Scott Horton wrote an excellent piece on this very topic in November.
link

Posted by: Antifa | Jul 23 2006 21:58 utc | 3

In Billmon’s latest meditation on Dershowitz et al/ad nauseam, he points out that Noah Feldman also sounds like a craven hired gun looking for his next big paycheck. But where Billmon sees Feldman looking for a job in the ME, I hear a guy bucking for a job in FEMA:

…a bold new policy of democratization by destabilization…
…the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah Democrats owe much of their present standing to elections calls into question the viability of Middle Eastern democracy as a peaceful practice.
For its part, Israel is gambling that the right strategy is to make the people who elected Hamas and a government that includes Hezbollah reckon the costs of their representatives’ recklessness. That is why Israel has targeted not only Hezbollah leaders and strongholds but has also bombed infrastructure that sustains daily life for everybody in Lebanon…
Democracy means that you cannot blame someone else for troubles caused by your own government.
If the strategy of democratization remains in place, other storms will form — and they, too, will have to be weathered.

Timothy Mitchell wrote a pretty good book on Egypt that helped me see how colonialism always digs into the minds of the colonists, till they just can’t help want to colonize the Homeland too.
I hear you, Dr. Feldman.

Posted by: citizen | Jul 24 2006 0:01 utc | 5

What Unca said.

Posted by: citizen | Jul 24 2006 0:30 utc | 7

& an article

Posted by: r’giap | Jul 24 2006 0:50 utc | 9

Re Uncle’s post above. I heard interesting interview w/Mike Lerner this week that explains AIPAC influence. He’s talked to lots of politicians all over the country. All said the same thing.
If i vote against AIPAC they will come after me, fund opposition, etc. But I pay no price from you (left-liberals) ‘cuz I vote on things you care about most of the time. Until voting “against AIPAC” is The Bottom Line issue for liberals nothing will change.
How many Americans support WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, etc? 15% maybe – and how many of them understand it? But elite makes sure no one who opposes it gets the money to run…
I hrd. about a decade ago that there’s less turnover in xUS Congress than there was in Soviet Politburo.

Posted by: jj | Jul 24 2006 1:27 utc | 11

“The GOP is ‘itching’ for all out war.”
Then I think it’s high time we gave it to them.
This is ridiculous, people. This is as ridiculous as reporters whining about how they were afraid of losing access they never had at White House press briefings if they deviated from the script. What the hell do we have to lose anymore? If you even pulled up this or a similar blog, your name is on a list anyway.
I’m a reluctant revolutionary at best… but answer me honestly… what in the holy hell do we have to lose anymore??? They have taken your voice, your representation, your and your geat-great grandchildren’s money, your health, your environment, your peace of mind… what incentive do you still have to keep playing this fucking game with these monsters anymore???

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 24 2006 3:55 utc | 13

Not a pat on the head…some cheap Victory gin to drink after they call off the rats that were chewing your face.
What do we have to lose? The illusion of the “good life” they’ve just barely allowed us to keep. Homeownership (right, until the Chinese pull the rug out from under Fannie Mae’s fanny), 3 SUVs in every garage, 800 channels of crap on the cable, 8 different kinds of Coke to choose from, artificial imitation food, getting a tax refund, winning the lottery, saving the world from trrrrrrrists….y’know, truth, justice, and the American Dream.
So, tovarisch, I’m in. What do we do? Throw rocks at them? Wy not?

Posted by: catlady | Jul 24 2006 4:29 utc | 15

(waiting for that kick at the door any moment now.)

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 24 2006 5:06 utc | 17

Okay… had a brief walk and change of scenery and been turning things over in my mind a bit. Here’s where I’m at this second.
Everybody but Kos can see that the DNC do not represent any kind of genuine alternative, but all I see is people complaining with renewed surprise each time the jackasses back a clearly neocon agenda. Surprise, people. They’re the same corporate wolves in sheeple clothing that the other guys are.
You want a REAL opposition party? We’re going to have to take some democracy in our own hands and make it our own selves. You want real reform? Then we’re going to have to band together and make it happen instead of waiting for Prince Charming Fitzgerald to show up on his snow white steed to kiss us all awake and end this nightmare.
Who the hell are AIPAC if not a bunch of (rich) bastards with common interests? The damned GOP we are watching now began as a gorram third party not that long ago, so this is not some wild, unprecedented thing we are discussing. We’ve got a common interest (I assume we are all pro-sanity and anti-war crime here), so unless we enjoy living disenfranchised, outraged, fearful, impotent lives, I’m recommending we go populist on their asses.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 24 2006 6:04 utc | 19

@ Monolycus:
Throwing rocks worked in this revolution.
Here in Oregon, a smaller attempt: John Frohnmayer (arts and education supporter, former head of NEA, author of Leaving Town Alive: Confessions of an Arts Warrior) is launching an independent campaign for Gordon Smith’s senate seat:
“My primary concern is the rampant partisanship that has invaded both parties. I do not see the parties reforming themselves (unilaterally surrendering as one partisan put it) so the solution is an independent movement that can be an honest broker between the parties to get the business of the country done. It has to start somewhere.”

