On Violence, Crazy People, and Gun Control

I posted the following on Facebook and wanted to save it here as well as to add a bit.

I have to say that while I agree with the call for more regulations on gun ownership, that is only part of the problem. We live in a society which glorifies violence and which relies on violence to achieve its objectives, both internationally, where drones are only one of the ways the US government is slaughtering innocent people, and domestically, where heavily armed police terrorize communities 

they are sworn to protect. The glorification goes on in the news media, in films, in tv shows, etc. In such an atmosphere, one would expect individuals to be much more likely to resort to violence to deal with real or perceived complaints, and statistics show that to be the case. For example, long ago, I interviewed two Israeli women from a group called Women against Occupation. They told me that the incidence of violence against Israeli women is very high, and they attributed it to Israeli soldiers returning home after committing atrocities against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. If you train people that violence is a good way to resolve problems and if you glorify violence, you should not be surprised when the society becomes imbued with violence. So, by all means, let us try to clamp down on assault rifles and other firearms, but do not be fooled into thinking that that will eliminate or minimize the violence which is endemic in US society.

I also read the passionate plea which is circulating by the mother of a young boy who has frequent episodes of intense violent rage. All human societies and all countries have such people, and current medical knowledge does not have effective treatment for them. So, the question is what can be done to minimize the damage and why do we see so much more of it in the USA than in other developed countries. The phony austerity campaign which has infected the world has certainly cut back on funds and facilities to treat individuals prone to senseless violence, and the USA has been a leader in austerity for decades. That means first of all that mentally disturbed people are much more prevalent here, particularly outside of any kind of socially supportive environment which could help to minimize violence. Second, the promotion and glorification of violence that I discussed above makes it more likely that people with real or perceived grievances will turn to violence. Third, the availability of weapons such as assault rifles makes it easier for violence to become catastrophic violence.

The first two factors are highly intertwined with the agenda of contemporary capitalism and would require a massive revolution in our society to change them. The third is more of a reform, and it is conceivable that we could fight for it and win. Many people are discussing, for example, banning the sale of weapons that are only of use in slaughtering people and the ammunition that they use. That is certainly a rational thing to do so long as we realize that the larger factors would be left untouched. A very large number of such weapons are already in circulation, and it seems unlikely that most of them could be confiscated. Even if one of these tragedies is prevented by such actions, it is still worth doing. However, we can expect that there will continue to be such human disasters, and we should be prepared for the opponents of gun regulation to use them to undercut regulation. I can already hear them saying: You see. You regulated gun ownership and use and you did not stop mass killings with guns. It will be difficult to prove that we cut the number from 7 a year to 5, for example since these are essentially random events with some nonrandomness stirred in, such as copycats, for example.

In summary, there are some things we can do short of rebuilding human society from scratch, but those things will have limited effect. Whether even those limited actions can be done depends on us. I like to refer to a statement by the character Mother Courage in Berthold Brecht's play. She observes that there is hot anger, which quickly fades away, and cold anger which fuels real activism and which lasts until something real is achieved. The days after a tragedy like this one are filled with statements of hot anger, which may provide some release to powerful emotions but do not have any long-term effect. What we need now is sustained cold anger which prods and prods until some real change, however small, is achieved.

On Economic Democracy

I was just listening to a recent speech by Marxist economist Richard Wolf given last month in Berkeley in which he outlines the history leading up to the present crisis and then discusses solutions. He makes a compelling presentation about the new Left party in Germany and then discusses how democracy in the workplace can solve our problems. I fundamentally agree with Richard Wolf, but I want to discuss one thing he said about economic democracy. He said that neither capitalism in the US nor socialism in the Soviet Union has tried it. (I think he goes on to talk about the Mondragon cooperative in Spain later in the same speech.)

Wolf is certainly correct about American capitalism. However, he is glossing over the history of the Soviet Union, which is particularly interesting on this point. I understand that the details are probably too lengthy for the kind of presentation he was making. Still, Soviet history is very instructive. The very word "Soviet" means council, and, at the time of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, there were soviets of workers and soldiers. The Bolsheviks participated in and led them. Let us note, in a slight digression, that the Bolshevik party practiced what they called "democratic centralism." By that, they meant that while making a decision, there was full democracy to argue for and against all proposals, but once a majority voted for the decision, everyone, including those who had voted against it, was required to implement it. Lenin explained that it was profoundly undemocratic to participate in such a process and then try to sabotage the will of the majority. I mention this because Lenin lost a vote of the leadership of his party to start the revolution but decided to do it anyway. The purpose of this digression will become clear soon.

