Children of the Wasteland

I am no fan of tyranny, but I do think the elections in Iran are the harbingers of a coming destabilization project meant to “save the Iranians” the way we “saved” Iraqis:

Even the American left-wing has endorsed the U.S. government’s propaganda. Writing in The Nation, Robert Dreyfus’s presents the hysterical views of one Iranian dissident as if they are the definitive truth about “the illegitimate election,” terming it “a coup d’etat.”

What is the source of the information for the U.S. media and the American puppet states?

Nothing but the assertions of the defeated candidate, the one America prefers.

However, there is hard evidence to the contrary. An independent, objective poll was conducted in Iran by American pollsters prior to the election. The pollsters, Ken Ballen of the nonprofit Center for Public Opinion and Patrick Doherty of the nonprofit New America Foundation, describe their poll results in the June 15 Washington Post. The polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and was conducted in Farsi “by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award.”*

The poll results, the only real information we have at this time, indicate that the election results reflect the will of the Iranian voters. Among the extremely interesting information revealed by the poll is the following:

“Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin — greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.

Auspicious, considering Obama’s Middle East talk on June 4, which is the impetus for the majority of this post.

Spare change, loose change, but none we really believe in.

The symbolic act is one which incorporates the literal while evoking the metaphysical. Symbols arguably are more effective, efficient, and can produce longer-lasting control mechanisms than most physical actions. They pervade our advertising, media, and corporate loyalties; they irrefutably control our belief systems, religious and political. I believe Barack Obama is one of our most symbolic presidents yet. As Middle East historian Mark Levine says, “the West, and the US in particular, has a habit of taking symbols too seriously.” Levine is addressing the open-handed goalpost speech and promises made to the Middle East in the early part of Obama’s administration. While it is arguable that merely changing our symbolic vocabulary towards Islamic countries has a strong effect on popular support, it is also reminiscent of a rhetoric echoed by Bzrezinski of all countries facing hegemonic domination:

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America’s involvement in World War II.

It is this construction of a new , untouchable narrative that worries me. A narrative of uncorrupted, audacious, and nearly impenetrable “Hope” has established not only a new definition of the empathetic hero, but a new heroic paradigm that, if confronted, will garner exponentially more support from the population than that of a tyrannical fearmonger. The narrative of a turning point, a real “Good Guy” in the driver’s seat, is pervasive; the passivity that previously dulled the so-called “movements” in the past has now been co-opted, branded, and repackaged. And we swallow. And with good reason; Obama and is a genius with words, and words are symbolic resonances at the core of human experience.

I propose we do a side-by-side comparison of his June 4, 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world, and his June 4, 2008 speech at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, for a closer inspection of the symbolic resonance. Interesting that the dates are exactly one year apart.

Stylistically, the two follow a similar tactical rhetoric:

June 08:
I first became familiar with the story of Israel when I was 11 years old. I learned of the long journey and steady determination of the Jewish people to preserve their identity through faith, family and culture. Year after year, century after century, Jews carried on their traditions, and their dream of a homeland, in the face of impossible odds.

June 09:
Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

June 09:
So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations – to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity

June 08:
Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel. Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation. But that only makes diplomacy more important. If we must use military force, we are more likely to succeed, and will have far greater support at home and abroad, if we have exhausted our diplomatic efforts.

June 09:
This is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes subjugating one another to serve their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; progress must be shared.

June 08:
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.

June 09:
Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

June 08:
That is the change we need in our foreign policy. Change that restores American power and influence. Change accompanied by a pledge that I will make known to allies and adversaries alike: that America maintains an unwavering friendship with Israel, and an unshakeable commitment to its security.

June 09:
I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and changing communities. In all nations – including my own – this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we will lose of control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities – those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.

“He is almost above America, above the world, like God.”
-Evan Thomas, Newsweek

“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”
– “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives,” by Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997), Council on Foreign Relations, National Security Advisor to President Carter and adviser to Presidents Reagan and Bush the First.