Global Economy, Global Primary Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I've got a piece up on TomPaine.com expanding on my argument that progressives ought to want more and varied debate on global issues in the primaries, not less:

Telling progressive candidates to focus on domestic issues has been a longstanding staple of the political consultant’s talking points. But that’s been wrong for a while now. Wrong because many working people’s issues are international, or globalized, issues. Wrong because Americans are telling everyone who’ll listen that they want a change in how America acts in the world. And wrong because a whole class of candidates proved in 2006 that progressive candidates can make national security work for, not against, them as an issue.

Comments

[Don Bacon]

But the answer is broadening the discussion beyond Iraq, not turning away and pretending national security doesn’t exist.

As someone who for the last three years has been almost totally preoccupied with ending the ongoing wars, and who has counseled others not to be distracted by other issues, I was persuaded by this excellent piece that perhaps my view should be moderated. Broadening the discussion, as Ms. Hurlburt suggests, makes a lot of sense and might put the killing in a new perspective, making it even clearer that aggressive war never solves anything, but makes matters worse not only in itself but also by keeping us from other issues. And these other issues--trade, global warming, poverty, etc.--do need to be addressed with ending the wars as a key ingredient. Go Heather.

One might even sense that one goal of the warmongers is to keep us from addressing other issues, right? Bread and circuses of the worst kind.

Now if Ms. Hurlburt tells us how a new, progressive administration would address these issues, whether (1) by 'do it my way' American unilateralism or (2) collegially through world organizations, then we can begin to develop the details, providing it's (2) of course. That's my bias, but it carries no water at the DLC.

[Dan Kervick]

Perhaps one of the reasons leading Democratic politicians have so much trouble sustaining a discussion about foreign policy and national security is that a vast gulf separates the thinking of ordinary Americans, particularly Democrats, from the thinking of corporate and governing elites, including the think-tankers who advise those elites and engineer their ideology. The harder Democratic politicians work to appeal to their constituents, the more they lose the support of the imperial power-brokers in Washington. And if they endeavor to regain the confidence of the ruling class, they in turn lose much of their voters’ support.

Washington and Wall Street are, by and large, on board with an imperial foreign policy based on the perpetual accumulation of capital and outward expansion of US economic, military and ideological power around the globe. They see US hard power as just one of the “tools” in the imperialist toolkit. They seek to cement the US position as the guarantor and chief global provider of the security for a world economy, the enforcer of ideological transformation and uniformity, and the prime beneficiary of hegemonic extraction of value from the world’s subordinate billions. In short, they worship power above all other values, and can conceive of no other policy than one based on institutionalized megalomania. Their internal disagreements are simply over the extent to which maintaining a permanent overlord status requires multilateral consultation and partnering with vassals, or can be determined unilaterally.

Much of the American public, on the other hand, is instinctively anti-imperial – and this is particularly true on the Democratic side. While they also tend to support a very strong, unchallengeable military, they often see the maintenance of military strength within the framework of a more modest ambition of defending the country, rather than expanding its influence and global reach. They often believe global security should be a shared responsibility, of which the US currently provides an inordinate and costly portion, and that other countries need to do more collectively and individually to provide. While generally proud of their values and way of life, they are not nearly so zealous as governing ideologues to convert all the world’s heathens billions to the American religion.

Here’s just one instructive passage, from Tom Engelhardt’s latest piece, that captures this conflict between elite ideology and popular opinion:

Remarkably enough, when asked late last year by pollsters from the Program on International Policy Attitudes whether the US should have the "permanent" bases in Iraq, a whopping 68% of Americans said no. But when the issue of bases and permanency arises at all in the US press, it's usually in the context of Iraqi "suspicions" on the subject. (Oh, those paranoid foreigners!)

Typically, the Los Angeles Times cited Michael O'Hanlon, an oft-quoted analyst at the Brookings Institution, saying the following of Bush's endorsement of the Korea model: "In trying to convey resolve, [Bush] conveys the presumption that we're going to be there for a long time ... It's unhelpful to handling the politics of our presence in Iraq." No, Michael, the bases are the United States' politics in Iraq.

Generally, the Democrats and their major presidential candidates line up with O'Hanlon. And yet no significant Democratic proposal for "withdrawal" from Iraq is really a full-scale withdrawal proposal. They are all proposals to withdraw US combat brigades (perhaps 50,000-60,000 troops) from the country, while withdrawing most other Americans into those giant bases that are too awkward to mention.

Plenty of Americans could do without those Iraqi bases – I suspect if Democrats alone were polled the number is higher than 68%. But forswearing an opportunity to plant the flag, and some potentially useful military bases, in other people’s countries is heresy for the powerful. Business loves the idea of American muscle poised around the world to come to the assist of US capital and commerce whenever annoying local governments might get the urge to defend their national interests against and imperial hegemony foreign private ownership.

For the US military and the supporting industries that form the military-industrial complex, on the other hand, a continued and permanently expanding forward US presence is an end in itself. Just like any industry, it is driven by the internal imperative of growth. The military’s institutional aim is to fight just enough wars to perpetually convince the public of its usefulness.

And Wilsonian ideologues are driven by their political fanaticism and ideological will to power to support the threat and application of force around the world. Given the symbiotic, hand-in-glove relationship between religious and secular ideologues on the one hand, and brute force on the other, in the expansion of the American Empire throughout the country’s history, perhaps Eisenhower should have coined the term “military-missionary complex” to describe the most fearsome imperial nemesis.

Institutional factors are reinforced by motives of individual self interest as well: i.e. the pursuits of individual wealth and glory. The jobs of the people employed by the foreign policy establishment are all in one way or another tied to the cash that flows out of the empire industry and the US global protection racket. It is thus unthinkable to them that substantial parts of this system should be dismantled. In addition to the financial rewards provided by empire, one must also reckon with the sense of personal importance and grandeur connected with being a person of influence in the powerful capital of a powerful empire at a uniquely potent moment in its history. The apparatchiks of empire fantasize about future historians looking back on the great empires of the past, and investigating the role or Mr. X at Brookings or Ms. Y at the Council on Foreign Relations in charting the course of national greatness. The idea that their status might decline to a level of no more historical significance than that of their counterparts in contemporary Sweden, or France or Argentina fills them with dread of the abyss.

[Don Bacon]

These overseas bases need politicians to support funding for the materiel necessary to equip them, and they get them.

According to a recent article by Alexander Bolton: Members of the House Armed Services Committee have requested millions of dollars in federal earmarks for companies that have contributed thousands of dollars to their reelection funds, according to a review of funding requests made publicly available for the first time.

Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.), ranking member of the Air and Land Forces defense subcommittee, reaped the most money from employees working at firms that would benefit from his funding requests.

During the last election cycle and the first three months of this year, Saxton’s campaign collected 118 contributions worth $91,000 from the employees and political action committees (PACs) of firms such as Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Price Systems and NetIDEAS.

Saxton has also requested millions of dollars in project spending for these companies. He solicited $3 million for L-3 Communications, which has a facility in Camden, N.J., to develop a high-resolution digital recorder; and $25 million in additional funding for Lockheed Martin to work on the Aegis ballistic missile defense system.

Political support for the MI complex, besides being bought, is obtained by placing military contractors and subcontractors in as many congressional district as possible, thus ensuring continuing procurement programs for weapons systems that are fauly and/or not required, but then must be 'combat proven'. No congress-critter will vote against jobs in the home district. A case in point: the F-22 Raptor, which has subcontractors all over the country.

Then there's my personal favorite, Senator Diane Feinstein, D-CA. Her husband Richard Blum owns 75% of Perini Corppration which has received over 800 million dollars in war contracts. http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=45
Here's a photo of Diane's new digs in San Francisco. http://www.brickburner.blogs.com/Feinstein.jpg

[political forums]

Well the big issues that I can think of are:

Iraq
The War on Terror
Illegal Immigration
Social Security and Medicare

Aside from the first two issues, we really need to make a plan to reduce the size of our fiscal deficit. I think it is such a waste all the money we pay into the servicing of our debt, and then we have the retirment of the baby boomers coming up. We have got to stop putting our country in debt. We could seriously be endangering the value of the dollar, and thus the stability of our entire economy.

Given how important illegal immigration is, I don't know if the democrats should talk about that or not. It might be better just to stay quiet about it, or risk alienating a lot of conservatives. Or maybe it is better to support comprehensive reform and thus gain support from Latino voters.