Years ago I remember reading a scathing critique of American military incompetence by military historian Martin van Creveld to the effect that “The only things Americans can train Iraqis to do is kill Americans. How stupid can they be?”

Stupid enough to train the Afghans how to kill Americans, too — and give them every reason to do so.

History doesn’t repeat itself, someone said, but America almost always does.

With their tails tucked proudly ‘tween their legs
Advancing towards the exit march the dregs
Of empire, whose retreat this question begs:
“No promised omelet, just the broken eggs?”

Making Progress in Afghanistan

A robot drone of which we cannot speak
Has just destroyed another wedding feast
Or so we have it, based upon a leak
Reporting that some fifty died, at least.
“Bad people, too, have weddings,” said the freak –
Or, general, as some would name the beast.

Michael Murry, The Misfortune Teller

Hannah Arendt coined the expression “the banality of evil” to describe everyday, garden variety government bureaucrats like President Obama who have people killed, maimed, and/or rendered homeless refugees simply by dictating a memo indicating that their minions should somehow or other carry out their homicidal desires. “Desk murderers,” she called them. In this sense, then, I would call President Obama simply one of the most banal of memo-dicating desk murderers ever to occupy America’s “highest” political office. Another Deputy Dubya Bush, really, only without the dyslexic stammer and inability to compose complete grammatical sentences.

As in Vietnam and Iraq — and the next scheduled foreign policy debacle — “We lost the day we started and we win the day we stop.”

Whatever the problem, just don’t send the American military to only make it worse.

Since I haven’t read Mr Berman’s book, I hesitate to ask what readers of it probably know already, but — given the yeoman work done by Howard Dean in putting together state Democratic Party organizations that later put candidate Obama ahead of former New York Senator You-Know-Her in the 2008 primary contest — what accounts for nominee Obama’s siding with Rahm Emmanuel in blacklisting Dean from any meaningful role in the new Democratic administration? I have particularly in mind the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services, which Dr Dean actively sought and for which his knowledgeable championing of Medicare for All might have made for a significantly different — and possibly even credible — National Health Care program for America.

Coming late to this discussion from here in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, but I’d like to ask Mr Berman (whose work I’ve enjoyed for years) when the Democratic Party plans to stop accepting at face value — and then stupidly repeating — carefully crafted (by Dr Frank Luntz) Orwellian language such as “Citizens United” and “Death Tax” and “War on Terror” instead of framing their own (assuming they have one) point of view with “Corporations United,” “Estate Tax,” and “War on Peace,” et cetera. For example, I keep hearing Chris Matthews of MSNBC incessantly repeating the “Death Tax” canard at every opportunity, without ever pointing out that no such law exists. It seems to me that the Democratic Party just hasn’t the first clue about how to accurately and creatively use language for shaping the national discourse in ways favorable to progressive (I wouldn’t dare say “liberal”) candidates and programs. I guess I just want to ask Mr Berman if he thinks the Democrats will ever get over their apparent desire — post Bill Clinton — to just offer Americans a slightly less right-wing corporate party than the crypto-fascist Republicans.

“Israel remains the master of its fate.” Current right-wing Prime Minister of the Apartheid Zionist Entity (hereafter, A.Z.E.).

“And master of America’s fate, too.” President Barack “Step ‘n Fetchit” Obama.

Oh for the good old days of President George H. W. Bush whose Secretary of State, James Baker III, said of the A.Z.E. and its fifth-column minions in America: “Fuck ‘em. They didn’t vote for us.” American presidents didn’t always find themselves regularly picking the short hairs from between their teeth after publicly smooching hirsute hebrew hindquarters on demand from Tel Aviv through AIPAC.

Apropos of those noting the conservative — i.e., privileged — elite’s exploitation of the lower classes upon whose labor they typically poach,
George Orwell had a good analysis of that phenomenon in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937):

“… It greatly confuses the issue to assume … that social status is determined solely by income. Economically, no doubt, there are only two classes, the rich and the poor, but socially there is a whole hierarchy of classes, and the manners and traditions learned by each class in childhood are not only very different but – and this is the essential point – generally persist from birth to death [emphasis added]. Hence the anomalous individuals that you find in every class of society. … you find petty shopkeepers whose income is far lower than that of the bricklayer and who, nevertheless, consider themselves (and are considered) the bricklayer’s social superiors; you find board-school boys running Indian provinces and public school men touting vacuum cleaners. If social stratification corresponded precisely to economic stratification, the public-school man would assume a cockney accent the day his income dropped below £200 a year. But does he? On the contrary, he immediately becomes twenty times more Public School than before. He clings [emphasis added] to the Old School Tie as to a life-line. And even the [“H”-less] millionaire, though sometimes he goes to an elocutionist and learns a B.B.C accent, seldom succeeds in disguising himself as completely as he would like to. It is in fact very difficult to escape from the class into which you have been born [emphasis added].

