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Bitten by History: From the Gulf to Gaza and Afghanistan, the Familiar Way Proves the Wrong Way
History, or the future (however you want to look at it), has a funny way of rearing up and biting leaders who think they know what they're doing. Take Barack Obama. Only weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, he made a "pragmatic" decision to give way on the expansion of deep-water drilling off U.S. shores in return for political support on his energy bill that might never have added up to much. In the process, he said on camera: "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced." His decision, which left the oil industry's key lobbying outfit, the American Petroleum Institute, dancing for joy, doesn't look quite so pragmatic or advantageous now.
The president undoubtedly already rues the day he ever put those words on the historical record. Imagine, however, that, in the same situation, he had done the difficult, unpragmatic thing and said something like: "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs still cause spills and deep-water drilling is simply too dangerous for our planet, so I've decided, despite the obvious political problems involved, not to open up new, ever deeper, ever more sensitive or climatically extreme areas off our coasts to the oil industry. And I'm instructing my secretary of the interior to make sure that whatever drilling is already underway is safe." He'd be in a lot better shape right now, though the Gulf of Mexico wouldn't.
Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his true-believer government thought that a flotilla of peace activists determined to break the blockade of Gaza by steaming towards it with humanitarian relief supplies would be easy enough to control in the usual tough-guy ways. Call in the military, treat the activists goonishly in international waters, and a lesson would be learned. And indeed, a lesson has been learned -- by the Palestinians, the Turks, and others.
In the process, the Israelis managed to turn the Mavi MaMara into the SS Exodus (the famed ship of Jewish refugees assaulted by the British in 1947), the Palestinians into Jews, Gaza into Israel before its establishment, and themselves into the oppressive, imperial Britons. No small trick in a single night. The Israelis will surely rue the day they ordered an assault on the six-ship flotilla in international waters when, if they had let the ships through, nothing much would have happened. In this case, the path of seemingly least resistance -- to wield force -- may have profoundly changed the international equation to Israel's disadvantage.
And then, of course, there's the war in Afghanistan, which is for the time being largely out of American consciousness. On that war, Obama made another assumedly pragmatic decision on entering the Oval Office: it would be politically easier to expand the fighting there, blunt the momentum of the Taliban, and worry about withdrawal later. This, too, passed for pragmatism in Washington, especially for a Democratic president, supposedly vulnerable on national security issues and seeking a second term (something all American presidents desperately desire).
So, on December 1, 2009, he went to West Point and, with a reluctance you could feel -- even naming the date in 2011 when his administration would begin a troop drawdown -- gave his "surge" speech to the nation. He could have given quite a different speech. (I even wrote a withdrawal speech for him whose key line was: "Ours will be an administration that will stand or fall, as of today, on this essential position: that we ended, rather than extended, two wars.") He would have taken flak. The media would have been an instant echo chamber of outrage and criticism. But he would have made it through and ended two wars. No such luck.
As a result, sooner or later he's likely to find himself in political hell. Things are already going poorly in Afghanistan, not so surprising since the war there is the foreign-policy equivalent of a poorly drilled, poorly capped deep-water well in the Gulf of Mexico. The only question is when the spill will begin gushing uncontrollably. Unfortunately, as TomDispatch.com regular William Astore points out, the Obama administration and the U.S. military high command are now hopelessly committed to a gambler's mentality in Afghanistan, which means that, as things get worse, the war will only expand. Escalating in Pakistan is clearly on the mind of American planners, a move guaranteed to be disastrous (which, of course, never stopped anybody). Extending the timeline for an American stay is another obvious option. Hard as it might have been to launch a withdrawal in December 2009, imagine just how politically difficult it will be, if things get worse, in 2011. Where's the value of "pragmatism" now?
61 Comments so far
Show AllLike Ronald McDonald, Obama does and says what the corporate office tells him.
The difference is that the Obombster looks even more silly and pathetic when doing it.
Pragmatism, schmagmatism!
'pragmatism' is merely a euphemism for obedience and servility to the inverted totalitarianism of militarism and industrial corporatism.
Sick sick sick of the macho man and his endless rape of nature and women. This is the underlying thread that keeps Joe sixpack supporting all the wars not in his interest and the stupid oil industry which has suppressed public transportation and renewable energy for decades. Carter told us the truth and was villified as a wuss Joe sixpack wants his muscle car, the oil industry and the banking industry want their big profits for coke and prostitiutes among other things. Rape is epidemic in Africa. The biggest industries in the late, capitalist patriarchal world are arms, drugs and sex traficking/pornography. The wars are fought for oil on oil. Tanks get .6miles to the gallon. If we stopped warring we wouldn't need so much oil. We don't need oil but renewables need to be decentrlaized and nobody can make obscene profits from that so it isn't done. Our entire political class are a bunch of whores far less moral than actual prostitiutes. Valerie Solanas was right.
This oil spill is likely the end of human life on earth. The oceans were already in trouble. This never ending spewing will be the death of so many species one of them being plankton which we need for oxygen. So great work guys, so technically brilliant at doing such stupid life wasting things. It truly is a man's world now. All you Ahabs have conquered nature and isn't it grand.
Sioux Rose
ARTEMIX: You speak the great taboo that many in this forum refuse to hear. Much easier to cover their ears and pretend that the modern world has allowed for, "You've come a long way, baby."
