Organization - You Get Nothing Without It

 

It’s Time for the

Left to Get Serious

By Bill Fletcher Jr.

Democratic Left – Winter 2009

http://dsausa.org/dl/Winter_2010.pdf

Shortly after last November’s presidential election, I spoke at a forum discussing its implications. There I mentioned that we should anticipate a right-wing populist trend emerging, one that I would describe as “revanchist” – a term meaning “revenge-seeking.” Interestingly enough, a member of the International Socialist Organization dismissed my concerns as pessimistic and unwarranted. She emphasized the energy and dynamism coming out of the campaign. While, of course, I could see the same thing, I suggested to her that she was underestimating the toxic filth that exists in the bilges of the U.S. Unfortunately, we can see what has been unfolding over the last year.

Right-wing populism has a long history in the U.S. and, much like various chronic illnesses, becomes a part of the system and seems to emerge when the body is weakened. In our case, the body is the economy. When the economy is in crisis, and particularly when there is a financial crisis, right-wing populism emerges and can become a potent political force. Right-wing populism is not well understood by the Left. Fascism, for instance, which is often our description of anything we do not like that comes out of the Right, is one variant of right-wing populism, but they are not identical. Right-wing populism is a political force that sometimes sounds like a Left critique, but is anything but such a critique. It is – and this is why it is so dangerous – a phenomenon that draws from the myth of U.S. history, so elements of it are easily picked up by segments of the population that are susceptible to the draw of the dominant U.S. narrative.

Let me lay out the basic right-wing populist narrative: We once lived in a society of rugged individuals. If you – generally speaking, a white person – worked hard, you would succeed. If you put in a good day’s work, you would be rewarded. But, you see, we – white people – were betrayed. “Our” lives are falling apart. It was one thing for blacks to fall deeper into poverty, or Latinos to be on the margins, but it was not supposed to happen to us. And so, we must find out and identify who betrayed us. Jews are one group; racial minorities are another… And so the story goes…

The virulent racism inherent in right-wing populism is evident today in the anti-Obama madness that has been unfolding. Now there is much to be critical of when it comes to the Obama administration, but the nature of the right-wing assault speaks to the irrationalism of right-wing populism. Whether it is the so-called Birthers, or the healthcare debate, we see it again and again. No concern regarding the truth or facts, but instead playing to fears.

The election of Obama completely unsettled large segments of white America. While their lives were collapsing, how was it possible that a black American would be elected president of the USA? It was not supposed to happen that way.

Right-wing populism plays on fears but it also plays on real concerns. Obama’s main focus has been on securing capitalism. The bailouts of Wall Street, begun under Bush, continued. Yet with these bailouts there were precious few controls on the greed and avarice of Wall Street. The sickening efforts by Wall Street to continue its huge salaries and bonuses flaunted the bailouts and made many people, quite justifiably, furious. On top of that, of course, the wars continue, with resources that should be used to rebuild the U.S. (and save the planet) being devoted to aggression.

But there is something else that has been happening that particularly unsettles right-wing populists. While Obama is concerned about changing the image of the U.S. empire, he altered U.S. foreign policy in some ways that drives the political Right crazy. Take, for instance, his speech to the Muslim world and the apology he offered regarding the 1953 coup in Iran. The president openly acknowledged the U.S. role in that coup, i.e., in the overthrow of a democratic, sovereign government. The problem, however, is that Obama broke the cardinal rule: the U.S. does not apologize for anything, irrespective of whether it is wrong.  One of the challenges that we on the Left face is how to respond to right-wing populism while at the same time taking on Obama. Too many progressives believe that we either have to denounce Obama or we have to embrace Obama. The lack of any sort of tactical nuance is pathetic.

Let us be clear about our situation. We live at a moment of the convergence of three crises: economic, environmental and state legitimacy. While we are increasingly clear about the dangers brought about by the economic and environmental crises, few of us, including on the Left, pay attention to the crisis of state legitimacy. The impact of neoliberal globalization has, among other things, reshaped the role of the state. In general, the capitalist state cannot operate strictly on repression;therefore there must be some level of consensus. That consensus, at least among significant portions of the population, rests on the notion that the state will distribute resources and will help to sustain the population, particularly during rough periods. But what happens when the state stops fulfilling its distributionist role? What happens when people come to believe that they cannot count on the state? Neoliberal globalization has led to a shifting of the role of the State in that it is now more highly repressive but also much less distributionist. Given the polarization of wealth and overall inequality, there are fewer resources that can be devoted to distributionist activities, but always plenty of resources to devote toward wars, prisons and police. In that situation, people start looking out for themselves and this is when things can become dangerous. While the Left’s response to such a situation is to, among other things, demand a progressive role for the state and, for socialists, to look for a transformation beyond the capitalist state, the political Right can either move in the direction of greater authoritarianism or toward militiatype movements. An extreme version of this can be openly genocidal, e.g., Rwanda, 1994: people murdering one another over increasingly scarce resources.

Obama emerged in the midst of these crises bringing hope and inspiration, and, while I sincerely believe that he had the intention of introducing certain significant changes, the objectives of his administration are focused on reforming neoliberal capitalism and, as such, are not qualitatively different from either Bill or Hillary Clinton. Look, I was not anticipating an anti-capitalist president, but what is striking is that his administration does not even seek to introduce a different form of capitalist accumulation in light of the crisis of neoliberal globalization – at least not yet. And that, I would argue, will depend to a great degree on what the Left and progressive social movements are prepared to do.

Obama’s efforts to preserve neoliberal capitalism actually fuel the fires of rightwing populism. Of course right-wing populism is not anti-capitalist, but in opportunistic fashion, plays on the fears and grievances that people face as a result of the reality of neoliberal capitalism. Insofar as Obama places attention on protecting capital, right-wing populism plays upon this because there is very little left-wing challenge that speaks to the grievances felt by so many.

Prior to the Obama election I feared that progressives and leftists would do, essentially, what many subsequently have done: either write off the election results or fall into demobilization. I will leave aside those who simply write off the administration. They are of little consequence. What is more dangerous are those who have decided to restrain their critiques of the administration; those who have decided that it is better to follow an inside track of playing up to the administration, hoping that by muting their criticisms and differences that they will at least have a seat at the table. In fact, there is a national labor leader who said just that, i.e., that it was better to be at the table and get nothing than to be standing on the outside.

For the Left, in the midst of the convergence of these three crises I would suggest the following:

• Offer a different explanation of U.S. history and of what

is happening right now.

• Respond to the crises with theory and action. We cannot destroy myths with facts alone but must instead link those facts to a counter-analysis or framework.

• Build real organizations that are prepared to fight back. This is what makes the ACORN disaster so troubling. We need organizations like ACORN that are rooted among the poor and are prepared to resist. The recent demonstrations in Chicago that involved SEIU and National People’s Action are a good example of the sorts of activities that we need, but we must go much further, ranging from eviction resistance to the need for a resurgence of the anti-war movement. What about unemployed councils?

• Force the Obama administration to do what needs to be done, both domestically and internationally. We cannot afford to sit back and soft-pedal our criticisms of Obama.

• Get serious about mounting progressive electoral challenges, which will not only take on Republicans but also conservative Democrats.

And then there are the tasks of socialists. I must say that I am sick of our failure to think through what needs to be done to rebuild a visible and viable radical Left. Yes, radical! Yes, one that is completely unapologetic in pointing out that capitalism is a criminal system driving this planet to the brink of disaster. The Left must be at the core of those who voice their outrage as to what is not only happening to the Palestinians, but also to people in Paterson, New Jersey. We must be the ones who continue to point out that every time we hear about this damned deficit, people should remember what could be saved were we not in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must be the ones who point out that this administration was absolutely wrong in its approach to the Honduran coup; i.e., that the U.S. should have done everything in its power to force the coup people from power. We must be the ones who speak to the misery in Camden, New Jersey; Flint, Michigan; and Oakland, California.

But we cannot do that without organization. We cannot do that by relying on Facebook, Web sites and e-mails. We cannot do that by relying on speaking to and with those people that we like and who agree with us. It means organization and it means that we have to operate very differently than most of us are comfortable operating. Yes, comrades of DSA, while your younger members are going great guns, a fact about which you should be very proud, we need a different DSA. We need tighter organization that educates and activates. We need DSA to reach out to others on the Left, particularly the radical Left, and engage in both joint work but also discussions regarding what steps need to be taken to create a significant formation on the political Left.

We ultimately need a party of the Left, a formation that while not focused on running candidates for office in the near future, becomes a vehicle to unite activists from various progressive social movements; a party that is overtly anti-capitalist; a party that tells the people of the U.S. a different story, a story about possibilities, but also a story about our real history as a country; a party that pushes for the U.S. to rejoin the people of planet Earth, repairing the damage that the U.S. helped to bring about, as we struggle and fight to save what Jacques Cousteau always called the “Water Planet.”

