Daniel Mathews

I recently read an article entitled “Israel’s Policy is Perfectly ‘Proportionate'” by Alan Dershowitz. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123085925621747981.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

I don’t find this article very convincing. I had a quick look to see if anyone had written any full response to the article, but couldn’t find any, so here are a few comments.

I will put aside the concerns I have about Dershowitz’s reputation (but happy to provide the sources of my concern to anyone who’s interested); and of course intellectual argument is independent of the author’s reputation. But there is an appeal to authority in the article, called “the former head of the Israeli air force”, and it is relied upon for one of the few facts he alleges — an anecdote that Hamas use human shields; certainly a demonizing story. When Dershowitz cites such an authority for this event, that is hearsay rather than direct citation, private communication rather than publicly available information, and coming at first instance from a former official the State engaged in massive bombardment, with an interest in demonizing the enemy and glorifying his own military, as part of a military campaign which includes what was publicly announced to be a massive public relations campaign. The story might be true — in which case, cited without regard to Palestinian humanity, it is still racist — but all evidence must be evaluated.

Whatever the case, one should separate the arguments that Hamas is committing war crimes and that Israel’s actions are appropriate, even “commendable”. I have no argument with the former; the latter, however, is more controversial.

Why appropriate, even “commendable”? It seems difficult to argue in light of the facts of what the Israeli military is doing. And as it turns out, the only way Dershowitz can argue it is by failing to mention anything that the Israeli military has actually done. All he can mention about what the Israeli military is doing (as opposed to Hamas) is one (poorly sourced) anecdote of Israeli military restraint, which also serves the purpose of demonizing Hamas, and some generalities about a policy of restraint. And in any case, these are references to things the Israeli military has allegedly not done, rather than actual things it has done.

Well, perhaps the “commendability” of military actions can be judged in the abstract, without reference to facts and reality of what those actions are and what they have caused; perhaps all judgments of humanitarian law can be made in the realm of platonic ideals; perhaps war is just a branch of pure mathematics. At least, that’s the way Dershowitz proceeds.

That’s okay; I am a pure mathematician; we can evaluate his claims on their merits and submit his paper to peer review.

First, he cites the aforementioned (poorly sourced) anecdote demonizing Hamas and claiming Israeli restraint. Demonizing your enemy, suggesting they don’t love their children, does not justify bombing anything, however correct it is, or however racist it is. One anecdotal (poorly sourced) exercise of restraint among the ongoing slaughter is barely evidence of a general government policy — but nevertheless I do believe some such policy exists, independently of Dershowitz’s flimsy evidence. The restraint of the Israeli military is such that, uncontroversially, it has bombed police stations, a university, a television station, killled hundreds, deaths on either side are in a ratio of roughly 100:1, and UN officials estimate that at least 25% of the dead are civilians. Perhaps if a different policy were followed, and civilian casualties rose to 50%, he would care? Is there a fundamental mathematical constant of proportion of acceptable civilian casualties?

Despite Dershowitz’s platonic, scholastic approach, he appears to assert that the relevant number is zero: “The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality — by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets — is absurd.” There seems to be an assumption that any Palestinian person killed is a “Hamas terrorist”. All statistics require evidence, of course; since Dershowitz presents none of Palestinian civilian casualties, we can assume the answer is zero. In the pure-mathematical approach to war then, civilian casualties inflicted by the author’s favoured state are zero by assumption. Perhaps in future development of the field, we can simply define all casualties not to exist at all. All is for the best, after all, in this best of all possible worlds.

(That’s all quite apart from the other definitional issue with “terrorist”, for which designation we often have little more to go on than the declaration of the attacking forces as to who they just killed; but that is a concern from the realm of the profane.)

Dershowitz’s second argument from the Platonic realm is more serious, and invokes international humanitarian law. He considers the “principle of proportionality”, which is contained in the Fourth Geneva convention, and in Protocol I to those conventions (also customary international law). We can state what these rules are.

