Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiThe Sleazy Advocacy of a Leading 'Liberal Hawk'
Peter Galbraith's vast, undisclosed financial interests in the policies he spent years advocating as an "expert."
The New York Times today details the unbelievably sleazy story of Peter Galbraith, one of the Democratic Party's leading so-called "liberal hawks" and a generally revered Wise Man of America's Foreign Policy Community. He was Ambassador to Croatia under the Clinton administration in the mid-1990s and, in March, 2009, the Obama administration (specifically, Richard Holbrooke, Galbraith's mentor) successfully pressured the U.N. to name Galbraith as the second-in-command in Afghanistan. The NYT does a good job today of adding some important details to the story, but it was actually uncovered by Norwegian investigative journalists and reported at length a month ago in pieces such as this one by Helana Cobban. In essence, this highly Serious man has corruptly concealed vast financial stakes in the very policies and positions he has spent years advocating while pretending to be an independent expert.
Galbraith was one of the most vocal Democratic supporters of the attack on Iraq, having signed a March 19, 2003 public letter (.pdf) -- along with the standard cast of neocon war-lovers such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Danielle Pletka, and Robert Kagan -- stating that "we all join in supporting the military intervention in Iraq" and "it is now time to act to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime from power." As intended, that letter was then praised by outlets such as The Washington Post Editorial Page, gushing that "it is both significant and encouraging that a bipartisan group of influential foreign policy thinkers, veterans of both Democratic and Republican administrations, has signed on to a statement of policy on Iraq that makes sense on the war." Throughout 2002 and 2003, Galbraith appeared in numerous outlets -- including repeatedly on Fox News and with Bill O'Reilly -- presenting himself as a loyal Democrat firmly behind the invasion of Iraq. In 2002, he was an adviser to Paul Wolfowitz on Kurdistan.
After playing a key role in enabling the invasion of Iraq, Galbraith first became one of a handful of U.S. officials who worked on writing the Iraqi Constitution, and after he resigned from the government, he then ran around posing as an independent expert on the region and, specifically, an adviser to the Kurds on the Constitution. Galbraith was an ardent and vocal advocate for Kurdish autonomy, arguing tirelessly in numerous venues for such proposals -- including in multiple Op-Eds for The New York Times -- and insisting that Kurds must have the right to control oil resources located in Northern Iraq. Throughout the years of writing those Op-Eds, he was identified as nothing more than "a former United States ambassador to Croatia," except in one 2007 Op-Ed which vaguely stated that he "is a principal in a company that does consulting in Iraq and elsewhere." When he participated in a New York Times forum in October, 2008, regarding what the next President should be required to answer, he unsurprisingly posed questions that advocated for regional autonomy for Iraqis generally and Kurds specifically, and he was identified as nothing more than the author of a book about the region.
What Galbraith kept completely concealed all these years -- as he trapsed around advocating for Kurdish autonomy -- was that a company he formed in 2004 came to acquire a large stake in a Kurdish oil field whereby, as the NYT put it, he "stands to earn perhaps a hundred million or more dollars." In other words, he had a direct -- and vast -- financial stake in the very policies which he was publicly advocating in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and countless other American media outlets, where he was presented as an independent expert on the region. As Cobban wrote:
For the preceding four years, while Galbraith was an influential participant in Iraq-related constitutional and political discussions, he also had an undisclosed financial interest in a KRG-authorised oil development venture. . . .
Here in the U.S., Galbraith has long been associated with the "liberal hawk" wing of the Democratic Party . . . Many members of this group have been liberal idealists - though some of those who, on "liberal" grounds, gave early support to Pres. George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq later expressed their regret for adopting that position.
Galbraith has never expressed any such regrets, and last November, he was openly scornful of Bush's late-term agreement to withdraw from Iraq completely. The revelation that for many years Galbraith had a quite undisclosed financial interest in the political breakup of Iraq may now further reduce the clout, and the ranks, of the remaining liberal hawks.
Unfortunately, that last sentence is likely wishful thinking. What Galbraith has done, sleazy and dishonest as it is, is simply par for the course in accountability-free Washington.
Galbraith's relationship with the Kurds goes back many years. He undoubtedly knew that overthrowing Saddam would empower his Kurdish friends and their ability to dole out oil contracts. Indeed, in his own 2006 book, he recounts that he began working on Kurdish autonomy and independence "two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein." Less than a year later, having helped convince the public -- and many Democrats -- to invade Iraq, he formed a company that then acquired a huge stake in Kurdish oil. And he then spent years running around trying to use his status as Foreign Policy Community expert to exploit the war he cheered on for his own massive personal gain, while keeping completely concealed those glaring conflicts of interests.
