Our military used to think they were on football fields, on the ninth down… Now it's surgeons: battlefields are their operating rooms. They excise the cancer, i.e. the enemy.
But the world doesn't work like an operating room or a football field. You can't just remove some "cancer" without removing the cancer-causing agent. That brings us to the not-a-war against Islamic State.
There is a reason Islamic State has many supporters among Sunni tribes in northern Iraq. The US appeared to promise Sunni tribesmen access to government jobs and money in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq, then arranged for a sectarian Shiite government to take over. The latter not only cut them off; it has discriminated against them, against all Sunnis (the dominant sect until the end of Saddam) and finds excuses to kill a good many, while arming their own Shiite extremists, organized in militias, who carried out organized killings of Sunnis during the civil war before the surge.
IS speaks for that disenfranchisement and humiliation. It offers pride and power, although it's mode of governing is even more brutal and repressive than Saddam ever dared. Much may be forgiven for a return of pride and power. Some may like the piousity, as well. IS is an even bloodier version of the Inquisition, the witch hangings in Salem, the massacres of Protestants by Catholics and vice-versa from the Reformation all the way up to Northern Ireland. But it's similar.
"Taking out" Islamic State is an absurd plan. Unless Sunnis in both Iraq and Syria are offered a significant part of the pie, of power, of respect, IS, or another iteration, will continue to have a popular appeal.
What is needed is extreme political reform in both Syria and Iraq.
But, in Syria, the government, Alawite/Shiite dominated, is more powerful, bloody and repressive than any reformist or secular rebellion. Only Sunni militants have been able to successfully challenge the Assad regime: IS controls about a third of Syria--and a third of Iraq.
IS dared the US to attack them, and like idiots, we took the dare. What they wanted most of all was to have the US as their enemy, so they could recruit fighters from as far away as Chicago, London, Paris, LA, as well as Karachi and Jeddah. And money, of course.
Cutting off IS's cash--one of Obama's strategies--makes much more sense. An arms embargo of the whole region (of our regional friends, too) makes more sense than shipping boatloads of new weapons. How do you think IS arms itself? Capture, or purchase. Both are easier if the region is awash in arms.
What should the US do once an arms embargo is in place? Ensure it's in force, as much as is possible without drastically increasing our patrols of the skies and seas of the region.
The problem of Sunni extremists will not go away if we "surgically remove" IS emplacements, or even whole units. It will only go away, in one form or another, when the need for a radical extremist movement is superseded by real reforms and Sunni access to power and resources.
Finally, by bombing the s**t out of them, we're bound to miss, or to take out the wrong target enough of the time that we increase the ranks of the radical Islamists, who, notice, invited the attacks in the first place.
You can't kill an idea with bombs, nor a movement, no matter how noxious it may be.
Chelsea Manning suggested we should wall IS within its current conquests, and let it fail of its own weight. She's right.
IS economics' reminds me of Attila the Hun, whose power and wealth came from loot, ransoms and selling slaves. His warriors could keep all they could carry, except for the captives, who were all Attila's: IS's warriors are paid high salaries paid for by their loot and black-market oil. The Hun's career was cut short (assassin or stroke, either was possible), but his predecessor, the Roman Empire of the period demonstrated what happens to a warrior economy when it loses old conquests, instead of winning new ones: loot, ransom, slaves, new lands dried up, no longer powering the empire; it shrank rapidly. It disappeared in the West, in 476. (See Attila As Told to His Scribes, a fictional autobiography)
That same dynamic could be speeded up to a year or two, if IS were contained, quarantined by the world. Some civilians might starve, but that would be better than dying from bombs. And IS's failure to bring the good life would demonstrate that it's vision was flawed, even to the young, disaffected Muslim men who make up its ranks, certainly to the civilians upon which it feeds.
In any case, the US and Obama should get over the idea that the US must control events in the Middle East. I'd let the people of the region kill each other until they settle down and see reason; eventually they will. Until they do, the whole region should be left alone.
In the meantime, we have work to do: conversion of our energy sources from outmoded oil, coal and gas to the new, exciting "alternative" energies, that will cost less, require less capital and will be renewable and non-polluting: wind, solar, tidal, geo-thermal, compost gas and algae for fuel.
We have to direct all our energy to reducing global warming as much as we can: IS is an unnecessary and dangerous distraction.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Commies, Russians, Nazis and Ukraine
Commies Russians Nazis and Ukraine
When I was a kid, the MSM tried to teach us to fear the Commies--and people sympathetic to them, like Pete Seeger (a local hero). The Commies were Russians, of course, and even though they'd fought courageously on the same side in World War II, and had more fatalities than any other combatant, they quickly became the enemy, because Stalin had taken over half of Europe and was pushing outward in the East as well, in Korea, and Vietnam.
I remember being told by an anti-Communist that the Communists were going to take over, the only question was when. That was before Khrushchev banged his shoe on the UN table, long before Brezhnev.
JFK probably owed his election to his manufactured missile crisis (the Reds had more missiles, he claimed).
History has not been kind to the anti-Communist scares. The USSR was never really a match for the US, except for its massive tank forces ready to drive west into Europe. The talk of the missile gap, and of the USSR gaining advantage turned out to be false: even up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, our "intelligence" services were way over-estimating Soviet capabilities.
Why did they do that so consistently? Defense is a huge business, earning high (and often easy, cost-plus) profits. Pretending that the Soviets were 7 feet tall was good business.
When the USSR collapsed, US intel did a somersault. Russia was suddenly a basket case and could be ignored. American military pushed NATO expansion into ex-Soviet states, even though the new Russia was supposed to be our friend and we'd promised not to expand NATO to ex-Soviet states: first exceptions were the Baltic states.
What American military policy makers neglected to remember, however, was the Russian view of the world. Unlike the US, Russia never had well-defined, easily defended boundaries. The Muscovite state emerged to defend Russians from almost continuous invasions (on average about one every other year for 300 years). That's why the Tsarist political idea held that all power had to be owned by the Tsar: separation of powers was unthinkable. That's also, why Russia expanded in all directions; there were no boundaries until they reached the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific: Russians had a felt need to defend themselves against all comers. And still do.
Russians have had an historical experience that is totally foreign to Americans. At the beginning of WWII, they fought the Winter War against Finland. They fought to a settlement in which Finland has been neutral ever since.
They and others have suggested that Finland be a model for Ukraine. During WWII, Ukrainian nationalists fought for the Nazis, and welcomed their invasion; they were even more enthused about killing off Jews and Poles than the invaders.
What does Putin and the Russians see today: right-wing (neo-Nazi) Ukrainians spearheading the overthrow of the elected government, gaining power, initially, over defense and security in the new government, and even ramming through legislation to outlaw the Russian language. The new executive quickly rescinded the latter, when it became clear it was politically disastrous.
Ukrainian nationalists promoted EU and NATO membership, and their enthusiasm for both was only dampened when Americans and Europeans couldn't promise either. But think of the Russian reaction: NATO was organized to defend Europe against the USSR and was a creature of the US. Ukrainian nationalists want to establish both on the main Russian border, over lands where most invasions have come for more than 1000 years.
The east of Ukraine is largely Russian speaking: its people supported the overthrown President, Yanukovich, and were justifiably paranoid of the anti-Russian coup majority. They may have been encouraged to rebel by Putin's media, then equipped by the Russian military, and further, joined by "volunteers" from the Russian Army. The new Ukrainian revolutionary government did not treat the Russian rebels as dissidents but as traitors and labeled them Fascists and terrorists.
That was bad enough, but under Poroshenko, the new Ukrainian President, the rebels and the cities they occupied were shelled and bombed. We were outraged when Assad did something similar, but Europe and the US only mildly objected when the Ukraine bombed its own people. That's when Putin, apparently, sent in Russian soldiers to turn the tide.
