Staff Sgt Jared Hagemann Nov 5, 1985 - June 28, 2011

This is the third of a series of posts highlighting the important work of the veteran owned and operated GI coffeehouse movement. Coffee Strong at Fort Lewis is continuing their September fundraising drive, as they are well-short of their $20,000 goal. In addition to providing desperately needed GI support, GI coffeehouses remain one of the strongest and consistent voices in the antiwar movement. Please go to http://www.coffeestrong.org/ and donate generously. Under the Hood at Fort Hood http://www.underthehoodcafe.org/ equally deserves your support.

Sending troops to war on psychotropic medication (as I describe in my last post) is an absolute violation of basic health and military standards. GIs on psychoactive medication place the lives and welfare of their fellow servicemen at risk, which is the main reason official Pentagon policy has always forbidden it. In 2009, the Senate Armed Services Committee response to this outrage was to “study” it. At the conclusion of their investigation into GI suicides (http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2009_hr/suicide.pdf), they commissioned the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to “study” the percentage of combat personnel on psychotropic medication. After two years, it’s clear from the NIMH website (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/suicide-prevention/suicide-prevention-studies/the-making-of-army-starrs-an-overview.shtml) that the federal agency has made very little progress. They blame this on “confidentiality” issues that allow servicemen to opt out of the study.

High Level Bureaucratic Obfuscation

The whole process is classic bureaucratic obfuscation (definition: to make so confused or opaque as to be impossible to understand). If the Senate Armed Services Committee were genuine in their desire to end the deployment of medicated troops, they could have ordered (subpoenaed) the Department of Defense to turn their pharmacy and psychiatric records over to NIMH. The Pentagon, which rightly views the health of troops as a matter of national security, routinely overrules patient confidentiality for any number of reasons. Likewise the Senate could have enacted legislation ordering Obama to halt the deployment of troops on psychotropics. They chose to do neither.

They also decided against enacting legislation forbidding the deployment of troops with PTSD and other psychiatric disorders. Instead they issued a report expressing the “strong expectation” that the Pentagon would screen servicemen for PTSD prior to sending them to the front line. While the Pentagon claims to have improved their screening of new recruits, there seems to be no change in their practice of redeploying the 20-30% of troops who developing PTSD and other mental health problems as a result of combat.

Thus in June 2011, Staff Sergeant Jared Hageman, who was hospitalized for PTSD in the psychiatric unit of Madigan Army Hospital at Fort Lewis, was ordered redeployed to Afghanistan for the ninth time – and shot himself in the head (http://www.coffeestrong.org/).

Fast Forward to March 2011

In March 2011, the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee held more hearings (http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100608_2900.php), specifically around the scandalous practice of deploying US troops on mind altering psychotropic medication. Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland) quoted internal Army studies showing that 12% of troops in Iraq and 17% in Afghanistan had been prescribed antidepressants, sleeping pills or the antipsychotic Seroquel. The studies he cited revealed that as of early 2011, 5% of troops were still taking psychotropic medication.

The DOD: Breaching Their Own Guidelines

All antipsychotics are associated with extreme sedation, dizziness and cloudy judgment. Yet according to Army Surgeon General Eric Schoemaker, although US Central Command (CENTCOM) policy prohibits the use of the antipsychotic Seroquel to treat deploying troops with psychotic conditions, it does permit troops to use it as a sleep aid. This is in clear violation of the 2006 “Policy Guidance for Deployment Limiting Psychiatric Conditions and Medications,” issued by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. The latter explicitly prohibits the deployment of troops taking medication for chronic insomnia. With good reason, as Seroquel has been implicated in the deaths of two Marines who died in their sleep after taking large doses.

It also came out in the March hearings that CENTCOM allows troops who deploy to combat a 180 day supply of psychotropic medication – followed by a 180-day refill in the field. Col. John Stasinos, chief of addiction medicine for the Army surgeon general, and Col. Carol Labadie, pharmacy program manager for the surgeon general, defends this practice:  “For soldiers on long term psychotropic medication, running out and not taking the medications can be as dangerous as taking too much.”

CENTCOM Can’t Track Prescriptions (they claim)

In response to questioning, Army Surgeon General Eric Schoemaker was unable to produce exact figures for the number of troops taking psychotropics (http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110303_5243.php?oref=topstory). Shoemaker claims that the defense department – owing to inadequate funding – has no way of tracking the prescriptions they issue – either at the pharmacy level or in the AHLTA electronic health records of individual servicemen. His testimony, if true, totally violates basic standards of record keeping essential for good (and safe) medical care. It also has extremely dire implications for health outcomes of GIs treated by military doctors.

To be continued.

