Stop Me Before I Vote Again

I think most of Obama's gung-ho supporters really are ignorant of their chosen candidate's true nature. Most people still get their news from the corporate media, where they are treated to Obomba's pwog-like soundbites and vapid analysis that magnifies the minute differences between the two corporate candidates. Sure there's tons of information out on the intarwebz, but who has time to read all that depressing stuff when you're working two jobs to pay off your credit card debt and ARM that only "adjusts" upwards.

Of course, there are many who fall for the Democratic spin, hook line and sinker: "he has to say X to get elected," "he will change after November" (yeah, I actually believe that one--but change for the worse), "we can't afford more Republican-appointed judges on the Supreme Court" (as if the Democrats hadn't approved Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito...).

Most of all I think that the pwogs who are deluding themselves have succumbed to a profound pessimism. Most of my pwog friends and family are quite aware of the history of US imperialism and know about the sorts of mass movements it took to win progress--but they don't see evidence of any such mass movement today and cling to the hope that merely checking a box on a ballot is going to at least let things get worse less quickly.

In the end it will still take patient explanation to win pwogs over to class struggle--but it wouldn't hurt for some of us blogger-types (I count myself among those deserving of this criticism) to do a little more on-the-ground activism and help build a viable alternative to the Democrats.

Hegel thought that all you needed were some well-crafted arguments to change the ideas in people's heads. Thus, winning progress amounts to little more than a war of words--after all, superior ideas are self-evident. History shows it takes more than words to win progress. Marx and Engels got it right with their analysis of historical materialism. The ideas in our heads are shaped by the historic and material circumstances of our lives. It's not enough to read sage advice on the Internet to change people's ideas about an election, let alone build a movement--people need to see something concrete on the ground that can actually make a change for the better. And there is in fact a dire need for the sort of analysis one finds on this blog within the antiwar movement--because the self-appointed leaders of this fractured movement (I'm looking at you, UFPJ!) seem to have one strategy: accommodating to the Democrats' electoral needs.

A month ago the Iraq Veterans Against the War brought together 800 people in Seattle for an eye-opening discussion about soldiers' experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and then led a march through the streets. On the heels of this successful event, the Northwest IVAW chapters are attempting to form a new city-wide antiwar coalition to bring together diverse groups who oppose the war but can't agree on a common strategy or set of tactics to fight it. This is something that people like myself and others who read, write for, or comment on this blog should consider getting involved with (FYI if you are in the Seattle area, it will be here: 7pm on Tuesday, July 22nd, at Seattle Central Community College room BE 1110). There's another group pushing for a ballot initiative to divest city money from corporations that profit from illegal occupations--another tactic that can be replicated elsewhere (and one which played an important role in ending Apartheid in South Africa).

A promising new national coalition had its founding meeting in Cleveland at the end of June. It will take follow-through and work, but hopefully this sort of thing can help reform the antiwar movement on a new path independent of the Democrats. I'm sure there are other opportunities in cities around the US. The mass antiwar sentiment is there--it's up to us to organize it!

I think most of Obama's gung-ho supporters really are ignorant of their chosen candidate's true nature. Most people still get their news from the corporate media, where they are treated to Obomba's pwog-like soundbites and vapid analysis that magnifies the minute differences between the two corporate candidates. Sure there's tons of information out on the intarwebz, but who has time to read all that depressing stuff when you're working two jobs to pay off your credit card debt and ARM that only "adjusts" upwards.

Of course, there are many who fall for the Democratic spin, hook line and sinker: "he has to say X to get elected," "he will change after November" (yeah, I actually believe that one--but change for the worse), "we can't afford more Republican-appointed judges on the Supreme Court" (as if the Democrats hadn't approved Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito...).

Most of all I think that the pwogs who are deluding themselves have succumbed to a profound pessimism. Most of my pwog friends and family are quite aware of the history of US imperialism and know about the sorts of mass movements it took to win progress--but they don't see evidence of any such mass movement today and cling to the hope that merely checking a box on a ballot is going to at least let things get worse less quickly.

In the end it will still take patient explanation to win pwogs over to class struggle--but it wouldn't hurt for some of us blogger-types (I count myself among those deserving of this criticism) to do a little more on-the-ground activism and help build a viable alternative to the Democrats.

Hegel thought that all you needed were some well-crafted arguments to change the ideas in people's heads. Thus, winning progress amounts to little more than a war of words--after all, superior ideas are self-evident. History shows it takes more than words to win progress. Marx and Engels got it right with their analysis of historical materialism. The ideas in our heads are shaped by the historic and material circumstances of our lives. It's not enough to read sage advice on the Internet to change people's ideas about an election, let alone build a movement--people need to see something concrete on the ground that can actually make a change for the better. And there is in fact a dire need for the sort of analysis one finds on this blog within the antiwar movement--because the self-appointed leaders of this fractured movement (I'm looking at you, UFPJ!) seem to have one strategy: accommodating to the Democrats' electoral needs.

A month ago the Iraq Veterans Against the War brought together 800 people in Seattle for an eye-opening discussion about soldiers' experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and then led a march through the streets. On the heels of this successful event, the Northwest IVAW chapters are attempting to form a new city-wide antiwar coalition to bring together diverse groups who oppose the war but can't agree on a common strategy or set of tactics to fight it. This is something that people like myself and others who read, write for, or comment on this blog should consider getting involved with (FYI if you are in the Seattle area, it will be here: 7pm on Tuesday, July 22nd, at Seattle Central Community College room BE 1110). There's another group pushing for a ballot initiative to divest city money from corporations that profit from illegal occupations--another tactic that can be replicated elsewhere (and one which played an important role in ending Apartheid in South Africa).

