The Kennedy Assassination as Ordinary Politics

  

The Kennedy Assassination as Ordinary Politics

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following passages are from Peter Dale Scott’s book “Deep Politics and the Death of JFK.” It is interesting, though, that the idea of “deep politics” isn’t needed to explain JFK’s assassination.

 

                  “…I propose that most hypotheses of the Kennedy assassination hitherto, whether the designated culprits have been Communists or Minutemen, the CIA or the Mafia, have suffered a common defect. This is to look for an external conspiracy violating a systemic political order from without.

 

                  “We shall offer an enlarged and deeper perspective of power as a symbiosis of public government, organized crime, and private wealth with deep connections to both government and crime. From this perspective, the forces behind the assassination no longer appear as extraneous, but as deeply systemic; and the violation of the enlarged power system can be seen as coming from the Kennedys, with their policies of détente abroad and an attack on a CIA-sanctioned Hoffa crime connection at home. From this perspective, the assassination was not a corrupt attack from outside an honest system. The assassination was a desperate, extraordinary defense, or adjustment, of a system that was itself corrupt.” [74]

 

                  There is some ambiguity here. For example, was the assassination “a desperate, extraordinary defense” or was it an “adjustment?” If the latter, then to speak of it as “desperate” and “extraordinary” is misleading. Adjustments are just that, a rearranging of some things not involving “desperate” or “extraordinary” measures. But, overall, insofar as Scott is correct that the assassination was the product of well established and generally legitimate forces, then the assassination can be described as ordinary or “systematized” politics. Of course, assassinations are not common political moves, but they are far from uncommon, even in the United States. Lincoln assassinated, Garfield assassinated, McKinley was assassinated, Teddy Roosevelt was wounded, and there was an attempt to assassinate FDR, while Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were both targets, and Reagan was actually wounded. Of course, most recently there was an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump. And this list is only concerned with presidents, leaving out the assassinations of Huey Long, of Malcolm X, of Martin Luther King, Jr., of Fred Hampton, of Medgar Evans, and Charlie Kirk.

 

                  But although Scott’s very good research points him toward the view that the Kennedy assassination, like politics generally, was a more banal event than is generally recognized, being an “adjustment” of the existing political order, Scott, like many others, finds it difficult not to be melodramatic about JFK’s assassination. One problem with Scott’s melodrama is that it obscures the character of the political, viz., that politics is, for the most part and at its core, banal, involving constant and, for the most part, adjustments to the existing order. There is not and there will never be a New Frontier, a Great Society, or an end to terrorism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Secrecy, Government, and Politics

  

Secrecy, Government, and Politics

Peter Schultz

 

                  Secrecy is integral, even intrinsic to government and politics because it affords (and preserves) the illusion of power. It preserves the illusion of being in control – until it doesn’t.

 

                  Consider this passage from John Newman’s JFK and Vietnam, about the duplicitous lengths the US went to preserve the illusion of control.

 

                  “This, then, is how the intricate cover story to hide the order authorizing US aircraft to shoot down Soviet planes over Vietnam was put together. It seems tragic, somehow, that the disparate bureaucracy in Washington, Honolulu, and Saigon could come together with such efficiency, coordination, and energy to fine-tune a false cover story, and yet work with the agility and pace of a turtle on the true problems of the war. Unfortunately, controlling the public impression of the war consumed an inordinate amount of command attention.” [215]

 

                  Take note: an “intricate cover story … was put together.” So, much time and effort were devoted to this story indicating that it was important, even crucial stuff. Why? Because such a story was indispensable for disguising what was actually happening in Vietnam and indicating that the US was not in control to the extent that it was shooting down Soviet planes. That the US had to shoot down Soviet planes was a good indication that the US was not in control and, so, this policy had to kept secret.

 

                  Take note: the story was “fine-tuned.” And great care was given to it as it was being “put together.” Note too should be made that there were no objections to this duplicity. While some details may have created some controversy, the duplicitous actions were accepted as legitimate by all those who were involved, including of course the President. Hence, “the inordinate amount of command attention” was not inordinate for those involved. It was what they did and what they were convinced should be done. It, the duplicity, was the right thing.

 

                  Government officials and politicians are always, i.e., intrinsically duplicitous. This is a fact of life, so to speak. And it is a fact of life for the powerful, the decision-makers, those acting politically, socially, militarily, and economically. It is how they preserve the illusion(s) of control, thereby legitimating and fortifying their claim to rule. But that duplicity is demanded by the lack of control, which does not exist to the extent these powerful persons think it does. The reality of this lack of control confirms the presence and power of chance, a power denied by modern science, both physical and political. And chance is pervasive, so much so that “The deception had become integral to the routine, so much a part of the way business was carried on … that no one … noticed when a fiction of a different sort emerged, a deception within a deception … directed at the President himself.” [219]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Irony in Iraq

  

More Irony in Iraq

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following is from James Bamford’s book A Pretext for War:

 

                  “It wasn’t just the small dumps that got overlooked; the United States also failed to secure Iraq’s single largest ammo dump, known as Al QaQaa…. After examining the bunkers, the troops simply left the doors open…. The looters and future insurgents wasted little time stripping the base. After learning of the problem in May 2003, an internal IAEA memorandum [alerted] Washington that terrorists might be in the process of helping ‘themselves to the greatest explosive bonanza in history.’ The White House, however, ignored the warning. Thus, intent on finding nuclear weapons that didn’t exist, Washington ignored the real weapons that did exist.