I acknowledge your list of follies; but would add that big pharma is also a HUGE component that ought not be overlooked. It's powerful because so many cannot cope (what healthy being can?) and it's proven pragmatic to convince people that what they are experiencing is a PERSONAL psychological problem that can be medicated away. Thus medicating millions of persons, largely through anti-depressants (with alcohol abuse the hidden epidemic that's so much a part of our culture as to be hardly acknowledged) is an equivalent form of silencing the (human) canaries in the coal mine.
Hollywood's image-making factory with its rotation of war/hero films is another "drug" that's "ingested" 'round the world.
To sustain the many masquerades currently underway, escape into drugs and/or the world of film/TV are mandatory co-factors. Their influence should be recognized.
With Hollywood the "story" is told on the big screen with larger then life Characters playing the role of the Hero. Hollywood tries to impose on the people their own "ideals" of the perfect world , one shaped by its Muscle Bound heroes while at the same time suggesting that the public can only passively observe and have no role in determining the outcome.
When the people watch a "Hollywood Movie" they can feel shame, anger, fear or horror. They can feel Joy and happiness, sorrow and rage. No matter what their emotions, they can have NO influence on the outcome of the Movie.
Hollywood conditions the people to being observers.
This now translates to real life. We have a disillusioned public angry at the government all believing that they have NO role to play in the outcomes and that no matter at the emotions they feel, they can make no difference.
Thus the depression and escapism to drugs. They can only watch and observe. They have no role to play in the outcome. That role is for the "Real Men".
Next to a Muscle bound "Arnie" they are inadequate so will settle for beating the wife.
Sioux
GW NORTH: I fully agree. I find your insights very sharp. I would add to your observation that this "spectator sport" conditioning also factors into the following themes:
1. Survivor: Learning to watch people suffer (and enjoy it).
2. Jerry Springer type shows: Rationalizing one's own weaknesses in comparison with the low-life types he specializes in exposing.
3. Cops: Cheering for the "authorities" to bang down the doors of the already-oppressed.
4. 24: Becoming numb to the force used on citizens when the PREMISE of terrorism becomes its rationale.
5. Organized crime often depicted showing men living the glorious life, attired in expensive suits. These films often make the "wise guys" into the sympathetic heroes (which ultimately sets up the subliminal that crime DOES pay).
6. Apocalyptic stories: These suggest that it's FATE (or God's will) that horrible environmental collapse is inevitable.
These types of storylines condition the public to accept what no sane nor civilized society should countenance. They are becoming passively ingrained into the collective unconscious.
All very relevant examples. We have had some claim that there no such thing as "Alturism" and that it in fact another form of self interest. Others would suggest that "Man" has always been violent, that it innate to the species.
All of this a form of moral nihilism. There is NOTHING that can be done so just exist.
The fact is that Science shows us that Conciousness itself EVOLVES. The species we call man CAN evolve but it will not happen if their neither the desire to do so or there this blind acceptance that we are creatures of some pre-ordained destiny collectively helpless when it comes to determining our futures.
I can grow quite delusioned myself at times, but I will never give up trying to help shape a better future. This is not due to some misguided faith in the future of man or false hope that a better world will come.
It is because it is how evolution works. The Universe evolves, species evolve, and so does Conciousness and Mind and Spirit. After all when one digs down deep enough, they are all the same.
Hi, GW. I offered my "stellar" interpretation of the evolutionary potentials of humanity on today's thread written by a Buddhist.
Also, I was musing about how much faith it takes to endeavor to make positive steps when we know on subliminal levels that the natural world in too many places is dying, our entire banking system/economy is a fraud, and the continued wars can do little but bring the blowback of misery to our own land and people. One of the articles spoke in similar terms and references. I call that a "shell route collision." Anyway, as a Canadian, your collective karma is not analogous to that of this nation... I appreciate your input in this forum.
I too enjoy your posts. This might seem like mystical mumbo-jumbo but it is not.
First while I stated that Conciousness MUST evolve, I did not mean to see that it WILL specifically when we discuss that of man.
Secondly physics and science at the leading edge concludes that the Brain(Mind) is in fact a quantum engine and great parts of it operate at the quantum level.
What does this mean?
Two of the characteristics of science at the quantum level is that of "Nonlocality" and "entanglement".
In the real world this means that information carried by one particle can be instantaneously transmitted to another with no regard for the seperation in space between the two. Entanglement means that if the information on one particle changed it instantly changes the information on another again with no regard for distance.
(There also evidence that this effect not constrained by the dimension of TIME either)
So from this I can conclude that what we THINK, the very thoughts we create into being has an effect on every indivduals thoughts. At the smallest of levels this may not have an observable effect but at the level of the collective it does.Thus it remains important for each of us as individuals to understand that "sublimal level" and what lies beneath even that .
BTW , "Mind" and "conciousness" is not solely the province of man. Those birds floundering in the oil have it too and I not not think that at the level of the quant , there a difference bwteen bird mind and man mind.
I happen to believe in Free will and I also happen to believe we can WILL ourselves to extinction.
I would rather we did not go that route. :)
Sioux Rose
GW NORTH: I believe that every living being is endowed with the spiritual essence of Source, itself. Therefore ALL life is sentient. Just because some guy in a lab coat can't recognize the language one rhino is sharing with another hardly means that no viable communication is taking place. Heck, it took the "white man" centuries to realize that the Indigenous were human beings, too!
