On Alienation

Is the deep, gnawing disconnect that many of us feel a result of contemporary societal pressures, from our economic and political structures, or is it an innate feature of human experience?

It seems specious to rely on either to fully account for experience.

Buddhists claim that dukkha, which translates to suffering or dissatisfactoriness, best indicates the human condition. I would not hesitate to disagree with that analysis, but we should, for the moment, put aside metaphysics for, shall we say, an examination of our political reality. And it really is a reality of which I speak, because our structures of consciousness absorb political and economic ideologies, often subconsciously.

What is capitalism's effect on consciousness? What does consumerism do to the human animal? These are all questions that have been dealt with before, most notably by Marx, whose legitimate critiques of capitalism have been discredited by the failure of the Communist experiment. For one, it seems clear that we have truly reached an age of rabid commodification, where the value of an object is completely unrelated to it's intrinsic value, but where value and, more importantly, need is completely constructed by ubiquitous and insidious forces. Adam Smith's major axiom--find a need and fill it--has been replaced with create a need, a multiplicity of needs, and view human beings only in terms of what we can buy, and not who we are.

We are in such a state in the United States of 2007. The frightening paradox of our situation is this: while our options as consumers seems to multiply endlessly, our political options dwindle. The commodification of the economic has led, inversely, to the devaluation of the political. Our consumer choices are many, while our political options are few?

Why is that? If steadfast defenders of capitalism are so enamored with economic choice, why do so many seek to restrict political choice? They deny us fundamental choice while handing us what Rousseau called 'flower covered chains'. Contemporary America commodifies only superfluities, and not substance. It is an unthinkable inversion: human needs become wants, while wants become needs.

Which leads us back to our alienation. I cheer the recapturing of Congress by the Democratic Party, but only with a deep sense of context. It is with heaviness that I imagine a perpetual two party system with a political either/or, and, in contrast, an economics that gives nothing to life, and imagines us only in terms of our buying capacity.

This is, in the last analysis, the first step: consciousness of the ideas and ideologies that seep into our minds, and from here creativity may begin.

Jimmy Carter's True Friendship to Israel

Since the release of his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid", Jimmy Carter has been called everything from ignorant and unscholastic to simply anti-Semitic.

His book is an indictment of Israel's policies towards Palestinians, but it done from the position of how to save the Jewish state, to ensure its legitimacy. If the Occupation continues, it will eventually lead to apartheid, i.e., the Jewish minority ruling a Palestinian majority in the West Bank and Gaza strip (Ariel Sharon's unilateral retreat from Gaza was done with this very salient but rarely discussed fact in mind).

In an editorial published today, prominent Israeli Knesset member Yossi Beilin dares to say what no major American politician will:

if we are to read Carter’s book for what it is, I think we would find in it an impassioned personal narrative of an American former president who is reflecting on the direction in which Israel and Palestine may be going if they fail to reach agreement soon. Somewhere down the line — and symbolically speaking, that line may be crossed the day that a minority of Jews will rule a majority of Palestinians west of the Jordan River — the destructive nature of occupation will turn Israel into a pariah state, not unlike South Africa under apartheid.

In this sense, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” is a stark warning to both Israelis and Palestinians of the choice they must make. That choice is between peace and apartheid, for the absence of one may well mean the other. Carter’s choice is clearly peace, and, for all its disquieting language, the book he has written is sustained by the hope that we choose peace, as well.

America largely views itself as a Judeo-Christian nation--which is a specious claim in itself--and especially in a time where we feel highly threatened by the Muslim world (although, it should be noted, that we are self-perpetuating that threat), the Israeli/American bond remains strong. But it is a blood bond, not just one of shared roots, and while I for one would not deny Israel its pre-1967 borders, the current relationship between Israel and America is ultimately terrible for the safety of both, and the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.

Jimmy Carter has been pounded by the American press, his own Party, the Zionist Left, and the Christian Right. The intensity of the reaction to the elder statesman's book should be viewed as proportional to the task of truly 'fixing' Israel-Palestine.

For one, the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington categorically supports Israel's 'Right to Defend herself' which is, against all sense, carte blanche. They support Israel's right to suicide, and quite literally, as the Evangelical Christian Right supports Israel because they believe Jewish control of all of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, is a prerequisite for Armageddon, and the Second Coming of Jesus. When this time comes, only Christians are admitted into heaven. Thus the Zionist lobby's alliance with the pro-Israel Christian Right is, in all senses of the term, an unholy alliance. This alliance has enviable influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties.

The condemnation that Carter has received because of "Peace not Apartheid" is due to (1) his untouchability as an elder statesman, and (2) the fact that, against that claim that Carter is calling for the destruction of Israel and/or is an anti-Semite, President Carter is in fact the greatest friend the Jewish people have in America. He is trying to save Israel, just as a true friend lets you know when you've gone horribly off-track.

