Lux et Veritas

Anti-Semitism in Today's World

Sunday, January 14, 2007

The article in today's New York Times Magazine, "Does Abe Foxman Have an Anti-Anti-Semite Problem?", illuminates the confusion about persistent, world wide anti-semitism; the influence of the powerful Israeli lobby, AIPAC; the Middle East Problem; the actions of Israel as a nation-state; and the anti-semitic attitudes and behaviors of Syrian, Iran, Egypt, Palestinians, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League are dedicated to finding and outing anti-Semitic attidues and behaviors. Their political position and organizational goals come out of the Holocaust and the dedication to "never again". Foxman sees any opposition to Israel and its behavior as anti-Semitic and wrong. It doesn't matter that Israel doesn't always do the right thing. What matters is the preservation of a Jewish State. All negative attitudes and behavior toward Israel, including cross-border wars and violence by others, are viewed as a potential "holocaust". Foxman has spent time squashing the writing and lecturing of anyone that takes another and dissident line. This is Cheney-like behavior, that is, a designed campaign to quash dissident voices and to destroy reputations.

AIPAC goes beyond this and funds lobbying the Israeli position in Congress. They have also been exposed as sponsoring domestic spying on Israeli's behalf, to the point of "treasonous" acts in the name of protecting Israeli from US negative Israeli policies. Their behavior and self-denial of what is really going on in Israel and the rest of the Middle East promote continuing violence and war. This is Cheney like behavior, too.

To lump the Arab world unfairly, much of the Middle East refuses to recognize Israel, because they are not Muslims and have founded their country by grabbing what Muslims claim to be "their land". My perception, however superficial, is that in their minds, the Israelis are viewed by the so-called Arab world as no different than all of the occupiers that preceded them: the Brits, the Turks, the French, and so on. And now, the US has become regarded in the same light by the two Iraqi wars and the continuing expansion of oil interests and other commercial/political activities. It was they who divided the Middle East into countries by lines in the sand to protect their various interests, mostly oil and trading. That Israel's land claims are also based on real and biblical history only casts their objections into the extreme. Theirs is also Cheney-like behavior, that is, the refusal to recognize the impact of their policies and behavior, because their claims are the truth.

The real problem is that these participants have a complicated stake in keeping things very much the same. The US, the oil companies, members of Congress and all of the Middle East countries mentioned here, at bottom, prefer the way things are. That is because it allows them to act out their goals, whether they are long-standing tribal and religious grievances; the quest for political hegemony; the profits from nuclear proliferation and arms sales; and the control of oil. This is overlaid by the political history of these nation states, and that is the maintenance of corruption and political dominance of the ruling powers that benefit the few and enslave and engrage the many to suicidal violence. Nothing will change in the Middle East under these conditions and political stasis.

What equalizes all of the Middle East are the various acts of violence and wars on the part of Eqypt, Israel, the Palestinians, the Hamas, the Hezbollah, and the interference of Syria and Iran. Israel claims that their brand of violence is self-defensive, and in the practical sense it is when attacked. But its revenge acts of violence against the Palestinians, its illegal occupancy of their land, and its most recent war with the Hezbollah considered by most of its citizens as defensive (until it failed), nevertheless, contribute to the unending round of revenge, violence, and war. Further, the long-standing efforts to create a two nation state of the Israelis and the Palestinian are persistent failures, because of political policy, attitudes based on long-standing tribal grievances, and, on the part of the Palestinian Authority, outright corruption that indeed splits the country into victims and beneficiaries. It is this split that has enabled the Hamas to become politically viable.

History provides the lesson that the present refuses to acknowledge, and that is that political corruption, the absence of viable economies, violence, war, and the settling of long-standing grievances between countries, religions, and tribes always lead to more violence and continuing wars. Any nation that continues to repeat history in these ways, regardless of the temporary advantages - even that period is centuries - they provide is in self denial. And this is regardless of their claims to want peace and promote democracy but is still in the political hegemony mode. As the US has discovered but fails to acknowledge is the impact of the second Iraqi War and what that has contributed to distrust and the enlistment of more retrobutive violience. Condi Rice's recent peace-reviving trip to Israel was naive and a denial of things as they are that will probably never change without the willingness, mostly by the most powerful US, to engage in long-standing, failure accepting, incremental deal-making (quid pro quo of course), and unremitting international diplomacy.

Unremitting international diplomacy in my terms is not a series of dangerous quid pro quos, but the careful working out of positions that provide mutual benefit in the short term to match temporary conditions. In the long term, it also requires the surrender of acts of political hegemony in favor of mutually beneficial contributions to the creation of real economies in all nation states, eventually resulting in the sharing of wealth by all citizens. It appears to be impossible in the face of things as they are. But what is the long term benefit of continuing violence, revenge management, and fear?

Yes, Abe Foxman's fight against anti-semitism should continue because there is still much world-wide anti-semitism. Yes, Abe Foxman's squashing of any opposition to his and the US's unflinching support of Israel is both wrong and undemocratic. By its ignoring of world-wide competing interests, it contributes to violence and war in the Middle East.

The Arab-Muslim refusal to recognize and its desire to eliminate Israel are unrealistic and maintain war and violence there. Israel is a political reality and good sense and a desire for peace and prosperity would logically lead to its recognition by its enemies. But Israel is going to give up some important stuff in order to gain that recognition. The violent behavior and outright racist oppression of the Palestinians is contrary to the highest democratic goals of that Israeli nation-state. And Israel's nation-state status does not automatically give them the right to repeat history's lesson of the futility of violence and war, and, in the end, outright racism.

Anti-semitism is alive and well and it should be fought against, just as racism of all kinds should be eliminated. The power and sustaining of Judaism and the political and economic dominance of Jews world-wide has always been a threat to the dominant Christian and Muslim ruling classes. "They don't belong! And this analysis does not ignore the power of the claim by Christians and Muslims, too, that Jews are Christ killers. But anti-semtism, as defined by Abe Foxman, the American Jewish Community and other true believers, that is thought of as a precursor to a new holocaust is less real than the genocide that is going on in Africa, as one example. And what is more an issue in the Middle East than anti-semitism is the political and economic investment in keeping things the way they are, or adjusting them in such a way that the oil extractive industries, as one prominent set of actors, can proceed without serious security threats.

The China example, the creation of a capitalist state that continues to labor under the illusion of being communist, is a way for the Middle East to get around dealing directly with the complexities and violence I have described. What would happen if all of these waring nation states built real economies and trading relationships with each other and the rest of the commercial world? Would the sharing of wealth by everyone and supplanting of goals for revenge with economic ones eventually wash out current and past history and result in a sort of stability? Who knows? We might just gain the illusive peace if we tried it.

Who Runs The Country: "The Good Shepherd"

Sunday, December 24, 2006

I recommend highly the new DiNiro film, "The Good Shepherd". Not only for the superb directing and the exceptional acting, but also because it is a look into the longstanding and prevailing culture that underpins our national politics. It explains in very subtle ways why we are where we are in this country politically, regardless of party affiliations. But, in the case of the film, the why and the how the Republicans have prevailed. It's about how certain privileged people are trained to recognize and give loyalty to each other, feel entitled, and see as their mission the control of the political and the competitive industrial world.

"The Good Shepherd" starts examining the roots of creation of a so-called power elite. In the first scene Matt Damon is first humiliated and then, having proven his loyalty, then inducted into Yale's Skull and Bones. This is approximately 1934. In pre WW II days at Yale and later into the 50s and 60s, Skull and Bones invested its members with the goal of loyalty to each other first, then to America - their country! - and an allegiance to something mystical that is the spirit of Bones. As individuals and members of a group for life, they see their mission in life to lead America in every kind of endeavor. Every other parts of their lives, families no exception, are surrendered to this cause.