Reider Visser, a historian of southern Iraq, told The Boston Globe last month: "Galbraith has been such a central person to the shaping of the Iraqi Constitution, far more than I think most Americans realize. All those beautiful ideas about principles of federalism and local communities having control are really cast in a different light when the community has an oil field in its midst and Mr. Galbraith has a financial stake." So here's a leading advocate of the war on Iraq who used his influence in the U.S. Government and the Foreign Policy Community -- as well as the break-up of Saddam's regime -- to enrich himself on Iraqi oil. As the NYT put it:
As the scope of Mr. Galbraith's financial interests in Kurdistan become clear, they have the potential to inflame some of Iraqis' deepest fears, including conspiracy theories that the true reason for the American invasion of their country was to take its oil. It may not help that outside Kurdistan, Mr. Galbraith's influential view that Iraq should be broken up along ethnic lines is considered offensive to many Iraqis' nationalism. Mr. Biden and Mr. Kerry, who have been influenced by Mr. Galbraith's thinking but do not advocate such a partitioning of the country, were not aware of Mr. Galbraith's oil dealings in Iraq, aides to both politicians say.
Some officials say that his financial ties could raise serious questions about the integrity of the constitutional negotiations themselves. "The idea that an oil company was participating in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution leaves me speechless," said Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi, a principal drafter of the law that governed Iraq after the United States ceded control to an Iraqi government on June 28, 2004.
In effect, he said, the company "has a representative in the room, drafting."
Remember how all those freakish and paranoid people -- on the crazed "Arab street" and in American-hating leftist circles -- actually believed in "conpriacy" theories such as the wacky notion that one of the motives for invading Iraq was a desire to exploit its oil resources?
Here we have yet another example of one of America's most Serious and respected "experts" advocating various policies while maintaining huge, undisclosed financial and personal interests in his advocacy. He was given access to every major media outlet virtually on demand to do so -- the NYT, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, Fox -- all while those interests remained concealed. His uniting with the country's most extreme neocons to support the Bush administration's attack on Iraq didn't prevent the Obama administration from pushing him to be hired as the U.N.'s number two official in Afghanistan. He continued to be revered by leading establishment Democrats as an important and respected expert. In other words, Peter Galbraith is a perfect face showing how America's Foreign Policy Community and our political debates function.
UPDATE: Jonathan Schwarz recalls what was done to those who suggested that part of the motive in invading Iraq might have something to do with that country's oil reserves.
UPDATE II: The New York Times is forced to publish an Editor's Note today in light of this story, noting that "Mr. Galbraith signed a contract that obligated him to disclose his financial interests in the subjects of his articles"; he "should have disclosed to readers that Mr. Galbraith could benefit financially" from the policies he was advocating in his Op-Eds; and "had editors been aware of Mr. Galbraith's financial stake, the Op-Ed page would have insisted on disclosure or not published his articles."
62 Comments so far
Show AllLook out here comes another preview!
As usual Glenn Greenwald is right on top of things. Those "terrible left wingers and liberals" were "just" engaging "conspiracy theories about our "wonderful" super rich power elites having a vested economic interests in a war with Iraq, but they were damn right.
AD
As usual Glenn Greenwald is right on top of things. Those "terrible left wingers and liberals" were "just" engaging in "conspiracy theories about our "wonderful" super rich power elites having a vested economic interests in a war with Iraq, but they were damn right.
AD
A black sheep in every family.....?
"Remember how all those freakish and paranoid people -- on the crazed "Arab street" and in American-hating leftist circles -- actually believed in "conspriacy" theories such as the wacky notion that one of the motives for invading Iraq was a desire to exploit its oil resources?"
Indeed we do remember, Glenn. There are millions of us such "freakish and paranoid people" who refuse to forget. The murderers and thieves, like Galbraith, were hailed as great leaders, thinkers, doers, and protectors of American Freedom, which never meant anything but their freedom to steal, commit mass murder and exploit every resource from a virtually defenseless foreign country they could lay their filthy bloody hands on. We are so degraded as a nation because of the satanic crimes of shit-souled fucks like Galbraith (the Bernie Madoff of the war on Iraq crime) that we will likely never recover.
Like his comrades in evil, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Danielle Pletka, Robert Kagan, and too many others to name, Galbraith richly deserves the fate MK Ultra recommends. I second that emotion, MK.
Would you tear the wings off a butterfly for a million dollars? Some answer yes.
How does he get characterized as a 'Liberal Hawk' while being such an unabashed supporter of the Iraq Occupation ?
All I have to say is that, when god created man, he sure as hell screwed up!
I just can't comprehend how any one human being (if these bastards can be called that) could do something as utterly despicable as to precipitate a war where millions of innocents will lose their lives so that he can put 100 million bucks in his pocket! It is in the face of things like these that I advocate violence...of the worse kind. The type where you'd tie a bastard like this by the arms and legs to four horses and have them all stampede in different directions.
The good ol' NYTimes:
"As the scope of Mr. Galbraith's financial interests in Kurdistan become clear, they have the potential to inflame some of Iraqis' deepest fears, including conspiracy theories that the true reason for the American invasion of their country was to take its oil."
