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Why Everybody Is Right About Iraq

The debate about what to do in Iraq has been raging and will continue to rage for years. When I watch politicians and policy wonks discuss the issue, I’m often blown away by how far off I think they are to seeing the core of the problems, and asserting a reasonable solution.

I think that the weakness of the analysis and the proposed solutions is the result of the politicization of the war, and the resulting need to over-simplify the issue. People have basically been pushed into two camps: 1) endlessly extend the occupation  2) pull out now or in the next year.

I could write for hours about the war in Iraq, but I’d like to focus here on the proposed solution to the crisis.

While greatly oversimplified, the major discourses/arguments are:

1)    Surge will create stability. Stability is needed to allow for a political solution.

2)    A political solution is the only way that Iraq can “work.” The surge or armed intervention will do nothing.

3)    We need to show the Iraqi government and people that we are not staying indefinitely and start to withdraw if they don’t show any signs of success

4)    We need to give the Iraqi government confidence that we will stick it out and not leave them hanging.

5)    We need to focus more on civilian development projects to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

6)    You break it you own it.

What I think everybody is missing is that elements of what all these experts say are correct.

The problem is that people only focus on their one solution, without conceding or realizing that there solution/idea is a necessary but not sufficient element of the ultimate solution.

More in tomorrow’s post.

Slavery as the Starting Point for Freedom

Our fearless leader President Bush has said and invoked the word “freedom” more than anybody has ever been able to keep track. This word is used with amazing frequency in regards to the occupation of Iraq. We needed to “free” the Iraqis, we needed to fight for “freedom” for the Iraqis, we’re still in Iraq now because we want Iraqis to be “free,” and indeed we are a nation that fights and stands for “freedom.”

I would consider some horrific deal with the devil, if only it would result in President Bush being forced to publicly define what the word freedom actually means to him. Despite the fact that Iraqis did not have all of their freedoms under Saddam, it’s clear that Iraqis are not much more (if at all) free in the currently war torn militia run country now before us.

Then again, it’s not as if Americans can consider themselves completely free either. Many Americans face various forms of racial discrimination, class discrimination, and country of origin discrimination everyday. That’s certainly not complete freedom. Even more specifically, we increasingly face the rollback of our civil rights and civil liberties. Add to all this othe ftentimes insurmountable financial hurdles faced by many families trying to live a decent life, it’s a hard case to make that we are completely “free.”

Indeed, freedom seems at its base, to be a relative concept. The question really is free in comparison to what? Your previous state? A universal standard somehow applied to hundreds of different countries and hundreds more cultures within them?

Is freedom the simple absence of state interference and the ability to be left to our own random devices, or does true freedom oftentimes require more?

Can we truly be free in a prejudiced society?

I’m not sure about any of this, but I’d like to propose a starting point from which we can begin an evaluation of, if not freedom, whether we are pursuing the correct means to achieve an increase in “freedom.”

While there are a variety of forms of slavery, the American version is most familiar to us all. I think it’s fair that while true “freedom” is hard to define, almost all human beings can agree that the opposite of freedom is definitely slavery. If that is true, than the further away we are from slavery, the closer we arrive towards absolute “freedom.

So let’s look at what was done to the African slaves  in order to enslave them. By identifying the tools used to enslave a people, we may be able to reverse engineer these tools to find the way to best undue slavery, or perhaps reach closer towards a state of absolute freedom. Three of the “slave-making” practices stand out for me.

1) Their language was taken from them. They were prohibited from speaking their native languages because they would otherwise have been able to communicate with out the slave owners understanding them.

2) They were prohibited from reading and writing. In other words they were kept from becoming literate.

3) Slave owners controlled their sexual relations/sexuality and reproduction.

Arguably, to the extent that we can move away from these conditions, and arrive at their opposites we may be making the most steady path towards absolute freedom.

The opposite conditions would be:

1) The ability to freely speak and maintain one’s own “native” language. Taken further, the active encouragement of the state in the maintenance  and teaching of “native” or perhaps simply non-majority languages.

2) Literacy. Taken further, an excellent quality education and higher education.

3) Sexual choice and birth control.

Something to think about.

Smartest Move Democrats Could Have Made on Iraq Occupation…But Didn’t

For the last few years we’ve watched Democrats flounder around looking for a coherent message on what to do about the Iraq crisis. It’s really been disappointing to se ehow long it has taken them to take a critical stance, and to see the weakness of the political stances that they have been taking.