Here's an interesting experiment: when I was a kid, I used to take my camera (while I was a passenger) and aim it at the car in the next lane to see how long it would take for this gesture to be noticed. It was almost always immediate. Intuition is something that cannot be measured by typical standardized tests. It's loosely related to the idea of the Hundredth Monkey.
I've been shown a great many things that defy science in its present level of understanding, although I have NOT studied quantum physics, apart from books by Gary Zukov. My favorite mystical experience is "watching a moment form," or observing the intersect of two paths in a remote place, an item I term the "shell route collision." Vonnegut noticed this phenomenon, too, and termed it the Karass Theory.
I am grateful to be a witness to wonder, rather than following the conceit that only what I can myself prove through laboratory tools and devices constitutes permissable conjecture on this dancing wu li energetic disk we call earth. Everything is Light moving at varied frequencies.
artemix,
In addition to what Sioux Rose says below, I would like to add:
The patriarchal culture you refer to needs to be put in more cultural and historical context. It is largely the Anglo-Saxon bourgeois capitalist patriarchal culture here. Other traditional societies have no such culture. The ideas of un-ending linear "progress", industrial-scale wars, un-ending wholesale destruction and exploitation of the Earth for profit, etc..can be said to originate in this cutlure. This is not to say that traditional societies are utopias, however there are significant differences. One could say that this culture is a macho suicide- death cult.
It may a sweeping claim but without the Industrial Revolution and Anglo-American empires this culture would very likely be isolated in insignificance in north-western Europe.
Does anyone really care about BP's oil spill into the Gulf? Traffic jams are up and trains are less loaded in Washington and my stupid family worried about my getting ready to leave my current job perversely believes that I'll be a rich man working for Exxon Mobile ! To them, riding a train to work is what poor people do and that I should lose my mind and travel on those congested roads instead. They're not alone and plenty of stupid Americans share such perverse thinking. Besides, who cares about a financial crisis when stupid Americans are listening to the phony job growth that is based off of Clinton's changes in reporting unemployment? We stupid Americans will get our asses bitten by history but say "Oh but that was yesterday. Things are better this time, uh huh uh huh uh huh !"
Here in Pittsburgh, Indian immigrant families seem to be particularly enthusiastic about the whole "American dream" thing - they move as fast as they can to the suburbs, build their Hindu and Sikh temples there (the suburb of Monroeville has several of them) and groom their children to be "professionals". In particular, I almost never see Indians on the bus.
I have seen similar developments in VA and Maryland. The Fairfax and Loudoun County suburbs are getting a few good South Indian vegetarian restaurants and groceries stores. There has been a lot of crime going on in Prince George's County but the SSVT temple in Lanham, MD has had security upgrades while Fairfax has yet to put any. Prince William and Frederick Counties are next on the list. Indians in my area carpool even if they drive SUVs. I am four and a half hours away from that Pittsburgh temple on the mountain that I think you are referring to. The grooming of their children is noticeable with the darker skinned Indians than with the lighter skinned ones for obvious reasons. Hinduism is all about appearance and less on practicing it these days. That may be why my parents think I should work for Exxon or the World Bank and yes, the "grooming" has a lot to do with it. As you can see, any of us Hindus who break out of it are made to feel humiliated by even our own family and relatives.
I for one will never vote for the Obomber... The bobble head pres.
The man makes Sara Plalen look like a great option...
Just what does one have to do to be impeached in this country?
And on and on...
support the empire send your neighbors kids.
"Only weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, he [Obama] made a "pragmatic" decision ..."
Only weeks before? Has he ever made any decision on any basis other than pure pragmatism? For that matter, have any of his predecessors in recent memory? Does governance by paid sponsorship permit anything else?
See http://www.counterpunch.org/amin06042010.html for a much longer list.
Obama's major problem is his timidity. As much as I disagree with many of his decisions, those of us on the left who compare him with Bush are wrong. He is not Bush, he is Carter.
In a few years, when Mitt or Sarah is in the Oval Office, we will recognize that we needed to empower the president to be more executive than parliamentarian.
My old mentor the other day noted that FDR created 4 million jobs the first year he was in office--without legislation--but by the stroke of his pen. What Obama--just as Carter before him-- fails to understand is the power of his office. The funny thing is, Republicans recognize it and use it effectively. It has been Democrats who fail to do so.
But the Democratic Party has not been on speaking terms with itself for a long, long time. And a cynical left, exemplified by many of the comments I have read on this site, only encourages the wingnuts who at least have the courage of their convictions. Some days it seems all the rest of us have is the snarkiness of our cynicism.
"Obama's major problem is his timidity."
Do you really think so? I strongly disagree. Pragmatic, certainly, at least in terms of satisfying his real sponsorship and thus his own welfare. But timid? He doesn't seem much detered by any "blowback", popular sentiment, or other actual and foreseeable consequences.
It seems to me that providing him and other misrepresentatives of the popular will with more "backbone" would be the last thing we'd want to do.
These ARE the times that try men's souls.
What I am suggesting is that we pluck the mote out our OWN eye
before moving our CHOSEN
into the GENTILE class.
The problem is not only with the "enemy"
but our own dumb perception
and cowardice.
