Blowout, Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, Rachel Maddow

To show the seriousness of Rachel's book, let me offer an early quote from the introduction: “... the oil and gas industry is essentially a big casino that can produce both power and great gobs of cash, often with little regard for merit. That equation invites gangsterism, extortion, thuggery and the sorts of folks who enjoy these hobbies. Its practitioners have been lumbering across the globe of late, causing mindless damage and laying the ground for the global catastrophe that is the climate crisis but also reordering short-term geopolitics in a strong-but-dumb survival contest that renders everything we think of as politics as just theater. It's worth understanding why. And why now.”

A brief history of oil, which is basically Rockefeller's Standard Oil (eventually Exxon), it's cheating shenanigans and finally a court-ordered breakup, which actually benefitted the man. To include the mad and failed use of an atomic bomb to coax along some oil exploration along the way, the book gives what at first seems a standard Chamber of Commerce portrait of the young, daring entrepreneurs that brought us fracking. It doesn't take long to get to the gist though, the corruption of Oklahoma by oil drilling and then fracking. Oklahoma city has a nice visual to show who owns it. Oil rigs sit prettily pumping on the State House lawn. It took 25,000 angry Oklahomans showing up at that State House, threatening to turn the state blue, before the bought-and-paid for republicans administration agreed to tax the oil industry such that schools could operate, teacher salaries and safer schools, highways could be repaired and the “general welfare” might have a small voice in Oklahoma affairs, heretofore excluded for many years.

The industry's overseas operations were a tad more controllable, what with one-stop-shopping dictators to pay off and all those pesty unions and demonstrators and malnourished population set aside, out of sight, burdened with the usual torture and death squads. New Guinea is Rachel's prime example of that though Russia isn't far off. The explosive story of Putin's rise to power is laid out. Seems he was the KGB/chief gangster running St. Petersburg when a Moscow prosecutor went after the eminently corrupt President Yeltsin and family. Putin intervened, faking a sex video claiming to star that very same prosecutor, who then was forced to resign. In gratitude Yeltsin turned it all over to Putin. And here we are. Putin chose, instead of building a nice capitalist-safe competitive state, to roll up all competitors, the oligarchs Yeltsin left, and install incompetent business but handily ruthless cohorts in their place, those who wouldn't demonstrate proper ball-playing behavior. A case in point: Mickail Khodorkovsky won control of Russia's chief oil company, Yukos. He was highly competent, making it a force and, his mistake, feeling he could challenge Putin. For this he suffered Putin's slogan, “For my friends, everything, for my enemies, the Law.” Nine years in prison and stripped of his wealth Khodorkovsky became irrelevant except as a lesson to the other oligarchs. Probably the key to Putin's now being the richest man on earth. His treachery and betrayal was common knowledge though less known were his extra money-power values, the ambitious dream of returning Russia to glory. His methods eventually showed him he needed western expertise which led to Exxon, a deal to drill-drill- drill the arctic. Invading the Ukraine, U.S. sanctions thwarted this plan but with the election of tRump, aided to whatever degree by Russia, one of whose first acts was an attempt to lift these sanctions. Even republicans wouldn't go for that but by appointing Exxon's CEO to Secretary of State, all could be smoothed over. Rex Tillerson, surely aware of Putin's record, has taken great risk investing billions in the arctic venture but pay-off, in the short-term, given the realities of climate change and greed, are apparently high enough to warrant it.

I should note that there is an actual multi-story building in Moscow that houses thousands of government hackers, working shifts, their mission being to disrupt democracy across the planet. Apparrently, like tRump, Putin prefers despots, sort of like the corporate one-stop-shopping situation. Much easier to get what you want from a corrupt dictator than from a messy democracy and of couse rule-of-the-rich is always fearful of the “threat” of democracy to their power.

I'll end this brief review of a timely and important book with this quote from page 365, “The oil and gas industry – left to its own devices- will mindlessly follow its own nature. It will make tons of money. It will corrode and corrupt and sabotage democratic governance. It will screw up and – in the end - fatally injure the whole freaking planet.... the end-times battle that we're engaged in now is to figure out how to get along without oil and gas – and we're plugging away but still a ways off – and in the the meantime, commit to a whole new level of constraint and regulatory protection against this singularly destructive industry to minimize its potential harms.”

Illustration and review, Tom Ferguson

Capitalism, a Ghost Story, Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is known for her novel, The God of Small Things, for which she received the 1997 Booker Prize. Her fame has given her activism some protection from the authoritarian boot-on-neck regime, tRump's good friend and fascist, President Ram Nath Kovind, now governing India. She has been jailed already for criticizing the supreme court. How far she can go is uncertain but she continues to relay disturbing government actions there. Like the story that India encouraged rural citizens to move to the cities. Once there they were soon forced to leave, their shanty towns bulldozed. Upon returning to their villages they found damns, mining operations, nuclear power plants under construction and police, lots of police. Roy cites 250,000 suicides by Indian farmers due to the regime's enthusiastic adoption of the Milton Friedman economic religion. With a population of 1.2 billion, one quarter of India's GDP (gross domestic product) is owned by 100 people. Absolutely in line with the “free market” fantasies glorified by the 1% who so profit from them. If you are not of this elite 100, nor the 300 million “middle class” who are, if not rich, comfortable, you fall (along with the other 900 million! citizens), under the mercy-free boot and, as the good books says, woe unto you. The book is published in 2014 so not quite up to date but plenty disturbing.

