Let's hear the truth, for a change, Mr. Obama

In his inaugural address, President Obama declared, “Our nation is at war, with a far-reaching network of hatred and violence . . .” Probably, his speechwriter did not include the significant comma I do in that declarative sentence. But, with that critical punctuation, the statement is definitively true. Without the comma, it is merely a turn of deceitful polemic.

The truth the entire world knows is that our nation is indeed at war, with its far-reaching network of hatred and violence, that is, with the demonic power of its world-girdling military complex, headquartered in the Pentagon, and standing ever ready to dispatch cruel death, destruction, and despoliation, anywhere resistance to American hegemony arises.

I have yet to see a clear sign that this status quo will be altered, now that Barack Obama sits in the Oval Office.

How now, Mr. President?

Indulge me, my friends, will you please, on this Inauguration Day 2009, so full of bombast, hoopla, and dewy eyes, in an uncommon exercise of common sense.

We hold, I trust you’ll agree, these truths to be self-evident: That common men and women, of every land, in every age, are mostly people of good will; that is, they demonstrate in their lives and works, most of the time, the virtues of faith, and hope, and charity. And this, as well: That the predominant forces in all societies’ institutions, that rule the lives of the common people, are those of bad faith, mistrust, diffidence, and ill will.

You know there’s something going on here that is not good, but you don’t know what it is, do you?

Even the former President of the United States, George W. Bush, in his farewell address to the nation, reminded us that, “I've often spoken to you about good and evil, and this has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise.”

Right. So you may say.

I ask then, why is the common good so patently compromised by evil?
Something wicked this way comes, eh? That phrase is to be found in Shakespeare's play “Macbeth.” The speaker is the second witch, who prophesies, "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." The wicked thing is Macbeth himself, by this point in the play a traitor and murderer.

What do I make of this? Well, first of all, the common people are not in charge of society. And those who are in charge obviously do not have the common good in mind. Why? Well, ipso facto, they are not common people.

Those who are in charge are rich and powerful people, a perennial ruling class, and they are enemies of the common good. Thus, Mr. Bush, a scion of ruling class patriarchs, were he at all a reflective man, would do well to consider the tragedy of Macbeth. Even more so, I think, should President Obama, a man surely better equipped for self-reflection, as he assumes authority himself, going henceforth ever amidst a congeries of ruling class plenipotentiaries.

We will all do well to keep in mind that what is going on, in the final analysis, is not a struggle between good and evil; it is everywhere and always an economic class struggle, and we must choose which side we are on. Let us remember the still-relevant words of Frederick Douglass, penned in 1857:

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

You are now between a rock and a hard place, Mr. Obama, God help you. I wish I knew which side you are on.

Now, Mr. Obama, change U.S.-Israel policy

When you step into the Oval Office, Mr. Obama, will you be leaving a trail of bloody footprints? Are you already so obliged to the Israel Lobby that you’re constrained to say nothing, and do nothing, about the ongoing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli war machine, its veritable Wehrmacht, its “mighty defense,” wielding horrible weapons supplied by the U.S.A.?

The Godforsaken rogue terrorist state of Israel is, and has been since its strategic, founding war of conquest in 1948, a lawless, merciless criminal aggressor in the region of Syria-Palestine – the enablement of the U.N. under the control of the U.S. and the U.K. notwithstanding.

Israel’s so-called “Defense Forces” have unceasingly engaged in cruel, unjust, unmerciful acts of forced relocation, and confiscation of Palestinian lands and buildings, mass displacement and imprisonment, “ethnic cleansing,” and virtual genocide against the indigenous Palestinian people. They are the native Muslim and Christian farmers and villagers whom the Zionist Movement, and its synthetic Zionist State, have resolutely sought to decimate and destroy, as individuals, families, communities, and even as a would-be Palestinian nation.

The criminal Zionist Israeli military regime has made for itself a history of decades of evil-doing, having waged war endlessly against its Syro-Palestinian and farther away neighbor states, and having become loathed and reviled uniformly throughout the world – except for the political and military-industrial elites who control the policies of the United States government – the corporate godfather and super warlord that supplies its Eastern Mediterranean vassal Israel with all the weapons and finances, and military support it ever needs, to continue and enhance its ongoing criminal aggression and war crimes.

The Palestinians of Gaza are trapped within armed perimeters, like fenced-in cattle, awaiting slaughter. They are living and dying – by thirst and starvation, untreated disease, and Israeli military murders – in a scenario reminiscent of nothing so much as the Warsaw Ghetto, where German Nazis imprisoned and massacred European Jews seventy years ago.

This cruel irony of history seems peculiarly unnoticed by the bloodthirsty leaders of the three Israeli war parties competing for election to its Prime Ministry. Zionist Israel has become the Doppelgänger of the Nazi's Third Reich. Its pursuit of military solutions to the problem of Palestinian resistance is like the Nazis’ pursuit of successive solutions to the “Jewish Problem.” Will Israel’s “Final Solution” be anything like Die Endlösung der Judenfrage?

The United States of America has played the single most dynamic role in the international pro-Zionist cartel to establish, arm, and enrich Israel through a process of violent dispossession, impoverishment, and dislocation of the native Palestinian people, since Israel’s inception in 1948. At present, the government of the U.S.A. virtually controls the military, economic, and political prerogatives of the state of Israel.

To be sure, the persistence of Palestinian liberation fighters in resisting Israeli oppression by firing homemade rockets toward the towns of the Israeli Negev is misguided and counterproductive, and deserves to be reproved. Nevertheless, this is no justification for Israel’s abominable airborne terrorism and ground assault on the helpless captive people of Gaza.

I say, Mr. Obama, I beseech you, to end U.S. government complicity in the war crimes of Israel, to withdraw immediately all U.S. military aid to and financial support of the state of Israel, to demand the removal of Israeli blockades on the borders of Gaza, to further demand Israel’s withdrawal from the Palestinian territories it illegally occupies, and to insist on the abandonment of all Israeli-occupied settlements in the Palestinian territories. The United States has also provided small arms and military support to the Palestine Liberation Organization for use against Hamas, and those policies must be ended as well.

Our near-term goal should be a cessation of hostilities, followed by substantial disarmament and demilitarization of all warring factions in the Syria-Palestine region, including Israel, Hamas, and Hizbollah. No renegade state intransigence should be tolerated – such as Israel has demonstrated in the past, with the collusion of the United States.

This process should be enforced with all the diplomatic and economic powers at the disposal of the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union. Every attempt should be made to engage Russia, Iran, and China in the peace process as well. May it be so.