Tag Archives: obama

Political Rants

Strange medicine.

Obama’s Middle East address was full of familiar themes. There’s been a lot of dust kicked up about the suggestion that any lasting peace in Israel/Palestine should be based on the pre-June 1967 borders with mutually agreeable land swaps. That was a bit like Gingrich saying he didn’t believe in gutting Medicare and turning it into a lame, unworkable voucher program. Nothing draws criticism like brief moments of relative sanity. But I digress.

What wasn’t surprising about the speech? The hard swipes at our perennial punching bags, Syria and Iran. The heavily caveated criticism of Bahrain and Yemen. The non-existence of Saudi Arabia. These are all too attractive not to make it into the final draft. But in my mind, there were probably three items worth referencing:

“Drawing from what we’ve learned around the world, we think it’s important to focus on trade, not just aid; and investment, not just assistance. ” 

This was the magic of the marketplace passage that’s been previewed over the past few days. Obama promised to get the IMF and World Bank working to “modernize and stabilize the economies of Tunisia and Egypt.” What he didn’t say was that the mass protests in Egypt he referenced earlier were fueled, in part, by neoliberal reforms of the type he’s describing. All I can say is that the revolutionaries in Egypt and Tunisia had better be on their guard, because plugging their economies into the Washington consensus only means striving to be another Honduras.

“For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could get blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.”

This is, in a sense, boilerplate framing of the issue. Only Israelis are killed, blown up, etc., in this conflict. Palestinians are merely “humiliated”. From this statement, you’d never know that the vast, vast majority of deaths in this conflict have been among the Palestinians. Also, you never hear this or any president talk about Palestinian security. The only time they use the term security in reference to Palestinians is when they’re talking about Palestinian responsibility to ensure Israeli security. That thing Obama said about every nation having the right to defend itself? Within a few lines he was talking about a “demilitarized” Palestinian state. So much for self defense.

Still, the 1967 borders argument is a rare glimpse at sanity, and I credit him for it. Will it last the weekend? We shall see.

The Strauss-Kahn Consensus.  Not sure why Dominique Strauss-Kahn is under arrest. He only did to that poor woman what the IMF has been doing to poor countries for decades, to choruses of praise from the U.S.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Obama’s twenty.

I dimly recall an old Chris Rock routine about Bill Clinton back in the 90’s. It was that bit about Bill Clinton being the first black president; Rock’s proof was simple: “He hands them a twenty, and they hold it up to the light.” That pretty much defines the dynamic that brought about this week’s revealing of Obama’s long-form birth certificate. There’s a clear effort towards delegitimizing the president not so much because of his policies (which merit some substantial criticism) but rather on the basis of his being black. No, Donald Trump is not standing there saying Obama shouldn’t be president because of his skin color. He is merely amplifying the overtly racist insistence that the man hasn’t adequately proven his identity, that he must – again and again, in an ever-proliferating variety of forms – present his papers on demand. When has this ever in our lifetimes been demanded of a president of the United States?

This started with the Clinton campaign and was expanded by the McCain campaign with the ominous warnings from both halves of that ticket that Obama was “not like you and me.” True enough, if “you and me” is white people. It was the birth certificate, the church he belonged to, the African garb he wore on a trip, the middle name his parents gave him – all these attempts to make him appear alien and, therefore, threatening to middle America. (No need to enhance the fear factor on the far right- they were there already.) For the most part, it’s really just a process of drawing people’s attention to the fact that he’s African American, by subtracting the “American” part.

Stephen Colbert did a decent job of explaining this – hilariously – on his show this past week. (I think it was Wednesday night’s show.) Of course, Obama’s effort to still the beast by giving it something to chew on is a bit like paying off blackmailers. And sure enough, they’re already on to the next thing.

Got to go – papers to write. (End of the semester again.)

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Taking sides.

As you have surely heard, the unprecedented anti-government protests in Egypt have continued over the past week, growing in strength despite some very cynical attempts to disrupt them through violence and intimidation. Together with the revolution in Tunisia and demonstrations in Jordan, Yemen, and Syria, this is probably the most remarkable development in the Arab world since decolonization. From reports on the ground – perhaps most valuably those submitted by Sharif Abdel Kouddous on Democracy Now! – this is an astoundingly well-organized and well-disciplined uprising, very much a bottom-up movement with no obvious uber-leaders. Quite the opposite of the kind of chaos Mubarak keeps referring to as the alternative to his continued rule.

Of course, the United States – despite our late-to-the-party expressions of sympathy for the Egyptian people – is squarely on the wrong side of this divide, as is practically every government in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, and Israel. As a key component of U.S. foreign policy in the middle east, we have been sluicing billions of dollars into the Egyptian regime since the Camp David Accords were signed more than thirty years ago, 29+ of which have been presided over by Mubarak. Much of this has been military aid, the principal purpose of which is to ensure continued non-interference and tacit complicity in Israel’s policy of occupation and assimilation of the West Bank and its denial of national rights for the Palestinians. This aid has given Mubarak the space to run his country with no hint of opposition, in a constant state of emergency. Unsurprising that he would argue for his continued rule by suggesting some dire fate may prove the only alternative.

It’s the same in Egypt as it is pretty much everywhere else. There are two opposing sides: basically the side that owns everything vs. the side that has nothing. Once in a while, the side that has nothing – always far more numerous – decides to stand up, because (as Martin King pointed out) it’s harder for a man to ride on your back when you stand up straight. In nation after nation, we stand with the ownership side – the landlords, if you will. Egypt is no exception. Our bland statements of support for the democratic process cannot change history. Once again, we have been duly recognized as the funders of security forces, the trainers of torturers, the suppliers of tear gas canisters and bullets, all in the name of an abusive “stability”. Even with Obama’s long legs, that’s a little hard to walk away from.

One last point. If our old friend Mubarak continues his astoundingly cynical attempts to break this movement through the use of paid thugs, and if substantially more blood is shed by the Egyptian people as a result, their view of the United States is likely to grow very much dimmer.

luv u,

jp