The Blog is Back

After a long lay-off, I've decided to go back to blogging on a more or less regular basis. I need something to challenge me in my 10th decade. Since I'm not an artist or a poet and I can't sew or make quilts, blogging will have to do. Please bear with with me as I fiddle around for a while trying to make this website a bit more attractive and interesting. I hope that as the new blogs start appearing, my friends and others will sign in, comment on my comments, and send in some suggestions.

Ladies of the Lake

To begin with today, I want to learn to insert photos now and then. Here's a try...
This past Friday there was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the big upgrading project around Lake Merritt in Oakland. Highlighting the celebration was a fleet of boats - dragon boats, kayaks, a gondola and two surf boats from the Oakland Women's Rowing Club. At stroke, in the front facing the camera, is my wife, Gail Weininger. The bond-funded project is making Oakland strikingly beautiful and a first-class people's park area. It has also provided jobs and a good example of public policy for the rest of the country.

Now, changing the subject, I want to remember Leon Taub, my brother-in-law, who died last month. He was a beautiful character, gentle and kind, exemplifying shared ideals of social justice in the way he lived his 87 years. His obit appears at the end of this blog. Here is a picture of him with Roz, my wife of many years, who died in 2009:

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To include some politics in this experimental post, Julie Mandel, Leon's loving companion for the last twelve years of his life. wrote to me after listening to Rubio's GOP rebuttal to the State of the Union speech:
I just finished reading Paul Krugman’s column today about Rubio’s speech the other night, and about the path the Republicans seem to be taking.  I’m really puzzled.  The Republicans can’t be that stupid.  Why don’t they seem to learn from their mistakes?  Didn’t the last election tell them anything?  I really don’t understand why they don’t change their tune.  Do they really think the American public is that stupid?

I tried to come up with an answer to Julie's question:

I had just finished reading the Krugman column when I opened my email to find your note...As usual, I agree with Krugman. As for Rubio and the Republicans, the main faction seems to think that by tinkering a bit to soften the GOP image on a few social issues (immigration, gays, etc.), they can become more acceptable while not giving an inch on their economic ideology. Unfortunately, there still are an awful lot of Americans whom they've convinced that government debt and spending are our biggest problems.

Why won't they give ground on the economic front?  I can think of a few reasons: 1) Their bottom line really is their absolute commitment to the "free enterprise" system of inequality where the rich get richer, no matter the consequences for the rest of society. 2) They see the great recession as their best opportunity to dismantle the social programs (sneeringly labeled  "entitlements") which the GOP and the plutocrats have hated and fought since the beginning years of the New Deal. For this purpose, blaming "big government" and busting trade unions are crucial. 3) They are afraid that if they compromise on the debt and budget front, the Tea Party  caucus will explode and split the GOP beyond repair.

It's interesting that the election results and the demographic changes in the country have convinced some GOP pundits to try to appear a bit more reasonable on some social issues, while they hold fast to their "austerity" mantra. After all, the recession hasn't hurt the 1%, far from it, as profits exceed all-time highs; nor has it altered the insatiable greed that's in Wall Street's DNA.

You ask whether the Republicans "really think the American public is that stupid."

Who can tell when so much that's irrational is pumped out by the highly financed right-wing  propaganda media? At least the elections gave ground for hope that things may be moving toward a more rational course. Before the elections, I had a more negative feeling about the probable outcome than Leon and you. Thank goodness, the "public" proved that I was too pessimistic."

Future blogs will not be so long — just experimenting.

LEON JEROME TAUB

1925-2013

Leon Taub died after a short illness on Thursday, January 17, 2013. He was 87.

Leon was an engineer, a teacher, and a musician. He never retired, remaining fully engaged until the short illness that took his life. He had a deep lifelong commitment to civil rights, equality and social justice. He was lovingly devoted to family, not only his own, but extended by his warm and remarkably wide outreach.

Leon was born in the Bronx, the son of Chaim and Mollie Taub.  His parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, laboring long hours in a small tailor shop while caring for Leon and his older sister, Rosalind. They instilled in both children a love of learning and a rich appreciation of music.

