An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

This past Sunday another citizen of the world, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, started his walk in that never-ending pilgrimage we refer to as immortality.  And he did it, not just as a laureate man of letters, but as a man of well thought-out choices, conscience and true humanity; a man who proudly and joyfully accepted his Russian beginnings, but also conceded highest priority to dignity and humanity as inalienable rights for every man.

News of his death came to me over the Internet as I was reading an article by AP writers Charles J. Hanley and Jae-Soon Chang, “Seoul probes civilian ‘massacres’ by US,” that had just come over the wire.  Thoughts from those two pieces of news were running parallel in my then emotionally-charged mind: here is a man searching for truth (Solzhenitsyn) and, running parallel to it, here is truth searching for a man, some American great man acknowledging that truth… and finding no one.

While reading data of the horrific victimization, actually murder, of countless Korean civilians – as usual, mostly women, children and old people – at the hands of the US military during that 1950-1 period, I couldn’t help but think of the Gulag created by Joseph Stalin, “the whiskered one,” as described by Solzhenitsyn, and emulated militarily by followers of our own American empire: first in Korea, later in Vietnam and, these days, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

How many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, innocent civilians were strafed by bullets, or napalmed, in Korea?  Indiscriminately, yes, for our soldiers couldn’t tell “one gook from the next,” as they claimed… from the North, in flight to the South… or simply trying to find safety, refuge…anywhere.  Over 200 incidents; some, like the one that happened at No Gun Ri, where survivors estimate 400 Koreans died at American hands, have been kept under wraps from the American citizenry; all the military brass needed to do is just classify any and all the facts with the “secret” or “top secret” stamps thus letting the angry-radioactivity cool off, as if converting it to depleted uranium or denying it to be uranium at all, until two or three generations have passed.  By then, who will be charged with war crimes?  It’s not a cover-up since Americans pretend, and some actually believe, that we never engage in torture or cover-ups.  The White House has for decades given a free hand to the Pentagon… after all, crimes of war “just happen,” and the only crime Americans are not permitted to commit is one which may result in lowering the morale of the troops; or one bringing dishonor to the country.

Then I thought of Solzhenitsyn, and his recollection of being an officer in the Soviet Army, observing the inhumane treatment that the Soviets had inflicted on the Germans, military and civilians, in 1945 as WWII came to a close; perhaps crimes that many would excuse as retribution for what the Germans had done years earlier to them; a retribution that he would not find acceptable. 

Today’s counterpoint is simply the ease in which the American military accepts crimes of war, often candy-coating them and making them PR-acceptable, as simply “collateral damage.”  Our American military has gained vast experience at decriminalizing many repugnant acts of war during the past six decades, from No Gun Ri to My Lai to Fallujah, expecting future generations to be the ones passing judgment, if at all.  It will probably be three decades or more before we get to know the truth of what happened in Fallujah, Haditha and some of the other unresolved war crimes committed in the Middle East.  Documents will then be declassified as memories fade and many, or most, of the witnesses to the war crimes, as well as the perpetrators, are dead.  Also, after much of the anger in the victims’ families has subsided.

Solzhenitsyn was a loving son of Russia and its history; but his humanness made him a great citizen of the world.  He denounced what to him needed to be denounced in every facet of life, whether it pertained to the inhumanity of man towards man; or the way modern society was evolving, including such areas as music.  To his regret, and in spite of his desire for privacy, he was used in propagandistic ways by men he did not hold in high esteem, such as Ronald Reagan; and even criticized by many liberal-secularists who failed to understand that his acceptance of religion in the form of Christian Russian Orthodoxy had little to do with faith, and the inhumanity that faith may have caused, and much to do with history and tradition as basis for change.

Why is it that here in America we don’t produce notable figures, heroes of humankind?
Do we prefer not to be “snitches” to those who commit crimes, not to be “traitors” to the ugly face our country may show at times; this, when in truth we really are, maybe without realizing it, whitewashers of crimes… and traitors to our own humanity?
 

Tags: activism, empire, foreign policy, imperialism, military, religion, social responsibility, war
Categories: Commentary, Empire, Foreign Policy, Religion, Imperialism, military
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An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

The Brits made an imperial mess of Iraq back in 1930, now it is America’s turn!

We followed the fate of the French in Vietnam; are trying hard to imitate the Russians in Afghanistan; and now, our emulation-in-progress is of our beloved European cousins.  Who would ever think that it was an American philosopher (by way of Spain), George Santayana, who stated just a century ago, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  And American government leaders always seem to be the forgetful ones, although as it happens in all these cases, it is the American people who are condemned to pay the consequences in both blood and dollars.

