US Politics: Delusional Incompetence

 

US Politics: Delusional Incompetence

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following is from David Halberstam’s book The Best and the Brightest, wherein it is clear that the best and the brightest Americans failed in Vietnam.

 

“As in China, it was a modern army against a feudal one, though it was not perceived by Western eyes, particularly Western military eyes, which saw the ARVN was well equipped, with radios, airplanes, artillery and fighter planes, and that the Vietcong had virtually nothing, except light artillery pieces. Western observers believed the reverse, believed that the ARVN was a legitimate and real army, and that the Vietcong, more often than not wearing black pajamas, not even uniformed, were the fake army, the unreal one – why, they did not even have a chain of command. It was ironic; the United States had created an army in its own image, an army which existed primarily on paper, and which was linked to U.S. aims and ambitions and no way reflected its own society. We believed in the army, the South Vietnamese did not…. [There was an] illusion about a dynamic new leadership that would persist relentlessly through the years….”  [167]

 

                  Americans were delusionally incompetent, blinded by their power and deluded by it. Losing in Vietnam was “unthinkable” for Americans and, so, after they lost, that loss had to be disappeared. Amazingly, Nixon’s Peace with Honor was accepted as a kind of victory, even after the “North” Vietnamese took over and renamed Saigon “Ho Chi Minh City.”

Random Thoughts: The Politics of Conspiracies

Random Thoughts: The Politics of Conspiracies

Peter Schultz

 

                  Iran-Contra: Meese requested an independent prosecutor “to avoid even the appearance of a cover-up.” This was ironic insofar as such an appointment facilitated the on-going cover-up by transforming political issues - political incompetence and ignorance - into legal issues, issues of alleged criminality. The focus became alleged illicit behavior, not incompetent, ignorant political conduct (or imperialistic conduct). Politically delusional/imperialistic officials were transformed into possible criminals. And then, for the most part, exonerated of any indictable criminality, most importantly Reagan, Bush, Shultz, and Weinberger. No criminals, no incompetent imperialists here! It’s all good!

[Which are worse, competent or incompetent imperialists? Just wondering. Ironically, there is an argument in favor of political and governmental incompetence. 🤪✌️] 

 

Random Thoughts #2

                  Nir’s and Reed’s and Cummings conspiracy theories regarding Iran-Contra assessed. These speculations have interesting political consequences, viz., obscuring, even disappearing two prominent characteristics of American politics and politics in general, incompetence and ignorance. 

 

Hasenfus shot down and numerous coincidences are visible. See below. Conclusion: “No, sir, it’s all too convenient.” Maybe but so too are these conspiracy theories. Even more convenient than the alternatives. 

 

(1) conspiracy theories cover up incompetence, which was by and large ignored during the Iran-Contra investigations. Even the criminality theme makes incompetence disappear. Watergate, for example: Nixon wasn’t incompetent but was a wily, deceitful, manipulating criminal and, hence, very dangerous. Iran-Contra: North wasn’t an incompetent but a super patriot who, like many other super patriots, got carried away by his virtue, his patriotism in attempts to serve Ronald Reagan loyally, rescue hostages, and re-establish Iran as an ally of the US and the West. He was, potentially, a hero, which is often how Marines are seen. Or, for others, those against him, he was a criminal, a bad person, but not an incompetent, ignorant person. And, of course, it is almost impossible for Americans to think, accept that a lt. col. in the USMC was an incompetent screw-up. No? 

 

Conspiracy theories help fortify the idea that our elites, military and political, aren’t screw-ups or delusional. 

 

(2) Such theories make politics seem rational, by and large. That is, not crazy, not a madhouse, not full of sound and fury signifying nothing. So they make nihilism disappear; they make the nihilism question disappear or the nihilistic phenomenon look like the manifestation of psychological dis-ease. Nihilism is not intrinsic to the political. Insofar as this is not the case, then it may be said that such theories foster ignorance of a very high order about the political. 

 

(3) Such theories detract from another ignored theme of the Iran-Contra investigations: the capabilities of the Sandinistas, the Iranians, the Israelis, and Hezbollah and other terrorists. Kidnapping, especially kidnapping CIA agents, like IEDs, like 9/11, like caves, like bikes (in Vietnam) illustrate intelligence, savvy, and calculation of relatively high orders. Hence, the fact that the US got outplayed in Iran and Nicaragua is covered up. Reagan, Bush, Shultz, Weinberger, North, Poindexter, McFarlane, Meese, even leaders in the US Congress all got outplayed, just as the US got outplayed in Oklahoma City and 9/11. 

 

Covering up these phenomena cover up the role ignorance played and plays in politics. Ignorance not only of one’s enemies but also ignorance of the political itself. Power, even great, unrivaled power is not sufficient to dominate, to emerge victorious in the political realm. And insofar as that goes, it also means that the pursuit of dominance, of hegemony is bound to fail and is bound to lead to inhuman cruelty. Imperialism is not only ultimately futile; it is also ultimately inhuman. This is ignorance of a very high order, and seems to be an ignorance that pervades the political realm. 

 

(4) the Office of the Independent Prosecutor, with its focus on criminality has the same implications and consequences by turning political phenomena into legal phenomena, which makes political delusion disappear and then reappear as criminality. But which is more significant, political delusions or crimes, insanity or venality? The answer seems pretty obvious, no? 