Under the Fourth Convention, civilians must be treated humanely. Article 33 of that convention prohibits all collective punishments, and the punishing of civilians for offences they have not committed. Under articles 51 and 52 of Protocol I, there are specific rules regarding attacks on civilians and civilian buildings::

* Civilians shall not be the object of attack.
* Attacks designed to spread terror are prohibited.
* Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks include not only those which have no specific military objective, but also those attacks which are performed in such a way that the attacks cannot be limited in their effect to civilians as required by international law.
* In particular, art.51(5)(b) specifically says that attacks are indiscriminate, and hence constitute war crimes, if they “may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life… which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”
* Moreover, under article 52, civilian objects (e.g. police stations, universities, television stations) are not to be attacked, and “In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.” (art.52(3))
* Attacks must be limited to military objectives.

So, in the case of bombing police stations, a university, a television station, and whatever other targets in a densely packed urban areas, which of course may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life — the immediate legal questions are: is it “designed to spread terror” — in which case it is terrorism and a war crime? Is it aimed at civilians — in which case it is a war crime? Is it “a civilian object”, with benefit of the doubt against military use — in which case bombing it is a war crime? And in any case, might it be expected to cause civilian death or injury which is “excessive” in relation to the “concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”? There is also a broader question: Does it constitute a collective punishment?

Those are subjective questions and for now I will leave them to individual judgment in each case, in regard of the numbers of casualties on either side. Those are just some of the relevant legal questions; and legality and morality are of course not the same thing. But a simpler and more conservative question is how any bombing that goes beyond hitting rocket positions confer any “military advantage anticipated” other than zero; and a simpler point again is that any positive number is in “excess” of zero. One conclusion, which seems not particularly controversial in light of the facts, is that both sides have committe
d serious violations of international humanitarian law — with the scale of their atrocities however being orders of magnitude apart, and the more lethal side being armed to the teeth by the government that governs us.

But in the pure-mathematical version of war, these mundane applications of the general theory are not considered. Instead, Dershowitz’s approach sticks to hallowed theoretical ground:

“First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.”

The first statement is true, certainly. The second, taken literally, is certainly wrong: any military attack must be made for a military purpose; you cannot just massacre enemy combatants because you are in an armed conflict, and because one of your civilians might die in that conflict; international law does not condone such atrocities; there is no such theorem even in pure-war-theory. But assuming by “combatants” he means “combatants firing rockets at Israeli civilian populations and thereby committing war crimes”, he’s correct, at least as a matter of law. And with the assumption that all deaths are of this type, in another shining example of the triumph of abstract theory, he has defined away much of the military action of his favoured state so as not to exist.

He then goes on to say:

“Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened on Tuesday, when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beer Sheva, though no students were there at the time.”

The first sentence is again false even in the abstract. We just saw that the appropriate question — apart from broader questions such as collective punishment — is whether the “incidental loss of civilian life… which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”. Even having chosen to consider only sacred theory and not profane fact, that’s not a correct statement of theory. Even in the chosen terrain of Platonic ideals, his description of the relevant theory is woefully inadequate, referring to the risk of civilian causalties, but whiting out the requirements of “military advantage” and whether they are “excessive”.

His omission also makes the description logically incoherent. One thing cannot be proportional; there must be two things, which are in a certain proportion. Proportionality cannot be “measured” unless one measures two things relative to each other. But perhaps Dershowitz is not actually an arithmetician, and cannot be expected to understand what proportions, or ratios, or fractions are.

Nevertheless, Dershowitz *is* a law professor, and so has no excuse, despite his arithmetical difficulties. Is he ignorant of the relevant law, or is he deliberately misrepresenting it? Or does he assume, by his silence, that all actions of the Israeli military confer military advantage, and are not excessive, by definition? If so, another theoretical breakthrough!

(He has also refused to mention all the other rules of international humanitarian law, such as prohibition on attacking “civilian objects”, and the requirement of “military objectives”. Perhaps these laws are defined so they cannot be broken.)

His example in the second sentence is a good one: it is one of his few deviations from the platonic realm, though as we see, not about any action of the Israeli military, rather about an uncontroversial war crime of Hamas. And similar considerations apply when a far more accurate and destructive probably-US-supplied Israeli missile hits a university, or a TV station, or a police station. But those events, as we have seen, are defined so as not to exist.

