On Long Wars, the DSA, Aborigines, and Democracy in America
AUG 09, 2026
On a very warm and humid Sunday morning, here are a few random thoughts for today:
1. It’s rather amazing that the U.S./Israel War against Iran has entered its six month with no end in sight. Remember when the Trump administration suggested it would last no longer than eight weeks? The war is holding the world economy hostage, apparently for “greater Israel” and continued U.S. dominance of trade in fossil fuels. I say “apparently” because the war doesn’t make much sense to most Americans, who are in the main against it. The only selling point Trump keeps repeating is that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, even as Israel is allowed to have up to 300 of them. His own intelligence chief told Trump that Iran was not working to field a nuclear weapon, but the Israelis told him otherwise, and we know who Trump is most obeisant toward.
2. Patrick Lawrence has a great piece on the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, and how they want to abolish ICE and possibly the presidency itself while defunding the police, the Pentagon, and other instruments of authority and coercion. One sympathizes, but it’s neither a practical nor a winning political message. So I wrote this comment at his site:
Echoing George McGovern, “Come home, America.” You can’t abolish or dismantle everything. But we can downsize the imperium and reinvest in America rather than “investing” in more wars and Zionist Israel.
If the DSA wants to make a contribution, it should focus on that — downsizing the empire, putting the American people first, rather than dreaming of abolishing everything. For what will replace it?
Make the lives of average Americans better, more affordable, more livable. Clean up our environment. And forget the magical thinking and empty posturing.
3. I was breezing through “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce and stumbled on his acerbic definition of “Aborigines”:
1. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
2. Considerate persons who will not trouble the lexicographer of the future to describe them.
Bierce, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War, didn’t mince words here. There are always “persons of little worth” to oppressors who’d prefer that they leave or die. What was true of aboriginal peoples of the 19th and early 20th centuries is true of the Palestinians today: they are seen as obstacles to be overcome, even as terrorists to be exterminated.
4. Antiwar forces in America remain fragmented, and that’s partly by design. To oversimplify, you have the so-called radical left, which is antiwar, sometimes anti-military, often as critical of America as it is of empire, versus the “unpatriotic” (to Trump) right, which is anti-dumb wars, generally pro-military, and animated by putting “America first.” Left and right have much in common: they want less war, less militarism, and more investment and support for Main Street USA. If they could combine, they would make a formidable force against the MICC and incessant warfare. Which is why each side is encouraged to distrust and even hate the other, i.e. the “radical left” is told the right is racist and reactionary and the “unpatriotic right” is told the left is woke, arrogant, and un-American.
The MICC and “Deep State” know that these two groups must be kept divided. They must never be allowed to cooperate in meaningful ways.
5. Ike said only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could tame and reduce the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the MICC. Note how Ike said nothing about the left or right. Being for democracy, freedom, and liberty isn’t a right or left issue. The same applies to being against war and killing and massively wasteful military budgets. These are human issues that should unite everyone irrespective of political allegiances.
Caveat: Any foolishness written above is on account of the heat, but fortunately I’ve been told global warming is a Chinese hoax. Stay cool, everyone.
Bracing Views 
Indulge me:
1. Words, terminology, do matter. There needs to be a one-word synonym, even neologism, that means “illegal military aggression” (“illmilag”?) to supplant “war,” which has a connotation of moral or existential necessity. What’s going on in Iran, has been going on since the end of WWII, is Smedley Butler exponentiated (how’s that for a neologism?). Gotta call these military (mis)adventures what they are, thuggery, whether on our behalf alone, or for Israel’s bidding.
2. I sympathize with Patrick Lawrence to a degree, but not all that far a one. For certain ICE gotta go. I want well-trained, professional, Constitution-abiding police to protect me and the greater community. I think the situation is more this: we do have a governmental structure built upon certain principles. It’s more or less worked, for most, until 9/11 (reason for it was our support of Israel, look where that’s gotten things since), and the national security state response (again, exponentiated) under Dumbya. My argument is that the structure is fundamentally sound, but it’s been undermined, co-opted, perverted, twisted by the profit-seeking crooks, thieves, cheats, and ideologues. A new house isn’t need, a good housecleaning is.
