HOME PAGE
                                                 Essays by Ernest Partridge

Editor's Choice                    
The Crisis
Imperialism, Foreign Relations
The Media
The Elections
The Obama Administration
The G. W. Bush Administration
Progressivism / Democrats
Republicans -- Right Wing
Civil Liberties -- Dissent
Moral Issues -- The Law
Science, Philosophy, Education
Economics
The Environment
Lies -- Propaganda -- Corruption
Culture War -- Religious Right
Chronological list of Essays

Ernest Partridge's Blog

___________________

Essays by Bernard Weiner

Favorite Articles
Celebrity "Diaries" & "Memos"
"Shallow Throat" Conversations
The "Dummies" Primers
Satires, Fantasies and Parables
Essays and Analyses

Bernard Weiner's Blog

Guest Essays

Letters to The Crisis Papers
Recommended Blogsites
The Dissenting Internet
Progressive Broadcasting
The Activists' Page
The Liberty Library

The Editors' Page

Contact Us.

 

      

Letters to The Crisis Papers

 

A note to our readers: We're eager to hear from you, and to provide a forum for your words to be read by others. Here are some helpful hints: Short, several paragraph letters have the best chance of being accepted for publication. Sign the letter with your name; we don't want to be giving out your email address to strangers. Unless you instruct us otherwise, we'll assume it's OK with you if we post your letter, or excerpts from it.

Send your letters to us at crisispapers@hotmail.com.

This page has retained letters for the past three uploads.

Thanks. -- The Editors 
 


July 28, 2010


Responses to Bernard Weiner's essay,
Potholes, Petroleum, Pashtuns: Afghanistan As a Local Issue.  


Hi Bernie,

EXCELLENT!! EXCELLENT! EXCELLENT!!!

I am really glad you wrote this the way you did emphasizing the bad trade-offs we have made and are still making between fighting unwinnable wars and improving our own country, which is rapidly deteriorating from lack of sufficient funding.

Part of this is created no doubt by the influence and size of our military industrial complex in Congress and their efforts to hold onto their turf and acquire more. Part of this was created by peddling fear to too many Americans who always by into this con because they love waving their flags no matter what the cause. However the more serious part of this was created by a Congress and President who never consider cost-benefit analysis when making these decisions.


It's always war at any cost if it can be sold that way and usually it's an easy sell. Yet the only way one can assess whether any war is a worthwhile endeavor is by applying a cost-benefit analysis to this decision. There always has to be a monetary limit on what you can spend on a war but there is none on the war on terror. I can guarantee you will never hear back if you ask any Congress person to give you the total number of actual terrorists killed or captured since 9/11 [versus those we have just killed or locked up w/o any charges, etc] and how much each one has cost us. The reason is that the ratio wouldn't make any sense to a rational person. The same way paying $1,000.000 to buy a Ford Focus wouldn't make any sense to most people.

I would, however, state that Obama has already been using soldiers as cannon fodder in Afghanistan assuming he too understands that this conflict is unwinnable using any common usage of that term. And worse, the Dems in Congress have allowed him to get away with doing this because they are afraid to say no to him because they are cowards and fear being labeled weak in fighting terror.

If we are still stuck in Afghanistan in 2012 I won't be able to vote for Obama again. It will be hard enough voting for him with what I have already seen.

RJ Crane (7/28)
Editor, Topplebush.com

 



Bernie:

[You wrote:] "Meanwhile, as the infrastructure and social services continue to collapse at home, and as the economic depression becomes the new normal, more than one rillion dollars has been spent on two unwinnable wars abroad...."<

Two unwinnable occupations -- not wars, Bernie. The more we use the WAR word, the more we fan the wrong flames of "patriotism" versus rightful indignation.

Allen Roland (7/28)
free-lance blogger, Salon.com
 



In order to cut our losses and get out of that rock strewn shithole we are going to have to admit the mistake we made in the first place, a mistake that cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars and which has ruined our economy at home and thus our own country. None of our politicians are going to have the courage to make this admission.

woodyyc (7/28)
from Alternet.org
 


 

June 24, 2010


Selected responses to Bernard Weiner's essay:
"The Incendiary Danger of Unchecked Power: Bibi As Bullyboy."



Dr. Weiner:

Israel became a garrison state because its neighbors have over and over tried to destroy it. Garrison states are not nice. They change its citizens. In Israel, most people have -- thanks to threatening neighbors and their rockets and suicide bombers -- turned sharply to the Right. While you may not like what you see in Israel, you miss the full truth if you ignore the causes.