As prosperity declines, social anomalies grow commoner. You don’t get more [“H”-less] millionaires, but you do get more and more public-school men touting vacuum cleaners and more and more small shopkeepers driven into the workhouse. Large sections of the middle class are being gradually proletarianized; but the important point is that they do not, at any rate in the first generation, adopt the proletarian outlook. Here am I, for instance, with a bourgeois upbringing and a working-class income. Which class do I belong to? Economically, I belong to the working class, but it is almost impossible for me to think of myself as anything but a member of the bourgeoisie. And supposing I had to take sides, whom should I side with: the upper class which is trying to squeeze me out of existence, or the working class whose manners are not my manners? It is probable that I personally would side with the working class. But what about the tens or hundreds of thousands of others who are in approximately the same position? And what about that far larger class, running into millions this time – the office-workers and the black-coated employees of all kinds – whose traditions are less definitely middle class but who certainly would not thank you if you called them proletarians? All of these people have the same interests and the same enemies as the working class. All are being robbed and bullied by the same system. Yet how many of them realize it? When the pinch came nearly all of them would side with their oppressors and against those who ought to be their allies. It is quite easy to imagine a middle class crushed down to the worst depths of poverty and still remaining bitterly anti-working class in sentiment; this being, of course, a ready made Fascist Party.”

Any thoughts on how well or poorly this analysis applies to contemporary corporate crypto-fascism — i.e., “conservatism” — in America today?

Some useful definitions:

“Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with new ones.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Conservative: Someone who cannot bear to think that anything might happen for the first time.

Conservative: One who fears losing what he has stolen from his fellow citizen or native aboriginal.

Conservative: authoritarian (with himself as the authority).

“Martial,” not “Marshall,” otherwise the uninitiated will think that Marshall Dillon has a brother-in-law named Marshall Law.

Oh, yes: and don’t forget to tow the line, or else the pussy coitus will interrupt you attempted escape from Westworld Village.

In my estimate, one of the most trenchant analyses of reactionary fascism’s political potential — certainly applicable to the Republican Party’s appeal in America today — comes from from George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (1937):

… It greatly confuses the issue to assume … that social status is determined solely by income. Economically, no doubt, there are only two classes, the rich and the poor, but socially there is a whole hierarchy of classes, and the manners and traditions learned by each class in childhood are not only very different but – and this is the essential point – generally persist from birth to death [emphasis added]. Hence the anomalous individuals that you find in every class of society. … you find petty shopkeepers whose income is far lower than that of the bricklayer and who, nevertheless, consider themselves (and are considered) the bricklayer’s social superiors; you find board-school boys running Indian provinces and public school men touting vacuum cleaners. If social stratification corresponded precisely to economic stratification, the public-school man would assume a cockney accent the day his income dropped below £200 a year. But does he? On the contrary, he immediately becomes twenty times more Public School than before. He clings to the Old School Tie as to a life-line. And even the [“h”-less] millionaire, though sometimes he goes to an elocutionist and learns a B.B.C accent, seldom succeeds in disguising himself as completely as he would like to. It is in fact very difficult to escape from the class into which you have been born [emphasis added].

As prosperity declines, social anomalies grow commoner. You don’t get more [“h”-less] millionaires, but you do get more and more public-school men touting vacuum cleaners and more and more small shopkeepers driven into the workhouse. Large sections of the middle class are being gradually proletarianized; but the important point is that they do not, at any rate in the first generation, adopt the proletarian outlook [emphasis added]. Here am I, for instance, with a bourgeois upbringing and a working-class income. Which class do I belong to? Economically, I belong to the working class, but it is almost impossible for me to think of myself as anything but a member of the bourgeoisie. And supposing I had to take sides, whom should I side with: the upper class which is trying to squeeze me out of existence, or the working class whose manners are not my manners? It is probable that I personally would side with the working class. But what about the tens or hundreds of thousands of others who are in approximately the same position? And what about that far larger class, running into millions this time – the office-workers and the black-coated employees of all kinds – whose traditions are less definitely middle class but who certainly would not thank you if you called them proletarians? All of these people have the same interests and the same enemies as the working class. All are being robbed and bullied by the same system. Yet how many of them realize it? When the pinch came nearly all of them would side with their oppressors and against those who ought to be their allies. It is quite easy to imagine a middle class crushed down to the worst depths of poverty and still remaining bitterly anti-working class in sentiment; this being, of course, a ready made Fascist Party.

