Monday, October 16, 2006

summary of republican achievements

I will give my own take soon:

*ZNet | Social Policy*

*Who Killed My Democracy? On Republicans, Cheese, Mice, Rats, and

Littlepeople

Challenging Times for the War Party in Power*

*by Paul Street; October 15, 2006*

These are dangerous times for the U.S. war party in power. Its

messianic-militarist administration is mired in a disastrous

occupation that has killed many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis

and thousands of Americans. The reasons that it has given for

this terrible undertaking have been revealed as transparently false.

More than half the U.S. population now says the war on Iraq is

NOT morally justified. According to a recent New York Times/CBS

poll, a majority of the population now rejects administration’s

efforts to link the war on Iraq with the so-called “war on terror.”

According to a CNN poll in August, 60 percent of the population

opposes the war. Sixty one percent believe that some troops

should be removed before the end of the year and 57 percent want

a timetable for full withdrawal.

The president rejects these policy choices as naïve

“appeasement” – so-called “cut and run” – even while he insists

that the war is being fought on behalf of the idea that

government should reflect the “will of the people.”

Meanwhile, the Republicans’ regressive, hyper-plutocratic

domestic policy is highly unpopular. It stands in sharply and

ironic contrast to its claim to be leading the nation in a war

to save civilization and to advance core “democratic” values.

That policy is a big part of why wages, benefits, and incomes

continue to stagnate for ordinary Americans. It is linked also

to an endemic, increasingly transparent political corruption

that has especially dirtied Republican hands.

The already rich are getting transparently richer than ever, the

poor are getting poorer and the middle is still just scratching

by while the president pours untold billions into the illegal,

mass-murderous, falsely sold and unpopular invasion of

Mesopotamia.

The in-power Republican right seems unable to shake the image of

failure hung on it by Iraq and Hurricane Katrina even with a

mild economic expansion and the surprising lack of a major

terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.

No wonder a big majority of the population now says that the

country would be better off if the current war party in power

was removed from office. Even with the well-known nothingness of

the corporate-neoliberal Democrats, the defeat of the

Republicans in November seems at least possible. If that

happens it could open the door to some very serious

investigations and proceedings against the Cheney-Rove cabal.

Be More Like Mice, Little People

It’s time, perhaps, for the Republicans to call on the services

of Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese? In that

corporate-anthropomorphic masterwork that became a runaway

bestseller at the end of the last millennium, Dr. Johnson helped

millions of Americans move beyond the negative thoughts and

feelings they harbored over the loss of their jobs, earnings,

lives and communities to the inexorable workings of the

corporate economy. His book received rave reviews and gushing

critical praise from such noted literary authorities as IBM,

Exxon, Proctor & Gamble, General Electric and their friend the

U.S. Army,

In Johnson’s story, four characters lived in a giant “maze.”

Two of these characters were mice. One of the mice was named

“Sniff.” The other mouse was named “Scurry.”

The “maze” was Johnson’s clumsy metaphor for the capitalist

marketplace, which he conflated with material life and “the way

things are” in the real world.

Two of the characters were “littlepeople,” no bigger than mice

but endowed with reasoning and language capacities of humans.

The first littleperson was named “Hem.” The second was named “Haw.”

Once upon a long time, the story went, “Sniff,” “Scurry,” “Hem,”

and “Haw” used to get their “cheese” – Johnson’s over-obvious

metaphor for jobs and incomes – at “Cheese Station C.” The

“cheese station” was Johnson’s over-obvious metaphor for the

workplace.

The mice and the “littlepeople” had come to rely on “Station C”

to provide with material security and a place in society. One

traumatic day, however, for reasons that were unclear, the

“cheese” ran out. There was no more “cheese.”

This was Johnson’s clumsy metaphor for corporate downsizing and

deindustrialization, and the disappearance of jobs.

When the “cheese” left, the mice instinctively knew what to do.

They went out into the maze and sniffed and scurried around for

– what else? – “new cheese”

They didn’t worry about other mice left behind or the mouse

community in general. They went out to get “cheese” for themselves.