The privatization line is also pushed by the U.S. Dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as documented by Naomi Klein in her important book Shock Doctrine. Loans to desperate “underdeveloped” nations come with stringent privatization requirements, for no other reason than to satisfy the ideology of those with the money. The goal of this ideology, Roy points out, is to enhance the penetration of global capital, a subtler form of colonialism, with the same end... profits for the 1%. Keep in mind that privatization involves heartless cutting of services for the general population, healthcare, transportation, vital food subsidies. Ever more concentrated wealth. 

Roy sketches an interesting part of the whole capitalist con. Tax-free, non-profit foundations were created by wealthy industrialists, Rockefeller etc; and have been used since for this, ah... penetration. Similar to the way unions were neutered by negotiating with “moderates”, weeding out “radicals”. Selective corporate foundation funding of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) helps keep the opposition within acceptable bounds, those NGOs not observing proper bounds are simply not funded. As my witty brother often says, “Capitalism on the march!” NGOs do some good stuff but carefully within the bounds. So corporate profits are shielded from taxes, leaving taxpayers in first world countries footing the bill for policies that essentially loot the third world. Does that loot go then to the taxpayers? It might, eventually, if trickle-down economics were not the transparent myth designed to fool the gullible that it most definitely is.

Another book I've just finished is Barbara Kingsolver's, Poisonwood Bible. A remarkable work of fiction that elegantly supports Arundhati in her general view of the monstrous economic system that currently portrays itself as the end of history, the apotheosis of humanity's highest striving which in fact, though not without many impressive accomplishments, remains at heart a life-wrenching malady known as greed. Maybe that's what it took to get here but in the imagination of many, it could be transformed into a caring sustainable global community. That is a profound vision called hope.

Philosophy as Theology for Adults

The title, deliberately provocative, or, just kidding, speaks to the difference between the two disciplines, the former trying to figure things out, the latter assuming Christianity (or whichever favored religion), has it already figured out and the object is to figure that out. In other words philosophy seeks to penetrate mystery through reason, theology through the structure of an existing (sacred?) text or mythology. Both exercise intuition and imagination but one in a more constricted language. Superficially, theology seems, as the title teases, the lesser vehicle because it excludes and assumes so much. But going deeper the difference may dissolve and amounts to merely a personal preference for a certain kind of language. Theology deals with concepts like sin and the soul and philosophy uses ethics and consciousness. You could say that by the soul, theology means consciousness, that by struggling with ethical dilemmas philosophy examines sin. Theology concerns itself with salvation, philosophy with awareness. In this notion of equivalence the creation of the world by Godis a metaphorical phrasing of the big bang and the void out of which it sprang. One could argue, I would, that philosophy carries less baggage to obscure the project but others might find that theology works for them. Whatever gets you through the night, whatever it takes to arrive at enlightenment, salvation or presence. A rose by any other name.

Fundamentalist religion and philosophy continue this equivalence, or deny it, on a “lower” level where adherents, “believers” and “atheists”, dismiss each other as delusional. The rub is that on this level one can get hurt. Inquisitions, interrogation, prison, torture and execution seem to flourish to the degree that intolerance, fear and ego rule. Democracy has evolved as a hopeful way to steer clear of violence and domination by allowing citizen input into what sort of system we will live in and providing non-violent conflict resolution apparatus, the courts for example, for settling differences. The uncompromising fundamentalist forces, like the in-your-face Michigan militia and the billionaire's funding them, make this difficult. History could be seen as an on-going struggle between these factions, democracy and authoritarianism.

Beyond War

The Beyond War movement aimed to build consensus around the idea that war is obsolete, that we end it or it ends us. This movement saw hope in the idea that when a new idea arrives in a population a small percentage is open and adopts it. This group they referred to as early adapters. Market research established that if 5% of the population adopts an idea it is embedded in the culture. When 20% adopt it is unstoppable, it will spread of its own momentum. In building consensus it is obvious, in this thinking, that the appropriate target for persuasion is early adapters. Focusing on late adapters, those who will resist, deny with tenacity to the very end before, maybe, finally coming around would be a waste of energy.

Unfortunately we are in a situation, at a critical moment in history, where late adapters in the U.S. hold a crippling majority in the Senate and fully occupy the White House. A fair election would decisively change that arrangement but since this zealous minority has shown it will create as many obstacles as possible to prevent fair elections, a greater than usual effort needs to be funneled into the electoral process.

The major threat to our species, our civilization, in the 80s when Beyond War was born, was nuclear war. That has not diminished, may have gotten worse. Climate change must be now factored in as another major threat, along with population. This latter has a particular role in the covid-19 pandemic since expanding population relentlessly encroaches on wilderness habitat, in various ways releasing or transferring deadly stuff our way. The central faith of late adapters seems to be in laissez faire capitalism, the very driver of climate change, blind militarism and the need for desperate individuals to encroach on wilderness. It is true that we end war or it ends us. It is also true that we end laissez faire capitalism, unbridled consumption and overpopulation or they will end us.

A Words Worth

Language is a valuable (maybe essential) tool for exploring important ideas, ideas about justice in human relations, environmental or life system balance, and consciousness. Those two germs grew in my own intellectual development, you could say activism and metaphysics, in the form of support and exploration of what is loosely labeled “left” politics, and religious-ethical-philosophical studies. The two germs nurture each other, in a way, but language can actually block metaphysics when that is understood not as words about being but being itself.

Drawing, painting, music, dance and other arts language also engage in the metaphysical dialogue and they can, instead of referring to, talking about the subject, bring the artist/audience to the experience itself.