So, in its earliest days, the Soviet Union was a union of workers' and soldiers' soviets in many cities. They elected representatives who became the government. However, at this time, the Soviet Union was under fierce internal (White Russian) and external (the USA joined the attackers) attack, and its economy needed to be jumpstarted both to feed the population and to defend against these attacks. Accordingly, there was a period called war communism, in which the Bolsheviks led by command rather than by implementing soviet democracy. I am certainly not trying to second guess what they did, what they felt they had to do, but I am pointing out how the initial democratic experiment was, in their view, interrupted but, in fact, stopped and never resumed. After war communism, the Bolsheviks came up with what they called a New Economic Program, which encouraged a mix of public and private enterprises to try to revive the moribund economy. That also did not implement democracy at the enterprise level.

As a result of war communism and the NEP and perhaps as a result of Lenin's death and Stalin's ascension to power (we can only speculate about what Lenin might have done had he lived and led longer), the soviets of workers and soldiers lost power and essentially disbanded, and peasants were never really organized in this way. So, Wolf's statement that the Soviet Union did not dare to try economic democracy is not precisely correct. What is correct is that they felt forced to abandon it in the face of attack and economic crises. We will never know whether they would or could have re-established soviet power later when the Soviet Union became stronger. We only know that they didn't and that the worldwide depression of the 1930s and World War II brought on new crises. No other socialist or postcapitalist country, to date, has tried decentralizing both economic and political power.

So, while I agree with Richard Wolf that economic democracy is worth fighting for and offers a way out of the myriad crises we now face, including economic crisis, massive unemployment, global warming, etc., the very name of the Soviet Union should remind us that the intent of the Bolshevik revolution was to institute economic and political democracy together. In 2012, we do not face the severe challenges of 1917--our challenges are heavy but not so severe as that--and we can afford to fight for genuine economic and political democracy. This is not a new idea, but perhaps it is an idea whose time has finally come.

The Chicago Teacher's Strike and the 2012 Presidential Elections

Throughout history, there have been events which sharpen and clarify the historical epoch in which they occur. A few examples are the American and French revolutions, the 1848 uprisings, the US civil war, the Paris Commune of 1871, the Bolshevik revolution, the Spanish civil war, an so on. In the current period, we could add the Wisconsin battles over collective bargaining for public workers, the Occupy movement, and now the Chicago teacher's strike. One of the things these events do is to reveal the fracture lines in society, in particular the class divisions which underlie the events as they occur.

The Chicago teacher's strike is one of these clarifying events both because of the issues at stake and the particular people who have provoked the strike. Let us look, for example, at Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan. Emmanuel has not only provoked the strike by insisting on continuing unreasonable evaluation and retention policies for teachers based on standardized test scores of their students, he is also the point man in attacking the teacher's union--and the community that supports it. Duncan has taken the lead in promoting the disastrous policy of charter schools, which incidentally started in Chicago, and which is draining money and thus quality from the American educational system.

It hardly needs to be stated that Emmanuel and Duncan are both close associates of President Barack Obama. Emmanuel was his first chief of staff and is still an important adviser to Obama, and Duncan was appointed by Obama. How ironic that Mit Romney is "accusing" Obama of supporting the teacher's union when exactly the opposite is true. Romney's strange frame tries to pit teachers against students when, in fact, teachers, students, and the community are uniting in Chicago (the new teacher's union leadership there was elected precisely to do that). Treating teacher's better, hiring more teachers, etc. is one of the keys to reversing the downward slide in education in the United States. The point to emphasize,  however, is that it is Obama's people, not Romney or Wisconsin Republicans, who are the stalking horses for the most reactionary, retrogressive, austerity-driven strategy in Chicago. In Chicago, Obama is Romney, that is, he and his cronies are doing precisely what those who say they fear a Romney administration would do.

In these circumstances, I have decided that I have been too easy on my progressive friends who argue to vote for Obama to stop Romney. In 2012, such a position is untenable, dangerous, and destructive because it disarms those who would resist the assault on the vast majority of the American people, the drive for "austerity," and the destruction of the limited prosperity that a significant proportion of the population has enjoyed up to now. To support Obama and his policies in any way is to become complicit with his catastrophic agenda, which he or Romney will push regardless of which is elected. To focus on differences between Romney and Obama when they agree on much more which will be disastrous for the people of the USA and the world is to deceive and disarm. To support Obama is to abandon class struggle and resistance, which only allows the dominant class to pursue its programs with minimal opposition.

We should instead take our lead from Iceland, Greece, and France, in each of which the electorate has shifted its support from the austerity parties to parties of resistance. Until American progressives have the courage to do that, they will be part of the downward spiral and complicit in it. Much is at stake, and the time to take sides is now.

