Norman Solomon

WikiLeaks: Demystifying “Diplomacy”

By Norman Solomon

      Compared to the kind of secret cables that WikiLeaks has just shared with the world, everyday public statements from government officials are exercises in make-believe. 

     In a democracy, people have a right to know what their government is actually doing. In a pseudo-democracy, a bunch of fairy tales from high places will do the trick. 

     Diplomatic facades routinely masquerade as realities. But sometimes the mask slips -- for all the world to see -- and that’s what just happened with the humongous leak of State Department cables. 

     “Every government is run by liars,” independent journalist I.F. Stone observed, “and nothing they say should be believed.” The extent and gravity of the lying varies from one government to another -- but no pronouncements from world capitals should be taken on faith. 

     By its own account, the U.S. government has been at war for more than nine years now and there’s no end in sight. Like the Pentagon, the State Department is serving the overall priorities of the warfare state. The nation’s military and diplomacy are moving parts of the same vast war machinery. 

     Such a contraption requires a muscular bodyguard of partial truths, deceptions and outright lies. With the USA’s ongoing war efforts at full throttle, the contradictions between public rationales and hidden goals -- or between lofty rhetoric and grisly human consequences -- cannot stand the light of day. 

     Details of Washington’s transactional alliances with murderous dictators, corrupt tyrants, warlords and drug traffickers are among its most closely guarded quasi-secrets. Most media accounts can be blown off by officialdom, but smoking-gun diplomatic cables are harder to ignore. 

     With its massive and unending reliance on military force -- with a result of more and more carnage, leaving behind immense grief and rage in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere -- the U.S. government has colossal gaps to bridge between its public-relations storylines and its war-making realities.

Progressives Must Push Back From Below

Published by CommonDreams.org

By Norman Solomon

In his first term, President Franklin Roosevelt denounced "the economic royalists." He drew the line against the heartless rich: "They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."

What a different Democratic president we have today.

For two years -- from putting Wall Street operatives at the top of his economic team to signaling that he'll go along with extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy -- Barack Obama has increasingly made a mockery of hopes for a green New Deal.

The news from the White House keeps getting grimmer. Since the midterm election, we're told, Obama has concluded that he must be more conciliatory toward the ascendant Republican leadership in Congress -- and must do more to appease big business.

Fifteen days after the election, the Washington Post reported that Obama -- seeking a replacement for departing top economic adviser Lawrence Summers -- "is eager to recruit someone from the business community for the job to help repair the president's frayed relationship with corporate America."

The last thing we need is further acquiescence to the economic royalists. What we need is exactly the opposite: leadership to push back against the Republican Party's right-wing ideologues and the forces they represent.

We need principled backbones in high places -- and much stronger progressive activism at the grassroots.

The 2010 Midterm Elections: What happened and why

To watch Norman Solomon's hour-long appearance on C-SPAN after the November election, click here.

The heartless cannot be defeated by the spineless!

     Before the end of his first term, President Franklin Roosevelt denounced "the economic royalists." He said: "They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."
     Today, we need much more willingness to push back against the Republican Party's ideologues and the forces they represent. We need principled backbones in high places -- and stronger progressive activism at the grassroots.
     In moral and electoral terms, the status quo is indefensible. Grim economic realities include high unemployment, routine home foreclosures, and widening gaps between the wealthy and the rest of us -- in tandem with endless war and runaway military spending.
     Escalation of warfare in Afghanistan is running parallel to escalation of class war -- waged from the top down -- in Washington. Deficit commission co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles are pushing scenarios that would undermine Social Security, while all sorts of contorted rationales are in the air for continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
     Let's get a grip on matters of principle.

Radio Interview -- With 2010 elections behind us, progressives look forward

Norman Solomon appeared on KPFA Radio's "Sunday Show" to discuss the election results and prospects for progressive change. To listen to that one-hour interview, click here and begin at 1:02 (halfway through the two-hour program).

