Having taken what appears to be a Glenn Greenwald-based semi-defense of Ron Paul out to the woodshed a bit,* I come now to point out that just like with the guys at Sadly, No, I ‘m with Glenn 99% of the time, and I’m going to praise his book A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, which I finished reading today. The book is a run-down of the Bush administration’s failures from a non-partisan point of view; if you’re a sane Republican who has abandoned BushCo due to their incompetence and moral turpitude, then this book should work for you just as well as if you’re one of us hairy hippies who had Bush’s number all along. And it’s the perfect gift to give the conservative in your life that’s sitting on the fence, expressing doubts about BushCo but not wanting to go along with the hairy hippies, either. This book makes the case against Bush for people of all political stripes that aren’t sucked into the Manichean bubble that Bush has created for himself.
The book also serves as a warning against the temptation to engage in Manichean thinking, where you assume that you are on the side of Good fighting Evil itself, because such a worldview leads those who hold it to behave as BushCo does, as if any obstacles to you or your mission should be treated like Evil itself, and that the greatness of your cause allows for a “by any means necessary” course. Bush has set himself up as an emissary of god,** and therefore anything even perceived as an obstacle, such as injunctions against torture or respect for basic civil rights or respect for other human beings or for human lives, can be safely cast into the pile of Evil. By fighting monsters, BushCo has become a monster, and it will take a long time for the U.S. to recover from the damage wrought.
It’s a lot of stuff that heavy blog users probably already know, but Glenn is such a good, sparkling writer that it’s easy to breeze through it without getting bored. And it’s a hefty reminder that we need, as the loyal opposition in this nation, to stay on this stuff like white on rice, because only by maintaining our outrage about abuses and dedication to stopping them can we even begin to set this nation on the road to recovery. The rest of the world hates our nation right now, but showing the world that Americans themselves oppose this administration will provide the rest of the world an alternate view of us as perhaps salvageable.
The big value-add for blog readers in getting and reading this book is the case that Glenn makes for how the Manichean worldview not only allows those who hold it to railroad all morality and human decency in their cause, but also gives them an irrational belief that victory is certain (so long as you hold steadfast to the worldview). Bush has completely shut down any entertaining of the idea that we give up on the possibility of victory in Iraq, even though he probably doesn’t even quite know what victory would look like. (A peaceful, democratic Iraq that sent him thank you cards full of free oil that could be turned around and sold for pure, price-fixed profit, probably.) Worse even than that, this belligerent belief that victory is attainable just through the will to power has led BushCo onto the path of war with Iran, which would, at bare minimum, be a total disaster that would destroy any remaining good will for the U.S. around the world and could have ominous possibilities for our ability to even hold this country together on the homefront. But in Bush’s world, we are Good and Iran is Evil, and therefore god will make us win, so long as we maintain the faith. Scary stuff.
There’s some reason to believe that sanity might be getting, if not the upper hand, at least enough of a hand in D.C. to delay the run to war with Iran until Bush is safely out of office and we can start moving past this national nightmare. It’s tough to say; Glenn makes the case that if Bush wants it bad enough, he’ll get his war with Iran, period. Which is why I view this situation as a race with time; will Bush be stalled from getting his war long enough to get him out of office? It’s quite possibly our only hope.
*At least in my own egocentric mind, I suppose.
**It’s a question of how much Bush believes his own bullshit. Glenn thinks that Bush himself is a true believer in the Cult of The Shrub, but I have my doubts sometimes, and think it’s just a disingenuous political pose designed to pull in the suckers (whose mentality is well-evidenced on your average pro-war blog, i.e. mean and stupid). It’s an interesting question, but it’s actually pretty irrelevant for Glenn’s thesis to hold together—what Bush believes in his heart is not nearly as important as how he acts, and he acts, for all intents and purposes, like the true believer that Glenn describes.
28 Responses to “Review: A Tragic Legacy”
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Or, as LiveScience.com’s headline had it yesterday, “Oddly, Hypocrisy Rooted in High Morals.”
Thank you for throwing a woodshed into your first sentence. It has sent me off on a Cold Comfort Farm reverie and I’ll piss of my kid all weekend by telling him, “I saw something nasty in the woodshed,” over and over.
After two glasses of wine, I can’t think straight about politics.
