The Rag Blog

After reading Stephen Steinberg’s Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy (Beacon, 1995), I could not understand why he was not more famous. After all, Steinberg’s book so discredited the empirical basis of William Julius Wilson’s prominent work, The Declining Significance of Race, that Wilson publicly conceded his faulty analysis. But after reading Steinberg’s new book, Race Relations: A Critique, his lack of prominence is understandable. Steinberg insists on exposing the hypocrisy, careerism and outright dishonesty of much of the field of sociology, and identifies the individual and organizational offenders. Arguing that sociology has long provided “legitimacy for a racist order,” Steinberg shows how politicians like Bill Clinton touted questionable studies arguing that the African-American community needed only class, rather than race, based solutions. Steinberg’s discussion of ongoing racial injustice may not be popular in today’s allegedly “post racism” era, but he has again written a “must read” book for our time.

In a book of only 147 pages, Stephen Steinberg explained how an academic, foundation, and political “infrastructure” promotes a “racism is not the problem” agenda while urging exclusively class-based solutions to the crisis in the black community.

Steinberg begins by showing how the academic discipline of sociology has long relied on a “race relations” model that ignored—even in the worst days of Jim Crow laws—the racial oppression of African-Americans. He does this in the most entertaining fashion, describing how academics fit their theories of race so as to reaffirm a racist status quo backed by wealthy donors to foundations and influential schools like the University of Chicago.

Steinberg then shows the contemporary relevance of this pattern of building prominent sociology careers by legitimizing racial oppression in the skyrocketing career of William Julius Wilson. Wilson may be America’s best known sociologist, a fame entirely derived from a book — The Declining Significance of Race — whose message that blacks were victims of class rather than race bias warmed the hearts of affirmative action opponents and others uncomfortable with race-based solutions.

One of Wilson’s greatest champions was former President Bill Clinton. Those still romanticizing over the Clinton years should read Steinberg’s account of the President’s 1997 race initiative. Described as a National Conversation on Race, the initiative ignored the continuation of institutionalized racial oppression against blacks, and instead preached “dialogue” to foster racial harmony.

Steinberg points out that the Kerner Commission report issued after the riots of the 1960’s acknowledged institutional racism and called for economic development and assistance to low-income black communities. Thirty years later, President Clinton presided over a report that stressed tolerance and understanding, ignoring the institutional forces—such as racial bias in lending, racial profiling by police etc—that continue to undermine African-American progress.

Steinberg discusses how the theories of Wilson and others are boosted because they provide cover for politicians like the Clintons who do not want to address such issues as affirmative action, school resegregation, and the hugely disproportionate presence of blacks in the criminal justice system (recall that President Clinton endorsed the racial double standard whereby crack cocaine users (disproportionately black) get long mandatory sentences while those ingesting the powdered form of cocaine (typically white and more affluent) get lighter penalties).

Steinberg notes that subsuming race to class served the interest of both the left and right. Much of the left prefers class-based solutions, and views racially-specific programs like affirmative action as dividing the working class.

Conservatives have long opposed measures to address racial injustice. And the removal of race-based measures from the political landscape has not led the right to support universal health care, increased education or housing spending, or a wide-range of other class-based solutions

In addition to setting the record straight about race, Steinberg also tackles ethnicity.

Remember the “Melting Pot”? This was the idea that immigrants came to the United States and were “melted and fused” into Americans. Prior to World War II, the notion that immigrants became fully assimilated into Americans was quite popular, with the maintaining of a distinct ethnicity a “relic of the past.”

But after World War II, the idea emerged that immigrants had not really assimilated. As Moynihan and Glazer’s “Beyond the Melting Pot” concluded, “the melting pot did not happen.”

But as Steinberg shows, this attempt to revive the notion of the “white ethnic” ignored the fact that, other than Native Americans and Chicanos, European immigrants had almost completely assimilated. He describes how “the grandchildren of immigrants had largely forsaken their ancestral language and culture, “ while 1990 Census data shows that only 20% of U.S. born white of immigrant background were married to spouses from the identical ethnic heritage.

Steinberg’s point is that the dominant view that assimilation did not happen and that unique ethnic identities are secure conceals the real and pervasive threats to constituencies seeking to preserve their traditional cultures. In other words, at the same time that the public is told that maintaining one’s Irish, French, German, Polish or Scottish identity is a good thing, there is a push across the United States to ban bilingual education, limit bilingual ballots, and to otherwise force immigrant groups (particularly Latinos from Mexico) to conform to the dominant culture.

Steinberg sees the sociology field as facilitating what he calls “wishful thinking” about assimilation. This phrase might have become the book title, as Steinberg conclusively shows how elite “wishes” for a racially just society have become a substitute for the concrete actions necessary to achieve this result.

Steinberg’s refusal to bend his analysis to the prevailing political and academic winds may not have helped his career, but it makes Race Relations a particularly valuable read. Let’s hope we will not have to wait another decade for his next book, for Steinberg’s voice cannot be heard too often.

If you’re not on the list, you’re not getting on

10/13/07 “The Register” — – Under new rules proposed by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) (pdf), all airline passengers would need advance permission before flying into, through, or over the United States regardless of citizenship or the airline’s national origin.

Currently, the Advanced Passenger Information System, operated by the Customs and Border Patrol, requires airlines to forward a list of passenger information no later than 15 minutes before flights from the US take off (international flights bound for the US have until 15 minutes after take-off). Planes are diverted if a passenger on board is on the no-fly list.

The new rules mean this information must be submitted 72 hours before departure. Only those given clearance will get a boarding pass. The TSA estimates that 90 to 93 per cent of all travel reservations are final by then.

The proposed rules require the following information for each passenger: full name, sex, date of birth, and redress number (assigned to passengers who use the Travel Redress Inquiry Program because they have been mistakenly placed on the no-fly list), and known traveller number (once there is a programme in place for registering known travellers whose backgrounds have been checked). Non-travellers entering secure areas, such as parents escorting children, will also need clearance.

The TSA held a public hearing in Washington DC on 20 September, which heard comments from both privacy advocates and airline industry representatives from Qantas, the Regional Airline Association, IATA, and the American Society of Travel Agents. The privacy advocates came from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Identity Project. All were negative.

The proposals should be withdrawn entirely, argued Edward Hasbrouck, author of The Practical Nomad and the leading expert on travel data privacy. “Obscured by the euphemistic language of ‘screening’ is the fact that travellers would be required to get permission before they can travel.”

Hasbrouck submitted that requiring clearance in order to travel violates the US First Amendment right of assembly, the central claim in John Gilmore’s case against the US government over the requirement to show photo ID for domestic travel.

In addition, the TSA is required to study the impact of the proposals on small economic entities (such as sole traders). Finally, the TSA provides no way for individuals to tell whether their government-issued ID is actually required by law, opening the way for rampant identity theft.

ACLU’s Barry Steinhardt quoted press reports of 500,000 to 750,000 people on the watch list (of which the no-fly list is a subset). “If there are that many terrorists in the US, we’d all be dead.”

TSA representative Kip Hawley noted that the list has been carefully investigated and halved over the last year. “Half of grossly bloated is still bloated,” Steinhardt replied.

The airline industry representatives’ objections were largely logistical. They argued that the 60-day timeframe the TSA proposes to allow for implementation from the publication date of the final rules is much too short. They want a year to revamp many IT systems, especially, as the Qantas representative said, as no one will start until they’re sure there will be no further changes.

In addition, many were concerned about the impact on new, convenient and cash-saving technologies, such as checking in at home, or storing a boarding pass in a PDA.

One additional point, also raised by Hasbrouck: the data the TSA requires will be collected by the airlines who presumably will keep it for their own purposes – a “government-coerced informational windfall”, he called it.

These are the end times for Bush and his rancid brain trust. The White House has crossed the loony tunes threshold into legacy land and you can forget about governance as we toboggan towards November 2008 and beyond. From here on out it will all be magnified photo ops and manipulated mythification as Bushwa seeks to lie his way into history: St. George as the slayer of greenhouse gases; St. George, protector of Buddhist monks; St. George crusading for peace in the Middle East–in the last months of their respective regimes, U.S. presidents believe they have a biblical injunction to settle the Holy Land’s hash.

It’s all such bad magic realism that if Garcia Marquez were really dead, he would be twirling in his sarcophagus.

One of the more bizarre adagios in this dance of death has been MoveOn Dot Org’s “General Betray Us” flapdoodle. After the now notorious ad ran in the New York Times on the eve of the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Bush, who deemed the display “disgusting”, sicced Freedom’s Watch, a Cheneyesque dogpack under the direction of once-upon-a-time White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer, on anti-war liberals, igniting the bonfires of vanity on the pages of the paper of record.

The Democratic-controlled Senate followed in lock step by condemning MoveOn by a 72 to 25 vote. Despite Hillary’s nay (she would vote yay on bombing Iran a week later), the defeat was even more lopsided than the Dems suffered in their flawed and feeble efforts to cut funding and mess with troop levels in Iraq. As is his custom, Obama abstained on both votes.

If you still think these bozos are going to get “our boys” out of Iraq when they actually do move on to the White House in ’09, you are afflicted with terminal denial.

The Dems’ rationale for crucifying their bosom buddies over at the dot org was that by punning on General Petraeus’s good name, the MoveOners were “personalizing” opposition to Bush’s genocide and moreover gifting the Republicans with “talking points” on the 24-hour news cycle. This is what being against the slaughter in Iraq boils down to here in the end times. Talking Points. Even flaming liberals like Norman (“War Made Easy”) Soloman lipsynched this garbage.

The actuality is that General Betray Us marched up to the Hill on maximum anti-Islam day to hoopla his boss’s doomed surge, spout mendacious, cherry-picked stats, and con a congress only too eager to be conned into giving the Casa Blanca carte blanche to conduct its bloody business as usual in Iraq until Bush hands off the baton of war to Hillary or whoever to sink even deeper in the quagmire.

My most acute quibble with the MoveOn Moment is that the ad enhanced the fatal illusion that Petraeus would present an unbiased report to the American People and therefore he “betrayed us” with his self-serving lies. Even the latest revolving door chief of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral William Fallon was forced to concede to congress days later that Petraeus, the commandant in charge of this catastrophe, was obligated to hype the dubious success of Bush’s surge –and, indeed, would have been fired if he had told the truth. Although the blindman’s vision is permanently shrouded, I could see the Bush-Petraeus sucker punch coming at us from a thousand light years away.

Nonetheless, MoveOn’s dissing of a decorated general, which Bush found so “disgusting”, was a public service. I am thoroughly sickened by the “our boys” syndrome that makes any criticism of the homicidal behavior of U.S. troops from Haditha to Fallujah to Abu Ghraib to Blackwater to army sniper Jose Sandoval’s 44-day sentence for murdering two Iraqi farmers (“I was only following orders”) tantamount to treason.

Now with Hollywood busily transforming these murderers into victims on the big screen–witness this perverse role reversal in Tommy Lee Jones’s “Valley of Enah”–the MoveOn move on Betray Us is fair game for flag-waving lynchmobbers like Freedom’s Watch to buy up full-page NYT same-day display ads by the metric ton.

Tagging middle-of-the-roaders like MoveOn “extremists” is further proof, if ever we needed it, of how far right the center of gravity has shifted here in the homeland. In fact, the General Betray Us ad was probably MoveOn’s most intrepid single act of public defiance since the dot.org was invented by Silicon Valley venture capitalists and bankrolled by George Soros’s tainted millions for the 2004 rollover. Up until Betray Us, MoveOn had an unsavory track record. Its mass text messaging to 3.3 million customers last March urging them to endorse the Dems’ refunding of Bush’s holocaust was a stab in the eye of the U.S. anti-war movement and more pertinently, the Iraqi people.

MoveOn and its unindicted co-conspirators such as Orson Wells look-alike Tom Matzzie who heads up the curiously-named “Americans Against Escalation In Iraq” (sic) hoodwink distracted citizens into feeling good about being against the war by doing a little lite e-lobbying from the comfort of their home entertainment centers before driving down to the mall to consume what’s left on the shelves of America (watch out for the lead-painted Barbies) and destroy the remnants of Planet Earth. MoveOn and its cybernetic ilk drain the passion from protest and sell us yet another degree of separation from the horror.

Of course the big winner in the General Betray Us kafuffle is the New York Times (which is now billing itself as “the center of the universe” in in-house full-page daily display ads.) Not only did Move On shell out nearly $150,000 in tax-deductible alms for the ad but the paper subsequently amassed another seventy grand from the ghoulish Rudy Giuliani who seized this golden opportunity to hook up Hillary and the dot orgers, charging them with subversion and sedition for questioning the General’s bonafides.

His taste for blood still unslaked, Rudy went for the NYT’s jugular, alleging that the Gray Lady of 43rd Street had extended MoveOn a stand-by discount on a same day rate due to ideological coalescence. The Times, reporting on itself, denied the bias in news stories published on its own pages and soothed Giuliani’s vitriol by running a front page profile of the former mayor that was flagrantly uncritical of his performance on 9/11. Meanwhile the NYT continues to clean up on Freedom’s Watch and Save Darfour full pagers. In fact, the Betray Us flap has proven a win-win proposition for all concerned except the Iraqi people–MoveOn itself took in a half million in donations generated by the ad.

U.S. genocide in Iraq will not be staunched by full page displays in the paper of record or e-mailing the warmongers in congress any more than it will be by electing Democrats to high office. Yet this is what’s on the docket for the anti-war movement after five and a half years of butchery in Iraq as the bi-annual protest pageant conflates with the opening salvos of the primary season.

The virtual has obliterated the visceral. MoveOn’s new improved style of no-risk dissent means no one is to blame for the million Iraqis who have been murdered in our name. You won’t smell the stench of burning flesh on YouTube or MySpace.

On November 2nd 1965, Norman Morrison, a fanatical Quaker extremist and self-appointed saint, went to the Pentagon with his baby daughter in his arms, handed her to a passer-by, splashed kerosene upon his person, sat down under Robert McNamara’s window, and struck a match, emulating Buddhist monks in Saigon who had taken to immolating themselves to protest a dictatorial U.S. puppet regime. The scent of Morrison’s sizzling flesh is said to have wafted all the way up to the Secretary of Defense’s nostrils.

Although his suicide did not immediately change McNamara’s dedication to destroying Vietnam, Norman Morrison became an instant martyr amongst the enemy. Poems were written celebrating his act of desperation, streets were named after him in Hanoi, postage stamps printed with his likeness.

Norman Morrison was not the first American to burn him or her self to protest the Vietnam War. Eight months previous, Alice Herz, an octogenarian peace activist, immolated herself on a Detroit street corner. A week after Morrison struck the match, Roger Allen Laporte repeated the act in New York City. Eight Americans would set themselves on fire to try and stop the bloodletting in Vietnam. Only one U.S. citizen, Malachi Ritscher, a jazz musician, has done so to protest the massacre in Iraq. Ritscher burnt himself alive in Chicago November 2nd 2006 to mark the 41st anniversary of Norman Morrison’s immolation.

Modest proposals are a dime a dozen so here’s my two cents worth. Given Tom Matzzie’s Wellsian girth, I think he should consider sauntering over to the Pentagon this November 2nd and throwing himself on the griddle a la Norman Morrison, an act of culinary justice that would certainly make a more impressive statement against this terrible war than one more full page ad in the New York Times or yet another e-mail to the White House or your congressperson could ever accomplish.

