Ad's Libs

Occupy Charlotte

2011-10-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took public transportation - a novelty for most white Americans - downtown to protest Wall Street's crimes and abuses. Some 600 people gathered for a rally and march on Bank of America. We of Occupy Charlotte did what protesters do: carried signs, chanted slogans, and got to know each other. A diverse group of the 99 percent protesting the concentrated wealth and power of the 1 percent.

A friend asked if it reminded me of the anti-war and pro-civil rights demonstrations of the 60s. While it brought back some memories, these young people represent the future, not the past. They are the new Populists, focused, dedicated and angry. They sense that what they are doing will shape the country in the months and years ahead.

It was bound to happen. For more than 30 years, the wealth in this country has been flowing up. Now 1 percent of the population controls more than 90 percent of that wealth. The rest of us are forced to make do with the leftovers. Economists used to call it trickle down. Now even the trickle has dried up. Jobs eliminated or out-sourced, libraries closed, children's health programs abolished, cuts in higher education, and the list goes on. Austerity for the 99 percent; obscene profits, bonuses and salaries for the 1 percent. One would have to be brain dead not to see the crime in that.

Class warfare? Let's hope so. The boot of Wall Street is on the neck of the American people. Instead of doing its job and removing the boot, Washington simply polishes it, and asks if there is anything else it can do to make the plutocrats happy. It used to be said that we have the best Congress money can buy. Today we have one of the worst, still bought and paid for of course, but highly contemptuous of democracy and the people. None of the signs at Occupy Charlotte, or anywhere else that I saw, said Write Your Congressman. That game is over. We are moving to the higher level of direct democracy.

There were many original protests signs at the rally. My personal favorite was The System is Not Broken: It Was Made That Way. We cannot and should not return to the bad old days of rampant consumption and maxed-out personal debt. A more rational domestic economy could emerge from the current recession/depression. But not unless and until Wall Street is put on a very tight leash and brought to heel. Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Charlotte, and all the others are leading the way.

The Game is Up

2011-10-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

There is nothing funny about the situation the country is in, but it is instructive to describe the sorry state of American politics using cartoon characters. We have reached that point. We know that government is dysfunctional, the atmosphere in Washington is toxic, and the political process is surreal. Too much of what passes for political analysis is bland, irrelevant or corporate speak. So, let’s turn to our little friends in the “funny papers” for insights into the bizarre behavior of our so-called leaders and the equally bizarre responses (or lack of same) to that behavior. With the 2012 election gearing up, many will be looking to liberal Democrats and Obama for answers. But liberal Democrats are the Charlie Browns of the political world, and Lucy is the President they rally around. Charlie Brown dutifully lines up and runs to kick a football that is quickly yanked away. Next time will be different, Lucy says, with a straight face. Obama, like Lucy, is good at convincing liberals that he is sincere, and will help them kick a field goal. Of course, he too pulls the ball away at the last moment, leaving them flat out on the ground with mud --- and egg---on their faces. Liberal Democrats, like Charlie, never learn, and actually seem to enjoy being humiliated again and again. We could say they wallow in a mess of their own making. But if not the Democrats, who? The Republican Party is on a slow, but steady path towards becoming the political wing of a police state. The Democrats, feckless and complicit in the rise of our corporate state, respond by moving to the right, ignoring the worsening plight of ordinary Americans. Neither Party is viable, and neither Party deserves the support of voters. Americans want change. Democracy is not dead in this country; it is suppressed and ignored. The best way to restore it is to create a new progressive – proudly left of center – political party and galvanize behind it. We might call it Occupy America.

Fightbacks at Home and Abroad

2011-08-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

Unless you’ve been on vacation up the Amazon, you know that young people in England have been rioting in the streets. In response to the police shooting of a young father, they smashed windows, burned buildings and looted stores. Their actions were both mindless and lawless. Not surprisingly, rightwing politicians and pundits there – and in the US – castigated the rioters in the harshest terms. These ungrateful offspring of the motherland were called thugs and scum, worse than feral animals. Their parents also came in for tongue lashings for having failed Parenthood 101.

Language can be revealing. The British governing class was clearly shaken by the large number of rioters and by the ferocity of their attacks on property. Prime Minister David Cameron called for a national “fightback” to quell further riots and punish offenders. He expressed cool contempt for all who linked the riots to his government’s draconian cuts in public services, and described the outbursts as “criminality, pure and simple.” Massive arrests and harsh sentences followed, and the jails are now overflowing. It was a clear and unmistakable signal not only to rioters but to the British public that, if necessary, government austerity would be backed by government force.

On this side of the Atlantic, former Reagan speechwriter and establishment guru Peggy Noonan quickly joined the fray. She too rejected any societal or governmental link and reiterated the standard conservative critique of the rioters. “The cause,” she wrote, “was not injustice.” Rather, it was “…greed, selfishness, a respect and even lust for violence, and a lack of moral grounding.” She added the ominous warning that “what we’re seeing on the streets of Britain right now is something we may be starting to see here.” Not a happy message for American millionaires who, according to polls, overwhelmingly fear “violence in the streets.” Presumably that would include the more than 60 percent of Congress who are millionaires or multi- millionaires.

When Noonan speaks the governing class tends to listen. She now writes for Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal where she briefs the financial elite on what to think about the state of the nation. She tells them how great they are, and goes to great length to re-enforce their so-called conservative values. We all know what those are: no corporate taxes, no social net, no government regulation, permanent war, and austerity for the masses. She peddles a free-market fundamentalism disguised and mislabeled as “conservative,” and she does it better than the talking ditto heads on television and in Congress. In this hallowed circle, corporations are not only people, they are the people. The rest of us are the little people, the ones who pay taxes. (Somebody has to do it.)

Noonan fired a warning shot across the bow of the ship of state. Perhaps she instilled a bit more fear in the hearts of our corporate masters. That would be fair. America’s little people live with fear everyday: fear of losing a job, or a house, or the opportunity to send their children to a decent school. Their fears are aggravated by an overall sense that things will only get worse. And how can things not get worse with cuts looming in education, health, libraries, pensions, and a host of other areas. Like our British cousins, we face a severe austerity that punishes the most vulnerable, squeezes the life out of the middle class, and rewards the mega rich by allowing them to accumulate even more wealth while evading the sacrifices imposed on everyone else.

So, it should surprise none of us when a grandmother and her grandchild are found living in a makeshift tent on the outskirts of York, SC. Waiting in line for hours, thousands of people in need of dental care overwhelmed a free clinic in Atlanta. Stories such as these are endless. Joblessness, child poverty, and homelessness are increasing while economists debate whether the nation is now in a double-dip recession. Tea baggers in Congress and in state legislatures – shock troops for the coddled mega rich – continue their slash and burn approach to governance. They either don’t know or don’t care that their fetish with the federal deficit translates into human suffering and anger and even death.

Peggy Noonan wrote some of Ronald Reagan’s most memorable speeches praising unfettered capitalism and denouncing activist government. (Biting the hand that once fed her, she described the mind of her old boss as “barren land.”) In her recent heads up to the mega rich, she characteristically was clear, simple and to the point. But in an important sense, her critique is as descriptive of the ruling classes as it is of youthful rioters. Scale matters. Who harms society more and is the bigger criminal, the kid who steals a pair of jeans or the hedge fund manager who steals millions?

It is the top echelon corporate and financial mega rich who have exhibited the real selfishness and greed. They, along with their lawyers and lobbyists, excel at white collar crime, looting the country by avoiding taxes and squeezing wealth out of the middle class. They also have a lust for violence that they translate into hard cash. Check out the video games, the TV shows, the latest movies, or the civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Most of the corporate and financial parasites who feed off the rest of us have no morals, only a false sense of entitlement. The few who purport to have morals hide them, conveniently stored away as if in a Swiss vault. The god they worship is the market, and it does not reward morality, only greed and accumulation.

We should import the British “fightback” that David Cameron called for and give it an American twist. Put Wall Street on notice that it must change the way it does business or risk the full wrath of Main Street. Then sort out the top 25 worst offenders among those who broke the law and caused the financial debacle of 2008. Prosecute them, and after conviction jail them. Put them in regular prisons, not federal Club Meds. But keep them away from any youthful looters who might also be doing time. No need to fully corrupt a future generation.

An American Manifesto

2011-05-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

American democracy is withering on the vine. Not because of any basic flaw, but because democracy is incompatible with the malignant capitalism that that has come to shape our society and control our political system. As citizens, we have a choice: we can do nothing and watch our democratic traditions die out, or we can act together to regain control of our country. We have a long and honorable revolutionary tradition, so we do not have to be victims. This manifesto is a call to action from one ordinary American to all others who love liberty. It is a call to unite and determine our future by taking it out of the hands of those who value only money and power. It is a call to rescue our democracy.

Today our country exhibits clear signs of a nation in peril, bogged down in needless, costly wars abroad and beset by economic stagnation at home. Terrorist attacks of 9/11 triggered an expanded military Empire and an intrusive national security state. Financial institutions driving a casino capitalism crashed and burned in 2008. The worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression followed. Collectively, these events have distorted our political economy and wounded our democracy. Voters are angry, confused and divided not only over policies but over the very role of government. An imperial presidency, a dysfunctional Congress and a corporate-oriented Supreme Court have aggravated existing problems and created a cynical and distrustful public.

Plutocrats, taking advantage of a society in crisis, have tightened their hold on the economy and reshaped governance. The political economy, rooted in advanced capitalism, is now geared to serve the minority of Americans who control most of the wealth. Although our Republic retains the trappings of democracy, it has morphed into a Corporate State where ultimate authority is in the hands of a ruling class. Its operatives – in and out of government – determine domestic and foreign policy. They prop up an economic and military Empire that spans the globe, but is reeling from recession, debt and seemingly permanent military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The wisest among the prior generation of leaders saw it coming. President Eisenhower, Senator William Fulbright and historian William Appleman Williams warned of military-industrial complexes, imperial presidents and debilitating empires. C. Wright Mills dissected an emerging power elite that was beginning to dominate the political economy at home and project its influence abroad. No one, in or out of government, did anything to stop what was at heart an anti-democratic movement. For more than half a century, power brokers were left free to enhance their influence and maximize their wealth and that of their class. FDR’s New Deal had regulated corporate excesses and limited size with anti-trust laws. But those gains proved to be only a temporary victory for sanity. Ronald Reagan’s counter-revolution deregulated corporate behavior, gutted social services and sent a full speed ahead to the free-market fundamentalists and to the Pentagon.

Over the next generation, a marriage of corporate and military power resulted in the Corporate State that exists today. That Corporate State – with the full backing of the federal government – continues to subvert democracy. Politically we live under what Ralph Nader calls “a two-party dictatorship” that is studiedly blind to the public interest. John Acheson points out that, “Since Reagan, the Defense budget has been sacrosanct, wealth has trickled up, the economy has been volatile and uncertain, and the nation and the states are bankrupt because taxes have become a dirty word, even if applied to the rich (who have received the most cuts and the most benefits under tax cuts). The full destructiveness of Reaganism becomes more obvious by the day, and yet none dare mention that naked truth.” (John Atcheson, CommonDreams, March 26, 2010) Mention it or not, it is no longer possible to ignore that Reagan’s progeny have continued and intensified the class war against ordinary Americans.

Post Reagan, the military-industrial-congressional axis took on a role that was unprecedented in size and scope. Republican and Democratic administrations alike backed huge military outlays to defense contractors such as Ratheon, General Electric, and Lockheed-Martin. Spending mushroomed after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, when the US no longer had a countervailing military or economic rival. At that point, the US was free to expand commercially, particularly in Eastern Europe and Asia, in search of resources and markets. Economic globalization, backed by an unequalled military behemoth, determined the direction of the nation for the foreseeable future. The national priority, as defined by the power elite, was to make the world safe not for democracy but for international corporatism.

The War on Democracy
We know that plutocrats protect their interests like female bears protect their cubs. In the presidential election of 2000, power brokers could not risk a presidential candidate who had nothing but votes to recommend him. With help from corporate lawyers and the Supreme Court, George Bush and Dick Cheney managed to hi-jack the presidential election. The Bushites immediately set about enhancing the imperial presidency, promoting corporate interests, and closing the road to a more democratic nation. In the wake of the attacks of September 11, Bush and Congress consolidated a security state, pushed global economic supremacy and expanded the country’s worldwide military presence.

Relying on a handful of neo-conservative advisors, Bush invaded Iraq, initiating a disastrous war under the pretext of fighting terrorism. The basic civil liberties of Americans soon came under siege from political operatives who had no more regard for the American people than they did for Muslim extremists. Spending skyrocketed and revenues plummeted following huge tax cuts for the wealthy. Rhetorically, the president absurdly bounced from “mission accomplished” in Iraq to “freedom and democracy” in Afghanistan. But he delivered the goods for Wall Street and the Pentagon.

George Bush, like Ronald Reagan before him, declared that he would run government like a business. The irony is sweet: Bush was claiming to bring business efficiency to government while turning it into a wasteful, corrupt shell attached to a bloated Pentagon. He mouthed the operative mantra to justify eliminating government programs and services for the needy, ignoring corporate abuses and consolidating presidential power.

Obama simply replaced Bush as the front man for financial elites seeking to consolidate their hold on the national economy. Their unstated agenda was and remains to keep government a junior partner of business, thus effectively eliminating it as a possible brake on turbo capitalism and globalization. Neither the Great Recession nor record debt changed the fundamentals. Military spending is accelerating and government aid to large financial institutions is at record highs. The growing gap between rich and poor continues as corporate profits soar.

Entrenched Power and Corporate Rule
Free of constraints and accountable to no one, the power elite and its defenders have given us protracted recessions and permanent war, leaving the people dazed and fearful. Privilege and self-interest shape the judgments of overpaid bank CEOs, hedge fund managers, strategic military planners from the Pentagon and entrenched members of Congress. They have reached the point where they equate the size of their personal bank accounts with the general welfare of the public. More important, they share a growing contempt for democracy and a fundamental fear of the power of the American people.
The ruling class that determines economic policies and shapes military decisions maintains a decisive influence over the two major political parties. They and their cheerleaders pushed the nation down the road to empire, never bothering to look back to see if ordinary Americans were following. But the unintended consequences from protracted wars and jobless recessions have complicated their tasks of controlling policy and wielding power. More than two decades after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the single remaining superpower is beset by economic decline, military overreach, political corruption, concentrated wealth, and an internal assault on its democratic values.

America’s standing in the eyes of much of the world – despite the slick personal appeal of President Obama – remains near the all-time low it sank to under George W. Bush. The government forges on in its ill-conceived and ill-branded war on terrorism, flailing at real and perceived enemies around the globe. Meanwhile, the American people, unable or unwilling to sort truth from lies, goes about its business, struggling to rebuild a sick economy while trying to ignore the ongoing crimes committed in their name.

President Obama has demonstrated neither the ability nor inclination to temper the madness. His so-called politics of hope quickly faded as the demands of Wall Street and the Pentagon took center stage. Speaking of Obama’s second State of the Union speech, Gary Younge wrote, “During his first year in power, poverty rates climbed by more than any year since records began, yet no mention of the poor. House repossessions keep climbing, but no mention of foreclosures. He clung tightly to the American dream of children doing better than their parents even as social mobility ossifies. He praised wars that have been lost and the nation no longer supports. He claimed the nation had "broken the back of the recession" but in truth the recession is still crippling the country.” (Gary Younge, The Guardian, January 26, 2011)

Younge could have added that Obama made no mention of global warming or of a critical issue facing the country: the growing gap between the super wealthy and everyone else. Obama, like Clinton and Bush and Reagan before him, aligns himself with corporate interests at the expense of the common good. Today he is chief enabler for the Corporate State and its military arm, the Pentagon.

Our nation arrived at this sorry state not as a consequence of a sudden coup, but rather from an accumulation and concentration of wealth and power over the last third of the 20th century. Movement away from an increasingly democratic state toward an authoritarian one accelerated as corporate interests sought and acquired expanded influence over government. Political handmaidens in Congress reduced corporate taxes and downsized or eliminated social services programs. Further, they adopted a more aggressive foreign policy, one that began to rely more on the threat or actual use of military force than on diplomacy. The shift reflected the classic behavioral patterns of empires and set the stage for a growing resistance abroad. The blowback today ranges from fiery political rhetoric to terrorist attacks to armed insurgencies.

The Federal Government as Junior Partner
The political consequences of the corporate takeover have been profound. The federal government is now the acquiescent junior partner to big business and despite the lip service has opted out of regulation and oversight of the corporate sector. Now its primary purpose is to facilitate global economic growth and the accumulation of profits, not to spread, or even maintain, democracy. Massive taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions considered “too big to fail” are an important aspect of this mission. Billions of dollars have gone into the pockets of those responsible for the financial meltdown. Job creation and aid to small businesses are scarcely considered. But the clearest evidence of corporate power is Obama’s unwillingness to rein in Wall Street and to outlaw predatory financial transactions. By refusing to insist on this, he and the Democratic Party showed their true colors as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporate State.

History shows us that a gradual concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few leads to a shift from democracy to authoritarianism. Our society is now blighted by the criminal excesses of people whose commitment to a democratic America is trumped by their obsessive pursuit of profit and market share. Neither bank failures nor the ensuing recession changed this. Rather the elite further consolidated their power from infusions of billions of public money into their coffers. Large financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America wield more power and influence than before the failures of September 2008. New York Times columnist David Brooks almost got it right: “Over the past few years, people from Goldman Sachs have assumed control over large parts of the federal government. Over the next few they might just take over the whole darn thing.” (David Brooks, NYT, June 30, 2008)

The Goldman Sachs crowd, along with their like-minded Wall Street friends in and out of government, took over the whole darn thing more than a decade ago. GE wallows in government contracts but paid $0 in taxes in 2010. Still hungry, GE lawyers asked for a $3.2 billion rebate to top off profits of $14.5 billion. The company CEO is an administration insider who heads the White House’s prestigious Economic Advisory Council. The corporate plutocrats know how to play the game and game the system. The Obama administration is exposed as weak, unwilling to challenge Wall Street with the prospect of even minimal reform. Today, nearing the end of Obama’s (first) administration, Wall Street rules the roost and generously rewards its friends in power. The payoff for Obama is that he is expected to raise more than $1 billion in campaign funds for the election of 2012.

David Swanson, writing in The Nation magazine, laid out the similarities in the policies of Bush and Obama concluding that the Obama administration is best viewed as Bush’s third term in office. The war machine rolls on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and, most recently, Libya. The number of troops deployed exceeds 200,000. Iran remains on a short list of potential targets. Despite an official ban, torture remains an option – now an indirect practice – and domestic spying an on-going policy. Corporate welfare has become an even bigger budget item with trillions of dollars channeled to financial institutions. Reductions in social service programs and higher costs for education, food, fuel, and health care continue unabated.

So far, the country has avoided an all-out economic depression, but the root problems that caused the Great Recession are more serious than ever. Millions of Americans continue to lose their homes to foreclosures. Unemployment is in double digits, poverty is increasing and incomes declining – except, of course, on Wall Street. In 2009, one fourth of the nation’s wealth was concentrated in the hands of the richest one percent. The richest 5 percent held nearly two-thirds of the nation’s wealth. All the income growth during the first decade of this century has gone to the richest 10 percent. (Economic Policy Institute) Public service unions, including teachers and firefighters, are under attack, and hundreds of thousands have suffered wage cuts or job loss since the onset of the recession
America’s extreme capitalism is experiencing its worse crisis since the Great Depression. For ordinary working people it’s a failed, or failing, system. Only a minority of Americans understands that radical political change is essential to meet this challenge. The system deflects criticism and turns public opinion against those who question a mindless allegiance to the free market, to a foreign policy based on militarism, or to a domestic policy shaped by special interests. But a close look shows that the social fabric is beyond fraying; it is beginning to tear apart.

One of the main causes is the ill-conceived, poorly executed, and horrendously costly war on Muslim extremists. This remains a war of choice, not necessity, and it is being fought less to defend the homeland against Al Quaeda then to prop up American military and commercial interests in the Middle East and Central Asia. The military-industrial-congressional complex sustains this enterprise, while the citizenry watch anxiously and wonder about the trillions of dollars in direct costs and the corresponding neglect to critical needs at home. The Pentagon response is to send in more troops and crank up the effort to win (again) the hearts and minds of the Afghans. But the failed efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan become clearer with each day of occupation. The parallels are so striking that the Pentagon should call the whole war on “terror” Formula Vietnam.

The Corporate State as Rogue Nation
Under Bush, our country became, in the eyes of much of the world, a rogue nation. Obama, despite the smooth talk and slick image, has done little to change that image. It’s deeply rooted in the reality of policies geared to a global Empire. An American Political Science Association survey found that a majority of foreigners believes the US disregards the interests of their countries and that US influence abroad is mostly bad. Military occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and support for autocratic rulers in the Middle East and elsewhere have done much to undercut American influence. Failure to support revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco has not helped. But torture, rendition, targeted assassination and collateral damage have taken the worst toll. Foreign policy experts complain that we have lost what they refer to as “moral authority.” Perhaps the estimated one million Iraqis who have died as a consequence of the US invasion took it with them.

The events engulfing Americans abroad are directly related to the demands of Empire. The power elite maintain a military behemoth as a protective umbrella under which globalization can flourish. Handmaidens of the Corporate State oversee all this including billions in military aid to allies and the manufacture and sale of massive numbers of armaments to anyone who can pay cash. Foreign policy operatives give lip service to exporting democracy, but they readily cut commercial and political deals with corrupt officials and dictatorial leaders. Salvation lies in maximizing profits, not in furthering democracy, and it’s all business all the time.

The literate public understands that empire and democracy are ultimately incompatible. Few among us would sacrifice our democratic heritage for control of oil in the Middle East, but no referendum will be held on this issue or related ones. The power elite deny the reality of Empire, much the way creationists deny the reality of evolution. They know that voters, given a clear choice – not one based on fictitious demands of national security – would vote thumbs down by a substantial margin. It is not what we or our forebears signed on for. Empires, besides being antithetical to democracy, are financially oppressive. The bills are now coming due with more in the pipeline, and like it or not, we the American people are obligated to pay them. But neither our hearts nor our minds are engaged in the economic or military domination of the world. So, the cost must be cloaked in the euphemistic nomenclature of spreading democracy and protecting the country’s vital interests. Empires exist only in history books. It is, of course, an Orwellian approach employed to fog the issue and minimize dissent.

The Dimming City on a Hill
The lights are flickering in our shining city on a hill and in its multiple outposts. We are overwhelmed by intractable problems at home and abroad, and we are losing faith in our institutions and leaders. We are increasingly unwilling to accept the party line regardless of party. It is difficult not to see that the federal government has been co-opted by corporate interests because an imperial President and dysfunctional Congress reflect it. Whether we will betray our democratic heritage and accept this state of affairs as the “new normal” remains an open question. Those of us on the political left must do everything possible to ensure that it does not happen.

We must ask ourselves why, despite our much-vaunted past successes, we have failed to meet our own expectations -- and those of the rest of the world -- in our stop-and-go pursuit of a more democratic society? The larger question raises related ones. When and why did we first begin to stall in our quest for a more perfect union? Why have previous reform efforts withered like a cut vine in the sunshine? Did the Cold War sap our energies and absorb resources that could have fueled reform? What role has the military-industrial-congressional complex played in preserving the status quo? How did we come to accept the perverse idea that an activist government working in the people’s interest is more the problem than the solution?

President and former General Electric spokesman Ronald Reagan’s (in)famous assertion became the gospel for his conservative backers and the basis for his governance. The more extreme among them adopted the idea of effecting drastic tax cuts for the twin purposes of securing votes and “starving the beast.” The (bad) actor turned (worse) president transformed the federal government into a junior partner with big business. A half century after Reagan misgoverned California, the state is fiscally bankrupt and trying to peddle IOUs. Washington too is reeling from the legacy of the Reagan counter-revolution. The US remains in the throes of the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression; Americans carry a national debt of more than $13 trillion dollars and the federal government runs an annual deficit of about $1trillion. The national mood has turned nasty with intensely partisan politics and a worrisome rise in right-wing extremist groups. Corporate mogul Warren Buffett noted that class warfare is underway and that his side is winning. He might have added that “his side” initiated it and is waging it directly against the middle and lower classes.

Optimism about the nation’s future is a scarce commodity in the Corporate State. Even business round tables and corporate board rooms are hedge-funding their bets. The corporate-controlled political economy dominates, holding us captive, and limiting our ability to envision a better future. Polls show that voters rank Congress below TV evangelists and used car salesmen. And why not? Congress no longer serves the interests of ordinary working Americans. Its members act like wealthy shareholders in the Corporate State, Inc. To paraphrase Reagan, they are a big part of the problem.

Most Americans remain largely passive if not indifferent to the threats to democracy. They are lulled by a superficial news media, drugs for every imagined ailment, government propaganda, twenty-four-seven entertainment, habitual shopping and corporate-run politics. But our history reveals that we have not always been a passive people. We have met those challenges that we looked straight in the eye and took seriously. But, as De Tocqueville and others have observed, we are not an introspective people, often lacking the ability to recognize and understand our most fundamental flaws. Many Americans today are in a classic state of denial, content to muddle along, uttering the hackneyed clichés about democracy being a messy business.

Corrupt politics and a decadent popular culture feed off each other, breeding cynicism, apathy and denial. But Americans can be pushed too far (witness the response to the Republican attack on public service unions in Wisconsin), but we are also easily diverted and mollified by the monied interests. Despite the growing threat to democracy and the betrayal of the nation’s fundamental values, no rush to the barricades seems imminent. We must find a way to break out of that mindset if we are to move forward. Our circumstances cry out for a political and social reformation, not hand-wringing. We say we love liberty, but it is far from certain that we have the will and the courage to confront the Corporate State head-on. We may have reached the point where ordinary Americans accept a state of drift and no mastery. If true, the drift will continue toward a more authoritarian, despotic state, one that will exert mastery over all in its domain.

The corporate-owned mainstream news media, including its most liberal components, are complicit with the demise of our democracy. Celebrity trysts or high profile rape cases get more coverage on TV “news” than the white collar bribery of corporate lobbyists who now set the nation’s political agenda. National Public Radio, kowtowing to its right-wing overseers, produces stories about music for its center-left listeners. Can you hear train whistles in the music of Thelonious Monk? Most Americans are ill-informed by definition because we still turn to television for our information. Hard news is out, infotainment is in, and it’s all much ado about nothing much at all. Even PBS’s The News Hour with Jim Lehrer is distilled down to produce mind-numbing reports on some of the day’s most engaging events. The program is about as provocative and thought-provoking as a glass of warm milk.

In 1961, Newton Minnow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) described television as a “vast wasteland.” Since then the wasteland has become a garbage dump. Most of the stuff that passes for comedy is crassly inane. There are still a few serious journalists who research, investigate and report the news, but their work usually receives minimal attention when aired or published. The notion of public service has become an anachronism to those who control the media. The corporate news media, obsessed by the bottom line, use ratings to determine the amount of coverage given to a particular event. And if it isn’t covered, it does not exist. Oprah, Dr. Phil and Rush Limbaugh rule. Infotainment – a round-the-clock Roman circus – trumps all.

An Unhealthy State of Mind
Out of arrogance, ignorance and self-interest, the ruling political and business circles equate democracy and capitalism. The health of the stock market is their primary indicator of the health of the body politic. They count on the American people to confuse standard of living with quality of life. The financial meltdown of 2008 revealed that the corporate high rollers care little about the general welfare. They operate in the danger zone for maximum profit; when one or more get wiped out, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of mid-managers and workers go down with them. But there are no golden parachutes for workers. Mike Whitney has pointed out the pattern: “the recoveries get weaker and weaker, unemployment stays higher longer, and the crashes get more catastrophic. All these point to a sclerotic and unstable system… gradually succumbing to stagnation. The persistent slowdown is deepening inequality, inciting class antagonisms, and fomenting social unrest.” (Mike Whitney, counterpunch, March 16, 2011)

Lehman Brothers’ tumble over the abyss in September 2008 nearly brought down the entire system. The Treasury Department intervened on behalf of Wall Street with corporate welfare of a new magnitude ostensibly to stave off a total collapse. Financial wizards broke laws, committed fraud, covered up their crimes and lied to anyone who questioned their activities including government officials. The rot was exposed. As for the culprits, not a single Wall Street or corporate executive has been held accountable for these crimes. No one has gone to jail, and odds are that no one will face criminal charges in court. The top dogs at these institutions are among the Corporate State’s criminally exempt. They don’t play by the rules, but it hardly matters since the few remaining rules don’t apply to them anyway. Instead, ordinary Americans are punished with austerity programs that cut pensions, salaries, and a wide range of social programs.

Bernard Madoff, a lone wolf who literally stole billions from trusting clients, did get a jail sentence. But he never would have come close to prison if he had been institutionally aligned with Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, or any other giant financial corporation. Madoff has stated that only the naïve believe that the banks did not know about his Ponzi scheme. If one or two missed the signals, it was probably because they were busy building their own, more sanitized, version. Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi asked the salient question: “Why Isn’t Wall Street In Jail?” Those flagrant and dumb enough to get nailed paid their fines with what amounted to petty cash. Tabbi wrote that they needed the same punishment that Madoff got: hard time; decades of it and in a proper prison. Or, as one congressional aide told Taibbi, "You put (Goldman Sachs boss) Lloyd Blankfein in … prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street. That's all it would take. Just once." (The New Yorker, March 7, 2011)

Even the least thoughtful among us must occasionally wonder how our nation reached this sorry state of affairs. We look for statesmen but find only political careerists in hock to their corporate bosses. It’s hard to tell the difference between a paid lobbyist for the financial sector and a senator who receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from that same source. The nation is plagued by an abdication of responsible democratic leadership in politics and government. This feeds a haunting fear, telling us that despite new faces, piecemeal domestic reforms, or a drawdown of troops in Iraq, nothing fundamental will change.

A Retreating Middle Class
Even as corporate power usurps democracy, middle-class Americans continue to support a government that disregards their interests. The widening role of the military, for example, requires taxpayers to pay for redundant bases and costly, often useless, weapons. The Pentagon threw away more than $50 billion in a doomed effort to find a counter measure for homemade roadside bombs. Many people, feeling powerless to stop such madness, withdraw, turn off and lose touch with the realities of day-to-day politics. Prior to the economic meltdown, millions shopped for entertainment even when they had to pay with overused credit cards. Others, less fortunate, were forced to use credit cards for groceries, medicine and other necessities.

New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, the nation’s head cheerleader for globalization, claimed that Americans had become “troublingly self-indulgent and slothful.” If he was referring to the middle and lower classes, he was wrong on both counts. But it is a fairly accurate description of the power elite who indulge themselves by grabbing and hoarding most of the country’s wealth. The question is why are they not held accountable. A pathetically large number of our fellow citizens are willfully ignorant or deluded about our changed political and economic circumstance. The little information they get comes from television programs dealing in prejudice, fear and conspiracy. They cannot or will not distinguish between opinion and facts, and cling to fixed ideas with the certainty of true believers.

Others sense that something is wrong in paradise even if they can’t put their finger on the problem. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe the country has lost influence and is heading down the wrong path. In the wake of the financial meltdown, four out of five Americans believe America is in decline. US consumer confidence is only about 50 percent in the face of soaring gas prices, falling real incomes and millions of home foreclosures. A small minority understand that our country is being dragged down by an exorbitantly expensive Empire, record debt and a flawed financial system. It reeks of Rome, and thinking Americans know that unless there is a radical change of direction consequences will be unintended and dire. The question is whether we are up to the task of bringing about such change.

Despite the long-running celebration of individualism, America is at heart a conformist society. Few individuals, in or out of government, are willing to stand up against the powerful interests that control the mainstream news media and work to shape public opinion. The risk to their jobs and careers makes the price too high. Immune from public scrutiny and accountability, organizations and institutions become inflexible and tied to the status quo. It starts at the top. Congress is now corrupt and highly dysfunctional, eroding rights and narrowing liberties rather than expanding them. Federal bureaucracies are no better. Even the courts are suspect in the Corporate State.

A Turning Point
Federal inaction, lack of preparedness and bureaucratic indifference characterized the government’s (non)response to Hurricane Katrina. It wiped out thousands in New Orleans who suffered not only from the storm but also from purposeful neglect. In this sorry episode, a weakened, indifferent and captive government really was the problem. It was neither able nor willing to perform its most basic obligation: to assist people in need and remove others from harm’s way. (Prisoners were the exception. An Abu Grahab type structure, complete with cages sprang up overnight outside New Orleans.) In the aftermath, the federal government, viewed widely as impotent and corrupt, more than earned the outrage and contempt directed at it and the people who ran it. “As the ruinous gulf oil blowout spreads onto land, over wildlife, across the ocean floor and into people's lives, it raises a fundamental question for all of us Americans: Who the hell's in charge here? What we're witnessing is not merely a human and environmental horror, but also an appalling deterioration in our nation's governance….As we saw when Wall Street's greed exploded our economy, the polluting scoundrels were left in charge!” (Jim Hightower, CommonDreams, June 2, 2010)

Free-market fundamentalists, even in a catastrophe like Katrina, leave it to the invisible hand that is not to be interfered with, neither in the market place nor in society at large. Or so they say. Corporate welfare is perfectly acceptable, even desirable. Its advocates are quick to exert their influence in the political arena and have no qualms about marginalizing the rest of us. They rush to channel huge bailouts to irresponsible banks and insurance companies that deserve to fail. The results have been disastrous for the economy and the body politic, but the true believers remain in control of the government and the economy. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a product of Wall Street, takes his marching orders from his friends at Goldman Sachs. So will the person who replaces him.

Arundhati Roy, writing before the financial collapse, said, “Democracy…is in crisis. And the crisis is a profound one. Every kind of outrage is being committed in the name of democracy. It has become little more than a hollow word, a pretty shell, emptied of all content or meaning. It can be whatever you want it to be.” (Arundhati Roy, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire.) Ordinary Americans have been slow to recognize, confront and resist this perversion of real democracy. If, as awareness grows, we still fail to act, we will have demonstrated to the world that we are not deserving of a democratic system. The present trend is not reassuring and time is running out. It will take much more than a smooth-talking president and a jobless economic recovery to stop this downward spiral.
Most voters hoped in 2008 that a new Administration and governing party would work to solve the nation’s most pressing problems. It was soon clear that this was shortsighted, politically naïve and futile. There is no institution or political movement now capable of bringing about anything other than the familiar token change that solves nothing. Neither a letter to the editor not electoral politics as usual will accomplish anything. But as average citizens gain a greater understanding of the hijacked political economy, we may find ways to put the nation back on track. This can happen only if we are able to break the grip corporate power has on the political economy, sharply downsize the military machine and scale back the Empire that is sucking the soul out of American democracy.

A Radical Critique
Economic determinism is seldom the whole story, and conspiracy theories are best left to fiction writers. No small group of elite stakeholders sat down one day and said, “Let’s turn the American republic into the Corporate State, create a worldwide empire for profit, and defend it with a humongous military machine.” But the relentless pursuit of power and profit was and remains the driving force behind the shift away from democracy in America. Growth and expansion are rooted in the business ethic. Grow or die is the cliché. Neither political boundaries nor oceans matter because business abhors a vacuum. Unfettered economic development is the road to salvation.

