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July 27, 2007
War-Funding Mystery Solved
When you're a mathematician who analyses weapons systems as an independent consultant to the U.S. government, you pay attention to military appropriations (not least because you like to get paid). So it was eyebrow-raising to receive a message from just such a weapons analyst telling me how much he'd learned from Adam Cohen's recent editorial, "Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War."
The editorial goes to the heart of the war-funding debate by describing the attitude of the Constitution's framers toward presidential power, which they regarded with apprehension especially when it came to the monarchical prerogative of making war.
Cohen writes, "They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom." [Emphasis added.] To keep that from happening, "they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called 'the foetus of monarchy.' "
The editorial is emphatic about this. Although it appeared in The New York Times on July 23, it should have appeared five or six years ago -- in late 2001 or early 2002, pick a date, but certainly before the invasion of Iraq. And here's why:
The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe's history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. [Emphasis added]. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that "absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal."Many critics of the Iraq war are reluctant to suggest that President Bush went into it in anything but good faith. But James Madison, widely known as the father of the Constitution, might have been more skeptical. "In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed," he warned. "It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle." [Emphasis added.]
When the weapons analyst, who happens to be a friend and who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons, read the last part of that sentence about the laurels, he says an image of Bush in a flight suit and the "Mission Accomplished" banner prominently displayed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln instantly came to his mind.
In that context the next paragraph was revelatory, solving what had been a mystery to him. It tells exactly how "the framers expected Congress to keep the president on an especially short leash on military matters."
The Constitution authorizes Congress to appropriate money for an army, but prohibits appropriations for longer than two years. [Emphasis added]. [Alexander] Hamilton explained that the limitation prevented Congress from vesting "in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence."
"I had known but not understood why such appropriations never exceed two years," my friend the weapons analyst wrote. "But there it is, Article 1 Section 8. I have developed a much deeper respect and appreciation for the honesty, integrity and foresight of the Founders. And, in addition to those qualities, they were smart."
Yup, check the 12th clause of that article and section. It's goddamn clever.
Posted by jherman at 9:51 AM
July 24, 2007
The Thinking Part of My Brain
I'm still pondering why Noam Chomsky's recent article, "Imminent Crises: Threats and Opportunities," was listed on the rightwing cultural site Arts & Letters Daily.
At first I thought it was because the site's founding editor Denis Dutton and managing editor Tran Huu Dung sometimes include maverick pieces from the left that have intellectual heft. Besides, I figured they have a grudging respect for Chomsky's take on the world even if they disagree with it.
But the thinking part of my brain -- actually, my friend Bill Osborne -- disputes that. He believes the A&L editors occasionally aggregate far left articles they deem "so extreme that they pillory themselves," especially feminist articles they regard as nonsense. The Chomsky article is different however. It makes enormous sense.
"So something else seems to be at work," Osborne says.
Here's what the thinking part of my brain came up with: "The right has to find a new narrative, and there is something in the article they think they can work with." It hints at the new story the right is going to tell us:
1. The Middle East has always been a cauldron and so we are not to blame for the mess in Iraq.2. The Middle East is of such historical strategic importance that even our "failed" attempt was justified. We must, for example, not let China control Middle Eastern oil -- to say nothing of the Europeans.
3. Freedom is the essence of good government and economies, so the Iraqis (not America) are to blame for the chaos, killing, and poverty because they would not accept the "freedom" we offered.
"One could twist Chomsky's logic to that narrative," Osborne says. "I am pretty sure this is going to be the new empty oil barrel they drum on." And he adds:
The right is now also openly admitting that genocide is evolving, so they need a narrative to explain it. They must hide that we planned on the genocidal civil war from the outset, and that the war has not been a failure at all. Let them bleed each other white, then go in for the kill. (That same strategy was used for Germany and the Soviet Union before and during the Second World War.)These high level government people are ingenious, the cream of our elite schools. They always amaze me. And of course, actions speak for themselves. We see that in the end those schools, and the entire governmental and economic system they support, ring as morally hollow as someone kicking an empty oil barrel.
Which bolsters what Arianne Huffington wrote last week, "Bill Kristol: On the Train to Delusionville," about his article in the Washington Post, "Why Bush Will Be A Winner," and what she calls this morning "The Long Tail of Bill Kristol's Delusions."
