Give Me A Balcony

Fresh Gust of Bipartisanship

2007-12-31T22:28:00.000-05:00

One reason for my prolonged absence from this blog is that the news doesn't particularly merit comment (not that it did when I was blogging...), but this was amusing.

The latest news cycle has featured a good deal of buzz on the possibility of a Mike Bloomberg candidacy. A few retired Democrats are supporting him--but why? A cursory reading is instructive:

Mr. Bloomberg himself has become more candid in conversations with friends and associates about his interest in running, according to participants in those conversations. Despite public denials, the mayor has privately suggested several scenarios in which he might be a viable candidate: for instance, if the opposing major party candidates are poles apart, like Mike Huckabee, a Republican, versus Barack Obama or John Edwards as the Democratic nominee.

While it's quite revealing that Huckabee, an avowed economic populist, is the only Republican mentioned as unacceptable (to Mr. Bloomberg, one assumes), ultimately, this is nothing more than a (pre-Iowa) threat to Democrats who dare consider an alternative to Hillary Clinton--that is, if you attempt to engage in democracy, we will crush you.

How charming that a third party candidate is running on a platform of 'bipartisanship'; although it is understandable, given that the common mind cannot choose between more than two flavors.

On Freedom & Violence

2007-03-16T05:35:00.000-05:00

One of the central arguments of this blog in the past few months has been that the disconnect between elite and public opinion on issues of economic, foreign, and military policy are evidence of a systemic deficiency entrenched in the heart of American (and, by no coincidence, European) democracy. Sociologist William I. Robinson has called the American system "low-intensity democracy"; the democracy America "promotes", by means diplomatic and military are, therefore, correspondingly superficial.

Perhaps it is obvious at this point to most of my readers that the bromidic self-infatuation of neoconservatives and their like-minded "liberal internationalists", who have, quietly, pushed out most opposition in the executive and legislative halls of power could not possibly be sincere. Sovereignty and democracy couldn't be goals of the Iraq invasion. Any kind of democratically-elected Iraqi government, free of foreign influence, would see a law like the one governing Iraqi hydrocarbons, designed by foreign oil companies and the US and British Governments, as detrimental to the country's already poor economic situation, not to mention its sovereignty. The response to a democratic election in Palestine, yielding a victory for Hamas, has also been instructive: democracy is only valid when it benefits US (and, where applicable, Israeli) interests. All other democracy is unacceptable, and should be crushed.

This approach is not specific to the Middle East. Low-intensity democracy, as per Robinson, is not only a domestic reality--it is the model that elite US interests would like to impose on all other countries. The veil of popular participation is a boon to interests that would like to separate all true decision-making from the democratic process, allowing, as it does the vague sense of a better future--thus the important role played by liberals, as I have noted. Some real manifestations of this system would be a government that responds to public disgust and rejection of an illegal war by escalating that war, or a government that, in times of expanding wealth divides and crushing poverty, furthers the very policies that created the situation in the first place.

For instance, a $9 trillion national debt, a good portion of which finances the aforementioned unpopular and illegal war, will indeed have to be paid over time at some point in the future. Like a previously hidden flat tax (by amount, not rate), servicing such a national debt have dire effects imposed on a population that with already negative savings (this is not to mention the coming period of stagflation which many believe to be unavoidable). Flat taxes (by rate) are seen by many as among the most regressive forms of taxation possible. A flat tax by amount isn't even discussed, because it would be even more crushing on non-wealthy classes, and hence politically suicidal (even in a low-intensity democracy). But, by stealth, a national debt functions as just such a flat tax. Did anyone ever vote for it?

The economic future of the West seems grim, and that is largely caused by the lack of meaningful democratic choices on economic issues. If voters think that the billions in tax cuts, loopholes, and subsidies for particular industries with little public accountability or transparency should instead go towards meeting employment, environmental, educational, and health care needs, for whom can they vote? What effect can be expected of a Democratic Congress? What reward can they expect? A slightly higher but still sub-poverty minimum wage?

If a voter does not support the uncontested flow of taxpayer dollars into the violation of international law, by the state itself and its most prized allies, for whom can they vote? If a voter doesn't like paying for a war in which his/her child, or neighbor's child, is killing and dying, for whom can they vote? Or should they just shut up?

Decision-making, the province of true democracy, cannot be accountable to public will for the corporate project to proceed. For economic (and foreign) policy to be molded to the generation of ever-higher profits at the expense of the environment and human lives, at some level people can't have control over their governments. Votes are no longer for economic or foreign policy (if they were, most western countries would be significantly further left than the left wings of their avowedly left parties), thus the rise in import of "cultural" issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and the like. The focus of political debate on bigotry, from Islamophobia to the emergence of nativist anti-immigration sentiment, homophobia, latent institutional racism in the criminal justice system and so on can be connected quite effortlessly to this decline in democratic choice, as it was in the interwar period in several European nations (current far-right parties may overtly draw inspiration from these precedents). The focus of political discourse on hatred is a common diversionary tactic in times of incompetence, impotence and corruption. Neoliberalism and racism, corporate interests and violence are umbilically connected.

In some possible world, all of this would perhaps be acceptable if the current economic model, empowering private tyrannies, were capable of creating economic and international stability. Thus far, contrary to the pretensions of free market devotees, the track record is one of minimal success. Why? Scholar John McMurtry says this:

The deepest confusion is the equation of private money stocks to “capital”. Real capital is wealth that produces more wealth - from ecological services and social infrastructures to scientific knowledge and technologies that produce life goods. All have been subjugated to private money-capital which produces nothing. Few recognize that money-capital is not real capital, but demand on real capital by private money-stocks seeking to be more. So every form of life capital is sacrificed to the growth of money capital concentrated in in the possession of about 2% of the population who always have more than the bottom 90%. This is not an economic order, but a system of predatory waste called “wealth creation”.

There would be less cause for alarm if any governments (besides the oft-mentioned and sadly marginal Latin American exceptions) were attempting to turn back this tide of plutocracy and imperialism. Of course, they are not, and the elite fealty to the growth of corporate profit, which at the same time externalizes environmental and human costs, has only had the effect of deepening existing inequalities--accordingly, the future is not hard to forecast. State failure may indeed have a strong correlation to market failure

The absence of economic security does not bode well for the possibilities of economic and political democratization in the coming decades. Perhaps it is this very paradox that characterizes the aims of reactionary governments like that of the United States; its economic policy benefits its own "base", which also laying the ground for a further curtailment of the moribund American democracy/simultaneous seizure of power. In his January 11, 1944 State of the Union address, FDR said as much:

"True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made."

Something to think about.

Congressman Gilchrest, Meet Lord Churchill

2007-03-02T08:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a gem:

"What the British are doing, and what we really need to do, is to tease out the cultural complexities of this thing," said Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.). "On the one hand, they are signaling to all the Iraqi people, whatever sect they are -- Sunnis, Shias, Kurds -- they are not going to be an occupying force. That's a powerful signal to send. And the other signal is that they are passing the torch to the Iraqis, who are the only ones who can handle this ancient -- I'd say primitive -- sectarian dispute."

Remind me again, Congressman Gilchrest, did you vote to allow the invasion and occupation of this primitive, savage land?

Never mind that since the event that Shi'a Muslims mark as the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in the seventh century AD, there hasn't been any comparable dispute between Sunni and Shi'i Arab inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Never mind that Iraqis being tortured by other Iraqis or by Americans, asked "are you Sunni or Shiite?" may never have been asked such a question before the Anglo-American invasion. Once upon a time, Iraq was a secular state. Never mind that, despite this "ancient -- I'd say primitive -- sectarian dispute", there was (at least before CIA-backed strongman Saddam Hussein came to power) a relatively high proportion of Shi'i politicians and military officers in places of power in the Iraqi state. Never mind that this "ancient -- I'd say primitive -- sectarian dispute" wasn't raging before the Anglo-American invasion. So how primitive is it?

American lawmakers, and indeed many Americans in general, tend to see the Middle East as a land of perpetual violence and nonstop hatred (as with Webb's remark). They would be surprised to know that the Muslims are actually human, and many (I daresay most) would prefer to live their lives in peace. But this is a necessary illusion, because it extricates the US Empire from any blame in the tragedies daily facing the locals.

Such rationalizations are but a step away from this:

"I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes."

Divide-and-rule is an old imperialist trick. The west has used it on Iraq (and much of the Middle East) for nearly nine decades. The Iraqi people shouldn't be blamed that it is finally working. The west should be congratulated.

The willful ignorance necessary for such racist criminals to continue their fantasies of the wisdom and beneficence of the white man is astounding, as usual.

The Case for Reparations

2007-03-02T06:59:00.000-05:00

As the stench of Bush-era Washington gradually spreads to envelop a globe where hypocrisy is the modus operandi of governments and the corporations they serve in every corner of the globe, Americans need to understand that they are not a uniquely noble people. The cultural malaise that has led to widespread abuses of "sand niggers" in Iraq cannot be blamed on Iraqis themselves; the democratic deficit that has led to a classic nineteenth century policy of spreading democracy and enlightenment to brown-skinned lands cannot be blamed on Old Europe. America is a dying nation, and it digs its grave almost happily.

Americans need to admit that they were lied into attacking Iraq, lied into killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and that the only acceptable penalty for such glaring stupidity is that they must pay massive reparations to the Iraqi people. The case for reparations is made with every suicide bomb explosion in Baghdad, every crisis, every death. If we take the median number of deaths for the Lancet study, the generally accepted estimate of deaths linked to US-UK sanctions after the first Gulf War, and the casualty figures from that first war, the West has violently killed some 2 million Iraqis, which is ten percent of the country's current population. A combined 3.5 million have been displaced within Iraq and in neighboring nations.

Imagine if Iraq had waged continual war on the United States from 1990 to the present day, and an estimated 30 million Americans had been killed, with 50 million more forced from their homes. Would reparations not be in order?

This war was about establishing a neoliberal colony in the heart of the Middle East; the (probably illegal) policies of Proconsul Bremer and the local raj that followed him have hollowed out Iraq's economy just as structural adjustment has done in countless Latin American, African, and Asian nations. Early on in his tenure, Bremer ended tariffs placed on food imports, an act that destroyed the millenia-old Iraqi agricultural tradition and has made the country completely reliant on other countries for its very survival. The food crisis in Iraq, like the alarming figure of deaths and displacements, can only be solved through reparations. Reparations are recognized under international law and laws of war as the appropriate penalty for an act of aggression by a wealthy state against an overwhelmingly poor one. This does not mean paying American companies to go to Iraq, hang out for a few months, and then leave without doing the reconstruction they have been entrusted. It means giving money to Iraqis and letting them do what they will. Even the widespread corruption in the Iraqi government (which began with the Bremer-led CPA) cannot be worse than that of the kleptocratic American reconstruction industry; as my fellow Iranian Reza Fiyouzat says in his recent tour-de-force, "in this day and age of post-industrialism, not even electricity is provided to the conquered peoples! That's how inept western imperialism has become. It can only destroy and do nothing more."

In any case, there is still profit from the veneer of reconstruction, with characteristic American superficiality--much as destruction has become a multi-billion dollar business, reconstruction has emerged as an industry to scoop up the second helping of profits from American state terror. This has been documented by various excellent journalists. The reconstruction industry can be seen as the natural extension of the military-industrial complex, long the jewel in the crown of American state capitalism. The cyclical nature of destruction and reconstruction allows for indefinite government investment, and thus indefinite private profits, often at the expense of any real reconstruction--but who cares? Ultimately, no one is going to see it except for the natives. Brilliant.

From a legal perspective, reparations should be required. From a moral and completely practical perspective, the billions spent thus far on reconstruction have not been effective--thus, reparations should be required. Reparations are the only humane way for the criminal American political class to contribute to stability in the country they have (most recently) destroyed. Any purportedly ethical discussion of withdrawal cannot leave out this issue.

Keep in mind, however, that on this issue, the US Congress (not to speak of the murderous MBA branch of government) isn't interested in even the standard ethical artifice; in fact, take note that "credible" mainstream resolutions on the de-escalation of the Iraq War do not call for full withdrawal of all troops (vs. "combat troops"). The relevant legislation put forth by heavyweights like Clinton and Obama call for redeployment. The corporate media, loathe to speak the truth, and the public usually unable or unwilling to seek it have not yet discussed the important differences between calls for withdrawal and redeployment (that last link is good for a laugh). There is a difference, and it has to do with something called oil.

The vapid, simple-minded narrative that "a new strategy" is justified because the United States has already invested plenty of "blood and treasure" in Iraq, and if Iraqis don't want to play nice, then we can't make them. It is nothing but repetition of the racist mantras necessary for the continuation of empire, as it presumes that the intentions of such an investment were noble, whereas the investment itself has been made entirely to the benefit of American capital. This is so glaringly obvious that members of Congress couldn't possibly talk about it.

Withdrawal isn't justified because Iraqis are too depraved to deserve American violence. It is justified because the war was a criminal act in the first place. It is justified because it what the Iraqi people, living under occupation, overwhelmingly want. This too should be obvious.

Commerce in Death

2007-02-20T08:36:00.000-05:00

Whether or not the Bush Administration's extremely, even hilariously hypocritical belligerence (subtly aided by a criminal media) towards Iran is a precursor to a devastating regional war, it (along with the destabilization brought about by its occupation of Iraq) has had its effect. Gulf Arab states, with economies buoyed by the high oil prices--in large part caused by the war on Iraq--and paranoid about Iranian (and domestic Shi'i) retaliation in case of an American attack, not to mention these governments' concern about their own restive, impoverished populations, are engaging in a military spending bonanza mostly benefitting American death merchants.

The lionized Senator James Webb, supposedly a voice of anti-war reason in Washington, called the Middle East "a region that has never known peace." Aside from the glaring racism (and requisite historical blindness) of such a comment, the irony, in light of the unprecedented multi-billion dollar profits for the American church of brutality, cannot be missed. Indeed, as has been noted, time and again, most if not all of the violence in the Middle East comes at the behest (and benefit) of "US interests." To call a land that you are destroying "a region that has never known peace" is like calling Rodney King "a man who has never known law."

Whether or not this was a primary rationale for the Bush era destabilization of the Middle East (and you can examine where neocon think tanks get their money yourself), it certainly has been a major effect. This escalating regional arms race, while almost exclusively benefitting the American military-industrial complex, ominously portends a militarized future for the Muslim world. But, in the service of capital, the victims of US aggression don't exist; put succinctly, they are unpeople.

Forgive My Feeble Mind (If, Indeed, It Is Feeble)

2007-02-19T08:09:00.000-05:00

Addenda to 'Illusions & Hopes' nonsense:

If I didn't make it clear, essentially the point is that it is government policy that has made the very existence neoliberal model possible. The effect is to remove economic policy from transparent and democratic purview (which is essentially impossible in traditional models of representative democracy, in any case), but the act of removal can only be carried out with the aid of governmental institutions in the first place. Chandra & Basu explain in this article (also linked somewhere in the original series of 'Illusions & Hopes' posts):

[I]t is the state as the instrument of politico-legal repression that facilitates neoliberal expansion. Firstly, the state intervenes with all its might to secure control over resources - both natural and human ("new enclosures") - and secondly, to ensure the non-transgression of the political into the economic, which essentially signifies discounting the politics of labour and the dispossessed from affecting the political economy.

Simultaneously one can note that billions of dollars of government expenditure go into generating private wealth in the forms of publicly-funded research (taking place both in public entities like the NIH and countless institutions of higher learning and in private companies as in the aerospace and computer industries, to name a few) which is then passed on to private entities and sold for profit. National policy has similarly been shaped around the inefficient use of automobiles since the 1920s, and especially since the Second World War, a huge government endeavor birthing American life as we know it and representing the major source of profit for the US oil industry.

Noam Chomsky has aptly called this a system of socialized cost and privatized profit (highly recommended link). Hence the most profitable areas of the alleged "free market" of neoliberal acclaim, despite the harpings of corporate media, essentially represent a rentier-class benefitting from a particularly cruel, inefficient and destructive model of state capitalism--and due in part to its inefficiency and destructiveness, it is expansionist by necessity. The imperial character of American state capitalism is accordingly subsidized not only by the American public (as noted before) but by the people of "occupied" (and occupied) countries. In a mind-numbing array of directions, the costs of neoliberalism (American military action being interpreted as simply another arm of global capital, as is apparent in the legislative agenda of occupied Iraq) are nearly all borne by publics, which are nonetheless ignored by their governments.

As such, governmental policy can also be made to reverse the economic and humanitarian crises brought about by the Washington Consensus and the international financial institutions that promote it unrelentingly. In some Latin American countries, this has taken place; the poverty rate in Venezuela has been halved during the 8-year tenure of Hugo Chavez, despite the best efforts of that country's wealthy classes. In Argentina, worker-owned factories have represent a real alternative to the profit-driven production model of private capital, and in Brazil, despite Lula's apparent capitulation to the IMF and capital in general, useful models of participatory budgeting had been developed by his party in Porto Alegre in 1989. These advancements are significant not only in themselves but as means of building the base of knowledge and self-confidence of the working classes in these countries and showing alternatives to the world.

Of course the specifics of a post-capitalist globalization are as hazy to me as they are to anyone (if not more so), but it's pretty fascinating (and probably crucial) that many people are coming up with--and actually employing--alternatives.

Raimondo Is Wrong

2007-02-16T07:38:00.000-05:00

I admire Justin Raimondo the editorial director and intrepid columnist for the indispensable antiwar.com, for his tireless dedication to truth (and for his ability to get paid for writing), and I'm grateful for his existence, but he is completely wrong on two counts.

Raimondo has been supportive, even zealous, in his promotion of the (Chuck) Hagel for President boomlet which has derived from that Senator's perceived opposition to the Iraq war. Fair enough. Hagel has gone further than most Democrats in his criticism of the Bush administration's conduct of the war. Regardless of whatever regrets Hagel may have, he did vote for the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq (2002)--as did a number of Democrats, of course. He is also a strong ally of the Pentagon, as Raimondo notes, and therefore of the American right to develop/maintain the means to eternal, apocalyptic violence. These two facts should be enough to convince any war critic, especially those of a libertarian bent, like Raimondo (an issue to which I'll return), that Hagel may not be the ideal peace candidate.

On top of this, add the fact that Hagel has a sordid past, having been the chairman (and maintaining part-ownership) of a "company that owns the company that installed, programmed, and largely ran the voting machines that were used by most of the citizens of Nebraska", as Thom Hartmann wrote in 2003. Hartmann goes on to note that eighty percent of his state's votes were tallied by the company's machines in Hagel's 2002 re-election, which the Senator won with...roughly eighty percent of the vote. This caused quite a bit of a scandal in 2003-2004, which seems to have died down--one wonders, what was the resolution? The scandal, after all, had less to do with Hagel's part-ownership in the company than with his having originally failed to disclose the fact. Nonetheless, it's not the stuff that peace candidates are made of; one can imagine that Hagel, as president, may end the occupation of Iraq, but will he do anything to reform the systemic defects that brought about the initial war and have allowed it to continue?

In Raimondo's belief, there seems to be but one such systemic defect responsible for the American invasion and occupation of Iraq: Israeli influence in US politics. He wants to disabuse us of "the tired leftist idea that this was a war for oil,'" since "I don't see any oil flowing"... "This war was about one thing and one thing only: advancing Israel's interests in the region." So, the oil industry hasn't seen any profits resulting in a rise of oil prices that might have begun in March 2003, right? And pre-existing Iraqi hydrocarbons laws haven't been changed to allow production sharing agreements in which the lion's share of initial profits go to the foreign companies investing in the Iraqi oil sector, right? And the Energy Task Force that Cheney won't talk about was just using this map as scratch paper to try out a fun new crayon set, right? And the fact that the US hasn't gotten Iraqi oil production back to pre-invasion levels proves that the war wasn't about oil, right? Future profits also don't matter to oil companies, right?

Right.

Mr. Raimondo may not have seen the record profits achieved by the oil industry in each of the past two years; they do not entirely result from the war in Iraq, but they're not independent of it, either. The fact is that whether or not the invasion of Iraq was a was a war for AIPAC/ Likud's view of what constitutes "Israeli security" (of course it was, to a degree), it also simultaneously served the interests of enormous US oil corporations and the neoconservative designs for perpetual American hegemony. The execution has been flawed, largely because of the immense, stultifying ignorance and arrogance of the involved parties. But to say that "[t]his war was about one thing and one thing only: advancing Israel's interests in the region" is a simply whitewash. The effect is of such rhetoric is, whether intended or not, to return the US image to its pedestal, by claiming that it has fallen so far only because of another country.

The imperial designs of Cheney et al. are generally long-term, though the profit motive is mostly short-term. American control of Iraqi oil, and positioning in the heart of the "arc of instability" allows for indefinite US control of the resources China and India (and the whole world, in fact) will need to develop. For a government headed by former oil executives to embark on a war in Iraq without considering all of the above is absolutely unthinkable.

Dilip Hiro, an excellent journalist who has recently written a book called "Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources", says as much.

The US and Israel are close not just because of the Lobby (which as I have myself indicated plays an important role in regulating discourse in the US), but because they actually share geopolitical interests. This should really be axiomatic at this point.

A problem with Raimondo's American brand of apparently conservative libertarianism is that without a critique of the political influence of multinational corporations in modern politics, and their effective control of the global economy, resistance to modern states is relatively toothless. If you can't recognize that the inherent structure of political power in the world and especially in the United States rests largely in the hands of private capital, and that by virtue of this fact nothing that happens in domestic or foreign policy is independent of the interests of said capital, then you're just tilting at windmills. (Raimondo may say that the multinational corporation is in fact an outgrowth, or indeed a creation, of national governments--that is fair, and I don't disagree.) There is a major systemic flaw besides Israeli influence that led to the Iraq war, and it ought to be addressed if future wars in the Iraq model are to be prevented.

This is why supporting Hagel as a peace (or at least antiwar) candidate would be short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating (totally separate from his apparent antidemocratic credentials), as it will do nothing to beat back the culture of militarism that allows governments to wage illegal wars of choice nor will it limit the increasing confluence of private capital and government (a little something Mussolini called fascism), nor will it target the inequalities that said confluence preys on to sustain itself. I concede there may be no other choice for the anti-war movement, barring one of the allegedly "viable" Democrats currently in the race re-positioning due to pressure from the left (as Obama has already done, to a degree), or a run by Al Gore. In any case, even successful electoral politics by the anti-war movement will only be a bandage on the gaping deficiencies of US democracy that led to the crimes against peace that are the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that Raimondo knows this.

Illusions & Hopes of the Undead Age (Part Three: A Choice Is Presented)

2007-02-16T07:20:00.001-05:00

In short, the Economist article touches on two issues that certainly do play a role (enabled by government) in keeping labor value below that of the cost of living in the developing world, but at the same time it completely writes off that even in the countries supposedly gaining from corporate globalization, like China, India, Kenya, South Africa, etc., foreign investment has exacerbated pre-existing environmental, humanitarian, and socioeconomic problems (in fact the former two have long violated key parts of the Washington Consensus, as did all other countries that ever actually developed, but that is neither here nor there). Those costs can be written off.

Although I am not convinced of the vice-like grip of "theory" on historical events I am becoming quite certain of the inevitability of the collapse of the capitalist system (the former is among the major reasons that I refuse to call myself a Marxist-Leninist, along with my reservations with regard to the Leninist tradition of democratic centralism--which is a seed of totalitarianism--and the latter is one of my reasons for nevertheless admiring Marx's critique of capitalism).

This is why the Economist article is particularly grating; in attempting to assign the perpetual misery of the working class to inexorable forces beyond government purview, like "technology" and "globalization", it fits neatly in the neoliberal model of expropriating economic policy from any accountable, democratic control and placing it in the hands of totalitarian institutions, namely multinational corporations, and instruments of neocolonialism, namely international financial institutions. If technology and globalization are the only answers to the question of why wages have stagnated (and real wages have declined), then the average worker can't do anything to make his/her life better. The assessment works to preserve and perpetuate the system (I don't know whether this is intentional or simply a reflex).

The global scale of this emasculation of democracy is the real reason for the declining worth of wage labor in developed countries, and it could be reversed if governments were to take control of their economies once more. This is not a "retreat" from the process of globalization, but a democratization of it. At the same time, political systems cannot function as binaries responsible for no real choices (thus relying more and more on fascist/jingoist/messianic rhetoric and Madison Avenue magic). Of course the opaque worthlessness of electoral systems the world over is simply symptomatic of their lack of control of politics over economics, but dead-end free-marketers will tell you that true democracy lies not in the demos but in the agora, unfettered from popular control (try telling them about the billions of dollars of state support in every productive sector of the US economy from high technology to pharmaceuticals to agriculture to ranching while they rail on the "distortions" caused by things like minimum wages and subsidies for the poor).

Their model, which has been empowered for decades, represents tyranny, with concordant results available for examination. Governments have shown, as the Democrats did with their pathetic minimum wage hike, that they don't understand what is happening to the world, or that they simply don't care. There are numerous alternatives that must be explored, but for immediate relief for the billions of poor on this planet, activism and nonstop political pressure are the recourse. Political actions can be taken to make globalization and technology work for labor--and therefore humanity--instead of capital. It is largely a matter of who controls their development.

Otherwise, the forthcoming decline of service-sector employment in the Global North due to technological advancements, the irreversible toll of Global Warming laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, local issues of pollution (water and air quality, access to food, etc.), massive poverty in the Global South and vast enclaves of South-dom in the North, and a "balance" further towards capital (in real terms) than at any previous time in human history ensure that the corporate model of globalization actually will inevitably self-destruct, either by wiping out humanity or by spreading so much misery as to guarantee massive social upheaval.

Take your pick, I guess.

Illusions & Hopes in the Undead Age (Part Two: Capital's Strawmen)

2007-02-16T06:50:00.001-05:00

Naturally, the racial dimension of poverty in the world's wealthiest political/economic unit is also completely overlooked by such vague, corporate discussions of "balance" typified by the Economist piece; nearly 25% of the African-American population in the United States is under the extremely limited poverty level mentioned above. That means, of course, that when real costs of living are taken into account, the poverty rate among American blacks is considerably higher--but, even at 25% in poverty, the rate is comparable to that of poor countries of the Global South (and it's pretty bad in the Global South).

Not to overlook the rest of the above corporate sophistry; the debate on technology/globalization as the source of ever-lowering labor value, while a near-complete red herring meant to disguise the fact that inequitable wealth distribution is predominantly a result of plutocratic government policy, is interesting nonetheless--perhaps by virtue of its very function. Technological advancements will likely wipe out a great deal of service jobs in the United States alone in the next two decades. Unemployment driven thusly will create a larger unoccupied labor pool which will in turn serve to drive down the value of labor. Globalization has served for the past decades as a means of removing corporate "externalities" like environmental degradation and miserable labor conditions away from the consumer base so as to both take advantage of lower labor value and poor-to-nonexistent labor/environmental safeguards in the Global South while also being able to reduce the interaction of the consumer base with production (for more on the global-scale environmental destruction caused by rapid Chinese development, read this).

While much about labor and environmental issues arising from globalization has been widely noted by every radical/dissident (and some "progressives") under the sun, the issue of separation between production and consumption is overlooked more often, though it is worthy of attention: using the vast Chinese labor pool, for instance, allows not only ridiculously low consumer prices (which, as shown above, still can't be met by millions of people in the world's wealthiest political/economic unit) but also allows corporations themselves to became more and more capable of relying on manufactured as opposed to real images to market themselves. Regardless of this particular upside for capital, globalization will continue to hold down labor markets in the Global North while preying on the vulnerable ones in the Global South, and will continue to cause economic crises, like that of Argentina 1999-2002, in any countries that actually follow the Washington Consensus.

If the forces of global integration and technological advancement were controlled not by tyrannies for profit, but by transparent, democratic governments accountable and recallable to their polities, then globalizing forces could conceivably raise living standards by using the comparative advantages of various states synergistically (see Venezuela and Cuba) and technological advancement through even marginal public funding compared to what is spent on the joke missile defense shield in the US could make renewable energies economical in a matter of years and rapidly reduce carbon emissions much sooner than simply relying on "the market". Just in case you were wondering, this happens to be necessary for the survival of humanity. Moreover, technology may take many jobs, but it can create new ones, depending on how it is shaped by policy. The necessity is simply for that policy to be democratic.

Illusions & Hopes of the Undead Age (Part One: Or, Things Are Looking Up For Wage Slaves!)

