Obama's Mid East tour

While the corporate media fawned over the Obama's tour of the Middle East, Ali Abunimah commented on what Obama missed while he was meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Tim Shorrock revealed the "Hawks behind the Dove," Politico pointed out the weirdness of not allowing anyone in his entourage to wear the color green in Israel or Palestine, UCI historian of Islam and the Middle East, Mark LeVine,  pointed out the conceptual and political failings of not distinguishing between the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and the architect of the Soviet Afghan trap, Zbigniew Brezinski warned of the danger of replicating the Russian experience.

A Consumers' Republic

Here Joe Bageant, a RedState Rebel, offers what may be the most brilliant political analysis I've read all season. He explains the Obama phenomenon in terms of the dual, and interrelated, ascendances of the cultural left and the economic right. We've entered into a new "post-partisan" age in which politics are totally devoid of meaning. All that matters is style and branding. We live in a Consumers' Republic. We choose presidents the way we choose cans of soda pop.  

Obama tours Gaza; Calls for an end to the Siege

Just seeing if your payin' attention... 

Palestinians not excited about Obama (NYT)

An anthropological look at the struggle to defend the Iraq-Pakistan border

Here anthropologist William O. Beeman explains the weird rituals of the US-Iran war dance. Towards the end he makes an important point about the political leverage that an Absolute Enemy like Iran/US (in the various cultural contexts) offers. He references the common conspiracy theory that the US GOP will initiate and October Surprise war with Iran to help McCain's (otherwise dismal) chances at the polls. But he also mentions that all candidates stand to gain from the "Iran threat." All of the major candidates (Hillary, Obama, and McCain) have sought to demonstrate their "foreign policy credentials" by demonizing Iran. the threat from an enemy serves to silence dissent, and demobilize the citizenry. Most of all the super-bowl of the clash of civilizations makes sure that our attention remains directed safely away from any analysis of the distribution of class power both within the United States and globally. 

On McCain's effort to defend the Iraq-Pakistan border, watch this.

The Fate of Empire

In the summer of 2006, Israel waged savage if ultimately unsuccessful war on Lebanon to get its two captured soldiers back (while Obama led the cheer leading section, its worth adding). It failed. It was forced to recognize, yet again, that there are clear and absolute limits to the kind of power that "flows from the barrel of a gun." Israel, once seen as nearly omnipotent in the face of its Arab neighbors, faced military defeat at the hands of Hizballah for the second time in less than seven years. 

Well Israel got the bodies of its soldiers back, but not under the conditions of its own  choosing. This is what it looks like when Empires fall. 

Here are the coffins of Arab bodies that Israel was forced to hand over to Nasrallah:

The Fate of Empire

A word to would be Empires:

This is what defeat looks like. You may want to get used to it.  

Angry Arab warns: "Make no mistake about it: the Supply of Arabs willing to fight Israeli occupation  will never deplete. Never."

NetRoots, NetPower

This one got me:

"Move Over MoveOn.org"

as did this one:

"Netroots Nation, or Nation of Sheep"

I signed up

Note to Sheep: Beware of Wolves

Discourse on Obama

Here is a discourse on Obama with my dear friend and co-conspirator in "animating the global awakening." The post is his. To which I have offered a few comments in the spirit of upmost respect and admiration. 

Constitution? Who needs a Constitution when you have $$$, lots of it!

I don't suppose that Obama was ever required to read the Constitution when he was teaching Constitutional Law, or else he might have noticed Article I, Section 9:

"No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." 

(Retroactive immunity is, by definition, "ex post facto"...)

Clinton's Third Term

News Flash: 

Obama appoints Hawks to guard Dove house. Here the NYT lists Obama's FP advisers. Not a single ME expert among his ME advisers, you know how dangerous the opinions of ME experts can be...

The same could be said of his econ policy advisers. Placing Robert Rubin, the founder of Rubinomics, and the architect of financial market deregulation in the 1990s, in a high position is most certainly putting the foxes in charge of the proverbial henhouse. These are after all the corporate thieves who have given us the current global economic meltdown.

If the electorate wanted a third Clinton term, wouldn't they have voted for Clinton? 

Alarm Bells, Empire and Obama

The friend of my enemy is my enemy: if NYT publishes an opinion praising Obama's foreign policy stands as sensible, then I know we're in trouble. (The NYT particularly likes his commitment to retaining the ominously titled "residual force" in Iraq, and his commitment to "surge" American forces in Afghanistan.  (Obama's "plan" is here.)

Here Tom Hayden takes the time to actually learn something about Afghanistan so as to better explain why sending more American forces there is not a good idea. And here Howard Zinn offers a more general critic of war and militarism.  

And here Corey B. Walker, Asst Prof of Africana studies at Brown and the author of the forthcoming The Noble Fight: African American Freemasons and the Struggle for Democracy in America offers a critique of American imperialism in both it Democratic and Republican guises. 

