Raiden—thank you for your “thoughtful comments”..a “retarted person”

Umm, I dont think that Obama has time to read your thoughtful comments…where do you people come from?

Gheeez…

Anarcissie, thank-you for your thoughtful comments.

I agree in all respects. Perhaps like TAO Walker, I regret that the levers of power are so far removed from our daily lives that we find ourselves speaking of “a ruling class” as somebody other than ourselves.

I long for the simplicity of neighborhood democracy and local governance. I would gladly sit in council with any of the people I have met through the Truthdig message boards, if only we could “frame the question”. (See TAO Walker’s February 20th contribution to Truthdig post “Slam the Door on Compromise”)

In Europe today, public debate is focused on the preservation and promotion of diversity and sustainable development in the fullest sense of these words: from dealing with and assimilating undocumented workers from Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (to name only the most obvious sources of excess population), to reducing the urban footprint of our cities, improving public transit and depolluting the Mediterranean.

The French it seems, successfully resisted the temptation to monetize their credit markets through “financial derrivatives” but suffer just the same from the insecurity of a possible financial meltdown. I do feel confident though, that Europe’s best minds are working on the problem.

Nothing is simple.

prgill:
‘anarcissie, the difference in our positions is that you probably see “dominance” as an end in itself, whereas I see it as a process in which one is never dominant for long. ...’

Human beings are willful and potentially intelligent animals; therefore, they wish to work their will.  They find themselves in a universe where they must struggle against other things, especially other willful animals, to do this.  They are trying to dominate, to master, to control their environment.  The fact that they are resisted by others like themselves is an important problem.

There are various solutions to this problem.  One is to try to force everyone to do as one wills.  Unless one has unusual capacities, this strategy generally does not work well.  Even a master thug must sometimes sleep, and then his slaves may kill him.

Another solution is to try to get along with, and avoid conflict, with others.  This will not satisfy all of our willful beings, however; they crave dominance even if they can get it only partitively or vicariously.

Hence a third, very popular solution: join with a structured social group who exert dominance over others—a pack, a gang, a mafia, a corporation, a state.  By cohering in a group which practices domination internally and externally one gets to dominate others at the price of being dominated by those of higher status.  For many it is worth it.  The larger of such structures, especially the state, have the additional virtue of relative permanence.

The group is, of course, obliged to practice domination on behalf of those who have joined it to satisfy their desire for vicarious domination.  In the case of primary, truly sovereign states, this means constant war and threats of war, since these are purest and most extreme forms of domination.  (Hence their deep fascination for humans as evidenced in works of art and religious myths.)

This is why the United States, at the behest of its ruling class, will be involved in wars, preparations for war, threats of war, and other forms of coercion, until it goes bankrupt or is neutralized or destroyed in some other way.  The central principle of the state is violence.

prgill—What invective? What anger?  This is my customary peaceful, good natured state.  My concern is with simple concepts necessary to tell the simple holistic truth about people and power because my primary interest is to help enlighten the American people and people of the world.  Wo are deluded by the powerful and their truth agents.

Such as yourself. You have the same ideology as Dionne, trying to pose as a progressive to induce rank and file to suppport concervative policies.  Nothing to get upset about here, there ae thousands of truthers like you put out by the intelligence agencies, Aipac, business councels, and the like.

I was merely clarifying some conceptual language that you were trying to obscure.

It seems to me what we’re doing in Afghanistan is keeping the Military Establishment happy (its soldiers employed, its weapons used, its infrastructure employed etc. etc.).

Its gotten so big and out of control, the U.S. literally needs to keep finding new wars for it.

sick.

Folktruther, what did I say to inspire such invective? Does my understanding of the world and the way it works exclude the possibility that you may be right? Why the anger?

WHY do people object to the term “class warfare”? Is it the “warfare” part? Because, the ruling classes are already waging it on you—-didnt you see that as*hole on CNBC? Unless you make over $134,000 a year, he meant you…what , you didnt “take out no DUMB MORTGAGE”? You didnt have a 401k? Well, you’ll still sink or swim with the rest of us.

Its a big sh*t sandwich and we all have to take a bite. The question is, will the ruling classes have to also?

Thanks for links—I cant seem to answer personal email, but, I do appreciate the thought…I’ll try again.

Simple concepts like ‘ruling class’, ‘power structure’ and ‘power system’ are necessary to tell the simple holistic truth about people and power.  They have been ideologically repressed in the American mainstream conceptual language, and this prevents the formulation of simplifying conceptual strutures that gives a simple overview or outline of political and social reality.  Indeed, of all reality.

This is why prgill objects to these terms; they subvert the sanitized bullshit that legitimates oppressive American power.  With which he identifies.  These kind of terms must be legitimated in the American progressive language to de-Educate and De-inform the American population who have been deluded by the prgills of the mainstream truth.

