Terrorism, Violence, and the Culture of Madness

Henry A. Giroux

The thought of security bears within it an essential risk. A state which has security as its sole task and source of legitimacy is a fragile organism; it can always be provoked by terrorism to become more terroristic.

— Giorgio Agamben

George Orwell’s nightmarish vision of a totalitarian society casts a dark shadow over the United States. The consequences can be seen clearly in the ongoing and ruthless assault on the social state, workers, unions, higher education, students, poor minorities and any vestige of the social contract. Free market policies, values, and practices with their emphasis on the privatization of public wealth, the elimination of social protections, and the deregulation of economic activity now shape practically every commanding political and economic institution in the United States. Public spheres that once offered at least the glimmer of progressive ideas, enlightened social policies, non-commodified values, and critical dialogue and exchange have been increasingly militarized—or replaced by private spaces and corporate settings whose ultimate fidelity is to increasing profit margins. Citizenship is now subsumed by the national security state and a cult of secrecy, organized and reinforced by the constant mobilization of fear and insecurity designed to produce a form of ethical tranquilization and a paralyzing level of social infantilism.

Chris Hedges crystalizes this premise in arguing that Americans now live in a society in which “violence is the habitual response by the state to every dilemma,” legitimizing war as a permanent feature of society and violence as the organizing principle of politics. Under such circumstances, malevolent modes of rationality now impose the values of a militarized neoliberal regime on everyone, shattering viable modes of agency, solidarity, and hope. Amid the bleakness and despair, the discourses of militarism, danger and war now fuel a war on terrorism “that represents the negation of politics—since all interaction is reduced to a test of military strength war brings death and destruction, not only to the adversary but also to one’s side, and without distinguishing between guilty and innocent.” Human barbarity is no longer invisible, hidden under the bureaucratic language of Orwellian doublespeak. Its conspicuousness, if not celebration, emerged in the new editions of American exceptionalism ushered in by the post 9/11 exacerbation of the war on terror.

In the aftermath of these monstrous acts of terrorism, there was a growing sense among politicians, the mainstream media, and conservative and liberal pundits that history as we knew it had been irrefutably ruptured. If politics seemed irrelevant before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it now seemed both urgent and despairing. But history cannot be erased, and those traditional public spheres in which people could exchange ideas, debate, and shape the conditions that structured their everyday lives increasingly continued to appear to have little significance or political consequence. Already imperiled before the aftershocks of the terrorists’ attacks, democracy became even more fragile in the aftermath of 9/11. Almost fourteen years later, the historical rupture produced by the events of 9/11 has transformed a terrorist attack into a war on terror that mimics the very crimes it pledged to eliminate. The script is now familiar. Security trumped civil liberties as shared fears replaced any sense of shared responsibilities. Under Bush and Cheney, the government lied about the war in Iraq, created a torture state, violated civil liberties, and developed new anti-terrorist laws, such as the USA PATRIOT ACT. It imposed a state of emergency that

justified a range of terrorist practices, including extraordinary rendition and state torture, which made it easier to undermine those basic civil liberties that protect individuals against invasive and potentially repressive government actions.

Under the burgeoning of what James Risen has called the “homeland security-industrial complex,” state secrecy and organized corporate corruption filled the coffers of the defense industry along with the corporate owned security industries—especially those providing drones– who benefited the most from the war on terror. This is not to suggest that security is not an important consideration for the United States. Clearly, any democracy needs to be able to defend itself, but it cannot serve, as it has, as a pretext for abandoning civil liberties, democratic values, and any semblance of justice, morality, and political responsibility. Nor can it serve as a pretext for American exceptionalism and its imperialist expansionist goals. The philosopher Giorgio Agamben has suggested rightly warned that under the so war on terrorism, the political landscape is changing and that “we are no longer citizens but detainees, distinguishable from the inmates of Guantanamo not by an indifference in legal status, but only by the fact that we have not yet had the misfortune to be incarcerated—or unexpectedly executed by a missile from an unmanned aircraft.”

The war on terror morphed into a legitimation for state terrorism as was made clear under the willingness of the Obama administration to pardon the CIA torturers, create a “kill list”, expand the surveillance state, punish whistleblowers, and use drones to indiscriminately kill civilians—all in the name of fighting terrorists. Obama expanded the reach of the militarized state and along with Democratic and Republican Party extremists preached a notion of security rooted in personal fears rather than in a notion of social security that rallied against the deprivations and suffering produced by war, poverty, racism, and state terrorism. The war on terrorism extended the discourse, space, location, and time of war in ways that made it unbounded and ubiquitous making everyone a potential terrorists and the battlefield a domestic as well as foreign location, a foreign as well as a domestic policy issue. Obama has become the master of permanent war seeking to increase the bloated military budget—close to a trillion dollars–while “turning to lawless violence….translated into unrestrained violent interventions from Libya to Syria and back to Iraq,” including an attempt “to expand the war on ISIS in Syria and possibly send more heavy weapons to its client government in Ukraine.” Fear became total and the imposition of punitive standards included not only the bombing, abduction, and torture of enemy combatants, but also the use of the police and federal troops for drug interdictions, the enforcement of zero tolerance standards in public schools, and the increasing criminalization of a range of social behaviors that extended from homelessness to violating dress codes in school.

Under the regime of neoliberalism with its war-like view of competition, its celebration of self-interest, and its disdain for democratic values and shared compassion for others, any notion of unity has been contaminated by the fog of misguided patriotism, a hatred of the other now privileged as an enemy combatant, and an insular retreat into mindless consumerism and the faux safety of gated communities. With the merging of militarism, the culture of surveillance, and a neoliberal culture of cruelty, solidarity and public trust have morphed into an endless display of violence and the ongoing militarization of visual culture and public space.

The war on terror has come home as poor neighborhoods are transformed into war zones with the police resembling an occupying army. The most lethal expressions of racism have become commonplace as black men and boys such as Eric Garner and Tamir Rice are repeatedly beaten, and killed by the police. As Jeffrey St. Clair has pointed out, one index of how state terrorism and lawlessness have become normalized is evident not only by the fact that the majority of Americans support torture, even though they know “it is totally
ineffective as a means of intelligence gathering,” but also by the American public’s growing appetite for violence, whether it parades as entertainment or manifests itself in the growing demonization and incarceration of black and brown youth, adults, Muslims, immigrants, and others deemed as disposable. It should come as no surprise that the one issue the top 2016 GOP presidential contenders agree on is that guns are the ultimate symbol of freedom in America, a “bellwether of individual liberty, a symbol of what big wants and shouldn’t have.” Guns provide political theater for the new political extremists and are symptomatic less of some cockeyed defense of the second amendment than willingness to maximize the pleasure of violence and building a case for the use of deadly force both at home and abroad. As Rustom Bharacuha and Susan Sontag have argued in different contexts, “There is an echo of the pornographic in maximizing the pleasure of violence,” one “that dissolves politics into pathology.”

Notions of democracy increasingly appear to be giving way to the discourse of revenge, domestic security, stupidity, and war. The political reality that has emerged since the shattering crisis of 9/11 increasingly points to a set of narrow choices that are being largely set by the jingoistic right wing extremists, the defense department, conservative funded foundations, and fueled by the dominant media. War and violence now function as an aphrodisiac for a public inundated with commodities and awash in celebrity culture idiocy. This surrender to the pleasure of violence is made all the more easy by the civic illiteracy now sweeping the United States. Climate change deniers, anti-intellectuals, religious fundamentalists, and others who exhibit pride in displaying a kind of thoughtlessness exhibit a kind of political and theoretical helplessness, if not corruption, that opens the door to the wider public’s acceptance of foreign and domestic violence.

The current extremists dominating Congress are frothing at the mouth to go to war with Iran, bomb Syria into the twilight zone, and further extend the reach of the American empire through its over bloated war machine to any country that questions the use of American power. One glaring example can be found in the constant and under analyzed televised images and stories of homegrown terrorists threatening to blow up malls, schools, and any other conceivable space where the public gathers.

Other examples can be found in the militarized frothing and Islamophobia perpetrated by the Fox News Network, made concrete by the an almost fever pitched bellicosity that informs the majority of its commentaries and reactions to war on terror. Missing from the endless call for security, vengeance, and the use of state violence is the massive lawlessness produced by the United States government through targeted drone attacks on enemy combatants, the violation of civil liberties, and the almost unimaginable human suffering and hardship perpetrated through the American war machine in the Middle East, especially Iraq. Also missing is a history of lawlessness, imperialism, and torture that supported a host of authoritarian regimes propped up by the United States.

Capitalizing on the pent up emotions and needs of an angry and grieving public for revenge, fueled by an unchecked Islamophobia, almost any reportage of a terrorist attack throughout the globe, further amplifies the hyped-up language of war, patriotism, and retaliation.   Similarly, conservative talking-heads write numerous op-eds and appear on endless talk shows fanning the fires of “patriotism” by calling upon the United States to expand the war against any one of a number of Arab countries that are considered terrorist states. For example, John Bolton, writing an op-ed for the New York Times insists that all attempts by the Obama administration to negotiate an arms deal with Iran is a sign of weakness. For Bolton, the only way to deal with Iran is to launch an attack on their nuclear infrastructure. The title of his op-ed sums up the organizing idea of the article: “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”

In the current historical moment, the language of indiscriminate revenge and lawlessness seems to be winning the day. This is a discourse unconscious of its own dangerous refusal to acknowledge the important role that democratic values and social justice must play in a truly “unified” rationale response, so as to prevent the further killing of innocent people, regardless of their religion, culture, and place of occupancy in the world. Instead of viewing the current crisis as simply a new and more dangerous historical conjuncture that has nothing to learn from the past, it is crucial for the American public to begin to understand how the past might be useful in addressing what it means to live in a democracy at a time when democracy is not only viewed as an excess, but as a liability to the wishes and interests of the new extremists who now control the American government. The anti-democratic forces that define American history cannot be forgotten in the fog of political and cultural amnesia. State violence and terrorism have a long history in the United States, both in its foreign and domestic policies, and ignoring this dark period of history means that nothing will be learned from the legacy of a politics that has indulged authoritarian ideologies and embraced violence as a central measure of power, national identity, and patriotism.

