Democracy a la russe

Medvedev and Putin have recently announced that they would trade places: Putin will run for President and Medvedev will be his Prime Minister.  This was not exactly a stunning surprise, though some speculated that Medvedev and Putin were in reality more competitors than friends.  In fact, their warm smiles and mutual backslapping proves nothing.  For all we know, they could be the biggest friends on the planet or they could be hating each other, this does not matter: they each represent constituencies which have decided to work together.  Love or no love, Medvedev and Putin are therefore political symbionts.

The Western press, lead by the always hysterically russophobic British media, has declared that the upcoming elections (Duma and Presidential) are a "done deal", the not-so-subtle hint being that Russia is not a "real democracy".  But is it?

The fact that in terms of laws or civil rights Russia is very democratic, no less than any Western country.  There are seven registered political parties in Russia, and many more political movements and smaller parties.  Furthermore, all political opinions and movements are legal in Russia (with the exception of the open apology of ethnic hatred), the media is extremely diverse, and most Russians enjoy an unlimited access to the Internet.  Finally, there are a lot of well-known public figures which have openly expressed their opposition to the current government and regime without suffering any consequences.  All this nonsense about journalists killed in Russia for political reasons is hogwash: yes, many were killed, but there is not a shred of evidence of any government involvement.  The fact is that *lots* of people in Russia get killed each year and that there are a lot of financial/mob interests in Russia who will not hesitate to kill when challenged.  Reporters like Anna Politkovskaya or Pavel Khlebnikov or activists like Alexander Litvinenko were all deeply involved in activities which directly threatened Chechen mobsters, not the Kremlin.  No, that "cloak and dagger" image of "Putin's Russia" were KGB killers roam the streets to kill democracy-loving reporters is nonsense, conjured up by the allies of Mr. Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky and the rest of the Jewish "oligarchs" who were either jailed or exiled by Putin.

Not that Putin would hesitate to kill his enemies.  He would not and, if fact, he has done so many times.  The long list of assassinated leaders of the Chechen rebellion (pretty much all of them except the seemingly indestructible Doku Umarov) is the best possible proof of the fact that the Russian security and intelligence services are quite capable of organizing an assassination, both in Russia and abroad.  But Putin has a far better weapon against his political enemies than murder: he has a fine-tuned political system.

If we take a look at the Russian political scene, what do we see?

First, there is the party of Putin and Medvedev, United Russia, supported by a large political movement, the All-Russian Popular Front.  This is the political force which turned Russia from a failed state into a superpower in one decade (from 2000-2010).  This is the force which gave most Russians a real combination of prosperity and freedom.  This is the force which crushed the Chechen rebellion, which achieved a lightening military victory against Georgia, and which lead Russia's comeback on the international scene.  This political force has an extremely sophisticated political PR machine and it organizes US-style political mega-events.  Last, but not least, it is lead by two men, Medvedev and Putin, who are both excellent speakers, capable of alternating charm and "strong leader" like body-language.  Unlike that pathetic drunkard Eltsin (which Russians still associate with pro-Western "reformist" parties), these two men are exceedingly intelligent, very well educated, they are both truly immersed in the nitty-gritty aspects of daily government.  One can like them or not, but nobody can deny that these two are formidable political figures.

Now let's take a look at the opposition.

The two big opposition parties are the Communist Party (KPRF) lead by Gennady Ziuganov and the Liberal-Democracic Party (LDPR) lead by Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

The KPRF is an almost comically pathetic party, with red flags, pictures of Lenin, and a leader who has often been compared to a boar.  This party has its power base in the disenfranchised social groups which lost it all when communism collapsed in 1991 and which are openly and unapologetically nostalgic for the "good old days" of the Soviet Union.

In contrast, the LDPR is categorically anti-Communist, it blames the communists for their disastrous rule and for the millions of people they murdered.  They LDPR also has only scorn for various types of "democrats", "liberals" or "reformers".  The LDPR attracts a more sophisticated and younger crowd.  Finally, the LDPR is very much a one-man show with Zhirinovsky has its seemingly eternal and flamboyant leader.

Neither the KPRF nor the LDPR represent any kind of real threat to the current regime.  Why?  In the case of the KPRF, it is ridiculously anachronistic and quite simply out of touch with the 21 century.  Most Russians want nothing to do with Communism and what it stands for.  Sure, they admire some of the achievements of the Soviet Union, but that does not at all mean that they want to turn back the clock, even if it was possible to do so (which it is not).

