The Normality of Conspiracy

  

The Normality of Conspiracy

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following is from the book, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby.

 

                  “Frustration drove Bill Colby after the Diem assassination…. Top of Colby’s list would be revamping the CIA’s Saigon station. Ambassador Lodge had effectively sabotaged John Richardson, and McCone had been prevented from sending out Colby in his stead, but the Far East Division chief became determined to have his man, not Lodge’s. It was a strike against acting chief of station Dave Smith that Lodge liked him, and Smith’s chances were not helped by his authorship of the cable advising Langley not to dismiss assassination, an analysis Colby considered to have undercut his efforts in Washington. Smith’s days in Saigon were numbered.” [132]

 

                  So, Colby was playing the part of conspirator, as were his political enemies, Ambassador Lodge, for example. “He, McCone, and the CIA might have lost the policy battle in Washington, but Colby was determined to effect change directly, on the ground in Vietnam. This became the quiet subtext of his post-coup swing through Southeast Asia.” [ibid] So, this “swing” was part of Colby’s conspiracy to change things “on the ground in Vietnam.” Colby, the conspirator, was committed to controlling US policies in Vietnam and, so, “That trip turned into the point of departure for new CIA initiatives, greatly increasing the agency’s role in the Vietnam war, as well as Southeast Asia more broadly…. In a way he seemed to submerge his loss of friends in the Ngo family with frantic activity that might avenge them by winning the Vietnam war.” [ibid]

 

                  Colby was playing the part of political conspirator, seeking to impose the policies he thought appropriate, and he seemed to think of this as normal politics. It wasn’t a “quagmire” in Vietnam that led the US into a major ground war in Asia; it was the “quagmire” of the American political order that led the US into that major war in Asia. Or it can be said that the secret wars of William Colby, et. al., led the US into a major ground war in Asia. The “quagmire” responsible for the fiasco of the Vietnam war wasn’t in Vietnam; it was in the United States, and it was created by conspirators like William Colby.

 

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam IV

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam IV

Peter Schultz

 

                  Dean Rusk, trying to refute arguments that JFK had decided to pull the US and its military out of Vietnam, said that no president could “leave Americans in uniform in a combat situation for domestic political purposes.” [324] Rusk was wrong, both about JFK and about presidents generally. Not only presidents but even generals like General Harkins, et. al., left American soldiers in combat situations for political purposes, e.g., for fortifying the Army hierarchy devoted to the Concept. This is the meaning of Clausewitz’s famous remark that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”

 

                  JFK was conspiring to pull the US out of Vietnam after the 1964 presidential election, should he have won. As Newman points out, “Kennedy kept his plan a closely guarded secret,” sharing it only with a few of those he trusted and not with others like General Taylor, Dean Rusk, or his vice president, LBJ. It, the plan, had to be kept secret because had it become known “’before the 1964 election, there would be a conservative outcry against returning him to the Presidency for a second term.’” [322] As JFK told Kenny O’Donnell, “’If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy scare…, but I can do it after I’m re-elected.’” [323] As Newman argued, “Kennedy knew the war was a lost cause, and that his problem was how to disguise his intentions until after the election.”  [323]

 

                  So, again, it appears that “conspiracies are the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means.” General Harkins, et. al., including the Vice President, were conspiring to keep the US and its military in Vietnam, and even at elevated levels. While JFK, et. al., were conspiring to get the US and its military out of Vietnam. And others were conspiring to make sure that Kennedy did not succeed, either in getting re-elected or in getting the US out of Vietnam. His assassination, conveniently, ensured both of those outcomes.

