HAW is now a "left-wing social club"...

Over at HNN there is an article by a former author of this blog attacking HAW as a "left-wing social club." Read it here:

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/121872.html

I posted the following comments in response and wanted to publish those remarks here as well:

Some points:

- I am a member of the SC and yet somehow I am not opposed to libertarians.

- The "many" libertarians who joined HAW are apparently not numerous enough to vote anyone onto the SC. I would encourage libertarians to run for leadership positions and steer the organization in a direction they want. Elections are this month. There are twenty leadership seats to be had. If anyone thinks we're a "left-wing social club," then mobilize! That would be more effective than un-libertarian portrayals of discrimination and one's own victimhood.

- There are numerous "libertarian" posts on the blog. They went on for months and outnumber anything "progressive" on the blog. If ideology were the reason for stopping the two libertarians from posting, then that is indeed a mysterious anomaly. It is interesting that David's article here does not include our main complaint against him in his list of "main complaints against us." It goes unmentioned - not even to deny it or refute it. Read versions of what happened from both sides in the comments to posts at the HAWblog made in March of 2009, especially at http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/blog/2009/03/haw-info-draft-of-haw-statement.html#links. The whole blog issue was very unfortunate and I don't think either side played its cards right in the dispute that flared up last spring. The HAWblog is now admittedly rather stagnant. But it simply isn't the case that the HAW leadership suddenly moved to banish libertarianism and conduct a purge.

- The "blogroll" at the HAWblog has links to several libertarian or libertarian-friendly sources. They were put there on the initiative of David Beito. That is all the more evidence that participation is possible. If someone like David Beito were on the steering committee, even more would happen.

- The word "progressive" in the subtitle on a poster announcing a panel is not a core statement of ideology. Furthermore, the word progressive is followed by the phrase "and historically minded activists." Pouncing on this one word - an ambiguous word - and on a particular blog post is rather odd. It gives the impression that some people need HAW to be a left-wing whipping boy.

- A close reading of the new statement (and as historians, that is how we read documents) shows that it is not a "leftist critique of global capitalism." It expresses hope that the "crisis of global capitalism" - an undeniable fact in the spring of 2009 - not lead to more war and be paid for by the little guy. It does not advocate statist solutions (nor market solutions for that matter). Indeed, the call to not solve the crisis on the backs of the little guy seems very compatible with libertarianism to me. Ron Paul would not favor bailing out the fat cats or seizing resources abroad or some form of Keynesian military spending.

- Membership in HAW does not require signing on to a neo-Marxist agenda. It does not even require total agreement with the new statement - only "substantial agreement." During steering committee votes on the statement, I abstained because of the ambiguous "capitalism" clause. Nonetheless, I can get on board with the general theme. I know of at least one other HAW member who had strong objections to a particular clause (a different one) and yet signed anyway.

If people want to break with HAW because they do not feel it represents them, that is okay. We can go after militarism from different angles. The black-square bishop and the white-square bishop never meet, but can cooperate in checkmate. I think a case can be made that HAW is more "ecumenical" than portrayed in this article, however.

Edited to add: Another attack on HAW has been published at antiwar.com.

Are We Still Historians Against the War?

Or are we now just Historians Against the Republicans?

Since it took power, the new administration has ordered bombings that killed twenty-four Afghan civilians (including several children), promised that an attack on Iran remains “on the table," vowed to double U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan, and proposed an increase of forty-billion dollars in the already bloated Pentagon budget.

Meanwhile, Richard Holbrooke, the new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan has predicted that the Afghan war will last longer than the fourteen years of the Vietnam War, Vice President Biden has matter-of-factly promised an "uptick" in American casualties, and the American commander of NATO forces announced that all Afghan drug dealers, regardless of any connection to the insurgency, will be killed on sight.

Even the good news is less hopeful than it seemed on first appearance. Though President Obama has begun plans to close Gitmo and end torture he also issued executive orders to continue the policy of "rendition."

These developments should be of grave concern to all advocates of peace. Despite this, the official face of HAW on the front page of the website highlights a cartoon (see above) of Michael Steele, a person who has nothing to do with setting U.S. foreign policy. It is not the first cartoon of this type to appear. If this continues, readers will naturally start to wonder if HAW still takes a firm stand against the pro-war policies of the United States.