The Electorate Must Be Informed, Even About a Thug like Ahmadinejad

Progressives often find it difficult to convey our ideas succinctly, so I was not surprised to find myself struggling to express my opposition to the conservative clamor against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia this week. As usual, one of the key difficulties was defining the neoconservative position from an ideological standpoint, rather than from the jingoistic angle that they themselves prefer. Luckily, Bill Kristol's ludicrous proposition that Columbia students boycott the event provided just the accidental window into the neoconservative mind that I needed.

Kristol's argument is axiomatic neoconservative drivel -- he takes a personal position of his and of his followers, generalizes it to the entire Columbia student body, then implies that those who break with him are unpatriotic and -- of course -- do not support the troops. This part of his short two paragraph post in the Weekly Standard's "Daily Standard" blog is as unremarkable as it is typical. However, his briefly revealed reasoning for this personal position is fundamentally revealing of the mindset of the right wing demagogues he champions.

Just in passing, barely pausing in his excitement to brand Columbia's leaders as degenerate left-wing sissies who hate America and like talking to terrorists, he sputters, "After all, this is not primarily about Ahmadinejad." No, Kristol howls, "Dealing with his regime is mostly a task for our government." Really, Mr. Kristol?

It is, unfortunately, nothing new for the right wing to speak about "the Government" with a capital G, as though the rest of us "people" were merely subjects to an awesome state power that -- let's be honest here -- really doesn't operate down at our plebeian level. The complete lack of awareness on the part of William the Bloody that he is living in a democracy makes his views about Columbia's invitation to President Ahmadinejad much more understandable. In a world of demagogues competing for the affection of the uninformed, pliable masses, why let the competition inside the castle gates?

However, the rest of us live in a different world. In our world, America is defined not by the autocratic strength of its Government, but by the democratic strength of its People. Americans, in turn, are necessarily well-educated, as "on education all our lives depend" and "liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people." In Iran, there is a lack of meaningful public debate, especially since Ahmadinejad came to power, and the erosion in broader liberties has come hand in hand with the erosion in political debate, for "without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights." In a democracy like this, we cannot begin a serious debate about the future of Iran, the Middle East, and American foreign policy without educating ourselves about other world leaders -- even the ones we dislike. The people, after all, "are the ultimate guardians of the own liberty," and should be the front line in guarding our right to create our own educated foreign policy, engage the world, and avoid against another idiotic neoconservative war. After all, "of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded."

Comments

[pros54]

"The Electorate Must Be Informed, Even About a Thug like Ahmadinejad".
The reason why progressives often find it difficult to convey our ideas succinctly shows up exactly in your headline. We start by agreeing with the characterization of the issue in contention as defined by the right wing zealots. The first thing you did in your article is call Ahmedinejad a thug and the word thug is not in quotes. How did you determine that he is a thug? Did he attack a country? Does he have people in torture camps? Is he exterminating people to bring democracy to them? Did he supply suicide bombers to the 911 attackers, is he supply foreign Jihadists to attack US soldiers in Iraq? So why did you start off by calling him a thug and then defend his making a speech at Columbia University? If you already condemned him following the right and called him a thug then do you believe you can listen objectively to what he has to say or convince non believers that it is worth listening to him? In effect what you are saying is we can pay lip service and have him speak but do not pay attention to what he says cause he is a thug. In short you are saying what the right is saying only let us do it in another way and that is why we lack in arguments with the right because they define the argument and we chase their tail with their words.

[Overd0g]

Progressing to where? I guess one man's thug is another man's freedom fighter. Whether or not the others you imply are thugs or not, does not effect whether Ahmadinejad is one.

[StephenCox]

Actually, Ahmadinejad does torture people--quite a few of them. Please read Amnesty International's 2007 report on Iran before making further comments about the benign nature of his policies: http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Regions/Middle-East-and-North-Africa/Iran.

I doubt you'll accuse them of being shills for the Bush administration. The fact that someone is an enemy of the Bush administration does not make him a friend of progressives. This man is an ultra-conservative religious bigot whose policies represent the worst of hardline Islam. He has enforced and introduced policies not seen in Iran for many years. His oppression of women, homosexuals, academics, progressive organizations such as the Open Society Institute, and just about everyone else who disagrees with him, has been clear and well-documented. Surely you do not condone these policies? Are you willing to overlook human rights violations simply because this man is a critic of your domestic political adversaries?

