← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Zoroaster
Thread ID: 10731 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2003-10-25
2003-10-25 13:15 | User Profile
[url]http://www.antiwar.com/cs/roberts2.html[/url]
America Versus the World by Paul Craig Roberts October 25, 2003
Do you want to know why President George W. Bush's focus on the war against terror was redirected to war against Iraq and the Muslim Middle East? Read Professor Claes G. Ryn's new book, America the Virtuous: Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire.
Ryn is a learned, insightful and courageous scholar who ably explains the ideas that are destroying our country.
These ideas are the property of neo-Jacobins. Ryn calls the ideas "a recipe for conflict and perpetual war." Neo-Jacobins are known to Americans as "neoconservatives," a clever euphemism behind which hides a gang of radicals who stand outside of, and opposed to, the American tradition. The United States has been subverted from within, as these counterfeit conservatives hold the reins of power in the Bush administration.
Ryn shows that Jacobins have not a drop of conservative blood in their veins. For example, the Jacobins' concept of morality is abstract and ahistorical. It is a morality that is divorced from the character of individuals and the traditions of a people.
Jacobins are seduced by power. The foundation of their abstract morality is their fantastic claim to a monopoly on virtue. Secure in their belief in their monopoly on virtue, Jacobins are prepared to use force to impose virtue on other societies and to reconstruct other societies in the Jacobin image.
Jacobin society is a centralized one that subordinates individuals and their liberties to abstract virtues. In short, it is an ideological society imbued with assurance of moral superiority that justifies its dominance over others, including its own citizens. Virtue gives Jacobins a mandate to rule the world in order to improve it. Opposed to the American Republic that is based in traditional morality and limits on power, the Jacobin agenda is to remake America into an empire capable of imposing virtue on the world.
Jacobin morality is divorced from moral character, personal conduct and treatment of others. Jacobin morality expresses itself in benevolent sentiments toward abstract entities. Human lives and cultural diversity mean nothing compared to "making the world safe for democracy" and "liberating women from the Muslim yoke." Jacobin morality seeks to achieve a uniform unipolar world.
Possessed of an unrelenting will to power, the Jacobins in the Bush administration, together with their media allies, seized the opportunity afforded by Sept. 11 to meld America's nationalistic response to terrorism with the Jacobin ideological agenda. Once Americans associated invading foreign countries (Afghanistan) with the "war on terror," Jacobins shifted the "terrorist threat" to Iraq. Now they are working to shift it to Syria, Iran and Lebanon. Next will be Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The Jacobin agenda requires large numbers of American troops and heavy taxation to support massive military budgets. It means the return of the draft.
It also explains why Jacobins are unconcerned with our own country's porous borders while they seek to control Middle Eastern borders. The hordes of young Mexicans pouring into the United States are a convenient source of cannon fodder, just as President Lincoln redirected the flow of Irish immigrants in his day into the Union Army.
Jacobins are dangerous because they lack historical understanding and rely on abstract righteousness to impose ideological unity. Their drive for like-mindedness implies coercion, the gulag and the Orwellian state. The Jacobin agenda means the end of Western civilization.
Ryn shows that Jacobins are lost in abstractions and do not appreciate or understand Western civilization as a human achievement resulting from centuries of struggle to create moral character. Self-restraint, empathy and mutual respect are necessary for pluralistic societies. However, such genuine virtues have no role in the uniform Jacobin state.
It is difficult to quibble when Ryn writes that "a monopolistic ideological universalism that scorns historically formed societies is a potential source of unending war and great disasters." Ryn reports that many Americans, including conservatives, find aspects of the Jacobin message attractive without understanding where it leads.
The Jacobin quest for American world supremacy appeals to nationalistic patriots, to macho types whose response to Sept. 11 is to "kick butt," to people fearful of terrorist plots, to global business and financial interests, to do-gooders anxious to spread democracy and women's rights, and to people who enjoy power and success vicariously like fans of champion sports teams.
Jacobins are to be found among both political parties and among both "conservative" and "liberal" columnists. As a result of conservative befuddlement, Jacobins now control the formerly conservative media, foundations and think tanks, and they occupy most of the putatively "conservative" posts in universities.
Ryn acknowledges that he is alerting us to the Jacobin threat late in the game. Jacobins use their power and influence to suppress dissent. Jacobin ends justify Jacobin means. Thus, lies, deception and manipulation cause Jacobins no shame. As Ryn observes, ambition unchecked by intellectual humility and moral self-control is the source of tyranny.
(Creators Syndicate)
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To find out more about Paul Craig Roberts, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at [url]www.creators.com[/url]
=========================================================== It appears Paul Craig Roberts and Professor Ryn have employed a euphemism, "Jacobin" as a subsitute for "Zionism," so as not to offend god's darlings, which, of course, would bring gloom, despair and misery down on their heads.
Replace Jacobin with Zionism throughtout the article and it fits prefectly.
-Z-
2003-10-25 18:22 | User Profile
Isn't Paul Craig Roberts writing for townhall.com. So he is on the payroll of the very people he criticizes. Can such a guy still watch into the mirror.
