Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

  • I want to urge activists to use caution in the post-Bernie stage of this election cycle.  I’m a little worried about the tone the analyses have taken–not for Bernie, I’m worried for the activists.  It is crucial to the health of the movement to be able to put things in their proper perspective, especially now.  At this time the pundits are apparently just coming to terms with the fact that Bernie is out and they have to watch the smirking idiots in Washington calmly go on with their plans.  I won’t deny it is disgusting to watch–one can’t help but think they should be more afraid than they are, and yet their so-called plans lurch determinedly on.  If you think the job of government is to serve the people, it seems to go forward without rhyme or reason.

    Still, it is not time to lash out.  For one thing, it’s not over yet.  I’m not implying that our dreams still might miraculously come true, although if the world makes any kind of sense at all they should come true.  What I’m saying is that at this point we have no choice but to wait and hope.  Rather than tear everything down, we should be using this time to reconnoitre.

    We have learned some important facts during the course of these two campaigns.  For example, we’ve seen that our people in Congress have a firm grip on the mechanism of government at every level–including the press which is not even supposed to be a branch of government–and they have no fear of repercussions.

    My own analysis of Sanders’ campaign would go something like this: we could have used our time better in the interim between the two campaigns.  I would also like to suggest that some of Bernie’s million volunteers were not really Bernie supporters.  I believe that if our progressive pundits had volunteered by making calls and knocking on doors, they would have the same concern.  Who were the volunteers who sabotaged the good volunteers you ask?  Ask yourself what you would do if it was your job to keep Bernie out of the White House?  Wouldn’t you sign up to volunteer so you could sabotage the attempts by real supporters trying to do their job?  It would be so easy–you could be virtually anonymous.  Finally, I would like to ask the pundits how they thought Bernie could win by being humiliated at the polls in all of the remaining states, which I believe would certainly have happened.  If you didn’t see that coming after Iowa I’m not going to waste my time explaining it.  Anyway, I’ve already written about it here.

    To continue with my analysis, we jumped into this torrent in the middle of the river with no preparation.  It wasn’t our fault.  When I started talking about the 2016 presidential campaign, I had in mind the responsibility of citizens to pay attention to elections and to vote.  The presidential election was on the horizon and it seemed like a good idea.  The thing is, no one knew that Bernie would take the country by storm and that we would have to stand by while those devils took it from us.  All I hoped back then is that his campaign would add a little sanity to the downward spiral of our republic.

    I still think we have the responsibility to vote, but I clearly had some unrealistic expectations.  I thought we could choose our candidates based on what we understood to be the most pressing needs of the nation.  That would be our second lesson–we can’t.  The election process, at least at the presidential level, is nothing more than a long, expensive spectacle.  Oh, we still have free speech alright, but what does that do for us?  It saves us from the punishment of cement overshoes for speaking our mind, which is a good thing, but unfortunately it lasts a lot longer than cement overshoes.  At least with cement overshoes we’d be sleeping with the fishes, whereas elections never end.  And no, this is not an invitation for Bernie’s former supporters to check out.  We’re going to find a way to go on and this is how you do that–by calmly thinking it over.  Well, maybe not so calmly in every case.

    Now let’s turn our attention to these people who claim to be Democrats, but who have been treating us like poor relations at the reading of the will.  Who exactly are these people against whom we’ve been sending our own personal gladiator, Bernie Sanders, to do battle?  Where do they fit in the overall scheme of American history and world history?  Let’s look at them first in the context of American history.

    I won’t keep you in suspense.  The explanation is too long and I’m afraid you’ll forget the question by the time I get to the answer.  Our Democratic establishment is kin to the conservatives who defeated the liberal Republicans in the 1960s and 70s.  How do I know this?  Because the main issue that divided the Republican Party at that time was the New Deal.  Of course now the Conservatives are all about social issues, while back in the sixties they used anti-Communism as a rallying point for bringing the GOP together, but they kept their animosity toward the American middle class.  The liberal Republicans were in favor of the New Deal and the conservatives were against it.  The Clintons have always been on board with this conservative focus.

