Dagens Citat: Colin Ward.

“You may think in describing anarchism as a theory of organization I am propounding a deliberate paradox: ‘anarchy’ you may consider to be, by definition, the opposite of organization. In fact, however, ‘anarchy’ means the absence of government, the absence of authority. Can there be social organization without authority, without government? The anarchists claim that there can be, and they also claim that it is desirable that there should be. They claim that, at the basis of our social problems is the principle of government. It is, after all, governments which prepare for war and wage war, even though you are obliged to fight in them and pay for them; the bombs you are worried about are not the bombs which cartoonists attribute to the anarchists, but the bombs which governments have perfected, at your expense. It is, after all, governments which make and enforce the laws which enable the ‘haves’ to retain control over social assets rather than share them with the ‘have-nots’. It is, after all, the principle of authority which ensures that people will work for someone else for the greater part of their lives, not because they enjoy it or have any control over their work, but because they see it as their only means of livelihood.”

– Colin Ward i Anarchism as a Theory of Organization.

Staten Skaber Kapitalen.

Enhver systemkritik af kapitalismen, som er andet end blot overfladisk, må tage udgangspunkt i en analyse af hvad der overhovedet muliggør kapitalismen. Kapitalismen opstod ikke i et tomrum, men var fra første færd – og fortsætter med at være – indlejret i statslige strukturer. Det er derfor vigtigt, at man ser på hvilken rolle staten spiller i kapitalismen dvs. på hvordan eksistensen af staten hænger sammen med kapitalismens eksistens.

En bærende søjle i kapitalismen er den (oftest forfatningsbaserede) private ejendomsret. En ejendomsret der ikke blot garanteres juridisk men også fysisk af statens monopol på legal voldsanvendelse. Den private ejendomsret formuleres i moderne tid juridisk i kontekst af borgerskabets revolutioner i Frankrig og De Forenede Stater. I sidstnævnte tilfælde lagde man kimen til kapitalismen ved skabelsen af denne bærende ejendomsretslige søjle, idet ejendomsbesiddende (og ofte slaveholdende) hvide mænd, skabte en forfatning hvori den private ejendomsret indgår som et centralt element.

Ligeledes central er idéen om det frie marked. Det er dog mestendels blevet ved idéen, da markedet som kapitalismen fungerer indenfor, aldrig har været egentlig frit. Det har derimod altid været indlejret i statslige strukturer som gennem lovgivning og voldelige former for magtpraksis har gjort begrænsende indgreb i markedet, ganske ofte til kapitalisternes fordel. Allerede ganske tidligt i De Forenede Staters historie indførte man således protektionistisk lovgivning, idet man allerede under den første amerikanske præsident, George Washington, indførte The Tariff Act (1789), der havde begrænsning af import og således beskyttelse af den hjemlige produktion, som sin underliggende logik.

To af måderne hvorpå staten har virket som støttehjul for kapitalismen er altså protektionisme og den forfatningssikrede ejendomsret. Sådanne ejendomsretslige juridiske tiltag er senere blevet mere mangfoldige, hvorfor vi nu kender til fænomener som intellektuel ejendomret, herunder lovgivning som giver nogle patenter og ophavsret og forbyder andre at krænke disse. Som den amerikanske intellektuelle Kevin Carson så rammende har formuleret det, er staten “jernnæven bag den usynlige hånd.”

I begyndelsen var ejendomsretten noget mere håndgribelig end i retten til idéers tilfælde (læs: intellektuel ejendomsret), idet der typisk var tale om ejerskab af noget langt mere fysisk, nemlig land. I det nordamerikanske tilfælde var der som oftest tale om ejendom man havde fået fingrene i, ved massemorderisk fortrængelse af den indfødte befolkning og/eller gennem slaveriets udbytning af ufrie menneskers arbejdskraft. Den forfatningsgaranterede private ejendomsret var således intet mindre end en legtimering af udplyndring og udbytning, skrevet af tyvene selv. Det er derfor også ganske rammende, at ordet privat - i begrebet privat ejendomsret - har sine sproglige rødder i det latinske ord privare som kan oversættes til berøve.

Også i England spillede staten en central rolle i den centralisering af magt som affødtes af, at nogle gjorde indhug i den nedarvede fælles ejendom (jorden). Mellem 1760 og 1844 vedtog man over 4000 enclosure acts som på mindre end hundrede år forvoldte, at omkring halvfems procent af jorden i England faldt på en lille minoritets hænder. Den arbejdende landbefolkning blev frarøvet muligheden for at operere på de tidligere fællesejede åbne enge, idet disse nu var på private hænder. Dette var blandt hovedårsagerne til, at bønderne fandt sig tvunget til at flytte til byerne for at finde arbejde i fabrikkerne. Statsmagten skabte således det juridiske grundlag for en omfattende berøvelse og udbytning af arbejderklassen, samt grundlaget for industrien, qua den forsyning af arbejdskraft til de kapitalistiske fabrikker, som fulgte i kølvandet på indhegningen og privatiseringen af den fælles ejendom.

I sit essay “English Enclosures and Soviet Collectivization: Two Instances of an Anti-Peasant Mode of Development” beskriver den libertarianske historiker Joseph R. Stromberg hvordan denne legalistiske udplyndring af den fælles ejendom fandt sted:

“The political dominance of large landowners determined the course of enclosure….[I]t was their power in Parliament and as local Justices of the Peace that enabled them to redistribute the land in their own favor.

A typical round of enclosure began when several, or even a single, prominent landholder initiated it … by petition to Parliament.… [T]he commissioners were invariably of the same class and outlook as the major landholders who had petitioned in the first place, [so] it was not surprising that the great landholders awarded themselves the best land and the most of it, thereby making England a classic land of great, well-kept estates with a small marginal peasantry and a large class of rural wage labourers.”