The term ‘ruling class’ and other such terms have been ideologically repressed in the US during the War on Communism, which ideologicaly repressed marxist simple truths. The US is a highly repressive power system, laargely ruled through police and intellignece agencies, which is disguised by the mainstream pretense that we possess Freedom of Expression.

The mainstream truth consensus restricts freedom of truth to prevent the population from telling the simple holistic truth about the American power system, which is clothed in American ideology, which is a fabric of bullshit from beginning to end.  It is necessary to subvert the delusive emotinal truths instilled by the repetition of the mainstream truth, and these simple concepts, like ‘ruling class’, are essential to this historical project.

to jameel-opps-I’m sorry I stepped on your ethnicity….But my aims are correct….Let me re-phrase….....

Please AMERICA-Remove our people from foreign soil where they are losing their lives-fighting and dying for people who don’t want them there-because “ole bullshit” INVADED a country he had no right to INVADE…
Please AMERICA-Give these people BACK THEIR COUNTRY-They have been fighting amongst their different religious sects for THOUSANDS of years.And it is THEIR BUSINESS.Let them live-and die-and worship-and believe-however they want to…..
[Is that better?]

Holbrooke’s “answer” today, on CNN, was “It’s not 50%—its 49%. Checks your statistics”.(On the percentage of increase in troops)

Umm-hmm.

prgill—“America’s ‘answer’” is always the same—“we took care of that one”. On to another minority—ethnic, racial or sexual identity..we’ll show what a “melting pot” we are yet!

anarcissie, the difference in our positions is that you probably see “dominance” as an end in itself, whereas I see it as a process in which one is never dominant for long.

America is essentially competitive—as are the Russians and Chinese, by the way—and we compete to improve our lot in life, as it were. Who doesn’t? The rules of competition enable social mobility measured by some form of wealth. This is a key ingredient of the American Way. You work you get ahead. You don’t, well you get left behind.

This is to me what we as Americans need to work on. If one gets “left behind” in the race for material wealth because one is an artist, an intellectual, a teacher or simply, because one is unlucky in love and finds oneself a single parent, one should not be penalized. All citizens should have the same right to health care, education, promotional opportunity, justice and social services as the more “materially successful” competitors.

There has to be a limit to this line of reasoning and I admit I don’t know where it is. The fact is, that by authorizing “material success” in the accumulation of wealth, we are also authorizing price discrimination, and selection according to one’s “ability to pay”. But then, this is probably just a fact of life to be factored into any calculation of “social fairness”.

What do I think is going on? I think we are stuck in a mindset that argues for “more is better”. It is simply not possible to expand our economy faster than the world economy (adjusted for productivity improvements) without “taking” market share from some where and someone else. This is a very European view and it may be pessimistic. But it is not unreasonable.

As for the epithet, your point is well made regarding social hierarchies and elite behaviors. My comment was not about the “epithet” but the simplification, call it the “reductive process” that accompanies labeling. An epithet (label) IS NOT a sufficient explanation.

prgill—Using a term like ruling class has nothing in common with ethnic epithets.  It is a construction resulting from an analysis of political and social life.  Every organized group in which some have more power than others develops a core group or nucleus whose interests and behavior are to some extent different from those of the other members of the group, having mainly to do with the core group’s maintenance of its powers and privileges.  This fact is so universally observed, not only in states and corporations but in much smaller and less formal groups, that I can hardly believe you are oblivious to it.

Likewise, the American thrust for world domination, which first surfaced in the late 19th century and became overtly manifest in the administrations of Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman, is so obvious it is hard for me to imagine what kind of a view of the world you have if you can’t see it.  There are U.S. military bases and troops all over the world, and the U.S. in engaged in several wars in countries on the opposite sides of the globe.  Since World War 2 ended, U.S. military forces have attacked a couple of dozen countries which had not attacked the U.S—that is, committed acts of unprovoked aggression. What do you think is going on?

Anarcissie, your comment does not make sense and blaming “the ruling class” just doesn’t cut it. This is like calling a white guy a “honkey”: So what? The label means nothing and only obscures the real issue.

We, the United States cannot physically achieve “world dominance”. Nor do want to.

The real culprit is the care and feeding of a military-industrial complex, read of a “machine” whose mere existence is a provocation to war and justification of anarchy.

But who will feed the “innovation pipeline” if we don’t invent bigger and more powerful adversaries? Who will employ the 500,000 men and woman who would find themselves on the job market if tomorrow we decided to demobilize half of the United States armed forces? Where will they settle?

