The other week Jon Stewart called the Madison protests as “the Bizarro Tea Party.” It’s seems that there’s been so little old fashioned working class rebellion in recent years that even the super-sharp folks at the Daily Show have trouble recognizing it: This is odd. Students and workers are gathering in large numbers to hold signs and march and chant. But they’re saying nothing about anchor babies or false birth certificates. What do you call this strange phenomenon?
Of course, it’s the Tea Party that is a funhouse reflection of genuine grassroots protest movements - - billionaires organizing mad-as-hell rallies against the working class. Getting it reversed is like telling a Kansas City barbeque chef that his food tastes like a Bizarro McRib.
Conservative commentators, meanwhile, saw the tens of thousands of smiling students and teachers as a sinister gang of “union thugs.” That’s actually the term Rush Limbaugh and others have used to describe members of the Wisconsin Education Association. Ooh, don’t cross Mrs. Mendelson at Osh Kosh Elementary. Your body might end up at the bottom of a sandbox.
Actually, the quality that jumps out at anyone who watches any video from Madison is the humor, something I’ve never seen at any Tea Party Paranoia-palooza.
I’ve never seen as many hilarious protest sign, ranging from the nerdy – “There’s Still Good in You (Sky)Walker: to the admirably straightforward – “Dick Move Scotty.”
Wisconsinites taught me two things with their handmade signs. They identify with the Egyptian struggle for democracy. And they really love the Green Bay Packers. I wouldn’t be surprised in some wall in the capitol building now features a Diego Rivera – style mural featuring Vince Lombardi and company marching in Tahrir Square.
There were also plenty of signs reflecting the gallows humor of public sector workers: “My Kindergarteners Are Better Listeners than My Governor.” “Hey Walker WI Ranger. Who’s Gonna Wipe Your Ass When You Have a Stroke?” “I Protect Your Family From the Criminally Insane. Remember That.”
Signs like these helped build national support by showing that the protesters are the regular people we all work with. And yet at a typical union rally folks stand around holding pre-printed signs and listen to speakers with a pre-printed message: “Vote for the Democrats in November.” Doesn’t it seem like a poor use of resources to mobilize thousands of working to assemble in one location just to give them a live version of the emails you regularly send them?
In Wisonsin, the unions had to break this mold because Scott Walker attacked them so hard and so quickly. The same old symbolic protest wouldn’t do; workers and students in Madison had to figure out what they were going to do to try to actually kill the bill.
That’s how “See you in November” became “We’ll see your ass every day until we win.” That’s how “I’m a union member and I vote” became “I’m a teacher and I call in sick.”
Walker’s attack forced the Wisconsin labor movement to re-discovered a long-forgotten lesson: Protests can…like, try to win.
Workers can strike – or at least call out sick for three days like the teachers did. State senators who oppose bad legislation can leave. And the rest of us can stay.
The massive occupation of the state capitol building has mercifully ended a debate that’s raged in activist circles for over a decade: Is it better to have a tame protest with many people or a disruptive protest with few people? Now it’s clear that this has essentially been an argument about the relative merits of peanut butter versus jelly. How about both?
Turns out that mass occupations of public spaces have lots of other advantages too. Having a hard time to decide what time to call the rally? Make it all the time! Are you worried that some folks are going to be out of town? They can join us when they get back. Tell them to bring postcards to put up in the rotunda.
Another logistical task that the Madison protesters have simplified is the follow up meeting, which is now defined as when you get tired of chanting and sit down over some internationally-donated pizza. When should you have the next rally? When there’s no more pizza.
But occupations and daily protests can’t last forever because most people have to go back to work. That’s one of Scott Walker’s big advantages – he and the Koch Brothers get to plot against us while they’re at work– because that’s their job.
Now that most of the protesters have gone back home and the union officials are back in charge, the main slogan seems to be, “It’s not about the money.” This slogan hopes to portray union workers are reasonable folk who will pay more for their benefits but just want to keep their bargaining rights.
Actually, it tells Scott Walker to stand firm because the unions are already starting to cave. And it may tell other workers that the unions will fight for their own “special” rights but not against the cuts to everybody’s health care and education.
At the capitol building protests, workers were doing a fine job of portraying themselves in ways that no political consultant would have approved. Let me great this straight. You want to compare yourselves to to Egyptian protesters – to angry Arab young men? You’re worse than the one with the sign about wiping Scott Walker’s ass!
So the big question is if Wisconsin workers and students are going to be able to take the spirit of mass participation back to their hometowns, campuses, and union meetings. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks we’ll be hearing not only from the people who make the pre-printed signs but from the ordinary Mubarak-hating, Packer-loving, ass-wiping workers of Wisconsin.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Exodus II: Let the Pharaoh Go
First published at SocialistWorker.org on February 17, 2011.
And so it came to pass that thousands of years after God helped Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, the Egyptians toiled under a new Pharaoh who lived in extreme luxury while they slaved away creating vast pyramids of textiles and oil barrels.
Pharaoh Hosni seemed to be even more powerful than Ramses because he had turned the tables on history. This Pharaoh had the Israelites on his side, as well as their new god in Washington DC.
Until January 25, when the Egyptians gathered in the square to declare, “Let the Pharaoh go.”
But the Pharaoh just laughed and unleashed some of the plagues with which his American god kept him well supplied: tear gas, rubber bullets, water canons.
But the Egyptians persevered and came back in even greater numbers to the square three days later. So Pharaoh offered them a deal:
“Ok, I get it. You think I’m working too hard and you’re worried about me. Tell you what: I’ll appoint a vice-Pharaoh and I promise to take more vacations and stop being such a perfectionist.”
