Who said this?
“There is no way to restore the culture without winning the war on terror. Conversely, the only way to win the war on terror is to win the culture war. Thus we arrive at a sobering truth. In order to crush the Islamic radicals abroad, we must defeat the enemy at home.”
Ann Coulter? Rush Limbaugh? Bill O’Reilly? Sean Hannity? Nah.
The “sobering truth” in question is that arrived at by our illustrious co-ethnic Dinesh D’Souza, in his new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, which is to appear in January. Blogger and Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott received a galley copy, and offers an advance review, of which here are some choice bits:
It’s one thing when Michael Savage or Ann Coulter denounce liberals as heathen traitors. One spouts halitosis on the radio, the other is an exhibitionist hag; both cater to their fan base. But D’Souza isn’t some low-grade, high-volume performance artist. He’s a research scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, which he thanks in the acknowledgments “for providing me with the institutional support to do my work.” D’Souza writes, speaks, and thinks like something hatched in a think tank–a careerist toady.
The theme of the book is quite simple, and vile.
“In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11.”
Then the qualifiers begin multiplying. The term ‘cultural left’ doesn’t refer to the Democratic Party, nor to all liberals. (Peter Beinart presumably gets a pass.) Nor is he saying that cultural lefties actually brought the towers down. He isn’t so rash as to suggest Molly Ivins piloted one of the planes, parachuting to safety before impact. So what is he saying?
“I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector [profiteers are always patriots, of course], and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.”
Note well: the primary cause. Not the treatment of the Palestinians, the caging and starving of those on the Gaza Strip, the hundreds of thousands of clusterbomb droplets left behind in Lebanon, the U.S. military bases on Arab soil, Abu Ghraib, the Mideast tyrannies propped up by American money and influence–these are secondary. Muslims are angry, D’Souza concedes, but they are mostly angry because their anger has been fueled and fanned by the cultural left.
“Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.”
I like that “Thus,” as if he’s actually proven something.
“I realize that this is a strong charge,” D’Souza writes, “one that no one has made before.”
The reason it hasn’t been made before is that it’s a sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie, one that was waiting for the right brazen liar to come along to promote it, and here he is, and his name is Dinesh D’Souza…
The most excellent evisceration continues at some length, with examples, details, and specific debunkings; check it out. And in the spirit of fairness and balance, you can pre-order your copy of The Enemy Within for $17.79 here.
I know we can’t be surprised of the stuff the D’Souza says. He’s racially and unapologetically condescending towards blacks, latinos, desis and any other person of color who doesn’t believe what he believes in and who’s slightly darker than say…Paris Hilton.
heya 🙂
Saurav now lives at Pass The Roti
Abhi explained what happened from his point of view, I can’t speak for S.
My guess is he’s probably very busy, he blogs on PTR almost every day…
Will tell him you said hi 🙂
ummmmmm like Heeeellllllo!??! Moooootineers? Did any of you like listen to Radio Open Source? Like, Amardeep and Razib were like on there?! Like anyone?! Heeeeelloooo?
Dinesh doesn’t deserve 103 comments!??! WTF!?! He’s the flagpole of Infantile Rightism!?!?!
And why are you people referring to Dinesh as ‘DD‘?!?! You’re corrupting the name of the good lady! Do you think this guy can dance?!?! WTF!?!
So back to my original point.
Like, Amardeep and Razib were on the radio.
Ok.
I’m putting the pom-poms down now.
That’s right (yeah), Spirit is the key, We’re pumping it up for, A victory!
And taking off my cheering skirt. We’re Number O-N-E in S-P-I-R-I-T We’re number one in Spirit!
I had no idea, congratulations to the both of you! Any chance we can get a transcript/recording?
you could listen online.
Congratulations to both Amardeep & Razib. Onwards and upwards.
Razib, how many times did you say the word “brown” while you were on-air ? 🙂
I think we should have a drinking game, where everyone on SM has to take a shot of vodka every time Razib bhai says the magic word.
Just kidding, buddy. Well done — very proud of you.
I have my own drinking game, which involves taking a shot each time I read an amusing comment on SM. So far, I’m definitely feeling woozy.
SM London meetup – you’re on Jai!
Amardeep, Razib: this is wonderful! I love that you are on Open Source Radio! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Al M:
I do like that one Franken skit where he wears that little satellite on his head and reports from Iraq. That visual cracks me up every time….
Not that Iraq is funny or a joking matter. You know what I mean. That little satellite. News reporters should wear those things for realz: Katie Couric’s ratings would probably go up if she’d do it and I know I’d take tv news more seriously that way.
Katie comes across with all the gravitas of Alvin the Chipmunk.
Hey – the person I love to hate the mostest! I’ve incredulously tried to follow his “arguments” and “logic.” The fact that he had a career in academia is a sad comment on the intellectual poverty of American Institutions.
Honestly..someone please slap the brown off him. He’d probably thank you.
Embarrassing toady.
Though I think the support Olbermann enjoys will quickly evaporate once things normalize if he doesn’t change his act.
I’m more interested in the “validity” of say a Pakistani in Lodi,CA or Karachi retaliating against the West because of real or perceived injustices against his Palestinian “brothers”. This persecution complex should be explored more deeply, D’Souza probably isn’t the best person for the job.
razib,
He ain’t brown.
Some quotes from a site link posted bye nycpepe. Read, Taz, if you were impressed by D’Souza.
Thanks Razib for drawing attention to his Oreo-ness too. FukYoCouch, Dinesh D’Souza!
