William Lloyd Garrison

In my last post I spoke of society's refusal to recognize the lone rebel for his conscience, prefering to engage in long meaningless sessions speculating over his "psychological disorders," John Brown's case being the prime example.
The following essay, written my freshman year of college touches upon similar questions, including a cursory visit of John Brown's case.


Justice vs. Peace:
An Age-Old Dilemma Through the Eyes of William Lloyd Garrison

Joseph Lehman

Protest In America
Professor Connolly
24 February 2003

The question over which should be held in a higher regard, individual justice or community peace has been debated for a long history. By all regards, human ideology has always been that people naturally believe in the best qualities of mankind. People are born and raised believing the one noble cause is in fairness and equality for all, and that right will win in the end. They are instilled with a sense that the world is pitted in a battle between right and wrong, good and evil. Then oftentimes it is the case that as people grow older and are more accustomed to the way the world operates, they may develop a more cynical outlook on life. Coming to the realization that a just perfect world does not exist, they may ultimately decide the best thing to do is to make compromises, accepting certain evils as a part of life, but keeping them out of focus in order to preserve the social order. This is community peace. During the era of the abolition movement William Lloyd Garrison tackled this issue. If the choice were to be made through Garrison’s perspective then it would be justice over peace based on many key points.

The common argument in favor of community peace over individual justice (or individual conscience) is that it is better to operate under a system where everyone coexists in tranquility even if it is unjust, than to endure a wave of chaos and violence in pursuit of justice. In other words, people should accept the status quo even if they hold their nose doing it, because the system is ordered. A general fear among whites in the mid-19th century was that if slaves were to be freed, then they might take arms against their former masters. Abolition was an incendiary issue, one that divided citizenry. It was believed that if enacted it would divide the union. Garrison’s position was explicit: An ordered society that is unjust is not worth preserving. He made this perfectly clear in his statement: "Let the pillars thereof fall––let the superstructure crumble into dust––if it must be upheld by robbery and oppression."[1] In fact, Garrison argues the opposite of the popular belief. In his view the stability of the union would not be upheld through the continuance of the current system of slavery, but instead he believed that the immorality of enslavement would only unravel the union.[2]

Garrison lends considerable credence to his argument for individual conscience by pointing out that in revolutionary times, the attitude of the American people was that they would live in war fighting the British than in tranquility under their rule. The fact that he phrases the attitude as "deeming it more glorious to die instantly as freemen, than desirable to live one hour as slaves"[3] catches slavery supporters in their own words. Garrison further exposes the fallacy of those who argue for domestic tranquility by pointing out that a person who would criticize the practice of slave ownership would be called "a fool, a fanatic, or a madman."[4] but if he were to express any support for the former rule under the British he would be chastised as "a tory, and a traitor to his country."[5] Obviously any concerns for domestic tranquility is absent in the face of an argument pertaining to the American Revolution.

Morality is fundamental in Garrison’s argument. He primarily invokes religion as a basis. Obviously a devout Christian, Garrison hammers down that despite any feelings about unjust tranquility being preferable to chaotic justice, the word of God is sacrosanct in its assertion that it is against his teachings for man to enslave man. As Garrison says it: "The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it, is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah."[6] Much of his rhetoric is filled with biblical quotes or vague references such as calling slavery "a national sin."[7] Garrison largely criticizes what he sees as a perversion of Christian gospel in how the United States may send missionaries out to other continents across the world in order to spread Christianity, but simultaneously ignores the injustice of slavery at home.[8] It is a further argument on Garrison’s part that God commands justice over peace when he says: "…that neither duty nor honesty requires us to defraud ourselves that we may enrich others."[9]

In his scathing indictment of the constitution Garrison proclaims: "Should disunion follow, the fault will not be yours. You must perform your duty, faithfully, fearlessly and promptly, and leave the consequences to God."[10] In other words, it is human duty to maintain justice fulfilled, and it is God whatever the repercussions may be. The constitution is the recipient of Garrison’s most harsh criticism. He saw it as a direct usurper of God’s divine law. By his view, a group of men, (the frame workers of the constitution) had no right to create a document that would establish rights among American people that should be afforded to men by God only.[11] If anything the constitution only gives a legal license to slave owners he charges. It leaves Americans in a moral quagmire where they can hide their own atrocities against slaves behind a veneer of freedom and equality. Henceforth Garrison’s declaration that the constitution is "dripping with human blood."[12]

Proponents of domestic tranquility would be quick to point out the inevitable conflict between states’ rights, and federal rights, that would most likely ensue. Such a rift would be a most dire form of the chaos and violence they were convinced would follow the abolition of slavery. Furthermore, the South would be subjected to the administrative superiority of the North. Garrison dismisses these assertions as "crude, preposterous, dishonorable, unjust."[13] By his standards the right to administration of national issues such as slavery belongs in the hands of the people of the higher morality. That people would be the abolitionist-minded people of the North. As to the South’s self-proclaimed right to govern its own affairs, Garrison counters that it does not deserve to wield such power because: "it gives the South an unjust ascendancy over other portions of territory, and a power which may be perverted on every occasion…"[14]
Garrison best attacks the constitution and argues for individual conscience simultaneously when he writes the line:

If we are always to remain shackled by unjust constitutional provisions, when the emergency that imposed them has long since passed away; if we must share in the guilt and danger of destroying the bodies and souls of men…[15]

Garrison’s use of the word "souls" indicates that he argues that even with domestic tranquility, without justice, people would be damned in the afterlife. This is an effective display of what Garrison would like people to think is the larger picture beyond the issue. If one were to believe that a "spiritual connection" counts, then Garrison could convincingly argue that domestic tranquility is meaningless if humanity were to pay for it with the selling of their souls. He also points out that while people talk of constitutional barriers as an excuse not to abolish slavery, they would most likely have no regard at all for constitutional barriers if the slaves were instead white.[16] The more hypocritical he makes the pro-slavery/domestic tranquility argument out to be, the less credibility it has and the more Garrison’s does.

