DOG
BURGERS AGAIN?
As
a virtual compendium of every warmongering trick in the
book, National Review Online has it all: the good,
the bad, and the exceedingly ugly. NRO editor-in-chief
Jonah
Goldberg's latest adventure in tastelessness sets
the tone for what may loosely be termed their coverage
of the spy plane issue. Responding to Chinese President
Jiang Zemin's demand that the US perform an acceptable
act of contrition, Goldberg quips: "Well, I will be in
favor of apologizing the moment they apologize for all
of those menus they keep leaving outside my front door."
Pretty funny stuff, if you equate the death of a Chinese
pilot with litter left on your doorstep. But don't think
that this self-described "Gen-Ex
P. J. O'Rourke" is your typical knuckle-dragging xenophobe:
"In fact," he avers, "I've got considerable sympathy for
the Red Chinese – despite the fact that if my dog
were a member of the American crew [,] Jiang Zemin would
have eaten him by now." A Japanese friend of mine howled
with laughter at Goldberg's joke: but, then again, this
same friend absolutely and unabashedly hates the
Chinese, and is a ready audience for this kind of deprecating
race-based humor, no matter how crude, unfunny, or just
plain mean. Goldberg's brand of humor is all three.
A
SPARK OF HONESTY
Whatever
"sympathy" Goldberg feels for these eaters of dog-burgers,
it is not enough to make him admit that the US government
just may be in the wrong. Yet he displays a rare intellectual
honesty – rare not only in Goldberg, but in National
Review (both online-and- off) – in admitting
that the China "threat" is being vastly overblown: "China
has a bad government," he writes. "They do bad things
to their people. They cause mischief abroad. They put
MSG in everything. But they are not the Soviet Union,
despite what some of my friends at the Weekly Standard
sometimes suggest."
MSG
& AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
Goldberg
may not have a clue about who's "causing mischief abroad"
– I don't recall hearing about any Chinese spy planes
buzzing the California coast – but he's dead right
about the war-mad neo-cons over at the Weekly Standard.
Speaking of which: this [Thursday] afternoon, Drudge ran
a top-left leader headlined: "CHINESE PAPER BLASTS USA:
'Gangster logic of hegemonism won't work... You shouldn't
be so arrogant on the strength of your might...'" Now,
just who are these "hegemonists" the Chinese keep
talking about?
FOREIGN
POLICY PATHOLOGY
While
this terminology may seem abstruse to the ordinary American,
who might speculate that it is some archaic Commie jargon
necessarily mysterious to the modern mind, the truth is,
there are "hegemonists" afoot. Indeed, it often
seems, with their frequent references to the term, that
the Chinese leaders are conducting a debate with William
Kristol, the elfish editor of the Weekly Standard
and chief ideologist of the self-described "hegemonist"
school of foreign policy mavens. In
a 1996 article in Foreign Affairs, that became
the foreign policy manifesto of the Weekly Standard
and its "national greatness" school of conservatism, Kristol
and policy analyst Robert Kagan complained that conservatives
were "confused" if they thought the end of the cold war
meant they could come home and solve their own country's
serious domestic problems. This was a "lukewarm consensus"
that was "bad for the country," and conservatives "should
not accede to it," lest they find themselves locked out
of power, and "unable to govern." Instead, Kristol and
Kagan averred, what's needed is "a more elevated vision
of America's international role." Elevated, that is, to
a level of grandiosity that is frankly pathological:
"What
should that role be? Benevolent global hegemony. Having
defeated the "evil empire," the United States enjoys strategic
and ideological predominance. The first objective of U.S.
foreign policy should be to preserve and enhance that
predominance . . . The aspiration to benevolent hegemony
might strike some as either hubristic or morally suspect."
Or
quite possibly both, I hasten to add. "But a hegemon is
nothing more or less than a leader with preponderant influence
and authority over all others in its domain," Kristol
and Kagan continue. "That is America's position in the
world today. The leaders of Russia and China understand
this. At their April summit meeting, Boris Yeltsin and
Jiang Zemin joined in denouncing 'hegemonism' in the post-Cold
War world. They meant this as a complaint about the United
States. It should be taken as a compliment and a guide
to action."
THE
WOLFOWITZ DOCTRINE
And
it is being taken as a guide to action, now that
the factional battle within the Bush administration is
being resolved in favor of the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz "hegemonists"
over Colin Powell and the State Department. Paul Wolfowitz,
deputy SecDef, is the author of a classified Pentagon
memo written in 1992 that, in less self-consciously grandiose
language, perfectly expresses the Kristol-Kagan thesis
in the form of concrete policy recommendations. According
to Wolfowitz, the operative principle of US foreign policy
in the post-cold war world must be to maintain an overwhelming
global dominance so as to prevent "potential competitors
from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
The crushing of any possible rival must be the "dominant
consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy
and require[s] that we endeavor to prevent any hostile
power from dominating a region whose resources would,
under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate
global power. These regions include Western Europe, East
Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest
Asia." This view, what we might call the Wolfowitz Doctrine,
is fast gaining the upper hand in the highest circles
of the US government. It is a mad policy doomed to failure,
and for the same reason Icarus
was plunged into the sea, yet this militaristic doctrine
is driving our Eastasian policy and is the direct cause
of the spy plane incident. Who else but a self-conscious
"hegemon" would claim that a military spy plane,
having landed in the airport of the spied-upon country,
has the status of a commercial flight "in distress"? How
high and mighty can you get?