As for the LDPR and Zhirinovsky, it is deeply disliked by a large segment of the population which sees Zhirinovsky as a clown, which he in reality very much is.  Zhirinovsky is one big joke, each of his appearances is accompanied with the kind of buffoonery which one might expect on the US TV show Saturday Night Live.  A lot of what Zhirik (as he is often called in Russia) makes perfectly good sense, but his sensible ideas are always wrapped into all sorts of lunacies which cannot be take more seriously than then of pro-wrestling actors.

Combined, the KPRF and the LDPR will get a good chunk of the vote, but these parties do not really want to rule, they are only good as entertaining eternal opposition parties.  Not only that, but in reality both parties very often vote with the government, the LDPR, in particular, is notorious for being a "fake-opposition", making all sorts of loud statements before inevitably voting with the government.

The real role of the KPRF and the LDPR is to provide a safety valve for those who hate the regime, to attest to the democratic nature of the Russian political system, and to make darn sure no real opposition party should come and threaten the regime in power.

What about the various small political parties?  Most of them are rather pathetic pro-Western "liberal" or "democratic" parties which have exactly zero chance of ever becoming relevant.  The fact is that the nightmarish rule of the US-supported Eltsin regime and his Jewish oligarchs has left a terrible trauma in its wake.  If there is one thing which unites a vast majority of Russians is a total distrust of the West combined with a strong sense of disgust those who still parrot the US Empire's propaganda about free markets, human rights, self determination, etc.  This is why pro-Western political parties could not even get a single person elected into the Duma and now the regime is pushing for a new law lowering the needed threshold to get at least one representative in the Duma (talk about democracy: the regime wants a stronger, more visible, opposition!).  This is also the reason why the regime couldn't care less about pro-Western democratic journalists: they are despised by most Russians and their political backers are totally irrelevant (in jail, in the UK or in Israel).

Does this mean that the current situation is necessarily good for Russia?  Not at all.

The fact that Putin's "United Russia" is the only credible political force in Russia does not at all mean that this is good for Russia.  Yes, this political force did achieve some absolutely amazing results in one decade, but it's rule also resulted into quite a few very bad consequences:

a) Corruption is still at an all-time high.  Russia is a de-facto Mafia-state, in which laws matter much less than the informal honor code of the mob (воровские понятия). This all-permeating corruption is a rot which cripples the entire Russian society from top to bottom, at all levels.

b) Putin, Medvedev & Co. have presided over a massive re-Sovietisation of the Russian society, with a broad re-introduction of Soviet symbols, with a quasi-constant glorification of the "honest" secret service officers from the ChK to the KGB.  The 'official' Russian Orthodox Church (the Moscow Patriarchate - MP) has fully resumed it's role of supporter of the state, and MP priests have now largely replaced political commissars as the main propagandists of a rather vapid, if not obnoxious, nationalist mindset.

c) In the Russian armed forces the record of the current regime is checkered at best.  Alongside some very real success, the regime has clearly cracked down on some key elements of the armed forces, the military intelligence service - the GRU - particular has been almost completely dismantled.  The so-called "reforms" of Minister of Defense Serdyukov and his subservient Chief of Staff Makarov, have so far failed to achieve anything, besides some totally arbitrary budget cuts.  While some much needed weapon systems have been developed (Mi-28N, Ka-52, T-50, Iskander-M, S-400, Borei SSBN, etc.) the bulk of the armed forces is still in dire need of modernization.  Interestingly, Putin is now promising a massive increase in the military budget and a complete re-arming of the armed forces in the next decade. In contrast, the internal security forces (FSB, MVD) are the clear darlings of the regime and they have lavishly funded.

d) On the international scene, the record of Medvedev's Presidency is rather dismal: the US is happily going ahead with its plans to introduce anti-missile systems on Russia's borders,  NATO forces are deployed in the Baltic states, Russia betrayed Iran and Libya at the UNSC and Russia is still letting US and NATO forces use Russian territory and airspace for its military operations in Afghanistan even though the US lets a tiny and irrelevant country like Georgia block Russia's accession to the WTO (a blessing in disguise, IMHO).  Finally,  Russia has failed to turn the SCO/CSTO into anything meaningful.

e) The Russian economy is still heavily dependent on the export of raw materials and weapon systems.  However, considering the comprehensively failed condition of Russian state and economy which Putin inherited in 2000, some slack should be cut to the Russian government, but this should not make anybody blind to the fact that, at least so far, Russia has failed to realize its potential as a BRICS country.

f) Last, but not least, what Russia lacks most today is a set of  some kind of spiritual or, at least, philosophical values.  Think about it: in the modern world, what does Russia stand for?  Most definitely not communism.  Not pro-Western democracy either.  Non-alignment?  Of course not.  Socialism?  Nope.  Orthodox Christianity?  Most definitely not?  Then what?  All one can observe today is some vague sense of nationalism, as insipid and as empty as can be, removed from any kind of real historical, cultural, spiritual or ideological roots. 