Garrison ultimately solidifies his position in his defense of John Brown. In all respects John Brown’s odyssey is a prime example of a man disregarding the violent cost of defending a just cause, and instead following his individual conscience in fighting for what he believed is right. Garrison spoke of John Brown:

I thank God when men who believe in the right and duty of wielding carnal weapons are so far advanced that they will take these weapons out of the scale of despotism, and throw them into the scale of freedom.[17]

Garrison consistently underscores at his Tremont Temple speech: "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."[18] In his repeated use of this line, Garrison reminds his listeners that God meant for man to follow his own conscience, just as John Brown had. Garrison clearly saw John Brown as a man who followed the word of God in sacrificing his life for the oppressed. Garrison is unapologetic for the violence that surrounded John Brown’s failed raid at Harper’s Ferry. His distinction is that for the oppressed to raise their arms against their oppressors, such violence is justified, without question. To live in domestic tranquility without justice would in effect be living a lie. He is basically saying there is no peace without justice when he accuses the state of Virginia where John Brown was executed as having been: "Given over to believe a lie that she may be damned."[19] That there is no peace without justice is the breadth of Garrison’s argument.

Ultimately, the argument that Garrison makes, that an unjust world would not be worth living in, even if it were peaceful, is the cornerstone for many issues tackling the same question today. A similar issue involving the conflict between individual conscience and domestic tranquility at the present concerns the recent provisions proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft that would curtail certain individual civil liberties of American citizens under the constitution, and grant the government free reign to use more intrusive methods of counter-terrorist investigation. "Justice" in this case would be civil liberties, and "peace" would be homeland security. Because of the general fear in the public in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, many people are more willing to sacrifice their individual freedoms for the safety of their society, not realizing the gravity of what they are giving up. This goes back to the previous mention of how people can make compromises to preserve social order. It is anyone’s guess when people will understand the cost of their compromises.

Notes

1. William E. Cain, ed., William Lloyd Garrison And the Fight Against Slavery. (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 89
2. Cain, 89
3. Cain, 90
4. Cain, 75
5. Cain, 75
6. Cain, 91
7. Cain, 69
8. Cain, 63
9. Cain, 64
10. Cain, 10
11. Cain, 87-88
12. Cain, 89
13. Cain, 65
14. Cain, 66
15. Cain, 66
16. Cain, 67
17. Cain, 157
18. Cain, 157
19. Cain, 158

Bibliography

William E. Cain, ed., William Lloyd Garrison And the Fight Against Slavery. (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1995)

On Traitors and Patriots

I was reading a Frederick Forsyth novel this morning. The Fourth Protocol. An excellent read, it is. Perhaps the closest to parity with the classic Day of the Jackal. Forsyth's greatest talent lies in his ability to probe the fatuous psyches of every actor in the intelligence business and to expose them for their cynicism and their authentic loyalties to inauthentic masters. In my mind the only characters in Forsyth's novels that can rightfully qualify as "authentic" human beings are the assassins. They are the only free-thinking souls without any allegiance to flaccid leaders and institutions. Even Major Petrofsky, the antagonist of The Fourth Protocol, despite his fierce loyalty to the Soviet Union comes off as a man of genuine individual passion.

There was a passage of the story that caught my eye. There is a scene midway into the story where a top British intelligence officer Sir Nigel Irvine confronts a low-level bureaucrat with right-wing sympathies, whom he has discovered has been duped into a "false-flag" operation. That is, Soviet agents have conned the turncoat bureaucrat into passing them top secret NATO papers under the ruse that he is passing them to South Africa, whose anticommunist apartheid regime he sympathizes with. Sir Nigel is presenting the quisling with evidence of his role in espionage, not yet revealing to the anticommunist fanatic that it was Moscow all along, to whom he was passing his information:

"Now comes the defiance, thought Irvine, the attempt at self-justification. Funny how they all run to pattern. Berenson met his gaze. The defiance was there." (196)

The text continues,

"The vanity, thought Sir Nigel, always the vanity, the monumental self-esteem of inadequate men. Nunn May, Pontecorvo, Fuchs, Prime—the self-arrogated right to play God, the conviction that the traitor alone is right and all his colleagues fools, coupled with the druglike love of power derived from what he sees as the manipulation of policy, through the transfer of secrets, to the ends in which he believes and to the confusion of his supposed opponents in his own government, those who have passed him over for promotion or honors." (197)


The pathetic fate of the character Berenson aside, I find myself asking the following question: What unwritten rule declares that the "traitor" be the exhibitor of such a clichéd predictability, yet casts the "patriot" in a light of sheer authenticity? Is one not seized to find the "patriot" a paradigm of the same sense of "self-arrogated right to play God," and "conviction that he alone is right?"
After all, it is the "patriot" that puts his own sense of duty ahead of constitutional safeguards and any regard for "international" human rights. He sees these as an impediment, a stumbling block in the way of what he considers his ultimate mission for god and country. He is willing to engage in the most vile criminal actions to achieve his goal. The blood of innocents is to the "patriot" nothing more than collateral damage.



The late great Anarchist legend Emma Goldman had this to say in her landmark essay, Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty:

"Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others."

