Screw the Psy-Ops

In another sign of how tenuous the Empire's case for attacking Syria is becoming, New York Times columnist Bill Keller "went there" today. He implied that to oppose this war (he never calls it a war, of course, because that would defeat the purpose of his sanitization) is to be anti-Semitic. He compares today's anti-war sentiment to the "armchair isolationism" that allowed Hitler to come to power:

Many pro-Israel and Jewish groups last week endorsed an attack on Syria, but only after agonizing about a likely backlash. And, sure enough, the first comment posted on The Washington Post version of this story was, “So how many Americans will die for Israel this time around?” This is tame stuff compared with 1940, when isolationism was shot through with shockingly overt anti-Semitism, not least in the rhetoric of the celebrated aviator Charles Lindbergh.

When a solid reason for going to war is not available, you pivot to shaming the recalcitrants into developing the required patriotism -- and while you're at it, play the old divide and conquer card by very lazily and derisively shuffling the right and the "left" into the same demented deck:

Isolationism is strong in the Tea Party, where mistrust of executive power is profound and where being able to see Russia from your front yard counts as mastery of international affairs. But sophisticated readers of The New York Times are not immune, or so it seems from the comments that arrive when I write in defense of a more assertive foreign policy. (In recent columns I’ve advocated calibrated intervention to shift the balance in Syria’s civil war and using foreign aid to encourage democracy in Egypt.) Not our problems, many readers tell me.

Isolationism is not just an aversion to war, which is an altogether healthy instinct. It is a broader reluctance to engage, to assert responsibility, to commit. Isolationism tends to be pessimistic (we will get it wrong, we will make it worse) and amoral (it is none of our business unless it threatens us directly) and inward-looking (foreign aid is a waste of money better spent at home).

Get it? We are all Sarah Palin now, our opposition to bombing for corporate profit simply an indication of our brain cell loss. Keller's classic of a doublethink column is obviously part of the Obama administration's "full court press" underway this week to win hearts and minds. It is how they psy-op the Enemy (which, let's face it, is us.)

 But judging from the reader responses to Keller's pabulum, our psyches are refusing to be opped. My posted comment:

Were George Orwell still alive to write a revised edition of "Politics and the English Language", he might have used this column as an example of the pompous verbiage necessary to get people to go along with war. Obfuscation trumps elucidation every single time.

Examples: Mr. Keller substitutes "spine in your diplomacy" for bombing the hell out of Syria. "Foreign engagement" and "activist foreign policy" become euphemisms for maiming and killing and destroying everything in sight.

And above all, instill the guilt. Because in the absence of any hard evidence of exactly who ordered the gas attacks (and the Obama administration is refusing to supply proof, even when confronted by an Associated Press FOIA request), guilt is all they've got. So absolutely, compare launching an unprovoked attack on Syria with FDR defending us against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. And while half-heartedly admitting that likening Assad to Hitler could well be over the top, do it anyway. Some of it just might sink in to guilt-ready pliable minds.

How does Mr. Keller shame us? Let me count the ways. We are anti-social, irresponsible, isolationist, selfish, cynical. We are not getting with the official program. What is wrong with us anyway, that we can't patriotically cheer murder by drone, Tomahawk missile and bunker buster bomb in order to make ourselves feel all warm and gooey inside? You'd think we didn't believe in Biblical revenge, or something.

If it wasn't the New York Times and if they don't constantly threaten to cut you off at the knees if your language lacks sufficient sophistication, respect, and "thoughtfulness", I would have added this: 

Happy Birthday, Pearl

Please join me in congratulating regular commenter Pearl Volkov on the occasion of her 90th birthday.

Pearl has brought a lifetime of erudition and compassion to this forum and also to the New York Times reader commentariat, where she posts under the handle "pvolkov." I got to know Pearl several years ago, when a bunch of us diehard Times posters started an email correspondence circle.  

Here's wishing you a happy day with your children, Pearl, and many more years of agitating and educating....  here, there, and everywhere. L'Chaim!

