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!

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.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

2012

To Michael Moore, and to all those who say that it is too soon to criticize the Obama Administration's record on a wide range of issues, I ask the following:

It is almost 2010. Obama will spend half of 2011 and all of 2012 campaigning for re-election.

In 2012, when we still have troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the Gitmo gulag is still in operation, when extraordinary rendition is standard operating procedure and the CIA's off-shore torture chambers continue to be used, when it becomes clear that health care "reform" is the same smoke-and-mirrors sham as campaign finance "reform"--is, in fact, a bonanza for health insurance companies, when illegal Israeli settlements continue to be built in the West Bank as the Obama Administration looks the other way, when the FBI continues its covert operations against those who take public exception to war-without-end and capitalist exploitation, what will you say then?

Think about it.

Friday, October 9, 2009

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations Revisited

From time to time, President Obama sends me little mash notes, just to make me feel special. Here's the note I received from him today:

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I've said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won't all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award -- and the call to action that comes with it -- does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we've begun together. I'm grateful that you've stood with me thus far, and I'm honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama


From your mouth to God's ear, Mr. President. But enough talk; for talk is cheap.

Back in 2004, then-President Bush's speechwriters inserted the phrase "the soft bigotry of low expectations" into his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Anyone paying attention understood that phrase as code--intended to make the opponents of Affirmative Action feel that they occupy some sort of moral high-ground.

Ironically, however, Bush's eight years in the White House set the bar for Presidential competence and intellect so low that Barack Obama has become the beneficiary of a unique sort of "soft bigotry."

For, unlike his predecessor, Obama is not manifestly stupid. He is, in fact, a delightfully intelligent man. He can put words together to form sentences that actually work in English--a language that Bush struggled with, despite it being his native tongue.

When Obama speaks, he speaks well; and the public, both at home and abroad, is charmed.

The only problem is, Obama says one thing and does another.

And this is where the soft bigotry of low Presidential expectations comes in. For very few among us on the Left seem to be willing or able to hold Barack Obama accountable for his actions.

He speaks, we gush, hug each other, feel great, and look the other way as illegal wars continue to be prosecuted, Constitutional guarantees continue to be trampled under foot by the Federal government, and corporate special interests continue to receive huge government subsidies at the expense of the American people.

So, in reply to Obama's note of this morning, I say:

Forgive me, Mr. President, if I turn a jaundiced eye upon the Nobel Prize Committee's recent decision to honor you as a "man of peace." To date, the track record of your Administration on matters of war and peace surely suggests that the award is, to put it gently, premature.

I hope and pray that you have every intention of proving worthy of the honor that has been bestowed upon you.

You say that you do; but, then, you say a lot things.

When do you plan to begin? I await your decisive, Presidential action as Commander-in-Chief.

End the Empire, restore the republic. End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring peace with justice to the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel-Palestine.

Or admit that this year's Nobel Peace Prize competition was just a beauty contest, and you just happen to have that winning smile.

The Envelope, Please!

This year's Orwellian Peace Prize goes to ... Barack Hussein Obama! President Obama is the person in the past year who has worked the hardest to fulfill Orwell's Newspeak prophecy: War is Peace.

By the way, I am personally thrilled to learn that I am now eligible to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature for a book that I may one day, possibly, write. Sure takes the pressure off; I was worried that I might actually have to DO something to be considered for the award...I mean do something besides give others the hope that I may some day do something...

It's just good news all around! Style over substance!

Meanwhile, Mahatma Gandhi and Gaffar Khan (two individuals who actually DID DO SOMETHING towards the achievement of world peace) are still waiting to be awarded their prestigious prizes.

Marx was so right: the first time around, it's tragedy; the second time around, it's farce.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Fire Next Time

God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time! --James Baldwin

The whole history of America since World War II caused an inertial transfer of power toward the executive branch. The monopoly on use of nuclear weaponry, the cult of the commander in chief, the worldwide network of military bases to maintain nuclear alert and supremacy, the secret intelligence agencies, the entire national security state, the classification and clearance systems, the expansion of state secrets, the withholding of evidence and information, the permanent emergency that has melded World War II with the cold war and the cold war with the "war on terror"—all these make a vast and intricate structure that may not yield to effort at dismantling it. Sixty-eight straight years of war emergency powers (1941–2009) have made the abnormal normal, and constitutional diminishment the settled order. --Garry Wills

So this is what we are up against: the National Security State. This Leviathan is the enemy of the American experiment in government of, by, and for the people. And all who cooperate with the Leviathan, for whatever reasons, answering to whatever motives, are aiding and abetting the enemy.

When Barack Obama was elected President, I took particular pride in the notion that the baton had been passed from the thick of the Baby-Boomer generation to my own. Sandwiched as the President and I are between the tail end of the post-WW2 pregnancy bubble and the apathetic Gen X-ers, it seemed to me that BHO was in the proverbial "catbird seat": able to see where the Boomers had gone wrong, but with enough Boomer idealism to spare to pick up the fallen McGovernite standard and undertake the non-violent people's revolution that this country so desperately needs.

Instead, BHO is riding on the Beltway carousel, neutralized, going nowhere fast. The revolution has, once again, been averted.

I must congratulate the Plutocratic War Party on yet another successful round: wresting democracy from the grasp of the American people, slipping a Presidential placebo in our mouths, turning up the volume on the Culture of Fear, and changing the subject once again. Welcome to Oceania and Newspeak, our official language. Beware the terrorists (i.e., civilians who fight back): they are everywhere. That swarthy looking guy pushing the fruit cart--he's a wizard with the beauty-products. A little hairspray, a little eye-shadow, a back-pack and cell-phone and KABOOM!

Wait till the terrorists in Iraq (pronounced EYE-RACK) get a hold of that guy's training manual. The IED will be a thing of the past.

Makes me think what a poor ignorant sap Timothy McVeigh must have been--lugging all those sacks of fertilizer around when all he had to do was stop by the local Rite-Aid and pick up the real deal. Just goes to show you how U.S. military training can't stack up to Afghan Jihadist know-how.

I must say: I am so sick of being inundated with bald assertions proffered as evidence. Bald assertions are the coin of the 4th estate's realm. No one has betrayed the American experiment in democracy like our "news" media. For the love of God and country, dis-"embed" yourselves and report on the anti-democratic tyranny of the National Security State!

It appears to me to be 1984--in perpetuity. Which is a good thing, I suppose, for then I am perpetually 24. And, at 24, I have energy to burn. What to do? What to do? I know! Let's go shopping! When all else fails, wouldn't I look good in another new shirt?

Better to shave our heads, don the Mahatma's homespun tunic, and dedicate the rest of our lives to derailing the Imperial juggernaut. Somehow. Some way. Some time. Sooner, rather than later.

For everyone's sake.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Peter Gay on Western Civilization circa 1970:

"Men have been made into accomplices to their own destruction. They have been victimized by shrewd manipulators who give them meaningless concessions--a little more money, a so-called free electoral system, and deafening, soul-destroying entertainment. And what has been the result? Men have been numbed until they demand neither genuine benefits nor real power. They feel pleasure when they should be feeling pain...What good is prosperity if all men have the same taste? What good is a free press if all newspapers print the same opinions?"

--Peter Gay, The Bridge of Criticism (NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1970): 147-148.