In this sense, comrades, I am here to not only speak to you about the subject of this panel, but to put before you a challenge. Too many of us on the Left act as if we have all the time in the world to make changes. If it does not happen in our lifetimes, too many of us think, it will inevitably happen in the next. No! History demonstrates exactly the opposite. There are no guarantees. Right-wing populism, whether in the form of the Birthers, Aryan Nation-types, Minutemen, the Front National in France, the Northern Leagues in Italy or in the form of clerical fascists such as Al Qaeda – yes, Al Qaeda – seek to take us into a mythical world that never existed; a world of fear, of horror, of hopelessness, of endless repression.

DSA is needed as a major force to transform the Left and compel the entire Left to recognize that ours must be a struggle for power; a struggle for a progressive politics; a struggle to create a national-popular bloc capable of truly altering the priorities of this country…and this necessitates theory and it necessitates organization. Remember the words of A. Philip Randolph that I think are so applicable to this moment:

“At the banquet table of nature there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can’t take anything, you won’t get anything; and if you can’t hold anything, you won’t keep anything. And you can’t take anything without organization.”

What more needs to be said?

[Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com and a senior scholar with the ‘Institute for Policy Studies’. The immediate past president of ‘TransAfrica Forum’, he is co-author of ‘Solidarity Divided’, which analyzes the crisis in organized labor in the U.S. He can be reached at papaq54@hotmail.com. ]

Read More...

Summary only...

Three Evils of Anti-Democracy

The Biggest Roadblocks

to True Democracy

Excerpted from "First Steps on a Long Road"

By William Rivers Pitt

www.truthout.org/012309R

 

January 23, 2009 - Confronting every American citizen is the existence of three dominant factors which have become part of the nation's DNA over the course of the last century and a half. Each of these factors holds muscular sway over the doings of government and has a direct effect upon all our lives. None of them are going away any time soon, and that is fact.

1.  CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

One of these three is the existence of something called "corporate personhood," the legal theory established by a number of Supreme Court cases, including the 1886 Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, which grants 14th Amendment rights to corporations. In essence, it is a legal shield that grants the same rights and privileges of citizenry enjoyed by you and me to faceless, on-paper corporate constructs. This has given rise to what can only be described as corporate super-citizens, entities with our rights but with the enormous financial ability to press, and indeed distort, those rights for their own purposes.

2.  MONEY = FREE SPEECH

Another factor we currently endure is the lingering existence and aftereffect of the establishment of legalized political bribery, best represented by the 1976 Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo. In short, due to decisions like the one in Buckley, the payment of millions of dollars to political parties and candidates amounts to "free speech." Combined with the existence of corporate personhood, the result was corporate super-citizens pressing their "rights" by purchasing politics wholesale. Corporations seeking the dismantling of media ownership rules, the deregulation of banking and financial strictures, and the denuding of environmental protections merely purchased enough politicians via "free speech" contributions, and they got what they wanted.

3.  MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX:

THE PERMANENT WAR ECONOMY

The third factor takes us all the way back to World War II, and is where the confluence of those first two factors truly came together to form a juggernaut that marks every part of our national landscape. In order to gear up for the kind of colossal manufacturing output required to defeat two massive military powers on opposite ends of the globe, President Roosevelt placed our national economy on a wartime footing. With the establishment of the Truman Doctrine to confront Soviet communism, and the passage of the National Security Act in 1947, America's wartime economic footing became a permanent thing that remains at the nucleus of our national economy to this day.

Put plainly, much of the health of the American economy today requires the permanent preparation for and fighting of wars. The corporate persons who profit from defense spending have made sure, by way of their "free speech" spending on pet politicians and acquirement of major media outlets, that nothing interferes with the financial processes of this arrangement. Their politicians and media spokesmen terrify the people with the golems of imminent national doom, the money rolls in, and the world gets more dangerous by the day.

These three legs are the tripod upon which our national reality currently stands, and not to put too fine a point on it, but President Barack Hussein Obama isn't going to put even a tiny dent in the way things are. No president can, not completely, and certainly not now. Fixing this self-destructive arrangement cannot be accomplished in one fell swoop, but will require the slow, steady, patient dedication of a lifetime ... along with victories in many more elections to come, of course.

Read More...

Summary only...

Jobs, Team Obama and the Banksters

Main Street?

by Bill Fletcher, Jr.

January 21, 2010

(NNPA) - In the midst of the 2008 financial collapse the public was told that Wall Street needed to be saved otherwise we faced total economic disaster. We were also told that so-called Main Street, that is our communities, would also receive badly needed assistance. In fact, the Obama stimulus package was to be aimed at speaking to the needs of Main Street.

The drawbridge between the two ''streets'' seems to be stuck in the up position. While Wall Street has largely been saved from total catastrophe, and many financial institutions have actually grown as a result of the crisis, the plight of regular working people has stagnated or worsened. Yes, it is true that the economy is shedding fewer jobs than a year ago, but the point is that the economy continues to shed jobs rather than add jobs. Thus, once again we face the prospect of what has come to be known as a ''jobless recovery.''

The depths of the current economic crisis go beyond what most of us that have grown up since the Depression are familiar with. Yet what we are experiencing did not just start to happen in the fall of 2008 or the end of 2007 (when the recession officially came about). There has been a slow-moving decline in living standards going on since the mid-1970s and some communities, particularly communities of color, have suffered badly.

When the discussion of the stimulus package was raised this seemed to be the right direction to go. Tax cuts and other Republican magical devices would not work. Yet, true to form, the Obama administration chose to proceed cautiously rather than put the funds into the stimulus that were truly needed. The second problem is that it has taken a long time for the stimulus funds to get where they are needed. The third problem is that too much of the thinking around the stimulus focuses on the immediate victims of this current recession rather than thinking about the long-term victims of our brave new economy.

Ironically, the political Right is attacking the Obama administration for paying too much attention to Wall Street. Certainly if the Republicans were in power they would have done even less for Main Street, but who bothers with the facts? The political Right is playing off of increasing anger among white victims of the economic crisis in order to focus them on looking for scapegoats, whether those scapegoats are Jews, immigrants, gays/lesbians or, yes, Black folks. If the Obama administration does not move quickly to preempt this right-wing demagoguery huge sections of the population will not only be drawn into irrationalism, but people will not bother to pay attention to any efforts by the Administration to address Main Street.

Significant effort must go into jobs and economic development, but it is an effort that must be linked to local initiatives at rebuilding. Not only should funds go to those who have recently lost their jobs, but there must be attention to sites of chronic unemployment, such as the Camden, New Jerseys or Flint, Michigans. That means that it is more than just sending in funds, but funds must also be accompanied by the creation of local economic development boards that work to plan how the funds can be used in order to build a sustainable local economy. Anything less and it will only result in pouring water into a draining bathtub.

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and the co-author of ''Solidarity Divided.''

Read More...

Summary only...

Big Bucks in the Right's Radicalization

 

Uneasy Marriage

Between Tea Partiers

and the GOP

By Ed Kilgore
January 14, 2010

Recent polls show their movement is thought of more favorably [1] by Americans than either the Democratic or Republican Parties. Political independents are said to be attracted more each day. Progressive dissenters against the “pro-corporate” policies of the Obama administration pine for alliances [2] with them.

But at the same time, Republican politicians constantly ape their rhetoric and seek to deploy them against their Democratic, and sometimes intraparty, enemies.

So the question persists: Is the Tea Party Movement an independent “third force” in American politics? Or is it essentially a right-wing faction aimed at the conquest of the Republican Party?

There are no snap answers to these questions. Tea Party activists unsurprisingly stress their independence [3] from both parties, and their hostility towards the “Republican establishment.” The grassroots and citizen-based nature [4] of the movement is constantly promoted as a bedrock principle. And even when tea-partiers operate in the conventional electoral setting of Republican primaries, their candidates are billed as insurgents, not as intraparty warriors.

But the fact remains that these candidates are almost invariably self-identified Republicans, campaigning on traditional conservative Republican themes, and cooperating with Republican politicians tactically and strategically on major issues. There is zero visible outreach to Democrats of any stripe. And to the extent there is a consensus Tea Party ideology, it is indistinguishable in any significant way from the longstanding agenda of the right wing of the GOP—particular the agenda of the most recent past, when conservatives have sought conspicuously to disassociate themselves from the record of the Bush administration.