Our “ruling classes” (with our implicit consent and cooperation) have believed and practiced “growth at all costs” for the past 70 or 80 years. So long as there was space to fill we did not need to think of the consequences of lack of social, transportation and industrial planning.

What is frightening to me, and here I am reminded of our friend TAO Walker, is what will happen if economic activity were to “dry up”? (This is the actual worst-case scenario.)

Perhaps we could channel our energies into organizing an international competition to colonize the Moon…

Unfortunately, I think our energies will sooner be focused on simply making ends meet.

In terms of “that better world”, that “more equitable social order” that we all want, I am afraid the change inspired by Obama may only be skin deep. You cannot change a profligate Detroit automobile executive pandering to an unthinking consuming public simply by calling him a repentant capitalist, just as you cannot reform a spendthrift banker by improving his customer service. In the same way you cannot deal with the deep causes of racial discomfort in the United States by simply electing a black president and moving on to the next subject.

Did you see today’s news item about Eric Holder calling the U.S. a nation of cowards on the issue of race? Here is a challenge to public discussion. Let’s see how the U.S. media handle this.

Brother where art thou???

Unfortunate for all of us, you speak the truth. Case in point:  Following a bombing in Afghanistan that killed 4,000 Afghans, Taliban leaders offered Bush to turn over Bin Laden to a neutral nation.  Bush refused labelling the offer “insincere.”

“And the second course of action led to my going to Pakistan a month or so after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for the purpose of coordinating with the Pakistanis a joint response, the purpose of which would be to make the Soviets bleed for as much and as long as is possible; and we engaged in that effort in a collaborative sense with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the British, the Chinese, and we started providing weapons to the Mujaheddin, from various sources again—for example, some Soviet arms from the Egyptians and the Chinese. We even got Soviet arms from the Czechoslovak communist government, since it was obviously susceptible to material incentives; and at some point we started buying arms for the Mujaheddin from the Soviet army in Afghanistan, because that army was increasingly corrupt.” - Zbigniew Brzezinski

What was good for the goose is now good for the gander, no? Obama’s senior foreign policy advisor has helped insure this “new boss” is the same as the “old boss”. When do you figure the Russians will start providing weapons to the drug lords in Mexico? Or am I a day late to that party?

prgill:
... The real beneficiaries of stability in the area are the Russians, the Chinese, the “stans”, Iran, India and Pakistan. The responsible thing for us to do would be to “diplomatically” encourage interested Central Asian neighbors to solve problems in their own backyards. ...’

That is precisely the outcome which the American ruling class is trying to avoid.  Their aim is to achieve world domination, and part of that project has been a series of attempts to get control of central Asian countries.

the major reason the “surge” workd as well as it did is because the US paid the Sunni militia fighters $300 a month. In this country that isn’t much but in Iraq this is a small fortune. I am afraid that we do finally pul out of Iraq and those insurgents are no longer on Uncle Sam’s dole then the bloodshed will commence. We really had no reason to deploy to Iraq and now we are strengthening our troops in Afghan to try and quell the uprising of the Taliban. We saw what happened to the vaunted USSR army and they had many more troops than we are sending.

Stability in Afghanistan may be our problem because we created it, as in “we broke it, we fix it”. And yet…

The real beneficiaries of stability in the area are the Russians, the Chinese, the “stans”, Iran, India and Pakistan. The responsible thing for us to do would be to “diplomatically” encourage interested Central Asian neighbors to solve problems in their own backyards.

Sending more troops can only forestall the inevitable if there is not local support for reform.

December 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, and let us hope, a time for thoughtful review of Persian American relations.  The BBC has just released an excellent, two-hour documentary on Iranian relations with the west. The documentary, Iran and the West is well done and well worth the time spent.

Could we just wait a bit to see what roles the additional troops will play before we assume they’ll simply be playing soldier?

Obama consults with Petraeus who just before he turned over command in Iraq, met with other senior officers, all of whom concluded that Iraq wasn’t about ‘winning’ it was about creating the possibility of an honorable exit.  I’m assuming that is the purpose of the extra troop deployment to Afghanistan.  (Afterall, Obama has said that he’s convinced that there is no ‘military’ solution to Afghanistan.)

dihey:
‘Read Common Dreams and other “Progressive” sites and be amazed how the music of “hosanna Obama in the highest” of November 2008 has morphed into a huge chorus of bewilderment, anger, and derision. ....’

Well, at least they’re awake now.  Maybe they’ll go into the streets sometime this spring to remind Mr. O of who elected him, and why.  Or am I just being a cockeyed optimist as usual?

Nobody seems to understand the character of the Pashtuns who make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan (and northern Pakistan).  These people will keep a blood grudge against us long after Joe the Plumber and his ilk have forgotten about the dusty country half a world away that we are devastating in our “War on Terra”. 

