1/15/07
Is it just me, or is the justification for the ongoing GWB occupation of Iraq more and more obviously about oil? Of course, way back when GWB was just rattling his sabre, the “No War For Oil” bumper stickers began to sprout on Volvos, Toyotas & Hondas, but this linear logic soon became obscured by the layers of geo-political complexities involved: Saddam was a mass-murderer, Saddam was a threat to regional stability, the U.S. needed to take the threat of global terrorism more seriously after 9/11, the U.S. couldn’t just sit back and wait for the terrorists to strike again, the Arab world saw him as a threat too, a free and democratic Iraq could only emerge if Saddam’s regime was toppled, etc., etc.

For a time after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the war of words was thicker than the actual physical combat. Europe was divided in its allegiance to the U.S. unilateral action, with Britain leaping onboard and France urging caution. Knee-jerk American hawks came up with the brilliant propaganda blitz of “freedom fries.” The Arab world was divided for its own reasons: Islamic fundamentalism threatened existing regimes, allies of the U.S. like Saudi Arabia, which thrive on class inequality. Religious zealots have the power to mobilize masses of poor people against the status quo. But at the same time these regimes gain some breathing room when the anger of their poor populations can be directed against a foreign, demonized enemy like the U.S. The result has been for Arab political leaders to play both sides of the fence, positioning themselves with the U.S. on the global stage, while encouraging anti-U.S. sentiment among their citizenry.

So it is not too surprising that the Bush administration has been able to push its war agenda along, taking advantage of the confusion and ambiguities of the issues, even as all the lies, mistakes and lack of planning became more exposed each day. The argument, which seemed to trump all the questions, went like this: The U.S. had to do something. Maybe it was a mistake to invade Iraq, but now that we are there, we can’t just leave.

This argument seems to suggest that GWB did make a mistake, that his administration has been somewhat misguided and inept in its Iraq misadventure, that we created a power vacuum when we toppled Saddam’s regime, but that the U.S. is now committed to stabilizing the situation, and supporting a new democratic Iraqi government until it can stand on its own feet. This is the “stay the course” logic which GWB has been reiterating for years now. Even his most vociferous critics within the U.S. government tow the line that we can’t just pull out of Iraq and leave a power vacuum. Ostensibly this is because of the U.S. commitment to political stability in the region.

But what is the purpose of this stability? Is it to promote peace, save lives, reduce suffering, allow for the civilized political resolution of geo-political conflicts? Methinks not. For the Bush administration and all the power brokers involved, stability is narrowly defined as “business stability,” which can be further narrowly defined as “oil.”

GWB has been getting, in my humble opinion, something of a free ride from his critics. He has been painted as the C-student frat boy who rode into the White House on the wealthy coattails of his dad. He has been painted as the dangerously self-confident cowboy guided by his fundamentalist simpleton view of the world. This character portrait has explained his refusal to admit any mistakes, to examine opinions outside his small coterie of advisers, or to work with groups which have agendas different than his. But I think this is misleading. GWB may be a dangerous man, but he is still the representative of the corporate powers which guide U.S. economic and foreign policy. He may be a mediocre mind, but he still represents the best and brightest among the monied elite. So the question really is what is their agenda. And once again, the answer is “oil.”

A more accurate reading of the Bush administation’s approach to Iraq is that U.S. companies need access to Iraq’s oil, and we will not leave that country until they get it. The new Iraqi government can hem and haw all it wants, it can institute democratic reforms or not, it can revert to a repressive police state if it wants, as long as we get that oil. Laws are being set up now that will ensure foreign access to Iraq’s oil. The only problem is if the Iraqi government that ratifies those laws is toppled, foreign companies are back to square one.

It’s becoming clear to a growing number of journalists (those not completely in service to the corporate elite) that the most serious issue on the world stage in coming years may not be terrorism or religious fundamentalism, but the struggle to control energy resources. In the name of national security, governments will use any means to secure access to these resources, even if it involves violating civil liberties at home or international laws abroad. If government and corporate leaders believe that controlling and securing access to oil and other energy resources is the most important thing, then sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians and military personnel, decimation of communities and infrastructure, despoiling the environment, exponentially increasing toxins, disease and human suffering, are all a small price to pay. In this strategic view, nothing is more important than securing access to energy resources.

Therefore, no matter how crazy it seems, no matter how badly managed this war has been and still is, it makes more sense to GWB and the corporations which back him to stick it out, because the one thing they can’t give up on is that Iraqi oil. Everything else is just details.

Is it just me, or is all the hoo-ha about corporate tax missing the point? Everyone talks about whether corporations pay enough taxes, whether rich people (who got their money as corporate execs) should pay more in taxes, and how this money will help the economy the most.

