Tuesday, January 04, 2005

2004 in Contrast and Contradiction

By Jordy Cummings

Read full article...

Posted 01/04 | Add a Comment

    Comments:

    You must register to comment.

    Login | Register

  1. Michelle Malkin wrote:
    Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 05:33:25 -0500

    Jordy,
    (my note - that’s Mr. Cummings to you, fascist)
    You might have at least contacted me by e-mail before accusing me of “openly calling for concentration camps for Muslims."

    Had you done so, you would have been directed to the back cover of my book, In Defense of Internment, which states, “Make no mistake: I am not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps.” You also would have learned that the statement you made--that I have called for concentration camps for Muslims--is false. Whether publishing this statement without contacting me constitutes reckless disregard for the truth could be a matter for a jury to decide.

    I demand that you immediately remove this accusation from your article and refrain from repeating the allegation in any future article.

    My reply:
    Sorry, Michelle, didn’t realize you were only calling for camps for “some” not “all” Muslims.  You’re a fascist....and you won’t see a retraction from your vile hate speech.  Your political allies use the same type of tactics that I am using, and even if you don’t explicitly call for outright Nazi style policies, its close enough, in my book to call it that.  Why not call me anti-american and chill out?

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  01/05  at  07:53 PM

  2. Hi Jordy,

    Because your wrap up shows how much this year of their Lord 2004 has sucked so, I thought to highlight the brighter sides in this overdetermined mess of a world you’ve so nicely illustrated for us here.

    ‘The way history is moving right now, America may face a situation in 2008, one can easily predict, in which the Democrat calls for increased imperialism, but restoration of liberties, and the Republicans call for decreased imperialism along with privatizing the Pentagon, as well as increased repression. Heads or tails, you lose. The only hope now is to convince the bulk of those committed to the Democrats to abandon that party, disempower it.’

    Regarding American political currents, this is really getting the worst of both worlds. Still, there is that shimmering hope ... but it’s got to be as much a mirage as a progressive China leading the family of nations to a human rights sensitive utopia. I see almost no attempt on the American Left to build another party, something that should be happening now. (Now.) So we are looking for hope in the Southern Hemisphere.

    How do you see that? As a ‘weakest link’ (Althusser, Lenin)?

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  01/06  at  07:58 PM

  3. I think whether or not they’re Democrats, there needs to be a growing non-party call for a constitutional convention, which will overthrow the US government, as designed partially by Gore Vidal.  Realistically, I see more of a chance of using the legal and nonviolent mechanisms of US law to change the US regime than a new party, given how Nader has been treated.  I think the US will be restrained, however, by the growing geo-political power of nations to their south and the fact that since thet’re so in debt, the world can’t afford the dollar sinking anymore, so will bail them out - but significantly restrain them (this is the kernel of truth in “peace loving china” - it is “piece (of the pie) loving china") I can’t see any broad forces arising in the US.  Makes one want to advise people to re-read Bakunin’s article on the International Brotherhood, which can be found online.  This concept seems more authoritarian on one level than a vanguard, but is what is naturally forming among radical publicists.  And no, I do not think the US is the “central contradiction” in terms of world peace.  I think that once US power is dealt with (but it has to be dealt with before other issues CAN be dealt with) there will be dozens more issues.  This is why I am - aside from my heterodox marxism - a world federalist or an advocate of strengthened global government.  To make a joke I hope that the US gets invaded by black helicopters.  The US needs to lose its sovereignty.

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  01/06  at  08:31 PM

  4. Constitutional convention?

    Something so grand does not look likely except as a gala dinner anytime soon.

    But are you sure Nader’s an exemplar? Nader was not a party and did not really have time to build one.

    Personally, I am beginning to debate whether or not the now globalized network of arms vendors is the central contradiction as regards sustainable peace.