New York Times Casts Obama As Tragic Hero

Sickening:

The next phase of the campaign will be more individualized, and more from Mr. Obama himself. Democrats who are balking are being asked at least to vote against Republican procedural moves meant to delay or derail an up-or-down vote. After all the arguments are exhausted, aides said, it will come down to a personal pitch: the president needs you to save him from a debilitating public defeat.

That paragraph is hidden within the latest paroxysm of chest-thumping by the Gray Lady, characterizing Barack Obama's fight for military strike votes in Congress a "taut, uphill battle" the most intense fight of his entire political career. More intense than fighting for a public option in public and pandering to insurance predators in private. More intense than fighting back against Wall Street while taking the money of Wall Street. More intense than championing the little guy while schmoozing with corporate titans. More intense than crowing about transparency while prosecuting whistleblowers and defending the NSA.

If, according to the Times, his "Save the Children" casus belli falls flat, truth will eventually out. Because in the grand scheme of things and as much as he pretends to deny it, the drumbeats of war are, indeed, All About Him. And to that end, his desperate  P.R. flacks in the White House and on Times Square have resorted to casting him as tragic King Sisyphus, all alone in the world as he rolls his boulder valiantly (and tautly) uphill. Obama may be getting grizzled, poor guy, but he is still ripped, by golly!

Bomb Syria because you feel sorry for him.

Sickening.

 

 

Sisyphus, too, is here
In our own lives; we see him as the man
Bent upon power and office, who comes back
Gloomy and beaten after every vote.
To seek for power, such an empty thing,
And never gain it, suffering all the while,
This is to shove uphill the stubborn rock
Which over and over comes bouncing down again
To the flat levels where it started from. (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III 995-1002)

The People Strike Back, cont.

Welcome to another chapter in the endless soap opera known as War/Not-War, brought to you today by yet another lonely voice in Not-Corporate Media. This edition will comprise three New York Times comments I wrote in response to Maureen Dowd, Frank Bruni and Ross Douthat. (I skipped Tom Friedman, because I just ate. And besides, Secretary of State of Rage John Kerry, during his Congressional harangue last week remarked that he agrees with almost everything Tom Friedman writes. And that is probably all you need to know.)

First Dowd, who gleefully pushes the buttons of Obamabots everywhere as she refers to angst-ridden "Barry" in almost every single paragraph in a piece about Peace Barry and War Barry battling each other inside the empty suit that they each inhabit. My response: 

In all the spin on War/Not-War, we don't even know the half of it. Congressman Alan Grayson doesn't know the half of it. In this, a putative representative democracy, he is not even allowed to take notes in the top-secret briefings which appear designed to quash dissent and foment fear at the highest levels.

As Hawkette Dianne Feinstein (D-Surveillance State) chided on TV the other day, if we only knew what she knows, we'd shut up post-haste. Thank God we are not shutting up.

I am happy that for once, the Powers That Be have failed miserably to herd the rest of us into the usual partisan veal pens, pitting North Against South, Democrat vs Republican. It's 100% of the people vs. a tiny handful of elite deciders. Watching them squirm as they are forced to reveal their true allegiances in all their depravity is a sight to behold. A broad bottom-up anti-war coalition is building. It could even spell the resurgence of the Occupy movement, or something like it.

So, despite all his own failings, we do have "Barry" to thank for pulling back the curtain on the travesty of Kabuki Democracy, whether that was his original intention in punting to Congress or not.

We are sadder and wiser, having learned from Iraq and the financial collapse that swallowing all the lies told us by corrupt politicians to wage war for profit and then put profits over people has come at a terrible price.

That we are paying attention now must be shocking the hell out of all of them. Awesome.

*****************************************************************

Next up, the Pasty Little Putz (h/t Marion of Savannah over at FDL), aka Ross Douthat and his blather about Amerika losing its prestige because of Obamian dithering. My comment:

 I think you're overstating the negative impact that a Congressional "no" vote on war would have on the credibility of the president. To the contrary: a resounding "Nay" would send a signal that democracy, if not exactly thriving in the USA, is not completely dead, either. I think the rest of the world would breathe a sign of relief. Even the "bad actors" might think twice before acting, once they realize the American government is not as omnipotent as it likes to pretend.

