Zakaria

Sam B. writes:

Fareed Zakaria—he’s just come out with a new book on “post-America”—what does he mean to you? I can never quite figure out this person. I’ve seen him on various TV talking-head shows. He’s been variously tagged a neo-con, a conservative. He’s also an editor of Newsweek. Never felt comfortable with his (well-articulated, Indian accented) positions. On an interview with Michael Medved he sees a “great future” for America, in spite of the “doom sayers.”

LA replies:

He’s a complete enemy.

(How’s that for a nuanced, informative reply?)

Seriously, Norman Podhoretz, Lawrence Kudlow, Michael Gerson, George W. Bush, John McCain, plus all the neocons and Republicans pushing open borders and the North American Union, also see a “great future for America.” So what? All that that means is that they are not on the anti-American left.

Just as it’s not enough that someone is “pro-America” to establish that he’s patriotic, since what he may MEAN by “America” is a universal idea that can only be advanced by destroying the actual America, in the same way, it’s not enough that someone foresees a “great future for America,” since what he may MEAN by that “great future” is the transformation of America into a globalized, Islamicized, multicultural hodgepodge ruled by a business consortium or the UN.

When dealing with ideologues, especially liberals, we must never simply accept their reassuring-sounding abstract phrases. We must examine what they mean by those phrases.

In any case, Zakaria’s belief in a “great future for America” is instantly canceled out by his promotion of a “post-America.” So why are we even discussing whether his belief in a “great future for America” makes him a good guy?

Today’s intellectual entrepreneurs, like Zakaria, and politicians, like Barack Obama, think they can get away with the grossest lies and contradictions. And guess what? Given the stupidity of the public (the result of schools and universities and a culture that have systematically destroyed the public’s ability and desire to think), and the active assistance of the news media that cover up for them, they’re right.

But the bottom line is, people are incapable of recognizing and opposing a lie, or recognizing and opposing a danger to their country, if they don’t believe in truth or in their country. And that is the condition of modern people that has been deliberately planted in them by liberalism.

If we are to turn things around, liberalism must be defeated or die and be replaced by non-liberal truth and non-liberal allegiances.

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Stephen F. writes:

Yes, Zakaria is an enemy who is all the worse because, like Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, he is presented by the liberal media as a “moderate” or “conservative.” In my pre-traditionalist days, I was impressed by his book The Future of Freedom, which criticizes the trend in America toward democratizing everything, leading to a loss of standards and the destruction of healthy politics (not that this insight is probably original to him). Since then, he’s repeatedly expressed contempt for immigration restriction, sees the Islamic threat to the West as overblown (he is actually of Muslim origin although apparently non-practicing), and now celebrates the “post-American” century as China and India rise. He is the perfect example of a person of non-Western origin who celebrates certain American values but ultimately sees America as a place for people like him to take over. Incidentally I am noticing recently that many Indians are achieving high positions in various areas of U.S. society—business, medicine, science—and then using their influence to promote their kinsmen.

Stephen T. writes:

I can’t remember which talking head show it was, but at some point during last year’s amnesty debate Fareed Zakaria made this statement about Americans who opposed the Bush/Kennedy plan: “They need to look around. The future of this country is increasingly going to be foreigners and foreign companies.” I’m quite sure I am quoting it nearly exactly and I believe he has put substantially the same in writing.

He’s a big advocate of the “resistance is futile” position. i.e., illegal immigration from Mexico and the subsequent Hispanicization of at least the southwestern U.S. is a fait accompli, you can’t stop it, the more robust Mexican culture has rightfully vanquished the impotent Anglo and Americans should now just get used to it. Interestingly, however, Zakaria never projects any such futility upon struggling Third World countries (nor his own native India). Instead, he views their resolve to preserve their culture, and/or stringently protect their own economic self-interest not as “futile,” but as the natural right of people aspiring to unify and direct their own destiny—and unfailingly praises their vigor and national willpower in doing so.

It seems it’s only the U.S. that must give up and accept “the inevitable.”

Karl D. writes:

The problem with Zakaria and his ilk is that America and her future become an intellectual exercise. They love statistics and power point presentations thus becoming “experts” on what we want, need, and should expect. Especially on the topic of immigration. He also has the annoying personality trait that anyone concerned about anything that doesnt match his opinion is paranoid and just needs to relax.

LA replies:

Yes. Once a country has ceased, in the minds of its own people, or at least of its elite, to exist as a country, then its “leaders” (including “leaders” such as Zakaria who are aliens with foreign allegiances, begin to debate and decide its future on the basis of “studies,” PowerPoint charts, expert advice. It’s already ceased (not in actuality, but in the elite’s minds) to be a living thing and has become instead a large version of, say, a corporation or a government program. It is a thing to be managed according to uitiliarian principles.

As long as the people of a country allow its future to be discussed in such terms, they are effectively dead as a people. A living country would not allow this.

Adela G. writes:

Gee, why am I not surprised? Obama is reading Zakaria’s book on “post-America.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 21, 2008 11:57 AM | Send