Aug 14, Next: American Troops in Georgia?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:46:42 GMT

Aug 12, Georgian Limits to Empire

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:04:59 GMT

"Yes," said my friend living in Sweden, "there are advantages to living in a boring country." Just think: they aren't fighting two wars; their young people aren't under fire from supposed allies, and their country probably has as much influence with Russia and Georgia as we do, i.e. none at all. The Georgian war shows the bankruptcy of Bush-Cheney-McCain foreign policy. We encouraged the Saakashvili government to pursue NATO membership; Georgians had the mistaken belief that the West would protect them from Russia. Saakashvili stupidly marched into South Ossetia, despite a recently reinforced Russian army "peacekeeper" presence. How any Georgian, knowing any of their past history--a tiny country, long dominated by Russia and then absorbed by the USSR--would think they could get away with this is mysterious, unless Saakashvili truly believed that NATO troops would be right behind him. Did the American Ambassador encourage him in this idiocy, the way we encouraged the Hungarians in 1956? The US really has no leverage. We are in debt, our troops are over-stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the West is in a burgeoning recession. Meanwhile, Russia is resurgent from oil and other raw materials; it is re-asserting its power over its neighborhood, and all the US can realistically do is say, "Please stop." It has been pointed out ad nauseam that Saakashvili is the popularly elected President, but if Georgia is a real democracy (unlike the US), his people should throw him out of office for the stupidity of his attack: what was he thinking? That would also mollify the Russians, who have no reason to go away unless they get at least some of what they want: a more friendly Georgian government. As for the US Empire: you see how much good it does in the world? Our meddling causes mischief almost everywhere. I know this is a very unpopular position, but someone has to say it again and again: the US should dismantle its military bases around the world; it should renounce empire and concentrate on rebuilding "the homeland." We could become a "boring country" like Sweden or Canada, and we'd all be a lot better off. So would the rest of the world. What are the chances of this happening? Considering that our military-industrial complex dominates this nation, and depends upon our imperial reach to justify itself, and considering that its expenditures (funded by you and me) amount now to almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars, chances are low to nil--until our economy, and our funders (China, Japan and the oil-nations) force us to retreat--like Rome in 476. Then it will be too late.

Aug 6, Winning in Iraq and Afghanistan

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:22:46 GMT

What is "winning" in Iraq, or Afghanistan? Neither McCain nor Obama really know what that means.

Aug 6, Oil Drilling Politics

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:59:10 GMT

I had a political argument with a NY steamfitter today. He was expatiating on the devious Democrats, who closed down Congress to prevent debate on a Republican bill for offshore drilling. "I mean, 70 of Americans are for it; it'll lower gas prices!" I told him people were being misled by Republican propaganda, that drilling offshore would bring negligible results and only after ten or twenty years. No, he insisted, there was "this pool off California that has as much oil as Saudi Arabia!" I was skeptical, but I did the research later--there is one pool that might have 11 billion barrels in it, according to oil industry geology--not proven oil, though some blogger, a not very informed critic, was saying there was 82 billion, enough for an 11 years supply. My steamfitter agreed when I pointed out to him that we had to reduce oil use to curb global warming, but insisted that most people didn't care. Is this true? He said that most of his co-workers, when re-filling big refrigeration units, didn't use the required, elaborate recapture mechanism when taking out the old gas--it took too long: they just released all those CFC's into the atmosphere, despite the international treaty protecting the ozone layer. "They" might have been the speaker. After I made choking noises, he thought about it, then opined that there was a $10,000 reward to anyone who reported a violation like that. Has no one been prosecuted for doing this, despite the hefty reward? Anyway, back to the oil-drilling conundrum. The Republicans think they've found an issue, and can please their oil-patch friends at the same time: both win. But the rest of us lose--if they get away with it. Democrats need to come up with alternatives: another rebate targeted to the people who are hurting could be funded by a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. We do need to cut oil consumption, and high gas prices are already accomplishing that. Opening up offshore oil drilling, would only profit oil companies down the road--unless they were taxed for any windfall profits. Would they drill then? In this vein, here's a cute idea: Drill anywhere, but "...open drilling season comes with a simple quid pro quo. The oil industry gets slapped with a windfall profits tax that takes away any revenue in excess of $3 a gallon. Since we know it takes time to search for oil and drill wells, we can even give the oil boys a six-month grace period before the windfall tax takes effect. [Dean Baker, Truthout, 8/05/08] How about it Obama?

Aug 5, Pakistan in Afghanistan?

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:26:42 GMT

In a significant development noticed by very few, the civilian Pakistani government attempted to take control of the ISI (Pakistan's equivalent of the CIA and FBI rolled into one). The move had been in response to the recent bombing of India's Afghan embassy in Kabul, which American investigators blamed in part on Pakistan's ISI, working with the Taliban. Pakistan's ISI, or elements within it, may be a major participant in the Afghan war behind the scenes. BUT the government failed in its takeover! The civilian government's directive was rescinded when the military objected. Up until now, the ISI has been nominally controlled by Pakistan's military, or perhaps vice-versa (the army's commanders have lately been former heads of the ISI). The plot thickens: why would Pakistanis work with the Taliban? Back in the 1980's the ISI, aided by the CIA, helped the mujihadeen fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. The CIA even resurrected the Muslim League's catchy slogan: "Islam In Danger!" to rally Muslim fundamentalists against the Soviets. The most aggressive mujihadeen later formed both al Qaeda and the Taliban--and I wouldn't be surprised if both have maintained ties to the ISI. Our covert war has come back to bite us. Like Vietnam, the Afghanistan government's control outside the capital is sketchy, and like Vietnam there is a determined nationalist opposition, whose appeal now is partly that it opposes the foreigners supporting the government. Afghanistan differs from Vietnam in that neither government nor Taliban control large areas of Afghanistan; regional warlords do; many represent the central government only in name. The Taliban (overthrown by NATO) opposes the government installed after NATO intervention, but it also opposes most warlords; it is now fighting where the central government's control is in dispute, or buttressed by foreign armies, but it's probable that if the Taliban overthrew the government, it would then go after the warlords; it did before. Still, the resources of the warlords are not readily available to help the government against the Taliban. Why? The government is largely Pashtun, as is the Taliban, but Pashtuns only account for 35-42 of the population, while the northern warlords represent other ethnic groups: Tajiks are the main rival group (29 to 33), then Uzbeks and Hazara, but there are others, too. Afghanistan is an unpromising place for Empires. Not only ethnically divided, its mountain people are isolated and insular, fighting off invaders and each other for millennia. Russian, British and Soviet empires foundered in their attempts to control it; the USSR's demise was hastened by its Afghan war. Will the US be next? "Winning" is not in the cards; the Afghan brew is too complicated.

Jul 30, "Moral Leadership?"

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:15:22 GMT

How can the rest of the world look to the US "for moral leadership?" There seems to be an assumption that it should, but how? We may have led in World War II, but despite our folklore to the contrary, it was the USSR--and the Russian land-mass that really defeated the Nazis; we provided the weapons and backed up their huge battles with the Normandy invasion. We may have led the world in idealism, perhaps even before World War I, but we sputtered over McCarthyism and foundered in Vietnam. Today we are not even looked upon as particularly civilized. Our public services are pitiful (compare American trains with European or even Indian trains); our laws are draconian (how many other developed nations execute their citizens; while we execute even women, and did execute children); is there another developed country that spends so much on healthcare and still doesn't cover significant portions of the population? How many other "democracies" have as low an election turnout as we do, and how many have turned their vote counting over to private companies' "proprietary" systems? Do we even have free elections? What makes the US exceptional today is the huge investment we make in war-making, to the profit of a tremendous number of international corporations--most, but not all, headquartered in the US. We spend more than the rest of the world combined, but that's not moral leadership, that's stupidity. Not even the Pentagon can keep track of all the money it spends. How can the US offer the world "moral leadership," when it goes around bombing and invading countries just because it's decided their regimes should be "changed," because they are counter to American "interests?" Our Constitution is globally admired, our Bill of Rights offers the strongest protections to our citizens, but it was breached long ago: recently Congress approved Bush's nearly universal warantless wiretapping. The Bush administration even spent legal resources on justifying torture (which they called "enhanced interrogation techniques"), and on determining that it could detain anyone indefinitely without cause . The Court did rule against the latter, thankfully, so unlimited tyranny was averted by one Supreme Court vote. Who is really in charge? A clue was a report on the privatization of the military and the security services. For example, NSA is dependent upon one contractor for more than half of all its work. Privatization has placed power in corporate hands. If Obama is elected (still a big if), he would have a lot of work to do before the US again can offer the kind of moral leadership that it could in say 1945.