But the Egyptians were unmoved. Again they said, “Let the Pharaoh go.”
So the Pharaoh unleashed a plague of digital darkness, cutting the Egyptians off from their cell phones and wi-fi. But still they were unbowed.
And so the Pharaoh’s god issued a statement from the White House:
“I am the god not only of Pharaoh but also of democracy. This may seem like a contradiction to you guys because he’s your dictator and all. But if you only knew him like I do you would see that on the inside he really wants to do the right thing. So let’s keep it peaceful, ok?”
But then the Pharaoh issued a plague of violence with police and thugs who rampaged the square, beating and shooting the Egyptians. And for two days and two nights there was great death and suffering.
But the Egyptians did not give up. They returned to the square and vowed that this time they wouldn’t leave before the Pharaoh. Now the American god was angry, for Pharaoh had made him look bad by trying to crush the Egyptians and failing.
And so the American god decreed that Pharaoh Hosni had to start leaving “now.” And the Egyptians rejoiced.
Then Pharaoh called the White House and said, “My god, why have you forsaken me? Have you forgotten that all of your imperial plans in the Middle East and Central Asia depend on people like me? Have you thought about what impact a revolution in the largest Arab country might have? Besides, I assume you think you can replace me with someone from the military. Where do you think I came from, Goldman Sachs? Let’s just say I know a little more about military coups than you and I’ve taken some precautionary steps.”
Pharaoh’s words had their effect and the next day his god issued a retraction.
“Um, maybe Pharaoh should stick around and help with the transfer to democracy. Technically, he’s already ‘started’ to leave in the sense that every day that passes is another day towards when he leaves. See what I mean?”
The Egyptians were puzzled by this god’s changing positions but steadfast in their own: “Let the Pharaoh go.”
For his next plague, Pharaoh summoned the sprit of Glenn Beck to spread a tale through his state-run media that the protesters were secret agents of those well-known allies Israel and Iran.
But the Egyptians were unmoved. Thousands more gathered in the square.
Pharaoh announced he would sacrifice his second-born son, Gamal.
But the Egyptians in the square continued to grow. And now some of them left the square and went back to their jobs, not to stop the protest but to lead their co-workers out on strike. And Pharaoh’s God took notice.
And so the next day word spread that Pharaoh would soon announce his departure. The Egyptians gathered in the square in larger numbers than ever before to wait for Pharaoh’s speech. But instead of resigning, he proposed yet another compromise:
“Ok, how about this? I’ll only be the all-powerful ruler on Mondays and Thursdays and on the other five days you guys can have a democracy? What do you think?”
But this only made the Egyptians furious and they raised their shoes and vowed to gather and strike the next day in their largest numbers yet. And the Pharaoh’s god said “enough is enough” and was unconvinced even by Pharaoh’s warnings of a global conspiracy led by the Muslim Brotherhood and Justin Beiber.
So it came to pass than on February 11, Pharaoh departed, and Egyptians celebrated with their brothers and sisters around the world.
Nobody knows what the next chapter of Egypt’s revolution would be.
And across the ancient Biblical lands, other Pharaohs are suddenly vowing to hold elections, claiming that they wanted all along to spend more time with their families, and that their sons are actually poets and accountants who have no interest in succeeding them in power.
The Egyptians have spread a powerful message across the world. Pharaohs aren’t all-powerful. And neither is their god in Washington DC.
And so it came to pass that thousands of years after God helped Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, the Egyptians toiled under a new Pharaoh who lived in extreme luxury while they slaved away creating vast pyramids of textiles and oil barrels.
Pharaoh Hosni seemed to be even more powerful than Ramses because he had turned the tables on history. This Pharaoh had the Israelites on his side, as well as their new god in Washington DC.
Until January 25, when the Egyptians gathered in the square to declare, “Let the Pharaoh go.”
But the Pharaoh just laughed and unleashed some of the plagues with which his American god kept him well supplied: tear gas, rubber bullets, water canons.
But the Egyptians persevered and came back in even greater numbers to the square three days later. So Pharaoh offered them a deal:
“Ok, I get it. You think I’m working too hard and you’re worried about me. Tell you what: I’ll appoint a vice-Pharaoh and I promise to take more vacations and stop being such a perfectionist.”
But the Egyptians were unmoved. Again they said, “Let the Pharaoh go.”
So the Pharaoh unleashed a plague of digital darkness, cutting the Egyptians off from their cell phones and wi-fi. But still they were unbowed.
And so the Pharaoh’s god issued a statement from the White House:
“I am the god not only of Pharaoh but also of democracy. This may seem like a contradiction to you guys because he’s your dictator and all. But if you only knew him like I do you would see that on the inside he really wants to do the right thing. So let’s keep it peaceful, ok?”
But then the Pharaoh issued a plague of violence with police and thugs who rampaged the square, beating and shooting the Egyptians. And for two days and two nights there was great death and suffering.
But the Egyptians did not give up. They returned to the square and vowed that this time they wouldn’t leave before the Pharaoh. Now the American god was angry, for Pharaoh had made him look bad by trying to crush the Egyptians and failing.
And so the American god decreed that Pharaoh Hosni had to start leaving “now.” And the Egyptians rejoiced.
Then Pharaoh called the White House and said, “My god, why have you forsaken me? Have you forgotten that all of your imperial plans in the Middle East and Central Asia depend on people like me? Have you thought about what impact a revolution in the largest Arab country might have? Besides, I assume you think you can replace me with someone from the military. Where do you think I came from, Goldman Sachs? Let’s just say I know a little more about military coups than you and I’ve taken some precautionary steps.”