The “littlepeople” responded in a more problematic and – to use

a favorite term from the New Age 1990s – dysfunctional way,

reflecting the fact that they possessed critical faculties and

moral sensibilities. Like many over-entitled humans, they

wasted emotional, intellectual, and physical energy feeling

angry at the disappearance of their “cheese.” They spent an

inordinate amount of time and effort discussing an irrelevant

and useless question: “Who Moved My Cheese?” They lost precious

vigor fretting over pointless moral abstractions related to the

irrelevant issue of who controlled and abused the “maze” (market).

They questioned authority and sought fairness, futile endeavors

that prevented them from getting to the real and only thing that

mattered: “finding new cheese.” They worried about the fact

that they had purchased homes and built families and communities

in the vicinity of “Cheese Station C.” They became concerned and

anxious over the meaning of lost jobs/cheese for littlepeople in

general.

They needed to be more like the mice.

They needed to abandon grievance, drop their crippling concern

with justice. They needed to get off their fat littlepeople

buts and realize that life and the maze aren’t fair. They

needed to realize that the marketplace entitles you to nothing

in the way of steady earnings, meaningful work, material

security, and community. They needed to get back into the maze

and find new jobs – any job, anywhere – as soon as possible for

themselves.

They needed to stop worrying about any littlepeople other than

themselves. They needed to stop wondering who runs and profits

most from “the maze.”

They needed to move on.

In Johnson’s fable, one of the littlepeople – “Haw” – gets it.

Unlike “Hem,” “Haw” learns to accept the great core “life”

lessons of classic bourgeois doctrine. He understands that it is

a great error to think that people have rights entitling to

anything more than the privilege to try their luck in the market.

It is a fundamental mistake, “Haw” realizes, to believe that

mere people have any kind of place in society and a right to

live or work with and around other people they care about in any

specific location.

“Haw” learns to drop the human rights fallacy and to get on with

“life.” He learns to stop thinking and feeling in accord with

obsolete “old beliefs” like social justice. He agrees to be more

like a mouse when life – the marketplace – hands him a raw deal.

He learns that resistance is futile. He learns to stop

questioning mysterious corporate power and to jump in accord

with the dictates of hidden capital.

He is cheerfully assimilated into the mindless, hyper-mobile

terror of the global, corporate-neoliberal Animal Farm.

He gets his sniffing and scurrying sneakers on, runs out into

the “maze,” and is rewarded with “new cheese.”

Along the way he leaves a number of messages posted the serve as

what Dr. Johnson calls “The Handwriting on the Wall” for his

recalcitrant throwback friend “Hem,” who just can’t let go of

the old entitlement beliefs.

The messages include the following:

“Movement in a New Direction Helps You Find New Cheese”

“The Quicker You Let Go of Old Cheese, the Sooner you find New

Cheese”

“It is Safer to Search for New Cheese Than to Remain in a

Cheeseless Situation”

“Old Beliefs Do Not Lead You to New Cheese”

“Change Happens: They Keep Moving the Cheese”

“Move With the Cheese and Enjoy It”

Republican Book Proposals for Fall 2006

Millions of grateful readers were enlightened by this marvelous

corporate-anthropomorphic fable, which helped “littlepeople”

stop questioning state-capitalist authority and get on with

personal and animal survival in a neoliberal era when people

realize that ideas of justice and community are no longer

helpful or relevant.

Doc Johnson helped grease the wheels of corporate globalization.

I think the Republicans should hire Johnson or some like-minded

Orwellian to produce a series of quick fables to help keep the

rabble in line during and after the upcoming mid-term elections.

Here are two possible titles and story lines they might wish to

pursue between now and the upcoming elections:

Who Sent My Son Off to Get Maimed in an Imperial Oil War?

Plot: two chipmunk families and two littlepeople families

experience the agony of their sons being blown up by angry

squirrels predictably resisting an illegal, imperial, and

murderous invasion of their oil-rich nation that was ordered by

big powerful Ratpeople named Dick, Bush, and Rummy.

The Ratpeople sent the sons and hundreds of thousands of other

troops off to the squirrels’ nation after some angry ferrets

hijacked some planes and flew them into buildings in the nation

run by the Ratpeople.

The Ratpeople told the chipmunks and the littlepeople that the

ferrets’ criminal action justified invading the squirrels’

nation. They did everything it could to blur the distinction

between squirrels and ferrets. For a while, many of the

chipmunks and littlepeople had a hard time distinguishing

squirrels from ferrets.

