Deep In The Heart of Nowhere

Authoritarian Liberal Free Speechers Squash Internet Dissent

2010-04-14T18:49:00.000-07:00

Official Statement About The Recent Disruptions

I apologize to our good members for the chaos this place descended into over the weekend. I assure you that the staff and I handled it as best we could. Our goal was to preserve the life of the site while abiding by our principles. We had a few hiccups here and there, but for the most part I think we achieved that. And really, what mod staff would not have had a few hiccups under these circumstances? None of us are infallible. It's hard to have perfect judgment when attacks are being hurled at you faster than you can read them, let alone reply.

There are some pretty basic management principles that I adhere to as much as possible, whether here or elsewhere. I really like "Catch people doing something right" and "Praise publicly, criticize privately." They almost never fail me. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to deviate from those a little bit here. Many lies have been told about Old Elm and people need to know the truth. Our credibility is our most important asset. I must set the record straight.

First, a little history: As hard as this may be to believe, Old Elm Tree was started as a partnership between Mike and I. (He was using the name Two Americas at the time.) Our basic original agreement was to start a site with two main rules: protect free speech and members must treat each other with respect. I continue to hold to that.

The division of labor was that Mike did the tech stuff and I did most of the writing and all of the art. From the time we opened to membership (July 2008) Mike argued against our respectful discussion rule. I was so confused. Why would he agree to that premise and then do a 180 degree turn as soon as we opened? I really don’t know. I do know that even though he said the mission statements and guidelines were fine just as I had written them, he later admitted that he had never read them. He insisted that any moderation at all would be unfair to him and his group of friends because of their ideology. I could never understand why he thought that given that he and I would be the final authority on all moderation. He refused to even acknowledge the possibility of a compromise on this issue. The majority of the mod staff felt that The Crisis forum was the best compromise, so in November 2008 we started that and Mike and TBF stepped down. (She was a mod in the very early months.)

False Claim: Mike did a ton of tech work here, even after stepping down as admin.

Truth: Old Elm was conceived to be more than a message board. It was to be a complete community, with opportunities for members to display and promote their creative output or their small businesses. There were to be many bells and whistles. Mike also said that we would be able to earn money from the site, making it self-supporting and more. I deferred to Mike on tech questions. Clearly he knew much more than me in that area. Mike never completed the tech work necessary for any of that. Although he worked on many things, the only thing he actually completed was setting up the message board. Mike stated he literally could not make any further progress because of the disagreement about requiring respectful discussion. That never made sense to me, but he insisted it was true. Mike stepped down from being an admin and tech support person. After that he did help a few times when we had server issues, because he controlled the server and he knew he had left us with no tech person. It's not easy to find a webmaster that will work for free, but we finally found Solidad in January of this year.

False Claim: Old Elm Tree is “owned by commies” and supported by PI.

Truth: We started this site on server space owned by BlindPig. This was Mike's idea, and it was probably the only way we could have afforded to start. It made sense, because Mike controlled BP's server. I think the situation is that BP receives donations from members at PI to pay for his server space. I know that we were hosted there, PI was and is, SocIndy is, and there may be others. I'm not part of that group and don't know what their arrangement is. What I do know is that Mike and I agreed on a price to pay BP with the understanding that the payment would increase when we started generating revenue. Mike was the one who actually discussed this with BP. Of course, we have never generated any revenue because Mike never did any of the things necessary to generate it. The agreement was that Mike would pay a certain amount per month and I would pay the like amount. I do not know if Mike ever paid his portion. Although I told him when I sent money orders to BP, Mike never mentioned making any payment. I know that I paid my portion from the beginning until we left that server, with Waiting For Hope splitting my portion with me once she stepped up to be an admin and my partner. I have also paid all the domain registration fees and any other incidental expenses. So no, we are not "owned by a bunch of commies." Technically, legally, I own this site. For all practical purposes, Waiting For Hope and I own it. Morally, in my mind, it is owned by the good faith members, the staff, and ultimately by the principles it's based on. I paid the price I agreed to for our hosting. I don't know what the total cost of BP's server space is and I don't know what he receives in donations. If I go to Kroger and buy a gallon of milk, the only thing that matters to me is what my price is for that gallon. I don't know how much milk they have altogether, who else buys it, or how the wholesale price is paid.

False Claim: Chlamor's banning was ideologically motivated.

Truth: His posts speak for themselves. Chlamor was defiantly saying that he had no intention of ever following the rules. Obviously the firefights would never end as long as he was here vowing to keep fueling them.

False Claim: We were trying to shut down the opinions of Mike and his friends.

Truth: I offered Mike his own column several times. Although he accepted each time and said he would like to do that, he never followed through.

Mixed Claim: Mike also claimed that he was being attacked.

Truth: Well, yes, there were some attacks against him. I can't defend all of them. I will say that he provoked most of the attacks.

Some people reappeared here after months away only to throw gasoline on the fire. These people were not here contributing to the community in the good times. They were elsewhere sneering at OET with Chlamor and Mike (you can find it yourself if you care). When they suddenly showed up here causing trouble, was that good faith? If you don't contribute to a community for months or years and then show up causing trouble, are you to be considered a member of that community? Should consideration be given to your desire to disrupt over the rights of the true members who have been consistently building trust and friendship? Of course not. That's absurd.

The hard thing about OET is that we have two foundations: free speech and respect for other members. Not only do these not conflict, but in fact they are synergistic. However, the duality does make us vulnerable to those that disagree with these core beliefs and seek to destroy us. They play one foundation against the other and mock both.

We knew from the beginning this could be a problem. We could have done things differently to make things easier. We could have limited membership. We could have banned some people before we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they would never be good neighbors. We could have done things behind closed doors with no explanation and made the evidence disappear. We didn't do any of those things. We are governed by our principles.

Sadly, this created a bad atmosphere for good members. And that goes against something else we hold dear. It's not just that we expect members to value and respect each other, it's that the staff also values and respects the members. On Sunday, we took some steps to calm things down for the time being, which I will elaborate for you below. We're going to be brainstorming this week on changes to prevent this from happening again. We aren't afraid to think outside the box around here.

Here are the changes we have made:

Balantz and Cornermouse, our two most longstanding mods, have been promoted to admin to help WFH and I keep up with everything. We four will decide later if this will be permanent.

Several members were given suspensions. We needed to do that to stop the chaos and give us time to fix things. No final decisions have been made on whether these members may return. They are free to contact us privately to give input on the final decision. I want to make this perfectly clear. The prime consideration is the good of the community as a whole, not the wishes of the individuals. I am letting you know in advance that we are not open to discussing whether or not any members should have been suspended or should be allowed to return. It is not good for the community to do that. You may make your feelings known by pm. I am simply making the list public so that you all will know what is going on.

Those suspended are:

Mike
GBruno
Inna
MeganMonkey
Chopped Liver

In addition, three members who had previously asked that their accounts be deleted were accommodated. Those were TBF, Erinacious, and DJinn. (Also note that a couple members voluntarily suspended their accounts. They will be back in a couple days.)

Chlamor, probably with the help of someone more computer savvy, was attempting to register sock puppets. So, we changed new member registration procedures to require individual admin approval.

We locked the thread on Chlamor's banning because it was constantly escalating the problem. We may reopen the thread, and we may move part of it to The Crisis. As you know, we don't like to lock threads, but we're not magicians and we can't bend time.

We are confident that OET remains strong and will continue to grow. We have halted the trouble. It won’t be allowed to start again. Please accept our apologies and know that we will protect you better going forward.

Andrea and Waiting For Hope
and the Mod/Admin Staff

What An Asshole- Dennis Kucinich

2010-03-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

As one who long ago understood the depravity that is America and how thoroughly corrupt is each and every aspect of it's political structure there is nothing that surprises me. In my district I have one of the other "best of the best" progressives, Maurice Hinchey. I have had a few very hot personal confrontations with him and his staff and pointed discussions with those who continue to support Maurice. Most of these people took leave of their sense and climbed aboard the Obama crazy train. Now they are bleating and the same is happening to those who fawned at the feet of Brave Sir Dennis. Remember now that Dennis immediately got behind Obama and is first and foremost a Democrat hack and a true believer in American Exceptionalism.

Having said all of that I read Kook's pandering rationalization, as it was posted at Common Dreams yesterday, and was pretty gape jawed at how poorly it came off. It's the sort of thing that in real life goes on too long and sounds as if the speaker stopped believing himself halfway through. The just response at that point would be a cavalcade of tomatoes which would force the speaker off the stage.

Here's my initial response when I read Kucinich's whining self-idulgence yesterday:

Feelings, wo-o-o feelings,
wo-o-o, feelings again in my arms.
Feelings...(repeat & fade)

My how tolerant of tyranny we've become.

This isn't so complicated. The emperor fattened the purses of the owners through officially recognized byzantine procedures. The faux rebel saw the writing on the wall and rather than spar further with the Emperor he chose the path of boot licking. He saved himself.

And why?

I would point to this quote from Upton Sinclair:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

And what about the children here who continue to bleat, asking others for solutions and audaciously claim they are the ones being "practical?"

Maybe the bottom line is whether or not we all seek the same depth of changes in our society. There is no doubt that whether under the control of Democrats or the Republicans, the number one beneficiary of political decisions, be they foreign policy or domestic, will be large industries/the extremely wealthy - that is, the general protection of the status quo, and the continuation of a capital-before-people mentality, the right of the US to impose its will on sovereign nations for the benefit of its corporations.

If people are comfortable with this reality, if a slightly higher minimum wage and a slightly friendlier attitude toward minorities or some minor (and generally unenforced) efforts toward reducing environmental damage, if changes on that level are good enough, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. But if people are seeking significant change, if they want to see the current military occupations end, the power of the military-industrial complex diminish or disappear, and the rights of working people protected, health care for everyone, fair elections based on platforms rather than personalities, or other changes of that magnitude, then an honest analysis of the Dems' desire/ability to make those changes must be undertaken. And by all analyses I don't see these changes coming through them, ever.

I wish it was a matter of pressuring them, writing letters, lobbying their offices, supporting certain candidates. But it has been shown time and time again that these measures don't work. And this is the question I still don't seem to have a clear answer for - what evidence is there (in this time of high-paid and high-powered corporate lobbyists, manipulated elections, pro-corporate media, etc) that the citizens of this country have any real influence over the politicians in Washington, or even that elections actually represent the will of the American people? If placating legislation here and there is good enough for you probably quickly forget that when it comes to the big national issues - war, health care, oil dependency, environment, there is little more than rhetoric and half-measures. It's the whole thing about doing the same things over and over and expecting different results....The main arguments I have seen for continuing to focus on the Dems as a force for real change are based on faith, not fact.

As an aside, I have been doing a fair amount of reading about social uprisings, revolts, and revolutions lately. There is one thing I know for sure - people successfully demanding social change is NOT some impossible dream. It has happened throughout history, all over the globe. It is common, it is necessary, and, as far as I am concerned IT IS TIME.

Scattered along the ground

2010-01-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

It seems there are bits and pieces scattered all over the place that keep folks incessantly busy bending over picking up these little bits, but the folk aren't taking the time to look over their shoulder to see who's scattering the pieces all around and the folk are not quite able to keep pace with the giant who keeps scattering those pieces about...when looking up and seeing the giant and smashing his hand, which holds the scattered pieces, would be the logical solution.

JFK assassination

Restoring Democracy

Return to The Constitution

Going Green

Regulating Capitalism

Hope

9/11 Trials

The Reagan Legacy

Abolishing the CIA

BFEE

A new New Deal

...

Scattered pieces that keep the folk blindly occupied and forever looking down.

It's not so hard to look up. Take a look. Smash that hand. No more scattered pieces.

What's a "progressive" anyway?

2009-12-04T18:32:00.000-08:00

"Progressive"- It's just another weasel word.

"Progressive" is merely a term that was salvaged from the scrapheap of history, sorry but that's too great a metaphor not to steal, by the alleged "left" in this country because the Limbaughs,Kristols,et al had so demonized the word "liberal." That's basically it, plain and simple. The problem is, that in spite of the fact they were led by one of the biggest imperialists and warmongers, the original Progressives,were a bunch of Bolsheviks, compared to the hegemonic capitalists who wrap themselves in the "progressive" mantle today.

While some of us here know that modern-day liberalism was founded to be a capitalist-friendly "third way" between socialism,and conservatism, most people do not. If they did and truly understood this history they would not waste all of their time and effort into trying to make "liberals", and The Democratic Party in particular, into the socialists they might want them to be.

A "progressive" is someone who cannot admit to the systemic failure of the society. Through this stubborn blindness, they reveal their own fundamental loyalty to the social system as a whole. The solution to the "anti-democratic" turn in American politics is not to question its foundations but to proscribe "more democracy" or "real democracy", without evaluating for a minute whether the ""turn" is really an aberration. In economics, a "progressive" is one who blames an excess of greed, a deficiency of regulation, or the corruption of the state rather than the normal operation of capitalism. In this way, "progressives" are identical to Libertarians who, in the face of insurmountable evidence, continue to insist that it is "too little" and not too much "free enterprise" which is the problem.

We need a capitalism based on good intentions says the one, based on a strengthening of the "individual" claims the next, and one purged of racial corruption declares the last. Fixing capitalism is the highest and in fact the only slogan of all of the above, and this in the most trivial and unhistorical way possible. Those are the last and the only words of this brand of "radical" criticism which is actually a radical support for the society as it exists... if only that society could be "allowed" to achieve its "true" nature.

All too often "progressive" has come to mean someone who will offer unconditional support to The Democratic Party no matter what.

A progressive is someone who believes in the system.

Progressives and liberals are as ready as conservatives to support government interventions in our lives and on the world stage. The country in question may be Sudan, Afghanistan or perhaps Iran. The clarion call is the same. "We must do something” because “we” are superior, all knowing, and chosen by a divine force to make the world in whatever image we choose.

No one asks how “we” is defined, or if the presence of the United States is needed or wanted. No one asks about the history of past interventions and their usually negative outcomes. It is assumed that Americans are good and know what is best for the world, despite a long history of numerous brutalities carried out across the globe.

Do the Obama supporters have responsibilities?

2009-02-19T18:14:00.000-08:00

You know I'm wondering about this.

In only a month we've seen that Obama is going to continue with the Imperial juggernaut unfettered by any pesky constituents who dreamt otherwise.

In only a month we've seen Obama will gladly hand over taxpayer dollar to the proven grand bandits of Wall St. and will do so in amounts that would leave even the Bush gang green with envy.

In only a month we've seen that the much rumored Changling has surrounded himself with a cesspool of reactionary troglodytes, the very same pariahs that have been swirling around DC for decades.

So I wonder, as we bear witness to the entire charade what are the responsibilities of those who approached their guy with nothing less than religious fervor.

Do these people not have any responsibility to hold their man's "feet to the fire?"

Do they not bear any responsibility for the criminal acts they have enabled with their tacit or vocal support for this guy?

So do they just get to walk away from the voting booth and now just lament that their guy has been "a disappointment so far" and not bear any responsibility for his policies, policies which many of us have described in detail long before they even became policies?

Is their any responsibility for every child who is bombed by US planes in Afghanistan?

Is their any responsibility for the Obama supported continuation of the corporate takeover of the world and for this unending financial disaster?

What about for wiretapping and rendition (both of which Obama supports)?

Are you willing to stand behind Obama as he commits crime after crime?

I need to know.

How to Celebrate Your Oppression Through a Presidential Inauguration.

2009-01-20T21:43:00.000-08:00

Such breathtaking analysis on Lincoln's bible, was it his, which version of the bible is it yada, yada, yada.

Anyone who naysays The Prince of Hope is a "beyond the pale cynic" who only wants to harsh the buzz of the American moment.

What color is Michele's dress? Mustard?

So beautiful "comity" between the aisles.

Joe Biden chatting away. Does that even need to be discussed? Twitter, twitter, twitter.

Everyone's here but the star of the show, Barack H. Obama.

Baritone voice: "Ladies and Gentlemen."

Heraldic trumpets in the background.

"My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty...and so on..."

"Great stuff" coming soon to the American political theatre.

Warmed over American Exceptionalism.

Whitewashing of history.

Veiled threats to those who don't get on board.

America as 'can-do' Nation and pretty darn special in fact the mostest specialist ever, in God's eyes.

The Market, The Market, The Market.

___________

I'm pretty sure you could write a simple computer program to create an Obama speech.

"The challenges before us are great. The obstacles we face are daunting. We must stand determined. The road ahead is long and hard.

But together we will rise to a New Day. Through the strength of our principles and courage of our convictions..blah blah blah"

Industrial strength pablum is what it is..gotta be a vat of it in some factory in New Jersey or something..takes a lot more than Maalox to choke this crap down.

Palestinian Loss Of Land 1946-2000

2008-12-30T11:04:00.000-08:00

Click on image for entire photo.

Shock, Awe and Lies: The Truth Behind the Israeli Attack on Gaza

2008-12-30T10:55:00.000-08:00

From Chris Floyd:

Here is a simple, stone cold fact. You cannot read or hear the truth about what is happening in Gaza from any corporate media in the United States. The only thing you will find there are regurgitations of Israeli spin, which are themselves only regurgitations of the kind of spin that American militarists have put on their own depredations -- for centuries now. Up and down the American media and political establishments, you will find nothing but bleatings about Israel being "forced" to launch its vicious blunderbuss attacks against heavily populated Gaza because of the "recent spate of Hamas bombings" since the end of a six-month ceasefire.

This is of course a damnable and deliberate lie. Papers in Israel -- in Israel, but not the United States -- are reporting the truth: the murderous assault on Gaza was planned not only before the six-month ceasefire ended -- it was planned before the cease-fire even took effect. Indeed, the cease-fire was part of the military plan to decimate the civilian areas of Gaza; it was a hoax, a scam, a deliberate feint to buy time for military preparations -- precisely the same strategy followed by the Bush Regime (and its bipartisan Establishment supporters) in "going to the UN" to seek a "peaceful solution" to the "Iraqi crisis" -- when the invasion was already in the works.

Haaretz reports on the Israel's deceit in the latest outrage, in the aptly titled piece, "Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about":

Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning. he disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well..

The story also notes that the recent racheting of tension was sparked, deliberately, by a heavy-handed Israeli incursion into Gaza:

The plan of action that was implemented in Operation Cast Lead remained only a blueprint until a month ago, when tensions soared after the IDF carried out an incursion into Gaza during the ceasefire to take out a tunnel which the army said was intended to facilitate an attack by Palestinian militants on IDF troops....

While Barak was working out the final details with the officers responsible for the operation, Livni went to Cairo to inform Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, that Israel had decided to strike at Hamas. In parallel, Israel continued to send out disinformation in announcing it would open the crossings to the Gaza Strip and that Olmert would decide whether to launch the strike following three more deliberations on Sunday - one day after the actual order to launch the operation was issued.

"Hamas evacuated all its headquarter personnel after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday," one defense official said, "but the organization sent its people back in when they heard that everything was put on hold until Sunday."

Not only did this deception lead Hamas to send its officials back to work -- it also meant that there was no general warning to the masses of civilians packed like sardines into Gaza's hellish confines. It meant that civilian casualties would be maximized -- especially when the initial assault was launched in the middle of the day, with thousands of schoolchildren out at their lesson.

As Glenn Greenwald notes, Israel's massive bombing of civilian areas -- even if couched in terms of "retaliation" for scattershot strikes on Israeli territory by a political faction -- constitutes "a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions." Greenwald also adroitly turns Barack Obama's campaign kowtowing to Israeli militarism on its head:

[Obama on the campaign trail]: "The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if -- I don't even care if I was a politician -- if somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Can't the exact same mentality be deployed to justify everything Hamas has done and is doing, to wit: "if a foreign power were brutally occupying my country for four decades -- or blockading my country and denying my children medical needs and nutrition and the ability even to exit -- I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Palestinians to do the same thing"? But the last thing that our political class ever extends is reciprocal, two-sided analysis to this dispute.

What is the ultimate context of this carnage? The fact that the Arab inhabitants of Palestine had their land taken away from them by force -- not in some ancient, historic era, but within the lifetime of many thousands of Palestinians still living. I hold no brief for Hamas; like the Angry Arab, whose coverage of the conflict has been relentless and penetrating, I don't care for any party based on religious extremism. But as Greenwald notes, every action taken by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups could be characterized as "retaliation" for the theft of their land, not to mention the war crime of collective punishment and genocidal blockades visited upon the Occupied Territories for years.

But there is not a single peep of this perspective from America's ruling class and its media courtiers. Of course, it is a bit much to expect a nation which itself was built on land theft, repression and slaughter to see anything wrong or "disproportionate" in Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. What else are you supposed to do when those dang heathen savages come around with their war parties and tomahawks, trying to get back the land that God Almighty has granted to good white folk?

Meanwhile, here's what Israel's "Manifest Destiny" looks like on the ground in Gaza. From the Maan News Agency (via the Angry Arab, as was the photo above):

Death shrouds the hallways of Gaza City's Ash-Shifa medical compound Saturday, its smell creeping in from all corners. mputated bodies are strewn throughout hallways because morgues in the city can no longer accommodate the dead. In one corner a man stands with his seven year old son in a cardboard box because the hospital ran out of sheets to cover the dead with. This is how he will carry him home and bury him. Another man stands dazed, in shock after watching his son Mohammed killed during his graduation ceremony at the de facto police headquarters. The father of one of Mohammed's classmates stood next to his son as he was decapitated. The man is still screaming.

In the packed hospital waiting room a mother sits silently staring into the distance; her son was pronounced dead shortly after she brought him in... Forty-year-old mother Nawal Al-Lad'a did not find the bodies of her two sons in the medical compound, so she left to look amid the rubble.

Husam Farajallah, a university student, was at the hospital collecting the body of his relative. He called what happened in Gaza a "black day" in the lives of all Palestinians, and wondered how the world could watch and do nothing.

Medics in Gaza confirmed that the majority of those killed in the day's attacks were civilians, including men, women and children. Most were cut to pieces, making the job of doctors and medics difficult, and the task of giving bodies back to families painful and gruesome. The medics working in the field continue to dig up bodies from the densely populated urban areas of Gaza City.

The scenes remind many Palestinians of the images that came out of the Sabra and Shatila massacres from Beirut in 1982, when thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Lebanese Phalangist militia.

As the death toll climbs and no word on a halt to the attacks has come from Israel, Gazans fear for their lives and loved ones.

LINK

Wait and see...?

2008-11-26T10:22:00.000-08:00

Pretty much everything related to corporate control of the regulatory and trade policies of the U.S. government... ?

Secretary of Defense?

Secretary of Interior?

Secretary of Energy? Home of "clean coal" propaganda efforts and nuclear weapons contracting. Gives lip service to "clean energy" by which they mean nuclear and coal.

Secretary of Agriculture? Works closely with trade and commerce to open foreign markets in Asia and Africa and Central America to U.S. exports.

Here are the rest. You'll get a much better idea of what Obama's policies will really be by looking at his choice of appointments to these posts, then you will by listening to any speech:

Secretary of Commerce.

Chairman of Federal Reserve.

Secretary of Housing and Human Development

Secretary of Homeland Security

Secretary of Health and Human Services (FDA)

EPA Administrator

Secretary of Labor

Secretary of Education

Secretary of Veteran's Affairs

National Intelligence Director

US Trade Representative

Director of National Drug Policy

Office of Management and Budget

For example, this was a record year for U.S. overseas weapons sales. Will that continue under an Obama Administration? Will our foreign policy continue to rotate around efforts to gain access to oil reserves? Will we see more undemocratic trade agreements like NAFTA? Will Obama pursue a NAFTA with Colombia, say? Will the FDA head be an ex-pharmaceutical CEO?

Nobody knows much about any of this, because our godawful media didn't cover the core issues very well during this election. Everyone knows about Bill Ayers, but no one has any idea who Obama will pick as Secretary of Energy. If he picks a corporate insider linked to the fossil fuel or nuclear industry, then that will mean one thing. If he doesn't - say he picks the head of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory instead - then that will mean something else.

Wait and see... ?

THE RELEVANCE OF "THE VOTE" IN THE EMPIRE

2008-10-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here comes the common refrain:

"If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about the outcome."

The opposite is true. By playing the game, voters agree to the rules. Only those who don’t play and withhold their consent have a right to complain about the outcome, especially since the winner will have his hand in the non-voter’s pocket.

Voting is not an act of political freedom. It is an act of political conformity. Those who refuse to vote are not expressing silence. They are screaming in the politician’s ear: "You do not represent me. This is not a process in which my voice matters. I do not believe you."

Non-voting has a rich and long history through which the dissenting electorate has expressed everything from religious convictions to political cynicism.

Who makes the decisions in our society?

Who writes public policy?

Years of social engineering has caused people to be deluded on this matter.

The White House and Congress don’t really make the decisions, Wall Street and the Pentagon do.

Who wins the election makes no difference because all politicians must do what the elite want. Elections are a scam whose function is to neutralize resistance movements and dupe ordinary citizens into thinking they have a say in matters of the state.

Elections do not secure popular control over the state, they do help secure state control over the populace. Voting is a ritual that reinforces obedience to state authority. It creates the illusion that “the people” control the state, thereby masking elite rule. That illusion makes rebellion against the state less likely because it is seen as a legitimate institution and as an instrument of popular rule rather than the oligarchy it really is. This is why even totalitarian states like Russia under Stalin had elections. Embedded within all electoral campaigns is the myth that “the people” control the state through voting.

There's far more potential in 80% of the political drones staying home or burning tires in the street on election night but neither of these things will happen here in Never-Never Land. Instead the usual 50% will show up to keep the facade in place and validate the system that beats on their heads every day. Then the folk can swell with a moment of civic pride and think that "Democracy", if imperfect, has once again triumphed. "Well at least we got the vote"- and other such dripping bathos will resonate through the corridors of America.

We have no say, or very little, in what even gets voted on be it issue or candidate let alone considering if the vote gets counted.

But as long as the vote charade goes on the appearance of "having a say" remains intact. And you must admit this is part of the genius of the system. It really does give you a few minor openings and the appearance that you are playing the game. LTTE's, three minutes at city council, online petitions and call in radio and hey, "Let's call it Democracy! Let's vote!"

“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.” - Emma Goldman

No matter who is nominated & elected, the policy will be endless war & military spending, further upward transfers of wealth, with the corporate elite controlling news coverage & essentially writing all legislation.

But this policy can be cloaked under 2 different costumes. If a Democrat is elected, as seems likely, the foregoing will take place with more smiles, and more pseudo-liberal rationales. Obama will claim to be introducing "health care for the people," or "protecting the environment," or some such BS. The militarism will be presented in milder tones, emphasizing themes like "stabilization" rather than "killing our enemies."

On the other hand, if the president is McCain, there will be no smiley face. There will be more in-your-face militarism, with overtly blood-thirsty rhetoric. There will be more blatant pandering to the Religious Right.

That's the only "choice" the system will permit.

What do I want to see changed in the political landscape? Well, on a daydream basis, I'd like to see the US government overthrown by the people of the United States, with the society reorganized to function on a socialist basis. I'd like to see all the war criminals & war profiteers put behind bars for life, with all their personal assets confiscated. The Supreme Court should be replaced, being an illegitmate body that has egregiously betrayed its mission. The corporate media should be replaced, reorganized from the ground up. Many large businesses should be nationalized, starting with the oil companies & Wall St. The military should be downsized by about 90%, with virtually all overseas bases dismantled. The CIA should be abolished. That would be on the first day. Give me a few minutes to think about the second day.

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch"

What we have is the continuation of a duopoly in which the differences between the two sides of the duopoly are far less important than their similarities. There is a largely successful establishment effort to control the political process so that the range of options is severely limited. We have the outward semblance of democracy without the reality of it.

For example, studies show that a large majority of Americans, including majorities who identify with each major party, believe our national priorities are screwed up and we shouldn't be spending most of our resources on the military. But the Presidential candidates of both major parties, and probably at least 95% of the Congressional candidates, support the screwed up priorities. Obama and McCain have virtually identical positions calling for greater increases in the military budget and an increase in the active duty forces.

And despite rhetoric making it sound as if their positions are very different, when you look closely at the real positions of the candidates, there's very little difference on Iraq either. And both have consistently supported Bush's requests for funding the war.

AFAIK, in his entire political career, Obama has never once taken a position for anything that could be called meaningful change. And he's been backtracking on previous positions for even marginal change.

The establishment relies for their continued power on the people assuming you have to choose between the duopoly candidates. This guarantees that the establishment wins and the people lose.

We must stop trying to figure a lesser evil, and take a position of not voting for evil. We should be measuring them against our understanding of what this country needs, not against what another wing of the establishment is presenting.

Any vote, no matter who you vote for, is a vote in favor of the status quo. When you vote you are saying you support a system whose deck is stacked in favor of the criminals. The only way we will ever have real change is if everyone stops supporting that system en masse.

Making a conscious decision to not vote is not apathetic, nor does it mean you do not care, it is a political statement in and of itself that says very clearly that you do not support the system as it is and you will not take part in it accordingly. More people need to consider making that statement instead of going to the polls every 2 years and voting for criminal thug A or criminal scumbag B, Tweedledee or Tweedledum. You might argue that voting for choice C, in this case perhaps someone like Ralph Nader, can make a difference, but sadly it will not, you must face the reality of this and come to terms with it. Even a vote for Ralph Nader is a vote in favor of the current system in which is the deck is clearly stacked in favor of the enemies of this nation by way of Diebold Incorporated.

Bad "leaders" or bad system?