Posted by: catlady | Jul 24 2006 7:08 utc | 21

I just have this feeling there might be more effective things to do than throwing rocks… not that I would advocate anything along those lines.
You guys are going to have to decide when/how best to do it but your still a way off throwing rocks yet.
Unless you are very lucky that only works when each rock hurled inspires another two people to pick up a rock and hurl it as well.
Yet trying to force change ‘from within’ via the ballot box has all the existing bullshit and then some.
New ‘professional pollie protecting patch from outsiders’scams, ones like crooked counting machines.
The mutually rewarding gerry-mander enabling incumbents from either half of the party to expect to die with snout still sunk in trough.
As someone too busy with other shit at the time; another time I would be really fascinated to hear how the demopublican half tried to sell the notion of being the permanent minority party to their constituency.
Apart from those not inconsiderable obstacles, sticking to the rules at a time when the status quo does not, is just too slow.
Before the bus got halfway down the first road all of the main chancers and early adopting greedheads will leap aboard to fight for the steering wheel and the brakes.
That shouldn’t deter. Remember Atlas? No, not Charles Atlas; the forefather of the health equipment mega-industry. Atlas the Greek peep who carried the world around on his shoulders didn’t he say. . .? No! No! Hang on! Silly me. It was another bubble* whose name begins with A? – Archimedes. It was that bubble* who said something along the lines of “If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world.”
*(N.B. bubble is Oz slang of a type which evolved in prison from cockney rhyming slang. Bubble and squeak = Greek, which is then shortened to ‘bubble’ which is one of the least offensive Australian slang terms for a person of Greek heritage)
In no time at all, a couple of millennia or three this quite reasonable hypothesis was perverted by politicians and their lackeys:
“Archimedes promised to move the Earth if they would give him a point of support. That was not badly said. However, if they offered him the needed point of support, it would have turned out that he had neither the lever nor the power to bring it into action. The victorious revolution gave us a new point of support, but in order to move the Earth it is still necessary to build the levers.”
—Leon Trotsky
“The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.”
—Thomas Jefferson
“Don’t talk to me of your Archimedes’ lever. He was an absentminded person with a mathematical imagination. Mathematics commands all my respect, but I have no use for engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.”
—Joseph Conrad
But there will still be plenty of good well placed levers. Care should be exercised selecting any lever that will require many people to operate it so that those people with the same goal in mind do not pull while another is pushing or vice versa.
Even given that proviso it would still be much better if one lever that could be moved by everyone in amerika who wants a change be concentrated on at a time. Without dragging out old chestnuts like ‘solidarity forever’, a movement implemented in unison will unite many diverse groups of people.
The first lever need not be earth shattering but it should achieve an outcome which encourages more and better.
This lever #1 can move something relatively small and unconnected with the assholes as long as it becomes impossible to ignore, and, provokes a reaction, that citizens feel inspired to take to the next level.
But selection isn’t a straight-forward issue.
“democratic governments” have devoted the last 50 years to negating or emasculating the power of traditional levers of the people such as petitions or demonstrations. Even if the whole population signed a petition or marched on a demo, both halves of the party would get together and co-operate on a mutually agreeable ‘spin’.
It has become plain as day that the dems and the repugs #1 enemy, meaning those they fear and loath and that they cannot trust aren’t each other’s rivals, the other major political party, the enemy is the voters. Nice eh!
However the scumbags do have friends, well allies anyhow and running with the notion that my enemy’s friend is my enemy it may be possible to craft a suitable lever.
Since corporate amerika is such great friends with the overfed, sleek and forever mendacious political class, it must follow that even after putting to one side the fact corporations are stealing from you while they poison or corrupt you, they would still be your enemy.
In the event that the pollution and corruption actually stopped, they would remain enemies of humanity simply because they are good friends of humanity’s major enemy, the political class.
So a massive attack by people on corporations is probably the fastest, easiest to sell, and most crippling act a population could use on the politicians.
There are a number of reasons why outright theft isn’t a very good method but the most important reason is that the political act should be material gain neutral, lest it corrupt those seeking genuine change.
However Product Sabotage particularly in retail outlets could be a very powerful instrument. Not least of all because if done correctly there need be no public confrontation. The sabotage could be surreptitious although the effect wouldn’t be. This is an important consideration when an act need be perpetrated by many people most of whom will not have experience in confrontation.
Something as ‘small’ as product tampering, e.g. breaking the seal on ingestible goods’ packaging would create almost immediate commercial chaos if carried out in sufficient numbers, yet it would be devilish difficult to prevent in low staff level retail outlets where inventory and marketing the by-words of commercial gain.
IMO the greatest enemy of us all is the sheer size of corporations and their lickspittle enablers politicus expedientious
Using that advantage against the enemy by many, many, small attacks exposes their strenth as a weakness.
What think other MoA-ites?

