What if Nixon had bombed the ghettoes in the name of law and order?

by on February 1, 2009 8
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This analogy keeps coming to me: the urban ghettoes of the U.S. in the 60s and 70s. I've said it before but how different are lethal Hamas rocket attacks from black crime at that time? Second-class citizens, a sense of political disfranchisement and festering grievance--violence. Urban crime killed a lot more people than Hamas rockets, which have killed a handful of Israelis over several years. But in 1968, Richard Nixon ran on a law-and-order campaign. He got the support of some budding neocons, too, who didn't make bleeding-heart excuses for the urban underclass (as I did), but wanted toughness. And the American left despised Nixon on that issue.
I'm sure if Nixon had bombed the ghettoes, he would have had political support from some groups. But there would have been international outrage over the slaughter, and, in the American center, a feeling of demoralization. And on the left, a thorough delegitimization of the authority of the state and a campaign for impeachment.
Imagine if Nixon had killed 400+ children, then gone to an international forum. How would he have been greeted? Who would have walked out on him? And who would have cheered the protesters on? The American left.
Now here is my old friend Mark Green, the head of Air America radio,  holding a forum on progressive values in the Obama administration, and saying not a word about Gaza, nor about apartheid in the West Bank, nor about fairness for the Muslim world. As I said last week, I cannot discern a difference between Green, a flagship progressive, and Marty Peretz on these essential questions.
(Phil Weiss)

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, Gaza, Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics

{ 8 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. chris berel says:
    February 1, 2009 at 11:36 pm

    If missles flew out of Harlem towards 42nd street, Harlem would have been destroyed.

  2. LanceThruster says:
    February 2, 2009 at 12:45 am

    Who should be destroyed when the CIA runs crack cocaine into South Central?
    ~

  3. Richard Witty says:
    February 2, 2009 at 4:26 am

    You should read more on Green, than to state "this article, or this panel, indicates the sum total of his politics".

    I think that blanket condemnation is a cause for your dreams.

    The reason that you don't feel personal fear in your dreams is that you might not be the victim in them, but in this manner the perpetrator.

  4. LeaNder says:
    February 2, 2009 at 6:54 am

    I think that blanket condemnation is a cause for your dreams.

    How can a condemnation cause a dream? Did it start it? Or do his condemnations generally triggered his dream?

    The Israel scenario/War on Terrorism is attractive for the hardliners over here. One suggested a change in the constitution the abolition of fundamental rights. Security trumps freedom. Even the deployment of the military at home outside disaster operations was suggested. They must consider Israel as the ideal training ground.

    Don't you worry about that scenario?

  6. LeaNder says:
    February 2, 2009 at 6:55 am

    Or did his condemnations generally trigger his dream?

  7. Tommy says:
    February 2, 2009 at 11:22 am

    Reagan and the Democratic Congress essentially bombed American ghettos with their anti-crack laws.

  8. TGGP says:
    February 2, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    We did have to send the National Guard in a few times. Usually much later than they should have been sent in.

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