IS THIS THE BEST OUR TOP DOGS CAN DO?

“From Oakland, California to New York City, the police, ordered by politicians, have smashed through Occupy encampments.” Ralph Nader

“Our elites have exposed their hand. They have nothing to offer.” Christopher Hedges


“Astoundingly clueless” best describes the efforts of our nation’s political leaders, at all levels, to address widespread protests. The problems we are mired in are grossly threatening, while the solutions presented by our leaders are not only ineffective, but are aimed elsewhere than at what ails us. America’s overseers seem to be intent on killing the messengers (the Occupiers), as if that will make our troubles disappear. These ham-handed police actions are more than cruel and unfair. They actually demonstrate, forthrightly, the political elites’ total lack of ideas.
Police state tactics used against the Occupiers have been unpopular among most regular folks. That the political and media elites are surprised at this outcome clearly shows how out-of-touch they now are, expecting, it seems, another reaction similar to what happened in 1968, when millions cheered the police brutality in Chicago. But the protesters of 2011 have learned the lessons of 1968, and are careful to avoid provocative harassment against the police. Besides, the times, they are a’changing, and watching police in riot gear brutalize mostly peaceful crowds has become a horrifying experience. If we give any credence to the concept of American exceptionalism, it is that we do not do that here in the U.S.A.
The scramble afterward is enlightening—not the scramble of whipped and hassled protesters to save themselves, but the scramble of elected and appointed officials to save their political hides. They claim to be shocked—shocked—to witness what we are all seeing. But they are poor actors, and some officials have admitted that there is a coordinated effort to end these Occupy episodes everywhere at once. Furthermore, the arrogance apparent on the part of the police tells us these officers are acting not on threats from their victims, but on orders from above. New videos do show some taunting and jeering from the protesters aimed at the police. But most Americans remain unconvinced that verbal jibes merit the brutal responses we also witnessed. To commit violence under orders brings out an extremely ugly and immature part of human nature, one that we all harbour. Mature people strive to avoid letting juvenile nastiness direct public policy.
People do not go into law enforcement because they want to make policy. They go into that line to do a job, and that means following instructions. They show up in riot gear and beat, spray, and otherwise harm protesters for one reason: they are ordered to do it. And now we watch the people who gave the orders run for cover at the first hint of public disapproval. This should give the police officers something to think about: they could wind up as politicians’ sacrificial lambs, if the current campaign against the Occupiers turns out to be ineffective, which appears likely.
Socially and economically, the police belong to the ninety-nine percent. Some of them always knew this, and more are steadily turning to this reality. The trend seems sure to continue, as violence is evidently the only solution the establishment has. The plan, apparently, is to deal with society’s difficulties by causing the Occupiers so much pain that they give up and go home. This tactic might work in a relatively stable, prosperous, and equal society. Or it could be effective in a culture where the general public can be kept unaware of reality. Neither of these situations is to be found in the United States right now.
Police arrest protesters for trespassing. Laws against overnight camping seemingly trump any real grievances the Occupiers might have. At the same time the authorities complain that the protesters have failed to itemize their grievances, thus they are mere public nuisances. The system allows for protest, complaint, and suggested changes, but only through proper channels. The leaders will be glad to listen to any concerns people might have, but these concerns must be voiced in the traditional ways, open to all. Until such time, officialdom is not to be bothered. What officialdom fails to realize is that the majority is aware that a small group of wealthy individuals has managed to manipulate leaders into doing their bidding, at the expense of everyone else. Occupiers are occupying because the proper channels have been effectively closed to them. Protest is the only means remaining to draw attention to America’s pressing troubles.
Our country’s founders were painfully familiar with being ignored by government officials. Constant frustration with the agents of King George on this continent and across the Atlantic, left them no options but Revolutionary War. Determined to avoid having to go through the same horrors again, determined to allow for peaceful revolution, they wrote the Bill of Rights into the new Law of the Land. Foremost of these rights is “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” They intended for officialdom to be disturbed and inconvenienced, whenever established means of communication should fail. People have the right to assemble. Their government is not authorized to pick a fight with them when they do.

#28 -- GETTING CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

“Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.”
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”

Sometime back, a co-worker noticed I was reading Walden. Though I did not ask him what he thought, he told me anyway: “Thoreau. I’d know how to take care of him.” He was a nice, hardworking, retired career military man. Of course he was referring to Thoreau’s treatise on civil disobedience, which had inspired the anti-war protests of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, which had ultimately gotten us out of the Vietnam War. He felt that Henry David Thoreau, and all the malcontents following in his footsteps, had fouled the world with their complaining, and that swift and thorough violence was needed to put them away so the rest of us could go on with our legitimate business. After all, what had worked so well for fascists ought to work just as well in the Land of Liberty. My co-worker made the same mistake regarding civil disobedience that authorities have always made: thinking ruthless coercion would get rid of the troublemakers and warn others to mind their own business. Now in 2011 we are again situated so that many citizens feel the need to protest the status quo by purposely breaking laws and accepting the consequences. And those in authority are again making the same mistakes as always, thus assuring the success of civil disobedience once again.
What authoritarians fail to comprehend (perhaps because they cannot) is that civil disobedience works because it bestirs a slumbering universal conscience. This conscience, once awakened, will not rest until major issues, which normally have scant relevance to whatever minor laws the protesters momentarily disobey, are addressed. In Thoreau’s famous case, he went to jail for not paying his poll tax. But his argument was with slavery, not poll taxes. So it went with Gandhi in India, whose point was not the salt tax, but that a hundred thousand British had conquered, exploited, and enslaved three-hundred millions in India. The civil rights protesters in the Southern United States were not so much trying to ride buses or cross bridges—their goal was to end a reality in which millions of human beings, freed from slavery a century earlier, were still being treated like slaves. In episode after episode, the intent of civil disobedience is to violate small laws, provoking the authorities to over-react, so that others must wonder what other laws might be viciously unfair.
Movements based on the principle of non-violent resistance create their own supportive energy. Violent reactions on the part of authorities feed that energy. The more violent the reactions, the less sane the authorities appear to people awakened to the reality of social and economic injustice. Practitioners of civil disobedience play by the rules, breaking the laws, submitting to arrest and incarceration, letting the drama play out for the general public, which sees its leaders acting insanely. Ultimately even the authorities (all but the true sociopaths), come to realize and to question injustices they are committing and perpetuating. Then punishment stops and progress can begin.
We know civil disobedience is not a cure-all. Human beings, having problems, will always create problems for each other. Our awareness of this fact accounts for the slow growth of protest movements. As our own Declaration admits, small injustices are better endured than confronted, so long as they remain small. We all know life is never very fair, and we readily adapt to that reality, each in our own way.
But when a situation becomes intolerable, when misery reaches epidemic levels, when even those not personally experiencing that misery realize that they could be next, humans will act in concert to make changes. Change is hard to bring about, because those who profit from inequalities are invariably those in charge. Incapable of foregoing profits by ending injustices on their own, they must be made to do so. But change can happen when enough regular citizens, watching people just like them, withhold support for the law, risking the law’s wrath. Non-violence is the key, because it gives the authorities something of an out at the same time it sets a moral example for the citizens. People who commit civil disobedience accept arrest and incarceration. They expect to be tried in court. Law enforcement will be burdened, the courts jammed, the jails filled. Prosecutors will have to decide whether to use scarce resources fighting real crime, or punishing minor crimes committed by protesters. Either the establishment must admit weakness, or the public will witness a desperate State trying to hold power by brutalizing harmless citizens.
Once it is seen as petty and tyrannical, the State can no longer maintain the respect of its subjects. It must change or become more brutal, as it feebly attempts to maintain its authority. The axiom holds true whether the State is democratic or dictatorial. Civil disobedience does not work overnight. But even seemingly invincible dictatorships are susceptible to the battering-ram of public opinion. Witness the apartheid regime in South Africa. Witness the Soviet Union. America’s government structure was created to change peaceably, before injustice becomes so intolerable that violence is the only choice. This is one more reason why the authorities cannot succeed in their attempt to maintain an unjust and unworkable status quo.
In fact they have already lost.