But notice: with the exception of the special case of Crimea (host to the Russian Black Sea Navy, ethnically heavily Russian), Putin has not moved to take over Eastern Ukraine, only to stop Poroshenko's brutal "anti-terrorist" campaign against ethnic Russians. Since the ceasefire, Putin has pushed for a weak federal state for Ukraine, which would create a neutral country, much like Finland.
The US should not be promoting NATO expansion to Russian borders, and rather than entering a new Cold War, we should collaborate with Russia, on both ISIS and Ukraine, and should welcome Russian aid in settling our differences with Iran, if not with Assad in Syria. Putin is not really setting out to recreate the USSR; he's attempting to protect Russia the way Russians always have, unless we force his hand. Remember: Russia still has enough nukes to devastate the world.
Do we really want to have a nuclear confrontation even more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962? We came close to blowing up the world then: it still could happen.
When I was a kid, the MSM tried to teach us to fear the Commies--and people sympathetic to them, like Pete Seeger (a local hero). The Commies were Russians, of course, and even though they'd fought courageously on the same side in World War II, and had more fatalities than any other combatant, they quickly became the enemy, because Stalin had taken over half of Europe and was pushing outward in the East as well, in Korea, and Vietnam.
I remember being told by an anti-Communist that the Communists were going to take over, the only question was when. That was before Khrushchev banged his shoe on the UN table, long before Brezhnev.
JFK probably owed his election to his manufactured missile crisis (the Reds had more missiles, he claimed).
History has not been kind to the anti-Communist scares. The USSR was never really a match for the US, except for its massive tank forces ready to drive west into Europe. The talk of the missile gap, and of the USSR gaining advantage turned out to be false: even up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, our "intelligence" services were way over-estimating Soviet capabilities.
Why did they do that so consistently? Defense is a huge business, earning high (and often easy, cost-plus) profits. Pretending that the Soviets were 7 feet tall was good business.
When the USSR collapsed, US intel did a somersault. Russia was suddenly a basket case and could be ignored. American military pushed NATO expansion into ex-Soviet states, even though the new Russia was supposed to be our friend and we'd promised not to expand NATO to ex-Soviet states: first exceptions were the Baltic states.
What American military policy makers neglected to remember, however, was the Russian view of the world. Unlike the US, Russia never had well-defined, easily defended boundaries. The Muscovite state emerged to defend Russians from almost continuous invasions (on average about one every other year for 300 years). That's why the Tsarist political idea held that all power had to be owned by the Tsar: separation of powers was unthinkable. That's also, why Russia expanded in all directions; there were no boundaries until they reached the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific: Russians had a felt need to defend themselves against all comers. And still do.
Russians have had an historical experience that is totally foreign to Americans. At the beginning of WWII, they fought the Winter War against Finland. They fought to a settlement in which Finland has been neutral ever since.
They and others have suggested that Finland be a model for Ukraine. During WWII, Ukrainian nationalists fought for the Nazis, and welcomed their invasion; they were even more enthused about killing off Jews and Poles than the invaders.
What does Putin and the Russians see today: right-wing (neo-Nazi) Ukrainians spearheading the overthrow of the elected government, gaining power, initially, over defense and security in the new government, and even ramming through legislation to outlaw the Russian language. The new executive quickly rescinded the latter, when it became clear it was politically disastrous.
Ukrainian nationalists promoted EU and NATO membership, and their enthusiasm for both was only dampened when Americans and Europeans couldn't promise either. But think of the Russian reaction: NATO was organized to defend Europe against the USSR and was a creature of the US. Ukrainian nationalists want to establish both on the main Russian border, over lands where most invasions have come for more than 1000 years.
The east of Ukraine is largely Russian speaking: its people supported the overthrown President, Yanukovich, and were justifiably paranoid of the anti-Russian coup majority. They may have been encouraged to rebel by Putin's media, then equipped by the Russian military, and further, joined by "volunteers" from the Russian Army. The new Ukrainian revolutionary government did not treat the Russian rebels as dissidents but as traitors and labeled them Fascists and terrorists.
That was bad enough, but under Poroshenko, the new Ukrainian President, the rebels and the cities they occupied were shelled and bombed. We were outraged when Assad did something similar, but Europe and the US only mildly objected when the Ukraine bombed its own people. That's when Putin, apparently, sent in Russian soldiers to turn the tide.
But notice: with the exception of the special case of Crimea (host to the Russian Black Sea Navy, ethnically heavily Russian), Putin has not moved to take over Eastern Ukraine, only to stop Poroshenko's brutal "anti-terrorist" campaign against ethnic Russians. Since the ceasefire, Putin has pushed for a weak federal state for Ukraine, which would create a neutral country, much like Finland.
The US should not be promoting NATO expansion to Russian borders, and rather than entering a new Cold War, we should collaborate with Russia, on both ISIS and Ukraine, and should welcome Russian aid in settling our differences with Iran, if not with Assad in Syria. Putin is not really setting out to recreate the USSR; he's attempting to protect Russia the way Russians always have, unless we force his hand. Remember: Russia still has enough nukes to devastate the world.
Do we really want to have a nuclear confrontation even more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962? We came close to blowing up the world then: it still could happen.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Reluctant Leader, Reluctant Followers
I mean members of Obama's new coalition, supposedly not followers. But the US has to be the leader, Obama declares. Apparently, Obama's team, including Secretary Kerry, didn't get such firm commitments that regional nations could be called allies. Perhaps 'followers' is the more appropriate term: according to an NYT article (9/12), the only enthusiastic supporters of Obama's plan are the 'moderate' Syrian rebel groups, who hope to gain a windfall of arms. Even they complain, however, that it's too little and too late; IS buys their weapons and pays themselves handsome salaries, while the moderates nearly starve. IS extorts its new subjects, taxes them, loots the region and sells Iraqi oil on the black market: it has money.
The Syrian government would like to sign on against IS, and only asks that the US coordinate with it in its attacks in their country. Of course, the US avoids Assad like the plague: "he lost legitimacy a long time ago," Obama said.
But Egypt, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia appear to be only formally going along, without making any commitments. Iran, as the opponent of The Great Satan, is not invited, (it claims it was and turned the Great Satan down), but is fighting against IS, itself. Iraq's government is still not governing a critical part of the country and its population--the north, west and the Sunnis, respectively. Even if the new PM proves more ecumenical, able to unify the country, that could take years: the government the US put in place did a lot of damage to Iraq's nationhood.
Will Obama's campaign, allied with ghost coalition members, be like the wars in Somalia and Yemen, mentioned by Obama in passing? He didn't mention the Pakistan drone war, which, though larger, is still probably too small in scale to compare with what he's proposing: an assault on IS using our sophisticated air offense against the army of a movement, in both Iraq and Syria. However, many of his actual targets may turn out to be wedding parties or boys playing Cricket. What has been the result of our drone wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan? We've made enemies. We may have decapitated al Qaeda, yet it's still in operation. For every family of civilians, or children, mothers and fathers our drones summarily execute, we create recruits for even more violent and radical "Islamists."
I can guarantee that the IS is not so stupid as to mass its troops and artillery in places the US could target without killing civilians. However, we already claim there are miniscule numbers of civilian deaths and injuries in Somalia and Yemen. That's because when the US attacks, mysteriously, all dead males between the ages of 15 and 50 become 'militants.' Women of fighting age may be counted, too. Wave the wand: civilian deaths gone, except for a niggling asterisk: those little bodies, or the gray haired ones.
Obama may have really done it this time: committed himself to a 'police action' that no one else is any more enthusiastically for than he is: the reluctant leading the reluctant and wary.
The problems with his proposal: it disregards the real facts on the ground. Our opponents in the Syrian civil war, Assad and Iran, are fighting IS; our natural allies, the moderate rebels, are dispirited and outgunned; Iraq is still a mess. Our other expected allies are more concerned with the Palestinian or other more local problems, or are divided, as are the Persian Gulf monarchies: Qatar, for example, has been funding IS; Saudi Arabia is wary of IS and the US. Worst of all, Turkey will not participate for two reasons: fear of Kurdish groups fighting Syria would strengthen the Kurdish rebellion against Turkey. They are also constrained by the 49 Turkish hostages held by IS.