Republican politicians are already very active in the movement itself. Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who appears to have a better than even chance of toppling popular Republican governor Charlie Crist in a Senate primary this year, is a major figure [5] in both the Tea Party Movement and more traditional conservative GOP circles. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, generally known as the most conservative Republican U.S. senator, has said [6]: “We need to stop looking at the tea parties as separate from the Republican Party.” (For a look at the rise of Tea Partiers in the House, read Lydia DePillis’s excellent piece [7].)

What makes this sort of talk especially relevant politically is that it serves a very deep psychological need among contemporary conservative Republicans. They’ve largely succeeded in subduing those few voices in the GOP urging a old-fashioned “big tent” party that’s tolerant of ideological moderates. Now the Tea Party phenomenon offers conservative Republicans a talking point they badly need: evidence that there is a previously hidden conservative majority in the country that only a more sharply consistent conservative message can reach. In other words, electoral gold is to be found on the right, not in the center, of the ideological spectrum. But aside from a shared antipathy towards Barack Obama, “liberals,” taxes, and various other bugaboos, sealing the deal between a “reformed” GOP and Tea Party activists is a complicated proposition.

This much has been made clear by the calling of a National Tea Party Convention [8] in Nashville next month, by a for-profit group called Tea Party Nation. Aside from the questionable right of anyone in particular to “convene” this highly decentralized movement, a $549 registration fee has raised hackles in many circles, and it’s not clear how legitimate the Nashville gathering—denounced this week [9] by the highly influential RedState founder Erick Erickson as “scammy”—will turn out to be.

But interestingly enough, no one seems to be complaining about the speakers list put together for the National Tea Party Convention. The big keynote speaker is Sarah Palin [10]; other featured speakers include Republican House members Michelle Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn (the latter a member of the House GOP leadership). Aside from illustrating an unusual and admirable commitment to gender equity in speaking gigs, this lineup does not exactly show uneasiness about alliances with Republican pols.

The Nashville linup also would appear to rebut another commonly held argument that the Tea Party Movement’s independence is guaranteed by its fundamentally libertarian character, so incompatible with the GOP’s heavy reliance on cultural conservatives and foreign-policy neocons. Palin is, of course, the maximum heroine of cultural conservatives. Bachmann is famous for questioning the patriotism of any and all Democrats. Beyond that, Tea Party Convention panelists include the Christian Right warhorse Rick Scarborough of Vision America (notable, among other things, for his advocacy of global conflict with Muslims) and Judge Roy Moore, the famous “Ten Commandments Judge” who’s a favorite of theocrats everywhere. No genuine libertarian would embrace this crew.

Indeed, for all the talk about the Tea Party Movement as a potential “third force” in American politics, it’s just as easy to argue that it’s mainly composed of right-wing Republican activists who have been radicalized by the political and economic events of the last couple of years, and particularly by the election of Barack Obama.

The usefulness of the Tea Party Movement in a full right-wing takeover of the Republican Party is obvious. What’s less obvious is why a close relationship with Republican politicians serves the purposes of truly independent citizen-activists disgusted by the political status quo. Republicans have swallowed a lot of Tea Party rhetoric, but they may be in the process of swallowing up the Tea Party Movement.

Ed Kilgore is Managing Editor of The Democratic Strategist [11] and a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute.

For more TNR, become a fan [12] on Facebook and follow us [13] on Twitter.

Read More...

Summary only...

Obama in Context - One Take on the First Year

Bigger Than Obama:

Blaming the President

for the Slow Pace of Reform

is too Simplistic.

 

By RICHARD FLACKS

Progressives for Obama

People on the left make a serious mistake by blaming Obama for the slow pace of reform, and becoming disillusioned. Disillusionment leads to demoralization, not action. The one-year anniversary of the presidential election provides a hook for all kinds of venting.

“Now, today, the Big Hope president has virtually nothing of import to show for nearly a year in office,” David Michael Green, a Hofstra University professor, writes on his website, The Regressive Antidote. He then offers a stream of vituperation about Obama’s failure to lead, capitulation to the right, and lack of political sense and vision. Green doesn’t analyze these alleged failures; he simply savages the president’s personal qualities.

Ironically, Green’s attack came as the House of Representatives made history by passing national health insurance reform legislation. Of course, the House bill doesn’t live up to everything the president promised, and the final version that gets through the Senate and reconciliation and then lands on his desk is likely to be even further from ideal. But we have been waiting 70 years to witness any movement toward universal healthcare and are now on the cusp of seeing it.

Many critics correctly question Obama’s reliance on Wall Street enablers for key economic advice, and doubt the Obama team can reverse the rising tide of unemployment and underemployment. There is deep anxiety about the president’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, despite growing evidence that this war is as foolish, futile and feckless as any military adventure the United States has previously undertaken. And Obama has not consistently taken the high road on global warming, workers’ rights, gay rights and civil liberties.

Blaming Obama, however, is simplistic. Yes, he has to be held to the promises he articulated and the hope he inspired. But the first question we must ask is why those hopes and promises are so elusive.

Is it really because Obama and his administration have betrayed us, or demonstrated their weakness or cowardice, or were tricksters from the start? A more accurate diagnosis would start instead with the fact that all of the major reforms promised have been fiercely resisted by the main centers of power in society—the corporate elite and the military industrial complex.

People on the left typically use a power structure analysis to explain the limits of democracy in the United States. Yet, for some reason, many people seem to have hoped that Obama would override all that, and do so in less than a year.

Obama, however, knew from the start that his stated goals would be powerfully resisted. Accordingly, he has spent his first year in office devising compromises to help overcome some of that resistance, so that a semblance of reform might happen.

To understand this, consider the positions of the corporate and bureaucratic power centers:

•Key representatives and senators are financed by the very corporate interests that need to be reformed. If a piece of proposed legislation would harm those corporate interests, those legislators can be counted on to block it and propose more lenient rules. Corporate lobbyists actually write many of the laws that are supposed to regulate their clients.

•Corporate and military interests have access and influence in the mass media. Any progressive change the president proposes can trigger charges that his administration is weak on national security matters. When JFK contemplated aborting the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, he was warned that former President Dwight Eisenhower would publicly campaign against him. Today, we hear rumors in the press that if Obama fails to follow the demands of General McChrystal for a troop buildup in Afghanistan, General Petraeus will resign and run for president against him.

•Corporate and financial decision-makers—the “investment class”—have a huge influence over markets and the economy as a whole, precisely because they control the flow and pace of investment. Because the most rational healthcare reform, a type of ‘Medicare for all,’ would wipe out the giant health insurance corporations and shift power away from the pharmaceutical industry, fears of an investor revolt make single payer “politically impossible.” If the president were to push for true health reform, he would risk the wrath of the investment class.

In the face of resistance, President Obama formulated a strategy to deliver needed reforms. He reassured Wall Street by appointing Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to run economic policy and financial reform; he forced key congresspersons to “own” healthcare reform by giving them responsibility for shaping the legislation, and he compromised with drug and hospital lobbies; he moved slowly with reforms affecting the CIA and Pentagon; and he backed a “cap and trade” approach to carbon emission control.

We remember FDR, JFK and LBJ as bold reformist presidents, forgetting their actual records. FDR made major and harmful compromises on social security, the Wagner Act and civil rights. Kennedy tried mightily to contain the civil rights movement and ordered FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King. He launched a huge arms race with the USSR, was afraid to recognize Communist China and invaded Cuba. Johnson could not figure out how to end the Vietnam War, even though he believed it would destroy his legacy. And his great healthcare reform, Medicare, was itself a compromise, covering only those over 65.

The entire history of successful reform emanating from the White House is replete with corporate and political compromises. Always ingrained in the thought process of successful politicians is the mantra we now hear channeled through Rahm Emanuel, who says, in effect: ‘We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We need to pass something even if it is quite flawed. We can work to improve it down the line.’ Such maxims summarize the limits of presidential power in the face of power elite resistance.

People on the left make a serious mistake by blaming the president for the slow pace of reform, and becoming disillusioned. Disillusionment leads to demoralization, not action. On the other hand, the leaders of progressive organizations on the national level have so far been making an even bigger mistake: spending their resources on mobilizing support for the White House agenda. What we need from here on in is a national coalition aimed at mobilizing grassroots support for “keeping the promises”—a coalition that aims beyond what is immediately possible, and makes strategic demands that challenge the agenda of the president and his party.

Right now, such demands could include:

•a real jobs program that builds in the green economy but seeks more rapid expansion of employment opportunity than anything now on the agenda;

•carbon control targets more far-reaching than current legislation contemplates;

•a binding timetable for ending U.S. troop involvement in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, emphasizing that the massive war budget endangers any hope for change.

These goals are interrelated. A massive investment in renewable energy, conservation and alternative transportation will create jobs. Investment funding can come from reducing the war budgets. Energy alternatives will reduce the obsession with Middle East oil that drives our international policy.

