Netanyahu's Peace?

Please don't read this if you are unwilling to engage in respectful and rational political debate. 

Saying anything about Israel is, of course, by the very nature of the situation, controversial. But I for one am very tired of the fact that if one is at all critical of Israeli policy you are slapped with the epithet of anti-Semitism. This is simply not right and not conducive to rational political discourse.

I was thinking about this because of Mr. Netanyahu’s recent proposal to stop issuing new building permits for the occupied territories with the notable exception of East Jerusalem. First of all it must be said that the exception of East Jerusalem is designed to thwart progress from the very beginning. It is like swearing to a judge that if he sets you free you will swear to stop committing crimes with the exception of shoplifting. Then you have to ask the question; why is the Israeli state issuing building permits for the occupied territories in the first place? This like the municipal government in Ottawa issuing building permits for contractors in Toronto. Listening to reports about the issue the other day on the radio I was once again appalled  at interviews with Israeli citizens who were criticizing Netanyahu for restricting any building since, in their words, ‘the Torah gives them the divine right to build anything they want anywhere in the occupied territories.’ Frankly, you cannot have a real political discussion with this as the post basic assumption.

And all of this reminds me of one of the most basic principles of politics; use your advisories to your advantage. The fact is that nothing generates as much anti-Semitism as the various expansionist acts of the Israeli government. But in a seemingly paradoxical but classic move of political strategy these attitudes are the very thing that keep the State of Israel firmly on its expansionist path. The very last thing that a man like Benjamin Netanyahu really wants is a real decline in anti-Semitism, let alone a cessation of such sentiments. Without these feelings the Israelis would have no serious excuse for continuing their gradual effort to take the entire occupied territories for themselves. This is the way in which the Palestinians are playing right into the hands of right-wing Israelis.  But being on the losing end of the stick, so to speak, it is very difficult to do anything else. If you were, say, a twenty-five year old Palestinian you will have never know anything other than occupation. And you will have grown watching your people live in squalor, poverty, and powerlessness in the face of one of the largest, best equipped military forces in the world. All this would be happening against the backdrop of the foreign occupier gradually taking more and more of your people’s land and you are helpless to stop it. It wouldn’t really matter what your politics are in such a case, in most instances the situation would decide for you. And this is the very thing that keeps politicians like Netanyahu going; as long as there are young Palestinians who are seething with resentment at Israeli expansion, and as long as there are people all over the world who sympathize with this resentment, Netanyahu will have the excuse he needs to keep up the policies of building. Under pressure from the Obama administration Netanyahu has temporarily halted the West Bank building. But he knows with all the building that is already going on as well has his exception of East Jerusalem real peace will be impossible – and that is just the way he wants it. 

Now, I understand that there are many Israelis who, also having lived in what they feel is a constant state of siege and that they assume that they cannot achieve peace. I think the better of these folks have simply been duped by men like Netanyahu who are willing to take advantage of anti-Semitism (much of which has been generated by such policies in the first place) to see their political goal move forward. 

Obama and change. . .

It is funny that the degree to which people in the media are debating the status of Barak Obama now that he is nearly a year into his term. There is all this surprise that he seems to have done little of any significance and can hardly be said to be a very ‘different’ president from others in recent history. Citics on the left have pointed out that Obama has supported many of the same policies as Bush did including keeping the war machine going (despite a Nobel Prize), spending millions for Wall Street, and even supporting the same kind of domestic spying programs. I have only one question: who was naïve enough to expect anything different? Oh yes, we all had a moment there when we believed in the audacity of hope. But then we regained consciousness. The fact is that the American political system, though democratic in principle, suffers from certain fundamental  problems. Without any real party system, the US representatives are reduced to a bunch of individual politicians trying to maintain their little fiefdom; there is no national policy, nothing that the US public can get behind and fight for. Thus even though a strong majority supports a national healthcare program, for example, it can’t get done. Barak Obama isn’t getting anything done because his is one guy trying to get the consensus of hundreds of Representatives and one hundred senators, all who are acting on their own for their own political future. Barak Obama could be the greatest guy in the world and really want to make significant changes and it wouldn’t matter, he could only make these changes if, like FDR, he were willing to go way out on a limb to push a radical agenda, but he is just not that kind of politician. I grew up in the States and I went to high school and grad school there. I met many great people, may radicals who wanted to make changes that to me didn’t even seem very radical. But I realized fairly soon that the US is not unlike the Roman Empire, once power structures have been established and stabilized, and many people have huge amounts of money and prestige to protect, change doesn’t come easy, particularly in a political system which was created to maintain the power of an upper-class (think of the so-called founding ‘fathers’) change will not come easy.  

H.G. Wells and the failure of democracy. . .