 

                  “Through such actions and inactions, the Bush administration turned Iraq into a grizzly death factory for Americans and innocent Iraqi men, women, and children. Its invasion created the insurgency, its brutal occupation kept it growing, and its utter lack of planning and foresight armed with a virtually unlimited supply of powerful weapons. This makes for bitter irony. The Bush administration invaded Iraq in large part to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. Now because of its invasion and lack of planning, the Bush administration is responsible for weapons of mass destruction going into the hands of terrorists…. The result is a seemingly endless downward spiral.”  [400-403, emphasis added]

 

                  As some have argued, the political is the realm of the ironic. Obviously, the Bush administration and its leading neoconservatives had no appreciation for the ironical character of their war in Iraq. Had they been aware of the ironical character of their politics, had they had, that is, a more developed sense of humor, they would neither have failed so badly nor killed so many people.

 

 

The Idealism of the Realists

  

The Idealism of the Realists

Peter Schultz

 

                  The US war in Iraq illustrates as well as anything can just how idealistic our alleged “realists” are and need to be to justify their wars.

 

                  They are idealistic, first, in thinking that their intelligence is accurate, and, so, must be believed and acted upon. Without such idealizing of intelligence, the Iraq invasion would never have happened. Because the “intelligence community” (note the idealism in that phrase!) determined that Iraq had WMDs, Iraq had to have such weapons. It was “a slam duck,” to quote George Tenet of the CIA. If actually viewed realistically, however, any such intelligence should have been treated skeptically.

 

                  Our realists were idealistic in how they thought the war would unfold, as well as its aftermath. The war would be over quickly, using minimal number of ground forces, the Iraqi people would rise up and thankfully embrace the American forces and America, Iraq would then create a working democracy, and in the war’s aftermath the Middle East would be remade to the advantage of Israel and the United States. It is difficult to think of a more idealistic scenario for Iraq. All of “it” would work out, just as realists said it would at the Bay of Pigs, in Korea, and in Vietnam, to name a few other wars our idealistic realists embraced.

 

                  It is the height of irony to call those advancing and embracing the Iraq war “realists.” Maybe this explains why some people have called the political arena intrinsically ironic. And why the political cannot be understood without a sense of irony, i.e., without a sense of humor. Insofar as our “realists” need anything, it is a sense of humor. The lack thereof explains why realism and realists so often fail.

Secrecy and the Powerful

  

Secrecy and the Powerful

Peter Schultz

 

                  Secrecy is popular with the powerful because it protects them from being seen as failures, and failure is one thing that the powerful seek, mightily, to avoid. Avoiding or hiding failure might be even more important to the powerful than succeeding because failure undermines how the powerful want and need to be seen.

 

                  “In fact, as they later admitted, prior to September 11, 2001, ‘the CIA had no penetrations of Al Qaeda leadership, and the Agency never acquired intelligence from anyone that could be acted upon.’ It was George Tenet’s biggest secret. Not only was Al Qaeda never penetrated, neither the Counterterrorism Center nor Alec Station ever picked up a single piece of usable intelligence on bin Laden or his organization, the country’s greatest threat.” [221, Bamford]

 

                  So, secrecy helps to maintain the appearance of being powerful. So too does inactivity, which is facilitated by secrecy. Very often, in the time leading up to the attacks on September 11, 2001, secrets were learned, intelligence was revealed that was not acted upon.

 

                  “Despite the importance of the operation, Rich [Blee] had never bothered to write up and distribute an intelligence report on it - … a TD or Telegraphic Dissemination. ‘A TD would have gone to a lot of people,’ admitted the senior intelligence officer, ‘but we didn’t do that.’” [227, Bamford]

 

                  Was this conspiratorial behavior? Hardly. It was merely ordinary, run-of-the-mill behavior meant to conceal how powerless the Agency was against potential terrorists. And such behavior continued: “Despite losing the key suspects, Rich [Blee] told senior CIA officials four days later, on January 12, that the surveillance in Kuala Lumpur was continuing. Two days later he again told his superiors that they were continuing to track the Al Qaeda suspects, but by then Alec Station had no clue where Almihdhar, Alhazmi, and Khallad were, and all tracking had ceased.” [228]

 

                  Conspiratorial behavior? Hardly. And finally: “Alec Station made no further attempts to locate the missing suspected terrorists.” [228] If you don’t try to locate suspected terrorists, you can’t fail at finding them. Using secrecy as a way of avoiding or hiding failure works well, particularly for the officials involved.

 

                  Ironically, often what the powerful do to appear powerful undermines their power. The Agency and its secrecy were in fact empowering its enemies, but not conspiratorially. CIA officials were behaving normally, that is, secretly. But they were, unintentionally, colluding with Al Qaeda and its terrorists. So, it goes.

CIA Operations and US Security

  

CIA Operations and US Security

Peter Schultz

 

                  How a CIA operation compromised US security by undermining attempts to prevent attacks on the US homeland.

 

                  The CIA, specifically Alec Station, was running an operation against at least two suspected terrorists, Almihdhar and Alhazmi. It was a surveillance operation that led to Kuala Lumpur and a meeting of suspected terrorists in January 2000. Questions were raised later about whether the Agency had notified the FBI of this meeting, with the CIA saying it had done so and the FBI contending it was not notified.

 

                  It is crucial to understand CIA’s “operations,” what they are and what they aren’t to understand what happened. Alec Station said regarding its operation that “we need to continue the effort to identify these travelers and their activities … to determine if there is any true threat posed.” [Bamford, 223]

 

                  Note needs be taken of the goals of this op: to identify travelers and identify “any true threat posed” and, of course, to achieve these goals secretly. The secrecy is why no thought was ever given to disrupting the travels and activities of these suspects. Besides, that was not “the op,” not the job, which was to identify and understand certain things. And this would explain why the CIA would not have notified the FBI, because that would violate and might compromise the secrecy required by the operation. As an FBI agent pointed out: “They didn’t want the bureau meddling in their business [i.e., their operation] – that’s why they didn’t tell the FBI.”

