Hillary the Hawk

Medea Benajamin and I make the anti-imperialist case for Hillary Clinton. Or do we? Guess you'll have to read it.

On the 2014 mid-terms and Obama's inner Marxist

I wrote something for Salon about the 2014 mid-term electionzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Make it the only thing you read on the topic.

Hating on Bernie and kicking out the homeless

Over at VICE, I report on how the influx of rich white people in downtown Los Angeles is impacting the poor homeless people who live there.
Meanwhile, at Salon I argue that, no, Bernie Sanders shouldn't run a pointless campaign for president that ends with him endorsing Hillary Clinton.

http://www.vice.com/read/gentrification-comes-to-las-skid-row-and-the-homeless-get-the-shaft

A picture's worth a thousand votes

Barack Obama, far right, permits a commoner to touch His hair.

This is a real thing:

There is a now iconic picture of Obama and a young boy in the Oval Office. The president of the United States is bowing, bent at the waist so the young boy can touch his hair, so the young boy can feel that he and the president have something in common. When I first saw the photograph I knew I had finally voted for someone who would affirm my faith, who would live up to the audacity of promising hope.

Sometimes, all hope requires is one moment and that moment, that photograph of the president and a young boy is what I most needed to believe my hope in Obama was well placed, to believe that while the president is just one man, the presidency is so much more when held in the hands and heart of the right man.

That's from "90 Days, 90 Reasons," a website that aims to rekindle the magic of 2008 by reminding voters that Barack Obama is the cool dad you always wish you had; a man who is better than us, yeah, but benevolent and loving enough to make us believe we are almost one and the same. Like an American Jesus.

Seeking to connect to the average voter by way of mostly rich and usually white men, the site also provides a platform for the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie to declare, as a privileged hipster who believe me sucks in concert is wont to do, that "Marriage equality is undoubtedly the most important civil rights issue of our generation." The most important; like, more important than every other civil rights issue. That's what he's saying.

It's almost as if all those hundreds of thousands of poor brown people locked up in cages for non-violent drug offenses don't even exist -- because in the day-to-day lives of most liberal Democrats, and indeed most Americans, they don't. Out of sight, out of mind, like all the other poor and oppressed people you won't find chiming in on the Internet about the greatness of Our President.

Update: The most insufferable case for re-electing Barack Obama you will read all day, courtesy McSweeney's. Spoiler alert: Ralph Nader makes an appearance, as do naive, "disappointed" progressives who are just angry because "Obama hasn’t addressed their particular pet issue."

Is the Democratic Party a vehicle for radical change?

Los Angeles, CA - By this fall, the two major political parties in the United States will have spent around $10bn this election cycle to persuade an increasingly sceptical US public that there is more than just a stylistic difference between a Republican and a Democrat. Naturally, this campaign will focus primarily on the superficial (is Mitt Romney too weird to be president? Is Barack Obama too cool? And who loves America/Israel more?), as maintaining the facade of electoral choice requires obscuring the broad areas of bipartisan agreement: bailouts for the rich, prisons for the poor, and drone strikes for the poor and foreign.

Read the rest at Al Jazeera.

Rules for reformists

With the 2012 U.S. presidential election coming up, here are some helpful rules for discussion that I have gleaned from liberals online:

1. Don't criticize Barack Obama over anything that's happening in America, because it turns out all real domestic power lies in the hands of the House of Representatives, not the president.
2. Don't criticize Barack Obama's foreign policy because that will only depress his base and help Mitt Romney, who would probably be just as belligerent (unless you believe the Democratic Party). And my god, have you seen Romney's domestic policies (editor's note: obviously, ignore point #1 when speaking of Republicans)?
3. Don't criticize Barack Obama.

Hope this helps clear things up. Now get out there and start bashing the GOP while ignoring your own complicity in a system fueled by mass murder and incarceration!

Que será, será

No matter who registered voters in the U.S. select to be the ruling class' spokesman for a four-year term, the coming presidential election will make very little difference to the lives of most Americans -- and non-Americans. Banks will continue to get bailed out, both overtly and by way of the tax code and other more covert means. Bombs will continue to be dropped on poor foreigners, be it in the name of humanitarianism or the fight against terrorism. The state will still serve the interests of the rich, and so on and so on.

That's not to say resistance is futile; that no matter what we do, the cause of building a better world is for naught and efforts to affect positive social change would best be abandoned. That's the caricature of the non-electoral stance one hears from partisans of the two major parties: that the rejection of voting for one of the two corporate-sponsored candidates in a presidential election is a byproduct of nihilism glossed up as radicalism; a tacit concession that, gosh, change is hard so we might as well say screw it and play some Xbox.

In fact, those of us who reject the electoral charade do so, not because we just don't give a damn, but because we see elections as a damaging distraction, a pressure-valve that enables the average American to feel they're Throwing the Bastards Out without risking any serious damage to the institutional bastardry that goes on in Washington.

But if who occupies the White House matters little in terms of tangible policy, does it follow that it matters not at all to the cause of furthering the social revolution that is necessary to build a more just, equitable world? In terms of awakening the public to the systemic fucking they are receiving and spurring people to direct action -- lobby Congress to keep my house? No, thanks, I think me and my friends just won't leave it -- does it matter which faction of the ruling elite calls dibs on the Oval Office?

