Michael Bérubé - American Airspace

Nation time

Glenn Greenwald opens How Would A Patriot Act? with an intriguing rhetorical move:

I never voted for George W. Bush—or for any of his political opponents.

I believed that voting was not particularly important. Our country, it seemed to me, was essentially on the right track. Whether Democrats or Republicans held the White House or the majorities in Congress made only the most marginal difference. I held views on some matters that could be defined as conservative, views on others that seemed liberal. But I firmly believed that our democratic system of government was sufficiently insulated from any real abuse, by our Constitution and by the checks and balances afforded by having three separate but equal branches of government.

My primary political belief was that both parties were plagued by extremists who were equally dangerous and destructive, but that as long as neither extreme acquired real political power, our system would function smoothly and more or less tolerably. For that reason, although I always paid attention to political debates, I was never sufficiently moved to become engaged in the electoral process. I had great faith in the stability and resilience of the constitutional republic that the founders created.

All that has changed. Completely. Over the past five years, a creeping extremism has taken hold of our federal government, and it is threatening to radically alter our system of government and who we are as a nation. This extremism is neither conservative nor liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of unlimited presidential power that are wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governed this country since its founding.

I know of precincts on the left—actually, I inhabit some of them—where Greenwald would be dismissed on the basis of those first three paragraphs alone. Many liberals would consider him foolish for believing that the question of who controls Congress and the White House—and, thus, who appoints the members of the cabinet and the heads of the regulatory agencies—makes “only the most marginal difference,” say, to women or to people in poverty. Many progressives would take him to task, and rightly so, for describing the edges of the Republican and Democratic parties as “plagued by extremists who were equally dangerous and destructive,” as if the Democrats have a branch office of the Khmer Rouge to balance out the GOP’s far-right theocrats. And many leftists would conclude that anyone who opens a book by professing the firm belief that “our democratic system of government was sufficiently insulated from any real abuse” needs a refresher course in American history before he’ll be worth listening to. For that matter, there are leftists who would dismiss the book well before they got to the first three paragraphs, on the basis of the word “Patriot” in the title. This isn’t caricature, you know: there are plenty of people on the left who get pissed off every time Todd Gitlin tells them they’re insufficiently patriotic. Which is understandable, up to a point, since no sensible person on the left likes being told that they need to proclaim their one-hundred-percent Americanism before they’ll be taken seriously. But surely, as Greenwald makes clear, there is a form of patriotism that involves civic rather than ethnic nationalism (about which I’ll say more in a moment, for it is the very subject of this post), and surely, if you were a sensible citizen of the United States in 2002, it was plausible to argue that launching a war in Iraq and creating a Cheney Archipelago of secret torture sites from Gitmo to Kabul would not, ultimately, serve the best interests of the United States. The problem is that in order to make that argument, you have to invoke something like a “national interest,” and, for various reasons, that’s a move that some on the left are unwilling to make.

What interests me about Greenwald’s opening, however, is precisely that it positions Greenwald as a disinterested proceduralist who was radicalized by the Bush Administration. In saying this I don’t mean to suggest that Greenwald is misrepresenting himself somehow, or indulging in a “merely” rhetorical opening; I believe he’s telling the truth about his earlier self, for what that’s worth. Rather, I mean that the author of How Would A Patriot Act? opens by saying that when it came to welfare reform or private-school vouchers or gay marriage or the minimum wage or workplace safety or universal health care, he didn’t really have a dog in the fight. He was all about the Constitution and the separation of powers, and as long as those things were functioning, everything else would kinda sort itself out. But then he began to get the sense that something was rotten and beginning to smell:

What first began to shake my faith in the administration was its conduct in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in May 2002 on U.S. soil and then publicly labeled “the dirty bomber.” The administration claimed it could hold him indefinitely without charging him with any crime and while denying him access to counsel.

I never imagined that such a thing could happen in modern America—that a president would claim the right to order American citizens imprisoned with no charges and without the right to a trial. In China, the former Soviet Union, Iran, and countless other countries, the government can literally abduct its citizens and imprison them without a trial. But that cannot happen in the United States—at least it never could before.

Isn’t this precisely the kind of reaction liberal Americans would like to have seen from their fellow citizens in 2002? As opposed, say, to the more common “everything changed on 9/11” reaction known to faithful readers of this humble blog as “I used to be a Democrat, but thanks to 9/11, I’m really outraged by Chappaquiddick.” What Greenwald offers here is a mode of nationalism—of patriotism—that consists of principled opposition to the unlimited expansion of executive power by the Bush/Cheney regime. It’s a mode of nationalism that might, and that should, be more popular than it is.

But, of course, in some circles “nationalism” is as dirty a word as “patriotism.” In the United States, it often speaks to the history of exclusion and exceptionalism—and in many other places, to ethnocentrism and funny ideas about the pure unadultered Volk as well. You don’t want to go down that road, right, because it leads directly to Michelle Malkin and Pat Buchanan.

And that’s the point: think of all the Americans who’ve been whipped into a nationalistic frenzy in the past year—not by Bush and Cheney’s various shreddings of the Constitution but by . . . gasp! Mexicans. These are Americans who are just fine with NSA surveillance, and who think it’s perfectly OK for Bush to have lied about his NSA program repeatedly over the past five years. Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants, though—that drives them crazy. Why, that’s a threat to the very nation!