Those irrational A-rabs, believing CONSPIRACY THEORIES about how the US didn't go to war because of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its backing of 9/11. War for oil? I mean, how PAR-A-NOID can they get? Well, they're just turbanned, superstitious, third-world peasants, by nature prone to whacky delusions, aren't they?
Peter Galbraith is finally revealed as a full-fledged participant in the "predator state" so eloquently described by his brother, James.
The latter is a true liberal -- in fact, he could be aptly described as a radical -- whose economic analyses should be required reading for all Americans.
It would be a shame if sleazy Peter discredits the true "wise man" in the family.
That would make Galbraith the LEAST sleazy of the Democrats, seeing as he actually gets some big money directly from the death and maiming. The rest of them are willing to support the war machine for small potatoes or even for free...
"Liberal Hawk" ???
What a terrible and inaccurate metaphor. More accurate and fitting is:
"Duopoly Warmonger", "Right-Wing Imperialist" or "War Pig" at the trough.
I like the War Pigs at the trough metaphor myself.
So Peter Galbraith is a typical mainstream Democrat: "War Pig" at the trough.
But, but, but he's a Democrat! He can't possibly be as bad as the Republicans!
Yeah, I wonder who stinks worse, the Republican War Pigs or the Democrat War Pigs. I guess it don't matter they are all full of scheit
They're both like the hind legs on a dog. And guess what separates them?
So in other words he is a typical American?
"So in other words he is a typical American?" –(mujeriego)
–Correct. If the 'shoe fits,' it must be worn.
Usually such categorical assumptions must be qualified to avoid sounding like fallacious generalities.
Unfortunately, this summary judgement of what constitutes "a typical American" is anything but counterfactual.
The 'proof is in the pudding' and America not only lends itself to such generalities but can be explained by them as well: Galbraith is not the one 'bad apple,' but a totalized distillation of the American ethos of barbarity and war criminality. He is quintessentially systemic. Truly 'the best and the brightest.'
Scum like Peter Galbraith rises to the uppermost echelons of the American state, not because such scum is unique, but because there is so much of it to begin with.
What makes it more appalling yet is that there is no shame, only a willful and an unrepentant pride in the ongoing mendacity. Blood is everywhere, but no one cares. Or can care. The people cheer!
–(Jill Bains)
so amfortas what your saying is of him and his cronies is
it takes one to know one.
I was just revisiting Elizabeth de la Vega's book "U.S. v. Bush" in which she makes a case for a conspiracy to defraud the United States. That term rather than the muddier "honest services" one quickly gets to the idea that a public office is a trust. The public has a right to expect that trust not be used to enrich its holder, but rather serve the public good for which it was created.
I don't know how directly this could apply to Galbraith if he did not have an office, but only influence,--" So here's a leading advocate of the war on Iraq who used his influence in the U.S. Government and the Foreign Policy Community -- as well as the break-up of Saddam's regime -- to enrich himself on Iraqi oil."-- but the issue is the same. As an accepted norm, our government has become an auction house that is incapable of serving its public trust.
Here's a bit on "conspiracy to defraud the United States" from a cheat sheet on same from the DoJ:
The general purpose of this part of the statute is to protect governmental functions from frustration and distortion through deceptive practices. Section 371 reaches "any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of Government." Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 128 (1987); see Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855 (1966). The "defraud part of section 371 criminalizes any willful impairment of a legitimate function of government, whether or not the improper acts or objective are criminal under another statute." United States v. Tuohey, 867 F.2d 534, 537 (9th Cir. 1989).
The word "defraud" in Section 371 not only reaches financial or property loss through use of a scheme or artifice to defraud but also is designed and intended to protect the integrity of the United States and its agencies, programs and policies. United States v. Burgin, 621 F.2d 1352, 1356 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1015 (1980); see United States v. Herron, 825 F.2d 50, 57-58 (5th Cir.); United States v. Winkle, 587 F.2d 705, 708 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 827 (1979). Thus, proof that the United States has been defrauded under this statute does not require any showing of monetary or proprietary loss. United States v. Conover, 772 F.2d 765 (11th Cir. 1985), aff'd, sub. nom. Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107 (1987); United States v. Del Toro, 513 F.2d 656 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 826 (1975); United States v. Jacobs, 475 F.2d 270 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 821 (1973). ...
In summary, those activities which courts have held defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 affect the government in at least one of three ways:
1. They cheat the government out of money or property;
2. They interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity; or
3. They make wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality.
More at:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00923.htm
Galbraith is simply another murdering Democratic party leech sucking on one of Obama's numerous poisoned teets. He could just as easily be a Republican but good taste forbids such a thing.
That, my friends, is capitalism. It must be overthrown by organized labor, led by a communist party. Build that party, and be forever heroic.
Communist party, eh? Didn't work all that well for Russia...or Germany...or Poland...or Hungary...
As for me, anything that's called Communist Party, you leave me out of it. I know what one looks like, tastes likes, smells likes, acts like...and none of is pretty.
