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The Sanity Squad on Blogtalkradio Tonight

Fitna, Fits And Basra

Please join us for another Sanity Squad podcast this evening at 8:00 pm! Join Dr Sanity, Siggy, and me as we discuss Geert Wilder's movie "Fitna" (see below) and the ongoing campaign against the Sadr militias in Basra.

And, if you haven't seen "Fitna" yet, take 15 minutes to watch it. It really shows nothing new (i.e., that readers of Sanity Squad blogs haven't heard about), but it shows it graphically and with very little comment. Watching it is an act of freedom and defiance against those forces that want nothing more than to destroy the very values upon which western civilization is based.

The podcast can accessed from the Sanity Squad BTR Homepage.

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116.

Obama's Failure

At the moment the Conservative blogosphere is working to make sense out of Barack Obama's identity, his identity politics, and his electoral chances.  Mickey Kaus has suggested that there are two distinct negative versions of Barack Obama:

Two Memes Running: I'll try to keep track of the two most underdeveloped negative memes on Obama:

1) He's a wuss! He hedges on welfare, he hedges on affirmative action. "[H]e has a major deficiency in the realm of moral courage." He won't speak up against his own church's victim mentality until he absolutely has to (because he himself gets in political trouble). In the campaign he's done a whole lot of pandering and not much Sister Souljahing--certainly nothing as bold as Bill Clinton saying welfare should be two-years-and-out. He listens to everyone and everyone loves him for it. But he's conflict-averse--it would be more reassuring if everyone didn't love him. ...

2) He's arrogant! His failure to even admit to the slightest mistake in the Wright affair plays into this meme, originally ratified by AP's Ron Fournier. My colleague Robert (no relation) Wright thinks he saw additional evidence recently. ...

Are these memes contradictory? Not really. Maybe they go together. Arrogance is likely to build up in the absence of conflict, no? You can't take it out on your enemies in public so you take it out in private. Are they disqualifying? No. I'm not sure Obama can't accomplish a lot by being conflict-averse and respectful. But I don't think there was a conflict-averse way to, say, reform welfare. The liberal interest groups who supported the system weren't about to be "illuminated" or "elevated" (or fooled). They had to be beaten. The same probably goes for some conservative interest groups in, say, the health care debate.

There is another school of thought that Obama is a far left stealth candidate who would likely feel free, once in office, to institute a program of change that would only be a surprise because he has been so successful in obfuscating his true ideology.

Much of Obama's success has stemmed from his candidacy apparently offering an exit from this country's long and troubled preoccupation with race and all the difficulties that have arisen from the unhappy experience of blacks in America.  Unfortunately, it is in this area that Obama's failings have been most pronounced.  The opportunity has been squandered and the outcome of his candidacy will likely set back race relations for a very long time to come.

The Psychotic Core

Most of the commentary concerning the release of Geert Wilder's film about Islam, Fitna, has focused on the potential of the film to educate an increasingly interested and sometimes alarmed public about the dangers of radical Islam, the potential backlash from enraged Islamists, and the continuing erosion of any ability to maintain a nuanced and textured differentiation between Islam and radical Islam. 

Islam in Europe has an excellent summary of early reaction to Fitna and it is worth perusing.  Thus far, the explosion has been limited in scope; whether the reaction builds will determine how significant this latest salvo in the war between Islamism and the modern world proves to be.

One major concern about the film is its reflection of an increasing polarization.  As noted by Richard Fernandez, Wilders' film from the right insisting on an identity between Islam and Islamism, along with the left's attempts over the last several years to deny the link between Islam and Islamism, have combined to reinforce the tendency toward regressive splitting that occurs in every conflict:

By repeatedly invoking Islam as the cause or, alternatively, the justification, for violent behavior, both the Left and the Right have jointly undermined the strategy of forming political coalitions with certain elements in the Islamic world to prosecute other elements. This coalition strategy undergirds the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan; it is implicit in US cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey. In those places the US associates itself with certain elements of the "religion of peace" (such as Grand Ayatollah Sistani) against other elements.

But this down-the-middle approach has earned itself many enemies. It is viewed on the Left as a persecution of Islam; or worse, as its corruption. And because a coalition approach takes a long time to succeed it is often rejected out of hand by pacifists, who would either simply deny that any War on Terror exists or insist that the Jihad is justified (as exemplified by Jeremiah Wright's theory that "America's chickens have come home to roost"). Conservatives have grown to distrust coalition warfare as a collection of half-measures. And there is little room between those who would regard the handling of a Koran with anything but white gloves as blasphemy and those who would criticize it as inherently evil. And there may be less room with every passing month.

Kamangir directs his comments to Wilders' conflation of Islam and Islamism and has concerns that the film does not helpfully advance the conversation:

Liberal Policies, Unintended Consequences, and the Revenge of the Repressed

Recently there was a fair amount of excitement in the Blogosphere surrounding David Mamet's Village Voice article, Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'.  Mamet's conversion occurred after a period of reflection when Mamet discovered that there was an insurmountable chasm between his personal experience of the world and his perception of the larger world viewed through the lens of his liberal ideology:

... I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.

"Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

I suspect Mamet's conversion experience has occurred to a great many former liberals.  Upon even the most cursory reflection, it becomes clear that there is an almost unlimited capacity for unintended consequences inherent in most liberal policy prescriptions.  For example: 

• Welfare was meant to help the poor escape poverty; in fact, it tended to trap the poor in their dysfunction.
• The social work approach to crime was meant to help nascent criminals escape a life of crime yet almost inexorably led to higher crime rates.
• On the international scene, appeasement of aggressive states is meant to promote and preserve peace yet has always led to increased aggression.

I could go on; there are countless examples of great policies that did not produce the desired effects.  This, of course, does not mean that conservative policies always work or do not themselves frequently engender unintended consequences, but conservative policies by definition are likely to be re-examined when outcomes do not meet expectations, while liberal policies that fail are typically reinforced because their failure is rarely taken to mean that the policies were inadequate but rather are explained as a failure of implementation.

We now are beginning to notice the outlines of the unintended consequences that have arisen from the latest incipient disaster stemming from a current liberal pre-occupation.  The situation is worth considering closely.

The Arab Mind: Part VII

[All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.]

Male genital anxiety is ubiquitous.  Most men typically pass through stages in their childhood where they are overly and consciously anxious about their genitals.  Preoccupations with size and performance are common enough experiences as to offer an endless supply of late night comedic material.  The developmental history of genital anxiety, often referred to by its short hand, castration anxiety, is instructive.  At approximately age 4, the young boy enters the Oedipal phase of his development.  The psychological and developmental conflicts of the period have to do with (partially) surrendering his attachment to his first love, his mother, in preparation for entering the real world.  As the boy undergoes the physical changes that are part of his entry into the Oedipal Phase, his penis becomes the center of his emotional life.  Nascent and inchoate sexual sensations become centered on his penis and it is not uncommon for 4 and 5 year old boys to show off their physical prowess and their penis, both aspects of their body that bring great joy and excitement.   At the same time the knowledge that their mother, for all the love and affection she showers upon him, prefers to sleep with his father, introduces elements of jealousy and rivalry.  In Freud's famous construction, the boy finally gives up his mother to his father for fear of his father's wrath, embodied for the child in terror of being castrated for challenging his father.

Many have criticized various aspects of the Freudian understanding of the Oedipal conflict and its crucial role in castration anxiety, but few critics have questioned the role of genital anxiety in the resolution of the Oedipal phase and its centrality to male psychosexual development.  Events that intensify the already extant castration anxiety of the period are likely to have long lasting repercussions in the development of the boy.  For that reason, understanding the role and nature of circumcision in the Arab culture and for the Arab mind is of great importance.  An aspect of the Arab culture that is clearly related to genital anxiety pertains to the Arab fear of female sexuality.  In Part III of The Arab Mind, I described how the important women in the very young Arab boy's life would stimulate his penis to sooth him or merely to amuse themselves.  This has the effect of establishing from an early age that an Arab boy, to a much greater extent than in the West, has no control over his own sexual excitement.  His excitement arises from external sources out of his control.  Western men may joke about their excitement and lust being forced upon them by a beautiful woman but for Arab men it is much closer to a realistic depiction of their experience.

While it may seem counter-intiuitive, the practice of circumcision in the Arab world exascerbates this trend. 

Love, Hate, and Religion

Easter Sunday saw a remarkable event take place in Rome:

Pope Baptizes Prominent Italian Muslim

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel."

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Many reports reflected on Allam's courage.  He had been threatened with death for criticizing radical Islam well before his conversion.  Some commentators discussed the political meaning of the public act of conversion presided over by the Pope.  Was this a "shot across the bow" of Islam?  How did this fit with the Pope's discussion of the need for reciprocity with Islam?  What would this mean for the possible construction of a church in Saudi Arabia, something recently in the news? 

I think the highly public conversion is one of the single most subversive and dangerous attacks on radical Islam by the West since we have become aware of being involved in a war with the Islamists.

Consider some comments from Christian Allam, nee Magdi, in an interview last December:

The Sanity Squad on Blogtalkradio Tonight

Please join us for another Sanity Squad podcast this evening at 8:00 pm! Dr. Sanity, Neo, Siggy and I will be discussing a number of topics, including the situation with China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama and its larger psychological implications. It's sure to be provocative and illuminating!

Click on the button below to listen live:

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116. Showtime is a 8 PM tonight.

Please join us for another Sanity Squad podcast this evening at 8:00 pm! Dr. Sanity, Neo, Siggy and I will be discussing a number of topics, including the situation with China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama and its larger psychological implications. It's sure to be provocative and illuminating!

Click on the button below to listen live:

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116. Showtime is a 8 PM tonight.

