The term "filibuster" is generally understood as a parliamentary maneuver allowing an aggrieved minority to prevent voting on a bill. However, it also refers to military adventurers who launch an invasion of another country. They are typically funded all, or mostly, through private capital. Filibusters are usually viewed as picaresque, romantic characters, perhaps midway between quixotic and frightening. This essay will address three case histories of famous filibusters, and examine their role in imperialism.

CASE 3: JACK ABRAMOFF

At first, it may seem surprising to read that Jack Abramoff was a "def 2 filibuster." A central figure in the financing of the GOP's extreme right wing, formerly a "dearest" friend of Tom DeLay, et al., his main notoriety lies in a fraud involving casinos and Native American tribes, or illegal lobbying on behalf of Guam's Superior Court. Yet, as it happens, Abramoff also tried his hand at filibustering.

Unlike Walker, who restlessly used his own person to fulfill Manifest Destiny, or Thatcher, pere, who relentlessly used his connections for entirely personal gain, Abramoff represents a blend of professionalism and mystical zeal, a melding of St. Catherine of Sienna and Gen. Jack D. Ripper.

According to [Jeff] Pandin, who went to work for Abramoff in 1986, ... "He was always looking to push the envelope."
[Salon, linked below]

Abramoff is a native of the affluent community of Beverly Hills, California; he played football and was head of the College Republicans at Brandeis University. He was born to wealth and privilege and naturally came to regard any challenge to it as the supreme crime.

Sourcewatch: Abramoff was soon elected chairman of the College Republican National Committee with the campaign being managed by Grover Norquist and aided by Ralph E. Reed Jr.. "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left," Abramoff was quoted as saying in the group's 1983 annual report, "Our job is to remove them from power permanently."

Abramoff chaired the CNRC from 1981 to 1985. During his tenure, he "changed the direction of the committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before," notes the CNRC. [2] In 1982 he also became the executive director of the political action committee of the Conservative Caucus—a position he still held as of early 1990. He also served as chairman of the United Students of America, a rightist student group based at the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

Abramoff began to plot with Scanlon to separate more Indian tribes from their money. The plan was to close Indian casinos and then convince the tribes to hire them to persuade Congress to reopen the shuttered casinos. Again, Abramoff turned to an old friend: this time, it was Ralph Reed, who was by now a political consultant. Though Abramoff, Indian tribes who feared the competition of other casinos paid Reed over $4 million to shutter or prevent the opening of casinos in Texas, Alabama and Louisiana. Typical of the e-mail exchanges between the men, in a Jan. 7, 2001 e-mail to Reed, Abramoff stated, "It's not shuttered yet. let's [sic] get this thing closed and then we'll see what we can do. As we type they are gambling away." Reed responded, "Done. Hope these developments help with the client." Later on in the e-mail exchange, Abramoff told Reed: "we should continue to pile on until the place is shuttered. Perhaps we could get one of our guys in the legislature to introduce a bill which disqualifies from state contracts any vendor who provides goods or services to a casino in the state? This way, Perry [Lt. Governor of Texas] and Cornyn [then Texas Attorney General] can sit back and not be scared."

Some readers might be startled to learn that Ralph Reed Jr., architect of the triumphant Christian Coalition (sic), was engaged in extorting money from American Indians (the great majority of whom are Christians). I was mildly disappointed that Reed not only has escaped legal action, he has also remained an icon of moral rectitude. Disappointed, but not surprised.

Of course, Abramoff's violence against the property rights of American Indians was only the most invasive version of his campaign against the property rights of non-rich Americans. Again, the notion of sacred private property rights did not interfere with Abramoff's participation in United Seniors Association (USA), a 501(c)(4) organization whose object was to take advantage of seniors' anxiety about social change to raise money for corporate money-grabs (i.e., confusing "conservative" business legislation with conservative social activism). Such legislation, of course, is targetted at gutting public agencies that serve the elderly. The only seniors served by "USA" are, of course, a tiny minority with immense investment income.

We now return to the early years of Abramoff's career, when his main preoccupation was with the Cold War:

Salon (linked below): It was 1987, he was in his late 20s, and the presidency of his political hero, Ronald Reagan, was winding to a tarnished close. The Iran-Contra hearings covered the front pages, and Oliver North, whom Abramoff knew and admired, was about to be indicted. The Republicans were disillusioned, and after years of service to the party -- as chairman of the College Republicans from 1981 to '85, he'd mentored Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, had worked for one right-wing think tank, and founded another -- Abramoff apparently was no longer sure he wanted to go into politics full time. So he took a detour, doing what any other kid from Beverly Hills might when finding himself at a loss: He decided to try his hand at show business... Through his father, a high-up executive at the Diners Club, he'd rubbed shoulders with some of L.A.'s elite. Abramoff moved back to Los Angeles from Washington after finishing Georgetown Law School, and he and his brother, Robert, formed a production company, Regency Entertainment. They set to work on an action picture, a story about a rogue Soviet Spetsnaz soldier who is sent to quell a rebellion in a fictional African country -- one that very closely resembled Angola -- only to find that he sympathizes with the rebels. "Red Scorpion," starring Dolph Lundgren, would be released in April 1989. The Abramoff brothers raised $16 million for it -- the sources of the funding remain unknown -- an impressive sum for a B-picture with an unproven star.

