Guh.
Tales from The Plank:
Last week in the Weekly Standard, the apparent inventor of the phrase, Stephen Schwartz, dismissed those who'd be offended by "Islamofascism" as "primitive Muslims." That should tell you all you need to know about those who use the term. I confess to using it, if ironically, in a recent piece, and here in Dearborn I learned precisely why you and I shouldn't. The people it infuriates aren't primitive. They're the moderate, pro-American, well-integrated Muslims who form one of the greatest bulwarks against Al Qaeda that the U.S. possesses, and they see the term as draining their Americanness away.
And for what? For a dubious linkage to a much different historical phenomenon? It doesn't diminish the crimes of the Taliban to observe that a Nazi would find Taliban-ruled Afghanistan unrecognizable. "Islamofascism" merely strokes an erogenous zone of the right wing, which gains pleasure from a juvenile reductio ad Hitlerum with the enemies of the U.S.
-- Spencer Ackerman, "The Case Against Islamofascism", 2:40 pm yesterday.
Oh, and by the way, according to The New York Times this morning, Iran's "supreme leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, (not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who increasingly and wrongly is being treated as a comic figure instead of a madman with post-modern arms at his disposal, an Islamofascist, in fact), announced yesterday that his country will "forcefully" pursue its uranium enrichment nuclear programs. Anyway, greetings from Israel, the first and already designated target of these activities. Don't blame the Israelis if they take these threats seriously.
-- Martin Peretz, "Ahmadihejad Attacks Maria of Romania", 10:04 am today.
Passive-aggressive self-parody? Is that a new one? I realize to my chagrin I'm offended on behalf of somebody I've never met.
But the hardest part of being a still-loyal but increasingly disspirited TNR subscriber is the realization of how good the magazine would be if Peretz would just shut the fuck up.
Last week in the Weekly Standard, the apparent inventor of the phrase, Stephen Schwartz, dismissed those who'd be offended by "Islamofascism" as "primitive Muslims." That should tell you all you need to know about those who use the term. I confess to using it, if ironically, in a recent piece, and here in Dearborn I learned precisely why you and I shouldn't. The people it infuriates aren't primitive. They're the moderate, pro-American, well-integrated Muslims who form one of the greatest bulwarks against Al Qaeda that the U.S. possesses, and they see the term as draining their Americanness away.
And for what? For a dubious linkage to a much different historical phenomenon? It doesn't diminish the crimes of the Taliban to observe that a Nazi would find Taliban-ruled Afghanistan unrecognizable. "Islamofascism" merely strokes an erogenous zone of the right wing, which gains pleasure from a juvenile reductio ad Hitlerum with the enemies of the U.S.
-- Spencer Ackerman, "The Case Against Islamofascism", 2:40 pm yesterday.
Oh, and by the way, according to The New York Times this morning, Iran's "supreme leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, (not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who increasingly and wrongly is being treated as a comic figure instead of a madman with post-modern arms at his disposal, an Islamofascist, in fact), announced yesterday that his country will "forcefully" pursue its uranium enrichment nuclear programs. Anyway, greetings from Israel, the first and already designated target of these activities. Don't blame the Israelis if they take these threats seriously.
-- Martin Peretz, "Ahmadihejad Attacks Maria of Romania", 10:04 am today.
Passive-aggressive self-parody? Is that a new one? I realize to my chagrin I'm offended on behalf of somebody I've never met.
But the hardest part of being a still-loyal but increasingly disspirited TNR subscriber is the realization of how good the magazine would be if Peretz would just shut the fuck up.
2 Comments:
I left a comment on Marty's post to that effect, to which one of his sycophants immediately replied that Spencer and I don't understand Marty's brilliance and should just shut up. It explained a lot.
Was the commentor's name 'sprezzatura'?
Post a Comment
<< Home