The Ratpeople also lied about the dangers posed to chipmunks and

littlepeople by the squirrels’ nation. It claimed that that the

squirrels possessed significant “weapons of mass destruction”

that it was going to share with the angry ferrets and use

against the littlepeople and the chipmunks.

Later, after all the lies were exposed and it was shown that

650,000 squirrels had needlessly died, the Ratpeople said it was

too late to call off the invasion. Anyone who wanted to end

this mass-murderous action, they said, was an

anti-littlepeople/anti-chipmunk coward who likes to “cut and run.”

Rather than become upset at the terrible injuries suffered by

their sons and the lies that caused them, the chipmunk families

mate to produce new soldiers that the Ratpeople can use in

future illegal wars.

One of the two littlepeople families had worked hard to secure a

lot of cheese in the maze. It agrees to send another one of its

sons in the quest to kill more squirrels and control their

oil. It is rewarded with a big tax-cut from the Ratpeople and

gets a mimeographed letter of thanks from the Rat named Rummy.

The note says “thank you for sacrificing your son’s legs in our

noble effort to free and control the squirrels.”

On the day that this family sent its second son off to kill and

free squirrels, it put up a number of large posters saying:

“It is Safer to Kill and Die than to Remain Alive and Not Kill”

“Change Happens: They Keep Switching the False Reasons for

Their Illegal War”

“Unjust Wars Happen and There’s Nothing You Can Do About it”

“The Quicker You Let Go of Peace and Freedom, the Sooner You

Will Find Peace and Freedom”

“Absurdity and Lies Happen: the Ratpeople Know What They Are Doing”

“Move With the Empire and Enjoy It”

“Old Beliefs Will Not Give Us Global Dominance”

“These Colors Don’t Run”

“Movement in a New Direction Means Fighting Islamic Squirrel and

Ferret Fascism in the Streets of Our Own Country”

“Freedom Isn’t Free”

“United We Stand”

“Support the Troops”

“Love is Hate; War is Peace”

“I am Chipmunk, Hear Me Chirp”

“Some People Think Too Much”

The other littlepeople family does not turn out so well. It

clings to the dysfunctional notion that its injured son was

maimed for no good reason other than to enact the deceptive,

vile, and vicious Ratpeople’s imperial agenda. It can’t let go

of the idea that their son deserved better from “their” government.

It fails to move forward and enjoy life’s opportunities because

of its obsession with the pointless question: “Who Sent My Son

to Get His Legs Blown Off in an Illegal, Imperial and Racist Oil

War?”

As the story ends, it appears that the second family is going to

lose its savings and sanity in pointless, self-destructive

efforts to stop the illegal and murderous occupation and to

unseat the nasty Ratpeople from power. It is crippled by its

attachment to the preposterous notion that it is somehow

entitled not to have its children maimed in criminal and

unnecessary wars.

Who Flooded and Abandoned My City?

Plot: two dog families and two littlepeople families experience

the agony of having their city flooded and losing their homes in

the wake of a tropical storm whose worst consequences could have

been prevented if the federal government run by super-wealthy

Ratpeople had paid adequate attention to maintaining levees and

to emergency preparedness. The city is called Old Metropolis.

The hurricane is called George.

After the city is flooded, the Ratpeople government is unable

and/or unwilling to rescue hundreds of thousands of trapped dogs

and littlepeople for days and days.

Part of the problem is that the governing Ratpeople gave other

wealthy Ratpeople huge tax cuts that reduced government’s

capacity to meet human needs. Another part is that the

governing Ratpeople believe that government has no legitimate

role to play other than fighting wars, repressing dissent, and

paying corporate welfare transfers to other rich and powerful

Ratpeople.

Rather than become upset at the terrible policy actions and

beliefs of the Ratpeople, the two dog families just shake their

mains and lick their wounds. They stay in a cheap federal

kennel for a couple of months and move on in search of a new

doggy treats.

They realize that their homes in Old Metropolis are gone and

that that is the way things go when big storms like Hurricane

George happen. Life isn’t fair.

They find new food, treats, and toys in another metropolis far

away. They are happy to live their new dog lives.

One of the littlepeople families takes its cue from the

contented canines. It leaves the old metropolis behind and never

looks back. A family therapist tells them it would be

self-defeating to spend time and emerging thinking about what

happened to them and other littlepeople and dogs and why.

