Ben Tanosborn

“Everything would be ok if it weren’t for that CNN scaring us out of our wits, giving us all those stories and commentary on the recession and presumed bad economy,” was the statement someone made at the table as we were having breakfast at a delightful B&B of the most charming Victorian-accented town in Washington State: Port Townsend.

A centerpiece for conversation, that’s what that statement became, where everyone could contribute regardless of level of knowledge or degree of ignorance… except for me, preferring to listen intently while doing the honors to some great French toast.

I have a feeling that only artists, dreamers, writers and aspirers in those categories live in or visit communities such as Port Townsend. There are, of course, three hundred workers at the local paper mill… afraid, one assumes, that an extended recession – added to a stricter enforcement of environmental standards – will force the mill to shut down (as rumors have it); and these folks are not dreamers, only holders of those few jobs left in America with a living wage; fading remnants of a blue collar middle class that made this nation a proud producer of wealth… now, in the globalization frenzy turned into a reckless consumer-on-credit.

Unfortunately, and contrary to the optimistic tone of the discussion which ensued, ours is not a presumed bad economy… for what we are living through is but the early stage of a long and deep recession – we dare not call it depression – and not just a business cycle. If we are unwilling to see the obvious systemic changes starting to take place around us, we are burying our heads in the sand, for it isn’t the news accosting us 24-7 but what’s in the news.

Unemployment is sure to continue going up, if at a decreasing rate, until we reach the low teens which when combined with the unstated unemployment (those who are not in the statistical count or are underemployed in hours or skills) could by next year bring the real, if unpublished, number in unemployment close to 20 percent. And what is even worse, that level of true unemployment will stabilize around that figure.

In a global economy, such as the one we are in, self-confidence level means little or nothing in the long run. The belief that just because we are a society with superior aspirations our dreams will be fulfilled is a chimera; our dreams are not much different from those of 6 billion people around the globe. We must realize that the so-called American dream was a thing of the past, something then realizable because of our self-contained, huge marketplace without commercial barriers, the largest by far in the world at that time, and the critical reason for past economic success – something evidenced and written about by socio-historian Alexis de Tocqueville almost two centuries ago; and not the perennial reasons given of Americans’ greater entrepreneurial spirit, or the seemingly sublime Protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism; this latter still being milked by our politicians to this date.

The retail landscape of the nation is undoubtedly in for a permanent change, and that’s where up to now we have based our pseudo standard of living, certainly an overstated level of affluence. Many Americans had found themselves spending money at a much faster pace than they earned it, but the financial sector will not be allowed to operate in the same dismal way as in the past allowing indiscriminate credit flow. That slowdown in retail operations is accelerating a commercial real estate collapse. And, if that weren’t enough, states and municipalities are likely to enter soon a wave of defaults.

The US economy has become a frayed and torn old suit that government and the Fed are now trying to patch; a suit that needs to be replaced, and not just patched. We are running out of options, and runaway inflation might end up being the result, in lieu of a cure. A scary prospect, knowing how ineffective the Fed will be in its control… and how savings are destroyed, totally devalued!

Sorry… no apparent wisdom from that person at the breakfast table. Our economic ills are real and not just a subject of concern created by a self-serving media.

Sadly, there we were, on the second day of summer saying good bye to the warm surroundings of Holly Hill B&B, taking back with us to Portland some very pleasant memories, leaving behind a city of dreams unfulfilled, beautiful surroundings and a paper mill producing over a third of a million tons of virgin and recycled pulp per year… and 58 tons of carcinogens; a clear and present reminder that capitalism continues to be an economic system of understated costs and overstated profits.

We will return to Port Townsend soon enough, but America will not return to normalcy ever. Why? The last quarter of a century has been anything but a time of economic normalcy for the United States as politicians sought to immerse the nation into a global economy that it was not prepared for while keeping a façade of prosperity bought with irresponsible credit. Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II jointly did away with possible fulfillment of any dream. Our only option now is to be realists and live within our means, but that’s hard to swallow for a population that was once shown wealth through a magnifying glass.

Tags: credit, economics, prosperity
Categories: Commentary, Economics
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By Ben Tanosborn

Few speeches during the past decade have been so eagerly awaited as was Obama’s address in Cairo last Thursday, June 4th.  And few speeches have received such wide and far review during these early days of the millennium.

This flawlessly delivered speech, paused with 33 applause interruptions, was hosted by the Islamic epicenter of learning represented by Al-Azhar, oldest university in the world (970 AD), and center of Islamic law and jurisprudence; and century-old Cairo University.

