[News] Blum's Anti-Empire Report

[Anti-Imperialist News]

The Anti-Empire Report

By <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/billblum>Bill Blum
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-anti-empire-report-by-bill-blum-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Informed consent

About half the states in the US require that a 
woman seeking an abortion be told certain things 
before she can obtain the medical procedure. In 
South Dakota, for example, until a few months 
ago, staff was required to tell women: "The 
abortion will terminate the life of a whole, 
separate, unique, living human being"; the 
pregnant woman has "an existing relationship with 
that unborn human being," a relationship 
protected by the U.S. Constitution and the laws 
of South Dakota; and a "known medical risk" of 
abortion is an "increased risk of suicide 
ideation and suicide." A federal judge has now 
eliminated the second and third required 
assertions, calling them "untruthful and misleading." 1

I personally would question even the first 
assertion about a fetus or an embryo being a 
human being, but that's not the point I wish to 
make here. I'd like to suggest that before a 
young American man or woman can enlist in the 
armed forces s/he must be told the following by 
the staff of the military recruitment office:

"The United States is at war [this statement is 
always factually correct]. You will likely be 
sent to a battlefield where you will be expected 
to do your best to terminate the lives of whole, 
separate, unique, living human beings you know 
nothing about and who have never done you or your 
country any harm. You may in the process lose an 
arm or a leg. Or your life. If you come home 
alive and with all your body parts intact there's 
a good chance you will be suffering from 
post-traumatic stress disorder. Do not expect the 
government to provide you particularly good care 
for that, or any care at all. In any case, you 
may wind up physically abusing your spouse and 
children and/or others, killing various 
individuals, abusing drugs and/or alcohol, and 
having an increased risk of suicide ideation and 
suicide. No matter how bad a condition you may be 
in, the Pentagon may send you back to the 
battlefield for another tour of duty. They call 
this 'stop-loss'. Your only alternative may be to 
go AWOL. Do you have any friends in Canada? And 
don't ever ask any of your officers what we're 
fighting for. Even the generals don't know. In 
fact, the generals especially don't know. They 
would never have reached their high position if 
they had been able to go beyond the propaganda 
we're all fed, the same propaganda that has 
influenced you to come to this office."

Since for so many young people in recent years 
one of the determining factors in their 
enlistment has been the economy, this additional 
thought should be pointed out to them - "You are 
enlisting to fight, and perhaps die, for a 
country that can't even provide you with a decent job, or any job at all."

"I fear for us all, but I especially fear for 
those already poor. How much lower can they go 
without being cannon fodder or electric chair 
fodder or street litter or prison stuffing or just plain lonely suicide?"
- Carolyn Chute, novelist, Maine USA

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word ... like "bribery"

I really did not know that I could still be so 
surprised, even shocked, by corruption in the 
Congress of the United States. I thought my 
coating of cynicism was already more than thick 
enough to be impervious to any new revelations. I 
was wrong. Consider the following.

Seven members of the House of Representatives 
steered hundreds of millions of dollars in 
largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying 
firm, PMA Group. In fiscal year 2008 alone, the 
seven lawmakers sponsored $112 million worth of 
"earmarks" (construction and other projects paid 
for by the government) for PMA clients while 
accepting more than $350,000 in contributions 
from the firm's clients and lobbyists.

Such behavior should be investigated by the House 
ethics committee, should it not? And it was. The 
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct issued 
a report stating unanimously that the Congress 
members had not violated any rules or laws. 
"Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for 
an entity that also happens to be a campaign 
contributor does not, on these two facts alone, 
support a claim that a member's actions are being 
influenced by campaign contributions."

Ethics watchdogs issued sharp denunciations, 
citing portions of the report that showed that 
the private companies themselves thought that 
their donations helped them win earmarks.

