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Sounds about right, lol

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Sounds about right, lol Cycloptichorn

Well, if I weren't so distracted by my own laughter, I would resent that! Gee, I like much better being an extreme adamsist (i.e., a person who favors the same rules for everyone).

Hmmmm! Well I'll be damned! I'm definitely biased by my aviation experience. Different rules for different aviators would give the metaphor big bang theory a whole new meaning. :wink:

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following on the two earlier posts...

Let's consider again that this Horowitz project is unique to the present American political scene...nothing like it seems to be happening in other western countries even though the US is (see commentary here from every individual on a2k who lives elsewhere) politically further to the right than any other western nation. That ought to strike us as odd.

Less so if we consider what Karl Rove's words (noted in first post) say..."The press is not so much liberal as it is oppositional."

That's a very astute observation by Rove. And it is also a surprisingly candid admission. The problem isn't really 'liberalism' after all. The big problem is opposition. Hold that thought. It is key.

I said earlier that one might posit two particular background forces as seminal to Horowitz's project, and support for it where that support exists...the tendency to 'groupthink' in America that De Toqueville noted and which I spoke about earlier, along with events of the sixties.

The sixties, most would agree, was a time of perhaps unusual social dislocation and certainly the rise of particular 'liberal' values and movements in western and American culture. The civil rights movement, the womens' movement, the gay rights movement, the birth control pill, sex education and the expansion of allowable sexual behaviors, etc. The post war baby boomers who grew up in the fifties and sixties were, as we all know, unusually priviledged in educational availability.

We were witnessing, back then, a 'crisis in democracy'. That was a common description of the situation. There were riots, there was marijuana and LSD, there were college sit-ins, there were bra-burnings, and protests against the war in Viet Nam.

Of course, for those of us who were young adults at the time, we'll remember that there was exactly one black person on TV who was even remotely equal to his white counterparts (Bill Cosby in I Spy), that women were simply not accepted into many professions and when they were, were paid far less than equally competent males, etc. And before that time, people didn't go out onto the street much to protest government policies - they tended to trust in the authority and honesty of governments.

Now, by dictionary definitions of 'democracy', all of these things would represent an increase in democracy. But, for some, these movements towards inclusion of all citizens and towards an increase in citizen involvement in governance were considered a 'crisis of democracy'. That too ought to strike us as odd.

But not if we understand what Rove is talking about above...the real problem is opposition.

And that gets us to Horowitz...

more in a bit

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I think, blatham, that rove is using a technique designed to fool the unwary when he says the press is oppositional. The press is supposed to be oppositional. The press should tell the public when politics has run amok. The press is the educator of the electorate. You seemed to support his statement. His statement is a trap.

You said there was a crisis of democracy in the 1960s. No, there was not. It was one of the few times when there was democracy. There is a crisis of democracy today. Democracy is an endangered species.

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blatham wrote:

following on the two earlier posts...

Let's consider again that this Horowitz project is unique to the present American political scene...nothing like it seems to be happening in other western countries even though the US is (see commentary here from every individual on a2k who lives elsewhere) politically further to the right than any other western nation. That ought to strike us as odd.

Less so if we consider what Karl Rove's words (noted in first post) say..."The press is not so much liberal as it is oppositional."

That's a very astute observation by Rove. And it is also a surprisingly candid admission. The problem isn't really 'liberalism' after all. The big problem is opposition. Hold that thought. It is key.
The big problem is not that there is opposition. It is that the contemporary news media has become the opposition and is reporting their opinion about the news as if it were news. Also they report much bad news about the Republican administration and little good news. Previously it was the other way round for the Democrat administration.

I said earlier that one might posit two particular background forces as seminal to Horowitz's project, and support for it where that support exists...the tendency to 'groupthink' in America that De Toqueville noted and which I spoke about earlier, along with events of the sixties.

The groupthink we have now is in the leftthink news media and in our leftthink public and private education system. The right is seeking to enlarge the groupthink to include some rightthink with the leftthink.

...

Now, by dictionary definitions of 'democracy', all of these things would represent an increase in democracy. But, for some, these movements towards inclusion of all citizens and towards an increase in citizen involvement in governance were considered a 'crisis of democracy'. That too ought to strike us as odd.

From my point of view democracy was expanded in that 50s and 60s period by making the rules the same for all people instead of different rules for different people. More recently we have started reversing that trend to where a large segment of our population is advocating a reversal where the rules should be different for different people.

But not if we understand what Rove is talking about above...the real problem is opposition.