It’s possible to conclude, from the relative lack of nationalist outrage over Bush’s data mining and the outpouring of excess outrage over immigration, that any contest between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism will look a little like a reply of Spinks v. Tyson. It will be ugly and embarrassing, and civil nationalism will be sent from the ring in about 91 seconds. Civic nationalism, after all, involves a complex, reflective kind of fealty to procedure, to political forms and institutions; ethnic nationalism involves an unexamined fealty to the ethnos. Even in the United States, which was founded entirely on civic rather than ethnic grounds, civic nationalism appears too “thin,” too tenuous a form of belonging to motivate ordinary, unaffiliated people to get up and ask how would a patriot act? And as a result, when “patriots” do get up to act, more of them grab a gun and head for the border than grab a laptop and write How Would A Patriot Act?

It’s possible to come to that conclusion, yes. I’ve come to it often enough myself. But liberals and progressives who do so today, I think, give up too much along the way—rhetorically and politically. So here’s hoping that Glenn Greenwald helps to make the (popular) case for a civic nationalism, with his tenacious love of liberty and with his many allies in the blogosphere.

Posted by on 06/05 at 11:07 AM

I dunno, Michael.

What Greenwald’s civic nationalism seems to be saying is that the ousters of Mossadegh and Arbenz and Allende, the continuing expropriation of native lands (NB the Dann Sisters), the wholesale displacement of corn farmers in Mexico to benefit Archer Daniels Midland’s Q3 1995 balance sheet and the concurrent US-funded little dirty war in Guerrero, the whole litany which we know too welll: all that was just fine. So fine, in fact, the Greenwald couldn’t even be roused to care about it. But extend to the US political class some of the deprivations of rights visited on other nations in our name, and suddenly THAT’s worth getting upset about.

And I suppose mentioning this would cause Greenwald to assign me to that class of left “extremists” from which he recoiled so far as to not be bothered to drag himself to the ballot box, for fear the likes of Michael Dukakis would sully him with Trotsky-o-anarchism.

Extreme as I may be, I can certainly see the tactical value in appealing to a civic nationalism a la Greenwald. But I have trouble imagining bringing myself to doing so. I have too many friends for whom everything changed on September 11.

September 11, that is, in 1973.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 06/05 at 01:26 PM
But I have trouble imagining bringing myself to doing so.

Too many gerunds.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 06/05 at 01:27 PM
I dunno, Chris.

“America, love it or leave it” is a catchphrase the Left should claim as its own.

I haven’t read Greenwald’s book yet (plan to later this month), but does he argue that this erosion began on 9/12. Cuz there’s 10 guys in Hollywood I’d like him to meet.

Posted by Roxanne on 06/05 at 01:35 PM
Gerunding changed for me after 9/11, too, Chris.

Neverthelessing, of course you’re right (being in nearly-Marcottian infallibility territory as you are), and if I didn’t think Greenwald’s opening pitch would cause some of the left to leave the room, I wouldn’t have called attention to it in the first place. But the fact that you’re right, and the fact that I think you’re right, doesn’t change the fact that we have to do a mess of work to convince somewhere between one and two hundred million of our fellow citizens that it’s better to get motivated to defend civic nationalism than to get motivated to build a wall along our southern border.

Posted by on 06/05 at 01:41 PM
And actually, Roxanne, once Glenn gets going he does a fair enough job of covering the history of domestic surveillance (including the Hoover-on-King variety).

Posted by on 06/05 at 01:42 PM
“America, love it or leave it” is a catchphrase the Left should claim as its own.

Depends on your definition of “America,” I suppose. And of “love.” And “leave.” And “it.”

Posted by Chris Clarke on 06/05 at 01:51 PM
A few thoughts…

1) It’s not clear to me that Greenwald’s kind of outrage over violations of legal / Constitutional rights necessarily entails any sort of “nationalism.” One could be similarly outraged out of a universalist commitment to a package of rights that happens to be embodied in our Constitution. Or one could be committed to an (international but not universal) common law tradition that the the Bush-Cheney administration has utterly violated. That’s neither an argument for nor against the kind of civic nationalism you’re suggesting, Michael. I’m just suggesting that Greenwald’s views are not, either.

2) The theoretically clear division between civic and ethnic nationalism that political scientists, sociologists, and historians often employ is much less clear in practice. Though some nationalisms seem more explicitly ethnic than others, American nationalism, which is at its heart civic (after all, we’re all immigrants...assuming that is we ignore the folks who were here before “us"), has always had powerful racial and ethnic dimensions (witness the current debate over “border security") that cannot simply be wished away. Moreover, the most civic nationalisms are often the most imperialistic, precisely because the nation’s special qualities are theoretically universalizable (France, and for that matter the US, are interesting case studies here).

3) All of this is not to say that one shouldn’t take a special interest in tending one’s own garden and/or removing the beam from one’s own eye. I don’t have any problem with discussions of “national interest” in a weak sense. It’s perfectly sensible to have a special concern for what one’s own country does, just as one might be more concerned about policy decisions in one’s own town than in the town next door.

Posted by on 06/05 at 01:52 PM
I dunno, Cris…

Arent’ you kind of suggesting that if Greenwald couldn’t get upset over various deprivations of rights abroad that he shouldn’t get upset about the deprivations of rights at home? Seems to me that despite his rather stupid view of voting, (what, not even in local elections? Bond measures? Mayor? Dog-catcher?) he’s well within his rights to prefer not to live in a police state.

Furthermore, I would suggest that strengthening the kind of civic nationalism he’s talking about (or that Michael’s talking about) would be the best, most available means of addressing/preventing the concerns you mention.

