Monday, December 3, 2007

Chavez Loses, Putin Wins: Should we Rejoice?



This week-end’s two elections were a bell-weather for the state of the planet and our place as Americans in it.

First of all it should be said that our networks actively contributed to both results, betraying the international norm of non-interference in the international affairs of other nations.

Having tried twice to depose Chavez, it’s no wonder that our media conducted an active campaign against the referendum that would have allowed him to stand for president indefinitely: on Friday CNN reported gleefully that Chavez was cursing the network, and indeed it looks like it convinced about fifteen percent of Chavez’s erstwhile supporters that maybe they would regret giving him such sweeping powers, notwithstanding all the good things he has done for them. And then of course there were the Venezuelan upper middle class and the students, most of whom still probably come from that segment of the population, who were out on the streets en masse defending their iherited well being.

Now over to Russia. Last night CNN ran a chilling feature by Christiane Amanpour about the Russian democratic opposition’s suffering - including prison and murder - for calling Putin on his reversal of the democratization process begun by his predecesor, Yeltsin. We heard about Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, both murdered, but Amanpour’s report revealed that over 200 journalists have been killed in recent years, with only six deaths successfully investigated. An early crime of Putin’s was keeping Russian journalists from reporting on the war in Chechnya.

What does all this mean to us? Theoretically, Putin is at least a sometimes ally, although much has changed since George Bush saw a soul behind the cold blue eyes. Let’s say he is an unavoidable partner in the increasingly difficult task of policing the world. We’re often at cross purposes when we try to whip into line those pesky dark-skinned majorities that get in the way of our adventuresome advance toward the high-tech destruction of the globe. Yet even a casual look such as you might spare over dinner at the methods each uses to keep his own people in line, reveals uncomfortable (thanks, Al Gore) truths: the difference is in the details and the degree of brutality, never in the intent. Both have long-since blurred the line (it was only tenuous in Russia), between what democracies and dictatorships (or the ever more popular ‘authoritarian regimes’) are supposed to do.

The world is becoming an ever messier place, full of entire populations of sorcerer’s apprentices, who, under their rich country masters, aspire to share the lives the means for which we have been pillaging them for for centuries. Richard Kiniry, who heads the Philadelphia Ethical Society, yesterday gave a wonderful appraisal of the world population problem, suggesting that it is not the poor, with their vegetarian diets, who are causing global warming, even though there are so many of them. It’s us SUV driving meat-eaters, (I must confess to the latter sin, but I believe that without meat homo sapiens might not have triumphed over his competitors who perhaps did not have his hunting skills). Guess what Lou Dobbs, the rest of the world wants to become meat-eaters.

Which brings us back to Chavez: the halls of official Washington are probably bubbling over with joy at the defeat of the real enemy: not the one with the missiles, the cornucopic mineral wealth and the land mass that stretches from Europe to the Pacific, whose people have just stated their preference for a thousand year tradition of authoritarianism as long as it shepherds ever greater numbers into SUVs and Gucci boots. No, the real enemy, the one we actively sought to defeat with our wireless reach, is the red-shirted man who with the money from the oil he sells us for our SUVs gives houses to the poor, wanted to cut the workday from eight to six hours, and continue trying to build yet another version of socialism. The kind of socialism that sells heating oil to poor North American families at a discount, and believes that Latin America should be a more ecological and fairer place than North America.(Which, while accepting the verdict of the polls, he immediatelly stated he would continue to try to do.)

Meanwhile, of course we support Musharraf, even if he refreshes his entire supreme court, jailing the former judges, imposes martial law and rounds up protesters with the same brutality as any well armed police force provided with the latest means of quelling dissent. The reason? We need him to try to keep the Taliban at bay, while we duke it out with the Chinese and his enemies, the Indians, over who gets Iran’s oil over which Iran, like Iraq, is to have no say. It’s no coincidence that Iraq has failed to pass an oil bill. CNN has never told us it’s because it was written by us to relieve them of the burden of control. Hence it’s no surprise that Iran can’t get its mind around the fact that a country across the Atlantic wants to usurp their natural role in the region, in a reading of globalization that negates both history and geography.

As I’m writing in a bigger piece which may or may not find its place into the print media, we’re living through a second, global Cold War, and whether we’re talking about fundamentalists and the various kinds of terrorism tthey espouse (from the scare tactics of some Christians to the bombs of some Islamists), or the tactics employed by the Putins, or the Musharrafs, or the Burmese generals, these are the tools and methods employed by those who at any given time have the upper hand, to manage the conflict between haves and have-nots, which did not disappear with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but merely became more complex, as the relatively straightforward question of hunger doubled up with the alarming evidence that the planet will refuse to feed us if we insist on also driving SUVs.

The Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Indians, to cite the most powerful players, and those who rule over the rest of the world, including Chavez the Christian socialist, Ahmadinejad the Muslim populist, the Buddhist Burmese generals with their mineral wealth, the African Mugabe stuck in an anti-British time-warp, are each trying to make the world work for their respective projects. They’re all trying to solve the problems created by a global revolt against inequality as its runs up against the impetus to create wealth by the few that can.

Susan J, Douglas may be getting more directly to the point in a piece in "In These Times", entitled “Tax and Spend? Hell, Yeah!”, than the deep thinkers like Paul Krugman, Robert Reich and Tony Judd, as they try to square the world’s cries for equity with capitalism as we know it. The solution Douglas refers to is called a mixed economy, it’s what the Scandinavian countries have been doing for decades and it works. Brought up on a history of government fear of the wider world, that culminated in McCarthyism, which the Neo-cons expanded to include everyone who wasn’t us, Democrats know that the word socialism is the kiss of death for any campaign. So they fall back on the hardly more acceptable label of populist and look even wimpier.

All they have to do is use the word “mixed economy”as one candidate actually did, under his breath at the last debate. (I couldn’t see which one it was given the speed of lightening with which the camera pans away from offenders). In a mixed economy, people who like to play with money and take risks get to create and innovate, which is where the fun is, then they contribute most of the money that results to the government so it can take care of those who just want to have a job, schools for their kids, and health care. Government has to provide these basics in order for populations to be healthy and productive. What they do with their productivity should not determine their level of security, only the level at which they can afford the superfluous.

The Democratic candidates desperately need to square the circle between capitalism, which makes too many victims, including he planet, and socialism, which is a much needed reordering of priorities in the developing world but doesn’t suit once societies have reached a certain level of development. Of late they have taken to prancing around Roosevelt's New Deal without calling it by its real name: a mixed economy. Only when they can get up their nerve, will that majority of Americans who aspire to be in synch with the world’s majority, put them in charge of relations with the world’s unruly leaders.

P.S. I’m unlikely to be blogging until after Jan 1.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED

Americans learn from the cradle up that their safety depends on their government “protecting and defending the constitution”. For their part, they are taught to pledge allegiance to the flag. Both groups are signed, sealed and delivered like packages to whatever schemes - and we learn of new ones every day - those in power have decided to pursue.

It occurred to me recently that I know of no other country that is based on these two cultural artifacts. I could be wrong, of course, and would welcome information to the contrary. But while learned books are appearing about how to fix the constitution, I’m not aware of any scholar questioning the appropriateness of having a political class that swears to uphold it, rather than do what is best for their citizens, with no preconditions.

Not that other governments eschew scheming. Not at all. It’s merely a question of context and extent. But citizens who have not been taught mantras are more likely to see through the scheming and, when necessary, take to the streets to stop it. We learn that this is a sign of inferiority, as the possible outcome that a new constitution will be written. But even constitutions eventually outlive their relevance, no matter how long they’ve been in effect (the familiar “it’s served us so well for so long”. But has it? Even to the extent that it has, life is change, and what served in one epoch may be counter-productive at another.

Of course, it’s not altogether surprising that this country should have been set up this way: after all, it was about becoming independent of the major power on earth at the time, which in fact soon found an ally (France) to threaten us via the Indians (we had to ward them off too and they were not in favor of a constitution that did little for them). So that formulation, protect and defend the constitution, was one of the things that ensured our survival as a nation.

But now? We are signed, sealed ad delivered to accept Halliburton, Enron, Blackwater, Cheney and his machinations, religious extremism at home and imperialist adventures abroad.

How can we say no if it’s not in the Constitution? (It IS in the Declaration of Independence, but guess what, that’s not what our leaders promise to defend...)

The latest trick legislation that goes under the sinister title of get this, “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act’, sponsored by none other than the Democrat Jane Harmon, and passed in the house with only seven dissenting votes, is our way of laying the legal groundwork for doing what Musharraf is doing in Pakistan,such as dissolving the supreme court and arresting thousands of lawyers.

This Constitution that our representatives swear to protect, allows that, and explains why we continue to support Musharraf.

Even when it comes to more innocuous bills, legislators spend precious time and our money arguing about whether they would be constitutional. If the legislators cannot agree, then the argument gets kicked upstairs to the supreme court, where it becomes apparent just how much hay you can make with those split hairs.

The Constitution also seasons issues of states versus federal rights with extra salt to rub in the wounds of those who suffer abuse.

And on and on.

With elected officials committed in advance to accepting the constitutional straightjacket over every small matter, however trivial, and citizens taught to stand at attention and gawk at the flag as if it were he Madonna, how can we hope to change anything in this country?

How can we change how elections are held (the electoral college is sacrosanct)?

How can we get rid of lobbyists? They will evoke freedom of speech, as will fascist marchers, (even as we combat “islamo-facism” elsewhere);

How can we elect a congress that will consist of citizen legislators, there for a limited time to fix a particular problem that each one feels strongly about?
How can we transform our foreign policy in such a way that the rest of the world understands we know we’re part of the problem?

When we commit to defending a document that, taken literally, has no relevance in today’s world, we end up betraying the ideals it was intended to serve.

