BEING THE CHANGE WE NEED TO END WAR

 Those who reflexively oppose President Obama on foreign policy share one thing in common with those who defend his actions unquestioningly: Neither is using a realistic measure to appraise him. In addition, partisan supporters who are unwilling to criticize him fail to use a consistent yardstick to compare his actions with those of his predecessor. Despite his many accomplishments, the similarities in foreign policy between the Obama administration and that of Bush are more striking to most critics than are the differences. While there is truth in this observation, it is not the whole story.

There is a pervasive myth that we elect Presidents who will represent the interests of America in foreign policy, if we choose correctly. The reality is that as a consequence of an electoral system thoroughly corrupted by special interest money, we elect Presidents who are vetted by a relative handful of extremely powerful individuals. They have a huge financial stake in the maintenance of the status quo in international economic affairs.  “American” interests have become defined as what serves the aims of powerful international financial institutions that have a disproportionate influence on both US domestic and international policy. The interests of these institutions have nothing to do with the interests of America or any nation. In fact, if Americans do not develop a clearer understanding of the nature of their power, nation states themselves will become obsolete. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is designed to do just that.

Of the largest 25 international corporations, almost all are financial institutions. Members of their Boards are also members of the Boards of the top 147 corporate behemoths that control 40% of the assets of over 14,000 international corporations and collect 60% of their total profits. This is how global financiers control key industries such as aeronautics, insurance, armaments, energy, telecommunications and others whose profits depend on control of natural resources and human capital around the world, including the US. Their enormous influence over the fortunes of businesses puts them in the position to determine who is a viable candidate for President. If you were hoping that Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul can become President if we elect enough Democrats or Republicans, think again.

Foreign policy is not created de novo with each new administration. The general direction of foreign policy is determined by corporations and foundations that fund the think tanks that gave us the neocon agenda in foreign policy that is still the blueprint for military strategy. Think tanks also came up with the neoliberal agenda of free trade. These two ideologies are really two sides of the same coin. Both seek to extend corporate domination of the planet. Where economic coercion and bribery in the form of free trade agreements, IMF loans and economic and military aid are not persuasive and regime change is not possible by covert means, military force is used.  Neoconservatism and neoliberalism are so called because they are neither liberal nor conservative, but corporatist.

This is the reality that confronts the President. He still has all the powers granted him under the constitution as well as powers claimed by previous Occupants of the White House, but his use of them is sharply constrained by the political influence of special interests over Congress, the military, a CIA unaccountable to him under the doctrine of plausible deniability, the media and even the courts. If he wanted to end the “war on terror” that is a think disguise for an agenda of global corporate domination, he would have to take on the entire military-industrial-government complex that has mushroomed since WWII. It is a direct threat to democracy, as Kennedy found out when he tried toend the Cold War.

You may say Obama still has a choice and you would be right, but what chance of success would he have without America behind him? While we should and must criticize him when he chooses war over diplomacy as he did in Libya has largely done in Syria, we cannot expect him to take on alone the entrenched power of the entire political, economic and military structure of the oligarchy that the US has become. If we want to see democracy and justice in the US and the rest of the world, we must be the change that will make him do what must be done. We did it on Syria, when we told Congress in no uncertain terms that we will not use US taxpayer money to start WWIII. 

What few seem to appreciate is that the President set up a situation where our voice would determine a major foreign policy decision. The pressure on him to attack Syria from Israel, Saudi Arabia and neocons in the US was intense, yet he consulted with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and allowed him to publicly report that not only would an attack be incredibly risky, but that a decision was not necessary immediately. He then threw the decision to Congress, giving citizens a chance to weigh in. Our victory in stopping a disastrous attack on Syria showed that we are not powerless over the architects of what former CIA chief and President George HW Bush called the New World Order.

One of the most powerful forces aligned against Obama is the alliance between right-wingers in Israel and the US, who see their interests as identical. The base of fundamentalist Christians in the US constitutes the vast majority of Zionists in America. One of our tasks surely has to be to awaken Americans to the facts of Israeli occupation and apartheid. Obama has given us the chance by allowing diplomacy to succeed in Syria at least to the extent that he avoided a direct US attack that could have led to a regional and even world war. Many have concluded that by showing his willingness to let Putin score major points and rebuffing the attempts of Israel and Saudi Arabia to directly attack both Syria and Iran, Obama is showing that he will not bow to the demands of neocons in either Israel or the US. If there were any doubts about this, they should have been dispelled when he immediately reached out to Iran.

It takes a great bit of chutzpah to claim that the decisions that led to Americans stopping a rush to war for the first time in history was the result of a series of foolish stumbles by a President some claim is in the pocket of Israel.  If that were the case, how do they explain his immediately reaching out to Iran as soon as the crisis was over, infuriating both Israel and Saudi Arabia, already seething at his “mistakes” in carrying out the planned attack on Syria? Anyone who still thinks the President doesn’t know what he is doing has been gamed. For the rest of us, let’s take the hint and “be the change we need.”  Demand immediate cuts in the defense budget. Shut down unneeded military bases around the world, get rid of space age weapons that we will never need in an age of American dominance, end drone warfare, drastically curtail domestic surveillance and redirect the money to rebuilding America and becoming a responsible member of the world community.

In a democracy, the people are responsible for the actions of their government. If Americans aspire to living in a democracy and becoming a model for the rest of the world, it is time they took back their government from the hands of the architects of the New World Order. It is possible, and it begins when the movement to amend the constitution to reform campaign finance and abolish the doctrine of corporate constitutional rights becomes the basis of a social movement to end the corrupt rule of the plutocracy.

SECRETS AND LIES

Democracy cannot survive unless citizens know what their government is doing in their names. Without this knowledge a People are unable to fairly judge the actions of its leaders. This is necessary for citizens to make informed decisions when they choose who to represent them. When schools, the media and politicians are all controlled by powerful special interests, any claim that a nation is democratic is a lie.

This is the situation in which the people of the United States find themselves today. It is clear that our government is concealing its actions in order to keep secret the fact that it is serving powerful corporate interests to the exclusion of those of We the People. Since these corporations owe no allegiance to any nation or its People, the United States government is effectively in the hands of traitors and foreign agents who manipulate it to serve their own interests. Although the evidence is in the public domain, it is hidden beneath layers of secrets and lies.

The victors in today’s culture war will write the history that our children will be taught in schools. If we let them defeat the forces of democracy they will not study books like A People’s History by Howard Zinn, but be fed a Bolshevized history that reflects the fascist views of the economic elite who dictate the curriculum. George Orwell warned us in 1948 that a time would come when America would be enslaved by international corporate terrorists who would collude to keep us fighting for corporate Empire and ignorant of the truth of our plight. His argument reflected a deep understanding of the means by which fascist and communist leaders keep rebellion to their rule in check.

When the People of a nation forget the mistakes of the past it is condemned to repeat them. The deliberate distortion of US and world history by the corporate elite threatens to condemn our children to enslavement in a fascist New World Order. It is thus up to us to become the teachers who will train them to changethe world. We who have lived through the history of a nation that has strayed from the path to democracy have the moral responsibility to help them understand the difference between fascism and traditional conservatism, which seeks to preserve the best of the past rather than to assume that the course of history is not in our hands.

 
The complicity of the US government in the 9/11 attacks is unmistakable, yet anyone who calls for a reassessment of the facts is labeled a “conspiracy nut.” Those who promote theories of deliberate collusion between the power elite are given a platform for their ideas so as to discredit those of us who are more cautious in making conclusions as to the way in which the US government has been made subject to a few powerful individuals. The battle of the SuperPACs taking place in the Republican presidential primary illustrates that there is no organized conspiracy against democracy in the US, only fleeting alliances between those among the economic elite who are concerned only with their immediate self-interest.

It is ironic that the more the US government takes pains to conceal the fact that it has been taken over in a corporate coup, the more it tries to control the flow of information on the internet. One means by which it does so is to give itself the power to engage in surveillance of all traffic on the internet, as well as phone conversations and bank transactions. This is done in the name of fighting terrorism to conceal the fact that it is our own government that is the chief cause of the War of Terror that no longer threatens only the Peoples of governments that refuse to submit to the expansion of corporate Empire, but the freedom of the formerly complacent citizens of the US.

Some would say that the death of privacy is detrimental to democracy. I would argue that it has the potential to be a principle determinant in whether democracy can survive. Imagine if our so-called leaders were required to take an oath that they would never lie to us. If enforced, this would enable Americans to not only judge but to remove the corporate Puppets in Congress who do not give a second thought to the fact that they routinely betray those who put them in power. Having sacrificed their privacy for the sake of power, they would no longer be able to dismiss those of us who demand accountability for their actions.

If we demanded such transparency from our leaders, we should expect that our own actions would be open to the inspection of our fellow citizens. The business leaders who conceal the criminal actions they commit in the pursuit of profit could then be held accountable to We the People. The petty little injustices that we commit against each other should be known if we are to claim to be leaders in our communities. In a true democracy under the rule of law, we would have nothing to fear if our actions matched our words. Such a society could function democratically because all the facts would be known when we must make a collective decision affecting all of us.

As a therapist I have found that any problem is made worse by keeping it to yourself. Worse yet is concealing the truth from yourself. It becomes a cancer eating at your soul. Hiding your faults prevents you from achieving integrity and the essential ability to become capable of being a responsible citizen. It is thus not only a betrayal of self but of all our children and generations yet unborn.
 
Democracy requires that a People be good enough to rule themselves. The only alternative is to accept rule by others. Inevitably, this gives rise to an economic aristocracy that will seek to control us in order to maintain their positions of privilege. Only in an open society can a People fairly judge what its government should be allowed to do in its name.

Freedom of thought cannot be abridged, but freedom expression can be violently suppressed by a government in a nation bitterly divided against itself. This cannot happen in a truly democratic society whose people understand that what is best for the individual  is always what is best for all. Only when the American people decide to cross the great divide that separates them can they hope to end the civil warand finish the revolution.