Still, I share your apparent dismay that he set such low standards for himself that it took a US citizen being spirited away before he started to actually engage himself politically. Then again, he did get up (or sit down) and do something about it, didn’t he…

Posted by on 06/05 at 02:46 PM
Arent’ you kind of suggesting that if Greenwald couldn’t get upset over various deprivations of rights abroad that he shouldn’t get upset about the deprivations of rights at home?

Not so much that as suggesting that his acceptable status quo ante included his government depriving people of rights, but that since they were all wogs back then it was OK.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 06/05 at 02:51 PM
Patriotism almost always comes with some sort of sacrifice - usually as a sort of proof of patriotism. In this case, I think Greenwald makes it clear that his form of patriotism, or proof of patriotism, was his ability to sacrifice political engagement. It may seem very cynical of him, or very naïve, and certainly apathetic, but I’m not down at city hall right now listening to some debate about zoning in my neighbourhood – though perhaps I should be. I think we all sacrifice ourselves to the system to one degree or another.

But what does it mean when you don’t trust that you can do that anymore - when you don’t trust that the green light is going to follow the red light or that the water flows down the drain rather than up - when the love of your patriot life turns out to be an ugly drunk? What should a patriot sacrifice then?

To make a popular case for civic nationalism, I think something very dramatic must be sacrificed. Online voting? Succession of states? A war? A civil war? Rewrite the constitution?

Patriotism needs romance, and there is no romance without sacrifice. Ethnic nationalism sacrifices the other. Ugly, but effective. What does civic nationalism sacrifice?

Posted by Central Content Publisher on 06/05 at 02:53 PM
But extend to the US political class some of the deprivations of rights visited on other nations in our name, and suddenly THAT’s worth getting upset about.

Hey, I just remembered that I wanted to quibble with this. Chris, Glenn Greenwald didn’t get all up in arms because the Bush/Cheney regime came after some of his lawyer friends. He got all up in arms because of our treatment of Jose Padilla. Would that more of the political class—and more Americans who weren’t members of the club—had done the same.

Which brings me to Ben Alpers’ comment. I think it’s quite difficult, actually, to read Greenwald’s outrage as anything but an expression of civic nationalism. Remember, he wasn’t alarmed by the creation of the category of “enemy noncombatants” and the Bush Administration’s decision to hold thousands of detainees at Gitmo. That was the tocsin for any number of other smart attorneys at home and abroad, many of whom have been interviewed by the invaluable talking dog. Greenwald, by contrast, wasn’t that kind of internationalist or universalist; he was motivated by the deprivation of a citizen’s rights, and though you can read that motivation as being directly or indirectly allied to a more internationalist revulsion at the tactics of police states, it seems, here, quite specifically directed at a breach of the citizenship protocols of the nation-state.

Posted by Michael on 06/05 at 03:20 PM
A fair quibble with my imprecise language, Michael.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 06/05 at 03:28 PM
But does even a revulsion “quite specifically directed at a breach of the citizenship protocols of the nation-state” necessarily involve a commitment to civic nationalism (and here I’m using nationalism in its normal sense to designate a form of patriotism, or belief in the superiority of one’s particular nation)? That is, couldn’t one have a universal commitment to citizen’s rights, a commitment that includes a belief that the legal distinction between the rights of citizens and non-citizens is necessary to the functions of the nation-state, while still maintaining that states in general should honor the rights of their own citizens?

I should add that I have not read Glenn Greenwald’s book (though I’ve often read his blog), so I can’t really comment on whether or not, in fact, his revulsion constitutes a form of civic nationalism. But the premise of Michael’s original post, I think, involved the suggestion that these sorts of concerns necessarily entail a robust civic nationalism. I’m still not convinced that they do.

Posted by on 06/05 at 03:53 PM
Before getting on Glenn’s case too much for not paying attention to the litany of things Chris Clarke points out in the first comment, it’s useful to remember what he says about himself (now in his blogger profile; formerly at the top of the blog):
I was a litigator in NYC specializing in First Amendment challenges (including some of the highest-profile free speech cases over the past few years), civil rights cases, and corporate and security fraud matters.

It’s not unusual for attorneys to be singularly focused on their work, in my experience. The behavior of the CIA in Iran, South and Central America and beyond simply may have been on his periphery. Padilla and the other cases which impinged on the First Amendment (his professional interest) suddenly brought to the fore US government behavior he’d previously not anticipated.

Look, John Donne notwithstanding, how many of us really do practice what was preached in his famous sermon? “I am involved in mankind” is something worthy of aspiration, but it’s a hard goal to achieve.

Posted by Linkmeister on 06/05 at 04:19 PM
Greenwald, a disgruntled proceduralist? Where was he (and others) when Paul Begala was spinning out, “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kind of cool.”?

Rule by executive decree doesn’t look so cool now, does it? Well if you don’t protest it when your side is in charge you really can’t expect enough sympathy when the other side abuses it too. And isn’t really much of a distinction, the fact that Bush is abusing it for national security concerns.

Posted by on 06/05 at 04:28 PM
Shorter Daniel: two wrongs make a right.

Posted by John Protevi on 06/05 at 04:38 PM
Seems to me like Greenwald is trying to popularize and mainstream arguments like David Cole’s in Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism (Beacon, 2003) (this based on his blog and not the book, which I haven’t gotten yet). Recall that to this day Cole and his Nation cohorts (who aren’t even that left) have been ignored, disparaged, and only grudgingly listened to, even by mainstream “liberals.” Given that context, I’m willing to hold off on friendly fire in hopes that Greenwald’s book (which is on track to be a national bestseller) opens the door for more wide-ranging critiques. That said, now that both Cato and the Center for Constitutional Rights have come out with constitutional critiques of the Bush administration--and some far rightistas have called for impeachment of Bush based on his attempts to broker an immigration compromise--if it appears that Bush-bashing (rather than simply being dissatisfied with high gas prices) becomes a non-partisan endeavor, then I’d become more vocal about the rhetorical and political limitations of Greenwald’s book’s conceptions of patriotism and nationalism.