Under the Hood Coffeehouse at Fort Hood

(This is the second of a series of posts highlighting the important work of the veteran owned and operated GI coffeehouse movement. Coffee Strong at Fort Lewis is continuing their September fundraising drive, as they are well-short of their $20,000 goal. In addition to providing desperately needed GI support, GI coffeehouses remain one of the strongest and consistent voices in the antiwar movement. Please go to http://www.coffeestrong.org/ and donate generously. Under the Hood at Fort Hood http://www.underthehoodcafe.org/ equally deserves your support.)

The massive stress resulting from repeated, unpredictable deployments is also a major culprit in the development of PTSD and suicidal depression among troops deployed in the Middle East. During Vietnam, Pentagon officials recognized the increased risk of PTSD with guerrilla and urban warfare. Accordingly they made a deliberate effort to reduce stress levels by limiting combat deployments to twelve months, after which a GI could count on returning to the US to complete his two year service requirement.

Although current deployments are shorter than during Vietnam, our Middle East troops can be required to serve as many as eight or more deployments over a much longer period of active duty. In theory, enlisted GIs are assigned active duty for four to six years and finish their eight year contract in the reserves. Under the Bush administration’s controversial Stop Loss policy, thousands of troops were forced to return to combat even after their term of enlistment ended. Obama ended this controversial policy in February 2011.

Suicide Rates Higher among Reservists and National Guard

According to the Pentagon, the suicide rate is even higher among the 28% of front line troops who are reservists and National Guard (http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110119_4296.php). Troops mobilized to active duty from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Reserves also sign an eight year contract. Historically there has been a 24 month cumulative deployment limit on reservists and National Guard. This was reversed, owing to military manpower shortages, following the invasion of Iraq. Secretary of Defense Gates has subsequently implemented a cumulative twelve month limitation for National Guard deployed in the Middle East.

While the stress of urban and guerrilla warfare and high stress deployment schedules clearly play a role in high GI suicide rates, the Pentagon’s insane policy of returning servicemen with TBI, PTSD and clinical depression to the battlefield – many while still on one or more psychotropic medications – clearly compounds the problem. A July 2010 Army report reveals that one-third of all active-duty suicides involve prescription drugs.

Drugging Troops We Send Into Combat

How can this be happening? Why is the US government sending troops into combat under the influence of powerful psychoactive drugs. I have worked with numerous veterans and active duty personnel in my thirty plus years as a psychiatrist. In past conflicts, there has always been an absolute taboo against servicemen on psychotropic medication serving in combat. This relates in large part to common side effects of antidepressants and antipsychotics – dizziness, sedation, lack of coordination and cognitive dulling – that place both the soldier himself and his team at serious risk in high intensity urban warfare that requires split second decision making.

Another major concern is the notoriously low response rate to psychotropic medications in patients with depression and/or PTSD. Research indicates that at most 50% of patients with clinical depression experience full remission – even after trying three or four different medications. Moreover the use of psychotropic medication is not a recognized treatment for PTSD – with 10%, at most, of patients responding favorably.

Dr Grace Jackson, a former Navy psychiatrist, resigned her commission because she believes that the US Central Command (CENTCOM) is destroying our defense force by sending troops into battle on psychotropic medication. Likewise both Dr Greg Smith, a Los Angeles pain and prescription drug abuse specialist, and Ithaca psychiatrist Dr Peter Breggin have testified to Congress with similar concerns  (http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110118_8944.php).

Insufficient Manpower to Fight Seven Wars

A close look at Depart of Defense manpower figures makes it pretty obvious that the Pentagon is pursuing this insane policy for the same reason that they are subjecting troops to unpredictable, high stress deployment schedules. Both Bush and Obama are determined to circumvent the immense unpopularity of the War on Terror by relying on an all-volunteer army (it was the universality of the draft – especially among well-educated middle class – that fueled the anti-Vietnam War movement). Unfortunately this all-volunteer army has proved totally inadequate to meet the manpower needs of a permanent imperial war on seven fronts.

According to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, US forces are slated to remain in Iraq for at least one more year and could remain an occupying force in Afghanistan until 2024. The US currently has 90,000 troops in Afghanistan and 44,000 in Iraq http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/22/world/asia/american-forces-in-afghanistan-and-iraq.html

This is on top of more than two million veterans already deployed to the Middle East and discharged – and more than 160,000 active duty servicemen deployed to other countries targeted under Operation Enduring Freedom (i.e. against “terrorists” in the Philippines, Columbia, and the Horn of Africa) and on military bases in other parts of the world.

All this is taking place in a decade where the percentage of 18 to 24 year olds continues to decline in proportion to the rest of the population – and where recruitment is nose diving, owing to growing popular opposition to the War on Terror.