The Tragedy of Under-Reaching

by Norman Solomon

      Now what?

     We need to build a grassroots progressive movement -- wide, deep and strong enough to fight the right and challenge the corporate center of the Democratic Party.

     The stakes are too high and crises too extreme to accept “moderate” accommodation to unending war, regressive taxation, massive unemployment, routine foreclosures and environmental destruction.

     A common formula to avoid is what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the paralysis of analysis.” Profuse theory + scant practice = immobilization.

     It’s not enough to denounce what’s wrong or to share visionary blueprints. Day in and out, we’ve got to organize for effective and drastic social change, in all walks of life and with a vast array of activism.

     Yes, electioneering is just one kind of vital political activity. But government power is extremely important. By now, we should have learned too much to succumb to the despairing claim that elections aren’t worth the bother.

     Such a claim is false. As bad as the election results are, they would have been much worse across the country if progressives hadn’t worked hard against the right-wing juggernaut.

Top "Tossup" House Race for Progressives

By Norman Solomon

On Sunday, when the New York Times put a "tossup" label on three dozen House races with Democrats running for re-election, there were very few genuine progressives involved. In fact, just three of the lawmakers on the list are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And only one of them is a progressive standout: Raul Grijalva.

With a record of grassroots activism that goes back four decades, Grijalva is the real deal. Since 2003, his presence in Congress -- representing a heavily Latino district in Southern Arizona -- has been a force of nature for progressive advocacy on issues ranging from healthcare and education to war. And immigration.

Now, the forces of xenophobia and bogus "populism" think they smell blood.

Nowhere in the United States is political courage for progressive principles more on the line this Election Day than in the battle to re-elect Grijalva.

Two years ago, he won with a 30 percent margin. This time, the race is very tight for reasons that have little to do with his Republican opponent, a 28-year-old rocket scientist named Ruth McClung.

"Democrats are facing tough races in what they once thought were safe areas around the country," the Los Angeles Times noted over the weekend, "but Grijalva faces an additional burden. He called for a boycott of his state after Gov. Jan Brewer signed a tough immigration law, known as SB 1070, in April."

Much more than "tough," that law -- now largely tied up in court -- is the essence of systematic racial profiling. In effect, it requires police to target Latinos. In response, Grijalva spoke up for human rights.

That's why many right-wing politicians and power brokers have poured several hundred thousand dollars into anti-Grijalva efforts.

Progressives fight the right, including at the ballot box...

     Primaries offer opportunities. General elections bring imperatives -- to defeat right-wing forces -- and that's certainly true this time around.

     The last two years of undue efforts to accommodate Republican leaders have ended up boosting -- not countering -- their momentum. My recent article Progressive Canaries in a Political Mine makes a case that giving ground to the right wing is a formula for disaster.

     Now, many progressives are working feverishly to limit the looming disaster. That means pulling together.

     With his recent essay The "Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson" Myth, journalist Robert Parry assesses the consequences of failure to unite against Republicans when the November chips are down.

     Progressives, unite!

Our Warfare State

     War continues to escalate far away -- in our names and with our tax dollars.

     Early this month, on the ninth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Marin Independent Journal published my article War's Grim Echoes at Home.

     About the inspiring new documentary on Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The Most Dangerous Man in America: People who missed the recent broadcast of the film on PBS can watch it online anytime through October 27. 

     Let's find more ways to emulate Dan Ellsberg's activation of conscience.

Green New Deal for the North Bay

     At last -- after more than 18 months of public forums, hearings, research and countless discussions in many parts of Marin and Sonoma counties -- the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay has issued a report. I've learned a lot as co-chair of the commission.

     Release of the Green New Deal report has led to coverage in several newspapers, including an in-depth piece in the Pacific Sun -- A Whole New Deal, written by Peter Seidman. 

     A lot of details are now online, including the full text of the commission's report, "Vital Change: Reconsidering Water, Food, Conservation, Healthcare and Commerce."