#27--ANOTHER CHANCE FOR UNIONS?

“The basic goal of labor will not change. It is—as it has always been, and I am sure always will be—to better the standards of life for all who work for wages and to seek dignity for all Americans.” George Meany


“Looks like this time I’m gonna get to stay.
I’m a union man now all the way.” J.R. Robertson, “King Harvest Has Surely Come”


It is heartening to see union members marching in solidarity with the Wall Street Occupiers. It seems like a mighty long time since unions have taken initiative in any popular mass movement. Organized labor did not start this protest, but union people quickly got involved, although there was no defined program, although it was unclear how it would turn out, although there were no sides chosen, besides a small number of protesters against the Wall Street behemoth. Coming in on the side of the obvious underdogs, when labor could have hidden behind the excuse that this was not their fight, foretells a welcome inclusive spirit in the labor ranks, and a willingness to actually engage in the class warfare that, like it or not, is being waged against all workers.
By joining this struggle, unions can reclaim George Meany’s declared creed of labor’s “basic goal.” The original protesters are mostly poor, unemployed, counter-culture types, and labor leaders could have taken a superior attitude and ignored them. But by standing with these marginal people (dismal prospects for union membership), labor once again stands for “dignity for all Americans,” and not only with words. And by taking this stand, the labor movement regains its standing in the national dialogue.
In recent years organized labor has been an object of lament, of ridicule, or both. And while labor’s demise is principally due to constant attacks by big business in partnership with big government, we must admit that working men and women have been co-operative enablers of their own downfall. In recent history we see changes in attitudes and actions among the workers, which led to events that were clearly contrary to labor’s enlightened self-interest.
Meany himself violated his creed on several occasions, among the most critical being his support for the Vietnam War, and his backing Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972. Thus began a rift among working people that has lasted to this very day. The corporate world has been quick to seize this opportunity to divide and conquer. The rift was wide enough to elect Ronald Reagan, who soon afterward put organized labor into a retreat that became a rout. Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers and was cheered by many in the working class. Reagan, as head of the Screen Actors’ Guild, was known by the House Un-American Activities Committee as “Informant T-10”, which suggests the assault on labor unions goes back at least as far as the end of WWII.
Working Americans, be they actors, carpenters, or whatever, are patriotic, so it comes as no surprise that labor unions would want to co-operate with their own elected government. Beginning in WWII, when all were fighting a common enemy, labor made many concessions to keep production going at maximum output. Many workers no doubt expected the era of co-operation to continue. This presented an opportunity for the masters of capital to cripple labor and gain control of the government, and they were not about to let the opportunity pass. And the corporate elite kept up the assault, dividing and conquering, little by little, until in 2011 we find ourselves living in a corporate state, which is the essence of fascism.
That the unions, (what is left of them) have chosen sides in Occupy Wall Street, is a sign that working Americans are waking up to reality. And having played defense over the last thirty years or more, labor is now recognizing that the best defense is a good offense. By siding with people who are not union members in good standing, unions are once again embracing the inclusiveness that can produce solidarity, which is labor’s main strength.
Rightly or wrongly, unions have long been perceived as being agents for the prosperity of their clients: dues paying members. Nothing wrong with this, of course—it is what workers have a right to expect in return for their dues. But this tack has led to a perception of unions as labor procurement enterprises, existing solely for profit. And as businesses, unions do not have the strike as an effective tool for better wages and conditions. Businesses are expected to increase their profits by selling better products, more products, or cheaper products—not for taking their products off the market. Do that, and another business will step in. Strikes, to be effective, depend on sympathy from the general public, and this is possible only if most of the public sees its interests and that of labor unions as one and the same.
Polls consistently show most American workers would join a union if they could. Most support a modern, healthy infrastructure, progressive taxation, a social safety net that provides for all, especially in bad times. But what American workers want is not forthcoming from the top down. “Dignity for all Americans” will be acquired only if all Americans demand it. And labor unions, by taking the initiative in the Wall Street protests, are showing a priceless leadership quality in the struggle that is upon us. It must be a peaceful struggle, and labor unions have experience in conducting peaceful struggles, and winning.
Solidarity.
#27

AS THE COUP SOLIDIFIES

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history…. There is a tiny splinter group of… a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower would no doubt be shocked at the changes in the political climate over the half century since he was president. Now the splinter group controlled by the Koch Brothers has become the influential Tea Party, which has enthralled and bullied many politicians into trying to do exactly what Ike said would never be done. They may be stupid — indeed, concerning a functioning modern society, they are abysmally so—but they are persistent. And their persistence has brought them to a position of power in this country where they are about to get what they want, despite the continuing popularity of the programs Ike mentioned. Do we find such a scenario in a democracy?
Barack Obama (thought by many to be President of the United States) is no socialist, having proven he can and will work with the moneyed minority, while allowing the commoners to share in the general prosperity, for the good of all. But the Tea Party, and the politicians who represent them, are having none of this. Disdaining compromise, they will rule for the exclusive benefit of their wealthy directors. The well-being of workers, the poor, sick, old (anyone without political pull) is beneath consideration. Average Tea Partiers, like everyone else who must work for a living, will suffer, though apparently they do not care at the moment. And as the coup hardens its authoritarian power, it will not matter whether Tea Partiers start to care. Resistance will be not only futile, but also very ill-advised.
Despite protests, Wisconsin’s governor and legislature have blitzed the rights of public employees to organize and bargain collectively. In Michigan, the governor can now abolish any local government he deems ineffectual, and replace elected officials with apparatchiks who will carry out his edicts. In liberal California, Republicans refuse to allow an initiative that would raise taxes to go before the voters. Congressmen, facing anger from constituents about their attempts to eliminate social security and medicare, simply stop holding town meetings. The tale lengthens of anti-democratic measures in state after state, and the people are powerless to stop it. Of course, the opposition can challenge in court, but the Supreme Court, with a standing five-to-four majority, holds that all corporations are created equal, and makes no distinction between free speech and bribery. Control of information means control of opinion, and the Court has guaranteed that those who can finance political campaigns can expect big payoffs.
Thus far, overlooking the ravages to the environment and the steadily deteriorating general standard of living, we have avoided any situation approaching 1984. But the benign nature of the coup relies on its ability to easily overcome resistance, on Big Brother’s ability to reduce the chocolate ration, soon afterward to be praised for raising it. If the coup must get ugly, machinery is available for mass arrests, surveillance, and disappearances. Our prison system is a Gulag at the ready, and though the prisons are overcrowded by current standards, many more people can be stuffed inside in an “emergency.”
Obama was unable to close the Guantanamo prison, and the military oversees hundreds of potential Guantanamos at bases around the world. Though Obama has ended “extraordinary renditions” (an admirable euphemism for kidnapping people, then taking them secretly to foreign countries to be tortured) who doubts that somewhere in the hidden bureaucracy, plans to revive the process can be implemented on short notice? The government claims the prerogative to arrest or kill anyone it declares an “enemy combatant,” and the Obama administration is as willing as Bush’s to exercise it, as the killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen attests. As to disappearance—what about Bradley Manning’s constitutionally guaranteed “speedy and public trial?” We must remember that torture works… not to obtain accurate information, but to extract confessions. And the proponents of “enhanced interrogation” know this. Americans, like anyone else, would stop complaining and protesting very quickly, once a few of their friends, relatives, co-workers, associates, start to disappear, only to return, broken, humiliated, convicted. Or if they fail to return.
While dissent remains ineffective, as were the protests against the Iraq invasion and against Wisconsin’s anti-union laws, the coup will remain reasonably mild. But should a truly unified and organized popular resistance emerge, the power elite has the means to deal with dissent in the old-fashioned way. Already brutal measures are being taken against peaceful protesters on Wall Street, and we shall see how these events play out. Yet organized popular resistance is the only effective way to stop this coup and reclaim effective democratic government. Times that are fun to read about are never pleasant to live in.
Here we are.