Jul 22, Leader as Idiot

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:08:29 GMT

McCain says he's learning "to do a google." He's confessed many times that he doesn't know about economics and he just had to fire his primary economics advisor because of bad press: Phil Gramm said the recession was a moral problem and the US was a "nation of whiners." Further, McCain wants the Bush tax cuts made permanent--they've done so much good! He wants to expand Bush's war-policy: staying in Iraq indefinitely, while pursuing "pre-emptive" wars all over the place; never mind about paying for them: he doesn't do economics. So, why is McCain even a credible possibility for winning election? Why do the polls put him only somewhat behind Obama, who, on virtually any of the above issues is much closer in his positions to large majorities of Americans' concerns? McCain has a reputation as a "maverick." He bucked his party on a few issues: regulating campaign finances (somewhat: McCain-Feingold is now on the books and campaign finance regulation is wildly ineffective); initially opposing Bush on torture--before compromising away his position--and recognizing that we have to do something about global warming (his policy positions on this are much too little, and too industry-friendly, but do represent a small difference from Bush). There are two other reasons. One is obvious: McCain's friendly relations with reporters and media, generally. This is not accidental: McCain has courted the press for years. Would that Obama could have such easy give and take with reporters. Because of his good press relations, McCain can get away with the most outrageous miss-statements (like his oft-repeated confusion of Shiite and Sunni in Iraq) or ridiculous policy proposals, like his response to rising gas prices: open up more drilling offshore, even if environmentally sensitive, so oil companies might find more oil there someday; if they brought any to market, it would be after the beginning of the next presidential term. McCain claims more foreign policy expertise than Obama, but his miss-statements belie that, and he would apparently rather bomb Iran than speak to its leaders. In addition, the press has overlooked a serious "character issue" re McCain: his explosive temper, even displayed on the Senate floor. He'd have his finger on the trigger! There is one issue that gives McCain a stealth advantage: race. He's the white guy; Obama's not trans-racial to many voters; he's black, but people won't talk about this. The American Empire could self-destruct from the racist legacy of slavery. To put McCain in power because he is white is to be "hoist by our own petard," like Roman Senators denying, to the end, that Rome could fall--until it did.

Jul 18, The Right-wing Implies
Obama Supported Terrorists!

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:24:54 GMT

New York Sun and the Spectator that Obama provided support to an "Islamist," Raila Odinga, when the latter ran for President of Kenya! Further, Odinga is supposed to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NAMLEF, the Kenyan Muslim organization, committing him to transform largely Christian Kenya into a Muslim state governed by Sharia law like Saudi Arabia! The subtext was that Obama is a covert Muslim. First of all, Obama is not Muslim, and neither was his father. His grandfather was a convert, and one of his (many) half-brothers is, but the closest Obama ever came to being a Muslim was when he was enrolled (at age 6?) by his step-father in a public school in Indonesia; the school recorded his step-father's religion as Muslim, at a time when not being identified as a Muslim meant he was a Communist. Hundreds of thousands of Communists had recently been killed by Suharto's military regime. Further, adding to the absurdity of the allegations, Odinga is a Christian, as is about 80 of the Kenyan population. Also, the supposed Memorandum of Understanding, Wikileaks points out, is an obvious forgery to which no Kenyan presidential candidate could possibly agree: all its purported conditions were unconstitutional, as well as politically impossible to realize. The government party opposing Odinga probably forged it; its intent was to discredit Odinga with the large Christian evangelical population. But there had been a Memorandum between NAMLEF and Odinga: it was an agreement by Odinga to look into the cases of about 100 Muslim Kenyans who had been extraordinarily renditioned, probably under Bush-Cheney sponsorship, either to Guantanamo or to nations of convenience like Somalia, where they could be interrogated by torture. The Kenyan government had been a willing collaborator in Bush's covert war on terror; Odinga was campaigning against its abuses. So, Obama supported a candidate who was critical of Bush's East Africa policies, a candidate who was Christian and campaigning for democracy; he is now Prime Minister of Kenya. Officially, Kibaki's government proclaimed election victory, but Odinga had won. The stolen election resulted in widespread protests and an internationally brokered compromise placed Odinga at the head of government; his rival, Kibaki, remains as President. Confirming the more realistic version of the Memorandum, the Muslim leaders reminded Odinga, after he took office, that he needed to pursue the case of the Muslim Kenyans in Guantanamo. What amazing fantasies conservative news outlets spread as truth, to cement in people's minds that Obama is a closet Muslim, an ally of terrorists. It doesn't matter to the right wing if it's pure fiction! Will the real terrorists please stand up!

Jul 17, Middle East Oil, Roman Slaves

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:18:28 GMT

Empires are driven by their energy source: the Romans by the need for slaves, the US by its need for oil.

Jul 16, Saying The Economy is Strong

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:36:07 GMT

What if President Bush had said: "The economy is in deep doodoo," instead of, "the economy is strong," as he has been saying for months? What if he'd gone on to say, "I was really wrong about Iraq. We have to get our valiant troops out of there! Besides, it drains dollars we should be spending within the country, rebuilding our ailing infrastructure, educating our young people, putting that money in the hands of Americans, not Iraqis--especially since Iraqis say they don't want us there anymore." Obama would say the second part. In fact he's been saying it for quite some time. Perhaps no President could say the first part, although FDR was responding to an economic crisis when he said, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." But it's not presidential to say your country is in deep doodoo. Besides, if a President said that, the stock market would dive through the floor. That's why a President wouldn't say it. This gets to the whole question of what a President can say, and what he can't. He can't really "say it like it is." Too much hangs on his words. Early in the primary season, before Edwards dropped out, Obama argued that words matter, while Hillary insisted that only actions were important. As this case points out, words matter a lot. Imagine what Obama would say, if he were President now, and what would McCain say if he were? The only Roman Emperor after Diocletian (284-305) who proclaimed that things were bad and actually tried to do something about it was Majorian (457-461), who was assassinated for his popularity. McCain and Bush both remind me of the ineffective Emperors who led Rome downhill without ever acknowledging the danger: Honorius, Valentinian III, Maximus, Avitus, Libius Severus, Olybrius, etc. down to Romulus Augustulus. McCain supporters, and especially the economic poobahs who proclaim that all we need is more free trade and less regulation, remind me of the wealthy of the 5th century; they assumed that Rome was eternal, until suddenly it wasn't. McCain insists on following Bush's economic and foreign policies, but that will lead us in the same downward spiral. We need something different. Could President Obama say, at least, "We've been going in the wrong direction; we need to change course." He's already said it. We need a President to be like FDR, not so much a visionary as a charismatic who can lead, and is willing to experiment until we find a way to deal with the crisis. We don't need someone who assures us that this tanking economy is "fundamentally sound."

Jul 9, Obama's Right-wing Budget?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:51:57 GMT

Whether Obama is "tacking rightwards" or not depends on what you think is important. His several "tacks" show that he's willing to compromise when he thinks it isn't worth it to stonewall (on Fisa, especially). But on the budget, Obama is a progressive when he derides McCain's claim that he'll balance it, while Obama makes no such claim. He says, there are too many important things that require expenditures that will keep us in the red. Like universal health care and better education and infrastructure. Which goes to show that he's more progressive than the Clintons. Think about it: who benefits from a balanced budget in a recession? Possibly the banks, which would see lower interest rates, and possibly investors--but with some important caveats. Investors won't invest if there is no rising demand for the goods or services they could produce, and besides, they may be more likely to invest in China or Vietnam instead of in the US, especially if McCain prevails, since he's for expanding "free trade" even further. On the other hand, spending on health care, education and infrastructure would bolster domestic demand directly--as it did when FDR began deficit spending to get us out of the Depression. And, with oil prices likely to keep rising, with the sub-prime mortgage credit crunch still not hitting its peak and the dollar still falling, it's likely our recession won't be far from Depression levels. Or will settle in with stagflation. So, deficit spending domestically makes sense--unless inflation begins to soar--because the three factors above (oil, credit and the dollar) all subtract from demand--as does money going overseas to the war in Iraq. Since Obama has not "tacked" away from withdrawal from Iraq--he assures us--the savings from the war could finance at least some of his initiatives; allowing Bush's tax cuts to expire would finance more. Progressive economists were upset when Clinton signed onto budget balancing, because a lot of progressive initiatives were lost through that decision. What was gained? Bush took the surplus and spent it on war and tax cuts, the first depleting our wealth, the second skewing it upwards. Budget deficits don't make sense when the economy is booming, and they don't make sense when spent on unnecessary wars, or on tax cuts that finance elite pyramids of gold. They do make sense when a nation's schools, roads and health are in disrepair and the economy is in recession, but only a progressive appears to recognize that. 5th century Roman Senators would arrange for the assassination of any Emperor who proposed taxes on them; that's why Rome fell.

