No easy road to freedom

How does a dove become a hawk?  That’s the riddle I find myself faced with now a days.  Ten years ago as I argued with almost anyone about the stupidity of invading Iraq, I made a cultural argument—namely that Saddam Hussein was the lid on fast boiling pot and unless we knew the right temperature and recipe removing him was sure to let that pot boil over.  I won’t say that I disliked being right.   Ten years later, I watched as first Iran, then Tunisia, then Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria all experience what has been termed an “Arab Spring.”  Dare I say it, W. was right.  It seems that people do possess an inalienable desire to be free or as Slavenka Drakulic puts it in her brilliant new fable A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism, people will do “everything in their rather limited power to reach the banana side (be free).”

Being a student of history, I wouldn’t have predicted it but when I saw it happening I believed.  Sometime during the past decade the Arab world had reached the inevitable tipping point and led by young people (under 30s) authoritarian regimes were challenged and began to crumble under the weight of their own structural hypocrisy.  Where they had promised economic security there was only unemployment; where stability, festering discontent.  The triumph of small “d” democracy should be apparent to any observer.

Yet, I am surrounded by people who view the Arab Spring as an opening for al-Qaeda to take over the Muslim world.  Where do I start to eviscerate such opinions.  First of all, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, which started in Egypt, was inspired by the same repressions that led to the Arab Spring; but where the Brotherhood saw religion as the only legitimate organizing principle against an anti-democratic state, during the Arab Spring democracy itself has been the driver.  The notion the Arab revolutionaries would allow religious fundamentalism to replace political fundamentalism is to willfully disregard the facts of history for de jour scare-mongering.

Secondly, to compare the imposition of the no-fly zone in Libya, with America’s intervention in Iraq is simply knee-jerk misunderstanding.  Do you know why we fucked up in Iraq?  We fucked up not because we were incapable of doing anything right but because we did everything wrong.  Our coalition of the willing was like a group of boys held together by a bully.  We claimed there Saddam had weapons of mass-destruction.  He didn’t.  We believed we would be welcomed as liberators.  We weren’t.  We thought we would be home by Christmas.  Ten Christmas’ later…You know the deal.

In Libya, the 22 member Arab League itself, referred the situation  to the UN Security Council and our allies and partners either voted for the resolution or got the hell out of the way.  Rather than the hubris of Iraq, President Obama displayed an almost embarrassing amount of caution.  In the end, however, our efforts in Libya have proved correct. As President Obama said in his address to the nation,

“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and -– more profoundly -– our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are….

I believe that this movement of change cannot be turned back, and that we must stand alongside those who believe in the same core principles that have guided us through many storms:  our opposition to violence directed at one’s own people; our support for a set of universal rights, including the freedom for people to express themselves and choose their leaders; our support for governments that are ultimately responsive to the aspirations of the people.

Born, as we are, out of a revolution by those who longed to be free, we welcome the fact that history is on the move in the Middle East and North Africa, and that young people are leading the way.  Because wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States.  Ultimately, it is that faith — those ideals — that are the true measure of American leadership.”

I’m going to conclude with a little counter-narrative.  I believe that the president recognizes that America spent the 50 years after World War II largely pissing on its own ideals.  Yes, we defeated communism but only by fostering repression around the globe.  In the end, we forgot that people want to eat bananas and that both communism and authoritarianism (while communism was always authoritarian the reverse does not hold true) denied people their fundamental yearning to breath free.  It wasn’t only communist regimes that shot down their citizens in the streets; our bastards did it too.  And while American supported anti-communist regimes did not meet the apogee of murderousness achieved by communists, it wasn’t for lack of being willing to try.  So America has a chance, at this moment, to push reset and to start again in the one part of the world where its reputation and its values are held in lowest esteem.  Let’s not make the same mistake of the past 50 years, where we aligned our security with the subjugation of others.  Rather, let’s reach for freedom and have faith in the better angels of our nature, killer angels though they may be if made intemperate and unleashed.

Street Protests in…Wisconsin?

Who knew that the protests sweeping the Arab world would end up in Wisconsin.  The delightfully infectious popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya seem to have struck a chord back in the good old USA.  Determined not to be outdone by the Arab street, union workers in Wisconsin are taking it to the streets to oppose the decapitation of their collective bargaining rights.  Who says you can’t teach an old dog old tricks.  A few weeks ago, I believe folks in Wisconsin would have taken this legislation laying down but with the Arab world in flames and the example of people power in full effect, those aging Wisconsin hippies have recalled what it is like to participate in an old-fashioned civic protest.  The irony is delicious.  The fact that Wisconsin’s demonstrators  run no risk of being gunned down like the protesters in Libya, however, is a sobering reason to reflect on why our system is worth fighting for.  In the Arab world, men and women are fighting and dying for rights that we too often take for granted.

