Posted by
Curt Day on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 12:34:01 PM
We have North Korea threatening nuclear war, Iranians demonstrating in the street for democracy, and America coming to grips with its capitalist system. What could be next or do we have enough on our plate already?
With regards to North Korea, its threats come in response to the possible halting and inspection of their ships in international waters. The inspecting of North Korean ships are part of UN sanctions that are in response to North Korea's underground test of a nuclear weapon.The UN's legitimate concern behind the sanctions is that what has been developed in North Korea, should stay in North Korea. Even without a nuclear arsenal, North Korea possesses a significant deterrence to intervention or foreign attacks. North Korea has its artillery aimed at Seoul and it could cause significant damage before any counter strike could occur. Some have speculated that this is why we have not taken military action against North Korea as they have been developing and manufacturing nuclear weapons.
What we must ask with regards to North Korea is whether it is a harbinger of things to come. Some feel that the only way to keep that from happening is to strike quickly, harshly, and decisively so as to set an example.for nuclear armed wannabes in the world. But we must also ask ourselves if whether a harsh, military response, on our part, will bring other countries, such as a China, into the fray on the side of the North Koreans? So far, we have refrained from a provocative response. But then we must ask if our response is adequate?
What the North Korean situation reminds of is that technology makes the proliferation of WMDs inevitable. The more the proliferation, the more we are faced with the need to change from our history. To be precise, the greater the spread of WMDs, the greater the need to eradicate war less we eliminate mankind. That was the point of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto (http://www.pugwash.org/about/manifesto.htm). Stopping North Korea from shipping weapons to other countries can only delay this decision at best. Certainly the situation with North Korea must be handled adequately, but we must also develop new strategies that guide us away from similar confrontations in the future.
Next we have the situation in Iran. Because of our dislike of Ahmadinejad's irrational and threatening past, we would like to think that his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, won the election. But in reality, we don't know who won. What we do know is what we see. And what we see in Iran is what we should see more of here in America. Iranians are taking to the streets to press their demands. This has caused Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to call for an investigation of the election. This call for an investigation is at least a partial victory for the demonstrators.
But what we Americans should notice is the Iranian protesters' willingness to speak out and demonstrate publicly even when threatened with violence. This isn't the first time that Americans should notice how Iranians speak out. After 9-11, over one million Iranians took to the street to show their support for us and now they are taking to the street to ensure that the Iranian elections are meaningful and true. In the meantime, Americans seem content to sit too mesmerized by their TVs or too
anesthetized by some other pleasure or distraction to speak out about critical issues here. Those issues include life or death issues such as abortion and war, or social and economic issues such as health care, taxation, or jobs. Whatever the critical issue, Americans seem all to eager to define democracy as voting every so many years for leaders who are to make decisions for us. Vandana Shiva, an Indian scientist and activist, calls that kind of democracy a "shallow democracy." Noam Chomsky describes our reliance on voting as a sole form of democratic expression as a mere ratification of the policies advanced by those in power. I think of a democracy that only relies on voting as a lazy democracy.
When we see the reports showing the Iranian streets filled with demonstrators, we should echo a chant often heard at the meagerly attended protests here: "this is what democracy looks like!" And if that is what democracy looks like and if we want democracy here, we have only one choice. That choice is to take the causes that concern us to the streets to press our demands. If we don't do that, we must ask if a country where the election of a controversial leader might have been rigged is still more democratic than America?
Finally we should note what is happening to our American capitalism. Perhaps we should consider Chomsky's point that capitalism has not been practiced here for decades. He says that because the our government has guaranteed the existence of many corporations through proxies such as the Pentagon and its budget.Thus, when we see the bailouts, we can conclude that the government is only coming out of the closet with its support of businesses. But regardless, the Bush bailouts and Obama's plan is to rescue our economy from total, and possible irrevocable, collapse. One of the tradeoffs of these bailouts, however, is government ownership of businesses. This is an anathema for many conservatives.
But along with the government rescue attempts, we should note who is not being rescued. The group that seems to be left behind is the American factory worker. One does not have to read about America losing 3 million manufacturing jobs from 1998 to 2003, one only needs to try to buy manufactured goods made in America. It is very difficult. It is so difficult, that one must sometimes spend several tanks of gas in looking for a necessity made in America. Even after much effort, success is not guaranteed. And so far, despite the high and lofty intentions of President Obama, there seems to be no meaningful attempt to restore American manufacturing to what it use to be. The lack of such attempts only weakens the American consumer market because manufacturing jobs generally pay higher wages than service sector jobs. A weakened American consumer market initally causes a fall in prices, but as consumer markets from other countries strengthen and the demand for goods we need becomes stronger, not only will we continue with a weaker American ability to purchase goods, what we must buy will eventually become more expensive. We already see that with the price of gas.
Times are changing quickly. The question for us is can we adapt quick enough to at least keep up with the times?