The most destructive belief equates democracy with extreme capitalism; it is part of a national credo that can be heard at any Chamber of Commerce meeting in the country. In that same meeting, we might also hear that the “American way of life is superior,” and that the world can learn much from us but can offer little in return except markets. In its crudest form, this latter notion is tinged with racism and religious intolerance. Our nation’s darker side is, as is the case with individuals, where its potential for self-destruction lies. That dark side now overshadows our virtues as a people and weakens our abilities to build a more civilized and more democratic nation. Our faith in the principles and values of American civilization is tempered by disturbing trends clearly evident to all but those who choose not to see. But there is some comfort knowing that Americans have overcome serious challenges in the past and emerged stronger for our efforts. We should remember that we are the children of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, and Martin Luther King and act accordingly.

This manifesto presents a radical but realistic critique of the political-corporate economy and the military machine that protects it. A fair question is: toward what end? Nothing would be more rewarding than to make even a small contribution toward a nationwide people’s movement -- one capable of radically re-shaping our institutions and breathing new life into the democratic process. The idea of radical change threatens many people, and there will be no shortage of critics who will argue that my perspective is one-sided and biased. My response is that there is overwhelming evidence to justify a sharp break with business as usual. I’ll be disappointed if this manifesto fails to anger apologists or dismay just a few of the ubiquitous professional cheerleaders who make a living hyping this country’s turbo capitalism and the aggressive foreign policy it spawns. Democracy slips further away, while the national-security and corporate-consumer juggernauts, twin components of Empire, roll on. In the name of defending “the free market system,” we have created a system that is eating its young.

What Is To Be Done
The most important question we face is what must be done to restore American democracy and ensure that it survives. That is the critical issue addressed herein and the primary one that separates this critique from others. Whether the empire survives is a question that should trouble only those who falsely equate or link it to national survival. Empires come and go. The power elites who forged the corporate-controlled political economy and the military-commercial empire are fully committed to preserving the status quo. They will defend their prerogatives – democracy not included – by fair means or foul. Public options are anathema to them whether in health care or any other policy area.

American democracy has been undermined to the point that a total lapse into despotism is not out of the question. Preventing it will require an organized effort by the American people. But momentum remains behind a more entrenched and autocratic version of the current Corporate State. The national ability to correct course offers hope that thinking Americans will recognize the problem, arrest the drift, and put the country back on the right track. But time is running out. The Republic will be salvaged only when ordinary citizens decide saving it is worth the effort. We would do well to remember the warning of Benjamin Franklin as he left the Constitutional Convention of 1787. An admirer asked, “Dr. Franklin, what have you given us?” Franklin replied, “a republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

Our best hope of keeping it lies in an invigorated democratic peoples’ movement that demands a government independent of corporate influence. We must focus laser-like on radically reshaping the federal government to regulate corporate behavior, establish a democratic Congress, rein in the military, and curtail the imperial presidency. These are essential measures for dismantling the Corporate State and creating a democratic America. We can expect no assistance from government whether led by Democrats or Republicans. The major political parties are neither willing nor able to tame the beast that supports them, and there is no modern-day FDR in sight. The combined power of big government and big business limits options and controls dissent. The Corporate State grows more oppressive as it continues to embrace authoritarian methods and policies. We can reverse this process only by curtailing unbridled corporatism, downsizing the military and stripping power from the governing elite. The onus is on all of us who believe in democracy.

Fortunately, the American experience includes historic achievements that can be a source of strength to all those working to change direction and advance democracy. Compelling evidence exists that the political economy can be molded by direct action. The question is what form that action should take. We can forget about writing a congressman or a letter to the editor. We might feel better, but it will change nothing. Violence is neither desirable nor necessary, and ultimately it is self-defeating. A grassroots, non-violent peoples’ movement is a proven means of achieving the kind of structural changes we need. It is long overdue.

Strikes, boycotts, protest marches – organized and coordinated through instant communications technology – offer the most promise. Properly used, they could bring the machine to a halt, providing a pause to shift gears and retool. A national “time out” in the form of a general strike would be an opportunity to restore sense, balance and decency to the political economy. Would it work? It has succeeded – as we have seen recently – in other circumstances and in other countries. But even if there were no precedents, the risk is less than the larger risk we run by staying on the present course. Noam Chomsky has said: "The population in the United States is angry, frustrated and full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks … on Wall Street are just doing fine. They're the ones who created the current crisis. They're the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They're coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything's fine - as long as the population is passive."

Our challenge is to move ourselves and the country from passive to active. Obama will make every effort to ensure that the populace remains passive even as he tightens further the corporate noose around the neck of the American people. And we can count on his successor – regardless of Party – to do nothing more than fine tune things or, more likely, defend the status quo. Our immediate task is to lay the groundwork for nationwide protest and to be prepared to fight any and all attempts to co-opt or curtail it.

Protecting our right to communicate freely, to organize, to pass out materials, to assemble in groups and to march against warped policies and corrupt institutions is essential. We must work long and hard to encourage opposition to repressive laws and aggressive policies aimed at Americans. We must enlist the support of all who are willing to resist a political economy based on abuse of the environment, unjustified and illegal wars, turbo capitalism and corrupt government. We must adopt as our own the admonition of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglas whose last words to his followers were, “Agitate, agitate, agitate.”

We know that the Corporate State’s concerted assault on ordinary people will only worsen if left to its own devices. Whether it prevails depends entirely on whether those of us who love democracy allow it. There are, of course, no guarantees that attempts to stop the corporate onslaught will succeed, but we have reason to be hopeful. Winston Churchill famously said, "The Americans will do the right thing - after they've exhausted all the alternatives." At this point, we have precious few alternatives left to exhaust. We need to do the right thing and do it soon. A dual approach offers a good chance of jump-starting the process of putting the country back on the road to an invigorated democracy and a more perfect union.

Counter Punches
First, we must adopt, implement, and perfect the art of militant political activism. This should encompass all the activities outlined above, plus some that will grow out of changing circumstances. Second, we must work to discredit the corporate media, lessen its influence, and develop alternative means of sharing information. The corporate media prop up the Corporate State, but they are already doing a pretty job of blowing what’s left of their credibility. By exposing corporate bias and questioning its shallow approach to journalism, we can accelerate the process. There is every reason to believe that independent newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, and blog sites will fill the gap. An alternative domestic TV medium such as Al Jazeera should be encouraged.

Transforming a nation is a daunting task, but there are dynamics already at work that will make success more likely. The Corporate State is its own worst enemy in many ways. Turbo capitalism dominates the playing field and plays by its own rules. The greed and lust for power that drive it also cloud visions and impair judgments. Its destructive path creates fallout at home and blowback from misadventures abroad. The environment, health care needs, public education and a host of other things that comprise a decent community are short-changed or completely ignored. Strong individuals who understand and can articulate this message will rally to the effort. New, dynamic leaders will emerge from this group and elsewhere. That’s how democracy works.

We must remember that the Corporate State is best treated as a socio-path whose irrational behavior must be restrained. Left unchallenged, it will continue to create misery at home and havoc and bloodshed abroad. The war in Afghanistan is the latest and one of the most egregious examples. Every time such outrages occur, ordinary citizens question the ways and means of their so-called leaders, often to no avail. We the people create an alternative to what our government has become: a plutocracy mixed with theocracy mixed with kleptocracy. The best alternative, of course, is a real democracy, one that fosters political and economic rights for all citizens.

In some ways, the country would be better off today if we could wipe out the past thirty-five years. America then was on the road to a more perfect union. But the nation was diverted, led astray by right-wing corporate and political elites who falsely claimed to be acting in everyone’s best interests. We cannot roll back the clock, but we can acknowledge that we have lost our way, that it is madness to plow ahead and that we must pause and step back before we can move forwards. To do that means to curb the excesses and end the crimes that have come to be viewed as standard operating procedures. We must reject outright “the new normal” that restricts our freedoms, hampers our opportunities, and robs us of our birthright. We need the “old normal” as a base for a new democracy.

Benchmarks for domestic policy issues must include corporate regulation, support for public education, reasonable health insurance costs, social welfare policies including universal health insurance, and spending limits for political campaigns. We have regressed in each of these areas, and the quality of our lives has declined in tandem. One important example: Respect for human rights abroad was a policy priority under Carter but discarded under Reagan. Today, thanks to the “war on terrorism” it barely receives lip service. The Corporate State routinely violates our privacy rights by domestic spying. Torture and the “collateral damage” that result from runaway militarism violate not only human rights but international law as well.

The Pentagon is the bull in the American china shop. It, along with the war profiteers, must be subdued. The militarized Empire wrecks havoc abroad and feeds dissension, corruption and neglect at home. We have become our own weapon of mass destruction. To bring this to a halt, we should reduce by half the number of military bases overseas (800 plus), the number of nuclear weapons (some 12,000), and the huge military budget (more than one trillion.) It is a supreme irony that we upgrade and maintain nuclear weapons that will never be used and neglect bridges and rail lines that are used daily. This sort of warped decision-making stems from the war on democracy that is destroying the nation.

Secrecy and duplicity are, of necessity, hallmarks of the governing elite. We must tear the veil off government and let the sun shine in. WikiLeaks exposed only the tip of the iceberg. Much of the $1.2 trillion defense and security budget is secret because the American people have no real interest in supporting a militarized country or an overseas empire. Nor do we want economic dominance over the world. These are characteristics of an authoritarian state, not those of a democracy. We now know that deception and skewed intelligence played key roles in the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Neither enterprise was a striking success. The doubts surfaced, the questions arose and the public began to ask, “How did we get into this mess, and how can we get out?” It’s time to say “never again” to the president and to the Pentagon.

We must regroup as a people and as a nation and pick up where we left off if we expect to break free of the downward spiral of the Corporate State. The willingness and ability to cut through the fog generated in Washington must be honed to the point that lies and distortions are exposed immediately before actions based on them can be effected. There is no excuse in the information age to be in the dark about serious issues such as waging war. We must unite as a people in opposition to unilateral military action by the president. We can no more afford an imperial presidency than we can afford an empire. Together they are leading the country down a dangerous road without a map and without a sense of ultimate destination.

We must replace the plutocracy with a real democracy. In the Corporate State no one without money or easy access to it can be elected to Congress. John Kerry and George Bush spent more than $693 million dollars in the presidential campaign of 2004. McCain and Obama nearly doubled that amount. Obama will raise more than $1 billion for the presidential election of 2012. Money, access and power are at the heart of the problem of campaign finance. Not only do we have a plutocratic Congress, but we also have an atmosphere of corruption that has come to be considered business as usual. No one gets upset as long as matters are handled discreetly and denials can be issued with or without some degree of credibility. Outright theft is still frowned upon, when and if it is exposed. But corruption is pervasive, ranging from genteel influence peddling to pork barrel to quid pro quo arrangements to outright bribery. Public financing of congressional and presidential elections – with a cap on the amount spent – is essential to restoring democratic elections.

The Corporate State has turned its back our country’s democratic values and traditions. It requires a fundamental re-direction, a new political movement led by the middle class, particularly lawyers, teachers, journalists, and other opinion shapers. We must begin strengthening the shared sense of responsibility and community required to put our house in order. We know what the problems are, and we know how to fix most of them. We must cultivate the political will to overcome obstacles to change. We can take some satisfaction knowing most of those obstacles are easy to spot; they have more corporate brands on them than a NASCAR racer.

There is no more important task than abolishing the undemocratic and self-defeating legal practices that afford corporations the same rights and standings as individuals. A corporation is nothing more than an organization devised by a group of people to make money. To give it blanket protection under the Fourteenth or any other amendment of the Constitution degrades theory and prostitutes practice. This legal aberration, unique to American jurisprudence, is to the body politic what leukemia is to the body, eating away at values and distorting national priorities in a manner that is singularly destructive. Government becomes a mere corporate hand servant. Unions wither and die. No countervailing power – except that of the people – can prevent corporate power from totally controlling all aspects of American life.

Speaking Truth to the Power Elite
Truth is the first casualty of war and is increasingly rare in advertising and politics. But despite our slide into corporatism and self-delusion, truth still matters to many Americans. Truth matters not only for individuals but for our government as well. In the quest for democracy, we base some of our most cherished principles on truths that we “hold to be self evident.” Our shared values, and the rule of law, spring from this. As public citizens, we are obligated to maintain and strengthen those values and laws and uphold the moral force behind them. Societies that lack or lose that moral force tend to disappear down the drain. Not all Americans, including some of our most powerful politicians, believe this to be true. We must weed them out and send them back to their urban house or ranch, where the harm they do is limited to their lawns, bushes and the dogs they kick.

The Corporate State’s distorted version of truth is used to justify lashing out at nations or people that get in its way or oppose its policies. Often enlisting the help of paid proxies, it has overthrown dozens of governments, including democracies, over the past half century. Military force has been a vital component of a practice that has resulted in thirty countries attacked and hundreds of thousands killed. These crimes are nearly always committed in the name of the American people. The pattern of death and destruction will continue until the American people demand (asking won’t do) an end to it. The only question – and it is a big one – is whether our culture is too self-satisfied and we the people too complacent or deluded to control the actions of our rogue state. If the answer is yes, western civilization is unlikely to survive with its values and institutions intact.

A key tool of democratic government has already been rendered virtually useless in the Corporate State. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have concluded that voting makes no difference in their daily lives. They are right. Only a small majority of eligible voters now participate in presidential and congressional elections. The number of disenchanted voters has been growing since the 1970s when disgust over the Vietnam War and Nixon’s imperial presidency turned them off by the hundreds of thousands. Bob Herbert has reminded us that James Reston wrote in 1970 about the alarming number of U.S. citizens "who seem to feel that voting is not the answer to their grievances." He noted that many Americans, "troubled and eager for change, but skeptical that their votes have any relevance to their problems," had essentially thrown up their hands and asked: "What difference would my vote make?" (Bob Herbert, New York Times, December 29, 2005)

Good question then and now, and many more people are asking it today than in 1970. The answer then and now remains: little or none. As we sink deeper and deeper into what Norman Mailer has called “a pre-fascist state,” politics as usual becomes a futile exercise for those outside the governing class. We must rework the system and create a new democracy. But where to begin? Chris Hedges nailed it: “We face a crisis. Our democratic institutions are being dismantled. We are headed for a state of perpetual war. We are paralyzed by fear. We will be stripped, if we do not resist, of our few remaining rights. To resist, while there is still time, is not only the highest form of spirituality but the highest form of patriotism. It is, if you care about what is worth protecting in this country, a moral imperative.”(Chris Hedges, TruthDig.com, December 10, 2007)

Barack Obama, Al Gore and other centrists provide lip service to the need to change directions. Piecemeal solutions from various reformers are ubiquitous. Resistance is a good start, but we must go beyond it to bring about the fundamental change necessary to restore democracy. Optimists pointed to a “progressive infrastructure” that grew out of the 2004 presidential election. It was ephemeral. Modest reform efforts failed in 2004 and again in 2008 because they were based on old style political organizing and piecemeal liberal policies. An infrastructure, progressive or otherwise, is not enough. The country has moved beyond that; the need is more urgent and requires direct action by the people.

Street Smarts
Peaceful public protests built around civil disobedience, offer the best short-range tactics to reverse the drift towards despotism and restore American democracy. Unless we want to see our country continue its downward spiral, we must organize, agitate, and protest on specific key issues which, when considered collectively, provide an opening for sweeping political change. An energized popular movement must demand immediate and fundamental reforms related to campaign finance, jobs, health insurance, the environment, poverty and peace. The movement must also demand that the Empire nobody voted for be dismantled and that the military machine that supports it be restructured and downsized. The people have better uses for the money.

The US cannot get back on the road toward democracy without the direct election of the president. The Electoral College perverts democracy and should be abolished. It supports corporate domination of the political economy. Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election by a margin of some 500,000 votes in the closest presidential election on record. Despite substantial evidence of voter intimidation, misinformation and outright electoral fraud in Florida, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned a Florida Supreme Court ruling for a re-count, effectively giving the election to George Bush. Call it what you will (crony capitalism?), it wasn’t democracy. Even when no legal questions arise, 538 electors, not the people, decide who will be president. This is only slightly more democratic than a court ruling.

The changes outlined here would be just a beginning. Much more can be accomplished as Americans get over their political squeamishness and grow accustomed to taking to the streets. The ruling elite will resist, so we should not underestimate the scope of what must be done. It may be necessary to disrupt the economy through strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience. People must be prepared to be arrested and imprisoned. As was the case with the Civil rights Movement, some may die. We cannot rule out the possibility that leaders will be singled out and labeled terrorists, denied their constitutional rights and tortured. Two truisms must be kept in mind: freedom and democracy are not achieved or maintained without sacrifice, and no entrenched interests relinquish power voluntarily.

There is another important step to take when voters face a re-run of the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 and 2008, pitting a right-wing Republican again a feckless Democrat. When those circumstances repeat – as they will – Americans who want to see democracy restored should boycott the two major Parties. In the presidential election of 2012, for example, vote for a third Party– any third Party, as long as is not racist, homophobic, xenophobic, fascist or some bastardized party – Unity08 comes to mind – made up of re-treads from the big two. Better yet, create a new one and call it, as Robert Reich has suggested, the People’s Party. To paraphrase Janis Joplin: when you ain’t got no political clout, you ain’t got nothing to lose.

Boycotting the major parties will be viewed as self-defeating and dangerous by many voters. It is neither. Millions are comfortable with their own private, individual boycotts: they simply don’t bother to vote. Among those who do vote, there is a base of independent voters to build on. Today’s extreme circumstances require extreme measures– radical acts, if you will. There is risk, but less than if nothing is done.

At this critical point in our history, anemic reform is worse than no reform. Voting and electing a centrist Democrat has simply had the effect of postponing the inevitable: a radical transformation of the political economy. The re-election of Barack Obama will mean nothing more than the same old rigmarole. He may govern smarter but no better than a Mike Huckabee or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney. We have sputtered along enough; a tune-up will not suffice when an engine overhaul is required. It should be obvious to voters by now that a corrupt system swallows or seduces the most well-meaning politician. But even the best of the Democrats don’t get it. Jimmy Carter, for example, says that our values are endangered and that we face a moral crisis. (See Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, Simon and Schuster, 2005) Carter was preaching to the Sunday School Class when he should have been speaking to the working class; his message fell on deaf ears. We face a political crisis, and it is much more serious than a shift toward religious and political fundamentalism. The power elite don’t like the message, even when it is limited to reform, so it is lost, ignored, obscured, or trivialized as the product of dreamers or idealists. Too many of us refuse to face the unpleasant fact that we have allowed our democracy to slip away and now must do whatever it takes to match the rhetoric with the reality. It won’t be easy, but if not us, who; if not now, when?

We can impose a radical transformation of the presidential election by changing it into a referendum on the dominant two-Party system. For a generation, major presidential candidates have run corrupt campaigns because each was dependent on corporate and wealthy donors for support. (President Obama walks a couple of blocks to the US Chamber of Commerce, gives a conciliatory speech, and two months later Democratic operatives announce they will be able to raise $1 billion for his election campaign.) If ordinary Americans boycott the Democrats and the Republicans, you ask, won’t the worst of the lot end up running the country. That remote possibility exists, but how is that different from the present? Even the ablest crooks need public support to plunder and pillage and wage war. Why should we continue to enable them?

A check with reality by the American people is long overdue. Two corrupt lame-duck Parties can’t help us. By refusing to support either, we can pull support from under both, exposing their weakness and corruption. This would give radical reformers the leverage needed to break the Corporate State’s grip on the country and the two Parties’ hold on the political process. The people would then be in a stronger, not weaker position, one where they could make specific demands as the price of participation in forming a government. A key demand would be to open the political process by abolishing the electoral college, implementing a one person, one vote rule, and allowing full and fair participation of additional Parties.

Assuming a potential repeat of 2008’s sixty percent turnout in 2012, a nationwide boycott of major parties could result in a minimum 25-25-25 breakout of the popular vote. Regardless of which party had the edge in votes, there would be minimal support for any single party to govern. As it now stands, a candidate must receive a majority of the electoral 538 votes to win the presidency. If no candidate won a majority, the House of Representatives would choose the president. Each state delegation would have one vote to cast for one of the three candidates who received the most electoral votes; the candidate with the most votes would win.

But the selection of the president would not be the most important issue, since party alignment would matter little and the presidency would be weakened. There would be a unique opportunity for progressives and radical reformers to further deflate the Imperial Presidency and exert pressure on Congress for fundamental change. Negotiations would include demands for a coalition government and possibly a constitutional convention. The message would be clear: without support from the people, there can be no legitimacy. Without support from the people, there will be no business – or government – as usual.

The goal in 2012 must be to work the political system with the specific aim of throwing the presidential election into the House. If House members prove dense enough to try to hold on to the status quo, a march on Washington, nationwide demonstrations and strikes should follow. Again, calls for a constitutional convention might be appropriate, depending on the response of the House. Any amendments would require a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate followed by ratification by three-fourths of the state. If a convention is called by two-thirds (34) of the states, proposed amendments would require ratification by three-fourths of the states. The second method has never been used, but with enough popular support it is entirely feasible. With or without a constitutional amendment, there are seven fundamental issues that would require action to get the nation back on track and restore the democratic impetus to the political economy.

1. Abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a one person–one vote direct democracy. American democracy is hogtied and drugged. It must be rescued.

2. Abolish all constitutional and legal provisions granting corporations equal status with persons. Corporations are not people, and treating them as such distorts the legal process, corrupts the political system and perverts the society.

3. Within two years, reduce the number of nuclear weapons in stock by half and close half (370) of existing overseas military installations. Plan further reductions and closures over a five-year period. The US does not need, and cannot afford, an empire – military, economic, or otherwise.

4. Adopt a matching public-private method of campaign financing for all federal elected positions. Allow individual contributions of no more than $100 per registered voter until total donations equal the government allocation. States would be encouraged to devise a similar system for state elected officials.

5. Adopt a constitutional provision requiring majority approval in both Houses of Congress before sending the American military into battle. Require one year of military service or civilian community service for every able-bodied American before they reach age 25.

6. Revamp US foreign policy to comply with international law. Begin in the Middle East and Central Asia with a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. Provide financial and material assistance for rebuilding and aid to refugees. End support for Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and work toward a two-state, or preferably a one-state solution.

7. Demand a fair, progressive federal tax system that is simple and free of loopholes for the wealthy.

The piecemeal reform advocated by Progressive Democrats and a few others will never change the corrupt and debased political economy of the Corporate State. Radical restructuring is required, not airlifting new deck chairs onto the Titanic. We can vacillate or we can act. We can pretend that things will get better while knowing that they will only get worse. If the American people want a republic, we must “deconstruct whatever is left of our Empire of stupidity and of this strange, militarized version of America we live in.” (tomdispatch.com. September 4, 2007) We can regulate big business, adopt a progressive tax system, de-fang the military-industrial complex, and create a socially progressive economy. Or, we can crawl in a hole and dream, or die.

Now is the time to wake up and break out of this political straightjacket. We could wait, hoping that a political savior will come on the scene, but who would that be? America does not need a Julius Caesar, unless we wish to continue retracing the path of the Roman Empire. Tom Brokaw’s greatest generation, those who fought and endured World War II, has largely died out. The career-minded Me Generation is too self-absorbed and preoccupied. One among their ranks asks, “Where the hell is everybody? They're at home, tuning in to root for the next ‘American Idol.’ They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending twenty-five hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters. They're surfing porn. They're text messaging and e-mailing and scheming to close that next big deal. They're flogging their useless crap on eBay…. The government and the corporations are giving us bread and circuses to keep us sufficiently distracted so the powers that be can pursue their agendas.” (Tony Long, Wired News, May 26, 2006)

But the squeeze is on young people as much as anyone, and they have a long future before them. Perhaps they will take a lesson from the youth of Tunisia and Egypt who fomented a revolution using the tools of social networking. “To avoid the instability of capitalism and its huge social costs requires changing the system. That remains the basic issue for a new year and a new generation. Will they break today's version of a dangerous old taboo: never question the existing system?” (Richard Wolff, The Guardian, Jan 1, 2011) Let’s hope they do more than question the system. They could start by declaring bankruptcy and refusing to repay student loans, whether government or private. No young person should enter the work force burdened with $25,000 or more in debt.

Then there are the Baby Boomers which includes former activists, the protest generation of the 1960s who are now approaching retirement. They are middle class, and they have families. They still teach, practice law or journalism, or hold elective offices. They may be the last literate generation, and they shape public opinion. They are the least deluded, and it is they who must lead the charge. They have the smarts, the skills and the experience required for organizing and protesting. They also have the numbers, and many of them are still tough and highly political. They understand how to resist authority that has discredited itself. They have the guts and gumption. They too have the Internet, Twitter and Facebook, all of which can ease the burden on aging limbs. As more and more retire, they will have plenty of time for political activities. They constitute a potentially powerful adversary to the Corporate State’s efforts to squeeze the middle class, to curtail civil liberties, and to further concentrate wealth at the top.

The boomer intelligentsia can roll back cynicism and restore hope among younger people. They can show them how important it is to rescue the country from corporate thieves and political whores who, in their quest for power and wealth, are rapidly destroying it. Saving the country is more important than sitting in a coffee shop sipping lattes and talking about money, real estate and the retirement home. At some fundamental level, they know that there are more pressing concerns than their own comfort and welfare. With a bit of persuasion, they can enlist the help of their children and grandchildren – the Americans whose future is most at risk. It could be a great last hoorah.

In 1968, a profound slogan emerged from the students and young people rioting in the streets of Paris. It read: “Be Reasonable, Demand the Impossible.” Today Stephane Hessel – author, diplomat, and resistance fighter – tells the grandchildren of that generation: “To Create is to Resist, To Resist is to Create.” Fortunately, Americans can achieve our goals by demanding the possible, and we can do it by both creating and resisting. Poet politician Eugene McCarthy, like Harold Pinter, understood the nature of the beast that has us by the throat and he urged us to resist it. In 1968, while a presidential candidate, he told Americans, “now is the time for all good men and women to forget the party and come to the aid of their country.” Democracy is in jeopardy and the need for a concerted effort to rescue and restore it is more urgent now than it was in 1968. If we do nothing and continue to accommodate the drift toward corporate fascism, our fate is clear. Our children will not forgive us, and we, and they, will die strangers in a strange land. [END]

An American Manifesto

2011-05-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Political Malpractice

2010-09-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

Is there a doctor in the house? The ailing economy, growing worse by the day, cries out for help. It can be heard in the voices of jobless workers and poverty-stricken children. But there is no relief in sight, and the patient is getting sicker.

The economy is losing jobs faster than it creates them; the number of poor people is the highest in decades. Wall Street and Congress act as if the nation is suffering from some minor temporary ailment. But Main Street, where the pain is most acute, recognizes a chronic illness when it sees, and feels, one.

Republican Party leaders (sic) believe an invisible hand will cure the economy and restore the health of the nation. Just to make sure, they want to lend the invisible hand a helping hand by cutting taxes and gutting social programs. Just remember that all will be well in this best of all possible economies. That’s their story and they stick to it ad nauseum.

Their tea party fundamentalist wing decries governmental intervention as dangerous and counter-productive. Their only advice for the sickly patient is to be patient. Take an aspirin if you must, but don’t call me or anyone else in the morning. Not unless you want to go on TV or down to the corner and denounce establishment Obama as a socialist.

The non-therapy reeks of contradiction and hypocrisy, but who expects consistency or candor from true believers such as John Boehner and Mitch McConnell? These non-interventionist blowhards are like religion-crazed parents who refuse medical treatment for a dying child. If the child dies, it was the will of God. If the economy tanks, ascribe it to the invisible hand. As for recovery, cut taxes and have faith, my children.

This is, of course, the same non-remedy offered up by Herbert Hoover and the business elite in 1929. It didn’t work then during the Great Depression and it won’t work now in the Great Jobless Recession. We as a people should know better than to fall for this malarkey. Maybe we do know better but sense that no President or Party can loosen the corporate grip on the economy.

Leading Democrats have long understood what is becoming increasingly apparent to those of us outside Washington. Entrenched free market orthodoxy will not allow them to act outside the limitations its faithful place on the political economy. Hence, Obama tells us repeatedly that it’s the private sector’s role, not the government’s, to create jobs. Says who? This sounds like an edict from a burning bush on Wall Street.

Republicans deserve nothing but our contempt. The best word I can muster for the Democrats is pathetic. They are weak and vacillating in the face of the rightwing onslaught. If they had the strength, they would at least provide palliative care for the economy, enough to hold down the fever. But they operate in the corporate shadow and lack the courage to do anything other than stick to a prescribed regimen.

Switching out incompetents and miscreants in November will bring no relief, only fleeting satisfaction. Both parties are corrupt and dysfunctional. If they engaged in medicine instead of chicanery, at least we could sue them for malpractice. Their mistreatment of the body politic is both stupid and dangerous. Future prognosis is unclear, but the system must either be radically reformed or replaced. I see no other options.

Republic or Empire? The Corporate War on Democracy

2010-02-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue. And then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right…. It is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time (until) a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. George Orwell

Acknowledgment
The case made here against the Corporate State is my own, although I am indebted to others before me who have grappled with the political, social and economic decline of the Republic. I drew shamelessly but unapologetically on their insights. They include an array of thoughtful Americans with little in common except a growing concern about the future of their country. They range from Noam Chomsky and Cornel West on the left to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert in the middle to Patrick Buchanan on the right. No one understands what is happening to America better than Kevin Phillips, and his insights were invaluable. Ralph Nader is a prophet without sufficient honor in his own country; Bill Moyers remains our national conscience. Chalmers Johnson had the wisdom to warn about blowback before we knew what it was, and he continues to dissect the imperial beast. Michael Moore masterfully dissects the system in his documentary films, particularly in Capitalism: A Love Story. The nation is now paying a huge price for ignoring their insights. I am proud to add my voice to theirs and to those other good Americans who refuse to give up on democracy.

I owe a special thanks to my friend Jim Farmer for his insightful critiques and suggestions. Rachel Newcomb did a first-rate job of editing. The support and encouragement from my wife Kathryn Holten defies brief description. This work is best characterized as a merger of contemporary history and journalism. It the product of an informed citizen who believes that his fellow Americans still have a shot at creating a model democracy. Graduate study in United States history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and forty years as a student of American politics and culture are, as they say in New Orleans, lagniappe.

Introduction
America today exhibits all the signs of a declining empire, bogged down in needless, costly wars abroad and beset by economic stagnation at home. In a generation, the country has moved from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, from low tech to high tech, from small businesses and farms to agri-business and multinational corporations. Terrorist attacks of 9/11 ignited two wars and the growth of the national security state. Financial institutions driving an unfettered capitalism crashed and burned in 2008 triggering a Great Recession. Change on this scale and at this pace has distorted the political economy and weakened democracy. Liberals and conservatives are divided over the causes of the the transformation and remedies to correct it. Americans on the left are appalled at the imperial presidency and the concentration of wealth and power now in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

Thoughtful Americans across the political spectrum understand that the nation’s political economy, rooted in advanced capitalism, now serves the interests of a wealthy minority. Opportunists among them have taken advantage of a society in the throes of rapid change to tighten their hold on the economy and reshape governance to serve their interests. Although the Republic retains the trappings of democracy, it has morphed into a Corporate State where wealth and power are in the hands of a ruling class. Its operatives determine domestic policy and shape an economic and military empire that spans the globe.

The wisest among the prior generation of leaders saw it coming. President Eisenhower, Senator William Fulbright and historian William Appleman Williams warned of military-industrial complexes, imperial presidents and debilitating empires. But the nation’s power brokers were hell-bent on extending its power and influence and while maximizing their wealth. They and their cheerleaders led the nation down the road to empire, never bothering to look back to see if ordinary Americans were following. Unintended consequences from wars and recessions materialized quickly, complicating the task of those controlling policy and wielding power. Today, two decades after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the single remaining superpower is beset with problems stemming from economic decline and political corruption.

America’s military-industrial-congressional axis emerged in the aftermath of World War II, alarming Americans in and out of politics who watched it grow in the 1950s and 60s. The Vietnam War exacted a heavy toll on the military, slowing momentum but not fundamentally altering the axis or the mission. The axis received a boost under the Reagan administration with huge military outlays. It matured after the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, when the US no longer had a countervailing military or economic rival. At that point, the US was free to expand commercially, particularly in Eastern Europe and Asia, in search of resources and markets. Economic globalization was supported militarily by establishing new bases and forming new alliances including some with former Soviet bloc countries. The choice had been made, sealing the fate of the nation for the foreseeable future. Leaders of the axis gave priority to the demands of Empire, sacrificing the needs of the Republic for power and wealth. Today they and their cohorts comprise a power elite that formulates economic policies, shapes military decisions and maintains a firm and decisive influence over the two major political parties.

All this happened not as a consequence of a sudden coup, but rather from an accumulation and concentration of wealth and power over the last third of the 20th century. On the domestic front, movement away from an increasingly democratic state toward an authoritarian one accelerated as corporate interests sought and acquired expanded influence over government. Political handmaidens in Congress reduced corporate taxes and downsized or eliminated social services programs. Further, they adopted a more aggressive foreign policy, one that began to rely more on the threat or actual use of military force than on diplomacy. The shift reflected the classic behavioral patterns of empires and set the stage for a growing resistance abroad, blowback ranging from fiery political rhetoric to armed resistance.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the power elite, with full backing from its corporate and military components, misused that tragedy to curtail civil liberties at home and to wage aggressive war in the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost needlessly as a result. The huge price tag of this imperial misadventure has moved beyond billions to more than a trillion dollars. America’s standing in the eyes of much of the world remains near the all-time low it sank to under George W. Bush despite the slick personal appeal of President Obama. The nation forges on in its ill-conceived and ill-branded war on terrorism, aimed at real and perceived enemies around the globe. Meanwhile, the American public, unable or unwilling to sort truth from lies, goes about its business, struggling to rebuild a sick economy and oblivious to or ignoring the ongoing crimes committed in its name. Home-grown criminals such as Dick Cheney file away their passports, knowing they face arrest if they should land in a country that takes international law seriously.

That the nation’s ruling class and its defenders ignore pressing domestic needs and foment havoc abroad should surprise no one. Privilege and self-interest shape the judgments of overpaid bank CEOs, strategic military planners from the Pentagon and entrenched members of Congress. They have reached the point where they equate the size of their personal bank accounts with the general welfare of the public. More important, they share a growing contempt for democracy and a fundamental fear of the power of the American people.

When Bush and Cheney, after hi-jacking the election with help from the Supreme Court, arrived on the scene in 2001, they set about consolidating the imperial presidency and closing the road to a more democratic nation. In the wake of the attacks of September 11, the president created a security state, pushed for global economic supremacy and expanded the country’s worldwide military presence. Relying on a handful of neo-conservative advisors, Bush invaded the Middle East and initiated a disastrous war, all under the pretext of fighting terrorism. The basic civil liberties of Americans soon came under siege from Bush’s political operatives who feared and mistrusted the American people as much as they feared Muslim extremists. Rhetorically, the President absurdly bounced from “mission accomplished” in Iraq to “freedom and democracy” in Afghanistan.

The term “Bush and Company” fited his administration perfectly. Bush was more reckless CEO than responsible president. The first American president to hold an MBA, Bush surrounded himself with businessmen and a few women. He was a corporatist president who chose John Roberts, a former corporate lawyer/lobbyist, to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Roberts not only faithfully defends the Corporate State, he also helped create it and is doing whatever he can on the Court to preserve and protect it. Justice Samuel Alito, another apparatchik for the Corporate State, follows suit on most important cases involving corporate autonomy. The honchos at Goldman Sachs and Bank of America may have problems, but a Supreme Court unsympathetic to their corporate needs is not one of them.

