MASS MEDIA MESSIAH

2009-09-11T21:59:00.001-07:00

May the Tail Wag the Dog No More

Fresh on the heels of President Obama’s primetime speech to Congress and the viewing public on his healthcare plan, a few things became clearer. For one, a president has much more clout when rising above the cacophony of rumors, fear-mongering, and recriminations, and addressing the nation directly and plainly, as evidenced by the shift in support for his plan: a quarter of viewers initially opposed now support it. What is also clearer is that as this uncivil war in America continues to rage, pitting family members and neighbors against one another, we are witnessing a time-honored pattern of ideological polarization that distracts Americans from the larger crises on their periphery, namely in economic and foreign policy.

Obama was savvy to make a connection between health care and the economy in his analysis, considering the doubt in his ability to pay for his program: "If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close."

The line comes like a swift dagger into a weary chest. Of course, we also have to consider as contributing factors to the deficit the hugely unpopular bailout for banks and the auto industry, government spending in conjunction with broad tax cuts, and the “untouchables” of the federal budget, namely the Pentagon’s and secret services’ budget, which has approached or surpassed $900 billion this year.

Obama acknowledged these externalities in part by deferring to his formerly dominant colleagues: “Now, part of the reason I faced a trillion-dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for -- from the Iraq war to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care.” Those initiatives gained so much traction, even among a significant number of Democrats, as they played on the terror and confusion that persisted long after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Eight years since that day, the fog of confusion remains about the motives and the means of carrying out the attacks on Washington D.C. and New York City, but what we as a nation lack is the lingering, base terror they engendered. Countless missteps and the lack of a clear definition for victory has led us to where we are today: Polling shows that a majority of Americans no longer support what Obama and the Democrats called the “right war” in Afghanistan and a recent survey by Gallup states that only 1% of Americans think terrorism is the most important problem facing the US. It’s been a long war, indeed.

Granted that Obama has a colossal challenge facing him in Afghanistan, at least as great as that in Iraq. So far he has followed the same path as his predecessor, that when in doubt, drop more bombs and throw more bodies at the fire. The very idea that applying the “surge” strategy carried out in Iraq would engender peace in Afghanistan should have thrown up red flags from the start to anyone following the deterioration in the country, increase in inter-ethnic hostilities and resurgence of the Taliban over the past eight years.

The two countries’ dissimilarities should have been obvious – from differences in geography, desert versus mountain, to source of insurgent funding – external and internal, to insurgent popularity in the countryside of the South and East. In Iraq we could pay Sunni tribal insurgents in the “Triangle of Death” a monthly salary to cease support for foreign fighters, but in Afghanistan there is no one to pay, not a single “moderate Taliban,” as we desperately sought out.

In Afghanistan, US troops faced their deadliest month in August with 47 deaths, as the insurgents have applied technology and lessons learned from other battlefields. Then there is the collateral damage: from both sides of the conflict, the loss of civilian life has skyrocketed. As the side with better information and technology, as much as the US government hates to admit it, the onus is more for them to reduce their civilian casualties, and engage insurgents on the ground only when they can isolate them from the surrounding innocent population.

Another serious mistake being carried on by the president is the support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai has attempted to shore up support by seeking unholy alliances with the very same warlords who murdered prisoners of war during the reign of the Taliban and at the end of our invasion and toppling of the Taliban in 2001. These warlords have also been accused of arms and drug trafficking, and certainly have brought stability to Afghanistans periphery in the worst way. Now, Karzai stands to win re-election despite widespread reports of fraud on election day.

Support for regimes that hold power through thwarting the democratic process is not new for the US. In recent years, the regimes of Jordan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan who we call allies in the War on Terror have all suppressed their opposition and we have turned a blind eye. But we should look back further to the man Obama is most compared to – John F. Kennedy – and his support for the leader who maintained his power through fraud and extreme corruption, President Diem of South Vietnam. We protected Diem for many years as opposition within South Vietnam raged internally, until finally the dam burst and the man was assassinated. If we continue to protect Karzai from the ramifications of his own corruption, we are setting ourselves up for a similar failure in Afghanistan as we tragically witnessed in Vietnam.

In 2002, a State Senator from Illinois, speaking during the build-up to war in Iraq, stated that he was not against all wars. He was against “dumb wars . . . rash wars . . . a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.” I think it’s time for the President to realize that this war in Afghanistan fits that bill as well. Consider de-escalation, and ultimately a peaceful withdrawal with a semblance of dignity. Then we can get back to what we do best: squabble with each other over our support for capitalism or socialism.

2008-10-10T02:04:00.000-07:00

Bankruptocracy

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
-Ike Eisenhower

As I write this, shockwaves from the financial tailspin are reverberating in Asia, and the US stock market has continued its precipitous decline. It appears the emergency measures enacted by the federal government to "stanch" the flow of capital from shaken markets have failed to inspire confidence among investors and institutions. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan are AWOL and we are left with a former Goldman Sachs CEO pleading on his knees for full license to disperse nearly a trillion dollars to the same financial elites that helped precipitate the crisis. Despite including a few baby carrots for their confused and angry constituents, legislators gave President Bush and Secretary Paulson the wide latitude they sought, and the public have been asked to make good on the debt payments.

The outrage is palpable on all sides of the political spectrum, yet is subdued by a collective sense of learned helplessness. The members of the two-party duopoly, which the majority of Americans have entrusted to safeguard their prosperity and security, have failed in their mission, ostensibly distracted by their efforts to portray the other party as out of touch and as petty partisan hacks. People openly wonder why the average citizen, facing budget cuts, foreclosure, poverty and even homelessness is not bailed out. Questionable ties to financial sector lobbyists abound in the news media, despite presidential candidates' claims to be inured to their influence. Yet somehow, voters feel even more locked into the lesser of two evils argument as they consider their dueling options for the November election.

The two-party system truly has been running on fear for some time, a fear that one or the other party will cause us to slip from dominance and render our cherished lifestyles untenable. This fear has led us into global environmental degradation, numerous intractable armed conflicts, unholy alliances with brutal regimes, astronomical expenditures on advanced weaponry and defense systems, domestic spying and torture in the name of security, and massive subsidies to a corporate power structure that has no internal modus operandi of serving the public good.

I wonder whether the current state of panic will miraculously replace fear as the motor of our stalled-out economic growth, in a twisted fantasy of Friedmanites (Milton, not Thomas) who long for widespread confusion and disaster to ram through unobstructed the structural adjustments to what they see as the welfare state embodied in the embalmed corpse of FDR's New Deals. The crisis itself thankfully puts in stark relief the false dualism that has long existed in the modern collective consciousness between socialism and capitalism, allegedly the only forms of civilized society remaining after tyranny has been bottled up:

On one hand, we see a communist heavyweight, China, completely tied into a global deregulated neoliberal economy, unable to improve the average quality of life for its citizens without cutting workplace standards and introducing a class system into the social fabric. On the other, we see a dominant capitalist socio-economic Empire scrambling to intervene in the markets, with the US and Britain now openly considering partially nationalizing banks. In short, we may be witnessing the bankruptcy of this ideology of division. We increasingly see a broad continuum of community, of humanitarianism with all the worn labels peeling off.

