As the healthcare debate rages on, it seems more and more evident that the president, the once idealistic and capable darling of the progressive movement, is succumbing to the regressive trends of governing the United States. I have, of course, been following developments in the health-care debate with some interest. The most recent wave-making exchange to make headlines is over the loudmouthed Republican Congressman from South Carolina who yelled “you lie!” during Obama’s speech to the two houses of congress.
The trouble isn’t the heckling. Wilson is probably a racist (after all, he did sponsor a bill to let the confederate flag fly of the the South Carolinian capitol alongside the stars and stripes), but I don’t believe that he was trying to put the “uppity black man back in his place.” Whatever racism he is guilty of just freed him of the restraints that might have helped a non-bigot observe decorum. Moreover, he didn’t even believe that the president was actually lying about the illegal provisions. He later qualified his statement by saying that he felt the provisions in the bill “lack enforcement.” Apparently, its not enough to ban illegals from participating; we need to place a special provision in the bill to euthanize any who happen to show up at hospitals. No, Wilson and Wilsonians like him are driven by corporate graft, are lacking in reason, and in emotional self-control.
Nevertheless, people like Congressman Wilson are the reason why the president is “going soft” on the public option, and it’s tragic. These men in our own government who are willing to take gross liberties with the facts in exchange for a few seconds of fame, or toss out decorum and civility to win the hearts of extremists who already favor their party.
So what is Wilson’s intellectual position? It’s revealed by where he gets his information. Wilson gave an interview in which he claimed that healthcare reform would kill 1.6 million jobs, according to the National Federation for Independent Business - one of the largest business lobbies in the country, and an organization that represents the interests of the healthcare industry. Now we know who will be is underwriting Congressman Wilson’s campaigns in the future. Moreover Congressman Wilson is part of this cabal of American Rightists who seek to stop Obama lest he force their idiot children to get an education that doesn’t involve the rapture as a solution to global warming. So armed with this corporate-taylored statistical wizardry and his some anti-intellectual, evangelical street cred, Wilson is able to lie with a unique combination of false credibility and ignorance of his own falsehoods. Everyone is satisfied with the outcome, and Wilson didn’t actually have to learn anything about government!
The fact is the public option has survived despite its lack of financial support from big business because it is a good idea. All you need though, is a few rednecks, a national media that loves the show, and enough people that don’t have the strength of character to stand up for the future to make something that has genuine public support look undesirable. This unholy alliance between big business and the fundamentalist anti-intellectual movement is ruining the country. I don’t say that to be over the top - I say it because it’s true. Men like congressman Wilson don’t know what socialism is - they’ve never read Marx or Goldman; but they can use this language to comfortably pander to a base that is, frankly, insane. Moreover, they can make a huge fortune in corporate kickbacks (in the name of free speech) and the promise of a think-tank job, writing policy for them when he’s finished in Congress.
Wilson is not alone. He is just one man who is a symptom of a much wider disease. Men and women who refuse to believe that there is any need to fix anything in the US - not because there is nothing to fix, but because they can’t look facts in the face, and would rather scream stories about Obama’s vote gathering SS or make fake Kenyan birth certificates. Including these people in a serious public debate is frankly insane.
So yes, I am angry with the democratic party and with Obama for pandering to these people. Treating them seriously is a mistake. They have nothing constructive to add to the debate. They don’t even understand the need for the debate. They are dangerous because the majority of thoughtful people in the United States are allowing them to distract us from the things that really matter. It’s time to get back on track and fix this country before it collapses under the burden of our own foolishness.
The endless swirl of words and ideas that orbit the issue of North Korea consistently fail to give either policy makers or laymen any sense of how to make progress. We are always told to examine the issue from the perspective of the North Korean leadership. However, what is consistently misrepresented is exactly where the North korean leadership gets that perspective from. Experts don’t know much about North Korea, and they mask that ignorance under a vast store of historical precedents that don’t exactly add to a coherent foreign policy.
North Korea faces a very unique set of problems, and is unlike any regime in history. It is natural to compare it to Stalinist states like East Germany or Romania under Ceausescu. These closed societies, based nominally on the political system invented by Lenin and Stalin, and inspired by the writings of Karl Marx were ostensibly international and the promise of material improvement that Communist ideology was intended to promote. When this improvement failed to manifest and the undeniable wealth of the western world became clear, the systems lost their basic source of legitimacy: the idea that things were getting better. Communism came apart in Europe because it was unable to make good on its promises.