When the 1% gets nervous about its grip on the levers of power they sometimes will trot out a demagogue to seduce citizens their way, blaming this or that scapegoat for the indignities, injustices and insecurities foisted by selfish 1% policies.

Democracy is a high achievement of civilization, providing a means as it does, to settle disputes by reaching consensus, or peaceful agreement. The “losing party” might get part of their platform or can always look to another day, another issue where their view might prevail. This is a preferred option to always deciding the outcome of disputes by who has the bigger club. When the process becomes corrupted, when one party consistently cheats, or is merely perceived to, then the frustrated loser is tempted to reach for the club. If a faction is consistently excluded, even fairly, they too might see violence as useful. In a functioning democracy discontent is minimized so that “extremists” of this type cannot gather enough support to threaten the main body.

The 1% of course is such an extremist faction. They have already though corrupted democracy, by definition, to hold such disproportionate wealth, so their problem becomes masking the fact of their rule by use of scapegoats, media ownership, disproportionate influence in political, academic, religious and other institutional life, allocating relatively small portions of their vast wealth to this end.

I like to quote Arundhati Roy, “Remember, we are many, they are few.” It is true, the interests of the majority are fairly common; food, clothing, shelter, education, health care. The wealthy class' strength is, obviously money, and that can be (is) used to convince, persuade, muddy the waters, hire thugs, such that many will confusedly vote against their own interests. This is the dilemma Chomsky has recently cautioned about, that a candidate like Bernie will probably unite the 1%, a formidable coalition. And an establishment candidate will likely deflate progressive enthusiasm and will, even if elected, fail to address the climate/nuclear/equity crisis, thus continuing, though with less bluster, the drift toward the falls. For those who recognize that we end war or it ends us, that climate change is addressed or civilization implodes, it seems a Bernie-or-bust stance might be fully justified.

Who Rules the World?, Noam Chomsky

Chomsky's take on his title question can be reduced to this: Nation-states rule the world but who rules nation states? The 1%. He persuasively demonstrates this, and how even in so-called democracies it holds. For example, in the U.S., when 70% of the population favor a certain policy, like diplomacy over war, or health care, the population is ignored, the minority position prevails, the majority position “not feasible”. The policy-makers, the over-seers, do not put the interests of the people as their prime concern but rather the interests of that minority who put them, and keep them, where they are, in positions of power and prestige. This is certainly at odds with the patriotic narrative woven into our lives from birth, in school, church, hell, sports events where the national anthem is played before every game as if it were the most natural thing. No, the population's function is spectator, and consumer, or, they'd like you blind yes boss your mind no thought sleepin at the tube feelin no pain*. The important actors will take care of business.

But there must be a narrative to placate anyone paying attention. In foreign policy for example, Iran is a “destabilizing” actor in the mid-east whereas the U.S., “...illegally invading Iraq, resulting in hundreds of thousands killed, millions of refugees along with barbarous torture and destruction.... igniting sectarian conflict that is tearing the region to shreds and laying the basis for the ISIS monstrosity, – that is stabilization.” In 1970s Chile, a freely elected government must be overthrown because we seek the “stabilization” of General Pinochet's dictatorship. In 1953 Iran, we must overturn a democratically elected parliament, replacing it with a brutal dictatorship, with all the trappings – torture, secret police etc; in order to create “stability”. In Central America “stability” requires the support of more dictators, death squads etc; attacks on any signs of democracy brave enough to show themselves and, when those policies produce refugees fleeing violence, why we must create more stability with, say a nice border wall. Trade agreements, like NAFTA and GATT, which are actually investor protection agreements, also have their “stabilizing” effects, undermining local food production, sending rural people to sweat shops or the border where, once in the “belly of the beast” there is some opportunity for a bare living. One constant in this desire for “stability” is that the boss must be in charge, capitalism must not be questioned, no alternatives need apply.

One area where the boss is clearly not pursuing the interests of the general population is nuclear weapons. Proposals for a nuclear-free middle-east, supported by all area governments except Israel and its, ah, U.S. Patron, are shot down by those two governments. Hair-trigger nuclear warheads remain on alert in both Russia and the U.S., and nuclear plans for massive retaliation which would annihilate the life system and civilization remain locked in, violating treaties, international law and common sense. Plans for expansion of nuclear weapons, in the trillion-dollar range, routinely sail through the system despite the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) which, if honored, might give our species a shot at survival. There is no cry of, “How ever can we afford such projects?!” That is saved for proposals like health care and a minimum, livable wage.

Climate change, Naomi Klein asserts, is resisted so vehemently because the 1% and its minions recognize, or intuite, that capitalism, as currently practiced, is incompatible with what is needed to address that crisis. Denial at all costs! the order of the day. Apparently sea-level rise will be turned away at gated communities and elite mansions. The Republican party, Chomsky claims, is the most dangerous organization in history, committed as it is to the destruction of democracy and civilization. Via the bribery system known as campaign contributions, many democrats are also roped in as enablers.

It is clear to any serious student of history, or perhaps I should say, of Chomsky, that the narratives put forth by the ruling class have been shown to be false, on capitalism, Vietnam, the Middle-east, Central America, Latin America, U.S. History, Socialism, Cuba, Israel-Palestine... that the U.S., far from the benevolent, democracy-promoting, “exceptionalist” state, is the most murderous, plundering national entity on the planet. The current narrative, repeated constantly in the institutions and media, is difficult to shake off. The horrifying truth is immensely discouraging but, exactly where resistance must begin.

