The Coming Spectre

The coming election offers two fairly conservative candidates with hawkish foreign policies, Romney and Obama, two democratic socialists with strong libertarian leanings, Stein and Anderson, a libertarian, Johnson, and a religious, extremely conservative, authoritarian Constitutionalist, Goode. Sadly, of these five only two have any chance of winning.

Obama's foreign policy seems to have largely been inherited from Bush, and then expanded into new, more odious directions. Obama's innovations on Bush's breathtaking imperalism include, but are not limited to, presidential kill lists, attacking funerals with drone strikes and escalating the US involvement in Yemen. Because Romeny and Obama agree so much, they have to find useless things to criticze each other about. Obama mocked Romeny about his complaints regarding the size of the Navy, recalling the universal derision Romeny received earlier in the year when he stated that Russia was America's number one geo-political foe.

Romney has meanwhile repeated the bizarre claim that Obama has "apoligized" for America abroad. A curious thing to clam about an imperalist president who has granted himself the ability to murder enemies of the state at will. Romeny also claims we need to increase defense spending. Given the comically over-sized defense budget, this is akin to a morbidly obese man with hypertension and type 2 diabetes proudly making a New Year's resolution to go to twice as many all-you-can eat buffets next year. Whichever President we have for next year, expect American imperalism abroad to continue without reservation or shame.

The policy differences on domestic matters are perhaps a little wider, but still pretty minor. Obama has been pretty conservative in continuing existing policies, except for the health insurance tax/mandate in the PPACA law, a federal version of Romney's plan as Massachusetts governor. Romney goes back and forth on whether he'll change the law, or which parts he would change.

At most we can expect some minor modifcations to either tax code or health care regulations, dependent entirely on who wins the Senate and House races. The most greivous domestic policy since Indian removal, the War on Drugs, will likely be unaffected by who wins the election, as well the Patriot Act and similar programs to spy on and imprison the population. Income inequality will continue to grow and corporations will still receive huge benefits from the government in a myriad of ways.

To me, the real choice is between Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson or Gary Johnson. If a person really wanted to vote for someone with terrible ideas, I would recommend Virgil Goode over either Obama or Romney.

P.I.G. Guide to the Middle East

I thought this book would be terrible going in to it, a Fox News version of the Middle East. It wasn't quite as bad as all that, but not something I would ever recommend to anyone. The book starts on the first page with Strawman fallacies about traditional right wing bogeymen "the left", "political correctness", and goes on to the media, academics, Michael Moore and so on.
This is clearly not an academic work. There are no footnotes, endnotes or a bibliography. The author never bothers to define what he means by PC, nor does he provide any examples. Basically, anything he disagrees with is "Politically Correct" or "liberal". Obnoxiously labelled side bars tell us about "Books You Aren't Supposed to Read", who is telling us not to read them again? What exactly did the media do that is so dastardly? The whole thing is laced with strawmen about all the same tired targets of right wing attacks. Bleargh.

The main argument of the book is that the Middle East was better off under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, which kept the people ignorant and standards of living low. But at least there was stability. The main watchword here seems to be stability. But again, he never bothers to tell us what he means by stability. The author also dismisses those who would blame the West for the problems of the Middle East, but then goes on to detail all the blunders made by Churchill dividing up the Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Conference. If he wanted to claim that the West is partially responsible that might make sense. But he tells us that A. The West is not responsible at all and B. Here's all the ways that England screwed up the Middle East.