[demigod]

Zionists have to start out calling Ahmedinejad a thug, or else people might actually consider what he's saying, which is that Israel should have been created, if at all, in Europe on land taken from the losers and perpetrators of the Holocaust. His position, an entirely sensible one from the Middle Eastern viewpoint, is that the world had no right to take Palestine to create Israel, no matter what happened in Europe, that Israel has no intrinsic right to exist on arab land, and that the passage of time does nothing to mitigate this grave injustice. We know that anything that questions the legitimacy of Israel drives the Zionists - and by extension the right wing Christian fundamentalists - nuts. SO - Ahmadinejad must be labeled a Thug. Iran of course has an interest in helping its Shiite neighbor resist the American occupation, but who's the thug there ? The guy next door helping his neighbor, or the army from thousands of miles away which invaded for reasons that all turned out to be lies ? IF we want Iran to stop killing American troops we can do something very simple - bring them home.

[villastrangiato]

EXACTLY. Isn't the situation simple to understand and resolve once we've set aside all the propaganda and programming our government and the media have been unleashing on us for the past 30 years? Western goverments have been after Middle East oil - subverting Arab and Persian governments since before WWII. We have a long and shameful history in that part of the world.

[mamacat]

With the record of lies, corruption, and incompetence from the current administration, is it a surprise that their political backers would criticise the excercise of free speech by a head-of-state of another country? Why should their hypocrisy stop now?
One does not have to approve of a foreign leader in order to see the benefits of an exchange of ideas, unless, perhaps, one does not want an end to the seemingless endless policy of unprovoked warfare.

[tiggersthotfulspot]

So how many countries has the "thug" Ahmadinejad bombed, exactly? How many unexploded bomblets and depleted uranium shells has he littered the world with?

Let he whose country isn't led by a war criminal cast the first stone!!!

(Hint: That isn't you, America)

[Overd0g]

I suppose we need to work on our bomblets a little more so they all blow up. We could always switch to using non-depleted uranium.

[terrierist]

I hope Ahmadinejad's speech is broadcast, because I'd like to see it. I'd like to be able to make up my own mind about the guy instead of being told what to think about him by infotainment reporters and sleazy politicians who have histories of parroting the Bush admin's lies.

[RanTalbott]

Check C-SPAN: the host of "Washington Journal" mentioned a few days ago that they were planning to carry one or both of his speeches.

[Tellmethetruth]

Let him speak for himself and allow us to think for ourselves. That's what a dialogue and a democracy is all about.

[Overd0g]

If you haven't already made up your mind after hearing his previous statements, I wouldn't hold much hope for your enlightenment now.

[metamorphosis]

Oh, you mean his previously mis-reported and out-of-context statements that the mainstream, corporate media allow us to hear?

That is really a non-biased source of information. His anger at the west cannot be removed from the history of the west sticking their noses in the region's affairs, of playing both ends against the middle.

I find it very convenient when conservatives dismiss the whole of history to condemn a single sentence in a 45 minute speech. I am not arguing that Ahmadinejad is the best leader ever, but he is certainly no worse that the president we have now and the policies the neocon push to destroy our democracy.

The Iranian president has as much a right to be heard and any of the blood-thirsty killers we call leaders in this country.

[Advocate123]

Why is it that you focus on Kristol rather than the real issues?

Here are the Concerns that many right-wing people like myself have. I would love to hear the responses:

1) Columbia students rushed the stage last year in October and refused to allow people from the Minuteman Project speak. They were not condemned by the University;

2) The Minuteman project in a spell of invitation to speak and debate at Columbia was just revoke the same week that Ahmandinejad is allowed to spek;

3) Many Right-wing speakers such as Ann Coulter and David Horowitz are not allowed to speak on many liberal Universities because liberals consider what they say hate speech;

4) The ROTC is not allowed to speak at Columbia because of its stance on homosexuality, and yet Iran executes homosexuals and stoned a woman to death last week.

These are the legitimate concerns from the right-wing. I feel they are valid positions, and I would love to hear the responses.

[Republicnotademocracy]

Well said, Advocate123!

[avergejoe]

Well, except for coulter and horowitz.
They ARE hate-mongers.

[RanTalbott]

"legitimate concerns", my ass:

1) This is a lie: Columbia formally censured several of the students who rushed the stage last year, and put them on a form of probation that gets them automatically expelled if they try that sort of crap again.

2) A _student group_ which had scheduled a _debate_ including Gilchrist, and cancelled it when his opponent dropped out. The faculty sponsor of the debate series is trying to get the event rescheduled.