Those sorts of questions, it learns, are beyond their legitimate

spheres of influence, concern, and understanding. It was

dysfunctional and draining, they determine, to reflect on such

matters.

The family members write notes to each other and to other

families saying:

“Change Happens: They Flood the Old Food Bowl and You Have To

Move On.”

“So What if They Didn’t Pay for Adequate Flood Protection?”

“People Are Not Entitled to Being Saved From Floods by Big

Government”

“Abandonment Happens: Go with the Flow”

“The Quicker You Let Go of Old Metropolis, the Sooner you find

New Metropolis”

“It is Safer to Sniff Out High Ground Than to Remain in a Wet

Situation”

“Old Beliefs Do Not Distance You From Floods”

“Too Bad For People Who Get Stuck in Floods and Don’t Move On:

It’s Their Problem”

“Move With the Dog-Bowl and Enjoy It”

“The Color of You Skin Has Nothing to Do With How Quickly You

Can Find Dry Ground”

“When They Make Floods Happen, You Have to Cut and Run”

“Take Care of Yourself: You Could Get Flooded Anytime”

“Bow Wow!”

“Many People are Too Moral and Intellectual”

“Dogs Know the Score”

“You Can Teach and Old Wet Dog New Tricks”

The other littlepeople family is less fortunate. It can’t stop

asking and demanding answers to difficult questions relating to

structures of Ratpeople power and authority. It focuses on

related abuses that led to the devastation of their homes and

city. It becomes suicidal in its determination to fight “those

dirty Republican Rats.” It wastes resources and energy in a

futile effort to rebuild its city and society so that nothing

like what happened after Hurricane George could ever occur again.

It wallows under the spell of the great fallacy that it is

entitled to government protection from social and ecological

disaster.

It is determined to destroy itself and drag others down into the

floodwaters of anger and despair. Consistent with its dangerous

and worn-out concept of social entitlement, it campaigns against

the current war party in power.

Its vote doesn’t mean anything, however, since the hurricane had

has cleared out so many Democratic dogs from its home state that

the winner-take-all electoral count goes to the Ratpeople party.

“Who Killed My Democracy?” and Other Future Titles

I don’t think the Republicans have time to produce more than

these two fables between now and the mid-term elections.

I also don’t want to leave the impression that the Democrats

wouldn’t do well to hire someone like Dr. Johnson to produce

some good Orwellian moral fables to cover their own moral and

policy records. Many Democratic political leaders have been

less than unwilling participants in the creation of the core

corporate-imperial policies that brought us Operation Iraqi

Freedom, Katrina, and other terrible developments that reflect

poorly on the health of the democratic ideal in the United States.

After the elections, American political and economic elites of

both parties might consider producing an extended series of

further and related victim-blaming spin-offs of Who Moved My Cheese?

Titles might include:

Who Bankrupted My Government?

Who Poisoned My Ecosphere?

Who Melted My Polar Ice Caps?

Who Turned My Country into the World’s Most Unequal and

Wealth-Top-Heavy State?

Who Extended My Working Hours to the Point Where I Could No

Longer Participate in Civic Culture and Maintain Nurturing Human

Relationships?

Who Cut My Health Care Benefits?

Who Killed National Health Care?

Who Killed My Democracy?

Who Turned My Country Into a Corporate Plutocracy?

Who Slashed and/or Capped My Wages?

Who Busted My Union?

Who Stole My Retirement?

Who Slandered My Social Security System?

Who Incarcerated My Neighborhood?

Who Made Prisons the Only Growth Industry in My Rural County?

Who Segregated My Metropolitan Area?

Who Re-segregated My Schools?

Who Gentrified My Community?

Who Under-funded My Schools?

Who Reduced My Disproportionately Nonwhite Public School’s

Curriculum to Mindless and Regimented Preparation for

Authoritarian Standardized Tests?

Who Priced Me Out of Higher Education?

Who Commodified My Culture?

Who Commercially Carpet-Bombed My Children?

Who Stole My Civil Liberties?

Who Stole My Civil Rights?

Who Negated My Efforts to Advance Racial Equality?

Who Manufactured and Sold Guns to My Spouse’s Murderer?

Who Crushed the Spiritual Health of My Nation By Investing More

Public Resources in “Defense” Than in Programs of Social Uplift?