Anonymous (6/24)
from Truthout.org

Bernard Weiner responds:

I see no contradiction between being a "garrison state" and behaving according to a civilized code of international law. As I noted in my essay, there is enough anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment out there to help explain why Israel is so bellicose. But, just for one example, there is no reason why Israel couldn't have handled this Gaza Flotilla the way it's dealt with previous ships heading toward Gaza: escort them into port and, if it's called for, search for contraband. Using automatic weapons first on the high seas was provocative in the extreme. Punishing the civilian population in Gaza, because you don't like who they voted for, is an international crime ("collective punishment" is illegal). I want Israel to have a future, and I want the Palestinians to have their own state and have a future.
 



Mr. Weiner: You wrote: "Neighboring Arab leaders and countries urged Palestinians to leave "temporarily" until the Israelis could be defeated in war."

This is an often heard claim but I have never found a primary source to back it up. Can anyone cite a radio recording, newspaper article, etc, that verifies this account?

Ken Hall (6/24)
from Truthout.org

Bernard Weiner responds:

With regard to your plea for information about the Palestinian diaspora: Unfortunately, trying to get objective answers to what really happened in 1948 is virtually impossible; political objectives and nationalist agendas get in the way, with a wide variety of competing narratives. Just two serve as ##examples:

Benny Morris, a Jewish-Israeli history professor at Ben-Gurion University, wrote: "A Jewish State could not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore, it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population."

Nuri Said, former Iraq prime minister (1930-58), is quoted in an Egyptian book "The Secret Behind the Disaster" as encouraging Arabs in 1947 to flee to safety before an Arab attack against the Jews: "The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

 



Bernard Weiner:

An Israeli is more likely to emigrate successfully than any Palestinian. And many do, if they can, to get away from the madness that is Israel.

I knew a young man from Israel, originally from Poland, who made a second jump to the U.S. He thought many more would follow if they could.

But now, the American intelligentsia especially is looking for refuge. I doubt that Israel will be on the list of possibles.

Demeter (6/24)
from DemocraticUnderground.com
 



Mr. Weiner:

[You reference Helen Thomas' remarks about the need for Jews in Israel to "go home."] So much for professional journalism. As has been pointed about by only a handful of honest journalists, and as clearly stated by Helen Thomas herself, the reference was to those European Jews (which is to say, most of them) in "Israel" that have no legitimacy to any land outside of the Green Line, which is to say, all who reside outside of the original 1967 borders of Israel, not those inside of those borders, as has long been conceded by all of the Arab States (though you wouldn't know it to read the corporate press).

It is virtually impossible in our censored press for anyone to point out what is glaringly obvious to all but the most obtuse: that instead of punishing Europe for its crimes against the Jews, it is the Palestinians who must pay for the crimes of the West. Must we be reminded that it was the good Christian Germans who did the slaughtering, and the Christian West generally that would not even consider having the Jews emigrate to their own countries, but instead demanded that the Arabs shoulder the burden and occupation?

Helen was absolutely correct in pointing out that the European Jews ought to "go home" and "get the hell out" of Palestine. But then the Nazis, and their modern-day equivalents in Israel and in the U.S. never did pay much attention to the law when it got in the way of imperial hegemony. The hypocrisy of the West, the unmitigated rush to the defense of the indefensible (as long as it serves the powerful) never ceases to amaze.

FR Tothus (6/24)
from Truthout.org
 



What FR Tothus and many other writers forget is that approximately 50% of Israeli Jews originated in Arab countries, where they experienced discrimination similar to that experienced by Israeli Arabs today. Also, large numbers of them were expelled from those Arab countries without being allowed to take their possessions. Should they go back to Iraq, Syria, and North Africa?

Anonymous (6/24)
from Truthout.org
 



The more I ponder Zionist leadership, the more I wonder if Hitler knew these guys more than we do.... Europe dumped its problems on Arabs, now we have to pay for it with our honor, dignity and money. We must become honest brokers: either arm Palestinians to level the battlefield, or cut our unconditional support to the cowardly bullies so they learn to deal humanely with people whose land was given to them so Europe and the US will not have to put up with gypsies any more.

Anonymous (6/24)
from Truthout
 



The modern state of Israel was established in 1947 as the primary U.S. military base in the Middle East. Sometimes the tale tries to wag the dog. But ultimately, the dog is financing the tale. And until that changes, nothing changes.
Dave (6/24)

from Truthout.org
 



I was a child in Palestine, in Haifa, in fact and we didn't even have a radio; the first radio i ever saw was in the home of a Britisher whom we visited. I find it hard to believe we Palestinians heard radio broadcasts telling us to leave. What radios?

Sitti (6/24)
from Truthout.org
 



I can no longer respect the Israelis. They are bullies plain and simple. I was once so pro-Israel it was annoying to my friends. Little by little the zionists changed my point of view. Rabid dogs that they are, the right wing in Israel will be their own un-doing. Enough is enough.