Troop deployments by region

• Africa 4,000

• Asia 61,000

• Europe 80,000

• Kuwait 10,000

• Qatar 8,000

• Bahrain 1,500

• Central and South America (including Guantanamo): 2,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments

To be continued.

GI Coffeehouse at Ft Lewis

(This is the first of a series of posts highlighting the work of the veteran owned and operated GI coffeehouse movement. Coffee Strong at Fort Lewis is continuing their September fundraising drive, as they are well-short of their $20,000 goal. In addition to providing desperately needed GI support, GI coffeehouses continue to be the strongest and consistent voice in the antiwar movement. Please go to http://www.coffeestrong.org/ and donate generously. Under the Hood at Fort Hood http://www.underthehoodcafe.org/ equally deserves your support.)

It’s easy for the average American to forget the US is still at war in at least seven countries (that we know of). Except for periodic suicide bombings and accidental strikes on wedding parties, the mainstream media prefers to focus on the romances and pregnancies of Hollywood stars and, recently, the trial of Michael Jackson’s personal physician. The corporate media dutifully reports on the death of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq – 6,242 as of 9/30/11 (The Military Times http://militarytimes.com/valor/index.php). Despite the refusal of the corporate media to report the civilian death toll of the Wars in the Middle East, the Lancet and John Pilger and other investigative journalists have made major inroads in publicizing the devastating impact this carnage has had on ordinary Afghan and Iraqi families.

Sending Troops to the Front Line on Mind Altering Medication

Sadly there are other important victims in this permanent war on terror who receive virtually no attention in either the mainstream or “alternative” media. I’m referring to the large number of American troops suffering severe and repeated psychological trauma owing to their callous treatment by the Department of Defense. Headlines pop up once or twice a year about the misguided Pentagon policy of redeploying servicemen to Iraq and Afghanistan with combat-related traumatic brain injury (TBI), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and clinical depression and are quickly forgotten.

In 2009 there were Congressional hearings following the revelation that more American troops were dying from suicide than combat (http://www.coffeestrong.org/). During the hearings, it came out that servicemen were returning stateside to be hospitalized for TBI, PTSD and depression; started on antidepressants and antipsychotics; and redeployed to Iraq and Afghanistan – many while still on medication. It also came out that commanding officers frequently overrode the recommendation of treating psychiatrists that patients not be redeployed.

High Stress Guerrilla and Urban Warfare

The guerrilla and urban warfare in the Middle East is more similar to the Vietnam War than earlier conflicts in which opposing troops squared off along a distinct front line. Confronting an enemy who can spring up out of nowhere and is often indistinguishable from the civilian population requires the combatant to assume an extreme attitude of vigilance over long periods of time. During Vietnam, the Pentagon recognized the extreme disruption in sleep, appetite and other biological rhythms resulted from extended periods of heightened mental arousal state. After a few weeks in this state, most people find they can’t shut the anxiety and stress off at night and begin to complain of insomnia. For many the heightened vigilance and mental arousal persists after troops leave the battlefield, resulting in the condition known as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The Effect of Civilian Atrocities

The large number of civilian atrocities in the Middle East also take their toll on servicemen. A number of troops hospitalized for PTSD and combat-related depression report witnessing and/or participating in attacks on women and children. This is clear from the heart-breaking testimonials GIs and Marines gave at the 2008 Winter Soldier Conference (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjQxMBacLBE and http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/ap_wintersoldier_031508/)

According to his widow, flashbacks of civilian atrocities featured prominently in Staff Sergeant Jared Hagemann’s illness. In 2009 Hagemann received a diagnosis of PTSD on the psychiatric unit of Madigan Army Hospital at Fort Lewis. On June 28, 2011 he shot himself in the head, rather than return to Afghanistan for his ninth deployment (http://www.coffeestrong.org/).

To be continued.

Kingsolver's new novel

Book Review

The Lacuna

By Barbara Kingsolver (Faber and Faber 2009)

The Lacuna is a historical novel that takes place between 1929 and1959. The story – told entirely in diary entries, letters and contemporary news accounts -  concerns a fictional author named Harrison Shepherd with dual Mexican/US citizenship. Shepherd serves as cook and secretary to Mexican muralist Rivera and later as a typist for Leon Trotsky after Trotsky flees the Soviet Union and takes refuge in Rivera’s home. Following Trotsky’s assassination in 1940, Shepherd returns to the US, where he works briefly for the State Department, protecting priceless paintings from possible German or Japanese attack. Following the war, he becomes a best selling novelist.

