I first ran across Chris Hedges several years ago when I read his book on war, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. As a long-time war correspondent, Hedges could not only speak to war in the abstract but also share his own personal observations reporting from the various battlefields around the world.
Hedges is fascinated by war and how it affects human beings, but he also hates it. So he is not dispassionate in this matter. It also helps that he has an Masters of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School, so he brings a transcendent and moral perspective as well.
He has just written an essay that is flying around the web, and that you might want to read. Needless to say, he is very concerned about our current situation here in America. Here is a short tidbit:
America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite’s rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Ambivalent
According to the London Telegraph newspaper, the reaction of the crowd in Prague to President Obama was ambivalent:
"The crowd enthusiastically cheered the more idealistic parts of Mr. Obama’s speech but was relatively subdued when he spoke about his backing for missile defense.
"Petr Sramek, 33, was among those disappointed that Mr. Obama had not dropped a policy that was opposed by more than two thirds of Czechs. ‘I really liked the clear message on nuclear disarmament but I am against the missile defense system. It is more about geopolitical influence then defense against missiles.’
"Arena Protivinska, 30, described herself as a ‘big fan’ of Mr. Obama but accused him of ‘hypocrisy’ for urging world peace while also pushing forward with the missile shield. ‘He sounded like George W Bush saying that we should be afraid in order to justify missile defense.’"
"Gary Samore, a White House adviser on arms control, indicated that Mr. Obama’s call for ridding the world of nuclear weapons should not be taken too literally. ‘In terms of a nuclear-free world, we recognize this is not a near-term possibility,’ he said. Rather, the call was an attempt to ’seize the moral high ground’ in order to increase pressure on countries such as North Korea and Iran."
"The crowd enthusiastically cheered the more idealistic parts of Mr. Obama’s speech but was relatively subdued when he spoke about his backing for missile defense.
"Petr Sramek, 33, was among those disappointed that Mr. Obama had not dropped a policy that was opposed by more than two thirds of Czechs. ‘I really liked the clear message on nuclear disarmament but I am against the missile defense system. It is more about geopolitical influence then defense against missiles.’
"Arena Protivinska, 30, described herself as a ‘big fan’ of Mr. Obama but accused him of ‘hypocrisy’ for urging world peace while also pushing forward with the missile shield. ‘He sounded like George W Bush saying that we should be afraid in order to justify missile defense.’"
"Gary Samore, a White House adviser on arms control, indicated that Mr. Obama’s call for ridding the world of nuclear weapons should not be taken too literally. ‘In terms of a nuclear-free world, we recognize this is not a near-term possibility,’ he said. Rather, the call was an attempt to ’seize the moral high ground’ in order to increase pressure on countries such as North Korea and Iran."
Guns, Massacres, and Murder of Police
One sector of the economy doing really well right now is gun and ammunition sales, leaving a shortage for police forces, according to NPR. They--NRA folks, right-wing militias, assorted wackos, who knows who else--are stocking up.
It only makes sense that massacres like the one that just took place in Binghamton, NY will continue to happen, as well as the murder of policemen such as in Oakland and Pittsburgh. Add to this the drug cartels moving into the United States, and you have a very combustible mix that ends up who knows where.
It only makes sense that massacres like the one that just took place in Binghamton, NY will continue to happen, as well as the murder of policemen such as in Oakland and Pittsburgh. Add to this the drug cartels moving into the United States, and you have a very combustible mix that ends up who knows where.
Paralysis
Politico is reporting pessimism about passage of several of Obama's initiatives by Congress:
Officials are most pessimistic about his energy and global warming plan, with many aides doubting he will win passage of a cap-and-trade emissions reduction system, which is strongly opposed by business and Republicans. The White House is most optimistic for passage this year of his plans to overhaul the nation’s financial regulations, and aides also see a strong chance that a gradual version of his health care overhaul will get through Congress this fall.
In other words, not much progress on the global warming front, very gradual change in health care reform, and fast movement on financial regulations (but probably weakened with plenty of loopholes). And this is the honeymoon?
I'm depressed.
Officials are most pessimistic about his energy and global warming plan, with many aides doubting he will win passage of a cap-and-trade emissions reduction system, which is strongly opposed by business and Republicans. The White House is most optimistic for passage this year of his plans to overhaul the nation’s financial regulations, and aides also see a strong chance that a gradual version of his health care overhaul will get through Congress this fall.
