Every election cycle, we get to have a lingering look up the skirts of conservative dancers who tease the audience with alternating glimpses of their puritan knickers and their pasty white backsides. It is at once revolting yet fascinating in a sick kind of way.  Where are those dollar bills I brought …

Conservative Americans have made a virtue of fear, greed, and anger. This is one of the pure, crystalline forces of history. The Three Pillars of Conservatism.

Liberals fail in politics because they inherently misunderstand power and how it works. Conservatives have an innate grasp of power and suffer little from its wanton and extravagant use.  One never hears conservatives praising the ideals of the Greek thinkers. Conservatives are much more like Romans. The Romans made a show of conquest and of alignment to the doctrine and virtue of empire. Romans understood the value of bread and circuses. And that is what we get today every election cycle. A circus.

I wrote a post a few years ago about a form of social reconstructionism that I recognized as a rebirth or perhaps, a reinvigoration, of the John Birch Society philosophy in American politics. I have noticed of late that others are making this connection as well. 

With the ascendancy of the confederate vaudevillians Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as well as the Tea Party, Bircher political philosophy is being rediscovered.  Only, I’m certain that few of its new adherents have realized it has a name and is a 50’s cold war relic.  With scholars like Glenn Beck delivering lectures from his Fox TV lecture hall, the Tea Bag side is busily manufacturing consent by doing what preachers have done for a long time. By preaching that our society is in collapse and that the only way out of the impending disaster is to follow their recommendation.  This might be manifested as a more rigid adherence to teaching, or as has happened since the 1980’s, greater assertion of influence in political and social reconstruction. 

The Sky is Falling!!  -C. Little

There is a certain innate appeal to Bircher Philosophy that satisfies the inner fascist in all of us.  It is a manner of thought that feeds directly and almost unfiltered from the fear cortex of the brainstem. When uncertain, be afraid. No need for thoughtful analysis, just reject the unfamiliar. Distrust everything.  If it ain’t ‘Merican, then it ain’t no damned good. Study these principles devotionally, not analytically.

Bircher doctine serves as a political glove over the hand of protestant Christian evangelical fundamentalists who seek to de-secularize American culture, which includes government and the public arena.  They see our country as an errant Christian state taken off-track and into a condition of fallen righteousness by elitist liberal intellectuals bent on some kind of social buggery.  Listening to these folks, it would seem that they are engaged in a great battle between the forces of Heaven and the liberal leather-winged angels of darkness.  I think they have been watching too many Cecil B. DeMille movies.

Running a secular democratic state like the USA is hard to do. At least some citizens will demand an explanation for any given decision.  And they’ll want to argue. But a state run according to some religious conservative principles, well, that’s different.  Iron age justice is swift and harsh.  And how do the leaders know what to do? God came to them and expressed His conservative wishes. See, isn’t that so much easier? None of this ambiguity. It’s all so easy to understand.

I do agree with the conservative side in one way. The federal government is just too large and over reaching. But killing it while the citizens sleep is not the answer.  Neither is replacing it with market-style dynamics or reverting into a Confederate States of America.  The American experiment does not reduce to just a market phenomenon and was not kept running exclusively by righteous church-going people.  It does not reduce to a mere extension of the principles of the founding fathers either. It is all of that and much more.

It is the result of hundreds of millions of hard working, clever people who were born or naturalized into an enabled society without having to adopt narrow doctrines on how to think or without impermeable social strata. The American phenomenon is an artifact of the bell curve. It is the expression of a statistical distribution of individuals making a contribution to the betterment of our society by improving their own lot.  All citizens have the right to think as they please and we do not need conservative clowns to rally the dark side in all of us so that they can achieve their personal needs.

So it appears that the US is quietly building up military forces within striking distance of Iran. The island of Diego Garcia (UK) has served as a staging area for standoff weapons. The military-political establishment has been busy with threat analysis and is evidently staging forces to some extent based on their conclusions and evolving policy.

I think there are many credible arguments that rightly assert that Iran is an active threat to what passes for stability in that region. Or at least at the first-order level of political analysis. Iran is plainly an obstreperous theocracy with a particular zeal for the export of its orthodoxy.

As always, the drums begin to beat for war and the business of manufacturing public consent begins in earnest. I’ll go out on a limb and make a gross generalization. All human populations seem to have a fraction, say 1/4 , who are particularly fearful by nature. These are the folks who susbscribe to concrete notions of nationalism, righteousness, and the associated keenness for adherence to orthodox doctrine. These were key proclivities of the US/Soviet cold war era. It is part of a collective consciousness that is especially adept at finding patterns that validate its fundamental fear.

It would seem that we may be in yet another run up to the projection of force on the far side of the world. A good question would be this: Are we addressing the fundamental cause of World-vs-Iran conflict? At minimum we trying to shore up the result of a century of bad western foreign policy.  This region is at the overlap of profound social forces associated with abrupt infusions of petrodollars, reflexive militarism, ethnic antipathy, and religious orthodoxy.

I think that Chomsky has some valid points about the origin of these conflicts. Iran and other groups have used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a bully pulpit for their own regional ambitions. Obviously there is sincere religious and ethnic outrage over the the Palestinian issue. But a state like Iran is sure to use this conflict to their own political advantage to exercise the projection of power.

The US and other western states have chronically miscalculated the magnitude and direction of regional conflicts.  For instance, would a military strike against Iran be viewed as just an attack on the government of Iran, or as an attack by infidels on Shi ‘ism? Are we prepared for what would follow? I think I can guess the answer.

It was reported that the Russian Parliament has approved a draft of a law to increase the powers of its FSB, or the remnant of its Soviet era KGB.

The final version is somewhat weakened from its earlier form, which prescribed punishment for individuals who ignored such warnings from the F.S.B. In remarks posted on his party’s Web site this week, Vladimir Vasiliyev, the chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on Security, described the new power as “a preventive conversation” with “someone who is beginning to move toward committing a crime.” (New York Times, July 16, 2010)

Imagine that. A Future Crimes Division.

When asked about the bill by a German reporter during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday, President Dmitri A. Medvedev said, “what is going on now is the result of my direct instructions,” and that foreign commentators should not concern themselves with it. (New York Times, July 16, 2010)

The police state is back. The Russian gov’t is moving (back) towards policing perceived intent. What a sad day for Russian civilization and the world.  Queen to E5, check.

Afghanistan is a country that spontaneously generates Taliban like the USA generates bowling leagues. Afghanistan is a country that produces most of the worlds opium (morphine) and depends heavily upon this form of produce. In case you’ve forgotten, heroin is acylated morphine. 

Afghanistan is a tribal confederation. The country has a very complex history of bloody invasion and occupation. Afghanistan is still gripped by fundamentalist religion and fierce tribalism- a fulminate and gunpowder combination. 

The USA exists as a democratic state today only as the result of a lengthy and self-imposed European evolution from medieval monarchy to democratic constitutional government over, say, 7-800 years from the signing of the Magna Carta to the US constitution. This is one metric. 

Afghanistan has not produced what the rest of the world would recognize as modern institutions and democratic ideals. Afghanistan did not produce a Magna Carta nor an intellectual renaissance producing steam power, electricity, metallurgy, or modern concepts of economics. In fact, much of Afghanistan outside of Kabul shows precious little interest in modernism of any sort.

So, the question is this- What do we hope to accomplish by our invasion of Afghanistan? Exterminate Al Qaeda? At its core, Al Qaeda is an idea. You cannot redirect intrenched ideas with an army.

Other than whack-a-mole military operations fighting insurgents who are armed by powers hostile to the US, we are left with trying to instill a sense of national identity by the installation of basic democratic ideals and institutions in what is little more than a tribal confederation. Afghans have no discernable history of gladly adopting western ideals. And the Afghans adhere to a religion that is poorly compatible with western ideals as well. How do US troops know if the bullets flying by are from the Taliban or from Al Qaeda guns? Just like Viet Nam, much of the indigenous population supports the insurgents either naturally or by coercion.

So, realistically, what does minimally acceptable success in Afghanistan look like? Would we recognize it if we saw it? How much residual Talibanism is acceptable to the occupying powers?