As with all of Kingsolver’s fiction, the characters are all painstakingly drawn and larger than life, as is the exquisite, picturesque settings for the Mexican portions of the novel. Yet the real importance of The Lacuna is in showing us that repression has always been an essential feature of so-called American “democracy.” All that has changed is that a growing circle of educated Americans has learned to recognize this repression and its link to mainstream media propaganda.

The Brutal Attack by Patton and MacArthur on World War I Veterans

One of the most intriguing elements of the book is Kingsolver’s use of contemporary New York Times and other news stories to document one of the most brutally repressive periods in US history. She begins by describing, mainly via diary entries, the vicious 1932 military assault President Herbert Hoover ordered against the Bonus Army. Unemployed and destitute World War I veterans, along with their wives and children, set up a permanent encampment along Pennsylvania Avenue after Hoover refused to pay the $500 bonus they had been promised. Generals Patton and MacArthur are often celebrated as World War II heroes.  I had no idea that they also led the attack – with horses, tanks and tear gas – against the Bonus Army encampment.

American Concentration Camps, Anti-Semitism, and HUAC

The Lacuna moves on to describe the imprisonment of 2,541 American-born Japanese in the 1940s; the vicious post-war anti-Semitism that denied Jews admission to American hotels, restaurants and country clubs; and finally the scapegoating and persecution of thousands of innocent Americans by the FBI and the House on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in the 1950s.

What I found most interesting about Kingsolver’s portrayal of this final period was her description of the protection rackets run by enterprising security firms during the McCarthy Era. Targets would receive letters with a number of fictional accusations about their so-called communist activities and a demand for money to further investigate and “clear” their name. On legal advice, Shepherd, who is totally apolitical, refuses to pay. As a result, the fraudulent information (about a non-existent meeting he supposedly had with communist spies at age fourteen) is turned over to the FBI. They, in turn, hand it over to HUAC. Following his subpoena and interrogation by HUAC, the Department of Justice indicts him on treason and espionage charges. At the end of the book, he faces almost certain imprisonment on the trumped up charges.

Parallels Between Stalin and HUAC

The parallels Kingsolver draws are unmistakeable – with, on the one hand, the terrorism of a ruthless despot in persecuting and ultimately murdering a totally benign political rival (Trotsky) – and, on the other, the FBI/HUAC campaign to terrorize the American people into fearful compliance. There are also obvious parallels with the current government/media campaign to scapegoat and persecute American Muslims.

Repression and the Mainstream Media

The essential role the mainstream media plays as an instrument of political repression also receives special attention in The Lacuna. We forget that American media monopolies aren’t new. In the thirties, forties and fifties, the Hearst media empire served the interests of right wing reactionaries, much in the way Fox News does today. The open support of Hearst’s newspapers and magazines for Hitler and the Nazi movement is an ugly historical fact that usually omitted from high school and college textbooks.

In the end, it’s actually the media that destroys Shepherd’s career, by exaggerating and widely publicizing the FBI’s ludicrous charges.

Why the Lacuna was Released in the UK

The Lacuna is Kingsolver’s most political novel to date. Her other “political” works include the bestselling Poisonwood Novel, and her non-fiction Animal, Vegetable and Miracle and Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983.

I find it ironic that The Lacuna was first published in Britain (where it won the 2010 Orange Prize for fiction) in May 2009. Apparently even bestselling authors have difficulty finding American publishers for politically sensitive books. It was only seven months later (and thanks to the phenomenal response The Lacuna received in Europe) that the American publisher HarperCollins brought it out in the US.

18th century economist Adam Smith

This is Part 2 of my review of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

Book II – lays out Smith’s view that capital accumulation (the reinvestment of profits to employ more workers) further advances divisions and subdivisions of labor to improve the “productive power of labor” and the wealth of society. Here Smith emphasizes the importance of spreading wealth to wider and wider circles of people to keep employment constant and prevent social disorder.

“The Invisible Hand”: Falsely Attributed to Adam Smith

Book II also emphasizes what Smith calls “frugality” or the “mediocrity-of-money” as essential to this capitalization as the division of labor. Neoliberals often make Smith out as an advocate of laissez-faire economics, in which economic imbalances and social injustice is addressed by the “invisible hand” of competitive market forces. However, it was actually one of Smith’s contemporaries J Harris who made this argument. Although Smith doesn’t refer to Harris by name, he’s clearly refuting his views in arguing the need of limited government intervention to address social injustice. Smith clearly believes this intervention (on which he elaborates in Book V) is essential to ensure “doux-commerce.” This he defines as an economy based on “frugality,” in which rich people invest their profits in increasing productive labor, rather than luxuries, corruption and vice, which contribute nothing to a society’s economic well being.