We are not even speaking of millennia ago, or even centuries; only the recent past.  How can we be so forgetful as to how the British bamboozled a timid Iraqi Parliament, where the true nationalists lacked a voiced, into signing an agreement in 1930 that would have Iraq in turmoil with coup after coup until Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979?  And we all know what has happened since then.  Seventy-eight years later here we are, cramming down their throats an illegal “strategic alliance” that is similar in both content and tone to that Great Britain “imposed” on Iraq almost eight decades ago.

And I say illegal for both Iraq and the United States.  For Iraq, it’s a non-valid agreement since it will be contracted under duress from an occupier’s demands, whatever excuses are brought forward to obtain legitimacy.  For the US, it’s also an invalid pact unless it is subsequently ratified by the US Senate.  We are told that the wording in this strategic alliance has been crafted so as to “avoid such ratification.”  Nonsense, if the provisions in such agreement or alliance have the underlying intent of a treaty, it is a treaty; and as a treaty, constitutionally, it must be ratified.

True that the American Executive Branch has been operating for decades outside of the Constitution in taking the nation to war (undeclared war) and entering into treaties (or agreements) thanks to a spineless Senate and the de-facto consent of Americans, who really care little, or are brainwashed by the White House, unless the conflict turns sour.
It is remarkable that the two senators who will be contending for the highest office in the land next November, McCain and Obama, aren’t exercising their duty as senators, making this issue one of national concern, one to be handled with both transparency and care.  Malfeasance in office by members of the Senate made Bush’s invasion of Iraq fait accompli; once again, it will be malfeasance if the senate remains blind, deaf and mute to this travesty.

It is interesting that Barack Obama claims that “had he been a member of the Senate back in 2002, he would have voted against granting Bush permission to invade Iraq.”  Well, he is a member of the Senate now… but one hears little noise from him on this important issue, one that could keep the United States involved in the Middle East until the area runs out of oil or Israelis, whichever comes last .  Time for deeds, Sen. Obama!

Iraq does not appear to be willing to have the U.N. mandate extended beyond its current expiration date, at the end of this year; and the US really doesn’t care whether its effective control is through a mandate granted by the U.N. or an agreement with a government which may not be of unity or consensus.  The US must have a tacit control of Iraq’s oil while maintaining a solid military presence in that part of the world to counter not just Iran and its nuclear aspirations, but any “problems” that may emerge anywhere in Southwest Asia.

Although the hush-hush negotiations on the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) had reached an impasse by the second week in June – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki referring the deadlock on what his government felt were critical sovereignty issues – both Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad (US) appear confident that an agreement will soon be reached since both countries are committed to a joint security pact.  Yes, we will have two caliphates out of Baghdad; one ran locally by Iraqis, the other ran by Americans as part of the Empire.

What remains to be seen, even if an agreement is reached, is whether the US Senate will once again capitulate to the White House, allowing its duties and responsibilities to be usurped by Imperator George W. Bush.  And whether the American people really give a damn now that they are paying over $4 per gallon of gasoline, soon projected to be $5, which when added to the other economic miseries the country is enduring calls for either a revolution or surrender.  My bet is on the latter.

Tags: american empire, Ben Tanosborn, colonialism, empire, Global, globalization, imperialism, military
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An Article by:

By Steve Hammons

As Barack Obama continues to move ahead in the Democratic presidential primaries, we note that ethnic background and gender still seem to be playing important and interesting roles.

The many domestic and foreign affairs issues we face, such as the candidates’ positions on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, are also key parts of the debates and campaigns.

According to recent surveys and demographic studies, Hillary Clinton’s support, in part, comes from white women and older Democrats.

Reasons for this seem obvious.

Some white women see one of their own and feel that giving her support is appropriate. They identify with her. This seems like a natural response.

Older Democrats may feel comfortable with “another Clinton” and, should we say it? – they might feel more comfortable voting for an all-white candidate. This may be a factor for some Democrats with lower educational levels, which is also a group supporting Clinton to some degree.

Obama gets support from younger voters and increasingly from men. Since Obama is a relatively young father of two young kids, these voters might naturally identify with him. His youthful manner might also be attractive.

Men probably identify with him not just because he is a male, but because he is a male who appears to be admirable and a “regular guy.”

INVASION, OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

Some of the main differences between Obama and Clinton, of course, are their positions and actions regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Many Americans now believe that intelligence information was inaccurate about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is significant evidence that indicates this was intentional on the part of some people within the Bush administration and those connected to it.

Many people believe that the Bush administration was willing to send our troops to Iraq, to die and be terribly injured, for access oil, to assist other governments in the Middle East and to “finish the job” that former president George H.W. Bush wisely did not undertake – invading and taking over Iraq.