George Bush, like Ronald Reagan before him, purported to run government like a business. This explains much about his presidency and his legacy. His approach to governing was the rough equivalent of running a high school civics class as if it were a training school for chefs. The missions, cultures and outcomes are different. Teachers know that, and so did Bush. But he mouthed the operative mantra to justify eliminating government programs and services for the needy, ignoring corporate abuses and consolidating presidential power. The Obama administration has reversed few of these trends. In many instances they seem to be accelerating: military spending and government aid to large financial institutions are at record highs.

Bush was the front man for financial elites seeking to consolidate their hold on the national economy. Some of the same crowd supported Obama. Their unstated agenda was and remains to keep government a junior partner of business, effectively eliminating it as a possible brake on turbo capitalism and globalization and backing it with a military machine second to none. One of the preferred tactics to effect this was to cut taxes while increasing defense/offense spending. The irony was sweet: Bush claimed to be bringing business efficiency to government while turning it into a wasteful, corrupt shell attached to a bloated Pentagon. Since 2001, the defense budget more than doubled and now exceeds $450 billion plus. Add the costs of homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the figure doubles again. Defense contractors, particularly those involved in high tech military components, continue to roll in taxpayers’ dollars. Obama demonstrated neither the ability nor inclination to reverse the madness. His politics of hope quickly faded as the demands of Wall Street and the Pentagon took center stage.

FDR’s New Deal regulated corporate excesses and limited size with anti-trust laws. Ronald Reagan’s counter-revolution not only deregulated corporate behavior but also undermined union influence. A gradual accumulation of corporate power over the next generation resulted in the corporate state that exists today. While ordinary Americans were preoccupied with jobs, families and neighborhoods, their political and economic houses were auctioned off and turned into a corporate-military duplex. A bloated, consumer economy, based on financial trading and a housing/lending bubble, served the interests of the few while ordinary Americans racked up record debt to hold off a decline in their standard of living. It could not last. The nation soon faced a housing bust, $100 a barrel oil and the inevitable financial meltdown that preceded the Great Recession. Long-standing problems stemming from poverty, runaway health care costs, poor schooling, environmental degradation, uneasy race relations and income inequality persisted…and went unresolved.

The political consequences of the corporate takeover have been profound. The federal government is now the acquiescent junior partner to big business and despite the lip service has opted out of regulation and oversight of the financial sector. Its purpose is to facilitate global economic growth and the accumulation of profits, not to spread, or even maintain, democracy. Massive taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions “too big to fail” was an important aspect of this mission. Millions of dollars went into the pockets of those most responsible for the financial meltdown. Job creation and aid to small businesses were scarcely considered. But the clearest evidence of corporate power was Obama’s unwillingness to rein in Wall Street and implement an overhaul of the financial system. By refusing to insist on this the Democratic Party showed its true colors as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporate State. Obama is the latest CEO, smarter and more discreet than Bush but cut from similar corporate cloth. More Microsoft than General Motors.

History shows us that deviations from democracy are characterized by a gradual loss of civil liberties and constitutional rights. Our society is now blighted by the greedy excesses of people whose commitment to a democratic America is trumped by their obsessive pursuit of wealth and power. Neither bank failures nor the ensuing recession changed this. Rather the elite further consolidated their power from infusions of billions of public money into their institutions. Large financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America wield more power and influence than before the failures of September 2008. By contrast, the Obama administration appears weak, unwilling to challenge Wall Street with the prospect of even minimal reform. Obama campaigned and won on the theme of “change we can believe in.” His youth, charisma, and articulateness combined to make him an overnight celebrity president. Today, half-way through his administration, Obama continues to talk of reform, but the reality is that little of fundamental importance has changed.

David Swanson, writing in The Nation magazine, laid out the similarities in the policies of Bush and Obama concluding that the Obama administration is best viewed as Bush’s third term in office. The war machine rolls on in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The number of total troops deployed exceeds 200,000. Iran remains on a short list of potential targets. Torture remains an option – perhaps a practice – and domestic spying an on-going policy. Corporate welfare has become an even bigger budget item with trillions of dollars channeled to financial institutions. Reductions in social service programs and higher costs for education and health care continue unabated.

So far, the country has avoided an all-out economic depression, but the root problems that caused the Great Recession are more serious than ever; a host of new ones – most notably global warming – has emerged. A minority of Americans understands that radical change is essential to meet these challenges. But the system deflects criticism and turns public opinion against those who question a mindless allegiance to the free market, to a foreign policy based on militarism or a domestic policy shaped by special interests. For Brand Obama and his corporatist allies, change is now first and foremost a buzzword. Continuity not only trumps change, it overwhelms efforts to break the choke hold.
Added to the domestic mix is the ill-conceived, poorly executed, and horrendously costly war on Muslim extremists. This remains a war of choice, not necessity, and it is being fought less to defend the homeland against Al Quaeda then to prop up American military and commercial interests in the Central Asia. The military-industrial-congressional complex sustains this enterprise, while the citizenry watch anxiously and wonder about the trillions of dollars in direct costs and the corresponding neglect to critical needs at home. Not to worry says the Pentagon, just send in more troops and crank up the effort to win (again) the hearts and minds of the Afghans. The parallels are so striking that the Pentagon should call the whole operation Formula Vietnam.

From resistance to occupation abroad to staving off a depression at home, the Empire’s power elite have their hands full coping with problems of their own creation. Growing economic competition looms from India and China where rapid development is re-emerging in the wake of worldwide Great Recession. Latin American neighbors are growing restive and rebellious. The Corporate State – through reckless and aggressive acts – faces a hostile world. Under Bush, it became, in the eyes of many, a rogue nation. Obama, despite the smooth talk and slick image, can do little to change that image because it’s rooted in the reality of policies geared to a global empire. An American Political Science Association survey found that a majority of foreigners believes the US disregards the interests of their country and that US influence abroad is mostly bad. Not even a Nobel Peace Prize will alter that perception.

The changes engulfing Americans at home and abroad are vastly complicated by the demands of the Empire. The power elite maintain a military behemoth as a protective umbrella under which globalization can flourish. Handmaidens of the Corporate State oversee all this including billions in military aid to allies and the manufacture and sale of massive numbers of armaments to anyone who can pay cash. Foreign policy operatives still give occasional lip service to exporting democracy, but they readily cut commercial and political deals with corrupt officials and dictatorial leaders of most any stripe. Salvation lies in maximizing profits, not in spreading democracy, and it’s all business all the time.

No one in a leadership position in either major Party asked the American people if they want to maintain the Empire, support its practices or bear its costs. The literate public understands that empires and democracy are ultimately incompatible. Few among them would sacrifice a democratic heritage for control of oil in the Middle East, but no referendum will be held on this issue or related ones. A national dialogue is out of the question because it would confirm a democracy in peril, and would not be “in the national interest” as defined in Washington and on Wall Street. Many of the Empire’s most enthusiastic backers, when pressed, deny that it exists, and the most gullible of the public accepts this view despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The power elite deny the reality of Empire, much the way creationists deny the reality of evolution. They know that voters, given a clear choice – not one muddied by fear based on fictitious demands of national security – would vote thumbs down by a substantial margin. It is not what they or their forebears signed on for. Empires, besides being antithetical to democracy, are financially oppressive; some of the bills are now coming due and many more are in the pipeline. Like it or not, the American people are obligated to pay those bills; but neither their hearts nor their minds are engaged in the economic or military domination of the world. So, the real cost must be cloaked in the euphemistic nomenclature of spreading democracy and protecting the country’s vital interests. It is, of course, an Orwellian approach employed to fog the issue and minimize dissent.

Americans basically want to be left alone to work, spend money and live the good life as they define it. The pursuit of happiness is more than a slogan—it’s a right. The elites know this, hence, the smoke and mirrors to justify invading Iraq and the concerted effort to preclude any and all sacrifice by the public. The charade that keeps the Empire unnamed and closeted is the product of massive amounts of money, spin and public relations. Egregious misadventures such as the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq are wrapped in patriotism and nationalism to gain support among voters. As the lies unfold and the truth emerges, public support for these wars plummets. It’s often a slow process because proper context remains elusive – and not by accident. But the game is growing old. Today it’s the naïve and uninformed who think that military and economic policies are designed to spread democracy to the unenlightened around the world. The more politically sophisticated and more acceptable justifications for intervention are globalization, national defense and the more abstract “national interest.” Empires exist only in history books.

But lights are flickering in the shining city on a hill and in its multiple outposts. Americans, overwhelmed by intractable problems at home and abroad, are losing faith in their institutions and leaders and increasingly unwilling to follow a party line. Many understand that their federal government has been co-opted by corporate interests because an imperial President and dysfunctional Congress reflect it. Whether the American people will betray their democratic heritage and accept this state of affairs as the “new normal” remains an open question. Those of us on the political left must do everything possible to ensure that it does not happen.

This book attempts to offer a critique of American society by exploring a central question: why, despite our much-vaunted past successes, have we as a nation failed to meet our own expectations -- and those of the rest of the world -- in our stop-and-go pursuit of a more democratic society? The larger question raises related ones. When and why did we first begin to stall in our quest for a more perfect union? Why have previous reform efforts withered like a cut vine in the sunshine? Did the Cold War sap our energies and absorb resources that could have fueled reform? What role has the military-industrial-congressional complex played in preserving the status quo? How did we come to accept the perverse idea that an activist government working in the people’s interest is more a problem than a solution?

President and former General Electric spokesman Ronald Reagan’s assertion became the gospel for his conservative backers and the basis for his governance. The more extreme among them adopted the idea of effecting drastic tax cuts for the twin purposes of securing votes and “starving the beast.” The (bad) actor turned (worse) president transformed the federal government into a junior partner with big business. A half century after Reagan misgoverned California, the state was fiscally bankrupt and trying to peddle IOUs. Washington too was reeling from the legacy of the Reagan counter-revolution. The US was in the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression and Americans carried a national debt of nearly a trillion dollars. More important, the body politic had devolved into a full-fledged Corporate State. The national mood had turned nasty with intensely partisan politics and a worrisome rise in rightwing extremist groups.

Americans are a stubborn, even arrogant, people who by choice and by manipulation avoid questions that challenge our complacency. The corporate sponsored, all-entertainment, all the time society we live in does not like to ask hard questions or reflect on serious issues. It is far from certain that we have the will and the courage to confront the Corporate State head-on. We may have reached the point where ordinary Americans accept a state of drift and no mastery. If true, the drift will continue toward a more authoritarian, despotic state, one that will exert mastery over all in its domain.

Optimism about the nation’s future is a scarce commodity in the Corporate State. Even business round tables and corporate board rooms are hedge-funding their bets. The corporate-controlled political economy dominates, holding us captive, and limiting our ability to envision a better future. Polls show that voters rank Congress below TV evangelists and used car salesmen. Still, our history reveals that we have not always been a passive people. We have met the challenges that we looked straight in the eye and took seriously. But, as De Tocqueville and others have observed, we are not an introspective people, often lacking the ability to recognize and understand our most fundamental flaws. Many Americans today are in a classic state of denial, content to muddle along, uttering the hackneyed clichés about democracy being a messy business. We must find a way to break out of that mindset if we are to move forward. Our circumstances cry out for a political and social reformation, not hand-wringing.

Despite the growing threat to democracy and the betrayal of the nation’s fundamental values, no rush to the barricades seems imminent. Most Americans remain largely passive if not indifferent, lulled by a superficial news media, drugs for every imagined ailment, government propaganda, twenty-four-seven entertainment, shopping and corporate-run politics. Corrupt politics and a decadent popular culture feed off each other, breeding cynicism, apathy and denial.

The corporate-owned mainstream news media, including its most liberal components, are complicit with what is happening. Celebrity trysts or high profile rape cases get more coverage on TV “news” than the white collar bribery of corporate lobbyists who now set the nation’s political agenda. National Public Radio, kowtowing to its right-wing overseers, produces stories about music for its center-left listeners. Can you hear train whistles in the music of Thelonious Monk? Most Americans are ill-informed by definition because they turn to television for their information. Hard news is out, infotainment is in, and it’s all much ado about nothing much at all. Even PBS’s The News Hour with Jim Lehrer is distilled down to produce mind-numbing reports on some of the day’s most engaging events. The program is about as provocative and thought-provoking as a glass of warm milk.

In 1961, Newton Minnow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) described television as a “vast wasteland.” Since then the wasteland has become a garbage dump. Most of the stuff that passes for comedy is crassly inane. There are still a few serious journalists who research, investigate and report the news, but their work usually receives minimal attention when aired or published. The notion of public service has become an anachronism to those who control the media. The corporate news media, obsessed by the bottom line, use ratings to determine the amount of coverage given to a particular event. And if it isn’t covered, it does not exist. Oprah, Dr. Phil and Larry King rule. Infotainment – a round-the-clock Roman circus – trumps all.

Through a combination of arrogance, ignorance and self-interest, the ruling political and business circles equate democracy and capitalism. The health of the stock market is their primary indicator of the health of the body politic. They count on the American people to confuse standard of living with quality of life. But that begins to wear thin after two decades of stagnant wages and an unemployment rate in double digits. The financial meltdown of 2008 revealed that the corporate high rollers care little about the general welfare. They operate in the danger zone for maximum profit; when one or more get wiped out, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of mid-managers and workers go down with them. Lehman Brothers’ tumble over the abyss in September 2008 nearly brought down the entire system. The Treasury Department intervened on behalf of Wall Street with corporate welfare of a new magnitude ostensibly to stave off a total collapse.

The smartest corporate leaders maneuver smoothly, relying on proxies – lobbyists and bankrolled politicians – to understand and protect their interests. They are willing to sacrifice what is left of democracy to open new markets, gain access to new resources and increase profits. Their instincts and training tell them to expand the commercial empire and do whatever is necessary to preserve it. They do this despite the fact that when they miscalculate and overreach, whether in governing Enron or invading Iraq, no invisible hand – not Adam Smith’s or a divine savior’s – reaches out to save their victims. The big banks that went belly up in 2008, proved to be the exception. Obama and his hedge-fund economic advisors decided to bail them out based on the flawed but prevalent notion that what is good for Wall Street is good for America. Instead of job creation, taxpayers funded CEO bonuses, obscene salaries and assorted golden parachutes. It’s a scam that will continue only as long as the American people tolerate it.

In the wake of the financial meltdown, four out of five Americans believe America is in decline. Even the least thoughtful of them must occasionally wonder how their nation reached this sorry state of affairs. They look for statesmen but find only political careerists in hock to their corporate bosses. It’s hard to tell the difference between a paid lobbyist for the financial sector and a senator who receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from that same source. The nation is plagued by an abdication of responsible democratic leadership in politics and government. This feeds a haunting fear that despite new faces, piecemeal domestic reforms, or a drawdown of troops in Iraq, nothing fundamental will change.

As corporate power grows, middle-class Americans continue to support a government that disregards their interests. The widening role of the military, for example, requires taxpayers to pay for redundant bases and costly, often useless, weapons. Many Americans, feeling powerless and marginalized, withdraw, turn off and lose touch with the realities of day-to-day politics. Prior to the meltdown, they could drop out and go shopping even if they had to buy on the installment plan. Americans, in the words of New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, the nation’s head cheerleader for globalization, had become “troublingly self-indulgent and slothful.” A more fitting term is the one historians commonly apply to the gentry of the Old South, with their self-destructive defense of the plantation system and slavery: benighted. Some Americans are benighted by choice, most by default. Others sense that something is wrong even if they can’t put their finger on the problem. A tiny minority understand that their country is being dragged down by an exorbitantly expensive empire, record debt and a flawed financial system. It reeks of Rome, and thinking Americans know that unless there is a radical change of direction consequences will be unintended and dire.

Despite the long-running celebration of individualism, America is at heart a conformist society. Few individuals, in or out of government, are willing to stand up against the powerful interests that control the mainstream news media and work to shape public opinion. The risk to their jobs and careers makes the price too high. Immune from public scrutiny and accountability, organizations and institutions become inflexible and tied to the status quo. It starts at the top. Congress is now corrupt and highly dysfunctional, eroding rights and liberties rather than expanding them. Federal bureaucracies are no better. Hurricane Katrina wiped out thousands in New Orleans who suffered not only from the storm but also from federal inaction, lack of preparedness and bureaucratic indifference. In this sorry episode, a weakened, indifferent and captive government really was the problem. It was neither able nor willing to perform its most basic obligation: to assist people in need and remove others from harm’s way. (Prisoners were the exception. An Abu Grahab type structure, complete with cages sprang up overnight outside New Orleans.) In the aftermath, the federal government, viewed widely as impotent and corrupt, more than earned the outrage and contempt directed at it and the people who ran it.

The wealthiest among us appear oblivious or indifferent to the anger and resentment of middle class Americans who, for more than two decades, have been financially squeezed – crunched is a better word – by stagnant wages. Many families have remained intact only by living on two incomes and using credit cards for necessities. Unemployment in some rural counties is twenty-five percent. But even with a double-digit rate of unemployment, corporate eyes remain firmly fixed on the bottom line.

Free-market fundamentalists still believe in an invisible hand that is not to be interfered with either in the market place or in society at large. Or so they say. Corporate welfare is perfectly acceptable, even desirable; its supporters are quick to exert their influence in the political arena and have no qualms about marginalizing the rest of us. Or in channeling huge bailouts to irresponsible banks and insurance companies that deserve to fail. The results have been disastrous for the economy and the body politic, but the true believers remain in control of the government and the economy. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a product of Wall Street, takes his marching orders from his friends at Goldman Sachs.

Arundhati Roy, writing before the financial collapse, said, “Democracy…is in crisis. And the crisis is a profound one. Every kind of outrage is being committed in the name of democracy. It has become little more than a hollow word, a pretty shell, emptied of all content or meaning. It can be whatever you want it to be.” (Arundhati Roy, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire.) Ordinary Americans have been slow to recognize, confront and resist this perversion of real democracy. If, as their awareness grows, they still fail to act, Americans will have demonstrated to the world that they are not deserving of a democratic system. The present trend is not reassuring and time is running out. It will take much more than a smooth-talking president and an economic recovery to stop this downward spiral.

A few hopeful signs do exist. Every day more thoughtful people everywhere recognize the need for radical surgery. Many Americans hoped that a change in the Administration and governing party would solve the nation’s problems. This was shortsighted, politically naïve and futile. There is no institution or political movement now capable of bringing about anything other than the familiar token change that solves nothing. But as average citizens gain a greater understanding of the sorry state of the nation, they may find ways to put government back on track. This can happen only if we are able to break the grip corporate power has on the political economy, sharply downsize the military machine and scale back the empire that is sucking the soul out of American democracy. Neither a letter to the editor not electoral politics as usual will accomplish this.

The radical change that we need can result only from a mass mobilization of society. One that leads to a peoples’ movement that is focused and non-violent could reverse the present course. There are risks, but how could it be otherwise? And it will not be an easy task, but as Jefferson and Paine told us, building a democracy is never easy; it comes with a price. Doing nothing is even costlier.

The purpose here is to present a radical but realistic critique of the political-corporate economy and the military machine that protects it. Nothing would be more rewarding than to make even a small contribution toward a nationwide people’s movement -- one capable of radically re-shaping our institutions and breathing new life into the democratic process. The idea of radical change threatens many people, and there will be no shortage of critics who will argue that my perspective is one-sided and biased. My response, as the chapters that follow demonstrate, is that there is overwhelming evidence to justify a sharp break with business as usual. I’ll be disappointed if this book fails to anger apologists or dismay just a few of the ubiquitous professional cheerleaders who make a living hyping this country’s aggressive capitalism and the foreign policy it spawns. Democracy slips further away, while the national-security and corporate-consumer juggernauts, twin components of empire, roll on. Untold damage to democracy continues in the name of defending “the free market system.”

Economic determinism is seldom the whole story, and conspiracy theories are best left to fiction writers. No small group of elite stakeholders sat down one day and said, “Let’s turn the American republic into the Corporate State, create a worldwide empire for profit, and defend it with a humongous military machine.” But the relentless pursuit of power and profit was and remains the driving force behind the shift away from democracy in America. Growth and expansion are rooted in the business ethic. Grow or die is the cliché. Neither political boundaries nor oceans matter because business abhors a vacuum.

These beliefs are part of a national perspective that can be heard at any Chamber of Commerce meeting in the country. In that same meeting, we might also hear that that the “American way of life is superior,” and that the world can learn much from us but can offer in return except markets. In its crudest form, this latter notion is tinged with racism and religious intolerance. (See Morris Berman’s Dark Ages America: The Final Phaseof Empire, pp. 107-08, W.W. Norton, 2006) Sadly, the consensus equating capitalism with democracy has become deeply ingrained in the national psyche and will not be easily dislodged.

Under such circumstances, it is understandable that many are pessimistic about changing direction. Today the nation manifests its darker side where, as is the case with individuals, its potential for self-destruction lies. That dark side now overshadows our virtues as a people and weakens our abilities to build a more civilized and more democratic nation. My faith in the principles and values of American civilization is tempered by disturbing trends clearly evident to all but those who choose not to see. But there is some comfort knowing that Americans have overcome serious challenges in the past and emerged stronger for their efforts.

There is no shortage of books dealing with pax Americana and the strains it places on society and the economy. Morris Berman, among others, sees a beleaguered empire that within a few decades will be eclipsed by China or the European Union. They may be right; this nation’s global misadventures are creating severe disruptions at home and abroad. But whether the Empire survives is a question that troubles only those who equate or link it to national survival. Empires come and go. The more important question is what must be done to restore American democracy and ensure that it survives. That is the critical issue addressed herein and the primary one that separates this book from others. The elites who forged the political economy are fully committed to preserving the status quo. The health and future of the Republic are at risk, but they have other priorities which they will defend by fair means or foul. Public options are anathema to them whether in health care or any other policy area.

Although the future of American democracy is in peril, a total lapse into despotism is not inevitable. The emergence of a more entrenched and autocratic version of the current Corporate State is more likely. The national ability to correct course offers hope that thinking Americans will recognize the problem, arrest the drift and put the country back on the right track. But time is running out. The Republic will be salvaged only when ordinary citizens decide saving it is worth the effort. Passivity and cynicism will increase the speed at which the nation moves toward the abyss. Americans will betray themselves and their country if they allow the kingpins of the Corporate State and its military empire to destroy their birthright.

PART ONE: A Checkered Past

The Rise of the Corporate State
Corporate America is no political mutant; rather it is the product of a society rooted in unfettered commerce and economic opportunism.
Most early settlers to this country fell into one of three groups: slaves and indentured servants struggling to survive, risk takers looking for an opportunity to make their fortunes and live a better life, and religious folk seeking freedom of worship. The latter group wanted their religion straight up, free from meddling monarchs and popes. Among them were Quakers, Baptists, Catholics and Jews. Puritans, of course, are the best-known because of the disproportionate influence of New England historians. Still, their story remains an interesting one today, due in large part to the unrivalled scope of their ambitions. John Winthrop spelled it out in his resounding description of the exceptional new settlement as “a city on a hill.”

Winthrop envisioned a unique settlement where man could worship God without external interference. The society would be exceptional in the sense that it would be free from the constraints and intolerance found elsewhere. Colonial America fell short of the vision, but it was a relatively virtuous and democratic society, separate and distinct from European countries viewed as corrupt, decadent, and authoritarian. First used by De Tocqueville and then adopted by American historians, the concept of “American exceptionalism,” evolved to include the notion of American moral superiority, a self-image that became deeply embedded in the American psyche. A European variation was the idea that the wilderness, unlike wicked old cities, produced more virtuous citizens. A well-known example is Rousseau’s notion of the “noble savage,” an innocent free from the vices that plagued European sophisticates. Benjamin Franklin, America’s first ambassador to France was considered a rustic exotic, and he was much in demand in French society. Despite his high intellect, he assumed the role of the hick, playing it well and enjoying the attention he received, especially from the ladies. Images of him in a coonskin cap appeared throughout France, even on the bottom of chamber pots. We see variations of the theme in the well-known stories about Daniel Boone, Natty Bumppo and Huck Finn, all of whom sought to escape the encroachments and temptations of civilization for more innocent environs.

Masters and Servants
Land grants from English entrepreneurs arrived with the early colonial settlers. But so did the practice of indentured servitude. The Virginia Company brought in thousands of unskilled workers who obligated themselves to perform difficult, menial labor to pay for passage to America. Those who survived the passage, several years of hard labor, abuse from overseers and the steamy summers of tidewater Virginia were then free to start building lives for themselves. This practice was the forerunner of the slave system and had many of the same brutal features. (For more details on indentured servitude see A. B. Smith, Colonists in Bondage. The University of North Carolina Press, 1947)

Slavery replaced indentured servitude as the importation of Africans increased, and the practice soon died out. But indentured servitude left its stain on the young society and its legacy preserved in the slave system that followed: it helped cement an attitude among those who formed the earliest corporations that in the pursuit of profit, workers were expendable. Wealthy property owners made the rules and expected everyone else to accept and abide by them. Although many things have changed in American society since the 1600s, the corporate ethos that profits are more important than workers who make those profits possible is still with us. The consequences are obviously less severe today, but the needs of workers still rank below the priority given to maximizing profits.

Energy and mobility then, as today, characterized American society. People and goods constantly moved up and down the east coast, from Savannah to Baltimore to New York to Boston. At the same time, the more adventurous pushed westward into new territory. Along with independence and expansion came homesteading and federal land grants to encourage settlement of the West. Land was the great commodity. Americans have always been enamored of the land, usually their own, but in a few notable instances land that belonged to someone else. There was, after all, a lot of it available. The huge continent was sparsely populated, and land was dirt-cheap.

Ownership of property was the strongest caste divider in America. Those who owned land shaped society and governed state and nation. The unfortunate landless ones were generally regarded as underachievers, lacking in resourcefulness and ambition. Upward mobility was not uncommon, but it was nearly always linked to land acquisition. Despite plentiful, cheap land, not all landowners survived and prospered. Crops could fail and farms could be lost. Booms could quickly turn to busts and fortunes could disappear overnight. Wealth based on land was a risky capital venture.

What little American innocence existed in the early years could not last. It was gradually eaten away by subjugation of the native population, slavery, war and a host of other influences. In one sense, the loss was the natural result of a maturing nation and the inevitable imbroglios that accompany change and experience. However, the notion that the US was a more virtuous society survived the early period and grew stronger and more widely accepted at home and abroad. The evidence was substantial. The Declaration of Independence and defeat of the British, the adoption of the Constitution with a Bill of Rights, and the rise of Jacksonian Democracy were historical watersheds, believed by many to be the products of extraordinary humans. These achievements contributed to the notion that American government, the economy and society in general were unique and superior. Individualism and liberty were the operative words. Together, they formed the centerpiece of the American experience. It is no coincidence that they became the rhetorical underpinnings for unrestrained entrepreneurial adventures, and misadventures.

Chattel slavery was the entrepreneurial misadventure par excellence. It was essential to the plantation system, and Southern planters were determined from the outset to protect their “peculiar institution.” The issue surfaced during the struggle among the framers of the Constitution as they attempted to create a united country, a goal not achieved until after the Civil War. Out of deadlock grew a compromise, described by the abolitionists as “the monstrous concession,” whereby 1) a slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation assessments and 2) the slave trade would be allowed to continue uninterrupted for twenty years. (See Staughton Lynd "The Abolitionist Critique of the U.S. Constitution" in: The Antislavery Vanguard, ed. Martin Duberman: Princeton University Press, 1965)

Northern delegates to the Constitutional Convention were forced to compromise on the volatile issue of slavery to preserve national unity. Plantation owners went home with the assurance that their feudal/capitalist system was safe, at least for the short run. Economics had determined the outcome of the debate about the future of the country. Attitudes towards business and labor were profoundly shaping the embryonic political economy. The harsh labor practices of the Virginia Company and others like it had not turned the colonists against entrepreneurship based on forced labor. Most believed that growing such cash crops as indigo, rice, tobacco and cotton, required slave labor. Although the Constitution was a historic landmark for human rights, it was also a political compromise that sacrificed morality for economics, setting an ominous precedent for race relations and casting a long, dark shadow on the foundling nation.

The plantation was not a corporation in the modern sense of the word, but there were striking similarities. Both the plantation and the corporate trading company were set up as moneymaking enterprises. Both required an investment of capital, both employed and exploited the labor of scores of people, and both were subject to the vicissitudes of the marketplace. Unlike the corporation, the plantation system lacked shareholders; its power was concentrated in the hands of the owner. A basic similarity, however, was evident in the approach to decision-making: planters and managers based their actions on financial outcomes, giving scant consideration to the laborers whose lives they controlled. With rare exceptions, slave labor was treated as a valuable, but ultimately expendable commodity.

Southern planters, and others, disparaged the notion that slave ownership was a moral issue. They made eloquent defenses of it, often citing obscure biblical verses to bolster their arguments. More practical advocates cut to the chase: slavery, they argued, was an economic imperative, and they denounced any attack on it as an assault on the rights of property owners. Property-conscious Americans, some reluctantly, bought this argument because there was no denying that slaves were the property of their owners. Once the issue moved to the next level, when the growing opposition argued publicly that it was morally wrong for human beings to own other humans, the economic justification for slavery began to lose appeal. The moral argument had failed to meet the litmus test of the early political economy in which economic rights held priority over human rights. Although abolition eliminated the worst feature of the political economy, the capitalist ethic continued to embrace subsistence wages in the North and share-cropping in the South. Neither condition was far removed from chattel slavery.

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance that the constitutional compromise on slavery had in shaping the future of the US. The unmistakable message to the world was that the new republic would be governed entirely by white men, many of whom owned human property. An expansion of voting rights came many years later, enfranchising all white men during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, women in 1919, and blacks in 1964. But the dye had been caste in 1789, and for the foreseeable future a property-owning elite would govern the country. It was they who defined the race and class boundaries, and like all elites, they clung to power and privilege.

The founders’ failure to deal constructively with the problem of slavery was a serious blow to the idea of American innocence. Hence, a more qualified view of exceptionalism emerged from the Constitutional Convention. The framers told their fellow Americans and the world that they were embracing liberty, individual rights, and the franchise for some, but not for all, excluding a substantial majority of the population from their circle of privilege. Arrogance and economic self-interest led the delegates to define another human as three-fifths of a person and incorporate that definition into a national constitution. Racial prejudice and ignorance also played a role. Whatever its roots, white supremacy became officially embedded in the nation’s charter, tying race to the pursuit of liberty and individual rights.

Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson and the other founding fathers advanced the cause of human freedom with their endeavors. But the fact remains that they tainted their accomplishments by striking a deal on the slavery issue. They did so in deference to the plantation owners, the feudal CEOs of their day who valued their economic system above a unified nation. Their divided loyalty raised doubts about the future of the nation, as Benjamin Franklin’s response to an admirer’s question about the Constitution indicates. When asked, “Dr. Franklin, what have you given us?” Franklin replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

Not everyone abroad was impressed with American notions of freedom and self-rule. Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of England’s greatest literary figures and a hard-core Tory, had no sympathy for the new country or for its new-found liberty. How is it, he asked, that the greatest cries of liberty come from a people who practice and defend slavery? (See James Boswell’s Life of Johnson, one of the first and best biographies in the English language.) A good question, indeed, and by posing it Johnson had cut to the heart of the matter of exceptionalism. American blindness to its own flaws - sins if you will - was so great that it transcended ordinary hypocrisy, although there was more than a residue of that in society. Slavery was the supreme social vice, the most fundamental flaw; it added a hollow ring to all the rhetoric about liberty and democracy.

Thoughtful Americans, recognizing the contradiction, questioned the practice of slavery, complicating the efforts of those college professors who now urge students to view the issue within the context of the times. The Quakers detested slavery, defining it as a moral issue and speaking often and forcefully against it. Few in number, they were marginal in the political wake of North-South jockeying for power. But they refused to be ignored, and their commitment help spark anti-slavery sentiment in the North. By planting the seeds of the Abolitionist movement, they ensured a struggle for emancipation, one that evolved into a movement for women’s rights.

Universal suffrage was virtually unheard of at the time, but there was substantial momentum for expanding representative governance. Property holders in Europe, particularly England, exerted strong influence on their governments. In France, a revolution was brewing based in part on the idea of egalité. The US Bill of Rights spoke eloquently of human equality and liberty, although the practice fell far short of principle. Governing within this fundamental contradiction meant that the city on the hill contained segregated communities for blacks and poor whites. It would be generations before their offspring could participate fully in a democratic process. Still, the idea of expanding the scope and privileges of citizenship was gaining support among the people, indicating the evolving nature of American democracy.

The fundamental accommodation to economic forces shaped the views of generations of Americans who witnessed the rise of corporate power with a minimum of dissent. In effect, the nation was becoming conditioned to living with a government that embraced economic power and those who wielded it. Although some have made the case that America’s experiment had comparatively few flaws, slavery was such a vile practice that it overshadowed smaller vices and virtues. From 1789-1865, human bondage was the festering wound that would not heal. Dealing with its aftermath was, and to some degree remains, what Gunnar Myrdal called the American dilemma, one rooted as much in economics as in race and class.

Corporations as Persons
In 1886 the US Supreme Court christened the corporate offspring and blessed its future. In a ruling that has puzzled generations of students of American history, the Court ruled that corporations were “persons” covered by the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, adopted following the Civil War to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves. (Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad Company) This fateful ruling enabled corporate lawyers to argue that varying taxes and regulations by the states amounted to discrimination. Moreover, it had the long-term effect of enabling the courts to broaden corporate rights as the rights of the white majority expanded. In a supreme irony, the ruling vastly expanded the legal protection of corporations at a time when the civil rights of black Americans were being trampled by a resurgence of discrimination and segregation.

By 1890, large corporations, railroads chief among them, had accumulated enormous wealth and power. Corruption and graft were commonplace. Politicians at all levels could be bought like futures in pork bellies. The federal government was the willing junior partner who stood by while workers were exploited and devalued. There was no countervailing power, only the power that grew from unprecedented concentrations of wealth. The so called Gilded Age was the zenith of unfettered capitalism, a time when business dominated politics as never before. Most Americans now viewed their economy and their government as a political economy in which the two components meshed to the point of obscurity.

Political America quickly accommodated the big new kid on the playground in other ways. State legislature began enacting measures designed to eliminate personal liability for individual investors. These “limited liability” laws opened up investment to huge numbers of people who had previously shied away because of risk. States started competing for corporate investment, and by the end of the 19th century several northeastern states had acted to minimize or eliminate legal restraints. These actions loosened controls on acquisitions and allowed companies to own stock in other companies.

Monopolies sprang up in such unprecedented numbers that corporate and political leaders grew concerned. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act designed to level the playing field by discouraging monopolies. However, the road was still clear for corporations to form, grow, merge, acquire, and sell with few restrictions. Kevin Phillips writes that by 1904, “a total of 318 trusts held 40 percent of US manufacturing assets and boasted a capitalization of $7 billion, seven times bigger than the US national debt” (Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy, 2002. p. 307). The 20th century was now destined be the era of corporate capitalism (For more on the rise of the corporation, see Joel Bakan, The Corporation: the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Free Press, 2005)

Not coincidentally, American imperialism raised its head at about the same time. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, Navy Secretary Theodore Roosevelt and other influential figures steered the country towards empire. Under shadowy and manipulated circumstances, the US declared war on Spain in 1898. The US won quick and easy victories in Cuba and the Philippines, and took possession of these countries plus Guam, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. This war, and subsequent overseas misadventures, proved to be useful diversions from growing demands for more democracy and social justice. The business of America was now more than simple business; it was business and governance shaped by an overseas empire based on acquiring and exploiting colonial possessions. East Asia was now an American “sphere of influence,” under control and open for business.