Business Week characterized D’Souza “as a sort of Indian William F. Buckley, Jr.,” because of his Catholicism, Ivy League background, courtly manner, and mischievous wit.
This made me pewk. My keyboard is ruined.
Vinod —
That might just be because folks haven’t started talking about “culture” in this thread…. 😉
Dinesh is likely speaking and writing with sincerity. I have heard him speak and I don’t sense any deception. Just because he is sincere does not mean he is correct, and by the same logic, if one hears a speaker whose words one does not like or think are true does not mean ipso facto that person is being deceptive.
Many of the posts here have been little more than: “I disagree with Dinesh, therefore his is lying and a schill”
Also, for those not well read, Dinesh is not saying anything new. I can find his words in texts 100 years old and older. For discusstion fodder, I would like to point out that Freidrich Nietzsche would agree with many of Dinesh’s statements and analysis, disagree with others, but, in characteristic Nietschean fashion, praise Muslims for their ruthlessness and connivery.
It may also be helpful for many to understand that your most cherished values and beliefs and non-beleifs are most likely created in your mind by your environment and hierarchical position in society, and not by any kind of independent objective analysis. Liberals and socialists are especially vulnerable to thinking that their thoughts and perspectives are valid for the sole reason that they appeared in the theater of their minds. All thoughts “pop” into consciousness from unconscious regions of the brain as part of a process of seeking self advantage and comfort. For instance, the thought to change lanes in traffic in order to hasten one’s journey pops into consciousness from unconscious regions of the brain that are doing travel calculations with an aim towards advantage.
All socialist concepts are born of an impoverished environment – there really is no logic to them, they simply offer the poor more advantage. Furthermore, the genetically well endowed don’t beleive in the equality of all humans, rather that too is an idea that pops into the mind of the less endowed as a tool for rallying support amoung others for attacks and restrictions against the better endowed.
And so it is true that Christianity is a kind of morality of the weak, the impoverished and the genetically botched. However, there are far more weak, impoverished and genetically botched people than there are strong and genetically well endowed individuals, so it makes perfect sense for the weak and miscreant to favor Christianity.
However Christianity and other religions as well typically rank as off-limits all or most intoxicating substances and behaviors, in order to maintain a kind of calm order that requires few policemen. Those who have succumbed to intoxicating behaviors and substances and subsequently and mechanistically formed a positive opinion of them will not like Christianity very much, nor any other of the major religions. Thus a person who is poor, weak, or botched and who is also favorably inclined to intoxication will automatically favor socialism. Again, this does not occur as a result of some kind of objective search for the truth, but rather it is totally mechansitic. The advocate of Christianity or socialism really had no say in the formation of that favoritism, rather fate gave them that inclination in a matter not unlike how they come to have a favorite flavor of ice cream.
If one wants to believe that we have free will and choice, fine, it can’t be proved. In fact, such dreams are only possible so long as a proof is impossible. If free will were provable, it wouldn’t be free. All that we can prove through scientific investigation is those things which happen due to causality, and therefore could not happen any other way.
The religious like Dinesh believe in free will. Most people say they believe in free will. But how free is the will of someone who is trying to quit smoking? Smokers say there is nothing more difficult than quitting that habit. This is becuase there is no such thing as free will, and the nicotine is actually controlling their thoughts and compelling them to smoke.
But if there is free will, then we have to admit that it is negatively impacted, that is made less free, by intoxicating substances and behaviors. And what I mean by intoxicating is anything that can cause a compulsion to re-aquire, which in extreme measure we call an addiction. And by the way neuroscientists have established that all intoxicating substances and behaviors cause significant large and sudden increases in the brain of serotonin and/or dopamine. Marijuana is an exception, and so it may be necessary to add cannibinoid to that list. This is to say that a substance or behavior causes its compulsive re-aquistion via the deficit that occurs after the sudden large increase subsides.
From this scientific data we can assume, if one wants to believe in free will, that the will is free-est in the absence of intoxication.
People who like their intoxicating substances or behaviors will object to what I am saying here. But it is only a bi0chemical mechanistic response to the idea of or fear of not being able to reaquiure large sudden increases in serotonin or dopamine. Such objections can hardly be called thoughts, but are more like reflexes, as in when the doctor used a hammer to tap just below your knee and the lower leg jerks upwards.
So Dinesh, and most religious people are arguing for non-intoxicated living in order to maximize free will. And who can fault him for doing that, especially if you believe in free will and think it good.
On the other hand, if we see the brain and mind and human interactions as simply causal and mechanistic, then we can’t blame Dinesh either, for he could not do anything other than what he is doing.
But by that logic we can’t blame anyone for anything they do. We can scientifically determine, using evidence and reasoning if someone committed a crime, but then the idea of punishing them makes no sense as we don’t believe in free will and understand that the so-called criminal had no say in committing the crime, and niether can the future be changed by punishing that individual. For the behavior modification of prison or financial sanctions to be effective, there has to be free will.
So which is it folks, free will, or causal determinism and no-free will.
After reading what I have written, do you still beleive you have free will? If you do, will you value better and stronger free will by avoidance of intoxication? Or will you simply keep doing more or less what you always have been, and actually make my case that there is no free will, and most of thinking about ethics and morality are rationalizations for personal and group gain?
Let is forgive Dinesh, for he knows not what he doeth. He believes in free will –for whatever reason I don’t know — and it may be that it was fated for him to have such a belief way back at the Big Bang.
Cheers