Better to place this action in an institutional context. The forces placed on the elected person by the state machinery and pressures from big business dictate the outcome. Your vote is meaningless. You can argue all you want that "We need to keep up the pressure to demand Politician______ needs to listen to ordinary citizens, not to business" and you will rot on the vine as your words disappear into the indifferent air.

There is a difference between the state and government. The state is the permanent collection of institutions that have entrenched power structures and interests. The government is made up of various politicians. It is the institutions that have power in the state due to their permanence, not the representatives who come and go. We cannot expect different politicians to act in different ways to the same pressures. However, this is all ignored by the voting political consumer who wishes Politician______ was more a socialist, green, populist etc. and could ignore the demands of the dominant class in society while in charge of one part of its protector and creature, the state.

Is Voting an Act of Violence?

Now what connection is there between electoral voting and those who act violently in the name of the State? Why does the State want large numbers of people to participate in electoral voting? There are two primary reasons for this. First, those who act in the name of the State can use the fact that many people vote as evidence that they are acting in the name of "the people." Widespread voting is cited as evidence of "consent." State agents, such as legislators, presidents, and judges need an aura of legitimacy if their actions are to be viewed as right and proper by a large majority of the population. Second, governments - especially democratic ones - have discovered that as the proportion of the citizenry which holds the government in esteem increases, the less force the government requires to keep the balance of the population (those who view the government as illegitimate) under control. In other words, the more legitimacy that a government attains the less it needs to exercise outright violence against it opponents. A government which continually had to resort to violence to achieve its ends would soon be seen for exactly what it was: a criminal gang.

So, given that a successful State requires legitimacy and that one of the easiest ways to achieve legitimacy is through widespread voter participation, what is the responsibility of the voters for the actions of its government?

Voting in the United States isn't about "democracy"—it's about perpetuating the illusion of democracy.

I am told I should vote Democrat, simply to get rid of the Republicans. Or I should vote for whatever candidate is opposing the incumbent, simply to throw the bums out. All of this, of course, is simply a well-oiled shell game, for as the historian Carroll Quigley wrote, there is no difference between the parties, they are essentially cut from the same cloth. According to the elite who run things behind the scenes, “the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy… It should be possible, to replace one party with the other party which will pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policy.”

"What is the ballot? It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the billy, and the bullet. It is a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable. The voice of the majority saves bloodshed, but it is no less the arbitrament of force than is the decree of the most absolute of despots backed by the most powerful of armies."

~ Benjamin R. Tucker

We need to remind ourselves of Albert Einstein’s admonition: “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Trying to reform the political process makes no more sense than trying to reform the carnivorous appetites of jungle beasts. If it is your desire to put an end to the violent, destructive, corrupt, and dysfunctional nature of government, stop wasting your time by focusing on the current management of the system.

As physicians have learned from the study of the body , a disease often indicates, not a permanent deterioration, but an attempt to restore an equilibrium that has been disturbed, and to recover natural functions that have been thwarted or suppressed. Without some overt manifestation of pathological symptoms, permanent damages might result before the disease could be detected and adequate measures taken to overcome it.

The voting ritual serves to disguise the symptoms. The patient is gasping for air. A face lift won't help.

Now consider two "what if" scenarios:

1) 90% of the people refused to vote. I think there is great potential in that. Tremendous acknowledgment that the machine is broken and a refusal to play in a rigged contest. Opportunity for galvanizing folks I'd say.

2) The controllers pulled the curtain back and said "Hey folks you knew this was a game anyways didn't you, no more voting." Report to work as you normally would and shut up. No more pretense.

As in every election we’re now being bombarded with propaganda about how “your vote makes a difference” and associated nonsense. According to the official version ordinary citizens control the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians are supposedly servants of “the people” and the government an instrument of the general populace. This version is a myth. It does not matter who is elected because the way the system is set up all elected representatives must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want, not what “the people” want. Elected representatives are figureheads. Politicians’ rhetoric may change depending on who is elected, but they all have to implement the same policies given the same situation. Elections are a scam whose function is to create the illusion that “the people” control the government, not the elite, and to neutralize resistance movements. All voting does is strengthen the state & ruling class, it is not an effective means to change government policy.

By regarding society from a class perspective, one can see through the machinations of the rich. Marx explained that "in any epoch, the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas..." The ruling class insists on control. Hence it demands unchallenged domination of the political system. It acts to mold all social institutions -- including schools, media, & political parties -- to serve its own interests. Any group that might oppose it (such as militant labor unions, leftist intellectuals, antiwar types, consumer & environmental advocates, etc) it tries to marginalize, coopt or destroy.

The political system that best serves the interests of the rich is the one that A) obediently does their bidding, while B) posing theatrically as a "democracy," in a convincing enough way so that most people don't catch on that they're simply being played. Objective "B" serves to greatly reduce resistance.

The illusion of "choice" and "free elections" is very important to the ruling class. They recognize that this pretty illusion makes their job much easier, so they want to preserve it. The rituals of campaigns & elections function to con most of the population into believing that "they're free." Most people will never clearly recognize that the choice they're being offered is a highly contrived one. They're being forced to choose between 2 parties which are united against them, rigged to serve the interests of their oppressors.

In today's US, especially at the national level, elections are worse than worthless -- they simply perpetuate illusions & waste time. They are degrading & repulsive exercises in Madison Avenue PR techniques, where "the truth" is off limits from the get-go. Effort should be directed not at participating in this system, but at bringing it down, exposing its corrupt essence, & building genuinely constructive alternatives.

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART SIX

2008-08-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

ABOUT THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS

a. there is a lexicon that stratifies everyone politically
b. there are people wholly versed in said lexicon
c. there are (presumably, likely) elaborate tracts and justifications for each strata
d. one should know precisely where one fits on this topological map
e. if you find the whole thing mysterious you are probably in over your head
f. those who "get it" should probably be deferred to since they get it and you don't
g. rhetorical skills are the method of conveying that you grok all of the above
h. anyone incapable of articulating -- at great length -- exactly where they stand in relation to all of the above points is probably a lightweight
i. ad infinitum

CONCLUSION: Let the smart people who drafted the above About Us page do the thinking and planning and talking..they are way more involved and adept than I could ever be.

Liberalism is tied closely to avoidance of political ideas and quickly distracts us towards personal idiosyncrasies ("Choices", "Lifestyles" etc.) in order to avoid substantive challenges to it's vapid discourse.

The trouble all started way, way back, we are to believe, and the solution is psychoanalysis, "being the change we wish to see" and "taking a different spiritual stance" and making "better personal choices." Those are the only solutions – personal, mystical, spiritual, within the unexamined context of consumerist corporate capitalism.

This thinking is highly Eurocentric and arrogant, although in the usual kindly paternalistic liberal fashion. As with so much of modern liberal thinking, collective action is not considered, and personal development is seen as the path to social change. Capitalism is not even mentioned, nor is class warfare. As with much liberal thinking, "we" are seen as quite different and special when compared to "them," although we are not feeling the appropriate guilt for what we have done to those poor inferiors of ours, though we are now wondering as we muse in our parlors if perhaps they did not know something that we have lost.

B'wana in the jungle. The great fucking white hope.

What to DO about the Hottentots?

I think that the biggest part of the challenge is the difficulty we have seeing the social context we are living in. You have to know where you are before you can discuss where to go. You need to accurately identify what is wrong before you start proposing solutions.

I remember watching a show about Indymedia on Free Speech TV. Hundreds of poor young uneducated people were talking passionately, intelligently, and seriously about culture and politics. What a contrast to what we have here. I realized that it is not so much a matter of the wrong discussions happening here in the states, or the wrong politics winning, it is that there are virtually no serious intelligent discussions going on here. It is not a matter of how to promote the Left, or how to configure the Left, rather that there is no Left - there is really no serious politics of any kind at all happening here. I noticed that in Sicko, too. Something is really fucked up here, and it isn't being talked about. The social context is really odd and different than elsewhere and else when. People are seriously traumatized here. Something is really fucked up with everyday modern society here. Almost everyone knows that, that is why they are apathetic about politics, because politics does not scratch that itch, does not get to what is really wrong. That means that cracking open that subject is a powerful lever to move people, to get some momentum, some energy, some thinking, some passion back into people's lives.

We are trapped in a social, cultural and political nightmare. (10...9...8...7...)

It permeates everything.

You can see it in the faces and hear it in the voices of people, and see the stark contrast between the way that everyday Americans act and speak and the way people in Europe and South America act and speak. So long as we speak and act without examining that context, everything is perverted and corrupted.

People are not turned off to the politics of the Left because those politics are too radical, rather because the politics are not radical enough and because the politicians and activists ignore the context and take modern American society as the given - the base line, standard normal.

It is no accident, it isn't arbitrary or insignificant or unimportant the way that the discussions are arranged at the various so-called Liberal outlets.

It reflects a point of view, not so much about politics, but about the existing conditions.

"Modern American society is pretty much OK (although fundamental human nature needs a serious overhaul, and we are working on that) but we enlightened folks do need to fix a few things; like eliminate guns, get people to stop smoking, get rid of bad chemicals, get rid of cars and ride bikes, promote 'green' options, give consumers better choices, recycle, get legislation to allow same sex marriage, find and support tech solutions to problems, get corporations to be socially responsible" and on and on and on and on.

The problem with the liberal activists groups is not so much that they model their organizations on capitalist free market sales and marketing models - it is that they try to disguise that as something else.

So I say that either we don't disguise the fact that we are running the place on capitalist market principles - or we run the place as a worker's cooperative.

If we run the place as a worker's cooperative, there is no need to re-invent the wheel and no need for anyone to be "analyzed, psychoanalyzed, Rolfed, est-ed, altered, gelded, neutered, spayed, fixed, acupunctured, Zenned, Yogied, New Aged, astrocharted, computerized, megatrended, androgynized, evangelized, converted, or even, last and least, to be reborn" in order to participate.

Liberal, thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?

CODA

We are trained against solidarity our whole lives.

Maybe not in our families or certain personal influences, but on a societal/cultural level we are never taught that one person's suffering belongs to everyone, and that we are all responsible for alleviating anyone's suffering in our society.

Even further, we are taught that other struggling people are our competition, our enemy.

So we have a tendency to compartmentalize our political picture, as if all of these 'issues' are separate - war, immigrants' rights, environment, corporate welfare, unemployment, globalism, outsourcing, healthcare... But in reality, these are all part of the same overarching problem. The biggest fear of the ruling class is that all the people will figure that out and turn against their true enemy.

For any movement to become successful we need to learn how to overcome those obstacles, we need to learn why/how we are alienating potential allies.

I think it is all or nothing right now, and 'nothing' is winning...How do we harness the 'all'?

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART FIVE

2008-08-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

Liberals like to talk about changing people - sort of a hearts and minds program - and see that as a prerequisite to political success. People are to be converted - educated or whatever - to become like-minded people. The problem is that this conversion program is not political. Converting people to be more like liberals - in sentiment, preferences, likes and dislikes - is a big job, and a useless one, as well, politically. The idea there is that social problems are caused by individual people being bad - violent, bigoted, wasteful, stupid - and that social problems can be solved by converting individual people to be good, as”we” are - loving, kind, caring, peaceful.

Almost everyone in the general public has already heard it all, and things get worse, not better. Now what?

At the same time, you can't go an hour without hearing some apology for "success" usually accompanied by a "what can you do" shrug, or encouragement and admiration for any "clever" or "realistic" moves you have made...

This "success" mentality will tolerate no serious discussion of social or political problems. Let's say someone wants to talk about this or that happening in their life, whatever - his career, his life (which is all anyone ever wants to talk about) - and you want to talk about public transit. Not the personal "green" choice of riding a bike or public transit to work - that would be about the person's individual life again - but actually have an intelligent and serious conversation about public transportation for all the people.

Good luck, right?

People immediately get impatient - why would anyone want to talk about that?

If it was a special interest of yours, like a hobby, well then fine except "I am not really into that." It is OK to have hobbies, and people are free to ignore you because they are "not into that" as a hobby activity or interest.

People will ask "what good does it do for you to be interested in public transit?" They don't mean to question the social value of discussing that, they mean how does it advance you personally?

Are you planning a career in "the field?"

Are you an "expert?" Is it making you money, is it increasing your social status?

The pressure to socially conform is pressure to do two things - be clever, and be realistic. "Be realistic" means stop worrying about the problems in the world, you can't do anything about those anyway, and who are you to think you "have any answers," and worrying about other people or the community is taking time and energy away from looking after number one.

"Be realistic" means give up all of those ideas you may have about intellectual, creative or political pursuits. "Be clever" means make the right choices - feather your nest, don't take any risks, find the angles, get with the program.

This is not a situation of "oh well what can you do," it is not a "well people are just that way." It is caused by commercial interests being given higher priority at all times and in all things than is given to the creative, intellectual or the social.

It is not happening off there somewhere in policy decisions in Washington, it is an ongoing battle every minute of every day in everyone's life. Nor is it some deep dark flaw in human nature that we need to reform one person at a time.

Unlike liberal activism, which calls for a tremendous amount of time and energy in the hopes of reforming people's sinful (apathetic) nature, and that brings very small and useless results in return, confronting the commodification of our daily lives is much more productive - a small amount of effort can cause enormous effects because everyone is caught in this trap, and it is miserable and people want out of it. The more resistant people are to confronting this, the more in love with their own role and status in the system they are. It is a relatively small number of people, but they dominate the Democratic party and liberalism.

It has to do with some fucked-up middle class liberal-elite culture of fucked-up white people striving and succeeding and living a fucked-up so-called lifestyle and being complete assholes wasting all of our time and making everyone around them miserable.

It doesn't take years of study, or deep understanding, or special knowledge, or the right guru, or the right theories.

Just look around everyday, all day, everywhere you go. And it doesn't take baby steps, we aren't on the path to anything, we aren't getting there, we aren't improving and all of the rest of that drama.

It isn't difficult, it isn't hard to understand, it isn't arcane or esoteric. The hard, miserable work, the really difficult, soul-smashing thing to do, is to keep participating in this ongoing and omnipresent and insane discussion going on all the time by the upwardly mobile good people. It takes a huge amount of thought, time, and energy; it is immensely unpleasant and stressful, to play along and keep propping up an insane world view..... It only sounds weird, or difficult to fathom or grasp, because we are embedded in an ongoing insane set of social interactions.

Modern liberalism is occupying the space where the Left should be, confusing and misleading people, steering people away from accurate perceptions and clouding their minds, preventing them from asking the right questions because they think they already have the answers. That is dead wood that needs clearing. If we are willing to kick over the beehive of modern liberalism you will see the true face and the true nature of the ruling class war against the people with crystal clarity. As it is, we can't even see the enemy now. We are looking out the tent flap watching for the approach of those dreaded right wingers, and the enemy is behind us right in our own tent.

“For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART FOUR

2008-07-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

The ruling class doesn't fear any ideology, any alternative lifestyle choices, any theories. Elite clubs of intellectual snobs refining radical theories pose no threat to them, either. Intelligent people who have an inflated sense of their own self worth are very easy to buy off and neutralize.

Narcissistic Code Pink style antics and guerrilla theater are useful to the ruling class and are welcomed and encouraged by them. Speaking truth to power? You might as well throw marshmallows at a charging rhino. We need to speak truth about power to the powerless.

It is broad participation by the people in politics that the ruling class most fears and works hardest to prevent. That is why saying in essence to millions of people that "you aren't smart enough (or pure enough in the case of the New Agers) to join our elite club" is the kiss of death for any serious political movement that claims to be in any sort of opposition to the ruling class.

This is a chronic problem and blocks or cripples any attempts at mobilizing the working people. I believe that a relatively small group of people control all discussion and all power on what passes for the Left in this country, and that they would sooner surrender anything else - including selling all of us down the river - before they would let go of their sense of exceptionalism, superiority and entitlement.

"Liberal" has come to mean "a superior sort of individual," while "progressive" has come to mean "an individual traveling the path to enlightenment and transcending above their inferiors." No matter how many radical theories or what ideology or superior personal spiritual beliefs you set out as window dressing, the cult of the enhanced and actualized individual will always be contradictory to and destructive of efforts to build the working class solidarity that is essential to any serious political change.

Why are there so many arguments, so much bitter antagonism, such paralysis and confusion on much ballyhooed “Progressive-Liberal-Left”?

Because people fight for their positions as though their personal identity depended upon them, as though their existence depended upon their political position or theory. That is because their personal identity does depend upon their political positions. They are one and the same - "be the change you want to see." People actually mean "seek the change that suits who you are as an actualized individual" since it never involves self-sacrifice or focus on the needs of others, but always on individual personal choices and self-expression. In fact, their political positions are not political positions at all, but narcissistic expressions of their personalities.

Now I recognize that many people here define themselves as "independents" and therefore, may reject whatever came before... but it is still important to know what that was.

It is also true that "liberals" and "leftists" may find themselves allied on many issues or tactics and may well need each other under those circumstances.

Finally, it is true that "liberal" or "leftist" may refer to "political labels", applied by "the right", by others, or even by oneself, and have no particular relevance to the actual issues which divide "liberals" and "leftists".

Nonetheless... historically, liberals and leftists are not merely different points in a common spectrum but, in the end, they are implacable enemies. And the issue is precisely joined on the issue of class, as has been mentioned before but now seems to have disappeared from the general lexicon.

If the term "left" has any meaning other than a purely relative one, it is as that group of political ideas, parties, movements, and organizations which believes that politics is driven less by ideas than by interests and that those interests are based on economic class. Radical republicans (Civil War variety), revolutionary democrats, social democrats (including even a sizable chunk of the British Labor Party and the German SDs of today), socialists, utopian socialists, agrarian socialists, communists, anarchists, anarco-syndicalists, and nihilists - if these do not agree on anything else, they agree on the centrality of social classes even before they divide on what to do about them.

In contrast, "Liberals" explicitly reject the centrality of social classes. If such exist at all, they are assumed to be trumped by a common interest (national or otherwise) and any division is based only on transitory political opinion or policy. They are united with "Conservatives" in their agreement on the fundamental norms of society and on their long-term objectives (most importantly in the defense of private property and the projection of "national interest"). Indeed, for them, the current organization of society is the only one conceivable.

To the Liberals, the Left is a competitor for the same political constituency they claim to represent. The Left fosters "national division" and "class hatred" where moderation and "cooler heads" might otherwise prevail. They are often hand-cuffed by the "extreme demands" and "lack of reform mindedness" of the Left. If things come to a head, they can even justify arresting the Left... in the interest of "the greater good", of course (see Palmer, McCarthy, many more...).

The Left returns this attitude with interest... They regard the Liberals as the reform party of the ruling class. From this standpoint, the Liberals most assuredly need the Left. We are the monsters-beneath-the-bed that they invariably point to as a reason for the Conservatives to negotiate "reform"... "If you don't deal with us you may have to tackle the great unwashed". That is what "playing the class card" or "race card" means.

What exactly do we need the Liberals for? If there turns out to have been a misunderstanding of biblical prophesy and all Liberals are suddenly captured by the Rapture and disappear from the face of the earth how much worse off would we be? Would Rove suddenly be "turned loose" ‘cause Joe Biden was no longer there to protect us?
A little political haiku:

They ask:
"Why can't we just get along?"
We ask:
"Which side are you on?"

It is rare to find anything that is not dominated by capitalism, it is the rare person for whom the system is working, the rare industry that is not being ravaged and destroyed by corporate power, the rare neighborhood that is not being destroyed, it is rare to find a public resource of any kind that is not at risk.

The United States is being transformed into a banana republic. A class of people is starting to form, apologizing for and defending the oligarchy in exchange for a certain amount of privilege and comfort, and beating down the peasants or anyone who speaks for them. Educated, mostly white, "liberal," they have infiltrated all through the Democratic party and liberal organizations. It is remarkable to me to hear them, since they sound exactly like the upper class mouthpieces in Latin America have sounded all these years and use almost precisely the same arguments. They are singing a bittersweet, syrupy, seductive song - the sing song lullaby of the oligarchy.

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART THREE

2008-07-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

Is it a coincidence that liberalism has become dominated by the relatively well-off, and that simultaneously economics are no longer front and center for the Democratic party but are merely a minor side issue?

All of the liberal causes are important, once you already have a certain degree of economic freedom. None of the causes are very important to the rest of the population. This is the built in bias of the liberal community that leads to an inability to stand strong against the ruling class or to connect with the average person, and has now led to people who are supposed opponents to the right wing taking anti-immigration and pro-free trade and free market positions, and support the war on drugs and the war on terror. The Democratic party and liberal organizations have become the biggest supporters of the new aristocracy, while dominating all political discourse that is not overtly right wing and suppressing any true politics of opposition from emerging.

The rest of the people in the world suffer, in order to support the conditions that allow about 10% of our population to enjoy the luxury of living in the realm of political musing and theorizing. The lives and outlook of that 10% are seen as the standard, as the given, as the norm. It is not the norm even within any metropolitan area, unless you ignore minorities, ignore the elderly and infirm, ignore the working poor and single mothers, and ignore the millions of people working blue collar jobs.

All day long in the media, that 10% - white, upwardly mobile, educated, tolling around in new cars, climbing the corporate management ladder, buying expensive homes, having full access to health care, having access to excellent public education and municipal services, taking fun and exotic vacations, buying the latest gadgetry and trinkets - is presented as being representative of "us" - who we are as a people.

_____________________________________________

“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me. And yet assure myself and others, that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his burden by all possible means. Except, by getting off his back.”

- Leo Tolstoy

Those of us on the Left have heard for decades now sentiments such as "what will ever make you happy?" and "you are a purist" and "no one agrees with you" and "that may be what YOU want, but you need to be practical" and "OK if you reject them, who do YOU think would be the right person? What is YOUR choice then?" and "it is easy to criticize, but do you have any positive suggestions or do you just like to whine and complain?" and other similar statements.

"Not revolution, but evolution" people said when Clinton was elected, and we were harangued to see Clinton as some sort of wonderful new direction from the Reagan years. “We” got NAFTA.

"Now “weeeeeeeeee” have control of the House, and you have to be patient." Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. We don't have jack. Nothing. Ashes. A big sick cruel joke is what we have, and the joke is on us.

But “We” have "Dennis" - finally a man who "matches my personal spiritual values so that I can vote my conscience."

WTF??? Are we picking a guy for a high school prom date???

Have “We” fucking lost our minds??

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - second only to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee meeeeeeeeeeeee a candidate for meeeeeeeeeeeeee and IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.

I don't give a damned what any fucking liberal's personal little choice is, and I am sick of hearing about their latest knight in fucking shining armor. (e.g. Obama- The Audacity of Hype)

There are a number of implied assumptions behind this "not perfect enough for you" line of assault - and make no mistake, it is an assault, designed to silence people and terminate consideration and discussion. "Are you happy NOW??? Will you stop bothering us with your gloom and doom NOW???? Can we stop listening to you NOW????"

To say that the “latest-greatest” Obama (for example) is being rejected because he is not quite perfect is to imply that he is kinda sorta there, or “in the right direction” or presumed to be an ally. What is being pointed out here is not that Obama and The Dems fail some perfection test – an imaginary test that suggests that he/they are mostly OK but has a few flaws that only perfectionists would notice, and a test that the people being accused of using it are not using - but rather that these people are not at all, in any way, remotely, or vaguely aligned any of the working people and that the notion that they are aligned with us is all a carefully created and totally false illusion. What are presumed to be "flaws" – which a few of us are supposedly unwilling to overlook in our stubbornness and obtuseness – are actually accurate glimpses through the camouflage at the whole picture, not minor peripheral and insignificant flaws.

They aren't minor flaws in an otherwise perfect gem – they are indicators as to the true nature of this chunk of manure painted up to look like a gem so as to fool people. Looking through the holes in the fancy paint job at the interior of the object, and saying it is not a flawed diamond, it is a chunk of manure with a coat of paint hastily slopped on to make it look like a diamond is merely pointing out the hypocrisy and unreality of the liberal fetish.

On another level this assault is wrong-headed and destructive, and that is in the implied assumption that politics is a matter of personal taste - “well that is what YOU want but not very many people agree with you.” FUCK THAT. Politics is about the greatest good for the greatest number, not about “what I want.” The narcissistic belly button lint gazing is completely antithetical to working class solidarity, and is nothing more than an amusing little hobby for the pampered and spoiled and selfish latte' liberal.

Beyond the question of whether or not this particular person is perfect, I also reject the assumption that we are all looking for a person to begin with, and that looking for a person is the essence of politics.

Barack Obama is the enemy. Looking for a person is the problem, not the solution. Insulting, frustrating, and silencing the most perceptive among us is what is destroying the possibility of a strong Left emerging, and is the tawdry and amoral House Negro work that keeps the ruling class in place. THAT is the fucking problem, and that is a LONG way from the snide and demeaning accusations that critics of Obama and others are being a prissy little perfectionists, carping and fault finding for the sake of irritating people or being a party spoiler.

This “you are being a perfectionist” propaganda is infinitely more destructive to the Left than anything that ever comes from the right wingers, and is one of the most important bulwarks of ruling class power.

This is not nit-picking. It is not "being negative." It is not being a "purist."

This is the whole battle.

We have tried being polite, reasoning with people, documenting the truth, respecting and considering people's complaints that we are being too harsh, too radical, that we are making attacks, that we are alienating allies, that we are hurting "the cause."

None of that has worked.

The years slip by. Conditions grow worse and worse, The danger grows and grows. The ruling class gets stronger and stringer. Polite nicey-nice "can't we all get along children and play nice?" is bringing no positive returns and there is nothing to lose by speaking the truth as harshly as needs be to get the message across.

Maybe the bottom line is whether or not we all seek the same depth of changes in our society. There is no doubt in my mind that whether under the control of Democrats or the Republicans, the number one beneficiary of political decisions, be they foreign policy or domestic, will be large industries/the extremely wealthy - that is, the general protection of the status quo, and the continuation of a capital-before-people mentality, the right of the US to impose its will on nations for the benefit of its corporations.

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART TWO

2008-05-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LIBERAL AND A LEFTIST

I offer this a starting point.

A Leftist says that the fundamental organization of our society is intolerable because it leads directly to war, poverty, oppression, and environmental destruction. The Leftist argues that a new and different framework is necessary.

A Liberal says that the basic organization of our society is reasonably good, and should therefore be accepted, and that any efforts at further improving society should come from working within the already-established framework. IOW, the liberal wants slight modifications to what already exists, believing that its basic structure is reasonably sound.

Liberal- will blithely be assimilated.

Leftist- will likely be assassinated.

Liberal- possesses a quaint notion that one can reform hierarchical power structures.

Leftist- desires to completely unravel and eliminate the functions and forms of hierarchy.

Liberal- wishes to reform The Bank into The People's Credit Union.

Leftist- sees the need to turn the tables of the moneychangers and smash the marketplace.

Liberal- says "Living Wage".

Leftist- says "Solidarity".

Liberal- willingly shells out $4 for a glass of carrot juice.

Leftist- sees Root Vegetables as sustenance and metaphor.

Liberal- outside the coffee shop talks about the need for the Cappuccino Revolution but balks at acting out for fear this would endanger his/her daily cappuccino.

Leftist- reuses the same coffee filter, paper towels or odd socks when all other options have been exhausted in an attempt to squeeze one more cup from yesterday's grounds.

Liberal- wants to 'get out the vote'.

Leftist- recognizes voting as a nominal form of political activity meant to validate the Democratic State and convince the political consumer that they are a participant in governance.

Liberal- can often be seen mouthing the "education is the answer" mantra particularly in the rarified atmosphere of the Citadels of Expertise. Revels in being near theory or people 'doing theory' in the academy.

Leftist- sees education as social engineering and cultural imperialism. Education Academies seen as the proving grounds for the future ruling class.

Liberal- users of 'all natural' deodorant. The armpits are fresh particularly during commercial breaks.

Leftists- recognize deodorant as one of the essential pillars of Empire. Will often raise their armpits in tight quarters due to quixotic impulses.

Liberal- writes lengthy position papers on the plusses of developing more efficient killing machines (See Amory Lovins for more details).

Leftist- sees the Techno Warfare State as one of the great life destroying mechanisms in the history of Mankind and understands the relationship between war and oppression. The "Health of the State" being that which kills everything else.

Liberal- true believers in the New Economy and Seattle (the city) home of Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks.

Leftist- acknowledge a different Seattle (the Amerindian prophet)

Liberals- have recently been experiencing a population explosion which seems to have been caused by a grey form of technocratic inbreeding. Liberalism is now a major growth industry much like Cancer. Much of this exponential proliferation of this well-groomed disease seems to emanate directly from Academia.

Leftists- an endangered species. Said to be only 723 remaining in the contiguous 48 states of the United States of America. For years they have been scooped up and exiled to the Periphery. To date all efforts to exhume the spirit of Eugene Debs have fallen on deaf ears.

______________________________________________

Both liberals and socialists empathize with the suffering of society's weaker members, and are sensitive to "man's inhumanity to man." However, the liberal is basically at peace with the socioeconomic system that produces this suffering, while the socialist recognizes that the system itself is a core cause of the suffering.

A liberal might get upset by militarism, but happily invests in Martin Marietta Corp, and rejoices when it increases its dividend. Liberals are also often susceptible to nationalist propaganda appeals, & thus can easily be persuaded to support wars like the NATO war in Kosovo, simply because it was cleverly marketed as a "humanitarian intervention." A socialist would never fall for this sort of ploy.

