Friends,
We need one more person to join us on Saturday for the demonstration at the National Security Agency. Please contact me if you can join us. Thanks.
As part of the October 4 – 12 Keep Space for Peace Week: International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space, the Pledge of Resistance has called for a demonstration at the National Security Agency from 5 to 6 PM on Sat., Oct. 4. Call Max at 410-366-1637 to carpool. Go to http://www.space4peace.org.
The Financial Mess & Washington's Wars
By Max Elbaum
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras
September 29, 2008
http://progressivesforobama.net
Last month the prime example of
was John McCain's remark about
in
This month it's
that makes front page news. Covering the opening of
this year's UN session, the New York Times reported:
"With a pillar of American power - its financial
leadership - so badly shaken, there was a certain
satisfaction among some of the attendees that the Bush
administration, which had long lectured other nations
about the benefits of unfettered markets, was now
rejecting its own medicine by proposing a major bailout
of financial firms... 'They are all remembering the
unforgiving advice they got from American financial
institutions to let your banks go to the wall... There
is resentment at what they see as evidence of double
standards'... The extraordinary nature of the
outpouring was that it came from some of
closest allies and trading partners."
Of course there are more links here than just hypocrisy:
Both
deregulation crusade were largely ideology-driven,
fueled by the right-wing belief that American Free
Markets Are Ordained to Rule the World.
Wars and deregulation - and now the bailout - are
justified by lies, fear-mongering (the-sky-will-fall-if
we-don't-invade/ bailout!) and "Trust Us!" demagogy.
("This goes back to the
about the bailout Sept. 23. "Nobody on the Hill, of
either party, has confidence in the White House.")
Oil is central to both crises: real petroleum in the
case of
and fictitious capital snake-oil in the form of exotic
"financial instruments" that Wall Street has used to
boost profits, swindle home-buyers, and now dump it all
into the public debt.
Structurally, both
financial crisis are connected to deep underlying
features of
Maintaining the global empire that is such a source of
corporate profit requires a huge military - and
entrenches a tendency to use that military to gain
control of other countries' resources. With the spread
of manufacturing and industrial might to rising powers
(China, India, Brazil, and more),
have become increasingly dependent on financial
speculation (one bubble after another) to maintain the flow of profit.
SEVERE BLOW TO
Finally, there is the parallel between neoliberal
financial policies and the
the news: Both have crashed. Now the people who are
responsible for these messes are scrambling to find a
way to limit the damage to their fortunes and their
power (and cover their butts).
As with
this now-exploded financial mess will not be limited to
the next few weeks. It will take months and even years
for its ripple effects to sink in. Much of what lies
ahead is unpredictable. But already two things seem
all but certain:
1. The bailout of the big financial institutions now
working its way through Congress is a swindle on
workers and the poor. We will end up holding most of
the bag for the financial elite's two-decade long
party. The extent of public outcry meant that the
current bailout version is not as horrific as the
administration's original proposal (and the fightback
is continueing as of this writing). But it comes
nowhere near meeting even the minimal standards of a
fair-to-ordinary-people measure. For one outline of a
progressive response go to:
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303313
2. Even with such a giveaway to Wall Street, this
crisis is a huge blow to
the background of failure in
meltdown marks another big step away from
international hegemony toward a multipolar world.
The essence of the new situation was laid out bluntly
by
Sept. 24. Steinbruck laid responsibility for the
crisis right in
gave rise to the current turmoil in the markets were
allowed to develop because of a reckless pursuit of
short-term profit and huge bonuses in Anglo-Saxon
financial centers." He went on to say:
"The
the world financial system. The world financial system
will become multipolar."
This is no isolated statement or reckless boast. An
official
prepared for the next president envisions "a steady
decline in
according to Thomas Fingar, the
community's top analyst. The report also concludes that
the one key area of continued
military power - will "be the least significant" asset
in the increasingly competitive world of the future.
From the left, Immanuel Wallerstein comes to the same
conclusion via assessing the aftermath of the
Georgia-Russia conflict: "It would be a mistake to
underestimate the importance of the agreement on Sept.
8 between Nicolas Sarkozy of
of
new world geopolitical order. This accord was reached
between Europe and
diplomatic role whatsoever. What is the bottom line?
in
unhappily entering the realities of the post-Cold War
world, in which it has to play by new rules... [all
this] has sealed the reality of a true multilateral geopolitical arena."
IMPACT ON
These blows to
U.S. capacity to invade, occupy and make war on other countries.
The latest crisis almost certainly takes the
possibility of a military strike against
table, at least for the duration of the Bush
presidency.
jeopardizing the whole global economy. Even
conservatives lack any confidence in the Bush White
House. So this President is in no position to start a
war that everyone knows would throw the oil-based world
economy into a whole new level of crisis.