 

                  It needs be emphasized that “the op.” is the thing, the CIA’s thing, the thing to be protected, held close as is said, so it could be successful. The CIA’s goal was a successful operation, which required preserving the secrecy of the operation in every way possible. Sharing intelligence with the FBI could compromise that secrecy, so it was not to be done. Disrupting the travelers’ activities, that is, letting them know that they were being watched, would expose the operation and that would amount to its failure even if it helped stop potentially dangerous activities. But what better way to deter terrorists than to let them know that their activities are being monitored, that they are being watched and that they will be dealt with? Ironically, the CIA’s embrace of secret ops empowers those they are surveilling.

 

But because successful operations are defined as secret ops, such disruptive activities are unacceptable. Thus, the CIA’s embrace of secrecy, of secret operations undermined that agency’s ability to prevent attacks in the US. And that secrecy probably undermined the FBI’s ability to protect the US as well.

 

And so it goes: The secrecy trap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellsberg v. Oliver Stone

  

Ellsberg v. Oliver Stone

Peter Schultz

 

                  There is a fundamental misperception regarding the Vietnam war: That the U.S. and Hanoi, et. al., wanted the war to end and were working to end the war during 1968.

 

                  Daniel Ellsberg, in his memoir, Secrets, forces us to wonder if that was the case. As Ellsberg makes clear, LBJ’s decision not to seek re-election in 1968, which he, LBJ, presented as part of his attempt to end the war, was not intended to do that. In fact, it was LBJ’s way of preserving the power of the established elites, the “cold warriors,” which would allow for continuing the war.

 

                  Hubert Humphrey, as well, could not afford to publicly seek the war’s end because “if he did declare some independence [from Johnson], ever so slightly, he faced … forms of retribution from an enraged president.” And this enragement from Johnson gives away his commitment to the war.

 

                  Hanoi, as Ellsberg points out “wasn’t acting as if it [wanted]… to get our bombing stopped or to end the war by making concessions…. Neither party was ready to make any significant concessions…. [222]

 

                  And Nixon wanted the war continued because that would help ensure his election to the presidency, which is why he worked covertly to get Thieu to reject any negotiations to end the war. And, of course, continuing the war was the key, Nixon knew, to his re-election in 1972.

 

                  So, when Oliver Stone, in his movie “Nixon,” melodramatically uses an alleged confrontation between Nixon and a young, female protester at the Lincoln Memorial to illustrate the power of “the system” – which produced a war that allegedly no one wanted – his melodrama misleads. Powerful human beings in Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon, for various reasons, wanted and saw to it that the war would go on.

 

                  So, even when “They did get into direct, formal talks, … that was what had happened: nothing. The war went on…. Thus, by itself, ‘stopping the bombing’ of the North altogether, unconditionally, permanently, was … a false issue, almost a distraction, when it came to ending the war.” [222, emphasis added]

 

                  When it came to ending the war, it did not end because the most powerful human beings did not want it to end. It was not that “the system” rendered these powerful human beings powerless. It was that these powerful human beings used their power to make war. They chose to make war, to continue to make war. So, if the war was “a quagmire,” it was a quagmire constructed, deliberately, by powerful human beings, who then used the “quagmire story” to disguise their embrace of an obscenely violent war.

 

                  And as a result of Johnson’s decision not to run in 1968 and because “we had two major candidates going around the country not talking about ending the bombing,” the war went on and even “more or less disappeared from the mainstream of American political debate as a major issue … [from] March 31,1968 to Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970.” [226] As Ellsberg points out: “The lack of public controversy … reflected a tenacious belief … that Johnson’s March 31 announcement … constituted a conscious and decisive turning point toward the prompt ending of American involvement in the war in Indochina.” [226] The lack of public controversy regarding the war was precisely what the established elites in Washington wanted because that allowed them to continue the war without threatening their power and authority by empowering antiwar activists and other left wingers. This conspiracy would be so successful in the long run that Richard Nixon would be rewarded with a historical landslide victory in the 1972 presidential election, a victory that buried the legitimacy of any left-wing political alternatives. Ultimately, that burial may be said to have made possible the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. So it goes.

 

 

 

 

 

March 1968: LBJ v. Tom Hayden, et. al.

 March 1968: LBJ Defeats Hayden, et. al.

Peter Schultz

In March 1968, LBJ defeated the likes of Tom Hayden and
helped extend the Vietnam War.

On March 25, BJ told "the wise men" that "The country is
demoralized. I will have overwhelming disapproval in the polls and
elections. I will go down the drain. I don't want the whole alliance and
military pulled in with it... Senator McCarthy and Senator Kennedv
and the left wing have informers in the departments. The Times and
the Post are against us. Most of the press is against us. How can we
get this job done? . We have no support for the war....

On March 31 LBJ announced that he would not seek reelection.
Tom Hayden, head of the SDS, claimed "We have toppled a
president... We have ended a war." But, as Daniel Ellsberg points out,
Hayden was wrong. The war was not over; it was not even ending.

LBJ's decision was taken not to end the war but to extend it. He
knew he himself couldn't do that. As he said, "I will go down the
drain." By not seeking reelection, LBJ said he would be working for
peace, thereby displacing the left wing groups, like SDS, who were
also working for peace. LBJ, by resigning, made working for peace
mainstream, a task to be entrusted not to "lefties" like Hayden or
Senators McCarthy and Kennedy, but to mainstream, non-left wing
politicians like Hubert Humphrey or Richard Nixon. And those
politicians would not be burdened as LBJ had been, and as Nixon
demonstrated, the war could be extended, even for four more years
as the quest for peace, "peace with honor" went on. And Nixon and
other mainstream politicians would reap the glory of ending the war,
not the left wingers. Nixon, et. al., buried the left wing peaceniks, and
they remain buried even until today.