Populists and Progressives
As the new “peculiar institution,” corporate capitalism enjoyed protected status while civil and human rights were ignored or compromised. A public-private partnership had ensured that the political and economic climate would be ideal for industry throughout the latter part of the 19th century. Manufacturing, railroads, steel mills, and banking flourished. The occasional recession did little to impede long-term growth and development. Working conditions gradually improved but lagged behind those in other industrializing countries. Northern workers labored long hours under harsh conditions as they struggled to form a labor movement. However, it was the farmers of the Midwest and South who took the lead organizing to fight exploitative interest rates and other unfair lending practices of the “money power,” practices that kept them in perpetual debt and on the brink of bankruptcy.

The Populist Movement gave voice to those who were willing to stand up against the banks and Wall Street. Although they were never able to elect a president, they produced firebrands like Mary Lease, who told the farmers of Kansas to raise more hell and less corn, and Tom Watson of Georgia who twice ran unsuccessfully for president. In 1896 at the Democrats’ National Convention, William Jennings Bryan, who is sometimes described as a watered-down populist, delivered his famous “cross of gold” speech in which he assailed the financial manipulations of Wall Street bankers with a rhetorical flourish reminiscent of Patrick Henry’s famous speech on liberty. The Populist Movement, despite a fringe element that occasionally voiced anti-Semitic views, serves as a sterling example of rural Americans, both black and white, organizing to defend their interests against the strong arm of the Corporate State. Their influence, however, was felt mainly at the local level in the South and in the Plains states. Not until the New Deal of the 1930s did Populists see concrete results at the federal level.

By the turn of the century, reform efforts had moved from rural to urban as progressives of both major parties and the Socialist Party sought to loosen the stranglehold of business and industry. More rhetorically restrained than the Populists, the Progressives sought change in everything from public education to election laws. It is noteworthy that one hundred years ago the Progressive agenda was virtually identical to that of present-day reformers. The Progressives targeted corrupt business practices, stagnant wages and unemployment, and the degradation of natural resources. (For more on the Progressive Movement see George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900-1912, Harper and Row, 1958.) They understood the relationship between corporate dominance and other social ills, including buying political influence. But their struggle for political reform was not easy. They made little progress in diluting the concentration of wealth among the corporate elite or lessening the influence of corrupt politicians. They encountered a common attitude voiced by George Washington Plunkett, a New York politician who said he saw nothing wrong in a little honest graft.

The Progressives also met with limited success in areas such as legislation to protect consumers, electoral reforms, anti-trust laws, progressive taxation, expanded public education, conservation of natural resources, and workplace safety. Their reform efforts were cut short by the onset of WWI, but average citizens had learned that organizing made it possible to shape government and politics. The grass-roots challenge to the power of the ruling elites inspired a renewed partnership between Party bosses and the big players on Wall Street. The Progressives, like the Populists, had slowed but failed to reverse the corporate steamroller that now appeared to be unstoppable. The Senate, more than ever, was a millionaire’s club, and the Republicans under Presidents Harding and McKinley would make certain it stayed that way.

Despite the best efforts of reformers, the federal government continued to serve the interests of business and industry at the expense of ordinary Americans. With urbanization and the expansion of corporate wealth and power came the predictable increase in political and corporate corruption. The Roaring Twenties brought with them flappers with bobbed hair, bathtub gin, and automobiles in colors other than black. The business of America was business, and what was good for business was good for America. But the credos were trite, the optimism was myopic, and the law of unintended consequences was lying in wait.

A Rude Awakening
Corporate America enjoyed smooth sailing until the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. (See John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, 1929, Mariner Press, 1955) Thousands of corporations imploded, bursting the bubble of invincibility that had enveloped American business. A few moguls, more from loss and despair than from shame, leaped from tall buildings. Could a government not under the corporate heel have prevented the loss and suffering most Americans experienced? Quite possibly, but escaping the corporate grip was not a ready option. Galbraith writes: “Governments were either bemused as were the speculators or they deemed it unwise to be sane at a time when sanity exposed one to ridicule, condemnation for spoiling the game, or the threat of severe political retribution.”(Ibid., p. 28)

For the next three years, President Hoover fiddled around, waiting for the free market to stop smoldering. No invisible hand came to the rescue. As the country sank deeper into depression, the mystique of big business and the power that it had long enjoyed dissipated. Ordinary people who lost small businesses, farms, and homes were outraged by corporate excess and government complicity. Anger ran deep and wide across the country, but Republicans, paralyzed by an outdated economic doctrine, seemed more willing to watch the country disintegrate or fall into revolution than to use government to pick up the pieces and begin rebuilding. Conventional wisdom embracing laissez-faire held conservative politicians captive. Galbraith, who coined the term conventional wisdom, said it gained wide acceptance because it is "what the community as a whole or particular audiences find acceptable." (See John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, Mariner Books, 1998, p.7)

Despite the country’s previous experience with economic depressions, Republicans in the 1920s had learned little from the mistakes of their elders. They had refused to admit to themselves or others that the boom would bust. This was a new era, they argued, and the old rules simply no longer applied. Businesses would be fine if owners and managers stayed focused on sales charts and the bottom line. There was the ever-present, compelling need to “think positive,” even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary. Galbraith writes that the business ethos is tied to short-term gains that are convenient and orderly. Trouble down the road is best ignored because it is too risky to confront. “Here… lies the threat to capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound.” (Ibid, p. 258) (Check p. #)

New Deal and War
The 1929 crash and Great Depression could not be ignored. They brought into sharp focus the limitations of free market economics and raised fundamental questions about the conventional wisdom of the corporate elite. When the Democrats won the election of 1932 and Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the White House, a nation deep in crisis had taken a critical first step toward recovery. But it was only a first step. FDR supported a variety of legislative measures designed to preclude another stock market crash and to minimize abusive corporate labor practices. The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) outlawed child labor, and the Securities and Exchange Act (1934) set up a permanent commission to protect investors from fraud. For his reform efforts, the corporate elite, nearly all Republicans, labeled Roosevelt “a traitor to his class.” FDR viewed their sentiments as proof that his policies and programs were beginning to achieve results.

The New Deal put the country back on the road toward a more perfect union, that is, toward a more democratic nation. Unfettered capitalism had brought the country to its knees. Poverty and unemployment had reached record levels. Disenchantment with government inaction resulted in deep cynicism and a hostility that was unprecedented in the nation’s history. It was widely believed, in and out of government circles, that more laissez-faire would culminate in armed, possibly violent, protests. FDR and his Brain Trust understood the dire nature of the situation and took steps to correct it. Their efforts sent a clear message to all who would listen that the capitalist economy had to be regulated if it was to survive. Ironically, hard-core capitalists rejected the message and despised the person most responsible for saving their cherished economic system.

Despite the programs and reforms of the New Deal, progress was painfully slow. Buoyed by FDR’s optimism and his fireside chats on the radio, the American people persevered, showing remarkable spirit and patience in the face of adversity. But the country was finally on the right track, and by the end of the decade the tide had turned. Full recovery would not come until the country was on a war footing and the defense industry surged into high gear to meet the needs of World War II. By 1942, Rosie finally had a job, driving rivets into submarines, not refrigerators. Together, Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo had replaced the Great Depression as public enemy number one.

Cold War Chills and Fever
At the end of the war, the country happily began the transition to a peace-time economy. Corporations such as General Motors, General Electric and DuPont had played important roles in defeating the enemy, and their prestige rose among Americans of all classes. Some Americans kept their cellars overstocked and their money in mattresses, but for the most part the complicity of government and corporations was forgiven, if not forgotten. The economy was poised to take off, and consumers eagerly anticipated purchasing everything from automobile tires to kitchen appliances. Once again, America was open for business.

For some important war-related industries the conversion to a peacetime economy proved to be a brief interlude. In a 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill warned, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” (See "Sinews of Peace" address March 5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri) Stalin’s Soviet Union was moving to consolidate its power over central Europe. The message was not lost on President Truman, who sat on the platform as Churchill spoke. A military build-up was necessary to counter what was seen as a growing threat from a Soviet Union portrayed as hell-bent on conquest and expansion.

The open question was how the American people, who would have to foot the bill, would respond to another military build-up so soon after the end of a major war. America was the only major participant to emerge from the war unscathed, and its military and economic powers reigned supreme. Wouldn’t there be plenty of time to mobilize if another threat materialized? It was a legitimate question. We know now that at that point the answer was probably yes. But Truman and his advisors felt no need to compromise or take chances where the Soviets were involved. Rejecting the counsel of George Kennan to contain the Soviet Union through diplomatic and economic means, Truman looked for 1) a justification to return the nation to a war footing and 2) a rationale for the tax burden it would entail. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, told Truman that in order to do what he planned, it would be necessary to first “scare the hell out of the American people.”

President Truman, supported by a bipartisan governing elite, proceeded to do precisely that, unleashing alarms and the hounds of the Cold War. Truman requested and received emergency funds to assist Turkey and Greece resist communist insurgents. The Cold War took on a life of its own, ably assisted by the Soviets who blockaded Berlin (1948), by the Chinese who routed Chiang Kai-Shek from the mainland to Formosa (1948), and by the North Koreans who provoked a hot war with South Korea (1948). Throw the increasingly frequent test of an atomic or hydrogen weapon into the mix, and it becomes easy to see why Truman’s approach prevailed. The American taxpayer would have been willing to pay almost any cost to attain even minimum security in this dangerous post-war world.

The Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Europe and create new markets for American business got the headlines, but the defense industry, now morphing into a huge peace-time military-industrial-congressional complex, got the really big bucks. The Pentagon ordered upgrades of nearly every weapon in its arsenal and created new ones that no one had yet heard of. In only a few years, the annual defense budget was larger than it had been in 1945. The only face on Kennan’s policy of containment was now a military one. For the Cold Warriors, economic and diplomatic containment were secondary, even redundant. They took the easy way out, hunkering down, talking tough and stockpiling weapons.

The American military buildup continued throughout the 1950s, co-producing a costly and protracted “arms race” between the US and the Soviet Union. Armaments industries in both nations turned out massive numbers of tanks, planes, and ships manned by highly trained, professional military personnel. A rough balance of power existed, although in any given year one side might have a slight advantage in a particular area.

The arms race had its own momentum, and in the mid 1950s it literally moved to the edge of outer space. The highly publicized (and as it turned out, fictitious) “missile gap” illustrates the role of politics in nurturing and sustaining the military machine. Running for president against Vice President Richard Nixon, Senator John F. Kennedy charged that the Eisenhower Administration had allowed the Soviets to outpace the US in the production of intercontinental nuclear missiles. Eisenhower and Nixon denied the charge, but the assertion “had legs,” and it contributed to Kennedy’s narrow victory over Nixon in 1960. Americans voted their hopes and their fears.

The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
In his last year in office, Eisenhower voiced his concern about the growing militarization of society and the pernicious influence of what he originally called the military-industrial-congressional complex. Aides apparently persuaded him to drop the congressional component, but Eisenhower knew there could be no such complex without congressional approval. Whether duo or trinity, the general viewed this unholy alliance as a direct threat to democracy, and he urged Americans not to assume that it would be self contained. Eisenhower spoke of “unwarranted influence,” “misplaced power,” and “endangered liberties.” (See Presidential Speeches) But the phenomenon he warned of had already developed a momentum of its own, and there was no turning back.

After his inauguration, President Kennedy quietly dropped references to a missile gap. The budding military-industrial-congressional complex that Eisenhower tolerated and feared was turning out more than enough missiles to match or surpass Soviet production. As defense policies, containment, based on military parity or superiority, and Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), were alive and well. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the US-Soviet confrontation over the Berlin Wall ensured that the arms race would continue despite the fact that in both instances the world verged on a nuclear Armageddon. In the minds of American, armaments, including nuclear ones, equaled security.

Although a nuclear treaty banning atmospheric tests was adopted in 1963, underground testing continued, as did the production of ever more advanced and costly weapons. By 1969, many of America’s leading thinkers had grown alarmed about the increasing size and independence of the military-industrial-congressional complex. They expressed concerns about costly missile systems, the loss of Congressional control of the military budget, and the larger issue of the militarization of domestic life and foreign policy. A non-partisan group of national security experts concluded that Congress had failed to maintain proper oversight of the military, resulting in the creation of a vast national security apparatus that was essentially self-perpetuating. Group members sounded the alarm, arguing that militarism posed a threat to American democracy, as would any other huge concentration of unregulated power. Senator Eugene McCarthy warned of the increasing militarization of foreign policy when he campaigned against Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War in 1968. Senator William Fulbright also saw the trend early on and stated the danger: “If American democracy is destroyed within the next generation, it will not be destroyed by the Russians or the Chinese but by ourselves, by the very means we use to defend it.” (American Militarism 1970, The Viking Press, 1969)

America was on a war footing and would remain there through the Vietnam War up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The non-partisan group’s concerns failed to slow the beast that was beginning to move the nation toward a garrison state. Fulbright’s warning that the nation was becoming the world’s policeman fell on deaf ears. The course correction he and others sought never materialized. The US soon became the imperial nation he foresaw, defending the international status quo and extending its power around the globe.

Then as now projecting military power was a dangerous game, but a necessary one in the eyes of the foreign policy establishment. Fidel Castro’s communist government and his ties to Moscow were a thorn in the side from the outset and had to be countered. The Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis that grew out of it indicate the lengths the leadership was willing to go to deal with real and perceived threats. A nuclear armed Cuba posed a real threat, but even after Khrushchev removed the missiles Cuba was, and continues to be, portrayed as a dangerous communist outpost in Latin America. Having failed militarily to eliminate Castro, the Corporate State imposed an economic embargo that put a strangle hold on the Cuban people. That Castro was, and remains, a dictator was never the issue. Some of Washington’s best friends are dictators. Castro was a sassy dictator who would not be controlled. His independence, not his penchant for jailing those who opposed him, was his real sin.

Having bungled the attempt to overthrow Castro and negotiated a retreat from nuclear Armageddon, Kennedy – with help from his best and brightest -- turned his attention to Vietnam. There, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the communist north, was engaged in a classic struggle with the Catholic military leadership in the south. Ho’s aim was to regain lost territory and reunite the country. His forces had defeated French colonialists in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu and soon would have controlled all of Vietnam. Facing defeat, opposition forces in the south requested military assistance from Washington. Kennedy began a slow military buildup that Lyndon Johnson accelerated following an artificial crisis in the Tonkin Gulf. The US assumed the colonial role France had been forced to abandon. The war proved to be a military and moral disaster. By the end of 1973, after nearly destroying the country with bombs and chemicals, virtually all American troops had left Vietnam. Less than two years later, the forces in the south had been defeated and the country united. Millions of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of American military personnel died in this imperial misadventure. It left the nation severely divided and the power elite figuratively disarmed as they watched Richard Nixon come unglued in the aftermath of Watergate.

While the corporate coup was taking shape, the American military, demoralized and angry after being chased out of Vietnam, looked inward. Military defeats are always followed by excuses and scapegoating, and strategic planners in the Pentagon complained that politicians had undercut the troops by exercising excess caution and by micro-managing. Apparently these hardliners were otherwise engaged when General Curtis LeMay, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pledged to bomb North Vietnam back to the Stone Age, and when the dynamic duo of Nixon and Kissinger secretly invaded Cambodia. Public support for this ill-conceived and bloody military adventure had eroded, forcing Nixon’s hand on withdrawing. Americans were told that it was a war against an encroaching communism, the nemesis and opposite of “free enterprise.” In fact, it was more of a continuation of the failed colonial struggle of the French, who had built vast rubber plantations and occupied the country following WW II. For the US in Vietnam there was never light, only darkness at the end of a long tunnel.

When President Carter, a former commander of a nuclear submarine, defied common sense in a 1979 nationwide address by speaking of a national crisis of confidence, he did not reference the military. His speech, and the negative spin feel-good pundits gave it, was the political equivalent of telling the American people that they were now French. Whether there was a general malaise at that time is arguable, although cause enough could be found in a nasty recession, long lines at the gas pumps, and hostages in Iran. Nonetheless Carter, intentionally or not, clearly was describing the effects of the consumer society – an outgrowth of the Corporate State – on the American people, although in terms that corporate hacks and the news media described dismissively as a Sunday School lesson.

In a nation that was once proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption…. But we've discovered that owning and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives that have no confidence or purpose. (Presidential Speeches….)

Carter’s critique was right, but Americans certainly act as if consuming oil satisfies their longing for meaning. When all else fails, take a drive in the country, even with shortages and record gasoline prices. The love affair was, and remains, real. The country is full of incapacitated 80 year-old drivers who refuse to give up their licenses or their gas guzzlers. Carter demonstrated that he understood this when he stated that Persian Gulf oil was vital to America and that the US would access it by any means necessary. To back up the assertion, Carter created a military Joint Task Force, capable of quick deployment to the Middle East. The Task Force grew into a command structure that directed the Gulf War of 1990. Routing Saddam was the first application of what had come to be known as the Carter Doctrine, employing military force to ensure continued access to oil in the Middle East. This expanded military presence included installations in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries of the Middle East. Blowback assumed varied forms, but was most damaging in the attacks on the World Trade Center by Saudi nationals. The stage was set for Bush’s aggressive war in Iraq, another, more extreme, application of the Doctrine.

The national crisis in confidence Carter spoke of included the military services, particularly the Army whose mindset is geared to consuming more, not less hardware. The Pentagon, still licking its wounds from defeat in Vietnam, complained that recruitment was down, retirements were up, and the warehouses full of rapidly deteriorating war materiel. War planners and politicians alike worried that the war machine was growing rusty and the driver lacking in motivation and training. The boys needed new toys to cheer them up, and the corporate community was quite willing to oblige those in search of the Weapons-R-Us stores. Ronald Reagan was the man chosen to lead the charge.

President and CEO Ronald Reagan
With the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981 came a merger: the political/governmental component became a full-fledged partner with the military/industrial component. The so-called Reagan Revolution usually refers to cuts in taxes - $747 billion over five years - and reductions in federal programs such as school lunches and public transportation. The other policy initiatives were deregulation of air travel and telecommunication and the abandonment of environmental standards in auto emissions, hazardous waste and chemicals. As a whole, this was not a revolution in any sense of the word. Rather, it was a counter-revolution characterized by the rise of crony capitalism and corporate welfare, much of it dressed in a military uniform. Reagan’s timely appearance on the scene offered a window of opportunity for military planners who wanted to regroup their forces and, given the right circumstance, test the post-Vietnam waters. They found their excuse in 1983 when the natives of Grenada became restless and uppity. The invasion and occupation of that tiny island was a small but significant step in the evolution of the modern American military empire.

Reagan doubled military expenditures and challenged the Soviet Union to a new and costly arms race. Billions of dollars flowed from the taxpayer to the US Treasury, and from the Pentagon to defense contractors for everything from new M-16 rifles to a hare-brained missile defense system that came to be known as Star Wars. This missile defense system is supposed to have the capability to knock out missiles launched against the US. Recently deployed, it has been described as a system that doesn’t work designed to take out an enemy that doesn’t exist. No matter. The price tag on it is a mere one trillion dollars plus, so who’s complaining. Certainly not Boeing or Ratheon, the major contractors. Not even the taxpayers, who seem willing to pay any amount for a false security that moves them closer to financial ruin.

Reagan loved big government despite the slick propaganda portraying him as a conservative. He publicly denigrated the federal government and dismantled social service programs while supporting one of the largest, and most expensive, military buildups in history. He made millionaires out of thousands of defense contractors and might well have depleted the Treasury if the Soviet Union had not begun to unravel at the end of his second term in office. The Pentagon and its cheerleaders, including Reagan, modestly claimed that their arms race was crippling “the evil empire,” forcing the Soviet Union into bankruptcy, dissolution and military impotence. The other message to the American people was that a state-of-the-art military machine was essential to national security, and downsizing it would be harmful and irresponsible.

The expanding military-industrial-congressional complex now had an adjunct political/governmental component that included not only Congress but the president as well. The goal of restoring a 1920s style corporate dominance had been realized and the process moved forward with the enthusiastic complicity of the government, now under the control of the Republican right wing. Still novices in the art of conducting clandestine operations and manipulating the public, the leadership failed miserably in its scheme to sell arms to Iran and funnel the proceeds to the so-called “freedom fighters” who were waging war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, leaving a bit of egg on Reagan’s teflon face. The larger war, however, was the one Reagan was waging to reshape the American government to fit its new role as handmaiden to the emerging Corporate State. Greg Grandin points out that Iran-Contra was not a conspiracy, “but part of a larger storm of ideological passion, entwining economic interests and political ambition, that delivered the American system to the New Right…. creating the swamp in which militarism and corruption thrive. (Greg Grandin, TomDispatch.com. May 31, 2006)

The federal government that Reagan saw and identified as a problem was being radically altered even as he uttered the sound bite. Reagan’s task, for which GE had prepared him well, was simply to sell the idea of corporate supremacy to the American public. Sell it he did, and in the process he created an atmosphere conducive to long-term viability for this new private-public partnership, one whose governing mission was rooted in privatization, tax breaks and deregulation. Jonathan Cohn and others have described one example, the turnover of millions of acres of federal lands to corporations for bargain prices. At the same time, the legitimate regulatory role of government was dismissed as “bureaucratic bungling,” and federal employees by the thousands found themselves doing little or nothing but wondering whether to tough it out or find another job.

Reagan and Company were tearing down their own version of the Berlin Wall, the wall that separated government from business. In so doing, they morphed their opportunistic political mantra into a reality, transforming the government they viewed as a problem into a partner in crime with the corporate elite. The considerable cost involved was borne by a public susceptible to propaganda and lies. There was little bliss in their ignorance. The counterrevolution spawned a bust in the housing market, a recession that shot unemployment up to above twelve percent and record high federal deficits. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration took out an insurance policy: hit man Oliver North and others devised a secret plan to suspend the Constitution and impose martial law in case of serious domestic “insurgency.” (For more see the Congressional Hearings on Iran-Contra.)

This new corporate-government partnership had no room for troublesome unions or needy families. Reagan fired more than 12,000 striking air traffic controllers one day and denounced what he called “welfare queens” the next. Union membership went into a gradual decline from which it may never recover. Realizing that they could fire workers with impunity, many corporations (including big names like GE) set about doing precisely that, and the trend continues today. At the same time, Reagan’s apparatchiks went to work dismantling the social safety net by cutting and eliminating federal programs. That trend also continues today. Morning in America (another feel good sound bite) became for many an evening at home without a job or a support system. As they watched the evening news, alert viewers may have wondered why the cost and size of government was nearly doubling while services were being halved.

Reagan’s way of dealing with basic human needs, especially those of disadvantaged minority groups, was to deny their existence or to ignore them. A surprisingly large number of poor people or working poor struggled to survive in the face of governmental indifference. The poverty rate rose from about ten to fifteen percent, while institutions for the mentally handicapped closed and homelessness skyrocketed.

Affluent Americans could regard the biblical injunction about the omnipresent poor as a mandate as much as an observation. Too many of them looked upon the poverty-stricken with more contempt than compassion. Following the aborted War on Poverty in the 1960s, there was less and less room for redundant underachievers in a society that was well down the road to becoming the Corporate State. Welcome to the President as CEO, the Cabinet as the Board of Directors, and the public as clueless stockholders stuck with rapidly falling shares.

Reagan removed the red stop light and yellow caution light on the corporate highway, leaving only a permanent green. He made no secret about his strong distaste for government regulation of business activities. He denounced federal regulatory agencies, drained them of revenues, and staffed them with political appointees whose primary function was to curtail action aimed at big business. Still reading from a leftover GE script, Reagan waged war on antitrust law in all forms. Jonathan Cohn wrote in 1993 that Reagan was influenced by the economic theories of the Chicago School, which held that the market is self-regulating and that governmental regulation is an “unfair burden” on business. Reagan was a true believer who wanted the federal government to end antitrust enforcement. He hamstrung the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division. “The result was an effective neutering of antitrust enforcement that reminded some observers of the early 1900s--the years when rampant corporate manipulation of consumers first spurred progressive clamoring for antitrust protection.” (Jonathan Cohn, “Damaged Goods,” American Prospect, March 3, 1993)

It is difficult to overestimate the effects of Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics on American society. His ideas were, and still are, touted as the gospel in universities and think tanks across the country. His writings were to America what Mao’s little red book was to China…the Party line, espoused by true believers and career opportunists alike. The notion of the common good was relegated to the trash heap. Alternatives to Friedman’s free market theories became highly suspect, regarded in fundamentalist circles as un-American. Virtually all theories involving concerted government action, including corporate regulation, were branded “socialistic.”

Corporatism had moved from ascendant to entrenched, and its influence would continue to grow over the next quarter century. No longer a countervailing power, the federal government had been reduced to a junior partner in the counterrevolution. Watchdog had become lapdog, and the bill for makeover should go to Wall Street to be written off as the cost of doing business. Merger mania opened the floodgates to “cash cows” and “junk bonds.” Money in the form of corporate support for candidates, payment to lobbyists, and funding for right-wing think tanks was no longer the “mother’s milk” of politics. It was now the blood supply topped off with regular transfusions from Bank of America, DuPont, General Electric, Kaiser Aluminum, Exxon, Mobil and the host of usual suspects. To seal the deal, Reagan cut corporate taxes, reduced or eliminated social service programs, and fired striking traffic controllers. All this was done with a smile, a bit of Irish humor, and a handshake. It may have been morning in America for the upper classes, but storm clouds hung heavy over the lives of those whose income was in the bottom half of the wealth index. Corporate welfare was perfectly acceptable, but assistance for working people and the poor was not part of the equation.

Reagan was a political reactionary but in one sense he was ahead of his time. A product of show biz, he fused politics and entertainment, creating a climate in which presidential aspirants must be, first and foremost, actors who understand the demands of the role. (Director John Huston said of Reagan, “I don’t mind an actor in the White House, I just don’t like a bad actor there.”) Thanks in large part to Reagan’s feel-good politics and avuncular demeanor, the pacified electorate remained distracted as their democratic rights were diluted by the Corporate State. Objections were few in number, and those who protested were dismissed as cranks, malcontents, or worst of all, extreme liberals. The hapless Democrats mustered no effective opposition to the Reagan Counter-Revolution. Indeed, many of them bought into it, advancing their own careers through active association with the assault on government. Others simply remained silent in the face of retreat and reaction. Richard Goodwin, speechwriter for JFK, summed up the changes that had occurred:
The principle power in Washington is no longer the government or the people it represents. It is the Money Power. Under the deceptive cloak of campaign contributions, access and influence, votes and amendments are bought and sold. Money establishes priorities of action, holds down federal revenues, revises federal legislation, and shifts income from the middle class to the very rich. Money restrains the enforcement of laws written to protect the country from abuses of wealth---laws that mandate environmental protection, antitrust laws, laws to protect the consumer against fraud, laws that safeguard the securities markets, and many more. (Quoted in Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, 2003. p. 320)

Corporate interests found in Ronald Reagan the perfect pawn to provide a smiling face and genial demeanor to a radical agenda, one that did not conserve but undermined the interests of ordinary Americans. The irony, of course, is that many ordinary Americans liked and supported him while he put the screws to them. By his second term in office, the effects of his approach were more apparent: lower taxes to gut social services and education programs; increase defense spending to satisfy the military-industrial-congressional complex; dismiss the huge deficit that followed as the cost of doing business; and rely on the corporate-controlled media to make it all smell good. The Reaganites and their PR minions did a first-rate job of betraying the public interest. One of the worst presidents in the nation’s history is remembered fondly as the “great communicator.” Reagan was indeed sending a message, but it was not the one people heard. It would be much more fitting and accurate if he were remembered today as the great mis-communicator who sold the nation a bill of bads.

Bush One…of a Kind
George H. W. Bush, a product of country clubs and the military-industrial-congressional complex, was the perfect choice to follow Reagan. As Director of the CIA and Vice President, he understood how to work the system for fun and profit. His business and social ties to the Saudi royal family have been clearly documented. (See Phillips, American Dynasty, Viking, 2004, pp. 315-319) His lucrative brand of corporate politics was a model for many of his staff and advisors, while his administration served as a kind of employment agency for Cold Warriors who were as vested in the military as any career soldiers, an embedded practice that continues to this day. In 2003, the Center for Public Integrity identified nine of the thirty members on the Defense Policy Board, a top-level advisory group, who were linked to corporations that received billions in defense contracts.

The George H. W. Bush Regime, steeped in military language as well as procurement, hyped a “War on Drugs” and a “War on Crime.” Two years into his presidency, half of all prisoners in federal prisons were serving drug related sentences. Bush just as easily could have announced a “War on the Environment” or a “War on the Middle Class.” He was under-whelmed by all the fuss and bother over the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the largest environmental disaster in history. Despite growth in the economy and stock market, his whacked out economic notions left the middle class and working poor high and dry. In short, he was a very good friend of his class and more than upheld his end of the dynasty while prepping his sons to follow in his footsteps.

Bush One indicated in clear and unmistakable fashion how vital oil is to maintaining the empire. In 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, a US oil satellite, and threatened Saudi Arabia, an even bigger oil satellite, the American response was overwhelming. Bush and the Pentagon organized a huge coalition of nations and repelled the Iraqis in less than two months. It is difficult to imagine a similar response to a conflict between two non-oil-producing countries. Bush chose not to go after Saddam who was holed up in Baghdad. Administration official Dick Cheney said that the cost in lives and resources would be too great and that governing Iraq would be difficult if not impossible. Ten years later, his views on this issue had regressed. The vice president, who had “other priorities” during the Vietnam War, had morphed into Bush One’s leading chicken hawk.

The Best Republican President
Many Americans of all political persuasions expected to see a radically different climate after the Presidential election of 1992 brought the Democrats to office. But the Clinton administration purposefully aligned itself with ascendant corporate power, further blurring the lines between the two major parties and paving the way for Bush II to move the nation backward on environmental and other issues. Hoping to accommodate conservative voters and expand corporate contribution to his campaigns, Clinton moved his party to the right despite objections from much of his liberal base. He reduced spending on social welfare programs in favor of “reforms” that cut billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid and sharply limited government assistance to the needy. By the end of his administration, the number of families receiving public assistance had fallen from 4.8 million to 2.2 million families. Some went from welfare to subsistence wages while many others simply went without.

Reform to Clinton meant buying into the Republican credo that government should minimize social programs and maximize corporate welfare. He didn’t even bother to reframe the issue for public consumption. Clinton told Bob Woodward that he understood that his domestic policies were as skewed as those of the Republicans, acknowledging only weeks after winning the election that "We're Eisenhower Republicans here. We stand for lower deficits, free trade, and the bond market. Isn't that great?" Clinton further conceded during this same period that with his new policy focus "we help the bond market and we hurt the people who voted us in." (See Bob Woodward's The Agenda, Simon and Schuster, 1994) It was hard to differentiate the triangulation from the strangulation.

No American president has ever missed a greater opportunity to act in the best interests of the American people. Clinton opted instead to cast his lot with corporate America by fostering “free trade” and globalization. As some anonymous wag put it, Clinton was the best Republican president the US has ever had. That puts him in the company of the likes of real Republicans such as Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover, presidents who stood in awe of capitalism and gave political cover to the men who built huge trusts at the end of the 19th century, the same men who turned the economy over to their sons who drove it all into the ground in 1929. Chris Hedges described how the Clintons adopted and consolidated the reactionary politics of Ronald Reagan: “It was the Clintons who led the Democratic Party to the corporate watering trough. The Clintons argued that the party had to ditch labor unions, no longer a source of votes or power, as a political ally. Workers would vote Democratic anyway. They had no choice. It was better, the Clintons argued, to take corporate money and use government to service the needs of the corporations.” (Chris Hedges, TruthDig.com, September 17, 2007)

On taking office Clinton had announced that the era of big government was over, a line he surely lifted from a Republican handbook. He watched quizzically from the sidelines as his wife and aides put together a health care bill that was stillborn. He became so restless doing nothing that he had an affair with an intern. However, he bought into globalization and the economic dominance it provided American capitalists when he hyped the benefits of NAFTA, giving little consideration to its potential to harm American workers by suppressing wages and job creation. The same was true of his dogged efforts to gain Congressional support for trade normalization with China. The trade proved to less than normal, worsening an existing trade imbalance and ensuring a deficit that is in its thirty-first year.

Clinton was the ideal president to usher in the Internet and preside over the new economy and the e-bubble that followed. He was curious man with an appetite for ideas, novelty, sexual adventure, celebrity, hard work and the company of interesting people. He was enthusiastic about a global economy and the World Wide Web, but whether he viewed them as means of reducing world poverty or enriching the world’s elites is uncertain. Probably he saw them accomplishing both. Believing in redemption, he fully endorsed the quest for salvation through economic expansion. Expansion occurred, but poor judgment, greed and self-indulgence undermined the political economy and revealed the true nature of the Corporate State. When the e-bubble burst, reputations and fortunes were lost. But the elite rallied to keep the behemoth focused on acquiring, buying, selling and, most important, expanding into new markets.

On the political front, Clinton moved the country to the right, giving legitimacy to a turbo-charged capitalism that knows few restraints. The fallout from globalization was clear to all who chose to see: do whatever possible to assist the wealthy and make life more difficult for the needy. George W. Bush and his corporate sponsors could not have asked for a better warm-up act. Bill Clinton had no agenda based on political principle and governed as a minimalist and pragmatist. Every measure he supported was designed to ensure his own survival in office Clinton’s bridge to the twenty-first century was mainly a thoroughfare for corporate America to move full speed ahead.

In foreign policy, Clinton assumed a passive-aggressive role that served the Corporate State well. He mistrusted the military (the feeling was mutual) and claimed that he was keeping the lid on Pentagon spending. But before leaving office, he increased the huge defense budget by some $17 billion, not huge by Bush’s standards but more than sufficient to ensure the continued prosperity of the military-industrial complex. Despite the opportunity afforded by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Clinton basically maintained the bloated military budget, excluding Iraq, of some $300 billion annually, ensuring the continued well-being and expansion of the military-industrial-congressional complex. During his first two years in office, he could have sharply cut military spending and invested in education, anti-poverty programs and infrastructure. He could have reduced the number of nuclear weapons and military bases. But he rejected these options in favor of globalization and empire.

Under Clinton’s tutelage, the Democratic Party proved as successful as Republicans in raking in corporate dollars. Historian Howard Zinn explains that “as major corporations gave money to the Democratic Party on an unprecedented scale, Clinton demonstrated clearly his total confidence in “the market system” and “private enterprise.” (Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, HarperCollins, 2003, p. 644) During his 1992 campaign, the chief executive officer of Martin Marietta Corporation (which held huge and lucrative government contracts for military production) noted, “I think the Democrats are moving more towards business and business is moving more toward the Democrats.” (Ibid.) He was more right than he knew.

One clear and uncompromising voice continued to speak the blunt truth to America. Ralph Nader must have been tempted more than once to climb the Washington Monument and shout, “I told you so,” through a bullhorn. Nader assessed the domestic coup this way: “The two parties have morphed together into one corporate party with two heads wearing different make-up.” (Quoted in Wealth and Democracy, p. 320) The truth of this was born out in the congressional election of 1994 which resulted in huge gains for the Republican Party and had the added effect of moving Clinton even more to the right. With their first majority in the House since 1954, Republicans were breathing fire and pissing vinegar, ready to battle all foes. Prior to the election, they had declared their intent in Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, a poorly-disguised anti-government tract that put the Democrats on the defensive, portraying them as corrupt, incompetent advocates of a welfare state.