We need to end the unitary executive power of the imperial presidency that rose to truly dangerous levels during the tortured and torturing reign of President Dick Cheney. We need Congress to repeal indefinite detention by presidential fiat, the Oval Office hit list of drone strikes (yes, our drones have killed at least hundreds of children. But since drone bombs serve to either vaporize their victims or render them into bugsplat, there aren't many guilt-inducing photos of casualties in little white shrouds to embarrass our elite corps of Collateral Damagers.)

I don't want to live in a country whose highest goal is "prestige." I don't want to live in a country where whistleblowers are prosecuted and war criminals are celebrated. I definitely don't want to live in a country whose next Temp Emp (temporary emperor) might be named Chris Christie or Ted Cruz.

Forget prestige. If we're going to drop anything, let's drop gas masks, food packages and medicine. Bring on the humanity, both at home and abroad.

******************************************************************

Finally, Frank Bruni wrote an excellent column bemoaning the shallow, personality-driven media coverage of the Syrian crisis. My response:

Frank's piece is all the more scathing, given the simultaneous offerings of Maureen Dowd (Obama Doppelgangers!) and Ross Douthat (OMG, American prestige!).

It's a testament to the profit-driven business model of journalism and the profit-driven corporate ownership of our politics that a bloody tragedy across the globe is being packaged as mass market infotainment. The death-rattle and the sabre-rattle are among the commonest sounds of any Empire in its last throes.

There's plenty of in-depth nuanced reportage on Syria. But for the most part, we're being hit with garish graphics on the "Whip Count". The numbers needed to bomb are treated like the numbers needed to win a primary.

In a sick off-year hybrid of the Olympics and the Elections, one day the Firm Noes and the Leaning Noes are yards ahead of the Yeses and the Maybes. The next day, the Firm Noes start faltering and falling behind the bellicose pack. "Politico" is especially adept at this, breathlessly gifting each new publicity-hungry Decider his/her own personality profile. Ka-ching! (another sound of Empire.)

And since the Internet has given politicians control of their own messages, the elite among them bypass journalists completely. For example, once Hillary has completed her own evolution (via a close examination of polls and the wind direction) she will no doubt make her grand War/Not-War declaration in a slickly produced webcast complete with emotive background music selected just for her special occasion.

The People Strike Back Against the Empire

About the only people left in America supporting a war against Syria are the Obama administration, its friends in the Congressional leadership, its friends in the corporate media, and an ever-dwindling number of diehard partisan Obama Personality Cultists. Oh, and rich people.

Meaning, the war will probably commence once the pretend-democracy debates are finished, and regular people can safely be ignored once again, and your feckless reps can whine that you shouldn't let the perfect peace be the enemy of the military good. And anyway, what about the dead children whom they will make sure weigh upon your consciences because you, you the selfish people of America, just sit there and care only about such petty concerns as the imminent bipartisan cutback in the federal food-stamp program (Never mind that the gassed Syrian children will stay dead, no matter how many other children they kill to demonstrate that when the USA does it, it's for a good cause.)

According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to oppose the president's plan to launch missiles against a country for reasons that the White House is increasingly becoming muddled about. The children.... the red line.... core values.... international norms.... the credibility of the Temp Emp and Superpower. Here in the USA, a country where one in three people is a paycheck or an illness away from financial ruin, where one in four families is "food-insecure", where per capita income has sunk to 24th in the civilized world, where government-subsidized private health insurance will still leave many millions uncovered and underprotected and bankrupted, the vast majority are dead set against our involvement in any more military adventures. The lower the income, the greater the opposition.

Only a third of respondents reporting income of under $50,000 are open to Obama's war plans, while 43% those making over $100,000 are gung-ho. Could it be because the children of poor people are more likely to join the military for lack of any better economic prospects, thanks to criminal bipartisan neglect of the employment crisis? Could it be because the children of the rich are highly unlikely to ever be sent into battle? Probably.

In his New York Times column today, Charles Blow examines other polling which shows that the American people are fed up with both militarism and the politicians obsessed with it to the point where other pressing problems are being neglected:

Now here we are with another administration coming to Congress and to the American people, asking for approval to strike another Middle Eastern dictator over weapons of mass destruction.

