Has been constitutive of.
At the end of the day, this is maybe the worst crime I’m willing to charge junior professor and middleweight bloviator Nicholas De Genova with: a tendencious mangling of the written word out of unexamined habit that results in such no-duh sentences as:
In my brief presentation, I outlined a long history of US invasions, wars of conquest, military occupations, and colonization in order to establish that imperialism and white supremacy have been constitutive of US nation-state formation and US nationalism.
The remarks in question (“I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus”) led the New York Post to idly speculate on how cool it would be for the National Guard to take up once again the practice of opening fire on peacefully protesting fellow citizens. De Genova has since expounded on his “million Mogadishus” soundbite in the Columbia Daily Spectator (link gacked from Electrolite’s comments, though the Invisible Adjunct has more to say on the subject), and it’s pretty much what I thought; these sorts of clarion calls for clear moral lines—with little thought as to the very real effects on those (of racially subordinated and working class backgrounds, as he takes pains to point out) who must necessarily toe those clear moral lines; who are rarely, if ever, anyone remotely like the clarion caller him- or herself—this sort of stirring speechifying has always been and will ever be constitutive of rabble-rousing and moral thuggery on every side of any conceivable political divide. It’s as shocking to find in academia—red state or blue state—as gamblers in Casablanca. —Yes, sheltered narcissist De Genova is far too quick to urge others (from racially subordinated and working-class backgrounds, to boot) to step up to his plate, but when it comes to the difference between urging and actually being in a position to enforce a glitteringly beautiful, inhuman moral clarity, I reserve my ire and my disdain first and foremost for the enforcers, button-men and condottieri—and there’s a long line of zipless cakewalk neocons ahead of De Genova, let me tell you.
(And such powerful weapons my ire and disdain are, too. Each hair on my head stands upright, like spines, and each one is tipped with a fire-spark. One eye squeezes tighter than the eye of a needle; the other opens as wide as a goblet. My mouth opens and stretches to my ears, my lips peel back until all my teeth show and you can see straight down my gullet. All around my head the hero-halo spins and flashes like a falling star. —Just ask the Spouse.)
Anyway, best quote on the whole sordid mess comes from Scott Lynch, in those ever-lively comments at Electrolite:
The thing that hits me hardest in the gut about this stupid De Genova/Kent State “thought experiment” is that there are folks out there who seem to think (or are willing to suggest in “jest”) that Kent State was only a tragedy for the left. It’s a bit like suggesting that Pearl Harbor was a tragedy solely for Hawaiians.
Now: Geraldo Rivera. Shameless flack or traitorous hack?
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Thank You For the Clarification, Prof. De Genova
Nicholas De Genova of Columbia didn't like how his hope that the war with Iraq (or at least US foreign
"And such powerful weapons my ire and disdain are, too."
This whole paragraph had me in stitches. Which is normally okay, except I'm at work.
And you should see the faces he used to make when we played Diplomacy.
-scott
(Psst. Scott. Google a phrase from that 'graph. You'll see from whence I nipped it.)