Be strong,
my fellow poo-bahs,
we have nothing to lose but our chains.
An interesting dialogue which only seems to make my original point. We all seem to be content at cutting each other to pieces. Pretty silly really. I only made the original comment re how we like to attack our own pols because they ain't the saints we believe ourselves to be. But really I have no interest in a dialogue with people who have such contempt with history teachers, you have no idea what I taught or how good I was in teaching. I am fed up with a culture of contempt resentment and ignorance. I am sorry every time I try to engage in dialogue online because I am pissed on. I was pissed on as a teacher by years by prison administrators when I taught prisoners. I was pissed on by barrio administrators when I taught students in the barrio. What did you fucking do? How good were you? How dare you fucking have contempt for my life and what I suffered. How dare you even imagine what my life has been. Do you know what terrible things our civilization has done to us and how I am asking just asking for fucking tolerance when all I read day after day after fucking day is contempt. We will never have a democracy, we will all become fascists, that is what I am warning you of, that is what I have studied, we all have a terrible capacity for intolerance.
You make some valid points. I've noticed these things as well. This is actually hard stuff, this online commenting and dialoguing, and I've had some experience teaching and know where you're coming from there, even though I haven't been through all it seems you have. I pulled out of it when I realized I couldn't hack the infighting and intrigue, not to mention all the contempt students seem to have for teachers.
People are upset as hell everywhere, we have no democracy, only its delusional shell, where voting for one or the other corporate candidate is all we can do. My problem with Obama isn't his timidity, though like Carter, as you say, he has his share of it. My problem with him is that he's owned by a rather long list of corporations, including the currently nefarious BP, who contributed more than any other corp. to his campaign. (And all along I'd thought it was Goldman Sachs.) I don't see any way we liberals or leftists can even hope to steer him in our general direction. He's not really even a liberal. He's an ambitious opportunist, maybe with some vague aspirations of "doing good" for his country, but he only understands that within the accepted framework of capitalism and bogus democracy. He isn't remotely persuadable to any other course of action. I thought that two years ago, and events since then haven't convinced me otherwise.
The Democrats aren't liberals, or, as you say, they're not as liberal as Nixon was, so their liberalism is hollow. Those of us who bellow here about the worthlessness of Obama and his entire party, bellow and howl because we're left out of the whole fucking picture. Nothing we say or think matters in the slightest to our "representatives". Calling, emailing or petitioning them to do ANYTHING is as meaningful as hoping to scoop up the oil now ravaging the Gulf with a coffee cup. We can't move these assholes one millimeter to the left on any issue. Even if we could, one millimeter isn't going to make any difference. So we bellow and howl, carp and complain, and quite often attack one another, the way prisoners or ghetto dwellers tend to do.
We need a real movement, not just chattering on websites. But since this miraculous technology has been around, all we seem able to do is scream about how disenfranchised we all are, issue demands that we all get off our asses and do something, and . . . just keep up the same patterns over and over. Maybe we'll have to wait for enough people to really be totally fed up with the religion of the Internet, and start something in real time and space. Just saying.
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: Excellent post. I think people will get fed up with many things besides the the relative ineffectuality of the Internet: like their paycheck not guaranteeing a roof over their heads, their food being adulterated, their medical needs not covered (even with so-called "insurance"), the lack of leadership directed at necessities in the homeland security state, and the death of nature. There are so many things to be outraged about, that it's a wonder more haven't popped their corks. As I've been stating in this forum for some time, this will be a VERY hot summer, and I mean that in all senses of the word.
"Carter had no real solutions for anything back when he was president."
Carter's proposed energy policy was a real solution. If it had been enacted, the country would already be running on a grid of mass transit using 2nd-3rd generation alternative fuels.
Obama, of course, would never dream of such a thing.
If Mr. Obama were a boxer would he be a knockout artist, like Mike Tyson or a puncher like Sugar Ray? You know, these are personality types. Would you want Mike Tyson at the helm of Government or Sugar Ray? Mike was known for getting quick results. I don't think Mr. Obama's backbone is the question. I think maybe his style puts a burr under the saddle of people who would rather have a Cowboy for President. Not necessarily Mr. Bush, just the mentality.
Can you explain exactly how Obama is not seamlessly continuing the Cheney/Bush "neocon" policy? Can you explain the major substantive policy differences?
Have you read any Chalmers Johnson, Sheldon Wolin, Howard Zinn, Steven Hill, Chris Hedges, or Noam Chomsky? (just a few of the more famous authors).
You make some bold claims, yet provide no reference or evidence to support them.
Obama banned the use of waterboarding, calling it torture.
Obama has asked for the repeal of don't ask, don't tell.
Obama still seeks the closure of Gitmo.
Obama has declared the US seeks nuclear disarmament.
Obama has said no nuclear retaliation for biochemical attacks.
Obama AG using powers of criminal prosecution to charge corporations for offenses in a court of law.
I don't mind when people call a spade a spade, but seriously, do you think Jimmy Carter was more what you would like in a president, or Ronald Reagan?
I don't want to give you the whole argument, but in a nutshell this is--
Beginning with LBJ, American liberals and the left have been nervous (to say the least) about the exercise of executive power. This went into overdrive after the Watergate affair, and both of Nixon's immediate successors (Ford and Carter) were exemplars in the use of 'soft power'. In effect, ironically, Nixon was the last strong liberal president we had. He signed into law legislation that continued inner-city career training programs into the professions (Upward Bound and Model Cities Programs), the Clean Air Act of 1970, and other legislation no 'conservative' Republican would sign into law today.