*from Power's Your Angel, a song by the author

Hate Inc., Matt Taibbi

Embedded in Taibbi's lively reportage, the message of Hate Inc. is that U.S. mainstream media have evolved from maintaining a more or less calm and unified take on what stories are publishable and what are not, in service to power to be sure, to frenetic, partisan coverage with a point of view aimed at a particular demographic. Taibbi uses Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, to describe this shift, a shift he fears has accentuated polarization and created a loss of media credibility among the electorate that is irrecoverable and very bad news for democracy. The chief culprit is “left” media's irresponsible, journalistically sloppy commitment to the Russian Collusion story.

Published just before the shift, Taibbi describes how Manufacturing Consent applies to the two periods. In the pre-shift phase the media had a lock on a profitable segment of advertising which the digital age unlocked, lowering profits and sending the industry into a panicked search for audience share to deliver to its advertisers. Fox News hit on it first. Following the sports model of picking a side and rallying the fans to rabid loyalty and emotional investment. CNN, MSNBC etc; soon followed, all using the same tactics: aim for a certain demographic, build loyalty, keep them pissed-off at the other side and sitting on the edge of their seat with “breaking news” and purchasing their advertisers' products.

The pre-shift media kept what Chomsky called the “parameters of discussion” to a narrow range, usually called conservative to liberal. This reflected the range of opinion among the owners who carefully hired people with the appropriate beliefs to run their business. So vigorous-appearing debates were actually quite constrained. Search that media in vain for socialist commentators, that point of view being outside polite discourse. I was aware of Manufacturing Consent and pretty much, for that reason, avoided mainstream news for a long time. The book didn't actually recommend this but rather an eyes-open critical reading. So I was taken aback, even delighted, when encountering Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews etc; on MSNBC mocking “wingnuts”. It took me awhile to realize that though things had stretched some, those same basic parameters were still there. Socialism could actually be mentioned now and then without hysterical demonizing, but not too often. The main thrust was going after those crazy lying right wingers on Fox, Republicans in the congress and administration, cheering for “our side”, the reasonable moderate liberals. Fox of course was the mirror image. The networks tried various mixes, CNN attempting sometimes to outfox Fox, even hire away its commentators, MSNBC fairly strictly sticking to the anti-right. The strategies were the same for both “sides”, just different targets. The big mistake, according to Taibbi, was bringing that strategy to the Russian Collusion story.

Taibbi condemns this shift as NOT journalism but entertainment. Previously news could be more like a book seller's prestige publications, not necessarily profitable but enhancing the brand. Now you had to hold your audience at all costs, with desperate measures and journalistic standards be damned. If a journalist was on a “team”, it was journalism, not a political party. This effort has been very profitable. The “product” comes from, is selected from, the same old sources, reporters, but of an ever-shrinking pool.

The author confesses that he is actually fairly non-political, more interested in his family than politics but “If tortured...” he'd confess to being progressive, voting, being lightly activist, giving a little money here and there but mostly he sees the world from an absurdist position. Humanity is the three stooges he says, we try our best but mostly fail. Taibbi confesses to having worked his audience from a niche called the vitriolic essay, a take-down artist but with always the right people being taken down. I remember sensing this reading him, being entertained as he “took down” the people I loved to hate but sensing something off. Especially if he included people I respected, like Bernie. He seems to recognize the urgency of climate change or the threat of nuclear holocaust, the obscenity of military spending, rule of the 1% etc; in one sentence then slip into, it's not all that important or the flippant statement that we used to hire people to do our vitriol, meaning elected officials. Taibbi does not mention that Hillary took the popular vote, by 2-3 million, when critiquing her campaign. Nor does he mention the obstruction of justice offenses in the Mueller report (and why didn't the dems include these in the impeachment?!). But I have to buy his take, that if you're looking for corruption you do it without partisan protection, you call a spade a spade. Without that objectivity there is a credibility loss that makes it easier to believe tRump's wild accusations of fake news.

Taibbi's book includes a section explaining why Rachel Maddow is paired with Hannity on the cover, the claim that both use the same partisan strategies to make money for their network (and selves). A second section is an interview with Noam Chomsky, discussing he and Ed Herman's book in today's context.

tRumper Factions

Pro-tRumper voters can be assigned into one or more of five categories: ideologues, evangelicals, racists, opportunists and working people who have felt abandoned by the democratic party... this last the only category at all likely to shift.

Ideologues: this personality is characterized by belief impervious to evidence. It is a psychological commonplace that encountering new information leaves one the option of expanding or tweaking one's point of view to accommodate the new information or denying the new information. The belief that my grandfather was a wonderful, loving man would be challenged by information that he spent the World War II. years with the SS enthusiastically exterminating inmates at Auschwitz. Deny or tweak? The good German denies the holocaust, the good Patriot denies or rationalizes U.S. torture or, say, reports of a president's lies. Democracy is wonderful in this view but only so long as the right side wins. Perfectly acceptable to suppress the votes of those too ignorant to see the shining truth.

