Dispatches From The Edge - Pakistan: Reversing The Lens

“Terrorism is not a statistic for us.”—Asif Ali Zardari, president of Pakistan

This is a Pakistani truism that few Americans understand. Since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Pakistan has lost more than 35,000 people, the vast bulk of them civilians. While the U.S. has had slightly over 1800 soldiers killed in the past 10 years, Pakistan has lost over 5,000 soldiers and police. The number of suicide bombings in Pakistan has gone from one before 2001, to more than 335 since.

For most Americans, Pakistan is a two-faced “ally” playing a double game in Central Asia, all while siphoning off tens of billions of dollars in aid. For Pakistanis, the spillover from the Afghan war has cost Islamabad approximately of $100 billion. And this is in a country with a yearly GDP of around $175 billion, and whose resources have been deeply strained by two years of catastrophic flooding.

Washington complains that its $20.7 billion in aid over the past nine years has bought it very little in the way of loyalty from Islamabad, while Pakistan points out that U.S. aid makes up less than 0.3 percent of Pakistan’s yearly GDP, what Zahid Hussain, author of a book on Islamic militants, says comes out to “the price of a six-inch personal-size pizza with no extra toppings from Pizza Hut” for each Pakistani. In any case, much of the civilian aid—the bulk, $14.2 billion, goes to the military—has yet to be disbursed.

Both countries’ opinions of one another are almost mirror images: According to a U.S. poll, 74 percent of Americans do not consider Pakistan to be an ally, while the Pew Research Center found that six in 10 Pakistanis consider the Americans an “enemy,” and only 12 Percent have a favorable view of the U.S.

How did this happen? In part the answer is mistakes and misjudgments by both countries that date back to the 1979-89 Russian occupation. But at its heart is an American strategy that not only runs counter to Pakistan’s interests, but will make ending the war in Afghanistan a far more painful procedure than it need be.

If Pakistan is a victim in the long running war, it is not entirely an innocent one. Pakistan, along with the U.S., was an ally of the anti-Communist, right wing Mujahideen during the 1980s Afghan war.

Pakistan’s interest in Afghanistan has always been multi-faceted. Islamabad is deeply worried that its traditional enemy, India, will gain a foothold in Afghanistan, thus essentially surrounding Pakistan. This is not exactly paranoid, as Pakistan has fought—and lost—three wars with India, and tensions between the two still remain high.

Over the past six years, India has conducted 10 major military exercises along the Pakistani border, the latest—Viajyee Bhava (Be Victorious)—involved 20,000 troops and what New Delhi military spokesman S.D. Goswaim called “sustained massed mechanized maneuvers.” Pakistan is the only potential enemy in the region that “massed” armored formations could be aimed at. India has the world’s fourth largest army, Pakistan’s the 15^th.

By aligning itself with Washington during its Cold War competition with the Soviets in Afghanistan, Islamabad had the inside track to buy high performance American military hardware to help it offset India’s numerical superiority. Indeed, it did manage to purchase some F-16s fighter-bombers.

But in Central Asia, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When Pakistan allied itself with the Taliban, India aligned itself with the Northern Alliance composed of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras, who opposed the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. Pashtuns are a plurality in Afghanistan’s complex mix of ethnicities, and traditionally they dominated the Kabul government.

Islamabad has always been deeply concerned about the Pashtuns, because the ethnic group makes up some 15 percent of Pakistan’s population, and Pashtuns do not recognize the colonial period border—the so-called Durand Line—that forms the current boundary between the two countries. A long-time fear of Islamabad is that Pakistani Pashtuns could ally themselves to Afghani Pashtuns and form a breakaway country that would fragment Pakistan.

From Islamabad’s point of view, the American demand that it corral the Taliban and the Haqqani Group that operate from mountainous Northwest Frontier and Federally Administrated Tribal Areas of Pakistan might stir up Pashtun nationalism, one of those things that goes bump in the night for most Pakistanis. In any case, the task would be beyond the capabilities of the Pakistan military. In 2009, the Pakistani Army used two full divisions just to reclaim the Swat Valley from local militants, a battle that cost billions of dollars, generated two million refugees, and inflicted heavy casualties.

Current U.S. strategy has exacerbated Pakistan’s problem by putting the Northern Alliance in power, excluding the Pashtuns from any meaningful participation, and targeting the ethnic group’s heartland in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan. According to Hussain, this has turned the war into a “Pashtun war,” and meant, “The Pashtuns in Pakistan would become…strongly allied with both al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

The U.S has also remained silent while India moved aggressively into Afghanistan. On Oct. 4, Kabul and New Delhi inked a “strategic partnership” which, according to the New York Times, “paves the way for India to train and equip Afghan security forces.” The idea of India training Afghan troops is the equivalent of waving a red flag to see if the Pakistani bull will charge.

One pretext for the agreement was the recent assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Afghan High Peace Council, whom the Karzai government claims was killed by the Taliban under the direction of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI. But evidence linking the Taliban or Pakistan to the hit is not persuasive, and the Taliban and Haqqani Group—never shy about taking the credit for killing people—say they had nothing to do with it.

Pakistan’s ISI certainly maintains a relationship with the Afghan-based Taliban and the Haqqani Group, but former Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Mike Mullen’s charge that the latter are a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI is simply false. The Haqqanis come from the powerful Zadran Gaum Pushtun tribe based in Paktia and Khost provinces in Afghanistan, and North Wazirstan in Pakistan’s Tribal Area. It was one of the most effective military groupings in the war with the Russians, and is certainly the most dangerous group of fighters in the current war.