So, Dershowitz does not mention anything about the bombing which actually *has* been carried out by Israel, or what its consequences have been. Perhaps that is because, upon even the slightest examination of that evidence, “commendable” actions might be revealed as war crimes, and Dershowitz becomes worse than an apologist for war crimes, he becomes an enthusiastic cheerleader.

My suggestion is that colleague Dershowitz’s paper be rejected for publication. As a condemnation of Hamas’ war crimes, I think it is good. As spreading racism against Palestinians, it is not. And as a justification of Israel’s actions, it is ridiculous. To consider those actions as a branch of pure theory, removed from all reality, is ridiculous — and even by its own logic it is mostly wrong and misrepresents the relevant law. Coming from a law professor, it is even worse. Moreover, when this article has already been published in a major newspaper, and when it supports the one side in this conflict that receives massive amounts of US funding, as well as ideological and diplomatic support, which is perpetrating military activities of the type discussed above, there is responsibility on us not to let it pass.

* * *

I apologise for the flippancy of these comments, because this is a serious matter. We deserve to hear more serious commentary in our major newspapers than the fantasies and fantastic omissions of this article. War and armed conflict is a terrible, terrible thing; it causes mangled bodies, weeping families, broken bones, and dead children. It breeds hate, it dehumanizes, it crushes the spirit, it kills hope. It cannot be considered in the abstract; it must be considered in relation to its effects on human beings. War is the total failure of the human spirit.

To write an article about a major armed conflict without acknowledging the uncontroversial existence of massive civilian casualties is quite an achievement. To get such an article published in a major newspaper is another. That says something.

The analysis here is very superficial and solely in response to Dershowitz; it should not be considered anything like a proper analysis of all the relevant international law (I barely even mentioned collective punishment). For a brief analysis of the relevant law in this immediate conflict, which is less favourable to Israel, see for instance Phyllis Bennis’ recent article at http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=19052. The international law of the occupation more generally is a much longer story, and less favourable to Israel again; see for instance the judgment of the International Court of Justice on the wall, available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf; paragraphs 70-78 and 86-89.

To the young, to the young at heart, to Americans, to the world.

“Black, the night that ends at last!” – Les Miserables

We are liberated. The darkness ends, and a new dawn beckons. The planet heaves a collective sigh of relief, and looks expectantly to what happens next.

It is a night that will be remembered in the annals of human history: the first African-American elected President of the United States. A culmination of centuries of struggle against injustice, against slavery, against ignorance, against bigotry, against discrimination. A President elected on an anti-war platform; a President supported and elected for his stand against the financial deregulation which is leaving the world economy in tatters; a President supported and elected for his courageous stance against war.

Celebrate, America. Carouse together, sing songs, burn bonfires, play music, and dance in the streets all night. Dance with all the intensity, all the determined celebration, all the resolute urgency of the moment that history demands. Pour out all the disappointments, all the frustrations, all the horrors and wars and torture and guilt. Sing, chant, embrace, kiss; run aimlessly in delirious circles of pure exuberance. Sing hymns of joy and let the heavens ring; turn up the beats, let the world hear the rhythms of change; cheer and whoop until the echoes redound to millions around the world; smile and radiate the compassion, kindness, and conscience that will envelop the world. Laugh with the entirety of your being; laugh at the improbability; laugh at the adventures, and the challenges, and the gambles that await us. Clear out the damage to your soul; now you have the chance to wipe the slate clean. Announce to planet Earth that change has come; announce to the universe that Earth may yet not be as insane as she seems; announce that this feeble speck, surrounded by unfathomable depths of silence, yet speaks; announce that all is not yet lost.

Tell the world that maybe now the government might speak for you. Celebrate, America; and celebrate, Earth.

Let it all out. There is so much to expunge from our conscience. Many of us know nothing but living under darkness; under a government committed to meanness, inequality and violence as a matter of principle; under wars, terrorism, secrecy and torture; under the constant erosion of individual liberties; under naked and explicit policies of world domination; under wars of aggression based on knowing lies. Our experience is of such high principle, such high ideals, such potential, such opportunity, shipwrecked upon such a sharp, shocking, shattering, soul-crushing education in the cynicism, the hypocrisy, the corruption, and the mass death of contemporary reality. Our experience is of such bitter, tragic disappointment between that which is, and that which could be, that which should be. It crushes us; but now, perhaps, we can stand upright.