When citizens pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth, they don’t question what the piece of cloth represents, whether it be racial discrimination at home or abroad - (which is what our wars are about).

Let’s hear it for politicians who pledge to serve the best interests of their citizens, and citizens who view flags the way ladies in court viewed them in tournaments - as decorative representations of individual valor.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Blitzer Plays Gotcha



I hate it when CNN repeats yesterday's news as though it just happened - they do that especially on weekends, not breaking news, of course, but still. Yet his weekend I was glad that the hour usually devoted to the ravings of Lou Dobbs ran large excerpts from the Democratic debate that took place the other night in Nevada, with Wolf Blitzer presiding. I think both Wolf and Musharraf need to go.

So used to treating interviews and news as spectacles, Blitzer had obviously very deliberately prepared a series of either/or questions, thus abetting the disunity that cries out for repair in the country, Several times, Obama, Edwards and Kucinic stood up to his stubborn insistence that they accept his dictates.

Blitzer was trying to play gotcha, asking the candidates to answer yes or no about drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, merit pay for teachers (which the unions oppose), and targeted Kucinich with a question reminiscent of McCarthyism: “Is there anything the unions are for that you disagree with?” Kucinic didn’t lose his cool, and enumerated all the things he agrees with, starting from the fact that unions are crucial, and ending with something the unions wanted, (I don’t remember what it was) and which he most firmly disagreed with, adding “L’m no patsy.”

Others played Blitzer’s game, like Chris Dodd who sermonized that we needed unity, intimating that Obama, Edwards and by inference Kucinich, were trying to foment class war (the dirtiest word in the Democratic vocabulary). But if all he candidates were on the same page we could just pick straws to see who would be the nominee.

In other news tonight, the OPEC leaders met in an incandescently lit, humoungus - what to call it - a hall, a meeting room, there’s no word for it unless it’s oversize Arabian tent lit with huge gazillion kilowatt chandeliers - to discuss whether to ensure to the West that all of them hate a dependable supply of oil at affordable prices. No fools, they know their economies would collapse of ours did. Only the President of Ecuador, speaking also for Chavez, suggested OPEC levy a tax on consumption to further efforts to halt climate change. As with its attitude toward women, the oil monarchies didn’t get it.

This bring us back to Wolf Blaster, as Craig Eisendrath recently christened him in an original adn very successful interactive play about the nuclear danger. Like a child demanding his reward for eating his carrots (sic), Blitzer demanded the candidates tell him whether they considered human rights more important than security, and since the major players wouldn’t let him have his simplistic way he came back to the charge with “Security or democracy? Which is more important?” The palm for snidenss goes to Biden, who at one point quipped: “I know we’re not supposed to answer the question.”

Echoing the irony of the garishly lit conference not discussing climate change, the faithful elephant-in-the-room, John Negroponte, spent the weekend telling the dictator of the week, Musharraf, that he must consider democracy more important than security, because he is the one we trust to keep a firm military grip on Pakistan’s nukes - millitary which we hope against hope will finish off the Taliban on the border with Afghanistan. Meanwhile, we want him to let Benazir Bhutto run in “free and fair elections” to be prime minister, because she is a westernized figure, but we do not demand that he reinstate the supreme court judges he removed.

The ultimate irony is that all this is in fact about class war, and equity. If the world would only stand still for a day or two, I could write about that.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

MISLEAD BY OUR OWN WORDS



This week’s Economist lead editorial starts by saying that Pakistan is prey to a “frightening extremist fringe”. it comes closer to the truth a few paragraphs later, when it confesses that “the cancer of extremist violence has spread from the lawless tribal areas” to the rest of Pakistan and beyond.

The problem in the on-going analysis of what to do about Pakistan lies in belief in the first statement rather than the second.

When we realize that a significant majority of Pakistanis are sympathetic to fundamentalist Islam, the problem of what to do about Musharraf is resolved: either accept the will of the majority of Pakistanis, while encouraging education and development that will eventually tip the balance in favor of the minority group of Westernized citizens, or realize that the “stans” should be left to their own devices, oil or not.
If you think I am exaggerating, any country that has a lunatic fringe also has a more or less significant population that relates to it. All you have to do is consider that France’s center right parties have for decades had to campaign in such a way as to discourage their voters from voting with the extreme right. The same is true of the situation of the Republican Party vis a vis our religious fundamentalists.

But the self-induced illusions that affect the analysis of America’s dilemma have a second cause. The left having for so many decades been considered beyond the pale, the majority of Americans who are steadfastly against the war in Iraq are referred to as “the anti-war left” or at best the anti-war ‘wing’ of the Democratic Party. Since this fails to accurately describe the American public reality, congress is like a blind man stumbling in an unlit tunnel.

Democrats need to finally abandon the cushioned recliner of “liberalism” for the straight-backed chair of progressivism. The price of failure is to leave America open to the same violence we deplore among lesser-developed polities; for revolutions occur when the progressive center fails the majority. (And history shows that revolutions are invariably led by members of that group.)

Only when congress as a whole brings out of the closet the fact that the majority of Americans want us to get out of Iraq and not to invade Iran, will it be able to behave like a truly representative body: standing firmly against the President and if necessary impeaching him. The fact that polls are not taken on the subject is similar to the misnaming of progressives as “liberals”.

Being mislead by the adversary’s words is bad enough. Being mislead by our own words is abysmal.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

SUPINE IN ISLAMABAD AND WASHINGTON



President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, addressing the joint houses of congress today, is likely to please those who, having claimed that Communism represented a “clear and present danger”, now use the same incantatory formula to describe “Islamo fascism”.

But if the new French president appears to be more supportive of US policy in the Middle East, Democrats would do well to focus on those essentials of French history that are likely to make him more nuanced in the implementation of his approach, Not only does France have a long history of cultural involvement in Africa and the Middle East, not even a right-wing leader can turn his back on a revolution which, though two centuries old like ours, inspired egalitarian reforms that, like our own New Deal, came into being before the second world war, but unlike ours, grew over time.

That is due to the essential difference between the French and the American revolutions, one based on liberty, equality, fraternity, which implies solidarity, the other based on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness which implies it’s each man for himself. These differences explain the difficulty we always seem to have getting other democracies to follow our impetuous lead.

Here’s an interesting exercise: consult the constitution of the Communist Party USA as amended in July, 2001, and compare them to the injunctions of the Koran as laid out by the eminent Muslim scholar Tarik Ramadan. You have to be blind not to see their similarities. Both are about equity, recommending behavior that improves the quality of life of the majority, building on what may be considered the secular ten commandments: thou shall not kill, steal, commit adultery, bear false witness, or covet thy neighbor’s possessions.

Although the Greeks considered slavery natural, and India still retains a caste system, in the modern world it wasn’t until the notion of the survival of the fittest brought on the political idea of “natural selection” that the Protestant work ethic turned into a justification for inequality.

We’re entering a period of increasing confusion at home and abroad, when it will pay to keep one’s eye on the equity ball: What we continue to call “the Middle East” extends from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan, where tribal inequality is exacerbated by the presence of foreign boots on the ground.

Were there any doubt about the relevance of inequality to the present turmoil, the sight of supine lawmakers in both Islamabad and Washington should serve to convince skeptics that power and its exercise are distressingly familiar whatever the tribal customs or the regime.

By always keeping their eye on the equity ball, modern European governments such as President Sarkozy’s manage to maintain more decency in their relations with society than either we or those we disdain.

I will write more about the implications of this for the Democratic candidates in my next blog.

Monday, November 5, 2007

DO YOU HAVE AN INNER MEATLOAF?



An astonishing TV commercial this morning forces me to drop everything and prioritize my blog. I believe it was a brokerage firm that came up with this:
“ 2000 bottles of the best wine in his cellar, but this man has never lost touch with his inner meatloaf.”

Maybe it’s because we have a president who says, when addressing the troops: “The best way to fight evil is to do good. The best way to fight evil at home is to do good, the best way to fight evil abroad is to send in the military.”

The look on Bush’s face as he uttered the last few words suggests that he may have realized the danger of his words once they were out of his mouth. But of course that won’t change anything. Turkey, Israel and Pakistan will continue to be supported by our meatloaf dollars, even when they can’t figure out who’s on who’s side.

And Lou Dobbs will continue to be allowed to insult the Governor of New York by calling him Prince Elliot, even as the airwaves tremble (figuratively speaking!) from the vibrations of nooses swinging in the wind.

Some commentators will mock those who, having claimed that Communism represented a “clear and present danger”, now use the same incantatory formula to describe “Islamo fascism”.

But if you consult the constitution of the Communist Party USA as amended in July, 2001, and the injunctions of the Koran as described by the eminent European scholar Tarik Ramadan, you cannot help but notice their similarities. Both are about equity, recommending behavior that improves the quality of life of the majority, building on what may be considered the secular ten commandments: thou shall not kill, steal, commit adultery, bear false witness, or covet thy neighbor’s possessions. Although the Greeks considered slavery natural, and India still retains a caste system, in the modern world it wasn’t until the notion of the survival of the fittest brought on the political idea of “natural selection” that the Protestant work ethic turned into a justification for inequality.

We’re entering a period of increasing confusion at home and abroad, when it wil pay to keep one’s eye on the equity ball: What we continue to call “the Middle East” extends from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan, where inequality is exacerbated by the presence of foreign boots on the ground. At home, the wine drinking Democratic Party has allowed successive fears of clear and present dangers to muddle its commitment to equity, effectively echoing a famous historical figure who ended up on the guillotine, by leaving progressives to eat meatloaf.

Monday, October 29, 2007

PROTESTS: HOW THE INDIANS DO IT



In week-end news, Indian farmers from all over the country marched to the capital to bring their grievances to the government: farmers are committing suicide in record numbers due to the takeover by agribusiness, which forces them to borrow to buy expensive, non reusable seeds. When crops fail, as they do, the farmers can’t pay back their loans and have nothing to fall back on.