Paul Street (paulstreet99@yahoo.com

) is the author of Empire and

Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO:

Paradigm, 2004), Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in

the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), and

Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, and Policy in Chicago

(Chicago, 2005) Street’s next book is Racial Oppression in the

Global Metropolis: A Living Black Chicago History (New York, 2007).

Friday, October 13, 2006

Tom Hayden

Click here to return to the browser-optimized

version of this page.

This article can be found on the web at

*http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060529/hayden*

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hawks for Withdrawal

by TOM HAYDEN

[posted online on May 17, 2006]

Democrats are slowly but surely uniting around a plan for military

withdrawal designed by the Center for American Progress

, a think tank

linked to Clinton-era Democrats and headed by former White House Chief

of Staff John Podesta.

Not all the party leaders agree. Senator Hillary Clinton continues to

posture as a military hawk. Senator Joe Biden wants to dilute and divide

Iraq into three sectarian enclaves. Neither Senator Charles Schumer nor

Representative Rahm Emanuel, who are charged with winning November's

elections, have a coherent message on Iraq, preferring themes like

"corruption" and "incompetence" to a straightforward alternative.

Despite the timidity and paralysis, however, Democrats on the campaign

trail increasingly know they must address the war. Polls show that Iraq

is dragging down ratings for the President and the Republican Party.

Democrats prefer to simply criticize the Administration's handling of

Iraq without discussing an exit plan of their own. This Democratic

approach worked brilliantly on Social Security, where Bush could find no

Democratic divisions to exploit. John Kerry's presidential campaign

tried the same approach on Iraq but discovered that Kerry was losing

both centrist and progressive voters. Today, the most common concern

voters have about the Democratic Party is whether it stands for anything.

Late last September, Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis first floated their

plan for "strategic redeployment

."

The two authors have credible--that is, conservative--credentials; Korb

was assistant defense secretary under Ronald Reagan, and Katulis is

associated with the "soft power" approach of promoting security through

civic-society initiatives abroad.

Their proposal is framed in hawkish rhetoric. By occupying Iraq, they

argue, the United States is increasing the global terrorist threat.

"Strategic redeployment" redefines military withdrawal not as a retreat

but as shifting US forces to new battlefields in Afghanistan, Africa and

Asia, while basing expeditionary forces in the Persian Gulf and Kuwait

in case postwithdrawal Iraq goes the way of South Vietnam.

The purpose of an Iraq peace, in their view, is to better prepare for

other wars on the frontiers of empire and, further, to "prevent an

outbreak of isolationism in the United States."

Leaving the framing rhetoric aside for the moment, the core propositions

of the CAP paper

point to a nearly complete US withdrawal in the next eighteen months.

They are to:

§ Immediately reduce our troop presence at a rate of 9,000 per month to

a total of 60,000 by the end of 2006, and to "virtually zero" by the end

of 2007.

§ Bring home all National Guard units this year.

§ Double the number of US troops in Afghanistan, place an Army division

in Kuwait, an expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf and an additional

1,000 special forces in Africa and Asia.

§ Shift the central paradigm of Iraq policy "from nation-building to

conflict resolution."

§ Appoint a presidential peace envoy to organize a Geneva conference

under United Nations auspices to "broker a deal" on security, militias

and the division of power and oil resources.

§ Obtain international funds for Iraqi reconstruction with a greater

emphasis placed on Iraqi jobs. Use the assistance to leverage

power-sharing agreements on provincial levels.

§ Make key policy shifts, declaring that the United States seeks no

permanent bases in Iraq and "intensifying its efforts to resolve the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Little is said in the document about Iran, except that until the United

States withdraws from Iraq, "it will not have the moral, political, and

military power to deal effectively with Iran's attempts to develop

nuclear weapons." Under cover of a multilateral Gulf Security

Initiative, Iran would be drawn into discussions with its neighbors

about its nuclear and security policies.

The paper reinforces the positions already taken by several leading

Democrats, including Representative John Murtha, the seventy-member Out

of Iraq Caucus and

Senators Kerry and Russ Feingold. Senator Dianne Feinstein was the

latest to endorse its content. The document is being circulated by

Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean as well.

Seeking the hypothetical center ground requires Korb and Katulis to

distance themselves from the peace movement, the only citizen force

actually working toward the goal of withdrawal. To do so, the authors

construct a phantom extreme of "immediate withdrawal," which they claim

will permanently destabilize Iraq and the Middle East (as if current US

policies have not already done so). As is common with Clinton-style

politics, a solid centrist reputation is built by lampooning the

progressive position.