I used to think we were learning something from history but the more I see the more I agree with H.G. Wells; that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history! I grew up in the US during the tumultuous time of the war in Indo-China. And I thought this would cure the US population from gullibly supporting another neo-imperialist war. But no. The US is now actively involved in two such wars with no end in sight. I guess I used to be naïve about a lot of things. But I am cured now. Not only is Obama a huge fraud who supports many of the policies of George Bush without any of the backlash, but voters everywhere seem to have an infinite capacity to ignore what is going on all around them. Our government in Canada is frighteningly awful. It not only has poisoned the entire political culture of the nation beyond repair, but it lies continually, has abandoned every principle it claimed to stand for, is centralizing power to a dangerous degree, is dismantling democracy in every way that it can, it is hopelessly incompetent and corrupt. And every day they become more popular. Why? Because democracy is an epic failure at the whim of those who have the most money and can manipulate the system most effectively.

And here is the rub. . . if the Conservatives left office today, it would be far too late to save Canada from the damage they have done. The only moment of amusement we have to look forward to is when the next government is in power and it cripples the conservative with the very standards that the Conservatives have instituted. Though amusing, it will be a hollow victory because as often happens the Conservatives will have pushed the political agenda in this country so far to the right that it won’t change for several generations. Have fun. . . . 

Protests, Obama, and the Long Waves of Capitalism

I find this recent trend of people carry guns at anti-Obama rallies disturbing and fascinating. http://tinyurl.com/Obama-rallies When I was growing up in the States during the Vietnam war I always thought the US was just a short trip away from chaos and recent events confirm this belief for me. The problem is that there is very little room for the US governments to maneuver because there is an element in the US that is so far right and so crazy in their beliefs that if any government tries to make significant changes in the US there is a serious risk of generalized violence breaking out. And this group, though relatively small, is so vocal and threatening that the majority of people in the US who do actually support, for example, a single payer healthcare system, are largely bullied into silence. (Note the interesting metaphorical similarity here in Canada of people on the right who bully and red-bait anyone with an opinion that is perceived as slightly left.)

Whether any of these recent events will result in any actual violence against Obama or any of his supporters I do not know.  I certainly hope not. However, what I find strange about all this is that Obama is not really very radical. Outside of the US none of Obama’s policies would be perceived as radical and even within the US Obama has really proposed very little serious changes to how the US government operates. Yet these right-wing extremists are coming out in droves to protest with guns in threatening ways as though Obama were actually the reincarnation of Eugene Debs  or something.

Meanwhile, out of pure necessity the US is consolidating the power of the State to act as an economic force. I read a statistic the other day which if true is amazing: twenty percent of salaries in the US now come in one way or the other from the government. There is no doubt a serious change in formation. The model of capitalism that neo-conservatives ushered in after the long boom is falling apart and a new model of capitalism is forming. Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev developed a theory in the early 20^th century concerning the ‘long-waves’ of capitalist development. I wonder if economists in the US are taking a new look at the work of Kondratiev?  Interesting times….

Hello to the Working-Class

People tend to think that class is no longer an issue in Western Capitalism. This is in part a result of the gradual disappearance of large-scale industrial jobs in which lots of people are gathered together on a factory floor where they naturally create a solidarity that leads to what they used to call ‘working-class consciousness.’ But ‘working-class’ should not be confused with ‘middle-class.’ This distinction comes from an old notion of the ‘Bourgeoisie’ being different class. But this ancient distinction is really no longer very meaningful. Arguably, there is as large a percentage of ‘working-class’ people as there ever was. The majority of people still have very little control over what kind of work they do, they age highly dependent upon a large corporation or a small business which they do not own and, though they are more comfortable in their daily lives, they are still just as much pawns in a economic system over which they have little or no influence. But more importantly government and business in the West is still just as actively undermining the power and influence of working people, trying to make sure that workers are not empowered to significantly influence the systems of power and production.

 

If you doubt this just look at the pattern of the bailout packages in the US. For many years the government and business has been attempting to reduce the influence of Unions and in particular the auto-workers union which has been one of the few realms of continuing union influence. Now look at the auto-industry bailout: it has been relatively small compared to the other US bailouts and has come with specific strings about reducing the wages and pensions of the auto-workers. And when they were perceived as not doing enough Barack Obama fired the CEO of GM. On the other hand the bailouts for Wall St, (Banks, Traders, and Insurers) has been HUGE in comparison and came with almost NO strings attached! With the exception of the AIG situation (which only become an issue because of a couple of news stories), big bonuses continue to be paid out (without public attention) to the wealthy and their lifestyle is being carefully guarded by the government of Obama. While auto-workers will end up with significantly reduced wages and a weakened bargaining position for the coming generation, with reduced pensions and compromised health and futures, the power of Wall Street will go merrily on and the wealthy who control it will use billions of tax dollars (mostly paid by working people) and they will enrich their lives and their futures.

Meanwhile there is a real irony going on in London at the G20. The supposed right-wing governments of Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, are actually trying to bring more regulation to the banking, trading, and insurance system, while Obama and Gordon Brown, (who are supposed to be more ‘Liberal’) are arguing for only modest regulation and lots more bailout money, much of which will end up in the hands of the rich. Anyone who thought Obama was going to represent real reform now must surely see that he represents Wall Street more than the Working people. And anyone who thinks Class is no longer meaningful is not paying attention. 

