In Line with US Foreign Policy Joe Biden Says Mubarak is not a Dictator

Yesterday Joe Biden stated that he did not think that President Mubarak of Egypt was a dictator. He proceeded to explain how Mubarak has been a good ally to US interests in the region:

Look, Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things that he’s been very responsible on relative to geopolitical interests in the region, Middle East peace efforts, the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with Israel. And I think that it would be—I would not refer to him as a dictator.

Based on this, the Vice President's definition of a dictator is predicated on compliance with US interests. The US government backing true dictators that consent to helping US business and strategic concerns is not a new revelation. You can go back throughout US history to find this sort of thing. For instance, it is common knowledge by historians now that the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile by Augusto Pinochet was backed and some even argue led by the US. Pinochet turned out to be a brutal dictator. Pinochet's government killed at least 3,197 people and tortured about 29,000. Two-thirds of the cases listed in the report happened in 1973. The list of support for dictatorships is long. Here is a website I found that posts a good portion of these dictators:

http://www.bluebloggin.com/2008/01/11/history-of-us-backed-dictators-redux/

Most infamous and infuriating of these in many people's minds is Saddam Hussein. Wikileaks cables that were released recently suggest that the US encouraged Saddam to invade Kuwait only to turn our back on the dictator using it as a catalyst to micromanage the region for the next 20 years. We see the results today.

Ron Paul actually had the courage to bring this up in congress this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JANYT8FCik&feature=player_embedded

Although I disagree with Paul on most domestic issues, he is a champion of exposing US atrocities abroad. Representative Kucinich is more to my liking as an overall politician, and these are the two eccentric US politicians that come to mind. Now, Joe Biden may be notorious for saying stupid things, but what he said here is exactly in line with the US foreign policy stance for decades. Paul and Kucinic are marked as loonies or radicals for their dissidence. Meanwhile, the President has sidestepped his way with much prowess to encourage dissidence, but to not upset his ally Mubarak who also happens to be a brutal dictator that is being challenged by a wave of protests in Egypt. My hope is that Egypt and the other Middle East countries that are going through revolution right now do not get trapped by US style imperialism. That imperialism shows up as privitization of resources, backing dictators that systematically kill dissidents, and horrid sectionalism. That imperialism is what creates terrorists. Not religion. Not a hate for freedom. It is the western stranglehold on that region that has produced the terrorist ideology we see today. As long as a few people profit from this we cannot rely on our government to do anything to stop it.

Investing in Education in Corporate Owned America

Last night the President spoke of investing in America's future. As an American I don't care. As a global citizen I am terrified. For politicians, investing in our future means that they are investing in the growth and consolidation of the giant corporations that have our elected leaders in their pockets. This means more foreign conflict, aggressive economic sanctions against third world people that do not comply with American privatization, and more unregulated destruction to the environment. That last one is caused by the industry that profited the most last year, big oil. I will address that in a moment, but first one thing Mr. Obama said really stood out to everyone was his sputnik reference. He stated:

"Half a century ago, the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik. We had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation's Sputnik moment."

This is quite true. The Cold War brought tons of money to the universities in order to beat Soviet technology and create more advanced weapons. Our university’s and likewise our economy flourished. Investing in higher education and government projects like NASA certainly played a large role. My issue with the President's reference here is that this will not happen again. Not only because it is impossible to get any significant change through our inept political process, but also because using artless patterns in history for making important policies today is frustratingly short sighted. Indeed the Cold War competition motivated the government to invest in these programs, which in turn created jobs and a new class of intelligent Americans, but this is not 1957. This is 2011, and corporate America has its grip on every decision of the government especially in education and scientific innovation.

The most promising new industry that we should invest in is green energy. I cringe when I say “new” because green energy has been trying to make a revolution in America since the 1970s. To give you an idea of how much progress we have made take a look at this clip:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future

(Note: I know it's a comedy show and all that, but honestly who doesn't agree that the Daily Show is a better source of news than anything else on cable?)

The most striking point is at the end of the clip. Richard Nixon set a goal of getting America off foreign oil by 1980, and since then each administration has set more timid goals when it comes to energy. Why? Because the oil companies make more money than any other industry in the world (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/).

We can't invest in America in the same way we invested in the 1950s and 1960s when more and more money is thrown at our politicians by greedy companies seeking less rules and more profits by any means necessary. Those means include starving third world countries, assassinating foreign leaders that get in the way (see CIA assassinations in Latin America and overthrow of the Shah of Iran). They also include destroying the air, forests, and oceans.

The investment in education starting in 1957 was a major success at creating the critical thinkers and mass student movements of the 1960s and 70s. Since then, as colleges privatized and demanded more and more money from students and focused their resources in financial and business arenas, straying from social sciences, we have become an apathetic and politically unaware nation. My generation fails to question any of this treachery by corporate America, and our universities backed by our corporately owned government have played a major role. This is outlined wonderfully in an article by Terence Ball entitled The Politics of Social Science. He states:

“Survey researchers discovered that most Americans are politically ill informed, inactive, and apathetic. By “traditional” democratic lights, this was cause for considerable alarm. Yet, according to the newly emergent “elite theory” of democracy, it is widespread political participation that poses the greatest danger to democracy. Fortunately, an antidote is readily available. That antidote is apathy. Widespread apathy allows well educated and affluent “democratic elites” to have a disproportionate say in the shaping of political possibilities.”