At stake here is the need to establish a vision of society and a global order that safeguards its most basic civil liberties and notions of human rights. Any struggle against terrorism must begin with the pledge on the part of the United States that it will work in conjunction with international organizations, especially the United Nations, a refusal to engage in any military operations that might target civilians, and that it will rethink those aspects of its foreign policy that have allied it with repressive nations in which democratic liberties and civilian lives are under siege. Crimes overlooked will be repeated and intensified just as public memory is rendered a liability in the face of the discourse of revenge, demonization, and extreme violence.

Many news commentators and journalists in the dominant press have taken up the events of September 11 within the context of World War II, invoking daily the symbols of revenge, retaliation, and war. Nostalgia is now used to justify and fuel a politics of in-security, fear, precarity, and demonization. The dominant media no longer functions in the interests of a democracy. Mainstream media supported Bush’s fabrications to justify the invasion of Iraq and never apologized for such despicable actions. It has rarely supported the heroic actions of whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, and others.

Mainstream media has largely remained mute about the pardoning of those who tortured as a matter of state policy. Against an endless onslaught of images of jets bombing countries extending from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan and Gaza, amply supplied by the Defense Department, the dominant media connects the war abroad with the domestic struggle at home by presenting numerous stories about the endless ways in which potential terrorists might use nuclear weapons, poison the food supply, or unleash biochemical agents on the American population. The increased fear and insecurity created by such stories simultaneously serve to legitimatize a host of anti-democratic practices at home-including “a concerted attack on civil liberties, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press,” and a growing sentiment on the part of the American public that people who suggest that terrorism is, in part, caused by American foreign policy should not be allowed “to teach in the public schools, work in the government, and even make a speech at a college.”

This legacy of suppression has a long history in the United States, and it has returned with a vengeance in academia, especially for those academics, such as Norman Finkelstein and Steven G. Salaita, who have condemned America’s policies in the Middle East and the government’s support of the Israeli government’s policies towards Palestinians. Language itself has become militarized fed by an onslaught of extreme violence that now floods Hollywood films and the violence that dominates American television. Hollywood blockbusters such as American Sniper glorify war crimes and produce demonizing views of Islam. Television programs such as Spartacus, The Following,Hannibal, True Detective, Justified, and Top of the Lake intensify the pleasure quotient for viewing extreme and graphic violence to an almost unimaginable degree. Graphic violence appears to provide one of the few outlets for Americans to express what has come to resemble what could be construed as a spiritual release. Extreme violence, including the sanctioning of state torture, may be one of the few practices left that allows the American people to feel alive, to mark what it means to be close to the register of death in a way that reminds them of the ability to feel within a culture that deadens every possibility of life. Under such circumstances, the reality of violence is infantilized, transformed into forms of entertainment that produce and legitimate a carnival of cruelty. The privatization of violence does more than maximize the pleasure quotient and heighten macho ebullience, it also gives violence a fascist edge by depoliticizing a culture in which the reality of violence takes on the form of state terrorism. Authoritarianism in this context becomes hysterical because it turns politics and neoliberalism “into a criminal system and keeps working towards the expansion of the realm of pure violence, where its advancement can proceed unhindered.”

The extreme visibility of violence in American culture represents a willful pedagogy of carnage and gore designed to normalize its presence in American society and to legitimate its practice and presence as a matter of common sense. Moreover, war making and the militarization of public discourse and public space also serve as an uncritical homage to a form of hyper-masculinity that operates from the assumption that violence is not only the most important practice for mediating most problems, but that it is also central to identity formation itself. Agency is now militarized and almost completely removed from any notion of civic values. We get a glimpse of this form of violent hyper-masculinity not only in the highly publicized brutality against women dished out by professional football players, but also in the endless stories of sexual abuse and violence now taking place in frat houses across America, many in some of the most prestigious colleges and universities. Violence has become the DNA of war making in the United States, escalating under Bush and Obama into a kind of war fever that embraces a death drive. As Robert J. Lifton points out,

Warmaking can quickly become associated with “war fever,” the mobilization of public excitement to the point of a collective experience with transcendence. War then becomes heroic, even mythic, a task that must be carried out for the defense of one’s nation, to sustain its special historical destiny and the immortality of its people. ..War fever tends always to be sporadic and subject to disillusionment. Its underside is death anxiety, in this case related less to combat than to fears of new terrorist attacks at home or against Americans abroad–and later to growing casualties in occupied Iraq.

The war on terror is the new normal. Its adoration and intensification of violence, militarization, and state terrorism reach into every aspect of American life. Americans complain over the economic deficit but say little about the democracy and moral deficit now providing the foundation for the new authoritarianism. A police presence in our major cities showcases the visible parameters of the authoritarian state. For example, with a police force of 34,000 New York City resembles an armed camp with a force that as Thom Hartman points out is “bigger—that the active militaries of Austria, Bulgaria, Chad, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kenya,” and a number of other countries. At the same time, the Pentagon has given billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment to local police forces all over America. Is it any wonder, that minorities of color fear the police more than the gangs and criminals that haunt their neighborhoods? Militarism is one of the breeding grounds of violence in the United States and is visible in the ubiquitous gun culture, the modeling of schools after prisons, the exploding incarceration state, the paramilitarization of local police forces, the burgeoning military budget, and the ongoing attacks on protesters, dissidents, black and brown youth, and women.

Under the war on terrorism, moral panic and a culture of fear have not only redefined public space as the “sinister abode of danger, death and infection” and fueled the collective rush to “patriotism on the cheap”, it has also buttressed a “fear economy” and refigured the meaning of politics itself. Defined as “the complex of military and security firms rushing to exploit the national nervous breakdown,” the fear economy promises big financial gains for both the defense department, and the anti-terrorist-security sectors, primed to terror-proof everything from trash cans and water systems to shopping malls and public restrooms. The war on terrorism has been transformed into a new market, a consumer goods for the hysterical war mongers and their acolytes in the media while making politics and extension of war. Fear is no longer an attitude as much as it is a culture that functions as “the enemy of reason [while distorting] emotions and perceptions, and often leads to poor decisions.” But the culture of fear does more than undermine critical judgment and suppress dissent, as Don Hazen points out, it also: “breeds more violence, mental illness and trauma, social disintegration, job failure, loss of workers’ rights, and much more. Pervasive fear ultimately paves the way for an accelerating authoritarian society with increased police power, legally codified oppression, invasion of privacy, social controls, social anxiety and PTSD.”

Fear and repression reproduce rather than address the most fundamental anti-democratic elements of terrorism. Instead of mobilizing fear, people need to recognize that the threat of terrorism cannot be understood apart from the crisis of democracy itself. The greatest struggle faced by the American public is not terrorism, but a struggle on behalf of justice, freedom, and democracy for all of the citizens of the globe. This is not going to take place, as President Obama’s policies will tragically affirm, by shutting down democracy, eliminating its most cherished rights and freedoms, and deriding communities of dissent. Engaging terrorism demands more than rage and anger, revenge and retaliation. American society is broken, corrupted by the financial elite, and addicted to violence and a culture of permanent war.

The commanding institutions of American life have lost their sense of public mission, just as leadership at all levels of government is being stripped of any viable democratic vision. The United States is now governed by an economic and social orthodoxy informed by the dictates of religious and political extremists. Reform efforts that include the established political parties have resulted in nothing but regression, a form of accommodation that serves to normalized the new authoritarianism and its war on terrorism. Politics has to be thought anew and must be informed by powerful vision matched by durable organizations that include young people, unions, workers, diverse social movements, artists, and others. In part, this means reawakening the radical imagination so as to address the intensifying crisis of history and agency, and engage the ethical grammars of human suffering. To fight the neoliberal counter-revolution, workers, young people, unions, artists, intellectuals, and social movements need to create new public spaces along with a new language for enabling the American public to relate the self to public life, social responsibility, and the demands of global citizenship.

The left in the United States is too fractured and needs to develop a more comprehensive understanding of politics, oppression, and struggles as well as a discourse that arises to the level of ethical assessment and accountability. Against the new authoritarianism, progressives of all stripes need an inspiring and energizing politics that embraces coalition building, rejects the notion that capitalism equals democracy, and challenges the stolid vocabulary of embodied incapacity stripped of any sense of risk, hope, and possibility. If the struggle against the war on terrorism, militarization, and neoliberalization is to have any chance of success, it is crucial for a loyal and dedicated left to embrace a commitment to understanding the educative nature of politics, economic and social justice, and the need to build a sustainable political formation outside of the established parties.

The United States is in a new historical conjuncture and as difficult as it is to admit, it is a conjuncture that shares more with the legacies of totalitarianism than with America’s often misguided understanding of democracy. Under the merging of the surveillance state, warfare state, and the harsh regime of neoliberalism, we are witnessing the death of the old system of social welfare supports and the emergence of a new society marked by the heavy hand of the national security state, the depoliticization of the American public, extreme inequities in wealth, power, income, and a new politics and mode of governance now firmly controlled by the major corporations, banks, and financial elite. This is a politics in which there is no room for democracy, and no room for reformism. The time has come to name the current historical moment as representative of the “dark times” Hannah Arendt warned us against and to begin to rethink politics anew through social movements in which the promise of a radical democracy can be reimagined in the midst of determined and systemic collective struggles. The war on terrorism has morphed into a new form of authoritarianism and its real enemy is no longer limited to potential terrorists, but includes democracy itself.

Obama And The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

William James Martin

Former President, Nobel Laureate, and founder of the Carter Center, Jimmy Carter, was conspicuously absent from the podium at the National Democratic Conventions in 2008 and 2012 in which Barak Obama was nominated by the Democratic Party for the US Presidency. Reasonable speculation for Carter’s absence is that Obama felt Carter’s presence might be harmful to Obama’s election, or re-election in the 2012, probably because of his very public views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue which is not popular with much of the most influential membership of the Democratic Party, nor of their most important contributors.

Whether the snubbing of Carter was a matter of pure political calculation, or whether Obama is genuinely hostile to Carter’s views is probably an open question.

What Obama’s views really are and what his perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is and his understanding of the history of the conflict we shall examine.

Speaking on June 4, 2008, before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the day after receiving the Democratic nomination for President, Obama stated the following:

Year after year, century after century, Jews carried on their traditions, and their dream of a homeland, in the face of impossible odds.

The story made a powerful impression on me. I had grown up without a sense of roots. My father was black; he was from Kenya, and he left us when I was 2. My mother was white; she was from Kansas, and I'd moved with her to Indonesia and then back to Hawaii. In many ways, I didn't know where I came from. So I was drawn to the belief that you could sustain a spiritual, emotional and cultural identity. And I deeply understood the Zionist idea — that there is always a homeland at the center of our story.

I also learned about the horror of the Holocaust, and the terrible urgency it brought to the journey home to Israel(Italics mine).

He then describes his great-uncle who had been a part of the 89th Infantry Division — the first Americans to reach a Nazi concentration camp. They liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald, on an April day in 1945.

When the Americans marched in, they discovered huge piles of dead bodies and starving survivors. …

I saw some of those very images at Yad Vashem, and they never leave you. …

It was just a few years after the liberation of the camps that David Ben-Gurion declared the founding of the Jewish State of Israel. We know that the establishment of Israel was just and necessary, rooted in centuries of struggle and decades of patient work. But 60 years later, we know that we cannot relent, we cannot yield, and as president I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security.

Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence, and government-funded textbooks filled with hatred toward Jews. Not when there are rockets raining down on Sderot, and Israeli children have to take a deep breath and summon uncommon courage every time they board a bus or walk to school.

I have long understood Israel's quest for peace and need for security. But never more so than during my travels there two years ago. Flying in an [Israeli Defense Forces] helicopter, I saw a narrow and beautiful strip of land nestled against the Mediterranean. On the ground, I met a family who saw their house destroyed by a Katyusha rocket. I spoke to Israeli troops who faced daily threats as they maintained security near the blue line. …

Hamas now controls Gaza. Hezbollah has tightened its grip on southern Lebanon, and is flexing its muscles in Beirut. Because of the war in Iraq, Iran — which always posed a greater threat to Israel than Iraq — is emboldened and poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States and Israel in the Middle East in a generation. Iraq is unstable, and al-Qaida has stepped up its recruitment. Israel's quest for peace with its neighbors has stalled, despite the heavy burdens borne by the Israeli people.
… Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel has always faced these threats on the front lines. And I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel's security.

That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage. I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat — from Gaza to Tehran. Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO. And I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself in the United Nations and around the world.

We must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations. That is why I opposed holding elections in 2006 with Hamas on the ballot.

Let me be clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. … any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided. [Italics mine]

In this impassioned speech, Obama manages to hit all the talking points of Israel’s state propaganda, and could just as well have been written by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech writer. It includes: 1) the centuries long yearning of Jews to ‘return’ to a homelands, which, though a widespread belief and a persistent theme of Zionist ideology and propaganda, is nonetheless a complete myth, as will be discussed. 2) the horror of the Holocaust, which, though not at all a myth, is invoked constantly by the state of Israel to justify its existence. In fact, this repetitive invocation of a threat of another Holocaust evenbegan in 1948 in the midst of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by the Jewish army, even though it was the Palestinians who were facing a Holocaust, not the Jews, 3) the insidious threat of the ‘terrorist group ‘ Hamas, which‘seeks Israel’s destruction’, along with Al Qaeda, Iran, and Hezbollah, the latter ‘is tightening its grip on Lebanon”.And 4), the rocketsfired from the Gaza Strip ‘raining down on Siderot’ with the danger to Israeli school children transiting to and from school. 5) government funded textbooks across the Middle East which teach ‘hatred toward Jews.

Of course, Obama announces that he will appropriate $30 billion in grants to Israel over the next ten years.

There is the suggestion in the speech that the reason he voted against the Iraq war, as a senator during the Bush administration, was because regime change in Baghdad would strengthen Iran. “Iran — which always posed a greater threat to Israel than Iraq — is emboldened and poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States and Israel in the Middle East in a generation.”In other words, Obama opposed the Iraq war for the sake of Israel.

He refers to flying over Israel, as had George Bush before, and observing that ‘narrow strip of land’, with the implication that the strip of land istoonarrow.

And of course, “any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders.[Italics mine]

The requirement that any agreement with the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state’ was enunciated 6 years prior to the injection of this requirement into the ‘peace talks’ by Mr Netanyahu. Possibly, Obama and Netanyahu mean two different things by, “a Jewish state’. However that may be, one wonders if Mr Netanyahu did not review Obama’s speech before introducing this new requirement for a settlement with the Palestinians in order to assess American receptivity before adding a requirement which most observers believe would be impossible for the Palestinians to accept, though apparently embraced by the American president.

And, Jerusalem must remain Israel’s undivided capital; very much in line with the persistent refrain of the Israeli Prime Minister, and another principle which the Palestinian leadership could not possibly accept. This claim that Jerusalem must be the undivided capital of Israel flies in the face of previous American policy as upheld by every American president since 1967, and is in direct contradiction to UN Security Council Resolution 242, the basis of the American position since the ’67 War, at least up until the Obama administration whose support for this principle is either weak or non-existent. It also runs in contradiction to UN General Assembly Resolution 184 upon which Israel claims international legitimacy. That resolution set aside Jerusalem as a UN administrated area neither a part of the Jewish or Arab states.

There is not much that the President-elect left out, if his purpose was to appease the Zionists and capture the Jewish vote in the upcoming general election.

Any Palestinian listening to this speech must have been horrified;Obama had taken the most extreme hardline Israeli positions.

Whether these words actually reflect his personal understanding of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and it’s just solution or whether he is acting politically with the primary goal of winning the election and capturing the Jewish vote is probably a distinction without a difference, especially considering that, having now won two elections, he has never contradicted this messageover the past seven years, and in fact, he has repeated it,.

Though the speech is from 2008, Obama has recycled the same themes repeatedly since, in particular in his 2011 speech to the United Nations General Assembly and in his March 2012 speech before AIPAC with almost word for word replication.

Obama regurgitates a central concept embodied in the Israeli Declaration of Independence of 1948:

“Exiled from the Land of Israel the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.

"Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regained their statehood. In recent decades they returned in their masses. …"

In fact, this is sheer mythology, one of Mr Ben Gurion’s many fabrications which he wrote into the Israeli Declaration of Independence, long a part of the Zionist mythos,and swallowed uncritically by a wide range of people including the American president.

Though Jerusalem, or at least central Palestine was the metropole of the development of monotheism and Judaism, the focus of Biblical narrative, and the phrase, “next year in Jerusalem” made its way into one of the Seder prayers, apparently dating from the middle ages, in fact no practical effort was ever made by any of the world’s Jews, up until the end of the nineteenth century, to settle in Palestine; and one searches in vain for any proposal of the creation of a state up to this period.

Nor was a longing for Palestine or Jerusalem a widespread culturally induced icon within the Jewish community as the lack of any significant movement toward reclaiming the Holy Land or migrations of Jews to the Holy Land, or even any significant amount of Jewish pilgrimages to the Holy Land, before about the 1880’s, by Jews attest.

The concept of a Jewish migration from Europe and elsewhere to the Holy Lands and the establishment of a Jewish state is a Christian, and not a Jewish, invention and was first embraced by the Jewish communities of the Russian Pale, and then only a small proportion of them, from about the 1880’s onward owing to a wave of anti-Jewish violence.During this period about 1.5 million Jews of western Russia migrated to the United States and only a few thousand to Palestine. Overwhelmingly, the preference of eastern European Jews during this period of emigration was the United States, not Palestine.

It was Christianity, not Judaism that introduced the ideas of ‘wandering Jews’ displaced from their original homeland and seeking to “return”. It was Christian Zionism that introduced the term return to describe a Jewish migration into Palestine implying a continuity, if not an identification, between the ancient Judeans and modern Jews, and that Jews are the “lawful” owners of the land of Palestine.