After all the US's invasions, surges, bombing campaigns, drone wars and advisory missions in the region, there may be a growing sense among the supposed beneficiaries, that the US makes things worse, not better. Further, when America leads in the Mideast, that means that regional powers do not. Now, they are like the boy who doesn't want to go to wherever his parents want him to, and he has to be dragged along by his father.
The region's powers will have to solve this puzzle on their own. They may not, but face it: we can't solve it for them. Right now, Obama looks like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.
Consequences for the Middle East of Obama's plan: there will be more inconclusive violence, more recruits for bitter-enders and more destabilization. Consequences for the United States: the President does and will look inconsistent and ineffective, and nothing will get done in the next two years, because Republicans will try to override or repeal Obama's programs, especially if they win a majority in the Senate as well as the House. That's more likely if this campaign is a disaster. Then, only Presidential vetoes will stand in their way.
The only action by the US that might contribute to stopping IS would be to negotiate a regional arms embargo, to dry up the flow of weapons, especially to IS. But who makes money on that?
There! The US Navy has its mission: enforce the embargo on the seas; so does the Air Force; that would at least be some business for our fearsome arms. Maybe the Air Force would even get another reason to bomb people: they're the scum who are smuggling in arms to kill more people.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
The President Decided
The President has decided: given American foreign policy up to now, he couldn't have decided otherwise, because America Leads the Mideast….towards "order."
Oh, it could be worse. If McCain were President, and he always wishes he were, we'd be flying in troops by the thousands and bombing the hell outta the whole Syria-Iraq borderlands.
But order means we're going to bomb the hell outta some of them, and call it a "counter-terrorist" action, not a war. A war would come under the War Powers Act, requiring Congressional approval. Also, Obama wants to be against war, even if he starts one.
Obama asks for some kind of support from Congress; Republicans don't want to stop him, or condemn him; some even may be coming around to support the action. However, one Republican Congressman remarked: they'd applaud if things go well, and say "you should have acted much earlier," if the action fails. Earlier means when they were urging Obama to bomb Syria for its chemical weapons. Most Republicans have wanted every war since WWII, even when there were Democratic Presidents benefiting from wars at the polls.
Wait a minute! Could Obama be doing something similar? ISIL is a horror, but perhaps a convenient horror. Until this crisis, Obama was "embattled" and increasingly unpopular, so much so, that many Democratic candidates welcomed his efforts to raise money for them, but avoided joint appearances.
On the other hand, Obama's proposal embodies the success of ISIL propaganda and strategy. ISIL staged the beheadings of American journalists to accomplish two goals: bolster their image of ruthlessness to recruit western extremists, and goad the US into acting against them, to broaden their anti-western appeal. Baghdadi, after all, speaks of the Califate, meaning world rule, not just swathes of two war-torn nations.
Obama's "decisive action" will rally the troops and neutralize the opposition. Given the tilt towards war in all the "major" media, ISIL is a convenient pretext.
Obama's "decisive action:" means bombing, degrading and destroying ISIL. Sounds like what we did to al Qaeda. Now, the US is leading a regional coalition, to stop ISIL: stopping the flow of money, for example from Saudi Arabia; regaining control of borders, launching incursions from them, and supporting "moderate" militias and the Iraqi army. The US commitment is leadership, air war attack force, training, materiel and Intel.
We started out in Vietnam with less, and we've already been in Iraq two times before. We could be sucked back into the mire of the Middle East, not only in Iraq, but now in Syria, as well.
On the other hand, Obama may get lucky. ISIL is a freak opponent that seems to appeal to the most crazed, even of some American youth, but is hated by the people they've conquered. Hundreds to thousands are slaughtered, many randomly, at first. Then the survivors undergo looting, high taxes and a repressive social order, brutally enforced.
Why does ISIL exist? Because the US and allies were arming Syrian insurgents, and ISIL was adept at getting enough arms to capture more from their competitors in the Syrian civil war, while supposedly fighting to overthrow Assad. They then expanded in eastern Syria, controlling whole provinces, driving out more secular and moderate rebels.
Then, with superior tactics and morale, they took Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and captured the huge amount of weaponry we had bestowed on the dispirited Iraqi army. Since embittered ex-military (from Saddam's disbanded army) joined ISIL in droves, it had the technical skills to turn those sophisticated weapons south, and expand their domain of control dramatically and suddenly. Massacres, mass rapes and even attempted genocide followed. ISIL's leader openly threatened to annihilate the Tacridis; Shiites were given a choice: convert instantly to Sunni Islam, or die an infidel.
Brute force works for a while, and forced conversions are a tradition in the Mideast going back millennia. However, they aren't a way to gain popular support, nor are the massacres and repression.
ISIL is a mile high and an inch deep.
There is no reason why the US has to step in. The groups and nations of the region are going to have to work it out. The sooner there is no Uncle Sam leading, they'd have to learn to cooperate, and would be forced to see their own mutual interests. Or kill each other: yes, all out Shiite-Sunni war would dwarf all the current conflagrations.
But the US has almost always made things worse since Vietnam, whenever it intervenes, in the region, or elsewhere. The current proposal is even more flawed than usual: if we destroy ISIL, Assad's forces can fill the vacuum. If we don't, we'll probably rally Sunnis to ISIL's side. US enemies will win, either way. What then? War to accomplish "regime change" in Syria, and maybe Iraq, again?
No action except an arms embargo of the whole region makes much sense. ISIL is (our friend) Iraq's enemy and (our enemy) Syria's enemy. It gains its appeal from the ill-treatment of Sunni Muslims by both governments. Until people in the region learn to live together, instead of killing each other, ISIL, or its successors, may be a problem no outside power can solve.
Oh, it could be worse. If McCain were President, and he always wishes he were, we'd be flying in troops by the thousands and bombing the hell outta the whole Syria-Iraq borderlands.
But order means we're going to bomb the hell outta some of them, and call it a "counter-terrorist" action, not a war. A war would come under the War Powers Act, requiring Congressional approval. Also, Obama wants to be against war, even if he starts one.
Obama asks for some kind of support from Congress; Republicans don't want to stop him, or condemn him; some even may be coming around to support the action. However, one Republican Congressman remarked: they'd applaud if things go well, and say "you should have acted much earlier," if the action fails. Earlier means when they were urging Obama to bomb Syria for its chemical weapons. Most Republicans have wanted every war since WWII, even when there were Democratic Presidents benefiting from wars at the polls.
Wait a minute! Could Obama be doing something similar? ISIL is a horror, but perhaps a convenient horror. Until this crisis, Obama was "embattled" and increasingly unpopular, so much so, that many Democratic candidates welcomed his efforts to raise money for them, but avoided joint appearances.
On the other hand, Obama's proposal embodies the success of ISIL propaganda and strategy. ISIL staged the beheadings of American journalists to accomplish two goals: bolster their image of ruthlessness to recruit western extremists, and goad the US into acting against them, to broaden their anti-western appeal. Baghdadi, after all, speaks of the Califate, meaning world rule, not just swathes of two war-torn nations.
Obama's "decisive action" will rally the troops and neutralize the opposition. Given the tilt towards war in all the "major" media, ISIL is a convenient pretext.
Obama's "decisive action:" means bombing, degrading and destroying ISIL. Sounds like what we did to al Qaeda. Now, the US is leading a regional coalition, to stop ISIL: stopping the flow of money, for example from Saudi Arabia; regaining control of borders, launching incursions from them, and supporting "moderate" militias and the Iraqi army. The US commitment is leadership, air war attack force, training, materiel and Intel.
We started out in Vietnam with less, and we've already been in Iraq two times before. We could be sucked back into the mire of the Middle East, not only in Iraq, but now in Syria, as well.
On the other hand, Obama may get lucky. ISIL is a freak opponent that seems to appeal to the most crazed, even of some American youth, but is hated by the people they've conquered. Hundreds to thousands are slaughtered, many randomly, at first. Then the survivors undergo looting, high taxes and a repressive social order, brutally enforced.