You miss Rove's and Horowitz's point. They both recognize that the problem is that the magnitude of the opposition in schools and news media far exceeds the magnitude of that opposition in the general population. What the the opposition actually professes to believe is not Rove's or Horowitz's issue. That there is an opposition is also not Rove's or Horowitz's issue. So don't try to pretend either or both are the issue!

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blatham said

Quote:

Less so if we consider what Karl Rove's words (noted in first post) say..."The press is not so much liberal as it is oppositional."

That's a very astute observation by Rove. And it is also a surprisingly candid admission. The problem isn't really 'liberalism' after all. The big problem is opposition. Hold that thought. It is key.

Ican said

Quote:

The big problem is not that there is opposition.

I'm not sure how you might presume to argue that Rove means something else than what he has just said.

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blatham wrote:

... I'm not sure how you might presume to argue that Rove means something else than what he has just said.

Rove said the problem was not that the press was liberal.
Rove said the problem was that the press was oppositional.

Rove did not say the problem was that the press disagrees with the administration's political philosophy. Rove is saying that the press disagrees with all the administration says and does. In other words, Rove thinks the press opposes the administration just for the sake of opposing it and not because the press favors an alternate view of how it would rather that things be done.

I've noticed here in able2know forums that the castroites among us, just like the press, refrain from specifying an alternate way they think things should be done. They just complain about the way things are done. It's as if they don't really care about what's done; they only care about who is doing it.

If the castroites were to be clear about what alternative they favor then at least the castroites and adamsites could have an honest debate about which alternative offers the better consequences. Better still, out of that honest debate we would probably discover a third alternative better than either of the other two.

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Quote:

Rove did not say the problem was that the press disagrees with the administration's political philosophy. Rove is saying that the press disagrees with all the administration says and does.

Again, you are rephrasing what Rove actually said into something he did not say. And of course, what is in italics is demonstrably false. If you'd like to discuss media content and bias, I recommend another thread.

*************************************************

Let's take a look now at Horowitz and his operation, starting with a quote from the fellow himself:

"...you cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do it by following Lenin's injunction: 'In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth." (from The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits")

This gives us a couple of quick clues to the fellow's ideology and methodology;
- the proper intention in debate, discussion, argument or political engagement is not to be rational or consistent or even truthful but simply to remove, however it might be managed, any and all opposition to your ideology and your party
- the proper means in the USA, to work against ideas you don't agree with, is to take as one's political ideal and model NOT someone like Lincoln or Jefferson but rather VI Lenin.

Here's another quote, from the same book:

"Politics is a war of position. In war there are two sides: friends and enemies. Your task is to define yourself as the friend of as large a constituency as possible compatible with your principles, while defining your opponent as the enemy whenever you can."

We ought to note that during the 2000 election, these two quotes and others from the same Horowitz book (with a cover endorsement from Karl Rove) were distributed to every Republican member of Congress by Tom DeLay. The Heritage Foundation then printed up 2300 copies and sent them gratis to conservative activists around the country.

So, if anyone is wondering why politics in the US has become so divisive, so black and white in terms of discourse, and so beset by false statements yelled loudly...the answer, or at least a very large part of the answer, sits right here.

Given all of the above, we might be prudent to acknowledge that Horowotiz's claims of leftist bias in academia (or his claims on any matter at all) are accurately understood not as an unbiased analysis of an important institution, but instead as a public relations ploy in the midst of a winner-take-all war for control of political thought by a radical rightwing Republican organization.

more a bit later

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blatham wrote:

... Let's take a look now at Horowitz and his operation, starting with a quote from the fellow himself:

"...you cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do it by following Lenin's injunction: 'In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth." (from The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits")

...

Here's another quote, from the same book:

"Politics is a war of position. In war there are two sides: friends and enemies. Your task is to define yourself as the friend of as large a constituency as possible compatible with your principles, while defining your opponent as the enemy whenever you can."

Your treatise on this is equivalent to blaming Niccolo Machiavelli for advocating the distructive political tactics he wrote about, when he was not advocating but was actually describing the then lousey tactics of contemporary politics.

In these excerpts you lost their real context (as in deed you did with your quote of what I posted). Horowitz was describing and not advocating the lousey tactics of contemporary radicals.

Rove distributed the book so as to foreworn Republicans what Rove perceived to be the real nature of the tactics of the contemporary Democratic party. Rove realized that the leadership of the Democrats was no longer what it use to be. Rove was not advocating that Republican leadership become like Democrat leadership. Rather he was advocating that they prepare to deal with what the Democrat leadership had come to be and do. "Forewarned is forearmed."

Restudy the title of the book. The title ought to inform you all by itself what the purpose of the book was (boldface added): "The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits."

