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The Journeys of Fred Halliday

Linfield replies

Mike Davis’s letter represents two tendencies that, I believe, Fred Halliday spent much of his life opposing: one, the downgrading of important political differences to personal conflicts; and, two, the recourse to insult. Halliday openly addressed his differences with New Left Review in a lengthy 2005 interview. Readers of that interview, and of his work in general, can assess whether or not substantial political questions, especially about human rights, were at stake.

New Left Review has published, and continues to publish, some brilliant writers. But its analysis of, and stances on, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been atrocious—or, as Halliday put it, “objectively on the Right.”

When 'Pro-Life' Kills

Ethic of expediency

I’m not clear about why Katha Pollitt mourns only for Savita and not for Savita’s baby. Without question, the situation as Katha Pollitt describes it is horrifying. But she does not deny that such cases are rare. No one recommends forming public policy based on the hard cases. To be fair, both sides use this tactic; but typically, hard cases are exploited to manipulate opinion.

On a more human level, why is there no concern about the child’s death? Pollitt does not find it worthy of mention. Instead of continuing to push for the right to abort a child in such cases. Why not push for medical advances that can save both mother and child? Why do we continue to believe the answer to every problem associated with pregnancy is death for the child? It’s an easy alternative, but is it the best? It would be like accepting mastectomy as a cure for breast cancer.

I believe that Katha Pollitt and other pro-abortion advocates are going to be on the wrong side of history. A hundred years from now, we are going to be horrified at our treatment of these early-stage human life forms.

I’m not arguing that the Catholic hospital in Ireland did the right thing. What stuns me is the complete lack of interest in the child’s life. It betrays an ethic of expediency, and I believe we’re better than that. Let’s exhaust every possibility to preserve human life and make those hard choices with the greatest reluctance and sadness.

My sympathy goes out to Mr. Halapannavar at the loss of his wife and child.

The Noble and the Base: Poland and the Holocaust

Anti-Semitism in twentieth-century Poland

It is worth looking too at the increasingly strident anti-Semitic politics that infected Poland in the 1920s and ’30s with the rise of nationalistic parties supported by the Catholic Church. In this period the Jews (3 million out of a population of over 30 million) were very clearly conceived as a separate, un-Polish execrescence that was a danger to the State. Onerous exclusionary and fiscal laws against the Jews were passed that were lesser versions of those being installed by Nazi regime. This explains in part why hatred for the brutal German occupation did not generally lead to a communal (as opposed to individual) sympathy for the Jews during the war and immediately after it. There were countless acts of bravery and compassion amongst Poles with regard to Jews (Karski of course was one), but there was no widespread political identification with Jewish suffering as there had been, in much more favorable circumstances to be sure, in Denmark or in Bulgaria. Polish suffering was much greater than most other countries’ at the hands of the Nazis during the war, but their anti-Semitism was not necessarily that different from most other Slavic countries’, and it preceded the German occupation and survived it (even less excusable given what most Poles knew had happened in the camps). We must try to hold both of these understandings together. For Poles who resent this, I would say that African slavery poses similar issues for most Western countries assessing their own humanitarian records.

The Mainstream Media's Trivial Pursuit of Campaign 2012

Teach your children well

Eric Alterman’s screed against the “Media at Work” is well-placed.

The Big Name media pundits are a disgrace in an era when politicians abandon even a pretense of truth-telling.

I’ve been teaching journalism at a community college in downtown Oakland, Calif., for a few decades. Finally the mention of Edward R. Murrow drew a 100 percent response—not one student had heard of him. Thankfully, George Clooney’s brilliant (and sobering) 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck provided my students with a crash course in an era in which journalism was a noble profession and CBS News took the lead with the redoubtable Murrow. (Each student wrote a review of the film.)

I don’t know if my students were taken by the novelty of a black-and-white film or smartly dressed people smoking in the workplace, but they were hooked. If you looked closely you caught a glimpse of Jeff Daniels, who has resurfaced as Will McAvoy in HBO’s Newsroom, a full-throated advocate for TV news in the Murrow mold, battling corporate-bought pols who preside over what we laughingly call a democracy.

One of my journalism students praised Good Night, and Good Luck for its “quality acting, production and plot” but ended his piece with a welcome observation: “Perhaps most important of all, it teaches us a tidbit of history we should already know.”