So to the fictional Sir Nigel Irvine, the "traitor" suffers "vanity," possesses "a self-arrogated right to play God," a "conviction that the traitor alone is right and all his colleagues fools."
Yet to Emma Goldman, the "patriot" suffers from "conceit, arrogance, and egotism," and the undying belief in "the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others." Do we see a connection here?


The character of the "patriot" Irvine smirks at his own moral superiority, just as he silent accuses the "traitor" Berenson of doing. He objectifies the man as just another clichéd scoundrel. Certainly there is no sympathy in the readers' heart for this particular traitor, unless one reader happens to belong to the small remaining pocket of fools that still hold some affinity for the reviled extinct apartheid regime of South Africa, (most of whom are likely only to be found in the bowels of the online right-wing chat room FreeRepublic.com).

The real question we are left with is, if we are to accept that neither the "patriot" nor the "traitor" are themselves authentic in their convictions, that they both share in the paradigm of deluded self-righteousness, how can history be allowed to vindicate the actions of any individual that acts under his own moral authority. The prevailing attitude of authority is to trivialize the the character of such individuals, and the most common way today is to examine them under the lens of bourgeois criminal psychology. Revolutionaries and freedom fighters today can no longer be viewed as revolutionaries and freedom fighters, but instead as disturbed psychopaths, or worse, egotists looking to compensate for their own inadequacies by latching on to some "radical chic." John Brown is one such freedom fighter that has stood the cruel treatment of history. Former anti-imperialist political prisoner Raymond Luc Levasseur observes:

"PRIOR TO MY EARLY 20’s, my knowledge of American history was minimal and distorted. I barely knew of John Brown and what he was about. I was told he was badly in need of a psychiatrist."


Brother Ray knows what it means to have ones motivations so mercilessly trivialized as he and his comrades in the Ohio 7 have been the targets of a relentless propaganda assault through "true-crime" novels, cheesy TV docudramas and law enforcement specials, all that have sought to reduce their character to cardboard lowlifes.

The "patriot" Irvine contradicts his own country's history in his personal conviction regarding the criminality of all traitors. Irvine has made clear that traitors are each "inadequate men" taking it upon themselves to oppose their government. They are thus all dilettantes who place their own sophomoric moral superiority above everyone else. Under Irvine's logic, nothing should grant him authority to violently oppose the established regime?

If we continue the practice of psychoanalyzing every rebel and revolutionary, then there is no such thing as higher moral authority anymore. Everyone is just a psychopath.



Last year I decided to take a play from the "psychoanalysis" practice of the "Irvine" school of thought so that I may profile one of the more notorious of "patriots," the man I consider so depraved, Oliver North.

I broke so many rules of scholarly objectivity with this paper through my reckless injection of my own passion and inflammatory rhetoric such as, "Oliver North is a bastard, and there truly no justice in this society. One day the souls of 2.5 million dead Nicaraguans will try him. Death will be his ultimate prison cell," and my baseless allegation of "genocide." And yet, despite what I see as a lack of professionalism in these areas I still managed an A. What mattered most to me was the catharsis the paper's conclusion provided me.



The Final Judgment on Oliver North:
A Case of Government Violence

Joseph Lehman

SO410.02. Criminology
Professor Levine
May 3, 2006


There is no type of violent crime more insidious than a government’s violence against either its own people, or toward the people of weaker nations. Government violence can be defined as acts of commission or omission. Government’s omission of violence is in its disregard of the welfare of its people through cutting their healthcare and educational programs in favor of wasteful expenditures. Government’s commission of violence is in its rampant exploitative military campaigns abroad, fomenting genocide, disease, and famine (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2004: 491). It cannot be denied that in order to explain violence in the collective terms of an entire government, one would have to consider a multitude of social-structural and institutional roots. However, it must also be taken into account that Government exists as a consensus of the individual personalities of the men and women that hold positions of power. If there is one such individual whose personality best represents the pathology of government violence it is Oliver North. If there is one incident that best represents the full capacity of the American government’s heinous violence against the sovereign people of another country it is Iran-Contra. Although the extent of the corrupt Iran-Contra affair reached the highest levels of the government, Oliver North provides the most appropriate entity to symbolize its most egregious excesses. It is the thesis of this paper that North’s behavior can be explained through two basic theories of criminology. The evidence suggests North is at best, a consummate example of an antisocial personality, and that he displays classic techniques of neutralization.

The Iran-Contra affair was a campaign of crimes of the greatest magnitude, with Oliver North smack in the middle of it. The context of it was that the United States Government could not stand the progressive regime of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, which had taken power after revolution had toppled the evil U.S.-backed dictator Somoza. Because they did not cow to U.S. corporate interests as Somoza did, the Sandinistas were thereby vilified as godless communists. Oliver North was a key organizer in the U.S. covert aid in arms and money to the Contras, mercenary dissidents waging a bloody terrorist crusade against Nicaragua, but touted by the Reagan administration as freedom fighters. Never minding of course, that the Sandinista government had the majority electoral support of the Nicaraguan people (Chomsky, 2003: 86; 96-98; 105). Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once called the Contras, "marauders, murderers, and rapists" (Shannon, 1989: 173). This label seems quite adequate considering the Contra’s loathsome human rights record. By the end of the chaos Nicaragua was left with a death toll of 2.25 million and a crippled economy and infrastructure (Chomsky, 2003: 98). This does not even count the more widely covered aspects of North’s arms dealing, money laundering, shredding of documents and perjury.