Here's but one tiny example of contemporary Democratic radicalism. Dan Rather slandered George Bush when he accused him of failing to take his annual flight physical exam based on forged documentation. Actually, Rather ignored the significance of it being a flight physical exam, and so did the rest of the radicalized news media. The facts were that there was no longer a requirement for George Bush to take his annual flight physical exam if he were not going to continue to pilot an airplane. Whether Bush took the exam or not was strictly academic given that Bush had declared his intention to soon leave the national guard to pursue an MBA academic program (pun intended).

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Quote:

In these excerpts you lost their real context (as in deed you did with your quote of what I posted). Horowitz was describing and not advocating the lousey tactics of contemporary radicals.

Ican
Again, you make the claim that what has been said means other than, or even opposite to, what has been said. Unless you provide textual evidence from the sources noted that backup these rather odd claims, I'm not going to bother addressing you further.

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Quote:

Rove distributed the book so as to foreworn Republicans what Rove perceived to be the real nature of the tactics of the contemporary Democratic party. Rove realized that the leadership of the Democrats was no longer what it use to be. Rove was not advocating that Republican leadership become like Democrat leadership. Rather he was advocating that they prepare to deal with what the Democrat leadership had come to be and do. "Forewarned is forearmed."

Hilarious! This is the most ridiculous statement I've read in some time. It's a contortion of contortions........amazing.

And it has no basis in fact.

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I have only read excerpts from Horowitz's book, but I think I have a very high probability of being right that the excerpts posted by Blatham are examples/illustrations of Leftish tactics to achieve political and ideological tyranny and not what he is recommending for the Right.

I have ordered the damn book, however, as I am now intrigued.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I have only read excerpts from Horowitz's book, but I think I have a very high probability of being right that the excerpts posted by Blatham are examples/illustrations of Leftish tactics to achieve politics and ideological tyranny and not what he is recommending for the Right.

I have ordered the damn book, however, as I am now intrigued.

Good! I cannot wait to hear! Unbelievable.

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www.amazon.com

The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits
by David Horowitz
...

Look inside this book

Copyright 2000 by Spence Publising Company

Quote:

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The first half of this manifesto is a blunt, savvy, Machiavellian manual on the art of political campaigning that Republicans and Democrats alike may ignore at their own risk. Horowitz (Radical Son, etc.), former 1960s leftist turned prominent conservative, urges Republicans to go on the offensive, to take back issues that Clinton Democrats have co-opted, to reach out to working people and minorities, and to master images, symbols and sound bites as the Democrats have done. The book's incendiary second half, gathering articles of which many originally appeared in the Internet magazine Salon, reveals Horowitz as an independent, rigorous, outspoken political analyst who nevertheless can sound as dogmatic as a conservative as as he did when he was as a leftist. Horowitz calls Noam Chomsky an "America-loathing crank," advocates an end to "racial preferences" (affirmative action), argues that left-wing activists make up the core of the Democratic party, and castigates teachers' unions as the chief opponents to school reform. Ridiculing the NAACP's class-action lawsuits against gun manufacturers and educational testing firms, he contends that leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have betrayed the civil rights movement by promoting a blacks-as-victims mentality and by blaming whites for problems endemic to the black communityAan attitude that he says has been exacerbated by a patronizing liberal establishment. Taking aim at motley supporters of censorshipAIrving Kristol, Andrea Dworkin, Tipper Gore, Catharine MacKinnonAlibertarian Horowitz opposes it in virtually all forms, including the v-chip parents can use to block offending television shows. In one scathing essay he accuses Edward Said, Betty Friedan and Nobel laureate and Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchu of falsifying details of their lives to serve their political agendas. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Written by a self-described former Sixties radical whose previous books (Radical Son, Hating Whitey, and The Politics of Bad Faith) explain his transformation to a libertarian conservative, this anthology of essays is an odd mixture of polemic against the Democratic Party, earnest but simple-minded advice to his new-found Republican Party, and heated airing of his strong, often controversial opinions on flashpoint social and political issues. Horowitz advises his fellow Republicans, whom he describes as "managers who want to fix government," to confront their Democratic adversaries, pejoratively called "missionaries who want to fix the world." He sharply criticizes what he believes is the media's bias against Republicans, federal and state education bureaucrats who siphon off federal funds intended for local use, and supposed Democratic Party softness on crime and national defense. Horowitz gets a lot off his politically incorrect chest, but his intended audienceDmainly Republicans and independentsDmight be put off by his libertarian position on censorship or his pugnacious prose. For medium and large public libraries.DJack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Horowitz is a former '60s radical who has become a conservative activist and writer. This book is a collection of short essays, most of which appeared on Salon.com. The title essay is Horowitz's version of Sun-Tzu's ART OF WAR, but this time written for conservative Republicans. If you're not interested in partisan conflict, this isn't the book for you. Jeff Riggenbach's bass voice is clear and strong, and he reads Horowitz's sometimes complex, highly charged rhetoric with ease, the right pace, and the right interpretation. The section on race politics is especially provocative. M.L.C. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 2000
"... a blunt, savvy Machiavellian manual on the art of political campaigning that Republicans and Democrats alike may ignore at their own risk."

