I have been privileged to read the wonderful work of Arthur Silber for some years now. His blog, Power of Narrative, is one of my all time favorites. Despite the fact that I have never actually met Arthur, I consider him to be a mentor of mine. His words crystallized all that I had been thinking about the state of our country and the world. His analysis is clear and simple, we have a ruling class, and they use the quadrennial electoral extravaganza to fool us into thinking that we actually have democracy.
Back in 2008 when all but a handful of us collapsed like love sick groupies for Barack Obama, Silber was one of a group of writers who as they say, had Obama's number. As Silber put it, the choice of McCain or Obama was nothing but a choice of war criminals. He argued in favor of a McCain victory because progressives, in their faux activism, might oppose his policies. Silver was correct in his assessment. Progressives stood down when Obama won, and have accepted cuts to entitlements, endless war, and the biggest transfer of public wealth to the private sector ever in history.
In just the past few months, Obama assassinated Osama bin Laden, over threw the Libyan government, assassinated Anwar al-Awlaki and is now threatening Iran. The Iran threat has been ratcheted up by yet another terror plot which would never have existed if the FBI hadn't created it. This time we are told that Iranians made a pact with Mexican drug dealers to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. It is psy-ops at its worst, or perhaps its best, depending on how one looks at it.
All of the usual "serious" suspects, from establishment think tanks to wimpy pundits, accept this bizarre tale uncritically. Obama is doing with Iran what he did with Libya, getting NATO to co-sign his killing spree. The British foreign secretary had this to say, presumably with a straight face. The plot "would appear to constitute a major escalation in Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism outside its borders.” The New York Times repeats what the administration says, what better way to maintain its access.
When Obama assassinated al-Awlaki, the administration leaked classified information to the Times in order to justify its actions. I suppose the leakers should be treated like Bradley Manning, who is accused of a less serious release of classified information.
Obama has gotten away with policies that the right wing only dreamed about. Ronald Reagan gave up his efforts to kill Gaddafi and Bush demurred on making war against Iran. Bush wanted to cut social security, but democratic outcry made it impossible. No so with Obama, who has gotten his party to go along with his dirty deeds. John McCain may have sung Bomb Bomb Iran, but it will be Obama who gets away with carrying out the crime.
When he does, what will the peace movement do? It is clear that the protests leading up to the invasion of Iraq were more anti-Bush and anti-republican than they were truly anti-war. Will the same people who joined me in the streets of New York in 2003 join me again when bombs fall on Tehran or Isfahan?
The NATO backed "rebels" in Libya are slaughtering black people with impunity, a modern day lynch mob paid with cold hard cash from the west. Our voices are muted, and black Americans continue making themselves politically irrelevant by saying nothing about Obama's policies, even one as evil as this which targets a black population.
Today the administration announced that 100 American troops are headed to Uganda on a "humanitarian" mission. The missions are always humanitarian but they end up the same way, expanding imperialism and creating misery.
So my friend Arthur Silber was right. We have a war criminal at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and he will probably be there until January 2017, at which time he will be succeeded by another one.
Arthur has been in ill health and hasn't posted since August. I wish him well, mostly because he is a friend, but also because we need to hear from him at this time.