The horrible truth

I am a cycling fan.  I’ve followed the Tour de France, had Lance Armstrong ride an arm’s length away from me in the Pyrenees, ridden on the Champs d’Elysee and many other routes from the grand tours and classics. I love the history and pageantry associated with cycling and I have some idea of how hard is, having ridden in the depth or winter and pushed myself to the point where my body and will are completely exhausted.  More than once after an epic ride, I’ve turned to my riding partners and said, “Do that again tomorrow?  Fuck no.”

I am also a keen social observer, by training and inclination, so for almost a decade now I have understood that professional cycling is a rotten fruit.  Just finished reading Floyd Landis’ seven hour interview with Paul Kimmage of the London Times (http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2011/landiskimmage).  Regardless of what you think of Mr. Landis, much of what he says seems irrefutably true.  I was particularly struck by his corroboration of something that I have have long observed–namely that the UCI (International Cycling Union, professional cycling’s governing body) is complicit with doping.  Think about it, how could they not be, and have not been for a long time.  How is it that the UCI keeps declaring cycling “clean” or “the cleanest” even as riders continue to test positive and the Tour de France, its biggest event, has had more than a decade of doping scandals.  The parameters established for the so-called “biological passport” might seem normal for characters out of Marvel comics but they far exceed the values seen in normal humans.  Getting caught today means over-doing it as opposed to not doing it at all.

Reading the Landis interview reveals all manner of sordid human interaction and malfeasance, precisely the kind of things that you expect people interested in maintaining their power to perpetrate (kind of like paying thugs to attack peaceful demonstrators who want one removed from power).  And the complicity runs all the way down the food chain–including media stars like Phil Ligget and Bob Roll who decry the “cheats” at the moment of greatest hysteria, only to continue celebrating their exploits later or offer simple-minded explanations such as, “It’s the riders who can’t keep up who are doping,” even as the biggest names in the sports are implicated and/or busted.  And yes, riders do get caught but not because of the UCI, but because WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) and vigorous national bodies, in France and Italy especially, really want to see the problem of drugs in sport tackled.

Floyd Landis is certainly an imperfect messenger but he should not need to be for us to see truths that are readily apparent.  There is an omertà among professional cyclists that if broken has immediate consequences. During the 2004 Tour de France, Lance Armstrong chased down Filippo Simeoni, a former Italian champion himself suspended for doping, who had dared to accuse  Armstrong’s friend Dr. Michele Ferrari of aiding Simeoni’s doping.  By chasing him, Armstrong effectively destroyed Simeoni’s opportunity of contending to win a prestigious tour stage.  Simeoni was subsequently abused and derided by his fellow riders who apparently approved of Armstrong’s actions.  I remember watching that episode and thinking, “What’s going on here?  Why would Lance do that?  Is he that petty?”   It was one little crack among many that made me realize how unheroic these cycling heroes actually are.   Pretty soon after, I stopped having dreams in which I was a professional cyclist.  Don’t get me wrong, I still intend to ride the final 100k of Paris Roubaix with my friends, maybe one day with my son and daughter, but I’ll ride it as myself; drug free and happy to endure all my human frailties on my way to that sacred velodrome.

There is a thread

Iran, Tunisia, Egypt.  Each makes lie of the belief that Islam is incompatible with “democracy”.  Let’s tread carefully here, however, lest one get the wrong idea.  The expression of popular will that we have seen in these Islamic states, can be closely correlated with those in eastern Europe over twenty years ago in the sense that they are democratic because they embody the core of concept of democracy–”demos” or the people.  In other words, they reflect one facet of our modern understanding of democracy, that which correlates political legitimacy with popular support.  That is all.  Like in eastern Europe, what comes afterward might be democratic in a way recognizable to western political order or it might be democratic in the sense that it has greater legitimacy, read support of the people, whether or not it includes political values treasured by the west.   In the case of Egypt, it may be the Muslim Brotherhood, architects of modern-day Islamic fundamentalism, and the most legitimate Egyptian opposition force, is ushered into power.   If the brotherhood does rise in Egypt it will serve as another example of my Unifying Theory of Irony–in this case, that those we have considered our most implacable enemies should rise to prominence in a country we considered the most faithful of allies. In any case, we must be prepared to accept the outcome.

Regimes without popular support can last a long time, but they will ultimately fall; incinerated by the heat created by their own repressions.  It doesn’t help the US that tear gas canisters and other ordnance marked as American made are being used against protesters.  A simple act of self-immolation in neighboring Tunisia, has sparked Egypt’s kindling.  Where to now?

Do as i say

A recent Economist article on press freedom in Africa lamented that freedom of speech in southern Africa is heading in the wrong direction.  Press freedom in Africa is illustrative of the double standard that exists between the developed and developing world.   At the same time as the US government is trying to silence WikiLeaks by denying it access to servers, squeezing its fund-raising, and prohibiting government employees from reading the released cables, our democratization projects uphold press freedom as an inviolable right.

Admittedly no African country matches America’s  relative political transparency and none have the durability of our arms of government, which adjudicate conflicts that arise within our constitutional system.  As I have long argued, however, African students have long eclipsed their European and American masters when it comes to the art of hypocrisy.  Moreover, the continents despots will take every opportunity to justify their actions as consistent with those of the most enlightened western democracies, especially when it comes to muzzling the press.  We say do as I say, but Africa’s leaders do as we do and call it democracy.  Just like us.

Inevitibility

Trapped in Atlanta with finally some time and space to write a blog or two (how long has it been?) At the risk of sounding like a lot of others, I’ll toss in my two cents about the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the murder of Judge John Roll and five others.

Words have consequences. As a student of history, I’ll cite the powerful examples of Nazi Germany and pre-Genocide Rwanda. Call Jews vermin or Tutsi cockroaches long enough, and people get the picture–extermination. Label your opponents, foreigners and communists or place them between figurative cross-hairs and people get the picture too.

As is usually the case, the merchants of the greatest invective will now claim that they had nothing to do with it. That their words are just words and only an unbalanced person would take those words seriously. At the most outrageous, they’ll parrot Ann’s Coulter’s fallacy that assassins are all left wing types–never conservatively minded. As Rep. Gifford herself forewarned and as I wrote some time ago fearing that this type of violence would claim the president, in a country with our history of political violence, permissive attitude towards firearms, and culture of civic resistance the past risks becoming the future. History is only a lesson if we in fact learn from it. Otherwise it is a turned page, never memorized and left open the interpretation by demagogues who use the past for their own immediate ends. We’ve seen it before and we are seeing it again.

The most significant (insert here)of our time

I’m back and still thinking about the Tea Party Movement, mostly because it refuses to go away, which makes me wonder: What if this Tea Party thing is historically important?  These are the types of thoughts I really don’t want to take seriously, so I do.  Just in case.

Spent some time belatedly looking at the NY Times poll on the TP (can a political movement survive with the same initials as hygenic paper?–public chortle) .  I must admit there were a few surprises but not enough to deflect my prevaling view that Tp’ers are a group of 21st century know-nothings.  The poll indicates that a majority of TP’ers despise President Obama and like Glenn Beck.  No surprise.  A majority are white.  No surprise there, either (the racial slurs aganist Obama helped give that one away. )  A majority of TP’ers are aganist universal health-care yet favor some elements like coverage despite pre-existing conditions.  A majority also favor smaller government but want government programs like Medicare whose benefits are “worth the cost”.  These views are not logically consistent but whose are.   I give them a pass for being human beings.

Surprisingly, a majority of TP’ers believe that the US has more or less achieved racial equity and that the Obama administration treats both blacks and whites equally.  Some pundits were quick to declare that this means that the TP is not a racist front.  But at the same time, a majority of TP’ers  believe that “too much has been made of the problems facing black people.”  Compare this position with the hate-filled take back America rhetoric and a different picture emerges.  If one asks the simple question, take back America from whom all answers remain fuzzy but one.  After all, TP’ers are not looking to take back America from the oligarchs who rightly deserve their rage, they want to take it back from a percived socialist menace made manifest in the economic levelling programs of President Obama.  In an age where overt racism is outmoded,  TP’ers wage their racial struggle in code.  When I was in high school I had an editorial battle with the Manchester Union Leader whose editor called Dr. King a “rabble-rousing, communist, savage.”  TP leaders might say the same thing of President Obama, whom they hate because the election of a person of his phenotype to the presidency of the United States represents that the age of white hegemony is almost over.  They can’t call only call him a nigger (a self-evident derison) so they call him a communist as well.  As Ali Mazuri has intoned, Obama is the most powerful black person in the history of the world.  That’s some shit and it freaks TP’ers out.

The recent Arizona immigration law represents a similar type of rear guard action. Another last skirmish at the end of a lost war.  The most interesting question about the TP is what comes after.  What happens to the Republican party and to our politics in general.  Most importantly, what happens to all of us?  How do we reconcile in the face of such naked aggression and racism.  That remains to be seen.

Comeback kid

I know it’s been a couple of weeks since my last post.  For those who care, sorry.  Like some of you I’ve been intensely interested in the run-up to the health care vote, which occurred last night.  What a wild ride.  A little less than two months ago, Obama’s was a presidency fighting for its political life despite a slowly improving economy based in part on the stimulus legislation passed during his first months in office.  At the State of the Union the chattering classes were astir with what Obama needed to do to turn things around.  He delivered with game changing performance and then continued to run the table by exposing the Republican party for the obstructionist front it has become.  According to the NYTimes Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, said, “You cannot expect to expand coverage to millions of individuals and to curb costs at the same time.”  That’s true, which makes one wonder at the sincerity of the House Republican health plan that purported to expand coverage without any increased expenditure (remember that?).  At least in losing some Republicans felt liberated to speak the truth. 

Disturbingly, the nazification of the Republican party continues.  Egged on by Republican Congressmen, flag-waving Tea Party patriots (v. earlier post) shouted “nigger” and “faggot” at black and openly gay house democrats as they walked to the House Chamber to vote.  For a while it looked as if this reactionary power would unseat wisdom fueled as Yeats wrote  by ”passionate intensity”.  For the moment, however, reason has prevailed.  Let’s hope that with the libelous claims of “death panels” and “socialism” behind us, some moderation can return to our political discourse.  As I wrote earlier, Obama seems to be committed to this end.  Maybe, with this victory on his belt, he will be able to move forward on that front.

I think that this legislation is as significant as the Iraq War resolution, albeit it in a domestic and liberal sense.  Make no mistake, political careers hang in the balance after last night’s vote.  With Republicans defeated, acrimonious, and courting bigotry that America rejected two generations ago, Democrats might even increase their majorities in the mid-terms as the magnitude of health care for most settles over the populace.  It also might be that we look back at Obama, who has achieved more in 14 months than many presidents in eight years, as the best one term president ever.

Smoking gun theory

What’s the difference between patriotism and nationalism?  Well one difference in that so-called patriots seem to believe that laws should only apply when convenient.  So while they talk about the sanctity of the constitution, they are at any moment willing to subvert it if they feel its laws are not patriotic enough to suit them.

Case in point, the arrest of Umar Farouk Adulmutallab, the underwear bomber, by the FBI.  Patriots say it’s un-American that a terrorist should have protection of the rule of law.  They argue that the Constitution does not apply to terrorists.  But it does apply because it applies to all crimes that occur on US soil.  The Constitution declares it so.

After Umar’s arrest Rudy Gulliani went on Fox News to decry his “limited” interrogation.  By all accounts, however, his debriefing by trained FBI counter-terrorism officers obtained results.  Knowing that his son was being afforded medical and legal protections also seemed to inspire his father to cooperate fully as to what he knew about his son’s radicalization.

With patriots it’s always the smoking gun:  what if, if you knew, etc….  The smoking gun, however, is a false construct, one suited for an episode of 24 or a Hollywood movie.  And maybe that’s the problem, the public has been so throughly 24′ed that they believe that Jack Bauer torturing a suspect and then running off to save the day is how counterintelligence actually works.  To paraphrase Curtis Mayfield, if it comes to that, we’re all gonna go.

I’ll tell you one difference between a patriot and a nationalist.  A nationalist loves his/her country and has faith in its laws.  It’s a good thing when the law and the personalities that are supposed to govern its implementation match up but as we know too well, that’s often not the case.  If a nationalist has to choose, he/she picks the law over personality.  Patriots always pick the personality.  For them it’s enough to trust someone who claims to know the “truth”.  That’s willful ignorance.  After World War II the term, Good German, was coined to describe those who claimed to have never supported Hitler or not known about the destruction of the Jews.  There are a lot of Good Americans out there right now.  I call them patriots.

The new racism

It started in the last month of John McCain’s failed campaign with shouts of “kill him”, “nigger” and “traitor”. It continued after President Obama’s election with questions surrounding Obama’s birth certificate. And it continues among the overwhelmingly homogenous Tea Partiers who think little of depicting the president as a Sambo or displaying placards containing racial slurs against his heritage. Yet increasingly Tea Party groups are nakedly courted by conservative politicians, given consideration by major news outlets as a legitimate political voice and despite evident racial bigotry allowed to attest that their opposition is purely political.

The lunatic fringe that comprises Tea Party members fits neatly into the description of conspiracy theorists that I described in an earlier blog, namely that they find comfort in simplifying complex equations to align with their ideology. But courting the most paranoid and racist elements of our society can only bring tragedy. Given the hateful language emanating from these groups and their increasing links to violent militia movements, one can only hope that the FBI has the Tea Party throughly infiltrated. I find myself increasingly worried that someone will take a shot at the President, after which everyone, including Glenn Beck and his cohorts, will renounce any role in having cultivated and encouraged these killer angels. I want to hope that the Tea Party know nothings will be swept into history’s dustbin, but the high-profile currently given to its vapid chief cheerleader, Sarah Palin, gives me cause to worry. Rather than ushering in a post-racial period, Obama’s election has revealed an even more aggressive form of racism not seen publically since the civil rights era. Whether it is the dying gasp of the last generation to enjoy unbridled white privilege or a harbinger of future discord remains to be seen.