The Two Disillusionments

 I wrote the other week on this blog that the spectacle of what the U.S. is doing in Venezuela right now is enough to destroy any lingering idealism of any political species—whether of the right or of the left. Marco Rubio's testimony before Congress last week—in which he explained in detail how the U.S. is harvesting the proceeds of oil wealth that it is extracting from the South American country at literally the barrel of a gun—was the final capstone in this edifice of disillusion. 

Suppose you were a leftist idealist still smitten with the rhetoric and mythology of the Bolivarian revolution. If you hadn't had your "Kronstadt" moment yet—if Maduro's stolen election and his arrest and torture of hundreds of political dissidents hadn't been enough to convince you that this "revolution" was going the way of other Stalinist debacles past—then surely the spectacle of Maduro's own top henchwoman now openly collaborating with the Yankee imperialists for the sake of mutual profit should be the final nail in the coffin. 

Doris Lessing writes in the Golden Notebook that everyone who still clung to the Communist Party into the 1950s had something—some excess or crime— of which they remained convinced that that, at least, would be "impossible" for the Stalinist regime—only to discover that indeed, it was possible; that indeed, that regime was capable of anything. 

Perhaps there were some starry-eyed leftists out there who still thought that—whatever other sins it might commit—becoming a lackey of U.S. imperialism was the one thing the Bolivarian socialist regime could never do. That, at least, was "impossible" to it.

Well—if anyone still believed that—take a look around. The "impossible" is occurring before our eyes. The last thing the Venezuelan regime had going for it—morally—was that it was, at least, a counterweight to U.S. neo-colonialism in the region. So much for that. Now, they are not only dictatorial and repressive—they are Trump stooges too. 

In the collection The God that Failed—one of the most important books in my personal political development—Louis Fischer writes that every sincere leftist idealist, who once entertained hopes for the Bolshevik revolution, eventually reached a point when the totalitarian methods of the Soviet state became too much for them to defend. He called this point the "Kronstadt" moment—after the naval rebellion of 1921 that the nascent Soviet state brutally suppressed—and which for some prescient American leftists was the moment they lost any lingering faith in the Leninist experiment. 

Fellow-travelers with the Bolivarian revolution should have likewise had their "Kronstadt" moment years ago at this point—they should have been disillusioned as soon as Maduro started locking up dissidents in a torture chamber. 

But if that had not yet been enough for them—if they took more convincing still—here is a Kronstadt to end all Kronstadts. Those leftists on the coalition call a few weeks ago who demanded "solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution," in the wake of the illegal U.S invasion, should be writhing in an agony of confusion at the fact that the dictatorship they so admire is now pumping oil for the Gringo invaders. 

Let us leave them to the bafflement which any even glancing acquaintance with modern history would have spared them, if they had bothered to pay attention to its lessons. 

So much for the idealism of the left. How about the idealism of the right? The neocons too, after all—of the John Bolton or Bret Stephens variety—have an idealism after their own fashion. They supported the U.S. invasion that Trump obviously telegraphed was coming—but they assumed it would be a regime change mission to install the rightful government, restore free and fair elections, and liberate the political prisoners in Caracas. 

But no. The invasion occurred—Maduro was abducted—but the rest of his regime remains in place. And they seem to be just as repressive and authoritarian as before. They are still running around snooping for any signs of dissent and disappearing potential critics of the regime—the only difference is that now, they are doing it with the tacit endorsement of the U.S. government. 

So goes another U.S. war for "freedom." The neocons got the war they wanted—just as they almost always get the wars they want, if they wait around long enough—but not the democracy they thought would result from it (just as they never seem to get the democracies they promise are bound to sprout from the wars they promote). 

The U.S. invaded in spectacular fashion. It killed about a hundred people. It kidnapped a foreign head of state. Then, having assured itself that it can continue to pump as much oil as it wants—it said, to the remainder of Maduro's government: "go ahead, keep stealing elections and locking up dissidents. You have our blessing."

It's not the first time in American history that the jingoists and boosters who sincerely believed that the U.S. government only ever fights for truth, justice, and liberty have been in for a rude awakening. All the way back in the 1840s, Emerson was castigating them: 

who is he that prates [...]