Why does ISIL exist? Because the US and allies were arming Syrian insurgents, and ISIL was adept at getting enough arms to capture more from their competitors in the Syrian civil war, while supposedly fighting to overthrow Assad. They then expanded in eastern Syria, controlling whole provinces, driving out more secular and moderate rebels.
Then, with superior tactics and morale, they took Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and captured the huge amount of weaponry we had bestowed on the dispirited Iraqi army. Since embittered ex-military (from Saddam's disbanded army) joined ISIL in droves, it had the technical skills to turn those sophisticated weapons south, and expand their domain of control dramatically and suddenly. Massacres, mass rapes and even attempted genocide followed. ISIL's leader openly threatened to annihilate the Tacridis; Shiites were given a choice: convert instantly to Sunni Islam, or die an infidel.
Brute force works for a while, and forced conversions are a tradition in the Mideast going back millennia. However, they aren't a way to gain popular support, nor are the massacres and repression.
ISIL is a mile high and an inch deep.
There is no reason why the US has to step in. The groups and nations of the region are going to have to work it out. The sooner there is no Uncle Sam leading, they'd have to learn to cooperate, and would be forced to see their own mutual interests. Or kill each other: yes, all out Shiite-Sunni war would dwarf all the current conflagrations.
But the US has almost always made things worse since Vietnam, whenever it intervenes, in the region, or elsewhere. The current proposal is even more flawed than usual: if we destroy ISIL, Assad's forces can fill the vacuum. If we don't, we'll probably rally Sunnis to ISIL's side. US enemies will win, either way. What then? War to accomplish "regime change" in Syria, and maybe Iraq, again?
No action except an arms embargo of the whole region makes much sense. ISIL is (our friend) Iraq's enemy and (our enemy) Syria's enemy. It gains its appeal from the ill-treatment of Sunni Muslims by both governments. Until people in the region learn to live together, instead of killing each other, ISIL, or its successors, may be a problem no outside power can solve.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
A Free-market Solution to Mideast Crises
American interventions in the Mideast have been little short of disastrous: starting with the CIA coup in Iran in 1953, which led to the Islamic Revolution and the current Islamic state. Further, Iraq had a relatively stable, if murderous, regime that provided drinking water and predictable electric power, roads, security, jobs. and kept out Islamic extremists. The current regime may be more democratic, but chaos rules and Saddam's amenities, mentioned above, are no longer predictable, or even possible.
The conflicts in Syria and Iraq, where Islamic State momentarily controls swathes of both, are part of a larger Middle Eastern conflict: between Sunni and Shia. While the main Shia state is not Arab, Iraq, with a Shiite majority is Arab, as are Shiite majorities or large minorities in many Arab countries. The conflict is not between Persians and Arabs; it's far broader than that. In Iraq, it's between a once-dominant Sunni minority and a now dominant Shia majority; in Syria a Shiite-allied minority rules and a Sunni majority rebels--militarily dominated by Sunni extremists. Sunni Arabia opposes Shiite Iran. Both have many clients: Hezbollah, the PLO, al Qaeda, IS….
The conflict's closest historical analogue is hardly encouraging: Protestant versus Catholic in Europe's Hundred Years War.
One thing this conflict is Not: central to American interests.
Either will sell us oil; they need the money. Oil is sold at international prices and the US is now producing more of its own than is good for the planet: we need less Arab oil, anyway.
The current success of IS, or ISIS, is due to the colossal blunder of the US in going into Iraq in the first place, then strewing its modern weapons all over it. We assumed, wrongly, that the established government would be able to hold onto them. We made the same mistake in Vietnam, where American arms found their way to the Viet Cong. But IS is not another Nazi Germany, nor the Viet Cong, however much it might want to be--albeit with Muslim symbolism. Germany was an advanced industrial state: the Viet Cong had a government sponsor: North Vietnam. Those governments were well established, and Germany had the know-how to rebuild a defense industry. IS has none of these things. It lucked out when the Iraqi army turned tail, and dropped all the American high tech weaponry we'd given them.
IS may be able to terrorize millions for a short while, but how can it supply its army with modern arms and ammunition? It can't produce them. It can buy some on the Black Market, financed by oil and looting, but that can become prohibitively expensive, especially if the US did something uncharacteristically intelligent like embargo arms sales.
IS is against the interests of almost every established Muslim state, secular or non, Sunni or Shiite. Do Arabs want to live under the IS regime, where executions are daily, taxes are high, and codes of conduct are stifling. Some think they do--until they experience it. IS's power is ephemeral, unless the US gives it credibility by making their movement the equivalent of Nazi Germany, against which a mighty alliance (led by the US), would march into battle--strewing expensive weapons. IS tries to incite intervention with its videoed beheadings; it's their resupply and recruitment strategy.
We'd be intervening on the side of Shiites, when Sunnis are rising against the murderous Syrian Assad regime, and against blatant discrimination by the Iraqi Shiite government we installed. Shiite Iran is stable, has democratic elements, but is hostile to the US. Sunni Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf kingdoms are hardly democratic. Egypt, our most important Sunni client, is a brutal, repressive military regime. All these Sunni states are supposedly US friends.
So, why intervene on either side, especially when this conflict has been going on since Mohammed's death in 632 and the ensuing battle for succession?
I have a better solution: don't take sides and don't intervene. Sell arms only to stable states, profit from the regional conflict, but don't try to control it: the US can't, and shouldn't try. Defense industries could make money from it, however, without costing US lives or increased US debts.
The conflicts in Syria and Iraq, where Islamic State momentarily controls swathes of both, are part of a larger Middle Eastern conflict: between Sunni and Shia. While the main Shia state is not Arab, Iraq, with a Shiite majority is Arab, as are Shiite majorities or large minorities in many Arab countries. The conflict is not between Persians and Arabs; it's far broader than that. In Iraq, it's between a once-dominant Sunni minority and a now dominant Shia majority; in Syria a Shiite-allied minority rules and a Sunni majority rebels--militarily dominated by Sunni extremists. Sunni Arabia opposes Shiite Iran. Both have many clients: Hezbollah, the PLO, al Qaeda, IS….
The conflict's closest historical analogue is hardly encouraging: Protestant versus Catholic in Europe's Hundred Years War.
One thing this conflict is Not: central to American interests.
Either will sell us oil; they need the money. Oil is sold at international prices and the US is now producing more of its own than is good for the planet: we need less Arab oil, anyway.
The current success of IS, or ISIS, is due to the colossal blunder of the US in going into Iraq in the first place, then strewing its modern weapons all over it. We assumed, wrongly, that the established government would be able to hold onto them. We made the same mistake in Vietnam, where American arms found their way to the Viet Cong. But IS is not another Nazi Germany, nor the Viet Cong, however much it might want to be--albeit with Muslim symbolism. Germany was an advanced industrial state: the Viet Cong had a government sponsor: North Vietnam. Those governments were well established, and Germany had the know-how to rebuild a defense industry. IS has none of these things. It lucked out when the Iraqi army turned tail, and dropped all the American high tech weaponry we'd given them.
IS may be able to terrorize millions for a short while, but how can it supply its army with modern arms and ammunition? It can't produce them. It can buy some on the Black Market, financed by oil and looting, but that can become prohibitively expensive, especially if the US did something uncharacteristically intelligent like embargo arms sales.
IS is against the interests of almost every established Muslim state, secular or non, Sunni or Shiite. Do Arabs want to live under the IS regime, where executions are daily, taxes are high, and codes of conduct are stifling. Some think they do--until they experience it. IS's power is ephemeral, unless the US gives it credibility by making their movement the equivalent of Nazi Germany, against which a mighty alliance (led by the US), would march into battle--strewing expensive weapons. IS tries to incite intervention with its videoed beheadings; it's their resupply and recruitment strategy.
