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[I'll post this to the list, too, so our colleagues can take a hand,
if they like: (Scoop) Jacks(on) or better to open. --CGE]<br>
<br>
<br>
Weiss overestimates the importance of the Obama veto. Consistent
with standard US policy since Kissinger, the veto probably didn't
even cause the lights to burn very late in Foggy Bottom. Obama's
genius is to find a form of words that papers over principled
differences and allows the traditional policies to continue - if
anything, with what Kennedy would have called "more vigor." That's
been his general approach to the Mideast war, and a fortiori to the
Palestinian "theater," as he likes to say. He didn't cave: he
continued...<br>
<br>
The only thing new was the effort that went into the substitute
resolution - vintage Obama - but when Susan Rice couldn't sell it
(would you buy anything from this woman?), I think they just
shrugged. <br>
<br>
The most important factor was not the Israel lobby "...twist[ing]
the progressive president's [?!] arm." It was Obama's commitment to
the traditional (for 40+ years) role of Israel in the US
configuration of forces to maintain control over what the State
Department called at the end of WWII "the world's greatest material
prize" - Mideast energy resources.<br>
<br>
And it's clear that control - not access - is the issue. The dirty
little secret that neither party in the US will admit is that US
industry doesn't need Mideast energy - even now only perhaps 15% of
what we use at home comes form the Mideast (mostly Saudi Arabia) -
and that could be substituted for. (See Prof. C. John Mann of this
institution in the Sunday papers on the Keystone XL pipeline from
Canada.) <br>
<br>
Our energy comes from the Atlantic basin (within a
Canada-Venezuela-Nigeria triangle.) But - when Germany imports 80%
of its energy resources, Japan 100%, and China is starved for energy
- our hand on the spigot, as Zbigniew Brzezinski says, gives us a
vital advantage - one of the few - over our economic rivals. Obama
like his predecessors is willing to spend a lot and kill a lot of
people in order to "maintain the disparity," in George Kennan's
famous phrase. <br>
<br>
For all the increasing connections between US corporations and
Israel - which make the WSJ so pro-Israel - it's important to see
that the American interest in both the Mideast and Israel is
geopolitical even more than directly economic. Weiss seems to
collapse the two when he complains about "the Chomsky view that
American rigidity in the Middle East is a corporate policy." <br>
<br>
The old man in the British Museum pointed out (when he was a young
man) that "The executive of the modern state is but a committee for
managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." And the
common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie - corporate class, if you
prefer - may not be identical with the interests of any one
corporation or industry. (The major oil companies, e.g., seem to
have had some trepidation about the invasion of Iraq.)<br>
<br>
Chomsky's analysis - which Weiss calls "materialist" - is in fact
geopolitical. It describes what American planners have been doing at
least since the "Grand Area Planning" of World War II. And those
plans are less driven by passion - greed, or something else - than
by a certain form of rationality. <br>
<br>
Since Weber, we've spoken of one form of rationality that is a mater
of fitting means to ends, and of another that consists of choosing
proper ends or goals.<br>
<br>
American Mideast policy is thoroughly rational - and hardly swayed
by passion at all - in the first sense. The end - control of energy
- is clear; and it is to be accomplished (to borrow a phrase) by any
means necessary. Planning is discovering what means are necessary.
<br>
<br>
But in the second sense, American policy is deeply irrational, and
Chomsky makes that the major theme - announced in the title - of his
"Hegemony or Survival" (2003). "America's Quest for Global
Dominance" (the subtitle) threatens our very survival. Chomsky's
analysis - I've seen no better - is certainly not a materialism in
the sense of a reductionist economism. It's rather an institutional
analysis, if we recall that the sociologists say that an institution
is just a patterned way of doing things. And we can certainly make
mistakes as we try to descry the pattern. <br>
<br>
***<br>
<br>
There's a good bit more to be said about Weiss' thoughtful and
anguished piece - e.g., the parallel with slavery is strained at
best; the interpretation of the Civil War won't hold water (Lincoln
hardly "rose by exposing and denouncing that conspiracy" -
apparently a conspiracy by Republicans and Democrats not to talk
about slavery!); and the recession of 1980 was far more important in
costing Carter the presidency than AIPAC and/or the Christian right.<br>
<br>
But it's midnight, I'm tired, and it will take at least another
martini, tomorrow, to continue the commentary...<br>
<br>
Regards, CGE<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2/21/11 9:40 PM, David Green wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:781624.59698.qm@web65414.mail.ac4.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style>
<div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;
font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<div>Hi Carl,</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/obamas-dred-scott-decision.html">http://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/obamas-dred-scott-decision.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>FWIW, this is the mess I've been asked to respond to. I'll
probably do it some time tomorrow, and any insight/angle in
the meantime would be appreciated.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thanks for the great martini, etc.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>David</div>
</div>
<br>
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