By resigning then, LBJ outplayed the likes of Hayden and other
left wingers, so that the predominant forces, "the whole alliance and
the military" were not undermined by left wing ideologues like the
SDS. And, by the by, BJ demonstrated that duplicity was - and is
the coin of the realm. It is how the political game is played

Enemies II

  

Enemies II

Peter Schultz

 

                  The political world is filled with “enemies,” a concept that is packed with meaning. Are there “friends” in the world viewed and lived politically? Doubtful. “Allies?” Yes. “Enemies?” Yes. “Friends?” No.

 

                  Central to politics, to power politics especially is identifying, controlling, fighting, and eliminating enemies. This is the citizen’s view, his or her reality, his or her way of life. Once the US treated the Vietnamese as enemies, “My Lai’s” were only a matter of time. One way or another, enemies must be defeated and eliminated. Enemies are central to imperialistic politics.

 

                  Rick, at the end of Casablanca, was wrong: his interaction with Frenchy, like the US relationship with France, was not “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Friends, unlike enemies, are not intrinsic to a world lived in politically. In fact, they are nowhere to be found. As later confirmed when the US considered eliminating De Gaulle, perhaps even with “extreme prejudice.”

 

                  In a world lived in politically, Elizabeth and Darcy would not be lovers. Politically, their love would have been impossible, as illustrated by Lady Catherine De Bourgh’s view of Lizzy as a potential polluter of Pemberly, Darcy’s estate. British politics, Britain lived politically “disses” love and romance, as was illustrated recently by the television series The Crown, as well as by Austen’s novel, Persuasion and her anal sex joke about the British navy. In Britain, and perhaps elsewhere, living romantically or even lovingly is radical. [For another representation of this, see the movie “The American President.”] While living ambitiously and avariciously is all-too conventional and repeatedly praised as central to living politically. Hence, the avaricious and the ambitious dominate politically. So it goes.

 

                 

Enemies

 Enemies

Peter Schultz

From Daniel Ellsberg's book, Secrets:
"I heard her say, 'I come from a culture in which there is no concept
of enemy.

"A strange statement. Hardly comprehensible. No concept of
enemy? How about concepts of sun and moon, friend, water? I came
from a culture in which the concept of enemy was central, seemingly
indispensable - the culture of Rand, the U.S. Marine Corps, the
Defense and State Departments, international and domestic politics,
game theory, and bargaining theory. Identifying enemies,
understanding and predicting them so as to fight and control them
better, analyzing the relationship of abstract enemies: All that had
been for years my daily bread and butter, part of the air I breathed.
To try to operate in (a) world ... without the concept of enemy would
have seemed as difficult, as nearly inconceivable as doing
arithmetic, like the Romans, without a zero." (P. 211) (emphasis
added)

The regime, the way of life Ellsberg is in revolved around the concept
of enemy, the alleged reality of "enemies." And isn't that concept
intrinsic to the political? At least it was for Carl Schmitt, et.al. As
Ellsberg notices, the enemy concept permeates the U.S. way of life,
the U.S. regime and its thinking and institutions.

Conspiracies and the Political

Conspiracies and the Political

Peter Schultz 

 

 

https://dissentmagazine.org/article/cultural-marxism-conspiracy-frankfurt-school/ 

Interesting stuff. What the author doesn’t entertain is that conspiracy is at or is the heart of the political. "“Conspiratorial play is a universal of power politics….” [Oglesby] And because it is universal, because it permeates the political, it disappears, as it were, just like the atmosphere “disappears.” It is hidden in plain sight, just like “Mother Culture.” 

Thus, those who speak or write about particular conspiracies, like those who speak or write about Mother Culture, are labeled “theorists;” that is, they are not empiricists, they are not being empirical. They are not seeing reality, but they construct theories while residing in their ivory towers….or the CIA. Hence, the term “conspiracy theorists.” And, of course, it is relatively easy to concoct and subvert “theories.” 

"“It isn't the rebels who cause the troubles of the world, it's the troubles that cause the rebels.”  

― Carl Oglesby   

 Or: It isn’t conspirators who cause the troubles of the world, it’s the troubles that cause conspiracies.  Hence, like troubles, conspiracies are intrinsic to politics. 

“The expansionary dynamic of Western culture has been the root, the denominating constant, of modern history. The grandeur of Western liberalism, its material abundance, the flourishing of its arts and sciences, its painful construction of constitutional democracy -- these interconnected achievements have been financed by the sustained theft called imperialism.” 
― Carl Oglesby, Containment and Change 

Imperialism, always troubling and intrinsic to politics, is conspiratorial, always. 

The Half Never Told: May 21, 2026

  

The Half Never Told: May 21, 2026

Peter Schultz

 

         “In 1787, the Constitutional Convention allowed the [slave] trade to go on.” And Baptist focused on the “owners” who “would drive decisions about him [the slave].”

 

         But it wasn’t just about “him” and, most importantly, it was about slavery itself and the decisions that sanctioned, created, promoted, protected, and constructed slavery as an institution taken as justified. And because thought of as justified, as justice, a slave regime was created. And this was the crucial issue, not the slave trade.

 

         That this was the crucial issue is confirmed by the vast expansion of slavery that took place after the slave trade was outlawed. The outlawing of the slave trade was, from the point of view of ending slavery, meaningless. [By the by, those slaves who were captured by the government when illegal slave traders were captured were sold into slavery in the US. They were not freed in the US or elsewhere.]

 

         Similarly, the Missouri Compromise was meaningless insofar as post-compromise “active white opposition to slavery dwindled toward the vanishing point.” That compromise was merely a tinkering with the parts of the slavery regime that existed.