Oh, and Daniel, you sound like you’d really love my debating partner’s critique of Clinton over at <objectivist v. Constructivist</a>; are you really proposing moral equivalence between Clinton shenanigans and Bush catastrophes?

Posted by The Constructivist on 06/05 at 04:46 PM
I seem to recall quite a few folks on the Left protesting Clinton-era executive decrees, myself included. And when it comes to supporting the basic tenets found in the Constitution, should there really be a your side and an our side? Either you support the Constitution or you don’t.

Posted by Roxanne on 06/05 at 04:47 PM
Oh, and Greenwald’s editor is taking suggestions on what should be added to the second edition. Just go over to Michael’s link to the firedoglake book club discussion and make your suggestions (persuasively). I’ve already suggested a “for further reading and action” section and proposed a few titles (including Tram Nguyen’s We Are All Suspects Now and Eric Foner’s The Story of American Freedom as well as Cole’s).

That busted link? Clinton v. Bush....

Posted by The Constructivist on 06/05 at 04:52 PM
John,

No, rule by decree is wrong, whether by Bush, Clinton, Lincoln, whomever, but if you really think that it is abusive it is especially important to call it when those whom you generally support abusue it, lest it appear that your concerns are partisan in nature.

Posted by on 06/05 at 04:59 PM
sorry, also this page for comments:

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/06/04/fdl-book-salon-how-would-a-patriot-act-pt-ii-2/

now i’ll stop b4 i approach n.l. territory, comment-wise

Posted by The Constructivist on 06/05 at 04:59 PM
Daniel
How come when the Right is presented w/ an uncomfortable truth, such as the destruction the current Administration is doing to just about everything in this country, they just have to bring up that ol’ debbil Clinton? Get over him!

And I think we on the Left need to encourage folks like Greenwald. Their eyes are finally opening and they are taking steps, maybe only baby steps granted, toward the realization of the need to stop the plunge into the abyss led by the boobs in the current Administration. Let’s cut him some slack.

captcha is century, as in this century isn’t goin’ too good so far.

Posted by on 06/05 at 05:06 PM
Re 20: thanks, Daniel, your concern for the political effectiveness of the left is touching.

Posted by John Protevi on 06/05 at 05:08 PM
Some elements of Greenwald’s past sentiments are semi-common. Lost of people whine about “politics” (it’s messy, “unclean”, you have to make commitments to people who aren’t perfect) and never feel moved to notice that the alternative is some variant of fascism. Nader had some appeal for these people, as well as for a not very realistic slice of the Left. It’s actually somewhat encouraging to see someone who is part of the non-voting, non-engaged world move into the fray. Hopefully, others are so moved. Still, Greenwald concerns me as an exeplar of this--he’s a lawyer and should have a more realsitic understadning of law and politics. Second, because he’s a lawyer, he could be moved by Padilla in a way that many people could not begin to fathom.

Posted by on 06/05 at 05:53 PM
Just want to agree with Ben Alpers’ comment above. The line between civic and ethnic nationalism cannot be so boldly drawn.

Part of the debate over immigration posits the Samuel Huntington argument: America’s civic documents, institutions, and procedures are the product of certain ethnic worldviews, and so America cannot allow in too many of certain ethnicities and must force other immigrants to assimilate in order to preserve its civic identity. I admit, the Huntington argument is problematic. But hypothetically, we could imagine an ethnic or national group—the Blog People of Outer Bloggaria—who hold values so deeply opposed to American civic ideals that any appeal to civic nationalism would also be an appeal to ethnic nationalism to recent Bloggarian immigrants.

Negri and Hardt would also agree with Alpers that American Civic Nationalism is imperialistic. I’m not at all convinced by *Empire*, but they try to make the case that American constitutionalism implies ever-expanding spatial frontiers.

Posted by on 06/05 at 06:28 PM
Not long ago, I made a case for inviting other nations to petition Congress for statehood as an improvement on the current situation where they have no representation and little influence on American politics or foreign policy and as an alternative to EU- or UN-style politics. It went nowhere, of course. But what about such a hypothetical extension of American civic nationalism--and its attempt at a progressive rearticulation of American exceptionalism--would you all find objectionable in this century?

Posted by The Constructivist on 06/05 at 08:33 PM
I would argue that Michael is wrong when he argues that the US was “founded entirely on civic rather than ethnic grounds.”

For most of our history, our laws reflected the idea that civil society was a racial trait. I’m sure I don’t have to rehearse the litany of racially based laws the country has had. Chinese Exclusion, the 1924 Immigration Act, the entire structure of Jim Crow in the South… The list could be endless.

There was even an entire theoretical apparatus on the “Teutonic Origins of Democracy” to support the idea that democracy was a racial trait of Northern Europeans and that extending democratic ideals to other European races, never mind the “colored” races, was doomed to fail.

Given that extensive history, whipping up concerns about Mexican invasions is all to easy to explain.

Posted by on 06/05 at 08:55 PM
Well, not being so purely founded doesn’t mean it can’t evolve. Once the ruling Blog People of Central Bloggerica are replaced, for instance, with ‘cosmopolitan’ French critics, I think there will be genuine cause to begin hoping.