But this time, the facts on the ground in America have been altered. The aftertaste from Iraq still lingers. Trust in the government to do the right thing at least most of the times has plunged to just 19 percent. Congress is divided on how we should proceed. And the international community has yet to rally in favor of intervention.

Striking Syria has given Americans a chance to exhibit and exercise the caution that they eschewed in the lead-up to the Iraq war, and they are doing just that.

The paper of record's news division has also abandoned its bellicose cheerleading at least long enough to prominently place an article on the home page that documents how the "rebels", so celebrated by the American chickenhawk class, are not above using WMDs themselves.

President Obama seems to be losing steam by the minute.

On a related note, the Washington Post is also now publishing a running tally of Congress Critters' stances on supporting an attack on Syria. So far, the "Nays" and "leaning Nays" have it. Interestingly, Senate progressive heroine Elizabeth Warren is still listed among the wafflers. (Her new Massachusetts colleague, Ed Markey, has already courageously pulled a Barack, merely voting "present" in order to get the war plans out of committee. He is apparently awaiting his own private secret briefing from the secrecy brigade, to which regular people are not invited because learning the truth would probably make our heads explode from the secret awesomeness of it all.) It looks as though Warren may already have been captured and herded into the Obama Veal Pen. We'll just have to wait and see.

From SNAFU to FUBAR

(For translations of the above military acronyms, please see the end of this post. I didn't want to begin with the F word right off the bat. But to paraphrase, let's just say that ever-declining 21st century America has gone from merely crazy to batshit insane.)

Syria. I can't keep up with the developments. Nobody can. But maybe that's the whole idea. When it comes to domestic programs like passing a pallid background check for gun purchases, gridlock rules so that the NRA dollars may flow and the campaign coffers grow. When it comes to war, the speed is lightning fast, because only with war can the defense industry truly profit. Still, it is stunning to witness just how damned fast the support for all-out war is mushrooming, even among the traditional "doves" of the Democratic Party, even among such "progressives" as Keith Ellison. We knew the Democrats were in thrall to Wall Street and big money. If nothing else, war fever is demonstrating once and for all that, with few exceptions, even the so-called Progressive Caucus is corralled by the kinder gentler right wing of the Uniparty. It should probably name itself something else, such as the Loyal Pretend Opposition.

Rather than rehash and repeat some of the best reporting on the situation out there, let me just recommend a few sites: Moon of Alabama, which you can find on the Blogroll to your right. Counterpunch, also on the Blogroll,  today has an excellent in-depth piece on the history of the whole conflict written by Andrew Levine. And nobody can parse the obtuse like Marcy Wheeler.... again on the Blogroll under EmptyWheel. Over at similarly "Rolled" Firedoglake, they're keeping a running rough tally of Congress Critters who are for, against, and waffling. So far, the Fors seem to be winning. Another good overview comes from David Dayen, who in turn points us to a "magnum opus" on the whole conflict by one William Polk (descendent of the same bloody Polk who invaded Mexico during another almost-forgotten military misadventure in the name of pure greed.)  I probably don't even need to suggest that you look outside the United States for information. The Guardian, Al Jazeera and the BBC are just three good sources.

(Reader Larry Lundgren of Sweden points us to the excellent BBC coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis, the under-reporting of which, here in the Land of Weaponized Liberty, is kind of mind-boggling.)

Speaking of waffling, the New York Times is in true schizophrenic mode. It alternates between being an official mouthpiece for White House talking points and doing its own "Doubting Thomas" editorializing. Here's my response to the Editorial Board's latest, calling for a wider international debate: (thanks to AnneEnigma for recommending it in previous thread!)

It strikes me that President Obama's decision to punt the Syria attack to Congress is a cynical fig leaf. It seems designed to give legitimacy and a theatrical democratic flair to an already done deal, and thus finalize the manufactured consent of the governed. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are falling into place like dominoes. There are the usual bloodthirsty hawks, the anguished undecideds obviously looking to make porkbarrel deals, and the usual coterie of staunch doves to add to the contrived suspense. Some of the same Pentagon functionaries who ginned up the Iraq invasion are back in force on cable TV, fomenting fear and patriotism.