Some researchers say there were those in and associated with the Bush administration who wanted to pour monies of the U.S. Treasury into war profiteering and those who wanted to establish permanent U.S. bases in Iraq to influence and police the Middle East region for decades to come.

It has been said that there were Bush administration people and others who wanted to show they were “macho” – the “chicken hawks” – even though few of them had ever served in combat environments themselves. Many even avoided military service in Korea and Vietnam.

Other aspects of the invasion and occupation seemed to indicate the huge egos and incompetence of those associated with the Bush administration.

The deceptive and dishonorable nature of some of these players also seems evident to many people.

We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This has been, in large part, borrowed money. There are many hidden costs as well.

The Bush administration’s Iraq fiasco has nearly broken our Army, Army Reserve, National Guard and has broken the bodies, minds and spirits of many good American soldiers, Marines and their families.

According to some research, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including children, have been killed as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many more have been terribly injured.

Though she may not have intended all of these results, this is what Hillary Clinton supported when she voted to authorize military action by the Bush administration against Iraq.

This is what Barack Obama opposed.

STIRRING THE MELTING POT

Obama’s support includes African-Americans. This is not surprising since his father was from Kenya, Africa.

Obama’s father and mother were divorced when he was two years old.

After the divorce, his father went on to get a Ph.D. from Harvard in economics and then returned to Kenya to pursue a career there.

Obama spend formative childhood and teen years in Hawaii, and was raised by his mother and her parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, who were originally from Wichita, Kansas.

Obama has noted that his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, joined the Army in WWII after Pearl Harbor and served under Gen. George Patton in Europe. Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn, worked on a bomber assembly line during the war.

This reminds us that it can be fairly and accurately said that Obama is a mixed-ethnicity American. He straddles a sometimes wide divide of Americans from different ethnic backgrounds.

But, he is not the only one. Nowadays, after many generations of mixing the different ethnic groups of people in the U.S., there are millions of mixed-ethnicity Americans.

If your family has some Scottish, Cherokee and Swedish, you have a mixed-ethnicity. Are you part African, part English with maybe some Dutch in the family tree? Same thing. Was great-grandma half-Mexican and grampa Joe part-Navajo? Join the club.

Obama is in good company here.

Along these lines, Hispanics seem to be a swing vote of sorts in the Democratic primaries. Many Mexican-Americans and African-Americans sometimes compete for the same turf, whether it is access to decent blue-collar jobs or other resources. This can create friction.

It should, though, create teamwork. The “divide and conquer” strategy seems to be in play at times when wedges are driven between the Hispanic and African-American communities. They should be working together to obtain better jobs, educational opportunities, housing and health care.

Many Native American Indians have very substandard resources and opportunities too.

And, we might want to remember that the majority of poor and underprivileged Americans, adults and children, are white.

An interesting development in the ongoing discussions about Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigration is that two states with two of the largest populations of Native American Indians, Oklahoma and Arizona, have recently passed some of the toughest anti-immigrant laws in the country.

Isn’t it interesting that many Hispanic, Mexican and other immigrants from south of Mexico are of part-Native American Indians and part Spanish ancestry. They have darker skin, like Indians of North America. They have straight black hair and some of the facial characteristics of North American Indians.

And at the same time, Oklahoma and Arizona passed some of the most stringent laws against these immigrants. This just seems like an interesting dynamic.

After all, let’s not forget, amid all the talk about securing our borders and saving the English language from destruction, it is probably safe to say that some people just don´t like others who have different color skin, who look different, speak in a different way and have different cultural and social characteristics.

The ethnic factors in play seem to need a fresh perspective from many of us.

Whether the ongoing presidential race is focusing on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the multi- and mixed-ethnicity of Americans or the other issues of the day, it might be helpful to look carefully and objectively at all the elements involved.

Americans do face dangers from enemies, foreign and domestic. Our democracy, our freedoms, our Constitution and our peace and prosperity are at risk.

As we select our next president and other federal, state and local government officials, our wisdom and intelligence, or lack thereof, can have very serious consequences, as we have seen in recent years.

Tags: clintons, empire, Global, governing, government, imperialism, politics, Steve Hammons
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

It must have been Harry S. Truman, the plainest amongst our plain presidents, who scared us all into having idiots running our government by saying: “Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.”  Of course, he failed to acknowledge the possibility that we could have the worst of both worlds: inefficient government and dictatorship.  And at this moment, we seem to be marching in step to get there soon. 

Are our nation’s best and brightest so repulsed by the bureaucracy in the public sector that decidedly prefer to take up arms running the predatory wing of the private sector?

Maybe some of the “brightest” are doing that, but they cannot also be called “best” while allowing themselves to be corrupted by a heartless capitalism equally ready to reward its bright leaders as it is to deny countless people from sharing the economic trough. 