Jul 8, Fall of Rome

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:06:19 GMT

I have been thinking about the Roman versus USA comparison for over thirty years. I have known these insane end of the world christians because I had

Jul 8, Fall of Rome

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:06:13 GMT

I have been thinking about the Roman versus USA comparison for over thirty years. I have known these insane end of the world christians because I had

Jul 8, Patriotism For Dummies

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:03:28 GMT

Is a bigger flag better? Are louder, more colorful fireworks evidence of more patriotism (or Patriotism)? Is America moving onward and upward because the Yankees and other New York teams are all moving into new "state of the art" stadiums? Is it true that the new stadia have fewer, more expensive seats? A long-time Yankee fan told me this; it's because it was necessary to make more space for the ridiculously expensive "sky-boxes" leased to large corporations--their CEO's have to have better venues for entertaining their friends and clients. Meanwhile oil trades at over $140 a barrel. I wrote a blog not six months ago pointing out the likelihood of $100 oil. The dollar falls against the Euro and the Yen, and keeps on falling, especially since the European central bank has decided to raise interest rates to discourage inflation; inflation is hitting here, too, along with rising unemployment, a tanking stockmarket and scarce credit. But we'll get a bigger Yankee stadium, and maybe we'll be able to sell more of whatever it is we still produce, because of the lower dollar. Good times. Dean Baker pointed out in Truthout that "free trade" agreements are really all about creating conditions which pit American factory workers for jobs against Mexican and Indian or Chinese workers, i.e. the agreements are for driving wages down, as well as exporting jobs. One of the insights that we were supposed to have learned with the New and Fair Deals (FDR and Truman, respectively), was that you needed a prosperous middle class, made up even of factory workers, to fuel the consumer economy necessary for the modern industrial and post-industrial age. The reason the world economy is on the skids is because American decision-makers have lost sight of that central idea. That's why "supply-side" economics superseded Keynesianism; it's why almost all economic management has been ceded to the Fed. Oh, I forgot about "the stimulus checks." My mother's went to pay another installment in last year's hospital bill (after Medicare). Ours? Who knows; we haven't gotten it yet. With more and more people falling out of the middle class, the great American consumer engine is sputtering--but we get new and better stadiums. And New Orleans still hasn't been rebuilt, but it looks as if it will exclude poor and minorities when it does. Is that trickle up? The stadium thing is like the Roman Empire's penchant for "games" and "circuses:" it's much more important to entertain than it is to improve peoples' lives. In Rome, that's all the proletariat was left with: games, the dole and baths. It kept them relatively quiet. Gee, what a great idea!

Jul 2, Obama's 1980, 1992--or 1932

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:27:42 GMT

Krugman of the NY Times points out that the era feels like one of the former, and it's Obama's choice. He's on target: Obama could be a transformational figure like Reagan, but on the left, or he could be a transitional centrist like Clinton. So far, while his primary campaign appealed to the Democratic base and "change-oriented" youth, independents and minorities, his post-primary campaign finds him edging toward "the center." Obama voted for funding the wars to the tune of $162 billion, without any requirements for withdrawal from Iraq; he's avowed support for the FISA renewal bill, even though he's against telecom immunity (or has been) and the bill purportedly provides it in a way that saves face for "centrist" Democrats. There does seem to be room in the bill as written, however, for criminal cases against both the companies and the administration, so perhaps it's not as bad as it's been made out to be. Obama also proclaimed qualified approval of the disastrous Supreme Court gun control decision, presumably to appeal to people like my neighbors: there is a shooting range within earshot of my house. But Obama's appeal, like both Clinton and Reagan, arises largely from the potentiality he represents. I've argued (on this site) that despite his relatively moderate positions, Obama's movement could provide more effective pressure from progressives than was possible after Clinton's election. That said, Krugman made the point that Reagan campaigned for identifiably conservative positions, so that when he was elected overwhelmingly, there was a definite mandate for them. Clinton, on the other hand, was rather vague about his program, and what there was of it was decidedly incremental; he did not offer sweeping change, and we never got it. Obama, programmatically, sounds more like Clinton so far: offering incremental, not sweeping change. That's too bad, because the country feels ready for more than Clinton redux--so much has gone wrong since W took office. Even a lot of Hillary voters supported her because a woman President would represent major change. The point of this website is that business-as-usual will lead us closer to what happened to Rome in the fifth century, whereas we (and the world) would be a lot better off if we began gracefully to extricate ourselves from Empire, to follow the British rather than the Spanish or Roman path. That requires sweeping change, however. Actually, I hope the real parallel to this era is 1932--economically, Bush is most like Hoover. FDR offered hope, not specifics, a more conservative economics, and then ushered in the New Deal; 1936 was the real change election,

Jun 30, The Military-industrial-security-
Congressional-executive complex

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:45:49 GMT

What are we, as a nation? Are we like the Assyrians, or the Huns, military superpowers that destroy, carrying off everything of value? Why else do we spend so much money on our military? The next regular military budget will top $700 billion. Why on earth does the US have to spend more than the rest of the world combined? People have been scared into putting all their money into "defense," which is really war-making, Empire-enforcing capability (bases in over 100 countries), not defense of the US. The scare tactic has worked well. First it was the Nazis, which was justified; they did want to take over the world. Then it was the Soviets, and its arguable Stalin's paranoia drove them to attempt to take over the world, or Europe: they were never remotely capable of it, let alone of Asia. Now it is the "terrorists," which is even more effective as boogey man, or has been, because they are so completely unidentifiable; they are not Saddam, although he proved a handy target, nor the Taliban; they are stateless criminals really, even less capable of taking over the world than the Soviets, or even the Afghans. The British and Europeans dont call it a "war on terror;" they dont want to dignify the terrorists with "war," which would make them warriors in a cause. Bush has been stupid enough to do just that; its al Qaedas best recruiting tool. Theres another reason for the size of our military: the hundreds of billions the US spends on it; its the USs largest business--and one of its most profitable. When there is that kind of money on the table, the beneficiaries are highly motivated to ensure that their money keeps on flowing, and in greater volume. Defense contractors place parts of their business--production, administration, whatever--in as many Congressional districts as possible. Congressmen and bureaucrats become partners. So, it has become the "military-industrial-security-congressional-executive complex." That covers quite a bit, doesnt it? How can we cut the military down to size? If we spent only $100 billion on defense (real defense, of the United States alone), we would have $600 billion to $800 billion more to use on all the urgent priorities that the Imperialists say are "too expensive:" universal healthcare, education even at Chinese standards (they are ahead of us), infrastructure repair and improvement, and massive investment in alternative energy, energy conservation and adaptation to global warming. Imperial Rome never succeeded in cutting its military: Rome was impoverished by its constant need for imperial enforcement, then fell--to the barbarian mercenaries it hired. Dismantle the Empire!

Jun 25, The American "Pigs Deserved This"

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:09:29 GMT

A taxi driver at the scene pointed to the bloodstains and said, "the pigs deserved this." This was the response of many Iraqis, when a supposedly pro-American Iraqi city council member in Madain went berserk and killed two American soldiers and an interpreter after a friendly meeting in the towns council chambers. There is no explanation for the shooting: the shooter was killed; he was depressive, but thats about all. Just another day in the Empire. Whats revealing in the McClatchy report was the popular reaction, despite reports that violence in the city and region had declined due to the efforts of Awakening Sunni groups and the Americans. In fact the meeting just ended had featured opening a new city park, made possible by American and local collaboration. What should we make of this? Ajil, the shooter, was respected, had previously had a good relationship with American forces; hed even received a grant for an education project from them. The town, Madain, is in the Sunni region where an alliance of Sunni Awakening and US forces has reduced violence. Yet, still, the Americans are seen as occupiers: they "deserve this," according to local sentiment. Are we to think that the Iraqis are unrepentant and ungrateful? Didnt we go in there to save them from Saddam? Perhaps Madains response is more understandable when it becomes clear that the US military, GW Bush and John McCain dont want to leave Iraq. They foresee occupation as stretching into the indeterminate future; they foresee American troops occupying over 50 bases (large bases) in this medium-sized Muslim country US forces did their best to destroy before saving. How would we feel, if China or Russia set up a proportional number of bases in our country (500, perhaps, given our greater size), after destroying good parts of New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, LA and Washington, and smaller cities in between, as well as a goodly part of our infrastructure, like bridges across the Hudson and the Mississippi, airports, rail lines, highways, power plants and so on. Our response would be at least as murderous, I think. Perhaps the US should take the Presidential election campaign to think about more than whether we should get out of Iraq with care, or stay indefinitely. Perhaps the US really ought to consider: should it really be in this "Empire business" at all? Over 60 of Americans think we should get out of Iraq, but even more Iraqis think so (over 70 according to the last poll). This website makes clear that ordinary Romans were impoverished by Empire; present events make it obvious that while "defense" corporations are fattened, ordinary Americans are being impoverished, too.