 

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam III

  

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam, III

Peter Schultz

 

                  Again, from Newman’s book, JFK and Vietnam:

 

                  “McNamara did not question Harkins’ view that the war was being won, but did question the suggestion that it could be over in one year. Harkins’ claim seems to incredibly naïve that one may ask with justification: how could the American commander be so out of touch with reality? If Harkins knew that the order of battle carried well under half of the actual communist forces; if he knew – as he later admitted but would not let Jimmy Harris report outside MACV – that the infiltration problem was serious and getting worse; if he knew the casualty figures were 30 percent too high for the Viet Cong and 30 percent too low for the government; if he knew that the SDC were defecting as fast the government was trying to replace them – how could he possibly think that victory could be achieved in just twelve months? We do not know what motivated Harkins, but whatever it was, it surely defies a sound military explanation.” [288]

 

                  What motivated Harkins was nothing less than protecting the Army hierarchy, its conventional wisdom about fighting wars, and protecting his role in that hierarchy. If that hierarchy was seen as failing, then Harkins and his colleagues would also be seen as failing. So, Harkins conspired to protect his power and the power of a hierarchy he believed in, a hierarchy that was being challenged, that was threatened by subversive individuals who were not aware of the consequences of their actions. Perhaps McNamara did not question or challenge Harkins more closely because he too believed in the Concept, because he too believed in the established Army hierarchy and, so, wanted to protect it and Harkins, et. al.

 

                  It is important to emphasize, however, that despite Newman’s apparent surprise at Harkins behavior, Harkins was merely acting as all political actors behave when their power and their hierarchy are threatened. Which is why Oglesby’s take on conspiracies rings true: “Conspiracies are the normal continuation of normal politics in a normal way.” The allure of politics is power and, so, when one’s power is threatened, those involved do what they think they must do to preserve their power. Normally this means acting conspiratorially.

 

 

 

 

 

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam, II

  

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam, II

Peter Schultz

 

                  Again, from the book, JFK and Vietnam, by John M. Newman, about how the upper reaches of those in charge of the war in Vietnam conspired to defeat those who knew that the war was not going well at all, and certainly not as well as those like General Harkins wanted McNamara and Kennedy to believe.

 

                  According to the historian Andrew Krepinevich, “the efforts of Allen and Benedict to tell the truth about” the war’s “progress” was ignored by the Army Staff: “The negative reports given Rossen by advisors in the field were symptoms of an emerging revolt by Army advisors against the Army hierarchy’s view of how well the war was going and how well suited the methods of the Concept were against the insurgents.” [282, emphasis added]

 

                  Newman continues: “By ‘Concept,’ Krepinevich means the World War II conventional approach to war. The advisors’ arguments were ‘doomed to failure,’ … because this unwelcome message challenged the very foundations upon which the Army had constructed its approach to the war.” [282]

 

                  And, of course, this “emerging revolt” challenged the power of the Army hierarchy, represented by the likes of General Harkin, which was defined by their embrace of the Concept. Insofar as the Concept was deemed a failure, then so too would that hierarchy be deemed failures. And, so, that hierarchy was conspiring in order to maintain its power, its rule. Hierarchies, especially embedded hierarchies, conspire in order to maintain their power, even to the extent of conspiring against or conspiring with presidents and secretaries of defense. The Army hierarchy, infested with CIA agents, that conspired against JFK also conspired with LBJ in order to fight in Vietnam according to the Concept, that is, according to what was taken to be the best “conventional approach to war” by those best suited to employ it. As LBJ allegedly put it to the Chiefs: “Get me elected and then you can have your war.” That is, they could have their war in Vietnam as well as how they wanted to fight it.

 

                  And it bears pointing out that the advisors, in their “emerging revolt,” would also have to behave conspiratorially if they were to succeed. “Conspiracy is the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means.” So it goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam

  

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following passages are from the book JFK and Vietnam, by John M. Newman.

 

                  “The May 1962 SECDEF [Secretary of Defense] conference, then, was a watershed event in more ways than one. Above all else, however, it is a monument to the first arbitrary reduction of the Viet Cong order of battle – and it would not be the last. Benedict reports a great deal of frustration among those who had worked so hard to develop the intelligence, which was then corrupted and delivered to McNamara in this conference. Captain Blascak recalls: ‘This is when the big lie started.’” Or when the Vietnam conspiracy unfolded.  