And so begins the tradition of recruiting Yale seniors and Bonesmen into the OSS and its successor Central Intelligence Agency. And it is the building of a cadre of elites who see the Jews, the Blacks, the Italians, and most Catholics as only visitors in their country - the elites country. These are Damon's parting words film.

Damon and his fellow Bonesmen and non-Yale colleagues learn all of the dirty tricks and they need for their continuing sense of distrust and paranoia, necessary to defeat the enemy and maintain the superiorty of the US against the Russian menace thereafter. It is ultimately about maintaining their superiority. What is also inculcated is the need to periodically santize the agency of disloyal agents, moles, and spies, all in the name of protecting America. Power and control are invested in this very small cadre. People are commodity.

"The Good Shepherd" is not about the very much hackneyed "conspiracy theory". It is about the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of people who have power, money, and influence so strong that they can use government and intimidate a large chunk of the population into believing that this is the order of things. References are very often made to "the powers that be", as if they are the final decision makers whose decisions may be contested on the one hand, but given great respect and status regardless of their negative impacts. "They" are up there and we are "down here".

The film's message is the we others are only (wage) servants to these powers. And fear of job loss and the status jobs in corporate settings proivide prevent any kind of sustained protest and disobedience. And now in a volitale economy with layoffs and outsourcing of everything out of the country for cheap wages, cheap land to build factories, and friendly government elites, fear, personal survival, and isolation become the prevailing and all-encompassing emotions. Loyalty to the order of things and the moral guidelines this order spreads are more important than cooperation and mutual respect. Whereas the middle class and unskilled workers were previously protected by unions, now there is no protection. 

While DiNiro is weaving this very shopisticated picture about how things got to be where they are, he is, by extension, commenting on the way this country is being run. In the first case, President George Bush is a Bonesman. His accolytes believe as he does that they know how to run the country and without very much attention given to how the citizens feel and express. He is waging a war he still believes can end in victory of some sort. He can underfund or choose not to implement programs he initiated. He can push for the privatization of Social Security, at great long term costs to everyone over a long period of time. It is because he believes that people should own their own lives by making choices and not leaving it up to government. This is the continuing fantasy of bootstrapping, which Bush never had to do.

The other message is a more universal one that has nothing to do with Yale, Skull and Bones, or rule by some self-sustaining elite. And that is the old saw that power, money, and status corrupt us ultimately, because we must maintain that position. Those who do not have it are regarded as lesser beings, as Matt Damon says, "visitors in our country".

Why we enoble wars, live with sprawl, take pollution for granted and discredit global warming, deny universal health care, displace experienced workers for cheaper substitutes, and confuse media sources of the news as truth can be largely explained by the natural "order of things" as I have described it. Change and improvement of conditions only follows the political need and profit to be derived to "the powers that be". And that is the maintenance of hegemony locally and world wide.

How Much Oil is Left

Monday, August 22, 2005

The Sunday August 21, 2005 New York Times Magazine's cover article, The Breaking Point, by Peter Maas, again raises the question of how much oil is left. I say again because the same question was posed over thirty years ago in the oil crisis of 1973/4, followed by little action to avoid another one. The article focuses solely on Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil resource country, and is based on interviews and information from Matthew Simmons, an oil consultant, Nansen Saleri, a senior Aramco official, Sadad -al Husseini, a former Aramco executive, and Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister. There is widespread disagreement on whether oil has peaked and what actions Saudi Arabia plans to increase oil production to 15 million barrels a day without distressing individual oil wells. According to Daniel Yergin,  who wrote a Pulitizer Prize winning book on petroleum, this is not the first time there has been a crisis; "It's more like the fifth".

Regardless of what the facts are according to various sources Maas quotes, what is revealed of significance is that no oil company or political state will reveal the true facts about what lies beneath the ground. Noone will tell, for fear of jolting the market and prices, e.g. making them lower, and to assure that the value of oil is steady.

There are two new factors that raise the question of peak oil. The first is the higher oil demands overall and, in particular, those by capitalist emerging China. The second is the financial feasibility of increasing refining capacity and extracting oil from formerly dead wells and oil shale. Little or no mention is made of developing profitable alternative energy resources.