Assuming the most dire predictions of a new global Great Depression come true, what are we left with? Will we still listen to the pundits and politicians squabble over soundbites with the same interest? Will we tussle over the differences in our values on religion, homosexuality, abortion, and stem cell research with the same fervor? Will we remain convinced that we must support trillion dollar occupations in order to deny a small network of enemies the ability to claim a Pyhrric victory (while they watch the economic system collapse entirely)?

If political and economic capital are depleted to the point of no return, what will remain if not social capital, the power of our networks and relationships to improve our lives? We may be forced to leave the old paradigm that you are either in the winner's or loser's circle in an inevitable social binary. The problem is making the crossover. We all have networks of friends and family, and many even have online networks of friendly acquaintances and business associates. But when it comes to actually accomplishing your personal goals, ask yourself how reliable your network truly is to you. Without the luxuries of free-flowing communication and transportation, how could your family survive?

The time to start forging and learning how to collaborate in human networks is now, before things get any more catastrophic. Perhaps, for many, it takes a sheer collapse of security to spur the motivation to make the connections that make survival feasible, but it doesn't necessarily need to come to that. The bottom line is what common ground, if any, can you seek out with others? If your answer is "let the government take care of it," or "don't bother me and I won't bother you," then I wish you and your network the best of luck. If your intuition is that this need not be a dog-eat-dog world, and you would prefer dignity and support, collaboration and community, you are not alone.

Nothing comes for free, except the life we are born into. What do you really have to lose?

2008-05-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

-Robert Burns, To a Mouse

History was supposed to have ended nineteen years ago with the collapse of the Soviet empire, when the "endpoint of man's ideological evolution" ushered in the emergence of the last man in the form of Empire Lite and the benevolent neoliberal superpower. But even post-history needs a little revisionism.

Today we find ourselves after the turning point, still standing on a precipice of our own machinations, and history still miraculously chugging along. On a day when we are told to pause for a moment during our picnics and BBQ's to remember the sacrifices made to make those feasts possible, we are nudged to in turn reflect on how we, too, have been a part of this history.

What sacrifices has the average American made during the past two decades to advance the cause of the Good Empire? It seems only yesterday we were told to go about our business and leave the infinite justice to the pros. All that was needed was half of our taxes, so the more profits, the merrier. Some heeded the call to stand down; others sought success in the rapidly emerging disaster capitalism complex. Still others reached into their collective memory and realized a time-honored duty to follow the wise generals into that Immemorial Theatre so that family and friends would not have to.

And now where do we, those who can of course, stand? We stand on the fruited plains, in a graveyard, side by side with our Decider-in-Chief, staring at rows upon rows of the stewards of the end of history:

"Today, we gather to honor those who gave everything to preserve our way of life. The men and women we honor here served for liberty. They sacrificed for liberty. And in countless acts of courage, they died for liberty. From faraway lands, they were returned to cemeteries like this one, where broken hearts received their broken bodies -- they found peace beneath the white headstones in the land they fought to defend. It is a solemn reminder of the cost of freedom that the number of headstones in a place such as this grows with every new Memorial Day. " The soil of Arlington and other sites is filled with liberty's defenders. It is nourished by their heroism. It is watered by the silent tears of the mothers and fathers, and husbands and wives, and sons and daughters they left behind."

Why does a man gain respect after he is dead? Shouldn't that respect be paid to the living instead? For those soldiers still of flesh and blood, and the families of the fallen, the insults to injury keep piling up. As Bush noted, peace is to be found under the alabaster. For the rest of us, we are told to stay standing down, with our heads down to the ground.

Our fearless leader is now threatening to veto a Senate-passed bill that funds the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars into 2009 and carries no "benchmarks" or "timetables" for withdrawal. A withdrawal-tied supplemental has failed in the House of Representatives due to 132 registered "present" votes by a bloc of Republicans apparently in a similar position to the Democrats of yesteryear--attempting not to be against the troops but limiting the blank check of the military industrial complex and preventing the ramrodding of other unrelated measures through a careless legislative process.

Democrats themselves still relish playing the zero-sum game of presenting bills that have no realistic chance of gaining compromise and thus painting their opponents in a negative light. The one area where this strategy truly works is with the revamping of the G.I. Bil l to increase college benefits in tandem with rising costs of private education, at a cost of 50 billion dollars over the next 10 years, a mere drop in the bucket compared to the trillion dollar war we are still paying off on our global credit card bill. The problem: students can't re-enlist to fight wars that have no end in sight.

So I have a few proposals this Memorial Day:

We should honor the fallen not only today, but every day, with a commitment to dismantling this bloated complex otherwise known as Empire.

We should honor the innocent lives lost with a commitment never to use pre-emptive strikes in absence of a threat, never to use weapons that cause massive collateral damage (cluster bombs, nuclear earth penetrators, unaccountable contractors on top of Bradley fighting vehicles).

And we should start making sacrifices--not just of our mental space as we politely hold back our Iraq fatigue today--but of our precious time-as-money as well. See if we can't help a veteran--it may be as simple as leading a homeless person to a shelter or buying him a lunch--after all, a third of the homeless are veterans:

"About 154,000 veterans (male and female) are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. Many other veterans are considered near homeless or at risk because of their poverty, lack of support from family and friends, and dismal living conditions in cheap hotels or in overcrowded or substandard housing." (Veterans Administration)

We can also enlist so those vets can be schooled in ivory towers and not in the streets: those of us formerly unqualified, the conscientious objectors, flamboyant homosexuals, bar brawlers, the disabled, convicted felons, former residents of Guantanamo, and of course senior citizens. Because we understand the cause just as well as anyone.

2007-09-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

Thumbing through old newspapers from the last millenium, in the year
2000, I am haunted by the young faces of that seemingly innocuous
presidential campaign--seeing George Bush the Third dressed in full
head cheerleader garb and holding up a megaphone with a giant A on it
for his Alma Mater Andover, flanked by Al Gore touting his energy
policy and trying to deflect questions about improper campaign
donations.

Back then we had a "projected surplus," and gas prices had topped $2 a
gallon nationally, sending Americans into a whine-fest and prompting
boy-faced Bush to claim he wasn't as in bed with oil companies as Gore
because he hadn't proposed subsidies for natural gas exploration, and
that as president he would amicably pressure OPEC to "open the
spigots" so Americans could have their cherished black gold for less
than the price of clean water.