Leon was a graduate of the High School of Music and Art, where he formed lifelong friendships and met his future wife, Rena. He also studied at the Manhattan School of Music. In 1950, he became the first Music Editor of Sing Out Magazine, which was a major promoter of the upsurge in folk music that became so vital a part of the emerging civil rights and peace movements. Leon composed songs over the years, even more in the last years of his life. He put poems that he loved to music, translated some to Yiddish, a language he became increasingly fond of. He wrote music to accompany the publication of children’s poetry and art of Helen Webber, a friend since they were students at the High School of Music and Art. Leon left a beautiful memento of his music and of his own sweet self in a website: http://staff.washington.edu/fredtaub/Leon_Taub/Home.html

Leon graduated from CCNY (now CUNY) with an engineering degree. During World War II, he served four year in the US Navy. After the war, he got a Master’s Degree in Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology.  For many years, he was Chief Engineer designing air conditioners for the Welbilt Company. He gave up work in private industry in 1978, preferring to take a job he loved, teaching mechanical engineering at SUNY Farmingdale. Until his death he was still active as Professor of Engineering at Farmingdale and his students were devoted to him. His textbook, based on the courses he taught at Farmingdale, was published in 2012.

After leaving the Navy, Leon married Rena Richter, an artist and children’s therapist. They had two sons, Paul, now a music professor and flutist, and Fred, a computer specialist, both living with their families in Seattle. Rena died in 1998. Leon leaves a grandchild, Dana, daughter of Fred and Beth.

Leon was a resident of Valley Stream, Long Island since 1957. He was President of the Valley Stream Board of Education during the tumultuous late sixties and early seventies.

During his last twelve years, Julie Mandel Dachs has been Leon’s loving companion. Julie is a composer, and they enriched each other’s lives in musical projects and in every way, including the shared embrace of family and friends.

Listing facts doesn’t tell the whole story. Some things about Leon were special almost to the point of being unique. To appreciate him fully, you would have to have seen him with children. In his presence, they would be laughing and joyful, immediately responsive to his interest in them, his gentleness, playfulness, humor and whimsy.

Beneath Leon’s self-effacing ways, there was also an unusual measure of personal courage and perseverance.  He kept his trademark optimism despite political disappointments and personal ordeals. He never accepted gloom and doom, not when McCarthyism reigned nor when the Tea Party raged. Colon and prostate cancers and two open-heart surgeries did not keep him down. Moreover, he won a struggle with depression when he was a young adult and never turned back. He attributed his success in that battle to help he sought out from psychologist Alfred Adler. Leon and Rena became active in the Adler Institute, and contributed original papers at its conferences.

Few people can keep going strong, not slowing down, until death at 87. Few people gave and received more love in a long and admirable lifetime.

Romney’s Choice

The GOP-Tea Party ticket is set.  With the Ryan pick, any supposed distinction between the GOP and the Tea Party falls away. Given recent results in Senate primaries and, now, the successful ultra-right pressure on Romney to choose Ryan, the Tea Party is in control. The GOP belongs to the Koch brothers, Adelson and the super-pacs of Karl Rove and assorted extremist reactionary multibillionaires. They decided to throw down the gauntlet, to avoid ambiguity that might attach to a choice less provocative than Ryan.

The issues are even more defined now than they seemed before the GOP ticket was settled, but those who want to see the GOP defeated in November should hold back the cheers. In the present economic and political environment, it is unwise to view the Romney-Ryan ticket primarily as a move of rightwing desperation. It is an audacious high-stake bid to capture full and unequivocal control of the government and the direction of the country.

Something to Think About

In past difficult times, some Marxist analysts have made dire predictions of imminent economic depression, world war and fascism that proved to be wrong or at least decidedly premature. Famously during the time of McCarthyism in the early 1950s, such predictions overlooked the complexities and remaining potential of capitalism. As well, they underestimated democratic influences and the underlying capacity for popular struggle for civil rights and liberties and against war.

Would it again be crying “wolf” to sound the alarm of fascist danger in today’s political environment?

The term “fascism” should not be used lightly. It’s not a label that describes the capitalist system in general, even as its evils in this time of crisis spread extreme inequality and misery everywhere. History has defined fascism in all its brutality as dictatorship that destroys democratic rights and institutions, including trade unions and opposing political parties.  Where there is fascism, there is a direct alliance of the ruling political party with the most reactionary sections of corporate and financial power.

Taken as a whole, politics and government in the United States have moved to the right in this new century. That is the reality despite the hopes that came with the historic election of Barack Obama in 2008. Not to overlook some hard-won progress in health care, Gay rights, and (to a lesser extent) immigrant rights, progressive gains are outweighed by the assault on jobs, education, unions, social services, and civil liberties. Even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approach a messy ending, executive powers have been seized for waging CIA wars and assassinations anywhere at the President’s command. Against the backdrop of the “Great Recession”, futile wars in the Middle East, and the decline of  “superpower” control in world affairs, Wall Street’s multi-billionaires are more aggressive than ever in using unlimited financial power to corrupt politics, the media and “public opinion.”