A revitalized progressive coalition at the national level, independent of the Obama administration but embracing its original goals, would be a counterweight to the corporate, financial and military sectors that currently hold sway. Indeed, such a coalition should aim to encourage divisions in the power elite—a vibrant, green economy would benefit businesses, and relief from the wars would be welcomed by many in the military.

During the campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly said that change was up to us. He can be a great president, if and when we make him one.

Read More...

Summary only...

From the Indian Wars to Avatar - Tom Hayden's Take on the Movie and Our Culture

Tom Hayden

 

January 6, 2010

On Avatar

Dear Patrick Goldstein,

I was very interested in your political analysis of the movie Avatar in the LA Times. My left-wing background tells me that culture doesn't change material conditions, but it sure changes consciousness and that's the cradle of new activism. Conservatives are right to be profoundly disturbed about James Cameron's movie. And the media sometimes has difficulty discerning when public attitudes move beyond narrow electoral noise.

Like other people I know, I was profoundly moved by two revelations in my life: the first came when reading Dee  Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee about 1970 in Berkeley, a time when the Vietnam war was raging and my conventional assumptions had been shaken to the root. I intuited in a flash that Vietnam was a continuation of the counter-insurgency wars on our Great Plains of the century before, and would be repeated over and over again.

Even the US instruments of war were named after the native tribes [Tomahawk missiles for example], the term "Vietcong" was a pejorative like "Sioux" and "Apache", which meant enemy]. The photos from My Lai were identical in an eerie way with those from Wounded Knee. Gold [and later, uranium] in the Black Hills was the equivalent of oil in Iraq. And of course the treaties all were unkept as Manifest Destiny expanded.

This sensibility underlies James Cameron's spectacle of the Nav'I facing extinction. The triumphant fighting back is therapeutic on many levels, and reveals the emergence of a new American national narrative that recognizes the shame of what happened to the native Americans at the very historical moment we celebrate as the birth of democracy. That both liberal and conservative narratives of the nation are in denial about this original sin is deeply troubling to many Americans who want to save democracy from the perpetuation of its past.

My second revelation came when I first read Thomas Berry's The Dream of the Earth in the 1980s, a theological work that strived to reveal the sacred nature of all creation, not simply the sacredness of human beings. A scholar, scientist and Catholic priest, Father Berry influenced the thought and lives of many people disillusioned with the arrogant utilitarianism that said the universe was created only for human use, a kind of storehouse of resources for exploitation and consumption. Thomas Berry called on his followers to explore the divine mode of the universe as long understood and practiced by many native people. He added that modern scientific inquiry itself pointed toward an unfathomable mystery at the origin of the universe, a mystery that he sometimes called God, though he believed that the mystery was beyond language.

I do not believe that these revelatory experiences were isolated or marginal, though they were rebuffed by the institutions they threatened. Millions of Americans, without leaving their mainstream roles and religions, became aware of a kinship with the natural world, and the debt we have to native traditions.

For example, according to a 1995 MIT survey, 78 percent believed that "because God created the natural world, it is wrong to abuse it," and "before Columbus came to this continent, the Indians were completely in balance with their environment."

I believe James Cameron simply has brought this pre-existing consciousness to the mainstream of orthodox life through a brilliant exercise of film-making.

Read More...

Summary only...

For New Year's 2010: Resolve, Resolve, Resolve

 

Washington's Wars

And Occupations

By Max Elbaum

War Times

It's not a very happy new year for the antiwar movement. The headline on Tom Engelhardt's latest Nation column says it all: "Why War Will Take No Holidays in 2010." The full piece - go to http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/engelhardt - presents the reasons why we are unlikely to see much progress toward peace in the next twelve months.

Yet between the lines there is another point: the work we do this year lays the crucial groundwork for breakthroughs in 2011 and beyond. That idea can and should spur heightened resolve to work hard, work smart, and come out of the upcoming difficult year in better shape than we are today. 

AFGHANISTAN: "DOWNWARD SPIRAL" CANNOT BE HALTED

This perspective applies first to the Afghanistan war, where President Obama's escalation is now underway. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates that this so-called "surge" is supported by 58% of the U.S. public. But for a large portion of that 58% such support is extremely thin, dependent on the hope that escalation will "show good results."

But it won't. Figures as highly placed as Thomas Johnson, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and Thomas Mason, a retired Foreign Service officer previously assigned to a high post in Afghanistan, cut to the chase. "There isn't the slightest possibility that the course laid out by Barack Obama in his December 1 speech will halt or even slow the downward spiral toward defeat in Afghanistan," they write in Foreign Policy magazine.

For the full article, go to: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/10/sorry_obama_afghanistans_your_vietnam

In other words, Afghans will keep dying, U.S. troops will keep dying, huge amounts of money will continue to be spent, reports of Afghan government corruption will continue to surface, and the to-be-expected reports of "progress" from one general after another will ring more hollow with each passing month. In this context, an antiwar movement that consistently gets its message out there that this war is hopeless, wrong, costly, and heightens rather than reduces the threat of terrorism can make a difference. Step-by-step public opinion can be turned. And if creative ways are found to show how this resource-devouring war prevents addressing the economic hardships that are the front-burner issue for the country's majority (and the environmental crisis that is spurring so many youth to action), changed public sentiment can become a powerful political force. 

(The same message needs to be sent regarding Iraq.. The end of 2011 is officially the deadline for the U.S. to totally withdraw, but that is far from a done deal. Witness the New York Times report on recent remarks by Robert Gates: "The defense secretary… expects that some U.S. forces might remain in an advisory capacity in Iraq after 2011. 'I wouldn't be surprised to see agreements between ourselves and the Iraqis that continue a train-equip-and-advise role beyond the end of 2011,' Mr. Gates said.")

ON GAZA WAR ANNIVERSARY,

ISRAEL THREATENS "HARSHER" ACTIONS

It is likely even more uphill to change U.S. policy in ways that would open the door to a just settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict. On the ground Israel is ramping up land seizures and repression: its military shot and killed six Palestinians Dec. 27 and the next day its government announced the construction of nearly 700 new Jewish-only housing units in occupied East Jerusalem. And on the anniversary of its Gaza War - in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed - Israeli officials made no bones about what lies ahead. The New York Times reported Dec. 25 that "officials and experts familiar with the country’s military doctrine say that… Israel will likely find itself fighting another, similar kind of war. Only next time, some here suggest, Israel will apply more force. 'The next round will be different, but not in the way people think,' said Giora Eiland, a retired major general and former chief of Israel’s National Security Council. 'The only way to be successful is to take much harsher action.'

Washington nominally opposes expansion of Israeli settlements and discourages such militaristic threats. But there is no muscle behind periodic statements of disapproval. The cracks that have opened up recently in the 40-year-long "special relationship" between the U.S. and Israel so far are strictly at the level of words.

Turning those cracks into a material shift in policy requires building up sufficient grassroots political muscle to take on both longstanding Washington patterns and the Israel Lobby. This is tough to do in a country where pro-Israel messages pervade the media and other institutions which shape popular opinion. The latest Pew poll shows that, when asked who they sympathize with in the Israel-Palestine conflict, 51% of the public says Israel, 12% the Palestinians, and 4% both equally.

Daunting as that political balance is, there are countervailing trends that give advocates of human rights and Palestinian self-determination levers to work with. The level of Israeli brutality in its recent wars has given rise to international condemnation, in particular the Goldstone report detailing Israel's war crimes in last year's Gaza war. Among growing if (in the U.S.) still limited sectors the myth of Israel as a peace-loving democracy is being stripped away. Divisions within the Zionist camp that up until recently were almost solely intellectual have begun to translate into operative politics via such initiatives as J-Street, self-described as the "political arm of the pro-Israel pro-peace movement." The global campaign answering the call of Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is gaining momentum providing peace and solidarity activists with a tool for broad outreach, education and action.

Finally, the felt need among at least a large portion of the foreign policy establishment to recoup U.S. influence in the Middle East after the disasters of the Bush years is leading to some interesting things. Truths long obvious to most of the world have finally begun to sink in to at least a few high-level figures: specifically, the fact that blank-check U.S. backing for Israel is right at the pivot of the anger toward Washington that pervades the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is perhaps not accidental that in the Pew poll noted above members of the Council on Foreign Relations were markedly less pro-Israel than the U.S. population as whole. Only 26% of CFR members said they were more sympathetic to Israel (compared to 51%) and - though just 16% sided with the Palestinians (compared to the public's 12%) - the large figure of 41% said they sympathized with "both sides equally" (compared to only 4% of the general public).

Nothing in the fight for Palestinian rights ever comes easy. But even small steps forward here in the country that is Israel's main international backer reverberate in Palestine and across the globe.