Book III – elaborates on Smith’s ideas about the accumulation of capital and “frugality,” as well as describing the rise of cities and mercantilism, which in Smith’s view negatively impacts investment in agriculture. Using numerous historical examples, he argues that the inability of a country or empire to produce their own food (and subsequent reliance on food imports) always results in their downfall.

Smith’s Attack on Mercantalism, Monopolies, Tariffs, and Quotas

Book IV – is an attack on mercantilism, which Smith despises. “Monopoly,” according to Smith, “is the sole engine of the mercantile system.” Smith, who makes the strong argument that money has no intrinsic value of its own, blames mercantilism on an overemphasis on accumulating gold and silver reserves (money), at the expense of genuine productive capacity and overall economic wealth. He’s highly critical of European nations for being obsessed with a positive balance of trade (to build up their gold and silver reserves). He’s also critical of the wrongheaded way they go about it, through the granting of monopoly rights and protective tariffs, and quotas, which always negatively impact domestic production.

Smith is a strong “free trade” advocate, and his famous description of the free market, which neoliberals frequently quote out of context, comes from Book IV:  “Every man, as long as he doesn’t violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital with those of any other man, or order of men.”

Smith feels that if international market forces are left to their own devices there is a natural flow of wealth from rich to poor countries. When rich countries resist this, there is a loss of flexibility and innovation, in addition to the decline in the domestic economy – particularly agriculture – which is essential for a nation’s wealth. This failure to invest in agriculture leads to higher prices for food and other necessities required by workers.

Smith’s Case for Government Regulation

Smith lays out his views on government intervention in Book IV, which he elaborates in Book V.

According to Smith, a sovereign (government) has three duties:

1. To protect society from violence or invasion
2. To protect, as far as possible, every member of society from injustice or oppression from every other member of society (His use of the word “oppression,” rather than “violence,” is interesting. From the context, it’s clear that Smith is referring to economic oppression and social injustice).
3. To maintain certain public works and institutions, “which can never be for [the benefit of] certain individuals or groups of individuals.” (Smith makes this argument on economic grounds – if you allow rich people to be the sole beneficiaries of public institutions, it becomes impossible to recoup the expense).

In Book IV, Smith also calls for direct government intervention in “facilitating” investment in agriculture.

Book V – is about social injustice and elaborates on the interventions Smith would allow the government to make in the affairs of society and economy. These fall mainly into two categories:

1)      Ensuring justice in relations between the rich and poor.

2)      Taking charge of educational institutions to provide moral up-lift – a culture of “frugality” throughout the society – in the name of social justice.

He talks educating common people being more important than educating the rich in civilized society. According to Smith, rudimentary education is essentially in preventing formation of “religious sects”  that often lead to social unrest. At same time, he emphasizes importance of privately funded advanced education (for the wealthy). He gives numerous examples of private funding improving quality of teaching (it forces teachers to work harder).

Book V delves at length into the effect of military spending on economic wealth. It talks about the extremely risk of a standing army destroying democracy (he gives Rome and Cromwell’s parliament as an example). He allows that with advanced military technology, a standing army is preferable, because members of a militia have other occupations and don’t have time for the extensive training that is necessary. However he argues that military spending must be strictly limited and never paid for by borrowing. He predicts that indebtedness for military spending will eventually cause the economic ruin of all European countries.

Book Review

The Wealth of Nations

by Adam Smith

Abridged Version by Laurence Dickey, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison (Hackett Publishing 1993)

The Wealth of Nations consists of five books (written between 1767-1777, with the publication of the third and final edition in 1784). The book is cited extensively by neoliberals and neoconservatives as justification for ending government regulation of corporations – arguing that regulation negatively impacts the totally unobstructed free market Adam Smith allegedly advocates.

I think it’s high time for liberals, progressives and left libertarians to reclaim Adam Smith as one of our own. Smith self-identifies as a liberal – one of the first in Europe. He also makes frequent positive reference to what he calls “progressive” economics, which advocates a system of “doux-commerce,” which involves government intervention to ensure that rich people invest their profits in increasing productive labor, rather than corruption and vice.

The 1993 Edition

Smith’s writing tends to be quite repetitive, as large sections of the later books predate the earlier ones. In his abridged version, Dickey merely summarizes material Smith has introduced in earlier sections. There is also a generous preface, as well as appendices, that position Smith among the various writers of the 18^th century Scottish Enlightenment. In this way Dickey shows that, to a large extent, the Wealth of Nations is a consolidation of widely held views on basic economic principles.

The overall intent of the Wealth of Nations is 1) to make general observations about the economic and social changes that underlay the transformation from feudalism to modern industrial society and 2) to lay out basic macroeconomic principles based on these observations that Smith believes are essential for a prosperous, political stable nation which provides an adequate standard of living for its workforce. The latter is extremely important to Smith, both as a principle of social justice and to prevent social unrest.