The House adopted the contract including tax cuts, welfare reform and fiscal accountability, but most of the provisions died in the Senate or were vetoed by Clinton. However, the contract served a more useful long-term goal, frightening Democrats and causing them to move from the center to the right on social issues. The result was a hog-tied Democratic president who looked beyond his own party to big business to help him carve out a legacy. Democrats were instructed to tone down the rhetoric, which meant to self-censor their statements and writings in order to not upset fat cat supporters. Talking points, those innocuous statements designed to mean little and offend no one, emerged as a substitute. Here the law of unintended consequences set in: the Democrats appeared unwilling to articulate what they stood for, and voters began to ask if they stood for anything other than getting reelected. The unanswered question remains a good one.

Clinton understood that power is most effective when used as a backdrop for economic expansion and control, although he was not above calling in the marines, or the bombardiers, when things got dicey. Near the end of his second term, he projected American military power into the civil war in Yugoslavia. War broke out in response to the breakaway province of Kosovo, and Serbia was particularly harsh in dealing with the mostly Muslim population. This fact, plus the dictatorial regime of Slobodan Milosevic, gave Clinton an opportunity to breathe new life into NATO and to reassert its prerogative to intervene without United Nations approval. Serbia would not be allowed to operate outside US hegemony in the Balkans. Seventy-eight days of prolonged bombing destroyed much of the infrastructure and industrial base of Yugoslavia. Serbian television had the audacity to object to the bombing and found itself a U.S. target, with the loss of many lives and much equipment. This was denounced as a war crime in Europe, but how can there be war crimes if there is no judge or jury? (See William Blum, Rogue State, Common Courage Press, 2005, pp. 210-12) As follow-up, The US poured money and influence into the Balkan elections of 2000 to help make the place safe for the internationals and corporate globalism.

Clinton also demonstrated his willingness to employ American military power by ordering bombing of Iraqi military sites. During both terms in office, Clinton sanctioned regular bombing of Iraq in areas designated as “no fly zones.” The aim was to contain Saddam and to maintain a military presence in the region. During the same period, the Corporate State imposed an embargo on Iraq under the guise of economic sanctions. The mass deprivation that followed resulted in the death of about one million people, half of whom were children. Most Americans knew little or nothing about this carnage because it was largely ignored by the mainstream media. Clinton did not simply softened up Iraq for Bush’s invasion; he brought the country to its knees.

Clinton took a pass on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, spending more time and energy on Northern Ireland and Bosnia. He was too smart a politician not to understand the importance of a Middle East settlement to peace in the region, but he chose to sacrifice the nation’s pretense as an “honest broker” for neutrality fueled by campaign contributions and council from pro-Israeli advisors. Clinton’s action, or inaction, set the stage for Bush and Company to move from neutrality to full backing for the most conservative elements in Israeli politics.

Clinton’s political limitations, including those self-imposed, paved the way for further inroads by the Corporate State. He opted for continuity over change. Part and parcel of this arrangement was allowing an uninterrupted flow of dollars to the so-called defense budget. Republicans might oppose Clinton on domestic programs, but when it came to defense they were always willing to up the ante. The window of opportunity had closed, perhaps permanently. It was clear that regardless of who occupied the White House, military spending would remain at wartime levels. The Pentagon’s huge war machine was now a permanent fixture of the Corporate State. The two inhabit a kind of mutual admiration society, much like two professional athletes on the same team, each dependent on the other for his exalted existence. Nothing short of total economic collapse or revolution will kill this romance, especially after the events of 9/11 and the rise of President Bush’s preventive war doctrine.

(To Be Continued)

Supreme Court Mis-Ruling

2010-01-25T08:37:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court decision striking down restrictions on corporate spending in political campaigns should surprise no one. It is another blow to democracy, one in a series of similar rulings stretching back over one hundred years. All have in common the surreal but embedded notion that corporations should have the same legal rights as individual citizens. The ruling does not constitute a knock-out punch, but it is one of the most serious setbacks to government by the people in our lifetime .

The Supreme Court is not, and never has been, a democratic institution. Judges, appointed for life, presumably are beholden to no one. But the rightwing majority have shown themselves to be part and parcel of Wall Street. Their views of the Constitution are more similar to bottom of the class graduates of Harvard Business School than to constitutional scholars. The current Court is an institution of and by the Corporate State. To paraphrase Charlie Wilson remark: what’s good for business is good for the Court.

The problem this poses for progressives, and all others who cringe at the thought of corporate fascism, is that nearly all of this nation’s democratic eggs are in an electoral basket. The Senate and especially the House are our most democratic bodies. As a result of this ruling, corporate money will now play the dominant role
in determining who goes to Washington and who stays home. Financial institutions, insurance companies and even defense contractors will bankroll candidates at will.

Any candidate who refuses to participate in this political charade will be relegated - with all deliberate speed - to the sidelines. Citizens with integrity will refuse to run for office. Voter participation will drop even more. National elections will start to look like those local elections where only one fourth or fewer of eligible voters actually vote. Corruption with a legal cover will become the norm. Lobbyists will become redundant because the fix will be in from day one.

The pundits are reminding us ad nauseum that the Democrats are the big losers in this legal fiasco. But it’s the American people who are the real losers. Republicans are proud sponsors of the Corporate State. They may be wearing corporate logos on their business suits in the next national election. Democrats are only slightly less wedded to the Corporate State. They simply don’t flaunt their allegiance. At the risk of sounding unkind, they are more hypocritical than Republicans about their corporate ties. They are closet corporatists. With new blanket legal coverage, many of them will now find the courage to come out.

How did we reach this new low on the road to a more perfect union, and what can those of us on the left do about it? The due process clause of the 14th Amendment was meant to protect the rights of newly freed slaves. But in a perverse ruling that has puzzled students of American history for generations, the Court ruled in Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific (1886) that corporations have the same legal rights as individuals. Subsequent rulings extended that interpretation to the First Amendment right to free speech including media ads, the most important and costly part of any political campaign. Individuals are limited in what they can contribute to a campaign. But under the recent ruling, corporations can give unlimited amounts to oppose or support a candidate or issue without having to disclose the funding source. No transparency, no accountability. Government neither by, for, nor of the people.

The Supreme Court is a political anachronism, as much so as British royalty and much more harmful. Short of an all-out revolution the chances of abolishing it are slim to none. But actuarials might be helpful here. Let the judges die out without replacements. If presidents insist on sending names forward, the Senate should refuse to confirm. In rare cases, the rulings of federal courts could be appealed to the Senate Judiciary Committee whose rulings would have to have a simple majority approval of the entire Senate.

A more realistic approach to the problem would be to organize a nationwide political campaign with the sole purpose of overturning any and all rulings based on the legal premise that corporations have the same rights as persons. The Santa Clara County ruling would be declared null and void with no possibility of amending or reversal. We should be willing to use all the tools necessary including marches, demonstrations, sit-ins and economic boycotts as employed during the civil rights movement. Create a legal rights movement that would put the nation back on the path towards a model democracy. We just might overcome.

Obama’s Fall From Grace

2010-01-25T08:24:00.000-08:00

American voters of all stripes are singing the blues because they’re rapidly losing faith in President Obama. Opinion polls, blogs, and letters to the editor all reflect a growing disenchantment with him and a belief that the country is on the wrong track. It’s difficult to imagine a president who has disappointed so many people in such a short time in office. After a first-rate political campaign, the political phenom is looking more and more like a one-termer.

Republicans, of course, have done everything in their power to neuter the guy. They are happy, not disappointed that the president is losing support. Independents are jumping ship. Liberal democrats, perhaps the most disappointed in Obama, have no where else to go. They had high hopes, created in part by a campaign that promised change. But today fewer and fewer are making excuses for him. The hope has dissipated and change has gone underground to wait, like the groundhog, for a sunnier day.

Many of us on the political left are not disappointed in Obama for the simple reason that we had no faith in him from the start. We learned long ago that secular saviors are as vapid as religious ones. To put one’s faith in either is about as effective as praying to a tree frog.

But it is not hard to see why Obama’s supporters are losing faith in him. They took him to the dance but he left with and now shacks up with Wall Street. The financial gurus shamelessly moan about government regulations, but they took the public’s money and ran smiling all the way to their own banks. The bail out of Wall Street was a sucker punch for Main Street.

The president, and the corporate types who advise him, were complicit in the shakedown. In our corporate state the financial elite have the power and influence to get what they want regardless of who’s in the White House. The president is in a metaphorical straitjacket. He can do only what is allowed by monied interests that care little about the common welfare. Power and profit trump health, education, social services and even basic infrastructure needs. This is the hard reality that Obama encountered when he took office. Good intentions (assuming they existed) didn’t have a prayer.

Writing in the current issue of Harper’s Magazine, Roger Hodge elaborates on Obama’s swift decline in popularity. He maintains that with Obama the hype far exceeds the reality. He sees the president as an ordinary Chicago politician with a finger in the wind. Hodge rejects the idea that progressives should be patient and give Obama time to change course. We’d all die from old age. You don’t change course by giving a speech even if it’s eloquent and hope-inspiring. Hodge says that when you roll back the hype surrounding Obama there’s a man whose policies are old and discredited. This “invidious governance” must be opposed by anyone who wants progressive change.

Where to start? The main issue remains the same: ending a costly, un-winnable war that is harming the country more than terrorists ever could. If permanent war makes the country financially and morally bankrupt, we have done the terrorists work for them. We can have bullets or butter, but not both at the same time. Until Obama’s war ends, domestic needs will be neglected or abandoned altogether.

Second, create a national jobs program. The rate of those Americans unemployed or underemployed (part-time) is approaching 25 percent. This translates into real suffering that no civilized nation should allow. The federal government created successful job programs during the Great Depression and could do the same in the Great Recession.

Third, put a heavy tax on corporate bonuses and on the obscene profits of
financial institutions and multinational corporations. Break up the behemoths such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. If they are too big to fail, they are too big to exist.

Fourth, reject piecemeal change (the so-called health care reform) that enriches the insurance companies. Insist on single-payer universal health care. Medicare works for grandma. It would work just as well for junior, sis and Uncle Joe.

Finally, and most important, forget about secular saviors and go to work creating a nationwide peoples’ movement, one with the specific goal of replacing the corporate state with a social democracy. One that chooses peace over war, people over profits, education over ignorance and real leadership over hype and false promises. No secular saviors --- or any other kind --- need apply.

2010-01-25T08:12:00.000-08:00

Michael Moore's Love Story

2009-10-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

The political cartoon (Herald, Oct. 3) portraying filmmaker Michael Moore as a fat-cat capitalist misses the mark. Moore is a very successful small-business entrepreneur. True, his films have made money, but he has used profits to support good causes and to make more, and better, films. In a real sense, he turns out a good product so people buy it.

Twenty years ago Moore took on GM in his award-winning documentary film “Roger and Me.” In it he pointed out that unless top management (the real fat cats) changed the way they operated GM was headed for bankruptcy. We all know how that story ended.

In his film “Sicko“ -- financed from the success of earlier ones -- Moore showed the inequities in the American health care system. It was all there: people who could afford no coverage, those who could not afford their co-pay, those denied coverage for preexisting conditions, those whose insurance had been dropped when they tried to use it. This story is to be continued. But when we finally get national health insurance, Michael Moore will deserve credit for helping make it happen.

In his new movie “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Moore takes on the economic system we’ve all been programmed to love. At one point in the film, a shaken George Bush tells us that the capitalist system is the most efficient, the most productive, and the most successful in the world. This was just after the financial sector meltdown, when Wall Street was in a panic. Bush looks and speaks as if he has been living on another planet.

When the Democrats balked at bailing out the banks, former Wall Streeters (Henry Paulson, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and others) in Washington went to work spreading fear and confusion. Their story to Congress was simple: bail out the banks or the entire system will fail and it will be your fault. The power play worked. Cowed Democrats folded, surrendering in effect to a financial coup d’etat that shifted control from Washington to Wall Street fat cats who now run the country.

Moore shows us the pain and suffering caused by our unquestioning allegiance to a system that fails so many while allowing others to accumulate vast sums of money. One percent of the population controls more of the wealth than the bottom ninety-five percent. In that sense, we’ve become a third world country. There are serious side effects: gun violence, double-digit unemployment, high infant mortality, woefully inadequate schools, drug use and trafficking, and crumbling infrastructure.

Moore’s logic is hard to deny. An economic system -- regardless of how much it benefits the few -- is evil if it does evil things to people. And, as one priest in the film say, “You can’t regulate evil.” If this characterization makes you squeamish, see the film and listen to the priests and bishops. Every day they witness the harm that greed and the mindless pursuit of profit have on peoples’ lives. The clerics call it what it is.

Too many of us still confuse democracy with capitalism. Moore refuses to fall into that trap. Neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt. One year before he died, FDR proposed a second Bill of Rights for Americans. It included the right to a secure home, a job and a living wage, adequate health care and an old-age pension. Germany, Italy and Japan -- the countries we defeated in WW II -- included these rights in their new constitutions. Americans are still waiting.

Moore shows us, however, some encouraging signs that things may be starting to change. Americans are beginning to wake up to the fact that they have been screwed by the system. Two decades of stagnant wages for the middle class will do that. Told by management to pack it up, workers at Republic Windows and Doors occupied their workplace until a settlement was reached over back wages. Communities are supporting homeowners in Miami when Bank of America operatives come to evict them.

But money still talks on Wall Street. In Washington, it whispers, but the message is loud and clear: talk all the change you want but rig the game for the fattest felines. Michael Moore thinks an aroused populace will storm the ballot boxes and create a new order. Maybe he’s right. But for the past thirty years capitalism has run roughshod over democracy. Changing this high-stakes game, will require more than a visit to the ballot box. To paraphrase Warren Buffett’s quote in the film: we are in a state of class warfare in this country, and the wrong side (meaning his own class) is winning. Keep the cameras rolling, Michael.

Congressman Joe Wilson Shows His True Colors

2009-09-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

Last night Congressman Joe Wilson (R.SC) revealed to a national TV audience the rightwing's desperate approach to politics. Wilson screamed "You liar," at Obama who was explaining his health insurance before a joint session of Congress. I can't recall that happening before to a president. Did Wilson think he was at a town hall meeting? The outburst surely will be remembered as the low point in the man's undistinguished political career. Except in SC where he could well become a new folk hero, a native son willing to say what lesser mortals simply think.

Wilson's outburst shows that reasoned argument, facts and civil discourse are irrelevent to him and his ilk. These Republican extremists have zero interest in passing health care reform. Rather, they are intent on destroying not only the effort for reform but Obama's presidency as well. Senator Jim DeMint (R.SC) has stated as much. Their strategy is slash and burn then burn some more. They lie, distort and misrepresent the facts all in an attempt to discredit and demonize the President. They are the political equivalent of junkyard attack dogs. They have no shame.

Obama was neither cowed nor the least distracted by the mindless outburst. He remained cool and on point, the opposite of South Carolina's latest hothead celebrity. But surely the President understands that Wilson never would have yelled out at a white president no matter what the political differences. Old boys with a plantation mentality can't stomach having a young, articulate black president. No one bothers to tell them to get over it; it would be wasted effort. An important part of their public role is to keep the rednecks aroused and distracted from the reality of their pathetic lives.

We have had more than out share of hotheads in South Carolina. They gave us nullification, secession, segregation and still more segregation. More than one hundred years of it. We have had so many emitting steam from their ears that we natives on the left no longer view them as an embarrassment. Rather, we have come to view the state itself is an embarrassment.The know-nothing hotheads are simply part of the landscape. Pick a category, any category and you'll find that SC ranks at or near the bottom among the states. Priorities? To hell with schools and infrastructure, but by all means tend the golf courses. Just don't look left or right if you are driving down I-95's "corridor of shame."

The governing elite here are about as narrow and provincial as they come. They used to be polite and hypocritical. Now they are boorish and hypocritical and slightly paranoid. With his plantation mindset, Wilson is the perfect representative of the crowd calling the shots. He is a good Presbyterian, a former military officer and graduate of USC law school. He may go to church, but he doesn't put his religion into practice, and one wonders what if anything he learned in law school. Although he apologized (indirectly) to the President, his type is insufferably arrogant - as if to the manor born. Many a glass of bourbon will be raised to him this weekend in country clubs all over the state. He's possibly thinking of running for governor.

Last week I wrote at length on the plantation mentality and its grip on the state's leaders. Interested readers can find that piece below. Comments are always welcome.

Down and Out in South Carolina

2009-09-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

It was hard not to feel sorry for South Carolina Congressman John Spratt last week as he stood before a hostile crowd of right wingers at the Baxter Hood Center in Rock Hill. Spratt is one of the most respected men in Congress. He actually understands the federal budget. But the crowd treated him like a pariah, pounding him with their anger, frustration, fears and most of all with their willful ignorance about health reform.

Spratt was hosting a town hall meeting to discuss health care legislation, to inform and hear the views of his constituents. But the question and answer session turned ugly as speakers ranted and yelled at the poor man. His rational calm responses were of no interest to them. They were mad as hell and would not be mollified.

South Carolina has a long and sordid history when it comes to resisting change. The planter elite rejected the idea of slaves as human beings, preferring to think of them as property. When the Grimke sisters of Charleston spoke out against slavery, they had to flee to New York to avoid being lynched. For more than a hundred years after the end of the Civil War, the good white people of the Palmetto State defended racial segregation every conceivable way, from biblical injunctions to night riders and charred bodies to “strange fruit” hanging from the end of a tree limb. Human equality and democracy were more change than they could handle.

Spratt’s town hall meeting revealed more of the same old syndrome. The nay-sayers made clear once again that they fear change as much as their ancestors did and that they intend to resist every way possible. Of course, there is more than a fear of change at work here. There is the usual hatred of the federal government mixed with a dose of paranoia. To hear some of the FOX trotters tell it, Washington is scheming to take their guns and put them in concentration camps and then open the borders to all of South America. And then there’s Obama -- regarded as a budding Hitler by the more extreme nut cases.

Why is it that thinking people in SC appear to be out-numbered by religious and political wingnuts? Unlike North Carolina which has a progressive tradition and Georgia where populism had deep roots, South Carolina has no similar liberal influence. It has never been a truly democratic state, rather, it has been governed by planters, then by sons of planters, and today by the sons of the sons of the sons of planters. (Daughters need not apply. There are zero women in the state senate.) Governor Mark Sanford fits the bill to a tee.

By-and-large they are a hypocritical bunch. Sanford espouses frugality but is profligate with public money. He lauds “family values” but longs for his Argentine mistress and soul mate. He professes to care about the well-being of the state‘s children, but he cuts health and education programs at every opportunity. His children, of course, have the best health care available and attend private “academies” where they no doubt learn to be good little country clubbers.

Sanford is an extreme example of the personality type that aspires to govern in South Carolina. But the difference between him and most of the others is one of degree not kind. You can find them in upscale bars and country clubs all over the state. They walk and speak with the subtle arrogance of righteous ownership. Many of them are Citadel, Clemson or USC Business or Law School grads. Among their most treasured pleasures are golf, swilling bourbon at the club and complaining about taxes and the federal government. They, and the wannabe sons of car dealers and insurance salesmen who emulate them, don’t read books other than the self-help and get-rich-quick varieties. They go to church where ministers tell them not to worry about the inequities and injustices of this earth, that everything will be resolved at the second coming. They go to Chamber meetings where they learn that business is the real religion and economic development the ultimate solution to all problems. They go home, turn on Fox News and grow impatient while their dutiful wives fix them a drink. It’s all too much.

I have spent many hours wondering what, if anything, could drag South Carolina into the 21st century. I don’t have a ready answer. Nothing will change as long as ordinary white working people settle for the status quo, accepting as normal all the components of a Banana Republic: the widespread poverty, the concentrated wealth, poor schools and a lack of decent jobs.

Black people are smarter about these things than middle and lower class whites. Blacks understand that Mark Sanford and his ilk are not their friends. Since everything in SC devolves to race, two thoughts come to mind. Perhaps one day blacks will be the majority and can elect responsive public officials such as Congressman Jim Clyburn statewide. If that doesn’t happen there is one other possibility. Mixed- race marriages are on the rise, so in the very long term everyone in the state may be the color of café au lait. Perhaps then we’ll be our brother’s keeper. Just wish I could stick around to see it.

South Carolina's Race to the Bottom

2009-07-29T11:48:00.001-07:00

South Carolina is a long way from Wall Street, but our quirky little state, like most of the nation, continues to reel from the flameout of turbo capitalism. The failed economic system is reflected in unemployed workers, bankrupt businesses, foreclosed homes, uninsured families, vanishing retirement accounts…the list goes on. Everyone knows someone who has lost a job or a pension or both; unemployment in some rural counties is approaching twenty-five percent.

The basic cause of this debacle is no secret: free-market fundamentalists practiced a capitalism without constraints; it was destined to crash and burn. The President claims there will be no return to practices that failed us. He sees an opportunity to create a new and better economic model, one that does not sacrifice human needs for fast profits from toxic assets. Let’s hope he succeeds because if he fails, we all fail with him.

We face another challenge in South Carolina. Our safety net has holes large enough for an elephant to fall through. We rank at or near the bottom among states for quality of life indicators ranging from child health care to public schooling to poverty. Despite the wreckage all around us, political leaders call for more of their failed policies: even less spending on social programs, more government-business incest, and (you guessed it) ever more tax cuts for the wealthy.

Circumstances here cry out for a better system. Imagine the difference if we had an honest legislature that served the people and was not a tool of special interests. One whose members recognized that economic development is not a panacea for all the state’s ills. It could happen, but only if voters decide that they want a progressive state government and are willing to elect people who are not afraid to help create a social democracy.

The last thing we need now are more elected officials like our current governor. Mark Sanford should be forced to resign or impeached for dereliction of duty. His definition of public service is to denigrate government programs, sharply cut funding for them, and then say they don’t work. He never should have left his plantation.

The cliché is true: fundamental change is always difficult. Among the governing elite of the Palmetto state, it’s considered downright dangerous because it’s a threat to the power and influence they wield. They are quick to pin a phony socialist label on anyone who suggests or advocates an active government role in improving the conditions under which people work and live. It’s a scare tactic, of course, and we should treat it as such.

Many of the party-line parrots don’t know or care to know what a socialist economy really is. The most ignorant among them equate socialism with communism or, more absurdly, with fascism. Successful socialist countries in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere are democratic; they hold elections at local and national levels. Small independent businesses flourish, but natural resources, utilities and public transportation systems are usually government owned and operated. A strong safety net includes free education, health care and unemployment benefits. Taxes may be relatively high, but so is the quality of life in these countries.

We could use some of that quality of life right here in South Carolina. We face more than an economic meltdown and a draconian cut in state-funded programs. Dramatic changes in demographics also require a new approach to policymaking. The population is older and more diverse now. Hundreds of thousands of Northern retirees have relocated here to enjoy the climate and low taxes. Hispanics can be found across the state working in restaurants, lawn maintenance, and other low-paying jobs.

Real wages for middle class workers has remained static for at least two decades, while skilled manufacturing jobs moved abroad, The state’s unemployment rate, one of the highest in the nation, not only creates human misery but also drags down the economy. Yet, real leadership is missing. Government and business leaders continue to mouth platitudes about the sacred “free market.” Instead of waiting for the invisible hand, they should get serious about some old-fashioned New Deal job creation.

Further cuts in social service programs and education, accompanied by the growing income gap between the very poor and the very wealthy, are a recipe for trouble. A decent quality of life has to exist outside as well as inside the gated communities that segregate us by class. There are some exclusive areas in Haiti, but nobody wants to visit or live there. Leave the tourist tracks in Jamaica and you risk being shot. No one wants that to be the future for our state.

The best way for South Carolina to avoid becoming a failed state is to invest in its people. Public education through college and health care for all would be a good start. That would require a progressive tax system instead of a makeshift one that starves education, child health care and other basic needs. The response to those who say that’s socialism: no, that’s fairness and there is nothing un-American about it. The response to those who say we can not afford to invest in social program: we can not afford not to if we want to opt out of the race to the bottom.

But without public pressure there is slim chance that business and political leaders will alter their approach to governance no matter how bad things get. Governor Sanford and Senator Jim DeMint vie with each other in catering to the Party’s right wing. These self-described conservatives consider moderates to be closet liberals, carriers of the political equivalent of the swine flu. Some of the more sensible ones are jumping ship, but the Republican Party remains rooted among white male voters across the class spectrum.

And just how conservative are the Party stalwarts? Not very. To be blunt, Sanford and his allies are reactionaries, not conservatives. True conservatives aim to preserve the best features of society which by most definitions would include public education, a clean environment, decent wages and working conditions and a healthy populace. They understand that societies, like gardens, must be tended --- that they can not conserve themselves, and when neglected slowly rot.

The plantation mentality - native or imported - remains the most harmful component of our state’s political tradition. It’s the ageless specter that hangs over class, race relations, tax policy, education and politics at all levels. It spawned bastard children such as “southern strategies,” “silent majorities,” Willie Horton ads, welfare queen stereotypes, and underachieving, but ambitious, politicians. There is no better example than our anti-government governor who aspires to move to the White House.

Given the Republican Party’s penchant for self-destruction, Sanford might be just the man they need. But there may not be much for him to lead in 2012 other than the residue of the extreme right. His Party gains nothing and loses a lot by embracing loonies such as Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. Hollywood would have trouble creating characters like them. The more influence they wield the more rational people desert the fold. In three years the Republican Party may be a shell of its former self.

If it’s still viable here, Sanford might consider consolidating losses and moving the Party - lock, stock and barrel - to South Carolina. Invite Rush Limbaugh and all the ditto heads to come take up residence. Bring in the nullifiers and secessionists, the gun nuts and bible thumpers. Together they can decide whether to turn the state into one large plantation, country club, firing range or staging area for the apocalypse. Bless their hearts, they just might feel right at home.

Of course, anyone who doesn’t relish living in an authoritarian quasi-theocratic state would have to pack his bags. Maybe the feds will pick up the tab for relocating all moderates, liberals, progressives and other assorted scalawags to a neighboring state. If that should happen this native son will gladly accept his forty acres - they can keep the damn mule - under the blue skies of North Carolina. It’s far from a perfect state, but most people there live in the present and work to build a better society. Nothing will change in South Carolina as long as we elect leaders (sic) who make a fetish out of clinging to the status quo and to a stunted political philosophy. {END}

2009-07-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

Take My State, Please

2009-02-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

The recession/depression is less than a year old, but it’s already driving South Carolina’s governing elite over the abyss. Senators Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham rant theatrically on the Senate floor about the dangers of the Obama administration’s stimulus package. Graham goes so far as to say that passage will destroy the country. Soon he’ll be walking around the rotunda carrying a “The End is Near” sign.

Governor Mark Sanford says he doesn’t want anything to do with Washington’s tainted money. He would prefer more tried-and-untrue deregulation and tax cuts. Never mind the state’s poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and third world infant mortality rate. Sanford hates government, and is content to let the state remain in freefall while waiting for so-called free market wonders to kick in.

The heart of the problem - theirs and ours - is not that our political leaders are conservatives, but rather that they are inflexible ideologues wedded to a failed economic system. They are generals fighting not the last war but the one before that. Ronald Reagan has fallen off his horse. The invisible hand of Adam Smith has slapped us down. The free market first ran amuck then ran aground. Government is now regarded as the solution, not the problem, and this sticks in their craws like day-old cornbread.

Just across the state line, Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, weighs his fall from grace and considers his limited options. Despite an infusion of 45 billion tax dollars last year, BOA is essentially bankrupt. But Lewis tells the Charlotte Observer that it is “absurd” to think that his bank might be nationalized. A day or two later he’s in Washington with the heads of other large banks, all holding their tin cups out and promising to do right. Lewis, unlike our politicians, will take the money gladly. But the banks will likely be nationalized anyway. No one should have to tell him that ownership and control follow like hand in glove.

BOA and SC have one thing in common: they are both insolvent and require a public bailout to stay afloat. A look beneath the surface reveals that things have not changed that much. BOA has benefited from corporate welfare for decades, mostly in the form of tax breaks. SC has been surviving on another form of welfare: the state gets $1. 35 back for every $1 it sends to the federal government. The day of economic reckoning has arrived. Despite his rhetoric, Governor Sanford will swallow hard and take the stimulus money. He’s preparing his (2012) presidential resume and will sacrifice principle for ambition.

Neither the bank mogul nor the politico can cope with the unintended consequences of their blind faith in the market. Hypocrisy is okay as long as it doesn’t morph into tacky; then the game is over. Eating humble pie is humiliating for Lewis, and un-presidential for Sanford. But if either turned his back on the bailout, he would likely be tarred and feathered. Lewis by his board and heirs and Sanford by the 20 percent unemployed in the state’s rural counties.

The high-rolling capitalists who control the banking institutions pushed them beyond their limits. They rejected common-sense regulation and ended up with caviar on their faces. They surely recognize by now that they must get out of the way or accept the new reality. Nationalizing the banks could get credit flowing through the system and separate out the toxic debt, mostly bad mortgages. The moguls will take what they can grab and run.

Not so with our political leadership (sic). They grew up fighting federal interference, and will not change their tune or their minds for a few billion dollars. We can expect to see reluctant acceptance from them, but ne’r a trace of gratitude. They know that the stimulus package will not go far in correcting the many ills of South Carolina. Waiting for failure, they are already practicing their lines: “I told you so.”

The Obama administration should bite the bullet --- nationalize and restructure the big banks. Others smarter than I have already suggested this approach. But in the spirit of Jonathan Swift, I would take it one step further with this modest proposal:

Mr. President, nationalize my state, please. South Carolina failed Reconstruction 101, but that was more than 100 years ago. Give us another shot at it, and maybe we’ll get it right this time. Send the governor packing, disband the dysfunctional legislature, and restructure state government. That may be the only way to save us from ourselves.

The Sweetest of Protests

2009-02-11T06:37:00.000-08:00

It’s time to bring out the marshmallows. Not for eating but to employ as low-tech weapon of choice against fat-cat bankers, big bonus boys of Wall Street and spineless politicians who gut social and education programs. I know. A barrage of marshmallows is light punishment for the crimes these jackals have committed. But what else can we do? The Russians would shoot them and the French would cut off their heads. That’s not our style. We don’t even tar and feather miscreants anymore.

But consider the marshmallow. It’s cheap and portable and any leftovers can be eaten later to enhance your calorie count. Toast one over a fire and you have a miniature Molotov cocktail that would stick rather than explode on contact. These stuck-ons would serve as appropriate accessories on a $5,000 suit paid for with money made by shifting worthless paper around or from taxpayers’ bailout. They would look just as good on the off-the-rack suits worn by certain politicians who claim to represent us.

Marshmallows are not new in the arsenals of dissenters. In 1969, when thousands of American troops were still fighting and dying in the jungles and mountains of Vietnam, students used them to protest the war. Casualties among North Vietnamese fighters and civilians were so high that an accurate count was impossible. American troops continued to lose men, territory and momentum. The Washington political class knew that the war was lost but could not agree on when and how to withdraw. Richard Nixon’s secret plan to end the war was so secret that even he did not know what it was.

Across the country, War Hawks, and Chicken Hawks, were morphing into Doves. But South Carolina’s two most powerful politicians – Sen. Strom Thurmond and Rep. Mendel Rivers – remained stalwart supporters of the lost cause. Thurmond chaired the Senate’s Armed Services Committee and Rivers chaired the equivalent committee in the House. A general in the SC National Guard, Thurmond was a Hawk’s Hawk. Rivers, a mediocre and hard-drinking hack from Charleston, liked to describe himself as the “Granddaddy of Hawks.” Pork barrel was his idea of public service, and his constituents loved it. The folks around Charleston said that Rivers had brought in so many military facilities that they were in danger of breaking off and floating out to sea.

Thurmond had generally avoided university audiences after students denounced him at East Carolina (NC) in the mid 60s as a “Son of a Birch.” (As in John Birch) Rivers received few requests to speak, but could not turn down an invitation to address students at Clemson. Clemson was hardly a hotbed of liberalism, but even South Carolina’s finest were not interested in dying for no good reason in a Vietnam jungle. Instead, they went grocery shopping for sugared ammo to use on the home front.

When Rivers tried to justify the war and denounced those opposed to it, students booed and pelted him with marshmallows. As he hastily left campus, a reporter asked the congressman if he knew why the students had thrown marshmallows at him. Rivers replied, “I don’t know, unless they mistook me for Old Strom.” Perhaps worried that the military technology of the protesters would advance to jaw breakers, Mendel and Old Strom went even further out of their way to avoid student protesters.

Wars and economic depressions generate protests, as they should. Within the past few days there have been riots in Athens and Paris and demonstrations in cities throughout Europe. In Eastern Europe the protests have turned violent. This may be the mere tip of the iceberg. This is a big one, the most far-reaching economic downturn in 60 years. The world’s economy will not recover in months, but in years. More civil unrest is almost certain, and it won’t be limited to Europe. There is growing resentment, even anger, in the US at the people and policies that created our homegrown crisis.

The word accountability is bouncing off the walls in Washington these days, but we’re still waiting to see it put into practice. While the middle class is being squeezed ever tighter, bankers are being bailed out with public funds. Wall Street traders still expect and receive billions in bonuses while Morgan Stanley and Citigroup plan lavish tropical retreats for their executives. But the word to average Americans is to tighten our belts and hunker down for the long haul. If you feel economically strapped and politically impotent, you are not alone. It might help to remember great grandpa.

Workers protested these conditions in the 1930s with strikes, sit-ins and other forms of civil disturbances that the government could ignore only at its peril. The system had failed them, and when it became obvious that capitalism could not self-correct, they took to the streets. They demanded, and received, legislation designed to produce relief programs, particularly jobs. Most protests were peaceful, but a bomb exploded on Wall Street killing thirty people. Most historians of the period agree that if government had not responded to the national distress more such violence would have occurred.

Our economic situation is not as dire today as it was at the height of the Great Depression. But it is bad enough, and odds are it will get worse before it gets better. Economists tell us that a $1 trillion stimulus package will jump-start the economy. That translates into good common sense only if it creates million of jobs, helps repair the crumbling infrastructure and gives a boost to education. Everyone benefits from this approach, even the so-called conservatives who are hell-bent on gutting any stimulus package.

Mark Sanford, our anti-government governor, has denounced the economic recovery proposal and threatened to refuse South Carolina’s portion. The state’s Republican representatives opposed the House bill, but none offered an alternative except the hare-brained notion of cutting more taxes. There is growing recognition that we cannot afford to allow our political leadership (sic) to play spoiler on this critically important issue. Too much is at stake. South Carolina is a poor state with double digit unemployment that increases daily. Long-neglected roads, bridges and school buildings need repair or replacement. The higher education system is suffering from the most severe funding cuts of any state in the country (down 17% in 2008.) Everyone, from janitorial and maintenance workers to administrators and tenured professors, is feeling the pinch.

Politicians who exhibit extreme stupidity or incompetence are increasingly being targeted by shoe throwers. It happened to George Bush in Iraq and more recently to the Chinese premier while visiting Britain. Shoe hurling may be a bit extreme for South Carolinians, known for our southern politeness. And why risk losing a perfectly good shoe? Instead, take a trip to the super market and stock up on marshmallows. The next time a clueless governor or some (De)Minted legislator tells you to buck up and stop whining, throw a few his way. The marshmallows won’t stick if you don’t torch them. But the message just might.

Blaming the Victims - Again

2009-01-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

Senator Lindsey Graham must be living in a political bubble, one bought and paid for by the Israeli Lobby. He is talking as if his only political allies are right-wing Jews and levitating, fundamentalist Christians. Speaking of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza, Graham was quoted in the Herald as saying, “I completely support Israel’s decision to launch military attacks into Gaza, both by air and by land. I do not blame Israel at all.” Translate that and it means that Palestinians don’t make political contributions or influence US elections.

