American Exceptionalism #1: The Government Shutdown

Oct4

Some of our foreign friends may be wondering what this “government shutdown” in America is all about. After all, even many Americans do not have a clue. So, here is a primer on one of the stranger practices of the US government.

What is a government shutdown?

A government shutdown occurs when Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) fails to authorize money for the operation of the federal government or fails to overcome the President’s veto of a funding bill. This situation is virtually unique to the United States, with its separation of powers. It simply cannot happen in a parliamentary system, and in most countries with a presidential system the executive is strong enough to keep the government going. Only “essential” services are maintained, which of course includes the active core of all the military, security and intelligence agencies – and Congress. While hundreds of thousands of federal employees are left with no paychecks, and the American people, especially those of lower income, are left without all those “nonessential” services, which include such things as food inspectors and virtually every program serving the poor, the Congressmen, who are responsible for this fiasco and individually well off, continue to receive their pay.

Why does a government shutdown happen?

Basically, a shutdown occurs because the politicians in Congress are more interested in their own agendas than the welfare of the country, and holding the government hostage is viewed as an excellent mechanism for getting one’s own way. Part of the game of course is to insure that the other party receives the blame from an outraged electorate. In this case it is the Republican extremists who represent the Tea Party and its obsession with resisting Obamacare at all costs, and apparently that includes national suicide.

What is the Tea Party?

The Tea Party is a collection of anti-government extremists, who are at the least ignorant and in many cases actually stupid. They feel that the only legitimate functions of the federal government are external and internal security and preventing the people from engaging in fun activities, like sex. They oppose any credible health care system because of the inherent “socialism,” a concept that most of them would be hard pressed to explain accurately. These fanatics have no interest in the opinions of the American people. Their latest leader is Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and while he is not the stupidest person in Congress (that would be Rep. Michele Bachmann, though the competition is fierce), for the moment he is certainly the biggest buffoon.

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk

Tea Party intellectual

Tea Party stalwart

Why is that these minority extremists have such power?

I really have no idea. You will have to ask John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, who seemingly fears for his job more than the fate of the republic.

Why are these self-interested airheads reelected to Congress?

They are in office, like most of Congress, because of more than a century of gerrymandering voting districts, that is, reshaping congressional districts to contain a majority of voters of one party or the other, thus guaranteeing reelection. This results in the American equivalent of a rotten borough and tenure for life; in the eighties there was more turnover in the Soviet Politbureau than in the American Senate. Second, they typically have wealthy patrons who, for whatever strange reasons – usually payback in the form of political favors – fund the candidate’s campaign. Finally, there is the shallowness of the American voter, who apparently votes for the person who bombards him with the most ads.

That there are only two, and apparently permanent, parties aids and abets this corruption, since there is little difference between the two when it comes to self-interest and contempt for the people. There is of course an ideological divide, but that only matters when it comes to secondary interests, such as governing the country. In the areas that really matter – rewarding your contributors, feathering your own next, guaranteeing reelection – there is little difference between Republicans and Democrats. Instead of the lists of government approved candidates traditionally provided in dictatorships Americans essentially get lists of candidates approved by either of the two parties.

Who gets hurt during a government shutdown?

This is easy: the people, especially those in the lower income groups. The American economy is injured, and the global economy also takes a shot, which seems unfair insomuch as a handful of jerks in the United States can negatively impact people who never had the (somewhat dubious) privilege of voting for them. Well, this is the story of civilization, and throughout history most of humanity has been at the mercy of incompetent and/or malicious elites. The difference now is because of the global economy and America’s staggering economic and military power, the bozos in the US government can potentially screw up the lives of everyone on the planet. That’s power.

Why is this allowed to happen?

See all of the above. The government shutdown may be seen as another manifestation of America’s new “exceptionalism,” which is pretty much all negative.

What will happen next?

If the pattern holds true, growing popular outrage will compel the responsible party, in this case the Republicans, to reign in their extremist minority, but only after squandering hundreds of millions of tax dollars and causing needless suffering for a lot of people. Then they move on to refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and Americans and the rest of humanity enjoy the excitement of possible return to a global recession.

What will happen in the longer run?

We will reelect most of these people or be presented with others like them, and the game will go on. Coincidentally, as I was finishing this I heard house Speaker Boehner proclaim with appropriate indignation “This is not a damn game!” Well, certainly not for all the ordinary people who are being hurt, but for Boehner and his political colleagues it sure is, and they will play it over and over.

“This isn’t some damn game!”

Pssst! Wanna Buy a Country?

Sep27

(Now that there are a lot of you I would like to conduct a survey. Read one of the chapters from the novel I am writing (look for Hear, O Israel) and let me know: 1)great stuff, keep writing or 2)don’t quit your day job. Thanks)

Ads have now begun appearing on these posts, which I suppose is a sign of having arrived. I could prevent the ads from appearing by buying that service from Word Press for $30 a year and allowing them to pocket the income or I could establish a private domain for $18 a year and request a share of the income. This did not seem a hard choice, especially since outside the rainforests and high Himalayas everyone on the planet is well accustomed to being bombarded by advertisements. I am, consequently, now www.qqduckus.com.