Dear MK Ultra, do not let yourself be duped by the endless anti-communist propaganda. Do you think that I have never heard or considered what you have said? That I enjoy putting forward a position that is as popular as a terd in the punchbowl? I am old enough to soon be dead, and will never benefit from what I know to be the way forward. Please try to listen with an open mind to what comes next, as it is now ancient and nearly lost knowledge.
Before digging into theory, ask yourself this: given that virtually the entire economic world is capitalist, that most people in the world live in severe poverty, and that the premiere capitalist country - ours - is in collapse because it cannot stop creating war, why point to communism as a failure?
Let us return to the basics. What do we want? I'll assume you are an humanitarian (if not, we have something more fundamental to discuss!). If you are, I can probably convince you that our shared goal is universal peace, sustainability, equality, and affluence (UPSEA). Good enough?
History, theory, and current practice tell us that capitalism can bring us NONE of the goals of UPSEA. Zero. Never. Not in a single country or even a village. This is right in front of all of us, except for the propaganda: capitalism is based upon domination and economic disparity. By nature, a capitalist economy cannot achieve any element of UPSEA, and indeed is opposed to every one of them!
Communism is marked above all by a democracy that extends to the economy of the entire world. I think I will just stop there. Is it possible that a humanitarian would oppose an universal extension of democracy? Is it possible to have a war in a united economy? No. Is it possible that a united economy, democratically controlled, could bring us affluence and sustainability? Yes.
The rub is how to get there - not whether it is desirable. The experience of our long-dead fellows in Europe gave an answer that most do not want to hear, but which there is no choice but to accept: The only path forward is insurrection by the organized working class, with a Leninist party at their head. In short, the only reasonable path to bring UPSEA to society is to build the party of proletarian revolution. ...A communist party!
Dear Master:
Do not let the pro-Communist propaganda dupe you. I was born and raised in a Communist country which I barely escaped with my life - of course, look at where I ended up, ha ha! - So, I speak from experience, from having lived it and not from having read a book that some yoyo gringo wrote about a subject he knows nothing about. In fact, my dissastisfaction with the USan regime stems from the fact that every day that goes by, this country becomes more and more like the one I left behind. Anything that these bastards can come up with, I've already lived it. It's deja vu, over and over again...
Lately, I've noticed a trend of certain groups in the US who have this notion of Communism as being a Utopia of sorts, well, it ain't. I've down this road before with the arm-chair Communists, the ones who attempt to deny my experiences because what I have to say doesn't fit their ideal. So, I know that nothing I can tell you will make you change your mind so I won't try but, by the same token, nothing that you can tell me will change my experiences or negate what I lived. I also have no interest or desire to hear anybody trying to tell me that my reality wasn't what it was. All I have to say is that there are only two differences between Capitalism and Communism: the latter is a totalitarian regime and the former has private enterprise. Oh, yeah, and the Communist propoganda is worse, much, much worse and primitive. Nothing more, nothing less. At the rate the US is going, won't be long till you'll can experience Communism right here, just you wait and see. And, of course, I'm not talking about the kind of Communist you idealize but the kind I lived, the kind the US is headed towards. Just you wait and see...
MK Ultra, you are clever! ...But theoretically lacking, and without positive direction.
I will not minimize your experiences. I trust you have suffered greatly, and that many have suffered even more than either of us can imagine. I have glimpsed the oppression in the Stalinist regimes, and it is very ugly. ...But let us not lose our perspective. Many capitalist countries are as bad or worse than whichever Stalinist regime you came out of. Furthermore, nobody in their right mind would equate the cruel barbarity of Stalinism with a workers' democracy.
The Soviet revolution contained the kernel of genuine international proletarian socialism, but as correctly put forward by the Trotskyists, this was soon crushed by the weight of inherited severe privation, international invasion, and a numerically small advanced proletarian.
My deja vu, over and over, is pointing out that, as humanitarians, we want UPSEA - Universal Peace, Sustainability, Equality, and Affluence - and that capitalism is incapable of delivering any part of that wish list to even a tiny village. Capitalism is BASED upon economic dominance of one human over others, after all! The world's economy must be united under democratic control if UPSEA is to be realized. The only way that will happen is through workers' revolution under Leninist communist leadership.
Master:
"MK Ultra, you are clever! ...But theoretically lacking, and without positive direction."
Care to expand on that statement so that I know what you know that I know you know? :)
"Many capitalist countries are as bad or worse than whichever Stalinist regime you came out of."
Really? Now, why didn't I think of that?
"The Soviet revolution contained the kernel of genuine international proletarian socialism, but as correctly put forward by the Trotskyists, this was soon crushed by the weight of inherited severe privation, international invasion, and a numerically small advanced proletarian."
Okay, if you say so. But, based on my first-hand knowledge and experience of the situation, what you discribe is the only thing that DIDN'T happen.
