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May
8, 2003
Julie
Hilden
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Mickey
Z.
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Mark
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David Lindorff
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May
7, 2003
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May
5, 2003
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May
2, 2003
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May
10, 2003
A Letter to My European
Friends
We Have a World
to Win (or Lose)
by STEVEN SHERMAN
(On April 27, the New York Times Magazine
published an open letter from Timothy Garton Ash to his 'American
friends', calling for Americans to be more open to resolving
the Israel/Palestine situation, while claiming that Europe should
be more willing to support, and even join the fighting in, US
imperial adventures. In this way, "The West could be One."
Coincidentally, at the same time, I was penning a letter to European
Friends, who, I suppose, don't hang out much with Timothy Garton
Ash--S.S.).
To my European Friends:
First of all, my most sincere condolescenses
to you regarding the death of Jose Couso. I know that you, and
tens of millions of others throughout Europe, watched in horror
as a US tank pointed its turret at the Palestine Hotel, and blasted
a shell directly at the international press corps, delivering
wounds to the Spanish Camera man Couso that proved to be fatal.
You and I know how this happened. Having failed to tame public
opinion in Europe (and around the world), the US army decided,
out of sheer frustration, to take aim at those in proximity who
could be held responsible (As the Chinese can attest after their
embassy was bombed during the Kosovo episode, the US makes 'mistakes'
during these engagements that just happen to wound those they
don't much like). I doubt you'll be surprised that few in US
even heard about this incident, let alone heard an accurate description
of it, minus US evasions and disinformation.
The gap between Europe and the US has
never seemed wider. For many of us here on the progressive side
of the spectrum, Western Europe has always seemed like a pleasant
place. Its government's have national health insurance and generous
benefits for the unemployed, religion plays little role in public
life, rates of violence are low, downtowns of cities remain lively.
On reflection I know this view is oversimplified, ignoring the
racism (including both overt Le Pen stuff, and the 'liberal'
'we can fix the developing world through our enlightened NGOs'
mentality) and inequality in Europe. But there's still a qualitative
difference between Europe and the US. Over the last few months,
it's come to seem like a rock of sanity that we've been loosened
from, and, like travelers in a hot air balloon with no ballast,
we seem to be rapidly drifting away from. 'Please!' we've been
screaming at the man who's hijacked the balloon, 'the people
down there know what they're doing and the air up here is getting
awfully thin'. He ignores us, whether he could steer us back
to ground or not.
I take it in Europe you also look with
horror as the US drifts away, although you are not completely
surprised. You look westward and see a land of addled, fundamentalist
cowboys who couldn't locate France, Spain and Germany on a map,
and so it can't seem altogether out of the blue that the US has
decided to go it alone, and deploy its mega-army against real
or perceived enemies in those lands where the people supposedly
hate Israel and America. Even so, the most dramatic examples
of US recklessness-the destruction of the Iraqi cultural heritage,
the murder of members of the international press corps-have taken
reasonably cynical US watchers by surprise. 'What', you are
probably thinking, 'could they possibly do next? Aren't there
any Americans who know better?'
I believe your view is oversimplified,
and there's both good news and bad news in getting a clearer
picture, as well as, most importantly, getting a clearer sense
of what needs to be done. The good news-there are many Americans
who know better. I think roughly 30% (possibly a good deal more,
if you count those expelled from the US public sphere, like felons
and 'illegal' immigrants) 'know what time it is', as the saying
goes. They know that Bush is trying to raid the federal government
for handouts for his wealthy friends, further enhance control
over immigrants, minorities, and dissenters of all stripes, that
the wars he insists on are some combination of a 'weapon of mass
distraction,' an effort to conquer the world by force, and an
effort to plunder abroad. Obviously, there's plenty of disagreements
about exactly which factors are most important or the precise
dynamics of the Bush juggernaut, but the point is a decent fraction
of the country recognizes it as something awful and dangerous.
Reading European sources, I get the sense
that there is a perception that the left is in hibernation in
the US. Brian Eno said he wished US progressives would stop
concentrating on yoga and start speaking up. Le Monde Diplomatique
pointed out that many of the progressives of the sixties (Todd
Gitlin, Ellen Willis, Marc Cooper) have provided lukewarm-at-best
support for anti-war positions. Another cliché is that
all anyone cares about is asserting the righteousness of their
oppressed identity. The good news I want you to know is that
these positions are highly deceptive. In the fifteen years or
so that I've been active on the US left, I've never felt better
about us. Far from being self-absorbed and resigned to inaction,
all the many currents of progressive thought have been fruitfully
cross-pollinating over the last decade or so. Its not surprising
to hear someone obsessed with having an organic diet also talk
about the conditions in the fields where workers grow her food,
or express her outrage at the collusion between the local food-co-op
board and business/government initiatives to harass the homeless.
Nor is it surprising when a young man who considers himself
some sort of revolutionary anarchist reflects critically on the
way sexism or homophobia shape his practice. In ways difficult
to capture for outsiders, many of those strains of thought that
seem somewhat wacky and uniquely American have made us stronger,
and now seem to be converging on a radical critique. And we
are further strengthened by the voices of wisdom from older generations
of radicals, who, for the most part, have not abandoned the cause
for self-promotion as agonized liberals. I'm guessing that the
core of this activist left is no more than 3 or 4% of the US
population, but its ability to speak to and mobilize that 30%
who hate Bush seems to be improving all the time.