Here’s a political move that Democrats should have taken but did not. When public opinion began the slow descent in public support for the war, Democrats proposed “immediate” or within a year withdrawal plans. Led by , they rightfully drove home the urgency of the Iraq crisis, laid the ground work for the political shift away from support for the war, but then had little political effect at the time.

Here’s a smarter proposition. Why did Democrats not propose a resolution setting a maximum amount of time of further occupation in Iraq, but propose one that had an incredibly long window of time?

Let’s use the example of five years (instead of the actually proposed one). So, Democrats (in 2006) propose a resolution that all American troops will withdraw from Iraq by 2011.

Who could vote against such a limitation on our already long commitment to Iraq. Who could have gone home to their constituents and said that they supported five more years of war?

A five year window limitation could have created a broad consensus platform for all Democrats, even hawkish Democrats, to agree was the limit of their support. Republicans in turn would have likely been thrown into a bit of disarray over this vote, with many having to support it out of a fear of showing indefinite support for the war.

The vote on this resolution would have also helped frame all future debates about the war, as the long-term effort that it ultimately needs to be/should be/will be. It would have prevented Republicans, especially given that they had to vote on capping support until 2011, from talking about the end of the war being “right around the corner.”

The larger strategic result of this approach is that it would have also put Republicans on the defensive legislatively.

Framing the Cost of the War in Iraq

Something that has been pretty disappointing has been the inability of Democrats to frame the cost of the war in Iraq and its effect on the quality of our domestic lives. Sure, some have cited the absolute numbers, and some have made allusions to the alternative uses the money could have been used for, but nobody has really driven this point home.

Not using the cost of the war as a frame for domestic policy discussion is a rather shocking and glaring missed opportunity.

Let alone that the over-extension of our National Guard helped slow the response to Hurricane Katrina, the financial resources used in the Iraq war could have drastically changed the face of the nation domestically.

Every domestic funding issue could and should be framed in light of the money being spent on the war in Iraq. A great resource tool from the National Priorities Project called www.costofwar.com makes analysis of these comparative uses amazingly simple. Not only does it have a running counter of the real time cost of war in Iraq (at the moment this post was published $415 billion), it will also break down the important programs that the same amount of money could have funded in these areas:

PRE-SCHOOL
KIDS’ HEALTH
COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS
PUBLIC HOUSING
PUBLIC EDUCATION

So instead of spending $414 billion in Iraq, we could have paid for:

55 Million children to attend a year of head start
249 Million children to have health insurance for a year.
7.2 Million public school teacher salaries.
20 Million four year scholarships at public universities.
3.7 Million units of public housing.

The tool also breaks down the cost on the state city and city level, and gives the corresponding amount of resources that could have been given to important social programs for each type of unit.

Let’s take Texas, our fearless leader’s home state. Instead of going to war in Iraq, Texas’s share of the cost of the war in Iraq has been 33 billion dollars. Instead of contributing to fighting and losing a war half way around the world, Texas could have used this same amount of money to pay for:

4.5 Million children to attend a year of head start.
20 Million children to have health insurance for a year.
588,000 public school teacher salaries.
1.6 Million four year scholarships at public universities.
306,000 public housing units.

Democrats could help bring a speedier end to the war in Iraq, as well as provide some biting political blows, if they asked the question:

“Would you rather have the war in Iraq, or would you rather have 20 million insured children?”

It’s a version of the famous line are you better off than you were four years ago…..with an Iraq war twist.

Choosing the Next President: The Cuban Missile Crisis Test

How should we chose out next President? I think that one incredibly important aspect of our decision should be based on their ability to deal with the increasingly tumultuous conflicts in the world.

The Middle East is only going to get worse before it gets better, and we need a leader who can intelligently lead the world, and can lead the world in solving international problems as previous Presidents have done (to varying but higher degrees of success).

Perhaps most importantly, there is a high likelihood that there will be multiple international incidents that may change the nature of the entire planet.

How do we decide which Presidential candidate is up to the task, or better yet, who is our best representative to the global community?

For me we should apply the Cuban Missile Crisis Test to the each of the candidates.

The real question is of the current Presidential candidates, who would you have wanted to be in the White House during the Cuban Missile.

As that crisis demonstrated, sometimes being strong meant being smart, and having that diplomatic touch to avoid a global disaster. George Bush has basically demonstrated how to do things in exactly the opposite way that Kennedy did. In fact, had been in office during the Cuban Missile, we would all be dead, or living below the ground in bunkers to take shelter from an ongoing nuclear winter.

So who of the current Presidential candidates could have dealt well with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Let’s just eliminate the Republican candidates. They’re from the party that got us where we are in Iraq, and their war mongering approach to international relations is just about the last thing that we need.