Evangelicals: here denial is more pointed. First of all the basic dogma is bedrock truth, no facts or argument necessary, just as with the ideologue but now with a religious twist. Jesus died for our sins blah blah... evangelicals aren't troubled by reports of outrageous presidential behavior, no need to deny them when told by their pastor that God's warriors are sometimes a bit rough around the edges, just so they're doing God's work. And that they are doing, according to the pastor. This usually amounts to opposing abortion, family planning and gay marriage and especially defending Christianity from secular attack. This attack translates, on examination, into obstacles set up by “secularists” (maybe even communists!) to prevent christian evangelicals from imposing their own little “sharia law” on the rest of us. Laws like the First Amendment of the Constitution providing freedom of (and from) religion. The founders well knew the tyrannical form organized religion could take and sought to avoid this by not favoring any one religion, keeping state and religion separate. This is fine with evangelicals for other religions but not theirs, theirs being the only true one. Just what the founders were afraid of. Democracy is not big with this group except in so far as their votes can affect their issues. Getting god's dictator in power is a much higher value. The recent article in the influential Christianity Today, is no doubt causing some cognitive dissonance for the evangelical. It calls for tRump's impeachment on grossly immoral grounds.

Racists: hard to talk about this group since their tenacious commitment to the “cause” is so ugly and transparent one wonders truly how they can maintain it. And their resistance to contrary information is so dogged that the other groups seem almost liberal in comparison. It certainly is about ego, suggesting a desperate insecurity that requires someone to look down upon. Dylan's line sums it up, “The poor white remains, on the caboose of the train, but it ain't him to blame he's only a pawn in their game.” Well that implies that someone (the 1% perhaps?) cynically uses the issue in their divide and conquer strategy to maintain their privilege. Early union organizing was really hurt by this divide. I suppose it goes way back to the days where small bands of humans distrusted other bands based on difference. Hell, I remember being ready to fight other kids because they were from a town 11 miles away – foreigners! The civil rights chant comes to mind, “The people united will never be defeated!”

Opportunists: of course this population is always alert for any opportunity to gain power and prestige. Mussolini was a Socialist in his early days but soon saw where the money and power lay. Newt Ginrich, Linsy Graham, Dick Cheney, Kissinger, Kelly Ann Conway, and a seemingly endless list of other shameless individuals recognize that serving 1% interests is the fast and easy path to personal wealth and power. Ralph Nader comes to mind as someone who made a modest career of refusing this easy money. The old expression, “Nice guys finish last.” or Cheney's statement that “...principal is fine but it only takes you so far.” Or Kissinger's cynical, “The issues are too important to allow the people of Chile to decide them.”, as he abetted a coup very costly in freedom and lives... and misery. Ask these guys though what motivates them they'll swing out the flag and drum corp for “freedom and democracy.” Not persuasively to the informed but that's not who they're talking to.

Workers: Reagan began his presidency by gutting a union and this was what the 1% had been working toward since Roosevelt's terms in office. They had fought tooth and nail to defeat his notions of government serving the poor with programs like social security and recognition of unions. They were successful in watering many down and in their campaign to demonize the word socialism. World War I. Vets who marched on Washington demanding their promised bonus were met, by Hoover, with bayonets. Roosevelt sent them coffee. After World War II. there was a shared prosperity in the U.S., limited for sure, by race, gender and class, but still prosperity for a significant portion of the population. But the forces of greed were under the radar organizing, culminating with a vengeance in Reagan's election. More and more workers were returned to the pre-union world of low wages and boss abuse, the “Humiliation of the marketplace” as Chomsky called it. Alienation was certainly felt by workers and Reagan's invented “Welfare Queen” was meant to divert and explain it, provide a nice scapecoat. When Bernie came along to pull the curtain aside, naturally he had to be marginalized, leaving the field to the great con-artist and establishment.

One further category is the owners, the 1%. As Chomsky points out, they generally could care less about abortion and gay marriage but are happy to see such issues used to swing votes their way. It is said that in a meeting with the newly elected Adolph Hitler, German industrialists were asked for funds to help solidify the victory after which there would be no more elections for a hundred years. The checkbooks came out, overcoming any squeamishness they might have had about this uncouth deal maker with dancing visions of unimpeded profits. I don't think this has to be underlined in its application to 2020.

Media Complicity & Elite Rule

Mainstream media, aside from the disgusting Faux News, has been exposing tRump's lies for some time, and that's just responsible journalism. But lest we be naive, we need to recognize their own lies: when it comes to nation states such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, to the extent that they pursue a vision that challenges global capitalism with a more benign alternative; when it comes to “allied” nation states that violate the rights of their own citizens or subjects or neighbors but serve U.S. Interests (read, interests of the U.S. 1%) such as formerly South Africa and currently Israel, Egypt, the Philippines, Honduras, Columbia... and with the recent elections in Great Britain, a virulent strain of reaction seems be seizing power in far too many locales. Gerrymandering, voter suppression and foreign interference certainly seem to be rampant in the U.S., and probably abroad, unless we are to believe that a “landslide” of British subjects have suddenly embraced fascism. And, as Chomsky  has pointed out, interference by the 1% in elections dwarfs foreign interference.

Their lies? Take the issue of media spin on countries pursuing alternatives to global capitalism. Venezuela has frequently been described as a dictatorship despite its elected government, whether Chavez or current leaders. A coup against a democratically elected president in Honduras was quickly accepted by the U.S., this under Obama the communist muslim, with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of state. Obama did attempt a lightening up on Cuba but tRump put an end to that. When the U.S., under Reagan, was violently attacking Nicaragua in ways, that if conducted against the U.S. would clearly be denounced as terrorism (in fact the world court convicted the U.S. Of terrorism for its mining of Nicaraguan harbors in 1985). I remember watching mainstream television reporters standing in Honduras, at the border, pointing behind themselves with their thumb to the Sandinista-led “marxist” dictatorship, despite, again, being an elected government far more respectful of general liberties than the brutal fake democracies the U.S. Supported in El Salvador and Guatemala. U.S. rhetoric sings high praise to freedom and democracy but as just that, rhetoric. It claimed in the bad old days of the cold war that Russia was a repressive gulag but it turns out that it wasn't the brutality “we” objected to, but the anti-capitalism. In favored regimes, Guatemala and El Salvador, anyone advocating for a free press, unions or questioning of 1% rule soon were carted off to gruesome meetup with a death squad. Never a major problem for the caretakers of democracy in administration after administration.