70 years of internationalist (and very much viciously anti-Russian) communist rule have cut off the Russian nation from its own historical roots.  I would even argue that the two centuries of Russia as an Empire (roughly between the reign of Peter I and Nicholas II) have also created a supra-national ruling elite with very little in common with the original Russian culture.  It would not be incorrect to say that Russia is suffering from cultural multiple-personality disorder since at least 1721.  The current regime has done nothing to change that with its weird if not bizarre mix of nationalism, democracy, neo-socialism, multiculturalism, etc.  I am not sure that it would be fair to blame the current regime for this state of affairs, but this must sad state of affairs must absolutely be kept in mind when assessing the current situation.

Bottom line: what we have today in Russia is a formal democracy, fully dominated by a political force with a mixed record of truly amazing achievements, utter failures and mostly many gray areas.  In many way, Medvedev, Putin and their "United Russia" party are a true and accurate expression of the condition of the Russian nation and state today.  It is most definitely not an ideal condition, but one could easily imagine a far worse one.  Russia lacks a clear vision and it therefore has very few strategic goals (other than survival).  It is, however, an increasingly capable tactical player.  The regime in power has successfully eliminated any serious internal or external threats to itself and, thereby, probably to Russia too.  And that is already way better than what Eltsin's "democrats" ever did.

Piotr Stopylin, arguably the most brilliant Russian political figure of the 20th century, declared in 1907 to his rabid "democratic" opponents "you need great upheavals, we need a great Russia".  A decade later the world saw what kind of "great upheavals" Russia's democrats could deliver.  The situation is similar today and his words should probably still be heeded.

Russia most definitely does not need "great upheavals".  This is, of course, no excuse for stagnation, but it would be fair to say that under the rule of Medvedev and Putin Russia did show a healthy, albeit not ideal, level of dynamism and stability.

This is probably why the Putin/Medvedev team will end up being reelected.  Democratically.

The Saker

Truly amazing Egyptians!

One mouth after the Egyptian revolution began, the Egyptians are STILL at it.  I just was a report from al-Jazeera and Tahrir square is jam-packed, totally full, with a huge crowd demanding not puppet change, but regime change.

These people are just amazing!  I don't think I have ever seen such a massive and spontaneous people movement in my life.

And the people Yemen and Bahrain are still keeping up their demonstrations.  And the amazingly courageous Libyans are wining back their country, city by city, at a huge cost in lives.

Arabs can be really very proud today.  In a time when the word "democracy" has been corrupted so much as to become meaningless or even repulsive, the Arab people are showing the rest of the planet what people power, *real* democracy, can (and should!) be.

Chávez Supporters Win 17 out of 23 Venezuelan States, but Lose 3 Most Populous

from venezuelanalysis.com

President Hugo Chavez’s governing party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) got mixed results in the regional and local elections today, winning stronghly in 17 out of 23 states, but losing the country’s two most populous states and the Capital District of Caracas, with two more states still to be decided.

At midnight Venezuelan time, about eight hours after the first polls closed, the president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, announced the results of the regional and local elections, with 95% of the vote counted.

According to Lucena, participation had reached an unprecedented high for a regional vote, at 65.45%. Over 17 million voters were registered, which is several million more than in the last such election four years ago. As a result, lines tended to be long and many polling places had to remain open far longer than the official closing time of 4pm.

Chávez’s PSUV lost the governorships of the two most populous states, Miranda and Zulia, and the mayor’s office of greater Caracas, which will be a significant blow to Chávez and his movement.

The perhaps greatest surprise is the upset victory, with 52.45% of the vote, of opposition leader Antonio Ledezma, of the Brave People’s Alliance, in greater Caracas. Ledezma once was governor of the city, from 1992 to 1995, when it was an appointed office. He was then elected as mayor of the city’s main municipality of Libertador in 1995. Ledezma is considered to be an integral part of the country’s old political guard, given his ties to former President Carlos Andrés Perez.