In the Middle East there is so much blame that it’s impossible to know where to put it all. But one thing is now clear: Israel bears responsibility for the present crisis. A blockade is an act of war, and Palestinians have every right to resist the one Israel imposed on them. The blockade turned a refugee camp into a concentration camp. One historian pointed out that Gaza has come to resemble the Warsaw Ghetto, where Nazis imprisoned and slaughtered Polish Jews during WWII.

The central fact is that overwhelming power in this struggle lies with Israel. It now has the capability to control the movement of Gazans, to control their food and medicine supplies, to control water and electricity, and to control who among them lives or dies – the ultimate power. Hamas has resisted this oppression any way possible including smuggling weapons through tunnels dug under the Egyptian border.

Since the bombing and invasion of Gaza, Palestinians have suffered the loss of nearly 1,000 people, about a third of whom were children. Israel has lost fewer than two dozen soldiers. The longer the war continues, the greater the disproportion of the casualties.
Israel says there will be no ceasefire unless the rockets stop. Hamas says it won’t give up the shelling until the blockade ends. Israel can occupy Gaza, but it can not destroy Hamas unless it starves and bombs the civilian population into complete submission. Sadly, that appears to be what it is trying to do.

Over the years the Israelis have assumed all the trappings of a colonial power in their relationship with the Palestinians. Isolation and control are the operating principles. But modern colonialism is as flawed and ultimately unworkable as was the old version. Israel has highly lethal weaponry; Hamas has homemade bombs. Israel has a highly trained professional army; Hamas has guerilla fighters, an occasional suicide bomber, and kids who throw rocks. But military power alone can not increase Israel’s security. When Israel lashes out with phosphorous bombs, it creates even more hostile enemies among the Palestinians, especially the young.

The civilized world has expressed outrage at the Israeli government’s callous disregard for the suffering and pain it is imposing on Palestinians. The US government – part of the civilized world before it embraced torture – backs Israel to the hilt and defends its worst atrocities. The $3 billion in weapons and cash that the US taxpayers give to Israel each year feeds the aggression. It is American-built warplanes that are used to bomb libraries, schools and even hospitals. Whether they are targeted deliberately is immaterial to those who die. But Senator Graham and his neo-con allies spin Israel’s crimes against humanity as heroic acts of national defense. Hypocrisy in Washington appears to know no bounds.

What, if anything, can be done? Creating one democratic state that included Israelis and Palestinians would be the best possible solution. But don’t hold your breath because that would require Israel to give up its semi-theocracy. A two-state solution is next best and is acceptable to nearly all parties, including Hamas and most Israelis. But extremists in the Israeli government are not interested in diplomacy or any solution that they don’t dictate; they view negotiations and compromises as moral flaws.

Israeli hardliners hope that by destroying Hamas they can show the world just how tough they can be on those who resist Israel’s policies. These policies violate international law, but the government thumbs its nose at both the law and public opinion. Why compromise with anyone over anything if you hold all the cards and are backed up by Uncle Sam?

President Obama will have to let the world know where he stands. He would be doing Israel a favor if he suspended military and financial aid and dragged its government to the negotiating table. The effort might fail but there is no workable alternative. Marginalize the US Israeli lobby…let them rant and rave. They do much more harm to Israel than good. Transfer US support to the Arabs and Jews in Israel and the Middle East who want peace. Without a peace agreement, Israel will continue to dig the hole it’s in, running a real risk that hole will turn into the country’s grave. That would be a “final solution” that only the world’s worst anti-Semites would welcome.

South Carolina on the Skids (Again)

2008-11-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

Since the presidential election I’ve been rising early to see if South Carolina’s right-wing political establishment is firing on Fort Sumter. Their secessionist ancestors chose that route in 1861, shortly after a skinny lawyer from Illinois named Abe Lincoln was inaugurated President. Now, nearly 150 years later, another skinny lawyer from Illinois, President-elect Barack Obama, is the focus of the old guards’ attention. Statewide, his opponent, John McCain, received well over half the white vote and carried the state. No one has yet rolled out the cannons in response to the Republican rout nationwide, but our white governing class is tightening its grip to deflect any progressive fallout from outside.

The election results demonstrated that South Carolina’s gentry, like the French Bourbons, learn nothing and forget nothing. As was said of Arafat, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This time they missed a big one. They will go through the next four years angry and in considerable pain from shooting themselves in the foot. At country clubs over drinks and at Chamber of Commerce lunches, they’ll assert that once again they stood their ground in the face of a political onslaught – this one led by liberals, socialists and a black man whom they suggest is a closet Muslim with ties to terrorists.

Political brow-beating of this ilk is an old tradition in the Palmetto State. White segregationists, knowing their game was up, cried and moaned for five decades following the Brown vs. Board of Education decision outlawing school segregation. They saw themselves then, as many do today, as victims of a left-wing plot to destroy what they hold sacred. Fifty years ago, they labeled as communists those whites who actively supported racial integration and hamstrung progress by doing so. Integrationists were the old enemy; liberals and socialists are the new ones. The sweep is broad for the old guard; anyone to the left of George Bush is a liberal, and you qualify as a socialist if you believe in national health insurance or government-sponsored daycare.

The supreme irony of all this is that Barack Obama is not a socialist --- he is not even a left liberal. His politics are centrist by national standards. Ask any of the Clinton retreads who advise him or look at his appointees. He can be considered a lefty only by the warped standards employed by the rightwing Republicans. Their forebears were much more on target when they called FDR a socialist in disguise. At least, FDR had some real socialists, such as Henry Wallace, advising him.

What a totally predictable and utterly tiresome scene this is. It’s like a really bad movie, one you’ve sat through hundreds of times, not because you enjoy it but because you’re strapped into the seat. It just runs on and on at ear-splitting volume. Natives know all the scenes and the dialogue by heart. The specters of Ole Strom’s Dixiecrats, Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and Lee Atwater’s racist attack ads hover in the background. Even from the grave, their ghosts supported McCain as enthusiastically as did the governor, two senators and all but one of the white representatives. Our governor is a quasi-libertarian with a thinly disguised hatred of all things government. One senator is a fundamentalist who decries evolution and stem cell research. The more reasonable one has no use for habeas corpus and said he would drown himself if Obama carried neighboring North Carolina. (We’re still waiting.) Theirs is a perverse brand of retro politics that will not die. It’s the new lost cause, rooted in a genteel form of white supremacy, a fraying class system and a casual, but quite real, intolerance of those outside the club. All of it wrapped, of course, in traditional values, conservative principles and the flag.

At least in the old days the never- say- die stalwarts could argue that they were defending states’ rights against an intrusive federal government. But today the federal government – except for the gluttonous defense establishment – has been reduced to a paper tiger. It couldn’t regulate the local Junior League, but it does funnel money into South Carolina’s numerous military installations, propping up the economy. With unemployment approaching 10 percent and the economy sliding into depression, the only war the state can afford or needs right now is a renewed War on Poverty. Our Ship of State is foundering, and all of us, white and black, are reeling from job losses and from budget cuts in higher education, health care for children and public schools.

But the white men – there are zero women in the State Senate – who run the state offer nothing but more of the same. They tolerate a few black males in their midst because they have no choice. But they prefer that women stay at home and that liberals stay far away, say in California or New York. If they were true conservatives, they would say cut the bloated defense budget and bring the troops home. South Carolina reactionaries say support the military machine even as it grinds up the troops for no good reason. True conservatives would say curb corporate welfare. But our homegrown reactionaries don’t care how much goes to Wall Street just so long as it doesn’t go to the children of single mothers. True conservatives would say support public education so that future generations will preserve the best of the past. Our reactionaries say starve public education so that labor is cheap and taxes low. It’s reached the point where we can no longer say, “Thank God for Mississippi” because South Carolina ranks dead last on so many of the social indicators.

South Carolina builds more golf courses than schools and maintains them better. Golf is fun and profit-making; education is dull and a drain on the state budget. Ignorance may not be bliss, but everyone knows that too much learning can be a dangerous thing. It leads to awkward questions, possibly to an effort to change things. Our fair state can be a depressing place for poor youngsters, many of whom grow up with minimum expectations and minimum achievements. So we lead the nation in high school drop outs, a majority of whom will end up on the street or in jail. Our violent crime stats match or beat those of any other state, and are closer to those of Brazil than Vermont.

Poverty, ignorance and religious fundamentalism are our hallmarks. Poverty is accepted because the economic elite benefit from it; they tirelessly point out that the Bible says the poor will always be with us. Ignorance is widespread because learning is suspect and requires tax dollars. Among the lower and lower-middle classes, religious fundamentalism is rampant because it takes the sting out of reality and is one of the most affordable forms of entertainment --- cheaper even than cable TV.

Community colleges are deemed acceptable and worthy of modest support because business demands a certain level of competence from its workers. But a liberal education ranks somewhere below a degree in basket weaving. No one in the governing class loses any sleep when the brightest high school and college graduates high tail it out of the state. As for brain drain, that’s what happens when you are playing golf with someone who has trouble keeping score. So native liberals and potential liberals leave, and if none move in from the outside that’s all the better. To paraphrase a bumper sticker, “We don’t give a damn how you view the world in Chapel Hill.”

The white governing class of South Carolina is out of touch with mainstream America, and, bless their hearts, they prefer it that way. Political and business leaders take pride in their narrow, pinched view of how people should lead their lives. Like their slave-owning ancestors they are benighted; they would live only in their land of smiling faces, beautiful places. They would eat crow rather than be associated with those whom they contemptuously dismiss as over-educated and effete. They cling to their Bibles and guns, not because they are poor and cynical, but because their daddies did and their daddies did too. Years of segregation left them, and many of their offspring, with an overblown sense of privilege. In the privacy of the country club or the voting booth there is no compunction to be anything other than what they are, and they can’t imagine being any other way. They will go to their graves resisting any move towards a fully integrated, democratic state.

One definition of madness is to repeat the same mistake time and again. And it’s double madness if you’re unwilling or unable to admit that it’s a mistake. The running joke is that South Carolina is too small to be a state and too large to be an insane asylum. Some of the worst public schools in the nation can be found along the I-95 “corridor of shame” that runs the length of the state. But the governing class knows no shame. Witness the Confederate flag flying defiantly on the grounds of the capital building in Columbia. It will remain there until a younger, more diverse, generation wrests control from the cold, dead hands of the white male club members – our very own good old boys who like things just the way they are, thank you. Bless their hearts, indeed.

Feeding the Frenzied

2008-10-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

The faltering McCain campaign has resurrected and refined President Nixon’s race-based Southern Strategy. At campaign stops and in interviews, he and his sharp-tongued running mate Sarah Palin are using insinuations, distortions and out-right lies to smear Barack Obama. The target is not Obama’s policies, but rather the man himself. They paint him as a dangerous outsider, a terrorist sympathizer who can not be trusted to run the country. The tactic has not lost its potency. The most extreme among the religious right – the hard core of McCain’s base – are openly hostile to Obama. It’s all too reminiscent of the angry segregationist mobs common in the 1950s.

McCain’s campaign strategy – scripting adults to play with fire – is rooted in desperation. National tracking polls show him trailing Obama by 5-7 points and rapidly losing support among independent voters. McCain and his main economic advisor, Phil (Enron) Gramm, are as clueless as Bush about how to deal with the imploding economy. Americans won’t tolerate more tax cuts for corporations. Bombing Iran is out of the question – at least for the moment. Running out of game changers, McCain-Palin opted for a smokescreen of race and a barrage of character assassination.

Spreading fear is now the sum of their game. Fear of Obama’s name. Fear of his associates. Fear of his cultural background. And, most of all, fear of his race. “Who is Barack Obama?” John McCain asks his followers. The implied question: “Who is this uppity darkie running for president of your United States?” The implied answer: “Your enemy.”

Half a century ago, white leaders in the Deep South used similar tactics hoping to derail the Civil Rights Movement. If public schools were allowed to desegregate, they argued, the Southern way of life would end in catastrophe. Crime would be rampant, no white female would be safe, miscegenation would flourish, the country would be weakened, and communists would take over without firing a shot. Incredible? Yes, but this scenario and variations of it were widely believed by people across the region. At political rallies, speakers whipped crowds into frenzies that often resulted in violence against civil rights workers.

Sadly for the nation, McCain’s campaign appears to be heading in the same direction. His political rallies are starting to look like genteel lynching mobs in khakis. His truest believers bring with them anger about the present and fear of the future. Unable to show that a Republican victory in November will help them (it won’t), McCain and Palin feed the crowd the political red meat it craves. The choice cut: Obama once served on a board with former student radical William Ayres, ergo Obama is a terrorist.

This is a dangerous game at any time, particularly during an economic meltdown and a war with no end. Thugs in McCain’s crowds have already assaulted members of the media. Either campaign plants or nut cases have screamed “terrorist” and “kill him” when McCain or Palin mentioned Obama’s name. A sheriff in uniform revved up a Florida crowd by pointedly denouncing Barrack Hussein Osama and saluting smartly as he left the stage. It isn’t known whether he was wearing jackboots, but he had a decidedly fascist aura about him.

What exactly does the radical right want from this election? First and foremost they want a president who looks like them and speaks their language, a trusty member of the tribe. Someone who will destroy all enemies, foreign and domestic. Someone who will respect home town values however loosely defined. Someone who is a Christian soldier; it’s OK that his war experience was limited to bombing cities. Someone who might be persuaded to put God’s word above the Constitution. In sum, someone like John McCain.

McCain and Palin’s role in all this goes beyond underhandedly playing the race card; they, consciously or not, are inciting their crowds to violence. To think they can benefit politically from crowd hysteria is itself a form of political madness. What if a mob of inflamed McCain supporters attacked an Obama crowd with baseball bats? Or suppose Obama or Joe Biden was the target of an assault. McCain’s standing in the polls would drop faster than the Dow Jones on Black Monday. And there would be no recovery; his political career would be over and his reputation irretrievably damaged. The nation would be in economic and political turmoil – always an explosive combination.

McCain likes to pretend he’s taking the high road, but it’s not enough to tell one of his angry supporters that Obama is not an Arab. McCain must renounce in no uncertain terms his own campaign’s McCarthyite tactics. He should start by reining in Sarah Palin and pulling his incendiary campaign ads. If he hesitates, Obama and Biden must call him out on this despicable practice. Such destructive politics should have been buried with Senators Joe McCarthy and Jesse Helms. Someone should remind McCain that the American people will hold him accountable for any violence that results from his campaign’s incitements.

If fascism comes to America, it will come from within. The extreme religious right, those who cannot separate their politics from their religion, will be the shock troops. To their distorted way of thinking democracy is anathema and social democracy is treason. A successful liberal politician is the anti-Christ. They are as warped by their religion as any Muslim bomber. The temptation is to dismiss them as wingnuts and hope they will rapture up, or at least go away. But that won’t happen regardless of who wins in November. We ignore them at our – and the nation’s – peril.

A Walk In The Park

2008-10-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

I took a walk in Hyde Park over the week-end and ran into Karl Marx. He looked amazingly fit for a man who will be 200 years old in 2018. “Karl,” I said, “I thought you were dead.” “You must be joking,” he said. “Have you been reading the mainstream media? Those lackeys thought me dead even when I was alive. The truth is that I’ve been in a secular purgatory, waiting to see when my predictions about capitalism would come true. It’s been a long ordeal, but things are looking up since the Wall Street meltdown.”

“I was getting to that,” I said. “Could we grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks? If you’d share your economic insights with me, I’ll pass them on to Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Phil Gramm and others in the American ruling class. They’re having a crisis of confidence in the free market. They’re nationalizing banks and are desperate for help. There might be an opening now that they’re acting like socialists.”

“That Gramm is a piece of work, isn’t he? The guy with the Ph. D. in capitalism. Is he still John McCain’s numero uno “economic” advisor? Someone should tell him that workers don’t whine; they march in the streets. Heard that he and McCain said the economy was fundamentally strong just as it was tanking. That was a déjà vu for me. Brought back all those memories of the 1930s. We had Hoovervilles, marches and strikes. They had Wall Street, strike-breakers and the police. Those were heady days. Too bad Hoover lost in 1932…the working class would have been home free. FDR took the wind out of our revolution with his liberal New Deal. Can’t imagine what got into him---working against his own class interest like that. Maybe we frightened him more than the Wall Street crowd.”

“Come on Karl,” I said. “That’s water under the bridge. Let’s talk about the present economic crisis. The housing bubble has burst. The market is down and investment banks are folding like dominoes. Unemployment is rising fast and finding a good job is nearly impossible. I can’t sleep at night worrying about my 401(k). Is this the Big One that our economists said would never happen?”

“Look, my friend,” Karl said, “all this Strum und Drang calls for a socialist perspective. The lower class in your country lives in a permanent depression. They scramble daily to keep their heads above the water you said was under the bridge. Your middle class lives in a permanent recession. They deal with stagnant wages, job losses and education and health costs that are out the roof. No wonder they’re in debt up to their eyeballs. Now your upper class is a horse of a different hue. They do well all the time, even when they do badly. They used funny money from the Federal Reserve to purchase phony bonds and bundled mortgages. Then they shuffled the paper and sold at a huge profit. The smart CEOs jumped ship before the scheme collapsed. But don’t shed any tears over those who stuck it out to the bitter end. They’ll make out like bandits too now that your government---which, need I point out, is broke---has decided to bail them out. Gives new meaning to the term ownership society, doesn’t it? How clever of the ruling class to socialize losses and privatize profits. Engels would have loved that little trick.”

“But, Karl, aren’t you being a bit unfair? Our best and brightest on Wall Street and K Street are fundamentalist free marketeers. Sure, they love corporate welfare more than any queen. But in their hearts they’re true believers who’ve preached to the choir for decades against government intervention. They’re accepting this $700 billion bailout only for the good of the country. Despite all the financial shenanigans, look at the wealth these turbo capitalists have created? Were they wrong all along?”

“Surely you don’t think that wealth trickled down,” Karl said. “Free market fundamentalism is the opiate of your ruling class. True, they’ve also been high on corporate welfare for years. But after last week’s meltdown, even the fundies were on their knees begging for a federal bailout. Government that used to be the problem became their ultimate savior. You’ll recall a few years back when junkies became irrationally exuberant and wanted to drown government in a bathtub. Now they want to keep the beast on life support so it can save them from the wolves. Such flop-flips boggle the mind.”

“Just thinking about it gives me a headache,” I said. “That’s what you Marxists would call a fundamental contradiction, isn’t it?”

“One of many, my friend.” Marx said, “Corruption, greed and stupidity were minor actors in this drama. But you know I’m not strictly speaking a Marxist anymore. Remember Freud in his old age said he was not a Freudian. Through my own personal dialectic, I’m now more of a Trotskyist. People do change, you know. Your ruling class followed the money and moved overnight from market fundamentalism to state socialism. Working Americans, of course, are still on their own. Talk about a welfare state! Congress underwrites the fat cats and sends the bill to the workers. It’s plus ca change for them. But one day, when they wise up, they’ll unite and lose their chains.”

“So, Karl, back to the present. What else is to be done? You and I know the whole system would have gone down the tube without government intervention. Will the largest corporate bailout in history work in the long run?”

“Not a snowball’s chance, my boy. You’ll all be dead in the long run. One desperate measure just buys a little time. If you’re going to nationalize corporations, follow up and nationalize health insurance and education. Give your taxpayers a break instead of the shaft. Give the kids and the uninsured a break too. Wouldn’t you rather become French than become history?”

“Let me think about that. One more thing before you go, Karl. John McCain has the economic literacy of a czar, but isn’t there a good chance that Barak Obama could clean up this mess. I know the fundamentals of the economy are weak, but with 300 economic advisors….One or two might even be closet socialists who want to help Main Street more than Wall Street.”

“Wish I had the audacity to be more hopeful. Less is sometimes more. Maybe if Obama shipped Lawrence Summers, Paul Volcker and Robert Rubin to Alaska. Rubin wasn’t one of those red diaper babies, was he? Doesn’t matter. Now he’s a make-up artist who puts lipstick on capitalists and thinks they’re no longer pigs. Globalization my Aunt Fannie Mae.”

“Right on, Karl. But it’s not like you to use petty bourgeois language. Economic imperialism is a better choice of words, isn’t it?”

“Glad to see you’ve been reading Lenin and Orwell. Gotta run now. Late for my language class. I’m trying to learn Chinese.”

Diplomacy and Desperation

2008-04-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

The war in Iraq is much more than the “dark cloud” that Terry Plumb sees hanging over US domestic and foreign policy. (The Herald, April 6, 2008) That war --- judged by critics at home and abroad as illegal and immoral --- is more a black hole sucking in Iraqi and American lives and billions in wasted resources. There can be no nice and tidy diplomatic solution to this madness. Expecting one is nothing more than wishful thinking by those desperate for an end to it all. The only way out is to get out---pull all US troops out of Iraq now. Cut and walk.

For four long years, the Bush administration pursued a military victory in Iraq. When the impossibility of that finally dawned on the Pentagon, the administration urged the corrupt and incompetent government of Nuri al-Maliki to seek a political settlement. But relying on a puppet government proved as stupid and fruitless in Iraq as it did in Vietnam. Now the US is revealed to be another over-extended imperial power that can’t learn from its mistakes. And Maliki, like George Bush, is about as popular at home as dengue fever.

When all else fails, why not, as Terry Plumb argues, give diplomacy a chance to work? First, where would these miracle workers come from? Countries are not exactly lining up to take on this mission impossible. Iran has as much influence in Iraq as any country including the US, but why should it, even if the Bushites agreed, take on the role of saving the US from the consequences of its reckless and unprovoked war? Other countries, in and out of the Middle East, are happy to see the arrogant giant bogged down in Iraq, stewing in its own juices. Erstwhile allies are among them.

Second, civil wars fueled by religion are notoriously difficult to settle by diplomacy. Words fail religious fanatics who relish living and dying by the sword. Why accept mere human intervention when god is on your side? He will---if he is as powerful and smart as we believe he is---lead us to victory. It’s only a matter of time before the virtues of our tribe will be apparent to the world. And if we perish in the short run, so be it. As martyrs we will be honored on earth and rewarded in heaven. So praise Allah, and pass the ammunition.

Third, it’s too late to play the diplomatic card. The war is lost and the political situation in shambles. The US has no leverage. The highly touted surge has done nothing but buy time for Bush who will end his presidency by handing off his failed policies to his successor. The war in Iraq will be at the top of his gift list.

With no clear central authority in Iraq, diplomacy would drag on for months, even years.
While the diplomats talked, the fighting and dying would continue. US troops would be killed daily, adding 40 to 50 a month to a body count that now exceeds 4,000. The tab would be running at a record cost of $50 billion a month. Ordinary Iraqis would struggle to survive amidst the violence, squalor and misery. An estimated 1 million of them have died in the war and at least twice that many have been displaced.

General Petraeus describes the situation in Iraq as “fragile and reversible.” Fragile is a word to describe a fine piece of china. How about “explosive and desperate” and “no end in sight?” The Pentagon brass seem as demoralized and frustrated as the politicians…probably because there is no endgame and no plan --- or capability --- to create and implement one. A military victory is about as likely as a July snowfall in Baghdad. Shiites (Iraqi army) are now fighting Shiites (Mehdi army) as Sunnis stand by waiting to join the fray as soon as they get their last American paycheck.

After five years conditions in Iraq are worse than before the American invasion. There is less safe drinking water, less electricity, fewer schools and, incredibly, less security. No wonder an overwhelming majority---about three-fourths--- of Iraqis believe their country would be safer and better off generally if US occupation forces went home. They understand what Americans have just begun to realize: the presence of US troops in Iraq is the major cause of violence there. It will not end until American forces leave and Iraqis take responsibility for their own affairs. That process will be difficult and far from peaceful, but the choice will be theirs to make.

Terry Plumb argues that the US can neither afford to stay in Iraq indefinitely nor withdraw precipitously. Presumably he would keep US troops there until there was peace among the tribal and religious factions and a stable central government. But if neither diplomacy nor military occupation can achieve these aims, what is the purpose of staying? It’s hard for an imperial power to admit defeat, especially when its third world victim was supposed to be shocked, awed and democratized. Bush, Cheney and their oil buddies are like pit bulls that won’t let go. Oil is their red meat, and Iraq is one great big butcher shop. There is no limit to the lives and resources they would expend to gain control of it.

Americans who support(ed) this war can not escape moral responsibility for the outrages it has generated. Torture, civilian deaths, homes destroyed and people displaced are consequences that demand an immediate end, not the protracted and uncertain process of diplomacy. But ending the war is not enough. Bush, Cheney and their neo-con cronies who planned the invasion and occupation must be held accountable for their criminal acts. Failure to do so will be a clear signal that the US has lost its moral footing and is simply another imperial bully throwing its weight around, doing whatever it pleases and ignoring the havoc it creates. We will have become our own worst enemy.

Beyond the Politics of Cliche

2008-02-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

Clichés are an inherent feature of American politics, and this election year is no exception. They surface in any bar or coffee shop where there’s a political discussion. Most contain at least a kernel of truth, and are harmless enough, but one of the most common -- the old bromide that if you fail to vote you have no right to complain or criticize the system -- is poison. This verbal tool of the established order, intentional or not, encourages resistance to change and preservation of the status quo.

Think of the sheer illogic of the proposition. A nation where fewer than half the eligible voters bother to show up at the polls would silence its citizens who stay home or go fishing. But the miscreants are neither lazy nor ignorant, and they don’t give up their right to free speech when they take a pass on voting. They understand that voting – whether for a winner or a loser – is now no more than an empty symbolic gesture. It makes no real difference in their lives, and they know it. Neglected Americans actually have more grounds for complaint than anyone else. Progressives should encourage them to scream from the roof tops or take to the streets, not bite their tongues in passive stoicism.

Wealthy Americans know for certain that they will be rewarded for taking thirty minutes to go to the ballot box. Regardless of which Party or candidate wins, they remain in the cat bird’s seat. A Clinton gives them lucrative trade deals and a Bush gives them obscene tax cuts. NAFTA lost millions of middle class jobs but made a killing for multinationals. Bush’s tax policies returned about $150,000 to each millionaire and virtually nothing to those who earn less than $50,000 annually. Corporate welfare, bloated defense contracts and free market fundamentalism keep the dollars flowing up. As for the poor, they understand full well that “trickle down economics” and “ownership society” are cruel jokes. They know too that voting will not make it easier to find a decent job or improve the lousy school their kids attend.

Another, more accurate cliché is that politics in America is a spectator sport. The significance of this verbal thrust is that it reveals more than it was meant to. The middle and lower classes watch from the sidelines as the governing elite sort out and anoint candidates for higher office. Phone calls are made, checks are written and endorsements made. The corporate-controlled media follow every move, take the appropriate cues and provide a play-by-play description of the contest. The policies of the finalists, regardless of Party, are more similar than different. Pundits call this continuity. To alleviate boredom, an occasional candidate will run as “an agent of change,” but what actually changes, other than players on the field, is nothing more than the amount of smoke and number of mirrors deployed to obscure political reality.

George Wallace, in his younger days, was a racist governor and third-party candidate for president. But he got one thing right when he said there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Ironically, that too has now become something of a political cliché among those on the left. (Some clichés are truer than others.) Ralph Nader once compared the two Parties to Coke and Pepsi. Since then, the small gap between them has narrowed; Coke and Diet Coke might be the more accurate metaphor today. Virtually no nutrition, lots of fizz and a bad aftertaste.

The large, enthusiastic crowds of young people who turn out to cheer Obama are cited adoringly by the mainstream media as an example of renewed faith in the system. Media gurus applaud the sight, waxing about the novelty and hopefulness of it all. Many are reminded of the youthful political ardor they felt for JFK. The New York Times quoted a young woman from Idaho who said, ‘I’m going to vote for Obama because his ideas are young and he has not been jaded by politics yet.” There is hope here, but the revealing qualifier “yet” shows that she knows it’s only a matter of time.

Wedged between Obama and the nomination are the Clinton political machine, including the Democratic Leadership Conference, and most of the 400 or so super-delegates made up of party officials, office holders and other establishment loyalists vested in the status quo. Together they form a firewall that Obama must break through to get the nomination.

If, by some twist of fate, he succeeds and go on to beat McCain (a thicker firewall) in the general election, President Obama will run up against an entrenched system -- with or without Democratic majorities in Congress. Interest groups, unfortunately, don’t get voted out. His appointments to key positions will have to be vetted by globalization romantics, die-hard Israeli supporters and minions of the military-industrial-congressional complex. They will give their blessing only to those with the “right stuff.” Sadly, we have reached the point where defenders of the empire hate change more than they love democracy.

All the hoopla around Obamarama brings to mind George Bernard Shaw’s axiom that second marriages are an example of “hope triumphing over experience.” Corporate-controlled America is beyond reform. It is too corrupt, too self-satisfied, and too benighted to do anything but dig in its heels. The young voter quoted above is fated to have her hopes dashed on the hard reality of “the system.” If Obama gets uppity and strays beyond acceptable boundaries -- as defined by the political establishment -- he will be penalized and benched. The country’s first black president could end up setting a record for being the longest-serving lame duck in history.

Nonetheless, change is the mantra and hope the operative emotion as the super spectacle rolls toward November. Excuse us cynics over 60, but we’ve been down this road before and found it to be a dead end. We take no pleasure in saying it, but the score is rigged and the game is up. After the inauguration, hope will start to dissipate like a morning fog. Hope, even when laced with audacity, is not an action plan.

If you ain’t got much political clout, you got nothing much to lose by devising a new game plan. And if you can feel good just by hoping, imagine how good you would feel doing an end run around the establishment to restore American democracy. But first know the simple but undeniable fact that electoral politics ain’t where it’s at, children. If the Civil Rights Movement had depended on voting instead of street protests and economic boycotts, we’d still have legal segregation and white primaries.
Those who understand that the system is too corrupt and entrenched to embrace reform efforts -- even minor ones that originate inside the Beltway -- must look for alternative approaches. A non-violent, grass-roots social protest movement with the potential to grow nationwide is the most obvious choice. Before you say “don’t get your hopes up,” remember that it worked for the Suffragettes and for the Civil Rights Movement. It’s as American as apple pie and turnip greens.
For a start, the agenda should be simple and straight-forward. First, demand that corporate interests be reined in, taxed and regulated. Invalidate all court rulings that give corporations the same rights as citizens and forbid future ones. The Constitution gave free speech to individuals, not to corporations. Second, end the war in Iraq, cut the Pentagon budget in half, defuse three-fourths of the nuclear arsenal and initiate other measures to downsize and eventually abolish the military empire. Much more would remain to be done to put the nation firmly on the path toward a real democracy, but these critical steps would justify real hope for the future of the Republic. “Let the work begin,” transcends cliché. It would make a great national slogan.

Stephen Colbert: He's My Man

2007-10-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

Stephen Colbert is the only candidate running for president who truly understands the depths of the American political system. He’ll get my vote for president here in South Carolina in January, 2008. For maximum effect, I plan to vote for him twice --- once on the Democratic ticket and once on the Republican ticket. No lesser of weevils for me this time. In fact, I’ll feel twice as good participating in our modern, post democratic, political process. If it creates confusion, the electoral college--- or the Supreme Court--- can sort it all out.

Stephen has many advantages as a candidate. He isn’t spending tons of money on campaigning, so he will emerge from the marathon with no labor intensive obligations to lobbyists. He’ll have no need for secret White House meetings with oil executives. When ExxonMobil begins to rewrite energy policy, he’ll tell them to take a hike. (Please, Not in Alaska.) When Big Pharma sends an ex Princeton cheerleader to peddle a drug plan, Stephen will tell her to go home and take a cold shower. (He’ll take an aspirin?) No one will be able to break his ties to the common man and woman… or to his lovely (first) wife and his (semi-beautiful) children.

President Colbert could end the war in Iraq. His father, a real man, was never insulted by Saddam Hussein. He attended Catholic schools and has a keen nose for weapons of Mass detraction. He has met a few con men in his time, so he knows better than to be shoved into the pockets of the neo-cons. It would be too tight in there, and the air would be too putrid to breathe. Most important, Stephen does not want to bring democracy to the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter. He knows it doesn’t always work from his experience growing up in a large family. (And at Comedy Central?)

Stephen is a first-rate campaigner who understands his audiences --- what makes them think, what make them laugh, and what turns them off. His timing is superb. He pauses just at the right time to bring the point home. Some of his biggest supporters maintain that he has a good sense of humor. Come on now, admit it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a president who could tell an indecent joke and laugh at himself instead of one who just makes us laugh at him? (When we aren’t crying.) And Stephen would be his own vice-president. Just think about the advantages….

Stephen is young, he doesn’t have a hearing problem and he’s not afraid of us. That’s important because he wouldn’t order the CIA and NSA to listen in on our conversations. If he knew Aunt Tilley was having a breakdown, he would have to send a card. Stephen relates to us, he knows what we really talk about---we talk about him, and he would have it no other way. He may feel his own gain, but we share common dreams.

Stephen has many other attributes that would make him a great president. One of the most important is that he is not a father figure. He’s more of a little brother figure. That will give him an advantage over other heads of state when he’s negotiating tough issues. He could handle Big Brother Putin with some spit balls and a few one-liners. Crazy Uncle Ahmadinejad would be begging for a glass of red and a morsel of bread (And a rosary?) when Stephen finished with him. Weird cousin Kim Jong ll would drop his jump suits and try not to be such a bad joke around his own people.

Stephen, of course, is much more than a medium figure who stands, and occasionally runs, above the crowd. He’s used to public adulation and can handle it. Only thoughts will go to his head. He has on occasion bombed, but always quickly recovers and goes on to knock ‘em dead. (Beats air strikes.) He gives it his all, and has even wounded his own wrist in the line of duty. I would hunt bears with Stephen. In brief – or boxer – he has cojones. Who among the erstwhile candidates, other than Stephen, would dare play chess with Gary Kasparov on national TV? A checkers match between John McCain and Fred Thompson at Cracker Barrel doesn’t come close.

The NYT endorsement of Stephen was different but effective. Simply turn over an op-ed column to the dark horse testing the waters. Thank you, dowdy Maureen. The Times did the same for another old boy from the South, Jimmy Carter, and his campaign, like Colbert’s, took flight. Carter and Stephen both talk to God. (The same god?) They both know the Word. He said it, they believe it, that’s it. Carter was a liberal on race. Stephen doesn’t know what color he, or anyone else, is and he doesn’t care. He’s glad he wasn’t aborted, but has anyone polled his family? Trendy gays say that some of their best friends are Stephen.

Stephen gives good geography. He’s from Charleston, the haughty town that started the Civil War, where the Ashley and Cooper rivers come together to form the Atlantic Ocean. Despite these rebel roots, we can trust Stephen. If the economy goes sour, he will order troops to fire on Fort Knox for a quick gold infusion. If immigration gets out of hand, he will lead the US in seceding from the Union. He won’t put up with any nonsense from the French either. What is there not to like about Stephen…a man of all reasons. Opponents say he is driven, but Stephen knows when to stop and smell the ruses. Only a fool would misunderestimate him.

The unvarnished thruthiness is that America needs Stephen more than Stephen needs America. He is the perfect candidate for our post-democratic, pre-traumatic age. Regular politicians just do us, but Stephen will do us proud…all without kinky torture. He may sound like a rightwing nut case, but he’s really a closet moderate, a straight arrow who knows the ropes but won’t tie voters in knots. Stephen will never flop-flip. We can bank on it. Make his mama (forget Ruby Giuliani) a happy woman: vote Colbert in 2008. God bless Stephen, and God bless Stephen.