The point of all this is not the why of the march but the how. Some people walked for weeks, mostly barefoot, to the capital, where they sat down and demanded the government listen to them - which it apparently did.

The developing world appears to have some advantages over the developed world: can you see irate Americans walking across the country to Washington and sitting there? I believe sit-ins were invented by Gandhi and taken up by the 60’s student movement, but we don’t have time to sit anymore.

Sit and wait for our elected representatives to do what we elected them for. We think we’re making a difference when we demonstrate for a few hours. But even a nation-wide chain like the one that took place last Saturday is not going to change an iota in Washington. At rallies, we make speeches to ourselves. To make a difference, protesters would have to drive to the capital and paralyze the place. But Californians wouldn’t be able to afford the gas!

The Cubans had to face peak oil when the ex-Soviet Union cut off its subsidies in the early nineties. Their inventiveness, which I’m familiar with, like the Indian farmers’ single-mindedness, has nothing to do with the spin that passes for information and policy in the so-called developed world. Take the apartment complex I live in: in an effort to recruit new tenants, they advertise a concierge to help us manage our busy schedules instead of fixing the fifty-year old pipes that regularly cause inundations.

Meanwhile, housing in Havana is getting a face-lift courtesy of the U.N. which is helping restore Havana to its original splendor. While tourists from everywhere but the U.S. admire the new paint and plaster, George Bush exhorts their governments to cut off relations with Cuba, rejecting Raul Castro’s recent call for dialogue, in the same hubristic way he has rejected Iran’s calls for dialogue over the years. (See Barbara Slavin’s new book, “Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies”, for details about the U.S.-Iran relationship.)

Monday, October 22, 2007

BLACKWATER AS GOLDFINGER



Yesterday was Sunday, usually a quiet day for news with an eye to the networks. So perhaps it was a deliberate decision on the part of CNN to briefly crack open the door on an astonishing fact: Erik Prince, the CEO of Blackwater has financed with this own money a prototype humvee said to be inpervious to IEDs. MOREOVER, this enterprising ex-Navy seal has organized the development of a “privately funded surveillance airship to fly around the world”.

I will be curious to see who if anyone, picks up this story today, and whether any of our stalwart presidential candidates considers it worthy of attention. Maybe the Clintons consider Prince’s efforts part of a worthy cause: making the world safe for investment while raising the means of as many would-be consumers as possible. So that the presence of Mark Penn at the head of Hillary’s campaign is no contradiction to his also being the CEO of Burston Marsteller, the PR firm that defends Blackwater’s practices on the ground.

Barack Obama wants desperately to close the money gap with HIllary, but as I wrote in a return email, what good is money if your mouth isn’t in the right place?

Meanwhile, such are the serendipities of semi-compulsive TV watching, the original Goldfinger nemesis, Sean Connery, appeared this week-end in a 1999 caper with Catherine Zeta-Jones in which the latter exclaims, upon contemplating the favelas and skyscrapers of Kuala Lumpur: “Isn’t it beautiful?!” The film chronicles the efforts of the pair to enter into possession of “billions”, each time upping the ante of their exploits, oblivious to the question of what they could do with all that money. As the hub of millennium financial transfers, Malaysia teems with police in riot gear, a preview of what awaits all of us if the stock market continues heedless of the “health” of the world economy.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

AM I MISSING SOMETHING?



It’s been a week since “Democracy Now” revealed that Mark Penn, who heads Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, is also the CEO of the PR firm that works to sanitize the name of Blackwater.

And yet, as far as I know, none of Hillary’s competitors in the race for the White House, has picked up on this. Those of us who had hoped that something would trip up the frontrunner have to face the uncomfortable truth that if there were a banana peel in her path, the holier than thou contenders would rush to clear the way.

To be fair, one has to pose the question of guilt by association: is working with someone who works to clear Blackwater the same as, say, taking money from a lobbyist for a cause one pretends to disavow? I seem to remember that a certain Abrahms got in trouble for doing something like that. .
Well, at least we have the consolation of knowing that in our society that runs on advertising and related gimmicks, Madison Avenue has finally seen fit to climb on the bandwagon of climate change. Maybe we’ll be saved after all, as a species if not as a country!

Friday, October 5, 2007

A NEW BALL GAME



My apologies for a blog riddled with typos. I probably couldn’t see straight after writing such a lengthy comment!

What I wrote in that blog about there being a new world paradigm was confirmed by a seemingly bland comment by the Venezuelan ambassador to the UN. When Amy Goodman tried to get him to talk about the United States, instead of sounding off, he dismissed the subject as being irrelevant.

In a tacit recognition of both the new paradigm and the ineffectiveness of the international system, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and a number of other elders who’ve dubbed themselves the “wise men” are trying to resolve the conflict in Darfur. This can be seen as the latest in a series of efforts by groups of intellectuals and philanthropists to effect change where institutions fail.
But perhaps the reason for the failure of institutions is not organization or equipment, but the fact that they reflect a power structure that is no longer operational.

When the Burmese right-wing military dictatorship can count on the support of China’s Communist government because what matters is oil and gas; when starving North Korea finally bows to the necessity of building sturdy bridges to opulent South Korea; when the presumably atheist leader of a Catholic country in Latin America finds common ground with an Islamic regime in the Middle East; and when - finally - an American presidential candidate refuses to wear a flag in his lapel because he doesn’t want to be associated with the policies it currently stands for, you can be sure the world has come under a new paradigm.

Climate change, in the role of an external threat, has probably played a role in concentrating the minds of politicians, but the main factor, I believe, is the acceleration of change within the world system, which inevitably results in bifurcations. Bifurcations can lead either to greater order and stability, for which a handy label is democracy, or total chaos, known as anarchy, and which inevitably leads to totalitarianism. It’s important to know that anarchy is not the opposite of democracy, but the opposite of totalitarianism, and that democracy is an almost magic moment of relative equilibrium between the two extremes.

Less than twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world has left behind the fifty year long Cold War, to enter a series of hot wars that are nominally about religion but in reality are about the struggle for equity. That struggle is what always has and always will drive system change, and the fate of democracy. The United States lost its leading role because it failed to understand that simple fact. Now it’s a whole new ball game.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Rodeo Week at the U.N.



The U.N. General Assembly that meets every year in September is a place where presidents and prime ministers from all the member countries have a chance to tell each other how they see things. You could say it’s the world’s town hall.

But something’s wrong: carrying on a diplomatic custom that harks back to I don’t know when, delegates walk out when people they don’t agree with speak. Maybe the U.N. should consider revising its charter so that everyone has to at least hear what everyone else has to say.

That probably sounds naive and impractical, but if it could be put into practice it would be bound to ellicit some flickers of recognition here and there, perhaps only among junior staff sitting in for the big wigs, of the validity of other points of view.

This year, the newly minted French President Nicholas Sarkozy (it’s not a French name because his father was Hungarian - France too has its immigrants) delivered a ringing call for dialogue, and warned that if the developed world doesn’t listen to the rest, the future will be catastrophic. I don’t subscribe to Sarkozy’s right of center politics, but his demeanor was a refreshing change from Jacques Chirac’s earnestly mellifluous delivery.

Alas, it was as if the United States hadn't heard a word he said. Our representatives duly marched out when the speakers representing Iran and Cuba came to the podium.

After Tuesday’s shameful behavior by the President of Columbia University, who introduced a guest many objected to by insulting him, credit should be given to CNN for carrying Ahmadinejad’s speech to the U.N. live and in full. But that evening, when it was time for a promised one-on-one with Christiane Amanpour, we saw the Iranian president looking cowed, and accepting to answer only one question. Maybe Columbia calculated that by breaking the rules of civility it would provoke a rebuke of the Iranian president by Iran’s the religious leaders. We’ll see what happens once he gets home.

Also on Wednesday, my idol Amy Goodman disappointed me when she pursed her lips over the question posed by co-host Juan Gonzalez to Bolivian president Evo Morales, a frequent guest. The two progressive journalists wanted to know whether Morales thought it was okay for presidents to be eligible for unlimited terms, and they were clearly disappointed when his answer failed to meet the rigid standards inculcated into them by a culture that values legal appearances more than reality, and which they appear incapable of freeing themselves from. Still carrying his egalitarian Indian culture around with him Morales answered simply: “If the people are satisfied with him, there’s no problem.” He then added: “But they should be able to vote him out if they’re not.” Many Americans, including the admirable team of Democracy Now, think our president and vice-president should be impeached, but since our congressional leaders have taken the notion off the table, we have to wait, while our soldiers continue to die in Iraq, for the constitutionally mandated moment when we can get rid of our leaders. (Nancy Pelosi is in fact simply more a prisoner of the prevention against doing anything that might translate the popular will than is Amy Goodman.)

In the Middle East, just as it began to look like this administration had finally realized the importance of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, up pops Saudi Arabia from the oil sands to require that Israel freeze all settlement activity before the Arab nations it leads will show up at the conference called for November. The idea is right and the demand is not new, but hopefully these spokes in the wheel are for domestic consumption. Otherwise the Saudis would be cutting off their noses to spite the Arab world’s face and the circle of violence will continue. What action would show that Israel has “frozen” development of settlements anyway? Who is going to verify that there are no hammers operating anywhere in the West Bank?

The headlines this week were about Myanmar, which news anchors are now careful to call Myanmar-formerly-known-as-Burma, in sudden deference to those who are getting killed to protest the military junta which two decades ago decided to change the country’s name. In a cruel twist typical of today’s international politics, China is propping up this right-wing dictatorship with an eye to Burma’s oil - at the same time as it sides with the U.S. and India on the issue of global warming. All three high polluting countries refuse to join international efforts to create a binding plan to slow climate change, under the pretext that it would hamper economic growth.