A liberal might be properly horrified by pollution, waste, hyper commercialism, and many of the ills of modern society, but pays little conscious attention to the underlying issue of corporate power that allows such things to dominate our lives. A liberal will vote for Democrats, despite the obvious fact that these contemptible worms are nothing but bought servants of corporate monopolies or oligopolies. The liberal sleeps easily, figuring, "Well, at least the Dems are better than Bush!" as though this really implies some sort of resistance to rampant corporatism.

Basically, the liberal tut-tuts disapprovingly at some of the blatantly horrible end-effects of policies, politicians, and economic philosophies that, for the most part, he accepts. A socialist, on the other hand, is conscious of where the roots of these disasters lie....

INTERMISSION:

Now is a good time to cue up some Phil Ochs:

I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART ONE

2008-05-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

NOTES ON TIDY WHITE OPPRESSION AND SUNDRY PRETENDERS

There is much pretending throughout the progressive and liberal community.

Success and the good life, credentials and status, position and privilege must be protected, at least for people like "us." At the same time, this position and privilege is dependent upon playing a certain role. As Liberals we must pretend that we are not defending privilege and position and must pretend that we are for the downtrodden. We must pretend that privilege and position is all earned, and that anyone could have anything that we have. We must defend the system of dog-eat-dog competition without allowing that to be too obvious. So we pretend that introducing "fairness" rules and regimens into our personal life nullifies all of the things we do to attain and preserve the spot we have clawed our way to in society.

Sometimes this balancing act is fairly easy, since there are so many people willing to help us keep up the facade and since reality doesn't intrude into our "reality based" fantasy world, but once in a while something arises and calls our bluff.

When our bluff is called, there is no amount of time and energy we will spare in internecine warfare arguing fine points of what a liberal is, or what our position should be on each and every minute issue and sub-issue and variations on every issue. These arguments can never be resolved, because there is no basis of consensus.

Actually there is a consensus, but an important component of the consensus is that we never talk about it and we must pretend that it isn't there.

The consensus from which liberals and Democrats operate:

We are the better people. We are smarter, we are humane, we are more compassionate, we are better informed. We are better citizens, we are more cooperative and realistic. we are winners- not losers, and we deserve everything we get. We are spiritually superior. We are centered and balanced, calm and insightful. We are on the right side of history. We are building a better world.

The general public does not realize that we are the better people, and the ones who should be making the decisions. Of course the only logical reason for this public oversight is because- “Republicans are able to take advantage of the people's stupidity and ignorance and turn them against us.”

As Liberals we understand that most of the problems in the world are the result of stupid people running things. If “We the smart people” were in charge, all of the problems could be solved with science and technology and rational social planning.

Class analysis, and the struggles of working class people against tyranny have no place in modern society. They are obsolete and passé, and only something that we read about or see in movies. Romantic as those stories are, they are no substitute for hardheaded practical reality, whether we like it or not. This is a matter of being a mentally healthy, modern, well-adjusted adult in society. None of the lessons from history apply, because things are different now. Only strange maladjusted people are attracted to obsolete political ideas. They are all obviously losers, and are a great danger, almost as much of a danger as the Republicans are.

Since politics and economics in the traditional sense are dead, we embrace a new paradigm of self improvement and self-actualization. Anything that interferes with our focus on ourselves and our pursuit of creating ourselves as an actualized being is to be rejected. The way to achieve the perfect society is first to create a perfect self. Meanwhile, so long as the authorities do not interfere with our self-actualization, we must comply in all ways with that authority. This allows us perfect self-expression within perfect social conformity. Anyone who attacks our personal choices is the enemy, and anyone who attacks the social system based on personal choice is also the enemy.

As fully-realized liberal-progressives we understand that our enlightened self-interest is the ultimate engine of social progress.

Others, however, who do not share our values are not to be given personal choice, when and as we can prove that their personal choices are wrong, often with our righteous claims that their choice impacts us somehow. We support the police state and massive incarceration of people, so long as they are being harassed and imprisoned for the right reasons. Any variance from our idea as to how people should be is quite naturally the right reason, by definition.

We believe that we must “be the change we wish to see,” and the change we wish to see is more people like us: polite, talented, beautiful, intelligent, calm, successful, clever, enlightened.

So we merely need to be ourselves, focus on ourselves, and serve ourselves. Those who cannot or will not become like us need to back down and get out of the way.

We fully support aristocracy, capitalism, corporate domination, and consumerism, provided that they support our self-actualization and afford us the personal lifestyle choices we prefer.

When I was growing up, the term "liberal" fell somewhere into the spectrum between "moderate" and "opportunist liar" depending on whom you spoke to. It always carried with it an "establishment" veneer, however. People weren't "liberal"... political leaders and elected officials were.

Part of the reason was that it was clear that liberal politics was something different from the very real movements and forces in the society that were demanding something far greater. When the civil rights movement demanded racial equality, the liberals came up with affirmative action and measures against "racism". When the peace movement demanded an end to the war and "interventionism", the liberals advocated a merely “less adventurist" foreign policy. When there was an outcry against poverty in "the richest country in the world", the liberals proposed "job training programs" and food stamps. In a phrase, they not only served the ruling class by validating moderated reform but they also "de-classed" (some might say, "de-clawed") the demands that were being made by social-justice and antiwar movements.

Then came the backlash. While what the liberals legislated wasn't much, it was way over the top for the Right... and this Right was in no way the "populist" Right that we recognize today. This was the established Right... the so-called "Goldwater Republicans". And it came on with a tactic as American as apple pie: coalition politics.

Ask any 10th grade Civics class to list the 10 things that make America unique and you will get perhaps 20 discrete claims that together make up the American catechism. The Republicans figured out that you can build a political coalition out of "interest groups" which individually oppose ALL of them:

"Equality before the Law? ...We've always been against that!" (Nixon's Southern Strategy). "Purple Mountains Majesty? ... entire states are against that!" (Reagan's Western Strategy). "Freedom of the Press? ...that's what cooked our goose in Vietnam!". "Separation of Church and State? ...hell, there's a whole boatload of people against that!" "Nation of immigrants? ...almost everybody is against that!".... and so on.

We kept waiting for the Liberals to fight back... not for our sake but for their own. "This is downright silly! The REPUBLICANs running against the (afterthought -> add "big") GOVERNMENT for chrisakes... gimme a break. They were in on ALL of it!". Instead, not a peep...

At the very best, you got a speech at a political convention from a tired Cuomo or Kennedy... and even then in nostalgic rather than fightin' words: "Ah, for the heady days when we came up with the absolute minimum concessions that we possibly could, claimed credit for all of it and then promised a new 'social contract' that would last 1000 years..."

The Right was actually scared shitless for the entire journey. They were dug in deeper than Saddam. They would pop up to whisper a "new idea": "Affirmative Action is quotas, you know...", and then pop down to survive the inevitable firestorm that never came.

Finally came the Reagan "landslide" that "changed everything". The Republicans were claiming (wrongly, it turns out) that they had cracked the code for appealing to Democratic working class constituencies OVER THE HEADS of the Liberals... "we appeal to them as racists or 'taxpayers' or christians, you see..". A friend of mine, listening to this, said at the time, "The idiot liberals have just eliminated their own jobs...". Turned out to be true.

The demonization of the "liberals" inevitably came next... and the revision of history. "Liberals" were guilty of everything that they had, falsely, claimed credit for. THEY had lost the war in Vietnam (wholesale desertions, mutinies, fraggings, war crimes and general deterioration to the point where entire Army Divisions were "deactivated" , notwithstanding). THEY had committed the "real" war crimes by not being nice to the Army and returning veterans (3 million dead notwithstanding). THEY had lied to various constituencies when they had told them that "government" was a "solution" to their "problems".

And not a "liberal" to be found... anywhere...

But then, a miracle happened. The "liberals" started to come back, "from below" (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Bumper stickers, disgruntled "activists", ordinary people... claiming the label without knowing anything about the baggage... becoming "liberal" because that was the worst thing the Right could call them and, if that was the worst, then that was them. They adopted the terms "proud liberal", etc. in the same way that we were proud to be "commie pinkos" when we were kids… without the slightest idea of what that meant (I am much more accurately one, now).

I kept my mouth shut... It will not do to annotate the symbols of resistance at the very moment when they are being displayed.

The problem, of course, was that the "real" liberals had never gone away. They had merely been in rehab… waiting for the Republicans to commit suicide. And, they were emerging to reclaim their birthright...

I heard this on the floor of the house one day in the midst of a debate on a Republican sponsored resolution on a "windfall profits" tax on the oil companies: "Finally... finally... finally... after years of pleading and effort, we have gotten the Republican leadership to see the benefits of our approach... we have many more proposals that we hope will eventually win bipartisan support."

Congratulations, Congresswoman! You have certainly shown the wisdom of moderate proposals and thankless, persistent, debate no matter how many decades it may take (ignore that gun pointed at your opponents head). But, let me ask you…. If it is shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that oil company profits are not “excessive”, a “windfall”, or “evidence of price-gouging” (it is a relative thing, after all), what then? Does nothing happen? Do you patiently explain to us, “how our system works”. Do we freeze next winter? Or do we win an election for you in 2008 or 2012 so that you have the power to “really” do something… maybe “oil stamps”?

But, let me not sound bitter… At least the job market for “Liberals” seems finally to be booming again. There is so much work now to do… it has to be explained to the Right what the people “really” want and what they will settle for. It has to be explained to us what is “prudent”, what is “practical”, and what is in the “common interest”. It is time to reformulate “policy” so that it represents “all” the people. Hell, maybe we can even have the old language again:

Port Security …for the benefit of the working class.

Lobbying Reform …for the benefit of the working class.

Co-Payments …for the benefit of the working class.

Yup, the Liberals are back
…for the benefit of the working class.

Jen Buys A Prius!

2008-04-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

Is it a coincidence that liberalism has become dominated by the relatively well off, and that simultaneously economics are no longer front and center for the Democratic party but are merely a minor side issue?

All of the liberal causes are important, once you already have a certain degree of economic freedom. None of the causes are very important to the rest of the population. This is the built in bias of the liberal community that leads to an inability to stand strong against the ruling class or to connect with the average person, and has now led to people who are supposed opponents to the right wing taking anti-immigration and pro-free trade and free market positions, and support the war on drugs and the war on terror. The Democratic party and liberal organizations have become the biggest supporters of the new aristocracy, while dominating all political discourse that is not overtly right wing and suppressing any true politics of opposition from emerging.

The rest of the people in the world suffer, in order to support the conditions that allow about 10% of our population to enjoy the luxury of living in the realm of political musing and theorizing. The lives and outlook of that 10% are seen as the standard, as the given, as the norm. It is not the norm even within any metropolitan area, unless you ignore minorities, ignore the elderly and infirm, ignore the working poor and single mothers, and ignore the millions of people working blue collar jobs.

All day long in the media, that 10% - white, upwardly mobile, educated, tolling around in new cars, climbing the corporate management ladder, buying expensive homes, having full access to health care, having access to excellent public education and municipal services, taking fun and exotic vacations, buying the latest gadgetry and trinkets - is presented as being representative of "us" - who we are as a people.

A Story About A Leading Democratic Party Liberal: The Year 1917

2008-04-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

Most everyone has heard of the Palmer Raids which occurred immediately after WWI. They were directed specifically against immigrants, radicals, and union types and together made up one of the greatest wholesale suspensions of "the Rule of Law" in American history.

The raids started at the behest of the great liberal and Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who warned as early as 1915 of, "hyphenated Americans who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out."

As the labor movement, draft resistance, and opposition to the war deepened with U.S. entry into WWI, Wilson ordered Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer to "put a stop to it". Palmer, in turn, raised the little tyrant J. Edgar Hoover from obscurity to lead the effort. What follows is a short excerpt of a mostly reactionary Wikipedia write-up on the subject:

Palmer Raids

Pressure to take action intensified after anarchists, communists and other radical groups called on draft-age males to refuse conscription and/or registration for the army, and for troops already serving to desert the armed forces. President Wilson ordered Attorney General Palmer to take action...

...Attorney General Palmer requested and promptly received a massive supplementary increase in Congressional appropriations in order to put a stop to the violence. Palmer then ordered the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Investigation to prepare for what would become known as the Palmer Raids, with the aim of collecting evidence on violent radical groups and arresting those in violation of federal criminal codes.

In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover's division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding database. Using the database information, starting on November 7, 1919, BOI agents, together with local police, orchestrated a series of well-publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Palmer and his agents were accused of using various controversial methods of obtaining intelligence and collecting evidence on radicals, including harsh interrogation methods, informers, and wiretaps...

...In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 radicals of Russian origin, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (The Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the Industrial Workers of the World union. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 radicals were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported, under the provisions of the Anarchist Act. All in all, by January 1920, Palmer and Hoover had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals.

The public reaction to these raids was favorable, and, in fact, may have forestalled reactionary violence by the public in the form of vigilantes. A group of young men in Centralia, Washington, lynched Wesley Everest, an IWW member, from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the man "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes."

The related outrages were endless and extended well beyond the legal lynching of Sacco and Vanzetti. A Connecticut clothing salesmen was sentenced to sixth months in jail simply for saying Lenin was smart. The Washington Post noted with approval how in Chicago, a sailor shot another man merely for failing to rise during the national anthem. The stories are endless.

All this is pretty well known, but one question remains: Who was Alexander Mitchell Palmer?

The answer is that Palmer was a leading Democratic Party liberal, a leader of the Progressive wing of the party, a Quaker, and a pacifist. In 1917, he had turned down the offer of appointment as Secretary of War because of his pacifism. It was then that he was appointed attorney general. His nickname, "The Fighting Quaker", was "earned" for arresting people in the middle of the night. For his labors, Palmer almost became the Democratic nominee for President in 1920... only a hung convention because of a minor candidate prevented it.

Palmer himself justified his change of heart by commenting that "communism was eating its way into the homes of the American workman... "

In other words, "they hate our freedoms".

Palmer wrote:

In this brief review of the work which the Department of Justice has undertaken, to tear out the radical seeds that have entangled American ideas in their poisonous theories, I desire not merely to explain what the real menace of communism is, but also to tell how we have been compelled to clean up the country almost unaided by any virile legislation. Though I have not been embarrassed by political opposition, I have been materially delayed because the present sweeping processes of arrests and deportation of seditious aliens should have been vigorously pushed by Congress last spring. The failure of this is a matter of record in the Congressional files.

The anxiety of that period in our responsibility when Congress, ignoring the seriousness of these vast organizations that were plotting to overthrow the Government, failed to act, has passed. The time came when it was obviously hopeless to expect the hearty cooperation of Congress in the only way to stamp out these seditious societies in their open defiance of law by various forms of propaganda.

Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution of law and order a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the American workmen, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society.

Robbery, not war, is the ideal of communism. This has been demonstrated in Russia, Germany, and in America. As a foe, the anarchist is fearless of his own life, for his creed is a fanaticism that admits no respect of any other creed. Obviously it is the creed of any criminal mind, which reasons always from motives impossible to clean thought. Crime is the degenerate factor in society.

Upon these two basic certainties, first that the "Reds" were criminal aliens and secondly that the American Government must prevent crime, it was decided that there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national laws. An assassin may have brilliant intellectuality, he may be able to excuse his murder or robbery with fine oratory, but any theory which excuses crime is not wanted in America. This is no place for the criminal to flourish, nor will he do so so long as the rights of common citizenship can be exerted to prevent him.

OUR GOVERNMENT IN JEOPARDY

It has always been plain to me that when American citizens unite upon any national issue they are generally right, but it is sometimes difficult to make the issue clear to them. If the Department of Justice could succeed in attracting the attention of our optimistic citizens to the issue of internal revolution in this country, we felt sure there would be no revolution. The Government was in jeopardy; our private information of what was being done by the organization known as the Communist Party of America, with headquarters in Chicago, of what was being done by the Communist Internationale under their manifesto planned at Moscow last March by Trotzky, Lenin and others addressed "To the Proletariats of All Countries," of what strides the Communist Labor Party was making, removed all doubt. In this conclusion we did not ignore the definite standards of personal liberty, of free speech, which is the very temperament and heart of the people. The evidence was examined with the utmost care, with a personal leaning toward freedom of thought and word on all questions.

The whole mass of evidence, accumulated from all parts of the country, was scrupulously scanned, not merely for the written or spoken differences of viewpoint as to the Government of the United States, but, in spite of these things, to see if the hostile declarations might not be sincere in their announced motive to improve our social order. There was no hope of such a thing.

Radicals seek to take our property, therefore radicalism is the simple crime of theft. Freedom of "thought and word" extends only to those ideas which "improve our social order".

Liberals, Democrats, Progressives, Pacifists?

Those are the people who want to arrest us, aren't they?

Let any "leftist" of any persuasion who wants to engage in the 2008 elections explain why they think that "Al", or "Hil", or "Barack" or "John" are not capable of exactly the same transformation as is recorded above... and at precisely this moment in time, sitting on the three legged stool of "terrorism", "immigration", and craven opportunism.

Unwarranted Assumptions

2008-04-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

Example:

Unwarranted assumption: Bush/FEMA really WANTED to deliver water, food and emergency supplies to the Katrina victims.

You perhaps make this assumption because (a) it was their official and moral duty to do so, and (b) any sane human being would have tried their best to do so. But none of this means that Bush and FEMA actually set out to do things you think they should have done. The assumption is unwarranted, because you are extrapolating from yourself, and the general population of sane human beings, to Bush and his cronies.

The exact same assumptions are made left and right about Iraq: that Bush, in his heart of hearts, wanted to bring US-style democracy and freedom to Iraq, only he failed. That Bush wanted to keep the price of oil down to ensure the continuation of the American Way of Life(tm), only he failed. The facts suggest the precise reverse: that the chaos, the bloodshed, the skyrocketing oil prices are not unfortunate side-effects of a botched (but well-intentioned) job, but rather, that they have always been the goal. Until this simple point is well understood, there will be no effective opposition to what this administration has done, and no holding them to account.

Another example: the FISA law debacle and Bush's fight for telecom immunity. It is mistaken to argue that hey, Mr President, you don't really need this to fight terrorism effectively, since the FISA law already gives you all you need to eavesdrop now and get it OK'ed later. As if he didn't know that! As if Bush really, honestly, was just doing his best to "fight terrorism" effectively.

See the real purpose behind what Bush is doing, and you will see that he and his people have in fact been amazingly competent. Almost eight years, and they nearly ALWAYS get what they want, most often with a little help from the Democratic party.

Getting exactly what you want every time all the time is NOT incompetence.

Meanwhile Back At The Ranch

2008-03-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

"By the way, I would reach out to the first George Bush. You know, one of the things that I think George H.W. Bush doesn't get enough credit for was his foreign policy team and the way that he helped negotiate the end of the Cold War and prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us 20 billion dollars. That's all it cost. It was extremely successful. I think there were a lot of very wise people. So I want a bipartisan team that can help to provide me good advice and counsel when I'm president of the United States."

- Barack Obama on LARRY KING LIVE: March 20, 2008

There it is.

Obama lauding the way GHW Bush "prosecuted" the Iraq War. Incredible huh? Not really.

"Iraqi army massed on the Saudi border" when we had a treaty to protect the Saudis. Only, many years later, declassified satellite pics show nothing but endless miles of empty desert on the border. Saddam stopped in Kuwait and never for a minute threatened the Sauds.

In the war itself, the massed column of the defeated Iraqi army was retreating toward Bagdhad. We bombed and napalmed the essentially undefended column to charred wreckage. 100-200 thousand died on that road, apparently.

After the war we incited the Shiites to rebel, then looked the other way as Saddam ruthlessly reestablished "proceeded to victory" in the brief civil war.

If anyone doesn't like these examples, there are sufficient others to prosecute GHWB, if such things were ever done anymore.

Maybe Obama can keep Dick Cheney on board the bi-partisan team as Cheney was Sec. of Defense during those heady days of Desert Storm.

Oh wait and by the way Obama is praising a war criminal.

Can't wait to hear the rationalizations not that substance is of import here but hey it's election time in The Empire kids, get on board the crazy train.

Doing What It Takes

2008-03-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

Please let me package a "solution" for you in nice and pretty, American-style, wrapping. All slick and shiny and ready for you to take home.

I really hope that's not what you expect when you ask for some "solution." The mere asking of this question betrays the lack of understanding of the fundamental issue here: That in order to find a "solution", or is it THE SOLUTION®, you must completely remove yourself from the reality that you have believed in through the years. This in and of itself is a very difficult task, and most people who sincerely want to "help the earth" (or humanity) die never understanding this. This is why so many feel hopeless about not being able to create true change. Because you're still looking for solutions on the same platform that caused the problems.

Strength in humility is a myth. Passive denial of the enormity of the problems that confront us and the radical solutions needed to address these, while understandable in light of all the devastation being visited upon the Earth by developers, corporate greed heads and a largely acquiescent populace, is still an indefensible and repugnant position.

As long as women and African-Americans were nice humble and passive what did they get? Nothing. Unless you count subjugation and servitude as something. Would those in power one day have awakened one day in a particularly genial and loving mood having experienced some psycho-spiritual transformation and said, "You are so nice and humble I'm going to allow you to vote, own property and while we're at it let's throw in equal pay?"

Dream on.

It took suffragettes and civil rights activists being insistent, unpleasantly arrogant, unrelenting and a willingness to risk what little they did have to attain the few freedoms that are "allowed" today. This meant laying their bodies on the line.

Those who are destroying our earth and our communities at breakneck speed are as humble and caring as barracudas, with all apologies to the more gentle piscine creatures, and will not easily or at all relinquish their stranglehold on the gasping planet or your neck.

What it will take is nothing short of large scale purposeful sustained direct actions that bring the system to a halt. This means tremendous sacrifice. This means discomfort. In this there is the inevitably of tremendous risk.

The only remedy will be when people begin to get interested in taking back active control of the processes that rule their lives and work with each other rather than crossing their fingers and heading off to the ballot box.

There is no political solution.

______________________________________________________________

DEMANDS:

1) Universal Single Payerl Health Care

2) Promotion/Development of Local Food Systems

3) Government subsidized heating programs

4) 90% Reduction In Military Budget

5) Immediate Development Of Nationwide Mass Transit System

6) Immediate Withdrawal Of US Troops From All Parts Of The Globe

7) Triple The Taxes For Anyone Making Over $75,000/ Year. Sliding Scale Tilting Upwards

INTERMISSION:

Immediate Hanging Of All Ivy League Business/Economics Professors, or At Least Force Them To Get Hands-On Honest Work Preferably Outdoors With Sharp Objects In Close Proximity to One Another?

CONTINUED:

9) Immediate Dissolution Of All Federal Banking Systems followed by Creation Of Local Currencies

10) Elimination Of Rent/Mortgage

11) Fair Trials For All Members Of The Senate

12) Open Borders For People, Closed Borders For Bananas

13) Elimination of all Free Trade Agreements

Naturally when I skip into my polling place and look for these issues on the ballot I'll be aroused and gleeful to pull that lever "in favor of" but lacking that I’d say it’s time for direct action.
____________________________________________________________
HOW TO DO IT:

- Massive boycotts and a general strike.

- A huge 'None of the above' vote-reform campaign

THOUGHTS:

In the context of such strategic co-optation of mainstream media by the military-intelligence rightwing establishment, comprehensive education and organization of the public will be an immense uphill challenge.

It vexes me to no end that the progressive/anti-war/anti-globalization/'liberal' public has effectively NO popular media channel, barring perhaps Link TV, Democracy Now which are severly compromised avenues. WHY can't we develop a viable opposition/alternative media providing the kind of objective journalism we need to provide a modicum of insight and perspective?

Of course, it takes money -- not being hooked into the MIC and big-corporate advertisers, it will have to be funded largely by alternative-energy, local and small-scale service-industry providers, and media-subscribers.

Well, slowly, people ARE waking up and beginning to ask the important questions, connecting the dots. But its going to take a huge groundswell of people to compel essential change, for issues of social justice and political/economic accountability, environmental stewardship and sustainable development, etc.

Mebbe a popular-campaign rallying around- Justice for the Gangster "leaders'! No More Mob-Boss Morality!"

But it'll be hard to organize a peaceful revolution without running afoul of Fascist laws aka Patriot Act and heavy Police intimidation. Unfortunately, that's probably what it'll take. People will have to lay it on the line to reclaim their stake in a just society and democracy re: the Government Of, By and FOR the People.

We could learn a lot from the Bolivarian Revolution.

SOLUTIONS:

1) Too much "unity"; too little confrontation...

2) Too old; where are the NAFTA kids?

3) Too organized; the "Mobe" should mobilize (i.e. logistics) - not set goals

4) Too much "bearing witness"; too little "we're going to shut this fucker down"

5) Too little pre-planning; D.C. is the place to swell numbers, after that Baltimore, Philly, NYC... Concentric Circles; go for the kids - they drag everyone else.

6) Too set piece; pro forma - it should be, "Bring your guitar and your motorcycle helmet"

7) Too little culture, or perhaps, just one kind of culture; let a hundred flowers bloom - make it a chance to meet America; turn it into a "festival".

Cool Wrong allies - Natural ally is Minister Farrakhan and the nation of Islam (which has turned out the largest street demonstrations in American history); it is a natural alliance; "What would it take, Mr. Minister?"

9) The role of socialists in American street demos is to drag out the numbers and to set an example by getting their heads busted FIRST... not to TALK (this is a socialist talking). Shut the fuck up. Let passion speak.

10) Too much talking in general... The crowd should MARCH... A LOT... They form the mass around which the various tribes can organize sallies and retreat back to... Time to march our ass off.

11) The cops and soldiers are not friendly... they may be an hour before and an hour after but not during... They are the face of the enemy.

12) Not nearly enough, "do your own thing"... need snake dancers, and people who want to sit down while chanting, and those who want to write slogans on the Justice Department and those who want to carry big signs saying "SHAME", and lots of pink people (a reference to a previous thread)....

__________________________

[Before getting to the meat of this, let me pause for a moment, to offer a word in defense of righteous anger. There is a certain legitimacy to raw anger. Anger is a correct & reasonable first response to injustice. By itself, it is an inadequate response to injustice. But it is an excellent foundation on which more constructive responses can be built.

And, on the other hand, the most paralyzing & crippling response towards great injustice, is docile acceptance. THAT is what the filthy Evilcrats & their apologists are all about — getting you to somehow resign yourself to corporatists & warmongering imperialists, who however (like Obama) are skilled in the use of ‘uplifting’ language.]

OK, now the meat. We are at a time in our nation’s history where the political system is breaking down. It is no ordinary time. Mechanisms that have sufficed since the 1930’s are now failing.

There is zero chance that our system can be fixed through the officially-approved mechanisms. Whether overtly recognized or not, there’s a war going on — the US ruling class against all the rest of us. It’s essentially a class war. The rulers want you to remain a Democrat, because the D’s are a ruling-class institution, whose job is guiding the Dem half of the populace in paths that are safe for the rulers. To remain a Dem voter, and to swallow whatever slop the party dishes up, is to passively assent to this arrangement.

Therefore, your primary focus should be on resisting & criticizing the system, not on adapting yourself to it. You should be talking with your friends & family about the very real things that are wrong. You should be trying to make whatever contribution you can to elevating political consciousness. Accepting the slop of the Dem Party is the opposite of all that: it deadens political consciousness, & only makes your enemies stronger.

Voting for candidates only works when there are decent candidates — but that’s not our situation. We betray ourselves if we fail to recognize that.

Well, looking at it historically, the “solution” has to be a break from the officially-approved mechanisms. It must have the form of a broad movement based on the interests of the bottom 80-90% of the population, rather than on the interests of the top 1%. It has to be what they call “radical” politics — something that big business and the media are definitely not going to like, any more than they like Kucinich or antiwar protestors.

The 2 parties are really just a mechanism of social control. They’re not a way for “the people” to express their will; they’re a way for rulers to control the people — partly by making them believe that they (the peeps) have some say (which they don’t). Building a movement to oppose this takes time. But its sine qua non is political consciousness — the type that socialists understand & try to cultivate; and that the big-business parties & media try to suppress & eradicate.

We need Latin American-style "socialist" revolution in the streets, complemented by effective traditional political organizing, social-class based. Genuine socialism is good. An honest look at history shows that it's what the global fascists truly fear. (For instance, read "Killing Hope" by William Blum.) Why do privileged first worlders always think they/we know better, with their quasi-capitalist new-big-thing?

Here in the states we need more of the Seattle '99 and follow-up protests. The energy from those actions was derailed on 9/11. Funny thing about that...

A Wake Up Call

2008-03-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

[Before getting to the meat of this, let me pause for a moment, to offer a word in defense of righteous anger. There is a certain legitimacy to raw anger. Anger is a correct & reasonable first response to injustice. By itself, it is an inadequate response to injustice. But it is an excellent foundation on which more constructive responses can be built.

And, on the other hand, the most paralyzing & crippling response towards great injustice, is docile acceptance. THAT is what the American political system & their apologists are all about — getting you to somehow resign yourself to corporatists & warmongering imperialists, who however (like Obama) are skilled in the use of ‘uplifting’ language.]

OK, now the meat. We are at a time in our nation’s history where the political system is breaking down. It is no ordinary time. Mechanisms that have sufficed since the 1930’s are now failing.

There is zero chance that our system can be fixed through the officially-approved mechanisms. Whether overtly recognized or not, there’s a war going on — the US ruling class against all the rest of us. It’s essentially a class war. The rulers want you to remain a Democrat, because the D’s are a ruling-class institution, whose job is guiding the Dem half of the populace in paths that are safe for the rulers. To remain a Dem voter, and to swallow whatever slop the party dishes up, is to passively assent to this arrangement.