I came away from reading the article feeling that I am just as ill-informed about the facts and a potential strategy to increase overall energy resources; and that the Maas' artcile was the usual New York Times Magazine's strategy of "getting in on the 'issue'" with a virtual "puff piece" that is also sensational. And confusing.

All of this information, misinformation, high-drama, and chicken-little doomsday scenario making results in growing fear and doubt that continues to support continued frightening increases in price of a barrel of oil. I do remember that the value of oil dropped at one point to $10 a barrel in the '90s when OPEC lost control and the market for a barrel of oil was devalued, lowering prices in 85 cents a gallon. No doubt things have changed, but exactly why in statistical and technological terms is still really unknown. At this point, it's mostly talk, incomplete statistics, and lots of fear, pushing the price of regular gas to almost $3 a gallon.

My question is: "Does anyone really want to find out: 1)the more proximate facts about oil supply;  2) the real reason why refining capacity has not increased to meet demand ("lack of feasibility" is not a certain answer); 3) how much additional profit the oil companies have made from this current crisis; and 4) why this Republican country subsidizes oil exploration with out a cent for both increasing refining capacity and initiating a serious program to develop feasible alternative energy resources right away to avert yet another and more series oil crisis?

The CBS Scandal and The Truth

Thursday, January 13, 2005

The scandal at CBS over the authentication of documents in connection with President Bush's service record in the National guard raises issues of "truth telling", beyond who did and didn't do the proper vetting of the story. There is no question that the reputations of Dan Rather, his producing staff, and CBS have suffered from this "expose". And the case should alert not only the rest of the media but everyone in public life about how or how not to convey the "whole truth and nothing but the truth".

There are other media personalities who pass themselves off as commentators on current events, but who have a difficult time with the truth and are, at the same time, politically biased. No, they don't have the same status as network TV news, but they send a message to the listeners which is not just another point of view. I offer Rush Limbaugh and "The O'Reilley Factor".

And then there is the subject of the CBS tragedy: President Bush. The panel whose report has elevated this to front page news never could ascertain whether the document was authentic or not or whether or not CBS and Dan Rather showed political bias. In all of the carrying on about CBS' transgression, the issue of Bush's service record still stands in question. It does enter the mind of the observer when the dots are connected that there seems to be some relationship between the lack of resolution of this issue and the muddying of CBS' news' reputation. Did the Bushees have a hand in it? And is this a warning to other media to restrain cricitism of his administration with the threat that the same intensity of inspection about news sources will be aimed at them?

More on Bush and the truth. Bush refuses to deal with the horrible facts of the Iraqi War, thus, to change tactics and timetables. Bush has raised social security to a national crisis when, in fact, the system will run out of money in 2042 and not earlier as he says in public. Instead of trying to convince the public that partial privatization will be the solution, with the trillion dollar cost not mentioned, why not just go ahead a pay back the loans the government has taken from the Social Security fund? Might not this be a cheaper approach? Did Bush really tell the whole truth about the costs and coverage of the senior citizen drug benefit? It seems not and the aging public is now paying more for medicare and, for some people, reducing the actual cash outlays for daily living expenses, including closing the gap between what Medicare will pay and actual soaring drug costs.

Without diminishing the seriousness of CBS's dysfunction, who has has the greater duty to tell the truth? I think it's the federal government and the President, who serve at the behest of the public that elected them. Not everyone listens to CBS news, but everyone is affected by what the Administration and President Bush say or don't say that should be the "the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth".

Democracy in the Middle East

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Two articles in today's Washington Post Outlook Section give the most lucid descriptions of alternative approaches to democracy in the Middle East. The military approach is dedicated to defeating Bolshevik-like terrorists in a "long war". This is the view of Gen. John Abazaid, who heads the Central Command comprising all of the middle east and beyond. His point is that we are in the first phases of the long war, which is to eliminate the violent Islamist extremist by killing a lot of them and to get the general population to understand the effects of their violence and reject them.