No one expects a formal speech by a US president to contain galimatias or display any degree of paralogia.  Speechwriters at that level of diplomacy and politics are masters in their trade, no matter whether they’re composing an allocution for a highly inarticulate dodo, such as George W. Bush, or for a brilliant orator such as President Obama.  And Barack Obama, just like Bill Clinton before him, would only give such a discourse after assuming the roles of chief architect and principal reviser of such a momentous piece.

It should have been obvious by the time the election was over seven months ago that American foreign policy would undergo change, if not in substance at the very least in tone; something that quickly was evidenced in January as the new president was sworn into office.  So why are we acting so surprised to Obama’s peace greeting of Assalumu-alaikum; or his evocation of the Holy Quran in the same positive vein as the Holy Bible or the Talmud; or his praises of Arab extensive and impressive contribution to humanity  in every field of endeavor?

One would be hard pressed to find a better messenger for peace to the people of Islam than a vibrant, intelligent young president of this most powerful nation.  And, if that were not enough, someone named Hussein (“good, small handsome one” in Arabic) fathered by a Believer (Islam), who had received an early education in Indonesia, most populous among the Muslim nations, accompanied daily by the call of the azaan at both the break of dawn and the fall of dusk.

And no better script could have been written for a play – script with peace as its central theme, and not the fearful, overused word, terror; or the previous Bush-type haranguing in a call to arms for an overly simplistic “war on terror.” This was a for real, unrehearsed reality show.  All of this coming on the heels of a Bush presidency distrusted in most of the world, and detested by most in the Middle East.  Rhetoric to some, perhaps… but to others, a relighting of hope!

And here is where reviewers, most if not all, fall victim to this mirage presented as an oasis of hope.  For all the good intentions, apparent candor, vicissitudes, truisms, and reach for peace and common ground, Obama’s outreach to Muslim communities around the world did not fully make the grade.  Why?  Because as the day turns into night, and the glitter of the words disappears in the dark, pragmatism shows up in the form of a flashlight focusing at the realities of the situation without the embellishment provided by emotions and effective oratory.  And the reality in this speech shows a soft diplomacy designed to enhance and brighten the image of the US, and little or nothing else.

Let’s be honest with ourselves.  Past Iraq and Afghanistan, the true focus of peace for the Muslim peoples of this earth rests in what happens in a geography commanding a small area of 10,000 square miles where almost 5 million believers of Islam live, and a place where their third most holy city, Jerusalem, is located.  It’s all about the Holy Land and the two peoples who lay claim to that land: Palestinians and Israelis.

What might have added a strong measure of credibility to this address simply wasn’t there!  Nothing from Obama’s recent meeting with Netanyahu that would indicate good faith by Israel in dropping all reservations to the 2003 Road Map… and the freezing of all settlement activity in Palestine.  In fact, Israel’s present government signals quite the opposite, making it rather obvious that this White House is in Israel’s pocket just like all others before.  Reservations made by Israel to the Road Map render it worthless.

One thing the US cannot do is make this Israel-Palestine issue one of Might vs. Right, as it has done for the past four decades, and the United States must acknowledge that.  To proclaim neutrality on an issue where such is not the case is hypocrisy at its worst.

The entire speech, as you take a second closer look, appears as nothing but a public relations coup, an exhortation designed to cleanse the image of the United States before the Muslim world.  Of course, that’s a far more desirable stand than giving a diatribe, a la Bush, warning others of dire consequences if US desires aren’t met… redefining Arab moderates as those who capitulate to the wishes of the US.

Obama with his speech in Cairo bound the Middle East book with more attractive covers without having to change any of the text.  Most in his American audience appear fooled, but that’s not likely to have happened to those adversely affected by past and present US policies towards the Middle East.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, foreign policy, middle east
Categories: Commentary, Foreign Policy, Ben Tanosborn, Middle East
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By Ben Tanosborn

If you want an accurate representation of the world, I am reminded… get a globe!  A two- dimensional geographical sketch of our planet just won’t do.

As I type away my thoughts for this article, right above the monitor, hanging on the wall, is a 4’ wide by 2 ½’ high Rand McNally world map that at times inspires and often emits some dynamic view of geopolitics: a Mercator projection flattening our globe which in my rectangular map has the land and oceans over the equator taking up twice as much space as those in the Southern Hemisphere… sans Antarctica, of course.

A great map, I’ve always told myself, thanks to the genius of a Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, whose map-making didn’t project so well with the Roman Church almost five centuries ago.  But for all its value allowing true bearings of courses to be measured directly; for most of us, non-navigators, such map does distort things as you go north or south of the equator.  As my eyes turn north, I see a Greenland considerably larger than all of South America, while the latter is in actuality eight times the size of the first.  And, as if such were not enough, I see two Indias, two Chinas and a never-ending Russia as the geo-day is elongated by three hours in purposeful overlap.