Of course the elephants in the room back then that no media pundit
sought to make a fuss about were Iraq and Al-Qaeda, and our dependence
on economic hitmen and foreign entanglements to keep our slumping
economy technically afloat. My how the spigots have flown in seven
years; yet what's come out of them has certainly not been any blacker
than before.

The Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz stated, "no one
starts a war--or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so--without
first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war
and how he intends to conduct it."

Whatever shifting rationale existed publicly for invading and
occupying Iraq and Afghanistan--preventing terrorism, promoting
democracy, eliminating WMD-producing-related-activities, honoring the
death of soldiers--it's been clear that these were all wishful
corrollaries to one central mission: getting out of Saudi Arabia while
establishing a long-term dominant force position in the most volatile
region of the world, the oil-rich and foreign-investment hungry Middle
East, a position whose payoff for its creators must inevitably
surmount that of even longer-term deficits and a total loss of respect
and credibility in the "international community."

One can only assume that there was at one point a clarity of purpose
and we have now entered the decade of damage control and stalemating
games. With peak oil being reached within the next decade or having
already come and gone, a century of Pax Americana couldn't last with
unfettered access to only Iraqi and Central Asian oil. There's a new
elephant in the room, or perhaps the same as it ever was, and it goes
by the name of Iran.

Surrounded on all sides by US naval, airforce, and military
deployments, Iran sits smugly on the largest oil field in the world,
and though many Americans have forgotten our sordid history with Iran,
the Iranians will never forget it, and are brimming with pride about
how they have deterred our aggression over the decades, and more than
ready to take us on again if it means uniting the Islamic world
against the "Great Satan" and it's neverending ally Israel.

Chillingly reminiscent of our "diplomacy" with Iraq in 2002, faced
with the possibility of nuclear-weapons-related-activities in Iran,
the Bush Administration has pressed the UN to set ultimatums and
sanctions, and failed due to a veto threat by Germany, and has acted
as if the Congress has no authority to prevent the executive branch
from launching another pre-emptive strike, even claiming that the
original authorization for war in 2002 still stands in any future war.

Rumor has it that playing games with the UN again was simply a way to
appease the new "dove" in the Administration, Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice, and that V.P. Cheney and his clan are yet again
gunning for unilateral and shameless shock and awe bombardment and
regime change, and is settling differences with Condi, who now
proposes building a case for war and consulting meaningfully with
Congress.

Diplomacy having "failed," there is an attempt underway to sanction
a state military, the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Quds Force whose alleged intent is undermining
the progress of the surge underway. One would think,
based on what happened in the spring of 2003, that with all these
chips in place we were inexorably headed to war. Imagine though if in
late 2002 Saddam Hussein flew to New York to visit Ground Zero and
speak to the UN General Assembly and Columbia University. Have we
then not dropped off the precipice?

A rational person might proclaim, "there is no way we can go to war in
Iran while being bogged down in Iraq, don't even worry about it" but
this rationale misses two key words, and that is "ground forces." Fox
News has quoted an administration source that plans are being laid
that call for a possible air war against Iran in 8-10 months, after
candidates have been selected but before the general election. The
Telegraph quotes an senior intelligence official as saying, the US
military has "two major contingency plans" for air strikes on Iran.
"One is to bomb only the nuclear facilities. The second option is for
a much bigger strike that would - over two or three days - hit all of
the significant military sites as well. This plan involves more than
2,000 targets."

The Sunday Times reports that a Cold War secret taskforce codenamed
Project Checkmate was reinstated in June, "reports directly to General
Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air
force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to
the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies." The
Project develops the most high-tech scenarios to augment planning that
has been two years in the making already, and does not limit itself to
Iran, but includes contingencies for North Korea and China as well.
Ostensibly plans include possibly employing for the first time the
tactical nukes we've heard so much about.

All options are on the table, and war will only be used as a last
resort. War will foster peace. Sound familiar? The question begs the answers:
we aren't really seeking a peaceful resolution, our precision weapons will kill
innocent civilians, we aren't prepared for the inevitable
radicalization and insurgency, and the lame-duck presidency needs no
standards of accountability, ready to start a war at the eleventh hour
and let its successors deal with the fallout. Literally.

So at this point, we need to be vocal in pressing for diplomacy and
compromise, and start demanding answers from our illustrious and
crowded field of presidential contenders: what are you doing right now
to prevent or support this lunacy, and really, what is your policy on
Iran? Do you support the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes on a
state lacking an imminent threat? Are you as good as your word?
Would you rather launch a war or follow the will of the American
people? Let's break it down then to the major candidates and see what
we can't dredge up:

Rudy Giuliani: Nothing on his website. Recent statements:

4/07 "In the long term [Iran might be] more dangerous than Iraq.
Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by
coming here and killing us." Mr. Giuliani was asked in an interview
to clarify that, inasmuch as Iran had no connection to the Sept. 11
attacks. "They have a similar objective in their anger at the modern
world."

6/07 New Hampshire debate, on using tactical nukes in Iran: "I think
it could be done with conventional weapons, but you can't rule out
anything and you shouldn't take any option off the table. Part of the
premise of talking to Iran has to be that they have to know very
clearly that it is unacceptable to the United States that they have
nuclear power." Giuliani slammed the Islamic Republic as "a nuclear
threat, not just because they can deliver a nuclear warhead with
missiles; they're a nuclear threat because they are the biggest state
sponsor of terrorism and they can hand nuclear materials to
terrorists." 9/5/07: "America has to have a clear position. The
position should be that Iran is not going to be allowed to go nuclear.
Senator McCain put it very well a few months ago. He said it would be
very, very dangerous to take military action against Iran, but it
would be even more dangerous if Iran were a nuclear power. And I think
a president has to make that very clear."

9/19/07: "The policy of the United States of America should be very,
very clear: we will use any option we believe is in our best interest
to stop them from being a nuclear power." "The question is do you
drift more towards war by being weak and ambiguous. Or do you drift
less toward war by being strong decisive and clear? As l review the
20th century, we have more often, if not almost exclusively, drifted
more toward war when we were ambiguous weak and unclear than we have
when we have been clear. There is a sort of liberal, elite notion of
the opposite of that, but history refutes that."

Hillary Clinton: Nothing on campaign website. Recent statements:

4/06: "I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I
would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table. This
administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear
weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I
think that's a terrible mistake."

1/07 to AIPAC: "A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors
and beyond. The regime's pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel
rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S.
policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we
must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In dealing
with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table. To deny
the Holocaust places Iran's leadership in company with the most
despicable bigots and historical revisionists. We need to use every
tool at our disposal, including diplomatic and economic in addition to
the threat and use of military force."