Advertising, or more generally, marketing, is almost a made-in-America product. Sellers have been touting their wares and services for millennia, but until recently that marketing was confined essentially to hawking and very limited and primitive signage at the place of business. It was the United States, with its booming free market economy and emphasis on freedom of speech, that developed modern marketing in the nineteenth century and exported it to the world, especially with the globalization of business after the Second World War. With the emergence of electronic media and sophisticated information technology advertising now extends into virtually every nook and cranny of our lives, and marketing has become, I believe, perhaps America’s greatest problem, more pernicious than the incredibly exaggerated threat of terrorism.

Marketing inherently involves the distortion or outright elimination of truth, particularly when the product, such as toothpaste or gasoline, is essentially the same as that produced by competitors. Unfortunately, advertising serves as a sort of educational medium for an increasingly uneducated and ignorant populace, especially television advertising. For many television cloaks everything it presents in at least a minimal air of reality, particularly when an attractive personality, like a sports or movie star, is involved, and the viewer’s understanding of the world, in most cases already filled with gaps and distortions, is further detached from reality.

There is clear and simple evidence that many people believe what they see and hear via advertising: it works. Companies would hardly spend millions on marketing if it did not sell products; Procter & Gamble would not have run all those ads for so many years if Mr. Whipple did not move the rolls of Charmin off the shelves. Of course, many – I hope most – will buy the product not because they believe it is truly softer than other brands, but because when confronted with a choice among similar products they remember the amusing Mr. Whipple and grab his brand. Assuming all travel websites to be essentially the same, I chose Priceline because I like Captain Kirk, not because I thought they were any better than the others. Perhaps this is the reality for most consumers, but then what is “brand loyalty” based on? I suggest that many begin to believe their choice is better when using the same brand year after year. (Am I being too cynical here? Listen to popular talk shows or read letters to the editor to see just how stupid many of our fellow citizens are.)

real person

Permitting pharmaceutical companies to advertise was easily the biggest mistake the FCC has ever made, and every doctor I have asked agrees. Seeing a drug touted on television leads many a patient to ask or demand that drug from his physician, making the latter’s job harder. The drug companies no longer have to bribe doctors with free stuff; they now in effect persuade the patient to sell the drug to the physician. Big pharmo constantly justifies outrageous pricing on the grounds that research and testing is so time and money consuming (and the government contributes to this), yet for the past several years the major companies have spent more on PR than R&D.Without question the second most pernicious advertising is that produced by major international corporations, most especially those, like the oil companies, that engage in activity certainly, probably or possibly damaging to the environment or other public interests. British Petroleum is not attempting to sell you a tankful of gas with its endless ads about the Gulf but rather to convince you – against all evidence – that despite the spills and obvious lies they are just as environmentally and socially conscious as any other global corporation (which of course is not at all). The point of the millions spent on such marketing is not to sell a product but to create a more attractive (and generally false) image, one that will move public opinion away from any thought of regulation and limits on their business. It is propaganda, inevitably deceptive propaganda, and apparently people believe a lot of it or why would they bother? Remembering the state PR of the old Soviet Union, I am minded to call this corporate advertising “capitalist realism.”

“we care.”

The most pernicious advertising? That found in our elections. With their splendid understanding of humanity and society the Founding Fathers created in the Constitution a document flexible enough to accommodate inevitable change yet difficult enough to alter that stability and basic principles were not threatened. At the end of the eighteenth century, in the early morning of the Industrial Revolution, it was clear to all but the seriously dense that the world was steadily and fairly rapidly changing, yet marketing was still pretty much what it was in antiquity, despite the development of cheap paper and the printing press. As a result, the Fathers could not possibly have comprehended the incredible danger it posed to the system.

An election campaign is essentially the marketing of a product – the candidate. In the late eighteenth century this would involve some advertising – broadsheets, leaflets and support in newspapers – but for the most part the candidate had to sell himself by making the rounds, giving speeches and engaging in debates. He was bound to stretch the truth sometimes, but deception is much more difficult when you are in such close contact with the voters and most of the issues can be fairly easily understood. In a nation of over three hundred million people and mass electronic media this is no longer the case, and the candidate has become a carefully groomed and presented product, generally unavailable to the average voter except as an unapproachable speaker at the end of the hall. He is marketed exactly like laundry detergent or fast food: simple phrases, compelling imagery and a complete lack of any meaningful content.

The perfect political marketing storm came in the wake of World War II when television joined radio and spread rapidly and when international corporations began seriously evading the regulation of any single nation The candidate could now theoretically reach every voter in the country and sell himself over and over and over without ever being challenged. As the modern dictatorships have demonstrated, repetition and saturation is the key: it works in commercial advertising and it works in political advertising. Thus, one result is that the candidate is elected more on the basis of ignorance than knowledge – look at the number of astonishingly, embarrassingly stupid people in Congress, especially the on the extreme right.