Long-Term View

In 2012, many people are primed to focus on elections, especially presidential elections. But it's worth remembering where we have been, where we are now, and where we are going, even though that is exceedingly depressing. We live in a very sick society, which is in the process of killing itself. The combination of global warming, climate change, resource depletion and destruction, economic collapse, and political ineptitude portend that our current course leads to death and destruction of our species and much beyond it. The planet might eventually recover, but we and our future descendants will have vanished. The candidates for the two major parties have no program to reverse any of these trends. Both the Democratic and Republican parties and candidates are parties of death and destruction. The argument to vote for one over the other is the argument to choose the gas chamber over the noose, the lethal injection over the firing squad. Whichever one chooses, we will all be dead, and there will be no afterlife.

Only by breaking with these parties of death is there even the slightest hope of changing the course of humanity. Of course, we need to do much more: Organize protests and movements, fight in many ways. But abandoning the parties of death is a necessary step. When I see progressives advocating support for Obama, who is totally committed to policies which will exterminate our species, I see people unwilling to face reality and I see them squandering their energies on a lost cause. Personally, I expect to live another 20 to 30 years at most, but I want my legacy (if anyone survives to inherit it) to be one of standing for principles which have some hope of improving the chances for human survival on planet earth. I will be voting Green for Jill Stein in 2012. If tens of millions of people would join me in doing so, that would be a good sign that there is support for genuine change. I rest my case.

Why Obama May Lose to Romney

The tremendous loss in Wisconsin, in which Governor Scott Walker was not recalled by a larger percentage of voters than originally elected him demonstrates how weak the Democratic Party has become and gives insight into why Obama may lose to Romney this year. Nobody is sure what Romney stands for, not least conservative Republicans who will vote for him as their only way to unseat Obama. The problem is that Obama stands for even less. His shameful absence from Wisconsin shows that he has no principles that he cares about and will fight for. Obama's love of appeasement and his subservience to finance capital rule out a campaign in which he could effectively challenge Romney on the economic issues. Obama's adventurist foreign policy is indefensible, though Romney will attack it as not being adventurist enough, and Obama will play into that by bragging about his worst sins. I think it will become increasingly apparent that Obama is unable and unwilling to do or say what he would need to in order to win the election. I do not say this or make this prediction with any satisfaction. I say it because it appears to me that this scenario is likely to occur.

Intellectual Honesty and Political Expediency

Norman Finkelstein has built a career on rigorous intellectual honesty, which I respect, whether I agree with every detail of his position or not. Therefore, I was shocked to hear him this morning on Democracy Now!  advocate what I could only interpret as a call to abandon intellectual honesty in favor of unity in achieving political goals. Finkelstein documents a significant and measurable shift in Jewish opinion toward Israel, particularly among younger Jews. He sees political openings as a result and calls for support for a two-state solution. He further argues that to go further is some kind of "political crime" because it betrays the possible for the unattainable. He says that he has been working for Palestinian rights for 30 years and wants something to show for it.

Personally, I began working for Palestinian rights in 1970, the same year that I began to work against apartheid in South Africa. In those nearly 42 years, I have striven for intellectual honesty both in its own right but also because I see it as the only way to successfully shift the discourse by moving people to deal with facts, history, and logic. I do not think the call for a two-state solution is intellectually honest for anyone with deep knowledge and understand of the facts, history, and logic. It is quite clear that no peaceful and just solution in Palestine can coexist with an apartheid Zionist state of Israel, and it is now even clear to many who used to advocate a two-state solution.

Intellectual honesty demands that we assert that states have no absolute or inherent right to exist. Human beings have that right but not states. The right of a state to exist is always conditional, and it is precisely conditional on its behavior toward those over whom it rules. Without their consent, a state has no right to exist. That was why the apartheid state of South Africa had to be dismantled and replaced by a democratic state. By the same token, there will be no peace in Palestine short of a solution which is based on both democracy and secularism. I would add that the same is true of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and many other countries. Whether there is one democratic, secular state or two or three is the business of those who now live in Palestine and Israel, but it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that a solution exists which preserves the Zionist state of Israel.

That leads me to the second demand of intellectual honesty. Political Zionism is and always has been a form of racism. Specifically, it grows from and is imbued with European anti-Semitism which asserted that European Jews were foreigners who did not belong there and should go somewhere else. The founders of Zionism embraced this anti-Semitism and thus became the first genuinely self-hating Jews. On this foundation, they have constructed an entire mythos, such as the existence of a "Jewish people," the idea of  "a land without people for a people without a land," and so on. These intellectually dishonest myths must be confronted as, for example, Israeli history professor Shlomo Sand has done in his book, "The Myth of the Jewish People."

It is the colonial "logic" of Zionism which lies at the heart of the Israeli conquest and occupation of Palestine and the dispossession of its indigenous inhabitants. The Zionist movement harnessed their anti-Semitism into racism against non-Jewish Palestinians, though there is also of course lots of racism against Israeli Jews with Arab origins. To solve the conflict in Palestine without dealing with Zionism as the underpinning of Israeli apartheid is as unthinkable it would have been to solve the conflict in South Africa without dealing with apartheid. Note that this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. South Africa is still struggling to find its way, but it can at least begin to do that since the abandonment of the apartheid system. It is necessary for Israel to abandon its apartheid system and the racist ideology which underpins it before there can be progress toward a solution.

