Doug Dowd

Bologna, Italia

Postscript: 21^st Century

From Disgust with Clinton — To Anger and Fears
With Bush II — To Hope, Anger,
And Fears with Obama

When Bill Clinton became president in the 1990s there was a sigh of relief. The years of Reagan and Bush I had been horrendous. Sighs were soon replaced by grunts and groans. Clinton, joking all the way, continued in the same insane directions both at home and abroad. As discussed in earlier chapters, from the 1970s on, the U.S. socio-economy and its foreign policies firmly planted the country in a morass of troubles. Forget the peace dividend. There was always one war or another abroad, with the usual gossamer veils of “we’re facing a serious threat to our national security.” At home, Wall Street was given the green light. The 1930s Glass-Steagall Act, which had effectively tamed Wall Street’s Vegas instincts for about half a century was wiped by Lawrence Summers, Clinton’s Treasury Secretary. And — surprise — crime pays. Summers is now Obama’s economic adviser, while we’re paying the price for his gift to the plunderers.¹

Except for the usual tiny minority of ultrarich people, we were teetering — but the worst was yet to come. Bad as he was, Clinton was replaced by a nearly unspeakable monster. This creature was, of course, Bush II, who got into the White House courtesy of a crooked election in Florida — where his brother was governor. Bush II immediately took off on a frat-boy right-wing economic spree: free drinks for the gamblers provided by the “captains of finance,” more profits for Big Business and those whose pockets are filled by wars.

As Bush II spent much of his time playing hooky in the Texas sun, his powerful right-hand men (led by Vice President Dick Cheney) had themselves a right-wing nationalistic ball. They brought forth huge tax cuts for the rich, sneered at the environmental and socio-economic policies protecting unions, the weak, and the poor. They invaded Iraq. They kneeled down to the Religious Right and gay haters. They trashed progressive programs put in place between the 1930s and 1960s. The upshot? The Bush gang opened the door for the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. They may have also set the stage for the unthinkable — the next, last, and final world war.

After Barack Obama was elected president, it seemed reasonable to believe that changes toward good sense, decency, and peace might well be on their way. If nothing else, for the people of the USA to elect a black man as president was in itself a great achievement. But once in the White House, Obama has spent more time wooing conservatives than trying to undo their domestic policies. As for war, although his position regarding Iraq is that we should get out (sometime or other), that approach was offset by his campaign position that we should instead be fighting in Afghanistan.

All too many of us overlooked that this pledge might mean an endless war in Afghanistan. Even though much of what Obama has done (and not done) is seriously disturbing, it remains my conviction that Obama has in him the potential of supporting and pressing for desirable changes greater than any president since FDR — if and only if, however, he is pressed by us to shift from bowing to conservatives and reactionaries towards aligning with liberals and progressives.

Born in 1961, Obama went from adolescence to adulthood in the very decades when the USA was giving an always freer hand to those on the economic top — and to militarists. The citizenry of the country, including many reading this, went along. Today, the Democrats are more conservative and the Republicans are more dangerously rightist and organized than in the early 1930s. As a result, the continually mounting enthusiasm for FDR as the 1930s progressed (see below) is less likely to take hold for Obama than in FDR’s era. Then was then and now is now. Obama’s opposition is better financed, organized, and high-spirited than the conservative opponents of FDR in the 1930s. As FDR’s popularity grew, those in Congress who did not support the New Deal reforms were likely to lose in the next election. So it was judicious for such legislators to hold their noses and vote the popular will.

Today, we have the opposite: Obama faces a rightist and ultra-rightist GOP voting as a solid bloc against any and all decent bills, including measures that some of them had once supported, with groups such as the “Tea Party” strengthening by the week. The operative word for the Republicans is “no — a thousand times no.”

To make matters worse, in seeking to gain support from conservatives, Obama selected conservative or antediluvian Democrats (e.g., Sen.Max Baucus of Montana) to write proposed new laws (most harmfully for health care). Those inclinations will not be reversed unless and until “we the people” come to life politically, as did our predecessors in the 1930s and up through the 1960s. That reanimation does not mean we should give up our existing efforts focused on better wages and working conditions, education, health care, peace, etc. But the times demand our joining with others in creating a national movement for social decency at home and no more wars. Only in doing so can we convince Obama that to be reëlected in 2012 he must listen to us rather than the “Fortune 500,” the war lovers, the racists, and the Tea Party denizens.

If we don't? The reality is already upon us. Since Obama’s election the GOP has been organizing and expanding, well-financed from above. We are face to face with the need to enter and win a vital struggle. We have to substitute political activity for anger and get to work. Right now the prospects seem gloomy. But, comparing the situations, as one now in his 90s who became political in 1934–1935, I have to tell you: Prospects looked even worse then. Nonetheless, it was in those years that a substantial change in the politics of ordinary people in the United States took root. Factory workers, longshoremen, and other “just plain folks” became politically active. What had been a wild dream in 1934 started to become a reality. It was an exciting time, a roller coaster ride.

There is much to learn from FDR’s evolution. By comparison with the FDR of 1932, the Obama of today is a strong liberal. When first put in the White House, Roosevelt was far from a flaming populist. He had been a business-friendly conservative governor of New York. But his New Deal later brought out the best in him and us — as Wall Street and Big Business howled along the way.

We must do for Obama what our predecessors did to and for FDR. As will be seen, FDR’s last speech to the U.S. Congress (in 1944) called for what he termed “A Second New Deal.” Today it would be seem as manna from heaven as a domestic program.²

FDR’s transformation didn’t just happen. It was created by a public that had taken political involvement as its responsibility and right. Our needs will not be met unless and until we dig out the best in us and push Obama to do likewise.