Enter North Korea. Like the states of Eastern Europe, North Korea used the appellation “communist” to describe its political and economic system. To some extent, there is no denying that an effort has been made to communize certain elements of their society. However, given the absence of a national program to collectivize agriculture (a staple of most communist regimes), and the state’s encouragement of private markets in the countryside, the genuineness of the DPRK’s ideological commitment is dubious at best. North Korea is promising something else to its people, and it isn’t economic progress and equality for all.
Instead, we might do better to understand North Korea as a closed nationalist/fascist state dedicated to a unique ideological and racial identity - one that is applicable only to their special circumstances. The North Korean leadership has worked very hard to paint itself as the defenders of pure Korean-ness. South Korea, they would argue has been corrupted by outside influences. Instead theirs is a system that takes it’s cue from a highly volatile history, and a sense of helplessness at the hands of outside forces. The fragility of their self-perception helps to keep them as closed a society as they are. The South isn’t free. They have become corrupted. They yearn to be more Korean. North Korea believes itself to be the last bastion of the real Korean identity.
One major problem exists for North Korea. The existence of South Korea. South Korea is bigger, far wealthier, and more militarily sophisticated than the North, and North Korea’s leadership and population knows it. The image of the South’s government as little more than a puppet of the west, and its population as pinned under the imperialist heel of the west is losing traction. The development of North Korea’s “military first” policy is the last gasp of a political system seeking to justify its existence to its own people. This is why North Korea proceeds with its nuclear program regardless of the threats of further isolation from the international community, and invests ever more in the military despite the horrendous cost to her people. Every “victory” no matter how narrow, gives the leadership some small success to help the appearance of legitimacy at home. Apparently this strategy is working, as there is little evidence of serious internal unrest in the North despite the ongoing crisis in the production of food and other essentials.
I don’t think that North Korea expects to win their 60 year struggle with the South. But as more and more of its ideological foundation falls apart,it is likely to become increasingly erratic and unstable. Worse, the nation is now facing a leadership crisis as Kim Jong Il becomes increasingly sickly and unable to head up his government. The system has demonstrated that it is economically unsustainable. How much longer can it maintain itself on increasingly rocky ideological footing? In other words, the DPRK is under incredible internal pressure to deal with its problems. The reactions of western governments thousands of miles away aren’t their most pressing concern. The much harder question for the rest of the world to answer is how best to approach North Korea in order to keep this situation from boiling over into a wider war. So long as we continue to make the mistake that the North is either approaching the world as a Communist state, and that internal pressures are somehow less important than external, there is no way we can understand what is happening.
There are moments when history seems to unfold very quickly, and it seems like the wrong decision will poison the well of the future for not just ourselves, but for our children. Today, one of these moments is unfolding in Iran. A new generation is beginning to rally in the streets of Iran’s major cities. These young people are crying out for acknowledgement and for freedom. They are rallying against a system of electoral politics that is rotten to the core, and need the help of the international community if they are to succeed. They are struggling against their government’s ruling clique, and trying to bring change - on some level - to their homeland. We in the United States can only watch, for fear that our meddling might again poison the well of our peoples’ futures.
No one would never dare suggest that there is anything fair and free about the election that just took place in Iran. The better candidate may have been cheated, but let there be no illusions in your mind - Mr. Moussavi was chosen by Iran’s ruling council as an acceptably safe opposition candidate. He would not have changed, nor had the ability to change anything in Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. It is no small shock then, that such a blatant piece of electoral fraud within this political pantomime unleashed nothing short of an overflowing well of revolutionary spirit.
In Iranian politics, everything is fixed by the ruling council of Mullahs. They discussed the election, the candidates, the potential turnout, the opinion polls that all dictatorships periodically run, and took a gamble. However they didn’t plan the protests that have swept the country. They didn’t plan on Mr. Moussavi taking to the streets and encouraging his supporters to organize against the government. No, in an political climate like Iran’s, what we are looking at is a power struggle - two distinct factions are fighting over control of the country.
Many thinkers in foreign policy are debating what the response of the United States should be. While one might be temped to say that Obama has been somewhat timid on this issue, the bitter history between Iran and the United States leaves the bigger question of what CAN the United States do? In 1953, out of a combination of misguided neo-imperialism and anti-communism, American agents with the CIA helped to overthrow the corrupt, but popularly elected Mossadeq government in Iran. This was the moment that defined the future of relations between the two countries. Through this act, the Americans helped to bring to life such virulent, fundamentalist, and nationalistic feelings, that when the 1979 revolution broke out, one could argue that it was not domestic at all. Instead, it was a revolution against America and the world we were trying to create vis a vis the Soviets. It was anger over stolen freedoms. It was the wounded pride of a great people.