 

                  “The Secretary of Defense was purposely misled on nearly all of the crucial aspects of the war: the size of the enemy; the number and quality of enemy operations versus the number and quality of friendly operations; the territory controlled by the enemy versus the territory controlled by friendly forces…. The maps, statistics, and briefing he was given led him to remark at a press conference after the meeting that ‘every quantitative measurement … shows that we are winning the war.’ He was quoted in the New York Times as saying he was ‘tremendously encouraged’ by the military developments in South Vietnam.” This conspiracy not only had the approval of General Harkins, he was leading it.

 

                  “In a rare comment made in response to questions posed by the author, McNamara stated: ‘1. I did not know; 2. did not suspect; have no indication now that I was deceived.’”

 

                  Obviously, as amazing as it sounds, Robert S. McNamara, the leader of “the best and the brightest” of the Kennedy administration, did not understand the political and the role conspiracy plays in normal politics. Apparently, even after the fact, McNamara could not comprehend how the US military in Vietnam conspired against the president of the United States in order make war there.

 

The Political and Conspiracies

  

The Political and Conspiracies

Peter Schultz

 

                  James Hougan [Secret Agenda] asks why didn’t John Mitchell “simply defenestrate … Liddy” when he offered his original plan for surveillance during the 1972 presidential election. Answer: Because he didn’t understand the political. He didn’t understand that “conspiracy is the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means….” [Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy Wars]

 

                  Political actors are invariably conspirators, thereby making politics “conflict-wracked and dialectical,” not “serene and hierarchical.” [Oglesby, ibid] Mitchell didn’t see Liddy as dangerous because he didn’t appreciate that Liddy was conspiring for his own purposes, his own advancement and achievement, for the sake of his own power, and not just for Nixon’s re-election.

 

                  The crucial thing to remember is that the allure of politics is POWER. Political power is seductive, and it leads, invariably, to conspiracies. Conspiracies are the political norm, the default position of politics.

 

                  To understand what this means, care must be taken when reading Oglesby, who was writing in the context of JFK’s assassination, which was, obviously, a most significant event and conspiracy, a really BIG conspiracy. But as L. Fletcher Prouty points out, most conspiracies are small, insignificant – at least at first. Which is one reason that they work. If you focus on Nixon’s conspiratorial behavior during Watergate, you will overlook Dean’s, Haig’s, McCord’s, Hunt’s, Woodward’s and Bernstein’s, Admiral Moorer’s, and Ellsberg’s conspiratorial behavior. They all behaved conspiratorially.

 

                  Failure to appreciate the conspiratorial character of politics helps explain passivity like Mitchell’s vis-à-vis Liddy. It helps explain the passivity, inactivity evident in the lead up to 9/11. The thought that politics is “serene and hierarchical” is misleading, even delusional. Moreover, grand conspiratorial theories, those Oglesby calls “the omnipotent-cabal” conspiracies, tend to reinforce the view that politics is serene and hierarchical. Conversely, as Oglesby notices “every faction … conspires against each and each against all,” leading to repeated failures.

 

                  It would seem that the conventional wisdom about politics is that being hierarchical makes politics serene. Certainly, those in positions of power tend to see hierarchical politics as essentially serene. Oglesby himself implies as much by linking serenity with hierarchy and contrasting it with conflict and dialectic. But what if the situation is the opposite, viz., that hierarchy doesn’t create serenity but the opposite as humans struggle for power? The allure of power, which the essence of the political, makes any and every political hierarchy conflict-wracked and dialectical. There are those with power and those who want it. And because every regime is hierarchical, to one degree or another, every regime is conflict-wracked as the struggle for power goes on between those with power and those who want it. As illustrated by the consequences of Mitchell’s treatment of Liddy, this is something that those embedded in the upper reaches of a hierarchy cannot afford to ignore, even regarding aides and supporters. Conspiracies and conspirators pervade the political arena and they constitute “normal politics by normal means.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the Presidents' Follies

  

All the Presidents’ Follies

Peter Schultz

 

                  Peter Bergen has published an excellent book, All the Presidents’ Wars, which does a wonderful job of exposing the inanity of the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies as they waged war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as throughout the world. And it requires very little reading to understand how inane these presidents and their war-making was.