Of course, I could replace my Rand McNally map with a Peters Projection map which is accurate to scale… but that would give unduly influence to parts of the world lacking it.  So I’ll stick with my Rand McNally map keeping in mind that cartography is just art or technique for making maps; and that purposeful distortion must be taken into account.

And I can see that purposeful distortion being projected, coming out of that perennial hawk and former vice-president, Dick Cheney, who continues as the voice of evil after leaving office as the screamer for the political right… perhaps in an effort to drown the noise from those of us intent in bringing him to international justice for his leading role in torture and genocide.  But the distortion neither starts nor ends in the figure of Cheney.  The distortion, although often echoed in the halls of the State Department, really has its roots at that mausoleum of belligerence and epicenter for the defense of Corporate Capitalism: the Pentagon.  Here, in this five-sided sepulcher-pantheon housing Mars’ dark angels is where cartography comes alive defining the empire.  The cartography which a few decades ago used the “communism technique” projections to map the world is now using the “terror technique” projections to keep us in stride.  Step aside Mercator and Peters, a new two-dimensional map of the planet has now been drawn, projecting the world according to how the American elite, and its Squires in Europe, want us all to view the geo-economic-political world.

On Tuesday, May 26, General George William Casey, Jr., the current Chief of Staff of the United States Army – 36th in the proud line – was telling a Washington audience that “Global Trends” (cartographic requirements, as I read it) could force our troops to remain in Afghanistan and Iraq for a decade; American commitment to PM Nouri al-Maliki to have US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011 superceded by the “higher” US commitment to fight extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.  And we should listen, and pay attention, to Gen. Casey (take-off from the original Lebanese name Kehdi), a serious soldier and voice for his peers at the Pentagon, with dozens of awards, decorations and badges, among them the “German Parachutist Badge – in bronze,” and the “Bundeswehr Gold Cross of Honor.”  [Our military, 64 years after V-E Day, continues to be in awe of the Wehrmacht and its Commander-in-Chief.]

So we have drafted a two-dimensional map of the world, using the terror technique; or, at the very least, terror as we see it; paying no mind as to the actions we take that incur the terrorists’ wrath.  We, Americans, are quick to label groups (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Talibans) and nations as terrorists, and rogues, if they stand in the way of our own Hegemonic desires to be the police force for the major capitalist powers in the world.

Has it occurred to us that maybe part of the world might be pointing the finger at us as a rogue, even if at times benevolent, state?  Has anyone ever dared measure the social and economic harm we may have caused to others in the world, Cuba being a case in point?  Our actions against Cuba for almost five decades were certainly roguish!  Is that what we now intend to do in the Middle East?

Obama was quick to pay his dues at the Pentagon with the continuation of war policies in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Now, Netanyahu’s visit brought an even greater closeness to the sibling relationship between the United States and Israel.

Can we afford to let the Pentagon cartographers use the “terror technique” to map the world?  After all, others could just as easily portray the US and Israel as rogue states.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, military, Terrorism, torture
Categories: Commentary, military, Ben Tanosborn, torture
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By Russell Cole

This essay is a response to John Browne’s article, Socialism is Coming Back to Haunt the US, published by the Populist Party of America, (www.populistamerica.com).

This argument has some interesting points. However, the crux of the argument appears to rest entirely upon the validity of the proposition, entitlements were the cause of the decline of US manufacturing. This is a prodigious claim that the author fails to support with any empirical, or, for that matter, speculative armchair theoretical justifications. In fact, it is presented as though it is a truism.

I suppose he is claiming that the welfare state, somehow, precipitated the moral decay of the American population, which resulted in the collapse of American manufacturing. Nevertheless, even if we are to entertain the remote possibility that appendages to Social Security led to a kind of popular moral demise, I fail to recognize any clear, compelling association between this alleged moral degeneration and the deindustrialization of America.

I would compare the claim made by Browne to something resembling the following: A South Asian Indian woman with leprosy prayed to an idol representing Mother Teresa. In subsequent events, the Indian woman’s disease subsided. Therefore, Mother Teresa performed a miracle. This kind of explanation is, of course, satisfactory for the Catholic Church. It had political motivations for ensuring that Mother Teresa, the good work that she performed, and the positive and reverent emotions that her identity connoted for so many people would be associated with the Church and an extension of it. Taking over the symbology attributable to heroes among the people is a necessary form of imperialism for an institution that claims to possess a monopoly on human religiosity.

If anything has contributed to the decline of American manufacturing, it has been the freer market fundamentalism that has been dogmatically adhered to in all instances of foreign policy deliberations involving economic trade; a Laissez-faire fanaticism that has been embraced by Washington wise men since the end of the Second World War.

