Social progress seems slow, but in societal terms it's probably moving about as fast as it can: acceptance of gays, even if the Supreme Court can't keep up with the changes in society, is lightning fast.
On the other hand, environmental progress is moving in reverse along with economic equality. War and instability have become more destructive, even if there is no "world war."
Post-Citizens United: corporatist conservatives must punch themselves with glee: successes small: sneaking through "the Monsanto protection act" in the Food bill, and big: persuading the chattering classes inside the Beltway that the deficit/debt is an urgent problem that only can be solved by cutting what they derisively call "entitlements," not subsidies to the burgeoning wealthy.
Our media is so skewed towards the agenda of the wealthy and corporations, that it doesn't seem absurd that we're slashing government spending when unemployment is far too high. Our media is more controlled by wealth and corporate interests than it was in Venezuela before Chavez. He opposed it with state-owned media, and selective de-licensing.
US media excoriated Chavez as a dictator, while he won landslides in at least five elections, elections certified by Carter as freer than the US.
Venezuela may have more democracy than we do, since Republicans work assiduously to deny the right to vote to likely opponents, and a Supreme Court Justice derides Voting Rights Act Section 5 as establishing voting rights as a "racial entitlement."
The US claims it's exceptional; it isn't, except in things we shouldn't crow about, like the highest per capita rate of incarceration, the most expensive and least effective health care system, a falling working wage, soaring inequality, and endemic violence fueled by our wide open "gun culture."
We don't, any longer, score high on educational attainment: almost every other OECD nation has higher college graduation rates: the US used to lead.
Our military is exceptional: the US has the world's most effective killing machine--long before we started using drones. But it still loses wars: Vietnam, Iraq (really), and now Afghanistan.
The size of our military is also exceptional, but that demonstrates another American failing: like North Korea, we spend more money on war-making than on any other "discretionary" government function--we substitute brute strength for sense. We value guns over children, even our own children (100+ days since Newtown and no new Federal gun control law). But the Bible is "brought to you by Walmart," an American company. Exceptional!
The American Empire hasn't lasted long; it's failing progressively and making enemies everywhere. Soon the muscle-bound US will be only the second wealthiest nation.
Targeting immigrants and homegrown terrorists with drones, disenfranchising minorities (those we haven't jailed) and the poor, the US is also becoming almost as authoritarian as China, our successful competitor.
Showing posts with label drones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drones. Show all posts
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Classic Catch 22!
"Obama Justice Department have argued individuals and organizations must be able to show they were monitored by the surveillance program to have standing and challenge it in court.
"But the program's target list is secret. The U.S. government won't tell potential targets whether they have been monitored. Therefore, the government contends, no one has standing." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/01/06/Under-the-US-Supreme-Court-Spying-on-Americans-phase-2/UPI-75011357461000/ - ixzz2HQS7khMr
This is reminiscent of Orwell--1984, Animal Farm--but this is real life! The NDAA gives the Administration the power to monitor any communications between anyone in the US and anyone overseas. If, in some cases, there have to be warrants issued by the FISA Court (a special court set up to oversee covert surveillance), warrants can be highly generalized: they might even permit surveillance on a whole class of potential suspects.
There is a whole lot going on behind closed doors! So far, the people who are supervising it, making use of it, are apparently doing so for what might pass as "the Common Good," as in protecting the US from terror attacks. What is scary: there are so few checks on this surveillance, even in the cantankerous Congress! If no one has a need to know, and it's classified, then no one will know. Except those who take unto themselves the need to know--like the President, the intelligence heads, Defense and Justice at the top levels.
And, there are ominous signs, like the upending of General Petraeus, and before him, Governor Eliot Spitzer, when both were caught in the general surveillance web, apparently by accident.
In the hands of a Stalin, or, arguably, a Nixon, the powers the President has amassed in the realm of National Security would easily lead to the kind of dictatorship Orwell described in 1984.
I wouldn't argue Obama has made the best choices, or that he's egoless in wielding power. But so far, it doesn't look as if he aspires to be the kind of dictator that sweeps opposition aside; or one who's driven to re-make the nation in his own image, through his overpowering personality.
Has no one in power really thought this through? The power they've seized since 9/11--in order to safeguard the nation--is the power to control the nation, but not the world.
US Drones may terrorize Pakistanis, Yemenis, Somalis, but look what all our vaunted power has gotten us there: recruits for al Qaeda. In Afghanistan: a lull before we leave. After we leave, who knows what will happen.
The American Empire is turning inward: the elites--government and corporate--are gaining the power to control us, power much greater than was held by Roman Senators over their serfs and slaves.
If the bipartisan drive towards austerity drives people to revolutionary desperation, then State repression will be necessary--for the survival of our Roman Senators--and the machinery will be ready to use.
"But the program's target list is secret. The U.S. government won't tell potential targets whether they have been monitored. Therefore, the government contends, no one has standing." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/01/06/Under-the-US-Supreme-Court-Spying-on-Americans-phase-2/UPI-75011357461000/ - ixzz2HQS7khMr
This is reminiscent of Orwell--1984, Animal Farm--but this is real life! The NDAA gives the Administration the power to monitor any communications between anyone in the US and anyone overseas. If, in some cases, there have to be warrants issued by the FISA Court (a special court set up to oversee covert surveillance), warrants can be highly generalized: they might even permit surveillance on a whole class of potential suspects.
There is a whole lot going on behind closed doors! So far, the people who are supervising it, making use of it, are apparently doing so for what might pass as "the Common Good," as in protecting the US from terror attacks. What is scary: there are so few checks on this surveillance, even in the cantankerous Congress! If no one has a need to know, and it's classified, then no one will know. Except those who take unto themselves the need to know--like the President, the intelligence heads, Defense and Justice at the top levels.