Anonymou (6/24)
from Truthout.org
 



Policy changes the same day that Palestinians accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel and not a moment sooner.

Don't delude yourselves. Everything else will simply be smoke and mirrors to mitigate foreign involvement and compete for foreign support and aid. The alternative of course is War. Israel planned for that option perhaps all too well. Its not like someone is offering you different options and flavors to choose from here, and unless you live in the middle east or Israel your opinion does not really count beyond whatever aid your government offers to either side, and clearly the divisions exist throughout the western world.

Often however people who know less about the situation are more apt to side with the Palestinians as they have no memory of the past horrors and freakish acts of terrorism committed by those people. They don't like Jews, and anyone else who doesn't must surely be on their side too.

DigiTurd (6/24)
from Reddit.com
 



I was taking an International Studies class at the time of the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when the saying was current that Israel had “lost the moral high ground”. I asked my Professor Migdal if the PLO had acquired it and he said “Well, they may have the moral high ground, but tactically they're nowhere.”

It was years before I got what he was saying: Israel alone among countries has to think tactically, think of its survival even in the short term. It's the real world for Israel, objective reality, imposed on it by tha fantasy of Power, and now on the Palestinians in turn. Like a spell, a nightmare, it can end if we simply turn from it and look instead to what is green in us.

Anonymous (6/24)
from AlterNet.org
 



Thank you, Bernard.

inna (6/24)
from DemocraticUnderground.com
 



Dear Bernie:

[You wrote:]   The only hope for a real shift in policy would involve the U.S. government threatening to cut off economic and military aid if that change is not forthcoming, and/or if the internal politics inside Israel alter enough to lead to a withdrawal of public and parliamentary support for Netanyahu.

You hit the nail on the head about what this country should have done TO Israel a long time ago but there is absolutely no political will to do anything TO Israel. It’s always and only one side of the coin: What we can do FOR Israel. And it’s not just the far right or Zionists holding these views. Almost all politicians, with some exceptions like Dennis Kucinich, continue to give blind open-ended no strings attached support TO Israel.

And those raising issues of what should be done TO Israel like you have done in this piece that I support, if we were part of the MSM, we would be attacked and our careers would be ruined. We wouldn’t even have to say anything quite as crazy as Helen Thomas to get the same result.

When Walt and Mersheimer’s book came out attacking US foreign policy as it relates to Israel, the Zionists and their ilk tried to ruin their careers at the universities where they were employed. It didn’t work – at least not yet. Why do you think Jimmy Carter wasn’t allowed to speak on the podium during Obama’s nomination? They’re all a pack of cowards who stand for nothing except their next election.

P.S.: Brad Sherman [D-CA] is proposing a bill to charge any Americans on that flotilla or future ones with a crime of aiding terrorists. And dear pathetic Chuck Schumer -- 3rd highest-ranking Dem in the Senate -- agrees with Israel’s policy of trying to starve the Gazans into submission.

RJ Crane, Editor (6/29)
Topplebush.com


Bernard Weiner responds:

I'm afraid you're correct: Nothing will be done. The tragedy wheel keeps turning.


Crane replies:

Maybe what we need to do is condition our support upon a candidate's willingness to hold Israel accountable. Just about every other issue gets that attention but this one.


Weiner responds:

I hate making my vote conditional upon a single-issue -- so many other issues are important as well -- but I'm sympathetic to the cause. Might be a viable lever, who knows?


Crane replies:

I agree. Israel shouldn’t be the only issue and certainly wouldn’t be the only issue for various constituents either, but it’s one that should be brought up enough by more progressives as if these politicians would be held accountable. My point was they never have to answer to these kinds of concerns from John Q. Public.
 



Mr. Weiner:

Gross ignorance on your part. Egypt refused to take Gaza when the Sinai was returned.

Jordan has no desire to take over the West Bank or its population.

The world wants Palestinian immigrants as much as it likes Jews.

When Arafat backed Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Desert Storm debacle, Palestinians lost their middle management infrastructure jobs all over the Arabian peninsula and became much poorer.

Bibi knows that no one wants the Palestinians and neither does he. What he seems to be looking for is an emasculated Palestinian populace, which will not happen

Kal Palnicki (6/29)
 



Mr. Weiner:

Just wanted to say how enjoyable and disturbing your article was. A no-nonsense, well-balanced work. I'm reminded of Gen. Washington's admonition in his Farewell Address. Beware the favored nation, they will steal your foreign policy.

The Congress thinks they are helping Israel, and those opposed have no balls. If the dollar doesn't take the US down first, then we and Israel will be destroyed from within. Again, your clarity is astounding. Thank you.