2007-02-16T06:25:00.000-05:00

True to form, here's a useless argument found in a January issue of The Economist:

For economists, the debate about whether technology or globalisation is responsible for capital's rewards outpacing those of labour is crucial, complicated and unresolved. One school, which blames globalisation, argues that the rocketing profits and sluggish middling wages of the past few years are the long-lasting results of trade, as all those new developing-country workers enter the labour market. This school says that technology helps workers by increasing their productivity and eventually their wages. The opposing school retorts that technology does not increase wages immediately, and some sorts of information technology seem to boost the returns to capital instead (think of how much more a dollar's worth of computing power can do these days). And it questions whether Western incomes will remain flat: recent wage rises in America and pay claims in Europe and Japan may start to reverse the balance back away from capital.

It has been pointed out repeatedly in dissident media that even when the new minimum wage increase is fully implemented (over the next two years), it will only amount to a roughly $15,000 annual salary for a full time, 52-week-per-year minimum wage worker. This is actually thousands less than the US government estimates to be the national poverty level for a family of three, and as you'll see, even this number represents a significant miscalculation. In 2007, the official federal poverty rate (measured in terms of annual income) for a family of three is $17,170 as set by the Department of Health and Human Services; this poverty rate, nonetheless, is calculated primarily on the basis of the minimum cost of three meals a day, not taking housing, health care, transit, clothing, and other basic necessities of a decent modern life into account. Paul Street notes this, citing an Economic Policy Institute study that calculates these additional costs and accounts--as the federal rate does not--for geographic variations in the cost of living, establishing what it calls the 'basic family budget'. In Casper, Wyoming, Street notes, the basic family budget is $24,948. One would be hard-pressed to find a lower-cost location, and nonetheless the basic family budget is over 50% more than the federal poverty rate. Street also quotes Martin Luther King's 'Time to Break a Silence' speech: “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Spending on violence and the injustice it defends, as is obvious, is nowhere near spending on peace and justice.

So, full-time minimum wage work ever after the new minimum wage increase is less than the federal poverty rate and significantly less than the real minimum cost of living (note that, still, Republicans and many in the business press are kicking and screaming). What does this mean?

The new minimum wage increases still maintain government sanction for extreme sub-poverty wages. The optimism of the "opposing school" referred to in the Economist article would seem to be somewhat misplaced; the so-called "balance", by design, will remain strongly on the side of capital, and the nominal tweak by the Democratic Congress will not be enough to meet the minimum requirements of almost any minimum wage earners. Can we even discuss "balance" while nearly 50 million people in the world's wealthiest political/economic unit have no health care? Or while the government congratulates itself for raising a subpoverty wage to a slightly higher subpoverty wage? Or while nearly a quarter of the federal budget is spent on violence (as opposed to the mendacious figure of 4% of total GDP bandied about by dime-a-dozen hawks in government and "free" press)? Or while nearly 16 million in said political/economic unit live in deep poverty?

This is wage slavery without even the minimal, self-serving frills imagined by Henry Ford. And a supposedly progressive Congress is pushing it and taking credit for it.

A Wretched Kabuki (Part Two)

2007-02-07T07:46:00.000-05:00

The cases of Jimmy Carter and Wesley Clark's run-ins with the Zionist lobby display that whether you're a former President with unquestioned humanitarian credentials and a Nobel under your belt, or a four-star general proven to be as ruthless as any American hero, you can't just say what you want in the US. Carter's book and Clark's statement about "the New York money people" weren't necessarily important in their criticism in Israel--indeed, both attempted to go out of their ways not to criticize Israel. Carter claimed that Israel is "a wonderful democracy" when, in fact, that is not so clear-cut, as I have also pointed out and Clark went out of his way to say that "the Jewish community is divided" which it is.

If the crimes of Carter and Clark were not simply in their ire towards the actions of the Israeli state, why have they invited such sustained indignation from the lobby and the American punditry/academic community whose function is ostensibly to be pro-Israel?

It is not that they criticized Israel, which they attempted not to do; their crime is, in fact, that they criticized the lack of debate about Israel policy within the United States.

Ever so briefly, these two men lifted the Wizard's curtain and pointed to the fact that there is something ominous about the narrowing of acceptable dialogue in a purportedly democratic country, that something was not right about the fact that special interests not only dominate government, but that they dominate the public sphere so completely as well. Until now, the machinations of AIPAC and the corporate/elite origins of its funding had not been commented on in polite company. That these men highlighted that fact is the primary reason for the viciousness of the responses they have received from the likes of Alan Dershowitz.

Cracking the ice on the topic of the Israeli occupation is useful; if it weren't, I wouldn't expect Dershowitz to enter the fray with his tiresome brand of charlatanism. Public debate could lead to a genuine reassessment of American policy there, though it is unlikely that the current model of representative government would change its policy, which includes the shipment of armaments and fighter jets to a state as it is conducting air raids on a neighbor, attack helicopters while it is conducting campaigns against an occupied population, and sanctions against that occupied population when they vote for someone Israel (and by extension the US) can't co-opt as easily as their predecessors, followed by shipments of arms to the aforementioned rival faction within the occupied population to exacerbate tensions which have precipitated in the deaths of twenty individuals over the past week. If a country other than the United States were following such a policy, it would rightly be denounced as criminal in the United Nations, and appropriate action would be taken. The veto powers have precluded that from ever happening (though even a majority of the American public is willing to give up a Security Council veto, interestingly).

While government policy towards Israel would likely not change, popular action could take place in the forms of boycotts and pressure for divestment (and other political and economic pressure), which are all currently being discussed and promoted by numerous activists. Citizens' pressure could have an effect in an age when government has no interest in true stability or justice, as foreign policy has been corporatized.

In the absence of democratic foreign policy (since its inception), the United States has long been (since, let's say, 1945) the world's leading state sponsor of terror.

Foreign policy, be it with regard to an aggressive ally or the indirect violence of neoliberal globalization, is not remotely a matter that can be effected by elections. Not only is this the case in the United States. Take the evidence of Brazil, where a coalition of grassroots movements elected a formerly poor union organizer only to have him abandon their aims. The state is not only unwilling to be accountable to its citizens when it comes to international relations--it won't even hear of alternatives. Apparently, there is no alternative.

How long has it been that way? Have you noticed it?

What is to be done?

At the risk of sounding repetitive, the crisis of democracy in the West, as underlined by the shift towards anti-democratic, authoritarian, unaccountable foreign policies, is systemic and can only be solved by grassroots action. The state, corporate, academic, and trade union structures that have become glorified orchestrations of democracy over a foundation of (sometimes) subtle tyranny can be circumvented by the organization and action of citizens, in a truly deliberative, ground-up democratic fashion. On issues economic, environmental (often in response to 'development'), political and humanitarian, even with regard to Israel, people are attempting to do just this. It isn't easy, and there are innumerable pitfalls. But a democratic future requires concerted democratic action in the present.

"Or would you, for yourself, choose the boot?"

A Wretched Kabuki (Part One)

2007-02-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

Tyranny truly is a horror: an immense, endlessly bloody, endlessly painful, endlessly varied, endless crime against not humanity in the abstract but a lot of humans in the flesh. It is, as Orwell wrote, a jackboot forever stomping on a human face.

I understand why some dislike the idea, and fear the ramifications of, America as a liberator. But I do not understand why they do not see that anything is better than life with your face under the boot. And that any rescue of a people under the boot (be they Afghan, Kuwaiti or Iraqi) is something to be desired. Even if the rescue is less than perfectly realized. Even if the rescuer is a great, overmuscled, bossy, selfish oaf. Or would you, for yourself, choose the boot?

These were the pronouncements of a dyed-in-the-wool (no pun intended) Iraq war supporter on the eve of the invasion. No need to discuss the inherent lies in this straw-man argument. I've done enough of that. I'd only like to point out that the invasion and occupation of Iraq represent a failure of democracy, not a triumph of it. The current situation proves it beyond a doubt by any rational assessment, as I've pointed out. I'm not going to link to my previous comments, because I've actually linked to them a couple of times before (you know, the polls showing that Americans and, above all, Iraqis want an end to the American occupation while Bush has shown a disdain for such public sentiment), and it's getting seriously passé.

That the neoconservative future, as an arm of corporate globalization, relies upon generalized, unrealistic dichotomies and the production of otherness (in this case, of the Muslim world vis-à-vis the civilized West) is illustrated thoroughly by bombast like that of Michael Kelly. What is interesting is that, as the (overtly, at least) belligerent side of the neoliberal project which supposedly has designed a postnational (multinational) future, neoconservatism actually relies upon the reification of national borders, nationalism, and ultimately racism towards all that is subaltern; there are subtle collaborations in this process by some natives, but the effect is nonetheless dehumanizing. The Lou Dobbs wing of the immigration debate in the United States, with its parallels in Europe, also reflect this essentially bigoted side-project of globalization (often referred to as a "reaction to", overlooking its sanction by the major conglomerates benefitting from so-called "free trade"). As a cultural enterprise, it is but one act of the kabuki for popular consumption (the above article is highly recommended).

Now that we have that out of the way, I'm going to talk about Israel/Palestine (again).

In the mind of the American information consumer, there can only be one kind of political discourse about Israel--namely, shrill competition for the crown of most hawkish. Legislators, administration officials, and prospective candidates struggle to define themselves as more supportive of Israel, while not mentioning what, exactly they support Israel in doing. Vaguely, there are references to Israel's security, without any real discussion of what that security requires (or entails).

Thus, Americans have a very limited sense of what's good for their own country with regard to Israel and, similarly, they have perhaps no sense of what's actually good for Israel. But, if they have the time to pay attention, they know what their politicians are saying.

John Edwards, on the fictional "Iranian threat":"Iran must know that the world won’t back down. The recent UN resolution ordering Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium was not enough. We need meaningful political and economic sanctions. We have muddled along for far too long. To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table, Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table."

Hillary Clinton, same topic: "U.S. policy must be unequivocal. Iran must not build or acquire nuclear weapons….We have to keep all options on the table…."

Wes Clark, same topic: "How can you talk about bombing a country when you won't even talk to them?" said Clark. "It's outrageous. We're the United States of America; we don't do that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the military option is off the table -- but diplomacy is not what Jim Baker says it is. It's not, What will it take for you boys to support us on Iraq? It's sitting down for a couple of days and talking about our families and our hopes, and building relationships." (note that he was slammed for this)

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, same topic: "Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, there's no doubt about it. There's no debate among experts. It's seeking a nuclear weapon at its plant at Nantz." (there's actually no evidence of that)

Newt Gingrich, same topic: "[C]itizens who do not wake up every morning and think about possible catastrophic civilian casualties are deluding themselves. Three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust. … I'll repeat it. Three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust. … Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany and more determined than the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get. If we knew that tomorrow morning we would lose Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, what would we do to stop it? If we knew that we would tomorrow lose Boston, San Francisco, or Atlanta, what would we do?"

Mitt Romney, same topic: "Soviet commitment to national survival was never in question. That assumption cannot be made to an irrational regime [Iran] that celebrates martyrdom."

George W. Bush, same topic: "All options are on the table."

While Clark did, before being forced to backpedal, have something going for him, he mentioned keeping "all options on the table", as did John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush. Transparently, this only means one thing: 'we reserve the right to nuke Iran when we want.' I've pointed out that this kind of talk is actually in contravention of the UN Charter (not to mention the NPT), a violation of international law, and in fact an act of terrorism. But in the context of a political campaign, really, anyone (Bush, Edwards, Clinton, Clark) willing to say such a thing about a totally fictitious threat to a purring audience for political gain is too dangerous to be near any kind of real military power.

One needn't point out the obvious hypocrisy of denying the Iranian right to peaceful enrichment guaranteed by the NPT (the only thing that can be proven to be going on) on the grounds of protecting a state that has a sizable nuclear arsenal of its own, outside of any legal framework or monitoring.

In general, all of this talk of Iran before ultra-Zionist audiences, while ignoring facts proving that there is no Iranian threat, is quite dangerous/irresponsible because it buys into the neoconservative fabrications, thereby reinforcing them. People believe what they hear, even if it's a lie. This is obvious.

It is, however, only a recurrence of the double-standard leitmotif present in all such discussions of Israel, be they in front of Zionist audiences or television cameras. Witness the following:

Condoleezza Rice, on "the need for a partner for peace": Obviously you can't be a partner for peace if you don't recognize the right of the other partner to exist even, and so it's extremely important that those conditions be met. But there would be nothing better than to have all Palestinian factions united around a program that is -- that accepts the past obligations of Palestinian leaders and past agreements.

Condoleezza Rice, on "Israel's right to defend itself" as it was forcing the dislocation of 25% of the Lebanese population: "There is a great concern on all sides about civilian casualties. There is a great concern about damage to civilian infrastructure. I don't think that there is anyone here who would say that Israel does not have a right to defend itself. And I think that everyone here would note that the extremists who are attacking not just Israel, but the very foundation for peace need to be stopped."

Hillary Clinton, on the "separation wall": "This is not against the Palestinian people," Clinton said as she gazed over the massive wall. "This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism." (Compare this to Amnesty International's initial report on the wall's effects, before much of the impact was realized/the path of the wall was changed.)

Israel, while being the occupier, is innocent and cannot be condemned. Palestinians, with no state or acceptable infrastructure, "have to change the attitudes about terrorism." It sounds reasonable, but it's actually totally vacuous on the political level, coming, as it does, along with an endorsement of the illegal separation wall, 80% of it built on Palestinian territory, making everyday life next to impossible.

The effect of media selectivity and the double-standard (effective not only on the issue of Israeli occupation) applied either knowingly or not by all office-holding or office-seeking politicos has had the effect of completely aestheticizing the issue of American support for Israel and leaving the substance in the hands of interested parties. This wretched spectacle of inspired brutality, an exaggerated competition between those would-be pious American supporters of Israeli crimes, is a cynical ploy that directly prevents peace from ever becoming a possibility. AIPAC can be blamed, as it has, for the lack of public debate, but American politicians are complicit. Blaming the Lobby and the Lobby alone becomes a nationalistic veneer that overlooks these crimes of ambition.

This is standard form, and it insults the intelligence of the American whose tax dollars pay for the wall and the violence always required by land appropriation. The debate on Israel is managed by deliberate ambiguity, skewed stories, and other media tactics, which mostly take care of public opinion. The lobby also enforces this management, especially in opinion-making circles and Congress. This has all been demonstrated for some time in the dissident media. But if the pro-Israel consensus is bipartisan, how would the American public even know that there is a debate to be had on Israeli policy?

Politics of Outrage, &c.

2007-02-06T07:27:00.000-05:00

The coming weeks will, in large part, determine the fate of the Iran, the Middle East, and the world. While the likelihood of an American attack on Iran is great, it is not a foregone conclusion. In saying that, however, it is important to note that there is nothing that the US Congress or the American people can do to stop the Bush regime and assorted neoconservatives in the Pentagon from launching their long-awaited aerial assault.

Congress, especially the Democratic leadership, though it is "conducting itself foolishly"--as Israeli General Oded Tiran recently said, is essentially powerless. The lone congressional resolution that is being debated that would hinder the administration's ability to attack Iran is known as Walter Jones Resolution or HJR 14, which states: "Absent a national emergency created by attack by Iran, or a demonstrably imminent attack by Iran, upon the United States, its territories, possessions, or its armed forces, the president shall consult with Congress, and receive specific authorization pursuant to law from Congress, prior to initiating any use of force on Iran." Needless to say, there are few co-sponsors of this resolution and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, having already declared her support for military action before an AIPAC conference (scroll down to read the speech itself, and go here for more), seems intent on preventing the resolution from coming to the floor.

Even if, by some unforeseen miracle, the Democrats do pass the Walter Jones resolution, it is not outside the realm of possibility that a "demonstrably imminent attack by Iran upon the United States [impossible], its territories [also impossible as the nearest one, not counting Iraq and the Gulf States, is the island of Diego Garcia, whose inhabitants were forcibly relocated decades ago to make way for a Cold War-era NSA listening post and a naval base--they still are prohibited from returning], possessions [once again, does Iraq count?] or its armed forces" could easily be simulated to get around this particular resolution. Passing HJR 14 would, at the very most, necessitate a false flag operation resulting in the destruction of one of the innumerable US military assets in the vicinity of Iran. Indeed, the unsubstantiated rhetoric claiming an Iranian origin of some explosives being used against American forces in Iraq is a ready-made "attack by Iran" upon US armed forces (it is notable, however, that recently the Bush administration has been forced to curb rhetoric to this effect due to its lack of evidence). From an administration of unparalleled arrogance and mendacity, a false flag operation like the Gulf of Tonkin incident during the Vietnam War would not be difficult. If the decision has been made to attack Iran, no amount of political pressure from congressional Democrats (which, keeping with tradition on matters of war and human life would be muted) and/or Republicans will be able to change that course. A sizable portion of the American public has already demonstrated a willingness to believe an administration that it recognizes as having lied it into another war of agression (okay, two), and the Bush administration doesn't care about them either.

Then why am I not absolutely certain that Iran will be attacked? --To be sure, it does appear that the military preparations have been made.

Firstly, many have already commented extensively on the fallout and direct retaliation that would accompany an attack on Iran, throwing much of the Middle East into further chaos and virtually insuring a disaster for American servicemen--and, notably, the imperial/corporate designs they serve--in Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Bush, Cheney, and the neoconservative courtiers in the Pentagon and the American Empire Institute clearly could care less about American deaths (Muslim ones don't count, at least not unless they're a sign of "progress"). They do, however, care about the supply of oil flowing through the Persian Gulf, and no amount of naval genius from "Fox" Fallon, the new regional overlord of American Empire, is going to insure that. Tankers have to be insured, and insurance prices do take regional instability into account. This is reflected in the price of oil, which would skyrocket. Normally, again, that would scarcely trouble the administration, but in this case, it may just speed the coming global depression if the US were to attack Iran.

I'm not sure whether the Bush administration cares about that, either, though the oil industry does, and may not want an attack on Iran at this time, as evidenced by James Baker and the foreign policy establishment's desire for a more conciliatory, diplomatic Iran policy. It remains uncertain whether Bush will actually order an attack without the approval of the oil industry, and that is the primary uncertainty with regard to an attack on Iran.

At the same time, the actions of the Islamic Republic do have some significance in the issue. If, as Trita Parsi suggests, the Iranian regime chooses to suspend enrichment before the February 21 deadline, their American and Israeli counterparts will most likely be unable to continue with their plans to attack Iran.

Rising internal criticism of Ahmadinejad, mostly turning him into a scapegoat for the regime's systemically corrupt, unjust, and suffocating economic system, suggests that the regime is willing to sacrifice the hardline rhetoric in return for a de-escalation on the nuclear front. This would be consistent with its long-standing dedication--like that of any state--to maintaining its own power, above all else.

Some have suggested that the current positioning of American naval assets in the Persian Gulf area, along with the leak to Bulgarian news that US Air Force bases in the country will be used for an attack on Iran, is all simply a "tactical feint" of gunboat diplomacy meant to force the Islamic Republic to comply with American demands (though those demands are, indeed, illegal, as is the use of force or the threat of force to influence policy, an action commonly called "terrorism", as in the American military definition of the term). The "tactical feint" scenario is possible, though it would be a level of strategic depth heretofore unseen from the current warmongering cabal.

While current indications vis-a-vis Bush administration rhetoric and military posturing still lead to the assessment that an attack on Iran is imminent and already has been decided upon, they could indeed be an orchestrated attempt at forcing the theocratic regime (in Tehran, not Washington) to blink in this moronic, destructive game of chicken. Who knows? Only God, and, of course, the Devil.

Over the next few weeks, we will know. Oil futures markets and the actions of the Iranian regime will be far more reliable indicators of the state of impending conflagration than American rhetoric, which is heavily fact-deficient at any rate.

A suspension of enrichment, in the fashion that Parsi suggests (after revealing the achievement of a full fuel cycle), could function as a face-saving act for both the Islamic Republic and the Bush administration. The latter could claim that it's aggressive, terroristic version of "diplomacy" has achieved results, and probably gain enough popularity to steamroll any prospective (though unlikely) congressional efforts to tie its hands in Iraq. If, however, the neoconservatives close to Bush have already made their moronic decision to attack Iran, then a late-stage suspension of enrichment would be sneered at and probably questioned, with the corporate media in full compliance.

At this point, it's a coin flip, with millions of possible victims. Remind me why this is happening?

"Free Speech", Inc.

2007-02-02T08:46:00.000-05:00

Things You Can't Discuss in Polite Company in Washington, DC:

The suspension of disbelief integral to the Lobby's conception of Israeli security.

The Lobby in general.

Ethnic cleansing by allies.

Genocide by allies.

Ethnic cleansing by the US.

Genocide by the US.

International law, as it applies to the above.

A world without hegemony.

The word 'imperialism' (though it's okay to talk about empire).

The word 'neoliberal' (check out how bogus that link actually is!).

The word 'evidence' preceded or followed by a truthful statement (this applies especially to members of the Axis of Evil).

The number of deaths by starvation caused by neoliberal agricultural policy.

The oil industry in relation to the Iraq War, even during criticism of administration policy.

The non-American death toll of the occupation of Iraq.

The racial element of the prison system, the legal system, or the socioeconomic imbalance that aids them.

Perfectly feasible and economical alternatives to fossil fuel consumption.

Corporate welfare.

The "modernization" of anti-trust law necessary to allow over $3.8 trillion in corporate mergers in one year.

Presidential Freudian slips

&c.

Actually, if you have to go to Washington, just try not to say anything.

...But ask yourself, why are these important issues never mentioned?

Milton Friedman--Liar or Lunatic?

2007-01-26T07:35:00.000-05:00

This interview with an aging Milton Friedman is particularly instructive as to the depth of the man's mendacity, or, failing that, complete disconnect with reality.

INTERVIEWER: It seems to us that Chile deserves a place in history because it's the first country to put Chicago theory into practice. Do you agree?
MILTON FRIEDMAN: No, no, no. Not at all. After all, Great Britain put Chicago theory in practice in the 19th century. (amused) The United States put the Chicago theory in practice in the 19th and 20th century. I don't believe that's right.
INTERVIEWER: You don't see Chile as a small turning point, then?
MILTON FRIEDMAN: It may have been a turning point, but not because it was the first place to put the Chicago theory in practice. It was important on the political side, not so much on the economic side. Here was the first case in which you had a movement toward communism that was replaced by a movement toward free markets. See, the really extraordinary thing about the Chilean case was that a military government followed the opposite of military policies. The military is distinguished from the ordinary economy by the fact that it's a top-down organization. The general tells the colonel, the colonel tells the captain, and so on down, whereas a market is a bottom-up organization. The customer goes into the store and tells the retailer what he wants; the retailer sends it back up the line to the manufacturer and so on. So the basic organizational principles in the military are almost the opposite of the basic organizational principles of a free market and a free society. And the really remarkable thing about Chile is that the military adopted the free-market arrangements instead of the military arrangements.

During the 19th century, Great Britain had secured a vast portion of the world's land and resources, as well as a great deal of its population as both cheap labor and insured markets. As this excellent article illustrates, under British domination, the Indian share of the global economy fell precipitously. Previously, India had had a developed industrial base far beyond that of any European country. That base collapsed. The wealth of India disappeared. Where did it go?

Is that what Friedman means by saying that 19th-century Britain employed the Chicago Theory?

More on Chile:

INTERVIEWER: When you were down in Chile you spoke to some students in Santiago. In your own words, can you tell me about that speech in Santiago?
MILTON FRIEDMAN: Sure. While I was in Santiago, Chile, I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile. Now, I should explain that the University of Chicago had had an arrangement for years with the Catholic University of Chile, whereby they send students to us and we send people down there to help them reorganize their economics department. And I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title "The Fragility of Freedom." The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk. (amused)
INTERVIEWER: So you envisaged, therefore, that the free markets ultimately would undermine Pinochet?
MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. The emphasis of that talk was that free markets would undermine political centralization and political control. And incidentally, I should say that I was not in Chile as a guest of the government. I was in Chile as the guest of a private organization.

Of course, Chile had developed democratic institutions and a flourishing political climate over a century before the US-supported coup that was the culmination of Mr. Friedman's (and General Pinochet's) career.

INTERVIEWER: In the end, the Chilean [economy] did quite well, didn't it?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, very well. Extremely well. The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.

As Walden Bello writes, the Chilean economy did not do well at all. One of the only reasons that the economy didn't go completely under, of course, was the state-controlled copper industry, always so integral to the Chilean economy.

Indeed, the rising poverty during the dictatorship was a major reason that Pinochet was overthrown.

What a delicious layer-cake of irony!

The Use of Sanctions

2007-01-26T06:51:00.000-05:00

On Sanctions and Marginalization

The recent Security Council sanctions on Iran have caused much stir in the nation; Khamenei has rebuked Ahmadinejad and indicated the possibility of a new nuclear negotiating team, effectively placing the President's main policy focus under his own purview. I highly doubt that the Bush administration will attempt to negotiate even with a team that is willing to back down on every sovereign right, but it would be amusing if the Iranian nuclear program were brought to a halt and the west engaged thanks only to the intervention of the authoritarian bodies of the Islamic Republic.

Then again, the democracy-promotion agenda has sort of been dropped from the Bush administration's foreign policy rhetoric of late, and it would be unlikely that they would notice the irony anyway. In any case, the Security Council sanctions on Iran, limited as they are, would be one of the few cases of successful economic sanctions.

Sanctions against unaccountable authoritarian regimes rarely achieve their avowed political ends, and in most cases those avowed ends aren't the real ones. As the case of Iraq from 1990-2003 illustrates, not only to they cause disgraceful humanitarian disasters that some scholars called "genocide", but they also entrench domestic forces that are in a position to exploit a deprived population.

With the case of North Korea, sanctions meant to "punish" Pyongyang only drive it further away from the international community, encourage the development of its nuclear program, and preclude constructive changes leading to national reconciliation. Its neighbors, of course, recognize this.

Then what are economic sanctions really supposed to accomplish? Are they mostly manifestations of domestic policy? In that light, how can the sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa be interpreted? Interestingly, the character of apartheid didn't change significantly between the early 1980s, when the Reagan administration considered South Africa a valued ally, and later in the decade, when sanctions were put into effect.

Similarly, sanctions against Iraq didn't follow its US-supported illegal war of aggression against Iran, which was a pariah state in the eyes of the American state and most of its allies. Indeed, as declassified documentary evidence clearly illustrates, the United States not only aided Saddam's war from behind a veil of official neutrality, but it played a role in mitigating international backlash against his illegal use of chemical weapons (obtained from American and European companies) against Iranian soldiers. Only when Iraq invaded an American outpost, Kuwait, with considerably less loss of life, did it merit United Nations sanctions. Supposedly, sanctions were meant to "punish" Saddam; he continued to live in opulence while his people languished. They simply ruined Iraq and primed it for later military conquest.

The character of the violations culminating in sanctions is rarely significant, and, I'd bet, sanctions without incentives are rarely intended to work.

Addendum to "Lost Memo"

2007-01-26T06:24:00.000-05:00

Addendum to "Lost Memo":

Stan Goff, a 25-year veteran of US Special Forces, is succinct when he refers to the "one, absolute, bottom-line point of agreement" between the DC foreign policy establishment represented by the late Iraq Study Group and the Bush Administration, namely the passage of Iraq's Hydrocarbons Law and the "privatization" of the oil industry. "The rhetorical scuffle between the two entities is not the what, but the how".

The disconnect between reality and rhetoric is simply too great to hope for alternatives or cure-all reform.

If people in power aren't willing to openly admit that the occupation of Iraq is about oil and nothing else, and that the violent rhetoric against Iran is not about the thoroughly unproven nuclear ambitions or a nonexistent threat to Israel, but about both oil and the Israeli Right's fears about the "demographic problem", there isn't a conversation to be had and there is no set of policy recommendations worth making. Democrats and Republicans alike aren't actually going to do anything responsible with regard to the Middle East until they are willing to admit that American foreign policy is primarily about corporations and imperial control, not about the interests and security of the American people or the freedom and well-being of sundry Muslim nationalities. Before they'd listen to anything the actual rod would have to say to them, they would need to come clean, and admit that they're imperialists. They're not willing to admit that, so there's no conversation worth having. Apparently, conversation requires a common language.