 

Does this mean there are no conspiracies? Absolutely not. There are, all over the place. But care needs be taken so they don’t blind us to the incompetence and ignorance that characterize the political. NB: Reed and Cumming and NIr present to us what can only be described as a movie, Hollywood version of what was going on, with Reagan the bad guy, and Bush as the good guy who was trying to unseat the bad guy to re-establish or fortify a status quo that was, before Reagan became president, quite sound and decent. And, of course, being from Yale and with an American Yankee pedigree, Bush could be trusted to right wrongs and get America back on track again. Not quite “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” but enough like it to make me smile. Ironically though:

 

• "'Except something has gone wrong.  It's been over nine months since the shootdown, and we now feel that Reagan has somehow miraculously been able to survive.  I was able to talk to North early on, and apparently, right after the incident, your attorney general and the secretary of state seized important documents and were able to contain the scandal by eliminating most of the damaging evidence.  Like I say, it’s been a miracle, but so far Reagan appears to have fought off the coup'" (Reed & Cummings 360-361).
•  

Apparently, the political realm is a madhouse after all! 

 

 

Thoughts on George H. W. Bush and Extremism

 

Thoughts on George H. W. Bush and Extremism

Peter Schultz

 

                  In his book, Firewall, Lawrence E. Walsh quotes Anthony Lewis’s comments on George H. W. Bush regarding his lies about his involvement in Iran-Contra, to wit:

 

“Surely there is a level of brazen falsehood that they should be ashamed to breach.” [459]

 

                  So, ala’ Lewis, there are acceptable falsehoods politicians may tell and not be ashamed. Let’s say, “Yes, that’s true.” But what does it teach us about politics and politicians?” Well, that’s easy: falsehoods, up to a certain point, are acceptable, maybe even beneficial or honorable. The noble lie, for example.

 

                  So, the debate as Lewis would frame it would be: Did Bush’s lies – because we know he lied – reach the level of being shameful? He, Bush, shouldn’t be criticized for lying; but he should be criticized for brazenly, shamefully lying.

 

                  Further, take note that the issue at stake – Should the United States have sold arms to recover hostages – has disappeared completely. Or: Are the lives of hostages worth selling some arms for? Or: is it wise to always not deal with terrorists? Even if that means torture and death for hostages?  Seems a bit extreme, does it not? It even seem to be an extremism like the extremism of the hostage-takers.

 

                  Is extremism, like lying, intrinsic to politics? Does affirming the political mean affirming extremism? It would be good to know.

The Uses and Limitations of Secrecy and Duplicity

 

The Uses and Limitations of Secrecy and Duplicity

Peter Schultz

 

                  James Rosen’s biography of John Mitchell, The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate illustrates that secrecy and duplicity are intrinsic to politics and that they are both useful and harmful. Rosen seems to think that it was secrecy and duplicity that brought Nixon down, without realizing that secrecy and duplicity are intrinsic to politics. To wit:

 

“The two [Nixon and Kissinger] had come full circle. Less than two weeks after learning of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spying – a ‘lesion’ Nixon admitted having created with his and Kissinger’s incessant back-channel plotting – the president had blithely resumed scheming with his national security advisor, whom he had … described as ‘not a good security risk,’ to use the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a back channel to circumvent the secretary of defense.” [179-80]

 

                  “Had Liddy forsaken the code of omerta, the testimony of Dean and Magruder against Mitchell would have crumbled.” [262]

 

                  “Mitchell harbored few illusions about Haig, whom he came to consider ‘a power grabber …  pleased to abandon Nixon to maintain his power base in Washington and the military.’  Shown the transcript of the Ehrlichman-Welander interrogation many years later, the former attorney general declared that had Nixon seen it, he would never have appointed Haig … as chief of staff. Had that happened, of course, historians would never have had to grapple … with …  questions about Haig’s conduct – and loyalties – in the latter stages of Watergate: the disclosure of Nixon’s taping system, the origins and discovery of the eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap, the pardon.

 

“Thus, by the time he died, Mitchell realized his burial of the Moorer-Radford scandal  –  undertaken to spare the nation a court martial involving the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to give Nixon a ‘whip hand’ over them  –  effectually sealed the president’s own fate. By allowing men he distrusted, and who distrusted him, to remain in place in the White House and at the Pentagon, Nixon ensured that the cultural secrecy and paranoia that infused his first term persisted until the Watergate scandal aborted his presidency.” [175-176]

 

Secrecy and duplicity permeated the Nixon administration but then they are intrinsic to politics, and they flourish in the political arena, even more so, apparently, than the likes of Nixon and Mitchell were aware. Mitchell may have harbored few illusions about Haig as “a power grabber,” but he did harbor illusions about the political. As Machiavelli might have counseled him, Mitchell needed to be dis-llusioned by learning that persons like Haig, who seem most committed to seeking the good, are actually seeking power and fame.  In that way then, Mitchell might have learned the lesson Machiavelli emphasized most heavily, viz., “to learn to be able not to be good.”

 

 

Our Problems

Peter Schultz

 

 

We Americans tend to personalize our problems or the causes of our problems. So, presently, many are committed to the idea that Trump is the cause of our problems. And there is no doubt that is partially correct. But our problems are also political, meaning traceable to the Constitution itself. 