We'd be intervening on the side of Shiites, when Sunnis are rising against the murderous Syrian Assad regime, and against blatant discrimination by the Iraqi Shiite government we installed. Shiite Iran is stable, has democratic elements, but is hostile to the US. Sunni Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf kingdoms are hardly democratic. Egypt, our most important Sunni client, is a brutal, repressive military regime. All these Sunni states are supposedly US friends.
So, why intervene on either side, especially when this conflict has been going on since Mohammed's death in 632 and the ensuing battle for succession?
I have a better solution: don't take sides and don't intervene. Sell arms only to stable states, profit from the regional conflict, but don't try to control it: the US can't, and shouldn't try. Defense industries could make money from it, however, without costing US lives or increased US debts.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Why Ukraine Mess is US's Fault
First, the US gloried in the demise of the USSR, and quasi-private funds sent "advisors" to the faltering giant to "help" it sort out its collapsing economy, and managed to remake it into an oligarchic vision, which appears to be being realized here, as well.
Then, despite its promises to the contrary, the US pushed Europeans to promote the eastward expansion of NATO--to the borders of the former Evil Empire.
Well, not quite. NATO didn't take in the Ukraine and Byelorussia. Until now.
Now that there is clear evidence that Russia has been intervening, cleverly and surreptitiously, in eastern Ukraine and Crimea (long before the latter's annexation), perhaps the wise-asses in the Pentagon and State should ask themselves why.
We have not treated Russia fairly. The US has acted, consistently as if the Cold War, declared over in the early 1990's, never ended, at all. We have treated Russia as if it were still a threat, or rather, have acted as if it were both unimportant and still a dangerous adversary that must be contained.
Russia should be neither. As the nation straddling the largest territory on the planet, it will always be important. If we had treated Russia as a partner, instead of an adversary, the present Ukraine mess probably would not have happened.
Progressive bloggers refer, with some justification, to the change in Ukraine's government as an "American coup." The US with its sidekick, Europe and NATO, clearly was meddling in the Ukraine, fomenting discontent, offering seductive deals and encouraging and subsidizing some of the most nauseous elements of Ukrainian nationalism: those inspired by the pro-Nazi resistance to the Soviet regime before, during and after World War II.
Now, we are reaping the whirlwind.
Of course, Russia is going to do whatever it can, especially below the US's radar, to insure that it does not have an unfriendly neighbor directly on its borders.
Consider how Americans would feel if Russia or China were doing something similar in Canada or Mexico. But it's worse than that.
When I studied Russian history, one of the periods that struck me was the 300 years or so (about as long as the US's own history), when Russians were assailed by 100's of invasions, as many as several a year, coming from both the Asian Steppes and from western Europe--for 300 years. Russians' natural and understandable response was to support a Tsarist government that ruled with an iron hand and expanded its control in all directions--to fend off the invaders, be they Swedes, Hungarians, Mongols or Turks.
Unlike the US, Russia has only one natural border: the Arctic Sea. Especially in the west, where the Ukraine is situated, there is a vast sweep of land with virtually no barriers--except its very extent, as Napoleon and Hitler discovered to their sorrow.
Long before the Cold War, before WWII, there was the Winter War with Finland, with which Russia finally arrived at a reasonable compromise. Finland, to this day, is constrained from joining alliances: towards Russia it is bound to be neutral, and that makes sense. A similar arrangement should be promoted with the Ukraine, and with the Baltic and other border states, as well.
Russia must not be encircled by NATO, or US bases. Russia's need for security should be respected and promoted. If there are Ukrainians or Georgians who don't like Russia, they should be told: Russia is the large bear in the neighborhood. Treat it respectfully and neutrally and it won't interfere: rebel against its regional dominance and no NATO and no US superpower can save you.
If Russia were ringed by states bound to neutrality, Russia would be much more amenable to disarming its nuclear weapons, and maybe the dream Obama articulated before the Pentagon and CIA got to him, the dream of total nuclear disarmament, would be much closer to realization.
But then, the US would have to amend its ways: curb its strategy of attempting the impossible: to dominate the world with its military-security tentacles in every corner of the earth.
I blame US global aggression not on the American people: I think we're almost as reasonable, tolerant and peaceable as any people. I say 'almost' because of the gun rights crowd, and the growing tolerance of racist violence, 50 years after the civil rights movement.
I blame US aggressiveness on two American institutions: roughly, the security/intelligence complex and the military. They feed each other and feast off Americans' manufactured fear, manufactured by their business partners: the media, owned by corporations like GE that have billions of dollars in defense contracts. All of the above have incentives to foment unrest or find it, and then demand that it's America's responsibility to "fix it."
The Roman Empire was driven by the profits of war, enriching the aristocracy that became the Senate, and impoverishing the many, who were thrown on the dole. The American Empire is driven by the profits of war-making, which sucks trillions from peaceable people, impoverishes them, disemploys them and enriches the few.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Ave atque Vale
It 's not as if the parallels are any less evident, nor that our march to the end of empire isn't any less swift, It's that I'm tired and tired of writing about it: it may happen, anyway. Furthermore, as many of you have no doubt noticed, this website is becoming increasingly out of date, even if it is prescient.
I have not taken down dated pages, written in the heat of the 2008 campaign and even before. This website was first conceived about the time of the 2006 Congressional campaign, in some ways the obverse of what happened in 2010, which was the beginning of the overt counter-revolution.
The 'revolution,' you may have noticed, was limited, and terribly short.
Like many of you, I was optimistic then, that the parallels to the downfall of the Western Roman Empire would prove temporary, once we understood what was happening.
But it's happening. All you have to do is translate Roman Senator into multi-millionaire/billionaire (MMB), and voila! We don't have a Romney as President. Yet, we have the precursors to wealthy Senator Petronius Maximus (455), the first Senator to become Emperor (short-lived) after the Diocletian reforms. Now we have billionaires increasingly assertive of their money power attempting to control government, or to buy it.
We also have a strengthening political movement funded by the MMB class, which exhibits fundamental contempt for anyone not connected to what the Romans called the honestiores, the wealthy stars of the economic, cultural and social firmament. These are the few people who rub elbows, while enjoying more than half of the wealth the poor and wealthy nations of the world are tirelessly creating.
Ave, Atque Vale was what the gladiators are supposed to have said, before the Emperor, or his representative, as they were about to go into battle in the coliseums: I'm saying it in this roundabout way.
I've saved all the website pages, even the archived blogs, in one large word file. At some point, I may revive the website, updated, or dated, at another web-host. For now, I'm going to forego paying for all the bells and whistles, because I don't need them. And, as I wrote at the beginning: I'm tired, especially of writing about the declining American Empire.
I'm attempting again to write fiction. Writing Attila as Told To His Scribes and I, Zerco (both available as Amazon Kindle books) preceded this website, and writing other novels (I hope) will follow.
If I revive this website, an announcement will be posted on this blogspot companion site: http://roman-empire-america-now.blogspot.com/ I will keep this site simply to post, occasionally, about the state of affairs in the years going forward. I don't know how many more years I will have, since I'll be 75 in May, but my mother still can't let go at 101.
So, GOODBYE! But also, HELLO.
I have not taken down dated pages, written in the heat of the 2008 campaign and even before. This website was first conceived about the time of the 2006 Congressional campaign, in some ways the obverse of what happened in 2010, which was the beginning of the overt counter-revolution.
The 'revolution,' you may have noticed, was limited, and terribly short.
Like many of you, I was optimistic then, that the parallels to the downfall of the Western Roman Empire would prove temporary, once we understood what was happening.
But it's happening. All you have to do is translate Roman Senator into multi-millionaire/billionaire (MMB), and voila! We don't have a Romney as President. Yet, we have the precursors to wealthy Senator Petronius Maximus (455), the first Senator to become Emperor (short-lived) after the Diocletian reforms. Now we have billionaires increasingly assertive of their money power attempting to control government, or to buy it.