There's no reason to have faith in politicians prone to spouting the racist subterfuge about "Iraqis taking responsibility for their own security" after supporting over a decade of crushing sanctions, bombing campaigns, and then a brutal invasion based on malicious lies, all of which would tear apart any society. There's no reason to have faith in them if they continue to limit themselves to tactical critiques of an illegal war of aggression--not just the newcomer Obama (whom I and many left writers on the internet have decided to take to task for the same criminality all of his colleagues engage in) but all of his colleagues as well. The recommendation of a policy tweak here or there could not suddenly create a post-imperialist, post-capitalist peace-loving American foreign policy.

I chose to talk about reforming the democratic process (public funding of elections & steps against voter fraud) only in very minimal terms not because I think that it will cure the problems of accumulated power in the United States, but because it is a first step towards "building the new society in the shell of the old". That is what actually needs to be done, I think, from as many directions in as many places as possible (and it already is being done, right now). It's so important that I wish I were experienced in movement-building so that I could write about it more authoritatively. I can't, and that's why I'll shortly be starting a new blog with a number of other like-minded writers. More as it develops.

Lost Memo

2007-01-24T08:33:00.000-05:00

Below, at the request of one of my most beloved readers, is an attempt to set aside a vision for some policies I envision to succeed the current (and very long-standing) American belligerence, imperialism and corporate enslavement vis-à-vis the Middle East, specifically with regard to Iran and Iraq. Proposing changes in what has long been an essentially bipartisan American foreign policy, usually a fool's errand (no different here), also requires an assessment of the current language used in the painfully myopic jingoism that passes for political debate in Washington, D.C. and the corporate-owned US press. So, the following is both a critique of rhetoric (as usual) and a brief sketch of an alternative, dare I say post-imperialist Middle East policy (new flavor?). It is a wholly fantastical endeavor (more on that below), but nonetheless, it may be fun.

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Memorandum

To: Sen. Barack Obama
CC: US Foreign Policy Establishment
From: the actual rod
Re: Middle East Policy "Going Forward"/"Over the Horizon"/"New Direction" etc.

Democrats, with their new-found dominance of the legislative process, have the seemingly unenviable choice of either ending the war in Iraq, allowing it continue at its current (or a slightly increased) level of violence, or pushing the Iraq Study Group's recommendations for a less costly occupation, utilizing some form of "redeployment".

In the following paragraphs, I suggest that the only possible Middle East policy that can actually encourage peace in the region and repair the damaged American image is the repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 and a rapid and complete withdrawal from Iraq, along with considerable reparations allowing Iraqis to rebuild their national economy without American interference that has usually insured both unaccountable, wasteful use of the reconstruction funds and the return of aid dollars to the pockets of American corporations. This has amounted to profiteering and it has greatly contributed to the current humanitarian disaster in Iraq. Along with this, the regime in Iran ought to be engaged constructively, as it has indicated that it is willing to do so in the framework of equitable, mutually respectful negotiations. The current tensions in the Middle East could be diminished by such policy.

There are some who argue, like Senator Joseph Biden, that the Democratic majority is unable to tie the President's hands in the waging of war; others, like Senator Edward Kennedy have suggested that the power of the purse is an absolutely appropriate means of using Congressional authority to end an unpopular war. By now, these arguments are well known, as is the Democratic leadership's current position, that funding for the war will not be cut, as it would "put the troops in harm's way", as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have declared.

On October 1, 2006, before the election for the 110th Congress, an additional $70 billion appropriation was made for use in Iraq, bringing total appropriations for Iraq to $437 billion. At the currently accepted rate of expenditure, even if that $70 billion had been the sole source of all Iraq operations since January 1, 2007, around $60 billion would be remaining. Dubious Pentagon spending policies notwithstanding, the troops would not seem to be in harm's way, insomuch as money can protect them from what military analysts have called an ever more popular insurgency against American occupation and the realities it has ushered in. Indeed, the troops are already in harm's way, and throwing money at the war has, thus far, been a less than adequate solution to that basic situation, from any standpoint.

Republicans and Democrats alike have spoken much of "victory"/"success" in Iraq, mostly echoing the logical framework employed by Mr. Bush, but no one has even attempted to define what "victory" implies. Victory for whom? What would it look like? When do we know when we have achieved it?

Does victory in Iraq imply the creation of a pro-American government, or a democratic one? At this point, given the results of polling of the Iraqi population, there is little chance that the two things will correspond in reality. Does victory imply complete stability in Iraq, or just a manageable level of "constructive violence"? Have American forces been able to guarantee either for the past four years of occupation?

Does victory in Iraq require that Iraq not be a "safe haven for terrorists", even in the narrowly-defined War on Terror use of the phrase? Who is and who isn't a terrorist? If the phrase is simply restricted to the few al Qa'eda-linked extremists in Iraq, we have every indication that the US presence is the sole source of their legitimacy and influence. Is it even remotely possible to guarantee that a country will not be used as a base of operations by non-state actors, when the United States itself served as safe haven for the 9/11 hijackers with far greater stability and government resources? It is old news by now that the US presence in Iraq fuels terror in the country and anti-Americanism throughout the region. The easiest way to achieve this particular version of "victory" would be to withdraw from Iraq immediately.

Does victory in Iraq require a functioning economy? Can the Iraqi economy function for the initial years after some elusive stability is established (thereby allowing a reconstruction of crucial elements of national infrastructure, some measure of relief from humanitarian disaster, and sufficient investment in the oil industry to regenerate its profitability) while the initial stages of new profit-sharing agreements in the oil sector will allow foreign companies to claim 75% of profits? Can a cash (and food, and medicine)-starved economy survive such deals? Would a truly representative government choose to honor them?

No one credibly discusses the criteria for "victory" in Iraq, with a basic understanding of the facts of life in Iraq for American troops or Iraqi civilians, who have borne the brunt of American "failure" to date. Indeed, there is and always has been little to win in Iraq, there having been no weapons of mass destruction, no possibility of pro-American democracy, and so on. For the American people (let alone Iraqis), "victory" is an abstract, even unrealistic concept, and rhetorical obsession with the win-lose construct, as far as it keeps the status quo in place in Iraq, is completely counterproductive. There is no winning or losing, nor is Iraq an American possession to be won or lost in the first place.

That is, unless we're talking about oil companies, and not the American people. They have something to lose from democracy in Iraq and they have something to lose from a withdrawal of American troops. Hint: that "something" has to do with what the US Department of Energy believes to be the second largest known petroleum reserves in the world.

When President Bush talks about "the consequences of failure in Iraq", we can be fairly sure that either he is deliberately confusing and misleading the American people (an impeachable offense) or he is talking about the consequences of failure for ExxonMobil, Chevron, et al. Or both.

The only acceptable policy for Democrats to pursue, rather than nonexistent "victory" or "responsibility" to the Iraqi people who have been devastated by this occupation, is, therefore, to withdraw as quickly as possible (in accordance with American and Iraqi public opinion), cognizant of the civil war that will continue after withdrawal, a conflict that has already gone into full swing regardless of the American presence, which can do nothing to stop it. The Iraqi government should not be coerced into enacting production-sharing agreements that clearly infringe upon its sovereignty and its economic well-being for the gain of American corporations. This is the only kind of "responsibility" that American lawmakers have to Iraqi governments--to rescind the looting of their country that is already taking place under American auspices. Furthermore, Iraqis should be able to expect massive reparations with which to rebuild their country, as the Pentagon version of reconstruction has been woefully inadequate and indeed beyond criminal.

"Enduring bases" have been built in Iraq while the actual reconstruction of the country has been neglected by corrupt American-based corporations, almost the same corporations that have failed to fill their responsibilities in New Orleans a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina. Should the new Congress endorse these priorities?

The possibility that Iran will be "emboldened" by an American withdrawal is laughable; American presence in Iraq has not prevented Iran from growing in strength and influence in the region--indeed, it has facilitated it. A sovereign Iraq will have to have the best possible economic and security relations with its neighbors, and expectations otherwise by American planners are unrealistic at best.

What about the Iranian nuclear program? The Bush administration and the EU have voiced beliefs of its existence with no evidence. Bush has lied before about a weapons program that didn't exist, thus his administration simply lacks the credibility to lecture the American people on this supposedly grave threat. The CIA and the IAEA, not to mention Israeli intelligence in Iran, have all found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.

The Iranian regime is oppressive, but so are numerous American-supported governments in the region, usually more so. That should not preclude diplomatic relations, as it would be a transparently hypocritical policy. Iran should be brought to the table by real diplomacy; the Bush administration's attempts to generate the semblance of such diplomacy are pathetic because they have asked Iran to give up every bargaining chip before negotiations, at which point negotiations would be meaningless. These overtures are meant to be rejected, and thus they have no place in real diplomacy. Congress should pass HJR 14, the Walter Jones Resolution, without delay, and should pressure the administration to authorize a group of diplomats and congressional foreign policy experts to engage Iran for assistance in stabilizing Iraq (as the ISG recommended) and allowing regular IAEA inspections as it has done thus far--and offered in even greater quantity to prove its sincerity, recognizing Israel, and ceasing support for Hamas and Hezbollah in return for the dropping of UN and US sanctions, allowing access to heretofore frozen Iranian assets, and normalization of diplomatic and trade relations between the US and Iran. Indeed, such a proposal is nearly identical to the one made by Tehran itself on a few occasions since 2003, when it was brought forth by the Swiss Ambassador, who was rejected and rebuked. According to the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who is the ultimate authority in foreign relations and national security matters in Iran, the proposals are still on the table. Engagement with Iran would almost certainly be successful, it would neutralize any threat that it could possibly pose to Israel (negligible--they aren't suicidal), and ironically it would do more to discredit the regime in the eyes of its few remaining domestic supporters than any military strike.
***
The mention of PSAs, general and cursory as it is, would not fly in Washington because it is widely understood, if not said, that that is exactly why the military is there, and that we deserve that lion's share of Iraqi oil, obviously due to the "sacrifices" we've made to bring "democracy" to Iraq.

I've also mentioned that there is no evidence of an Iranian weapons program, which while technically true, also simply isn't acceptable in Washington, because AIPAC doesn't like it.

I've also not even discussed impeachment, which I think is necessary before any of the above recommendations (assuming Democrats would accept them) can be implemented. Keep in mind that the "recommendations" themselves are very short and simple compared to the rhetorical analysis, by design; actual (quasi-) post-imperialist Middle East policy, absent of the need to control other nations' oil and natural gas resources, could look just like that. Key differences with current policy--my proposal is probably more coherent to the average American, and no one else has to die.

Of course, this memorandum only exists in a fantasy world in which the words that I've run together above are actually coherent to the politicos reading them. For that to take place, there would have to be less discussion of reality and more of a focus on "Iraqis taking responsibility", "Iran's ambitions", etc. Essentially, I've attempted to strip away both imperial policy and rhetoric (while still operating within the general parameters set by them, for the Senator's sake), and, as such, the above memorandum cannot exist in Washington today.

Unfortunately, such discussions for alternative policy just don't correspond with reality--and that's why I usually don't engage in prescriptions for alternatives: the structures and institutions of power and influence that I write about (namely multinational energy corporations, the military-industrial complex, and the lobbyists and politicians that serve them) preclude sane policy from being adopted. As I've said numerous times, these problems are systemic. Current Middle East policy is not hijacked by just a few crazies (neocons) to be saved by a benevolent establishment (James Baker, Democrats, etc); rather, it is an outgrowth of the current distribution of wealth, power, and influence in the United States and the West, applied through the structures that maintain and justify them (government & media). No Congress is going to challenge the profits American oil companies can make in Iraq. Forget American troops, no Congress is going to do anything to endanger those profits. There are obvious reasons for that (even if oil companies donate 2:1 to Republicans, they still donate to Democrats). Secondly, I don't think that I particularly know anything more than anyone else when it comes to international affairs.

I am just using logic and common sense (and a really minimal amount of research, but probably more than Congressional staff) in the fictional memo (that looks a lot like a blog post) above. In a truly democratic, transparent country, common sense and dispassionate research would be all that is needed to formulate coherent, effective policy. The aforementioned institutions of power would like you to think that it's all a very complex process, to discourage you from paying attention to their crimes while they run misdirection with incoherent imperialist platitudes about "responsibility" and "coddling" as Obama has done. But it's not. Sane, post-imperialist international relations are very easy to imagine, and my version of them is probably not too much different from yours.

My real proposal is that Senator Obama or any other ambitious superman/woman isn't going to do anything that's necessary as long as he/she can help it, though some (the "electoral left" that I've discussed, of which Obama is nominally a member) may seem like they intend to do something right, at least for awhile; thus, what we really need to do is change the institutions of power in this country; requiring grassroots organization and tireless activism. How can we change the way political power is exercised? Many have discussed proposals for equitable, just societies, as usual more brilliantly than myself. The very first steps in the current political climate would require public funding of elections and voting reform involving an independent, apolitical monitoring process and verifiable paper trails for all federal votes.

Obviously, most true political power is based in unaccountable totalitarian institutions (multinational corporations) and the highly irresponsible international finance community that moves trillions of dollars from market to market daily, exercises a veto on all governmental reform throughout the Global South with the threat of capital flight, and turns over mutual funds in spans of months--as Al Gore has recently pointed out, also calling the stock market "functionally insane"--in a predatory, unproductive, and unprecedented form of speculation that Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has predicted will likely lead to global depression within the next two years (hat tip to Stephen Lendman, in case he finds this). Public funding of elections will be one step towards freeing political discourse from the pervasive grasp of corporate tyranny.

There are plenty of people who are actually working towards those goals right now, as I write this comparatively unproductive stuff. The United for Peace and Justice rallies on January 27th (find one near you) will be a manifestation of some of their work with regard to the limited issue of war (itself only a manifestation of the current power structures); but in themselves, the periodic demonstrations aren't an answer either. Positive change is never simply granted, top-down, by state power. It has to be forced upon it from below. Organization and unrelenting struggle are the only real alternative policy. Numerous Latin American countries have already shown the way.

But, if you're too busy to be bothered with all of that, here is the future you can expect.

The Circular Logic of Empire

2007-01-19T06:13:00.000-05:00

George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, soaring to new Orwellian heights in their disinformation campaign regarding the criminal occupation of Iraq and the (likely) forthcoming criminal assault of Iran, have managed to perfect the circular logic of empire and state terror in the modern age.

Why did the United States invade Iraq? Why is it escalating that war? Why is it likely to attack Iran? Why is it the most belligerent and threatening country in the world?

I have probed the first question, and the third, to a lesser extent, hoping that it would go away. The second is mostly academic; the 21,500 additional military personnel (why the overuse of the term "troops"?) to be sent to Iraq on top of the current 150,000 will make little difference; they're not supposed to, despite what Bush may contend, and, thanks to his unfortunate genetic/psychological disposition, actually believe. Escalation/"surge", in the eyes of the neoconservatives and death-worshippers of the American Enterprise Institute, is simply a means of rebuking the American public for daring to question war policy. Frederick Kagan, son of noted racist barbarian Donald, is responsible for the "new" "strategy" that has occupied the American (and foreign) corporate media for the past month. Kagan, for those who don't know, was an original signatory of the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses", wherein Bush administration foreign/military policy was outlined before its election in 2000.

When Bush, in his televised fictions of January 11th, announced a larger American military presence in Iraq, supposedly to streamline that pitiable nation's road to democracy and stability. The current civilian death rates in Iraq notwithstanding, this is laughable because the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want an American withdrawal from their country, as I have mentioned before. If Mr. Bush were concerned about the creation of a democracy in Iraq, which he is not, the will of the Iraqi people, if not the American people, would perhaps matter to him. However, it does not. So, despite the opinions of the involved populations, which tend markedly and increasingly towards support for a full American withdrawal within 12 months, the United States, bastion of truth and freedom, will in fact take exactly the opposite available position. So much for democracy.

As to stability, there is little indication that the United States contributes to it, and more than a little evidence that it hinders it (also see "Bush, Lies, & Iran"). But, necessitating permanent occupation, that is in line with administration policy.

Bush and Rice have been appealing to the support of "moderate" Sunni Arab regimes, like Saudi Arabia, with its secular, tolerant judicial system, human rights record (see previous post), commitment to democracy, and wealth distribution. In a sea of Islamofascism, verily, Saudi Arabia is a bastion of secular enlightenment. Similarly, Egypt and Jordan are "moderate" Arab regimes, a fact confirmed by the pluralism, openness, and democracy of both.

In the absence of an official definition of "moderate", a gift with which Dr. Rice has chosen not to privilege us, we can assume that she is simply referring to the states with the worst records of authoritarianism and human rights abuses in the region, with governments that happen to acquiesce to American hegemony, without which they most likely could not endure.

State department spokesman Tom Casey, among others in the Bush administration, has called Iran "the leading state sponsor (of terror) in the world." Little evidence is ever presented for this, either, as it is assumed that people will automatically assume that support for Hezbollah (classified as a "resistance movement" and not a terrorist group by the US-backed Lebanese government), Hamas, and Islamic Jihad qualify it as the largest state sponsor of terror. This is nothing but an outright lie; maybe we can just credit it to the administration's world-renowned honesty. As many (including myself, of course) have pointed out, since World War II, the United States government has been the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. It continues to be.

The largest dose of irony, if it can be called that, came later in Bush's speech when he stated his commitment to the sovereignty of Iraq. As Bush was stressing Iraqi sovereignty, his military was in the process of violating that sovereignty by kidnapping Iranian diplomats in Arbil without the knowledge of the Iraqi government or the Kurdish regional government. Being the figurehead of a regime that illegally invaded and continues to illegally occupy Iraq, threatening its government and strong-arming it into service to the Empire, the President's clarity on this issue was obviously appreciated, not least by the Iraqi people themselves.

Perhaps Mr. Bush was not talking about Iraq's sovereignty, per se, but actually America's sovereignty in Iraq. As long as there are American hordes in Iraq, building massive bases for ground troops, jet fighters and bombers, without consultation or concern about the opinions of the Iraqi people or the virtual puppet regime in the Green Zone, all talk of Iraqi sovereignty is purely rhetorical, somewhere up there with the tooth fairy and the white man's burden.

The fourth question asked above--"Why is [the United States] the most belligerent and threatening country in the world?"--is significant, and not challenging for anyone with an appreciation of modern history. In the context of Iraq and its precursor, Vietnam, others have offered good analysis, be they libertarian socialists like Noam Chomsky, American-style pro-business libertarians like Ron Paul, old-style conservatives like Patrick Buchanan, or committed and principled pacifists like the revered-but-not-heeded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Behind the corporate profit-making rationales, the drive for hegemony, and the likely bizarre psychological traumas of American (and all) hawks, we must realize that the logic of empire is circular and therefore cannot be debated. In the mainstream political discourse, the debate we see is simply on tactics: Democrats may claim to be smarter imperialists, Republicans stronger ones, &c. What we never see is a questioning of the logic that leads to aggression and war. This is significant.

Here is an example of the circular logic of empire. The United States must control Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran because it must control all Middle East oil. It must control all Middle East oil because it must control all oil. It must control all oil so that it may exercise "critical leverage" on fast-rising economic adversaries in Northeast Asia, namely China and Japan, and to a lesser extent the powers of Europe. It must exercise critical leverage on these economies because then it can control them. It must control them to preclude their independence from American desires and corporate interests mostly based in the US. It must preclude their independence because then they could access Middle East oil without American control. Control for the sake of control.

It is, in the end, all about control, with little tangible gain for the American people. Thus the need for grand rhetoric, deception, and mass delusion on an unprecedented scale. This is why the real debate about American aggression in the guise of "the Global War on Terror" is relegated to the shadows, to those brave enough to speak what the rest of the world knows, that the Bush Administration doesn't give a damn about terrorists or American lives, but that it does give a damn about control of Middle East (and indeed global) energy resources. Control for the sake of control.

Speaking of circularity, get your head around this.

The Oil Wars are not about American energy security in the face of the Moloch of Peak Oil, as some believe--though they're close. The Oil Wars are not about the American way of life, which will hopefully end sooner rather than later. Needless to say, they are not about democracy, freedom, or terrorism--except that visited upon the people of the Middle East by the global oil protection force. I needn't go in depth, I already have. The key point: profits are to be made, and hegemony to be exercised.

The Resistance Model

2007-01-19T05:52:00.000-05:00

Graham Fuller goes beyond the corporate media's facile description of the "Sunni-Shi'a axis" to look at real sources of change and conflict in the Middle East. Fuller points out what should be obvious: that the fear of pro-American Sunni despots like King Abdullah II of Jordan and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, not to mention the Gulf emirs and sheikhs, cannot simply be reduced to sectarian differences--rather, the fear of Iran, Hezbollah, and a Shi'i-dominated Iraq is not about Shi'i power per se, but is rather about popular empowerment. Iran and its ally Syria, which happens to be a secular state--though you wouldn't know it if you stuck to Fox News--present examples to populations of pro-US Sunni nations of slightly more equitable states that resist the West, as opposed to serving it faithfully. Hezbollah, similarly, is viewed positively for both its image as a resistance force and as a mass movement. This is what threatens the Abdullahs, Mubarak, and so on, because Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are among the most popular public figures in the Arab world, as Fuller notes. It is not difficult to understand why.

A former CIA officer, Fuller doesn't get into an assessment of why the image of this political divide is simplified to that of a region in chaos due to sectarian differences. The reason, of course, is because the media rarely portrays American-backed regimes truthfully, and therefore the opposition to and the extent of corruption, state terror, and authoritarian arbitrariness of the Sunni autocrats is overlooked.

Nonetheless, the assessment is quite valuable. I would add one point: the alternative provided to the Middle East by Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah is not totally democratic in character, and only in contrast to the pro-US Arab regimes can it be considered of the masses, or of the left.

In Iran, democracy exists only insomuch as the authoritarian elements of the regime allow it to, which is always far less than it should in a truly free society. Corruption is endemic, much of the national economy is in the hands of unaccountable private foundations, or bonyads, which function as an outlet for cash vis-a-vis 'privatizations' that go towards creating an entrenched rentier class that supports the autocratic, repressive elements of the government. Iran's socio-political model is not a solution to the problems of the Middle East, but it points in the direction of a solution, not because of the regime but in spite of it. Other dissidents in the region would be careful to note this, and many do.

Despite all of these obstacles, the Islamic Republic is more pluralistic than any US-backed regime, and Syria has a better foundation of social services than any US-backed regime. These are not insignificant issues. Hopefully, Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad are popular because they represent that realization (which is a truism). Their resistance to the United States is undeniably the major reason for their popularity (also close to a truism), and people interested in global justice ought to be encouraged by that; it should also be noted, however, that these movements have achieved little in terms of wealth distribution or social justice when empowered (we have 28 years of history to attest to that in the case of Iran). That is mostly because they are top-down affairs. Grassroots organization is necessary to forward the goals of equality and justice in the Middle East, to say nothing of democracy.

All of this (transparency/accountability, equality/social justice, and radical democracy) should be integral to true Iranian opposition groups, and you won't see them coming out of any of the American-backed opposition like the monarchists or Amir Abbas Fakhravar's Iran Enterprise Institute. Unfortunately, the day-to-day situation in Iran is so difficult for most people, with rampant unemployment and inflation, not to speak of the silencing of political discourse, that the public's desire for immediate relief has kept many groups from developing any detailed opposition platform. The brutality and closed-mindedness of the regime has only compounded the obstacles to the creation of a unified opposition based on any specific principles. While this is troubling, it is neither surprising nor insurmountable. Iran has a strong dissident culture despite its lack of strong dissident organizations. The regime cannot snuff out that culture, though it has so far succeeded in starving it.

More than the nonetheless important anti-US position of the government, this is the real lesson that the Iranian experience can share with the Middle East. Fuller doesn't mention it. Nonetheless, the necessity for opposition based on basic principles such as transparency, equality, and liberty far beyond American provisions is exists in all countries of the Middle East and indeed the world, though Michael Rubin wouldn't mention it.

After decades of oppression--in most countries, US-backed--the organization of dissent is next to impossible throughout the Middle East, but people are still doing it. They are more courageous than you or I, and their existence is cause for optimism.

Bush, Lies & Iran

2007-01-18T07:26:00.000-05:00

As to the threats to Iran, they are very real and very alarming. On this blog, I've pointed out numerous times that there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program, as per the IAEA (and, in a way, the CIA), and there's likely no evidence of Iranians aiding Iraqi attacks on Americans, as Bush recently declared, to be swallowed unquestioningly. Democrats, including Howard Dean, had already jumped to attention, though the American people, in their newfound wisdom, seem unconvinced. After the "intelligence failure" that led to the increasingly unpopular and totally illegal Iraq war, what does the supposed opposition party need to demand evidence to back up the administration's claims as it charges headlong into further aggression?

A recent article in the Guardian confirms, however, that regardless of Iranian actions, the US military may be actively providing the insurgency with weaponry, fueling the civil war, and more likely than not stabbing itself in the back. Moreover, Iran has done more for the economic health of occupied Iraq, from Basra to Kurdistan, than Bush would ever admit, but it won't keep the Office of Iranian Affairs under Elizabeth Cheney and Iran-Contra convict Elliot Abrams from fabricating evidence to have been obtained from the raid of the liaison office in Arbil.

When Condoleezza Rice says (read this piece, by Gareth Porter, to the bottom for a fascinating interpretation) that "the Iranians need to know, and the Syrians need to know, that the United States is not finding it acceptable and is not going to simply tolerate their activities to try and harm our forces or to destabilize Iraq", she is aiding the administration in preparing its subliminal case for war, as she did with her infamous "mushroom cloud" statement with regard to Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Maybe she has no evidence to back up her claim, as the administration has no evidence for any of the claims about Iran--I doubt she does in this particular case either, since it would certainly not be an outlier--but once enough Americans have heard this and other statements about Iran, some (maybe enough) will accept it, consciously or subconsciously, as they accepted the links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, for which verifiable, true evidence was never provided, because no such evidence existed. No one who actually wants to attack Iran cares, and they may not really care about public opinion either. The lies are just part of selling a policy that has already been determined.

In the eyes of key planners, they've already committed a number of war crimes in Iraq, with impunity--except for a few receiving light punishments so characteristic of American military justice, most of whom are enlisted military who had the misfortune of being caught after committing violations in specific cases such as Abu Ghraib and Haditha. Whether or not they bomb Iran, the people responsible for the Iraq invasion and occupation should hang (as Saddam did), according to the international legal precedent of Nuremberg. So they're already murderers, they can keep lying and killing as long as the Congress keeps its powder dry and refuses to begin impeachment proceedings. That is why, as Gareth Porter suggests, the administration may be conveying a more cautious message to Congress than it is to the public: effectively stymying the little opposition that may occur (as though it could be expected) while laying the subliminal groundwork for an attack when the pieces are in play.

As though Rice or any Bush administration official could ever be trusted, and to point out the obvious, Iran has no interest in instability in Iraq, and neither does Syria. This is elementary, though it may not be speakable in respectable circles, and therefore is supposedly unthinkable for the American people as they expend their mental energy on more important issues like their post-holiday credit card debt. Both countries (Iran and Syria) are neighbors of Iraq, and instability has a way of spilling over borders, as it already has. The United States under this criminal junta, on the other hand, has a very vested interest in continued civil war (and "insurgency") in Iraq. Gone is the nobility of neoconservative rhetoric, but you wouldn't know it from reading the Weekly Standard; it is not much different in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Kashmir, or any other regions under military occupation. State terror and sectarian strife work to the Bush administration's favor, while providing a backdrop against which to orchestrate the bombing campaign against Iran, which will doubtless have disastrous consequences.

The most likely result of American/Israeli air raids on Iran will be an increase in support for the state in central areas with a possibility of some ethnic groups, supported by the CIA and US Special Forces, somehow challenging the state. The former scenario will be an amazing feat; in nearly 28 years the regime has been unable to curry any favor with the public, and has only maintained power through fear. Bush will do something for them that they could never do for themselves. The chaos, death, and destruction in the aftermath of sustained bombardment, with the possibility of such ethnic strife, will most likely precipitate in some form of martial law in which the remnants of the Revolutionary Guard will take control of the remnants of the state (though the structure of the Islamic Republic, especially its authoritarian elements, will most likely remain intact at least nominally) and work to suppress rebellion. Perhaps I'm willfully blind, but I doubt that any ethnic grouping, be it the Azeris, Kurds, or Arabs, will actually succeed in breaking away without a full American occupation, which seems strategically and logistically impossible, a situation that will most likely get worse, not better, if there is an attack on Iran. Nonetheless, such an outcome of prolonged stife may be acceptable to the administration planners who understand it.