What are the main political tasks facing us? Here a quick look:

1. Our domestic needs are at least as severe as they were in the 1930s (if better camouflaged).

2. We also must deal with a military situation that — even counting World War II — is more dangerous than during FDR’s years.

What follows next concerns only FDR’s domestic policies. Their nature and intentions are well illustrated by this quotation from his last speech to Congress. This is what he proposed:

A Second Bill of Rights, under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all – regardless of station, race, or creed, including: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries of shops or farms or mines of the nation. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home and abroad. The right of every family to a decent home. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve good health. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment. The right to a good education.

FDR’s “Second Bill of Rights” was only partly fulfilled, most obviously as regards health care, or decent homes and jobs for all. “A good education” was set on its way only after World War II, and then for vets (myself included). Once begun, it transformed the entire educational system, but only for a while. Now (see below) a decent education is once more becoming a forlorn hope for most, as the USA resumes its race to become again and evermore a society in which the making of profits is the main ideal, and in which wars are taken for granted. Had FDR’s wishes been fulfilled entirely, there would still be important steps to climb. It was only a partial victory. In recent decades the steps we have taken have been not up, but down, toward an always greater fascination with buying and borrowing, and let the devil take the hindmost.

It is my belief — make that my hope — that Obama could be persuaded by “the people” to support a bill of rights for our time. But he will not do so unless and until he — as with FDR — is led to understand that absent this bill of rights, his first four years in the White House will also be his last. If we do not do our part by pushing him, he will not do his part by leading the nation toward decency and safety.

As noted in earlier chapters and above, the USA seemed to have learned something from the 1930s Depression, which was when Congress easily passed the Glass-Steagall Act. The act correctly assumed that Wall Street is dominated by greed and drew the logical conclusion that left to itself it will not only get its playmates in trouble but take the economy and us down with them.

That was then. As the 1970s moved toward the 1990s, the economy’s most powerful sector was shifting from industry to finance. Already by the1980s Wall Street was becoming the main influence in Congress and politics. When President Clinton was asked to explain why he was bowing always more to Wall Street, he exploded “It’s the bond market, stupid!” It was then; it is still (with worse variations). But so long as we put up with Wall Street running the society, we are the stupid ones.

Here are some examples, preceded by what should have been a lesson in what not to do, but which since has been done more than ever, and recent history is already on its way to being repeated:³

Item: After the 1929 Wall Street crash and the ensuing depression, the biggies on Wall Street had lost at least as much esteem as money. Result: a set of laws preventing banks and other financial institutions from becoming gambling houses. Those laws functioned well until well into the 1970s, much to the unending anger of high finance. From then on, their voice and full pockets steadily got rid of constraints, breaking all records in the 1990s, despite strong warnings from finance experts.

Item: When Obama took office in 2009, he selected as his main economic adviser Lawrence Summers, and as his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner (head of the New York Federal Reserve — both good pals of Wall Street. Thus it was no surprise — well, maybe to liberals — that the “solution” to the financial collapse enacted by Bush II’s Treasury Secretary (Henry Paulson, another Wall Street biggie), was also adopted by the new president. Obama blithely tossed hundreds of billions of dollars to the creators of and profiteers from the problems. The problems are now being repeated, as the hotshots chuckle. As 2010 began, the largest companies on Wall Street had become even larger, were handing out billions in bonuses to those who had presided over the “mistakes,” are at it again with derivatives, etc. For them, there is a Santa Claus. And the Santa of the moment is black.

Item: In February 2010, when Obama was asked to comment on the enormous bonuses being handed out to the execs of giant financial companies (e.g., $17 billion to the head of JPMorgan Chase), he said

But there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either. I know some of those Wall Street guys; they are very savvy businessmen....That is part of the free market system. (Business Week, 2010-02-12)

Another part is nicely pointed to by this headline in the International Herald Tribune, near April Fool’s Day, 2010: “Big paydays are back for hedge fund chiefs” The accompanying article explains: “One reaped $4 billion for betting heavily on a U.S. bailout for banks.”

Obama says they are “very savvy” — and indeed they are, but so are the best thieves. Even the best thieves, however, cannot do the damage that our Wall Street experts have done in jobs lost. The official U.S. unemployment figure as 2010 began hovered around 10 percent. But (as discussed earlier), the official rate hides more than it reveals. Robert Reich (Treasury Secretary for Clinton) has put the real nature of the job problem well:

Including all those who have entered the job market since the bottom fell out, the nation is about 14 million jobs short.... The unemployment rate is 15.6 percent among Americans with less than a high school diploma. Even those numbers understate the problem. Add in the people working part time who’d prefer full time, those too discouraged even to look for work, those working a full-time job at fewer hours, and those who lost their jobs and have settled on ones paying far less, and more than one in four of those with high school degrees are unemployed or under-employed; 22 percent of people with only high school degrees. (Robert Reich, “Blog,” March 20, 2010)

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it could be 10 years before unemployment descends to its normal levels. That’s bad enough. Worse is that those “normal levels” don’t count what would increase the rate by more than 50 percent if unemployment were measured as it is in Western Europe. Unemployment data in themselves are disturbing. But the problems of those who are its victims don’t end there. Except for the 26 weeks of small payments from the government, as Reich also points out:

Considering that most households now rely on two wage earners… the situation is dire. A growing number of households have now sold off their assets and exhausted their capacity to borrow from friends and relatives.... Households can’t meet their mortgage payments, can’t pay the rent, can’t meet the payments on their credit cards and cars. (ibid.)

