A cycle of prejudice

by: Adam Bink

Tue Sep 07, 2010 at 17:00

Via Barb Morrill, here's New Republic Editor-in-Chief (and off and on, currently on, publisher) Marty Peretz:

But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

Of course, Rauf is one of the most prominent clerics who has denounced Islam being used in the name of violence and tried to foster tolerance and understanding. If anything, he's one of the Western clerics Al Qaeda can't stand. But that doesn't matter to Peretz, since "these people" smacks of Ross Perot's "you people" at the 1992 NAACP Convention and many other broad-brush characterizations that leads to intolerance and prejudice. And what really gets me about comments like this, as Into The Woods notes, is that they feed into the perception that the U.S. is waging a war on Islam itself. This morning I saw that Gen. Petraeus urged members of a Florida church not to go forward with plans to burn copies of the Koran, arguing it would endanger U.S. troops, as did the White House:

"It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems," Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."
The White House also condemned the Florida church's plan, with press secretary Robert Gibbs reiterating Petraeus's contention that U.S. forces could be put in harm's way as a result. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called the proposed demonstration "un-American" and said it was "inconsistent with the values of religious tolerance and religious freedom."

Peretz's prejudice is along those same lines, and gets to what I always thought is the strongest argument against opposition to Park51- the perception it creates, that we in the United States are beholden to prejudice.

But then, this is the same Peretz who admitted to prejudice earlier this year:

Frankly, I couldn't quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

Adam Bink :: A cycle of prejudice

Tags: Marty Peretz, The New Republic, neoliberalism, islam, (All Tags)

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A cycle of prejudice | 5 comments

Idiot (4.00 / 1)

The original Greek meaning of the word "idiot" was a private person, as opposed to one who was comptent to act in public as a citizen. And Marty Peretz is clearly an idiot when he says shit like this:

I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment

Peretz is not worthy of being an American citizen. He is not worthy of being an American resident. He is not worthy of being a Jew.

He is, quite literally, an idiot.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

by: Paul Rosenberg @ Tue Sep 07, 2010 at 21:06:23 PM UTC

A Harvard man, like Bill Kristol , Jerome Corsi, and Ted Kaczynski (0.00 / 0)

Sorry, I just had to say that.

You have to wonder how someone with his background could go off the rails like that. Bigotry aside, the elementary misunderstanding of the notion of rights represented by "I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse" is the kind of thing Pol Sci 101 teachers (of whom Dr. Peretz used to be one) especially love to ridicule.

I'm just reinforcing my argument that winger stupidity isn't really stupidity. It's rebellious defiance rising from inarticulate resentment and rage.

It's like Peretz is saying "During my academic career I had do pretend to believe in something called "rights", but now I'm FREE!!!!!!" -- just like he was some hillbilly with an eighth grade education.

by: John Emerson @ Tue Sep 07, 2010 at 21:33:09 PM UTC

"Frankly, I couldn't quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well." (0.00 / 0)

What, like much of modern science?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

by: dr anonymous @ Tue Sep 07, 2010 at 21:47:05 PM UTC

Peretz's idea about Muslims (0.00 / 0)

not deserving the "privileges" of the First Amendment because he has this gut feeling that they'll abuse it reminds me of that National Review's defense of segregation that Paul reminded us about in his article, Against Virtue: A dime's worth of difference:

The central question that emerges--and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by meerely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal--is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is by no means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes', and intends to assert its own.

National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numberical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.

Both this claim that Southern White Civilization was so advanced it demanded denial of equal rights to blacks and the use of violence in order to preserve it and Peretz's claim to me beg the question.

How can a culture claim to be advanced and civilized if it routinely oppresses an entire group and justifies using violence to do so? How can anyone think he has any right to deny others the rights of the Bill of Rights because those others might not honor them sufficiently and not realize he's dishonoring them from the get go?

All I can think of is something Jesus of Nazareth is reputed to have said:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

Hmmm. Sounds like projection

Educate, Agitate, Organize, Mobilize, Act!

by: LibWingofLibWing @ Wed Sep 08, 2010 at 02:21:28 AM UTC