It is difficult to predict a post-bombing scenario, but this is most likely, and it will once again reverse all progress that has been made in Iran, through ongoing struggle and conviction, towards democracy. Democracy, pluralism, and political and economic transparency are always the first to go in times of state violence, in both the aggressor and victim states. Look no further than the United States for current and historical examples.

They Hate Us For Our Freedoms

2006-12-22T05:36:00.000-05:00

As Jonathan Cook rightly points out, the conventional wisdom that American "diplomatic engagement" is the lacking ingredient in the Middle East, and the source of the tensions in Lebanon and the internecine violence in Iraq and Palestine is a self-serving myth (like all illusions that pass for conventional wisdom in most political discourse). Chaos in these nations serves American interests far more than order and cooperation. As Cook also indicates, this model will be spread to other countries with devastating effects. That is, I think, unless the American public begins to resist from the streets to the gas stations.

Indeed, in each of these cases, despite the tedious rhetoric of democracy promotion, American policy is essentially to cause such violence by marginalizing the population and trampling its demands, usually using a client regime. In Lebanon, an impoverished Shi'i population, some forty percent of Lebanese, is kept down by means of the antiquated, anti-democratic .French-authored confessional system, used by Americans to keep puppets like Rafik Hariri and Fuad Siniora in power. One was, and the other is, the Lebanese face for global capital, and of course an impoverished population will suffer as a result, as everywhere in the history of neoliberalism. Americans don't care. They hate democracy.

In Palestine, the absolutely illegal collective punishment (4th Geneva Convention, Part III, Section 1) of a whole people by plunging them into destitution and starvation vis-à-vis US- and EU-backed sanctions, and the withholding of taxes, combined with a savage five months of attacks on civilian infrastructure and civilians themselves have ensured that Palestinians will descend into such misery in which the only resort is civil violence. Americans will continue to aggressively support the torture of a whole population, for no reason other than its having freely elected a representative government that could not be co-opted and used against its own people. Never mind the illegality of such an act, or even its glaring hypocrisy. It is preferable for Palestinians to starve to death rather than have a government that actually gives them a voice and refuses to act in America's interest before Palestine's. Americans don't care. They hate democracy.

The current wave of frustration in Washington political and opinion-making circles regarding Iraq has little to do with the mounting deaths of civilians (indeed they never cared about high and probably underestimated number of initial deaths resulting from the bombardment of Baghdad, nor did they care about the use of internationally-banned weapons like napalm, depleted uranium, and white phosphorus against the population of Fallujah. These cowardly and savage acts of American state violence were never a problem to the chattering classes. The mission was noble, after all. They were spreading democracy, or something. Now that all of that has turned out to be a sham, the American élites are frustrated because the situation in Iraq is making it difficult to sustain an occupation and start making those oil profits. If democracy had been granted to the Iraqi people with characteristic American beneficence, it was taken back quickly, since investment and labor laws are still controlled by the occupation, and the Iraqi Parliament cannot vote on the withdrawal of American troops, though some 80% of the nation's population demands it and that even an idiot could determine that American presence fuels the civil war rather than stopping it. So, let the recriminations begin, let Iraqis be blamed for the American occupation and its results; anything to shut the people up. Iraqis would like the occupation to end, they would like to be able to make their own laws and try to piece together their broken society, somehow. But you can't let Iraqis get what they want. Americans don't care. They hate democracy.

Iran has been punished in the same way for overthrowing the American-serving autocrat for 27 years now. No American administration has cared about Saudi Arabia's much more oppressive Islamic theocracy, so don't waste my time with that argument. What the US objects to in Iran is independence from American capital. It doesn't matter that Iranians were suffering or impoverished under the Shah (and it certainly doesn't matter now). Americans don't care. They hate democracy.

They hate any shade of democracy because it necessitates independence in place of subservience. Democracy in the Middle East, and indeed all of the developing world is directly opposed to the interests of global capital, so American government hates it.

So, when people ask why their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and children have been killed, when people ask why they are being tortured and not allowed to go about their lives, when people ask why foreign troops humiliate them everyday, you have an answer ready.

"They hate us for our freedoms."

The Electoral Sham--or, 'What is Left?'

2006-12-21T04:02:00.000-05:00

co-opt vt
1. to adopt or appropriate something, for example, a political issue or idea, as your own
2. to absorb an opponent or opposing group into a larger group or society by making promises and concessions

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

To what degree can electoral progressivism in its many guises be seen as a safety-valve for the agents of state and corporate power against real social change?

Judgment on these grounds should extend from the neoliberal/corporate "left" to the social-democratic mainstream represented "Liberal" Democrats in the US, PRD in Mexico, Labour/LibDems in UK, PSF in France, Congress in India, Lula's PT in Brazil, Kirschner's Peronists in Argentina, Labour and Meretz-Yachad in Israel, &c.; it is perhaps axiomatic that in more developed post-industrial nations, the mainstream "left" parties can move away from pretensions to socialism/social democracy that are more necessary in the slightly less consumerist societies of the developing world while still performing their safety-valve function (to some degree, the reform movement of Khatami of Iran may have played the same role for the secular Iranian middle-class in the late years of the last decade, but that is the topic of another thousand blooming paragraphs). Of course, all of these parties subscribe as religiously to the neoliberal world order as the right.

There are, needless to say, characteristics of these mainstream/electoral left parties that are specific to each of the polities in which they have developed, and from a historical standpoint, these differences are important and instructive.

The essentially binary nature of party dynamics in modern representative democracies (even in Parliamentary governments) strengthens this safety-valve effect by limiting the acceptable range of discourse to increasingly narrow bounds. In the United States, this is highly advanced and refined, and as time passes, the European left will go about policy-making and campaigning in a similar fashion, all the while cutting substance out of political discourse while narrowing the range of acceptable opinions. Of course the process has been taking place at least since the First World War in Europe and probably about two to three decades before that in the United States. In the coming years, observe "free elections" in the west for further evidence of this. Early election campaigns in France and the United States are already shaping up in this ever-narrowing and increasingly slick, Madison Avenue fashion.

Note, however, that this use/effect of the electoral left is almost never a result of conscious formulation--except of course at high levels of state and corporate power (as with the Kennedy-Johnson administrations' simultaneous support and intimidation of the civil rights movement in the 1960s in the US). Working- and middle-class people who work to elect Democrats in the United States, for instance, are often passionate and well-intentioned, and the same goes for the rank-and-file of most bourgeois left parties in the Global North and South. Indeed, that is the very point; it is integral to this formulation that there would be a rank-and-file intent upon social change working for a party that is so highly unlikely to produce that change. That is the definition of the safety valve in electoral politics, and nothing more can be expected. Electoral democracy develops organic structures for co-opting social change. It is an inherently reactionary force. Accordingly, what I have been calling the electoral left--from the softly corporate Democrats of the United States to many of the social-democratic parties of the developing world--weakens social movements and functions to extend the life span of imperialism. This is, perhaps, why so many of the more intelligent élites in the Global North locate themselves on the left of their narrow political spectra. It should be clear, however, that subscribing blindly to the graces of a powerful corporate party, even one with the colors and language of the left, ensures only continued state violence accompanied by corporate hegemony over human lives and the earth.

The safety-valve effect of this corporate/electoral left is thus magnified by a sloganization of political discourse in the aforementioned countries combined with a sense that the individual or group has to "be realistic"/"wake up from your utopian fantasies", &cetera. It is overlooked intentionally by corporate mass-media and effectively by the public in various countries (largely as a result of the myth of electoral "democracy") that political power is only in the hands of limited groups as long as the people capable of paralyzing it grant it their trust, or at the very least, their acquiescence. This tension between adopting strategies of reform or revolution has been a topic of lively debate on the left since Rosa Luxemburg's great work titled, creatively, Reform or Revolution.

Advances in technology and the expansion of consumerism have strengthened these organic structures to some degree, while at the same time perhaps ensuring their demise and eventual replacement by something resembling localized-yet-simultaneously-globalized participatory democracy. This particular sham cannot continue indefinitely, for practical reasons apparent to all with working brains. True economic democracy (workers' self-management and control of the means of production) and political democracy (beyond the quadrennial obligation to vote for candidates none of whom you wholeheartedly endorse) will only be achieved together.

Or perhaps I'm being optimistic.

Labor, Immigration and the New Robber Barons

2006-12-21T03:53:00.000-05:00

While I've spoken extensively of a major part of the neoliberal project (why is it not called neo-mercantilist?), specifically, the appropriation of resources for corporate profit wherever they may be, the left foot in this global imperial goose-step is umbilically-connected to the right foot--that is, cheap labor, especially in the industrial sector. Indeed, when people cannot benefit from the resources of their own regions and countries, generally speaking, they'll be miserable and the price of their labor will be quite a bit lower. This is the case in lands dominated by kleptocratic and neoliberal governments the world over, and nowhere is it truer than in the southern neighbor of the United States.

The cost of labor is linked, variably (based on situations in each country), to the standard of living, the cost of achieving that standard, government regulations/minimums/caps, &c. As such, labor costs in many developing countries do not approach a living wage (some one-fifth of the world's population is estimated to be toiling in wage slavery); at the same time, in some countries (as in China) workers have no recourse against the non-payment of wages. All of this is a major attraction to multinational corporations, allowing them to essentially employ slavery and thus lower consumer prices and/or increase profits.

This has a real effect on the ability of people in the developing world to support their families. In Mexico and elsewhere, it hardship often induces individuals and familes to attempt illegal immigration to the United States, where even an "illegal" life would seem to be better than the NAFTA-imposed misery of most Mexican lives. Thus the undocumented population of about 13 million in the United States.

Why are these root causes never discussed?

The real progressive option with regard to illegal immigration, which Democrats haven't addressed, is the creation of job opportunities in Mexico that pay a living wage. Included in that is the freedom to unionize in Mexico without the threat of being fired. The only losers will be American-based multinational corporations that employ the remarkably cheap labor available in Mexico. The case of Mexico lays to waste the standard, cynical corporate line about how low labor standards are good for investment: remittances of Mexican workers in the US to their families Mexico exceed investment as a source of income.

The global solidarity of labor, which has been a long time coming in the age of neocolonialism/globalization is needed now more than ever.

On the American side, the jobs that Mexicans are doing now, often for payment of an illegally-low wage, should get living wages as well, and then maybe you'd see less domestic (also corporate) demand for immigration. In the end, this is yet another corporate bonanza, and the working class, or in more mainstream parlance, the vast majority of the population on both sides of the border suffers because of it. The state, allegedly party to "electoral democracy" on both sides of the border, supports this status quo. These are elementary moral questions with simple, humane answers.

Raising labor standards in Mexico and the United States is the "progressive" solution--it is also, by the way, the humane solution. Corporate profits may decrease.

I don't give a damn. Do you?

The state and multinational corporations, again, feed off of and complement each other--MNCs, of course, benefit from the status quo as they gain access to cheap labor and resources here and abroad, and the reactionary state benefits from the fostering of xenophobia within the working class; indeed, the exact same pattern is being repeated in Europe with mostly Arab and African immigrants.

Some corporations gain from a moderate level of xenophobia--as long as it doesn't diminish the steady stream of workers willing to take less than the minimum wage.

Feeding off of this xenophobia in the United States, once again, is Boeing, which is being given the contract to build the border fence/wall, as is well known. We don't know how much it will cost, nor do we know whether it will be effective in stopping people who are willing to risk their lives for less than the minimum wage.

A few years ago, an earlier failed attempt at "border security" cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars, was never completed, and essentially served (and continues to serve) no purpose. One contractor involved with the project had a $257 million contract and, in the end, the installations that it did complete did not function "properly". After these revelations, the same contractor, GSI, a subsidiary of L3, which produces "advanced electronics" for other corporations in the military-industrial complex and the Pentagon itself, was awarded a 4-year, $426 million contract for "intelligence support" in Iraq. Quite a strong rebuke from the ever-reliable Bush Administration, don't you think? Feeding off of xenophobia, indeed.

By the way, there is a word for this particular kind of alliance of mutual benefit between corporations and nation-states.

Care to guess what it is?

Thanks in part to the late Milton Friedman, new freedom is, indeed, slavery.

He Was a Lunatic.

2006-12-21T03:43:00.000-05:00

The black, murderous heart of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenbashi, has stopped beating, not long after the deaths of others to whose criminality he could only aspire. He joins Pinochet, Friedman, and Kirkpatrick, and not a moment too soon. At the very least, his immense ego will be missed, but he will live on as their prophet of his own peculiar fashion. We can only hope that he read his own book three times, lest he not gain passage to heaven.

At least Colin Powell and the gas-guzzling Bush Administration kissed his ass before he died. What a cheap, worthless criminal.

Towards a New Arrogance

2006-12-20T03:09:00.001-05:00

"Jim Baker's hostility towards the Jews is a matter of record and has endeared him to Israel's foes in the region," wrote Gaffney, suggesting that the ISG – which, in another column published Tuesday, he called the "Iraq Surrender Group" – would recommend a regional approach similar to Madrid that would "throw free Iraq to the wolves" and "allow the Mideast's only bona fide democracy, the Jewish State, to be snuffed in due course." -Jim Lobe quoting Frank Gaffney of the American Enterprise Institute in the Washington Times

Not surprisingly, Gaffney manages to contradict himself in the span of only a few words--if Israel is a "bona fide democracy", it cannot simply be a "Jewish State" anymore than apartheid South Africa was a "bona fide" democratic "White State". "Bona fide democracy" and exclusivist racism aided by an ongoing slow genocide fueled by medieval, militaristic expansionism and/or religious fanaticism aren't compatible--at least, not without a significant degree of hypocrisy, of which Gaffney and his blood-drinking cohorts enjoy in seemingly limitless amounts.

Neoconservatives say things, usually quite loudly and floridly, and their words never amount to anything. It is rambling totally devoid of logical meaning. They are meant to run misdirection and they're livid about Baker, Gates, and the supposed "realists" stealing their thunder. Of course, some neocons, like Michael Rubin, may actually be violently stupid enough to believe the shit they are paid to spew (as a side-note, I know this particular specimen, and Mr. Rubin's enthusiasm for a war with Iran is notable and alarming though perhaps not surprising, as he knows some about the history of Iran and the Middle East, and still believes that democracy and sociopolitical change can be supported from outside; even a cursory review of Iranian history will confirm that there are plenty of domestic forces pushing for change, as their have been for over a century now, and those forces are decisively pushed back whenever the West attempts to meddle with Iranian internal affairs. Michael knows this, but he still believes himself brilliant enough to be above this elementary historical lesson. His pronouncements on the dangers of an Iranian regime with nuclear weapons are all false and dangerous bluster; lies intended to guide the American intellectual community towards support for a war, and I have addressed the particular lies numerous times. They do not merit further attention.).

A "Jewish state" that strives for the marginalization of non-Jews within its borders (affirmed by the perennial need for "Jewish majorities" in the Knesset) while treating others like dogs in occupied lands and maintaining secret prisons for those who protest their status is not a "bona fide democracy", and a desire to bring peace to Israel and the region as a whole by pressuring it to withdraw from the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Shebaa Farms is not a matter of "hostility towards the Jews." Indeed, Gaffney, the neoconservative "movement", and the majority of Israeli politicians are all far more "hostile to Jews"--in a real sense--in their support for continued settlement in the West Bank, in contravention of international law and opinion, which has of course picked up steam since the Gaza "withdrawal"; the support of a marginal, mostly fanatic settler movement amounts to nothing but a constant disregard for the safety of a majority of Jews within Israel. But don't take it from me.

At this juncture it may be worthwhile to point out that "hostility towards the Jews" is of course a serious issue, not only because it is used as a wild card to stifle any and all discussion of Israeli crimes in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, but because such hostility does, indeed, exist, though it has no place in the modern world. At the same time, it weakens the cause of Palestinian liberation and resistance to American-sponsored Israeli colonialism in the region, as Fawwaz Traboulsi wisely points out (though Traboulsi meanders and misses target when he tries to equate Ahmadinejad's recent comment about Israel collapsing like the Soviet Union: clearly Ahmadinejad isn't trying to make a point about some worldwide Jewish Communist conspiracy, but he's trying to clarify something that already was clear in Persian, namely, that he believes that Israel will collapse from within due to its own internal contradictions, not in a hail of missiles or hellfire as the Western media would have the thirsty masses believe).

On the topic of Israel, freedom of expression is indeed quite restricted, as many scholars and a former president have pointed out, while famously, Islamophobia is not only within the bounds of free expression--in a world in which "everything has changed", neo-imperialist style, it sells well. Fine. That is a double standard, and it is racist.

So what's the point of the recent Holocaust conference held in Tehran? If highlighting that some things are offensive to some people regardless of the freedom to say them (like the Jyllands-Posten affair) is the goal, then that is one thing. However, when anti-Zionism and resistance against Israeli policy become colluded with anti-Semitism, they absolutely weaken an already fractured liberation struggle and the ability of others in the world (including Jews) to have solidarity with that struggle. The presence of racists like David Duke and other Holocaust deniers at the conference indicates that the conference isn't just a matter of highlighting discrepancies is Western attitudes.

Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism. The criticism of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism (nor is criticism of Israel the same as anti-Zionism).

The confusion of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is the real outcome of this Holocaust conference in Tehran, whether intentionally or not. This happens to be exactly the same tactic employed by Gaffney, quoted above, and AIPAC/JINSA/ADL for the past four decades.

The recent bout of Holocaust obsession in Iran is, as Traboulsi contends, equally lamentable in the fact that it belies a fixation with the West. If the goal of the Islamic Republic is to show solidarity with the Palestinian resistance, Holocaust talk--whether anti-Semitic or not--isn't necessary. The Israeli occupation can be argued against on its own merits, and there are plenty of scholars who can do that far more credibly than David Duke can deny industrialized genocide.

Right now, there are real struggles that need to be waged against Israeli aggression and racism, and global solidarity is going to have to widen if the goal is forcing the United States to cease its blind support of an apartheid regime and push for a peace along the internationally-recognized 1967 borders. In light of these struggles that have a more than credible basis, the Holocaust conference is utterly counterproductive.

The Myth of American Hyperpower

2006-12-19T08:13:00.000-05:00

Take a visit to some right-wing blogs and discussions, or simply turn your TV dial to CNN/FOXNews, and you'll be struck at just how often there are mentions of the United States as the world's only superpower, etc.

Are there psychological explanations for this constant repetition?

Is it especially important to repeat these pronouncements in light of their decreasing concordance with reality? After all, the American economic dominance of the globe has long been challenged by the growing strength and interdependence of Europe and Northeast Asia--Chomsky describes this trend quite well in a recent book, and others have done the same. The rise of an economically multipolar world is simply a matter of time. So, when these sage thinkers say, religiously, that the United States is the world's only superpower, to what are they referring?

Oh, that's right. The ability (and will) to destroy the world.

Warmonger Redux

2006-12-19T06:48:00.000-05:00

Since before the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American foreign policy has been crafted around the notion of permanent Empire. From that era onward, our species has been plunged into what Howard Zinn has called the Long War. Permanent Empire, of course, requires permanent war, but it is the luck of Americans to simply be imposing it on the world from a distance as they watch the unfolding video game from their TV screens--until it gets too depressing. This has been the case from Greece to Italy to Korea to Iran to Guatemala to Cuba to Vietnam to Laos to Cambodia to Brazil to Palestine to Indonesia to East Timor to Lebanon to El Salvador to Afghanistan to Nicaragua to Grenada to Angola to Mozambique to Turkish Kurdistan to Romania to Panama to Somalia to Yugoslavia (where, contrary to popular and academic acclaim, NATO intervention was not primarily in response to human rights violations--though they were egregious, Wesley Clark said in his memoirs that intervention was primarily in response to Milosevic's flouting of the international order, and the 1998-99 bombing campaign in response to Serbian actions in Kosovo was undertaken knowing that it would most likely compound human suffering and exacerbate the ethnic cleansing--if you haven't been clicking my links, just FYI, the US and it's allies don't exactly have a much richer history of violating human rights than defending them) to Iraq, etc.

Of course, there are a number of cases of US or US-sponsored/-supported aggression against innocent civilians that I am leaving out, especially reiterations of destruction of the same country, because I didn't want to bore you. If you actually read American history, the documentary record does not fulfill the self-congratulatory chest-thumping of even the most "realist" American politician or pundit. Indeed, it is a sordid history of violence and imperial arrogance the likes of which the world has never seen.

Even in that history, the invasion of Iraq is almost peerless in its illegality and stupidity.

Why do I say this?

First, to highlight a particular case: the American-Israeli support of the neo-Nazi regime that controlled Guatemala for much of the Cold War. A good account of the brutality that took place there is given by Mickey Z. at Znet. The account is so worthwhile, in fact, that it merits a couple of extended quotations:

In 1981, shortly after Israel agreed to provide military aid to this oppressive regime, a Guatemalan officer had a feature article published in the army's Staff College review. In that article, the officer praised Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, and the Final Solution-quoting extensively from "Mein Kampf" and chalking up Hitler's anti-Semitism to the "discovery" that communism was part of a "Jewish conspiracy." Despite such seemingly incompatible ideology, Israel's estimated military assistance to Guatemala in 1982 was $90 million.

Interesting. No condemnations of anti-semitism? (crickets) But...but...if criticizing the IDF for human rights violations is anti-semitic, and pointing out that Israel is an apartheid state, as has been argued by many Israeli scholars is also anti-semitic, then surely ascribing communism--a grave evil in the mythology of a fascist junta like the one that terrorized indigenous Mayans in Guatemala--to "Jewish conspiracy" is even more anti-semitic than...? No? Send them weapons? Okay.

In 1951, Guatemalan president Juan José Arévalo (whose term gave that country a ten-year respite from military rule during which he provoked U.S. ire by modeling his government "in many ways after the Roosevelt New Deal") stepped down to be replaced by his ill-fated successor and kindred spirit, the aforementioned Arbenz. This to what Arévalo had to say about the aftermath of a war known as "good": "The arms of the Third Reich were broken and conquered ... but in the ideological dialogue ...the real winner was Hitler."

Modris Eksteins' The Rites of Spring famously postulates that Wilhelmian Germany actually won the cultural and political battles of World War I; Arévalo, pre-Eksteins, was stating that the same had been the outcome of World War II. So, what were the defining characteristics of fascism?

Intriguing.

One could actually spend a lot of time pointing at the inconsistencies of rhetoric in the Israel lobby (which certainly was around when Israel was supplying weapons to death squads in Central America), but that would be boring too.

When Mearsheimer & Walt published their famous and much-villified article arguing that the Israel lobby holds sway over Washington to such a degree that Israeli interests often trump American ones, they went further than most academics have in print, at least in recent years. From a rhetorical standpoint, the Lobby's influence has had a great impact, since the backlash against them, Jimmy Carter (recently) and scores of others in the past few decades proves at least that debate on Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been completely stifled in the US (nowhere more than in Washington). As far as the relevance of M&W's theory with regard to realpolitik, there are varying assessments.

Uri Avnery more or less accepts M&W's thesis, pointing to smear jobs that ended the careers of a few American diplomats. Once again, this only demonstrates how powerful the Israel lobby is in shaping the acceptable grounds for discourse in America. It may demonstrate what can and cannot be said, but not necessarily what can and cannot be done. That would take some proof. Chomsky contends that AIPAC/JINSA probably aren't as powerful as M&W claim, and that the American silence and complicity in Israeli aggression probably stems more from shared interests than anything else.

These shared interests are, ostensibly, the subjugation of nations outside of the American political-economic sphere of influence, securing their oil for the relevant parties and their silence with regard to Israeli war crimes in the Occupied Territories--and American ones wherever they may be relevant (with two obvious candidates now).

I suggest you check for yourselves. Maybe do some quick Google searches of the reactions of American-backed and American-threatened Middle Eastern governments to recent cases like the Israeli bombing campaign against Lebanon, the Haditha massacre, and some of the atrocities of 'Autumn Clouds'...and take care to note that it isn't a matter of international Sunni-Shi'i sectarianism, as more nuanced American corporate press may claim (the less nuanced press wouldn't say anything).

In any case, I'd like to pose a question: do Israeli and American (corporate) interests line up with regard to an attack on Iran?

Of course it's easy to review the wealth of highly credible sources claiming that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and furthermore violating no laws or treaties, and that, in fact, even asking Iran to suspend enrichment, as the US and EU have done, constitutes a violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). So, there's obviously no acceptable or legal case to be made for such intervention, which would likely be a disaster for all involved.

Let's also set aside suspicions that Iran may be hiding something and Israel somehow has a better read on it. Israel has one of the world's premier foreign intelligence agencies, and if they had information about an Iranian nuclear weapons program, do you think they would keep it to themselves? Not for a minute. Indeed, as Seymour Hersh has noted, Israeli intelligence-gathering within Iran has confirmed the IAEA's conclusive report stating that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. So, not only does Israel have no proof, it actually has proof that there is no threat. Then why all the fearmongering and chest-thumping, one wonders? Jonathan Cook has a cogent, reasoned analysis of this question. His conclusion is that it's all about the demographic question within Israel. He quotes Ephraim Sneh, the deputy defense minister:

If Iran got such weapons, "Most Israelis would prefer not to live here; most Jews would prefer not to come here with families, and Israelis who can live abroad will ... I am afraid Ahmadinejad will be able to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button. That's why we must prevent this regime from obtaining nuclear capability at all costs."

So, as I said before, it's not about an Iranian threat, it's about the continuation of the occupation and the racist, anti-democratic policy of maintaining a state based on religious identity.

In any case, neither international law nor rational thought nor human decency could stop Bush and his merry band of neanderthal war-pornographer "ideologues" from invading Iraq, so let's consider all options.

The Israeli right would love an American attack on Iran (based on Olmert's recent statements and actions and the strategy outlined in the Clean Break policy paper from the early Netanyahu period). American corporate interests would like it because as you all know there is a lot of oil and natural gas in Iran, especially near Iraq in an Arab-speaking ethnic enclave (which, I mentioned earlier, shares a good deal of Iranian nationalism: a great many Khuzestani Arabs died defending Khorramshahr and the surrounding Iranian territory during the 1980-88 war). But such desirability (to oil companies) would be contingent on quick American success, which is quite questionable and would probably lead to disruptions in oil shipments.

So the ISG report (which must be viewed at least partly as a corporate mouthpiece, keeping in mind the connections of the more relevant Commissioners) calls for diplomacy with Iran, which would of course preclude an American attack. In this particular case, the interests of oil companies might line up with logic and good sense. Perhaps, then, it can be said that as long as corporate interests prevail it's not likely that there will be an outright American attack on Iran. If that were the end of it, Israeli interests and American corporate interests would be at odds.

What about an Israeli attack on Iran? Since Olmert supposedly "isn't ruling anything out", and has included a rabid warmonger in his cabinet with a portfolio specifically dealing with Iran, one must assume the worst. It would obviously serve the aforementioned Israeli interests (quite narrowly defined, and not in the best interests of the Israeli people), but would it serve American corporate interests? --Most likely, the endgame would be the same as if American troops attacked, with insurance rates on oil tankers to and from the Persian Gulf skyrocketing to (perhaps) prohibitive rates whether or not Iran targets them. Similarly, American troops in Iraq would likely have their supply lines cut and face a full-blown Shi'i insurgency that would significantly complicate the real goal of securing oilfields and pipelines (I'm not wasting anymore time proving this--look at a map of the future permanent bases, then look at a map of the oilfields and pipelines). So, an Israeli air assault probably wouldn't benefit the American energy sector either.

Does Israel act without American approval?

And finally, what about the wild-card? We know that Americans are trying to foment unrest in Khuzestan. Could we see a combo attempt of a sustained Israeli air assault and an American Special Forces-initiated separatist movement in Khuzestan? --Probably not, but I could be willfully blind on this issue.

So, once again, does Israel act without American approval?

Do the coming months/years hold a splintering of American corporate interests and right-wing Israeli security interests?

Will the M&W thesis and Chomsky's counter-assessment be put to the test?

Will hundreds of thousands more die unnecessary deaths?

Does George Bush care?

Boycott Iraq War Profiteers II: How about a real war on terror(ism)?

2006-12-12T08:02:00.000-05:00

Note: I've noted a mistake in the post below entitled "The Oilman's Mind". Nixon broke international law in the bombing of Cambodia and most likely in Vietnam almost immediately after his inauguration: of course, he entered office with a massive war sitting on his desk like a gift, all wrapped up in a bow, so he had a head start. Reagan also began supporting the murderous El Salvadoran and Guatemalan governments soon after his inauguration, but in both cases that was existing policy--and don't forget, Reagan himself had no idea what was going on, so I don't know how much credit he deserves. Still, Bush's third place to such distinguished company ain't bad.