 

                  “If the key tenet of counterinsurgency was ‘protecting the population,’ bombing them was clearly not the right approach.” [p. 172] Bombing human beings, anywhere, will undermine any attempt to “win hearts and minds,” or even some basic acceptance and loyalty.

                 

And yet, when General Petraeus replaced General McChrystal, after the latter had dissed Obama and his administration, “Petraeus reversed McChrystal’s ‘courageous restraint’ directive to try to avoid civilian casualties; as a result, US airstrikes in Afghanistan increased. Petraeus was supported in this by CENTCOM commander General Jim Mattis, who thought the policy of restraint was hobbling American troops … and losing their confidence in the process.” [p. 175]

 

Populations that are being decimated by bombs are not being protected. And it would appear that what was required to keep American troops “confident,” viz., attacking without concern for civilian casualties, was precisely what would lead to US defeat in Afghanistan. The number of troops in Afghanistan is meaningless in this regard. So, the US was faced with a choice: to bomb or not to bomb. But it was a meaningless choice: If the US didn’t bomb, it would lose, but if the US bombed unrestrainedly, it would also lose.

 

As Bergen notes: “There was a certain irony here: Mattis and Petraeus had both overseen the counterinsurgency manual that advocated avoiding civilian casualties that might help fuel the insurgency, while McChrystal was the ‘direct action’ general who had vastly increased the number of raids by US special forces.” [p. 175]

 

Certainly, the irony was there, and elsewhere as well. But so too was inanity, an inanity that pervaded American political and military elites. Perhaps such inanity is inseparable from imperialism.

Watergate Reconsidered

  

Watergate Reconsidered

Peter Schultz

 

                  From Jim Hougan’s contemplation of the Watergate scandal, he concluded that “The case was to be treated as a moral fable: an open-and-shut case of political espionage carried out by the bad guys in the White House against the good guys in the Democratic party.” [206] Or, in a slightly different version, Watergate was considered a case of political espionage that threatened the democratic processes of the U.S., with the bad guys seeking to undermine democracy by undermining the integrity of the upcoming 1972 elections.

 

                  Now, in treating Watergate as a moral fable, other possibilities involving political espionage disappeared. These other possibilities, e.g., that “the break in had been sabotaged,” were treated as “almost subversive.” [205-206] Treating the possibility of sabotage as subversive meant questions as to the saboteurs and their agenda were not raised. Accepting that political espionage is dangerous because it is used to undermine the integrity of democratic processes like elections, it is dangerous not to consider it in all of its forms, not just in its partisan form. Suppose, e.g., that the military were to engage in political espionage, leading toward fears of a “Seven Days in May” scenario. Or suppose that the CIA were to engage in political espionage, not for partisan purposes but in order to control American politics and point it in the direction of “regime changes” in other nations or in the direction of other covert actions, e.g., assassinations.

 

                  So, by treating Watergate as a partisan moral fable, and one in which the allegedly good guys won, the moral fable obscured what was actually going on. And that what was going on was not good guys versus bad guys but a power struggle or power struggles among competing institutions such as the executive, the presidency, the legislative, the judiciary, the mainstream media, “intelligence” agencies, and the military. The partisan moral fable tells us nothing about these struggles or about their resolutions. And that means we are blind to the significance of the Watergate scandal and its resolution for our political order. That Nixon was forced to resign tells us nothing about the scandal’s effect on the presidency and on presidential politics in relation to other powerful governmental institutions like the CIA or the military.

