This evolved into a discussion of arms trade involving Israeli inventions, the US prevention thereof and some other issues that got me thinking about democracies, especially small ones versus great powers and also the morality or rather amorality of "interests:" So I decided to make a separate post. I apologize that it's kind of long but I'm trying to pull some ideas together here because I think we're seeing a lot of overlapping issues.

So - I started out by venting about the canard about Israeli power relative to ours:

Look. The baloney about America being controlled by Israel is ridiculous, it is obviously the other way around, to the point of saying what they can and cannot sell or build or live or even if they will have the capability to defend themselves. That is the harsh reality. There are some discussions on TNR about why Obama isn't being tough on Russia for example which clearly isn't acting in American interests as a rule, so why is he beating up the Israelis.

Well it's pretty obvious - Russia is big and powerful and rich in resources and Israel is small and dependent on us. So duh. It sucks but there it is. PS so much for defending minorities not to mention honoring democracy in practice.

And that sucks too.

One wonders if, having set up a democracy in Iraq to replace Saddam, we will be pleased if it turns out to be a radical Shi'a democracy. In Latin America when we didn't like how elections or revolutions worked out we have "suggested regime change."

Note my use of quotes and euphemisms is sort of like "crude homemade rockets."

The same thing of course happens if certain pet dictators get out of control, like Saddam. "Regime change."

But when a democratic ally is more or less threatened with suggestions that maybe they should change their elected regime, as per Goldberg's theories in the Atlantic - that is beyond hypocritical.

Of course the implications that apartments in Jerusalem threaten American soldiers approaches a blood libel and it's also absurd considering the fact that imperial powers have been meddling in the East for centuries and this includes Muslim empires as well as Western empires and corporate interests such as the oil industry.

We have had two wars with Iraq - having armed a terrible dictator who then attacked Iran, murdered his own people with WMD's, invaded Kuwait - and apartments in Israel are responsible for this? Apartments in Israel are responsible for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the destruction of that country and our arming of the mujeheddin we now fight? This is Orwellian, definitely.

Meanwhile another important issue remains - globalization hasn't worked out exactly as planned. A more open system of enterprise hasn't really defanged China or made it less militarily potent, not that I find this surprising.

It hasn't made us less militant either, come to think of it, and there is now a danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and international arms trade is not only huge but often ungoverned and now includes fissile materials that could easily wind up in the hands of terrorists or states that disagree with our point of view (to put it mildly - in fact Pakistan could easily come such a state.)

Here's an interesting piece, it's long but worth reading I think.

Anyway, this is related to the Israel discussion in a lot of ways, some subtle, some pretty obvious, as market forces and sheer demographics on a global scale threaten to overwhelm local governments and the interests and relative power of their citizens.

Look at the EU - now the Germans are balking at rescuing Greece and this could have an enormous effect on the global economy, but also EU politics are not democratic in the sense that local French politics are democratic, etc - the power of upper EU echelons are remote from people in their respective nations.

And we're seeing too just exactly how much Europeans actually love their neighbors when it comes down to it - prosperous, efficient Germany is not eager at all to save the Greeks, who besides sun and water don't have much besides culture and rocks - they really are in a bad spot economically which is why historically Greeks took to the seas, to trade, and many today live in diaspora just to make a living. But the Germans are asking, so what? We should care why?

So much for globalizing risk and improving regional economies! The Greek crisis could actually, by itself, threaten the global economy precisely because we are so globalized and interdependent.

Likewise, corporate power isn't democratic at all and when people discuss "interests" frequently they are discussing a combination, I think, of military and corporate power. They are not discussing lives, morals, history or the national ethos - ideals like fraternity, equality, liberty.

Corporate power, globalized corporate power in particular doesn't fly the American flag - it no longer represents American ideals let alone the interests or will of the people. That's so obvious just in the decay of our industries and in the loss of so many American jobs. And, in many cases national political decisions don't reflect the will of the people.

Now, in re Israel, Congress has voted repeatedly to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital but the US has yet to do so.

This has sent mixed signals to the world including the Israelis and it's also kept the issue of Jerusalem and whether it should be "Palestinian" alive.