Doug Henwood, of the old state-socialist left, thinks it does. He argues that reelecting Barack Obama will be good for left-wing activists as, when his second term does not usher in a new progressive era, no longer will Democrats be able to claim Republicans have a monopoly on corporatist, war-mongering evil. That, in turn, will lead more and more people to realize the systemic nature of the American problem.

Henwood's argument has a logic to it, but one can also imagine a different outcome: Should Obama be re-elected, he will continue to pursue the same establishment-friendly, banker-approved polices as he has in his first term. Rather than admit they had been fooled not once but twice, however, Democratic pundits and partisans will continue adhering to the tried and true formula of pointing to this month's latest crazy Republican, arguing -- as they always have -- that while their guy isn't perfect, at least he's not the other guy. Rinse. Repeat. Hillary 2016.

Were a Republican in office, however, there would be no confusion about who is on who's side, no clichéd anecdotes about FDR and the need to push Obama -- gently, lovingly -- to be the best Obama he can be. War, again, would be a bad thing; hell, their might even be an antiwar movement. Government collusion with major corporate polluters would spur nasty editorials in Mother Jones, as opposed to excuse-making lectures about Political Realities.

At the same time, though, were a Republican to win in November, it would likely revive the myth of a Democratic savior. While center-left opposition to war would, maybe, be a Thing again, it would as we saw with opposition to the Iraq war be a thing used to elect more and better Democrats. Soon enough, another Obama-type figure would be found to re-brand the nominally left-leaning establishment political faction and, god damn it, we'd back to where we started all over again.

And that's why, friends, insofar as there is a debate over which party in power would be better for spawning a broad-based progressive social movement, it's kind of a silly one (yes, I've just wasted your time). A second term for Obama won't in and of itself awaken the public to the bipartisan, systemic nature of American plutocracy anymore than Bill Clinton's second term did. A Republican in office might awaken the partisan left's devotion to peace and freedom again, but only until the next Democrat is in power.

When it comes to affecting positive and systemic social change, it doesn't much matter who wields political power. Indeed, what matters is that we, the powerless, recognize that it's power -- not those who possess it at a given moment -- is the root of the problems we face. And that argument, I think, can be fairly easily made no matter whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat.

It's always the year 2000

After two and half years of Barack Obama, you might think partisan Democrats would be a bit hesitant to pull out the whole 2000 election card and, perhaps, would dial back the condescension toward those underwhelmed by the choice offered them by the two major parties. Obama, after all, epitomizes everything those dime's-worth-of-difference curmudgeons, be they Naderites or anarchists or merely observant, have been saying. While he may differ from Bush stylistically, he is substantively the same, committed to the same imperial policy of empire abroad, albeit with more of a liberal internationalist, and corporatism at home.

Surely, you'd think, given the performance of a man who once, and in the more sycophantic sectors, still is, billed as the most progressive president of our lifetime -- a doubling of the troops in Afghanistan, a blatantly illegal war in Libya, billions of taxpayer dollars funneled to an unaccountable Wall Street -- liberals would at least quit pretending we were but an Al Gore presidency away from a worker's paradise.

You would, of course, be wrong:

I remember well the contention that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between George W Bush and Al Gore. And, indeed, there wasn’t. Both wholeheartedly embraced American military hegemony as a foreign policy and the neoliberal “Washington Consensus” approach to international economic policy. Both emphasized improved education as the key to long-term prosperity, both valorized capitalism as an engine of growth, and neither in any meaningful way challenged the various prevailing economic and social dogmas of the era. And yet looking back in concrete terms, it seems to me that the 2000 election turns out to have been one of the most consequential in American history. That’s because while both Bush and Bill Clinton pursued policies from within the paradigm of the elite American ideological consensus of the post-Cold War era they actually pursued very different policies.

I'll say this much about Matt Yglesias, author of the above defense of the U.S. political system: at least, to his credit, he steers clear of the sneering Nader-bashing that characterizes most liberal remembrances of George W. Bush's 5-4 victory over Gore back in 2000. That's something. Progress, maybe.

Instead of bolstering his case with the next logical step of citing specific examples of how Bush "pursued very different policies" from Bill Clinton, though, Yglesias curiously turns to Europe. Spain's Franco and Italy's Mussolini were quite similar, he maintains, but the former didn't involve his country in World War II, evidence that even minor differences between politicians "can be quite large in terms of practical consequences."

While I give the guy props for trying to explain the difference between Republicans and Democrats by turning to two European fascists, I can't help but think Yglesias is engaged in a red herring, shifting from the harder task of detailing the substantive differences between Bush and Clinton/Gore he asserts to the easier task of highlighting differences between leaders of two different countries with their own unique histories and political situations. The issue is whether the U.S.'s two-party system allows the possibility of major substantive differences -- like don't-get-involved-in-a-world-war substantive -- between the two viable, corporate-approved candidates for the presidency or whether in fact the system precludes such a possibility by design.

Insofar as there were substantive differences between Clinton and Bush, I'd argue it's because they served at different times, when the needs of the establishment differed. Had 9/11 happened on Clinton's watch, you can't tell me the guy who enforced an embargo against Iraq that, conservatively, killed hundreds of thousands of civilians -- a price, you'll recall, that was deemed "worth it" -- wouldn't have gotten his Rambo on and exorcised all those liberals-are-pussies demons for good. And Al Gore? You can't tell me the guy who campaigned on the need for a more interventionist U.S. role in the world while his opponent, Bush, spoke of a need for a more "humble foreign policy," wouldn't have done the same. His running mate Joe Lieberman -- allow me to repeat that, his running mate Joe Lieberman -- certainly wouldn't have been a powerful advocate for peace.

The few stylistic and the fewer substantive differences between Democrats and Republicans aside, no matter who wins the result is always the same: more war and corporatism; the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer; and a legion of pundits on both sides arguing we ought to be grateful for the dime's worth of difference we get.

Don't drop bombs -- drop Obama

In our latest piece, Medea Benjamin and I argue that those who genuinely love peace (as opposed to those who only abhor Republican wars) ought to give up on Democrats and embrace direct action. Check it out.

A final word about Ron Paul

Over at Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi responds to my recent piece criticizing Obama critics like him who, despite acknowledging that the president is perpetrating mass murder -- in the form of ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya -- and continuing to lock up scores of Americans for non-violent drug offenses, say that they'd still vote for the guy over someone who wouldn't do any of that: Ron Paul.

Now, I love Taibbi's work. And I'm not just saying that: dude's been a favorite of mine since his New York Press days, even if I think he's unfortunately become more of a conventional liberal Democrat since moving over to Rolling Stone (for example, I'm not sure the Taibbi of old would have felt it necessary to start a piece critiquing the president's personality cult with the line, "I supported Barack Obama. I still do."). I didn't mean to single him out because I think he's especially awful -- just the opposite: here's a guy who pretty much gets what's going on, knows that Obama's expanding the empire and handing trillions of dollars to Wall Street, and still supports him. I find that strange.

And as the proprietor of a blog called "false dichotomy," I didn't intend to paint Obama supporters into a false either/or choice of "I support Ron Paul, or I support mass-murder," as Taibbi characterizes my piece. Indeed, I made it clear I'd rather cast a write-in ballot for Emma Goldman than either Paul or Obama.

The framing for piece came not because I believe one must choose between the two -- as I wrote for Counterpunch last year, I'd rather people forgo the diversion of electoral politics altogether -- but because of an explicit hypothetical posed to Taibbi earlier this year.

"In light of the enormous disappointment that was Barack Obama," a reader wrote to him this past February, "would you vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama in 2012?"

Taibbi's response at the time was, well, no, primarily because he said he found Ron Paul's son, Rand, to be an enormous prick. No argument there, though I'd note that his opponent in the race for Senate was one too -- we're talking about politics, after all.

That reply, combined with Taibbi's earlier avowed support for Obama, was one of main the reasons -- along with the smug denunciations of Ron Paul, who opposes war, from self-styled progressives who support a president who just launched, believed-it-or-not, another one -- I wrote my piece. It's not like Ron Paul's anywhere near perfect, as I noted, but given a choice between a guy who cluster bombs women and children in Yemen and one who, reactionary though he may be, is a true believer in peace, why support the war criminal? It's not even like Obama's war crimes have been accompanied by the creation of a socialist worker's paradise at home -- quite the contrary, in fact -- effectively negating the liberal critiques of Paul's budget-slashing domestic agenda, which even if enacted wouldn't preclude local governments and -- as an anarchist, I would hope -- alternative social organizations not dependent on coercion from picking up where the federal government left off.

Taibbi, who knows well enough that Obama's a corporatist, recognizes that in a lot of ways Paul is superior. And he even notes that the latter's supporters -- who I'm afraid probably bombarded him with links to my piece, complete with denunciations of his role in serving the New World Order (dude: sorry!) -- weren't all that bad in his experience:

When I followed the elder Ron Paul’s campaign in 2008, a lot of the people I met were intellectuals who had a genuine philosophical problem with government spending and the Fed, and who were really consistent about their limited-government beliefs – no welfare, but also no drug laws and no foreign interventionist wars. (You frequently found Ron Paul supporters who were more passionate about ending the drug war than they were about ending food stamps or whatever). I got along with almost all of these people, who were all unfailingly polite and respectful toward me. And I had a lot of respect for their views, even though I didn’t agree with everything they believed.

So why, given the choice between Paul and Obama -- a false dichotomy, yes, but the one posed to him -- would he choose the latter, war crimes and all? Because Rand Paul, Ron's son, is a dick, one who Taibbi argues relied on "racial signaling" during his run for the Senate. I'm not going to dispute his characterization of Rand, which he says now colors his view of the father, but this strikes me as less than persuasive. If the Pauls' uglier views and racial insensitivity was held out as a reason to forget elections in favor of community organizing and direct action? Hey, I'd be right there with ya. But as a reason to continue supporting Obama? Eh . . .

I could be off base, and I'm conscious that I may be unfairly using my personal hobby horse as a litmus test for others, but I feel pretty damn strongly that ending the empire is far and away the most important issue of our time. Not killing people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya -- pretty big deal. Not imposing an embargo on Cuba or helping fuel violent insurgencies in Mexico and Colombia -- again, big deal. Not undermining any foreign leader who shows the slightest inclination to serve his or her own people rather than international capital -- you get the idea.

Domestically, I also see no more pressing issue than the fact that 2.3 million Americans, or roughly 1 in 100 adults, are now in prison, mostly poor minorities and largely for non-violent offenses that ought not be crimes in the first place. Ron Paul says he would do away with the war on drugs and pardon many of its victims; Barack Obama, by contrast, hasn't freed a single person behind bars, instead choosing to use his enormous power as president to unilaterally launch new wars and threaten states that dare consider legalizing medical marijuana dispensaries.

Ron Paul may be a dick, but at least he's not a murderous dick that would throw you in prison for growing some pot. Go ahead and don't vote for him -- again, by all means. But instead of discussing how awful he is, I'd like to hear folks like Taibbi discuss why they still support Obama -- less "Why I Can't Vote For Ron Paul," more, "Why I Can Vote for Barack Obama." Or, better yet, I'd like to hear ideas on non-electoral alternatives to supporting, yes, a mass murderer. I'm all ears.

Addendum: Since some of you in the comments think I'm somehow backing off my original position, let me clarify. When I say that I'm conscious I may be using "my personal hobby horse" -- empire, or rather, the state bombing little children with cluster bombs -- as a litmus test for politicians, I'm being sarcastic. A year or so ago Chris Floyd and I were accused by one particularly dull liberal blogger of of making issues of war and peace our silly little "hobby horse," and I've since embraced the term.

Perhaps I was too subtle -- there's a first for everything -- but, obviously, if somebody believes it's okay to blow poor foreigners up with munitions because somebody Bad might be in the vicinity, then they are fucked as a human being and not worthy of your support, whether they're a politician or a friend (I'm harsh like that). If you believe it's okay to murder innocent men, women and children with Predator drones, I don't care what your position on Social Security is.

Also, to be gratuitous: Fuck Matt Tabbi on this.

I'll take the reactionary over the murderer, thanks

Ron Paul is far from perfect, but I'll say this much for the Texas congressman: He has never authorized a drone strike in Pakistan. He has never authorized the killing of dozens of women and children in Yemen. He hasn't protected torturers from prosecution and he hasn't overseen the torturous treatment of a 23-year-old young man for the “crime” of revealing the government's criminal behavior.

Can the same be said for Barack Obama?

Yet, ask a good movement liberal or progressive about the two and you'll quickly be informed that yeah, Ron Paul's good on the war stuff -- yawn -- but otherwise he's a no-good right-wing reactionary of the worst order, a guy who'd kick your Aunt Beth off Medicare and force her to turn tricks for blood-pressure meds. By contrast, Obama, war crimes and all, provokes no such visceral distaste. He's more cosmopolitan, after all; less Texas-y. He's a Democrat. And gosh, even if he's made a few mistakes, he means well.

Sure he's a murderer, in other words, but at least he's not a Republican!

Put another, even less charitable way: Democratic partisans – liberals – are willing to trade the lives of a couple thousand poor Pakistani tribesman in exchange for a few liberal catnip-filled speeches and NPR tote bags for the underprivileged. The number of party-line progressives who would vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama wouldn't be enough to fill Conference Room B at the local Sheraton, with even harshest left-leaning critics of the president, like Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, saying they'd prefer the mass-murdering sociopath to that kooky Constitution fetishist.

As someone who sees the electoral process as primarily a distraction, something that diverts energy and attention from more effective means of reforming the system, I don't much care if people don't vote for Ron Paul. In fact, if you're going to vote, I'd rather you cast a write-in ballot for Emma Goldman. But! I do have a problem with those who imagine themselves to be liberal-minded citizens of the world casting their vote for Barack Obama and propagating the notion that someone can bomb and/or militarily occupy Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and Libya and still earn more Progressive Points than the guy who would, you know, not do any of that.

Let's just assume the worst about Paul: that he's a corporate libertarian in the Reason magazine/Cato Institute mold that would grant Big Business and the financial industry license to do whatever the hell it wants with little in the way of accountability (I call this scenario the “status quo”). Let's say he dines on Labradoodle puppies while using their blood to scribble notes in the margins of his dog-eared, gold-encrusted copy of Atlas Shrugged.

So. Fucking. What.

Barack Obama isn't exactly Eugene Debs, after all. Hell, he's not even Jimmy Carter. The facts are: he's pushed for the largest military budget in world history, given trillions of dollars to Wall Street in bailouts and near-zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve, protected oil companies like BP from legal liability for environmental damages they cause – from poisoning the Gulf to climate change – and mandated that all Americans purchase the U.S. health insurance industry's product. You might argue Paul's a corporatist, but there's no denying Obama's one.

And at least Paul would – and this is important, I think – stop killing poor foreigners with cluster bombs and Predator drones. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize winner-in-chief, Paul would also bring the troops home from not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but Europe, Korea and Okinawa. There'd be no need for a School of the Americas because the U.S. wouldn't be busy training foreign military personnel the finer points of human rights abuses. Israel would have to carry out its war crimes on its own dime.

Even on on the most pressing domestic issues of the day, Paul strikes me as a hell of a lot more progressive than Obama. Look at the war on drugs: Obama has continued the same failed prohibitionist policies as his predecessors, maintaining a status quo that has placed 2.3 million – or one in 100 – Americans behind bars, the vast majority African-American and Hispanic. Paul, on the other hand, has called for ending the drug war and said he would pardon non-violent offenders, which would be the single greatest reform a president could make in the domestic sphere, equivalent in magnitude to ending Jim Crow.

Paul would also stop providing subsidies to corporate agriculture, nuclear energy and fossil fuels, while allowing class-action tort suits to proceed against oil and coal companies for the environmental damage they have wrought. Obama, by contrast, is providing billions to coal companies under the guise of “clean energy” – see his administration's policies on carbon capture and sequestration, the fossil fuel-equivalent of missile defense – and promising billions more so mega-energy corporations can get started on that “nuclear renaissance” we've all heard so much about. And if Paul really did succeed in cutting all those federal departments he talks about, there's nothing to prevent states and local governments -- and, I would hope, alternative social organizations not dependent on coercion -- from addressing issues such as health care and education. Decentralism isn't a bad thing.

All that aside, though, it seems to me that if you're going to style yourself a progressive, liberal humanitarian, your first priority really ought to be stopping your government from killing poor people. Second on that list? Stopping your government from putting hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens in cages for decades at a time over non-violent “crimes” committed by consenting adults. Seriously: what the fuck? Social Security's great and all I guess, but not exploding little children with cluster bombs – shouldn't that be at the top of the Liberal Agenda?

Over half of Americans' income taxes go to the military-industrial complex and the costs of arresting and locking up their fellow citizens. On both counts, Ron Paul's policy positions are far more progressive than those held – and indeed, implemented – by Barack Obama. And yet it's Paul who's the reactionary of the two?

My sweeping, I'm hoping overly broad assessment: liberals, especially the pundit class, don't much care about dead foreigners. They're a political problem at best – will the Afghan war derail Obama's re-election campaign? – not a moral one. And liberals are more than willing to accept a few charred women and children in some country they'll never visit in exchange for increasing social welfare spending by 0.02 percent, or at least not cutting it by as much as a mean 'ol Rethuglican.

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum, for example, has chastised anti-Obama lefties, complaining that undermining – by way of accurately assessing and commenting upon – a warmonger of the Democratic persuasion is “extraordinarily self-destructive" to all FDR-fearing lefties.

“Just ask LBJ,” Drum added. The historical footnote he left out: That LBJ was run out of office by the anti-war left because the guy was murdering hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. But mass murder is no reason to oppose a Democratic president, at least not if you're a professional liberal.

There are exceptions: Just Foreign Policy's Robert Naiman has a piece in Truth Out suggesting the anti-war left check out Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico who's something of a Ron Paul-lite. But for too many liberals, it seems partisanship and the promise – not even necessarily the delivery, if you've been reading Obama's die-hard apologists – of infinitesimally more spending on domestic programs is more important than saving the lives of a few thousand innocent women and children who happen to live outside the confines of the arbitrary geopolitical entity known as the United States.

Another reason to root -- if not vote -- for Ron Paul: if there was a Republican in the White House, liberals just might start caring about the murder of non-Americans again.

The siren call of electoral politics

It happens every November (and sometimes it never goes away): otherwise seemingly intelligent people get stupid and put their faith in politicians who without fail will, predictably, betray them -- cut the "betrayed" crap, please. Each corrupt incumbent is replaced with a do-gooding reformer who, in a few years time -- sometimes longer, usually sooner -- become a carbon copy of the corrupt bastard they replaced. Liberal disappointment in Obama was preceded by conservative disappointment in Bush, which was preceded by liberal disappointment in Clinton, which was preceded by conservative disappointment in Bush, etc., ad infinitum, QED. It happens every time: soaring rhetoric and high hopes dashed on the rocks of political reality. For sure, each party has its rogues, its "mavericks" who will carry the torch of Truth and Justice, at least for a time, but they are the one-in-a-hundred exceptions to the rule -- I'm being generous with that ratio, mind you -- and invariably have no real power over the functioning of the State. Sorry Dennis, it's sad but true.

But come election time, millions of nice, almost sickeningly earnest people -- appearing to forget all this -- will head out to their local polling station to eagerly vote for one of two ideologically indistinguishable corporate-sponsored candidates, convinced not only that it matters, but that they are fulfilling their greatest civic duty (as some even love to patronizingly lecture their peers -- yeah you). The one saving grace of the election season, at least in the United States, is that the majority of the public doesn't bother to participate. Most people it seems wisely prefer, to paraphrase George Carlin, the comfort of masturbating in their home to getting off the couch for the masturbatory ritual of casting a vote in a race to decide whether Kang or Kodos get to call the shots.

That's not to say the passivity demonstrated by the average American is something admire either, though. The problem with electoral politics isn't that it gets people engaged in their communities -- that's a good thing; it's that it diverts any enthusiasm there might be for affecting real social change into places like Congress and the White House, where good ideas and basic human decency go to die. The great Emma Goldman expounded on this theme in an essay she wrote back in 1917, a piece that is both comforting to my mind because it illustrates mindless subservience to politics and politicians isn't a maddening phenomenon unique to our times, but also -- and for the same reason -- incredibly, profoundly depressing.

Writes Goldman:

One has but to bear in mind the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions is full of pitfalls: wire-​pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying, cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the political aspirant can achieve success. Added to that is a complete demoralization of character and conviction, until nothing is left that would make one hope for anything from such a human derelict. Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe, and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to find themselves betrayed and cheated. 

It may be claimed that men of integrity would not become corrupt in the political grinding mill. Perhaps not; but such men would be absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of labor, as indeed has been shown in numerous instances. The State is the economic master of its servants. Good men, if such there be, would either remain true to their political faith and lose their economic support, or they would cling to their economic master and be utterly unable to do the slightest good. The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

Now if I had a chance to cast a ballot knowing my vote could defeat someone like Hitler, I wouldn't hesitate: I'd vote. And I don't see any problem voting on public referendums, like Proposition 19 in California to legalize marijuana, or even voting for congressional candidates, per se. Casting a vote can be a legitimate defense mechanism, and even a platform for spreading a movement's message. At the same time, though, it can also be a big 'ol waste of time and effort that'd be better spent organizing around issues and implementing change in your community independent of the state legislatures and city councils. And no, that doesn't mean Molotov cocktails. It means volunteering at your local soup kitchen instead of at the campaign headquarters for the latest charlatan begging for your vote, cleaning up your neighborhood yourself instead of complaining to some city bureaucrat about it. It could also mean, following the example of the employees at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, assuming worker control of a business whose owners have refused to pay wages owed.

What rejecting electoral politics doesn't mean, or at least doesn't have to mean, is embracing apathy or college sophomore nihilism, as some civic-duty (and simple) minded detractors might argue. No, if you want to peddle complacency, just tell people the problem is the politicians, not the governing institutions, and that everything can change! if you just get off your ass on November 2nd. Why? Because the unrelenting hype over elections pretty much guarantees the public will sit on its collective behind the other 364 days of the year, glued to the cable TV -- watching Tom DeLay go up against a five-year-old Border Collie in a surprisingly competitive battle of wits (the Border Collie only won by single digits) and some kids from Jersey exploring the many ways to kill a brain cell -- while waiting on some asshole congressman or president to change their world for the better.

And really, if you want an apathetic public you couldn't do much better than the system we have now.


Photo Credit: Aziez Ahmed

The limits of liberalism

In 2006 I did something monumentally stupid, something that can only be chalked up to pure, unadulterated ignorance and the folly of youth. I voted. For a Democrat. And I did so -- wait for it -- under the impression I might be helping to end a war.

Those readers still with me, please control your laughter and let me explain. At the time I justified my decision on the basis that maybe, just maybe, if the Democrats took over Congress they might feel tempted -- if only for purely partisan political gain -- to fulfill their stated goal of bringing the Iraq war to an end. I know. I know.

In my defense, I only voted; there were no late nights at the phone bank for me, no impassioned letters to the editor imploring my fellow citizens to fulfill their patriotic duty. Others, however, whom I respect and share much in common politically, did dedicate both their time and financial resources to electing Democrats under the genuine, but wholly mistaken, belief they would stand up to the Bush administration every once in a while. We know how that turned out.

And that brings me to the recent primary elections, which I believe illustrate a point I have learned many times over since '06 -- namely, that electoral politics is at best a diversion, a tried-and-true means for the political establishment to channel public anger with the status quo in such a way that the status quo is never seriously threatened. Oh yes, the unwashed masses can celebrate the ritual Kicking Out of the Bums -- Good bye Arlen Specter! See ya in hell Blanche Lincoln! -- but only with one ginormous catch: they inevitably have to select some other bum to take their place.

Take the race to be the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, a contest that pitted the turncoat Specter against congressman and former admiral Joe Sestak. Despite the backing of President Obama and support from the rest of the Democratic establishment, Sestak was able to beat the decrepit, principle-less incumbent. A success, right?

That's how it's being played on the liberal blogosphere. "An amazing night!" wrote OpenLeft's Chris Bowers upon receiving news of Sestak's win. "The energy is with Dems and progs again!"

Except, well, it's not so clear electing the younger, more photogenic Sestak serves any real "progressive" goal, outside the fleeting ephemera that comes with knowing Arlen Specter is probably feeling sad for himself somewhere. Should Sestak win the seat in November, he'll probably hold the seat for decades, which certainly won't improve the lives of those suffering under U.S. military occupations and the constant threat of Predator drone strikes -- not that Democratic primary voters much cared -- given Sestak's wholehearted embrace of Obama's 30,000-plus troop surge in Afghanistan and his ramping up of the illegal, undeclared war in Pakistan.

The hated Specter, on the other hand, at least made a show of questioning Obama's foreign policy, even declaring his opposition to the surge. Details.

In Arkansas, meanwhile, corporate Democrat (ed. note: redundant) Blanche Lincoln has been forced into a runoff with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, a former Clinton administration official whose chief qualifier appears to be that his name is not Blanche Lincoln. He also has excellent hair. But with the demise of Lincoln's political career increasingly appearing to be a given, even proponents of Halter, like FireDogLake's Jane Hamsher -- a genuinely well-intentioned activist whose work I often admire, and who helped spearhead the effort to unseat Lincoln -- concedes he is "no raging liberal." He is, however, "a Democrat, whereas Lincoln is a corporatist." To which I say, there's a difference? Again, to hop on my hobby horse, there certainly will be no difference for the victims of America's bipartisan-endorsed warfare state, as Halter's campaign page makes clear he's committed to "ensuring success in Iraq and Afghanistan and crafting a strong, forward-leaning foreign policy." For those at home, the words "forward-leaning" probably mean the good people of Yemen and/or Iran should seriously start thinking about investing in some bomb shelters.

As I've argued before, instead of activists spending so much in the way of time and resources in electing more and better politicians, why not skip the middle man? Instead of raising funds and organizing house parties for some snake oil salesman, crossing your fingers and praying they uphold 1/8th of their campaign promises, why not redirect those efforts to taking matters into one's own hands -- relying on the power of people voluntarily acting in concert to improve their communities rather than hoping some asshole politician sends an earmark your way? I understand the impulse to support what appears to be incrementalist reform, but at a certain point the dedication to incrementalism neuters the ability of people to consider the holistic, systemic reform the U.S. needs.

Instead of banking on a politician improving our world, my advice? Improve yourself. Be an example to others. Work not on the behalf of a political party, but your community. Put simply, forget the polling booth and head to the soup kitchen. At least then you won't be complicit in a bloodied, immoral system.

Who to vote for in 2010 (and 2012, 2014...)

(Click to enlarge and avoid screwy Blogger formatting.)

Zombie Reagan rises to fight the Democrats

If the following ad is to be believed, Danny Tarkanian, the Republican running against Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, is summoning the corpse of conservative icon and former president Ronald Reagan so the latter can finish his ominously named "last campaign": the slaying of timid Senate Democrats. Does it work as an ad? I don't know. But there's no question it could make for quite possibly the best slasher horror film ever.

"Everybody run, Zombie Reagan's threatening to filibuster -- with chainsaws!"

'Everyone votes for a dictator'

Patrick McGoohan takes on the electoral system:

Update (2/13/10): It looks like the powers that be have removed this video. You can, however, watch the full episode from which the clip was taken for free at AMC TV, which is for the best, really.

The opportunity cost of elections

During the 2008 campaign, tens of thousands of people turned out to volunteer on behalf of Barack Obama, staffing phone banks, raising funds and creating a network of likeminded individuals dedicated to a shared purpose (to a lesser extent, so did volunteers, as there were, for John McCain). But while a bedazzling amount of human and financial resources were displayed, no doubt, it’s not clear they were put to the best use, to put it mildly. Take your self-styled progressive who -- for whatever inexplicable reason -- thought the election of Obama would mark the advent of a brave new single-payer nation, the president abandoning his traditional role as commander in chief in favor of performing gay marriages in the White House Rose Garden. The fear -- and love -- of Sarah Palin can make people do all sorts of crazy things.

But what if those resources, instead of being dedicated to bringing one of two militaristic corporatists to power, were instead put to a better cause? What if, instead of relying on politicians as the middlemen, those who put so much time and effort in getting Obama elected in the hopes of achieving meaningful health care reform -- relying on politicians as the middle men, hoping they keep their lofty campaign promises -- had redirected those efforts to taking power into their own hands and bring affordable health care to their own communities? Given comparable resources to those put toward a frivolous and overhyped pursuit like an election, community groups could have instead begun the process of bringing affordable health care to their own neighborhoods, redirecting the misallocation of energy from empowering some politician toward a cause much more likely to bring tangible results.

What in economics is called an “opportunity cost” -- the inability to expend resources on one task after another is chosen -- is equally applicable to the field of politics: when activists band together on behalf of electing more and better politicians, they aren’t banding together to improve their own communities, clean up their own rivers, stop the next war. While one would hope connections made during election campaigns would persist afterwards, and that those involved in electing Obama would continue to work towards shared (though better) causes, the evidence suggests that a year after his inauguration much of that movement, insofar as it was, has disbanded. With the reality of power, much of the hopeful idealism -- or naivete -- of some during the campaign has evaporated; the organizing power of the Obama political machine severely hampered by the lack of enthusiasm for the president’s policies. With the collapse in peoples’ hope for change comes a commensurate curbing in the power of the groups that arose to support Obama, indicating that organizing power won't be around to help a neighbor during hard times.

My advice: next time around, instead of phone-banking for Obama, one should spend that time that would have spent trying to convince some Iowan the president really means it this time giving back to your own community -- you might actually see a few changes.

Initial thoughts on the election

After eight years of President George W. Bush, it sure will be nice to have an intelligent, articulate liberal running America's military empire, bombing impoverished nations at his discretion, prosecuting the war on drugs from Colombia to the streets of LA, and overseeing the largest prison population in world history (2.3 million and counting!).

It's morning in America, baby!

First, the good news

As millions of Americans head to the polls today to elect the next president of the United States, take heed of this comforting thought: by the end of the day, one of the men pictured below will very likely not be the next president.

Now the bad news: barring a last minute surge in support for Ralph Nader or Bob Barr, one of the men pictured above will be the next president (or "commander-in-chief" for the military fetishists of both parties), where he will assume control of the most powerful state in world history. That means, come January 2009, one of these men will gain the power to unilaterally declare war on impoverished nations on the other side of the globe, without so much as a congressional authorization. That means, come next year, one of these men will be able to -- again, unilaterally -- declare someone an "enemy combatant" and hold them indefinitely in a U.S. military prison (with a little torture at a CIA black site thrown in for good measure).