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  01/06  at  08:53 PM

  5. Arms vendors may well be a central contradiction...especially in Africa, the British and ex South African shadowy mercs who sell guns to every side of every little civil war, hedging their bets as it were. 

    I think one “reform” measure that would actually do a lot of good is the ATTAC Tobin tax thing - criticized by some as not going far enough but it has potential

    I don’t know how America can extricate itself without outside influence (leading to my perhaps naive concentration on international law.) I think the Constitutional Convention could be used if even a third of Senators agreed to it, and with the info coming out about Bush...perhaps Democrats could split down the middle with liberal and left leaning ones going with the convention.  Even a full fledged third party won’t win, when they don’t even allow Democrats to win.

    And you are half right about Nader.  I think he didn’t build a party, perhaps - but was screwed by the Green Party - however, that party may have remnants of a larger organization that may make a difference, with other parties, coming into what I think they call in Italy the “left bloc,” (dozens of little parties)...When I read in William Blum’s recent book that he was an “advisor to the international comittee of the Green Party of te USA,” I was impressed in that these folks actually have an international office.  But so far as it seems foundation types want to tame it into being simply a left flank for Democrats.

    Whatever can be said about Nader, he was the best candidate to run last year.  Whether I would have voted for him, I’m not sure - but in a country with IRV and a complete ban on corporate contributions, he would have won.  So structural reforms need to be made before any third party can ever take off (and even here where we have a mass socialist party, the NDP - it is nowhere near state power - though it is influential)....I think part of the problem on this one is union officialdom.  But that is another digression.  If labor officials actually thoguht for two minutes about Dem policies since Carter, they’d leave the party in a second, as would Black groups, others - but for one reason or another - including the WWP that works very closely with Democrats - Democrats are able to control these votes.  Same goes in Canada with the Liberal party, in NDP constituencies (granted the Liberal party, even its current form, is to the left of the Democrats, and the NDP is explicitly socialist.) People are into “the devil you know” syndrome.

    So how to build a mass third party in the States?  Convince Jesse Jackson, Michael Moore and other liberal “leaders” to explicitly call for abandoning the Democrats.  Thats the only thing I can think of.

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  01/06  at  11:04 PM

  6. Your conclusion about celebrity ‘Democrats’ is on point. They would need us to write their material for them I suppose, so some of us should finally get a check around here. (heh heh)

    I agree that the Greens should have ran with Nader. Too little too late.

    My known position on a left bloc is that it should simply form a coherent party. It’s Aufhebung time!

    I am still puzzling out the arms trade. It’s good you point out the long festering situation in Africa (which I think has been caused by small arms in the main, I know different attack vehicles are of course sold there, but must admit I do not know the details at all, nor have I bothered to procure documentation.). The social chaos there (a clear result of a now ‘age-old’ and ‘accepted’ imperialist trajectory) has been used to point out some decidedly significant issues with the Hardt and Negri narrative (specifically Dunn in Passavant and Dean, although Dunn does not delve into the arms issue). So I still think about the global South. Again, I wonder about the weakest link. Which leads me to Tariq Ali’s pointed comments in Reza’s cool little ‘Anti-imperialism’ reader:

    ‘The real resistance to the real Empire will come not from those who drink milk from its teats, but from those who suffer--the real multitudes, peasants in Latin America, workers in China and India, etc. And increasingly it is being understood that this struggle cannot be isolated fromt the anticapitalist protests.’

    Could everything be illustrated through arguing debt relief? Dunno yet. I suppose I should really pick up Hertz’s book.

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  01/07  at  07:49 AM

  7. Interesting about issues with Hardt/Negri.  I fully agree that they don’t understand some of the economic issues...I find them philosophically inspirational - particularly Negri without Hardt - but I can attest that sometimes they completely dismiss national economics.

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  01/07  at  10:50 AM

  8. (excerpted from an e-mail from the Nader/Camejo Team)

    Dear Friend,

    Ralph Nader joins Tim Russert this Saturday, January 8 on CNBC’s “The Tim

    Russert Show” at 7 p.m., 10 p.m., and 1 a.m. EST.

    Tune in to hear Ralph for one hour on the Campaign, Corporate Power and Exploitation, the War in Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Corporate Globalization, Political Self-Censorship, and other topics!

    The Team at Nader/Camejo

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  01/07  at  05:01 PM

  9. Looking forward to hearing Nader’s post electoral ruminations and political suggestions. Thanks for the heads up Nader Rider! I betcha Russert tries to trip him up. (Anyway, I’ll have to check it on the web, after the Sunday broadcast.)

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  01/07  at  06:39 PM

  10. err ... Saturday

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  01/07  at  06:55 PM

  11. Jordy,

    I have to disagree with your characterization of the Greens screwing Nader.  Had Nader sought the Green nomination and participated in our primaries and caucuses, he probably would have won.  His decision to refuse our nomination and seek an endorsement instead cost him support at our convention.

    We Greens who supported Cobb are not trying to make our party into an adjunct of the Democrats.  We are committed to building our party and running Green candidates for everything from Soil and Water Conservation Board to U.S. Senate. 

    Thanks to Cobb and Badnarik, we exposed serious irregularities in Ohio’s Presidential vote (I’m glad that Nader favored the recount, too).  The Green Party will stand up for voting rights even when most of the Democrats in Congress won’t.

    Posted by VA Green from  on  01/08  at  12:47 PM

  12. If it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.  And when you take a safe states tactic, you act as an ally to the buy-partisan Democratic Party.  You may be committed to what you say you are committed to; but I watch a man’s action to reveal his true intentions, not his words.  And the national Greens acted like an adjunct to the Dems this past election.  Thankfully, however, some of your compadres preferred to act otherwise: http://www.greensfornader.net/

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  01/08  at  01:13 PM

  13. Nader Rider,

    Some Green delegates at the convention supported Cobb in spite of his strategy, not because of it.  Others were concerned about the Green Party becoming the Ralph Nader Party.  Some of the delegates who didn’t want to run a Presidential candidate ended up favoring Cobb because of his emphasis on supporting local candidates. 

    Regardless of who we favored in 2004, I think that Greens are committed to running candidates at the local, state, and national level.  In New York, the sentiment was generally in favor of Nader, but both Cobb and Nader supporters campaigned for David McReynolds for Senate.  Their conscience will be clear when Schumer [D(?)-NY] rolls over and votes to confirm Gonzalez.

    Posted by VA Green from  on  01/08  at  01:53 PM

  14. I am aware of what happened at the Greens’ Convention, VA Green.  Many supporters of Ralph and I had our eyes glued to the proceedings as they were unfolding.  A good analysis of what transpired can also be found <a href"http://www.greensfornader.net/Convention_Analysis.pdf">here</a>.

    We concede that the Greens acted in a manner that they believed was in the best interest of their Party.  But party loyalty is not a virtue to us.  It may be embraced as a virtue by the Greens, the Dems, and the Repubs.  To us, however, it is one of the reasons why things are in the shape that they’re in.

    No one third party will ever succeed in removing the grip that the duopoly has on our system of governance.  Instead, it will take a third force effort, consisting of several unified nonduopoly parties, to accomplish that.  And party loyalty will have to take a back seat to mutually-agree-upon common objectives (amongst several nonduopoly parties) for that to occur.

    That was one of the reasons why Ralph ran as an independent, this time around; to endeavor to build a coalition of third parties and independents to confront the duopoly.  But, regrettably and as you indicated, the Greens were more interested in protecting their own Party interests.

    Gotta run to watch Ralph on Tim Russert now.  Thanks for the give and take.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  01/08  at  06:46 PM
    15. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

    Next entry: Press Action Hero of the Week

    Previous entry: Academic Witch-Hunt in Israel

    [ads]

    Support Press Action