As for the rest, you don't raise anything I don't know or agree with. Neither Capitalim nor Communism is the solution (obviously, neither was Colonialism, Feudalism, etc.) so, what's the solution?
Here's the bottom line: there is NO solution. We, humans, are crap. We're conditioned for corruption and inhumanity since we're in the womb (regarless of the 'ism' society we are born into). Whatever system we humans can come up with, we ourselves will screw it up with our greed and violence. It may start out great but it will progressively degenerate. Then what? Start again and the cycle will go around and around for as long as there is a human race. As I see it, the best thing humanity can is self-destruct. Once again I say, when god created man, he sure screwed up!
good back and forth
"there is NO solution. We, humans, are crap"
I also tend to think that there is no solution, but my belief is that civilization is crap, not humans. Before civilization, humans had a primitive but sustainable existence.
Have you read Small Is Beautiful by EF Schumacher? Local control and intermediate technology is the way to go. Industrialization is dehumanizing, at least the way it has been allowed to take over and that doesn't change no matter who has power, which, as you know, corrupts.
I'm sure you know that Marx's revolution was supposed to happen in Britain or Germany. One could argue that the USSR is a bad example because they were pre-industrial. However, we no longer have a strong manufacturing base, so even a velvet revolution could have a trajectory more like the USSR than we would like.
I believe a better path is controlling and limiting corporate power. If we can't do that, due to lack of will or it is just too late, nothing positive will happen.
"I believe a better path is controlling and limiting corporate power." –(cassandra)
I would tend to disagree.
Corporate power should not be merely "controlled or limited."
It must be destroyed and legally disenfranchised to the point it does not exist.
The current debate about taking the Health Insurance companies 'out' of the ability to profit off illness is one salient example.
One often forgets that to do this they must be expropriated and nationalized, in effect destroyed as they currently exist. The failure to recognize this resulted in the dissembling fraud which ludicrously called itself 'a debate.'–(Jill Bains).
OK. Yes, the ideal state of the corporation would be it's non-existence. But, if we can't get a corporate personhood amendment to limit power or even a return of Glass Steagall, then we certainly can't destroy them without destroying ourselves.
The jackboots are coming, one way or another.
"But, if we can't get a corporate personhood amendment to limit power or even a return of Glass Steagall, then we certainly can't destroy them without destroying ourselves." –(cassandra)
I take for granted that there will never be a 'corporate personhood amendment' to begin with in America; nor will there be a resuscitation of Glass-Steagall. I don't have a problem with that.
Such 'revisions' would bound to be totally compromised realizations to begin with. The decisive hammer of corporate power would remain inexorably intact as would the class struture that makes it all possible.
Anything that happens by legislative 'amendment' or through the system of American Democracy would in and of itself be considered a defeat.
I know it is difficult for liberals and progressives,–such as yourself– who have no intention of not working within the system to imagine. But you must ask yourself: What do you really want?
And while it is certainly true that attempts to 'destroy' corporate fascism may indeed result in, as you say, in "destroying ourselves." But that is not the point I'm trying to make here. The point is simply to hold said 'destruction' in mind as the end goal and predicate subsequent thinking with that in mind.
History has a way of taking unexpected quantum leaps into the future where the chance to transcend the politics of 'increments' suddenly presents itself. One must prepare oneself for that.
Members of my family were members of the North Vietnamese Army when they liberated Saigon and drove out American imperial fascism. Many thought it would never happen, but it did.
Will 'we' be destroyed? Perhaps yes, but then again, as history shows, maybe not.
–(Jill Bains)
Oh, I get it! We are going to pressure the government totally run by imperialist interests into stop being imperialists. Not! And what about when another nation in this utopia decides it wants another nation's oil? What you want is only possible in a world free of nation states and capitalism. ...That would be communism.
You're on the right track with all this but you can forget the business about rallying around a "Leninist party" as the head of any such revolution. Lenin may have had many flashes of brilliance and he certainly understood the depravity and brutality of capitalism, but he substituted for that his own considerable and fully realized brutality. Lenin's sordid legacy isn't one you're going to get many to emulate. Old style communism isn't going to reemerge ever. We can learn from Marx still, but trying to apply 19th century solutions to the hideous complexities of 21st century economics is a dead-end street. We won't be seeing millions of workers dressing in Maoist drab and waving little red books. But I'd agree, we all want "UPSEA", though getting there won't be quite as formulaic as you propose.
As that other and better *Lennon* put it, "But if you go carryin' pictures of Chairman Mao [or Comrade Lenin], you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."
The point is not to categorically and naïvely denounce the historical results of 'Communism' as it actually existed or devolved into, but to invigorate the present discourse with what is best from that tradition as theory and practice both. The clear failure to do so has seen the internal rotting and defeat of Progressivism into little more than a flaccid excrescence.