 

         “The interstate slave trade mocked the hopes of abolitionists that slavery would die out on its own.” [186] Of course it did because slavery was not a growth. It was a regime and regimes don’t grow; they are constructed.

 

         “Slavery expansion was consciously chosen, a crime of intent.” Well, not so consciously chosen in a slave regime and definitely not criminal in that regime. So: “Most whites, … North …  and South, believed that slave owners had obtained their slaves by orderly business transactions, well recorded by law.” [188] Indeed, they had! Slave trading was legitimized by the regime, which like all regimes defined the just and the unjust. That’s what regimes do, construct beliefs about what is just and unjust.

 

         Focusing on the slave trade hides the crucial issue, slavery and the slave regime. They become the “back story,” so to speak. When treated as such, such stories are powerful because they permeate the action that more visible stories do not. So, when Jane Austen, e.g., treated slavery as such a “back story,” she was in fact favoring that story and revealing its dominance. E.g., in Mansfield Park slavery actually dominates that story because it dominated life at Mansfield Park, even having the made the Park possible. Just as the British military dominates the action in Pride and Prejudice.  And, of course, quite clearly, how the British Navy – and Austen’s anal sex joke about “rear admirals” – dominates the action in Persuasion. [Another example of slavery serving as such a back story occurs in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, the back story of significance is that the Connecticut Yankee is an arms manufacturer, and he serves as a foil to Merlin who is a magician. He also creates a holocaust, which is quite some commentary on modernity.]

 

Jefferson’s obfuscation: Jefferson asserted once that slavery was like riding a wolf, holding on, and not knowing whether to hold on or to let go. But that’s a soft sell. In a slave regime, the wolf is on the loose, and in control. The choice? Kill it or die or succumb to it. We’re not riding the wolf; it’s chasing us, threatening to devour us.  

 

Did Lincoln realize this? That he wondered and spoke about the perpetuation of our institutions suggests he did. Slavery as a regime made perpetuating America’s original institutions as conventionally understood highly unlikely. And appeals to the spirit or ghost of Washington or to strict law-abidingness would be insufficient for that perpetuation. What was sufficient, ala’ Lincoln? Read his second inaugural as he provides his answer there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modernity and Slavery

  

Modernity and Slavery

Peter Schultz

 

                  A question: Does modernity starve or feed slavery? This question assumes that slavery is natural; that is, is intrinsic to political life, whether it is just or unjust.

 

                  Herbert Storing argued that Locke’s natural rights provided “an uncomfortably large opening toward slavery.” This makes it sound as if this “opening toward slavery” was a by-product, an accidental result, as it were, of Locke’s understanding of natural rights. Slavery was a result, but it was not the agenda. Locke’s understanding of natural rights allows slavery to emerge, but that understanding doesn’t enhance slavery’s status. Slavery exists but it isn’t valued.

 

                  However, it could be both. That is, slavery is, and it is valued. It was chosen and not just accepted because it was unavoidable. And, as an aside: Is this the meaning of what is labeled “realism?” That is, realists embrace slavery, e.g., as valuable. Being realistic means embracing both war and slavery, along with torture and other inhuman practices.

 

                  In reading Edward Baptist’s book, The Half Has Never Been Told, two considerations emerge. First, there is the role, the central role that slavery played in the creation and development of the United States. Baptist does a marvelous job of illuminating just how central slavery was to the economic and political development of the United States, serving to create a wealth producing economy that eventually made the United States the economic powerhouse it has become. But slavery also served to unify the politics of the United States, as that unity built around slavery, its extension, and fears of slave revolts.

 

                  Second, there is question of slavery’s role in political life. That is, can the political be affirmed without affirming slavery in one form or another? Affirming the political is best understood as affirming the quest for greatness, for empire, for political, military, and economic greatness. Given the overwhelming appeal of such greatness, the question arises over how slavery can be starved or deterred. If Storing’s take on Locke is correct, then it would seem that modern natural rights, modernity that is, will not, cannot starve slavery.

 

                  The Enlightenment, as it is called, might be more limited in its ability to ameliorate the human condition than many have claimed. And, perhaps, those limitations stem from the Enlightenment’s disparagement of hedonism, understood as the joys of contemplation of the beautiful or the joys of discovering and participating in the beautiful, which some have thought of as the promise of mysticism, of some “revealed” religions. Insofar as enlightenment is understood as secularizing for the sake of “progress,” just so far enlightenment cannot starve the appeal of slavery. And as Baptist shows, the enslaved in the United States embraced hedonism, e.g., song, dance, and love to maintain their humanity, insofar as that was possible. Could it be that a genuinely human politics is hedonistic? It just might be.                  

Daniel Ellsberg, US Regime, Part II

  

Daniel Ellsberg, US Regime, II

Peter Schultz

 

                  An email exchange regarding my post on Daniel Ellsberg, the US regime, and Vietnam:

 

The Reply:

“Selection From Nixon

“YOUNG WOMAN: You don't want the war.  We don't want the war.  The Vietnamese don't want the war.  So why does it go on?
Nixon hesitates, out of answers.
“YOUNG WOMAN: Someone wants it...  (a realization)  You can't stop it, can you?  Even if you wanted to.  Because it's not you.  It's the system.  And the system won't let you stop it...
“NIXON: There's a lot more at stake here than what you want.  Or even what I want...
“YOUNG WOMAN: Then what's the point?  What's the point of being president?  You're powerless.
“The girl transfixes him with her eyes.  Nixon feels it.  The nausea of the Beast[1] makes him reel.  The students press in on him from all sides.
“NIXON: (stumbling)  No, no.  I'm not powerless.  Because...because I understand the system.  I believe I can control it.  Maybe not control it totally.  But...tame it enough to make it do some good.
“YOUNG WOMAN: It sounds like you're talking about a wild animal.
“NIXON: Maybe I am.