8/07: "I think that presidents should be very careful at all times in
discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons... I don't believe
that any presidents should make any blanket statements with respect to
use or non-use of nuclear weapons."

Fred Thompson: Nothing on campaign website. Recent statements:

5/30/07 from National Review Op-ed: If Iran develops nuclear weapons,
the very existence of this tiny nation of Israel will be threatened.
The Iranian regime has left little doubt that it intends to see Israel
"wiped off the map." Hamas is using the same language, not
coincidentally, and has announced it will begin launching missiles
into Israel from the West Bank too. If the world doesn't act to stop
Iran's nuclear ambitions, it must be prepared for the consequences of
Israel defending itself.

6/19/07: "We have a lot of friends in Iran who apparently feel their
leader is trying to drive them off of a militant, religious extremism
cliff. "Some of these problems might work in our favor especially if
we ratcheted the sanctions a bit more. I would think that certainly a
blockade would be a possibility if we could get the international
cooperation to do that. I think regime change might be an option ...
but you can't take the military option off the table."

9/20/07: "I would deny this character [President Ahmadinejad] a visa.
What's he going to do, visit there to get pointers for his own
activities? I wouldn't let him in the country. The Iranian regime is
a threat to Americans and should be dealt with accordingly. They've
been killing Americans here and there all over the world for some
time. They're doing so in Iraq today.

Barack Obama: Hidden in his online Answer Center is this position and
link to his AIPAC speech. Past statements:

09/24/04: the U.S. "should take no option, including military action,
off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough
sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building
nuclear weapons. In light of the fact that we're now in Iraq, with
all the problems in terms of perceptions about America that have been
created, us launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the
optimal position for us to be in. On the other hand, having a radical
Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse. So I guess
my instinct would be to err on not having those weapons in the
possession of the ruling clerics of Iran. And I hope it doesn't get to
that point."

3/02/07 to AIPAC: "As the U.S. redeploys from Iraq, we can recapture
lost influence in the Middle East. We can refocus our efforts to
critical, yet neglected priorities, such as combating international
terrorism and winning the war in Afghanistan. And we can, then, more
effectively deal with one of the greatest threats to the United
States, Israel and world peace: Iran. The world must work to stop
Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in
the hands of a radical theocracy. And while we should take no option,
including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive
diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to
prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. Iran's President
Ahmadinejad's regime is a threat to all of us.

8/02/07: "'I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use
nuclear weapons in any circumstance . . . involving civilians. Let me
scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's
not on the table."

9/12/07: "Iran poses a grave challenge. It builds a nuclear program,
supports terrorism, and threatens Israel with destruction. But we hear
eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the
President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and
al Qaeda, ignoring the violent schism that exists between Shiite and
Sunni militants. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time
for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried
direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear - loud
and clear - from the American people and the Congress: you don't have
our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war."

John McCain: Nothing from the Straight Talk Express, now re-dubbed "No
Surrender." Recent statements:

1/06 to NPR: "We cannot take the military option off the table, but we
have to make it very clear it's the last option."

1/22/06: "A nuclear capability in Iran is unacceptable. Put yourself
in the position of the Israeli government. Your first obligation is to
defend your people. And here's a country whose president calls for the
eradication of your country from the map." McCain said that the
Iranian nuclear program presents the U.S. with "the most serious
crisis we have faced - outside of the entire war on terror - since the
end of the Cold War."

4/07: "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran," he sang to the tune of Beach
Boys' "Barbara Ann." McCain then added, "Iran is dedicated to the
destruction of Israel. That alone should concern us but now they are
trying for nuclear capabilities. I totally support the President when
he says we will not allow Iran to destroy Israel."

John Edwards: The only top-tier Democrat with a page on Iran, who
also speaks of incentives as part of a carrot-and stick approach.
Recent statements:

1/07: Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to
have nuclear weapons. For years, the US hasn't done enough to deal
with what I have seen as a threat from Iran. To ensure that Iran never
gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table. Let me
reiterate -- ALL options must remain on the table . . . As to the
American people, this is a difficult question. The vast majority of
people are concerned about what is going on in Iraq. This will make
the American people reticent toward going for Iran. But I think the
American people are smart if they are told the truth, and if they
trust their president. So Americans can be educated to come along with
what needs to be done with Iran.

From website: "Iran represents a great challenge for the United
States. We can best prevent Iran from threatening our interests
through a 'smart power' strategy that will combine carrots and sticks,
direct engagement, and international pressure to convince moderate
Iranians that they cannot and must not pursue nuclear weapons."

Mitt Romney: Under his issue section "Defeating the Jihadists" is his position on Iran:

There are few more urgent priorities for our nation than confronting Iran's
dangerous nuclear program and support of terrorist groups targeting Americans.
Governor Romney has led efforts to stand up to an Iranian regime that
threatens America, Israel, and ultimately the world. At the 2007
Herzliya Conference in Israel, Governor Romney laid out a comprehensive,
five point strategy for dealing with Iran. Specifically, we must:
- First, continue to tighten economic sanctions.
- Second, impose diplomatic isolation on Iran's Government.
- Third, have Arab states join this effort to prevent a nuclear Iran.
- Fourth, make it clear that while nuclear capabilities may be a source of
pride, it can also be a source of peril. The military option
remains on the table.
- Fifth, integrate our strategy into a broader approach to the broader Muslim world--
including working with our NATO allies and with progressive Muslim communities
and leaders to build a partnership for prosperity.

6/07 New Hampshire debate, on a nuclear strike on Iran: "You don't
take options off the table. All over the world we're seeing the same
thing happening, and that is, people are testing the US. We have to
make sure they understand that we're not arrogant. We have resolve.
And we have the strength to protect our interests and to protect
people who love liberty. For that to happen, we're going to have not
just to attack each one of these problems one by one, but say, "How do
we help move the world of Islam so that the moderate Muslims can
reject the extreme?" And for that to happen, we're going to have to
have a strong military and an effort to combine with our allies in
such a way that we combine for an effort to help move Islam towards
modernity. There is a war going on, and we need a broad response to
make sure that these people have a different vision."

Duncan Hunter: Nothing on his campaign website.

6/07 New Hampshire debate, on nuclear strikes on Iran: "I would authorize
the use of tactical nuclear weapons if there was no other way to preempt those
particular centrifuges."

MassMediaMessiah.blogspot.com (cL 2007

2007-09-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

Superdome photo courtesy of neworleanstruth.com
Two years ago, 1,836 people would be murdered and over a million displaced in one of the most massive campaigns of effective genocide in the history of the world. No, this would not occur in Africa, South America, Indonesia, or the Middle East while the US would look askance so it could secure its own interests first. No, this was right here at home, on that lazy ol' river we call the Mississippi.