 

                  And it seems fairly clear that the military emerged from the scandal fortified, while the presidency was weakened. General Alexander Haig assumed significant, perhaps even dominant power in the White House, so much so that a plausible case was made about Haig’s Coup. And although the CIA’s fingerprints and personnel were all over the burglaries, and although Dick Helms was tried and convicted of perjury, those fingerprints and the personnel involved pretty much disappeared from the conventional, commonly accepted accounts of Watergate. This despite the fact that James McCord, a CIA operative, perhaps retired, played a huge role in making it possible for Judge Sirica to expose the connections between the burglaries and the White House. Moreover, people with CIA connections were involved in installing and then revealing the taping system Nixon had installed in the White House. Even when, post-scandal, the CIA was investigated and “the family jewels” revealed, the CIA was not considered a subversive agency, while Nixon, et. al., were. The CIA was flawed but not subversive, whereas Nixon, et. al., were flawed and subversive.

 

                  Making the scandal “a morality play … [n]ecesarily … entailed a simple story with the President at its center. Close scrutiny of the burglars (and of the burglaries themselves) was … avoided because such scrutiny raised questions about their loyalty to President Nixon.” Also avoided was any concern with the power conflicts among different governmental institutions, such as the military, the “intelligence community,” the judiciary, and the mainstream media, promoting political agendas at odds with the President’s agendas. And, so, Watergate became a simple and simplistic moral fable and remains so today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Political and Political Philosophy

 The Political and Political Philosophy 

Peter Schultz

 

The question is how should we understand politics or the political.

When one views politics much failure is visible. American

presidential politics is characterized by failures. For example, lIke's

Crusade for Peace, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Vietnam War, the

Korean War, the Iranian hostage crisis, Iran-Contra, George Bush's

Iraq invasion, etc., etc., etc.

 

The question is: Should we view these failures melodramatically or

in a more banal way? Were they the result of conspiratorial politics

or of ignorance and incompetence?

 

One result of asking this question is illustrating that viewing politics

conspiratorially is a way of redeeming politics and politicians from

charges of being impotent, incompetent, or ignorant. Thus,

Machiavelli's conspiratorial view of the political is a way of affirming

the political and doing so in a way or to a degree that Plato and

Aristotle did not. Thus, it is not surprising that Machiavelli's political

philosophy culminates in a call to action, that is, in his call for the

unification of Italy and its redemption from the "barbarians.'

 

Whereas it might be said that Plato's and Aristotle's political

philosophy culminates in a call for contemplation; that is, in a call for

the contemplation of the political. And this call for contemplation

implicitly subverts calls for political actions, including and especially

calls for visionary political actions, such as creating "new modes and

orders," ala' Machiavelli.

 

The contemplation of the political leads to the clarification of the

limits of politics and of the political. Let me say: Machiavelli was

correct about the conspiratorial character of politics. But he was

wrong about the results of such conspiracies. By affirming the

political, Machiavelli pointed humanity toward a road ultimately

leading to ruin and failure, a destiny that "Machiavellians," but not

Machiavelli, ignore.

Contemplating the Political

  

Contemplating the Political

Peter Schultz

 

A couple of emails, one quoting Caitlin Johnstone and my response.

 

On Sep 5, 2026, at 7:34 AM, MB wrote:

 

"Under the individualism of our capitalist society, we are indoctrinated with the belief that the most important and interesting things about us are the personal characteristics which distinguish us from other people: our likes and dislikes, our lifestyle, our interpersonal relationships, our sense of fashion, how successful we are professionally, academically and romantically, etc.  

"But when you live under the most murderous and tyrannical power structure on the planet, your individual little quirks and facets are a lot less significant than the extent to which you oppose the abuses that your rulers are inflicting upon human beings around the world.  If you met a German in 1940, you would probably be a lot less curious about his taste in music and fondness for dapper suits than you would be about his level of support for Adolf Hitler.  
"That’s you right now.  You’re the German in 1940" (https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/for-a-westerner-opposing-the-empire

 

And here is my response:

 

Interesting stuff. “The most important and interesting things about us are [our] personal characteristics.” This is an “indoctrinated belief.” But doesn’t that imply that this belief is, actually, a political phenomenon, just as much - and maybe more so - than the “level of support” people give to, say, Hitler. And, maybe, seeing our basic beliefs as political is more important than how much or how little support you give to politicians. 