It is doubtful that anyone would invoke the term return to describe a contemporary conquest of Palestine by Egypt, or Persia or Macedonia for that matter, even though Egypt had ruled Palestine a millennium before there was a Jewish city state in Jerusalem, the latter occurring at the end of the first millennium BCE. And likewise both Persian and Macedonia, under Alexander and his sons, ruled Palestine before Jewish rule,the latter of which did not even encompass all of Palestine and was certainly did not bear a resemblance to a modern day nation state.

It is not exactly known when monotheism developed, but it was most probably in the middle of the first millennium BCE concurrent with the writing of the Bible which occurred most likely between the seventh and the fifth centuries of the first millennium BCE.

According to historian Shlomo Sand in his recent book, “The Invention of the Land of Israel”:

Jewish pilgrimages [to Jerusalem and the Holy Land] emerged as an afterthought to Christian pilgrimage. It never reached comparable dimensions and so perhaps cannot be considered an institutional practice. Few Jewish pilgrims set out to the Holy land between the twelfth century and the end of the eighteenth century CE, by comparison to the tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims who made the trip during the same period. … the degree to which the Land of Israel did not attract the "original children of Israel" is nonetheless astounding.

… it is evident that journeying to the Land of Israel was no more than a marginal practice in the life of the Jewish communities. All comparisons between the members of Christian and Jewish pilgrims reflect that Jewish trips to the Holy Land were a drop in the ocean. We know of approximately thirty texts that provide accounts of Jewish pilgrimages during the seventeen hundred years between333 CE and 1878, we have some 3,500 reports of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

It was English Christians, and not eastern European Jews who began the campaign to promote Jewish immigration to the Holy Lands.
The British Library contains the oldest document, written in English on Christian Zionism entitled Apocalypsis Apocalypseos (‘A Revelation of the Revelation), a 50 page monograph, written in 1585 by the Anglican priest, Thomas Brightman, often described as the ‘father of the Restoration of the Jews’.

Brightman argued that the ‘rebirth of a Christian Israelite nation’ would become the ‘center of the Christian world’, and further that a ‘restoration’ of Jews to Palestine was necessary if England was to be blessed by God when history enters its last days and the prophesies of the book of Daniel are to be fulfilled. 

However the campaign began, in earnest, with the ascendancy of the Puritans in England in the early seventeenth centurywho engendered a refocus and a reemphasis on the Old Testament and on thechildren of Israel with whom the Puritans identified.

Barbara Tuchman states:

"The period … up to 1600 let us say, Palestine had been to the English a land of purely Christian association, though lost to the Christian world through the unfortunate intrusion of Islam. Now it came to be remembered as the homeland of the Jews, the land carrying the Scriptural promise of Israel’s return. Interest now centered on fulfilling the Scripture. Starting with the Puritans ascendency, the movement among English for the return of the Jews to Palestine began."

In the year 1649, the very peak and midpoint of Puritan rule in England, two English Puritans of Amsterdam, Joanna and Ebenezer Cartwright, petitioned the government “That this Nation of England, with the inhabitants of the Netherlands, shall be the first and the readiest to transport Izraell’s sons and daughters in the ships to the Land promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for an everlasting Inheritance.” …

To understand their motive one must realize the transformation wrought by the Bible acting through the Puritan movement. It was as if every influence on thought exerted today by the press, radio, movies, magazines were equaled by one book speaking with the voice of God, reinforced by the temporal authority of the Supreme Court. Particularly the Old Testament, with its narrative of a people unalterably convinced of having been chosen by the Lord to do His work on earth, governed the Puritan mind. They applied its narrative to themselves. They were the self-chosen inheritors of Abraham’s covenant with God, the re-embodied saints of Israel, the “battle-ax of the Lord”, in the words of Jeremiah. Their guide was the prophets, their inspiration were owed not to the Heavenly father of Jesus, but to Jehovah, the Lord God of Hosts. Scripture, the word of god revealed to His chosen people, was their command, on the hearth as on the battlefield, in Parliament as in church. 

Shlomo Sand tells us:

Woven through not only the Cartwrights’ petition but also the stance taken by the foreign secretary Lord Palmerston in the 1840’s and Lord Balfour’s well known letter to Lord Rothschild in 1917is a common thread or, to use another metaphor, a critical artery pulsating within the English (and subsequently British) body politic. Lacking this artery and the unique ideological elements it carried, it is doubtful whether the State of Israel could have ever been established. 

Impelling the promotion of a Jewish migration into Palestine was a program, not essentially for the sake of Jews, but as it was read from the Scripture, or rather read into the Scripture, that such an re-assemblage of Jews in the Land of the Children of Israel and then their conversion to Christianitywas necessary for the return of Christ and a millennium of peace. Such ideas persist among Christian Zionist in our time.

The Puritans believed that since their own doctrines were closer to Judaism, and that the Jews, once in close contact with them, would find conversion to Christianity relatively smooth.

The idea of a Jewish migration into and assemblage in Palestine was very much in the air by the beginning of the nineteenth century.

During the Syrian campaign of Napoleon’s Oriental expedition in which he had sought to defeat the Ottoman rulers, cut off Britain from its empire, and recreate the empire of Alexander from France to India, he become (sic) the first political leader to propose a sovereign Jewish State in Palestine:

‘Bonaparte, Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic in Africa and Asia, to the Rightful Heirs of Palestine. Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny were able to deprive of the ancestral lands only, but not of name and national existence …She [France] offers to your at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel’s patrimony … Rightful heirs of Palestine … hasten! Now is the moment which may not return for thousands of years, to claim the restoration of your rights among the population of the universe which had shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years, your political existence as a nation among the nations, and the unlimited natural right to worship Yehovah in accordance with your faith, publicly and in likelihood for ever.’ 

Observe that Napoleon is here attempting to initiate a program or a movement among Jews which , in his understanding, did not exists at that time. Napoleon is not trying to tap into a recognizable “2000 year old yearning of Jews to return to Zion” but is trying to create one from scratch.

A similar conclusion can be reached from this letter, written a half century later, 1841, from Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, antecedent to Winston Churchill, to Moses Montefiore:

I cannot conceal from you my anxious desire to see your countrymen endeavor once more to resume their existence as a people. I consider the object to be perfectly obtainable. But two things are indispensably necessary: Firstly that the Jews themselves will take up the matter, universally and unanimously. Secondly that the European powers will aid them in their views. 

Lord Shaftesbury - Anthony Ashley-Cooper, SeventhEarl of Shaftesbury, nobleman, philanthropist with the ear of Prime Ministers, Lords, and others who held power in mid nineteenth century, in particular, that of Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston, foreign secretary and prime minister from 1855 to 1865,was a deeply religious man who based his life on the Bible, “God’s written word”. “I accept it, believe it, bless it, as announced in the Holy Writ.”Ashley became president of the Palestinian Exploration Fund whose mission was to explore every inch of Palestine and to “prepare it for the return of its ancient possessors …” Ashley presided for 40 years over the London Society for the Promotion of Jewish Conversion to Christianity whose signal achievement was the establishment by the Church of England of an Anglican bishopric in Jerusalem with a converted Jew as its first bishop.Shaftesbury invented the phrase, “A country without a nation for a nation without a country’ which later transmogrifiedinto the Zionist slogan, “A land without a people for a people without a land’.

Tuchman writes:

On August 17, 1840 the Times published a letter on a plan to “plant the Jewish people in the land of their fathers” which it said was now under “serious consideration.” It commended the efforts of Lord Ashley (later Lord Shaftesbury), author of the plan, as “practical and statesmanlike” and quoted a canvass he was making of Jewish opinion designed to find out how they felt about a return to the Holy Land, how soon they would be ready to go back, and whether Jews “of station and property” would join in the return and invest their capital in the land if the Porte could be induced to assure them law and justice and safety to person and estate and if their rights and privileges were “secure to them under the protection of a European power.” [Italics mine] 

By the late nineteenth century most all of England was primed for the promotion of Jews to be assembled, “reassemble” as they put it, in Palestine. The literature- novels and poetry from Milton to Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron to George Eliot and to Benjamin Disraeli, politician/novelist, promoted the assemblage of Jews in Palestine. The newspapers, the Manchester Guardian, in particular, the political actors of the day, with few dissenters, were all aligned driven by religious fervor combined with a vision of imperial by proxy.

Speaking on the floor of the House of Lords in 1922, five years subsequent to the Balfour Declaration, Lord Balfour said:

… that he would be unfair to himself if he sat down without insisting “ to the upmost of my ability” that there was a great deal involved in Britain’s sponsorship of the Jews’ return to their homeland. “This is the ideal which chiefly moves me … that Christendom is not oblivious to their faith, is not unmindful of the service they have rendered to the great religions of the world, and that we desire to the best of our ability to give them the opportunity of developing in peace and quietness under British rule, those great gifts which hitherto they have been compelled to bring to fruition in countries which know not their language and belong not to their race. 

Balfour speaks to us again:

Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in the age-long tradition in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land … . The idea of planting a [European] minority of outsiders upon an indigenous majority population, without consulting it, was not calculated to horrify men who had worked with Cecil Rhodes or promote European settlement in Kenya. 

Of what was Balfour speaking? Jewish history, or the five centuries of English philo-semitism from the 50 page Christian Zionist monograph of Thomas Brightmanto the declaration that bears Balfour’s name. That is, is he speaking of Jewish history or of the English interpretation of that history and contribution of British conceptualization of that history, however Balfourmay have understood his own words? Was he not referring, not to Jewish endeavors, but to the long and deep tradition within British society and culture of Christian Zionism?