Amen.

Ten Reasons to Avoid Doing Business With Amazon.com

Amazon isn’t as bad as you think

First off, Amazon is a great, fast-paced workplace. We are always reminded to drink water, which is almost around every corner, and most facilities have AC. If it gets too hot in a FC they will close it down until it cools off. They do have rates that aren’t too bad. Somebody that stays focused the whole time should be able to do it. Oh, this is all while you drink your cup of coffee and eat your donut while chatting the first thirty minutes of work. That doesn’t cut it for amazon. (Maybe in HR.) Companies use temporary employment—deal with it. And, might I add, they do offer help for certain beneficial needs. It’s called a job. How many people look for more money during the holidays? Amazon creates more jobs every year opening new facilities. The customer is the number-one focus for Amazon. Thus bringing success. My opinion is, your job is bogus. You get paid to type trash talk about successful companies. Must be nice.

The Malalas You Don't See

No analogy

I entirely agree with the argument of the author: drone attacks cannot be justified by any means. They are killing machines, and they kill indiscriminately. These machines have reduced human war to computer games, in the process dehumanizing the “other.” However, my point is that drones should not be coupled with what the Taliban did to Malala Yousafzai. There is no parallel between the two. If Malala gets more coverage in the media, it should not upset those who are against the drones.

The Journeys of Fred Halliday

Linfield looks in the mirror

I sympathize with Mike Davis’s letter on Susie Linfield’s review of Halliday's book, but then Linfield’s review is not really about Halliday but about Linfield and her longstanding ax to grind with the Palestinian cause.

Called to Work During Superstorm Sandy, Tribeca Parking Attendant Drowned

Obscene

I hope his needless and criminally caused death will lead to a major diplomatic incident between his home nation of Ghana and the United States. Everybody has a right to be outraged at what happened to him. That cars inside the garage of a tony apartment had more value than he is obscene!

Totalitarianism, Famine and Us

No secret

Thanks for the article about these two books about Mao’s Great Leap. While it is true that many of the details about what happened in the provinces has not been known, this article says the famine was attributed to periodic famines as under the emperors. This is not really true. As a young reader with no special sources of information, I knew that the disaster was man-made. Publications such as Reader’s Digest (not a real exculpatory publication) had articles that were clear the the famine was man-made. We did not have materials available to find out if the disaster was stupidity or mendacity. Scholars and politicians on the left were still hoping for a good outcome of doctrinaire Communist philosophy in practical application. This blinded many to the fact that this statist total subjugation of the people, with no personal initiative, was and is a prescription for failure (colossal in large governments and small), with China and Cambodia as examples of each. Even the popular press recognized this failure at the time of the Great Leap.

I look forward to looking up both books and perusing them.

Superstorm Sandy—a People's Shock?

From R Street Institute

Naomi Klein describes me as a “mouthpiece for the insurance lobby” and suggests my organization’s advocacy of privatizing the bankrupt National Flood Insurance Program is motivated by the industry’s desire to remove a public sector competitor. While we would be delighted to see a politically powerful industry stand up for NFIP privatization, the reality is there is not a single major domestic insurance company that has ever taken that stance. Most insurers fear, with some justification, that NFIP privatization would result in regulators’ forcing them to underwrite risks they would rather avoid.

Ms. Klein also notes that the R Street Institute previously was a division of “the climate-denying Heartland Institute.” That is true, although it is misleading not to mention that we parted ways with Heartland specifically over the issue of global warming. In fact, were she to research the topic, Ms. Klein would discover that every major environmental organization supported legislation this year to reform and scale back the NFIP, and some—such as Friends of the Earth—have joined us in calling for full privatization.

Indeed, were she not so intent on limiting her post-Sandy search for malefactors solely to cases that appear to support her “Shock Doctrine” thesis, Ms. Klein might have cause to question the powerful interests—notably in the real estate and construction sectors—that have historically led the charge for cheap, taxpayer-subsidized property insurance, which has le]d directly to so much development in risk-prone and environmentally sensitive regions. Some of these same interests, joined by insurance agents and a few large domestic home insurers, are currently lobbying to expand the federal government’s role in subsidizing catastrophe insurance even further. We oppose this legislation, not because of who is for or against it but because it would be terrible for both taxpayers and the environment.