Take the other issue, allies who routinely violate human rights. Recently Representative Ilhan Ohmar was villified, attacked by democrats and republicans alike, for mildly criticizing Israel's policies of land theft and oppression of Palestinians. According to Noam Chomsky, Israel's intent is to make life so miserable for Palestinians in the occupied territories that they will leave. This is increasingly applied also to Palestinian/Israeli citizens. Justification for this blind support is neatly summed up by Chomsky's statement that Israel, from the U.S. point of view, is “our” mid-eastern aircraft carrier, conveniently located near oil riches.

The U.S. was very slow to recognize the loss of its chief enemy, and justification for bloated but highly profitable, military spending, when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the first opportunity our democracy loving leaders supported the Yeltsin coup, shuttling aside Gorbachev who wanted a Swedish-style social democracy. Thus the arising of today's Russian gangster oligarchy. The “democratic spring” in Egypt caught our great leaders by surprise and they did what they could to support the ruling elite over those upstarts. And at home, did the police pepper-spray the bankers and stockbrokers pilfering the housing market and stock market or the uppidity protesters?

Well, these two categories of lies certainly lay out part of what those who actually prefer democracy are up against. And it is the anomie generated by these dominant forces that account for some of the attraction to tRump but it is clear that he is hardly a threat to but rather an amplification of elite rule, in a loose-cannon kind of anti-democractic caricature of populism. It is a quandry that we depend for information on 1%-owned media, a gradiant true, from Faux news on the hysterical right to CNN etc; supposedly liberal but actually maybe “moderate” to MSNBC which asks some great questions but in the end simply marks the left-most respectable position which DOES NOT question global capitalism. The New York Times and Washington Post might despise tRump but they do not pursue questions that discomfort their owners. A useful tool is fair.org which studies how the media is spinning things, the Intercept for a radical (read sensible) take. Speaking of that maligned term, who is radical? The politician calling for an assault rifle ban or the smarmy second amendment/NRA apologist? The advocate for nuclear disarmament or the proposal for trillion-dollar expansion of those doomsday arsenals? The idea of non-violent conflict resolution or military hegemony?                    Tom Ferguson (drawing by the author)

Update

James Baldwin & critical thought

Complaints Department

One of Eckhart Tolle’s many provocative ideas is that all,... ALL! complaining is of the ego. It isn't that one doesn't recognize unpleasant realities. A central and alarming unpleasant fact is that the wealthy class has disproportionate influence on our political process and so undermines democracy and creates serious obstacles to addressing an urgent crisis, several in fact: climate change, myriad other pollution issues, soil erosion and degradation, the continuing possibility of terminal nuclear war (it ain't over until these weapons are gone) and overpopulation/extinction of species (including us). There are many other obstacles and issues but the point is that preoccupying oneself in thought - blaming, posing enemies, nurturing grudges, anticipating disaster, or glory - stands in the way of presence, and presence is where our power lies. Ram Dass said it in three words, be here now.

An attempt to describe presence: ONEness comes to mind, the felt interconnection described by many religious, spiritual, artistic, poetic, scientific writers and thinkers... characterized by incredible beauty, the deeper one goes. The first level? Take a breath, here you are, no thought... as you stay you go deeper, thoughts arise, let them pass, it becomes a well that you can dwell in, to various degrees, coming back to surface to do your taxes or cross the street but keeping a foot in... and it reveals the moment as not a passing one but ONE that encompasses past and future... and the impulse to creativity that occurs in presence transcends ego as it is aligned with primal intelligence. The doing that comes out of presence is authentic, celebratory, joyous, and what is needed for the next step in evolution. And these are thoughts about it, not it... it is felt experience, non-narrative, and it accompanies the transitory bias that leads us to engage discrete slivers of time in order to... dance.

Maybe Tolle's definition will help: To feel, and thus to know, that you are; and to abide in that deeply rooted state is enlightenment.

Ok, so how does abiding in that deeply rooted state address climate change and rule of the rich? It is only in this abiding, presence, that we are connected to the intelligence that is self-evidently at the root of being, is in fact being, or consciousness. In that connection we experience peace and out of that peace comes creativity, what is needed to address, to overthrow as it were, the dysfunction currently running things here on planet earth. Awareness then is the most effective form of activism. Our power doesn't lie in persuading others by argument but in standing in alignment with essential intelligence. We don't decide to do good, we are good to the extent that we are present. In awareness, we may hit the streets, or write a poem, or start a business - we can't predict from a state of unconsciousness. If this appealing idea is not just another wishful fantasy, then the most urgent task at hand is cultivating awareness. From that will come, what Tolle calls, A New Earth.

Word Art

New Hat

American Radical, the Life and Times of I.F. Stone by D.D. Guttenplat

The book’s sub-title is not just an add-on. Surrounding I.F. Stone’s life are some very remarkable times. The 1930s depression, fascism, the New Deal, World War II., hi-jacking of government by anti-new dealers – true witch hunts, this time of “communists” and “fellow travelers”, completely ignoring the bill of rights for a time (not for the first time Eugene Debs fans will remember), the development and open-air testing of nuclear weapons, the use of same, the cold war, Dien Bien Phu, Algeria, … and, as they say, more. 