There are other contradictions, he decries Middle Eastern countries turning to socialist style governments, but never mentions how socialistic Israel is (Israel has something like 10% private land ownership). Egypt's army during the Yom Kippur war is described as being "poorly trained" in one section, but described as well trained in another. Despite admonishing Arab regimes for following western trends, the author chides the Shah for not following more free-market policies. He blames Carter for "losing Iran". Losing it? To who? The Iranians? For shame they should take over their own country! And yes, the Ayatollah hated us, maybe because we destroyed their last government?
He freely describes Saddam's atrocities, but then forgives Reagan for supporting him, by comparing American support for Saddam to the Allied support for Stalin during WW2 against Nazi Germany. Key differences for that analogy include the fact that the Allies, including Russia, had all been militarily attacked by the Axis powers. Nazi Germany had in fact declared war on America and was actively trying to take over Europe and Africa. And their partner had attacked Pearl Harbor. Iran, on the other hand, attacked no one. There were hostages taken, yes. And for that we should sponsor Saddam to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians?

A better analogy would be if Japan had never attacked the US, and after Operation Barbarossa we threw our support 100% behind Hitler. Like the USSR, Iran was our ideological enemy we had interfered with decades before, but that currently posed no real threat. Hitler, like Saddam, liked filling mass graves full of innocent people. But Saddam was ok for that period, because he supported stability.

This mysterious stability never really gets defined. We learn that Assad under Syria is acceptable because he promoted stability, despite his massacres against his own people, with up to 50,000 or more innocents dead. Apparently stability does not include peace, otherwise tens of thousands of dead innocents would seem to discount it. Stability seems to be code word for "Supporting American Interests", or at the very least, not opposing them actively.
There is a chapter on the occupation of Iraq, where we learn that George Bush is an idealistic liberal do-gooder. The author dismisses out of hand any concept of Bush invading Iraq for anything other than an intense love of human freedom. The fact that his first adventure into spreading beloved, sweet, delicious freedom happened to be in the most strategically important area of the world seems to be a wacky coincidence. Bush Jr's main fault then, is that he just loves freedom too much! Much better books have been written about the invasion of Iraq, including Fiasco, No End in Sight and Imperial Life in the Emerald City.
The author repeatedly disparages the idea of Middle Eastern democracy outside of Israel, but does note that Iran under a moderate, Khatami, wanted to make peace with America. America spurned him, and a hardliner took over. If democracy is so untenable, how did such a nice guy end up in charge of Iran? If the US had taken a stance other than "Always act like an asshole to Iran, no matter what" Khatami may have gotten some of his reforms done. Or at the very least, Ahmadinejad might not be in power now.

Israel is presented as an unabashed force for good. The history provided is largely dealing with their Wars, the actual plight of Palestinians or Arabs inside Israel is given almost no mention. Any massacres or atrocities carried out be Israel or their proxies goes unmentioned. The invasions of Lebanon are almost completely skipped over, except for one mention which he blames on Jimmy Carter. If Carter had not forced Israel and Egypt to come to a peace agreement, the two countries would still have their armies staring at each other over the Sinai, and thus Israel would not have been able to invade Southern Lebanon. Thus, the Israeli-Lebanon war was Jimmy Carter's fault.

Saudi Arabia is held up as the ideal agent to introduce peace and stability, and although there are certainly worse countries, there are certainly a lot better. Saudi Arabia has problems with poverty, slavery, women's rights and actively promotes extremism around the world.But democracy is always worse, we're assured.

The author seems to know his history for the most part, but is way too caught up in dissing on right wing targets in strawman attacks, and goes by the annoying habit of calling anyone who does anything he disagrees with "liberal." Oh yeah, Henry Kissinger, renown war criminal, is hailed as a genius.

Debt

I supposed the other day what would happen to the deficit if the government simply cut all the programs and subsides that contribute to the violent and inequitable world we live in.

**2012 defense spending: 1 trillion**

cut by 75%

-$750 billion

**2008 Farm Bill $288 billion**

cut by 50%

-$144 billion

**War on Drugs approx $50 billion**

cut by 100%

-$50 billion

**Foregin Military and Economic Aid approx $12 billion**

cut by 100%

-$12 billion

**Federal Burea of Prisons approx $500 million**

cut by 50% or more by releasing non violent drug offenders and other petty criminals with no felonies or violent offenses

-$250 million

**Medicare Part D approx $70 billion a year**

cut by 100%

-$70 billion

**CIA budget approx $30 billion a year**

cut by 90%

-$27 billion

There are numerous things that could be cut, but that I can't find easy figures for. I came up with this in a couple minutes of internet research. It's possible the savings from the above cuts could be higher, I tried to be conservative whenever possible.

