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By a vote of 261-161 yesterday, the House of Representatives approved an administration-backed bill to require the states to issue an electronic ID card to all adult residents. Big brother state is breathing down our necks and we are doing it to ourselves.
I note that Daniel Pipes has been added to HNN's roster of blogs. Given some of the others over there,"roster" is a better choice of words than"family". What next? Horowitz?
In the Wall Street Journal, Niall Ferguson's"To Withdraw Now Would Be Folly" argues that President Bush correctly refuses to set a date for American withdrawal from Iraq and that he could learn from Woodrow Wilson's experience to expect something more like a decade of vigilance. [Ed: Does Ferguson's love of counterfactuals really suggest to him that American troops should have remained in Europe for ten years after World War I? Or, by vigilance, does he really mean that American troops may have to remain in Iraq for a decade?] Thanks to Marc at Spinning Clio for the tip.
In"David Brooks, Champion of the People" at Salon, Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol charges the New York Times columnist with misusing her research to support his claims about Howard Dean and Moveon.org as elitist threats to American democracy.
Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy has been a fount of helpful information to many of us on the net. Now, he seeks information from historians, political scientists, or legal scholars who know about 19th century Southern legal codes. Specifically, were Southern laws barring felons from voting adopted as part of the effort to disfranchise African American men? If you can give Volokh specific information, send him an e-mail at the address suggested at his group blog.
I hope that you're watching the PBS series,"Slavery and the Making of America." Jim Horton, former president of the OAH is the lead historian-narrator and, with his wife, Lois, wrote the book that accompanies the series. The series features many leading contemporary scholars of slavery, including Ira Berlin, Sylvia Frey, Leslie Harris, Peter Wood and others. Yale's David Blight reviewed the series for the Chronicle of Higher Education and H-Slavery.
Finally, at Chapati Mystery, we learn such things as, if you post"nancy ajram sex", it will immediately boost web traffic to your blog. Well, I refuse to stoop so low. Sepoy, there's a war on.
The term "Islamists" has been in use for some years to identify a politically-oriented totalizing (if not totalitarian) Islamic position. A similiar distinction exists in French history, where "collaborators" (those who aided Germany's one way or another) are distinguished from "collaborationists" (those whose politics were based on that relationship).
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
I wasn't suggesting anyone be barred from the US, nor was I saying that there are no politically-minded Jews or Christians. I was simply offering a definition of a term that's been in wide use since the Iranian Revolution, yet which seemed to confuse some of the HNN savants.
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
I'm sorry if I mistook for ignorance your bold philosophic challenge of a widely used term.
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
Sounds like the way self-described progressives use the term "Christian Right." Now THAT is offensive!
The point is, of course, that it is not offensive to anyone other than the professionally aggrieved. It's a powerful, evocative, and highly descriptive term--that is surely way it "offends" those who dislike its political implications.
In any event, were it truly offensive the liberals at the NY Times would have killed it.
Groveling,
Sandor
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
Christian Right and Jewish Extremist have wide circulation.
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
Not yet,
Just as a practical matter, when a word passes into NY Times headlinedom, it's best not to resist. This happened with gay a decade or two ago,I realized that my continued use of homosexual was doomed.
Your colective point is one of radical relativism--always a useful if soft-headed alternative to analysis. My point, is that there is calculable difference between Jewish Christian and Islamic political fundamentalism. Jewish fundamentalists can't even influence the Israeli goverment, Christianists control no government anywhere and have, as far as I can tell, no political parties. Islamists are another matter entirely.
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
Yes?
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
It is in fact a good catchword--by which I mean it gets right to the heart of the problem. One reason why it's so satisfying to see it in the Times (and excellent timing I might add) is because it is precisely the Times constituency that need to hear it the most, as I think this exchange has established.
Dressner and Luker's protestations aside, there is such a thing as Islamists, although perhaps not on the Big Island. They are those who wish to use politics to enforce an austere religious control on their societies, whereas there are no equivalents elsewhere.
Why does this remind you of reportage on Jews in the early 20th century? Did you have anything specific in mind?
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
Good points. Also reminiscent of contemporary treatments of Jews and Zionists in the progressive press.
Sandor A. Lopescu -
4/16/2005
Good lord, we are in agreement!
Jonathan Dresner -
2/12/2005
And in some increasingly mainstream elements of the regressive press, as well.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/12/2005
Similarities with earlier reportage on Jews:
Closed immigrant community: resistance to assimilation and Unassimilability.
"backwards" religious perspective
"subversive" political activism (both ethnic political groups and strongly represented in non-mainstream politics)
racialism
Jonathan Dresner -
2/12/2005
"A good catchword can defy analysis for fifty years." -- Wendell Willkie
The article is a pretty typical example of what will be the downfall of the term: there's no distinction between Shi'a and Sunni (Wahhabist or otherwise), between fundamentalist and nationalist, between separtist and jihadist.... All it tells us is that there are Muslims who prefer not to compromise anything except moving to find a good job and who find freedom of religion and speech useful. In the first generation, anyway.
Reminds me of some of the reportage on Jews in the early 20th century, actually....
Ralph E. Luker -
2/12/2005
"Jewish fundamentalists can't even influence the Israeli government", "Christianists control no government anywhere and have, as far as I can tell, no political parties".
Ralph E. Luker -
2/12/2005
You will have the last, unconvincing word on this.
Ralph E. Luker -
2/12/2005
Our point's been made, Mr. Lopescu. You'll want to see the Times using Christianists and Jewists in its headlines, too.
