Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Stupidest Stuff Ever, TPP, Contrasts and Capitalism with a Human Face

My apologies for having failed to post two weeks' worth of OEN blogs here.  I promise to keep this blog more uptodate:



Hillary’s Latest Embarrassment is About ‘Capitalism with a Human Face’  April 27

In the nineteen sixties the Czechs promoted what they called communism with a human face, until Brezhnev ordered Soviet tanks in.  Meanwhile, next door, the Hungarian regime was known as goulash communism: both of these efforts were about making communism more acceptable to the man in the street. Central planning, whose purpose was to make sure that wealth was relatively evenly distributed, carried with it a certain number of restrictions. Communist leaders lessened the limits on freedom of movement for professionals and intellectuals, for whom this was important, leaving the majority of the people satisfied that they would never have to worry about the basics.  
Under capitalism, the governing philosophy is that the system does not have to ensure that the basic needs of most citizens are met, however the Christian virtue of charity is admired. As globalization gobbles up the land, minerals and forests of the world, foundations like the Clintons’ devote part of their indecent fortunes to helping the victims of their rapacity, making sure children are vaccinated and bed nets supplied, or teaching women how to micro borrow, bringing them into a system which by definition can throw up few winners.
As the pundits exchange opinions about Secretary Clinton’s embarrassing role in her husband’s Global Initiative Foundation, they invariably mention the perception that the Clintons feel themselves to be above the law. In reality, they embody the new corporate state in which the wealthy are allowed live high on the hog as long as they make token gestures to the rest of humanity.  But while pundits focus on the sale of favors, the larger picture that should also concern us: neo-fascist parties are the popular version of the corporate state. They show that the hundred year old antagonism between Communism and Fascism that gave rise to the Second World War did not end with the defeat of Hitler’s Germany and Hirohito’s Japan:  this struggle will continue until humanity reaches a level of sophistication that renders it moot. The so-called clash of civilizations, though it appears to be about religion, is really about dignity, and dignity is also what the yearning for equity is about.
There appears to be no widespread recognition of the fact that capitalism’s human face obscures its rationalization of fascism.  Yet the legally elected president of Ukraine could not have been overthrown without the private fascist militias such as Right Sektor, whose leader Dmitri Yaros became the new government’s head of security. And without an unspoken acceptance of strong-arm techniques, we would not be witnessing fascism in such theoretically unlikely places as Israel and Norway.  Israel was meant to guarantee a home to a people that had been slaughtered en masse because of who they were, and Norway is one of the Scandinavian countries that represent the highest level of civilization attained by humans. Norway has an anti-immigration fascist movement, while some Israelis joined the thugs in the Maidan and recently others called for the death of Palestinians in a yearly march through Jerusalem’s remaining Arab neighborhoods.
What is most disturbing about the rise of fascism is not the existence of popular movements, but the use of the legal system to justify it or disguise it. In the late nineteen seventies a county court judge ruled that parading the swastika in Skokie, Illinois, would not constitute a deliberate provocation to the Holocaust survivors who lived there, and that neither the Nazi uniform, nor the printed materials the Nazis intended to distribute as they marched through the town, would ‘incite violence’. The United States’ legalistic approach to freedom of speech and of expression (as when you express yourself by marching under a Nazi banner…) has so thoroughly penetrated the rest of the world that thirty-five years after Skokie it is divided between “I am Charlie’s” and “I am not Charlie’s”.  Just as the American Supreme Court’s unquestioned authority allowed it to put over the absurd idea that corporations are people, the absolutist definition of free speech has infected intellectuals across the world, who righteously believe they stand between civilization and barbarism. As angry exchanges continue over the Charlie incident, I have not seen any media reports on the non-absolutist definition of free speech that emanates from the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights:
<blockquote> Article 10 – Freedom of expression
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.</blockquote>