So weep, America. Weep the sorrowful, cleansing, grieving tears of an old world nearing its end; cry the choking, spluttering, inchoate, spasmodic tears of a new world desperate to be born. Scream with all the rage, all the suffering, all the endurance that has accumulated under the surface, all the burden, the aggregate damage of all these years. Look at what your government has done! To you, to your country, and to the world. And now, perhaps it will not. Perhaps. It is a moment when anything seems possible.

Your government has done such damage to the world, yet the world still loves you. It loves you despite what your government has done; and now is your chance to make amends. As he often says, now is your time. Now is your chance. Heal it. Save it. The world may yet choke on its fumes, it may drown under rising seas, it may die of hunger or thirst or nuclear war. But you can stop this; and if humanity emerges from the twenty-first century unscathed, it may well become a planetary civilization worth the name.

It is a turning point. It is a transformative moment in history. It is the beginning of a great turning. It is the point at which the world really begins the new century. It is the beginning of a new direction in the affairs of the mightiest nation in the world, in the affairs of the world –

Maybe. All this is with one caveat. It may be, if you make it so. And if you do not, it will not be.

It is not the end. It is not the culmination. It is not a time to be relieved. It is not the time to go home and forget about politics for four years – to do that is to guarantee that the change will be as minimal as possible. Politics is more than elections. Politics is the struggle of every day, every decision, every place, every time. It is not a time to stop paying attention. When Obama says he needs your help, that is precisely what he means; above all, he needs your conscience and your action.

You live in a system, and you have changed some people in that system. You have not yet changed the system itself; and the system has its own dynamics. You have perturbed one orbit in that system, perhaps significantly; you have not yet lifted the whole system to a new and higher orbit.

So tonight, celebrate, America. Tomorrow there is work to be done; tomorrow the work begins.

* * *

I speak as an outsider. I did not vote today because I cannot vote; I am not a citizen of the country; I am a foreigner. Like much of the world, I am directly affected by the election yet have no say in it; this is one of many possible senses in which US elections – the closest thing we yet have to an election for world leader – are undemocratic.

I have never seen anything like the enthusiasm of young idealistic Americans for Obama. It amazes me. I must admit I do not seem to share quite the same level of enthusiasm, though I think I understand where it is coming from. Sometimes it has disturbed me a little; sometimes it has seemed a little too uncritical, for there are criticisms to be made.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a heartfelt plea for an end to the Bush administration and its policies. But sometimes Obama and Biden are not so far away from Bush administration policies, and it troubles me.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a deep yearning for a more peaceful world. But that same cheer might be interpreted by Pakistanis as approval of Obama’s policy to bomb their country whenever he believes it might kill some enemy; or by Afghanis as approval of his plan to escalate there, a plan which has little chance of any success, according to most military experts, but which is sure to cause mass civilian deaths.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a compassionate desire for a better health care system, for a society that where all are cared for. But that same cheer might be interpreted by private health care companies as an approval for them continuing to profit from sickness and disease, since Obama’s policy is not to introduce an efficient and effective single-payer scheme as in most other industrialized nations.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a conscientious urge to get the troops out of Iraq. But that same cheer might be interpreted by Iraqis as approval of his plan to leave tens of thousands of uniformed troops there and withdraw no mercenaries at all – against Iraqi wishes. And it would not be interpreted at all by the uncontroversially hundreds of thousands who have died as a result of the invasion – by some estimates, over a million.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a visceral disgust for the Bush administration taking the nation to war based on manipulated intelligence and lies. But that same cheer might be interpreted as approval for Biden’s role in promoting and enabling that war – as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when with the responsibility to invest
igate claims about Iraq’s weapons programs, he refused to hear dissenting voices, voices which understood those programs, voices of those who had inspected them – and who were right all along. Did those cheers for peace elect a warmonger?