All disrespect aside, there is a significant acceptance of the peace

movement's message buried in this centrist proposal. It is not a

proposal to keep US troops fighting until victory. There is a definite

withdrawal timeline proposed and defended--eighteen months, starting

immediately. Last year, peace groups collected tens of thousands of

petitions for an exit strategy including a US declaration that no

permanent bases are intended, a proposed paradigm shift to conflict

resolution, selection of a peace envoy and power-sharing talks with

Iraqi nationalist supporters of the insurgency. Kolb and Katulis

examined the proposal carefully, and these concepts seem to have been

incorporated into the document.

The proposal has weaknesses. First and foremost, it assumes that the new

Iraqi government and armed forces will be sustainable if the United

States begins to withdraw. There is no proposal for an interim

peacekeeping force from neutral countries, as many Iraqi insurgent

groups propose. There is no pledge to assure Iraqi sovereignty over

Iraqi oil. There is an assumption that military withdrawal will be

accompanied by a transition from "a highly centralized command to a

market-based economy." In short, the proposal envisions a kind of

devastated but safe post-Saddam Iraq integrated into the World Trade

Organization, one requiring no more combat deaths.

The current Iraqi Parliament is by no means a solid pillar of the US

occupation. Evidence is mounting that supporters of the Iraqi resistance

have established a stronghold for their views even within the

US-dominated "puppet" structure. Just this week, the Sunni vice

president of Iraq, Tarik al-Hashimy, approved talks between the

insurgents and American officials, but only on the condition that the

guerrillas not stop the fight without a "final deal." President Jalal

Talabani recently said he was negotiating secretly with seven insurgent

groups. A report from

reliable Iraqi sources indicates that a majority of the Parliament's 275

members will support a one-year withdrawal deadline if the question is

put before them. Faced with this quagmire and election-year pressures,

the option of peace, or the appearance of peace, seems to have been

forced on the Bush Administration.

Iraqi army claims that it can "stand up" as the Americans leave are

beyond credibility. If the US armed forces cannot end the insurgency,

why would Iraqi security forces with sectarian loyalties and inferior

weapons be any more effective? Could Shiite forces defeat the Mahdi Army

of Muqtada al-Sadr? Impossible. Would the modest Sunni security forces

suppress the Sunni insurgents? No. Could the Kurdish /peshmerga/ hold

off the whole Iraqi resistance? No. As in Vietnam, "Iraqization" could

become a fig leaf covering the US redeployment, but then only an

agreement with the multiple resistance groups could prevent their demise.

Many in the peace movement are entitled to be affronted over the hawkish

language of the Korb-Katulis strategy paper. But profound strategic

questions are emerging for the peace movement as a whole, as a result of

the movement's relative success. A planned US withdrawal is the majority

sentiment in America, Britain and Iraq. Politicians are adjusting their

positions accordingly, if only for the sake of survival. Political

efforts to isolate and smear the movement, as well as

counterintelligence operations, have failed. In perspective, the peace

movement has contributed to constructing these formidable obstacles to

continued war:

§ An antiwar constituency that affects close Congressional races this

year and presidential calculations for 2008.

§ The inability of military recruiters to achieve their quotas.

§ Domestic discontent over presidential lies, secrecy and wiretapping.

§ A budgetary crisis aggravated by the rising costs of the Iraq

occupation, including oil costs.

§ A moral stain on the US reputation around the world.

§ The steady erosion of the "coalition of the willing."

The peace movement should take some credit for this. And the peace

movement should keep the pressure on the pillars of the war policy, lest

public opinion backslide into divisions or despair. The peace movement

should also be planning now to make it virtually impossible for

presidential candidates to campaign successfully in 2008 without

committing to a speedy withdrawal from Iraq.

But there are understandable limits to what the peace movement can

accomplish in the short run, aside from forcefully expressing the

majority's desire that the United States withdraw. What are those

limits? The peace movement cannot force the US government to "withdraw

now," unless of course the insurgents suddenly overrun the Green Zone.

The peace movement cannot force the United States out of the Middle

East, though it can help pressure our government to reverse the Israeli

occupation, which our tax dollars subsidize. But with the public climate

soured over Iraq, the peace movement can mobilize opinion against

military intervention in places like Venezuela.