We were told that the increased productivity that is fostered through the exploitation of cheaper, foreign labor markets would free capital allowing for reinvestment in the US economy. This injection of capital into the US economy would, in turn, create higher paying, higher-skilled occupations for the American workforce.

This all, of course, was based upon the assumption that the corporations, which were increasingly becoming multi-national - due to the fact that they were no longer geographical constrained; a transformation propelled by trade policy as well as technological advancements in communications and distributions - would actually reinvest in the American economy.

Unfortunately, what the freer trade group-think failed to foresee was that these now global corporations could simply reinvested in the same foreign economies while continuing to target the American consumer market, because the implementation of freer trade policies had dismantled the necessary tariffs and other protectionist measures needed to create an incentive for corporations to base their manufacturing inside the United States.The argument made by this author appears to be a last desperate attempt to vindicate the policies responsible for the very state of the US economy that the author, ironically, decries.

Tags: economics, freer trade policy, manufacturing, offshoring, Russell Coles Blog, welfare state
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Russell Cole's Blog, manufacturing, welfare state
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By Russell Cole

After reading the opinion piece by Rev. Marty Fields, entitled “Religion and Culture: Democrats and the ‘God gap’ (http://www.leadercall.com/),” I feel the need to bring attention to the fact that his assessment of Democratic Party failures in the South indicates a profound ignorance of the historical realities underlying the Republican rise to Southern political dominance, during the final decades of the 20th Century.

Rev. Fields suggests that it is religion that has alienated the American South from the platform of the Democratic Party. Historically, nothing could be further from the truth. The South had remained, to a large extent, in support of the Democratic Party even through the Kennedy Administration. Kennedy, of course, had campaigned as a secularist; a political strategy that was necessary at the time, due to America’s traditional apprehension of Catholicism, which Americans had interpreted to be at odds with values undergirding democracy.

The South became estranged from the Democratic Party following Johnson signing into law the civil rights legislation in the 1960s. It was at this pivotal movement that the New Deal coalition was broken; a system of alliances that was based upon shared class interests. Therefore, it was not religion that alienated the South from the Democratic Party; rather, it was white supremacy and the Democratic renunciation of it – a transformative speech act performed by Johnson – that disaffected Southern Whites from the Democratic Party.

Concurrently, the Republican Party, which had been a minority party for decades, seized upon the opportunity and adjusted its political rhetoric in order to appeal to Southern Whites. Goldwater, for instance, made the famous decision not to attempt to court African American voters. Reagan, when winning the Presidency, deployed the same tactic as Goldwater; only, Reagan went further in his attempt to appeal to Whites in the South. If you recall Reagan’s famous description of the “Cadillac driving welfare queen,” who apparently was going from welfare office to welfare office picking up checks, it is evident that Reagan was willing to go as far as possible – without using altogether explicit racial epitaphs – to appeal to the Jim Crow culture of the South.

Of course, there was no such thing as the mythic “Welfare Queen,” who drove “a Cadillac.” However, that is not the point. It was an encoded communication. White collar Northerners took the statement at face value. For them, Reagan’s complaint identified a convenient rationale to detest a progressive taxation system. After all, why should one have to pay taxes when the money is merely fueling corruption? For Southern Whites, however, the statement took on different significations. Reagan had designed his rhetoric to express a sympathetic commitment to Southern Whites, who felt resentment toward the Federal Government for forcibly contravening Southern provincial social practices when dismantling Jim Crow institutions.

If we analyze Reagan’s statement – keeping in mind that the expression can take on various semantic qualities, depending upon whom it is delivered – then the words are interpretable to mean something altogether different for Southern Whites. Obviously, “Cadillac,” and “Queen,” connoted “Black American.” The use of the word, “Welfare,” was a ploy to invoke an association with “Government.” To extrapolate, then, Reagan was translating his platform theme, consisting of the diminution of government, into terms that would resonate among Southern Whites. Reagan’s denunciation of welfare fraud was actually an indication that he would defer to States’ Rights, as opposed to federally intervening in order to ensure citizenship – along with its entailing privileges – for African Americans.

This was a brilliant rhetorical maneuver. It was designed to synergize the racial animosity of White Southerners with the underlying agenda that Reagan had in mind: The dismantling of the extensions of the welfare state, which was created by the New Deal and the Great Society. This governing principle – what amounted to a Neoliberal reform agenda – was at odds with the economic interests of Southerners. However, through his rhetoric, Reagan effectively presented his platform policies in a manner in which they failed to invoke economic apprehensions by Southern Whites; instead, inciting long held racial animosities toward African Americans, in addition to a contempt toward what was perceived as Northern intrusiveness.