 

That is, giving support to “liberals” or “conservatives,” being liberal or conservative isn’t as significant as it is made to seem. April in Definitely Maybe: “Why do I have to be liberal or conservative?” Will calls her apathetic. But maybe she knows something that Will has yet to learn. [Jennifer Flowers’ press conference is playing on TV and April wisecracks that Will is right about one thing, “He (Clinton) certainly gets women!” April “got” Clinton long before Will did. She also “got” Will long before Will “got” her.] 

 

Ironically, the “political show” makes the political disappear. Being preoccupied with that show blinds us to “real reality.” Supporting or not supporting Hitler is not nearly as important as understanding, contemplating Hitler (or Trump) as a manifestation of the political. Carl Schmidt affirmed Hitler, i.e., the political, while Strauss contemplated Hitler and even the Holocaust. Contemplation should not be confused with apathy.  

 

p.s. N. G. is disappointing not simply because he supports Trump but, more importantly, because he fails to try to understand Trump and the political. The same criticism may be made against the Trump resisters, the Trump haters. Those engaged in the political show are not apathetic. But perhaps they are something worse: Blind. 

).

 

Zone of Interest: US Style

  

Zone of Interest: US Style

Peter Schultz

 

[The following is from Scorpions’ Dance, by Jefferson Morley]

 

                  “While Nixon brooded, Helms waltzed. He relished his job, ran laps in the basement of the CIA headquarters, played … tennis on the weekends, and got to bed early. Helms loved ballroom dancing. He and Cynthia attended parties of the Waltz Group, a network of like-minded couples in government, law, and the press. Once a month they put aside the business of power in favor of Brahms….Tom Hughes…recalled … ‘He was an excellent dancer and an avid gossip, always in control.’

 

                  “Other evenings, Dick and Cynthia read spy novels aloud to each other. Helms didn’t care for the fiction of John le Carre’ …, a former MI6 man whose dour tales of the Circus, a fictional version of the British service, did not glamorize the Cold War…. ‘He found Le Carre’ too dark and cynical,’ Cynthia said.

 

                  “Helms got his fill of the dark and cynical on page B7 of the Washington Post on January 18, 1971, where syndicated columnist Jack Anderson … published a nasty and all-too-accurate column headlined ‘6 Attempts to Kill Castro Laid to CIA.

 

                  “The shadow of JFK’s assassination fell on Dick Helms once again.”

 

                  “’Locked in the darkest recesses of the CIA is the story of six assassination attempts against Cuba’s Fidel Castro,’ Anderson’s column began. The story was true, as Helms knew better than anyone. Anderson was referring to [a] top-secret report of May 1967, which recounted the Mafia and AMLASH plots in dispassionate detail.” [135]

 

                  Helms: a cultured, gentlemanly assassin. The U.S. “zone of interest.” The morally decent, the cultured are comfortable, even proud of engaging in assassinations and other morally dubious and inhuman actions in the political arena.

 

The Political: Gentlemanly Assassinations

  

The Political: Gentlemanly Assassinations

Peter Schultz

 

Regarding the assassination of General Schneider in Chile preceding the coup against Allende. “Such was the Dick Helms that friends and admirers did not care to think about too clearly, the gentlemanly planner of assassinations, who expressed goodwill to the men who shot [General] Schneider in the back because the general respected civilian rule. Nixon and Helms cast themselves as tough-minded defenders of the Free World, and they killed a defender of democracy to prove it.” (Scorpions’ Dance, 133)

 

Helms was a gentleman and he was an assassin, not an uncommon combination in the political arena. Blowjobs and burglaries can create havoc. Assassinations….not so much.

 

“Nothing threatened Dick Helms more than the shadow of JFK’s assassination.” ( Dance, 246)

 

Irony and Contemplation

  

Irony and Contemplation

Peter Schultz

 

Consider: Was Aristotle moralizing about morality in writing his Ethics? Or was he philosophizing about morality? And: what happens to morality when you philosophize about it, when you contemplate it philosophically?