His challenger this time around was Aristóbulo Isturiz, also a former mayor of Libertador, and former education minister for Chávez. Isturiz is one of the few Afro-Venezuelan politicians of Venezuela with national name-recognition.

The other upset victory is in the state of Miranda, one of the country’s most populous and wealthiest states, where Henrique Capriles Radonski won with 52.56% of the vote, against Diosdado Cabello, the incumbent governor and close confidant of President Chávez. Capriles was able to win on the basis of his success as mayor of the upper class Caracas municipality of Baruta, against Cabello’s relatively poor performance in Miranda.

Finally, the third key opposition victory was in Zulia, where Pablo Perez, the right-hand man of current governor and opposition leader Manuel Rosales beat GianCarlo DiMartino 53.6% to 45.0%. Zulia is another relatively wealthy state with some of the country’s main oil deposits and the largest population.

Another opposition win was in the state of Nueva Esparta, which is mainly the tourist island of Margarita, and which was generally an expected opposition victory.

States where the opposition might still win include the industrial state of Carabobo, where the former opposition governor Henrique Salas Feo is running against PSUV candidate Mario Silva, who is the former host of the satirical talk show “The Razor Blade.” The other state for which no result has been announced is the border state of Táchira, on the Colombian border.

The 17 states where Chávez’s candidates won, they managed to do so often by beating both the opposition candidates and dissident Chávez supporters. For example, PSUV candidate and former communications minister William Lara beat, with 52.1% of the vote, Lenny Manuitt, the daughter of the former pro-Chávez governor in Guarico state.

The Process

Whilst it was aimed to have voting centers closed by 4pm, the president of the CNE, Tibisay Lucena, said that they would remain open as long as there were voters in waiting in line to vote. Some opposition leaders, including Julio Borges from Justice First party, Henry Ramos from Democratic Action and Ismael Garcia from We Can, denounced the extension of voting hours and threatened not to recognize the results.

By 9pm, according to the chief of the Strategic Operational Command (CEO), General Jesus Gonzalez, more than 50 people had been arrested and 106 detained for various electoral crimes. Other than that voting was considered to have proceeded very normally and calmly.

Gonzalez said the vast majority of the crimes were destruction of electoral material, and for distributing political pamphlets. A large proportion of the violations were for tearing up the voting receipt.

In the state of Anzoategui a group of people on motorbikes removed two rifles from militia acting as part of Plan Republic, aimed at protecting the voting center.

Chávez Congratulates Nation

In a late-night address to the nation, President Chávez congratulated the Venezuelan people for having participated in the electoral event in a “civic and joyful” manner.

The event “ratifies” Venezuelan democracy, but not like the “democracy of before” his election to the presidency, which “belonged to the elites,” said Chávez.

Chávez also conceded defeat in the state of Miranda and of the capital district, asking, “Who can say that there is a dictatorship in Venezuela? Well, perhaps some will continue to say so.”

However, he highlighted that of the 17 governorships his party had won, eight of these it won with about 60% of the vote and the others with about 10% difference to the closest rival. Also, his party garnered about six million votes, which represents a significant development for his recently formed party, the PSUV.

This result for the PSUV compares to the approximately four million votes the opposition obtained, according to PSUV vice-president Alberto Müller Rojas, and thus maintains the ratio of previous elections (except last year’s constitutional reform referendum, which was barely lost 51-49), of more or less 60-40 in favor of Chavez’s Bolivarian movement.

For Chávez, “The construction of socialism in Venezuela is ratified and now we will now take charge of deepening it.”

Tamara Pearson also contributed to this article.
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Comment: this election should, hopefully, calm down the knee-jerk "socialism bashers" who claim that socialist regimes are never democratic: the fact is that Chavez, unlike his CIA funded opponents, is a democrat *and* a socialist and that socialism is neither more nor less inherently democratic than capitalism as both of these economic models can be democratic and both of these can turn democracy into a farce.

Turning to the bigger picture for a minute, it is very heartening to see that almost all of Latin America (except Colombia) has now thrown off the yoke of US imperialism and is doing what Europe failed to do: gradually developing a regional development model. While the case of Bolivia has clearly shown that very real risks of direct US intervention, I am hopeful that the continent is gradually reaching a point of no return in which the old hyper-capitalist American stooges are gradually loosing their grip on power and, to use the Soviet expression, are finally headed for the "trash heaps of history".

