Saturday, March 25, 2006

Robert Fisk and Tariq Ali v. Thomas Friedman, Samuel Huntington, and Christopher Hitchens

Robert Fisk, for those who do not know, is an eminent foreign correspondent from Britain who broke the story of the My Lai massacre carried out by US soldiers in Vietnam during the late 1960s [it was his American parallel, Seymour Hersh, another excellent anti-war correspondent, who broke that story; sorry for the error] who has been an impassioned anti-war voice for decades, covering conflicts from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to Saddam Hussein's (US backed and orchestrated) invasion of Iran, the Israeli war in Lebanon in 1982, the most recent Balkan Wars and the two Gulf Wars, among many others. His writing is always eloquent and factual (though many would contest this claim), and excrutiatingly vivid and passionate. He is always focused on the most immediate, real aspects of war from the grassroots perspective. Like a good oral historian's tale puts flesh on the skeleton of the traditional, academic historian's way of writing history via dry recitation of fact and date, Robert Fisk's writing puts the flesh on clinical terms like "collateral damage" by showing where and how the flesh has been shorn from the victims of war.

Though I have long sought his journalism, I just began reading something longer by him. He is now the author of at least 4 lengthy tomes, though the book I picked up today is, I think, the longest of his texts: it is a newly published (in 2006), 1,000 pp. tome on the modern history of the Middle East and of the largely negative impact that the West has had in the making of that history that is entitled, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.

In the preface, he is as crafty and quotable as he is in his journalism, so I hope the rest of the text will prove as excellent; here are some lines I liked just from the preface:
"I don't like the definition 'war correspondent.' It is history, not journalism, that has condemned the Middle East to war. I think 'war correspondent' smells a bit, reeks of false romanticism; it has too much the whiff of Victorian reporters who would view battles from hilltops in the company of ladies, immune to suffering. . ."

Yet consider all those excited Giraldoes embedded for a stimulating ride. . .
"If the soldiers I watched decided to leave the battlefield, they would--many of them--be shot for dissertion, or at least court-martialled. The civilians among whom I was to live and work were forced to stay on under bombarments, their families decimated by shellfire and air raids. As citizens of pariah nations, there would be no visas for them. But if I want to quite, if I grew sick of the horrors I saw, I could pack my bag and fly home. . .[there would be] no counselling for the poor and huddled masses that were left to Iraq's gas, Iran's rockets, the cruelty of Serbia's militias, the brutal Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the computerised death suffered by Iraqis during America's 2003 invasion of their counntry."
"I went to war as a witness rather than a combatant, an ever more infuriated bystander to be true, but at least I was not one of the impassioned, angry, sometimes demented men who made war."
"Yet innocence, if we can keep it, protects a journalist's integrity. You have to fight to keep it."
Tariq Ali is another writer/activist whose shorter works--in this case, his essays and speeches--have been of great interest to me, but whose longer works I have never read. So I have cut my teeth on his highly readable Clash of Fundamentalisms which was partially concieved as response critical of the eminent Harvard poli sci prof, Samuel Huntington's ridiculously simplistic and reductionistic Clash of Civilizations thesis.

Here is one quote that I find relevant in the context of all the recent hoopla over the difference between contemporary Islamic society and the West that was triggered by cartoons:

"We have to understand the despair, but also the lethal exaltation, that drives people to sacrifice their own lives. If Western politicians remain ignorant of the causes and carry on as before, there will be repetitions. Moral outrage has some therapeutic value, but as a political strategy it is useless. Lightly disguised wars of revenge waged in the heat of the moment are not much better. To fight tyranny and oppression using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningul democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence."
Tariq Ali is originally from Pakistan, has childhood memories of the horrors of the partition, studied at Oxford, has been engaged in political activism for years, was a Trotskyite for a while and opponent of Mao and of the Soviet crackdown of '68 (though I'm not sure what he would call himself today, these things are very important to me. . .). I appreciate his passionate way of writing, though I am a bit critical of the almost total lack of any spiritual sensibility in his writings and for what seems to me a bit too dogmatic atheism (I don't believe in a creator-and-manipulator-and/or-clock-maker God, either, but I am a practicing Zen Buddhist). Nonetheless, he has a healthy outrage a la Fisk or a la any normal human being unwilling to count body bags for progress, and is an incredible public speaker who once made a statement that has become very much so a political mantra for me:

"If the Bush administration were actually serious about Iraqi freedoms, it would support the indigenous, Iraqi pro-democracy movement instead of invading."
He was speaking on a tour of the US before the start of Gulf War II (of Junior's 100th or So Misadventure), in effort to do his part to try and prevent more body bags being piled up in the name of progress and from being spoken about clinically as the "collatoral damage" that is the inevitable side-effect of "precision bombing."

And oh, to conclude by comparing the work of both Fisk and Ali to that of the NYTimes' little darling (and fellow Minneapolis-St. Paul area native) Thomas Friedman:

1) I am pretty sure that Fisk's history of the Middle East will be a major improvement to Friedman's (who is a globalization/New World Order apologist and neoliberal or Milton Friedmanite thinker) recently published one much in the same way that Ali's book is an improvement over Huntington's. Over the years, Friedman has been at times equivocal about war and at other times a total hawk. He fully supported the Bush war in Iraq, though he has now turned critical of its handling, though belatedly, since opponents of the war predicted how miserably it would go well before it began. Thus he has been most vehemently critical of Donald Rumsfeld's conduct of the war, rather than of the ideology and conduct of the whole Bush administration, whose belief in America's altruistic mission in the world is a foundation of Friedman's own remarkably simplistic view of the world. (His view is remarkably simplistic for a man of his education and experience with travel; however, given that he interviews CEOs of multinationals and not workers in the trenches of sweat-shop labor for source info, the overly simplistic nature of his views is not surprising).

In short he often suggests in so many words that war is part and parcel of the market's freehand and of growing prosperity; or, to put it the way that the greatest philosophical apologist for war in the history of Western letters did, it's all just part of History's cunning.

Thus a criticism of Friedman by the astute Thomas Frank rings quite true, to the effect that Friedman's thinking is basically 19th century pro-imperialist, White Man's Burden liberalism dressed up in langauge reflecting postmodernity and globalization.

In contrast, Fisk as a correspondent in the Middle East and elsewhere, has remained a fiercely unequivocal voice against war who has fought for and kept his innocence.

This purity of view derived of innocence is something that both Friedman and the Nation's Christopher Hitchens should contemplate. Hitchens is the leading contender in competition with Friedman for the award of best writer among self-proclaimed progressives apologetic of war and imperialism. However, Hitchen's stubbornness may make it so that his pact with the Devil will go too deep for redemption (he was once part of the anti-war Left), while Friedman may still one day decide to have the NYTimes pay for his business class plane ticket to India or Palestine-Israel, but this time with the purpose of going to live the life of a factory-floor worker of a sweatshop or that of a typical Palestinian in the Gaza strip for a year. Such an adventure for Mr. Friedman would provide him with the fertile grounds for a new, groundbreaking piece of investigative journalism during which he could test his theories about growing prosperity in the globalized world order and the necessary evil of war. . .

2) Friedman views the conflict between the Western world and Islam today as neither a clash of civilizations, nor a clash of fundamentalisms, but a clash within a civilization--within Muslim society. The wicked governments of the Muslim world are, according to Friedman, the ones solely responsible for the conflict within the Muslim world and for the conflict with the West; they have, often in collusion with Islamic fundamentalists, duped the multiude of the Muslim world to blame not them, the responsible ones, but the West and most especially America. Of course, underlying this position is acceptance of the notion that the West and the Muslim world are engaged in a conflict between civilizations; however, for Friedman it is a conflict that is driven solely by the civil war that indeed rages in the heart of Muslim society--just never mind the role the West has played throughout the adventures of modernity in the making of that war. And as is his parlance, Friedman completely absolves the processes of (neoliberal) globalization and its architects of any and all responsibility for continuing and intensifying that Civil War. Fisk's and Ali's books in this case once again provide an excellent antidote to such drivel that apologizes for war and imperialism and that absolves the elites (and consumptive habits) of the West for their role in the making of the current situation.

And one more thing: Friedman claims that he is a representative of Minnesota's best progressive but centrist traditions. That's an oxymoron. He is an example of the Clinton-inspired drift of much of this state's left-of-center toward center or even right-of-center politics; he has never been a progressive. However, his newest pet topic--that of the imperative facing capitalism to develop alternative and renewable energy sources--might lead him down a path to redemption, but only if his new crusade wakes him up to the social as well ecological injustices of global capitalism which he now excuses as the price paid for progress.

For it will most likely be liberals who push for and conservatives who will succeed in making capitalism green in the future, especially since greening capitalism does not have to necessarily lead to limiting the profit-motive to other non-market values as well. Friedman will probably remain an apologist, never crossing over to the realm of the progressive he fancies himself to be.

Bush's War Against the Genie

The "War against Terror" is the same as:

Trying to put a diabolical Genie back while diabolically continuing to rub the bottle.

It's a war of two bad Genies in which, if one of the Genies succeeds, everyone looses.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Don't you know, you're just supposed to be happy?

In general, I agree, but. . .

So I was at bar tonight and got into a discussion with some random person who had decided to come over to the table where I was hanging with my brother and his buddy. She worked for Verizon and had seen me talking on my cellphone, and used that as a talking point to strike up conversation. I asked her how well she thought Verizon treated its employees, and then I asked if she knew how much the CEO was paid.

She immediately replied by asking, "Why do you have a chip on your shoulder?"

OK, so we now were clear on one thing: That we stood on opposite sides of the aisle. At that moment, I was pretty sure that she supported the war in Iraq, thought that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 911 and Al Qaida, and that there are terrorists who want to kill Americans because they hate Americans because they want to be Americans but can not be.

It turned out that she did.

So I asked her if she would like to know why I, personally, was curious to know how well she felt she was treated as a Verizon employee and also why I wanted to know how much the CEO and other top-dogs at Verizon made; she said sure. So I explained to her that from my understanding, the gap between the rich and the poor in the US has been gradually widening since 1900, but that post-WWII, the gap has been growing exponentially. I explained that in 1969 the average middle class American family required one working parent that worked around 40-50 hours a week to maintain a middle class lifestyle, and that today, well. . .we all know that it requires two working parents who work between 40-50 hours a week each to afford an average middle class lifestyle. I asked her where the money for all those extra hours is going--could a lot of it not be going, in many cases, to the increasingly outrageous "compensation" paid to executives? I asked, why have wages fallen (adjusted for inflation) since the 1960s? Could it have something to do with the greed that has driven, and the deregulation that has allowed, companies to ship jobs abroad and to drive wages downward, EVEN THOUGH globalization has taken place at a time in which so many major companies were already making plenty of profit?

I finished by asking where deregulation of the economy has gotten Americans.

Her response was to turn to her friend and say, "Soapbox. He's on a soapbox."

I have never thought very highly of the following bumerpsticker, but at that moment its message popped into my head and so I though to say to her, "Well, if you are not outraged, you're not paying attention."

But that's not true. She has been paying attention, enough at least to have just recieved a promotion from Verizon, and was on a business trip to Minneapolis in her new position. As far she was concerned, she was getting what she deserved for all her hard work. Also, as far as she was concerned, there are no disadvantaged people, just lazy ones.

Perhaps this person does deserve what she got as a promotion; I don't know. What I do know is that America has lost ALL $EN$E OF PROPORTION and necessity. Not, however, that there has ever been a consensus in the US on how much those higher up the corporate and business ladder deserve in compensation for greater risk and responsibility that was as just as that in the Europe of the post-war Third Way orientation. Kenneth Lay is just one character among many in a society that has become held hostage by greed and that rampantly produces pundits who announce that the Kingdom of peace and happiness will be realized by unleashing one's inner consumer. Dream Big, Think MTV Cribs!

I very much like that the Green Party has had in the past a platform about wage caps: no CEO or business owner should be allowed to pocket more than such and such a percentage of his/her average worker's daily take-home.

We also discussed the matter of Bill Gates' wealth, as she brought up the issue of philanthropy. She used the argument that someone like Gates was doing more for the world than someone like me, who has a chip on his shoulder and likes to preach from a soapbox.

Though I am not well enough armed intellectually to argue about the injustices of the joint-stock company that places profits for shareholders first and foremost over all other, nonmarket values and therefore to the detriment of the environment and numerous, previously-cohesive communities worldwide, I could engage with her in the following way (which I mention here, since Gates' great wealth comes primarily from his stock options and his company's monopolistic behavior):

Bill Gates' philanthropy vis-a-vis Africa and the AIDS problem protects his business interests, and thus is not sincere philanthropy. For the best explanation, check out the book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast. In short, there is a big fight going on over generic drugs for AIDS, all of which comes under the rubric of protecting intellectual property rights. Big pharmaceutical companies in the North and West want the WTO to punish countries (mostly in the South and the East) that allow companies to make cheaper generic versions. Bill Gates wants countries to crack down on knock-offs of Microsoft products. He wants property rights to drugs and Windows to be protected at all cost. Coming under fire for this stance, he has decided to spend whatever-amount-he-has-offered on name brand AIDS drugs for Africa. But how many more people could be treated on his dole with generic brands? If he was really sincere, he would declare, "I am FOR generics and will still spend this much money on GENERICS." Many more people would be treated and many more lives would be saved--I forget exactly how many more, but I think it was 2 to 3 times more (check out Palast's book for the details). This is not a negligible amount of difference.

It is negligent not to pay attention to the increasing gap between the rich and the poor in today's world in which globalization and free trade are supposed to be reversing the situation.

Furthermore, corporations must either be forced to or learn to place nonmarket values on equal par with profits for shareholders; or rather, capitalism must be regulated in order that the importance and integrity of extra-market values are appreciated and respected. In other words, companies should not be allowed to continuously externalize the risk and costs of their business to the human community and environment; it all should be internalized and profit and prices made to reflect the real social and ecological cost of doing business.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Beware of the Herd Instinct!

"War? It's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!"

This is my favorite anti-anything poster I have seen at any demonstration, anywhere. This was taken at the Minneapolis site of the global, anti-war demonstrations that happened on Feb. 15, 2003 (the day that millions of people around the world demonstrated against the war that had yet to begin).