Obama and the discourse of Empire

What a strange moment to watch the inauguration of the first African-American president. I grew up in the US under the shadow of the War in Indo-China and the gradual end of segregation. It is a day I never thought I would see. Of course, we all know that this is not the end of racism, but it is a great symbolic victory for those who have fought so long and hard against it terrible scourge.

But what strikes me as particularly strange as I watch Barack Obama give his inauguration speech is the notable dichotomy that underlies his words. In recent days, as well as in today’s speech, Obama has talked a lot about returning America to its greatness. And those of us who have been so horrified by the Bush administration’s total disregard for the constitution and the rule of law, hope that Obama will reverse a great deal of what has happened over the past eight years. But as seductive as Obama’s speeches can be, let us not kid ourselves! The prosperity of the United States is not been built upon generosity and the promotion of human rights. On the contrary, anyone who has paid any attention knows that the US has continually undermined democracy when its outcomes has not adhered to its political and economic interests. We all know that US trading policies through institutions such as GATT have been designed to undermine the economic independence and prosperity of the world’s poorest nations. For generations the US economy was built with the sweat of slaves at home, and in more recent years US prosperity has been built on the backs of third world workers who, if they ever had the gall to assert their independent right to built their own economies based upon more cooperative ideals, suffered from US oppression or wars waged by proxy in the interests of Wall Street. In the past eight years the US has openly practiced terrible violations of human rights with the excuse of a ‘war on terror.’ But for the past two hundred years it has consistently violated human rights with other kinds of excuses and spin. From its support of the Shah of Iran, the carpet-bombing of Laos, to the mining of Nicaraguan waters, the US has built its prosperity on raw, ferocious, filthy power. Obama talks about rebuilding American greatness, but the only meaningful discourse would be talk of RE-Making America in the real spirit of truth and democracy.

Obama’s first chance to Re-make America would be to stop its closest military ally, Israel, from keeping the worlds largest prison camp in Gaza and pressure it into giving back the land it has stolen, and in the process ensuring that the people of Palestine can build themselves an independent and prosperous nation in fairness and democracy.

Whenever you feel yourself seduced by Obama’s talk of hope, remind yourself what the United States has really been and hope that it can be the first empire in history that can truly re-make itself into that which it has pretended to be.

Charisma and leadership

We are all asking ourselves – ‘Must we watch Canadian democracy be destroyed because Mr. Dion has no Charisma?’ Because this is what it all comes down to. If the leader of the Liberal Party was a charismatic speaker with style who imbued people with a sense of confidence and hope, the Conservatives would have no change and would be lagging badly in this election. But then maybe it does come down to leadership, because a good leader is able to take advantage of his opposition’s inadequacies, And the record of the Conservative Government is so terrible that if the opposition had any kind of leadership, everyone in the country would be talking about their awful scandals and their fundamental attacks on democracy. But no one is talking about those things because the Liberals seem to have no chutzpah. I am not a big fan of Jack Layton but at least he is running some kind of campaign and trying to remind people just how terrible Stephen Harper has been. But then maybe the Liberals don’t really want to win. After all, if Harper just got another minority, then six or seven months from now Harper will have proven just how hopeless he is in taking care of the economy and will have destroyed any chance he had of securing a majority.

But then if we Canadians are looking down the barrel at another Conservative government just because the liberal leader has no charisma, we are surely luckier than the American public who are facing another Republican president simply because the Democratic candidate is an African American. Because make no mistake, if a Democratic candidate had come along with the style, charisma, and background of Obama – and he were white: he would now be so far ahead of McCain that the election would have already been decided.

Obama and Change

It is no coincidence that the first policy speech that Obama choose to made after clinching the Democratic Party nomination was to the Israeli lobby to assure them that he would be a good friend of Israel. It makes you wonder how much “Change” we can hope to get from any American politician. And this is no small matter, because of the major problems facing the United States, the blind support for Israel is surely one of the largest. The inability of U.S. politicians to see Israel as the militaristic expansionist state that it is makes it impossible for the U.S. to genuinely pursue peace and create a healthy relationship with people not only in the Middle East but all over the globe. Until the U.S. faces up to the fact that Israel is not some poor, isolated, weak victim of foreign aggression, but is an expansionist state with one of the most powerful militaries in the world that blatantly flouts UN directives and has slowly but intentionally chipped away at Palestinian lands with the clear intention of eventually taking most, if not all, of the Occupied territory for itself, then the US will continue to face aggression from all corners of the world. Everyone knows the way to peace. Israel must pull back to the original UN boarders and properly deal with the right of return. The West must also take an active role in establishing a viable state for Palestinians in those boarders in much the same way that it did when it established the economic viability of Israel. It is no more complicated than that. But the US (and, by the way, the Harper Government) will not face up to this simple truth that the vast majority of the world’s population takes for granted. And for all his talk of change, Mr. Obama is part of this collective blindness.