Movements generally have power against the system when they apply

pressure to the focal point of its weakness, in this case the dramatic

waste of lives and taxes spent on an unwinnable war conducted

undemocratically. The strong popular demand to set a withdrawal

timetable is becoming impossible for the elites to avoid. When and if

withdrawal is announced, the peace movement may face serious shrinkage

and internal confusion. The phase of negotiation tends to wear movements

down. The Paris peace talks of the Vietnam era took some seven years.

The Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process appears eternal. An

exception worth examining has been the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Besides remaining a formidable factor for politicians facing close

elections and military recruiters chasing down high school students, the

peace movement has a historic role to play every day in shaping the

public understanding of the lessons of Iraq. The lessons of this war

will "prepare the battlefield," to borrow a Pentagon term, for future

wars and political campaigns. It will determine whether the current

peace movement will be limited to a single important issue or be an

embryo of a broader progressive movement.

This is the sharpest potential difference between the peace movement and

the centrists. Both can and should collaborate on military withdrawal.

But the peace movement wants to prevent future wars, reverse the nuclear

weapons momentum, end domestic spying, divert resources to domestic

priorities and, just for starters, put an end to the pattern of "armed

privatization."

These are issues the centrists and most politicians will not touch

unless they are confronted with a future climate of opinion in which

real answers are demanded. Moderates wish the war to end so that the

"real" war against terrorism can be prosecuted more effectively.

Progressives should be making the case that the Iraq War is far from a

misguided adventure but rather the result of pursuing an anti-terrorism

approach that divides the world into camps of good and evil, just as

Vietnam was the logical outcome of cold war assumptions about a

monolithic Communist conspiracy.

The national security establishment already fears this legacy of Iraq. A

December 2005 /Foreign Affairs/ article fretted about an emergent "Iraq

Syndrome

the-iraq-syndrome.html>" that parallels the "Vietnam Syndrome" of

previous decades. Based apparently on a disease-control model, the "Iraq

Syndrome" will make Americans skeptical that having the largest defense

budget is "broadly beneficial." Other Vietnam-era themes critical of

empire have re-entered through the window of the Bush era; among them,

opposition to an imperial presidency or any notion of policing the world.

If the Vietnam era left any "syndrome" behind, it was a healthy

irreverence toward power, which shows up today in antiwar marches and

parents' opposition to military recruiting. The first President Bush

prematurely believed that the "Vietnam Syndrome" was defeated in the

Persian Gulf War, but it only remained dormant until the 2003 invasion

of Iraq.

Whether a Republican or Democrat finally withdraws American troops from

Iraq, it is crucial that public opinion remain angry and critical of the

deceptions that resulted in so many needless deaths. That is the final

victory, which only the peace movement can achieve by drawing more

Americans into questioning the nature of what Robert Lifton calls "the

superpower syndrome ."

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Kieth Olbermann

I am posting this because I have long wondered some of the same things. Keith has done a great deal to lead a change in newscasting.

*ZNet | Mainstream Media*

*Is Olbermann on Thin Ice?*

*by Jeff Cohen; October 07, 2006*

I fear for Keith Olbermann.

Like so many others who hunger for some journalistic

independence on TV news, I often marvel at Olbermann’s dogged

reporting and unique commentary. In a cable news environment of

conformity and conservatism, the MSNBC host takes on the Bush

administration for “demonizing dissent,” for abusing our

Constitutional traditions, for “taking cynical advantage of the

unanimity and love [following 9/11], and transmuting it into

fraudulent war and needless death.”

Only Olbermann talks about Team Bush “monstrously transforming

[9/11 unity] into fear and suspicion, and turning that fear into

the campaign slogan of three elections.” He was virtually alone

on TV news in seriously reporting on 2004 election

irregularities in Ohio, and in exploring the pre-Iraq war

Downing Street Memos indicating White House deception. In

recent months, his prime targets seem to have evolved from

softer ones like Bill O’Reilly to bigger game: Bush and his

minions.

It’s worth noting that strong criticism of an extremist

presidency hardly makes Olbermann a leftist. I remember him as

the whimsical sports guy on ESPN. I remember his first go-round

on MSNBC in 1998 when he could have sued his bosses for

repetitive stress disorder for having to host scores of Lewinsky

episodes on the road to Clinton’s impeachment – an impeachment

that may well have been impossible if not for the complicity of

TV news.