I traveled to New Orleans this past week, and let me be the first to tell you it is a sad state of affairs, with a few rays of hope. Large swaths of the city are still in serious disrepair with some blocks boasting only a few resettled residents. Large debris piles and devastated-beyond-repair houses in the middle of streets have made their way to not-so-sanitary landfills on the edges of town. Volunteers with groups like Common Ground and St. Bernard Project have gutted and removed black mold debris from thousands of homes. Even the soil is slowly decreasing in toxicity with bioremediation projects.

60% of the former population has returned or never left New Orleans, where 80% of the city was underwater two years ago. Rent prices are out of control, and the racial make-up of the city has changed as low-income people have no employment and nowhere to call home anymore, and exist in a diaspora separated from their close-knit extended families. The French Quarter is buzzing, but more like a pesky mosquito than the hornet's nest that previously cavorted there in reverie. It is rare to find a genuine sober smile among residents, but the tourists don't seem to mind too much, even going on "disaster tours" instead of bayou boat rides.

Meanwhile Bush and his caravan of motorbikes and black Suburbans came tear-assing through town the day of commemoration, to tout charter schools and mixed-income housing and to declare while standing in the wasteland of the Lower Ninth Ward that "the town is coming back." His chief of recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast, Don Powell, admitted "frustrations" about the red tape and the "pace of things." But every cloud has its lining:

"I also see a tremendous amount of progress. . . . I see economic vitality in the area. I was down there this past week. It took me 28 minutes to get from the airport to downtown. That's called a traffic jam. You don't have a traffic jam unless there's activity."

With the litany of broken promises and insults to human dignity coming daily from the masters of war in the Middle East, it almost seems to be an exercise in futility to hold them to their word on domestic revitalization. Two years have gone by since one of the worst man-made disasters to ever befall the United States, that being the failure of all levels of government, Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, National Guard, and American Red Cross to protect American citizens on the Gulf Coast. It nevertheless remains vital to measure the progress made in order to adequately prepare for the continuing struggle to return and rebuild.

Manifested as the most precipitous drop in his popularity in two terms, the public reaction to Bush's promise of renewal on September 15, 2005 seemed to suggest that apathy and disengagement were abating, and indignation and a desire for accountability was finally starting to take root in the contemporary American psyche. The only paradox: how to hold someone accountable that you have lost all faith in? How long can you plead for sanity from a lunatic before he starts destroying everything in his path? And even if he does answer you call, how can you stop him from "accidentally" hurting you even more? Well even if "Bush's Brain" can't be trusted, maybe we can still rely on his Gut to lead the charge to victory:

"Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know: There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.

In the disaster area and in cities that have received huge numbers of displaced people, we are beginning to bring in mobile homes and trailers for temporary use. To relieve the burden on local health care facilities in the region, we are sending extra doctors and nurses to these areas."

That was nearly two years ago, and two weeks after an offer from Cuba and Venezuela to send as many doctors to the region as there were deceased was outrightly rejected. Since then, the major hospital for low-income patients in New Orleans, Charity, has been closed, and health care is abysmal, supplemented only by volunteer-run neighborhood clinics lacking government assistance and even harassed by law enforcement officials in the critical weeks after Katrina made landfall.

As far as those trailers, after thousands sitting in lots unused finally were distributed, it came to light through nonprofit investigations into reports of respiratory conditions in evacuees that on top of all the other bungling, 2-3 brands of trailers tested unnaturally high levels of airbone formaldehyde. The caustic joke in New Orleans is that the government is helping bury people before they even make it underground.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana-run Road Home program, which provides rebuilding grants to homeowners who had inadequate storm insurance, has sent checks to 44,000 hurricane victims, despite having received more than 184,000 applications and having billions of dollars in the bank. The American Red Cross adjunct "Means to Recovery," funded by American citizens' donations has effectively shut down for applicants after being kept a secret from thousands of residents who could not qualify for the state program.

These people now feel more desperate, hopeless, abandoned, and humiliated than ever. Surely we can honor at least one promise, right Mr. President?

"Our third commitment is this: when communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm. Within the Gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. And that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.

When the regional economy revives, local people should be prepared for the jobs being created. Americans want the Gulf Coast not just to survive, but to thrive, not just to cope, but to overcome. We want evacuees to come home, for the best of reasons -- because they have a real chance at a better life in a place they love.

To help lower-income citizens in the hurricane region build new and better lives, I also propose that Congress pass an Urban Homesteading Act. Under this approach, we will identify property in the region owned by the federal government, and provide building sites to low-income citizens free of charge, through a lottery.

And the Army Corps of Engineers will work at their side to make the flood protection system stronger than it has ever been."

If Bush's populist rhetoric and class-based assessment matched his actions, and if the National Guard were allowed to do their homeland duties instead of maintaining the kill zones of the Middle East, this revival would be well on track by now. Even a third-grader can see that it's not. Not only are levees only at pre-Katrina Category 3 protection levels, but the wetlands that historically protected the area are diminishing at a rate of 40 square miles of marshland per year. Heckuva job, y'all.

Some type of redevelopment should occur, and long term sustainability should be a paramount concern. However, remunerations for resettlement costs should not fall by the wayside, in the event that areas like the Lower 9th Ward cannot be protected from a 100 year flood and landowners cannot qualify for flood insurance and federal money to elevate their houses. Affordable housing must be heavily subsidized, and the rental and housing market must be regulated to prevent gouging and racial discrimination.

The Works Progress Administration, started by another very unpopular president, Herbert Hoover, would be a good model to follow in restoring the economy through employment of local residents in the rebuilding and rejuvenation of their communities. But this will take a Marshall Plan-sized commitment to the entire region, and a massive diversion of funds from bloated military budgets to domestic aid in order to stave off the US's defaulting on its massive international borrowing and ballooning deficit. Profiteering corporations that thrive off of disasters and resource extraction in the area should bear a heavier tax burden in restoring urban and coastal areas, and in the era of corporate image management, this might not be the worst financial move, especially if done voluntarily.

Barring progress, New Orleans and other coastal cities can't wait for more empty promises from future presidential contenders. A new progressive people's Bloc Party must emerge to either take over the reigns of the bumbling behemoth that is the American Empire, or to organize a massive walk-out--a collective refusal to tacitly participate in the most ignominious imperial project in world history, and a banding together to create a new, most definitely possible, civil society. The time for faith is over. To hell with the hype. Bury the bull. Our warrior-in-chief hath forsaken us, and his heir-apparents want to share in the spoils.

2007-07-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

"He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
-Thomas Paine

While summer barbecues and coolers of beer never lost their value for me, three years ago I lost my childhood fixation on seeing the annual fireworks display. The thought that somewhere somebody was hearing those same sounds yet witnessing the death of their friends, family, or countrymen to the bombs of the global civil war, made me shirk from my national obligation to celebrate all things explosive.