Read this wide-ranging discussion featuring two well-known dissidents.

Mostly, it's all pretty clear-minded and uncontroversial, at least to me, but I take issue with Tariq Ali's characterization of the Kurds as "happy to be the Gurkhas of the American empire." There are many telling statistics, mostly unnoticed, conveying a different reality. Even though the somewhat tense coalition of Barzani's KDP and Talabani's PUK has been beneficial to a few wealthy and middle-class Kurds, the majority of Iraqi Kurds, having suffered under Saddam's brutality in the 'Anfal campaign in the late 1980s (supported by the United States, another war crime on the heads of all involved) and a civil war between the PUK and KDP in the 1990s, now have to deal with an oppressive, autocratic regional government, high unemployment, crushing poverty, perpetual ethnic cleansing and violence by Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen in Kirkuk and Diala province, ongoing retribution killings between the two former rival parties (KDP of Barzani and PUK of Talabani) using the peshmerga for sectarian violence not unlike the rest of Iraq, violent Islamist parties, kleptocracy, and the constant fear of Turkish aggression. Much like the rest of Iraq, "civil society" is virtually nonexistent and refugees are loathe to return; take note of the British government's criminal forced deportations of asylum-seekers, usually against their will. Many educated Kurds would rather barely survive in low-paying service jobs, clandestinely, in the UK than return home to their supposedly American-created Shangri-La. If that isn't telling, I don't know what is.

Perhaps the Kurdish leadership carries water for Americans, who are content to use Iraqi Kurdistan as a staging ground for separatist guerilla action and US special ops directed at Iran, endangering the Kurdish population for the illusion of future corporate gain, but the majority of Kurds haven't prospered as much from American intervention as is usually portrayed. Indeed, it's the story of failure that no one, even dissidents, seems to point to with any consistency. But to believe otherwise would be to consider the War on Iraq not a complete and utter failure from a humanitarian standpoint.

The War on Iraq is a complete and utter failure from a humanitarian standpoint.

I would've expected more from Tariq Ali, who I otherwise find to be a poignant critic of imperialism and the neoliberal project. There is a humanitarian disaster in all of Iraq, and though it's going on at a much more alarming rate in Baghdad and Anbar province, it is representative of a much wider conflict that may last for some years, with or without American withdrawal.

All the more reason, I say, for the public to issue a stern rebuke to the Administration to get out of Iraq now and never do something like this again.

Ali redeems himself with a cogent analysis of the reasons for the weakness of the American anti-war movement:

...the war is being fought by a volunteer army. So the country as a whole, especially the white middle-class sectors, remains unaffected.

Secondly, the media censorship (in sharp contrast here to the coverage of the Vietnam War) means that the U.S. population is not getting a real picture of what is happening on the ground. Third, the dominant neoliberal culture is one of consumerism and individualism, and this bubble seals people off from reality.

Fourth, there is no section of official politics that is seriously antiwar. Fifth, the way of organizing utilized by the principal coalition against the war fails to understand the period in which we live.

This could change quickly if something unexpected happened on the battlefields or in U.S. politics. Because the tragedy is that public opinion against the war seems to be reflected nowhere.

A serious boycott movement based on guerrilla marketing, internet organization, and word of mouth would change this. In particular, it would counteract the second, third, and fifth points, which are the relevant ones, and, if successful, could be part of a broader movement meant to pressure "official politics" to become more antiwar and less imperialist. The possibility of a boycott's success would make further imperial adventures less palpable to the corporate handlers behind the Bush administration and the neoconservative movement, which would be a huge victory.

A victory for whom?

The working class.

Let us not kid ourselves and just say that Democrats are small "i"-imperialists versus the Republicans' more "robust" Imperialism; let us not kid ourselves and say that Democrats can emit hawkish noises and policies from the floors of Congress, as they are wont to do, but that they'll be much better for America's working class. Have you seen how many Democrats voted for the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) in 2005? Or the Oman Free Trade Agreement in 2006 (Oman is implicated in an ongoing slave trade?

I may not have been clear enough on this. The war in Iraq is another stage in an elaborate class war waged by the super-wealthy on the rest of the world, and until it ends, the American worker (and/or "lower middle class", if it is at all distinct from the working class and not simply a term more friendly to capital) is being shafted. If Democrats wish to serve the majority of their constituency, especially the working class, they must call for immediate and complete withdrawal.

As long as this war goes on, the US military is killing Iraqis, fueling the civil war Bush and his handlers have created with their presence, all while poor Americans die on the dime of poor Americans to line the pockets of rich Americans that sit on the boards of a few choice multinationals.

But talking about dead, disappeared, and vaporized people is quaint, I know. Won't Iraqis at least be making good money from their oil revenues now? As Sharon Smith notes in Counterpunch, "The use of PSA's [sic] instead of alternative methods of financing infrastructure...will cost the Iraqi people hundreds of billions of dollars in just the first few years of the 'investment' program."

PSAs are production sharing agreements determining financing and profit-sharing schemes for ventures like pumping, refining, and distributing oil between nations and investors. Charlie Cray of the Center for Corporate Policy has this to say about PSAs, "which will lock the government into a long-term commitment (up to 50 years) to sharing oil revenues, and restrict its right to introduce any new laws that might affect the companies' profitability. Greg Muttitt of Platform says the PSAs are designed to favor private companies at the expense of exporting governments, which is why none of the top oil producing countries in the Middle East use them. Under the new petroleum law, all new fields and some existing fields would be opened up to private companies through the use of PSAs. Since less than 20 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have already been developed, if Iraq's government commits to signing the PSAs, it could cost the country up to nearly $200 billion in lost revenues according to Muttitt, lead researcher for 'Crude Designs: the Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth.'"

Hmm. I seem to remember hearing a different story from George W. Bush, in 2003...

Okay. Now that that's out of the way, what about the American working class?

Arundhati Roy, in 2003:

In the three years of George Bush the Lesser's term, the American economy has lost more than two million jobs. Outlandish military expenses, corporate welfare, and tax giveaways to the rich have created a financial crisis for the U.S. educational system. According to a survey by the National Council of State Legislatures, U.S. states cut 49 billion dollars in public services, health, welfare benefits, and education in 2002. They plan to cut another 25.7 billion dollars this year. That makes a total of 75 billion dollars. Bush's initial budget request to Congress to finance the war in Iraq was 80 billion dollars.

So who's paying for the war? America's poor. Its students, its unemployed, its single mothers, its hospital and home-care patients, its teachers, and health workers.
And who's actually fighting the war?

Once again, America's poor. The soldiers who are baking in Iraq's desert sun are not the children of the rich. Only one of all the representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate has a child fighting in Iraq. America's "volunteer" army in fact depends on a poverty draft of poor whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians looking for a way to earn a living and get an education. Federal statistics show that African Americans make up 21 percent of the total armed forces and 29 percent of the U.S. army. They count for only 12 percent of the general population. It's ironic, isn't it - the disproportionately high representation of African Americans in the army and prison? Perhaps we should take a positive view, and look at this as affirmative action at its most effective. Nearly 4 million Americans (2 percent of the population) have lost the right to vote because of felony convictions. Of that number, 1.4 million are African Americans, which means that 13 percent of all voting-age Black people have been disenfranchised.

For African Americans there's also affirmative action in death. A study by the economist Amartya Sen shows that African Americans as a group have a lower life expectancy than people born in China, in the Indian State of Kerala (where I come from), Sri Lanka, or Costa Rica. Bangladeshi men have a better chance of making it to the age of forty than African American men from here in Harlem.

Of course, the cost of the wars and the cuts on social spending have both ballooned in the three years since that speech. Next year will see almost $200 billion more for war. The only national governmental institutions that actually do anything for the public, including the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control all face almost yearly assaults on their very existence. Go ahead: read Arundhati Roy's whole speech.

If you do, you'll see that interestingly enough, as Roy continues, she proposes something that seems not to have gained much steam with the American public as yet, which happens to be the very suggestion that I have made (as, I'm sure, have many others--has a boycott movement gotten off the ground under my nose? --you don't hear about it on the progressive blogosphere...is this just a matter of coming up with a plan and putting it up on various websites? I can't believe that no one has done that...):

"We could reverse the idea of the economic sanctions imposed on poor countries by Empire and its Allies. We could impose a regime of Peoples' Sanctions on every corporate house that has been awarded with a contract in postwar Iraq, just as activists in this country and around the world targeted institutions of apartheid. Each one of them should be named, exposed, and boycotted. Forced out of business. That could be our response to the Shock and Awe campaign. It would be a great beginning."

If blind faith to electoral democracy doesn't achieve the objective of ending the illegal and unnecessary American brutality in Iraq, then another avenue must be pursued. The existing infrastructure of dissent against the war, mostly in the hands of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and ANSWER has neutered the antiwar movement by dedicating its resources to the election of small "i" imperialists and pushing rallies, a form of protest that, while important, cannot constitute the only expression of popular discontent in an age of television and print media dominated almost exclusively by monied interests.

If they weren't criminals before (for voting for the war with incoherent pronouncements and alarming enthusiasm), now that they have the majority in both houses of Congress, Democrats are complicit in the crimes of neoconservatives and war profiteers in the energy, defense, and "reconstruction" industries until they impeach Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the remaining "ideologues" in the Pentagon for their numerous crimes against the American, Iraqi, and yes, the Afghani people, and for violations of the U.S. Constitution and international law as codified in the UN Charter, Nuremburg Charter, Geneva Conventions, the Hague Convention, &cetera.

Impeachment based on misleading statements also has recent precedent--read this hypothetical indictment written up by Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor, in which she enumerates a number of attempts by Bush administration officials to present false or fraudulent information to the public.

There may also be a case for impeachment with regards to the massive fraud and corruption that has become commonplace in Iraq and Afghanistan under the label of "reconstruction" and in the Global War on Terror in general: the webs of deceit and illegality covering up said misconduct connect the upper echelons of government, military, and corporate war profiteers in some dazzlingly unethical and intricate ways that we'll need microscopes to see where one ends and the other begins for some years to come.

Of course, none of this even touches on the even more terrifying issue of the militarization of space which of course is barred in the Outer Space Treaty for the obvious threat it poses to the very survival of humanity; in standard form, the Pentagon under Rumsfeld and Bush moved aggressively to violate this treaty--the process of course began in the Clinton Pentagon, under then-Secretary of Defense and now-military-industrial lobbyist Williamhttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_Sebastian_Cohen Cohen--in the alarming quest for full spectrum dominance outlined in the DoD Joint Vision 2020, the Nuclear Policy Review 2001, and most onerously in the National Security Strategy of 2002, which adopted preventive war, which is illegal, as official US policy and was updated in 2006.

Impeachment is not an option--it is a necessity, and incoming-Speaker Pelosi's pronouncement that "impeachment is off the table" is a despicable, politicking evasion of the constitutional duty of Congress to exercise thorough and effective oversight. If we are to take her words at face value, when she sits behind Bush at his next State of the Union speech in January 2007, she will already be criminally negligent for her role in covering up the extent and the depth of the Bush Administration's depravity and disregard for law and human decency. From a majority party like this, we can expect no real action on Iraq: as far as the steps that need to be taken at this juncture, the only remaining social and political force capable of pressuring the American government and the corporate entities it serves into curtailing its customary rabid imperialism and savagery is the public.

The rebuke must be issued in how the American people live; where they pump their gas, what they buy, and what business practices they are willing to endorse.

These are no longer quotidian issues, they are moral decisions instrumental in changing American policy and aspiring to some semblance of global justice. Instituting a public boycott would put the onus for action on the public, which has a conscience and even a bit of wisdom, despite its erstwhile thirst for Arab blood--unlike the two governing parties.

Most vital is the publicizing of concrete facts about war profiteering and names of the guilty parties and their commercial interests; certainly, of the two-thirds of Americans are currently calling for some form of withdrawal from Iraq, some may know about the real reasons for war, but the vast majority most likely do not. A boycott of Iraq war profiteers wouldn't directly seem to make it any easier for them to pay their healthcare bills, or send their kids to college, or ease their daily financial misery of increasing debt (mirrored by a crushing and well-known national debt that may not be on their minds, but should be).

But, the quarter-billion dollars spent on the war everyday, little of it benefitting American civilians, soldiers, or Iraqis, indeed could be well-used in addressing the American people's pressing actual day-to-day and long term concerns, and provide for a real reconstruction of Iraq (in addition to paying reparations that are due the Iraqi people) under more reliable UN oversight, in a political climate free of an occupation that, more than any other factor, fuels recruitment and support for the Sunni resistance.

While violence and civil war in Iraq may be foregone conclusions, American presence clearly has been useless in preventing them. Certainly American training of Iraqi Security Forces cannot produce any lasting effect as long as the traumatizing miasma of ethnic and religious enmity is in place, as it is likely to be for decades. I've said it before--there is virtually no neutral population from which to build a truly "national" apparatus of subjugation (army, police); American training will simply make sectarian militias more efficient. Surely the Bush Administration has learned this over the past few years, violently ignorant as most of its "experts" may be.

Then what may we assume?

The "training" of Iraqi Security Forces, with its litany of misplaced neocolonial metaphors is, like so much else in this twisted, sordid affair, simply another illusion meant to cover the dirty corporate money-grubbing truth and prolong American presence. The Iraq Study Groups's report attempts to muddy the waters and throw a rhetorical bone to the growing opposition to the war (most of it criticizing not the war's legality but its execution) by creating the semblance of withdrawal while actually providing tidy doublespeak for permanent presence, the preferred course of most politicos.

This puzzles the more penetrating thinkers among American foreign policy pundits, who scratch their heads and wonder why the Baker Commission Report is so careless, so incoherent, and so likely to fail just like "staying the course" has failed. What they don't understand, of course, is that the Baker Commission isn't about "winning" in Iraq at all; it's just a public farce meant to misdirect pundits like them, and the American public, as the looting and destructive imperialism continues unabated. Bloviating language notwithstanding, the reality and the goals of the occupiers have not changed. That said, as this commentator points out, the divergences that do exist between Baker's approach and that of the Bush Administration do indicate that he (along with his assorted old hands) is probably interested in "salvag[ing] the imperial system he helped to create"; if so, his creativity is limited, but there probably is some truth to the fact that Baker does have some real interest in Iraq and is not just covering Bush's ass. The fact remains that the ISG report will be used for just that (to cover Bush's ass) and probably not much more. The debates around what the ISG report means and so forth are mostly academic as far as their impact is concerned, and don't make a whit of difference to Iraqis starving and afraid to leave their homes. Bush's inability to see Baker's recommendations for what they are (that is, a policy for his administration and the business community to use to lose face more slowly while still stealing Iraqi oil) simply shows the Dear Leader to be the one-dimensional idiot he's long proven himself to be.

The discussion is important, however, as Mike Whitney notes (last link above) in his interesting article on what he sees as a forthcoming battle royale between American corporate interests and the Israel lobby. Another commentator in Counterpunch, John Whitbeck, hearkens back to a Netanyahu-era policy paper that argued for the destruction of Iraq (check) and all other strong, independent regional states (i.e. Iran) either vis-a-vis military subjugation or partition into warring sub-states. The actions of the Pentagon Iranian Affairs desk--successor to the Office of Special Plans--is headed by Elizabeth Cheney, spawn of Dick, and is most likely intended to work on the partition angle. Of course, with the standard American blindness to history, they overlook that Saddam tried that, and it didn't work. Iranians have a nationalism that is probably rivaled only by Zionists. Iran is a tough nut to crack, so the bombing option is probably the only one, as absolutely ridiculous as it may be.

So, is it Israel or corporate fatcats? Behind Iraq, both.

Corporate power would like a reduced but nonetheless sizable American presence in Iraq indefinitely, as it will be needed to guard American interests, namely Iraqi oil. The current level of deployment is distasteful to them (ergo the Baker report) because it looks bad on the news and gets Americans pissed off. When people are pissed off, they may actually do something.

At this juncture, with regard to continued aggression, both in Iraq and Iran, it's the more belligerent, genocidal and absolutely lunatic of the two. I'll let you guess which one that is.

(Hint: genocide is bad for business).

To even a slightly devoted observer, all of this should be obvious by now, but most Americans don't have any free time to devote, and must rely on a corporate media with more interests in war than withdrawal. This media tells them what the powers-that-be will choose to do, and when they disagree, their disagreement makes them feel powerless. A boycott would uncover the profiteering angle, of which parts of the public may already be suspicious, and counteract them as well, while also exposing the weakness of the methods state and corporate power use to cow the public into submission.

Meanwhile, the consciousness gained from public action would be immeasurably useful vis-a-vis other important issues like civil liberties, worker's rights, climate change, and healthcare. A new and successful example of citizens' organization outside of mainstream political "discourse" would be the catalyst for increased understanding and activism with regard to other issues; simultaneously, if done correctly, it would bring the American public one step closer to solidarity with the global justice movement. Boycotting war profiteers is, in many ways, a step towards civilization and a real war on terror, though the illustrious Mr. Cheney would disagree.

Now close your eyes and imagine how Cheney would respond if Citgo, the commercial arm of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. in the United States, started taking a significant chunk of business away from the major petroleum distributors that constituted his energy task force. Close your eyes and imagine that war is over (if you want it).

In my current situation, I have about an hour of internet access after my classes during weekdays; obviously it's not enough to complete all of the research necessary for a comprehensive listing of corporations, subsidiaries, and products to boycott and pressure. I'm going to need assistance. Please let me know if you are interested, and we can begin outlining a plan of action.

I will end this diatribe with the next questions to be considered in pursuit of a war profiteer boycott:

What kinds of strategies should be employed in implementing and publicizing the boycott? Who wants to help with some research? Who wants to help to spread the word?

The Infrastructure of Dissent

2006-12-11T07:35:00.000-05:00

I will be using this phrase in the future, so I have decided that it may not hurt to actually say what I mean, thus sparing me the banal task of having to mean what I say...when it comes to that.

Much the way it sounds (or looks), when I write about the 'infrastructure of dissent', I am talking about the practical and ideological means of criticizing, resisting, and overcoming power--either that of the state or of an oppressive employer, for instance. This refers to the forms that communication, dissemination, and organization of ideas takes and, at the revolutionary stage, of the organization of resistance itself. But to stop there would be to deny history: the structures and organizations created to resist power foreshadow those that will succeed power if/when it has been overcome. The means and composition of resistance often have determined the makeup of their situation's future.

Each of the cases below is, and has been, the topic of hundreds of books and studies, but I will briefly highlight some distinctions to illustrate the point.

In the case of the French Revolution, the Jacobin "excesses" and Robespierre's reign of terror (followed by the reactionary White Terror) were presaged by the relative spontaneity of anti-monarchist protests brought on by crushing poverty and famine. The lack of civic organizations, the norm for the era, and the relative ambiguity of the structure of working class organization led quite quickly to the formation of a revolutionary elite and and an authoritarian post-revolutionary state and not long thereafter to a reactionary state with similar authoritarian leanings. Some evidence for this reality exists in the fact that the only resistance to this slide to "radicalism", which was in fact more of a statist government dominated by particularly violent and vengeful entities, was presented by the Girondins, who were mostly something of an agrarian middle class that had little to gain from a centralizing state, and was not actively opposed by the great masses of peasants, who had little means of coordination or communication at the time, as Kropotkin notes (linked above).

A similar turn of events took place during the Russian Revolution, though one must point out that there was something of a popular democracy in the form of the communal workers' soviets ("councils") that took care of local administration and the organization of resistance during the revolution but before the Bolshevik coup of September 1917. It is often forgotten that in the first months of the revolution in early 1917, when Aleksandr Kerensky of the bourgeois Constitutional Democrats took power, the leftist organization was far more decentralized and libertarian than anything Leninism called for (Lenin famously founded the notion of Democratic Centralism whereby criticism from within the ranks of the party is permitted before "the heat of battle", and intolerable during--but do they vote on when "the heat of battle" has begun? --They didn't in 1917, I'll tell you that much); it was more along the lines what Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek called "council communism". Of course, this decentralization and accountability of the revolution to the unwashed masses was anathema to the Leninist notion of "democratic centralism" that led, in practical terms, to the domination of the revolutionary state not by localized, democratic councils but by a quite dictatorial and centralized vanguard party that knew what was best for the proletariat. Lenin's reservations against council communism and left libertarianism are recorded in "Left-wing Communism: an Infantile Disease"; long story short, these reservations caused him to quite rapidly subordinate the local soviets to the Supreme Soviet, which was in turn dominated by the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. In less than a year's time, the Russian Revolution turned from a somewhat decentralized mass movement to a dictatorship of the vanguard party. This took a concerted effort and some brutality on the part of Lenin and Trotsky, but, nonetheless, their infrastructure (democratic centralism) became that of the Soviet state, and the effects over the next few decades are well-recorded.

During the Spanish Revolution, the POUM, the anarchist and anarchosyndicalist movements and trade unions and peasants' federations that had been organizing and agitating for some seventy years and had made great gains in organization and dissemination of their ideas and the general sense that workers' and peasants' self-management was a useful and attainable goal. They were able to institute positive changes that led to gains in productivity despite the ongoing civil war, but like the less statist elements of the Russian Revolution, they too were crushed (by Communists and the Western-supported Republicans) and the society they had formed was quickly lain to waste.

The Iranian Revolution is an interesting case; in brief, the Shah's repressive secret police, the SAVAK, were quite successful in preventing the growth any pro-democratic organizations, and resistance to the monarchy took the form of armed guerrilla movements in the decade leading up to the revolution. These movements played quite an important role in the revolution, but by far the most important infrastructure of dissent lie in mosques and other existing religious institutions, which the Shah had been unable or unwilling to suppress. Mosques served as meeting points and sites for the dissemination of information for the resistance movement that developed from 1977 to 1979. Furthermore, a trade in smuggled cassette tapes featuring sermons of Imam Khomeini were quite popular in the decade preceding the revolution. The outcome of a revolution organized largely by religious institutions around a single charismatic leader was a religious state led by a single spiritual leader (though clearly there have been a number of gains for democratic rights and self-expression, whether fleeting or not). In the case of the Iranian Revolution, the infrastructure of dissent was manifested quite clearly in the state that it created.

Citizens' groups protesting the Vietnam War in the US in the 1960s and 70s gave way to an array of organizations in the environmental movement, the women's movement, and the third world solidarity movement that preceded today's global justice movement against neoliberalism. It's hard to believe from this vantage point, but their struggles did result in some concrete gains as well.

Further examples can be provided, but it is, in general, quite an elastic idea. Anarchist philosopher Mikhail Bakunin highlighted this concept when he called on workers to create "not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself"; anarchosyndicalists called it "building the new society in the shell of the old". The driving point is that the organizations used for dissent today should be formulated in a thoughtful and participatory manner, because if they succeed in mounting a challenge to power, they will provide a basis for the organizations of the future.

In this light, the use of the internet vis-a-vis blogs, email, and "horizontal" organization can provide a truly positive foundation for resistance to the agenda of the Bush Administration and the reactionary and belligerent politics of empire and corporate welfare. More than at any time before in history, leadership is increasingly irrelevant to resistance; hence the ability of power to target or co-opt movements will weaken. Certainly a host of new problems will rear their heads. Perhaps the first of these problems is emerging now: working solely within the electoral system, as the vast majority of the progressive blogosphere attempts to do, will prove frustrating and ultimately self-defeating, as it was for Populists of the 1890s, progressives of the 1900s-1920s, labor unions throughout the 20th century, the civil rights movement, and a host of other grassroots organizations that worked for social justice and real systemic change, all of which were used by the Democratic Party for short-term electoral gain and then summarily silenced, without ever reaching their ultimate goals.

All the more reason to get a war profiteer boycott movement off the ground.

Boycott Iraq War Profiteers

2006-12-08T04:46:00.000-05:00

Could it be possible to protest the Iraq War through a massive public boycott? Participation in such an act, regardless of effectiveness, would be an ethical act in itself, but could a rebuke of real significance emerge from such a strategy?

It has occurred to me that since Iraq and Afghanistan are both corporate wars, the resistance to them should be primarily anti-corporate in nature; of course, it wasn't an easy task to organize the necessary numbers of Americans for such an action at the war's inception, but it may very well be possible now.

Boycotts may be more effective than rallies and demonstrations, which can be (and have been) minimized as a social and political force in an age where public perception is so thoroughly shaped by pro-war corporate media. This isn't the case with boycotts, which have both a symbolic and practical effect, and can be publicized and expanded by non-traditional means. One of the major gains of state and corporate power in the past century are the feelings of isolation and personal insignificance that is increasingly perpetuated by modern life; people tend to view themselves and their own views as marginal, even--or especially--when they aren't. The potential for unity and decisive action, however, exists in the very technologies that seem to isolate us: the Democrats took full advantage of that fact this midterm cycle, and gained their majority in the Senate (at least) on the backs of internet activists using blogs to organize.

So, is it possible to organize a boycott of Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP-Amoco, and Royal Dutch Shell? It's relatively easy not to purchase gas from them, but what about agricultural products planted, harvested, and transported by vehicles fueled by these corporations? What about plastic products? Medicines?

To call for a complete and effective boycott, a good deal of research would have to be done about where these corporations' profits come from--that is, who pays them, and what in what form their hydrocarbons are consumed--and those entities will have to be targeted as well, to be forced to withdraw their patronage from pro-Iraq corporations. Some has already been done, but more would obviously be required--nothing too much for a dedicated, resourceful, and decentralized online community, certainly. Moreover, this process would obviously have to extend to the various civilian subsidiaries of the military-industrial complex and the entities involved with reconstruction like Bechtel and Halliburton and all of the subsidiaries thereof, and the less recognizable beneficiaries as well.

Since multinationals involved in war-profiteering are evidently in the business of making win-win situations for themselves (bombing things, sometimes with people in them, and then rebuilding them), public pressure can be applied to force them into a lose-lose situation: either stay in Iraq and face negative publicity and an ongoing (and probably snowballing) domestic boycott, or withdraw from the profitable Mesopotamian investment climate and look slightly more humane. Of course, a boycott would also shed quite a bit of light on the Bush Administration--if American energy interests are forced out of Iraq by the public, will there be any reason for the permanent bases to remain? Or will it precipitate in a speedy withdrawal?

In a sense, a boycott would act as an endorsement of corporations that are not benefitting from Iraq directly, though they are still benefitting indirectly from the increased price of oil. Thus, a boycott is not a revolutionary act, and it reinforces an existing "legal" entity (the corporation) that caused the war in the first place, but by introducing an incentive for companies that aren't engaged in war-profiteering, the market system can be used to a positive political end. The success of such an endeavor in influencing a more complete and rapid withdrawal than what is currently being considered (though in completely Orwellian terms, despite the mainstream media's representations) would obviously be contingent upon the number of people willing to follow through with it, but given the latest opinion polls, and the relative disdain Democrats have shown for the wishes of the public in not pursuing a full and speedy withdrawal, it is possible that quite a large number of Americans could pursue such a boycott--it would, of course, be a matter of advertising such a boycott, which could spread by word of mouth and guerilla marketing within a relatively short time-frame, though it most likely won't benefit from mainstream publicity until it is already a potent force. Thus, it would require significant legwork to get off the ground.

At the same time, a boycott would have real prospects for success and would serve as a positive tool for the politicization of the unwashed masses, by spreading the awareness with regard to what's actually being done in Iraq and what can be done to get out. It seems like a really good prospect, but I could be dreaming.

Some seem to have thought about it early in the war, but with the growing public opposition to the war, has it been mentioned in the post-2006 election context?

Any thoughts? Am I crazy? Could this work? Could we begin to implement and advertise a war profiteer boycott movement?

The Oilman's Mind

2006-12-08T04:25:00.000-05:00

For those who still aren't convinced that possession of Iraqi oil was the only reason for the Anglo-American war on the Iraqi people that has destroyed the fabric of Iraqi society and placed its demolished economy freely into the hands of American corporations, Richard Behan has a wonderful analysis. In it, he fingers 40 past and present officials of the Bush Administration as former employees and executives of the oil industry.

Big deal, right? People in the oil industry clearly have a deep and thorough expertise in fields covered by the Departments of "Defense, State, Energy, Agriculture, Interior, and the Office of the Management of the Budget" (not to mention the White House Environmental Office and NASA, two more well-politicized scandals). And, it goes without any question whatsoever that those involved in the multibillion-dollar industry of providing Americans with energy to eat, drink, clothe themselves, drive, waste, and generally survive with a high standard of living care about those Americans as people and not as energy consumers. Right?