Posted by Matt on 06/05 at 11:14 PM
What I mean to say is, the expansionist component to American exceptionalism, in it’s current form, could stand to reflect on a thing or two learned by other, more mature ‘nationalisms’ - some of which, who knows, may have a future.

Posted by Matt on 06/05 at 11:45 PM
I dunno, everybody.

While the specific location in space-time of Glenn Greenwald’s threshold for self-activation is an ineresting topic for discussion, is that really the point?

To me, every voice of reason that’s raised against the erosion of civil liberties in America--while it’s still possible to raise them--is a welcome addition, and when the voice is as consistent and forceful in its articulation as Glenn’s, I’m a lot more interested in turning up the volume than in determining the exact motives for the decision to speak.

Posted by on 06/05 at 11:48 PM
While the specific location in space-time of Glenn Greenwald’s threshold for self-activation is an ineresting topic for discussion, is that really the point?

Why, no. At least it wasn’t my point. I intended nothing about motives, but about what it is that’s being sold as the way things used to — or ought to — be.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 06/05 at 11:55 PM
The careful delineation of the ins vs. the outs does seem to generally be the primary concern of the most dominant human institutions (nations and religions - maybe corporations), overshadowing the internal workings and logic of their constructs. [And this is not surprising given their roots in cooperative strategies developed/optimized/evolved during our “small group” prehistory.] Yes, the actual separation of the US from England (which was after all the same ethnos) involved civic nationalism, but the colonial adventure which preceded it and subsequent national expansion were square in the tradition of ethnic nationalism.

At times I convince myself that we should take solace that most of the (public at least) demagoguery on the subject feels the need to translate the threat into civic concerns (economic, law and order, public safety) rather than just direct attacks on the “outs”. Hypocritical and self-delusional as this is, it at least provides a sliver of rationalization that can be attacked with reason. Other times not so much ...

More cheerfully and OT: Hockey
I am shamelessly claiming partial credit for my obscure prediction because it did include a player and a backup goalie “conspiring” to give up a goal. [Am just missing the minor, inessential element of a shot on the opponents goal during the play...]

Posted by on 06/06 at 12:10 AM
Chris seems basically right to me. The problem with Greenwald isn’t that he’s finally starting to smell the coffee (we’re all very pleased that he is, really) but that by justifying his complacency and lack of interest in politics in the pre-Bush II Era on the basis of some Constitutionally-enforced political equilibrium, he suggests that If Only We Could Return to Politics as Usual then Everything Would Be OK. Well, sorry, but it won’t be OK. There is a strong case to be made that Bush II’s policies are merely natural extensions of what has come before. This is the Tom Friedman Tactic of always finding a middle ground between opposing views (and claiming to be iconoclastic for finding this middle ground) even when one side is actually--oops--right and the other not-so-right.

As for the rhetorical tactic of invoking patriotism to coat a critique, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with it except that it sort of seems beside the point to me. We must justify our critique of Bush on our values and on the strongest evidence and consistent epistemic grounds we can muster. Doing a song and and dance about how patriotic we are, when doing so doesn’t distort the truth, amounts to icing on the cake.

Posted by on 06/06 at 02:12 AM
What does civic nationalism sacrifice?

The sacrifice that civic nationalism demands from us is really quite quotidian: Read the newspaper. Attend school board meetings. Read the little booklets the League of Women Voters publish about political candidates, and then vote for the people you dislike the least. Pay attention.

Civic nationalism sacrifices fashionable apathy.

Posted by on 06/06 at 02:35 AM
Doing a song and and dance about how patriotic we are, when doing so doesn’t distort the truth, amounts to icing on the cake.

Of course, from the baker’s perspective, icing may be what catches the eye of passersby who otherwise weren’t thinking about food…

Posted by on 06/06 at 07:18 AM
Damn, if the Constructivist’s idea (#26) to extend American civic nationalism around the world doesn’t sound a bit like Rome. You know, extend the virtues of civilization to all the beknighted barbarians. I’m not sure a Left Imperialism is much better than the current model.

Posted by on 06/06 at 08:31 AM
Much as I am momentarily heartened whenever anyone in this country begins to display even the slightest dissent from the present administration, I think Lee and Chris are right that the implications of Greenwald’s position amount to a return to the “politics of normalcy,” a position that will only serve to delay a real confrontation with the deep structural porblems of which Bush Jr. is only the recent and most visible symptom.

I think at times like these it is quite difficult to know what to do with someone like Greenwald. Certainly the exigencies of the present suggest to some the necessity of forming as broad a coalition as possible with those who oppose the present administration, but as Robert Jensen argues here

http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen04272006.html

there are good reasons for those on the left to be suspicious of the value of building coalitions with liberals.

So while Greenwald’s rhetoric may be exactly the kind of thing that is like to have the most traction in this country, I have grave doubts about where it will lead. We cannot forget, after all, that it was beloved Democrat Bill Clinton (possibly more beloved now than even during the height of his popularity while president) who brokered the disastrous treaty (NAFTA) that is responsible for the current “crisis of illegal immigration” (I put this phrase in scare quotes because this is a thoroughly manufactured “crisis"). A return to politics as usual will mean only an increase in the sum total of human misery created by America’s disastrous trade policies and a decline in the nativist scapegoating. I find it difficult to be encouraged by such a future.

Commitment to the procedures of present political forms and institutions without a thoroughgoing critique of how they have led us to the crisis of the present risks ignoring deep structural issues in favor of a currently fashionable notion that somehow *all* or very nearly all of the current problems are the product of an abberant right-wing ideology.