This July 4th, it appears to be every decent, fatherland loving American's calling to attend this or that primary state parade, or inspirational message from our modern day warrior-chief. President Bush, in front of a receptive audience 35 minutes away from the White House, pleaded patience and courage for the long struggle against violent extremism, which has claimed over 3850 lives in Iraq alone.

Thing is, Bush forgot what Independence Day was all about--passivity, freedom from obligations, instant gratification and a feeling of pride in your country that ignores the most reasonable assessment of the challenges facing the world's self-proclaimed "preemptive" Empire.

Well-financed and philandered Democratic hopefuls, marching amicably alongside their Republican counteparts, whispered nothing in order to defame this rote ideology of full Spectrum Dominance, and ultraviolence. And speaking of instant gratification, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby should have felt quite gratified to have played the essentially pardoned scapegoat in the perennial nightmare that is the Republicrat hegemony of corruption, nepotism, and double-dealing. He just has to cough up some dough, and a pardon is neither ruled "in or out."

At this juncture, it should be worthwhile to recall a hot July 22 years ago, when the US hired Israel to supply HAWK missiles to our proxy turned enemy Iran, in order to negotiate the release of American hostages thought to be held by Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, a foundling of the now world-famous Hezbollah. Part of the purpose of the sales too was to illegally fund a civilian-targeted guerrilla warfare campaign in "Red" Nicaragua. Then too, scapegoats (Oliver North of Fox News fame and John Poindexter of OIA fame) emerged, were convicted of lying and subsequently faced no punishment on technicalities of their testimonies. Only "Cap the Ladle" Weinberger would face conviction, to be pardoned as a fait accompli by the man who would later be revealed to have known about the entire Iran-Contra affair, President George H.W. Bush. My hero; can't wait to spit on your statue in a week.

And then as with the outing of Valerie Plame's identity to journalists, the Republican president could plausably claim deniability and a lack of control over his subordinates, and demand investigations and resignations that led to little substantial change in the corrupt practices of our star-spangled corporatocracy. The buck stops where again?

So this July 4th I am celebrating Interdependence Day, because we are intimately woven with the bloody fabric of our own creation in the Middle East, and because borders cease to have much significance in the increasingly globalized and militarized world (unless you put a billion dollar separation barrier on them). The third world is increasing American, and as Colon Powell blithely stated, "we broke it, we bought it."

We indeed own it now, although "we" is a foreign word in America next to the almighty "I," and it is up to "US" to grant the independence that we fought for through the centuries to those peoples whose countries we occupied, armed terrorists, and bombed to high hell in order to maintain it. Otherwise we very well face a long war that will be our undoing, and the lack of extra sulphur dioxide in the air and pork on the Bar-B should be the least of our concern.

2007-05-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

Today is a bittersweet anniversary of sorts. Four years ago, the very same president who has stated that contemporary warfare won't be settled by signing treaties of surrender on battleships, showed the world the size of his commitment to the campaign:

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

This is the very same president who now says, "I'm sorry it's come to this," of course referring not to the course of action taken, but rather to his determination to veto the much-vaunted $100 billion-plus emergency spending bill which includes suggestions for troop withdrawls to have completed by around the fifth anniversary of the invasion.

It is clear that the "top tier" Democratic presidential candidates, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, who all voted for the bill in spite of Bush's veto threat would love to take credit for the impetus to change course and honor the "will of the American people," but their performances in the South Carolina debates merely rung boastful, hollow, and vetted for any serious assumption of responsibility for cleaning up the disaster we have wrought in the Middle East, let alone presenting tangible ways to actually end the war lieu of Bush's "steadfastness." A few decent ideas came from the "bottom tier," however.

Historically, conflicts have been successfully resolved through sheer brutality and uncompromising behavior when one side is significantly more powerful (which is clearly a failure on the part of both warring camps), or through reconciliation, concessions, the destruction of arbitrary barriers, and honoring the will and dignity of the nonviolent population caught in the crossfire.

So it should hardly be a sign of the progress of the January "surge" that Central Command has taken a cue from the Israeli Defense Forces and has begun construction of a wall to separate/ contain a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, with plans on the table for a wall around the entire capital.

That the idea of erecting walls as a way of solving problems should come back into fashion nearly 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, lauded as an emblem of the march of freedom, strikes me as abominable. And the buck doesn't stop there. To address the increase in illegal immigration in the U.S., construction of a billion-dollar separation barrier along the US-Mexico border has commenced in spite of conservative backers being swept out of office in the 2006 midterm elections.

So this anniversary is bittersweet because, after all, it is International Workers' Day.
Immigrant workers and their allies are once again in the streets demanding a more humanistic approach to the question of labor. The list of of demands seeks a non-compromising attitude but based on the common principles of dignity and freedom, including an end to detentions, deportations, and massive raids, a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, and a living wage for all, that exceeds the minimum wage increases planned over the next couple years, assuming it passes the veto-bearing commander-in-chief.

It's time to send the tired old partisanship and capitalist-socialist rivarlies to their resting places for good, and seek a new humanism, a third way that guarantees through collective enforcement, the health and dignity of every community member, irrespective of boundaries, borders, and differences, and that acknowledges that diversity and a peaceful, nurturing environment are the keys to securing a sustainable future for everyone on the planet that participates in its creation.

If those currently in power wish to ignore this growing seed in humankind, then we must abandon them through our cooperation and innovation until the rest of the multitude can emulate the new systems of community or join the exodus in due time.

For today at least, it should be heartening to witness some sacrifice, some humility and some courage, and visions for a new movement of the people.

massmediamessiah.blogspot.com
(cL 2007

2007-03-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

The fifth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is fast approaching, and the phrase unwinnable war seems to increase in salience daily, as peace and justice activists worldwide gear up for another long week of demonstrations. While support in the US for the continued troop presence in Iraq is at an all-time low, a shift in the make-up of the US Congress seems to have borne few, if any, tangible changes in the prosecution of the war in Iraq and the broader "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism." All of this against the backdrop of a renewed insurgency in southern Afghanistan, where Dutch-led ISAF forces are contending with suicide bombers, a security crackdown in "sectarian-violence" plagued Baghdad, and a tentative UN Security Council agreement on sanctions against Iran for its allegedly militaristic uranium enrichment program.

Conservative politicians are decrying the Democratic Party's attempts to "micromanage" the mission of the war, by attempting to place a 2008 withdrawal date, and have only recently permitted debate on the war to go through. Lacking from this criticism is any acknowledgement that the "mission" has been constantly in flux and nebulous at best, with the main missions of regime change and disarming Iraq, though obviously questionable in their justifications, nevertheless "accomplished."