It may seem as something of a stretch to declare outright that Oliver North, decorated Marine colonel, is a psychopath, but his criminal actions and his narcissistic personality traits are consistent with the psychopath’s textbook definition. The general traits of a psychopath are written as, narcissism, "experiencing little or no guilt when inflicting harm," and behavior "marked by ‘glibness and superficial charm,’" a proficient ability to lie and con their way through situations (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2004: 491). There are striking parallels to these traits in legendary military commander David Hackworth’s (1994) assessment of North: "He’s smarmy, a flatterer, a brownnoser. He’s also a twisted impostor, a drugstore Marine with an apparent compulsion to bullshit just about all the time" (¶1). The descriptions are practically identical. One way of spotting a psychopath is that not only may he lie about the most important things, he may be prone to lie about every inconsequential detail. Hackworth (1994) issues a lengthy report exposing North for having, among many things, inflated his military combat record and the importance of his National Security Counsel job at the Reagan White House, taken credit for the accomplishments of others and reaped illicit profits. He also skirted the constitution. Yet North has been adamant in his denials. He is so effective at weasling his way out of answering for his actions, that he even cites ‘national security’ reasons as a dodge. This is all in line with a psychopath’s use of deceit and manipulation to avoid punishment.

The behavior of a psychopath extends all conduct pursuant to his criminal actions, including conduct that is not exactly criminal, but possibly unethical. North not only has committed actions that break many ethics, he has also repeatedly found angles to lie about them afterward. For example—and several agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration confirm this—prior to his convoluted plan to divert funds from illegal arms deals to the Iranians to the savage Contra terrorists in Nicaragua, North sought to exploit drug informant Barry Seal’s alleged dealings with a few low-level Sandinista officials in an attempt to paint the entire Sandinista government as being involved in drug trafficking. He had virtually no interest in the DEA’s objective of bringing down the Colombian Drug Cartel. One plan of his was to supply the Contras with profits from Seal’s drug transactions; never minding that such a course of action would jeopardize the entire case. When the DEA refused to play along, North leaked the Seal story to the Washington Times effectively blowing Seal’s cover and exposing him to his eventual assassination (Shannon, 1989: 176-177). North derailed a vital investigation and cost a man his life for his own political ends. The greatest obscenity though, is the spin North personally put on the whole affair. In his self-serving autobiography, North (1991) presents Seals exploits matter-of-factly, omitting any mention of his plan to divert the drug funds to the Contras. He claims, "we had hoped to use Seal to run this operation long enough to capture Pablo Escobar, the infamous Colombian drug lord," "but this plan had to be terminated when a story about the operation and Sandinista involvement with Colombian drug dealers appeared in the Washington Times" (266-267). This is never minding the obvious fact that North was in all probability the one responsible for the leak. Not only that, but he is setting himself up for direct credit for the manhunt for the Colombian drug lords, in total contrast to the fact that according to the DEA, he never had any real interest in the Colombians at all. This suggests he is a truly narcissistic liar, quite possibly a psychopath.

There is much more evidence to support the theory that North routinely exhibits techniques of neutralization. As Sykes and Matza originally defined it, the first technique is denial of responsibility (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2004: 356). That is the offender cannot take much blame because he fell victim to factors beyond his control. One of North’s excuses for selling arms to Iran in order to finance the Contra effort went like this in his testimony before Congress: "I think it is very important for the American people to understand that this is a dangerous world; that we live at risk and that this nation is at risk in a dangerous world" (Bradlee, 1988: 499). In other words, he cannot be blamed for acting in America’s "defense." The dangerous world made him do it. Another technique is denial of the victim (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2004: 357). The offender cannot be blamed because it was the victims’ fault. They were to blame. They deserved what happened to them. In his autobiography North (1991) writes contemptuous portraits of the Sandinista officials. He calls Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega "Danny Boy," and a "dull and humorless little clerk" (230). He saw the Sandinistas as communists and Soviet puppets ready to attack the United States. Another technique is condemnation of the condemners (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2004: 358). In order to evade responsibility the offender blames the people prosecuting them. They are corrupt. They are hounding and persecuting him. This is all a show trial. As Ben Bradlee Jr. (1988) writes, "Ollie spoke contemptuously of ‘heroes’ who had come forward in November of 1986 to blow the whistle on false cover stories that he and others were putting out" (502). To him, they were all just opportunists with axes to grind. "He made clear his disgust with Congress." He baited House members with accusations that they were bureaucratic and ineffectual, that they were soft on communism, and that they were tying his hands behind his back (503). These tactics are effective methods at tapping into base populist sympathies.

Condemnation of the condemners plays a significant role in the whole phony image North crafted to win the hearts of the American public. Just as a psychopath is said to create an illusory mask of sanity, North cultivated his image as a hero. Amy Fried (1997) examines North’s use of the media to sell his image. North appealed to treasured American institutions of patriotism, nationalism, and religious piety. He embodied the symbol of the patriotic American soldier, the rugged individualist cutting through bureaucratic red tape and politics, enforcing Jeffersonian republican family values. He was a warrior fighting evil. He was a man of righteous Christian zeal (77-80). And the public consumed it all. But according to Hackworth (1994) it is all a lie. North claimed to live in a simple farm. In actuality he lives in a mansion, with all his profiteering to thank for it. He decked himself out in full Marine regalia during the congressional hearings, wearing a "fruit salad" of ribbons he did not rightfully earn. He was no warrior; save for his unremarkable stint in Vietnam, he was basically a desk jockey and a paper pusher. His excuse for illegally accepting the gift of a security system as a political donation was false; he made up the story about Arab terrorists sending hit squads to kill him. He enabled ruthless arms merchants around the world. But instead of prison, he has been rewarded with a successful career as a political commentator and gadfly, Senate hopeful, and businessman. According to Bradlee (1988) he participated in the illegal monitoring of American groups that opposed the administrations policies in Central America (431-432). North’s final technique was appealing to higher loyalties (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2004: 358). He did it for the sake of someone above him. North passed the buck to President Reagan, claiming he was just following orders (Hackworth, 1994: ¶17-18). These are not the actions of a hero; they are of a liar and a criminal.