Pharaoh’s words had their effect and the next day his god issued a retraction.
“Um, maybe Pharaoh should stick around and help with the transfer to democracy. Technically, he’s already ‘started’ to leave in the sense that every day that passes is another day towards when he leaves. See what I mean?”
The Egyptians were puzzled by this god’s changing positions but steadfast in their own: “Let the Pharaoh go.”
For his next plague, Pharaoh summoned the sprit of Glenn Beck to spread a tale through his state-run media that the protesters were secret agents of those well-known allies Israel and Iran.
But the Egyptians were unmoved. Thousands more gathered in the square.
Pharaoh announced he would sacrifice his second-born son, Gamal.
But the Egyptians in the square continued to grow. And now some of them left the square and went back to their jobs, not to stop the protest but to lead their co-workers out on strike. And Pharaoh’s God took notice.
And so the next day word spread that Pharaoh would soon announce his departure. The Egyptians gathered in the square in larger numbers than ever before to wait for Pharaoh’s speech. But instead of resigning, he proposed yet another compromise:
“Ok, how about this? I’ll only be the all-powerful ruler on Mondays and Thursdays and on the other five days you guys can have a democracy? What do you think?”
But this only made the Egyptians furious and they raised their shoes and vowed to gather and strike the next day in their largest numbers yet. And the Pharaoh’s god said “enough is enough” and was unconvinced even by Pharaoh’s warnings of a global conspiracy led by the Muslim Brotherhood and Justin Beiber.
So it came to pass than on February 11, Pharaoh departed, and Egyptians celebrated with their brothers and sisters around the world.
Nobody knows what the next chapter of Egypt’s revolution would be.
And across the ancient Biblical lands, other Pharaohs are suddenly vowing to hold elections, claiming that they wanted all along to spend more time with their families, and that their sons are actually poets and accountants who have no interest in succeeding them in power.
The Egyptians have spread a powerful message across the world. Pharaohs aren’t all-powerful. And neither is their god in Washington DC.
Billionaires Take a Stand for the Working Man
First published at SocialistWorker.org on January 24, 2011.
Who says the corporate media doesn’t care about the opinions of ordinary people? There have been lots of articles lately about what workers think, written by the people who study them the most - bosses.
As a vice president of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and a Wall Street Journal columnist, William McGurn naturally has his finger on the pulse of the American working class:
"The notion that Wall Street and Main Street are fundamentally at odds with one another remains a popular orthodoxy. So much so that we may be missing the first stirrings of a true American class war: between workers in government unions and their union counterparts in the private sector."
According to McGurn, a true American worker doesn’t mind having his 401Ks cut by a CEO looking to increase his year-end bonus. But he’s fighting mad at his daughter’s teacher because she has a union that’s been able to keep her pension fully funded. This analysis truly does go against “popular orthodoxy” – i.e. what most people think.
But McGurn’s observations must have merit because they are corrobrated almost word for word by Mort Zuckerman, real estate billionaire and owner of US News and World Report:
"We really are two Americas, but not those captured in the stereotypical populist class warfare speeches that dramatize the gulf between the rich and the poor. Instead there is a new division in America that affronts a sense of fairness. That division is between the workers in the private sector and the workers in the public sector."
In Zuckerman’s vision, government workers are different than you and me. They live in gated communities like Fireman Estates and flaunt their wealth on shows like “Lifestyles of the Defined Benefit Plan” and “Who Wants to Marry a Child Services Case Worker?”
In Public Sector America, unionized postal workers and crossing guards pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for exclusive private schools while the rest of us - Starbucks baristas, bank presidents, etc. - send our kids to overcrowded public schools.
This obscene inequality is apparently spurring a backlash from ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Mort the Media and Real Estate Mogul.
In New York, these plain folk have formed the modestly named “Committee to Save New York”. (Presumably they couldn’t get the rights to “The Super Friends.”)
The Committee calls itself a “voice for the general public.” Go to their website to see what they mean. All around the edges are pictures of us, the general public, in our hard hats and our various skin colors. And right in the middle you can see our voice! It’s a list of names and titles reflecting New York in all its diversity: some of them CEOs, some presidents, and some “presidents and CEOs.”
The plan to save New York is similar to the ones being proposed across the country: Cut public sector jobs to pay for lower taxes on business, who will use that money to create new jobs – maybe even as many as they just got rid of!
Okay, so maybe it doesn’t make much sense, but economic logic isn’t what’s motivating the attack on public sector unions. It’s about fairness.
Our bleeding heart bosses are bothered that private sector workers – their workers – are suffering from layoffs and falling wages more than government workers who are often protected by union contracts. They don’t think it’s right that only some workers should be made to pay for the government’s bailout of the banks. Nor is it right for a few privileged workers to have access to government representatives via their unions. If most workers are shut out of having a political voice, then all workers should be.
In short, folks like Mort Zuckerman and the Committee to Save New York would like to see a reverse civil rights movement, the kind where MLK would have fought for whites to also not have the right to vote.
You might think that this situation presents unions with opportunity as well as danger. After all, bosses are giving them free advertising about the advantages of collective bargaining. Unions could pass out flyers to Walmart workers that read, “Want to be a part of that powerful special interest group the governor’s been warning you about?
Instead, most public sector unions have meekly responded to the attacks with calls for “shared sacrifice” among business and labor. I’ve never taken a class on negotiations but I thought you weren’t supposed to announce your willingness to make concessions right from the start. Not only that, calling for workers and bosses to share the sacrifice during this recession gives the false impression that we shared the loot during the boom – or the bailout afterward.
