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The Voice of God? Bush's Messianic Vision

2006-07-29T20:08:00.000-05:00

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job."
- George W. Bush

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."
- Matthew 7:15

With the crises facing the White House domestically and abroad, I cannot help but think back with bewilderment at George W. Bush’s infamous comment that he believes himself to be an instrument of God, that the Lord speaks and works through him. If the president is right, given the state of the Middle East and his own struggle against reason and compassion, then we are at the mercy of a very cruel and confused and blundering God indeed. Whether he truly thinks this, or his statement is a disingenuous justification for his use of power and force, this rhetoric certainly resonated with his supporters, and this support has fueled the ascendance of an oppressive and murderous regime which appears to be moving towards domestic tyranny and world domination.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN –

God must have forgotten to warn his friend George that a terrorist attack was imminent, or perhaps his omniscience was not as keen as the insights of the intelligence community that warned the Bush administration for months about this threat. But regardless of what transpired before 9/11, the government has surely shown us their true nature in the wake of such tragedy. One can hardly imagine God preaching about "bombing them back to the Stone Age," as Bush said before our offensive against the Taliban, or that "we must be considered the madmen of the world, capable of any action . . . prepared to act in the most ignoble manner," and "we also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will," as Rumsfeld and Cheney communicated to their subordinates. After all, Jesus Christ, the man who Bush claims to follow as a devout Christian, promoted compassion, forgiveness, and famously "turning the other cheek." I do not remember any caveats about torture and collateral damage, or how terrorism changed moral and ethical standards. And as for self defense, the very concept of turning the other cheek refers to being struck, and refusing to strike back. This fundamental tenent of Christianity is more in line with the non-violent resistance of Ghandi or the Buddhist monks during the Vietnam War, than the pre-emptive strikes and thirst for revenge of the Bush administration.

Behold, too, the results of our divine fury; Afghanistan has returned to the rule of warlords and drug lords, where groups can train to resist the U.S. military occupation of the Middle East. Violence against innocents in Iraq is at an all time high, five years into an invasion protested by the rest of the international community. Military abuses against civilians and each other are rampant, ranging from pyschological abuse to theft, rape, murder, and cruel and degrading torture. The CIA has stopped looking for Bin Laden, the one man whose pursuit was used to justify all of the civilian casualties and illegalities of our military since 2001, in order to focus on the very insurgency and terrorist groups their own interference helped to create. And now, other countries, both enemies and allies of the United States, have begun emulate our model of fighting the "War on Terror." If Bush is an agent of God, then God must want a dangerous and deadly world of perpetual conflict and war, where children are bombed and shot and burned to death in the name of democracy and freedom.

I must agree with the current powers-that-be on one point, when Bush and some of his generals describe this conflict as a sort of "Holy War" in which they are leading the forces of good. Despite their assurances that this is not a war against Islam, they surely refer to the Biblical "end of days" scenario which describes Christ leading a war against the forces of evil. Historically, these evil-doers have been interpreted by many Christians as the Arabs, or more specifically Muslims. However, I am instead referring to the sectarian violence caused by our early support of Shi’ite death squads (the infamous El Salvador option) which has escalated to a near civil war, unable to contain because of our brutal decimation of the country and its infrastructure, military, government, and police force. Much like the sectarian conflict in which we tried to intervene in Vietnam, this struggle is only worsened by our self-proclaimed divine intervention.

Furthermore, the fervor of this conflict is fueled by religious zealotry, the kind fueling Bush and others to fight and kill in order to secure one’s own power, all in the name of God. We are invading countries whose religion warns against foreign occupations, to whom our presence is a deep cultural insult. Our reward to these people for their devotion, and our sensitive reponse to their cultural diversity, is to humiliate them religiously and sexually. In prisons filled overwhelmingly with people innocent by even the Pentagon’s assessment (only 8% held in Gunatanamo are estimated to have any direct terrorist connection), we have flushed the Muslim holy scriptures down the toilet, made men wear women’s underwear, used female interrogators to grope men and make men grope them, pretended to wipe menstrual blood on them and then prevented them from washing, and forced them to be photographed in humiliating homosexual positions, entirely naked. I have little doubt that future evidence will emerge directly linking these actions to direct orders from the highest levels of the administration, the same people who have tried to defend their dismissal of the Geneva Convention rules. In all of the Israeli and Arab conflicts, never has either side been so cruel and disrepectful to the culture of their most hated rivals. Certainly, one must question the Christ-like nature of such torture and degradation.

STEM CELLS AND ISRAEL

Since Tony Snow responded to a question about Bush’s veto of the stem cell research initiative by saying that the president believes murder is wrong, the press has been strangely silent about the irony of such a comment during our support of Israel’s assault on the Palestinians. While I fully recognize that Israel has a right to exist, and that all people and groups and soverign states have a right to defend themselves, I do not believe that any person or nation or regime has the right to unconditional and unwavering support. Unconditional and unwavering support of all of one’s actions is demanded only by tyrants, despots and dictators; the rule of law, both domestic and international, and the checks and balances of any state’s power are essential to worldwide democracy. Much has been made in the American corporate media of the soldiers kidnapped by Palestinians, but little has been mentioned of the 10,000 prisoners, many women and children, in Israeli jails. They are often kidnapped from Palestinian lands and held without charges or trials or due process. Much has been made of the rockets fired into Israel, and the resultant casualties, but little is mentioned of Israel’s nuclear arsenal and advanced military that has caused exponentially larger numbers of Palestinian casualties, supplied by the U.S. and used against civilians in violation of international law. Much has been made of some Arab nations' failure to comply with U.N. security council resolutions, but little has been made of Israel’s nearly 20 years of failure to comply with a U.N. security council regarding their occupation of Lebanon. Much has been made of some groups' refusal ro recognize the democracy of Israel’s right to exist, but little has been mentioned about the apartheid status and undemocratic oppresion of the Palestinians by Israel. None of this justifies attacks against innocent Israelis, or the violence committed by Palestinian resistance groups in the past. But one must ask, who needs to defend itself against whom?

Israel has declared that the lives of its soldiers are more valuable than the lives of Palestinian civilians, a point of view which has no validity in an international sense and echoes of the racism which Jewish citizens suffered at the hands of other states. Israel has denied Palestinians basic civil rights, and declared that it considers Gaza a giant walled prison which can be used to exterminate any chance of a Palestinian state. Israel has repeatedly attacked the civilian infrastructure of Gaza and Lebanon, and despite its pride in the surgical precision of its military strikes has repeatedly killed children and U.N. peacekeepers. Israel blames these consequences of its own behavior on the actions of its enemies, as though it has no choice but to take innocent life. Simultaneously, Israel does not recognize that the actions of other groups might be based on its colonial style oppression and aggression in the past. George Bush, self proclaimed spokesperson of God, has said that he supports the current Israeli attacks against civilians in response to the kidnapping of its soldiers as self defense. Unfortunately, the rest of the international community must be heathens, because Israel’s actions are clearly defined by global laws as war crimes.

Is this what God wants?

GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS?

George Bush has admonished North Korea and Russia to heed the demands of the international community regarding weapons sales and development. He has admonished Latin America to heed the demands of the international community regarding nationalization and "free trade." He has admonished Middle Eastern groups to heed international demands to recognize Israel and disarm. Yet, he has been silent about his own disregard for the international community when he invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and he has remained silent about Israel’s disregard for the international community regarding their weapons arsenal and agression against Palestinians which recently resulted in the Israeli bombing of a U.N. outpost. He has restricted funding for potentially life saving stem cell research because he believes murder is wrong, and he believes the use of embryos which would be discarded as unviable constitutes murder. He has allowed Israel to continue its assault, because he does not consider the bombing of innocent children and entire families to be murder. Of course, how could he be expected to act differently, when he has such a poor understanding of the environment, human life and science in general?