Therefore, your primary focus should be on resisting & criticizing the system, not on adapting yourself to it. You should be talking with your friends & family about the very real things that are wrong. You should be trying to make whatever contribution you can to elevating political consciousness. Accepting the slop of the Dem Party is the opposite of all that: it deadens political consciousness, & only makes your enemies stronger.

Voting for candidates only works when there are decent candidates — but that’s not our situation. We betray ourselves if we fail to recognize that.

Well, looking at it historically, the “solution” has to be a break from the officially-approved mechanisms. It must have the form of a broad movement based on the interests of the bottom 80-90% of the population, rather than on the interests of the top 1%. It has to be what they call “radical” politics — something that big business and the media are definitely not going to like, any more than they like Kucinich or antiwar protestors.

The 2 parties are really just a mechanism of social control. They’re not a way for “the people” to express their will; they’re a way for rulers to control the people — partly by making them believe that they (the peeps) have some say (which they don’t). Building a movement to oppose this takes time. But its sine qua non is political consciousness — the type that socialists understand & try to cultivate; and that the big-business parties & media try to suppress & eradicate.

What Is Zionism?

2008-03-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

What is Zionism?

Zionism - Definition and History

Note - The Zionist movement developed against the background of events in Palestine/Israel and influenced those events. This account of Zionism is meant to be read together with the brief history of Israel and Palestine. Likewise, the Labor Zionist movement was a major force in the early implementation of Zionism, and therefore the history of Zionism cannot be intelligible without understanding the history of Labor Zionism.

The word "Zionism" has several different meanings:

1. An ideology - Zionist ideology holds that the Jews are a people or nation like any other, and should gather together in a single homeland. Zionism was self-consciously the Jewish analogue of Italian and German national liberation movements of the nineteenth century. The term "Zionism" was apparently coined in 1891 by the Austrian publicist Nathan Birnbaum, to describe the new ideology, but it was used retroactively to describe earlier efforts and ideas to return the Jews to their homeland for whatever reasons, and it is applied to Evangelical Christians who want people of the Jewish religion to return to Israel in order to hasten the second coming. "Christian Zionism" is also used to describe any Christian support for Israel.

2. A descriptive term - The term "Zionism" was apparently coined in 1891 by the Austrian publicist Nathan Birnbaum, to describe the new ideology. It is also used to describe anyone who believes Jews should return to their ancient homeland.

3. A political movement - The Zionist movement was founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, incorporating the ideas of early thinkers as well as the organization built by Hovevei Tziyon ("lovers of Zion").

"Zionism" derives its name from "Zion," (pronounced "Tzyion" in Hebrew) a hill in Jerusalem. The word means "marker" or commemoration. "Shivath Tzion" is one of the traditional terms for the return of Jewish exiles. "Zionism" is not a monolithic ideological movement. It includes, for example, socialist Zionists such as Ber Borochov, religious Zionists such as rabbi Kook, revisionist nationalists such as Jabotinsky and cultural Zionists exemplified by Asher Ginsberg (Achad Haam). Zionist ideas evolved over time and were influenced by circumstances as well as by social and cultural movements popular in Europe at different times, including socialism, nationalism and colonialism, and assumed different "flavors" depending on the country of origin of the thinkers and prevalent contemporary intellectual currents. Accordingly, no single person, publication, quote or pronouncement should be taken as embodying "official" Zionist ideology.

Zionism did not spring full blown from a void with the creation of the Zionist movement in 1897. Jews had maintained a connection with Palestine, both actual and spiritual, even after the Bar Kochba revolt in 135, when large numbers of Jews were exiled from Roman Palestine, the remains of their ancient national home. The Jewish community in Palestine revived and, under Muslim rule, is estimated to have numbered as many as 300,000 about 1000 AD, prior to the Crusades. The Crusaders killed most of the Jewish population of Palestine or forced them into exile, so that only about 1,000 families remained after the reconquest of Palestine by Saladin. The Jewish community in Palestine waxed and waned with the vicissitudes of conquest and economic hardship, and invitations by different Turkish rulers to displaced European Jews to settle in Tiberias and Hebron. At different times there were sizeable Jewish communities in Tiberias, Safed, Hebron and Jerusalem, and numbers of Jews living in Nablus and Gaza. A few original Jews remained in the town of Peki'in, families that had lived there continuously since ancient times.

In the Diaspora, religion became the medium for preserving Jewish culture and Jewish ties to their ancient land. Jews prayed several times a day for the rebuilding of the temple, celebrated agricultural feasts and called for rain according to the seasons of ancient Israel, even in the farthest reaches of Russia. The ritual plants of Sukkoth were imported from the Holy Land at great expense.

From time to time, small numbers of Jews came to settle in Palestine in answer to rabbinical or messianic calls, or fleeing persecution in Europe. Beginning about 1700, groups of followers led by rabbis reached Palestine from Europe and the Ottoman empire with various programs. For example, Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid and his followers settled in Jerusalem about 1700, but the rabbi died suddenly, and eventually, an Arab mob, angered over unpaid debts, destroyed the synagogue the group had built and banned all European (Ashkenazy) Jews from Jerusalem. Rabbis Luzatto and Ben-Attar led a relatively large immigration about 1740. Other groups and individuals came from Lithuania and Turkey and different countries in Eastern Europe.

At no time between the Roman exile and the rise of Zionism was there a movement to settle the holy land that engaged the main body of European or Eastern Jews. The condition of Jews both in Europe and Eastern countries made such a movement unimaginable. Many, however, were attracted to various false Messiahs such as Shabetai Tzvi, who promised to restore Jews to their land. For most Jews, the connection with the ancient homeland and with Jerusalem remained largely cultural and spiritual, and return to the homeland was a hypothetical event that would occur with the coming of the Messiah at an unknown date in the far future. European Jews lived, for the most part in ghettos. They did not get a general education, and did not generally engage in practical trades that might prepare them for living in Palestine. Most of the communities founded by these early settlers met with economic disaster, or were disbanded following earthquakes, anti-Jewish riots or outbreaks of disease. The Jewish communities of Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron were typically destroyed by natural and man-made disasters and repopulated several times, never supporting more than a few thousand persons each at their height. The Jews of Palestine, numbering about 17,000 by the mid-19th century, lived primarily on charity - Halukka donations, with only a very few engaging in crafts trade or productive work.

Following the French Revolution and the emancipation of European Jewry however, the vague spiritual bonds of the Jews to the "Holy Land" began to express themselves in more concrete, though not always practical ways. About 1808, groups of Lithuanian Jews, followers of the Vilna Gaon (a famous rabbi and opponent of Hassidism) arrived in Palestine and purchased land to begin an agricultural settlement. In 1836, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer petitioned Anschel Rothschild to buy Palestine or at least the Temple Mount for the Jews. In 1839-1840, Sir Moses Montefiore visited Palestine and negotiated with the Khedive of Egypt to allow Jewish settlement and land purchase in Palestine. However, the negotiations led to nothing, possibly frustrated by the outbreak of an anti-Semitic blood-libel in Damascus. Thereafter, Montefiore continued with less ambitious philanthropic schemes in Palestine and in Argentina. In the 1840s,

Zionism: Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer

Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer

British Zionism - The idea of a Jewish restoration also took the fancy of British intellectuals for religious and practical reasons. It had been championed by Protestants since the seventeenth century. The restoration was championed in the 1840s by Lords Shaftesbury and Palmerston, who in addition to religious motivations, thought that a Jewish colony in Palestine would help to stabilize and revive the country, Jewish national stirrings were also voiced by novelists and writers such as Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot and Walter Scott.

Zionism: Rabbi Solomon Hai Alkalai

Role of Sephardic Jews - Through an accident of history, European (Ashkenazy) Jews took the lead in organized Zionism for many years. However, Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and Jews in Arab lands maintained a closer practical tie with the holy land and with the Hebrew language than did Ashkenazy Jews and also influenced and participated in the the Zionist movement from its inception. Sarajevo-born Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai (1798-1878,) is considered one of the major precursors of modern Zionism. Alkalai believed that return to the land of lsrael was a precondition for the redemption of the Jewish people. Alkalai's ideas greatly influenced his Ashkenazy contemporary, Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Kalischer. Alkalai was also a friend of the grandfather of Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Another Sephardi Jew, David Alkalai, a grand-nephew of Judah Alkalai, founded and led the Zionist movement in Serbia and Yugoslavia., and attended the first Zionist Congress in Basel (1897).

LINK
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Zionism And Its Impact
By Ann M. Lesch

The Zionist movement has maintained a striking continuity in its aims and methods over the past century. From the start, the movement sought to achieve a Jewish majority in Palestine and to establish a Jewish state on as much of the LAND as possible. The methods included promoting mass Jewish immigration and acquiring tracts of land that would become the inalienable property of the Jewish people. This policy inevitably prevented the indigenous Arab residents from attaining their national goals and establishing a Palestinian state. It also necessitated displacing Palestinians from their lands and jobs when their presence conflicted with Zionist interests.

The Zionist movement—and subsequently the state of ISRAEL—failed to develop a positive approach to the Palestinian presence and aspirations. Although many Israelis recognized the moral dilemma posed by the Palestinians, the majority either tried to ignore the issue or to resolve it by force majeure. Thus, the Palestine problem festered and grew, instead of being resolved.

The Zionist movement arose in late nineteenth-century Europe, influenced by the nationalist ferment sweeping that continent. Zionism acquired its particular focus from the ancient Jewish longing for the return to Zion and received a strong impetus from the increasingly intolerable conditions facing the large Jewish community in tsarist Russia. The movement also developed at the time of major European territorial acquisitions in Asia and Africa and benefited from the European powers' competition for influence in the shrinking Ottoman Empire.

One result of this involvement with European expansionism, however, was that the leaders of the nascent nationalist movements in the Middle East viewed Zionism as an adjunct of European colonialism. Moreover, Zionist assertions of the contemporary relevance of the Jews' historical ties to Palestine, coupled with their land purchases and immigration, alarmed the indigenous population of the Ottoman districts that Palestine comprised. The Jewish community (yishuv) rose from 6 percent of Palestine's population in 1880 to 10 percent by 1914. Although the numbers were insignificant, the settlers were outspoken enough to arouse the opposition of Arab leaders and induce them to exert counter pressure on the Ottoman regime to prohibit Jewish immigration and land buying.

As early as 1891, a group of Muslim and Christian notables cabled Istanbul, urging the government to prohibit Jewish immigration and land purchase. The resulting edicts radically curtailed land purchases in the sanjak (district) of JERUSALEM for the next decade. When a Zionist Congress resolution in 1905 called for increased colonization, the Ottoman regime suspended all land transfers to Jews in both the sanjak of Jerusalem and the wilayat (province) of Beirut.

After the coup d'etat by the Young Turks in 1908, the Palestinians used their representation in the central parliament and their access to newly opened local newspapers to press their claims and express their concerns. They were particularly vociferous in opposition to discussions that took place between the financially hard-pressed Ottoman regime and Zionist leaders in 1912-13, which would have let the world Zionist Organization purchase crown land (jiftlik) in the Baysan Valley, along the Jordan River.

The Zionists did not try to quell Palestinian fears, since their concern was to encourage colonization from Europe and to minimize the obstacles in their path. The only effort to meet to discuss their aspirations occurred in the spring of 1914. Its difficulties illustrated the incompatibility in their aspirations. The Palestinians wanted the Zionists to present them with a document that would state their precise political ambitions, their willingness to open their schools to Palestinians, and their intentions of learning Arabic and integrating with the local population. The Zionists rejected this proposal.
The British Mandate

The proclamation of the BALFOUR DECLARATION on November 2, 1917, and the arrival of British troops in Palestine soon after, transformed the political situation. The declaration gave the Zionist movement its long-sought legal status. The qualification that: nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine seemed a relatively insignificant obstacle to the Zionists, especially since it referred only to those communities': civil and religious rights, not to political or national rights. The subsequent British occupation gave Britain the ability to carry out that pledge and provide the protection necessary for the Zionists to realize their aims.

In fact, the British had contracted three mutually contradictory promises for the future of Palestine. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 with the French and Russian governments proposed that Palestine be placed under international administration. The HUSAYN-MCMAHON CORRESPONDENCE, 1915-1916, on whose basis the Arab revolt was launched, implied that Palestine would be included in the zone of Arab independence. In contrast, the Balfour Declaration encouraged the colonization of Palestine by Jews, under British protection. British officials recognized the irreconcilability of these pledges but hoped that a modus vivendi could be achieved, both between the competing imperial powers, France and Britain, and between the Palestinians and the Jews. Instead, these contradictions set the stage for the three decades of conflict-ridden British rule in Palestine.

Initially, many British politicians shared the Zionists' assumption that gradual, regulated Jewish immigration and settlement would lead to a Jewish majority in Palestine, whereupon it would become independent, with legal protection for the Arab minority. The assumption that this could be accomplished without serious resistance was shattered at the outset of British rule. Britain thereafter was caught in an increasingly untenable position, unable to persuade either Palestinians or Zionists to alter their demands and forced to station substantial military forces in Palestine to maintain security.

The Palestinians had assumed that they would gain some form of independence when Ottoman rule disintegrated, whether through a separate state or integration with neighboring Arab lands. These hopes were bolstered by the Arab revolt, the entry of Faysal Ibn Husayn into Damascus in 1918, and the proclamation of Syrian independence in 1920. Their hopes were dashed, however, when Britain imposed direct colonial rule and elevated the yishuv to a special status. Moreover, the French ousted Faysal from Damascus in July 1920, and British compensation—in the form of thrones in Transjordan and Iraq for Abdullah and Faysal, respectively—had no positive impact on the Arabs in Palestine. In fact, the action underlined the different treatment accorded Palestine and its disadvantageous political situation. These concerns were exacerbated by Jewish immigration: the yishuv comprised 28 percent of the population by 1936 and reached 32 percent by 1947 (click here for Palestine's population distribution per district in 1946).

The British umbrella was CRITICALLY important to the growth and consolidation of the yishuv, enabling it to root itself firmly despite Palestinian opposition. Although British support diminished in the late 1930s, the yishuv was strong enough by then to withstand the Palestinians on its own. After World War II, the Zionist movement also was able to turn to the emerging superpower, the UNITED STATES, for diplomatic support and legitimization.

The Palestinians' responses to Jewish immigration, land purchases, and political demands were remarkably consistent. They insisted that Palestine remain an Arab country, with the same right of self-determination and independence as Egypt, Transjordan, and Iraq. Britain granted those countries independence without a violent struggle since their claims to self-determination were not contested by European settlers. The Palestinians argued that Palestinian territory COULD NOT AND SHOULD NOT be used to solve the plight of the Jews in Europe, and that Jewish national aspirations should not override their own rights.

Palestinian opposition peaked in the late 1930s: the six-month general strike in 1936 was followed the next year by a widespread rural revolt. This rebellion welled up from the bottom of Palestinian society—unemployed urban workers, displaced peasants crowded into towns, and debt-ridden villagers. It was supported by most merchants and professionals in the towns, who feared competition from the yishuv. Members of the elite families acted as spokesmen before the British administration through the ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE, which was formed during the 1936 strike. However, the British banned the committee in October 1937 and arrested its members, on the eve of the revolt.

Only one of the Palestinian political parties was willing to limit its aims and accept the principle of territorial partition: The NATIONAL DEFENSE PARTY, led by RAGHIB AL-NASHASHIBI (mayor of JERUSALEM from 1920 to 1934), was willing to accept partition in 1937 so long as the Palestinians obtained sufficient land and could merge with Transjordan to form a larger political entity. However, the British PEEL COMMISSION's plan, announced in July 1937, would have forced the Palestinians to leave the olive- and grain- growing areas of Galilee, the orange groves on the Mediterranean coast, and the urban port cities of HAIFA and ACRE. That was too great a loss for even the National Defense Party to accept, and so it joined in the general denunciations of partition.

During the PALESTINE MANDATE period the Palestinian community was 70 percent rural, 75 to 80 percent illiterate, and divided internally between town and countryside and between elite families and villagers. Despite broad support for the national aims, the Palestinians could not achieve the unity and strength necessary to withstand the combined pressure of the British forces and the Zionist movement. In fact, the political structure was decapitated in the late 1930s when the British banned the Arab Higher Committee and arrested hundreds of local politicians. When efforts were made in the 1940s to rebuild the political structure, the impetus came largely from outside, from Arab rulers who were disturbed by the deteriorating conditions in Palestine and feared their repercussions on their own newly acquired independence.

The Arab rulers gave priority to their own national considerations and provided limited diplomatic and military support to the Palestinians. The Palestinian Arabs continued to demand a state that would reflect the Arab majority's weight—diminished to 68 percent by 1947. They rejected the UNITED NATIONS (U.N.) partition plan of November 1947, which granted the Jews statehood in 55 percent of Palestine, an area that included as many Arab residents as Jews. However, the Palestinian Arabs lacked the political strength and military force to back up their claim. Once Britain withdrew its forces in 1948 and the Jews proclaimed the state of Israel, the Arab rulers used their armed forces to protect those zones that the partition plans had ALLOCATED to the Arab state. By the time armistice agreements were signed in 1949, the Arab areas had shrunk to only 23 percent of Palestine. The Egyptian army held the GAZA STRIP, and Transjordanian forces dominated the hills of central Palestine. At least 726,000 of the 1.3 million Palestinian Arabs fled from the area held by Israel. Emir Abdullah subsequently annexed the zone that his army occupied, renaming it the WEST BANK.
The Zionist Movement

The dispossession and expulsion of a majority of Palestinians were the result of Zionist policies planned over a thirty-year period. Fundamentally, Zionism focused on two needs:

1.

to attain a Jewish majority in Palestine;

2.

to acquire statehood irrespective of the wishes of the indigenous population. Non-recognition of the political and national rights of the Palestinian people was a KEY Zionist policy.

Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, placed maximalist demands before the Paris Peace Conference in February 1919. He stated that he expected 70,000 to 80,000 Jewish immigrants to arrive each year in Palestine. When they became the majority, they would form an independent government and Palestine and would become: "as Jewish as England is English". Weizmann proposed that the boundaries should be the Mediterranean Sea on the west; Sidon, the Litani River, and Mount Hermon on the north; all of Transjordan west of the Hijaz railway on the east; and a line across Sinai from Aqaba to al-Arish on the south. He argued that: "the boundaries above outlined are what we consider essential for the economic foundation of the country. Palestine must have its natural outlet to the sea and control of its rivers and their headwaters. The boundaries are sketched with the general economic needs and historic traditions of the country in mind." Weizmann offered the Arab countries a free zone in Haifa and a joint port at Aqaba.

Weizmann's policy was basically in accord with that of the leaders of the yishuv, who held a conference in December 1918 in which they formulated their own demands for the peace conference. The yishuv plan stressed that they must control appointments to the administrative services and that the British must actively assist their program to transform Palestine into a democratic Jewish state in which the Arabs would have minority rights. Although the peace conference did not explicitly allocate such extensive territories to the Jewish national home and did not support the goal of transforming all of Palestine into a Jewish state, it opened the door to such a possibility. More important, Weizmann's presentation stated clearly and forcefully the long-term aims of the movement. These aims were based on certain fundamental tenets of Zionism:

1. The movement was seen not only as inherently righteous, but also as meeting an overwhelming need among European Jews.

2. European culture was superior to indigenous Arab culture; the Zionists could help civilize the East.

3. External support was needed from a major power; relations with the Arab world were a secondary matter.

4. Arab nationalism was a legitimate political movement, but Palestinian nationalism was either illegitimate or nonexistent.

5. Finally, if the Palestinians would not reconcile themselves to Zionism, force majeure, not compromise, was the only feasible response.

First

Adherents of Zionism believed that the Jewish people had an inherent and inalienable right to Palestine. Religious Zionists stated this in biblical terms, referring to the divine promise of the land to the tribes of Israel. Secular Zionists relied more on the argument that Palestine alone could solve the problem of Jewish dispersion and virulent anti-Semitism. Weizmann stated in 1930 that the needs of 16 million Jews had to be balanced against those of 1 million Palestinian Arabs: "The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate have definitely lifted out of the context of the Middle East and linked it up with the world-wide Jewish problem....The rights which the Jewish people has been adjudged in Palestine do not depend on the consent, and cannot be subjected to the will, of the majority of its present inhabitants."

This perspective took its most extreme form with the Revisionist movement. Its founder, Vladimir Jabotinsky, was so self-righteous about the Zionist cause that he justified any actions taken against the Arabs in order to realize Zionist goals.
Second

Zionists generally felt that European civilization was superior to Arab culture and values. Theodor Herzl, the founder of the World Zionist Organization, wrote in the Jewish State (1886) that the Jewish community could serve as: "part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism."

Weizmann also believed that he was engaged in a fight of civilization against the desert. The Zionists would bring enlightenment and economic development to the backward Arabs. Similarly, David Ben-Gurion, the leading labor Zionist, could not understand why Arabs rejected his offer to use Jewish finance, scientific knowledge, and technical expertise to modernize the Middle East. He attributed this rejection to backwardness rather than to the affront that Zionism posed to the Arabs' pride and to their aspirations for independence.
Third

Zionist leaders recognized that they needed an external patron to legitimize their presence in the international arena and to provide them legal and military protection in Palestine. Great Britain played that role in the 1920s and 1930s, and the United States became the mentor in the mid-1940s. Zionist leaders realized that they needed to make tactical accommodations to that patron—such as downplaying their public statements about their political aspirations or accepting a state on a limited territory—while continuing to work toward their long-term goals. The presence and needs of the Arabs were viewed as secondary. The Zionist leadership never considered allying with the Arab world against the British and Americans. Rather, Weizmann, in particular, felt that the yishuv should bolster the British Empire and guard its strategic interests in the region. Later, the leaders of Israel perceived the Jewish state as a strategic asset to the United States in the Middle East.
Fourth

Zionist politicians accepted the idea of an Arab nation but rejected the concept of a Palestinian nation. They considered the Arab residents of Palestine as comprising a minute fraction of the land and people of the Arab world, and as lacking any separate identity and aspirations (click here, to read our response to this myth). Weizmann and Ben-Gurion were willing to negotiate with Arab rulers in order to gain those rulers' recognition of Jewish statehood in Palestine in return for the Zionists' recognition of Arab independence elsewhere, but they would not negotiate with the Arab politicians in Palestine for a political settlement in their common homeland. As early as 1918, Weizmann wrote to a prominent British politician: "The real Arab movement is developing in Damascus and Mecca...the so-called Arab question in Palestine would therefore assume only a purely local character, and in fact is not considered a serious factor."

In line with that thinking, Weizmann met with Emir Faysal in the same year, in an attempt to win his agreement to Jewish statehood in Palestine in return for Jewish financial support for Faysal as ruler of Syria and Arabia.

Ben-Gurion, Weizmann, and other Zionist leaders met with prominent Arab officials during the 1939 LONDON CONFERENCE, which was convened by Britain to seek a compromise settlement in Palestine. The Arab diplomats from Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia criticized the exceptional position that the Balfour Declaration had granted the Jewish community and emphasized the estrangement between the Arab and Jewish residents that large scale Jewish immigration had caused. In response, Weizmann insisted that Palestine remain open to all Jews who wanted to immigrate, and Ben-Gurion suggested that all of Palestine should become a Jewish state, federated with the surrounding Arab states. The Arab participants criticized these demands for exacerbating the conflict, rather than contributing to the search for peace. The Zionists' premise that Arab statehood could be recognized while ignoring the Palestinians was thus rejected by the Arab rulers themselves.
Fifth

Finally, Zionist leaders argued that if the Palestinians could not reconcile themselves to Zionism, then force majeure, not a compromise of goals, was the only possible response. By the early 1920s, after violent Arab protests broke out in Jaffa and Jerusalem, leaders of the yishuv recognized that it might be impossible to bridge the gap between the aims of the two peoples. Building the national home would lead to an unavoidable clash, since the Arab majority would not agree to become a minority. In fact, as early as 1919 Ben-Gurion stated bluntly: "Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can fill this gulf....I do not know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong to the Jews....We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs."

As tensions increased in the 1920s and the 1930s Zionist leaders realized that they had to coerce the Arabs to acquiesce to a diminished status. Ben-Gurion stated in 1937, during the Arab revolt:

"This is a national war declared upon us by the Arabs....This is an active resistance by the Palestinians to what they regard as a usurpation of their homeland by the Jews....But the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict, which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves."

This sober conclusion did not lead Ben-Gurion to negotiate with the Palestinian Arabs: instead he became more determined to strengthen the Jewish military forces so that they could compel the Arabs to relinquish their claims.

LINK

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The History of Zionism & Judaism
This text is from an article called "An Open Letter" published in the Jewish magazine, "Hachoma". We think it provides a good historical overview of the history of Zionism and why the Zionist ideology is opposed by religious Orthodox Jews.

The Jewish people, from its inception, has been unique by its identity as a religious entity. Through the centuries its religious character had been a premise agreed upon by Jews and non-Jews alike. Our faith demands as the fundamental condition for recognition as a Jew, belief and adherence to the word of G-d, as was revealed to our forefathers on Mount Sinai. This is in itself, according to the tenets of the Jewish religion, sufficient to fulfill the definition of a Jew. Our religious and traditional history bears no aspect of racism. Hence, one of non-Jewish origin is capable of being proselytized and attaining the same status as a born Jew. Conversely, one of Jewish birth who does not recognize his being bound to the Jewish Torah, is by Jewish law a heretic, and therefore forfeits his spiritual birthrights as a Jew.

The purpose of the Jew is to bear witness to the existence of G-d, through his adherence to the Torah. The Al-mighty granted the Jews the land of Israel as the particular setting which would serve as the most conducive atmosphere to their performance of their duties to G-d.

The Jews in ancient times were banished from the land of Israel because they had failed to fulfill their obligations to the Al-mighty. Every Jew acknowledges this in his prayers (Umipnei Chatoeinu Golinu Meiartzeinu). They accepted the penalty of exile and were at that time expressed sworn by the Al-mighty not to accelerate their redemption on their own, and especially not to rebel against the nations under whose rule they were found. To the contrary, every Jew is commanded to pray for the peace and well being of the government of which he is the subject.

Through all the years of exile, pious Jews as individuals were attracted to reside in the Holy Land because of its innate holy character and the opportunity it offered for the observance of various precepts bound in the land. Jews as a whole continue to pray that the Al-mighty return his Divine presence to the Land of Israel, by the coming of the Messiah, who will build His Temple, from whence will emanate Divine Wisdom and ultimate spiritual fulfillment of the entire human race.

Through the many years that Jews resided in the Holy Land for this purpose, they enjoyed tranquil and cordial relations with the non-Jewish population there.

The Zionist movement which was formed at the latter part of the last century, sought to endow the Jews with a nationalistic character which was heretofore strange to them. It sought to deprive them of their historically religious character and offered in substitution of faith in G-d and adherence to the Torah, and belief in their ultimate redemption by the coming of the Messiah, a nationalistic ideology and the possibility of establishing through political media, a Jewish national homeland.

During the period of the British Mandate, the Balfour Declaration, which recognized the eventual possibility of founding a Jewish national homeland, in Palestine, was affirmed to be the British government. The Jewish Agency, who then was the Chief representative of Zionist interests in the Holy Land, was entrusted with the issuance of visas to the Holy Land, thus resulting in an increased Zionist immigration from various parts of the world, which ultimately succeeded in superceding in numbers, the veteran Orthodox dwellers.

Orthodox Jewry all over the world and the Orthodox Community in the Holy Land in particular, immediately sensed in this stage of Zionist success, the threat of grave danger for the religious future of Jews. The Arab inhabitants began to exhibit open hostility to their Jewish neighbors. The British government failed to distinguish between the Orthodox community, who for generations in habited the Holy Land, and the newly arrived Zionist immigrants.

With the acquisition by the Zionist nationalists of the power to organize communities in Palestine, they formed the Vaad Haleumi Leknesset Yisroel (National Jewish Council Committee). This committee ignored the rights of the Orthodox veteran dwellers who did not recognize this validity of Jewish nationality, and whose identification as Jews was solely with their loyalty to their religious heritage. The religious inhabitants, on the other hand, shuddered at the prospects of spiritual disintegration of World Jewry, with the new rise to power of the Zionist nationalists.

The Orthodox inhabitants actively objected to being subject to the authority of the secularists. They appealed their cause to the League of Nations, who consequently granted them a "Right of exclusion" to the subjugation to the Vaad Haleumi, which rights provided that any Jew wishing not to be incorporated into the Vaad Haleumi, may remain lawfully independent if he so stated his wish in writing. Thousands of Jews did so.

Such was the case until November 1948, when the United Nations finally sanctioned the establishment of a Zionist State. We do not doubt that their success in finally realizing their goal was due in great measure to their having misled the world into viewing the Zionist cause as the Jewish cause. The formation of the Zionist state resulted in the automatic deprivation of the autonomy heretofore possessed by the Orthodox inhabitants of the Holy Land.

The Zionists grasped in the acquisition of their new powers, the opportunity to openly disassociate themselves from any identification with Jews as a religion. They systematically began to orient the minds of their generations according to the tenets of Zionist nationalism. Through the Ministry of Religions they employed part of the Rabbinate to assist them in their aims.

The religious Jews who by virtue of their faith, clearly contradicted Zionist nationalism, and who had lived peacefully with their Arab neighbors for generations, became unwillingly identified with the Zionist cause and their struggle with the Arabs. They requested the United Nations that Jerusalem be designated as a defacto international city. They appealed to the diplocatic corps assigned to Jerusalem -- but to no avail. They were hence confronted with the choice of either becoming a part of the Zionist State, which diametrically opposed the interests of Jews as a religion, or abandoning the land of which their forefathers were the first Jewish settlers.