Mr Ben Gurion’s insertion into the Israeli Declaration of Independence of the claim of 2000 year of Jewish yearning and struggle to return to Palestine is a fraud and an effort to claim provenance of the creation of Zionism which was, in fact, a product of Christians, or of Christian society.It was Christian culture that developed and nurtured the concept of the return of Jews and the continuity of the ancient Judeans with modern Jews overlooking the possibility that modern Jews might well not be the descendants of the ancient Judeans, as it ever more looks like they are not. This created trait of continuity, and identification, of ancient Judeans with modern Jews has allowed Mr Netanyahu, as well as the Revisionist/Lukud strain of Zionism, to claim a right of proprietorship over Palestine which, in his view, and theirs, overrides the constraints of international law, in particular, international law’s injunction against ethnic cleansing.

Ever how much Mr Netanyahu and his Lukud party, and most Israelis for that matter, would be displeased to hear it, Jewish Zionism is an outgrowth of Christian Zionism which developed , incubated, and nurtured it and is not an auto-genetic, self-contained,or autochthonousproduct of Jewish energy.

President Obama’s pre-presidential background in foreign policy was modest consisting of his having taken some classes on foreign policy at Columbia University as an undergraduate and, as a member of the United States Senate, having served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Notwithstanding his tenure on the foreign Relations Committee, and maybe with the exception of his vote against authorization for the Iraq invasion, he seems never to have attempted to influence American foreign policy in any significant way.

According to Fawaz Gerges (Obama and the Middle East, p 97), Obama had read a few popular books on foreign affairs – Fareed Zakaria’s Post American World and Thomas Freedman’s There World is Flat, and also Samantha Power’s Putlitzer Prize winning book, A Problem from Hell, a history of genocides. 

He certainly lacked the foreign policy experience of some whom he appointed to cabinet, or deputy cabinet posts such as John Kerry, or Richard Holbrook and some others.

One searches in vain for any detailed and highly competent writings or speeches on foreign policy, given by Obama, that go beyond idealistic platitudes, ever how souring the rhetoric.

Looking to the beginning of his presidency, his only foreign policy projections were to correct the overextended foreign policy and adventurism of his predecessor and affect a retraction of foreign involvement ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and retrenching American energy toward a domestic agenda.

Obama’s orientation is toward domestic policy as an academic program of constitutional law would dispose. Between Columbia and Harvard Law School, Obama worked, not in any capacity having to do with foreign policy but as a community organizer in Chicago’s south side.

The contrast with President Carter is instructive.

Coming into office, Carter clearly identified several areas of foreign policy in which he was determined to act. Those were: 1) To establish a working relation with the Soviet government on the issue of nuclear arms reductions. 2) To complete to diplomacy initiated Richard Nixon and establish full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. 3) To resolve the growing potential conflict with Panama over the Panama Canal and to complete a treaty that previous presidents had left dangling. 4) To resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 5) To reduce American’s dependence on the importation of foreign oil and to end the possibility of a disruption of oil supplies as, for instance, caused by the Arab oil embargo of 1973. 6) To move southern Africa toward constructive change and away from apartheid. Carter was largely successful in in carrying out these initiatives.

By contrast with Carter, there were no positive foreign policy initiatives envisioned by the new incoming president other than the intention of ending the involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. The so-called “pivot toward Asia”, which was also a pivot away from involvement in the Middle East only reflects the reaction against the Bush policies and is an effort at correction. It is a reaction against rather than a genuinely positive refocus.

There is, however, a fairly consistent foreign policy strategy, consistent with Obama’s disposition toward limited foreign involvement which is discernable if one ignores the idealistic words and speeches. In the historic tension between idealism and Realpolitic, Obama comes down on the side of Realpolitic. Thus, foreign involvement is only justified if American’s vital interests are threatened.
Thought of this way, the Palestinians are as peripheral to core American interests are the Bahrainian protestors in Pearl Square.
Though Obama has exhibited sympathies toward the peaceful protests as they began in Syria and later for the rebel fighters resisting the crush or the Syrian army, Obama rejected Secretary of State Clinton’s proposal to arm the Syrian rebels, and even now, American aid to the moderate Syrian rebels, such as can be found, is quite modest.

What is not modest, however, is the effort to defeat ISIS while the Assad regime in Damascus is largely ignored. Overthrowing or destabilizing the Assad regime would not make any more sense to Obama than the invasion of Iraq under President Bush.
In terms of Realpolitic, there is little contribution that the Palestinian or their liberation can do for US strategic interests, whereas there is considerable cooperation between the US and Israel on security matters.

One might argue, as many have, that the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict along with Israel’s continued occupation and land confiscation is harmful to American’s image in the Arab world and is possibly behind much of the unrest and overall hostility, harbored by some, toward the US.

But this involves long term interest, and further, a clear straight line cannot be drawn between a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem and a diminution of tensions and conflicts in the Middle East.

Arguably, the combined efforts of the US and Israel to develop the Stuxnet virus, or malware, which did considerable damage to the Iranian centrifuges at their Natanz nuclear facility, and the recently revealed combined US-Mossad intelligence cooperation which resulted in the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief,along with the combined British, Israeli, and US espionage on Iranian government leaders recently revealed by Edward Snowden , indicate the close security cooperation between the US and Israel on matters of security and the fight against terrorists threats. It also reflects a shared interest in matters of security, an interest not shared between the US and the Palestinians.

Despite Obama’s pledge in in 2009 Cairo to do everything in his power to achieve a Palestinian state living peacefully beside a secure Israel, Obama is not going to discard, or risk the loss of, the potential intelligence asset of Israel’s technical capability or experience in the Middle East in order to achieve freedom for the Palestinian people. Nor has he shown the slightest interest in risking political capital in a public fight with Israel over basic issues.

As of the writing of this article, there is a test of wills occurring between the White House and the Israeli government led by Nr Netanyahu’s implacable hostility to any compromise in negotiations on Iranian nuclear program.

This is a battle Mr Obama did not choose. Rather it represented a challenge by the Israeli government to Obama’s determination to avoid further military involvement in the Middle East and, in particular, a war with Iran, as Mr Netanyahu has been trying to promote, or to avoid the US to be drawn into a war with Iran initiated by Israel.

Obama’s concentration of energy on the implementation of a policy based on Realpolitic allows Obama to avoid acquiring a very detailed knowledge of the history of Israel or of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or, for that matter, any other area of foreign policy.
The several paragraphs quoted at the beginning of this paper reveal that, at best, Obama has a superficial knowledge of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and its history and also reveals his embrace of the 60 year old Israeli propaganda largely discredited since the writing of the historians, mostly Israelis, since the 1990’s. I refer primarily to the writing of historians Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim and others.

Obama could do no better at the beginning of this past summer’s Israel was against Gaza than repeat the Bush mantra we heard so often – “Israel has a right to defend itself.” As in the case of his predecessor, there is no consideration of the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves. Nor was there a consideration of who was defending against whom. This often repeated platitude reflect a considerable shallowness and an indication that Obama has given very little thought to what is the actual nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is difficult to imagine President Obama replicating Jimmy Carter’s 13 days long Camp David Summit which consisted of virtually non-stop debates between President Carter and Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin, with Benjamin Netanyahu replacing Begin. Obama lacks the interest, the passion and the necessary knowledge or historical grasp to conduct such a session. But Obama would hardly be undertake such a summit in the first place

Israel can offer the US cooperation at the security level with Israeli intelligence which is highly capable and has extensive experience in the Middle East.

The Palestinians have little to offer Obama.

Do not expect any significant progress engendered by the Obama administration for the rest of his term.
If there is to be any change in the configuration between the Palestinians and the Israelis, it will emanated from the International Court of Justice.

Cultural Hegemony And Social Change: 2015

Jon Kofas

Introduction: Cultural Hegemony in Marxian and anti-Marxian Thought

We live in the most difficult times since the Great Depression, despite the end of the recession that started in 2008 and ended in 2011 in the US, while it lingers in much of the world until 2015. Just as in the Great Depression when there was political polarization and weakening of bourgeois parliamentary democracy but no revolution except for rise of Fascist movements, similarly in the early 21st century there is no sign of social uprisings in the Western World undergoing a crisis in the political economy and bourgeois institutions. Why is it that the masses remain so incredibly docile, a segment gravitating to the extreme right as we see in France, Greece, Austria, and across much of Europe where the leftist parties have yielded to neo-liberalism while retaining the Socialist rhetoric?

Another segment of the population going as far as street protests and then back home to their social media networks hoping others will join them or at least provide moral support for social justice. By far, too people remain apathetic, beaten down by the institutional structure that shows signs of rising GDP but income redistribution from the workers and middle class to the top ten percent of the richest people. In 2015 America’s real estate market shows a rise 13 times higher than wages, forcing workers and the middle class either to go deep in debt or rent, in either case working to pay the bank.

The euphoria about the BRICS, (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is fizzling, with the exception of China that has much better prospects having consolidated its position in the international economy than on the rest that either depends on revenues from energy and minerals, or foreign capital that tends to shift with opportunities. Under IMF advice, all countries are trying to reduce public debt, a move that has sent many toward austerity measures that reduce consumption power for workers and the middle class and transfer capital to banks.

The miracles in most of the BRICS, especially in Brazil and Russia each with its unique set of political and economic problems, will have to wait much longer than enthusiastic analysts had been predicting in the last ten years. While GDP growth rates have been phenomenal even in these countries, the vast majority has not seen any of the benefits. Yet, people are not protesting, they are not as vociferous as one would expect about the fruits of capitalism filtering down to them, about democracy remaining a restricted luxury for the broader masses of the population because the privileged capitalist class protected by the political class refuse to fulfill the social contract as people understand it.