Regarding
the stance of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki regarding
a timetable for
over
among Iraqis is stronger than ever.
influence events in
steadily declining. So is the
escalate with additional troops. It will still require
great pressure (no matter who wins the election) to get
the
account for all the horrors it has inflicted on Iraqi
society. But Neocon bluster notwithstanding, the main
drama centers around how far the
retreat, not whether any of its original strategic
goals (pro-Western government in
"new
death in a
more against foreign occupiers. The
responding by expanding the war in a futile attempt at
victory, which in this case means military raids into
The result is weekly reports of armed clashes between
disaster at the end of this road. And with the
stymied in regard to
enterprise now makes little strategic sense even from
an imperial point of view. A few voices in the policy-
making elite are beginning to cautiously call for a
change of course here. After the melodrama now pre-
occupying
grow even louder.
Regarding Israel-Palestine, no one even pretends any
more that Bush's goal of a peace agreement by the end
of 2008 has a ghost of a chance. New Israeli
settlement building plus the uptick in Jewish settler
terrorism (see "Radical Settlers Take on
likely than ever.
give-Israel-a-blank-check mantra of the
and Christian right (among others).
So even a
make some serious compromises regarding
budge on Israel-Palestine. Even here though, anti-
occupation voices such as Jimmy Carter's are being
raised on the edges of mainstream politics. And now
lame-duck Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admits
himself that
and
(New York Times Sept. 29). Such statements provide
openings for the grassroots
movement to reach an expanded audience with its anti-
colonial, anti-racist, self-determination message.
DANGER FROM THE NEOCONS & RACIST, RIGHT WING POPULISM
The far right is not reconciled to the new balance of
world power. An alignment of the most militarist wing
of the ruling elite and true believers from the
Christian right insist that victory everywhere can be
won - if only the "soft-on-our-enemies-appeasers" get
out of the way and "
The McCain-Palin is today's political expression of
this position. Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan
lays out the reality (Sept. 22) more bluntly than most
left-of-center pundits are willing to do:
"It's very important for people to realize that the
McCain-Palin ticket is explicitly running on war
against
McCain, it is a matter of fighting wars to win, instead
of accepting any limits on American power. For Palin,
it is a matter of theological destiny."
What's especially dangerous is that this attitude
toward war is tucked into a larger set of beliefs
characterizing a re-energized, racist, right-wing
populism. The threat is visible in the populist
right's response to the financial crisis: in their
view, the culprits are "eastern elites" who devote
themselves to "coddling Blacks and immigrants" while
ignoring the difficulties - and disrespecting the
values - of "hard-working white ordinary Americans."
(Tales about Jewish bankers running the country are in
the mix too, though these are kept in the background
lest they disrupt the cozy alliance between the
Christian right and many hard Zionist Jews.)
Sarah Palin is emerging as the know-nothing public
point person for this dangerous trend. And this
current won't go away even if they are beaten this year
in the electoral arena. On the contrary, if a Black
man occupies the White House it is likely to get all
the more strident in its appeals to jingoism and
racism, doing all it can to make military confrontation
with the entire Muslim and Arab world (and
a litmus test of any political figure's patriotism and
"real American-ness." Especially in the hard economic
times ahead, no one should under-estimate the appeal of
such demagogy to significant layers of the white population.
A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
These dangers noted, at present the stronger tide seems
to be flowing in a different direction. The majority
of the country is sick of the
some kind of more equitable response to the financial
crisis, and hungry for a change from eight years of
Bushism (and in many cases 25 years of conservative
dominance). A new generation is jumping into politics
with its majority having a different sensibility than
their elders on issues of global warming, war and
peace, race and sexuality.
For the popular majority, the electoral arena has
become a key site of battle against the far right. But
not the only one. In response to the financial crisis,
as in response to
- including broad coalition efforts - are taking to the
streets as well as the electoral campaign.
There were nationwide anti-bailout actions Sept. 25;
called by TrueMajority, USAction and UFPJ; also note
the statement by a broad array of trade union and
community leaders at: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/09/24-19
It remains to be seen if this progressive motion can
cohere into a grassroots movement capable of holding
every politician's feet to the fire and driving the
country in the direction of peace, equality and
justice. Future historians are likely to see the last
few years as a turning-point, when the
peaked and went into decline. But what will come after
is still up for grabs.
[You can sign-on to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras e-mail Announcement List (2-4 messages per month, including our 'Month in Review' column), at http://www.war-times.org. War Times/Tiempo de Guerras
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