The second and more fatal result of the marketing storm is the enhanced power of money in our political system. Economic power is political power, and it consequently must always find access to the political apparatus, regardless of whether it is a kingship or a democracy. As a result, through most of history the wealthy class has been the political class, but in an age of democracies and corporations this is no longer the case. Granted, most of the people in Congress are rich, but the real economic power in society is now in the hands of international corporations and a few unbelievably wealthy individuals. And marketing has provided them with an easy and legal mechanism for dramatically influencing, almost to the point of controlling, the political apparatus.

for sale

It is simply impossible to launch a credible campaign for national office (or even most state offices) without a huge amount of money, inasmuch as you cannot get elected without television advertising and that is fabulously expensive. (It is also virtually impossible to do it without representing one of the two established parties, thus helping to preserve their shared monopoly.) It now costs a billion dollars to run for President, a billion dollars. But there are equally fabulous sources of money out there: wealthy individuals, organizations with a cause, lobbying groups and most of all, corporations. All these entities will have some interest in influencing the government, and there is a perfectly legal way for them to do that – campaign contributions. Political action committees can expedite these transfers of money, and of course the recent laughable Supreme Court decision that corporations are “persons” allows the really big boys to pour in as much as they want.

Regarding these “contributions,” the notion is frequently expressed, generally by the recipient, that this money comes with no strings attached. Is there actually anyone who believes this? Successful businesses do not give away millions unless something is coming in return. It is clear and oh so obvious bribery, and we get the best government money can buy, which is of course one not at all beholden to the people. Our present government may seem a collection of incompetent fools, but you may rest assured that the big donors will still get their exemptions, contracts, favors and whatever. This is the way it has worked since the beginning of civilization, and the only difference now is that the economic elites are completely vulgar.

Hey, Vlad! We ARE Exceptional

Sep20

(This piece was posted a bit more than a year ago, but given the recent comments of General Secretary Putin about American exceptionalism, it seems a good time to repost (slightly updated), especially since I needed to be out of town this last week. The statistics remain essentially the same.)

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s most recent tyrant, has in a piece in the New York Times questioned America’s claim to be “exceptional,” except perhaps in the area of being a global busybody, which has of course been entirely unexceptional behavior on the part of major powers, including Russia. That Putin should be lecturing another nation concerning its behavior and play the part of the peacemaker and champion of free speech is of course a wonderful study in irony, brought on to a great degree by the current administration. And he is dead wrong on the exceptionalism issue.

most buff Russian dictator ever

“American exceptionalism” has been a phrase dear to the hearts of all politicians but most especially Republicans, who, however, never bother to specify exactly what it means. Presumably they are thinking of the America of the 19^th century, when we were the only serious power with a fully functioning democracy and without any traditional class distinctions. Ours was the society that rewarded hard work and cleverness and afforded the individual the greatest opportunity to improve his condition, regardless of his background. Of course it was also a society that accepted a high level of individual violence and lagged behind western Europe in abolishing slavery and establishing mechanisms of social welfare, but it was nevertheless exceptional, as Tocqueville recognized.

perceptive Frenchman

But this is the now the 21^st century and virtually all the industrial democracies display the characteristics that once made us exceptional. Yet one can still speak, as the conservatives do, about an American exceptionalism. The problem is that we are now exceptional in ways that one might be reluctant to brag about.

We are of course still the richest nation on earth, but we now lead the industrial democracies in income inequality, that is, our rich-poor gap is wider and becoming more so. In roughly the last 30 years the income of the top 1% has increased by 275%, that of the next 19% by only 62%, the next 60% by 40% and the bottom 20% by a mere 18%. We are #50 in income distribution, with 30.5% of all income going to the top 10%; Russia is the only European country below us in this category.

But we sure know what to do with all that wealth. We are #1 in spending ($4271 per capita per year), #1 in military expenditure (but only #3 in military personnel), #1 in energy use (equivalent of 8.35 tons of oil per capita per year), #2 in coal use (1.06 million short tons per year; China edges us out, whereas #3 India uses only .339 million), #1 in carbon dioxide emissions (5.7 million metric tons per year – this is probably changing), but alas, only #2 in biggest environmental footprint (the UAE is #1).

We are #1 in per capita health care expenditure ($6096) and #1 in health care expenditure as a percentage of GDP (15.4%). Yet, for all that money we are #44 in doctors per 1000 people (2.67; little commie Cuba is #2 with 6.4), #14 in nurses and midwives per 1000 people (9.8), #77 in hospital beds per 1000 people (3.1) and #1 in obesity (30.6% of the population) but only #49 in life expectancy (78.37 years). And this is a health care system that does not include some 30 million citizens, unlike the total population coverage present in every other industrialized democracy. Sure, we have the best health care system in world, as conservatives like to say – if you can afford it.

We are #37 in percentage of GDP spent on education (5.7%), but that is of course a big number in dollars. Still, we are #12 in years of adult schooling and #18 in math literacy. On the other hand, we are #1 in teen pregnancy (22% of all 20 year old women), so they are doing something in school.