 

Was Aristotle politicizing about politics in his Politics? Or was he philosophizing about politics? [E.g.: Men like Jefferson and Madison were politicizing about politics, not philosophizing about politics. They were “political thinkers” or “statesmen,” not political philosophers.] Political thinkers, statesmen, unlike political philosophers, are not ironic. 

 

What happens to the political when you philosophize about it? Is it possible, so viewed, to affirm the political? Viewed philosophically, the political is ironic.  

 

Was Jane Austen romanticizing romance or was she contemplating romance, philosophizing about it? George Will, et. al. say the former. Jane as radical says the latter. Hence, Jane’s irony, especially revealed in her anal sex joke about “rear admirals.”  

 

Was Mark Twain romanticizing (affirming) Joan of Arc or contemplating her, philosophizing about her? Hence, his irony. Who was closer to being contemplative, Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn? 

 

Regarding Jane Austen

Regarding Jane Austen  

 

Jane saw through “it” all, that is, the empire, the aristocracy, the patriarchy, the navy, even “Britishness.” Saw it, in the light of the erotic, for what it was and what it wasn’t. It is only in the absence of the erotic that Lady DeBoerg (?) looks like and can be considered a lady, the woman of quality the aristocracy claims her to be. In that absence, she doesn’t look and act like the controlling shrew she actually is. 

Strauss argued early on that the Republic abstracts from eros. I have wondered about that. Perhaps: it’s the absence of eros that makes possible the constructions, political and otherwise, of the Republic. It’s only in the absence of eros that philosophers would rule. But without eros, philosophers wouldn’t be philosophers. Perhaps they’d be intellectuals or sophists. The latter taught for pay and to empower their students, that is, for their own and their students’ “advancement” or acquisition, for fame. 

Did “The Crown” series do a pretty good job of illustrating the absence of eros among the British elites and the monarchy, and the consequences of that absence? For example, Diana’s fate? Elizabeth’s fate? Charles’s fate? Needed : erotic foils like those created by Jane Austen. “There are facts and there is truth and you better make room for both.” Or: there is fact and there is fiction and you better make room for both.

Walter Lippman: Crime and the Underworld

  

Walter Lippman: Crime and the Underworld

Peter Schultz

 

                  In 1931, Walter Lippman wrote an article entitled “The Underworld as Servant.” In it, he distinguished between crime and “the underworld,” arguing that while “the criminal as such is wholly predatory, … the underworld offers something in return to … respectable members of society.” [59, Tyler Organized Crime in America] In a key passage, Lippman wrote: “The issues that are most perplexing and ominous are those presented by the underworld which defies the law, establishes a regime of terror and violence, and draws profit for services performed from conventionally respectable members of society.” [59]

 

                  Not a bad description of government and politics, right? Government and politicians often, even commonly, “defy the law.” At times, they defy the law by cancelling it, e.g., by issuing pardons. But informally, everyone knows that politicians defy the law often on behalf of supporters and allies. Such defiance could even be called providing “services [for] conventionally respectable members of society.” And that defiance is as acceptable politically as criminal defiance is in the underworld.

 

                  “A regime of terror and violence?” What are prisons? What is war? What does the FBI do? The CIA? NSA? Navy Seals? All engage regime-motivated, regime-justified terror and violence.

 

                  “Draws profits for services performed?” Can you name a politician who ended up poorer or less wealthy after his/her government service? I cannot. Just the opposite: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, the Clintons, Obama, Nixon, Trump, T. Fauci. Politicians resemble underworld figures in this regard, profiting despite their defiance of the law. And they also resemble such figures in avoiding punishment for the ways, often suspect, in which they have acquired their wealth, acquisitions that often required defying the law.

 

                  So, “the issues … presented by the underworld” are also the issues presented by government and the political. Lippman, and almost everyone else, even or especially “realists,” avoid or “disappear” this phenomenon by embracing the idea, the myth, of two worlds, an underworld that is distinct from an upperworld. This is a comforting myth; but it is not one that clarifies the character of the political as, e.g., Machiavelli, et. al., illuminated it.  