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as an outpouring of sympathy towards fellow human beings and respect for human rights. But that same cheer might be interpreted as approving Obama’s position in favor of the death penalty.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a rejection of the Bush administration’s disrespect for the law, such as engaging in mass warrantless wiretapping. But that same cheer might be interpreted as approval for Obama’s vote which granted immunity for telecommunications companies involved in that warrantless wiretapping – as to the extent of which, we still have no idea; and the only way we might have found out was by discovery in the civil courts.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a desire to return to diplomacy as the primary method of engagement with other nations, particularly with respect to Iran. But that same cheer might be interpreted by Iranians as approval for Obama’s unwillingness to put any military option – including an attack on Iran with nuclear weapons – off the table.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as a hope for a less militaristic society. But that same cheer might be interpreted by weapons contractors as approval for his stated policy of increasing the military budget, which is already about half of Earth’s military budget.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as agreement with their speaking out against financial deregulation and the dangers of unrestrained capitalism. But that same cheer might be interpreted by Wall Street as approval for Obama’s role in redistributing $700 billion to the wealthy.

When I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I can interpret it as an expression of solidarity with suffering people around the world. But that same cheer might be interpreted by Palestinians as approval for Obama’s advocacy of Israel annexing East Jerusalem, an extreme position even among the pro-Israel movement.

And when I hear all those cheers, I cannot help but remember that there were at least two major Presidential campaigns which took more principled, more compassionate, more humane, more conscientious positions on all these questions – and that as long as California is not a swing state, one can vote one’s conscience – and I am a little puzzled. And when I am at a rally for a progressive cause, and I can see a crowd full of Obama/Biden signs, but no Nader/Gonzalez and no McKinney/Clemente signs, I am puzzled again. I know that those campaigns are washed out of the mainstream media; and I do come from a nation which has mandatory voting and an instant runoff system; but still, I am puzzled. And when I repeatedly hear at that progressive rally that the United States is the greatest nation in the world – without any reason given – I am puzzled again. These are all great nations, great nations among many, each with many flaws and horrors, each with much to be proud of.

But also, when I hear a cheer for Obama and Biden, I interpret it as a desire for the historic election of an African-American to the Presidency, for someone who took a stand against war, for someone who represents a more reasoned and more intelligent approach to the world, for someone who speaks of unity, understanding, compassion, and tolerance.

And, given the desperate trouble in which the nation and the world finds itself, and the disillusionment and disappointment with the current state of affairs, and the power of Obama’s oratory, and the movement he has generated – I interpret it as a desperate desire for change.

When I hear those cheers, I interpret it as the raw, beating heart of humanity, yearning for a better world, yearning to be free.

And there, I agree wholeheartedly, and cheer with them.

* * *

But as the above makes clear, Obama is left of Bush but hardly progressive on many issues. Best described, he is a centrist – at least by US standards – and centrists can go either way. As a very wise woman said at Stanford recently, “Obama is a centrist… so move the center.”

Centrists can be manipulated. Obama, in particular, has plenty of advisers and people in his orbit who are very much within the corporate establishment and very hawkish; and he has put them there, no doubt, because he agrees with them, at least in part. He also has a massive, youthful, idealistic grassroots movement supporting and propelling him. He has multiple forces acting on him. The system is complex, human affairs are complicated; democracy is messy, and with power and wealth as concentrated as in the United States, things are even more difficult. Obama’s policies and opinions on several issues have changed in the course of his campaign; they will surely change in the future. He can and will be manipulated. But manipulation by the people is not manipulation at all – constant manipulation of the government by the people is called democracy.

If pressure is constantly applied to Obama to make good on his promises of change, it can happen. If the grassroots movement that has supported and propelled him into office – a fantastic achievement – continually presses him to adopt humane policies, they will create a reality where he cannot do anything less than accept that reality, created by the grass roots, by the people.

If you see Obama as the embodiment of a great democratic dream – as many people do – then the fate of that dream is in your hands.

One of the most usual responses to criticisms of Obama is that, although he may not be perfect, he’s the best viable candidate and we should first concentrate on electing him to office. Well, now we have – so now, he must be perfected.

So, if Obama moves in a direction you don’t like, question it. If he makes a decision you disagree with, criticize him. If he goes in the wrong direction, protest him. If he goes too far, oppose him. No support for any individual can be complete and total. Total support can only be given to ideas; individuals are to be supported as long as they embody or promote those ideas, and no longer.