Incidentally, most Republicans like to think of the US as a “Christian” nation, even though most of the Founding Fathers were not Christian. Well, as the teen pregnancy indicates, some of us are not engaged in very Christian behavior. Further, we also have the #1 divorce rate (4.95 per 1000 people) and #1 incarceration rate (715 per 1000 people; #2 Russia has 584). In 2007 we were #7 in executions (42), up in the top ten with such enlightened countries as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Considering our firearm policies, we were only a disappointing #4 in homicides with guns, but we are certainly #1 in civilian firearms (94.3 guns per 100 people; Serbia is #2 with only 58.2 – and this is the Balkans!) Hardly surprising, we are #1 in motor vehicle deaths (15.5 per 1000 people); the death toll from 9/11 in fact represents a slow month on America’s highways.

But I suspect most Americans are completely unaware of our new exceptionalism. They are too busy: we are after all #1 in TV viewing (28 hours per week).

(The statistics are mostly from the last decade and from the UN via nationmaster.com.)

Another Lost Poem of Rudyard Kipling

Sep12

(Enough of Syria and stupid politicians for a time. The next post may be a little late since I need to leave town for a while. Meanwhile, these satirical poems may be lost on those whose mother tongue is not English, but this is one of the things I do.

Recessional is an odd Kipling poem [look it up], musing on the fall of the British Empire at its peak of pomp and power during Queen Victoria’s Diamond jubilee in 1897. This makes it very timely for Americans.)

Lore of our Fathers, known of old-
The nation’s guide through all our time-
The principles by which we hold
Dominion over plain and pine-
Wisdom of old, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The firefights and shelling dies-
The Captains and the Spooks depart-
But we return still no more wise,
Still arrogant and cold in heart.
Wisdom of old, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

Far-called our carriers sail away-
On dune and village falls the fire-
Lo, all our Good of yesterday
Has sunk into the corp’rate mire!
Hand of our enemies, spare us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

Now drunk with sight of power we loose
Wild blows of death and shock and awe,
Such weapons as aggressors use,
And fascist states without the Law-
Wisdom of old, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

For brutal heart that buys and tries
The guns and shells and screaming drones –
For damning lies all built on lies,
To claim they serve but hide the bones.
For people killed and missiles hurled,
Your mercy on our nation, world!

Rudyard Kipling

King Victoria?

Queen Victoria

Secretary of State Dumpty Speaks

Sep7

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master— that’s all.”

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

It would appear that the Obama administration has chosen to pursue this looking-glass linguistic philosophy, and Secretary of State Kerry is clearly the Humpty Dumpty in Chief. And while they probably are aware of the deceit that is being practiced, they certainly do not see the silliness. Politicians have of course always needed to be careful of exactly what they say, and this is all the more a concern in an age when there are microphones and cameras everywhere. But inasmuch as a politician has an agenda and is inclined to keep it simple for the voters (and his colleagues), this care does not lead to clear and unambiguous statements but rather distortions of the truth and ultimately outright lies.

John Kerry, hero and patriot

John Kerry, Secretary of State

John Kerry, politician

It begins with euphemisms, which is an easy approach since Americans are accustomed to dealing in euphemisms for all sorts of things that are for some reason embarrassing, such as sex and body functions. The most notorious, and clever, euphemism is well known: collateral damage. This illustrates perfectly the goal of such expressions, that is, to defuse statements that are unpleasant or counterproductive by attempting to remove the accompanying imagery. Unlike “civilian casualties,” “collateral damage” is colorless, suggesting broken windows rather than mangled bodies of women and children.

Less prominent but a favorite of mine is “degrade” as a substitute for destroy, blow apart or kill, as in “the Republican Guard division was degraded.” Most listeners will not immediately imagine what that actually means: burned and dismembered bodies scattered all over the place. “Degrading” Assad’s assets sure sounds more mellow than blowing things apart, including Syrians. It is a pity that generals are not required to explain in precise detail what occurred or is about to occur.

a degraded unit

We have now reached the point where euphemisms will not suffice and words are simply redefined to mean what the speaker wants them to mean. This had already caught my attention when a car bomb parked in Times Square was described as a “weapon of mass destruction,” dramatically increasing the magnitude of the charges against the perpetrator. Or when people who leak classified information to the press are labeled “spies,” despite the absence of any foreign power, which I had thought integral to the definition of espionage. Also, when did every inquiry about future developments (e.g., if x happens what will you do) become a “hypothetical” and thus not worthy of an answer?

Well, Secretary Dumpty has now raised the bar extremely high, asserting that bombing Syria would not constitute a “war” because no American troops would enter the country. Indeed? For millennia humans have defined war as doing violence to another tribe or state, whether it was undertaken with spears or cruise missiles. Certainly, virtually all Americans, including Kerry and his friends, would consider it an act of war if someone bombed this country, and because of such an attack we went so far as to declare war essentially against an idea, terrorism. According to Secretary Kerry the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would not constitute an act of war since there were no Japanese “boots on the ground.”

This is all blatant misuse of the language in the service of dissembling, but no one really cares. The military is after all simply using technical terms, which they do all the time, and people, I suspect, now think first of collateral damage rather than civilian casualties. For the most part, however, Americans do not care because all but the stupidest no longer believe anything politicians say. Besides, the citizen who agrees with the policy will be quick to embrace the Humpty Dumpty philosophy.

International Law Matters (Except When It Doesn’t)

Aug30

(It was my intention to post another lost poem of Rudyard Kipling, but the administration’s blathering and dithering over Syria requires a few words.)