The difference between the European Convention on Human Rights and the First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights is that the latter fails to balance rights with responsibilities: Americans are told that because they are free to act, they are responsible for their own well-being, and herein lies the crucial difference between the American definition of freedom and the legacy of the French Revolution.  Why is the legacy of a violent, bloody revolution more nuanced than that of a country that came into being through a war of liberation?  Perhaps the difference lies in the emphasis the first American settlers placed on the individual’s right to converse with God, as opposed to the commitment of French revolutionaries to human/human solidarity.
The notion of solidarity is immanent in the conflict over Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons. As I was writing this, Meet the Press’s Chuck Todd talked to the creator of the cartoon Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau, for whom “some Charlie cartoons wandered into the realm of hate speech.”
Todd: “Are the victims responsible for the tragedy?”
Trudeau: “No, but I didn’t agree with the decisions they made, which brought a world of pain to France.  (A world of pain!  Such a down-to-earth notion!) I wouldn’t draw pictures of the prophet, but I’ve often drawn the Taliban, the PLO , etc., without provoking reactions.”
The supersession of individual sensitivities by legal decrees extends far beyond the definition of free speech. By replacing the conscience of individuals with legal pronouncements, cowboy capitalism, alias globalization, leads us to believe that what we are seeing is not really fascism, only something that looks like fascism — like the difference between its movie renditions and historical reality. Americans need to realize that the fanatic pursuit of power inevitably leads to the fanatic methods we are witnessing on the part of our government. No less, knee-jerk rejection of The Other spawns Hitler-worshipping parties that gradually will spread from Europe across the globe.  The Golden Dawn in Greece is the Empire’s arm against the Syriza Party, that stands up to international financial bureaucracies and private banks. And Angela Merkel’s German powerhouse needs the anti-immigrant Pegida Party as a counterweight to southern Europe’s rejection of northern Europe’s austerity medicine, boldly embodied in Spain’s Podemos Party, that could rise to power in December elections. 
When threatened, capitalism, the preserve of the few, reaches for the fascist fist in its battle against the many.  And because the arrow of time is irreversible, when a trend is well under way, it continues until it reaches a bifurcation point, which, in politics we call revolution.



Contrasting Attitudes Toward Minorities - April 23

In one of those frequent ironies that dot the world landscape today we can only be struck by these contrasting events: as America’s black population becomes increasingly organized and determined to confront police brutality toward its members, Europe’s leaders mourn the deaths of 1700 African migrants trying to reach its shores via the Mediterranean, the South African government chastizes its people for targeting immigrants and on the hundredth anniversary of the slaughter of 1.5 million Christian Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, Turkish President Erdogan lashes out at the Pope for calling it the first genocide of the twentieth century.
What do these strikingly different attitudes tell us about attitudes toward Otherness upon which political and religious systems rest?  While recently revealed American police reports refer to black demonstrators as ‘enemy forces’ and ‘adversaries’, mirroring not only recent police militarization but a heritage in which minorities are fair game, Europe’s politicians, though determined to limit African immigration, are forced by a heritage that goes from the French Revolution to the UN Declaration on Human Rights to deplore mass drownings and seek ways to avoid them.
This stark difference underlies the growing divide between Washington and those it took for granted as allies for three quarters of a century, mainly the Europeans.  But I also see a difference between mainstream America and the black majority population of South Africa that after only a few decades of rule, is already telling its less tolerant members that the bible says ‘Love they neighbor’ and ‘God loves us all’, while Australians have set up a grass roots campaign condemning the concentration camps their government has set up for illegal immigrants from Asia.
Clearly, the US is behind on this one, but our focus on elections has little chance of remedying attitudes that began with the first slaughter of Indians.



The TPP isn't Only US Worerks' fight  - April 22

The United States, which has invaded many countries with the excuse of protecting ‘American lives’ is leaving thousands of US citizens stranded in Yemen, as it descends into civil war.
RT is running a State Department briefing in which the usual suspect, an AP reporter named Matt, takes on a new, male briefer and elicits the following reply: “For fifteen years the US has been advising its citizens to delay travel to Yemen, and if they are in Yemen, to leave.”  Matt couldn’t get the briefer to admit that the US was telling its citizens that they are on their own.
Yesterday I wondered, in a tweet, whether these were Arab Americans, and it turns out that indeed, they are mostly Yemeni Americans. Today, pesky Russia has evacuated some of them by air.  
It wasn’t enough that Moscow gave asylum to Edward Snowden - or that the US ordered that the plane of Bolivarian President Evo Morales be denied overflight permission in Europe on suspicion he was carrying Snowden to Cuba - an incident that, among others, inspired Morales to reaffirm at yesterday’s hemispheric summit Latin America’s determination to reject once and for all American interference. Now, as knives are being sharpened to attack presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over Benghazi, we have her successor at State, John Kerry, leaving Americans stranded in an area that has repeatedly been declared ‘vital’ to American interests, in the midst of a civil war being fought by our proxy, Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, our client state Ukraine has declared both communist and fascist propaganda illegal, bringing in a priest to purify the vacated Communist seats in the parliament. The move was probably sparked by US pressure to tone down the fascist demonstrations of the Right Sektor whose muscle helped bring down the legally elected president last year, but if anyone - starting with Raul Castro - doubts that socialism is still anathema to the US government, they should think again. France 24 showed President Obama rubbing his eyes at the Panama Summit in a gesture of fatigue.  It couldn’t have been due to jet lag, and my strong suspicion is that he was simply out of his element in the summit’s pro-peace, pro-liberation and pro-people discussions.