Juan Cole, a man with very deep knowledge of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and who is generally very supportive of the whole Obama enterprise offers what he calls a "friendly critique" of Obama's "plan." But while he calls it a "friendly critique," what he has to say is really quite devastating. It reveals the depth of Obama's ignorance (as well as some political and character flaws), and leads me to wonder,  if you really have no concept or capacity to comprehend social, political, and military developments in places like Iraq and Afghanistan why on god's green earth would you expend massive amounts of US blood and treasure to remake them in "America's image"? And if Obama is not motivated by a idealistic/ neo-conservative/ interventionist ideology (call it idealism with a knife) of spreading American values (whatever those are... ) at gunpoint, but he is rather driven by a realist concern for American power and security, then his strategy is even worse, as it reveals deep ignorance regarding the geopolitical forces at work in those places where he'd like to send American forces, and suggests that he really has no idea how to work carrots and sticks to achieve stated geo-political objectives. The danger here is the JFK/LBJ effect trying to prove your tough by beating up on some foreign country for what are essentially domestic political reasons only to be drawn into a quagmire with devastating consequences for your political brand-name (not to mention domestic policy objectives). its not just bad policy, its bad politics.  

exxodus

Desperate times call for... Hunter S. Thompson

Political symbolism

The flag pin is a symbol and a sign of an authoritarian political culture. As is the pledge of allegiance.

William Blum, the legendary analyst of CIA interventions, offers a thoughtful critique of patriotism and nationalism (he doesn't see a distinction between the two).

I was curious to see how Native American groups responded to the 4th of July. I wondered, what meaning do Native Americans attach to the symbolism of the "Fourth." I found a tremendous array of John Trudell's spoken word (see: Crazy Horse; Look at US; Earth: The Living Entity). But, Almost to my surprise, I found absolutely nothing that addressed the issue directly.  I concluded from this that its pretty meaningless, and that many Native Americans have their own symbols that they invest meaning in. 

Similarly, I wonder how different African-Americans understand the meaning of July 4, 1776. Is that date an important landmark in African-American history? Here is Frederick Douglass's famous 1852 reflection, "The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro." Of course there are other and more recent interpretations. I'd be curious to hear what Rev. Wright might have to say. 

Obviously the meaning of any political symbol is multivalent, multi-layered, and highly complex. It seems that what is most authoritarian is when when one set of meanings is imposed on all, or when recognition and celebration of any given symbol (like the flag pin) is mandatory, and enforced in a myriad of ever so subtle, and not so subtle ways. It seems that this is how the values of the ruling class are imposed on subaltern classes. Through these kinds of symbols, through flags, and pins, and anthems, and history books and news papers, and cable news networks. No one symbol seems all that significant (unless of course you microwave it and subject it ethnographic analysis- and so reveal its deep structural meanings), but the cumulative effect, is a rather psychopathic country that perpetrates gross violence on all perceived "enemies," near and far, while the public vacillates between jingositic support, and bored indifference (of course their is always subaltern resistance... but perhaps that is a topic for another post). How is it that our country and our  government can do what they do, and nobody seems to give a shit. If we're looking for answers, I don't think that flag pins are bad place to start.  

the other 4th

Somehow the 4th makes me want to watch old videos of interviews with Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia. 

Hunter S. Thompson: "Having a favorite baseball team is like having a favorite oil company." On Govt LSD: "Your attributing too much strength and mystery to the enemy." HST on Kesey: "Ken Kesey said to me sometime around 1967 that he was never going to write again, he thought it was a bad way to communicate... it looks like he carried out his threat." But he goes on to say that "very few writers have ever produced two books as good as cuckoo and notion."

Tim Russert interrogates a broken and shattered man on his death bed for his lack of patriotism on the eve of war. but even in his broken and shattered state, HST manages to assert that Collin Powell was full of shit and that "this is a war that we will be bogged down in for a generation." 

John Cusack remembers HST. 

Johnny Depp channels HST in all of his brilliant madness, pt1, pt2,and pt3.

Its rather remarkable that there is no biography of Kesey. A social biography of this fascinating, heroic figure could be a tremendous entree into some of the most important developments of our time. Sometimes I think I am just passing through academia, and writing that biography is my true calling.

Kesey's last words were an essay in Rolling Stone calling for peace in aftermath of 911. He died on Nov 10, 2001. Obit in the Independent, and NYT Obit

Red State Rebels

Yikes! The levy may not hold....

McCain and the Helms legacy

McCain on the Helms legacy: "Let us remember a life dedicated to serving this nation."

Tower 7

Good news! They're about to figure out why Tower 7 fell. Now if they could just figure out how to explain how Muhammad Atta's passport managed to survive a fire hot enough to melt steel.

Net Power

Obama's id: "Doh! I knew I shouldn't have let that internet cat out of the bag!"

The Iraqi Front in the Vietnam War

I love the idea of a "post-partisan" politics as much as the next guy, but what if there were  partisan battles still raging whose outcome was not yet determined? What if the Vietnam War (within American society) was still going on, and the main front had just shifted a few thousand miles East? Then what good would a post-partisan politics do us? 