#25 -- OUR HOMEGROWN COUP

OUR HOMEGROWN COUP

“Fascism should be called corporatism, as it is the merging of government and corporate power.” Mussolini

Coup d’etat usually connotes a military takeover in Latin America, Africa, or some other place where citizens are novices at democratic governance. That a coup might be occurring in the United States is hard to fathom, for a number of reasons, most of which boil down to “It can’t happen here.” This belief is somewhat hubristic on Americans’ part, because it can. Our founders, only too aware that it could, placed safeguards into our Law of the Land. But safeguards can always be avoided, or sidestepped, if people become complacent. Though Mussolini was on the losing side of WWII, he gets credit for understanding the nuts and bolts of fascism, knowing that capitalism and democracy are not necessarily compatible. And while the capitalist economic system and the political system called democracy have co-existed in the United States almost since our country’s beginning, it has been a shaky co-existence. Currently, it appears that the country’s economic rulers are engaged in an all-out takeover of the political system, to install an autocracy that will suit corporate priorities better than democracy can. The morbidly feeble economy is the equivalent of burning the Reichstag. As long as the economic crisis endures, people will be fearful, and fear, combined with complacency, can topple democracy. In statehouses all over the country, rightwing governments are replacing democratic processes with top-down orders, regardless of the democratic governments they are sworn to uphold. Over and over, the economy is cited as an excuse for drastic measures, such as destroying unions and gutting social safety nets to pay for millionaires’ tax breaks. Though polls consistently show public disapproval of these policies, they happen anyway. Do such things occur in a democratic republic?
At the national level, one-half of our political elite, the Republican party, marches in lockstep to thwart new public works projects, which are not only needed to repair our antiquated infrastructure, but which we know stimulate buying through higher employment, which encourages investment, leading to increased government revenues. Their party line holds that government does nothing useful, that tax reductions for the richest among us are America’s only hope for increasing employment, that elimination of the “nanny state” will lead to a new millennium of freedom and prosperity for all. History disproves the party line, at least regarding the last Great Depression, which we all say we want to avoid reliving. Republicans counter historical reminders with louder and more frequent repetitions of the party line. What is strangely frightening is that no Republicans, at any governmental level, have expressed even the slightest willingness to compromise with the other side, even with polls showing over and again that some sort of compromise is what the American people want. Republican politicians are not afraid of public opinion, nor do they seem to be worried about the upcoming elections, as politicians in a democracy would be. Limitless campaign contributions, legalized by the corporate-friendly Supreme Court, are expected to change the polls when needed. In order to keep up the appearance of democracy, the “Tea Party Patriots” (intellectual heirs to the know-nothings and the lunatic fringe), with their hatred of Barack Obama, are ideally situated to facilitate a coup. They fanatically believe their myth of a grassroots popular movement, although their promoters are known to be a small coterie of extremely wealthy corporate tycoons. Having no interest in bothersome dissent, these tycoons will rule absolutely. Decisions will be made in the boardrooms, and the masses will be expected to conform. Although this end may not be what individual Tea Partiers have in mind, their backers feel supremely confident that they can use them to achieve their corporate objectives. So far their confidence has been justified. Close Republican wins are treated as overwhelming landslides, with the losers vanquished entirely. In democracies, the victors work with the opposition, well aware that come next election, they could be trading places. Such commonplace doings of democracy are not happening anymore.
Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are trying to work with the other side under the old-fashioned, democratic ground rules. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the old ways no longer work, that the right wing is taking its marching orders from the top-down, in an authoritarian, CEO-driven management style. The stated goal is a return to those halcyon days when robber barons could extract the last ounce of wealth from the land and the workers, with no responsibility to clean up the messes they made. Over the past century, the robber barons have been relentlessly seeking to regain the absolute control of government they once had, to reinstate a government that exists only to protect and increase corporate profits. They will exercise tighter control this time. Mussolini would probably call this fascism.

GROVER NORQUIST AND MCLINTOCK

“My ideal citizen is the self-employed, homeschooling, IRA-owning guy with a concealed carry permit. Because that person doesn’t need the goddam government for anything.”
Grover Norquist

McLintock had the makings of a fairly good western, but John Wayne insisted on preaching his hard right philosophy throughout. Apparently the scenery and the plot were no guarantee that the audience would get it: self-made rugged individualist builds empire and gets the girl (she even lets him spank her), while government regulators and do-gooders make complete fools of themselves. Grover Norquist was seven years old when the movie came out—a very impressionable age for a boy. At the same age, my hero was Davy Crockett (the Fess Parker Davy), which reveals my age. Boys will be boys, but eventually we grow up.
Right?
John Wayne’s character, McLintock, fits Norquist’s ideal citizen. Ruling a huge patch of Western desert by strength of character, he talks, acts, and shoots straight. He has a town named after him, and his word is law. Concerning education, in his world riding, roping, branding, and of course shooting, are all a man need know. All these skills can be taught and learned at home. The existence of the outside world is a matter of useless and pointless knowledge, and it interferes with a man’s doing what needs to be done. Science, beyond making whisky and bullets, and mathematics past counting head of cattle, are equally unnecessary. As a concession to the modern world, Norquist recommends an IRA, since many people nowadays outlive their productive years and should prepare for that day, without asking the government for help. Equally modern is the concealed carry permit, which no one in McLintock’s halcyon days needed, since everyone went openly armed as a matter of course.
Government is the problem, having brought in farmers who want to squat on McLintock’s open range, unaware of the impossibility of farming at six thousand feet. How McClintock knows the elevation is never discussed, but government surveyors probably had something to do with it. McLintock hires workers and pays them what they earn. No unions or minimum wage laws interfere with the personal contracts between boss and employee. And of course the boss is fair. He’s John Wayne.
We know McLlintock is a movie, and we hope Grover Norquist does too. Still, the movie character and Norquist’s ideal citizen are strikingly similar. And the similarities can be disturbing when we recall that Grover Norquist exercises considerable influence over how the “goddam government” actually governs. He is influential because he holds important posts on several political action committees, organizations that distribute campaign funds to mostly Republican politicians. He has demanded, and he has gotten, them all to pledge not to vote to increase taxes in any way, or under any circumstances, with the oft-repeated goal of “starving the beast.” We need to remember, though, that Norquist does not dole out his own money. He distributes it on behalf of corporate donors, who are very much interested in maintaining strong, right wing government to serve the interests of plutocracy.
Norquist knows this.
Americans value independence, and whenever possible, we aspire to the ideal of honest pay in return for honest work. Concerning Norquist’s ideal, we would love that total freedom. But we live in a real world, one in which all of us are inter-connected to each other always. Not even Western ranchers can escape the global village, and in such a situation a social contract makes life livable for us all. Even self-employed rugged individualists need to use roads, sewers, and electrical grids. And if we’re all out there getting into constant gunfights, business can suffer.
Life is not a movie. We run into enormous hazards when we seek to live otherwise, be it western, romance, musical, drama, whatever. Movies are entertaining, fun to watch, because they are removed from reality. Why would we want to watch our own lives? Obviously, there is no way of knowing whether Grover Norquist really imagines himself as McLintock or any other movie hero. But his ideal citizen does resemble a stock movie character, and John Wayne’s character fits the bill. Outside of Hollywood, Norquist has managed to strongarm virtually half the nation’s political elite (the Republican Party) into backing his vision. Republicans have to toe the party line according to Norquist, whether or not they really believe it. And if the ideal ever does collide with reality, which is looking more and more possible, then America is in for a lot of pain. Just as John Wayne’s proselytizing detracted from the quality of his movie, so Norquist’s insistence on Republicans’ obedience to him invalidates his argument. An iconic American, an ideal citizen, would lead by example, needing neither to preach nor coerce.
Grover Norquist has up till now been relatively hidden from public scrutiny, but this is all changing. In a democracy, shedding light is always beneficial.