Jun 19, Gold Again

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:38:19 GMT

Back in March, I wrote about flu, the dollar, oil and gold. At that time I mentioned casually that gold was poised to hit $1000 an ounce. Well, it hasn't yet, but it is at $891 as I write this, far higher than it was then. As I noted in an even earlier blog, when gold rises, this is not a measure of good news, except maybe for those few who put a lot of money in gold back before the run-up in prices started. When gold goes up, it's an indication that a lot of people, speculators mostly, think that things are going to get worse before (or if) they're ever going to get better. Actually, what they're betting on is that things are going to get a lot worse. Then, they think, they'll be holding onto ingots of gold and sitting pretty. The Senators of Fifth Century Rome thought the same thing; they were right; things got a lot worse, but they weren't right about holding onto to gold. It was extracted from them in whatever ways the barbarian invaders could devise. The Vandals, especially, were known for their inventive tortures, but what you should know is that their main object was usually gold. The Senators had hoarded it. In fact, in the Fifth Century gold was definitely "in." All the "best people" had scads of it, literally. They had doorplates of solid gold, ceilings of gold, decorated their carriages with it, and their women and themselves and even their house slaves. When the barbarians came, they hid it, but all it took to find it was a disgruntled slave, or a little well-placed torture. Meanwhile, the common people never saw a gold coin, and hardly ever handled a (debased) silver one. The only currency that was not debased then was the gold follis, but only the very wealthy ever owned one. Which brings us back with a bump to the present day: the dollar continues to lose value (is being debased by policy); oil prices continue to rise, in part from the dollar's fall, in part from stagnant supply and higher demand, in part from speculation. So, gold is again seen as a refuge. The problem with this kind of thinking is that even the gold hoarders won't ultimately win if the world continues to slide towards financial, environmental and social disaster. It would be better for the speculators to put their money into alternative energy technologies and perhaps towards supporting whatever cooperative solutions become available for resolving humankind's deep-seated problems, like being unable to feed itself and run a global industrial economy without poisoning our world.

Jun 17, In Cahoots

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:40:53 GMT

Have you wondered why, given all the evidence, even public admissions by the President and VP, why Impeachment remains off the table? What does the Democratic Congress have to lose by voting to impeach? Every party that voted for impeachment then went on to win big in the next election, so the argument that it would be politically dangerous for Democrats to impeach, is a false argument. But what if even the majority Democrats were enough complicit in the crimes committed by Bush and Cheney that they could be legally liable (for criminal acts) as well? A fellow progressive pointed out that the Military Commissions Act was only passed by a large majority of Republicans (when they held the majority), while Democrats voted largely against. The MCA authorized torture, indefinite detention and the withdrawal of habeas corpus for detainees, so Republicans are clearly liable--the illegal acts committed under this bill include torture and more. But what about the Democrats? They didn't vote for the MCA, but a large majority of them voted for the Patriot Act, which authorized most of the detentions carried out prior to the MCA, as well as permitting other unconstitutional acts, like wiretapping without a warrant. So, most Democrats in office would be legally liable as well. In other words, the parties--but not all officeholders--are both in danger of criminal prosecution if Bush/Cheney are found guilty of illegal acts--because Congress, in effect, authorized those acts. So, in that way, at least, the title is accurate; they were in cahoots. Not all Congresspeople--not all were there before 2006--but enough were and enough voted for the Patriot Act, to make the leadership of both parties liable. These officeholders are like the Roman Senators, who connived with the corrupt and incompetent Emperors in the fifth (and fourth) century. They couldn't even conceive of acting against the Emperors for fear of a return to the turmoil of the third century, when there were often two, three, four Emperors competing for power, and fighting pitched battles all over the empire. But, more important, their power and wealth depended upon access to the Imperial government; they were inordinately wealthy, the equivalent of our billionaires. And everyone else was desperately poor. The wealth and power of our office-holders similarly depends on access to the government; it's no accident that most Senators are millionaires. More to the point, most long-term Congress-people are compromised, because they have spent decades "going along to get along." Voting for the Patriot Act was "going along." That's why "experience" is overrated, why impeachment remains "off the table," and why Obama's "inexperience" is a plus.

Jun 11, Global Turmoil

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:32:37 GMT

A new computer and no radio news, and I'd forgotten all the turmoil in the world. It is as I've been predicting for several years: but I was only thinking about $100 oil, not $134, about 15 bases in Iraq, not over 50, about the housing meltdown and the dollar's fall leading to something worse than a "mild downturn," but not this far this fast. I do wonder if world "leaders" really even want to look at what's going on. It seems as if Bush only listens to people who tell him what he wants to hear: the war is going well; we're facing an economic slowdown, but we'll bounce back soon (he sounds like Herbert Hoover); we can spend dollars wherever, because we're the United States: we can do anything. We can spend hundreds of billions on GWOT, but not a dime on all the urgent needs we have at home. It does look like were going down the tubes so fast that even if Obama gets elected (not a sure thing), it will take all his efforts, and everyone elses just to keep us from sinking. If McCain is elected give me a fast spaceship to another planet. About the only improvement McCain seems to offer over the recalcitrant wannabe despot in the White House is that he would set emissions targets to curb global warming--but hed give away the emissions credits instead of auctioning them, so there would be no incentive to cut emissions. I do wonder what he'd do for money, since he's determined to stay in Iraq, and at the same time he'd make Bush's tax cuts for high earners permanent. He's admitted he doesn't understand economics, so perhaps he just doesn't care. Maybe the US will have to marry someone like Cindy, with deep pockets; that's what solved McCain's financial problems. There's China. Come to think of it, we're already "married" to China the way he is to Cindy: dependent on their largesse, on their willingness to continue buying Treasury bonds, or at least not to sell them. Actually, China is already attempting to diversify its holdings--as it should--but that does not bode well for the once almighty dollar. Other dollar holders are people like Prince Bandar; he siphoned off a couple billion to facilitate an arms deal (with BAI). His deal makes you realize where money goes these days: not to people who work for it, but to the fixers, the manipulators, the speculators and the well-connected. Everyone else is hurting. It feels like Rome's fifth Century beginning again; we've got about 75 years to go.

Jun 9, NO AUTOCRACY! -- NO FASCISM!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:38:10 GMT

You neglected to include Congress in the mix, COMRADE! With a powerful speaker of the house of reps, who picked all the committee chairpersons, and

Jun 3, Bush's Gang

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:52:48 GMT

McClellan's tell-all illustrates something that happens in most small, in-grown circles: the inability to reflect on what you are doing as long as you are doing it with your buddies. The thing about the Bush administration that some people have known since before he was elected was that his "inner circle" was almost entirely self-referential. Opposing or competing opinions were unwelcome; those who espoused them were banished. Molly Ivins, of sainted memory, pointed out that "Shrub" had been like that since junior high school, apparently bright enough, but unwilling to entertain any ideas that conflicted with his own. I can imagine him as a teen, as leader of a rich kids' clique at school, sneering that whatever Molly, or someone else outside the clique might say or think was not even worth talking about. Roman Emperors in the run-up to the downfall of the Empire were like this, too: incurious, convinced of their own sanctity, using any medium available to justify themselves and their own claim to power. Their inner circles were as inward-looking as Bush's. Honorius was a Great Emperor to the masses; people around him knew he had only one interest: his roosters, but they praised him. Valentinian III was The Blessed Augustus to the people, yet his inner circle hid his continual amatory exploits from the public and lauded him as the fount of wisdom. So, Scott McClellan, who followed Bush to Washington from Texas, was one of Bush's buddies in his inner circle. He wasn't someone who made decisions; he was only the mouthpiece for those who did. But he was one of the gang (literally, if you think of them as gangsters). Which is why I'm not surprised that McClellan refrained from any criticism until years after his resignation; it took that long for him to work his way free of the hothouse atmosphere inside the inner circle. After all, here was a President who would tell General Sanchez, prior to the assault on Falluja: 'Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!' There have been many sociological studies of small groups; they demonstrate ways in which seemingly normal people accept the most hideous behavior--as long as they're under the influence of the group. Humans are more herd animals than we like to think. I hope that an Obama administration (if we're lucky enough to elect one) will build in safeguards against precisely this kind of inner circle insularity. Since Democrats tend to follow FDR's model and appoint experts of conflicting views, the chances are good, especially since Obama is not Bush.

Jun 2, Obama the Writer

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:00:46 GMT

"Extraordinary' describes Obama's Dreams From My Father. It's not a political tract, but a beautifully written and moving exploration of his unusual roots and of his three (or two and a half) natal families. Most people know at least the outlines of his upbringing by now, but this memoir makes each part of it amazingly vivid. His white grandfather, and grandmother, as well as his mother, his Indonesian step-father and finally his Kenyan father--and Kenyan grandmother and grandfather--all come to life on these pages, but so do his many half-sisters and brothers, and their families. His exploration of Kenya includes myriads of relatives and his family's history even before his late grandfather, who had been a British servant before he made good as a landholder. In some places the book lags a bit. However, his short rumination on the law and on its role for both justice and injustice was extremely moving and his vision of what America could be was a powerful evocation. Let me make something very clear here. Obama is not a Muslim, but the source of the rumors is that there were a number of Muslims in both of his non-American families. Obama's Indonesian stepfather had to be Muslim to survive, once Suharto's military took over: non-Muslims were equated with Communism. Further, his Kenyan grandfather converted to Islam, but not his father. In addition his oldest brother converted to Islam more recently. But Obama was not raised as a Muslim. He was once enrolled as "Muslim" in an Indonesian school for his step-father's safety, but he was later enrolled there in a Catholic school. His prep school, Punahou in Hawaii (he was a scholarship student), was non-sectarian. He was without religion until after his organizing work in Chicago, when he encountered the notorious Rev. Wright's church. It is not clear from Dreams as to when or how he became a Christian, only that he and Michelle were married in Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, from which he has just now resigned his membership. Dreams describes much about Barack Obama's extraordinary background--who else in politics is both all-American and so international in his (or her) upbringing and experience? What is extraordinary is that this book was written by him prior to politics and not by a ghostwriter. It is extremely well-written, and he demonstrates a deep understanding of character, as well. Obama could have been a professional writer, even a novelist. His loss to writing, however, is the nation's gain. Merely on the basis of this book alone, I hope he makes it to the White House.