If you do nothing, the system will most likely slip back into its former orbit – a new candidate has come to the highest office, and his party has majorities in the Congress, but they are still as beholden to various corporate interests and lobbies as they always have been. The system will be altered, but the disturbance will die down, it will peter out, and things will eventually settle back to normal. His advisers, his cabinet, are all likely to be establishment, many from the Clinton administration – and we will see little new. Remember Clinton’s bombing of Sudan, Serbia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Somalia – and the murderous sanctions placed on the Iraqi population – and all that was before the events of September 11, 2001.

I, for one, do not want to see Obama’s magnificent oratorical skill used to glorify unprovoked bombings, or to justify civilian casualties. I do not want to see his intelligence diverted to defending the indefensible. I do not want to see his courage turned to cowardice, placating the intolerant, ignorant, or violent.

I want to see his courage and his bipartisanship explaining why humanitarianism, compassion, tolerance, respect for all peoples, respect for international law – that is, a foreign policy based on human rights and international law – is in fact the best course to improve national security, to achieve a more just and peaceful world. I want to see his courage and intelligence explaining why aggressive wars are crimes against the peace, that nations no longer invade other nations in the 21st century. I want to see his courag
e and his intelligence re-explaining Keynesian economics after the dismal failure of neoclassicism, yet again, 80 years on. I want to see his courage and his oratorical skill explaining how a New New Deal based on rebuilding the infrastructure of the United States will both stimulate the economy out of crisis, and lay the groundwork for a sustainable future. I want to see his courage to face fully and honestly the history of the United States, with respect to its indigenous population, the history of slavery, and the history of destroying democracy around the world.

Yes, destroying democracy. I want to hear Obama, with all his grand oratory and eloquence, say: the United States will no longer plot to overthrow democracy where it is against our interests; and will no longer support authoritarian regimes where they serve our interests. I want him to apologize to Venezuela for involvement in the coup of 2002; to Iraq, for multiple well-known catastrophes; to Sudan, Kosovo, and the other catastophes of the ’90s; to Nicaragua, for the terrorism and unprovoked intervention for which the United States was found guilty by the International Court of Justice in 1986; to El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Panama; to Afghanistan for training the Taliban and Osama bin Laden; to Chile for assisting the overthrow of the democratic Allende government in 1973; to Greece for supporting the military junta there; to Guatemala for overthrowing the democratic Arbenz government in 1954; to Iran for overthrowing the democratic government of Mossadegh in 1953; and the list of horrors goes on and on. It will be a long speech – and highly educational – but that is the speech, more than any other Obama could possibly give, that would announce a turning point in world history. It would announce that international relations will no longer be a large-scale version of the mafia. Accompanied by appropriate policies, it would open the way to a planetary community and worldwide democracy; a true globalization.

And if I do not hear it, I want to work to make him give that speech, to force him to give it. And to see that justice is done.

I doubt he will ever give that speech; but if people do place in him their sincere hopes for democracy, human rights, change, and peace in the world, that is precisely what they should be expecting and demanding – for that has been much of the US role in it. And if they do not know about these episodes – as many do not – they should educate themselves about it. And if they know about them, but think Obama would not give the speech, they should ask why – for it would be healing, uniting, and principled, perfectly in character. If they understand that, perhaps they understand something about the system of the world.

But the situation confronts the Obama movement urgently. Now is perhaps, in fact, the most crucial time, as the various positions within the Obama administration are decided. The dynamics of the new system are still being set; and many of the individuals suggested appear to be – to put it mildly, not so dynamic.

All the energy spent on this campaign, all the canvassing, all the donations, all the phone banking, all the get-out-the-vote efforts, all the organization and contacts established in the course of this historic campaign – this must not fade away. For this is precisely the machinery that will keep President Obama honest, and which will transform this potentially transformative moment in history, into an actual transformative period of history. We can interpret history all we want – but the point, as we all know by now, is to change it.

The grassroots movement that supported and propelled Obama should feel no qualms about asking for progressive policies, and expecting them; and if necessary, demanding them. If he is the movement’s friend, and the movement creates a reality, he will accommodate to them. For he is a centrist, and the movement can move the center.

