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15 May, 2004 For once, let's hope the Bush Administration is able to keep on with its adventure in Iraq a while longer. Not until those halcyon days when Iraq will have become a suburb of America's corporate metropolis, for no such days are coming, but only until the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has melted back into the greater scandal of the war itself. After doing so much present and future harm, America's neoconservatives must be made the great losers in this war. They must be discredited so thoroughly that they will never rise to lead any generation of Americans again. Abu Ghraib could become their lifeline. Ever since the United States and its Coalition partners found themselves nominally in control of Iraq, most American politicians and commentators have agreed on one thing: that the worst mistake of all, given the accomplished fact of an occupied Iraq, would be to withdraw before the country was safe from sliding into anarchy and emerging as a new terrorist state. They're probably wrong. Keeping Western occupiers "at the heart of the Muslim world," to quote from Henry Kissinger's early warning, would be an even worse mistake. Anyone who understands the everyday wisdom of not throwing good money after bad should also understand what an error it is to try to ride out the blunder of invading an Arab Muslim country by blundering on and on. If there were no more to it than that, then a prompt withdrawal would be decidedly welcome. After all, Iraq threatens to become a terrorist state in fact even while foreign occupation keeps it from becoming one in name. But there is more to it. Although a prompt withdrawal may be best in any case, it becomes less welcome now than it would have been two weeks ago. What if the abuse scandal never subsides, but goes on inflaming anti-American feeling in the Muslim world, repelling the non-Muslim world, and shaming the American public until it supersedes all other debate about the Iraq War? The war's neocon architects can then say that a promising effort was cut short by happenstance. In the past few days, some moderate commentators have recanted their support of the war by declaring that what began as a good deed has been undone by mismanagement or a lack of vision. The war-makers themselves will take the argument further. They'll say that their project was always a good deed, essentially well managed and guided by a wise vision, and they'll attribute its undoing to one or more of four things:
They'll probably stress the third and fourth lines, but as neocons they're known to be capable of laying the heaviest burden on the lowest-ranking people in any system, military or economic. If America's neoconservatives find themselves facing a disastrous end to their military adventure, they'll try to manage the interpretation of the disaster so as to escape political destruction, reassert their mythology, and embark again as soon as possible. In other words, they'll behave with all the pragmatic cynicism of communists. To keep them from succeeding, the rest of America had better look over the walls of Abu Ghraib and get ready to fight for the integrity of the history that's about to be made. • Commentators writing about Bob Woodward's latest book on the Bush White House, Plan of Attack, have noted President Bush's fascination with body language. He actually talks to Woodward about reading the body language of those around him. It's safe to assume, then, that he thinks he can make the rest of us read messages that he deliberately transmits by his own movements and manners. It's not only safe to assume, but plain to see. What could be more transparent, more insulting, than the physical "sell" George W. Bush gives us when he steps outdoors to speak to reporters — and cameras? There it was again, after he and Vice President Cheney spoke with the 9/11 Commission the other day. There was the stride that's a shade too brisk and bold, like that of a whistler in the dark. And then the trick of starting to talk just a millisecond before the body comes to rest at the microphones, as if to suggest a paratrooper hitting the ground with gun blazing. This is body language that screams "I'm in control" so loudly it makes you feel like listening from across the street. There was the rapid spiel to signify mental mastery, interrupted by the shrugging, stammering ad-lib to signify informality. Indeed there was a lot of shrugging and stammering, and a lot of palms-out arm-lifting in a visual "What can I say? I mean, what can I say?" There was also a good deal of silence while the President of the United States shook his head and searched his mind for a way to get from one platitude to the next. Afterward, the CBS newscaster took it on himself to instruct the viewers of this scene that they had observed a President who "appeared relaxed and confident." Maybe CBS had received an advance text of Mr. Bush's body speech, but without the text it looked like an imitation of an imitation of having nothing to be ashamed of. It was all such a struggle for him, and on such a puerile level: "There was a lot of interest in about — uh — about how to better protect America —? (pause)." His body didn't give him much help there, though it tried mightily. The Presidential preoccupation with body language even came out verbally during those few minutes in the Rose Garden. Why, asked a reporter, had the President and Vice President met the commissioners jointly? Surely not to keep their stories straight? Mr. Bush couldn't get through his rambling, would-be glib reply without saying, "I think it was important for them to see our body language as well, how we work together ... ." All the while, he was giving his present audience a sideshow of corporal chatter: the boxer-like shifting of weight in graphic readiness for any challenge, the face that reacts to his own words as to unexpected good news (" ... answered all their questions!"), the sanctimonious spreading of the hand on the breast while the brow forms ridges of care; and still those blankly staring eyes that give the game away. Always watch the eyes. There are people who are drawn to the aggressive dishonesty of the seediest salesman likes moths to a flame. The same people will read President George W. Bush the way he wants to be read, in spite of his multi-layered falseness, while others will resent the insult to their