It does look more and more as if both public and private sectors are being ran by the very same gang of thieves, all operating from a single “carnivalesque” den, where the larcenous elite pick the lazy, career-politicians as their lead carneys for deceit.

And these lead carneys are seldom the brightest, and definitely never the best! 

Americans have done it in the past… so why not again?  I mean… elect the village idiot to be mayor… well, president and CINC for this US-village we live in.  No disrespect intended, not for the sake of disrespect; certainly not by simply calling a dumb ass who aspires to be America’s supreme leader by a first, middle and last name, all in one.  And every village, we are told, is expected, certainly entitled, to have one.  An idiot, that is!

One would think that hitting on nine out of ten prognostications would make most of us who are humility-challenged, a bit giddy zigzagging in haughty satisfaction; almost as if invited to a seminar conducted, ex officio, by none other than Nostradamus – in spirit, of course.  But to me, this nine out of ten “good guesses” that I’ve attained during this past year lose any and all merit when the error, the incredible miss, involves the man of the hour, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the soon-to-be standard bearer for the GOP in the coming presidential election.  And that’s how I messed up, big time, when last May in one of my columns I prematurely called this politician a has-been, and laid to rest his presidential ambitions with an obituary that read R.I.W. (Rest in War) instead of R.I.P. 

Foolish me!  Of all the predictions I’ve made throughout the years, this one I thought to be a cinch, a sure thing… an “almost-certainty” with an infinitesimal margin of error.  I was almost embarrassed to even consider it a prediction instead of a factoid.  Pleassse! How can the Grand Old Party consent to be represented by anyone like John McCain… a person irrelevant in just about every aspect of the party’s conservative tradition; a true morbid warmonger just like the present occupant of the White House; a phony funny-racist; an inarticulate man… one lacking minimal brain power?  How, may I ask?

Could it be that Americans prefer not to have anyone smarter than their surrounding mediocrity leading them?  Or that after having been submerged at the bottom of iniquity with George W. Bush for eight years, we might fee the need for a decompression stop presidency before our nation resurfaces without suffering from the bends? Nonsense… a McCain presidency would be no different from a Bush’s third term… equal opportunity idiocy, and more thieveries of the filthy, or cleanly, rich.

One cannot fathom McCain as the next president of the United States… the new scorn of the gooks and their new replacements, the terrorist Islamo-fascists! Not this burnt scrap from the bottom of Annapolis’ kettle.  But then again, Americans more often than not seem to side with the perceived underdog, particularly when seen as a hero-patriot, and it would be hard to find a greater underdog than the village idiot.

Don’t count McCain out… at least for now!  It’s an indisputable fact that in America, money is total power, and at the end of the day power always grabs the reins.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, congress, corporations, corporatism, democracy, economics, government, homeland security, imperialism, politics, power, social responsibility
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

I no longer care how popular the voting concert is, I refuse to pay homage to those untalented, tone deaf rockers!  Every four years we are regaled with the very same quadrennial political tour, the same Evil Brothers, whatever names they may go by this time around, giving us the misconception that there is political choice in our lives.

Sorry, folks, but I have had it with those two brothers engendered by an incestuous relationship. Greater and Lesser, as far as this writer is concerned, although not twins, carry almost identical DNA’s.  And it is precisely our covering up for all of Lesser’s misgivings, election after election, that we are where we are – politically – today.  After the snow dust settled in Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire came undone, I finally made an irrevocable resolution, not just for the New Year but one to honor for a lifetime: Never again!  Never again will I be shamed into voting for that lesser evil candidate – or party; for evil, of any kind, does not deserve anyone’s vote, certainly not mine.

While America’s Fuehrer tours the palaces of his moneyed-buddies in the Middle East, ranting incessantly – and stupidly – about Iran… and the inconceivable and “personal” promise of regional peace, the present Democratic pretenders to the Pennsylvania Avenue domicile, who also anticipate dominance over a Reichstag just a short jog away, deliver soft blows at each other as if all these non-sense, non-issues really meant anything.  Anything relevant, that is, to the chaotic economic and foreign policies that define the sorry state of our nation these days!  And these babbling pretenders under the banner of change are throwing barbs at one another without the slightest clue as to what “change” should be.  Obama and Clinton, a total disgrace, yet it’s likely that one or the other, maybe even both, will adorn the Democratic ticket for this naught-eight.  Ugh!  Lesser evil, anyone… to whatever these Republicans will try to concoct in their wrongly rightist ways?