Among the plethora of generally vague reasons offered by the administration as justification for some sort of attack on Syria far and away the most hypocritical is Assad’s violation of international law by deploying chemical weapons. The President, along with members of his administration, specifically cited this abuse of international covenants as a reason to go to war – or at least quasi-war. A spokesman for the President stated at a press conference that international laws are “important” and that it was “not appropriate to flout them with impunity.”

The hypocrisy is staggering. We constantly violate or fail to enforce traditional international behavior and covenants we have pledged to honor; in the case of Israel we refuse even to talk about blatant transgressions of international agreements we are legally bound to uphold. We have invaded the airspace and sovereignty of other countries with “impunity,” and we have engaged in torture, which is specifically outlawed by several major conventions. And now, thanks to the “traitor” Snowdon, we discover that we are violating agreements with and the domestic laws of close allies, whose concerns are dismissed with incredible arrogance.

We are of course right in condemning Assad’s use of poison gas, which not even Hitler was tempted to use. It is an indiscriminate killer, hard to control, and unlike artillery shelling, which also kills many innocents, it is virtually impossible to escape. That chemical weapons kill innocents as well as combatants is the major reason they are banned, and correctly so. But we are killing innocents on a regular basis with our drone strikes, and while the civilian casualties from each attack are limited, at least compared to what is happening in Syria, the numbers are steadily growing.

Humanitarian outrage is rarely the primary reason behind foreign policy decisions (Kosovo was an exception, but of course that happened in Europe), and more than two thirds of Americans oppose intervention, regardless of any outrage. Naturally, the administration pays little attention to public opinion unless it relates to elections, and consequently the President has brought out the heavy weapon of “national security,” since this trumps the opinion of the public. In addition to the usual list of security reasons – Middle East stability, security of Israel, terrorism – we were actually told these chemical weapons could be a threat to the United States – not United States interests but the United States itself. When questioned about this ludicrous assertion, the spokesman simply avoided answering.

But what about American credibility? Well, if losing face is a problem, then it is solely the fault of President Obama and his non-existent policy in the region. In any case, who cares? One would think a country with a $600 billion military and eleven carrier groups had plenty of credibility. It is the administration’s credibility that is at risk, not America’s, and for that reason we will lash out.

So once again America is about to commit an act of war against a country that has done absolutely nothing to injure us, an act that would result in massive retaliation were it done against us, which in fact is what happened in December 1941. (At this very moment on the TV behind me John Kerry is telling us that even though we are weary of war we cannot ignore our responsibilities. Responsibility for what exactly in this instance?) And we will be doing it without Congressional authorization and (with the likely exception of France) apparently alone; even faithful little Britain has opted out, since Parliament still decides on war and peace there. This is to say, we are once again about to violate international law, which is supposedly a major reason why we are about to go to war.

One does not need a military expert to understand that firing even hundreds of missiles at Syria will have little to no impact on the general situation. But it will make Obama feel better and save the credibility that most would suggest he no longer has. Meanwhile, more Syrians will die, this time killed by our government, mostly in the service of domestic politics. What has happened to us?

should be hanging from a lamp post

under alien mind control?

sarin gas

A Lost Poem by Lord Byron

Aug8

(This may be an early draft of the famous “Destruction of Sennacherib.” If it is, Byron was certainly prescient.)

The Destruction of Obama

The American came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were loaded with silver and gold;

And the sheen of their guns was like stars in the sky,

When the Hellfires roll nightly to kill on the fly.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,

That host with their weapons in Kabul were seen:

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host in a decade lay scattered and strown.

For the fighters of God spread their creed with a blast,

And shot at the face of the foe as he passed;

And the hopes of the soldiers waned deadly and chill,

As their friends tread the mines and forever grew still!

And there lay the Humvee, just blown on its side,

With the gas spilling out and the bodies inside;

And the blood of the wounded lay red on the ground,

And the dead and the dying made hardly a sound.

And there lay the soldier all mangled and torn,

With comrades and sweethearts now ready to mourn:

And the barracks were silent, the colors alone,

The rifles unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the women now widows are loud in their wail,

And policy lies broke in the Afghani pale;

And the force of the US, almighty before,

Hath melted like snow in the Taliban’s war.

King Obama

King Sennacherib

Lord Byron

Wogs Need Not Apply

Aug2

This is an issue of small significance compared to the revelation of our government’s massive surveillance programs and the administration’s Gestapo approach to dealing with informants, but it is symptomatic of our lopsided and self-destructive support for Israel. And you are hardly likely to hear about this in the mainstream media.

Congress is now considering two bills (S. 462 and H.R. 938), which are both versions of the United States-Israel Strategic Partner Act of 2013. Though the US and Israel have been joined at the hip for forty years, Congress continually passes bills such as these in order to fine tune the relationship, which is to say, add more clauses. These are inevitably in favor of Israel, often to the detriment of Americans, and some are simply baffling. For example, last year Congress passed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Act of 2012, which commits the US to “the security of the state of Israel as a Jewish state.” What does that mean? How (and why) are we to guarantee the cultural make-up of a foreign society? What exactly does “Jewish state” mean anyway, when twenty percent of Israel’s citizen body is not Jewish?