Smith definitely does not, as claimed by many neocons and neoliberals – and even a few libertarians – argue for the need or even desirability of a totally unregulated free market economy. Quite the contrary, Book V “Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth” makes a strong argument that government intervention is essential in free markets to ensure economic growth and general prosperity.

Book I (”Of the Causes of Improvement in the Productive Powers of Labour”)

Book I lays out Smith’s belief that “division of labor” – in which individuals stopped making their own plows, dwellings, shoes, clothes, etc. and organized into specialized trades to provide these services – was the fundamental socio-economic change that made modern economic development and western-style democracy possible. Smith describes in detail the development of trade (in nations with access to the sea and inland waterways) and the origin of money. He also explains how supply and demand work, showing how higher demand leads to higher prices, which leads producers to bring more of their product to market, which, in turn, tends to lower prices. He argues that an under supply of labor leads to increased wages and an oversupply a decrease in population growth.

Smith provides considerable detail from merchant and export records regarding 18^th century wages in England, Scotland, France, and North America, as well as the average price of common commodities. Citing the American colonies as an example, he concludes that the wages and welfare of workers is always worse in an established static economy than in one that is growing, i.e. where new land is being put into production and new industries being formed.

He makes a detailed case for slavery being uneconomical. He argues that paying workers directly for the work they do makes them more productive and results in more capital that can be reinvested in productive labor.

Smith’s Advocacy for Social Justice

Book I also lays out Smith’s strong views on social justice, which he elaborates further in Book V. He insists that daily “subsistence” (i.e. wages) should be proportioned to daily necessities. “No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people should have such as share of their own labour as to be themselves totally well fed, clothed and lodged.”

Smith’s Views on Elite Conspiracies

Smith reminds me a lot of Michael Parenti in the observations he makes about elitist conspiracies, in which business owners “combine” in secret to agree to hold wages down: “Whoever imagines that masters rarely combine is as ignorant of the world as of this subject.”

He makes the point that it’s much more difficult for workers to “combine” (i.e. unionize) because of anti-labor laws and urgent subsistence needs.

To be continued, with an overview of Books II-V.

Banned in the US

Film Review

The War You Don’t See

Produced and directed by John Pilger

Americans now have the opportunity of seeing John Pilger’s critically acclaimed The War You Don’t See as a free download at http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/war-you-dont-see/ The groundbreaking documentary was effectively banned in the US when Patrick Lannan, who funds the “liberal” Lannon Foundation, canceled the American premier (and all Pilger’s public appearances) in June 2010. Pilger provides the full background of this blatant act of censorship at his website www.johnpilger.com. After seeing the film, I believe its strong support of Julian Assange (who the US Department of Justice is attempting to prosecute) is the most likely reason it’s not being shown in American theatres.

Pilger’s documentary centers around the clear propaganda role both the British and US press played in cheerleading the US/British invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. It includes a series of interviews in which Pilger confronts British and American journalists (including Dan Rather) and news executives regarding their failure to give air time to weapons inspectors and military/intelligence analysts who were publicly challenging the justification for these invasions. The Australian filmmaker focuses heavily on the fabricated evidence (Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction and links to 9-11) that was used to convince American and British lawmakers to go along with an illegal attack on a defenceless nation (Iraq).

Making News Executives Squirm

Pilger also confronts the British news executives (from the BBC and ITV) for reporting — unchallenged — Israeli propagandist Mark Regev regarding the May 2010 Israeli attack (in international waters) of the international peace flotilla and murder of nine Turkish peace activists (including six who were executed in the back of the head at point blank range).

Although none of the news makers offer a satisfactory explanation for their actions, British news executives show obvious embarrassment when Pilger forces them to admit they knew about opposing views and failed to offer them equal air time. In my view, the main value of the film is reminding us how essential it is to hold journalists to account for their lack of objectivity. Too many activists (myself included) have allowed ourselves to become too cynical about the mainstream media to hold individual reporters and their editors and managers accountable when they function as government propagandists instead of journalists.

The War You Don’t See was released in Britain in December 2010, in the context of a Parliamentary investigation into the Blair government’s use of manufactured intelligence to ensnare the UK into a disastrous ten year foreign war. Government/corporate censorship is far more efficient in the US, and the odds of a similar Congressional investigation occurring in the US seem extremely low.

Edward Bernays: the Public is the Enemy

The film begins with a thumbnail history of modern war propaganda, which Pilger traces back to Edward Bernays, the father of public relations. Bernays, who began his career by helping Woodrow Wilson to “sell” World War I to the American people, talks in his famous book Propaganda about the public being the “enemy” which must be “countered.”