If the political economy does not determine human behavior, is cultural hegemony responsible for shaping the human mind? In 'sociological Marxism', a theory that assumes society runs parallel to economy and state and rejects economic determinism, Marxian intellectual Antonio Gramsci, Karl Polanyi and others were among early 20th century thinkers who developed a theory of cultural domination. Arguing that ideological superstructures (institutions secular and religious, public and private) dominate to influence the human mind that they did not see as mechanistic, these thinkers placed the class structure in the context of cultural hegemony that is the product of bourgeois constructs rather than an inevitable or natural consequence as mainstream thinkers argue.

Another dimension to understanding cultural hegemony and the evolution of political systems is through the work of Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966). Moore examines how social structures under an agrarian and industrial political economy produces certain political outcomes in different parts of the world, focusing on the violence preceding the evolution of 'democratic' (bourgeois) institutions. A sociopolitical revolutionary break with the past comes only after there has been an economic transformation that alters social relations. Moore made famous the statement "no bourgeoisie, no democracy", which of course explains the 19th and 20th centuries, but it leaves questions about the decline of the bourgeoisie in the early 21st century and what that entails for democracy.

While Gramsci, Polanyi and Moore analyzed the dynamics of social class, political economy, social discontinuity, and the role of cultural hegemony from a rationalist or scientific perspective, Richard Rorty, an American philosopher who represented the new generation of right-wingers from the Reagan to the Bush presidencies returned to the assumptions of Thomas Hobbes and Edmund Burke regarding the irrationality of human nature and the conspiratorial nature of demagogue intellectuals preaching revolution in order to improve society and human beings; an otherwise unachievable goal. Besides perpetuating cultural hegemony instead of trying to understand it and suggesting ways for a more socially just society, such a philosophy is intended to reject a rationalist or scientific method of analyzing social class and political economy. The propagandist and populist nature of Rorty's philosophy captured the imagination of other populist conservatives throughout the media and political world.

Conservatism, especially in its extreme and especially when it comes from what the mainstream baptizes respectable academic, sells and it sells big with a segment of the population that is suspicious of intellectuals, identifying as 'elitist' that have no connection to the 'common man'. Because conservatism, especially in its populist form, has been an integral part of cultural hegemony that resonates with a receptive audience already indoctrinated in the cultural mainstream. When someone like Rorty or populist talk-show personalities argue that the new Left intelligentsia has been obsessed with castigating the US for having an institution of slavery, a history of racism toward minorities, a militaristic policy that proved unpopular with the War in Vietnam, etc., a large segment with strong nationalist tendencies identifies with such rhetoric and becomes anti-revolutionary. This is the ultimate triumph of cultural hegemony when the masses at whose expense policies are implemented adopt an ideological position contrary to their own interests.

Belaboring the negative institutional traits of society to radically change society is an anathema to Rorty and those promoting cultural hegemony, while true salvation is to be found in working within the system, accepting cultural hegemony that entails institutional conformity. Just like the early Cold War when there was systematic persecution of dissidents from Hollywood to academia and research laboratories, including that of Robert Oppenheimer (Manhattan Project), similarly in the early 21st century there is a major shift toward that political climate of quasi-police state, helped along by cultural hegemony.
It remains amazing to me that so few not only in the mainstream media but even in the broader web media have shown little interest in immigrant detention centers in Texas and Arizona, in the illegal detention center mostly for minorities held without due process in Chicago’s Homan Square whose torturers have links with Guantanamo detention center. The US Constitution flagrantly ignored, civil rights abused, as well as human rights, but there is very little one reads about all of this as though it does not exist. Is society so indoctrinated in the dominant culture that the mainstream media has taught it to selectively choose what constitutes news – anything related to crime, foreign enemies, especially “Islamic terrorists”, business, celebrities, and human interest stories – while everything else from the quasi-police state to rising gap between the very rich and the rest is irrelevant?

Bourgeois Values and Indoctrination of the Masses

Does the dominant, or hegemonic social class and the political elites representing that class in pluralistic societies under the guise of 'democracy' have the ability to perpetuate the facade of 'democracy' behind which operates an economic dictatorship, an increasingly anti-labor and quasi-police state whose role is to prevent social change? If so, why has the institutional structure from politicians to the media, from churches to schools been so successful convincing people this is “normal” and we must continue to call it “democracy”? As long as cultural hegemony is effective in shaping the concept of self (Louis Althusser) for the masses, and as long as the masses identify their interests with the dominant social and political class, the facade of democracy and bourgeois culture works to prevent social revolution, even reform that has the potential of leading toward greater social justice.

Cultural hegemony explains modern-day reluctance on the part of workers and the declining lower middle class to resist through revolutionary means. However, one must never underestimate the power of co-optation, considering that the institutional structure has the vast means at its disposal to co-opt everything from “rebel” music to rebel movements. Is it possible that a social revolution is not taking place in the Western World and especially across southern and much of eastern Europe where austerity is devastating the middle class and workers because people have accepted bourgeois values, ideology and institutions to which they see no alternative better than the existing one no matter how horrible it may be? It is also the case that the comprador bourgeoisie – the capitalists dependent on foreign capital and foreign businesses – have convinced a large segment of the population that there is no choice but to maintain the “dependency status quo”. What are some of the values imbedded into the minds of the masses, including reformists and even leftists, at least those claiming the title?

1. Working within the parliamentary system to find solutions to societal problems, because working outside such a framework entails absence of legitimacy as bourgeois society defines it, and the risk of lapsing into chaos if revolution follows means personal and societal disaster.

2. Ardent belief in individualism as the norm and the categorical rejection of communitarian values as deviation from the norm. In practice, this means that if you are rich, it is owing to the merits of your character, not because you have found the key legally or illegally to engage in the process of capitalist appropriation. By contrast, if you are poor, it is your fault, not institutional, because you must lack some trait that prevents you from making it in the open society that offers institutional opportunities to all who become rich. Therefore, the institutional structure is 'objective' and thus blameless for the fate of the individual and the multitudes of poor.

3. If the economy is contracting, it is because you and those like you have been living too well in the past, while under-producing, so now you must pay - this is especially true if you are a public employee, generally assumed lazy and overpaid, if not corrupt assuming you have a position that lends itself to making money under the table. In short, upward social mobility experienced in the past must be moderated through the process of downward social mobility for society to find balance, so the workers and middle class must sacrifice for the whole of society, when in reality the sacrifices are intended to strengthen finance capital.

4. If the economy and the state fiscal structure is on the wrong course, it is your fault for immersing in consumerist greed, debt-spending, or not spending enough to stimulate the consumer-based economy, and not paying your fair share of taxes that accounts for your predicament and that of the rest of society. How do all of these contradictory things make sense is in itself fascinating and that people believe it even more so.

The answer rests with cultural hegemony. Specifically, it has to do with massive advertising as well as the media whose role is to inculcate bourgeois values along with bourgeois guilt into people's heads. The rest of the institutions, from churches to schools, play a contributing role in the process of shaping the mind and identity, thus the entire society is bathing in the worldview of the bourgeois economic and political elites that transfer blame downward toward the masses, arguing that in an open society people have freely chosen their leaders and institutions, when in reality those have been superimposed.

5. When the economy is on the wrong tract, politicians are to blame and almost rarely business that the political class serves. For example, US public opinion poll conducted in 2011 found that 66% blame the lack of economic and job growth on 'bad policy’, while only 23% blame Wall Street, despite the well-publicized 'Occupy Wall Street' movement that eventually fizzled out as far as failing to take root at the grassroots and spread deeper into society to create the genesis of a popular movement. While there is a small segment that realizes the need for systemic change, grassroots organizing, solidarity with similar groups around the world, the majority either passively accepts or even trusts the corporate structure because they identify it with the 'national interest', while they mistrust politicians who in essence are the servants of the corporate structure. This process is also part of cultural hegemony.

6. Cultural hegemony is triumphant because the irrational is triumphant in human nature. It is a myth, perhaps dating back to Lockean philosophy and its influence on Enlightenment thinkers that influenced 19th century socialists including Marx, that human beings are rational and act as such, implying that in cases of social revolution the motivation and intent of those following revolutionary leaders is rooted on idealism.

As much as I regard reprehensible the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes who opposed the English Civil War of the 1640s and the counter-revolutionary Edmund Burke who opposed the French Revolution, there is something to be said about their keen observations regarding human nature manifesting itself in revolutionary times. Is it not the case that the rupture in cultural hegemony took place during the course of the Enlightenment that challenged the status quo, thus providing a sense of legitimacy to the revolution? After Locke was the first philosopher to make a rational case for revolution and he was a major influence on the French in 1789. In short, cultural hegemony has limitations because it is always challenged, and when that challenge reaches a substantial number of people and the nature of the challenge converges with the realities in peoples' lives, a segment of them will challenge the status quo.

Cultural Hegemony Lessons for the 21st Century

Revolutionary action has always been confined to a small group that leads and organizes grassroots support for mass uprisings against incredible obstacles by the state and the entire institutional structure. What motivates some to protest, others to adopt a more militant position, and the majority to do nothing except complain to their family and friends or write on social networks in the hope others are listening, a form of social psychotherapy? Has cultural hegemony suppressed any sense of idealism of aiming toward social justice because of the successful co-optation strategy that the mainstream institutions employ? After all, as Palmiro Togliatti (Italian Communist party general-secretary in the 1920s) insisted in his Lectures on Fascism, people must tend to their immediate needs of survival and set aside ideology. Is the majority of the population immersed in 'bourgeois pragmatism' - paying bills for now, taking care of family, satisfying immediate needs and trying to advance their careers in the age of careerism that cultural hegemony promotes?