As Dr. King said in speech that got him shot, there is  a deep sickness within American society that leads us to perpetuate gross violence on distant (and some not so distant) societies. If we don't confront that sickness right here and right now, it will simply re-percolate over and over again.  We can't move on from the Vietnam War, because it is still with us. we need leadership. We need to drag these monsters out from under the bed where they can be grappled with honestly. We need someone who can compel us to do what we know we need to do, but are afraid to. We don't want to be told what we want to hear, we want to be told what we don't want to hear, but know we must. This is no time to live like mice. 

No War, or else...

Will Obama now turn Right on Iraq? You know 4 right turns takes you in circle, 8 right turns takes you in 2 circles. If you keep turning right you don't actually go anywhere... (Although, in truth, I don't know if shifting your position from unintelligibly  vague to even more unintelligibly vague constitutes a right turn).

Robert Fanita argues that we should probably prepare ourselves for yet another right turn. Tom Hayden lays out some minimum demands for the peace movement to bring to Obama. My question is, minimum demands, or what?? Or we'll "throw our vote away" and vote for Nader? Obama knows we're boxed, we've got nowhere to go. We have no recourse. We are totally powerless, and entirely dependent on his largess. If he decides to throw us a bone, we'll say thank you and take it. If decides to let us starve, we'll argue, "at least he's better than McCain." This is democracy in the "land of the free and the home of the brave." If we could just figure out how to export that to Iraq and Afghanistan we might live a better world.  

in any case, it looks as though Obama's on his way to Iraq to ask the Generals what he should do once he is president. Let me guess they will say that war is going beuatifully. We've turned the corner, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, all we need is more troops and more time... 

I think going to Iraq is a brilliant idea, but not to ask the generals anything. He should be TELLING  them to pack their bags because they are coming home. Not in 16(ish) months, and not depending on "what the conditions on the ground are."  But immediately because 1) American forces have no right to be there, and 2) we cannot afford this bullshit war. While he is there he should be meeting with regional leaders to discuss how US war reparations and humanitarian assistance to those displaced by the American initiative are to be coordinated. No permanent bases, no residual "anti-terrorism" forces, no Blackwater security contractors to defend ExxonMobil's newly acquired holdings.  But Obama doesn't really care what I think. Perhaps if I was 80, lived in Virginia, went to Church every sunday, and wore an American flag pin on my lapel, he 'd show some interest in my one meaningless vote. But given that I am 30, live in California (a state that is not being contested), have never been to any Church, and have never worn a lapel, let alone a flag pin, I don't count. 

The Question of Nationalism

On declaring independence from Nationalism (that is unless your Palestinian and facing dispossession in the face of Zionist colonization (Angry Arab seems to assert this about once a week), or Iraqi and facing dispossession in the face of rapacious global capitalists allied to ethno-separatist in the north and south.) I'm not so sure that the issue of nationalism is as black and white as much of the post-colonial tradition would have us believe. 

Thoroughly unsorted thoughts in my own mind- but I can recognize the contradictions in my own mental processes between believing that nationalism is a totalizing an homogenizing discourse that obliterates all difference, and my sympathy for nationalist movements in opposition to to imperialism. And in the history of Iraq, the big ideological contest has been between the "Iraqists" and the Pan-Arabists. The Iraqist were inclusive of Shi'is and Kurds in their conception of national identity, whereas the pan-Arab national socialism of the Ba'th closely resembles other "national socialisms" we have known.

Its seems that nationalism is malleable enough to be defined in all sorts of ways, including ways that respect labor and the environment.   

Perhaps redefining the meaning of national symbols to meet contemporary needs is the more efficacious political strategy than a frontal assault on something that enjoys as much cultural hegemony as modern nationalism. Perhaps not. I don't know.

American political discourse: empty or loaded?

In 1972 Richard Nixon began brandishing an American Flag pin on his lapel to demonstrate his support for the war in Vietnam. Its since become a symbol of one's commitment to American militarism (usually in place of actually fighting in, or sending one's own kids to fight in, American wars). 

Nostalgia

November 8, 2006 was a very big day for me. That morning Melissa's water broke and and we went to the hospital to deliver our first child. While we were waiting in the hospital room, we were watching the TV. Rummy was up there doing the walk of shame. His resignation seemed to symbolize the crushing defeat that his party suffered in the previous day's election. The returns from the Webb, Tessler, and ("call me Harold") Ford races were still coming in, but we knew which way the 50-50 was going to break in at least the first two ("call me Harold..."). Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of House. By 4:30 Melissa started very serious labor, and at 7:33 Jordan made his appearance. It was a bright beautiful day. It seemed that a whole new era was dawning.  Then what happened?

We got a "surge." 

What happens when all the red and blue lights go out, the bells stop ringing, and the whistles stop blowing,  and the circus is over? 

Should we be surprised when corporate democrats serve their corporate masters? 

Left, Right and Center?

Is Obama moving from the "Left" to the "center," or from the center to the Right?

RealStupidPolitik

Do candidates have to run on a clear agenda, or just vague promises of change? Krugman compares the Reagan model to the Bill Clinton model.

Huffington explains the difference between RealPolitik and RealStupidPolitik.

The Vital "Center" of American Politics

A whopping 4% of Americans believe that Israel is doing "very well" in "the effort to to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."