The meeting at the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts on July 5, 2007 was anything but routine. Seated before Cong. John Olver (D-MA) were twenty seasoned citizens from over a dozen municipalities in this First Congressional District which embraces the lovely Berkshire Hills.

The subject-impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney.

The request-that Cong. Olver join the impeachment drive in Congress.

More than just opinion was being conveyed to Cong. Olver, a then 70 year old Massachusetts liberal with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These Americans voted overwhelmingly during formal annual town meetings in 14 towns and two cities in the First District endorsing resolutions to impeach the President and Vice President.

Presented in the form of petitions to be sent to the Congress, the approving citizenry cited at least four “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

They included the initiation of the Iraq war based on defrauding the public and intentionally misleading the Congress, spying on Americans without judicial authorization, committing the torture of prisoners in violation of both federal law and the U.N. Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention, and stripping American citizens of their Constitutional rights by jailing them indefinitely without charges and without access to legal counsel or even an opportunity to challenge their imprisonment in a court of law.

Forty towns in Vermont and the State Senate had already presented their Congressional delegation with similar petitions.

Impeachment advocates reported the results to Cong. Olver from each town meeting. Leverett’s vote was 339-1; Great Barrington was 100-3. No vote in any of the towns or cities was less than a two-third majority “yes” in favor of impeachment, according to long-time activist, Atty. Robert Feuer of Stockbridge, Mass.

With three fourths of reports completed Cong. Olver, who voted against the war, raised his hand and said, “Spare me, I know full well the overwhelming majority of my constituency is in favor of impeachment.” He then told them he would not sign on to any impeachment resolution whether against Bush or against Cheney (H.Res. 333 introduced by Cong. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)). He was quite adamant.

In taking this unrepresentative position, Rep. Olver’s position was identical to that of the House Democratic leadership and many of his Democratic colleagues.

The Democratic Party line on impeachment is that Bush and Cheney are the most impeachable White House duo in American history (they believe this privately). The Democrats do not want to distract attention from their legislative agenda, and need Republican votes for passage. Moreover, they do not have the votes to obtain the requisite two-thirds of the members present for conviction in the Senate.

Strangely, none of these excuses bothered Republicans when they impeached Bill Clinton in the House for lying under oath about sex and proceeded to a full trial in the Senate where they failed to get the required votes. Can Clinton’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” begin to compare with this White House crime wave?

The last question to Cong. Olver was from a young veteran back from Iraq and Afghanistan. “What could we possibly do to bring you around to our way of thinking,” he asked?

Cong. Olver’s response, after several seconds of silence, was “You have to prove to me that impeachment will not be counterproductive.”

Members of Congress should apply the same standard to themselves that they like to apply to members of the Executive and Judicial branches-namely to honor their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That Oath is supposed to transcend political calculations.

Maybe the Democrats think that Bush and Cheney are such wild and crazy guys that a serious impeachment drive in Congress would provoke the two draft-dodgers to launch a military emergency, strike Iran or otherwise generate a crisis, based on their continual fulminations about the “war on terror,” that would engulf the Democrats and throw them on the defensive for 2008.

In short, the Democrats may be viewing Bush and Cheney as being so defiantly, aggressively impeachable on so many counts as to be unimpeachable. That is, with the White House harboring so much political nitroglycerine, don’t even try to remove it.

Cluster B Personality Disorders: 1776.0 Americanistic Personality Disorder

The essential features of Americanistic Personality Disorder include pervasive patterns of extreme self-absorption, profound and long-term lapses in empathy, a deep disregard for the well-being of others, a powerful aversion to intellectual honesty and reality, and a grossly exaggerated sense of the importance of one’s self and one’s nation. These patterns emerge in infancy, manifest themselves in nearly all contexts, and often become pathological.

These patterns have also been characterized as sociopathic, or colloquially as the “Ugly American Syndrome.” Note that the latter terminology carries too benign a connotation to accurately describe an individual afflicted with such a dangerous perversion of character.

For this diagnosis to be given, the individual must be deeply immersed in the flag-waving, nationalistic, and militaristic fervor derived primarily from the nearly perpetual barrage of reality warping emanations of the “mainstream media,” most commonly through the medium of television. Typically indoctrinated from birth to believe that they are morally superior, exceptional human beings, these individuals suffer from severe egocentrism, a condition further engendered by the prevalence of the acutely toxic dominant paradigm known as capitalism.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder are generally covertly racist, xenophobic, and openly species-istic. They readily participate in the execution of heinous crimes against human and non-human animals, even if their complicity is banal and limited. As long as they are comfortable, safe, and enjoying the relative affluence and convenience afforded by their nation’s economic extortion, cultural genocide, rape of other species and the environment, and imperial conquests, such individuals display an apathetic disregard for the well-being of other human beings, sentient creatures, and the environment.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder tend to exhibit unabated greed and an insatiable desire for material goods. Fueled by a compulsion to shop and acquire excessive amounts of material goods, a condition sometimes referred to as consumerism, they have no regard for the misery and destruction caused by their pathological need for “more stuff”. When confronted with the finitude and fragility of the Earth, they frequently react with level one ego defenses by denying that their behavior is a part of the problem or by distorting reality by asserting that concerns about Climate Change, resource depletion, and irreversible damage to the environment are over-blown. Their deeply entrenched sense of entitlement renders excessive consumption a nearly immutable aspect of their behavior.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder are virtually devoid of empathy or compassion. They view life as a game played by “law of the jungle” rules and co-exist with others in a chronic state of hyper-competitiveness, seeking only to advance their careers and “keep up with the Joneses.” Their desire to win, get ahead and “protect what is theirs” has been so deeply etched into their psyches that their capacity to empathize and experience true concern for the well-being of others is severely stunted or extinguished. The pursuit of property, profit, and power rules their malformed psyches, nearly eliminating their capacity for humane behavior.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder almost always rely on extortion or violence to get their needs met and to resolve conflict. Believing in their inherent superiority, they eschew laws or rules except when they can utilize them for personal gain or when they fear punishment. Given a choice between a just resolution to a situation and the opportunity to humiliate, subdue, or subjugate the other party, they will choose the latter with a high degree of frequency. They have an amazing capacity to justify their unethical or criminal behavior using false pretexts such as self defense, good intentions, ignorance of the consequences of their actions, or asserting that they were merely carrying out orders.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder tend to manifest traits indicative of two of Erich Fromm’s personality orientations. They thrive on adding to their possessions (and appreciate their acquisitions more) when they attain them through coercion, theft, or manipulation, thus showing strains of Fromm’s exploitative type. They also exist at a very superficial level, offering the world the “friendly face” of the marketing personality that Bernays and Madison Avenue have taught them is the most effective way of advancing their selfish agenda. Opportunism, careerism, and narcissism poison nearly all of their interactions and relationships.

Specific Culture and Gender Features

Americanistic Personality Disorder appears to prevail in a very high percentage of those in the upper strata of the socioeconomic order in the United States (and to persist tenaciously because these individuals have little motivation to alter their pathological behavior as they are largely immune from the consequences of their actions). While it is epidemic amongst the opulent, this characterological deficiency does not recognize socioeconomic boundaries. Various segments of the middle, working and impoverished classes comprise a notable percentage of those exhibiting this condition, including those practicing deeply conservative Christianity, many residents of reactionary states such as those in the south, Kansas, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, and many members of the Republican Party.

Prevalence

The overall prevalence of Americanistic Personality Disorder was recently measured at approximately 35% of the overall population in the United States.

