Salon.com > Mark Adomanis

Right-winger foresees end of America

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:30:00 +0000

In his new book, "After America: Get Ready for Armageddon," conservative provocateur Mark Steyn takes direct aim at the dogma of "American exceptionalism," an ideological framework that now plays a role in American conservatism roughly equivalent to that which Marxism-Leninism played in the Soviet Union (everything that happens supports it, and nothing that happens can disprove it). Refreshingly, Steyn evidences little patience for the idea that America is unique in some fundamental and eternal sense. As he writes in the introduction:

"The United States joined the rest of the cosseted Western world in voting itself a lifestyle it was not willing to pay for ... the ‘bubble’ is not the property market or cheap credit. The bubble is twenty-first century America itself, from the financial sector to a wretched education system culminating in languorous, undemanding ‘college’ courses whose absurd soaraway prices were affected not a jot by the economic downturn."

The conservative press and Israel’s “miracle”

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:20:00 +0000

The conservative press has, over the past several years, regularly touted Israel’s "economic miracle."

Indeed, the "economic miracle" has become a full-fledged conservative talking point -- Israel’s economic dynamism and pro-business posture supposedly sets the country apart not just from its backward and authoritarian neighbors, but even from "decadent" developed countries in Western Europe and North America. The current Israeli government is even more overtly right-wing in its economic approach than its forbearers, and is fervently convinced of the need for liberalization, lower taxes, deregulation, and the entire panoply of Washington-consensus neoliberalism.

Did the Russians bomb a U.S. embassy?

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:45:00 +0000

Eli Lake, a Washington Times reporter and one of the most prominent right-wing voices on foreign policy and "security" issues, and someone who has in the past called me an "illiterate child," has published over the past several weeks a number of articles alleging that the Russians were responsible for an utterly bizarre (and thankfully botched) attempt at bombing the US embassy in Tblisi back in September 2010. Media reports have differed on the precise specifics, but there is general agreement that a small bomb (about a kilogram of TNT) exploded, and another was defused, about a hundred meters away from the external wall of the US embassy.

Lake’s first article, published on July 27, is titled "Classified report: Russia tied to blast at U.S. embassy" and confidently asserts that Russian guilt has been proven by the US intelligence community. The central argument of the article is the following: