We are told that it takes tremendous courage, true heroism in fact, to put on a uniform and body armor and, with legions likewise attired and equipped with virtually unlimited material resources and the most powerful weaponry ever devised by the black arts of man, descend upon a foreign country and make war upon its civilian population.
But, in our heart of hearts, and in the loneliest depths and quiet of the night, we know better.
We know better and yet we do nothing. Occasionally, someone does step forward--a Nat Turner figure--who can no longer stand the contradictions inherent in our collective state of denial and takes "justice" into his own hands.
We turn on him with fury: for in the face of our impotence, he had the temerity to act. And with his act our own complicity with the murderous affair we call "war" and "occupation" and even "liberation" is permitted to surface and shatter our lives.
We vow that he shall pay for our sins with every last measure of his own life--and then some. We vilify his name, his memory, his family, his community. Our rage is insatiable; but that is because our own guilt mocks us beyond redemption and at every turn.
The President himself may attend the memorial and rise to speak stirring words of valor, of sacrifice, of honor that accrues to unflinching resolve. But, in our heart of hearts, we know that when we essay murder most foul we risk being answered in kind.
And it is there, in our heart of hearts, where appears the faint hint of our true helplessness in the face of the mayhem we ourselves have wrought--in the form of a slight fissure, a fraying of the smooth fabric, something approximating a tear--that the revolution begins.
For it is there, and only there, that we say, "Enough."
Enough. No more. We can no longer hold the wolf by its ears. We had no business taking hold of it that way in the first place, and if it chooses to bite us upon release, so be it. We are done with this. We are done.
Talk about courage, about "true heroism" all you like; but find it there.
Find it there.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Dear NPR:
Tragically, today, I learned of two mass murders: one at Ft. Hood, Texas, the other in Orlando, Florida. Steve Inskeep reported on the Ft. Hood shooting during Morning Edition. I read about the Orlando shooting at NPR's web site this afternoon. What struck me about Mr. Inskeep's report on Ft. Hood was his announcement of the religious affiliation of the alleged shooter (whose name alone, Nidal Hasan, might indicate to the listener a likely religious affiliation). The report about Orlando makes absolutely no mention of the religious affiliation of the alleged shooter in that case (though his name, Jason Rodriguez, may also suggest a likely religious affiliation). I wonder why NPR chose to announce the suspect's religious affiliation in the one case and not the other. Is religious affiliation relevant in either case? If so, say how--and make an explicit argument to support your position. If not, omit irrelevant details that, by their very inclusion, may be understood to suggest that the news agency is in possession of evidence that it does not possess.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
This Past Week on the Thomas Jefferson Hour
Professor Clay Jenkinson discussed Jefferson's belief that the U. S. Constitution needs to be torn up and re-written every generation.
Listen up!
Listen up!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
From The Bookshelf
Mark Kurlansky's Non-Violence: The History of a Dangerous Idea (New York: Modern Library, 2008).
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Imperial Presidency and the Lessons of History
My mother's side of the family were strong FDR Democrats. My grandfather worked in the Roosevelt Administration, directly under Jim Farley (a close political adviser to FDR and Chair of the DNC from 1932-1940). That said, I think that partisanship must always yield to history: we can fairly trace the beginnings of the Imperial Presidency to FDR's door.
To his credit, FDR himself recognized the dangers that his strengthening of Executive power posed to American aspirations towards democracy:
"We have built up new instruments of public power," he wrote. "In the hands of a people's Government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people" (FDR, Public Papers, V, 16).
Since FDR, the political puppets of this country's economic autocracy have been both Democrats and Republicans (what I term Democan-Republicrats). The so-called Reagan Revolution of the 1980's accelerated the conversion of the two party system into a monoparty of plutocratic political puppetry with conservative (the Republican "party") and liberal (the Democratic "party") wings.
This process was somewhat moderated during the tenures of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton--but it would be a mistake to think that, under the Democratic leadership of Clinton, this process was in any way "rolled-back." It was, in fact, advanced (Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law, for example).
Eight years of Bush-Cheney put the pedal to the metal. The Bush-Cheney regime was composed of Rightist radicals (neo-Fascists, in my book) who actually "auctioned off" responsibilities of the Federal Government to private corporations (Halliburton, Blackwater)--thereby transferring significant rights heretofore Constitutionally vouchsafed the American people to the management of for-profit business concerns.
The legacy of the rule of Bush-Cheney is, in my view, a radical, right-wing outrage perpetrated against the American people. I am tempted to call it a "coup," but I think it more accurate to regard it as the second accelerating phase of Reaganism.
The seeds of this outrage were planted, however, by our beloved FDR.
The responsibility for destroying the poisonous vines that have grown from FDR's planting have fallen to our equally beloved Barack Obama.
Barack "mistakes were made but let's look forward not back" Obama.
You see, this is the problem. As George Santayana rightly observed: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
By steadfastly refusing to learn from history President Obama is doomed to repeat it and, in repeating it, he becomes complicit with those who have mounted a sustained assault on American democracy.
Since Obama's election last November, the grass-roots "people's movement" that helped him to achieve his victory has lost its place: it no longer plays the role in national politics that it did during the campaign. Instead, Obama receives counsel from his "team of rivals." If that "team" is advising the President to ignore the lessons of history, then that team "rivals" our democratic aspirations as a people.
Advised by democracy's rivals or not, the buck stops with Barack Obama.
In the present circumstances, gentle, liberal, ameliorating measures will not be sufficient to reverse the legacy of the radical, right-wing outrages perpetrated against the American people--and, indeed, against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as against those kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured by agents of the U.S. government in its "War on [read: of] Terror" over the past decade.
What is needed are radical, left-wing, counter-measures specifically designed to address the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Cheney neo-Fascistic tilt of the Imperial Presidency. We need to reverse course.
And once the leftist correction of the Imperial Presidency has proved effective, i.e., once what FDR called a "people's government" has been effectively installed in our nation's capitol, then the final act of the Imperial Presidency can be one thing and one thing only: its self-dismantling. I know it's a lot to ask--of anyone but a true patriot.
Personally, I would like to see a Constitutional convention called and a 21st century document drafted that would place the power of the national government more squarely in the hands of the American people. A multi-party parliamentary social democracy that makes broad use of public referenda would be my preference, but I'm open to other possibilities.
The bottom line for me is that the American experiment in government of, by, and for the people should be renewed--and to do that, we need more than a slight tweak here and a gentle nudge there. We need major re-constructive surgery performed on the body politic and its instruments of government.
The American people must come to recognize the historical moment that they currently occupy and, in the process, admit to themselves that the installation of Barack Hussein Obama upon the throne of the Imperial Presidency will not produce the real change for which they hunger. Chump change is all they can realistically expect. And, at this historical moment, chump change just does not pay the bill.
To his credit, FDR himself recognized the dangers that his strengthening of Executive power posed to American aspirations towards democracy:
"We have built up new instruments of public power," he wrote. "In the hands of a people's Government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people" (FDR, Public Papers, V, 16).
Since FDR, the political puppets of this country's economic autocracy have been both Democrats and Republicans (what I term Democan-Republicrats). The so-called Reagan Revolution of the 1980's accelerated the conversion of the two party system into a monoparty of plutocratic political puppetry with conservative (the Republican "party") and liberal (the Democratic "party") wings.
This process was somewhat moderated during the tenures of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton--but it would be a mistake to think that, under the Democratic leadership of Clinton, this process was in any way "rolled-back." It was, in fact, advanced (Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law, for example).
Eight years of Bush-Cheney put the pedal to the metal. The Bush-Cheney regime was composed of Rightist radicals (neo-Fascists, in my book) who actually "auctioned off" responsibilities of the Federal Government to private corporations (Halliburton, Blackwater)--thereby transferring significant rights heretofore Constitutionally vouchsafed the American people to the management of for-profit business concerns.
The legacy of the rule of Bush-Cheney is, in my view, a radical, right-wing outrage perpetrated against the American people. I am tempted to call it a "coup," but I think it more accurate to regard it as the second accelerating phase of Reaganism.
The seeds of this outrage were planted, however, by our beloved FDR.
The responsibility for destroying the poisonous vines that have grown from FDR's planting have fallen to our equally beloved Barack Obama.
Barack "mistakes were made but let's look forward not back" Obama.
You see, this is the problem. As George Santayana rightly observed: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
By steadfastly refusing to learn from history President Obama is doomed to repeat it and, in repeating it, he becomes complicit with those who have mounted a sustained assault on American democracy.
Since Obama's election last November, the grass-roots "people's movement" that helped him to achieve his victory has lost its place: it no longer plays the role in national politics that it did during the campaign. Instead, Obama receives counsel from his "team of rivals." If that "team" is advising the President to ignore the lessons of history, then that team "rivals" our democratic aspirations as a people.
Advised by democracy's rivals or not, the buck stops with Barack Obama.
In the present circumstances, gentle, liberal, ameliorating measures will not be sufficient to reverse the legacy of the radical, right-wing outrages perpetrated against the American people--and, indeed, against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as against those kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured by agents of the U.S. government in its "War on [read: of] Terror" over the past decade.
What is needed are radical, left-wing, counter-measures specifically designed to address the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Cheney neo-Fascistic tilt of the Imperial Presidency. We need to reverse course.
And once the leftist correction of the Imperial Presidency has proved effective, i.e., once what FDR called a "people's government" has been effectively installed in our nation's capitol, then the final act of the Imperial Presidency can be one thing and one thing only: its self-dismantling. I know it's a lot to ask--of anyone but a true patriot.
Personally, I would like to see a Constitutional convention called and a 21st century document drafted that would place the power of the national government more squarely in the hands of the American people. A multi-party parliamentary social democracy that makes broad use of public referenda would be my preference, but I'm open to other possibilities.
The bottom line for me is that the American experiment in government of, by, and for the people should be renewed--and to do that, we need more than a slight tweak here and a gentle nudge there. We need major re-constructive surgery performed on the body politic and its instruments of government.
The American people must come to recognize the historical moment that they currently occupy and, in the process, admit to themselves that the installation of Barack Hussein Obama upon the throne of the Imperial Presidency will not produce the real change for which they hunger. Chump change is all they can realistically expect. And, at this historical moment, chump change just does not pay the bill.
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