It is amazing that North has been able to skate accountability for his crimes in spite of such damning evidence against him. The evidence, however tenuous some of it may be, paints a very convincing case of North’s complicity in drug trafficking to finance the contras. North (1991), in his autobiography vigorously asserts that he or the Contras had nothing to do with drugs: "very little in life has angered me as much as the allegations that I or anyone else involved in the resistance had a drug connection" (267). The evidence tells another story. Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall (1991) devote their book Cocaine Politics to extensive investigation of drug connections between North, the Contras, the CIA, the NSC, and various mercenaries and Central American governments. Their findings are voluminous. Bradlee (1988) reveals the most incontrovertible piece of evidence when he cites passages in North’s diary that was brought to light in John Kerry’s Senate committee. These entries make direct references to Contra drug dealing, including one that says simply, "$14 million to finance supermarket came from drugs." The supermarket was a Honduran arms depot (405). North’s own words contradict his denials. If diaries don’t seal his fate, then apparently nothing will.

So lies the case against Oliver North in the charges of meeting to theories of criminology. He is the supreme symbol of government violence. A man who excuses his arms dealing, drug trafficking, financing of death squads, under the banner of patriotism is truly a psychopath. As is a man who lies about his own lies in every situation. A man who evades responsibility with such aptitude displays the techniques of neutralization. Only in America can a man who sponsors a genocide capture the hearts of the American public and be called a hero. Only in America can he assume successful careers in the media and run for the senate. What happened in Nicaragua was genocide, not simply government violence, but only God can cast him to the fate he deserves. Oliver North is a bastard, and there truly no justice in this society. One day the souls of 2.5 million dead Nicaraguans will try him. Death will be his ultimate prison cell.

References


Bradlee, B. (1988). Guts and glory: the rise and fall of Oliver North. New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc.

Brown, S. E., Esbensen, F., & Geis, G. (Eds.). (2004). Criminology: Explaining Crime and its Context. (5th ed.). Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.

Chomsky, N. (2003). Hegemony or survival: America’s quest for global dominance. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Fried, A. (1997). Muffled echoes: Oliver North and the politics of public opinion. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hackworth, D. (1994, June). Drugstore Marine (Oliver North). Playboy, 6, 90-94.

North, O. (1991). Under fire: an American story. New York: Harper Collins.

Scott, P.D., and Marshall, J. (1991). Cocaine politics: drugs, armies, and the CIA in Central America. Berkley, University of California Press.

Shannon, E. (1989). Desparados: Latin drug lords, U.S. lawmen, and the war America can’t win. Penguin Books.

Buddy Holly lives

I began this blog on the week of February 3. It happened to be the forty-eighth anniversary of The Day the Music Died.
It is needless to say that I am a passionate Buddy Holly Fan. Have been since I was Eleven-years-old, not much more than twelve years ago. I have fond memories of listening to his songs repeatedly in the evenings after school.

Perhaps I should provide some background for how I found myself attracted to Buddy's music. As a child bearing the stigma of my troubled emotional and psychological state, I was socially unable to relate to my peers. As is often the case with children of higher intelligence, my advanced rate of maturity was my proverbial cross to bear. Such are the factors I attribute to my long history of clinical depression and destructive emotional behavior. I compensated for this condition with an outward resentment of the culture I grew up in, especially the current music scene. Popular music of the nineteen-nineties I treated as an abomination. I stewed in contempt for my peers, convincing myself of my superiority to them on every level, as it justified my growing alienation from them and gave me a reason not to make any effort to overcome it.

To me, Buddy's music has symbolized the world I idealized as an antidote to the clouded world in which I was living. I saw the music of the nineties as sexualized and unrepresentative of any respect for memories of love and discovery. Buddy's music, with its conveyance of those themes played into my fantasy of an age of innocence which I considered myself unfortunate not to have grown up during. His songs with lyrics such as, "it's so easy to fall in love," "words of love you whisper soft and true," "well alright, we'll live that love with all our might," and, "just you and I know true love ways" capture the themes of love and discovery absolutely dearly.

It can be said that I had bought into the false idol of the "innocent" nineteen-fifties that has been so tirelessly mythologized by reactionary conservatives today. True, I have matured enough over the years to recognize the fallacy of this mythical "world"; that it in no way represents the nineteen-fifties as a reality. I accept that the world I yearn for is false. All men and women cling to myth as a necessary departure from the harshness of reality. That is a universally known fact. We create alternate realities and we create heroes. We sustain our individual sanity through personal fantasy. Without it we would be unable to conduct our lives as there would be no unattainable world to strive for. Indeed, Cervantes knew whereof he spoke when he characterized Don Quixote as a man determined to "reach the unreachable star."

Human accomplishment depends on the unyielding belief in success against all odds. Let us stray from the subject for a moment to put this observation in context. A student, either at MIT, or submitting an essay for entry to the institute, writes of how Don Quixote eventually inspired him. By his admission, in his youth he had not been taken with the story, instead finding more in common with the world of Star Wars:

My little brother made me watch Star Wars with him and help him make model x-wings. I was enchanted by the Star Wars universe. It turned me into a romantic with all the possibilities it offered. The universe was so vast, unimaginably large, home to so many people I would never meet. Luke had proved that love could conquer hate, for people also were infinitely complex and always good at heart. To my mind the Star Wars universe surpassed Camelot in its grace, its valiance.