I can accept that someone who is not familiar with the facts and history of Palestine can go astray on these issues, but I am shocked by Finkelstein's call for intellectual dishonesty in the name of political expediency. I do not agree with him that such a course will lead to a solution of anything.

Nonsense and Lies on the Middle East

I expect to hear nonsense and lies from the US government and news media such as NPR on just about every political topic and especially on the Middle East. Today, I listened to a ridiculous "expert" advocate intervention in Syria on NPR so I was moved to write again. Let's start at the high level and then move down. The overwhelming threat to peace and security in the Middle East comes from US allies such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Qatar and, of course, from the US government itself (let's not forget what they are up to in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, to name only a few places). Once one understands that, it becomes possible to make sense of the region and its events. Since that flies in the face of what is normally heard, I'll explain it a bit. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funding Islamic extremists in Syria, Egypt, and other countries. The Israeli government is led by Zionist extremists not only bent on military action against Iran and Lebanon but committed to continued conquest of the West Bank. US meddling in Yemen has caused the tiny Al Qaeda cell there to grow significantly, and the US debacles elsewhere in Iraq, for example, are now well-known. Is it a coincidence that Iran, Syria, and Hezbolleh, who are under constant attack by the US government and media are the principle obstacles to US, Saudi, Qatari, and Israeli goals, goals which would greatly increase the suffering of the people in the Middle East? If you think it is a coincidence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Are the regimes in Iran and Syria undemocratic and vicious toward dissent from their citizens? Undoubtedly, that is the case, though no more so than Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Israel, for example. It is the broad picture which explains the selective outrage against Iran and Syria but not against Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, or Israel, all massive human rights violators. Defenders of Israel often accuse its critics of selective outrage, but if this campaign is not a prime example of selective outrage, I have never seen one. Iran is a religious dictatorship, though it at least has a semblance of democracy, which is more than can be said for Saudi Arabia. The campaign against the nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program is now sputtering to an end, though it appears that the sanctions will persist much longer. One of the effects of US intervention in Iraq has been to bring friends of Iran into power there. For now, at least, the US and Israeli campaign against Iran is in bad shape. Hezbolleh still has tremendous support in Lebanon and is not an easy target either for the US government or for Israel, which was defeated by Hezbolleh last time Israel attacked. Hezbolleh is stronger now than it was then. So, that leaves Syria. Is it, therefore, any surprise that we have a concerted campaign against the Syrian government from our government and media? Some will say that is because of the atrocities going on there. I have no doubt that the Syrian regime is heavyhanded, vicious, and violent toward opposition. However, the armed opposition (armed principally by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and now covertly aided by Western countries) is also heavyhanded, vicious, and violent and may well be the perpetrator of some of the atrocities attributed to the Syrian regime. Bashir Assad is not stupid, but his regime is stupid, and I think it is likely that he has not much control over the army and police as he told Barbara Walters when she interviewed him. The first point, though, is not to accept at face value the claims made that the Syrian government is responsible for the atrocities we hear about. We need to demand proof and more and more reliable proof than was provided of the WMDs in Iraq. The second point is to beware of all foreign intervention, which is not interested in the welfare of the people of Syria but is interested in removing Syria as an obstacle to US, Israeli, Saudi, and Qatari goals. Personally, I wish the Syrian people well. I wish the Arab spring could lead them to democracy and prosperity under a secular regime. But what I don't wish is for them to have to live under a fascist Islamic regime which provides them with no freedom or justice but does open the door to US and Israeli domination. That is where I see the armed Syrian opposition leading. So, all support for freedom and democracy for the Syrian people but no support for the armed Syrian opposition. That is the only principled position in my view.

More on the Alternative Narrative on Syria

Some of this alternative narrative has appeared on Democracy Now! and on KPFA but not enough. It is clear now that Israel and the US are engaged in a concerted campaign against Iran, Syria, and Hezbolleh, not because of nuclear weapons, human rights, or anything of the sort, but only because these three are the principal obstacle to Israeli and US military domination over the region. We increasingly hear a demand from the US government that Bashir Assad must step down. That is particularly interesting because I hear reliable reports that Assad is not in full control over the Syrian regime and particularly not over the army. He says that, and many Syrians and others believe him. He has very substantial support still in Syria. It would be a tragedy if Assad were forced to step down and the most hardline part of the regime took full control and stopped even the small number of reforms Assad tried to implement. In any case, it is very important to resist the kneejerk and very shallow campaign against Syria and Iran. Its success would probably mean more Israeli invasions of Lebanon, more war, more human suffering.