As in the past, it is America’s media “aiding” in the decision as to what politicians make the acceptability cut, and for Democrats, whatever the reasons, people like Biden, Dodd and Richardson never had a chance.  And the Press made sure that Kucinich’s peace message was kept as short as his physical stature.  So from the very start it was just a beauty contest with three semi-finalists: Clinton, Edwards and Obama.  And now, to make it more interesting – in the tradition of American Idol – it’s beginning to look as if the media judges have decided that Edwards is beginning to look too angry, maybe too controversial for our “centrist” politics.  So it’s down to Obama and Clinton, Clinton and Obama… the man who can deliver a spirited message from the pulpit, just like an emotive evangelical preacher, but who to date has not shown us any “beef”; and that warrior, bionic woman who could have the White House renamed the Clinton House if she were to add two terms to her husband’s.  America’s centrists both… from the center of America’s corporate money!

And the only hope and compromise for American progressives that Edwards’ candidacy might represent appears to be gone.  Edwards is by no means what many of us would consider a true progressive candidate, but he seems trustworthy enough to help change the direction of America, domestically and internationally, and not just talk about it.  No sacrilegious talk (on peace) like that expressed by Hillary, after her victory in New Hampshire that would have us leave Iraq only under the proper conditions… definitely the language one would expect from a transvestite Dubya.

Of course, Iraq has ceased to be Americans’ main concern, and now the headlines are starting to tell us that voters are far, far more worried about the economy than any war; naturally, as long as it is waged elsewhere.  And the economic bloodbath soon to come in snowballing fashion, unstoppable by any so-called economic stimuli – which would entail additional borrowing from our already bankrupted future generations and nothing but a temporary postponement of the inevitable – will uncover a third stage of a cancer that has been with American society for too long: we consume, or waste in unnecessary weaponry, far more than we produce… and we elect government leadership that enable us to do so.

Only thing that the Democratic Party presumably had going all these years, as stupidly as it sounds if you believe it, was having a “big umbrella” for diversity.  Except that when it came to the moment of truth, those who advocated social justice, domestically, and peace in the world, were never represented in the party.  They had neither voice nor vote.  Yet, at election time, the Democratic Party apparatiks would always come to that 5 to 10 percent of progressive voters, asking us with a sardonic smile to vote for them… the Lesser Evil!  And most of us have succumbed to that totally flawed rationale.

Had progressives stood firm to their convictions during the past quarter of a century, and had organized as a true “umbrella party” to the many advocacies for a better and more just and peaceful society – even if small in numbers – this 2008 presidential election could have turned out to be one to really change America.  Instead, we’ll have an election where our citizenry is insulted once again… with more of the same.

If anyone approaches me prior to the November 4 election sermonizing why I need to vote once again for “Lesser Evil” my answer will be fulminatory and terminal, and I will say it without fear of remorse: Go f… yourself!

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, big brother, democracy, empire, fascism, foreign policy, Global, government, homeland security, imperialism
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Being reflective; personally taking stock of a situation, or issue, seems to be antonymic to the nature of most people who prefer that matters be handled by leaders of groups they belong to.  Whether the issue is government, war, crime, drug-addiction, or most anything else, they are quick to pass the buck, determining that it really isn’t up to them to take stock… with that 50’s mentality that “father knows best.”  And as a year comes to an end, instead of personally taking stock and weighing what is happening to their nation, Americans’ choice is to keep the mind relaxed and let the President tell them in January’s State of the Union speech “how things really are.”  Let the lies and b-s roll!

My background as a business counselor compels me to help close this 2007 calendar year with a socio-economic and political statement of “profit and loss;” its bottom line soon to be incorporated into a balance sheet that will give us a snapshot of what we, the stockholders of the Empire, hold as equity entering 2008.

Before we look at the revenue and expense components of America’s P&L, we should take a look at that bottom line, which to no one’s surprise appears as the blood-spilling continuation of embarrassing failures for the seventh straight year, courtesy of the most incompetent management team ever to run the Empire.  Our nation has been piling up losses during this time in such a spendthrift and indurate way to the point all retained success built into the balance sheet throughout the years has been now wiped out, and the losses are already eating away into our investment, our until now untouched legacy of democratic capital.  Bush has succeeded not only in mismanaging the nation’s affairs but he is recklessly leading us into un-chaptered political bankruptcy… sure to happen by the time a new same-old-face president is inaugurated in January 2009.

Few years as this 2007 have brought the United States so little in political and socio-economic revenue, either foreign or domestic.  In the domestic front there was little the government would provide via judicial determinations by the tilted-right Supreme Court (evidenced by the partial abortion and a half dozen other rulings); or needed legislation from Congress; or any constructive leadership by the White House and its appendage, the Pentagon.  Although both houses of Congress were controlled by the lesser-evil party, they could not muster the votes to overrule a veto-happy Bush, whether on issues of war or even providing healthcare for the nation’s children.  It would be difficult to come up with just one significant thing that could be construed as something of value for the nation as a whole coming from any of the three branches of government.

