Subject: Strategy and the progressive movement

From: Brian Bogart <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 04:10:52 -0700

Dear friends,

(Some of you saw a short version of "The Few and the Pentagon."  Attached is
a version specifically extended to stimulate strategic thinking among
progressives.  Please do not assume that I am asserting some kind of
authority, as I am, rather, seeking the union of compatriots to further
research for the good of all life.)

By review of the Pentagon's newly released Defense Strategy, it is clear
that Americans have no control over their country.  In the presence of
dwindling oil reserves worldwide, decisions have been made for us, that
America will secure these reserves by: stimulating a global arms race to
impoverish other nations; outspending military competitors to win the "end
game"; coercing "partners" to play by rules favorable to the Pentagon and
its corporate allies; forcing impoverished nations to supply cheap labor and
remain impoverished; seizing the global commons and lines of communication
(airspace, oceans, outer space, cyberspace).

The "end game" is global dominion by "reach-back" (remote-control military
superiority through robotics).  In the decades between now and the "end
game," we the people are expected to submit to a permanent global war
economy while millions are killed to sustain it and us.

Rather than participate in the decision of what to do when oil runs low, we
have been assigned to participate in the military-slaughter "solution" -- as
spectators.  Therefore, progressives need to reassess strategies and
consider new tactics.  To that end, I hope the below may be of some
assistance in putting things in perspective.

(Feedback always welcome.)

For the Few and the Pentagon

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigues
of supporting it." 

Thomas Paine penned this in 1776 with gunfire sounding from every direction
Writing to soldier and civilian alike, he admonished Americans to
participate in the new republic, warning that control in the hands of the
few will ultimately destroy all freedoms.

Americans have long benefited from such visionary thinking.  In a time of
great crisis, our Founding Fathers focused on the big picture and passed
along stern warnings to be diligent in keeping watch over those who
represent us.  

These days, our focus is limited to chronic myopia.  We have relegated our
responsibility to monitor leadership to a news media that has impenetrable
strategic partnerships with our leaders.  Nearly 400 million Americans
receive news from a mere six organizations.  Case in point: While attention
was on Terri Schiavo¹s condition in March 2005, the Pentagon dropped a
bombshell of a National Defense Strategy and a handful of newspapers
reported it.

Paine also wrote, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my
child may have peace."  Clearly, these are words by an individual and to
individuals willing to accept responsibility so that tomorrow might be
better.  

Where is our sense of responsibility today?  The permanent war economy we
have is worlds away from what our Founders fought to create.  Those who
sacrificed themselves so long ago would have been mortified that their
beloved America would one day become an international tyrant seeking
dominion by force over weaker countries.

The Deadbeat Decision

Just after World War II, a decision came, devoid of the knowledge or consent
of the American people, to adopt a military-based economy.  That decision
effectively transformed our country from one guided by people of conscience
to one guided by greed.

Power wielders, sitting in circles of secretive subterfuge, justified their
decision by the Cold War.  Yet, the vast majority of Americans still have no
clue that this deadbeat decision ‹ a choice made and acted on without the
people¹s consent ‹ handed us a permanent war economy that enthroned military
corporations as the primary recipients of our taxes.

What the public receives from this Pentagon system are leftovers,
trickle-down dollars for our needs.  In a people-first system using such
vast sums, public transportation would be free, healthcare would be free,
schools would be fully functional and education would be free through
college, jobs would be abundant, retirement would be a reward, and oil, a
military necessity, would not be an obsession.

With the end of the Cold War, the threat that justified a permanent war
economy vanished; other excuses for supporting a military-based economy had
to be found.  So, in 1992, members of a new circle of secret subterfuge,
right-wing extremists, began drafting the National Security Strategy of 2002
and the recently released National Defense Strategy (NDS).  Interestingly,
with their roots in the 1990s, both documents cite the events of September
11 2001 as the primary motivation for maintaining a permanent war economy.

The NDS pointedly scorns judicial processes as "a strategy of the weak," and
emphasizes a determination to "protect freedom" by "demonstrating our
resolve" through military force.  Thus, countries that suffer the impact of
the excesses of American corporate interests cannot appeal to the kind of
fairness conceived by America¹s Founders, and are subject to a demonstration
of a gravely different American resolve.