There’s only one way government workers will win the support of their private sector neighbors. Fight and win. Show them that having a union can provide you with things that you can’t have without one.
Not an easy plan but at least it’s simple.
Who says the corporate media doesn’t care about the opinions of ordinary people? There have been lots of articles lately about what workers think, written by the people who study them the most - bosses.
As a vice president of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and a Wall Street Journal columnist, William McGurn naturally has his finger on the pulse of the American working class:
"The notion that Wall Street and Main Street are fundamentally at odds with one another remains a popular orthodoxy. So much so that we may be missing the first stirrings of a true American class war: between workers in government unions and their union counterparts in the private sector."
According to McGurn, a true American worker doesn’t mind having his 401Ks cut by a CEO looking to increase his year-end bonus. But he’s fighting mad at his daughter’s teacher because she has a union that’s been able to keep her pension fully funded. This analysis truly does go against “popular orthodoxy” – i.e. what most people think.
But McGurn’s observations must have merit because they are corrobrated almost word for word by Mort Zuckerman, real estate billionaire and owner of US News and World Report:
"We really are two Americas, but not those captured in the stereotypical populist class warfare speeches that dramatize the gulf between the rich and the poor. Instead there is a new division in America that affronts a sense of fairness. That division is between the workers in the private sector and the workers in the public sector."
In Zuckerman’s vision, government workers are different than you and me. They live in gated communities like Fireman Estates and flaunt their wealth on shows like “Lifestyles of the Defined Benefit Plan” and “Who Wants to Marry a Child Services Case Worker?”
In Public Sector America, unionized postal workers and crossing guards pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for exclusive private schools while the rest of us - Starbucks baristas, bank presidents, etc. - send our kids to overcrowded public schools.
This obscene inequality is apparently spurring a backlash from ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Mort the Media and Real Estate Mogul.
In New York, these plain folk have formed the modestly named “Committee to Save New York”. (Presumably they couldn’t get the rights to “The Super Friends.”)
The Committee calls itself a “voice for the general public.” Go to their website to see what they mean. All around the edges are pictures of us, the general public, in our hard hats and our various skin colors. And right in the middle you can see our voice! It’s a list of names and titles reflecting New York in all its diversity: some of them CEOs, some presidents, and some “presidents and CEOs.”
The plan to save New York is similar to the ones being proposed across the country: Cut public sector jobs to pay for lower taxes on business, who will use that money to create new jobs – maybe even as many as they just got rid of!
Okay, so maybe it doesn’t make much sense, but economic logic isn’t what’s motivating the attack on public sector unions. It’s about fairness.
Our bleeding heart bosses are bothered that private sector workers – their workers – are suffering from layoffs and falling wages more than government workers who are often protected by union contracts. They don’t think it’s right that only some workers should be made to pay for the government’s bailout of the banks. Nor is it right for a few privileged workers to have access to government representatives via their unions. If most workers are shut out of having a political voice, then all workers should be.
In short, folks like Mort Zuckerman and the Committee to Save New York would like to see a reverse civil rights movement, the kind where MLK would have fought for whites to also not have the right to vote.
You might think that this situation presents unions with opportunity as well as danger. After all, bosses are giving them free advertising about the advantages of collective bargaining. Unions could pass out flyers to Walmart workers that read, “Want to be a part of that powerful special interest group the governor’s been warning you about?
Instead, most public sector unions have meekly responded to the attacks with calls for “shared sacrifice” among business and labor. I’ve never taken a class on negotiations but I thought you weren’t supposed to announce your willingness to make concessions right from the start. Not only that, calling for workers and bosses to share the sacrifice during this recession gives the false impression that we shared the loot during the boom – or the bailout afterward.
There’s only one way government workers will win the support of their private sector neighbors. Fight and win. Show them that having a union can provide you with things that you can’t have without one.
Not an easy plan but at least it’s simple.
Review of The American Way of War
First published at SocialistWorker.org on January 11, 2011.
Last week the Obama administration ordered over a thousand more Marines to Afghanistan to “solidify progress” being made in the Kandahar campaign. Last year Obama sent more troops because the war wasn’t going well. This year it’s because the war is going well.
Tom Engelhardt, creator of the TomDispatch website, has been following this trend for years. Before Obama’s first troop surge in 2009, government officials had an unusually public discussion about whether to send more soldiers or to increase the training of Afghan army. In the introduction to his excellent The American Way of War, Engelhardt comments on the inevitability of the outcome"
"The essence of this “debate” came down to: More of them versus more of us (and keep in mind that more of “them”…. actually meant more of “us” in the form of extra trainers and advisers.) In other words, however contentious the disputes in Washington, however dismally the public viewed the war….the only choices were between more and more."
This September will mark the tenth year since the September 11 attacks launched the U.S. government and society into a permanent state of war. The initial years of this era saw major protests against the invasions of Afghanistan and, especially Iraq. Today, although the Afghanistan War is less popular than ever, there is little public opposition. Most Americans seem to have resigned themselves to its inevitability.
One reason the prospect of “bringing the troops home” seems more remote than ever is the growing realization that the problem is not one mistaken war or dimwitted president but something more deeply rooted. Engelhardt doesn’t use the term ‘imperialism’, but he perfectly captures what it looks like in the U.S. today:
"Because the United States does not look like a militarized county, it’s hard for Americans to grasp that Washington is a war capital, that the United States is a war state, that it garrisons much of the planet, and that the norm for us is to be at war somewhere (usually, in fact, many places) at any moment."