Diagnostic Criteria for 1776.0 Americanistic Personality Disorder:

A pervasive pattern of greed, selfishness, and lack of empathy, beginning the moment he or she begins to intellectualize and presented in nearly all contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. lacks empathy due to an excessive degree of self-absorption
2. believes that he or she is exceptional and morally superior
3. frequently engages in exploitative behaviors
4. requires frequent acquisition of goods he or she doesn’t need
5. usually resorts to some form of overt or covert violence, coercion, or extortion to resolve conflicts
6. perceives others as obstacles to his or her “success”
7. disregards laws and rules except as a means to achieve his or her agenda
8. demonstrates deep hypocrisy by projecting a righteous, benevolent image while committing reprehensible acts
9. refuses to accept the consequences of his or her actions

“We must become the change we want to see.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“In any case, I hate all Iranians.” — Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary to Defense Secretary, Robert Gates

How many times do we, the people of the US, have to go around on this queasy-making merry-go-round of propaganda and militarism before we shout — enough! — then shutdown the whole cut-rate carnival and run the scheming carnies who operate it out of town? It is imperative the nation’s citizens begin to apprehend the patterns present in this ceaseless cycle of official deceit and collective pathology. This republic, or any other, cannot survive, inhabited by a populace with such a slow learning curve.

Over the last three decades, the authoritarian right has risen to create the nation they have been longing for since their humbling by the Watergate scandal. After being subdued and humiliated by the mechanisms of a free republic, the right has turned the tables — and subdued and humiliated the republic. If the trend continues, all but unchallenged and unabated, we might as well replace the torch held aloft by Lady Liberty with a taser.

How could it come to this? How did so many US citizens grow so apathetic, oblivious, if not flat-out hostile to the tenets of a free republic?

The authoritarianism inherent to the structure of multi-conglomerate corporatism is antithetical to the concept of the rights and liberties of the individual. Most individuals — bound by a corporation’s secrecy-prone, hierarchical values — will, over time, lose the ability to display free thinking, engage in civic discourse, and even be able to envisage the notion of freedom.

This is true, from the florescent light-flooded aisles of Wal*Mart to the insular executive offices of Haliburton to the sound stages of CNN and Fox News. Under the prevailing order, reality, for the laboring class of the corporate state, has become debt slavery; in contrast, the simulacrum of reality, in which, the striver class exists, is a milieu defined by obsessive careerism. Under the hegemony of corporatism, freedom might as well be fairy dust. It only exists in an imaginary land, not the places one arrives by way of one’s morning and evening commute.

In addition, economically, by way of decades of financial chicanery, perpetrated by the nation’s business and political elite, we are eating our seed crop, and the consequences of this harvest of deceit have left the people of the US, intellectually and spiritually malnourished.

As a result, many attempt to sate the keening emptiness and mitigate the chronic unease by gorging themselves on the Junk Food Jesus of End Time mythology, which is a belief system wherein corporeal events and actions (personal and collective) have no lasting consequence because even the human body is to be cast aside, like a junk food wrapper, when the cosmic CEO decides to make the earth a part of his heavenly franchise.

Accordingly, the corporate state requires modes of being that evince obliviousness and obedience (the defining traits of the US consumer) on the part of the majority of the populace. Ergo, the rise of both Christian consumerists and the vast apparatus of the right-wing propaganda matrix that dominates news cycles via the electronic mass media.

All coming to pass, as George W. Bush — the reigning mascot of this fantasyland of infantile omnipotence and instant gratification — is rocked to sleep by his handlers cooing preposterous tales of how history will place him in the pantheon of those men whose greatness was unrecognized by the shallow and petty minds of their own era.

When, in fact, Bush, whose ruinous wars of aggression, deficit-ballooning tax breaks for the wealthy, and policies of crony capitalism (that enabled the economy-decimating, easy credit banking scams of the present) displays the character traits of a man ridden with severe psychological trauma; his attempts to tamp down immense inner turmoil, by means of his grandiose bearing, his absolute certitude regarding his own infallibility, and his bullying behavior, have resulted in an exteriorizing of his pathologies on a global scale, and this is playing out ugly, for all concerned.

Why do the people of the nation (for the most part) slouch, slack-jawed and passive, before this assault upon their collective integrity and personal dignity?

For generations, the ephemeral dazzle of pop culture paternalism and tabloid Manichaeism, as confabulated by advertising and public relations hacks and corporate news courtesans, has overwhelmed gravitas, history, even self-awareness. As all the while, shallow opportunists have been elevated to the status of pundits, experts and sages. Withal, the present system generously rewards those individuals who have mastered the art of impersonating human traits and responses in utterly contrived environments. As a whole, the majority of the populi have come to garner information about the world at large, and, worse, their own self-image, from a medium where phoniness is a treasured commodity, while authentic human traits and responses are banished to a beggar’s road.

Is it any wonder that the media types who thrive in these artificial settings have come to define authenticity as being only those attributes that appear authentic on television? Apropos, if you ask these “media personalities” about the shortcomings and corruption of the present system, they will plead the careerist’s Nuremberg Defense … of only being a stormtrooper obeisant to the “bottom line.”

Fantasy alert: One would hope that if one were to descend down a ladder constructed of these layers upon layers of bottom lines, one would arrive in a Hell reserved for those possessed with such shameless cupidity.

Reality redux: Yet as much as the human heart might yearn for such outcomes, there will never arrive the terrible majesty and bitter reckoning of anything resembling Judgement Day, heralded by celestial trumpets and legions of naked and cowering sinners; instead, in human affairs, there arises dire exigencies that can no longer be ignored nor explained away. The arrival of such a moment for the US is nearly at hand.

When a nation manifests a mixture of mass ignorance and official mendacity, in combination with uncheck power emanating from an insular and arrogant elite, a golden age of peace and plenty is as possible as holding a tea dance in a tsunami. As sure as a village of desperate fools who devour their seed crop, a nation that refuses universal health care to its children — yet rushes to the aid of its parasitic class of wealthy “speculators” and “investors” from the consequences of their own greed-besotted, fiscal debacles — is doomed.

This is the classic pattern of collective immolation experienced by a nation when power and privilege is increasingly consolidated in fewer and fewer hands. In essence, this is the key to the conundrum paralyzing the leadership of the Democratic Party: In a culture in which an individual’s worth is determined by the degree one can be exploited by the corrupt interests that control both the private and public sector, the public at large has little value to the political establishment … That is: other than, every few years, being bamboozled for their votes in the sham spectacles known as the US electoral process, a scam mostly financed, hence controlled, by the aforementioned big money interests.

In sum, this is the reason the Democratic Party feels little allegiance to their base. In turn, the political classes themselves are only of value to the big money corporate elite, because, by their delivery of staggering amounts of pork, massive tax cuts, and the passage of desired anti-regulatory legislation, they serve as their errand boys.

Moreover, the corporate control of congress is a microcosm of US society as a whole. Accordingly, the increasingly corporatized, ever more submissive people of the US should be termed, the Whose-Your-Daddy Nation.

Yet, since life does not exist in stasis, within this hierarchy of deceivers and dupes, we will gnaw at one another’s ankles until the whole pathetic pyramid collapses.

All around us, we can feel the shoddy structure starting to sway and buckle. Axiomatically, the value of the dollar is collapsing like the smooth facade of a con man called-out by a group of wised-up marks. At present, in the wake of the bust in the housing market, repo men are retracing the tracks of real estate grifters who fleeced legions of wishful thinkers who brought the American dream and now only possess the misery of debt slavery.

One would think the time for insurrection has arrived — that, at long last, an awakened and enraged public would rise up and foreclose on these reprobates and ne’er-do-wells squatting in the White House and skulking through Congress. The power and privilege of the corporately controlled elite of Washington should be repossessed like the Lexises of Atlanta real estate agents and the oversized pickup trucks of Tucson contractors, confiscated in the wake of the collapse of the housing market. Foreclosure signs and repossession notices should festoon the whole of official Washington.

