time, to consider it (and with the ego and touch of crazy hubris to consider it a desirable prize to win).

Bloomberg's the consummate technocrat -- in fact, should he run, he should name his independent party the Technocrats. That would be amusing, and would be accurate, based on Bloomberg's approaches to policies in the past.