Because of the importance of this event, the government of Iran identifies itself in part through its staunch opposition to the west. If the United States were to offer official support to the revolutionary faction, the established powers in the Iranian military and civil society would suddenly be given a powerful impetus to resist the formation of a new government. It would only serve to strengthen the crackdown. Because of the poisoned well of Iran and America’s shared history, we can offer nothing to these young patriots that wouldn’t hurt them in the end by empowering reactionaries within Iran. This is why I believe Obama has been so tight lipped about these incredible events.
The government that the US so thoughtlessly brought down in 1953 was one of the first indigenous democratic regimes in the Middle East. It may have been imperfect, but a terrible injustice was done when the American government colluded in its downfall. However, it shows us that there is a spirit of freedom alive in the souls of the Iranian people. Once again, the people of Iran are taking to the street. And once again, the beauty of the Iranian movement of 2009 is that it is wholly indigenous. This moment belongs to the Iranian people.
Know that we’re with you in spirit.
Consider this an apology for having not written anything in so long.Following the election I have been feeling something like Beckett’s Estragon.However, the recent explosion of violence in the Middle East should serve as a reminder to us all that the task confronting the incoming Obama administration is a daunting one.I realize that this is a rather obvious statement to make, but I point it out because I, like many people, have felt as though I am living in at state of political limbo.Waiting for Obama has trumped my attention as much as the election drama that preceded it.Never mind that I have been kinda busy.
Regardless of all these distractions, I would like to talk a little about the latest confrontation in the Middle East, and about modern warfare in general, and more specifically about civilian deaths.Civilians die in wars – whether or not they asked to be involved.This has been true since the beginning of time, and as long as men have committed themselves to the act of killing.Modern warfare is different though, because of two relatively recent phenomena.The first of these is obvious: the tremendous destructive potential of modern weaponry.The second involves the increasing concentration of populations into cities.
When Napoleon launched his assault on Europe which so horrified men of his age, the principal actions that affected civilians were assaults upon fortress cities and the scavenging of foodstuffs in the areas that the armies marched through.While these effects were tragic, the damage to the populations were surprisingly negligible when one considers the scale of the conflict.Here was a war that engulfed every European empire and raged across the whole of the continent.Armies met one another in massive set piece battles involving hundreds of thousands of men on both sides, and the death rates were catastrophic; death rates of soldiers that is.
Civilian deaths during the Napoleonic War are difficult to estimate, and the data is far more reliable for the soldiers.The best guess seems to be right around a million people killed throughout the continent and in the various overseas colonies.Compare that number to the estimated 2.5 million military dead and you start to understand that in Napoleon’s day, war was fought by soldiers locked in an effort to kill each other for the honor and aims of their leadership.Today the leaders remain, but the targets have changed.
The trend begins its slide in WW1:9.7 million military deaths vs. 6.8 million civilian.It is WWII wherein the density of cities and the military power to attack them finally shows us the beginnings of a new trend: 25 million military casualties vs. 41.7 million civilians.
When we move into the era of brush wars – beginning with US actions in Korea, its seems that the operational decision was that the wars of the future will ultimately be against people, and not their states.This was true on both sides of the conflict, but nothing illustrates this operational change more than the waging of unrestrained aerial warfare against population centers in order to not just undo the industrial base, but to cripple food production, medical services, and potential reinforcements.This was total mechanized warfare waged entirely against civilian centers; the latest way of attacking supply lines.In Korea, this tactic was so effective, that reliable numbers for civilian deaths don’t seem to actually exist, but the number of US deaths was right around 36,500.
These wildly unbalanced statistics only get more extreme as the century plodded onwards.In Vietnam, most research suggest that while 58,000 US troops dies, some 4 million Vietnamese civilians were killed.During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet losses stand at about 14,000 with an estimated 1.1 million Afghan civilians killed.In Iraq, a military force of some 150,000 has lost about 4,200 men and overseen some 95,000 civilian dead – a figure with doesn’t include injuries (which might be worse in some ways).In light of the death ratio, Iraq has been one of the worst wars for an invading army in modern history.
None of this is new information.While war is inefficient and wasteful, it remains an important element of statecraft and a means by which a nation’s leadership pursues its political objectives.However, modern warfare simply doesn’t work.It ultimately amounts to the mass slaughter of civilians, and increasingly disproportionate responses by countries capable of projecting their might.This is turn helps to even further blur line between regular and so-called irregular fighting.
What is needed is a titanic shift in the way that warfare is conducted:A new Blitzkrieg model; a way to leverage military resources without the massive and needless slaughter of civilian populations.It’s a hard road and it requires making some sacrifices – first and foremost the relative ease with those who are capable of deciding to go to war.