Therefore, for people such as Rev. Fields to insist that it was religion that drove the South from the Democratic Party is self-delusional. It is time for Southerners to come to terms with their history. It might be unpleasant, but it will help to vanquish all of the obfuscation, clearing the way for informed and rational decision-making when planning for the future.

Tags: economics, Ronald Reagan, Russell Coles Blog
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Russell Cole's Blog, Ronald Reagan
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By Ben Tanosborn 

For a politician, being articulate and intelligent, even when saying the “right things” to please friends’, foes’ and fence-sitters’ ears, does not imply existence of wisdom or, for that matter, leadership. We have just placed such a politician in the White House to take on the reins of this nation, and from day one after the votes had been counted, each and every decision Obama has made seems as if done solely with the aim of achieving a net positive result in overall political constituencies; credibility… or “doing the right thing”… be damned.

Obama is quickly becoming the consummate centrist in American politics. If the Pope stands in the center, Obama is going to show Americans that he is more papist than the pope. Not necessarily centrist in ideology or moderation, but centrist with respect as to where the vote is… where Americans stand, right or wrong. And he is succeeding, just like Bill Clinton did; for, after all, Obama chose to have the same group of whisperers as his Democratic predecessor. He is becoming the supremely accomplished politician.

A presumed purveyor of change for America, Obama is showing us not so much the road to change for the nation but how he is personally accepting unsavory change. His apologists, many of my progressive friends among them, may say that there is a master plan behind the president’s surrendering on many progressive and moral issues, but that is only hope mixed with tons of rationalization in their part. I, for one, have had it apologizing for Obama’s decisions time and again… and feel that he is proving to be, in many respects, little better than George W. Bush was, trying to satisfy us with a fresh coat of paint in a room that cries for complete redecoration.

So Obama had to sack Gen. David McKiernan! Heck, that’s just but one of the many unpleasant things the ruler of this monarchist Republic must do to keep the specter of our legions alive throughout the world. A new general assuming command in Pashtun-land is unlikely to change at all the outcome of the war there, but it does go a needed step farther in proving that Obama is not an anti-militarist.

A step which has now been followed by a short run as the president capitulated to the wishes of the Pentagon by denying permission to the publishing of those “abuse-torture” pictures of the American military in Iraq that the courts had conceded to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). No one now will dare accuse Barack Obama of being less of a Cesar, a less worthy commander-in-chief, than any of his predecessors. Or so poor Obama thinks! Keeping the fate of Iraq and Afghanistan de facto in the hands of the military will turn out to be a major mistake in his presidency.

Let’s face it, key politicians whether Republicans or Democrats (read, House Speaker Pelosi) were not misled by former president Bush on waterboarding and other forms of torture. They, like the overwhelming majority of their constituents, two-thirds on the basis of recent polls, don’t very much care about denouncing torture or safeguarding the rights of non-Americans, particularly those whose ethnicities don’t reflect well in our national mirror. The issue has been so divisive in the United States that the one-third minority which stands against torture – and for human rights – has had to resort to a rationale which states that torture shouldn’t be used because it doesn’t work… rather than say, torture must not be used because it is inhumane and wrong. Needless to say, the argument that it is illegal by international law is of little consequence for people who accept no laws adopted beyond their own frontiers.

Our apparent disdain for human rights, where they appear in conflict with our desires and our way of life, is appalling; but even more abhorrent is the prejudicial way in which we place a tangible value in a human life, “ours versus theirs.” The number of Afghan civilian casualties which are recently becoming collateral damage in our killing sprees, mostly women and children, are being assigned a value of $2,000 per death and $1,000 per major injury – Karzai no doubt placing such value at our request! Try and compare those figures with the $3.1 million average per victim of the 9/11 tragedy. Now you can look in the mirror and see yourself as being worth 1,500 Afghans. A very sick reminder of what our warmongering, consumerist society has become.

As for Obama, his handling of the economy should have already shown that he is far from being anti-business… anti big-business, that is… thanks to a cadre of status-quo politicians and economists far more concerned with saving capitalism in its present form than with rescuing our raped economy and the future of our progenies.

Oh how I wish I would have to eat my words; that at the end of the day, this president would prove me wrong; truly change the course of this nation, and help bring to justice those criminals in the past administration that brought this nation to shame and ruin.

No, Mr. President, we cannot move on, as you keep suggesting; not until we recognize, accept and make amends for all the criminality incurred in our name during the recent past. All those trips you made overseas at the onset of your presidency, or the interview at al-Arabiya TV, will be seen by the world as nothing but empty palaver.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, Obama, politics
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By Ben Tanosborn

Fourteen weeks after taking the reins, Barack Obama seems well at ease to receive his first report card… on that artificial measuring target that dates back 76 years as another president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, took over the leadership over an America in economic shambles.  It was an America afflicted by Swine Capitalism flu (affluenza) back in 1933, and it is an America afflicted by a new strain of Swine Capitalism flu in 2009.