To categorically and reflexively excoriate and denounce 'Communism' in a 'knee jerk' fashion remains an unfortunate proclivity of the now moribund 'Progressive' ethos. To fail to take from it what is a most instructive and a valuable contribution to any future 'liberation' project is both irresponsible, and evidence of a clear rightist drift that is all but a fait accompli.
The resulting unwillingness to 'cross-fertilize' intellectual tenants has resulted in the abject defeat of liberalism and Progressivism rendering them both incoherent, if not reactionary. The so called 'progressive' roots of the right wing collaborationist Democratic Party is the classic American example of this ideological and moral degeneracy.
It is not without some truth that in any 'real' crisis bourgeois liberalism (progressivism) will succumb to right-wing opportunism and side with fascism against more radical or exigent groupings. There is always that fear, that schismatic denunciations lead to a self defeating class collaboration. I think the historical record speaks clearly to this.
The disgraceful and abjectly unprincipled attack on the Ralph Nader candidacy by 'progressives' (in retrospect 'rightists') still dragging on the coat tails of the Democratic Party needs little comment; nor is it comforting that so many have been forced, in retrospect, to recant. It would have been better had they 'got it right the first time.'
For example, the following disparate quotations from the classic Communist tradition still offer at the very least, sanguine food for thought despite the fact they are not to everyone's 'tastes.'
"The dictatorship is necessary because it is a case, not of partial changes, but of the very EXISTENCE of the bourgeoisie. No agreement is possible on this ground. Only force can be the deciding factor" –(Leon Trotsky)
"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which, we use to crush the enemy." –(Mao Tse-Tung)
These citations have little to do with 'waving little red books' or dressing in "Maoist drab." As far as Lenin, the fact that he did not shy away from the responsibilities and hence the consequences of taking state power by force is something that cannot be said for the supine and self-effacing impotency of bourgeois progressivism.
Where there is a 'revolutionary situation,' or a possibility of real change, there is invariably Counter-Revolution. Fascism understands this in advance and prepares accordingly for the inevitability of violence and suppression. The failure to embrace or entertain selected ideas from the Communist tradition and re-conceptualize them, means that Progressivism itself will end up siding with the counter revolution.
For many, it already has, although it remains unconscious of the defection to the side of rightism and reaction.
–(Jill Bains)
You are hot!
Lenin erred at times, but what is absolutely necessary to succeed in bringing UPSEA is a democratic centalist communist (i.e., Leninist) party that has earned the trust of organized labor.
The 'hideous complexity' you refer to is an illusion. The simple fact remains that organized labor uniquely represents the masses of humanity. Labor can and must sieze power from the imperialists to achieve UPSEA. The hard work of organizing labor and building the Leninist leadership cannot be short circuited.
Refering to the impoverished masses of post-colonial China is the terms you use is disgraceful. Mao was a Stalnist tyrannt, but before you start criticizing Maoist drab, consider the reality of Chinese life prior to 1948. May you never have to feel the poverty that possessed hundreds of millions of Chinese people every day - and largely still does! Furthermore. to cast the hero Lenin in the same light as the Stalinist dictator Mao is false, and does nothing but serve imperialist propaganda.
Are you saying that we should continue living under imperialism? What exactly do YOU think is the right track? I see too many crtics of communism who have zero to offer as an alternative. That, of course, is because there is no acceptable alternative known.
No, I'm saying imperialism is killing the planet and all its inhabitants, slowly and systematically. I'm as opposed to it as you are. But I've known doctrinaire communists, Marxists, Leninists, DeLeonists, Trotskyists, etc. and they're all as absolutist as you are. Plus, they're all convinced that only their interpretation of Marxism is the Correct One. Ever see Monty Python's "Life of Brian"? It's what they were spoofing with the "Jewish Liberation Front" bit, a stroke of comedic genius.
If Lenin is your hero, I can't possibly dissuade you. And the "Maoist drab" remark wasn't meant to disparage or ridicule Chinese peasants post 1948. But you're far too indoctrinated to see my point. I'm sorry, but there's just no way you're going to resurrect communism as a solution, even if you're right about its "absolute necessity," which I gravely doubt. Leninism leads ineluctably to tyranny, and Lenin in your estimation was so toweringly heroic that his tyrannical praxis was perfectable acceptable.
Also, whether the global economy is as simple to understand as you think, or not, we can't speak of "organizing labor" or the "masses of humanity" today as Marx did 160 years ago or Lenin over 90 years ago. About 9% of the American workforce is even unionized, and most of them don't really give a damn about their union because most of the unions today collaborate completely with ownership and top management. In other words, the unions no longer really give a damn about their members, except in helping them become more middle-class and thus stop caring about class divisions or anything else socialism or communism require one to understand.
You know this probably better than I do but your religious belief in Leninism as the Only Solution has short-circuited your ability to be critical. It's like trying to argue with a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim that maybe they've detoured into a species of madness. I know how this works and how pointless it is to discuss these things with absolutists.
You still have not posed an alternative. Are you able to?