Was this even an issue when the Jordanians annexed the Old City and the West Bank?

Anyway, when it comes to diplomacy I think really clear, firm messages that don't change every five minutes are far more likely to resolve conflicts than this ambiguity which actually serves to play both sides against the middle.

I guess it's a sort of Machiavellian strategy of "divide and conquer" but we are playing with real lives here. This has always been the case of course - but our ideals tend to paper over the harsh reality: when it comes down to it although we celebrate life, the value of the individual and human rights - we ignore or even act in opposition to our stated ideals and national values.

And, when it comes to making peace between the Israelis and the Arabs, we may have inadvertently (?) hardened positions on the edges with The Great Apartment Flap - Bibi might actually become more popular, not less, and the Palestinians are not only not negotiating they are rioting and shooting rockets.

Swell. We may actually have helped start another war instead of getting people to sit down and negotiate.

All of the above is what people like Chomsky are trying to say when they criticize great powers including the US. There is some truth to his point of view, or to the general point of view about imperialism, or if you want to reduce it still further to the temptation to abuse power.

No country, no group of people is immune to that either - in fact I think the Israelis are also guilty in that regard from time to time though hardly to the degree one would think given the outrageous propaganda.

Regardless it's a common feature of humanity - have gun, will shoot.

And, our own frequently ambiguous and confusing foreign policies also reflect the fact that the US is a democracy or at least a kind of republic and we also have a range of opinion within the government and among the people - so Congress and the people might think one way and the State Department another, the business community a third, then there's the military, etc, plus under our system the very powerful executive branch potentially changes every 4 years.

And, our policies greatly reflect the power of globalized corporate interests and the nexus of military and economic power that is really running things to a very large extent, far beyond the control or input of individual people unless they happen to be uniquely wealthy and powerful.

Little countries like Israel, regardless of what they've created or how much they love America or how moral their point of view, don't matter when it comes down to that kind of power. Thus you see Mearscheimer and Walt "realism" about American interest - you see the British Empire - who the hell cares about a few Jews if they get in the way of that?

For that matter what chance did Judea have against Rome?

Compared to that what kind of power do any little people really have?

This applies domestically too, actually. All the demonstrations of the sixties - power to the people - red banners, celebrations of The Worker - protests against the war - what happened? Basically the "revolution" just vanished and people did what people do - eventually the war fizzled out when we declared "Peace With Honor," as the Communists overran the South and our dead mounted to 50,000 and so many horribly injured veterans.

We carved the names of the dead on a black stone wall. We went to work, we raised our families - we sort of forgot. We watched TV, the kabuki theatre of politics, we watched wars on TV as if they were movies. Do you remember watching the bombardment of Baghdad, the SCUDs falling in Israel?

The Tea Parties of today might be a similar manifestation of sixties-type frustration, of a sense that the control of major issues is totally beyond our control regardless of what side of the issues or political spectrum we support.

Meanwhile, the world changed and the centers of power have become, I think, even more remote and further and further from any kind of actual local input let alone individual input.

We don't have any say whatsoever over what our corporate bosses do. I personally have been through so many recessions and downsizing, so many job redefinitions, retraining - and meanwhile the jobs dwindle and our prosperity dwindles regardless of what we personally might do or may have contributed - and many of us are facing retirement with next to nothing.

And, I am beginning to wonder if "globalization" isn't just a new word for imperialism only now it wears a Nike logo instead of an emperor's coat of arms.

I also sense that "interests" are completely untethered from the ideals that epitomize and define our nation. Worst of all the US - the world - seems to be feeling like an Orwellian novel. We are on camera all the time, we don't know what or whom to believe.

Everyday just by cross-checking a few sources the mendacity of major media - often on issues dealing with Israel - are nakedly apparent.

Sometimes I feel like myself am wearing a tinfoil hat but when I read one day that a certain blog is read by certain powerful people and then a couple of weeks later said blog is quoting Juan Cole and publishing highly inaccurate anti-Israel propaganda - and when I read an actual poll in Ha'aretz that says x and the MSM reports that it says y - I gotta wonder if my hat isn't pretty accurate.

What do you guys think?