intelligence almost as much as the damage this man is doing to their lives. And so we have the thrill of close-fought elections. There's no accounting for taste, and there's no telling how many of America's voters will choose to keep the White House occupied by a ham actor who seems unsure whether he's really playing a sleazy politician or miming a parody of one. • 9 April, 2004 You've got to say this much for George W. Bush: he doesn't think like a tin-pot dictator. If he did, he might have known what to make of the game that Saddam Hussein played with the United Nations weapons inspectors. He might not have assumed that if Saddam refused to show the world he possessed no weapons of mass destruction, it could only mean that he had some and was hiding them. If Mr. Bush thought like a tin-pot dictator, he would have understood how much a bad reputation means to a man like Saddam Hussein. A Saddam who is thought to have terrible weapons, and missiles with which to deliver them, is a notable actor on the world stage and a very big man to his own people. A Saddam who is known to have scrapped his WMD arsenal under pressure from foreigners is much less big. Like a Mafia boss, a Baath boss can ill afford to show signs of losing his nerve, and so Saddam Hussein seems to have played a game that followed this logic: If he kept his WMD and they were found, he'd face invasion and overthrow by an international force. If he got rid of them and the inspectors were able to assure the world of that fact, he'd lose much of the fearful respect that he enjoyed as a heavily armed madman. Instead, then, he would get rid of the weapons but feed the suspicion that he still had them. He'd occasionally let inspectors into the country but tease them with obstructions as if he were cleverly keeping his weapons just out sight. Since no weapons would ever be found, he would seem very clever indeed. The world would see him not only as a probable possessor of great destructive power, but also as a genius of deception. And since no weapons would ever be found, and their existence would never be more than a suspicion, his external enemies would always stop short of striking — he thought. Long-time observers of Saddam Hussein such as Kenneth M. Pollack remarked before the invasion that he had a history of miscalculating badly and yet surviving. It seems that he miscalculated once more, but not in the way that many people thought; not by trying to hold on to weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, his enemies did strike. He was overthrown. This time his survival is apparently at an end, and yet the destructive power of the madman remains. It even grows. Saddam Hussein's final miscalculation has started a chain of events that may bring the same amount of destruction, and even the same kind, as the weapons he pretended to have. Too bad President Bush was unable to think like a tin-pot dictator. • 1 April, 2004 Many people who call themselves progressives are in need of a different spatial metaphor. The direction in which they — we — really want to go isn't forward along some ideological railroad track, but outward, cross-country to an alternative path with a different destination and a very different way of traveling. As a rough outline of those differences, here are some suggestions to progressives and particularly to those active in Democratic Party politics in the United States. This is the second installment of a working list. The first can be found here. On wealth: a return to basics.
Wealth is a resource. It's not a natural resource, but an artificial one that's indispensable to the artificial arrangement called human society. It's just barely a secondary resource, since it overlaps the vital primary resources of air, water, and food; two of which we normally have to pay for. Governments can print more money and economies can generate more wealth, and yet wealth at any moment is a finite resource. That's why we call it wealth and not dross. Let's have it understood that there can be no freedom to corner as much wealth as possible. Wealth passing from hand to hand is one of those few essential things that make the world go round, and nobody's economic freedom can be more important than making the world go round. The American Declaration of Independence asserts the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, there has never been a moment since those words were written when the pursuit of happiness has had the status of an unbounded right. It's not even a formally guaranteed right as far as the Federal Government is concerned (it doesn't appear in the US Constitution, although it does in some state constitutions). One can't, after all, pursue happiness at the cost of other people's lives or liberty — or their pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence speaks for everybody and assumes that everybody has a measure of common sense about the scope of individual behavior. It's time to reaffirm the common-sense subtext of the Declaration of Independence, and to hold each other responsible for respecting it. With regard to the pursuit of wealth, that most tantalizing of happiness-fruits, this means insisting on the recognition of wealth as a common resource and therefore insisting on progressive taxation with a minimum of loopholes. It means levying very high taxes on very large accumulations of the common resource. When rich people call this an attempt to take away what is theirs and distribute it to others, let us explain the matter to them in this way: Rich people make profitable use of poor people during their working lives. This is obviously true of corporate entities (which are, in essence, morally insulated extensions of rich people). It's especially true in times like these, when employers squeeze employees for a maximum of work in return for a minimum of pay and benefits. It's also true in the everyday lives of rich people. Every time they use products and services provided by low-wage labor, they save money and gain convenience: they profit. It's not revolutionary to suggest that they should reciprocate by helping finance the health care and old-age support of the people who must live on those low wages. It simply means there's no free lunch for anybody, including the rich. One can amass great wealth at other people's expense and then use some of that wealth to help provide for their needs; or one can amass less wealth in the first place