[Peace-discuss] By November, Let’s Make Biden the Harold Macmillan of Imperial Commitment Shedding

[Robert Naiman]

https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159438603577656

By November, Let’s Make Joe Biden the Harold Macmillan of Imperial
Commitment Shedding

Here’s my “moonshot” for the period between now and the November election.
Let’s make Joe Biden the Harold Macmillan of Imperial Commitment Shedding.
In particular, let’s make Joe Biden sign the four corners of the War Powers
Clause of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973 with his
John Hancock. Especially Section 5c of the WPR, where it says that a simple
majority of both houses of Congress can end an unauthorized war by passing
a concurrent resolution. As a practical matter, strict enforcement of the
four corners of the War Powers Clause of the Constitution and the War
Powers Resolution of 1973 are the best tools we have right now for reducing
the imperial commitments of the United States so that we can focus our
resources and attention on “programs of social uplift” at home, as MLK put
it.

Harold Macmillan, a British Conservative, served as Prime Minister of the
UK from 1957 to 1963. On February 3, 1960, Macmillan delivered a speech to
the then-apartheid South African Parliament which was as important to world
history as the 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech in Missouri of former UK Prime
Minister Winston Churchill, under whom Macmillan had served. Churchill’s
1946 Missouri speech was a mobilization speech for the Cold War.
Macmillan’s 1960 speech in South Africa was a demobilization speech for the
imperial commitments of the UK in Africa.

Macmillan’s 1960 speech to the apartheid South African Parliament is known
to history as the “Wind of Change” speech. The moniker comes from this
famous passage:

“The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it
or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must
all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.”

In this speech, Macmillan signaled that the UK would support a rapid
transition to decolonization in British Africa, and that the UK was going
to cut loose politically from white minority rule in southern Africa.

Macmillan’s speech represented a belief among some but not all leaders of
the British Conservatives that trying to maintain the status quo in British
Africa was a losing proposition in the long run and that Britain would be
better off in the long run by getting in front of the inevitable change and
trying to help lead it than sticking its head in the sand and fighting a
bloody and ultimately futile battle to maintain the status quo like the
French did in Algeria and Vietnam.

What U.S. foreign policy needs most now to reduce the catastrophic harm it
is causing to Americans and other human beings is a Harold Macmillan, a
Mikhail Gorbachev, an F. W. de Klerk, a “Nixon to China” on a global scale,
a leader from “within the system” who accepts that the post-World War II
“system” of U.S. global hegemony can never be restored and that rather than
a U.S. President who tries to restore it we need a U.S. President who
acknowledges that it can’t be restored and tries to lead a smoother
transition towards a post-U.S. hegemony world than the one we are
experiencing now.

Many of us hoped that Barack Obama would be that President. Those hopes
were largely disappointed. Many of us hoped that Bernie Sanders would be
that President. That door is now closed. Could history now choose Joe Biden
for this role? Stranger things have happened. Since this is the only game
in town now, we might as well try our luck.

Trump ran against the U.S. Empire. He lied. What else is there to say? He
lied. As President, he doubled down on U.S. imperial commitments. He didn’t
end any war. He tightened the U.S. embrace of the Saudi regime. He
escalated the regime change policies he ran against. In practice, Trump has
been the opposite of a Macmillan. In practice, Trump has been like the
Soviet generals who tried to overthrow Gorbachev because they wouldn’t
accept Gorbachev’s assertion that the Soviet Union’s foreign commitments
had to be reduced to enable the program of domestic reform that Gorbachev
wanted to pursue.

Why should we put any energy into pushing Biden to be this President now?
First of all, because it’s the only game in town. It’s Trump or Biden now,
and it’s not Trump, so by process of elimination, that only leaves Biden.
We might as well look for our wallet near the streetlight, because there’s
zero hope of finding it anywhere else.

Second, because regardless of their personal histories or personal
characteristics, Biden represents different constituencies than Trump. In
the United States today, most American militarists are Republicans.
Importantly, not all Republicans are American militarists; importantly, not
all American militarists are Republicans. But most American militarists are
Republicans. Likewise, most Americans who support a program of domestic
economic and social reform are Democrats. Need I say it, or is it already
obvious? Not everybody who supports a program of domestic economic and
social reform is a Democrat. Not all Democrats support a program domestic
economic and social reform. But most Americans who support a program of
domestic economic and social reform are Democrats. So among Democrats we
can see a substantial group of people who both most want a US President to
be the Harold Macmillan of demobilizing from U.S. imperial commitments and
are paying the biggest price for the failure to have such a U.S. president
in terms of the domestic costs of forgoing reforms for social improvement
at home. And these are the people we should try to organize to push Joe
Biden now to be the Harold Macmillan of U.S. foreign policy reform,
reducing imperial commitments.

Note what I haven’t said here, anywhere. I have not encouraged anyone to
vote for Joe Biden. I have not encouraged anyone to vote against Joe Biden.
I have been Switzerland on that question here. I’m putting that question to
the side for the purposes of this discussion. Even if we go hide in a cave
for the next seven months, the odds are good that Joe Biden will be the
next President of the United States. If we care about reducing the harm
caused to Americans and other human beings by the American Empire - and if
you don’t care, I can’t imagine why you’ve read this far - why not do what
we can in the next seven months to push Joe Biden to be the Harold
Macmillan of reducing U.S. imperial commitments, in the Overton Window in
which he is most vulnerable to U.S. public opinion?

In the opening innings of the fight he led towards universal health
insurance, Barack Obama said: the health insurance companies have to be at
the table. But they can’t own the table. This is the vision we should push
for in the international relations of the United States in the Joe Biden
Administration. Neither isolationism, nor unilateralism, nor American
Exceptionalism, nor American hegemony. We want the U.S. to be at the table,
but we don’t want the U.S. to try to own the table. If we’re honest, this
would represent almost as big a break from many past policies pursued by
Democrats as it would from past policies pursued by Republicans.
Acknowledged. But it’s the only game in town. We might as well “give it the
old college try,” as my mother used to say.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20200423/fa969955/attachment-0001.htm>