The proletarian revolution thing is a bit hard for most people to swallow, but there are no acceptable alternatives out there. To turn your back because it is difficult is hardly noble. And I certainly don't worship Lenin, even as I recognize his great contributions. I think his personal conservatism is part of what allowed Stalin to rise. Had he come to Trotsky's side sooner, I think it is likely that the degeneration of the Soviet Union could have been delayed, or even just maybe prevented.
Even though Mr. Galbraith might argue that he didn't set up this company until after the war of aggression began and that he was trying to invest in the region, there is still the odor of secret manuevering and "insider" manipulation for personal benefit from the destruction of millions of lives.
This then makes me wonder what kinds of "investments" did Joe Biden have when, in the build-up to the war of unilateral aggression, he refused to allow testimony (to the Senate committee he chaired) by anyone who contradicted Bush and company LIES.
Biden and Hillary Clinton fully supported the war of aggression against Iraq and both did what they could to make it happen.
Why?
Other than the reward of positions of power for serving the wishes of the oil corporations, was (IS) there a monetary benefit (through investments) for either of them?
JANUS (Jack Ass Nation of the Universally Stupid), indeed!
I'm not surprised, but it is very useful to have details of this case exposed!
Agreed. Not everyone is as jaded as we are. Revelations like this help educate the public and cast doubts on the official stories.
Joe
"Revelations like this help educate the public and cast doubts on the official stories." –(jclientelle)
–It is certainly reassuring to believe this is true and in the best of all possible world's I'm sure it is, but I don't see it.
Maybe there is something amiss or skewed about the way I process information, but I believe quite the opposite is true. I see evidence of an atomized, postmodern collective psyche that transcends and even negates the conception of a 'public.'
There is no 'public' in America. I believe it to be a myth. Similarly, there are no real 'politics' in America. It remains astonishing to me how obvious this is yet Americans remain intransigently convinced this is not the case.
Perhaps it is my perspective as an expat who only spends part of every year in America that prevents me from being so sanguine and optimistic about what you take for granted. I remain totally unconvinced that the revelations about Peter Galbraith's make an iota of difference in 'educating' anyone. If they did there would be concrete evidence of accountability. In a few days, it will pass into the dream time, as if it never existed. Everything is continually effaced in America.
Everything about America has been laid bare and divulged for 'the public record' time and time again. The present state of the nation and its policies do not change, for the simple reason that information exposing its crimes are irrelevant. They do not matter.
I don't think this is a matter that needs to be 'proved' or 'argued. I don't this is in any way 'counterfactual.' Of course, anyone is welcome to say I am wrong, but in my considered opinion a little hard realism is more apropos and ultimately more useful than sentimental bromides.
–(Jill Bains)
"There is no 'public' in America"
Cosign. Everything labeled "public" has been trashed or sold off. Public schools, public transportation, public lands. My least favorite invention may be the Sony Walkman and all the personal listening devices that have followed in it's wake. Music used to be communal, used to bring people together to congregate. Now? evrybody is off in their own little dreamworld.
I've argued the same thing many times over the past several years, Amfortas. I totally concur with your assessment. We've witnessed "the fall of public man" (a book title chronicling this disaster, by Richard Sennett) over the past 50 years or so to the point where, as you say, there really is no public. There are mainly just atomized, hyper-fragmented postmodern individuals sitting in front of TVs and computer screens entirely paralyzed to do anything meaningful to turn back the tides of insanity we blather on about endlessly at CD and other such forums.
Many boast about what they're doing, and I'm sure sometimes it's personally fulfilling, but calling congressmen, going to rallies for this or that progressive cause, blogging earnestly on behalf of the right ideas, etc. really haven't yielded much, if anything at all, in the way of change. And few activities are more pointless than voting or even worrying about voting, at this pathetic stage of things. Vote for either party and you get the same crap you always get. Vote third party and be blamed tirelessly by those more "realistic" voters for enabling the Republican fascists. Progressive Dems have a built-in mechanism for insuring no change ever comes, from here to eternity, except the end of the world perhaps.
This Galbraith obviously believes temptation and opportunity are one in the same. Color, flavor, doesn't matter when it comes to greed. Actually, this behavior isn't much different than what takes place between the WH and Congress and lobbyists on a daily basis in one form or another. Mussolini's fascismo is just this, a corporate run state supported by the taxpayer, and that's what the U.S. is. Dubya and dickless just took it took the next level by using the U.S. Military to do big oil's dirty work, force Saddam out of the way, and Galbraith like any unethical crook, found himself in the right place at the right time and took full advantage of the situation. They should all be going to prison, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for Obama's DOJ to find its conscience.
Knowing such corruption is endemic is not the same as knowing names, faces, and actions.
If we want the cockroaches out of the kitchen in Washington, we're going to have to yank out some cupboards and drawers and have a look under the fridge.
bardamu et al. - If you want names and names of corporations, financial and otherwise, read Eric Heidner's Collateral Damage 1 & 2 and the 9-11 Commission Report background, and you will have not only names, but the details of the greatest NATIONAL CRIME ever planned and committed in the U.S. of A.