    We know that Hillary Clinton was a Young Republican and that she supported the great conservative hope, Barry Goldwater.  Of course now she makes a joke of it but I’ve never heard her renounce his ideas, have you?  You might be interested to know that her father used the same tactic.  He ran for a local office as a Democrat, although he was a Republican, and then switched back to being a Republican. I only wish Hillary Clinton had the decency to switch back!

    Fast forward to the Clinton administration.  Bill Clinton did battle against the middle class on several fronts, the most egregious assault being NAFTA, but also including financial deregulation with the end of the Glass Steagall Act, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  Interesting isn’t it, that certain Democrats accuse others of not being Democrats when they are the ones who are not Democrats?

    You might want to read about how the conservative Republicans took over the party.  It’s explained in a book, Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP by Marry C. Brennan.  ((Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP, the University of North Carolina Press, 1995))

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • There are only two political rivals in the world today: organized crime and the state.  It is true that there are many seemingly valid state ideologies vying for attention, but they are mostly different versions of the same idea, none of which defend the state in the way it needs to be defended.  These versions include advocacy for shrinking the state, austerity, theocracy, xenophobia and zionism, neoliberalism and libertarianism.  Marxism also remains part of the conversation, but the Marxists are merely a convenient and irrelevant target for the conservative versions of the idea listed above.  I say irrelevant because the Marxists have mistaken notions about the state and these notions render them useless in the fight against organized crime.

    James Cockayne warns that a failure to understand how mafias work has led to the overlooking of a major force in global affairs.  What we are seeing today are the effects of a purposeful strategy for controlling the planet’s resources, and this strategy is a direct challenge to the authority of states.  It represents the imposition of an alternate form of governmentality—in other words, a mental framework or operating system.  The only entity capable of resisting organized crime is an efficient state. (James Cockayne, ”Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime″, Oxford University Press, 2016)

    I think it’s obvious that  something similar to what happened in Italy after the World War Two is happening in the United States today.  Just like in Italy, the ruling class in the United States would rather prop up a criminal state than give any credence to the political left.  

    According to Cockayne’s book, the rise of organized crime was not inevitable.  The state’s silence, along with the media’s silence, has enabled it to gain power.  However, he doesn’t advocate direct confrontation, which most definitely would not work anyway.  He argues instead that states cannot simply disappear in this globalized world—they must learn to compete in the market for government.  A state must demonstrate that it is an effective, credible, rewarding system of government, and the people must understand this and choose to be governed by the state rather than the other options becoming available, from ISIS to the transnational gang model of the maras.  Otherwise, other forms of governmentality will continue to grow (309).

  • It’s disconcerting to talk about Christian grace in a blog like this.  You think about it later and worry about how you phrased it, or how others might take it. There is the fear that it will be misunderstood in the context of common assumptions about what is required to be successful in this life—that it will be interpreted as boasting.  

    And I realized after publishing the last post that I didn’t mention Jesus.  Or did I?  

    Grace is the love of God shown to the unlovely; the peace of God given to the restless; the unmerited favor of God…Grace is the opposite of karma, which is all about getting what you deserve.  Grace is getting what you don’t deserve, and not getting what you do deserve. [Grace] is Jesus Christ in redeeming action

    By the world’s standards grace is extraordinary, strange, and counterintuitive.  

    Christian Grace
    Merry Christmas

    A lot like if the incarnate deity, veiled in flesh, were born in a manger in Bethlehem. 

    Religion must guide the political moment.

  • Greta Thunberg and her fellow climate activists testified September 18, 2019 before the U.S. Congress. It’s painful to watch, but please watch the whole thing. There were many interesting observations but the one that stands out for me is that when the conservatives talk about the good of the economy, they mean the corporations and those who profit from them. They most certainly do not mean you and me.

  • Isaiah was encouraging in chapter 58. He addresses the same people in chapter 59, but with a marked difference.

    Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

    But your iniquites have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

    For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

    None calleth for justice, nor any pledeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

    They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

    Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are words of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

    Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

    The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

    Therefore is judgement far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

    We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

    We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

    For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

    In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

    And judgement is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

    Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

    And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.

    For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

    According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.

    So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.

    And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.

    As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. (Isaiah 59)

  • Update March 2, 2020:

    I wrote two similar articles about Marianne Williamson’s and Tulsi Gabbard’s healthcare vision. I’ve already deleted the other one because Williamson endorsed Bernie. I decided not to delete this one because I think it’s an important angle on the Medicare for All issue, but I want to be clear that I think my criticism of Williamson is now irrelevant–her decision to drop out of the race and endorse Bernie was an act of good faith.  She might have a different view than Bernie on this issue, but she is still part of the progressive movement.

    Traditional medical providers may consider alternative medicine a rival to Western medicine, but their patients have given their stamp of approval by spending $35 billion a year on alternative medical treatments, sometimes called CAM (complementary and alternative medicine).  So it’s not surprising that some of the nation’s biggest hospitals have recognized the lucrative potential of alternative medicine and are now joining forces with alternative medical providers.

    What are alternative treatments exactly?  According to an article on policymed.com

    While there is no official list of what alternative medicine actually comprises, treatments falling under the umbrella typically include acupuncture, homeopathy (the administration of a glass of water supposedly containing the undetectable remnants of various semi-toxic substances), chiropractic, herbal medicine, Reiki (“laying on of hands,” or “energy therapy”), meditation (now often called “mindfulness”), massage, aromatherapy, hypnosis, Ayurveda (a traditional medical practice originating in India), and several other treatments not normally prescribed by mainstream doctors.

    There has long been support in the U.S. Congress for alternative medicine.  This includes dietary supplements, which have been strongly supported by Orin Hatch among others.  However, you might be surprised to learn that this coalition is now a direct rival to Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All proposal, and not just philosophically speaking.  This rivalry is currently playing out in the presidential campaigns of Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard, who each have an interest in holistic medicine.  Williamson has a list of alternative medical services on her website, and A Course in Miracles is itself an alternative approach to health care.  Gabbard’s bipartisan initiative for marijuanna reform, while it is an important step toward criminal justice reform, includes alternative health care interests represented by Chanda Macias, MBA, PhD, CEO and owner of National Holistic Healing Center in DC.  Marijuanna is an important ingredient in alternative therapies.  In addition, one of the closest and oldest connections to Gabbard’s family, Chris Butler, offers alternative health services centered around yoga.   In 2002 Yoga was the 5th most commonly used CAM therapy.

    A survey released in May 2004  by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine focused on who used complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), what was used, and why it was used in the United States by adults age 18 years and over during 2002.

    According to this survey, Yoga was the 5th most commonly used CAM therapy (2.8%) in the United States during 2002.

    It may be somewhat surprising to learn that holistic practitioners oppose Medicare for All.  The explanation for this begins with the fact that insurance policies don’t typically pay for alternative therapies.  Patients pay for them out-of-pocket, and that suits practitioners just fine.  If their treatments were covered by insurance they would have to abide by certain guidelines, and they prefer to treat their patients according to their own criteria.  Furthermore, if taxes were increased to pay for medical care, in other words, if people knew their health care was already paid for, and if that care was freely available, it would seriously effect the bottom line of alternative practitioners.   So alternative medical providers have a stake the status quo, like insurance companies.   Where does that leave us as far as a political strategy is concerned?

    You might be thinking that if alternative medicine is cheaper, changing the way practitioners practice might be a solution.  After all, integrative medicine, which combines traditional treatments with alternative medicine, is a growing industry and several candidates have stressed the importance of preventative medicine.  But unfortunately, chronic disease isn’t going to disappear and there is no scientific evidence that alternative therapies can address these illnesses as well as traditional medicine.

    On the other hand, there seems to be general agreement that Western medicine needs to change its focus.  Its medical infrastructure was designed to combat infectious diseases, and it works well for that purpose.  However its success with infectious agents has brought complex chronic diseases into focus, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.  Chronic diseases now account for three fourths of our health care spending.

    In other words, preventive measures are important, but there is also the problem of whether patients are able and willing to follow those preventive measure.   At some point, the effects of low-wage jobs, unaffordable housing, and the lack of clean water and healthy food will come into the picture.  In addition, alternative and integrative medicine are not free.

    There are improvements to the current system that must be made, but they will take time.  In the meantime, Medicare for All is desparately needed.  And it’s favored by the majority of the population.  In this light, resistance from practitioners of holistic medicine seems rather self-centered.  And considering the other forces arrayed against single-payer insurance, resistance from alternative interests is the last thing this country needs.

    Many doctors are supportive of Medicare For All, but the AMA is organizing against it.

    The AMA is currently allied with other industry groups in the fight against Medicare for All as a part of a group called “Partnership for America’s Health Care Future,” which is spending millions of dollars and is backed by the American Hospital Association, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans, which includes Cigna, Anthem, Centene and other health insurance giants.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Roe v Wade has been a gift to the Republican Party. A candidate can be a war monger, a corporate puppet, and eat puppies and kittens for breakfast, but if he or she is pro-life none of that will matter to conservative voters.   Another candidate can have a great plan for the economy and a sterling political record, but if she is pro-choice a large portion of the American electorate will never vote for her.   What would the Republicans do without Roe v Wade?

    They use abortion to get votes the same way they use the bad behavior of foreign leaders to justify military intervention.  Their rhetoric implies that pro-choice voters are baby-hating monsters while it promotes suspicion of  every woman of child-bearing age.   And votes are just one part of the story.  The abortion issue allows them to co-opt the conversation with constant threats, horror stories, and authoritarian legislation.  As a result, reasonable people find themselves fighting for the rights of women they don’t know, as if abortion is some kind of prize.

    Some judges have said they will not enforce Alabama’s law, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) is on record saying the legislation is so severe he is concerned that it won’t be effective in overturning Roe v Wade.   Maybe that is the purpose of Alabama’s extreme approach.  Republicans don’t want to reverse Roe v Wade.

     

     

     

     

     

  • I’m pretty sure that when you chose your vocation you were an idealist.  How long was it, I wonder, before you realized they had groomed you to keep their wealthy donors happy?  And that’s not even the worst of it.  They expect you to make nice with a bunch of silver-tongued dingbats who are doing the same thing you’re doing but without your scruples.  Unless I’m terribly mistaken about you, your association with one such dingbat must be excruciating.  I’m talking about the guy who refuses to say if he believes in God and then while he’s dancing around the question it gradually becomes clear that he’s congratulating himself for being more moral than people who profess their beliefs–like you.  What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?

    He argues that it’s audacious to say one believes in God because one must live a perfect life in order to make such a claim.  (I would like to hear you address that claim by the way, but you’re not free to do so, are you.) He references Nietzsche and Slavoj Zizek and Jesus on the cross as justification for his prevarication and then he expounds on what it really means to believe–according to him.

    I assume you see through him; that you would like to tell him that he’s got it wrong, that humans are not supermen.  I really think you know he’s got it backwards–that part of believing is acknowledging one’s weakness.  But then it must also have occurred to you that he doesn’t necessarily mean what he says.  He just wants to keep the money rolling in.  So he frames his hollow cynicism as existential anguish and you keep your thoughts to yourself.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • realism versus liberal internationalism

    The traditions of American foreign policy that most people are familiar with are realism and liberal internationalism.  Realists are usually conservatives or Republicans, for example Eisenhower and Ford, while liberal internationalists are usually liberals or Democrats, for example Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter.  But these divisions broke down during the Reagan administration.  This led to the rise of conservative internationalism.  However, conservative internationalism existed before the breakdown of these divisions.  This explains the Conservative Internationalism of Neo-Conservatives.

    Conservative Internationalism versus Embassy Protectors

    According to one author, this school of foreign policy has been a constant presence in American politics.  The arrest of the embassy protectors at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC seems to be straight from the playbook of Conservative Internationalism.  So where have the Conservative internationalists been hiding?

    Reagan is one of the heroes of conservative internationalists.  He opposed both the realist containment strategy of Richard Nixon and the liberal internationalist human rights campaign of Jimmy Carter. Instead, he adopted a strategy that used force or the threat of force assertively, as realists recommended, but aimed at the demise of communism and the spread of democracy, as liberal internationalists advocated.  Reagan’s policies didn’t adhere to either of these foreign policy traditions, but he was not unique among American presidents.  According to a Hoover Institution article, conservative internationalism draws historical validation from Thomas Jefferson, James K. Polk, and Harry Truman.

    Tenets of Conservative Internationalism

    So how does this school of foreign policy explain the arrest of the embassy protectors contrary to international law and the Geneva Convention?  The Hoover Institution lists eleven tenets of Conservative Internationalism. The first tenet, the goal of expanding freedom, asserts that free countries achieve legitimacy in foreign affairs by taking decisions independently or working together through decentralized institutions.

    Thus, conservative internationalists give priority to liberty over equality and work to free countries from tyranny before they recognize these countries as equal partners in international diplomacy. Jefferson and Polk were unequivocal about expanding liberty, even if it involved imperialism, because they believed that liberty would eventually bring greater equality. By contrast liberal internationalists give priority to equality over liberty and grant all nations, whether free or not, equal status in international institutions, because they believe treating countries equally will eventually encourage liberty. For conservative internationalists, legitimacy in foreign affairs derives from free countries taking decisions independently or working together through decentralized institutions; for liberal internationalists, legitimacy derives from all countries, free or not, participating equally in universal international organizations.

    The remaining tenets justify the tendency of conservative internationalists to use realism or liberal internationalism, or both, with unrestrained aggression.   Take for example their statement that poverty and oppression are not enough to trigger intervention, that there must be a physical effect on the United States, such as the threat posed by terrorism or oil disruption.  They get around this requirement by saying that preemptive and preventative actions will sometimes be necessary, due to the difficulty of predicting physical effects.

    The Use of Force is Implied

    Because their goals are more ambitious than liberal internationalism or realism, conservative internationalists expect to use more force.  Consider their use of the accusation against leaders who use force against their own people that they can’t be expected to cooperate with the United States either.  This has been used in the past to justify unilateral force.  Liberal internationalists preferred to work with the League of Nations and the UN, whereas under conservative internationalism, diplomacy is just another word for reconstruction after the use of force.

    The arrest of the embassy protectors can be explained by the fact that conservative internationalists dislike international institutions, especially if they are successful.  They want small government, not centralized government.

    Identifying the Neo-Conservative Presence

    A review of this book in the American Conservative identifies this school of foreign policy as ‘old wine in new bottles’, or the re-baptism of neo-conservatism.

    This review was refuted by Henry R. Nau, the author of the Hoover Institution article.  One of Nau’s arguments against the identification with neo-conservatism is that the neo-conservatives started out as Democrats.

    Many neocons, however, were liberals not conservatives, advocating social engineering at home and abroad; and some democratic realists were imperialists, seeking to gain or maintain American hegemony.

    The problem with this distinction is that the neocons have not been straight with us about their history.  There was a neocon presence in the German Conservative Revolution.  The following summary is from a description of a History 330 course at Amherst.edu, German Conservative Revolution and the Roots of the Third Reich.

    It is asserted that Germany’s right wing intellectuals, who identified themselves with a German “Conservative Revolution”, played a fateful role in the ideological formation of national socialism in the wake of the Great War.  They ‘defied’ traditional divisions between the Left and Right, opposed parliamentary democracy and royalist reactionary ‘Wilhelminian’ conservatism, as well as Liberalism and Marxism.  They attempted to reshape theology, legal thought, race biology, geography, and political philosophy.

    Although many of its members criticized the Nazi Party, this had nothing to do with the Party’s anti-Semitism.  Some of them collaborated with the Nazi state and shared its fate, but the dissenters were able to escape condemnation and wield a continuing influence.

    If you’re uncomfortable with neo-conservative foreign policy but you can’t quite figure out how former Democrats became neo-cons, this might explain it.  They were not Democrats; they were Conservative Internationalists.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Paul Ryan told American women in a televised speech that they must bear more children.  Because this speech closely followed the passage of the scandalous tax bill that reduces taxes for the rich and therefore endangers funding for social programs that help mothers, Ryan’s proposal demonstrates the connection between the seducer state and the free labor of mothers.

    The following video from Chris Hedges’ On Contact discusses government policies, which are meant to increase the birthrate in the face of decreasing financial support for families.

    https://youtu.be/ZeY8p5rdy9M

     

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