Behan goes further in pursuing the energy interests behind the occupation of Afghanistan, often pointed to unquestioningly--especially by Democrats, who almost unanimously voted for that war--as something resembling "the good fight", a tragically under-bombed country that was overlooked by overeager warmongers (as opposed to the more thoughtful warmongers in the Democratic ranks). Indeed, this is an avenue of inquiry worth pursuing. The trans-Afghanistan pipeline, meant to open up Turkmen and Caspian oil (and prospectively natural gas) to foreign markets has lucrative potential (estimated at $4 trillion in profits), and granted the hilariousrly oppressive, narcissistic dictatorship of Turkmen president Saparmurad Niyazov; firm dictatorships with high rates of human rights violations (even admitted by his allies in the US State Department) tend to create what Western capital often calls a good investment climate, for obvious reasons which can be reiterated endlessly. Thus, Unocal was, by the flawless logic of Milton Friedman, justified in seeking illegal means to secure such a pipeline, means which eventually led to the planning of an American invasion of Afghanistan months before 9/11, in the Bush administration's first lazy summer.

It was this reality that made poetic Orientalist statements such as the following possible. State department envoy Christina Rocca to the Taliban, in August 2001: "Accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." And, famously, "realist" Richard Armitage to the beloved American allies in Pakistan, a month later: "If you do not cooperate, we will bomb you back to the Stone Age." Thus, especially in reference to the first of these two gems, the Bush Administration not only had plans to attack Afghanistan before 9/11, it planned to act on those plans--something quite different, and indeed illegal, thus constituting a first, oft-overlooked Bush violation of the international order instituted at Nuremberg.

Noam Chomsky has noted that all postwar American presidents would be hanged if the Nuremberg laws actually mattered, but it is somewhat interesting to note that George W. Bush and his assemblage of kleptocrats and war criminals set the record, beating Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, & Clinton in the rapidity with which they violated these supposedly sacrosanct conventions. Barely six months after inauguration! And no party to celebrate it!

Both the so-called neoconservative "ideologues", so often painted by the more "realist" circles of Washington as hopeless idealists vis-à-vis their selfless desires to spread democracy to lands populated with Muslim savages unable to comprehend American beneficence, and the realists themselves, are only a diversion from the realities of the 21st-century imperialism. If we google vigilantly enough, facts--as opposed to rhetoric--emerge quite quickly with regard to the actual accomplishments of daisycutters and investment laws. The realists differ from neoconservatives not in their desires to expand and maintain these accomplishments; simply listen to or read their new fictions, and it becomes clear that the main difference is simply tactical. Thus we have a withdrawal that isn't a withdrawal and the subsequent castigation of the Muslim hordes unable to control their genetic predisposition to violence.

As thousands have noted, publicly and privately, neocons are the offense, necessary for convincing the American public to engage in illegal wars for zero public benefit. They were, as I have often noted, the window-dressing meant to divert attention from the real reasons for war, which Behan sums up in a list: Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP-Amoco, and Royal Dutch Shell. Indeed.

The neoconservative goal, at least with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan has long been accomplished (though arguably they have some work to do with regard to new, more impossible interventions), despite the bleating of PNAC geniuses Perle, Kristol, Wolfowitz, et al. as to their dissatisfaction with the implementation of their policies. Now the defensive string of Robert Gates, James Baker and the Democratic Congress can freely take over, noting soberly the need for continued American presence, even if just "over the horizon."

Private security contractors are expensive, after all.

In this cauldron of greed and savagery, American-based multinationals and their allies throughout government have slowly stewed the feast that now drenches the streets of Baghdad, and, soon enough, Kabul as well. But someone still needs to fiddle as Rome burns...so, who will it be?

A new species of native collaborator has risen with this new imperial nobility. No longer do these élites civilize: they democratize, mostly in Milton Friedman's sense of the word, which countless American academics reiterate mindlessly. Least subtle of which is Samuel Huntington, who said, in the heyday of Latin American "democracy", some decades ago, that "Political democracy is clearly compatible with inequality in both wealth and income, and in some measure, it may be dependent on such inequality."

Among these new collaborators, a first generation included Pinochet, Menem, and a host of autocrats mostly reliant on, and arising from their own militaries. The symbol of these atrocities was the School of the Americas, and the gains were primarily corporate in composition.

While the beneficiaries are much the same, the new generation of collaborators in the Muslim world is supported overwhelmingly by the United States--typified by Iraqis like Ahmed Chalabi and Iyad Allawi and Afghans like Hamid Karzai and Zalmay Khalilzad, both of whom worked for Unocal, the oil company mentioned above in reference to its driving desire to appropriate the trans-Afghani pipeline project from an Argentine firm, Bridas, mentioned in Behan's piece. Absorb this: the current president of Afghanistan--and the former American Ambassador there, also Afghani--lived in the United States before the American intervention, benefiting not from the largesse of the American Congress like Ahmed Chalabi, but from an oil corporation dedicated to reaping massive profits from a pipeline built through his own country. Never mind that the only way those profits could be obtained was through a bombing campaign that devastated his already Fourth World country, since reconstruction has been such a success, as I related several days ago.

The new breed of collaborator sustains itself on capital reaped from the soul of his home and its people, much like the previous one, but is less addicted to the cultural imperialism of the West. What we can say is that the new collaborator is certainly enamored with neoliberalism and its potential for creating a like-minded class of élites, not to mention what it can do for the collaborators themselves. We have yet to see such a class rise in the carnage of Iraq, but in the Afghan case, they tend to be warlords and drug traffickers.

For what it's worth, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was the (worthless) "cultural" component of this new imperial project, so to speak. Zalmay Khalilzad, as a member of PNAC, endorsed it.

Sadly, it is only after ravaging two countries and ending hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, possibly setting the stage for millions more, that we can see that democracy, of course, is unobtainable for Muslims and brown people in general (forever defined by Kipling as "half-devil and half-child"), must be ruled by an iron fist. In this light, the new racism, shown for the hollow rhetoric that it is, mimics the self-affirming bigotry of empire throughout history.

When incoming-Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells us that "[w]e need to send a message to Iraqis that our patience is not unlimited", and Senator Lindsey Graham tells us that "..the Iraqis are incapable of solving their own problems through the political process", it is instructive to recall some thoughts from Washington before and during the Vietnam War, forever enshrined in Pentagon Papers, which Chomsky quotes at length in his essay "The Backroom Boys", in his seminal work For Reasons of State:

"For us, 'death and suffering are irrational choices when alternatives exist'...But we failed to comprehend 'the strategy of the weak,' who 'deal in absolutes, among them that man inevitably suffers and dies.' Secretary George Marshall [under Truman, long before the war-A.R.], more practical and realistic than the Vietnamese, understood the need for 'a continued close association between newly-autonomous peoples and powers which have long been responsible for their welfare,' as France had been responsible for the welfare of the Vietnamese; and he recognized that 'for an indefinite period' the Vietnamese would require not only French material and technical assistance but also 'enlightened political guidance''"

Let us pray, then, that Pelosi and Graham (and the American political scene and, ostensibly, the public) can simply find it in their hearts to forgive Iraqis their savagery, and remain "patient", for, as Chomsky goes on to quote from a National Security Council memo, "...Asiatic peoples...are traditionally submissive to power when effectively applied."

Of course, Pelosi, Graham, and company will be "patient" and forgiving, if only out of charity.

Yellow Ribbons and Mass Psychosis

2006-12-05T07:37:00.000-05:00

Before I left the U.S., I noted that the near-ubiquity of yellow ribbon stickers that had once adorned the backs of cars and especially trucks and SUVs in some places, bearing the words "Support Our Troops" had given way to curious absence of belligerent car-flair. I really had to search to find one.

What does it mean?

It is a very interesting, if distressing phenomenon. There was a nagging suspicion among many anti-war types, including myself: the slogan ("Support Our Troops") had nothing to do with supporting some poor, uneducated, faceless minority or rural kid who was out of other options for his life, and so decided to strap on an M-16 and win a college scholarship. Those troops are only useful as a propaganda tool; what actually happens to them is essentially overlooked, because they're actually being forced into witnessing and committing untold horrors.

The preponderance of self-righteous warmongering had a lot more to do with supporting the idea of war, in general, and now, since the idea seems to have gone flat and the Iraq War has been a complete genocidal failure (although not from the standpoint of American war profiteers as I repeat exhaustively), the stickers and the slogans have come off the cars, trucks, and SUVs. Author Dave Lindorff has a good assessment of this effect.

I would go further than Lindorff, however. On one hand, there may be a rush to forget the actual "troops" who fought this increasingly unpopular war. Maybe even people are ashamed to have been belligerent. But the slogans were about the public embrace of the Bush administration, and the latent imperial desire to impose one's will on the world--as such, their disappearance is also a disappearance--however temporary--of that desire. The frustrated racism and Orientalism coming from the same quarters that cheered on the war is evidence that their basic thinking has not changed, and probably cannot.

That the leader-worship has died down is a great boon for Americans, at least in the short-term. But if those stickers really weren't about supporting impoverished youths enlisted in the military out of need, then they represent something far more sinister, because they were about a kind of collective bloodlust that embodies a grave threat to the survival of humanity. Such sentiments may lay dormant, but without being confronted, they will reemerge.

Perhaps sooner than later.

Conflicts of Interest?

2006-12-05T06:49:00.000-05:00

Note: This will be the only piece in which the polemic is addressed to the general reader/myself. I realize it's a tiresome format.

As I walk these grey streets, attempting to avoid the ice-covered portions of the sidewalks and the mud that has formed from the sand and the melted snow it once covered, supposedly for safety, I can't help but think of how well the mind is controlled by the words fed into it. How is it "sand" and not just "dirt"? How is it "neoliberalism", and not just imperialism?

It is fascinating that some people claim to be "apolitical", yet it raises some questions in my puny Iranian mind...

When the former White House contract policy advisor, Angela Styles, becomes the lawyer of the general manager of First Kuwaiti, a construction company getting $600 million (of your tax dollars) to build the U.S. Embassy in Iraq while employing what the International Labor Organization would call forced labor (that "breaks every U.S. labor law") after getting the unwilling slaves into the theater of war by lying to them--and confiscating their passports--it might be time to get political.

How about when former generals and diplomats go to work for and sit on the boards of the foreign interest entities like the American Turkish Council, defense lobbyists like the Cohen Group, and military-industrial complex stars like Lockheed Martin (the world's largest defense contractor) in a dizzying array of combinations, forming interlocking boards that milk literally billions of dollars out of your economy and into the coffers of a military that is known to subsist on drug and weapons trafficking, all the while threatening its civilian population with the constant possibility of another military coup? What if I told you that these former American generals and diplomats were courting the entities that now pay them the big bucks, without remorse, while they were still ostensibly civil servants, being paid salaries with your (or your parents') taxes? What if I told you that they still used their "expertise" and "credentials" as a means of getting more taxpayer money to go their benefactors? Your money is subsidizing a military that sells weapons to terrorists and heroin to European markets, fueling instability in Afghanistan and further helping the Taliban and Al Qa'eda by providing them with the funds they need to buy said weapons. Would it be time to get political?

What about the $3.8 trillion that the Pentagon simply can't account for? Whoops! Where did it go? That's right:

In its testimony to Congress on August 3, 2006, OIG declared $3.8 trillion (that's with a "t") in assets, liabilities, and costs of operations to be impossible to audit. Note well; they didn't say "flunked an audit;" they said it was all un-auditable. They said they couldn't track the money; not that they could track it and found some problems. The Pentagon would literally be in better financial management shape if it were able to take an audit and flunk. This, the OIG stated further, is "the single largest and most challenging impediment" to financial integrity in the entire federal government.

(Of course, the Pentagon still gets a budget roughly $500 billion annually, most of which subsidizes hefty private profits in the military-industrial complex while doing very little for the middle- or working-class, fueling a militaristic state-capitalist economy akin to Stalinism.)

Need I mention the "reconstruction" bonanzas in Iraq and Afghanistan, or any further beneficiaries of American magnanimity, wherein that magnanimity is defined by American taxpayer dollars being handed to American corporations (those with connections, at least) that rarely complete the jobs they are supposed to do with any modicum of success, and can rarely account for their costs in a reliable manner, let alone for the poor native savages they kill? Hmm? Time to get political, maybe?

Then, what if I said something about the $43 billion in profits made by the nine largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S.? Afterwards, what if I reminded you that both corporate parties are essentially opposed to re-writing intellectual property laws to allow for generic production of AIDS medications to save the millions of sufferers in the developing world who have no means of purchasing them, constituting a silent, slightly indirect genocide for profit, would that stir up the "political" human being in you?

No?

Should you chalk it all up to incompetence? The "failures" go far too deep for that. Look hither--attempt to find the number of times whistleblowers have been fired or forced to leave their careers. If your government was trying to function, but was just too stupid, would it have demoted Bunnatine Greenhouse, or promoted her?

This is the norm in Washington and many other national capitals, especially in the Global North, and these cases are not simple conflicts of interest. The American government now functions expressly in order to create these conflicts of interest; at the nexus of these unethical webs lie your own dignity, your own future. How much of your representative's time is spent meeting with lobbyists? If you wanted for him or her to genuinely meet with you, to sit down and listen to your community's pains and issues, to give him insights on what he could do--could you, without maxing out on donations or being thrown out by staff (whose salaries you help to pay)?

Once again, I say: these problems are not unique to a few bad apples, though the current apples are less subtle than most. The problems are systemic; the apples are still on the tree, and it is the tree that is rotten. But don't take my word for it.

Boring, right? What's my point?

Nothing that isn't obvious. This is not a manifesto, nor it is not a mea culpa, as it has little to do with me, per se.

It has to do with you. Being "independent" or "apolitical" gives the status quo too much legitimacy. I said it just a few days ago, receiving little response: the state and the multinational corporation, the legal entity that exploits the former most efficiently, prey, jointly, on the little that remains good and productive in the carcass of human society. Both must be done away with--how is another question, for you to ask and research yourself. What to replace it with is also a question for the individual, as I won't press specific political beliefs on anyone (though I do have some handy links and books!).

This is not an ideological statement of any weight, and I realize it. It is the simple truth. You may think you can live on the margins of the postindustrial economy of the Global North, deriving pleasure and a high standard of living from a system that you nonetheless intellectually find repugnant. But are you still human?

Of course all of my readers are all still human, and very socially and economically well-placed (not to mention those [TOM] who have left the realm of sanity), so that 'class-consciousness', let alone action, is a purely matter of choice. The impoverished billions of the world also have a choice, though only one, in a manner of speaking: they can simply choose to die, in the tens of thousands per day, even in countries with 10% growth rates.

When you see imperialism and foreign/domestic neoliberalism laying waste to human dreams and lives (when you look), even if they aren't your own, in passing, don't you recognize that they are your own? Don't you think that in a very real way, if you don't lift a finger, soon you will have no economic or political freedom? If you choose the relative comfort of inaction, or even idle, cynical criticism, do you really have any economic or political freedom anyway?

Are you okay with that?

If Your Missile Has Stirrups

2006-12-04T07:56:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts on the nature of American antagonism in the Bush Age:

How long did the Manhattan Project take?

Is "five to ten years away" from creating a nuclear weapon just a more alarming euphemism for "no evidence of a nuclear program"? A nice way of telling the boss that "well, we're not saying you're wrong, but..." Certainly no one in the U.S. intelligence community has the courage to tell us that much. Nonetheless, is Burkina Faso also "five to ten years away" from creating a nuclear weapon? Would it have to rush? Would it need some black market assistance from a friendly nation?

When Netanyahu calls Iran "Germany in 1938", when Rumsfeld calls Chavez "another Hitler", why do the Jewish people not recoil in horror; not at these supposed threats, but against those who use the memory of the Holocaust to further their own political goals? Neither Netanyahu nor Rumsfeld, both of whom should be seen as completely discredited (and have accordingly been rebuked by their own populations, though both countries remain militarized as one could document endlessly), both of whom are war criminals by any fair legal measure--offer any evidence, any support for these pronouncements. Both invoke the ominous memory of industrialized death--make no mistake, this is the purpose of their hastily- but quite intentionally-drawn parallels--in an effort to pave the way for military action in both cases.

Whether the nation be Iran, with no documented nuclear weapons program according to both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the CIA and certainly no policy of systematic repression of religious minorities, despite attempts by some death merchants and disgusting, untrustworthy traitors to fabricate stories saying otherwise, or Venezuela, with no belligerent policy towards anyone domestic or foreign, the crime is not the one alleged by these prophets of apocalypse. In what universe would Mr. Netanyahu mention in the same breath that when he was in Sharon's government in 2003, Iran offered to recognize Israel and pursue a two-state solution in accordance with overwhelming international opinion (I've mentioned this exhaustively, just scroll down for awhile)? In what universe is it mentioned that Iran is the only country in the world to agree to the IAEA's proposal to internationalize all Uranium enrichment? What about mentioning that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, who unlike Ahmadinejad, has real power, has reiterated his government's commitment to peaceful nuclear energy and to a peaceful settlement like the one mentioned in the 2003 proposal, as recently as this summer (same link)?

Well, that wouldn't be convenient, would it?

No; as Eduardo Galeano says, "in general, the words uttered by power are not meant to express its actions, but to disguise them." Indeed. The crime, in both cases, is a measure of economic independence from the American-led IMF imperium, a colonialism of indebtedness and perpetual indignity that these two regimes have somehow eluded. American multinationals do not control the considerable resources in Venezuela and Iran. This is a reality which, for the two aforementioned war criminals, simply cannot stand, as it is, somehow, morally equivalent to the systematic slaughter of 12 million people. In the case of Venezuela, with Chavez reelected and the endgame afoot, we shall see.

You see, this is a necessity of power. For entities like the United States and Israel to continue their actions, they must impose swift and severe moral judgments on all who dare to question them. These two countries, which are actually involved in massive violations of human rights in Iraq, in the Occupied Territories, and, in the case of the United States quite directly devastating the whole "free world" through privatized (corporate) and semi-privatized (IMF, World Bank, WTO) means, to paint themselves as noble, gracious masters, and their enemies as brutal oppressors. Never mind that the enemies' only crime is their refusal to submit to economic, ecological, and social devastation for the benefit of a few transnational shareholders, representing the top 1% of their given countries' economies. For countries that are actually involved in systematic slaughter of human beings, with or without militaries, the details are unimportant. What matters is that freedom must reign, at all costs.

Think back to your social studies textbooks from elementary school. Try to remember the first mentions of that regretful period--of several centuries--where this nation's foundation was laid, on ground still wet with native blood. The natives had fought wars, too. The natives were relatively violent, both among themselves and to the colonists. Right? ...Right?

No matter. They were conquered, soon enough, by superior force, and those foundations were laid--by slaves. The slaves, of course, came from Africa. But you all may remember something else--their own people sold them to us! Africans practiced slavery too! Honest!

The finger-pointing serves a dual role. It absolves us of continuing to reap the fruits of that slave labor, as we undoubtedly do, but at the same time, it shifts the true iniquity--the original sin--to the victims. It is, after all, their fault.

So, when you consider the irrational, belligerent, cynical words of Rumsfeld and Netanyahu, consider the source(s).

They have to switch name-tags, if you will.

The American Brand of Authorianism

2006-11-30T02:59:00.000-05:00

As to my statement in the last post that "the foreign presence is the only thing holding Iraq together", I should've been much clearer. With the current casualty rate and the very basic reality of no real dialogue between sectarian groups or even the Iraqi "government" and the American "government", the foreign presence isn't "holding Iraq together", rather, this unfortunate fourth-world hell is only recognized as a unified, sovereign nation in maps. The assessment still holds, however--the Anglo-American presence has achieved its main goal: to secure Iraqi resources for corporate companions of the belligerent parties. Perhaps it is somewhat relevant to mention something about "maintaining American supremacy", but that is really all vacuous terminology employed in the discourse promoted by neoconservatives especially and the American corporatist state in general, and I choose not to engage it.

Additionally, on the Military Commissions Act: while it was a means of including Congress in the Administration's guilt of war crimes, the timing of the bill and its other, more important intended effect should not escape us. At the same time that Posse Comitatus was gutted, allowing the President to, in the future, invoke martial law at will, the MCA redefined the American definition of war crimes to give immunity--at least within the United States--to all of those in the Administration, like Rumsfeld, who are, in fact, guilty of them, most pressingly with regard to the famous Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which of course deals with the treatment of prisoners. In light of the fact that Rummy's resignation after the midterms was preordained, despite indications otherwise (though of course his absence changes nothing, as I contended in my last post), the MCA was an important part of the golden parachute, especially after the Hamdan decision earlier this year. "Progressive" Democrats like Sherrod Brown and others were, of course, not troubled by this. Assuming that they differ from Republicans in that they have some principles with regard to the rule of law as it applies not only to the powerless, but those in power as well (not a safe assumption), then they simply violated them for the standard reason, whereby so-called representative government gives way to authoritarianism--that being self-interest. In this factor of its creation, the MCA provides a specific example of an issue of not only national but indeed global import, to which I'll return shortly.

Rich mentioned in a comment that it is the Democratic Party's ambiguity and similarity to the Republican Party that compelled him to be an independent. I think that this is absolutely understandable; in terms of the midterm elections, it was quite important to beat back the neoconservative agenda, and whether or not the actual electoral results would have a major impact on the American imperial project, registering protest was somewhat important. To that end, I worked on the campaign to defeat Joe Lieberman, not to mention anything about the courageous millionaire who challenged him, who is nonetheless a first-class capitalist and therefore an imperialist. The absolute immediate goal was to beat back the most vicious elements of the War Party, and to some degree, that was achieved.

It is not unimportant to consider that though the Democrats may, in some fashion, keep Bush from pursuing any new lambs for direct slaughter, though they certainly did not in 2002, and the essential elements of representative democracy that forced them to do that, seemingly in their own interest--though they lost horribly in the polls that November anyway--remain unchanged. These are not problems specific or intrinsic only to the contemporary American system. They are systemic.

This brings me to a more interesting point. The American political system, as Rich seems to be saying (though I may be taking some liberties), does not work in a way that can properly be called democratic. The primary interest of politicians is the same as that of power in general, that is, to expand itself whenever possible, and maintain itself at all costs. While this may lead to what we see as idiotic decisions, they are perfectly rational from the standpoint of personal interests with regard to the aforementioned values (and, where possible, the interests of capitalist and/or coordinator classes, depending on the mode of production--another interesting topic, and one which I'll address in due time). I am speaking in very general terms here, but a casual analysis of the acts of politicians in authoritarian governments of both stripes (representative and autocratic) through the past few centuries will confirm my basic premise.

But we are talking about representative governments, so let's focus on why they tend to be dysfunctional. As activist Stephen R. Shalom states in his proposal for a democratic society (itself based on earlier pieces linked at the bottom of his proposal, all of which I highly recommend), representative democracy "treats politics as strictly instrumental--that is, a means to an end, instead of a value in its own right."

Political organization, at some level, is important for maintaining a social fabric: a high-technology healthcare system, global infrastructure for communications and transit, addressing global problems such as climate change, hunger and continued state terror (still conducted mostly by those with greatest access to the death merchants and the tools they hawk) and the provision of other basic social services that will be necessary to maintaining our current (Western) standard of living in the future and eliminating the pervasive and oppressive poverty that crushes roughly one-half of the world's population are all difficult to maintain at very localized levels of control.

So, at that, we can't simply throw up our hands and say that power is evil--to be sure, it is. State violence has killed too many innocents in the past century for that basic assumption to be glossed over. Unfortunately, for those of us planning to live past the next couple years, the real work of generating alternatives is also necessary.

Of course, centralized control tends to lead the class of coordinators, be they corporate managers, political representatives, or commissars, to a contempt for those under their own authority, and tends to separate their interests from those over whose lives they have been given purview, leading them to think of these constituents not as constituents but as minds to be shaped. This is a very basic observation. Not to malign all self-avowed progressives, but the progressive movement itself started with this kind of contempt as a primary assumption.

You needn't spend too much time in Washington or Wall Street to realize that this contempt drips from the jowls of every asshole with the smallest morsel of authority. In fact, such contempt is a far more reliable indicator of their status than any kind of expertise; if you engage them in an attempt to find some, you'll usually find vague and simplistic rhetoric more than anything else.

Representative democracy ordains that politics is a means of getting reelected by the rabble, and with the current propaganda system in place (on which ample comment has been made), it isn't too painfully difficult to achieve that goal. It does not take much genius to draw the conclusion that such a system requires little accountability to actual voters and plenty of it to the people, artificial and otherwise, that our representatives actually represent. Once again, this is a very basic conclusion, and to arrive at it, one needn't even dwell on the fact that elections are dominated by money though it is both unpleasant and overwhelmingly true.

The system of representative democracy is, in itself, flawed, for the reasons outlined above, and quite eloquently by Shalom. So, it is ultimately good to be 'independent', to the degree that that implies some level of (get this) independence from the existing political system (an argument can still be made for supporting the autocratic/corporatist party that is less likely to cause the extinction of the species, and I've been known to make it, from time to time). Nonetheless, to a degree it still recognizes that system as legitimate, which it is not. There are real proposals for what to do with political organization in the future (though wresting control from the current moneyed élite in the United States and much of the rest of the world is, in themselves, the topic of a thousand blog posts for which I am no more qualified than anyone else, but will gladly indulge in from time to time, if only to introduce some levity), and I think that the amount of localized self-management will have to be much greater than representative democracy prefers or permits.

The state, in general, is a rotting, archaic institution, and the multinational corporation is the ultimate beneficiary of that rot; both prey on human rights, well-being, and basic dignity in every corner of the planet, in concert. The War on Iraq, with all of the collapse of international and domestic law that it symbolizes in so many facets, is perhaps the supreme example of this very principle of ever-growing and completely systemic illegitimacy, and while a nonetheless engaged "independence" from the moral degeneracy of these institutions of power is to be lauded, in itself, it is not enough.

New Fictions

2006-11-28T04:50:00.000-05:00

Not to dwell too tediously on obvious facts, but the Bush Administration, in all its castrated glory, will not withdraw from Iraq, and despite the decisive message of the midterm elections, public opinion (both American and Iraqi), and human decency, it will face little challenge from Democrats to do so.

Many have already noted that the selection of imperialist and AIPAC stooge Steny Hoyer as House Majority Leader over perhaps slightly less rabid imperialist John Murtha has signified that the majority of House Democrats do not endorse Murtha's plan for phased withdrawal, even though most Americans do support a withdrawal (either immediate or phased), as has also been widely noted (see above). Much can (and has been) be said of DCCC chairman Rahm Emmanuel's fixation on rigging a pro-war Democratic majority, but being in the past, it is not of overwhelming import--what is important, however, is the reality that Democrats, the remaining Administration sycophants, and the corporate media apparatus that rules the American mind have all been reprimanding the public for daring to tire of the unending hard work of Empire.

This, of course, is in spite of the overwhelming opinion of military commanders and soldiers alike that the United States can do little to improve security in Iraq, coupled with the realization--that came to individuals with no access to privileged information, such as myself, even as it was first being given during the 2004 election season as a rationale for continued American presence in Iraq--that the training of Iraqi military and police, and the creation of coherent, multiethnic forces are impossible in the ethnically-/religiously-/ tribally-divided atmosphere of contemporary Iraq. There is no longer any sizable neutral population from which to draw recruits, let alone hold the country together. The wool in our collective ears may be rotting by now, but the reality in Iraq is one of civil war, unless you think that over 3,500 dead per month really only constitutes a low-level sectarian conflict, and there is no legitimate national government that can salvage what remains (evidently very little) of the Iraqi state.

So, the Iraq War is a complete failure, a humanitarian disaster (though, to be fair to the Dear Leader, that humanitarian disaster was already in the works thanks to the 1991-2003 sanctions regime), and there's no way to fix it.

All of this is and has been obvious to any marginally rational observer for some time.

Add to it the realization (once again, both American and Iraqi) that American military presence exacerbates the conflict and only causes more violence and more misery. Let us not forget that the initial invasion as an entity separate from Abu Ghraib/Gitmo/extraordinary rendition (little has been said about the cooperation between Americans, probably the CIA, and the Axis-of-Evil Syrian government in cases like that of Maher Arar)/the use of black sites/the Military Commissions Act (a means of drawing Congress into the war crimes perpetrated by the Administration) and a score of domestic crimes still, in itself, constitutes a grave war crime, as political analysts and international legal scholars have contended. Given all of this, surely we would see the Democrats rushing to prove their mettle by rescinding Congressional funding for this hopeless endeavor!