So who of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Richardson could have dealt best with this conflict?

That… is the million dollar question.

Malcolm X as a Model for Progressives

Most people, including many African-Americans, see Malcolm X as a simplistic hate-monger. The story of Malcolm X is a very complicated one. Indeed, Malcolm himself is a very complicated man. Before he toured Mecca, hate-mongering could be used to characterize an aspect of what he did, although arguably not the majority of his focus.

That’s a longer discussion for a different day.

However, one thing that is certain, is that after his trip to Mecca and his break from the black muslim movement, the way in which he saw the world, and the way in which he tried to speak to Americans and the larger international community, was truly a model that progressives should understand, study, and adopt.

The brilliance of the mind of Malcolm X was his ability drastically re-frame issues and narratives.

Progressives are often smart, have great proposals, are even simply right, but we are bad, at least in America, at drastically re-framing the underlying assumptions of the debate.

We engage with conservatives and others about our proposals and vision for America, but we do so without the necessary re-framing of the issue towards a frame that most supports our point of view. The frame (framing) in which a picture or painting sits (the issue) will drastically affect how that picture (the issue) is seen by those who look at it. Especially by those who are looking at the picture (issue) for the first time.

Malcolm X was simply a master at this type of drastic re-framing. Here’s a telling example:

“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it’s wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us and teach us how to be violent in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us and teach us to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.” - Malcolm X

This point is from a debate about non-violence in the context of the civil rights movement. However, it illustrates how effective drastically re-framing a debate can be. It eviscerates not one, but a few underlying assumptions most Americas would come to the table with.The onus gets put back on those advocating for war to explain the internal inconsistencies in their own justifications for war, and it also puts the onus on them to explain their criticism of those who did not support non-violence in the civil rights movement in the U.S..

And it all happens in two sentences.

George Lakoff has been a leading proponent of the importance of framing, but I think Malcolm X’s ability to frame, leaves Lakoff in the dust.

Progressives bring interesting ideas and approaches to government, but they don’t create a foundation of of underlying assumptions or ideology on which to place these policy structures.

I think often progressives have their agenda, but try to message it so that it doesn’t sound like what it actually is. Instead, we try to make it come off as un-threatening and centrist as possible hoping that nobody will notice what it really is. We do this “hiding” because we believe that America isn’t ready for unabashed progressives, and we need to make it seem centrist to stand a chance of being understood.

So put aside Lakoff for a time, and pick up some of Malcolm’s speeches, particularly in the last year of his life.

You may not agree with everything that he says, but you will undeniably see a true master of re-framing at work.

One that all progressives can stand to learn from.

Fela 2008?

What would a Black President really mean for the United States of America?

A lot of people are talking about the significance of the possible rise of the first non-white non-male President, let alone the first black male President.

There’s a lot of possible good that could come from it.

But perhaps the most important effect will be the least noticed.

Perhaps, the most fundamental effect that a black President might have, is on the subconscious mental working of the average American, and indeed all public discourse.

The mental steps that a police office on the ground might go through in racially profiling a black people (or at least the openness with which they would do so) will be different when they have in the back of their mind that the nation’s leader… is……black. Indeed, acting as they did, they could have just as easily profiled the President were it not for the secret service.

The steps and analysis that local government, state government, and federal government policy makers go through in considering the impact of their policies on non-white racial groups, is likely to include a longer pause about disparate racial effects their policies might have.

Government agents, or in fact all Americans who violate the civil rights of others, especially regarding non-whites, may have a longer moment of pause in doing so, knowing that, especially when racially motivated, they are committing a harm against society that could just as easily be directed at the nation’s leader and commander in chief.

This type of effect is not even likely to be spoken about or perhaps will not even be conscious, however I think that it will definitely be a factor, and and important change in the way America operates.

Thoughts?

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Why Black Thought?

If you’re into discussing issues of politics, and you’re African-American, why not just write diary entries on blogs like My DD and Daily Kos. Hundreds of thousands of people read these blogs, and people might actually follow the advice that you give or listen to your perspective.

While there’s merit to this point of view, it’s also important to have to bring the political perspectives of people of color to these issues, and places like My DD and Daily Kos are almost all white.

Indeed, only 1.5% of the readers of My DD identified as African-American/black in an internal poll.

While it’s important to engage with the entire progressive community as well, it’s equally as important to thresh out these issue in a space focused on bringing these often ignored perspectives to light.

Hopefully, you agree.

Welcome to Black Thought

Welcome to Black Thought.

This blog is being launched to provide progressive political commentary from an African-American progressive.

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