The world is caught up in a series of contradictory conflicts. In those like Burma and Darfur tyrannical governments are intent on keeping their people depressed while they fill their coffers; then there is the Judeo-Christian world against fundamentalist Islam, whose major tenets such as abhorrence of homosexuality and emphasis on traditional family values coincide with those of the Western fundamentalists who are its most rabid enemies on so-called ideological (freedom) but in reality commercial grounds.

And finally the conflict between the Western free enterprise fundamentalist governments and those of their citizens who are beginning to disavow the consumer society they promote, and who believe terrorism is a response to that society and the exploitation of other societies that it rests upon.

From what I heard of the speeches at the General Assembly, beneath the standard rhetoric there appears to be a growing consensus that cuts across the Western/Fundamentalist divide. It’s as though the remainders of the Cold War have finally dissipated, and the international community is no longer strictly divided into North and South but is coming together around an unspoken realization that ways must be created to solve the seemingly disparate problems enumerated above, regardless of the ideologies espoused by governments, at a time when ideologies have a way of overlapping in embarrassing ways.

There appears to be a growing consensus among the governing classes across the globe which has two aspects: the first and strongest is the recognition that those who govern, regardless of ideology, have certain basic things in common, as opposed to their respective peoples, and the second is that the United States no longer rules the world. Until now, the United States has relied on the shared interests of governing classes to implement its imperialist/colonialist policies. Now the rest of the world gets the point and is using it to isolate the country that refuses to see the writing on the wall.

Cindy Sheehan warns of fascism in today’s OpEdNews. Her indictment of U.S. history poins up the most useful question for potential primary voters, which is: which candidate will best be able to integrate the United States into the new world paradigm?

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

ARMED, WE'RE DISARMED

Garret Keizer in this month’s Harpers is calling for a general strike on November 6th, 2007 (that’s election day), while in the same issue an excerpt of Naomi Klein’s book “Disaster Capitalism” gives a new twist too what we already know about the system we’re living under.

A call for a general strike on September 11th appeared on the internet too late to make it happen, but hopefully with enough lead time, enough organizations will get on board this call.  Demonstrations don’t seem to make a dent in either Bush’s determination or congress’s indetermination.  Shutting down the country - no work, no school, no consumption - just might.

In Europe, when general strikes fail to produce results - which is rare - populations have been known to turn to violence.  European civilians are not armed, so they overturn cars to form barricades and dig up cobblestones or find other things to throw.

Here’s the irony: many Americans are armed, but they are usually the ones who support attacking other countries.  Those who believe there are better ways of solving international problems - including the need for oil - usually do not belong to the NRA.  They believe the second amendment was intended to guarantee a citizen army - or militia - at a time when we had to fight to boot the British army out of our country.

So the further irony is that were a sizable number of anti-war Americans to decide to take action against their government (a duty outlined in the Constitution, when government fails its citizens), they would probably face not only the helmets and tasers of official force, but also, the enthusiastic opposition of citizen gun owners.

By the way, a student trying to get Senator John Kerry to explain why he didn’t context the 2000 election was tasered yesterday when he refused to give up his mike at a public meeting, while the Iraqi government had revoked the license of the American company Blackwater for shooting unarmed civilians.  According to a spokesman for the International Peace Operations Association, civilians security companies’ participation in U.S. military conflicts goes back to the second world war.  Whether or not that statement is on a level with President Bush’s assertion that we have 36 allies in Iraq, the entire area of military outsourcing is just one aspect of Naomi Klein’s disaster capitalism.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

It is beginning to occur to military and civilian leaders alike that Iraq is not about to become a Western style democracy.  Some are even saying they could live with a strong man (which is what Saddam was before we decided he was throwing too much weight around).  But this recognition doesn’t do away with the fundamental problem of equality - as in the French “liberte, egalite, fraternite,  or at least solidarity -  as in the Polish solidarnosc that began the process of bringing the Soviet Union to an end.

The revival of religious fundamentalism that is sweeping the world is about insecurity - the bomb, in shorthand - violence, which how some people cope with insecurity, and others cope with inequality, and tribalism (our God is the only true God).  But the most passionate cry of all fundamentalisms is reserved for the vulgarization of sex, which is a direct result of commercialization.  Sex has always had a market price, but as blow-back to centuries of puritanism, the advent of Madison Avenue and TV took the U.S. to the opposite extreme, the trivialization and vulgarization of sex.  When, in opposition to their assimilated parents, young American women of Arabic origin decide to wear the headscarf because, as Amanpour’s subject put it: “I don’t want other men to leer at me in the street”, that’s a sign that fundamentalism shares some important lifestyle concerns with many secular people.  (The similarities in lifestyle, revolving around modesty and prayer, between young Islamic and Orthodox Jewish couples is striking.)

So much for sex, but what about equality? Apropos the enormous number of Iraqis who have taken refuge in neighboring countries, we learn that Syria has free health care and education - and subsidized bread.  Syria is run by Ba’athists, Sunni Islam’s egalitarian political movement.  Not surprisingly, it supports Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shia militia, which has made and kept its reputation by helping the poor.

Washington policymakers would do well to learn once and for all that the hallmark of all egalitarian militias has been and continues to be strict discipline with respect to money and sex, and the provision of health care and education to the poor, whether they be Marxist and secular or religious fundamentalist.

It’s sad to see presidential candidates talking about their relation to God and prayer from the point of view of a privileged class that cannot identify with the need for equality felt by the world’s majority and who, if they are fundamentally inclined, will use their power to further inequality in pursuit of a hierarchical vision of society that starts with God on top.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

MEET WITH RAUL!

Senator Obama, by merely coming out for easing travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans wishing to visit the island of their birth, you are failing to put your mouth where your mouth is.

You have courageously stood your ground in the face of attacks on your position about meeting with un-friendly foreign leaders, so why would that not include Raul Castro, who has said he is ready for a dialogue between equals with the U.S. (while Fidel doesn't believe it's going to happen) - especially if you are willing to talk to Chavez?

And surely you should not limit travel by non-Cuban Americans to Cuba - unless you fear growing demands for free government programs such as health care and education, as have all preceding administrations.

Breaking with the past implies at least as much social democracy as practiced in the rest of the highly developed world.  Unless you are willing to state that, you risk remaining behind Hillary Clinton, who has the "advantage" of being "highly experienced" in the maintenance of a systems that is determined to hold social democracy at bay.

Monday, August 20, 2007

STAYING ON TOP

Everywhere you look, you see hierarchies.  Even in small groups, elected leaders eventually move from representing the rest to imposing their will.

American democracy has degenerated into a sclerotic system which is democratic in name only.  So entrenched is this meme, that people at all levels take the system for granted, using it for their own ends when possible, and accepting it when it doesn’t serve their needs - which is most of the time. You could say that at present “being on top” is not only about money, or money and power in the traditional, recognizable sense.  It’s often simply that people no longer have time - or energy - for oversight of those they put in power.

Human nature, no doubt, but I can’t help thinking about those tribes mentioned in the recent book “Evolution for Everyone” by David Sloan Wilson, in which the best and the brightest are prevented from abusing their position by having their achievements constantly and publicly under-rated.

I wonder how that might have played out as a tribe went modern.....

In a related item, after “Sicko” and a timid report on CNN by Frank Cesno, in its August 12th edition, the New York Times  - the publication of reference for those “on top”, finally dips a tow in the troubled waters of American health care.  But though the article appears as an editorial, it is merely a list of facts, which one has to read attentively to discern a cautious opinion.  Reading the stilted prose, one can hardly believe that the majority of TIMES readers (however much  clout the minority of its readers may have) can possibly identify with the language and tone. And should our legislators form their opinion about the need to support universal, free health care, they will not be persuaded by carefully culled comparisons, in which we are matched against a mere five or eight countries.

Just another way, those on top stay on top.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

POVERTY AND POWER



The stock market scare this week showed that the relationship between poverty and power isn’t only about workers and owners, it’s also about consumers and lenders.  The quality of a government depends on how ready it is to intervene on the side of the less well-off segments of society.

And the week’s news illustrated this very well:  an article in The Economist reveals that Chile, “a country that pioneered reform” at a time when most of Latin America was still ruled by caudillos, is well on its way to eliminating poverty.  This conservative publication reports matter-of-factly that a program called Chile Solidario has played a major role by ensuring that the poor take up various social benefits and keep their children in school, by offering training and a grant to set up a small business.  The poverty rate in Chile is about 15% compared to the overall rate for Latin american of close to 40%.

So it isn’t a surprise to learn that the government of Peru, while making an international appeal for help after the devastating earthquake,  according to the BBC, agrees with the US government the US help is not necessary (according to CNN).  One can surmise various reasons for this: US aid may be tied to purchases of US goods; help from the US may give the impression that the government is beholden to it, as so many have been in the past.

Rounding out the news from Latin America, Hugo Chavez announced a proposal to increase the presidential term from six to seven years and to allow the president to serve an unlimited number of terms.  The right-wing press of course sees this as creeping dictatorship, but wait!  The parliament having previously rejected a presidential proposal for a seven year term, cutting it back to six, this proposal will be put to a referendum.  The proposal also calls for lowering the work day from eight to six hours.

Would that our “democratically elected” governments did the same!  It’s long been apparent to many economists that the eight hour workday no longer makes any sense, with machines that practically run themselves and a constant struggle to maintain employment.  Together with a questionable need for ever more growth, is the need to utilize less energy and reduce waste by producing fewer unnecessary things, moving to a true leisure society, where the accent is on culture rather than consumption.

Monday, August 13, 2007

WRITE OR STRIKE?

The existence of the t-shirt was picked up by the NYC press with headlines like “Gaza strip uprising in NYC.  As a result, the principal of an Arabic school that was due to open felt compelled to resign before the school even opened.  The reason:  the women’s group is hosted by the same Yemeni group that offered space to the school!

