The Best and the Brightest: Conventionally Written History

 

The Best and the Brightest: Conventionally Written History

Peter Schultz

 

            I am re-reading David Halberstam’s book, The Best and the Brightest, and just wanted to comment on its conventionality.

 

            Halberstam writes of “the China tragedy unfold[ing].” [p. 111] But why is the Chinese revolution to be seen as a “tragedy?” He never says, apparently assuming that this description is just common sense, is accurate and irrefutable. But contained in those words are all the flaws of US policy both regarding China and Vietnam, in fact, regarding all of Asia in the aftermath of World War II. Keeping nations, not “losing” nations to communism, would prevent “tragedies,” regardless of whether people living in those nations viewed the revolutions therein as tragic. They might even have seen those revolutions as Americans view their own revolution, as vast improvements over the corrupt regimes they replaced. As General Giap, commander in chief of the Vietnamese military fighting the US said in response to Robert McNamara’s statement that the Vietnam War was a tragedy: “It may have been a tragedy for the US because it was an imperialistic war, but it wasn’t a tragedy for the Vietnamese because it was a war of national liberation and unification.”

 

            Or consider Halberstam’s words, again written without apparently needing any justification, “the fall of China.” [p. 120] Why did its revolution constitute China’s “fall?” Fall from what? Fall to where? Halberstam never says but we can assume that this fall was like Adam and Eve’s fall, which led to their exiting the Garden of Eden. And what was that garden from which the Chinese fell? Well, it had to be the American empire or the American sphere of influence. The Chinese had committed the sin of turning against the American elites and their plans to remake China in the image of the United States.

 

            Throughout Halberstam’s account are such expressions that reveal his conventionality. At another point, he wrote that “US governments [found] themselves prisoners of that rhetoric,” of anti-Communist rhetoric. But it is clear even from Halberstam’s account that US elites weren’t “prisoners” of such rhetoric; they were producers of such rhetoric. They embraced such rhetoric because it served their purposes; for example, in Eisenhower’s inaugural address in 1953 when he said that “the French soldier in Indochina and the American soldier in Korea were fighting the same thing.” [p. 120] And by pre-arrangement, Senator Lyndon Johnson asked Dean Acheson whether he could “comment … where our allies are helping us elsewhere? I mean Indochina.” And Acheson responded: “That is an excellent point. The French have been fighting that battle since World War II.” [p. 120] So, Acheson, who once thought the French war in Vietnam was a colonial war, embraced the rhetoric of anti-communism. If he was a prisoner of such rhetoric, Acheson had incarcerated himself, and the United States, voluntarily.

Biden v. Trump: WTF?

Biden v. Trump: WTF?

Peter Schultz

            Given that both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign are hollow, are empty of almost any substance, I feel compelled to ask: What’s really going on? Is there anything going on at all?

            Whatever it is, it can’t have anything to do with partisan politics because the candidates agree about the major issues. To wit: Both want to keep or make America great, meaning that the both support US imperialism generally and the overthrow of governments not to their liking specifically. [Venezuela and Syria] They both support further distribution of the wealth to the wealthy via tax policies and humongous “defense” budgets. Both oppose “Medicare For All” and both want to “reform” policies of mass incarceration, “reforms” that are meant not undermine but to fortify mass incarceration. And the list goes on.

            So what is all the “fire and brimstone” generated by the campaigns about? Russia? China? Hardly, because despite superficial differences, both campaigns agree that the US must confront both nations. Moreover, both parties want Assange dealt with harshly, along with Snowden if that could be arranged.

            It all seems so odd.  So much to do about so little – and trying to make that little look like a lot. So something is afoot while being disguised as something else. What could it be?

            While I am pretty sure I don’t’ know, I am sure that this has happened before and even with some frequency. I felt this way in 2000 when I would joke that the choice was between “Bore and Gush,” as if it were difficult to tell distinguish between Bush and Gore. Although I didn’t feel this way at the time, I have come to see the Bush v. Clinton election in 1992 the same way. Regarding that election, I feel it’s a good bet Bush threw the election to Clinton in order to protect himself and his kind of politics from being exposed and undermined as illegitimate in a constitutional republic insofar as it was about to become clear that as Vice President, Bush was up to his eyeballs in Iran-Contra and that Iran-Contra was about much more than its public billing allowed. Reagan and Bush had been dealing with, allying with jihadists and other radicals, often Islamic, in order to help fund and maintain US imperialism. And this had to be hidden, even at the cost of George Bush, Sr., taking a dive. His loss also allowed him to pardon without consequence those who could have blown the whistle on his and Reagan’s policy of relying on extremists, something Caspar Weinberger threatened to do.

            Could the same game being played now? That is, could it be that the US has found it still necessary to deal with jihadists as allies, as partners in order to successfully maintain and fortify its imperialistic world order? Doesn’t the destruction of Libya suggest or even confirm this? And, of course, all the fire and brimstone surrounding Hillary’s role in that destruction conceals what was actually going on, does it not? Blaming Hillary hid the more important issue of whether our elites should be in bed with jihadist extremists. How else explain the situation in Syria, where the US openly relies on jihadists – labeled “moderates” of course – to accomplish its goals there, and to maintain US dominance? What of US support of alleged “democrats” in Venezuela, for example, “democrats” that are more accurately described as right-wing extremists? And of course the US is rather openly siding with right-wing extremists in Ukraine and Belarus. Again, the uproar about Trump’s allegedly threatening phone calls to some in Ukraine served to hide what is actually going on, viz., the necessity for US elites to rely on, to ally with extremists to maintain and fortify the American imperialistic world order. And so while mocking Trump, the Democrats are not mocking his appeals to greatness, while the fact that this greatness now requires relying on extremists goes unacknowledged.

            As Barry Goldwater once said: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Of course, it remains a question – largely unasked now – whether extremism can ever protect or maintain liberty. Several revolutions suggest rather strongly that the answer to that question is “No.” And recall, if you would, that even the American Revolution did not lead to liberty for several million human beings, both black and native. It could be, as I suspected long ago, that Goldwater was wrong. And this could prove quite important insofar as our elites are embracing extremism to maintain the American empire. They may maintain that empire but they will sacrifice liberty in the process.

Law and Order: The Politics of Injustice

Law and Order: The Politics of Injustice

Peter Schultz

            Question: Why are Biden and Trump responding similarly to the protests in US cities? Answer: Their responses are similar because neither one is primarily concerned with justice, with the justice of protesters grievances. And when there isn’t a concern with justice, the only policy remaining is “law and order,” a policy that masks the accepted irrelevance of justice.

            This is, actually, a phenomenon that elites in the US replicate over and over. It is one of the reasons that those elites may be called, accurately, “power brokers.” They deal in power, not justice. And “law and order” is essentially and deeply a power play. Again and again, when protests and disruptions against injustices occur in the US, the elites, the power brokers’ embrace “law and order.” So, while sympathizing with the protesters’ grievances, former President Obama said: “Violence is never justified,” a sentiment repeated by Biden. But such a sentiment only makes sense when the protester’s appeals to justice are ignored or considered irrelevant. As anyone who thinks about human history for thirty seconds realizes, violence in the face of injustice is often justified.

            This is, however, a scenario that US elites, both “left” and “right,” don’t want to consider. And they don’t want to consider it because once they do, they would be forced to admit that the prevailing order is marred by, perhaps even based on injustice. In other words, elites avoid, even suppress questions of justice in order to protect the status quo and the power and the authority the status quo confers on them. To question the status quo threatens the current elites, while “law and order” does not. In fact, “law and order” reinforces, fortifies those elites and their power, their authority.

            Bottom line: Embedded in the American political order is a deep antipathy toward justice. Concerns with justice are ignored, hidden, even suppressed in order to reinforce, fortify the reigning political order, thereby disguising the fact that that order is permeated with injustice. And when this fact threatens to become visible, the reigning elites must double-down on “law and order;” that is, double-down on their injustices.

            As Niccolo Machiavelli taught us long ago, those who wish to succeed in this world “must learn to be able not to be good.” Whatever justice exists in this world rests on injustice or, as Machiavelli also put it, that justice rests on “inhuman cruelty.” Or as a more recent commentator put it, that justice rests on “the management of savagery.”