LET’S SEE YOUR PASSWORD Employers can be picky in hard times. They can make jobseekers jump through a lot of hoops that have nothing to do with getting the job done. Nowadays employers are demanding to know the Face Book passwords of those who would work for them. Do they have that right? Private business has the prerogative to hire, or fire, for just about any reason, and there are ways to get around those few existing statute restrictions. When jobs are scarce, people will become very accommodating to those who would hire. Given bad enough economic conditions, many might even accept slavery, as opposed to starvation. Government exists, so our Declaration states, to preserve our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But economics are subject to their own natural laws, and the “job creators” have certain rights too. In this uncertain economy, when the success or failure of an enterprise (and possibly the loss of many jobs) can depend on small things, don’t employers have the right, and responsibility, to be well-informed? The right of workers to privacy and that of employers to information often conflict. Human nature makes bosses feel their employees, no matter how good, could always do more, and makes workers feel their employers ask too much. Chattel slavery is illegal, but bosses still take a proprietary attitude toward those they pay. More control means a more efficient company, higher profits, and thus, healthier paychecks. And certainly, even with controls, working for a living is much easier than it was back in those nightmare days of Dickens or Sinclair. In the computer age, the wrong information could ruin a company, damaging an entire society. Employers have access to their workers’ addresses and phone numbers. Many demand urine samples and make other personal demands. Face Book is merely the most modern communications device. What reason could restrict employers from knowing what their employees are up to—especially since not knowing could embarrass companies and hurt profits? There is that cherished right to privacy. But communications experts have been telling us that in the electronic age, privacy is dead, that in the global village everyone has access to everyone else’s affairs. This is one of those self-fulfilling prophecies: if we believe it, it becomes true. On the other hand, the bosses are not offering their passwords to their employees. Big Brother may be in the boardroom rather than the Kremlin, but he’s still watching us, and we still don’t get to watch him. If indeed we live in an era when privacy no longer exists, then we need to firmly insist that we all mind our own business. Of course, we must be courteous to one another—in personal matters. But economics is not personal, courtesy won’t pay the rent, and successful private enterprise (and with it a strong economy) depends on everyone’s co-operation. We all benefit when business gets what it demands. This tale, though only partially true, is told so often that it is generally believed. Considering Face Book passwords of workers, how can such information provide legitimate benefits to any employer? Knowing in advance of employee conduct that could embarrass a corporation would be more than offset by the expense of constant monitoring of employees’ personal communications. There is, though, one solid business reason for having workers’ Face Book passwords: workers who knowingly and willingly surrender their private lives are more passive, less assertive, more “eager to please” than workers who do not. Anyone who surrenders his or her personal rights for a paycheck will be watched, will be harassed, will be broken down. Docile workers will do more for less. “None of your business” is the polite and fitting response to demands for Face Book passwords. We would not let spies look into our windows, or a boss’s stoolie into our abodes. We would not let the boss read our letters or tap our phones. But these old-fashioned communications are protected by statute. Face Book, being new, is vulnerable. However, if we allow corporate spies to watch our Face Book pages, we have already surrendered our rights in all other matters. Individuals have the right to insist that others stay out of their affairs. But against the specter of unemployment privations, personal rights seem indefensibly useless. If we want privacy for ourselves, then we must protect it for everybody. These protections can only be achieved through the traditional social contract. In this case government has the legitimate responsibility to tell private enterprise what not to do. As of April, 2012, the State of Maryland is the only governmental entity to do its duty. If governments elsewhere do not, then the citizens must change their governments, in order to protect their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Otherwise we face a new and terrifying definition of “company man.”

#31--THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

“I am a former Marine. I work two jobs. I don’t have health insurance… I haven’t had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years. But I don’t blame Wall Street. Suck it up you whiners.”
Blog on “We Are the 53%”

The tough guy philosophy expounded by our former Marine has longstanding credibility in American society. We like to expound on how harsh, cruel, and unfair life is, then shrug and do nothing, to show others we can take it. Truly, a thick hide is a valuable asset. If we live on Planet Earth, we must sometimes silently suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, because often, nothing else can be done. Furthermore, nobody enjoys listening to somebody else complain. We all have problems. Still, there comes a time when patient endurance becomes self-inflicted cruelty. Sometimes, the pain becomes unendurable, leading people to seek solutions, and if solutions are available, people take action.
In America, we pride ourselves on rugged individualism to get things done. If Americans had not been tough, we could not have conquered this wilderness continent so quickly. In military situations, with men killing each other, mistakes can be fatal, and petty squabbling over small details can cost dearly. The ability to “suck it up” is essential to the mission. But we have already conquered the continent, the former Marine is back in civilian life, and either our everyday individual efforts are worth the effort, or they’re not. Our country exists to secure the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for every individual. We have the right to change our government if these rights are denied some, most, or all of us. Working two jobs, with scant time off and no health insurance, can cause that noble feeling of quiet desperation to wear thin. We know that politically, socially and economically, when people work together toward the common good, we all live better.
Why people turn their backs on their fellows is for each individual to answer. All of us, from time-to-time, feel that need. In the ex-Marine’s case, perhaps he feels his military commitment was sufficient service to humanity, and from now on he’ll get his—although from his own testimony, that is precious little indeed. Men come back from war with many issues, and those can include dislike and distrust of the human race. But lest we forget, many veterans have expressed a common ground with Occupy protesters. Each of us must examine his own conscience and make choices accordingly. We can also look to our innate reasoning abilities. The protesters and the Marine probably agree that “sucking up” a drab, hungry, and exhausting existence carries little visible reward, other than the opportunity to go on sucking it up, and trying not to whine.
Our rational faculties cause us to question whether the status quo is providing access to the inalienable rights our nation was created expressly to provide. Working two jobs may provide life, if life is defined by physical survival. There is precious little liberty, though, except the liberty to die hungry and homeless, should a worker (for whatever reasons) stop working. The pursuit of happiness seems out of reach, however, to all but masochists.
The “We Are the 53%” site, where the former Marine blogs, claims to represent those between the 1% ultra-rich, and the 46% who are too poor to pay income taxes. Drawing the line divides the 99% roughly in half, and the attitude of holding Wall Street blameless while expressing outright hostility toward people who are really struggling to make ends meet, right there should solve any problems the 1% might have retaining control of the country. Many of us who earn enough to pay income taxes are little better off than the ones who haven’t made the cut. We can ask ourselves what common sense there is in criticizing and abusing those who are already desperate, just because we aren’t quite that desperate… yet. We can ask ourselves how much we really have in common with the fantastically well-to-do, and if we let them continue to run the country, in what ways they would show their appreciation. We can ask ourselves what good reason there could be for leaving those with unbelievable wealth out of the equation.
In any case, it’s obvious that the super-rich (who alone are doing really well nowadays), could not go on ruling to the benefit of their unmitigated greed, should the 99% refuse to let them do it. The nation’s wealth is concentrated in a tiny demographic, a minority whose wealth grows while the rest of us get gradually poorer, while we watch our opportunities vanish. Our inalienable rights are threatened, and the danger grows. We could regain those rights, strengthen them for all of us, and do it peacefully, if we simply realize how much we commoners have in common. Most of us no longer have access to economic opportunity or social equality. We can work together to get these back. Or we can slink away and “suck it up.”