Bear in mind that the school is named after an internationally famous Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran, who lived in New York in the last century and that its mission is to bring an opportunity for teenagers of Arabic descent to learn about their heritage, and also to make Arab cultural contributions more widely known.  (One of the things few foreigners know is that for most Arabs, intifada refers to an internal struggle, getting onw’es own house in order.

Now for the second tee-shirt story:  Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi-born consultant for the American Friends Service Comnittee, who last year was prevented from flying on Jet Blue because he was wearing a tee-shirt that said, in Arabic and English: “We will not be silenced”.  On today’s program, he said that one of the agents who forced him to cover his tee-shirt before allowing him to board the plane explaiend to him that wearing it was the equivalent of someone going into a bank wearing a tee-shirt that said: “I’m a robber.”  (Jarrar’s website is raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com.)

Beyond the frightening aspect of the treatment being meted out to individuals FOR SIMPLY EXPRESSING THEIR BELIEFS ON THEIR CLOTHING, is the juxtaposition of these behaviors to the call for a general strike.

While Americans invented the t-shirt as outerwear and the message tee-shirt as a form of protest, Europeans have a long tadition of practicing the general strike.  (One of the new French president’s first acts in office was to push through historic legislation that would ensure minimum service during transport strikes.  Such legislation has been mooted for decades, but always successfully fought off by French workers, who are the champions when it comes to French orneriness.)

The extent to which Europeans make use of the strike has become unimaginable in the United States.  That’s why, as documented in Michael Moore’s film “Sicko”, which is about more than just our unique backwardness when it comes to ensuring health care for all, American workers get on average two weeks vacation to the European norm of four, five and even six weeks. (In the sixties, in addition to six weeks vacation, Italian workers routinely got one or two extra months pay, which was specified in the job specs.)

The official banner for the call for a general strike on stike911.org, mentions torture, corporate surveillance,  media and corporate government, tyranny, fascism and lies, It should also mention the poorest social benefits of the developed world.

Forty years ago, tee-shirts seemed like a daring cultural phenomenon, coming on the heels of the angry young men of the fifties, and the counter-culture of the sixties.  But it’s time to face the fact that tee-shirts are not much more than a form of self-cooptation.  Nothing gets to rulers like a broad-based strike.  Just look at Europe.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

MEET AND GREET OR MEET AND SEEK?

At the same time that the polemic between democratic candidates over meeting with enemy leaders was going on, the news was matter-of-factly reporting on half a dozen high level international meetings, whose purpose was to try to solve various conflicts around the world.

Meetings are necessary  to thrash out agreement between opposing view of governments.  The antagonism between he US and Korea o, Iran and Venezuela are not the only cases of acute disagreement in the world.  Yet with respect to the other problems - be it Somalia, Sudan, the Palestinian issue, the future of Iraq, or the many live conflictual situations around the globe, those involved seem to routinely believe they should talk to each other.

Furthermore, agreement and disagreement are located on a continuum, and a highly fluctuating one at that.  To say, therefore, that at some point on the continuum it is not useful to talk to people we disagree with implies that we must use force to resolve our differences.

In all logic, in cases of profound disagreement, it is not enough for high level officials to meet.  It takes concertation at the highest level to break through to a phase transition and effectuate a bifurcation.  In the absence of a phase transition, profound disagreements lead to war.

It is interesting to note that high ranking American officials met and greeted Saddam Hussein, whom we ultimately had to depose.

Meetings between presidents of countries that have major disagreements must be of the meet and seek type: the leaders must seek to understand where the other is coming from.  Only leaders, as opposed to high level officials, can do this because they share a common basic situation:  broadly speaking, each will go to the limit of what his/her people will tolerate in order to remain in power.  That crude if inescapable fact provides leaders with a common language which their officials do not share: only those wielding ultimate power can thrash out pathways to cooperation through a terrain of irreconcilable differences.  But also, those wielding ultimate power share not only its advantages, but also its constraints - the greater or lesser constraints that their respective people throw up to limit to a greater or lesser extent their enormous power.

The world is a system - one system, a fact too often forgotten or overlooked in the face of the myriad of conflicts and challenges various parts of the system are suffering.  System processes are highly complex but they eventually lead to phase transitions. Only leaders are able to cut through the myriad layers and interdependencies of these processes to inflect them - - to some extent.

Only people who do not realize how low the world’s opinion of us is could imagine that enemy leaders could reap PR benefits from a meeting with our president: some of our candidate leaders fail to understand that those leaders could just as well be seen by their people as kowtowing to the American giant - even Tony Blair didn’t escape that label.
When Raul Castro announces that he is ready for a dialogue with a new US administration, his brother’s editorial might  was not slapping him down; it was opining that the chances of any US administration accepting to talk to the Cuba government were very slim.   Yet most Americans agree that normalization of Cuban-American relations on a basis of live and let live is long overdue.

Had this normalization taken place twenty or thirty years ago, indicating an  understanding of the intrinsic inequality of our relations with Latin America as a whole, perhaps there would be no Hugo Chavez today.

Are Americans going to choose another President who would essentially repeat the mistakes made with respect to Cuba?

Monday, July 30, 2007

CHINESE ROUNDUP

China is the next big kahuna.  Putin has the missiles and nukes, but China has going for it the same thing as Barack Obama: freshness.

Before I turn seriously - or semi-seriously - to China, I want to make two points that seem to have escaped the pundits this week as they wallowed in the breath of fresh air/blast from the past controversy:  the question on the YouTube debate was phrased thus:  “Would you be willing, in the first year of your term, to meet with” leaders we don’t like?  Now, “would you be willing” would seem to imply that the questioner thinks this would be a good idea, yet most of the comments I heard emphasized the American public’s preference for caution.  The second thing that no one mentioned was that Hillary is not “experienced” in change, while anyone familiar with Obama’s career as a community activist understands that he has been all about change.  To be about change you have to think outside the box, not think better than other people inside the box.
Now to China: for months we’ve been hearing about China’s sloppy food industry.  No one mentions that at a similar point in our development, at the turn of the 20th century, we committed the same crimes: China hasn’t yet had its Teddy Roosevelt and its Upton Sinclair to legislate and enforce food standards and safety.    This is not our fault but our ethnocentricity could reserve some surprises.

The other day I was in a Social Security office.  Anticipating a wait, I grabbed a free newspaper from a display shelf.  Guess what?  Although its title was “”The Epoch Times,” it was a Chinese publication.  In the place of the New York Times' motto “All the news that’s fit to print” was the phrase:  “A fresh look at our changing world”.  The front section was devoted to international news, the second second was entitled “The City”, and focused on New York.  In total, sixteen full-size pages in all, with color photographs and very little advertising.  But if you think this is a Red Army fifth column, think again: it’s Taiwan.  The front page carries an article entitled :”Chinese Regime infiltrates U.S. campuses”, a special report on the victims of Katrina, Egypt’s condemnation of the Gaza ‘coup’ and a world Wildlife Report on desalinization of sea water, judged environmentally unsound.  Following several pages of varied international news, there is a sports page and a page devoted to various critiques of communism.

A product the USIA could admire.

Not surprisingly, the August issue of “In These Times” reviews a book by Joshua Kurlantzick entitled “Charm Offensive”,  which chronicles China’s increasingly sophisticated use of soft power.  A former student of Joseph Nye, Kurlantzick spent four years in China and writes that the country has been “traversing the developing world, offering to grow trade ties, build road, schools and hospitals, mostly in a bid to gain access to much-needed raw materials an win friends at the U.N.”  He adds that the key desire of the Communist Party leadership “is to articulate China’s growing power in a non-threatening way and to dampen the growing concern over what the Middle Kingdom’s resurgence will mean for the world economically, militarily, environmentally and culturally.”

The reviewer points out that the U.S. did the same after World War II, and that “China’s Peaceful Rise” as the official slogan goes, has resonated in many nations in direct proportion to the deterioration of perceptions about the U.S.   The reviewer also recognizes that this “dazzle them” approach obscures more painful truths, such as China’s continued arms sales to the Sudanese government.  But the most significant thing the article points out is that China’s economic success is fraying he notion that democracy is necessary for economic growth.

A piece in the July 14th Economist titled: “ One household, one vote, a novel approach to conflict-resolution”, reports on a novel vote by Beijing slum residents to offers of proper housing by developers eager to cash in on their locations. The media referred to the vote as a veritable referendum, incurring the wrath of officials who cling to the notion that referendums are not necessary in a state where the party represents the will of the people.  That’s par for the course; but get this:  one commentator argued that property rights were a core human right that could not be taken away for democracy! How’s that for the student outdoing the master? (For the record, twice as many people voted to accept the offer as refused it.)
Last but not least - and my apologies for the length of this entry -  the June 23rd Economist reviewed a book about Pakistan’s military business, entitled Military Inc., Like the Chinese army,  the Pakistani military runs important big businesses, having a virtual monopoly on road-building and cement production and heading one third of the country’s heavy manufacturing companies.   One of the justifications is that soldiers make better managers than civilians.

If you’re wondering why this sounds familiar, think Halliburton, Bechtel, Kellog-Brown and Root.   That brings us neatly back to the YouTube debate and the question about getting our troops out of Iraq: Joe Biden warned that we’d also have to evacuate the civilians on the roof.  Hillary Clinton may know how to do that, but maybe Barack Obama wouldn’t have them there in the first place.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

OBAMA'S FRESH AIR REVISITED



On February 19th I wrote a blog entitled “Obama’s breath of fresh air, Hillary’s draft from the past and Putin’s credo”.  A medical emergency had forced me away from my computer for a week, but I suggested the content would have long legs.
The people’s debate last night, (following on another leave for back surgery, about which I shall write in another blog), illustrates my February choice of words.