May 26, Memorial Day

Mon, 26 May 2008 16:28:45 GMT

Think about the men and women in uniform who died this day, but ask the question: what did they die for? Since Korea, Americans have been dying, not for Freedom, but for Empire. That may be upsetting for the wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters who lost someone in the succeeding wars, but we all need to face certain facts. The war in Vietnam did not protect freedom. Communist Vietnam is now a favored market partner, and the US is dependent upon the People's Republic of China financially, and as manufacturer. Ditto the Iraq war: it was not fought to protect US freedom, but to gain US corporate control over its oil, and its markets. Saddam may have been a terrible dictator, but Iraqis and Iraq have suffered much more at US hands than at his. Besides, Saddam was a US partner until shortly before the first Gulf War. American soldiers are rarely dying for Freedom; they're dying for empire, and for bankrupting this nation, hollowing it out for private profit, which is what McCain is for: continuing in Iraq and confronting not only Iran, but Russia and China as well. Re: the blog below: I've finally gotten rid of the McCain ads. I had to cut out all image ads entirely, not that it will make much difference: who among you actually clicks on ads? It would be nice if someone did.

May 25, Those Pesky McCain Ads

Sun, 25 May 2008 19:27:35 GMT

There were a lot of McCain's ads on my site recently. I was amused by them at first. Then I didn't pay any attention. I've gotten rid of them. I'm unabashedly for Obama, and virtually everything on this website affirms that in one way or another. On the other hand, McCain has never been one of my favorite politicians, so the ads of him returning, salute at the ready, "war hero," looking nothing like his pictures now, I found absurd, a bit ridiculous. The other ads with his pouchy, grinning pus, I found to be suitable counterpoint. I didn't really think much about the ads. I was more intent on saying what I thought was important. I've developed a kind of visual filter that led me to ignore most ads; others do too, so I suppose that's why so few people click on them. I haven't clicked on many ads, either. As per Google rules, I'm not allowed to click on the ads on my site, hence the difficulty I had removing these. Not only has McCain never been someone I admired, but the more I've looked into his past and his record, the less I've liked. It's true he was tortured, but I find it curious that he can be described as a "war hero." He's a war survivor, and he underwent some serious abuse, but not only was he not heroic until later, his ordeal makes it likely he's still suffering from PTSD; he was never treated for it. This seems especially so since he's known for an uncontrollable temper. I don't think that makes him qualified to be President: quite the opposite. McCain is also no "maverick," especially now, since he's running on supporting Bush's war unreservedly, and on making upper-income tax cuts permanent, tax-cuts he originally opposed. His war hero and maverick status were thoroughly discredited in the whole dance over torture: first he unequivocally opposed it, but in the course of the legislative battle, he compromised basic principles to get a bill the President supported, one that still allowed torture. So, considering the shock my wife experienced when she ventured to my site--seeing all the McCain ads--I realized they were causing a major disconnect. After all, if McCain wins, this website will be even more prescient. In other words, if he wins, I think the Decline and Fall will be that much more inevitable. With Obama we have a chance, but only a chance, of avoiding it.

May 23, Privatization in America

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:34:40 GMT

Many Iraqis view the push to reduce the Army's gas fees as a predictable - yet nonsensical - oil grab by the US, according to Maki al-Nazzal, [a Syrian-based] Iraqi political analyst. "It is like making families of executed persons pay for the bullets they are executed with," al-Nazzal said. [Truthout, Maya Shenwar, 5/23/08] In the US of 2008, this is how things are done. Prisoners in prisons are charged for their stay, if they have means; in the local police station (in which I had the misfortune to spend several hours this week) fingerprinting costs the person being fingerprinted ($10.00). There was an older man at the station who was more unfortunate than me. I had to pay $150 to get my car back: my car had been impounded because it had rolled into the street from its parking place. The older man, partially disabled, black, a former carpenter who now can't work because of a back injury, was also trying to get his car back; it had been stolen, and recovered by the police. Recovered by the Town police, not the City's, which was unfortunate. The City policeman covering the car theft (the perpetrator had been caught) had told the man that he needed to keep the car under police auspices as material evidence (it had been badly damaged), while the case was ongoing. The man had agreed. What else could he do? But the Town, unlike the poorer but Democratic City, did not have a pound of its own, so it stored the car at a body shop. The body shop charged the Town daily fees for its storage. The Town demanded $300 from the car's owner to get his car back. The man didn't have $300 and, with the damage, the car wasn't worth that. So, his car was stolen, it was damaged by the thief, and the Town was charging him, because the City police had requested that it be held, by the Town, as material evidence. The officer who released my car from the City's pound agreed that if the car had been held in his pound, he would not have been charged, since it was impounded due to theft. But it was held by a private business. Don't let anyone tell you that privatization is benign. Furthermore, no one listened to this man at the City station (built like a bunker), until my wife spoke up for him (she had drawn out his story) and pointed out the injustice here. After all, he was black, Jamaican, uneducated and poor. And this is in "liberal" New York State.

May 22, Peak Oil?

Thu, 22 May 2008 15:46:20 GMT

Oil went from $130 to $135 overnight; there seems to be no reversing its rise. It's certainly true that the sinking dollar contributes to the escalating price, but a lot of the reason is simply supply vs demand. Oil production is flat, demand is increasing. Demand is increasing because the huge national economies of China and India are growing at double-digit rates. Thanks to Bush's leadership, they have both been encouraged to invest in oil-consuming industry, not developing alternative sources of energy. While US demand is slack, it is slack at an unsustainably high level: US per capita consumption of energy is about twice that of Europe's. I drive, as little as possible, a small, relatively efficient Suburu in the Northeast US, but I am continually surprised by the preponderance of big SUV's and "passenger" trucks in the flow of traffic. In other regions small cars are an even smaller minority. Our whole settlement and market pattern has been built on the assumption of cheap energy, but energy was never really cheap, since it was not renewable, and since it costs us tremendously in environmental and global warming terms. There is still oil out there, but it will be more and more expensive (that's what peak oil means), and the US will have to radically restructure even if it were to continue to base its economy on oil. To me it is obvious that the sooner we massively subsidize and therefore invest in alternative energy (not food-based), begin to reshape our markets to favor local over distant sources, begin to favor mass-transit over the personal car--or long-haul truck--the better off we will be. Essentially, the US is being progressively priced out of the oil market. Peak oil is not something we can stop; only something we should adapt to as quickly as possible. Goodbye American profligacy. The Roman Empire was powered by slaves; when slaves became prohibitively expensive (because Romans couldn't afford the military needed to capture them) the Empire fell on increasingly hard times and ultimately fell. The US has been powered by oil at least since about 1900. The only way the US could possibly maintain its place in the world would be to find environmentally benign alternatives to oil (and coal) and rebuild itself accordingly. Foreign adventures designed to hold onto oil resources abroad are a huge waste of money (and lives), as well as the path to bankruptcy and environmental disaster. We must slash Defense expenditures and use the revenue to: subsidize better mass transit, solar, wind, geo-thermal and non-food bio-fuel energy sources, and people-friendly urban settlement, not suburban sprawl.

May 19, Blog Archives

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:30:36 GMT

Links to all blog archives back to Sept. 2006

May 19, Shooting the Quran

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:51:07 GMT

My Hindu Sadhu Anthropology professor in Grad school told us about the Muslim-Hindu riots in Ahmedabad when he was there in the late 1950's. It had started when some Hindu boys were chasing each other, or perhaps Muslim boys, through the market; a Hindu boy accidentally knocked the Quran off a bookseller's table. Thousands of Hindus and Muslims died in the rioting started by that innocent accident. And the US had a soldier in Iraq using the Quran for target practice? It's always interesting to hear the military try to justify itself--while blaming the individual soldier: another "bad apple." But notice: his name has not been released, and he has not been punished, just sent home: a reward of sorts. If you look up Evangelicals and Army on the net, you'll find many references to Evangelical Christians taking over more and more chaplaincies, and being more and more aggressive about promoting their particularly assertive brand of fundamentalism in the military branches. Not all fundamentalists are anti-Muslim, but many are like Pastor Hagee; he leads fundamentalists in supporting the most militant foreign policy of Israel's right wing--which could be described as extremely anti-Muslim. Now think about it. What kind of man would scrawl obscenities in a Quran, a book revered as holy in the country in which he's stationed, and then use it for target practice? There were nine bullet holes through it. One of the parts of the Bible that many fundamentalists focus upon is Revelations. It purports to foresee the doom and promise of the coming Apocalypse. And when it will come. A fundamentalist friend of mine pointed out more than once: Iraq is where the whore of Babylon would have been--or might be now. And turmoil in this region, so many keep predicting (joyfully), will lead to Armageddon--when True Christians will ascend bodily to Heaven, and Christ will lead the remaining faithful in the final war against the Anti-Christ. Now, put it all together: some in the military, we don't know how many, but I'll bet it's a good many more than this one soldier, are Christians of this kind; they might use any occasion they can manage to try to ignite the final war. When I asked another fundamentalist last year if she thought the war in Lebanon might be the beginning of the End, she said, "I hope so." She was serious! I'm sure the Quran-shooting soldier was, too. In the late Roman Empire they venerated relics to try to defeat the pagan and heretic barbarians; they also dishonored their gods. Despite of, or because of, all that Rome fell in 476.