Please note, this is not to deny at all that there is such an ideology at work within this country and within some circles of the present administration, but to suggest that it rather than the ideologically-resistant (albeit also ideologicaly-informed) and seemingly neutral political and economic structures of the country are responsible for the current crisis is, in my opinion, a serious mistake.

Posted by on 06/06 at 10:49 AM
Editorial from the New York World, April 16, 1902 (reprinted in The Greenwood Library of American War Reporting, v. 4, p. 489):

The American Public eats its breakfast and reads in its newspaper of our doings in the Philippines.

It sips its coffee and readds of its soldiers administering the “water cure” to rebels; of how water with handfuls of salt thrown in to make it more efficacious is forced down the throats of the patients until their bodies become distended to the poit of bursting; of how our soldiers then jump on the distended bodies to force the water out quickly so that the “treatment” can be begun all over again. The American Public takes another sip of its coffee and remarks, “How very unpleasant!”

It then butters its bread and reads of the ingenious Major Waller, who murdered his victim on the installment plan, tying him to a tree, shooting him in non-mortal places for two days, and foregoing till the third day the delights of killing him outright.

The American Public reaches out for another tab of butter and remarks, “How distressing!”

It cracks an egg and reads of...the orders of Gen. Smith to “kill and burn”....and to “make Samar a howling wilderness.”

“Rather extreme,” is the comment of the American Public as it eats its egg.

All this delectable reading fills the American Public, seated at its breakfast, with a feeling of mild disapproval, not unmingled, perhaps, with disgust.

But where is that vast national outburst of astounded horror which an old-fashioned American would have predicted at the reading of such news? Is it lost somewhere in the 8,000 miles which divide us from the scenes of these abominations? Is it led astray by the darker skins of the alien race among which these abominations are perpetrated? Or is it rotted away by that inevitable demoralization which the wrong-doing of a great nation much inflict on the consciences of the least of its citizens?

War leads to atrocities. Imperial war leads to atrocities far away from the metropole against people who are easily seen as rather unlike oneself. War also leads to the curtailment of civil liberties at home; war is, in the words of Randolph Bourne, the “health of the State.” Although I don’t believe in historical laws, these facts are pretty much as close as one can get to laws of history.

The U.S. has been involved in many imperial wars, all of which have led to atrocities, all of which have led to some curtailment of liberty at home. Yet time and again we forget this, and then are surprised when we encounter Haditha or Abu Ghraib, forgetting My Lai, Marinduque, Wounded Knee, Mountain Meadows, Andersonville, and countless other places—some still famous, some less so—where Americans killed and abused each other and others.

Some might fear that in saying that these things always happen in war we’ll become complacent. Certainly there are those who want us to think this way, who dismiss reports of torture and massacre by saying that we need to accept that there will be such problems in war. The upside of historical forgetfulness about past American wartime atrocities is the ability to be surprised by such events as if they weren’t a predictable result of war. If we forget about the past, our outrage about the present might be greater, we might be able to say, like Glenn Greenwald, how can this happen in America?

But I think forgetfulness entails a much greater danger: that we will once again make the mistake of believing that we can have a war and not have Abu Ghraibs and Hadithas, nor Korematsus and Padillas. There may be necessary wars (though as I get older, I am beginning to lose my belief in them). But there are no good wars. And the surest way to keep this nation out of war is to be very clear with ourselves about all the horrors, physical and political, that war entails.

Posted by on 06/06 at 11:01 AM
We cannot forget, after all, that it was beloved Democrat Bill Clinton (possibly more beloved now than even during the height of his popularity while president) who brokered the disastrous treaty (NAFTA) that is responsible for the current “crisis of illegal immigration” (I put this phrase in scare quotes because this is a thoroughly manufactured “crisis").

Funny timing: I just yesterday posted on that vry subject. Though the post in question doesn’t get there for a few paragraphs.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 06/06 at 11:50 AM
I never imagined that such a thing could happen in modern America—that a president would claim the right to order American citizens imprisoned with no charges and without the right to a trial.

Why not?

I am constantly amazed at the naivete of my fellow Americans. Greenwald himself points out how easily the system can get corrupted:

My primary political belief was that both parties were plagued by extremists who were equally dangerous and destructive, but that as long as neither extreme acquired real political power, our system would function smoothly and more or less tolerably.

Hey, Glenn ... surprise!

Posted by on 06/06 at 12:57 PM
My post got cut off ...

I don’t know what would cause a person to be so disengaged from politics, as if our lives don’t depend on it, or as if the system will function just fine if we ignore it. Greenwald’s disinterest, disdain, inertia, benign neglect ... whatever ... are all part of the problem.

Posted by on 06/06 at 01:02 PM
I guess what I’d like to know is whether Greenwald is really arguing (either explicitly or implicitly) for a return to a “politics of normalcy”, or whether he has, as a result of his transformation, broadened his horizons a bit, so to speak. My only knowledge of his book is a short piece on NPR and this post, so perhaps I was being unduly generous to Greenwald in assuming that his awakening entailed a greater realization of the limitations of the worldview of his “earlier self”, as Michael put it.

So while I don’t disagree with Eric, Chris, or Ben about the limitations (dangers?) of forming alliances based on an example rather than a principle, it seems to me that Greenwald may (or may yet) understand some of the problems of the politics of normalcy, even if up to this point it’s only specific domestic issues that really has his dander up.

Unless his book specifies otherwise, of course.