Posted by jherman at 9:30 AM
July 20, 2007
Mr. Patsy Pundit
Paul Krugman zapped a fellow New York Times columnist this morning with a sharp rebuke, basically calling him a Bush patsy and accusing him of being an enabler if not a believer:
In a coordinated public relations offensive, the White House is using reliably friendly pundits -- amazingly, they still exist -- to put out the word that President Bush is as upbeat and confident as ever.
Perhaps out of politeness, although more likely out of Times protocol, Krugman doesn't name him. But in case you missed who he means -- since he does name Republican Sen. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana and Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, as key Bush enablers -- the patsy pundit Krugman means is David Brooks.
On Tuesday, in his column, Mr. Patsy Pundit described a meeting he attended at the White House to hear Bush talk about the war in Iraq:
I left the 110-minute session thinking that far from being worn down by the past few years, Bush seems empowered. His self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency. [Emphasis added.]
Though Krugman is willing to concede that Mr. Patsy Pundit's description of an upbeat, confident Bush "might even be true," he points to an obvious problem. "What I don't understand," he writes, "is why we're supposed to consider Mr. Bush's continuing confidence a good thing."
This doesn't occur to Mr. Patsy Pundit, who goes on to describe Bush in typically grandiose language. Besides gushing about a president with "a capacious view of the job and its possibilities," he elevates Bush to the rarified intellectual realm, believe it or not, of an anti-Tolstoy.
He refers to Bush's "theory of history" as if he actually has one, and "only the whispering voice of Leo Tolstoy holds one back" from believing how "smart" and "compelling" Bush is "in person."
There are always patsies and enablers who surround the worst leaders, who flatter them with euphemisms and heroize them with outright lies. But as Krugman says, "we need to stop blaming" Bush for our mess. "He is what he always was, and everyone except a hard core of equally delusional loyalists knows it."
Even if Mr. Patsy Pundit is not a hardcore loyalist -- and he's not -- he is delusional for writing about Bush the way he does. And that's the trouble. "Many people" who realize what's wrong -- the pols, mainly Republicans, and the U.S. generals at the top -- "still refuse, out of political caution and careerism, to do anything about it," Krugman writes. But it's the patsy pundits like Brooks who enable them.
(FYI: Krugman's column is free to read here.)
Posted by jherman at 12:22 PM
July 17, 2007
Cultural Analysis For Your Viewing Pleasure
Who says we don't blog about high kulcha? Here's something to chew on. "One of the more profound statements on German opera," a friend writes.
Online Videos by Veoh.com
And here are some other Chuck Jones opera classics not to be missed: "The Rabbit of Seville"; "Long-Haired Hare"; "Nelly's Folly"; and, for a change of pace, "One Froggy Evening."
Now the staff of thousands will take some downtime.
Posted by jherman at 1:02 AM
July 16, 2007
Impeach Now!
Never thought I could listen to Bruce Fein without throwing a brick at him. But, man! The nerdie rightwing legal beagle is worth hearing on why the President With His Head Up His Ass and his Attack Dog must be impeached. Yes, must.
Why would I believe Fein on impeachment now when I didn't believe him when he went after Bill Clinton? (He wrote the first article of impeachment against Clinton.) Because in this instance, contrary to his specious puritanical reaction to a sex scandal, Fein makes a be-yooo-tifully justifiable case against the two of leaders of the BananaRepublic.
He did it on Bill Moyers Journal the other day, as he did earlier on Slate against the Attack Dog alone. You can watch Fein do it. Click "watch video" to see the segment. He makes the case, along with leftie John Nichols. (The 'twain doth sometimes meet.) If you prefer to read what they said, click "read transcript."
And here's the video of Moyers' intro. I hope it's a sign of things to come, though our spineless pols make it doubtful.
Cherry-picking is kosher -- yes it is.
Posted by jherman at 8:52 AM
July 12, 2007
Did Someone Say Gestapo?
Can't let the week go by without noting "The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness" in The Nation, a devastating piece of eye-witness testimony described by its authors as an investigation into "alleged military misconduct" of U.S. troops in Iraq.
The three words alleged military misconduct are a legalistic euphemism for the banalized horrors of the war -- "indiscriminate killings" of innocent civilians, "checkpoint shootings," night raids by stormtroopers who act like the Gestapo -- all of which are detailed in firsthand accounts by veterans willing to speak up.