On the one hand, the latest bout of unabashed imperial arrogance, from neocon idiots to Democratic idiots (see below), would indicate that even those in positions of power are exasperated at the inability of Iraqis to do as we want them to do, be it through depravity (Perle) or some unfortunate genetic tic that simply keeps Arabs from being able to run effective democratic/constitutional governments (Brooks, for those with Times Select).

I'd like to spend a moment looking at this language. It goes without saying that Perle and Brooks' statements are, as usual, completely reprehensible in their knee-jerk authoritarian/fascist/imperialist anger while also managing to be completely free of any logical content. Par for the course. As Robert Fisk notes in his excellent article (see "neocon idiots", above), Ralph Peters, the USA Today sycophant, informs us that "Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it." Have Messrs. Perle and Peters been measuring the heads of many Arabs recently? Of course, this talk is nothing but unabashed racism, but it happens to be the final resort of those interested in salvaging the reputation of neoconservatism, which, after some dusting-off, will be ready for reuse, and probably sooner than later. We could call these all "death gasps" to contrast with "birth pangs", but that is, most likely, being too optimistic.

The standard racism on the fascist right is to be expected, especially when its failures are so public and so clear, but it is pronouncements by others, including Democrats, that are most troubling. During the midterm season, John Kerry (and I'm paraphrasing, though there must be a transcript somewhere), in an interview on CNN, simply volunteered that "these people...in this part of the world...they just don't take responsibility for their own security unless you force them," going on to the standard banal refrain that "they will have to stand up as we stand down". This type of language is lauded on parts of the progressive blogosphere as unequivocal, Kerry having embraced and embodied the true progressive voice for withdrawal.

There are other examples of Democrats using completely vacuous race-based arguments, either for withdrawal or otherwise, but the ends of their arguments, while sometimes seemingly more palatable, are still only arrived at by pronouncements that these goddamned Arabs just don't deserve our kindness, a kind of racism that is disgusting and morally impermissible in 21st-century discourse. Senator Barack Obama, of all people, has engaged in the same rhetoric, as Alex Cockburn has indicated, in claiming that America must simply will the separate ethnic and religious groups of the Iraqi Civil War to lay down their arms: "No more coddling, no more equivocation." One wonders exactly when and where the coddling was taking place. Were there blankets? Pacifiers? ...Not to mention, if 700,000 dead is the Senator's definition of coddling, what exactly would "no more coddling" entail?

In the end, these statements serve to reinforce an imperialist agenda, by drawing clear definitions between, as always, 'us' and 'them', whereby we are eternally noble, and they are wicked and undeserving of our greatness, while nonetheless being subject to our military and economic predations.

A Democratic agenda, therefore, is still based within the framework created by neoconservative 'ideologues' to serve the interests of corporate America. That is simply a reality borne out by very simple rhetorical analysis and observation of the actions of Democrats on the campaign trail and since their victory. Indeed, the very language of Democrats during the midterms was marked by militarism, with their constant insistences that they would be 'fighting for health care', 'fighting for sane policy...' and so on; this is simply affirmation of the obvious, once more--a corporate/bourgeois party, even (and usually) a purportedly left-wing one, will follow the lead of the more militaristic elements of the polity, and in so doing will reinforce jingoism, militarism, and warfare, always to the detriment of the working class (and, lately, the middle class as well). From right around 1914, this has been clear. Ask Gabriel Kolko.

...If you'd like to find the major contributors to and members of PNAC from its foundation onward, it makes a great project, but I suspect you don't need to see the numbers to determine what the Iraq War was all about.

Iraq was all about unadulterated neoliberalism. The strongest military force in the world can do nothing to stop the unfolding chaos, but American intervention has been effective in changing laws to allow for foreign ownership of Iraqi oil while still in the ground, while also allowing foreign investment to go essentially untaxed, so that 100% of returns/profits can legally leave the country. It has been noted elsewhere that the only Saddam-era law kept by Proconsul Bremer during his tenure in Baghdad was one outlawing trade unions while embedding American corporations in the Iraqi economy.

As Arundhati Roy said at the World Tribunal on Iraq, which she chaired in Istanbul in 2005:

"...what [is] more chilling, you know, the testimonies of those who came from Iraq with the stories of the blood and the destruction and the brutality and the darkness of what was happening there or the stories of that cold, calculated world where the business contracts are being made, where the laws are being rewritten, where a country occupies another with no idea of how it's going to provide protection to people, but with such a sophisticated idea of how it's going to loot it of its resources."

To that end, Bush has told us one truth: he does intend to withdraw American troops "when the job is done", only he hasn't been totally clear with us as to when that will be. Of course, the job will never be done, because there will be "American interests" in Iraq, interests that will remain for decades, and will necessitate permanent bases and military presence. The failure to bring democracy to Iraq, however, is incidental, whether or not it can be blamed on the violent Arab culture, which, apparently, only understands conflict, and plays into the hands of the administration and its cohorts in the military-industrial complex, which will require more taxpayer money in order to re-equip the military after this particular fiasco. The American failure will additionally turn at least that part of the Middle East into a perpetual cauldron requiring further American attention, public fear and dismay, and--don't forget--more money to the war machine, most of which will find its way into the pockets of a very select group. (Many, such as Juan Cole and Gilbert Achcar, have indicated for more than a year the growing probability of a more regional war, and King Abdullah of Jordan recently reminded us that this would be taking place next to possible civil wars in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories.)

Democrats are funded by the same interests that have a stake in Iraq, and after all are wary of appearing weak on terror (or Muslims in general), as they would no doubt look if they would consent to ceding such fertile ground to Islamofascism. It would be tremendously surprising if the new Congress were to force Bush to withdraw all American troops, leaving "American interests" unguarded in a country torn by an American-created civil war (one that Mr. Cheney and Papa Bush predicted as far back as 1991), but the future for Iraqis will be quite grim no matter what the Democrats do.

Hence, while some commemorate the "death of neoconservatism, which indeed should be celebrated annually until its revival (if it even takes a year), I am not so sanguine, because as I've said before, neoconservatism is not an ideology in that an ideology has a somewhat coherent thesis and demonstrates a semi-rational explanation for its thesis. Rather, it is simply a dim-witted facade, a window-dressing on the impulse to maintain American global military and corporate hegemony at home and abroad by the most savage means possible. This goal has not been removed by one election; quite the contrary, the appointment of a new Secretary of Defense from the so-called Cold War-era "realist" school indicates a change of tactics, but not a change of goals--it is a change of fictions, but if one peers behind the new window-dressing, the realities have not varied.

It goes without saying that those aforementioned "American interests" in Iraq will not benefit the vast majority of Americans in the slightest, since they will go directly, probably untaxed, into the pockets of Bechtel, Halliburton, the defense industry, the oil industry, &c., and the managers and shareholders thereof.

Militarism in general, and the United States military in particular, serve this purpose and no other. The multitudes of dead innocent and/or "coddled" Arabs and misled, mostly poor American youths serve this purpose and no other.

The Board of the East India Company

2006-11-23T06:43:00.000-05:00

knows what is good for the poor Hindoos (if only they'll scroll down past the fundraising appeal), though the beasts themselves do not.

As usual!

The Vivaldi of Genocide

2006-11-22T03:03:00.000-05:00

It is perhaps unsurprising that the Israeli military under Amir Peretz and Gen. Dan Halutz has developed a poetic touch in naming its operations. During the summer months, the assault on Gaza, begun in response to the kidnapping of an IDF corporal--itself an act conceivably in response to the capture of two Palestinian civilians (who joined their thousands of similarly-imprisoned compatriots, including children forced to work for pittance)--was christened “Summer Rains”.

These benign, refreshing sprinkles, which after all only killed a few hundred residents of Gaza, have been extended as the Israeli military continues to invigorate Gazans with “Clouds of Autumn”, the latest movement of which included what Uri Avnery calls the massacre at Beit Hanoun, in which 18 civilians, all part of the same extended family, were wiped out by hopelessly inaccurate Israeli artillery, on Peretz’s order; as Avnery, a peace activist and former Israeli soldier and erstwhile paramilitary/terrorist with Irgun has noted, the artillery used at Beit Hanoun is notoriously inaccurate, and indeed Peretz generally prohibits its use in military operations--this time, he did not, though some do not go this far, and simply blame this unfortunate mistake, for which no one is responsible, on an equipment malfunction. Evidently, this superficial analysis is what constitutes "honest reporting."

Since the onset of “Summer Rains”, some 350 Palestinians have died. But is that so bad? After all, as the Actual Keith Urbahn intimated to me during the July sprinkles, which were accompanied by a light drizzle in Lebanon which just so happened to kill some 1,000 individuals and displace one million, or one-quarter of the country, “you can’t trust Arabs with body counts”, because they just always inflate the numbers. The misery endured by civilians who find themselves in the wake of Israel’s downpour of justice couldn’t possibly be bad enough to gain international sympathy; hence, it is natural that they would need to make the hardships they endure seem worse than they really are. We are, ultimately, dealing with Arabs here, and Arabs are more devious than your average human being. So, lop off a hundred from that number. Two hundred and fifty dead over five to six months. Being as they were all Arabs, at least half of them were terrorists anyway, and most of the rest were probably terrorist sympathizers. It doesn’t sound so bad anymore, does it?

In the end, Beit Hanoun was just an unfortunate accident; despite the IDF’s noblest intentions, the deaths of those eighteen civilians were the direct result of Palestinian terrorists “cynically using their civilian population as human shields for terrorist activity”, as Ephraim Sneh, Peretz’s deputy, has clarified to the Jerusalem Post.

When Israel kills large numbers of civilians, fueling the anger of Palestinians and driving them to thoughts (and sometimes acts) of violence in revenge (as Baroud, linked above twice, notes with examples), do Israeli civilians not ultimately suffer from the fruits of their military’s actions? Will their government not, in turn, justifiably call the terrorist actions that cause the suffering, be they the launching of Qassams or the hopeless brutality of suicide bombings intolerable? Will they not use that suffering to continue to kill more Palestinians, including, accidentally, Palestinian civilians, at an accidentally high rate that in turn continues to feed into the increasing radicalism of the Palestinian population?

As in the seemingly countless cases just like Beit Hanoun, do the IDF’s actions, whether accidental or not, count as terrorism? Look up a well-accepted, generally imperialist definition of terrorism and ask yourself this question.

When Israel sends the IDF to crush the lives of Palestinians, be it directly by murdering them, or by causing untold humanitarian disasters by bulldozing homes and symbolically uprooting important olive and fruit groves, bombing power plants condemned by some Israeli human rights groups as a war crime, and the gutting of infrastructure and other civilian installations, and withholding funds from and imposing sanctions on Palestinians because it doesn’t like the government they democratically elected, allowing the majority of people in the Occupied Territories to sink into miserable poverty with no recourse—all, of course, accidentally—is it not with the knowledge that Israeli civilians will suffer as a result? Have they drawn no lessons from past accidents?

The author tends to think that they have, and that the Israeli government is cynically using its civilian population “as human shields for terrorist activity”.

Being on the margins of society, and usually quite poor, the means of destruction available to terrorists from Hamas, al-Aqsa, Islamic Jihad, and other groups are limited, and usually they are unable to kill as many as 18 Israeli civilians. The IDF, meanwhile, sneezes and inadvertently kills just that many Palestinians, since it is one of the best-equipped militaries in the world, thanks to American tax dollars and an otherwise highly militarized society.

Of course, Palestinian terrorists usually act without the knowledge of the majority of their civilian population, and independent of their official government. The same cannot be said for the IDF in Beit Hanoun, or Qana, or anywhere else where it manages to kill noncombatants, however unintentional their deaths.

Palestinians, who harm much fewer people, are terrorists. The IDF is a legitimate military acting to defend its population from terrorism. What can explain this difference? …clearly, not the savagery of the violence or the numbers of its victims. Is it statehood, ironically?

Obviously it is not. The reason that Israeli government-sanctioned atrocities of civilians are blameless mishaps, while Palestinians acting without the same sanction are terrorists, is indeed the very reason for which the IDF is able to carry out these mistakes (as in the bombing of a well-known UN outpost in Lebanon in July) with such sophisticated brutality and regularity. Namely, it is the connection to the United States and Britain that allows these acts, and the innocent deaths and ruined lives that accompany them, to go without any blame. As Noam Chomsky and countless other writers far more brilliant than the Actual Rod have often noted, if we do it, it isn’t terrorism. Only when someone does it to us is it terrorism.

So stop deluding yourself. That is the only criteria.

Whenever Israel threatens to blow up Iran and/or the rest of the Middle East vis-a-vis the so-called Masada option, it is so that these accidents can continue without any need for accountability. Is it worth it?

This is the moral condition that we must thank for producing such pleasant seasonal euphemisms for perpetual, vicious, and illegal ethnic cleansing.

Credit Where Credit's Due

2006-10-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

A relative blogging-foetus, the Beneficent Allah has already beaten me to the punch on what could have been a classic I am justice./Give Me a Balcony post. And while we here at GMaB probably could've done it better, we're glad to see that finally Shukronline is getting the attention it deserves.

Hint to Actual God: for Eid, I want an Afghan hat!

Picking the Strong Horse

2006-10-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

Frankly, I don't have much to say about the Vayner debacle, except that I had a class with him, and he was charming.

Yesterday, as Actual Rod was speaking with the Actual God (I KNOW, TOM, YOU CAN CONGRATULATE ME LATER), he was urged to return to the blogosphere, after an absence of several months. Well, color me returned, and rejoice quietly as I kick some morsels of what is probably obvious to you all:

The Free Market does not exist. The profitable corporations of the United States are wholly subsidized by the taxpayer, and this wealth is accumulated and held overwhelmingly by only the very top levels of most corporate entities. Let's also not forget that the main engine of the "high tech" economy, which is "defense spending" (to the tune of over $500 billion a year counting supplementary spending by Congress throughout the fiscal year--much of this spending once again goes to pay for the whims of military-industrial oligarchs while tens of millions of Americans languish in poverty). If the US military were well-equipped and unbeatable, then we could say perhaps that from a purely jingoistic perspective, that spending was worthwhile; it is neither, however, and we must determine that at least the half a trillion spent on devising the perfect ways to kill people every year in this country is not being spent efficiently. Well, we're talking about half of the world's military spending, spent inefficiently, within the framework of a well-established system of corporate welfare--if the parts of the military budget that go to private hands is added onto the roughly $120 billion (linked above) spent explicitly on corporate welfare, you begin to get the picture--those who benefit most from a form of state capitalism akin to Stalinism happen to enjoy the effects of the 'free market', whereas any aid to those who would stand to benefit, both in the US and abroad, constitutes an unacceptable distortion of the market.

Take a critical look at these numbers, if you have the time.

Okay, what does that mean? That means that if your annual income is anywhere below the top 1% in the US, a good portion of your income tax is going directly into the pockets of that 1%. I would argue that those are exactly the people who do not need your money.

But, as always, I could be wrong.

Extraordinary

2006-08-19T09:26:00.000-05:00

As the search for a UN force composed of Israeli allies continues (good luck), George W. Bush lectures Arabs, as he is wont to do:

At his presidential retreat in Camp David, Mr Bush again condemned Hezbollah as a "force of instability".

"Sometimes it takes people awhile to come to the sober realisation of what forces create stability and what don't," he said.

I guess he wasn't referring to instability in, say...Iraq?

MEDDLE MEDDLE MEDDLE

2006-05-26T16:48:00.001-05:00

Is all Bush can do. I ask my readers in Britain: does Mr. Bush's opinion have any effect on your opinion of Mr. Blair? Does it?

Of course, in his recent press conference with Tony Blair, Bush wasn't ham-fisted about everything, and for that we should commend Our President.

Pressed on mistakes in Iraq, Mr Bush admitted some of his rhetoric might have been misjudged. "Saying 'bring it on,' kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people," he said.

"I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner - you know, 'wanted dead or alive,' that kind of talk."

Now that Mr. Bush is leaving the Jon Bon Jovi school of political discourse, America will have to project its will by other means.

Abu Mazen Works For Whom?

2006-05-25T21:33:00.000-05:00

First off, I think that the Hamas position calling for the destruction of Israel is irresponsible warmongering talk, and is of course very unproductive. That said, the recognition of Israel was never more than a symbolic issue, held back by Hamas and the likes eventually as a bargaining chip. Perhaps it would not have worked, as Israel under its current leadership is intent on subverting the Hamas government (and with reasonable cause, I'd imagine). Mahmoud Abbas' recent proposal to hold a referendum on the recognition of Israel forces the hand of Hamas, which is a great service to Israelis. Abbas, perhaps for his own reasons, is attempting to limit the bargaining power and indeed the very legitimacy of Hamas with regard to the peace process (granted they have no legitimacy anyhow until they fully renounce terror).

While it may seem to be a shrewd move, what are the chances that it could backfire and the referendum would reaffirm the hardline Hamas position? Hamas MP Salah Bardawil claimed that "We are not afraid of a referendum, the election was a referendum and the majority of the people chose us." The relevant question, of course, is whether a large enough proportion of Hamas voters in this year's election also endorsed Hamas' position on Israel. I predict that President Abbas will run into trouble here, but Olmert and Kadima's unilateral "convergence" plan would be vindicated by the failure or near-failure of an olive branch referendum such as the one proposed by Abbas and the Fatah & Hamas prisoners. Furthermore, does President Abbas really help the public perception of Fatah going into such a referendum by accepting arms directly from Israel while clashing with Hamas? This could very well play into Olmert's hand and leave Abu Mazen (Pres. Abbas) as a lame duck with no negotiations and a future of only unilateral action on both sides for the next several years. Risky game.

Roundup

2006-05-25T16:16:00.000-05:00

Some good opinion pieces on Iran, here and especially here.

Analysis coming when I have time for it.

Confessions of a Propagandist

2006-05-25T05:53:00.000-05:00

From the National Post

' Our mistake: Note to readers

Last Friday, the National Post ran a story prominently on the front page alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law that, if enacted, would require Jews and other religious minorities in Iran to wear badges that would identify them as such in public. It is now clear the story is not true. Given the seriousness of the error, I felt it necessary to explain to our readers how this happened. '

Can't seem to be able to read the rest. I'm sure one of my readers has a subscription to this prestigious newspaper--anyone?

Here's another article from the author of the lies, Amir Taheri, self-hating Persian, neocon lapdog, and pathetic traitor. The only people who write in neocon rags like the Nat'l Post are those desperate fools who can't get published anywhere else. Believing doesn't make it so, Amir jan.

Despicable

2006-05-24T17:33:00.000-05:00

Intrepid reporting from the Hartford Courant.

Has Rumsfeld done anything about this?

Rebunking

2006-05-24T12:03:00.000-05:00

John McCain, unswerving maverick and dedicated straight-talker has finally said what has been on our minds since 2003:

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’”

Indeed, he would straight-talk them into cutting their civil war short. Ex-Baathists, Salafi Jihadis, Shi'i fundamentalist paramilitaries, and Kurdish peshmerga have just been sitting on their hands waiting for Bush to tell them all to 'Stop the bullshit.' The Iraqi people have been anxiously standing by, watching the destruction of their country day by day, as their close family members are turned into pincushions for IED shrapnel, ethnic strife, and the frustration and anger of their next-door neighbors, praying to God that please, please let an American tell them to 'Stop the bullshit.'

Thank the Christian Lord in Heaven Above the Islamic "Heaven" Which Is Actually A Cesspool of Bloody Limbs and Hummus that we finally have a plan for victory in Iraq.

“He was fantastic,” said Ms. DioGuardi, the wife of former Republican U.S. Representative Joseph DioGuardi, who was also in attendance. “His appeal is that he is definitely a man of integrity. He has a vision for what should happen to this country.”

Patch Story Planted?

2006-05-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

Juan Cole, ever my favorite blogger to link, has an interesting new post in which he makes an argument that the story about legislation in Iran forcing religious minorities to wear patches is false, and was planted in the National Post of Canada--run by a notorious right-wing media mogul 'second only to Rupert Murdoch'--as part of a psyops plot to stir resentment towards the Islamic Republic. The Jewish community's elected representative to the Iranian parliament as well as many journalists have rejected the story, which has been shown to be a complete fabrication. There is no copy of the bill anywhere to be found, but the author of the story stands by his unverifiable claims. The aftermath of this revelation of the propaganda machine's fiction has been muted, of course, but perhaps the community of critical minds will be able to call neoconservative lunatics on their bullshit more frequently and loudly. Probably not.

Without going into one of my hated diatribes of justice, I must admit that the idea of media moguls manufacturing stories meant to portray my country (un-democratic as its government may be) as "moving closer to the ideology of the Nazis" irks me just a bit.

The interesting question here is whether the Jewish anti-anti-Semitism group led by Rabbi Hier (mentioned in yesterday's post) was responding so promptly to this Canadian newspaper article or whether they were somehow connected to war-drumming. Any ideas?

'Fashion' Patches

2006-05-19T09:05:00.000-05:00

are set to become all the rage in my homeland.

This is very unfortunate, especially for its historical parallels, but it doesn't necessarily imply that Iran is "moving closer to the ideology of the Nazis"; there are and will be no camps in Iran and there really aren't enough Jews or Christians to cause that much of a problem. Don't get me wrong--singling out minority groups is always a disaster, but this is not an ideological question and I challenge my detractors to find evidence that it is ideological. In the article, Rabbi Hier says that "we need to...deal with this person", and in saying that, reveals that he understands nothing about Iran or her politics ('this person' has no power and 'dealing' with him would be highly ineffective, since he is just a manifestation of what the truly powerful want the world to see of Iran at this moment). Certainly this is disturbing, but there is no overarching hate-dogma behind it. This type of patch identification was practiced in medieval Islam, and usually nothing bad came of it. This isn't the ideology of Hitler, it's just the regressive, hyper-conservative identity politics of a failing state (and no, I'm not talking about Bush's immigration reform). It is purely a political move designed to provoke reactions such as Rabbi Hier's, and I don't even think it will be implemented. Take that to the bank.

Of course, if the law is implemented, it will still be a political move, and it will also be yet another human rights violation to add to the list for the coming trials. You know, as soon as the Iranian people rise up, which will be, you know, later.

Ed. Note: After some research, I can tell you that this is clearly a government bailout of their cronies in the Iranian patch industry.

Despair

2006-05-16T08:06:00.000-05:00

When parents truly love their children, joy spreads throughout the village:

Dr. Srinivasa Rao Kothapalli, a prominent cardiologist in Beaumont, Tex., is more than willing to relinquish his checkbook. His daughter Priya turned 16 earlier this month, and she is in the throes of planning a joint birthday-graduation party with her elder sister, Divya, 18. "If you can afford to have a grand celebration, then why not," said Dr. Kothapalli, who immigrated to the United States from India in the mid-1980's. "It's the American way. You work hard and you play hard."

...[T]hey will make their grand entrance on litters, during an elaborate procession led by elephants. The sisters, who plan to perform a choreographed routine at their to-do next month, are also taking dance lessons, and they've enlisted the help of a trainer.

"We both want to lose three pounds," said Priya, who received a Mercedes convertible and an assortment of diamond jewelry for her birthday. Her sister's graduation gift package included a Bentley, diamonds and two homes in India.

"I was really surprised," Divya said, "because I was only expecting a Bentley and one house."

I've recently been asked to be more earnest in my posts. Here it is, masses. The phrase 'work hard, play hard' is nauseating. If you're pretty well and satisfied about yourself, why the hell are you preaching about it? Aside from the sequentialized nature of the proposal, which gives the sense that the individual perceives or rather approaches experience as somehow coming in single-servings (a day at work followed by a few hours of animal relief, as Marx said, is the ultimately alienating pudding cup of experience. But the bastards that tell us to 'work hard, play hard' swear by the shit.

Whether or not I make a valid point, do you really want to live your life like an alcoholic Wall Street douchebag? Don't fool yourself, 'work hard' in this usage doesn't mean anything. If you 'work hard' six months of the year as a migrant day laborer in a tomato orchard or some bullshit, 'playing hard' is still seen as irresponsible. The phrase only applies to those of us privileged idiots who have the presence of mind to actually forget about the rest of the world and focus on our own sensory pleasure. The Actual Rod also seeks sensory pleasure from time to time, but he assures his readers that misery is never far from his heart. Later in the NYTimes article (no longer available without a Delino Select membership) one of the Hindoo princesses relates that invitations to her party were handed out by bodybuilders who had been instructed not to smile, because "assistants shouldn't smile."

That is, of course, because assistants can not work hard and play hard like their overlords.

Oh, and also, this. And this. Don't forget this either while you're buying houses. Work hard. Play hard. &c.

Wherein I Claim What Americans Call "Vindication"

2006-05-11T20:28:00.000-05:00

Yeah.

Shimon Peres: Filthy Scumsucking Shit-Demon

2006-05-09T06:51:00.000-05:00

Shimon Peres, the Stephon Marbury of Israeli Politics, has never been one for peace. Don't wave that Nobel in my face, Shimon, you ignorant wrinkly gasbag piece of shit bigot, we all know who else won that prize. Of course, Arafat didn't deserve it, but Peres and Rabin, they were sincere. They're good people. White (Russian). Not Arab. You know, good people.

So I'm saying Peres didn't deserve his Nobel. Why? Peres is a cynical, backstabbing, but most of all self-promoting shit, and the death of innocents means less to him than the loss of a pawn on a chessboard (also, Oslo didn't work out so well, and it wasn't only Arafat's fault). For Shimon Peres, it's always about Shimon Peres, and not even the creeping gaze of death can change that. Peres deserved the Nobel but Arafat didn't. Iran is now responsible for beginning an arms race in the Middle East (of course Israel has no nukes, so his position in this argument is immaculate). You think Ahmadinejad is scary? You think a mistranslated speech (of Cole-Hitchens fame, more on that later) echoing decades of anti-Israel rhetoric out of the ruling clerical establishment of Iran is any more despicable and warmongering than saying that "Iran too can be destroyed?"

But, though Iran is a country of some 75,000,000 people, the rhetoric of its quasi-elected officials is threatening to the world, while Israel (of a population roughly one-tenth of the above) threatening to blow up the oldest country in the world is really just defensive and justifiable.

Israelis clearly have better translators.

Another nut quote from Shimon: "If Iran becomes nuclear many other countries will follow suit... and whoever will have a conflict will produce a bomb, and finally some bombs will reach the hands of terror." I'd like to probe the levels of hypocrisy ingrained in this message, but my head seems to be exploding. If you don't get it, I suppose you won't.

Anything else? Oh yes. Hitchens is pathetic not because he's an ignorant drunk but because he is a hatchet-man for the most disgusting regime ever to be democratically elected by free men (ok, I can think of a few more). Because he purports to be a journalist while really being the worst kind of pencildick propagandist in the business, an attack artist plain and simple. Hitchens hasn't discussed anything substantive for years, and knows next to nothing about the Middle East. He is a low-life with an army of unresolved issues which turn themselves into mildly-nauseating self-righteous blather. So, to all Hitchens fans reading: fuck you. You've been had. Have you noticed that yet? Hitchens and the neocons were/continue to be wrong on Iraq. But you're not interested in his ideas, because he doesn't have any. You're in love with his anger, with his vitriol, and perhaps most disturbingly you're in love with his dysfunction. Juan Cole's only mistake was engaging the bastard in the first place. Hitchens deserves to be ignored.

Democracy, Marching

2006-04-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

This is how the Bush Administration's allies feel about democracy, via WaPo.

God, I feel terrible.

Through the Fog

2006-04-20T09:50:00.000-05:00

I caught sight of him, and from the way he was staring in my direction, I could tell that he saw me.

"Why am I here?" I asked him.
"I've brought you here to send you on an important mission." He was nervous, I could tell. His hand was shaking as he held out his pack of Winstons.
"No, I don't smoke. Thank you though...are you okay?"
"Yeah, it's just the fogs."
"What about it?" I didn't want to correct him.
"As a child, I feared fogs. My dog Killer fell into a well because of the fogs. I watched him die in there."
"Jesus, why?"
"Dehydration."
"Well, we can go inside if you want." I offered, taken aback. "My apartment isn't far."
He made a detailed hand gesture. I couldn't quite make it out. "What?" I asked. "What was that?"
Just then, shots rang out. The fire department's ceremonial firing squad had been there all along.

I woke up in a room with no windows and a cardboard ceiling. You wouldn't believe this, but Tree Rollins was there. There was a basketball hoop on one end of the room. Tree was mumbling to himself: "...the bastards...took my money..."