The Saker

Threat to Democracy in Latin America

On 10 September, the president of Bolivia declared the US ambassador to Bolivia persona non grata. On 11 September (the 35th anniversary of the military overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile) the president of Venezuela asked the US ambassador to Venezuela to leave the country.

President Hugo Chavez believed he was facing the possibility of an imminent coup d'etat in which he accused the United States administration of being involved. President Evo Morales believed that his government was facing serious destabilisation which was also being fomented by the United States. A third country, Paraguay, announced ten days previously that they had detected a conspiracy involving military officers and opposition politicians.

Latin America now faces its most serious crisis since the re-introduction of democracy at the end of the 20th century.

The plot against democracy in Venezuela centred on a conspiracy, revealed in telephone conversations between senior military officers broadcast on national television, to assassinate the democratically elected head of state, President Chavez.

In Bolivia, the separatist prefects of the five eastern and southern departments, (whose ringleader Ruben Costas, the prefect of Santa Cruz department, recently met with the US Ambassador), have begun a campaign of violence and economic sabotage designed to destabilise the democratic regime.

These events demonstrate unequivocally who defends democracy and who threatens it in Latin America today.

We are appalled by the failure of much of the international media to provide accurate and proportionate coverage of these events.

We call upon democrats throughout the world to rally to defend democracy, social progress and national independence in Latin America and to condemn these conspiracies against democracy and human rights.

We call upon the European Union and European governments to adopt a policy independent of the Bush administration in the US and unequivocally condemn all attempts to overthrow democratically elected governments in Latin America.

Signatories:

Harold Pinter
John Pilger
Bruce Kent
Victoria Brittain
Tony Benn
Ken Loach
Gordon Hutchison, Sect. Venezuela Information Centre
Jean Lambert MEP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Bill Etherington MP
Ian Gibson MP
Harry Cohen MP
Bob Abberley, Assist Gen. Sect. Unison
Gail Cartmail, Unite the Union, Assist. Gen. Sect
Les Bayliss, Unite the Union Assist Gen. Sect.
Bob Crow, Gen. Sect. RMT
Kelvin Hopkins MP
Bill Wilson MSP
Cllr. Salma Yakoob
Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead
Billy Hayes, Gen. Sect. CWU
Keith Norman, Gen Sect. ASLEF
Gerry Morrissey, Gen Sect. BECTU
Bill Greenshields, President, NUT
Andy Bain, President TSSA
Doug Nicholls, Nat.Officer Unite
Geoff Shears
Michael Dereham
Kaveh Mussavi
Diana Raby
Derek Wall
Steve Cottingham
Joni McDougall, Internat Officer GMB

A 9/11 Every Day For Ten and a Half Years

Very refreshing article from Informationclearinghouse.info:
(original URL: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19332.htm)
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Most of Us Will Eat Shit Until the Day We Die

By Arthur Silber

12/02/08 "Once Upon A Time" - -- -Let us begin with the proposition of greatest importance. From my essay, "The Missing Moral Center: Murdering the Innocent":

There is one final point to be made about all this -- and that has to do with the supreme value of a single human life. In our desensitized, dehumanized age, most people have almost no appreciation for what I'm talking about, and our political establishment and media only make this grievous failing worse. Each of us is unique; not one of us can be replaced. Each of us has a family, loved ones, friends and a life that is a web of caring, interdependence, and joy. When even one of us is killed or horribly injured for no justifiable reason, the damage affects countless people in addition to the primary victim. Sometimes, the survivors are irreparably damaged as well. Even the survivors' wounds can last a lifetime.

This is of the greatest significance. There is nothing more important or meaningful in the world. No moral principle legitimizes our invasion and occupation of Iraq, just as it will not justify an attack on Iran. Therefore, when the first person was killed in Iraq as the result of our actions, the immorality was complete. The crime had been committed, and no amends could ever suffice or would even be possible. That many additional tens or hundreds of thousands of people have subsequently been killed or injured does not add to the original immorality with regard to first principles. It increases its scope, which is an additional and terrible horror -- but the principle is not altered in the smallest degree.

So think of the five-year-old Iraqi girl who is no more, or think of any one of the countless other victims of this criminal war and occupation. Think of their families and friends. Think of the lives that have been altered forever, and of the wounds that will never heal. Think about all of that.

Contemplate the devastation and the horror. Make it real to yourself. And ask yourself if forgiveness is possible.