HONDURAS' AGONY AND WASHINGTON'S DISGRACE

Blood is flowing in Honduras. And much of it is on Washington's hands. U.S. recognition of the illegal Nov. 29 "elections" served as the green light for the coup-makers who ousted President Manuel Zelaya in August to crack down hard on the popular movements demanding restoration of Honduran democracy.  Five anti-coup organizers were gunned down death-squad style December 7. The decapitated body of a member of the Resistance Front against the Coup was discovered December 11 six days after he had been detained by five people wearing uniforms of Honduras' National Criminal Investigation Division. Two members of the Unified Peasant Movement were kidnapped December 14 and official arrest warrants were then issued for many more. There have been a number of gruesome killings of Honduran LGBT activists and members of the LGBT community. Human rights groups warn that this kind of repression is intensifying as the coup-makers attempt to solidify their grip on power. Honduras' popular movement, which mobilized courageously and expanded its base between the July coup and the November "election" farce, is readjusting to new conditions, preparing to operate in what are likely to be all but martial law conditions.

The coup, the repression and the U.S. have regional significance. Washington's support for an illegal seizure of power and look-the-other-way stance toward repressive acts that elsewhere (in Iran, say) would bring howls of official outrage were messages to an entire continent. Latin America has been moving leftward: across the region left of center forces have been gaining ground, winning governmental power, moving in ways that go around Washington toward regional cooperation and expanded economic relationships with other countries in the global South. The combination of the vigor of Latin American grassroots movements and the U.S, being preoccupied with war and defeat in the Middle East has driven this leftward motion a lot farther than most of the U.S. elite are willing to tolerate. So the signal is sent in Honduran blood: this far and no further. It's an attempt to intimidate the popular movements and the left who have been on the rise, embolden the right-wing oligarchs and their military allies who have been on the defensive.

But too much has changed for Washington to get its way without a much bigger fight. Most Latin American governments have stayed firm and refused to recognize the Honduran coup regime. Popular movements - first and foremost in Honduras itself - are stepping up rather than stepping back, if anything pushed toward greater determination and radicalism by Washington's reversion to old-style Yankee imperial behavior. A sector of the elite in Washington is anxious about joining the battle on defense-of-coup terms, not at all certain that an overextended U.S. behemoth can prevail with that kind of approach in the region of the world where progressive popular movements have the greatest strength. So here too the battle within the U.S., the fight for public opinion and the fight over policy, is a key terrain for peace and solidarity activists.

To follow events in Honduras and get up-to-date bulletins and action alerts, go to http://www.quixote.org/Honduras An excellent eyewitness report on what really took place during the coup-organized election in November - and its implications - is by Lisa Sullivan. You can find it at: http://www.quixote.org/blog/elections-honduras-whitewashing-path-past-horrors

INITIATIVES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

Last month's column noted that the antiwar movement is in a period of building/rebuilding capacity for the long haul tasks ahead. It stressed that accomplishing this required "nurturing, expanding and eventually galvanizing-into-action the currently passive but widespread antiwar sentiment in communities most impacted by war and militarism." Month in Review will close out 2009 by flagging a few noteworthy efforts underway that contribute to that task which might have slipped under your radar screen.

Project YANO, the San Diego-based Project on Youth and Non-Military Alternatives, sends veterans to youth groups and local schools to speak about the realities of military life and war. With a focus on youth in low-income communities and communities of color and a comprehensive anti-militarist approach, Project YANO combines making an immediate difference in people's lives with building an antiwar, anti-militarist base for the long haul. You can find out more about Project YANO at http://www.projectyano.org/ and read an interview with key Project members Rick Jahnkow and Jorge Mariscal at: http://www.war-times.org/articles/WT_projectyano.htm

Since its founding in November 2002, Military Families Speak Out has played a crucial role in bringing antiwar perspectives to a sector of society directly impacted by the horrors of war but not easily reached by many other peace organizations. MFSO has also been a stalwart in amplifying the voices of military families in the larger antiwar movement and making that movement more effective (and aware) in the process. Today MFSO faces extreme financial strain due to the combination of recession and the new challenge facing co-founders Charley Richardson and Nancy Lessin. Charley is battling an advanced, aggressive cancer and he and Nancy have had to pull back from MFSO activity to take on this difficult personal struggle. War Times joins friends across the country in paying tribute to Charley and urging readers to make what donation you can to the Charley Richardson Legacy Fund established to put MFSO on a firm foundation. You can find full information and donate at http://mfsotribute.org/

Finally, an innovative new project, Dialogues Against Militarism, has been launched to build links between - and share the stores of - military resisters from the U.S., individuals who have refused to serve in the Israeli military, and Palestinians struggling for peace and self-determination. DAM's first delegation to Israel/Palestine, consisting of U.S. military veterans, conscientious objectors and war resisters as well as other social justice activists has just returned and begun to share their stories and experiences. You can read some of these and find out more about DAM's work at http://againstmilitarism.org/index.php

You can sign-on to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras e-mail Announcement List (2-4 messages per month, including our 'Month in Review' column), at http://www.war-times.org. War Times/Tiempo de Guerras is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Third World Organizing. Donations are tax-deductible; you can donate on-line at http://www.war-times.org or send a check to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, c/o P.O. Box 22748, Oakland CA 94609.

Read More...

Summary only...

War as Politics by Violent Means

No Chance Obama's War

in Afghanistan Will Succeed

 

By Sherwood Ross
L.A. Progressive

Dec. 26, 2009 - "There isn't the slightest possibility that the course laid out by Barack Obama in his December 1 speech (at West Point) will halt or even slow the downward spiral toward defeat in Afghanistan," writes Thomas Johnson in the current Foreign Policy magazine. And for emphasis, he adds the word "None."

"The U.S. president and his advisors labored for three months and brought forth old wine in bigger bottles,"
Johnson goes on to write, noting, "The speech contained not one single new idea or approach, nor offered any hint of new thinking about a conflict that everyone now agrees the United States is losing."

Author Johnson is no armchair admiral. He is a professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, a man who has conducted his own on-site investigation in Afghanistan.

Read More...

Summary only...

Carbon Bill - Doomed Without Bribes for the Banks?

Cap & Dividend:

A Clear Winner

 

By Sarah van Gelder 

Dec 11, 2009 - A new bi-partisan climate bill offers a much smarter way to cut emissions—auction off pollution permits and distribute the proceeds to everyone.

December 11, 2009. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced a bill today that is a much better approach to reducing climate change than the cap and trade bill circulating in the Senate. Her bill, which she co-sponsored with Senator  Susan Collins (R-ME), uses cap and dividend to reduce climate emissions and avoids the pitfalls and boom-and-bust cycles inherent in carbon trading. (Peter Barnes proposed this idea in YES! Magazine in 2001).

Why is this a better idea?

First, polluters would pay for the right to pollute; they would buy carbon emissions permits at an auction, instead of getting the majority of them for free. This sends the right market signal—emit carbon, and you'll have to pay.

Carbon permits would be required at the point where fossil fuel energy enters the economy. The number of greenhouse gas emissions allowances is reduced regularly by amounts that businesses can plan for. There are no offsets—these would be real reductions in climate changing emissions.

Second, American families strained by the poor economy would benefit. Each person would get an equal share of the proceeds from the auction. It works like the oil trust funds in Alaska, where each resident gets about $1,300 per year for their share of the state's oil royalties. As long as our economy remains dependent on fossil fuels, prices for energy and energy-intensive products will rise. But the rebate will offset those price increases—Cantwell says it will mean most families are in about the same place financially. Those who buy carbon-free energy, drive energy efficient cars, or buy products produced locally with little fossil fuels will come out ahead, though, while those who drive gas guzzlers will pay more through the higher price of fuel. So it sends the right signal to consumers, too.

Politically, it should go over much better than cap and trade. Who wouldn't like to get a check in the mail each month that represents your share of the carbon auction revenues? Three quarters of the revenues would be distributed equally to all Americans. The other quarter will go to clean energy research and development, for projects that reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, and for aid to communities and workers who need special help making the transition to a clean energy economy.

And here's the frosting on the cake. Instead of cap and trade, which would set up a massive Wall Street system of buying and selling carbon, this auction is for energy producers and importers, only—not brokers and speculators.

What's not to like? This is a far better proposal than the cap and trade proposals that has Wall Street salivating. One caveat, though. Carbon reductions proposed in the bill are probably not enough to avert dangerous climate change. But if there is flexibility to step up the reductions as the science get firmer and the public backing grows, this approach could be just right.

Read More...

Summary only...

Antiwar To-Do List: Getting Organized, Preparing to Mobilize

Photo: Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Antiwar Voice in Congress

What will Congressional

Democrats do now?