When their interests coincide the Haqqanis find common ground with Islamabad, but the idea that Pakistan can get anyone in that region to jump to attention reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the deeply engrained cultural and ethnic currents that have successfully rebuffed outsiders for thousands of years. And in the border region, the Pakistan Army is as much an outsider as is NATO.

There a way out of this morass, but it will require a very different strategy than the one the U.S. is currently following, and one far more attuned to the lens through which most Pakistanis view the war in Afghanistan.

First, the U.S. and its allies must stand down their military offensive—including the drone attacks—against the Taliban and Haqqani Group, and negotiate a ceasefire.

Second, the U.S. must open immediate talks with the various insurgency groups and declare a plan for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The Taliban—the Haqqanis say they will follow the organization’s lead—has indicated they will no longer insist on a withdrawal of troops before opening talks, but they do want a timetable.

Third, recognition that any government in Kabul must reflect the ethnic make-up of the country.

Fourth, Pakistan’s concerns over Indian influence need to be addressed, including the dangerous issue of Kashmir. President Obama ran on a platform that called for dealing with Kashmir, but subsequently dropped it at the insistence of New Delhi. The issue needs to be put back on the table. The next dust-up between Pakistan and India could go nuclear, which would be a catastrophe of immeasurable proportions.

Pakistan and the U.S. may have profoundly different views of one another, but at least one issue they agree: slightly over 90 percent of Pakistanis would like U.S. troops to go home, and 62 percent of Americans want an immediate cut in U.S. forces. Common ground in this case seems to be based on a strong dose of common sense.

Read Conn Hallinan at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com

Oil and the Human Struggle for Power, Domination, and the Right to Exist-Part I

I grew up in one of the world’s largest petroleum-processing centers: Port Arthur, Texas. Refineries lined the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Brownsville with heaviest concentrations from Houston to Eastern Louisiana. Important offshore oil wells have been productive for as long as I can remember. The standard of living for all our families up and down the food chain was high per capita, maybe the highest in the nation for almost all of the 20th Century and beyond. The bad news was that you got to smell the skunk cabbage air while brushing your teeth, driving to work, ergo most of your waking hours. But it was not fatal, we were told, and the mind quickly filtered it out of our collective consciousness, we forgot about it, and we worked and prospered and had fun in the sun and Oleanders near the sea. 

Port Arthur was unique. On the sea coast of South East Texas, it made for a splendid port. Ships arrived and sailed from all points of the compass as exports of gasoline and imports of crude oil made for heavy traffic in a new multi-billion dollar business of oil and oil products. The perfect seaport for commerce fit hand in glove to the discovery of the Spindletop Oilfield in 1901 just 17 miles north near the present city of Beaumont, Texas. What a bonus, what an opportunity for capital investment.

Spindletop Oilfield Historical Articles (http://www.history.com/topics/spindletop http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dos03 )

From the ocean at land’s end at Sabine Pass to the mouth of the Neches River to Beaumont made a very convenient waterway to ship crude oil to the seaport of Port Arthur for refining into gasoline and thousands of oil-based products yet to come. Many big oil companies built giant refineries there on the Port Arthur seaport: The Texas Company (Texaco), Exxon (earlier Enco, Esso), and Gulf Oil all had their beginnings there with new refineries to process the large supply of oil in their own backyards, so to speak. The famous Melon family of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania financed and ended up with a controlling share of Gulf Oil Company. Oddly, but not really, Gulf Oil was headquartered in Pittsburg. Everything seems to follow the money, what?

Mass migration from the rural farms brought many families to Gulf Coast of upper Texas. Oilfield and refinery pay was good, the standard of living was high for workers, and jobs were plentiful. A new era had begun. Now an abundant and cheap source of new energy was available to millions. Gasoline and natural gas even drove the generators that made electricity for the home, a new and useful answer to darkness with the advent of the electric light. Many of my ancestors had moved from the country dirt roads and cotton patch to Port Arthur when the refineries mushroomed overnight. They had never seen an electric light. The Texas refineries, in their infancy, used mules as the source of propulsion for wagons necessary to all transport functions within the refinery. My grandfather’s younger brother worked there in the early 1920s. He said that the refinery workers would build huge bonfires at night to ward off the mosquitos. When the fires would die out and the mosquitos returned, the mules would stir the fire up again by hoofing the embers so that the mosquitos would be foiled again, at least temporarily. Smart mules.

In 1940 I was born in Rosebud, Texas to a couple who made a combined salary of $950.00 per year teaching rural school in Central Texas. Well, so much for education opening doors to higher learning and better wages. My father had heard from an uncle who worked at Gulf that they were hiring laborers at $1600.00 to start out. So in 1944 we all moved to Port Arthur and my father got a job at Gulf. Growing up in an oil town seemed desirable. Everyone had a pretty good job in a booming new industry that paid well and allowed your father to buy a work car, thus the 2-car family symbol of prosperity was born. Times were good. We Americans used our own crude oil on American soil. We refined it and made everything from gasoline to plastics, and the rest of the world watched us in envy. Anything made in Japan or (perish the thought) China was cheap and second class to American goods. I remember as a child, I thought that we were very fortunate to have an abundance of things and goods that made our lives more pleasurable, such as nice cars, record players, Elvis, and bubble gum.