That should be enough in itself to make one think twice about our "recovery"; but there’s more. As New York Times financial reporter Gretchen Morgenson warned us in a 2010-02-08 piece entitled "Get Ready for More Gyrations":

You know we're in trouble when we're told that the economic problems in Greece, Portugal, and Spain, the most indebted countries in the Euro zone, are likely to remain safely controlled in those countries...; we heard the same nonsense in 2007from U.S. financial leaders who reassured us that the troubles in the subprime mortgage mess would not permeate the rest of the economy. They were contained all right: to Planet Earth. Contagion is a fact of life in our inter-connected global economy and financial markets; investors must strap for more gyrations in the stock and bond markets as the great and painful deleveraging that began in 2007 continues around the world. As David Rosenberg, a leading Canadian financial economist, has argued, there will be further declines in housing of 10–15 percent over the next few years as, already, roughly nine million residential housing units are available for sale, and fully half of the mortgage–holding population in the U.S. could be under water by 2011. This see-no-evil approach to mortgages is part of an overall denial on the part of policy makers, politicians, bankers and regulators that has prolonged the agony of this crisis. The challenge for Mr. Obama is that although he has thrown oodles of taxpayer money at these problems, the unemployment rate is at 9.7 percent. That was the official rate in March 2010. The broader and more informative measure of the unemployed — the underemployed, the discouraged, and the “marginally attached” (those wanting work but unable to find it) — was 16.9 percent, more than a quarter of whom have been so for more than a year. If you fit into one of or more of those groups, you would see yourself as unemployed, no?

So much for March 2010. By the time you read this, not only could real unemployment have become worse, but it will be running a race with what’s also going wrong with the rest of our lives:

1. Our own (and/or our children’s) education
2. Our health care
3. Our streets
4. The environment
5. The “morale” of the millions of luckless poor

That said, look again at FDR’s “Second New Deal.” He didn’t dream it up one night; it was pushed on him by always spreading and deepening political efforts by “plain folks.” These were workers seeking new unions and cleaning up existing corrupted ones. These were citizens’ groups seeking and substantially achieving modest improvements in all social realms.

Then, during and for some years after World War II, the shortage of workers and the big profits of war production opened the door to substantial socio-economic betterment — especially for black people, who for the first time since the Compromise of 1877 were actually allowed to have something resembling a decent life. Their paid labor was needed.

It didn’t last. In the 1970s, the financialization of the U.S. economy moved jobs overseas, brought obscene profits to the bosses, and recriminalized blacks, who were now excess labor and could be more profitably employed as convicts.

Also by the 1970s, most of us in the USA were coming to be hypnotized by borrowing and buying. A major consequence was that significant political participation from the bottom up faded away. Today, unions and other organizations seeking decency and safety in all realms still exist, but their earlier strength is now a memory. Organized opposition from status quo interests have outdone us, much assisted by an almost entirely bought-and- paid-for Congress (Democrats and Republicans), state legislatures, and city governments.

Representative and intensifying that universal corruption was an early 2010 Supreme Court ruling. It stated that it would be “undemocratic” to place limits on how much can be done in the way of campaign finance and lobbying. If Mr. and Mrs. America can do it, why not Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller — Inc.? The court essentially ruled that unlimited corporate money for campaigns is “an expression of free speech.” The big spenders were getting around the law anyway before that gift from the Court, but their efforts will now be multiplied. Most of us would say that if Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Merck, BP, and ConAgra are deemed human beings, the world has gone mad. But that’s exactly what they are in the USA. Legally.

In the elections realm, the massive corporate dollars are both carrot and stick. The carrot: “We will finance your election if you go along.” The stick: “If you want to play hero and not do our bidding, fine — we’ll finance your opponent.” If legislators want to keep their job, they go along. Where’s the countervailing force? Where are we?

Now a summary look at ongoing health care politics, which could improve a bit what needs to be improved greatly. As 2009 became 2010 and Congress continued its battle about our disgracefully inadequate health care system, House GOP leader John Boehner announced what has been the enduring notion in the United States: “We have the best health care system in the world!” Wrong!

What we have that is the best in the world are the best-financed hospitals and research centers, and state-of-the-art technologies that can save lives. Hooray for all that. But that is not a system. A health-care system has to include a delivery mechanism. People have to have access. The best ripe corn in the world feeds no one if it simply stays in a locked silo — or if hungry people have had their mouths wired shut.

The truth is the fabulous health care facilities of the USA are simply not accessible to most Americans — even those with health insurance. Those of us who don’t have the amount or kind of health insurance needed for proper care are in the majority, and those who run our health care system make the vast profits. Meanwhile, all too many go without badly needed care.

Soon after Congressman Boehner made his disgusting, utterly dishonest assertion, Obama finally went to work to convince the public and Congress that, as he put it, our “best health care system” doesn’t look all that good if people’s health is the measure. Finally, Congress provided skimpy legislation to reduce somewhat the inadequacies of our disgracefully harmful health care system.

To be truthful, here’s what Rep. Boehner should have said: “The USA is the richest nation in the history of the world, but we have the very worst health care system of all other rich nations.”

Meanwhile, those who have been running the U.S. healthcare scam will continue to do so, continue to make huge profits from it, even as they grumble — for they know that they lost very little. The U.S. system will continue to be seriously inadequate, if a bit less so. Unsatisfactory though that legislation was, if it had not passed, we would have skidded from very bad to much worse.

Now it is our responsibility to see that our health care system goes from still seriously inadequate toward much better. Here are some representative elements of the ongoing disgrace that will endure unless and until there is a popular movement to move ahead toward sanity.

Item: “Big Pharma” (nine giant companies) dominate the pharmaceutical industry. It is common for their CEOs to have salaries averaging $19 million a year (not counting stock options and other fringe benefits). The industry’s profit margins (according to Fortune Magazine) are nearly four times that of the 500 biggest companies. (Multinational Monitor, September, 2001).