Perhaps it is “their problem” and “their country” but our appointed government has had an enormous hand in bringing about these problems.  In a civilized world if you break something you have to pay for it; all we seem to be doing is breaking it some more.

The Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, and a KGB/GRU hand from the USSR’s adventures in Afghanistan, recently said that the US has made every mistake there that the Russians made…and even found a few that the Soviets didn’t copyright.

A libertarian view—

As Paul Craig Roberts and Pat Buchanan have both pointed out, what is going to end our insane overseas adventures and imperialism is economic collapse.

We just don’t have the money to be able to indulge these imperial fantasies.

With this year’s projected trillion dollar deficit, the dollar will not last long as the world’s reserve currency. It will be dumped in favor of the Euro, the Yen, or perhaps both.

China will dump its massive holdings in US debt, plummeting the dollar to a tenth of its current value, if not farther.

Then, we really, really won’t have the money for imperial adventures. We won’t be able to afford all the military equipment that’s made in China!

Obama is just the last in a long series of Republicrat politicians who think they can ignore reality.

This subverts my constant refrain that Obama is continuing Bushite polices.  In some case he is much worse, as in this one.  The purpose of escalating and widening the Afghan war to Pakistan is not to win it.  Military experts have already stated publically that it is unwinable.  It is continue the war past the time of Obama’s next election, so it is not lost until he is re-elected.

But Americans apparently can’t endure much reality, especially political reality.  He will continue to be supported by the Democrats Under Presidential Enchantment (DUPEs). Organizing against the Dem-Gop coalition is, for them, apparently un-American. 

Just as Johnson escalated the unwinnable Vietnam war, Obama is escalating the unwinnable Afghan-Pak war, and for the same reason, to win the next election.  They are both professional politicians and think in professional terms.

But Americans apparently can’t think in terms of power relations, in holistic historical patterns, indeed if they remember the past at all.  What Gore Vidal calls the United States of Amnesia literally doesn’t know the past, and therefore can’t learn from it.  This is surely not a congential defect, but we are apparently at a loss as to how to change it.

OK, so now he’s fulfilled his campaign promise to put more troops there. Now he’s free to go on to the next phase, as quickly as possible: suddenly realize that we don’t need that war either, and get the hell out.

The way to reduce the terrorist threat against the US is to stop committing and threatening aggressions against Muslims and Arabs (for Israel’s benefit) and stop supporting aggressions against Muslims and Arabs (by Israel).

The recipe is very simple: (1) tell Iran we will respect their right to enrich uranium, as guaranteed under the NPT, assuming continued IAEA safeguards and inspections; (2) tell Israel that we are ending all aid to them of any kind, and we will no longer use our UN veto power to protect them from international condemnation; (3) apologize for the Iraq war and agree to pay reparations; (4) prosecute and punish Bush, Cheney, and other officials guilty of mass murder and other war crimes; (5) ban or severely restrict the activities of the Israel lobby.

Read Common Dreams and other “Progressive” sites and be amazed how the music of “hosanna Obama in the highest” of November 2008 has morphed into a huge chorus of bewilderment, anger, and derision.

Remember Diogenes? Well, a contemporary Diogenes has to look hard to find many defenders of our newest warlord among true liberals and progressives.

I am neither shocked nor surprised because candidate Obama had announced his intentions about Afghanistan/Pakistan many times. Afghanistan is only the beginning. Iran is sure to follow some time later. The 16-month “withdrawal-from-Iraq” charade is almost history already. The Democrats in Congress who were dead set against Bush’s “surge” in Iraq will be silent about Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan/Pakistan with a handful of exceptions. They are disgusting.

However, July 1 is a major marker for Iraq. On that date all US (and the SOFA agreement means ALL)troops must have left Iraq’s cities and be in their base camps. It is an agreement signed by President Bush. Will President Obama honor this commitment? Petrock is already tut-tutting: “not so fast Mr. President”. Professor Obama who has not the foggiest notion about warfare is likely to cave in.

The tragedy is that the economic/financial disaster our country is in draws the attention of the people away from Obama’s imperialist adventurism. He is the proclaimed savior of our standard of living. Little do people know that wars around the world are needed to save our power and standard of living. Alas!

Afghanistan is a losing battle. The British, the Russians, and the American Fascist Taliban (i.e., the Republican Party) tried and failed.

President Obama should read Three Cups of Tea
One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time. We need to move away from the idea that violence and killing is a strategy to win anything but,  resistance and perpetuating generations of American hating Arabs.

A Jobs Program

Bring our troops home fer chrise sake!!!!Let the A-rabs worry about themselves….It’s their country….It’s their problem…...

opuleboy over at common dreams comments, “plots still available in the graveyard of empires”