WHITE
MAN'S BURDEN
This
hegemonism, to the Chinese, evokes the ghost of their
colonial past, as if the US is now bidding to take up
the white man's burden just as the British in Hong Kong
have finally put it down. Indeed, there are elements of
ethnic and racial rivalry, not only in the Chinese resentment
but in its object: those bellicose and insufferably arrogant
Americans. Leave it to National Review to exemplify
this arrogance, not just in the juvenile borderline-racist
jibes of Jonah Goldberg, but in the cold-blooded comments
of John Derbyshire, who contemptuously criticizes the
Admiral of the Pacific fleet for saying that the downed
spy plane is now beyond our reach, and frankly
calls for war:
"With
all due respect, Admiral: The hell you say. The US could
have prevented the Chinese from boarding the plane very
easily, by destroying it. The administration should still
do this as speedily as possible, to show the Chinese how
seriously we take the theft of our property. That plane
should be destroyed, without any regard whatsoever to
Chinese sensitivities, or indeed lives and property. The
only question worth serious discussion is that of technique."
"CANE
THE WOGS" – AND KEEP THEM OUT
Who
cares about the lives and property of those little
yellow men? If this repulsive "cane the wogs" mentality
seems outright un-American, that's because it is: Derbyshire
was born in England, but moved to New York and now divides
his time between writing novels and poems, while advocating
the worst war crimes in absolutely deadpan prose. Derbyshire
also has some pretty exotic racial theories, which he
related in an
article on VDARE opposing Chinese immigration to the
US – not because they would be a burden to the state,
but because they are too smart! As he puts it,
on the one hand, there may be some superficially good
reasons to admit this "model minority" to our shores:
"But
there are some contrary indicators. In the first place,
Asian immigrants are exceptionally bookish, and much more
likely to attend college than any other American group
except Jews. This is generally considered to be good news
– better they should end up in boardrooms and research
labs than stewing resentfully in a ghetto. However, the
correlation between educational level and political good
sense is considerably mysterious; it may very well be
negative."
DERBYSHIRE
ON RACE
What
fodder for the knuckle-draggers – out with
them, they're too damn intelligent! Deriving a political
position based on such blatant envy would of course be
impossible in a society less inculcated with extreme egalitarianism.
That might work in his native England, but, thankfully,
it won't work here. Derbyshire has some pretty exotic
racial theories, not unconnected to his warlike stance.
In an email sent to a right-wing news group, Derbyshire
responded to someone who wrote of "the feminization and
negrification of America":
"They
are the same thing. It has often been observed (e.g. by
Steve Sailer & Philippe Rushton) that masculinity/femininity
cut different ways in different populations. At one extreme,
East Asians tend to be physically 'feminine': small bones,
lightly-muscled and hairless bodies, great manual dexterity,
graceful. Typical Olympic event: diving. Mentally, however,
they are very 'masculine' – good at problem-solving,
pattern recognition, spatial visualization, math and computer
science. East Asians do have a strong military tradition,
but a rather odd one: the heroes (like ZhuGe Liang) are
clever strategists who win by out-foxing the enemy. I
don't think ZhuGe ever lifted a sword in anger."
BLACK
AND YELLOW
Oh,
those sneaky Asians – they may have outfoxed
us by getting their hands on our spy plane and crew, but
Derbyshire has a solution: an air assault, and perhaps
an outright invasion of Hainan island. Force, after all,
is all these "feminine" yellow people understand: you
have to show them who's boss. As an interesting sidelight,
here is Derbyshire on the question of whether blacks are
inherently less mentally agile:
"At
the other end of the spectrum, W. African blacks are physically
very 'masculine': big bones, high muscle-fat ratios, sexually
vigorous. Typical Olympic event: sprinting. Mentally,
however, they are "feminine": good verbal skills (half
the neologisms in US English come up from the black underclass),
great at arguing, trash talking, emoting, preaching, lawyering,
salesmanship. Hopeless at math, as the recent AMS tables
(math Ph.Ds awarded, by race, Notices of the AMS,
vol.48, no.2, Feb. 2001) show."
THE
DARK SIDE
Presumably
the white "race," according to this theory, embodies the
masculine in both its physical and mental aspects, thus
entitling whites to their globally dominant status. Mixed
with Goldberg's glibly superficial racism, Derbyshire's
more serious – indeed, deadly earnest – racialist
theories make one big poisonous cocktail.. A more unpleasant
concoction has never been brewed. Imbibed by conservatives,
it can lead only to a drunken orgy of warmongering –
and murderous hate. As the crisis drags on, and the war
hysteria builds, how long before Chinese-Americans are
targeted by violent nutballs out to avenge the nonexistent
"honor" of their rulers? These same hysterics are now
calling for a boycott of all Chinese products – as
if the poor peasants of China had any say in the fate
of the captured American crew. From there it is not too
far to travel before anybody with yellow skin is seen
as the Enemy: in making sick jokes about Chinese "dog-eaters,"
and publishing earnest screeds advocating immediate military
action, National Review is openly and knowingly
appealing to the ugly underside of the American psyche.
