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Another Year

November 24, 2002

Another year is underway. I'm no longer "At 80" and tomorrow Roz and I will have been married 60 years.

I've decided to put together a book with my website thoughts of the past fourteen months. The title:

AT 80

an old bird's eye view of the year following September 11, 2001

Most people expect war in the year ahead—more war, that is. In all my years, no president's "popularity" has so completely defied logic and contradicted actual performance as with George W. Bush. What a remarkable record of substantive failures in all areas! So far, though, George W. plays the public with an aptitude reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's notorious "common touch".

Sooner or later bombast will lose the power to drown out reality. Strong voices of dissent at home and abroad will connect us again with our best values and common interests. I believe that. I wish I knew where and when.

December 3, 2002

I'm still using most of my extra-curricular time (time after household duties) preparing my book for publication. But I do read and listen to the news. It's not hard to stay aware of George W. There's only one note there: WAR! Amazing. He hasn't a word to say about anything else, not even a nod to the deepening every day cares of people. When is the last time words were uttered such as: homelessness, recession and unemployment, corporate theft, environmental protection?

Today he did show us what money can buy: Turkey (the government thereof, not the Thanksgiving kind). Turkey is ready to be used for war, at a price: economic loot, support for joining the European Union, and the promise of no separate Kurdish state. A bargain— bribes trump lives.

However, something strange seems to be happening. The more he plunges ahead as if opposition to his war is non-existent, the more evident that opposition becomes. Browbeating and bribery may recruit reluctant war partners, but popular support for war is not easy to buy. Everyone knows that's true outside the USA, but despite November 5th, doubts and open anti-war expression are looming larger among Americans. Even some of the media has had to take notice. Last Monday, November 25, the Lehrer News Hour aired a revealing segment on the burgeoning anti-war movement in Chicago. Today's Washington Post tells the story nationwide.

December 4, 2002

Looks like I got carried away yesterday by early reports that the Bush Administration had scored a "huge victory" in winning Turkey's full partnership for war on Iraq. It's likely that Wolfowitz did not come away empty handed, but the Turkish government quickly contradicted the initial White House version. Why? As Foreign Minister Yakis put the matter: "If we are talking about the extensive presence of American forces in Turkey, we have difficulty in explaining this to Turkish public opinion." According to the NY Times, Turkey "wants to cooperate with Washington, but officials in the new government pointed to their need to deal with public sentiment, which is skeptical about a military campaign."

*****

And how many times does Bill Clinton have to prove that when push comes to shove, his choice is "strong and wrong" over being labeled "weak and right". For the DLC, "right", as in veering to the right, always beats being right— and "strong" means being extremely cautious not to get in the way of Bush's war fixation.

December 11, 2002

The Bush Administration's pronouncements are more outrageous and less surprising with each new day. The new announcement of commitment to the use of nuclear weapons reiterates more brazenly the policy declaration made on March 9th. (When you "analyze this", no need for a sequel to "analyze that".)

This was a busy day for Emperor George. He also asserted his rule over the high seas, although he let the scud missiles go on their way because he discovered that Yemen is on his side. Maybe the rulers of Yemen, after protesting the highjacking, promised to use the missiles in wars that Bush promotes.

Anyway, I haven't had much time to analyze "this" or "that". Roz is doing well now, but she had a fall that put her in the hospital for a few days with a banged-up hip— no fracture. We hope she'll be home tomorrow. It looks like she will be able in a few weeks to get around as "well" as before. She always edits what I write and often suggests changes before I post. Not this time.

December 12, 2002

Why does it take a major off-guard moment of blunder to expose a career racist like Trent Lott (or Billy Graham, or Richard Nixon)? The NY Times editorial today says "Fire Trent Lott". Amen. The media fell all over itself saluting Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday. They have said nothing to condemn GOP efforts around the country to stop African-Americans from voting. Trent Lott's mistake was to flaunt what was never a real secret: the politicians who fought to preserve the worst legacy in American history are right in there running the country— and trying to run the world.

December 18, 2002

The lead editorial in today's NY Times is headed: "Errors That Kill Medical Patients". That prompts me to write about our latest hospital saga, fortunately a little less dramatic than the headline. I'll start the way I begin phone calls to the kids when the news is on the downside. "Roz is OK now…" Roz had a fall, banged down on her hip (no fracture, it turns out), and spent five days in Kaiser Oakland hospital. She is more disabled now and, at best, it may be weeks before she can get around with her walker as "well" as before.

Another introductory comment (disclaimer?) before I get on with the story: Kaiser Permanente is probably the best of the HMOs; we are generally satisfied with our routine care and very high on our primary care physician. The hospital experience(s), though, is really something else.

David and I managed to get Roz to "urgent care" on Saturday, December 7. After examination and X-rays, she was admitted to the hospital. The doctor ("hospitalist") assigned to her didn't see her until late Monday afternoon, by which time a number of unfortunate things had occurred. Her blood pressure was somewhat higher than normal, and a Resident (without seeing her) ordered a nitroglycerin paste patch, which dropped her pressure rapidly and alarmingly. When we heard this from the nurse, who was angry at the failure of the assigned doctor to respond to repeated pages, we contacted our primary care physician. It was probably his intervention that finally got the doctor in charge to come around. But before he showed, something else happened. Roz regularly wears a fentanyl duragesic patch for chronic pain. One was put on during her first night in the hospital. When the nurse went to change it on Monday, she found two patches were there. What with additional pain medication, which Roz had said she didn't want, she was pretty well zonked out and not her usually lucid self. When the hospitalist finally showed, he asked her, among other things, 'who is the President of the United States?" Roz answered, "Bush", and I added "unfortunately". Here the doctor came alive: "Aw, no", he objected, and proudly announced, "I'm from Texas!"

Then he said he would go look at the X-rays and come right back. (I am quite certain he hadn't looked at Roz's chart before his visit). When he didn't return for hours, the nurse paged him. He said he couldn't locate the X-rays taken on Saturday and Roz would have to be X-rayed again. I went home with the promise that he would phone me as soon as he saw the pictures. Needless to say, no call.

Finally, by Tuesday, the conclusion was "no fracture". However, the doctor said, he wanted an echocardiogram because he didn't want to risk sending her home to a "massive heart attack" (an unwarranted comment not likely to calm anyone's blood pressure). After several delays, and five unbelievable days, Roz was ready to be released.

While waiting for the "paper work" so we could go home, something most bizarre happened— not, this time, to us. Up to the day before Roz's release, her room was shared by an African-American woman who was very ill and was taken periodically for dialysis. She left the hospital for re-hab and her place was soon occupied by an elderly white woman who had suffered a stroke. As we waited, an attendant came to the room and transferred the new patient to a wheel chair to take her "down for treatment". We heard her speak the woman's name, the name of the previous patient. We didn't react at once, but when we heard the name repeated as they went out into the hall, the unthinkable occurred to us and we decided to make sure. We were thanked profusely by attendants and nurse after they verified that this was indeed the wrong patient.

During the hospital stay, Roz was seen by two physical therapists and a social worker. Their evaluation was that she would need a lot of help for quite some time— a physical therapist or home health nurse would come by the house in a couple of days to look things over and advise us; also a wheel chair would be provided for at least the first couple of weeks.

It's now Wednesday, six days after Roz came home. After waiting patiently and hearing nothing, we checked yesterday. No order for the home visit was entered and the wheel chair order was returned to "Texas" (the hospitalist) for more information.

Meanwhile, Roz has great difficulty getting around in the house, especially getting up from chairs. My back, which held up for the first few days, has at last complained with a vengeance.

We'll manage and will press for whatever help we need. I'm writing this not to plead our case or for sympathy, but as a civic necessity. As I told "Texas", there are too many cases of older people hospitalized for treatable ailments that get turned into life-threatening crises. My sister's ailment was a bladder infection when she entered Alameda hospital, where "complications" escalated into death.

Lest it appear that our story is a one-time bad luck affair, here's a memory from Roz's prior Kaiser Oakland hospital stay about two years ago. After a couple of days, I looked into a plastic bag that was sitting next to her bed. I thought it contained her clothes. What reeked up at me was a man's clothes and shoes (a previous patient's, I suppose) covered with excrement. "Terribly embarrassing", said the nurse, and I know it wasn't her fault. In general, the nurses and nurse's aids are the better part of a decaying hospital system.

December 19, 2002

It's a strange dance Bush and Blair have choreographed around the UN weapons inspections. "The burden is on Iraq." To prove that it has no weapons of mass destruction, as it claims, it must declare that it has weapons of mass destruction. No doubt Saddam has things to hide. What B&B can't hide is their solitary predetermination that the dance must end in war.

December 28, 2002

The news from points far removed from Baghdad— North Korea and Chechnya— shows the sheer absurdity of Bush's war plans.

Suppose the war against Iraq goes ahead. Whatever its outcome, what can it possibly accomplish in the "war against terrorism"? Will it convince North Korea or any other country not to build nuclear bombs? Will it discourage suicide bombings against Russian rule in Chechnya? Will it bring down bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Will it bring healing to Afghanistan? Will it end violence in Israel and Palestine? Will it stop terror in Indonesia, Kenya, the Philippines, Pakistan, India and Columbia? Will it make "the homeland" safer?

Rumsfeld boasts we can fight two wars at once. Actually that's a bit more modest than his earlier claim that we can target as many as fifteen countries simultaneously. In fact, the warmongering and high profile mobilization for war have made the world much more dangerous. Bush's commitment to war and the build-up of nuclear weapons is the most effective stimulus package for nuclear proliferation. More than any terrorist network, what has been disrupted is hope that the world can come together to deal with serious problems.

*****

Every crackpot press conference heralding fabricated claims of "human cloning" is another excuse for the Bush Administration to advance legislation banning stem cell research and enshrining fundamentalist doctrine that "life" begins at conception. That goes with stealth censorship of the websites of the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is no longer permitted to report extensive scientific studies that refute a connection between abortion and breast cancer, or to inform the public that condoms reduce the risk of HIV transmission. Even while preoccupied with war, the Bush team doesn't neglect the old time religion. Nor does it forget to press for deep slashes in taxes on dividends

December 31, 2002

My brother, Malcolm, sent me an e-mail this morning commenting on the crisis and confusion over North Korea. He says this episode "makes a mockery of the entire preemptive theory propounded by the hawks… I will not venture a guess as to its outcome, but whatever that may be, it will not be a nuclear war. Preemption in the face of the bomb is ludicrous."

What's happening now brings into reality the speculative question asked in my op-ed of August 23, 2002: "Beyond Iraq, the Bush Doctrine sets up a terrible dilemma for the future. What if other countries, which (unlike Iraq) have established biological and nuclear military capacities, undergo political changes antagonistic to supposed US interests? … Are we prepared to handle disputes that may arise with other nuclear powers on the basis of the doctrine of pre-emptive strike?"

Once again: how does pre-emptive war against Iraq connect with any of the worldwide problems of these troubled times— except to make them worse? Maybe, as Malcolm suggests, the North Korean dilemma "brings the proposed invasion of Iraq into question— not only among the majority of the people of the world but in the calculations of Cheney, et al." Alevai! (to use one of those impossible to translate Jewish expressions) 'It should only be so, but unlikely', is as close as I can get to "alevai".

Nuclear proliferation is one aspect of the awful problem of control and elimination of nuclear armaments and all other weapons of mass destruction. You can't be the super arsenal and chief proponent of nuclear weaponry, as the Bush Administration is, and expect those you threaten not to imitate your disregard for agreements and international law.

As always:

PEACE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

January 5, 2003

Today's SF Chronicle has a fine editorial on the Bush strategy to advance the aims of his fundamentalist anti-choice constituency. The editorial describes the Administration's "stealth attacks on abortion and contraception…quietly changing health information posted on government Websites and subjecting scientists nominated to government panels to ideological screening."

The stealth approach has long served the ultra-right in eroding abortion and reproductive rights despite its failure to overturn majority pro-choice opinion. However, the editorial's suggestion that this strategy substitutes for "trying to pass controversial legislation" isn't quite on the mark. This Administration has a penchant for exploiting fear and ignorance, and it has legislative objectives based on that. It hopes to turn universal revulsion at the notion of cloning humans into a ban on embryonic stem cell research, legislating that life begins at conception and a fertilized egg is an "unborn child". That, along with further efforts to criminalize so-called "partial birth" abortions, is the legislative wedge that accompanies the stealth and judicial strategies of the anti-choice crusaders.

*****

Amazing how the press fawns on Bush and ignores absurdities like his comment outside the hamburger joint in Crawford, Texas on December 31st. The NY Times reported: "Asked whether the United States could afford the $50 billion to $60 billion it would cost to wage war with Iraq, an estimate his budget director offered on Monday, he said, 'an attack from Saddam Hussein or a surrogate of Saddam Hussein would cripple our economy.'"

Finally today, five days after that performance, Tom Friedman's column includes this aside: "(Mr. Bush's recent attempt to hype the Iraqi threat by saying that an Iraqi attack on America— which is most unlikely— 'would cripple our economy' was embarrassing. It made the president look as if he was groping for an excuse to go to war, absent a smoking gun.)" Incidentally, the point of Friedman's column is that "war for oil" is the Administration's legitimate aim, for which there is no need to apologize (sic…k!).

January 7, 2003

I got a lovely note today from a reader of this journal, a younger faculty colleague at UC. With her comments, she sent a "favorite" E. B. White essay that appeared in The New Yorker, February 20, 1937. Forgive me if I reproduce it here without "benefit" of reservations about male solipsism, questionable political labels, or "dissing" of some age groups. I know some octogenarians who will imbibe it as a tonic without adding a grain of salt.

LIFE PHASES

E. B. White

WE ARE NOT SURE we agree with President Roosevelt that seventy is the age when a Supreme Court judge should retire. If we must establish an arbitrary pension age, it should be either fifty or ninety, but not seventy. At seventy, men are just beginning to grow liberal again, after a decade or two of conservatism. Their usefulness to the state is likely to improve after the span of life which the Bible allows them to complete. The men of eighty whom we know are on the whole a more radical, ripsnorting lot than the men of seventy. They hold life cheaply, and hence are able to entertain generous thoughts about the state. It is in his fifty-to-seventy phase that a man pulls in his ears, lashes down his principles, and gets ready for dirty weather. Octogenarians have a more devil-may-care tactic: they are sometimes willing to crowd on some sail and see if they can't get a burst of speed out of the old hooker yet.

A man's liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the time he is born. Children are radicals. Youths are conservatives, with a dash of criminal negligence. Men in their prime are liberals (as long as their digestion keeps pace with their intellect). The middle-aged, except in rare cases, run to shelter: they insure their life, draft a will, accumulate mementos and occasional tables, and hope for security. And then comes old age, which repeats childhood— a time full of humors and sadness, but often full of courage and even prophecy.

January 9, 2003

Watched 60 Minutes II last night. The first two segments were probably not meant to be seen as interrelated, but together they paint a dire landscape of shame.

The first segment has Dan Rather glamorizing the man who turned the Predator from an unmanned surveillance aircraft into an ideal assassination weapon coveted by the CIA. The transformation was quick and cheap, a model of American ingenuity and the will to get things done. When the first missile under Predator's wing failed to kill everything to which its remote control camera directed it, it was easy to surround it with an anti-personnel strip of metal designed to send out a deluge of steel fragments in all directions. Precision has its limits, but designed "collateral damage" takes care of that. (We already deduced same from the toll of children and other civilians "collaterally" wiped out in Afghanistan, and of innocent victims of suicide bombings and of "precision" military assassinations in Israel and Palestine.)

The second segment was more unusual fare for TV, but far from unusual in cities and towns around the country. It described and interviewed people on a long, long food line in Ohio. More even than the length of the line, most striking was its makeup of "ordinary" folks. This line was mostly white, "middle American", people with and without jobs who simply cannot feed their families because of drastically reduced incomes. If not for the presence of so many children, one might have thought it was a line waiting to vote on Election Day. But then, of course, the line would not be long at all.

To complete the picture of what should not be, earlier in the day George W. renominated Pickering to a lifetime federal judgeship. With Frist instead of Lott, things are right where they were before.

January 15, 2003

I wasn't home yesterday when a call came from the Oakland Tribune asking for a comment on the censoring of Emma Goldman by the associate vice-chancellor for research at UC Berkeley. All that needed to be said has already been said by Candice Falk, Director of the Emma Goldman Papers Project , and history professors Leon Litwack, Reggie Zelnik and Robbie Cohen.

Of course the quotes from Emma Goldman that were used in the "offending" promotion letter were perfect for today. Why treasure the Goldman Papers if not for their lasting relevance? Why not call them forth when they are most appropriate to our lives and times? In 1915, Goldman urged people "not yet overcome by war madness to raise their voice of protest, to call the attention of the people to the crime and outrage which are about to be perpetrated on them." In 1902, she warned that dissenters "shall soon be obliged to meet in cellars, or in darkened rooms with closed doors, and speak in whispers lest our next-door neighbors should hear that free-born citizens dare not speak in the open."

The associate vice-chancellor who chose to censor Emma Goldman's words of a century ago is Robert M. Price, Professor of Political Science. His area of scholarship has been Africa, and he was a critic, if not an activist, in opposition to South African apartheid. He was also sympathetic to Berkeley's free speech legacy. Unfortunately, it often happens that a professor loses some enthusiasm for free speech when he becomes an administrator.

I wonder if professors who promote their research grants in the name of "homeland security" and war preparedness have to worry that they may be censored as "too political".

January 17, 2003

George W. says, "I'm sick and tired…" His war timetable is running into a vast maze of resistance, doubts, foot-dragging, and open opposition. On the eve of tomorrow's giant anti-war protests, a question on many minds is: will he go to war anyway, or will he have to find an out?

I think Bush is heading into serious trouble, and a turnaround in his political fortunes is far more likely than it seemed in November. Less likely is that the Bush Administration will change course and back away from its commitment to war. Given the obstacles in their path, the Bush strategists may be praying and conspiring for some kind of coup that would oust Saddam, and they may be searching for a big provocation to exploit to regain "credibility". Nevertheless, Rumsfeld's cohorts appear determined to go to war whatever or whoever gets in the way. There may be further delays, but I think they will go to war unless they can find another way to oust Saddam and take over Iraq.

I also think their fury over the opposition they are encountering will lead to police state measures directed against anti-war activists. Nor should one dismiss the risks this crowd may be willing to take re the Korean Peninsula. I hope they are a crazy minority among the "policy makers", and will remain so, but I doubt that the Richard Pearle types think unleashing nuclear warfare is such an awful idea. Saddam Hussein and KIM Chong-Il shamefully covet weapons of mass destruction, but there are also other xenophobes who already have mountains of WMD and no great qualms about employing them.

The remarkable growth of anti-war sentiment worldwide and here is thrilling, but it's hard to picture a short-term outcome that ensures peace. Of course any setback for the warmongers will be great news. Meanwhile, we march on Saturday.

January 29, 2003

In a recent article, Michael Klare undertakes to decipher the real reasons that the Bush Administration is so hell-bent on war against Iraq despite extensive opposition and great potential risks. He shows that the officially stated reasons (danger from weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, and concern for promotion of democracy) should logically lead to priorities and actions other than the frenzied focus on another Gulf War. He concludes, as others have, that the real reason is OIL and he makes a thorough and convincing argument. In his analysis, the war drive rises from the conviction that "unless Persian Gulf oil can be kept under American control, our ability to remain the dominant world power would be put into question."

Klare's article gives weighty substance to the slogan: "No war for oil!" I think, though, that Iraq has also been chosen as the ideal target for showing the world the Administration's determination to use its super military power and war to impose a US dominated "world order". While oil is crucial, showing who's boss is powerful motivation in its own right, as is the fear that "weakness" or caution will erode credibility and undermine aspirations for an imperial American Century. Maureen Dowd gets at this with her usual sparkle in her NY Times column on Bush's State of the Union, "The Empire Strikes First": "Dick Cheney; his chief of staff, Scooter Libby; and the Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz also think Saddam is the perfect lab rat on which to test their new pre-emptive "empire strikes first" national security strategy, which Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Libby first drafted back in 1992, during the Bush 41 administration, when Mr. Cheney was defense secretary."

As Klare points out, the intent to control the oil of the Gulf goes back many years, involving both Democratic and Republican Administrations. In itself it doesn't account for the hysterical war obsession of the Bush Administration. The Bush team is special in more than its thirst for oil. Its hunger for war is basic to its foreign policy and global ambitions.

February 3, 2003

By the time I got to my e-mail this morning, there were already two dispatches from Tomeditor@aol.com. Tom, about whom I know nothing aside from his e-mail, absolutely amazes me. Two, three, sometimes four times a day, his recipients hear from him. Each message has a cogent commentary, most often related to the Bush Administration's feverish war build-up, followed by texts of valuable articles gathered from innumerable media and Internet sources. How he does it, I don't know.

Anyway, the effect of the flood of material coming my way by e-mail and internet— of which "Tomeditor" is only about the most prolific— is to take heart, rejoice and admire, and feel less need to add my two cents each day. For quite a while, we seemed to be living in an all-bad-news world. Now, at least, while the bad news is worse, there's lots of good news in the remarkably broad and powerful worldwide denunciation of Bush's pre-emptive war obsessions. Not only information and analysis is pouring through the Internet; even more significant are the effective calls to action and protest. The relative value of my two cents may be somewhat deflated now, but the voices and will and energy of millions are now part of a torrent that can't be diverted or shut off.

For the record, my paperback book of commentaries written during the year following September 11, 2001 is now in press (Aventine Press) and should be available in a few weeks.

February 5, 2003

The Powell presentation brings to another (final?) crescendo the Bush-Blair campaign to restrict the UN Security Council's debate over a US war against Iraq to one question: how evil is Saddam Hussein? What should be debated with at least equal vigor is the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war and its announced program for further development and use of nuclear weapons. If the issue is reduced to the obvious case that Saddam can't be trusted, the UN will be confined to fiddling while hope for the future burns. What humanity cannot afford is to trust weapons of war and mass destruction in the hands of any government, including our own.

Many analysts who oppose going to war against Iraq will be dissecting Powell's case, finding the evidence circumstantial, often conjectural, some of it exaggerated and of doubtful authenticity. The problem, though, is much deeper than how effectively he indicted Saddam. It's that a US war against Iraq will aggressively promote the use of weapons of mass destruction and will make the world even more dangerous. Whatever the real objectives of the Bush Administration, its eagerness to go to war in the Gulf will do nothing to discourage worldwide nuclear proliferation or the threat of terrorist acts. It takes a lot of brainwashing to imagine that the answer to the awful problem of weapons of extermination, let alone the menace of terrorism, will be found in demolishing Baghdad and installing a US army of occupation in Iraq.

Fortunately, the early signs are that Colin Powell (Bush's ace in the hole) has changed few minds. What would really make the UN irrelevant would be to accept the insane premise that the threat of weapons of extermination can be contained by unleashing US military superpower against successive targets selected by George W. Bush. The world community needs to confront the danger to peace in this century as something other than a matter of designating "good guys" and "bad guys". Controlling and reducing the arsenals of horrific modern warfare allows for no exemptions. The spotlight that reveals and checks the intentions of the rulers of Iraq and North Korea needs to shine also on all established and would-be nuclear powers— on Bush, Musharraf, and Sharon, as well as Saddam and Kim. Would a presentation (akin to Powell's) on the gargantuan stocks of nuclear, germ and chemical weapons under Donald Rumsfeld's command be regarded as reassuring rather than terrifying?

Only if an inclusive and collective approach to building peace evolves will the tyranny of war subside. That's what ought to prevail in the UN.

February 9, 2003

The case of Colin Powell… I don't know how much of Powell's present role was preconceived and, if so, how far back. What is clear is that Powell's reputation as a dove in the circle around Bush made him the perfect choice for crunch-time in the final push to war. All those leaks about heated quarrels with Rumsfeld; the ultra-right's depiction of him as a latter-day prototype of the weak-kneed and incompetent General McClellan; his supposed support for diplomacy and the UN— all of that made him Bush's indispensable super salesman for war. It's hard to think of anyone else in the Bush crowd with the modicum of credibility required to deliver the coup de grace to peace.

As it is, the Administration heralds its determination to go to war in the face of enormous opposition around the world and deep misgivings at home. The personal arrogance of Bush and Rumsfeld, highlighted by the insults they hurl at old allies who hesitate to pledge allegiance, has few precedents in the annals of war mongering. Without Powell, how much worse would they fare in marketing pre-emptive war?

Now, however, the difference between Powell and Rumsfeld looks much like the difference between Blair and Bush. It's more a matter of style, the smooth statesman types as compared to the "good old boys" itching for a barroom brawl. As for integrity, there isn't much to be said for the "statesmen", who no longer blush even when their polished presentations stoop to crude plagiarism.

Powell, echoing Bush, now keeps repeating that the UN will be irrelevant if it doesn't drop the inspections and opt for war. Just the opposite is true. The UN will gain relevance only if it resists becoming a servant of George W. Bush, complicit in the awesome consequences that the hunger for war can inflict on humanity. Despite Colin Powell, it looks today as if France, Germany, Russia and China may not be quite ready to select Bush as global boss.

February 15, 2003

One of the main images evoked to frighten Americans into war fever is the failure of the Western powers to stop Hitler before he was strong enough to wage war against the world. Yes, it is time to remember. And there are many things about those times that come to mind.

As with all analogies in history, one could write books about the differences between then and now. One contrast would be between the emerging fascist axis of Germany, Italy and Japan in the 1930s and Bush's concocted "axis of evil" of today. Fascism arose in potentially powerful industrial nations which proclaimed in Hitler's "Mein Kampf" the aim of world conquest. That axis received aid and comfort from American and British elites, like Henry Ford and Prescott Bush and the Duke of Windsor, because they saw it as the instrument for crushing Bolshevism and they shared the Nazis' hatred of Jews.

But despite a myriad of differences between then and now, there are frightening similarities. Once again there is a country, very different from the Third Reich, but with enormous power and a head of state with a messianic mission— one who embraces strategies of "pre-emptive" war (and nuclear weapons) to create and command a "new world order". The anomaly is that under George W. Bush, a democratic capitalist power, not a fascist state, has become the most nationalistic and aggressive purveyor of war on the face of the earth. Of course, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, a nation cannot long remain half democracy and half warfare state.

Tony Blair, and Colin Powell, and Tom Friedman keep lecturing all who hesitate to enlist in George Bush's wars that they simply don't understand the lessons of pre-World War II history. On the contrary, the millions who marched all over the world and in cities throughout the United States this weekend are not about to repeat the 1930s folly of Henry Ford and Neville Chamberlain. They know that in this troubled time there are more than a few villains to counter, but war for world supremacy is the most villainous path to pursue. They know that it has to be stopped, if possible before it engulfs Iraq, before it spreads to wherever and whenever Rumsfeld's war planners set their sites.

Today there are two prominent heads of state and one head of an international non-governmental network who are fiercely intent on a war in Iraq. That seems to be the nexus where Bush, Blair and bin Laden come together. For most of the rest of the world, the nexus is the globalized movement to prevent war.

February 19, 2003

Of words and deeds…

That's quite some "focus group" George wants to ignore. It's just the large majority of UN member states and the vast majority of people on earth.

Disturbed by the chasm between Bush and the world, media pundits like Tom Friedman are pointing a nervous finger at Bush and Rumsfeld: 'It's their rhetoric, their posturing, that is blocking support for war— that, and the ungrateful French and Germans who should be forever in our debt. If only Bush and Rumsfeld were as adept as Tony Blair!'

But the anti-war demonstrations were biggest in Britain, Italy and Spain, whose governments would follow Bush anywhere even if it's straight to hell. No, pundits, who think all dissenters in the US and everywhere else are uninformed and not as sophisticated as, for example, Charlie Rose. It's substance, not style. Most countries, even while afraid of and beholden to the present US government, are more afraid of the Bush Administration's fanatic commitment to fashioning a "new world order" through pre-emptive wars.

Why should France, or any other nation, be comfortable with a Pax Americana? Why should other countries accept the notion that they and the United Nations as a whole are irrelevant unless they cede to George W. Bush the exclusive power to reject international agreements, to determine where to wage the next war, to flaunt overwhelming superiority in weapons of mass destruction including active plans for the use of nuclear weapons?

What could be more stupid than to think the French are obligated to salute George W. as Commander-in-Chief because we fought the Nazis in World War II? Should Europe forget its own role and sacrifices for liberation, including the legendary martyrs of the Resistance? What we, and the Russians, and the British, and underground resistance fighters did to defeat Hitler was not to do anyone a favor. It was to save the world, including the USA, from fascist conquest.

As to the huge American segment of the universal "focus group", war is not an answer to the "homeland" disasters in our economy, in our civil liberties, in the enveloping climate of fear, and in our government's superficial responses to the terrorist threat.

Bush and Blair may insist on war, but they do hear and fear the voice of the multitude. Whether it's today or tomorrow, that's the power that can slow them, stop them, and eventually dump them. Then most of the world may be in harmony with us, as it was for a time after September 11, 2001— before war and war mongering played into the hands of Osama bin Laden and undermined effective collaboration to curb terrorism.

February 21, 2003

The hunt is on for a "coalition of the willing". All one sees is a "coalition" of the reluctant, the bribed, the willing to defy the will of their own people. Hiring mercenary "soldiers of fortune" is old hat. Now billions may buy Turkey's alliance for war while its people are kicking and screaming "No!" The era of giant buy-outs has spread from the corporate chambers to Rumsfeld's war room.

February 25, 2003

A big part of what ought to be the debate at the UN and here in the United States is missing or, at best, only hinted at.

Bush and Powell and Blair have engineered the questions to be: 1) Isn't Saddam terrible? And 2) Why not go to war to wipe out his weapons and his regime?

The obscured question is the one that has the whole world in turmoil. Which is a greater danger to world peace: 1) relying on UN pressure to contain and cripple Saddam's regime, or 2) giving George W. Bush free rein to pursue pre-emptive wars, subordinate the UN, and dictate "world order" on the basis of enormous US superiority in nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction?

As bad as Saddam is, especially for the people of Iraq, the uncomfortable fact is that the greatest threat to world peace is the Bush doctrine, for which war on Iraq is the first proving ground.

Increasingly the advocates of war and military occupation of Iraq argue that this is the necessary first step for spreading democracy through the Middle East. War may be unpleasant, but the historic mission of the sole superpower is to use that power to foster democracy (and the "free" market) eveywhere. All the little Tony Blairs of the media— Tom Friedman, Charlie Rose and Bill Keller among the enthusiasts— see no contradiction in waving that banner even when the bellicose rhetoric of Bush and Rumsfeld causes them to squirm. After all, says Charlie Rose, our moral principles and intentions are for the good of the world, not like empires of a bygone day. Why can't the French and everyone else trust us? Too politely, Stanley Hoffman informed Charlie Rose the other day that empires of the past were all on great "civilizing " missions.

Do these people really think that weapons of mass destruction are safe in the hands of Bush and Rumsfeld? Do they think that the horrible new weapons readied for use in Iraq are less horrible than those an enfeebled Saddam can command? Do they think people looking for freedom want their countries invaded and subjected to foreign military rule? Do they really think that our best traditions of freedom can or will be upheld by this Administration?

The fact is that most of the world is now afraid of us. No one delights in that more than Osama bin Laden.

February 28, 2003

At last, the day before yesterday, Bush gave the speech for which the "liberal" war cohort has been begging. The war is about making Iraq the fountainhead for spreading democracy and compelling reform of the entire Mideast.

Hailing the speech on the inevitable Charlie Rose Show, Shimon Perez modified it a bit: it doesn't matter if all the regimes accept "democracy"; the key to the future is to uproot backwardness with technology and let the modern times roll. It is fitting that Bush offered his vision before the American Enterprise Institute. His credentials for reordering the world are apparent in what he is imposing on the "homeland".

The speech didn't lack the standard flexing of military muscle and war as the means to all of his ends. It was full of "America will not permit…" and what "we will not allow…in the affairs of men." (Usually, it has been "I will not allow"— are the speech writers making progress?)

Meanwhile, as Nicholas Kristof reports in today's NY Times, the Cheney-Rumsfeld team has a "contingency plan" for the next war, a sudden nuclear strike at North Korea. Kristof says: "Ironically, the gravity of the situation isn't yet fully understood in either South Korea or Japan, partly because they do not think this administration would be crazy enough to consider a military strike against North Korea. They're wrong."

But there is still unfinished business before our weapons of mass destruction bring blinding light to Iraq. The coalition of the "willing" may not yet be complete. The last to be added are not only the bribed, but the vigorously browbeaten. What are Mexico and the other nervous holdouts on the Security Council to do?

It will take more courage than most governments are willing to muster, but what this world needs is a "coalition of the unwillimg": countries unwilling to provide cover to Bush's war(s). That courage is rising and irrepressible among the people, including millions of Americans.

March 2, 2003

James Watson is a one-man spectacle on the 50th Anniversary of his joint announcement with Francis Crick of the structure of DNA. What a blight he has become on the image of that giant advance in our understanding of genetics and heredity! It is as if Shockley came back to life with his full baggage of eugenics, racism and Nobel laureate sperm banks.

Watson calls stupidity a genetic disease "as real as cystic fibrosis or haemophilia", afflicting the "lower 10 per cent who have real difficulty, even in elementary school." In an interview in Britain, he says children who are genetically enhanced by their parents will be the ones who dominate the world. Beauty, too, he says, could be engineered. "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."

The large majority of diseases are proven to be very complex both genetically and environmentally, and intelligence is much more so. Watson himself proves the case, as did Shockley. Men who had no difficulty in grammar school and were crowned with Nobel prizes can, in areas of human behavior, be both brazenly stupid and despicable.

What kind of engineering would Watson do to deal with the labeled "stupid" 10 per cent who are trapped, he says, by their genes and not their environment? So-called "gene therapy" is in its infancy. The few initial experiments have raised major alarms and done far more harm than good to unfortunate human subjects. The possible application of Watson's hypothesis remains what was available to the "super race" before the golden age of DNA: sterilization or extermination.

Meanwhile, the genetically superior intelligence that dominates the White House proves he can attend to other business while going to war. He insists on exploiting everyone's abhorrence of human cloning to get Congress to ban stem cell research and put into law the "born-again" doctrine that 'life begins at conception'.

*****

I wrote a letter to the NY Times about today's remarkable Tom Friedman column:

Tom Friedman discovers that "95 percent of the country wants to see Iraq dealt with without a war". He tells us that this war is "the greatest shake of the dice … since Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Japan." The men who conceived the post-war scenario "may be the worst people to implement it." The project has been undermined in advance by the Bush team's foreign policies— it's a table that "has only one leg."

All this has not changed Friedman's support for going to war. Nor has the fact that "my wife opposes this war".

Listen to your wife, Tom. It may not be too late to change your mind, as the Turkish parliament showed yesterday.

March 6, 2003

Whether or not the Bush Administration takes the plunge to war, the contours of a political debacle are appearing.

The advocates of war-no-matter-what intend to gamble everything on a smashing military victory in Iraq. That, they pray, will wipe away the enormous obstacles they are encountering on all sides. What they have come up against, however, is not an unpleasant bump in the road— it may well be a forerunner of the chasm that awaits them at road's end.

Some months ago, there seemed to be no formula for bringing our warlords to heel. Ours had become the one and only superpower, and unfortunately hawks now ruled the roost. Given their overwhelming power advantage over the sum of all potential rivals, what force on earth could effectively counter the planners of pre-emptive and nuclear warfare? What could nullify their exploitation of public shock and anger over our vulnerability to terrorist attacks? With the end of the Cold War, the restraints of "mutually assured destruction" were gone. There was no apparent basis for a new balancing of power in international relations, let alone one less rooted in mutual terror.

As it turns out, a new balancing power is coming into its own. The balance is not military. There is no rival superpower. What there is, however, is a near universal opposition to war. Equally, there is fear and apprehension about a "world order" based on subservience to the might and will of the cohort around George W. Bush. These two phenomena are joined. Without the unprecedented intervention of the people of the world, who could conceive of a direct challenge to Bush's war by France, Germany, Russia, China and most of the UN Security Council?

Will Bush take us to war anyway, as he virtually promised in today's strange and labored press conference? Events allow us to continue to hope and to do our all to prevent it.

In any case, it is now possible to picture the way in which the American people can end this dangerous and dreadful period. What we see is a political crisis that can become terminal for Bush and his war makers. Beyond foreign policy, the developing political crisis of the Bush Administration encompasses massive failures on the economy and the environment, and a hostile assault on constitutional liberties and affirmative action. If he flouts world opposition and dismisses growing disaffection at home, the people can show him the door. Our determination to fend off and defeat terrorist actions can be a force for international cooperation, not a rationale for wars, futile crusades, and empire.

The Bush Administration will be as stubborn and unprincipled in clinging to domestic power as it is in pursuing the doctrine of pre-emptive war. That may create serious dangers for American democracy. But events of recent weeks show that arrogance and military aggressiveness only expose political bankruptcy. The all-around political crisis that is shaping up may bring out the best in our democratic heritage and experience. It may produce the kind of turn-around that upended Joe McCarthy, the kind of struggle that prevailed over Jim Crow laws and customs.

The political debacle that could undo this White House gang won't spell finish to militarism and ambitions of world supremacy. But its impact on future presidents and policies, and on all governments, could be great. Perhaps the American people, with support from all people of good will, would make this lesson last longer than the "Vietnam Syndrome" that so horrified Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al.

March 11, 2003

The Bush Administration is at war against the United Nations.

The frenzied search for nine votes in the Security Council has become the most open assault on the United Nations in the history of the organization. Everyone knows that the large majority of nations are against the Bush-Blair war ultimatum. Three of the five members of the Security Council with veto power have declared their opposition to the US plan forcefully and repeatedly. Turning the vote count into an E-Bay style auction or flea market, resorting to bribery, blackmail and threats of mugging against weaker member states, cannot change a truth so obvious to all.

What it comes down to is that the Bush Administration is ready to violate the UN Charter, as Kofi Annan has pointed out, and what it craves is a few badly tainted votes to give its war the flimsiest of covers. Since Bush's pre-emptive war obsession can get no genuine sanction or legitimacy from the United Nations, the UN itself has become the enemy.

Cheney and the hard-nosed core of the Bush team were against going to the UN in the first place, and are now furious about the result of letting the UN into the process. Paradoxically, the more the hawks have warned that resistance to war will make the UN "irrelevant", the more relevant it has become. Nothing may stop Bush from beginning his war, but the UN is not his doormat. By its refusal to abdicate to superpower force, the UN can rest its relevance on the organized will of the vast majority of humanity.

In the long run— not too long, we hope— it's our own people who will have to cancel out Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine and his miserable record of domestic failures as well. Then, rather than warring against the UN, we will revitalize the hope we shared with the rest of the world when its Charter was adopted.

March 19, 2003

The blitzkrieg has officially begun. Our moment of truth has arrived.

We are an aggressor state. We have eclipsed Saddam, despite his awful history, for we are now by far the chief warrior nation in the world. The "shock and awe" visited on Iraq is meant to shake the globe. Beware those of you who tried to obstruct the plunge to war; beware the "unwilling"; beware if you value international law and the United Nations over Bush's imperial doctrine of pre-emptive war. For Chaney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle, Iraq is an early chapter in the most ambitious projection of military power since the years leading up to the Second World War. At his last "press conference", Bush referred twice to establishing the pattern for "the wars of the 21st Century".

Inevitably the lies, big and bigger, come into play. Diplomacy failed because of France's veto threat, not because Spain and Bulgaria were the only governments in the Security Council willing to vote with Bush and Blair for war. France was sneaky and morally deficient, whereas our bribing and bullying for votes reflects superior morality and the responsibilities of "world leadership".

What failed, of course, was not "diplomacy". What failed was Bush's ultimatum to the UN to sanction a war of aggression in the face of astonishing universal popular opposition. It failed not because Rumsfeld threw crude and hateful barbs from the sidelines. Contrary to the hand wringing of some media "liberals", it's the message and not the messenger that failed. After all, who could sound more persuasive than Tony Blair and Colin Powell? They wore themselves out trying— smooth even when larding up a flawed case with plagiarism and false "intelligence". The world just doesn't buy what they tried to sell.

So now brute force takes over. The greatest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction any power has ever accumulated is unleashed in defiance of the United Nations.

On the Lehrer News Hour today, two experts were asked about dissent once war starts. Both agreed, in the words of one, that the dissenters "should give it a rest". Unlikely. Is that the advice they would have given to dissidents in Iraq when Saddam invaded Kuwait; to Russians when tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia; to Americans (like Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain) who opposed the war against Mexico?

Acquiescence is unforgivable while lives are being destroyed by weapons of mass destruction in a war of aggression. The world will not shut up. Nor will the millions of Americans who tried to prevent this tragedy but were stiffed as a "focus group". Slaughter and devastation in Iraq place our country and the world in harm's way. Once again, as with Viet Nam, safety for our young people in the military is in peace, not war. There is no way that protest could prolong a war as one-sided as this. What it can do is help shorten the time of accounting for an Administration that is ruining America in every dimension of foreign and domestic policy.

March 20, 2003

Today's SF Chronicle carries a sharp critique of the Bush Administration's rationale for war: "Questioning the Motives for War— Iraq and the lessons of history", by Robert M.Berdahl, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. I sent him an e-mail message; subject: Bravo!

Dear Chancellor Berdahl:

Congratulations on your timely, thoughtful and brave opinion piece in today's Chronicle.

It should not be necessary to describe your article as "brave", but in the present atmosphere, dissent has its risks. In my 42 years as part of the University of California faculty, I can recall no public expression by a top University administrator that reflected as much integrity and courage. I do recollect, with admiration, Chancellor Tien's stance in support of affirmative action against a hostile Governor and majority of Regents. I also take note of the persecution visited on President Kerr by J. Edgar Hoover and Governor Reagan simply because he was deemed too liberal.

Your "lessons of history" may be debated, but students, faculty, and the community will benefit from your willingness to speak your mind rather than seek the shelter of silence amid the fierce winds of war.

Sincerely,

Leon Wofsy

March 26, 2003

Beyond horror, watching war unfold brings a sense of disbelief. The awful reality seems unreal as we try to take in this most inhuman of human activities.

What we see in Iraq is a very different war than Bush and the Pentagon were selling before hand. This is clearly a war of aggression, angrily protested all over the world. It is evoking fierce resistance within Iraq, despite the fact that many, probably most, Iraqis hate Saddam Hussein's beastly regime. Once again, as often in history, people oppose warring invaders as their main and immediate enemy.

Yes, "shame on you, Mr. Bush"; shame for what you are doing to degrade our beloved country, for unleashing weapons of mass destruction on Iraq, for gambling with the lives of young Americans to advance your imperial ambitions.

*****

In the last few days, I turned away from CNN "news" propaganda long enough to read a very good novel, "Bel Canto", by Ann Patchett. Roz and Carla read it before me, discussed it together outside my hearing so as not to "spoil it" for me. Now I'll find out the opinions they were withholding, and I may share our "reviews" here.

March 29, 2003

I was almost as wrong as Rumsfeld and Chaney in my expectations of how the war would go. Being 100% against the war didn't keep me from guessing that the extreme mismatch in "WMD" power made a rapid military conquest of Iraq likely.

I should have known better. History is full of evidence of how fiercely a people will resist invaders whatever the odds. Nor does it have much to do with how a populace may regard a native tyrant. The terrible thing is that would-be conquerors seem immune to the lessons of history. Just pour in more force and take it out on Iraqi civilians through escalated terror bombings and slaughter in Baghdad.

The reality of a bloody, unjust war demands that we take a hard look at what it means to "support our troops". The same Administration that exploited the horror of 9/11 to instigate mindless fever for "pre-emptive" wars now exploits mounting casualties and sacrifices to demand public support for more of the same. When Bush says, "support our troops", he means more weapons, more killing, more war. His pious expressions of devotion to fallen soldiers and their families are belied by the fact that he is the one who recklessly put our young men and women in harm's way. Now his military experts want to throw more young lives into the cauldron. Remember Viet Nam, when every setback was an excuse for more troops, more escalation, more civilian massacres, more body bags.

Unlike the Bush bunch, the public really does give a damn about our young people in uniform. America can offer them something better than false dreams of military conquest and mounting sacrifice.

*****

One of the strongest indictments of Bush's war comes from, of all people, a major figure associated with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations' prosecution of the Viet Nam War.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, March 23, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. says:

"The president has adopted a policy of 'anticipatory self-defense' that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy.

"Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy. The global wave of sympathy that engulfed the United States after 9/11 has given way to a global wave of hatred of American arrogance and militarism. Public opinion polls in friendly countries regard George W. Bush as a greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein."

Let's hope that enlightenment doesn't come as slowly as it did during the Viet Nam War, and with as tragic a price.

April 6, 2003

I marched yesterday in Oakland. The protest continues as the killing becomes more ferocious and indiscriminate. What Bush has going for him is the most devastating war machine of all times. To his advantage, also, is the reflexive "loyalty" that conditions most of the US public's early reaction whenever our troops go to war. That may be enough to assure that Iraq is ravaged and conquered over the dead bodies of many thousands of Iraqis, and more than a few young Americans and Brits. Still, it isn't enough to cover-up the lies, the cost, the damage and the consequences of this war.

Whatever public relations manipulations may be ahead, the war itself has already collapsed the pre-war propaganda. The US military claims control of more than half of Iraq, but it has not come up with even the limited discoveries that UN inspectors produced. If Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, they must amount to a drop in the ocean of the WMD that we are pouring down on Baghdad. Where are the masses of Iraqis who were to greet their "liberators"? There isn't a country in the world, other than the USA, where a majority of the public approves this war. (I just heard Ed Bradley say on CBS "60 Minutes" that he went all over Jordan and couldn't fine a single person at any level who wasn't furiously against the war.) This is an invasion, naked aggression, not liberation.

There are times when a sense of shame and outrage becomes a measure of love for country. Surely the hawks in the Bush Administration are defiling America in the eyes of the world. They hope that war will cover their "homeland" sins, their brazen bias for the rich over the poor, their unbroken record of failures on the economy and the environment, their pursuit of the fundamentalist social agenda, and their antagonism to immigrants and to affirmative action.

On the front cover of The Nation, April 14, 2003, Jonathon Schell invokes "The World's Other Superpower". He refers not to another military rival, but to the universal popular opposition that the aggressive Bush Administration is arousing. By isolating America from the good will of the world, and by separating our government from the needs of most Americans, this Administration is generating the only force powerful enough to thwart its war-based imperial ambitions. Schell expresses well the thought I was grappling with in my note of March 6, 2003.

April 10, 2003

Now that "victory" is being heralded, does hindsight tell us something that vindicates the war makers and invalidates the vast pre-war protest?

We know, as we knew before, that history's most devastating military power is capable of overwhelming Iraq. We see, as everyone knew, that many, probably most, Iraqis despise Saddam and are glad to proclaim "good riddance".

We know that Rumsfeld was terribly wrong when he told us our weapons have become so smart that civilian casualties and "friendly fire" mishaps would be rare as we unleashed "shock and awe" on Iraq. We know that despite the triumphal demolition of Saddam's statues and the overwhelming disparity in military force, resistance is not over. Chaos is even greater than expected. Suspicion and resentment of American conquest and occupation are manifest, and will grow as General Garner moves in to take control. We also know that Bush is determined that US corporations will dominate and profit from "reconstruction" and oil contracts. Whatever the occupation forces come up with now, we know that the specter of an Iraq bristling with hidden Weapons of Mass Destruction was a huge lie. We know that the war has not given us a reason to feel secure from terrorism.

We know that alongside thousands of killed and maimed Iraqis, over 100 US men and women in uniform have already died needlessly, as have journalists of several nationalities.

Actually, give or take a few varied guesses on how the military campaign would fare, the war and its short-term consequences are a ghastly confirmation of the anti-war protests. We are only beginning to see the price to be paid for the Bush Administration's insistence on war in defiance of the United Nations and world opinion. Among many questions that time alone will answer, the biggest by far is whether the Iraq conquest is a springboard to more crusades to enforce a "new world order". As the Iraq story emerges in the aftermath of war, I think it will only arouse greater opposition to the pre-emptive war course of the Bush hawks.

Will most Americans look around in the next couple of years and see where we really are?

George McGovern says of the Bush presidency: "Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy, George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule." (The Nation, April 21st issue.)

Most of the world distrusts the Bush Administration. My guess is that most Americans will not be comfortable with bellicose global ambitions, and even less so with the downward spiral in the economy and the overall "state of the nation".

April 12, 2003

I had a nightmare last night. I guess I was actually awake, or I might have forgotten the dream. After another terrorist attack on America, with many casualties, Bush declares a national emergency and appoints Donald Rumsfeld as Chancellor of "the homeland".

It must have been Rumsfeld's press conference yesterday that triggered the nightmare. By suggesting there was "chaos" in conquered Iraq, the most subservient media ever imbedded in a war inadvertently drove Rumsfeld bonkers. For the moment, I thought I glimpsed a bit of Saddam in Rumsfeld's fury.

*****

Unlike CNN and TV in general, the print media still has some columnists and commentators who are not imbedded with the neocon war architects. The honor roll is impressive, the expertise and talents rich and varied. (I 'm looking forward to Maureen Dowd's take on "Rummy's" performance of yesterday.) Maybe it's too close to call, but Jonathon Schell may top my list for clear focus on what's at stake. His latest comment in The Nation, April 21st issue, "The Limits of Interpretation", once more is case in point.

April 15, 2003

There's little mystery about the strategy of the Bush entourage after the Iraq War: flaunt our military supremacy to sustain fear abroad and cheers at home.

The focus is to have our way in the Middle East, but the broader target is the world at large. How much hatred we invite is of little consequence so long as our designated enemies fear we can do to them what we did to Iraq. Potential rivals who object to a unilateral US-fashioned "new world order", like France, Russia, Germany and China, have to know that we feel powerful enough to brush them aside as we just did in Iraq. Ditto the United Nations, irrelevant unless it's willing to take on errands under US command.

How much worldwide fear and anger Bush can ignore, however, may not be determined by the unrivaled superiority of our war machine. It will depend on what may yet prove a fragile pillar, namely, domestic approval. The real question is not how much international condemnation Bush can tolerate, but how much of Bush the American people will tolerate.

I don't minimize the popular reflex of support to a President who boasts "victory" in war— and who keeps an active hit list for additional wars against "evil doers". Paul Krugman , writing in today's NY Times, says: "… the overwhelming political lesson of the last year is that war works— that is, it's an excellent cover for the Republican Party's domestic political agenda. In fact, war works in two ways. The public rallies around the flag, which means the President and his party; and the public's attention is diverted from other issues."

Still, I don't think that Bush's skilled and unprincipled operatives can fool most of the people all of the time. The upcoming primaries for 2004 can bring back into view the vulnerability of the Bush Administration. That requires hard hitting truths rather than an assumption of Bush's invincibility. "Victory" in Iraq has been welcomed, but will a majority of Americans find satisfaction in what has been done, let alone accept it as the pattern to be repeated again and again?

Bush's domestic support for the Iraq War didn't come easily, because most Americans were reluctant to see our country go to war isolated from the United Nations and opposed by most people in almost every country. That basic sentiment faltered under the weight of scare propaganda that pictured Saddam's yet undiscovered WMD as the most urgent terrorist menace. But the inclination to relate to the world in peace rather than belligerence defines the desire of the majority. The majority has never supported the GOP social agenda and its hard-nosed pro-corporate bias. No one can miss the deep and growing worry over the economy, the environment, the declining state of civil liberties, the rise of suspicion and antagonism toward people of color and immigrants in general. And all the missiles showered on Baghdad have not reduced anxiety over terrorism.

Can the Bush Administration keep these deep-seated concerns below the political surface by pushing America into a perpetual war emergency? Many streams have to come together to overcome that strategy. Among the most important is to counter it boldly and to promote candidates unafraid to tell it like it is. Above all it requires confidence that the values and interests of most Americans cannot long be held captive to the scams and reckless ambitions of war hawks.

April 17, 2003

The "homeland" terrorist alert is now lowered to "code yellow". We never know why, but political convenience seems a pretty good indicator: hot orange when we're about to invade Iraq, cooler yellow for calming affect after "victory".

More significant in the aftermath of conquest, "code red" alerts are the order of the day for Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and any others on Bush's expanding list of "evil doers". One can argue with the Administration's judgments, why it targets some governments indiscriminately and is very comfortable with a host of evil friends. One can also argue that evil doers operating out of the Pentagon— out to sanitize the world according to specifications of neoconservatives and the evangelical Right— are a more powerful menace to world peace than any target out there. What can't be denied is that countries on Bush's enemies list have vivid reason to be much more afraid today than a month ago.

The bellicose strategies of the Administration inevitably invite fear and hatred, a formula for long-term terrorism and erosion of safeguards against the proliferation of WMD. They also create a terrible Hobson's choice for any government that chooses a course not in harmony with Bush's equation of "free markets" and "democracy". What's happening now with Cuba illustrates that the dilemma is very real and that available choices are potentially self-destructive. The harder the winds blow from Washington and Miami, the stronger the impulse to wrap the coat more tightly in Havana. Two things are beyond doubt: 1) Cuba, under Bush's evil eye, would be crazy not to raise its alert level; 2) the summary execution of the ferry hijackers and the recent bevy of harsh prison sentences are inhumane and only whet the appetite of foes eager to pounce.

Cuba has reason to be proud of its hard won and maintained independence. Its social accomplishments are remarkable under the circumstances and worth defending. Political democracy continues to be distorted by the fear that Cuba cannot afford to compete on terms advantageous to its super powerful neighbor. Can a viable and rounded democracy emerge out of the severely difficult conditions and aggressive antagonism of a long succession of US governments?

Those of us who hope for that also have a dilemma. We support democratic advances in Cuba and oppose serious violations and retreats. Above all, we support a US relationship with Cuba that respects its independence, values it social accomplishments, and removes the heightened threats spreading out from the ruins of Iraq.

April 21, 2003

Friend Howard called my attention to an article in the New York Times, April 18. 2003, which I had missed: "Certain Words Can Trip Up AIDS Grants, Scientists Say".

It seems Tommy Thompson sees his job as head of Health and Human Services as similar in spirit to Ashcroft's at "Justice". He has moved from purging U.S. health websites of topics that might offend Jerry Falwell to policing the wording of research grant applications to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His department flags grant applications for "intense scrutiny" if they include words like "sex workers", "men who sleep with men", "anal sex", "needle exchange", "gay", "homosexual", or "transgender".

Of course grants are evaluated by panels of scientists and are supposed to be insulated from political influence. But it is worth remembering that grants and passports were barred to Linus Pauling during the 1950s, and a host of scientists (myself included) were banned into the 1970s, on orders of J. Edgar Hoover, from serving on NIH grant review panels. Two very famous biologists were blacklisted from NIH panels even though they were among the very few of my acquaintances who approved the Viet Nam War. Seems they had made "mistakes" in their youth. One had supported Loyalist Spain against Franco and the fascist axis in the 1930s; the other had lunched with a Soviet scientist in the 1940s.

I suppose Thompson's censors are just using a broad, but logical, interpretation of the Patriot Act. "I never died," says Joe … McCarthy.

April 26, 2003

When the USA wins, does democracy necessarily win?

That seems to be taken as a truism by those Democratic politicians who put aside their criticisms of Bush to support the war. The assumption is that the basic motivation and power of any US government serves the interests of democracy. So, no matter how we got to Iraq, who brought us there, whatever was deplorable along the way, and however troubled the aftermath — victory for the USA is victory for democracy.

That formula was never a valid substitute for thinking, for recognizing that some wars are unjust and that war itself has become a threat to human survival. It is a measure of nationalism, not of patriotism. Automatic embrace of war, because it's "ours" and we're superior, is an odious proposition for the people of any country, past and present.

Great as it is, does "USA" spell "democracy" no matter how or by whom our government is run? Does it matter if the reins are in the hands of people who show contempt for democracy, whose highest priority is unilateral military might, who systematically favor rich over poor, who are hell-bent on canceling out constitutional checks and balances and negating the Bill of Rights? Does it matter that war and threats of more war are at that heart of GOP strategy to extend its hold on domestic power far into the future? Does it matter that Karl Rove's strategy is to scare Americans into the absurd notion that only Bush can protect the "homeland" from acts of terror, even as we alienate the rest of the world?

It's worth quoting again what George McGovern says of the Bush presidency: "Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy, George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule." (The Nation, April 23rd issue.)

Yet, Saddam and the Taliban have been dispatched by our armed might. Weren't they so bad that even the combine of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, and Perle is objectively "pro-democracy"?

We don't really know the full potential of our autocrats for abusing power, since they still must operate in an environment conditioned by our democratic heritage. We do know their enthusiasm for unleashing "shock and awe". We know that the whole world is rightly skeptical that the Pentagon, Bechtel and Halliburton are exporting "democracy" abroad, while they whack away at it at home.

There was only one truth Bush and Blair told us in the frenzy for war. It was a truth the whole world already knew, even many years ago when Rumsfeld and Cheney overlooked it to support Saddam. The truth is that Saddam's regime was a horror, a fact best known by the Iraqi people who hated the tyrant. Everything else turned out to be exaggerations, distortions, and plagiarism aimed at feeding the frenzy and browbeating the United Nations.

War has brought the people of Iraq an army of occupation, not democracy. It has brought us a weakened democracy, endangered by an arrogant elite— one that values its weapons of mass destruction far more than the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

April 29, 2003

A month or so ago, I mentioned that I had turned away from CNN "news" propaganda long enough to read a very good novel, "Bel Canto", by Ann Patchett. Roz and Carla read it before me and we eventually talked about it together.

The book is a fantasy inspired by a real life event. When Fujimora was running Peru, rebels took over an elaborate social function where many important people were gathered. The hostages were held for quite a long time at the site of the event. Fujimora eventually sent in armed troops and, even though the rebels dropped their arms and surrendered, they were slaughtered on the spot. Since this is a novel, not bound by what actually happened, I won't say whether or not the story ends up as did the real life saga.

Roz saw in the novel a moving allegory about how shifts in power and status dramatically change the way people react to each other and the relationships they create. Most of the rebels are of indigenous ethnicity, poor, without formal education, unexposed to urban cultures. But while they assert power over the hostages, new human relationships take shape and varied opportunities for growth emerge for the new temporary "masters" and their captives. What struck Roz most, and Carla and I agreed, was the impact on the young rebels. As she wrote to a friend: "My view is that the book shows what people are capable of in the absence of the usual economic, social, and political pressures." Several rebels were very young, and here, too, there are surprises as the novel unfolds. Patchett draws out the rich potential of several of these children, their curiosity, bursting talents for music and learning— capacities that could never have surfaced if the prevailing culture of oppression had not been overturned, if only for a while.

This sort of theme in literature is familiar: what happens when accustomed standards of power and status are turned upside down. There is James Barrie's play, "The Admirable Creighton", and Lina Wertmuller's movie, "Swept Away". But both of those stories focus around one male servant or lowly employee catapulted to temporary mastery because only he can take command of a desperate situation. Patchett's story is richer and more complex. For me, it's a return trip to passionate and idealistic novels that stirred my parents' generation and many of us old birds when we were young, Martin Anderson Nexo's "Ditte" and Romain Rolland's "Jean Christophe", for example. The stories are very different, but the spirit and humanity are common. (I'm not suggesting that Patchett compares in depth and stature to Nexo and Rolland.)

Left for last, is probably the most imaginative feature of "Bel Canto". The novel is woven in music, beautiful music that reaches into souls and brings everything together.

May 2, 2003

We don't build statues to "our leader".

So much better is the idolatry of glorified pictures, still and moving, jetting in and striding on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln with sailors, planes, guns, flags and the vast blue sky as backdrop. And there are all those TV channels and every paper in the country to herald the pictures in infinite variations— the indomitable commander, the resolute protector, the charmer, the man of the people. The GOP election coffers are full and ready to pour on the hero visages a million fold into every living room leading up to November 2004. Who needs statues that evoke images of a future fall?

I still think reality and strong voices of dissent will break the spell. But while I'm on a downbeat, let me turn in disgust to Tom Friedman's column of April 27, "The Meaning of a Skull". He writes:

"Friday's Times carried a front-page picture of a skull, with a group of Iraqis gathered around it… As far as I'm concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war. That skull, and the thousands more that will be unearthed, are enough for me. Mr. Bush doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it turns out that the White House hyped this issue). It is clear that in ending Saddam's tyranny, a huge human engine for mass destruction has been broken."

How far can cynicism go! Would the American people have been talked into this war without the lie of Iraq teaming with weapons of mass destruction? Friedman is well informed, so he was probably not at all surprised by the missing WMD. Everyone knew there woud be plenty of buried skulls in Saddam's Iraq. Such findings are not a rarity in any part of this suffering world. Did Friedman get war fever when skulls were dug up in Indonesia, El Salvador, and the Congo?

Is it really "freedom" that drives this power hungry Administration to embrace war? How many skulls will the big lie of "preventive" war yet cause to be buried?

May 12, 2003

Some are saying what many of us have been thinking, but are hesitant to say. This is not just a bad time in the perennial cycle of electoral competition between the GOP and the Democratic Party. We are being pushed toward one party rule, toward a restructuring of American democracy along totalitarian lines.

George McGovern said it boldly, and now Sheldon Wolin, a leading scholar on the nature of democracy, sees a process of transformation toward an American-style totalitarianism: "What is at stake, then, is nothing less than the attempted transformation of a tolerably free society into a variant of the extreme regimes of the past century." (The Nation, May 19, 2003)

American democracy has been endangered at other times, but I think this is different. Other administrations (Nixon, Reagan) were the ideological forebears of the present administration, but none has been as emboldened, adventurous, and militant. What makes things different is the changed environment in which this administration pursues its goals: our presently unchallenged status as sole superpower fuels ambitions for full-fledged imperial dominion over a "new world order"; the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 created a new level of fear and concern for "homeland security", which is exploited to strengthen the authority of Big Brother and diminish constitutional protection of civil liberties. In other words, conditions exist for a determined effort to convert the political trend of right-wing ascendancy into a permanently entrenched right-wing autocracy.

This administration has a penchant for dismissing as "irrelevant" any institution that stands in the way of its unrestricted exercise of power. Internationally, the main institutional obstacle to be brushed aside is the United Nations. Domestically, the effort is to ridicule, intimidate, and reduce to impotence its traditional rival in the electoral arena, the Democratic Party. If the GOP can expand its hold on the executive and legislative branches of government, its usurpation of the court system will extend for decades into the future. So much for checks and balances, a basic constitutional pillar of democracy! Given the commitment to keeping the country on a permanent war footing, the Bill of Rights has as little relevance for this administration as the host of international agreements it has shrugged off as obsolete.

Our two-party system is itself flawed, biased in favor of plutocratic influence to the detriment of the interests of most Americans. That is recognized across the broad political spectrum of support for electoral reforms. A far worse state of affairs, amounting to full retreat from democracy, would be the de facto imposition of one party rule.

This has been a long time in the making. What has jelled under George W. Bush is a united front of traditional and neo conservatives and religious fundamentalists, supported by enormous corporate wealth. Their social and economic programs have never won majority support, but their ownership and control of the media go beyond any precedent.

The confrontation over the transformation of American democracy toward a new form of totalitarian plutocracy was bound to take place once the most aggressive rightwing formations coalesced around the extreme goals that are the Bush agenda. The showdown might have been averted temporarily if the candidate with fewest popular votes had not been selected President. But if 9/11 and a serious economic downturn had occurred during a Gore presidency, the GOP and its media would never have rallied to the chief, but would instead have attacked mercilessly to achieve in 2004 what they barely missed in 2000. Soon, if not sooner, the fate of democracy and the hope of peace would depend on whether enough people realized what was at stake and were prepared to rise to the challenge.

So far the Democratic Party, the presumed electoral opposition to the totalitarian push, has itself not risen to the challenge. The response of most, not quite all, Democratic politicians of influence has been to adjust rather than to resist the GOP offensive in global policy and even to drag along on domestic matters. One may engage in ideological argument about why this is so. The critical question is whether millions of Americans who are very anxious about the direction of the country will be able to break through and produce the needed vote for change in 2004.

Progressive activists of many varieties are properly wary of leaving everything up to periodic and often deeply frustrating election politics. They know that shaping and expressing the popular will is the constant struggle to move forward in the many thousands on vital matters that are routinely buried or misrepresented by the media. Most recently, it took determination and creativity to give voice to the fact that many millions of Americans, like the majority in every other country, opposed a US war in Iraq. That kind of movement is the key to all progress.

As I see it, no one thing is more urgent for our country and our world than upsetting the Bush pluto-autocrats. The coming elections matter, perhaps more than ever, starting with the primaries already underway. A thorough, people-driven shake-up is needed to open the electoral doors to a democratic majority.

(This opinion piece is my early take on some very difficult questions. I've left it pretty abstract and general, partly so it shouldn't be unusually long, partly because I'm wrestling with unsettled thoughts. The thing about running a web log is that I'll feel the need to take some more cracks at this and related matters. It will help if I hear from you as the journal moves along.)

May 21, 2003

For several days this past week, we visited Carla and Byron in Santa Fe. "We" includes David, without whom traveling would have been far more difficult for Roz. Having our daughter and son together with us at the same time doesn't happen often, and it brings us old folks an indescribable feeling of renewal and fulfillment, nothing less than a quiet celebration of the very best of life. This web log of mine was conceived as something like a diary, but "internet" and "diary" don't fully mesh, at least not for me. Some things are felt that require solitude, or sharing in twos or threes. So, as far as my journal goes, this has been a silent time.

Waiting on the return from Santa Fe were over 100 e-mails. Mostly spam, of course. There were a fair number of comments on my last entry, "One Party Rule?" For the moment, I just want to make one thing a little clearer. Warning that America is being pushed toward a totalitarian one party regime is not to say that fascism is impending. There are forms of anti-democratic autocracy and dictatorship that do not correspond to the ultimate of 20th Century fascism. Even a dictatorial imperial regime could remain somewhat constrained by tradition and popular faith in democracy, but that doesn't minimize the potential for evil if George W. Bush and his court are anointed with de facto powers of dictatorship. Neither George McGovern nor Sheldon Wolin, to whom my journal commentary referred, wrote of impending fascism, although The Nation did in its headline over the Wolin article.

I don't think this is about semantics. Many Americans are worried about the path down which we're being taken. Under Bush, the danger of a fundamental departure from democracy has become very real, even if the extreme of recognizable fascism is not.

May 23, 2003

Not much to add to Senator Robert Byrd's speech in the US Senate on May 21st, "The Truth Will Emerge ". I hope the candidate who emerges to challenge Bush in 2004 has that clear a feel for the truth, the courage to tell it, and the confidence that the people will know it.

Senator Byrd:

"…The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood— when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie— not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody's grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory. And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the 'powers that be' will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall."

May 26, 2003

Road map to where?

The "road map" for dealing with the Israel/Palestine conflict has me in a quandary. On the one hand, it now seems impossible to make progress without outside help. On the other hand, it is naïve to expect a real solution to be imposed by George W. Bush, who intends a Pax Americana first for the Middle East and then for the whole world.

The ideal route to an equitable two state solution would have involved the collective initiative of popular movements for peace, justice and friendship in both Israel and Palestine. That once seemed possible, but these movements have been sabotaged into decline and despair by the oppressive violence of Sharon and the settlers, with heavy support from Bush, and the dominance of Hamas' counter strategy of individual acts of terror. Still, it is impossible to foresee progress without constructive movements among both peoples reemerging and taking control of the process.

Certainly the grand design for making over the Middle East to US specifications is what propels Bush's belated effort to pacify the Israeli/ Palestine conflict. That was clear as he frenzied for war in Iraq. It is clearer still as he threatens Syria and Iran. Still, shouldn't the "road map" be judged on its own merits? Shouldn't the journey be undertaken if the destination is desirable, namely an end to occupation and settlements and establishing relations of peace and security between two independent states?

Despite deep antagonism and distrust, most Palestinians and Israelis seem willing to take the first wary steps. The "road map" is sketchy. An international group projected it, but Bush has baptized it in his name. The flaw is that like all of Bush foreign policy, it is predicated on American imperial power and unilateral strategic interests. The road forward may be blocked repeatedly by the deep biases and militaristic priorities that dominate the Bush Administration's Middle East agenda.

The "road map" holds promise only if it is filled in by the aspirations of Palestinians and Israelis. It can point to a solution only if it brings to bear international influence, not the exclusive interests of those willing to relax one kind of occupation to promote a more encompassing takeover of the Middle East.

So, I'm glad Palestinians and Israelis are taking up the "road map", however warily. I hope their deep need to emerge from the horrible abyss of violence and hatred puts them in the driver's seat. As for the important US role in the process, we can help if we insist that our policy finally becomes even-handed and open, driven by peace and justice, not by hidden agendas.

For all who want peace, that means vigilance— don't leave it to George.

May 29, 2003

The WMD Deception

What did the President know and when did he know it?

What did he know four days before the war, when he gave us all those facts and figures "beyond any doubt" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction?

This scandal is bigger than Watergate. If it is allowed to fade away, democracy and our national honor will go down with it. On the other hand, if there is anything like the demand for truth that forced Watergate into public focus, the scoundrels who turned a grand scam into an unnecessary war will not survive the election of 2004.

That may sound grandiose, or just foolish, given the present political climate. But remember. It took quite a while and a lot of effort for Watergate to reach and rouse the national conscience. Nixon even won a landslide election between the time of the petty robbery and the eventual emergence of the magnitude of his political crimes.

It turns out the decision for war was made first. Then a deliberate decision was made to sell it on the basis of a cascade of false intelligence and flat-out lies that Iraq had huge stocks of WMD ready for activation on 45 minutes notice (the latter calculation volunteered by Tony Blair even though he had received a disclaimer from British Intelligence).

It's one kind of disgrace to hire thieves to raid offices of a rival political party. What kind of disgrace is it to push a nation into war under false pretenses? What we learned from Watergate was that the abuse of power—the perversion and manipulation of intelligence agencies and contempt for the Bill of Rights— was far more serious than the original crime. All of that is present in spades in what this Administration did to foment war fever. And the original crime in this case, concocting the war, is certainly way off scale in comparison to the Watergate burglary.

The failure to find WMD after all that went before is potentially the greatest embarrassment, not to speak of shame, that any administration has ever undergone. If there is an effective demand for a real investigation and congressional hearings, events will develop a logic of their own, as was the case with Watergate and earlier with the Army-McCarthy hearings. The cynicism that I heard today on the Lehrer News Hour from Richard Pearle and James Schlessinger won't survive the public's sense of decency. They said essentially, "so what if we agreed to exploit the WMD story for 'bureaucratic reasons'; we wanted war for other reasons and, besides, we won the war— so why fuss?"

The outrage over Watergate, and the national cleansing that it sparked, came after a tough, persistent pursuit of hidden facts in the face of cover-up and intimidation. Today's incarnations of Bernstein and Woodward are yet to appear. And, as Arianna Huffington says, most leading Democrats are projecting "profiles of spinelessness". But I agree with Senator Byrd: "…there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood—when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie—not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody's grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory."

To begin with, the millions of Americans who opposed or doubted the war have to demand an accounting. We cannot permit this colossal deception to stand. We must demand hearings and then insist there be no whitewash. (Let Senator Byrd put the questions.)

Remember the lessons of the Watergate saga. This can be the start of a major turn-around. And the future of democracy may depend on seeing this through.

June 5, 2003

Nicholas Kristof, pretty much a lone voice on Africa in the mainstream media, asks in the NY Times (5/27/03): "What Did You Do During the African Holocaust?"

My friend from the Congo devotes himself totally to awakening a sense of humane responsibility within his country and on the part of the world community. He and his friends have succeeded in forming The Ota Benga International Alliance for Peace in Congo. The Alliance tells us: Ota Benga, a Mbuti, was put on exhibit in the Bronx Zoo in 1906…. "After outraged protests led by African American clergy, he was removed from his prison— but his hopelessness and his inability to return to his homeland in the Congo eventually led to his suicide in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1917."

Tom Friedman thinks the skulls dug up in Iraq justified the war whatever the lies told and the lives lost (NY Times, 4/27/03). There are more skulls scattered in the Congo, and unnoticed by Tom, than were buried even in Saddam's Iraq. What a cry wells up from the Congo— but for peace, not war! The world owes a massive effort of support to Africa, to heal the ravages left by colonialism and the genocides of war and starvation. That's what an empowered United Nations could be doing if Bush wasn't hell-bent on making it "irrelevant", while he pursues what he likes to call "the wars of the 21stCentury".

*****

The top two editors of the NY Times resigned today because they failed to protect the paper's standards and reputation from the fake stories of a dishonest reporter.

Who should resign when the media has led the nation to war by trumpeting false "intelligence" and wildly misleading scare stories? For that matter, who should resign for feeding that propaganda to the media and to the whole world?

What matters and what doesn't?

Joan Chittister, OSB, writing in The National Catholic Reporter (May 27, 2003) asks and answers the question: "Is there anything left that matters?" Worth contemplating.

June 10, 2003

At some point in the assault on democracy, it is understandable that worried people should conjure up the specter of fascism.

Fascism is certainly the ultimate antithesis to democracy. All fascist states have been naked dictatorships of the extremist Right in service of the most reactionary monarchs of big capital. But not every departure from democracy, even a very serious one, is equivalent to fascism. There are and always have been authoritarian, even despotic regimes that don't fit the image of fascism as realized during the twentieth century (prominently in Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain). One should not soften by weak analogies the collective memory of fascism— the absolute destruction of all democratic institutions, systematic extermination of all opposition, genocidal nationalism and racism, state-sponsored vigilante militias, unrestricted torture and mass murder.

There are good reasons to avoid labeling everything that is anti-democratic as "fascism". One is, that attacks on democratic rights have occurred so often in our history, that loose charges of fascism may sound like crying "wolf". Much more important, the danger that is now emerging has to be defined in its own right and recognized as directed toward a profound departure from democratic government in a democratic society. Never in our modern history has there been more cause to fear a form of authoritarian dictatorship. Unlike fascism, it is not naked. The Bush Administration talks up "democracy" more than ever as the purpose of its wars and its "global reach", as well as its subversion of civil liberties for "homeland security". The fact is that the idea of democracy is stronger than democracy itself, and no authoritarian seizure of the American government could occur without the cover of "democracy" and misappropriation of some of its traditional forms.

We are at a point where the charge of the ultra right is aimed at changing the essence of democracy and imposing a de facto dictatorship over the next few years. A glorified President, whose power is unchecked, acts and talks more and more like the "supreme leader". If the extreme right solidifies control of Congress and the courts, then we are perilously close to one party, one man rule. What makes this more than a flight of fear and fancy, is that this Administration is committed to the most ambitious power goals and most bellicose world outlook in the nation's history. It aims at nothing less than imposition on its terms of a "new world order" and a fundamental reversal of all domestic social programs established over many decades of fierce right-wing opposition. It places its reliance on the most advanced military, the greatest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the world has ever seen. The strategy is to keep the country and the world on a perpetual war footing, and to have Karl Rove exploit the emergency for all its political worth.

My emphasis here is on a very real and present danger to democracy, greater in important respects than during McCarthyism. But there are equally powerful reasons why democracy can overcome. That's an even more vital story to look into and act on, and there are favorable signs. I'll take some more looks at democratic strengths and their potential.

June 14, 2003

It's very hard to write about Palestine and Israel. The news is terrible and the outlook is no better. The simple fact is that no matter how many appeals come from outside the region, only the people of Israel and Palestine can reign in those who insist on strategies that murder and terrorize each other's civilian populations.

The root problem remains the occupation, maintained by aggressive military force and arousing resistance, as any occupation must. The hopes of both peoples are strangled by fundamentalist fanatics on either side, who count on indiscriminate acts of violence to fuel eternal hatred and block any step forward.

It is pointless to argue whether any given assault that murders civilians, children included, is provocation or retaliation. Whatever was said at Aqaba, the "road map" was blasted by the Sharon/Likud decision to carry out assassinations-by-helicopter in populated areas and the Hamas decision to intensify suicide bombings .The murderous pattern can be broken only if its architects and perpetrators lose significant support and confront the anger and anguish of their own people. Grim as things are, that's not an impossible prospect if and when a serious process gets underway toward ending the occupation and alleviating intolerable living conditions.

Everyone agrees that what the United States does or doesn't do is very important. But how can we really help?

Here, as elsewhere, unilateralism and tough talk from our warrior President won't provide a fix. Up to now, constructive influence has been undermined by bias, by giving priority to military alliances and strategic interests over humanitarian concerns. If we don't want an ignominious failure that weakens our influence and leaves the plight of the people unchanged, this cannot be a strictly American project. This is too important to be reduced to a test of George W. Bush, as it is widely billed. We should couple our necessary role with a determination to include the United Nations as the main institution for peace and conflict resolution. We should shift our own priorities to major humanitarian and economic aid to both Israel and Palestine, away from obscene military expenditures and arms trade. The present misery of life for Palestinians is unspeakable, and in Israel, life is fearful and the economy is in collapse.

We can help create a climate of renewed hope. Given the opportunity, the people must finally find the way out of despair and into a relationship of peace between two independent and cooperative states. That seems like a long shot, but continued entrapment in this murderous stalemate is no shot at all.

June 18, 2003

My last comments on Palestine/Israel (June 14) have struck a few nerves. About half of the responses are critical, gently so from some friends, sharply from someone I don't know.

I recognize some defensiveness in my reaction to the criticism. I say to myself, that was just one of many postings on the conflict in my journal over the last year and a half — I can't say everything I think in each and every one. The fact is, though, that in the last piece and the one before (May 26), I was trying to think through a new situation, the decision of the Bush Administration to proclaim the "road map" and take command of the "peace process". How to react to this turn of events is not simple, since the picture is full of contradictions and complications.

On the one hand, there is the deepest desire of most Palestinians and Israelis to bring an end to the intolerable and violent impasse. They seem to welcome help from outside the region, and there is tentative support for the still vague "road map". Palestinians want that help to have an international aspect, while the Israeli government always insists that the US be the broker to the exclusion of the UN. The Palestinians are clearly determined that the occupation and the settlements must end, and most support the goal of an equal, independent and viable Palestinian state existing alongside Israel. Polls show that most Israelis accept such a solution as the only way ultimately to end the siege of violent conflict. Still there are strong minorities of religious fundamentalists, among both Israelis and Palestinians, who would die and kill rather than live and let live. There isn't much question for me, and for most people, that any initiative that gets things going toward peace and an equitable solution should be supported, albeit with serious attention to pitfalls, disguised motivations and deceitful conduct.

On the other hand, The United States re-enters the "peace process" without the credentials of objectivity an honest broker should have. There are clear conflicts of interest. There is a post-Iraq, pre-Iran undertow to Bush's belated decision to jump into the effort to pacify the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bush, the "peace-maker", strongly embraces war and the threat of war as the means of reshaping and controlling the Middle East. Hostilities in the Holy Land are a stumbling block along the way. The conflict of interest is even starker in respect to long standing US policies toward Israel and the Palestinians. This past Friday evening, Bill Moyers ran a program showing that a major fraction of the huge US funding of Israel has gone into the creation of the many large settlements that are the base of militant opposition to ending the occupation. Of course, US investment has been indispensable to Israel's absolute military dominance, its status as a nuclear power, and the force with which it keeps and extends its control of Palestinian territory.

There is a criticism of my June 14th commentary that I agree with. I should have mentioned that influential Democrats protested even the limited criticism Bush aimed at Sharon's helicopter raids that killed civilians, including children, and restarted the cycle of violence after Aqaba. It is shameful that politicians who properly decry the loss of innocent Israeli lives routinely turn a blind eye to the miserable conditions of life and death for Palestinians under occupation.The conflict of interest problem is clearly bipartisan, and the politics of opportunism are certainly part of it.

There is implied criticism in some of the feedback that I simply don't agree with. Some seem uncomfortable about any mention of "suicide bombing", as if condemning such attacks on civilians detracts from seeing the occupation as the primary issue and takes the onus off the far more powerful adversary. The terrorizing of civilians is indefensible whether done by aircraft and bulldozers on a wide scale or by the suicide of an individual in a crowded bus or cafe.

I believe that every initiative that moves the process along the road of peace and toward ending the occupation should be welcomed— but not passively, not with unwarranted trust. It is the Palestinian and the Israeli people who should take charge. Outside assistance should be international, involving the UN, not exclusively the province of the reigning superpower. The United States can help most by accompanying peace efforts with a drastic change away from policies that inflate militarism, supply the aggressive settlements, and under gird the occupation.

The only way to rekindle hope is fairness, genuine compassion and respect for the dignity of Palestinians and Israelis alike. That's asking a lot in this crazy world, but not too much.

June 20, 2003

The tension of uninterrupted politics was getting to me, so we decided to go to the movies. We saw Spellbound. We wouldn't have gone to the old Hitchcock thriller to relax, but this was the new one about the National Spelling Bee.

Talk about tension— I came out tight as a drum. The suspense wasn't about who the winner would be, but whether children could come out of the bee alive and "normal". For some, it was less a matter of surviving the contest than of enduring their parents.

The movie (documentary) was very well done. Children and parents revealed themselves remarkably in ways that were moving, whether amusing or painful. The contest itself is an artificial, even ridiculous enterprise, but there is a "real life" backdrop to the movie. One feature is the contrast in backgrounds of the contestants, the extremes of inequality in opportunity. You look with wonder and affection at the country girl whose Mexican immigrant father can't speak English, and the African-American girl from a low-income ghetto home who, with no outside encouragement, won first place in Washington D.C. Then you look in agony at the son of a very wealthy father, whose obsession amounts to child abuse, keeping his son's nose perpetually inside the dictionary and employing coaches in all sorts of language specialties. (The family even pays for a "rooting section" in a distant land to pray for "victory".)

Inevitably thoughts return to politics— politics and education. It occurs to me that testing and, I suppose, spelling bees are the essence of George W.'s education program. For him, testing is apparently the magic wand that will "leave no child behind" even as teachers are laid off, classrooms crumble, and educational enrichment disappears. The rest of us see children left way behind by huge cuts in revenues and massive expenditures for "pre-emptive" war.

We once had a vice-president who couldn't spell "potato". We now have a president who may not know the meaning of "education".

June 29, 2003

Who is to the right of the Supreme Court? None other than the President whom the Court majority selected. Of course he's not to the right of Scalia, Renquist and Thomas— just right there with them.

I wrote that opening paragraph just before bedtime last night, then woke up to this morning's SF Chronicle headline: "Supreme Court Leans to the Left". Now there's a stretch!

There are matters of sociology and politics to reflect on in last week's decisions on affirmative action and privacy rights. Why did this conservative court balk at ending affirmative action in education? Why did it render historic confirmation of privacy rights and respect for human dignity without regard to sexual orientation? And where is President Bush?

We get a clue in Scalia's rant that the Court has succumbed to the "culture wars". The fact is that the Supreme Court, which according to myth is above it all, cannot long ignore profound cultural change.

There is notable disharmony between politics and culture in our recent history. The political trend over the last fifty years, given some zigging and zagging, is clearly to the right, culminating in the present extremist Bush Administration. The cultural trends are more mixed, but there has been inexorable movement toward popular recognition of civil rights, racial and ethnic diversity, equality of women, and the human rights of gays.

The ultra-right has never won a majority for its regressive social agenda, but it has used political muscle and stealth to counter the cultural values and desires of the majority. The clearest example is on abortion rights. Unable to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the extremists have whittled away in Congress with Bush's support, and have created an atmosphere of terror for obstetric doctors and nurses who respect a woman's right to chose.

Heavily financed propaganda and initiative campaigns, and a series of decisions in GOP dominated courts, also forced a general retreat from affirmative action. But when the Supreme Court was confronted with the demand that it abolish affirmative action, it heeded powerful voices that argued for the social necessity of such programs. In addition to the educational community, especially students who led the way, the military and a chunk of the corporate world showed up. That makes all the more striking where George W. Bush was to be found, behind a government brief squarely opposing affirmative action.

The mixed, often contradictory interaction between political power and changes in cultural and social values may be reaching a critical stage. A government wedded to the philosophy of Antonin Scalia, and to the reversal of progressive (democratic) social values and programs, will be inclined to expand and insulate its rule. It counts on propaganda and deception, and will inflame its rightist base to intimidate dissent. Because it is running against some historic trends that represent majority sentiments, it will need courts with a Scalia stamp, arrogant and unyielding. In essence, the goal is one party (possibly one man) rule.

There is another, somewhat more encouraging consideration. Though many are fooled, most people don't want what Bush and his cronies want. Most Americans don't want to march backward on social, environmental and health programs. Nor do they want to march forward into the thankless, ultimately self-destructive effort to exercise military domination over the globe.

The partial bending this week of the same court that gave us a minority president is a sign of possibility. The challenge to Bush in 2004 needs to be bold and optimistic. The majority on social and cultural values can't be reduced to powerlessness when it comes to the state and fate of the Union.

******

I just read an article by Edward Said in The London Review of Books (June 19, 2003), "A Road Map to Where? " My first comment on the subject in this journal (May 26, 2003) had the same title, but in that piece and two that followed, I never discussed the actual text of the "road map". Said's article looks directly at the "map" and some dangerous pot holes in the road.

July 4, 2003

Abraham Lincoln was an early opponent of the Bush Doctrine of "pre-emptive war". Historian Arthur Schlesinger brings us this news (Washington Post, June 28, 2003):

Abraham Lincoln long ago foresaw the constitutional implications of the preventive-war policy. On Feb. 15, 1848, he denounced the proposition "that if it shall become necessary to repel invasion, the President may, without violation of the Constitution, cross the line, and invade the territory of another country; and that whether such necessity exists in given case, the President is to be the sole judge."

Lincoln continued: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion . . . and you allow him to make war at pleasure. . . . If to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you 'be silent; I see it, if you don't.'

"The Founding Fathers," Lincoln said, "resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us."

Too bad that isn't the Voice that George W. heard on the eve of the Iraq war.

July 20, 2003

I'm signing off for a while. If you want to be alerted when I resume op-ed postings, please send me your e-mail address and I'll let you know.

August 4, 2003

Carla is gone.

Our daughter died this morning. Her daughter, Danielle, and her husband, Byron, were with her at the end. Roz and I and our son, David, were with her during her last intervals of communication.

For those of you who didn't know her, forgive us for imposing our tears on you.

Carla was 59. Breast cancer struck when she was 33, and recurred six and a half years ago. Despite the long, ominous foreboding of what was to come, she lived a full and beautiful life. We leave it to others to note her accomplishments as a mathematician, scientist and teacher. For us, she was as dear and caring as anyone could ever be, engaged not only with the people around her, but with all human struggles and dreams of a better world.

When it became clear that nothing further could be done, we wanted to be sure she knew how special she was. We sent her this letter:

July 14, 2003

Dearest Carla,

We're writing this letter because we want you to appreciate how rare and wonderful you are.

Everyone who has ever known us quickly discovered (often to your discomfort) our irrepressible joy and pride in you and David. Parental love is a law of nature, but it's hard to believe that every parent feels as deeply and uniquely about a child as we feel about you.

There are so many "objective" witnesses, without the benefit of parental instinct, who see you as we do. You are so warm and genuine. You are more than sensitive— so perceptive and able to understand others. You have encouraged so many, and so many love you as a friend.

Do you realize how much you've done for us in just this last couple of years? As the insecurities and infirmities of old age invade, you have given us both a sense of our worth, that we each have insights and ideas to offer, that what we do now is still valued. Without you, the website journal that became a big part of our lives would never have happened. With you, the books and movies and music we share all take on new life. You and David are the best friends of our lifetime.

We are so happy with the person you are. You have put together a rich life of accomplishment in work that you love. You have the remarkable daughter and the exceptional life's companion that you deserve. Your mind and your beauty are appreciated and treasured.

We love you. See you soon!

Mom and Dad

August 11, 2003

We got out yesterday with grandson Kevin to see Chagall at MOMA in San Francisco. It was a reasonable first outing, scarcely a week after we said goodbye to Carla. Chagall superimposes joy of life over the deepest sense of human suffering in one crazy quilt canvas after another. I'm afraid the joy didn't carry me with him into flight, as it might have previously.

For the present, this website journal feels like a burden that I can't ignore. It isn't that my little op-eds are musts— after all, my opinions are echoes of views held by a growing multitude and voiced so well in very many commentaries. Still, some people seem to pay them attention, and the website of Democrats of the East Bay continues to post them. I suppose, as my will returns, this engagement with reality will do me some good.

My energy level tells me it's still too soon, but I may try to write something in the next few weeks about "changing course". In his recent Move-On speech at NYU, Al Gore effectively indicted the disastrous foreign and domestic doctrines of George W. Bush. How do we exit this road to hell, and what other course is possible?

August 30, 2003

Today's Op-Ed is a beginning, Part One, of an attempt to look ahead. I decided that when I started writing again, I would put aside for a while "events of the day" and look for "perspective". So, after silence of more than a month, I won't add my two cents on the recall, blackouts, or galloping deficits.

On days like today, when bombings and assassinations obliterate lives and hope, when the present looms so large, a rumination about "perspective" may seem rudely out of place. Still, current events, the bizarre to the horrible, tell us that staying on our present course is unthinkable.

It's not yet unthinkable, though, for the pundits I heard on today's PBS Newshour. Everyone agrees, they said, even including Howard Dean: 'We can't quit now. We have to stay the course. What President Bush needs to do is make a speech telling the American people that we have to achieve victory no matter how long it takes or how great the cost.'

I doubt that they were speaking for Dean— at least I hope not. The imperative is precisely that we must not stay the course, that we have to change course drastically. The claptrap that 'we mustn't back down no matter what' went on through many terrible years of calamitous war in Vietnam. Not long ago, Donald Rumsfeld boasted that we could handle 15 military theaters at once. Now we learn from Afghanistan and Iraq, that initial military "victory" is where protracted wars actually begin and failure unfolds. We could have learned that from Israel in Palestine, where war, occupation and retaliatory cycles of killing are ceaseless and peace with justice is always a dream deferred.

We have to face the future. What are our choices? Is there an exit? Is there a vision that's not an illusion?

Among a myriad of issues, two questions dominate our American future:

1) How will the United States relate to the rest of the world?

2) How will government relate to our people?

The answers our current administration is giving to both questions define the growing catastrophe we are beginning to experience: first, use our super military might to bring the world into acceptance of the President of the United States and his administration as the supreme international authority; second, discard all governmental obligations to the social well being of the people. These answers rest on the proposition that the government's primary obligation is to society's wealthiest sector. Curbing democracy is also required so that the public doesn't get in the way.

The United States of America is by far the richest and strongest country in the world— for the time being, the sole superpower. That's at the core of both our growing peril and an opportunity unequaled in history. The peril is in the deadly futility of a super militaristic ("king of the hill, bring 'em on") campaign to master the rest of the world and enforce an elusive "world order". The opportunity is to add our great influence and resources not to dominate, but to help achieve an inclusive international community— which alone would be capable of coping with universal problems that plague humanity and threaten its survival.

(So much for "introduction"— now what? To be continued …)

September 2, 2003

Now that I've made halting steps to restart this journal, Roz and I want to say thanks again for the many messages sharing our sorrow and love for Carla. Life isn't back to normal, and never will be, but it sweeps us all up in irresistible cross currents. Daily events take over, some cosmic and some merely personal, some unanticipated and earthshaking, some routine and unavoidable.

The specific obligation that made it time for me to rev up again was a commitment made some time ago. The Alameda Library invited me to have a book reading on September 11. It seemed so appropriate to extend my "old bird's eye view of the year following September 11, 2001" on this second anniversary of "9/11".

I'll pickup again soon on "perspective" (August 30th entry).

September 3, 2003

The Bush Administration does not lack perspective. The goal is single-minded: total US dominance over a tamed world. It's the getting there that's hard, in fact impossible.

Under duress in Iraq, the Bush Administration seems to be repeating the same formula that failed it at the United Nations in its rush to war. Reluctantly it went to the UN in an unsuccessful attempt to secure prior endorsement for an American war. It now seeks UN assistance and cover for a beleaguered American occupation. The ultimatum remains the same; the UN must accept American command. As Colin Powell said today: "Of course, the United States would continue to play the dominant role."

It's not easy to predict the outcome at the UN. The overwhelmingly popular anti-war consensus gave the UN the backbone not to be used by the hell-bent-for-war Bush Administration. On the other hand, given the present havoc in Iraq, it's not excluded that there will be a reversion to earlier precedents when the UN bowed to a unilateral US fait accompli. What remains true is that American military occupation of Iraq, whether naked or veiled, will not be accepted and cannot achieve pacification, let alone a real peace in the region. If the demand for US control were to be dropped or rejected, the UN could