If a tax has to be implemented, the so called "Nader" tax on financial transactions of about 1/2 of a percent would raise a significant amount of revenue while having a small impact on world markets.

Revenue

1/2 of 1% tax on financial market transactions

+approx 350 billion

Total Swing- $1,403,250,000 or approx $1.4 trillion per year

aprox defecit $15 trillion

pay off deficit in approx 11 years

Of course, a person could cut any number of other things. Again, this is all very hasty and preliminary. To get these net savings, automatics increases in spending would have to be frozen, or made even with inflation.

The point is not how to magically fix the deficit (11 years is probably too long to take, although better than forever) but how much the US spends on things that are not only uneconomical, but morally unjustified.

Occupation Tourism

There is a tourism industry, for people, largely from the Western First World to tour the occupied West Bank. The ostensible purpose, other than making money, is to cultivate positive press for the settlements there. The article quotes a number of participants in this industry, as well as tourists, praising the entire project. However, even the rudimentary re-statement of the facts by the news article dashes all their assertions apart.

"We are not monsters," Ilana Shimon told a clutch of tourists this week, leading them through Havat Gilad, a small settlement outpost built without Israeli government authorization.

"I'm against violence. All we want is to sit on our land and we want you to be our ambassadors," Shimon told her visitors near her home in Havat Gilad, where she lives with 30 other families, making up about 250 people, most of them children.

The quoted person claims to be "against violence", and yet the settlements exist only due to war. As the article explains:

About 300,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, occupied by Israel in a 1967 war and home to 2.5 million Palestinians. The World Court has ruled the settlements illegal.

Occupied land is, by definition, land taken and maintained by military force. International law, and common morality, clearly state that territory seized during war is not legitimate. And even though the quoted settler is against violence, and I'm sure he is a perfectly nice person, his choice to live in the militarily occupied West Bank is a voluntary participation in an illegal, and by defintion, violent enterprise.

The tour took the group through several small settlements, some of them built without official permission by settlers who see themselves as pioneers exercising their claim to a Biblical birthright to the land.

How can anyone exercise a "biblical birthright" to land occupied by someone else? To achieve such a birthright requires the removal, or disenfranchisement, of the people who are already there. Why should the current inhabitants respect someone else's religious claim? It's their religion, after all, and not the current inhabitants. The same logic was used by the conquistadors, who politely informed the Natives of South America that the Pope had given their lands to Spain.

Daniel Lippert said he and his wife come to Israel two or three times a year, but this was their first visit to the West Bank. "We donated money to Havat Gilad last year because it is the right thing to do," Daniel said. "God promised the land to the Jews. The Palestinians should become Israeli citizens or leave."

God promised the West Bank to the Jews, we are told. Such a simple explanation. But why did God not announce this promise to all, surely a great deal of confusion could have been avoided. And where is the evidence of this? In a religious book, of course. I could write a religious book that Portugal is promised to the Daoists or Russia to the Rastafarians, and the only rational differences between our claims would be the number of people who believed each.

"There is no other explanation to our success other than divine providence," Ben Saadon said. "We didn't come here to make a business profit, we came here for the love of the land and as the years go by we see God is rewarding us."

Again, the same logic, applied universally leads to absurdities. There is no other explanation for the success of the CEOs of the financial giants who crashed the world economy, and were protected by government largess, than God favors them.

There is no other possible explanation for wealthy Communist bureaucrats in China or child millionaires enriched by their parent's stock options then God! Clearly God is rewarding all those who are successful, and by extension, punishing all who are desolate.

