« Amateur Hour | Main | The Dean Legacy » Am I a Neocon?01 Mar 2008 09:26 am Jacob Heilbrun and Eli Lake moot the issue: I'll certainly cop to a sarcastic style of argumentation, but I sort of thought that was just because we're all Jews -- not just the neocons and me and Ackerman, but writers I look up to like Josh Marshall and Eric Alterman, etc., etc. Comments (36)
Speaking as a sarcastic Gentile, I wish to register my annoyance at the implication here that Jews are somehow more inclined to, or naturally better at, sarcasm. 
Dude, you're letting the side down. That was the least sarcastic sarcasm I've ever heard. Dare I say, goyishe sarcasm. If we want any respect, we've got to do better than that!
I thought sarcasm was a gay thing. Maybe you guys are all gay Jewish neocons.
I am sure many others have mentioned this to you matt, but you need to fix the autoplay on the previous post. Its really quite annoying.
For Eli Lake to accuse people of being unduly sarcastic and dismissive is truly incredible. Truly.
I thought sarcasm was a gay thing. Maybe you guys are all gay Jewish neocons. No, no, no. Look at Lake, Brooks, and Kristol and see the similarity. The sarcasm is the fruit of bitter experience: hair loss. The question is, "Is MY bald enough to be a neocon?" I'd have to say "No."
Well... Matt is a liberal interventionists. Liberal Interventionist is just a nice way to say Neo-con.
The question is, "Is MY bald enough to be a neocon?" I'd have to say "No." So it's a matter of time, right?
So it's a matter of time, right? For full status, he has to fulfill a lot of other requirements: original work in Quantum Humanity Theory (i.e., how are Palestinians both human and not human at the same time), demonstrate his mastery of the Straussian mysteries (e.g., why the best method of securing basic rights like fair hearings is to destroy the foundation of such rights), and complete the ritualistic killing of one's own pet to demonstrate one's commitment to the cause (when was the last picture of Wreck?). I think the pet-killing might be pure ritual, though, on the order of walking as you graduate, so I'm not 100% sure it's required. Most neocons do it, though, obviously, as rituals matter and it gives family and friends an opportunity celebrate the achievement.
So it's a matter of time, right? The change should come just in time to drum up support for a new cold war with China, but not in time to get on board with a attack against Iran.
Is sarcasm creeping ever more prominently into the masculine American idiom? Is bitchy the new rapier wit? I'm trying to think of scripts that had John Wayne using sarcasm instead of direct confrontation. I'm pretty sure we could find many examples of Bruce Willis using sarcasm in his tough guy roles.
>Liberal Interventionist is just a nice way to say Neo-con. So true. All American Jews are neoconish.
I'm trying to think of scripts that had John Wayne using sarcasm instead of direct confrontation. I'm pretty sure we could find many examples of Bruce Willis using sarcasm in his tough guy roles. Bruce Willis has been bald forever. Wayne wasn't so afflicted, really. I'd look to his last films for sarcasm. I seem to recall a combover.
I'm supposed to give a sarcastic answer? Oh well. I think the foundation of nearly all Matt's opinions is recent DC establishment wisdom, from which he deviates when forced by events. But I think he perceives current events more accurately than most DC elite, due to admirable resistance to wishful fantasies. So while the Neocons dominated DC, Matt at first assumed they were right, but then gradually realized they were wrong. I recommend more study of classical and renaissance authors, and more skepticism towards 20th-21st century American authors.
Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay Stop the autoplay!
Yes Matt, all Jews are just SOOOOO good at sarcasm.
"Liberal Interventionist is just a nice way to say Neo-con." Before "neocon" became shorthand for "Jew who supported the invasion of Iraq" the term denoted former lefties who shared a set of domestic policy ideas informed by the failures of traditional welfare state liberalism. Examples included Jews such as Irving Kristol and non-Jews such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan. On domestic policy, MY is closer to a traditional liberal like Obama than he is a neocon. On foreign policy, I don't know. Has he advocated an interventions since recanting his support for the Iraq war? Perhaps all Jews who aspire to punditry should spend a couple of years practicing around the seder table before they use their formidable verbal skills to persuade other Americans of positions they may not even hold deeply.
Whatever happened to "Jewish Cabal"?
Hold on-- this isn't this the "Genital Mutilation" blog?
Is bitchy the new rapier wit? Was rapier wit ever not bitchy? As an Irish-American, I really don't think Jews can hold a candle to us in terms of sarcasm. Spend a holiday with my family sometime.
I'm trying to think of scripts that had John Wayne using sarcasm instead of direct confrontation. Instead: how about Humphrey Bogart in the Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep? It doesn't get tougher or more sarcastic than that?
So when they said, "Hey, let's invade Iraq with too few troops and no plan and we'll be greeted with posies" they were being sarcastic?
The Jews invented sarcasm? Well, that clears up a lot of things in Leviticus. However, H.L. Mencken dissents.
Mr. Yglesias, a world class Israel basher, could hardly classify as a neo-con. Neo-cons don't bash Israel.
Perhaps all Jews who aspire to punditry should spend a couple of years practicing around the seder table before they use their formidable verbal skills to persuade other Americans of positions they may not even hold deeply. Seder? Won't happen. I could see a problem though as Fred alludes to where the problem goes from Neocons and pet MSM pundits to Jewish Neocons and their Gentile pets, to a Generic "Jewish Influencers" of no ideology. But where the public begins to believe that the Ruling Elites are completely unresponsive to voters on issues like illegal immigration, globalism, supplanting the Constitution and American sovereignity with "International Government and Law" as the cotierie of "Jewish Influencers" are seen to have more power than voters. The power to manipulate. The power of Jewish money to bribe or be a King Maker. The power to persuade. And see their meddling as a small minority getting America to do as they want, and the only argument is between factions of Jewish Influencers in getting their chosen ideology for America sanctioned by other Jewish Influencers.
