DUCKPOND

On its face this is a strange position for a politician to adopt, even more so a democratic politician. It would not be strange to R Cheney, for example, if his recent repudiation of the role of public opinion is taken as evidence of his frame of mind. The “don’t ever talk”proposition advanced by the President of the United States, since that is appeasement.


Sheryl Gay Stolberg reporting G Bush’s speech to the Knesset in The New York Times writes:

President Bush used a speech to the Israeli Parliament on Thursday to issue a veiled rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential contender, who has argued that the United States should negotiate with countries like Iran and Syria.
Mr. Bush did not mention Mr. Obama by name, and the White House said his remarks were not aimed at the senator. But in a lengthy speech intended to promote the strong alliance between the United States and Israel, the president invoked the emotionally volatile imagery of World War II to make the case that talking to “terrorists and radicals” was no different than appeasing Hitler and the Nazis.

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

History might be worth considering to discover what experience discredits. Has the blindly stupid continuation of war crimes, murder and violence in Iraq over the past five years worked, including it seems the destruction of Mosul as a functioning city, except for those raking in the war profits. There is not a huge difference in paradigm between the “terrorists” and who in the cowboy mythology are called the “good guys”. Violence does not appear to working in the short term, let alone the long term. At some point people have to stop fighting, and the intention is to have the upper hand when the talking begins, so the settlement is no terms to their advantage.

The onus ought to be placed on its proponents to demonstrate that violence, and its attendant sacrifices, usually by others and lesser people, actually succeeds for the greater good, other than special interests, such as arms manufacturers and death cults. For example, Kenneth Boulding suggested there are three forms of power. Threat power can be identified with violence, integrative power with nonviolence, and as an economist he included exchange power, which could be one or the other.

Nonviolence is not appeasement.The proponents of nonviolence, for example Gandhi, do not just rely on skilled conversation and negotiation, they carry the process to the next stage where they take on personal suffering, until finally they are prepared to let the bully do their worst without cowering. It is possible that a person such as G Bush with his history of addictions, privilege, and belittlement of others may have as much capacity to identify with his humanity as he has capacity to exercise responsibility, but the nonviolent actor believes the attempt must be made in an optimistic, intelligent and purposeful way. Still, they would believe, if you fail with G Bush, there may be others in that government with which you would succeed.

There are a number of reasons why Bush and others do not want to talk to their enemies. In essence they believe that violence is necessary and inevitable, and from their point of view beneficial. The fundamental problem as soon as any person has been dehumanized, and what better way by refusing to listen to them, then violence is inevitable.

Further, it occurs to me that many of us do not know when and how to make concessions and make compromises, and as a consequence we do not know how to freely let others make concessions and make compromises. Gandhi, and others, may have much that we could learn from.

Most people are not believers in violence so much as they are not aware of the alternative. Confronted with violence, talking is only part of the process, but an essential part.

ELSEWHERE:

Kevin Drum frames these comments by Bush and Obama’s response in the electoral context. The argy bargy of the political contest too often piffle out of questions of substance. A cool and sophisticated appraisal can be of no value. The problem with having actors as executive politicians, which might be remembered every time Reagan’s name is mentioned, is they often require someone to write their scripts.

Paul Woodward in an editorial at The War In Context is trenchant:

If an American president isn’t willing and capable of negotiating with adversaries, he or she isn’t fit for office. Bush would have us believe that he has taken a bold stand on principle. In truth he has merely tried to conceal his incompetence.

And in fact, the President does not have walk the talk, he (usually) has at his call skillful people undertake the negotiation for him. I actually think G Bush thinks, despite the evidence, that violence works just fine.

Have the corporate media lost the power to frame the political debate? Probably not. Still the comments at Truthdig are not supporting the Bush line, and so maybe the alternative media are starting to make a tiny difference to the managed consensus.

Gary at Public Opinion notes:

US policy in the Middle East is structured around containment and it basically postulates that the way to deal with recalcitrant states in the Persian Gulf (i.e. states that are unsympathetic to U.S. interests and objectives) is to isolate them and “contain” them, relying on sanctions and superior military power. The implication is that emphasizing threats and sanctions is placed above even the most minimal engagement.

Larisa Alexandrovna (via commenter Gaffhook of Townsville at Blogocracy) says in an open letter to Bush at Huffington Post now you have made the comparison with Adolf Hitler:

Your reminiscence today about the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany should have been seen as your own condemnation of your own abhorrent actions against Iraq. The morbid irony of what you said will likely never register with your or your speechwriter. To truly grasp the grotesqueness of what you said requires that you have both a conscience and some understanding of history. We know you possess neither.

Chris Floyd castigates the progresso-sphere for picking up on the “appeaser” slur and not addressing the Bush Family links with Hitler. He makes the useful point about youthful indiscretions and gotcha moments that accompany the 24/7 media scrutiny for trivialization of the democratic process.

It seems to me that making realistic political judgments requires an understanding of how power is aligned, and what might be done to if not wholly realign it allow for effective participation by those that have been excluded. In this context, it seems to me that Obama’s campaign has promise, a promise that might probably be incompletely fulfilled. Let none of us rely on others to do what we must do, but recognize that to be successful we must act with others, composed of many different types of people.

Glenn Greenwald provides the useful context of the “appeasement” slur, that was applied to Reagan’s talks with Gorbachev.

POSTSCRIPT:

In comments on my other duckpond, Sun Tzu made it clear to me, I have not made myself clear. I should have made a concrete reference to nonviolent communication. Well what do know Marshall Rosenberg discusses the development of nvc on youtube. I know this is a bit long, but stay in there. I believe you may find it is a journey worth the travel, or at least it is an insight into a nonviolent world view:

I.
II.
III.

There are references to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin here and here, and these are just for starters.