 

“[1] "After 'The Last Press Conference' he was finished.  He should have disappeared, but he didn't.  In order for Nixon to have become President in 1968, Jack Kennedy had to die, Lyndon Johnson had to be forced into retirement, Dr. King had to die, Bobby Kennedy had to die, Hubert Humphrey had to be eviscerated in Chicago.  It almost seemed that Nixon was being helped, helped by something dark, something sinister, something frightening.  Some thing.
"And we called it The Beast.
"The Beast became a metaphor for the darkest organic forces in American Cold War politics: the anti-Communist crusade, secret intelligence, the defense industry, organized crime, big business.  People and entities with apparently divergent agendas.  But at a certain moment in history, their interests converged.”

 

My response:

Thanks. This is wonderfully illuminating about American politics and about Stone. The American regime, as usual, controls, not even but especially presidents…..because, after all, they are elected to preside over that regime. Hence, the title of “president.” Although they don’t know it, the regime is what Nixon and the young woman are talking about.

 

But then Stone goes off, obfuscating things with the idea of “the Beast.” It isn’t a beast, it’s a regime, as Aristotle and others understood. But the Beast makes it melodramatic! And the beast successfully hides the truth about the political. And thus Stone obscures the worth of Nixon’s claim that he might be able to “tame” what he calls “the system.” 

 

A “taming politics” is definitely not a progressive politics. It may be said that the Anti-Federalists wanted a tamed politics, whereas the Federalists wanted a progressive politics. But even Nixon doesn’t fully understand what he’s talking about, doesn’t understand the choices to be made and that were made, e.g., the embrace and extension of slavery. He’s just trying “to relate.” And Stone also doesn’t understand the political or what’s at stake. 

 

It’s not "a wild animal" that’s being dealt with. It’s the political! 

 

 

Daniel Ellsberg, the US Regime, and the Vietnam War

  

Daniel Ellsberg, the US Regime, and the Vietnam War

Peter Schultz

 

                  The key players in the Johnson administration thought they were acting on “the problem of Vietnam,” that is, acting on what Vietnam needed. But they weren’t. They were acting on the US regime and what it needed or required. And that meant war. There was no way out.

 

                  Regimes are ways of life, constructed ways of life, of living. Once constructed, they are architectonic, they are controlling. As a result, the empowered ones in any regime, the elites, are like prisoners or captives of the regime. To act against the regime’s requirements is subversive of the regime and of their own status therein. This is why what may be called “contra regime advice” is kept secret and goes unspoken publicly by those with power within the regime.

 

                  Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets, his memoir, illustrates this phenomenon. Despite his doubts and disagreements with the official policy of expanding the Vietnam war and America’s role in it, he kept his doubts and disagreements quiet as he went along with that policy and even helped the war’s expansion. Ellsberg was far from along. His boss, John McNaughten also disagreed with US policies to the point that once, exasperated, he said to Ellsberg: “You don’t understand, Dan. I don’t want us to be in Vietnam six months from now! I want us out! Out, Out, Out!” [87] Others, significant others like George Ball, Hubert Humphrey, Mike Mansfield, Richard Russell, and Clark Clifford felt and acted the same.

 

                  Ellsberg realized this advice had to be kept secret, as did all advice “urging extrication” from Vietnam. In fact, that there was such advice did not make an appearance in the Pentagon Papers. Why? Because “That revelation would burden the president with personal responsibility for all that followed from is decision to reject [such an] alternative.” [83] Such revelations would make clear “that a president strongly inclined to escalate had had a real choice…, an extrication option … actually recommended by advisers of great authority.” [83] That is, it would be clear that LBJ chose US war-making in Vietnam, a choice that wasn’t demanded by the situation, by the actions of the North Vietnamese or other communist nations.

 

                  In other words, it would be revealed that LBJ did not want peace; he did not want to avoid war in Vietnam. He wanted war, he sought war, even against the advice of “advisers of great authority. That revelation would be too burdensome for LBJ and for the US regime, a regime that had to disguise its embrace and endorsement of war, a disguise that legitimated Johnson’s presidency as well as the regime he presided over.

 

                  The most basic problem confronting the US then was not Vietnam. It was, in fact, the US regime, a regime that was war-like to very dangerous degrees. It might even be said that the problem then was not Vietnam or even communism; it was US imperialism.

The Crime of Slavery

 The Crime of Slavery

Peter Schultz

    Baptist, in his book The Half Never Told, argues that the slaves, by
using the word "stole," "made it clear that this common story was a
crime story. Buying and selling people was a crime. Buyers and
sellers were criminals." (187) And for Baptist this was a radical
change in the debates around slavery.

    But he also points out that "Instead of being individual misfortunes,
enslaved people realized their own experiences were part of a giant
historical robbery, a forced transfer of value that they saw ... in ...
widening clearings, cotton bales ..., and slave coffles...."

    Well, this "giant historical robbery" was the result of imperialism and
empire. Slavery was just one manifestation of this imperialism and
empire. Hence, defeating slavery requires critiques of imperialism
and empire, and calling slavers "kidnappers" is insufficient. 

    Labeling slavery a "crime" will not coalesce with anti-slavery politics. Unless
imperialism and empire are critiqued and rejected, slavery - in one
form or another - will go on. After all, slavery is as "natural" as
imperialism and empire.

Morality, Crime, and Politics

  

Morality, crime and politics

Peter Schultz

 

From The Half ... Never Told: "Moral discomfort and political

interest did not coalesce into a lasting opposition to [slavery's]

expansion." (158)

 

Of course not because morality provides little guidance for politics.