We also have a strengthening political movement funded by the MMB class, which exhibits fundamental contempt for anyone not connected to what the Romans called the honestiores, the wealthy stars of the economic, cultural and social firmament. These are the few people who rub elbows, while enjoying more than half of the wealth the poor and wealthy nations of the world are tirelessly creating.
Ave, Atque Vale was what the gladiators are supposed to have said, before the Emperor, or his representative, as they were about to go into battle in the coliseums: I'm saying it in this roundabout way.
I've saved all the website pages, even the archived blogs, in one large word file. At some point, I may revive the website, updated, or dated, at another web-host. For now, I'm going to forego paying for all the bells and whistles, because I don't need them. And, as I wrote at the beginning: I'm tired, especially of writing about the declining American Empire.
I'm attempting again to write fiction. Writing Attila as Told To His Scribes and I, Zerco (both available as Amazon Kindle books) preceded this website, and writing other novels (I hope) will follow.
If I revive this website, an announcement will be posted on this blogspot companion site: http://roman-empire-america-now.blogspot.com/ I will keep this site simply to post, occasionally, about the state of affairs in the years going forward. I don't know how many more years I will have, since I'll be 75 in May, but my mother still can't let go at 101.
So, GOODBYE! But also, HELLO.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Feudalism and Now
The Roman Senatorial class, during their period of economic and political dominance (ca 300-476), invented European feudalism. The Senators had huge latifundia, often scattered from the north to the south of the Empire, rendering them close to self-sufficient. Originally, powered by slaves during the earlier era of conquests, after Diocletian's reign (284 to 305), slaves became less available (no conquests, only holding off the hordes, and usurpers). Yet, there were willing hands to work the huge estates. People--poor to yeomen to middle class--were depopulating the unsustainable cities and unprotected lands; they were desperate for work, any work--and safety, from the state as much as from the barbarians. They became serfs, with nearly the same lack of rights as slaves, although they were legally free. They were, legally, the humiliores (the humble), as contrasted with the honestiores (the honored), who owned the lands, and the government, too, with only the increasingly barbarian military as competition for control.
The late Empire was in a state of coexistence between the military, largely manned by German tribesmen, increasingly led by them, or their Romanized sons, and the Senators, who controlled the Empire's bureaucracy, and an increasing share of the land. By convention and law, Emperors could only come from the military, or the ruling imperial family. Since Diocletian, Senators were excluded from military service, on the principle that otherwise they'd be too powerful.
What's relevant to us, in this description of a feudal system ad initio, is that it looks as if the radical "conservative" worldview is becoming increasingly similar to that of the Roman Senators. The whining billionaire, who compares a hike (of 8%?) to his taxes to the Nazis' extermination of the Jews, is only one example. Another is the State Legislator, who campaigns to end Food Stamps for 100,000 people in his State, while receiving Medicaid and other taxpayer-paid disability compensation, because he was paralyzed when either he, or his equally drunken friend, drove down a ravine. So, not only does he have someone tying his tie, at taxpayer expense, but he wants to take away the food stamps 100,000 people (blameless, unlike him) depend on in Oklahoma. Another is practically any Republican legislator, or executive, and too many Democrats, who viscerally ally with wealth and power. The corollary is to look increasingly on those without wealth and power as people who are fundamentally disfigured, morally, not physically. Physically, of course, the poor are strong enough; they're just lazy, and given to drugs and sponging off Uncle Sam.
This kind of worldview justifies cutting Food Stamps, raising taxes on the poor--switching from income to sales taxes, for example--and at the same time, cutting taxes on the rich, and on business, "to attract" business, or talent. The epitome of this worldview might be refusing to extend unemployment insurance, while hiking subsidies or contracts to wealthy corporations. The reason given for opposing unemployment extensions is: 'who's paying for it,' but there is no empathy displayed by proponents for the losers. People who can't find jobs after 79 weeks, aren't usually unemployed by choice; they simply can't find jobs, and the longer they're out of the workforce, the less employable they are.
What happens to such people? Somehow, most of them survive, but because they're desperate, they'll do almost anything: like "crowd work" for job entrepreneurs, for a dollar an hour, or hauling radioactive waste for minimum wage, or, the even more desperate, or morally weak, may see various forms of crime as the means to survival.
This isn't happening by accident; it's happening because the extremely wealthy isolate themselves from the rest of us, and know that our misery feeds their ease and luxury, and besides, from their worldview, they deserve it and we deserve less than the crumbs from their groaning tables.
We probably won't call the next era feudalism. For one thing, the successor nobility to the Roman Senators, gained a sense of noblesse oblige, born perhaps from surviving together during the barbarian takeover: look after your dependents and they'll support you. Now, our contemporary Roman Senators don't feel any obligation to look after anyone but themselves and their own.
So what, if the climate is permanently f...ked, helped immeasurably by the likes of the Koch brothers, profiting from destroying it! The elite can live in climate-controlled estates, villages or cities with enough dependents surrounding them to do the work, while everyone else, outside, starves, thirsts, freezes or boils in the uninhabitable environment humans have created.
How do we avoid this outcome? Overthrow upper-class dominance; turn their class war against them. Restore balance. How?
Note, the above blog will be the last posted on the site roman-empire-america-now.com. Occasional blogs will be posted on this site. A new host for the above website may appear, if I can successfully transfer it.
The late Empire was in a state of coexistence between the military, largely manned by German tribesmen, increasingly led by them, or their Romanized sons, and the Senators, who controlled the Empire's bureaucracy, and an increasing share of the land. By convention and law, Emperors could only come from the military, or the ruling imperial family. Since Diocletian, Senators were excluded from military service, on the principle that otherwise they'd be too powerful.
What's relevant to us, in this description of a feudal system ad initio, is that it looks as if the radical "conservative" worldview is becoming increasingly similar to that of the Roman Senators. The whining billionaire, who compares a hike (of 8%?) to his taxes to the Nazis' extermination of the Jews, is only one example. Another is the State Legislator, who campaigns to end Food Stamps for 100,000 people in his State, while receiving Medicaid and other taxpayer-paid disability compensation, because he was paralyzed when either he, or his equally drunken friend, drove down a ravine. So, not only does he have someone tying his tie, at taxpayer expense, but he wants to take away the food stamps 100,000 people (blameless, unlike him) depend on in Oklahoma. Another is practically any Republican legislator, or executive, and too many Democrats, who viscerally ally with wealth and power. The corollary is to look increasingly on those without wealth and power as people who are fundamentally disfigured, morally, not physically. Physically, of course, the poor are strong enough; they're just lazy, and given to drugs and sponging off Uncle Sam.
This kind of worldview justifies cutting Food Stamps, raising taxes on the poor--switching from income to sales taxes, for example--and at the same time, cutting taxes on the rich, and on business, "to attract" business, or talent. The epitome of this worldview might be refusing to extend unemployment insurance, while hiking subsidies or contracts to wealthy corporations. The reason given for opposing unemployment extensions is: 'who's paying for it,' but there is no empathy displayed by proponents for the losers. People who can't find jobs after 79 weeks, aren't usually unemployed by choice; they simply can't find jobs, and the longer they're out of the workforce, the less employable they are.
What happens to such people? Somehow, most of them survive, but because they're desperate, they'll do almost anything: like "crowd work" for job entrepreneurs, for a dollar an hour, or hauling radioactive waste for minimum wage, or, the even more desperate, or morally weak, may see various forms of crime as the means to survival.
This isn't happening by accident; it's happening because the extremely wealthy isolate themselves from the rest of us, and know that our misery feeds their ease and luxury, and besides, from their worldview, they deserve it and we deserve less than the crumbs from their groaning tables.
We probably won't call the next era feudalism. For one thing, the successor nobility to the Roman Senators, gained a sense of noblesse oblige, born perhaps from surviving together during the barbarian takeover: look after your dependents and they'll support you. Now, our contemporary Roman Senators don't feel any obligation to look after anyone but themselves and their own.