It’s obvious his bosses at MSNBC/NBC/GE never envisioned the

increasingly bold Olbermann of recent months. It’s likely that

Olbermann himself could not have foreseen his current role as

the lone voice of those who feel assaulted by a cable news

business dominated by the O’Reillys and Hannitys.

So why do I fear for Olbermann? Because I know his bosses. In

the runup to the Iraq war, I too worked for MSNBC – as an on-air

pundit and a senior producer on the primetime /Donahue/ show.

As I detail in my book /Cable News Confidential: My

Misadventures in Corporate Media

/

the Suits at MSNBC/NBC muzzled us and ultimately terminated us.

They feared independent journalism and serious dissent. They

smeared Bush critics, with MSNBC’s editor-in-chief actually

going on air – without evidence – to accuse Iraq WMD skeptic

Scott Ritter of being a paid agent of Saddam Hussein.

Olbermann has been gaining in audience ratings. That provides

him some security. But perhaps not enough.

When /Donahue/ was terminated three weeks before the Iraq

invasion, it was MSNBC’s most watched program. Canceling your

top-rated show doesn’t happen often, but it happened to

/Donahue/. Who knows what will happen to Olbermann?

With /Donahue/, management cared less about building up audience

than tamping down dissent. While independent outlets and blogs

were soaring in audience by questioning the rush to war, our

bosses imposed straightjackets on us that prevented similar

growth.

In the last months of /Donahue/, management gave us strict

orders: if we booked a guest who was antiwar, we needed two who

were pro-war. If we booked two guests on the left, we needed

three on the right. When a producer proposed booking Michael

Moore, she was told she’d need three rightwingers for

ideological balance.

Olbermann’s increasingly bold dissent has been occurring at a

time when Bush’s approval ratings are low and Bush’s war is in

shambles. That gives him some added security.

During /Donahue/’s tenure at MSNBC on the eve of war, Bush’s

popularity was high. And media conglomerates were particularly

concerned about not ruffling the White House at that moment – as

they were lobbying hard to get FCC rules changed to allow them

to grow still fatter.

The day after /Donahue/ was terminated, an internal NBC memo

leaked out; it said that Phil Donahue represents “a difficult

public face for NBC in a time of war.” Why? Because he insisted

on presenting administration critics. The memo worried that

/Donahue/ would become a “home for the liberal antiwar agenda at

the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every

opportunity.”

NBC’s solution then? Dump Phil, stifle dissent, brandish the flag.

NBC’s solution now? So far, Olbermann appears to be on more

solid footing – mostly because the political zeitgeist is much

changed from four years ago.

But MSNBC is still owned by GE’s conservative bosses, and

managed by NBC’s ever-timid executives. Olbermann knows this

reality as well as anyone; six months ago on C-SPAN, while

expressing confidence that good ratings would keep them at bay,

he remarked: “There are people I know in the hierarchy of NBC,

the company, and GE, the company, who do not like to see the

current presidential administration criticized at all.”

I’m pulling for Olbermann; I’m one of the multitudes who find

his commentaries online (perhaps more see them on the Web than

on TV) – and forward them far and wide.

But with each new broadside against the Bush administration, I

fear for his future. His best security is us, an active

citizenry. It’s media activism, organized heavily on the Net.

It’s media watchdogs like FAIR.org, MediaMatters.org and

MediaChannel.org. It’s the movement that resisted the FCC

changes in 2003, challenged Sinclair Broadcast propaganda before

the ’04 election, and recently exposed the 9/11 “hijacking” of

ABC by rightwing Clinton-bashers.

In the epilogue of /Cable News Confidential/, I laud this

movement: “My only regret was that such a potent movement had

not coalesced by 2002 – to flex its muscles against MSNBC brass

in defense of an unfettered /Donahue/.”

If Olbermann gets muzzled or terminated for political reasons,

it will be up to us to fight – not only for him, but for the

concept that without serious dissent, democracy is a sham.

* * *

Jeff Cohen http://www.jeffcohen.org/ is the founder of the media

watch group FAIR http://www.fair.org/index.php, and author of

/Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media/

http://www.cablenewsconfidential.com/.