Posted by on 06/06 at 02:16 PM
I found it hard to believe Greenwald was so disengaged until just five years ago. As a first-amendment type lawyer, I would imagine he was familiar with and maybe had a take on arguments circulating in the political sphere. This seems evident in his blog, where it looks as though he’s very comfortable putting this administration’s “philosophy” in historical context. I think the opening gambit in his book is designed to claim that yes, there was patriotism before 9/11 that still applies (civic nationalism, as you say) and that the Right doesn’t own it. I admit I’m in the camp that was put off by the word “patriotism” in his title and by his professed blind adherence to our system of government and its process, without regard for the ends to which it has been put to use, as well as to the Wisdom of the Founders ("the core political values that have governed this country since its founding"). Thomas Pynchon makes the case that the founders were freemasons and given to pranks, and suspects that America may be the most large-scale practical joke the world has known. Even if it’s a tinfoil hat type conspiracy theory, I think it’s important to retain such an idea in the back of one’s mind when holding up the “Founders” and the processes they put in place as Everything We Should Aspire to Follow.

However, on reflection, I think I’m OK with “civic nationalism” insofar as I think the universalization of our system of gov’t has not, in fact, motivated U.S. imperialism, even and especially for this administration, which claims such a thing as its foreign policy doctrine. Furthermore, I think civic nationalism is a viable alternative not only to “ethnic nationalism” but also to construing patriotism as a “value.” It seems to me that the discourse of “values” dominates our current nationalism (Bush to Russia: “we are a nation of laws and a nation of values"). Code-word though it may be for “rich white guy corporate values” is nevertheless inclusive enough for, say, Michelle Malkin to claim she’s shocked--shocked--to see Mexicans here. In other words, “values” has given way to an ethnic nationalism, but this need not be the case. So if the Left can re-write patriotism as a practice in which we check and maybe even disperse power (though I’m sure the latter is too much to ask), rather than as a thing we value, I think Greenwald will have been successful.

Posted by on 06/06 at 02:31 PM
I would like to make two not so minor political observations in this otherwise political discussion:

1) The civic nationalism of Glenn Greenwald can only help America.
2) The ethnic nationalism of the right is a wedge that hurts their side.

By my count those are two benefits to my America. Now explain to me why some of you feel the need in your America to verbally challenge the recent awakening of Glenn Greenwald.

It seems to me that your arguements are based on his lack of your perceived ideological purity. A sense of purity that motivates some of you to construct a wall of words to keep him, and his kind, out.

Posted by evolvedreason on 06/06 at 02:45 PM
"Oh, hell with it. Let the resurgent, ephemeral, pointed nationalist polemics of the day ring from every hill, if they be civic-minded.

If nothing else, they may help clear a space for ‘fringe elements’ to be heard - imagine, that voting should be mandatory, for a start! The rhetorical best-sellerism, the obvious opportunism, the calculatedly “dissenting” appeals to an originary, fastastic, imagined purity may be similar to Friedman’s...noxious oozings, though with one arguably crucial difference: Greenwald is criticizing those in power; he is invoking (however clichégenically) a counter-power.

Then again the scope of his criticism may end up conforming nicely, and complacently, and handsomely-rewarded, to DNC or West-Wing talking points. But what else is “popular” writing, anyway (if not preemptive flattery)? It’s the stuff people read in airports; it’s comforting.

Posted by Matt on 06/06 at 02:52 PM
I certainly have no desire to, in evolvedreason’s words, keep Glenn Greenwald and his kind “out” (though I’m not sure I’m “in” anywhere that anyone is particularly interesting in getting into). I am all in favor of broadbased alliances that include people whose politics are rather unlike mine but with whom I can find common ground. I imagine Glenn Greenwald fits this category well.

What I’m objecting to is any sense that we on the left ought to be more like Glenn Greenwald. That’s a very different issue from being willing to work with him.

Posted by on 06/06 at 02:54 PM
1) The civic nationalism of Glenn Greenwald can only help America.

2) The ethnic nationalism of the right is a wedge that hurts their side.

Many thanks to evolvedreason for encapsulating in less than 25 words what it took me more than 2500 to say in today’s post.

Posted by on 06/06 at 02:59 PM
(Or better, that counting votes be someday mandatory. I mean forget originary purity, let’s maybe start there.)

Posted by Matt on 06/06 at 03:00 PM
A friend of mine had a stroke recently. He was only in his mid thirties. As a result, I changed my diet a bit, exercise a bit more and visit my doctor more often. I was not ignorant of the phenomenon of strokes. They were just never relevent to me. Strokes only happened to old people and strangers - a completely illogical yet flawlessly accurate law of nature up to that point. Visiting a friend in the hospital was an alarm I could hear.

Padilla’s internment was an alarm for Greenwald. I don’t blame him for being asleep until his alarm went off. We are not capable of rigorously analyzing every fact at our disposal for truth or morality. Even those things we do analyse, we sometimes get wrong because we give them short-shrift. Re-evaluating our priorities to decide what gets analysed more rigorously and what gets only passing thought is not something that can be done from internal motivation. Only experiences will change those priorities.

Oh, if anyone is concerned, the friend made essentially a complete recovery.

Posted by on 06/06 at 03:22 PM
"1) The civic nationalism of Glenn Greenwald can only help America.”

This is debatable. Greenwald’s civic nationalism can help American only if we assume that the current state of the executive branch represents a decisive break from its historical trajectory.

Starting with the War Powers Act, and probably well before, the U.S. presidency has become increasingly imperial, autonomous trajectory. Checks and balances more and more look like a rubber stamp.