In 2002 they were spending more than $2.5 billion on advertising and corruption. Here’s an example of some of the “advertising” they do — in this case, with druggists. I used to play tennis on Sundays with my druggist, a nice guy. Every few months he would say he couldn’t make it because he was going on a trip – to Paris, the Alps, the Mediterranean. I asked him once, did those trips cost a lot? “Not a dime,” he said. “The drug companies call for a conference in some nice place, put us up, pay our way, and, well, you know.”

Consider this tidbit: “Drug firm discloses fees paid to physicians”...“Pfizer (one of the big nine) says it paid about $20 million to 4,500 doctors and other medical professionals on its behalf in the last six months of 2009… and another $15.3 million to 250 academic medical centers for clinical trials....Pfizer is the first to disclose....and it does not include payments outside the United States. (International Herald Tribune, April 2, 2010-04-02)

There should be shock — but no surprise — that the giant drug companies are being polite about the passage of the health care bill in 2010. As Bill Moyers has pointed out: “The big drug companies bought their protection before the fight even began, when the White House agreed that if they supported Obama’s brand of health care reform, they could hold onto their monopoly: no imports of cheaper drugs from abroad, no prescriptions filled at a lower price by our friendly Canadian neighbors. (Bill Moyers Journal, 2012-03-28/29)

Then there are private health insurance profits: “Top Five Health Insurers posted 56 percent in profits gains in 2009” (www.alternet.org/story/145655).

Western Europe and Canada have decent health care systems; we have the most expensive per capita and the most profitable for those who control health care. (For details, see the definitive analysis of Drs. Himmelstein and Woolhandler (Journal of Health Affairs, July 2002: “We Pay for National Health Insurance but Don’t Get It” and Chapter 9 of my Inequality [2009]) The defects of our health care system will all too likely combine disgrace with shortened lives for at least half of our people for the indefinite future.

What about our educational system? Well into the 20^th century, education for the overwhelming majority was meager, even in the rich nations. That changed greatly for the better after World War II in the industrial capitalist world, most strongly in most of Western Europe. Substantial educational opportunities for all took hold, irrespective of income. Since the 1970s that has been in reverse: the USA is now first and worst at all levels. What now needs repeating is what was made standard by the GI Bill after 1945 for 16 million veterans. The comparison between that past and our present is revealing: in the 1950s and 1960s the flow of students multiplied, as did the need for more teachers, more buildings, more books, etc. Since the 1970s we have moved in the opposite direction, whether the Ivy League or main street colleges and universities to the many thousands of grade schools and high schools. All are tightening up (or shutting down) and once-abundant teaching jobs are now being cut to the bone. At all school levels there is more and more emphasis on exams and less and less on feeding youngsters’ curiosities and possibilities. Whatever the defects of the recent past, they were positive compared with present trends: Those who maintain the desire to learn are up against always rising costs for getting in and through the university.

Meanwhile, states are spending always more on prisons, a process that took hold with the recriminalization of blacks in the 1970s, following their civil rights achievements of the 1960s, and now heated up even more by the strengthening of racism associated with a black man in the White House serving as president rather than dishwasher.

The State of California now spends more on prisons than on schools, and it is not alone. “With 1.6 million people in U.S. penitentiaries and an additional 900,000 in jails, the United States locks up its citizens at a higher rate than any other country in the world….Not only do we incarcerate at some six times the rate of Britain and seven times that of Canada…but African-American men are seven times more likely to be locked up as whites.” The high percentage of African-Americans imprisoned has increased most from 1965 to 2000, and most of all in Texas. In the USA as a whole, the rise was 600 percent; in Texas it was twice that.”⁴

Would our prisons be so full if our society were dominated more by decency and less by greed and racism? Of course not. Nor will those tendencies be reversed and the lives of all be improved at home unless we bring back to life the New Deal policies that created millions of jobs, which did much to enhance the quality of the lives of our people. Now is the time to move in those directions once more and never turn back. While doing that, we must also work for the demilitarization of our country and work to end the disguised and open military interventions abroad which have made the USA into “Wars, Inc.”

First, a quick look at the relevant developments from World War II to the century’s end. Following that, we will turn to a critique of Obama’s foreign policies and their dangers.

Question: How is it that Obama, a decent and intelligent person, supports and feeds the march of U.S. militarism? Answer: Like the rest of us, he lives in a country for which wars have not only been "normal" but successfully sold as efforts to save the good life for ourselves and to assist in its creation for others. From its birth in 1776, our country has used military force to extend its power “from sea to shining sea.” In the process, our militarism was sold successfully as a virtue, and it was to continue our wars (if not by that name) from one continent to another. The fascist horrors of the interwar period might well have been sufficient for our participation in World War II, but we did not bother to enter that war until one of our territorial possessions was attacked.

This book was first written in the 1990s. Since then, we have witnessed al-Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That horrific event led to the following:

1. Bush II's decision to invade Afghanistan to go after al-Qaeda and its Taliban protectors

2. Bush II’s using the pretext of the 9/11 attack as his main justification for invading Iraq two years later

3. A pretext for the Patriot Act and other measures that curbed civil liberties on the grounds of national security

4. Bush II’s re-election in 2004 as a "wartime" president who "defended the U.S. against terrorism" (even though it was his administration that failed to foresee and prevent the 9/11 attack in the first place)

5. Obama's Afghan policy of vastly increasing the presence of U.S. troops to fight a counter-insurgency war against the Taliban

6. Obama’s many drone weapons attacks, more than in all of Bush II’s years put together, against al-Qaeda’s hideouts in Pakistan — with mostly civilian deaths (sanitized in and for the US press as “collateral damage”)

Without doubt, the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, was a crime against humanity – no matter the anti-imperialist rhetoric and grievances of al-Qaeda and its supporters. Yet even if one granted the right of the USA to defend itself by sending troops and planes to Afghanistan to go after those who perpetrated the attacks — and this is not a defensible position in my judgement — even the decimation of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan will not succeed in removing the threat of future terrorist actions. The USA could have used police-detective action instead of War, Inc. That would get to the heart of things. But obviously the USA didn’t want to solve the problem.