John Kerry, according to NBC News, even warned a group of Congressional Democrats that they'd be Neville Chamberlain-like appeasers if they failed to back the Barack attack against Assad. Kerry's bathos should be grounds for immediate firing. But this is America, land of the free and home of Raytheon, whose stock is soaring with anticipated orders of all those $1 million Tomahawk missiles, Sequester be damned. If in doubt, just start following the money. When it comes to war, the deficit scolds and the anti-safety net misanthropes and food stamp cutters all suddenly turn into pliable little balls of humanitarian fluff.

And beware of the propagandistic weasel words, such as "limited", "no boots on the ground", "collateral damage" and "surgical strikes." War is war, and killing is killing. And blowback is inevitable. We never learn.

And speaking of Kerry, here's the shot of the Big Shot now being seen throughout the World (he dined with Hitler before he hated Hitler, I guess):

 

And it seems like only yesterday when Progressive Hawkess Nancy Pelosi beamingly shook hands with Assad before becoming appalled that he was a tyrannical despot mass murderer of children coming from a long hideous line of mass murderers of children:

 

 

SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
 

Labor Day in a Jobless Decade

If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.”
― Abraham Lincoln

Fast forward a century and a half, and American leaders, foolish as ever, have taken their fear of people to unprecedented levels by spitting in labor's face and drum-beating for yet another war. In Abe's day, the tycoons only had the Pinkerton Agency to crush the oppressed. Now we have the N.S.A,, the C.I.A, the D.E.A., the T.S.A., the FISA Court, Homeland Security fusion centers, militarized urban police forces and probably even more initialized agencies we never heard of, lurking undetected deep within the bowels of the national surveillance state.

Today, more than ever, it is easy for politicians to demonize poor people in general and poor working people in particular. The Party of Lincoln openly telegraphs its contempt for labor, and the Democrats, in their craven allegiance to Wall Street, are coming in a close second by dint of their faint words and deafening inaction.

As I noted in my response to a rather tepid Paul Krugman column in honor of Labor Day (a variation on his Republican misanthropy theme),

Unfortunately, the anti-labor philosophy of the GOP doesn't mean the Democrats are pro-labor. Not by a long shot. Last spring, when Senator Amy Klobuchar bucked the trend and held a hearing on the crisis of chronic unemployment, only five of her colleagues bothered to show up. As Gore Vidal observed, there is only one political party in this country, and it has two right wings.

But at long last, the workers of America are beginning to unite, taking to the streets and the picket lines. Wildcat-striking fast food workers are demanding $15 an hour. Chicago teachers and students are striking back against the closure of scores of public schools and firings of thousands of teachers to make room for the for-profit charters and low paid non-unionized staff.

The miserly $9/hour minimum wage proposed by the president is too little, too late, and too insulting. If he chose to, he could sign an executive order today, raising the wages of millions of underpaid employees of federal contractors. But his big kiss to the workers this Labor Day was a mild thaw of his wage freeze of those directly employed by the federal government. I guess his whopping 1% hike is meant take away the pain of furloughed workers victimized by the utterly gratuitous, bipartisan Sequester.

So we can't rely on our politicians, who are bought and paid for by their tax-averse cronies and donors. The labor movement has always derived its strength from direct action rather than at the ballot box.

The pols have their war, and we have ours.

And since today is the day we are supposed to honor and glorify the working people of America, I am going to cut this post short, forget about doing my due diligence by adding yet another slew of depressing links and stats, and honor myself by taking the rest of the day off from reading and writing about war, strife, misery and want.

So, here's to the hard-working, non-rentier people out there, slogging along, getting a paycheck, an unemployment check, a pension check, or no check at all.

Meanwhile, Forbes -- probably sensitive about its constant glorification of the filthy rich plutocracy and the Forbes 400 in its glossy pages -- last year published a list of ten of the best working stiff flics of all time. See if any of your favorites are included. Personally, I think I will savor The Grapes of Wrath one more time, for old times' sake. What better way to spend my day off from contemporary misery, strife and want than to watch one of the great artistic classics of the genre.