[Peace-discuss] Chomsky's analysis on the financial crisis

[Ricky Baldwin]

Yes, I didn't put that well - I can only plead being rushed - which of course now I am again ... Of course we must judge them by what they say and do, and certainly not the "content of their character," which is anybody's guess.  The opposite "unhealthy tendency" is of course a kind of faith in a candidate's heart of hearts and in what they'll do once they're in office, or once they get that second term in office, etc, etc.

I don't have an easy answer (so maybe I shouldn't have opened that can of worms), but I suppose I'd mainly repeat the importance of context.  But beyond that, I think we have to remember why we even bother quoting anybody.  Is it to impugn character, or to appeal to a perceived authority to support our point of view?  Or is it to measure support or opposition, to explain or clarify?

We can take the case of Obama, for example (all eyes roll).  Just briefly, he (or rather his campaign/possible administration) isn't simply "pro-war" or "anti-war".  On the one hand he is one of relatively few high-profile politicians who publicly criticized the invasion of Iraq from the start.  On the other, before he was even running for president (officially) he spoke with us here on a Champaign sidewalk and made it clear he opposed immediate withdrawal.  On the one hand he has voted for bills to fund the war; on the other he voted against at least one such bill once it had the timeline for withdrawal taken out.  On the one hand, he continues to repeat in primary and later presidential debates that the war in Iraq has always been wrong and "the time to ask [antiwar folks] what to do was before we went in," or words to that effect -- basically repeating on national TV what many protesters have said: NOW you ask what we want you to do about Iraq, when
 WE told you not to attack IN THE FIRST PLACE, and so on.  On the other hand Obama keeps talking about sending more troops to Afghanistan.  On the one hand Obama does in fact suggest US military actions in Pakistan - an act of war, and the US would naturally take it as such if the shoe were on the other foot, say if Cuba sent "surgical strikes" into Florida.  On the other, it isn't exactly an invasion he's suggesting, and he does continue to criticize McCain for a more obvious, more serious bellicosity: "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran," etc.  And speaking of McCain, it is all well and good to look closely at Obama's remarks and votes and so on, but I happen to think an important part of the context is still the significant contrast to McCain.

 
Is Obama our dream candidate?  I think we agree he isn't.  And pushing for what we really want, not necessarily in terms of a candidate but in terms of policy, is certainly the most important job we have.  That's more important than how good or bad a candidate is anyway.  We know we aren't going to get an awful lot of things out of this election that we deserve: a just peace, free universal health care, etc.

But we could get something - and I think we owe it to the people of the world to get what we can.  You know, there are some real possibilities, which are no small potatoes to millions of people who are suffering:  a raise in the minimum wage, an expansion of health care - at least a bigger SCHIP, which we couldn't get under Bush - but maybe a lot more, mass troop withdrawal from Iraq (maybe we could even slow the buildup in Afghanistan if we work at it?), closing Guantanamo Bay (although not the SOA), maybe some reforms to No Child Left Behind (if not trashing it altogether), maybe even passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (certifying unions if a majority of workers agree) or even a revival of the OSHA ergonomic standard.  And so on.  Is it enough?  Of course not.  Do these things shake the foundations of the state capitalist system?  Unfortunately not.  But we wouldn't really expect to get that from the current election, would we?  We haven't done
 our homework for that, folks.  It won't just happen because we wish it would.  Our enemies are tough, and entrenched.

Given that, frankly I think we should stand amazed and excited about what we do see, largely as a result of our efforts and efforts like ours.  Both candidates with a chance are pitching themselves in one way or another as "different" than what we've seen before, hitching their stars to a rising popular tide that likes words like "maverick" and "change".  Both candidates accuse each other of being too aggressive, too bellicose and trigger-happy with the US military!  McCain's advisers have been telling him not to keep defending the war, because it is "political suicide"!  Why?  Largely because we made it so.

What this signals is an opportunity to push, to make some gains in terms of policy.  I don't mean by voting for Obama, though I do think it will be easier if he wins.  I mean there is probably sufficient popular unrest and elite fear to take advantage of this opportunity and push hard on the issues in every venue we can find.  Up the ante.  Both candidates are proposing more, not less, than the already massive (overt) government intervention in the economy, for example -- and both are even claiming to do it directly on behalf of the majority, universally acknowledged to be suffering from a "toxic" economic environment, not blaming the victims.  We have lived to see the day that "trickle down" is used as an insult for which there is no response in a presidential debate.  Of course the government has always managed the economy - by taking our money and giving it to them - that's nothing new.  But it is looking like we could have an impact on how that's
 done, yes, because of the election, but more due to the trends we are seeing in popular opinion and agitation, willingness to push.  We need to be demanding a kind of New New Deal, restoring the progressive income tax, massive break-ups of anything "too big to fail" (if this doesn't prove the government has a legal "interest" in doing it, what would?), and on and on. 

Part of the trick is, as Carl rightly warns us, is not to be coopted - smart candidates attempt to use this kind of momentum while steering it away from objectionable (to the elites) outcomes.  Of course we can expect few candidates to jump on the kind of bandwagon we'd be running, but they do respond to our momentum if it's enough.  Some more than others, but all do to some extent.  You can almost smell it if you weigh, for example, Obama's proposals on the Americas -- no to "free trade" with Colombia (great!), but yes to Plan Colombia (evil); close Guantanamo Bay (amazing), but not the SOA (disappointing); etc. -- he is responding to pressure, but needs more.  By the way that kind of practical citation, to me, is more valuable than exegesis to prove who wears the white hats and who wears black.

Well, so much for being rushed ...

Ricky


"Only those who do nothing make no mistakes." - Peter Kropotkin



----- Original Message ----
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 10:25:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Chomsky's analysis on the financial crisis

I know you don't mean it this way, but one might conclude from this "unhealthy 
tendency" that we needn't make an effort to understand what Public Figures 
and/or Progressive Leaders actually mean by what they say or do, because they're 
  rarely perspicuous.

But what then is to be done? Judge them on the "content of their character"? 
But how are we to know that, if what's said or done depends on an apparently 
unknowable context?

On the other hand, it seems to me that exegesis saves... --CGE


Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> ...most people are rarely that simple.  I've noticed an unhealthy tendency,
> here and other places on our beloved left (the right can sort out its own
> health, as far as I'm concerned), to find a quote by someone we wish to
> criticize (or, less frequently, to praise) and apply a kind of ephemeral
> "logic" to it - much the way some of us raised in certain settings might have
> seen many fire-and-brimstone preachers treat the etymology of a word, as if
> that had some magical connection to its current usage.   Likewise, Public
> Figure and/or Progressive Leader A said ot voted for/against x, therefore 
> he/she stands for y, which we take to be the same thing.  It may or may not
> be.  Context is very important...