Warnings from the Past

George Washington urged us to "Labor to keep alive that little spark of
celestial fire called conscience."  Dwight Eisenhower, in his final days as
president, warned Americans of the dangers of a military-based system.
Abraham Lincoln, who presided during the Civil War, also recognized the
threats of military-corporate powers:

"I see in the near future, a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country.  Corporations have been
enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the
country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of
the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic
destroyed."

For the few and the Pentagon, it is exceedingly profitable to deploy a robot
army around the world, the most expensive military project in history.  But
where does the graceful vision of our Founding Fathers fit into this
equation?  After all, it was our current president who said, "I think one
way for us to end up being viewed as the Ugly American is for us to go
around the world saying, ŒWe do it this way; so should you.¹  We trust
freedom."

The idea of America as a country operated by its citizens is an inviting
concept.  If we are hated today, it is not for the freedoms that were bought
with the blood and sweat of our forebears, but for the impact of our
excesses from a lack of popular participation and control.

Americans would benefit tremendously by knowing the vigor, both
philosophical and personal, that led to the rise of participatory
government.  Trusting and participating in our Founders¹ legacy of wisdom
would be far more intelligent and more profitable ‹ in human and financial
terms ‹ than continuing as fodder for a perpetually expanding military
regime.  If we the people fail to do so, we may as well rewrite the
Declaration of Independence to read, "a government of, by, and for the
Pentagon."

As Americans, we need to rediscover our genuinely honorable roots,
rededicate ourselves, and free ourselves from this deadly system, because a
country that spends for permanent war condemns itself to permanent war.
That kind of strategy taxes much more than our finances: It taxes us out of
existence. 

Strategy and the Rise of the Second Superpower

Appropriately, the last hope for change rests in the rise of a second
superpower: public opinion.  This requires the awakening of Americans to
duty, to actively participate in and patrol our system of government.

As George Lakoff¹s research demonstrates, factual explanations directed at
the heart are not effective in reaching the mainstream mindset, while
subconsciously reaching framed concepts through phraseology and other means
is effective.  With this in mind, it would be wise to pause in our
progressive strategies to consider the scope of countering newly
strengthened Pentagon-corporate alliances.

Lakoff notes that conservatives remain divided on many issues but have
united along broad lines for strategic purposes, and have adopted
father-figure principles in their phraseology.  Progressives can reveal all
the contradictions of the Bush administration¹s Clear Skies initiative until
blue in the face and gain not a grain of sand with today¹s mainstream.
Thus, progressives must recognize that people don¹t want facts; they want to
feel the safety of father figures in power.  Even political moderates are
too hurried by cultural demands to pay attention to truths in detail.

Our approach should aim at triggering Founding concepts already ingrained in
the American psyche ‹ patriotism at its deepest national level.  We should
seek to apply new phrases, illustrating, rather than explaining at length,
the most basic aspects of our dilemma.

To answer the conundrum of time, detachment, and the need for father-figure
leadership, take people back to the relative purity of the Founding Fathers,
employing comparative words like "deadbeat" that already convey a distinct
(irresponsible father-figure) message.  Lakoff suggests that progressives
are 30 to 40 years behind in communicating to the mainstream, politically
speaking.  Advance this kind of strategy as a single entity ‹ united for the
sake of outreach while also attending to our myriad causes ‹ and
progressives may catch up in time to avert catastrophe.

America and its policies are the people¹s realm and responsibility.  But our
power has suffered usurpations because of a deadbeat decision, and our lack
of intimate participation now puts all life at the edge of extinction.  A
call to duty must go out, juxtaposing, in a strategic manner, the honorable
vision of America¹s Founders with the deadly global military-corporate
system that prevails today.  Those who love America must know and be America
to save America. 

We are supposed to live within a system derived wholly from our consent.
When any system reduces that status and operates without our consent, it is
our right and our duty to throw off such government and provide new guards
for our future security.  That this directive appears more than once in our
Declaration of Independence indicates the conscious efforts of our Founders
to emphasize it so that we might follow it.  They knew the consequences of
detachment from power.  If we do not act wisely and swiftly, so shall we
all.

Brian Bogart
[email-masked]
Graduate student, Peace Studies
University of Oregon
_________________ 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure
these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of
government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not
be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future security. ‹ Such has
been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.