Bush has never expressed a sincere interest in learning about the natural world or the cultures beyond his own border, choosing to stay at home in Texas when his father’s wealth and influence provided him the opportunity to travel the globe. He attended Yale, with mediocre results, and evidenced by the embarrasing blunders and obvious ignorance displayed early in his presidency. He fails to even understand the basic principles of his own religion, or the religion his is warring against, both philosophies centered around peace and compassion. Is this the man through whom we are supposed to believe God speaks and acts? Is this the world any kind of God, whatever one’s vision of him, would work to build? I am not a Christian, or a religious person of any kind, or even a believer. If I were a devout Christian, though, I would either have to seriously reconsider any support of a man like George W. Bush or stay willfully ignorant of the atrocities and abominations committed in our name. I I had any religious inclinations at all I would be terrified that such a man had proclaimed himself an agent of the God I worshipped, sounding like the false prophets and warmongers warned of in the apocalyptic end of days predictions. Bush's points of view are no different than the religious extremists he purports to be fighting.

Join the Fast to End the War!!

2006-07-10T20:01:00.000-05:00

WAR FUELS TERRORIST ANGER AND RECRUITING EFFORTS

WAR PROFITS THE WEALTHY AND DESTABILIZES THE MASSES

WAR IS GENOCIDE

Code Pink, a womens' political group opposing the Bush Administration's militarism and the illegal occupation of Iraq, has begun a hunger strike and a number of demonstrations to tell the government what 2 out of 3 Americans already knows: THIS WAR MUST END! Peace activists are calling on the 31% of Americans who support immediate troop withdrawal to stand up and let your voices be heard. You can show your support for this effort in a number of ways --

Sign the Voter's Pledge for No More War Candidates
Join the nationwide fast to end the war
Start a rolling fast with friends, where everyone takes turns for one day of fasting
Support war resisters like Ehren Watada and Suzanne Swift
Sign the Declaration of Peace
Join the protests in Washington
Area a protest or rally in your area
Distrubute Code Pink flyers and information at work or to friends
Contact representatives (like Pro-War "liberals" Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman) and tell them "No more war in our name!"

Clink on the links above, or directly visit sites like www.codepink4peace.org and www.troopshomefast.org if links don't work, for more information on how you can get involved.

The anti-war movement is about more than just bringing the troops home. The Pledge from Code Pink also focuses on rebuilding Iraq with Iraqi contractors, and prioritizing Iraqi leadership and soverignty. We cannot simply be satisfied with a long overdue withdrawal of our forces; we must make sure that corporate interests and the neo-liberal agenda of privatization and "free-market" globalization are not allowed to subvert the processes of peace and democracy for profit. We must make sure that generations of innocent people around the world are not economically devastated and militarily brutalized in order to maintain imperial dominance. We must protect the rights of every woman, man and child so that these atrocities do not continue, and so that the fight for freedom is not used to justify the military industrial complex.

For this opposition of warmongering, Code Pink has been called "Code Pinko" in the conservative media. The group has been blasted for supporting other movements to support social justice, end racism, and the like. Perhaps one day the establishment will wake up and realize that the rhetoric of the cold war can no longer be used to scare us, and that we as a nation are tired of dying in the financial and ideological battles of wealthy corporations and pampered, priveleged politicians. Perhaps if enough people become active and make their views known to their elected officials, we can stop our leaders from committing murder and genocide in our name.

Please, help stop the killing! E-mail this page, and the above links to as many friends as you can. Write letters to the government, make phone calls to your reps, do whatever it takes! You can find contact info at www.house.gov/writerep or www.congress.org

Security vs. Stability in the War on Terror

2006-07-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

The fundamental arguments for Bush’s "War on Terror" revolve around security; safety concerns in the U.S. and overseas are invoked to justify all of the related actions taken by governments, whether violations of our civil rights like the warrantless surveillance of Americans, or military force and the subsequent atrocities committed against civilians and prisoners abroad. The White House and the Pentagon have even argued that they must be intentionally allowed to give the public false information, allegedly in order to misinform terrorists. But for all the billions of dollars spent on the war and the Department of Homeland Security, a defense budget larger than that of all NATO countries combined, and the sweeping repeal of privacy and civil liberties provided by the Patriot Act, how much safer are we now?
After all, attacks on U.S. troops, insurgency, violence and civilian deaths are now at an all time high in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel, Palestine, Syria and Iran are all threatening or engaged in active warfare. The Bush administration is urging both Latin America and North Korea to obey American foreign policy suggestions, yet they themselves continue to ignore the U.N., the International Criminal Court and the European Union in matters of international law and treaty violations. To top it all off, the Supreme Court just rebuked the White House for trying to establish independent military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay prisoners, saying that he had effectively tried to place his actions outside of the law. The same administration which demands our trust and obedience has been cited for trying to avoid accountability and breaking rules of the Geneva Conventions.

Ultimately, the rationalizations behind the "War on Terror," and our whole new age of perpetual war, are flawed in regards to the issue of security. The United States has long favored the condition of stability over security, and while the two may be able to coexist, they are not more or less the same, and the former is should not be an ultimate goal over the latter. American policy overseas tends to support stable regimes, ones who can secure investment opportunites, economic success and domestic law and order, even at the expense of human rights. The Nixon support of Chilean dictator Agusto Pinochet and Reagan’s support for the Contras both showed a clear tendency towards stability, even in their speeches about the danger of leftist leadership to stability in South and Central America. The infamous "School of the Americas," a training center for militaries around the world, drew protest for the torturous and murderous behavior of its graduates, especially in Latin America; after pressure from the public for reform, the Pentagon simply renamed the organization WHINSEC – the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. In the view of the government, its violent and militarized pursuit for stability is defended with the name of security. What we must realize is that stability, particularly economic stability, does not ensure personal or national security – slaves, for example, lived under a stable framework in the pre-Civil War U.S., but they were certainly not safe from personal abuse. Furthermore, the U.S. pursuit of national and international security has seriously jeopardized our security. Thanks in part to previous conditions and policies, and thanks to our "War on Terror," the reality is that we may have temporary stability, but no one is safe.