And, there are ominous signs, like the upending of General Petraeus, and before him, Governor Eliot Spitzer, when both were caught in the general surveillance web, apparently by accident.
In the hands of a Stalin, or, arguably, a Nixon, the powers the President has amassed in the realm of National Security would easily lead to the kind of dictatorship Orwell described in 1984.
I wouldn't argue Obama has made the best choices, or that he's egoless in wielding power. But so far, it doesn't look as if he aspires to be the kind of dictator that sweeps opposition aside; or one who's driven to re-make the nation in his own image, through his overpowering personality.
Has no one in power really thought this through? The power they've seized since 9/11--in order to safeguard the nation--is the power to control the nation, but not the world.
US Drones may terrorize Pakistanis, Yemenis, Somalis, but look what all our vaunted power has gotten us there: recruits for al Qaeda. In Afghanistan: a lull before we leave. After we leave, who knows what will happen.
The American Empire is turning inward: the elites--government and corporate--are gaining the power to control us, power much greater than was held by Roman Senators over their serfs and slaves.
If the bipartisan drive towards austerity drives people to revolutionary desperation, then State repression will be necessary--for the survival of our Roman Senators--and the machinery will be ready to use.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
An Empire or Not?
So, the US has sent 200 Marines to Guatemala. So, US arms sales total 78% of global arms sales. So, we have drones in all sorts of unlikely places in addition to Afghanistan and Pakistan--like Australia!
We spend $902 billion a year on so-called 'Defense,' and yet we've effectively lost every major war we've embarked upon after Korea in the 1950's.
Who 'won' in Vietnam? Who 'won' in Iraq? Who's bound to be at least a major party in the government of Afghanistan when we leave? Did you guess the Taliban? We didn't even win in Korea; we fought to a draw, and as a consequence, North Korea is a "rogue nation" that's still very much around. And "our man in Iraq," Nuri el Maliki, Iraq's PM, is tentatively neutral, but actually supportive of Iran vs the US, possibly because of his Shiite connections.
And yet, the US is involved militarily almost everywhere in the world. When a problem erupts, like the Syrian civil war, the first instinct of many Americans is to send in US troops, or air power, or sea power. Progressive hawks (there are many among Democrats) are often even ahead of the GOP, as witness those Marines in Guatemala. They're hunting drug cartels, an example of how we militarize police problems.
At the moment, an "armada" has been assembled in the Persian Gulf, led by the US, of course, but also including the UK and probably some of our Arab "allies." The assembly of the 'armada' could be relatively quiet, apparently, but it has been brought together to confront an enemy that often defies international laws and treaties.
Why? An article I refused to read in the Economist asserted in the first sentence that the US would have to step up vis a vis Syria, because it was supposed to 'police' the world.
Why is our Nobel Peace Prize President, Obama, overseeing so many acts of war all around the globe?
Why do Americans consent to pay such huge defense bills ($902 billions in 2012)? Over 58% of defense money spent by the top ten military powers in the world is spent by the US. And our military complain when China increases its budget!
Defense spending employs relatively few for the money it pays out--war Keynesianism is notoriously inefficient, yet Romney wants to increase spending (to 4% of GDP), possibly because he has no use for diplomacy. He was recently discovered saying on an outrageous video that there was no possibility for an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement, because "the Palestinians don't want peace."
It took Rome a couple centuries to discover it couldn't maintain pax Romanum over the 'known world.' How long before the US exhausts itself in a similar effort? I give us less than 20 years; the explosions over all the Muslim world inspired by a stupid video are only another sign: the US cannot police the world, and shouldn't try.
We spend $902 billion a year on so-called 'Defense,' and yet we've effectively lost every major war we've embarked upon after Korea in the 1950's.
Who 'won' in Vietnam? Who 'won' in Iraq? Who's bound to be at least a major party in the government of Afghanistan when we leave? Did you guess the Taliban? We didn't even win in Korea; we fought to a draw, and as a consequence, North Korea is a "rogue nation" that's still very much around. And "our man in Iraq," Nuri el Maliki, Iraq's PM, is tentatively neutral, but actually supportive of Iran vs the US, possibly because of his Shiite connections.
And yet, the US is involved militarily almost everywhere in the world. When a problem erupts, like the Syrian civil war, the first instinct of many Americans is to send in US troops, or air power, or sea power. Progressive hawks (there are many among Democrats) are often even ahead of the GOP, as witness those Marines in Guatemala. They're hunting drug cartels, an example of how we militarize police problems.
At the moment, an "armada" has been assembled in the Persian Gulf, led by the US, of course, but also including the UK and probably some of our Arab "allies." The assembly of the 'armada' could be relatively quiet, apparently, but it has been brought together to confront an enemy that often defies international laws and treaties.
Why? An article I refused to read in the Economist asserted in the first sentence that the US would have to step up vis a vis Syria, because it was supposed to 'police' the world.
Why is our Nobel Peace Prize President, Obama, overseeing so many acts of war all around the globe?
Why do Americans consent to pay such huge defense bills ($902 billions in 2012)? Over 58% of defense money spent by the top ten military powers in the world is spent by the US. And our military complain when China increases its budget!
Defense spending employs relatively few for the money it pays out--war Keynesianism is notoriously inefficient, yet Romney wants to increase spending (to 4% of GDP), possibly because he has no use for diplomacy. He was recently discovered saying on an outrageous video that there was no possibility for an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement, because "the Palestinians don't want peace."
It took Rome a couple centuries to discover it couldn't maintain pax Romanum over the 'known world.' How long before the US exhausts itself in a similar effort? I give us less than 20 years; the explosions over all the Muslim world inspired by a stupid video are only another sign: the US cannot police the world, and shouldn't try.
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