Until September 11th, the United States did not believe that irregular fighters were capable of projecting their might to our shores – despite the repeated experiences of countries around the world.We could confidently fight them with ease at home and assume that they wouldn’t come here.We have since learned that this is not the case, and that there is no military solution to this question – at least not one that is acceptable for any civilized person with even the slightest sense of human decency.So when Israel moves a massive retaliatory force against the Gaza strip, no matter how justified its cause may be; the thousands of people, who are simply trying to live their lives, are still dead.Neither they, nor us can win the fight against extremism this way.They will not love you for killing their families and children – nor will they forget as quickly as you the broken houses and ruined playgrounds.Wars will be better when all sides really understand what is at stake.
Barack Obama has won the election. I want to say that again, not because you need to be told, but because I genuinely feel good about saying it: Barack Obama has won the election.This is a matter of great pride for me.Never in my life have I been able to take such a deep interest and even pride in the words and deeds of a candidate for public office.I found myself genuinely inspired by his ideas and his mannerisms because something in him made me want to believe that transformation was possible. Obama’s appeal was intellectual to be sure, but I cannot pretend that much of what he did for me was emotional.He managed, in a way no politician I’ve ever known in my lifetime has done, to connect the rational solutions that the country needed to the emotional energy of the pulpit.
Mr. Obama possesses that rarest of qualities that enables him to stay calm and to fairly and firmly give problems their deserved level severity. Because of the crises he faces, it is in light of this quality that I heave a sigh of relief, but with a sense of trepidation on the eve of his victory.The challenges that now face Obama are so daunting, that I find it difficult to believe that the political physics of our epoch will enable him to really accomplish what he should and must.However, he is a man who has shown his ability to stay calm and focused regardless of the storms around him. He has shown that he has that special character to face down problems without flinching, and to stay consistent and calm in the face of them.We have made, in my opinion, not only the correct choice, but the only one really left to us. John McCain simply could not have shouldered such a burden with the same grace and elegance.
In other words, I am happy with this election. My own political identity was forged during the campaign of Al Gore, a man for whom I still have considerable respect. He too, I believed to be a transformational figure in our politics, who thought that government had a job to do, and that his job was to help it to do that job. His mistake was in proving unable to communicate that vision to the people.As a result, the election went to to the forces that believe government should be locked into a vice that serves a little use to most people as possible. Mr. Obama has succeeded where Mr. Gore could not.He has managed to make the technical problems of government tangible things to the people, and has in some sense, redefined how many Americans envision the duty of the big machine we name “government.”
Ultimately, Mr. Obama represents a revolution in our politics. He may be; and I can only hope this proves true, be representative of a new progressive era. An era of thinkers and politicians who do not think only of party, but of progress and results. I want Obama to usher in an era in which our politicians understand government to be an incredibly powerful tool, and that the role of politicians should be to strengthen and improve, not weaken and belittle that apparatus. Only a change in the tone of leadership can do that. This goes to the core of what Mr. Obama represents.Do I expect miracles?Do I expect everything to get better? No.I expect that people will change their thinking – the one thing that a successful revolution must do, and the one thing that most fail to accomplish.
I have high hopes for our small revolution though. We have chosen this.Finally, at long last, we have chosen to make a change. This election has none of the close calls of the previous. Nor has it been seemingly stolen by political machines that have tried to undermine the system for their own gain.It was not close.This election is the first in eight years that we actually can say, positively, reliably, that we own. Since I reached the age of consent and earned the right to vote, both of the presidential elections I voted in gave victory by a razor’s edge, and only with considerable controversy.This is the first time that I have seen a president in power who actually possesses the blessing of the majority of the people. We have also seen a return to centrism and progressivism – what might be coined the notion of a valueless government – that lost idea that government’s business isn’t your business, but should instead enable you to do and act and to thrive.
Already, the repercussions of this election can be seen. By way of evidence, allow me to share an anecdote:
I live in South Korea, and I work in a small office building in a part of the city called Gangnam-gu, know mostly for businessmen and plastic surgery clinics. In my building, an old Korean woman works, cleaning the floors and bathrooms. Most of my coworkers ignore her, but I blame that on a carefully cultivated social hierarchy here that insists that it is only proper to disregard her. As an outsider, and I think, because I am an American, I have made it my business to try and practice my Korean with her that we might share something of our experiences here together. Today, she came past my desk, wielding her mop, and scrubbing away in her yellow gloves. There, she paused next to me, wiped the sweat from her brow, and looked across at me.
In Korean she says to me, “Who is winning the election?”
I reply, in my poor Korean, “It’s finished. Obama has won the election.”
She smiles at me so broadly that it makes my heart rise into my throat, sighs with relief, and says, “that’s wonderful.”
It is wonderful.America, you have done the right thing today.