Article: Savvy to a Fault: Coming to Terms With Imperial Power

If Obama takes action or makes a decision that you think is good and constructive, say so and give him credit.

One looks at this and thinks: Why? Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to make a special effort to commend the leaders of the kind of system described above, one which has "fashioned its entire social and economic structure around the preparation for [and ceaseless practice of] war"?

Of course, there is an immediate logic to it. You would do it to establish your credibility, your objectivity, to say, "I'm neither a reflexive Obama-basher nor a swooning cheerleader; I call them as I see them." This in turn would lend more weight to your criticisms of the Administration; when you "hold Obama's feet to the fire" or "push him to better solutions" on this or that issue, your principled dissent can't be dismissed out of hand by the leadership as mere partisan opposition.

And if we were dealing with a different political reality � ��" on a smaller, more human scale, say, with a more equitable distribution of power in society, and a vastly reduced scope (and appetite) for violence, corruption and domination on the part of an unassailable, lawless elite � ��" then perhaps such an approach might do well. But that, alas, is not our reality. We wrestle with a militarized regime whose powers are, as I said in an earlier piece on Thoreau, "so much greater, far more pervasive, more invasive and much more implacable, more inhuman" than the fledgling state our Walden forbear confronted all those years ago. We are dealing with a government that is committing, at every moment � ��" with every breath we take � ��" horrendous crimes against life and liberty, with its murderous wars of aggression and domination, and its ever-spreading authoritarian encroachments.

Again, should we give credit to such a regime, single it out for praise, whenever it happens to behave in a rational manner on one issue or another? After all, functioning governments of every kind do a multitude of worthy things for their people every day. They build roads, lay electric lines and sewer pipes, maintain the food supply, sponsor medical research, facilitate technological developments, adjudicate civil disputes, provide disaster relief, maintain parks and recreation areas, etc., etc. � ��" the list is virtually endless. And this was equally true of, say, Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union, and other regimes imbued with a crimeful essence. Would you have told a dissident opposing the depredations of Hitler or Stalin or Franco or Tojo or the apartheid regime in South Africa that he or she must always be sure to point out any constructive thing these governments do, and give them credit for it?

This is not a call to ignore reality. The constructive things that governments do are part of their record. But it's important to note two points here. First, we're not talking about making a casual observation when you glance at the paper � ��" "Glad they're not going to prosecute Grandma for that medical marijuana now" � ��" and factoring that into your general knowledge base. Instead, we're talking about the specific context of Greenwald's recommendations, which deal with those who are trying to make active political and moral judgments about government policy, with the ultimate aim of bringing about a reality that is more just, more humane.

Second, and more importantly, we must emphasize again that we are not dealing with an ordinary situation here, with a system whose good and bad elements are roughly equal (or confined to the historical past), allowing one to sit down and weigh this policy against that one, and, then, upon careful reflection, coming to some judicious assessment. No; we are now � ��" and have been for decades � ��" dealing with a situation of the most frantic and dire moral urgency, the "all-day permanent red" of a system whose purpose, structure, meaning and method have become war, with all the hatred, corruption, degeneration and devolution that war brings.

In such an extreme system, all balance is gone; a constructive act here or there cannot offset those mountains of corpses. And its seems a terrible waste of time and energy to divert one's attention from these horrors � ��" and the urgent need to stop them � ��" just to give a few props for a stray good deed or reasonable move here or there.

The latter approach also involves, consciously or unconsciously, to one degree or another, an association with it, in Thoreau's sense. You have, in effect, accepted power on its own terms. You engage deeply with the system in order to "hold Obama's feet to the fire" (while being careful to acknowledge his "constructive" measures) because you believe this will make the system better. But if the system itself is structured to produce the boundless evils of war and domination and injustice, you cannot make it better. You can only, at the very most, mitigate a few of its pernicious effects, for a time, and only at the margins.

This is by no means an unworthy goal; extreme systems force that kind of triage upon us. Raoul Wallenberg could not end the Holocaust; he could only save what was in relative terms a very small number of people at the margins. But who would deny his heroism, and wish that he had not sought such small but deeply meaningful mitigations? Conversely, who among us would have suggested that Wallenberg, in the dire moral urgency of his mission, take time out to give credit to the Nazis for, say, their "Strength Through Joy" recreational programs for ordinary workers, or their remarkable highway system? Or in our time, do we require Shirin Ebadi to praise the Tehran regime for its social housing programs, or Aung San Suu Kyi to give credit to the Burmese generals for building roads or installing storm drains?

Everyone has to make their own accommodations with reality, of course. And to quote the old song-and-dance man once again: "Life is sad, life is a bust;/All you can do is do what you must." I'm not laying down commandments or prescriptions for anybody. But I will say that Thoreau's stance seems more and more to be the only honorable course for an American to take, in whatever way and to whatever degree he or she finds possible.

And I will also say that those who profess their adherence to "progressive" values such as peace, justice, liberty, equality and truth would serve their cause better by focusing on the essential nature of a system that eviscerates those values, and on the actual operations of power, the crimes and atrocities being committed by the actual wielders and servants of power, instead of mocking people for "throwing fits" and being "puerile" when they denounce the system's leaders for leading the nation deeper and deeper into evil.

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