As far as revenue from foreign policy investments, which have been mostly made in the currency of war and threats to other nations, one could hardly expect positive returns.  There was a lower count of dead Americans in Iraq – the only ones we care to count – attributed to the military surge, and little else.  One cannot think of any dividends from foreign sources that could add economic, military, social, or political value to the P&L.  Even in the area of global warming, we antagonized the entire world, losing at year’s end the support of the other Kyoto non-signer, Australia.  A final tally of foreign and domestic accomplishments (revenues) yields nothing but a big fat zero.

Ah!  But if our successes were few or inexistent, our failures can be measured in grand scale, both internationally and domestically.  Our expenses reached levels we would expect from a teenager at the mall having a credit car with “no limit” stamped on all four corners.  Monetarily, our insatiable borrowing, not only from the savings of people in other countries but from our own future generations, reached a level not only difficult to understand mathematically, but impossible to accept morally.  And our dysfunctional, make-believe, consumption-driven economy has brought the nation to the edge of the precipice, with overvalued assets in both real estate and stock market to a figure now approaching the nation’s entire annual GDP of over US$13 trillion.

Little needs to be said about our overseas failures, not just in the Middle East, where we have erred miserably in an unjustified and chimeric pseudo-protection of Israel, but everywhere else as well.  After seven years of trying, Bush finally succeeded in making Russia once again a potential enemy of the US, instead of a friend and partner in seeking harmony for the world.  And the tally of potential enemies, and disappointed friends, grows as nations in both Africa and Latin America no longer see a mutuality of interests between the United States and themselves.

One could easily conclude that the US government is not only coldhearted towards the peoples of the world, but cares little about its own citizenry, its interest being solely in self-perpetuating its power, and the financial welfare of a select-few who control the lion’s share of wealth and power, in America and elsewhere where capitalism flourishes.

This exiting 2007 was for me one more session for Bush et al to chisel at the shrinking equity that Americans have in America; a year in which a mendacious government continued  whittling away on those unalienable rights of man, stated in our Constitution as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

For years we have observed how social and political events have taken place in this nation clearly pushing it towards the path of fascism, American fascism; real fascism, but rooted in this United States; a fascism different from Hitler’s, or Mussolini’s or even Franco’s, but fascism nonetheless. These days, our own NS-Frauenschaft provides the nation with fascist whores who trot with impunity up and down Main Street, anywhere in this land of ours, dressed in vibrant, patriotic red-white-and-blue colors; dollar-stars in their eyes; silver crosses as pendants; and, yes, unabashedly toting bibles.  Our Lady Liberty has now been replaced by replicas of a fascist libertine; a libertine venerated as the immaculate virgin-mother of corporate, military and evangelical America.

Yet, with such clarity provided by this year’s socio-economic and political statement, Americans remain undeterred, meekly consenting to everything the government puts on their plates, eating their soylent green as if it were the greatest gourmet delicacy.

© 2007 Ben Tanosborn

www.tanosborn.com

Tags: congress, democracy, economics, empire, Global, government, history, imperialism
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Time Magazine, in their annual declaration of the individual that qualifies as the most influential person of the year, cited Ron Paul, not as the most influential, but as a person worthy of mention. However, in the brief description of Ron Paul and his political advocacies, Time Magazine incorrectly portrayed Paul as an isolationist when it comes to foreign policy:

Booed by Republicans for his [bold face added to original text] isolationist foreign policy views and anathema to Democrats for his anti-government philosophy, the Texas congressman was proudly out of step with both political parties. But marching to his own drummer, the grandfatherly libertarian found himself leading an online parade. Millions of dollars poured into his quixotic presidential campaign, raising an inevitable question: What’s next for this free-thinking and strangely compelling grassroots crusader?

This characterization of Paul is patently false, and Time Magazine needs to correct its erroneous description of Ron Paul and his political positions.

In actuality, Ron Paul is a non-interventionist; which is certainly a marked distinction from the foreign policy philosophy of an isolationist. Ron Paul does not want America to look inward, not taking an interest and a role in geopolitical affairs. Rather, Paul is opposed to a foreign policy that is modeled upon an international activist programme, whereby America feels obliged to intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries, even if through military force.

We have suffered – for the last 6 years – under a Presidential regime that has acted belligerently toward other nations, and has, indeed, militarily invaded non-aggressor states in order to install regimes that are favorable to the United States. It is precisely this militarism, which is the hallmark of the Bush Administration, to which Ron Paul is opposed.

Please inform the Time Magazine associate responsible for writing this description of Ron Paul that you take exception to his erroneous characterization of Ron Paul’s foreign policy philosophy.