Do not let the hysterically uncritical masses sway you--they are hastening the end of Zionism as a historically legitimate enterprise, and it will partially be because the American people failed to hear an uncomfortable and necessary truth.

Saddam Hanging Spawns Copycats

Apparently, Saddam's hanging has spawned copycats all over the world, especially children. Is it a matter of Sunni pride? Wounded Arab Nationalism? Either way, it's not a story you're going to hear in the American press.

From Egypt's Daily Star:

CAIRO: A teenager has hanged himself in Alexandria in an apparent imitation of last month's execution of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a security source said Saturday.

Abdullah Farag, 15, put a hood over his own head before hanging himself with a cord from one of the windows in his room on Friday, the source said.

His mother, Manal Abdullah, said she returned from a trip to the market to find her son hanging "like Saddam."

Farag was the ninth child around the world reported to have died after trying to reenact Saddam's execution. Most recently a 12-year-old died in southeastern Turkey on Jan. 8.

Saddam's hanging on Dec. 30 was broadcast by state television and a string of satellite channels around the world.

It saddens me that death always seems to spawn more of itself, perpetually.

Sen. Warner (R-VA) to Oppose Surge

What a difference in political climate a few months, and a new Majority, can make: Sen Warner is coming out in full scale opposition to the surge.

From Think Progress:

Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a resolution today "making clear that he does not support the President on increasing the troop levels in Iraq" and calling escalation "a mistake," CNN’s Dana Bash reports. Warner’s resolution will be cosponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ben Nelson (D-NE).

Warner, the former Armed Services Committee chairman, is a "very influential voice when it comes to military matters," Bash reports, and until this fall had been "whole-heartedly behind the president and the war." His new resolution "certainly...is not going to sit well with the White House." Watch it:

Warner said last week that Congress must move swiftly to address President Bush’s new strategy. "Each of us are pained by the casualties that we are taking. We cannot dither around on it." Warner’s bill is viewed as a less confrontational alternative to the Iraq resolution backed by Sens. Joe Biden (D-DE), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Carl Levin (D-MI).

As Think Progress mentions, Warner is an old-guard Republican, especially respected on his knowledge of military affairs. This is a big loss for the Bush Administration, because he provides a lot of cover for other Republicans to come out in public against the surge. Expect some fallout from this one.

Islamism and Bushism

While I would never claim that Islamism, the radically politicized version of Islamic ideology espoused by Osama Bin Laden and his followers, and Bushism, which in its foreign policy component commands forceful global intervention to advance U.S. interests, are anywhere near analogous--indeed, they are separated by vast socio-cultural and historical gulfs--there are some similarities that warrant analysis.

One similarity in particular demands our attention, and it derives from the theological presuppositions present for Bush as well as the Islamists. It is well known that Bush believes his position is God-given, and that he was chosen to lead the U.S. through Iraq. Indeed, Osama Bin Laden also believes his position is dictated by Allah, and thus both, although diametrically opposed, believe themselves to be in harmony with God, while the Other is fundamentally removed from God's abstruse wishes. It is as if one were a prism for other.

None of this is new; there have been enough discussions of the theological basis for both Bushism and Islamism. What I find edifying is an additional understanding derived from a category espoused by philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, that faith, true faith, requires a "teleological suspension of the ethical". By teleological he means the establishment of a pre-established purpose, a greater and final end.

For Kierkegaard, the Ethical is the Universal; that is, ethics has an objective basis, i.e., God, and we are required to follow an ethical imperative. What is difficult to comprehend, however, is that sometimes God requires, in an act of faith, for us to suspend what we know to be ethical for a Greater Good--a teleology. Thus, as Kierkegaard obsesses over, God's demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac. Isaac had committed no crime, and Abraham was, by ethical standards, agreeing to murder his only child. This was an act antithetical to our ethical imperative.

But Abraham agreed anyhow; his faith in God was stronger than ethical objectivity--he underwent a teleological suspension of the Ethical for God. His faith was stronger than the universal prohibition against murder.

Thus we return to Bushism and Islamism. Both purport to represent a theological and political ideal, and both claim a teleological suspension of the ethical. Islamism perhaps commits the greater atrocity by its nonrecognition of the difference between soldiers and civilians in a so-called jihad, or 'Holy War". Then again, The Bush Doctrine has permitted the unnecessary death of tens of thousands of Iraqis for a strategic calculus that, in its most insidious subtlety, may include hastening the Rapture. Thus, while we should make strong distinctions between the two ideologies, we witness their similarity on the level of ideation and ontology.

We should, in fear, tremble at both.

Question and A.N.S.W.E.R.

Like many of you, I was, to say the least, shocked and awed by our president's decision--contrary to public opinion and private sense--to escalate the war in Iraq. So, with much anger and frustration, I decided that I would be among those publicly showing their hostility to the decision, and participate in a public march.