MUMIA, PELTIER, AND AREA 2 – THE CASE AT HOME

The cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier are disturbing not only because of the extreme injustices perpetrated against these innocent people, but also because they are just two of the numerous similar cases of political prisoners held in the United States without proper due process or basic legal protections. Unfortunately, while most Americans see an abundance of violence against the police and general criminal activity on TV, they rarely hear about these two men or the criminal wrongs committed against them. Both were accused of killing law enforcement agents, and both were convicted and sentenced to death row based on false testimony from individuals who were coerced or threatened by law enforcement, the disallowing of exculpating evidence, and false ballistics evidence. (For more detailed accounts of their cases, the evidence of their innocence, and the human and civil rights abuses they have suffered in prison, visit www.freemumia.org and www.freepeltier.org,also listed as permanent links on this blog.) The most telling connection between these cases, however, is that both men had ties to political organizations that threatened the stability of the status quo. Abu-Jamal was a former Black Panther, and a journalist who exposed the corruption of Philadelphia’s police and legal system in its targeting of black, while Peltier belonged to the American Indian Movement (AIM) and opposed the government’s violation of Native American treaty rights. In order to preserve stability, our security is threatened. The continued incarceration of innocent political prisoners is a threat to the freedom of all Americans; if these men can be jailed and abused for speaking out and standing up for their rights, than anyone can fall victim to the same fate.
So how does such transparent injustices occur, and continue to occur uncorrected in an open society like ours? Well, certainly not without resistance; Amnesty International, the U.N., MOVE and various groups, individuals, and celebrities around the world have condemned the U.S. government for the jailing and abuses of Abu-Jamal and Peltier. Unfortunately, this has not been enough to overcome the cultural and institutional preudices against activists, minorities, and the lower class that have formed the policies of our justice system. Thanks to media spin, the general public seems to support tough enforcement measures and sentencing laws for criminals, and I have often heard the opinion expressed that people don’t get put in jail or involved with the law unless they are doing something wrong. The only industrialized nation in the world to continue enforcing capital punishment uses this attitude to rationalize its cruel executions. In situations like those of Abu-Jamal and Peltier, though, or countless others abused by the police, this idea of presumed guilt could not be further from the truth.
Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) has written about the torture and extraction of false testimony from suspects in Chicago’s infamous "Area 2," a phenomena which resulted in Illinois’ temporary repeal of the death penalty as they found dozens of cases where people had been convicted to death row on false testimony obtained through brutal interrogation. Across the country, citizens are being released from prison because DNA evidence has refuted coerced or corrupt police testimonies, yet some are having such evidence disallowed and being executed all the same. In many cases which implicate the government in mistaken conviction or corruption, like Abu-Jamal’s and Peltier’s both, the institutions of criminal justice will simply not allow the truth to be revealed and justice to be done. This clearly promotes the stability of our system against the security of individual citizens against false prosecution. Our media, charged with being a watchdog of the government, has kept silent on these issues. And where are we now, in terms of safety? With the largest prison population in the world, a proportionately larger group than in apartheid-era South Africa, one person in jail for every one hundred and thirty-six Americans. Despite clear evidence of racial and class bias in law enforcement and prosecution, and the dangers these pose to civil rights, we continue to support a network of privatized and profitable prisons without proper oversight, all in the name of safety.

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION AND SECRET PRISONS

The international picture is no less bleak, and perhaps more disturbing because of the speed of recent radical changes in the status of human right around the world, and the complicity of foreign governments in allowing abuses against American and their own citizens. Extraordinary rendition is a modern euphemism for the kidnapping and transportation of suspects, presumably so they can be brutalized without due process or judicial review. The cases of Kahlid el-Masri and Mamdouh Habib, both foreign men who were arrested, interrogated and tortured before being released without any charges made against them, demonstrate how American zeal in the "War on Terror" has endangered the rights and even lives of innocent people around the world. Far from denying their claims, the U.S. government has merely upheld its right to detain people in CIA secret prisons across the globe, and the Supreme Court allowed the invocation of the state secrets law to deny hearing el-Masri’s case. By stressing the need for "national security" the government does not need to answer for any illegal actions – they can simply say they cannot be brought to justice because it would threaten our safety. So long as we are involved in this war, the government reserves the right to abuse anyone, anywhere, without any evidence or reason.

Other names that have received less attention in the American media are those of Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal, brothers and U.S. citizens who were imprisoned and tortured in a prison in Pakistan. No evidence of criminal activity and no charges were ever brought forth in court, in spite of a court order. Despite the involvement and complicity of U.S. agencies like the FBI, there was no intervention on their behalf. These men and their families were threatened during their incarceration, and told that if they exposed their experiences after their release they would be in great danger. In order to gain potential intelligence information in the "War on Terror," the U.S. government participated in the abuse of innocent American citizens. The Guantanamo Bay scandal further sheds light on criminal misconduct against innocent people, with the Pentagon admitting that upwards of 60% of people they are detaining, humiliating and torturing in Cuba have no connection to al-Qaeda or terrorism or any crime at all. In the midst of all of this persecution of innocents, the Bush administration continues to assert unlimited power and complete immunity from punishment. In Guantanamo, for example, prisoners are not allowed sufficient medical care, access to lawyers, trials or even to see evidence or be charged with crimes. They are held indefinitely, brutally interrogated, and never allowed due process, even though the military admits most of them are not guilty of anything. Is this evidence of the safer world that a "War on Terror" provides? At what cost must we accept the stability of power over the security of our freedoms?

IN THE END, HOW SAFE ARE WE?

Sadly, despite the overwhelming oppression we have accepted at home and overseas, we are no safer today than we were on September 10th, 2001. We are patrolling the southern border with Mexico where no terrorists have entered the U.S., yet we do not effectively monitor the border with Canada where al-Qaeda groups are alleged to exist. Despite warnings from experts, we are not funding the patrol of our coasts and we only inspect 4% of cargo coming in through sea ports. Members of the military have admitted that the "War on Terror" has provided a breeding ground for more terrorism and willing recruits in the face of U.S. oppression. The CIA just closed its unit charged with finding Osama Bin-Laden, the very villain we hunted as an excuse to occupy Afghanistan and then Iraq. People who are the victimized by American state-sanctioned murder, displacement from their homes and economic strangulation are uniting against the U.S., but the Bush administration ignores all predictions and indications of danger, and further expands its campaign of military violence to acheive cooperation from the global community. Domestically, our crime rates have not been reduced by tougher laws and sentences for criminals, and the government continues to hold and execute innocent people. So what have our measures to promote stability acheived?

Looking at our government’s domestic policies, we can see what exactly our paternalistic "protectors" are keeping us safe from. We are safe from political activism – the ACLU is currently bringing lawsuits against the government for spying on members of various political groups, including gay rights groups and veterans groups promoting peace. See www.aclu.org for further information. We are safe from effective political change, as innocent people can be imprisoned and executed based on falsehoods, all to preserve the stability of government control. We are safe from whistleblowing, watchdogging, and either media or congressional oversight; in recent months, the White House and Congress have colluded to illegally violate civil rights and international law, all the while attacking and trying to criminalize media outlets who have exposed secret unlawful activities. With policies of oppression contrary to their rhetoric of freedom and democracy, the government is not upholding our rights or protecting our security. Apparently, the only thing the government really wants to keep us safe from is our own liberty, stable and secure as global slaves.
An important reminder belongs here, because the focus of this article has been injustices against the innocent that threaten our safety. We are not simply threatened by the abuse of the innocent, but by the mentality that allows for human and civil rights abuses at all, against anyone. Members of the world’s most powerful empire seem to rally around phrases like "nume ‘em back to the stone age" or "fry ‘em all," trumpeting the virtues of might and force in enforcing presumed moral superiority. Even many liberals, who oppose abuses against the innocent, still support violence and degradation against those they presume guilty. This is not only dangerous because it allows the kinds of injustices discussed earlier to happen, but this is dangerous because the ultimate goal of a society should not be brutality and triumph by force. Someone recently told me they supported "the use of military force to stamp our genocide," and they repeated the exact phrase over and over so its propagandist origins became evident. What they, and so many others, do not realize is that military force leads to more genocide because war and military force are always forms of genocide.
Had the U.S. not been so heavy handed with Germany after WWI, thus devastating their economy, Hitler may have never gained the popular support that lead to his execution of genocide. Had the U.S. not dropped the bomb on Japan, and intervened in Korea and Vietnam and Cambodia, we would not have devastated and impoverished generations of Asians. Had the U.S. not trained and armed and funded military forces in Latin America, thereby securing their economic control of the poor, we would not be so overwhelmed with immigrants and third-world poverty and disease. Our militarism and weapons dealings have destablized Africa, contributing to further genocide. And had we not sided with, armed, and/or removed various Middle Eastern regimes we might not have the tense relationship with the Arab world which has caused so much suffering. But even when war is not an immediate issue, our abuse of the guilty is shameful and problematic. Clearly the people want to prevent instability, threats to safety, and genocide. and if we want to support security and social justice, we must show how an advanced and civilized society To do this, we must demonstrate humanity, mercy and compassion even to the most heinous and guilty of criminals. Only through the exercise of peace can freedom and true safety be assured.

