Op-Ed

The administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is set on a course that leads directly to a third world war.  And a third world war leads almost inevitably to most of us dying horrible deaths.  And we're not talking about it. 

The White House has made clear it is seriously considering attacking Iran with massive bombing aimed at destroying the nation's military and changing its government.  Iran will certainly retaliate.  If attacked, and possibly even if not attacked, Israel will join in the fighting.  The resistance in Iraq will intensify dramatically.  Controlling the oil of Iran and Iraq will be out of the question short of thorough genocide.  Anti-American furor will sweep the Muslim world.  The nuclear nation of Pakistan will be a prime target for an Islamic revolution. 

As the security check line began moving slowly at Washington Dulles airport, one passenger standing a few steps ahead of me appeared particularly uneasy. His dark skin, long beard, trimmed moustache, prayer spot centered on his forehead, and overall demeanor quickly gave away his identity, though he had obviously labored little to hide it. He was a Muslim and a religious one at that. Predictably, a few minutes later he was singled out and his clothes spread across a separate station reserved for those "randomly" selected for extra security check.

The growing concern about war/poverty has not translated into policy change or increased numbers of the active community's organizers/activists. Why is this condition frustrating to long-term organizers?

The last seven years has been a social experiment for neo-con and neo-liberal policy wonks. The neo-con and neo-liberal pretense of differing from the basic agenda of the USA corporate and military leadership would make one cry if we did not laugh. The parameter of discourse and the logical policy outcomes has become even more restricted than they were under the rubric of a Cold War political-economy. Since 9-11, it would appear that the role of an organizer has been to establish political space, public and open, that enables activists and communities to express the growing concerns on war and poverty. However, whatever space has been created is filled by cyber junk and conspiracy diversions.

“I knew the situation was serious. I was shaking all over. But I was amazed by the complexity of my mind — the most clear part was just the speed and agility of my mind. I immediately began talking to him in a calm voice and engaged in eye contact. But he was not in his eyes. He was in his own world — pointing a gun at me.”

Is this a good time to address the big lie? You know, the lie about our stark, raving helplessness in the face of armed danger and malevolence? Fortress Gun Nut has the whole country hostage to the big lie that a safe America is an armed America, and yet as our stockpile of weaponry, domestic and otherwise, increases, so does our fearfulness, and so does the danger.

And the heroes are often indistinguishable from the perps. We’re all heroes in our own minds. We all watch the movies and imbibe the whack ’n’ win culture. We all learn that real justice must be delivered at the point of a sword that is terrible and swift.

On April 10th, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for papers and Emails related to the apparently politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. The deadline passed. The DOJ did not comply.

On April 25th, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify about the forged documents used as evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. Rice publicly refused to comply, arguing that she was "not inclined" to comply. Two deadlines passed. The committee chairman claimed to believe she would eventually change her mind. She hasn't done so.

On June 13th the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House documents related to the US attorneys firings. The White House publicly refused to comply or to allow Miers to comply. The deadline passed.

Also on June 13th the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed White House Political Director Sara Taylor in regard to the US attorneys firings. The White House wrote a letter to the committee chairman refusing to comply. The deadline passed.

If you were a member of Congress, wouldn't you behave completely differently from how most members of Congress behave?  I mean, if you had not gone through the process required to become a congress member, but just suddenly became one tomorrow, wouldn't you behave as though you had an ounce of decency?  Wouldn't you take your responsibility at least as seriously as your power and your ego?  Wouldn't you at a bare minimum seek to represent the wishes of the majority of your constituents, the way you were taught in elementary school a representative is supposed to represent?  I have to assume you would, as I assume I would, as I assume a majority of Americans would. 

Given the magnitude of the global crises we face, we'd hope the key nonprofits trying to address them would use every appropriate tool to maximize their impact.

Yet, Seattle's Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which does much good with its programs (particularly its global immunization efforts), is missing a significant opportunity by not aligning the foundation's investment commitments with its larger social goals. Its choices offer a lesson for other foundations, for pension funds, college and university endowments, and all other nonprofit institutions that control financial capital.

If Gates Foundation wanted to consider a different approach, it might learn from institutions like California's massive CalPERS (California Public Employees' Retirement System) pension fund, which has combined first-rate financial returns with investments that put its dollars in service of socially responsible values.

"Made Love, Got War" is the title of Norman Solomon's latest book, an autobiographical account of the peace and disarmament movements in the United States over the past half century.  Better than his other books, I think, this one achieves the level of artistic composition found in Solomon's brilliant and frequent columns on the media, war, and peace.  But the value of "Made Love, Not War" lies in the lessons it provides for current and future activism, the accounts of pitfalls and seductive detours encountered in the past, the insights gained, and the analysis of how one can push on without hope or optimism or the desire for them, all as told by one of the most morally decent people we are privileged to live alongside today.

The “ahhh” of familiar pleasure I felt as I accelerated cut off abruptly as I watched the gas-mileage readout on my sister’s new Camry plummet.

How dare the requirements of fuel-efficient driving presume to contradict the habits — and unacknowledged godlike joys — of a lifetime of gasoline consumption? I looked at my sister, a “hypermiling” neo-enthusiast, who seemed to be wagging her finger at me (she wasn’t, but I’m sure the impulse was there), and said, “Nanny state.”

At least I uttered it as a joke — that grating, illuminating expression of adolescent politics and individual triumphalism. Libertarians. You gotta love ’em. They survey the human landscape and wince at . . . a government that cares too much, in a bumbling, overreaching way, of course, and tries to protect us not merely from thieves and terrorists and snake oil salesmen but from ourselves. They hate seatbelt laws and anti-smoking laws and picture government not as a shifting coalition of organized, often malign interests, but as a self-righteous scold.

The USA’s military spending is now close to $2 billion a day. This fall, the country will begin its seventh year of continuous war, with no end in sight. On the horizon is the very real threat of a massive air assault on Iran. And few in Congress seem willing or able to articulate a rejection of the warfare state.

     While the Bush-Cheney administration is the most dangerous of our lifetimes -- and ousting Republicans from the White House is imperative -- such truths are apt to smooth the way for progressive evasions. We hear that “the people must take back the government,” but how can “the people” take back what they never really had? And when rhetoric calls for “returning to a foreign policy based on human rights and democracy,” we’re encouraged to be nostalgic for good old days that never existed.

     The warfare state didn’t suddenly arrive in 2001, and it won’t disappear when the current lunatic in the Oval Office moves on.