So what, if the climate is permanently f...ked, helped immeasurably by the likes of the Koch brothers, profiting from destroying it! The elite can live in climate-controlled estates, villages or cities with enough dependents surrounding them to do the work, while everyone else, outside, starves, thirsts, freezes or boils in the uninhabitable environment humans have created.
How do we avoid this outcome? Overthrow upper-class dominance; turn their class war against them. Restore balance. How?
Note, the above blog will be the last posted on the site roman-empire-america-now.com. Occasional blogs will be posted on this site. A new host for the above website may appear, if I can successfully transfer it.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Class War Requires XL Approval
>We should discourage, not encourage more oil and gas drilling and tar sands mining. "All of the above" (Obama's energy policy) will contribute significantly to a destroyed climate--is already. Only renewable, non-greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources deserve subsidies--unless we want to force our grandchildren to live in enclosed artificial climates, or not live at all.
It would make a good science fiction story: Rich people and their dependents living in huge domed villages and towns, while poor people try to survive outside of them.
Isn't this really what's in store for us if billionaires like the oil-soaked Kochs get to 'realize their investments' in all those fossil fuels heating up the planet?
Think about the trillions invested in oil/gas reserves, in the new fracking technology and in the mushrooming gas and oil leases. Big money is driven to realize high returns on its investments. That's why they're willing to spend many millions to get their way with governments and why it's so important to buy up Congress and even the Presidency. Think of all that money as small, additional investments to secure and realize profits from their very large holdings in oil, gas, tar sands, shale oil reserves and in the equipment and infrastructure (like the XL pipeline) to bring those substances to market.
Control by the few extremely wealthy means rising inequality, surveillance of everyone, militarized police, a large military, huge prison populations and growing numbers of surplus people, some of whom can be counted upon to do any dirty work the very rich need. Desperation is useful.
Not all of the extremely rich will admit it, but it's likely that most believe that anyone who doesn't have money has only himself to blame: obviously inferior, the undeserving poor.
In the late Roman Empire, the Senatorial class believed they deserved to lord it over everyone else, and they did, sometimes quite brutally. It was legal for a master to kill his slave, and it was legal for him to whip his serfs to death--and rape them, too, male or female. Senators also avoided paying most taxes.
Does the above read like an extreme version of what radical conservatives are trying to buy with their Tea Party millions? No, now we're too civilized: we imprison all those who challenge existing social arrangements, who cause chaos, violence and insecurity: whipping is for Singapore.
We don't have slaves and serfs--it's cheaper to exploit immigrants without rights, and then cut wages for anyone with a job, while demanding more and more work for the same wage. Why can they do this? They've destroyed most union jobs, weakened unions, traded away our manufacturing base, then plundered the economy through Wall Street, throwing millions out of work; they've also bought government stalemate. High unemployment and cutting off benefits is to the billionaires' advantage: desperate people are more easily controlled.
It's happening, now!
It would make a good science fiction story: Rich people and their dependents living in huge domed villages and towns, while poor people try to survive outside of them.
Isn't this really what's in store for us if billionaires like the oil-soaked Kochs get to 'realize their investments' in all those fossil fuels heating up the planet?
Think about the trillions invested in oil/gas reserves, in the new fracking technology and in the mushrooming gas and oil leases. Big money is driven to realize high returns on its investments. That's why they're willing to spend many millions to get their way with governments and why it's so important to buy up Congress and even the Presidency. Think of all that money as small, additional investments to secure and realize profits from their very large holdings in oil, gas, tar sands, shale oil reserves and in the equipment and infrastructure (like the XL pipeline) to bring those substances to market.
Control by the few extremely wealthy means rising inequality, surveillance of everyone, militarized police, a large military, huge prison populations and growing numbers of surplus people, some of whom can be counted upon to do any dirty work the very rich need. Desperation is useful.
Not all of the extremely rich will admit it, but it's likely that most believe that anyone who doesn't have money has only himself to blame: obviously inferior, the undeserving poor.
In the late Roman Empire, the Senatorial class believed they deserved to lord it over everyone else, and they did, sometimes quite brutally. It was legal for a master to kill his slave, and it was legal for him to whip his serfs to death--and rape them, too, male or female. Senators also avoided paying most taxes.
Does the above read like an extreme version of what radical conservatives are trying to buy with their Tea Party millions? No, now we're too civilized: we imprison all those who challenge existing social arrangements, who cause chaos, violence and insecurity: whipping is for Singapore.
We don't have slaves and serfs--it's cheaper to exploit immigrants without rights, and then cut wages for anyone with a job, while demanding more and more work for the same wage. Why can they do this? They've destroyed most union jobs, weakened unions, traded away our manufacturing base, then plundered the economy through Wall Street, throwing millions out of work; they've also bought government stalemate. High unemployment and cutting off benefits is to the billionaires' advantage: desperate people are more easily controlled.
It's happening, now!
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
BridgeGate
It's hard to feel sympathy for a bully who's been shown up to be one. When the New Yorker does a cover with little boy Chris Christie in the foreground, playing with a ball across lanes on backed up GW Bridge, you know something's up.
Chris Christie has high ambitions--to be the great white hope, a "centrist" Republican who wins the Presidency. With his landslide re-election, he seemed well placed: he could appeal to independents and Democrats, too.
But, like Nixon's Watergate, his miss-step was born of hubris: he wanted to "run up the numbers," i.e. win by the largest margin possible. He was doing it by bribing (legally, of course) and threatening, in order to gain endorsements of regionally prominent Democrats, or to discourage the kind of insubordination exhibited by Democratic legislators. While the target of the Fort Lee bridge pile up, most media claim was Fort Lee's mayor, there was also the tangled issue of re-nominating State Supreme Court Justices, in which the majority leader of the NJ Senate, a Democrat from Fort Lee, was at loggerheads with the Governor; Christie publicly referred to the Democratic Senate majority as "animals."
Either Governor Christie knew nothing about the Fort Lee operation to mete out vengeance, meaning he was an inattentive chief executive, who should never have been governor in the first place, or he inspired it (more likely) by a nod and a wink, and attempts to maintain what the CIA calls "deniability."
In either case, crimes were committed, as in Watergate; in this case they involve using public facilities for private purposes, and causing ancillary damage while doing so. It's entirely possible that prosecution will follow.
Even if Christie had no inkling of the plan at Fort Lee, his top-level administrators, and appointees like David "the-same-answer" take-the-Fifth Wildstein, thought that such massive dirty tricks were legitimate. His administration was, at very least, inspired by Christie to retaliate against his perceived enemies by wielding government to harass and frustrate. Perhaps it's his bully-boy persona that inspired his close aides to stage Bridgegate. Is this what a national Christie administration could look like? He could be worse than Nixon, complete with an enemies list and a yen to "get" his opponents. Christie already had a rep for retaliating against people who blocked him. BridgeGate could confirm it.
Christie was the most plausible candidate of the .01%, our contemporary Roman Senators, so he may still be a viable candidate: he could raise enough money to try to wash the Bridgegate stain away, but maybe that's not possible--unless our authoritarian elites remain willing to back him.
Why would they? So far, the only alternatives to surface are right-wing nuts: Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, neither of whom would be trusted by Wall Street. Look for other Republican "moderates" to test the waters. Somebody has to represent the corporate elite, and Democrats are at best unreliable.
Chris Christie has high ambitions--to be the great white hope, a "centrist" Republican who wins the Presidency. With his landslide re-election, he seemed well placed: he could appeal to independents and Democrats, too.
But, like Nixon's Watergate, his miss-step was born of hubris: he wanted to "run up the numbers," i.e. win by the largest margin possible. He was doing it by bribing (legally, of course) and threatening, in order to gain endorsements of regionally prominent Democrats, or to discourage the kind of insubordination exhibited by Democratic legislators. While the target of the Fort Lee bridge pile up, most media claim was Fort Lee's mayor, there was also the tangled issue of re-nominating State Supreme Court Justices, in which the majority leader of the NJ Senate, a Democrat from Fort Lee, was at loggerheads with the Governor; Christie publicly referred to the Democratic Senate majority as "animals."