May 14, Crazy Leaders

Wed, 14 May 2008 02:58:56 GMT

I refer to the men--it's almost always men--who lead this world, or try to. I heard an interview of Ahmadinejad's biographer, and his description of Iran's President kept on reminding me of Bush--and Cheney, and McCain. Ahmadinejad, according to his biographer, appears more moderate than he really is. He's not only an extremist in Iran's politics--a hard-line militarist who wants to bring the benefits of the Iranian revolution to the world-- he's also an extremist in Shiite Islam, believing in the literal and imminent return of the Mahdi. So like Bush! And like Bush, and McCain, he only tolerates Democracy as long as it works for him. He believes that he should lead the Shiite revolution; he believes that the people really have no say; it's up to Allah. An article pointed out that McCain's current endorsement of Supreme Court Justices like Alito and Roberts as his template for future appointments would, if carried out, effectively end Democracy as we know it. Both Roberts and Alito appear to subscribe to John Yoo's extremist Unitary Executive doctrine, which would establish an all-powerful President, and consign Congress--and the courts--to irrelevance. It would be a transition familiar to Roman history; it's essentially how Caesar, and then Augustus converted the Republic into an Empire. And McCain is about as hot for war as Ahmadinejad! Bush we know is a born-again who Believes. Like Ahmadinejad. McCain, it appears, is too, if his relation with Pastor Hagee is any indication. But maybe he's about as removed from Hagee as Obama is from Rev. Wright? Still, he not only subscribes to a Unitary Executive, but he believes we should stay in Iraq, attack Iran and confront Russia and China. It doesn't matter if he also believes in the End Times; he'll bring them on anyway. Crazy. And then there is the lone woman--Clinton--who vowed, unnecessarily given the question--to "obliterate" Iran. It's a statement comparable to Ahmadinejad's mis-translated quotation about wiping Israel off the map, except it's not clear Ahmadinejad actually meant that: the Persian may have meant: he looked forward to when Israel would be replaced by a bi-national state. Obama actually sounds like the grown-up, the sane one: we can talk, he says. Perhaps he's wrong. Perhaps both we and our adversaries are insane, and the world has gone mad. Other world leaders--Putin, Hu Jin-tao, Sarkozy, Brown--are either too intimidated by Bush, or flexing their own muscles. If the world has gone crazy, then pray for sanity (but prayer didn't save the Roman Empire).

May 12, Student Loans Privatized

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:27:10 GMT

Why student loans are becoming more expensive

May 9, Elections, Battles and Assassinations

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:54:57 GMT

Romans had elections, too, and we can be thankful that ours are usually decided by votes. However, some have been decided the Roman way: by assassination.

May 9, Issues Not Debated

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:48:25 GMT

The important issues have not been debated in the current election campaign.

May 4, Like The Battle of Algiers

Sun, 04 May 2008 16:54:26 GMT

I just saw the Battle of Algiers; it's amazing how the actor playing Lt. Col. Mathieu even looks a bit like Gen. Petraeus. The parallels are uncanny. After being thrown out of Vietnam, the French tried to hold on to Algeria in the late 1950's. Algeria was and is a major oil producer for France. Unlike Iraq, it was also a French colony, with a large and prosperous French Colon population. The parallels to Iraq, and to Petraeus, become obvious as the French moved to isolate and kill all the FLN leadership. They used informants, and torture--including a primitive form of waterboarding--and blocking off large parts of the city. While the US uses huge cement barriers for isolating quarters in Baghdad, the French used tangles of barbed wire in Algiers. The French also tried to pay off the Algerians, and to treat them civilly, when they could, just like the Americans in Iraq. The Algerian insurgents used bombs against civilians, mostly French Colons, and shot collaborators. The Iraqi combatants use bombs against other sects and the Americans, and also execute collaborators. The French bombed the homes of insurgent leaders--primitive bombs activated by plungers. The US bombs them from the air, or with tanks, and levels whole neighborhoods. There were some major differences, aside from the large French Colon population: first, Algerians were relatively unified against the French; their differences only came out later in civil war, whereas the Iraqis are already fighting theirs: various sides have recruited American support. In fact, the US funds almost everyone in Iraq except the populist Sadrists. Some Mahdi Army factions are aided by Iran. The parallels between Algiers and Baghdad only make it all the clearer: the US is engaged in an imperial war to retain control of Iraqi oil and markets, just as France tried to hold onto Algeria, not only to buttress its waning imperial prestige, but for the oil in its deserts, and to dominate its markets. In the end the French won the battle, but lost the war. Their torture, quarantined neighborhoods and squads of troops paid off--in the short run: the insurgent leaders were captured or killed. Algiers returned to restive "peace." But in less than two years there was a seemingly spontaneous uprising of the Muslim population of Algiers. There was no stopping them. DeGaulle bowed to the inevitable: Algeria became independent soon after. The lesson: military suppression by an invader cannot long prevent a nation from regaining control, once it is politically mobilized. It will happen in Iraq, the only question is when. Must we spend $179 billion to stay through 2008?

May 2, What Could Make a Difference?

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:56:53 GMT

What's going to stop us, i.e. the United States, at least, from falling off a cliff? The nastiness of the election campaign, the undercover racism that could derail Obama has erased the optimism of the early months of the primaries. McCain, and the media, work together, it seems, to present this old war-horse as the "Straight-talker" he hasn't been for many years. Meanwhile, the same media seems comparatively gentle towards Hillary, who they've attacked consistently since her time in the White House. And they go after Obama with every niggling stupidity about anyone with whom he's associated. Has the media picked up on McCain's connections with the Rev. Moon, who not only went to prison for tax evasion, but who champions a much more anti-American message than Obama's pastor? Has the media mentioned the right-wing in-Senate prayer group to which Clinton belonged? Meanwhile, the Iraq war has gotten worse again. The surge has patently not worked, simply placed the US on one side of a political conflict. Furthermore, Afghanistan and Pakistan are heating up, and oil has come down from $120 a barrel, to $114. Gas sells for $3.85 where I live. A tax holiday on the gas-tax would probably undo the one positive effect of high gas prices; it would rekindle sagging demand for gas, driving the price even higher. The recession may not be official, but the economy looks more and more like stagflation, with the Fed's help. Oh, and the dollar is rallying, but it's unlikely that it will rise much. The days of the greenback's rule has come to an end. By making nice with the Saudis maybe Bush can forestall the inevitable: oil traded in Euros, but that's one of the major reasons why oil's price keeps on going up. The dollar is still way overvalued, because of all the hundreds of billions squandered on defense expenditures and a stupid war, and because we import so much more than we export. I've yet to mention global warming and global food shortages, which are related by climate change and policy. As the wealthier nations switch to corn to produce fuel and (possibly) reduce greenhouse emissions, foodgrains run short. Okay: two wars, a recession, inflation, a sinking dollar, an environmental catastrophe getting worse and worse, rising global food and political insecurity-- But we're fixated on how effectively Obama repudiates the clownish remarks of his former pastor! Again it's like the Romans of Cirta, who watched the animal games, while the Vandals took over their city, and then enslaved or killed them.

Apr 28, The Games Play On
the World Slides South

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:43:06 GMT

"I just didn't know all this was going on!" My mother used to be informed, the Democratic activist in our little town, but now she's 95 and losing much of her memory; she's rarely this lucid. But she still insists on watching PBS TV news every night. Somehow, the reports of the dollar sinking, fuel prices exploding, the sub-prime mess, the disappearance of credit, the official recession, all have escaped her consciousness. But when I liken the current situation to a late 1920's context, she begins to understand: if McCain is elected, it would be like Hoover after Coolidge, but with the depression already begun. It occurs to me: the reason she hasn't an inkling of the economic and military disasters facing us is partly because of the medium. She used to read newspapers and newsmagazines like In These Times. Now, although she's still capable of reading something very short, she doesn't have the memory to make sense of what she's reading if it's more than a brief note--sort of like our President! But TV just goes past her; she doesn't have to think, only to perceive; nothing is retained. Telling her the litany of ills we face makes me realize: the US is in bad shape: not just recession, but inflation, too. Not just inflation, but a falling dollar and $120 oil; not just one disastrous war, but two; not just a huge military, but one more costly than all other militaries combined; not just huge debt, but the largest; not just global warming--and so on. Yet many people care only about American Idol, or whether the Yankees or the Red Sox win. In the lead up to the fall of the Roman Empire, there were cities under siege in North Africa and in Gaul where authorities kept the Games going, wild animals slaughtering and being slaughtered to acclaim, while the barbarians breached city walls and took over: the authorities didn't want the people to panic. With the Vandal and Goth takeovers in these cities, many of the game-obsessed Romans were enslaved, or killed. I don't expect real barbarians at our gates--just our own military and police--while we watch American Idol and the world slides south. McCain is another Hoover, or perhaps like one of the last Roman Emperors: senescent, economically illiterate, blind, and pugnacious. "More wars, my friends." Could an inspiring leader like Obama make a difference? Could Hillary inspire the nation to embark on a new direction that addresses these ills? We need leadership that inspires and is open to popular energy, not hogtied by the corporate interests that have gotten the world into this mess.