But everything changes if enough time passes. Slowly, America began to run out of oil. Or it became cheaper to buy oil from the oil-rich Saudis than to drill here at home. When the Saudis lifted the Arab Embargo, our troubles began. We became dependent upon the most powerful dope-dealer in the history of the world: foreign oil.

The reality of the new scarcity known as peak oil (you got less now than you had yesterday) fell upon us like a giant offshore drilling rig. Some of the oil giants here at home were in deep sh--. What would they do if a source of crude oil could no longer drive the refineries that required millions a day to operate? The Saudis gave us a taste of what a lack of oil and gas lines would be like, not to mention higher prices at the pump. It was a Royal setup.

So the Saudis offered Texaco a deal on their oil for a cut of the Texaco refineries. So right after the Arab Oil Embargo in the early 1970s the new corporation that was to refine Texaco’s oil became Star Enterprises. This was a jointly-owned operation now between Texaco and the Saudis. And the split? Well, the Saudis got half. This silent erosion of American ownership went unseen, without much fanfare. And it continued every year and presently, too, as we are held for ransom to do the bidding of those who have the oil that our country must have or perish from the earth and prove Lincoln wrong.

A new liquid natural gas storage facility was just constructed in Sabine Pass just a few miles from the old oil refineries, at the cost of over $1 Billion dollars. The sign on the gate says Exxon, but the sovereign country of Qatar owns HALF! You know, Qatar, the country that deals in human slave trade and trafficking? A Billion dollars. Wonder how many Americans can put their finger on Qatar on a world map? How many Americans are aware of this unseen takeover of our technology and resources simply because oil is the only game in town when it comes to world energy?

The United States in 2011 is in debt approaching a figure of $15 Trillion (I try to capitalize Billion and Trillion just because it seems appropriate in such times lest we lose touch with the stark reality of where we as a country seem to be heading). Never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever sense that oil would become such a significant and powerful commodity in the lives of all humans on planet earth. I pondered it at times, reflecting on when gasoline was only 17 cents per gallon, and you and your date could buy gas, see a movie, and maybe buy some drive-in burgers, all for $5.00. So why is oil so dire a substance in all our lives now to where we will attack countries, occupy them, fear being blown up by terrorists, and spend Trillions of dollars on the Middle East countries in arms sales and foreign aid? The best answer I know of is that oil was made the standard for energy production. Most all renewable forms of energy have been smothered with lobbyist dollars so that electric cars and wind and solar power for electric power plants are totally retarded by bribes by Big Oil.

Oil is a dirty business in other ways, too. Other than the 100s of thousands of humans slain every year due to oil or oil geography, oil, when burned produces toxic smoke and ash. The internal combustion engine, notwithstanding the idiocy of anti-global warmers such as the Tea Party and much of the GOP dumb-them-downers, has harmful effects on the planet. And the only reason a pseudo-science astro turf company set up by Big Oil, e.g. the Koch Brothers exists is to say that man is NOT the (or even a) cause of global warming. So why would the Koch’s or anybody else want to dumb down the search for truth (the very definition of science, itself)? It’s not that hard when you follow the money. Koch Industries saves Billions a year for every year they can delay modernizing air and water polluting equipment at their refineries. And that money not spent on updating equipment to save the planet and clean up the air we breathe goes directly into the ass pockets of the Koch Brothers and stockholders. Would they do that, though? Really? Take it to the bank. They own that, too. And the Democrats are not without sin, either. Lobbyist dollars to buy votes buys a good deal of those buggers, too. And they all know it.

When I was burning cheap gasoline as a teenager, I had no idea that someday oil would be so crucial to the planet. If you have it, fine, but if you don’t have it, what will it be worth? $5.00 per gallon? $9.50? I fear that we are about to find out.

Next time in Part II we will cover some of the offshoot business of oil, e.g., the sale of arms to protect world oilfields, the Pentagon dollars and lives spent to occupy foreign countries rich in oil, and corporations like Blackwater who Uncle Sam pays billions of dollars per year with our tax dollars.

President Obama and the One-Term Democratic Presidencies - Revisited

For this issue of TPJmagazine, I am revisiting a column that I published in this space a little over two years ago. Mainly historical, it still seems to be apt. I do hope that you will agree.

Entering the White House on January 20, 1976, Jimmy Carter was in the post-Watergate, post-Viet Nam flush of Democratic victory. For the 1976 Presidential election, had it not been for Chappaquiddick, Sen. Ted Kennedy would likely have been the Democratic Party’s nominee (if he had not already been such in 1972). 

If it had not been for his bladder cancer, Sen. Hubert Humphrey might well have overtaken Carter in the later primaries. But Kennedy had Chappaquiddick and Humphrey had cancer and the Democrats had no one but a highly inexperienced, very nice, one-term governor of Georgia.   Nevertheless, the Democrats were riding high. The Nixon dragon had finally been slain. The foreign policy front was relatively quiet, funnily enough due in major part to Nixon. Kissinger’s détente with the Soviet Union was in place. Nixon/Kissinger had opened the door to China. Israel had conquered huge territories in the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars, but had not yet begun their policy of gradual annexation of the West Bank. 

On the domestic side, again funnily enough, Nixon had actually instituted several very important environmental programs. If it had not been for Watergate, he would very likely have gained the passage of the fairly strong national health insurance program that he had introduced to Congress in the spring of 1973, by none other than Sen. Bob Dole. In this context, Carter was in a position to focus on domestic policy, actually building further on Nixon initiatives in that realm. As a matter of fact I heard Carter, in a speech to the 1976 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association, pledge that he would introduce and win passage of a national health insurance program. 