The other, non-military approach is to take bold diplomatic action to resolve problems in Iran, Iraq, and Israel. In Iraq, the author Jonetta Rose Barras, recommends turning over security to Iraqi forces, mobilizing the UN to provide a force to replace the US, and to engage other nations to take a bigger role in rebuilding the nation. This proposed hasty US withdrawl of US forces is based on the opinions of experts that as long as we are there,"things will get worse".

In Israel, Ms. Barras writes, the resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians can only be accomplished  by aggressive US intervention. This would entail US assistance in the building of a viable Palestinian state and economy, the removal of Israeli troops along with the freezing of settlements after abandoning the most recent ones, and the guarantee of security by US military monitors. However, both Israelis and Palestinians have to give up their mutual hatred and unwillingness to recognize each others' claim to legitimacy in that part of the world.

Neither of these approaches, however, has much to do with establishing Democracy. Both of them recognize the need to eliminate violence by opposing political forces, the provision of security according to strategies different from those followed today, and the need for the US to either sustain its military commitment over a very long period of time and/or to intervene in different diplomatic ways to settle long-standing conflicts. This does not lead to democracy so much as it does to stabilize political matters and substitute an international economy for internal violence. But it also requires the US to change its relations with its two most ardent middle eastern supporters, Saudi Arabia and Egypt who are far from providing models for democracy. That is to demand and support that both nations move in that direction.

Both of these strategies have their pluses and minuses. But they do not recognize the realities of the Bush Administration's preference for military solutions, its restraint in criticizing its oil-producing middle eastern non-democratic allies, and its wooing of the American Jewish community for financial support and votes by its continued and apparent uncritical support of Israel in its unchanged political and military dominance of the Palestinians. Once in a while, Bush chastises Sharon and recommends the refreshing of his Road Map. Finally, neither of these strategies deals with the historic and sustaining realities of the middle east: tribalism, religious conflict, violence as the tool of a Stalinist-like jihad, poverty, the dominance by a rich, ruling class or clerics, and the distrust of the west as conquerors and invaders. This recognition should not be construed as a rejection of different strategies to improve the situation in the middle east, so much as it must force us to temper our timetable for change and the US's unchanging goal to "democratize" the mostly Islamic world.

More on "Support Our Troops"

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Today's Washington Post Magazine article, "The Wounds of War" by Monte Reel, tells the heart rending story of seriously wounded soldier Alan Babin. The article also mentions the high wounded to dead ratios in the Iraqi war, largely because of body armor, excellent in the field medical treatment, and different military strategies. Irrespective of these battlefield positives, there are nearly 10,000 wounded soldiers who have to regain their health and lives to varying degrees. Pfc. Babin is both one of the lucky and unfortunate ones: lucky because he didn't loose limbs, brain function, and his eyesight. But he suffers incredible internal wounds that put in serious question his ability to fully regain his former life. Lucky also because of the persistent support and aggressive support by his family, in particular his mother, who demanded that every aspect of his suffering be attended to by Army medical providers and intervened themselves to change bandages and to make sure he breathes throughout the day and at night. His luck is not that of others who have been wounded, are not given the kind of care he has received, and who don't have supportive family who insist their care is the most important thing in their worlds.

One of my photographer friends, a two tour Vietnam veteran, informed me that his research into the government's support of soldiers from the French and Indian War up to WWII and since then revealed that the federal government lived up to its promises only once, WWII. The historic reminder of these facts was the Bonus Marches of WW I Veterans on the Mall and the command of Gen Douglas MacArthur to fire on them to prevent them from storming the Capitol. More vigilance on the part of Iraq War veterans by families, the military medical establishment, the Bush Administration and the media is necessary to prevent that extreme outcome from being repeated.