While big money influence taints the political process at all levels of government and in both major parties, something special is on the horizon that does indeed raise the alarm about nascent fascism. It is possible that the GOP, powered and controlled by the most extremely reactionary moguls of finance capital, could take over the presidency and the Congress. They already dominate the Supreme Court and most courts, most governors and state legislatures.

This is not just the traditional back and forth exchange that has characterized elections under the two party system. The GOP has moved to the extreme right, further even than under Reagan, Nixon and the Bushes. Above all, the Koch brothers, Adelson, and other fascist-minded oligarchs are wielding their colossal wealth to control and advance the fortunes of the GOP. With the injection of the Tea Party into its midst, there is no tolerance for even “standard” Republicans like Bennet, Lugar, and Snowe. Within the fold, there is room only for those who agree to fall in line. Empowered are race haters, gun idolizers, science deniers and warriors against women, unions, the poor and the elderly. The centerpiece of the agenda is to demolish Medicare and reverse every social gain (“entitlement”) achieved during and after the New Deal.  

The point is not that the results of the November election could usher in fascism. Democracy cannot easily be destroyed, and the more it is under assault, the more certain is a rising struggle to preserve civil liberties and constitutional rights. It’s no small consideration, however, that the type of reactionary political and financial alliance characteristic of fascist regimes would have unprecedented control over the levers of power. That’s scary in this period of turmoil, imperial decline, and deep economic insecurity. Brutality is the hallmark of fascism, and recent history affirms that popular uprisings often meet ruthless police, military and vigilante violence.

Even a defeat for the GOP in November will not produce a fundamental progressive change of course. That can only happen as millions of people embrace struggle for their vital interests, against the greed and privilege of the 1%. It would be no small step, however, to thwart the fascist-prone alliance that aims in November to complete an historic monopoly over all branches of our government.

THE BOOK OF ESTHER
by Edith Chevat
(Sedna, May 2012)

This is a novel, I have to be reminded, and a good one. There is such a feeling of authenticity, of honesty, in Esther’s telling of her life’s story. Absent highlights of extraordinary adventure or achievement, the experiences she recounts are fascinating, and so is Esther.

For thirty years, Esther has been under FBI surveillance. The book is punctuated throughout with copies of highly redacted FBI reports garnered through the Freedom of Information Act. It all began when she went to the historic Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill in 1949, made infamous by vigilante mobs that violently attacked and injured hundreds as they were leaving the concert. Throughout the decades of FBI interest in her, suspicion is focused on one main observation: Esther, who is white, “lives in a mixed neighborhood. She has several Negro friends who come to the house. Subject seems unusually friendly to Negroes.”

Esther has a social conscience that is inescapable in everything she does or doesn't do. It permeates her view of friends, how she tries to bring up her children, her marriage and eventual divorce. It's present in the way she sees herself as a secular Jew. It's as much a part of the "personal" as of the causes that move her, primarily the civil rights and peace movements. Yet it doesn't keep her from being honest with herself and with others, seeing her own ambivalence and confusion on many problems. This is noteworthy in her attitudes and relationships involving race, where honesty and self-understanding are not common.  

A strong conscience is not completely a blessing. We see that in the way she sometimes pushes her priorities on her reluctant children, and in judgmental attitudes toward the foibles of friends. Still Esther is remarkable in her adaptability to changing circumstances, unexpected change in her children and family as well as in the whole wide world. There is little if any bitterness, a lot of insight, and the courage to keep growing.

Chevat's writing is best in the latter half of the book. Highlighted at the end of most chapters are capsule stories in italics of heroic women, often not well known, who capture Esther's imagination. The selections are inspired and are integral to a full appreciation of the book.

Esther's attraction to Jewish roots and experience, especially heightened by the horrors of the holocaust and the heroism of the Warsaw ghetto, is an evolving part of her story. For the deep love of a son, Esther adjusts to his conversion to an ultra-orthodox Jewish religious sect, but she has a visceral aversion to the ritual separation and humiliation of women.   