Well, Carter never quite got round to doing that. Nor, with the top of his staff drawn mainly from his Georgia Governor’s office (!!), did he do much else. Jimmy Carter is remembered for two things: the Camp David Accords and the Tehran Hostage Crisis. Why? Primarily because, unlike Republicans when they are in office, Carter chose to try to work with the other side, even though he had majorities in both Houses of Congress. On the domestic side, Nixon’s positive initiatives or no, the GOP was able to bog down any major actions that Carter wanted to undertake. The Goldwater-Reagan right-wing of the party was moving into various positions of power both inside and outside of Washington. Carter did not get along well with the Kennedy/McGovern liberal wing of his own party and was never able to put together a team to get Democratic things done. Furthermore, he was saddled with the inflationary spiral that had begun under Nixon-Ford but which soon came to bear his name. He was able to pull off the Camp David Accords because for different reasons both Israel and Egypt needed to quiet things down. And then came the Hostage Crisis.

Why did that happen? Simple. Carter did not know who his friends were and who his enemies were. On the second most important foreign policy decision of his Presidency, he listened to Republicans, to whom he did not have to listen, with disastrous results. There was a pro-western, secular overthrow of the Shah in 1978. There was a strong Islamist movement lead by the Ayatollah Khomeini, but it was by no means a sure thing that it would eventually take power. The Shah went into exile in 1979, ill with cancer. Kissinger and David Rockefeller, among other top Republicans, pleaded with Carter to admit the Shah to the US for treatment. The US Embassy in Tehran very strongly warned him against doing that, predicting several different very negative outcomes, including something like the one that actually happened. Carter gave in to the Republicans and the outcomes of the resultant Islamist takeover have reverberated negatively both for the Iranian people and of ourselves down to this very day. He was a one-termer, who gave us Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The Clinton Presidency was a one-termer in functional terms. The Republicans made sure of that from the git-go, from Gennifer Flowers (of whom they never let go) to White Water to the White House Travel Office and on and on, with a very well-funded “get Clinton” campaign. (Yes, there was indeed a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” lead by Richard Mellon Scaife.) Clinton’s biggest problem, before Monica Lewinsky, was that he was not a fighter. In fact, he was the classic child of two alcoholic parents: he wanted to please everybody, but especially his enemies. On the health care reform debate I happened to have had the opportunity, as a “Designated Speaker for the Clinton Health Plan,” to have seen this somewhat from the inside. 

He did not fight. Either he did not know what the GOP was out to do or he did not know how to deal with them. Bill Kristol sent around a memo in December, 1993 saying that the GOP must defeat the Clinton Health Plan (CHP), for political reasons (I’ve got a copy in my files. Kristol did the same thing on the Obama initiative). Clinton did not use this memo against his opposition. Bob Dole led the charge against the CHP in the Senate, which had major features in common with the Nixon Health Plan. Funny, but with an excellent speech about everything that was wrong with the US health care system in 1973 (I’ve got a copy of excerpts of that speech in my files too) it was none other than then Republican Minority Leader Bob Dole who had introduced the Nixon Health Plan to the Senate. Clinton did not use the Dole speech either. He sat there and let Dick Morris (he who had formerly worked for Sen. Trent Lott and now is a right-wing shill, one must wonder why Clinton ever hired him) lead him into “triangulation,” of use primarily against the Democrats in the Congress, and lost the health care reform battle.  

Then came Monica Lewinsky and the Paula Jones perjury trap that was neatly laid by Ken Starr who illegally fed the Lewinsky information to Jones’ legal team, leading to impeachment and the complete crippling of Clinton’s second term. Of course, given the Lewinsky scandal alone, that happened might have happened anyway. But it might well have turned out differently had Clinton been a Republican-fighter instead of a Republican-compromiser from the git-go. After all, the Lewinsky episode and the subsequent impeachment trial was about sex between consenting adults, not quite on the level of cheating one’s way into the Air National Guard or lying the nation into war. But that’s another story.

Which leads us to President Obama. The original version of this column was written about a week in advance of his speech to the Congress on health care scheduled for September 9, 2009. Perhaps, I said back then, “he will surprise us.” But President Obama, like his two Democratic immediate predecessors in the White House, seems not to know who his enemies are. He seems not realize that the GOP has been out to get him since the Electoral College voted in December, 2008, if not before. Mitch McConnell made that very clear back then, when he said that he would filibuster “any bill I don’t like.” They were not interested in “bi-partisanship” back then, and they sure aren’t interested in it now. They were then a minority party in both Houses and still are in the Senate, although through the liberal use of the filibuster they have controlled that House for most of the Obama Presidency. They know that their only way back to power is to wage war, not on the objective elements of the issues, but on the person and with every Big Lie they can dream up. In December 2010, with candor remarkable for a Republican, McConnell announced that his number one goal in the then upcoming Congress was to ensure the defeat of Obama in 2012. As is well-known, that they are now doing this to a fare-thee-well. As is well-known, it seems, to everyone except the President and his staff (that is possibly until very, very recently. We shall have to watch Obama with care to see if he backs up with recent rhetoric with actions. He has done too little of the latter previously.)

A strategic decision was made by the Obama White House to try to “bring the country together.” Well, from Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” statement onwards, it has been clear that to do their very best to make sure that that happens is the central element of the GOP strategy. But the President persists. For example, as of the original writing of this column (Sept. 4, 2009), he was said to have been negotiating with Sen. Olympia Snow (!) for some kind of “compromise” on health care reform, that would put off the absolutely essential public option to some indeterminate date. That is a Republican policy that is a recipe for failure for any health care reform package. And now they have announced as a number one goal were they to win the presidency the repeal of a “reform” package that is indeed not much more than a major Federal subsidy for the private health insurance companies.