A promising new national coalition had its founding meeting in Cleveland at the end of June. It will take follow-through and work, but hopefully this sort of thing can help reform the antiwar movement on a new path independent of the Democrats. I'm sure there are other opportunities in cities around the US. The mass antiwar sentiment is there--it's up to us to organize it!

I'm 26. My impression of my peers, is that most understand the imperial reality of the US, at least in broad outline (contra, I presume, the situation in the 60's).* The problem is that for us the drawbacks are not explicitly felt;** if anything, we are rewarded for our (effective) support of this state of affairs. Of course, there is still an element of delusion:

"[T]he experience of the 'comfortably off' is restricted and distorted. They seem to enjoy the advantages of the present situation. But they suffer as deeply from its defects. The artist and scientific inquirer are pushed to the outside of the main currents of life and become appendages to its fringes or caters to its injustices. All aesthetic interests suffer in consequence. Useless display and luxury, the futile attempt to secure happiness through the possession of things, social position, and the economic power over others, are manifestations of the restriction of experience that exists among those who seemingly profit by the present order. Mutual fear, suspicion and jealousy are also its products [John Dewey, article unknown]."

I think only viable strategy in combating this is to cause us who are "comfortably off" to become empathetic to those who are explicitly suffering. I.e., effective propaganda that explodes euphemism by making the horrors explicit.

*I will admit, among liberals there is generally more (protective) naivety and apologizing than conservatives (this is a scientifically variable fact). And, in this respect, I find liberal New England folk more hypocritical than their redneck counterparts, at any rate the ones from my home town of Elko, NV. Where I'm from there is a very healthy, IMO, mistrust of the government and a surprising clear understanding of what the concept of empire means.

**For Colombian women "employed" by Chiquita, I image the case is otherwise.

Help is coming for nations with "weak or poorly formed civil societies?"

It's about time we got some help around here.

For good mockery of Lakoff from someone else in his field, check out Mixing Memory.

In the 1950s, in the wake of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” plan, Pakistan obtained a 125 megawatt heavy-water reactor from Canada. After India’s first atomic test in May 1974, Pakistan immediately sought to catch up by attempting to purchase a reprocessing plant from France. After France declined due to U.S. resistance, Pakistan began to assemble a uranium enrichment plant via materials from the black market and technology smuggled through A.Q. Khan. In 1976 and 1977, two amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act were passed, prohibiting American aid to countries pursuing either reprocessing or enrichment capabilities for nuclear weapons programs.

These two, the Symington and Glenn Amendments, were passed in response to Pakistan’s efforts to achieve nuclear weapons capability; but to little avail. Washington’s cool relations with Islamabad soon improved. During the Reagan administration, the US turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon’s program. In return for Pakistan’s cooperation and assistance in the mujahideen’s war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Reagan administration awarded Pakistan with the third largest economic and military aid package after Israel and Egypt. Despite the Pressler Amendment, which made US aid contingent upon the Reagan administration’s annual confirmation that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons capability, Reagan’s “laissez-faire” approach to Pakistan’s nuclear program seriously aided the proliferation issues that we face today.

Not only did Pakistan continue to develop its own nuclear weapons program, but A.Q. Khan was instrumental in proliferating nuclear technology to other countries as well. Further, Pakistan’s progress toward nuclear capability led to India’s return to its own pursuit of nuclear weapons, an endeavor it had given up after its initial test in 1974. In 1998, both countries had tested nuclear weapons. A uranium-based nuclear device in Pakistan; and a plutonium-based device in India.

Over the years of America's on again- off again support of Pakistan, Musharraf continues to be skeptical of his American allies. In 2002 he is reported to have told a British official that his “great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends.” Musharraf was referring to Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia ... etc., etc., etc.,

Taking the war to Pakistan is perhaps the most foolish thing America can do. Obama is not the first to suggest it, and we already have sufficient evidence of the potentially negative repercussions of such an action. On January 13, 2006, the United States launched a missile strike on the village of Damadola, Pakistan. Rather than kill the targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, the strike instead slaughtered 17 locals. This only served to further weaken the Musharraf government and further destabilize the entire area. In a nuclear state like Pakistan, this was not only unfortunate, it was outright stupid. Pakistan has 160 million Arabs (better than half of the population of the entire Arab world). Pakistan also has the support of China and a nuclear arsenal.

I predict that America’s military action in the Middle East will enter the canons of history alongside Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Holocaust, in kind if not in degree. The Bush administration’s war on terror marks the age in which America has again crossed a line that many argue should never be crossed. Call it preemption, preventive war, the war on terror, or whatever you like; there is a sense that we have again unleashed a force that, like a boom-a-rang, at some point has to come back to us. The Bush administration argues that American military intervention in the Middle East is purely in self-defense. Others argue that it is pure aggression. The consensus is equally as torn over its impact on international terrorism. Is America truly deterring future terrorists with its actions? Or is it, in fact, aiding the recruitment of more terrorists?

The last thing the United States should do at this point and time is to violate yet another state’s sovereignty. Beyond being wrong, it just isn't very smart. We all agree that slavery in this country was wrong; as was the decimation of the Native American populations. We all agree that the Holocaust and several other acts of genocide in the twentieth century were wrong. So when will we finally admit that American military intervention in the Middle East is wrong as well?