The first part of the book may seem somewhat strange to many readers. They may wonder, "What was that all about?" when Esther and her husband hosted a "safe house" in the early 1950s, the time of McCarthyism. With literally millions of Americans deemed subversive, liberals and leftists alike, some feared that fascism and war were imminent. In such times, there are individuals and families who seek refuge, and dissident groups who seek to preserve their organizations by hiding those who may be targeted for arrest. People going in and out of "safe houses" were trying to carry on the same activities for civil rights and world peace that they were engaged in before they felt forced temporarily to go "underground."

As an organizer for the Labor Youth League, I personally experienced something similar at that time, including months of difficult separation from wife and children. But Esther's experience was different and worse than mine. She chafed, with very good reason, at being used essentially as a housekeeper, excluded from consultation and consideration. Bringing up very young children in such circumstances was painfully complicated, afraid that they might say or do something to attract unwanted attention to the "safe house."

Esther's Book is a good read, an intriguing novel. Beyond that, it tells a story that is more than a memory of times gone by. Today, in an age where surveillance has outstripped the imagination of Orwell's 1984, it's worth gaining perspective. Amazing as it may seem, preoccupation with race and color has always been cardinal for the "security" establishment —  from the Dixiecrats and Joe McCarthy, to the FBI spying on Martin Luther King and civil rights activists, to the timeless and current stop-and-search police practices against Black and Brown.

I must confess a warm feeling of kinship with Esther. Her first FBI entry was Peekskill. The first entry on my FBI file was a sentence from a letter sent to me while I was in the Army in 1943, in which a friend bemoans the fact that the Armed Forces are still segregated.

Borrowing a page (173) from Esther's Book:  "How many people were there in the world who shared the same history? No matter how far apart they were, they'd always be tied.... because of their past, their old dreams, who they were."

Basic Human Rights — Are They Sustainable?

The powers that be, masters of high finance and the politicians beholden to them, have had no effective response to the devastating economic crisis. But they do have an ideological response, in fact an all-around offensive using the very crisis they created to promote hostility to any idea of social responsibility for the general welfare. They reject established government programs to meet human needs as "unsustainable".

This is the "Shock Doctrine" at work, the phenomenon described in Naomi Klein's so-named book, where the turmoil of natural or human-made catastrophes is exploited as an opportunity to advance the interests of a selfish elite.

There is a glossary of terms that go with the ideology of  "unsustainability". “Entitlement”, given a derogatory connotation, is the label pinned on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Universal health care is “socialism”, the hallmark of a “welfare state”.  These are times that require “austerity”; we have to “live within our means”. Nothing is exempt from the chopping block — not education, not public assistance to the disabled, aged, jobless or homeless.  We simply can’t afford it. It’s unsustainable.

This ideology moves beyond Wall Street and the GOP, swallowed in part by advocates of the elusive “rational center”.  “Centrist” pundits bemoan the lack of political courage to achieve a “bipartisan grand bargain” and “structural reform” that would drastically curb “entitlements”. 

The question society cannot evade is: what is sustainable and what is not? The champions of austerity obviously find grotesque income inequality sustainable; so, too, record corporate profits in the midst of economic crisis; also, enormous military expenditures and human sacrifice in war. 

What they deem unsustainable are basic human rights, defined most clearly in FDR’s “Second Bill of Rights” address at the end of World War II. These rights, only partially implemented through persistent struggle, include: the right of every person to a decent livelihood, health care, and education, as well as “adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment” (FDR). 

There is no justification for the USA, the wealthiest country in the world, to lag behind in access to health care, to fall precipitously in educational opportunity, to accept governmental paralysis in the face of devastating unemployment, homelessness and poverty. No justification — but there is a fundamental explanation. As the Occupy movement has forced to public attention, most of the country’s wealth is sucked up at the very top, at the disposal of financial and corporate oligarchies whose nature is to strive for profits and power regardless of the public interest and the country’s welfare. That wealth buys lobbyists and super-pacs; it dominates and corrupts the political process.

While super wealth rests a heavy hand on both major parties, the GOP has finally become exactly what the most reactionary multi-billionaires like the Koch brothers have ordered and paid for. Having bank-rolled the Tea Party uprising, they now have a party completely beholden to Wall Street, the National Rifle Association, the war hawks and all the social bigots united in uncontrollable racist hatred for Barak Obama — no room anymore for Dick Lugar or Olympia Snowe; no room for compromise in Congress or the Supreme Court. To win the election, they will present Mitt Romney as a traditional conservative like George H. W. Bush, and hope that people will forget the tragi-comic primary debates. But Romney as president would be as “independent” of the Koch brothers and their GOP as Boehner is of the T Party’s bloc in the House.