This new partnership act includes a visa waiver agreement with Israel. The Visa Waiver Program permits the US and a foreign country (currently thirty-seven of them) to allow their citizens to visit one another for up to ninety days without a visa. This is of course an excellent arrangement for friendly nations, but not surprisingly the agreement with Israel will contain a provision absent from previous agreements: Israel will retain the right, not extended to the US, to deny entry to any American citizen without explanation. Apart from being blatantly unfair and insulting to Americans (who were not consulted about this), this provision is a humiliation for America.

Israel’s history of hassling visitors and denying many access to Israel or the Occupied Territories, often seemingly capriciously or for incomprehensible reasons, is so rich that the Department of State felt compelled to post a travel advisory on its website: “U.S. citizens are advised that all persons applying for entry to Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza…may be denied entry or exit without explanation.” One would think that this essentially guts the agreement as far as Americans are concerned, but nothing is impossible in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of our relationship with Israel. And the advisory specifically notes that “U.S. citizens whom Israeli authorities suspect of being Arab, Middle Eastern, or Muslim origin may face additional, often time-consuming, and probing questioning by immigration and border authorities, or may be denied entry.”

Indeed! Negroes and Irish need not apply. This sort of blatant profiling and discrimination is technically illegal in America and counter to our stated values, but one might argue that given Israel’s experience with Palestinian terrorism, it is a perfectly sensible policy. Perhaps, if the profiling actually only dealt with reasonable suspicion of a threat, but example after example demonstrates that this is quite obviously not the case. If there is even the vaguest suspicion that you are pro-Palestinian or a critic of Israel, that you work for an NGO that has been critical of Israel or that you have simply visited a country hostile to Israel, you will be hassled and possible thrown out. That this sort of thing really does happen is clear from the State Department advisory, since the statement must necessarily be an implicit criticism of Israel, something that is normally a mortal sin for the US government.

Here is a particularly obnoxious though typical example. Nour Joudah, a US citizen, began teaching high school in the West Bank town of Ramallah last year; she had a one year multiple entry visa and a residency permit. After one semester she took a vacation out of the country, and when she returned in January via the Allenby Bridge from Jordan, she was held up for six hours and then denied entry with no explanation. Acting on the advice of the Israeli embassy in Washington, she tried again through Ben Gurion airport. This time she was interrogated for hours, strip searched, taken to a detention center and deported back to Jordan the next day. A surprisingly frank call from the US Consulate in Jerusalem informed her that nothing could be done to help “when it comes to Israel.”

There are endless stories similar to this, and I also experienced this petty behavior, though on a much smaller scale. In 1991 I entered Israel through the Ben Gurion airport and made the mistake of accompanying my travel companion to the same customs station. He was a Black from Cincinnati who had converted to Islam and adopted the very unlikely name of Herb Mohammed. When the official saw Mohammed on his passport, she asked me if I was with him, to which I said yes. We were then both sent to a room occupied by what looked like the Israeli military, who took our passports. After cooling our heels for an hour or so we were given our passports and dismissed without a word of explanation. Trivial perhaps, but common – and insulting, especially for a citizen of a country that is sending Israel, a very wealthy state for its size, a few billion dollars every year. Incidentally, when I left Israel on El Al, I received the most thorough search I have ever experienced, and I had crossed frontiers in the Warsaw Pact curing the Cold War.

Why are our national politicians so willing to do this sort of thing? Can you imagine this arrangement being proposed for any other country? Are they afraid to be called anti-Semites? Do they believe in some Jewish international financial cabal that will finance their campaigns? It must be some sort of fear thing, since it is very hard to believe that virtually all our national politicians are so enamored of Israel, a state that frequently spits in our face and violates almost as many international agreements as the Third Reich, that they would continually adopt positions that are actually detrimental to the US. Apparently the powerful Zionist lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, looms over the frightened gentiles in Congress like some Lord of Hosts, ready to smite those who will not do Their will.

Actually, the Christian extremists perhaps have a positive reason: watch over Israel and lobby for the third temple, which would bring on the End of Times they desire so much. Then those pesky Jews will either become good Christians or be slaughtered. Meanwhile, better that Jews should live in Israel instead of their neighborhoods.

terrorists

not a terrorist

No Worry Unless You Have Something To Hide

Jul26

(I have nothing novel to say here; even allowing for the technology, no state in antiquity, even Egypt under their god-king, experienced this level of surveillance. I just need to vent on this subject.)

President Obama’s assault on the First and Fourth Amendments is in full swing. (The Second is completely safe.) It was bad enough to learn what our government was doing – in our name – under the Bush administration, but Obama’s security apparatus and his actions to protect it are staggering. We may no longer have renditions and blatant torture (force-feeding and prolonged periods of solitary confinement may qualify), but a Democratic and supposedly progressive President is actually laying the foundations of a police state, and Congress is helping, having found a bipartisan cause.

