America’s Place in the World

As some of you may have noticed, (I fear that most did not even notice) I discontinued my blog postings following my post of "The Silence is Deafening" when that post did not end that silence.

I have no desire or intention to discontinue that self-imposed exile, since my efforts continue to be unrewarding.

However, when I have an exchange on a topic of interest with a friend and the work of writing is already largely done, I intent to post for whatever readership may still remain. And so my exchange follows.

Eric Offner of Manhasset Hills, NY sent me two e-mails that I quote below:

Sorry about your blog when you could analyze Obama's Tuesday speech and the horror of chemical warfare in Syria and US greatness. You could have explained ten million gallons of Agent Orange, which are killing people to this day. We can include napalm on list of chemicals; depleted uranium munitions can also be included. You know well that one needs clean hands to obtain equitable relief.

And then in a separate e-mail:

Common Dreams: "Halliburton Pleads Guilty to Destroying Evidence in Gulf Disaster." 

  

Another item for your blurb. 

$200,000 fine. 

I hope this encourages you to resume.

My response to Offner, who is a Holocaust survivor like me, but first fled to England and then to Brazil before coming to the United States, was:

Your comment makes no sense at all. To savage the country that gave you and me refuge is a travesty. You particularly had many choices. You could have made England your home, or Brazil. But you chose the U.S. There must have been a reason.

Ditto for my relatives who came to the United States after World War I and whose presence here saved my family and me. They chose the U.S. over all other countries, despite the fact that it always had a lot of warts, not the least of which was its racism and its anti-Semitism. After all this country was born in slavery and has never completely shed its past.

But like what Winston Churchill said about Democracy, i.e. "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." can also be applied to nations, i.e. the U.S. is the worst country in the world until we look at the others, most particularly in foreign policy. 

You talk about this country’s sins in Vietnam! Have you looked at the atrocities committed by the French? I have been to Vietnam, they are bitterer about the French then about the Americans.

Btu whatever sins we committed more than a half century ago are rather irrelevant on the question of our role in preventing atrocities in todays world.

But if you want to go back in history, the most relevant period occurred almost four score years ago. As Hitler besieged Britain, threatened the whole world and slaughtered Jews, Gypsies, and countless others, FDR's desire to assist Britain with arms shipments were opposed by these same isolationist voices, who wanted us to turn inwards, who proclaimed that our racist policies at home gave us no warrant to criticize others and besides with unemployment at record highs we should worry about the home front. Roosevelt had to employ subterfuge in what he chose to call "lend/lease" to hide the fact that there was no loan and no lease. He was aiding Britain in its hour of need. It wasn't enough! Without our entry into the war before it was too late Hitler would still have prevailed, Russia's heroic defense notwithstanding. But American isolationism tied Roosevelt's hands, until Japan foolishly solved the problem for Roosevelt by attacking, followed shortly by a declaration of War by Germany and Italy. Even then there was little desire to aid the Jews. It was not our problem.

After the war we declared: "NEVER AGAIN". It was meant not just to apply to Jews, but to all atrocities against mankind. But the voices of nationalism, the voices that spoke of "National Interest" domino theories, and exit strategies, caused us to engage in all the wrong conflicts, including Vietnam. But even before Vietnam we foolishly arranged for the CIA to overthrow the Democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddegh and installed the hated Shah; we overthrew the duly elected government of Chile in 1973 and since Vietnam, we foolishly intervened in Lebanon in 1982, invaded Grenada in 1983, and invaded Panama in 1989. 

But when the Rwandan genocide occurred, much to our shame, we sat on our hands while Tutsi's were slaughtered, but there was no national interest, just as there was no national interest in preventing the slaughter of Jews and Gypsies. Much to our credit, we intervened when the breakup of Yugoslavia led to slaughter in Bosnia and Kosovo. When Clinton with NATO decided on a bombing campaign that eventually led to a breakup of the country and the end of the slaughter, we heard "where is the exit strategy", where is the "National Interest." But it was our finest hour! No boots on the ground, no American casualties, but mission accomplished!! Not the phony "Mission Accomplished" of Bush after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Libya too, despite its warts, stopped the slaughter and belongs in the success column.