The Campaign Against Human Nature and Science

Sunday, December 12, 2004

For those of us who lived through and witnessed the human suffering from the "McCarthy Era", there is a certain kind of sickening familiarity about the campaign for "moral values". Frank Rich's Sunday New York Times article, "The Plot Against Sex in America", is less about the opposition to the new movie, "Kinsey" than it is about a Bush led movement against human nature and science.

The "moral values" movement has not only seized on an issue that gives them front page status, but it has set in motion a suppression of the history of human beings, free speech in the media; education; and the scientific process that strives to use new methods, e.g. stem cell research, that might be able to deal more effectively and more quickly with disabling diseases. Unlike many political campaigns, this one will roll us back to the 50s and earlier, when homosexuality was kept in the closet; birth control was a back-alley practice just like abortion was; the country was still debating creationism vs. evolution; sex education talked clinically about human reproduction but left out the facts about human sexuality; and when those who wanted to talk about, write books, produce movies and television shows, and conduct research into these issues were damned and "black listed". The pulling of the broadcast of "Saving Private Ryan" by 66 ABC affiliates because it contains the "foul language" that most current cinema employs liberally is just one of many examples what damage has already been done.

The same media corporations that tell us all about our darkest sides, the corporations that provide drugs and medical protocols to deal with AIDS, Parkinson's Disease, and sexually transmitted diseases are being threatened by the "morality movement" with the same kind of censure that was an every day practice when Senator McCarthy tried to snuff out free speech and rewrite history. But the real force behind this movement is seeking some kind of comfort that it believes existed before the truth about our human natures and the rise of science to deal with the human condition were common place. Of course, none of this coziness really existed, because the same moral leaders and the general population could not suppress their and others' human biology, sexual urges, and the pursuit of knowledge by others about these and other controversial subjects that has gone on since the first homosapiens.

What is also at risk in the larger scheme of things is the potential suppression of all uncomfortable or familiar ideas and facts about environmental problems, world and USA suffering from AIDS, poverty, aesthetics, eliminating the destructive facets of suburban sprawl, and universal health care. Why should we have to think twice before talking, writing, and the use of the media when the facts and science about the entire human condition have already been widely known and accepted over the last 50 years?

Bush in Canada: More of the Same

December 2, 2004

Kerry was right about his prediction that a second Bush term would be "more of the same". His address to Canadian officials was the clearest articulation about his goals for international cooperation. According to an article in today's Washington Post, the president pledged international consensus for three great goals: 1) "building effective multinational and multilateral institutions and supporting multi-lateral actions; 2) fighting terrorism; and 3) promoting democracy. On peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he retreated from previous statements regarding Israel's responsibilities to pull back from Gaza, saying peace in the region could be achieved by democratic reforms by the Palestinians. This and problems with South Korea and Iran can be solved through diplomacy he stated, rather than the sort of force employed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In other words, not only has Bush hardened his stance but he also clearly indicates a Pax Americana is what he will promote strongly in his second term, stated sotto voce. Western, Judeo-Christian, democratic values are the only terms for world peace. As before, this flies in the face of world realities: that the majority of the world's population is neither western nor Judeo-Christian and is more tribal and conflict driven to settle old scores than Bush can overcome or change by pronouncements of this kind. It is also notable that such a speech reflects none of the discussions between Canada and the US held prior to its delivery and speaks nothing about trade issues that were on the meeting's agenda. So, it's more Bush saying that US international cooperation is to achieve his goals.

It is more of the same for other reasons. Most prominent it is a case of flagrant self-denial of changing international realities: that his plans in Afghanistan and Iraq have backfired and stimulated more anti-western, anti-democratic sentiments by the Iraqi insurgents and the tribes and the Taliban in Afghanistan; that democracy is not their goal; and that no amount of effort to stage democratic elections will change the public who just want the US out. This on top of the decline of the dollar, the emergence of China as a world economic power, and the clearly delineated actions of major US companies to participate in international investment which confuses the use of trade balance statistics. If Bush has any inkling of any of this, he has not only refused to reveal it and, more troubling, he is sticking by first term policies which have not only created this mess but also will make the future worse and even less resemble the world his goals attempt to create.