Idéen, at nogen kunne eje jorden på samme måde som man kunne eje en hestesko man selv havde smedet, blev allerede tidligt kritiseret af en af oplysningstidens mest markante intellektuelle. I sin Afhandling om Oprindelsen og Grundlaget for Uligheden Mellem Mænd (Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes) kaster filosoffen Jean-Jacques Rosseau sig ud i en sønderlemmende kritik af denne idé:

“Den første, der indhegnede et område og fandt på at sige: Dette er mit, og fandt nogen, der var dumme nok til at tro på ham, var den sande grundlægger af det borgerlige samfund. For hvor mange forbrydelser, krige, mord, for hvilke ulykker og rædsler ville ikke den mand have sparet menneskeslægten, som havde fjernet grænsepælene eller fyldt grøften op og råbt til sine fæller: Lyt ikke til denne svindler; I er fortabte, hvis I glemmer, at jordens frugter tilhører alle og jorden ingen.”

I et interview med den amerikanske systemkritiske intellektuelle Derrick Jensen i bogen Resistance Against Empire, forklarer den demokratiske økonomiske teoretiker J. W. Smith, hvori den fortabthed som Rosseau omtaler, består:

“If someone were born into our culture with the fully developed intelligence of an adult, but without our social conditioning, one of the first confusing realities she or he would face is that all of the land belongs to someone else. It’s a crazy situation. Before this person could legally stand, sit, lie down, or sleep, much less gain sustenance, she or he would have to pay whoever owned that piece of land. Now it’s one thing to own something that you’ve built—a chair, perhaps, or a table, or shoes—but land, air, and water are entirely different categories. They nurture life, are necessary to life, and were here before we were born (meaning they’re not our creation). Depriving others—all living beings, not just humans—access to land is to have the ability to kill them.” [min kursivering]

Kapitalister som ønsker staten afskaffet er der ikke mange af. Selv neoliberalister som ønsker et minimum af statslig indblanding i markedets virke ønsker ikke selve staten afskaffet. Årsagen er den simple, at staten også i det neoliberalistiske tilfælde spiller en central rolle. Den britisk-amerikanske marxistiske forfatter David Harvey beskriver statens (begrænsede) rolle i neoliberalismens tidsalder, i sin bog A Brief History of Neoliberalism:

“Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices. The state has to guarantee, for example, the quality and integrity of money. It must also set up those military, defence, police, and legal structures and functions required to secure private property rights and to guarantee, by force if need be, the proper functioning of markets. Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution) then they must be created, by state action if necessary. But beyond these tasks the state should not venture. State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare minimum because, according to the theory, the state cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interest groups will inevitably distort and bias state interventions(particularly in democracies) for their own benefit.” [min kursivering]

Når staten ofte opfattes som et bolværk imod kapitalismen er årsagen med stor sandsynlighed en manglende forståelse af, at staten, snarere end at forsvare os imod kapitalismen, faktisk er blandt de væsentligste årsager til, at kapitalismen overhovedet har kunnet opstå - og stadig består. Uden den centrale rolle som staten spiller i kapitalismen er det svært at se, hvordan kapitalismen skulle kunne fortsætte med at eksistere som global økonomisk orden. Kampen mod kapitalismen må derfor af nødvendighed også være en kamp imod staten.

Om Cannabispolitik.

Politikerne og Kongehuset har intet som helst problem med at indtage alkohol på statens regning. Det foregår jævnligt og uden at nogen løfter et øjenbryn, men hvad gør egentlig, at alkohol befinder sig i en særlig kategori af rusmidler, som tilsyneladende er mindre problematisk end cannabis? Det er ganske svært at blive klog på. Specielt i lys af at indtagelse af  alkohol ofte spiller en rolle i både voldssager og trafikdrab. Derimod er det ikke svært at konkludere, at en udpræget dobbeltmoral lader til at være på spil.

Illegaliseringen af cannabis går langt tilbage. Man forbød cannabis og afledte produkter af hampeplanten allerede tilbage i slutningen af 1920erne, som led i tilslutningen til en international opiumskonvention. Cannabis har imidlertid ikke noget at gøre med opiater og man vurderede ovenikøbet dengang, at cannabisindtagelse ikke udgjorde noget egentligt problem i Danmark, men alligevel valgte man at kriminalisere rusmidlet. Lovgivningen hviler derfor ikke på erfaringer med indtagelse af cannabis og da det ikke engang var en problemstilling her i landet da man vedtog forbuddet, er lovgivningen kommet til verden på et meget tvivlsomt grundlag.

Problemer forbundet med cannabisindtagelse har vi til gengæld fået mange af sidenhen. Ikke fordi selve indtagelsen af cannabis er særlig problematisk - især i sammenligning med de ofte dødbringende legale rusmidler alkohol og tobak - men fordi selve kriminaliseringen har affødt en række problematikker. Dels er der den enorme organiserede kriminalitet som grundet kriminaliseringen tjener summer i milliard-størrelsen på handelen med cannabis og dels fordi borgerne gennem mange årtier, har betalt uhyrlige beløb til retsforfølgelser, bøder, fængselsophold og politivirksomhed.

Særligt ud fra et økonomisk synspunkt kan det undre, at man ikke har været mere positivt stemt overfor legalisering eller afkriminalisering af cannabis. Ikke alene ville det bortspare en masse udgifter forbundet med kriminaliseringen, staten ville også kunne tjene anselige summer på et kontrolleret salg af cannabis. Alligevel har man ikke fra politisk hold ønsket at give sig i kast med en legalisering. Tværtimod har man under den forhenværende borgerlige regering intensiveret kriminaliseringen ved at mangedoble bødesummerne for besiddelse af hvad der må betegnes som ganske uskyldige mængder cannabis, mens man under den nuværende regering har intensiveret indsatsen mod hash-handlen på Christiania ved at gå systematisk efter kunderne. Denne klapjagt udmøntede sig for nylig i en forstyrrende hændelse, hvor politiet brugte en billetkontrolaktion på Christianshavns metrostration, som påskud til at krænke folks privatsfære. Godt gået drenge!

