How about this here for same old same-old, sir? First the Imperium Obamense will eschew sloganeering, but, not wishing to be hasty or untraditional, it will then relitter the whole conceptual world with its own cheap phrases:
| Obama's foreign-policy ... advisers ... envision a doctrine that first (1) ends the politics of fear and then (2) moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither -- an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership. |
An amateur of new mindsets called Spencer Ackerman vouches for that plot. (Would I make such stuff up, Mr. Bones?) Mr. Ackerman had boomed "IT'S IMPORTANT TO ASK: what, exactly, is the mind-set that led to the war? What will it mean to end it? And what will take its place? To answer these questions, I spoke at length with Obama's foreign-policy brain trust" -- whereupon the next-best and near-brightest answered, saying ....
Actually, one cannot know what the nexts and nearers said before it got filtered through the Sieve of Ackermanides, a process that may not be taint-free. The paraphrase makes it sound as if DemProm had been the faulty mindset regnant at Rancho Crawford in the winter of 2002-03. Cook County is still a long way from salt water, so I suppose it is not impossible that BHO surrounds himself with all thirteen persons in the holy Homeland who actually believe that Boy and Party and Ideology invasionized the former Iraq in order to "promote democracy."
After the Barák-basers grab control, there will definitely be no more of that sentimental nonsense, whether or not there was any beforehand. The LBW of the world, the lesser breeds without, don’t want democracy, and it is therefore the mindset of BHO not to inflict it upon them. Just to be safe, the brave new mindset of BHO will take pains not to appear even to be pretending to impose democracy upon the LBW. [1] Ackermanides does not make clear where his other anaemic and ennervated, but not actually quotation-marked, cliché about "the politics of fear" fits into the audacious and unheard-of mindset of BHO brain-trusties, and I suspect he did not mean us to understand that the LBW now live perpetually looking backwards over their shoulders in dread that Uncle Sam may be pursuing them with a posse of white-coated assistants wielding nets and tridents, determined to drag them back to the Free World Democrat Asylum willy-nilly.
No, by "politics of fear," the TAP clichémonger (or the BHO brain-trusties, or both) more likely referred to the Kiddie Krusade and the Long War against Global Tourism, considered as domestic politics of the holy Homeland -- if the extremist Busheviki can’t lock up whoever they please any time they like, probably Kansas City and Shaker Heights will be nuked by al-Qá‘ida before the end of next month. What the LBW make of that partisan piffle is rather an alarming topic, or could be written up as such, but I am quite sure Ackermanides’ "politics of fear" does not mean that he worries about foreigners worrying that Uncle Sam has become a witless poltroon since about 11 September 2001. Fear of the holy Homeland's GOP-fostered fear of foreigners is not widespread amongst the LBW. Not as widespread as it ought to be, I’d say, but naturally it up to indig pols to fear for themselves.
Fear of getting democracy promoted down their throats is not that big a deal even at places like Cairo and Tel Aviv and al-Riyád and Tehran and Belgrade where it is at least a deal visible on everybody's politoscope. If the brain-trusties of BHO keep their word, and if their senatorito actually makes it to the White House by January 2009, I daresay Gen. Mubárak and M. Ehúd Olmért and the Baní Sa‘úd and the rest of the pack will heave at least a small sigh of relief to be delivered from the Spectre of Democracy. 98% safe from mob rule breaking out is better than 96% safe, no doubt about it. But 96% safe ain’t bad.
I see that I am knocking instead of boosting again, Mr. Bones. Tusk, tusk! Naturally the real significance of the Brave New Mindset of B. Husayn Obáma lies in the anaemic and enervated clichés that it will introduce rather than the ones that it moves on away from. So then, how about De Promotione Dignitatis, "the advancement of worthiness"?
I herald DigProm in an extinct language not only to insinuate its general anaemia and enervation, but because the VC gentry have already passed that way. Those new-mindsetted brain trustees in Chicagoland may congratulate themselves on noticing the potential usefulness of the dignitas humana ploy in a strictly political context and swiping it accordingly, but of course they would be flat out lying if they were to claim to have invented the product in question. [2]
Part of the usefulness of DigProm is that dignitas humana is a cliché that does not reliably mean anything in particular in any known natural language, apart from referring, needless to say, to some sort of Very Good Thing. The Papist ploy has been largely verbal, simply substitute "modern liberalism" as condemned in the Syllabus of 1864 and you will understand what has been inculcated since 1965 well enough. The new-mindset folks of 2008 Chicagoland are not in an exactly parallel fix. It is true that they, too, would like to verbally disassociate themselves from ‘liberalism’ and all its former works and pomps, to prescind from it in word alone and not in deed at all. Yet one can scarcely fail to notice that we donkeys used to be liberals and democrats ourselves, a charge scarcely to be brought against Pio Nono and Pio Duodecimo.