SHAKY GROUND “

SHAKY GROUND

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—“ Declaration of Independence


In reality, few humans believe the aforementioned “truths” are “self-evident”. That we live in a place and time blessed with majorities who are even slightly committed to implementing these truths and protecting these rights, is an unusually fortunate circumstance. Just as we can view a peaceful natural landscape and ignore the blizzards, fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, and countless other natural disasters—not to mention scientific evidence of eventual planetary destruction—so we tend to see our current political system: democratic republic, with guaranteed rights and freedoms, as permanent. But bucolic natural scenes are threatened by unperceived natural forces. And our stable democracy is on very shaky ground. There is a difference: while we can, in some small ways, make preparations to lessen the damage done by nature’s extremes, humanity is powerless about what nature will do. Our social contract is entirely man-made.
History shows that concepts such as “created equal” and “unalienable rights” are recent additions to human consciousness. The Declaration of Independence was the first attempt to legalize these concepts, based on philosophical explorations by John Locke about a century before. Farther back, prophets and philosophers here and there broached the subjects, among others having to do with kindness, decency, and brotherhood. While the teachings of these highly advanced people have been influential over the long term, most human history is full of tales of cruel greed and lust for power.
Farmers and other producers of useful things have been robbed, beaten, and killed, their women raped, their children enslaved, by gangs with weapons. This gross economic system has been practiced in every corner of the earth where mankind has advanced beyond the Paleolithic state, to this very day. By whatever name: piracy, feudalism, capitalism, communism, and so forth, the basic methods are the same: organized armed robbery. Men formed larger societies than tribal unions to prevent their being robbed and subjugated. Larger societies learned quickly they could rob and subjugate their neighbours. And just as early, they certainly learnt to rob their own people, who also learnt to rob each other. Under the leadership of various dukes and kings, organizational piracy evolved into modern warfare, disguised as national interest. Still, the means and ends were the same as they had always been.
Despite the incessant carnage, humanity made material progress, and intellectual progress as well. In different times and places, some highly conscious men and women, aware of the terrors inherent in business as usual, would voice their misgivings, and their concepts of peaceful and productive alternatives. Sometimes their thoughts got written down, for others to think about later. But among the general human population, the way things had always been were the way they would always be. Just as the Roman throngs cheered wildly when Caesar paraded foreign royals in cages, so do women and children of present day pirates celebrate their men’s captives and booty. The idea that “this could happen to me” seems not to have penetrated too deeply into human consciousness. “Do unto others” apparently still means “do it to them first.”
Yet here in North America, we find ourselves living where “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” represent our national aspirations, if not our actual policies. Here these rights are still held to be the rationale for our nation’s existence. In Western Europe (where these rights were first recommended), and in a few countries elsewhere, the principles of our Declaration are practiced, or at least attempted. Humanity has made progress over ten or eleven generations. But as slavery, colonialism, and the decimation of indigenous populations prove, even in these fortunate places, the practice has been far from perfect. We dare take nothing for granted.
There are always wars gong on. Corporate control over our daily lives increases constantly. Many people lead hungry, sick, meaningless existences. Infrastructure crumbles as we watch. All these realities seriously detract from “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” There may be good explanations for all this. But it does prove that the “truths we hold self-evident” are not that true. It means that our nation is failing to uphold the very reason for its existence. Nazi thugs at Kristallnacht…Stalin’s goons sacking rural villages to find hidden sacks of grain…hoods hired to beat and shoot union strikers in the U.S.A.—to the victims, reasons mean little.
What we now deem atrocities were once daily facts of life. We live on a thin film of fertile dirt, ever moving, prone to wind, rain, heat, and freeze, regardless how beautiful it looks at a particular moment. So is our social system prone to all manner of attack, robbery, and brutality. If we do not want these things to happen, we are strongly advised to watch and work to prevent them. The progress we have made is not guaranteed. Our Creator may have endowed us with unalienable rights, but our fellows can, and do, take them away.

#22--WAR AND PEACE TOGETHER

“The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.”
George Orwell, 1984

We “got” Osama BinLaden. Can we get out of Afghanistan now? There are teasing hints that we might, but we have been told of “light at the end of the tunnel” before. And as Libya proves, there is always another war. The military-industrial complex is indifferent to location—as long as it occurs elsewhere than the United States, lest Americans learn firsthand of war’s realities. It was a military operation that got BinLaden. And those heroes: smart, confident, competent, fit, hale and hardy, made it look easy. We forget the vain decade of slaughter and horror that preceded our moment of triumph. And just as the splendid Hollywood war on Grenada quickly neutralized our bad taste about Vietnam, we can once more believe that military operations will solve any problem. A state of war is so firmly embedded in our infrastructure, economy and national character that it cannot be removed without radical surgery. Eisenhower’s warnings about the military-industrial complex apparently went unheeded—at least by anyone in a position to make a difference: the ruling brains of the inner party. Despite Barack Obama’s sincerity about removing American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, we will need to work to ensure the blessings of peace.
Another look at the foundations of the modern industrial state can be useful, though we risk exhuming Marxist thought from the memory hole. Human ingenuity toward increasing productivity while reducing workload seems boundless. Over time, the quantity of goods and services increases while the labour needed to produce them decreases. Supply always outpaces demand, demand signifying not want or need, but the ability of people to buy what is produced industrially. Since the Industrial Revolution hit its stride about a century ago, there have always been enough of the necessities, and many of the luxuries, to go around, and this is truer now than it was then. Society’s problem is to adequately distribute what is produced. As always happens, the supply of goods and services reaches a level that cannot be quickly consumed, causing those who control the supply to reduce production, which reduces workers. Since the unemployed consume less than those with jobs, the trend continues, until—actually we have never seen what would happen, because long before the inevitable conclusion, society ceases to extol the wonders of rugged individualism, and seeks instead some collective solutions.
Our race’s trials and errors over the last century have revealed some possible solutions to this ongoing difficulty of balancing production and consumption to the general benefit. The most logical solution would be to reduce work hours and increase wages, allowing more workers to buy what they produce. This method is enormously unpopular with those in control, however, because it reduces profits short-term, and in the long term people with more free time tend to become educated enough to question authority. Another solution is to find other work for people to do. Since humans are far more destructive of their environment than bears or feral hogs (and there are billions more of us), we can employ each other to maintain a livable environment. However, resistance to this solution reaches deep into human nature. We all have our preferences for public works. Schools, sewers, police, transport, energy…the list is endless. Not only can we argue over what is important, we can also disagree over what it should cost, and who pays. Besides, has the situation really reached problem stage yet? Couldn’t we put off any action until, say, next budget year?
Then there is war. As a public works project it is ideal. It blows up surplus production, employs many people (with the added bonus of high turnover) and holds out the tantalizing promise of a conclusive ending. Most importantly, in the mass communication age, it has an almost universal acceptance rate. We have no time for debate, and protests are easily ignored. If the leaders declare war, then to arms. In hindsight, some wars seem to have been fought under false pretenses. But dare we take the chance? Better to fight a wrong war than to not fight the right one.
Sticking with Orwell, in modern warfare only a small number of people actually fight (another result of industrialization), leaving the majority apparently unburdened. But we all do pay, starting by spending borrowed money. In the half-century since Eisenhower’s warning, how much progress and plenty might we be enjoying if we had not borrowed trillions of dollars for nearly uninterrupted war? Although most citizens of Oceania (and Eurasia and Eastasia too) do live better than the ones in Orwell’s horror story, many of us are far from comfortable, despite higher industrial productivity. And news headlines show virtually every government official claiming to be appalled at the public debt, to the point where paying it off requires drastic cuts in spending, throwing more of us into poverty. How much lower would the debt be if we had no wars? Most modern humans know about war’s horror and futility, and public figures everywhere deplore it, yet wars go on, a daily fact of life.
War is peace.