Ralph E. Luker -
2/12/2005
When you have been told by Muslim and non-Muslim alike that it is offensive, somehow the point doesn't seem to register with you. What on earth is the point of intentional offense and berating the messengers? Grovel, then, in your offensiveness.
Ralph E. Luker -
2/12/2005
Good catch, Mr. Lopescu. Shall we all start using the word now?
Ralph E. Luker -
2/12/2005
Mr. Lopescu -- Exactly not. I have no problem if someone describes me as being of the Christian Left, even if I am a Republican. I see _no_ reason why anyone on the Christian Right should object to their being identified as such.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/12/2005
Apology accepted.
Manan Ahmed -
2/11/2005
Islamist is a deeply offensive term, and no, it is not like collaborationist v collaborators. In case I am being too obtuse, the former taints the faith and practitioners of a world religion as emblematic of an act or the activities of a group. It generalizes that act or the activities of that group outwards and upwards to billions of people.
It is the same as the racial or ethnic slurs used in the past and currently against those of different colors and faiths. The difference is that in the case of "Islamist" - there is no perceived stigma on its usage in public spheres.
Richard Henry Morgan -
2/11/2005
I did catch that part of the PBS series dealing with the Stono Rebellion. I also caught the review (or that part of the review on H-Net) by David Blight, where he unfavorably compares the PBS series with "the remarkable six-hour documentary produced by Orlando Bagwell for PBS in 1998." You would never guess from the review material you link to (how complete is it?) that Blight was a series advisor to the 1998 production (several of the talking head scholars from the 1998 production also appear in Horton's current series).
From a Floridian's perspective, the books accompanying both this series and the 1998 one disappoint, in that neither mentions "the Negro Fort" on the Apalachicola that withstood 10 days of siege. There are some interesting papers on the subject at the Florida State archives. Actually, I enjoyed both series, otherwise.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/11/2005
That the term exists does not mean that its meaning is clear. That there is a "standard" definition does not mean that everyone uses it that way. That a distinction is made does not mean that the distinction is meaningful. We, and I speak shamelessly for my more savant colleagues, are not confused; we reject the premise.
Ralph E. Luker -
2/11/2005
I'm not sure what HNN "savants" you are talking about, but I wanted to explain to you why I choose not to use a term that is probably deeply offensive to some of my colleagues, but that Pipes and others want to impose on our public discourse.
Ralph E. Luker -
2/11/2005
I should think that, if such a term is appropriate, we must learn to speak of Christianists and of Judaismists. The dislocutions seem obvious enough to me, if not to you, Mr. Lopescu. If pressed, I would certainly say that my ultimate loyalty is to G_d, not to the United States. Does that mean that I should be prosecuted for treason? Were I a foreign national, should it mean that I should be barred from admission to the United States? Why not? If not, why should a devout Muslim, who can _never_ say that his or her ultimate loyalty is to the United States be barred from admission or citizenship?
Ralph E. Luker -
2/11/2005
Do you have a substantive point to make, Mr. Willis?
Don Willis -
2/11/2005
Glad to see that the thought police are on the case!! Please encourage your thoughtful and incisive colleague Mr. Burke to weigh in on Pipes and keep your invidious snickering to yourselves.
Manan Ahmed -
2/11/2005
Islamofascists is the freeper terminology. Islamists is Pipes' contraction.
Sharon Howard -
2/11/2005
Hey, I could dig out some of the stuff from my MA diss on sexual slander...
Cos you can put anything up if it's just quoted from the sources, right?
Jonathan Dresner -
2/11/2005
Funny, I may have said the same thing about Republicans, once.
Actually, I think "Islamofascists" was an expansion of "Islamists", but fascism has modernist overtones that I don't think fit Pipes's definition of "the problem".
I think Churchill would be better balance for Pipes than Horowitz would....
Ralph E. Luker -
2/11/2005
Yes. You'll find over there, in his review of the Tariq Ramadan case, his cheering the likelihood that henceforth the United States will exclude all "Islamists" from admission to the United States. I don't know whether that is a recent foreshortening by Pipes of "Islamofascists" or not.
Manan Ahmed -
2/11/2005
"There is an unending need to look critically at Muslim institutions and individuals, so as to distinguish the extremists from the moderates, the enemies from the allies."
Sigh.
Manan Ahmed -
2/11/2005
well, I can always review Doniger's recent translation of the Kamasutra for Valentine's Day. That'll show that foucault...
Jonathan Dresner -
2/11/2005
You laugh, but our Majors Day fair was on Valentine's day last year and our History Club, entirely independently, decided to highlight the history of love and sex as the theme for their poster... they did tone down a few bits at faculty request.
I have to point out that our major count didn't rise this year. So the approach needs work.
Adam Kotsko -
2/11/2005
I was going to say that you should consider it if your traffic is hurting, but it looks to me like it's gone up quite a bit. I was hoping that decreased traffic was a blogosphere-wide thing, but looks like it's just us. Time to bring back the philosophy porn!
Ralph E. Luker -
2/11/2005
Hmmm. History porn. Hmmm.
Adam Kotsko -
2/11/2005
I recently mentioned that there were particular sex acts that don't appear in Foucault's History of Sexuality, and now apparently The Weblog is really high up on MSN Search's results for those particular sex acts. In general, MSN Search doesn't seem very accurate, because we stopped hosting porn on our site a couple months ago.