I’ve always taken Bush to be a true believer. If you take requests, I’d be interested in a post detailing why you think he might not be.
And if you don’t, well, I’d still be interested, but I’m sure I’ll live.
“I’ve always taken Bush to be a true believer.”
I think Bush thinks he’s a much better person than most people, a product of superior breeding and schooling, who found in the presidency his natural place in the scheme of things.
In reality he’s an incredibly marginal person who, except for his luck in the birth lottery, would be doomed to ignominious failure anywhere on this planet, in any country, and in any culture, in any period of time.
The disgraceful fact that he got close enough to winning the election of 2000 to be appointed by the Supreme Court is one thing. To have (possibly) won the election of 2004, after more than enough proof of his unique incompetence? The US will not exist long enough to live that one down.
Now “Big Dick” Cheney? - he’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax…
Worse than that, he thinks he won the Presidency on his own merits, not due to dumb luck, malign trickery, and outragous favoritism. God gave him the Presidency, not Poppy’s buddies on the Supreme Court, so he could put Poppy in his place and show him how a real man invades Iraq. This is exactly why heriditary monarchy eventually went out of style; too many spoilt children who thought armies and navies were for avenging their family feuds, not defending the country.
Mother Nature is all very well, but she mustn’t be allowed to make things untidy.
MikeEss:
I don’t think Bush thinks he’s better in the sense that you appear to be talking about; instead he just thinks he’s more deserving. He’s pretty well aware (imo) that he’s not the sharpest knife in the back, oops drawer, but he’s convinced that doesn’t matter because he’s Dubya. Same thing for not being the most charismatic leader or the best business manager or whatever else. All of the qualities he doesn’t have become unimportant by virtue of his not having them. Which makes “vindictive asshole in a position of power” pretty much the most important thing in the world to be.
And as someone who clearly doesn’t take criticism well, he’s painted himself in a corner where acting like anything but a true believer is impossible, because that would mean admitting someone else had been right.
“All of the qualities he doesn’t have become unimportant by virtue of his not having them.”
100% agreement on that.
Combined with a total inability to be introspective, a complete absence of intellectual curiosity, and a boundless but groundless faith that everything he “decides” is inerrant - he’s quite a guy…
The book also serves as a warning against the temptation to engage in Manichean thinking, where you assume that you are on the side of Good fighting Evil itself, because such a worldview leads those who hold it to behave as BushCo does,
Truthfully, I sometimes have trouble reconciling the need to avoid Manichean thinking and the reality of “the banality of evil.” BushCo is made up of a bunch of people who simply aren’t putting the mental brakes on a drive towards evil acts.
How do we describe the people in BushCo who wrote the torture memos? Evil might not be polite, or even usable during a discussion of the issue, but is the term inaccurate?
Well, it’s not that you can’t say certain things are evil, just admit a) that the world is mostly shades of gray b) evil and good is in everyone and most importantly c) being good means behaving good, not just labeling yourself as such and thinking that justifies everything you do.
Left Wingers care more about terrorists than the people they kill. That’s one definition of evil.
“Left Wingers care more about terrorists than the people they kill. That’s one definition of evil.”
Reichwingers care more about keeping Americans as frightened as possible about the (very remote) possibility of being killed by terrorists, rather than actually DOING anything to capture the terrorists, put them on trial, and hold them accountable for their acts.
That seems like a DAMN GOOD definition of evil.
But IOKIYAR…
BTW, eric, aren’t you supposed to be at the Bush/Cheney worship service right now, instead of making dumbass comments on Pandagon?…
Alas poor eric, you’ve made yourseld snark bait!
wait a sec, I’m having pronoun trouble here — do Left Wingers care more about terrorists than the people terrorists kill, or than the people Left Wingers kill?
“Left Wingers care more about terrorists than the people they kill. That’s one definition of evil.”
That’s a fucking lie.
“Left Wingers care more about terrorists than the people they kill. That’s one definition of evil.”
It’s because of the fetus omelets.
Bingo. He’s part of the American aristocracy, answerable only to members of his own class. It’s still taboo to talk much about class in the U.S., which makes it difficult to describe just what the situation in Washington really is. We’ve been spending the last decade watching democracy evaporate at an ever-accelerating rate into an oligarchy of the rich.
Stem cells, mushrooms and onions…yum…
Wow. I never would have guessed that Ann C**lter and her campaign of hate against 9/11 survivors were part of a left-wing conspiracy. Go figure.
Idlemind: the oligarchy of the rich is, in many ways, a modern US innovation. It used to be that power, or descent from wealth or power, also qualified people for the aristocracy. I’m not sure this is a good idea, because it pretty much requires ongoing corruption to sustain the wealth part.
“Wow. I never would have guessed that Ann C**lter and her campaign of hate against 9/11 survivors were part of a left-wing conspiracy. Go figure.”
The Left is VERY, VERY tricksey…
Another element of Bush’s worldview comes from the right wing evangelical view of leadership - leaders are to be obeyed because they are leaders. That means being a leader means your orders are to be followed. Authority derives from the position, not good leadership. The hierarchy is the important thing, not its nominal function (which is part of the whole aristocracy thing I ’spose).
Re: Bush’s beliefs, I think it’s important to keep skepticism about it. He’s willing to lie about anything; why wouldn’t he lie about religion?
Plus, thinking about that can be valuable for society. Think about how easy it is to be a “good Christian” these days! You have to talk about Jesus and praying, and you have to jump on the issues that least affect most folks who hold political power: gay rights (most gay folks can’t get elected), abortion (you and yours will have the resources to obtain a safe and legal abortion if needed), and other issues involving sex.
I saw a hilarious spoof about one of the new Supreme Court nominees (back when there was an opening (or maybe it was for the second opening) where prominent Christian groups demanded to know what the nominee’s position on poverty was. Poverty was one of the biggest themes in the gospels, after all. It actually had me going for a moment… I mean, wouldn’t it be really cool if the concerns of the big Christian groups were based upon the things Jesus talked about, like helping the poor?
Anyway… I think the question is more important than the answer. People need to be cynical when it’s so cheap to swing a big bloc of votes by mouthing a few pious words and attacking a few relatively small groups of people.
MoronEric:Ah, no. See, the propaganda is that we liberal folks care more about terrorists than the people they *might* kill *if* we don’t torture them.
Those aren’t real people, Eric. Those are made up creations of people who are too scared to refuse to torture, or want to protect their good buddy Bush from paying the price for his crimes. There’s no sin in not caring about people who are invented by torture supporters.
This came up before when Greenwald’s book first came out, but I think the thesis leaves something to be desired — it’s confusing a coincidence with a correlation. Bush isn’t a bad president because he’s manichean — he’s a bad president because he’s an asshole. That is, he is selfish, self-serving, and megalomoniaical. None of those characteristics are a consequence of a Manichaen worldview — it should be patently obvious that the Manichaen worldview is a means by which Bush can support his beliefs. I mean, I disagree with Mani’s belief systems, but, by Greenwald’s formulation, I’d be forced to concluded that Mani is also a jackass, which simply isn’t true.
Amanda, and Glenn, are wrong on this one, though Amanda’s reservations are spot-on. Bush lies to himself as much as to anyone else. How many bad people honestly believe they are bad?
Think of it this way. If Bush were a good person who was steered wrong by Manichaeism, then he would have a choice: abandon Manichaeism since it led to wrongdoing, or continue in the dualist belief system and, by making such a conscious choice, be a bad person. Mere self-delusion is no escape from ethical norms. Unless you want to argue that Bush is schitzophrenic, you have to conclude he’s fucking scum, and no belief system in the world can save or damn him without his on say-so.
Ugh. “Conclude.” “Own say-so.”
So very tired.
If anyone’s interested, I posted a review of A Tragic LEgacy, myself, a few days ago.
Its fairly comprehensive.
http://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2007/11/manichean-style-in-american-politics.html
I made the mistake of reading Glenn’s book and watching the BBC documentary called “The Power of Nightmares” at the same time.
My head almost exploded. Watch Neo-conservatives, admit, on camera, why they want war so badly. It’s like a kick in the stomach, if you can stomach it.
Sweet…
Amanda featured on glenn greenwald’s
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/06/various_items/
“being good means behaving good, not just labeling yourself as such and thinking that justifies everything you do. ”
Isn’t this the crux of Protestantism? Salvation through faith vs. good works. It’s enough that you believe, and no amount of good works on earth will earn you passage into heaven. Since part of that belief is the acknowledgment that you’re a sinner, might as well go ahead and sin on!