The public had long been aware, if unconcerned, of the constitutionally and morally questionable things the CIA has been doing, especially in conjunction with our seemingly endless wars, but inasmuch as the operations generally affect only other countries, the American public is mostly unconcerned. The recently revealed surveillance programs of the NSA, however, do affect Americans, and while most of our citizens have probably never heard of the Fourth Amendment, they do understand when they are being spied on. And so do our closest allies, even if their spooks and governments are enthusiastically cooperating with ours.

Amerikanische Reichssicherheitsdienst

The situation has become even more threatening – and surreal – with the revelation of the Insider Threat Program, something right out of Stalinist Russia. By this directive federal employees and contractors are legally bound to watch for and report “high-risk persons or behavior” among their fellow workers, and failure to do so could result in penalties, including criminal charges. And any leaks concerning the program and its operation will be treated as espionage, even if the leak reveals illegal behavior. The only thing missing to complete the journey back to Moscow in the 1930s is any reference to “counterrevolutionaries, Trotskyites and wreckers.” Will this vigilance be rewarded with medals? Perhaps “Hero of America” or “Order of Washington”?

But wait, there’s more! In the name of security the government will also violate the First Amendment! That’s two Amendments for the price of one administration! No government has been friendly to leakers, not because of the typically stated reason of security but since the leak usually reveals the government has been doing something questionable, like monitoring all private communications. Under the Great Engineer of American Security, however, leakers are now being prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, even though they are not passing information to a foreign government, which I mistakenly thought was part of the basic definition of espionage.
Unless of course the news media is considered a foreign entity, which is certainly the view of every autocrat, even the elected ones, like Recep Erdoğan of Turkey, who is close to setting records for jailing journalists. The traditional method for punishing journalists, like Judith Miller of Valeria Plame fame, is to demand the names of their sources and then jail them for contempt when they will not reveal them. In the case of John Risen, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who was threatened with contempt if he did not testify against a former CIA source, a federal appeals court has just ruled that he was not covered by the First Amendment. This means that potentially every reporter is facing jail if he does not reveal sources.

And now there is a new twist: the journalist receiving the leaked information can also be charged with committing a crime, the exact nature of which the administration has not made clear. Journalist Glenn Greenwald was recently threatened with such a charge. Does this mean if you find a pile of classified documents on the ground, read them and talk to your friends about them, you are eligible for criminal prosecution? On the other hand, the government can spy on you all it wants apparently. For years the government has been monitoring Risen’s phone calls and emails, not in pursuit of a terrorist but to discover his sources. So, the security agencies can acquire taps on innocent civilians for the fairly specious reason that someone is revealing things to them.

The public opposes the NSA PRISM program by a 2 to 1 margin, but a recent effort to halt it was defeated in Congress, the amendment to the Defense bill being the subject of intense lobbying by the President (the liberal guy), the spooks and the contractors who make stuff for the spooks. Those who support the NSA of course talk about damaging our security, suggesting they know better than the average American, which has some basis in truth since we can find out virtually nothing about the program – or that it even existed until Snowden popped up. “Trust us” is not very convincing, coming from people who have regularly lied to the public.

The biggest joke of all is the fact that Obama touts his administration as the most transparent ever, when in fact it is actually one of the most opaque in history. The secrecy mania is out of control. In fiscal year 2011 more than 92 million documents were classified at a cost of more than $11 billion; the full numbers are unknown because at some agencies classification and its cost are classified. Are these all secrets that could harm the country if revealed? That is hard to believe. Classification covers mistakes, malfeasance, outright criminality and violations of the Constitution and civil rights, and very important, it enhances the status of the bureaucrat doing the classification.

And all this behavior for what? Because without such massive surveillance and secrecy one or two terrorists might blow up some people? Is this a sufficient reason to assault our own Constitution and freedom, especially when innocents are being killed in far greater numbers because of our love affair with the gun and inclination to solve problems with violence? Surveying the increased and constitutionally dubious powers of the government and its security apparatus and the concomitant free fall of America’s image in the world, I can only conclude that the 9/11 terrorist have won.

War without End, Amen

Jun7

Chancellor Obama

On September 21, 2001 Congress passed the Authorization to Use Military Force act, the legislation that essentially allowed the President and military to wage war on “terrorism” anywhere, anytime and seemingly forever. In an impressive imitation of the German parliament under Hitler Congress, after virtually no debate, approved the act with an almost unanimous vote; apart from a few abstentions there was only a single nay cast in both houses. That no vote was cast by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Cal), who is now sponsoring a bill, HR 198, that would repeal the AUMF.

The Patriot Act, another demonstration of incredible political cowardice, is of course much more pernicious domestically, with its constitutionally dubious provisions for dramatically enhancing the powers of the country’s security apparatus while undermining civil liberties. The Patriot Act (always be suspicious of legislation with the word “patriot” in the title) immediately reminded me of the Enabling Act of 1933, which essentially allowed Hitler to henceforth govern by decree: both were justified by “threats” to national security (9/11, the burning of the Reichstag) and both increased the power of the state and undermined the democratic constitution. And since no government will voluntarily surrender power the life of the Patriot Act, like the Enabling Act, has been constantly extended, most recently by that defender of freedom, Barack Obama, whom we now know is collecting information on Americans on a scale unmatched by any dictatorship in history.