Der har været flere forsøg på at afkriminalisere cannabis, idet Enhedslisten flere gange har fremstillet et sådant forslag. Desværre uden held. Når disse forslag er blevet fremstillet i Folketinget har de efterfølgende debatter været præget af mangelfuld viden, når der ikke har været tale om deciderede kortslutninger, som da Kim Andersen fra Venstre sammenlignede besiddelse af hash med at gå med kniv.

De påståede liberalister i Folketinget har åbenbart ikke særlig liberale sindelag, når det kommer til at lade voksne mennesker bestemme over deres egne kroppe og hvad de fylder i dem. Mig bekendt står der intet sted i nogen som helst lovgivning, at staten ejer borgernes kroppe. Heldigvis, kunne man tilføje, for det ville unægteligt være ensbetydende med tilintetgørelsen af tanken om privatsfæren, men selvom dette altså ikke er tilfældet, er man undskyldt hvis man skulle tro noget andet, for når det kommer til indtagelse af cannabis og andre ulovlige substanser, opfører staten sig som om den rent faktisk har ejerskab over vore kroppe.

Det burde være selvindlysende, at så længe en person bruger sin krop på måder som udelukkende er til potentiel skade for vedkommende selv, så står det ham eller hende frit for at gøre det. Folks sundhedsskadelige adfærd er da heller ikke forbundet med berøvelse af frihed i en række andre tilfælde. Det står således enhver frit for, at leve af fast food, fylde sig med sukker, kæderyge eller drikke sig ihjel.

Det hele er vendt på hovedet. Offerløse handlinger i form af indtagelse af en plante, som ikke ligefrem er kendt for hverken at bringe døden eller volden med sig, anskues åbenbart af politikerne som højst problematisk, mens statsmagtens årtier lange privatlivskrænkende og frihedsfjendtlige indgreb i tusinder af menneskers liv, tilsyneladende er retfærdighedens fyldestgørelse.

Udover muligvis nogle betjente som kan bruge kriminaliseringen til at få afløb for en sadistisk kontrolmentalitet, er det virkelig svært at se hvem denne statslige repression gavner, men selvom intet rationelt taler for en fortsættelse af disse indgreb i den personlige frihed, er der ikke meget der tyder på snarlige forbedringer. Også på dette punkt lader det til, at uretsstaten er kommet for at blive.

Politikernes Foretrukne Undertrykkere.

Der har, ganske berettiget, været talt og skrevet meget om danske politikeres fortidige opbakning til undertrykkende styreformer. Hvad der til gengæld er blevet talt og skrevet knap så meget kritisk om, er den nutidige, og for det meste så godt som uforbeholdne støtte, til en særdeles voldelig og undertrykkende supermagt. En opbakning som gør sig gældende på begge sider af Folketinget.

Den herskende opbakning til det amerikanske overherredømme, vækker måske ikke den store forundring hvad højre side af folketingssalen angår, idet man på denne fløj gennem mange årtier har udvist en forstyrrende ukritisk begejstring for den amerikanske styreform. Det kan imidlertid godt undre, at man under en såkaldt rød regering, med en påstået socialistisk udenrigsminister, støtter ligeså ukritisk op om den globale amerikanske dominanspolitik, som garanterer USAs fortsatte centrale placering i den kapitalistiske verdensorden. Det er åbenbart foreneligt med den søvndalske version af folkesocialismen anno 2012. På den anden side er der måske ikke meget som fortsat kan forundre os, efter vi var vidner til, at vores demokratiske frihedsrettigheder måtte vige i det økonomiske fremskridts uhellige navn, under det kinesiske statsbesøg for nylig.

Barack Hussein Obama har med sin udenrigspolitik tydeligt vist, at hans administration ikke adskiller sig i noget væsentligt fra den forudgående, der som bekendt blev støttet hele vejen til en massemorderisk angrebskrig af de borgerlige danske politikere. Der myrdes stadig civile i hobetal i Afghanistan og Pakistan. Man bidrager stadig til massiv undertrykkelse rundt om i verden i form af samarbejde med nogle af verdens mest repressive stater, herunder Usbekistan, Saudi-Arabien, Indonesien, Bahrain, Colombia og Israel. Foragten for folkeretten er endvidere stadig i højsædet. På ugentlig basis er vi vidner til voldstrusler rettet mod Iran, i klokkeklar strid med international ret, ligesom den kollektive afstraffelse af den iranske civilbefolkning, som de udsultende økonomiske sanktioner må siges at medføre, synes at savne juridisk dækning i folkeretten.

Man bør vel desuden her minde om, at sanktionerne, som man med USA i front påførte den irakiske civilbefolkning under Bill Clinton, resulterede i et veritabelt folkemord, idet UNICEF vurderede, at en halv million irakiske børn døde som konsekvens af sanktionspolitikken. Et massemord på børn, som den daværende amerikanske udenrigsminister Madeleine Albright, ikke gjorde sig de store bekymringer omkring, da hun blev konfronteret med dødstallet inyhedsprogrammet 60 Minutes.

Det var imidlertid ikke kun Bill Clinton og hans administration der bidrog til det to årtier lange folkemord i Irak. Den nuværende amerikanske udenrigsminister Hillary Clinton var, sammen med vicepræsidenten Joseph Biden, blandt de største demokratiske fortalere for at føre angrebskrig mod Irak. Det beror således på en fejlbehæftet analyse hvis man tror, at det udelukkende var den republikanske Bush-administration som forvoldte krigen, idet mange af Senatets demokratiske senatorer gjorde deres for at muliggøre den. Angrebskrigen resulterede ikke alene i at millioner af mennesker fandt sig nødsaget til at flygte fra deres hjem, men hvad der er værre endnu, i mange hundredetusinder irakeres død. Vores nuværende udenrigsminister Villy Søvndal var blandt Folketingets mest fremtrædende kritikere af Irak-krigen. Nu hvor han selv er blevet minister, bakker han ukritisk op om de selvsamme mennesker som var med til at muliggøre denne horrible krig.