Organized Crime

  

Organized Crime

Peter Schultz

 

                  From the book, The Mafia Mystique, by Dwight C. Smith, Jr.:

 

                  “It is the context of values that we should consider whether the problem of organized crime has been misstated. The plain fact is that organized crime is the product of forces that threaten values, not the cause of them. As long as we countenance violence, consider personal gain to be more important than equity, are more interested in holding out the goal of success than in providing sufficient opportunities to achieve it, and are willing to bend the law for ourselves in the pursuit of wealth, power, and personal gratification and to persuade government officials, through corrupt dealings, to cooperate in that process – to that extent we will have a society receptive to illicit enterprise generally. Such enterprise will become a reality whenever a group of people are willing to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities that entail selective law enforcement, violence, or corruption in the pursuit of their own wealth and power. The individuals we now call ‘members of organized crime’ fall into that category, and they certainly merit the attention of law enforcement; but they are by no means the whole threat to our values, and probably are not even the most significant part of it. Waging war against them may make political headlines and may satisfy a romantic urge to be a gangbuster, but it will not save us from threats to decency and integrity.” [335]

 

                  Take note: “organized crime” is not an alien force grafted onto our society, imported from a foreign land by immigrants not naturally Americans. Neither is the “mafia.” Rather, organized crime is just another enterprise, an illicit one to be sure, but otherwise no different other, licit enterprises that are conducted “in the pursuit of wealth, power, and personal gratification.” I would, however, emphasize that organized crime is the product of some of the most fundamental American values, such as the pursuit of success understood as wealth and power. And, therefore, in order to defeat or even corral organized crime, it is necessary redefine how Americans understand “the pursuit of happiness.”  

 

 

 

 

What Booker T. Washington Didn't "Get"

  

What Booker T. Washington Didn’t “Get”

Peter Schultz

 

                  Booker T. Washington’s heart was in the right place, wanting to undertake a new beginning for race relations in the U.S. He thought it possible to do this by convincing blacks to concentrate on developing into Americans possessing those values and capabilities that characterized citizenship of the best kind in the U.S. Having so developed, then blacks would win the respect of white Americans and the equal civil and political rights they deserved.

 

                  But Washington failed to understand that citizenship, in the U.S. and elsewhere, is distinct from virtues such as justice. Citizenship does involve commitment but to particular regimes. Regimes are power arrangements that have become ways of life, accepted as good in themselves. Citizens are not primarily committed to justice and other virtues such as self-restraint, fairness, or humanity. In the South and even generally in the North, citizenship involved commitment to a white supremacist regime. Because of this commitment, white citizens would view blacks, their attempts to develop and especially their successes at developing, as threats to the established order, the white supremacist regime. Hence, white citizens would not be committed to or look favorably on black progress. In fact, they would do their best to make such development impossible.

 

                  For confirmation of this, recall the South’s response to Brown v. Board of Education, declaring that separate but equal schools were unconstitutional. Southern states cashiered public education completely rather than integrate those schools. Insofar as white supremacy was threatened by integrated schools, then education itself had to go. No schools were preferable to integrated schools because in integrated schools white supremacy would be exposed as a myth. This fear was expressed as blacks seducing white girls; but the real fear was that white girls would choose blacks as partners, as lovers. Separation was absolutely essential to maintain the myth of the superiority of white supremacy. And no amount of black success would be allowed to overcome that way of life. Not even a black president could overcome the myth of white supremacy, as the reaction of many, including President Trump, to the Obama presidency illustrated.

 

                  Washington was trying to make “an end run,” so to speak, around white supremacy. But he was bound to fail, as Malcolm X and other black power advocates realized. The myth of white supremacy must be confronted head on to be dispelled. And this requires more than good citizenship. It requires, somehow, some way, as Du Bois put it, “dwelling above the color line.” Malcolm X chose Islam for dwelling above the color line, and Julius Lester chose Judaism; that is, they chose “places” beyond both black power and beyond good citizenship.  

 

 

 

 

 

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.