Turn about would be fair play. Since, the rise of Reaganism, the financial sector has been engaged in selling off the assets of the nation’s public sector to the highest bidders. It is amazing that, at this point, this klavern of kleptocrats haven’t yet torn from the walls and absconded with all the copper plumbing fixtures and fittings on Capitol Hill.

Is a turnaround possible?

If we wake-up and smell the jackboot. From the miasma of right-wing media propaganda, to the proliferation of predatory capitalism, to the corruption and cupidity of the prison industrial complex, to the pandemic of police brutality and the trampling of the rights of the accused, to perennial civilian shooting sprees, to the muzzling of descent, to the rise of the national surveillance state, to the use and acceptance of torture as state policy, to the adoption of an unlawful, immoral foreign policy doctrine that promotes policies of perpetual war, one is forced to conclude that bullying, and deferring to bullies, has become the dominate mode of being in the US.

Remedy: In order to turn this trend around, the people of the US must begin to acquire the anti-authoritarian traits of empathy and engagement. The gaining of empathy alleviates the pathological need to be a bully, while social and political engagement mitigates feelings of powerlessness that authoritarian bully-boys, such as Bush, Cheney, Giuliani, et al., exploit.

In short, remedial human lessons for the US population, in general, and for the corporate and political classes, in particular.

Let us start the process by having a period of grief and repentance for the death and suffering that our government, in our name, has inflicted on the people of Iraq. This should be done as the US begins the process of a complete military withdrawal from their decimated nation, and the bestowing of economic reparations upon the millions of Iraqis who have suffered under the brutal machinations and murderous mayhem unloosed by our country’s contemptible invasion and occupation.

To do so, might save the people of our next target, Iran (as well as ourselves) a world of grief.

“But if the middle space [Russia and the former Soviet Union] rebuffs the West [the European Union and America], becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over the South [Middle East] or forms an alliance with the major Eastern actor [China], then America’s primacy in Eurasia shrinks dramatically. The same would be the case if the two major Eastern players were somehow to unite. Finally, any ejection of America by its Western partners [the Franco-German entente] from its perch on the western periphery [Europe] would automatically spell the end of America’s participation in the game on the Eurasian chessboard, even though that would probably also mean the eventual subordination of the western extremity to a revived player occupying the middle space [e.g. Russia].” -Zbigniew Brzezinski (The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, 1997)

10/12/07 “Global Research” Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” These precepts of physics can also be used in the social sciences, specifically with reference to social relations and geo-politics.

America and Britain, the Anglo-American alliance, have engaged in an ambitious project to control global energy resources. Their actions have resulted in a series of complicated reactions, which have established a Eurasian-based coalition which is preparing to challenge the Anglo-American axis.

Encircling Russia and China: Anglo-American Global Ambitions Backfire

“Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force — military force — in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.” – Vladimir Putin at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany (February 11, 2007)

What American leaders and officials called the “New World Order” is what the Chinese and Russians consider a “Unipolar World.” This is the vision or hallucination, depending on perspective, that has bridged the Sino-Russian divide between Beijing and Moscow.

China and Russia are well aware of the fact that they are targets of the Anglo-American alliance. Their mutual fears of encirclement have brought them together. It is no accident that in the same year that NATO bombarded Yugoslavia, President Jiang Zemin of China and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia made an anticipated joint declaration at a historic summit in December of 1999 that revealed that China and the Russian Federation would join hands to resist the “New World Order.” The seeds for this Sino-Russian declaration were in fact laid in 1996 when both sides declared that they opposed the global imposition of single-state hegemony.

Both Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin stated that all nation-states should be treated equally, enjoy security, respect each other’s sovereignty, and most importantly not interfere in the internal affairs of other nation-states. These statements were directed at the U.S. government and its partners.

The Chinese and Russians also called for the establishment of a more equitable economic and political global order. Both nations also indicated that America was behind separatist movements in their respective countries. They also underscored American-led amibitions to balkanize and finlandize the nation-states of Eurasia. Influential Americans such as Zbigniew Brzezinski had already advocated for de-centralizing and eventually dividing up the Russian Federation.

Both the Chinese and Russians issued a statement warning that the creation of an international missile shield and the contravention of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) would destabilize the international environment and polarize the globe. In 1999, the Chinese and Russians were aware of what was to come and the direction that America was headed towards. In June 2002, less than a year before the onslaught of the “Global War on Terror,” George W. Bush Jr. announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty.

On July 24, 2001, less than two months before September 11, 2001, China and Russia signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation. The latter is a softly worded mutual defence pact against the U.S., NATO, and the U.S. sponsored Asian military network which was surrounding China. [1]

The military pact of the Shanghai Treaty Organization (SCO) also follows the same softly worded format. It is also worth noting that Article 12 of the 2001 Sino-Russian bilateral treaty stipulates that China and Russia will work together to maintain the global strategic balance, “observation of the basic agreements relevant to the safeguard and maintenance of strategic stability,” and “promote the process of nuclear disarmament.” [2] This seems to be an insinuation about a nuclear threat posed from the United States.

Standing in the Way of America and Britain: A “Chinese-Russian-Iranian Coalition”

As a result of the Anglo-American drive to encircle and ultimately dismantle China and Russia, Moscow and Beijing have joined ranks and the SCO has slowly evolved and emerged in the heart of Eurasia as a powerful international body.

The main objectives of the SCO are defensive in nature. The economic objectives of the SCO are to integrate and unite Eurasian economies against the economic and financial onslaught and manipulation from the “Trilateral” of North America, Western Europe, and Japan, which controls significant portions of the global economy.

The SCO charter was also created, using Western national security jargon, to combat “terrorism, separatism, and extremism.” Terrorist activities, separatist movements, and extremist movements in Russia, China, and Central Asia are all forces traditionally nurtured, funded, armed, and covertly supported by the British and the U.S. governments. Several separatist and extremist groups that have destabilized SCO members even have offices in London.

Iran, India, Pakistan, and Mongolia are all SCO observer members. The observer status of Iran in the SCO is misleading. Iran is a de facto member. The observer status is intended to hide the nature of trilateral cooperation between Iran, Russia, and China so that the SCO cannot be labeled and demonized as an anti-American or anti-Western military grouping.

The stated interests of China and Russia are to ensure the continuity of a “Multi-Polar World.” Zbigniew Brzezinski prefigured in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and the Geostrategic Imperatives and warned against the creation or “emergence of a hostile [Eurasian-based] coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America’s primacy.” [3] He also called this potential Eurasian coalition an “‘antihegemonic’ alliance” that would be formed from a “Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition” with China as its linchpin. [4] This is the SCO and several Eurasian groups that are connected to the SCO.

In 1993, Brzezinski wrote “In assessing China’s future options, one has to consider also the possibility that an economically successful and politically self-confident China — but one which feels excluded from the global system and which decides to become both the advocate and the leader of the deprived states of the world — may decide to pose not only an articulate doctrinal but also a powerful geopolitical challenge to the dominant trilateral world [a reference to the economic front formed by North America, Western Europe, and Japan].” [5]

Brzezinski warns that Beijing’s answer to challenging the global status quo would be the creation of a Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition: “For Chinese strategists, confronting the trilateral coalition of America and Europe and Japan, the most effective geopolitical counter might well be to try and fashion a triple alliance of its own, linking China with Iran in the Persian Gulf/Middle East region and with Russia in the area of the former Soviet Union [and Eastern Europe].” [6] Brzezinski goes on to say that the Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition, which he moreover calls an “antiestablishmentarian [anti-establishmentarian] coalition,” could be a potent magnet for other states [e.g., Venezuela] dissatisfied with the [global] status quo.” [7]

Furthermore, Brzezinski warned in 1997 that “The most immediate task [for the U.S.] is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.” [8] It may be that his warnings were forgotten, because the U.S. has been repealed from Central Asia and U.S. forces have been evicted from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

“Velvet Revolutions” Backfire in Central Asia

Central Asia was the scene of several British-sponsored and American-sponsored attempts at regime change. The latter were characterised by velvet revolutions similar to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia.

These velvet revolutions financed by the U.S. failed in Central Asia, aside from Kyrgyzstan where there had been partial success with the so-called Tulip Revolution.

As a result the U.S. government has suffered major geo-strategic setbacks in Central Asia. All of Central Asia’s leaders have distanced themselves from America.

Russia and Iran have also secured energy deals in the region. America’s efforts, over several decades, to exert a hegemonic role in Central Asia seem to have been reversed overnight. The U.S. sponsored velvet revolutions have backfired. Relations between Uzbekistan and the U.S. were especially hard hit.

Uzbekistan is under the authoritarian rule of President Islam Karamov. Starting in the second half of the 1990s President Karamov was enticed into bringing Uzbekistan into the fold of the Anglo-American alliance and NATO. When there was an attempt on President Karamov’s life, he suspected the Kremlin because of his independent policy stance. This is what led Uzbekistan to leave CSTO. But Islam Karamov, years later, changed his mind as to who was attempting to get rid of him.

According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, Uzbekistan represented a major obstacle to any renewed Russian control of Central Asia and was virtually invulnerable to Russian pressure; this is why it was important to secure Uzbekistan as an American protectorate in Central Asia.

Uzbekistan also has the largest military force in Central Asia. In 1998, Uzbekistan held war games with NATO troops in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan was becoming heavily militarized in the same manner as Georgia was in the Caucasus. The U.S. gave Uzbekistan huge amounts of financial aid to challenge the Kremlin in Central Asia and also provided training to Uzbek forces.

With the launching of the “Global War on Terror,” in 2001, Uzbekistan, an Anglo-American ally, immediately offered bases and military facilities to the U.S. in Karshi-Khanabad.

The leadership of Uzbekistan already knew the direction the “Global War on Terror” would take. To the irritation of the Bush Jr. Administration, the Uzbek President formulated a policy of self-reliance. The honeymoon between Uzbekistan and the Anglo-American alliance ended when Washington, D.C. and London contemplated removing Islam Karamov from power. He was a little too independent for their comfort and taste. Their attempts at removing the Uzbek President failed, leading eventually to a shift in geo-political alliances.

The tragic events of Andijan on May 13, 2005 were the breaking point between Uzbekistan and the Anglo-American alliance. The people of Andijan were incited into confronting the Uzbek authorities, which resulted in a heavy security clampdown on the protesters and a loss of lives.

Armed groups were reported to have been involved. In the U.S., Britain, and the E.U., the media reports focused narrowly on human rights violations without mentioning the covert role of the Anglo-American alliance. Uzbekistan held Britain and the U.S. responsible accusing them of inciting rebellion.

M. K. Bhadrakumar, the former Indian ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998), revealed that the Hezbut Tahrir (HT) was one of the parties blamed for stirring the crowd in Andijan by the Uzbek government. [9] The group was already destabilizing Uzbekistan and using violent tactics. The headquarters of this group happens to be in London and they enjoy the support of the British government. London is a hub for many similar organizations that further Anglo-American interests in various countries, including Iran and Sudan, through destabilization campaigns. Uzbekistan even started clamping down on foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) because of the tragic events of Andijan.

The Anglo-American alliance had played its cards wrong in Central Asia. Uzbekistan officially left the GUUAM Group, a NATO-U.S. sponsored anti-Russian body. GUUAM once again became the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldava) Group on May 24, 2005.

On July 29, 2005 the U.S. military was ordered to leave Uzbekistan within a six-month period. [10] Literally, the Americans were told they were no longer welcome in Uzbekistan and Central Asia.

Russia, China, and the SCO added their voices to the demands. The U.S. cleared its airbase in Uzbekistan by November, 2005.

Uzbekistan rejoined the CSTO alliance on June 26, 2006 and realigned itself, once again, with Moscow. The Uzbek President also became a vocal advocate, along with Iran, for pushing the U.S. totally out of Central Asia. [11] Unlike Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan continued to allow the U.S. to use Manas Air Base, but with restrictions and in an uncertain atmosphere. The Kyrgyz government also would make it clear that no U.S. operations could target Iran from Kyrgyzstan.

Major Geo-Strategic Error

It appears that a strategic rapprochement between Iran and America was in the works from 2001 to 2002. At the outset of the global war on terrorism, Hezbollah and Hamas, two Arab organizations supported by Iran and Syria, were kept off the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Iran and Syria were also loosely portrayed as potential partners in the “Global War on Terror.”

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Iran expressed its support for the post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi government. During the invasion of Iraq, the American military even attacked the Iraqi-based Iranian opposition militia, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK/MOK/MKO). Iranian jets also attacked the Iraqi bases of the MEK in approximately the same window of time.

Iran, Britain, and the U.S. also worked together against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is worth mentioning that the Taliban were never allies of Iran. Up until 2000, the Taliban had been supported by the U.S. and Britain, working hand in glove with the Pakistani military and intelligence.

The Taliban were shocked and bewildered at what they saw as an American and British betrayal in 2001 — this is in light of the fact that in October, 2001 they had stated that they would hand over Osama bin Laden to the U.S. upon the presentation of evidence of his alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Zbigniew Brzezinski warned years before 2001 that “a coalition allying Russia with both China and Iran can develop only if the United States is shortsighted enough to antagonize China and Iran simultaneously.” [12] The arrogance of the Bush Jr. Administration has resulted in this shortsighted policy.

According to The Washington Post, “Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by U.S. forces three years ago [in 2003], an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax suggested everything was on the table — including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups.” [13]

The White House impressed by what they believe were “grand victories” in Iraq and Afghanistan merely ignored the letter sent through diplomatic channels by the Swiss government on behalf of Tehran.

However, it was not because of what was wrongly perceived as a quick victory in Iraq that the Bush Jr. Administration pushed Iran aside. On January 29, 2002, in a major address, President Bush Jr. confirmed that the U.S. would also target Iran, which had been added to the so-called “Axis of Evil” together with Iraq and North Korea. The U.S. and Britain intended to attack Iran, Syria, and Lebanon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In fact immediately following the invasion, in July 2003, the Pentagon formulated an initial war scenario entitled “Theater Iran Near Term (TIRANNT).”

Starting in 2002, the Bush Jr. Administration had deviated from their original geo-strategic script. France and Germany were also excluded from sharing the spoils of war in Iraq.

The intention was to act against Iran and Syria just as America and Britain had used and betrayed their Taliban allies in Afghanistan. The U.S. was also set on targeting Hezbollah and Hamas. In January of 2001, according to Daniel Sobelman, a correspondent for Haaretz, the U.S. government warned Lebanon that the U.S. would go after Hezbollah. These threats directed at Lebanon were made at the start of the presidential term of George W. Bush Jr., eight months before the events of September 11, 2001.

The conflict at the United Nations Security Council between the Anglo-American alliance and the Franco-German entente, supported by Russia and China, was a pictogram of this deviation.

American geo-strategists for years after the Cold War had scheduled the Franco-German entente to be partners in their plans for global primacy. In this regard, Zbigniew Brzezinski had acknowledged that the Franco-German entente would eventually have to be elevated in status and that the spoils of war would have to be divided with Washington’s European allies.

By the end of 2004, the Anglo-American alliance had started to correct its posture towards France and Germany. Washington had returned to its original geo-strategic script with NATO playing an expanded role in the Eastern Mediterranean. In turn, France was granted oil concessions in Iraq.

The 2006 war plans for Lebanon and the Eastern Mediterranean also point to a major shift in direction, a partnership role for the Franco-German entente, with France and Germany playing a major military role in the region.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12— In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.”

In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.

“After more than fours years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” Mr. Sanchez said, at a gathering here of military reporters and editors.

General Sanchez is the most senior in a string of retired generals to harshly criticize the administration’s conduct of the war. Asked following his remarks why he waited nearly a year after his retirement to outline his views, he responded that that it was not the place of active duty officers to challenge lawful orders from civilian authorities. General Sanchez, who is said to be considering a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.

“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”

The White House had no initial comment.

But his role as commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal leaves General Sanchez vulnerable to criticism that that he is shifting the blame from himself and exacting revenge against an administration that replaced him as the top commander in the aftermath of the scandal and declined to nominate him for a fourth star, forcing his retirement.

Though he was cleared of wrongdoing in the abuse matter by an Army investigation, he nonetheless became a symbol, along with officials like L. Paul Bremer III , the chief administrator in Iraq, of the ineffective American leadership early in the occupation.

Questioned by reporters after his speech, he included the military and himself among those who made mistakes in Iraq, citing the failure to insist on a better post-invasion stabilization plan.

But his main criticism was leveled at the Bush administration, which he said he said has failed to mobilize the entire United States government, other than the military, to contribute meaningfully to reconstructing and stabilizing Iraq.

“National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved by military power alone,” he said. “Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat.”

Asked after his remarks what strategy he favored, General Sanchez ticked off a series of steps — from promoting reconciliation among Iraq’s warring sectarian factions to building effective Iraqi army and police units — that closely paralleled the list of tasks frequently cited by the Bush administration.

But he said that the administration had failed to craft a detailed strategy for achieving those steps that went beyond the use of military force.

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize – particularly the part to Al Gore – is a populist choice that cannot but devalue the Prize itself.

Alfred Nobel wrote in his will that the Peace Prize should be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Without diminishing the importance of global warming and the work done by this year’s recipients – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) and Al Gore Jr. – it is highly disputable whether it qualifies as a PEACE prize in the spirit of Alfred Nobel – even if interpreted in the contemporary world situation and not that of 1895 when Nobel formulated his vision.

The concept and definition of peace should indeed be broad. But neither of the recipients have made contributions that can match thousands of other individuals and NGOs who devote their lives to fighting militarism, nuclearism, wars, reducing violence, work for peacebuilding, tolerance, reconciliation and co-existence – the core issues of the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is also regrettable that the Prize rewards government-related work, rather than civil society – Non-Governmentals, making the implicit point that governments rather than the people make peace.

In particular, Al Gore – as vice-president under Bill Clinton between 1993 and 2001 was never heard or seen as a peace-maker. Clinton-Gore had a crash program for building up US military facilities and made military allies all around Russia – and missed history’s greatest opportunity for a new world order.

In contravention of international law and without a UN Security Council mandate, they bombed Serbia and Kosovo, based on an extremely deficient understanding of Yugoslavia and propaganda about genocide that has caused the miserable situation called Kosovo today (likely to blow up this year or the next), and they bombed in Afghanistan and Sudan.

The Prize would have been linked to the environment if it has been awarded to someone who struggles against military or other violent influence on the global environment: military pollution, thousands of bases and exercises destroying nature, deliberate environmental warfare, militarization of space and the oceans, and – of course – nuclear weapons that, if used, would create more heat than global warming.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s consists of members who have little background, if any, in the theory and practise of peace. That however can not be an excuse for making a mockery of peace and the Prize itself.

The prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize has been further reduced today – adding to the disgrace that it never rewarded Gandhi but people like Kissinger, Shimon Peres, and Arafat.

“They are advocates. We are leaders.” — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in regards to “Anti-war activists.”

People of America, this is truly the problem with what was once a Representative Republic and now is a country run by “elected” officials who believe that they, individually and collectively, are above any accountability and are not answerable to their constituents. Our public servants erroneously believe that they are the leaders!

Ms. Pelosi made this statement to a group of reporters at a luncheon recently and she also went off on activists who have been participating in vigils outside of her chi-chi home in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco. The people who are vigiling outside her house regularly, in a Pelosi Watch are only exercising their rights as American citizens to make their concerns known to a Rep who was elected from a district that is wholeheartedly against the occupation of Iraq and for impeaching the liars who got us into the illegal and immoral situation.

No, Ms. Pelosi, you are not a leader. You have proven time and again in what you laughably believe is a “mistake” free run as Speaker of a Democratic House that you will do anything to protect an Imperial Presidency to the detriment of this Nation and the world, particularly the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This Democratic Congress supported BushCo’s disastrous and deadly surge; handed him over billions of their constituent’s tax dollars to wage this murder; have by their silence and votes countenanced an invasion of another country; approved more restrictions on the rights of the citizenry to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure; Ms. Pelosi does not even know if “torture” (which violates international law and the 8th Amendment in our Bill of Rights) is an impeachable offense; and worst of all the impeachment clauses were taken “off the table” in an ongoing partnership with BushCo to make the office of the presidency a Congressionally protected crime conglomerate that is rapidly sending this Nation down a crap-hole of fascism. So, Congress has led us to a few things: war, poverty, oppression, unemployment, and an inexplicable continuance of the Bush Regime.

No, Ms Pelosi, you are not even a leader in the very narrowest of definitions. We do not elect our Congressional Representatives to be leaders, not to be used as willing marionettes for the war machine and other special interests that serve the elite to the detriment of the rest of us, but to represent the will of the people. We send our elected officials to DC and pay their salaries and subsidize their benefits to do the “Will of the People.”

No matter how many times Ms. Pelosi and George Bush share tea and giggles and no matter how often she “prays’ for him, George is not the Decider and she is only the Leader of the House of Representatives not the people. We are the sovereigns in this country and I tried to demonstrate this when I demanded a meeting with another haughty public servant: George Bush.

I cannot speak for every Democrat, Independent, Green or disenchanted Republican (and there are many) in America, but the consensus from my travels all over this country is that we put Democrats back in power in both Houses of Congress to be an opposition to the Bush Regime and to stop the annoying “bobble-headed, rubber-stamping” approval of all things criminal and murderous. We did not wish to keep heading in the same direction but desired to go another way, which would have required the Dems to finally step up and forcefully counter and stop the high crimes of BushCo. They have failed.

We are sick of excuses. We are tired of the blame being diffused on the Senate, the Blue Dog Dems, the Republicans or even, incredibly, the people of Iraq. A true leader accepts responsibility in ways that are not even dreamed of by BushCo or Congress Inc. A true leader would stand up and do what is intelligent and what is right and if he/she were a leader then people would follow. A leader does not wait idly by for a crowd of sycophants to gather around her before she does her job with integrity and courage; a leader leads the way and the Democratic Congress with an approval rating even lower than George’s had better wake up to whom they need to follow: us!

We have countless examples of true leaders throughout American history and if not for them, women would not have the right to vote, much less be Speaker of the House; Black Americans would still be slaves or at the very least still drinking out of separate fountains; workers would not have the right to unionize and children would still be mining coal; we would still have troops in Southeast Asia, and we would still be under the aegis of our close Cousins in Empire: the British. Some of our courageous leaders have had to pay the ultimate price for their bravery and vision and Ms. Pelosi should be ashamed of arrogantly whining over her rubber chicken that Americans exist who want her to do her job because people are dying and lives are being ruined with her complicity.

We have the right to hold both of the political parties accountable. We not only have the right, we have the responsibility.

We not only have the right and the responsibility we have the power.