Minimum Wage vs. Congressional Pay: The Class War in Washington

2006-06-24T14:50:00.000-05:00

"By an overwhelming margin (83% to 14%), the American public favors raising the federal minimum wage to $7.15 per hour -- a hefty $2.00 an hour increase. And nearly half (49%) say they strongly support such an increase. While there are differences in the extent of support across political and socioeconomic lines, raising the minimum wage receives widespread support from both Republicans and Democrats, wealthy and poor. "
- from a report by the Pew Research Center

Numerous media sources reported on the recent congressional rejection of a minimum wage increase from $5.15/hr to over $7/hr, so soon after Congress members received a pay raise of about $5,000 a year, almost half of the annual income of a full-time minimum wage worker. A report from the EPI, the Economic Policy Institute (www.epinet.org) shows the buying power of minimum wage to be at a 50 year low, having failed to grow with inflation and cost of living despite economic progress. The gap between top executive salaries and minimum wage is also at a record extreme, with the recent increase in production and corporate profits failing to benefit the average worker. Despite overwhelming evidence about both the public support and economic value of a minimum wage increase, Congress decided that it was not in our best interest. Looking at these facts, one might wonder: how can the government, comprised of people so averse to any political risks, so blatantly disregard public opinion and interest?

Part of the answer can be found by looking at the systematization of class bias, something overlooked by the media's distorted juxtaposition of these events. After all, members of Congress did not vote on these issues back to back, smugly increasing their salary to almost 15 times that of the minimum wage worker and then rejecting a wage increase. In fact, they did not technically "vote" on their pay raise at all. While Congress predictably voted in favor of their corporate campaign donors who oppose empowering the labor force, their own pay raise was hidden in a large Treasury Bill years ago, as a cost of living adjustment (COLA). This tactic helps politicians to save face, so they can quietly take care of their own wants and needs without losing votes, knowing that all recent polls for the last several decades have shown intense public disapproval of these salary increases. The very people who have helped working class wages stagnate for 25 years apparently see the need for a COLA for themselves, despite the fact that many of these people are worth millions of dollars in assets and investments. While some Democrats have stood against these raises, such legislation and continued support of the status quo comes from bipartisan interests. This is not just a sleazy Republican strategy to funnel more public funds to the wealthy; the rich Democrats who have become subservient to Republican interests recently, and the Democrats who have pretended to represent the American left for decades, have gladly kept their hands out for more and more pay. For all the financial support the "liberals" in government receive from labor groups, they cannot effectively mount a campaign for a living wage.

The figures are not that complex and mysterious as economists always tell us they are -- further reporting from the EPI indicates that large companies like Wal-Mart (who has vehemently opposed wage increases) could increase wages significantly without raising prices, simply by settling for a more reasonable profit margin. The American economic model has been to allow companies to secure unlimited and unfettered profits, and then determine their own distribution. This theory, of course, presupposes that compensation will be fair and based on merit, and that the concentration of wealth in the executive level will result in domestic reinvestment, further invigorating the economy. This theory has proven false, however; we have seen over the last few decades that the cheap labor and deregulation in foreign economies are even more lucrative for wealthy Americans. Overseas investment and outsourcing erode the domestic consumer base, even as the companies who move out of the U.S. continue to receive tax funded subsidies. Without a wage labor domestic consumer base for products, the salaries for people to manufacture these products cannot be paid, and labor becomes subjegated even further. Most studies indicate that since wage labor workers are instant spenders, and thus the increased consumerism from a minimum wage increase (an its subsequent positive effect on all lower wages) would actually stimulate the economy. A robust economy with lower class stability is clearly not the goal of our economic development, however -- only the maximization of profit for the upper class. As long as the wheels keep turning, there is no need to share power and wealth.

Ultimately, we are left with another level of disenfranchisement, where the most important issues are reserved for Congressional voting by wealthy negotiators being pandered to by wealthy interest groups, and the only votes we are allowed are for those same priveleged and self-serving people. Even the structure by which to enter government is laden with corruption and classist bias, and clean campaign legislation restricting amounts that can be collected, donated and spent are being challenged and repealed. Congress votes not to allow itself or its corporate funders to be investigated or overseen, in full cooperation of the Supreme Court, CIA, FBI, Treasury Department, Pentagon, and even the media -- everyone but us. Does anyone even remember why these people are in charge of regulating our society? The rationalizations behind domestic spying show that this government's intentions are not to be the protectors of our liberties, as they should be, but the self appointed grantors of what freedoms they deem appropriate. Their desire to privatize schools, jails and police, energy, retirement, healthcare, low income assistance and even military training and operations without media or internal oversight shows that they do not wish to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty" as the preamble sets forth. Without representing the public interest, or allowing for elections on issues of social significance, and without fulfilling any of its constitutionally defined duties, what does the government hope to become, and do? Collect tax money and redistribute it to the private sector? The time is long overdue that we join together with other working class families and let our "representatives" know: the time has come to actually represent us! Cut defense spending and congressional salaries, eliminate corporate welfare and industrial subsidies to major corporations, regulate corporate corruption, monopolization and pollution, and significantly increase the minimum wage. Support of labor groups and worker's rights groups are essential, as our government pursues the Latin American model of a massive peasant class supporting the very small minority of elite.

Try www.aflcio.org or www.uaw.org for starters.

Defending the "Blathersphere"

2006-06-21T21:01:00.000-05:00

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason…"
- Frederick Douglass

While doing research for another post, I stumbled on to an article on a fairly progressive, left wing website defaming blogosphere as ineffective and inaccurate. Pointing to the misstatements of another leftist webpage, the author implied that the refusal of these writers to retract earlier statements showed them to be lunatics and "kooks," incapable of affecting any real policy change or fostering meaningful debate. He asked if the "blathersphere," where people spouted off whatever nonsense they chose to defend their positions, was really supposed to save the world. The next day, I heard a caller on a radio show say that he did not like to engage in certain political discussions because everyone just patted each other on the back, and nothing came of it for all the talk. While new to blogging myself, and never one to call into a radio show, I was saddened to hear people in the world's most powerful empire, granted some of the most sweeping freedoms of expression of any empire, discussing the down side of free expression. In an age of illegal war, government coverups, media consolidation and restriction, and domestic spying, should we be upset about the expansion of free expression with new technologies? Are people really saying, "Enough is enough," as though limited and controlled expression is all well and good as long as things do not get out of hand?

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what
they do not want to hear."
- George Orwell

In today's political climate, a discussion about the merits of free expression and its vast expansion through blogging seems redundant. Social justice cannot exist without free speech. Any arguments about how limiting the volume of free speech could eliminate the irrelevant, thereby facilitating more focused and substantial debate, treads on a rhetorical slippery slope of intellectual elitism that cannot be applied justly in a free world. Finding legitimate arguments opposed to free speech, except in extreme cases of security, would be a fruitless and futile exercise. The effectiveness and legitimacy of free expression, in addition to its importance to our society, however, should be acknowledged, before we have gathered enough rope with which to hang ourselves.

