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Rahm, Hakeem, and Special Places in Hell
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War
People sometimes get away with a certain kind of evil action precisely because most of us have a hard time imagining the levels of cruelty or cynicism involved.
Rahm Emanuel, booster of militarization in Japan as U.S. Ambassador, apologist for racist police violence and closer of schools in Chicago as Mayor, and Democratic Caucus Chairman in the U.S. House of so-called Representatives from 2007 to 2009, did something evil in January 2007. This was just after antiwar voters had handed his Democratic Party the U.S. Congress to end the war on Iraq. That demand had been the top issue in the exit polls. Emanuel made clear to a friendly Washington Post reporter that he hoped to keep the war on Iraq going for two more years in order to “oppose” it again in another election.
You may not imagine that politicians care about human suffering, but I bet you sometimes imagine they are governing; in reality they are campaigning, eternally and cynically — at least the ones in charge. There is no period of governing in between election cycles.
Democratic “leadership” has been taking a similar approach to hideous evil in recent weeks. I don’t mean just strategists like James Carville advocating for Democrats to do nothing while Trump lower’s Trump’s polling — never mind who suffers. I also mean various Democrats discussing whether, and how vigorously, to oppose Trump kidnapping and deporting people as a matter to be decided by how it works in an election 1.5 or 3.5 years away. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has denounced as false a report that he wanted Congressional trips to El Salvador to stop, but has not apparently disputed that his public comment when asked about that topic was “Our reaction is that Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president in modern American history.” There follow in that report arguments from various Democrats as to how “opposing” state disappearances plays in the polls, but no strategizing on how to actually change the policy.
It’s a fiction that a famous fictional account of the fictional place called Hell includes these words: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.” But it’s a good fiction. I don’t want to minimize the evil of straight-up proud fascism. And I don’t actually want anyone burned for real or eternally. But the evil of doing nothing or of actively supporting horrors while pretending to be doing something, or of calculatedly marketing oneself as ever so slightly less evil than the only other choice is a special sort of outrage.
Of course, the media outlets that report on the politicians can encourage and exacerbate the cynicism. Of course, the partisan divide and disciplined obedience by party members restrict what a minority party of legislators can do. Of course, the transfer of power from Congress to the White House over the decades and over recent weeks fuels a vicious cycle in which Congress Members’ duties are increasingly related to campaigning for a change of emperor every four years. Even labor unions are planning a general strike three years hence, as if a different flavor of temporary despot four years from now would undo three more years of destruction. But those facts don’t make the charade of pretending to govern less evil. And the charade is hardly less phony when the Democrats have a majority than when they don’t.
The trouble, however, lies in the end with us, the people, and not with the politicians. Both those politicians who are openly horrific and those who put up a show of being less horrific are, after all, just politicians. We the people have a responsibility to tell them and to show them what dramatic changes are required. The ongoing struggle for self-governance in South Korea has seen a powerful and significantly successful nonviolent movement act quickly and strategically to prevent martial law. In some countries, such as the United States, people often watch others in distant places like Korea, Bolivia, Tunisia, Bangladesh, or Niger nonviolently turn back coups and dictatorships, even while the U.S. government steadily advances an unaccountable police state and no appropriate movement challenges these steps. In this recent webinar video, we hear voices from Korea on lessons from recent experience. We ought to be smart enough to listen and learn.
I don’t buy a lot of clothes. The shirt I’m wearing reads “Arrest Bush and Obama.” It’s the “new” version of all the shirts I had that read only “Arrest Bush.” It puts me in mind of how nice it would be if we were to learn things earlier. The steady march of the imperial presidency in recent decades has depended on putting parties and elections ahead of actual policies, much less accountability. One obvious opportunity to call a halt before it’s too late would be to ask the Mayor of Washington DC Muriel Bowser (at eom@dc.gov ) why she is letting Trump hold a weapons parade through her city, even as she pushes for a new multi-billion-dollar football stadium destined by her inaction to be the future site of endless war glorification ceremonies. If that doesn’t work, the next step would be to show up in Washington on June 14 and nonviolently shut down Trumpolini’s weapons parade. Off our streets — and out of everybody else’s countries! Money for schools, not murder tools!
See you there!
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Rahm, Hakeem, and Special Places in Hell
https://worldbeyondwar.org/rahm-hakeem-and-special-places-in-hell/
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org. He hosts Talk World Radio.
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