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 25 2006 2:13 utc | 23

website for derrick jensen’s new book, endgame may be of interest for those zero-ing in on the larger target – industrial civilization.

Sometimes this book scares me. I’m calling for people to bring down civilization. This will not be bloodless. This will not be welcomed by most of the civilized. But I do not see any other realistic options. I cannot stand by while the world is destroyed. And I see no hope for reform. This is true whether we talk about the lack of realistic possibility of psychological or social reform, or whether we talk about the structural impossibilities of civilization (which requires the importation of resources) ever being sustainable. And really, think about it for a moment: this culture is changing the climate – changing the climate – and those in power are doing nothing to stop it. In fact, they’re burning more oil each year than the year before. If changing the earth’s climate is not enough to make them change their ways, nothing will. Nothing. Not petitions, not letters, not votes, not the purchase of hemp hackysacks. Not visualizations. Not sending them love. Nothing. They will not change. They must be stopped. Through any means necessary. We are talking about the life of the planet. They must be stopped.
This scares me.
I sent a note saying all this to my publisher, who wrote me back, “Nothing could be scarier than this culture. I dare you to scare me.”
Back to work.

if you’ve read any of jensen’s previous books, you know he’s not some nutcase or crank. there are quite a few extracts from the book online at the link above.
that’s the larger ecological context.
one fulcrum in our modern societies would be the electrical infrastructure. another would be transporation networks. the bolivians always get a good response by piling rocks in the roadway. there’s all kinds of intersections, bridges, rail lines, ports, airports, etc that can be taken offline by small, decentralized crews. smoke can shut down air traffic. targeting media centers/streams can interrupt the corporate/capitalist propaganda machine/message. hackers can wreak havoc on electronic data transfers. essentially, all the very tactics that special forces are trained to use when destabilizing other nations. (and that our taxpayer dollars fund … surprise, surprise)
don’t these times call for forces beyond the need simply of an opposition party? we need a third force to force the others out of the picture. why should the psycopaths even deserve a seat at the table? time for new rules that don’t involve the old rulers. nothing is gained by putting new faces in the same places. reform may have some short-term advantages, but does that really leave our grandchildren any better off?
concurrently, the only long-term solution starts locally. rights only have meaning when we take responsibility, individually and collectively. they are not given, they are earned & defended. if we do not start building smaller-scale, self-organized people-centered economies, we will never be able to show ourselves (and others) the way out of this mess. it’s way past time to begin making & enforcing good decisions.

Posted by: b real | Jul 25 2006 4:50 utc | 25

hear hear b real. The road you propose does need a starting point and I mooted the product sabotage one because it would be a reasonably effective ‘baby step’.
Boycotting goods should work but it really does take a while and since our prospective ‘comrades’ have mostly been indoctrinated to feel that by not buying something they are the loser rather than the vendor, it would be tough to persuade the comrades they were really doing any damage. Also considering the mutual backscratching these quasi monopolies engage in, boycotting one brand while purchasing another is more likely to result cross subsidiation funded out of the people’s pockets. Plus many of us have been boycotting for years.
Product sabotage carries within it the ability to do more damage than just your own purchasing power would allow, while selectively targetting particularly reprehensible corporations and their stooges in the legislature or executive.
EG a gang of legislators propose a particularly nasty measure, The people check out who bought those assholes their ‘slot’ in the house with ‘campaign donations’ and the the donors are targetted. Simple but it could be very effective.
Breaking down the corporate infrastructure is essential to moving back to smaller more manageable and user friendly communities.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 25 2006 8:13 utc | 27