As Spc. Garett Reppenhagen, 32, of Manitou Springs, Colorado, a cavalry scout and sniper, points out, "It's just the nature of the situation you're in. That's what's wrong. It's not individual atrocity. It's the fact that the entire war is an atrocity."
But will the American public get it? Despite polls that say popular opinion has turned against the war, some observers doubt it will make much difference in the long run.
Consider what mi amigo William Osborne wrote before the invasion and in another context: America seems to regard its victims as "little more than nameless bystanders, shadows without identity in a netherworld of 'collateral damage.'"
[They are] brown-skinned shadows whose violent demise need not touch the American realm, even if their deaths were caused or abetted by the U.S. government. In short, it's just massive suffering and death in a remote world, something like images of video games beamed from the ethers.
Today, speaking of the war, he dismisses all talk of an American withdrawal as nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Everything is going exactly to plan -- the civil war, the destruction of Iraq, the strategic 'retreat' into bases, and a gradual genocide, both physical and cultural, against the Sunnis (and, in a way, against all Iraqis).The Americans will back into their bases and wait out the genocidal civil war. It's been U.S. strategy in Iraq all along. How clever to hide it behind the facade that we 'lost' the war, or are withdrawing in failure.
The theater even includes putting Hillary in office to make the presumed de-escalation and partial withdrawal appear to be democratic -- once we have sown the seeds of death.
And now that it is all done, we will, of course, shed a crocodile tear or two, including suitable articles in The Nation and The New York Times.
Or as that now-forgotten prevaricator Rummy Boy would say, "By golly!"
Posted by jherman at 9:56 AM
In Promo Mode
Steve Skrovan writes:
Just read your blog on Huffington about Ralph Nader. As one who has studied Nader for the past five years, I found it to be [praise omitted]. I directed along with my partner, Henriette Mantel, a documentary on Nader's life entitled "An Unreasonable Man," and since I suspect now you will be receiving the same shit that we have been dealing with all this time, it might be worth a look-see.
We were in the documentary competition at Sundance in '06, made the Oscar shortlist this year, had a theatrical release this past spring and had a two-disc DVD released last month. In addition to the film, the DVD has a number of featurettes on such topics as "The Role of Third Parties," "Corporate Power in America," "Why the Right is Better Organized than the Left," "What Happened to the Democratic Party?" "Ralph on the Iraq War," "What Kind Of President Would Nader Be?" and a psychological profile of Nader entitled "Profile Of A Charismatic Leader." Our website is anunreasonableman.com. There you will find links to many of our reviews.
We'd be curious to know what you think.
Here's what I think. I haven't seen the flick (yet). The reviews are remarkable. But the best, by far, is Chris Hedges' review at truthdig.
He writes:
It was an incompetent, corporatized Democratic Party, along with the orchestrated fraud by the Republican Party, that threw the 2000 election to Bush, not Ralph Nader. Nader received only 2.7 percent of the vote in 2000 and got less than one-half of 1 percent in 2004. All of the third-party candidates who ran in 2000 in Florida -- there were about half a dozen of them -- got more votes than the 537-vote difference between Bush and Gore. Why not go after the other third-party candidates? And what about the 10 million Democrats who voted in 2000 for Bush? What about Gore, whose campaign was so timid and empty -- he never mentioned global warming -- that he could not carry his home state of Tennessee? And what about the 2004 cartoon-like candidate, John Kerry, who got up like a Boy Scout and told us he was reporting for duty and would bring us "victory" in Iraq?
Hedges also comments about the unwise choice of voting for "the least worst" -- a choice I myself made in 2000 and 2004 -- and the anger on the left about Nader's so-called betrayal:
There is a fascinating rage -- and rage is the right word -- expressed by many on the left in this fine film about Nader. Todd Gitlin, Eric Alterman and Michael Moore, along with a host of former Nader's Raiders, spit out venomous insults toward Nader, a man they profess to have once admired, the most common charge being that Nader is a victim of his oversized ego. This anger is the anger of the betrayed. But they were not betrayed by Nader. They betrayed themselves. They allowed themselves to buy into the facile argument of "the least worse" and ignore the deeper, subterranean assault on our democracy that Nader has always addressed.