As far to the left as I may be, relative to the views of the rest of the country, the argument that maniacs just happen right now to be at the nation’s wheel has always seemed disingenuous to me.

If Bush II is in fact not an anomaly but rather an extension of Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter and all the rest, then Greenwald’s project seems destined simply to patch a system that has serious structural problems, until Bush III, IV, Clinton II, III, etc. come along to seize more power.

I would therefore make the claim that Greenwald’s civic nationalism more or less has nothing to recommend it. A general, nationally non-specific sense of justice would suffice to legitimate criticisms of the Bush administration.

In fact, the deployment of nationalism here seems to me perhaps a little like a cynical ploy based on the notion that most Americans can’t handle arguments based on reasons and logic.

“2) The ethnic nationalism of the right is a wedge that hurts their side.”

What evidence backs up this claim? Ethnic nationalism seems to be working just fine for the right. Who is being wedged from whom?

Posted by on 06/06 at 07:01 PM
Krauthammer just tried to make a civic nationalist (well, culturalist, he called it) case for Congress to proclaim English the U.S.’s official language (in the same Time issue that has a Haditha cover story), so I’m sympathetic to the view that both ethnic nationalism and American exceptionalism are hard to distinguish from civic nationalism in practice b/c the former can always be “translated” into the latter (in perhaps a similar way that racist ideologies can be advanced through “color blind” discourses). Similarly, I’m sympathetic to the point that it’s hard to make originalist or traditionalist arguments for a progressive civic nationalism being at the heart of American political identity (Jacobson’s Whiteness of a Different Color, for instance, makes an extended case that American republicanism provided warrants for excluding from citizenship groups deemed “unfit for self-government"). Finally, it’s also true that American nationalism has as often been imperialist in its universalist mode as it has in its particularist mode.

That said, the debate on this post reminds me of Douglass’s split with Garrison in the 1850s. Garrison’s view that the Constitution’s pro-slavery nature necessitated Northern secession from the Union was countered by Douglass’s insistence that it could be rearticulated as an anti-slavery document and used as the basis both to preserve the Union and end slavery (cf. his “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” and “The Heroic Slave"). Which raises the question, just because history turned out the way it did, was Douglass right to try to salvage American nationalism? Foner sees the Civil War and Reconstruction as a second American Revolution, but look what came in its wake: wars of consolidation (Indian Wars) and conquest (the Spanish-American and subsequent “small wars” that folks like Max Boot tend to praise and Stephen Kinzer criticize). Would the world have been a better place if the U.S. had ceased to exist in the years leading up to the Louisiana Purchase (see Kukla’s A Wilderness So Immense for an interesting look at the domestic and international politics of the American/French/Haitian Revolutionary Era, particularly for his emphasis on Northern and Western secession plots) or the Civil War? Or conversely, would it have been better if the ethnic nationalists who engineered the end of the Mexican-American War (Anglo-Saxnists and Indian Haters) had instead chosen to annex Mexico (and eventually been forced to concede statehood to various regions in it, as happened with Louisiana after a relatively long delay on ethnic nationalist grounds)?

How we think through these historical cases might give us important insights into our own times.

Another connection is to debates over the politics of American Studies. Consider Gregory Jay’s wrestling with similar issues in American Literature and the Culture Wars (in which he both praises efforts to rearticulate the Declaration of Independence by different marginalized groups in different eras and calls for the end of “American” literature) as well as fairly recent media brouhahahas over collections like Pease/Weigman’s The Futures of American Studies, Rowe’s Post-Nationalist American Studies</a>, and Ross/Ross’s <I>Anti-Americanism (largely consisting of classic jeremiads lamenting the fallen nature of the generation of tenured radicals running the ASA). Which raises the perennial question about the role of intellectuals in American politics even more urgently. How could a first amendment lawyer have ever had the pre-Padilla mindset Greenwald describes himself as having? And what should we do about the fact that tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of Americans are still in it?

I don’t see Michael calling for us all to think and write like Greenwald; I see him using Greenwald’s opening rhetorical move to raise questions about how to effectively address and move the American public if you’re not Greenwald. As Greenwald admits, he believes the first step is to get the public to recognize the scope of the problem. If others can use the success of his move (which remains to be seen) to point out the larger dimensions of the problem and to start debates over solving it, then more power to them (us).

Posted by The Constructivist on 06/07 at 03:51 AM
"Civic Nationalism,” while a fine idea, in some ways seems to be effort, mostly, of solving a perception problem. The perception is that to be critical of how American culture, democracy, foreign policy, etc. is to be anti-American per se, but at the same radical-left-liberals are allergic to positions that endorse nationalism. (Nationalism is a synonym for chauvinism in this argument.) Is there a problem with a term that is constructed in part out of defensiveness as much as anything? Would it better to construct a kind of position out of the very “anti-American” rhetoric the right likes to use against critics of the US.

Posted by Rob Crowe on 06/08 at 07:43 PM
Rob, does this (the second essay, not the first!) work for you? Isn’t GG’s approach fairly similar, in that both are aimed at reaching people not already critical of the Bush administration? (The difference being that people actually read GG’s work!)

Posted by The Constructivist on 06/09 at 05:07 PM
Constructivist, That hits the spot better for me than GG for me. What I personally
dislike about civic nationalism (and, I fear, proceduralism) is the piety surrounding it, as I see it. It may be a problem with my perception, but I don’t see that the left has much to apologize for, so why should a “left nationalism” feel apologetic? Especially with the current treasonous and corrupt administration.

Posted by Rob Crowe on 06/09 at 08:02 PM

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