Surveys on Americans’ sentiments about the new president – that give him a popularity not seen since Ronald Reagan – and a perceived “new direction” for the country by just about half of the population, would seem to indicate that the overall grade during these first one hundred days in office is definitely a passing one.  Yet, during this period which is referred to as the “Congressional Honeymoon,” outside of a controversial stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – Pub. L. 111-5) signed into law on February 17 by President Barack Obama, little else has been done.  Hardly comparable to what FDR accomplished during the same period on his “New Deal” (over a dozen major pieces of legislation dealing with the full spectrum of the depression from tackling unemployment to the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority).

But let’s be fair, the commonality of both presidents inheriting a nation in economic crisis ends there.  FDR assumed the presidency of a country that was neither an empire nor aspiring to be one, although America’s colonial treatment of her Latin America good neighbors may well challenge that.  Be that as it may, Obama entered the White House with America baring a soiled reputation internationally… with the possible exception of Israel.  So Obama has had to confront an even greater monumental task than that of his 19 elections-removed predecessor.

Where FDR persuaded Congress about passing legislation “for the good of the nation,” something that he could do having attained almost 60 percent of the electorate vote – also aided by an enormous underclass which hadn’t voted, or wasn’t “allowed” to vote – Obama has had to fight his battle upstream in a truly divided nation that barely gave him 53 percent of the total vote.  And where the political thinking of members of Congress often does not follow party lines… with the Democrats, that is!

As in the past, my progressive vestments and telescopic lenses have made me take an overview on Obama’s success, or lack of it, quite different from the population at large.  My view of Obama’s first hundred days at the helm differs substantially from that held by most, although I am happy to state that almost in unanimity all the progressive friends and peers I have contacted in the last three days – which number in the dozens – seem to affirm my views as presented to them via email.  Let’s just say that ours may well be a view of no longer the hopeful, but the disenchanted Left that voted for him.

Although Obama has made the obligatory gestures of promoting policy change in the international sphere… to please the European Union, Arab-Moslem nations, Russia, China and Latin America – via an irrelevant and subservient OAS, his grade remains an incomplete as to where this nation stands vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

For now, and only on issues relevant to war and peace, this president does not come out much different from Bush with the occupation and withdrawal from Iraq, things there as mired as they ever were; or with a policy on Afghanistan that is more in line with the schemes being brewed at the Pentagon than with a regional solution that could be achieved via negotiations.  And, of course, we know that the Israel-Palestine situation (conflict) is, and will continue to be, at an impasse as long as Israel’s government so desires it… and Rahm Emanuel remains as the White House Chief of Staff.  On issues of war and peace, and that includes a blind eye to Darfur, a definite failing grade!

As for the economic crisis and all other domestic issues (education, energy, health care, immigration and the rest) there isn’t much a president can do in one hundred days other than to establish clear policies and give unequivocal direction.  One would expect that success or failure in each case is for others to judge in the future.  So, again, Obama must accept an incomplete.

But if our report card is for the most part a question mark, with one incomplete grade after another, there is one area where he has sadly failed just as he has with the issue of war and peace; and that is, not calling for the Department of Justice to investigate and bring charges against those in the prior administration who might be responsible for insidious crimes dealing with constitutional rights (the issue of privacy comes to mind), or human rights (torture by Americans in and out of uniform).  Even if 60 percent of Americans feel that those responsible for torture need not be brought to justice, as polls indicate, it is the duty of its leaders to show that constitutionality and justice must always prevail.

There is one area, perhaps the most important one of all, where President Obama does excel and definitely gets the highest possible score; and that is, his political malleability showing an incredible capacity for compromise.  As much as we, progressives, are continually being told that these “little compromises” are but contretemps to a leader that stands for progressive causes, I am beginning to seriously doubt that.

But for the lack of a revolution, when we are being handed lemons, do we really have any other reasonable choice than to make lemonade?

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, corporations, executive powers, first 100 days, military, Obama
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By Ben Tanosborn

Had William Shakespeare been reincarnated as a modern-day president of the United States, he might have modified one of his more famous quotes to say: “the better part of justice is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my presidency.”  It did apply to Gerald Ford with his pardon of Richard Nixon; it did apply to Bill Clinton as well with his unwillingness to disinter and do the forensics on the cadaver of the Iran-Contra affair; and it does apply today to our current president, Barack Obama, and his promise not to prosecute CIA officials on the critical issue of torture.