When asked whether they would meet with hostile foreign leaders during their first year in office (one of the more imaginative questions!), Hillary responded with dependable grandmotherly caution: she would meet with them if and when others had worked out what the consequences might be.  She wouldn’t want to be used.  You can just see the “responsible” following in the footsteps of Nixon when he went to China.

Barack Obama on he other hand responded with a Rooseveltian energetic “yes”!  The man in the wheel chair and the dashing black candidate share the same can-do, optimism.  What does it matter what political hay a foreign leader would make of a meeting if the result is an increase in understanding as to where the other guy is coming from?  Should our survival as a species rest on PR points?

And here is where the Putin’s credo part of my previous title comes in: unlike the thorough, methodical Clinton, who knows every detail  of every Senate bill, Obama understands the ESSENCE of our times.  I don’t think I can say it any better now than I did in February:      “Maybe you didn’t see Senator McCain and a republican colleague whose identity I have forgotten sitting in the front row of an international meeting on Iran as Vladimir Putin got up and declared the era of American supremacy over.  The camera shot couldn’t have been more eloquent.

Essentially Putin stated publicly what everyone knows: America is on a descending curve, and the rest of the world is collectively in the ascent.  It doesn’t mater whether they’re communists, ex-communists, moderate or less moderate Islamists, Latin Americans rallying round Chavez’ Bolivarian revolution (better late than never), doing business with the Chinese who are also doing business in Africa.

Ken Silverstein’s lead article in the new Harpers, plugs right into the world’s declaration of independence.  A dispassionate look at the Islamist bogeyman that the Los Angeles Times would have edited beyond recognition, we can hope its publication by Harpers will move the so-called liberal media a step closer to objectivity (a loaded word, I know, but our media is so far from it...).

With the complicity of that media, the Bush administration thinks it can still behave as if Iran were not, in classical geopolitical terms, the dominant power in the Middle East, asserting its position by sticking to its legal right to nuclear technology.  We were not privy to the rest of Putin’s speech, but Putin was implying that the U.S. can no longer come from across the seas to dictate relationships between Iran and its neighbors.  Any meddling by powers outside the Middle East is going to be done by those directly concerned, Russia and Europe, thank you very much.

The upward and downward trends in history are as inexorable for individuals as for nations. Whatever one may think of her, it’s painful to watch Senator Clinton’s forced cheer, as Obama continues what is likely to be a graceful yet powerful surge to the White House.  A surge made all the more imperative by Putin’s credo.”

If you think I was exaggerating, did you notice that every candidate who spoke about Darfur emphasized the need to “get China to put pressure on the Sudanese government”?

In my in-box this morning, the announcement that Cindy Sheehan has got back in the saddle and is leading an impeachment march from Georgia to DC and New York, stopping in Philly this pm.  I’ve been waiting for someone to revive the in your face language used by revolutionary Americans, and which died out somewhere between the Civil War and the McCarran Act.  To read that blog, go to thecampcaseypeaceinstitute,org.

While Im not usually in the business of making excuses for people, I can only assume that if Obama dismissed the idea of impeachment, it’s because he doesn’t think he should base his campaign on that. If you call for impeachment, everything else in your platform pales in comparison.  I doubt whether ANY of the Democratic candidates really believes Bush and Co should not be impeached, and that had the Democrats won the Congress in 2004, they would have done so.   That said, I do fault Pelosi for not putting it on the table, even with only two years left to the administration: she should have done that for two reasons: to show the outside world that the American people do not agree with their president, and to increase the chances for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Pelosi’s failure comes from the same ethos as Hillary’s suspicions: together they make Obama’s breath of fresh air all the more crucial for our asphyxiating democracy.

Monday, July 2, 2007

VLAD MEETS BURNT BUSHES

The first reaction on hearing that one of the would-be suicide bombers in Scotland was a doctor is: ‘What is this world coming to?” Then you remember the on-going polemic in the U.S. over the role being played by psychologists in the elaboration and carrying out of torture....on past or future suicide bombers.

Moving on, I can imagine the following conversation between Vladimir Putin and the two Bush presidents as they ostensibly fish off Kennebunkport:
Bush II (Kings also had Roman numerals after names, but they went by their first name...):  You gotta help me, Vlad.  I’m stuck in Iraq the way whats-is-name, your predecessor got stuck in Afghanistan.”
Putin: “These guys are tough.  Worse than a government.”
Bush I, interjecting: Those were the good ol’ days, when I dealt with Saddam.  Beat ‘im to a standstill.
Bush II: You shoulda beat’im to a pulp.
Bush I:  Coulnd’t do that, too much business involved.
Putin: Problem is, smash one of these guys, ten more appear.
Bush I:  Maybe we should talk to them. Find out how much they want.
Putin:  Problem is, they don’t want money, they want power.  Like our Bolsheviks in 1917.
Bush I:  Yeah, today power is cheap.  Everybody wants power: the Hispanics, the Blacks, the Sunnis, the Shias.  Even ordinary people want power!
Putin: Look!  I caught a fish!
Bush I:  Good catch, we’ll have it for supper.
Bush II (wistfully): Wish it were as easy to catch Bin Laden.
Putin:  Problem is, you can catch big fish in a big pond, or a small fish in a small pond, but before you catch’em, you know they’ve spawned dozens more.
Bush II: Yeah, and you can’t talk to fish.

Friday, June 29, 2007

THEY DONT' BELIEVE IT COULD HAPPEN HERE!



During last night’s democratic presidential debate at Howard University, hosted by Smiley Tavis, the reactions of the public were more significant than the performance on stage. I’d say it’s time for future debates to concentrate on the handful of candidates who have a serious chance of being the candidate. The second quarter figures may persuade the Bidens and other grandfathers to bow out, but they should not and probablyl will not deter Dennis Kucinich, who knew from the start that he was the odd man out.

Kucinich is more important than most people realilze. Not because he could get the nomination, but because he couldn’t.

If that sounds trivial, it’s not. Kucinich is the only candidate who is campaigning, for universal SINGLE PAYER health care. He and John Conyers have sponsored House Bill 676 that would eliminate health care for profit. All the other candidates are offering to make health care “more affordable”, but that is largely a myth since they have not taken on the health insurance companies. The look on the audiences faces when Kucinich said we had to get the insurance companies out of health care was eloquent: THEY DON’T BELIEVE THIS COULD EVER HAPPEN IN THE UNITED STATES.

Their well-placed incredulity is the result of decades of framing: free health care is not a right, it’s “socialist medecine”. It could take a generation to overcome this carefully constructed taboo, even though journalists have been given the green light by corporations eager to be releived of the bill for health care, to let the American public in on a deep dark secret: every highly developed country except the U.S. has one form or another of single payer universal health care.

Forty-two years after I had to travel to Cuba on my French passport to find out the inside story of the revolution, CNN is finally reporting that Cuban health care is indeed, as Michael Moore reports in “Sicko”, free. For one tenth our cost, Cubans live to an average of 77, like we do; and the Cuban infant mortality rate is in fact lower than ours.

What has this got to do with the look on the faces of the black audience at last night’s debate? It’s all about confidence. The Cuban “dictator” has consistently told his people that they could overcome their hurdles (most of which were put in place by the U.S.). Very differently, all but one of the presidential candidates (I don’t count Mike Gravel because he’s not being serious), is accepting to play the health game by the rules of corporate America. They are, in effect, in covert language, telling the American people that there are some things they cannot expect from their freely elected government (as oposed to Cubans, who do not enjoy the same “freedom”).

Last night, for the first time, I saw that Kucinich actually has a charming smile, though it is rare. His habitual sombre mien is telling the American people that their situation is hopeless, even as he tells them what needs to be done. He needs to project the hope that can onlly come from breaking squarely with the status quo.

A propos Cuba, following on the example of Ann Coulter, who wished out loud that John Edwards could have been assassinated, President Bush commented that one day, Fidel Castro will die. I don’t know whether this was in response to the release of the CIA’s “family jewels”, documents that detail decades of dirty work, including plans to use mobsters to assassinate Castro. At any rate, the president must be wishing the art of spin and framing that gave rise to “flip-flop” and other stick-in-your-mind slogans had never been invented, for now it has allowed his former friends to turn his base against him with just one word: ”amnesty”.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Their Reformation, Their Wars

As the plot thickens regarding which set of obfuscations will play out this summer over a hypothetical change of course in Iraq, it might be useful to imagine what would have happened had an outside power intervened in the European religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  Would there have been a Sun King, Napoleon, Bismarck, the Austro-Hungarian Empire - Hitler?  Or would the Europeans have reverted to the Dark Ages, continuing to live in a semi-feudal state?