Also lacking is an acknowledgement that Congress can rightfully use the "power of the purse" to restrict illegal or disastrous military actions, and that presidential veto threats are irrelevant in this scenario in which no spending bills are passed at all. It is clear that on the surface, Democrats fear being painted as not in support of the troops even though a drop-off of funding would not leave troops stranded in the deserts and cities of Iraq, although ulterior motives for resisting calls for impeachment proceedings and a cut-off of funding may indeed be the driving factor. At the least, the days of out-right rubberstamping of Administration policies appear to be over.

Enter the contentious spending bill:
In a 36-28 vote, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $124.1 billion emergency spending bill, including $95.5 billion to continue fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Stripped from language in the bill to garner support among "moderate" and "conservative" Democrats was a requirement that Bush seek authorization before launching any assault or invasion on Iran. One notable senator, Barack Obama, has openly supported "surgical strikes" on Iran without consideration of the wide-scale escalation of war in the Middle East that would ensue.

Funding was even added to Bush's initial $100 billion supplemental request supposedly in order to adequately train and equip soldiers being sent to the battlefield. In the Senate, a resolution proposing a March 2008 withdrawal failed to garner the 60 votes needed to pass, but a separate symbolic resolution "supporting the troops" passed overwhelmingly, much as a response to reports of negligent care of wounded and traumatized veterans upon returning from or redeployment to the Iraq and Afghanistan theatres.

But the mission has evolved, one might say, to reflect limitless American interests in the region. So "flip-flopper"-inaugurate Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stated in a recent interview in which she also cited Israel's interests as a subset of US national interests. Recall that recently she stated if this presidency does not end the war in Iraq, her presidency would end it in 2009. Her new stance is quite peculiar as she simultaneously says her presidency would see a continuing occupation that would not address the civil war, and would stand by if ethnic cleansing increased.

Also notably lacking from the major presidential candidates war rhetoric is any alternative to the prosecution of the war on Terror in order to "win it," save calls to increase troop presence in Afghanistan. Support seems unchanged on war crimes tribunals, secret detentions, and Guantanamo Bay, where currently 14 suspects, included self-professed Al-Qaeda operational leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are being tried as to whether they can be considered enemy combatants. Hundreds more in Guantanamo don't have the luxury of having seen any form of international justice. Currently there are also over 15,000 detainees held in Iraq, in indefinite detention and without access to Geneva Conventions on rights of prisoners of war. What would happen with these illegal detention centers in a Clinton, McCain, Giuliani, or Obama presidency?

In lieu of the Congressional deadlock and broad support for a status quo of indefinite military presence in the Middle East, options for the global pacifist movement are dwindling, but not entirely lost. More needs to be done to assist younger people who want to participate in and strengthen networks of resistance, and more needs to be done to communicate the possibilities on both sides of the conflict for forcing reconciliation and compromise, which include a settlement to the Israeli-Palestine conflict that settles the sticking point of Jerusalem and right of return, and a potential mass strike or boycott that could weaken the spending and recruiting power of the two sides. The last, worst option, is abandonment of these societies in conflict to a region away from the battlefields, and allowing the global civil war to run its course to the bitter end. Due to the globalization of the world and the diffusement of insurgent networks, however, it is clear that spaces immune to the global civil war may be hard to find.

In my view, Iraqi and Afghani people deserve to make their own decisions on the duration of foreign occupations, whether misguided or not, but that whatever outcome is preferred should involve increasing foreign aid for development of essential services and infrastructure that does not involve structural readjustments, and the bulk of this aid should be made in the form of reparations from primarily the US government.

2007-01-15T00:54:00.000-08:00

Ah, the new year is always a great time for a fresh start, a clean slate; a time for ideals of the past to become convictions yet again. Where better to seek that renewal than in the chaotic and devastated Iraq of the 21st century. Time to begin to end again the tragic catastrophe we keep engendering.

President Bush, after months of reviewing all the options on the table and hearing recommendations and dire warnings from the Iraq Study Group, finally became the Decider yet again, with a televised call for 21,000 troops to be sent to Anbar Province and the Iraqi capitol. Advisors clearly found this magic number not in the petitions of generals on the ground, who for months had said more troops would be counterproductive to the Iraqi government's strength and sovereignty, but rather found it in the Defense Department's stop-loss game whereby troops can be retained in theatre by simply extending their tour. Defense Secretary Gates sagely advised on continuing Rumsfeld-stlye word games in the War of ideological insinuation (Wii): the troops would be demarcated as a "surge" and most definitely not a Vietnam-style "escalation" that would excite the slumbering opposition.

It has become clear that Bush's new plan for victory was not a flash of inspiration, not another "God told me to do it" moment, but rather an exercise in the new American democracy, a choice of the lesser of evils, with a necessary evil on the road home. Failure, of course, was never an option, yet somehow all other options were perceived as road maps to failure--notably massive escalation and measured withdrawal, and thankfully, we should assume, nuclear obliteration. As my fellow Texans might say, "If ya put lipstick on a pig, you still got yourself a pig." So what distinguishes the new unimplemented plan as successful where others that haven't been tried so clearly link to a failed state?

Bush has shied from justifications for the "benchmarks" of success or even elucidating a hopeful outcome, and instead focused on what failure would look like:

BUSH: . . . failure in Iraq will embolden the enemy. And the enemy is al-Qaeda and extremists. Failure in Iraq would empower Iran, which poses a significant threat to world peace. Failure in Iraq would provide safe haven, and the extremists still want to attack us. And failure in Iraq, defeat of America, in quotes, will then embolden these extremists. They'll be able to recruit more. . . . if we do not succeed in Iraq, we will leave behind a Middle East which will endanger America in the future.
PELLEY: Instability in Iraq threatens the entire region?
BUSH: If the government falls apart and there is sectarian enclaves and violence, it'll invite Iran into the Shia neighborhoods, Sunni extremists into the Sunni neighborhoods, Kurdish separatist movements.
. . . if we just isolate ourselves from the Middle East and hope for the best, we will not address the conditions that had led young suiciders to get on airplanes to come and attack us in the first place.

So again it seems America is making decisions based on fear, not information or inspiration. The only bit of comfort I take from this interchange is that it is the first time I have seen Bush talk about 9/11 in terms of the conditions that led to suicidal behavior other than the standard boilerplate "They hate our freedom." I do believe there are more peaceful ways to change those conditions.

The notable change in strategy with Bush's new plan is that Prime Minister Maliki apparently has given the green light for the US to attack both Sunni AND Shiite militants in Baghdad neighborhoods. The other incredible change is that having survived two elections, Bush now has been freed by his handlers to accept retrospective responsibility for making colossal errors of judgement:

And the reason I brought up the mistakes is, one, that's the job of the commander-in-chief, and, two, I don't want people blaming our military. We got a bunch of good military people out there doing what we've asked them to do. And the temptation is gonna find scapegoats. Well, if the people want a scapegoat, they got one right here in me 'cause it's my decisions.