Stupidest stuff Ever - April 12

The United States, which has invaded many countries with the excuse of protecting ‘American lives’ is leaving thousands of US citizens stranded in Yemen, as it descends into civil war.
RT is running a State Department briefing in which the usual suspect, an AP reporter named Matt, takes on a new, male briefer and elicits the following reply: “For fifteen years the US has been advising its citizens to delay travel to Yemen, and if they are in Yemen, to leave.”  Matt couldn’t get the briefer to admit that the US was telling its citizens that they are on their own.
Yesterday I wondered, in a tweet, whether these were Arab Americans, and it turns out that indeed, they are mostly Yemeni Americans. Today, pesky Russia has evacuated some of them by air.  
It wasn’t enough that Moscow gave asylum to Edward Snowden - or that the US ordered that the plane of Bolivarian President Evo Morales be denied overflight permission in Europe on suspicion he was carrying Snowden to Cuba - an incident that, among others, inspired Morales to reaffirm at yesterday’s hemispheric summit Latin America’s determination to reject once and for all American interference. Now, as knives are being sharpened to attack presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over Benghazi, we have her successor at State, John Kerry, leaving Americans stranded in an area that has repeatedly been declared ‘vital’ to American interests, in the midst of a civil war being fought by our proxy, Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, our client state Ukraine has declared both communist and fascist propaganda illegal, bringing in a priest to purify the vacated Communist seats in the parliament. The move was probably sparked by US pressure to tone down the fascist demonstrations of the Right Sektor whose muscle helped bring down the legally elected president last year, but if anyone - starting with Raul Castro - doubts that socialism is still anathema to the US government, they should think again. France 24 showed President Obama rubbing his eyes at the Panama Summit in a gesture of fatigue.  It couldn’t have been due to jet lag, and my strong suspicion is that he was simply out of his element in the summit’s pro-peace, pro-liberation and pro-people discussions.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

In Latin America, Will the US Ever Learn?

When France 24 reported today that at the Summit of the Americas Raul Castro’s speech was laced with humor, I remembered my first meeting with him in my room at the Havana Livre in late 1963 or early 1964 when he saw that I had been reading Frederick Engel’s Origins of the Family and Private Property and cracked ‘You’d better be careful or you might become a Communist’.  But reading the speech I found only stark reminders of the fundamental zeitgeist that separates Cuba  - and much of Latin America - from the United States.  Here are some excerpts that illustrate the chasm between two world-views of most developing countries and that of the US:

<blockquote> What do the tens of millions of marginalized people think about democracy and human rights? How do they feel about political models? What do they think of election laws? Is this the civil society that international governments and organizations take into account? What would they say if asked about the economic and monetary policies?

The signing by the heads of State or Government of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Peace Zone marked a historic step, and now provides a point of reference for our States’ relations with the rest of the world.</blockquote>

Referring to the status of Puerto Rico as a United States territory Raul Castro notes that “the (LatinAmerican and Caribbean) Community would be incomplete while Puerto Rico is not a member. The colonial situation of that country is inadmissible, and its Latin American and Caribbean nature are beyond dispute.

We reaffirm our concern for the huge and growing military expenses imposed on the world by the United States and NATO, as well as for the intent to expand the latter’s aggressive presence up to the borders of Russia, a country we are bound to by historical, fraternal and mutually advantageous relations. We state our vigorous opposition to the unilateral and unjust sanctions imposed on that nation.”

Referring to the lifting of the economic blockade, the Cuban president noted that the American president “could allow other sectors of the economy to do what he has authorized in the field of telecommunications with the clear objective of exercising political influence in Cuba.”

Then he went a step further, saying:

<blockquote> On the other hand, the spokespersons of the US government have clearly stated that the methods are changing but not the objectives of their policy, and insisted in actions that interfere with our internal affairs, something we will not accept. The American counterparts should not pretend to relate with the Cuban society as if a sovereign government did not exist in the Island. No one would even dream that the new policy announced accepts the existence of a Socialist Revolution 90 miles away from Florida.</blockquote>

The middle part of Raul Castro’s speech expressed unwavering support for Latin American issues and countries, making it clear that the consensus in what had long been seen as America’s backyard was that henceforth the Yankees would be expected to mind their own business.

President Obama’s speech, which preceded Castro’s, showed that as yet, no American president can afford to do other than seek to tone down Washington’s ingrained habit of telling other countries how to behave, condescending to them in its own behavior. 


While Africa and the Middle East descend into a long night of turmoil, struggling against under-development while repelling attacks from radical Islam, Latin America could emerge as a uniquely peaceful continent, if Washington could step back and allow it to pursue its variations on the Cuban experiment.  However, the temptation may be irresistible in the halls of power to try to make up for disasters elsewhere by seeking to reimpose a modified version of the Monroe doctrine, as illustrated by on-going threats to Venezuela, and which its President Nicholas Maduro denounced to Obama’s face.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Time to Revive the Domino Theory?