One of the seven Congress members investigated 
was Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) The Office of 
Congressional Ethics (OCE), a government agency 
not composed of members of Congress, which 
conducts preliminary reviews, found probable 
cause that Visclosky sought contributions in 
exchange for steering federal contracts to 
contributors. The OCE was in possession of 
e-mails suggesting that Visclosky's fundraisers 
were specifically targeted toward PMA's clients 
who were seeking earmarks. Even though the OCE 
recommended that the more powerful House ethics 
committee subpoena Visclosky and his staff to 
answer questions under oath about his earmarking 
practice, the members of the House committee 
chose not to subpoena Visclosky or any of the pertinent records.

Wait, it gets better - The FBI actually raided 
the PMA offices as part of an investigation into 
whether the company had directed illegal campaign 
contributions to lawmakers who helped clients 
obtain earmarks, and in 2009 a federal grand jury 
issued subpoenas to Visclosky, one of his former 
aides, and his political committees.2 But nothing 
- apparently nothing - could move the members of 
the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct of 
the United States House of Representatives to condemn their comrades.

This is the kind of Congressional corruption that 
drives so many Americans - on the right and on 
the left - to think of forming a new party. At 
times, the thought hits me as well. But two 
factors interfere. One, the overwhelming role 
played by money in American electoral campaigns 
can trump the best of intentions. Wealthy elites 
have no need for any other party. The Democrats 
and Republicans serve their needs just fine, thank you.

And two, ideology. Gathering together a lot of 
people who are turned off by Congressional 
venality and amorality sounds good until the 
ideological shit hits the fan. There will 
undoubtedly be a wide range of ideological 
leanings in any such group because people who are 
serious about third parties like to be 
"non-sectarian" or "non-exclusionary", but this 
typically leads to serious friction, disputes and 
splits. Even if you specify something like "the 
United States should get out of Afghanistan as 
soon as possible", that can still take various 
conflicting forms; people's politics are 
complicated, not to mention confused. To those 
who like to tell themselves and others that they 
don't have any particular ideology I say this: If 
you have thoughts about why the world is the way 
it is, why society is the way it is, why people 
are the way they are, what a better way would 
look like, and if your thoughts are at all 
organized, that's your ideology, even if it's not 
wholly conscious as such. Better to organize 
those thoughts as best you can, become very 
conscious of them, and consciously avoid getting 
involved with a political party that is incompatible. It's like a bad marriage.

Things are indeed polarizing in America. There's 
The Tea Party on the right and The Coffee Party 
on the left. On the face of it, The Tea Party 
scarcely makes any sense. A seemingly burgeoning 
new movement semi-hysterically marching and 
screaming that their beloved free enterprise is 
threatened by the "socialist" Barack Obama. (What 
next, that he's a committed "Marxist" or 
"communist"? They've probably already said that; 
if you're going to be dumb you may as well go all the way and be retarded.)

A group of more mainstream conservatives gathered 
February 17 at a Virginia estate once owned by 
George Washington and called for a return to the 
principles of Washington's time to fight the 
political battles that lie ahead. They produced a 
declaration, "The Mount Vernon Statement: 
Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 
21st Century". It is a short statement, a mere 
546 words, yet the idea of "limited government" 
or "self-government" is referred to seven times. 
These people, no less than the Teapartyers, are 
obsessed with the idea that government intrusion 
into society of virtually any kind is harmful, or 
at least much inferior to what could be derived 
from "free enterprise, the individual 
entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in 
market solutions", as they put it. This is 
standard and familiar conservative doctrine to be 
sure, but now feeding and powering a whole new 
generation of right-wing activists.

To counter the arguments of these activists, 
progressives need to present their own doctrine 
about the role and value of government in 
people's lives, a concise summary of which I just 
happen to have prepared in my essay: "The US 
invades, bombs and kills for it ... but do 
Americans really believe in free enterprise?" It 
was written several years ago, as the examples I 
use make clear, but this matters not for the 
ideological principles have not changed. The 
essay concludes: "Activists have to remind the 
American people of what they've already learned 
but seem to have forgotten: that they don't want 
more government, or less government; they don't 
want big government, or small government; they 
want government on their side." 3

Paraguay, Honduras and Barack Obama

During his campaign for the presidency of 
Paraguay, former bishop Fernando Lugo promised to 
bring health care to the millions unable to 
afford it. A month after Lugo took office in 
August 2008, the Ministry of Public Health and 
Social Welfare (MSPBS) gradually began to make 
some public health services free, waiving fees 
for office, outpatient and emergency room visits. 
Later, hospital admission fees were eliminated, 
along with charges for intensive care, post-op 
incision care, treatment in an infant incubator, 
oxygen therapy, surgery and other services. In 
2009, fees were removed for diagnostic tests in 
all specialties, and for dental and 
ophthalmological services. Almost all public 
health services in Paraguay are now free of 
charge. "What we are doing is making health care 
a right, regardless of a person's ability to 
pay," said the director general of the MSPBS.

After 61 years of rule by the right-wing Colorado 
Party, the Paraguayan left needs to institute 
various reforms to make sure that free health 
care is sustainable in the long term.4

So what would it take for free health care to 
reach the shores of the world's only superpower? 
Well, a president who believed in it and who had 
some backbone. But every passing day brings us 
fresh evidence that the man has no backbone. The 
Republicans, or certain Democrats, or a powerful 
lobby, or Israel applies a little pressure and 
the man buckles. Like a shack in Haiti during a quake.

As to his beliefs ... In May of last year I wrote 
in this report: "The problem, I'm increasingly 
afraid, is that the man doesn't really believe 
strongly in anything, certainly not in 
controversial areas. He learned a long time ago 
how to take positions that avoid controversy, how 
to express opinions without clearly and firmly 
taking sides, how to talk eloquently without 
actually saying anything, how to leave his 
listeners' heads filled with stirring clichés, 
platitudes, and slogans. And it worked. Oh how it 
worked! What could happen now, as President of 
the United States, to induce him to change his style?"

How long before Fernando Lugo lets slip some 
critical remarks about the behemoth to the north 
that tosses Paraguay into the ODE (Officially 
Designated Enemy) dumpster along with Venezuela, 
Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, et al.? 
Undoubtedly, there are any number of old-time 
right-wing military officers in Paraguay who are 
just itching to duplicate what happened in 
Honduras. I can hear them now - "We don't need no 
stinkin' socialist government with its stinkin' 
communist free health care" - and just waiting 
for someone at the Pentagon to casually nod his 
head. And if that happens, the Obama 
administration will embrace the Paraguayan 
caudillos just as they've done with the Honduran 
golpistas, the latest show of support being the 
announcement by Secretary of State Hillary 
Clinton of the resumption of aid and her urging 
Latin American countries to recognize the new 
Honduran government, despite its serious and 
daily violations of human rights. 5

Help wanted for an animated political cartoon

I have written a script for a short video - 
estimated 5 to 10 minutes long, to be shown on 
YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet, 
tentatively entitled "Be nice to America. Or 
we'll bring democracy to your country." We need a 
cartoonist to draw the images and a technical 
person to create the movement using Adobe flash 
or other software, and to add the narration. 
Could be one person for both functions. The 
persons should be in basic agreement with the 
political ideas expressed in the script, which is 
available for a confidential reading upon 
request. Halfway decent pay. Write to: <mailto:bblum6 at aol.com>bblum6 at aol.com

Notes

1. Washington Post, February 26, 2010
2. Washington Post, February 27, 2010
3. 
<http://killinghope.org/superogue/system.htm>http://killinghope.org/superogue/system.htm
4. Inter Press Service, January 6, 2010
5. Associated Press, March 5, 2010

-

William Blum is the author of:

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir

Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed 
copies purchased, at <http://www.killinghope.org>www.killinghope.org




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