I.F. Stone’s youth was marked by a precociousness (first news sheet at age 14) that, by age 40, had brought him journalistic renown. His most visible gig was as an occasional panelist on Meet the Press but he was also known as an investigative journalist on several daily newspapers. By 1953 he was persona non grata, unemployable in his profession and hardly spoken to by friends. This was not the product of criminality or a sex scandal nor ethical breech. Stone became the victim of anti-communist hysteria conducted by opportunistic or ideological fanatics every bit as scary as the crop hovering currently around our White House. People were jailed, slandered, careers ruined by an inquisition of small-minded, self-promoting cads in congress, law enforcement and media.

Stone wrote for The Nation, a weekly, still honorably illuminating hypocrisy among our esteemed leaders to this day, and PM, a progressive daily long defunct. The author of American Radical in fact is the new editor of The Nation. Like the immature species we are, it seems that all attempts to seek some kind of order in the world, whether of the social justice flavor or of the fascist, are undermined by internecine brawling, sectarian dogma, ego forever steering the ship. Consistency and reason, claimed as guide by all factions, are routinely set aside whenever circumstances and loyalty, punishment or reward, demand. Witness the tRump administration as it blithely embraces outrageous, anti-democratic polices while White House staff conduct back-stabbing media-leaking as they jockey for position. Witness also the shameful democratic party attack and misrepresentation of dissenters from slavish subservience to Israel. Stone had a special fondness for Israel but his clear sightedness was not clouded by infatuation. He recognized early that justice for Palestinians was a prerequisite for a stable and peaceful Israel.

In the thirties and forties the Communist Party and “fellow travelers, liberals and various progressives, were gaining ground, given the calamitous impact of the capitalist depression on so many working people and the then apparent success of Communism. Thanks to ego again, the hijacking of the Russian revolution by the psychopathic Joseph Stalin and the masking of his crimes thwarted the dream of ending poverty and inequality. Those who most profited from the capitalist order also intervened, putting significant resources behind efforts to demonize communism and socialism. It has been said that the left always arranges its firing squad in a circle. But this holds true for most movements and helps explain why the Machiavellian path so often plows under the altruist. Stone, or Izzy as he was affectionately known, eventually gave up on the hopeless factionalism and sectarianism of the communist party, unhesitatingly critiquing it, though its ideal is where his sympathies lay. The right, more often in power though, held most of his journalistic and editorial attention, whether in The Nation, PM or his books.

As a prominent journalist Stone used his platform, indeed built his reputation on, exposing corruption in business and government. This of course made enemies but the writer was uncompromising in his search for a story. With the start of World War II. he became “respectable”, given his connections in the New Deal administration and his intense anti-fascist stance. He was quick to notice but also to forgive Roosevelt’s lapses though U.S. tardiness in acknowledging violent Nazi antisemitism was a great frustration. U.S., British and French support or indifference to the fascist coup in Spain was also a trial. Love of Democracy among (elitist) western rulers, mostly rhetorical, tends to become inconvenient when the “wrong” parties come to power, especially those with low enthusiasm for the preferred economic system which so benefits them. Vietnam would soon come around to prove this thesis for those who didn’t quite get it yet.

Prior to Stone’s fall from grace he was intimate with high officials in the Roosevelt administration. His admiration of Vice-president Wallace, and outrage at his ouster in favor of Truman, did not prejudice him against the new president, in fact he was quite optimistic. Truman, as a senator, was quite accessible and Stone thought him trustworthy. By the end of the decade he was unequivocally appraised of his error in judgment. His dogged criticism of J. Edgar Hoover and the congressional investigations eviscerating the constitution ignited those forces against him. An agent finally approached, demanding his passport. Many others had this experience, all as innocent as he of illegal acts but all guilty of insufficient subservience to power. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) was, at this time, grazing among the sheep, refusing to vigorously challenge government oppression. Stone and a handful of progressives formed the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (ECLC) to take their case to the supreme court. Izzy was the only board member not wealthy or safely pensioned so he soon found himself unemployable, even by The Nation. From the fall of 1951 Izzy was daily, and ridiculously surveilled by the FBI. His mail was opened, neighbors questioned, doorkeeper recruited to spy on him. All this while the FBI director denied the existence of the U.S. Mafia, that organization allegedly having compromising photographs of Hoover to insure his investigations excluded them.

This is where Izzy’s famous Newsletter saved him from destitution. He was able to build a following of subscribers that left him free to pursue his hard-boiled investigative journalism without limitations imposed by advertisers, owners and editors. His targets were the usual shenanigans in business, congress and the administration. He managed also to write a book, The Hidden History of the Korean War, a story in itself. Turned down by more than two dozen publishing houses, he was about to give it up when he ran into two old friends in the Central Park zoo cafeteria. The first thing to come up was that the former colleagues were publishing a new journal, Monthly Review, and asked Izzy if he knew anyone with something interesting to say about Korea. He sent them the manuscript and they were so impressed they decided to somehow raise the money to publish it. It’s reception was cool silence with a few deliberate establishment hatchet-job reviews. In time the book would gain a respectability by serious historians but the mid-fifties religion of anti-communism was too pervasive to allow an objective reading.