So after 1973, liberalism went into decline.
Look, I studied US history and politics since I was 14, and I'll be 60 next year.
I taught history for decades, and I understand what makes politics work and what doesn't. Unfortunately, much of what we on the left believe in and have for decades is wrong. Not the economics and progressive taxation, but our tastes in leadership. American liberals, progressives, and its left have chosen a succession of weak executive leaders. Carter, Clinton, Obama.
Meanwhile, the Republicans chose Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43.
Well, I hate to tell you my cracker barrel fellow Americans that those 3 understood the constitution better than Carter, Clinton, and Obama.
On the left, we blame capitalism. He who paid the piper, and so forth.
What I suggest is it is our own weakness, and lack of courage of conviction.
It is a notorious trait of us, liberal and left.
We do want to rule democratically by parliamentary means, achieve consensus.
But that is no way to govern in the American system.
We need to do better, and we need to push the President to do better.
The dumb thing to do is make him the enemy.
Sioux Rose
ARDENT 1: Thank you for taking the time to educate our history teacher in the forum. It amazes me that many still take the rhetoric of this prez FOR the action. You'd think after slippery maneuvers like that giveaway to the health insurance industry marketed with sexy words like "health care reform," that the deceits would be evident enough to place all other policies into necessary scrutiny. "Lies my president told me," style.
Thanks to you and Ardent for replying. It actually saddens me that someone who claims to have studied history could be so ignorant and ignores a mountain of evidence plain to see. He never answered my question or mentioed the autors I listed and his pathetic examples were merely public relations stunts and not substantive policy shifts. This person might have studied the received wisdom of nationalist histories, however is clearly ignorant of politics, political theory and political economy.
The response does however serve to underline the level of mis-information and one-sided information that prevails in the bubble of space that is the USA.
It actually saddens me that you have to call me ignorant because we don't agree in our opinions. But that's OK I guess, that's how the wardens and principals and other bullies treated me all my life. Take a number little brother, I was just trying to have a dialogue with people who I imagined were not ditto-heads. My bad.
pahartnett, you're wasting your time trying to convince the purists to grow up. I'm practical like you and you're a great history teacher. You see, this site is filled with a lot of anti-Obama hate talkers. They're here to trash Obama 24/7/365/4 like politically arrested infantiles that they are. It has to be all about trashing the poor man or else. CD offers great articles beyond Obama but very few comments show up on most of them.
Don't feel sad, brother. CD needs more practical people like you to counter balance the politically arrested infantiles. They're really Republicans pretending to be third party Greens. They think that Nader is some fairy god mother who would wave some magic wand if elected and we got insane people here believing in black magic bs and sorcery. Don't leave this site man. CD needs people like you, zmann, Ted Markow, Winter, and plenty of kool pragmatic thinkers. We have a long ways to go before the country will move left and it ain't happening overnight. Don't let the purists bully you.
Peace
Ardent, you don't read me right. Yes, our empire will eventually fall. I worry that it won't be soon enough. Yet I am still utterly disappointed in our system, and want our president to have balls where he needs to, and not have them where he doesn't need to. But he's our only damned president, who else do we have. And maybe he is deaf just like the last one, but I'm still gonna write his lordship and pray he wakes up before it's too late. But I'm also a pragmatist, as you suggest, and not the idealist you see in the mirror. I don't vote for the best man or woman, I invariably vote for the lesser of two evils. And I fucking hate it, but I do it anyway. Because when we stop doing that altogether, it's over. And it really ain't over yet, you know? Besides, if you can tell me how else to change our government besides elections, I would like to know.
What have you to replace it?
Life is difficult and morality is ambiguous. It's not they're EVIL and we're GOOD.
But Christomighty when I read the way people dump on me on this website I think it's over. We're no fucking different than Limbaugh's drones. That's a great choice--right fascists or left fascists. I like socialism myself, but I'm gonna have to find another horse to bring that into demo politics, cause this guy won't.
But when people say the 2 parties are the same I think the record shows they're wrong. Demo congresses were responsible for passing every major piece of social legislation in the last century.
I'm sorry if you don't know that or think it important. Are they our saviours?
Hardly, amigo. I am kinda old school there: I believe we all have feet of clay.
guarantee to see tv commercials w/ the obomber saying "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced"
and FDR thru Harry Hopkins hired 3 million workers at prevailing wages in 6 weeks.....4 million were hired within a few months....and the pop of the usa? 100 million
and all those jobs? a 3% overhead....meaning 97% went straight to materials and labor.....
nowadays: no-bid contracts at 175.00 per hour- subbed out multiple times until the guy that does the actual work 9.00 per hour....95% overhead....
privitisation works great eh?
only if you're sitting on your ass wining and dining your congressmen!
a great book, "harry hopkins" by henry hitch adams
The 2012 election is over, Obama is screwed and so, I'm afraid, are we all. America was a promising bubble, but it has lost what the Chinese used to call the Mandate of Heaven. Great nations cling to the past as they slide into oblivion. I've forgotten most of the Mandarin I learned in 1963, but I have been brushing up lately. Last night I had an epiphany listening to Ray Suarez describe high rise apartment construction in China, 20 story buildings one after another, not just one or two but fifty at a time. The dragon rises, the eagle sickens.