Of better arts and life?

Go, blindworm, go,

Behold the famous States

Harrying Mexico

With rifle and with knife!

Today, they are harrying Venezuela—with the same disillusioning result.

The Mexican-American war of which Emerson wrote was certainly one of those disgraceful spectacles when U.S. pretensions to exceptional moral idealism took a beating. The Spanish-American war at the turn of the century was another. 

That war too, at first had its idealists—its John Boltons and Bret Stephens. There were some jingoistic tub-thumpers who—at first—sincerely believed the U.S. was fighting in order to free the people of Cuba from the cruel Spanish dominion. 

As William Vaughn Moody wrote, in his great poem condemning the Spanish war, "An Ode in Time of Hesitation"—

'T was only yesterday sick Cuba's cry

 Came up the tropic wind, "Now help us, for we die!"

Some who took up this cry went for genuinely altruistic reasons. 

Beautiful armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and young

Shed on the awful hill slope at San Juan, Moody writes. 

They were in for just as much of a disillusionment as our neocon idealists of today. 

They thought they were liberating the Cubans, only for the U.S. government to eventually step into the shoes of the departed Spanish masters. Just as many a young idealist perished a century later in the crusade to "liberate" Iraq; and just as many a gung-ho war booster in the neoconservative ranks backed Trump's interference in Venezuela because they thought it would restore democracy and proclaim liberty to the captives. 

We charge you, ye who lead us, wrote Moody;

Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain!

Turn not their new-world victories to gain!

[...] One jot of their pure conquest put to hire...

Trump has certainly wasted no time in putting the neocon's "gallant" and "chivalrous" war to save the Venezuelans "to hire." He expelled Maduro and then stepped into his shoes; just as the U.S. expelled the Spanish Empire—and then adopted their methods. 

Trump is the least chivalrous or disinterested person who has ever existed. "What do you mean, liberate a country from a dictator, and not just take it over yourself to serve your own ends? Who would be such a sucker as to miss an opportunity like that? We can't just give Venezuela back to the Venezuelans, or Cuba back to the Cubans, after stealing it for ourselves. That would be stupid!"

So much then, too, for the "idealism" of the right—the "gallantry" that would invade Venezuela purely in order to free it from a tyrant's clutches. Trump's partnership and collaboration with the remnants of the Maduro regime have made short work of that one too. 

That is what has become of the neocons' gallant "regime change" operation—100 people dead, the regime still in place, the torture-chambers of Caracas still full, the secret police and the paramilitaries—those Bolivarian brownshirts—still spying on people and intimidating them—but Trump gets to have his oil. And U.S. oil companies get their bottom line. 

so rah-rah-rah democracy—as E.E. Cummings once put it—

let's all be as thankful as hell

and bury the statue of liberty

(because it begins to smell)

Perhaps it is time for the left to learn once for all that no good comes of dictatorship; and for the neocons to learn that no good comes of war—the means cannot be justified by the noble or "idealistic" ends they supposedly advance—not because those ends are unworthy, but because such means can never achieve them. Such means as these distort the ends they purportedly seek—they derail us from our intended journey. 

Dictatorship does not carry us toward social justice; war, imperialism, and unprovoked aggression do not lead to democratic peace. 

This isn't to say that no end can ever justify any means. The point, rather—as Arthur Koestler writes in one of his essays—"is to realize that the End only justifies the Means within very narrow limits. A surgeon is justified in inflicting pain because the results of the operation are reasonably predictable; but drastic large-scale operations on the social body involve many unknown factors." 

Maybe if the neocons could have known with certainty (or even probability) that their war on Venezuela would result in the fall of a dictatorship and the return of free elections, they would have had a point. (I still think unprovoked wars of aggression in violation of the UN charter are bad on deontological grounds—but I'd at least give them a hearing.) 

But the neocons obviously could not predict that with certainty. Their predictions were nothing close to what Trump actually decided to do, with all its abominations. 

They were indeed blind—as blind as the men Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed during the Mexican-American war. So to them I say—

Go, blindworm, go,

Behold the famous States

Harrying [Venezuela] 

with rifle and with knife!