Whatever the difficulties now or to come, austerity for the many and obscene wealth for the few is the road to hell. FDR could have been imagining today when he said in his “Bill of Rights” speech: “Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the socalled 'normalcy' of the 1920's—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.”

Preserving hard-won commitments to basic economic human rights depends on whether millions of Americans fight through the thickest of ideological-propaganda fogs. Human rights, civil and economic, are sustainable if, as a society, we get our priorities right.

Budget in Context

What's the budget debate about? Obama put the question of "how to balance the budget" in the context of "what kind of country will we be?"

The GOP puts the issue as entirely a matter of "living within our means"; it is strikingly silent on what kind of America will come out of the process. Despite Obama's recent speech, the predominant approach from the Democrats has also not really come to grips with what's happening to America and what to do about it.

The America of 2011is not the country some thought it would be a decade ago when Washington and Wall Street prematurely laid claim to a "New American Century". Far from triumphalism, the mood and reality today define a country that is deeply troubled. The stock market is back and profits are at record highs, but the economy is very sick. No remedy is emerging to deal with chronic high unemployment and underemployment; disparity in wealth distribution has never been as great; health care costs are galloping out of sight and poverty is expanding apace; educational opportunity is eroding and the infrastructure of the country is descending into potholes.

The structure of the economy has undergone drastic changes: its manufacturing base has been decimated, unions have shrunk, jobs have gone overseas and multinational corporations are evading taxes on a grand scale. On top of all this is the cruel burden of unending and unwinnable wars, the unbearable cost of maintaining a gargantuan military establishment with thousands of overseas bases policing the world.

America remains powerful on the world stage, but it is not the superpower whose strength can dominate the course of international developments. There are self-confident rivals who act with independence in economic and political affairs. Moreover, in a world that is undergoing epic economic and environmental crises, we are failing even to face up to the existential problem of climate change.

All in all, our problems are not a matter of a temporary glitch that can be resolved by cutting social programs or waiting for an upturn in the economy. Any meaningful remedies require taking account of the dimensions of the crisis and decline that grips the country. It also requires, as Obama said, a vision of what kind of America will be shaped by the way in which our crisis is confronted.

The Ryan budget ignores everything about the present crisis but the federal deficit. The GOP says absolutely nothing about what America would look like if it were to get everything it’s asking for: slashing education and basic services at every level, gutting Medicare and Medicaid, while shrinking revenue by cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

There may be no magical solution to all our problems, but we can achieve a great deal by practical and humane alternatives in the way we budget and allocate the government’s resources. There is no mystery to the essential approaches that would both improve life for most Americans while reducing the federal deficit. (What’s not simple is how the people can overcome the obstacles to progress manipulated by corporate wealth with all its lobbyists, politicians, and largely controlled media.)

The “People’s Budget” put forward by over 80 members of the Progressive Congressional caucus points the way. It shows how to reduce the deficit while dealing more effectively with the nation’s crucial needs. The remedy is threefold: increasing revenue by raising (rather than lowering) taxes on the wealthy, especially the extremely wealthy, and closing tax loopholes; gaining control of and reducing the costs of heath care; getting out and staying out of wars, and sharply reducing the bloated military establishment. How far we go in dealing with these three problem areas will influence what we can do to stimulate the economy, generate jobs, expand education, renew infrastructure, and become serious about developing alternative energy and confronting climate change.

Rightist and corporate resistance to both healthcare reform and significant retrenchment of the military-industrial complex threatens to dig the nation into an ever-deepening hole. On healthcare, necessary control over costs is impossible without placing the public interest over the profits of the mega health insurance and drug corporations. Medicare for all, cutting out the role of private greed, is the ideal solution, but at least some significant measures to strengthen the public’s hand are essential.

As for the colossal “defense” budget, it was shaped by exploiting the exaggerated paranoia that marked the Cold War and it has continued to expand out of any reasonable relationship to present reality. As Defense Secretary Gates recently acknowledged, “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.” Particularly irrational and dangerous is the hugely costly nuclear weapons arsenal. Beyond that, the vast network of bases abroad serves no worthwhile purpose since notions of “policing” the world prove illusory as well as provocative.