Anyone who wants to rebuild an anti-war movement that understands this imperial reality should read The American Way of War. Engerhardt explores the profound changes that have taken place since the launching of the Global War on Terror. His aim is not so much to explain why these changes have taken place as to understand their effects on American society.
Reading this book feels like poking around with a flashlight in the unexamined corners of the post-9/11 American imperial mindset. Each chapter poses questions that many readers will wonder whey they never bothered to ask: Why do reporters “embed” with ground troops but not with Air Force units, the strategic heart of every American war of the last fifty years? What will the world look like when aerial drones proliterate and the Pentagon’s precedent of cross-border aerial assassinations becomes the international norm? How can politicians and pundits claim we are teaching good government around the world even as they declare that our own in Washington is broken?
A skilled writer, Engelhardt is especially drawn to the ways the changing shape of American imperialism is reflected in its language:
"If war is now our permanent situation, it has also been sundered from a set of words that once accompanied it. It lacks, for instance, “victory.” …[which] no longer seems to matter. War American-style is now conceptually unending, as are preparations for it."
He makes a chilling comparison to the official language in George Orwell’s 1984 - “we live in a world of American Newspeak in which alternatives to a state of war are not only ever more unacceptable, but ever harder to imagine.” At the same time, he understands that the rulers of American society are vulnerable because they are often fooled by their own propaganda. Imperial hubris can blind American leaders to some basic facts of life outside the Green Zones.
"[The CIA reported the death of] Abu Layth al-Libi, whom U.S. officials described as ‘a rising star’ in the group.” “Rising star” is such an American phrase, melding as it does imagined terror hierarchies with the lingo of celebrity tabloids. In fact, one problem with Empire-speak, and imperial thought more generally, is the way it prevents imperial officials from imagining a world not in their own image. So it’s not surprising that, despite their best efforts, they regularly conjure up their enemies as a warped version of themselves – hierarchical, overly reliant on leaders, and top heavy.
What is hard for Washington to grasp is this: “Decapitation,” to use another American imperial term, is not a particularly effective strategy with a decentralized guerrilla or terror organization. The fact is a headless guerilla movement is nowhere near as brainless or helpless as a headless Washington would be.”
This sharp wit runs throughout the book. The section about the lack of media coverage of air campaigns, for example, is wonderfully titled “On Not Looking Up.” Not only does this humor make The American Way of War a surprisingly entertaining read given the subject matter, it reminds us of something all great anti-war movements have known: the war machine is not just evil; it’s often absurd.
Absurdity is the theme of the Joseph Heller’s classic anti-war novel Catch-22, a dizzying ride through the twisted logic of the Air Force in World War II. The book’s title, for example, refers to a rule that airmen can be declared insane from the stress of fighting and sent home but that anyone who asks to be sent home is clearly sane and therefore must continue flying.
It’s hard not to think of Catch-22 when reading accounts from Afghanistan like this one from the New York Times.
“Please don’t walk on my fields, they are newly sown,” a farmer, waving a packet of seeds, called to the soldiers as they patrolled.
“Hajji, you know the deal,” an American sergeant answered. “The Taliban put mines on the paths, so we have to walk in the fields.”
The farmer’s concern presented a quandary for the soldiers, who would like to keep villagers on their side. “I think the farmers are laying the I.E.D.’s because we are walking through their fields,” said Sgt. Michael Ricchiuti. “They get paid to do it.”
The reporter, Carlotta Gall, doesn’t seem to notice the circular logic of soldiers walking in fields to avoid mines planted by farmers because the soldiers walk in their fields. Or at least she doesn’t comment on it. All in all, a pretty apt metaphor for a pointless war whose very pointlessness has become a nonstory.
Of course, there is a point to the occupation of Afghanistan, a country located near both the world’s greatest concentration of natural gas and the United States’ main future rivals China and India. Likewise, Engelhardt is clear that for all its madness, the War on Terror has succeeded very well in obscuring this truth and many others in a cloud of fear"
"Opinion polls indicate that terrorism is no longer at the top of the American agenda of worries. Nonetheless, don’t for a second think that the subject isn’t lodged deep in national consciousness. When asked “How worried are you that you or someone in your family will become a victim of terrorism,” a striking 39 percent of Americans were either “very worried” or “somewhat worried,”….
People always wonder: What would the impact of a second 9/11-style attack be on this country? Seldom noticed, however, is that all the pinprick terror events blown up to apocalyptic proportions add up to a second, third, fourth, fifth 9/11 when it comes to American consciousness."
In other words, we face the opposite dilemma than the one faced by Yossarian of Catch-22. Yossarian is considered crazy because he’s upset that anti-aircraft gunners are trying to kill him and doesn’t care that this homicidal behavior can be explained by the context of war. Today, on the other hand, it’s proper to be upset that terrorists are trying to kill us but crazy to look at the context of wars that might explain why.
We’re not the ones who are crazy. But if we want to build an effective opposition to these endless wars, we can’t be afraid of being called crazy – or unpatriotic or soft on terrorism. Flag waving “support the troops”- style activism has been proven ineffective. It does nothing to puncture what Engelhardt calls the “almost religious glow of praise and veneration, what might once have been called ‘idolatry,’” in which the Pentagon has been embraced since 9/11.
The American Way of War shows what a different anti-war war movement could look like: one that clear-sightedly calls out the murderous nature of our war state and holds up in contrast the warmth and humor on the side of humanity.
Last week the Obama administration ordered over a thousand more Marines to Afghanistan to “solidify progress” being made in the Kandahar campaign. Last year Obama sent more troops because the war wasn’t going well. This year it’s because the war is going well.