In other words, a government controlled by corporate money (which many define as fascism) is not interested in critical thinkers capable of changing the world. It wants universities to produce obedient workers in the financial and service sectors, not innovators that will challenge the energy giants. They don't want critical thinkers that criticize the way our economic system works. The corporate owners that control the politicians (less than 1% of the population) are the ones that benefit enormously from that system, while the rest of us are given less education, lower paying jobs, pathetic benefits, and longer hours of work. Meanwhile, we are told by the mainstream media that we should feel bad for complaining, and that if we are not rich then we have no one to blame but ourselves. The president's sputnik reference was a nice poetic display, something Mr. Obama is great at, but it is nothing more than theater. It is the false idea that our government has our interests in mind and that it is not motivated by the pistols to their heads held by big oil, the banks, insurance companies, and all the rest.

The Business Puppet President We Can Believe In

Every time President Obama makes a new appointment to his staff, particularly the economic staff, the left is outraged and puzzled at this clear breach of his campaign promise to change how Washington works and to punish those responsible for the financial disaster. The newest array of such appointments are as follows: William Daley from JP Morgan Chase as White House Chief of Staff. Gene Sperling from the Goldman Sachs payroll to be director of the National Economic Council. Eileen Rominger from Goldman Sachs named director of the SEC's Investment Management division. General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt is going to be chair of the president's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Immelt’s appointment has come under scrutiny just as many of the others. He’ll retain his position at the helm of GE, creating a potential conflict of interest. As one of the nation’s largest corporations, GE has a variety of business and issues before the federal government, including media mergers, military sales, environmental cleanup, and a $16.1 billion bailout in 2008. While Immelt is being introduced to us by Obama as someone who can create jobs, the United Electrical Workers Union says GE has closed 29 plants in the United States in the past two years, laying off around 3,000 workers.

This is not surprising to me at all. His business friendly appointees were never surprising to me. It seems to me that the people that voted for Obama fall into these categories: Group A thought he would create a magical world of love, peace and flowers. Group B voted for him because he was a democrat and they compulsively vote for that party no matter what. Group C did not want someone as dumb and out of her mind batshit crazy one heartattack away from the Presidency. And group D, which is the group I fall under was the group that thought maybe this guy will actually enact some of the change he promises. Group D really got the bare minimum of what we expected. An eventual and painful repeal of DADT, the most watered down, nearly insulting piece of health care reform, watered down financial reform, a timid stimulus that was almost half tax cuts and didn't help to create sustained growth, and the list of mediocre achievements goes on.

The Obama supporters say give him a break he's done a lot with the Republicans saying no to everything. I agree, the right made it hard for him to accomplish anything meaningful. But this is not an excuse for his staff appointments. His business oriented staff is a slap in the face to all that voted for him, and there is no excuse. There is only explanation: Both parties are made up of businessmen and lawyers, or puppets of such men. No one represents the working class, that is the overwhelming majority of the people. Whether you are a republican or a democrat, if you belive in public services or not, you are NOT being represented by anyone that has your interests in mind. Democrats ally with businesses to make regulation rig the game for whichever lobbyists spend more money. Republicans do the same, but then try to lower taxes for the wealthy too. It is a giant club of businessmen that 99% of the people are not in. We have corporate owners, and for us to be shocked by Obama's appointees is unbelievable. We shouldn't be shocked or surprised, we should be outraged that this is still going on. Outraged that we are still accepting these chains, even willfully putting them on and locking them, while our corporate icons drag us from one side of the town to the other, stealing back any of the scraps they gave us that we desperately clasp. I believe that the disparity of wealth in our world is a perfect example of this. I welcome argument and calls for hyperbole.

The Death of Postmodernism?

http://www.philosophynow.org/issue58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond

Fascinating article that has a lot of truth about our culture, but I disagree with its premise. Here is my terse response:

I don't think postmodernism is in any way dead. I think there is truth in the idea that our culture is constantly engulfed in activity that ultimately creates banality and conformist consumers, but this doesn't signal a new philosophical movement. In fact, I think this is rather the result of postmodernism, not a rejection of it. If we live in a world where the pervading philosophy is one of individual perception and subjective understanding superseding any cohesive reality, then it makes sense that it would lead to a society of bland artistic consumption, narcissism, and political apathy. A bright spot in postmodernism (one of few that I see) is that since it has teamed up with technology, we now more than ever are able to connect and feel empathy with human beings on the other side of the world. That inclusive attitude has the potential to bring us together and eliminate mass violence and conflict more than any other philosophy/technological period in history.