STATES' RIGHTS ORIGINAL INTENT

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” U.S. Constitution, Amendment IX

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Amendment X

I had the privilege of attending a rally honouring a doctor and her lawyer husband, who were about to surrender at the Federal Courthouse to begin serving five years each for distributing medical marijuana. Though distributing marijuana for medical purposes is legal under California law, federal laws make no distinction between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana…it’s illegal. Since our country is a union, the short and simple rule holds hat no state can violate federal law. Most of the time, simple rules are the easiest to follow, hence the best. This time, the simplicity is complicated by the fact that two good people, who have done no harm, are now doing hard time.
The law is not allowed to question whether any harm was done. Many of the participants at the rally claimed that marijuana had actually saved their lives. Still, federal law was broken, so those claims are of no consequence. If the citizens have problems with the law, the theory goes that they may tell their representatives to change the law. But Congress is not about to do that.
Therefore the good doctor and the good lawyer are in prison.
The Constitution was enacted, with its Bill of Rights, partly to assure that people who do no harm stay out of jail. We know that our institutions are human ones, like all others on earth, and that we’re not living a fairy tale. We’re not perfect. This excuse cannot be convincing to the good people who are in jail, however, nor does it hold for thoughtful citizens who are interested in seeing our system perform in reality the way it’s supposed to in theory. Amendment X has been scrutinized a lot lately, in respect to federal laws that have nothing to do with marijuana. Other people have issues with newly enacted federal laws. Can states opt out? We got the answer in 1865: no. But study of the ninth and tenth amendments reveal some of the founders’ attitudes that could be relevant today. Medical marijuana appears to be a justified use of States’ Rights.
We can, of course, make windy arguments about what is legal under the Bill of Rights. But the plain English of the ninth and tenth is quite straightforward, and it reveals nothing that allows the national government to restrict lifestyle choices. In fact, Nine and Ten, like One through Eight, severely restrict the national government’s ability to prohibit basic personal freedoms. Marijuana prohibition has been enacted under the Constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause. The federal government can regulate products traded between the states—including marijuana. But within a state, where is the federal authority to limit personal use of anything?
Number IX obviously expands the rights of the people beyond those few listed in the Bill of Rights. And number X clearly restricts federal powers to those listed. No matter how broadly we interpret Constitutional powers, there still is no foundation for federal criminalization of a product used strictly within a state. Amendments One through Eight list certain basic rights. But Nine and Ten assure us that those rights are not the only ones, and that the federal government cannot deny rights simply because the Constitution’s framers did not happen to mention them.
Historically, the issue of States’ Rights usually dealt with slavery, and after the Civil War, with segregation and racial discrimination. It has been decided in Congress, the courts, and general public opinion, that states do not have the power to withhold from their citizens any of the basic rights listed in the Constitution. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments made sure that these basic rights were guaranteed nationwide to everyone. Those rights not mentioned in the Constitution are left to the states, and if the states do not act upon them, individuals retain them.
Excepting the sixteenth (income tax) and the twenty-fifth (presidential succession) all the constitutional amendments enhance citizen power or basic rights. The founders knew they could not think of everything, so they provided for the growth of freedom in the future. A restrictive amendment, Number XVIII (prohibition) was repealed by Number XXI. Substitute “cannabis” for “intoxicating liquors” in these amendments, and the marijuana issue solves itself. And lest we forget, even during prohibition, doctors were allowed to prescribe medicinal alcohol. States are now free to make their own liquor laws.
The Supreme Court, in “Gonzales vs. Raich,” (2005) ruled that the Interstate Commerce clause grants power to the federal government to override the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and even contradict several of their own recent states’ rights cases, so that the Bush Justice Department could legally ride roughshod over sick people. The Obama administration has indicated it will ignore personal use in states where medical marijuana is legal, but profiteering will be prosecuted. The Supreme Court’s decision is obviously wrong, and it needs to reverse its own opinion. Or Congress needs to legislate for the reality that not only do states have the right to legalize marijuana, medically or otherwise, but that Americans generally favour decriminalization, by steadily increasing numbers.
Medical marijuana remains in chaotic limbo because no politician wants to be accused by his opponents of being “soft on drugs.” But everyone knows the War on Drugs has failed. Still, sick people are harassed and bullied, and a doctor and a lawyer, among others who have harmed nobody, must do hard time. A decent society, a free society, does not incarcerate people who cause no harm. We pride ourselves on being a society of “laws, not men.” But since men make laws, and men make mistakes, we must vigilantly find and repeal bad laws. If we cannot do that, we can no longer honestly call ourselves free.

MAMMON WORSHIP

“One thing about the current generation of conservatives: Getting mugged by reality hasn’t changed the way they look at the world.”
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
“So be it.”
John Boehner

Has capitalism become a religion? If so, is this a sign that, according to Eric Hoffer in THE TRUE BELIEVER, “its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident?” The gospel of free enterprise, put forth by Saints Ayn, Ronald and Milton, has attracted many true believers who seem to put free enterprise principles above the practical workings of economics. High priests Rush and Grover (and their countless minions), despite the enormous prosperity of a few and stagnation and impoverishment for everyone else, preach the doctrine that “government is the problem” with unquenched fire. The stronger the evidence that marketplace magic is not working very well for most of us, the more fervently do the faithful servants of Mammon cling to their belief in capitalism’s triumphant goodness. With their complete disdain of government in any form comes joyful reverence for avarice. According to these true believers, we are left with only six deadly sins, greed now being credited as the sole source of human progress, perhaps the single human virtue. Therefore, those who profit from their greed should be allowed to keep all their gains lest they be discouraged from getting more, which would throw all mankind into a new darkness. The leap of faith required to believe this dogma is a long one, but this presents no handicap to those who believe.
Some of Mammon’s faithful hold to the hardcore conviction that even a kind thought toward those less fortunate will stop progress dead in its tracks. Then there are those who feel rich people can share with others if they want to. But under no circumstances, no matter how great the need, should the wealthy be compelled, especially through taxes, to share the wealth, because after all taxes are for government, and government is always the problem. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he may. But if he does not, the poor must endure or die. Free people in a democracy are free to starve, but they are not allowed to use their democracy to provide for those in need, if those who possess a surfeit refuse to share.
This is a tough creed to swallow.
It is understood that need is a subjective emotion. Some people are aware that they need very little to be happy, but who are they to force their Thoeauvian simplicity on everyone else? Who is to say that material comforts and pleasures are not the just rewards of a job well done? But for one man to need many mansions, several yachts and planes, many cars, warehouses full of expensive clothes and jewels galore (not to mention pockets stuffed full of politicians) is a bit of a stretch, for most of us who do not have all that. And if the same rich man can look at millions who live in squalor, hunger and privation, and say these people have all they need, credibility fails completely.
The servants of greed are left with a religious conviction to stand on, a conviction holding that human greed, for all its resultant hardships, dislocations, warfare and suffering, is the only source of human progress. Obviously, we can understand why a mega-rich empire builder would spout such a creed. But why should anyone else believe it? The rest of us are expected by the adherents of this faith to endure any amount of hardship for the benefit of the few who have it all, believing that if we let their selfishness run rampant, some day all humanity will be materially better off. Again, this creed is tough to swallow.
In this capitalistic religion, there is no nirvana to look forward to. No heaven with its pearly gates and streets paved with gold, no celestial virgins waiting to reward us in afterlife for enduring this vale of tears. There is only faith in a better economic life for our descendants, someday, maybe. We must accept our poverty, disease, and injustice, live with our misery. . .and BELIEVE! If free enterprise depends on blind faith, then its practical advantages are no longer obvious. Under this creed, commonsense solutions to everyday problems are now sins. Unfettered greed has become the highest virtue. Adults ought to know better. Most of us do.
Historically, unbridled capitalism always concentrates too much wealth in the hands of too few people, and productivity always exceeds consumption. With consumers spending too little, surplus production backs up. Workers are fired and privation becomes widespread. Private charity is overwhelmed. Practical solutions to this problem include government spending on public works to increase employment so people will buy things again. Some wealth must be redistributed to maintain balanced prosperity and social stability, which benefits rich, poor, and those in-between. Free enterprise, constructively regulated and shared by all, is an effective tool for society’s improvement and human progress. But the people it serves must make it serve. Like fire, capitalism makes a bad master.
And greed is still not a virtue.