Apr 26, Populism Hits a Wall?

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:34:38 GMT

It's happened before in both America and Rome: when a populist movement begins to take off; the powers-that-be find ways to quash it. Or genuine reform begins to work its way forward, and money defeats it, as the insurance companies stopped Hillary's health care reform from getting anywhere. Hillary had a genuine impulse towards reform back in 1993. Her "experience" was "learning" that you couldn't fight them; you had to join them. That's what Bill learned, too. Items like the welfare "reform" followed, and NAFTA, and a lot of other Republican lite policies. And $109 million. So now, Hillary pits her "experience" against Obama's honesty? His decency? Obama isn't just Obama; he embodies a movement for reform, for doing things differently even more than Hillary did back in 1992. That's what Clintonistas mean when they say Obama is superb, but he won't be ready until 2016. The longer you stay in Washington the more you are hardened by it; it's a culture of business, after all, the business of politics. You pay, I sell, and vice-versa. Pennsylvania, Hillary boasts, is "the turning of the tide." If it is, then worry for all of us. It is possible Hillary could win against McCain (the odds would be lower than with Obama, I believe) and she would be far better than McCain. But she would fall far short of where we could go. 2008 is an opportunity, not to go back to the '90's (which weren't as great as Hillary boasts), but to fundamentally reform a corrupt, disintegrating, discredited system, to reverse the trend towards plutocracy, and to create a new, more democratic nation: reform reminiscent in scope to FDR's New Deal. Perhaps things aren't bad enough yet. Obama represents change not just because of Obama himself, despite his obvious talents as organizer, campaigner, legislator and inspirational speaker. His approach as community organizer certainly inspired the movement arising around him; his campaign encourages volunteers in a way I haven't seen before. But the movement transcends him. Think of it in terms of the numbers of people involved: in campaigning for him; giving money to his campaign, and showing up at rallies, the numbers of independents and former Republicans who have rarely voted, but are now passionate for Obama, and the young people who haven't been excited by a political campaign since "clean for Gene" and RFK, but who come out for Obama in droves--and vote for him. If Hillary wins the nomination, a lot of these new Democrats will probably just stay home as in 1968. And the selfish class could win again--with the loyal "maverick" McCain--or, with Hillary, stop reform from going too far.

Apr 23, Grandma "Thrown Under the Bus"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:56:17 GMT

So now Obama has gone and "thrown his grandmother under the bus." Why, because he was honest; because he didn't lie about her? Don't people realize what they're saying when they accuse Obama? They're saying: we still have to lie about our own racism, because the truth still smarts. What he said about her is not extraordinary. My father, while educated and "liberal," once referred to a younger black fellow teacher as "the boy following me" on a school trip with another station wagon full of kids. I don't think he even knew he said it. It was probably the context: what he thought a park ranger would understand, but still. My grandmother also told me Russians spoke like monkeys; she was a Hawthorne, Nathaniel's granddaughter. She had lived abroad and her well-traveled husband founded the International Book Review. Prejudice is not pretty. The reason conservative columnists excoriate Obama for "telling" about his grandmother is: they want to hold onto their own prejudices, and they don't want anyone telling on them, either. They are doing the same thing his grandmother did: they are warning their readers about the dangerous black man. I wonder whether America is ready for the best chance we have, but isn't sure yet, because he is black. Romans didn't have our kind of elections; the Senate ratified the Army's selection. There was one Emperor, however, who might have made a difference: Majorian was chosen by the reigning strongman in the last decades of the Empire; he offered hope. He actually advocated for the common people and won battles, but the general was able to do away with him just in time, that is before he became powerful enough to take power away from the general. Our elections might serve the same purpose. Dig up everything you can about Obama, and if there isn't enough, make it up, and repeat it, over and over. But Obama doesn't stoop to this level, even though he has more than ample opportunity with Hillary now, and McCain later. Hillary and Bill, according to Michael Moore, sought spiritual counsel from none other than Rev. Jeremiah Wright after the Lewinsky scandal. Obama never mentioned it, nor said anything about the queer sect she belongs to in the Senate, which apparently advocates power above all else, and is mostly peopled by rabid right-wing Republicans. Admirable of him. I hope people see his basic honesty soon. One problem is that so many assume that "all politicians lie, cheat and steal," so he must, too. Obama is ready for the country. After Pennsylvania, I wonder if the country is ready for Obama.

Apr 18, How To Recruit an Imperial Army

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:32:45 GMT

A General speaking about the difficulty of maintaining the US military in the midst of the two disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: whats needed is a "radical change of incentives." Made me think about the Roman legions: they recruited the way were recruiting now, from rural out of the way parts of the country, and blasted cities, from the poor and also from abroad. But they also needed incentives: spoil. The Roman legions carried off masterpieces of Greek art, or burned them, and anything else they could grab. Captives, of course, were the main prize. They were sold as slaves. Generals came back wealthy beyond imagining, but the common soldiers carried off enough to build small villas on the outskirts of empire, and Rome prosperedfor awhile. Maybe we should bring back slavery: that would solve the problem our poor corporations have in paying high wages. We should just capture our labor pool. And American soldiers would gain from each slave sale, and would be able to sell anything else they carried off. Think of it: the US would spend so much less on its warsincluding the additional ones McCain says well have to fight soon. And recruiting for American soldiers would really pick up: the American Dream could be to rip off the rest of the world and get rich quick. Why not? The Romans did it, and we style ourselves the new global empire. This one small change could also close up our trade debts: wed carry off enough of value from everywhere else that we could even pay off the Chinese. Or maybe we should recognize: the US Empire costs all of us many trillions of dollars, but only a very fewlike Exxon, Halliburton and Bechtel owners--really benefit.

Apr 16, A Little Subversion
And Obama

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:00:21 GMT

If you own a little stock, you get proxies in the mail. I look for the propositions that the Board opposes. Some stockholder initiatives propose smaller executive pay-packages. The pay for CEO's and other high officers of large corporations has reached absurd levels, even when their companies lose money: tens of millions of dollars even when they're fired. Workers make one three-hundredth to one five-hundredth of CEO pay. But CEO's keep more of "their" money, because of the Bush tax cuts, the tax cuts that "anti-elitist" John McCain wants to make permanent. He only owns how many homes? Other stockbroker initiatives propose action on global warming, on more environmentally friendly corporate policies. These also make sense, except that these initiatives might reduce legally mandated maximum profits, so the Board opposes them, too. I vote for them, though I know that the vast majority of shares are controlled by the Board and the executive officers; they will be voted down--until they are not. Hillary says that Obama must be an elitist, because he said working people feel bitter about their economic lot and cling to guns and religion. As he pointed out; those are the only things they have left--the elite have taken away everything else. The trade deals helped take their jobs away, the treaties campaigned for by Bill and Hillary back in the day: NAFTA and China. The agreements helped the very rich, which helped Bill and Hillary when it came to amassing $109 million. But now that Hillary is running for President, she's discovered that NAFTA should be renegotiated, after all. That's always been her position she says now: not the way I remember it. I went door to door for Obama in Scranton. After, at a Subway, the young counter woman argued vehemently for Hillary, saying, "But they all lie, cheat and steal. At least Hillary is a woman." Yet Obama is attacked for telling the truth: people do feel bitter. And while Hillary and McCain are worth over $100 million, Obama and Michelle's total assets are less than a million. His multi-millionaire opponents accuse him of being an elitist! Further, Hillary's campaign emails sound desperate: they accuse Obama of being too successful in raising money; he can outspend her three to one without depending on deep-pocket donors, or on personal loans from his own fortune, the way she does. The selfish, imperial class will stop at nothing, as it did in Rome. They have to stop someone who is moderate, careful and reasonable, because Obama is also dangerous: to them. He's less beholden to big money than any candidate who has gotten this far.

Apr 11, Ok - how did McCain get his ad on your website?

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:47:13 GMT

So, I'm reading through your home page and with all of the Google stuff, over by the search bar (www or google) is an ad for McCain 2008. Stunning.

Apr 11, Books Onsite

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:30:22 GMT

Buy my ebooks (under $4) and you'll support this website.