So there is an effective and humane way forward. Ryan’s corporate backers tout his “courage” in putting on the table so-called “entitlements”, the privileged set’s euphemism for programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that meet fundamental human needs. The courage that’s needed is what the Congressional Progressive Caucus has urged. One has to hope that the negative public response to the GOP-Ryan Plan, the overwhelming nationwide opposition to gutting Medicare, will encourage a demand to go after the real “entitlements” of the corporate world: tax evasion, profiteering at the expense of public health, and the sacred cow that is the military-industrial complex.

Better than hope, what’s called for is a lot more of the outpouring of anger and protest that Governor Walker has encountered in Wisconsin. It’s time for the people to get into the debate.

LIBYA

A week or two ago, the most urgent and contentious question was whether or not the US and its Western allies should intervene militarily in Libya. Now the missiles have rained down and a “no fly” blanket covers Libya. The possible massacre in Benghazi that Qaddafi threatened may have been averted, but events quickly made it clear that US/ NATO military power is not a solution for Libya any more than “shock and awe” was for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now the urgent question is, can the course of events be altered soon enough to prevent another prolonged war of intervention in the Middle East. How, for the sake of the Libyan people and a war-weary world, can we avoid sinking deeper into the morass of unending wars?

What’s called for, it seems to me, is international intervention, but intervention of a different kind than has been the sad pattern of the past. The UN has been bullied and bribed time and again into providing “sanction” for interventionist “holy” wars. Can that be different now? Can there be intervention for a cease-fire that protects the ability of the Libyan people to pursue their own democratic struggle as part of the “Arab Spring”? I think there are reasons why it can be different now.

Before looking at the reasons, a positive change in the character of international response to the Libyan crisis would have to involve urgent diplomacy efforts by the UN, shifting initiative toward members of the Security Council that abstained from supporting military action. The immediate aim would be a cease-fire that would halt Qaddafi’s military assaults and bombing by NATO. The longer-range outlook would be to secure conditions in which the Libyan people can bring about social change on their own terms without the tragic consequences of foreign military intervention and another prolonged war. However events develop, world opinion and effective international solidarity will be a force in support of the Libyan people against Qaddafi’s tyranny, as it was in the heroic struggle of the South African majority that finally ended the Apartheid regime.

Circumstances are far different today than they were when a triumphalist Bush Administration invaded Iraq in defiance of opposition at home and abroad. Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed the conceit that the US government can determine outcomes and force “solutions” by virtue of its overwhelming military superiority. The American people, like people everywhere, want no part of a third war in the Middle East. Moreover, Barak Obama and Robert Gates have shown great reluctance about being drawn into another disastrous military adventure. (While they are decidedly leery of more land wars, their reluctance does not extend to the widespread use of missiles and drones, as well as the CIA, Special Forces, and killer contractors.)

While views on the intervention in Libya have differed widely, including on the left, UN Resolution 1973 cannot be ascribed primarily to “same-old, same-old” imperialist motivation. Humanitarian concerns about Qaddafi’s brutality were real, regardless of mixed and ulterior motives among “Western” and Arab governments. Strong public support for prompt UN intervention came not only through the pleas of Libyan rebels facing imminent massacre, but from veteran anti-imperialists like Uri Avreny, Israeli leftist, and Juan Cole, analyst of Middle Eastern affairs. At the same time, it would be foolish to ignore the dangers inherent in unleashing US and NATO military power in Libya and possibly wading into another hopeless quagmire. The important governments that abstained in the Security Council vote had good reason to worry about potential “humanitarian” considerations as a formula for intervening militarily in the internal affairs of nations.

As for the United States, its greatest contribution to peace and democracy in the Middle East would be to sharply curtail its military presence. That should be the demand, in the interest of the beleaguered American people as much as in support of new generations of Arabs striving courageously to shape their own democratic destiny. The weapons that we sell and supply are the main instruments of tyranny and violence in country after country in the Middle East.

The uncertainty about Libya and what is happening in the Middle East brings America’s changing place in the world into focus. The US is powerful, but it is not the almighty superpower Bush and Cheney thought it was. The McCann and Lieberman hawks still cling to the deadly illusion, but reality is beyond denial. The serious economic and political decline, pushed into a deepening spiral by the political right and its corporate bosses, limits US influence despite the fact that we still have far more weapons of war than all other nations combined. Ending wars and keeping out of new ones is the imperative for any improvement in the lives and fortunes of most Americans. It would also be the biggest boon to worldwide aspirations for peace and democracy. That’s the big picture, the goal that shouldn’t be compromised in Libya or anywhere else.