COUP D'ETAT, U.S.A.

COUP D’ETAT, U.S.A.

“We are Wall Street: It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable….Go ahead and take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: we’re going to take yours….We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive.”
E-mail circulating on Wall Street, reported in FINANCIAL TIMES

Resembling sophisticated Huns or Vandals, the barons of industry and finance sneer about doing “God’s work” as they sit like Smaug the dragon atop mountains of plunder, and smugly acquire more at everyone else’s expense. Having grown accustomed to getting their way, all the way, under the last presidential administration, they have no intention of sharing or compromising now. Barack Obama, to any impartial observer, is not a socialist. He would be a “liberal Republican” by definition forty years ago, when there really were such things. He has tried vainly to compromise with current Republicans, who have moved far to the right of the canonized Ronald Reagan, and now prefer to obliterate the national government, rather than make any deals with Democrats. Centering in Wisconsin but extending nation-wide, the filthy rich are using the 2010 election to pull off a coup d’etat. This way they have no need to compromise. The servants of the corporate elite, egged on by the Tea Party, have staged their takeover in broad daylight, for everyone to see. Though not clever, it is bold, and it is happening, right now, in the good old land of liberty.
While the Tea Party Republicans ran for election promising more jobs, as soon as they took over they moved rapidly to shut down all opposition. Pausing only briefly to issue what corporate tax breaks they could (first things first, right?) they declared an emergency, which they claimed required drastic action to avoid total disaster. First on the list of hardship measures: to destroy public employee unions. Private company unions being already decimated, the attack would eliminate a major source of opposition to corporate supremacy. Then corporations, already given full citizenship by the Supreme Court, can use limitless funds to swamp any further opposition in a tsunami of propaganda. The servants of corporate oligarchy are then free to take advantage of whatever government machinery serves their purpose, and dismantle what might get in the way of profits. Of course, no one is forced to believe all that corporate “free speech”. But big business is awfully good at sales pitches. If it can spread its message without concerted, effective response from the opposition, there is no opposition. There will be no doubt about who rules. This is the goal of a coup.
Scott Walker did not take office in Wisconsin. He took control, CEO fashion. And typically, a CEO does not ask the underlings what they might think of policy. He tells them what he wants, and if he does not get it, he makes changes. This is the principle reason why, in a democracy, government cannot be run like a business. Walker, serving the corporate elite, has to trash the democracy. Furthermore, it is obvious that when people awaken to actually understand how adversely they will be affected by these Tea Party actions, Walker and his cronies will be sent packing. Hence the coup. If Walker can pull it off, his future in politics is rosy. If he is rebuffed, he will have proven himself a solid team player, and will prosper nonetheless.
The coup in Wisconsin has roused considerable organized opposition, from many who work for a living. This opposition has spread around the country, and many Americans who were content to live and let live have awakened to resist a real threat. A sense of worker solidarity has been revived, for the first time in quite a while, and it is being transmitted at electric speed, everywhere. If this solidarity can endure, it could be strong enough to turn back the coup—this time. But working people dare not succumb to complacency. The servants of greed will never stop attacking.
The coup in Wisconsin, and elsewhere, should leave no doubt that class warfare is ongoing, even though the working class did not start it. The corporate class will never stop seeking absolute power, and only consistent solidarity among the workers can prevent the upper class from having it. The ultra-rich will cooperate, will share, if they must, to the benefit of workers and the wealthy--all but those totally consumed by greed. But it is up to those of us not in that upper class to make them cooperate and share. The alternative, sadly, is some kind of servitude, with its accompanying penury. Eternal vigilance still being the price of liberty, we must keep watch for wherever our liberty is threatened. Sometimes the enemy is foreign. This time the threat is homegrown.

WIKILEAKS – ANY SURPRISES?

“Electric circuitry profoundly involves men with one another. Information pours upon us, instantaneously and continuously.”
Marshall McLuhan, THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE

McLuhan made this prophetic statement back when most homes had a single black-and-white television (controlled by knobs!) and one corded telephone. Radios were becoming portable, but they were still bulky. Music was recorded onto large vinyl discs and played on a revolving machine, attached to a cord. Computers were slow, big things. Some forty years later, most people in America and Europe, and many people living elsewhere, carry in one pocket a telephone, radio, TV, record player, computer, still and movie camera, and game board. Imagination is challenged to speculate what our inter-connected world will be like forty years hence. But there can be no denying we are in the global village, and as in any small town, everyone knows everything about everyone.
Some high-tech wizards have smugly assured us that privacy is gone and we just have to adjust. They’re probably right. We are glutted with revelations about the amoral habits of celebrities, and an endless cavalcade of commoners seeks a bit of fame by doing the same things. Tasting the so-called forbidden fruits will earn grateful snickering from our fellow humans. Doing nothing is equally exposed. The only bright spot in all this sunlight is the fact there are so many of us that we need to encourage gossip if we want to get more than a little of it.
Why, then, is our government shocked—shocked! at the Wikileaks exposure of so-called official secrets? In the first place, with an estimated 2 1/2 million names on the security list, secrecy is practically unattainable. In the second, there were no surprises. Wikileaks revealed that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unwinnable. If our government really believes nobody knew that, it is effective only at keeping secrets from itself.
As for the embarrassing little tidbits about State Department staffers engaging in some petty behaviour – anybody who has ever worked with other human beings already knew that. If these facts elicit any thought on the part of us rubes, it is more relief than shock, to know that our government employs human beings much like ourselves. Wikileaks made public an incredible amount of information of no use to an enemy or to us, which accounts for the lukewarm reactions of Hilary Clinton, Robert Gates, and President Obama. And it just might demonstrate a real strength of democratic societies, as we can shake off exposure to embarrassing information.
The government has options. One is to reduce the number of official secrets it classifies. The advantages of such reductions are obvious. It is easier to keep secret a few items and strategies that would truly harm the country if they fell into the wrong hands. Nobody wants that. And if embarrassing facts are routinely brought to light, which is expected in both democratic theory and in law, the government will probably operate in a less embarrassing fashion, which means more effectively. And we can all benefit by our government’s taking a hard look at just what gets classified.
Obviously, in recent decades our elected government has been on a mission, sometimes a frenzied one, to classify more and more of its doings. Now that it can no longer get away with, it might as well operate openly and honestly, as elected governments are supposed to do. As far as giving advantage to real or potential enemies, we remember they are in the global village too. The first of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points: “Open covenants of peace openly arrived at,” could become reality, nearly a century later, as a response to the facts of life.
Governments (ours included) have one other option: to maintain secrecy through fear. Sadly, this option is behind the imprisonment of Bradley Manning, accused of leaking secrets to Julian Assange of Wikileaks. Assange will be tried in Sweden on unrelated rape charges. Should he be acquitted and extradited to the United States, he can afford lawyers who will assure him a fair trial. Manning, on the other hand, has been disappeared. The fate of the “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo and elsewhere is now being visited on an American citizen. He has had no “speedy and public trial”. No such thing is proposed for him. He lapses in solitary confinement, denied even the meager privileges granted to convicted criminals, and this, for all we know, is to be his fate. Manning’s absolutely un-constitutional punishment could serve as a terrifying example to future whistleblowers. If this situation endures, we will need to rewrite history, especially concerning which side won the Cold War.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Desperate times conjure desperate actions. Fear breeds anger, and people are tempted to do things that are hard to undo. In 2011, people who work for a living are at odds with each other. Government employees are under assault, forced by insolvent and indebted governments to work harder for less pay and reduced benefits. Meanwhile the political class would eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees. And some workers in the private sector appear eager to see that happen.
Give credit to the politicians and their wealthy backers who have managed to drive so huge a wedge between people who have the same wants, needs and aspirations, who would be so much healthier, wealthier, and wiser if they would help instead of fight each other. It has taken a long time and sustained pursuit to get some working people to despise others. But if there be a legitimate grievance against public employees, it needs to be brought into the light for close inspection.
True believers of the doctrine that government is the problem in all cases are far gone into delusion. People who feel all government workers are lazy parasites cannot be reached with logic. Those who can ignore dams, roads, schools, parks, sewers, military, police, firefighters, and all other successful government projects are, if not happy, at least satisfied with their intentional ignorance. But most private company workers understand the need for a social contract and appreciate the work public employees do, to promote the general welfare. They know most public employees, like most private employees, earn their pay. But as human beings we all tend to annoy each other in many different ways, and in hard times minor irritations can turn into nasty resentments, with resulting harsh retaliations.
In the first place, in recessions, when businesses cut back and employees lose jobs, government workers tend to keep theirs. With the jobs they keep their good pay, holidays, vacations, medical insurance and other perks. In long recessions the relative prosperity of government workers can be especially grating as tax revenues go down, and governments seek new sources of revenue to maintain services. The argument against raising taxes to support government workers can be very convincing, with the citizenry struggling to get by.
Still, a look at all sides of the situation brings up more questions. Do tough times reduce or eliminate the need for government services? We know that more people need the safety net in recessions. So we find ourselves demanding public employees to work harder for less. And while such demands appear unfair, we are reminded that life is unfair, and that many workers in the private sector have seen their wages reduced and their benefits decimated. Everyone must learn to get along with less.
Well…not quite everyone. The rich have prospered, some obscenely so. Yet many in the media and in elected office (most of them well-off) say the very idea of taxing wealth, even a little more, is unfair. And many workers agree. Yes, they hold, it would be nice if the rich would share some of their abundance with the less fortunate. Some rich folks do. But if they choose to keep, squander or destroy their wealth to the benefit of no one, that is their right, and it would be wrong for the rest of us to tax them to help the needy. However, strangling government, leaving those truly desperate to their fate, is quite fair, according to advocates for the rich in media, politics and our neighbourhoods. They accuse their opponents of envy, which renders any attempt to use excess wealth to jump-start the economy as unworthy of debate. Rich people have something others want: their money. We can’t have it, end of discussion. But interestingly, the same argument does not hold regarding government employees. They have living wages and benefits, and a collective bargaining system to improve their lot. All workers want these. But since private employees have lost theirs, it seems only right to take them away from public employees as well. Then we’ll all be equally poor and downtrodden—except the rich, who apparently live in a galaxy far away.
We are at moral loggerheads on this issue, and until we see the writing in the sky, we can argue morals and get nowhere. We can, however, look at what we want and how to get it. Collective bargaining allows workers a “living” instead of a “starving”. As unions are decimated, workers’ living standards have fallen. Politicians and newspersons tell workers in the private sector that they have lost their union rights and they’ll never get them back. Public employees still have their rights. Citizens are urged to take those rights away so we’ll all be equal.
If American workers are ready to believe that, we’re in for a long, dark night.

WHITHER OUR WITHERED DEMOCRACY?

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
James Madison

Excitement in Egypt fades, unrest follows all over the Middle East and spreads to our Midwest. America, seemingly powerless in foreign affairs, has an effective option: to remove our military presence from Iraq and Afghanistan, now. No action would help the fortunes of people promoting true democracy in the region more than the cessation of U.S. warfare on people who live there. Ending our imperial adventures there would also be healthy for the state of American democracy. In addition to lives and money, Americans have lost precious freedoms, as a direct result of our prolonged state of war.
Whatever our objectives for these deadly, destructive wars were originally, they have not been fulfilled, and they won’t be. Wikileaks told us nothing new. The insanity of the wars and the ineffectiveness of the occupations have been obvious for some time. Our involvement is costing 2 1/2 billion dollars each week, in borrowed funds. While most Americans can still ignore the death and destruction, not being personally involved, many of our political, business and media leaders are screaming against our ballooning public debt. The debt can be dramatically reduced, with virtually universal consent, simply by bringing the troops home.
Mainstream conservatives and liberals, as well as peaceniks and tea partiers, are increasingly united in their calls for wars’ end. The neocons, loudly pounding the war drums in the beginning, drowning out all opposition, have gone undercover, excepting an occasional mumble about mistakes that were made. Only the heroism of our military people stands as an emotional, but not reasonable, excuse for “staying the course”. “We cannot let them die in vain.” But if we are sending others to die only because some have been killed already, then we must conclude that all have died in vain. “We cannot support the troops unless we also support the mission,” which means we must leave them there to kill or be killed. We can see why the founding fathers tried to make it difficult to go to war. How can we have the hubris to force democracy on Afghanistan and Iraq while lending only lukewarm support to democracy elsewhere in the area, and letting it die here?
Most people dislike war, and the more we learn about it, the less we approve. A special election nationwide would bring the troops home the next day. Yet we have continual warfare. The establishment, controlled by the scarcely hidden military-industrial complex, will make sure that the issue never gets to a popular vote. The peoples’ will always takes a drubbing in war, as do human rights. Wire-tapping, routine searches, citizens spying on each other, secret kidnappings and torture, imprisonment without habeas corpus, all get people to fear their government. The longer war lasts, the blurrier becomes the distinction, for the rulers, between “them” and “us.”
Despite growing resistance from all sides, our two ruling parties keep the wars going, each terrified that the other side might use the heroism of our troops against them. Regarding the casualties, one side would help the families of the dead and rehabilitate the wounded, while the other side would toss the “dead wood.” Nobody in actual power proposes to immediately stop the carnage. We see plans to start bringing the troops home in the near future, but the plans are rotten with loopholes, and already our leaders have begun to hedge. We are guaranteed a long lasting, unwanted American presence in the Middle East, killing, dying, and letting the future pay for it.
During the Vietnam conflict Eisenhower’s warnings about the power of the “military-industrial complex” to subvert our freedom were amplified. Those warnings have been proven true, though historical revisionism transformed the Vietnam War from an unneeded, colonial war to a “noble cause.” The revisionists were then able to get the country involved in more “noble causes” in the Middle East. The doublethink, whereby we know the military-industrial complex subverts our democracy at the same time we believe in the noble cause of all American warfare, allows war to continue indefinitely. And whenever someone dares to present the truth, the establishment counters by waving the bloody shirt, rendering further resistance futile.
The revolution in Egypt was peaceful. America can encourage peaceful steps to democracy by ending war with Egypt’s neighbours. At the same time we can start to repair the deep injuries to our democracy due to ceaseless war. Recent stories from Afghanistan tell us that the latest surge has been successful. People over there like us. How many times will we continue to believe the “light at the end of the tunnel” stories? Our fortunes will vastly improve, in the long run, when we stop blowing up people, places, and things. To build democracy there, we rebuild it here: if we play it right, we could get a win-win.