And unfortunately, as we know from their numerous public statements, the next U.S. president is on record as supporting all of the following policies: expanding the military by more than 90,000 troops; sending tens of thousands of soldiers to further a failing military occupation in Afghanistan; furthering the so-called "war on drugs", particularly in Latin America (where the U.S.-backed government in Colombia has been busy murdering innocent civilians with the support of U.S. anti-drug funding); at the very least, increasing economic sanctions against Iran while leaving "all options are on the table" in dealing with the country's nuclear program; extending NATO membership to countries such as Georgia, thus committing the United States to a war with Russia in the event of another conflict over South Ossetia; launching attacks against "terrorist" targets in Pakistan (though McCain's muddled position seems to be to attack, but just don't brag about it); striking "terrorist" targets inside Syria; maintaining the death penalty; continuing taxpayer funding for abstinence education; perpetuating the embargo against Cuba, and icy relations with Venezuela; continuing to bailout failing corporations with taxpayer money; keeping tens of thousands of troops in Iraq (and tens of thousands of private contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater); ramming U.S. "intellectual property" laws down the throats of poor nations through the signing of ill-named "free trade" agreements; spying on the communications of Americans and foreigners alike, sans warrant; and so on, and so on.

Whether it's "country first" or "change you can believe in," one thing's certain after today's election: the maintenance of the status quo.

A walking tour of the military-industrial complex

Working in and around Washington, DC can be something of a weird, albeit illuminating, experience. Unlike other U.S. cities, where waterfront properties with a perfect view of the city's skyline would be full of high-priced condos, Washington's nearby suburb, the grossly misnamed "neighborhood" of Crystal City, is largely home to the merchants of death, their advocates, and -- as you'll see below -- their enablers. 

Having worked in the physical manifestation of the military-industrial complex for a number of months now, I have almost become accustomed to riding in an elevator full of men and women in fatigues while defense contractors in ill-fitting suits -- those men (and occasionally women) who directly profit off of war and its accompanying misery -- fret about landing that next big contract to build the Pentagon's latest weapon of mass destruction.

But while I've become somewhat used to living in world dominated by the military and militarists, I got to thinking: maybe the rest of the world isn't (one can hope?). So with that, I bring you the first of what is likely to be a long-running, recurring installment of "a walking tour of the military-industrial complex":

What tour of the military-industrial-congressional complex would be complete without a stop by Senator John "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" McCain's campaign headquarters? 

True story: about three weeks ago I was waiting in line at a sandwich shop behind some young McCain campaign staffers who were so sure of their candidate's impending victory that they were loudly discussing their planned "victory" vacations to various tropical paradises. Perhaps they know something we don't -- could William Ayers be Barack Obama's real father? -- but, in light of the recent polling data and the state of the U.S. economy, they might want to reconsider that drunken, celebratory romp through the Virgin Islands.

About a block away from McCain's campaign headquarters are the offices of Lockheed-Martin, which is a bit convenient, seeing as it just so happens that McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, "used to be" a lobbyist for said merchant of death. That connection, I'm sure, in no way impacted the Maverick's recent call for the Bush administration to expand its military aid package to Taiwan -- which, it just so happens, McCain would like to see include a bunch of Lockheed-manufactured F-16s. Nope, nothing to see here. Move along, move along...

This is the Crystal City underground, an odd mixture of restaurants, electronics stores -- and as you see here -- defense contractor gift shops and "Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)" offices. If one thought the "military-industrial complex" was a mere fiction created by clove-smoking hippies and Dwight D. Eisenhower's speech writers, this place would put your doubts to rest. 

Watch out Banana Republic -- here comes the official Boeing gift shop. Impress the ladies with your sense of sophistication when you show up to the Hamburger Hamlet bar wearing your B-50 bomber Polo shirt. Oh yeah.

Gulf War II, baby! A fixture of the Crystal City underground, this store is your one-stop-shop for all your war glorifying merchandise needs -- my personal favorite being the kid's t-shirt commemorating Harry Truman's brave decision to nuke Hiroshima, complete with mushroom cloud: "This 'Little Boy' is the Bomb!" 

[Ok, so I actually haven't seen that shirt -- but considering the other war porn available in Crystal -- it isn't that far-fetched.]

 

Have you ever taken the train to work and found yourself wondering, "What are my enemy's movements?" Do you often find yourself pondering that eternal, omnipresent concern shared by so many students and business professionals: "Do I have enough troops?"

Well, fear not, for the Crystal City metro has got you covered, its walls plastered with ads selling the latest in expensive products designed to streamline the insurgent-killing process.

This ad, also in the Crystal City metro, is notable mostly for the existentialism embodied in the phrase it uses to sell war enhancement products -- "The Enemy is Uncertainty" -- but also for its bold commitment to "defeat the common enemy" and its Rumsfeldian pledge to "[m]ake the unknown known".

What better way to end this "walking tour" installment then with an ad that displays the basic inhumanity inherent in the military-industrial complex. After the endless stream of advertisements and politicians heralding war as a force that gives us meaning, its useful to point out that those that actually partake in it -- and aren't completely taken in by the military's dehumanizing brainwashing -- tend not to like it all that much. Some even want to kill themselves because of what they've seen and/or done in Iraq and other illegal wars of aggression. Yet while the military has a seemingly endless stream of money to pay for recruitment ads during sporting events and other television programming aimed primarily at young men, the best they can do to prevent suicide among their "employees" is an ad in a random subway station.

You gotta have priorities, I guess.