Good point about viewing the reactionary component of conservatism — especially Christian Calvinist fundamentalism — within the historical perspective. For instance, from The Uses of the Past (Mentor Books, 1952) by Herbert Muller, page 293:

“The chief sufferers from [the] development [of Puritanism], were the poor. In the Middle Ages, the poor were objects of charity, however sentimental; poverty itself was sanctified by Christian tradition. In the Puritan scheme of retributive justice, poverty was a sign of moral failure. The poor became the ‘idle poor.’ The spiritual fervor that once had focused on the sins of pride and greed now focused on indolence and improvidence. Presently it was discovered that the best way to keep the poor industrious and rescue them was to pay them low wages, keep them poor. A long line of ministers down to [the 20th] century preached the necessity of poverty in the divine economy. Protests on behalf of the poor were early denounced as incitements to ‘class hatred.’ Protestant theology supported a privileged class, with its division of mankind into the elect and the damned, but the pious grew even more uncharitable because of their innocence of economics. Like the naive businessman, they assumed that success or failure was due solely to the individual; they were quite unaware how extensively their society supported and endowed business. With the Industrial Revolution the state became more lavish in its favors to business but continued to deny any responsibility for unemployment, poverty, and distress. Not until the Great Depression did the American government fully recognize, and frankly accept, this responsibility.”

Stop whining about us criticizing crony-corporate crypto-fascism.

Only after The Dickless One had exhausted four other avenues of deferment from military service. The daughter’s life may have begun at conception, but it clearly ended with her birth.

As King Pyrrhus, the Fool of Hope, famously said after he lost most of his army winning a battle: “Another victory like this and we are undone!” I suggest that anyone who cares what Ms Cheney thinks interpret her conception of “victory” (and anything else) in this sense.

As we used to say back in Vietnam: “We lost the day we started and we win the day we stop.”

or, some decades later:

Who Lost Iraq?
(With apologies to Bob Dylan who wrote “Who Killed Davey Moore?”)

Who Lost Iraq?
Where did it go, and how to get it back?

“It wasn’t me,” said the President,
With his hard head stuck in its hard cement.
“I just start fires in the minds of men;
Pour gas on the flames every now and then.
I accomplished my mission when I robbed the store,
Then to cover up the crime I went and started a war.
In a few more years someone else will want the fun;
I’ll give the mess to them; then I’ll say that I won!
They’ll lose Iraq
Who couldn’t see me handing them the sack.”

Who lost Iraq?
Where did it go and how to get it back?

“It wasn’t us,” cried the military brass.
“We just saluted Rumsfeld and kissed his senile ass.
We long ago swore not to think too hard or much;
Just do as we’re told and to use that as a crutch;
So when the hopes go wrong and the shit hits the fan,
We can always just say: ‘We took our orders from the man.’
With our medals and our pensions and our private jumbo jets
’It’s the only war we’ve got’ and that’s as good as it gets.
They lost Iraq:
The suits who tied our hands behind our back.”

Who lost Iraq?
Where did it go and how to get it back?

“It wasn’t me,” said the rapping Secretary
Talking too dense and sounding real scary.
“We know we don’t know what we don’t know we know
But we do know how to stage a little dog-and-pony show.
The Senators and Congressmen whose districts get the pork
Think the meat’s well done, so they stick in a fork.
The army’s not the one we want, but let me tell you what:
We have to go to war with it or see our funding cut.
They lost Iraq
Who wouldn’t cut me some semantic slack.”

Who lost Iraq?
Where did it go and how to get it back?

“Who the hell cares,” shrugs the televangelist
Preaching at his pulpit and pounding with his fist
“I tell folks: ‘vote Republican if you don’t want to die’
(Watching cable television; lapping up the lie).
I feed the rubes on fantasies of Armageddon Day,
When Jesus in his spaceship comes to take them all away.
I scare ‘em and they love it and they come back for more
To vote for someone else’s kid to fight in their war.
They lost Iraq
Who wouldn’t stop me selling Crusade crack.”

Who lost Iraq?
Where did it go and how to get it back?

“We had to hit someone,” said the jaded journalist
Thumbing through his Rolodex and making up a list
Of contacts in the government who leak the names of spies
Whose husbands tell the truth sometimes, instead of packaged lies.
“My name is Tom Friedman and ‘the world is flat;’
That shit about a globe you heard just isn’t where it’s at.
I cheered for Dubya’s war just like the chicken hawk I am
And then when things went south I blamed a Lebanese imam.
They lost Iraq:
Who wouldn’t buy my books from off the rack.”

Who lost Iraq?
Where did it go and how to get it back?

“I’ve explained it all,” said the White House mouthpiece man
Mumbling in mantras with shameless élan.
“Our zigzag course takes us straight through the plots
If you just fit the curve to the scatter of dots.
In the sovereign state of the occupied town
We could “stand ‘em all up” if they’d quit falling down.
But no matter what the carnage or the number who grieve
Just remember “Stay the Course” means we’ll never leave.”
They lost Iraq
Who hired as spokesman some tired FAUX NEWS flack.