So valor, in our presidents’ lexicon, has been replaced by justice and life by presidency!

But valor is subjective and justice is, or should be, objective… so for Ford, Clinton and Obama, pardoning or declining to investigate evidence that convincingly shows to be crimes are not a sign of discretion or prudence – and the always cited “best interests of the country” – but an abuse of power and arrogance.  No man should be above the law but time and again, in America, we allow our presidents to act above the law.  Could it be that our Chief Executive Officer has been compelled to do so by that monster that Eisenhower warned us against: the Military Industrial Complex?  Could it be Corporate America and its bodyguard/enforcer, The Pentagon, have become the permanent and immutable Board of Directors under whose direction our president must govern?

What seems contradictory about our please-everyone president is his unwillingness to prosecute torturers while at the same time allowing the release of four partially blacked-out memos on interrogation tactics.  President Obama’s rationale of the existence of two principles which might be at odds, covert operations associated with national security and the law, seems flawed.  We are either a nation of laws or we are not.  As a former professor of Constitutional Law, Obama should know better; much, much better.

There are indications, strong and repetitive indications that torture has been committed not just by the CIA, but by the military and contractors, foreign and domestic, paid with US taxpayers’ funds.  Torture and other major crimes committed, directly or indirectly, under our government’s auspices, whether in Iraq, Guantánamo or elsewhere in the world, including the United States, need to be, and must be, prosecuted, if we are to consider ourselves a nation of laws.  No one, not the president nor the attorney general or any military prosecutor should have, or be allowed to have, a de facto power to dismiss charges against those accused of crimes or torture where preponderance of evidence exists that they may have committed such crimes.

It was the US and its allies that decided shortly before the end of World War II that the “only following orders” defense, which they anticipated the Germans would use, was not to be a defense for war crimes, including torture.  After the war, even the US Uniform Code of Military Justice incorporated in its code the mode of action in Nuremberg Principle IV which states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder may have indicated, or promised, that CIA officials won’t be prosecuted for the interrogation techniques used and, by so doing, shown themselves as protectors of crime and criminality.  It’s sad that two assumed enforcers of the law have let the nation, and the world, down.
Although the Center for Constitutional Rights had hoped Judge Baltasar Garzón and the Spanish Courts would bring charges against Alberto Gonzales, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Wm. J. Haynes II, David Addington and Douglas J. Feith for crimes related to the torture of prisoners in Guantánamo, chances are that Spain will defer taking such action in a matter they probably feel should be handled by the US Justice Department.  But, most unfortunately, Obama and his political advisors probably feel such action might rock his presidential boat.  On other issues such as the economic crisis, Afghanistan or even the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, the President has resorted to some form of compromise; this time, however, he has unashamedly surrendered doing the right thing against what could turn out to be an unpopular cause.  And political Obama has defeated that other idealist Obama most of us progressives helped elect.
Wouldn’t this nation be better off by prosecuting not just the interrogators accused of torture, but those responsible at echelons above them, not only to bring justice, but also to show the international community that we are in fact, and not just in name, a nation of laws?
Only after verdicts are entered should Obama consider mitigating the sentencing, or even a presidential pardon… but not a minute before then.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, democracy, executive powers
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, Ben Tanosborn, executive powers
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By Ben Tanosborn

Call it a presidential pardon, restitutive intervention, or simply a gesture of international goodwill; call it whatever you wish� just so the bottom line allows for wrong to be finally righted.  And that long-argued wrong has been the imprisonment in the United States of the “penta-cubanitos” for over a decade.

Most Americans have never heard of these incarcerated five Cuban nationals; arrested in 1998, then tried and convicted in 2001 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on charges of falsifying identification, espionage and conspiracy to commit murder.  Most Americans will just shrug their shoulders if told that there are five people in jail paying an unjust punishment, even if guilty on all counts; not when half-million people are crowding the nation’s penal quarters serving sentences on drug-related charges, victims of a society with a wrong problem-solving approach.

Even among those Americans with some familiarity of this case, a resounding number will tell you that the old feud between pro-Fidel Cubans and the large exile community in Florida of anti-fidelistas is an issue that needs to be resolved among them; as if two gangs establishing territorial rights.  Pay no mind to our own government’s longstanding policy against the Island’s regime; or the infliction of pain on the Cuban population by virtue of economic reprisals; or, as added measure, the countless dirty tricks asked of the CIA in times past against Cuba which resulted in untold billionaire losses for the Island�s economy.  So who in the US, other than human rights activists, is going to care for the rights of five foreign nationals convicted by our judicial system? 

Sorry Fernando Gonzalez, Rena Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, and Ramon Labatino; in Havana you have been hailed as heroes, but in these United States it’s all about politics- and Little Havana has up to now held the upper hand with American politicians, influencing the judicial system as well, particularly in Florida.