We can’t know the answers to those questions, but we can see the parallels between the Protestant/Catholic wars and the strife between Sunnis and Shias.  The Muslim religious conflict is as inevitable as was the infra-Christian conflict.  And as with those European wars, the Muslim struggles are not only about religion, they’re also about equity.  Territorial struggles are about having an inherent right to maintain something that one possesses in the face of a stronger player. Struggles about God are about the inherent right of conscience, which ultimately led to the notion of equity.
Until we realize that our intrusion, motivated by the need for oil, into a region whose centuries’ long dichotomy is exacerbated by the march of history - of which we are the prime motors as inventors and carriers of modernity - no plan for exit will be convincing.  We will continue to weigh alternatives in terms of oil gained and lives lost instead of seeing Muslim lands as simply going through the same process that the Europeans went through five hundred years ago. The notion of a direct relation to God espoused by Protestants is mirrored by the Shia conviction that God wants them to treat their brothers as equals, as opposed to the more elitist ethos of the Sunnis, which could be compared to Catholicism.
Muslims the world over have to be left in peace to complete their transformation from feudal societies, with their corresponding rites, into modern polities with altered rites.  Consider for example the much more relaxed forms of Islam in Southeast Asia.  (The question immediately comes to mind whether Arab Islam retained a feudal outlook because for so long its neighboring Christians did, while Asian Islam benefited from the influences Buddhism and Taoism.)
Astonishingly, recent issues of both “The Economist” and “The Nation” included remarkable analyses of the Middle East crisis.  Both spell out its complexity in unexpectedly similar terms:  Under the headline “Martyrs or Traitors’, the conservative “Economist” writes: “In Lebanon right now the Hizbullah movement calls the beleaguered government of Fouad Siniora traitorous because it is propped up by France and America.”  Somewhat more ingenuously: “Iraq’s prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, needs to keep his distance from America to fend off accusations that he is a puppet of the occupation.”  But then:  “America’s allies cannot stop the martyrs by calling them traitors.  America has made itself deeply unpopular in the Islamic world by invading Iraq and standing by Israel.  This is bound to taint any Muslim leader who looks as if he owes his position to American military or economic power.”  In this lead editorial, “The Economist” provides an interesting detail: the new Palestinian Prime Minister appointed by Mahmoud Abbas is a former World Bank employee.
The left-wing “Nation” emphasizes the failure of the Oslo Peace Accords to fulfill Palestinian expectations, due essentially to a joint UN-Israeli policy of undermining first Arafat, then Abbas.  It also emphasizes that “the more direct cause of the Gaza mini-war lies in the Bush administration’s cynical manipulation of ‘democracy promotion’”.  Israel’s failure to pursue serious negotiations or release prisoners, even as it built a war of separation and expanded west Bank settlements, “weakened Abbas and the secular leadership in the eyes of the Palestinians.”  (It’s) failure to involve the Fatah government in its pullout from Gaza allowed Hamas to claim that armed resistance had triumphed. Finally, Hamas’s contrasting lack of corruption compared to Fatah, and its record as a provider of social services were more important to voters in last year’s election than ideology.  This is the same behavior that secures Hizbollah’s position in Lebanon, that has won support for many liberation movements around the world, and a long standing reputation got the Italian communists during the Cold War that ultimately led to left-wing governments that included them.  Unfortunately the plan appears to be to keep Hamas out of the picture.  It will be too bad if Tony Blair doesn’t realize that would be repeating the mistakes made in fighting the Soviet “evil empire”.
When a steadfastly conservative and an equally steadfast progressive publication see a political issue in similar terms, it’s time for all concerned to take notice. Window dressing can no longer obscure the fact that the US and Israel are denying the Palestinians the right to be governed by those who won a fair and open election, and the Lebanese from supporting Hizbollah’s elected representatives.  The reason alleged is that both refuse to recognize Israel  (as if a policy decision should trump an election!).  According to “The Nation”, Hamas’s Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and his political adviser, Ahmed Yousef, have both stated in recent op-ed pieces that they can live with a two-state settlement, or at the very least a long-term hudna, or truce.
The obligation of states to formally recognize each other in order to avoid war is a twentieth century invention.  In fact, I do not believe it has existed outside the parameters of the Israeli-Palestinian standoff.  While not wishing to provoke readers who may find it difficult to view Israel objectively, I believe that the Palestinian demand that Israel PROVE ITSELF TO BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR before granting it formal recognition, is perfectly reasonable.  As a diplomatic tool that has always existed in diplomacy, a truce should meanwhile satisfy the Israeli requirement of security.
Beyond enabling a two-state solution, a truce would enable Israel to pursue a policy of “constructive engagement” with its Arab and Christian neighbors.  That in turn would enable the larger Middle East region to pursue a similar evolution toward modernity to the one which saw Europe progress from religious strife to the industrial revolution, democracy, and finally, the creation of a European Union.  In this process, it is counter-productive for outsiders to decree that Muslim but non-Arab Iran should not play a key role, just as a centrally located and strong Germany did throughout European history.  That President Ahmadinejad has been forced to institute petrol rationing as a shield against international sanctions, suggests that Europe and the US should be helping Iran build more refineries so that it can rely on its own, for the moment, abundant supply of oil, meanwhile recognizing that Iran has as much right to prepare for nuclear energy when that supply dries up, as we do.
The Middle East will modernize just as did Europe. The big difference is that the world is a smaller place, and everything is related to everything else.  So it behooves us to try to meet our energy needs in ways that do not exacerbate the inherent difficulties of the modernization process.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

ARMAGEDDON OR REDUCTIONISM?



One pundit this week chided Jordan’s present and previous ruler for warning that US intervention - or inattention - would cause the Middle East to go up in flames. Like several of his estimed colleagues, he affirmed that resolving the Palestinian question would have no bearing on the other conflicts.
I have always thought this was a narrow-minded view, consciously or not influenced by unconditional support for Israel. Now I think it’s part of a general failure to see the Middle East as part of a larger, global conflict, not between good and evil, but between modernity and a determination not to share it as it currently presents itself.

The pundit correctly poinits out that if we had to we could do without thr oil from the Middle East, which only represents 40% of our needs. Yet focusing on that crucial commodity, our leaders fail to see the big picture. This is a worldwide upheaval, affecting pretty much all the countries that have not made the transition to a modernity that is at once highly structured and free-wheeling.
In a speech to the UN in the seventies, Fidel Castro noted that third world countries have to do in a much shorter time frame what the developed countries did over the course of a century, but what serious deciders were listening to the upstart? Now we’re seeing the consequences of our failure to adopt policies that took into account that reality.

Whether they be desperate Africans crowded onto dinghy’s with the hope of reaching the Italian island of Lampedusa - or Malta; or the people of the Niger delta whose lives are being destroyed rather than buoyed by oil; of the inhabitants of the Amazonian rain forest - or the Sunnis and the Shias in the diversely poorly governed lands of the Middle East, the message is the same: maybe we do, maybe we don’t want modernity, but if we do, we want our own version, and for an increasing number of us, that means a fair share of the wealth. (Saudi newly rich want a voice in decision-making, but even in a country where the locals don’t have to work, a rising number are poor.)

The Shia Sunni divide, which we correctly perceive as religious, is about Islam’s conflicting views of society: elitist vs egalitarian, no different from those that have always existed in every culture and historical period. The Shiite Ali was on the side of the people. No wonder, then, that while the United States desperately props up - more precisely gives infusions to - so-called democratically elected governments, the Sunnis and the Shias, Hezbollah and Hamas, al Queda and its offshoots, run riot over our efforts to imposes our brand of modernity. They surely disagree among themselves as to whether the Middle East should become more egalitarian, but by trying to impose on them a liberal order that doesn’t even raise the question, we aggravate the enmities hisrtory has accumulated.

The sooner we stop focusing on this battle or that surge, these weapons or that threat, the sooner we will be able to extricate ourselves from the present context. As Edward N. Luttwak correctly states in the current issue of “Harpers”, we need to focus on places “where hardworking populations are looking ahead instead of dreaming of the past’, tighten our pumps and leave the Middle East to sort itself out.

But “ahead”, for those countries which have “arrived” will require a major overhaul with respect to the past. In the same issue of Harpers where Luttwak fumes, Rebecca Solnit illustrates the transformation of Detroit, an American wasteland into a new kind of city, where locally produced foodstuffs are preferred to gentrification. Getting the farm into the city not only empowers and feeds local inhabitants, it breaks the absurd logic of consuming Middle Eastern oil to haul food over long distances.

I wager the gunmen turning the globe into a shooting gallery would be for that.bq.



One pundit this week chided Jordan’s present and previous ruler for warning that US intervention - or inattention - would cause the Middle East to go up in flames. Like several of his estimed colleagues, he affirmed that resolving the Palestinian question would have no bearing on the other conflicts.
I have always thought this was a narrow-minded view, consciously or not influenced by unconditional support for Israel. Now I think it’s part of a general failure to see the Middle East as part of a larger, global conflict, not between good and evil, but between modernity and a determination not to share it as it currently presents itself.

The pundit correctly poinits out that if we had to we could do without thr oil from the Middle East, which only represents 40% of our needs. Yet focusing on that crucial commodity, our leaders fail to see the big picture. This is a worldwide upheaval, affecting pretty much all the countries that have not made the transition to a modernity that is at once highly structured and free-wheeling.
In a speech to the UN in the seventies, Fidel Castro noted that third world countries have to do in a much shorter time frame what the developed countries did over the course of a century, but what serious deciders were listening to the upstart? Now we’re seeing the consequences of our failure to adopt policies that took into account that reality.

Whether they be desperate Africans crowded onto dinghy’s with the hope of reaching the Italian island of Lampedusa - or Malta; or the people of the Niger delta whose lives are being destroyed rather than buoyed by oil; of the inhabitants of the Amazonian rain forest - or the Sunnis and the Shias in the diversely poorly governed lands of the Middle East, the message is the same: maybe we do, maybe we don’t want modernity, but if we do, we want our own version, and for an increasing number of us, that means a fair share of the wealth. (Saudi newly rich want a voice in decision-making, but even in a country where the locals don’t have to work, a rising number are poor.)

The Shia Sunni divide, which we correctly perceive as religious, is about Islam’s conflicting views of society: elitist vs egalitarian, no different from those that have always existed in every culture and historical period. The Shiite Ali was on the side of the people. No wonder, then, that while the United States desperately props up - more precisely gives infusions to - so-called democratically elected governments, the Sunnis and the Shias, Hezbollah and Hamas, al Queda and its offshoots, run riot over our efforts to imposes our brand of modernity. They surely disagree among themselves as to whether the Middle East should become more egalitarian, but by trying to impose on them a liberal order that doesn’t even raise the question, we aggravate the enmities hisrtory has accumulated.