That's the good news. The bad news is
that there's about 15% or 20% of Americans who are actively elated
at what Bush is doing. The pro-Bush faction wants more wars
to teach the world (especially the Europeans, or the French,
or whoever you are) a lesson, and they are licking their lips
at the prospect of a crackdown on dissent at home. I believe
they pose a real menace, because Bush represents the end of a
shift in the center of gravity of the Republican party away from
more 'responsible' multinational capitalists to 'out there' Texas
oilmen and fundamentalist Christians. These people believe the
use of 'pre-emptive' force, at home and abroad, can halt or reverse
their declining social position. You remember this dynamic from
the politics of Europe in the 1920s and 30s. It was called fascism
then.
As for the rest of the US, the fact that
the left is frozen out of both the political system and the mass
media makes it extremely difficult to sway them with intelligent
arguments. And you can't underestimate the wretched state of
both the political sphere and the mass media as obstacles to
change. Dominated by contributors and consultants, buoyed by
a sea of fraudulent and disenfranchising practices, the political
sphere (at least at the national level) seems almost completely
insulated from voices of dissent. Right around the time the
IDF was destroying Jenin, there was a debate in the House of
Representatives about a resolution on Mideast policy-should it,
as one side argued, only focus on praising Sharon, or, as the
others wanted, should it also condemn Arafat? During the war
with Iraq, practically the only dissenting voices heard in the
mainstream US public sphere were some generals, terrified of
the political blowback if the US military was actually humiliated.
It is probably doing the US media too
much of an honor to complain only of their inane jingoism and
efforts to hose down firestorms created by US ineptitude and
venality. The central purpose of the mass media these days is
to keep viewers glued to their TV sets or confronting a barrage
of pop-up ads; information content is strictly secondary. Video-game
imagery of war were obviously popular; and why annoy viewers
by raising any uncomfortable questions about the US? Now that
Saddam's regime is no more, the media have reverted to their
old brew of celebrity gossip, true-crime pornography, sexual
titillation, and financial advice. Were a Russian teen-lesbian
pop duo kidnapped and held in a dungeon until several million
dollars were deposited in one of the ten best-performing mutual
funds, the media would explode in a burst of ecstasy, immediately
after negotiating webcam rights with the dungeon master(we exaggerate-clearly
the media also feels a responsibility to defend American power
and status quo inequalities, and it pulls this off well, at least
well enough for their domestic audience). In this climate, it
isn't easy to talk to that 50% or so of Americans who are somewhere
in the middle about the direction of the US.
So I'm not entirely optimistic about
the presidential elections here coming up next year. I can see
three possibilities that would mostly make the situation worse.
First, Bush might carry out another pre-emptive attack and ride
into a second term on a burst of patriotic fervor. Secondly,
the Bush team, recognizing that their chances are faltering,
would use their institutional advantage to rig another election.
Given the limited outcry over the first election they stole,
why should they believe they can't get away with it again? Third,
the Democratic candidate might adopt the foreign policy of the
hawks out of fear, convenience, or in the case of Lieberman,
principled idiocy. The other prospect, that a Democrat suggesting
the need for the country to shift direction attains the presidency,
seems the least likely, barring a failed 'pre-emptive strike'
or (slightly more likely) the possibility that the situations
in Iraq and Afghanistan will have unraveled sufficiently to warrant
concern.
Nevertheless, the US juggernaut does
have a crucial Achilles heel, and this is why I'm writing to
you. European fascism involved an inward economic turn, and
a focus on rapidly building the industrial base of the nation.
The US has no such option. Its middle class is accustomed to
high living standards that can only be maintained by the inflated
status of the dollar, which is only secured by the massive amounts
of foreign investments in the US. As the New York Times commented
this morning "The United States requires about $1.5 billion
a day in new capital from overseas just to keep the dollar from
falling
because of a huge imbalance between American imports and exports
of goods and services." So here is what we need: a divestment
campaign from the US, comparable to the global divestment campaign
against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Every university,
bank, government, corporation around the world needs to know
it is untenable to keep money in the US until the policy of pre-emptive
strikes is abandoned. Here is another thing we need-solidarity
with US activists. Attacks on peaceful demonstrations have been
mounting, and it seems likely that the tank cannon aimed at the
Palestine Hotel will soon be facing us. International outcry
and support can limit the impact of such repression.
I read where Michael Hardt, one of the
big intellectuals of the global justice movement, said that the
antiwar protest were an unfortunate, if necessary, distraction
from the really important movement taking on the IMF, World Bank,
WTO, etc. Not true. Our movement against the US war mobilized
many times more people worldwide than any of the earlier global
justice mobilizations. What's more, it is the power of the US
military that undergirds the whole system. Forced to retreat,
the lack of US force would lead to a collapse in the potency
of all the major global financial institutions. You know well
(although I suspect you must educate some of your continent)
that the just alternative is not a European/UN hegemony which
would sustain the current system. In any case, European capitalists
are in no position to pick up the ball and rescue the global
system if the US falters. So please, lets work hard, and together,
on both sides of the Atlantic, to stop the US juggernaut. You
work on boycotts, disinvestments, solidarity, and we will work
to break down the walls that separate us from the silent middle
right here. We have a world to win, or a world to lose.
Steven Sherman
is a resident of Chapel Hill North Carolina who teaches at UNC-Greensboro.
He can be reached at: Threehegemons@aol.com
Yesterday's
Features
Julie
Hilden
When It's a Crime to Visit Your Son
Mickey
Z.
Partisan Protests?
Mark
Zepezauer
Evil is as Evil Does
David Lindorff
The Coming Senior Revolution
Abu
Spinoza
The Detention of Dr. Huda Ammash
Ben
Tripp
The Other "F" Word
Norman
Madarasz
God in the Service of the Security
State: a Dispatch from Brazil
Stew Albert
Pushovers
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/08
Website
of the Day
Department of Sexual Security
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