A Green New New Deal? Solar and wind power? Single-payer health care? A complete withdrawal from wars and occupations? A commitment to international law and to abide by the decisions of the International Court of Justice? War crimes trials? Scaling down the military, a peace dividend? Nuclear disarmament? Tougher regulation of corporate crime? Mortgage relief? UN Millennium development goals? Carbon emissions reductions of the order of the 80% or so required to avoid runaway climate change? Public transportation? Education? The list goes on. Network, educate, organize, mobilize. It’s up to you.

A man with much experience in this regard once said, “The people can have anything they want. The trouble is, they do not want anything.”

At moments like these, anything seems possible. More accurately: anything is always possible; at moments like these, we realize that anything is possible. Things become possible simply when we realize they are possible. So the first statement is true.

I am not so sure about the second statement. It is in your hands.

What do you want?

History presents us with a great opportunity, and history will be what you make it.

My appeal, then, is not to stop, not to go home and disengage for four years. I appeal to you instead to continue, and to make history.

Are you in support of or against Sarah Palin?

I find it difficult to take Sarah Palin seriously. It makes a mockery of democracy to even ask whether one is in support of or against her. One is not against jokes or in support of them — one laughs at them, more or less heartily, depending on how funny they are. However ridiculous as Palin’s candidacy is, the joke is not at all funny, in fact it is extremely dangerous.

The standard criticism that she is ignorant and inexperienced seems valid to me — although it is true that, with congress regularly voting to support government actions that amount to war crimes and breaches of international law, experience as a politician in Washington in some respects roughly equates to criminality. Indeed, one could well argue that Palin has the least blood on her hands of all the major party Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.

Nonetheless, her stated positions are alarming. She has standard “conservative” (meaning, in standard US doublespeak, radically regressive) positions in opposing reproductive rights (advocating that abortion be illegal even in case of incest or rape!), proper sex education, progressive taxation, and gay marriage. She has extreme religious views that the present times are “end times” — which potentially leads one to doubt not only her judgment, but also her commitment to the preservation of the human species.

Horrendous as those positions are to any non-“conservative” or non-evangelical, her positions are even worse on some matters that ought to be uncontroversial. She takes it upon herself to oppose the consensus of the entire global scientific community on global warming and denies it is anthropogenic. She opposed protections to polar bears against the advice of her own Alaskan state scientists — and denied independent researchers access to the reports of those scientists, an outrageous cover-up. She supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and even went so far as to say in regard to a new natural gas pipeline: “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.” She approached a librarian as mayor of Wasilla about potentially banning books — in a country where freedom of speech and the press is enshrined in the constitution.

Furthermore, she takes the Bush-Cheney view of executive constitutional power, whereby the Vice President takes vastly more power than the constitution intends, including as part of the legislative branch — a blatant violation of separation of powers. I already mentioned the outrageous secrecy of her governorship, with respect to environmental science — and it extended even to using personal email accounts for government business, in the manner of Bush-Cheney White House extreme secrecy.

And, of course, along with McCain, she supports continued war and occupation in Iraq, escalation in Afghanistan, escalation of the US military budget — already approximately half of Earth’s military budget — bombing of Pakistan, threats to Iran, aggressive expansion of NATO threatening Russia, and unquestioning support for Israel, presumably including the usual approximate $3 billion in aid per year regardless of human rights abuses and brutal occupation policies in occupied Palestine.

She is an embarrassment to the nation, and a laughing stock in much of the world already.

I should add that many of these criticisms apply equally to Obama and Biden — especially in regard to foreign policy — so that the election quite arguably becomes a choice between the greater or lesser war criminal. That is not a choice that the citizens of a democratic society should have to make, and it is not a set of choices that, in my view, one ought to accept. Regardless of who wins, activist groups like Stanford Says No to War (of which I am a member) will need to oppose the shocking militarism and aggression that has become bipartisan US policy.

I would say that it is the task of all concerned citizens, including the media — not only as a professional duty, but as a moral obligation — to expose charlatans like Palin for what they are, and to expose the true nature of the choices (or lack thereof) available at this election. Of course, this applies not only for Palin, but for all other crooks and charlatans too.