Turkish tanks and artillery have begun shelling suspected PKK guerrilla positions in towns and villages in Kurdish Northern Iraq. An incursion and possible outright invasion now seems imminent. A Turkish army almost the size of the American occupation forces, some 140,000 Turkish troops are poised on the Iraqi border waiting for Parliamentary approval which is likely to come next week. If the Turks are to invade it will have to be soon, before the mountains separating the countries become impassable with Winter snow.

The US and Iraqi governments have vehemently opposed the idea and have no forces left capable of dealing with the turmoil that will ensue in the previously relatively calm north. However, Ankara looks likely to ignore the appeals of the US and Iraq, if there is no viable alternative offered to control the PKK guerrillas. Some 4,000 of these fighters who struggle for independence of the Kurdish region of Turkey are suspected of hiding in safe havens in Kurdish Iraq from where they cross the border to engage Turkish forces in hit and run attacks. An attack near the Iraqi border in which 13 Turkish troops were killed has sparked the recent crisis. However, there has been a steady and massive build up of Turkish forces since Spring this year. The Turks fear that the increasing autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan will become independent and thereby act as a magnet for Kurds in Turkey to split away and unify with their brethren across the border.

For Tina Jones, life was plenty busy before her oldest son became one of the now famous Jena Six. Jones, a nursing assistant and mother of two boys, Bryant Purvis, 17, and Dyrek Jones, 7, has become a tireless activist since Dec. 5, 2006, when Bryant was expelled from Jena

High School in Jena, La. Working closely with the other Jena Six parents, Jones has helped organize a local chapter of the NAACP, has reached out to the local and national media, and has worked to speed up her son’s hearing and trial.

Bryant Purvis, along with five other black students, originally faced charges of attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, after school officials alleged that the six boys attacked a white classmate and beat him unconscious. Purvis denies being involved but is now awaiting trial.

It all started when several black students sat under a tree at the high school where white students normally gathered. The next day, three nooses hung from the tree. Three months of racial tensions followed, culminating in a fight on school grounds on Dec. 4, 2006.

National support for the Jena Six has continued to grow. A rally took place in Jena on Sept. 20, with more than 15,000 protesters marching to the courthouse with the families.

As In These Times went to press, Purvis was the only member of the Jena Six yet to be arraigned. If convicted, he faces 80 years-to-life in prison. One hopeful sign is that Mychal Bell, the first of the six to be tried, had his conviction thrown out. He was released on bail on Sept. 27, after 10 months behind bars.

In These Times talked with Jones about the case that has come to resonate beyond Jena and the responsibilities she’s assumed as a civil rights spokesperson.

How would you describe your son Bryant?

Bryant was an honor student throughout his first three years of high school. He also played basketball and football, but his main thing was basketball. Hopefully, he’ll get to graduate and go to college and play basketball. If not, he wants to become a coach.

He’s also a people person. When people see his car or somebody finds out he’s here, everybody just walks over to visit.

When did you first know that your son might face legal trouble because of the events at the high school?

Bryant came home and told me that there was a fight at school and that several kids were arrested. Lo and behold, the next day when I get to work, my aunt comes and tells me that Bryant was at the courthouse. I didn’t think it was anything related to the fight. I thought something else had happened.

I rushed down there and they told me that Bryant had been charged.

You were shocked to hear Bryant was being charged. Was Bryant as surprised as you were?

He was very surprised, because he wasn’t in the fight at all. Bryant wasn’t involved in anything that led up to the fight.

It took everybody a day or two to get over the shock of what they [local law enforcement] were doing to these kids. Then the parents of the six students got together and looked online, trying to find ways to help get them out of this mess. [Local radio host] Tony Brown helped get the word out, and he found several lawyers who were interested in helping with the case. That’s how I found my lawyer.

Bryant hasn’t even been arraigned, and it’s going on a year since he was charged. My lawyer filed motions to arraign Bryant, drop the charges or produce evidence. We have a court date set for Nov. 7.

You feel the proceedings have been dragged out?

Absolutely. My lawyer feels that the authorities feel Bryant had nothing to do with the fight and are not bringing him to court because they don’t have anything to work with. We probably wouldn’t have a court date now if my lawyer hadn’t filed these motions. Other than charging him, they haven’t done anything with the case.

How has the delay affected you?

That’s a horrible feeling, to wake up every morning and know that your son has been charged with attempted murder and know that the rest of his life could be decided by a district attorney. All the help and all these people coming in to Jena makes you feel better. But at the end of the day when you go to bed, or when you wake up the next morning, those charges are still facing you. Until they go away, I’m not going to feel relief.

You have talked widely about your son’s experience and the implications it has on civil rights. Has the case become a full-time job?

It could be. We just turn down a lot of stuff. I just came back last night from Washington, D.C. The students’ parents went to the Children’s Defense Fund there. We had a panel and a discussion on the case. Everybody wants us to come in. They want to hear our story and have a question-and-answer session.

There’s something that needs to be done every day. I have a 7-year-old too. I can’t be gone all the time. They invited us to the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine [the first nine students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.]. We are supposed to do that this weekend. We were supposed to have done the Montel Williams Show this week and Dr. Phil’s show. We missed all that because all the families were in Washington. We just can’t be everywhere.

Does your younger son understand what’s going on?

I don’t know that he understands the significance. When I’ll talk to him, he’ll say, “Momma, the Jena Six stuff was on television, and they were talking about you.” I don’t sit down and talk to him about it. He’s only 7 years old. Maybe when he’s older.

After we had the rally [on Sept. 20], everybody started getting these threatening phone calls. It’s kinda scary. So if somebody’s knocking on the door, my young son Dyrek looks scared. If the phone rings, he thinks it’s one of those phone calls.

How safe do you feel right now in Jena?

I’m not going to say I feel threatened, but I am concerned. A lot of the calls, I’m sure, are pranks. But at the same time, you don’t take that stuff lightly. I’m aware of my surroundings when I go out and go places. If I feel like I need security, I will call and have someone take me where I need to go or follow me where I need to go.

Some of us have gotten hate mail. We’re all concerned about that. We’re all determined to continue on until some kind of justice is won.

As of now, Bryant is out on bail and still waiting to be arraigned. You’ve found a lawyer to represent him once charges are presented at the hearing. What do you expect to come out of the court cases?

With the eyes of the nation on this town, you’re always hopeful. They can’t just throw out any convenient excuse without us fighting or taking the necessary steps to have it overturned. It’s going to be a long, drawn-out case. I think that at the end of the day—or the end of trial—we should get some kind of justice. But it may take us a long time to get there.

When we first started this, I never dreamed in a million years that it would get this kind of attention. We were just reaching out for help. To have this blow out into a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge story is beyond me.

Sometimes I think, “What in the world have I gotten myself into?” We’re all just normal people working to make a living and take care of our kids. To be dragged into something that you really hadn’t intended to get to this point—it’s crazy. I’m hopeful it will make a difference though.

What impact did the Sept. 20 rally have?

Just to know that thousands of people were with us, supporting the cause—that was a great feeling. I hadn’t felt so happy since all this happened with my son, until this particular day.

As we were marching up to the school, if you turned around, all you could see was people. That was a beautiful sight—to see that many people behind you. Everything seemed positive about the whole ordeal.

But then you wake up Friday morning after the rally, and people are calling, looking for Bryant, threatening, calling you names. That was a setback for me. It took me a day to get over it. I thought, ‘Oh my God, is it worth this? Is it worth my life?’

Then I realized that I’m fighting for my son. I know a lot of people have lost their lives for different causes. At the end of the day, I have to keep fighting for my son regardless of how the situation turns out. They’re not going to run me into a corner.

Is there anything you would like people to know?

Just to stay behind us, support us. When we have court dates, please come out and support us. The more people we have, the more we feel we’re being supported.