Hooray! A scapegoat was clearly all the American people needed to go about their business as usual. But to me it seems playing the blame game is a tad bit counterproductive when the stakes are so high, and especially so when we can't seem to count on one Administration to get us out of the mess simply because it's his fault. I myself couldn't say what the solution in Iraq is, but I sincerely believe that we must do all we can not to abandon the people, and that we can have influence in this regard in a non-punitive, non-militaristic fashion. A real change would involve extreme, possibly financial incentives for peace, withdrawal to the borders with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, and Syria, and negotiations for a truce with at least the homegrown insurgency and Shiite militias, who no doubt have both clear demands and excellent intelligence on their insatiable, unrelenting foreign counterparts. Democrats need teeth to their opposition in Congress, and pulling the purse strings may be the least worst option indeed. As a country we need to find common ground, even if it means accepting the ignominy of defeat and reaching out to help the world with our riches again.

But don't listen to me, it's MLK Jr. Day, listen to a real source of inspiration:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer.

We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove thosse conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. . . . Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. . . . We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.

In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world -- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the callling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

2006-12-31T12:59:00.000-08:00

The mainstream for-profit news media's hunger for bloodshed is in full force this holiday season. Their task has been made easier by the fact that US troop deaths in Iraq, 3000 total, have reached their second highest monthly level since the 2003 invasion, 111 in December, only to be outdone by November 2004's second siege of Falluja. Iraqi sectarian violence has swelled to claiming over 3000 civilians every month. But strangely, the story on everyone's lips, of course, is the televised death of a dictator.

The absurdity of the comments surrounding the hanging of Saddam Hussein should suffice to show what kind of ironic propaganda slips into the cultural mainstream. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, a Shiite, claimed that out of respect for human rights, he had no choice but to hurry the appeals process and execute Hussein. No human rights body in the entire world supports capital punishment, so whose rights was he referring to? Certainly not Hussein's, and certainly not all of humanity, unless we want to dub Hussein inhuman for shits and giggles. And if the justice was merely for unimprisoned Iraqis, why then were the executions not sought out for those who sold Iraq his weapons of mass destruction, for the infamous chemical attack on his own people? However, this was not about revenge, or was it?

Amazingly the Bush Adminstration's distancing remarks were that Iraqi justice had successfully been carried out, as opposed to some standard of international justice, which we seemed to be promoting ever since 9/11's "bring them to justice," Western style. So long as Hussein died in a "dignified" way without mutilation or humiliation, the Green Zone could have a very merry New Year's. The Shiite side of the civil war was not to be as lucky yesterday, as the executioners were seen to be all Shiite, and the taunting and execution in Saddam's old execution chamber a bit off the mark of dignity.

When discussing whether international justice has been meted out evenly, it is important to list the war's most grievous violations of global agreements on "civilized" warfare, elucidated in the Geneva Conventions: initiating combat without a threat of imminent attack, denying humane treatment to prisoners of war, attacks on soft targets such as media institutions and medical transport units, and the oft-forgotten law barring humiliation of prisoners, which includes televising their incarceration or death (see faces of Uday & Qusay Hussein, and Abu Al-Zarqawi). But fortunately for America, we apparently had nothing to do with the capture, incarceration, establishment of the tribunal, and handover of the former president. Nor would American backers ever get a chance to be held to account for our Machiavellian support for Hussein's rule by fear throughout the 1980's. Not that the World Court would be able to really hold the US conservative elite responsible for complicity in war crimes--don't forget that we were already found guilty for our support of death squad attacks on soft targets in our proxy war in Nicaragua in the early '80's, to which we only stepped up our "anti-Soviet" campaign.

What was accomplished by this execution? A reinforcement of the ideology of shame and revenge in Islamic culture. The end of a distraction from fighting "Iraq's enemies" that haven't been disarmed, to be sure. And surely the Shiite and Sunni torturers and murderers across Iraq are quaking in their ski-masks about having a sham trial and "dignified" death if they are ever to be captured. Bush can now tell his daddy that we finally "took him out." But the most significant thing accomplished was the fruition of Hussein's born-again-Muslim fantasy of being remembered as a martyr who fought the crusaders. In death at the hands of infidels he understood he could have more lasting power than sitting in a spider hole eating Snickers bars until the shitstorm blew over. So perhaps it's time that Usama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar "involuntarily" came out of their holes to be martyred, so that they again have relevance to the diffuse and decentralized broken web of simmering revenge that constitutes our global civil war.

2006-11-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

By now, get-out-the-vote partiers will have received their special gift of the elections--a massive hangover and a return to business as usual. We all prepared for the worst--and perhaps we ended up with the least worst, which somehow flips a mobius strip and becomes the best we get.

Suffice to say that future Democratic candidates success is clearly now riding on how they use their position of relative power within a system of checks and balances that has steadily eroded under their passive-aggressive lame-puppy-dog eyes. What can Democrats do to distinguish themselves from being merely critics preaching to the choir? And how can John Kerry help fuck up the next election?

Ethics scandals--a somewhat less cloudy phrase than moral values, seemed from all counts by the mainstream media, and to some extent the president in his concession speech, to have had a tremendous impact on turnout and dissafection with the ruling party. As GWB complained, GOP write-in candidates had an uphill battle winning races in Houston District 22 and South Florida District 16. Maybe their old voters felt a little shame themselves for a while.

But the scandal that is the elephant in the room is the host of illegal actions carried out by this Administration which may yet go unpunished. Rumsfeld's resignation means nothing if the same cadre of other officials does everything in its power to stay the course in an unsanctioned war and leave finding an exit-strategy to the next Administration. Conspiracy theories about 9/11 aren't necessary when the facts of illegal activity, undue corporate influence, and corruption are staring the House Intelligence Committee in the face.

If newly-elected Democrats do not heed their constituents' calls for investigations of impeachment, raising the minimum wage, returning to a state of broad civil liberties, rapidly decreasing fossil fuel dependence, massive oversight on the War on Terror including troop withdrawals and potential extended campaigns in the mountains of Pakistan, they will have barely a leg to stand on in the next presidential election, when anything goes.

Don't forget that terrorists are now emboldened--because they see that two corporate-financed parties have a lock on our democratic system and we promise to stay good ideological enemies for the foreeable future and keep justifying massive retaliation for our actions in Iraq and all-out support for Israeli's border-creating military adventures in the Gaza Strip.

The sooner the media can get to the root of the American Debacle, the sooner politicians will start plotting a new direction. As it stands, the informed debate and necessary criticism is just a lot of babble about a horse race and political capital.