Who Lost Iraq?
Where did it go, and how to get it back?

“It wasn’t us,” cried the frightened Democrats,
As much an opposition as a dozen gnats.
“We voted for King George’s war and never blushed.
With just a hint of nastiness, he left us hushed.
We bought into the “syndrome” of the sycophant
Who’d gladly ditch the donkey for the elephant.
But now that all our compromise has come to nought,
We’re too ashamed to do the things we truly ought.
We lost ourselves
When we behaved like Santa’s little elves.”

Who Lost Iraq?
Where did it go, and how to get it back?

“Don’t look at us,” moaned the undecided block.
Reliable consumers of a total crock.
We love it when the government makes up those lies
And sells them to us like McDonald’s greasy fries.
Just show us a commercial made by Thomas Hobbes
About our nasty, brutish lives with few good jobs.
Then scare us half to death with tales of married queers.
We’ll swallow anything just like our lousy beers.
What is Iraq?
Is it a toothpaste that gets rid of plaque?”

Who Lost Iraq?
Where did it go, and how to get it back?

“It wasn’t me,” said Saddam Hussein,
Sitting in his court cage, shouting his refrain:
“I ran things better and we had a state;
Now we only have Maliki, an invertebrate
Who does the step-and-fetch-it as his daily toil
For Dubya and his crony friends who steal our oil.
But Mad Dog and his Englishman have come undone,
Parading ’round in circles in the noonday sun.
Bush lost Iraq
When he and Blair launched their unwise attack.”

Who Lost Iraq?
Where did it go, and how to get it back?

“Who the hell do you think?” said Ehud Olmert.
“You mean you didn’t know Israelis just don’t care?
A busted, broken Arab land fits in quite nice
With Zionist delusions of a Paradise
Where Arab refugees profess to love the Jews
And swear to every statement made by Karen Hughes.
The goyim in America will foot the bill
Providing all the weaponry we need to kill.
Forget Iraq;
And take your marching orders from AIPAC.”

Who Lost Iraq?
Where did it go, and how to get it back?

“Who talks of loss at all?” ask the Mullahs in Iran.
As far as we’re concerned George Bush is just The Man.
He stumbles and he bumbles then he gives away
For nothing everything for which we’d gladly pay.
Dick Cheney writes the crap for him to catapult
Who never met a thought that he could not insult
The Shiites in Iraq will get our help, indeed,
To end the occupation that they do not need.
We won Iraq
Who let Bush do the work while we sat back.”

Who lost Iraq?
Where did it go and how to get it back?

“Who said you ever owned us?” cried the people of Iraq.
“Who asked you for your bloody war and unprovoked attack?
You seemed to think that killing us and wrecking all we had
Could win elections for George Bush and make him look less bad.
Our oil we’ll sell to whom we please. Why don’t you find your own?
And get yourselves a president at least a little grown.
In case you haven’t noticed, he’s the one that you should fear
Whose words smell like the noisome gas escaping from his rear.
Please leave Iraq
Then see if you can win your own souls back.”

Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2006

As President (and former General) Eisenhower used to say when someone tried to hustle him into doing something just for the sake of looking all-active-and-stuff: “Don’t just do something. Stand there!”

The corrupt and mendacious government of the United States seems only too eager to do nothing and “just stand there” when it comes to the critical domestic needs of the American people, so the American people have every bit as much a right to say the same thing to their government each and every time it gins up another muslim preacher or Iranian used-car salesman suddenly into a Hitler/Stalin menace to world civilization requiring our very own vaunted Visigoths to expend decades and trillions of dollars finding and “neutralizing” him.

Somehow, though, I can hear nothing but a little boy hysterically crying “wolf!” “wolf!” “wolf!” “wolf!” “WOLF!” …

Whenever I hear one of America’s armchair crusaders drooling imperial bloodlust with that “it’s about fucking time” exhortation, I think of what John Dewey wrote back in 1910:

“Direct immediate discharge or expression of an impulsive tendency is fatal to thinking.”

Or, more simply: “Action terminates thought”

And there we have pretty much the national motto and epitaph of America in the age of Dubya-and-Obama.

TBugger doesn’t grasp the fact that butting into another nation’s domestic violence with imperial violence of our own, only exacerbates the level and extent and variety of the violence. When I graduated from high school in 1965, America had some really concerned liberal Democrats running the government, real tough guys anxious to prove their willingness to do good at the point of a gun in Southeast Asia. By the time I got back from Vietnam in 1972, the bad-ass Republicans ran the government and had gotten more Vietnamese and Americans killed in Southeast Asia than even the “do-gooder” Democrats had. Trust me on this one, fellow Crimestoppers, you don’t want the kind of people Americans elect to public office trying to do either good or bad with explosive ordnance anywhere on planet earth. You can’t always make a bad situation better, but Americans with guns can always make it worse.