The author of the aforementioned "blathersphere" article surely did not mean to defame free expression or his own access to it; even far right conservative writers have defended this value, and spoken out against the government's increasing restrictions on speech and the press. His attack may have more to do with his web address than the content of any site -- a ".com" deriding a" .org". While there are many .com's that represent free and independent points of view, and many .org's funded by corporate or special interest groups, the comments of this author in particular betrayed a definite prejudice of the establishment media over independent sources. According to this prejudice, those in the mainstream media are the professionals who can both gather and analyse the evidence objectively, while independents are political extremists with transparent agendas. Their work is what exposes government fraud and moves both society and public policy, which independent sources are self-congratulatory and irrelevant to the political process.

"We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep and conformists."
– Bill Maher

Sure, there's something to be said for the matrix of distribution that these outlets enjoy. However, the virtual absence in major media outlets of any opinion outside the mainstream, especially leading up to and since the invastion of Iraq, points to the same inaccuracy and inefficiency of which non-establishment media has been accused. A complacent or lazy or complicitous or pandering press is worthless as a free press. Perhaps establishment media is threatened by bloggers because they can make the establishment, and its spin control of information irrelevant to the people. There's no replacing well researched and reasoned journalism, but perhaps it can come from sources other than those owned and managed by major corporations. Are we expected to believe that the same media that sounded its trumpets for the Washington war machine just 3 years ago will save us? Does the "blathersphere" seem any less likely to affect change, or perhaps because of its wide reach and independent nature, even more so? A free marketplace of ideas can stimulate grass roots political action, as well as join people of a common mind in a common purpose. Authentic testimonials from other citizens can encourage us all to vote our conscience and demand change.

The Pitfalls of Privatization - Pigs in Zen

2006-06-20T19:36:00.000-05:00

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
- U.S. Congressman Richard Baker, Republican, speaking to lobbyists

After our decades of cold warring with the Soviet Empire, allegedly in defense of freedom and private property ownership, the debate over nationalization and privatization seems long settled in the United States. The near religious dogmatism of American economics demands an unfettered marketplace, where supply and demand are allowed to roam free of government intervention. We have privatized the post office, summer school programs, prisons, and even military JCET training and security duties for the Pentagon. Thanks to Reagan, we give the most public money to the private sector in history, in the form of subsidies, credits, loopholes, and tax incentives. Looking ahead, we can hear in the fiscal rhetoric of the Republicans future plans for social security, and the elimination of funding for public schools, healthcare, and housing. Recent movements towards nationalization of industry in South America have illicited "friendly reminders" from the White House, and our intolerance for socialist regimes in this hemisphere is absolute.

Now, however, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we see the promotion of privatization accelerated to new levels, and big business is licking its chops. Charter schools have been established in New Orleans, but are woefully ill prepared to handle the volume of students that need to be served. Thousands are still displaced, but HUD is planning to tear down public housing units. Reconstruction has been delayed and corrupted, with large chunks of the billions meant for relief being funneled to contractors and private companies. Barabara Bush's large and publicly made contribution to the victims was given with the instructions that the money be used to purchase educational software from her son Neil Bush's private company, that would then use it in increasingly privatized school systems. We see a repeat of the victories of corporate America in the Iraq occupation, with enormous no-bid contracts and unmerited performance bonuses going to friends of the administration while Congress votes to ignore the conflict of interests, only this time it is here at home. So what's the big deal? Isn't this just business as usual?

Well, there is no doubt that presidential administrations have promoted business interests, both domestically and internationally. Despite the folly of this approach, there is no foreseeable change to U.S. policy on the horizon. Latin American history shows us that American presidents have supported leaders favorable to U.S. investment, even at the expense of peace, freedom, democracy, and human life. The death squads in Central and South America were often trained on U.S. soil at the School of the Americas, funded by our tax money through the CIA, and given international political support for the sake of keeping business interests safe from various populist, leftist, and socialist movements. The same story has played out in Africa, Asia, and now the Middle East. Recent political trends, however, point to the current promotion of a pro-business agenda as something other than business as usual.

Fundamentally, the logic behind American arguments for privatization depend heavily on false logic. Pollsters know that the average citizen does not trust government, with some surveys ranking them below used car dealers. The image of an oversized, understaffed, inept, overly bureaucratic, inefficient, corrupt and otherwise deplorable government system lies at the heart of American mythology, an icon as lasting as Washington himself. Arguments from the right always depend heavily on this stereotype, whether used to defame the post office for its poor service, the public schools for bad test scores, the prisons for abuse and overcrowding, Social Security for future bankruptcy, or welfare and low income healthcare and housing for abuse. If we believed the pundits from the right, we should entrust ourselves from the cradle to the grave to the private sector.

The flip side to all of this, however, is that privatization, like deregulation, depends heavily on government intervention, only instead of restrictions they require facilitation. In an age of preaching personal responsibility, Reagan insured that the government would help businesses with more tax money than ever from the citizenry. Without either heavy subsidies or the U.S. government's international manipulation of tariffs and currency exchange restrictions and basic law, many major American companies would go bankrupt. And the very government, who is supposedly too inept and corrupt to trust with the fundamental protection and promotion of public interest, is in charge of running this whole show. Anyone who would argue that our economy is not run on subsidies need only look at the recent struggles of the transportation or telecommunication industries, and our tax funded bail outs that kept wasteful companies afloat. After all, if we want to support free market capitalism, shouldn't companies that mismanage their resources be forced to fail? Why can't we let the market truly decide? Which is it: is the government incompetent, or a necessary facilitator?

For more evidence to the folly of our path, look at the corruption of private prison systems and security training. The concept of "trade secrets" exempt groups from oversight, even when they are training the military in treatment of prisoners, or interrogating suspects. Privatization has simply eliminated the checks and balances that made these systems accountable, or at least more worthy of our trust. Support of murderous dictators, the complete absence of responsibility for corporations, corruption and incompetence in exchange for corruption and incompetence, allowing business to direct the focus and government and direction of law; are these prices truly worth paying for pro-business global conditions and an environment friendly to privatization? Should we listen to a government that tells us it is at once inept, but must be allowed to manage the economy even if by methods contrary to the public will? Clearly, for anyone who supports social justice, the answer is no.

After all, capitalism was initially meant to be a democratizing system, a reaction against the British model of Adam Smith's time when business colluded with government for the extreme profit of the priveleged, and a free market meant that anyone could participate. Smith, however, never meant for government to pursue this economic model at the expense of the interests of those citizens his theories sought to empower. Moreover, we should be concerned not just about privatization in general, but in the extremities of its modern support. After all, contrast Bush to a wartime leader like FDR, who nationalized industry to stimulate the economy and enrich the poor with domestic reinvestment and more jobs. The Iraq occupation has instead been a party for the private sector, an age in which every role to which we once delegated to our government is given over to unaccountable and often corrupt corporations, a maximization of profits for the powerful that is being redirected home. We should be worried because New Orleans will be used by the government as an argument in favor of more nationwide privatization, and it is not working. The pigs will wallow in paradise, in the zen of their decadence, while peace, democracy, and social justice will pay the price.