THE PARTY FAITHFUL

"The broad movement of American politics in recent decades has been toward greater inequality, the discrediting of public institutions and a near idolatry of private markets at the expense of corporate accountability."
Katrina Vanden Heuvel, THE NATION, January 24, 2011

"If free enterprise becomes a proselytizing holy cause, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident."
Eric Hoffer, THE TRUE BELIEVER

Economically, things are rough all over, excepting a tiny minority that waxes ever richer. Meanwhile some Americans, calling themselves Tea Party Patriots, are so sure of the righteousness of this inequality that they enthusiastically elected politicians who have pledged not only to uphold the situation, but to eliminate remaining social safeguards. While our capitalist economy is imploding, these people fear impending socialism. After many years of capitalism's gradually being released from constraints imposed after the last Great Depression, the predictable collapse has happened, and the only thing we have to fear, apparently, is another round of constraints upon private enterprise.
The Tea Partiers, their prodders in the media, and their secret exploiters among the extremely wealthy, feel no need for logic. Their loyalty, "near idolatry", to the economic system that brought on this current persistent recession is based on faith alone. Free enterprise is good, freer enterprise, better. Socialism in any form is evil. Economic inequality is right. The rich are entitled to their luxuries just as the poor are entitled to their privations.
To rational people, economic systems are tools, to be used by societies for the mundane purpose of delivering more and better goods and services to more people. As human beings progress, we learn from mistakes, so we can improve on existing systems. The social safety net, along with business and industrial regulations and public works projects, were enacted when it became clear that unbridled free enterprise morphs into a sophisticated piracy that causes misery on a scale traditional pirates can only dream about. Knowing this, a return to free-range capitalism would be insane. Yet to the Tea Party faithful, this is where we need to go...not because it is sensible, but because it is morally right.
Tycoons and entrepreneurs know that economics and morals do not make a good fit. Right is getting a product or service and selling it at a profit. Wrong is failing to do so, thus losing money. It's a primitive impulse. Our forebears could not look too closely at how mastodons might feel about being hunted. People needed food. Bring down a mastodon and many people get to eat. It was a collective operation, too. Faithful devotion to rugged individualism in mankind's early days would probably have nipped the human race in the bud. Human progress depends on doing what works.
Communism taught us the horrors of unhampered collectivization, which not only killed and enslaved millions, but failed miserably to ease poverty. Modern liberals are not looking around for a new Lenin. But common sense shows that some collective action by society can have positive effects, that it does not pave the road to Gulag. We know we can have sensible controls on free enterprise without stifling initiative. As citizens of a democracy we are naturally free to evaluate our government's effect on our economy, to make adjustments, to set goals. We're not stuck with anything.
As citizens of a democracy, we are free to argue over the effectiveness of any plan, any procedure, to discuss the price, to compromise, to revise. Human institutions being imperfect, reasonable people can always make improvements. The Tea Party faithful, however, insist on a narrow, subjective reading of the Constitution, by which the national government has no power but to protect business from government. Profit is sacred, it's every man for himself, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be fought for and preserved, apparently, at gunpoint. Planning and cooperation are sins. Has capitalism taken on a religious reverence because it no longer works?
In the current disaster, government bailed out the financial and automobile industries and invested in job creation. And though prosperity is not yet around the corner, these moves are understood to have averted a worse catastrophe. To the Tea Party faithful, the right thing would have been to let the disaster go as far as it would go. Bank failures, industrial bankruptcies, joblessness on an enormous scale--these would have been acceptable alternatives to socialism. At least we would all be free to get and keep whatever we can. No nirvana, no celestial virgins, no eternal planet, no streets of gold--the Tea Party paradise is an earthly one, where government has no hold on anybody. If this does not sound promising, it's what comes from confusing philosophy and religion with the unexciting process of economics.

THE STARS AND BARS FOREVER

In South Carolina some solid citizens recently celebrated the 150th anniversary of their state's secession from the Union, and the start of the Civil War. The celebrants, being White, claim surprise that Black citizens are less than enthusiastic about the festivities. Blacks, having suffered over two centuries of slavery, and another of Jim Crow segregation, which was not much different, can be forgiven for harbouring distrust and trepidation when the Whites dress up in plantation garb and declare their good intentions toward Americans of all races. The lot of Afro-Americans has only been improving in the last half-century, and those improvements have been in many quarters grudgingly given, and not only in the South. Who can blame them for being just a bit edgy?
If the South Carolina secession celebration had been an isolated incident it might be easier to believe the partygoers when they declare they are merely hailing the South's proud heritage of liberty, not the part where people owned other people, even though owning human property was the freedom secession was going to protect. But Southern politicians have recently been talking openly of secession, nullification and states' rights again, which happen to have been major issues in the slave states in the years leading up to the Civil War. And these issues have re-emerged at the same time America elected a Black man to the presidency. Just coincidence, they all say.
It is tempting to believe that all this ante-bellum talk has nothing to do with Barack Obama. Otherwise we must confront the very real possibility that racism is still quite strong in this country. Racism has been a defining thread in our history since Jamestown--since Columbus. In reality it goes back to humanity's hunter-forager beginnings. While racism probably assured mankind's survival in small, close-knit tribal groups for many millennia, this deep-seated emotion has become a threat to mankind's survival and most of us would sooner have it just go away. On our tightly wired, inter-dependent, small planet, the human race has evolved into one clan. Just about all of us (some gladly, some grudgingly, most of us both) are aware of this new reality. Still, survival techniques reaching back to our evolutionary roots do not go quietly into a good night.
Worldwide, not only are most of us at least intellectually aware that seeing the world as one is beneficial, but in an age of fast, relatively cheap travel and virtually universal access to instant electronic communications, even the most isolated inhabitants of Earth have some personal knowledge of how alike we all are. For this reason, ongoing eruptions of racism, in others and within ourselves, are situations we would rather not deal with. These episodes are ugly in others, terrifying when they enter our personal thoughts. It is much more pleasant to pretend the whole dilemma never existed, to travel to a fantasy land of long ago, when life was quiet, when both masters and slaves were content, to pretend we can return to a life that was like we wanted it to be. Raise high the Stars and Bars and celebrate a fine heritage of liberty.
That Confederate flag represents a chaotic view of our history. Though none live who remember the time, a vivid ancestral memory abides. The wounds are deep, and scars plentiful. The sins of the fathers really were visited on the sons, and the sons kept heaping up more sins on their descendants, to this very day. And though the sins of racism are not confined to South Carolina or even to Dixie, the poison is currently most obvious in the South. The Stars and Bars are being raised again. What does this flag mean?
Heritage, some say, slavery say others. Maybe both viewpoints are correct. Slavery is part of America's heritage, just like mint juleps and black-eyed peas. Slavery, unlike food and drink, is not something we can take or leave. It sticks to our heritage. Therefore it should be examined from all angles, lest we only re-package the problem and fail to progress, at a time when we cannot afford to stand still. Slavery as an institution left one group of Americans with little choice but to justify forced labour, for no pay, on another group, and as such indicates continuing problems for our national integrity. But as an economic system, slavery benefitted only a miniscule part of our population. The plantation owners waxed very rich while the majority of White Southerners found their work vastly undervalued. Many lived in penury due to a system based on free labour.
When secession came, most poor Whites in the South stood by their aristocracy, and bravely fought and died for the preservation of a system that stifled their prospects. Their only advantage was that the slaves were worse off, and that was good enough. The Stars and Bars represents their willingness to fight to keep an economic and social system that worked against them. Raise it high, fly it proudly. It serves to remind us that we humans can forego not just our enlightened self-interest, but our base self-interest, for some unquestioned higher cause. It offers an opportunity to examine our ancestors' motives, to learn if the same shortcomings might yet be present within us. The answers might not be pleasant, but the truth is supposed to set us free.
First we must confront it.