Tom Engelhardt, creator of the TomDispatch website, has been following this trend for years. Before Obama’s first troop surge in 2009, government officials had an unusually public discussion about whether to send more soldiers or to increase the training of Afghan army. In the introduction to his excellent The American Way of War, Engelhardt comments on the inevitability of the outcome"
"The essence of this “debate” came down to: More of them versus more of us (and keep in mind that more of “them”…. actually meant more of “us” in the form of extra trainers and advisers.) In other words, however contentious the disputes in Washington, however dismally the public viewed the war….the only choices were between more and more."
This September will mark the tenth year since the September 11 attacks launched the U.S. government and society into a permanent state of war. The initial years of this era saw major protests against the invasions of Afghanistan and, especially Iraq. Today, although the Afghanistan War is less popular than ever, there is little public opposition. Most Americans seem to have resigned themselves to its inevitability.
One reason the prospect of “bringing the troops home” seems more remote than ever is the growing realization that the problem is not one mistaken war or dimwitted president but something more deeply rooted. Engelhardt doesn’t use the term ‘imperialism’, but he perfectly captures what it looks like in the U.S. today:
"Because the United States does not look like a militarized county, it’s hard for Americans to grasp that Washington is a war capital, that the United States is a war state, that it garrisons much of the planet, and that the norm for us is to be at war somewhere (usually, in fact, many places) at any moment."
Anyone who wants to rebuild an anti-war movement that understands this imperial reality should read The American Way of War. Engerhardt explores the profound changes that have taken place since the launching of the Global War on Terror. His aim is not so much to explain why these changes have taken place as to understand their effects on American society.
Reading this book feels like poking around with a flashlight in the unexamined corners of the post-9/11 American imperial mindset. Each chapter poses questions that many readers will wonder whey they never bothered to ask: Why do reporters “embed” with ground troops but not with Air Force units, the strategic heart of every American war of the last fifty years? What will the world look like when aerial drones proliterate and the Pentagon’s precedent of cross-border aerial assassinations becomes the international norm? How can politicians and pundits claim we are teaching good government around the world even as they declare that our own in Washington is broken?
A skilled writer, Engelhardt is especially drawn to the ways the changing shape of American imperialism is reflected in its language:
"If war is now our permanent situation, it has also been sundered from a set of words that once accompanied it. It lacks, for instance, “victory.” …[which] no longer seems to matter. War American-style is now conceptually unending, as are preparations for it."
He makes a chilling comparison to the official language in George Orwell’s 1984 - “we live in a world of American Newspeak in which alternatives to a state of war are not only ever more unacceptable, but ever harder to imagine.” At the same time, he understands that the rulers of American society are vulnerable because they are often fooled by their own propaganda. Imperial hubris can blind American leaders to some basic facts of life outside the Green Zones.
"[The CIA reported the death of] Abu Layth al-Libi, whom U.S. officials described as ‘a rising star’ in the group.” “Rising star” is such an American phrase, melding as it does imagined terror hierarchies with the lingo of celebrity tabloids. In fact, one problem with Empire-speak, and imperial thought more generally, is the way it prevents imperial officials from imagining a world not in their own image. So it’s not surprising that, despite their best efforts, they regularly conjure up their enemies as a warped version of themselves – hierarchical, overly reliant on leaders, and top heavy.
What is hard for Washington to grasp is this: “Decapitation,” to use another American imperial term, is not a particularly effective strategy with a decentralized guerrilla or terror organization. The fact is a headless guerilla movement is nowhere near as brainless or helpless as a headless Washington would be.”
This sharp wit runs throughout the book. The section about the lack of media coverage of air campaigns, for example, is wonderfully titled “On Not Looking Up.” Not only does this humor make The American Way of War a surprisingly entertaining read given the subject matter, it reminds us of something all great anti-war movements have known: the war machine is not just evil; it’s often absurd.
Absurdity is the theme of the Joseph Heller’s classic anti-war novel Catch-22, a dizzying ride through the twisted logic of the Air Force in World War II. The book’s title, for example, refers to a rule that airmen can be declared insane from the stress of fighting and sent home but that anyone who asks to be sent home is clearly sane and therefore must continue flying.
It’s hard not to think of Catch-22 when reading accounts from Afghanistan like this one from the New York Times.
“Please don’t walk on my fields, they are newly sown,” a farmer, waving a packet of seeds, called to the soldiers as they patrolled.
“Hajji, you know the deal,” an American sergeant answered. “The Taliban put mines on the paths, so we have to walk in the fields.”
The farmer’s concern presented a quandary for the soldiers, who would like to keep villagers on their side. “I think the farmers are laying the I.E.D.’s because we are walking through their fields,” said Sgt. Michael Ricchiuti. “They get paid to do it.”
The reporter, Carlotta Gall, doesn’t seem to notice the circular logic of soldiers walking in fields to avoid mines planted by farmers because the soldiers walk in their fields. Or at least she doesn’t comment on it. All in all, a pretty apt metaphor for a pointless war whose very pointlessness has become a nonstory.
Of course, there is a point to the occupation of Afghanistan, a country located near both the world’s greatest concentration of natural gas and the United States’ main future rivals China and India. Likewise, Engelhardt is clear that for all its madness, the War on Terror has succeeded very well in obscuring this truth and many others in a cloud of fear"
"Opinion polls indicate that terrorism is no longer at the top of the American agenda of worries. Nonetheless, don’t for a second think that the subject isn’t lodged deep in national consciousness. When asked “How worried are you that you or someone in your family will become a victim of terrorism,” a striking 39 percent of Americans were either “very worried” or “somewhat worried,”….
