[Peace-discuss] Norman Solomon's thoughts

[Morton K. Brussel]

The admirable Paul, at least on the war issues, will not win in  
November, and so it was not illogical that he was ignored in his  
article. Most know that Solomon is vigorously anti-war, anti  
imperialist.
Again, we get remonstrances against ineffectual or disingenuous  
Democrats and their supporting establishment but nothing about a much  
more belligerent/imperial Republican establishment. Typical.

One would not be wrong to infer that despite occasional weak  
disclaimers, Carl would not be discontent to see a McLain-Palin  
presidency.

Solomon continues to be "insightful and persuasive":, and, I would  
add, thoughtful.  With (a scintilla of) hope, and no axe to grind.

--mkb



On Sep 4, 2008, at 4:47 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> In order to give a conventional account of the parties, Solomon has  
> to ignore
> entirely the largest insurgent group within either one, the Ron  
> Paul faction.
> (As do the US media, as some on this list have just pointed out.)
>
> And we hear a new version of the disingenuous (thanks, Ron!)  
> Democratic party
> bleat, "We can't do anything about the war -- our majority isn't  
> large enough!"
> -- "the potential for achieving progressive changes in government  
> policies is
> severely limited while the right wing is entrenched in the White  
> House."
>
> In fact, if "the right wing" = the neocons, they seem to been have  
> rather
> roundly repulsed in the last year, for whatever reason (Bush's  
> conversion?
> incapacity?), and the foreign policy establishment is back in  
> charge -- the very
> people who'll be in charge in an Obama administration.
>
> E.g., Obama has already let it be known that he'd like to retain  
> Mr. Gates (avid
> to kill people in Pakistan) at the Pentagon.  Within Bush's war  
> council Gates
> has been advocating for months a secret plan for a much broader  
> campaign by
> Special Operations forces inside Pakistan, and a new step seems to  
> have been
> taken that way yesterday: American soldiers landed from helicopters  
> inside
> Pakistan and killed children, the US military admits. (We forget  
> that My Lai was
> not an aberration but the way that that war was fought; the FPE  
> seems to lack
> imagination.)
>
> I've often found Solomon insightful and persuasive, but this  
> fatuity ranks right
> up there with, "He has to say that in order to get elected, but  
> he'll change
> when he's in office."  Perhaps. --CGE
>
>
> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>> I believe this piece comes close to describing our present  
>> situation, not as
>> some have distorted it.  --mkb
>> Published on Thursday, September 4, 2008 by CommonDreams.org  
>> *Beyond the
>> Conventions*
>> by Norman Solomon
>> With varying degrees of confidence or even complacency, many  
>> people have assumed that the jig is almost up for the horrendous  
>> political era that began
>> when George W. Bush became president. Always dubious, the  
>> assumption is now
>> on very shaky ground.
>> The Bush-Cheney regime may be on its last legs, but a new  
>> incarnation of right-wing populism is shadowing the near horizon.
>> Much as modern capitalism is always driven to promote new products  
>> in the
>> marketplace, the corporate-fundamentalist partnership must  
>> reinvent and
>> remarket itself. We're now seeing the rollout of a hybrid product  
>> under the
>> McCain-Palin brand.
>> Last night, after watching Sarah Palin's acceptance speech and the  
>> laudatory
>> responses from many TV journalists, I remembered wandering around  
>> the floor
>> of the Democratic National Convention a week ago. At the base, the  
>> two major
>> parties are even more different than the speeches are apt to  
>> indicate.
>> Under the roof of the Democratic Party, notwithstanding its shades  
>> of corporatism and militarism and numerous other grave faults,  
>> there's a lot of
>> longstanding and ongoing involvement from key progressive  
>> constituencies --
>> including labor unions, African Americans, gay rights activists,  
>> human rights
>> defenders, environmentalists, fair-trade advocates, healthcare-for- 
>> all
>> organizers, feminists, and on and on.
>> In contrast, the Republican Party is a political institution that  
>> views all
>> such constituencies and activists (including last night's new  
>> target of
>> derision, "community organizers") as enemies to be smothered and  
>> crushed. The
>> party's latest "populist" packaging is another wrinkle in a  
>> timeworn pattern;
>> the most avid political servants of corporate elites are eager to  
>> keep
>> generating the anti-elites rhetoric and imagery of down-home  
>> regular folks.
>> *At the Democratic convention last week, some of the speeches ran  
>> counter to
>> basic progressive tenets of peace and social justice. But none  
>> came close to
>> the zeal for social Darwinism, jingoism and militarism routinely  
>> spewing from
>> the Republican convention's podium.* * * *In ways too numerous to  
>> count and
>> in realms too profound to truly evoke, this decade has grimly  
>> underscored
>> that -- notwithstanding theoretical claims to the contrary -- it  
>> matters
>> greatly who is president. From the Supreme Court to thousands of  
>> subcabinet
>> positions to executive orders to a vast array of foreign-policy  
>> decisions including the potential use of nuclear weapons, the  
>> president is able to wield state power with consequences huge  
>> enough to be unfathomable.* * * *A
>> popular strand of analysis on the left has downplayed the  
>> importance of the
>> president. The story goes that corporate forces rule, and the  
>> person in the
>> Oval Office is little more than a figurehead for those rulers.  
>> There's some
>> validity to that assessment, but in the face of experience it has  
>> tended to
>> calcify into a form of denial.* * * *With right-wing Republicans  
>> running the
>> White House for 20 of the last 28 years, maybe the downplaying of the
>> importance of the presidency has become a kind of coping mechanism  
>> for some
>> progressives. Accustomed to a status quo that grows increasingly  
>> dire, we've
>> settled into an uncomfortable "comfort zone" as familiar as it is  
>> macabre. At
>> the same time, the cascading effects of right-wing control over  
>> most of the federal government have been cumulative and  
>> devastating.* * * *Of course
>> progressives should always keep organizing, educating, protesting and
>> agitating. But the potential for achieving progressive changes in  
>> government
>> policies is severely limited while the right wing is entrenched in  
>> the White
>> House. The changes we need can only be propelled from the  
>> grassroots, but the
>> possibilities are badly circumscribed when the far right maintains  
>> a grip on
>> state power.* * * *The election will happen in 60 days. After  
>> that, it'll be
>> President McCain or President Obama.*
>> We'll never pass this way again.
>> * * *
>> To see Norman Solomon's posts from the Democratic National  
>> Convention, go
>> here. Norman Solomon, a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT  
>> Warfare campaign, is the author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents  
>> and Pundits Keep
>> Spinning Us to Death." A documentary film of the same name, based  
>> on the
>> book, has been released on home video. For information, go to:  
>> www.normansolomon.com <http://www.normansolomon.com>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> ---
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