By Tom Hayden

Dec. 8, 2009 - Congressional Democrats held a closed caucus Dec. 8 to consider their stance on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and what to do about the president's 30,000 more troops, whose deployment will begin without a Congressional decision or funding. 

The majority Democrats are uncomfortable in being caught between their constituents' peace sentiments and the president's deployment of 100,000 American troops.
It's going to get more uncomfortable.

 
Progressives should be vociferous in opposing the slithering [as opposed to dithering] by which the official deadline for beginning withdrawal keeps being shoved back by several years, if ever, solely under political pressure.
This stretching out of Obama's withdrawal timetable eliminates the primary feature of the President's plan that is attractive to most voters, especially Democrats.

<!--more-->
Progressives also must force discussion of the secret CIA war being authorized in Pakistan, where the center of gravity is shifting. See Jane Mayer's "The Predator War" in The New Yorker.

The CIA's secret offensive in Pakistan is likely to produce blowback on a historic scale. It's no secret to the people of Pakistan, who oppose it in recent polls by 67-19 percent. It's proven an embarrassment to American diplomacy since even Hillary Clinton is barred from acknowledging it's going on. The reason for all the secrecy is not to protect American troops, but rather to avoid embarrassing Pakistan's army and government from admitting the violation of their sovereignty - and, perhaps above all, to prevent anti-war sentiment from increasing here at home.

Progressives should nail the costs of Afghanistan should on every Congressional door, if foreheads are impossible. At the present rate of killing, American deaths under Obama will be another 1,100 by the end of 2011, bringing the overall total to nearly 2,000. At the present budgetary cost, the war started by Bush will become a trillion-dollar war under Obama.
Never doubt the ability of the government and media to hide these figures from the distracted public. Apparently the dollar costs were not realized by the president himself until October 25, when his budget office sent a memo at his request. According to the New York Times, our president "seemed in sticker shock [at the news], watching his domestic agenda vanishing in front of him. 'This is a 10-year trillion-dollar effort and does not match up with our interests'", the president said, before setting the wheels in motion anyway.

Every peace advocate should post the costs of this war from their desktop to the highest billboard. Just go to the National Priorities website.

As for the Congress, every peace advocate should say loudly and clearly that two-thirds of their Democratic and independent constituents are unhappy with these wars, and that unhappiness will become a growing danger to many incumbents in 2010 and 2012. Reject the idea of a war surtax except as a rhetorical gesture. Push for Rep. Barbara Lee's bill which will prohibit funding for the additional troops. It won't pass, but is the vehicle for serious hearings and amendments - like forcing a vote on a tougher withdrawal plan. And push for Rep. Jim McGovern's exit strategy resolution. How can anyone oppose the Pentagon reporting to Congress on an exit strategy, which is all the measure does. Just watch - the hawks will go wild at the thought of plan to exit from a stalemate rather than shedding American blood until the last Taliban surrenders.

Meanwhile, keep studying this Long War because it may be around for a while. A very intelligent analysis of what Obama is trying to do - a gradual strategic repeat from an unsustainable future - comes from a pro-war advocate, Peter Beinart, in the current Time.

Step by step, in the formula of Richard Flacks, is the way of social movements that succeed.
And by the way, order, view, and distribute the Rethink Afghanistan package from Brave New Films as a holiday gesture to your friends.

Tom Hayden
The Peace and Justice Resource Center 

Article originally appeared on tomhayden.com (http://tomhayden.com/).

See website for complete article licensing information.

Read More...

Summary only...

Bloody Days & Big Explosions Ahead

Washington's Wars

and Occupations:

Month in Review #55

By Max Elbaum

War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

Nov. 30, 2009 - No one can predict the specifics. But Washington's current course in the Middle East is all but certain to produce one or more disastrous explosions of violence in the coming years.  And way too much blood is going to be uselessly shed even before the next big bang crisis arrives.

For obvious reasons, Afghanistan is the front-page candidate right now for the next explosion. But conditions are also ripe or ripening for a throw-everything-up-in-the-air crisis in the Israel-Palestine conflict; in Pakistan; in the Iran vs. the West/Israel stand-off; and - despite the assumption that "this one is over" - in Iraq.

As peace activists we need to look this painful reality right in the face. And then strategize and act accordingly. That's the only way to make an effective contribution to minimizing the day-to-day horrors ahead. Likewise, only if we find ways to amass far more clout than we have now can we get in position to make a major difference when future crises expose the futility of "the military option" and create new possibilities for forcing a change in the imperial course.

NO "AFGHAN PARTNER"

& NO PROSPECTS FOR SUCCESS

We don't yet know precisely what President Obama will announce tomorrow regarding Afghanistan. But it is apparent he is going to dispatch more troops, albeit with phrases about goals and "off-ramps" that leave him some wiggle room down the road. He'll need it. This escalation simply will not work.

Washington's election-stealing Afghan "partner" has no legitimacy with the majority of Afghans. Corruption and drug-dealing are not aberrations in Hamid Karzai's government; they are the lifeblood of the regime at every level. The Afghan Army to which the U.S. will supposedly "turn over security" down the road is a travesty, with a 25% annual turnover rate and soldiers as inclined to shoot at their U.S. "trainers" as at their insurgent countrymen. U.S. killing of Afghan civilians means Washington has already lost its fight for "hearts and minds." Sending more troops means civilian deaths - like U.S. casualties - will only go up. The trajectory of the last seven years, in which an initially small insurgency slowly transformed into a broad-based anti-foreign resistance anchored in Afghanistan's Pushtun majority, will only accelerate.

Only death and destruction lie down this road. The extent of the horror and the futility of military occupation can be hidden for awhile from the majority of U.S. people - though not from Afghans or people throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. But sooner or later the bubble will be punctured even more dramatically than it was by the recent blatant election fraud: perhaps a "forward base" will be over-run with large-scale U.S. casualties, or a deliberate massacre on the scale of My Lai in 1968 will get covered instead of covered up.  Or a set of "top Afghan officials" will defect to the insurgency leaving the Karzai regime teetering on collapse. When some incident like this lays bare the utter failure of Washington's occupation - and provokes wider layers of U.S. people to reconsider its moral bankruptcy as well - another moment comes when whoever is in the White House has to again "consider their options."

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: PROMISE

OF CAIRO SPEECH SHATTERED

Meanwhile in the ever-volatile Israel-Palestine conflict Israel's land-grab grinds on. The day-to-day reality of occupation here is even more hidden from most of the U.S. public than the realities of Afghanistan. But hardly a week passes that doesn't see Israeli settlers uprooting a Palestinian farmer's olive trees or attacking Palestinian children walking to school, while the Israeli government seizes a Palestinian's home in East Jerusalem or expands settlements in the West Bank. Every single day hundreds of Palestinians face humiliation and abuse at checkpoints that observers from South Africa have called more brutal than those that existed under that country's apartheid regime.

How can anyone think this colonial pattern will not result in resistance, wars and explosions? Hopes of averting worst-case-scenarios were raised among Palestinians and human rights advocates throughout the world by Obama's words about Palestinian suffering and dislocation in his Cairo speech last June, and even more by his demand that Israel halt all settlement-building. But even in the eyes of those Palestinian leaders who had been most inclined to give Washington the benefit of the doubt, Obama's retreat from that demand has now left matters worse than before. Fatah veteran and so-called "moderate" Nabil Shaath, for instance, declared:

"There was high expectation when he arrived on the scene. Now there is a total retreat, which has destroyed trust instead of building trust."

Official Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat went further: "If the U.S. administration cannot compel Israel to halt the construction of settlements, who will believe that it will be able to compel Israel to withdraw to the borders of 4 June 1967, to withdraw from Eastern Jerusalem, and to resolve the issue of the refugees according to the U.N. resolutions, with Resolution No. 194 at their forefront? The U.S. has 230,000 soldiers in the region. If it thinks that it can solve the problems through the use of Marines and wars, then it is completely mistaken."

INSTABILITY FROM PAKISTAN TO IRAQ

Matters are also touch and go on other fronts of the region's many conflicts.

Pakistan seethes with anti-U.S. sentiment. The country's majority is opposed to the reactionary-theocratic factions who use terrorism against Pakistani civilians and try to forcibly impose their repressive social/cultural agenda in areas of the country. But that same majority does not think the country's problems will be solved by launching a war on sections of their own people. And - as the reception Hillary Clinton received from Pakistani students and journalists demonstrated - they regard Washington's drone attacks within Pakistan as terrorism just as morally bankrupt as jihadi bombings of civilian marketplaces. Washington's constant pressure on Pakistan's government to use military force to address what are fundamentally political problems (many of which are a direct result of U.S. policies in the first place!) has so far been met with evasion and compromise. But that kind of pressure - especially combined with U.S. escalation in Afghanistan - could cause something to snap in unpredictable but terrible ways.