People always wonder: What would the impact of a second 9/11-style attack be on this country? Seldom noticed, however, is that all the pinprick terror events blown up to apocalyptic proportions add up to a second, third, fourth, fifth 9/11 when it comes to American consciousness."
In other words, we face the opposite dilemma than the one faced by Yossarian of Catch-22. Yossarian is considered crazy because he’s upset that anti-aircraft gunners are trying to kill him and doesn’t care that this homicidal behavior can be explained by the context of war. Today, on the other hand, it’s proper to be upset that terrorists are trying to kill us but crazy to look at the context of wars that might explain why.
We’re not the ones who are crazy. But if we want to build an effective opposition to these endless wars, we can’t be afraid of being called crazy – or unpatriotic or soft on terrorism. Flag waving “support the troops”- style activism has been proven ineffective. It does nothing to puncture what Engelhardt calls the “almost religious glow of praise and veneration, what might once have been called ‘idolatry,’” in which the Pentagon has been embraced since 9/11.
The American Way of War shows what a different anti-war war movement could look like: one that clear-sightedly calls out the murderous nature of our war state and holds up in contrast the warmth and humor on the side of humanity.
Poem
The Senator snorts at the City Councilwoman’s
ignorance of how things really get done.
She shakes her head
at the impracticality of the Professor who
pities the working conditions
of the Non-Profit Executive Director who despises
- in his weaker moments
the fanaticism of all of us
who do it for free after work
- or during work.
When the call to march finally takes hold
and we go from shouting slogans on our laptops
to finally meeting face to face
we’ll have lots of support
from those who know so much about these things
that they’ve made it a career
and that will be helpful.
Still it’s worth remembering that
ignorant, impractical,
pitiable, fanatical
though we may be,
we are learning.
ignorance of how things really get done.
She shakes her head
at the impracticality of the Professor who
pities the working conditions
of the Non-Profit Executive Director who despises
- in his weaker moments
the fanaticism of all of us
who do it for free after work
- or during work.
When the call to march finally takes hold
and we go from shouting slogans on our laptops
to finally meeting face to face
we’ll have lots of support
from those who know so much about these things
that they’ve made it a career
and that will be helpful.
Still it’s worth remembering that
ignorant, impractical,
pitiable, fanatical
though we may be,
we are learning.
Why Do We Bother With Elections?
This was first posted at SocialistWorker.org on November 23, 2010.
The midterm elections are over and the general plan for economic policy is now clear. Oddly, these two things are unrelated.
A mere week after voters went to the polls, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the Democratic and Republican co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, announced their proposals to cut taxes for the rich and cut Social Security and Medicare for the rest of us.
So the Republicans would have won even if they had lost. Am I the only one who now feels silly for having even paid attention? That was valuable time I could have spent perfecting my mix of all-time songs with “monkey” in the title.
It’s worth taking a minute to appreciate come of the moral and logical gymnastics just performed by our political class.
Republicans and Democrats made us watch hundreds of bitter campaign ads over the past year – at the same time that they were quietly getting along just fine in the Commission’s large stately room in the Senate building.
Democrats warned us that we needed to vote for them to protect Social Security but forgot to tell us how to protect it from fellow Democrat Bowles. Republicans launched paranoid Tea Parties to protest Obama’s every act of Big Government Tyranny – except his creation of an unelected government body tasked to decide our economic future.
And political commentators barely finished catching their breath from hailing the significance of the elections when they began hailing the significance of a Commission whose report would have been the same regardless of the elections.
At least Jon Stewart might be pleased that Bowles and Simpson didn’t display any of the “insanity” that the comedian deplored at his Washington rally. There were no rabid delusional speeches tailored for Fox News. If you check out the videos of the Commission’s sessions, you’ll see a model of the old-school decorum that used to rule Washington: old white men working across party lines for the purpose of screwing the majority of the population.
But despite their drowsy septuagenarian good cheer, Bowles and Simpson produced recommendations straight from the Tea Party’s “fuck society” doctrine.
We all knew that these guys were going to call for cutting Medicare and Social Security. Their main role as retired politicians was to be a shield for both of their parties to go after America’s two most popular social programs. But it’s a little nutty to then call for the rich to pay lower taxes when your assignment was supposedly to find ways to increase government revenue. Presumably, if Bowles and Simpson served on a task force to reduce childhood obesity their main recommendation would be to abolish all taxes on millionaires, who could then donate used Shake Weights to needy schools.
Perhaps the co-chairs veered so far right because some their staffers were on loan from hard right think tanks funded by billionaire Pete Peterson. The commission’s executive director Bruce Reed defended this arrangement as a model of government thrift: “"We have a very small budget…Part of our job is not to add to the problem ourselves."
What an innovative way to reduce government spending! In fact, why even bother having to pay all those salaries for Congressional representatives and their staffers? We can save a boatload by replacing them with folks whose salaries are generously paid directly by BP, Goldman Sachs, and other corporations devoted to the call of public service.
When Obama created the Fiscal Commission, he assigned it to deliver its report after the elections on the premise that democracy isn’t a good way to make the “tough choices necessary to solve our fiscal problems.” The conventional wisdom voiced by pundits - usually in a tone reminiscent of Bill Cosby on “Kids Say the Darnedest Things!” - is that Americans don’t like the deficit but they also don’t want to cut their favorite programs.
In fact, there are two very expensive programs that the majority of Americans tell pollsters they are quite willing to cut: the Bush tax cuts and the war in Afghanistan. Oops. Wrong “tough choices.”