Thus, the entire occupation is a continuous reward by God onto the settlers and a punishment on the Palestinians. Reversing the religions and areas involved could bring to mind all sorts of different historical atrocities, but people seem to be able to convince themselves that in this case, all the absurdities people usually say are actually true. It wasn't true when everyone else throughout history claimed it was their right to occupy such and such or land, that God favored their violent endeavors, but it's correct this time. Even in this fairly benign Reuters piece, the impossible logic of imperialism is exposed.

Goldstein is dead

On Sunday, U.S. special forces stormed a compound in Pakistan where bin Laden was staying. Bin Laden and several of his cohorts went down fighting, and the body was washed and buried at sea, apparently Muslim custom for a corpse that cannot be received by family.

Celebrations erupted around America, as people crowded the front of the White House and set off fireworks. Where does this leave us?

Osama was obviously a rat fucker of the highest order. The terrorist attack on 9/11 killed 2,750 people, including his various bombings and the thousands of civilians massacred by the bin Laden headed 055 Brigade after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the total death toll for this one man's endeavours could approach 10,000.

The unfortunate part of his death is it won't change much. Al Queada was loosely organized, using a sort of franchise model. Bin Laden was largely a symbolic leader and his death is a symbolic victory only. His goal was to draw America into a larger world conflict, get new recruits and make us spend huge amounts of money to fight against hastily trained fanatics with old AK-47s.

Considering the tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, spent in the war in Afghanistan, the 15-30,000 dead civilians and the ten years of growing terrorist activity it took to catch him, bin Laden may be having the last laugh in Hell. The US military complex and American Nationalists play right into the hands of bin Laden and the people like him.

Feudalism Chic

The 2003 Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai shares a title with a Japanese film from 1977 directed by Kenji Misumi. The titular coincidence is due to the similar subject matter: both films deal with the end of the samurai era following the Meiji Restoration.

In the 2003 film, directed by Edward Zwick, the American protagonist (Nathan Algren) travels to Japan and is enlisted as an advisor to the Imperial government. They require his help to destroy the last hold outs of the old ways, who do not wish to surrender their traditional lifestyles. They "no longer dishonor themselves with the use of firearms," he is told.

The main character ends up joining the samurai and fighting alongside them. We are to believe their cause is noble and pure. In fact, the samurai were noblemen in a strict feudal system who lived off of a stipend from the rulers. The overwhelming majority of the population did the labor required for society to function and enjoyed little privileges in return. The samurai heroes apparently want to hold onto this system, to keep their government stipend and all expenses paid living arrangements. Given solely the context of the film, the samurai are unequivocally the bad guys.

The Japanese film of the same name, although dealing with the same time period, is much more nuanced. The films's title character, Sugi, starts out seemingly as the standard samurai hero, a stoic, lone wolf killing machine. Throughout the film he is humanized more and more, for example we learn of a childhood suicide attempt, his father/son like relationship with his sensei and so on. This happens with the Meiji Restoration as it's backdrop. When the Shogun's forces are defeated, Sugi's sensei, killed in the struggle, makes him promise to not avenge his death.

The film's other characters, all connected to Sugi with one night of drinking in which they bonded, remain attached to one faction or another and refuse to quit fighting.

Misumi's Last Samurai shows the samurai for what they were, a violent pre-modern culture. It also clearly illustrates that the conflicts of the time period, in contrast to the impression the 2003 films gives, owed just as much to the struggle between the Tokugawa Shogunate (as well as it's holdouts) and the Imperial Government, than modernism versus tradition.

So, why are modern people fascinated with pre-modern warrior cultures? From the Spartans in 300, the samurai in The Last Samurai to the Vikings of Scandinavia, warrior cultures make for great fiction. But there is more to it than that. Hitler claimed that Sparta was the ideal state. In Sparta, after all, a pampered warrior class went about conquering and warring on it's neighbors while the labor to make society function was done by a massive slave population. Sparta had a slave to free citizen ration of 10 to 1. Nazi Germany infamously used millions of slaves to support it's war machine, which they sent out in self defense of Western Civilization from Jewish Bolshevism.