In other words, not much progress on the global warming front, very gradual change in health care reform, and fast movement on financial regulations (but probably weakened with plenty of loopholes). And this is the honeymoon?
I'm depressed.
Mark to Market Fraud
David Lindorff writes here about the change in accounting rules that are allowing banks to revalue their assets upward. It is very helpful in understanding what this is about and how it happened. The chicanery never ends, it seems. Tidbit:
The accounting profession might seem like the last place that you’d find serious political hanky-panky going on, and it’s probably not on very many people’s A-list of fun subjects to read about, but the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a quasi-governmental body that has statutory authority to regulate and establish the rules by which public companies, including banks, do their books, has just caved in to pressure from those banks and from the large number of members of Congress who pocket huge piles of campaign swag and perks from those banks and other public companies, and gravely undermined the integrity of corporate balance sheets.
The accounting profession might seem like the last place that you’d find serious political hanky-panky going on, and it’s probably not on very many people’s A-list of fun subjects to read about, but the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a quasi-governmental body that has statutory authority to regulate and establish the rules by which public companies, including banks, do their books, has just caved in to pressure from those banks and from the large number of members of Congress who pocket huge piles of campaign swag and perks from those banks and other public companies, and gravely undermined the integrity of corporate balance sheets.
Drones
Chris--"he's a radical" (Fiddler on the Roof)--Floyd has this to say about Predator drone attacks in Pakistan:
The hard rain of nuclear war remains metaphorical (except for the remaining survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan). But there is another hard rain of death -- death without metaphor, the thing itself -- falling on the villages of Pakistan from the literally faceless, literally soulless remote-control drones of the American military. In undeclared, unsanctioned acts of war, they are sent across the border to fire heavy missiles, usually on undefended villages, and almost always on residential areas.
The targets -- we are told -- are "militants" of various stripes, but of course the robot drones -- often controlled by "pilots" safely ensconced on military bases thousands of miles away, often in the leafy suburbs of the Homeland itself -- cannot climb down out of the sky, walk through the ruins, and identify the dead. Pakistanis on the ground can see the bodies, however; they are the ones pulling out the viscera-smeared corpses of women and children -- and innocent men as well; contrary to the near-universal belief among America's bipartisan Terror Warriors, every adult male of Muslim background is not a terrorist, and their deaths by drone do not automatically constitute a successful "kill" of a militant.
There is something completely soulless about these weapons that is disturbing. And then this:
As The Times reports, almost a million people have been driven from their homes in Pakistan's Tribal Areas to escape the American drones, and the bombs of Washington's Pakistani proxies:
"American drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency, Pakistani officials claimed after a new attack yesterday killed 13 people. The dead and injured included foreign militants, but women and children were also killed when two missiles hit a house in the village of Data Khel, near the Afghan border, according to local officials. As many as 1m people have fled their homes in the Tribal Areas to escape attacks by the unmanned spy planes as well as bombings by the Pakistani army...."
As each passing week of the American drone campaign brings yet another harvest of civilian deaths, more and more Pakistanis are radicalized, and the government -- the nuclear-armed government -- grows ever more shaky. If the state structure in Pakistan ultimately breaks apart from the pressures of the Terror War, its nuclear arsenal will be up for grabs. Thus the attacks ordered by Obama in Pakistan are escalating the threat of exactly the kind of nuclear instability that he decried in Prague.
The hard rain of nuclear war remains metaphorical (except for the remaining survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan). But there is another hard rain of death -- death without metaphor, the thing itself -- falling on the villages of Pakistan from the literally faceless, literally soulless remote-control drones of the American military. In undeclared, unsanctioned acts of war, they are sent across the border to fire heavy missiles, usually on undefended villages, and almost always on residential areas.
The targets -- we are told -- are "militants" of various stripes, but of course the robot drones -- often controlled by "pilots" safely ensconced on military bases thousands of miles away, often in the leafy suburbs of the Homeland itself -- cannot climb down out of the sky, walk through the ruins, and identify the dead. Pakistanis on the ground can see the bodies, however; they are the ones pulling out the viscera-smeared corpses of women and children -- and innocent men as well; contrary to the near-universal belief among America's bipartisan Terror Warriors, every adult male of Muslim background is not a terrorist, and their deaths by drone do not automatically constitute a successful "kill" of a militant.