So the newsletter, I.F. Stone’s Weekly, bridged the considerable gap where Izzy wandered outside the economic wilderness of mainstream journalism. Page five of the first issue, January 17, 1953, 15 cents, is included in the book and it displays the writer’s deft verbosity. In quoting President Truman’s prescient comments about the threat of nuclear war Stone points out that the president’s sound recognition of the danger is completely negated by his failure to acknowledge the necessity of the alternative, co-existence. Truman favors the reckless strategy of demanding, in effect, Soviet surrender as the solution. Izzy comments, “To pursue such a policy with stubborn blindness while warning against its inevitable consequences is to give a drunken party and salve one’s conscience with a lecture on alcoholism.” In this kind of madness Stone sought soul mates such as Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, the latter who offered, “I see with a great deal of disquiet the far-reaching analogy between Germany of 1932 and the U.S.A. of 1954.” It doesn’t take a renowned physicist to note the chilling relevance and applicability of such a statement to today’s world. Stone went on to critique the Bay of Pigs, pentagon infatuation with counter-insurgency (to include torture), and the coming Vietnam disaster. He was always there with the civil rights movement, greatly admiring the youthful SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee). SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) eagerly awaited the newsletter and sought Stone's council. Gradually he regained respectability, growing in demand as a speaker but still on the outlaw fringes of polite discourse. Stone was one of those rare figures, a true radical, who pitilessly pierced the fog of conventional wisdom, a practice that our survival depends on being more widely adopted.

Drawing by the author

Fire and Fury, Inside the tRump Whitehouse, Michael Wolff

 

Wolff's title comes from the rant tRump impetuously directed at North Korea, that it would be met with “... fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen...” this irresponsible mouthing, a terroristic threat really, came in response to a reporter's question about North Korea at an August 8, 2017 discussion of the opioid crisis. Trump had been reading a statement in a monotone, bored stiff, anxious to get back to his golf game. The question perked him up and Dr. Jekyl became Mr. Hyde, a loose cannon of major proportions, hiring and firing staff as impulsively as he tweeted whatever crossed his mind, surrounded by lackeys sucking up and vying for position, trying to channel his presidential power down whatever road their particular variant of right-wing ideology demanded, using always the strategy most likely to succeed, flattery.

An email forwarded around the Whitehouse, from a disgruntled staffer, then out onto the net, summarized what working for tRump was like: It’s worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns. Trump won’t read anything – not one-page memos, not brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored. And his staff is no better. Kushner is an entitled baby who knows nothing. Bannon is an arrogant prick who thinks he’s smarter than he is. Trump is less a person than a collection of terrible traits. No one will survive the first year but his family (meaning of staff). I hate the work, but feel I need to stay because I’m the only person there with a clue what he’s doing. The reason so few jobs have been filled is that they only accept people who pass ridiculous purity tests, even for midlevel policy-making jobs where the people will never see the light of day. I am in a constant state of shock and horror.

It bothers me when people call tRump an idiot. They do it out of anger and frustration and it’s hyperbolic. The man is certainly narcissistic but a literal idiot, no. Idiot Savant perhaps, for he’s capable of charming millions of people despite his many and dangerous faults. Referring to himself in the third person as a stable genius, hard to believe he isn’t joking but since he’s apparently not, something’s screwy.

The book covers the 9 month period of Steve Bannon’s tenure, a bazaar right winger with an anarchic streak toward chaos and strangely, in favor of single payer health care! Bannon and Kushner, tTrump’s son-in-law (with partner Ivanka, the president’s daughter) acted as though they were chief of staff while Priebus, the official chief of staff, suffered their interference and a more or less constant belittling from the president. Vicious, juvenile office politics ruled the White House from day one. The chief of staff is traditionally a powerful figure since everyone must go through him to get in to the oval office. tRump by turns megalomaniac and insecure narcissist... does all the talking in meetings, very little listening and makes decisions based on his “gut” unless relentless and massive interventions are applied. Even then, he can walk out of a room having agreed on some course and suddenly tweet the opposite. The whole administration is a failed state. tRump calls his daughter and Kushner the kids, supposedly New York liberals who he humors. Their intent seems to have been to bring in the Wall Street crowd to run things while Bannon’s was more in the scorched-earth Gestapo camp. Nothing much gets done except the cabinet appointees, all anti-democracy ideologues with frequent ethical lapses, out there doing damage from respective departments. House speaker McConnell stalled federal judge appointments under Obama, saving them for tRump, who attempted to reward a business crony with a judgeship. Staff intervention turned the appointment duties over to the Federalist Society, assuring over 100, to-date, right wing extremists now sitting on the federal bench, including of course the Supreme Court. This of course, in addition to those Bush/Cheney installed. In Georgia we can be grateful that somehow progressive judge Totenberg slipped through the ideological filters.

I.F. Stone, in his book on the Fifties shows how governmental abuse is not exactly new but he also cites a 1957 supreme court decision that put an end to senate and house committee trampling of citizen rights in hearings that were truly witch-hunts. The current supreme court would doubtless come down in favor of such congressional misbehavior though they would probably protect trump’s prerogatives under Dick Cheney’s theory that if the president does it, it’s legal. The recent movie Vice also confirms that sinister attacks on democracy are hardly unprecedented but trump’s administration is pretty unique in its clown car chaos. Fire and Fury narrates the downfall of Steve Bannon, though he is still out there in zany never right-wing land doing mischief, especially in Europe, working to birth a new fascism there. The book also provides a glimpse of billionaires who throw their disproportionate influence around our government, and it also documents the dysfunction we have voted upon ourselves which ought, we can hope, to inspire an uprising at the ballot box.