Multiply a pack of bickering progressives here on CD to 300 million and you have the confusion that is America. The Chinese don't argue among themselves. They have work to do. The world won't be a better place, but it will be out of our hands.
I think you've got it. I saw that piece by Suarez and found it quite consistent with my experiences in my many travels in China over the years. There are a great many cities that each have populations of several million, and each such city has hundreds and hundreds of sparkling new highrise residential towers, along with new subways, highways, high-speed trains, and airports. Add to that the incredible hustle and bustle in every city, with people traveling to and fro in every manner of vehicle, often well-dressed and almost always quietly and politely going along their way with the look of single-minded determination.
I was struck by the contrast when I landed at LAX in July of 2008 after a flight from Shanghai International after spending a month traveling in China. The quiet, reserved, spacious, and almost luxurious new Shanghai terminals with helpful and polite airport personnel seemed a galaxy apart from the dirty, chaotic, noisy LAX with its intense security, its armed police scurrying about, and its long lines with rude and overworked airline personnel tending the counters. I know that anecdotal evidence is overrated, but the first thought that came to my mind was that "The US is finished."
The airports in China don't represent everything. The city is just as bad if not worse than the city life in the US. About China, I had come across some roads that were predominantly for bike riders but now forbid bikes and are dominated by cars. But that's not all. China is definitely better than the US in many ways but the struggle between going yuppie style capitalism and returning to some communism could make it even more difficult for Shanghai International Airport to keep up its good rep.
Don't get me wrong though. I would move to China or India without any trouble but I question whether either nation would sustain well since both of them are bending too far back for the West. It is as if the Far East has almost completely given up some of its unique Eastern traditions that actually kept those nations standing well. I could be misjudging the Chinese and Indians but all the outsourced near-slave labor that the US and much of the West is too dependent on is chipping away at a lot of great Eastern values and traditions that would make those nations stand out. I am also concerned about China allowing the US to engage in endless borrowing from them. The longer the borrowing holds out, the greater the damage to both the US and China I am afraid.
I know the anecdotal evidence from airports is of limited application, and even general anecdotal evidence regarding all the new subways and other transportation systems has limited value in any serious analysis, but the contrast was so great and the experience was so powerful that it made an unforgettable impression on me. Ever since I have felt in my gut whenever I travel in the US that I am in a barbaric, vulgar, backwards society bent on self-destruction, whereas when I travel in the PRC I feel that I am at the center of where the future of civilization is being determined.
My wife (from the PRC) keeps up with all the developments and believes that the situation is rapidly evolving in an unpredictable manner. The CP leaders want to maintain control over the capitalist billionaires and believe they can but it is anybody's guess whether they will be able to maintain control over the long term. Maybe you have noticed that the Chinese television stations in the past few years have put in a great deal of patriotic, pro-communist, pro-Chinese culture, pro-family values programming (though there is quite a bit of tripe that looks like a Chinese version of US television). My wife claims it is part of a broad effort by the CP to try to stop the erosion of communist and traditional Chinese cultural values caused by the interaction with the West. According to her, they are quite aware of the dangers of decadent Western culture and capitalist values.
SATURDAY 5th INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST ISRAEL AND IN SUPPORT OF THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE AND THE ACTIVISTS WHO ARE TRYING TO GET AID TO THEM.
This SATURDAY, thats tomorrow the 5th, Palestinian people are calling for a Day of Global Action. Your comrades all over the world are going to be out in support of the people of Palestine who are under the illegal Israeli apartheid system being helped along by the U.S. government!
Please, and I urge Please find out where your local protest or gathering will be and attend it.
I often read so many well educated thoughts/comments on CD about the world and its inhabitants, which we all belong to, and that is great, but there comes a time when we need to turn off our computers and
HIT THE STREETS and show the powers that be that we won't take it anymore.
Because, until that happens they will never fear the progressive or true left in the U.S. as they know that unlike other countries in the world where people get out and protest, we in America tend to be a very apathetic crowd who are easily swayed by our main stream media that flat out lies to people most of the time.
I have been putting flyers up yesterday and today for our local protest and many people have been interested and positive about showing up.
Please, find out where your local protest is and support the Palestinian people and the courageous activists who are trying to get aid to GAZA.
Peace
i had a history teacher in h.s., when i told him about the newly released rachel carson book; he said: "by god bletepleg, you don't really believe corporations would poison us do you?".....beware of history teachers.....peace
I had a history teacher who told me that whites discovered South Africa. I was so pissed at her I decided to become a history teacher so at least this one wouldn't lie.
By the way, a stereotype is a stupid thing, regardless of the target. If racial profiling is wrong, so is occupational profiling.
The class dimension is fascinating, however. On a site that supposedly leans left, I read a lot of people bashing working class history teachers while praising their best-selling counterparts in the ivory tower. I never fail to read hurrahs for Chomsky and Zinn, but the same people tear the ass out of history teachers.
Don't get me wrong. I had my share of arguments with them, but they are working class people. They don't enjoy the luxury of fawning college students. They endure spit balls and fights. They get pink slips and fail to achieve tenure. They are never the heroes.