We find it of supreme importance to emphasize that we are fearful of the consequences of the Zionist rebellion against the Creator, as stated expressly in Jeremich, "For it is bad and bitter your renunciation of G-d..." We wish not to be affected by the behavior of this government who in the name of Israel, persist in their renunciation and utter disregard of religious Judaism such as is clearly attested by their laws expressly permitting wanton autopsies (Law of Anatomy and Pathology, 1953), forcible desecration of the Sabbath (Law of Emergency Labor Draft 1967: PPS 1, 19; 27, 36), profanation of Holy Sites by retaining non-religious custodians, desecration of Holy Cemetaries by Safed, Beth Shearim and elsewhere, and countless more examples, proof of which is readily available.

Insofar as all human being find necessary the protection of their rights as human beings, we hereby request all those that find it within their power, to aid us in reacquiring the rights we possessed prior to the formation of the Zionist State*, to remain lawfully independent of the Zionist authority.

LINK
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Lenni Brenner

Zionism in the Age of the Dictators

Preface

Why another book on the Second World War, which is probably the most written about subject in human history? Why another book on the Holocaust, which has been movingly described by many survivors and scholars? As a general subject, the age of the dictators, the world war, and the Holocaust have indeed been covered – but has the interaction between Zionism and Fascism and Nazism been adequately explored? And if not, why not?

The answer is quite simple. Different aspects of the general subject have been dealt with, but there is no equivalent of the present work, one that attempts to present an overview of the movement's world activities during that epoch. Of course, that is not an accident, but rather a sign that there is much that is politically embarrassing to be found in that record.

Dealing with the issues brings difficult problems, one of the most difficult arising out of the emotions evoked by the Holocaust. Can there by any doubt that many of the United Nations delegates who voted for the creation of an Israeli state, in 1947, were motivated by a desire to somehow compensate the surviving Jews for the Holocaust? They, and many of Israel’s other well-wishers, cathected the state with the powerful human feelings they had toward the victims of Hitler’s monstrous crimes. But therein was their error: they based their support for Israel and Zionism on what Hitler had done to the Jews, rather than on what the Zionists had done for the Jews. To say that such an approach is intellectually and politically impermissable does not denigrate the deep feelings produced by the Holocaust.

Zionism, however, is an ideology, and its chronicles are to be examined with the same critical eye that readers should bring to the history of any political tendency. Zionism is not now, nor was it ever, co-extensive with either Judaism or the Jewish people. The vast majority of Hitler’s Jewish victims were not Zionists. It is equally true, as readers are invited to see for themselves, that the majority of the Jews of Poland, in particular, had repudiated Zionism on the eve of the Holocaust, that they abhored the politics of Menachem Begin, in September 1939, one of the leaders of the self-styled “Zionist-Revisionist” movement in the Polish capital. As an anti-Zionist Jew, the author is inured to the charge that anti-Zionism is equivalent to anti-Semitism and “Jewish self-hatred”.

It is scarcely necessary to add that all attempts to equate Jews and Zionists, and therefore to attack Jews as such, are criminal, and are to be sternly repelled. There cannot be even the slightest confusion between the struggle against Zionism and hostility to either Jews or Judaism. Zionism thrives on the fears that Jews have of another Holocaust. The Palestinian people are deeply appreciative of the firm support given them by progressive Jews, whether religious – as with Mrs Ruth Blau, Elmer Berger, Moshe Menuhin, or Israel Shahak – or atheist – as with Felicia Langer and Lea Tsemel and others on the left. Neither nationality nor theology nor social theory can, in any way, be allowed to become a stumbling block before the feet of those Jews, in Israel or elsewhere, who are determined to walk with the Palestinian people against injustice and racism. It can be said, with scientific certainty, that, without the unbreakable unity of Arab and Jewish progressives, victory over Zionism is not merely difficult, it is impossible.

Unless this book were to become an encyclopaedia, the material had necessarily to be selected, with all due care, so that a rounded picture might come forth. It is inevitable that the scholars of the several subjects dealt with will complain that not enough attention had been devoted to their particular specialties. And they will be correct, to be sure; whole books have been written on particular facets of the broader problems dealt with herein, and the reader is invited to delve further into the sources cited in the footnotes. An additional difficulty arises out of the fact that so much of the original material is in a host of languages that few readers are likely to know. Therefore, wherever possible, English sources and translations are cited, thus giving sceptical readers a genuine opportunity to verify the research apparatus relied upon.

As readers are committed to discovering by reading this book, the consequences of Zionist ideology deserve study and exposure. That is what is attempted here. As an unabashed anti-Zionist, I clearly conclude that Zionism is wholly incorrect; but that is my conclusion drawn from the evidence. The conclusions are, in short, my own. As for the persuasiveness of the arguments used in arriving at them, readers are invited to judge for themselves.

LINK

The Audacity of Hope™

2008-02-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Artistic Box with Locking Lid... only $49.95

Yea, the phrase is trivial and empty and meaningless, but operating under the idea that even the trivial and empty means something in the present society, let's take a quick peek. What the hell is "Hope™"? Let's crawl into the way-back machine and go way way back... before the spiritual rebirth of Hope™ in the modern era, before the early Catholic resurrection ("Faith, Hope, and Charity") and go all the way back to the Greeks, with whom almost everything starts (and not just the good "everything", either). What, dear Greeks, is Hope™?

Well, according to Greek myth, Hope™ was the greatest of the evils contained in Pandora's Box. When Pandora loosed these evils upon the world, Zeus suddenly had a change of heart. He decided, charitably, that Hope™, the most powerful of all the evils, could be kept from humanity. At his instigation, Pandora slammed shut the lid of the box when all but Hope™ had escaped.

Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing
Zeus the Cloudgatherer.

- Hesiod

Alas, without Hope™, humanity was immediately reduced to despair and rebellion in the face of the other evils. Reluctantly, Zeus bid Pandora to return to the box and release Hope™. And as this worst of plagues was loosed upon the earth, it was accompanied by universal jubilation and relief... because it made the other evils tolerable through the possibility that their reign might be ended, not by the actions of humans themselves, but by the intervention of others, or the action of the fates themselves. Hope™ was the final excuse, worthy of the Gods themselves, for failing to act in one's own behalf.

Hope. Pandora brought the jar with the evils and opened it. It was the gods' gift to man, on the outside a beautiful, enticing gift, called the "lucky jar." Then all the evils, those lively, winged beings, flew out of it. Since that time, they roam around and do harm to men by day and night. One single evil had not yet slipped out of the jar. As Zeus had wished, Pandora slammed the top down and it remained inside. So now man has the lucky jar in his house forever and thinks the world of the treasure. It is at his service; he reaches for it when he fancies it. For he does not know that that jar which Pandora brought was the jar of evils, and he takes the remaining evil for the greatest worldly good--it is hope, for Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

It's just a footnote, but interesting, no?

BTW, the Audacity of Hope™ is an oxymoron on the face of it, according to the Greeks. Ain't no "audacity" in it. It is the stuff of denial and cowardice - two other escapees from the box.

Courtesy of anaxarchos.

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

2008-02-20T16:55:00.000-08:00

Let’s see where these candidates get their money to convince you to vote for them;

Hillary Clinton;

Goldman Sachs $413,361 Morgan Stanley $362,700 Citigroup Inc $350,895 Lehman Brothers $241,870 JP Morgan Chase & Co $214,880 EMILY's List $213,266 National Amusements Inc $210,010 Kirkland & Ellis $179,676 Greenberg Traurig Llp $177,800 Skadden, Arps et al $167,796 Merrill Lynch $165,042 Cablevision Systems $145,313 Time Warner $144,977 Microsoft Corp $143,459 Bear Stearns $141,835 Latham & Watkins $138,598 Patton Boggs $137,200 Ernst & Young $126,865 PricewaterhouseCoopers $121,939

Barack Obama:

Goldman Sachs $421,763 Ubs Ag $296,670 Lehman Brothers $250,630 National Amusements Inc $245,843 JP Morgan Chase & Co $243,848 Sidley Austin LLP $226,491 Citigroup Inc $221,578 Exelon Corp $221,517 Skadden, Arps Et Al $196,420 Jones Day $181,996 Harvard University $172,324 Citadel Investment Group $171,798 Time Warner $155,383 Morgan Stanley $155,196 Google Inc $152,802 University of California $143,029 Jenner & Block $136,565 Kirkland & Ellis $134,738 Wilmerhale Llp $119,245 Credit Suisse Group $118,250

We hear it all the time: “Republicans are the party of big business and Democrats are the party of the people.” Court rulings have even endorsed the idea that spending cash in support of candidates is “free speech.” There sure is a ton of money being spent for something that is "free."

For more than 20 years now, polls of the American people repeatedly have shown that a majority of Americans believe their government is controlled by special interests. Can anyone honestly assert that there is no connection between campaign cash and the policies of the US Government? Does anyone truly believe this?

Well, anyone, that is, besides Mrs. Clinton. “A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans,” the New York senator said in defense of her decision to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists. “They represent nurses, they represent social workers, yes, they represent corporations that employ a lot of people. I don’t think, based on my 35 years of fighting for what I believe in, I don’t think anybody seriously believes I’m going to be influenced by a lobbyist.”

Do Hillary supporters believe Mrs. Clinton’s statement? Do they honestly believe she won't be “influenced by a lobbyist?” Do they believe only Republicans can be influenced by campaign contributions?

In his Super Tuesday speech, Mr. Obama asserted that he isn’t taking money from PAC’s during his presidential campaign. While this is true, he nevertheless has received huge amounts of campaign cash from individuals associated with certain industries.

Take a look at the following information obtained from the OpenSecrets.org website. The data below compare, by industry, campaign funds received by Clinton, Obama and McCain during their Senate campaign runs starting in 2003 through January, 2008.

Ask yourself these questions after reviewing the statistics:
1. Which party is the party of big business (hint: they both are)?
2. Do you believe campaign cash has a direct impact on legislation and policy?
3. Do you believe either Clinton or Obama is free to act on behalf of the American people instead of catering to corporate America?

Here are the four industries that contributed the most campaign cash broken down by candidate. The information was obtained from OpenSecrets.Org.

Note: All amounts in Thousands of Dollars

Communications/Electronics:
--- Clinton: $6,833, Obama: $5,239, McCain: $1,271

Finance/Insurance/Real Estate:
--- Clinton: $18,574, Obama: $12,567, McCain: $5,866

Lawyers and Lobbyists:
--- Clinton: $14,452, Obama: $10,633, McCain: $2,789

Miscellaneous Business:
--- Clinton: $10,828, Obama: $7,375, McCain: $2,394

How can liberal Democrats decry the infusion of corporate cash into the political process when both Clinton and Obama have received more industry campaign cash than their Republican opponent? How can the Democratic Party be the “party of the people” when they, too, are funded by corporations and their lobbyists? If you're an advocate of "lesser of the evils" voting, understand that you're endorsing a corporate-funded agenda.

Big business likes things just the way they are. They get what they want in Washington at your expense. If you're hoping for change, voting for corporate-funded candidates is not the way. The rich will get richer while the poor get poorer. Corporations will prosper while the US Treasury goes bankrupt. Solutions to real problems like addiction to oil, global warming, decaying infrastructure, affordable healthcare, declining literacy rates, and a real social safety net cannot happen when government caters to profit-seeking corporations instead of the American people.

What we’re left with is truly the best democracy money can buy. As we all know, or should know, that’s no democracy at all.

Go to link below to get further details on various financial connections to our illustrious agents of change.

LINK

Who are these people?

2008-02-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

If you do not know you have no right to vote nor claim your vote has meaning.

If you do know you'll understand something else, something more, is being asked of you even if you are too cowardly to act in any manner beyond the behind the curtains lever-pulling illusion of your political participation.

And to think this is the best of the 'lesser evilism' advisory board.

What now good citizen?

Top advisers to Obama

Former Amb. Jeffrey Bader, President Clinton’s National Security Council Asia specialist and now head of Brookings’s China center, national security adviser

Mark Brzezinski, President Clinton’s National Security Council Southeast Europe specialist and now a partner at law firm McGuireWoods, national security adviser

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser and now a Center for Strategic and International Studies counselor and trustee and frequent guest on PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, foreign policy adviser

Richard A. Clarke, President Clinton and President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism czar and now head of Good Harbor Consulting and an ABC News contributor, sometimes Obama adviser

Gregory B. Craig, State Department director of policy planning under President Clinton and now a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, foreign policy adviser

Roger W. Cressey, former National Security Council counterterrorism staffer and now Good Harbor Consulting president and NBC News consultant, has advised Obama but says not exclusive

Ivo H. Daalder, National Security Council director for European affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Richard Danzig, President Clinton’s Navy secretary and now a Center for Strategic and International Analysis fellow, national security adviser

Philip H. Gordon, President Clinton’s National Security Council staffer for Europe and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Maj. Gen. J. (Jonathan) Scott Gration, a 32-year Air Force veteran and now CEO of Africa anti-poverty effort Millennium Villages, national security adviser and surrogate

Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary of defense from 1981-1985 and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, informal foreign policy adviser

W. Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s national security adviser and now a professor at Georgetown’s school of foreign service, foreign policy adviser

James M. Ludes, former defense and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and now executive director of the American Security Project, national security adviser

Robert Malley, President Clinton’s Middle East envoy and now International Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa program director, national security adviser

Gen. Merrill A. ("Tony") McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff and now a business consultant, national security adviser

Denis McDonough, Center for American Progress senior fellow and former policy adviser to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, foreign policy coordinator

Samantha Power, Harvard-based human rights scholar and Pulitzer Prize winning writer, foreign policy adviser

Susan E. Rice, President Clinton’s Africa specialist at the State Department and National Security Council and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Bruce O. Riedel, former CIA officer and National Security Council staffer for Near East and Asian affairs and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Dennis B. Ross, President Clinton’s Middle East negotiator and now a Washington Institute for Near East Policy fellow, Middle East adviser

Sarah Sewall, deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance during President Clinton’s administration and now director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, national security adviser

Daniel B. Shapiro, National Security Council director for legislative affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a lobbyist with Timmons & Company, Middle East adviser

Mona Sutphen, former aide to President Clinton’s National Security adviser Samuel R. Berger and to United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson and now managing director of business consultancy Stonebridge, national security adviser

The Audacity Of Hype

2008-01-23T17:13:00.000-08:00

AN AUDACIOUS DEFERENCE TO POWER

If the Democrats’ candidate in 2008 is Obama, we can be sure that the right-wing Republican noise machine will denounce the nation’s potential first non-white male president as a dangerous “leftist.” The charge will be absurd, something that will hardly stop numerous people on the portside of the narrow U.S. political spectrum from claiming Obama as a fellow “progressive.” Certain to be encouraged by Obama and his handlers, this confusion will reflect the desperation and myopia that shaky thinking and the limited choices of the U.S. electoral system regularly instill in liberals and some squishy near leftists.

So what sorts of policies and values could one expect from an imagined Obama presidency? There is quite a bit already in Obama’s short national career that has to be placed in the “never mind” category if one is to seriously believe his claim (cautiously advanced in The Audacity of Hope) to be a “progressive” concerned with “social and economic justice” and global peace.

Last August, Obama audaciously told thousands of labor union members at Chicago's Soldier Field that he was "running for president...because of you, not because of folks who are writing big checks." He made a big point of the fact that he "does not take money from corporate lobbyists," unlike business-friendly Hillary Clinton.

He uttered his worker-pleasing words even as his campaign was bending with fierce plutocratic winds fanned by giant global investment firms and corporations that were helping him join leading corporate Democrat Clinton in setting new electoral fundraising records.

Ever wonder why the "progressive" (as he repeatedly describes himself) Obama dances for Wall Street on the (fake) Social Security "crisis" and sounds like Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani in decrying the specter of "government mandated" universal health care? Curious about why the avowed environmentalist thinks that nuclear power should be considered part of the solution to America's energy crisis and has recently joined Hillary in voting for the extension of the corporate-neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement to Peru?

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Obama's presidential campaign has received nearly $5 million dollars from securities and investment firms and $866,000 from commercial banks through October of 2007. Obama's top contributor so far is Goldman Sachs (provider of $369,078 to Obama), identified by Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) investigators as "a major proponent of privatizing Social Security as well as legislation that would essentially deregulate the investment banking/securities industry." Eight of Obama's top twenty election investors are securities and investment firms: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros. (#2 at $229,090), J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (# 4 at $216,759), Citadel Investment Group (#7 at 4166,608), UBS AG ($146,150), UBS-America ($106,680), Morgan Stanley ($104,421), and Credit Suisse Group ($92,300). The last two firms are also known to be leading privatization advocates.

Meanwhile, Obama's presidential run has been "assisted" by more than $2 million from the health care sector and nearly $400,000 from the insurance industry through October of 2007. Obama received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006. His wife Michelle, a fellow Harvard Law graduate, was until a recently a Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $273, 618 in 2006.

And Obama's sixth largest contributor is Exelon, the proud Chicago-based owner and operator of more nuclear power plants than any entity on earth.

Go figure.

As for his "lobbyist ban," last August the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama "raised more than $1 million in the first three months of his presidential campaign from law firms and companies that have major lobbying operations in the nation's capital." Campaign finance expert Stephen Weissman observed that this raised troubling questions about the practical relevance of Obama's much-ballyhooed pledge to turn down donations from "federal lobbyists."

Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability has in fact depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money.

To give one example, Obama received $33,000 in the first quarter of 2007 from the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird, which maintains a large lobbying division in Washington. Obama's $33,000 came bundled from a number of "consultants" employed by the firm.

Also deleted from Obama's "ban" are state lobbyists. Obama took $2000 from two Springfield, Illinois lobbyists for Exelon, which spent $500,000 to influence policy in Washington in 2006 and gave $160,000 directly to Obama.

An especially big dent in the armor of Obama's effort to sell himself as the noble repudiator of lobbyist, PAC, and special interest money generally was inflicted in early August of 2007. That's when the Boston Globe published a widely circulated article titled "PACs and Lobbyists Aided Obama's Rise: Data Contrast With His Theme." Globe reporter Scott Helman reviewed campaign finance records to find that a "more complicated truth" lurked "behind Obama's campaign rhetoric." Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability, Helman discovered, depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money, including large sums from "defense contractors, law firms and the securities and insurance industries" to his own powerful PAC "Hopefund." Of special interest was Helman's determination that Obama was retaining close and lucrative funding relationships with leading Washington-based lobbyists and lobbying firms while technically avoiding direct contributions from those key campaign finance players.

NEVER MIND

When politicians offer nothing, and the people demand nothing, then the powers-that-be are free to continue doing whatever they choose. The death knell of participatory politics can often be a very noisy, celebratory affair - such as we have witnessed in the call-and-response ritual of "Change!" "Hope!" and other exuberant but insubstantial campaign exercises.

After more than four years of observing Obama's descent from vaguely progressive rhetoric to shameless pandering and vapid "Change!" mantra nonsense are we to ignore the facts on the ground stick our heads in the sand and say never mind?

Never mind, for example, that Obama was recently hailed as a “Hamiltonian” believer in “limited government” and “free trade” by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having “a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS.” Or that he had to be shamed off the “New Democrat Directory” of the corporate-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) by the popular left black Internet magazine Black Commentator.

Never mind that Obama (consistent with Brooks’s description of him) has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and “other Wall Street Democrats” to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party. Or that he lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neoconservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman’s (“D”-CT) struggle against the Democratic antiwar insurgent Ned Lamont. Or that Obama has supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races. Or that he criticized efforts to enact filibuster proceedings against reactionary Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Never mind that Obama “dismissively” referred—in a “tone laced with contempt”—to the late progressive and populist U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone as “something of a gadfly.” Or that he chose the neoconservative Lieberman to be his “assigned” mentor in the U.S. Senate. Never mind that Obama opposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent.

Never mind that Obama voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations. Or that Obama claims to oppose the introduction of single-payer national health insurance on the grounds that such a widely supported social-democratic change would lead to employment difficulties for workers in the private insurance industry—at places like Kaiser and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Does Obama support the American scourge of racially disparate mass incarceration on the grounds that it provides work for tens of thousands of prison guards? Should the U.S. maintain the illegal operation of Iraq and pour half its federal budget into “defense” because of all the soldiers and other workers that find employment in imperial wars and the military-industrial complex? Does the “progressive” senator really need to be reminded of the large number of socially useful and healthy alternatives that exist for the investment of human labor power at home and abroad—wetlands preservation, urban ecological retrofitting, drug counseling, teaching, infrastructure building and repair, safe and affordable housing construction, the building of windmills and solar power facilities, etc.?

In an interview with Klein, Obama expressed reservations about a universal health insurance plan recently enacted in Massachusetts, stating his preference for “voluntary” solutions over “government mandates.” The former, he said, is “more consonant with” what he called “the American character”—a position contradicted by regular polling data showing that most Americans support Canadian-style single-payer health insurance.

Never mind that Obama voted to re-authorize the repressive PATRIOT Act. Or that he voted for the appointment of the war criminal Condaleeza Rice to (of all things) Secretary of State. Or that he opposed Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) move to censure the Bush administration after the president was found to have illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens. Or that he shamefully distanced himself from fellow Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s forthright criticism of U.S. torture practices at Guantanamo. Or that he refuses to foreswear the use of first-strike nuclear weapons against Iran.

Never mind that he joins victim-blaming Republicans in pointing to poor blacks’ “cultural” issues as the cause of concentrated black poverty (Obama, The Audacity of Hope)—not the multiple, well-documented, and interrelated structures, practices and consequences of externally imposed white dominance and corporate-state capitalism. Or that he claims that blacks have joined the American “socioeconomic mainstream” even as median black household net worth falls to less than eight cents on the median white household dollar.

Never mind Obama’s power-worshipping campaign book “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” (2006) – the book to which Obama refers reporters asking him for policy specifics behind his often vague statements – refers to the United States’ rapacious, savagely unequal and fundamentally “materialist” capitalist economy as the nation’s “greatest asset.” “Audacity” absurdly praises the “American system of social organization” and “business culture” on the grounds that U.S. capitalism “has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative and efficient allocation of resources.” It commends “the need to raise money from economic elites to finance elections” for “prevent[ing] Democrats...from straying too far from the center” and for marginalizing “those within the Democratic Party who tend toward zealotry” and “radical ideas” (like peace and justice). It praises fellow centrist Senator and presidential rival Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for embracing “the virtues of capitalism” and applauds her “recognizably progressive” husband Bill Clinton for showing that “markets and fiscal discipline” and “personal responsibility are needed to combat poverty”– an interesting reflection on the militantly corporate-neoliberal Clinton administration’s efforts to increase poverty by eliminating poor families’ entitlement to public cash assistance and privileging deficit reduction over social spending.

Never mind that “Audacity” also advances a model of health care reform that mocks his claim to support "universal" insurance. Like the [corporatist] Democratic Leadership Council Obama advocates retaining the for-profit nature of American health care, and mandating that poor people pay for it, somehow. His plan is only ‘universal’ in the sense that mandatory auto insurance is universal.

"I believe that U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq.”
- Barack Obama

Obama’s handlers and supporters place considerable emphasis on the claim that the junior senator from Illinois has voiced a “consistent position against the war” and (by extension) the Middle East. The assertion has some technical accuracy; Obama has publicly questioned the Bush administration’s case for war since the fall of 2002. But serious scrutiny of his “antiwar position” shows that the supposedly “pragmatic” and “non-ideological” Obama speaks in deferential accord with the doctrine of empire. In Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric, Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) has been a “strategic blunder” on the part of an essentially benevolent nation state. Given his presidential ambitions, it is unthinkable for him to acknowledge the invasion’s status as a great international transgression that is consistent with the United States’ long record of imperial criminality. It is equally unimaginable for him to acknowledge that the war expressed Washington’s drive to deepen its control of strategic petroleum resources—an ambition in direct opposition to the alleged U.S. goals of encouraging Iraqi freedom and exporting democracy.

In a recent address designed to display his foreign policy bona fides, Obama showed his continuing willingness to take seriously the claim that OIL was an effort to “impose democracy” on Iraq, even faulting the Bush administration for acting in Iraq on the basis of unrealistic “dreams of democracy and hopes for a perfect government” (Obama, “A Way Forward in Iraq,” speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs [CCGA], November 22, 2006).

Consistent with his denial and embrace of Washington’s imperial ambitions, Obama has refused to join genuinely anti-war forces in calling for a rapid and thorough withdrawal of troops and an end to the occupation of Iraq. In a critical November 2005 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Obama rejected Rep. John Murtha’s (D-PA) call for a rapid redeployment and any notion of a timetable for withdrawal. Obama’s call for “a pragmatic solution to the real war we’re facing in Iraq” included repeated references to the need to “defeat” the “insurgency”—a goal that means continuation of the war.

Obama’s November speech to the CCGA advocates a vaguely timed Iraq “scenario” in which “U.S. forces” might remain in the occupied state for an “extended period of time.” Obama advances a “reduced but active [U.S. military] presence” that “protects logistical supply points” and “American enclaves like the Green Zone” (site of one of the largest and most heavily militarized “embassies” in history) while “sending a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in the region.” U.S. troops “remaining in Iraq” will “act as rapid reaction forces to respond to emergencies and go after terrorists.” This is part of what Obama meant when he told a fawning David Brooks that, “the U.S. may have no choice but to slog it out in Iraq.”

At one point in his CCGA oration, Obama had the audacity to say the following in support of his claim that U.S. citizens support “victory” in Iraq: “The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah.”

This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Fallujah was the site for a colossal U.S. war atrocity. Crimes included the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the targeting of ambulances and hospitals, and the practical leveling of an entire city—in April and November 2004. The town was designated for destruction as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. Not surprisingly, Fallujah is a leading symbol of U.S. imperialism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is a deeply provocative and insulting place for Obama to choose to highlight American sacrifice and “resolve” in the occupation of Iraq.

It gets worse. Obama has repeatedly voted to spend billions on the illegal invasion since his arrival in the U.S. Senate. He inveighs against the “Tom Hayden wing of the Democratic Party” and has told congressional Democrats they would be “playing chicken with the troops” if they dared to actually (imagine) de-fund the Cheney-Bush “war.”

He voted to confirm as Secretary of State (of all things) the mendacious war criminal Condaleeza Rice, who played a critical role in advancing the preposterous Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) claims Bush used to invade Iraq.

He distanced himself from fellow Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin when Durbin faced vicious right-wing attacks after daring to tell some basic truths about U.S. torture practices in Iraq.

Obama has repeatedly and absurdly claimed that the illegal invasion was launched with the “best of democratic intentions.”

He praises U.S. military personnel for their “unquestioning” “service” in Iraq and (despite numerous U.S. atrocities there) for “doing everything we could ever ask of them.”

His belated calls for withdrawal are hedged by numerous statements indicating that an Obama White House would maintain a significant military presence in and around Iraq for an indefinite period of time. And Obama has refused to support taking a reckless (possibly even nuclear) U.S. military assault on Iran off the table of acceptable U.S. foreign policy options.

Barack Obama reacts to the world's response to imperialism in precisely the same way as his counterparts; he proposes more war. Obama wants to add almost one-hundred thousand new troops to the U.S. military, to alleviate the shortage of manpower that Iraq attrition has wrought. In his speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center, Obama gave away their destination: Waziristan. Obama wants a more aggressive approach to the so-called "war on terror," to take "the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So what we have in Barack Obama is an alternative War Party, planning an alternative War. He has told us so, and we should believe him. He is no peace candidate, and goes out of his way to prove it.

A DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE MAN

“I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.”

- Barack Obama, speaking to the masters of “American” finance capitalism at the headquarters of NASDAQ, Wall Street, New York City, September 17, 2007

STANDING UP AND KNEELING DOWN

Maybe it’s because Barack Obama and his handlers are sensitive to the need to reassure ruling forces that the “first black United States president” will not challenge existing hierarchies. Maybe it’s because he’s bought and paid for by big money. Or maybe it’s because he believes in his “deeply conservative” heart that good Americans show deep respect for their socioeconomic masters. Whatever the explanation it’s hard to imagine ever seeing an avowedly “progressive” political candidate more eager than Obama to display his deep willingness to obsequiously kiss the ring of dominant political and economic authority. For someone who is marching across the country calling on working- and middle-class Americans to “get fired up” and “stand up” for democracy (and for him), Obama sure likes to spend a lot of time groveling before supposed upper-class superiors.

OBAMA INC.

This “new Democrat” Barack Obama is engaged in the exact same “juggling act” as the “old Democrats” i.e. Clinton. He likes to call himself a “progressive” and to identify himself with “the principles of equality,” the “Golden Rule” and the cause of “social justice,” citing as evidence his youthful experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Still, Obama is a freshly minted millionaire who recently purchased an opulent Georgian Revival Mansion below price at $1.65 million thanks to some help from the felony-indicted political fundraiser and longtime Obama friend and campaign finance pivot man Tony Rezko.

Obama is a company man. He knows the language, the subtle and overt signals, and emits them like a beacon. Ruling circles have gotten the message, and that is why corporate media have made him a contender, and corporate billfolds have financed him. The "skinny kid" made his bones at the Democratic National Convention, in August, 2004, while he was still an Illinois senatorial candidate - a shoo-in against the hopeless and deranged Black Republican Alan Keyes. Obama put all white fears to rest: "There is no white America. There is no black America. There is no Latino America. There is no Asian America. There is only the United States of America." Hallelujah!