I left the march more dejected than when I arrived. My reasons for feeling ill were twofold: the first had to do with the organizers and the tone, the other had to do with city government and the state of free speech in America.

Across the Bay Area, where I currently reside, a plethora of protests were planned for yesterday--so many, in fact, that you had to wonder why all these grassroots groups couldn't simply hold one big protest anyway. But I digress. I decided to attend what seemed to be the largest of rallies, planned by ANSWER, in downtown San Francisco. The rally was forming on Market Street, our main artery downtown. There were banners. A lot of banners. There were irate citizens--about 400 hundred, not bad for a rapidly mobilized event.

But it all felt so old, so tired. The sloganeering, the predictable call-and-answers, the undirected anger. Worst off all was the muddling of the issues. I came to protest the escalation of the Iraq War, not for the freedom of Palestine or the removal of US troops from South Korea. ANSWER: don't use a more salient issue like the Iraq War to prove that public support exists for your whole ideological programme (and I use that Marxist language purposefully). The dishonest transition between a chant for the removal of US troops from Iraq and one of "Free Free Palestine" is highly discrediting.

But worse, indeed, much worse, than ANSWER's muddling of issues, was our treatment by the city of San Francisco. Imagine: the march begins, down Market Street, tall buildings everywhere, scores of people, a loud protest in the heart of the financial capital of the West coast, then a right turn, away from Market. Where was the SFPD directing us? Towards empty side streets, devoid of people, devoid of light, devoid of significance. We are chanting to nothingness. I am told curtly by a police officer to not cross the double yellow line to march on the other side of the street. The revolution will not be televised, because no one can find it.

I shuddered as I marched through the listless streets, the shouts of "Free Free Palestine" receding as we reapproached Market Street.

Either/Or: Krugman on Proponents of the Surge

In an excellent essay, Paul Krugman posits in today's NY Times an explanatory dichotomy for proponents of a surge in Iraq. Either proponents are cruelly cynical, or frighteningly delusional:

Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thinks
they're cynical. He recently told The Washington Post that administration
officials are simply running out the clock, so that the next president will be
"the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the
roof.

And:

Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for his
research on irrationality in decision-making, thinks they're delusional. Mr.
Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon recently argued in Foreign Policy magazine that
the administration's unwillingness to face reality in Iraq reflects a basic
human aversion to cutting one's losses - the same instinct that makes gamblers
stay at the table, hoping to break even.

Thus Krugman presents us with two perhaps equally unappealing options: either we are dealing with men (and woman) cruel enough to place political calculation above the lives of American servicepeople, or, alternately, we are being governed by the dangerously irrational.I would assert, however, that such a dichotomy cannot be posited; that in fact, it is false: the president himself, I believe, is utterly delusional, while his advisers, adept politicos, are utterly cynical, and well versed in Machiavellian political theory. A combination that is more dangerous than either proposed by Krugman. I will, however, give Krugman the final word:

Mr. Bush is expected to announce his plan for escalation in the next few days.
According to the BBC, the theme of his speech will be "sacrifice." But sacrifice
for what? Not for the national interest, which would be best served by
withdrawing before the strain of the war breaks our ground forces. No, Iraq has
become a quagmire of the vanities - a place where America is spending blood and
treasure to protect the egos of men who won't admit that they were wrong.

You can read the full story here.

Notes From the Other Side: A Look at Arab Media and the U.S.

To dispel the sense of 'Otherness' that exists vis-a-vis us and the Arab world, this diary is dedicated to showcasing different streams of thought in the Arab news world.

"Wait", one might object, "I'm familiar with the ethnic breakdown in Iraq, and the history of the House of Saud. I don't need to read contemporary Arab editorialists!". To which I would reply: "Knowing the history or ethnic breakdown of a nation or peoples, although important, tells us little of that society, as it tangibly exists, as its own peoples know it, and by extension know the world". Thus this diary is dedicated to fostering a more complex understanding between what occurs 'over here' and how our actions are perceived 'over there'.

First, examine Abdullah Iskandar's sophisticated analysis in Dar Al-Hayat of the structural limitations of the US political system, even with Democratic takeover of congress:

The Democrats' leaders realize that, despite statements challenging the Republican administration, they will not be able to implement their electoral promises without seeking to find a common ground of understanding with the White House and fellow Republicans in Congress. They also know that their narrow majority in the House of Representatives (233 out of 434) and their unstable majority in the Senate (51 out of 100) will force them to back down from the ceiling they had set for the points of their electoral program, because they might need Republican votes in some cases.
...Although the Democrats are adhering to the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, particularly in terms of the general approach that links the Middle East crises with openness toward Syria and Iran, they will be forced to deal with the new plan for Iraq that Bush is expected to announce within days - even if this includes an increase in the number of troops, which is likely, and especially if the plan involves a new vote on additional funds to cover the expenses of the war. The Democrats cannot afford the accusation that they abandoned their soldiers in Iraq, with the start of preparations for a presidential campaign, or the charge of abandoning crucial US interests under the pretext of the rising costs of protecting these interests.