 

The default position, so to speak, of politics is despotism. Politics tends towards despotism, toward repression, and toward war. That is politics “natural disposition,” as human history and our current state of affairs illustrates. Some Anti-Federalists thought of government and its politics as a mechanical screw that, once it was created, would turn down, slowly but steadily repressing the people. The people could resist but they could not reverse the downward direction of the political screw. With government and politics, we humans are always being screwed! 

 

Most Federalists rejected this account of government and politics, seeing government and politics as the engine of progress. So, they created a powerful government that would appeal, would draw in the ambitious, those who loved fame, which Hamilton called the leading passion of the noblest minds. Get the ambitious, the lovers of fame into your government, allow them to control your politics and impressive public projects intended to secure the common good would follow, as night follows day. Such projects would even be seen as normal, and as required if a person wanted to become a great president sitting atop a great nation. 

 

But if the default position of politics is despotism, then the most prominent political actors would prove to be drawn to despotism, as Lincoln pointed out in his address on “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.” If the default position of politics is despotism, then it is intrinsically dangerous to entrust anyone with a great deal of power or to try to draw into your government those who love fame and seek to prove they deserve it. Benjamin Franklin pointed this out during the constitutional convention when he proposed not paying presidents because creating an office that appealed to the avaricious and the ambitious would lead to endless political battles and the peaceful would not seek such offices, would not be part of the political or governmental scene. Avarice and ambition combined are, Franklin implied, political nitro glycerin. Besides, as Lincoln pointed out in his “Perpetuation” address, fame can be harvested by freeing slaves or enslaving freemen. So when fame, which is a kind of immortality, is the goal, justice and even humanity become less attractive and, perhaps, tend to disappear from the political scene. Something which seems all-too-evident currently. 

 

Trump is not a human being who should be respected. Far from it. But he is playing in an arena, the political arena, that gives him, so to speak, home field advantage. In that arena, respectability is of very limited value, as has been shown by more than a few presidents and other politicians. And, as some Anti-Federalists realized, there is little that can be done to limit the repression, the violence Trump’s rule will cause. Decisions were made a long time ago and now there is only acceptance. [The Counselor] Or as Billy Pilgrim reminds us: So it goes. [Slaughterhouse Five] 

 

Comments on The Rule of Empires

 

Comments on The Rule of Empires

Peter Schultz

 

                  Timothy H. Parsons has written an excellent book entitled The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fail.

 

                  In his concluding chapter, Parsons comments on George Bush’s invasion of Iraq as part of his project to liberate Iraq by deposing Saddam Hussein and making Iraq democratic. Referring to critics of Bush, Parson’s wrote:

 

                  “The critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom often overlook [certain] realities. To be sure, scholars of empire such as Nicholas Dirks did their part by linking theorists, politicians, and military contractors that profited from the invasion of Iraq with the conquistadors, nabobs, and other specialist groups behind earlier imperial projects…. [Moreover], most opponents of President Bush’s preemptive war made the mistake of equating empire and imperialism solely with the unjust use of hard power…. Empires are indeed immoral, but it would have been more convincing to argue against the Iraq invasion by using historical precedents to show why it was doomed to fail. Instead, the Bush administration’s leftist critics assumed that empire was still practical; they just differed from the neoconservatives and imperial apologists in branding it a sin.” [426-27]

 

                  Parson’s view is that “it is simply no longer feasible to reorder another society through military force alone…. The central mistake running through much of the debate over the Iraqi occupation was the assumption that imperial methods were still effective and could be put to legitimate uses. The Bush administration … planners made the fundamental mistake of believing their own legitimizing rhetoric.” [427]

 

                  But it should be emphasized that the failure of empires or of imperialism is not merely a historical phenomenon. It is also a political phenomenon.  Empires and other imperialistic projects destroy themselves. They are, for various reasons, unmaintainable, even futile. And one of the reasons even the leftist critics of Bush’s imperial project assume that empire is practical is because they are still “believers;” that is, they don’t realize that ultimately, like empires, politics is futile. Failure is intrinsic to the political. Or as Socrates put it: Only when philosophers rule of rulers become philosophers will humankind be cured of its ills. And those, like George Bush, who think that they have a moral obligation to right the world’s wrongs will repeatedly subject the world to savagery, death, and destruction.

Connections: JFK, Vietnam, and the British Empire

 

Connections: JFK, Vietnam, and the British Empire

Peter Schultz

 

                  JFK said he would pull out of Vietnam after winning the 1964 presidential election. This means, among other things, that JFK was willing to wage war in Nam – and defend waging it – in order to win the 1964 election. Winning the election was more important than ending (or losing) the war. Winning re-election was more important than doing justice or ending the injustice of the war.

 

                  JFK did not take on the injustice of the war; that is, he did not take on American imperialism. He was, essentially, an imperialist.

 

                  JFK’s version of success: ending the Vietnam War without undermining American imperialism, dominance, hegemony. The war was “a mistake,” but American imperialism, hegemony was not.

 

                  What follows once you embrace imperialism/ hegemony? Don’t you end up with war(s)? Don’t you end up with Kenya, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Ukraine, and Iraq?

 

                  Plus, you end up justifying imperialism. That is, you cannot see the injustice of empire, of imperialism. You can only see its justice, despite the appearance of great injustices like those committed by the British in Kenya and Malaysia or those committed by the United States in Vietnam. As a result, there is no way out.