But beyond that, combined with buying into Republican recipe for the totally unwinnable (no matter which way you want to define it) Afghan War, President Obama has been quickly paving the road down which he may well travel to being the third one-term Democratic President in a row. Since the Goldwater-Reagan takeover of their party, the Republicans have known, most of the time, how to win: stay Republican, build on their base, cheat and lie a lot. It’s not too late for Obama to learn. He is a very smart man. In dealing with the modern Republican Party he needs to learn just one thing: the modern GOP is the enemy. Hugh Scott, Jacob Javits, and John Chafee are no longer in the Senate. This bunch cannot be dealt with honestly. 

All the President needs to do is, not lie, cheat, and encourage violence, but rather follow the truly Democratic policies that he actually won the election on. He needs to become a real Democratic President doing battle with a real Party of Right-Wing Reaction. Presidents Carter and Clinton have spent their post-Presidential years doing great charitable works both at home and abroad. If President Obama doesn’t wake up to reality, instead of organizing his natural base to support him in full throat and finally turning his back on the disastrous policies and politics of the Democratic Leadership Council now hiding under such mis-leading names as “No Labels” and “The Third Way,” he can always go back teaching constitutional law, instead of putting it into practice against the enemies of Constitutional government, like a certain former Vice-President and every announced candidate for the GOTP Presidential nomination. 

As my readers at BuzzFlash@Truthout and related webmagazines know, I don’t think that there is much of a chance that this will happen. But hey, you never know.

Forward, Backward, and In Between

Hello, and Happy Halloween. Today you get two columns for the price of one.

I didn’t plan it that way. The original plan was to title this column “What’s Wrong With Science?” But as I was going back through my notes and earlier columns to see what I had already written on the subject, I kept coming across recurring themes and dire warnings that seem to have held up and, I think, deserve a second look. So this seems as good a time as any to begin to reprise some previous observations and reassess or update them in the light of what has transpired in our great nation in the past three years.

But first, a look ahead. Thus far I have barely scratched the surface of what I intend to say about science versus its poorly informed, unscrupulous opposition in the modern world, chiefly the political and cultural assassins known as right-wing Americans. I will pick up on that subject in future columns; for now, here’s the spoiler.

The answer to “What’s wrong with science?” depends on whether we’re talking about ideal science or science as now practiced in the early Twenty-First Century. I see very little wrong with ideal science – scientific best practice – which keeps improving, keeps expanding our knowledge and understanding and growing more refined and effective. But I do see a great deal that is wrong with everyday science as it is now conducted and as it reaches us through the distorted lens of an incompetent, negligent, and corrupt media (a recurring theme of mine).

Many or even most of the problems of contemporary science are caused by one underlying weakness: human nature. Despite its great power and unlimited promise, science is a human activity that is carried out in a human cultural and political context. Anywhere and any time humans are involved – and especially when the stakes are high – the manifold flaws of human nature assert themselves and are quite likely to royally screw up the process. As in U.S. politics, or medicine, or business, or virtually any other institution.

Bring on the Libertarians

Still, despite our well-documented and persistent proclivity for screwing up everything, there are those who call for an even longer leash, less regulation – or, in the case of wacko libertarians, no leash at all. These ideologues claim the answer to our problems is to implement their grandiose thought experiment and allow human nature to run amok in an unregulated environment where everyone does pretty much as he or she pleases. That deranged philosophy allows for such abominations as denying service in restaurants to members of minority groups the owners don’t like. That’s right, that’s what they say they want – impunity for racists and bigots who inflict the vilest forms of discrimination on fellow citizens. I’m not surprised to hear such retrograde callousness from a group of ideologues who pride themselves on their doctrinaire consistency. As Lewis J. Perelman wrote, "Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency."

But as libertarians become less marginalized and inch ever closer to being widely electable, they may back off that stance, a la Republicans like McCain, Romney, Perry, et al. Amazing how readily the prospect of getting elected turns latent into blatant hypocrisy in political types such as the erstwhile “maverick” (more on that guy shortly). To quote Thomas Jefferson, “Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”

As for the libertarian wet dream in which everyone is gloriously free to succeed or fail beyond their wildest imaginings, I say bring it on (okay, not really, that’s rhetorical mockery). Oh the brave new world that awaits us once Ron and Rand and their right-wing allies take over and complete the destruction of our badly frayed safety net. Assassins on steroids. In the meantime, which is fast running out, it’s hard to miss the irony of libertarians like Rand Paul joining forces with the socially regressive/repressive Republicans. Evidently, the right of an adult to control her own body will not be included among those precious personal freedoms supported by one of Ayn Rand’s best-known disciples – he’s named after her! Just let a teenage girl make a mistake, or get raped, and she’ll pay for it for years to come, maybe for the rest of her life (serves the slut right). I wonder if anti-choice libertarians really get all misty-eyed over those precious, single-digit clumps of cells with their darling little cherubic souls implanted by God at the moment of conception? Or does it have more to do with being electable? Never mind that their great hero, the sophomoric philosopher and dreadful novelist Ayn Rand, was an atheist who detested Christianity. She would surely have contemptuously dismissed the religious-righteous meme, “ensoulment occurs at conception.” But not her namesake, Senator Rand Paul. Of course Ayn Rand never ran for public office. Even if she had, I don’t think she would have stooped so low as to feign concern for the souls of zygotes. Not that I think Rand Paul is lying about his position on abortion. I can’t read the man’s mind, but it does seems like a strange position for a libertarian who admires one of the previous century’s most outspoken atheists.

Now – finally! – back to science and human nature. I have made the point more than once that there is a potential cure for the default tendency to go with the flow of our human nature. Instead of allowing our thoughts, preferences and actions to be driven by the short-term dictates of “selfish replicators” – our genes and cultural memes – we can choose our goals by learning and implementing a process of rational self-examination. It comes down to teaching young people critical thinking skills modeled on scientific method. It also comes down to more science: These are exciting times in the realm of the cognitive sciences, and we are finally beginning to get a firm handle on some of the key facets of human nature. I have already discussed a few of these findings, and there will be many more to come in future columns. But the take-home message is this:

We are evolved creatures, fashioned by the gradual process of evolution through natural selection to cope with the demands of a primitive, natural environment. Technology and science played no role in the evolution of our biological and emotional characteristics; nor did logic, mathematics, philosophy, or science. We became what we are before we knew anything about ourselves – indeed, before we understood anything.

Following our natural impulses – the dictates of our genes – enabled us to survive in the ancient environment of evolutionary adaptation; but continuing along that course now is a prescription for disaster. It bears repeating to point out that it is in our nature to focus on short-term, first-order, gene-driven gratifications at the expense of enlightened self-interest, or our long-term welfare, which now includes our very survival.

Both individually and collectively we can and must overcome our tribal prejudices and wanton traits and begin to lead examined lives, basing our choices and decisions on the knowledge, understanding, and tools of critical thinking that have been bequeathed to us by science and reason.

To the extent that I have begun to do it justice, all of the above is explained in compelling detail by the cognitive psychologist, Keith Stanovich (here and here) in his profound and challenging 2007 book, The Robot’s Rebellion. You can listen to an audio discussion between Prof. Stanovich and D.J. Groethe at the Point of Inquiry website (just click on “Download MP3”). This is my favorite book of the past decade.

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Speaking of Tribal Prejudices, How About Those Republicans?

My first TPJmagazine column appeared in September, 2008, under a former pseudonym, “Reluctant Junkie.” The title of that column – Did He Just Say “The fundamentals of Our Economy are Strong?” – was a direct quote from the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, who made that egregiously ridiculous assertion in the face of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression. Phil Graham, the McCain campaign’s “chief financial advisor,” received a ton of richly deserved media opprobrium when he doubled down with this typical Republican reaction: “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession. . . . We have sort of become a nation of whiners.”

Sheesh, that was really harsh and sounded more like an effort to deflect responsibility than a reasoned assessment of a devastating crisis. So after consulting my economic advisor, Paul Krugman, via his column in the New York Times, I was moved to write about “the spiraling financial crisis and the misery it will inevitably inflict on so many of us.” And I had this to say about Graham’s cavalier indifference:

A callous statement like that by now has a familiar ring – it sounds so . . . Republican. And Republicans, long bereft of good ideas, will continue to do what they do, cater to the special interests and pretend to have solutions to problems they caused – either deliberately or through incompetence – or else don't really care about. It's no surprise that people who hate government are so stunningly inept at governing. The criminal cabal of political, corporate, and religious ideologues who dominate the Republican Party have long since forfeited their right to the trust and confidence of the American people. Yet despite their horrendous record, two of the least qualified of that ilk may win this election.

Mercifully, they did not win; but now they’re back, weirder and nastier than ever, all worked up for another shot at the ultimate prize. And you know what? Far too often I feel as if we didn’t even win the last time.

Anyway, in that same initial column I went on to excoriate McCain for his vice-presidential selection:

By the way, is there anyone else out there who thinks that McCain's selection of Palin may very well be the single most irresponsible act ever by a major presidential candidate? Last night, on Real Time With Bill Maher, I heard conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan say just that; then he added that with that cynical decision McCain had disqualified himself. Andrew was definitely in a state. And why not? We're talking about handing over management of the Executive Branch and giving the nuclear-arsenal code to a person who knows nothing and believes the rapture is imminent.

The selection of Sarah Palin was one of the major low points in McCain’s up and down political career – another cynical capitulation to the Republican base, just like his earlier, craven flip-flops regarding prominent leaders of the odious religious right. Remember how he did the voter-math and recanted his earlier depiction of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance”? Or how he rejected the endorsement of weird John Hagee after the evangelical, Christian Zionist leader’s anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and other bigoted statements were made public? Hagee’s the asshole who said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the level of sin in New Orleans. I read that McCain worked for a year to secure his endorsement.

Now we are dealing with a new generation of Republicans-cum-Tea Partiers that our esteemed editor, Steve Jonas, is fond of calling the GOTP. I like that. What I don’t like is President Obama’s stubborn, irrational persistence in pursuing the chimera of bipartisanship – a fool’s errand if there ever was one. It should have been clear to Obama long before he took office that those people on the right don’t cooperate or compromise. They see themselves as a lockstep political army determined to destroy the opposition – that would be us – and to secure power through any and all means, regardless of the damage to the country and its people. That’s who they are; and, to our everlasting disgrace, they have a good shot at winning it all this time around.

“WE ARE THE 99%” THE GLOBALIZATION OF RESISTANCE

On October 6 Naomi Klein (author of the 2007 best seller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism) addressed thousands of supporters of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement gathered in New York’s Zuccotti Park – re-named Liberty Park by the occupiers. Echoing her Shock Doctrine message, she told the protesters “If there’s one thing I know it’s that the 1% loves crisis.” Natural disasters and severe economic crises are embraced by advocates and practitioners of the shock doctrine as opportunities to “push through their wish-list of pro-corporate policies: privatizing education and social security, slashing social services, getting rid of the last constraints on corporate power.” In the present economic crisis, she said, “this is happening the world over.” The only thing capable of stopping it from happening, she continued, is the 99% against whom the shock doctrine is directed. “And that 99% is taking to the streets from Madison to Madrid to say ‘No. We will not pay for your crisis’.”

Naomi Klein’s message to the OWS protesters expresses perfectly the newly awakened mood of anger and defiance that is rapidly spreading like a prairie fire through US cities, across national boundaries in Europe and throughout the world. This movement is still in its infancy and it is too early to tell how it will develop and how far it will go. It is surprising that it has taken as long as it has to emerge. From time to time over the past two or three years, Letter from the UK has remarked on the absence of any significant left wing response to the crisis in Britain and elsewhere. Of course there have been exceptions. In Greece, where the cuts to the public sector have been most draconian, there is a powerful and effective working class fight-back involving mass strike action and barricading of ministerial buildings. But generally, until very recently, response to the crisis from traditional sections of the left has been conspicuous by its absence. Now, something new and exciting is happening.

From Spain, where the rate of unemployment is 21.2% (with youth unemployment at 43% and rising) the “Indignado” movement that started in Madrid earlier this year, has inspired similar outbursts of anger and indignation at the gross greed of a bloated financial elite, the 1% who wrecked the economy only to be bailed out at the expense of the 99% who were blameless for the wreck. In London an encampment of mainly young people has established itself on the space in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral after being denied access to Paternoster Square, home of the London Stock Exchange. Their banner proclaims “Capitalism is Crisis.” Like the OWS they plan to be there for the long term and they are gathering support daily. The most striking characteristic of these occupations is the diversity of their membership. Some of the more jaded commentary, from both left and right, sees this as a weakness. Those fundamentally hostile to the protesters dismiss them as incoherent, juvenile hippies, incapable of articulating their purposes beyond sweeping generalizations. Some of the more sectarian sections of the left lament the lack of any programme or clear socialist direction and probably feel somewhat aggrieved that they have failed to assert their “leadership” of the movement.

For the time being at least, such objections should be ignored. As with their precursors, the “UK Uncut” movement, the energy and activism of the protesters should be welcomed and applauded. They have tapped the deep well of anger and indignation rising amongst wide sections of the population at what is happening in society. Since 2008 the overriding mood in Britain has been one of cynicism about “politics” and contempt for most parliamentary politicians and bankers. Until the cuts started to bite this year, bringing with them rising food prices, rising unemployment and rapidly declining public services, this cynicism and discontent did not translate into support for active opposition. Now things are beginning to change. As in the United States the political establishment cannot afford to dismiss these protests. The ranting of a Russ Limbaugh who applauds the ravings of the Tea Partygoers but condemns the OWS activists as “anti-American”, has no equivalent on the right here. So far the more discreet British conservatism has remained quiet, if disdainful. But that has not been the reaction of the wider public where sympathy for the protesters is widespread and apparently growing. This is hardly surprising given the state of Britain and the wider world. Let’s consider for a moment some of the things that are causing concern and impacting painfully on the lives, not only of the working class, but also, increasingly, of what Ed Miliband has termed “the hard pressed Middle” – the middle classes. People read the newspapers or follow the news on television. They have some notion of what is happening world-wide.

The economic crisis here is severe. The “austerity programme” has failed. The economy is flatlining, unemployment has topped 2.5 million, with youth unemployment over 1 million. Inflation is presently running at over 5%. Rising food and fuel prices are biting harder by the week. It is now public knowledge that many low income working families, including many who consider themselves middle class, cannot make ends meet and are increasingly dependent on food hand-outs. Young professionals cannot afford mortgages to start buying their own homes, in a society that was supposed to have become a “property owning democracy”. Decent private rented accommodation is too expensive for even those with salaries above £35.000. For young workers and unemployed youth faced with a shrinking social housing stock, the situation is dire and the future looks hopeless. Faced with this situation the deliberations of government ministers usually give the impression that they live on a different planet.

The crisis in the Eurozone goes from bad (which is very bad) to even worse. At the time of writing (22 October) yet another of the interminable round of meetings by EU finance ministers is in progress (perhaps not the right word) to deal, yet again!, with the debt crisis. Another (final) EU summit has been scheduled for next Wednesday. They have a few days to conclude an agreement that requires them to recapitalize about 70 of Europe’s so-called systemic banks to the tune of 90 billion euros to help them withstand exposure to “debt defaults.” They also need to persuade the main banks and insurers exposed to Greek debt to take a 60% “haircut” (write off of the debt), when just a few weeks ago these same investors were balking at 20%. The big issue though is how they propose to increase the funds available to the European Finance Stability Facility (EFSF) from the present level of 400 billion euros, to 2 trillion euros. How are they going to turn one euro into five? As far as it is possible to tell, no-one seems to know. In a deep hole, the only message that gets through to them is ‘keep on digging.’ Keynes’s advice that if you want to get out of a recession you don’t impose austerity measures that increase unemployment, destroy consumer spending and close down businesses, is one that was rejected long ago by the enthusiasts for neo-liberal capitalism. They are in no mood to listen to reason now.

But, as Naomi Klein has made clear, the Hayekian/Friedmanite school of neo-liberalism still bestrides the global stage. The financial wizards who have presided over the worst crisis since the Great Depression and are now driving headlong towards the precipice, do not, to use Tony Blair’s phrase, have a reverse gear. They will use the crisis to try to implement the Shock Doctrine world-wide. It needs to be said loud and clear, that we have reached a point where we face the prospect of global disaster. Either the 1% will prevail or the 99% will stop them. Should the multi-billionaire minority of corporate predators impose their will, it will amount to a final victory for a neo-liberal capitalism that will reduce the globe to a pleasure park for the super-rich and a squalid wasteland for the rest of us. The OWS protesters and their growing army of supporters worldwide are right. They are the core of the resistance movement that will go from strength to strength. We will be belittled and dismissed as irrelevant for a time by those who are either part of, or in hock to, the 1%. But the bankruptcy of a system that is clearly collapsing under the weight of its internal contradictions is now clear for all but the willfully blind to see.

The banner raised by the London occupation reads “Capitalism IS Crisis.” Before 2008 this would have resonated with only a tiny minority of committed leftists. Now it provides food for serious thought to all whose lives are adversely affected by the crisis. Prior to this crisis the term “capitalism” was rarely used in the mainstream media. It was hardly ever used by those who operated the system and whose interests it served. They talked only of “democracy” and the “free world” and the “free market” – all these terms were interchangeable. This was the only way, the best of all possible worlds. There was no alternative to it. It operated as near to perfectly as it was possible to get. As Gordon Brown constantly told us and as the financiers of the City of London nodded in approval, there would be “no more boom and bust.”

But now things have changed. The emerging global resistance is gaining ever wider support, uniting the burgeoning new movement of youthful activists with a rejuvenated labour and trade union movement. The OWS and its kindred spirits world-wide have seen through the obfuscation of the propagandists of corporate power. The financial crisis denotes the systemic break-down of global finance capitalism. The power elites in whose interests that system operates will not be able to fix it. If we are to avoid global economic catastrophe and irreversible environmental despoliation, there has to be an alternative that transfers power from the 1% to the 99%. That is, a form of social organization fit for human beings. In addressing the movement dedicated to achieving this goal, Naomi Klein concluded her address to the OWS activists with these words: “Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is the most important thing in the world. Because it is. It really is.”

Why and How You Can Play a Role in Supporting Reason and a Secular America

Despite campaign promises to the contrary, President Obama has failed to end religious discrimination by religious groups. Church groups funded with "faith-based" tax dollars discriminate in hiring for their unconstitutional programs. We might have expected such behavior (and funding) if Republicans ran the executive branch but who on the Democratic/Independent side expected not just a continuation but an expansion of such endeavors? The faith-based (meaning without evidence) funding efforts are an egregious violation of the establishment clause. It's a big disappointment - even worse than having to listen to Rick Warren at the inauguration or the president himself end every speech with his ritual "and God bless the United States of America" - year, sure thing). There really isn't much we can do about it because no secularist could shift allegiance to the Republicans! Things would be voluminously worse under God's Own Party, the GOP.

There are other, related church/state concerns. One is that women must not be denied access to preventative health care services (contraceptives, abortion, etc.). This is a concern as the new health care law takes effect owing to the discriminatory religious beliefs of theistic employer institutions. Another concern is the need to review IRS regulations that exempt a parsonage from taxation. Government has no business granting special privileges to religion. Doing so, as leaders of the Secular Coalition for America recently pointed out, forces secular Americans to underwrite the endorsement of superstition and dogma with our tax dollars.

We are at a time in this nation's history when candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination attend rallies of the faithful and say crazy things to suck up to them. Last week, at the preposterously named Values Voter Summit (as opposed to what - the Amoral Voter Summit?) in Washington, DC., the candidates competed to appear holier than thou AND each other. It was a national embarrassment - and dismaying to anyone who values reason, let along actual vales of human decency.

All who cherish a secular Republic should consider making their voices heard, in some forum, somewhere. Everyone has outlets, even if only via communicates with friends and family members. However, it's even better if you also send a few messages via social networks.

To quote the clarion call of the Secular Coalition:

We know that things aren't going to change overnight. It is going to take many more long days spent on the Hill, and countless more emails, phone calls, and visits from our supporters before politicians get the message: We will not sit idly by while our tax dollars subsidize religious discrimination, proselytizing, and politicking from the pulpit. You have already done so much, but we still need your help. We need to you get the word out. If you aren't already, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure that your family and friends know the facts about these important issues and that no one can afford to sit on the sidelines. Write letters to the editor, call your members of Congress, and make sure that your voice is being heard...We have to remind Congress that forcing beliefs on others is not religious freedom. We can make a difference in the lives of all Americans by keeping our government secular. We have the facts, reason, and a vibrant community of supporters on our side. If we continue to speak out and make our voices heard, we will win this fight.

If you want to go all the way, learn more about and consider attending the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. Set for March 24, 2012, from 10:00AM – 4:00PM at the Washington Mall, the Reason Rally is designed to unify, energize and embolden secular people nationwide, while dispelling the negative opinions held by so much of American society. And, most important, everyone can have a good time supporting a great cause - freedom from religion and the injustice of having to support it. Rally features will include music, comedy, enlightening speakers and, best of all, it will be entirely free.