Monday, January 13, 2014

Economics, Politics, and More Truth

Ariel Sharon has passed away on January 11, 2014. His life was controversial. His death was a long process. He was a reactionary. I don't gloat over his death, but neither will I omit his errors. His family and friends should receive comfort and compassion in their lives. Yet, Ariel Sharon's errors ought not to be omitted either. He was the 11th Prime Minister of Israel. He suffered a stroke and became incapacitated by it. He was in a coma until his body started to serious fail and then he died. He was a commander in the Israeli Army way back in 1948 when it was first established. For long decades, many of his supporters were vicious racists who harbor bigotry against those who are of Arabic descent. Ariel Sharon was known in Israel before his election for the advice he gave to the occupying forces for dealing with Palestinian demonstrators, "Cut off their testicles!" (Yediot Ahronot, 29/12/82) He also said that "the only good Arab is a dead Arab." (Maariv, 18/02/83). So, we know about his extremism and bigotry. He was a reactionary through and through. Many of his actions violated the precepts of the Geneva Convention and other international laws. In 1953, he led Unit 101 that murdered 69 civilians in their houses (in the Palestinian homes in Gaza under the flimsiest pretext of security). He led the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. This caused the killing of more than 15,000 Lebanese civilians. In 1982: he provided the floodlights and military protection for his Phalange militia allies to massacre up to 3 000 unarmed refugees in Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps after the Americans had negotiated the departure of the Palestinian fighters and a 'truce'. An Israeli Commission of Enquiry found him "personally responsible" and ruled that he was too dirty even for the politics of the state. Sharon has always organized extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian leaders, the bombings of Palestinian residential areas, and a host of other activities illegal under international law. He has always refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency any access to Israel’s nuclear facilities, revealed to the world by the heroic Rector of Glasgow University, Mordechai Vanunu. By 2005, he resigned as head of the Likud party. He formed the new party called Kadima in November 21, 2005. He was loved by ex-President George W. Bush. Birds of a feather flock together. George W. Bush advanced imperialism globally and other reactionary policies domestically too. Bush loved Ariel Sharon's agenda and the establishment's way of life. Ironically, anti-civil liberty laws exist in America and Israel. There were Israel attacks on Lebanon and later Hezbollah was ironically strengthened. Many reactionaries in Israel want to restrict the housing and other human rights of Israel's Arabic citizens. Ariel Sharon's life was complicated and controversial all in the same time. The lesson is that Jewish and Arabic human beings deserve peace. It is as simple as that.


The Western Pivot to Asia agenda has many risks. Writing in Foreign Policy a year ago, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned: “These are no ordinary times in East Asia. With tensions rising from conflicting territorial claims in the East China and South China seas, the region increasingly resembles a 21st century maritime redux of the Balkans a century ago—a tinderbox on water.” We see the 100 year anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. We see dangers of another conflict arising in Asia. We see tensions between China and Japan. China and Japan have deteriorated their already fragile relationship with each other. The current administration wants pivot to Asia, which is about controlling and undermining China diplomatically, economically, and militarily (as a means for the West to take hegemonic status in Asia). This action has inflamed Asian territories. Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have broken down. There is the reactionary Japanese government of Shinzo Abe. He is being encouraged by Washington. Shinzo Abe has turned into remilitarization. He has increased military spending for the first time in a decade. Last month, Abe visited the Yashukuni Shrine. China's ambassador to the U.S. said to the Washington Post that Japan's Prime Minister “risks ties with China” by paying homage to war criminals. There have been increased tensions over the disputed islands in the East China Sea. China said that an air defense identification zone is in the area. The U.S. immediately challenged Chinese authority by flying nuclear capable B-52 bombers into the zone unannounced. This raised the danger of an error or miscalculation leading to a clash. Tokyo further exacerbated the situation by saying that it wants to register 280 outlying islands as state property. Japan's decision in September 2012 to nationalize the Senkaku/Diaoyu islets dramatically escalated the territorial dispute with China. South East Asia in general has been a diplomatic battleground. The U.S., Japan, India, and China fight for influence there. Abe visited every members of the Association of South East Asian Nations or ASEAN. President Barack Obama failed to take part in this year's ASEAN summit. U.S. officials exploited maritime disputes in the South China Sea as a means to cause a wedge between China and its neighbors. Recently, the US intervened once more in the South China Sea tinderbox, backing Vietnam and the Philippines, by denouncing newly announced Chinese fishing regulations as “provocative and potentially dangerous.” The Korean Peninsula is another regional flashpoint that is explosive. North Korea has responded to U.S. backed sanctions with bluster. The U.S. used B-52 and B-2 bombers to South Korea as a means to intimidate North Korea. The massive isolation of North Korea is causing issues in that nation. There has been a bloody purge of human beings in North Korea on the brink of collapse because of sanctions, etc. Even North Korea and China are having issues and disagreements. China, Russia, Japan, and the U.S. have interest in the region. We know that QE did not work to solve the global financial meltdown. WWI was fueled by economic and political problems in the world. China has a lot of cheap labor. So, the West is trying to grow an anti-China bloc. While the workers carry the burden of these tensions. So, we should advocate peace not war or imperialism at all.