Consider "war crimes." They don't coalesce into a lasting opposition

to war because they are usually committed by those who are making

war for the sake of socially approved and acceptable ends. They are

just like Tony Soprano, whose crimes were means to socially

acceptable ends, wealth and status for him and his family. (Ditto for a

small time hood like Malcolm Little, later known as Malcolm X.)

 

Ditto with immorality. This is why Trump's immorality doesn't lead

many decent, moral Christians to reject him. Trump's immorality is

not significant because his political ends are in the service of what

they deem to be socially approved ends.

 

What's most important politically are the ends being pursued; the

means are of decidedly secondary importance. Which helps explain

why the political is so often intertwined with immorality, injustice,

and repression.

White Supremacy

  

White supremacy

Peter Schultz

 

What's the better description of the regime created in the United

States with the Constitution and thereafter, a slave regime or a white

supremacist regime? The latter. "then again, there was the fact that

a third of the refugees [from Cuba] were free people of color,

forbidden to immigrate to the U.S. and unwanted by whites in New

Orleans - particularly by English-speakers who preferred the

ostensible clarity of their own American pattern in which all black

people were assumed to be enslaved." (54)

 

Or deserved to be enslaved. Enslavement was a value, not just a

fact. Such value required white supremacist thought, belief. White

supremacy was/is more fundamental than slavery, as slavery as a

fact could be accidental or incidental, as could be white rule as well

But regimes are not the results of accidents or incidents. They don't

grow. They are constructed on the basis of values thought to be

best, with the possession of those values justifying rule.

 

"Allowing slavery's expansion, the mayor and other wealthy

Louisianans insisted, made white New Orleans and white American

more prosperous and more united, binding states and factions

together." (55)

 

"The governor himself enforced only a single law. Following territorial

regulations to the letter, he expelled all free males of color over the

age of 15 who had entered on refugee ships." (55)

 

Slavery was a reflection of white supremacy. But white supremacy

was a reflection of elitism. Elitism is the fundamental political

phenomenon that needs attention, that needs to be dealt with to

ameliorate the human condition. Should Plato's Republic, e.g., be

read as a critique of elitism? And wouldn't that be "a horse of a

different color" than that ridden by the neo-cons and others?

 

[Page numbers are from The Half Has Never Been Told]

The US Slave Regime, Part II

  

The US Slave Regime, Part II

Peter Schultz

 

                  So, the question occurred to me: What’s the better description of the regime created in the United States with the Constitution and thereafter: a slave regime or a white supremacist regime? The latter.

 

                  As Baptist wrote in is The Half That Was Never Told: “… then again, there was the fact that a third of the refugees [from Cuba] were free people of color, forbidden to immigrate to the US and unwanted by whites in New Orleans – particularly by English-speakers who preferred the ostensible clarity of their own American pattern in which all black people were assumed to be enslaved.” (54)

 

                  But it should read deserved to be enslaved. Enslavement was a value, not just a fact. Such value required white supremacist thought, beliefs, actions. White supremacy was/is more fundamental than slavery, because slavery as a fact could be accidental or incidental, as could white rule as well. But regimes are not the results of accidents or incidents. They don’t grow. They are constructed on the basis of values thought to be best, while those possessing those values justifiably rule.

 

                  Per Baptist: “Allowing slavery’s expansion, the mayor and other wealthy Louisianans insisted, made white New Orleans and white America more prosperous and more united, binding states and factions together.” (55)

 

                  “The governor himself enforced only a single law. Following territorial regulations to the letter, he expelled all free males of color over the age of fifteen who had entered on refugee ships.” (55)

 

                  Slavery was a reflection of white supremacy. But white supremacy was a reflection of elitism. So, it turns out that elitism is the fundamental political phenomenon, one that needs attention in order to ameliorate the human condition. Should Plato’s Republic, e.g., be read as a critique of elitism? And, when done, wouldn’t that be “a horse of a different color” than that ridden by some neo-conservatives and others?

The United States and Its Slave Regime

  

The United States and Its Slave Regime

Peter Schultz

 

                  Regimes are created politically, that is, created by the most powerful forces present at the creation and then are mythologized. The regime created in the United States in the late 18^th century and afterwards cannot be adequately understood unless the central role play by slavery is recognized. Edward Baptist in his book The Half Has Never Been Told illuminates how slavery influenced, in fact controlled the creation of an American regime with the drafting of a new constitution and its implementation. It is not inaccurate to label that regime a slave regime.

 

Conventionally, slavery in the US is treated as just one aspect of the new nation, and as a shameful aspect at that. Lincoln talked of the twenty-year delay in outlawing the Atlantic slave trade as an indication of that shame over slavery. But as Baptist makes clear, a slave regime was built in the United States and that regime lay at the base of America’s emerging greatness. The twenty-year delay in outlawing the Atlantic slave trade was one aspect of that regime.

 

The constitutional convention was guided by the likes of Rutledge and Ellsworth, who argued that “the economic interests of white Americans dictate[d] [that] the Atlantic slave trade [not] be closed.” [10] As Rutledge put it: “’If the Northern States consult their interests, they will not oppose an increase of slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers.’” [11] In the end, a deal was struck involving the Atlantic slave trade – as well as the 3/5’s clause – because “interest was the governing principle shaping the Constitution…. The outcome was plain: the upper and lower South would get to expand slavery through both the Atlantic trade and the internal trade. Meanwhile, the North would earn profits by transporting the commodities generated by slavery’s growth.” [11] In other words, slavery was not grudgingly accepted by the convention; rather, it became the central feature of the “more perfect Union” being created. Via the Constitution and its compromises, a slave regime was being created, being built in the United States.