Jim Roby (6/29)
 



June 12, 2010
 

About Ernest Partridge's Essay,
If It's Good for General Motors, Is It Good for the Rest of Us?

 

Life is too short to spend much time on the Democratic Underground, but this article by Ernest Partridge popped up in one of my Google watch lists. I highlight only because it contains this straw man:

The dogmatism of free market absolutism resides in the belief that the unregulated market never fails to be beneficial to all; the belief, in other words, that there are no malevolent effects of unconstrained market activity, no “back of the invisible hand.” From this belief follows the insistence that the free market is self-correcting, and that there is thus no need for regulation ? that, in Ronald Reagan?s enduring words, “government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.”

I can’t think of any thoughtful defender of capitalism and free markets that ever would have said that the market “never fails” or that it is “beneficial to all” or that there are never bad outcomes or that the market is perfectly self-correcting.

Bad, stupid shit happens all the time in free markets. For example, BP idiotically dumps a few zillion barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In a free society, BP will be out billions of dollars in cleanup costs and damage settlements — it might even bankrupt itself if governments allow that to happen, and thus will never again be able to do something so careless. Markets can’t prevent a first dumb action, like huge leveraged bets on ever-increasing housing prices, but markets can make sure the folks involved don’t have the resources to do it again — that is, except if governments bail them out from their mistakes.

The point is not that markets are perfect — the point is that they are superior in both function and the retention of personal liberty to the alternative of giving governments coercive power to use force against individuals to change market outcomes. The point is not that individuals don’t do destructive things within the context of free markets. The point is that they have a lot less power to do harmful things over long periods of time than if one gave that person coercive power in a government job backed by police forces and armies. There is only a limited amount of damage anyone can do when they depend on the uncoerced cooperation and agreement of their counter-party. A tobacco company CEO doesn’t have a hundredth the power to ruin peoples lives as does one member of Congress. Fifty years of slimy cigarette advertising doesn’t have the power of one Congressional mandate. Go to Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore — which has been worse for these cities — the private campaign to sell cigarettes or the government led war on drugs?

(Follow this link to the remainder of the article).


Ernest Partridge Replies:

"I can’t think of any thoughtful defender of capitalism and free markets that ever would have said that the market “never fails” or that it is “beneficial to all” or that there are never bad outcomes or that the market is perfectly self-correcting."

For a starter, look again at the quote from the Milton and Rose Friedman: ""A free market [co-ordinates] the activity of millions of people, each seeking his own interest, in such a way as to make EVERYONE better off.." (Free to Choose, pp 13-4).

And Milton Friedman again: ""There is NOTHING wrong with the United States that a dose of smaller and less intrusive government would not cure."

Here's another from Jacob Halbrooks: "“In the free market, the individual would have to produce a good that the other person desired in order to receive a good in return. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of the market guides ALL participants in society to promote the best wishes of EVERYONE ELSE by pursuing his own wants and desires.” (The once valid link to the source in geocities.com has since been withdrawn).

And finally, regarding environmental policy from Robert J. Smith: "The problems of environmental degradation, pollution, overexploitation of natural resources, and depletion of wildlife ALL derive from their being treated as common property resources. WHENEVER we find an approach to the extension of private property rights in these areas, we find superior results." ("Privatizing the Environment," Policy Review, Spring, 1982, p. 11.)

Enough absolutes for you? (Note CAPS).

 



A lightly regulated free market, like Libertarians and Republicans, want eventually destroys itself. The big corporations use their financial means and market power to monopolize and oligopolize their markets effectively block out any competition. There is no longer any reality of free entry into the market. Anyone who tries ends up driven out of business or acquired by the oligopolists.

This is happening today after 30 years of no anti-trust enforcement. Practically every market is controlled by a small number of large corporations.

Jom Comment
Atlantic Free Press
 



Thanks, from now on I will replace the term "capitalism" with "free market absolutism". If free marketers are going to use religious language, so am I.

Safe in Ohio
Democratic Underground
 



Both capitalists and religious nuts use "invisible" entities to justify their nonsense Religions used "invisible being(s)" up in the sky and faith, for thousands of years (and they still do) to not only justify their nonsense, but the power they hold over people's lives.

Capitalism uses "invisible hands" and markets to justify a rather arbitrary socioeconomic system, whose principal aim was to replace the old feudal pyramid of power, with another pyramid of their own.

Thus it is no coincidence both systems resort to abstract and invisible concepts in order to rule reality. Scamming is as old of a profession as prostitution. And at the end of the day, capitalism is a scam: those who control capital, which you can't eat/refine/or make anything out of really, managed to convince those with actual assets and labor (i.e. real things that you can eat/refine/or use to make stuff) that capital was not only worth more than their stuff (via credit/interest) but that it was fundamental for the proper operation of society.

liberation
Democratic Underground
 


To an extent you are correct in questioning the ability of totally free markets, but you are also leaving out half of the necessary equation for the free market defense... that the rule of law must be followed... without financial and criminal punishment for acts such as the BP gulf spill for example, the totally free markets CAN NOT work, but if the rule of law is maintained, it is always in the best interests of the corporation to maintain safety and environmental interests. but yes, if the corporations are allowed to get away with those things that they have been getting away with, it is easy to make fun of the "free market" solution.


Sherry Mann
OpEdNews
 



I think most of the progress that you ascribe to market capitalism was actually achieved by scientific and technological progress and the hard efforts of working people. If a co-operative, collectivist, system had been in place, with restrictions on wasteful financial speculation, that restricted the larcenous depredations of market capitalist parasites, that enforced a radical leveling of income and that, crucially, ensured that ecological sustainability was the highest value, not the maximisation of profit, I am certain that human progress would have been far greater, more equitable, and sustainable, and we would not be facing civilizational collapse and possibly species extinction as we do today. Market fundamentalist capitalism is the acting out in everyday life of the pathopsychology of evil individuals whose insatiable greed is a projection of their inner emptiness, and who hate other human beings. Just look at the viciousness of the policies of class hatred and revenge being inflicted on Greece, Iceland and Ireland, so exactly alike to the policies inflicted for decades on the poor world by the IMF and World Bank. The financial gangsters and parasites who precipitated this crisis not only get off, scot-free, they are given trillions of public money, which are to be paid back by the serfs, as a century of social advance is destroyed in a trice. The policy prescriptions of the Right are always the same-shovel money at the parasite elect and screw the rest, and give ‘em the Bangkok treatment if they resist. That’s really existing market capitalism.

Mulga Mumblebrain
dissidentvoice
 



Another COMPLETELY useless article - an insult to the mind....I spit on this sophomoric garbage.

"...It is noteworthy that the United States has the largest prisoner to population ratio in the industrialized world...."

Really...?   Is it also "noteworthy" that the oceans are wet...?

Follow the Facts
Information Clearing House
 



By attacking and insulting those who believe in intelligent design rather than randomness and chaos in the opening paragraph, and furthermore, using the belief in same to ridicule a market theory, the author is committing journalistic suicide. What Christian or Muslim reading the opening sentence will want to click on the link? Well I did and am not the better for it.

Why promote the theory of evolution in the same article that claims to address the issue of unregulated capitalism? Many of us deists (Christians or Muslims) are not fundamentalists. Not all Christians believe the Bible is a literal account of the origins of the universe. Plus anyone with the honesty to reflect on the root cause of current problems has heard long ago the capitalist mantra: "privatise the gains, socialize the costs". So that's a lot of ink or rather, kilobytes wasted here.

Kamo
Information Clearing House
 



NO! But what's good for US is Good ENOUGH for GM!!  Since We the People Now OWN them (and Chrysler) where Are OUR 1995 taxpaid-for ELECTRIC CARS (NOW!)? (It's not as if they don't still have the plans and have to Re-invent The "WHEEL"). Right, I Forgot OBUMMER!

Vic Anderson
Truthout
 



Response to Ernest Partridge's essay, "Nolo Contendere":


The Left loses because they allow people like myself to be destroyed by the Right. I would have been one of those voices you wish existed in the mainstream media: I've written for Time Magazine and the New York Times.

You can still make this happen. If you're interested I can tell you how.

On another note, I have been pressing for the creation of "Media SWAT Teams." Each team has a core group of a dozen people, and a larger group of 100 or so. If anyone feels he has to quit, he can do so only after getting 2 replacements. (Everyone makes this pledge before joining.)

The activities will be legal, but once they become effective, undoubtedly moves will be made to make them illegal, so the dozen people in the central group may have to change frequently.

Half-a-dozen of these will be Readers: they look for right-wing lies in the media, even letters to the editor by right-wingers. The other half-dozen will alert the 100 to take action, after digging up relevant contact information to target the offender: contact information for the offender's boss, his cousin's boss, his home telephone number, etc. They will also possibly create websites attacking the offender, listing his home address and pictures of his house.

Each person commits to sending one email a week, making one phone call every two weeks, and writing one letter a month.

Jonathan Farley
 



Dear Dr. Partridge,

Thank you for writing your article and posting it – you echo thoughts colleagues and I’ve expressed, and I’m sure many others have too – we somehow need to amplify these proposals and – ask George Soros for a TV station. . .ask the wealthy donors for the long term funding and guiding, mentoring and job security, that the GOP gives its young potential leaders, starting in high school – and ironically, the Left donors demand near term financial results from their donees, whereas the right wingers do not. I’ve passed your post to a friend at Netroots Nation, Raven Brooks. I think it might be productive for you to confer with him.

Best wishes,

Martha E. Ture

 


 

May 19, 2010


About Bernard Weiner's Essay:  Mr. Obama: Tear Down This War!


Mr. Weiner:

You are so right; them's my beliefs. Obama needs to study history and get some courage; get out of these far-off places. But I wonder if we are trying to deny China and Russia the oil from the stans -- the bigger geopolitical reason to kill and die.

Helen Thomas (5/18)
[White House Correspondent, Hearst Newspapers]
Washington, D.C.

Bernard Weiner responds:

Receiving praise from you, one of my journalistic heroes, is a great honor. And your speculation about why the U.S. is fighting in that area of the world -- to keep Russia and China from totally dominating the stans -- makes a lot of sense.

Thanks so much for contacting me.
 



Dear Mr. Weiner,

Thank you so very much for your article, "Tear Down This War." Yes, "Those were the days....," and we are again in them.

I deeply appreciate your mentioning the military/industrial complex, as so few people ever do. President Eisenhower warned us but to no avail. I was soooo hoping that President Obama would NOT walk lockstep with that crew, but he is.

WHEN will we, as a nation, understand who is really running the show?

Again, thank you for your wisdom, knowledge, and willingness to share.

Phyllis T. Albritton (5/18)
Blacksburg VA 24060
 



Read Ismael Hossein-Zadeh's "A Vicious Circle of Debt and Depression."  His analysis is not seriously disputable by any rational, semiliterate person who has watched the horror unfold over the last 2 years. Indeed, it is class warfare, initiated from the top down.

Trends forecaster Gerald Celente -- an actually rather conservative fellow and certainly no socialist -- has a clever moniker for the inevitable resistance which will sweep the globe in response over the next several years: "Workers of The World Unite 2.0". Greece's problems, which are only beginning, augur tremendous global instability for State capitalism, convulsing Europe, the Americas, the Pacific Rim.

Perhaps this calculation has intuitively already been made by the global corporate and banking elites: With no hope of growing the global economy further (Peak Oil and other pressures), in the interim they are determined to steal everything they can and test the resistance from the bottom. When little appears at first, they are tempted to take even more. They are confident the cost of resistance -- strikes, sometimes violent civil unrest pushing countries to the brink of revolution, permanently depressed economies etc. will not outweigh what they will be able to permanently steal.

The smug punditocracy who ingratiated themselves to Triumphant Capitalism in the 1990s, as if the Free Market were an inevitable and right force of Nature led by the more Perfect Union, those Americans who thought they had repealed history, have been the ones in denial the longest. But even sycophantic whores like Tom Friedman have finally awoken from their semi-comas. They realize what's at stake now. The fact that they align themselves with plutocrats because it's in their self-interest to do so should not obscure the basic point: People are increasingly forced to take sides, sometimes in rather dramatic ways.

The outcome nation by nation, region by region, is uncertain. A great deal will hinge on civil action, disobedience, other forms of creative protest, dissent, economic reorganization such as local cooperatives, etc. If the fiat $$ system collapses or shows signs of cracking, the latter will become very important.

Some interesting counterexamples to state capitalism (less generously but just as accurately termed Fascism) are already in place in Bolivia and Venezuela and (Don't cry for her) Argentina. Indeed, learn from her instead. She repudiated her debt and freed herself from the US Dollar.

Scott Schneider (5/18)
http://scottschneider.dbetv.com
 



Thank you, Bernie. Seems like it never ends. We just have to keep working together as long as we can.

Peggy Blum (5/18)
Washington
 



Hey Bernie,

Great piece! I can really relate (I'll be 60 in November).

This sentence sure did remind me of what Nixon did with Viet Nam. <i>"In Iraq, Obama has begun re-positioning U.S. forces away from the urban battlegrounds in preparation for the promised pre-2012-election troop withdrawals."</i>

I'm going to post the article on my Facebook page. Thanks for sending it.

I had no expectation that good things would come with Obama so nothing he does surprises me.

Evelyn Pringle (5/18)
 



Bernie,

Good on you! It's all so maddening -- and numbing. Here we are, decades later, and we're still angry and frustrated about the same things! What changes? Really. What? "Rage, rage, against the..." And still the power elite does what it does without common sense, driven by a moral mania that belies objectivity.

Yet, ironically, as you point out, that moral mania actually damages our moral sense of who we are and what we stand for. And our country stands confused, like children waiting for guidance from their parents, never learning that the parents are, sadly, wrong, and, yes, maybe even incompetent, bad, criminal. And what do you do with that? What do we do when the Good Object is actually bad? How do you embrace the duality of all that without going mad?

Thanks for speaking out.

Simon Levy (5/18)
Los Angeles
 



Dr. Weiner:

You just made my day. Would that more articulate & to-the-point bottom line articles like yours have been written 3 yrs ago.

I'm sending this to everyone I know -- whether they want to read it or not.

Do you think anyone will ever listen?

Amy (5/18)
 



In the short term, it seems tragic, as the fascist amerikan empire slaughters and terrorises its way into oblivion- failed empire. Yet in the long term, it's all neccesary because world peace cannot happen as long as the imperialist bully, amerika, rules the playground !

Siempre por PAZ!

Tioche (5/18)
Mexico
 



The U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan because of oil, to enrich defense industries and secure Israel. Because Iraq and Afghanistan flank Iran, Le Bete Noir Du Jour, and because U.S. administrators and Congress members represent lobbies, not the American people, don't expect an exit.

Michael Barrett (5/18)
Minneapolis
 



Dear Dr. Weiner,

Thank you so much for the article appearing in Truthout: "Mr. Obama, Tear Down this War!"

I deeply appreciate your words, although I must say, your analogies to Viet Nam brought back a flood of incredibly strong emotion.

Although I never protested in the streets, my heart was with everyone who did. I would definitely take to the streets today, if I thought it would help.

The problem is I'm not sure what helps anymore.

I thought that getting Obama elected would pull us out of the quagmire. It seems as though he is intent on keeping us there for reasons that have never been made clear.

But every time I think of the insanity of endless war, I know I have to do SOMETHING.

If I could save one Iraqi child, one Afghani woman, one young American from dying needlessly, I would do whatever it took. We need to learn to take care of one another and this is not the way.

...I hope and pray that your strong voice will reach the President and his close advisors before we lose more good people to this ungodly, immoral and unnecessary tragedy of two wars without reason.

Therese L. Hunkin (5/18)
Samoa News
American Samoa
 



You can be nostalgic all you like, Bernard, but everybody's older now and more sluggish, they've got houses and families and kids and a stake in the system, plus they don't care about this war because their rumps aren't on the line anymore and if they're wealthy enough their kids will never have to go. So why should they care? They don't.

This is like the Korean war must have been. Background noise, is all.The only people who give a damn about it is the people who have family members in the military there. And since that's none of the media,no attention is given it.

None of this is morally right, but it's how it is.

MizzGrizz (5/18)
from SmirkingChimp.com
 



They should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan now.

Our nation is in the grip of ruthless corporations with no national allegiance. It is all about their profits.

That's why we live in a state of endless war, open borders with America like a sinking ship, labor outsourced and imported, no guaranteed medical care or social security for American citizens. Not to mention college education.

All of which the rest of the westernized, civilized world possesses.

It's pointless to talk to the government as if they "made a mistake." They didn't make a mistake. They're doing exactly what they were told to do.

It's not our government; it's theirs. Voting is a bad joke.

Anonymous (5/18)
from Truthout.org
 



The problem with liberals is that, in the face of all reason and evidence, they continue to believe that Obama is a progressive and understands what is right. Nope. He is a neo-con, just like Clinton.

What has changed since 2008? Lots of empty rhetoric and promises. Talk is cheap. I don't see any change at all. Wall Street didn't fund his campaign to see him act against their interests. America is a right-wing nation in a death spiral with too many stupid people who can't think critically. Their minds are rotted by television and the entertainment culture of this country.

Obama is doing exactly what his masters want him to do and he is pulling the wool over vast numbers of people's eyes because he is such an eloquent speaker. He's nothing but a scam artist picking our pockets in the service of his corporate masters.

Jeff (5/18)
from Truthout.org
 



The Left/Right paradigm is disintegrating before our eyes. The only way out of this is to give it up and realize that we've been manipulated ...just as long as it generates massive debt to service. We are being milked and more recently, with the bank bailouts, GUTTED.

Ron Paul was in the small minority who opposed these wars from the beginning, and who continues to oppose them, as well as having opposed the bank bailouts. When will so called 'liberals' and 'conservatives' alike give up and admit that the man has been right as rain for many years now, while focusing on the whole Liberal/Conservative ping-pong match has produced not one single win for anybody -- except Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve Bank and the rest of the band of pirates who run the world at this point.

Bill O'Rights (5/18)
from Truthout.org
 



My comment to all future Presidential candidates, including Mr Obama: I will vote for whomever will promise to remove our troops and civilian mercenaries out of Iraq and Afghanistan within a year of taking office - no if, and's or but's.
If that person does not do that, I will then spend my energies on what it takes toward their removal from office. One 72 year old vet who is losing patience.

Charles in Oregon(5/18)
from Truthout.org
 



Which wall do you want Obama to tear down? Don't hold your breath that the world will change because our generation demanded it and wants it. As long as Darth Vader has breath (and they live almost forever), they will rule through the dark side. No Sky-walker around.

Anonymous (5/18)
from Truthout.org
 



Iraq, Afpak are NOT WARS -- they are fascist/ imperialist terrorist acts against humanity! No war/ occupation is winnable because the more you cause suffering, the more you WILL suffer! The fascist amerikan empire is in for a lot of suffering! War criminals bush, cheney, rice, clinton ,obomber -- the list is long and soooo far away from moral as they carry out atrocities for what.?: power and oil...amerikan imperialism!

tioche in Mexico
from Truthout.org
 



"Mommy? Brother Adolph won't share!" ("Ask him again, sweetie.")

Starve the beast.You can't talk to it.

And you can only talk about it, so much. You lose your breath.

So you have to find ways to starve it, stop it. Kill it. Tell me there's another way? Ha!

Ned Lud (5/18)
from OpEdNews.com
 



Mr. Obama regrets he's unable to listen today.

Thank you for emphasizing that, based on the actual war policies of the Obama Administration, the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan now belong to President Obama despite the fact that he cannot be blamed for our initial involvement in these wars.

When I think about the criticism that was justifiably directed against the war policies of the prior Administration, it increases my disgust toward the partisan hacks in Congress who defend the same policies in the Obama Administation. The United States has a shameful history of foolish military adventures against impoverished peoples, and these futile counter-productive wars are not ennobled by a Democratic President who knows how to formulate a coherent sentence.

Blaine Kinsey (5/18)
from OpEdNews.com
 



The US has been at war against Iraq continuously since 1991. The bombing and blockade never stopped, although they were much less severe in some years.

The US is not only at war in two countries. In addition to the peoples of those two, the US is at war against the peoples of Pakistan, Somalia, Palestine, probably Yemen, and of NE South America.

And, Obama did not run as a peace candidate. He ran as a war candidate who wanted to change the primary emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan.

[1] The primary characteristic of recent US wars are that they are not primarily against governments, but portions of the civilian populations. Go, brave troops!

[2] US participation in Israel's war against Palestine is sufficient to make it a combatant, if not a trigger puller. The US is part of the weapons logistics chain, not merely as a vendor, but as a financial supporter.

by Richard Pietrasz (5/18)
from OpEdNews.com
 



Mr. Weiner:

Who says it's unwinnable?

Some evidence would be nice for a change. And why do you gnore the big difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan?: the insurgency in Vietnam was popular; the insurgency in Afghanistan is unpopular.

Vattel (5/18)
from DemocraticUnderground.com
 



Why are we at war in Iraq and Afghanistan? You think it's WINNABLE...What do we "Win"?

KoKo (5/18)
from DemocraticUnderground.com
 



I don't know if it's winnable. Afghanistan needs less political corruption, reliable security forces, and more economic development. The story is that we are providing security in the short term until Afghanistan's security forces are up to speed. Economic development is crucial if the Taliban are to be marginalized. That requires security and less political corruption. It looks like a daunting task and [Weiner] may be right that it can't be done, but unless he offers evidence, why should I accept his opinion?

Vattel (5/18)
from DemocraticUnderground.com
 



Well, it has been 9 years, and we've only gotten this far. We still have no description of how we will know we have won. We have many proven instances of commanders lying about operations. We have fought for the same territory multiple times. We have pressing needs at home which go begging to pursue this boondoggle.

You may continue to believe war mongers' lies on the hunch that after 100 consecutive lies, the 101st is bound to be true, but to some of us that just seems to be recklessly stupid and immoral in our current fiscal state.

And there is that thing about killing civilians to save them that just seems beneath a nation that would presume to be a world moral authority.

But that's not the point; this is: If you want to spend another $33 Billion, I would think the onus of proof would be on you. You got any proof that anybody has ever been successful in Afghanistan, or that you have the first successful strategy there in recorded history? Didn't think so.

pundaint (5/18)
from DemocraticUnderground.com
 



A bill in the House of Representatives, H.R. 5015, would require the administration provide a timetable for ending the disastrous, costly Afghanistan war. Unfortunately, Members of Congress have told us they aren't hearing from their constituents about Afghanistan.

You can change that.

Please send your congressperson a message that you want them to co-sponso H.R. ##5015. ( http://rethinkafghanistan.com )

Jefferson23 (5/18)
from DemocraticUnderground.com


Crisis Papers editors, Partridge & Weiner, are available for public speaking appearances