Mr. Ackerman might be pleased to hear that I consider BHO’s brain-trusties to involve a more substantial or material sort of DigProm than that of the VC gentry in the 1960's. He described the matter and substance of it himself, actually: "to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root." Anybody who remembers what ‘dignity’ used to mean in English before ideological twistifiers took it over can still find that particular brand of factious bilge puzzling when encountered out of the blue. There is a great deal to be said against being poor and sick and enslaved and oppressed rather than rich and healthy and free and oppressive, but no more urgent reason to drag in the word ‘dignity’ to talk about those distinctions of condition than to drag in the word ‘zucchini’. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus differed as regards all those categories, but nevertheless they conspired together to perpetuate a system of philosophy that centralized dignitas humana in the old-fangle, pre-1965 sense.
"That was then, this is now." Recent models that come equipped with the Brave New Mindset® of BHO want the word ‘dignity’ to mean nonmisery and and liberty and justice and prosperity. Well, OK, sure, who cares, as long as one can make out the underlying meaning? It might be even better if the clichémongers and brain trustees would come out frankly for HapProm, ad promotionem felicitatis beatitudinisque, although conceivably they fear to infringe on Mr. Thomas Jefferson’s patents in that area of rhetorical endeavor. There is also the problem that militant GOP extremism would inevitably disapprove of happiness-buildin’ even more ferociously than it disapproves of nation-buildin’. However a great deal of discourse by people like Ackermanides and the brainiacs of Senator Obáma -- perhaps especially about foreign and aggression policy and in sectarian forums like the American Prospect -- is conducted in an artificial polemical vacuum where the Republicans have been annihilated by magic, so the discouragin’ words that they might say are simply not relevant, leaving most of the day unclouded. [3]
Now Ackermanides and the braniacs may well be on to something here from the PubDip point of view. DigProm (decoded as just explained) clearly beats DemProm, in the sense that the Lesser Breeds Without, who may resent having democracy promoted down their throats, are unlikely to complain if they are stuffed with felicity and beatitude instead. It has to be what they account felicity and beatitude, to be sure, and not some exotic Chicagoland idea of "nonmisery and and liberty and justice and prosperity." But presumably the new mindset crew so understand their dignitas Obamensis. Anyway, we have already noted that there is not much market demand for being sick and poor and enslaved and oppressed. No scheme of imposition can hope to please one hundred percent of its patients, but this one comes as close as human imperfection admits, does it not? [4]
I hope it does not count as knocking rather than boosting, Mr. Bones, to point out that B. Husayn Obáma cannot reasonably expect to impose felicity and beatitude on the LBW perfectly. Not even with the assistance of the American Prospect and "advisers who will craft and implement a new global strategy if he wins the nomination and the general election" can that outcome be guaranteed. A completely flawless dignitas Obamensis will be found only in textbooks and graduate-school seminar rooms.
That’s a very old song [5] indeed, but the beauty of DigProm as PubDip is that Ackermanides and the Braniacs have more or less taken the gloomy old song into account while belting out their own new pop hit. That is to say, they might as well have, they act as if they had consciously plotted what may be in fact an accident. "Thoughts beyond their thoughts to these High Spinsters are given!"
Imperfections must come, but when they do, the LBW will have to acknowledge that BHO & Co. were after all trying to impose the dignitas Obamensis, that is, trying to make sure that the lesser breeds are happy, and happy after their own fashion. Compared to what the Busheviki have imposed, compared even to what the Busheviki have pretended to desire to impose, -- well, there's just no comparison, really, Mr. Bones. [6] Furthermore comparison is gratuitous, for the dignitas Obamensis is obviously a Very Good Thing-in-Itself, quite without reference to any context.
But God knows best. Happy days.
____
[1] No, Mr. Bones, that is not any sort of general promise not to engage in aggressions and invasions and semiconquests and occupations. (Take a look at the details proposed by Ackermanides and the Braniacs.) And as long as DemProm is firmly excluded, what is wrong with these things, sir? Anyway, like Global Tourism, of which they are perhaps only a specialized subdivision, these things are only means, not ends.
[2] Could the next-best and near-brightest be so ignorant as to suppose in sincerity that they are being original when in fact they are egregiously swiping from the Una Sancta Catholica et Apostolica?
Perhaps it would be better not to ask a question that might be answered too discouragingly. The efficacy of the BHO snake oil does not depend on how recently the formula for it was developed.
[3] None of this scribble will matter much after Commanderissimo McCain is inaugurated, but of course one believes in Liberal Scribbling with the Rev. Newman, in "scribbling its own end." So there!
[4] A little tweaking and fine tuning by Mr. Jeremy Bentham might not come amiss, however. If done properly, that work could produce what is demonstrably the best of all possible impositions. Demonstrably to card-carrying Utilitarians, anyway.
[5] Peccatum Originale, they used to title it, although I daresay the new mindset set has thought of some punchier label by now.
[6] They do have to actually try, of course, and not just talk about it. But again, isn’t that exactly what they intend themselves?
Well, perhaps not exactly. Since it was for a Brave New Mindset that Mr. Ackerman invited us to cheer, I have passed over the BHO brain-trusties’ concrete proposals in silence. Some of the details seem to me still better suited to the Chicagoland market than for export. Once such discrepancies are pointed out to the dignitarians, however, no doubt they will be repented of and amended.
No doubt.
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