We now know -- at least, those of us who are minimally honest know -- that the United States government has murdered in excess of one million Iraqis. In yet another attempt to break through the massive wall of resistance erected by our government, the U.S. media, and the American public, I once put this in terms that I hoped would hit home more directly:

For ease of computation, we'll use approximate figures. Assume the U.S.'s war crimes have resulted in one million deaths. That is roughly 1/26 of the total Iraqi population. An equivalent number of American deaths would be 11.5 million people. 3,000 Americans were murdered on 9/11. In terms of casualties, 11.5 million deaths represent 3,800 9/11s -- or a 9/11 every day for ten and a half years.

Let me repeat that: a 9/11 every day for ten and a half years.

Perhaps you think these casualty figures are highly inflated. Fine. Cut them in half. That's a 9/11 every day for a little over five years.

Every day.

Do you begin to understand now?

Our government, our media and most Americans remain absolutely determined not to understand.

Let us proceed to a second proposition of great significance. The ruling elites in the United States have been committed to a foreign policy of American hegemony for over a century; this has been especially true in the decades following the end of World War II. This foreign policy of global hegemony, to be actualized by overthrow, assassination, war, murder, torture and occupation as required, has been and remains a fully bipartisan affair. Both Republicans and Democrats, insofar as the parties bearing those names are central institutions of power in the United States, embrace this policy; very often, Democrats have been notably more aggressive and ruthless in pursuit of this end than Republicans (always excepting the current war criminals in charge of the executive branch). I have detailed this bipartisan policy of murder and conquest in numerous essays; see all of my "Dominion Over the World" series (all the essays in that series are linked at the end of that article), and the other articles linked in those pieces. Scan the archives for still more.

The Democrats were never going to end the occupation of Iraq, as I noted in a post just prior to the 2006 election: "An Election Conceived in Nausea." The other predictions in that post have also been borne out by events. Predicting how loathsome the loathsome Democrats will be is not a difficult task -- not if you are minimally honest.

In a new article, Matt Taibbi details the nauseating depths of the Democrats' abominable record over the last year. Taibbi notes the Democratic leaders' lofty calls to inspirational principles -- from Harry Reid ("We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."), and from Nancy Pelosi ("We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it.") Reid and Pelosi offer such resounding calls to first principles as more and more people are slaughtered every day. Couldn't you just die? Lots of people are dying, but not anyone you know (or Reid or Pelosi knows) -- so you don't give a shit.

Taibbi writes:

Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"

The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame.

Taibbi makes two errors here, one that is obvious and one that is implied. The obvious error is to speak of the Democrats' "betrayal." It is only betrayal if the Democrats had, in fact, been committed to ending the occupation. That in turn would require that they question the basic assumptions of United States foreign policy. But they weren't and they don't, as many of my essays demonstrate. It was betrayal only to those stupid enough to have believed what the Democrats said, as opposed to what their actions -- and the underlying dynamics at work -- showed. I suppose I should add that one need not necessarily have been stupid (and here, I cast my eye around the "progressive" blogosphere): a person might be so consumed with achieving power for the Democrats above all else that he or she is willing to lie endlessly -- so as to curry favor with those in power (or who might be), to wield "influence," and/or to make a sufficient number of mindless readers happy (or keep them suitably intellectually sedated).

Taibbi's implied error is his talk about "whom to nominate." He names Hillary Clinton as one of those who peddles endless "bullshit" about wanting "to do the right thing" -- and he notably fails to mention Obama. Memo to Taibbi: if you're thinking that Obama represents a genuinely different point of view on these questions, you're wrong -- he doesn't. (I'll have more about the particular dangers represented by Mr. Obama, and they are considerable, in the next few days.)

Later in his article, Taibbi offer these sickening details concerning the mechanics of the Democrats' actions:

Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.

This supposedly grass-roots "anti-war coalition" met regularly on K Street, the very capital of top-down Beltway politics. At the forefront of the groups are Thomas Matzzie and Brad Woodhouse of Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, the leader of the anti-war lobby. Along with other K Street crusaders, the two have received iconic treatment from The Washington Post and The New York Times, both of which depicted the anti-war warriors as young idealist-progressives in shirtsleeves, riding a mirthful spirit into political combat — changing the world is fun!

But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for? At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi "squeezed for time" mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats. "There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans," a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.

What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group's leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same U.S. senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.

Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. ...

With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008.