The sooner we stop focusing on this battle or that surge, these weapons or that threat, the sooner we will be able to extricate ourselves from the present context. As Edward N. Luttwak correctly states in the current issue of “Harpers”, we need to focus on places “where hardworking populations are looking ahead instead of dreaming of the past’, tighten our pumps and leave the Middle East to sort itself out.

But “ahead”, for those countries which have “arrived” will require a major overhaul with respect to the past. In the same issue of Harpers where Luttwak fumes, Rebecca Solnit illustrates the transformation of Detroit, an American wasteland into a new kind of city, where locally produced foodstuffs are preferred to gentrification. Getting the farm into the city not only empowers and feeds local inhabitants, it breaks the absurd logic of consuming Middle Eastern oil to haul food over long distances.

I wager the gunmen turning the globe into a shooting gallery would be for that.bq.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

NEW AND IMPROVED EMPIRES



Speak of the devil!  Yesterday I wrote that empires don't have allies, and today John Perkins, author of the best-selling 'An Economic HItman" is on "Democracy Now" telling about that book and also his new book entitled "The Secret History of the American Empire".

If you can catch the program tonight, where it will be aired on many public TV stations, or on D.N.s website, or on any of the many radio stations it's broadcast on, you wont' be wasting your time.
You'll not only learn about economic hit men and what they do - which is particularly relevant at a time when congress wil be voting to confirm a new president of the World Bank.  You'll learn HOW the United States became an empire and what John Perkins thinks could still reverse a historical trend that led us into our present quagmire.

He believes the culprits - our vast army of CEO's, leaders of corporations who enjoy that status of "persons" are beginning to realize that they have to change the way they do business.  Instead of their primary concern being to make money for shareholders and themselves - it should be, like any legal "person",  to care about the healh and welfare of their employees, their consumers and the environment.

This has every chance of being a pipe-dream unless we somehow manage to elect a President who sees things the way Perkins does.  But at least it's a start in the debate about capitalism versus socialism.

Right now, President Bush is being met in Germany by vociferous crowds demonstrating against everything he stands for, illustrating the fact that empires don't have allies: the leaders gathering for the G8 summit are "allies" iin the sense that they obey our diktats instead of doing what their constituents want them to.  Ironicaly, the German demonstrators are telling him to "go home" - reviving the slogan used by European demonstrators after the Second World War.
At that time, we were simply seen as an unwelcome foreign presence.  Now, we represent specific policies that the Europeans - and others around the globe - condemn.  After many false starts, it was 9/11 that finally made John Perkins sit down and tell his story to the end: he realized he had been personally involved in creating the conditions that made an attack on our soil inevitable.
When governments fail to do the right thing for long enough, the people take over.  They are not bound either by the nicities of parliamentary debate - nor by the rules of war that armies are exected to abide by.  Having to pose as an ally of an Empire puts governments in just such a situatiion.

He believes the culprits - our vast army of CEO's, leaders of corporations who enjoy that status of "persons" -are beginning to realize that they have to change the way they do business. Instead of their primary concern being to make money for shareholders - and themselves - it should be, like any legal "person", to care about the healh and welfare of their employees, their consumers and the environment. This has every chance of being a pipe-dream unless we somehow manage to elect a President who sees things the way Perkins does. But at least it's a start in the debate about capitalism versus socialism. Right now, President

Bush is being met in Germany by vociferous crowds demonstrating against everything he stands for, illustrating the fact that empires don't have allies: the leaders gathering for the G8 summit are "allies" in the sense that they obey our diktats instead of doing what their constituents want them to. Ironicaly, the German demonstrators are telling him to "go home" - reviving the slogan used by European demonstrators after the Second World War. At that time, we were simply seen as an unwelcome foreign presence. Now, we represent specific policies that the Europeans - and others around the globe - condemn.

After many false starts, it was 9/11 that finally made John Perkins sit down and tell his story to the end: he realized he had been personally involved in creating the conditions that made an attack on our soil inevitable. When governments fail to do the right thing for long enough, the people take over. They are not bound either by the nicities of parliamentary debate - nor by the rules of war that armies are exected to abide by. Having to pose as an ally of an Empire puts governments in just such a situatiion.

A CONTAGIOUS DISEASE



I’m not talking about the guy who flew around on commercial airlines knowing he had a resistant strain of TB. Im talking about the creeping (or sprinting) infection of fascism. Although not officially identified as yet, there is a disturbing similarity between the methods used by the U.S., Poland, Great Britain, Israel and other governments too numerous to name.

The latest edition of The New York Review (June 28), carries a piece by the well-known writer and Solidarity leader, Adam Michnik, entitled “The Polish Witch-Hunt”. What emerges from his report on efforts under way to identify former informants to the Communist secret police under the regime that ended in 1989, is a chilling echo of methods used in the U.S. Here’s a quote:

“Since their election victory in 2005, the Kaczinskis and their governing coalition have attempted to blur the separation of powers in order to strengthen the executive branch they control ‘ The president, the prime minister (who are twins) and the secretary of justice have attacked the independence of the courts in several ways: by publicly challenging any verdict they don’t like, by showing disrespect for the Constitutional Court, including suggestions that its judges are biased; and by the government’s rhetoric of fear and danger, which serves to justify its increase in criminal penalties and its criminalizing of acts that were previously considered civil offenses.”

The Kaczinski brothers tried to have the eminent historian and former foreign minister, Bronislav Geremek, a political prisoner under the Communist regime, dismissed from his seat in the European Parliament to which he’d been elected in 2004, because he’d refused to sign a declaration that he’d not been a secret police agent during the Communist years.
Shades of M McCarthy!

The obligation for anyone born before August 1972 and occupying professional positions in the private, public and state sectors, to sign the declaration, was pushed through parliament by the right-wing government, in a sweeping purge, known as “lustration” (as in shiny clean). According to Michnik, those who refused to sign, were replaced by unqualified but loyal newcomers. The independence of public radio and television has also been curtailed by changes in personnel instigated by the government and by pressures to control what was published and broadcast. Says Michnik: “The everyday language of politics has become one of confrontation, recrimination and accusations.....These measures have produced a pervasive climate of fear.”

Michnik is confident the Poland of openness and tolerance, of John Paul II and Czeslaw Milosz will prevail. (After repeated government efforts to postpone the session of the Supreme Court and to impeach its judges, the court found the law to be unconstitutional.) But the current crisis over whether the U.S. should place interceptor missiles in Poland, over strong opposition from Russia, does not bode well.

As in many parts of the world, the Polish government has chosen to support the U.S. government over its people. Like the Israeli government that last summer blitz-krieged Lebanon and whose door-busting troops in Gaza and the West Bank are indistinguishable from ours and Britain’s in Iraq, it is part of a growing coalition whose arms are fear and intimidation.

Monday, June 4, 2007

EMPIRES DON'T HAVE ALLIES



The notion that we have allies stretches back to World War II. Then, we led, they followed, because their survival was at stake. As leadership turned to empire, our “allies” followed less and less persuasively: they paid lip service, they pronounced the ritual incantations about an Atlantic Alliance on requisite occasions. France has traditionally been a troublemaker, but it is no longer powerful enough to lead the others, especially when Germany leans toward the U.S. With the Iraq War following on the heels of 9/11, a tragedy which almost outweighed decades of irritation at our growing hubris, the tide turned decisively: American overreach was recognized for what it is: a brazen, unabashed determination to subjugate all peoples that possesses the black gold upon which our power is built.
Our so-called allies still needed a leader to authorize them to say out loud what they had been muttering among themselves for decades: you can no longer tell us what to do, Uncle Sam. Putin has stepped forward, and he will be followed, even though Russia’s lack of democracy is more blatant than that of the U.S. World wise Europeans, especially in the west, know it‘s all a question of degree.
The Bush-Cheney hydra may well react to having its first head cut off by fomenting war with Iran before the beast’s lair is cleaned out for new occupiers. Notwithstanding last night’s spirited Democratic debate, the courage to impeach would have been the only way to prevent that.
If we attack Iran, at least the fact that we are an empire rather than the leader of an alliance, will be clear for all to see.

Friday, June 1, 2007

THE KNOWLEDGE GAP



Having spent most of my life in Europe, it has been obvious to me for forty years or more that while American governments were complaining that Europeans weren’t spending enough money “on their own defense”, the Europeans were, in fact spending their money on social services that Americans were being told they didn’t need because they were “free”.

Having been “free” to pay for their own medical care and work 50 weeks a year, Americans have watched in dismay as their leaders stomped around the world “freeing” other peoples to emulate us. (Some underdeveloped (now called “developing” countries insisted on emulating the Europeans, and the Soviets were glad to help, thereby stoking the arms race that neither americans nor Russians were “free” to stop.)

When I lived in Italy, Italian workers had six weeks paid vacation a year to the French five: the emulation among Europeans countries was as to who would get the most unemployment compensation, the lowest retirement age and the most vacations. Even under Soviet “domination”, workers in Eastern Europe had a month vacation, and women in Hungary had three years paid maternity leave.

Now, sadly, the governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia, still under the influence of their naively pro-American liberation movements (think Solidarnosc and the philosopher-king Vaclav Havel) have accepted for us to station antiballistic missiles on their soil in anticipation of a possible Iranian attack. Possibly in the back of their minds is the image of the Russian bear, easy to anger. Putin’s response, to test missiles, would seem to confirm their fears, but I believe he is saying that the Iranian threat, like so many of those put forth over the years by the Pentagon, is bogus, and therefore the only country that should be worried about American missiles in Europe is Russia.
Russia’s former satellites have not only, for their and Europe’s benefit, joined the European Union, they’re creating a new European divide between those who defend the European social model as opposed to the American model, equating American missiles with its social model. They see the United States through the same rose-colored glasses that have been blinding Americans for half a century, draining energy away from the real threats, which are not Iran, a rising power, but climate change and third world poverty.