Almost immediately, I knew what I had to do.

MOTIVE/MEANS/MOTIVE/MEANS/MOTIVE MEANS....

2006-04-18T03:01:00.000-05:00

Just for fun, masses:

Premise: Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Iraq, former Ambassador to Afghanistan, Afghani Pashtun, an unabashed neoconservative and signatory to the infamous PNAC letter of 1998, is an Iranian spy.

Of course, Zalmay would never do that. He's much too faithful (& comatose) a lapdog. He wouldn't betray his masters, he would simply be a communicator. He would speak where others could not. Maybe officially this would make him something of a spy, but neocons are an honorable people. That is why neocons of military age are so eager to join the military.

Premise: Republicans and an increasingly unpopular Bush wish to shore up the angry vote. They choose to drop some conventional bombs on Iran this summer. There is, god forbid, a moderate loss of life, the Iranian government declares it an act of war, responding by mining the Strait of Hormuz, which will block traffic for a minimum of one day. A quarter of the world's oil supply will suddenly have vanished, and the price of oil will skyrocket. Even if the Americans can respond quickly and effectively, with no mistakes, the price of oil will have been affected. The damage would be done.

Some Shi'i in Iraq, including this thug prince and possibly the boss, an Iranian himself, condemn the attacks and open the jaws of hell.

This is really not speculation, Muqtada visited Iran and claimed that his supporters would not take kindly to US bombings of Iran. The American position in Iraq is already tenuous.

Premise: The US Embassy in Iraq. The Ambassador, of course, is not present.

Who stands to gain from such a scenario?

Bush and the Republicans ride the disaster effect through the midterm elections once more. Their evil, goat blood-drinking, corruption and cronyism can continue unimpeded.

The tremendously unpopular government(/paramilitary/ruling shadow economy) of the Islamic Republic gains a similar boost in public confidence, allowing its own brand of evil goat blood-drinking (goat blood-drinking in and of itself is not an evil thing!), corruption, and cronyism to continue unimpeded.

Some innocents have died, but those who make real decisions are better off for it all, and the oil industry has made some tidy profits to boot! Not bad work for a day in the life of a cold-blooded, calculating murderer!

Note: I'm not saying that the Islamic Republic and the Bush Administration could or would work together to orchestrate a war that would be mutually beneficial, entrenching two radical dogmas long past their due dates. I'm not saying that.

BUT who has The Biggest Megaphone?

2006-04-13T11:13:00.000-05:00

Though inexcusably diluted in its radical credentials, the Guardian often redeems itself by employing writers of exceptional clarity, including the always ambitious George Monbiot and Simon Jenkins. The latter has a wonderful article about the domestic benefit Iranian hardliners such as Ahmadinezhad derive from the Bush Administration's sabre rattling (and argues that the actual use of military force would strengthen the hardliners rather than weaken them). This is what I've been saying all along, but it is written by a white British man, and I have a hunch that my readers will trust him more. Read that shit.

My birthday is coming up. Wish list item #1.

Casually Beat These Drums of Fear

2006-04-11T10:07:00.000-05:00

Lest you forget the beat.

Many of the news sources I choose to peruse, including Al Jazeera, Ha'aretz, and antiwar.com have an article about the impending attack on Iran at least biweekly. And, yes, I dream of being an affluent white person, like you, so I sometimes read The New Yorker, which is notably hysterical (I like that) in a new Sy Hersch article (linked above) about said hypothetical attack. This is either some kind of vigilant anti-Bush journalism, wishful thinking, or ignorant fearmongering. I like Hersch for Abu Ghraib (and I hear he did something, maybe My Thai? Mildly homoerotic Muy Thai kickboxing?) so I'll let him slide with vigilant anti-Bush &c...

As dangerously stupid as the Bush Administration may be, will they honestly use tactical nukes to take out a few possible enrichment sites (or decoys) and end thousands upon thousands of lives? Are they that desparate? That resigned to failure in Iraq? That hungry for blowback?

Probably.

After all, those who benefit can't die: they include major oil companies, Dick Cheney, who still has a wonderful retirement deal (including 433,000 shares in Halliburton--obviously there are some good sites out there like Halliburton Watch), and the NCRI, a political wing of the (Iranian) 'People's Mojahedin' guerrillas that fought for Saddam against their fellow Iranians...for those of you that don't know, they are Iran's 'Iraqi National Congress', a political sham group set up as a front for greedy, marginalized criminals who wait happily for scraps from Dick Cheney's table...They are the ones providing the Bush Administration (which has no bar set whatsoever for credibility of sources) with 'information' regarding Iranian weapons sites and they, along with oil companies, stand to benefit most from instability in Iran. Actually, the NCRI doesn't stand to benefit at all, because it is so greatly despised in Iran, but the power of delusional thinking is great...

But, if you're some truck-drivin, Toby Keith-lovin rube, you best cover your ass, because the recruiters are coming for you, and you have a good chance of dying an anticlimactic death in a sham war of pure aggression and ignorant hatred.

There won't be a ground war in Iran, though that's what Cheney really wants--but the war in Iraq will expand, and US woes in the Middle East will grow exponentially. I can't say this enough: Iran will block the Strait of Hormuz within 30 minutes of being attacked, and even if they don't the possibility of such action caused by an American attack would raise insurance costs on Persian Gulf-faring tankers prohibitively. The price of crude will skyrocket. That said, these wars are oil wars. Don't make any mistake, if they attack it will not be for fear of some eventual possibility of a nuclear Iran.

They will kill thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people (the Natanz facility is in a relatively populated area, and who knows what else they'll choose to strike) for fear of another country joining the club, a country that poses no more threat than Pakistan or North Korea? Bullshit, friends. Bullshit. If they do it, they'll do it specifically to raise the price of oil (25% of the world's oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz, accounting for 30% of Europe's imports and some 76% of Japan's, for example) and nothing else. There is no nuclear threat. So, while I still don't think it's likely that they will resort to air strikes, let alone tactical nukes, it is a possibility. It was obvious that they wanted to attack Iraq in 2001, and they wanted to follow up with Iran and Syria, but then reality hit, and I think they're still reeling from that.

But $100 a barrel has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

When I Say Something Clever

2006-04-08T13:04:00.000-05:00

--I feel pretty damn good. Finnegan, for some of us a hiatus means posting less than three times a day. I commend your verve, but our priorities are different. You see, my friends, I don't post unless I have something to say.

This post is an excellent example of that principle.

Apologies

2006-04-03T14:15:00.000-05:00

for the last two posts. They were awful, but not as bad as most of yours. Here's the red meat, mostly for the Berger twins. Blockbuster post on white nationalism later.

ed: For the record, I hate white people.

Water for the Quiet Dead

2006-04-03T13:43:00.000-05:00

If bringing skills to me is like bringing sand to the beach, or, for instance, hummus to the Middle East, ask yourself--where are my own skills?--if for NOTHING ELSE than to entertain our preservers in Virginia, we MUST find those skills. As long as you live in an surveilled society, that is, you had better embrace the fact that you are an actor at best, but most likely a reality TV character--your dream! Learn your art, refine it, and please your audience. Do not try to avoid it, because you cannot, and if you did try, that would be suspicious. You cannot talk shit behind your best friend's back. But WHO is your best friend?

Not to sound paranoid.

(Substance forthcoming, if it please you.)

Daydream:

2006-04-03T13:04:00.000-05:00

What if the beautiful Nancy Grace had been arrested during law school for, say, possession and intent to distribute illegal narcotics, or a similar felony, like loitering?

She would not have become a STAR prosecutor and CNN would be down one legal expert, UNLESS she went into some admirable field of international law.

An international legal scholar like Nancy Grace on CNN? Color me wishful!

This just in from the Hague, former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor has chosen to plead not guilty to war crimes. Not guilty? This man is guilty as Ham's sin! COME ON! And Milosevic? Don't even start with me, I don't care if he's mildly retarded, GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY (of war crimes and genocide)! And Clinton bombing aspirin factories in Sudan in 1998? GENOCIDE!

(I don't watch Nancy Grace with any regularity, so the joke is not in the imitation. Look DEEPER.)

Tis the Love

2006-02-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

that keeps bringing me back to the 'sphere after such long absences. I felt that love warmly last night, when the Actual Keith (Urbahn), completing his orphan-sacrifice ritual, set down his bloody scythe and opened his arms to me as would a mother. "Why ain't you done post no more on your blawg," he asked, "when you know what effects that done on me?"

I was confused, but comforted. And so I've returned.

Post-Hundredth Post Retrospective & Notes

2006-01-23T10:10:00.000-05:00

We're all asking whether the clever-juice has dried up, or drained away for lack of vegetation, or something. I tend to err on the side of something.

As with the Actual God in his last post (uncertain whether he is still alive), I have a very sore throat and my will to live is steadily decreasing. If this be the same plague, I'm going to need someone to break into my apartment and check my pulse in a few days. Prepare for the worst.

Inquest

2006-01-19T13:10:00.000-05:00

How do coins fall out of my pockets when I lie down? The coins are way down there in the bottom of the pocket.

The Aspens Are Turning, Mr. Koffler

2005-12-21T17:23:00.000-05:00

Now that's what I'm talkin about.

UPDATE: NYTimes reported this morning that Mr. "Scandal Jack" Abramoff has reached a plea deal. This is not good for corrupt Republicans on the face of it--which just means we'll be treated to more & more deliciously juicy spin in months to come. Tuck in your bibs, children.

Typing (In Stereo)

2005-12-21T01:19:00.000-05:00

I've recently taken to checking the doveish Israeli paper Ha'aretz from time to time. This evening, I came upon an important set of statistics based on a poll of Jews in the United States. There is a particularly interesting question asked by the poll, and I think you'll understand why. These are the reasons given by the 59% of polled American Jews who have never visited Israel as to why they'd never made the trip:

Of those who have never visited Israel, 49 percent cited the cost of the flight as the main reason, while 20 percent said security concerns were the reason, and 18 percent said they had never visited Israel due to "lack of interest."

For the record, I didn't say a word.

"Turning Corners"

2005-12-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

perpetually may reveal a path somewhat like this.

The Actual Rod's Book of Tricks

2005-12-18T18:44:00.000-05:00

En homage å mon homonyme:

1) Super Vitamin B-complex, Centrum Performance®, Flaxseed Oil, Ginkgo Biloba (double dose in addition to the 60mg in Centrum Performance), Tamiflu (stolen from That Girl).

2) Stop trimming your chest hair. It's not helping.

3) Smash the corrupt establishment:
a) Actual God
b) Wealthy Republicans who donate to hawkish Democrats
c) Those who misallocate union dues, thereby castrating the American worker
d) Hawkish Democrats who donate to wealthy Republicans
e) The sea of dead eyes

Recurring Dream:

2005-12-13T08:58:00.000-05:00

You know, the one where I'm hours from an execution by the god-state and my only hope lies in the mercy of Kurt Russell?

Hat tip to Eric.

Poll (w/Tax)

2005-12-13T08:51:00.000-05:00

Who would you rather be as of today (ie in their current form)--this guy, or this guy?

I think I know the answer!

Reflections on "Nigga", Revisited

2005-12-13T08:21:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago one of my friends (you know who you are), in a burst of insidious stupidity, wrested from me my beloved albeit broken school ID and wrote upon it--on the back, right above the magnetic strip--in green Sharpie:

WQ [My initials] Nigga

Now, I thought of this as nothing more than a minor annoyance for quite some time. I was wrong, reader. Dreadfully wrong.

Yesterday I was collecting hundreds of books for my forthcoming book fort--which will be located in Sherman's Alley--and as I approached the circulation desk to check out these building blocks of my new life, encumbered by the sheer volume (not mass, as I am ripped) of my books, I saw that a very respectable Afro-American man sat behind the desk, ready to help me further my "education".

I set my books down on the desk, and carefully pushed them in his direction, saying "good afternoon" with all the unstressed politeness in the world. He barely responded, and asked for my ID.

He saw it, and he said something I couldn't hear, and I said "I'm sorry?" and he didn't respond. I reached for my ID a little prematurely, drinking deeply from the ever-gushing springs of discomfort. He handed it to me after a brief delay, and began the process of scanning each of my 38 books individually.

Get Some Devastation in the Back

2005-12-11T10:07:00.000-05:00

As I awoke from a stress-nap on certain living room couch (I won't say which couch because I don't want to make the other ones jealous), I noticed that it was Sunday morning--time for Talk, Talk, Talk, and inane questions. These Sunday news programs, while worthless, are somewhat necessary for people in the (murdering) business, if only because everyone else sees them too.

FOXNews Sunday is a particular favorite of mine, as my regular readers will no doubt understand. Today the program featured Herr Senator Frist, seen by many as a shoo-in for the Tennessee Republican Presidential primary in 2008 (right now I'm favoring this guy, a recurring character on I am justice--more of a Jacko to my Nost. than a Congdon to my Guac.) About five (5) times, in a row, he repeated denials of torture by US military/intelligence personnel (and I'm slightly paraphrasing, but not much. . .seriously):

". . .we do not torture. The United States does not torture. We just don't, we don't torture. Our President told us himself that we don't torture prisoners. We do not use torture."

Of course.

The whole time, Frist's voice was shaking like a barn door caught between a blood-orgy of feral swine and a Southern Illinois twister. Something seemed amiss--did he doubt himself? Had he seen this picture? Or read this article? Or this more interesting one? Maybe he wishes he'd stayed in the medical professon? Et cetera.

So when I hear, like a constant refrain, the repetition of the obvious fact that the United States does not use torture on prisoners of any sort, I smile warmly in my heart. I think of you, and I also think of Bill.

This Jew-Baiting Has Got to Stop

2005-12-10T09:35:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately for my dear readers, the past few days I've been caught of in a coup de blog that had the blogosphere reeling. For those who don't know, over at Death/Media, I was briefly the head of a caretaker government brought in to clean up after a corrupt and intellectually bankrupt administration.

Whomever feels their Christmas spirit under attack, I beg you to contact me. I've not found one paleface who actually feared that their Christmas traditions were threatened by an onslaught of godless secularism. O'Rielly's seemingly severe anger regarding this topic is obviously simulated.

...and I am obviously uninspired (in case anyone is wondering, that is my sketch of Steve G. looking through tabloids at the New Haven RiteAid. No Walgreens, I know. I'm sorry.).

No Reason

2005-12-08T12:05:00.000-05:00

. . .remains for us to continue this charade. We aren't bloggers. This is a blogger.

My Eye

2005-11-26T14:07:00.000-05:00

just squeaked as I rubbed it (to get the sleep out).

A Curious Conversation Betwixt Theocrats

2005-11-15T08:37:00.000-05:00

Lenny the Theocrat says:

"I've been an atheist everyday of my life, but I'm religious for the fascism of it. Of course religion is an easy conduit for political agitation; after all, humans are pathetic, scared herd animals. They want certitude. Politicians can assume that powerful mantle of certitude by envoking religion, and thereby command strong popular support. It's simple, really. The ultimate design of Modern American History IS indeed for the 2008 RNC to be held in a Megachurch/Cathedral/Rotary Lodge. That sort of shit commands. Hey, does my blog look good? Really. Are the posts too long? Too 'whiny?' Yeah, you say it's too whiny? Well fuck you."

Solve the riddle.

Ajax Went Mad, or the Dawn Yang Craze in View of Past Technorati Bombs

2005-11-14T08:20:00.000-05:00

It's a bit disappointing, for those hooked into the endless mediagraphic stream drip-fed to us hourly at Technorati. One misses the 'Impeach Bush' days.

Speaking of Bush, I hear he's up to a fifth of Jim Beam a day. Here and here.

As any seasoned hater could tell you if he or she were inclined or induced into such a discussion that the worst feeling of emptiness always sets in when it starts getting too easy to hate--though it was never that hard. Ah.

Dysfunction

2005-11-13T20:52:00.000-05:00

From my forthcoming editorial debut, Selections from the Diary of Salvadora Katz:

May 23, 1990
Another bout of thunderstorms brought in the mud rich with epsom salt and petroleum waste from the fertilizer factory uptown. I have a premonition that the turnips will be mutated this year. My father is still cold to me and my mother won't answer the phone for fear that he'll overhear her on the phone with me and break into fits. His health has been deteriorating, but I can't bring myself to care. I've been waiting years for Dan Berger's predictions for the 1990s, and he should be coming out with them any day now. Maybe then I can move on with my life, and try to be a good daughter. Maybe then I'll get out of bed before sunset and go for walks in the park with my Great Dane. Maybe.

October 7, 2003
Had another great day at the park today. Tomorrow I think I'll go to the park and sit on the grass with a book, and I may read three or four pages of that book. Nothing serious. I just want to chill. Have you ever noticed how useless the internet is? I mean, what can you do on it. Can you post your thoughts in an easy-to-read chronological format much like this diary, but for the general public? Can you initiate sophisticated discussions at a fast, 21st-century pace? Can you use the internet to get shit for free? To look at many different kinds of pornography? To order items online? I think not. The internet is a bunch of hot air.

November 13, 2003
Mended the fence in the morn and took the cattle to pasture. Ben Jonson owed 15 dollars. Lord, my life is meaningless. What the fuck do I do to stay alive? Anyway, diary, turns out I was wrong back on October [7th] of 1998 [sic]. They do have all of those things on the internet. Most interesting to me is a new format called the weblog. Will write on as developments occur.

November 13, 2005
Sorry I haven't written. Blogs have completely supplanted diaries and now people subsist on pure information instead of eating paper. Eating paper was always cost effective and good for my colon, which is, needless to say, dysfunctional. Pure information is lower in fiber, but higher in fun. Until recent times, we still voted in something called 'elections' and the blogging community, or 'blogodome' was completely dominated by three veritable Colossi--Tom "That's a" Lehman, Dan Berger, and his sister Rick Berger, all of the much-vaunted blog site DelinoDeshields.com, which rakes in tens of viewers and tens of thousands of page views a day.

But now there's something new: something which has come to occupy far too much of my time. I have contracted a sickness which I'd wish on no man, woman, or Arab. I wish I were crazy. I am not. I am perfectly sane.

The affliction of which I speak is my infernal addiction to the blogging of a disastrously obsessive-compulsive gay Korean male in his late thirties named Ho-Jin Park who posts on a makeshift blog in the outer reaches of the blogodome under the false identity of "lester', a young african-american male. Ho-Jin was just a convicted sex offender, but Lester is a literary genius. Lester is obsessed with something, and I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm obsessed with his obsession, and everytime I refresh my browser to see an un-updated Immortalized Stillicide stuck back on October 26th, I dig a paring knife nice and deep into my arm, making little criss-crosses like fishscales, and then I rub in a highly-salted and diluted guacamole to bring me back to truth. I always wished I had the scales of a fish because people used to throw needles at me as I sat outside during recess in elementary school. The needles would just bounce off of scales. I think I've lost a lot of blood and believe my left forearm is beginning to exhibit the classic signs of gangrene, but without more fuel for this pathetic vicarious obsession (or obsessive viCarion), I feel I have no light in my life. Without lester, blog is dead.

Subduction

2005-11-13T20:13:00.000-05:00

I am not at all the first person to say this, but if the powers that be were to look at suicide bombing as a sociopsychological ill and simply act to alleviate that ill (instead of destroying the lives of even more civilians, in Palestine, Iraq, and the Middle East in general, who are indeed the primary victims of Islamic fundamentalism) in the populations that breed suicide bombers, they would be far more successful in wiping out the mentality of suicide bombing than they have been through the current policy of massive retribution & civilian misery, which in fact only propogates the pathology of suicide bombings & deepens the hopelessness and anger that directly feed terrorism. Retribution, shock-and-awe, and the use of force by any name only justifies past and future bombings to the very population whose individuals are being induced to choose, for whatever reason, to kill themselves. I don't even know why I'm on this track, this shit is obvious. People may say this is traditional neo-liberal &/or neo-marxist &/or naive & boneheaded, but I would volunteer that they don't know as much about the Middle East as I. So fuck the bastards.

Then what instead of force?

Jobs? Free speech? Boring.

A Day Amongst Giants

2005-11-13T17:48:00.000-05:00

The air was fixed with the faint scent of cut grass and the sun bounced from the almost cherubic green leaves of floating elms. It was the finest day Meridian Park had ever seen, but it was not yet historic. Park enthusiast, lesbian, and 19th century railroad historian Sal Katz was lucky enough to witness it: things about to get historic up in there.

That very Sunday afternoon, the weekly drum circle began inauspiciously. It was to become a meeting of titans. Around 5PM, the Actual Rod, accompanied by some of his Actual relatives, arrived at the drum circle to observe the goings-on. The drum circle, sensing the presence of a prominent and widely-acclaimed blogger and rap artist, intensified their efforts to get a fat beat going. It was alright, and then an African Shaman came. That was cool too. But things had not yet fallen into place; as much as Actual Rod loved the attention of the drum circle as well as the provocative yet primal shimmies of Sal Katz, he still felt lonely, unfulfilled. His actual relatives had left and he was getting tired, or at least ready to go get a drink. As AR got up to leave, Sal shot him one last look of longing, for his radiance and machismo, which none could deny, had stirred up desire in even the butchest of female park-goers.

But his departure was not to be! Upon whom should the Actual Rod stumble but Mulatto Jesus, in the flesh!? He was followed by what AR surmised were disciples: they turned out to be one disciple, Octoroon Paul, and just some other friend, Saul.

Long story short, this group was soon joined by a small Filipino immigrant, with whom they dined upon ambrosia and feasted on the nectar of $1 drafts. AR ordered multiple Gin & Tonics at once and still drank all of them under the table and THEN beat the asses of entire worthless waiting staff. Many ideas were exchanged, and nachos, of course, played a vital role.

RESOLVED: Actual Rod Has the Smell of Death

2005-11-11T18:05:00.000-05:00

This is meant to be an open thread to debate this issue and anything tangential.

Robert's Rules are suspended for the interim.

Special Guest: Francis Fukuyama.

Fix your tie, Francis.

Depressing

2005-11-10T11:14:00.000-05:00

The 21st Century Pirate Ship. Is that a stick one of them is holding? Scary.

Old Gems

2005-11-09T19:23:00.000-05:00

Two:

1) H. Murray. Wonderful guy. Reminds me of a younger Elijah Paster, a fellow who organized over at #149 in New London throughout the 70s and 80s. Funny thing about Elijah was that he never set foot outside of the Northeast, but he spoke 4 languages! English, Italian, Greek, his native language, and Ancient Syriac. I think he learned some Arabic too, because I remember he visited Saudi Arabia for weeks on end during the infamous Arab oil embargo of 1973, which really caused some hard times for the labor movement, and speeded its unfortunate but nonetheless orgiastic collapse (hint-hint--for anyone rolling in the dough, the shirt is #1 on my solstice wishlist, and the model is #2, though the option of both, if presented, would be highly appreciated). Turns out Elijah (who went to Penn State, if I'm not mistaken) is a distant and possibly unrelated cousin of the great nutritionist and maybe physician, Zorba Paster, whom of course you all know from NPR's exceedingly popular show On Your Health, in which Zorba is the ever-present guiding hand of wisdom to Tom Clark's zany, off-beat-but-pleasant approach. Liam, is Zorba Paster a physician? Lord knows how these things work these days. Those two radio guys are both gems in and of themselves. His cousin Elijah, well. . . .not so much. He got outed by a 20/20 special on sexual predators back in '89, and that totally ruined his life for awhile. I mean, they couldn't prosecute, because it was obviously entrapment, but they exposed him to the world as the gay kind of pederast, which is the most shocking, and he lost his job at #149 and all of his friends and his wife and kids. At one point in the early 90s he tried to commit suicide by swallowing a bottle of Drano, but it turns out that the convenience store owner from whom he'd bought the Drano had used the Drano and replaced it with expired Crystal Pepsi that no one ever had bought. It gave Elijah a vicious stomach ache, but he'd been homeless and subsisting on tweeds and knit woolens for awhile so he was used to that nonsense. When death didn't come, he knew he had been given a reason to live, and he smoked his last bit of PCP-dipped cigarette and ran out into the cold Hartford street and found the first mounted police officer he could and tore the horse's eyes out while the cop was still sitting on it. That was the last I heard from Elijah. Oh, I'm sorry, that's Myron Prachard, not Elijah Paster. Eli's still over at #149--in fact I'm having lunch with him at the dim sum place on Friday. Honey, do you want to come? I should probably make reservations.

Yeah, actually neither Myron nor Elijah are much like H. Murray. That man has the grace of Debs in him.

2) The original point of this post: going through my archives, I happened upon this old gem from the British election of May this year. A reporter was following around Tony Blair and his charming wife, Cherie. The following exchange ACTUALLY took place--'Snapper' is the journalist:

Cherie: "Oh come on Tony, strip off. Let's see that fit body we've been talking about."
Tony: "You can keep your hands to yourself, Cherie!"
Snapper: "So how fit are you Tony?"
Cherie: "Very!"
Snapper: "What, five times a night?"
Tony: "At least, I can do it more depending how I feel."
Snapper: "Are you up to it?"
Cherie: "He always is!"

Now let's have a look at this happy couple!

Let's get one thing straight here. . . .

2005-11-09T13:30:00.000-05:00

People need to stop yelling about how 'you can't make historical comparisons'. Here is an example: Juan Non-Volokh contends that "[s]uch hyperbole deadens the sensitivity to moral distinctions in public discourse." Finnegan, for once I'm glad you're with me on this one.

Okay. Historical comparisons are bad for a host of reasons, and people still make them. It happens.

Is there a real moral question here? Is it criminal for us to say that the secret imprisonment, torture and miserable death of a handful of unconvicted Arabs is horrible in the same way as the secret imprisonment, torture and miserable death of millions of unconvicted Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, former POWs and veterans of World War II, and kulaks (a semi-imagined class of 'wealthy peasants') in the Soviet gulag?

You'll have to excuse me, but I sort of find the argument trivial. A gulag is a gulag is a gulag, as Tom "Lemon" Lehman's bubby always used to tell us. So this isn't AS bad as the Soviet gulag. That certainly does not make this good, unless a fascist like Mr. Non-Volokh actually does want to make a historical comparison and thereby totally blow his bullshit argument in a pathetic attempt to become an apologist for this horrendous policy. Torture is fucking torture, and if they were keeping it completely hidden then one only wonders how much worse than Abu Ghraib and Gitmo (of which we still don't know all the details, but should, by law, within a week) can the stories out of these recycled Soviet prison camps possibly be?

Pish posh, this just is the only way to conduct the war on terror. We have to confine and torture people to extract necessary information. This is standard operating procedure, and it's not as extensive as the Soviet gulag. Shouldn't we give Bush et al a Nobel and a big warm collective group hug for not being as bad as Stalin? It must be so hard for them.

What the hell, say it fast: LemonLehmanLemonLehmanLemonLehmanLemonLehmanLemonLehmanLemonLehmanLemonLehmanLehmanLehman etc. ad infinitum, until you die.

These Ones Have Zeros Too

2005-11-09T03:51:00.000-05:00

Many of my loyal readers have remarked upon their surprise at my erraticism in posting on this blog. I assure all of you that I take this issue as seriously as anyone here.

If you don't believe me, listen in on this dialogue between the actual rod and his blog, I am justice. I call it a 'blogalogue'. Not funny at all!

actual rod: Jesus, blog, I really miss you, but. . .
blog: No buts, actual rod. Blog me. Blog me!
AR: No! It's not that simple, blog. Life is complicated these days. . .
B: Tell me about it. Tell me about it in a blog post.
AR: Listen, what does it matter? Same shit. Sure, interesting things are happening, and wry, often dashing wit is needed in the public discourse. But I can do without that. I can be unproductive with or without the infernal F# buzzing of my computer, a computer that buzzes and buzzes and buzzes and knows nothing of silence, like the wheeze of Persephone as her mindless husband wrenches out her vitals every autumn. It knows nothing of reality. I choose to be unproductive without the buzz.
B: Frankly, you're worthless without me and you're worthless with me. But at least with me, people pay attention to you and laugh at you like a clown, or a monkey, or a little clown monkey that eats all the peanuts you feed it and takes all the proddings your stupid friends could ever want to give it until it quietly dies in a corner of its cage without so much as saying goodbye or LETTING YOU APOLOGIZE FOR BEING A BAD PETOWNER.
AR: Can blogs own pets?
B: I'm not sure, actual rod, but I'm very afraid.
AR: How do you have an independent voice?
B: