Red, White, and Blue Bloods

Now that I've pronounced doom on the Republican Party (even though there is much more to say on the matter) I'll move on to a much broader topic, namely the American Empire and the U.S. as the world's policeman. A wise man once said, “anything that can't go on forever will end”, and this has proven to be true of empires (at least the earthly kind), and there is no reason it will not prove to be true of ours. Empires are notorious, in fact, for coming to an end – usually ignominious, but sometimes with a minimum of pain, as witness the ends of the British, French, and Soviet empires, still within recent memory. (A generation or two earlier saw the more painful end of the German overseas empire, the Ottoman Empire, and before that the Spanish, etc.) It's not necessary that a given empire is conquered, as the Roman Empire was; most of them rot from within, from an erosion of political will, diminishing resources, and just plain demoralization. Empires go along with aggressive nationalism, and when the cultural, social, political, and economic basis for nationalism is reduced to some critical level, the empire, which seemed so permanent and invincible, collapses – much to the dismay and mystification of its adherents. The point is, this will happen – it's inevitable. It's a matter of when, and by what means, and what will remain. England and France wound up quite intact, and arguably better off; Russia is trying to regain some of its former glory, with limited success; Germany lost its empire as a result of World War I, and lost pretty much everything else as a result of World War II, but has gained much of it back because, as an acquaintance of mind put it, “the advantage Germany has is that it's full of Germans”. And yet nations, in a post-empire period, do manage to salvage some respect; they are no longer to be feared, but they are not about to be erased from the world map either. What keeps them in business, so to speak, are what I call the “eternal verities” – race, ethnicity, language, culture, and yes, faith – and these, note, are the very things that the globalists are waging war on at this time. (And don't be fooled by “identity politics” and “diversity”; those are strategies to liquidate the nation on the cultural level, not strengthen it.) A nation that asserts and shows pride in these things is likely to survive, whereas a nation that does not is doubly doomed – no more empire, and, eventually, no more nation. (Oh, did I mention borders? That's another essential quality of a nation. And we're busy giving up ours.)

So where do we stand in all this? Well, for starters, this country was not founded – at least not explicitly – on the basis of race, ethnicity, language, faith, or culture. It had a dominant race (white), a dominant ethnicity (English), a language (English), a faith (Protestant deism), and... well, not much in the way of culture, let's admit. But it was, in essence, ideational, i.e. founded not on the sorts of things that have characterized nations throughout history, but on ideas, as expressed in the founding documents of the Republic. And those ideas served us well for a while, and continue to do so, if only in the iconic (I'm tempted to say “fetishistic”) sense. They are, in fact, a kind of crumbling bulwark against what has become a wildly “diverse” society, in which all races, all languages, all cultures, and all faiths (and non-faiths) have a right to stand up and be heard, and to join the culture wars, i.e. the battle for the so-called “soul of America”. But America's “soul” is ideas, and ideas can change, and morph, and become obsolete much more readily than the more solid, natural, organic factors that traditionally define nations. (Try to find one idea from the writings of the Founding Fathers that would not cause outrage and demonstrations on college and university campuses today, and in the media – you won't find any.)

And can a nation characterized as such remain an empire? Don't the same factors that are essential to the strength and coherence of a nation apply to its empire as well? And if our nation is rotting from within, how is that supposed to be consistent with the persistence of an empire? It can't, but – again, historically – we see that, oftentimes, an empire can persist, at least for a while, even if things are collapsing on the home front. The Roman legions were spread across the known world even as Rome itself was decaying and collapsing – and we see much the same thing today. We have a military “presence”, and “force projection”, all over the globe, even while the White House is under siege and American “ideals” are under criticism and attack. It's a strange sight, to be sure – but one that is all too familiar to anyone with a sense of history. (And the rest of the world looks on in wonder, as it did when the Roman Empire came to an end – “Lo, how the mighty have fallen!”)

And when you think about it, the American Empire is a relatively new thing, historically speaking. For that matter, America itself is a relatively new thing. When the English colonies coalesced into The United States of America, it didn't take long before age-old empire urges began to surface; I'll make the Mexican War the beginning of this (although, even there, we're at least talking about adjoining territory, the difference being that we had to fight Mexico for it, whereas in the case of the Louisiana Purchase, it was one colonial power selling a piece of property to the former colony of another colonial power – which seems just, in a kind of way). But real colonialism got a shot in the arm with the Spanish-American war, where we wound up with territories halfway around the world; that's the true beginning of empire.

But then a curious thing happened. On top of the age-old empire urge, we acquired a new meme, if you will, namely that we had to – for some reason not ever quite fully explained or justified – become the world's policeman. This began in earnest when we joined up in World War I, which was supposed to “make the world safe for democracy”, but which actually made it less safe for democracy and more safe for communism and fascism. But we had a foothold on the world map, and that's what counts. And in between world wars, we pursued the Monroe Doctrine with a vengeance, charging down on any number of rebellious and upstart movements in the Western Hemisphere – allegedly in pursuit of law and order, but it was really about commercial interests. (The American Empire has always been at least as much commercial as military in intent and outcome, and it remains so to this day with the exception of the Middle East, which is purely political.)

And throughout all of these developments up to the present day, a few isolated voices were raised along the lines of “What business it is of ours?”, and “What gives us the right...”, and “Whose real interests are being served here?”, and so on. But those voices were promptly shouted down on the basis of such well-thought-out notions as “Because we're the best”, and “We need to teach those people a lesson”, not to mention verbal tics like “spreading democracy” and “protecting the American way of life”, which were invented to cloud people's minds and keep them from seeing what's really going on.

And this is not to say that there weren't people of influence along the way who really, sincerely believed that we had something to offer the benighted masses of the Third World – or the oppressed masses of the Second World. That may have been true, but the way to spread the gospel of democracy is not to start bombing and sending in troops; spreading ideas through violence is a contradiction in terms, even if it seems to actually work on occasion. Even if you can get people (whoever survives the invasion) to embrace our ideas, it is more often than not a sham; they are just mouthing words in order to stay on our good side (assuming there even is a good side in these situations). Eventually, if and when we ever leave (a rare event), the old ways return and, sooner or later, it's as if we were never there. We can poke as many holes in the ocean as we like, but unless we stick around to reinforce, protect, and maintain those holes they are going to vanish as soon as our last soldier goes back across the border. Because, once again, we are fighting traditionally-based culture with ideas. The Russians and the Chinese tried it with communism – the idea to end all ideas – and once communism in the strict, or “pure”, sense collapsed of its own weight the old culture – the “pre-idea” culture, if you will – returned. This country at least had the advantage of starting off as a blank slate, culturally speaking, which meant that ideas could gain, and maintain, more of a foothold here, because there was nothing to compete against. And yet even in what one might call “pioneer” nations, an organic culture will arise sooner or later; it's just against human nature to live in a cultural vacuum for very long. And once that new culture asserts itself, it competes with ideas for the loyalty and dedication of the citizenry – as can be seen throughout this country at the present time. Take more than ten steps outside of the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are housed and meticulously cared for like ancient mummies, and you run into people with radically different notions of man, society, and how one is to live. And they aren't all aliens, fresh off the boat; most are citizens and voters, whose families have lived here for generations. The ideas that gave rise to “diversity” – or at least to its toleration – have turned out to be self-destructive. I'm not saying this is either good or bad; it's just the way things are.

So – the fool's errand to end all fool's errands is for us to venture overseas in order to convert the unwashed and ignorant masses to the American way of thinking, which is based entirely on ideas which must seem impossibly abstract to said masses, and for which, in order to take them seriously, one must give up loyalty to things with more solidity and permanence. Plus, the fact that this is undertaken, in most cases, as a thin veneer for empire building and commercial interests, AKA imperialism, makes it even less likely to succeed and take root. So, once again, when we leave our ideas leave, and things return to normal. The problem is that there are very few examples of this because we almost never leave; the main exception in recent times has been Vietnam, and we left because we lost a war, which is also a rare occurrence.

And even if take back the bulk of our troops, we invariably leave “peacekeepers” behind, as we did in Germany and Japan. Is our military presence only a way of insuring continuing commercial advantage, or is it also a form of insurance, i.e. making certain the country in question doesn't make the same mistake – getting into a war with us – again? I say it's both, and that the two motives are complementary. The military is there to intimidate, and the commercial presence is there to soften the blow by offering economic advantages, trade being the most obvious. So we wind up with a world filled with client states who are not quite happy slaves, but who must wonder, once in a while and in the stillness of the night, what it would be like if we would just get out of their lives. And who knows, they may find out sooner than they think, if things continue the way they are going.

All of which leads to the question implied at the beginning. If the American Empire and America as world policeman can't go on forever, it will have to stop. But even when it does, the world will still be there, with all of its pathologies and discontents. So what happens then? Does someone else step up and assume the world's policeman role, or do they decide, right off the bat, to reject that hypocrisy and assert raw power? (In which case, history not only fails to end, but it starts running in reverse.) Russia and China are already making moves in that direction, and they are certainly our most likely successors. And no, I'm not forgetting the E.U., but, lest we forget, the E.U. has no troops, and neither does NATO – not really. NATO has never been anything more than the U.S. and a bunch of other guys, and the E.U. is the other guys without the U.S. These sorts of entities do not an empire make – at least not in any traditional or lasting form. Can you imagine the E.U., or NATO, going up against a resurgent Russia without Uncle Stupid providing muscle? I can't bear to look! And I suppose the U.N. is going to go toe-to-toe with China (or even North Korea) without muscle-bound us in the mix. Forget about it!

And this, I suppose, is the reasoning of the globalist powers-that-be. They may despise us and consider us uncultured, primitive slobs and idiots suitable only for cannon fodder, but they have a hard time imagining the world without us – the way the owner of a vast estate couldn't imagine getting along without his serfs and servants. And yet, “something will happen”. The world as it is is in such flux, and there is so much instability on all fronts, that things as they are simply cannot stand, any more than a machine shedding nuts and bolts and leaking oil is going to run much longer. The conservatives who want nothing to change, ever, are dreaming. The revolutionaries at least know that things can't go on, but they imagine that they're the ones who are going direct the changes and own the future (“Well, it worked for Lenin and Mao, why not for us?”) – but they may be wrong too. And even if they win some near-term victories, revolutions are notorious for devouring their own; revolutionaries who win actually have a lower life expectancy than those who lose. So the future may not be as rosy as they think. In any case, take heart – if you don't like the American Empire, be assured that it will vanish some day. The question is, will America survive its empire, and if so in what form? Hopefully not abject slavery, but even that is not assured.

Make Social Media, Not War

There's a grain of truth to the notion that “the Russians” (including NGOs and private citizens as well as the Putin regime) “interfered” or “meddled” in the 2016 election. But there's a mountain of falsehood to the notion that their goal was to put Trump into office. Based on the evidence that Inspector Hound, AKA Robert Mueller, and his team have assembled (or chosen to ignore), it can just as easily be argued that their goal was to put Hillary Clinton into office. But if the real goal – as is becoming more clear with each passing day – was, as has been noted by many, to demoralize the American public and shatter their illusions as to the soundness and legitimacy of our electoral system, and of our political system in general, then one has to admit that they've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Mission accomplished! And while Russia stands securely as a political monolith with Putin at the top, American politics has been shattered into a million pieces, and Americans have been politicized, fragmented, and set against one another in a way not seen since the run-up to the Civil War. Even the 1960s pale by comparison. And this has been accomplished without a shot being fired.

The main instrument of all of this has been – irony alert! – the so-called social media, which didn't exist in Cold War times, but which have been effectively weaponized by countless parties, and none more effectively than those seeking to create havoc within the American enterprise. After all, didn't we invent the social media? I clearly remember when the Internet was no more than a gleam in the eye of DARPA (no, not Al Gore). It began with ARPANET, which was intended as a tool for the Defense Department, and was dreamed up by the smartest people on the planet at that time. (Well, OK, the smartest people in the U.S. Or the smartest people in the government, whatever.) Back in the 70s when I was working in DoD, DARPA was this mysterious place right across the street, and it was spoken of in hushed tones, like these are the people with huge brains who are way ahead of the technology curve and who are sure to make a difference. And what a difference! Whenever you hop on the Internet to play around with Facebook or Twitter, just remember that you are mere fleas on the backs of giants.

So here we are 40 years later, and it seems like our old enemies have moved in and used our tools against us. And there's no doubt as to what benefits this provides to the new post-Soviet Russia – and to China as well, for that matter. In the current version of The Great Game, the sides have come into sharp focus over the years since the end of the Cold War – or let's call it Cold War I. We have, first and foremost, Russia, which staggered through the drunken haze of the Yeltsin years when the new oligarchy was being created, and emerged – tanned, rested, and ready – to once again assume a dominant role on the world stage. Then we have China, which has done the impossible, namely come up with a hybrid system of political communism plus aggressive economic capitalism. It's almost as if they've taken the main platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties over the decades and merged them; how do you beat something like that?

Another major player in all of this is the EU, which, along with its predecessor organizations – let's give credit where credit is due – has kept the Western European nations from cutting each other's throats for many decades now. Now, one can quibble as to whether the EU is an organization of equals, the way the U.N. is supposed to be; some will say that it's simply the latest manifestation of the German Empire – call it the Fourth Reich. But if so, it can at least count peaceful coexistence among its accomplishments, unlike the previous Reichs. (This may simply be a sign that, at long last, economics has emerged triumphant as the main motivator and model for Europe, as opposed to the nationalism of old.)

Then we have what are called “non-state actors” – globalists on the one hand (not unrelated to the EU, but with a much larger vision and a more comprehensive strategy) and “terrorists” on the other. It turns out that Islam was not taught a lesson as a result of World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire; and sure enough, the radical Islamists have a renewed caliphate as their long-term objective.

Then we have Israel, which is the sine qua non of American foreign policy, having been unceremoniously dumped in our lap by Britain. And their continued existence is not unrelated to terrorism, since it constitutes a thorn in the sides of Muslims everywhere. And after all, don't all of our politicians regularly recite, like some kind of litany, that there is “no daylight” between the U.S. and Israel? So why shouldn't anyone with a grudge against Israel also have a grudge against the U.S. (and against lesser “crusaders” or “Franks” like France and England)?

But wait – doesn't this add up to at least seven distinct entities? Isn't that kind of messy? After all, the Cold War had the merit of being, basically, two-sided, with China pretty much sitting it out, the globalists quietly drawing up their program in Brussels, the Islamists hitting the books in madrasas, and Israel making do (up until 1967) without the West Bank. And the Cold War was fought relatively quietly like the chess game that it was, with overt conflicts confined to proxy wars (Vietnam being an exception since it was "proxy" for them but first-hand for us).  It was by no means a calm, peaceful era; it just seems that way compared to what's happening now.

If you insist on sticking with the two-sided Cold War model, you can say that Team A is us, the EU, globalists in general, and Israel... and Team B is Russia and China, who have apparently sat down and divvied up the “turf” like gangsters in Old Chicago. But you still have the “terrorists”, who seem to be bugging everybody, but Team A more than Team B. (Maybe it's because Russia and China have time-tested ways of dealing with that sort of thing, whereas we and the EU are still groping around trying to figure out “why they hate us”.) Israel, of course, knows full well why the Islamists hate them, and are completely unapologetic in dealing with them in any way that seems appropriate – much to the occasional dismay of the U.S. (not so much the EU, which is famously non-judgmental about these things).

But there is one thing that everyone but us has in common – an overriding shared interest, if you will – namely to cut the U.S. down to size. (And actually, a large portion of our political class wants the same thing.) So Russia makes inroads in the Ukraine... and China buys up the lion's share of our national debt... and the EU continues to take advantage of our largess dating from the post-WWII era. And the terrorists manage to stir up trouble faster than we can dispatch troops or bombers to deal with them. (It is they who have, in effect, provided us with an excuse for waging perpetual war and keeping our economy on a war footing. And they don't seem to mind. In fact, they like it, because it vindicates their rationale for waging war against the West.)

The rest of the world is, in effect, treating us like some senile, doddering billionaire in a Hollywood movie – basically clueless and hemorrhaging wealth, but dangerous nonetheless. It's a war of attrition, if you will – and China, patient as always, is waiting for the day when it will be advantageous to call in their chits. Great bites have been taken out of the Soviet Empire of old – but they're being cagey, so far, when it comes to reclaiming them (the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine being the only exceptions – call them trial runs if you like).

So, bottom line, everyone is waiting for Uncle Stupid to break his hip and be moved into the dementia ward – but in the meantime they're doing everything they can to hasten the day, and that includes – ta-da! – using our very own social media to sow doubts among the citizenry.

It's been said that the reason the Soviet Union collapsed was that “the termites quit holding hands”. But we have our own termites in the form of political movements, some dating back more than a century. The American Experiment ran aground ages ago; some will argue that it ended with the Civil War. But there was a tremendous amount of energy that persisted, and that ultimately took the form of the American Empire. But that too has run aground, and some will give the war in Vietnam credit for that. And yet the energy persists – and the most remarkable thing is that the American economy can continue to support, and the American people continue to put up with, the continuing high level of folly and catastrophic loss of national wealth attributable to our foreign policy. Any other empire would have collapsed, been carved into pieces, and been put up on the auction block long since – and yet here we are. (Anyone who spends any time thinking about “sustainability” has to look upon this phenomenon with awe; it defies all the laws of economics and politics and yet there it is.)

So yes, to the extent that the Russians (and who knows who else) mounted an “attack” using the social media (and other media as well), it was designed to disrupt, and to cause consternation and dismay, but it was indifferent as to the results of the 2016 election, because that didn't matter. Trump may turn our home-grown “Resistance” types into gibbering psychotics... and he may step on a few toes in the EU... and he may huff and puff at Russia and China, but in the long run it's the same dreary story. Russia and China can put up with the huffing and puffing, and the EU can put up with a few bruised toes, but the terrorists are undeterred... and the globalists seem to get their own way no matter who's in charge. Can anyone seriously claim that Hillary would have done anything significantly different? Oh sure, if you're talking about domestic policy, but to the powers that be – those who play The Great Game -- America's domestic woes are noise level. What counts is not who does what to whom, or to what degree, but the level of fragmentation and – most importantly – the loss of national identity and political will (factors intimately tied to the immigration controversy). Identity politics, on the other hand, will be with us no matter who's in the White House, and it's only going to get worse. (Please recall Obama's, ahem, success at promoting racial healing.) Identity politics is a fragmenting, alienating, divisive phenomenon, which means that our enemies are all for it, and will encourage it as much as possible.

So we have, in a sense, a paradox – we are eating ourselves alive, which seems to be a domestic political matter... but it's being aided and abetted by powers and entities beyond our borders. And even at that, think of how many times over the years we've mounted our own “interference” campaigns against other countries, regimes, and leaders. There are karmic factors in play here. And why are we always the ones who talk about “regime change”? It's because we like the idea and because we're good at it (or, at least, used to be). Other nations and leaders who talk about “regime change” in the U.S., as they are doing non-stop these days, are missing the point. If there's a Deep State that is bent on sabotaging Trump, or anyone else who might occupy the White House, it's hidden in the bowels of the EU, the Kremlin, and the Forbidden City. Our own Deep State is simply, knowingly or not, doing their bidding.

The idea is to get the U.S. out of the way once and for all. Then the rest of the world can go back to doing what it does best, namely trying to kill each other.

As the Dog Returneth to His Vomit...

Well, we're back in Iraq, and I, for one, couldn't be more relieved. I mean, the suspense was unbearable! Anybody with a grain of sense could have seen that even if we withdrew “all combat forces”, but left a square-mile embassy with thousands of employees, something was going to have to give sooner or later. (Actually, I'm not convinced we ever really left. Uniformed troops, maybe – but let's not forget the CIA and their mercenary army.) At any rate, now we send “military personnel” (not “combat troops”, mind) back to Iraq to protect all those American citizens, as well as “American interests” (whatever those might be), and to, as usual, act as “advisers and trainers” for the Iraqi army, which is... well, let's just say it's an army that we defeated and scattered to the four winds after the invasion, and then reconstructed in some way hoping that they would do some of the heavy lifting (AKA dying) when we started getting pushback from “terrorists”... i.e. people who were unhappy with our invasion and occupation and decided to do something about it. The newly re-formed Iraqi army was, of course, composed of the unemployed (thanks to our destroying Iraq's infrastructure) who were desperate for some source of income with which to keep themselves and their families fed, clothed, and sheltered. Problem is, people fighting for an idea have a tremendous advantage over people merely fighting for material gain – especially when the idea people are willing to use suicide tactics. So far from neutralizing Iraq as a source of Islamic aggression, we instead created a hotbed – a hatchery of sorts – for a new wave of Islamic fundamentalism and aggression. Well, it worked in Afghanistan, why not in Iraq?

Just kidding, of course. One more dollar tossed into that craphole is one dollar too many – to say nothing of American lives. And am I saying that American lives are worth more than Iraqi lives? Maybe, on some universal cosmic level, no – but in terms of foreign policy we have to operate on that basis, the same way Israel operates on the premise that Israeli lives are worth far more than Palestinian lives. This is, sadly, the way nations always operate in war time, and this mindset is, in a way, key to victory, just as it has always been in all wars down through history. Let's recall the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both premised on the notion that American lives were worth much more than Japanese (including civilian) ones. Sad, but true; this is how wars have always been fought, and in some sense it's the only way they can be fought – unless, of course, victory is not the goal, and when you look at our escapades in Southwest Asia you start to feel like maybe that's the case.

So yes, wars are not about internationalism, one-worldism, “kumbaya”, or anything else. On the most basic level, they're about killing (or at least disarming and neutralizing) people who aren't like us so that people who are like us (or who are us) can continue to enjoy their lifestyle. (I always wonder if we would ever have dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin, for example, even if the European war hadn't come to an end by that time. I think the answer is no, simply because the Germans, as mesmerized as they were by der Adolf, were still, basically, a lot like us, whereas the Japanese were “little yellow devils” who deserved no quarter, and no mercy. And yes, I'm talking about racism, which has a perfectly natural, if atavistic, role to play in war.)

So yeah, we're going back into Iraq because we have “interests” there. And because there are Americans in harm's way. But who put them in harm's way? And who on earth allowed anyone in this country to develop “interests” in Iraq that had to be defended? It's all a scam, basically – you send people into a war zone (or a place that's about to be), then declare them in danger, and send in troops to protect them, and then send in more troops to protect those troops, and before you know it we're right back where we started. It's a scam... but it works! It worked in Vietnam, it worked in Panama, and it's working in Iraq. It works everywhere it's tried; it's fool-proof. It is, in fact, one of the primary building blocks of empire. We don't just arbitrarily invade another country – we first establish “interests”... strategic necessities... we declare that country, and/or its leadership, to be a grave threat to humanity and especially to the survival of “the American way of life”. Or, when it comes to Southwest Asia, to Israel, which basically amounts to the same thing. Then you throw a few other ingredients into the pot, like “weapons of mass destruction”, “human rights violations”, “fascism” (a perennial favorite), “theocracy” (bad, bad), and you have all the evidence you need to mount a full-scale attack.

But if that's the basic, tried-and-true strategy, where does Obama stand? Well, first, he's just following orders. But imagine his frustration. He ran for president with an idea -- “hope and change” -- which, for him, meant turning the U.S. into a people's republic, or at least a socialist Utopia. In other words, it was all about domestic policy. Somewhere along the line, not unlike Bill Clinton, he forgot (or never learned) that there is also this thing called foreign policy – and it's messy, chaotic, thankless, and, in our time, not based on much more than the agonized writhing of a dying empire.

He didn't ask for this; he didn't want it. But it was dumped into his lap, along with marching orders from the usual suspects – Wall Street, the international banking/financial cartel, the neocons (yes, still very influential, even in an administration they pretend to despise), the Evangelicals (ditto), Israel, the countless racial, ethnic, and victim-group lobbies, and, I'm sure, any number of others. So he races around like Lucille Ball in one of her classic sitcoms, trying to do everything at once and please everybody, and gets very little thanks and a lot of criticism, and... well, what's a community organizer from Chicago supposed to do? So he, basically, checks out. He doesn't know anything, he didn't know anything, and it was all (still, after 5 ½ years) someone else's fault.

Now, don't get me wrong – this is not an expression of sympathy. He wanted this job, and he got it, and now he's paying the price. And I guess this could be said of all presidents, although a few manage to come out on top in spite of it all. But in the array of what I'll call “victim presidents”, Obama certainly is in the top rank, along with other sorry specimens like Carter and Bush II. What distinguishes victim presidents is that they start out behind the power curve, never catch up, and only manage to make things worse. And one could say, well, they were only victims of history – but there were still plenty of opportunities to do better, and the fact that they all failed shows a certain... what? Level of hubris? Plain stupidity? Spite? More like all three, and more. The other distinguishing trait is that they never show any insight. They are absolutely blind to not only their own failings and the impact it has on the country, but they continue to defend their record, and their “legacy”, where someone with more insight (or at least shame) would retire to the farthest reaches of the country and never raise their voice in public again. (At least Bush II deserves a bit of credit for shutting the hell up most of the time, unlike his former cronies.)

But having said that, it's nonetheless true that the cards are stacked against The Anointed One. He's faced, on a daily basis, with a myriad of intractable problems – dilemmas that simply can't be solved by any mortal, because they are the products of years – decades – centuries, even – of folly and delusion. It's no wonder he runs off and plays golf on a regular basis; I would too. He is, as I've said, a face in a suit, basically... not his own man... and yet he must feel the sting of this situation now and then. At least in Chicago he had a willing audience and could talk himself into thinking he was accomplishing something; now it's just one debacle after another, with no end in sight. So he's turning gray... getting more glum by the day... and whatever happened to that dazzling “hope and change” smile? He looks, acts, and talks like a defeated man – and he is, basically, no matter how many pathetic “victories” he manages to eke out through executive orders. Now it seems he's buying a house in California. Why not Chicago? Doesn't he want to return to his roots, a home town hero? Don't ask...

Here's the point. When you're the leader, or even the figurehead, of a nation that is on the way up in the world, you never have a bad day. You go from victory to victory, and even failures can be, somehow, recast as “strategic” victories. And you get credit – most of it undeserved, but nonetheless sufficient to have your name cut into countless blocks of stone around the Mall in Washington, and, with any luck, to have your likeness rendered in stone, or on coins or (worthless) paper money. You become, in short, part of the American Pantheon. On the other hand, when you're the leader, or figurehead, of a dying empire, you never have a good day. Even events which might have been considered victories in better times turn out to be fatally flawed... all the idols have feet of clay... and rust and corruption are everywhere. And again, it's not necessarily to your discredit (Obama isn't entirely wrong in continuing to blame everything on Bush) but try telling the populace that – or the media, or (dread!) the historians. They will ignore what small, pathetic victories and achievements you might have managed to pull out of the mire, and you'll be known forever after as “the president who...” (did something really bad, or allowed something really bad to happen).

And yet, such is the typical politician's genius for denial and delusion that most of them never come to terms with their true record. Oh, maybe on some surface level they wish things had gone better, but to gaze out over the bottomless chasm of failure... this is too much to ask. So Carter, for example, remains delusional in thinking he has something to offer, even though his administration was an exercise in farce and folly... Bush II continues to live in a fantasy world... and Obama? It's only a question of what grotesque form his delusions take as he fades into obscurity (or, worse yet, doesn't).

Of course, he does have 2 ½ more years. He could repent. He could wander over to the National Archives and take a good, hard look at the Constitution. He could grant Congress the respect it doesn't deserve but nonetheless ought to have. He could quit being a thug. But what are the chances?

Empire and its Discontents

A correspondent writes, regarding my previous post (Russia Takes Over, Nov. 16):

"I don't agree with you on the part about good and evil.  You seem to be saying that a nation which does any amount of evil cancels out any good which it may do, and should simply be considered to be part of the shit heap of evil nations.  As you state it, there is an assumption that good and evil are easily identifiable, divisible, and quantifiable, in the process of geopolitical power and international score keeping. I'm not sure they are. But assuming we can sort out the good things a nation does, isn't it really more of a net/sum analysis?  Who is generally more good than evil... or, at least more good than the alternatives, even if not all good, which is impossible, or even mostly good, or even occasionally good. In a world which is largely evil, even being a little good, or more good than the others, is good, or as good as it gets. I think the US still has that stature, despite the fact that it may be somewhat like winning the world championship in double amputee cross country foot racing."

My reply:

Well... I don't think "cancels out" is what I had in mind -- at least not directly.  I think the good can stand on its own, as can the evil -- but then right away we get the question of intent.  Is unintentional good as good as intentional good?  If so, then logically, unintentional evil must be as bad as intentional evil.  We can't have it both ways.  We can't get all the credit for the good we do, but then just mumble "shit happens" when we do evil or when evil results from our actions. 

What the good/evil dichotomy really does, IMO, is call into question the basic core premises upon which we established ourselves as a nation.  Were those principles, as noble as they sounded at the time, actually a time bomb?  I think the Civil War was already ample proof that there was something seriously wrong with our world view as a nation -- not that slavery was not evil, but we didn't fight the Civil War to end slavery, as any honest historian will admit.  It was about "preserving the union", which was ideational for some, but which boiled down to political and commercial issues for many, including cynics in the industrial sector.  Freeing the slaves was a bonus (or "collateral damage" if you were in the South).  Not that some in the North would not have been willing to make the same sacrifice just to free the slaves, but they were a minority, and considered "radicals" by the rest.  So, bottom line, the Civil War might have had one positive outcome, but the negative outcomes continue to haunt us right up to today.  The South is still treated like a defeated nation, and Southerners are treated like ignorant, backwards bigots... and all the old resentments are still alive and well.

So, I'm willing to give the US full credit for whatever it has done over the years to enhance the quality of life for the human race in general -- and full discredit for whatever it has done that has had the opposite effect.  That's not the same as saying that it all balances out, and the net sum is zero.  That would be like claiming that some great industrialist -- from Pittsburgh, say -- who oppressed his workers for many decades, but then built fine libraries and museums and concert halls, had a net score of zero.  I'm not enough of a Zoroastrian to claim that good and evil are inextricably linked, and you can't have one without the other.  I don't put them on an equal metaphysical footing.  And besides, one hopes that any good a given nation does will outlast the bad, despite what Shakespeare says about men.  One can certainly see this with ancient Rome, and (I will argue) the British Empire, although there is plenty of debate on that count.  The French Empire, I'm not so sure... and the Soviet Empire I will count as an overall disaster (but they did field some dynamite Olympic teams).  (And yet the worst colonial power was not Russia, but Belgium.  Go figure.)   

This brings us to the American Empire, and has it been of aggregate benefit to the world, or an overall liability, or too close to call?  This depends partly on how much one values democracy (without quotes) as a system, and to what extent our version of democracy -- the kind we export -- is the real thing, and whether it actually does any good.  Now, I include under the heading of democracy things like the rule of law, trial by jury, property rights, etc. -- all the Bill of Rights and related concepts that we always hope we're also exporting along with the basic idea.  And clearly, the success or failure of this enterprise is more dependent on national character than anything else.  I don't claim that some nations or peoples are "not ready" for democracy; this is condescending.  They may simply not be interested -- and I don't take this as an automatic sign of primitive ignorance, or tribalism, or religious dogmatism, etc.  What it means is that democracy, of any variety, is not a universal value -- and I don't think you have to look far to realize this is the case.  Then you add in the aggravating factor that many of the "democracies" we have established around the world are anything but -- thinly-disguised tyrannies, in fact, not a whole lot different from the "people's republics" that the Soviets set up by the score.  It is not enough to have a democratic "form" -- one also has to have a democratic mind set, and leaders who agree with that.  Heaven knows, we have enough trouble with this even within our own borders. 

Does this mean that "exporting democracy" is a farce and a hoax, and we should stop doing it (or trying to)?  If you look at the record, it's a mixed bag.  It does seem to "take" in some cultures, and provide benefits.  In others, it makes little or no difference, and in some it makes things worse.  I think Job One of the State Department should be to try and make these determinations ahead of time, so we can cut down on the waste of time and money (and resentment and hostility).  (The alternative is to forget the whole project, and I would not oppose that either.)  My preference would be that we simply try and set a good example.  The problem with this is that, to anyone looking at our political situation from without, it seems like a circus and a farce.  (Again, was it designed that way, or is it a a sign of degeneration, or are we just having a bad day, or what?)      

But I'm being wildly optimistic even there.  The project of the American Empire as it stands has nothing whatsoever to do with exporting democracy, free and fair elections, promoting human rights, property rights, religious freedom, freedom of speech, etc.  Those are propaganda buzzwords.  What it has everything to do with is economic imperialism, which is supported by political influence (both domestically and internationally).  One only has to ask the question, who is in charge and what's their bottom line?  If the answer is the international banking and financial cartel (which I believe it is), then the bottom line is money, period.  Even political influence and spying are just means to an end.  (Ask yourself this question:  Which happens more frequently, politicians getting rich or the rich getting into politics?  I rest my case.)  Now -- there are political goals embedded within this scenario, and I would characterize them as establishing a one-world secular humanist government.  But you won't be making a mistake by following the money.  (Which is the means and which is the ultimate end may, in fact, be a point of lively discussion when the Regime gets together, e.g. at Bilderburg, Davos, the Bohemian Grove, Mackinac Island, etc.  I'd love to get a transcript of some of those discussions!)

Even then our self interest might have some broader benefits.  I mean, let's say that someone figured out how to make big bucks from the breakup of the Soviet Union, so they did all they could to make that happen.  They wind up rich, but the Soviet Empire goes away, much to the joy and jubilation of all (except for a few million bureaucrats, commissars, police, camp guards, etc.).  It's kind of like that "trickle-down effect" that Reagan's people were so fond of citing -- and that the other side lambastes on a regular basis.  Just as good can, paradoxically, come from evil, so good can also (unintentionally) come from good.  (Our biggest challenge when it comes to military operations is seeing to it that evil does not come from what we consider good -- a task that we've failed on spectacularly of late.)   

The ultimate question for future historians will be, was the world better off because the US existed?  Again, I say that Rome provides a possible precedent.  They did a lot of really bad things, but they also had certain principles of government and law that, in good times, served them (and their subjects) well.  We constantly point to Rome as a foundation for our own system -- not forgetting the high-jinks of such as Caligula and Nero, but consigning them to the ash heap... not allowing them to detract from the larger picture.  (I imagine much the same will eventually happen with regard to characters like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- but I digress.) 

One thing's for sure, the world would have been less interesting if the American Experiment hadn't risen up in the midst of it all.  We have at least been a source of ideas, for good or ill -- not to mention technology.  I say this fully cognizant of the fact that the political experiment has clearly run out of energy, and that we are self-destructing as a nation/culture/economy at a rapid rate.  We are a demoralized people, in that we've lost track of basic principles.  We haven't stopped mouthing words about them, but we've lost any comprehension as to what they mean.  Now... was this process inevitable?  Was it the result of an inexorable historical cycle, the inevitable growth/consolidation/decay process of any empire, nation, or political system?  I'm not prepared to say -- only to point out that there have been no exceptions as yet in history, so one is tempted to say yes, it was inevitable.   But is that, in turn, an indictment?  Again, if one does good while one can, this is not a bad thing.  Who would want to judge the worth of a human being based on his last declining days, months, years?  It wouldn't seem fair.  So we could, if we were feeling charitable, apply the same idea to nations.  Even an enterprise that is doomed might nonetheless be worth undertaking; it's a matter of what one values the most.  
 

Looking for Mr. Goodbye

I. Our material world

Some have contended that a prominent aspect of the American character is optimism... the notion that things will – inevitably, but even faster with a good dose of motivation, enthusiasm, hard work, and know-how – be better tomorrow than today, and so on ad infinitum. This is tied, of course, to the idea of “progress”, which also has an air of inevitability (as in “you can't stop progress”), continuous improvement, the triumph of technology, and Utopianism... not to mention somewhat shop-worn notions like Manifest Destiny. And all of these ideas are, in turn, based on a certain variety of Protestantism, sometimes identified in our time as the “prosperity gospel” -- the idea that material progress is, and should be, a natural motivator for the righteous, and that prosperity is an unmistakable sign of merit (with the implication that a lack of prosperity is a sign of reprobation). (This, by the way, is a mindset typical of Old Testament times, of Judaism, and even of Hinduism – and is extremely anti-New Testament.) 

I'm not going to claim that this more materialistic variety of Protestantism has replaced, or shoved aside, spiritual values in our culture. Rather, I'm going to claim that it has always been dominant, and has always, from the very beginning, determined our thinking in diverse areas, such as law, economics, foreign policy, “social justice”... even aesthetics, not to mention customs and mores. By contrast, people with a more spiritual bent – a more ascetic bent, even – have generally been considered dreamers and fools, and – that most devastating of Americanist adjectives -- “impractical”. One way to characterize our history, in fact, is to consider it a perennial struggle between “pragmatism” -- progress, technology, bourgeois values, etc. -- and things of the spirit. There is no greater sin in our society than to be “against progress” -- or even to be thought to be. Then, we are consigned to the outer darkness of Medieval ignorance and “superstition”, or placed in the company of stagnant Oriental empires. Since the lot of man is implicitly defined as never having quite enough “stuff”, anyone who opposes this view is obviously opposed to human fulfillment, happiness, and self-actualization. Never mentioned is that, beyond the basic necessities, “stuff” has a dismal track record when correlated with human contentment. Why else would we be the most prosperous society on earth, and yet have the highest percentage of crybabies (from all socio-economic levels, note)? We have yet to learn that material contentment is not an absolute; it's more the relationship of expectation to achievement. It's bad enough to be overly attached to what one already has; our problem is that we become attached to things we don't have, and are not likely to ever have. It is a sure formula for misery and discontentment in the midst of plenty.

But wait -- you might say -- aren't you constantly describing this as an “ideational” society, in which ideas, rather than pragmatic considerations, dominate? Yes, this is true, but if you look into it you'll find that most of our ideas are based on materialistic values and ultimately have materialistic goals. In other words, if ideas don't “pay off” in the long run, they're not worth considering. Never in the entire American corpus of ideas, notions, memes, or stray thoughts is there any hint that there might be something more important than material success and material prosperity – in the long run. The things we identify as “ideas” or “ideals” are not goals in their own right, but means to an end – namely more of everything. So yes, we are ideational in the short term, but materialistic in the long term – a paradox, I admit, but I think it's accurate.

Let me give some examples. What does the average American mean by “freedom”? Freedom to think, to meditate, to philosophize? Hardly. It boils down to being able to live where you want, have a family (or not), do the kind of work you want, and keep what you earn, with minimum harassment by your neighbors or the government. Fair enough; this was what the colonists wanted, and it was what the early settlers and pioneers wanted. And it's amazing to see the American public's level of tolerance of having more and more of these freedoms taken away from them with each passing day. The regime's argument boils down to this – we have to take away your freedoms in order to preserve your freedoms. Which makes about as much sense as having to destroy a village in order to save it (a favorite bit of absurdity from the Vietnam era).

And going back to the founding, what was American “independence”? How was it conceived? Mostly as a means by which we got to keep our stuff, engage in free trade, and be self-governing. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we admit it. The point is that most of the complaints against George III in the Declaration of Independence were material issues. It's not as if he engaged in religious oppression or spiritual intimidation of some sort – that was left up to the individual colonies, which did engage in such activities from time to time, as we know. But that problem was solved – wasn't it? -- with the First Amendment, which set up a “wall of separation between church and state”. Actually, it did no such thing. All it said was that Congress – i.e. the federal government – “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. In theory, the states still had that right – and it was exercised, in various ways subtle and not-so-subtle, for a long time afterward.

The point is that the founding documents, and the Founding Fathers, are relatively silent when it comes to spiritual matters, and when they do speak, it's typically with the tolerance born of secular humanism, if not outright skepticism, agnosticism, or atheism. In practice, of course, the United States turns out to be a much more religious country than the founders may have intended – but again, if you dig down you'll find that religious values are nearly always subordinated to material ones, frequently under the guise of patriotism or nationalism. In other words, let's achieve the material Utopia first, then we can worry about spiritual matters – except that the material Utopia never comes, so we never get around to what should be our highest priority. In our time, this means that we have to be “practical”, and use tools like progressive taxation, welfare, affirmative action, social policy, and industrial policy to achieve “fairness” (equality of outcomes), because if we don't take care of this first, then all of our spiritual activities are a sham and a sign of hypocrisy. (And once we achieve Utopia, we won't need religion anyway – so it's a “catch-22”.) And again, this is based on a certain reading of the Old Testament, and a distorted reading of the New Testament, by people all across the Protestant spectrum who are, in fact, our national leaders when it comes to “ideas”. From what other source, for example, do our notions of the American Empire derive? By what other set of standards do we look upon the rest of the world as our plantation, and crack the whip and dole out severe punishment whenever necessary? And what I say is that our pseudo-religious ideas are actually the most noble basis for this attitude, compared to the more common motives of greed, raw power, and downright sadism. The fact remains, however, that a Third-World citizen blown to pieces by an unmanned drone doesn't care a whole lot whether the person pushing the button was an idealist or not; he's just as dead either way.

This is, in fact, the point at which American “pragmatism” tends to jump the rails. Given that we're “in it for the long haul”, our ideas get in the way of success in both the short and long haul... and this is because they're delusional, muddled, and unsustainable, even as they are materialistic at base. I am always willing to admit that our ideas – our founding principles – sustained us as a civilization for a decent period of time, and lent themselves to an impressive level of prosperity and material well-being. But that's precisely the point. We did not become prosperous because of some mysterious causal relationship between our ideals and the material; it was always about the material, and very little else. It might almost be said that we were the first totally materialistic culture in history – and the most successful, compared to the many varieties of socialism that followed. What religion we had, and what little we still have, can be seen as an overlay – an aspect of our culture that thrived in spite of our materialistic base (or because of a lurking suspicion that our materialism was misguided).

Think of it this way. The “church-state” issue should be called a “spiritual-material” issue, and our typically American “ideas” are all on the side of the state, or the material... even if they are occasionally presented in pseudo-religious guise. And I include in the “material” category things like environmentalism, which though seemingly idealistic is basically materialism of a different sort. And needless to say, all varieties of socialism boil down to pure materialism in one form or another – as do most versions of “fairness” and “social justice”. (When's the last time you heard a social reformer or “agent of change” express concern about the spiritual welfare or spiritual needs of the underprivileged? I imagine Dorothy Day was about the last one who did so consistently.)

I might add that worshiping the Creation without worshiping the Creator is foolish and heretical. How many environmentalists are churchgoers? But is religion anti-environment? It is if you only take the Protestant “robber barons” as a model. But any good Catholic will agree that proper Christian stewardship should include respect for the created order, which includes the environment and issues like sustainability. It was actually the Protestants who invented the War on Nature -- as part of the Industrial Revolution, but it reflected a deeper (and heretical) world view.

II. Shattered dreams

With that introduction, let's examine, for a moment, how political ideas fail. Sometimes a perfectly good idea comes along, but it's met with such overwhelming resistance that it hardly stands a chance. Thus, the fate of the pillars of Catholic social teaching, distributism and subsidiarity. They came along (in “modern” form) at the same time socialism (as a generic idea) was waxing triumphant – namely in the early part of the 20^th Century. They were countercultural, in that they seemed to call for a return to the land and to “the simple life” at a time when the city was considered the highest expression of human achievement (this was way before the fall of the city in America, most notoriously exemplified by Detroit).

Another possibility is that an idea, whether good or bad, is simply proposed in the wrong place and at the wrong time. It is not so much countercultural as it defies all political, economic, and social trends at the time. Conservatism, for example, was hopelessly countercultural in this country from the New Deal through the 1970s... libertarianism is countercultural now... and communism is also countercultural now, except for a few wretched holdouts in foreign governments and in academia. 

There are also ideas that have merit, but their implementation is fatally flawed. Just about every Third World pesthole has something that passes for a constitution (unless they have sharia), and there's an even chance that their constitution is modeled after ours – but corruption, ignorance, and tribalism tend to trump the ideals of the dedicated few who dared to put pen to paper hoping the outcome would resemble the U.S.

But given that there are plenty of examples of the above cases, the most common reason that political ideas fail is simply that they are bad ideas. In one way or another, they defy what anyone with common sense knows about human nature, either individually or in groups. They may also fly in the face of Natural Law, which can be thought of as a subset of human nature... or they may attempt to defy, or overcome, economic realities or even physical laws. Or – they may be based on ill-conceived philosophical or moral premises – in other words, they have built-in fatal flaws, which may take many generations to manifest themselves; this is what I believe has happened in the present case of the U.S. We've been operating, since the founding, on what one might call “philosophical steroids”, but, just as with steroids, the time has now come when the price has to be paid.

Now, please notice that I'm not talking about whether a given set of ideas is humane, compassionate, or “fair” per se. Plenty of systems that – according to our, ahem, enlightened way of thinking about things – would be considered anything but humane, compassionate, or fair have shown considerable robustness and durability... probably because they were at least realistic in some significant respects (consider, for example, the Machiavellian concept of governing – or that represented by Hobbes' Leviathan – or even by fascism). An extreme on the humanistic side would be pacifism – but how is a pacifistic society to survive in a world where most other societies are warlike? And as to radical democracy, it seems to work quite well in small towns in New England, but as a model for a national government? There you quickly wind up with the absurdity of “people's republics” which are ruled by anything but the people – or with what we have, which I'll call “ceremonial democracy”, i.e. a thinly-disguised oligarchy.

The point is that what works works – at least for a time. Even anarchy – of the East African variety, say – works for a time, especially when it represents a regression to tribalism, or even gang rule. Our “inner cities” all have informal governments where the formal, official governments have failed; there is a perverse kind of order, even if it's not to everyone's taste. And do I have to even mention the informal but highly-effective social “systems” that characterize public schools and prisons?

So yes, it is a part of human nature to organize into groups, gangs, cliques, etc. for mutual support and protection – and it's part of human nature for these entities to enter into conflict with one another. There are gangs, combines, trusts, cabals at all levels – in this society as in all others. In many cases they may fill in, and be effective, where official or nominal governments fail. And even when they are idea-based (think of the “radical Islamists” fighting it out across the Arab world) there is a tendency for things to boil down to practical matters in the long run. One could almost say that ideas become more dangerous as their span of influence widens. A small communal village may be ruled by some ideas that others would find far-out and wacky – but if they work for that village, then they work, and whose business is it to try and interfere? On the other hand, when equally far-out and wacky ideas take over an entire country, or empire (as was the case in the Third Reich) they become a danger to themselves and others. And this, by the way, is one of the best arguments for subsidiarity – to confine governmental functions to the lowest possible/practical level, in order to serve not only the immediate needs of the people but also their long-term welfare, and to protect them from the ravages of foreign, alien, or oppressive “ideas”. (Notice how many bad ideas are actually imported from the point of origin to the place where people wind up being victims – communism from Germany to Russia, and then to China, and then to Korea and Vietnam, for example.)

III. It's our party and we'll die if we want to 

It would be simplistic to claim that all bad ideas wind up being fatal in the same way, and according to the same timetable. Some cultures, even though they publicly and officially embrace certain ideas, have a kind of resistance to those ideas penetrating beyond a certain point. When I was in China – admittedly on a guided whirlwind tour – I was impressed not so much by the things that had changed since, say, the days of the emperors, but by the things that had not changed, in terms of attitudes, habits, cultural traditions, aesthetics, etc. It seems that, under Maoism, Chinese culture went underground, in a sense, only to revive and reassert itself under more lenient and prosperous conditions. I guess Mao only thought that he was stamping out every vestige of an ancient empire, and we can all be thankful that he was wrong. I imagine the same is true in Russia, where much of the traditional Russian culture and the “Russian spirit” had to be suppressed for the duration of the Soviet empire.

Can something of the sort be said for this country? The problem is that we are a new country and a new culture, in the overall scheme of things – and the bulk of our history is dominated by the American Experiment and the American Empire (the latter growing out of the former in what seems to be an inevitable manner). To put it another way, there is, as far as I know, very little in the way of colonial, or pre-founding, traditions or customs available for revival, or worth the trouble to do so – so we are left to fall back on someone's version of “the real America” or the way things were “when this country was the undisputed hope and light of the world”, or some such thing – and take your pick as to when that might have been. I've discussed this before – do we go back to Jacksonian democracy, or the Gilded Age, or Progressivism, or Wilsonism, or the New Deal, or the postwar boom, or... what? To each his own, when it comes to nostalgia. The problem is that each age, each era, contained within itself the seeds of what was to come. The cultural revolution of the 1960s had its origin in the 1950s... Progressivism had its origin in the Industrial Revolution... capitalism gave birth to the New Deal... and so on. And in each case there was plenty of zeal to bring down, destroy, and grind into fine power that which had come before – and yet we see plenty of remnants and echoes of each preceding age in the present. The present day is not history yet, but it soon will be – and it will become another layer added to the deep landfill of ideas and experiences that we have been building for 230-odd years.

The next question is, do empires inevitably have to decline and fall? (And make no mistake, America is an empire, not just a single country.) Well... all the ones we know about did, so what makes us think we're the exception? And again, the causes vary greatly, but a common element is that empires eventually run out of ideas – i.e. effective ones. And that sets off a chain of events – no ideas, no motivation, no energy, no self-confidence, no morality, no resistance to being overrun or replaced. An empire that is not growing is dying; stagnation is just death in disguise. Now... if we accept this cyclic phenomenon as inevitable – as “natural” in a way – does it mean that empires are always a bad thing, and that the human race should get over this fixation with conquering the world? Just sit around a billion campfires with dogs curled up at our feet and roasting small rodents on a stick? But this too would be unnatural. Man is, by nature, Man the Builder... and there is no use trying to squelch this most basic, and (at least on occasion) productive instinct. What is needed is not radical simplicity or “back to nature”, but a re-direction – again, sustainability should be the key concept. And if we're consistent about sustainability, it will mean that the empires that do arise will be more benign and less wasteful than the ones we have known – and who knows, they might last longer as a result. But even if they don't, the process will hopefully be less traumatic than what we typically see in history.

It may even be foolish to talk about “good” vs. “bad” empires, because they all leave us with a legacy of some sort. They all “add value”, perhaps unwittingly. The most we can do is arrange them along a scale according to which ones we admire... which ones left the most in the way of artifacts and contributions to human knowledge... which ones are more interesting or aesthetically appealing... and so on. As with foreign countries, we don't have to sit in judgment 24-7. And, like it or not, empires are the cornerstones of history, with wars and battles as the building blocks. Again, human nature.

See, it's tempting, at times, to interpret the declining stage of an empire as evidence not just of the process described above, but of an almost conscious self-destruction, as if there is some “altruistic gene” embedded in empires that, for the good of the human race in general, causes them to destroy themselves before things go too far. And we can see this self-destructiveness – quite clearly, in many cases – when we consider various empires in decline, including our own. To put it more bluntly, is America committing suicide (economic, diplomatic, moral) for the good of the rest of the world? And are our leaders aiding and abetting this process, whether they realize it or not? I doubt if this could be called an agenda item, but it does seem like such an inevitable process that one is almost tempted to think of it as another instance of Natural Law. When things get to a certain point, “something makes us” start fouling our own nest, and being ever more blind and stupid about things – things like the national debt, the environment, social policy, foreign policy, education, health, and so on. Our politicians, of course, lead the way in the “blind and stupid” department... but the people willingly follow. The Greeks used to talk about “hubris”, and how it was inevitably punished by the gods; maybe they were onto something. You would think, for example, that with greater power would come greater wisdom in the use of that power... but the opposite seems to be the case. The “bully of the town” was never known for his wisdom or insight... and neither is “the superpower”, whatever it might be (Rome, the British Empire, us, etc.). Or maybe the notion that “power corrupts” is more than a statement about material corruption; maybe it also has to do with morals and even sanity. Heaven knows, the bulk of what comes out of Washington these days seems to be the work of madmen – not that they are obvious lunatics (except for a few) but that there is a disconnect between their everyday normalcy and what they produce in the way of laws, policies, regulations, governmental organizations, etc. It is almost like a disease or a curse – call it the curse of empire. And the worst thing is that it blinds them to the welfare of the citizenry – those they supposedly represent. But the citizens are, by and large, afflicted with their own forms of blindness, and so it goes. The few who sober up, and have the scales fall from their eyes, are appalled – but good luck getting anyone to listen. (In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is thrown into prison.) It is a seductive madness, because it assures us that everything is OK and that everything is under control (which is true, but not in the way people think). And because it is seductive, it is clung to and defended with a ferocity that used to be reserved for things of real value – like race, tribe, land, tradition, faith, and family. This is the point at which the world of ideas becomes the world of delusion – but since we still live in the real world as well, all sorts of conflicts arise; we become “mentally ill” as a society. (“Mental illness” for an individual, you may have noticed, is all about conflict and the attempt to escape from conflict; it is the same with societies.)

IV. “Save us, or we perish!” 

No one expects us to go gentle into that good night, any more than any other empire did. But certain pathologies arise, such as the desire to be rescued through some sort of deus ex machina. And thus the obsessive interest in aliens, space travelers, time travelers, and “the possibility of life on other planets” -- anything that might offer to save us from our folly. What are those radio broadcasts directed toward deep space but a cry for help – not just an offer of the hand of friendship. The religious will pray for material salvation when they should be praying for spiritual strength to endure whatever comes. And then we look to all sorts of false gods, both old and new – the government first and foremost, but also “equality”, Mother Earth, technology, and (ironically) an even bigger and better American Empire. We look for materialistic solutions to what are basically moral problems – not realizing that it should be the other way around.

And if none of this works out, we are perfectly willing to pack it in, as witness the plethora of global catastrophe movies and TV shows – which represent wishful thinking on some level. Yep, things didn't work out, so let's just bag it, or “pull it”, in the immortal words of Larry Silverstein. There is a longing for a cataclysm... a cleansing... or, for the apocalyptically-inclined, a chastisement. It is a realization that our sins have brought the Creation low, and that we have been very bad stewards. But in another sense it's a desire to escape – to, once again, avoid accountability and having to face up to our follies and await judgment. Suicide on death row, or cheating the hangman – one last gesture of defiance. But that's human nature too, and it's not too late to recognize it as such and start trying to do the right thing, even if it's only as isolated individuals. We can't stop the Empire, but we can preserve our integrity.

Excerpt of the Month

When I become Death, Death is the seed from which I grow...

Who really gave that order?

ANSWER: Control. The ugly American, the instrument of control.

QUESTION: If Control's control is absolute, why does Control need to control?

ANSWER: Control needs time.

QUESTION: Is Control controlled by its need to control?

ANSWER: Yes.

(Q) Why does Control need humans, as you call them?

(A) Weight, weight, time - a landing field. Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.

(Q) And what does Death need time for?

(A) The answer is so simple. Death needs time for what it kills to grow in...

... you stupid, vulgar, greedy, ugly American death sucker.

We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision. They're representatives of abstract forces who have reached power through surrender of self.

The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past. There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident – inept, frightened pilots at controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.

--- From “Ah Pook Is Here” by William S. Burroughs

A New Line in the Sand

The mainstream media have been unusually candid – realistic, even -- in their reporting of events in Egypt, and I suspect that the reason is that they have found themselves without a party line to follow. So without a set of “talking points” and foregone conclusions passed down from on high, they are forced – out of sheer desperation – to actually report the facts for once, without a lot of contrived embellishment. Admittedly, they don't seem to know when, or whether, or for whom, to cheer... or to “regret”... or to “advise caution”... but this forced neutrality is, in my opinion, refreshing -- especially since it's virtually unknown when it comes to domestic reporting.

Well, if this is true – you might ask – are their masters in the Regime counseling neutrality and a “just the facts, ma'am” approach? Is it possible that they don't have any opinions on the matter? No, of course they have very strong opinions on the matter, but to express them through their media flunkies would create, let's say, a bit of awkwardness at this time. Because what they would have to say is something like: “We're mad as hell that one of our puppet Arab tyrants has been run out of office by an unwashed rabble, and we wish he had shown more courage in resisting this exercise in naked populism.” What is even more unspoken, of course, is: “At any other time in history up until recently, we would have sent troops [trans. - U.S. troops] in to prop up his regime. But we're already fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and gearing up for an invasion of Iran and who knows where else, so an operation in Egypt would have stretched our [U.S.] forces a bit too thin – not to mention the political problem of siding with a tyrant against his own people. The 'Arab street' has grown troublesome of late, and we, frankly, don't know exactly how to deal with it.”

That would have been an honest statement. Machiavellian, to be sure, but honest. But, since honesty is, to put it mildly, not the strong suit of the Regime, they had to be content to sit back and “wait for things to develop” -- and to counsel their servants in the White House, Congress, and the media to do likewise. It was good, you'll admit, to see people who usually spend every waking moment mouthing words be struck dumb for once -- or forced to mouth words that had even less content than usual.

The significance of this is not to be overlooked. Not only are the mouthpieces for the Regime speechless, but it's now clear that the Regime's power ends – or, at least, drops off precipitously – somewhere between the richly-upholstered parlors of the Arab ruling class and the streets full of ordinary citizens. In other words, if the rulers are puppets of, and collaborators with, the Regime, their subjects most definitely are not. And I'm not talking about the “militants” and “Islamists” here – to say nothing of the “terrorists”; I'm talking about ordinary people. It seems that they have never subscribed to the theory that what was good for the U.S., and for Israel, was also (or should be) good for them. Who knows, they might even have been interested in self-determination independent of the chronic power games we play in the Middle East. But this is the kind of ordinariness that totally escapes the notice of the Regime, because there is no place in for it in their philosophy. And this may, in fact, be why it seems to have worked – i.e. why the Egyptian people actually managed to pull off a relatively non-violent revolution. It's because it shouldn't be possible, and it can't happen, so they were able to sneak in under the radar. The oppressed peoples of the Third World are supposed to stay oppressed – and if they don't like it, they're expected to at least be quiet about it, and not riot or demonstrate... to say nothing of deposing a ruler. You see, the Regime has its theories too – and like all theoreticians everywhere, if events don't fit the theory, then the events must be wrong, because the theory can't be. And yet, there it is, staring them in the face. And all their lackeys in the administration can do is stand there with feces-consuming grins on their faces.

The next struggle in Egypt, as has already been pointed out by many commentators, will be centered around the issue of whether the people prevail or wind up compromised, co-opted, and duped, and get nothing more than “a new boss, just like the old boss” for their trouble. The same question can, of course, be asked about Tunisia, and it may have to be asked, before long, about other countries in the Arab world – you know, those other ones ruled by our “friends”. The power of ideas has once again asserted itself, and there's not a soul from Marrakesh to East Timor that hasn't taken notice, and hasn't started to think, “Maybe it could happen here as well.”

But will the Regime be caught (relatively) flat-footed the next time? Again I say, it's not a question of resources; in the old days we'd have landed a brigade of Marines on the quay at Alexandria and the whole thing would have been over with in 24 hours, and our man Mubarak would, once again, be set for life, after only a minor irritating incident. We've done this countless times over the years; it was a major theme in Vietnam, for example. Our presidents have, to a man, decided that they never met a third-world dictator they didn't like (except maybe for Saddam), and have without hesitation “invested” American lives and wealth for many decades in order to keep them in power. “American boys” have been propping up dictators as far back as anyone can remember – but it was always OK, because “American interests” were at stake. But even those interests have morphed over the years – from natural resources and trade to containing communism to defending Israel to dealing with “terrorism”. There is always another reason why we can't just stay home and mind our own business. And now we find ourselves not only slaves to our own rapidly-decaying delusional idealism, but servants of a global cartel that values the interests of the American citizen not in the least. And they do not hesitate to send us into quagmires and unwinnable wars, because even though we're their chief source of cannon fodder, they also want to put a ring in our nose politically and economically – which they have, in fact, done. So whether the ultimate cause is Israel or oil – or some combination thereof – they'll keep us healthy enough to do their fighting for them while expecting us to subsist on thin gruel, the main ingredient of which is delusions about empire.

The American Empire – which was never really much of a success as empires go – has now morphed into a globalist, if not global, empire overseen by a nameless, faceless cartel. The main role that is left for us is to pay for it and fight for it – but certainly not to profit by it, at least not anyone except the ruling elite. And in this, I say that it has roughly followed the trajectory of other empires down through history, even though they were, by and large, much less amorphous and less hidden. Our pursuit of empire is supposed to be done, by and large, in secret – hence the neologism “military-industrial-security complex”. The “security” part means that we pursue empire without anyone noticing. But the funny thing is that the rest of the world – even the most unwashed of the unwashed peasants and urban poor – can recognize our hand in things. They considered Mubarak our puppet, and rightly so – not that he necessarily hung on our every word, but he would never do anything in direct opposition to our interests, and most of the time he was serving our interests quite well, thank you. He was, for one thing, one of the more de-fanged, de-clawed Arab leaders when it came to Israel – and thus, I'm sure, a further source of indignation for the true believers in Islam. And yes, the notion of restoring the caliphate in the Middle East is a bit delusional – but since when does an idea have to be non-delusional in order to gain strength? It's almost the opposite. The peoples of the Arab world are reacting against us and our puppets... but they are also acting “for” the reclaiming and purification of their faith and their culture. And yes, I know, they have no “right” to do that, but they're doing it anyway.

In any case, the Arab world has miles to go before it... well, “sleeps” is not the word. Maybe “fully awakens” would be more apt. And whatever happens cannot possibly be more compatible with our, or Israel's, interests than keeping dictators in place over a drugged and anesthetized populace has been. I'm content, for now, to take courage from the obvious fact that there are limits to the Regime's power... that it can't simply do anything it wants to anyone at any time. And there are two (at least) corollaries to this. The first is that technology – high-tech weaponry, drones, atomic submarines, cruise missiles, etc. -- the entire extravagant armamentarium of the New World Order – is not enough to overcome popular movements and the will of the people, if enough of said people get together at the same time and in the same place, inspired by the same idea. We already experienced the limits of air power in Vietnam, for example – the fact that when you're fighting an asymmetrical war, high-tech against low-tech (or no-tech), bombs are not enough. (Or, when it comes to Afghanistan, how can you bomb people back to the Stone Age when they're already _in_ the Stone Age?) You've got to have “boots on the ground”, and when you get to that point you're no better off than the people you're fighting. You're worse off, in fact, because they're on their home turf. They have, if you will, “home field advantage”.

See, if you're fighting a symmetrical war – when the enemy is as technologically sophisticated as you are, and has the same attitudes about strategy and tactics – then air power makes sense, because you can go after immovable infrastructure like factories, shipyards, etc. This is the way it worked in World War II, for example. But this notion of, if we can lick a heavily-armed place like Germany, or Japan, why can't we lick a rag-tag bunch of peasants like the Vietcong? -- this is based on the wrong set of premises. We depend on certain things for our success, first and foremost being weaponry – overwhelming superiority of firepower, combined with logistical capability. The combination of the two is called “force projection”, and it is the very foundation of our foreign policy. Take it from me, there is no other; without that threat behind everything we say, no one would sit down across from us at any conference table. And sure enough, “force projection” enabled us to throw Saddam out of Kuwait, and later on out of power and into the arms of the hangman, because he was playing by the same rules we were, in the military sense. But those rules did not serve us well in Vietnam, and they are not serving us well in Iraq and Afghanistan... and they won't serve us well anywhere else in the Middle East, if we find ourselves fighting an asymmetrical war against the people, or insurgents, or some combination thereof.

Secondly, when it comes to dealing with a “native uprising”, besides their obvious advantages in cover and concealment, and fighting on their home soil (or the home soil of a passably familiar place), they also have a demographic advantage. In other words, there are just too damn many of them. We like to think that if we only send a few highly-skilled “specialists” into a war zone, our sheer technological superiority will carry the day. “Gentleman's war” and all that. Well, fine, then how about explaining IEDs? And how about explaining why bin Laden is harder to catch than Hitler, Mussolini, or Tojo? Again, different rules – and this doesn't even include the “psy ops” factor – you know, what happens when we keep accidentally-on-purpose bombing wedding parties, family gatherings, meetings of village and tribal elders, bar mitzvahs (oops, wait...). Despite what we think of “terrorist” tactics, the propaganda war seems to favor the other side more often than not... or if “favor” is not the word, then it at least seems to disfavor us. The “terrorists” are at least the devil that they know, and they do share the same creed... but what are we? Invaders and infidels. I mean, we've seen this elsewhere in the world; if someone is going to be blown up, then they'd rather it was by a countryman than by an invader or occupier. Strange, but true – and our great minds in Washington never seem to get it. I mean... at least the “terrorist” is willing to put his own life on the line. Those drones of ours are operated by some guy in an air-conditioned bunker in Nevada. Which one would the average person in the Arab world think of as having courage, and which as being cowardly?

So we encounter, once again, limits to our power... which means that those whom we serve encounter limits to their power as well. But the wars will rage on, since they have nothing to lose, even if we do. It's a delicate balance, and a very subtle game that they're playing... and I admit that large portions of their agenda remain murky. What is their long-term plan for the United States, for instance? Suffice it to say that it's in their interest that the wars continue, and that we continue to make meaningless and absurd sacrifices – made possible not by an intimidated and overtly-enslaved citizenry, but by our ideational fixations, politics, cultural habits, and delusions. We are being used – the American citizenry is being used, and its leaders are being used. But very few see it, because it's too big – like “the big lie”, if you can make something big enough, it becomes invisible. It becomes part of the baseline – part of that which people consider “reality”. The U.S. “has to” do this, that, and the other, because if we don't, who will? Never is the question asked, do these things have to be done at all, by anybody? Because that would probe too deeply into the reality – it would rock the foundations of the world we think we live in if we started to think that way. So it's left to a few lonely souls... and they are wasting no time commenting on events in Egypt. They see it as a new line drawn in the sand, with the Arab people on one side and the American Empire on the other. True, but they don't go far enough. It's not the American Empire on “our” side of the line, but the Regime itself, of which the (increasingly feeble) American Empire is just a subset. But they are correct in seeing it as a major fault line – perhaps the major fault line of our time.

A Tea Party in Kabul

The “tea party” is not dead yet, despite efforts by the left, liberals, progressives, Democrats, mainstream media, etc. to blame it for the Tucson shootings... and the strange new respect for “civility” -- which means, if you don't agree with us then shut the hell up – among formerly firebrand liberals like Barack Obama. As always – and this is part of human nature on the political side – the people in charge always favor law and order, “civility”, unquestioning obedience, etc.... no matter what their professed principles happen to be. Yesterday's street-marching, sitting-in protester is today's power-suited stuffed shirt... 'twas ever thus. Try to keep your political and moral “purity” in Washington, DC – it's only the very rare, very exceptional human being that is capable of such a feat. The rest fall to the usual blandishments of money, power, sensual pleasures, shows of superiority, and all the rest of it. It's not about political conviction, party, belief, or creed – it's the system itself that corrupts, and the corruption will not end until the system itself is deconstructed and replaced with something closer to the founders' intent.

With that as an opening statement, let us take a brief look at Sen. Marco Rubio, one of the “rising stars” of the Republican/conservative contingent in Congress. He has declined to join the Senate Tea Party caucus, and is “not even sure there's a need for one” -- based on the premise that the tea party's strength “comes from its grass roots... it is not a political organization [tell that to the MSM!]... it is a movement of everyday citizens from all walks of life.” So far so good. And: “My concern is a Tea Party caucus could intrude on that.” Well, yes. Because any organization that consists of part citizens and part politicians is going to wind up being run by the politicians for political purposes – which means, primarily, the acquisition and retention of power at the expense of principle.

I commented a while back that the Republicans reaching out to the “tea partiers” by setting up this caucus was like a degenerate, disease-infested old man proposing marriage to a young, virginal girl. Clearly, the Republican mainstream is only interested in the tea party to the extent that it can enhance their fortunes – which means votes and contributions. But by co-opting it they also accomplish a much-needed defusing of its agenda. You get welcomed into the inner sanctum, but they you have to play by inner sanctum rules, or risk being tossed out into the stormy night. So Rubio seems to be on the right track with his skepticism. He's trying to help the tea partiers retain their purity even in the midst of the massive moral dumpster of Washington politics.

So... the fate of the tea party in this regard has yet to be determined. The fact that people are still talking about it as a distinct entity is encouraging... but how much influence, if any, it will actually have on the legislative agenda is another matter.

But we're not finished with Rubio yet. According to a previous article, “Rubio was among freshman senators invited to accompany Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., last week on a high-profile trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they dined with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and met with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.” This was considered a bit suspect by conservatives because of McConnell's position at the very heart of the Republican establishment. But the real scandal is that Rubio saw fit to sit down to dinner with a corrupt puppet -- who represents our dismally-failed foreign policy -- and a somewhat lunatic, hyperactive general, who represents the American Empire-building war machine. You don't sit down and break bread with these clowns unless you're already pretty darned committed to supporting them and their cause (or whatever it is). And as I've pointed out on a number of occasions, support for the twin wars and a “muscular foreign policy” is the Achilles heel of the tea partiers. You can expect it from the Republicans, and certainly from the neocons, since they basically invented both things... and you can expect it from mainstream conservatives. One might have hoped that the tea partiers were a bit more enlightened on the matter, and had a better historical perspective – but it was obvious, all along, that this was not the case... especially when they all gathered around Sarah Palin like chicks around a mother hen, she being as extreme a war hawk as we've seen on the national scene for quite a few years. (Yeah, OK, I know it's a mixed metaphor. Mother hen... hawk... whatever.)

And what is wrong with the tea partiers being pro-war and pro-American Empire? Well, other than being in direct defiance of the Constitution (which the tea partiers claim to respect), it directly contradicts, cancels out, and neutralizes their positions on big government and the budget deficit. You can't pursue empire without big government, and you can't have big government in foreign affairs and, at the same time, small government in domestic affairs. It just doesn't work that way. And, you can't pursue empire the way we do without running up intractable debt. So if the tea partiers are opposed to big government, and to deficits, they have to oppose the wars, and campaign for an end to the American Empire (I mean a voluntary withdrawal, since the end will come sooner or later regardless). Otherwise they're just delusional – and right now Sen. Rubio seems to have fallen prey to that delusion. By sitting down with the likes of Karazai and Petraeus, he is not betraying the tea party, but may well be betraying the political and economic interests of the American people.