It seems natural that he would find himself willed to prefer a more contemporary fantasy sago that is more widely received among audiences over a five hundred-year-old Spanish literary classic. The label of sophistication that society places on classic works and the implication that one must be well versed in them to achieve that level of "respectability" is intimidating to the student that wishes to read for enjoyment. Society generally does not place this burden on a Star Wars fan. Often, one is drawn to greater appreciation of the classics when he stumbles upon them on his own time. Indeed this was the case with the writer here:

I was listening to a choir performance of "The Impossible Dream" a few months later, and my mind wandered on hearing the words: "To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to go where the brave dare not go. . . To reach the unreachable star." It was heartwarming to hear someone who shared my sentiments. I smiled. Perhaps it was foolish to live for Star Wars ideals in the practical world, foolish to dream of becoming a jedi knight, but it seemed noble to try anyway. I was awakened from this reverie by the host, who had been going into the history of the song and had just informed the audience that this song was taken from the play Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha.

It should be noted the writer's pattern of referring to his little brother's make-believe games of being a Jedi Knight in Star Wars. The little boy waved the plastic light saber around. This melted the writer. This, of course, shows how we externalize our fantasies in our relations with the people close to us. Children, of course, in their innocence, are the most obvious to embody these fantasies. As the consummate paragons of hope, they have that effect on us.

After getting his first light saber, my brother announced that he was going to be a jedi knight when he grew up. The thought filled me with longing� I wanted to be one too. It was not just a fancy, but a true desire� to be a jedi knight, to fight for peace and order, to explore the universe! But I realized how absurd that was, how impossible. It was just a story. The real world spoke against the goodness of people at heart, the existence of life outside earth.

Eventually, for the writer, his inevitable discovery of Don Quixote and his newfound glowing fixation on the story brings his fantasies (Star Wars) and the reality-based personification of his fantasies (his little brother). Following this, he is able to come to his inspired conclusion:

I understood then, what the man of La Mancha felt. And I secretly hoped that the someone, somewhere in the universe, who was looking for the unreachable star, would one day find it.


For myself and for millions of Americans, Buddy Holly has long since been an identifiable hero. This fact is confirmed by the faithful observance of the anniversaries of his passing along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. As this news coverage reports:

The Buddy Holly Center drew big crowds Saturday afternoon as fans and friends gathered to remember the anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, often referred to as the day music died.

It is of course, common knowledge that February 3, 1959, when a private plane crashed outside Clear Lake, Iowa is remembered as the Day the Music Died for its loss of three men who were without a doubt, the pioneers of rock 'n' roll. It is with the magical idea, the conviction that, "someone, somewhere in the universe, who was looking for the unreachable star, would one day find it".

It was a year ago this week that I wrote the bellow essay. At the time it was my intention to gain understanding of current conflict by drawing parallels with past and present events. In light of subsequent developments over the past year, especially in Lebanon, I find it all the more relevant. Looking over what I once again feel frustration with the limitations I faced in presenting it as a "scholarly paper." As such its content was clearly sanitized by total objectivity. I intend to amplify my opinions later.

Because great portions of this essay are devoted to discussions of policy of the state of Israel, among other provocative issues, I do acknowledge the dangers of fierce attacks I face from those that shall misinterpret my views. In the toxic state of political discourse (or what passes for it) today profane invective has supplanted constructive criticism. Know that I do not fear the brainless threats of the seemingly indefatigable crowd of right-wing thugs on this web. My one fear is of those that might take it upon themselves to impugn my character by questioning my faith as a Jew. As I have found myself increasingly taking a position of criticism of Israeli policy today, I grapple with how to define my Jewish identity; a problem that is being faced my hundreds of fellow young Jews in America (and in Israel) today. Our community is polarized. Inasmuch I feel bitter in that this polarized atmosphere forces me to so adamantly declare my religious loyalty. I am a Jew. My father is a Jew and I and no other Jew should be forced to declare anything about his loyalty.

Gaining perspective through observations of yesteryear

Joe Lehman
Senior Criminal Justice Seminar
Professor Levine
1 March 2006

Faith: The Tie that Binds…and Threatens


The most sensible way of defining the rapidly setting trends of the post 9/11 era is that what the entire world is experiencing is a resurgence of faith. Faith has moved to the forefront of national movements and the ways established nation-states are communicating with one another, shedding generations of secular tradition. In the United States, Evangelical Christianity has gained influence in many of the nation’s institutions, social and political. Faith is now especially the dominant factor in United States Foreign policy. The old practice of realism has taken a back seat to strong ideological conviction. The new foreign policy has as a result, forged alliances between two groups of different faith-based ideologies in its dictation. These groups are the predominantly Jewish "neoconservatives" and Protestant Evangelical Christians. These are both groups that would traditionally be at conflict with one another. This begs the question, how could such opposing groups find such common cause that they would be able to forge such a smooth alliance in dictating American foreign policy? The most probable argument is that it is not an alliance of common cause, but an alliance based strictly on individual interests. Though the alliance between the two implies the appearance of cooperation, in fact the faith of Jewish neoconservatives has driven them into a tribal isolation that blinds them from beyond the immediate milieu, and can possibly lead to much conflict down the road that can affect the entire country.

The underlying element of the neoconservative-Evangelical alliance is the future of the state of Israel. Every aspect of their jointly dictated foreign policy resolves around Israel in some way. The principle tenet of neoconservative ideology is the idea of exerting American global hegemony through unilateral action and the cancellation of international alliances and treaties (Lind, 134). The neoconservative base has also convinced the Bush Administration to adopt a policy of total support to the hard-line Zionist policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Right-wing Likud Party in occupying Palestinian territories. Constructive engagement with the Palestinian Authority has all but been abandoned (137). Regime change in Iraq, the pillar of the grand designs of the neoconservatives was based substantially on consideration for Israel. Leading neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz has stated, "The road to peace in the Middle East goes through Baghdad" (qtd. in Buruma, 30). In other words, invading Iraq will somehow affect the outcome of the peace process in Israel’s favor. As Ian Buruma elucidates, the Evangelical-neonconservative alliance has arisen from the pro-Israeli stance of lobbies of "Christian Zionists." The basic reason behind this "support" is the fact that Jewish possession of the Holy Land fits in with the Evangelicals’ apocalyptic vision of the Second Coming of Christ resulting in the conversion or obliteration of all Jews (30). John Donohue states the obvious best: "Israel and the Church remain distinct and God follows two distinct purposes: with the Jews the purpose is earthly, with the Christians, heavenly" (439). The idea of one side’s support motivated by a desire for the other sides’ inevitable destruction begs the question, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Faith is the main answer to the question of what prevents neoconservatives from breaking their alliance over the issue of the Evangelicals’ genocidal ambition. The alliance is too aligned to their connections in faith to be separated. President Bush is with respect, the product of these connections in faith. The religious theme of his politics attests to this. He defines American foreign policy through a manicheian lens of "good versus evil." He conveys the image of being messianic in his leadership. He, the God-appointed savior of liberty and democracy will brave the holy war against America’s evil enemies (Stam, 27). These traits directly correspond to both the Evangelical and neoconservative world-view. As several political scientists note, "these new religious forces have revived the Wilsonian notion that democratic values should infuse foreign policy so as to transform the world" (Guth et al., 3). This refers to President Wilson’s imperialistic doctrine following the First World War. . A poll of religious voters in the 2004 election taken by The Review of Faith & International Affairs shows the highest support for Bush and his policies among traditionalists and evangelicals, while the least support was found among religious minorities and seculars. While only a minority of voters in general wishes to unconditionally back Israel’s side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a large majority of those that do are Jews (6). This is not to say that the neoconservative platform represents the interests of all Jews. On the contrary, a majority of Jewish voters still back the Democrats (Buruma, 30). So it is a mistake to define "neoconservative" as a synonym of "Jew." Neoconservatives are merely members of a certain political ideology coined by a number of intellectuals that happen to be Jewish.

It is ironic that both Israel and the Zionist movement have become so intertwined with faith. Actually, the Zionist movement was originally founded by Jews of the secular progressive persuasion (Donohue, 434). Both the Six-Day War in 1967 and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 were armed conflicts conducted by Israel under the pretext of preemptive strikes (Buruma, 30). Neoconservatives are of course, ardent advocates of preemptive warfare. These invasions corresponded with the Evangelical Second Coming vision (Donohue, 439). Donohue argues that the Six-Day War was the point where Orthodox Judaism took over Zionism (436). Jacobo Timmerman argues that Israel’s democratic institutions were encroached upon and thus severely damaged by the religious shakeup during the Lebanon War: "The society will become more closed, more intolerant, more fundamentalist" (86). This sounds eerily similar to the shakeup of the American government by the Bush Administration. Secular institutions are being dominated by religious ideologues rendering them less democratic. Timmerman’s critique of Israel in Lebanon is eerily similar to later critiques of America in Iraq. Benjamin Barber argues that the neoconservatives with the advent of the invasion of Iraq call for a Pax Americana (35). Timmerman defines Israel’s actions in Lebanon as Pax Hebraica (31). These cases exemplify the damage that can be wrought to a government by an overuse of faith.
Evangelicals and neoconservatives are connected in culture as well as issues. According to Michael Lind, "the unilaterial imperialism of the neoconservatives, like their pro-Israel and anti-Iraq policies, was reinforced in national politics by the centuries-old political culture of conservative white voters in the American South" (142). The American South of course, being the most concentrated area of Evangelicals. The concepts of internationalism and multilateralism, both anathema to neoconservatives traditionally fall against Evangelical doctrine (Guth et al., 3). Culturally, the two are connected in even the most superficial ways. Michael Lind points out the glaring similarities in the cultural icons of both Zionism and Evangelical Christianity:

"The gun-toting, Bible-thumping Anglo-Celtic Texan in former Mexican and Indian territories, with his admiration for the Hebrew patriarchs and professed devotion to the Ten Commandments, is remarkably similar to the gun-toting, Torah-thumping Israeli settler in the occupied Arab territories. The "sabra" ideal of a certain strain of Zionism—macho, militaristic, pious—is a cousin of the Southern/Western "redneck" or "cowboy," down to the contempt for the disposable "Canaanites"—Blacks and Mexican-Americans in Texas and Arabs in Israel." (155)

In Lind’s thesis are the implications of a widely controversial equation between Zionism and racism. Despite the controversy, the parallels suggested here are undeniable. In a world that is facing the revival of Fundamentalism in all three of the monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, all three all three become more tribal, yet only two of them form an alliance with the third as a shared enemy. A suggestion is that Judaism and Christianity are culturally connected whereas Islam is more fundamentally opposed to both of them. Ergo, Jewish neoconservatives and Evangelical Christians may be forced into a position of declaring that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