In some ways the AUMF is the foreign affairs counterpart to the Patriot Act. It dramatically increases the power and scope of the executive, military and CIA in waging war overseas and obviously allows the transgression of international covenants we are pledged to defend, once again in the name of national security, the favorite excuse of every authoritarian state. Even better than the Patriot Act, the AUMF has no sunset clause, presumably because the war against terror will last so long as there is even a single individual contemplating violence against the United State, which is to say, forever.

President Obama, who was apparently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize simply for replacing George Bush, is now using the AUMF to “wage war,” i.e., assassinate people, to an extent the Bush administration could only dream of. Obama thus joins such notables as Henry Kissinger, Menachim Begin and Yasser Arafat in the contest to see which Nobel Peace laureate has the most blood on his hands. And his administration has just made it clear, at least in White House language, that the war is likely to continue for another ten or twenty years. We could be going for a record here.

Lee’s bill is doomed to failure, because the forces perpetuating the forever war are simply too strong for Congress to resist, not that it takes that much to cow our noble leaders. Unlike the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, it is not economic pressures that play a major role, since drone warfare is relatively cheap, and for Haliburton, Blackwater Mercs, Amalgamated Latrine Diggers, et al. there is in this case little “money to be made, supplying the army with the tools of the trade.” Instead, the forces behind the forever war are institutional: the Presidency, federal security and intelligence agencies and the military.

Governments are the ultimate beneficiaries of wars, assuming they win them. Threats to national security, particularly those that are seen as internal to the country, have always been a grand justification for the state, especially the executive, to accumulate more power, and the security threat is most obvious and useful when the country is actually at war, whether or not the enemy is seriously a threat. The beauty of the forever war, of course, is that is in fact forever. Crises need not be invented, because inasmuch as the country is always in a state of war, it is also always in the midst of a politically useful crisis. Further, not only can we not lose the war on terror but it also does not need to be won, so long as terrorists (or reasonable facsimiles) are being blown up. Even a failure, such as a successful serious terror attack in the country, provides a platform for seeking more authority and more leeway in the exercise of that authority. It’s a politician’s dream come true.

The Executive branch clearly benefits, certainly in its relationship to the Congress. The President of the United States now has more power, both in domestic and foreign affairs, than he has ever had, even, I would suggest, during the Second World War. Governments do not willingly surrender power. Much of the power accumulated during the war against Germany and Japan was retained by the Presidency, and more was added by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a fine example of war – or shadow war – playing into the hands of the executive and military. Some of that authority was rescinded by the War Powers Act, but not all, and the measure in fact enshrines the idea that the President can commit the country to war without getting anyone’s approval by granting an exception: in case of “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”

Presidential authority and the mechanisms for exercising that authority clearly skyrocketed after 9/11, leading to two costly wars that really did not involve the American public. Barack Obama has now dramatically underscored the point that all governments crave power; the putative liberal and one time critic of the Bush administration’s abuses has preserved all those emergency powers, which are now being used on a whole new scale. The obsession with secrecy and leaks, which has resulted in an administration even more opaque than the previous one, obviously has a lot to do with preventing the public from realizing just how extensive and questionable the government’s activities are.

New digs for CIA spooks

The forever war is a bonanza for the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and whatever other security and intelligence groups that are mucking about the country. Since the war against terrorism has a domestic component our secret police, the FBI, has an unending excuse for enhanced activities, even those of constitutional questionable nature, and a basis for demanding more money. Nobody, probably not even members of Congress, really knows exactly what the mandate and powers of the NSA are since this set of spooks makes the CIA look positively transparent, but clearly it is involved in domestic affairs, whether legally or illegally, who knows? Intelligence agencies always do well in times of war, and we can expect the NSA to see increases in its funding, though we will not see them, since the agency’s budget is also secret.

The big winner in the forever war is the CIA (probably; who knows what the NSA is doing?), inasmuch as it is directly involved in foreign affairs and external threats to the US. Such agencies inevitably grow larger in times of war, and in this regard the forever war is perfect, since it is against shadowy individuals scattered around the planet. Consequently, the CIA becomes more important and plays a bigger role than the military, and the organization that was formally prohibited from assassination in 1975 now does so openly and with heavy weapons. Why drone warfare and serious weaponry was put in the hands of an intelligence agency, particularly one with a history of incompetence and law-breaking, rather than the military is not at all clear. Perhaps because they were considered better at secrecy and deception than the military.

While the forever war is essentially in the hands of its competitors, the military still benefits, since a war is a war, even one in which traditional armed forces have only a limited role. Any war means budget increases for the Pentagon and provides them squealing points should any traitorous politician suggest their budget be cut. Besides, the forever war is everywhere, which means more military personnel planted around the world. And those aircraft carriers will be real handy for launching drones.

NSA. Try to get in there.

None of these people have any serious reason to see the war on terror end; it is simply too good for business. And it will not end, since it is unlikely there will ever come a moment when nobody is interested in killing Americans, especially since every drone strike, every violation of others’ national sovereignty is creating more jihadists. So, the war on terror can even be good for terrorists.

The only real losers are the American people and their Constitution.

qqduckus

A professional historian and wise ass considers the contemporary world and the past

Category Archives: America