 

                  Caroline Elkins’ title for her excellent history of the British Empire, Legacy of Violence, is misleading. It should have been “Legacy of Imperialism” because imperialism was/is the root issue, not violence. General Giap was correct: (1) Robert McNamara was an imperialist and (2) the Vietnam war occurred because he – and the United States – was imperialist. To catalogue “the mistakes” that allegedly led to the war obfuscates, “disappears” the root phenomenon, imperialism. McNamara’s alleged realism blinded him – and us – to reality.

Thoughts on Elkins "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire"

 

Thoughts on Elkins’ Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

Peter Schultz

 

Here are some thoughts that arose as I was reading Caroline Elkins very fine history of the British Empire, mainly pertaining to understanding the political.

 

#1

Which more accurately describes the political: Elkins’ “systematized violence” or “pathological violence?” The former carries with it justifications: it’s ordered violence created by rational persons and bureaucratized. The latter calls it what it actually is, “sickness.” 

Elkins tends to rationalize the Mau Mau: “It was a rational response of rural people seeking to understand the enormous socioeconomic and political changes taking place…while attempting to respond collectively to new and unjust realities.” (547) 
Sounds like the Kikuyu would be open to and would profit from seminars on their situation! 

Politics, given its injustices, produces rage; and did so both in the Brits in Kenya and in the Kikuyu. Both sides responded pathologically, which is to say they responded politically. The result: pathological violence. 

“Going postal:” pathological violence creating more pathological violence. Is telling people that they have a constitutionally guaranteed right to weapons a good idea? Kirk’s fate might be taken to indicate it isn’t. Oh, there’s that irony again!  

 

#2

What Elkins labels “legalized lawlessness” is more accurately called “pathological lawlessness.” This is similar to her “systematized violence,” which I think should be labeled “pathological violence.” Elkins has trouble getting to the point of recognizing that the political is the arena of the pathological. But I believe it is this recognition that is the gateway, so to speak, to political philosophy. The absence of this recognition is what characterizes “believers,” those who affirm the political like Carl Schmidt or Alexander Hamilton, et. al. The absence of this recognition is what distinguishes political thought from political philosophy. 

Insofar as the political is the arena of the pathological, is it wise to guarantee that people have a constitutional right to weaponize? Is it wise, generally, to militarize such an arena? And Aristotle’s description of the best location for a polis as one that requires only a minimal amount of militarization is a reflection that he too understood the political as pathologically violent and lawless, intrinsically so. ( Austen’s Wickham is a reflection that she understood this as well., as well as her joke about anal sex among the navy’s “rear admirals!”) 

Just sayin’. 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

Peter Schultz

 

 

Oh, but it is normal; it's the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means. 

 

Remember 1963? 1968? Remember the Bay of Pigs, JFK/Dallas, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, Chicago 1968, Kent State, Jackson State, George Wallace, Fred Hampton, My Lai, the Phoenix program, Watergate, Reagan shot, Ford shot at, 9/11, the War on Terror, ”MIssion Accomplished,” 20+ years in Afghanistan, 1/6? 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/opinion/trump-senate-democrats-shutdown.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daydream Believers

 

Daydream Believers

Peter Schultz

 

                  A question occurred to me as I was reading Fred Kaplan’s very good book, Daydream Believers, where he was critiquing George W. Bush’s understanding of the world. Bush was not concerned about creating vacuums in other nations because “the natural forces of freedom would fill” the vacuum. “Gaza would become a democracy almost of its own accord.” [p. 164]

 

                  My question was: Are there vacuums politically speaking? Well, no, because we humans are, as Aristotle argued, “political animals.” Hence, not only is it necessary to cultivate democracies, or any other political order, it is a cultivation that requires some sophistication, to say the least. Not only can existence be arranged; it must be arranged and in that task politics is architectonic.  

 

                  Moreover, because we humans are not only political animals but while history might bend toward justice, politics, the political, bends toward extremism. Extremism is intrinsic to politics, to all regimes, and therefore constitutes the abiding issue for human societies, even for those labeled “civilized.” Hence, T.E. Lawrence’s take on daydream believers:

 

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” [Seven Pillars of Wisdom]

Politics and Political Language

 

Politics and Political Language

Peter Schultz

 

 

• "'Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.  One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase...into the dustbin where it belongs'" (Elkins 431).

 

Politics and its language make lies seem truthful and murder respectable. So, politicians who are killing children and other civilians speak of “collateral damage,” as if that justifies the death, the incineration of the innocent for reasons, allegedly, of national security. It is interesting and not often enough commented upon that politics turns decent, law-abiding humans into killers, as in one case that I know of, turning a Boy Scout into a Vietnamese-killing Marine. It turns out that the “distance” that separates a Boy Scout from a killer is no further than a challenge to “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” Quite a few answered that question by signing up to kill Vietnamese.

 

I am reading a book entitled A Nation Diagnosed: Trump Derangement Syndrome and the Politics of Losing Our Minds, by Wade T. Reason. Reason’s analysis of TDS leads him to conclude that “It [has] become a feature of political life – not a bug.” But what Reason fails to emphasize enough is that TDS is merely a feature of political life; it is not an anomaly, and it is not unique the era of Trump. TDS is just a way of disguising the character of normal politics, that the political arena is composed of allies and enemies, and that enemies are always seen as “deranged.”

 

As a reflection of this, the left, the resisters also engage in TDS, making Trump into an existential enemy. As a comedian said: “We didn’t want to beat Trump. We needed him.” Exactly. Both the Trumpers and the resisters need enemies, especially existential enemies, just as the US and the USSR needed existential enemies after WW II. So, the Trump Derangement Syndrome was not derangement at all. It was just a label given to what is normal politics. Or, perhaps, TDS was and is derangement, meaning that politicians are, normally, deranged, sick, or narcissistic. So, when Reason says that TDS “normalizes the abnormal,” the implication is that politics, normal politics, “normalizes the abnormal.” For example, the bombings of Nagasaki and Dresden, the Holocaust, the Vietnam war, the British repression in Kenya, 9/11, Bush’s worldwide War on Terror, 1/6.

 

As Reason points out, “Trump didn’t divide America – he reflected it.” “The culture wars didn’t begin with Trump. Neither did political polarization, racial tension, class resentment, or distrust of the media.” As Ta-Nehist Coates put it: “Donald Trump is a symptom, not the cause, A mirror, not a mastermind.” In other words, Trump is merely a reflection of politics as it exists in the United States these days. “We weren’t one country waiting for unity. We were two countries sharing a flag. [Trump] stopped pretending otherwise.”

 

Politicians and Poets

 

Politicians and Poets

Peter Schultz

 

 

Politicians seek to conquer, while poets seek to cultivate. Politicians militarize, while poets humanize. Politicians moralize, while poets philosophize. 

Politicians and poets live in different worlds or live in the world differently. The choice is yours. 

Another Crazy Thought

 

Another Crazy Thought

Peter Schultz

 

 

I recently contrasted the madhouse paradigm with the slaughterhouse paradigm. But what if they are actually joined together? Those who fail to recognize the madhouse that is politics end up creating slaughterhouses in their attempts to bring order into the madhouse. This is something the Realists, the Power Brokers, the Masters of the Universe, don’t understand. 

(And this was why Kesey disowned the movie version of his book “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest:” the movie humanized the Big Nurse. The book did not.) 

Trump’s moves in DC will become increasingly oppressive as he attempts to bring order to the madhouse of DC life. 

A significant delusion: that life is intrinsically orderly or that order is “the default” setting for humans and so it’s possible, even somewhat easy, to “restore” order. Not so much. All order is imposed, so all order(s) is/are precarious, intrinsically so.  Beware the slaughterhouses.

The Love of Fame

The Love of Fame

Peter Schultz

 

Hamilton wrote in the Federalist about “The love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds….” What if Hamilton was wrong and the love of fame is not always an indication, a characteristic of a noble mind? What if the love of fame is characteristic of narcissistic minds, of those who think of themselves as great, as visionaries, ala’ Napoleon, Churchill, T. Roosevelt, W. Wilson, George W. Bush? 

 

And then what is to ensure that those “great projects” that Hamilton tells us the lovers of fame undertake will be as concerned with the common good as with satisfying their passion, the lust for fame? Recall Lincoln: the really great ones would enslave freemen or free slaves in order to satisfy their love of fame, their desire for “immortality.” And after all, the founders reconciled themselves to slavery in order to gain their fame. And as Walter Karp reminds us, Woodrow Wilson took the US into WW I, thereby helping to destroy the republic, in order to claim the fame of waging the war to end all wars. Even President McKinley succumbed to the temptation to wage war in order to make America and himself great. 

 

Isn’t this what Franklin was warning the constitutional convention about in his remarks on not paying presidents? Ambition and avarice combined are political nitro glycerin, with the result that the presidency will not attract men of peace. And certainly, the lovers of fame seem to be attracted to war and war-like politics. Absent war can presidents achieve greatness, fame? Hence, the allure of war. 

 

In the end, we end up with Trump, who confirms that the love of fame is not only consistent with narcissism but even fortifies it. Trump’s narcissism has flourished in the presidency. And of course Trump lives amidst other narcissists, who are also seeking fame. is this what Madison meant when he wrote in the Federalist that ambition should be used to check ambition because relying on virtue is never sufficient? Narcissists checking narcissists. What could go wrong? 

 

People and Politics

 

People and Politics

Peter Schultz

 

People want answers and that’s what politicians and politics promise to provide. Regarding abortion, e.g., pro-life and pro-choice provide answers, clear, concise, easily defensible answers. 

Try an alternative: pro-love. Doesn’t provide answers but rather raises questions. And the answers to these questions aren’t clear, concise, or easily defensible. Hence, this alternative will never be viable politically.  

Questions make almost all people discontent. Almost all people want answers, clear, concise, easily defensible answers, answers they would die and even kill for. Ambivalence, however appropriate it is, is not a political or a moral virtue. Ambivalence implies that asking the right questions is more important than clear, concise, and easily defensible answers. 

[Academic postscript: This has helped me understand Aristotle’s Politics, which has the appearance of a mishmash, of parts obscure in themselves and that don’t seem to fit together. Maybe that is part of Aristotle’s teaching about politics: clear, concise, and easily defensible political answers are available, but those answers don’t reflect the character of the political, an arena where ambivalence is not only appropriate but beneficial. You may know the truth, but it won’t set you free. That’s the deal.] 

Operation Trump

 

Operation Trump

Peter Schultz

 

                  Trump is an almost perfect cover for a deeply corrupt political order, an order that exists and is arranged to benefit the few at the expense of the many. With Trump as president and as a leading political figure, that the real problem is a deeply corrupt political order disappears behind calls for Trump’s impeachment and his hyper conspiratorial view of politics and his rhetoric. In terms of hiding the thoroughly corrupted political order, the louder, the shriller the charges against Trump, the better.

 

                  For example, focusing on Trump, the fact that twice in the last few presidential elections, candidates who lost the popular vote won the presidency seems unimportant. That the people’s will was denied, in 2000 and again in 2016, is not deemed a defect in the reigning political order that needs fixing. Why should it be when Trump can be blamed for our failings and when, overall, that the few are favored over the many seems of marginal importance given the dangers created by Trump? That presidential elections favor the few, e.g., the wealthy few, over the many is obvious to pretty much everyone. But so long as Trump is center stage, such favoritism seems relatively unimportant.

 

                  As a result, the corruption, the rule of the few at the expense of the many, goes on unabated, serving and rewarding those who are profiting from this corruption. And those protesting Trump most loudly are, ironically, “co-conspirators” in helping to maintain our deeply corrupt political order.

The Problem of Civilization

 

The Problem of Civilization

Peter Schultz

 

                  In accounting for the savagery of the British Empire, Arnold Toynbee said that “There has been a ‘racialization’ of the division of those inside and those outside the civilized pale.” [Elkins, 180] While Toynbee’s assessment is not wrong, it obfuscates another, deeper problem, viz., the civilized pale itself. That problem reveals itself as hierarchy, in this case a hierarchy based on the British conviction of Britain’s superiority.

 

                  Hierarchy is civilization’s response to what is seen as chaos. In fact, politics may be described as navigating between chaos and hierarchy, with the civilized embracing hierarchy, a hierarchy that ultimately justifies imperialism, war, repression, despotism, and even inhumanity. In other words, whether racialized or not, civilization is problematic, at the very least. Hence, “the legacy of violence” of the British Empire, as Caroline Elkins calls her history of that empire. But it was not only a legacy of violence; it was also a legacy of savagery and inhumanity, both justified in the name of civilizing the Empire and the world.

 

                  However, civilization, hierarchy can be “beautified” via justice, friendship, caring, poetry, music, and love. That is, by embracing the erotic. This beautification does not, however, subvert hierarchy but it may be said to clothe it, to dress it up with grace. Because hierarchy is not subverted or overthrown, it remains strong, even predominant. Insofar as hierarchy remains unquestioned, imperialism, war, repression, despotism, and even inhumanity flourish, as happened in the British Empire. Triumphant nationalism is the soil in which imperialism, with its attendant features, takes root and thrives. Hierarchy bespeaks the onset and fortification of a military, despotic empire.

 

                  Regarding the other “extreme” of political life, the chaos can be beautified or seen as beautiful. There is beauty embedded in the chaos, the beauty of freedom, of adventure(s), of surprise, of mystery, of the magical, and of the inspirational. Again though, chaos, although containing beauty, is not subverted by the beautiful. Chaos persists, fortifying the appeal of hierarchy, of civilization, which seem necessary for survival. But “what if what you do to survive kills the things you love,” viz, the beautiful things, and you find your “God filled soul fill[ed] … with devils and dust?” [Springsteen, Devils and Dust]

 

                  Civilization is dangerous, however desirable or necessary it might seem. If you doubt that, just ask Socrates, Huck Finn, Billy Budd, Billy Pilgrim, Sheriff Bell, or the counselor.

The Duplicity of Leadership

 

The Duplicity of Leadership

Peter Schultz

 

                  The concept, heavily invested in, of “leadership” disguises the fact that leaders don’t share the aspirations of those they are leading. As a result, leadership leads to politics of duplicity, by which leaders seek to manipulate issues they, but not the people, embrace. LBJ, e.g., practiced duplicity when leading the nation into war in Vietnam, as did George W. Bush in leading the nation into invading and occupying Iraq after 9/11. Trump is doing the same thing as he leads the nation toward “greatness,” duplicitously inventing and fabricating crises that suit his ambitions and fortify “the swamp” he promised to drain.

 

                  But Trump is not an anomaly. He is just practicing the art of leadership as LBJ, George W. Bush, and others did. These practitioners are insecure, however, because they always have to fear the people will reject them and their aspirations and expose them as “cunning shits” or “empty suits.” Hence, the need to protest “state secrets,” the most important of which is our leaders’ duplicity.

 

                  Fabricating wars is an excellent, and hence a frequently chosen leadership option. William McKinley did it, Teddy Roosevelt recommended and did it, Woodrow Wilson did it in Mexico and US involvement in WW I, LBJ did it in Vietnam, Reagan did it in Nicaragua, Bush I did it in Panama and Iraq, Clinton did it in Iraq, Bush II did it in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama did it in Afghanistan, and Trump did it in Ukraine and Iran. Wars are relatively easy to fabricate and then to use to distract the people from domestic issues the elites dare not resolve, all the while instigating a rabid, flag-waving patriotism that is actually a kind of pacification.

 

                  Wars win “hearts and minds,” but only the hearts and minds of those who are attacking, not of those being attacked. Even in defeat or failure, those hearts and minds are won, as JFK learned after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Even an abysmal failure like the Vietnam War could be successfully described by Ronald Reagan as “a noble adventure.” Hence, wars are crucial to the art of leadership. In German, “leader” is “der Fuhrer,” who promises “Deutschland über alles!“ Hitler made Germany great, for a little while anyway. “Funny how falling feels like flying…. for a little while.” Leaders have discovered this and so have welcomed being honored, even immortalized in statuary and otherwise.

 

                  Alexander Hamilton wrote that the love of fame was the leading passion of the noblest minds. However, he failed to see that that passion was delusional and led, therefore, to duplicitous politics.

Politics and the Irrational

 

Politics and the Irrational

Peter Schultz

 

                  Banning care for the transgendered illustrates how politics privileges the irrational.

 

                  Opposition to “transgendering” is one thing, while opposition to providing or allowing care the transgendered is something else altogether. The former is not irrational, however small-minded or fearful it might be. The latter is irrational because denying care to the transgendered is an attack not on the phenomenon but on particular human beings. It is like a war on drugs, which is actually a war that targets drug users, not drugs. Denying the transgendered care targets particular human beings, even though targeting such people will not and cannot eliminate transgendering. Although politically popular, It is futile, irrational action.

 

                  But such irrationality is what politics fosters. Why? Because politics is all about power and the desire to overpower, dominate others. The others are deemed “enemies” who must be defeated, crushed, or dominated. Thus, the transgendered, politically speaking, have become enemies, irrationally identified as threats to the rest of us and needing to be crushed, defeated, even eliminated. These attacks are legislated and disguised as “law enforcement” or “law and order.”

 

                  Even though so disguised, however, they are still attacks in a war on the transgendered, illustrating that however irrational, war is intrinsic to politics. War is intrinsic to politics, even when irrational. Thus, politics has transformed the transgendered into enemies of the state, reaching an apex of irrationality. So it goes in the political arena where irrationality reigns supreme.   

The Trump Problem, War, and the Honorable

 

The “Trump Problem,” War, and the Honorable

Peter Schultz

 

 

From Caroline Elkins' book, Legacy of Violence: “the English temperament [embraced] sanctimonious self-righteousness which … indulged in injustice and selfish spoliation … under a cloak of virtue, benevolence, and unselfish altruism.” [212, Elkins]

What’s the Trump problem? How should he be understood? Is the most problematic thing his being anti-democratic or is it his being sanctimoniously self-righteous, embracing injustice and cruelty under the cloak of virtue and justice? The critique of Trump as being anti-democratic is a partisan critique. He doesn’t support democratic policies. The latter though is less superficial, less partisan than the former. It cuts deeper, revealing roots of American politics that are beyond partisanship and more problematic. For both party elites, a sanctimonious self-righteousness is a sign and a source of virtue, of patriotism, of being a good American. California’s governor Newsom is as self-righteously sanctimonious as Trump. And that sanctimonious self-righteousness is the most problematic characteristic of our political order, not partisanship. A partisan critique of Trump does not cut deeply enough to reveal the most problematic characteristic of the American political order. 

Hugo: War “is the second and more powerful of the two normal means employed the governments to achieve the ends [desired]. Diplomacy is the other means, but diplomacy by itself would be weak and ineffectual; war is its reinforcement, its sanction, and its alternative.” But diplomacy doesn’t have the same moral appeal that war has. War is taken as a sign and a source of virtue, of righteousness because when you’re willing to kill human beings, you know and have proof that you’re righteous. Killing is proof or your righteousness. Thus, such killing has “a moral effect” and is universally praised.

“Honor killings, often thought of by Americans as the practice of primitive societies, are engaged in by US elites as well. And so it is little wonder that persons seeking to be honorable are attracted to, seduced by war, especially patriotic wars. And, so, the distance between the Boy Scouts and war, for example, isn’t all that far.” 

Addendum: There are those who seek to be honorable and there are those who seek to be honored. For the latter being honorable is not enough. They need to be honored as well. Those seeking the honorable and those seeking to be honored are very different beings, and lead to very different ways of being in the world, e.g., the life of the good person and the life of the good citizen. For the ambitious, being honorable is not as important as being honored. And the most ambitious may be said to lust after fame because they see it as a kind of immortality. And on that quest, the honorable will often need to be and often will be sacrificed.

Less Virtue, Less Cruelty

 

Less Virtue, Less Cruelty

Peter Schultz

 

                  These thoughts came to me when reading Charles Royster’s book The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans. First, a quote on Sherman’s view of the secessionists and unionists:

 

“People who abandoned the nation were not creating a different form of order, but were abandoning reason. Not to resist them betrayed weakness.” [119]

 

                  For Sherman, the unionists resisting the secessionists were moral human beings, while the secessionists were immoral. So, loyalty to the United States was “a sign and a source of virtue.” Sherman “found his coherence and identity in the security of the nation.” In other words, defending “national security” is a matter of acting virtuously, as much or more than it is a reaction to threats thought to endanger the nation. It may and often is even seen as a “moral imperative.”

 

                  So, Sherman’s actions should be seen as him demonstrating his virtue, as they were about saving the union. And the cruelty he practiced – and he himself called his actions “cruel” – also demonstrated his virtue. Not only did virtue not deter cruelty; it even facilitated cruelty. A less virtuous person than Sherman would have been less cruel.

 

                  Ironically then the less virtuous are less cruel, less inhuman. The less virtuous are more likely to see cruelty for what it is and forego it.

 

                  Not only calculation, or being “realistic” but also virtue, moral and political virtue leads to, facilitates cruelty. Cruelty – or “going to the dark side” as Dick Cheney put it – is not just a necessary evil. Insofar as it demonstrates moral and political virtue, it may be embraced as good, not just as a necessary evil. One may be proud of and even praise cruelty, and, certainly, cruelty may be forgiven, e.g., as it has been regarding Korea, Vietnam, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Iraq, Waco, and Gaza

Elkins's Legacy of Violence

 

Elkins’s Legacy of Violence”

Peter Schultz

 

                  In her marvelous book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, Caroline Elkins, like many others, argues that the phenomenon that led to repression, violence, and even sadism was “the racialization of civilization,” by which nations were considered civilized or uncivilized based on racial characteristics.

 

                  Without disagreeing with Elkins that nations were judged civilized or uncivilized based on racial variables, there was and is another problematic phenomenon at work, viz., the glorification, the affirmation of civilization itself. This underlay the claims of British superiority, of British exceptionalism, just as it underlies claims of US exceptionalism so popular these days. There is no acceptable, legitimate critique of what is labeled “civilization,” as may be found in those who deserve the label “political philosopher.” And the wholehearted embrace of civilization, like the racialization of civilization, leads to repression, violence, sadism, i.e., to inhuman cruelty.

 

                  “Experts” accept unquestioningly and operate within civilization. That’s the way they become experts, acquiring society’s seal of approval and respectability. To be respectable, one cannot question civilization and its worth. It was and is this acceptance, this affirmation that accounts for Britain’s legacy of violence being seen as a legacy of righteous violence and cruelty.  The Brits stood at Armageddon and battled for the Lord! Their “eyes [had] seen the coming of the Lord, trampling out the vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored.”

 

                  And the problem goes beyond Britain. Just as the underlying problem in the US today is not Trump, but a savage governing elite, so too the problem was not simply the British empire, but was, and is, the political. It is the affirmation of the political, of civilization, that explains British blindness. “Britain’s self-proclaimed experts failed to acknowledge the Arabs’ rich history in Palestine of elaborate legal, cultural, political, and economic systems.” [179, added] They did not acknowledge this rich history because they did not and could not see it. They were blinded by their embrace of civilization as an unblemished and undiluted good. As a result, those deemed “the best and the brightest” helped lead Britain into inhuman cruelty, just as “the best and the brightest” led the United States into inhuman cruelty in Vietnam and elsewhere.

 

Thoughts on US Politics and the Political

 

Thoughts on US Politics and the Political

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following is a quote from a Catholic commentator, assessing American politics as he sees it. Following this assessment are my observations.

 

                  “As the nation’s power increased in the world, so too have its imperial tendencies, and those who govern the United States increasingly find unacceptable any competing visions of political and economic life that threaten the country’s dominance of world affairs.”

 

                  According to this assessment, America’s quest for dominance was and is reactionary. The US is responding to challenges, “threats” properly understood. So, dominance is the result of calculation and not the result of human desires. Dominance is not seen as moral imperative. It’s as if people were saying: “We wish we didn’t have to pursue dominance, but these threats make that absolutely essential.”

 

                  In fact, however, the underlying and motivating wish is to be dominant, and it is that wish that explains what governing elites label “threats.” Those other visions are “competing” only because America’s governing elites wish to be dominant. That wish, and not the other visions themselves, is the bottom line.

 

                  This helps understand what is called “realism.” Realists justify their politics because the world is a dangerous place, a war of all against all. But the actual justification of their politics is their desire, endemic the political animals everywhere, for dominance. Consider by way of illumination an imagined conversation between General Giap of Vietnam and Robert McNamara of the US, a conversation that actually took place once. Giap accused McNamara and the United States of being imperialistic, a charge McNamara denied. Why? Because McNamara saw his actions, not due to a desire to dominate, but as reactionary to threats. McNamara thought of himself as essentially peaceful, forced into war. To which we can imagine Giap saying: “No, you are not essentially peaceful. You’re essentially war-like because war proves you dominate, you deserve to dominate because you are the best. Absent the desire to dominate, to be the best, Vietnam would not be a threat. In fact, communist nations as communists would not be threats.

 

                  Why are humans war-like? Because being war-like is deemed being moral, good, virtuous. And so, the warriors, the war makers are celebrated. War demonstrates one’s power and, of course, the powerful are the best. The powerful are the best because they can do what they need to do and, most especially, they commit injustices successfully. [Cf. Pericles’ Funeral Oration]

 

                  And this is, I think, the root of hierarchy, the desire to achieve and then demonstrate one’s power, most especially the power to commit injustice when it serves your interests or desires. And what better description is there of the Vietnam War than as the United States’s governing elites demonstrating they could, because they were “the best and the brightest,” successfully be unjust?  That war could demonstrate its ability to wage an unjust and unwinnable war successfully. Now, that’s powerful, that’s being a great nation. That that’s political greatness is illustrated by empires throughout human history. And this is why those arguing against the Vietnam war as unjust were bound to lose the argument. The quest for dominance overrides concerns with justice because being dominant and being just are two very different phenomena.