The scam of this still-new century enthralls and envelopes the nation, a narrowly-packaged farce in which political twins Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pretend they are not joined at the hip on every public policy issue that has been allowed to enter the corporate media-vetted discourse: health care, Iraq, trade. Even these points of (non)contention disappear in the din of purely commercial marketing mantras with infinitely malleable meanings: "Change," "Hope," "Reform."

When no real change is offered - when both frontrunners are wedded to a lingering presence in Iraq and to reestablishing U.S. hegemony in the world; when insurance and drug companies are left virtually untouched by duos' tepid forays into broadening health care coverage; and when neither offers a whisper of an idea on halting the corporate-engineered global Race to the Bottom, then it is certain that, although "change" may come, it will be at the direction of the rich who have brought the nation and planet to the very brink of catastrophe.

But then, Obama would never have risen so quickly and remarkably to his current position of dominant media favor and national prominence if he was anything like the egalitarian and democratic “progressive” that some liberals and leftists imagine. In the corporate-crafted and money-dominated swamp that passes for “representative democracy” in the U.S., concentrated economic and imperial power open and close doors in ways that preemptively suffocate populist potential. Big money is not in the business of promoting genuine social justice or democracy activists (so-called “gadflies” like Wellstone, to use Obama’s description).

Understanding public policy as a mechanism for the upward distribution of wealth, it promotes empire and inequality by underwriting the smothering K Street culture and the revolving door that feeds it—not just lobbyists themselves but the entire interconnected world of campaign consultants, public relations agencies, pollsters, and media strategists—without whose favor and assistance serious presidential bids are next to unthinkable.

“For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., May 1967

21st Century Schizoid Man

2008-01-19T17:43:00.000-08:00

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"Cat's foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoia's poison door
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Blood rack barbed wire
Politicians' funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schiziod man.

Death seed blind man's greed
Poets' starving children bleed
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man."

- Peter Sinfield

House Passes 696 Billion $$$ Offensive War Bill

2008-01-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

House passes defense bill.

Today, the House passed a new $696 billion defense authorization bill that includes a pay raise for troops.
AP reports:

President Bush had rejected an earlier version of the legislation because he said it would expose the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits.

The new bill, which passed, 369-46, would let Bush grant Iraq immunity under the provision, which otherwise guarantees that U.S. victims of state-sponsored abuse can sue foreign governments in court. Iraqi officials objected to the measure because they said it would have subjected Baghdad to high-dollar payouts in damages from the Saddam Hussein era.

The administration now supports the bill, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

”We appreciate that the House moved quickly to address the serious concerns the president had,” he said.

The revised measure also makes the 3.5 percent pay increase for troops — included in the original bill — retroactive to Jan. 1.

LINK

The War Party's Laundry List

2008-01-13T17:03:00.000-08:00

A list of the national security and foreign policy advisers to the leading presidential candidates from both parties.

DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton

Madeleine K. Albright, President Clinton’s secretary of state and now chairperson of the National Democratic Institute, foreign policy adviser

Samuel R. Berger, President Clinton’s national security adviser and now a principal at business consultancy Stonebridge, foreign policy adviser

Lt. Gen. Daniel William Christman, a former West Point superintendent and now senior vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, foreign policy adviser

Gen. Wesley K. Clark, President Clinton’s Kosovo commander and now a Democratic fundraiser, endorsed Sen. Clinton Sept. 15

John H. Dalton, President Clinton’s Navy secretary and now president of the Financial Services Roundtable’s Housing Policy Council, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Lee Feinstein, a deputy in President Clinton’s State Department, national security coordinator

Leslie H. Gelb; president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former New York Times correspondent and a former State and Defense Department official, informal adviser

Richard C. Holbrooke, President Clinton’s UN ambassador and broker of the Dayton Peace Accords (and now a Washington Post columnist), foreign policy adviser

Martin S. Indyk, President Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and now director of Brookings’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, foreign policy adviser

Gen. John M. ("Jack") Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff who co-crafted the Iraq "surge" and is now a military analyst (sometimes for ABC news), military issues adviser

Lt. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, former deputy chief of staff for intelligence, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick, President Clinton’s deputy national security adviser, organizes meetings of retired officers

Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefed Hillary Clinton as well as Sen. John McCain and Gov. Bill Richardson

Vali Nasr, Naval Postgraduate School professor, Middle East adviser

Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings senior fellow and former Congressional Budget Office defense and foreign policy analyst, supporter

Rep. (and retired Vice Adm.) Joseph Sestak, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Andrew Shapiro, Sen. Clinton’s Senate foreign policy staffer

Jeffrey H. Smith, former CIA general counsel and now a partner leading the public policy and government contracts group of law firm Arnold & Porter, national security adviser

Strobe Talbott, Brookings president, informal adviser

Togo D. West, President Clinton’s secretary for veterans affairs and former secretary of the Army, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Former Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV, the half of the Plamegate couple who criticized the administration for using questionable evidence to promote the Iraq war, endorsed Sen. Clinton July 16
Barack Obama

Former Amb. Jeffrey Bader, President Clinton’s National Security Council Asia specialist and now head of Brookings’s China center, national security adviser

Mark Brzezinski, President Clinton’s National Security Council Southeast Europe specialist and now a partner at law firm McGuireWoods, national security adviser

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser and now a Center for Strategic and International Studies counselor and trustee and frequent guest on PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, foreign policy adviser

Richard A. Clarke, President Clinton and President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism czar and now head of Good Harbor Consulting and an ABC News contributor, sometimes Obama adviser

Gregory B. Craig, State Department director of policy planning under President Clinton and now a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, foreign policy adviser

Roger W. Cressey, former National Security Council counterterrorism staffer and now Good Harbor Consulting president and NBC News consultant, has advised Obama but says not exclusive

Ivo H. Daalder, National Security Council director for European affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Richard Danzig, President Clinton’s Navy secretary and now a Center for Strategic and International Analysis fellow, national security adviser

Philip H. Gordon, President Clinton’s National Security Council staffer for Europe and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Maj. Gen. J. (Jonathan) Scott Gration, a 32-year Air Force veteran and now CEO of Africa anti-poverty effort Millennium Villages, national security adviser and surrogate

Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary of defense from 1981-1985 and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, informal foreign policy adviser

W. Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s national security adviser and now a professor at Georgetown’s school of foreign service, foreign policy adviser

James M. Ludes, former defense and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and now executive director of the American Security Project, national security adviser

Robert Malley, President Clinton’s Middle East envoy and now International Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa program director, national security adviser

Gen. Merrill A. ("Tony") McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff and now a business consultant, national security adviser

Denis McDonough, Center for American Progress senior fellow and former policy adviser to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, foreign policy coordinator

Samantha Power, Harvard-based human rights scholar and Pulitzer Prize winning writer, foreign policy adviser

Susan E. Rice, President Clinton’s Africa specialist at the State Department and National Security Council and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Bruce O. Riedel, former CIA officer and National Security Council staffer for Near East and Asian affairs and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Dennis B. Ross, President Clinton’s Middle East negotiator and now a Washington Institute for Near East Policy fellow, Middle East adviser

Sarah Sewall, deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance during President Clinton’s administration and now director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, national security adviser

Daniel B. Shapiro, National Security Council director for legislative affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a lobbyist with Timmons & Company, Middle East adviser

Mona Sutphen, former aide to President Clinton’s National Security adviser Samuel R. Berger and to United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson and now managing director of business consultancy Stonebridge, national security adviser
John Edwards

Barry M. Blechman, President Carter’s assistant director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and founder and chairman of the Henry L. Stimson Center, military advisory group

Irving N. Blickstein, former assistant deputy chief of Naval operations and a RAND researcher, military advisory group

Derek Chollet, Edwards’s Senate foreign policy aide, chief national security adviser

Lt. Gen. Michael A. Hough, former Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation, military advisory group

Gen. Paul J. Kern, former Army Materiel Command commander who directed the internal investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib and now a lobbyist with the Cohen Group, military advisory group

Gen. Lester "Les" Lyles, former commander Air Force Materiel Command and now an aerospace consultant, military advisory group

Gen. Gregory S. ("Speedy") Martin, former commander Air Force Materiel Command and now a consultant, military advisory group

Rear Adm. William J. McDaniel, former commanding officer of Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, military advisory group

Rear Adm. David R. Oliver Jr., former principal deputy under secretary for acquisition and technology and now CEO of aerospace and defense company EADS North America, military advisory group

Michael Signer, onetime aide to former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, deputy policy director for foreign affairs and national security

Maj. Gen. Allen Youngman, former Kentucky adjutant general and now a defense lobbyist with American Business Development Group, military advisory group

REPUBLICANS

Rudolph Giuliani

Gerard Alexander, University of Virginia politics professor and American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar, European advisory board

Peter Beering, Indiana terrorism preparedness coordinator and principal with consulting firm Indianapolis Terrorism Response Group, homeland security advisory board

Peter Berkowitz; Hoover Institution senior fellow and George Mason Law School professor focusing on laws, ethics and politics; senior statecraft, human rights and freedom adviser

Robert C. Bonner, former U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner and now a partner with law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, chief homeland security adviser

David R. Cameron, Yale political science professor, European advisory board

Robert Conquest; Soviet-era historian and former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and now a Hoover Institution research fellow; senior foreign policy advisory board

Lisa Curtis, former staffer to Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now a Heritage foundation senior research fellow, senior South Asia adviser

Carlos Eire, Cuban activist and Yale renaissance studies professor, senior foreign policy advisory board

Joshua Filler, former director Department of Homeland Security Office of State and Local Government Coordination director and now a homeland security consultant, homeland security advisory board

Louis J. Freeh, former FBI director, homeland security advisory board chairman

Nile Gardner, Heritage Foundation senior research fellow and onetime foreign policy researcher for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, European advisory board

Stephen Haber, Hoover Institution senior fellow and Stanford history and political science professor, senior western hemisphere adviser

Charles Hill, former aide to Reagan-era secretary of state George P. Shultz and now a Hoover Institution research fellow, chief foreign policy adviser

Kim R. Holmes, President George W. Bush’s former assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs and now the Heritage Foundation vice president of foreign and defense policy studies, senior foreign policy adviser

Daniel Johnson, former Minnesota homeland security director, homeland security advisory board

Former Sen. Robert Kasten, R-Wisc., former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Foreign Operations Subcommittee, senior foreign policy advisory board

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., homeland security advisory board

Martin Kramer, former director of Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, senior Middle East adviser

Andrew B. Maner, former Department of Homeland Security chief financial officer and now a member of the board of directors at emergency management software provider Previstar, homeland security advisory board

John T. Odermatt, former commissioner of the New York City Office of Emergency Management and Citigroup’s corporate director of business continuity, homeland security advisory board

Norman Podhoretz, Hudson Institute adjunct fellow and former editor of Commentary magazine, senior foreign policy advisory board

David Pryce-Jones, novelist and essayist, senior foreign policy adviser

John Rabin, former program director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Lessons Learned Information Sharing and now a consultant, homeland security advisory board

Stephen Peter Rosen, President Reagan’s National Security Council staffer for political-military affairs and now a Harvard professor of national security and military affairs, senior defense adviser

Howard Safir, former New York City Police commissioner and now a crisis management consultant, homeland security advisory board

Richard J. Sheirer, former New York City emergency management commissioner and now a senior vice president with Giuliani Partners, homeland security advisory board

Seth Stodder, former Customs and Border Protection director of policy and planning and now a senior counsel and lobbyist with law firm Akin Gump, homeland security advisory board

C. Stewart Verdery Jr., former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for policy and planning and founder of lobbying firm Monument Policy Group, homeland security advisory board

Thomas Von Essen, former New York City Fire commissioner and now a senior vice president with Giuliani Partners, homeland security advisory board

Kenneth Weinstein, CEO Hudson Institute, foreign policy adviser

Joe Whitley, former Department of Homeland Security general counsel and now partner with law firm Alston & Bird, homeland security advisory board

S. Enders Wimbush, Hudson Institute director of future security strategies and former security consultant, senior public diplomacy adviser

Stephen Yates, former deputy assistant to Vice President Cheney for national security affairs and now a lobbyist and American Foreign Policy Council senior fellow, senior Asia adviser
John McCain

Richard Lee Armitage, President George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of state and an international business consultant and lobbyist, informal foreign policy adviser

Bernard Aronson, former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs and now a managing partner of private equity investment company ACON Investments, informal foreign policy adviser

William L. Ball III, secretary of the Navy during President Reagan’s administration and managing director of lobbying firm the Loeffler Group, informal national security adviser

Stephen E. Biegun, former national security aide to then-Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and now Ford Motors vice president of international government affairs, informal national security adviser

Max Boot, Council on Foreign Relations editor and former Wall Street Journal editorial editor, foreign policy adviser

Brig. Gen. Tom Bruner, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Lorne W. Craner, International Republican Institute president, informal foreign policy adviser

Lawrence S. Eagleburger, President George H.W. Bush’s secretary of state and a senior public policy adviser with law firm Baker Donelson, endorsed McCain April 10

Brig. Gen. Russ Eggers, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Gen. Merrill Evans, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Niall Ferguson, Harvard historian and Hoover Institution senior fellow, informal foreign policy adviser

Michael J. Green, former Asia adviser to President George W. Bush and now Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Asia policy adviser

Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., President Reagan’s secretary of state, endorsed McCain April 10

Maj. Gen. Evan "Curly" Hultman, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Robert Kagan; senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for then-secretary of state George P. Shultz; informal foreign policy adviser

Brig. Gen. Robert Michael Kimmitt, current deputy Treasury secretary, informal national security adviser

Henry A. Kissinger, President Nixon and President Ford’s secretary of state who met McCain in Vietnam and is now a consultant, informal adviser

Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefed McCain as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Bill Richardson

William Kristol, The Weekly Standard editor, informal foreign policy adviser

Adm. Charles Larson, former superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and now chairman of consulting firm ViaGlobal Group, informal national security adviser

Robert "Bud" McFarlane, President Reagan’s national security adviser and now a principal with Energy & Communications Solutions, energy and national security adviser

Brig. Gen. Warren "Bud" Nelson, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Brig. Gen. Eddie Newman, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Gen. John Peppers, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Ralph Peters, writer and retired Army officer, informal national security adviser

Brig. Gen. Maurice Phillips, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Gen. Colin L. Powell, President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, informal foreign policy adviser

James R. Schlesinger, President Nixon and President Ford’s secretary of defense, energy and national security adviser

Randy Scheunemann, national security aide to then-Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Trent Lott and now a lobbyist, defense and foreign policy coordinator (for this cycle and 2000)

Gary Schmitt, former staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee and now an American Enterprise Institute scholar, foreign policy adviser

Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush and founder of business consultancy the Scowcroft Group, adviser

George P. Shultz, President Reagan’s secretary of state and a Hoover Institution Fellow, endorsed McCain April 10

Brig. Gen. W.L. "Bill" Wallace, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Gen. Gary Wattnem, Iowa veterans advisory committee

R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and now a vice president at consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton, energy and national security adviser
Mitt Romney

David Aufhauser, former Treasury Department general counsel and now general counsel of USB investment bank, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Jorge L. Arrizurieta, lobbyist and major Republican donor, Latin American policy advisory group

Former Rep. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., onetime chairman of House International Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Latin American policy advisory group

J. (Joseph) Cofer Black, former CIA and State Department counterterrorism official and now vice chairman Blackwater USA, senior adviser on counterterrorism and national security

Ted Brennan, former aide to then-Reps. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C. and Henry Hyde, R-Ill., Latin American policy advisory group

Lt. Gen. John H. ("Soup") Campbell, former vice director of Pentagon information systems and now a lobbyist for satellite communications, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Alberto R. Cardenas, lobbyist and former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, Latin American policy advisory group

Robert Charles, former assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, Latin American policy advisory group

Samuel Cole, COO of BlueMountain Capital Management, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Mark Falcoff, American Enterprise Institute Latin America scholar emeritus and onetime consultant to President Reagan’s Commission on Central America, Latin American policy advisory group

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., ranking Republican on House Intelligence Committee, intelligence adviser

Kent Lucken, foreign service veteran now an international private banker with Citigroup, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

John McClurg, formerly of the FBI computer investigations and critical infrastructure threat assessment center and now vice president Honeywell Global Security, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Larry Mefford, former FBI agent and counterterrorism official, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Amb. Tibor Nagy, Jr., career foreign service officer with ambassadorial tours in Ethiopia and Guinea, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Amb. Roger Francisco Noriega, former assistant secretary for Western hemisphere affairs under George W. Bush and now a lobbyist, Latin American policy advisory group

Mitchell B. Reiss, former state department policy planning director, foreign policy adviser

V. Manuel Rocha, career foreign service officer and former ambassador to Bolivia, Latin American policy advisory group

Steven Schrage, former State Department international law specialist, foreign policy and trade director

Dan Senor, former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman and now a lobbyist and Fox News contributor, sometimes foreign policy adviser

Jose S. Sorzano, Latin America aide to President Reagan and chairman of corporate consultant Austin Group, Latin American policy advisory group

Larry Storrs, former Latin America specialist at the Congressional Research Service, Latin American policy advisory group

Caleb ("Cal") Temple, formerly with the Defense Intelligence Agency and now executive vice president of Total Intelligence Solutions, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., lobbyist and chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, policy chairman

Ed Worthington, FBI veteran, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

The Audacity Of 'Hype'

2008-01-08T12:07:00.000-08:00

There is a simple -- and not very profound -- reason why Barack Obama appears headed for the Democratic nomination, and it comes down to three simple things: Manufactured Media Hype, Corporate Loyalty and a Room Full of Lobbyists.

Never mind, for example, that Obama was recently hailed as a “Hamiltonian” believer in “limited government” and “free trade” by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having “a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS.” Or that he had to be shamed off the “New Democrat Directory” of the corporate-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) by the popular left black Internet magazine Black Commentator (Bruce Dixon, “Obama to Have Name Removed From DLC List,” Black Commentator, June 26, 2003).

Never mind that Obama (consistent with Brooks’s description of him) has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and “other Wall Street Democrats” to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party (David Sirota, “Mr. Obama Goes to Washington,” the Nation, June 26). Or that he lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neoconservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman’s (“D”-CT) struggle against the Democratic antiwar insurgent Ned Lamont. Or that Obama has supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races (see Alexander Cockburn, “Obama’s Game,” the Nation, April 24, 2006). Or that he criticized efforts to enact filibuster proceedings against reactionary Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Never mind that Obama “dismissively” referred—in a “tone laced with contempt”—to the late progressive and populist U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone as “something of a gadfly.” Or that he chose the neoconservative Lieberman to be his “assigned” mentor in the U.S. Senate. Or that “he posted a long article on the liberal blog Daily Kos criticizing attacks against lawmakers who voted for right-wing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.” Or that he opposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. Or that he told Time magazine’s Joe Klein last year that he’d never given any thought to Al Gore’s widely discussed proposal to link a “carbon tax” on fossil fuels to targeted tax relief for the nation’s millions of working poor (Joe Klein, “The Fresh Face,” Time, October 17, 2006).

Never mind that Obama voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations.

Never mind that Obama voted to re-authorize the repressive PATRIOT Act. Or that he voted for the appointment of the war criminal Condaleeza Rice to (of all things) Secretary of State. Or that he opposed Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) move to censure the Bush administration after the president was found to have illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens. Or that he shamefully distanced himself from fellow Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s forthright criticism of U.S. torture practices at Guantanamo. Or that he refuses to foreswear the use of first-strike nuclear weapons against Iran.

Resolute, Tough, Intense... Presidential

It's all very well for Sen. Obama to campaign on a "we can make change" platform. It's all very well for Obama to recite the mantra of "Hope" ad nauseum. It's a great marketing idea. However, because the mechanics of government have become so detached from the interests of the electorate, the truth of the matter is that "we," in a practical sense, are altogether powerless--irrespective of which candidate we put in the Oval Office. We The People have, for quite some time, seen the interests of campaign financiers and lobbyists taking precedence over our own. And all the clever rhetoric in the world will not alter that sorry situation.

Now of course Obama would be better than the simian creature that currently occupies the White House, but he clearly is not our best option (based on his voting record). The MSM and their corporate masters desperately want to give one of their chosen few the appearance of being destined to be the next president. They would be tickled to have anyone from the Republican camp, but they know the American people are almost certainly going Democratic this time around. So what are their options? Simple, select those who are least likely to upset the applecart and promote them to the front (Clinton, Obama and, to a lesser degree, Edwards) while marginalizing anyone who poses a threat to the status quo (Kucinich, Gravel).

Obama, if elected, will be hailed as a "historic change", and he will be, but primarily in a cosmetic sense. If you look closely at his record (as I shall be doing over the next few weeks), you will see that he might have the capacity to make you feel good, but with little promise for real change.

The reality of the situation is this- lobbyists and employees of finance, real estate, and related firms have kicked down millions in bundled contributions to all of the leading candidates. Now, those lobbyists have backed off and are watching and waiting in the shadows.

Regardless of who wins the Democratic and Republican primaries, the lobbyists will still be waiting and watching.

The Republican operatives will roll out every dirty trick in the book as the electoral process proceeds, and have already started doing so. Their goals will be to reduce Democratic turnout and increase Republican turnout. Democratic political operatives will be doing the same thing - sort of a "George Lakoff vs. Frank Luntz" view of the electoral process. Talk is cheap, however, and Lakoff and Luntz are nothing but psychological manipulators, truth be told.

Let's say that Obama wins the primary and the presidency. People will cheer, we'll see a lot of self-congratulatory behavior, and people will go home to sleep, oh-so-happy about their victory over the Republican Party.

However, that's the point that the lobbyists wake up and roll into action - AFTER THE ELECTION. They'll contact all their people in the Obama campaign, they'll demand favors, and they'll push candidates for various government departments and cabinet posts who will protect their interests. They'll present pre-written bills that they want the President to support, and on and on. This is the case regardless of who wins.

Mind If We Talk Some Shit®

2008-01-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

They ain't sayin' shit.

They ain't intending on sayin' shit.

They never intended on sayin' shit.

All they do is talk shit.

Anyone who thinks they are gonna say shit is full of shit.

This ain't no shit.

Click On The Image And Then Magnifier To See Who Owns Your Candidate

Happy New Year Iraq!

2007-12-30T15:27:00.000-08:00

Click on image to enlarge

In the week in which General Petraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).
These findings come from a poll released today by ORB, the British polling agency that has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,499 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

Q: How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003. Calculating the affect from the margin of error we believe that the range is a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063

Please click on this link if you want a local perspective on these figures - a short interview with our pollster Dr Munqeth Daghir - http://195.158.192.26/munqeth/

Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next.

The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines.

As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighborhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the bulk of refugees.

And for those left in Iraq, although 81% may describe the availability of basic groceries such as bread and fresh vegetables as “very/fairly good”, more than one in two (54%) consider them to be “expensive”.
Note:
The opinion poll was conducted by ORB and the survey details are as follows:

•Results are based on face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths)
•The standard margin of error on the sample who answered (1,499) is +2.5%
•The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit.
•Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007.
•Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx
•ORB is a full member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules

LINK

How Far Right Can You Go?

2007-12-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

"[Ron]Paul-haters on the Right and the Left unite in a common cause."
-Justin Raimondo

Does that make Paul a centrist? Damn I thought that was the Hillary-Obama-Edwards schtick?

When all them Right-Wing Candy Dates are running to the right they all chirp- "Centrist."

The entirety of the American political Apparatus is is so far Right that Ron Paul seems nearly reasonable.

Well you see the real Ron Paul phenomenon isn't the story of Ron Paul it's the story of how truly deranged is the entire American political landscape and how there is a terrible gap in simply understanding the history of the American political economy and how that is reflected in today's political cesspool.

The Pretender

2007-12-25T19:37:00.000-08:00

There is much pretending throughout the progressive and liberal community in my view.

Success and the good life, credentials and status, position and privilege must be protected, at least for people like "us." At the same time, our position and privilege is dependent upon playing a certain role. We must pretend that we are not defending privilege and position and must pretend that we are for the downtrodden. We must pretend that privilege and position is all earned, and that anyone could have anything that we have. We must defend the system of dog-eat-dog competition without allowing that to be too obvious. So we pretend that introducing "fairness" rules and regimens into our personal life nullifies all of the things we do to attain and preserve the spot we have clawed our way to in society.

Sometimes this balancing act is fairly easy, since there are so many people willing to help us keep the facade up and since reality doesn't intrude into our "reality based" fantasy world, but once in a while something like the Bush administration arises and calls our bluff.

When our bluff is called, there is no amount of time and energy we will spare in internecine warfare arguing fine points of what a liberal is, or what our position should be on each and every minute issue and sub-issue and variations on every issue. These arguments can never be resolved, because there is no basis of consensus. Actually there is a consensus, but an important component of the consensus is that we never talk about it and we must pretend that it isn't there.

The consensus from which liberals and Democrats operate:

We are the better people. We are smarter, we are humane, we are more compassionate, we are better informed. We are better citizens, we are more cooperative and realistic. We are winners, not losers, and we deserve everything we get. We are spiritually superior. We are centered and balanced, calm and insightful. We are on the right side of history. We are building a better world.

The general public does not realize that we are the better people, and the ones who should be making the decisions. This is because Republicans are able to take advantage of the people's stupidity and ignorance and turn them against us.

Most of the problems in the world are the result of stupid people running things. If we smart people were in charge, all of the problems could be solved with science and technology and rational social planning.

Class analysis, and the struggles of working class people against tyranny have no place in modern society. They are obsolete and passe, and only something that we read about or see in movies. Romantic as those stories are, they are no substitute for hard-headed practical reality, whether we like it or not. This is a matter of being a mentally healthy, modern, well-adjusted adult in society. None of the lessons from history apply, because things are different now. Only strange maladjusted people are attracted to obsolete political ideas. They are all obviously losers, and are a great danger, almost as much of a danger as the Republicans are.

Since politics and economics in the traditional sense are dead, we embrace a new paradigm of self improvement and self-actualization. Anything that interferes with our focus on ourselves and our pursuit of creating ourselves as an actualized being is to be rejected. The way to achieve the perfect society is first to create a perfect self. Meanwhile, so long as the authorities do not interfere with our self-actualization, we must comply in all ways with that authority. This allows us perfect self-expression within perfect social conformity. Anyone who attacks our personal choices is the enemy, and anyone who attacks the social system based on personal choice is also the enemy.

Others, however, who do not share our values are not to be given personal choice, when and as we can prove that their personal choices are wrong, often with convoluted claims that their choice impacts us somehow. We support the police state and massive incarceration of people, so long as they are being harassed and imprisoned for the right reasons. Any variance from our idea as to how people should be is the right reason, by definition.

We believe that we must “be the change we wish to see,” and the change we wish to see is more people like us: polite, talented, beautiful, intelligent, calm, successful, clever, enlightened. So we merely need to be ourselves, focus on ourselves, and serve ourselves. Those who cannot or will not become like us need to back down and get out of the way.

We fully support aristocracy, capitalism, corporate domination, and consumerism, provided that they support our self-actualization and afford us the personal lifestyle choices we prefer.

Thanks for that mberst.

Low-Fat Imperialism

2007-12-24T19:40:00.000-08:00

Consider.

Immigration is essentially driven by America's OWN grievously immoral, underhanded, fraudulent and criminal actions under a policy of neo-liberal exploitation that has occasioned massive theft, political intrigue and election-tampering, coups, propping-up of corrupt dictators and brutal autocrats, blackmail, assassinations and death-squads, institutionalized terrorism, IMF/WTO/World Bank-imposed privatization and 'restructuring' and subsidized agricultural exports that have displaced huge numbers of small farmers, 'drug-war' skullduggery and forced de-funding of critical social services and public infrastructure -- the concept of 'illegal immigration' falls-apart. It is actually economic and political self-defense.

Illegal immigration is a wedge issue primarily because most Americans are ignorant about, in denial, or unwilling to face the fact that America has taken outrageous advantage of and abused the basic civil and human rights of Latin American citizens in order to prop-up America's bloated standard of living and overextended debt. The principles of rule of law governing allowable and acceptable economic trade practices and respecting the sovereignty of foreign nations have been consistently violated by America's appeal to its imaginary sense of exceptionalism -- which constitutes a huge nationalistic blind spot.

Americans in general tend to be astonishingly uninformed and misinformed about genuine history and the real consequences of American foreign policy-- thanks in large part to its disingenuous mass media and the co-opted public education industry. For all the popular rhetoric about America's National pride, honor and sense of values, and championing the causes of freedom, peace and justice, to a very large extent the American public is clueless about how hypocritical and self-serving the US has been, and how complicit they are by not holding their leaders and policymakers accountable for America's devastating Imperialist pretensions.

So Deeply Ingrained

2007-12-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

Disapproving of the system won't be enough to change it. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us.

Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly acculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

One of the most important things that we all have to come to grips with is that RACISM KILLS (as do sexism and homophobia, and all the other oppressions.) If NOLA didn't show the world that for once and for all, it showed us nothing.

So many people don't seem to understand what racism even is. "Are you saying ________ is racist?" "Oh, no, I'd never say THAT." BULLSHIT. Of course ________ is racist. And so is everyone else who can't see that it was the racism (and classism) killing NOLA residents more even than the flood, or who shies away from charging most of our leaders and our whole government, the entire system is racist to the core.

It's as if they think racism (or any of the other oppressions) is necessarily a CONSCIOUS construct: "I really don't like black people -- I think they're inferior, so let's not fund the levees and then someday they may die."