Bush views himself as a war president. To those of us who lived through WW II as youth, the same kind of conditions that won that war and planted democracy in defeated countries do not exist today. Countries only agree to massive political change after their countries and economies are left in total ruin. But this is not the case in either Afghanistan or Iraq. At the same time there is the rise of mostly powerless new nuclear participants, e.g  North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran that can neutralize any Bush efforts at international democracy. They cannot deliver a nuclear weapon by conventional means, but they can sell the technology to international terrorists. Bush's war is against an elusive, non-uniformed group of impoverished, angry, and politically disenfranchised people who will continue to use violence to be heard and to get back at their many enemies. Bush's international cooperation program is received by countries who not only can't afford or are unwilling to commit mostly military resources, but also have local economic and political matters more important than supporting America's declining role in the world as the strongest economic, political, and moral leader in the world.

Bush does not seem able to connect the dots between his go-it-alone military interventions, the weakening of the US dollar by a shifting of economic power to China, and the participation in this change by US international businesses in economic outsourcing to new markets like China. His debt creation from declining taxes, mostly to the rich, and the moving of investment and production overseas have aided and abetted power shifts already underway before his first term. And as the Wall Street Journal reported today borrowing from other countries to feed the US economy at $1.8 billion today may decline as international investment in the US exceeds US investment overseas and the dollar continues to weaken.

As long as Bush continues to deny these realities, it will be much more of the same. 

The Nation's Mind Set, The Candidates' Mind Sets

Thursday, October 21, 2004

The conduct of the Iraqi War is the dominant issue of the presidential campaign. Accompanying that is the question of who is more qualified and committed to the successful management of the war/peace. All other domestic issues about employment here and outsourced overseas, health care, standard housing, and education are of secondary importance. As today's Washington Post reports. the importance of these issues is reflected also in local congressional campaigns. Even though the presidential candidates take very opposite positions on all of these issues, their political concentration is still on the conduct of the war/peace in Iraq and who is best to lead that situation. Even though Kerry's focus on the latter non-war issues is very strong and more specific than Bush's, nevertheless his presidency will still be focused on Iraq.

Lyndon Johnson, the president who made the war in Vietnam a war, nevertheless committed the nation to spend on both guns and "butter", his vast array of social and housing programs. Though his war administration was misguided and led to a vast tear in the nation, nevertheless he saw national domestic problems for what they were and still are, and he took action to reverse those negative condition. This commitment, for all of the Republican and Democrat rhetoric, is absent in this campaign.

Leadership of the war is the second issue Americans have been told by the candidates and the media is the other criterion by which they can judge who is more fit to be President. Kerry's qualifications for leadership are unknown and untested. But Bush's have already been made very clear. While the voting public has been influenced to question his conduct of the war, nevertheless his simple agressive, single-minded (and stubborn) approach has identified him as the superior candidate and, like a football coach who hassles his team toward victory, the best kind of leader. His total commitment to "end this war" recognized as mis-guided, that being the defeat of world-wide terrorism, is very obviously rigid and self-deceiving ("The emperor has no clothes"), also influenced by his belief that God has entrusted him with conduct of "the war on terrorism". This is in the face of continuing violence there. His inflexibility to recognize mistakes and changes course, in fact, should be the criteria of his leadership. But a majority of the American public, nevertheless, though increasingly fed up with the handling of Iraq, in the end support his overall qualities of leadership. That perception alone may be the one that most influences who wins on November 2.

America's pursuit of spreading democracy world-wide is inconsistent, applied only to select countries who are not strong allies. And, for the most part, is a failure. Examples are Afghanistan, still ruled by tribal chiefs and the remnants of the Taliban; Rawanda where violence continues; Haiti where corruption is maintained and the poor are still its primary victims; Yugoslavia where enthic conflict supersedes efforts at democratic government; and, of course Iraq. And then there is genocide in Sudan. What do we do about that?