For all four articles:
www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner?popular=1
9-11 was the master key for the attack, invasion, occupation of Afghanistan and, not too long after, the attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Strange that a memo summarizing the attack on Afghanistan somehow, perhaps by accident, appeared on the internet and disappeared as fast. The masthead was the Department of Defense, The Pentagaon. The memo was dated September 8, 2001.
Strange that the Twin Towers, Building 7 and Building 3 were demolished on September 11, 2001.
THE HIDDEN CRIME OF 9-11 is the lynch pin that holds all the rest of the lies together, justifying the horrors we and, our partner in crime, Zionist Israel, continue to perpetrate.
As always, however, FOLLOW THE MONEY.
David Rockefeller, financial scion of Wall Street, and until recently, the long-term Chairperson of the Bilderberg Group, meeting together privately once a year since 1954, seems likely to get his long-term desire realized, ... that of a ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT ruled by the moneyed and titled elites and financial establishments of the Western World Powers and at the very top of the heap, The Rothschilds' financial dynasty. "He who controls the money, controls the world."
Again: MUST READ:
www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner?popular=1
/cm
Thanks! I'm always grateful for leads.
That would imply in theory that 9/11 was an insider's job.
You gotta' be kidding.
... so once again now ... read Collateral Damage 1 & 2
www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner?popular=1
... ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ...
Don't mean to be so testy, but so much information is available, and if you really take the time, you will know that Osama Bin Laden with a fatal kidney disease requiring dialysis and sterile surroundings was not sitting in a cave with his buddies with a dialysis machine being dragged through the mountains plotting and carrying out one of the most well-planned, intricate TREASONOUS CRIMES AGAINST THIS NATION in that setting.
Yes. The evidence suggests that this was the Inside Job of all time with considerable help from Zionist Israel's Mossad, perhaps the best demolition experts in the world. Invest in the documentaries about 9-11 available and pass them around.
www.911truth.org is a place to start.
/cm
But who cares about details like this when all we need to know is the winner of Dancing With The American Idol Stars Who Got Talent
To get the cockroaches out of this kitchen, you will have to fumigate the entire house.
No, I think you will have to destroy the entire house and rebuild from scratch with a clear plan about the 'newness' of the house you plan to build.
Try to avoid some obvious mistakes by letting the bad guys get back in the game.
Fumigation is always temporary and some ot the cockroaches always get away.
Sure, it's a tough job, but someone has to do it.
–(Jill Bains)
That might be a bit too extreme. If you target the areas where roaches roam the most, the rest in sparsely infested areas won't last long. Fumigate the kitchen, not the entire house.
Unfortunately, by this point the entire edifice has to be condemned and bulldozed.
By that logic, everyone should be given the death penalty even if they are not corrupt and did not commit the crime. Corruption is everywhere and has spread but some people are more corrupt than others. Don't you think that the less corrupt wouldn't be corrupt without the bigger ones thriving? Let's go back and revisit the pest theory. We could destroy the entire house and all the pests would be gone but the people living there suddenly have no home and will be unable to afford a new home depending upon their financial conditions. Similarly, what you are proposing is a ZERO TOLERANCE punishment on everyone. The punishment doesn't fit the crime for everyone. The bigger the crime the bigger the punishment. I would agree to tearing down the edifice but only if everyone were equally corrupt and there is no other proven method of cutting down the level of corruption. Cee Miracles just wrote a post to outline ways to expose the culprits of corruption and hold them accountable.
Some of the pests are termites, not cockroaches. They have eaten away the foundations and the walls are already crumbling. Sometimes there is no other choice, you just have to move or rebuild, but you might have to live in a tent for a while.
That's like saying those responsible for crafting "health care" legislation have financial ties to insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Or that energy policy is in the hands of people who have financial interests in oil companies. Or that people with long standing ties to the banking industry are involved in reform of finance. Or that the head of the FCC has a financial interest in media conglomerates. Or that ... oh nevermind!!!
Yes, color me totally unsurprised too.
So it seems that once again those of us who saw through all the government lies were actually correct.
The "conspiracy theorists" were right.
Gee, an insider who profits from war and misery.
Color me totally unsurprised.
The US has such a long and easily confirmed history of such acts that it barely merits comment other that 'more of the same'.
How much longer will you tolerate this blatant theft and injustice committed by the politically connected Corporate Elite?
And to those who say we didn't learn anything from Viet Nam, on the contrary the military industrial media complex learned that when an occupation or war ends their revenue stream slows down or stops.
The Ir-Af-Pak occupation is destined to last forever, thereby assuring an eternal revenue stream for the military industrial media complex.
Or until the fudged data on oil supplies matches reality, and the region is discovered to have far less oil than the IEA was forced to report.
Then the US forces will be abandoned.