Any law-breaking committed by these individuals, for which they have been convicted - justly or not - has been paid in full several times over by spending 17 months in solitary confinement during their decade in jail, and what may be qualify as a form of torture when close family members were denied visas to enter the US to visit them in jail.
 
It would be best, however, if we try not to rehash this entire episode at least not for now; but instead, create a crack in the damn that could, and should, bring the damn down once and for all.  After almost five decades, those poisoned waters must be let go, and there is little better suited than to have these five Cubans freed as both an act of humanity as well as a symbol for the restoration of relations between Cuba and the US.
 
President Obama would be neither wasting political capital, nor placing himself at risk - not any more, not even in Florida - by taking this icebreaker action before his first 100 days in office have lapsed.  Let those five Cuban recluses be in Havana for the May 1 parade!  And do it without strings attached, or any form of negotiation.  Just let these five individuals, patriots for Cuba but NOT enemies of the United States, go free!
 
Cuba’s government will know how to respond to this simple and just action by Obama.  Acts of friendship and goodwill will be reciprocated, and those not convicted of violent crimes, but only in prison because of political dissent are likely to be set free.  And the chain of mutual distrust will be broken by weakening just this one link.

It will only take this one act by the popular US president, an act of domestically little consequence, given the economic crisis in our midst, to put an end to an idiotic and unreal situation that has served no one, not even the remnants of that vengeful group of Cubans exiles of two generations ago.  Raul Castro won’t need to make, or insinuate, offers of any kind, as he did in late December when visiting Brazil, nor will Obama’s past this one act.  Everything will follow its proper historical course after that.

Those who are waiting for Fidel Castro’s death as the start of a Cuban “transformation,” as they did for Franco�s thirty-plus years ago, have it all wrong.  Castro is most definitely not Franco, even if both are Gallegos, and only those Cubans who reside in the Island should determine when and how their institutions evolve without any help, influence or interference from the United States.

Everything is so easy all it will take it’s just for Obama to say the word!  The freedom given to the “Cuban Five” will be freedom for us all: Americans and Cubans.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, cuba, foreign policy, imperialism
Categories: Commentary, Foreign Policy, Imperialism, Ben Tanosborn
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Dear Editor,

This letter is in response to an article, “IS SECULARISM THE END OF LIBERALISM? REFLECTIONS ON EUROPE’S DEMOGRAPHIC DECLINE DRAWING ON POPE BENEDICT, HABERMAS, NIETZSCHE AND STRAUSS,” that was authored by Gary D. Glenn and published by The Catholic Social Science Review.

The author of this article repeatedly implies that democracy - its values and practices, including its individualism - are values that are grounded in the Christian tradition. Whether cognizant of Christian doctrine or not, Europeans continue to incorporate Christianity into their ethical constructions. As a consequence, secularist Europeans have not resorted to what the author refers to as a Nietzschean depravity, where the strong can abuse the weak with impunity.

Leaving aside Professor Glenn’s altogether vulgar interpretation of Nietzsche, who was not interested in effecting a ruthless, violent social condition - but, rather, a state where man was not captive to the self-loathing, persistently self-doubting Christian ethic, which is tantamount to a slave morality - ??the educated reader of this article surely takes umbrage to the Pope’s claim, as reported by Glenn, that Christianity is the incubator of democracy and egalitarianism.

The problems with such an assertion are so abundant that it would be exhaustive to enumerate all of them.?? However, one contrast that is apparently striking is the social structure assumed by the Roman Catholic Church, itself. The hierarchical structure of the Church seems to be expressed by the positions it takes in respect to Human Rights. Keep in mind that liberationist Theology was condemned by the Catholic Church, who saw the movement as political, not religious. Such an unholy Holy position on the part of the Catholic establishment is right in line with the proverb, “Turn the other cheek:” an expression that is demonstrative of Catholicism’s lack of concern for social injustice.

On a final note, I take exception to the thinly veiled racism expressed in this article. The author suggests that Muslims and their religion of Islam is lacking in the qualities necessary to sustain democratic traditions in Western Europe. In response to this bigotry, I would add that Christianity, which has nothing to do with democracy, was successfully overcome by Enlightenment thinkers, who conceived of many of the intellectual tenets that would be integrated into the democratic ideology. As a final note, the Enlightenment entailed the rejection of the prejudices and superstitions propagated by Christianity. The only connection between Christianity and the Enlightenment was the Enlightenment’s rejection of Christianity.

Best Regards,

Russell Cole

Tags: democracy, religion, Russell Coles Blog
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, Russell Cole's Blog, Religion
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