Taibbi goes on:

Even beyond the war, the Democrats have repeatedly gone limp-dick every time the Bush administration so much as raises its voice. Most recently, twelve Democrats crossed the aisle to grant immunity to phone companies who participated in Bush's notorious wiretapping program. Before that, Democrats caved in and confirmed Mike Mukasey as attorney general after he kept his middle finger extended and refused to condemn waterboarding as torture. Democrats fattened by Wall Street also got cold feet about upsetting the country's gazillionaires, refusing to close a tax loophole that rewarded hedge-fund managers with a tax rate less than half that paid by ordinary citizens.

After all this, the liberal-progressive blogosphere continues to propagandize endlessly and raise huge amounts of money for "more and better Democrats" -- on the model of Jim Webb, I suppose, one of those "better" Democrats who offered one of the most pathetically stupid defenses in the history of the universe in support of his vote for last summer's atrocious FISA legislation.

Here's a rule you can take to the bank:

Any individual who rises to the national political level is, of necessity and by definition, committed to the authoritarian-corporatist state. The current system will not allow anyone to be elected from either of the two major parties who is determined to dismantle even one part of that system.

Yes, yes: there are a handful of exceptions. That's so some of you can continue to prattle about the virtues of "participatory democracy." That's so you don't notice that the ruling elites don't give a damn what you think, except for brief periods surrounding elections -- when they'll tell you what you want to hear, even though history, including yesterday's history, proves they don't mean a single damned word of it. And please note that the two or three exceptions are not those individuals championed by these same liberals and progressives: note how the leading progressive bloggers themselves led the marginalization of Dennis Kucinich.

I'll be blunt, even rude: You can call it Republican shit. You can call it Democratic shit. You can call it progressive shit. It's still shit. It's still murder, and torture, and criminal war, and a growing surveillance state. If you vote for the Democratic or the Republican candidate for president -- and if you vote for almost any of the candidates for national office -- you're voting for murder. You're voting for torture. You're voting for criminal war. You're voting for the growing surveillance state.

Is that what you choose to do? Is that what you choose to support? Is it?

At the end of his article, Taibbi writes:

How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing? Look, fuck your hearts, OK? Just get it done. Because if you don't, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in '08, but it'll be soon. Even Americans can't be fooled forever.

Perhaps not forever, but most Americans are perfectly willing to be fooled (hell, they're enthusiastic about it) until the Empire begins to crumble around them -- that is, in ways that directly affect them in their lives. That day may be coming, perhaps sooner than we might prefer to think.

Some of them won't be fooled at that point. But then it will be too late. A lot of you will eat shit until the day you die.

Ron Paul throws in the towel (straight in the face of those who believed in him)

Ron Paul has published a message explaining that he is giving up the race. Sure, he declares his determination to "fight on", but without a national campaign staff; he wants to focus on his constituents in his home district whom he declares unwilling to "let down", unlike the rest of his supporters, I suppose. Here is the most important part of Ron Paul's statement:

"Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican"

So there we have it: as with the rest of them, his loyalty to the Party supersedes his loyalty to his country. You see, he "is a Republican and he will always remain a Republican" , nevermind that he used to be a Libertarian in the past. He does not explain any further why exactly being inside the party of Dubya, Guiliani or McCain is more important than preventing a Fascist from sitting in the White House, from having imperial wars, mass poverty, the wholesale violation of civil right or a lunatic Federal Reserve bankrupting the USA.

Nevermind the raised $5'000'000+ still proudly displayed on the campaign website: the Revolution is over: very few Americans will ever take a seemingly principled candidate seriously again, not after this ugly about face. By not even trying to reach out to the other anti-war candidates (Kucinich, Gravel, Nader) and by rejecting even the possibility of a third party candidacy Ron Paul has shown not only his own moral limits but, even more importantly, the limits of hoping that the system can reform itself provided some well-intentioned people show up to do it. If anything good did come from the Ron Paul campaign, it is now the indisputable proof that:

1) any participation in the US political system, be it by running in it or by voting, only perpetuates it; the system cannot be reformed, redirected or otherwise salvaged: it needs to be completely destroyed.

2) unlike the British or Soviet empires, the USraelian Empire will not collapse from within: it can only be brought down from the outside. Unlike the British or the Russians, Americans simply do not have what it takes to get rid of their own ugly, evil, bloated and metastasizing Empire, no matter how "ubuesque" it has become.

So Ron Paul did an immense service to his country after all: he destroyed the last illusion any rationally thinking American could harbor in his heart about some politician working within the system would bring about any change. For all the empty talk about revolution, McCain, Obama or Hillary will sit in the White House soon. The remaining choices are as meaningful as the choice between the SS and the SA in Hitler's Germany. For a while Gravel, Kucinich and Paul gave some of us the illusion that this might not really be the case. That illusion is now gone. As with any illusion - that is a good riddance.

