[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Anti-Empire Report

[Bill Totten]

Read this or George W Bush will be president the rest of your life

by William Blum

www.killinghope.org (October 30 2008)


Don't tell my mother I work at the White House. She thinks I play the
piano in a whore house.

The Republican presidential campaign has tried to make a big issue of
Barack Obama at one time associating with Bill Ayers, a member of the
1960s Weathermen who engaged in political bombings. Governor Palin has
accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists", although Ayers'
association with the Weathermen during their period of carrying out
anti-Vietnam War bombings in the United States took place when Obama was
around eight-years-old. Contrast this with who President Ronald Reagan,
so beloved by the Republican candidates, associated with. Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar was an Afghan warlord whose followers first gained attention
by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.
This is how they spent their time when they were not screaming "Death to
America". CIA and State Department officials called Hekmatyar "scary",
"vicious", "a fascist", "definite dictatorship material" {1). None of
this prevented the Reagan administration from inviting the man to the
White House to meet with Reagan, and showering him with large amounts of
aid to fight against the Soviet-supported government of Afghanistan.

Reagan's successor, George H W Bush, palled around with characters
almost as unsavory during his first campaign for the presidency in 1988.
His campaign staff included a number of genuine pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic
types from Eastern and Central Europe. Several of these worthies were
leaders of the Republican campaign's ethnic outreach arm, the Coalition
of American Nationalities, despite the fact that their checkered past
was not a big secret. One of them, Laszlo Pasztor (or Pastor) had served
in the pro-Nazi Hungarian government's embassy in Berlin during the
Second World War. This had been revealed in a 1971 page-one story in the
Washington Post {2}. When this past was again brought up in September
1988, the Republicans were obliged to dump Pasztor and four others of
his ilk from Bush's campaign {3}.

And who has John McCain been palling around with? Who has been co-chair
of McCain's New York campaign and a foreign policy adviser to McCain
himself? None other than the illustrious unindicted war criminal and
mass murderer Henry Kissinger, who must be very careful when he travels
to Europe for there are committed and serious people in several
countries there who will again try to have him arrested for the crimes
against humanity he's responsible for ... Chile ... Angola ... East
Timor ... Vietnam ... Laos ... Cambodia ...

By contrast, there is no evidence that Bill Ayers was involved in any
Weathermen bombing that killed anyone; nor have I seen any evidence that
on the very rare occasion that an anti-Vietnam War bombing in the United
States resulted in a casualty that it could be ascribed to the Weathermen.

John McCain's bombings certainly killed - some two dozen aerial attacks
upon the people of Vietnam, people who had neither done nor threatened
any harm to him or his country. What label do we give to such acts, to
such a man? His level of violence is matched by his degree of hypocrisy.
Speaking of Ayers, McCain asked: "How can you countenance someone who
was engaged in bombings that could have or did kill innocent people?" {4}

In his 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days (Penguin), Ayers writes: "I don't
regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." This is something
very few Americans can accept, and I wouldn't even make the attempt to
persuade them. But I personally didn't blame the Weathermen then, and I
don't blame them now. The Vietnam War was in its eighth year of
barbarity. I and the rest of the army of the powerless needed a few
points up there on the scoreboard against the lords of the
national-security corporate state. A bombing, with a suitably
war-criminal target - like the State Department or the Pentagon - and
taking care to prevent any casualties, told the bastards that we were
still out there, that their impunity was not total, that this is how it
feels to be bombed. Armed propaganda. It told the public that there was
something more serious going on than a town-hall difference of opinion
that could be reasonably resolved by reasonable people discussing things
in a reasonable manner. And like an unhappy child having a temper
tantrum, we needed some instant gratification. We were struggling
against the most powerful force in the world.

The Weathermen were on the right side of that war. John McCain on the
wrong side.

And who has Sarah Palin herself been palling around with? John McCain,
and the Alaska Independence Party, a secessionist party her husband
belonged to for seven years. "My government is my worst enemy. I'm going
to fight them with any means at hand", Joe Vogler, who founded the
party, once declared. Earlier this year Governor Palin shouted out to
party members: "Keep up the good work. And God bless you." {5}

I do believe that secession of a state from the union is somewhat
frowned upon by the powers that be, and if memory serves me, the last
time it was seriously tried the government actually went to war. Who do
these Alaskans think they are, the Kosovo gangsters whose secession from
Serbia was immediately recognized by Washington?

This just in: John McCain (yes, the same one), as a congressman, met in
1985 in Chile with General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world's most
notorious violators of human rights, credited with killing more than
3,000 civilians, jailing tens of thousands of others, and torturing a
great many of them. McCain met with Pinochet apparently without any
preconditions, which is what McCain has repeatedly criticized Obama for
saying he would do with certain present-day foreign leaders whom McCain
doesn't like. At the time of the meeting, the US Justice Department was
seeking the extradition of two close Pinochet associates for an act of
terrorism in Washington, DC - the 1976 car-bomb assassination of former
Chilean ambassador to the US, Orlando Letelier, a prominent critic of
Pinochet, and his American assistant. McCain made no public or private
statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of
the democratic opposition in Chile. Senator Edward Kennedy arrived only
twelve days after McCain in a highly public show of support for
democracy, meeting with Catholic church and human rights leaders and
large groups of opposition activists. {6}

The John McCains of America, in and out of Congress, would much sooner
pal around with Augusto Pinochet than Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or
Bill Ayers.


The bourgeois triumphalism that attended the funeral of the USSR

Greed is a hot topic now. Stock brokers and others involved in the
current financial crisis are angrily accused of being greedy. Time
magazine declared that the nation's current troubles were "the price of
greed". "Blame greed", echoed the Chicago Tribune. But these
establishment publications can't be taken too seriously. Like other
believers in the system, they're convinced that greed is a built-in,
valuable, and necessary feature of capitalism and capitalist man, that
it's indispensable for motivating entrepreneurs, and that it results in
all manner of innovation and invention. During the years of the Cold
War, this was a key element of the interminable discussions cum
arguments between defenders of free enterprise and defenders of
socialism; the arguments still continue, although most people now think
that history has answered the question - capitalism has won. "The end of
history", leading conservative Francis Fukuyama called it in his
well-received book in 1992 (Free Press). He asserted that we couldn't
expect to find a better way to organize society than the marriage of
liberal democracy and market capitalism. Subsequent world movements such
as anti-globalization and political Islam caused Fukuyama to have some
second thoughts about whether history had actually come to an end. (He
also came to renounce the war in Iraq which he had initially embraced on
the premise that it would bring the joys of liberal democracy and market
capitalism to the benighted Iraqi people.)

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the boys of Capital
have chortled in their martinis about the death of socialism. Until
recently, the word had been banned from polite conversation (now
achieving new notoriety as a term of political insult). And no one seems
to notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the
twentieth century was either bombed, invaded, or overthrown; corrupted,
perverted, or destabilized; or otherwise had life made impossible for
it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement -
from the Russian revolution to the Vietnamese communists to the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to Salvador Allende in
Chile to the FMLN in Salvador - not one was permitted to rise or fall
solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its
guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax
control at home. It continues today with Washington's attempts to
subvert the governments of Venezuela and Bolivia, and, of course, still,
forever, Cuba.

Imagine that the Wright brothers' first experiments with flying machines
had all failed because the automobile interests had sabotaged each test
flight. And then, thanks to the auto companies' propaganda, the good and
god-fearing folk of the world looked upon this, took notice of the
consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned
solemnly: Man shall never fly.

It's widely assumed that the Soviet Union demise resulted from gross
shortcomings intrinsic to its socialist system, that the economy somehow
imploded from its inherent contradictions. But all the shortcomings and
contradictions that could have been found in the Soviet system in 1990
could have as well been found in 1980, or 1970, or 1960. Unlike
capitalism, whose volatility is legendary, as each day's headlines
remind us anew, the Soviet system with its government ownership of the
means of production and its command economy, whatever its other defects,
remained relatively stable and uniform. The question is thus: What
happened in the late 1980s in the Soviet system to cause it to unravel?
I believe that the best answer to the question lies in the person of
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985.

Gorbachev's long-time and ardent ambition was to model the Soviet Union
after a West European social democracy and have the country accepted as
such by the Europeans. That's the principal reason he put an end to the
Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan; and why he instituted his
historic economic and political changes at home (with their unintended
consequences), and relinquished control over Eastern Europe without
resorting to military force. The war in Afghanistan certainly had its
effects, financially and psychologically, upon the people of the Soviet
Union, and is commonly cited as a major cause for the nation's breakup.
But the same can be said even more so of the effect of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq upon the American people, millions of whom have
marched against the wars, yet none of this has led to an American
withdrawal from either place; not even close. Superpowers should not be
confused with democracies.


Ayn Rand's social philosophy: Let the strong prevail, let the weak pay
for their weakness

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations,
specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of
protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms ... So
the problem here is [that] something which looked to be a very solid
edifice and, indeed, a critical pillar to market competition and free
markets, did break down. And I think that, as I said, shocked me."

A remarkable admission from Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the
Federal Reserve, long-time opponent of government regulation of the
corporate world, and friend and devoted follower of Ayn Rand, the
selfishness guru who turned the emulation of two-year olds into a
philosophy of life. "I have found a flaw", said Greenspan, referring to
his economic philosophy. "I don't know how significant or permanent it
is. But I have been very distressed by that fact." {7}

Greenspan was induced into these admissions by tough questioning from
congressmen at a hearing called in October to deal with the financial
crisis. There was a time when Greenspan was looked upon as a guru by a
largely unquestioning and unchallenging congress and media, no matter
how dubious or obscure his pronouncements. He could have passed at times
for Chauncey Gardener, the main character of the book and film Being
There (1979). Gardener, brought to life by Peter Sellers, was a simple
man with very simple thoughts and behavior, who might have been
considered to be borderline "retarded", but fortuitous circumstances and
the deference toward him by those of insufficient intellect and/or
courage resulted in him being thought of as brilliant by people in high
positions.

There was one noteworthy exception to this delicate treatment of
Greenspan. In July 2003, Representative Bernie Sanders of Vermont faced
the Fed chairman across the table at a congressional hearing and said:

"Mr Greenspan, I have long been concerned that you are way out of touch
with the needs of the middle class and working families of our country,
that you see your major function in your position as the need to
represent the wealthy and large corporations ... I think you just don't
know what's going on in the real world. ... You talk about an improving
economy, while we have lost three million private sector jobs in the
last two years. Long-term unemployment has more than tripled. ... We
have a $4 trillion national debt. 1.4 million Americans have lost their
health insurance. Millions of seniors can't afford prescription drugs.
Middle class families can't send their kids to college because they
don't have the money to do that."

"Congressman", Greenspan replied, "we have the highest standard of
living in the world".

"No, we do not", insisted Sanders. "You go to Scandinavia, and you will
find that people have a much higher standard of living, in terms of
education, health care and decent paying jobs. Wrong, Mister."

Not accustomed to having to defend his profundities, Greenspan could do
no better than to counter with: "We have the highest standard of living
for a country of our size" {8}

This was quite a comedown from "in the world", and inasmuch as the only
countries of equal or larger population are China and India, with
Indonesia being the fourth largest, Greenspan's point is rather
difficult to evaluate.

The idea that the United States has the highest standard of living in
the world is one that is actually believed by numerous grownups in
America, and most of them believe that this highest standard applies
across the board. They're only minimally conscious of the fact that
whereas they've made extremely painful sacrifices to send a child to
university, and they often simply can't come up with enough money, and
even if they can the child will be very heavily in debt for years
afterward, in much of Western Europe university education is either free
or eminently affordable; as it is in Cuba and was in Iraq under Saddam
Hussein.

The same lack of awareness about superior conditions in other countries
extends to health care, working hours, vacation time, maternity leave,
child care, unemployment insurance, and a host of other social and
economic benefits.

In short, amongst the developed nations, the United States is the worst
place to be a worker, to be sick, to seek a university education, to be
a parent; or, in the land of two million incarcerated, to exercise
certain rights or be a defendant in court.

To which the Chauncey Gardeners of America, including the one who used
to sit in the Federal Reserve and the one presently sitting in the Oval
Office, would say: "Duh! Whaddaya mean?"


The Rosenbergs as heroes

John Gerassi, professor of political science at Queens College in New
York City, recently wrote a letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor: NYT

In his "A Spy Confesses" (Week in Review 9/21), Sam Roberts claims that
folks "fiercely loyal to the far left, believed that the Rosenbergs were
not guilty ..." I am and have always been, since my stint as a
correspondent and editor in Latin America for Time and Newsweek, a "far
leftist", and I have never claimed the Rosenbergs were not guilty. Nor
have any of my "far leftist" friends. What we always said, and what I
repeat to my students every semester, is that "if they were guilty, they
are this planet's great heroes". My explanation is quite simple: The US
had a first-strike policy, the USSR did not (until Gorbachev). In 1952,
the US military, and various intelligence services, calculated that a
first strike on all Soviet silos would wipe out all but six percent of
Russian atomic missiles (and, we now know, create enough radiation to
kill us all). But those six percent would automatically be fired at US
cities. The military then calculated what would happen if one made a
direct hit on Denver (why they chose Denver and not New York or
Washington was never explained). Their finding: 200,000 would die
immediately, two million within a month. They concluded that it was not
worth it. In other words, I tell my students, you were born and I am
alive because the USSR had a deterrent against our "preventive" attack,
not the other way around. And if it is true that the Rosenbergs helped
the Soviets get that deterrent, they end up among the planet's saviors.

- John Gerassi (tgerassi at hotmail.com)

[It will not come as a great surprise to learn that the Times did not
allow such thoughts to appear in their exalted pages.]


Correction

I don't know how it happened, but the address (URL) I sent out for last
month's report was incorrect. It should have been:
http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer62.htm All previous reports can be
found at www.killinghope.org


Notes

1. Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget (1990), pages
149-50.

2. Washington Post, November 21 1971

3. Los Angeles Times, September 13 1988, page 19. For further discussion
of this issue, see Russ Bellant, "Old Nazis and the New Right: The
Republican Party and Fascists", Covert Action Information Bulletin
(Washington, DC), #33, Winter 1990, pages 27-31

4. New York Times, October 3 2008

5. David Talbot, Salon.com, October 7 2008

6. John Dinges, The Huffington Post, October 24 2008, based on a
declassified US Embassy cable

7. Washington Post, October 23 2008

8. House Financial Services Committee, July 15
2003; http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/bank/hba91775.000/hba91775_0f.htm


William Blum is the author of:-

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War Two
(Common Courage Press, 1995)

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (Zed Books, 2002)

West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir (Soft Skull Press, 2002)

Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (Common
Courage Press, 2004)


Portions of the books can be read, and copies purchased, at
http://www.killinghope.org and previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read
at this website.

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