Please consider writing to the editor, in order to ensure that Time Magazine makes a correction to its incorrect portrayal of Ron Paul.  You can find the mistatement regarding Ron Paul at the following uri:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/0,28804,1690753_1690758_1693558,00.html

Russell Cole

Tags: foreign policy, Global, government, imperialism, military, neoconservatism, politics, war
Categories: Commentary, Global, government, Politics, War, Foreign Policy, Imperialism, military, neoconservatism
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

America, more than anything else, more than the proverbial land of opportunity, is very definitely something else. This nation of ours appears to be, first and foremost, a land of contradictions where, while the polls indicate most people feel the nation is being led in the wrong direction, we seem inclined to follow the same pied piper foreign policy.

Like it or not, in the US you cease to be an American (or rather, a “good American”) in the mind of your family, friends and neighbors the moment you deny the sacred dogma of inerrancy in US foreign policy. It may seem irrational to some people – either the statement on its face or what it’s implied by it – but deep inside that is the attitudinal belief of a vast majority of Americans I know and, I would venture to guess, most Americans anyone might know. And yet, that “patriotic majority,” so similar to me to the “moral majority” of time past, prefer not to think of themselves in any way, shape or form as nativists, jingoists, or otherwise exclusionary… convinced they are just down-to-earth regular folks: Main Street America.

Shortly after 9/11, political America – Democrats and Republicans – decided that it was about time to set aside their minute differences in foreign policy and act as a true united front. After all, they could always maintain some semblance of independence in the domestic arena, keeping a presumed differentiation alive and well… as if the gross mislabeling of the conservative and liberal captions defined how either party stood.

To our national detriment, including America’s standing in the world, such unnecessary and unwarranted united front was adopted by our political duopoly without as much as the blink of an eye; its ideas quickly permeating, and finding acceptance, through much of the citizenry of Main Street America. That citizen’s consent to relinquish rights and freedoms, giving blind permission, authorization, license and sanction allowing Bush’s White House to do as it pleased – all too often in open acts of criminality – has made it starkly clear that even if we claim to live under democratic rule, a so-called rule of law, our republic operates under a much different rule: the rule of consentership. And we, the citizenry, are simply the consenters! Such role reversal has made Americans the doting citizens of their uncle, Sam, an embarrassingly felonious uncle at that.

Let’s stop being hypocrites! Let’s stop blaming Bush for our own cowardice and lack of civic guts. Empowering a selected – not elected – government; granting clearance for the neocons to act; giving Bush the green light to invade Iraq; tolerating the usurping of our rights and freedoms; and going along with blatant economic malfeasance that is sure to bankrupt this nation, is unmistakably defining the highest level of consentership: what some of us would call the ultimate political pass.

Could it be that we are consenting because that is exactly what we want? That deep inside we know that someone needs to do the dirty work on our behalf, and that there needs to be a price paid? Are we really accomplices as much as we are consenters? Isn’t this a form of a dictatorship by that antidemocratic triumvirate that rules our lives: predatory capitalism, wasteful consumerism, and religious fundamentalism?

It’s beginning to look as if in early 2008, consentership will continue to dominate our Tweedledum-Tweedledee politics with Republicans and Democrats achieving renewed solidarity in foreign affairs, be it the forever-occupation (or negotiated presence) of Iraq, a non-stop continuing demonization of Iran and other “terror-villains,” or the constant denunciation of any nation that challenges our imperial hegemony and right to collect tribute in any way we see fit. Bush will soon be on his way out, but rest assured that his replacement will be a clone; or, as it is now starting to look, “a Bush in drag.” Perhaps we continue to be led astray with the promise of a lesser evil approach in domestic governance, but it will not be a lesser evil in the areas that are essential to bring trusting understanding among peoples of the world; it will not be a recipe to achieve peace on this earth, just as the organic compounds were to achieve life.

Of late, we have been looking at what is happening in Greater Russia, and are totally befuddled by the confrontational attitude of Mr. Putin. A man that not so long ago our own Duce, after looking into his eyes, tabbed as his straightforward, trustworthy friend Vladimir. My God, can someone explain how our prophetic, infallible Bush was able to get a sense of Putin’s soul and just a few years later have him turn against us?

But we shouldn’t fret over Putin’s reaction to our accustomed imperialist behavior, nor should we be surprised at his popularity in Greater Russia. Just like here in the US, there is also an apparent consensus in the neo-czarist land of Vladimir Putin, with an overwhelming majority matching their consentership against our very own. If we can be bipartisan in adopting – preserving might be a more appropriate word – an imperial foreign policy, it’s understandable that the Russians’ newly found economic success and national pride have turned their political behavior into one of consentership. The US should not expect anything better after our “screw-you” behavior during their cold turkey exit from communism, and now our insolence of trying to park missiles at their borders.