No, perhaps the worst, but certainly the most intransigent aspect of racism is the part(s) based on SUBconscious or even UNconscious beliefs that there are people who simply don't count as much, for whatever reason. But the funny thing is, those people tend overwhelmingly to fall into the oppressed groups. "Oh, it's only black folk (so who cares?)," or "Oh, it's only poor folk (who are lazy and therefore deserve what they get) and old people (past their prime and useless) anyway."

The US is a nation born of genocide, suckled on slavery, and weaned on apartheid, and the weaning process has been largely confined to a bottle at board meetings.

And as someone else mentioned, maybe here, maybe elsewhere, the sin, in the eyes of the white and affluent, is not the racism itself, but being reminded of it.

To be fair, it is so deeply ingrained that most do not even realize it, and their indignation is quite sincere when they insist that they are not a bit racist, some of their best friends are black, and they (or their parents) even marched in Selma.

Welcome To The Homeland

2007-12-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Germany
Welcome to the Hyper-White Techno-Evangelical Inquisition.

80 billion additional dollars to the War for Lockheed-Halliburton
now up to a quarter of a trillion for the war for the Brown&Root- for the Dyncorp
in addition to the regular 500 million or so a minute for the
Narcotics Trafficking- CIA- Military- Industrial- World's Greatest Polluter- Criminal Think Tank Complex

Small scale tactical nuclear weapons cocktails
served up to brown skinned children
with distended bellies
by well-manicured barbarians in Citadels and Mansions
by their servants in boardrooms
with distended bellies

With 725 military bases
With 350 outposts
In 132 countries
In Every jungle
In Every tree
All baby-faced tamarinds run for cover, hiding in their mother's breasts

America- A fundamentally sick society
America- A culture of conquest

Get out of Iraq Get out of Viet Nam
America get out of Colombia
America get off the Rez
America get out of Afghanistan
America get out of etcetera

America, a fundamentally sick society.

Welcome to Plastic Racist Nation
Welcome to McAmeriWal-Martika
Germany- The Fatherland
America- The Homeland
Welcome to Soft Fascism

General Reinhard Gehlen head of German military intelligence on the Eastern front and his network of spies and terrorists were brought over to the USA after World War 2 in the now well known Operation Paperclip. From these advisers and functionaries Allen Dulles, copying many of the methods utilized by the likes of Herr Gehlen, shaped what we now know to be the CIA.

Instruments of Statecraft
Counterinsurgency Literature

Strangle Them- Starve Them
Hold an election
Call it Democracy

I pledge allegiance to the United Sports Utility Vehicle
of Der Father- der Home Land of the Fee
Home Land of Wage Slavery
Land of the Tidy White Bestiality
This Land of Pre-Ordained Brutality
This Land of Hyper-Tense Entreprenurial Mentality

Overthrow Castro
Overthrow Arbenz
Overthrow Mossadegh
Overthrow Chavez
Overthrow National Sovereignty
Overthrow Dignity

It is time to stop living
The Lie that is America- I Secede

Lessons from the Luddites

2007-12-17T19:45:00.001-08:00

1 Technologies are never neutral, and some are hurtful.

2 Industrialism is always a cataclysmic process, destroying the past, roiling the present, making the future uncertain.

3 "Only a people serving an apprenticeship to nature can be trusted with machines."

4 The nation-state, synergistically intertwined with industrialism, will always come to its aid and defense, making revolt futile and reform ineffectual.

5 But resistance to the industrial system, based on some grasp of moral principles and rooted in some sense of moral revulsion, is not only possible but necessary.

6 Politically, resistance to industrialism must force the viability of industrial society into public consciousness and debate.

◦ What purpose does this machine serve?

◦ What problem has become so great that it needs this solution?

◦ Is this invention nothing but, as Thoreau put it, an improved means to an unimproved end?

◦ Who are the winners?

◦ Who are the losers?

◦ Will this invention concentrate or disperse power, encourage or discourage self worth?

◦ Can society at large afford it?

◦ Can the biosphere?

7 Philosophically, resistance to industrialism must be embedded in an analysis--an ideology, perhaps--that is morally informed, carefully articulated and widely shared.

◦ Anthropocentrism must be opposed by the principle of biocentrism and the spiritual identification of the human with all living species and systems.

◦ Globalism must be opposed by the empowerment of the coherent bioregion and small community.

◦ Industrial capitalism must be opposed by an ecological and sustainable economy built upon accommodation and commitment to the earth.

- Kirkpatrick Sale
_______________________________________________________________________________

Only After The Last Tree Has Been Cut Down,
Only after The Last River Has Been Poisoned,
Only after The Last Fish Has Been Caught,
Only Then Will You Find That Money Cannot Be Eaten.

- Cree Prophecy

Please Take The Following Security Measures

2007-12-17T18:11:00.000-08:00

Act as if you know where you are going even if you don't know.

Be as unpredictable as you can be.

For instance: Don't go to your favorite restaurant every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

Determine your route in advance.

Always keep distance between yourself and others.

Travel on main, well-lighted roads.

Don't talk to strangers.

Always lock your doors.

Don't keep a key to your apartment or home under the door mat,
or under a potted plant on the front steps.

Don't keep all of your money in one place.

If you think you are being followed, immediately beat a path to public space.

Walk erect and briskly; be alert at all times.

Dress in camouflage.

Report anything unusual or abnormal.

Always remember: You may be a target, even without your knowledge,
simply because of your nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs,
religion, or sexual orientation.

It is always safer to drive close to the center of the road.

Don't accept food from strangers.

Be careful whom you trust.

When going to disease-infested areas, be sure in advance
to get proper pillsand inoculations.

Wear a condom.

Better yet: Don't have sex, especially with strangers.

At night, walk in well-lit areas.

Better still: Don't walk at all.

Drive in heavily armored vehicles.

Install high concrete barriers or walls around your communities to keep out
those who hate you. Call them gates or fences.

If you think you might be attacked, strike first without pausing to assess
whether the threat is real or imagined.

The time it takes to think might cost you your life.

Remember: No place is safe yet some places are safer than others;
you may not be able to determine which is which.

If you know where you are going to die
stay away from that place

HALLMARKS OF CIVILIZATION

2007-12-16T19:01:00.000-08:00

Asphalt- suffocates the earth and heats up everything. Bugs avoid it.

Garbage- everywhere you look it blows through the air and keeps piling up.

Loudness- alarms, buzzers, weed whips. Essential elements to keep us in a state of mild agitation.

Boxes- includes cages, cubicles and crates. Can be used for transport, housing and work.

Growth- essential component of industrial economic mentality. Operates like the cancer cell.

Garage- a must have to store all the boxes.

Plastic- useful for choking up waterways and birds. Also useful for buying stuff, mostly plastic stuff. Never leave home without it.

Wires- dangling from every pole, house and ear.

Vehicles- metal boxes often used to carry other vehicles.

Colossal Banditry- conventional usage names this "Development." Without this minor detail Civilization loses it's veneer and quickly becomes savage.

Grass- necessary to highlight the hedges and make use of Sunday leisure time. Mower not included.

Mirrors- a whole hall full. Necessary for narcissistic culture and to continue the illusion that no one is catching up.

Heavily Packaged- all sales and marketing techniques come with this, like Civilization itself. Ultimately turns into garbage, like Civilization itself.

Well-Groomed- must keep up appearances. The facade is crucial to masque that which lies beneath beneath the skin. That being copious amounts of "uncivilized" blood.

Servants- billions needed. Used to be human units, shackled and chained of 'Slavery' now uniformed human units, often wearing visors, employed in the 'service economy.'

Museums- congealed ideologies live here. Nothing moves. Attendees happiest when eating ice cream.

Insurance- a reminder that no matter what money will secure our future.

Paperwork- lends a certain air of import to those doing it. Mistakenly thought of as work.

Control- everything wild and free to be exterminated or caged. Boxes can be helpful here.

Straight Lines- elegant oxbows are inefficient. Rectilinear architecture to keep things in order.

Lights- all the time. Everywhere. Mystery makes civilization uneasy.

The production costs of ONE silicon chip

2007-12-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

-3,200 cubic feet of bulk gases

- 22 cubic feet of toxic, corrosive and volatile gases

- 2,275 gallons of de-ionized water (a suspected liver, gastrointestinal and neurological toxin)

- 20 pounds of assorted chemicals

- 285 kilowatt hours of electricity (coal-fired or nuclear powered)

- 25 pounds of highly corrosive sodium hydroxide

- 2,840 gallons of wastewater and seven pounds of miscellaneous hazardous waste

There is a longer laundry list of air and waste stream pollutants such as arsenic, lead, chromium, acid fumes and volatile organic compounds that end up in watersheds, wells, and marine ecosystems. I've just skimmed the surface of only one aspect that being just the production. It gets much worse when we follow the entire trail.

Massacre Is An Acquired Taste

2007-12-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

Massacre is an acquired taste. The United States is arguably the only country on the planet whose national personality and self-image is rooted in centuries of unremitting expansion through race war punctuated by massacre. There have always been “free-fire zones” all along the coveted, ever moving peripheries of white American power, from the “Indian country” surrounding the settler beachheads of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown to the “Sunni Triangle” of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. Whole peoples – millions – have been erased in the glorious march of American Manifest Destiny.

It is true that the globe-ravaging European colonial powers certainly killed more human beings in the course of their imperial careers than their settler sons in North America. However, the national characters of Britain, Spain, France, Holland and Belgium were already formed when the Great European Breakout and Worldwide Pillage commenced. Although their wealth was later built on the blood and bones of faraway “natives” and slaves, European civil societies were already shaped by long histories of conflict among themselves, between classes and nations on their small sub-continent. Britain and France stretched forth their naval and army tentacles to ensure that wealth arrived in Liverpool and Marseilles, but the colonized peoples did not effectively intrude on the evolution of European society.

Nobody had to invent the historical personalities of the Frenchman in France, the Englishman in England. Their civil societies were deeply impacted – and some sectors greatly enriched – by the existence of the colonies, but not (until very recently) by the foreign peoples who died for European prosperity.

The English settler colonies in North America were different – unique. Masses of armed migrants came to steal, and stay, and keep stealing. Theirs was an enterprise of aggrandizement at the native’s expense, and unlimited expansion. Less than a century and a half after the massacre and near-erasure of the Pequots – in celebration of which the Governor of Massachusetts proclaimed the first day of Pilgrim Thanksgiving – the white colonists decided that they were a distinct people, no longer Europeans.

They were right. American colonial society was shaped by constant depredations against non-whites, close up and brutal. By 1776, one out of five non-Indian residents of the colonies were Black slaves, the control and dehumanization of which had become a daily collective duty of much of the white population. Across the Alleghenies lay unconquered Indian lands that, once cleansed, could usher into being a white empire that would dwarf Europe. The English King and his treaties with the Indians stood in the way; he had to go.

The “American” mission was clear, manifest: to endlessly expand through the elimination of impediments posed by the External Other (“savage” Indians), while keeping white society safe and separate from the “debauchery” of the valuable, Internal Other (Black slaves). This is the foundation on which the American iconography and celebration is based. Lacking any other, it is the template of white American identity and purported “civilization.”

There Are No "Illegal" Human Beings

2007-12-14T21:07:00.000-08:00

The brown-skinned man you call "Illegal" is only heading into El Norte to take back what is rightly his. Mr. "Illegal" is only coming to find the stolen goods you see as your birthright Mr. Gringo. Mr. "Illegal" only wants to see what those pretty yellow bananas look like inside the gigantic air-conditioned food warehouse. You know all about the morning blood fruit, right Mr. Gringo? Mr. "Illegal" only walks the grueling pilgrimage towards Never-Never Land, water jugs in hand, to peer over the well-watered hedge into your morning Scottsdale Latte to see if any of his blood remains in your mug-seems there's plenty still there- more than he had remembered. Mr. "Illegal" only comes to the Land of Milk and Honey (Did you steal that too Mr. Gringo?) in order to get a brief glimpse of the sweet mango-to remember the taste of the mango that used to be in his backyard until he got NAFTA-ed off his land.

The U.S. Constitution Sucks, No Really

2007-12-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

Even as a bourgeois-democratic document, it really, really sucks. I'm talking about more than the obvious here: more than about how juridical and political "rights" don't impinge on economic society in the worlds richest country, more than about the institutionalization of only two parties, more than the observation that the commoner's House of Lords (the Senate) has more power than the legislature, more than the meaning of why it takes several more amendments 80 years after the first ten to establish that former slaves count as "humans" too and are candidates for "Human Rights" (and another 100 years to implement even those), and more than the two hundred other details that have become obvious in the last few years, such as the inability to recall a government except by criminal trial or coup.

I am talking about the fact that Bush has exposed the absolute power of the "presidency", a power hidden only because of the collusion of the major political parties for the entire life of the Republic. It appears that in this system, there are no limits whatever on the powers of the presidency save elections every 4 years (which would not have counted as "democracy" even in the 18th century), and the only reason that it even appeared that there were any such limits was exclusively the result of a voluntary super-constitutional etiquette practiced by the political participants but in no way enshrined in law. All it took was one asshole to show it all up.

Let me say it as controversially as possible - The constitution wasn't usurped, wasn't diluted, wasn't undermined; it was always like this.

Which means that the U.S. is governed by among the most primitive of current day political charters and that there is much less democracy here than in most recently established bullshit quasi-democracies, even by bourgeois standards... and this is said by someone who thinks that "democracy" don't mean shit, even when it's real.

The Constitution was a shitty document to start with, except if you're a plutocrat, so dissenting with Empire by using the very constructs of Empire in attempting to "change" the Empire is ludicrous on it's face.

From:
Steve Lendman

"The whole process we call a first-class historical event was, in fact, an entirely routine uninspiring political caucus producing no "prodigies of statecraft, no wonders of political (judgment), no vaulting philosophies, no Promethean vistas." Contradicting everything we've been "indoctrinated from ears to toes" to believe, the notion that the Constitution is "a document of salvation....a magic talisman," or a gift to the common man is pure fantasy.

The central achievement of the convention, and a big one (until the Civil War changed things), was the cobbling together of disparate and squabbling states into a union. It held together, tenuously at best, for over seven decades but not actually until Appomattox "at bayonet point." The convention succeeded in gaining formal approval for what the leading power figures wanted and then got it rammed through the state ratification process to become the law of the land."

We Have Always Been At War With Eastasia

2007-12-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

Let me see if I've got this straight. Perhaps two years ago, an "informal" meeting of "veterans" of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal – holding positions in the Bush administration – was convened by Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams. Discussed were the "lessons learned" from that labyrinthine, secret, and illegal arms-for-money-for-arms deal involving the Israelis, the Iranians, the Saudis, and the Contras of Nicaragua, among others – and meant to evade the Boland Amendment, a congressionally passed attempt to outlaw Reagan administration assistance to the anti-communist Contras. In terms of getting around Congress, the Iran-Contra vets concluded, the complex operation had been a success – and would have worked far better if the CIA and the military had been kept out of the loop and the whole thing had been run out of the Vice President's office.

Subsequently, some of those conspirators, once again with the financial support and help of the Saudis (and probably the Israelis and the Brits), began running a similar operation, aimed at avoiding congressional scrutiny or public accountability of any sort, out of Vice President Cheney's office. They dipped into "black pools of money," possibly stolen from the billions of Iraqi oil dollars that have never been accounted for since the American occupation began. Some of these funds, as well as Saudi ones, were evidently funneled through the embattled, Sunni-dominated Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to the sort of Sunni jihadi groups ("some sympathetic to al-Qaeda") whose members might normally fear ending up in Guantanamo and to a group, or groups, associated with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

All of this was being done as part of a "sea change" in the Bush administration's Middle Eastern policies aimed at rallying friendly Sunni regimes against Shiite Iran, as well as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Syrian government – and launching secret operations to undermine, roll back, or destroy all of the above. Despite the fact that the Bush administration is officially at war with Sunni extremism in Iraq (and in the more general Global War on Terror), despite its support for the largely Shiite government, allied to Iran, that it has brought to power in Iraq, and despite its dislike for the Sunni-Shiite civil war in that country, some of its top officials may be covertly encouraging a far greater Sunni-Shiite rift in the region.

Imagine.

All this and much more (including news of U.S. military border-crossings into Iran, new preparations that would allow George W. Bush to order a massive air attack on that land with only 24-hours notice, and a brief window this spring when the staggering power of four U.S. aircraft-carrier battle groups might be available to the President in the Persian Gulf) was revealed, often in remarkable detail, just over a week ago in "The Redirection," a Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker. Hersh, the man who first broke the My Lai story in the Vietnam era, has never been off his game since. In recent years, from the Abu Ghraib scandal on, he has consistently released explosive news about the plans and acts of the Bush administration.

The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is built around a never-ending war involving the book's three superstates, with two allied powers fighting against the third. But as Goldstein's book explains, each superstate is so strong it cannot be defeated even when faced with the combined forces of the other two powers. The allied states occasionally split with each other and new alliances are formed. Each time this happens, history is rewritten to convince the people that the new alliances were always there, using the principles of doublethink. The war itself never takes place in the territories of the three powers; the actual fighting is conducted in the disputed zone stretching from Morocco to Australia, and in the unpopulated Arctic wastes. Throughout the first half of the novel, Oceania is allied with Eastasia, and Oceania's forces are combating Eurasia's troops in northern Africa.

Midway through the book, the alliance breaks apart and Oceania, newly allied with Eurasia, begins a campaign against Eastasian forces. This happens during "Hate Week" (a week of extreme focus on the evilness of Oceania's enemies, the purpose of which is to stir up patriotic fervor in support of the Party), Oceania and Eastasia are enemies once again. The public is quite abnormally blind to the change, and when a public orator, mid-sentence, changes the name of the enemy from Eurasia to Eastasia (still speaking as if nothing had changed), the people are shocked as they notice all the flags and banners are wrong (they blame Goldstein and the Brotherhood) and tear them down. This is the origin of the idiom, "we've always been at war with Eastasia." Later on, the Party claims to have captured India. As with all other news, its authenticity is questionable.

Goldstein's book explains that the war is unwinnable, and that its only purpose is to use up human labor and the fruits of human labor so that each superstate's economy cannot support an equal (and high) standard of living for every citizen. The book also details an Oceanian strategy to attack enemy cities with atomic-tipped rocket bombs prior to a full-scale invasion, but quickly dismisses this plan as both infeasible and contrary to the purpose of the war.

Although, according to Goldstein's book, hundreds of atomic bombs were dropped on cities during the 1950s, the three powers no longer use them, as they would upset the balance of power. Conventional military technology is little different from that used in the Second World War. Some advances have been made, such as replacing bomber aircraft with "rocket bombs", and using immense "floating fortresses" instead of battleships, but they appear to be rare. As the purpose of the war is to destroy manufactured products and thus keep the workers busy, obsolete and wasteful technology is deliberately used in order to perpetuate useless fighting.

Goldstein's book hints that, in fact, there may not actually be a war. The only view of the outside world presented in the novel is through Oceania's media, which has an obvious tendency to exaggerate and even fabricate "facts", and the rocket bombs ostensibly fired by the enemy. Goldstein's book suggests that the three superpowers may not actually be warring, and as Oceania's media provide completely unbelievable news reports on impossibly long military campaigns and victories (including a ridiculously large campaign in the Sahara desert), it can be suggested that the war is a lie.

Even Eurasia and Eastasia themselves may only be a fabrication by the government of Oceania, with Oceania the sole undisputed dominator of the world. On the other hand, Oceania might as well actually control only a rather small part of the world and still brainwash its citizens into believing that Oceania dominates the whole Earth or - as in the novel - that they are battling/allying with (a fabricated) Eurasia/Eastasia.

It is noted in the novel that there are no longer massive battles, but rather expert fighters occasionally appearing in small skirmishes; this is relatively paradoxical considering the massive amounts of resources wasted to keep the war effort running.

I Am A Zombie

2007-12-12T13:26:00.000-08:00

All I can do is post about Ron Paul

Ron Paul

Ron Paul

Ron Paul

My mother called but I have no time for her I am too busy thinking about

Ron Paul

Ron Paul

Ron Paul

There Is No 'T' In Conspiracy

2007-12-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

I'll leave most of this to Michael Parenti and the ravens but a small encounters bears mentioning.

I was snacking in the eating area of our locally co-opted Co-Op quite close to the "One-Minute Activist" board, that's all it takes to change the world nowadays- A New York Minute, when a curly-haired blonde guy came over and started to tidy up and the activist board area and arrange all the petitions fastidiously. "Save Darfur" was the cause de jour on the ADD Green Consumer agenda and this particular occurrence seemed to present me with an obligation to inform the man that the narrative presented regarding "Save Darfur" was simplistic and served the interests of forces that would only use "Humanitarianism" as political cover for their very aggressive policies of interventionism. I could tell big academic words were needed with this guy, not sure why but it turns out to be true. I added that the the story as told on the activist board was completely inaccurate and devoid of any historical context. That didn't sit well.

In any case his first words, the very first words out of his mouth were- "There are all sorts of 'conspiracy theories' floating around what's your angle on this?"

A word from Michael Parenti:

Conspiracy or Coincidence?

Often the term "conspiracy" is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intent is involved. In 1994, the officers of the Federal Reserve announced they would pursue monetary policies designed to maintain a high level of unemployment in order to safeguard against "overheating" the economy. Like any creditor class, they preferred a deflationary course. When an acquaintance of mine mentioned this to friends, he was greeted skeptically, "Do you think the Fed bankers are deliberately trying to keep people unemployed?" In fact, not only did he think it, it was announced on the financial pages of the press. Still, his friends assumed he was imagining a conspiracy because he ascribed self-interested collusion to powerful people.

At a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, I remarked to a participant that U.S. leaders were pushing hard for the reinstatement of capitalism in the former communist countries. He said, "Do you really think they carry it to that level of conscious intent?" I pointed out it was not a conjecture on my part. They have repeatedly announced their commitment to seeing that "free-market reforms" are introduced in Eastern Europe. Their economic aid is channeled almost exclusively into the private sector. The same policy holds for the monies intended for other countries. Thus, as of the end of 1995, "more than $4.5 million U.S. aid to Haiti has been put on hold because the Aristide government has failed to make progress on a program to privatize state-owned companies" (New York Times 11/25/95).

Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: "Do you actually think there's a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?" For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together - on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot - though they call it "planning" and "strategizing" - and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.

Yet there are individuals who ask with patronizing, incredulous smiles, do you really think that the people at the top have secret agendas, are aware of their larger interests, and talk to each other about them? To which I respond, why would they not? This is not to say that every corporate and political elite is actively dedicated to working for the higher circles of power and property. Nor are they infallible or always correct in their assessments and tactics or always immediately aware of how their interests are being affected by new situations. But they are more attuned and more capable of advancing their vast interests than most other social groups.

The alternative is to believe that the powerful and the privileged are somnambulists, who move about oblivious to questions of power and privilege; that they always tell us the truth and have nothing to hide even when they hide so much; that although most of us ordinary people might consciously try to pursue our own interests, wealthy elites do not; that when those at the top employ force and violence around the world it is only for the laudable reasons they profess; that when they arm, train, and finance covert actions in numerous countries, and then fail to acknowledge their role in such deeds, it is because of oversight or forgetfulness or perhaps modesty; and that it is merely a coincidence how the policies of the national security state so consistently serve the interests of the transnational corporations and the capital-accumulation system throughout the world.

Off Limits

2007-12-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

Borders-Fences-Walls

The Function of the Democratic Party in the Political System (Redux)

2007-12-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

It was suggested that I re-post this. And so here it is. As the political Dog and Pony show reaches it's ultimate faux crescendo perhaps this will become a daily necessity. Make copies, pass it around to your foolhardy friends who are warped by the incessant marketing campaigns pushing the latest Military-Corporate Errand Puppet.

So once again let us leave Never-Never Land and examine The Very Real and Duplicitous Function of the Democratic Party in the American Political System:

The Democratic Party plays an indispensable role in society's political machinery. This doesn't mean it has any power, in terms of controlling the state or setting policy. It means that without the existence of the Dem Party, the US could no longer maintain the pretense that it's a "democracy." If the Dem Party disintegrated, the US would be revealed for what it really is -- a one-party state ruled by a narrow alliance of business interests.

In terms of defending the general population against the depredations of this business consortium, the Dem Party gave up the ghost in the mid-1960's. Their threadbare act as the "Party of the People" serves not to defend the well-being of the population, but merely to persuade ordinary citizens that within the official political system's framework, there's at least some faint hope for eventual progressive change. Their focus is not so much being on our side, as convincing us that they're on our side -- without the slightest serious examination of what that might entail.

The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly bestir itself to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere existence: by simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and this is enough to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a "democracy."

As long as the Dem Party exists, most Americans will believe we have a "democracy" and a "choice" in how we are ruled. They will not despair, and will not revolt, as long as they have this hope for "change within the system." From the system's point of view, this mechanism serves as the ultimate safety valve -- it insures against a despairing populace, thus eliminates the threat of rebellion; yet guarantees that no serious change to the system will be mounted, because the Dems weren't designed to play that role in the first place.

Aren't the Dems The Lesser Evil?

The Democrats are not the "lesser evil;" they are an auxiliary subdivision of the same evil. To understand the political system, one must step back and regard its operation as an integrated whole. The system can't be properly understood if one's study of it begins with an uncritical acceptance of the 2-party system, and the conventional characterizations of the two parties. (Indeed, the fact that society encourages one to view it in this latter way, is perhaps a warning that this perspective should not be trusted.)

Any given piece of reactionary legislation is invariably supported by a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats. Does this show that the Democrats are "less evil?" If one focuses on the noble efforts of the few outspoken dissenters, it's easy to feel that the Democrats are somewhat less evil. But in the larger picture, Democrats invariably submit to what Republicans more ardently promulgate, & the entire range of official opinion thereby shifts to the right. Thus the overall function of Democrats is not so much to fight, as to quasi-passively participate in this ever-rightward-moving process. Just as the Harlem Globetrotters need their Washington Generals to make their basketball games properly entertaining, Republicans need the Democrats for effective staging of the political show.

The Democrats are permitted to exist because their vague hint of eventual progressive change keeps large numbers of people from bolting the political system altogether. Emma Goldman once said, "If voting made a difference, it would be illegal." Similarly, if the Democrats potentially threatened any sort of serious change, they would be banned. The fact that they are fully accepted by the corporations and political establishment tells us at once that their ultimate function must be wholly in line with the interests of those ruling groups.

Doesn't the presence of the Dennis Kuciniches, Cynthia McKinneys, et al "prove" that the Democrats are progressive? No. The Kuciniches and McKinneys are indeed significantly different from the Hillary types -- but there are compelling reasons not to get too excited about them, either. First, they are used by the party as a "Left decoration," simply to keep potential left defectors in tow. Secondly, the party power brokers will NEVER in a million years let the Kucinich-McKinney faction have any real power.

In other words, the very modestly-sized progressive Dem faction is cynically used as a marketing tool by the national party. They are dangled before your eyes to make you think that the Dems are the "lesser evil" (since the Republicans offer no such Left decorations). The existence of a few decent Dems makes no real difference in the overall alignment of the party, and they will never be internally influential. They are a distraction.

Can Progressives "Take Over" the Dem Party?

The argument is often advanced by progressives that they might be able to "take over" the Dem Party just as the Republican Party was supposedly "taken over" by the Religious Right and neoconservatives. This is wishful thinking, and ignores the actual history and character of both parties.

The Republicans were always the party of Wall Street & Northern manufacturing. The Democrats were the party of the Southern slaveocracy. When the national Democrats defied southern racism by passing the Civil Rights Acts in the mid '60's, the southern states bolted, destroying the New Deal coalition. The Republicans profited from this by adapting to southern tastes, values, & religious/cultural conceptions.

But this was in no way out of character for the Republicans. The far right was able to take over the Republican Party because that kind of alliance was always very much in the nature of the Republican Party anyway. It was compatible with, not contradictory to, the big-business nature of the Republican party. Forming an alliance with fascists, racists & religious zealots ADVANCED the big-business agenda.

By contrast, for progressives to take over the Democrats would be an unprecedented departure from the party's character. To understand this, one must first recognize that the sole Dem claim to being progressive is rooted almost entirely in the New Deal, itself a response to a unique crisis in American history. FDR recognized that to avert the very real threat of massive social unrest and instability, significant concessions had to be made to the working class by the ruling class. Government could act to defend the weak, and to some extent to rein in the strong, but this was all in the longterm interests of defending the existing social order.

Before FDR, the Dem Party had no progressive record whatsoever; and after FDR, though the New Deal coalition survived until the mid-1960's, it did so with a record of achievement that was restrained compared to the 1930's. After passing Medicare in 1965 the party reverted to its longterm pattern, and since then, there has again been no progressive record to speak of. The party's progressive social reform was thus concentrated mostly in the 1930's, with some residual momentum lasting until the mid 60's. The party's "progressive period" was thus 1) an exception to the longer term pattern; 2) a response to a unique crisis; and 3) has in any case been dead for over 40 years.

The word "progressive" refers to the commitment of a political party to defend the interests of the working class (aka the overwhelming majority of the population) against the depredations of the ruling elite. Not only is the Democratic Party unable and unwilling to engage in such a fight, it is unwilling even to pronounce the fight's name -- "class warfare." Marx is understandably reviled by capitalists for his annoyingly accurate perception that the capitalist class and the rest of the population have a fundamental conflict of interest. Capital seeks only to maximize its return; return can certainly be enhanced by using the machinery of state to transfer costs and burdens to the weak and vulnerable; thus rule by capital is intrinsically inimical to the basic interests of the majority of the population. There is no escaping this reality.