and let other people take care of themselves. Neither alternative is a bad one for the rich. The first is similar to banking: having the profitable use of other people's wealth — in this case, the wealth to which common sense and common decency entitle them — and eventually paying back the principle with a little interest. The second alternative avoids the trauma of seeing money leave one's own purse. Rich people, the corporate-rich, have let their reaction to that trauma become more intense and less prudent as they've been increasingly insulated from the effects of their economic behavior by the medium of the giant corporation. People have struggled with greed, knowing it to be potentially self-destructive, nearly as long as there has been lucre in the world. Corporatism puts an end to that struggle. By detaching greed from the bases of enlightened self-interest, it sends people into a spiral of profit-madness. One day, the rich think it's a bit much that ordinary working people should require nice little homes and cars with boat-trailers. The next day, they think it's troublesome that working people should require homes at all. And the next day, they wake up to a delirious world view in which labor is a commodity to be procured as cheaply as possible, expended as efficiently as possible, and discarded with as little responsibility as possible. The logic of competitive cost-reduction steadily supplants both ethics and human feeling. Although they probably don't realize it themselves, America's corporate-rich have just about reduced themselves ethically and empathetically so far that they would use slave labor if the law allowed it, and would show the slaves less mercy than some planters did 150 years ago. Their obsessive logic does point to that end. Only the law and (for now) a certain conventionality of thought keep them from seriously considering ways to bring about the reality of slavery without the name. Eventually, at this rate, it will be only the law. The law therefore needs to be kept strong, made stronger still, and vigilantly guarded against any attempt to buy it off. Nobody should wish to live under the tutelage of the state, but still less should anybody be content to see the state give way to the jungle, or the rule of law to the rule of riches. One way to stay free is to keep wealth circulating widely. Discourage the accumulation of great hoards by heavily taxing those hoards and spending the revenues on public services and safety nets. Assure every human being of essential health care and minimal but reliable protection from destitution. Assure every working person of a living wage. In the US labor market, the law of supply and demand has long been a joke. Wages will go down when times are bad and will stay down when times are good, unless the government or strong labor unions say otherwise. People who want to live decently on a single job will be frustrated by people who resign themselves to holding two or more jobs, doing nothing but work, and still only treading water. That is the next thing to slavery. It seems that ordinary labor is never in such short supply that employers will bid more for it. For technical wizards, yes. For star managers, certainly. For interchangeable workers, no. Businesses need those workers in the aggregate but not individually, and so the workers need strong unions. It's only right that the government should back them up as well, but the legislation of drastic reforms won't be necessary if the rich will make it their business to employ people and to pay a living wage rather than maximize profits. The economic leg of the way outward, then, is marked by signposts such as these:
To make it clear to all why a country should follow those signposts, we need the conviction that society, not commerce, is the ultimate basis of national life; that each of us benefits from other people's contentment and confidence; and that wealth is a common resource to be cultivated rather than hoarded. Note: The first installment, on gun control, the family, and homosexuality, can be found here. • 14 March, 2004 President George W. Bush likes the sound of the wordcompassion. But he doesn't feel that it's wrong to exploit the many personal losses of September 11, 2001, for his own political gain. President Bush likes the sound of the words compassionate conservatism. But he doesn't feel that it's wrong to let poor people carry both the burden of fighting and dying in Iraq and the burden of paying for the war while people in his own set enjoy a large tax cut. He just doesn't feel it. A lifetime of wealth and security has taught him that self-reliance and toughness are great things. He has all of the non-compassionate conservative's obsession with the abstract idea of creeping socialism — how public programs like Social Security or Medicare might somehow, in theory, at the end of time, lead to the loss of freedom. He has none of the compassionate thinker's feeling for people here in the physical world who see their lives stretching out far beyond their ability to support themselves, beyond any savings they could possibly have put by during ordinary working lives, into chronic illness and helpless infirmity. President Bush's compassionate-conservative attitudes recall a piece of financial advice dispensed by the humorist Will Rogers: "Don't gamble. Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. (Pause.) If it don't go up — don't buy it." The compassionate conservative might say, "If you're going to live a long time and need lots of medical care, don't be poor. Don't make any financial mistakes or suffer any setbacks along the way. Be able to afford plenty of private health insurance." For some conservatives, it's a knowingly cynical attitude. Apparently not for Mr. Bush, but to say that he's not really a hard man is only to say that he's not a man who thinks beneath the verbal surface of things. Having said a word, he believes he's created a fact. He acts very much like a hard man but carries the stated idea of compassion as a talisman to ward off attacks of conscience. He probably believes that he is compassionate, the way small children believe that they're being careful if they keep repeating the words "Be careful" while playing with pins. In presiding over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Bush has shown that his lapel-button compassion leaves him plenty of room for callousness about loss of human