Obama is up in arms about the use of chemical weapons in Syria. He is right to be up in arms, because better late than never. But where were we when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds in his own country. Where were we when Saddam used chemical weapons in his war against Iran? Where were we when Hafez al-Assad, the father of Bashar al-Assad, massacred 20,000 of his own people in Hama in 1982? To quote from The Guardian, "The 1982 massacre is regarded as the single bloodiest assault by an Arab ruler against his own people in modern times and remains a pivotal event in Syrian history."

We are told that Syria is a civil war that we should not get caught up in. But so was Spain a Civil War in the 1930's. Had we taken sides there or when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, or when Hitler occupied the Rhineland, the whole history of the Holocaust and WWII might never have happened.

But is it a Civil War? Have we forgotten its beginnings? How people peacefully demonstrated, and Bashar al Assad mowed them down just like his father did 30 years ago. We fight the wrong wars and then use that as an excuse not to fight the right ones. Bush I was right to fight Iraq for invading a peaceful neighboring country. Clinton was right to enforce a no-fly zone over Iraq and sanction them for their treatment of the Kurds. Bush II and the Congress were even right when they decided that unless Saddam gave up weapons of mass destruction we would do it for him. And the build up of weapons was successful in forcing Saddam to let the inspectors in. But when the UN inspectors found that there were no such weapons the raison d'être was gone, but Bush didn't care. He wanted the war, and all else was pretense.

And so because we fought a wrong war, nobody wants to help a people being slaughtered. When the Left and the Right agree something is wrong. Syria is not a civil war. It is a revolution. Our failure to arm the secular revolutionaries has empowered and strengthened the fanatics. Arming the rebels and enforcing a no fly zone was and is the right thing to do.

It is late, but not too late.

Why should the U.S. be the policeman of the world? Because we can and no one else can. The world desperately needs a policeman.

As for your comment about laches, you well know that laches applies to a party seeking relief. The U.S. is not seeking any relief from any judicial body or from anyone.

Even though I have discontinued my commentaries, Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Reality Check (Further Discussion)

On February 7th I posted "Reality Check!! (Discussion)" to my blog and it was distributed to subscribers that evening. In that post I first set forth my exchange on that topic with Albert Nekimken PhD of Vienna, Virginia, but in the second portion presented an exchange with Mike Cerrato Esq. of Westville, New Jersey. That exchange continued, but was not posted promptly because I felt the need to address "The President’s Second Inaugural Address." Both posts can easily be accesses by double clicking on their titles shown in bold above.

Now I would like to share with my readers the concluding portions of my discussion with Mike Cerrato. Mike wrote:

OOOH, you are making me think about this stuff. That hurts! 

I guess we are going in the same direction, but from slightly differing directions. Of course, I cannot disagree that the reality of what I will call capitalistic opportunism does not in any way come close to the horrors of slavery, I don't believe the mindsets of the opportunists are all that different than the slaveholders. The only difference is, I fear, degree. Only a little over a century separate us from the days when the chains were all too real to today, when they consist of those created by self-appointed masters of the universe who have constructed their more-figurative chains through the crony capitalist-supporting legal and economic systems which enable them to grab most of the pie while forcing the rest of us to fight over the scraps they allow to fall off the table. I cannot help but believe that, had today's robber barons been born in 1860 below the Mason-Dixon line, they would have been all too happy to own a few other human beings. 

I wholeheartedly agree with you, however, about the need to "balance the system."

My response is set forth below:

Thanks, for that compliment. If I can make my readers think, that is far more important than having them agree.

It is second only to giving them facts that they did not possess, and if in the process I slay a few myths, then I am having a very good day.

I am afraid that you are decrying the nature of the beast. Man, or should I say Homo Sapiens, to make sure the female is not overlooked, is and always has been a selfish species. It is the argument against Democracy, which is often referred to as the rule of the mob. It is why our founders created a Republic, and not a Democracy. They were a bunch of aristocrats, who didn't trust the people. That is why the President was to be chosen by electors, rather than the people. Why Senators to be chosen by state legislators and not by direct suffrage. The vote restricted to male property owners and not to others.

Over time we became a Democracy. Still an imperfect one, but a Democracy nevertheless. Many on the Right would like us to return to the Republic of our forefathers. Would our plutocrats of today enslave us if they could? I don't know? Certainly some would! Most I think not. It is irrelevant.

Homo Sapiens are what he/she are, and we have no control over that. It is only what system we employ that we can control.