 Many folks like Robert Dallek, Sabato, and others distort the JFK record on Vietnam. Kennedy was planning to withdrawal troops from Vietnam. John Newman's book entitled, JFK and Vietnam talks about Kennedy's approval of military aid to Diem in late 1961 in detail. Sabato falsely wrote that Eisenhower was wary of American involvement in Vietnam after the French were defeated there by the Vietnamese people in 1954. Kennedy visited Vietnam in 1951. He met with Edmund Guillion and JFK knew about the Third World in a more progressive way. Eisenhower in the 1950's supported Operation Vulture. That was a proposed atomic bombardment of Dien Bein Phu. That plan was supported by the Dulles brothers too. Threatening to use nuclear weapons to maintain European colonialism in Vietnam is not about being wary of American involvement in Vietnam at all. John F. Kennedy protested in pubic about this nightmare scenario of using three atomic bombs over a country that the USA was not even formally at war with. Also, in Gordon Goldstein's Lessons in Disaster book, Eisenhower supported LBJ's escalation in Vietnam each step of the way. Operation Vulture was a wicked policy indeed. President John F. Kennedy agreed with NSAM 263, which actually ordered all advisers out beginning in December of 1963 and the last ones out in 1965. The withdrawal plan existed in early 1962. After Kennedy had agreed to send in more advisers, he sent John Kenneth Galbraith to Saigon to give him a report on conditions there and if further American involvement would help. Predictably, Galbraith came back with a view that increased American involvement would not help Diem. That report was passed on to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Kennedy now told McNamara to begin putting together a plan to wind down the war. The plans were finalized at the May of 1963 meeting of the Secretary of Defense. He signed NSAM in October of 1963. JFK paved the way for Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. LBJ broke with Kennedy's policy on Vietnam and escalated the war. LBJ bulled McNamara to support more war mongering in Vietnam. In 1961, Kennedy in 1961 turned down at least nine requests to send combat troops to Vietnam. LBJ signed onto NSAM 288 that involved U.S. military involvement in Vietnam in a higher level. As Fredrik Logevall demonstrated in his book, Choosing War, this is simply not the case. Johnson could have gotten out in 1964. In fact, LBJ was encouraged by some powerful and important people, like Walter Lippman, to do just that. He ignored that advice. (Blight, p. 240). When Vice-President Hubert Humphrey suggested a rather mild alternative – negotiating with North Vietnam – Johnson banned him from meetings and placed him under surveillance. (Blight, pgs. 188-89). Sabato claims that President Obama is well to the left of President Kennedy. On social issues, that is true, but not only some economic and especially foreign policy issues. JFK is to the left of President Barack Obama on foreign policy issues. Kennedy supported the Non Aligned countries. Even on economics, Lawrence Summers (a neoliberal) is allied with President Barack Obama while Kennedy's chief economic adviser was the Keynesian Walter Heller. LBJ's escalation of the Vietnam War led into economic stagflation that continued for over 10 years. Kennedy even established a back channel with Fidel Castro as a means to start detente. So, the truth must be known about these things.