On the West vs. Iran front, it's promising that the U.S. and Iran are engaged in direct talks. But it is not going to be easy to reach an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program that both sides can tout as a victory, especially since Israel and the U.S. right wing are using every fear-mongering weapon they have to paint acceptance of a peaceful Iranian nuclear program as a betrayal of the West, the Jewish people and the world to Islamic terrorism. And if negotiations break down (the last few days news has been all bad), grave dangers right up to the prospect of an Israeli military strike and regional war immediately get catapulted center stage.

Iraq too remains a powder keg. Right now there is considerable momentum toward (long overdue) U.S. withdrawal. But because the "surge" did not solve a single one of the country's problems (despite the Neocon Big Lie), the level of violence and potential for new outbreaks of sectarian fighting remains high. That's bad enough in itself, but what makes the prospect even worse is that much of the U.S. military brass, not to mention the McCain/Palin crowd, still itches for an excuse to stop the withdrawal and stay forever.

NOT THE WAY TO A SOFT LANDING

The bottom line is that in every one of these conflicts, the impulse in Washington toward reliance on military force, bullying, and colonial dispossession remains powerful. In some cases it clearly dominates policy, while in others it manifests itself more subtly while remaining a constant threat.

The practical mix - and especially today's rhetoric - is different from the Bush years. The Obama administration came into office hoping to halt the rapid slide toward utter defeat and loss of global influence that Bush-era unilateral militarism and blatant torture was bringing about. The new team's preferred approach was, and is, to dispense with doomed adventurism, give diplomacy more play, and act more prudently given the changed power balance in today's multipolar world. Very sensible from an imperial point of view. At the same time, since such imperial retrenchment likely meant accepting withdrawal from Iraq, a measure of compromise with Iran, scaled down goals in Afghanistan, and putting at least a little distance between Washington and Tel Aviv, it overlapped to a certain extent with the antiwar agenda.

But the overlap is inherently unstable since, for instance, the antiwar movement believes the U.S. should get out of Iraq because it had no right to be there in the first place, while for Obama's team withdrawal is a matter of a cost-benefit calculation which could be recalculated at any time. Even beyond that, actually carrying out even a limited imperial retrenchment is not fundamentally a matter of any President's intent. Neither the power-balance in the affected countries nor in U.S. domestic politics are under administration control – and in the end it is the balance of power that determines what happens.

So we can and should appreciate the openings created by certain shifts in rhetoric and policy since Obama took office. But like the Israeli government, the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh fear-mongers, and the highly politicized Petraeus/McChrystal military brass – all of whom started gearing up for a big fight five minutes after the polls closed November 4, 2008 - we would do well to recognize that it's muscle that matters.

It is extremely difficult to orchestrate a soft landing for an empire that has suffered a big defeat even if all sections of its ruling elite recognize that defeat and believe it is urgent to adapt to it. When major sectors of that elite still believe in victory through arms and can fire up a large reactionary grassroots base; when nuclear armed zealots who believe God gave them the right to another people's land have one of the most powerful lobbies in that empire's capital; and when the chief executive trying for a soft landing is politically vulnerable and inclined toward conciliation even on issues where he personally desires change - then no soft landing is in the cards. The changing balance of power in the world and the Middle East means that the empire can be pushed back. But the harsh truth of the moment is there is going to be more bloodshed, more defeats and more crises before that comes to pass.

ANTIWAR MOVEMENT: REBUILDING FOR A LONG HAUL

The antiwar movement gears up for this next round of battle in difficult shape. Many of its organizations have shrunk in terms of numbers and resources. The attention of many activists and much of the movement's 2003-2008 base has turned to other issues. The political complexities of battling the war policies of an administration that is under constant reactionary and racist attack from the far right, and which retains the general support of most key constituencies for progressive social change, have proven extremely daunting.

There are significant pluses the movement has to work with. Public opinion has shifted substantially since 2001-2005, with opposition to or at least skepticism about U.S. wars in the Middle East far more widespread. And those parts of the antiwar movement who focus on getting antiwar messages in front of members of Congress, the think-tank/foreign policy "community," key media figures and the like are quite active and have made some substantial gains. But in terms of grassroots mobilization – the ability to turn antiwar sentiment into forms of activity that force policy-makers to react and respond – the peace movement's capacity is probably lower now than it has been at any time since early 2002, before the momentum and mobilizations of 2003.

Building/rebuilding capacity on that level is a long haul task, different from the "emergency mode" of functioning much of the movement felt obligated to take on during the Bush years. There are no quick fixes and even the best strategies are no guarantee of success since much depends on what happens with events and political forces beyond the movement's control. That said, what movement activists can do is take a long range view, work patiently, work hard, work smart, and maximize our chances to make a difference. In that framework, a few ideas strike us at War Times as worthwhile to consider.

First, nurturing, expanding and eventually galvanizing-into-action the currently passive but widespread antiwar sentiment in communities most impacted by war and militarism is a key strategic task, a route to political clout. When the Black community, the Latino and Asian communities, immigrant communities, Arab and Muslim communities, working class and poor people weigh in aggressively on the war-vs.-peace scales, those scales tip. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, these constituencies are most focused on issues other than war vs. peace as such: the economy, jobs, health care, immigrant rights and others. The way ending U.S. wars can help gain victories on these issues – indeed, is crucial for doing so – needs to be a focus for antiwar activism. We are dubious that much progress will be achieved by adding "linkage demands" to antiwar-focused actions. The process will have to be more the other way around: integrating the antiwar perspective, and antiwar movement support, into ongoing struggles already being waged by these key constituencies. There is much to learn in this regard from the work of U.S. Labor against the War, which has worked from its inception from the perspective of targeting a key constituency and over time making that constituency a bastion of antiwar sentiment and action. Likewise much to learn from Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out and Iraq Veterans against the War, who have taken on the extremely important work of bringing the antiwar message to military personnel, their families and veterans. We hope that in the next period similar projects targeting other key constituencies for this kind of long haul work can be developed, while recognizing that tactics, approaches and organizational forms will vary a great deal.

Second, in a parallel vein, there are clear links "on paper" between stopping global warming, protecting the environment generally and stopping these oil-gobbling and toxic wars. But in terms of ongoing practical campaigns and development of political muscle, the antiwar movement has not found effective, sustained ways of integrating the demand for peace into the environmental and climate justice movements. Given the prominence and urgency these movements will have in the coming years, and in particular the extensive involvement of young people, this is another important area of attention.

Third, even as we shift gears to this kind of long range, base building and movement-linking work, there is a need to keep the antiwar message in the public eye. Every vigil, every letter and email to an elected official, every civil disobedience action, every article and op-ed in the local or national media makes a difference. Not all will have the exact same message. Different groups and activists will disagree on what to emphasize, exactly what demand to make, exactly what tactic is most productive at a given moment. Solidarity and cooperation across these differences is necessary for a pluralist, long haul movement.

Fourth, we could benefit from new kinds of flexibility – and experimentation – in working on many levels of politics simultaneously. For a long time ahead we will be working under conditions where the extreme racist/militarist right is a major danger, and where the complexities of Middle East politics (including the fact that U.S. imperialism is not the only reactionary force operating there) combined with media disinformation causes large-scale confusion among even progressive sectors of the U.S. population. These and other factors mandate approaches that look to finding every possible way of working with the broadest possible forces on specific issues – "meeting people where they are at" as the jargon puts it. At the same time, without a steadily expanding layer of the population that has and acts on a critique of the depth of militarism in society, and the nature of empire, we will have to keep reinventing the wheel, and have tremendous difficulty sustaining a durable antiwar movement between exceptional moments of protest. For addressing these two challenges, which sometimes pull in different directions, either/or approaches won't work. We need both/and.

Last, though achieving breakthroughs for peace is fundamentally a matter of gaining political muscle, this project is inseparable from taking a firm moral stand and gaining the moral high ground. Militarism can advance politically without a moral anchor. But anti-militarism cannot. In this or that situation an antiwar movement may appeal to one or another practical political calculation as part of its message. But if we surrender to "real politick" in the drive for political clout, we are headed down a slippery slope. We are far from a morally pure movement and each of us has the same moral failings and confronts the same moral dilemmas as other human beings. Some of us are complete pacifists and others believe resort to force is justified in some situations. All that said, only a movement that strives to keep the moral dimension integral to its message to others and to its internal workings; a movement that appeals to people's "better angels" and is infused with respect for all other human beings; a movement that that rejects of the domination of one country or group or person over another - only that kind of movement can become a force with enough support and strength to end the wars being waged by the most powerful empire the world has ever seen.