You appear to be attacking the Capitalist system in all its forms. To that I say the same as I say about Democracy. About that I quote Winston Churchill, "It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

I have to say the same about Capitalism. It too is the worst form of an economic system except for all the others that have been tried.

Today every country that has any kind of successful economic system has a free enterprise system including, "Communist" China. The only variations are the degree to which the system is regulated and the extent to which the state has a hand on the tiller. Where socialist systems have been tried they have failed. We don't have to look at the usual straw men systems such as the Soviet Union to see that. The Labor Party in Britain kept nationalizing the economy every time they came to power. It didn't work. They gave it up.

There are very few instances of managed economies left in the world and they are all failing their people. Venezuela is a prime example. Well meaning, but a disaster. Uganda? Cuba? Well we can make excuses for Cuba because of our economic boycott, but the rest of the world trades with them. I don't think their failures, and I recognize they have some successes, such as good health care, can be blamed entirely on the US.

I am a lawyer like you, only I practiced on the international scene. I remember when India was a Socialist country anxious to keep out foreign capital. It didn't work.

What makes Capitalism work is the very fact that people are essentially selfish. We can't change that! We can only devise a system that takes advantage of that inherent trait.

Like sports, it depends on competition. Like sports, it needs rules, so that mere muscle and unrestrained power does not carry the day. Like sports it needs referees to see that the rules are enforced. Without these rules and the referees it becomes a fixed sport known as crony capitalism.

That is where the battle lies. We fight about the rules and their enforcement and leveling the playing field. To make, as I have said, false equivalencies about good and evil, and the inherent greed of homo sapiens, brings us no nearer to a juster society (and I will not speak of a just society, because there is no such thing). We strive, and the struggle endures; it never ceases. That is what it is all about!

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. 

The Media And Their Columnists – Discussion

On September 12, 2011 I distributed my last commentary entitled The Media And Their Columnists" which I hope my readers will re-read, for it once again alerts the reader to a subject to which I have been coming back again and again, i.e. that the media in general, and the New York Times in particular, along with their columnists must be read with a jaundiced eye.

On my trip to Russia the difficulty of this was brought home to me when one of my dinner companions exclaimed, “If not the New York Times, then where should I turn for my news?" I have thought about this and I guess the Times can be put in the same category as Democracy. In the words of Winston Churchill, which he gave in a speech to the House of Commons in 1947, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” The same may be said of our media and particularly the New York Times and its columnists.

As bad as they are, they are better than nothing, and certainly better than what pretends to be news on TV, and I would certainly urge my readers to read and keep informed by the only media we have, but to do so with a jaundiced eye.

Having said the above as a preamble, I want to share with my readers a comment I received from Joe Kerrigan of Iselin, NJ which as well as anything illustrates why the New York Times can be a dangerously deceptive news source, and why reading my postings along with its source material can avoid major misconceptions. Kerrigan wrote:

Enjoyed your column, as always. Suggest that when you speak in absolute terms, you do so with Greater caution or more reflection, a la your reference to Al Gore . He did not invent the Internet. An agency of the federal government did. I believe it is commonly referred to as DARPA.

To which I responded:

(With respect to) …your recommendation that when I am speaking in "absolute terms" I do so with "Greater caution or more reflection, a la (my) reference to Al Gore", I can assure you that I exercise the "Greatest caution", and reflect carefully before I write. If there is one thing that I am meticulous about, it is making absolutely sure that what I state as facts, are facts.

The problem is not with my care, but rather with the care of my readers, who like most others, read carelessly, and often confine their reading to headlines, or at best to the first paragraph or two, making assumptions as to the rest.

Their is also a tendency to look upon the New York Times as the gospel, and so when anyone tries to expose them, to assume that those who would do so must be mistaken, or at least careless.

And so you have allowed yourself to continue to be misled by a superficiality of reading, and never took the time to refer to my blog posting "The Media II - Falsehoods about Gore," which if you had, you would not have been misled. (Article can be accessed by clicking on brown title)

You are quite right that Gore did not invent the Internet. What you overlooked was that this is not where the lie lay. The lie lay in the false and malicious charge that Gore had ever claimed that he did. He had not made such a claim!!!!