The heroes are always the English and math teachers, usually the biggest bunch of fascisti on campus. They are also the ones who continue to get all the bucks. Scientists without credentials are welcomed onto school campuses. But history teachers, fuck, who needs them? Everybody has contempt for them, mostly, and they tend to be hunkered down in the social studies break room with a broken copier and dreams of teaching AP classes because most of the students--just like the rest of the faculty--don't really give a shit about history.
Many of these same students go to college and read some Zinn for the first time.
Funny thing is, if they paid attention in high school, they might have read it then.
I read the radicals, even though my teacher was an Ayn Rand conservative who hated the expression 'the masses'; and so her stupidity informed me of what I should try and find. That is, writers who used the expression she hated. This led me to Marx and Lenin, but then to philosophers of politics, Locke and Hume, Dewey and Lincoln.
I notice that many people make the dumb mistake of attacking teachers for their own lack of curiosity, and their own laziness. We are all responsible in making our own choices, and have the innate capacity to do so, or the notion of equality is pretty meaningless. But equality needs effort to succeed, and we all must fight against oppression--but it exists on two levels--outside and inside of ourselves.
I would say if people want to understand history today, the first person they should read is Paolo Freire. Because Freire makes central to his argument the basic human problem--the oppressed rises up against the oppressor, and replaces him as the new oppressor. It seems if we could understand this we would not be feeling this angst with Obama, but would better understand the dilemma, one that is neither capitalist nor socialist--but deeply human.
We need to overcome the oppressor without repeating the mistake. But only a world that could stop oppressing once that is achieved could change the repeating error.
Sometimes might makes right. So, the problem with might is subtler. During the political march toward the invasion of Iraq, I searched my feelings and realized that my problem with 'might' is it doesn't know when to quit. It has no verifiable end-point, if it did it wouldn't be mighty. Weakness knows when it has achieved its end: it is its preservation. But might gets mighter with conquest, and its mission drifts.
So, the green zone said, we wanted to take out Saddam Hussein. No, the ruling clique in Iraq. No, the Baathists. No, the entire Iraqi Army. Before a year had passed, no one who had ever served in the Iraqi Army was fit to keep the peace in 'the new Iraq'. The green zone mission drifted, drunk on the ego of power, and all those Iraqi soldiers started using their unemployment, their training, and their access to buried munitions to kill their rivals and our soldiers. The mission keeps drifting, until we are there because we are there.
Of course, when I explored these feelings in 2003, I had no idea how completely out-of-control things would get. Might got drunk on ego, and never looked back, and now an entire generation of young people will be left to pay the bills, and it will take them their whole lives.
And I see that the corporations captured Washington and got mighty. They got drunk on power, they used their political power to kill the very thing they preached was essential to capitalism: competition. And they put in its place cronyism. And as their mighty mission drifted, they hollowed out the U.S. economy, whipped it up into a series of bubbles, and let the bubbles pop. Their energy bubble just went up in the Gulf of Mexico. Their finance bubble has only half deflated. And the rest of us wander around, trying to avoid the popping of bubbles. We are not mighty, we are just trying to ensure our preservation.
For the people that rule the world, might is the 'familiar way'. And its creating disaster after disaster for the rest of us.
TomDispatch.com website ‘a regular antidote to mainstream media’ receives a daily check from me. I have been a highly appreciative fan for many years. Occasionally Tom Engelhardt graces that site with a commentary or article penned by himself. Today’s piece I found offered an insight to President Obama pronouncements on the oil disaster and his Afghan policy and also on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defense of his military assault on the six-ship flotilla in international waters bringing supplies to the blockaded Gaza strip and the consequences those words produced.
To write a commentary, you'll need to write what you thought about the article you read. Put your thoughts in and explain whether you liked it or not. That is what I intended. This is what I encouraged my students to do about theirs.
Out of 31 comments posted on Tom’s article I found perhaps two that were remotely linked to it. The other twenty nine were using the article as a starting point to comment on their own agenda on a myriad subjects obviously of great concern to their views but hardly pertinent to Tom Engelhardt‘s article. I find this ever so prevalent especially at Common Dreams. I like to read and learn from what folks think about the piece presented. I believe that is what comment sections are intended for.
What, so everyone here is really a student in your classroom? And they're all getting D's, or what? Most folks commenting here grasp the writer's essential points and generally agree or disagree to one degree or another. Most are fairly familiar with Engelhardt by now (I consider him one of the best critics anywhere these days), and tend to go off into tangents triggered by his thoughts. This doesn't mean they're grinding away on their personal agendas, at least not necessarily. Some do, but that's true everywhere on the web. Often as not, the comments are more interesting and insightful than the articles, though not usually in Engelhardt's case. He's hard to beat.
To write a commentary, you'll need to write what you thought about the article you read. Put your thoughts in and explain whether you liked it or not…..
Thank you Ephraim;
Your have written a commentary on my remarks -you expressed your thoughts on what you read and gave some explanation and support in doing so.
Indeed , perhaps comments are often more interesting and insightful than the articles, none the less, nearly every writer, commentator- any one who risks exposing their thought and ideas appreciates feed back and articulation on their work.
I strongly feel that is due to them if one is taking the time to offer ‘comment’.