Taking the movie 300 as an example, the Spartans ask their fellow Greeks what their professions are. They list mundane jobs in Ancient Greece. The Spartans reply that they are soldiers. The reason so many Spartans are free to devote themselves fully to studying war is because all the labor in their city-state is done by slaves. The Persian Empire is arguably more free than Sparta, so ultimately the war comes down to Western Civilization versus Eastern Civilization, not free versus oppressive societies. Seeing themselves as defenders of Western Civilization is common verbiage among far right groups and fascists in Europe and America.

It's not a coincidence that Norwegian fascists and the Imperial Japanese steeped themselves in Viking and Samurai verbiage. Nationalist groups, including the far right and fascists, subscribe to a pre-modern world view where doing good is helping the nation and doing bad is helping the nation's enemies. And of course adoration of soldiers and war is common among nationalist, far right and fascist groups as well. Taken together, these pre-modern warrior cultures are tailor made to provide these deplorable groups with inspiration.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with enjoying fiction from these time periods. In fact, many samurai movies are actually anti-samurai, where the characters are social outcasts challenging the strict hierarchy of the era. Compare the samurai, fighting for tradition over modernism, from Zwick's Last Samurai to Zatoichi, the star of the longest running film series of all time. Zatoichi, although a sword wielding warrior, is not even a samurai. As a blind peasant he falls near the bottom of the established order. His opponents are often corrupt samurai and yakuza preying on the lower classes. "There is nothing worse than a samurai," Zatoichi remarks in one of his many films.

What a person should ponder when seeing celebrations of these violent cultures is who is creating this? What are they trying to say? What is invested in seeing these people as heroes? Again I'm not subscribing ulterior motives to Zwick's Last Samurai or 300, only attempting to point out where the lines of thought they bring can lead people. The truth is, in history there are few heroes, and often those attempting to make heroes out of villains reveal themselves as modern day villains.

Autistic History

People on the autistic spectrum often have trouble distinguishing people's intentions. Apparently, John Stossel, Fox News' libertarian on retainer, has an autistic view of history. On Fox and Friends he made the rather dubious claim that no one has been helped more by the government than the American Indian. His point was that government aid damages people and communities and that Indian reservations today are not well off.

Stossel seems to believe that these programs and efforts aimed at Indian reservations are designed to help the Indians, a fundamental misunderstanding. Stossel also claims that this unprecedented help has been continuing for the last "200 years". 200 years ago from this year would be 1811, and a cursory understanding of American History would place the Plains Wars, at the very least, in the post-Civil War era. The infamous Wounded Knee massacre happened in 1890 and the government only legalized Indian religious practices in the 1960's. As recently as a few years ago an Indian reservation was taken by the government for unpaid taxes.

Stossel's misunderstanding is due to the Randian view of welfare programs as the actions of do gooder liberals who just don't know any better. In truth, welfare, in the case of the Indians, was created specifically to foster a dependent relationship with the federal government. Stossel's strange viewpoint actually excuses the federal government. It's not that the government was trying to impoverish and destroy Indian communities, he apparently believes the government honestly wanted to help but couldn't figure out how to do so.

Anarchists for Imperalism

I am a staunch anti-imperalist. And yet I find myself a little torn at the American/French/English intervention in Libya. Speaking from an American perspective, the intervention was a violation of the War Powers Act, which in and of itself is probably unconstitutional. So legally, it was wrong.

The US has a tremendous deficit, and it will probably end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars to fight a third war. Financially, it was wrong. Morally, the US has ignored human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and various other nations. Granted, the fighting in Libya right now is worse than those other countries, but to completely ignore the other situations shows a lack of concern for human rights (the supposed motive).