Now since I can't get you, or for that matter very few of my readers to go to the references, which are available with just a click of the mouse, I will quote from the referenced source:

"Here are the facts:

"In 1989, Gore introduced the National High-Performance Computer Technology Act, a five-year, $1.7 billion program to expand the capacity of the information highway to connect government, industry, and academic institutions. Signed by President Bush in 1991, the bill supported research and development for an improved national computer system, and assisted colleges and libraries in connecting to the new network. In 1989, when few public officials grasped the profound changes that new information technology would bring, Gore saw them plainly. "I genuinely believe that the creation of this nationwide network will create an environment where work stations are common in homes and even small businesses," he told a House committee in the spring of 1989.

"On this basis Gore said in an interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” As can be seen, this was entirely true. HE DID NOT SAY HE “INVENTED” THE INTERNET."

But once a lie is spread, it is almost impossible to erase it. The truth never catches up with the lie, particularly when the New York Times is one of the sources and refuses to issue a retraction.

I know that all myth have a life of their own and we live by them. I try to dispel these myths. As you can see from your own reaction, it is not easily done.

As a matter of fact this was not the only lie promulgated by the media in general and the New York Times in particular about Gore, which may well, have cost him his election, a result which has been haunting us long beyond that election, and which is and remains history. It may be that this election set the stage for all that has followed.

The Times and the media also spread lies about what Gore said about Love Canal and the “Superfund.” Please, Please read that posting "The Media II - Falsehoods about Gore" and while you are at it take the time to read: "The Media! (Watergate/Clinton)" and "The Media III - Falsehoods about Kerry."

Unless you read these articles you will be lacking an understanding of the extent to which the media could not and can’t be trusted. The truth can be found, but it takes work and dedication.

But our faith in the New York Times has been so ingrained that Leonard Levenson Esq. of New York responded to my criticism of the Times columnists with:

Do not confuse the opinions of op Ed or other writers for a particular editorial policy of a newspaper. The Times uses writers such as Brooks, Dowd, and Krugman who all have differing views on the economy and Obama. I am not quite as cynical as you are about the motives of all newspapers. Obviously, some tabloids are interested only on increasing circulation or are the mouthpieces for particular interests. I do believe that papers like the Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and The New York Times are altruistically motivated.

I am astonished that you, of all people, are prepared to criticize those that criticize Obama. I say "you of all people" because I identify you as one who is an unyielding advocate of the free exchange of ideas and "let the chips fall where they may.” The Republicans do not need help from Democrats to criticize Obama. The difference is that the Republicans make no sense in the attacks. Democrats are thoughtful and balanced in their criticism and is not a rejection of his ideas but of his methodology. The Republicans are "know-nothing" obstructionists with no intelligent alternatives to most of Obamas very intelligent ideas.

To which I replied:

Do not confuse newspapers editorial policy with their news reporting. The Wall Street Journal has always had a terrible, even slanderous editorial page, but it’s reporting has been sterling. The Times has a good editorial page, but its news pages have become increasingly questionable, and I can give endless examples. But for now let us focus on what I wrote below which I am not sure you read, or at least not carefully. How do you explain Judith Miller who shilled for the Bush Administration in the pages of the Times by publishing selected and distorted facts in support of the Iraq war, or the facts set forth in "The Media II - Falsehoods about Gore" and "The Media III - Falsehoods about Kerry" and in criticizing Krugman et al., I am not doing so not just for opinions but for falsehoods, and I can cite other articles in the Times and other "good newspapers" that are misleading or out and out false.

Yes, I have become cynical but with good reason. In the cited articles about Gore and Kerry I cite both the Times and the Washington Post for misleading and slanderous articles about the Democratic candidates that may well have cost them the election. The Trojan Horse refers not just to Krugman but to just about everybody in the media.

But after all the New York Times carping, along with the rest of the “liberal media” about what a bad deal the President made with Republicans to avoid a default, the Times suddenly discovered the merit therein, writing in their editorial of October 1, 2011:

But that supposed victory has forced many Republicans into an equally tight corner. They are starting to realize that if they remain adamant, the resulting across-the-board cuts will disproportionately affect programs they support, starting with military spending.

The joint committee created by the debt-ceiling agreement is desperately groping behind closed doors for ways to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit. Republican leaders want it all to come from spending cuts; Democratic leaders want a mix of cuts and revenue increases. If the two sides cannot agree, there will be automatic cuts, which largely spare social-welfare programs but would severely reduce military and security spending. (Emphasis added)

Better late, then never!!!!!