Independent Journalism is Hazardous to Your Health

The most powerful segment features the Wikileaks gunship video released in April 2010, followed by Pilger’s interview with a Pentagon spokesperson regarding this sadistic 2007 attack on unarmed Iraqi civilians. This is followed by excerpts of a public presentation by a GI on the ground at the time of assault, who was denied permission to medically evacuate two children injured in the attack.

The documentary also focuses heavily on the Pentagon’s deliberate use of “embedded” journalists to report the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the extreme threat (often from American forces) faced by independent, non-embedded journalists. According to Pilger, a record 240 independent journalists were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Palestine, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has killed ten independent journalists since 1992. The War You Don’t See includes footage of a recent IDF attack on a Palestinian cameraman, who miraculously survived, despite losing both legs.

Pilger goes on to talk about the deliberate bombing of Al Jazeera headquarters in Kabul and Baghdad, mainly because the Arab network was the only outlet reporting on civilian atrocities. This section features excellent Al Jazeera footage of home invasions of two civilian families — in one case by British and the other by American troops — who were brutally terrorized and subjected to torture tactics.

The Interview that Got the Film Banned

The film concludes with a brief interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who discusses the increasing secrecy and failure of democratic control over the military industrial intelligence complex. Assange presents his view that this complex consists of a network of thousands of players (government employees and contractors and defense lobbyists) who make major policy decisions in their own self-interest with virtually no government oversight.

Pilger and Assange also discuss the aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers by Obama, who has the worst record of First Amendment violations of any president. They also discuss the positive implications of the willingness of military and intelligence insiders to leak hundreds of thousands of classified documents. It shows clear dissent in the ranks about the blatant criminality that motivates US foreign policy decisions.

TPPA Protest in Chicago (Sept 2011)

My fifth and final post about the antiglobalization movement – and why it’s more important than ever in 2011.

Activists mustn’t be lured into a false sense of security by the collapse of Doha round of WTO negotiations. Globalization is very much alive and well. WTO tribunals continue to meet secretly in Geneva enforcing trade provisions that have already been agreed. Moreover after a two year hiatus, an informal meeting at the May G20 Summit in Paris has resulted in the scheduling of a WTO ministerial in Geneva in December 2011. The goal of the December meeting is to try to reach a “partial” agreement on the Doha round.

Even more ominous are efforts by corporately-controlled governments in the industrial north to coerce concessions out of smaller countries with bilateral “free trade” (see * definition below)  deals that strip citizens of their democratic rights and force subsistence farmers off their lands in Africa and Southeast Asia (to enable their sale to multinational agrobusinesses).

The TPPA: Say Goodbye to Generics

At present, both the US and New Zealand are at highest risk from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), a nine country (US, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam) free trade treaty currently being negotiated with the US. Up till now, the US has been unwilling to negotiate a “free trade” agreement with New Zealand, owing to this country’s antinuclear policy, which denies US naval vessels access to our harbors. I find it frankly embarrassing to see our new National (conservative) government tart themselves up like a cheap hooker in order to trade away New Zealand’s sovereignty, economic sustainability and public health.

Dr Jane Kelsey, New Zealand’s foremost anti-globalization lawyer and activist, was among the protestors at the Chicago anti-TPPA kick-off rally over Labor Day. Other high profile TPPA opponents include Public Citizen, Knowledge Ecology, and Health Gap (international HIV-AIDS campaigners). The last two groups are extremely concerned about TPPA provisions increasing the monopoly rights of pharmaceutical companies, which will make it virtually impossible for low income patients (especially in developing countries) to access low  cost life-saving generic drugs.

Kelsey has written and spoken extensively about the TPPA, which first came to public attention in New Zealand thanks to a December 2010 Wikileaks cable. Although New Zealand’s National-led government still refuses to release the full text of TPPA, enough has been leaked by various sources to reveal that its bad news for New Zealand’s democratic system of government. Like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), it guarantees special rights to investors and forces the repeal of laws that interfere with the ability of multinational corporations to do business in this country. This includes scrapping PHARMAC, our world-famous bulk drug purchasing agency (pharmaceutical companies hate PHARMAC because it forces them to discount their brand name drugs), as well as restricting New Zealand’s ability to put warning labels on cigarette packs and content labels on genetically modified foods. It would curtail their ability to regulate dodgy finance companies, as well as forcing us to allow mining in our forest reserves, fishing in our marine reserves and high rise hotels on our pristine beaches.

To follow TPPA negotiations and get involved in the anti-TPPA movement go to http://tppwatch.org/

*Free trade – describes an approach to international trade that allows traders to trade across national boundaries without any interference from respective governments.