Cliff Doerksen, in his review in Time Out / Chicago, also makes an excellent point:
"[I]t's quite absurd to exclude a third-party candidate from the choreographed pillow fight laughably called the presidential debates on the grounds that he's too insignificant to be a factor, then later single him out as the factor responsible for handing the White House to the most incompetent and ill-intended administration in history."
PS: Henriette Mantel writes:
Jan, Can't wait for you to see the movie!! If you get too beat up by angry dems, just let us know. We are really good at fighting them off now. Once again, [praise omitted]. Such a nice break from all the (mostly uninformed) Naderhaters on Huffington.
Posted by jherman at 8:47 AM
July 9, 2007
Waiting for Nader
Whenever Ralph Nader comes on the tube, which isn't often enough, it's must-see TV. He's in a class by himself. I don't know of any politician, civic leader or social firebrand who can match him for his unique combination of level-headed insight, deep intelligence, real accomplishment and passionate straight talk.
For instance, in a must-see interview that aired this morning on Democracy Now!, here's what he said about whether the lame duck President With His Head Up His Ass still matters:
Yeah, he matters because he's a national security menace. He's a destroyer of our Constitution, a violator of our statutes, a revoker of our regulations. He's a war monger. He's a war criminal -- clinically a war criminal -- and he's still in charge. And as I said some time ago, he's a giant corporation in the White House masquerading as a human being, although I sometimes wonder about the word "human." I don't think it's possible to see a more obsessively compulsive person with so much contempt for the traditions of our country ...
That's just a snippet of Nader's wide-ranging discussion of health care, corporate government, campaign financing, the current crop of presidential candidates and the general political realities of the BananaRepublic. (You can also read the transcript.)
I voted for him in 1996 but didn't in 2000, because I wanted Al Gore to win. Nor did I vote for Nader in 2004, because I thought it would mean one less vote to unseat the illegitimate BananaRepublican regime. As I noted then,
If the American people want to elect the nasty little shit now in the White House, they should remember they will be indicting themselves as co-conspirators in his administration's criminal misadventures. They will no longer have the excuse that he was an appointed president, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, and not an elected one.
Even so, I still believed Nader had every right to run in 2004. And now I wish he'd run again, because now I'd vote for him again. His assessment of the political realities following the 2006 Congressional elections has so far proved true, unfortunately, right down to the last detail:
[T]o the extent the Democrats gained the majority in the House, it was on the backs of some very rightwing Democrats who won the election against rightwing Republican incumbents. And so, there was no mandate for any progressive agenda. ...[One] thing that is good, though, is that there's some very good veteran chairmen who are coming in: George Miller, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey and, of course, John Conyers. But to counter that, both John Conyers and Nancy Pelosi have taken the impeachment issue right off the table, before the election, and that means there's going to be no Bush accountability for his war crimes and his inflation of unlawful presidential authority.
... The Democrats will throw a lot of subpoenas at the White House. The White House will, of course, drag it on and on and on. And the public will get fed up with it. The White House has great reserves in dragging it on and on and on. Because Bush can't rely on Republicans as a majority of the Congress, he's going to inflate his presidential power even more extremely and unlawfully, in the opinion of many legal scholars -- to do through the inherent power of the presidency, as Dick Cheney and Bush have talked about, what he can't do through the Congress, which he no longer controls.
That's why the drive to impeach is long past due.
Posted by jherman at 11:16 AM
July 3, 2007
Woof! Woof!
Whatever it's called -- an assault on the rule of law or a prison break -- it comes as the latest illustration of the BananaRepublic's independence from democratic principles. The President With His Head Up His Ass and his Attack Dog have sprung their Lap Dog, just in time for the nation's Independence Day fireworks.
So the coverup continues.
Makes me feel foolish to have asked, "Is the BananaRepublic on its way out?"
Postscript: A reader writes:
Good links. Liked the Abrams piece on the coverup. He's absolutely right. They need to follow that to the end. Until we have the pleasure of seeing Darth Cheney frog-marched across the White House lawn in leg irons.
PPS: Another reader writes: "Rogue Republicans don't let a fellow rogue down." And as others have said: "Paris Hilton served more time."
Posted by jherman at 10:35 AM