The Evolution of Evil: Plutocracy Controls Politics

By Joel Hirschhorn (see his interview with the Saker here)
www.delusionaldemocracy.com
www.foavc.org

Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.

Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

The tools of real rebellion are weak. Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and revolutions and think that when today's victims of tyranny experience enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong. They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur rebellion. This too is wrong.

Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham; corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda; manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism, entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.

The biggest challenge for dissidents and rebels is to avoid feel-good therapeutic activism having virtually no chance of removing evil and tyranny. Idealism without practicality tactics without lofty goals, and symbolic protests pose no threat to power elites. Anger and outrage require great strategic thinking from leaders seeking revolution, not mere change. And social entrepreneurs that use business and management skills to tackle genuine social problems do nothing to achieve political reforms. To the extent they achieve results they end up removing interest in overthrowing political establishments that have allowed the problems to fester.

What is the new tool of tyranny? Technological connectivity achieved through advanced communications and computer systems, especially the rise of wireless connectivity. The global message to the masses is simple: Buy electronic products to stay plugged in. Connectivity may give pleasure, but it gives even more power to elites, rulers and plutocrats. It allows them to coordinate their efforts through invisible cabals, to closely monitor everything that ordinary people and dissidents do, and to cooperatively and clandestinely adjust social, financial and political systems to maintain stability and dominance.

In this dystopian world all systems are integrated to serve upper class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture, then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants, sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods? In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten system they are trapped in (aka The Matrix). They are manipulated to keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.

Increasingly, the little-discussed phenomenon of economic apartheid ensures that elites live their lavish lives safely in physically separated ways. Concurrently, economic inequality rises, as the rich extract unusually high fractions of global wealth. When the rich get richer, the powerful get stronger. Does some economic prosperity trickles down to the poorest people? Perversely, the middle class is moved into the lower class. In this new physics of evil, wealth transfer is not from the rich to the poor, but from the middle class in wealthier countries to the poor in developing nations, where a few new billionaires join the global plutocracy.

Some data on economic inequality: The after-tax income of the top 1 percent of Americans rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005, while middle class income remained flat over the last 4 decades. The richest 0.01 percent of earners made 5.1 percent of all income in 2005, up more than 300 percent from just 1.2 percent in 1960. Bad economic times like the present just exacerbate inequality. Even as most Wall Street companies lost billions in the sub-prime mortgage debacle after they had already made billions, they gave obscene bonuses to their employees: the average topped $180,000 for 2007, tripling the $61,000 in 2002. Scholars used to predict that high levels of economic inequality like we have today would lead to rebellion. But there are now insufficient tools and paths for rebellion, because the plutocracy has eliminated them. Instead, citizens are offered elections whose outcomes can be controlled and subverted by the ruling class.

The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract and control the masses. That's where easy credit and cheap products from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones, 24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands, and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval society. It is working in the US and China and most other places. Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.

The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance for the masses.

There are no easy paths to restore power to the people. But here are three strategies worth considering. First, the real power of the masses is as consumers, not as voters, workers, activists, or Internet users. Weakened unions, globalization, technology, and illegal immigration have sapped the power of workers. National economies, especially the US, depend on consumers. Suspensions in discretionary consumer spending used as a political weapon could force reforms. But curbing personal spending and saving money has become a rare form of civil disobedience. Consumers buy stuff when they want it, not when they can afford it. Rulers have replaced chains with debt and no political leader in a very long time has championed economic rebellion.

Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected. All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption. Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that sustains democratic tyranny.

Third, people must seek forms of direct democracy that give them political power. National ballot measures and initiatives are needed to make laws, impose spending mandates and recall elected officials. A most important tool is constitutional conventions outside the control of status quo preservationists to obtain systemic reforms that governments will never provide, as explained for the US at www.foavc.org. No greater example of ruling class power exists than the absence of massive public demands for using what the Founders gave Americans in Article V: the convention option to circumvent and fix the federal government that - amazingly - has never been used, and that no presidential candidate has supported, including constitutional champion Ron Raul.

Joel Hirschhorn is the author of two popular books; latest is Delusional Democracy. Worked for the U.S. Congress, the National Governors Association; was a professor at the Univesity of Wisconsin, Madison; ran an environmental consulting company. A founder of Friends of the Article V Convention