That’s the real reason for this unelected commission: No matter how many Tea Parties they fund, the American plutocracy still can’t convince most of us to pay for its bailout.
Of course, most Tea Partiers are not exactly black belts in the art of political persuasion. Rand Paul’s argument for cutting social programs is that “people don’t understand why they have to balance their family budget, but Congress doesn’t.”
Apparently, most families would like to tighten their budgets even further from lower Social Security checks in order to feel more metaphorically connected to the federal government.
Here’s a better analogy. Cutting Social Security and Medicare and slashing state budgets while lowering taxes for the rich is like a family that decides to cut off Junior’s allowance, take Sis out of college, force Mom to get a second job, and cut off Grandpa’s medication to make sure that Dad can keep himself deep in pure Bolivian cocaine and upgrade to business class for his weekly Vegas binges.
Of course, the conventional wisdom is that Rand Paul’s ideas are actually quite popular. After all, his party just dominated the midterm elections. But actually, only about twenty percent of Americans voted for the Republicans. While that’s better than the nineteen percent who voted Democrat, it’s dwarfed by the numbers who stayed home because they didn’t think their vote would make a difference.
I wonder what gave them that idea?
The midterm elections are over and the general plan for economic policy is now clear. Oddly, these two things are unrelated.
A mere week after voters went to the polls, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the Democratic and Republican co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, announced their proposals to cut taxes for the rich and cut Social Security and Medicare for the rest of us.
So the Republicans would have won even if they had lost. Am I the only one who now feels silly for having even paid attention? That was valuable time I could have spent perfecting my mix of all-time songs with “monkey” in the title.
It’s worth taking a minute to appreciate come of the moral and logical gymnastics just performed by our political class.
Republicans and Democrats made us watch hundreds of bitter campaign ads over the past year – at the same time that they were quietly getting along just fine in the Commission’s large stately room in the Senate building.
Democrats warned us that we needed to vote for them to protect Social Security but forgot to tell us how to protect it from fellow Democrat Bowles. Republicans launched paranoid Tea Parties to protest Obama’s every act of Big Government Tyranny – except his creation of an unelected government body tasked to decide our economic future.
And political commentators barely finished catching their breath from hailing the significance of the elections when they began hailing the significance of a Commission whose report would have been the same regardless of the elections.
At least Jon Stewart might be pleased that Bowles and Simpson didn’t display any of the “insanity” that the comedian deplored at his Washington rally. There were no rabid delusional speeches tailored for Fox News. If you check out the videos of the Commission’s sessions, you’ll see a model of the old-school decorum that used to rule Washington: old white men working across party lines for the purpose of screwing the majority of the population.
But despite their drowsy septuagenarian good cheer, Bowles and Simpson produced recommendations straight from the Tea Party’s “fuck society” doctrine.
We all knew that these guys were going to call for cutting Medicare and Social Security. Their main role as retired politicians was to be a shield for both of their parties to go after America’s two most popular social programs. But it’s a little nutty to then call for the rich to pay lower taxes when your assignment was supposedly to find ways to increase government revenue. Presumably, if Bowles and Simpson served on a task force to reduce childhood obesity their main recommendation would be to abolish all taxes on millionaires, who could then donate used Shake Weights to needy schools.
Perhaps the co-chairs veered so far right because some their staffers were on loan from hard right think tanks funded by billionaire Pete Peterson. The commission’s executive director Bruce Reed defended this arrangement as a model of government thrift: “"We have a very small budget…Part of our job is not to add to the problem ourselves."
What an innovative way to reduce government spending! In fact, why even bother having to pay all those salaries for Congressional representatives and their staffers? We can save a boatload by replacing them with folks whose salaries are generously paid directly by BP, Goldman Sachs, and other corporations devoted to the call of public service.
When Obama created the Fiscal Commission, he assigned it to deliver its report after the elections on the premise that democracy isn’t a good way to make the “tough choices necessary to solve our fiscal problems.” The conventional wisdom voiced by pundits - usually in a tone reminiscent of Bill Cosby on “Kids Say the Darnedest Things!” - is that Americans don’t like the deficit but they also don’t want to cut their favorite programs.
In fact, there are two very expensive programs that the majority of Americans tell pollsters they are quite willing to cut: the Bush tax cuts and the war in Afghanistan. Oops. Wrong “tough choices.”
That’s the real reason for this unelected commission: No matter how many Tea Parties they fund, the American plutocracy still can’t convince most of us to pay for its bailout.
Of course, most Tea Partiers are not exactly black belts in the art of political persuasion. Rand Paul’s argument for cutting social programs is that “people don’t understand why they have to balance their family budget, but Congress doesn’t.”
Apparently, most families would like to tighten their budgets even further from lower Social Security checks in order to feel more metaphorically connected to the federal government.
Here’s a better analogy. Cutting Social Security and Medicare and slashing state budgets while lowering taxes for the rich is like a family that decides to cut off Junior’s allowance, take Sis out of college, force Mom to get a second job, and cut off Grandpa’s medication to make sure that Dad can keep himself deep in pure Bolivian cocaine and upgrade to business class for his weekly Vegas binges.
Of course, the conventional wisdom is that Rand Paul’s ideas are actually quite popular. After all, his party just dominated the midterm elections. But actually, only about twenty percent of Americans voted for the Republicans. While that’s better than the nineteen percent who voted Democrat, it’s dwarfed by the numbers who stayed home because they didn’t think their vote would make a difference.
I wonder what gave them that idea?
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