*Fair trade – is closer to the original “free trade” concept (abolishing protective tariffs and quotas) promoted by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. Smith advocated that wealth should flow naturally from richer to poorer nations, as a way of increasing innovation and productive capacity in both rich and poor countries. Fair trade is an organized social movement around a market-based approach that advocates for third world producers to be paid a fairer, higher price for their products, as well as higher social and environmental standards.

G8 protest in Genoa (2001)

This is the fourth in a series of posts about the antiglobalization movement.

After Seattle, the antiglobalization movement continued to grow by leaps and bounds. Over the next 20 months, large contingents of North American activists followed international economic summits around the world to protest the anti-democratic agenda of the global economic elite. There were massive demonstrations at the April 2000 meeting of the IMF/World Bank in Washington DC, the May 2000 meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Chiang May Thailand, the July 2010 Republican Convention in Philadelphia, the August 2010 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, the World Economic Forum in Melborne in Sept 2000, the IMF/World Bank meeting in Prague in Sept 2000, at George W Bush’s inauguration (to protest his theft of the 2000 election) in January 2001, at the third Summit of Americas Fair Trade of the America’s Agreement (FTAA) meeting in Quebec City in April 2001, and at the G8 Summit in Genoa in July 2001.

Antiglobalization activists also organized the first World Social Forum in Puerte Allegre Brazil January 25-30, 2001 – as an alternative to World Economic Forum held in Davos Switzerland January 27 2001. In retrospect, this was the first split in antiglobalization movement, with 50,000 antiglobalization activists choosing to go to Puerte Allegro Brazil instead of protesting in Davos.

Then 9-11 happened and everything changed. The Patriot Act, which clearly was written in advance of the Twin Tower attacks, was passed virtually overnight, along with similar legislation in Canada. Many believe the antiglobalization movement, rather than potential Muslim terrorists, was the real target of the Patriot Act, which essentially criminalized dissent.

One for Our Side

The US launched the Doha round of negotiations in 2002, hoping to capitalize on the worldwide sympathy and support they enjoyed following the 9-11 attacks. It didn’t work. Third world countries continued to hold their ground – mainly over the US refusal to end agricultural subsidies. Negotiations on the Doha round broke down in Cancun in 2003 (in part, due to Korean farmer Lee Kyang Hae’s public suicide), in Geneva in 2004, and in Hong Kong in 2005. The Doha round was officially suspended in 2006 following the breakdown of G-4 (Brazil, India, EU and the US) talks in Pottsdam. In 2007, more than 90 international non-profit organizations wrote their governments demanding an end to the Doha round and a two year moratorium on WTO Ministerial meetings. The moratorium was granted after the last WTO Ministerial, in Geneva in November 2009, also ended in stalemate.

Clearly the antiglobalization movement can claim the collapse of the Doha round as a massive victory for the movement – in essence we won the Battle of Seattle. Yet we can only claim partial credit for dead-ending WTO negotiations before multinational corporations achieved the extremely undemocratic concessions they were demanding. The WTO treaty is largely about allowing the industrial north preemptive rights in the developing south – an agenda that has become meaningless with the increasing power and status of the “emerging” economies (the BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Even more important, the prior obsessive preoccupation with expanding international trade has been totally overshadowed by the crisis of international capitalism – manifested in the global recession and debt crisis, resource depletion, catastrophic climate-related events, and the food crisis.

The Marginalization of the Antiglobalization Movement

In a parallel process, the antiglobalization movement also became largely irrelevant after 9-11, as antiglobalization activists shifted their focus to the antiwar movement opposing the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. The antiwar movement was subsequently co-opted by the Democratic Party, which enticed activists back to electoral politics, with their very seductive campaign to Defeat George Bush at All Costs.

Simultaneously there were major splits over tactics in the antiglobalization movement, with activist energy being diverted from mass protests to the World Social Forum movement. The latter, as Australian political researcher Michael Barker has documented, seems to have major funding and support from CIA-linked left gatekeeping foundations (http://www.zcommunications.org/corporate-fronts-astroturf-groups-and-co-opted-social-movements-by-michael-barker).

The criminalization of dissent – via the Patriot Act and similar legislation in other countries – may have aggravated this split. Global capitalists have taken to meeting in remote locations (such as Davos, Switzerland), and employing a strong police and military presence to prevent protestors from influencing third world delegates. Demonstrators are deliberately caged off in “protest zones” remote from the actual conference site. This, along with arbitrary visa denials and preemptive arrests of activists based on their ideological beliefs, has substantially reduced the impact and effectiveness of these international protests.

To be continued.