It is a mistake to believe that neoconservatives are oblivious to the opportunistic aims of the Evangelicals. There are signs that the relationship between the two is more divergent than mutual. It must be remembered that there has always been a clannish mentality among Jews that is generally distrustful of the goyim. This is for the obvious reason that Jews are wary from having been persecuted for so many thousands of years, particularly to the maximum extent during the Holocaust. Reporter Robert Fisk made this observation during a symposium regarding the Lebanon War:

"Throughout the evening, a middle-aged lady sat beside me. Two of her fingers were missing. They were amputated after she suffered frostbite in Dachau concentration camp. From her family, only she and her husband had survived. She was now totally committed to Israel and obviously saw dark and sinister objectives in any criticism of the state or its actions." (416)

From this mentality it makes sense that Jews with such undying support for Israel as are the neoconservatives would through their faith, suspend traditional hostilities between them and anti-Semitic but pro-Israel Christians if it means their support, as questionable as it may be. But with such cautious faith they are unlikely to let their guard down toward the Evangelicals either. Ian Buruma observes the reaction among many Jews regarding support by Europeans for the initial creation of the state of Israel: "Philo-Semitism is better than pogroms, to be sure, but there was something unreal, and even a little unsettling, about this dutiful sense of collective guilt. It was as if Jews, including Israeli Jews, once again were not treated the same way as other human beings…" (31). It is clearly much more preferable to be treated the same instead. Elevation to a special status only separates a people further. Bearing this tribal mentality in mind, it is therefore reasonable to believe that neoconservatives maintain the alliance with Evangelicals because doing so represents their most immediate interests. It is doubtful that they would expect to gain any fruitful exchange beyond that.

It is not only that the domination of faith-based ideology over America’s political institutions is flimsy, it is dangerous to the country’s security. Devotion to flimsy ideals deludes leaders from the more complex realities. For instance, as Juan Stam astutely remarks, if terrorists have targeted America as the prime candidate for destruction simply because they hate our freedoms, why have they not targeted Canada, which is arguably more free? (27) Theoretical reasoning aside, how this government views the nature of morality bears greatly in how it conducts itself diplomatically. As Benjamin Barber writes, "the trouble is, the language of moral absolutism makes negotiated solutions to international conflict nearly impossible" (59). President Bush’s moral absolutist policies are an extension of both neoconservative unilateral imperialism and Evangelical apocalyptic determinism. Writing in the New Republic J. Peter Scoblic challenges the realism of many of the administration’s absolutist convictions. The administration is convinced of the idea that democratization in other nations is the solution to terror. It was this type of thinking that prompted the administration to focus its energies on regime change in Iraq, consequently ignoring the substantial nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea (18). Iraq was selected as the target for invasion because it was the coveted test case for the neoconservative democratization policy. Security did not play in to this and as a result the U.S. faces a greater threat from Iran and North Korea. More notably moral absolutism threatens the progress of constructive engagement. This comes back to Barber’s line about "negotiated solutions." As recounted by Scoblic, the administration has curtailed many chances at addressing the North Korean situation in its refusal to engage in bilateral talks. This is because Bush will not address their leader in any terms more civil than "tyrant" (20). It has always been common for the neoconservatives to make the analogy to Neville Chamberlain’s selling out of Czechoslovakia in 1938 (Buruma, 33). Constructive engagement is, in their minds tantamount to appeasement. More dangerously, absolutist conviction nearly derailed negotiations over Libya’s disarmament of weapons of mass destruction when neoconservative diplomat John Bolton submitted a demand for regime change as part of the deal (Sclobic, 21). Had Bolton not been restrained, the entire deal would have soured.

Faith is the fundamental element every point raised here boils down to. It is faith that has led the neoconservatives to enter this alliance with anti-Semitic evangelicals. It is faith that has led them to suspend their judgement about the practicality of such a deal. Faith has surpassed reason in the minds of the policy makers of the Bush administration as talented career veterans are increasingly moved to the margins in favor of ideologues and policy hacks. It is evidenced by the administration’s missteps regarding Israel, Iraq, Libya, Iran, and North Korea that ideologues do not mind true national security over the fallibility of the own ideologies. Thinking in terms of black and white is detrimental to America’s security and that is the danger of the neoconservative-evangelical doctrine. The Bush administration has demonstrated sheer willingness to overlook these security threats. What matters to them is for nothing to threaten the dogma of their ideology. But unfortunately, there is no way to open an ideologue’s closed mind. It was blind faith in the absolutism of an ideology that drove the Soviet Union to ruin. This mistake must not be repeated in America. Reason must triumph over faith.

Works Cited

Barber, Benjamin. Fear’s Empire: War; Terrorism, and Democracy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003.

Buruma, Ian. "How to Talk About Israel." New York Times Magazine 31 Aug. 2003: 28-33.

Donohue, John. "Mistranslations of God: Fundamentalism in the Twenty-First Century." Islam & Christian-Muslim Relations 15.4 (2004): 427-442.

Fisk, Robert. Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon. New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1990.

Guth, James L, et al. "Faith and Foreign Policy: A View From the Pews." The Review of Faith & International Affairs 3.2 (2005): 3-10.

Lind, Michael. Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

Scoblic, J. Peter. "Moral Hazard." New Republic 8 August 2005: 17-23.

Stam, Juan. "Bush’s Religious Language." Nation 22 December 2003: 27-27.

Timmerman, Jacobo. The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon. Trans. Miguel Acoca. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.