Our stubbornness as a nation to take into account which nations want and are politically committed to democracy never seems to be a consideration in the disposition of "peace keeping forces". These interventions are more a case of national pride, the reputation of the UN, and belief by lots of Americans that war like activities of this kind are needed to prove the superiority and dominance of America. Domestic issues which are local reflections of the success of democracy, the constitution, and its body of laws supporting equality are more in the background.

A new national identity about America's place and status in the world needs to be developed. And it cannot be the current one of demonstrating its superiority by acts of military intervention. It is clear that the current identity breeds more terrorism and international anger than it breeds democracy.

There are several goals that should form the basis of our new identity. One of them is to promote international peace. That is considered by "Bush" as soft, i.e. not "aggressive". This includes the dismantling of Soviet nuclear war heads and the monitoring in the commercial sales of nuclear materials and machinery to hostile groups and nations. Second is the active intervention in the negotiation of peace in places where conflict has been long standing: e.g. Israel, India/Pakistan, Chechnia, warring African nations, etc. That means more than setting policy. It means setting up a system of monitoring the progress of those negotiations, as opposed to taking sides, such as in Israel, where Sharon's word is seen by the US as more substantial then Arrafat's.

One of the great peace keeping strategies is the spread of capitalism. Look how much the stubbornly Chinese communist leadership has been distracted from maintaining pure communism to matters of its growing role in global capitalism. The downsides of this tactic are that China, in particular, is threatened with the same kind of international capitalist occupation that preceded WW II, and one of the political conditions that strengthened communism there. The Americanization of countries with resources and capitalist mind set is almost as damaging as military intervention, though more citizens gain more from the former than the latter. A lot of capitalististic success depends on how the new wealth is distributed to the general population. America's role is both to promote and monitor the spread of capitalism and to prevent international capitalist ownership of other countries and stop the associated corruption of local officials.

All of this requires a major American mindset change. The first is to destroy the distinction between liberal vs. conservative points of view. Liberalism has been twisted to mean big government, softness on crime, and creating a net under the less privileged and unproductive population. Conservativism means support of the old values of boot strapping, smaller government that supports the wealth creators, and that secretly disdains the poor and the under achievers. The benefits of spreading equity here at home and elsewhere in the world is the best antidote to terrorism, to which both positions should be merged to promote.

It is also important for the US to examine which tactics are successful in controlling, not spawing terrorism. So far, military intervention has not accomplished that, and, at the same time, terrorist cells are garnering money, supporters, and weaponry. Good intelligence information that is shared with all security agencies here and abroad, the establishment of a well directed international campaign to root out terrorists and their financiers and suppliers seem to be more effective approaches, though very much considered secondary to the waging of war, the big act everyone can see.

The American mind set should be and could be directed at identifying and solving domestic and international problems and devising a system of self-monitoring where policy changes are needed as new conditions emerge. But the drum and chest beating about America's place in the world must end for any of these changes to take root.

A Different Mind Set

August 31, 2004

Chalmlers Roberts' essay on the front page of Saturday's (August 28, 2004) Washington Post portrays a man who has struggled and been successful in reaching an independent sense of himself free of fear. Battling the vicissitudes of old age, 93, the recent loss of his wife of 60 years, and increasing problem with heart disease and a bad back, he has decided he will live his life to the end, death. No surgeries that might end with death on the operating table or leave him incapacitated; a gathering together of his family with whom he has a positive and continuous relationship; and an appreciation of his achievements and assets.

Here is a man who uses judgment instread of reaction. Here is a man who has looked at his lapses of commitment to his goals in life. A man who can look at his history and weigh the negatives and the positives. A man can look at death without the fear of hell as his worst option and do it with a minimum of fear.

Here was an essay worth remembering that might have been a part of biblical history, but is just the tale of a living man. Here are thoughts that most of us should take into consideration when we compete with one another for money, power, and status and who measure ourselves by material acquisition and successful competition with others. It is also a reminder to pay attention to the world around us and the decisions that have been made in the name of national security, patriotism, and false claims of leadership.