 

Jefferson contributed to this regime insofar as he and “his allies wanted to neutralize the discussion of slavery.” [28] But what Baptist calls “neutralization” meant acceptance of slavery and acceptance soon became approval, with slavery becoming a regime, “a way of life” in the South. As political animals, humans build “regimes,” as Aristotle pointed out. Regimes are “ways of life” and these ways of life, although first facts of life, become valued and valuable. In fact, particular regimes come to be embraced as “the way of life,” that is, the best way of life. Democrats, oligarchs, aristocrats, et. al., embrace their regimes, each thinking and acting as if their way life was best. It might be said that regimes are created when a way of life becomes the way of life. So, Jefferson’s neuralization of slavery contributed to the acceptance and approval of slavery as the way of life. “Allowing slavery to continue and even expand meant political unity” for the United States, a unity based on a way of life built around slavery. North and South would be “yoked” together for decades to come.

 

This regime was fed by material interests and constitutional jurisprudence. “Many northern Republicans invested in Yahoo bonds. Many Georgians recognized how they could benefit if [the Yahoo] sale stood.” Moreover, “many congressmen examined their financial interests and chose to ensure that Mississippi became a slave territory.” [29] John Marshall, in the case of Fletcher v. Peck, established the inviolability of contracts and, so, “Marshall’s ruling … gave every future defender of slavery and its expansion an incredible tool.” [33] In sum, “the interlinked expansion of both slavery and financial capitalism was … driving … an emerging national economic system” highly valued by nationally dispersed elites, that is, elites in the north as well as the south. “Forced migration and the expansion of slavery became a … permanent and inevitable element of the mutually-agreed-to structure of lies that, defended by the agile legal realism of Marshall and the myth of diffusion, made the nation.” [36, emphasis added]

 

The diffusion argument, pressed by Jefferson among others, illustrates the power of the regime in controlling people’s thoughts and actions. The diffusion argument was that spreading slavery out would hasten its decline. Baptist captures the irony of such an argument well: “Make slavery bigger in order to make it smaller. Spread it out to contain its effects.” [30] Make it bigger so it would become smaller. Spread it out to contain it. The illogic is obvious of course. But the argument took no notice that the slavers had no desire and saw no reason to make slavery smaller or to contain it. To them, a slave regime was the best way of life. The diffusion argument, for them, was little more than a way to disguise their pro-slavery agenda as an anti-slavery agenda. And many otherwise intelligent people bought it.

 

Regimes are creations, they are constructions. They don’t grow, they aren’t spontaneous events. They are created by the most powerful social and political forces. In the earliest years of what became the United States, slavery lay at the base of the most powerful forces, economic as well as political. Overwhelmingly, the nation’s earliest presidents were slave owners, with John Adams being the only exception, a testament to power of slavers and their allies, both north and south.  It is baffling that the United States is so rarely thought of as a slave nation, whose founders had created a slave regime, deliberately and not accidentally. But then, so it goes.

 

Thoughts on "Thoughts"

  

Thoughts on Thoughts

Peter Schultz

 

                  From Leo Strauss’s book Thoughts on Machiavelli: “Machiavelli … takes issue explicitly and coherently with the traditional and customary view according to which the prince ought to live virtuously and ought to rule virtuously.” [59] But despite this, “the political prerequisites of Italy’s liberation [are] withheld because Machiavelli desired to keep the noble and shining end untarnished by the base and dark means … indispensable to its achievement.” [67]

 

                  This seems to make sense except Machiavelli might have not thought that that “noble and shining end” was illusionary insofar as established ways require “base and dark means” to be maintained. Insofar as that is the case, one should wonder about whether liberating or unifying Italy, as well as all established orders, is so noble and shining. Living virtuously and ruling virtuously are luxuries that princes cannot afford. And, yet, appearing to do so is indispensable.

 

                  Further, the liberation of Italy would not be “spontaneous.” It would require “a policy of iron and poison, of murder and treachery, … the extermination of Italian princely families and the destruction of Italian republican cities…. The liberation of Italy means a completer revolution…, above all else a revolution in thinking about right and wrong, [learning] that the patriotic end hallows every means however much condemned by the most exalted traditions of both philosophy and religion.” [67-8]

 

So, “cruelty well used,” as engaged in by Cesare Borgia, does not seem to be enough. After all, “Cesare’s successes ultimately benefitted only the Church and thus increased the obstacles to the conquest or liberation of Italy.” Further, “Cesare was a mere tool of Alexander VI and hence, a mere tool of the papacy…. For Cesare’s power was base on the power of the papacy. That power failed him when Alexander died.”

 

                  Which means that Cesare’s power was not based on “cruelty well used.” And the argument that it was is merely what Strauss calls the “traditional exterior” of Machiavelli’s thought. It was, as Machiavelli’s examples make clear, known, well known the ancients as well to almost anyone who engaged in politics. But the “revolutionary center” of Machiavelli’s thought is something different altogether.

 

                  In the “traditional exterior” of Machiavelli’s thought, he presents himself as seeking “to found a pagan Rome, a Rome destined to become again the most glorious republic and the seminar and the heart of the most glorious empire.” But this assumes that Machiavelli actually or finally thought that pagan Rome was “a most glorious republic” and a “most glorious empire.” If this is the case, then it is fair to say Machiavelli’s thought wasn’t revolutionary; it was in fact reactionary.

 

                  By focusing on and embracing as he does on “cruelty well used,” Machiavelli is focused on means, obscuring that genuine revolutions require new ends. Cesare was “a mere tool of Alexander” and “of the papacy” because he didn’t dispute and reject the Church and its ends. And so, despite his “cruelty well used,” his “successes … benefitted only the Church.” Insofar as Italy – and other places as well – could not be conquered or liberated without challenging and rejecting the modes and orders established by the Church, by Christianity that is, just so far than no genuine revolution would be possible. The same may be said of the modes and orders that had been established by pagan Rome and even those established by the likes of Plato and Aristotle.