Consentership may not be dangerously consequential for small groups or nations that have no influence beyond their memberships or borders. For an imperial superpower it can turn out to be the most extreme among political extremes, perhaps the worst form of dictatorship. After all, we are consenting to the rule of a very few… and those few have been granted the power to push the nuclear button at will, to turn daylight into permanent night.

And we have the gall to criticize some nations because we tag them as dictatorships!

© 2007 Ben Tanosborn

Tags: american empire, anti imperialism, bush, citizens, democracy, economics, empire, Global, imperialism, liberty, National, political parties, politics
Categories: Commentary, National, Economics, Democracy, liberty, Politics, Empire, Imperialism
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An Article by

Russell Cole

I have studied the development of this political and social ideology [neoconservatism] to some extent, and its primary forebear is a political philosopher by the name, Leo Strauss. He was most affected by Plato, and, in particular, The Republic. I presume this is where Strauss gained his authoritarian worldview, which is seeded in the monolithic polis speculated by Plato, where the society is structured according to a corporatist regime, negating any differentiation between polity and civil society.

Authoritarians, such as Strauss, tend to be moral realists, similarly to Plato, which provides them with their rhetorical devices needed to justify their ethnocentrism, making it appear not as an ideology spouted by a faction that strives to impose it upon others, but as the natural moral order to which all humanity should aspire and, indeed, be pushed.

However, this belief in absolutes – a single moral order that exists apart from the men and women who speculate over its contents – has the impact of diminishing reality in favor of an impression of the world that is propagated through the contrivance of ad hoc explanations for all events that seem to run contrary to the idealized vision of human sociality articulated in the moral realist’s camouflaged ethnocentrism.

This is the point at which I am mystified the most by the neo-cons: Moral realism results in a negation of the saliency that should otherwise be attributed to contingencies that unfold in empirical reality, in favor of an adoption of a faith-based form of reasoning, where one’s beliefs will always be vindicated in the long-run. In the context of this type of thinking, we can meaningfully interpret the expression “moral courage:” a quality that is lacking in anybody who espouses uncertainty as to the veracity of the neo-conservative system of beliefs. Moral realism, in this instance, ironically, appears to be more of an underlying posit supported by convictions of faith rather than any reflection of reality.

What all of this has to do with Bush, specifically, I do not know, because he is not necessarily intelligent enough to grasp the neocons’ system of thought, such as the case with the intellect of hubris personified, Paul Wolfiwitz. However, I am sure that Bush’s absolute convictions regarding his born again stature in the eyes of his god might translate into the same type of empirically uninformed decision-making processes. Only, in Bush’s case, he has mistaken Chaney whispering in his ear for the Word of the Lord Almighty.

So, then, the question now arises: Why, even as the neo-conservatives – through their follies in Iraq and other ‘terror,’ related policy matters – have completely undressed themselves - Americans continue, as a population, to fail to mobilize in opposition to the Bush Regime?

As far as getting people off of their couches and politically engaged, I believe the problem is the deference we as Americans are socialized to possess and exhibit, beginning at a young age, whereby we are instructed to demonstrate respect and obedience toward our extant sociopolitical institutions. It does not matter what people might suspect or come to believe according to the conclusions reached in their own internal contemplations as long as they are encumbered with a habitual deferential posture that is assumed in relationship to sociopolitical institutions; fixtures that we are socialized to take to be transcendent of human interference and contamination. Even Tocqueville remarked that Americans displayed obedience to sociopolitical institutions, which prevented, according to the French observer, radicalized political behavior. He speculated that American democracy might be made possible by this willing subservience. Therefore, it is a matter of reinvigorating Americans with a sense of existential angst that is the key to unlocking radicalized currents of both thoughts and their associative social undertakings.

Returning to concerns related to religion: I would assume that Bush, indeed, during moments of cynicism, does use religiosity as a political artifice. Remember, the remarks made by Bush in the lead up to the War in Iraq, where he made mention of a “Great Crusade,” that we, as a nation, were about to undertake. Obviously, in retrospect, we can recognize this as a ploy to garner support from the war-mongering-religious-right that finds a place in our unfortunate society.

These remarks are not intended to be a denouncement of all instances of religiosity. I do make a differentiation between the dogma of fundamentalism and the personal spiritualism – associated with countercultural religious movements – which I suspect Jesus – the historical figure – to have proffered the latter in his sermons, because it is only with absolutism and dogma that religiosity manifests its deleterious qualities; what we witness in the Christianity that was tragically left to us by the sexually impotent, female loathing, and physically diminutive Paul, who knew nothing of Jesus other than Christ’s appearances in Paul’s own hysteria and its precipitation of fanciful delusions.

Russell Cole

Tags: corporations, democracy, foreign policy, government,