The sarcasm is the fruit of bitter experience.. Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 1, 2008 10:11 AM Excellent point! I am wondering whether one could round up enough fruit of bitter experience to make a very interesting political party--gays, Jews, elderly blacks--along with Chris Rock of course, neo-cons, Roseann Barr, unmarried older women who always wanted to be married... I am not sure about the baldies, though, you are venturing into a very broad reaching genetic segment of the male population...are you sure you're just not thinking about Larry David? Confusing a segment of Jewish culture with male pattern baldness? :-)
No, Matt is just, as I said yesterday, an arrogant college kid from Harvard. And Josh Marshall doesn't do "sarcasm", he does intellectually cowardly drive-by snark. Then he hides behind his refusal to engage his readers - which is where Matt learned to do the same. Which is why the audio isn't turned off. SLC: "Neo-cons don't bash Israel." And vice versa. Neocons also don't hesitate to be traitors to the US and give - not even sell, but give - national security secrets to Israel, while at the same time our "allies" in Israel continually spy on the US and arrange for "terrorist incidents" on US soil in order to influence US foreign policy to their benefit. When a rational history of this period is written in the future, it will identify Israel as one of the worst enemies the US ever had - next to the military-industrial complex and the oil companies.
"But where the public begins to believe that the Ruling Elites are completely unresponsive to voters on issues like illegal immigration, globalism, supplanting the Constitution and American sovereignity with "International Government and Law" as the cotierie of "Jewish Influencers" are seen to have more power than voters." Although most Jewish pundits (with notable exceptions such as Mickey Kaus, Charles Krauthammer, Robert Samuelson, Becker-Posner, etc.) are in favor of continued unskilled immigration from Mexico (due to their nostalgia for Ellis Island), in this case, they are essentially the froth on the wave; they aren't driving the policy. Two main factors are driving it: GOP small business owners who like cheap labor and the Democratic Party, which likes importing poor people, who will stay poor and, when they gain citizenship, will vote Democratic.
The Irish *suck* at sarcasm. So did Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.
Sorry, TomT, I didn't see your comment from, uh, 12 hours ago.
"Quite a motor" is a clever, gentle, sly way to dismiss Spencer Ackerman. He's an, ummm, high-energy guy, but also a much better writer and thinker than someone like Eli Lake. Lake is a prime beneficiary of the Jewish variant of wingnut welfare...specifically the NY Sun.
What an asinine point they made about you. I think they were serious, too. What characterizes the neocons is not their disastrously ill-advised policies, it's ... sarcasm. Sure.
"Mr. Yglesias, a world class Israel basher, could hardly classify as a neo-con. Neo-cons don't bash Israel. Posted by SLC | March 1, 2008 3:05 PM " Only in the golden propaganda age of American Zionism could a Zionist be called an Israel basher, and with a straight face. As I recall, Yglesias thinks the idea of integrating the Palestinians as citizens of the land Israel countrols (without a constitution or undefined borders, granted) is "daft". In other words, the unsustainable and artificial "Jewish majority" "democracy" must be sustained indefinitely, probably through continued donations of billions and billions in "loan guaruntees" and military aid. "When a rational history of this period is written in the future, it will identify Israel as one of the worst enemies the US ever had - next to the military-industrial complex and the oil companies." More specifically, the Zionist lobby, the Jabotinsky element of Zionism. There are plenty of innocent Israelis (innocent from an American perspective; from a Palestinian one, not so much), but there are veritable industries of promoting war in the Middle East and propagandizing about Middle Eastern colonialism and war in the United States. Like Philip Weiss has said, paraphrasing someone whose identity escapes me, "Neo-conservatism is a career." Well, if it is, it is merely a branch of the wider career path known as Zionism and Zionist advocacy. (And in the latter industry, there is plenty of affirmative action for stupid.)
To the extent that it was used in any useful fashion, I always felt like the term "neo-conservative" indicated a line or style of argument and thought based on a history of arguments within the right wing, not so much a resume identifier. Neo-conservative seemed more an ideological, not a biographical term. Someone can entirely present a line of argument which can with some abbreviation be referred to as "Reaganite" without having others then engage in trivial debates on 'well you see actually so & so once didn't think Reagan should get the nomination' etc. etc. Similarly, conservatives (and "libertarian" market fundamentalists) do not hesitate in labeling anyone they choose as "socialistic" or "communistic" whatever the backgrounds of the persons they are referencing. (Not to mention the spasms of Jonanism Goldberg.) So "Am I A Neo-Con" (like any other abbreviated, easily-tossed around political terms) would apply to "What Am I Arguing" rather than "Here Is My Intellectual and Political Resume". My own feeling is the term has grown to the way, way over-used point, and tended to actually have some degree of usefulness back when certain arrogant pricks were touting and pushing and then implementing their insane pseudo-revolutionary agenda for the Bush Jr. unitarded executrix, particularly in the first few post-9/11 years.
"Like Philip Weiss has said, paraphrasing someone whose identity escapes me, "Neo-conservatism is a career."" As if being a House Jew for Paleo right and the far Left isn't a career for Philip Weiss.
Comments closed March 15, 2008. |
Search
Subscribe to this blog by Email Books by Matthew Yglesias
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Weekly Archives
Categories
|
Copyright © 2007 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
| 
Heads in the Sand
Sure, sarcasm is jewish! Who could disagree?
BTW can you undo the autoplay of that John Dickerson tape?
Posted by otto | March 1, 2008 9:37 AM