You can sign-on to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras e-mail Announcement List (2-4 messages per month, including our 'Month in Review' column), at http://www.war-times.org. War Times/Tiempo de Guerras is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Third World Organizing. Donations are tax-deductible; you can donate on-line at http://www.war-times.org or send a check to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, c/o P.O. Box 22748, Oakland CA 94609.

Read More...

Summary only...

HR 3699: Barbara Lee's Battle in Congress

'Barbara Lee

Speaks for Me!':

Rally vs. escalation

in Afghanistan

 

By Rebecca Griffin

Nov. 24, 2009 - Yesterday I joined an enthusiastic crowd on a sunny afternoon in the courtyard of the Federal Building in Oakland to join Rep. Barbara Lee’s rally and press conference to build support for her bill to stop escalation in Afghanistan. I can’t imagine there are many members of Congress who have as devoted a following as Rep. Lee—throughout the event you saw signs and heard chants of “Barbara Lee Speaks for Me!” As we keep up the tough fight of pushing our government to support an alternative strategy in Afghanistan, I am inspired and heartened to hear the passion and commitment from politicians like Barbara Lee, and proud to have such a principled and courageous woman representing me in Congress.

Rep. Lee’s staff lined up a great list of speakers on short notice. The MC for the event was Sharon Cornu of the Alameda County Labor Central Committee, and the first speech came from Vietnam Veteran Paul Cox of Veterans for Peace, who spoke about learning the lessons of Vietnam and ensuring our government doesn’t continue to make the same mistakes in Afghanistan.

Renowned activist Tom Hayden took the stage to make the case for supporting congressional vehicles for ending the war in Afghanistan. He expressed his hope that President Obama will reject the “long war” doctrine embraced by some in the Pentagon who have talked about a 50-year war that spans several countries. He said that by his calculations, another two years of war at the current rates would mean 1,100 more US soldiers would die in Afghanistan, and said he believes these are “unsustainable policies.” Hayden noted the need for us to “define a progressive alternative” to the current plan in Afghanistan, which he emphasized should include an exit strategy, and urged us to help pressure people to become cosponsors of Rep. Lee’s HR 3699.

Rep. Lee was introduced by actor and activist Danny Glover, who pointed out that she is special not just for her lone opposition to the war in Afghanistan in 2001 but for her ongoing work to support social justice. In discussing the need to oppose the war in Afghanistan, he evoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight against militarism, racism and materialism. Glover said that Barbara Lee is about “transforming values,” and that our country needs a transformation of values, starting with all of us as citizens, but especially with our representatives in the White House and Congress.

Rep. Lee started out by thanking the crowd for “keeping hope alive.” She said that she stands “resolved to bring this chapter of American history that has been characterized by open-ended war once and for all to a close.” She encouraged us, in the words of her House colleague John Lewis, to “make some noise” in this country and said we need the “street heat,” and she laid out what she and others in Congress have done to “stir the pot” in the House of Representatives and push for an alternative in Afghanistan.

Lee outlined several letters that she signed to the President, including one with her “sisters in the triad” Lynn Woolsey (D-CA-6) and Maxine Waters (D-CA-35); one with the Congressional Black Caucus; and another with 53 other members of Congress urging President Obama to reject a request for more troops. She also cited the vote on an exit strategy in June that gained 138 votes, and her introduction of HR 3699 to prohibit funds for increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan. It’s important that we are publicizing these efforts and magnifying their impact by making sure the public is aware that there are members of Congress who are working to move the debate forward.

Rep. Lee told the cheering crowd, “We all know there is no military solution to the war in Afghanistan.” She said her legislation sends a “clear and unequivocal” message and urged us to help build support for the bill. She asked the crowd to “make some noise” and be “the wind beneath our wings” and help push Congress to speak out for a new approach in Afghanistan. You can listen to Rep. Lee’s speech here:

This is absolutely a critical time to “make some noise.” Reports today indicate that President Obama is going to announce a plan on Tuesday that will include sending around 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Join thousands of others around the country as part of our campaign to flood the White House with calls. Call 1-202-456-1111 to tell President Obama to support an alternative plan that doesn’t include an increase in troops. Click here to urge your representative to cosponsor Rep. Lee’s bill to prohibit funding for sending additional troops to Afghanistan.

Read More...

Summary only...

White Blindspot: GOP Teabaggers Rewrite 2008

Poll: Majority Of
GOP Think Obama
Didn't Win Election
- ACORN Stole It!

By Eric Kleefeld
TPM Talking Points

Nov. 19, 2009 - The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election -- instead, ACORN stole it.

This number goes a long way towards explaining the anger of the Tea Party crowd. They not only think Obama's agenda is against America, but they don't think he was actually the choice of the American people at all! Interestingly, NY-23 Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman is now accusing ACORN of stealing his race, and Fox News personalities have often speculated about ACORN stealing the 2008 Minnesota Senate race for Al Franken.

The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?" The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.

Now, the obvious comparison would be that many Democrats felt that George W. Bush didn't legitimately win the 2000 election. But there are some clear differences.

First of all, Al Gore empirically won the national popular vote in 2000, and lost in a disputed recount process in Florida. By comparison, John McCain lost the national popular vote by a 53%-46% margin.

In order to believe that Obama wasn't the true winner of the 2008 election, one would have to think that ACORN (and perhaps other groups) stuffed ballots to the tune of over 9.5 million votes, Obama's national margin.

PPP communications director Tom Jensen says: "Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September."

Read More...

Summary only...

Obama's Dilemma: Defeat Now, Bigger Defeat Later

Afghanistan:
Heads You Lose,
Tails You Lose

By Immanuel Wallerstein
Progressives for Obama

The war in Afghanistan is a war in which whatever the United States does now, or that President Obama does now, both the United States and Obama will lose. The country and its president are in a situation of perfect lockjaw.

Consider the basic situation. The Afghan government in Kabul has no legitimacy with the majority of the Afghan people. It also has no army worthy of the name. It also has no financial base. There is almost no military or personal security anywhere. It is faced with a guerilla opposition, the Taliban, who control half the country and who have grown steadily stronger since the Taliban government was overthrown by a foreign (largely United States) invasion in 2002. The New York Times reports that the Taliban "are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations," which American officials are struggling, unsuccessfully, to cut off.

Pres. Hamid Karzai was reelected recently in a manifestly falsified election. The U.S. government was ready to swallow this because Karzai is the only major politician who is ethnically a Pashtun, the base of the Taliban support. He is therefore the only one who can even hope to enter into a political arrangement with some or all of the Taliban. The United States was embarrassed publicly into recognizing the electoral fraud and was pressured to put pressure on Karzai to accept a run-off second round election. Karzai will undoubtedly win the run-off. His political position, post-election, will be very weak.

The major U.S. political ally in the region, Pakistan, is clearly collusive with the Taliban - in large part to ensure its own internal survival. The U.S. military commander, General Stanley McChrystal, insists he needs 40,000 more troops right away, or it will be too late to win the war in Afghanistan. It seems unlikely he will get the full number of these troops, or fast enough, to meet his implicit deadline. There are many military figures who doubt that he is right in arguing that his 40,000 more troops, even if they arrive right away, will make the difference.

It doesn't seem very daring to suggest that the United States will have to withdraw from Afghanistan at some point. Who will really come to power in Afghanistan at that point is a very open question. There may well be civil war for a long time.

Within the United States, opinion about the "lost" war will be extremely divided. It seems clear that the Republican right is preparing the charge of a treacherous sell-out by the Democrats in general, and Obama in particular. Gen. McChrystal may well be their candidate for president, if not in 2012 then in 2016.

Obama will get no credit for anything he does. If he gives full backing immediately to McChrystal's requests, he will still be accused by the Republicans of having done it too late. At the same time, he will have angered deeply at least half, if not more. of those who voted for him in 2008.

The war in Afghanistan has become Obama's war. When the United States `loses' that war, it will be Obama who will be charged with having `lost' it. Even if he gets a health bill of some kind passed (possible), and even if the U.S. and world economic situation improves in the next several years (doubtful), the war in Afghanistan will still loom largest as the single most important element in judging his presidency.

Could Obama reverse this situation by moving dramatically in another direction - towards a rapid political deal with the Taliban and full withdrawal? Aside from the fact that there is no public evidence that he is seriously contemplating doing this, there is not yet the degree of public support within the United States to make this a feasible political option for him. He doesn't even have the necessary degree of support within his own administration for such a dramatic shift.

So the United States and Obama shall stumble on, for a year or two, while the general military and political situation deteriorates. For the United States and for Obama, it is heads we lose, tails we lose.

Read More...

Summary only...