In America and South Africa, we see how neoliberalism has harmed both nations. Capitalism has influenced both nations. The late Nelson Mandela was a strong leader. The current President Barack Obama is another famous, strong leader too. The establishment believes in neoliberalism and a budget deal brokered by the Republicans and Democrats. The corporate and financial oligarchy wants Washington to have policies that cuts domestic services via austerity. Such neoliberal policies target the working class and the poor. The robber barons of finance capital have been slick and very powerful. Folks are trying to maintain unemployment benefits for 1.3 million American human beings. The 2013 bipartisan deal will not raise real revenue by closing tax loopholes for the wealth. It will not restore food stamp cuts for the 47 million receiving this assistance or cuts to Medicare including other vital public services. Polls show that the majority of the public do not want costly military adventures all over the world and want to see a reduction in military expenditures. Congressional representatives still increased military spending by $20 billion. Neoliberalism grows privatization. It allows little vote, debate, etc. It transfers the wealth and power from the working people and the poor to the financial and corporate oligarchy. Many African Americans suffer high unemployment. Austerity policies and gentrification policies have harmed urban communities in America. A Republican governor in Michigan allowed Detroit to experience privatization, loss of pensions, and state control over the city of Detroit. Things similar are occurring in South Africa. The ANC shifted from a movement saying that they want the radical redistribution of economic resources and power from the white minority to the black majority (to a movement that embraced neoliberal policies that maintain white corporate domination in all aspects of South African life). Nelson Mandela was a great man, but the leadership of the ANC was wrong to embrace neoliberalism. That system saw black unemployment in South Africa go from 16 percent to over 30 percent; average household income of the black population falling 19 percent and 50 percent of black South Africans earning just 9.7 percent of national income while the richest 20% of the white minority earned 65 percent. So, we know that the Western hegemony now is filled with white supremacy, monopoly capitalism, an extreme version of patriarchy, and other ills. We should never forget the past and we should the interests of the poor.


The movie "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" is a long, interesting film. It focuses on many historical facts of apartheid. It shows an overall picture of Nelson Mandela as a great leader, but a flawed leader as well. The Director of the film is Justin Chadwick. The strength of the film is that is showed Nelson Mandela's strength including Winnie Mandela's strength. Yet, the film could have been better by focusing more on his public and ideological views not just his personal life. Mandela dominated his life a great deal as the leader of the African National Congress (the ANC) in opposing the South African apartheid regime (and later as the President of the post-apartheid capitalist South Africa). The ANC's true agenda should be known to fully understand the thinking of the man. Political realities influenced his life. His politics should not be made subordinate to his private life, but his whole life should be made into context. South Africa experienced the evil end of the apartheid regime. Now, South Africans are fighting the evil regime of cartel-capitalism and transnational corporate investors dominating the property and wealth of South Africa. The film starts with a young Mandela going through a Xhosa rite of passage ceremony in his home village of Mvezo (that allows boys to go into manhood). The adult Mandela is played by Idris Elba who is a great actor. He played Nelson Mandela in an excellent fashion in terms of his voice, dignity, and strength. The film goes into 1942 in Johannesburg. Mandela was a lawyer, a recreational boxer, etc. He made the mistake of committing adultery against his first wife as he knew how to go out with women. He is at first uninterested in politics until the racist white supremacist apartheid regime allowed the police to beat his friend to death. Mandela questions the police report and is won over to the ANC. Mandela handling the responsibilities of the ANC influenced the breakup of his first marriage. Mandela’s first wife divorces him because of his various affairs. Soon afterward he meets his second wife, Winnie (Naomie Harris), who stays with him for the rest of the film. The film shows Mandela courageously burning his ID card in protests against a law requiring all black people to keep such cards on them at all times or face arrest. After the violent suppression of protesters by the South African police when they killed innocent Brothers and Sisters in the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, he focused on armed struggle. He used armed struggle against military targets. The ANC wanted liberation and once totally adhered to the Freedom Charter. The film dramatizes the infamous Rivonia Trial of Mandela and nine others in 1963-64 that ended in a life sentence for Mandela. The audience is only introduced to prominent ANC leaders Walter Sisulu (Tony Kgoroge) and Ahmed “Kathy” Kathrada (Riaad Moosa) during this scene. Both Sisulu and Kathrada are sent to the notorious Robben Island prison along with Mandela. However, their interactions rarely go beyond a few joking comments. Mandela has no deep emotional exchange with them, despite the fact they are in the same predicament as he is. Nor do they have many political discussions and debates even before they are jailed. Winnie Mandela was abused and jailed too. Nelson and Winnie's daughter fighting for justice is shown in the film too and that was touching. The film touches on Nelson leaving the jail and compromising with the apartheid government ministers. The South African ruling elite wanted neoliberal policies to harm the nation's people. Many of the apartheid criminals were not even sentenced to life in prison for their deeds. The struggle for ending apartheid was never done by negotiations with others. It was done by the blood, sweat, and tears of Brothers and Sisters (including other human beings of different background) who put their lives on the line as a means to fight for human justice. The abolition of apartheid should be celebrated. Now, we should fight the capitalist policies of the modern South Africa too. We still are fighting mass poverty and immense social inequality in South Africa today. Long Walk to Freedom should inspire us to keep fighting for truth and justice (which included economic justice and land justice too).



 By Timothy

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