>>find this ever so prevalent especially at Common Dreams. I like to read and learn from what folks think about the piece presented. I believe that is what comment sections are intended for
You are free to ignore the ideas and opinions expressed by people that you do not think are relevant to the article in question. That you do not see linkages between what some people are commenting on in resposne to a given article, it hardly means there are none.
So, basically, you are suggesting that no "agenda" should have any expression on this web site beyond that made explicit in the contents of its chosen articles. An interesting perspective on the appropriate limits for any associative thinking and its expression in any reponses here to say the least.
Personally, I wouldn't miss some of the "New Age" blather and other distractions. However, if you're right about what "Common Dreams" implies, its commonality constraints on the "dreamers" would seem just a bit narrow and restrictive, don't you think?
Incidentally, some purists might even classify you own remarks as an inappropriate "meta" comment with its own "agenda."
There is only on point on which I disagree with Tom. Obama's war in Afghanistan has become a side-show, albeit still a significant one, to Obama's war in Waziristan/Pakistan. That is where the drones are most active and that is where the Spec. Ops. will do most of their assassinations.
In fact, a few weeks ago I predicted on this site that the so-called "summer offensive" in Kandahar would have two purposes. One to divert attention from the Spec.Ops. invasion of Pakistan and two to prevent the Taliban of Kandahar to threaten the lines of ingress and egress of the Spec. Ops. What do you think Tom? Does this make sense?
1) Deep water drilling. 2) Attacking aid convoys. 3) Invading Afghanistan. There are some more examples of retrospective stupidity. 4) Allowing banks to over-leverage themselves in order to speculate on the value of packaged debt bonds. Some coming catastrophes? 5) Mass malnutrition and starvation caused by GMO foods. 6) Permanent radioactive contamination of the Persian Gulf and all of its oil by our blowing up Iran's nuclear reactors. 7) New diseases breed in genetic engineering labs.
Why was Obama so optimistic? Why so solicitous of approval from the other side? Why no more than verbal reproach for outrageous and illegal corporate acts. Why is it always triangulation and deal making rather than conflict? First it reflects an internal assessment of his own position as weak, that if he were to take on big oil, pharma, bankers etc. he would not hold on to political power better to cajole some minor concessions-- you know , "win-win". Secondly his posture represents a position that since the changes he wants are really so minor and nonthreatening that it would actually be in the opposition's interests to go along, (worked in Chicago and Harvard). All it takes is a little charm and charisma. And finally it is the cool judgement that forces on the left which were critical to his victory are so fractured and unorganized that they can easily be finessed, that they can be used again no matter what he does. All that takes is a sell job by surrogates. On the first and second he is wrong. His weak appeasement has not made him stronger he's not winning over the other side no mastter how long he smiles and compliments. On the second he underestimated what he was up against. He is coming up against very powerful and arrogant forces who see through him and accurately access his compromise as weakness. They have had it their way for so long and when they get rid of Obama they are sure that will act unimpeded again. On the third point he is enervating those who would have stood up and fought if they believed he was really for them. Obama's "pragmatism" is flailing but then so is the "progressive" pragmatism which voted for Obama in the early 2008 primaries even if he didn't promise to deliver what we wanted. All that principle was quickly thrown off because he was so "electable." To all of those Iowans who voted for Obama even if their hearts were with Kuccinich I appeal to you not to do it again. If you sell yourself out, don't think you can appeal to the guy who rolled over you. The winner knows you are not the core and will game you. For example holding out just enough hope for the public option to keep your support without, it is clear, any real commitment to supporting it. How does it feel to have supported Obama now. You are now left in a weaker position for example sham health reform, than if you had fought for what you believed in and lost. As a "loser" in a particular battle you still have something. You have a clear and uncompromising vision and integrity. If events turn your way and the other side becomes discredited, as is happening to Obama now, your position stands as a clear and compelling alternative. It will be easier to make your case in the next battle. Conservatives know that-- its how they have gained control of the Republican party. But unionists and progressives seem to have never learned that lesson.
How is it possible that one is in a weaker position after winning?
If the object of politics is achieving what is possible, isn't it better to accept a flawed health care bill now rather than postpone it to a better day?
This is what I mean about the flawed politics of the left.
So many of us rejected Carter in 1980, and helped Reagan win.
So many of us rejected Gore in 2000, and helped Dubya win.
So many of us are rejecting Obama already, and who I want to know, would you rather have as a president? Sarah Palin or Barack Obama?
Maybe to you they're the same, to me they are not.
Sarah and her ilk--or is that elk--have been trying to abolish social security for 30 years. Do you favor that approach? I don't.
Politics ain't about going to church, people.
But I suppose that some of you Puritans believe otherwise.
God forbid you or anyone else in your family has to live on social security. I'll gladly vote for the devil I know before I'll throw the baby out with the bathwater. And conservatives didn't learn hoo-hah because they completely stopped being conservatives when Reagan became their standard bearer, and Reagan, not Dubya, was the dumbest president we ever had...
Thomas Sowell, who I usually cannot agree with, wrote something once which I find incredibly perceptive: "Politics are judged by their consequences but crusades are judged by how good they make crusaders feel."
The flawed health care bill is nonetheless an implied promise of socializing the costs of medicine in the US. It is only a beginning, but it is important to remember that Americans take their entitlements seriously, and this transcends party lines to such a degree that even those dumb as rocks protested last year with signs saying 'Government get your hands off my medicare.'