Is the majority so overwhelmingly dispirited because politicians promise “reform” to deliver a variation of the status quo and keep it as is? This is the case in the French election of Socialist President Francois Hollande who vowed to take on German monetarist policy that was hurting the middle class and workers, but instead moved as close to Merkel’s austerity and0 neoliberal agenda as his conservative predecessor. Even worse case was the election of Greek SYRIZA party chief Alexis Tsipras who dogmatically insisted on ending austerity, privatizations, layoffs of public workers, reinstituting the social safety net, higher wages, and above all establishing national sovereignty in a nation that is in essence a colony of northwest European and Chinese capital with US military bases. Scenarios of politicians blatantly lying to voters about change and change never materializing are universal. What is the beaten-down worker to do, especially when presumably leftist political parties fall in line with austerity and neoliberalism?

To return to the Togliatti theory, if people are facing a bleak future for themselves and their children unless they embrace the institutional structure, how can they possibly unhinge from cultural hegemony, which is all they hear and see in the media, and in any institutional or social setting? How can people break away from bourgeois values and practices when the pragmatic realities of daily life do not permit it? This sense of 'bourgeois pragmatism' is also an integral part of the brainwashing process, to be absolutely crude about it, given that indeed this is a result of multifarious forces from society and the result of long-term historical and traditional (religious and secular) influences.

This concept of bourgeois pragmatism that has its roots in the 19th century, made a return in the 1980s onwards with Richard Rorty among others who adamantly opposed social revolution, any more than they believed in redemption of human beings or their progress through revolution. Unlimited freedom and allowing people to muddle through their problems is what these advocates of 'bourgeois pragmatism' favored; in short, early 19th century-style social and economic conditions.

Arab Spring and Cultural Hegemony

If cultural hegemony works to prevent social change, how do we account for Arab Spring revolts, regardless of meddling by foreign elements interested in subverting them and seeking regime change and a new and deeper form of integration into Western capitalism? If by the word 'revolution' we mean systemic change, then Arab Spring revolts did not result in systemic change at all, and in fact only regime change took place. If by the word 'revolution' we imply grassroots, then Arab Spring revolts do not fall in this category, because there was heavy outside interference, especially in the cases of Libya and Syria, but all across North Africa. Where political and economic conditions are either the same or much worse than before Arab Spring.

It is true that political change has resulted, but it is not institutional change by any means where Arab Spring has taken root. Still, how do we explain that an otherwise 'traditional' religious society, somewhat influenced by modern secular culture and using high tech communications, manage to have a segment of its population mobilize for change, albeit limited to political regime and with external political, financial and military interference? Does Arab Spring prove that the cultural hegemony theory is wrong, or does it validate it, and what are the lessons for the rest of the world's grassroots movements?

Arab Spring was a revolt against secular, one-party state regimes that lacked legitimacy from the ruling population and represented a notion of sovereignty identified with the early Cold War instead of the 21st century. Muslims rebelled against such regimes to bring change that would reflect traditional values and practices through domestic and foreign policy that their governments did not represent. Cultural hegemony actually worked to promote Arab Spring, given that the rebels by far wanted a return to Muslim roots and social justice within Muslim institutions.

One reason we fail to see progress on women's issues, democracy and human rights in the Middle East, as the West defines those concepts, is precisely because cultural hegemony, especially in the context of 'political Islam' operated all along behind Arab Spring. Political Islam, the mixing of religion and politics, has alienated a segment of the Middle East-North African population, but it remains the principal dynamic in Arab cultural hegemony. At the same time, the police and military played their traditional role in making sure there was no structural change. Does the failure of Arab Spring signal failure of uprisings in the Western World, or was this a special case of traditional societies undergoing “social venting” with the considerable external influence subverting the grassroots movements interested in systemic change?

Conclusions

There are conservative analysts who assume that more than anything people crave safety and security. Cultural hegemony rests on the fears of the people who have been conditioned to accept the status quo and avert risk when it comes to securing a new social contract that would represent all people. Some advocates of democracy argue that actualizing their potential is just as important for human beings, but this entails having an institutional structure that permits and promotes those possibilities. I have argued in the past that uprisings are very possible in the 21st century, especially after the next inevitable deep recession, but systemic change is highly unlikely.

Many factors have to converge for a revolution to take place and bring about structural changes. It is true that revolutions rarely take place amid economic contractions, although economic hard times eventually prepare the stage for uprisings that may fester in the minds of people for many years before they act. Moreover, it takes time for grassroots movements to form and consolidate, assuming they do not become co-opted. Modern technology has made it possible for cultural hegemony to be challenged, but it has its limitations. Real (objective) conditions (socioeconomic status and lack of prospects for a better future amid a miserable present) in peoples' lives must be such that they will free themselves of cultural hegemony's grip to embrace social change and then act upon it.

Coming Home

William T. Hathaway

From the Book RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War

RADICAL PEACE is a collection of reports from antiwar activists, the true stories of their efforts to change our warrior culture. In this chapter a mother tells of her son's return from combat. She wishes to remain anonymous.

My son spent a year fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq in Delta Force. It was the worst year of his life ... and of mine. As he told me later, there were times he thought he'd never come home. That was also my constant fear. For 365 days, every time the phone rang I thought it would be a voice from the Pentagon telling me with well-practiced condolence that my son had died a hero.

Jim had joined the army after college. I think he was trying to finally win his father's approval. The old man was a West Pointer who had served a long military career, including two tours in Vietnam, and retired a colonel. He probably would've made general if it hadn't been for his drinking. He never showed much interest in Jim and me, preferring the camaraderie of his soldier buddies.

We divorced when Jim was in high school. The colonel didn't ask for visitation rights, and Jim was crushed when it became obvious that his dad didn't care about seeing him.

Jim and the colonel had little in common. Jim wasn't the military type -- he didn't go in for rough sports or violent movies. He was a sensitive boy who liked to read. He and I had similar interests and could communicate well together, much better than most mothers and teenaged sons.

In college Jim majored in English, which dad dismissed as wimpy. Disapproval was the colonel's default setting, and this ate away at Jim for years, undermining his self-confidence.

Although I was dismayed to see Jim following in his father's footsteps by enlisting in the military, dad finally took notice of him. When Jim graduated from Officer Candidate School, dad actually showed some pride and introduced the young lieutenant to his buddies. He spent more time with his son; Jim had finally done something the colonel could identify with.

At last Jim was getting the patriarchal attention he had craved so much when he was younger, and he ate it up. He became more and more like his dad, and I felt left out. My son was now a gung-ho soldier. He was polite with me but distant, awkward, a bit condescending. We couldn't talk together anymore like we used to. He was slipping away, becoming another person, one I didn't feel as comfortable with.

When Jim volunteered for Delta Force, dad was really impressed but I was distraught. By then the "war on terror" (what a false propaganda slogan that is, since war itself is the greatest terror) was underway, and I knew he'd be in the middle of the fighting.

First Jim was in Afghanistan, chasing Osama bin Laden, then in Iraq, chasing Saddam Hussein. These were men the US had originally helped into power and armed so they could kill Russians and Iranians. When they ungratefully turned against their masters, they became monsters who now needed to be destroyed. In trying to get them, we've killed three hundred thousand people -- a hundred times more than were killed in 9-11 -- and sown the seeds for far worse terrorism.

The US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq made it clear that Bush, Hussein, and bin Laden are the same type: violent men who kill to impose their will. Men like this are too primitive to be leaders -- they'll kill us all.

My main fear of course was the risk to Jim's own life, but I also hated the thought of him killing other people, and I resented our government for sending him into such violence just for the sake of cheap oil and corporate profits.

I'd never been particularly political before, but what Jim was going through radicalized me. I began to see the roots of aggression are not just economic but also patriarchal -- generations of ruling fathers lusting for war and passing this addiction on to their sons. The sons imitate the fathers because they yearn for their approval. Given this syndrome, as long as men hold the power, they will continue to slaughter each other.

There have of course been a few women warriors and war-mongering women politicians, but they seem to me to be products of patriarchy, women wanting to be men. Most women, as the givers of life, are repelled by killing.

Jim had been repelled by it too when he was younger. Whenever we had mice, he couldn't stand the idea of killing them and insisted on using a live trap so we could let them go outdoors. We cried together for days when we had to have our sick, elderly dog put to sleep. Jim had been kind and gentle, but that was when we were close, before he decided to join the patriarchs.

His military training seemed to have hardened his heart, made him less emotional. What had a year of war done to him? I was afraid of what he might be like when he came home ... if he came home.

I was overjoyed when he finally returned to the States with only a minor wound. He had a month's leave before his next assignment and flew out to visit me.

I hardly recognized him as he came through the flight gate. He was in uniform with a green beret and black hightop boots. He looked older, bigger, harder. But when he scooped me up into his arms for big hug and kiss, I nearly fainted with relief.

I had planned a special celebration with dinner at a fancy restaurant, but he said he'd rather stay home and have a quiet evening here. As I looked at him more closely, he seemed sad and tired.