Den aktivistiske danske udenrigspolitik er baseret på de mest noble intentioner om at bringe menneskerettigheder, demokrati og frihed til undertrykte befolkninger langt fra Danmarks grænser. Det har vore politiske repræsentanter som bekendt forsikret os om i årevis. Hvordan det hænger sammen med, at den aktivistiske udenrigspolitik er bundet op på den amerikanske orden, hvor friheden er under konstante angreb fra sikkerheds- og overvågningsstaten, hvor reelt demokrati er ikke-eksisterende og hvor respekten for menneskerettighederne altid har glimret ved dens fravær i udenrigspolitikken, står imidlertid hen i det uvisse.

Kommentar til tredje TV-debat ml. Romney og Obama (anden del).

I første del af min kommentar til den tredje præsidentdebat kom jeg ind på debattens snævre holdningsspektrum hvad droneprogrammet angår. En forsnævring af debatten som er nært sammenhængende med, at alle tredjepartskandidater er udelukket fra debatterne, hvorfor kun et smalt udbud af de officielle præsidentkandidaters holdninger når ud til verdens befolkning under de nøje iscenesatte begivenheder (mere herom senere).

Irans Atomprogram.

Hele debatten bar præg af en så høj grad af enighed mellem de to kandidater, at man med rette kan spørge om der overhovedet var tale om en debat? Heller ikke hvad angår spørgsmålet om den amerikanske udenrigspolitiske stillingtagen til det iranske atomprogram var der nogen nævneværdig divergens mellem kandidaterne. Barack Obama havde følgende at sige om sagen:

"...as long as I’m president of the United States, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. I made that clear when I came into office. We then organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy. Their currency has dropped 80 percent. Their oil production has plunged to the lowest levels since they were fighting a war with Iraq 20 years ago. So their economy is in a shambles. 

And the reason we did this is because a nuclear Iran is a threat to our national security, and it is a threat to Israel's national security. We cannot afford to have a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. And for them to be able to provide nuclear technology to non-state actors, that's unacceptable. And they have said that they want to see Israel wiped off the map. 

So, the work that we’ve done with respect to sanctions now offers Iran a choice: they can take the diplomatic route and end their nuclear program, or they will have to face a united world and a United States president, me, who said we’re not going to take any options off the table. 

The disagreement I have with Governor Romney is that, during the course of this campaign, he’s often talked as if we should take premature military action. I think that would be a mistake, because when I’ve sent young men and women into harm’s way, I always understand that that is the last resort, not the first resort.”

Først og fremmest bør man i ovenstående citat bide mærke i, at Obama taler om det iranske atomprogram som om dets formål er militært. Han vil forhindre, at Iran får atomvåben og de "forkrøblende" sanktionernes formål er, at bevirke at præstestyret opgiver programmet. Spørgsmålet er imidlertid hvorfra præsidenten har, at det iranske atomprogram har militære formål?

Hvad dette angår kender præsidenten selvfølgelig til de samme israelske og amerikanske efterretningskilder som offentligheden kender til. Hverken disse eller IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) har på noget tidspunkt været i stand til at fremvise en såkaldt rygende pistol som klart indikerer, at det iranske præstestyre er ved at udvikle et atomprogram med andet end civile formål. Førend denne rygende pistoler foreligger kan vi derfor ikke godtage præmissen bag Obamas konfrontatoriske kurs.

Bemærkelsesværdigt er det desuden, at Obama omtaler sanktionerne mod Iran som "forkrøblende". Et interessant ordvalg må man sige, men desværre lader det ikke til, at det er præstestyret der forkrøbles af sanktionerne. Det er snarere den iranske civilbefolkning.

Lad os et kort øjeblik skrue tiden tilbage, til dengang i midthalvfemserne hvor Obama's udenrigsminister var førstedame i Det Hvide Hus, under hendes mand præsident Bill Clintons administration. Under Clinton påtvang man den irakiske civilbefolkning hvad der skulle vise sig, at være ikke blot forkrøblende, men intet mindre end massemorderiske sanktioner, idet denne form for kollektivt afstraffende økonomisk krigsførelse iflg. FN resulterede i omegnen af en halv million børns alt for tidlige død. Konfronteret med disse tal i nyhedsprogrammet 60 Minutes, gjorde USAs daværende udenrigsminister Madeleine Albright det klart for hele verden, at hun og Clinton-administration fandt det var prisen værd.

Så det er altså ikke fordi Obama-administrationen ikke er klar over de potentielle civile omkostninger denne form for økonomisk krigsførelse kan medføre, idet administrationens udenrigsminister, Hillary Clinton, boede i Det Hvide Hus dengang man påtvang den irakiske befolkning samme form for kollektive afstraffelse. Præsident Obama - og hans nærmeste folk i administrationen hvad udenrigspolitiske anliggender angår - må altså derfor antages, at være fuldt ud klar over, at de "forkrøblende sanktioner” som han taler om, potentielt kan få konsekvenser for civilbefolkningen, i folkemordets størrelsesorden.

Dette er mildest talt bekymrende og de facto en krigserklæring mod både præstestyret og den iranske civilbefolkning, selvom der er ikke er tale om en krigserklæring i streng juridisk forstand. Kollektiv afstraffelse er ikke noget man tager let på i folkeretten. Den Fjerde Genevekonvention betragter ganske enkelt kollektiv afstraffelse som en krigsforbrydelse. Heldigvis for Obama-administrationen bør dette ikke forvolde de store bekymringer, da Den Fjerde Genevekonvention ikke gælder så længe der ikke de jure er tale om en krig mod Iran. Her kan man dog med rette spørge hvorfor kollektiv afstraffelse af en uskyldig civilbefolkning skulle være mindre moralsk forkastelig blot fordi der er tale om en situation der officielt ikke udspiller sig i krigstid?  