life. Through it all, there has been something missing from his conduct as a wartime President that America's public commentators have generally failed to note except in an indirect way. Those who observe him at first hand often come back and report that this is a President who knows where he wants to go, who believes that he's doing God's will, and who is therefore free from mental anguish. What they don't say is that to be free from mental anguish about sending people to kill and die is to be devoid of moral sense. Abraham Lincoln had good reason to believe that he was right in waging war. He was President at a time when it was unremarkable to sing of one's own armies as God's "terrible swift sword." But he was heavily weighed down and rapidly aged by his unhappy duties as a wartime President. People have a right to expect such anguish of their national leader, both as an example of moral consciousness and as a safeguard against rushing carelessly into one war after another. Bob Woodward wrote his bestseller Bush at War with close access to President Bush's inner circle during the approach to war in Afghanistan. While the book doesn't go far in criticizing the mentality of that circle, it allows the President to reveal himself as a man who is long on anger and short on gravity; long on superficial decisiveness and short on contemplation of the things he decides; and very short indeed on feeling for sufferers past or future. Here's a sample:
One can't help thinking that even many lesser Presidents than Lincoln would have taken a moment to acknowledge the weight of the decision being made. Time and again in Woodward's account, President Bush glides through weighty decisions — even in matters of certain death for other people — chirping "That's war" or "You bet" or similar offhand remarks. In explaining his Presidential style to Woodward, he cites the influence of his temperament: "Sometimes that's the way I am — fiery. ... I can be an impatient person." Since he can't mean to depict himself as dangerously impetuous, it seems that he's trying to make a virtue of sheer, unthinking drive. Of course he is. It should be clear by now that the trumpeting of Mr. Bush's "decisiveness" and "peace of mind" is a spin operation designed to control an awful spectacle: the leader of the Free World skating as fast as he can over the thin ice of his own competence. President Bush doesn't know how to do anything but make snap decisions and speak bold words. And so he abuses better and wiser people than himself by sending them to their deaths with a brusque "That's war." As for the exploitation of September 11 in his personal advertising campaign, that's politics. You bet. • 2 March, 2004 Predictably (and as predicted here), dropping women into the warrior pool has meant condemning them to face an uncontrolled risk of being raped. News of widespread rape among America's Persian Gulf forces and elsewhere in the military is causing a sensation in Washington this week. Now here's another prediction: Few if any of the commentators who react to this outrage will confront both (1) the risk of rape that women face in the armed forces and (2) the political push to include women in any future military draft. The people behind the push are mostly men, such as Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY). However, many women who are active in liberal politics and punditry in the US seem to have been silenced by a feeling that this has to do with asserting equality between the sexes, although it's unequal on the face of it. It calls to mind Anatole France's ironic remark, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Nobody will stoop to the sophistry of saying, "The draft subjects men as well as women to the danger of molestation," but many people will keep quiet and let the sophistry say itself. That silence isn't possible without an underlying layer of very old-fashioned class prejudice. The privileged Americans who theorize about these things seem to feel, in spite of their lively consciences, that the women one finds in the military are less sensitive to rape than the women one knows; and this vaporous prejudice hasn't yet hit the cold glass separating voluntary service from compulsory, universal service. The politicians who've taken up the current scandal are already talking nearly as much about counseling victims and punishing offenders as about preventing rape in the first place. It's not wrong to talk about those things, but talking about them from the outset implies a readiness to contain and institutionalize the problem without ever facing its full significance. There are no bureaucratic "measures" that will make the potential rapist other than he is. A serious attitude toward rape prevention starts with the understanding that a woman's freedom of association can't be abridged like a man's. In civilian life, women can practice a degree of self-protection by prudently choosing among people, places, and times. In the military, choice is a civilian heresy. The self is a joke. You go where you're sent, and if you think you'll limit yourself to obeying lawful orders, you don't know the remoteness and tardiness of the law. When a sexual threat is clear enough to justify saying No, the scene has already been set for inescapable violence. The law may come along later to tidy up, but that's about it. In civilian life, women also have the support of people who genuinely care what happens to them. In the military those people are far away, rigidly barred from interfering by a kind of authority which most Americans can't comprehend till they come up against it. Even getting answers to questions can be surprisingly hard. Getting a life put back the way it was is impossible. Since the start of the Iraq War, many supposedly liberal commentators in the US have written enthusiastically about removing the last vestige of discrimination between men and women in military obligation and type of duty. That's currently the progressive line on the subject. Unless the universal draft is a fraud, it will mean stripping all young women of personal and social defenses against rape. Seeing that happen may give perverse satisfaction to somebody somewhere. It probably will. But the only people who can see it as a step toward a more just society are those whom sex or age or childlessness has freed from giving it much thought. • |
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