Ammo for the Barbarians

2007-09-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

A handful of renegade economists is feeling heat for impugning the free-market economic orthodoxy at the heart of US domestic and foreign policies. (New York Times, July 11, 2007) The heretics are raising questions about laissez-faire economics and the values and virtues of free trade. In re-examining the entire notion of non-interference, they argue that policymakers should consider the benefits of governmentally mandated living wage, environmental standards and safer working conditions. To their conservative colleagues, this is the dismal science gone wild. Only those trying to undermine the American way of life would teach such heresy in Econ 101.

For more than three decades, universities have taught and the governing elite practiced a sacrosanct theory which holds that the free-market system benefits all economically. Proponents use the word “free” to mean little or no intervention or regulation by government. They maintain that only a market economy is compatible with democracy and dismiss thinkers such as John Kenneth Galbraith who favor governmental regulation, arguing that would harm the economy and our democratic system. We in the US, so the argument goes, unlike benighted Europeans, live in the best of all possible worlds because our free-market economy sustains our democratic political system and vice versa.

Most arguments used to legitimize the market system are shrouded in myth and euphemism. Conventional wisdom (a term coined by Galbraith) among free-market ideologues holds that democracies are incompatible with regulated economies, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary in Europe and elsewhere. Rarely mentioned is the fact that where there is no regulation of the economy, governments…even democracies… tend to veer toward state corporatism and plutocracy. Defenders employ the benign label of free market, but they know there’s nothing free about a market controlled and manipulated by multi-national corporations. They are talking about fast-track capitalism regardless of how it’s disguised or what it’s called.

The free marketeers may swear by unbridled capitalism, but few of them believe in the marketplace of ideas, an increasingly quaint notion in Washington. The governing elite understand that academics are men and women of thought, not action, and pose little threat to the status quo. But free market devotees in our universities look upon their dissident colleagues much the way the pope viewed Martin Luther. When heretics raise their heads, their colleagues pound them down. Excommunication may experience a comeback. One ivy-league dissident said, “…anyone who says anything even obliquely that sounds hostile to free trade is treated as an apostate.” With proxies like these there’s no need for a uniformed thought police.

The plight of dissenting economists is one more indicator that our society is impatient with – and increasingly intolerant of – dissent. The Corporate State tries to control public opinion on everything from trade policy to immigration to preemptive war. It usually succeeds. So, our outspoken academic friends are engaged in a risky business, and likely will encounter more serious pitfalls if they continue their heresy.

Among the governing elite who have laid claim to think and speak for the rest of us, the market and politics are of one cloth. Although they may temporarily brook mild, non-threatening dissent in the academy, they will quickly turn on anyone who moves the issue to the public arena. If seriously challenged, they will portray dissidents as dangerous extremists, intent on ripping apart the fabric of society. The Justice Department will set up a special unit to monitor their activities. After due consideration…perhaps a phone call…the Attorney General will denounce internal dissidents as a threat to national security. Neo-cons will declare them soft on terrorism and insist that special detention centers be built to house them.

Things could, of course, be much worse for heretics in academe. They enjoy decent pay, good working conditions and an adequate retirement. Relatively few ever lose their jobs because of their ideas. But all that could change overnight. If truth is the first casualty of war, free inquiry is the first casualty of authoritarian governance. Anyone who lived during the years of McCarthyism knows that soft inquisitions involving firings and blacklisting are not unknown in this country. Today, as the federal government grows more oppressive, institutions dependent on it for serious money tend to follow suit. There could be no clearer or more ominous signs of emerging authoritarianism than university departments and associations putting the squeeze on their “apostates.”

Thoughtful Americans have long known that the nation would pay dearly for embracing and nurturing the military-industrial (and congressional) complex. Ike was more right than he knew when he spoke of chickens coming home to roost. What remains of democracy in the Corporate State is wounded and in retreat, while our own governing elite trudges ahead, devising ever new ways to avoid public accountability, responsibilities and obligations. It will take more than a handful of brave souls to stop them from moving further down this dark road.

As the water temperature rises, not so slowly, on us frogs, the more sensitive among us feel it and are beginning to squeak. Meanwhile, mainstream economists… oblivious to the problems they help create…worry that their outspoken colleagues who question the party line are providing “ammunition to the barbarians.” But the old guard, in or out of the academy, has lost perspective. Now that corporate welfare---the one welcomed intervention---has trumped human welfare, the voices of dissent, in and out of the classroom, will only grow louder. Our government’s subservience to corporate interests and its aggressive approach to trade and war are providing us barbarians with more than sufficient ammunition. At this stage of the conflict, ammo from heretical economists is mere lagniappe.

Imitation of Totalitarian Life

2007-09-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

It was only a matter of time, remember? Once Chinese communists and Russian autocrats implemented capitalist economies, democracy would follow as sure as night follows day. Alas, the earth must be standing still. The Chinese government is as totalitarian as it was in 1989 when it turned guns on students in Tiananmen Square. In Russia, Putin’s authoritarian government resembles a Third World dictatorship. Yet turbo capitalism thrives in both countries. The conventional wisdom was not only unwise, it was dead wrong.

On the home front, the economy is humming for the top ten percent of Americans. Tax cuts and loopholes, defense contracts, deregulation and a workforce paralyzed by debt and job insecurity keep wealth gushing upwards. Benighted corporate interests ignore the termites eating away at the foundation of American democracy. So what if government officials – beholden to corporate money – are spying on American citizens, curtailing habeas corpus, propping up an imperial president and disregarding civil liberties? Corporate profits are over the top, and plutocrats know that laissez-faire capitalism – not messy democratic politics – is the driving force.

Not everyone is viewing this turn of events as part of the price of doing business. Small groups of university economists are questioning the free-market orthodoxy at the heart of US domestic and foreign policies. For their efforts, they have come under fire from market devotees who consider them heretical and potentially dangerous. One ivy-league trouble maker said, “…anyone who says anything even obliquely that sounds hostile to free trade is treated as an apostate.” (New York Times, July 11, 2007)

The apostates placed laissez-faire and free trade under a microscope, and found an economic system that is flunking the test. They are calling for a re-examination of the entire notion of non-interference, maintaining that policymakers should consider the benefits of a governmentally mandated living wage, stringent environmental standards and safer working conditions. Their incredulous conservative and neo-liberal colleagues accuse them of undermining the American way of life and look for ways to silence them.

Free speech can be abridged in any number of ways. The authoritarian governments of China and Russia provide effective models for countering academic dissent. Authorities there rarely find it necessary to send police or government apparatchiks into universities. The internal thought police, usually members of the faculty and/or administration, are the best watchdogs. This method ensures self censorship among all who wish to retain their jobs and avoid re-education camps or prison. And it works: orthodoxy prevails while heterodoxy gasps to survive.

China has proved that a country can have a thriving capitalist economic system backed by a totalitarian government. Russian has demonstrated that a country can practice an extreme form of klepto-capitalism outside a democratic arena. Serious political dissent – in universities or anywhere else – is simply not part of their business plans. Chinese and Russians authorities value entrepreneurs, markets and internal stability. They regard free speech as a dangerous indulgence in a globalized, highly competitive, post-democratic world.

Freedom of inquiry is drifting down this same dark road in our own Corporate State. To paraphrase Pogo, “We have met the enemy and borrowed some of his tactics.” Our home grown plutocrats have always regarded democratic governance as an inconvenience, one with the potential for trouble and instability. Now they know that money can be made and people ruled with or without the trappings of democracy. The more extreme among them would like to neutralize or remove all obstacles to turbo capitalism whether at home or abroad. For them – and for the rest of us – freedom, like nostalgia, is simply not what it used to be.

Today in the Corporate State, the public sector is a ninety pound weakling intimidated by the burgeoning private sector, a muscle-bound giant on steroids. But check out the headlines. Where there is no regulation and accountability, fraud and abuse flourish; Enron, Halliburton and Blackwater have become household words. But widespread corruption, whether in Congress or the board room, hardly fazes. We simply dismiss it as the price the military-industrial complex doing business.

But something more ominous than corruption is occurring. Judging from their statements and actions, those who govern us are rigging the system to ensure that state corporatism trumps democracy. No clearer signs exist than their willingness to abridge rights, curtail liberties, suppress dissent and tolerate, even encourage, dysfunctional governance.

This virus has been growing for some time and has proved highly contagious. Free-market devotees applauded Ronald Reagan, for instructing Americans on the proper relationship between free-wheeling capitalism and democracy. Reagan’s adoring spiels to the market system did not cease to be propaganda when he moved from GE headquarters to the Oval Office. As CEO of the Corporate State, Reagan brought morning (mourning) in America by dismantling New Deal programs the night before.

Capitalism was Reagan’s religion (Nancy had astrology), and he used the bully pulpit to sell the country a bill of goods. For such true believers, human welfare destroys character, but corporate welfare builds free enterprise. Tax cuts, bail outs and varied forms of governmental subsidies for businesses are the highly prized oil that keeps the wheels of the not-so-free market rolling smoothly.

Bill Clinton, embracing theory and practice, advanced globalization and the market with NAFTA while supporting deregulation. (The mantra might have been: We’re all Republicans now.) The capitalism-democracy nexus blossomed into orthodoxy, the most sacred belief of a society seeking to justify its worship of money. The principle of dissent lingered, but the practice started to fade – in universities and elsewhere. Bucking the prevailing consensus seemed as pointless as complaining about the weather. It’s only vaguely reassuring now to know that there are flurries of dissent in this degraded political climate. Judging from gathering storm clouds, we’re going to need as much dissent as we can muster.

When the next large-scale terrorist attack occurs in this country, the internal crackdown will be swift, broad and deep. Bush – or his successor – will come under enormous pressure from uber-nationalists, from faux-strategist neo-cons, from apocalyptic religious zealots and, most important, from predictable military-corporate interests. All will be singing the same refrain: squash dissent in all its traitorous forms and restrain all enemy combatants, however broadly defined. Civil liberties will be portrayed as unaffordable luxuries in an age of terror. Martial law will replace civil law, repression will blossom and individual rights will wither. It will have happened here. Consumers across the country will pause briefly and ask plaintively, “Who lost America?”

For God’s Sake, or Yours

2007-06-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

Is God a delusion or is he real but incompetent? If he exists only in the minds of believers, he is a delusion. If he exists but is fundamentally flawed, then obviously he is not great as we’ve been led to believe. If he is neither a delusion nor an incompetent, he demands an awful lot from his flock, more than many of us can give.

These questions are at the heart of two recent books, each fascinating and provocative, each questioning religious beliefs that many people clutch like a toddler with a teddy bear. Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is the work of an outspoken scientist who rejects, as does Hitchens, the popular idea that science and religion overlap. He describes as delusional any and all beliefs in supernatural beings including the god of the Old Testament. Equally self-deceptive, in his view, are beliefs in the supernatural aspects of Jesus’ life such as the virgin birth and resurrection.

Dawkins is not alone in the scientific community. A mere seven percent of National Academy of Sciences members believe in a personal god. But polls show that more than ninety percent of Americans believe in a supernatural being, and for most of them it’s a belief in a personal god. Presumably the figure is even higher here in the Bible Belt, possibly ninety-eight percent or more among readers of this article. Any way you cut it, that’s an awful lot of delusion.

Christopher Hitchens, a journalist and social critic, approaches the question from the perspective that religion is an evil force that is directly responsible for many of the world’s ills. The title of his book sums it up: God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Hitchens has done his homework, as reflected in his readings from the Torah (Old Testament) to the Koran to the New Testament. He writes that religions are an omnipresent source of conflict and violence, and cites a few cities wracked by religious strife. Religion kills in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Bethlehem, Belgrade and Baghdad.

The religious poison Hitchens describes doesn’t always take the form of outright warfare between tribes. Other manifestations of religion-based violence are stoning adulterous women, denying life-saving medical care, mutilating children’s genitals (male and female) and assassinating apostates. Before the lid blew off, a majority of altar boys in Ireland were raped or otherwise sexually abused by priests. The silence from the Vatican has been deafening.

Dawkins and Hitchens argue that man created god, not vice versa, and that religions are more alike than different. All require observing the rituals and believing the doctrines or suffering the consequences of being dammed. There is little originality among them. Christians adopted aspects of Judaism, and Islam borrowed heavily from both. Hitchens writes, “ …monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism, of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents.”

With Christianity, there is a particular emphasis on the importance of faith. But, the skeptic asks, who can believe that one god has three equal components, or that Jesus died for our sins but did not die, or that faith is an option for those who lack that particular fanciful capacity? The fortunate skeptic has faith that his thinking will continue to evolve, (as in evolution), and no longer wonders about myriads of angels doing gymnastics on the head of a needle. At that point, he may thank himself for being free at last.

Before he can feel too satisfied, however, someone will proclaim that secular totalitarian regimes have been responsible for as many crimes and massacres as religious ones. Hitchens meets this argument head on. Secular totalitarian states, he points out, are a relatively recent phenomenon compared with totalitarian religious states. Stalin and Hitler behaved like leaders of huge religious cults. Both tyrants required loyalty, doctrinal purity and the suspension of free will by those under their boots…all for the sake of the earthly paradise in the making. Hitchens quotes George Orwell who wrote, “A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.”

Reason has always presented a challenge to blind faith. Socrates brought the issue to the fore when, as a character in a Greek play, he leads a farmer to conclude that it is clouds, not Zeus, that bring the rain, that wind and heat, not Zeus, move the clouds, and that lightning strikes are not punishment to wrongdoers because lighting strikes the just and the unjust. The poor souls today who pray for rain in drought-stricken areas would spend their time better reading a good book on climate change.

Mythology morphed into religion and polytheism gave way to monotheism. The Jews insisted that their god was the one and only supreme being. Christians bought into that, but added a messiah and kept a foot in both camps, claiming their god was one in three and three in one. Muslims borrowed most of their ideas about god from Jews and Christians. Only Mormons surpassed them in creating a “new” religion out of the tenets of existing ones. If plagiarism were a sin, all of them would be in trouble with their creator.

Hitchens points to skepticism and free inquiry as the only means we mortals have for achieving anything worthwhile. Faith and civilization are in a confrontation, one that could determine whether we survive. The “faith-based fanatics” will borrow or steal the products of civilization to use against those who created them. He calls for a renewed Enlightenment to counter the false, outdated and dangerous ideas that cower under the umbrella called religion. He reminds us that our fate is in our own hands, not those of god.

Dawkins’ considers a wide range of scientific issues that indicate the fundamental flaws in religious beliefs. He argues that it is time for believers to grow up, to throw away childish things like a belief in a supreme father figure. If that leaves your life empty, find something to fill it because it is up to each of us to give our lives meaning.

Humor can help. If you want a really good laugh, you can always count on the religious right to provide one. Last month, god’s children opened a $27 million “Creation Museum” in Kentucky. The museum’s mission is to promote a demonstrable lie, the absurd notion that science supports the contention that the Earth is 6,000 years old. A trip to this museum could be highly educational if parents told their children they were going to see the stupidity and gullibility of religious mammals.

These two books provide readers the same clear message: you can believe in science or you can believe in religion, but you can’t have it both ways. Believers may have a monopoly on faith, but on little else. Any atheist will attest that life is precious and worth living. Dawkins adds that the atheist view is “never tainted with self delusion, wishful thinking, or the whingeing self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something.” To that observation, one can only add a hearty “amen.”

Democracy is Not Sowell

2007-05-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

“When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.” (Conservative columnist Thomas Sowell writing in the Rock Hill SC Herald, May 2, 2007)

Hello, Americans. Are you now or have you ever been a degenerate? You know, one of those morally degraded deviants Mr. Sowell believes are dragging the country down. If you are in denial about the state of your morals, now is the time to break out of that trap an ‘fess up. Remember it’s good for the soul, and no fair hiding behind the Fifth Amendment.

Down South where I was born and raised, we often heard from our Baptist and Methodist ministers that we are all sinners. At first this was not an easy message to accept, but I gradually grew used to the idea. During adolescence I even occasionally took a perverse pride in being a sinner. Swilling from a beer can, poorly concealed in a brown paper bag, I was running with the big dogs. If you’re going to sin, I thought, you might as well go all the way.

There’s no denying that Mr. Sowell is on the right track; there is something rotten in the culture. He believes degeneracy runs so deep and wide as to pose a threat to the nation. But he paints with an awfully broad brush, and he has chosen the wrong color. He indicts politicians, the media, educators, and the intelligentsia, but never acknowledges that degeneracy, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.

Mr. Sowell would be on much more solid ground if he left degeneracy to the moral philosophers and considered corruption instead. Corruption is more easily measured; you know a $100,000 bribe when you see. It doesn’t take a social scientist or a moral crusader to conclude that corruption is rampant in American society. The signs are ubiquitous and the odor unmistakable.

In the case of Congress, corruption permeates the entire institution. Members outsource their responsibilities to corporate lobbyists, who, in return for political contributions, gain access and government largesse. Tom DeLay was leader of the pack, not the Lone Ranger. Today it’s hard to tell the difference between a senator or representative and the corporate functionaries of K Street. Howard Zinn poses the right question when he asks students whether their government represents them or ExxonMobil.

As for the media, a strong case can be made that gratuitous violence and sleazy sex on TV are signs of degeneracy. But corruption growing out of money and greed is the force driving the smut. A little racism is OK as long as it doesn’t cost anything. The networks put Don Imus out to pasture only after they began to lose major advertisers. Meanwhile, talk radio continues to spew racial and sexual slander because it generates revenues.

The most harmful corruption is found in the corporate-owned mainstream media where it assumes a variety of forms. Corruption is mouthing the administration’s line on the front page of the New York Times, sitting behind a news desk at NBC waiting for the phone to ring, shouting at a colleague on a Fox gab fest masquerading as a news show, or CNN pretending that Israel is a model state. Corruption is being lazy and drawing a six-figure salary for writing trite columns about little or nothing.

Degenerate educators? There may be a few somewhere hiding under a rock. Most educators struggle to do their jobs in a system that is anti-intellectual, crass and materialistic. Corruption doesn’t offer much appeal to them. In higher ed they farm it out to the student loan companies. The worst thing you can say about educators is that they are benighted. It isn’t easy to remain clear headed while wrestling with political correctness, dumbed-down curricula and semi-literate students.

There is a rightwing intelligentsia and there is a leftwing intelligentsia. Another name is required for those in the middle. Of course, it’s those on the left that the conservative Mr. Sowell regards as degenerate. What are the telltale signs? They are anti-war, anti-globalization, pro abortion rights, pro national health insurance, etc.. It’s doubtful that even the National Security Agency could find much degeneracy among them. Mr. Sowell is name calling, making a moral judgment on those who disagree with his die-hard conservatism.

We must give Mr. Sowell proper credit: he is more a man of action than of thought. His ultimate solution for degeneracy -- a military coup -- proves that. But exactly how a coup would alleviate degeneracy, or even corruption, is hard to fathom. The prime candidate for most corrupt institution would have to be the Defense Department, which wastes or loses more money than all other government agencies combined. Could the Pentagon, even with help from Halliburton’s contractors or Blackwater’s mercenaries, cure our degeneracy? The idea is laughable and the logic tortuous.

No, Mr. Sowell, a military coup is not the answer to the societal ills that bother you. But if that is what you really want, take a look at the trends around you: a staggering defense budget, hundreds of military bases around the world, nuclear weapons by the thousands, neoconservative armchair warriors making policy and war, domestic surveillance, habeas corpus on the skids and Gitmo. What general, or rightwing pundit, could possibly want more?

So let’s rethink this thing, Mr. Sowell. We both agree that American society is heading in the wrong direction, and we agree that corrective measures are essential to preserve our values and what’s left of our democracy. I think you’re with me on that last one, aren’t you? But you’ll have to explain to me how we get there with a military coup. Is it old-fashioned of me to associate coups with fascist dictatorships?

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and say we differ on means not ends. You have clearly spelled out your means. My preferred means is a peaceful peoples’ revolution, one that rejects corporatism, abandons militarism, respects civil liberties and elevates democracy. Can we talk, Mr. Sowell?

Criminal Acting and High Drama

2007-04-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

Senator Harry Reid has finally got it right: the US has lost the blockbuster in Iraq. That simple fact has been obvious for two years to anyone watching the unfolding disaster in that war-torn land. The denouement could not have been otherwise. A warped plot hatched by a cabal of arm-chair warriors was fated to end in disaster.

The set reflects the awful reality. In Baghdad, burned out cars, bombed out buildings, strewn razor-wire and uncollected garbage form the backdrop for shell – shocked civilians hoping to buy a loaf of bread or piece of fruit without being blown apart. Security is a relic of the past or a figment of the imagination. There is no intermission.

The Iraqi government is stage struck, paralyzed and impotent. Bombings are more frequent and more deadly than ever. The highly-touted surge effect has petered out as US forces, stretched thin and war weary, struggle with mission impossible. The war in Iraq is the ultimate geo-political lose-lose, and there is small comfort in hearing a major player admit that the high drama has turned into a costly flop.

Still, the show goes on, the dying continues and frustration mounts. A recent plan, its letter name lost somewhere in the middle of the alphabet, calls for a three mile wall in Baghdad to separate warring Shias and Sunnis. Walls are a clear indicator of desperation. They go up when all else has failed, whether Belfast, Berlin, Israel, the US-Mexico border, or Iraq. The director might as well call for an immediate ceasefire. It would be cheaper and equally effective in quelling the violence. Realizing the folly and danger, an international chorus insists that the plan be aborted.

There has always been something surreal about Bush’s deadly theatrics in Iraq. The characters who created it could be direct from central casting: Bush, the cocky but ultimately clueless president; Cheney, the scowling and arrogant draft evader; Rumsfeld, the man certain of his own certainty, Wolfowitz, the second-rate intellectual and opportunist; and Perle, the calculating prince turned frog of darkness.

Following the attacks on the World Trade Center, Bush cut short his dramatic reading of “My Pet Goat” and flew around the country for hours gathering his witlessness about him. He returned to Washington mad as hell, looking for a dog to kick. When Osama slipped out a rear exit, Bush turned his wrath on Saddam and the people of Iraq.

The plot thickened with dark tales of weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds. A publicity crew turned Greek chorus, nudged and cajoled the American people into a receptive mood for a preemptive war. Their siren song proved irresistible to elected officials, the mainstream media, public intellectuals and Scout leaders. After all, Bush had talked to God and He had agreed to provide moral authority. All soon would be right with the Middle East.

At this point the subplot surfaced. It is a complicated, meandering morass involving the control of Iraqi oil, the defense of Israel, the politics of revenge, and perverted idealism. But it smacks mainly of a global power’s blundering efforts to enhance its credibility among supporters, to implant fear in the hearts of restless natives and to maintain and extend its hegemony at any cost.

The scriptwriters’ initial efforts produced the (in)famous “shock and awe.” When the dramatic effects wore off, action moved to an aircraft carrier for a “mission accomplished” promo. But the scenario dragged out, and the script required multiple rewrites. Searching for words, the Bush leaguers seized on “the long war” which soon morphed into “a global war on terror.” Fiasco is not yet in their vocabulary.

Their latest script boils down to a tawdry sequel of the classic Vietnam War. In the original, we came, we saw, we wreaked havoc, we withdrew. This production is fated to end on a similar note. Critics are nearly unanimous in panning the script, the producers, the actors (except the supporting cast of troops) and the distributors. Whether the makeup artists put lipstick on the pig or try to make a silk purse from its ear, the results are the same.

The producers have wasted lots of other peoples’ money in attempting to turn their grand illusion into reality. That loss is minor, however, when compared to the loss of lives. A cast of thousands has been killed. Another cast of thousands has been wounded and millions displaced. Attendance is down, but the box office remains open.

Despite hollow protestations from the producers, it’s time to close this show. There will be no curtain call for those with leading roles. But before they scurry for the exits, we should drag them center stage to explain their criminal performances to the public they betrayed.

Check-Mating the Old Guard

2007-04-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

The huge American military machine is in trouble. Not only is it bogged down in one of its periodic quagmires, this time in Iraq, but it’s reeling from extended tours, worn-down equipment, inadequate training, corrupt civilian contractors and a host of other ailments. In Iraq, tens of thousands of people turn out to demonstrate their opposition to US occupation. Back home, a growing anti-war movement puts pressure on Congress and the Bush administration to cut and walk.

The signs are there, and the troops themselves understand as well as anyone where all this is headed. Iraqi Veterans Against the War is finding its voice, grunts in Iraq are pointing out to members of Congress that they no longer know what their mission is or how to complete it, and the cure-all surge -- read escalation -- is making little or no difference in the overall situation in Baghdad or anywhere else in Iraq.

Whether at war or peace, military cheerleaders have been known to cry wolf at budget time. It is a long-standing tradition in Washington that dates back to the Truman administration. Senator Arthur Vandenberg told Truman the only way the public would support the Marshall Plan and NATO would be if the president “scared the hell out of the American people.”

Truman and his aides did a first-rate job hyping the communist threat and scaring the nation. As a result, the Pentagon, enjoying bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans, grew as if it were on steroids. Alarmed by the new influence of the military and its contractor courtiers, President Eisenhower warned Americans that the metastasizing Military-Industrial Complex posed a threat to democracy.

Today, with an annual defense budget of about $440 billion--up 35% since 2001--the Pentagon is hardly strapped for funds. Military observers who question spending priorities, especially the hugely expensive missile defense systems, have a valid argument. Those who argue that there is a lack of overall financial support for defense lack credibility. One wonders how much would be enough for them.

Many of the old military guard are once again on the fiscal offensive. Before the start of the Iraq war, some of them were saying that the military was already “stretched thin.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld responded that it was a new day and the bureaucracy would have to adjust to the reality of fewer troops using high-tech weaponry to get the job done.

It was not, of course, quite that simple. High-tech weapons proved to be of limited use in Iraq, and the burden of occupation fell on the shoulders of the troops on the ground. The toll on them soon became obvious, even to Pentagon bureaucrats. The old guard argued that the army was at “the tipping point,” meaning that without remedial action it could become an ineffective, perhaps dysfunctional, fighting force.

Despite claims from the Pentagon that the top brass understood the problem and was fixing it, the situation deteriorated further. Now the old guard is claiming that the army is has moved beyond the tipping point and has reached the breaking point. Deja-vu Vietnam.

Retired Colonel Ken Allard wrote recently that “institutional meltdown” is in sight. He believes that the army is too small to perform its missions, whether in Iraq or on the home front. It is now “an unready force” plagued by acute personnel shortages and a rising desertion rate (3,200 last year according to the New York Times.)

The problems are real. Back-to-back deployments to Iraq have caused a spike in divorce rates and a decline in morale. Training is suffering and equipment is broken. Soldiers are writing letters of protest to their representatives and speaking out against the war. Been there, done that, got the *** tee shirt appears to be the sentiment.

The problem, however, is too many missions, not too few troops. Perhaps the colonel is right when he says we’ve consumed the peace dividend (more a lite snack than meal) and now we’re eating the seed corn. The shortages in training, equipment and personnel are not the result of insufficient funds, and more money is not the answer. A complete review of military priorities and spending, one conducted within the context of the real national interest, is needed.

Why does the US need 800 plus military installations scattered around the world? Why do we need more than 8,000 highly expensive nuclear weapons? Why must we siphon billions away from the troops to private companies like Halliburton and Blackwater to perform tasks that often are wasteful and unnecessary? Finally, who is the enemy? Al Qaeda will not be defeated by a huge army or by ballistic missiles. Despite Pentagon paranoia, no country is waiting in line to replace the Soviet Union as nuclear enemy number one.

Adding personnel and materiel in the Middle East will only aggravate a bad situation. Breaking point or not, we should initiate a long overdue process of reforming and downsizing the military. The first step is to bring the troops home from Iraq. Second, reduce the Pentagon’s budget by one third over the next five years. Third, Congress should take steps to ensure that a rogue president never again starts an unnecessary and illegal war. Then the old guard, in and out of the Pentagon, can sleep at night without worrying that the army is about to collapse around them.

The Ultra Sound of Bible Bangers

2007-03-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

There ought to be a law requiring male members of the South Carolina House to view their brains on ultrasound before they pass further legislation. Their latest scheme is a measure requiring every woman seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound of her fetus. Voluntary ultrasounds are made available in several states, but only here in SC would the viewing be compulsory.

An outrageous law such as this could only come from men who hold women in contempt. It should be obvious to all but the mentally impaired that something is seriously amiss when legislators pull out their bibles and start quoting scripture to buttress their prejudices. Logic has vanished from the scene. Privacy rights are out the window. Compassion, understanding and a little sympathy for women facing a hard decision? Not a prayer.

Make no mistake; this measure is fascist in origin and practice. It is the kind of coercive legal requirement that appeals to authoritarians of all stripes including Christian fundamentalists, ultra-orthodox Jews, Ayatollahs, and our friends the Taliban. It smacks of the tired old macho jest, occasionally heard from someone holding a Bud Lite in a bar or a shot of Bourbon at a country club: “The best way to deal with women is to keep them barefoot and pregnant.”

Someone should offer an amendment to this legislation, one that would make it even more absurd. Require all women seeking an abortion to go barefoot from June through August. We would then know the culprits, and we could cast Christian stones at them from one end of the state to the other. Any woman found violating this law, even one wearing flip flops, would have an A emblazoned on her forehead. Puritans set the precedent for this; why should Southern fundamentalists be outdone by a bunch of Northern fanatics?

Of course, the real issue here is one of control and punishment. Turn up with an unwanted pregnancy, missy, and you’re going to pay the price. We don’t much care about the origin of those male sperm cells. It’s all the same to us whether they came from your husband, your lover, your neighborhood sex offender or your father. You either swallow the elixir we’ve prescribed or we’ll force it down your throat.

The usual issues of class and race are just beneath the surface. Middle and upper class women, including the wives of legislators, can avoid the ultrasound procedure simply by going out of state for their abortions. That’s precisely what many of them did when abortions were illegal. Poor women didn’t have that option then and they don’t have it now. They must remain in state and suffer whatever indignities lawmakers choose to impose on them.

You don’t have to be a lawyer to see that the ultrasound requirement is a gross violation of a woman’s Constitutional right to privacy. It is intrusive governmental interference in a matter that should be limited to a woman and her doctor. If this coercive law is enacted, one can only hope that it will be challenged in the courts and found to be unconstitutional.

The attention House members have lavished on this measure raises fundamental question about their priorities and agenda. They rant on about family values, but turn a blind eye to some of the state’s most pressing issues. What kind of future is there for children who run up against neglected public schools, malnutrition and hunger, and inadequate health care? Legislators make a great show, a fetish, if you will, of caring for a fetus, but they reveal their true colors by ignoring children in distress.

A recent UN study concluded that the quality of life for children in the US ranked 19th in a field of twenty western industrialized countries. Only Great Britain ranked lower. South Carolina ranks at the bottom in the US in everything from infant mortality to high school dropouts. So the quality of life for poor children in SC is roughly similar to that of kids in Third World countries. One would think that the General Assembly would show a little outrage and shame about that.

Who would notice or care if dysfunctional legislators simply packed their bags and returned whence they came? To paraphrase the late Molly Ivins, as long as these characters are mucking about in Columbia they are depriving some village of its idiot.

UPDATE: The SC Senate has rejected the House bill requiring an ultrasound viewing in favor of a voluntary measure. A joint bill will presumably emerge from committee, but extremists in the House have vowed not to compromise. Stay tuned.

Overdosed and Under Treated

2007-03-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

Feeling not quite up to snuff lately? Maybe you’re suffering from a drug overdose. No, I don’t mean too many pills, although that’s a real risk for a lot of us these days. I mean the beating we're all taking from the drug company ads on TV. They come at us fast and furious, especially on the evening news programs. Sure, some of the news in itself can make you sick, but the cure for that does not rest in a little blue pill. Taking an ax to the TV brings only temporary relief.

Even limited exposure to these drug ads can be hazardous to your health. I don’t watch a lot of TV, mostly news programs and old movies. But these ad-producing wizards are good at what they do. Sitting through only one or two ads makes me wonder if I should visit the medicine chest or have another physical exam. No, I decide, I won’t let those turkeys fool me into believing I’m sick. It's clear what they are up to. Their game is to make every red-blooded American think there’s something wrong that only a pill…pink, blue, or white…can cure. Pretty soon, and it’s only a matter of time, they will be advertising pills to heal the effects of taking too many pills.

Don’t you love the way they mark up the price of those little suckers? And you thought a 100 percent mark up on that watch you bought last year was a bit much. How does a 10,000 percent, or higher, mark up strike you? But, of course, the high cost is necessary to cover the cost of research and development of new cures for as yet unknown ailments. Sure, I believe that line…about as much as I believe that the earth is flat.

We are a drug dependent society. We import the illegal stuff, usually from the south. Kindly distributors make sure it’s affordable for a mass market. Drug companies don’t share that generous impulse. In a heartbeat they will increase the price of a drug that’s been on the market for years. Can’t afford the heart medicine that you really need? Too bad, maybe the government or an insurance company will help you out. If not, here’s half your prescription. Come back for the rest when you can afford it. Meanwhile, stay on the sofa and don’t exert yourself.

Too many old geezers are overdosed and under-informed. Everyone knows an old person who is taking multiple drugs, sometimes as many as 25 or 30 pills a day. You don’t have to be a doctor to know that this somehow violates common sense. But we can’t blame the old folks for following doctors’ orders. And they are not the only victims. You know what we do to those hyper-active kids, especially the boys, at school. Pick your choice of words, calm or sedate. We have been conditioned to believe that there is a pill for everything that ails or might ail us sometime in the future. Well, it ain’t necessarily so.

Been to see your doctor lately? Chances are you had to wait past your appointment time. She could have been tied up with another patient. Or, he could have been listening to a sales pitch from a “pharmaceutical associate,” dispensing samples and vacations in Hawaii. Some doctors have been receiving checks from drug companies for $10,000 in the mail. Quite a nice free lunch, and, of course, nothing is expected in return. Some doctors tear up the checks. Some do not. Hey, if you can’t trust your doctor….

The quality of health care in this country is overrated, and there is compelling evidence that it is declining. We no longer rank in the top ten countries for overall quality of care. It’s more than likely that we have substituted drugs of one kind or another for more effective, and less costly, treatment such as exercise and diet. We have diet pills. Can jogging and swimming pills be far behind? No need to get off the couch. To say that we have a pill for everything is a cliché, but it is also becoming the literal truth. Whether they are effective is another matter entirely. Excluding weight-lifting and other heavy duty sports, of course.

I’m sick of the ads and of the doctors who push these pills; they induce waves of nausea. There is no specific remedy that I know of, certainly not from the government, the one that brought you or your parents the Medicare prescription drug card. Figured it out yet?

Toss the Dr. Feel Good pills-- anywhere but in the water supply-- and get outdoors for a little exercise. If a pill is the only thing standing between you and the afterlife, swallow your medicine. Just don’t pay full price. Shop online or better yet go to Canada or Mexico and stock up. The trip and the money you save are bound to make you feel better.

Mourning in America

2007-03-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

Captain America is dead, and I’m in mourning. A dirty sniper got him on the steps of a New York court house. Talk about bad timing. Joe Simon, one of his co-creator was quoted as saying, “we really need him now.” We sure do, Joe. What were you guys thinking? Unsavory characters are trying to do the country in, and you guys go and kill off someone vital to national security. Why? Had he decided to go after some of our own bad guys at the top?

Captain America and I arrived in this world about the same time. He started out with a bang, punching Hitler out on the cover of his first Marvel comic book. My ordinary infant struggles were less heroic, and I grew up in a country made secure by Captain America and GI Joe. In a few years, I was devoted follower, turning pages and struggling to understand words. Soon it just happened, I could read. It was magic… much more fun than Dick and Jane.