Either Governor Christie knew nothing about the Fort Lee operation to mete out vengeance, meaning he was an inattentive chief executive, who should never have been governor in the first place, or he inspired it (more likely) by a nod and a wink, and attempts to maintain what the CIA calls "deniability."
In either case, crimes were committed, as in Watergate; in this case they involve using public facilities for private purposes, and causing ancillary damage while doing so. It's entirely possible that prosecution will follow.
Even if Christie had no inkling of the plan at Fort Lee, his top-level administrators, and appointees like David "the-same-answer" take-the-Fifth Wildstein, thought that such massive dirty tricks were legitimate. His administration was, at very least, inspired by Christie to retaliate against his perceived enemies by wielding government to harass and frustrate. Perhaps it's his bully-boy persona that inspired his close aides to stage Bridgegate. Is this what a national Christie administration could look like? He could be worse than Nixon, complete with an enemies list and a yen to "get" his opponents. Christie already had a rep for retaliating against people who blocked him. BridgeGate could confirm it.
Christie was the most plausible candidate of the .01%, our contemporary Roman Senators, so he may still be a viable candidate: he could raise enough money to try to wash the Bridgegate stain away, but maybe that's not possible--unless our authoritarian elites remain willing to back him.
Why would they? So far, the only alternatives to surface are right-wing nuts: Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, neither of whom would be trusted by Wall Street. Look for other Republican "moderates" to test the waters. Somebody has to represent the corporate elite, and Democrats are at best unreliable.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Orange is the New Black
Orange is the New Black, the women's prison series, started out with promise: a good story, a well-acted cast of fascinating people. By the last episode in the first season, everyone was a murderer, a psychopath, a lesbian, or all three.
According to Elizabeth Cunningham, Piper Kerman's memoir (same title) is very different, more like both our experiences of people in prison. We volunteered and I taught at several maximum-security New York prisons. I learned to respect and like a good number of inmates. One of the things about Orange… that rang true in the earlier episodes--was the range of attractive characters of every color: from flamboyant to wooden and from highly rational to incoherent.
Why did Netflix squander such a promising series to the point where the main character becomes a violent maniac, and everyone else, including administrators, is corrupt, a murderer, violent, deranged, or a sexual predator?
The last episodes went downhill quickly; they brought to life all the prison stereotypes--of vicious, lying, lusty lesbians. But their actions leading to the horrifying last scene make no sense in terms of the characters as they were initially portrayed. Elizabeth suggested the writers opted for sex and violence; maybe, Netflix pressured them to make it more sensational, i.e. commercial.
What's lost here is any real exploration of a major American problem: the exploding prison population and the growing proportion of incarcerated minorities and immigrants. We imprison more of our people per capita than the worst dictatorships, except for China. Even nations like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia imprison fewer than we do.
Prisoners, like the characters in the earlier scenes of Orange …, are real people with real quirks, stories and heartaches. Some are bad, most aren't. I encountered one man, famous for a terrible murder, who clearly belonged in prison. I was glad to have a prison guard right outside the partially open door. But he was the exception.
I learned from my 13 year experience teaching college courses there, that a lot of the people in prison were "inside" because of one bad choice in lives that offered many, and that most of them were as decent human beings as the people I encountered "outside." Many, perhaps most, would not have been in prison if they had been white, and living outside of ghettos. And most of my students were handicapped by terrible schools--not the faults of teachers, but of being crammed into classrooms and neighborhoods with too many kids with too many problems. While their command of written English was often spotty, most were bright, interested and motivated.
The waste of a promising venue for prison reform in Orange… parallels the human waste our criminal system imposes on American society: all the energy and talents of real people thrown into the garbage. Their loss reflects our increasingly unequal society, in which our "Roman Senators" accumulate increasing wealth and power at everyone else's expense.
According to Elizabeth Cunningham, Piper Kerman's memoir (same title) is very different, more like both our experiences of people in prison. We volunteered and I taught at several maximum-security New York prisons. I learned to respect and like a good number of inmates. One of the things about Orange… that rang true in the earlier episodes--was the range of attractive characters of every color: from flamboyant to wooden and from highly rational to incoherent.
Why did Netflix squander such a promising series to the point where the main character becomes a violent maniac, and everyone else, including administrators, is corrupt, a murderer, violent, deranged, or a sexual predator?
The last episodes went downhill quickly; they brought to life all the prison stereotypes--of vicious, lying, lusty lesbians. But their actions leading to the horrifying last scene make no sense in terms of the characters as they were initially portrayed. Elizabeth suggested the writers opted for sex and violence; maybe, Netflix pressured them to make it more sensational, i.e. commercial.
What's lost here is any real exploration of a major American problem: the exploding prison population and the growing proportion of incarcerated minorities and immigrants. We imprison more of our people per capita than the worst dictatorships, except for China. Even nations like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia imprison fewer than we do.
Prisoners, like the characters in the earlier scenes of Orange …, are real people with real quirks, stories and heartaches. Some are bad, most aren't. I encountered one man, famous for a terrible murder, who clearly belonged in prison. I was glad to have a prison guard right outside the partially open door. But he was the exception.
I learned from my 13 year experience teaching college courses there, that a lot of the people in prison were "inside" because of one bad choice in lives that offered many, and that most of them were as decent human beings as the people I encountered "outside." Many, perhaps most, would not have been in prison if they had been white, and living outside of ghettos. And most of my students were handicapped by terrible schools--not the faults of teachers, but of being crammed into classrooms and neighborhoods with too many kids with too many problems. While their command of written English was often spotty, most were bright, interested and motivated.
The waste of a promising venue for prison reform in Orange… parallels the human waste our criminal system imposes on American society: all the energy and talents of real people thrown into the garbage. Their loss reflects our increasingly unequal society, in which our "Roman Senators" accumulate increasing wealth and power at everyone else's expense.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden has done a tremendous service to the American people and to the world. He has not profited from his action to steal and divulge millions of government documents. He did so because it was the Government that was lying and committing the greater crimes of violating almost everyone's privacy. He deserves full amnesty, as do Chelsea Manning and others, for revealing CRIMES our government has committed, supposedly in our name. Proven liars like NSA's Clapper should be tried for perjury.
The New York Times wrote an editorial, of which the above is a brief synopsis. Essentially what they and the Progressive community want is to roll back the surveillance state.
Perhaps it's possible, although surveillance corporations will probably circumvent any government limits, and the technology for surveillance has become so powerful that entities with power will use it.
We are all like insects, under giant microscopes.
The last Roman Emperors probably dreamed they'd be able to do stuff like this, but could hardly keep track of the intrigue at court. They resorted, instead, to burning 'miscreants' alive on lamp-posts.
Now our "democracy" threatens Snowden with life in prison and hell, to begin with, just as they visited on Chelsea Manning--for revealing something most dangerous of all: the truth about Government lies.
Hell, Ed Snowden should get not only Amnesty, but the NObel Peace Prize, for revealing the absurdity of our international war culture and embarrassing the bully on the block, the USA.
Maybe peace and stability are still possible.
The New York Times wrote an editorial, of which the above is a brief synopsis. Essentially what they and the Progressive community want is to roll back the surveillance state.
Perhaps it's possible, although surveillance corporations will probably circumvent any government limits, and the technology for surveillance has become so powerful that entities with power will use it.
We are all like insects, under giant microscopes.
The last Roman Emperors probably dreamed they'd be able to do stuff like this, but could hardly keep track of the intrigue at court. They resorted, instead, to burning 'miscreants' alive on lamp-posts.
Now our "democracy" threatens Snowden with life in prison and hell, to begin with, just as they visited on Chelsea Manning--for revealing something most dangerous of all: the truth about Government lies.
Hell, Ed Snowden should get not only Amnesty, but the NObel Peace Prize, for revealing the absurdity of our international war culture and embarrassing the bully on the block, the USA.
Maybe peace and stability are still possible.
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