Apr 11, Torturing for Armageddon

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:15:31 GMT

Oh, yes, there are the determined idiots in the administration who keep on trying to nudge us into war with Iran, but that would only be another stupid war. Some in the war industry think they can profit from it, but it wouldn't really be Armageddon with a capital A, just another disaster in that direction. Then there are the food riots in places as disparate as Haiti, Egypt, Mexico and Burkina Faso because of soaring food prices caused in part by the diversion of corn and palm oil into "bio-fuel." Feeding my Suburu deprives hungry people and further degrades the ecosystem. At least I don't drive an SUV or a Suburban. Unrest driven by high food prices led to the French Revolution, and contributed to the Russian and Chinese revolutions as well. What has been the developed world's response? We're upset that people go hungry, but humanitarian actions are not our major response. Condi Rice showed more dramatically what Americans might do, back in 2003. As NSC head, she chaired meetings about torturing detainees. The meetings were highly detailed according to ABC: setting up what the CIA could and couldn't do, including how many times a technique like waterboarding could be used. Other participants included AG Ashcroft, DOD's Rumsfeld, VP Cheney, State's Colin Powell and CIA's Tenet. "It's your baby, go do it," said Rice to Tenet at meeting's conclusion, establishing torture as state policy. Why conflate food riots with torture? Because the competition over "feedstocks" for fuel is what landed us in Iraq, threatens to drive us into Iran and could potentially set the developed world against poor countries who can't feed themselves. In other words, the US response to competition for "our" gasoline is to crush it, by any means possible. But can we? Can we browbeat the impoverished world with our Predators and Raptors--and torture? Or will it take many more Iraqs? This is the "more wars, my friends," that McCain predicts. Industrial civilization is based upon ready access to non-human sources of energy, so it is true that "our way of life" is at stake. But China has a better idea than hoarding the world's oil and grain; it's building Dong-Tan, a new eco-city that will have a small ecological footprint, sustained by energy from the wind and sun--and food produced locally, enriched by the city's composted wastes. China plans to build at least 400 new cities, so this is an important template for the future. Instead of brutal, winner-take-all warfare, a sustainable economy can be a source of cooperation. We all have sun, wind--and algae (the newest, most benign feedstock). We do face a choice: Armageddon or Eden.

Apr 10, How to Skew the Record on McCain and Obama

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 03:21:07 GMT

At the link, I dissect how what McCain actually said is turned into how Obama lied about it; it's a dissection of the conservative propaganda machine in action. And then I look at what McCain meant and how he could drive the US into bankruptcy with his "vision."

Apr 3, 1984 Was 24 Years Ago!

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:02:00 GMT

Cheers! We're so much closer to realizing George Orwell's vision, thanks to "technological advances." Now, the NSA picks up anything suspicious through data mining, while the FBI and military use National Security Letters to find out about you and me, through Internet service providers, libraries, you name it. Business keeps tabs on us, too--and sells the information. Big Brother makes noises about expanding to Iran the continual war that is justification for militarizing and controlling all the rest of us. When an interviewer pointed out that the war in Iraq was unpopular, VP Cheney replied: "So?" Maybe, just maybe the American People are smart enough to get us out of this nightmare. But I've heard too many cases of computer voting machines creating votes. For Bush: Townships in Ohio in which Republican votes outnumbered registered voters by 100's to one; a town in Iowa with a few hundred votes, in which 5,000 voted for Bush. Touch-screen voting machines have been easily hacked; optical scan machines ditto. A law (HAVA) requires all states convert to computerized voting. My state, NY, is the last to comply. We've had perfectly reliable lever machines for decades, but no one makes them; the last manufacturer sells computer voting machines, instead. There have been impressive statistical studies which show that the last three elections must have been stolen (2006 just not effectively enough). Do we really have a democratic system? There has been chatter about various primary votes not matching exit polls, so it's possible (likely?) this is still going on. And then there's the mainstream media. They do cover stories--about Cheney's arrogance, or atrocities in Iraq, or government corruption--but somehow what people remember are the Celebrities, the records of ball teams and the "gaffes" of politicians a little bit critical of The Way Things Are. The best "gaffe" was Obama's: he gained from saying he'd meet personally with leaders who don't agree with us, but gaffes and smears are what the media's campaign feeds upon. Yet, when McCain persisted in not knowing the difference between Shiites, Shiite Iran and Sunni al Qaeda, the media quickly forgot it. Surveillance, torture, computerized voting, media propaganda, continual war: all are for what purpose? To persuade Americans that Empire is what everyone wants, along with super corporate profits and CEO's earning tens of millions a year, a military that is still too small, even though it has bases all over the world and spends more than all other militaries combined. Finally we will be persuaded that we want a Bush clone in the White House. 1984 anyone?

Apr 1, Plutocracy or Mob rule?

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:46:54 GMT

It does seem as if the Bush Administration is trying to change the subject. Progressives are talking about reviving Glass-Steagall. This law prevented banks from speculating in dubious financial instruments like "securitized" mortgages, AKA mortgage-backed securities. Those securities, "securitizing" sub-prime mortgage loans, were the ones that got our financial system into this mess. If progressives were able to tackle the problem (and soon they may be able to), they would at least call for some semblance of the legal and regulatory apparatus that put an end to the speculation leading to the 1929 economic collapse. So, does Treasury Secretary Paulson address the problem? No. He trots out a reorganization chart, which could simplify financial regulation down the road, perhaps, but does not deal with how credit markets have been so egregiously mishandled, especially by the Fed--to which he wants to give new regulatory powers. Glass-Steagall set up commercial banks as a regulated class of institutions, which, in return for the very profitable privileges of access to Federal Reserve cash and credit, were prohibited from even dabbling in securities markets. If Glass-Steagall had not been dismantled under Clinton, US commercial banks would not have been affected by sub-prime loan defaults. We might not have had the past half-decade's feverish speculation and merger mania (fueled in part by the capital created from those securitized instruments), but the US (and world) would not now be facing a credit crunch. What's really happening is that the Bush administration, and its Wall Street allies, are trying, half-heartedly, to put a regulatory system in place that does not regulate, before the end comes--the advent of a Democratic administration, which, I hope will regulate the financial sector. To put this into the perspective of my website: a self-destructive selfish class that drives nations and empires to ruin, Paulson's ploy makes perfect sense. If you can divert enough politicians from talking about the regulations needed, and instead get them to argue heatedly, for example, over whether the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should be merged, then people will stop harping on the need for regulation altogether. The wealthy institutions and individuals, who brought us the escalating sea of red ink, can then continue their unrestrained looting of the global financial system, and even ask the Fed to help them, the way Bear Stearns stockholders were helped: they walked away with some of their profits, paid by US tax-payers, even though their speculation helped fuel the credit-crunch. Meanwhile homeowners are driven into the streets through rising foreclosures. This isn't capitalism; it's a corrupt plutocracy.

Jan 29, Bush Ideology

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:31:14 GMT

Bush ideology blinds him, and those around him, to what is really happening out there in the world, but it also demands of him that he lead the world, just as even the last Roman Emperors believed.

Jan 27, Gold Conspiracy

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:29:42 GMT

Why do libertarians want the gold standard? It would not mean no government intervention in the economy.

America Now--Roman Empire Then

Aug 23, A McCain Moment

Aug 21, Vote Third Party, Or Not?

Aug 14, Next: American Troops in Georgia?

Aug 12, Georgian Limits to Empire

Aug 6, Winning in Iraq and Afghanistan

Aug 6, Oil Drilling Politics

Aug 5, Pakistan in Afghanistan?

Jul 30, "Moral Leadership?"

Jul 22, Leader as Idiot

Jul 18, The Right-wing ImpliesObama Supported Terrorists!

Jul 17, Middle East Oil, Roman Slaves

Jul 16, Saying The Economy is Strong

Jul 9, Obama's Right-wing Budget?

Jul 8, Fall of Rome

Jul 8, Fall of Rome

Jul 8, Patriotism For Dummies

Jul 2, Obama's 1980, 1992--or 1932

Jun 30, The Military-industrial-security-Congressional-executive complex

Jun 25, The American "Pigs Deserved This"

Jun 19, Gold Again

Jun 17, In Cahoots

Jun 11, Global Turmoil

Jun 9, NO AUTOCRACY! -- NO FASCISM!

Jun 3, Bush's Gang

Jun 2, Obama the Writer

May 26, Memorial Day

May 25, Those Pesky McCain Ads

May 23, Privatization in America

May 22, Peak Oil?

May 19, Blog Archives

May 19, Shooting the Quran

May 14, Crazy Leaders

May 12, Student Loans Privatized

May 9, Elections, Battles and Assassinations

May 9, Issues Not Debated

May 4, Like The Battle of Algiers

May 2, What Could Make a Difference?

Apr 28, The Games Play Onthe World Slides South

Apr 26, Populism Hits a Wall?

Apr 23, Grandma "Thrown Under the Bus"

Apr 18, How To Recruit an Imperial Army

Apr 16, A Little SubversionAnd Obama

Apr 11, Ok - how did McCain get his ad on your website?

Apr 11, Books Onsite

Apr 11, Torturing for Armageddon

Apr 10, How to Skew the Record on McCain and Obama

Apr 3, 1984 Was 24 Years Ago!

Apr 1, Plutocracy or Mob rule?

Jan 29, Bush Ideology

Jan 27, Gold Conspiracy

Jul 18, The Right-wing Implies
Obama Supported Terrorists!

Jun 30, The Military-industrial-security-
Congressional-executive complex

Apr 28, The Games Play On
the World Slides South

Apr 16, A Little Subversion
And Obama