American public discourse attempts to paper over this vexing truth with fatuous happy talk, such as, "By working together, we can make make things better for everyone!" This is a lie. When capital controls government, government is no more than a tool used by elites to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. This kind of arrangement cannot possibly "make all boats rise" over the long term. Only the yachts will rise. If there is no political mechanism for opposing plutocratic rule, the strong will continue to squeeze additional wealth out of the weak until a) the weak become desperate and rebel, b) the weak are crushed and become permanently enslaved, or c) the strong begin suffering more from guilty consciences, than reaping enjoyment from additional wealth -- and therefore relent. (Very few instances of this last are known in recorded history.)

For the Democratic Party to even begin to serve as a vehicle for opposing the absolute rule of capital, it would at a minimum have to be capable of acknowledging the conflict that exists between the interests of capital and the rest of the population; and of expressing a principled determination to take the side of the population in this conflict.

A party whose controlling elements are millionaires, lobbyists, fund-raisers, careerist apparatchiks, consultants, and corporate lawyers; that has stood by prostrate and helpless (when not actively collaborating) in the face of stolen elections, illegal wars, torture, CIA concentration camps, lies as state policy, and one assault on the Bill of Rights after the next, is not likely to take that position.

The War The World Forgot

2007-12-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

A journey into the most savage war in the world

My travels in the Democratic Vacuum of Congo

This is the story of the deadliest war since Adolf Hitler’s armies marched across Europe. It is a war that has not ended. But is also the story of a trail of blood that leads directly to you: to your remote control, to your mobile phone, to your laptop and to your diamond necklace. In the TV series ‘Lost’, a group of plane crash survivors believe they are stranded alone on a desert island, until one day they discover a dense metal cable leading out into the ocean and the world beyond. The Democratic Republic of Congo is full of those cables, mysterious connections that show how a seemingly isolated tribal war is in reality something very different.

This war has been waved aside as an internal African implosion. In reality it a battle for coltan and diamonds and cassiterite and gold, destined for sale in London and New York and Paris. It is a battle for the metals that make our technological society vibrate and ring and bling, and it has already claimed four million lives in five years and broken a population the size of Britain’s. No, this is not only a story about them. This – the tale of a short journey into the long Congolese war we in the West have fostered, fuelled and funded – is a story about you.

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=863

Cellphones fuel Congo conflict

Cellphones may have revolutionized the way we communicate, but in Central Africa their biggest legacy is war.

Nearly 3 million people have died in Congo in a four-year war over coltan, a heat-resistant mineral ore widely used in cellphones, laptops and playstations. Eighty percent of the world's coltan reserves are in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The mountainous jungle area where the coltan is mined is the battleground of what has been grimly dubbed "Africa's first World War," pitting Congolese forces against those of six neighbouring countries and numerous armed factions.

The victims are mostly civilians. Starvation and disease have killed hundreds of thousands and the fighting has displaced 2 million people from their homes.
Often dismissed as an ethnic war, the conflict is really over natural resources sought by foreign corporations -- diamonds, tin, copper, gold, but mostly coltan.
At stake for the multitude of heavily armed militias and governments is a cut of the high-tech boom of the 1990s, which sent the price of coltan skyrocketing to peak at US$400 per kilo. Coltan -- short for colombo-tantalite -- is refined into tantalum, a "magic powder" essential to many electronic devices.

The war started in 1998 when Congolese rebel forces, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, seized eastern Congo and moved into strategic mining areas, attacking villages along the way.

http://www.seeingisbelieving.ca/cell/kinshasa/

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It is a war for coltan. It is a massacre for technology. It is impossible for me to get anyone's attention on this. I have tried on discussion board's, leafletting, tabling and people just look away.

Noone wants to face the reality of how their daily habits fuel the slaughterhouse.

Who is calling you all the time, all day all night?

It is me calling you oh techno-man of the West wondering why you come to kill me. Why do you seem to think the thunder in my ground is for you to steal? Why do you think my life of fourteen-year-old prostitution-death-by-twenty is here to serve your need to know where you are all the time when you never know where you are any of the time? Is this okay for you to force me into servitude for your colonial consumerism? I know its long distance and collect but really who is paying the price here?

We Are Enslaved

2007-12-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

Debt is a big scam and permeates every aspect of our lives and keeps us all trapped.

We are awash in fear mongering to the point that we are all half-crazed.

The government is owned lock stock and barrel by corporations.

All of the politicians are a bunch of blood sucking vampires.

We are enslaved. We really, actually are. Walking and driving around and shopping blah blah is all window dressing. We are in prison. It is a big prison. "Seal the borders" for security? Hah. We are being sealed in.

We are in crazy land here, and ANYTHING we do to break out of that is worthwhile - almost nothing is happening to break out of it now - and we have absolutely nothing to lose.

People here are miserable - they are in pain and suffering.

We are intentionally being kept sick, demoralized, and fearful.

We can't see the trouble we are in, because we have nothing to compare to.

The national political discussion is a joke.

The Democratic party politicians should all be tarred and feathered and run out of town.

America is a society gone completely mad. We live in a big prison. It is pathetic. Fear keeps us locked in. We are so saturated with fear, that it would not be off the mark to say that fear is the only thing happening here, and that anything else is ruthlessly suppressed and punished. And we are all trustees. Anyone refusing the role of trustee is isolated and viewed and treated as a pariah. That is not to say that we cannot overcome this - not in the least. We have to fight, though, every hour of every day and break the spell.

Demoralization coupled with fear - all of the thinking and speaking around us everyday is just laced with those two.

Let's smash it up. Let's never rest until we do. Nothing else is anything but a waste of time.

Are You A Racist Asshole?

2007-12-09T17:33:00.000-08:00

I strongly believe that they should close the border to Mexico. On one condition, which is you close it not only to people but to resources. If you say you want to
close it to people but not resources, what you're saying, one thing, is that you're a racist asshole, but another thing you're saying is - I don't want you but I want the coffee that's grown on the land that used to be yours.

Why is this migration taking place? It's not taking place because suddenly a bunch of people from Guatemala decide they want to take an eco-tour of the strawberry fields in the San Joaquin valley. It's because their communities are being destroyed through the theft of the land. If you don't want these people moving up here then don't steal those people's lands, pretty simple solution.

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Yes it is a xenophobic sleight of hand but it is used, as it has been for centuries in America preceding Republican-Democrat nonsense, to point the finger at the victim so as to keep the eyes averted from the horrors being perpetrated upon those victims and to ignore or rationalize the colossal banditry for the beneficiaries. The liberal class is particularly hypocritical and criminally ignorant on this point.

The problem is really quite simple as is the solution.

The problem: El Norte is pushing them there "illegals" off of his ancestral lands so as to steal the resources that reside in Chiapas e.g.

The solution: Stop El Norte from stealing the resources of the people in Chiapas e.g.

NAFTA is merely the latest acronym-IMF the latest international syndicate-World Bank only the latest MoneyChanger in this ongoing colonial conquest.

Neither the employer or the "immigrant" are really the fundamental issue.

Qualifier: Many who do employ "immigrants" exploit them and should be themselves forced to work in the broiling hot sun for 14 hours/day or forced to do backbreakingearlydeath work in the maquiladoras.

Let the truth be the frame.

As for higher paying jobs these too are part of the problem and also obfuscate the issue.

People shouldn't need or even desire to make 70k/year(or even 25k). The problem is that it takes so much to live in our HP society. The solution- Elimination of rent-Free Health Care- Food stipends.

Everyone needs to be (allowed to) getting by with less-MUCH LESS.

Wealth is the problem, poverty it's necessary offspring, and it requires the aforementioned theft from other lands to maintain this obscene standard of living- a standard of living that has death of brown skinned people as one of its prerequisites.

The Liberal Shibboleth of Choice

2007-12-08T20:30:00.000-08:00

There are no fucking "choices." Being lectured about choices is being told that "I can afford to do these things and you can't so fuck you."

Choices is a key part of the foundation of white suburban privilege, and I am convinced that the entire political discussion is dominated by people deeply steeped in white suburban privilege and that this is the most important political force we face. It is fucking up everything and having a seriously suppressive effect on all discussions.

But we can't alk about it, except in the most detached and theoretical ways.

I swear, we can't even talk - we talk about talking, as though we were neutral academics, dispassionate and aloof observers of the show.

So what I want to know is this: where are people living? How are they surviving? What are they doing? How can they be so oblivious to the most important and obvious factor in modern politics, and keep pretending that it doesn't exist? How are thyey not running into tons of first hand evidence - overwhelming, obvious examples - of this force at play every single day? How are they immune? How are they existing? What are they telling themselves about their lives?

What is the fucking truth, because it sure as Hell is not being revealed in any political discussions.

If your 'choice' is between the 'free clinic' and bankruptcy, where is the freedom?

If your 'choice' is between medicine and food, where is the freedom?

If your choice is between housing and heating, where is the freedom?

Of Leftists and Liberals

2007-12-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

A dear friend wrote:

When I was growing up, the term "liberal" fell somewhere into the spectrum between "moderate" and "opportunist liar" depending on whom you spoke to. It always carried with it an "establishment" veneer, however. People weren't "liberal"... political leaders and elected officials were.

Part of the reason was that it was clear that liberal politics was something different from the very real movements and forces in the society that were demanding something far greater. When the civil rights movement demanded racial equality, the liberals came up with affirmative action and measures against "racism". When the peace movement demanded an end to the war and "interventionism", the liberals substituted "peace with honor" and a less "adventurist" foreign policy. When there was an outcry against poverty in "the richest country in the world", the liberals proposed "job training programs" and food stamps. In a phrase, they not only moderated but they also "de-classed" (some might say, "de-clawed") the demands that were made on them.

Then came the backlash. While what the liberals legislated wasn't much, it was way over the top for the Right... and this Right was in no way the "populist" Right that we recognize today. This was the established Right... the so-called "Goldwater Republicans". And it came on with a tactic as American as apple pie: coalition politics.

Ask any 10th grade Civics class to list the 10 things that make America unique and you will get perhaps 20 discrete claims that together make up the American catechism. The Republicans figured out that you can build a political coalition out of "interest groups" which individually oppose ALL of them:

"Equality before the Law? ...We've always been against that!" (Nixon's Southern Strategy). "Purple Mountains Majesty? ... entire states are against that!" (Reagan's Western Strategy). "Freedom of the Press? ...that's what cooked our goose in Vietnam!". "Seperation of Church and State? ...hell, there's a whole boatload of people against that!" "Nation of immigrants? ...almost everybody is against that!".... and so on.

I kept waiting for the Liberals to fight back... not for my sake but for their own. "This is downright silly! The REPUBLICANs running against the (afterthought -> add "big") GOVERNMENT for chrisakes... gimme a break. They were in on ALL of it!". Instead, not a peep... At the very best, you got a speech at a political convention from a tired Cuomo or Kennedy... and even then in nostalgic rather than fightin' words: "Ah, for the heady days when we came up with the absolute minimum concessions that we possibly could, claimed credit for all of it and then promised a new 'social contract' that would last 1000 years..."

The Right was actually scared shitless for the entire journey. They were dug in deeper than Saddam. They would pop up to whisper a "new idea": "Affirmative Action is quotas, you know...", and then pop down to survive the inevitable firestorm that never came.

Finally came the Reagan "landslide" that "changed everything". The Republicans were claiming (wrongly, it turns out) that they had cracked the code for appealing to Democratic working class constituencies OVER THE HEADS of the Liberals... "we appeal to them as racists or 'taxpayers' or christians, you see..". A friend of mine, listening to this, said at the time, "The idiot liberals have just eliminated their own jobs...". Turned out to be true.

The demonization of the "liberals" inevitably came next... and the revision of history. "Liberals" were guilty of everything that they had, falsely, claimed credit for. THEY had lost the war in Vietnam (wholesale desertions, mutinies, fraggings, war crimes and general deterioration to the point where entire Army Divisions were "deactivated" , notwithstanding). THEY had committed the "real" war crimes by not being nice to the Army and returning veterans (3 million dead notwithstanding). THEY had lied to various constituencies when they had told them that "government" was a "solution" to their "problems".

And not a "liberal" to be found... anywhere...

But then, a miracle happened. The "liberals" started to come back, "from below" (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Bumper stickers, disgruntled "activists", ordinary people... claiming the label without knowing anything about the baggage... becoming "liberal" because that was the worst thing the Right could call them and, if that was the worst, then that was them. They adopted the terms "proud liberal", etc. in the same way that we were proud to be "commie pinkos" when we were kids… without the slightest idea of what that meant (I am much more accurately one, now).

I kept my mouth shut... It will not do to annotate the symbols of resistance at the very moment when they are being displayed.

The problem, of course, was that the "real" liberals had never gone away. They had merely been in rehab… waiting for the Republicans to commit suicide. And, they were emerging to reclaim their birthright...

I heard this on the floor of the house today in the midst of a debate on a Republican sponsored resolution on a "windfall profits" tax on the oil companies: "Finally... finally... finally... after years of pleading and effort, we have gotten the Republican leadership to see the benefits of our approach... we have many more proposals that we hope will eventually win bi-partisan support."

Congratulations, Congresswoman! You have certainly shown the wisdom of moderate proposals and thankless, persistent, debate no matter how many decades it may take (ignore that gun pointed at your opponents head). But, let me ask you…. If it is shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that oil company profits are not “excessive”, a “windfall”, or “evidence of price-gouging” (it is a relative thing, after all), what then? Does nothing happen? Do you patiently explain to us, “how our system works”. Do we freeze next winter? Or do we win an election for you in 2008 or 2012 so that you have the power to “really” do something… maybe “oil stamps”?

But, let me not sound bitter… At least the job market for “Liberals” seems finally to be booming again. There is so much work now to do… it has to be explained to the Right what the people “really” want and what they will settle for. It has to be explained to us what is “prudent”, what is “practical”, and what is in the “common interest”. It is time to reformulate “policy” so that it represents “all” the people. Hell, maybe we can even have the old language again:

Port Security …for the benefit of the working class.
Lobbying Reform …for the benefit of the working class.
Co-Payments …for the benefit of the working class.

Yup, the Liberals are back
…for the benefit of the working class.

- anaxarchos

Liberal- will blithely be assimilated.

Leftist- will promptly be assassinated.
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Liberal- possesses a quaint notion that one can Re-Form hierarchical power structures.

Leftist- desires to completely unravel and eliminate the functions and forms of hierarchy.
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Liberal- wishes to turn The Bank into The People's Credit Union.

Leftist- sees the need to turn the tables of the moneychangers and smash the marketplace.
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Liberal- feels a warm fuzzy feeling inside while intoning "share the wealth".

Leftist- desires to redefine concepts of wealth particularly as it relates to large metal objects.
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Liberal- says "Living Wage".

Leftist- says "Solidarity".
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Liberal- willingly shells out $3 for a glass of carrot juice.

Leftist- sees Root Vegetables as sustenance and metaphor.
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Liberal- outside the coffee shop talks daily about the need for the Cappuccino Revolution but balks at acting out for fear this would endanger his/her daily cappuccino.

Leftist- reuses the same coffee filter, paper towels or odd socks when all other options have been exhausted in an attempt to squeeze one more cup from yesterday's grounds.
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Liberal- wants to 'get out the vote'.

Leftist- recognizes voting as a nominal form of political activity meant to validate the Democratic State and convince the political consumer that they are a participant in governance.
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Liberal- can often be seen mouthing the "education is the answer" mantra particularly in the rarified atmosphere of the Citadels of Expertise. Revels in being near theory or people 'doing theory' in the academy.

Leftist- sees education as social engineering and cultural imperialism. Education Academies seen as the proving grounds for the future ruling class.
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Liberal- users of 'all natural' deodorant. The armpits are fresh particularly during commercial breaks.

Leftists- recognize deodorant as one of the essential pillars of Empire. Will often raise their armpit in tight quarters due to quixotic impulses.
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Liberal- write lengthy position papers on the plusses of developing more efficient killing machines (See Amory Lovins for more details).

Leftist- sees the Techno Warfare State as one of the great life destroying mechanisms in the history of Mankind and understands the relationship between war and oppression. The Health of the State being that which kills everything else.
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Liberal- true believers in the New Economy and Seattle (the city) home of Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks.

Leftist- true believers in a different Seattle (the Amerindian prophet)
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Liberal- incessantly complaining about their leftist rentors.

Leftist- incessantly complaining about their liberal landlords.
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Liberals- have recently been experiencing a population explosion which seems to have been caused by a grey form of technocratic inbreeding. Much of this exponential proliferation seems to emanate directly from prime time television. And vice versa.

Leftists- an endangered species. Said to be only 723 remaining in the contiguous 48 states of the United States of America. For years they have been scooped up and exiled to the Periphery. To date all efforts to exhume the spirit of Eugene Debs have fallen on deaf ears.
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Economics 101

2007-12-07T19:27:00.000-08:00

The Economist takes a field trip to visit The Farmer. He sees the fields and takes a few notes. The Farmer stands by with pride as the Economist scribbles feverishly upon his pad.

The Economist closes his notebook and wipes his glasses as The Farmer looks out declaring, "Beautiful isn't it? These fields mean food through the winter for the entire valley."

The Economist sighs knowingly and says, "Possibly but scarce resources mean we must better manage resources to optimize production."

At first The farmer seemed confused and a little dejected that The Economist would not, could not, behold what lay before his eyes but then a gnawing doubt came over The Farmer, "the man of letters must know something", and he asked The Economist to explain how things could be better.

The Economist did just that.

The Farmer excited by the prospects of such amazing abundance practiced exactly what The Economist had preached. This went on for several years, despite decreasing results, as The Farmer thought that The Economist must have the wisdom that would bear fruit but only after years of implementation.

Finally one winter, by now The Economist hadn't been seen for years, The Farmer decided that he would go back to The Old Ways as the people in the valley had suffered since the advent of The Economists' wisdom.

The Farmer found that once again the abundance he produced was quite enough to feed the people of the valley and that this was enough.

After a few years of this The Farmer received an unexpected visit from The Economist. Upon arrival The Economist immediately took out his notebook and began scribbling. The Farmer looked over and said, "I took your advice and the people of the valley barely made it through the winter whereas before we lived in abundance. Now I've gone back to The Old Ways and once again the people are fed."

The Economist spoke, "Yes, I can see that. That explanation may be all well and good in reality, but it will never work in theory."

Welcome To The Machine

2007-12-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

This Line Alone Speaks Volumes:

"... and that it would be fiscally irresponsible for Council to leave such decisions to the Membership."

Without providing any context what would be your initial thoughts/comments?

So where did that line come from?

And what's the context?

This is from our local CoOp. There have been a string of bad decisions over the last few years primarily from an ineffective and corrupt council. I won't go into this here just to say that it's been breathtaking watching this thing unfold and watching the imperious and stubborn assholes in council continue despite all warnings and ignoring all of the core members of the CoOp.

So now the CoOp has had a few bad months, in fact several it's just now catching up, and the Council has been mulling over options as to how to make up the deficit.

Essentially the proposals being considered are punitive to workers and/or members with the management team and Council getting off the hook DESPITE the fact that they are the ones who have made the "fiscally irresponsible" decisions WITHOUT the consent, in fact much dissent, of the members. What a joint. Welcome to the most "progressive" institution in the "most enlightened" city in America:

Here's the entire piece in the monthly Greenstar newsletter:

Proposed Changes to Discounts and Retirement Benefits

Tackling another challenging topic, Council received three formal proposals from its Finance Committee for addressing the Co-op’s current financial problems (see Council News in November GreenLeaf). The Committee has proposed that the Co-op switch from its long-standing practice of granting a 2% discount on purchases by members, at the register, to a patronage rebate system like that used by many other food co-ops. Under the proposed system, Council would decide, at the end of each fiscal year and based on total net income (after expenses), how much of a rebate members would receive on their past purchases.

A second proposal is that the Co-op discontinue its two-year-old policy of making “guaranteed” employer contributions to employees’ 401(k) retirement accounts, based on a percentage of sales, and instead make contributions based on a percentage of net profit.

The third proposal is that Council exempt CAP (Co-op Advantage Program) sale items from all member discounts (regular member, working member, staff and senior). CAP sale items are the primary special deals offered by GreenStar, as stipulated pursuant to a contractual arrangement with the Co-op’s main supplier. When member discounts are applied to these reduced-margin sales, the impact on the Co-op’s margin (and “bottom line”) is multiplied.

Finance Committee chair Art Godin said that steps such as these should be taken quickly, to avoid or reduce the projected operating deficit in the currently-proposed 2008 budget. As Council was not intending to act on these proposals in November, Art asked Council to defer action on the 2008 budget as well (which it did). While some on Council expressed support for the proposals, others asserted that those affecting member discounts must or should be subject to Membership approval, and that supporting employees’ retirement is a basic component of being a responsible employer. In response, some said that the Co-op’s current course is unsustainable, and that it would be fiscally irresponsible for Council to leave such decisions to the Membership. Also, a couple of alternatives to the committee’s proposals were suggested: reducing the member discount (say, to 1%) rather than making it dependent on an annual Council decision, and limiting CAP sales to members (thus applying this particular “benefit-reduction” mechanism to non-members only. Council will resume consideration of these issues in December.

Fuck The Revolution- Let's Vote!

2007-12-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

The Keys To Becoming A Successful Entrepreneur

2007-12-02T17:20:00.001-08:00

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Just Friends

2007-12-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one perhaps of the Right, and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy... But either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same policies".

-- Carroll Quigley, "Tragedy and Hope", 1966, p. 1247-48

Bill Clinton was known to have stated that Carroll Quigley was one of his mentors.

Proximate Cause In a Long Distance World

2007-11-30T18:44:00.001-08:00

Ethical distancing and ethical problems of scale are not limited to high-impact military technology. The behavior and nature of modern technocracies, business, and government organizations are equally illustrative of this cold evil. Witness how corporations, now working on the global scale, routinely make calculated decisions about the risks of the products they manufacture. Typically, they weigh the cost of adding important safety features to their products against the potential liability to victims and the environment and then make the best “bottom line” decision for the company. More often than not, safety or environmental measures lose out in this calculation. As for people or nature, they have been “distanced” into numerical units relegated to profit-or-loss columns. The corporations then decide how many units they can afford to have harmed or killed by their products.

We witness daily the way the modern corporation has become distanced in time and space from its actions. A pesticide company has moved to another country or even gone out of business by the time—years after it has abandoned its chemical plant—the local aquifer and river have become hopelessly polluted, fish and wildlife decimated, and there is a fatal cancer cluster among the families relying on the local water supply. The executives of a tire company are thousands of miles or even a continent away and do not hear the screech of wheels and the screams as their defective tires burst and result in fatal crashes.

The workings of the global trade and finance corporations and organizations epitomize the physical and psychological distancing of cold evil. In the isolation of their First-World offices, members of the World Trade Organization and their partner financiers and economists of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) make decisions affecting millions. This is most evident in the imposition of “structural adjustment” measures on developing countries. For decades the IMF and World Bank loaned money at considerable interest to “developing” nations, essentially to capitalize modernization and technification. The funding was often for huge, ecologically devastating industrial projects. Not surprisingly, much of the money ended up in the hands of corrupt governments or as kickbacks to First-World corporations. As payments became overdue and interest rates skyrocketed, many countries found themselves unable to repay these loans. To solve this repayment problem the IMF and World Bank implemented a series of “structural adjustment programs” (SAPs). These programs involve renegotiating a country’s loan on more favorable terms if it agrees to "adjust” its spending policies, which means reducing wages, lowering labor and environmental standards, slashing social programs (particularly in health, education, and welfare), and allowing increased foreign domination of the country’s industries.

The effects of the SAPs have been disastrous. Millions have lost their jobs and find themselves with no access to housing, health care, or food. Spending on education in many countries has declined by more than 25% in less than a decade. It is now estimated that as many as 19,000 children die every day from disease or malnutrition as a direct consequence of the SAPs mandated by the IMF and World Bank. Yet despite its horrific toll, the cold-evil practice of structural adjustment has gone without ethical censure until quite recently. Contrast this indifference with the public and media outrage that would erupt if a group of terrorists, driven by hot-evil hatred, were killing thousands of children a day. It is now accepted, even by the global financial technocracies, that SAPs have been fiscally ineffective as well as socially and environmentally devastating. But the trade technocrats and corporations simply view this outcome as a policy “miscalculation” that requires “modification.”

Cold evil’s distancing is also profoundly present in those who work for corporations and other technocracies. Our minute and specialized jobs have separated us from ethical consideration of our collective work. Whether processing financial statements at a bank, riveting at a Boeing plant, litigating for a large law firm, or delivering on-line data to corporations, most people’s work represents a tiny cog in the great machine of production. As a result, we become psychologically numbed and removed from the ultimate consequences of the collective work being done. We fall into what E. F. Schumacher termed “‘the sullen irresponsibility” of modern work. Moreover, even if a worker were somehow able to overcome this irresponsibility, to breach the distance and cry out against the immorality of modern production (“I reject this alienating labor. Stop the machines; they are destroying nature, society, and the dignity of work!”), that person’s employment would quickly be terminated.

Virtually all corporations and government bureaucracies are dictatorships in which autocratic managers quickly punish any underling who begins to demand an ethical basis for work and production. Each of us is caught, therefore, in a kind of job blackmail. By allowing ourselves to become numbed by inhuman, meaningless work and to become fully distanced from what we actually produce, we forsake responsibility for the consequences of our production system. We sell our moral birthright in order to “pay the bills.” In this way we each experience our own “pilot’s dilemma.” The distancing endemic to our huge technological system and the massive private and public technocracies that run this system have turned workers, the vast majority of us, into ethical eunuchs and even unintentional criminals.

Whatever their ultimate moral and physical cost, our paychecks do allow many of us to become profligate “consumers.” This cold-evil lifestyle is termed “the good life.” We proudly bring home the new, convenient, “family friendly” SUV, fully distanced from the global warming to which this gas guzzler contributes and the respiratory illnesses it cause in our and our neighbors’ children. Similarly, we buy our kids hamburger meals with “happy face” logos. But both parents and children would recoil with horror if suddenly forced to participate in the almost unspeakably cruel slaughter of the particular cow involved or to take a power saw to the rain forest or personally commit the other environmental crimes behind so many of our fast-food burgers. We turn the computer on without stopping to think that the power is supplied by a nearby nuclear power plant with all of its social and environmental risks. We even feel virtuous eating our vegetables, without a thought to the topsoil loss, pesticide pollution, and loss of diversity caused by their industrial-style production. If we paid attention to the sources of what we buy, we would find that we are complicit in myriad wrongdoings stemming from the technosphere’s systemic evil, which is not easily recognized because of the distancing involved.

We're # 1!: America a Nation of Firsts

2007-11-29T14:55:00.000-08:00

Hey, aren't we the most exceptional nation in history? George Bush and his pals thought so -- and they were in a great American tradition of exceptionalism. Of course, they were imagining us as the most exceptional empire in history (or maybe at the end of it), the ultimate New Rome. Anyway, explain this to me: Among all the exceptional things we claim to do, how come we never take credit for what may be the most exceptional of all, our success of successes, the thing that makes us uniquely ourselves on this war-ridden planet -- peddling more arms to Earthlings than anyone else in the neighborhood? Why do we hide this rare talent under a bushel?

They don't call us the sole superpower for nothing. Paul Wolfowitz might be looking for a new job right now, but the term he used to describe the pervasiveness of U.S. might back when he was a mere deputy secretary of defense -- hyperpower -- still fits the bill.

Face it, the United States is a proud nation of firsts. Among them:

First in Oil Consumption:

The United States burns up 20.7 million barrels per day, the equivalent of the oil consumption of China, Japan, Germany, Russia, and India combined.

First in Carbon Dioxide Emissions:

Each year, world polluters pump 24,126,416,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the environment. The United States and its territories are responsible for 5.8 billion metric tons of this, more than China (3.3 billion), Russia (1.4 billion) and India (1.2 billion) combined.

First in External Debt:

The United States owes $10.040 trillion, nearly a quarter of the global debt total of $44 trillion.

First in Military Expenditures:

The White House has requested $481 billion for the Department of Defense for 2008, but this huge figure does not come close to representing total U.S. military expenditures projected for the coming year. To get a sense of the resources allocated to the military, the costs of the global war on terrorism, of the building, refurbishing, or maintaining of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and other expenses also need to be factored in. Military analyst Winslow Wheeler did the math recently: "Add $142 billion to cover the anticipated costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; add $17 billion requested for nuclear weapons costs in the Department of Energy; add another $5 billion for miscellaneous defense costs in other agencies…. and you get a grand total of $647 billion for 2008."

Taking another approach to the use of U.S. resources, Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Business School lecturer Linda Bilmes added to known costs of the war in Iraq invisible costs like its impact on global oil prices as well as the long-term cost of health care for wounded veterans and came up with a price tag of between 1 trillion and $2.2 trillion.

If we turned what the United States will spend on the military in 2008 into small bills, we could give each one of the world's more than 1 billion teenagers and young adults an Xbox 360 with wireless controller (power supply in remote rural areas not included) and two video games to play: maybe Gears of War and Command and Conquer would be appropriate. But if we're committed to fighting obesity, maybe Dance Dance Revolution would be a better bet. The United States alone spends what the rest of the world combined devotes to military expenditures.

First in Weapons Sales:

Since 2001, U.S. global military sales have normally totaled between $10 and $13 billion. That's a lot of weapons, but in fiscal year 2006, the Pentagon broke its own recent record, inking arms sales agreements worth $21 billion. It almost goes without saying that this is significantly more than any other nation in the world.