F.
Scott Fitzgerald described the Ivy Club at Princeton University
as being "breathlessly aristocratic". That was
in 1920. It was no less aristocratic in 1970 when Philip
Bobbitt was its president. Bobbitt can trace his pedigree
to the early southern colonies in the 1600s and names
his uncle Lyndon Johnson as one of his mentors.
"Public
servant" Bobbitt has served as advisor to presidents
Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton,
George W. Bush and now Barak Obama on the Secretary of
State's Advisory Committee on International Law. He frequents
The White House as if it were his local pub and seems
to have a pass key to all the influential institutions
of the government. He's worked on the charter of the CIA,
counseled the Iran-Contra Committee, was director for
Intelligence Programs for the National Security Council,
etc. etc. & etc. When not whispering in the ears of
power, he speaks authoritatively as a professor of international
law at Harvard, Colombia, Yale, Princeton, Oxford and
the University of Texas. His fan club includes Tony Blair,
David Cameron, John Howard and Henry Kissinger who described
him as "the* outstanding political philosopher of
our time." (* Note that Henry says "the"
and not "an".)
You get the picture.
What is the philosophy radiating out of this "outstanding
political philosopher"? His book The Shield of
Achilles (2002) spells out his philosophy candidly.
Bobbitt doesn't believe in peace. The search for peace
is "fruitless." War is inevitable and the wise
policy makers anticipate it and prepare for it so that
they can shape the form it takes. Philip B regards war
as a strategic struggle to legitimize the formation of
state authority and establish its constitutional order.
He uses the term epochal war to designate a greater conflict
and exemplifies this with what he calls The Long War that
extended from 1914 to 1990. It consolidated the nation-state.
The Market-State
Now that the nation-state has been established the next epochal
war is under way to see who will dominate the market-state.
Where the nation-state carried the promise of material
welfare for its citizens, the market-state promises opportunities.
(Note that I refrain from using sarcasm about the difference
between material welfare and opportunities.) Bobbitt encourages
leaders to create new forms for the use of force to promote
and defend the market-state. Citizens should be
employed as mercenaries, civil privacy should be abandoned
and surveillance should be increased.
Recognize any of these policies? Bobbitt knew that they
would upset some people. "Unaided by the assurance
that the political process will not be subordinated to
the most powerful market actors, markets can become targets
of the alienated and of those who are disenfranchised
by any shift away from national or ethnic institutions."
Are you feeling alienated by corporate rule ("the
most powerful market actors") or disenfranchised
by the rulers trashing the country's traditions and laws
("shift away from national or ethnic institutions")?
Thank Bobbitt!
But don't be too hard on Professor Phil. When his book
The Shield of Achilles came out prestigious people
and reviewers calloused their fingertips writing its praises.
The entire intellectual, academic and politic elite shower
acclaim over this apostle of fascism. Yes, fascism. And
I'm not using the word loosely.
The term market-state itself is a basically a declaration
of fascism.
Wiktionary
defines fascism as: a political regime ideologically based
on a relationship between business and the centralized
government, business-and-government control of the market
place, repression of criticism of opposition.
Philip B's market-state goes beyond a mere business-government
relationship. It subordinates the political process "to
the most powerful market actors."
"...the market-state promises a 'virtuous' circle
to those states that copy its form and obey its strictures*.
The privatization of state-owned firms brings immense
capital gains to the state as it liquidates vast monopolies;
this windfall supplements the savings from cuts in welfare
programs..." (*Note the aristocratic expression,
"obey its strictures".)
In an interview in 2007 on Global Axess, Bobbitt claimed
the invasion of Iraq was necessary because "we couldn't
predict when Saddam Hussein could acquire nuclear weapons."
This clearly proves that a monument of academic knowledge
can produce ugly twisted reasoning. If the ultimate international
crime, the initiation of war, can be justified with Bobbitt's
argument, there is no such thing as international law.
Many progressive brats of America are fond of complaining
about the stupidity of the "sheeple". The majority
of Americans however know more about the difference between
right and wrong - and crimes of aggression�than American
professors of international law.
Prof. Phil excels in twisted reasoning. "It takes two states
to go to war. /---/ States ... may employ aggression,
but they do not seek war. Rather it is the state against
whom* the aggression has been mounted, typically, that
makes the move to war, which is a legal and strategic
act". (* Note the reference to the state as a person
rather than a thing.)
Phil claims that the Vietnam War was "fought to stop
aggression by going to war."
And speaking of twisted logic and Vietnam, Bobbitt wrote
an eulogy to former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
in the NY Times (July 7, 2009). How did Professor Phil
describe the man who initiated the bombing campaign that
costs three million Vietnamese lives? He characterize
him as "a man of compassion".
Many people will be surprised to learn that the intellectual
elite of the empire can't tell the difference between
good and evil and worship the prospects of fascism. I
suggest they read Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
The seldom-mentioned journey to Laputa (Spanish for whore)
describes the illogical scientific fools of this island
in the air. Among other things, the titled fools believe
that they can determine the guilt of conspiracy suspects
(terrorists) by examining their turds.
And speaking of turds, fascist shit doesn't just happen.
It's dark, hard values are produced by the constipated
minds of the aristocrats of power.
BlackCommentator.com
Guest Commentator Joel Miller is a Bronx-grown American
who migrated to Sweden after an honorable discharge from
the US Army. He has worked as teacher and lecturer, but
now as a writer and photographer. Click here
to contact Mr. Miller.