A Belated Father's Day Post: Fathers for Peace

2006-06-19T21:54:00.000-05:00

As I spent yesterday with my children, this Father’s Day post arrives a day late. I wanted to look at four famous fathers for peace, and how our society has treated them in the never ending struggle between those who would commit violence and those who would stop it. With any luck, their examples can inspire more fathers to work towards a peaceful world for their children.

The first and most recent on the list is Michael Berg, father, retired teacher, anti-war activist and now a congressional candidate in Delaware for the Green Party. Berg is the father of Nick Berg, an American telecom contractor who was beheaded by insurgents in Iraq in 2004. Since Nick’s death, Berg has demanded answers from the government about what happened to his son. He is working with others on Voters For Peace, a group spearheading a campaign to elect anti-war politicians. He has personally blamed George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld for the death of his son. Berg has been called a lunatic and a traitor, with the conservative right twisting his condemnation of the war into support for terrorism. My ISP recently listed an e-mail from Voters For Peace as potentially connected to fraud and illegal activites.

"Of all of the holidays a grieving father can be confronted with after the death of his child, Father's Day is for me the most difficult. My son Nick died in Iraq on May 7, 2004. He is buried next to my father, who had died just a year and a half before. That is not the way it's supposed to be . . . There is a lot else going on that is not the way it is supposed to be. Our leaders are not supposed to lie to us. Yet that is precisely what George Bush and company have done. They told us to beware of weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi involvement in 9/11, and Al Qaeda infiltration of Iraq. We now know these were all lies, yet still my son and the loved ones of 150,000 other grieving souls lost their lives because of them."
- Michael Berg

The next famous father for peace is Father Roy Bourgeois, Catholic priest and founder of the human rights group SOA Watch. In the 70’s he worked to help the poor in Bolivia, before being arrested and deported for speaking out against the dictator and SOA graduate Gen. Hugo Banzer. In the 80’s he became a critic of U.S. policy in support and training of death squads after the rape and murder of four American church women by soldiers of the Salvadoran National Guard. In the 90’s he founded School of the Americas Watch, an organization seeking the closure of the SOA (now renamed WHINSEC) through non-violent means. The group won a recent victory on June 9th with a congressional vote condemning the school. Thanks to their work, fathers like Bourgeois and colleague Fr. Louis Vitale have been imprisoned for protesting murder and torture, while for decades members of the military have escaped prosecution for those same murders.

"People speaking out for justice and accountability go to prison this week, while the SOA and its graduates continue to commit human rights abuses with impunity."
– Fr. Roy Bourgeois

Next is Father Daniel Berrigan, 85 year old peace activist, priest, poet, playwright, and educator. A long-time icon of the American anti-war movements, Berrigan traveled to Vietnam in 1968 to bring home three POW’s. That same year he made headlines by burning draft files with eight others in Catonsville Maryland. He became a fugitive from the FBI, and then was arrested and imprisoned. In the 80’s he helped start the Plowshares anti-nuclear movement with a protest at a GE nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Again, the defense of innocent children and the condemnation of murder has earned this father for peace scorn from nationalists, prosecution by the government, and ultimately prison time.

"One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible."

"I went into a draft board in Catonsville in May of that year, removed about 300 draft files and burned them with homemade napalm, under the utterly absurd and totally unamerican assumption that it is better to burn papers than children."
– Fr. Dan Berrigan

Finally, the last father for peace is perhaps one of the most famous icons of peace activism; Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi. A major political and spiritual leader in India, Gandhi led a campaign of resistance against British Imperialism and tyranny through civil disobedience and total non-violence. His life inspired civil rights and peace movements around the world, and the titles applied to him were both "Mahatma," meaning great soul, and "Bapu," meaning father. He was killed in 1948 for his views.

"If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with
the children."
- Mohandas Gandhi

A list like this could go on and on, and surely many readers will be upset to see certain important names missing. But as I hurry to finish this post and spend more time with my own children, there are two things I have learned from my research; one is that fathers who stand for peace risk prison and even death, for our society seems more interested in punishing resistance to violence than violence itself, and the second is that the work of every father for peace is invaluable. Without fathers and mothers and concerned citizens who stand against war and murder and torture and the cycle of violence we seemed doomed to repeat, we will never have children who learn the value of life and peace. To all the peace activists and peace loving people around the world, keep fighting.

Censure, Recall, Impeachment; Whatever it Takes

2006-06-16T15:19:00.000-05:00

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then
every post-war American president would have been hanged."
- Noam Chomsky

Much has been written about the failings of George W. Bush and his administration; by all accounts, he has the worst record of any U.S. president in a staggering number of areas. Among other things, he is the first president to enter the White House with a criminal record and has the largest number of criminals working with him. He has given the fewest public addresses and taken the most vacations. He has turned the largest budget surplus in our history into the largest deficit, and recounts indicate he lost both the 2000 and 2004 elections, stolen in part by legal wrangling and election fraud on several levels. Recently we learned of his record number of signature statements that give him discretion to break the law, over 750 and many times over more than any president before him. With Cheney in the White House, we have seen a return to the thinking of the Nixon era, when our current vice president supported the idea that if the president did something, it was not illegal because he was the president. Not surprisingly, the entrance of this administration to Washington was preceded by their frantic sealing of records in private archives, an issue not discussed because of "national security." We have both an illegitimate and incompetent president, and the list of reasons for his impeachment are a mile long, ranging from war crimes in general to compromising national security with the leak of a CIA agent's identity in particular. I would like to offer an alternate reason for impeachment to the ever growing list -- one that relates back to Colin Powell, bad intelligence, Enron, and former California governor Gray Davis.

Years after Colin Powell's speech to the world to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq, research has shown that every claim he made at the time was false. In the 700 locations that the U.N. searched, no weapons of mass destruction were found. No links between Hussein and the purchasing of yellow cake uranium from Niger were established. No links between Hussein and 9/11 could be proven, and his link to terrorism hinged on Zarqawi, who we now know was a small timer until the U.S. falsely named him #2 in al-Qaida and helped him build up a network of insurgent groups. The human rights case against Iraq is no stronger than that against nearby Turkey, a U.S. ally with an even worse record of abuses and repression against the Kurd minority. The government has yet to provide any justification for so great a failure in judgement and planning, never admitting that the occupation of Iraq was a mistake, never admitting that despite the fact that all justifications for the invasion have been disproven, the war is unjustified. We are only told that we must stay the course, in order to win the war on terror.

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
- Colin Powell

Now that our troops are in Iraq, we are told that the potential for civil war and violence is so great we cannot leave, falling back on Madeline Albright's assessment of the United States as the "indispensible nation." Even though reports show that violence and civilian death is at an all time high, and the prime minister of Iraq and the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. have both acknowledged that massacres of innocents at the hands of U.S. troops, like those at Haditha, are a daily event, we are told we must keep our troops there. There is little mention of the fact that U.S. support of Shi'ite over Sunni factions have intensified this violence, or that the resistance against U.S. abuses is increasing the insurgency. We are only told that the past is past, and we have to deal with the current situation by continued occupation. But what about accountability? What about our responsibilities to the international community? Can we ignore that the government is either feigning or guilty of gross incompetence, and that this incompetence has resulted in atrocities tantamount to the worst war crimes of WWII?

Clearly, the U.S. official stance on this is that yes, we will ignore these issues. Aside from withdrawing from a record number of treaties, our current administration has shown complete disregard for the law, international courts and organizations, the ICC and the U.N. alike. Numerous statements and press releases have implied that we cannot listen to anyone who does not agree with U.S. interests, and in our own system we have seen soldiers acquitted of the murder of prisoners who died during torturous interrogations. Our own recent history, however, and the support of this administration for certain parties, have set a precedent which invalidates all of the governments' rationales and incriminates them in impeachable offenses.