2003-10-25 18:37 | User Profile
My always informative German comrade Jamestown correctly points out that "Paul Craig Roberts writing for townhall.com. So he is on the payroll of the very people he criticizes." His writing I think reflects his lack consistancy and likely his lack moral of fortitude as well. In the article he talks about Jocobins which zero meaning for Americans and no one that I know of uses that term to describe themselves so the article (like the book PCR refers to) is intened to obscure the vital issue of why the US has become a blatantly imperialistic power. The answer is simply that the neo-cons are simply the most importaint expression of jewish racial ambitions, that as the GOP is run by jewry and the GOP currently runs the US. Hence, one should not be suprised to see that American policy is to turn the Middle East into a series of Isreali clinent states. That PCR never mentions this very obvious fact but instead talks about a long dead French movement that has had no influence since the early 1800's and even then only in France makes me very leary of the man and the author he praises.
2003-10-25 19:06 | User Profile
I really enjoy PCR, but 'Jacobins'?
C'mon.
2003-10-25 19:39 | User Profile
PCR may do more good than harm, but I have to agree with the thrust of Jamestown and triskelion's criticisms.
The Zionist agenda has long been to have America destroy Israel's enemies in the Middle East. The best way to do this is to isolate America from her natural allies in Europe and, needless to say, the entire Muslim world.
The suckpoop goy journalists in the Zionist-controlled media have been relentlessly demonizing our European friends, not to mention the Arabs, and PRC's euphanisms only contribute to the Zionist cause.
Zionism is America's form of national suicide, is her idolatry, is her insanity. Jewish supremacy is its cult.
-Z-
2003-10-27 03:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=triskelion]My always informative German comrade Jamestown correctly points out that "Paul Craig Roberts writing for townhall.com. So he is on the payroll of the very people he criticizes."
You seem to be making a rather major error here. Firstly this is not a Townhall.com article, but a antiwar.com article. It is not reviewed or approved by Townhall.com. As to being on townhall.com's "payroll" that is I don't think that by itself is particlarly significant. I don't think Townhall.com's payroll is particularly impressive or its ideological discipline very tight. Townhall.com employs a number of writers far utside the fringe of what we'd consider mainstream National Review/quasi-neocondom. I'm trying to remember what hardcore paleo's I saw there. It seems to me Pat Buchanan (who you think little of I know, but still certainly no neocon was there for a while) - I don't know, maybe even Joseph Sobran might have been there. Several other Vdare people are there.
Even National Review has been known to carry odd articles from people on the fringes. I remember one very odd article a while back on how good things might have been for the U.S. if Nazi Germany hadn't declared war on us and we hadn't had to fight it in WWII.
For National Review's paid staff, yes. But for fringe people like solo contributers or Townhall.com editors, this doesn't autmatically disqualify people I would say from writing good points. I'd say you are being too restrictive, excluding any writer who retains some remote degree of standing or respect in mainstream conservatism from consideration. This is not really necessary, and excudes too many good writers with real contributions.
His writing I think reflects his lack consistancy and likely his lack moral of fortitude as well. In the article he talks about Jocobins which zero meaning for Americans and no one that I know of uses that term to describe themselves so the article (like the book PCR refers to) is intened to obscure the vital issue of why the US has become a blatantly imperialistic power.
So he tries to introduce some new words. He explains Jacobin fairly well, firstly as relating to the error of neo-conservatism. The explanation of Jacobin is really not so obscure, he is attempting simply to more specifically elaborate on the fairly common paleoconservative critique of neo-conservatism as "leftism" (a trademark of Gottfried).
This is a hallmark of paleoconservatism in general. You may criticize his specific wording, but I think you, as well as others who make the same criticism of paleo's. are going way too far to dismiss all of paleoconservatism for a lack of moral fortitude for ocasionally wishing to use words not knowledgable to the comic book set like "Jacobin" and not explicitely "naming the jew" every time the topic of neo-conservatism comes up.
2003-10-27 04:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]I really enjoy PCR, but 'Jacobins'?[/QUOTE]
This might be a contestant for "obscure reference of the year award". (If there were such an award.)
Norman Podhoretz once wrote about a delightfully goofy column written in the 1960s by Jimmy Breslin. Lyndon Johnson was still president and had several skirmishes over what was then the "Vietnam Issue". This is when we were still "advisors" there and not yet precisely a war. (If this brings recent history to mind, you are correct: We were bombing Iraq for quite awhile before it was officially a war also. Some things do not change.)
Anyway Jimmy Breslin's column was about how Americans were now ready to back the administrations' Vietnam escalation effort. According to an official Jimmy quoted anonymously, "Everyone is fine with this except for a few jackal bins on the Lower East Side."
It all hit at once: "Jackal bins"???
Of course Podhoretz rubbed it in for years afterward. Breslin had of course just wrote down what he heard, and "Jacobin" sounded like "jackal bins" to him. He'd either never heard the word before or had written his column drunk, and I've always hoped it was both.
The peaceniks refered to as "Jacobins" were almost certainly Jewish, or mostly so, and PCR is indeed following a modest, 40-year-old tradition in refering to them as such.
And I'm positive that Paul Craig remembers Jimmy Breslin. :)
2003-10-27 04:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Even National Review has been known to carry odd articles from people on the fringes. I remember one very odd article a while back on how good things might have been for the U.S. if Nazi Germany hadn't declared war on us and we hadn't had to fight it in WWII.[/QUOTE]I have the issue of National Review (March 1, 1993) you're referring to.
As for PCR, I'd cut him some slack. The 'Jacobin' mentality he refers to is not confined to Jews. Hillary Rodham is an excellent example. And as a poster to the site pointed out, if any American politician would send the Jews to the guillotine, she's the most likely prospect.