Book Description
Politics is war, but in America one side is doing all the shooting-liberals. Shell-shocked conservatives blame their failures on the media or unscrupulous opponents, but they refuse to name the real culprit: themselves. In a new book that will shatter the complacency of establishment conservatives, David Horowitz shows how Bill Clinton's generation, having mastered the art of political war, has spent the last ten years clobbering conservatives in and out of government. The best-selling author of Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes has the strategy to fight back.

The Democratic Party's recent electoral dominance is due not to its theft of Republican issues, but to its superior grasp of the nature of political war. Horowitz opens his book with the six principles of politics that liberals understand and conservatives do not. He next warns against the essentially liberal inclination to supervise the lives of a "helpless" citizenry. This "Puritan impulse" promises shipwreck for conservatives who fail to keep liberty as their watchword.

The success of the left is nowhere more evident than in the politics of race. Revisiting a recent controversy in which Time branded him a "real live bigot," Horowitz probes an ugly strain of left-wing racism and reflects on the prospects for true racial justice. He concludes with a profile of the radical mentality-hidden but real-of the American left. In 1972, the bomb-throwers took their battle from the streets into the McGovern campaign and became the activist core of the Democratic Party. A genuine ideological left thus entered the heart of America's political culture.

Once a notorious radical himself, David Horowitz understands the mind of the left better than any other conservative. The Art of Political War is an indispensable guide for the battles of the campaign season and beyond.

From the Publisher
DAVID HOROWITZ, the author of Hating Whitey, Radical Son, and The Politics of Bad Faith, is one of America's most original and iconoclastic political commentators. He is president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, editor of the journal Heterodoxy, and a columnist for the on-line magazine Salon. Mr. Horowitz lives in Los Angeles.

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1. The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits
by David Horowitz (Hardcover - July 14, 2000)
Avg. Customer Rating: *****
Other Editions: Hardcover | Audio Cassette

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The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits
by David Horowitz

1 used & new from $29.75

Instructions
Goto: www.amazon.com

Then proceed to search for the title.
Then Look inside.
Then select what can be seen inside.

View: Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover

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On May 13th, ican wrote that the news media is writing opinion as though it were fact. We went through this on another thread.

Your anger smokes from the screen.

Your naivete is titanic.

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And Atkins you have chosen to analyze and criticize another member rather than contribute your own thoughts and/or information to the forum.

But LOL Ican, the reviews are all over the map aren't they? One calls Horowitz 'simple minded' and another 'complex'. As book reviews are rarely really helpful when it comes to intent, slant, and purpose of many books, I shall look forward to reading it myself.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I have only read excerpts from Horowitz's book, but I think I have a very high probability of being right that the excerpts posted by Blatham are examples/illustrations of Leftish tactics to achieve political and ideological tyranny and not what he is recommending for the Right.

I have ordered the damn book, however, as I am now intrigued.

Well then perhaps you ought to reflect on how you come to achieve 'a high certainty of being right' when the words in front of your eyeballs point 180 degrees opposite.

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Words taken out of context, Blatham. Words taken out of context. When a person's words, written, spoken, or posted on A2K are presented to give a certain impression and all qualifying or explanatory information that would have changed such impression is omitted, the ones taking the words out of context can be quite dishonest. Its sort of like my quote that you use for a signature line.

The words you posted no doubt are what Horowitz said. But the meaning you attach to them can be an untruth if they are anyway qualified or preceded or followed by explanatory passages that would change the impression. But, the difference may not be recognized as such if the one using the quote is unaware of qualifying passages.

If deception is intended, it is a flat out lie.

I am giving you the benefit of the doubt as I don't know whether qualifying passages accompanied the excerpts you posted, and therefore I don't know whether you posted a) the truth; b) an untruth; or c) a flat out lie.

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Ican

Please try to focus. I asked you for textual passages that support your odd notion that Horowitz's quotes... eg

Quote:

"...you cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do it by following Lenin's injunction: 'In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth." (from The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits")

are not what they clearly are (and there are many other such quotes)...recommended strategies for engaging politics in America.

And what do you post? Some book reviews and, slipping in kind of sneaky at the end of those, a description of the book from Horowitz's own site (isn't it?).

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