Martin LeFevre: The Sovereignty of Humanity

One of the most telling moments during the Obama inauguration inanity came when George Bush was about to board the helicopter to leave DC in disgrace. Barack and Michelle Obama gave him a friendly, even warm parting, when a perfunctory goodbye would have been fitting and gracious.

The affable parting with the president who needlessly sent tens of thousands of people to their graves, and feels neither a ping of conscience nor pause of doubt about it, bespeaks the chasm between hope and reality in the Obama Administration.

The seamlessness of the transition, and Barack’s obsession with ‘putting aside partisan differences and looking to the future,’ attests that America has not reached bottom. Hope cannot lift America and the world out of the hole into which Bush and Cheney have pushed us. The helium of hope dissipates quickly once the balloons are burst.

Feel-good sensations are fleeting. As many nations before us have discovered, there can be no renewal until crimes against humanity by one administration are brought into the light of day by a succeeding one.

But don’t count on a truth and reconciliation commission to put the years of torture and degradation at home and abroad behind us. For there’s a uniquely American trait of believing that the slate can be wiped clean at will, that starting over is simply a matter of the intention to do so.

Nor can post-Bush transparency erase during-Bush malfeasance. As the saying goes, the past is not over; it’s not even past.

There must be accountability, and accountability includes the intellectual elite who enabled, and even fostered the suffering and worldwide psychic trauma of Gulf War II. People like William Kristol, one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq, who wrote a column recently about the incoming Obama Administration in the New York Times entitled, “Continuity We Can Believe In.”

Or Thomas Friedman, who coined, minted, and sold millions on the phrase, “war of choice.” He now has the audacity to say “George W. Bush completely squandered his post-9/11 moment to summon the country to a dramatic new rebuilding at home.” Friedman, almost as much as the war’s architects like Kristol, led the squandering.

Much has been made of Obama’s creation of a “team of rivals” cabinet, beginning with Hillary Clinton. But the comparison with Lincoln’s judgment and magnanimity is bogus, since her equivalent, William Seward, was an abolitionist who became a close friend and staunch ally of Lincoln ally during the Civil War. Since Hillary voted for the invasion of Iraq, it would be like Lincoln appointing a Southern secessionist to Secretary of State.

Hopefully, Obama will be able to rebuild America from the invisible rubble that he’s inherited, the equivalent of the real rubble that Bush’s soulmate, Israel’s outgoing Olmert, left in Gaza. But he will not be able to restore America to its prior place of moral leadership in the world.

Mass wishful thinking plus presidential competence cannot produce a real, much less radical change in domestic and foreign policy. Barack is a smart and decent man, but he is urgently in need of a revolution.

Certainly not a revolution involving violence of any kind, but rather an explosion of passion and insight. And I don’t see how such a revolution can begin in America, where so much dead tissue still needs to be cut away, and few see or feel any need to do so.

In his inaugural speech, Obama said, “we are ready to lead once more.” What does that mean? Does it mean abandoning the language and mindset of war in the global struggle against terrorism?

Does it mean restoring and enlarging the capabilities of the United Nations, rather than undermining and hamstringing the only institution of international law and enforcement the world has?

And does it mean redefining the premise of sovereignty and citizenship in a global society? Sovereignty is the supreme political principle, the highest good and the highest authority. Can the president of the most powerful nation on earth speak about the increasing fragmentation, irrationality, and conflict inherent in 200 separate sovereignties?

People need dreams, but dreams have to be based in reality. Obama may be able to lead Americans, but what will lead America and the rest of the splintering nations of the world toward a true world order?

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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