Når vi har det in mente, at den siddende præsident har sin faglige baggrund indenfor jura - et fag som han har både har praktiseret og undervist i - har man god grund til at antage, at han nok er bekendt med nøgledokumenter indenfor folkeretten. Når præsidenten gentagent har truet det iranske præstestyre og landets befolkning med vold (”all options are on the table”) kan vi derfor med god ret antage, at dette sker i fuld bevidsthed om, at voldstrusler er i lodret strid med ordlyden i De Forenede Nationers Pagt, nærmere bestemt kapitel 1, artikel 2 stykke 4: 

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

Skulle man være i tvivl om hvad der menes med FNs formål kan man blive klogere ved at læse artikel 1 i samme kapitel, hvor man får at vide, at formålet er:

"To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace."

Kommentar til tredje TV-debat ml. Romney og Obama (første del).

I nat løb den tredje TV-debat mellem Mitt Romney og Barack Obama af stablen. Denne gang havde debatten den amerikanske udenrigspolitik som sit omdrejnings- punkt. Jeg kommenterer derfor i det følgende på to af de punkter der blev berørt under debatten. 

Droneprogrammet.

Romney om hans holdning til droneprogrammet:

“Well I believe we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world. And it’s widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes, and I support that entirely, and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology, and believe that we should continue to use it, to continue to go after the people that represent a threat to this nation and to our friends.”

Besynderligt er det ikke ligefrem, at Romney støtter op om et våbenprogram som blev sendt i luften af hans republikanske forgænger, men det viser med al ønskelig tydelighed hvor snævert holdningsspektrummet er i TV-debatterne, som alle præsidentkandidater udenfor det herskende topartisystem er udelukket fra, selvom flere af dem er opstillet på stemmesedlen i de fleste amerikanske stater. Romney gjorde det altså ganske klart, at han ikke tilbyder et alternativ til den gældende voldsstrategi, hvorfor folk som er utilfredse med droneprogrammet, ikke har udsigter til nye linjer i den kommende administration, uanset hvem der sidder i toppen af den.

Droneprogrammet var for nylig genstand for sønderlemmende kritik i internationale medier i kølvandet på offentliggørelsen af et omfattende studium af programmets konsekvenser begået af forskere ved de juridiske fakulteter på universiteterne NYU og Stanford. Studiets formål var at foretage “en uafhængig undersøgelse angående hvorvidt, og i hvilket omfang, droneangreb i Pakistan er i overensstemmelse med folkeretten og gør [civile] fortræd.”

Rapporten er baseret på “over 130 detaljerede interviews med ofre og vidner til droneaktivitet, deres familiemedlemmer, nuværende og tidligere pakistanske embedsmænd, repræsentanter fra fem store pakistanske politiske partier, eksperter på området, advokater, lægefaglige professionelle, udviklings- og humanitære arbejdere, medlemmer af civilsamfundet, akademikere og journalister.”

I en opsummering af rapportens resultater kan man læse følgende:

"In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling "targeted killings” of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false."

Rapporten beskriver hvordan droneprogrammet påvirker civilbefolkningen i det nordlige Pakistan:

"The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims. Some community members shy away from gathering in groups, including important tribal dispute-resolution bodies, out of fear that they may attract the attention of drone operators. Some parents choose to keep their children home, and children injured or traumatized by strikes have dropped out of school. Waziris told our researchers that the strikes have undermined cultural and religious practices related to burial, and made family members afraid to attend funerals. In addition, families who lost loved ones or their homes in drone strikes now struggle to support themselves.”

Denne statsterroristiske virksomhed har både Romneys og Obamas fulde opbakning og der var derfor ikke nogen som helst kritisk debat omkring droneprogrammet, da de kandidater som stiller sig kritisk overfor denne magtpraksis, bekvemt var udelukket fra debatten.

Obama-administrationen og Det Arabiske Forår.

Obama gentog i debatten en påstand han også fremførte under sin tale til FN for nylig, nemlig den, at USA stod på demokratiets side under Det Arabiske Forår sidste år. I debatten sagde han således:

"One thing I think Americans should be proud of, when Tunisians began to protest, this nation -- me, my administration -- stood with them earlier than just about any country. In Egypt we stood on the side of democracy. In Libya we stood on the side of the people."

Obama forsøger her at positionere sig på den kønnere side af historieskrivningen, idet han eksplicit nævner, at man støttede op om de ægyptiske, tunesiske og libyske befolkninger, mens han implicit siger, at USA var en stærk støtte for de mellemøstlige og nordafrikanske befolkninger, i deres kamp mod deres undertrykkere.

Obamas påstand om støtte til den ægyptiske befolkning er imidlertid ikke i nærheden af at være sand. Obama-administrationen støttede Hosni Mubaraks styre indtil ganske kort tid før præsidentens fald. Man trak først støtten og stillede sig retorisk på befolkningens side, da det var tydeligt, at Mubarak-styret med stor sandsynlighed ville falde. Da Obama gav sit første interview til BBC i Juni 2009 omtalte han Mubarak som en "stålsat allieret" og "en stabiliserende kraft i regionen". Til spørgsmålet: "Anser du Mubarak for at være en autoritær leder?" svarede Obama "nej" og tilføjede: "Jeg undlader at klistre mærkater på folk".

Mubaraks Ægypten var næstefter Israel regionens største modtager af amerikansk støtte. Dette var ikke noget nyt som pludseligt opstod under Obama. Hans administration fortsatte blot over tredive års årlige økonomiske støtte i størrelsesordenen milliarder af amerikanske dollars. Dette til trods for, at man fra amerikansk officiel side vurderede menneskeretttighedssituationen ganske dyster. I udenrigsministeriets rapport fra 2008 kan man således læse den officielle vurdering af de ægyptiske tilstande under Hosni Mubarak.

Regeringens »respekt for menneskerettigheder forblev lav, og alvorlige misbrug fortsatte på mange områder … Sikkerhedsstyrkerne brugte uberrettiget dødbringende vold og torturerede og misbrugte fanger og tilbageholdne, i de fleste tilfælde straffrit. Vilkårene i fængsler og arrester var dårlige. Sikkerhedsstyrker anholdte og tilbageholdte individer vilkårligt, i nogle tilfælde af politiske grunde, og man holdt dem langvarigt varetægtsfængslede. Den udøvende magt udøvede kontrol over og pres på den dømmende magt. Regeringens respekt for foreningsfriheden og religionsfriheden vedblev med at være lav gennem året, og regeringen fortsatte med at begrænse NGOers virke. Regeringen begrænsede delvis ytringsfriheden.«

Det var imidlertid ikke blot i Ægypten, at Obama-administrationen ikke stod på de demokratiske aspirationers side. I Bahrain er støtten til styret fortsat, til trods for både voldsomme og enorme folkelige protester i hovedstaden og hinsides. Årsagen til dette er, at Bahrain huser den femte amerikanske flådebase hvorfor kongeriget tilhører en af de væsentligste amerikanske militære alliancepartnere i regionen. 

For en nærmere gennemgang, hvori det demonstreres, at Obama-administrationen støtter op om voldsomt repressive og udemokratiske regimer verden over, se min artikel fra 2010.

Anden del: Spørgsmålet om Irans atomprogram.

Tariq Ali: European Union Awarded Nobel Peace Prize Despite Ties to NATO, Crippling Austerity Cuts.

Privatization of Consciousness.

Monthly Review just publicized an interesting criticism of advertising. 

Excerpt:

"Is advertising legal? Most people agree that it is an uninvited intrusion into our lives and our minds, an invasion of privacy. But the fact that we can be aware of this without being furious, and that we do little to change the situation, is a good measure of our level of submission. There is a power relationship in advertising that is rarely, if ever, looked at, and yet it is a profoundly corrupt one. Some speak; others listen.

A. J. Liebling famously said, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed, but only if you own one.” Freedom of speech is also guaranteed. But only if you have a few million dollars for an effective media strategy. Soapbox oratory doesn’t sway the public anymore. But the powers of advertising go well beyond the amount of money spent. The true power is in the nature of moving-image media, projected for hours every day into human brains. It’s a form of intrusion we have never before in history had to face. Even now in the Internet age, the powers of television and advertising are undiminished and insufficiently examined or discussed.

Very early in my advertising career, it became clear to me that I was being paid to stop you from doing or thinking whatever else you might want to do or think, and instead get you to focus on the piece of information that was of interest to my client. All advertising is an attempt by one party to dominate the other. More than $150 billion is now spent annually in advertising in this country—$450 billion in the world. Every dollar of that has the same purpose: to get people to do what the advertiser wants. Very few people have a similar opportunity to speak back through media, to make demands on the advertisers. Or to suggest some other way to find happiness besides buying things. This makes it a very one-sided deal. Advertisers say that you have the choice ofnot buying their products, as though that’s satisfactory. You get to say yes or no, like voting a one-party ballot. And you get to say it thousands of times per day.

Advertising is now literally everywhere, interrupting our lives at every turn, requiring that we deal with it. We walk through life as a kind of moving target; hawked at by media, hawked at by signs on the street —blinking, flowing, five stories high. Even clothes have ads on them, and we wear them proudly. Corporations have become like “community” for us. Steve Jobs was our guru. We mourn him as we once mourned Martin Luther King. What a transition."

Astra Taylor on the Unschooled Life.

Chris Hedges on the work of Sheldon Wolin.

Chris Hedges on the work of Sheldon Wolin, 17 May 2011 from Lannan Foundation on Vimeo.

Documentary: Examined Life (2008)

IMDB: "Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets. In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today's most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Peter Singer's thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue's posh boutiques. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco's Mission District questioning our culture's fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West - perhaps America's best-known public intellectual - compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy's power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it."

Quote of the day: Bill Moyers

"An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too."

- Bill Moyers.

Netanyahu 2002: Iraq has Centrifuges ‘the size of Washing Machines’ to Produce A-Bomb

Dagens Citat: Adorno.

"Menneskene har i den grad manipuleret med begrebet frihed, at det ender med at betyde den stærkeres og rigeres ret til at fratage den svagere og fattigere den smule han endnu har." - Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia.

The United States of ALEC

New documentary by Bill Moyers on ALEC and US corporate "democracy".

George Carlin: The American Dream.

The Crisis of Representative Democracy

“..we keep shuffling around the same deck of cards, hoping that this meaningless exercise will somehow make a difference. Hope abounds when the US elects its most progressive President in decades — but even he ends up bailing out Wall Street at the expense of millions of families who lose their homes. Heck, he even keeps a personal kill list and forsakes his #1 election promise to close Guantanamo! In the UK, a Liberal leader pledges never to raise tuition fees — only to abandon this promise the moment he smells power.

Similarly, a sigh of relief resounds across Europe when France elects its first Socialist President in two decades. Surely his victory will hail the end of Merkel’s austerity pact for the eurozone? ‘Lo and behold: only a few months later Hollande is suddenly Merkel’s closest ally, happily “turning the screws on Greece” and quietly forgetting about his election promise to rip up the eurozone austerity pact. In the end, everybody bows before the power of the market.

Clearly the divorce between politics and power has instilled great fear and confusion in the electorate. Like a flock of panicking sheep, voters head towards the political fringes, desperately clinging on to the idea that it’s the parties and their leaders who are at fault, not the system as such. Unwilling to face the reality of national governments that no longer possess true fiscal or monetary policy autonomy, voters continue to hate the player; not the game.

In the process, national elections are reduced to some meaningless provincial popularity contest. Like “survivors” in some stupid reality TV show, politicians try their very best to avoid being voted off the island. Election campaigns degrade into marketing campaigns as the electorate is bombarded with flashy Google and TV ads, party posters and random party paraphernalia in the streets. An election victory is celebrated like a World Cup win. Somehow everyone seems to believe that this is a completely natural way of organizing society.

Both ordinary citizens (those “too unsophisticated” for the spectacle) and critical thinkers (those “too sophisticated” for the new culture of one-liners) are filtered out of public view in a sort of quasi-natural selection process that systematically favors the technocratic mediocrity of bland career politicians over the great diversity and complexity of opinions that society has to offer. Given enough time, electoral politics automatically descends into some childish blame game that no one really takes seriously anymore.

Cookie-cutter election programs, cheap sloganeering, negative publicity and inauthentic, overly-manufactured interviews riddled with lies, insults and and clichés take all the creativity, joy and weight out of the art of public debate. Instead of talking about issues, we now talk about personalities. Representative democracy has long since ceased to be about competing visions for the future of society. With the owners out of reach, we are relegated to electing managers...”

From Roarmag.

Two Paradigms of History.

By Richard Tarnas

A paradox concerning the character and fate of the West confronts every sensitive observer: On the one hand, we recognize a certain dynamism, a luminous, heroic impulse, even a nobility at work in Western civilization and Western thought. We see this in the great achievements of Greek philosophy and culture, and in the profound moral and spiritual strivings of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. We see it embodied in the Sistine Chapel and other Renaissance masterpieces, in the plays of Shakespeare, in the music of Beethoven. We recognize it in the brilliance of the Copernican revolution and the long sequence of dazzling scientific advances in many disciplines that have unfolded in its wake. We see it in the titanic space flights of a generation ago that landed men on the Moon, or, more recently, in the spetacular images of the vast cosmos coming from the Hubble Space Telescope that have opened up uprecendented perspectives reaching back in time and outward into space billions of years and lightyears to the primal origins of the universe itself. No less vividly, we find it in the great democratic revolutions of modernity and the powerful emancipatory movements of our own era, all with deep sources in the Western intellectual and spiritual tradition.

Yet at the same time, if we attempt to perceive the larger reality beyond the conventional heroic narrative, we cannot fail to recognize the shadow of this great luminosity. The same cultural tradition and historical trajectory that brought forth such noble achievements has also caused immense suffering and loss, for many other cultures and peoples, for many people within Western culture itself, and for many other forms of life on the Earth. Moreover, the West has played the central role in bringing about a subtly growing and seemingly inexorable crisis – one of multidimensional complexity, affecting all aspects of life from the ecological and economic to the psychological and spiritual. To say that our global civilization is becoming dysfunctional scarcely conveys the gravity of the situation. For many forms of life on the Earth, catastrophe has already begun, as our planet undergoes the most massive extinction of species since the demise of the dinosaurs. How can we make sense of this tremendous paradox in the character and meaning of the West?

If we examine many of the major debates in the post-traditional intellectual culture of our time, it is possible to see looming behind them two fundamental paradigms, two great myths, diametrically opposite in character, concerning human history and the evolution of human consciousness. As genuine myths, these underlying paradigms represent not mere illusory beliefs or arbitrary collective fantasies, naive delusions contrary to fact, but rather those enduring archetypal structures of meaning that so profoundly inform our cultural psyche and shape our beliefs that they constitute the very means through which we construe something as fact. They invisibly constellate our vision. They filter and reveal our data, structure our imagination, permeate our ways of knowing and acting.

The first paradigm familiar to all of us from our education, describes human history and the evolution of human consciousness as an epic narrative of human progress, a long heroic journey from a primitive world of dark ignorance, suffering and limitation to a brighter modern world of ever-increasing knowledge, freedom and well-being. This great trajectory of progress is seen as having been made possible by the sustained development of human reason and, above all, by the emergence of the modern mind. This view informs much, perhaps most, of what we see and hear on the subject and and is easily recognized whenever we encounter a book or program with a title such as The Ascent of Man, The Discoverers, Man's Conquest of Space or the like. The direction of history is seen as onward and upward. Humanity is typically personified as “man” (anthropos, homo, l'uomo, l'homme, el hombre, chelovek, der Mensch) and imaged, at least implicitly, as a masculine hero, rising above the constraints of nature and tradition, exploring the great cosmos, mastering his environment, determining his own destiny: restless, bold, brilliantly innovative, ceaselessly pressing forward with his intelligence and will, breaking out of the structures and limits of the past, ascending to ever-higher levels development, forever seeking greater freedom and new horizons, discovering ever-wider arenas for self-realization. In this perspective the apex of human achievement commenced with the rise of modern science and democratic individualism in the centuries following the Renaissance. The view of history is one of progressive emancipation and empowerment. It is a vision that emerged fully in the course of the European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though its roots are as old as Western civilization itself.

As with all powerful myths, we have been, and many perhaps remain, largely unconscious of this historical paradigm's hold on our collective imagination. It animates the vast majority of contemporary books and essays, editorial columns, book reviews, science articles, research papers, and television documentaries, as well as political, social, and economic policies. It is so familiar to us, so close to our perception, that in many respects it has become our common sense, the form and foundation of our self-image as modern humans. We have been so long identified with this progressive understanding of the human project, and particularly of the modern Western project, that it is only in recent decades that we have begun to be able to see it as a paradigm – that is to be able to see, at least partly, from outside of its sphere of influence.

The other great historical vision tells a very different story. In this understanding, human history and the evolution of human consciousness are seen as a predominantly problematic, even tragic narrative of humanity's gradual but radical fall and separation from an original state of oneness with nature and an encompassing spiritual dimension of being. In its primordial condition, humankind had possessed an instictive knowledge of the profound sacred unity and interconnectedness of the world, but under the influence of the Western mind, especially its modern expression, the course of history brought about a deep schism between humankind and nature, and a desacralization of the world. This development coincided with an increasingly destructive exploitation of nature, the devastation of traditional indigenous cultures, a loss of faith in spiritual realities, and an increasingly unhappy state of the human soul, which experienced itself as ever more isolated, shallow and unfulfilled. In this perspective, both humanity and nature are seen as having suffered grievously under a long exploitative, dualistic vision of the world, with the worst consequences being produced by the oppressive hegemony of modern industrial societies empowered by Western science and technology. The nadir of this fall is the present planetary turmoil, ecological crisis and spiritual distress, which are seen as the direct consequence of human hubris, embodied above all in the spirit and structure of the mordern Western mind and ego. This second historical perspective reveals a progressive impoverishment of human life and the human spirit, a fragmentation of original unities, a ruinous destruction of the sacred community of being.

Something like these two interpretations of history, here described in starkly contrasting terms for the sake of easy recognition, can be seen to inform many of the specific issues of our age. They represent two basic antithetical myths of historical self-understanding: the myth of Progress and what in its earlier incarnations was called the myth of the Fall. These two historical paradigms appear today in many variations, combinations, and compromise formations. They underlie and influence discussions of the environmental crisis, globalization, multiculturalism, fundamentalism, feminism and patriarchy, evolution and history. One might say that these opposing myths constitute the underlying argument of our time: Whither humanity? Upward or downward? How are we to view Western civilization, the Western intellectual tradition, its canon of great works? How are we to view modern science, modern rationality, modernity itself? How are we to view “man”? Is history ultimately a narrative of progress or of tragedy?

John Stuart Mill made a shrewd, and wise, observation about the nature of most philosophical debates. In his splendid essay on Coleridge, he pointed out that both sides in intellectual controversies tended to be “in the right in what they affirmed, though in the wrong in what they denied.” Mill's insight into the nature of intellectual discourse shines light on many disagreements: Whether it is conservatives debating liberals, parents arguing with their children, or a lovers' quarrel, almost invariably something is being repressed in the service of making one's point. But his insight seems to apply with particular aptness to the conflict of historical paradigms just described. I believe that both parties to this dispute has grasped an essential aspect of our history, that both views are in a sense correct, each with compelling arguments within its own frame of reference, but also that they are both intensely partial views, as a result of which they both misread a larger story.

It is not only that each perspective possesses a significant grain of truth. Rather, both historical paradigms are at once fully valid and yet also partial aspects of a larger frame of reference, a metanarrative, in which two opposite interpretations are precisely intertwined to form a complex, integrated whole. The two historical dramas actually constitute each other. Not only are they simultaneously true; they are embedded in each other's truth. They underlie and inform each other, implicate each other, make each other possible. One might compare the way the two opposites coalesce while appearing to exclude each other to those gestalt-experiment illustrations that can be perceived in two different equally cogent ways, such as the precisely ambigous figure that can be seen either as a white vase or as two black profiles in silhouette. By means of a gestalt shift in perception, the observer can move back and forth between two images, though the figure itself, the original body of data, remains unchanged.

One is reminded here of Niels Bohr's axiom in quantum physics, “the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth,” or Oscar Wilde's “A truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true.” What is difficult, of course, is to see both images, both truths, simultaneously: to suppress nothing, to remain open to paradox, to maintain the tension of opposites. Wisdom, like compassion, often seems to require of us that we hold multiplies realities in our consciousness at once. This may be the task we must begin to engage if we wish to gain a deeper understanding of the evolution of human consciousness, and the history of the Western mind in particular: to see that long intellectual and spiritual journey, moving through stages of increasing differentiation and complexity, as having brought about both a progressive ascent to autonomy and a tragic fall from unity – and, perhaps, as having prepared the way for a synthesis on a new level. From this perspective, the two paradigms reflect opposite but equally essential aspects of an immense dialectical process, an evolutionary drama that has been unfolding for thousands of years and that now appears to be reaching a critical, perhaps climactic moment of transformation.

Yet there is another important party to this debate, another view of human history, one that instead of integrating the two opposite historical perspectives into a larger, more complex one appears to refute them both altogether. This third view, articulated with increasing frequency and sophistication in our own time, holds that no coherent pattern actually exists in human history or evolution, at least none that is independent of human interpretation. If an overarching pattern is history is visible, that pattern has been projected onto history by the human mind under the influence of various non-empirical factors: cultural, political, economic, social, sociobiological, psychological. In this view, the pattern, the myth or story – ultimately resides in the human subject, not the historical object. The object can never be perceived without being selectively shaped by an interpretive framework, which itself is shaped and constructed by forces beyond itself and beyond the awareness of the interpreting subject. Knowledge of history, as of anything else, is ever-shifting, free-floating, ungrounded in objective reality. Patterns are not so much recogized as read into them. History is, finally, only a construct.

On the one hand, this robust skepticism that pervades much of our post-modern thought is not far from that necessary critical perspective that allows us to discuss paradigms at all, to make comparisons and judgments about underlying conceptual structures such as those made above. Its recognition of the radically interpretive factor in all human experience and knowledge – its understanding that we are always seeing by means of myths and theories, that our experience and knowledge are always patterned and even constituted by various changing a priori and usually unconscious structures of meaning – is essential to the entire exercise we have been pursuing.

On the other hand, this seemingly paradigm-free relativism, whereby no pattern or meaning exists in history except as constructed and projected onto history by the human mind, is itself clearly another paradigm. It recognizes that we always see by means of myths and interpretive categories, but fails to apply that recognition consistently to itself. It excels at “seeing through,” but perhaps has not seen through enough. In one sense, this form of the postmodern vision may be best understood as a direct outgrowth, possibly an inevitable one, of the progressive modern mind in its ever-deepening critical reflexivity – questioning, suspecting, striving for emancipation through critical awareness – reaching here in its most extreme development what is essentially a stage of advanced self-deconstruction. Yet this perspective may also be understood as the natural consequence of the Enlightenment vision beginning to encounter its own shadow – the darkly problematic narrative articulated by its opposing historical paradigm – and being challenged and reshaped by that encounter. For just this reason, the deconstructive postmodern perspective may present a crucial element in the unfolding of a new and more comprehensive understanding. There is a deep truth in this view, though it too may also be a deeply partial truth, an essential aspect of a much larger, more embracing, and still more complex vision. The postmodern mind may eventually be seen as having constituted a necessary transitional stage between epochs, a period of dissolving and opening between larger sustained cultural paradigms.

Ego vs. Eco

Red Nuke Alert!