What about Yemen or Somalia, two countries where al-Qaeda has flourished? Will the U.S. invade either of those nations? We’ve learned that much of the planning for 9/11 took place in Hamburg, Germany. The 2002 bombings of tourist locations in Bali were carried out by an Indonesian Muslim group not affiliated with al-Qaeda. The 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid were allegedly carried out by Moroccan supporters of al-Qaeda, not al-Qaeda itself. The 2005 bombings of the London public transport system were, it seems, the work of residents of England. Shouldn’t Germany, Indonesia, Spain and Great Britain become the targets for U.S. revenge?

Neither Bush’s nor Obama’s responses have decreased terrorists’ numbers or activities; nor have they challenged the causes of their angers. Terrorism has not and cannot improve the lives of the peoples of their countries; nor can the terrorists be defeated by our military power. Until we can eliminate, or at least ameliorate, the conditions and policies that are leading young Muslim men and women to become willing to kill thousands of innocent civilians in the pursuit of their goals, terrorism will remain a deadly factor in international life.

Those most harmed by the military efforts of the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan are the innocents of those countries, whether or not the terrorists themselves are from them (which they are not). Terrorism must be stopped; of course. But that can be achieved if and only if its root causes are dealt with, and those causes have been the work of imperialism. Saying that is not to forgive the terrorists; it is to understand that what made them what they are today is what we (and other powers) have done in the past and, all too much, if in more subtle ways, do still. We must change. We must assist them, mostly poor countries, to realize their possibilities for their people. That will work. But the USA has done little to assist in those difficult efforts and, in the past decade or two has done much to block them.

Iraq: Our chosen villain was Saddam Hussein, who (as our long-standing pal) had imposed great harm on his own people for many years. As noted above, so had our pals Mobutu and Pinochet. And we ourselves had done in the land of the free, home of the brave, from the beginning of the USA — in our treatment of both enslaved and free blacks, browns, Asians, Native Americans and, if in a different context, workers in factories, mines, mills offices — and women.

As we went to (illegal) war in Iraq, “weapons of mass destruction” headed the parade of the lies rationalizing a humanly and economically costly war. We soon learned what Bush II had known all along: such weapons did not exist. Just a little mistake? Here is the answer by Mohammed El Baredei, recently retired chief of the United Nation’s Atomic Energy Agency and a Nobel Peace Prize winner:

Those who launched the war in Iraq — President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair — were responsible for killing a million innocent people and could be held accountable under international law. (The Guardian, UK, 2010-04-03)

That statement was reported in Reuters and other European news agencies, but by nobody in the USA. So, there we are still, thousands of our troops already killed and many more wounded, numberless killed and wounded Iraqis, and more than two million Iraqis who have fled their country in despair. Obama clearly wants to get us out of Iraq, but will he ever do so if — as now — our oil interests are threatened? When we do get out of Iraq, it would be to send more troops to another war, which could all too easily suck us into something worse.

Afghanistan: The war in Afghanistan was supported by Obama when he was running for president. It is a war we cannot win. Iraq has been and is bad enough; Afghanistan threatens to become considerably worse, with Iran just around the corner. Our disgraceful relationships with all three have been boiling for years. The current relationship with Afghanistan began in 1979, with an underhanded trick. Those beginnings are now largely forgotten and have no foreseeable end. Our self-deception and self-destruction deserve a hard look.

The first step, in 1979, was when President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski persuaded him to sign the first of several documents enabling the CIA to provide weaponry to a small group calling itself “the Taliban.” How do we know? Because “Zbig” (as he likes to be known) told us in a boastful interview with the French Nouvel Observateur (Jan.15, 1998). I quote: “Our stated intention in arming the Taliban in July 1979 was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap. We didn’t push them to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.” When they did, three months later, Zbig wrote to Carter: “Now we have given the USSR its Vietnamwar.”

He had that right; but as my mother would say, “He was too clever by half.” The Russians fought there for eight years, left in defeat, and the Taliban weakened — but only for a while. They began their march to today’s strength by inducing Afghan farmers to grow opium to the point where they grow 90 percent of the world’s crop. The opium trade’s profits are scooped up by the Taliban, which now dominate most of Afghanistan and enlarging parts of Pakistan. Having once supported them, we are now fighting against the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, increasingly in the latter with “drones”; safe for us, but deadly for civilians. The USA has, at best, tenuous support from Afghan’s president Hamid Karzai. He functions as a dictator, using his unchallenged power to run a deeply corrupted and unstable government. An insult to plain decency himself, he also has a brother known to be a drug dealer. The Taliban are a horrifying and fanatically dangerous group; militarily, politically, and in their severe oppression of women. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan has brought with it an always strengthening Taliban and an always worse off country.

In April 2010, Obama expressed his determination to stay in Afghanistan and win (whatever that might mean; as Daniel Ellsberg notes, U.S. presidents always have to say that, because they can’t afford to be labeled quitters or losers). Obama must be persuaded by us and his advisors to get the hell out of there before that war is twisted into one much broader and deeper. If and when that happens, the Afghan war could all too easily set off more sparks; most dangerously because it is a region too close to five nervous countries with nuclear weapons: Pakistan, India, China, Israel, and the USSR. (And contrary to sane rationality, the USA mightily approves of the weapons in Pakistan, India, and Israel.)

But surely they and we all have the sanity to avoid more wars? Not so: All these countries have already shown propensities stronger toward war than for peace. Most clearly, that danger is found in the strong possibility of a war that, although it might originate between Iran and Israel, is all too likely to become a much larger war, given the long-standing strong support of Israel by the USA and our own conflicts with Iran. First, a summary look at the U.S.-Israel relationships, then U.S.-Iran.

Israel, Palestine, Iran, and the USA

Beginning in the late 1940s, the USAprovided financial, military, and (in the UN) political support to Israel. Armed force against the United Kingdom was needed if the Israelis were to settle in the region; the slaughter of millions of Jews in the Holocaust was more than sufficient to convince thousands of Jews to return to their historic place of origin in the Middle East. It was, of course, also the place of origin for the Palestinians, who, if in different ways and degrees, had also been robbed and mistreated by outsiders, especially the British. As World War II ended, the U.K. ruled over Palestine; but as with most of Europe, it had been so weakened by many years of war that it no longer had the strength to hold on to its colonies. What was to become Israel again, however, was also what the Palestinians thought should become their Palestine.

Perhaps it was possible from 1948 on that the Palestinians and Israelis could learn to live together, but that was not the aim of either. Both, predictably, wanted most or all of Palestine for themselves. On both sides there always were and still are voices seeking to find a mutually acceptable agreement, as much better than war. But from 1949 on, those voices were shouted down. In various forms, what is now called terrorism has been used by both sides, with each bloody incident paving the way for more, year after year, decade after decade. If I had to state which side had done the most harm to the other — and my mother was a Jew — I would say Israel. Both have done too much harm, but Israel is economically, militarily, and politically the stronger and the more destructive of the two. Although both are armed and to some degree financed by their allies – the USA for Israel, the Arab world for the Palestinians – Israel has received the most assistance, not least at the United Nations, with U.S. support. Recently the Palestinians’ support from neighbors and, most worrisomely, Iran’s Ahmadeinejad, have kindled an already dangerous fire. Until a few years ago, a substantial percentage (probably a majority) of Israelis sought cooperative and peaceful solutions with their counterparts among Palestinians. Today, terrorism — mostly from Israel — is serious, and worsening.

The foregoing discussion has sought to “see both sides,” but up until now, the USA has not: we have systematically and substantially taken Israel’s side, even as, most recently, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have been seeking justifications for a war against the Palestinians. He seems likely to achieve an initial war against Iran, justified by the latter’s presumed efforts to build an atomic weapons base. What is certain, however, is that Israel has had atomic weapons for many years, years also of rising hostility toward Iran, a reality which the Iranians can use as their own efforts to do likewise.

The damages already done to each others’ people have been terrible enough for both Israelis and Palestinians, but worse is well on its way. It can be prevented only if steps are taken by other nations to find a set of compromises clearly superior to today’s lurking probabilities. The USA must take the lead by becoming a constructive “referee” instead of, as up to now, being one side’s major supporter. That was initially prompted by a reasonably large group in the USA, not all of whom were Jewish. Over time, however, Israel’s brusque efforts have been financed and politically supported mostly by well financed U.S. Jewish groups. That, plus the importance of nearby oil reserves and the area’s strategic location, explain why a strongly-pressured and lobbied U.S. Congress has systematically supported Israel’s policies, no matter what. Given Israel’s hostility to Iran and its military inability to fight Iran except from the air, it is understandable why Israel would welcome any and all hostility between the USA and Iran. In the spring of 2010, for the first time the White House began to criticize Israel, prompted by its undertaking of (illegal) construction in a clearly Palestinian area, a seemingly deliberate insult to our visiting Vice President Biden. Perhaps we are finally awakening to the fact that, quite apart from any other considerations, Israel is becoming more harmful not only to Palestinians but to the possibilities of safe and sane progress toward peace in that entire region.

If the USA has a war with Iran, it will have been pushed along the way by Israel. Although Israel does not care to admit it, the country has atomic weapons and is determined to prevent Iran from having them. That’s fairly understandable, but a war with Iran is not the solution. What is needed is a strong movement for the abolition of atomic weapons — soonest, by all. It would help such efforts get off the ground if the USA were to take the lead; we have more of them than everyone except Russia, and we are the only nation ever to have used them.

To the degree the foregoing discussion has been about Iran, it has been in connection with its connections with the Palestinian situation. But our hostile relationship with Iran began decades earlier and provided a firm basis for today’s dangerous situation.

Iran and the USA

As was shown earlier in this book, the poisonous seedswere planted in 1951, and they provided a still functioning basis for Iran’s hostility toward the USA. The years went by, and because or in spite of Iran’s movement in healthy directions, Ahmadinejad came to rule over Iran: by hook and crook. Iran has since become always more dangerous to its own people and more aggressive toward Israel. He is not only looked upon with horror by the USA, but by what appears to be a majority of his own people. They need support and assistance from outside. What dominates now, however, are the increasingly hostile statements and policies toward Iran by both Israel and the USA, with the same coming back.

Early in 2010, Obama showed some signs of moving toward a peace-making direction with Iran, but he found little success either at home or in Iran. He must keep trying and we must do what we can to support those efforts. In that, as in so many needed actions from us, we may not succeed. But today’s processes are leading toward a devastating war, and we must do what we can as long as we can, and not allow Israel to take us into an insane and self-destructive war.

But that’s not all, of course: we must work hard to clean up our own society as well as pull us back from our wars abroad. That can be achieved only by an ever stronger political movement. What it should seek and how it should function will be decided if and when such a movement takes hold. What follows are some suggestions.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow; at Home and Abroad

“Yesterday” refers tothe years from the mid 1930s to the early 1970s; “today” from the latter to the present; “tomorrow” to what could be a better future, but which now threatens to become always worse. First, at home:

Yesterday: Earlier in this chapter, attention was paid to the 1930s and FDR’s transformation from being Wall Street’s pal to becoming its enemy. That turnaround was initiated by a truly democratic uprising initiated by tough workers and soon spread to ordinary people like me. Obama also began as a friend of Wall Street, and is far from being a “left person,” but the decent character and political work that took him from academic success to local, state, and national politics and then to the White House began “on the streets,” as he sought to assist people closer to the bottom than to the top. There is more reason to hope that Obama could become “a second FDR” than there was that Roosevelt, a conservative as New York’s governor, would become the strongly liberal president he was during his last three terms in the White House (last three because he began his first term bowing to Wall Street instead of Main Street). However, as will be noted below, the prospects for making that “second FDR” face obstacles that didn’t exist in the 1930s, mostly that of consumerism and its political by-products.

What was accomplished in the 1930s and later took a lot of pressure and support from “the masses.” Today’s consumerism has made it much more difficult for that to be accomplished now. Why? Perhaps most important is how much our lives and thoughts have changed between then and now. hose who demanded a decent society in the 1930s had been “wage slaves,” with cruelly exploited 12-hour workdays, living on the edge of starvation, their education, if any, ending in the 8^th grade (as with my mother). Angry and desperate, they “had nothing to lose.” By the mid-1930s, workers’ struggles were making already existing but often corrupted unions become honest, new unions were on their way, organized labor shook up companies and politics. FDR’s White House crew came to understand that FDR must change soon or lose the 1936 election.

He changed: first with the creation of Social Security, then with minimum wage laws. The first New Deal, which had favored Wall Street, was pushed aside by the second New Deal, and Wall Street was on its way out of the White House (for a while). Wages and working conditions were improved substantially from the mid-1930s on, and especially so as World War II demanded vast increases in production at the same time as 16 million workers were going into the war. Although both capital and labor were strengthened by the war, labor’s strength and increased employment produced a period in which the relative political strength of capital was reduced, while that of “the people” reached uniquely high levels from the 1950s through the 1960s.That was then.⁵

Today. In the 1970s, most of the strong unions were weakened by an economy lurching into stagflation (unemployment plus rising prices), and unions again became corrupted, facilitated by always less active worker participation, whether in factories, mines, offices or shops. That was part of a larger transformation which began as the 1950s were ending: as the 1970s began, the era in which markedly better working conditions and wages and a “good life” had seemingly become accessible for the majority was on its way out. The class consciousness of the ’30s had been replaced by the nonpolitical categories of incomes: low, middle, and upper.

That transformation had its birth in the 1950s, moved into its adolescence in the 1960s, and matured in the 1970s. By then, the social focus of almost all in the USA had shifted to what they should buy and where to borrow to pay for it: “Keeping up with the Joneses” was how the answer began; now it’s “Watch TV, borrow and buy this that and whatever.” It has become our way of life to want lots of cars, clothing, vacations, whatever, with health care and the kids’ education grunting in the shadows. As the 1970s ended, indebtedness was already becoming mountainous, and consumerism was well on its way to becoming the dictator of our socio-economic behavior; as such it had also become a major source of our dangers at home. In doing so, it has effectively diverted us from paying sufficient attention to our suicidal foreign policies.

At least three imperatives must be met if consumerism is to function significantly: purchasing power (however achieved), a supportive culture, and a polluted political system. Those imperatives were met first and most fully in the USA, the birthplace of consumerism. It was born in the 1920s, but because the associated easy credit system did not yet exist, it could be practiced only by the upper middle class, which alone had the purchasing power to play the game of buying things it didn’t need. The other 80 percent of the populace had trouble just getting along.

Today’s credit cards for almost all did not become even a dream until well after World War II, when available jobs, better unions, and higher wages had made it possible for a majority to join the game of reckless borrowing (and reckless lending). As time went on, such developments spread beyond the USA, but the Europeans and Japanese were relatively conservative. Since the 1980s the strength of their economies has increasingly depended upon U.S. borrowing at home and abroad, and the foundation was laid for the globalized economic crisis which began to rear its head in 2007. In the spring of 2010, as ripples of recovery appeared here and there, the financial news began its now daily announcements that good times are knocking on the door. Beware...

From the first weeks of the Crash of 1929 and for more than a decade after, the air was filled with one or another variation of “prosperity is just around the corner.” The 1929 corner was not successfully rounded until 1942, 13 years later. It was not a coincidence that 1942 was the second year of World War II for the USA, and its production demands, rising purchasing power and full employment at home existed because 16 million healthy men and women were in the army or navy.

Today is very different: our ongoing economic difficulties are taking place during a long period when military production and jobs have been with us for years, and when continuing economic expansion is not to be expected from our ongoing wars. Why not? Because related jobs and production have been at work for decades. Of course another world war might stimulate the economy, but it would more likely blow it up. That grim prospect takes us to our ongoing wars and related dangers.⁶

Before his election as president, Obama gave the impression of being a peacemaker — except as regards Afghanistan. As he now expands that war, we are headed toward another Vietnam, but with a huge difference: This war has already expanded beyond Afghanistan and into Pakistan. And then there is Iran — where military intervention is pushed by our own business and non-business war lovers, by an Israel (and its U.S. supporters) itching to bomb an Iran whose aggressive ruler Ahmadinejhad pours oil on the fire. Meanwhile, there remains the always troublesome relationships between India and Pakistan, with both Russia and China watching the show.

Obama won't even begin to move toward peace abroad, nor support the substantial reforms needed at home (for education, health care [still!], and jobs) unless there is an always stronger political movement convincing him that he must if he is going to stay in the White House. His principle advisors up to now, whether from Wall Street, Main Street or the Pentagon, are accustomed to seeing things as the rich and powerful see them. We must energize ourselves politically and convince both Obama and our legislators that if they don’t see things in terms of the needs and possibilities of the people as a whole, they are out.

Like FDR, Obama is far from perfect. He is by no means a person leaning toward the left; but then, neither was FDR in his first years in the White house. But Obama is infinitely superior to those who wish to replace him. Their power increases day by day, helped along by a mostly conservative media and their ability to set the terms of ongoing debates.

We must take the fight to the Tea Party gang and their less noisy ilk in both parties. We cannot continue to let them get away with calling themselves populists or anti-elitists; we need to make it clear that it is the “elitists” of major business and conservative-to-reactionary political groups who bankroll them. They portray themselves as representing “the little guys”; so did the Know Nothings of the 1850s, the KKK and the anti-immigrants of the 1920s, the McCarthyites of the 1950s. Today’s groups are not only as disgusting as their predecessors, they are more dangerous. If and when we get to work, hard and soon, we can overcome them. If we do not? They are likely to make gains in the 2010 and 2012 elections and thus worsen an already deeply corrupted Congress and take the 2012 presidential election with who knows which awful GOP presidential candidate.

Unless and until we create a promising alternative, unemployment will continue to rise, houses continue to be lost, affordable health care will be moved even further out of reach, and our wars will continue and expand. I repeat: the reactionaries have been hard at work and become always stronger. The likelihood of such a movement’s triumph is greater today than ever before in U.S. history. If that is not to happen, it is essential that the ordinary people of the USA learn from our 1930s predecessors, do the hard work to build a political movement that demands and can achieve steps toward a truly decent and democratic nation. If we don’t do the job, it won’t be done, and we will lurch toward a 21^st century, soft version of fascism; what Bertram Gross (in his book of the same name) has called “friendly fascism,” allowed to take power by a complacent majority until, as happened in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, it is too late.

This book is dedicated to Howard Zinn. As it was being written in early 2010 the sad news came that he had died. I had the good fortune from the 1950s on to know and work with Howie (as we called him). His politics had no name, but their intent was clear and unchanging: work hard for a fully democratic society, and never give up. He wrote many fine books, the most influential (and justly so) was A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to the Present. It has gone through many revisions, and deservedly sold millions of copies. I note that book because, as its title suggests, it is a “people’s history.” He describes and explains the innumerable ways and means in which “the people” — black, brown, red, yellow and white; male or female, Jews or Christians, or Muslims, young and old — have been exploited, killed, raped, robbed, mistreated, cheated, from our 1492 beginnings to the present. And it shows when and where and how some fought back.

Many who read this book have also read his. Read it again. I have taught from it and used it for references countless times; and each time I do I discover or am reminded of something important.

Howie was a most badly-needed historian of the USA, and also one who, in his teaching and enduring political efforts, served as a model for all of us. Along with his teaching and writing, he made substantial efforts to end the racial cruelties and injustice in the South, and gave thousands of political talks from the 1950s on against war and injustice. Seldom optimistic, always a wonderful comrade, he never ceased to fight for justice and peace. He often concluded his talks with a quote from Joe Hill, an IWW (radical workers’ group) organizer. In 1915 in Salt Lake City Hill was falsely accused and quickly convicted of having killed a butcher. Just before he went before a firing squad, this is what he wrote to IWW leader Bill Haywood. It might serve well as our slogan:

“Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize!”

Notes

1. Blues was first published in 1997. Since then I have written other books which, as the 21^st century unrolled, support my having had “the blues” in 1997 and which probe more deeply: Capitalism and Its Economics: A Critical History (2000/updated 2004); The Broken Promises of America: An Encyclopedia For Our Times (2vols., 2005), and Inequality and the Global Economic Crisis (2009).

2. For those years and much of what preceded and followed them see the profound and unique US history of the late Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States.

3. For some of the lessons learned, but demolished from the 1970s on consult the following: Hyman Minsky, Stabilizing an Unstable Economy (1986); Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker (1989) and The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2009), and Kevin Phillips, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism (2008).

4. The ugly ways and means in which imprisonment has given racism a new life in the USA are vividly shown in two recent books: Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010), and Robert Parkinson, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire (2009).

5. Here some useful references concerning the post-World War II decades (1950s–1990s) in which monopoly capitalism took hold of the USA at home, and our aggressions abroad multiplied. For the most recent years see William Blum, Killing Hope: US Militarism Since World War II: Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988); James Cypher, “Military Spending,” Journal of Economic Issues (March 1987); Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir on Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2002);David Gordon, Fat and Mean: The Corporate Squeeze of Working Americans (1996); George Wills, Reagan’s America (1988); Seymour Hersh, My Lai Four: A Report on the Massacre and its Aftermath (1970); A. Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Central Africa (1999); George Kahin, Intervention: How Anerica Became Involved in Vietnam (1986); W. La Feber, American, Russia, and the Cold War (1976); C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (1956); Irving Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War (1952); A. Uribe, The Black Book on American Intervention in Chile(1975); Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990. For an excellent, clear, and comprehensive critical history of the war in Iraq, see Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Imperial Life in the Emerald City (2007). (A recent and excellent fictional film using that book as its basis is “The Green Zone”) The author, and Indian-American, is National Editor for The Washington Post.

6. The best single book for understanding the dangerous insanity of our ongoing wars are is that of Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power (2008). He was a US Army Colonel until he retired in the 1990s, and has taught at several universities (Boston Univ. since 1998). He fought in Vietnam, and his son Andrew, Jr., a US Army Officer, was killed in action in Iraq in 2007. His book (less than 200 pages) could well serve an antiwar movement. Also, for useful analyses of the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, see W. Pitt and S, Ritter, War in Iraq... (2002), and Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos (2008.) For a survey analysis of US wars, see Chapter 8 of my Inequality and the Global Economic Crisis (2009). For a penetrating analysis in the same spirit, beautifully written and more profoundly put, see Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land (2010).