Misunderstanding Iraq and the War on Radical Islam

A great deal has been written in the last week concerning what meaning can be derived from our five year effort in Iraq.  There is much made of the 4000 deaths we have suffered as of today.  Much of the commentary concerns reasonable questions of whether or not the war has made us safer, whether or not we are winning, and whether or not Iraq can yet be stabilized as a democracy or proto-democracy.  Many commentators concern themselves with the war's impact on our domestic politics or our standing in the world and/or our ability to shape events.  Many speculate on the war's presumed negative effect on our ability to confront or contain Iran.  Yet there are subterranean currents that will likely drive events and which have not been well articulated in the articles and posts I have read.  These currents have to do with the ongoing conflict between modernity and the Muslim world and various, poorly discerned potential outcomes of the current clash between the West and radical Islam.

Several commentators have tried to put the Iraq War into a greater context and all, to a greater or lesser extent, note how complex and poorly defined our current situation remains.  I would suggest three lines of inquiry that may help illuminate the underlying issues at stake.

First, five years into the Iraq War and going on seven years post-9/11, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while clearly not central to the clash, does present a(n admittedly imperfect) microcosm of the conflict between the West and the Arab/Muslim world.  Aspects of the current low level conflict with Gaza and the larger struggle with Iran and its proxies can be instructive and predictive.

Second, the pace of technological change and its impact on the conflict have been poorly explicated by most commentators on the conflict, and is likely to eventually be definitive.

And, third, the conflict between the West and radical Islam has consistently been mischaracterized in terms of its crucial long term dimensions.  In other words, most commentary understandably focuses on Western concerns about the negative impact of the GWOT on the West.  Democrats want to "stop the war" in order to save our economy or defeat the "arrogant mindset" that sees military might as the only way to resolve disputes.  Republicans want to "win the war" in order to minimize the risk of an attack exponentially greater than 9/11.  Few commentators seem to recognize that the outcome of American involvement in Iraq is no longer primarily about us.  At this point the theater in Iraq and its short to medium term outcome is of exponentially greater significance to the Arab world than to the West.

A Liberal Manifesto

[Long time readers of ShrinkWrapped know that from time to time Jimmy J writes a guest post which consistently offers insightful comments on our uncertain and complicated world.  His latest is particularly clear and cogent. 

The blog post title is mine.  I use "liberal" in its traditional meaning, referring to a political philosophy that privileges freedom and tolerance.  This is in contrast to the current devolved use of the word to mean intolerance and illiberality in the service of identity politics and an elitist defined equality of outcome.]

Here then is Jimmy J's manifesto:

I first got the idea of  writing down some of the things I think I know/believe from another Navy pilot, Lex, who blogs at Neptunus Lex.   He expounded on a long list of his beliefs. Mostly one or two pithy lines.  Not surprisingly, I agreed with many of them. I had never seen someone express his personal manifesto in such a fashion.  His work stimulated me to take a closer look at my beliefs.   

There are many things we are confident we know because they can be demonstrated scientifically or mathematically.  Such things as: Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 1+1 = 2, there is a mysterious force called gravity.

However, many things that we know or think we know are not necessarily subject to scientific/mathematical proof. And they may or may not be believed by others. For that reason I have been examining my beliefs and setting them down on paper so I might see if they are consistent and why I hold them. Here are a few of my beliefs about our federal government. I realize one could write a book about the few items I have covered here. This is only intended to be a brief outline of my "manifesto."

Let's get started.

Conspiracy Theories and Victimization

As the reactions to Barack Obama's speech continue to emerge, there is a striking disconnect that appears repeatedly in the pieces written by some of the liberal white supporters of Obama.   Nicholas Kristof is typical.  In his op-ed piece on Obama and Race in the Times this morning he addresses the different world view that blacks and whites have in America:

Many white Americans seem concerned that Mr. Obama, who seems so reasonable, should enjoy the company of Mr. Wright, who seems so militant, angry and threatening. To whites, for example, it has been shocking to hear Mr. Wright suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people.

That may be an absurd view in white circles, but a 1990 survey found that 30 percent of African-Americans believed this was at least plausible.

“That’s a real standard belief,” noted Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a political scientist at Princeton (and former member of Trinity church, when she lived in Chicago). “One of the things fascinating to me watching these responses to Jeremiah Wright is that white Americans find his beliefs so fringe or so extreme. When if you’ve spent time in black communities, they are not shared by everyone, but they are pretty common beliefs.”

Occasionally, we’ve had glimpses of this gulf between white and black America. Right after the O.J. Simpson murder trial, a CBS News poll found that 6 out of 10 whites thought that the jury had reached the wrong verdict, while 9 out of 10 blacks believed it had decided correctly. Many African-Americans even believe that the crack cocaine epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by the United States government to destroy black neighborhoods.

In the almost surreal unreflective post-modernist posing that passes for intellectual discourse among the self-designated cognoscenti, Kristof takes the widespread acceptance of paranoid conspiracy theories in a large part of the black community as evidence that whites have neglected to listen to blacks: