Get Your Next War On

I probably won't be back to regular posting until next week at some point. I feel too lousy physically myself, and I'm beset with anxiety about my sister. The latest news is even worse than it had been. Please allow me to offer my most sincere thanks to those who have made donations in response to that post. I'm more grateful than I can say, and I'll be sending out individual thank you notes in the next week. Arranging to get up to Berkeley is proving a bit problematic at the moment, both because of my own health and also due to additional difficulties I have in traveling, especially by plane. I'm trying to work out all of that, so that I can get up there in the next week or two, at the very latest. You will have helped make that possible, and I shall never forget it.

Above and beyond all of that, I am more discouraged by national and world events than I can express in words. Since I'm unable to string together more than a few coherent thoughts at the moment, let me turn this over to Chris Floyd:

Stopping the coming war with Iran is the imperative of our day. In addition to all the other horrors such a new war would bring, it would also prolong and intensify the nightmarish war crime in Iraq. Anyone concerned with the long-term interests of the United States -- its security, its prosperity, its constitutional liberties -- should be standing up right now in fierce and implacable resistance to the launching of another act of aggression.

So naturally, the national Democrats -- who were returned to power on a wave of public revulsion against the radical militarism of the Bush Regime -- are now trying to raise the war fever against Iran to the boiling point, in a bellicose bid to "outflank both the Bush administration and the United Nations with the toughest set of sanctions against Iran that have ever been proposed," as that right-wing calliope, the New York Sun, approvingly notes.

With legislation introduced by Rep. Tom Lantos, the Fightin' Dems propose to slap harsh new sanctions on any and every firm and nation in the world that dares do business with Iran's energy sector, with no waivers allowed for anyone, not even close American allies.

...

We want Iran to keep developing its nuclear program, so we can use it as an excuse to bomb them. We want the people of Iran to suffer from crippling sanctions, as did the people of Iraq (while, as in Iraq, the leaders continue to live in luxury), because we want Iranian society to deteriorate to the point that its leaders feel compelled to take some action that we can seize upon as a casus belli and launch a "retaliatory" attack whose real aim is "regime change." Both the Democrats and Republicans have very publicly committed the United States to this course.

...

Anyone who expects the Democrats to stand up against the coming war against Iran will be bitterly disappointed. The Democrats, again with a few exceptions, are abetting the Bush Regime's drive toward war. With every step, they are bringing us closer and closer to the abyss.

You should read Chris's entire post. As he very kindly notes there, I've suggested six practical steps that could be taken to try to halt the growing momentum toward an attack on Iran. As I've said in other entries, I don't view my suggestions as especially noteworthy, nor do I feel the least proprietary interest in them. Anyone who genuinely cares about this issue could probably figure out five or ten better ideas in half an hour. I've also indicated and I now repeat that, should anyone find any of my writing on this subject of help in this battle, they should feel completely free to steal, cannibalize or do anything else with any or all of my writing in this connection.

I don't care at all if anyone ever reads even one of my posts on this subject, nor do I give a damn about getting "credit" for anything. My sole concern is only this: AN ATTACK ON IRAN BY THE UNITED STATES OR ISRAEL MUST BE PREVENTED, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.

As I have been documenting in the Dominion Over the World series, the Democrats and Republicans agree on every fundamental issue with regard to foreign policy. And as Chris notes yet again, the Democrats will not slow down the drive to another war of aggression. To the contrary: many Democrats are being even more bellicose and provocative than the Bush crazies, as close to impossible as that is to believe.

Faced with this looming possibility -- and the potential deaths of millions, as well as the beginning of martial law here at home -- and following the contemptible example of the national Democrats, the liberal-progressive blogs, again with only a few exceptions, are largely silent, thus making this nightmare that much more likely. In terms of action on the required scale, most liberal-progressive blogs are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

For the most part, these bloggers, who are so proud of their ability to mobilize email, phone, fax and mail campaigns at a moment's notice, and who have done so more than once over the past year, are doing NOTHING. The major liberal blogs together could probably prompt action by HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE in a day or two, if they chose to do so.

AND THEY DO NOTHING.

At this moment in history, one is justified in wondering what exactly it is that these people genuinely care about. I will have a number of thoughts on that topic beginning next week. For now, I will only note that at least some of the major liberal bloggers are unquestionably determined to be the new Robespierres, may God help us all.

I admit that I feel overwhelmed by this combination of personal grief, and grief at what may soon overtake this country and the world. I am almost out of hope and, as I said in the first part of my "Dispatch from Germany" series, I think we will finally learn what people in Nazi Germany learned: what "this experience" is like -- "in its entirety, all the way to the end." If we manage to escape this hellish nightmare by some miracle, and as things now stand, the liberal-progressive blogs themselves will have done next to nothing to prevent it.

And that is where I am on this Friday afternoon -- in a desolate and barren place. With the impregnable narcissism and fat complacency of Americans in general and of especially privileged Americans in particular, I think most of you believe that this nightmare, should it arrive, will not touch you personally, or at least not that much. You ought to read more history, for I deeply fear that on this score as well, you may soon learn the truth -- but only when it is far too late to do anything about it.