With Captain America you didn’t have to sit through Sunday school to learn about good and evil. He almost made going to church unnecessary. Or, at least that’s how it seems looking back. It was all there in vivid color, action figures and real life villains who had to be defeated. The country’s survival and salvation depended on him, and he was the man for the job.

A song we kids sang could have come straight out of a Captain America comic book. “Whistle while you work. Hitler is a jerk. Mussolini is a meanie. Tojo’s even worse.” Not to worry, Captain America could handle there creeps, and a million more like them. He could defeat all enemies. Funny though, I can’t remember him ever saying, “Bring ‘em on.”

When Captain America described evil villains, he was not just blowing smoke; and when he went after a bad guy, there was always a good reason. Maybe the evil-doer had powerful secret weapons, or maybe he was planning a surprise attack that would cripple the nation. Captain America would nail him.

And talk about credibility! If Captain America said it, it was true, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Captain America could be trusted. If he said there were secret weapons, there were secret weapons. If he said one bad guy was working with even worse guys, it was true. When he said mission accomplished, we all breathed easier because we knew he was not jerking us around. We could believe Captain America, and that took the sting out of dropping a hard-to-come-by dime for his latest adventures.

Captain America was a uniquely American superhero, but never a mindless patriot. He had fans in 75 countries, and his stories were told in numerous languages. Everybody, regardless of nationality, likes to see good triumph over evil. He defended freedom and liberty against those with evil intentions, and not all were foreigners. He understood that Americans have no monopoly on virtue. He would go after home-grown villains, even when they wrapped themselves in the flag.

It is doubtful that we could have survived the Cold War without Captain America. True, he was ably assisted by James Bond and a few others, but it was Captain America who deserves much of the credit. He fought an evil empire that enslaved millions, and he wanted those people to enjoy freedom and liberty too. He did more than Ronald Reagan to make that happen.

Today there’s still a lot of talk about evil in the world and evil doers, sometimes from the strangest of places. But recognizing true evil requires going beyond rhetoric. It is then that things get murky, less black and white and more gray. We Americans are used to seeing ourselves as the good guys, but much of the world now regards our nation as a dangerous rogue state. This could not have pleased our hero.

Captain America’s life must have been difficult these past few years. It is not hard to imagine him wondering if freedom and liberty grow out of the barrel of a gun. He never wavered in resisting evil. Still, he probably asked himself if good guys start unnecessary wars, or if it’s okay to drop bombs on women and children. I don’t remember Captain America ever dismissing civilian casualties as collateral damage, and I know he did not use torture. Rather, he made life miserable for those who resorted to such methods.

I don’t recall Captain America ever saying he would use any means necessary to bring down the bad guys. He was too smart to fall into the trap of becoming like the evil enemy he was fighting. Had he done that, he would have lost his purpose in life and disappointed everyone who counted on him to help preserve real American values.

So Captain America is dead, and we are left on our own to fight our battles. But who’s the most dangerous enemy today? Pogo said years back that the enemy is us. Maybe he was right more than we want to admit. Captain America would tell us not to let anyone, especially our leaders, do evil in our name. He would remind us that freedom and justice are always worth defending. He would also tell us to measure the threats carefully, choose our battles wisely and remember that nobody likes a bully.

Bush Redux Ad Absurdum

2007-03-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

Nearly a year has passed since President Bush admitted that there was no link between Iraq and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Bush’s statement came on the heels of another admission…that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. These were the two Big Lies Bush used to justify invading and occupying Iraq. That’s a done deal so the Big Lies no longer serve his purpose. Also, the truth will out, and most Americans now know that they were snookered into supporting a war that was unnecessary and illegal.

Still, even a small amount of candor from the Bush administration is welcome. He and his cronies have lied so often about so much that it is surprising when they throw out a tiny nugget of truth. One can only wonder, how, at this late stage of the game, they can tell the difference between fact and fiction. Maybe they never could.

There is an old saying that truth is the first casualty of war. In the case of Iraq, truth was a casualty even before the war began. Bush, Cheney and the neo-con artists killed it off. They found lying necessary because the truth stood between them and their plan to depose Saddam and transform not just Iraq but the entire Middle East. And transform it they have, fomenting civil war in Iraq, breeding terrorists by the hundreds of thousands, killing untold numbers of civilians and creating fear and loathing of the US on a grand scale.

Bush may be a liar, but he’s no fool. He can look back at the past six years and congratulate himself on his record of accomplishments. And he should be candid with us about the breath and depth of those accomplishments.

First, he put the military-industrial complex to work in the Middle East. Our troops put their training to use in real warfare, and the defense contractors like Halliburton got filthy rich. It’s a win-win for everyone except the Iraqis.

Second, he has demonstrated that the US doesn’t need friends and allies. We have the will and means to take on all enemies. “Bring ‘em on,” the president said. That was an expression of real leadership from the Decider.

Third, Bush has demonstrated that he loves children and has faith in them. They will, after all, have to pay for his costly overseas adventure. They should appreciate the confidence the president has in them and assume this burden willingly.

Fourth, Bush can point with pride to changing the tax laws to favor his wealthy corporate supporters and friends. They will be forever grateful. The president understands that. They understand that the president understands.

Fifth, the president has labored hard to revamp regulatory laws and federal agencies to favor big corporations. No CEO should lose any sleep thinking that some nosey bureaucrat will question how he disposes of his chemical waste or whether that pill or battery he’s producing is dangerous.

Sixth, although the president is not a lawyer, he understands how the law should work. He stacks the courts with judges biased toward corporations and the rich and sympathetic to the religious right. Somebody has to keep women, homosexuals and other deviants in their place. No one can do this better than Bush’s “activist judges.”

Seventh, the president understands that there is nothing wrong with a little honest graft. Money is power and one should never forget his friends. So why not give plum government appointments and fat government contracts to people you know and trust. Some namby-pamby types may call this corruption. The president understands this, but who can quarrel with the results. Our government doesn’t do much for us, but it is big and healthy. Just look at that budget.

Eighth, the president has done so much to strengthen his party. Republicans are running for office all over the country without even asking for his help. These are strong independent candidates whose party has flourished under his wise leadership. The president is proud of each and every one.

Ninth, the president has tapped our phones to make us safe and secure. We can all rest comfortably knowing that terrorists everywhere quake in fear at the very mention of our president’s name. Many have given up their phones and gone into hiding, knowing that it is useless to go up against George Bush. The president understands that.

Tenth, the president knows that he has done so much to make us proud to be Americans. All those civilian deaths in Iraq are unfortunate, but that’s the cost of doing business. The anti-Americanism is regrettable, but somebody had to step up to the plate. Anybody stupid enough to travel abroad should stick a Canadian maple leaf on their luggage.

Eleventh, the president is a humble man who understands his limitations and is working hard to overcome them. He constantly seeks God’s help for one thing. God’s advice has not been good lately, but hey, nobody’s perfect. Bush is doing his part by reading books on vacation. He “enjoyed” Camus’s The Stranger, but is still trying to figure out why Meursault shot that Arab on the beach. Perhaps it was simply absurd. The president is trying to understand absurdity.

Twelfth, the president knows that his job is not done yet. There are new challenges involving evil that must be met. He might just have to give Israel the green light to bomb Iran. But whatever action he decides on taking, we can rest assured that this president will stay the course. He’s that kind of guy. God bless America.

A Colorful Past and Present

2007-03-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

History may not repeat itself, but it changes colors from time to time. Before the Civil War, white slave owners lived in fear of black slave rebellions. After the war, newly freed blacks lived in fear of the “white knights” of the KKK. In the 1920s, fear of an alleged threat from Bolsheviks resulted in the Red Scare. During the Korean War there was widespread concern over the “yellow hordes” from Red China. Today, the self-appointed Minutemen who haphazardly guard our southern border are spreading alarm about the brown migrants that cross illegally into the US. They, and others, believe that these people rob citizens of jobs and benefits and pose a serious threat to American culture and language.

The Latinos who cross the border into the US have an agenda but it not a conspiratorial one. These desperate people come looking for work not to get welfare, food stamps, or free health care. Most of them have never heard of Social Security, yet they are said to want those and other benefits without learning basic English. The proposed all-American remedy? Put up a costly, unworkable wall, make English the official language of the US and punish any politician who supports social or medical services for aliens. Our benighted friends in Charlotte think they are defending American democracy by requiring school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in English only

The current color-coded hysteria reflects an ugly strain of nativism and paranoia. A comprehensive study from the University of California and Princeton shows that the English language (American, if you prefer) is in fine shape and in no danger of disappearing. Even in places like southern California with its large Latino population, by the third generation the kids are speaking English and little if any Spanish. Only about 3% of the grandchildren speak Spanish. So it is Spanish, not English, that is the endangered species in the mono-lingual U.S. We live in a global society, but only a tiny percentage of us bother to learn a foreign language.

As to the benefits, the Social Security Administration does not issue SS numbers to illegal aliens. If aliens don’t know that, they learn it soon enough when they apply. Applicants have to prove citizenship, and without a number no benefits are paid. One of the advantages for employers who hire illegals – aside from the low wages – is that they avoid paying into the SS system. So the super-patriots are wrong and faintly ridiculous when they claim that American born workers are being squeezed out of the Social Security system. They and their employers are required by law to pay into it. The idea is that everyone pays and everyone gets a check at retirement, assuming that the system doesn’t go broke.

The super-patriots also charge that millions of illegal Latinos are receiving benefits from such programs as welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. But as a rule illegals don’t sign up for these programs for fear of being deported, and in most places they would not qualify anyway. Some people would go so far as to deny illegals medical treatment and school for their kids. But if someone is sick or has a broken arm, you help them because that’s the right thing to do. And it is definitely in everyone’s interest to educate the kids. Who wants a bunch of ignorant, unemployable young people hanging out or joining gangs?

An estimated 1 million Latinos come into this country every year. They come here seeking a better life for their families, not handouts. Fences, walls and citizen militias will not stop them, and once they’re here, there is simply no way to round them all up and deport them. In this region the Latino population is one of the fastest growing in the country. Drawn to low-skill jobs, they cut grass, clean hotels, wash dishes and do other tasks that nobody else wants to do. They work hard, are family centered and the vast majority will make fine Americans.

There are many more important issues out there to be concerned about: lack of health insurance, inadequate health care, a minimum wage law that has not been increased in nearly 10 years, poor schooling, a shortage of good-paying jobs and stagnant wages. It is understandable that American workers may be unhappy, even angry with the squeeze on their wages and with growing job insecurity. But it was not immigrants, legal or otherwise, who created this situation and to blame them is racist-tinged scapegoating. We Southerners, better than most, should know the madness of falling into that trap.

Who Lost Dixie?

2007-03-06T19:23:00.000-08:00

A few years back, the good folks at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte were worried that the hordes of Yankees invading the region might have trouble adjusting to our peculiar ways down here. So they put together a seminar to help newcomers understand our culture and fit right in. The idea was to minimize the bruised feelings and misunderstandings that are the natural lot of any immigrant. These are caring people at the Museum. They didn't want simply to feel the pain of the newcomers; they wanted to eliminate it.

Toward that worthy goal, they brought in a professor from UNC-Chapel Hill to enlighten these uprooted interlopers. Being a native and having heard New South critiques more times than I can remember, I skipped the seminar. I heard from a friend that the professor told them that y'all is plural even when directed at one person. Red-eye gravy can be used to assist suicides. (It's slow but effective.) Perrier is no substitute for branch water in your bourbon. Midnight integration goes as far back as Jefferson. Some dogs won't hunt. Those sorts of things.

I’m not sure how many folks turned out for the seminar, but it should come as no surprise if most northern transplants said thanks for the invite but if you don't mind we'll pass on the crash cultural course. All this introspection may be more than they bargained for when they moved south. Especially for rock hard Yankees. They didn't survive those northern winters chasing their own shadows. And it's just as well. There's room in the global village for all our customs worth preserving so we should look askance at all cries for conformity. Maybe the Museum should consider a counter course for Southerners who want to learn about and accept the whys and wherefores of being a bean eating Yankee.

For many native son and daughters all this self-conscious cultural chitchat is just a bit much. Is there really anything left that makes us different? Some among us now pay good money to lose their Southern accents. But others expect newcomers to learn the names of the NASCAR drivers and to drink sweet iced tea for breakfast. It can get confusing. Should we destroy the few distinctions we have left or enshrine them? Either way and in fairness to all, someone will eventually form a support group for those newcomers who experience a slight wave of nausea at the idea of having to acquire a taste for bob-b-cue.

John Edgerton told us years ago that Dixie has become Americanized. But he got it backwards. America has become Dixiefied. Been to Chicago lately? You can drop by the Field Museum for a mess of grits at the McDonalds in the basement. If so inclined, you can get soul food in Boulder. Tired of the strip malls in San Diego, Indianapolis, or Phoenix? Check them out in Charlotte. Ours are bigger and better. And the noble folks in Atlanta know how to escape the inner city in a New York minute. Hungry for gothic southern politics? How did the Lott, Helms, De Lay combo strike you? And does anybody still believe that George W. Bush is anything other than a good old boy wannabee, more southern than western.

If you really want to understand the South…old or new…look at the race issue. That's where the best and worst differences lie. Thankfully we are still moving, albeit slowly, toward a fully integrated society. But getting to the promise land has proved elusive. Yesterday's New South was a black/white cultural mélange that produced Strom Thurmond, Louis Armstrong, William Faulkner, Martin Luther King, Jr., and George Wallace…both George Wallaces, the new and the old. Today's New South produced Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell, Larry Flynt, Pat Robertson and Trent Lott. That's enough to give progress a bad name in any latitude.

Like the rest of the country, the veneer of civilization is awfully thin down here. The suburbs are lush and comfortable. But too many of our urban centers are populated at night by a mostly black underclass that includes the homeless and malnourished children who attend third rate schools, use and/or sell drugs, and live short, brutish lives. Violence is endemic among them. Just tune in the local news any evening. Sure, the networks exaggerate to sell soap, but they don't make that stuff up.

In the midst of all this a few diehard whites drape themselves in the Confederate flag and fewer still dream of Tara. These rogues and benighted romantics are as persistent as kudzu, but their influence peaked decades ago. The future of the region is being shaped by young urban sophisticates, both those raised here and those who have moved south. They seem eager to please, dying to fit in, ambitious, and unafraid of hard work. They are, by yesterday’s standards, a diverse and tolerant lot, but seemingly oblivious to racial injustices and economic disparities. Someone should tell them… any accent will do… that the country, and their own lives, will suffer from too much self-absorption. Just looking out for number one is a dead end, one that will lead nowhere except to a confederacy of new dunces.

The Lesser of Weevils

2007-03-06T19:14:00.000-08:00

Russell Crowe unknowingly summed up the 2006 elections in a movie he made two years ago. In Master and Commander he tells a young ensign, who is eyeing stale, varmint infested bread, that it is sometimes necessary in life to choose the lesser of two weevils. Last fall voters chose the lesser of weevils, giving control of the House to the Democrats. It was, as one editorial noted, a “negative victory,” meaning that voters were more anti-Republican than pro-Democrat. Now Nancy Pelosi, James Clyburn, John Spratt and others Democrats must grapple with a corrupt, dysfunctional institution that has lost the public’s trust and respect.

Opinion polls taken prior to the election showed that only about 15 percent of Americans approved of the job done by the Republican-controlled Congress of 2004-06. That Congress deserves the public contempt it generated. Republican Party leaders did next to nothing for average Americans in vital areas such as health costs, higher education and job creation. Still, it is grossly misleading to describe it, as some pundits did, as a “do nothing” Congress. They did plenty, nearly all of it bad for the country and some of it downright dangerous. They surrendered their role of oversight, cut taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent, watched the national debt skyrocket, and bought into the pernicious notion that anything, even the erosion of basic rights, can be justified if it is couched in terms of “fighting terrorism.”

With help from some Democrats, Congress adopted legislation that, in effect, created an embryonic authoritarian state. Under the guise of national security Republicans and Democrats thumbed their noses at the Constitution, at the Geneva Convention and at international law. Bush pushed for and got the ill-named Homeland Security Act which is a threat to civil liberties and a poor substitute for policies that would protect us. Just last month, our own Senator Lindsey Graham brokered legislation---the Military Commission Act--- that permits torture and dispenses with habeas corpus rights for detainees. Congress, including John Spratt and numerous other Democrats, approved.

So what will change now that the Democrats control the House? Very little that really matters. Corporate dollars are now flowing to the Democrats, and they are as tied to their corporate masters as are the Republicans. That means there is no chance for campaign finance reform and public funding of national elections. Without that both parties will continue to represent big business and serve corporate interests. Their leadership will hypocritically complain of partisanship while holding their hands out for corporate contributions that define and drive the system.

Democrats talk reform, but it will require more than a strengthened Ethics Committee to change an embedded culture of corruption that has been years in the making. There has been so much bribery and influence-peddling among members of Congress that the FBI is considering a sting operation to nail the most egregious (and dumbest) offenders.

The war in Iraq is the most critical issue facing the country, and sensible Republicans and Democrats are looking for a way out of the quagmire. But the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is no substitute for an exit strategy. Bush has indicated that he plans to keep the troops there another two years and turn the problem over to his successor. He and Cheney have invested too much in securing access to Iraqi oil to back away now. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is creating permanent military bases there, and the US is constructing the world’s largest embassy inside the fortress known as the Green Zone. All this brings to mind the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Tax cuts plus the huge cost of the war and the resulting mountains of debt that John Spratt refers to all combine to preclude public investment in humans or infrastructure. The beast has been starved of ready cash. There will be no comprehensive medical coverage, no federal increases in funds for education and no major jobs programs. We won’t gain control of our southern border because that too would be too costly. Democrats may push for a modest, long overdue, increase in the minimum wage, but Republicans in the Senate may squelch even that.

Democrats are already backing away from holding the President and Vice President accountable for waging war against Iraq. Bush’s war has been characterized by lies, incompetence, waste and corruption. More tragically, it has resulted in the death of more than 3,000 US and British soldiers and has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. If all this doesn’t qualify as “high crimes,” it is hard to imagine what would. Yet Democrats lack the courage to censure or impeach Bush and Cheney, preferring instead to mouth generalities about the need for change. Sometimes change is not enough.

A travel guide once told me that the best way to enjoy a long anticipated overseas trip was to “decline my expectations.” That was good advice then, and it is equally valid for those voters who are now expecting a political sea change. The tide has not turned, and it never will until Americans reclaim their government from the vested corporate interests. You can safely bet your last dollar that neither the Republican nor Democratic leadership will take on that critically important task. The lesser of two weevils is still a weevil.

The Most Dangerous Man in the Senate

2007-03-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

Senator Lindsey Graham (Rep. SC) is perhaps the most dangerous man in the US Senate. Judging by recent statements and policy positions, he is willing not only to blur the line between civilian and military authority, but eliminate it altogether under the guise of fighting terrorism. Irrational political ambition is a common ailment in Washington, but it is disturbing when your own senator’s words and actions take on a sinister quality.

Graham’s first and most serious delusion is linked to Iraq. Unhappy with Bush’s puny surge, he advocated a larger escalation -- up to 50,000 additional American troops. He rejected arguments that 1) US occupation is a major cause of the violence and chaos, and 2) additional troops there would just be adding fuel to the flames. Even in South Carolina, where the military ranks next to God, political support for such a sharp escalation is slim at best. Fewer than 35 percent of those polled support the Bush approach to Iraq and only about 15 percent expect a US victory.

Graham marches on, undeterred. He has been quoted as saying that if you have a problem with crime, the solution is more police, not fewer, in the afflicted community. If that was intended to be a catchy sound bite, it fails on all counts. The US military is not a police force, and our troops are fighting extreme nationalists and religious extremists, not drug dealers or bank robbers. It’s civil war, Senator, not civil disorder.

The invasion of Iraq resulted from the militarist mindsets of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Lindsey Graham and assorted neo-conservatives who wanted a makeover in the Middle East. Sane voices spoke out against the use of military force, but were ignored or drowned out. Bush’s four years of occupation fit a common definition of insanity: repeating the same mistakes over and over and learning nothing. Graham now sees that failure as well as anyone, but he holds out for a military solution to what most experts, including many in the military, agree is a political problem.

Graham opted for a military approach again when he colluded with Senator John McCain last fall in devising the Military Commissions Act, a dangerous bill that Congress passed and Bush signed. The act allows indefinite detention and suspension of habeas corpus rights for those deemed by the Administration to be a threat. It permits the use of classified and therefore secret evidence against a defendant, and allows the president to decide what is or is not torture and when to use it. These are serious blows to democracy-- incremental and unmistakable steps towards an authoritarian state.

Habeas corpus is one of our most fundamental democratic rights. It can be traced to the barons’ rebellion against King John’s foreign policy and reckless spending and to his forced signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. The barons wanted to ensure due process of law and curtail arbitrary and indefinite imprisonment. This principle was later enshrined in the US Constitution. Graham appears to have forgotten his US history, which may explain why he has no problem usurping civilian law with provisions from the US Code of Military Justice.

Senator Graham’s Military Commissions Act overrules habeas corpus, giving the president the authority to hold prisoners indefinitely without a hearing or trial. The barons of 1215 would not understand why Americans sit by passively while their hard-earned constitutional rights are abridged. Are you so afraid of a government-hyped enemy, they would ask, that you will do anything that government demands? If that’s the case, the barons would say you get what you deserve. They might suggest that we not complain when our government decides that in interest of national security it must abolish habeas corpus for all citizens. In 2010, will Vice President Graham be urged by the ACLU to arrange hearings for American citizens arrested in the middle of the night?

When Graham says we should ratchet up Bush’s failed policies, he echoes Senator John McCain, who aspires to be president and believes that American power can prevail in Iraq. But escalation did not work in Vietnam, as McCain knows first hand. Why he and Graham think it will work in Iraq can only be explained by the fog of political ambition. They sing from the same foreign policy page, and a McCain-Graham ticket in 2008 is viewed in South Carolina as a solid bet.

Graham is a skilled military-trained lawyer, and as Ray McGovern has noted, he wields considerable influence among members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Like Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons, he has turned his attention to Iran. Following a recent hearing, Graham announced that the Committee was unanimous in concluding that Iran is trying to get nuclear weapons. He earlier had paid lip service to the use of sanctions against a noncompliant Iran, but made it clear that a military option would likely be needed to protect Israel. His hawkishness alarmed even seasoned observers. Ray McGovern wrote: “Seldom have I heard an American senator so openly press the U.S. to mount an attack on a major country simply because it could be perceived as a threat to Israel.” Graham would take the military option off the table alright, but only if he could use it to send a big one spiraling down on Iran.

If power corrupts, political ambition deludes. The unhappy fact is that the US has lost the war in Iraq. Two key questions now are how long Bush will drag it out (answer: as long as allowed) and how many more lives will be needlessly lost before we withdraw (answer: far too many.) Looming over all of this is the Graham-led assault on civil liberties. If the US wants its own Julius Caesar, Graham appears more than willing to offer his services.

Graham and McCain have been as wrong as Bush and the neo-cons about the war and the occupation. Now they are just as wrong about how to deal with Iran. Their latest pronouncements are stark reminders of why they are ill suited for civilian leadership. They are impulsive individuals with little patience for negotiation or protracted diplomacy. They prefer simple solutions for complex problems, and, as recent history has shown, their affinity for the military can have tragic consequences.

Lindsay Graham is the Senate’s most pro-military member. He is relatively young, highly ambitious and has no qualms about pursuing an aggressive foreign policy based on force. He categorically rejects arguments that such policies threaten peace and ultimately our national security. We can only hope that heads wiser and more respectful of democratic values than his prevail.

Sunday School Lessons

2007-03-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

There was something rather strange about (Charlotte Observer editor) Ed Williams attempting to justify the war in Iraq with his Sunday school class. (“Remember What Drew Us into Iraq,” February 4) He cites a number of reasons for the war, but fails to mention the most obvious: control of the oil and expanding US influence and power in the Middle East. Was this because these reasons would be considered unacceptable and impossible to justify in the eyes of most Americans?

The justifications Williams cites are: Saddam’s human rights violations, the use of poisonous gas against the Kurds, the invasion of Kuwait and the possibility that Iraq would develop and share weapons of mass destruction with Al-Qaida. But Bush’s was claiming, falsely, that Saddam posed a threat to the US.There are scores of dictators around the world as bad or worse then Saddam, and the US turns a blind eye to their crimes. We know that Iraq was not developing weapons of mass destruction, and that Saddam never would have shared war materiel with his enemies. We also know that it was 1) bad policy, not bad intelligence, that led Bush to go to war, and 2) the preemption policy had more to do with oil than with terrorism.

To justify his actions, Bush asked Americans to accept what turned out to be doctored evidence and false information. Since the invasion, he has changed his explanation for going to war more than once. If they chose, Bush and his coterie of extreme nationalists and neo-conservatives could, as they did with Iraq, manipulate the media and use their own propaganda machine to “justify” war with any country they considered “evil.”Bush now has his sights set on Iran, and appears to be looking for some “justification” for a preemptive strike there. If Congress allows him to do that, the entire Middle East could become a battle ground, and terrorism would flourish at home and abroad.

There was no real justification for Bush’s war, and subsequent events have proved that to be the case. The hard lesson here is that our national leader can employ phony reasons for waging war without suffering consequences. In the eyes of many, the president’s actions were immoral and quite possibly illegal.In many ways the people of Iraq are worse off now than they were under Saddam. Bush’s use of force compounded an awful situation rather than alleviating it. There is more violence, more instability and less social cohesion now than before our troops overthrew Saddam. The entire country appears to be coming apart at the seams. Democracy doesn’t stand a chance in a society torn by religious and ethnic hatred. Meanwhile, the carnage continues to grow. The British journal Lancet estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died in the course of the war, and there is no end in sight.

Far from being a stabilizing force, the American military presence is a primary cause of the turmoil and destruction. It is clear that things will not improve as long as our troops remain there. The time has come to get our military forces out of Iraq--- bring them home by the end of this year.Ed Williams may want to consider the justification for that with his Sunday school class. They will find that task much easier than the first one they struggled with. Perhaps they could then move from discussion to opposing this immoral war in practical, concrete ways. Sometimes just being interested observers is not enough.
Posted by Wayne Addison Clark at 12:47 PM 0 comments

Democracy or Theocracy?

2007-03-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

How long will it be before we start burning heretics at the stake? The country is on a religious binge, staggering under the onslaught of hucksters, politicians and right wing zealots who expect to rapture up at any moment. The old democracy is looking more and more like the new theocracy, and if the trend continues god squads will soon be roaming the neighborhoods to make sure we’re saying our prayers, beating our children and keeping our wives in line.

Anyone who thinks that we are not living in an increasingly repressive society hasn’t been paying attention. And why is it happening now? My guess is that many people are fearful of the world in general and American society in particular and are seeking comfort in Christian fundamentalism. They want you to be a fundamentalist too, and if you resist their notion of injecting religion into every aspect of life, they label you a sinner at best and an instrument of the devil at worst.

What are these folks afraid of? Perhaps it’s the rot at the core of pop culture. That rot is real; sex and violence on TV sell. That’s the way our society works. Good jobs are scarce, and there is always the chance that existing ones will be outsourced to China. There is too much personal debt. A $30,000 credit card bill would scare most anyone. The lack of health insurance is another frightening prospect. These are real concerns that many ordinary Americans share. But they only kid themselves if they think religion will solve these problems.

There are also a lot of ghostly fears floating around out there. False ideas spread by people who have something to gain by misleading the public. These charlatans…preachers, politicians, and snake-oil salesmen… would have us believe that public schools can’t succeed, Social Security is bankrupt, abortion is rampant, gays want to pervert our children, and a host of other things that are simply not true. Sensationalist TV news tells us that we live in a criminal jungle, risking our lives with every walk in the neighborhood. Our own government warns that terrorists lurk around every corner and that every tin pot dictator has the capacity and intent to blow us all up.

It's understandable that large numbers of people…many of whom feel like victims… would turn to religion to calm their fears. That’s a lot easier than working to improve our society and quality of life, and it takes pressure off our leaders, allowing them to posture and preen while the country goes to hell. But most fundamentalists have given up on improving this earthly life, choosing instead to hunker down and wait for the apocalypse. Unfortunately, while waiting they want to inject their religious beliefs into every aspect of public life.

Do we really want to reject evolution and move back into some dark age? Creationists say evolution is only a theory. Well, I theorize that the sun will come up on Easter morning. I can’t prove it, but is there a fundamentalist out there willing to bet me that it won’t happen? Evolution is reality in its most fundamental sense, and any school teacher or museum curator who denies it should be fired for incompetence.

Abortion is not pervasive in this country, and the number of abortions is actually falling. Much of the opposition to it comes from men who gain something from railing against it. Preachers who want to fill the collection plates, for example. Abortion is a personal choice for individual women to make. It is not my business, or your business, and it certainly is not the government’s business. Someone has said that if men could get pregnant abortion would not be a hot button issue. Most Americans support a woman’s right to an abortion, and the Supreme Court has upheld that right. Let’s leave it at that and get on with feeding, educating and nurturing those millions of neglected children living in poverty.

I have known many gay and lesbian people over the years, including a relative or two, and I know that they are some of our most interesting and productive citizens. Society would be much the worse without their contributions in such areas as education, the arts, business and the military. During my Cold War stint in the U.S. Army Security Agency, I served with a few gay soldiers, and they were dedicated and capable. There is no justification for denying them equal rights. It’s time for the bigoted religious right to stop demeaning and harassing gay Americans.

In public polls, politicians rank right down there with TV evangelists and used car salesmen. Not all are bad, of course, but most are incapable of leading a Girl Scout troop out of a thicket. They are happy to pander to religious extremists who want to turn this country into a Taliban state where religion would govern every facet of our lives. Some are shameless, exploiting a single case of a poor woman taken off live support while cutting funds for hundreds of thousands of sick and dying people in nursing homes. Even the President got in on the act. Where were his religious scruples when he signed all those death warrants in Texas? And where is his concern for the thousands of innocent women and children who have died as a result of his misadventure in Iraq?

We can have a democracy in this country or we can have a theocracy. But we can not have both. Israel has tried that model, and the result has been 56 years of bloodshed and turmoil. We should learn from the experience of other places like Northern Ireland where religion copntinues to feed hatred and occassionally violence.

Religion injected into politics and civic life will not vanquish our fears or lessen the number of our enemies. It will only cripple our ability to work together toward a decent and tolerant society…one worthy of the world’s respect. Elected officials would do well to take religion off their sleeves, but it’s up to all of us to put it back in the church where it belongs.
Posted by Wayne Addison Clark at 9:00 AM 1 comments

The Bush Dynasty

2007-03-05T18:41:00.000-08:00

In his recent book American Dynasty, Kevin Phillips reveals how four generations of Bushes have accumulated wealth and power and wielded political influence unmatched by any other family in our nation’s history. “By the mid twentieth century,” he writes, “connections and crony capitalism had become the family economic staple, with emphasis on the rewards of finance, and instinctive policymaking fealty to the investment business. The Bushes have produced no college presidents, or stonemasons, no scientists or plumbing contractors….their progeny have become almost exclusively financial entrepreneurs.”

Phillips sees George Bush as having both feet firmly planted in this financial arena. His background is replete with examples of relying on connections and the family name to get what he wanted including entry into the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War, ownership of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and even the presidency. Republican kingmakers, many of whom had ties to the Bush family, saw a unique opportunity use George Bush as their point man in capturing the government and using it as full partner in advancing their economic interests.

George Bush did not disappoint them. By the spring of 2001, Phillips writes, Bush had “proposed legislation that abolished the inheritance tax, cut income tax brackets, slammed organized labor, further deregulated the electric industry, weakened occupational safety, and reversed election year pledges to curb carbon dioxide emissions…” He stood on the sidelines while states cut educational, health, medical, and law enforcement programs, turning a deaf ear to governors who struggled with what Phillips calls “the worst state fiscal crisis since World War II.” At the same time he pushed tax cuts for his upper income corporate constituents. This giveaway, thinly disguised as an economic stimulus, provided “nearly $700 million in tax rebates for General Electric and $250 million for Enron.”

One of Phillips’ key points is that the voters of this country are caught up in what he calls dynastic politics. Now instead of throwing the rascals out at election time we tend to reelect them, and when they are no longer running or die off we elect their spouses or their children. Where the Bush dynasty is concerned, the electorate did not simply conclude that father Bush did such an extraordinary job that America deserved son Bush. Rather, powerful moneyed interests, some of whom had long-standing ties to the Bush family, saw and seized upon an opportunity to make him president and further consolidate their hold on the political economy. Exploiting Americans’ propensities toward celebrities and an electoral system corrupted by money, these same interests regarded Bush as a safe bet and, more important, as a good investment.

It mattered little to these high-rolling operatives that George Bush had few qualifications for the presidency other than his name. He had a lackluster record as Governor of Texas, had no interest or experience in foreign policy, seldom read a book, and was, to put it gently, not a deep thinker. He was “their man,” someone they could manipulate and control. He was after all, the son of a former president who, while head of the CIA and later Vice President, had played a pivotal role in initiating “a new era of clandestine arms sales, massive armament buildups, secret diplomacy, and covert actions in the Middle East generally and Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan specifically. With it, the seeds of two Persian Gulf wars and hundreds of terrorist strikes would be fertilized and watered.”

George Bush had another trait that enhanced his appeal to the kingmakers. He was a true believer, a born-again Christian who, much like Israel’s Ariel Sharon, could translate his religious fundamentalism into votes. He had close ties to Billy Graham and had served as his father’s liaison with the Religious Right during the presidential election of 1988. Phillips states, “Being the prodigal son redeemed by Billy Graham was a helpful credential. The younger Bush also had the services of Doug Wead, an Assemblies of God Minister for two decades, formerly associated with Amway, singer Pat Boone, and televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.” George Bush had delivered 70 percent of the evangelical vote to his father in 1988; that vote increased to 80 percent in his own election in 2000.

As fate and the Supreme Court would have it, the U.S. on September 11, 2001 had an evangelical president who quickly labeled Islamist fundamentalist/extremists as “evil.” Going one step further he announced that nations of the world were either “for us or against us” in the war on terror. Invading Afghanistan and destroying the medieval Taliban governing authority was a logical, responsible response to the attack by Al Qaeda, one that enjoyed considerable international support. Afghanistan, however, as Phillips and numerous other writers have pointed out, was always a side show for the Bush Administration. Iraq was and continues to be the “main theater.”Iraq is where Bush, with full support from his fundamentalist Christian supporters and his neo-conservative Likudist advisors, (whom Phillips describes as “second-rate intellectuals) plans to remake the Middle East.

No one should mistake this effort as an offshoot of Wilson Idealism and view Bush as a president on a mission to make the world safe for democracy. Rather, Phillips believes, Bush is most accurately viewed as a less than stellar leader who nonetheless sees himself as “an agent called by the Almighty to restore the earth to godly control.”For Bush and Cheney and their neo-con acolytes, all roads lead to the Middle East. It is there that they, with help from a curiously compliant Congress, have invested their political reputations, a large amount of the U.S. treasury, and American blood. The outcome is unclear, but Phillips would argue that it won’t come soon and it won’t be neat. There is too much Bush baggage---mainly self-importance, self-interest and self-delusion--- for that to happen. American voters decided to give Bush and Company another term in office to try and sort out their mess. To date, they have only compounded their mistakes. For Phillips, and for this reviewer, regime change is the best response to George Bush’s politics of secrecy and deceit.
Posted by Wayne Addison Clark at 10:36 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

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