Or should we be talking about ‘Go’, the ancient Chinese game whose goal is to have surrounded a larger total area of the board with one's stones than one’s opponent?
However we choose to characterize the stunning advance of ISIS across Syria and Iraq, or the criss-crossing web of associated and affiliated radical Islamist fighting and terrorist groups, it’s clear that the world game board looks like nothing that has hitherto existed.
Europe risks imploding as Greece’s progressive Prime Minister meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow after being rebuffed by Brussels over its debt, and by Germany, that was let off the hook for reparations to Greece after its occupation of that country during the Second World War.  While a month ago the fear was of a Greek ‘Grexit’ from the Euro, now the fear is that Moscow, backed by China, will step in to save Greece, setting a potentially serious precedent.
Explanations for this particular domino game lie mostly in the past: like Russia, Greece is an Eastern Orthodox country that has had a strong Communist presence for decades, and doesn’t see why its debt is more valid than that of Germany, which was forgiven by the international community after the war. While Angela Merkel entertains a special relationship with Moscow on behalf of her industrialists, she has managed to revive resentment of Germany in generations that were not even alive during World War II in a Greece that links Western Europe to Bulgaria - another Orthodox country - and Romania, both Russia’s neighbors around the Black Sea, risking serious cracks in Europe’s hitherto American-dominated ‘union’.
According to France 24 this morning, rather than lift sanctions on Greece that are part of Moscow’s retaliatory sanctions on European agricultural products, Vladimir Putin invited Greece to join the Turkish gas stream project that will bypass Ukraine to bring gas to Europe, bringing in a lot more money than would tomatoes.
Meanwhile, another game of dominos/go is being played out on the African continent between China and the US, while France, a former African colonial power, fights Islamists on several fronts, and in the Middle East, where American hegemony over precious oilfields is being eroded by ancient Shia/Sunni rivalries topped off with popular aspirations for reform/revolution.
Chess, anyone?


“Tell Me What you Read and I’ll Tell you Who You Are”

This is a famous quote, but most people don’t know that it was penned by a twentieth century French Catholic writer named Francois Mauriac, or that the famous century German philosopher, Martin Heidegger whose life span corresponds almost exactly to that of Mauriac said: Tell me how you read and I’ll tell you who you are.”  I don’t know whether this was an example of intellectual one-upmanship, but clearly, the act of reading was seen by both as fundamental to character formation.
While the US struggles with No Child Left Behind and mandatory testing, the evidence is mounting that this basic skill is not fostering curiosity, as shown by what Americans read, and how they read. The mainstream media has succeeded in its aspiration to severely limit American knowledge of other nations and peoples, thus leaving government and business free to interact with them solely in pursuit of their own interests. 
Having entered into a free on-line trial of the New York Times for a month, I received an e-mail inviting me to discover the ten most read stories of the week It was even more disheartening that what I had expected. 
During the week in which the US and five other major countries reached a historic deal over nuclear weapons with a country that has been ostracized for forty-five years, and during which yet another country in the Middle East descended into civil war, what were the most read articles published by ‘the newspaper of record’?
Admittedly, the list is based on its on-line readership, while most older readers still turn the pages over their morning coffee. On the other hand, on-line readers represent the generation that is about to inherit the most awesome responsibilities the world has ever known, so I think the list is worth pondering:
See the most emailed stories of the week

1. On Conquering Fear, David Brooks’ latest, centered on Moses and his nemesis, the Egyptian Pharaoh.

2. A review of a new mini series, Wolf Hall, set in the court of King Henry VIII

3. Review of ‘Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit’

4. Stunning views of earth from space

5. A retired Japanese fighter pilot warns Japan against revising its constitution to enable it to wage war again.

6. Mad Men and its love affair with 60’s pop culture

7. As quakes rattle Oklahoma, fingers point to oil and gas industry

8. Bigotry, the Bible, and the Lessons of Indiana

9. The Conscience of a Corporation by Timothy Egan, about Hobby Lobby

10. Review of the Broadway show Skylight.

While Brooks’ piece may be a sly way of telling Netanyahu to get a grip, together with the story about the World War II Japanese pilot who favors pieace and the finger pointing to the oil and gas industry, only three out of ten most read stories address the multiple crises threatening survival on planet earth!

In a  vivid confirmation of Chris Hedges indictment of politics as spectacle, Times readers are blissfully unaware that we may be heading for nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine; none of them care that Boko Haram assassinated another 175 Christians in Kenya, that the Palestinian Authority formally joined the World Criminal Court, or even that California, which provides most of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, has had to ration water in the state’s most severe drought ever, as global warming accelerates.

Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are, tell me how you read and I’ll tell you who you are.  Is on-line reading a kind of shorthand, adorned with colorful pictures that draw attention away from the real world, allowing readers to remain in a bubble that floats above it, ready to burst at any moment?

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