Interestingly, despite the astonishing amount of money and logistical support offered by the RSA government, the mysterious $16 million from other sources, and the rock-bottom production values, the project was plagued by money problems. Abramoff, having lined up participants in the project, switched shooting from Swaziland to RSA-occupied Namibia; SADF soldiers were lent by the RSA defense ministry to play Soviets and Cubans in Angola, and SADF vehicles were loaned for use as "Soviet" vehicles:

Ibid.: Congress had passed (over Reagan's veto) the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, making it very frowned-upon, when not illegal, to do business with South Africa or its proxies. This did not seem to bother Abramoff, who planned to use South African Defense Force vehicles and equipment on the set and soldiers as extras. By 1988, when shooting started on the film, Abramoff likely had connections in the South African government. For a decade, after all, South Africa had been Savimbi's main backer, and according to Crocker and others, Abramoff would not have been able to put together the Democratic International without extensive help from the SADF. But Abramoff's plan backfired: it was not long before anti-apartheid activists were protesting at the "Red Scorpion" set, and Warner Brothers, who had signed on to distribute the film, pulled out.

Ibid.: Pandin recalled that Abramoff enlisted Russell Crystal, the head of the IFF's Johannesburg office and an advisor to F.W. DeKlerk, to be an informal producer on "Red Scorpion" (whether this meant Crystal helped fund the film, Pandin did not remember). But Pandin says Abramoff refused to compensate Crystal afterward. "It wasn't a good experience," Pandin said of the film. "A lot of people didn't get paid. Russell wasn't entirely enamored of Jack after that." "Jack was always looking for angles and ways to do interesting things until people slowed him down," he said, obliquely, when asked whether Abramoff, who resigned from a day-to-day position at the IFF in 1987 but remained a chairperson and closely oversaw operations, knew of the connection to the SADF.

RED SCORPION AS A FILIBUSTER

Ironically for such a militant crusader for capitalism, Abramoff's commercial career was a disaster, and it seems reasonable to describe his activities since then as "ideologically immune grifting." As a white collar criminal, Abramoff (and Reed) have enjoyed protection as folk heroes of the right. The International Freedom Foundation (IFF) and Citizens for America, like North's criminal conduct in Iran-Contra, were essentially a "fast one" pulled on beleaguered liberals, and for frustrated John Birchers, it was more satisfying than a multiple orgasm to see them grind due process and international law into the dirt.

As a military adventure, of course, Red Scorpion is pure bathos. Movies are frequently organized as revenge pornography, in which the hero is morally licensed to massacre the villain. In this movie, the commies are utterly, gratuitously cruel, gassing bush bush villages for no reason at all. At the end of the movie there is a massive orgy of gore, which I thankfully did not wait around to watch.

In On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman writes at great length on the difficulty of motivating men to kill other humans. It turns out this is an difficult thing for military commanders to do, and it's been the focus of research since statisticians discovered 85% of soldiers serving in combat during WW2 had never once discharged their gun at an enemy soldier. Almost all of the killing in that war was carried out by a tiny minority of soldiers. Grossman explains that it was necessary to teach soldiers to believe killing was righteous. Withholding death was, upon proper indoctrination, now immoral. Grossman, trained in psychology at West Point Academy, and was concerned about the popularization of indoctrination techniques as "entertainment." Readers, I hope, will understand that Abramoff was trying to indoctrinate the public in hateful, eliminationist lies about peoples in black-listed foreign countries. In movies like this, audiences were coaxed into rejoicing at the general slaughter of Cubans and Russians.

Abramoff did not hire mercenaries to gun down the government of a tiny African country; he didn't invade Nicaragua himself with seven dozen ragtag freebooters and proclaim it a slave state. His partner, an internationally-condemned and sanctioned regime, lent him men and equippage for his campaign. He, in turn, used his skills as a man of many devious talents to manipulate the SADF supporting the endeavor. Bound by US laws to do nothing of the kind, he engaged in the most egregious paid propagandizing for an odious regime. Back in the USA, he was able to pass himself off as a hero. His propaganda, directed at US nationals, was intended to sanction murder and terror all ready going on. This was wartime justification for a war in progress. This war made Angola a charnel house, killing over 3% of the national population. During the Angolan "Civil War," the USA imported more oil from Angola as it did from Kuwait (EIA; Ang vs Q8), during a period of sky-high oil prices; however, towards the end of the conflict Angola's UNDP human development score was near the bottom of the global listing (PDF). This peculiar fact was due chiefly to the stupendous destruction inflicted by UNITA, the RSA/USA proxy that occupied 70% of Angola through much of the period.

(Part 15)