Few media outlets have discussed the connection between Enron and the California gubernatorial recall, even in the flurry of coverage about Ken Lay's guilty conviction. We now know that the budget crisis and power crisis for which Davis was blamed were being caused by Enron's manipulation of the California grid, and then overcharging to the tune of $9 billion. Reminiscent of Reagan's campaign of disruption in Nicaragua, where the U.S. sabotaged the country so conditions would become so unliveable they would move to oust their leaders, Davis discovered the role of Enron in his state's decline and demanded the money back. Lay used this opportunity to push for a recall, blaming Davis for the poor conditions, promoting Arnold as a replacement who would ignore the missing money and champion extensive deregulation of the energy industry. Despite the fact that no one has been charged with a crime over these events, the federal government quietly watched as one of their biggest donors worked behind the scenes to enact its agenda to maximize profit and affect public policy.

"Among the main arguments used against Governor Davis was that he inherited record surpluses and turned them into record deficits and presided over a weak economy that has lost jobs. President Bush should take heed of that message. The American people are anxious about the economy and increasingly angry at his failed leadership. The President’s reckless economic policies have resulted in record joblessness and record deficits."
- Nancy Pelosi, California congresswoman

Here is the Catch 22 for the Bush administration; despite feigning neutrality, they clearly supported Kenny-boy and Arnold in the recall, thereby recognizing that elected officials are accountable for poor conditions that arise from mismanagement or even circumstances outside of their control. They recognized that serious crises are grounds for the removal of elected leaders. And as Davis pointed out, President Bush can also be blamed for the very things for which Davis himself was recalled. This fact rings even truer now, in the light of the misstatements and missteps that led us to war with Iraq. The "bad intelligence" from England and Italy which the White House has blamed for its bad judgement has been reviewed. Some of the forged or false documents were so amateurishly produced that they took only minutes to discredit. Anyone, especially those in such high offices and important positions, should have had serious doubts about this information and these sources before rushing headlong into an armed conflict. That is why there are so many safeguards and checks and balances in our government structure, and that is why there are legal means to hold elected officials accountable.

From all of the information we have today , we can come to only two possible conclusions: either the people in government knew that all of their evidence was falsified, and immorally proceeded with their deadly agenda, or they were so incompetent they could not properly evaluate the evidence they had. Either scenario is totally unacceptable. If they knew their evidence was false, then pushing for the war in 2003 is a prosecutable war crime, because all of the civilian deaths and devastation and so called "collateral" damage cannot be excused away or justified as necessary evils. If those in government intentionally deceived the people to gain support for their war, and the huge profits their donors like Exxon Mobil, Halliburton and Enron earned in its wake, then the war is an unnecessary evil. Those responsible must be brought to justice. On the other hand, if those in government were really so bad at doing their job, so anxious to start war that they ignored what an amateur could see, they should be recalled just like Davis was. The California precedent indicates that we should not have to suffer such incompetence, or accept the aftermath and proceed with such a disastrous blunder. The administration cannot have it both ways, supporting the recall of a governor for crises outside of his control, then stay in office during crises which they claim are outside of their control, which they blame on bad intelligence, bad judgement, or a lack of foresight. Let's forget about all the opposition to the war before we occupied, or all the warnings about possible repercussions and a growing insurgency which the government ignored. Either they lied or they screwed up so badly they deserve to be fired. Censure, recall, impeachment -- whatever it takes to end the killing and support social justice for all citizens of the world.

"Free" Trade: The Real Agenda of Democracy Promotion

2006-06-16T11:31:00.000-05:00

"I am not a liberator.
Liberators do not exist.
The poor liberate themselves."
- Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Anyone familiar with Latin American history will know of the long tradition there of oppression and revolution, the back-and-forth struggle for power between the colonizers and colonized peoples. Grass roots movements like the EGP, a latino revolutionary group in the 1940's whose name translates to "The Guerrilla Army of the Poor," sprung up all over the southern continent, often joining with other groups to form coalitions against the rule imposed since the times of Columbus and Cortez. Moreover, thanks to his popularity as a merchandising icon, the name of Che Guevara will surely ring a bell for the average reader. For most Americans, however, the story ends there.

Sure, we can read of the struggle for independence from old European colonial powers, led by icons like Bolivar and San Martin. We can read about how this tide of leftist movements, returning land to the peasants and nationalizing industries, led to the popular uprising in Cuba where the U.S. appointed military dictator Flugencio Batista was overthrown by Castro. But by this point in the tale Guevara had disappeared, murdered by the CIA instead of the compromised Castro who would make a better enemy. Political structures of these newly freed republics were establishing themselves along more or less conventional lines. The quote above, and the man whose name it bears, seem like remnants of a distant past. With the heated debates about war, military spending, national security and immigration raging in the media, though, these remnants are more relevant today than ever.

THE CUBAN CONNECTION

Cuba marks an interesting turning point in our history books, when these battles for independence were suddenly spun as something less noble, and more dangerous. Canonical history focuses on how Cuba aligned with the Soviet Empire and a conflict began between Castro and the Americans which continues today, in the form of economic isolation and military tensions. The standard interpretation of this series of events is almost always the same, a legacy of Cold War politics which the end of the Cold War has not yet undone. This interpretation dictates that the communists were the bad guys, the Americans had to defend themselves, and Castro and his revolution were evil. This interpretation has been used to justify the pressures we have applied to Cuba, along with the concerns expressed by various presidential administrations about leftist movements to the south and our government's repeated support of the other side. This interpretation, however, ignores much of the U.S. role in the politics of Latin America. Examining these actions, and the intentions behind them, illuminates much about our current situation with Latin America in regards to military security and immigration, and the real agenda behind so-called democracy promotion and free trade agreements.

Now declassified documents from the Kennedy era indicate the primary reason behind the U.S. opposition to Cuba; namely, a concern that the popularity of leftist movements in Latin America would reach our borders, and private property ownership would be threatened when the working class would inevitably demand a greater share of the wealth and prosperity they were helping to build. Numerous corporate investors, most notably the United Fruit Company in Guatemala and Bacardi in Cuba, lost substantial holdings when socialist leaning governments either returned land to indigenous people or seized assets for nationalization. Such threats to private wealth were unacceptable to Kennedy and every president since, so much so that they were able to rationalize CIA's infamous Bay of Pigs invasion, where the American government attempted to overthrow Castro by starting a second revolution, and successive administrations have worked tirelessly to strangle Cuba economically and politically. This threat to private property has also been used to rally support for military coups, dictators, and paramilitary death squads in nearly every Latin American country.

COLD WAR BATTLEFIELD

Strangely, the United States government does not seem bothered by the violence and oppression brought about by their actions, despite being the most vocal proponent for democracy, freedom and human rights in the world. Greg Palast noted in his book Armed Madhouse, that Latin America served as the real battlefield which complemented the ideological battles with Russia during the Cold War. In the 50's, the U.S. supported a military group that removed a democratically elected socialist government in Guatemala, who in turn committed decades of atrocities against the lower classes. In the 60's (and ever since), the military invaded Cuban air/water/land, trying to use the economic embargoes on Cuba to stir up revolution against Castro despite his overwhelming popular support, as though the poor conditions were his own fault. In the 70's, declassified memos reveal that Nixon instructed the CIA to fund a coup against democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende, which put the ruthless tyrant Pinochet in power. In the 80's, Reagan supported the Contras in Nicaragua, so much so that the CIA helped them broker drug deals in the U.S. to earn money for weapons. We fought against elections, and used covert troops to wage a campaign of disruption, artificially making conditions so unliveable that the government hoped the Nicaraguan people themselves would rise up and support the Contras. In the 90's, despite overwhelming evidence that the regimes we had helped put in power were committing terrible acts against their own people, and despite promises to defund these regimes, U.S. funding increased substantially to countries like Guatemala and Colombia. Clearly, the support for business, investment, and private property friendly governments around the world is supreme over democracy, freedom and human rights, despite whatever rhetoric our own government throws at us.