4) Another lie. ROTC was kicked off campus back in the 1970s as part of the anti-Vietnam War sentiment that swept many campuses. It eventually came back in sort of a half-assed form, where Columbia ROTC students take their classes at other schools. There is currently a lively debate going on about whether DADT is a genuine violation of the University's policy, and whether to restore ROTC to its former state with on-campus classes.

Which brings us to

3) I can't speak to Horowitz, because I know nothing about what he's been up to since his "consumer advocate" days, except that there are some people pissed off about whatever he's saying today.

But banning Ann Coulter from campuses is fine with me. She's a manifestation of genuine evil in modern society, who makes her living attempting to subvert our system of government by disrupting the informed debate upon which it depends. She represents no ideology or other system of thought about which students should learn to be well-informed, and isn't difficult for them to gain access to (like, say, a high government official from a distant country). She should be scorned and snubbed by civilized people of every ideological or partisan persuasion.

[FirstShirt]

Are you leftists so blind that you will actually support a man who allies with David Duke and does not believe in the Holocaust? As the Senate said to Joe McCarthy, "Have you no shame?"

[NickHP]

Advocate123

1) Oh yeah? People can be rude. Was there event security?

2) Do you have documentation bout the invitation rejection?

3) Which speakers, at what universities? Be specific. Your generalizations and innuendo are toxic, much like the speakers you listed.

4) We want to hear from our potential enemies because war is more tragic and expensive in blood and treasure (think Iraq) than talking or getting your feelings hurt (think democratic discourse). Do you actually have documentation about any real ROTC incidents?

And focusing on Kristol's COMMENTS, not the man, is appropriate, since he attempted to influence events with his writing. And surely a man's words are a vision into their soul, so to speak.

[Leefeller]

Yes sort of like being able to protest against the war, and call your president on his agenda?

[oldpotsmuggler]

Ahmadinejad is said by some to be, essentially, the clown that performs for the cameras while the big boys stay home and take care of the heavy lifting. Of all of Iran, though, it can be said that it exists in a part of the world that the U.S. has subjected to a string of ugliness over an extended period of time.

And, yes, nuance is everything, and the nuances of the relationships of Middle Eastern countries are possibly more convoluted than any others. I mean, us lefties in the old days did our share of bad mouthing people like The Shah, Marcos etc. And then the Philippines takes a dramatic turn for the better when oppression was lifted, and Iran went so far the other way that I'm left wondering if old man Pahlavi maybe gave new meaning to the term "benign despot". You remove him and you get Khomeini and women beaten in the street for showing their face. You remove Saddam Hussein and you also get what we currently have.

And then you realize that the only true grief ever delivered to "The Homeland" by anyone from that part of the world came at the hands of Saudi nationals, and you try to put that into some sort of an intelligent construct.

There are ways to compete against OPEC, but we never try any of that for obvious reasons. And OPEC, including Iran, mostly lets everyone have oil, though at increasing cost. We have the connection of the pusher and the addict.

Does Iran try to kill our soldiers when we make them available as targets? I guess. Has it ever done so under any other circumstances? Seemingly not.

Should we have a war with Iran for our own protection? Iran and Iraq took eight years to fight each other to s standstill. We took eight hours to set Hussein for the death blow.

I’m still trying to decide if we should feel threatened by Ahmadinejad.

[loslobo]

Iran is not Iraq, the bombs they plan to use are nuclear, and please find out who was behind our homeland grief Saudis and...

[Leefeller]

"Saidoes and", Iraq? Koriia, Cuba? or I get it Iran!

[charon]

The radical right in America has always embraced the politics of paranoia--nothing new here. Interesting to see the neocons--a distinctive, if related right-wing monement--express similar sentiments. It is obvious why they merge: they have many similar attitudes, eg, "the Axis of Evil," and are stronger united than divided.

Of course, if the neocons have their way, and establish a centralized superstate (necessary to eliminate barriers to global capitalism,) the old American right wing, (think Pat Buchanan) with its traditional opposition to centralized power and foreign adventures, would find themselves hating the neocons. Of course, like the oysters in the Lewis Carroll poem, "The Walrus And The Carpenter," by then it would be too late for them.

In the meantime, I guess it is left to us libs to fight for freedom of speech. A free society should have nothing to fear from anyone speaking. Ahmadinejad might have some good things to say, or not. If we hear him, we can judge that for ourselves. He may lie, spin, or tell the truth. The right wing thinks we can't be trusted to think for ourselves, so we need the government to think for us? How unamerican.

[Overd0g]

Of course, the ROTC is banned from Columbia, thus undermining your whole silly argument.