I pulled all my culinary skills together and cooked him the best meal I could manage. I also laid in a supply of Jack Daniels. It was his father's favorite bourbon and now Jim's ... following in the footsteps.

I was happy he was home safe with me, but I was worried about him being sent back there. This war was not going to end anytime soon.

We had drinks before, during, and after the meal, needing to let go of a year's worth of anxiety. I could tell he was glad to see me, but he was also full of sorrow. Trying to wash away bad memories with alcohol doesn't work very well, and he got gloomier as the evening went on.

I thought a movie might distract him, cheer him up, so I put in a comedy DVD and we sat together on the couch to watch it. Somehow none of the jokes seemed funny, though, and I switched it off.

I decided to try the direct approach. "Jim, tell me about it. Just tell me all about it. Maybe you need to get the war off your chest."

He looked grief-stricken, and I took his hand.

He was silent awhile, then began to speak hesitantly. "I'll try to tell you. Something terrible happened there ... Iraq. Well, lots of terrible things ... but one particular. I shouldn't say 'it happened' ... that's a cop out. I did something ... was part of something. I don't want to talk about it ... but I guess I should. Maybe it'll help." He paused, then said in a strained whisper, "And I know you'll still love me ... no matter what I did," but with a hint of a question in his voice.

I nodded and squeezed his hand but stayed silent so he'd keep talking.

His face collapsed into tears, but he took a deep breath and continued. "There was a car ... coming down the road ... outside of Baghdad. And we ... we had a checkpoint, supposed to stop all the cars ... search them. This car ... didn't stop ... drove off the road to get around us ... just kept going. Our captain yelled, 'Suicide bombers! Get 'em!'"

Jim paused and looked at me, damp eyes full of torment. "The day before ... a car had driven into some Americans, blown them up. We thought they were headed for our main outfit. We shot them up."

He looked away from me, and I could hardly hear him speak. "But there wasn't any bomb ... just two women and four kids ... afraid of us ... just trying to get away from us ... and we killed them ... we killed them all."

A cry broke from him and he doubled over, gasping with remorse. Sobs shuddered through his body, and he kept shaking his head as if he couldn't believe, couldn't bear to believe, he'd killed those people. I could tell he'd been carrying this misery around since then, caught in a guilt he couldn't release.

I had to save him from this, but I had no idea how. Acting on instinct, I hugged him to me and saw a helpless need beneath the tears on his face. His head was on my shoulder, and I pulled it down onto my bosom, the place where he'd been totally content and happy. He clutched me and mouthed yearningly at me through my blouse while I stroked his head.

My nipples tightened from stimulation but my chest tightened from fear. Uh-oh, wait, I thought, what's happening here? This is going too far. Stop!

But I couldn't. His need seemed to put me into a trance. I somehow knew this was the only thing that would help him. Unable to refuse him, I let him open my blouse and bra and touch my breasts. He was weeping and whimpering as he kissed them. His tears were streaming on them and his nose was running on them. Finally he stopped crying and his gasps became gurgles. He sucked and licked and gulped at them as if trying to swallow them.

I was in shock. I kept telling myself, You're his mother ... You're his mother. At first these words were to get me to stop, then they became the reason to continue. I knew I was the only one who could rescue him now, who had an antidote to the violence. If this would help, that was more important than some old rules about good and bad. I could feel healing love for my son welling up inside me and flowing out my breasts into him. I ran my fingers through his hair to let him know it was all right.

When he had nursed enough, he sought my mouth, his eyes closed but no longer crying. We kissed in a fusion of giving and need. I was giving everything I had to comfort him, and he was taking it, and it was helping. I've never been kissed with such desperation, but it was calming him -- I could feel his trauma lessening.

As he embraced me, the medals on his uniformed chest poked my breast. "Ow!" I protested, drawing back. "Those things ... hard and cold."

"Sorry," he said with a wince and stroked the breast to make the pain go away. Our eyes met in chaos: What were we doing? Were we really going to do this? Incest! No!

Jim looked down at the medals that had hurt me. "Get rid of these things." he said, tearing off his shirt.

I saw a spray of pink welts across his chest, scars from grenade shrapnel where he'd been wounded. "Does it still hurt?" I asked.

He shook his head, no.

I touched the scars delicately, tentatively, wishing I could make them disappear. Jim was my little boy and he was a grown wounded man. I got rid of the rest of my blouse and bra, and our bare chests joined. I pressed my breasts against his scars, trying to bring back some softness to his life. Eyes closed to shut off our minds, we went back to kissing and rubbing against each other.

Before, it had been more comforting, a maternal soothing of pain, but now it became more sexual, a man and woman wanting each other. I let him do whatever he wanted ... and he wanted it all, right there on the couch, then on the rug. He broke the zipper of my skirt getting it off. He had a terrible time taking off his hightop paratrooper boots. Once nude, we took one look at each other and closed our eyes again, afraid eye contact would make us stop.

It was all too urgent for foreplay. As my son entered me, I tried to envelop him with total love and acceptance, to drive away the memories that were torturing him. I embraced him with my arms, my legs, every part of my body, and he needed everything I could give. I've never felt so needed.

As he cried out this time, it was a cry of joy.

He fell asleep right afterwards, and I lay beside him, watching him. As his face relaxed, the strain that had tightened it before faded away, leaving it clear and young again.

I was happy and mortified at the same time. Why had I done this? My heart said it was right, but my head said it was wrong. I tried to sort out a storm of conflict.

Intuitively I knew I was giving him a way out of the violence. Unless I broke him out of his torment, only two paths would be left for him: He'd either repress what he'd done in Iraq and become an unfeeling brute, or be overwhelmed by it and destroy himself.

I was offering him the opposite of the military mentality. I was taking my son back from those savage men who run the world, winning him away from the warriors.

I woke him up enough to get him into my bed, then fell asleep beside him knowing what we'd done was right.

In the gray hangover morning, though, things looked different. We were both groggy, headachy, aghast at last night. Had we actually done that -- crossed the great divide that separates mothers and sons? What would happen to us now?

Barely looking at me, Jim scooted out of bed wrapped in a sheet, and we showered in separate bathrooms. Over coffee he said with a contrite, self-blaming shake of his head, "I'm really sorry ... about what happened. I don't know what got into me."

Looking at his bleak expression, I knew if he added this to his load of guilt, it would crush him. He was balanced between condemnation and love, and I had to tip him in the life-affirming direction. I took his hand and tried to break through his regrets with my eyes. "Jim, please believe me, it was wonderful. I'm so glad you made love to me."

I began to cry; he moved his chair next to mine and held me in his arms. "Don't think it was wrong. It was right ... it was the best thing!" I insisted and kissed him passionately on the lips. He kissed me back. I stroked his face and head, he stroked me. I rubbed my breasts against him; he breathed deeply and took both of them in his hands. Now desire had replaced guilt on his face. We stood up without a word, and I led him back to bed.

Making love with your son first thing in the morning turns out to be a great hangover cure!

For him really to leave the past behind, we needed a change of place, a new setting for our new development, so we drove to the coast and stayed at a lodge by the sea. It turned into a honeymoon. We made love on the beach among driftwood logs. We made love driving back from dinner, pulling off the road and diving into the rear seat because we couldn't wait until we got to our room. We made love on the deck of a small sailboat and nearly capsized. We made love!

At first we didn't talk of the war -- just blotted it out with positive experiences, replaced it with affection. Our talk was about each other and the beautiful nature around us.

After a week we returned home, and Jim shared my bedroom. We enjoyed the most wonderful rapport. During the day, he worked on the house -- fixing things, cleaning out the attic, getting the storm shutters ready for winter. At night, we snuggled together.

Gradually we talked more about the war. We worked a lot on forgiveness, getting him to stop blaming himself, to lift the guilt from his broad shoulders.

I left a book by Noam Chomsky prominently on the coffee table, and Jim picked it up and began reading. He was shocked to learn that in every nation where we now have terrorism, the US had first done terrible things. We've overthrown their governments, installed dictators, undermined their economies -- all to strengthen our business interests. The terror attacks are retaliation for what we've done to their countries.

Chomsky shows how our corporate media have created an image of fiendish terrorists who "hate us for our freedom." But they really hate us for dominating them. Since we started the aggression, that means the attacks, detestable as they are, won't end until we change our policies.

The most pathetic thing is that we Americans still believe it's "our" country, when it and both political parties are firmly in the hands of the corporations.

Jim and I talked and talked, sometimes argued, about these issues. This view went against everything he -- and all of us -- had been raised to believe. We've all been subjected as children to patriotic rituals that caused us to connect the nation we live in with our family and then with God -- the founding fathers, our own father, and the Heavenly Father all joined in patriarchy. Because of this emotional identification, we react to criticism of the country as an attack on our family. This hurts our feelings on a deep personal level, so we reject it, convinced it can't be true. We just tune it out. It's too threatening to us.

But Jim's war experience said the criticism he was reading was true. As he and I connected what he'd read with the things he'd seen, he began to question his military obedience. Gradually he came to oppose this "war on terror," then all war and killing. This was a painful transition for him: it meant turning against his father.

At the end of his leave time, he went to the Pentagon and resigned his army commission. When he told his father this, the old man yelled he was disowning him and hung up the phone. Jim has tried to communicate a couple of times since then, but dad won't talk to him.

That was months ago. Jim and I are still close, but we're not living together. He's in graduate school, working on a PhD in peace studies, an interdisciplinary program involving anthropology, psychology, economics, political science, theology, and philosophy. He's determined to use his experiences to convince others to reject the military and resist war.