While siding or opposing a certain regime may be excused as an error in judgement after the fact, an interesting revelation in the 1990's shows that the U.S. role in these events was much more active than just political or financial support. After tremendous public pressure, the Pentagon released the training manual from the School of the Americas, a tax-funded military installation in Georgia whose official mission was described as anti-narcotics, anti-insurgency, and anti-terrorism training for friendly militaries around the world. Famous graduates include Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin-Laden. The training manual details how our government taught students from foreign militaries our methods of torture, murder, intimidation and repression against any enemies of the state. These techniques could then be passed on to local police, or groups outside the scope of public scrutiny like security forces and paramilitary teams, better known as death squads. The American military continues this training today, through its JCET program, and the School of the Americas under the new name WHINSEC, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, and often aids or instructs the troops in their efforts.

Notice, however, that despite public declarations to the contrary, the anti-narcotics funding and military training has not decreased to countries like Colombia, even though the flow of drugs from them has increased. More than that, if the U.S. helped place a dictatorship in power, which in turn oppresses and brutalizes its citizens, then the enemies of the state or insurgents we help to fight are merely the citizenry, the people whose democratic freedoms we should be supporting. As for human rights concerns, the direct support of these death squads is so common it has been named, dubbed "the El Salvador option," and its employment was recommended as recently as the war in Iraq. In a famous example of 1984 style doublespeak, the democracy promotion and war on terror which President Bush continues throughout the world apparently involves support of murderous troops who repress the freedoms of innocent people (look to our recent support of Shi'ites over Sunnis in the Middle East, and the disastrous rise in violence since). Comparing rhetoric to action, one can only deduce that the real agenda behind our military, political and financial dealings in Latin America and around the world are not efforts to promote democracy, freedom and human rights, and not an effort to fight the war on drugs or terrorism. If we legitimately wanted to pursue these goals, we would support them over other end goals, and revise policies that led to past failures. The only goals we have constantly pursued have been security for business investment and free trade, a sort of neo-colonialism that depends more on threats than direct control. The colonizing power extracts money, resources, and privelege from the colony, which is abused as the power center sees fit. This is no different than the colonialism of the past, except that it drops the pretense of political rule and focuses on often covert economic rule.

COLONIALISM AND IMMIGRATION

So what does all of this have to do with today's news? Look at some of the headlines over the last few years. Early in the war, Bush made a speech where he said we could only win if military spending was made a top priority, as though it were not already. In his book Blowback, Chalmers Johnson points out that much of the Pentagon's spending, and in turn the efforts of our diplomats and ambassadors, goes to large contracts for private companies, either selling weapons to other countries, getting grants from the U.S., or setting up business deals with military force like we did in Iraq. The vast power of this military complex is used to secure deals like NAFTA and CAFTA, signed despite overwhelming public opposition, often times out of fear of reprisal. These deals secure economic exploitation of Latin America by U.S. investors, even at the expense of human life, devastating another generation of poor latinos. And in recent comments in NYC Noam Chomsky noted that U.S. troops and training are increasing in Latin America at an alarming pace. A recent military contract proposed involved the construction of a DMZ style triple wall along the Mexican border, as though we are preparing for war. These events do not go unnoticed throughout the rest of the world, and Latin Americans are all too familiar with the role of the U.S. in their oppression and impoverishment.

We wonder why our borders are flooded with latinos looking to take back some of the wealth extracted from their own lands. In the American media, though, I have not heard a single mention of the role the U.S. has played in the military violence or economic disasters that might make people want to come here for work. No one discussing solutions has mentioned a change in U.S. policy towards Latin America. No one seems to have noticed the connection between our behavior and its inevitable consequences. While no one denies the need for business and investment, free trade agreements should not ignore living wages or workers' rights. The World Bank and IMF, an extension of the U.S. treasury, should not recommend the removal of trade restrictions and currency exchange restrictions to countries that are not economically powerful enough to withstand the consequent looting by corporations and investors which follows such actions. We have a moral obligation to recognize our responsibility in the devastation of these people, not treat them like criminals. The U.S. should not use its military to threaten or intimidate other governments to go along with destructive policies, and should not train or support violent oppressors for the sake of business interests. We do not need to make the highest profit margin for the wealthy the end goal of our civilization.

Our military might is not always effective at acheiving this end, though, and ultimately this points to the relevance of Che Guevara and the EGP. Recent headlines also show us how the Colombian leader Uribe's support of U.S. trade policies have secured him money and military support, despite his lax drug policies and human rights abuses. Meanwhile, we see how Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and others have exercised their right to reject U.S. economic policies, to the scorn of the administration. President Bush recently made this statement to the press, a week after Bolivia nationalized its energy industry and cut U.S. investors out of the deal:

"I am going to continue to remind our hemisphere that respect for property rights and human rights is essential for all countries in order for there to be prosperity and peace. I’m going to remind our allies and friends in the neighborhood that the United States of America stands for justice; that when we see poverty, we care about it and we do something about it; that we care for good -- we stand for good health care. I'm going to remind our people that meddling in other elections is -- to achieve a short-term objective is not in the interests of the neighborhood."

Here we see more rhetoric about human rights, peace, and justice, mixed with veiled threats of force to ensure an agenda of privatization, wealth and democracy prevention. Could it be that the poor are moving to liberate themselves, even in the face of the overwhelming power of their neo-colonial oppressor? Could it be that we are preparing for war with Latin America? The economic prosperity of U.S. companies with contracts in the Middle East, and the threat to future prosperity by leftist governments who are ignoring U.S. concerns, along with hysteria over immigration and the militarization of the border, all paint a frightening picture of what might happen in the near future. Guevara's quote above speaks to the inevitability of revolutions against oppression, and indicates that as much as we try to subjegate the poor, they will liberate themselves. We must support democracy for everyone, freedom from oppression and violence, and fair trade agreements that ensure prosperity for Latin Americans, not just U.S. investors. These goals would reduce immigration, avoid militarization, and secure a better life for future generations. Only time will tell if our government will stay its course, or change its policies to support social justice.

For more information, try these sites:

www.soaw.org - School of the Americas Watch, with information about this institution and its history
www.gregpalast.com - Read more about Armed Madhouse and other investigative reports by Greg Palast

Mission Statement

2006-06-15T15:17:00.000-05:00

As a member of the most powerful empire in history, responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in history, I feel am responsible for standing up against injustices against humanity. Now more than ever we must make our views known, and join with like minded people to find solutions to the greatest crises facing us today.

Social justice depends on peace, democracy, personal and economic freedom, and human and civil rights for every citizen of the world. Social justice depends on the preservation of these ideals even at the expense of privelege, profit, and power. Anything that opposes or impedes these ideals is a social injustice. We should not work for war, or revolution, but rather informed debate and civil resistance to crimes against humanity.