The question is posed as taxation vs. investment: If the federal government increases corporate taxes, we can reduce the national deficit, debt, and be able to fund direly needed social programs. But if we cut corporate taxes (which the Bush administration has been doing as much as possible, and then some), then corporations have money freed up to reinvest in new technology and various ventures that will grow the economy. Oh yes, and those hundreds of million lower income slobs will also get a few bucks back as a tax cut, with which they can buy some White Castle hamburgers or a tank of gas.

The point that seems missing is that the money that goes to the government or the corporations is the same money. It is the money that average Americans pay for goods and services in order to survive and function in America. We pay a small chunk for the little things, a gallon of milk at the grocery store, a six-pack here, a bag of bbq potato chips there…. But the big chunk goes to the big players, for phone bills, hospital bills, car insurance, utilities, and of course gasoline. At this level the difference between big business and big government fades away. Between lobbyists, corporate welfare, subsidies and tax abatements, the private and public sectors begin to merge. It’s what some people call corporate welfare, some people call the military-industrial complex, and some people just call The Man. As far as our pocketbooks go, it’s just a shell game. We pay to use the infrastructure of our society, which is organized on a largescale corporate/governmental plan. It is the end result of the efficiency of largescale economies.

One example of this is the fluidity with which corporate execs flow between the private and public sectors. Our president is an oilman, our vice-president is Halliburton, and so on. I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories because I think they are unnecessary to explain the logic of the corporate/governmental connections. These connections are the logical result of modern economic development models, with centralised planning and allocation of resources. Whether it’s agri-business, healthcare, transportation, or even music production, bigger is better, and the closer private and public structures become, the more efficiently the whole machine runs.

If you accept this premise, then my only point here is that our money goes into one machine to keep it running. I don’t care what you call it, corporate welfare, monopoly capitalism, bloated government, it’s all one entity, and our money is the fuel which keeps it running.

We aren’t hapless victims of some Matrix machine, held in stasis pods while the electric currents of our brains are siphoned. It’s not so diabolical: we get cable TV!

Seriously, we pay for goods and services, and our standard of living is better than that of most people in the world. But we pay for this. That means that our standard of living can be mathematically tabulated, budgeted. You have X amount of money to spend each month, and you get a Y amount of goods and services for it. The amount of money that the corporate/governmental machine spends to provide those goods and services is less than X, otherwise the economy would shrink. Let’s call the amount of money the machine spends on costs C, and the amount left over Z. X-C=Z. Simple enough. Z is what the corporate fatcats use to bribe congressmen, pay strippers, and light their hundred-dollar cigars. Of course, I’m not judging, just describing….

Z is the amount left over after the corporate/governmental machine has invested our money back into the social infrastructure. Corporations call it profits, the government calls it taxes, but it’s the same money. To me, it’s all taxes. Exxon tax, Social Security tax, Cable TV tax, Auto Insurance tax, it’s all taxes.

So what? you may ask. Well, for one thing, this gives us a different way of viewing corporate rip-offs, excess profits, embezzlement, price-gouging, oligarchy price-fixing, and the like. Instead of trying to follow the shell game and figure out who is a crook, we can just say that all the money in excess of corporate costs is just taxes. The question is then what to do with that tax money. It can be spent on lavish parties, million-dollar condos for mistresses, and all that. Or it could be spent on other things, I don’t know, maybe slightly less decadent things. Whatever. It’s just our tax dollars at work.

Perusing the NY Times while sipping my capuccino and pretending I have my life together, I came across an article about American Catholics changing the current translation of parts of the church liturgy. The issue seems to be whether to have a translation that is closer to the traditional latin text, or to use more idiomatic language that is more comprehensible in the various native languages around the world.

That’s fine. Whatever. Most of the time the burning issues within the Catholic church are as interesting as reading the minutes of an Elks Lodge meeting; that is, it’s a closed club with its own arcane rituals and traditions. I only get worked up when church politics ripple out to affect the lives of people around the world, exacerbating ignorance and suffering for millions. The pope doesn’t like condoms, even if they could save millions of lives from being destroyed by AIDS. The pope doesn’t like gay marriage, so millions of gay couples can just move to the back of the bus. But that’s hardly new; dog bites man, etc.

What struck me in this article was an undercurrent running through conservative christian thinking. It has something to do with who gets to represent God, and what words will be used.

Leon Suprenant, president of Catholics United for the Faith, a conservative group in Steubenville, Ohio, said, “When the Mass was first celebrated in English shortly after Vatican II, some of the translations took liberties with the original, and we lost some of the beauty and dignity of the original.”