There is something completely soulless about these weapons that is disturbing. And then this:
As The Times reports, almost a million people have been driven from their homes in Pakistan's Tribal Areas to escape the American drones, and the bombs of Washington's Pakistani proxies:
"American drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency, Pakistani officials claimed after a new attack yesterday killed 13 people. The dead and injured included foreign militants, but women and children were also killed when two missiles hit a house in the village of Data Khel, near the Afghan border, according to local officials. As many as 1m people have fled their homes in the Tribal Areas to escape attacks by the unmanned spy planes as well as bombings by the Pakistani army...."
As each passing week of the American drone campaign brings yet another harvest of civilian deaths, more and more Pakistanis are radicalized, and the government -- the nuclear-armed government -- grows ever more shaky. If the state structure in Pakistan ultimately breaks apart from the pressures of the Terror War, its nuclear arsenal will be up for grabs. Thus the attacks ordered by Obama in Pakistan are escalating the threat of exactly the kind of nuclear instability that he decried in Prague.
No Major Course Change
A long-time analyst of defense matters for the Senate, Winston Wheeler, reaches this tentative conclusion about Secretary Gates' recent proposal for the Pentagon:
While Washington DC hisses and spits over the secretary’s hardware recommendations, it is probably more important to ask, what has changed, and if anything has, where are we now going? It does not appear that the basic DOD budget has changed; this set of decisions may be budget neutral, or it may even hold in its future expanded net spending requirements.
While many decisions were made, the Pentagon-ship of state appears to be very much on the same basic course.
He does give Secretary Gates credit in one area especially:
For one set of decisions, even if they are unspectacular, Secretary Gates deserves much good credit. He made people his first priority. Hopefully, that was not just rhetorical. The emphasis he put on medical research, caring for the wounded, and family support are all to be greatly commended.
While Washington DC hisses and spits over the secretary’s hardware recommendations, it is probably more important to ask, what has changed, and if anything has, where are we now going? It does not appear that the basic DOD budget has changed; this set of decisions may be budget neutral, or it may even hold in its future expanded net spending requirements.
While many decisions were made, the Pentagon-ship of state appears to be very much on the same basic course.
He does give Secretary Gates credit in one area especially:
For one set of decisions, even if they are unspectacular, Secretary Gates deserves much good credit. He made people his first priority. Hopefully, that was not just rhetorical. The emphasis he put on medical research, caring for the wounded, and family support are all to be greatly commended.
Obama in Turkey
The trip to Turkey was clearly President Obama at his very best. What long term results it will achieve are unclear, certainly. But for the moment, it is a masterful performance.
Not much faith in Anne Applebaum
The Chronicler points out Anne Applebaum's column on Obama's idea to get rid of nukes entirely. The interesting thing about Applebaum is that she makes it sound like Obama came up with this idea on his own, that it is "strange". Funny. For somebody so knowledgable, she doesn't seem to have heard about this:
The thing is, Anne Applebaum is one of the hawks (albeit in sheep's clothing) mentioned above. So its probably in her interest to "pretend" she doesn't remember that this is a well-thought out idea, with very specific goals and purposes. Not some "strange" idea that comes out of Obama's head. But if she were to inform her readers of that, her argument starts to fall apart, as most hawk's arguments usually do. So you can see why I say, I don't have much trust or faith in Anne Applebaum.
"Two decades later, a who’s who of the national security establishment — George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and Sam Nunn — is calling on the United States to lead a global campaign to devalue and eventually rid the world of nuclear weapons.
None of these men (two former secretaries of state, a former secretary of defense and a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee) are given to casual utopianism — or anything casual. They are trying to shock sensibilities.
In two opinion articles in The Wall Street Journal, they described a frightening new world of ever-expanding nuclear appetites, in which traditional deterrence no longer works. They argued that the only way for the United States to rally the cooperation it needs to confront such dangers is with a clear commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.
They called for backing that up with policies that have also long been anathema to hawks: including banning all nuclear testing, taking American and Russian missiles off of hair-trigger alert and agreement on “further substantial reductions” in both countries’ arsenals.
“I do not believe we can do this as a demand by countries that have nuclear weapons to countries that do not,” Mr. Kissinger says. "
The thing is, Anne Applebaum is one of the hawks (albeit in sheep's clothing) mentioned above. So its probably in her interest to "pretend" she doesn't remember that this is a well-thought out idea, with very specific goals and purposes. Not some "strange" idea that comes out of Obama's head. But if she were to inform her readers of that, her argument starts to fall apart, as most hawk's arguments usually do. So you can see why I say, I don't have much trust or faith in Anne Applebaum.
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