3. To expand (and expound) on Bierce a bit more, yes, overtly, here in America there are “persons of little worth,” e.g., those on Medicaid who will lose their coverage in order to stoke the Pentagon and the MICIMATT-SH. But more subtly, one’s worth in this society – economically, politically, legally, socially, whatever else – is directly proportional to his or her market value. The more the have-mores have – e.g., Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Epstein – the more you matter. Don’t got much? Not worth much.
4. “Left and right have much in common: they want less war, less militarism, and more investment and support for Main Street USA.” Essentially, what the Constitution calls for, to “promote the general welfare.” The last time any semblance of the notion of “the general welfare” had meaning was during the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and “Great Society” era. Since then, each as either been chipped away at (the former two) or expunged (the vestiges of “Head Start” about to be eliminated). In its place came neoliberalism (“There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.” – Margaret Thatcher. So much for “it takes a village…”), meaning that the market will determine the general welfare. Which has brought us Trump.
5. “Ike said only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could tame and reduce the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the MICC [now MICIMATT-SH].” This means education in general, in civics in particular. Rather hard to assure given that we are on our way (over the cliff?) to spending $1.5+ trillion in “defense” while in the latest report on infrastructure in this country schools get a “D+”.
Or to put it another way, a metaphorical “comrade in arms” relates “My new reference in the spending madness is Chicago’s TARP, known as the Deep Tunnel Project to contain stormwater. It cost $1.3 billion. I found out yesterday that is the typical cost of ONE Patriot missile battery which is the launchers and a compliment of missiles, the missiles being gone, of course, in one launch.”
“I do my Sunday dreaming, oh yeah/And all my Sunday scheming/Every minute, every hour, every day.” – Etta James, “I Want a Sunday Kind of Love”
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There are many things to cause despair but primary for me is the utter lack of concern for climate change in America.
I have taken up the habit of going up to people sitting in their parked cars with the engine running and asking them if they know about climate change. Until yesterday, all had said they do. I then walk away and let them make the connection.
Yesterday there was a Mercedes sports car with completely blacked out windows including the windshield (illegal). The driver rolled down his window to reveal a 20-something. In answer to my question he responded as a smart aleck with “no, I don’t” and a big smile. As usual, I walked away.
We can’t keep living the way we do but in America it will always be: drive on.
Science note: In the last 800,000 years of ice core data, the previous high for atmospheric CO2 was 380,000 years ago at 300 ppm (parts per million).
pre-industrial age: 285ppm
1900: 295ppm
1950: 311ppm
2025: 425ppm and ramping up in annual increase
It is astounding to realize that our 6 million year old species has in the last 150 years burned enough fossil fuel to alter the climate beyond what our species has known and that there is no stopping it regardless of our technology.
The fate of the only known life bearing planet in the universe is being determined by one form of life – us in exchange for a frenzy of an energy powered way of life that is fleeting. Bring on the energy guzzling data centers ASAP.
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Yes–that driver was Dumbassicus Americana, a common species here, and very dangerous.
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Where or when, historically, has an empire been “downsized” by it’s citizens or ethically, economically or militarily reformed? Voted out? I’m not an historian so I don’t have a definitive answer, but I’m not aware of another empire ending other than by falling hard while violently resisting. Like a rabid animal, it will fight and kill mindlessly to survive. Such is the behavior of bottomless greed and corruption.
There are examples, however, of slave states, oppressed states or colonies throwing off the yoke of empirical control. The Gandhian movement sending the British packing comes to mind. And the popular movement in South Africa spearheaded by Nelson Mandela dislodging control by the United States, West Germany, Israel and the UK. And Iran appears to now be succeeding in evicting the United States from the Middle East (not nonviolently, but with as little killing as possible). And numerous Liberation Theology movements throughout Latin America provide other powerful examples.
If templates of these powerful movements, especially the ones based in nonviolent resistance and noncooperation, were to be applied en mass in the United States… perhaps. If a nonviolent movement within the US, like the one inspired by Martin Luther King, is forming, I’m not aware of it.
It looks to me like this garden is far beyond weeding. It was neglected too long and can now only be plowed under. What is planted afterwards, and how it is cared for, is ultimately a most critical question.
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I left out France in the above list of South Africa oppressors.
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