For me the issue in the above quote was the phrase “beauty and dignity.” The Catholic conservatives evidently feel that the older the language used in their rituals, the more “beautiful and dignified” it is. Even if the langauge is harder to understand, and is more difficult to connect to a practitioner’s daily life experiences, that is secondary to maintaining a higher level of beauty and dignity.

But what do these terms “beauty” and “dignity” really mean? They are aesthetic descriptions, like one would use to describe a poem, a piece or music, or a building. Why should these be criteria for religious worship? How important are the clothes, the stained glass windows, the candlesticks, and the the other accoutrements of a religious ritual? Do these trappings bring one closer to the sacred?

Is it just me, or are religious leaders trying to have it both ways? Of course they will be the first ones to quote a biblical aphorism about humility and the purity of the spiritual life. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle…” and all that. Faith is about your honest and direct experience of the sacred in life, not about what you wear to church, how loudly you sing hymns, or any of that.

And yet there is the undercurrent that if you act a certain way, speak a certain way, carry out the various traditional rituals a certain way, there is greater “beauty and dignity” in your actions. Does this make those rituals more sacred? If so, then a slippery slope appears, wherein material and aesthetic aspects of a ritual regulate its spiritual value. A humble little clapboard church is not as close to God as a richly decorated cathedral. God can’t hear the prayers of Africans worshipping in their local dialect as well as if they phonetically mumbled in latin, even if those who pray don’t understand the actual words they are speaking.

Religious leaders, I presume, would be the first to say, “Tut, tut, nay, nay, it matters not what language you speak; God hears what is in your heart.” And yet traditional, officially sanctioned language somehow has more “beauty and dignity” and is therefore somehow a little closer to the sacred. Seems to me the religious powers that be want to have it both ways.

I could stop there, but I should put in a disclaimer. I don’t practice any particular officially sanctioned religious ritual (except of course playing jazz), and so my concern is not really with whatever church groups want to do behind their closed doors. My concern is more with what human activities are deemed to express “beauty and dignity.” I’m all for beauty and dignity, we need more of that. If praying in traditional latin somehow had a ripple effect, spreading beauty and dignity out into society, then I might be less critical of all those official church blowhards. But I don’t think it does.

It’s more akin to the fashions of the aristocracy of any epoch, which are designated through the mechanisms of power and wealth as the things which should be imitated by the masses. Whether it’s powdered wigs, latin masses, or $200 Nike basketball shoes, that is really the “beauty and dignity” in question here. The gatekeepers of culture dictate what is sacred and meaningful, and the rest of us are supposed to jump on the bandwagon. If there isn’t room on the bandwagon, then we just tag along behind, eating the dust. At least Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake.” For an empty-headed aristocratic platitude, it has more “beauty and dignity” than “Let them eat my dust.”

Is it just me, or does it seem weird that Donald Rumsfeld, one of the most powerful people in the world, responsible for decisions that will cause the death, maiming and misery of tens of thousands of people, always sounds like a boyscout troop leader in his public statements?

He stands at the podium, speaking to the world about his military strategies, the life-and-death decisions that translate into young men and women being put in harm’s way, and out of his mouth pop phrases like “Golly…Gee Whiz… Gosh Darn…Aw Heck,” and so on. What is going on in this man’s head? Is he carefully editing his real-world knowledge, his wide-eyed view of the hell of war, and packaging his words for “family hour”? Or is that the way he really thinks about the world?

It’s hard to imagine a military leader telling his underlings: “Gee whiz, I guess it’s time to start bombing… Aw heck, the situation’s getting a little hairy, we’d better deploy the napalm…Golly, war sure is a messy business.” And yet that’s how Rumsfeld sounds to me; a reluctant father figure, just doing the best he can.

He’d rather be making toys for orphans, shaping wooden dolls on his woodlathe in his well-organized workshop (always wear your safety goggles when you operate the lathe, kids!), but gosh darnit, he has to go fight terrorists, so he rolls up his sleeves, mutters a few tsk, tsk’s when blood gets spattered on his v-necked sweater vest, and doggedly gets on with the job in the best pragmatic old-fashioned Puritan spirit.

Does Rumsfeld have a carefully controlled public persona, Mr. Nice Guy, always calm, polite, reasonable, which hides a snarling, angry, breast-beating wretch underneath? Scary thought. Or is what you see what you get? Is he just a well-mannered 1950s Ozzie/Ward father figure, who is so estranged from his own emotions, his own humanity, that his actions (whatever one might think of them), his hard decisions to send thousands of people to their deaths (I wouldn’t wish that kind of responsibility on my worst enemy) are summed up in his own mind by a philosophical “gee whiz!” Now that’s a really scary thought.