So what is the US's interest in Libya? After initially criticizing Kaddafi, the Libyan leader (who looks like an alien) vowed to never sell oil to the west again. Bad move on his part. The US must figure if the rebels win, their support will buy them access to the Libyan oil fields again.

Still, with all of that said, I find myself glad that the Libyan rebels weren't crushed and slaughtered by Kaddafi, who was even hiring mercenaries from other countries. And it would certainly be a good thing if Kaddafi was sent to the ash bin of history, or held trial for his crimes.

But will this turn out good? Will the intervention inflame the situation and lead to more loss of life? It's hard to say. I am cautiously optimistic.

The Ghost of Thomas Paine

I like Thomas Paine. No, he's not an Anarchist. I consider him a proto-Anarchist, since he predates Proudhon. He embodies the unique echelon of people who all Americans love even though they know nothing about them. Martin Luther King Jr is another member of this club.

Thomas Paine's two most exemplary works are Rights of Man and Age of Reason. Most people in America can name Common Sense as one of his works, but nothing else. If asked what his political beliefs are, most people would draw a blank. Others seem to think he would align with themselves, which is a common position for ignorant people and historical figures they know nothing about.

Paine was a radical. He was an abolitionist and promoted universal human rights. Paine denounced Christianity and organized religion as tools of oppression. The essay Agrarian Justice advocated for what is essentially Social Security, as well as a one time grant for everyone who turned eighteen. Paine advocated a progressive income tax to break up the aristocracy. He theorized that international conflicts could be solved by an organization like the UN. These positions would make him a left-Democrat today, but it was profoundly out of the box thinking for his time period. I think radicals need to reclaim Paine from the Tea Bagger crowd.

Politics as Usual

I sometimes browse Alternet, Common Dreams, The Nation's website and ZNet for news articles of interest. I can't help but notice many of these sites compare the tea party movement with the rise of fascism. Does the movement contain a lot of nuts? Yeah. And I'm sure 80%+ of it is just angry republicans and all their talk of fiscal responsibility and limited government (pragmatically good things if actually practiced) will turn to smoke if they are elected. But brown shirts? Probably not.

I have seen parts of Glenn Beck's shows, for example, and he does a similar thing. Beck seems to have devised an entire mental complex about the evil "progressives", a nebulous and sinister group that seems to contain everyone to the left of himself, and supposes that if we don't rally behind the candidates he supports it's game over for freedom. Beck is hysterical.

America has a lot of problems. High obesity, child hunger, poverty, unemployment. Highest prison population, highest defense budget, fifth highest number of executions. None of these problems will be helped by voting. And an election probably won't make them much worse either, as they are endemic to our entire economic system, which remains unchanged from election cycle to election cycle. I am far more excited for Batman and Robin #16 coming out on 11/3 then any election prospects from 11/2.

Heartening news items!

$18.6 million of un-employment given to millionaires in 2008!

Chiquita banana sued under anti-terrorism laws for sponsoring Columbian death squads

6 men were executed aboard aid flotilla, 5 Turks and one American citizen

These are the symptoms of a corporatist empire. I hope the people bringing the lawsuit take Chiquita to the cleaners, but I'm not holding out too much hope.

Most comical example of State propaganda

Behold; the splendor.

What happened is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said that the US has a contingency plan to invade Iran. In response, Iran announces it is building mass graves to put the bodies of US soldiers in if they should invade. According to Fox News, this is a "provocative action" on the part of Iran, and reminds of the "days of Saddam Hussein", presumably a reference to Saddam's regime digging mass graves and then filling them with the bodies of innocent people.

The guest, a former CIA director, says that Iran's actions are "offensive" and designed to "provoke us." Iran, we are told, is moving inexorably to having "nuclear capability", much like US, Russia, Israel etc. The two men then casually discuss the "window to hit Iran."

I can't help but wonder what the correct response of a foreign nation should be when they learn that the US has plans to attack them laid out? Gratitude? Love? Adoration? Obedience?