#30 -- DIVIDING THE NINETY-NINE

DIVIDING THE NINETY-NINERS, CONQUERING THE FIFTIERS


“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”

Whether or not Gandhi actually said that, it is true. Aristocrats, autocrats and authoritarians of all political leanings know it. This is why the one-percenters are, at the height of police brutality against Occupiers everywhere, seeking, through ridicule, to send the protesters back to ignominy. Useful idiots in right-wing media and think tanks are yelling with one voice about how “we” don’t like those lazy parasites in the occupy camps with their twisted sense of entitlement. Our ruling elites need to get the Occupy Movement out of the limelight, and fast. Police misconduct, in public, has not set well with most citizens, and the situation cannot be sustained. As the vast majority of Americans have begun to sympathize with the protesters and with their cause, the protesters are on the brink of victory. A new battle plan is in order.
The elites have a very powerful weapon: a heavy barrage of propaganda, aimed at working Americans’ solidarity. “Citizens United” assures us the fusillade will be deafening. Repeating the Big Lie often enough, loudly enough, and ubiquitously enough, should convince some workers that economic disaster is caused not by the elite, but by people just like them. Smaller groups will then fight each other to exhaustion, leaving those in power, in power. The push is on to turn “the fiftiers”—those Americans who still eat regularly, live indoors, and drive cars, against the Occupy Movement and back into the loving bosom of their natural “friends” in the one percent. Right-wing politicians and talking heads regularly gripe about the 47% who pay no income taxes (because they are too poor) while defending the right of rich people who pay no taxes to go on paying nothing. Of course, the poor, like everyone else, pay sales, gasoline, and payroll taxes, but the propaganda routinely ignores this fact, it being designed to get working people to resent each other. Some will find it easier to pick on the poor than to take on the rich. The Big Lie will not convince everybody, but it might swing a few close elections in key states.
The Big Lie says that all Americans are born with an equal chance to get ahead, that this opportunity is somehow firmly entrenched in the U. S. Constitution, that we all have it, always. Where this clause is written into the Constitution no one is able to actually point out, but the right-wing cheering section steadily reaffirms its existence. If we all really have the same opportunity, then poor people have only themselves to blame for their privations. That means we need not trouble about them. Reason and everyday events expose this falsehood, but some people still believe it. More will believe it the more they hear it, because it sounds so preposterous it must be true. The Big Lie depends on it. It often works. If it works this time, the half of us who are still solvent can write off those who have been hit hard by the recession, and get back to shopping.
At the same time the still comfortable are being exhorted to contemptuously dismiss those in need, the right wing is blasting hate messages to turn the deprived against those who are yet getting by. The premise here is that the young and poor face hardships because of “entitlements” such as Social Security, Medicare, and Unions. If all that entitlement money can just get into the hands of the big banks and the stock market, then free enterprise can stimulate the economy so everyone will have plenty of opportunity. On it goes. People who work for a living, the ninety-nine percent, will turn against each other: young vs. old, comfortable vs. needy, majorities against minorities. People who could co-operate to win freedom from want for everyone, will instead fight. The protests in the Occupy movement, all across the country, will come to naught, and the wealthy and powerful will win the class war they started.
Of course not everybody will believe the Big Lie. But most Americans like to believe that people can do well if they try. Through most of our history this belief has been proven true, for most people. But these are extreme times, and individual initiative is not enough to help most of us. What we see happening: lost jobs, lost homes, lost retirements, lost chances—really could happen to all of us. The Occupy protests are demonstrating that reality to a majority of Americans, who are starting to believe we must co-operate. But “Citizens’ United,” a gift to the elite from five of nine members of the Supreme Court, allows the upper class to overwhelm the truth with tidal waves of propaganda. The elite can buy all the signs, news shows, commercials, lobbyists, and politicians they want, and if they need more, they can buy more. The Big Lie barrage has started. It will grow.

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.