I wish a lot of people on the American Left were as dedicated analysts of our structural political biases as Iskandar.


Let us now turn to a much more fiery, Anti-American piece, also in Dar Al Hayat by Daoud Shirian, entitled 'The Americans Can Never Be Trusted":

The mendacious mutual recriminations between US officials and the rulers of Baghdad, regarding the way former President Saddam Hussein was executed, condemns and holds Washington culpable for the timing, the way the barbaric act was carried out, and the fact that it was shown to the people. Washington could have adhered to the implementation of the new Iraqi Constitution, which stipulates that three persons ratify the death sentence, and which prohibits the execution of the sentence during holidays, but it condoned the way the Constitution was adopted, in the sense that 'we did not order it and it does not harm us', and replaced the Constitution, justice and humanitarian senses with dependence on the opinion of the religious authorities and intolerance.

The hasty implementation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein was an urgent US demand, just as it was a lust for sectarian revenge by the al-Maliki government, and evidence that what was reported as Washington's acquiescence to growing pressure from the ruling elite in Baghdad was a mere allegation.

...What is going on in this country is a dirty and premeditated scheme: Washington dissolved the Iraqi army, while we were busy finding excuses for US policy, which is ignorant of the region's history and the nature of the structure of the Iraqi people. The US allowed the adoption of a Constitution that cancels the Arabism of Iraq. We hailed this Constitution as an act of democracy. Then the execution of Saddam revealed Washington exercising an unprecedented savagery and its support for a handful of fanatic Shiites to replace the neo-conservatives for the implementation of the so-called 'New Iraq' project.

Although I cannot assign even the Bush Administration such insidious motives as Shirian, I must admit that reading an opinion piece such as this shows the limitations of discourse within our domestic media.

Finally, look at this scholarly, prescient, and biting article by Azmi Bishara in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly, entitled "End of the Neocons":

In 2006, American conservatives have scurried home to their bases having left many neoconservatives dead and wounded by the wayside on the return trip from the mad escapade into which the latter had led them, and after having reassured themselves on the welfare of Arab regimes which had been practically begging Israel to try to put some sense into the American administration that had been twisting their arms so determinedly. Now, in the wake of the interventionist adventure, it's back to issuing strong advice, giving subtle winks and not coming out in favour of those in Palestine and Lebanon who might support Israel because that would only work against them. Do they think everyone simply missed the point, as though 2006 was international brain-dead year and this part of the world the capital of brain-deadness?

...The current "internal" strife in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon is a continuation of the clash with Washington's neoconservative administration by other means. In Palestine, the last of the neocons are to be found in the clique surrounding the Palestinian president, which refuses so much as a domestic compromise on the basis of the 4 June 1967 borders. This is the group that insists on meeting US-Israeli conditions, that frowned at the national reconciliation document because it could not serve as a basis for entering into negotiations with Israel, that prayed that the Israeli offensive against Lebanon would teach Hizbullah and all inspired by it a lesson and then lamented the victory of the Lebanese resistance, that wants Europe and the US not to lift the blockade against the elected Palestinian government so as to help it back into power. The remnants of the neoconservatives are still to be found among the 14 March group in Lebanon, who regard the Baker-Hamilton report as a defeat for them, who fear the very thought of a dialogue between the US and Syria and Iran, who rejected a ceasefire during the war on Lebanon before they could be assured that the country could not revert to its pre-12 July conditions, as though they had been the ones to have launched the assault to begin with. The last of the neocons are to be found among the Iraqi forces that restrict even those who could from reining in the militias, who obstruct any possible dialogue with the Baath Party, who have turned national reconciliation conferences into a façade that Bush can use to support his claim that something is moving forward in Iraq, into parleys that succeed in drafting closing statements only because the intent to follow through was never there to begin with, into the type of surgery that can be followed by the pronouncement, "The operation was a success, but the patient died."

That's a hard one to follow up on, so I'll leave it at that. And that is, of course, just a peek into the Arab Media world. It would be prudent of us to start looking more often.

Rep. Ellision's PR Coup; or, Thomas Jefferson's Koran.

You have to give Congressman Ellison's PR people a lot of credit. Talk about turning a ludicrous and xenophobic controversy into a history lesson on the roots of tolerance in the American Republic:

Rep. elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran - especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.
Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman - in a savvy bit of political symbolism - will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
"He wanted to use a Koran that was special," said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison's 5th District, was happy to help.

Take that, Dennis Prager and Rep. Goode (R-VA). It's the dictionary definition of a PR coup.

You can read the whole article here.