TWO STRANDS OF DEMOCRATIC THEORY: ONE LEADS TO COMMUNITY, THE OTHER TO SELFISHNESS AND TERRORISM

Harry Targ

Many years ago a noted political theorist, George Sabine, wrote about the “two strands of democratic theory” which influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Although much was missing from Sabine’s analysis, discussions of class, race, and gender for example, it did capture perspectives critical to the contradictory cultural reality of the United States then and now.

Communitarianism Versus Individualism

One strand, influenced by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and a host of utopian and communitarian thinkers, posited that individuals were inextricably connected to each other. To be human, in fact, was to be part of a community.  This meant that basic survival, human happiness, and the maximization of human potential were tied to larger social units: communities and societies. Individuals were responsible to each other, to the community, to the society and communities and societies were responsible to individuals.

Another strand, influenced by such British theorists as John Locke and Adam Smith, emphasized the atomistic nature of humanity. Humans were engaged in competition for survival, wealth, and power. Society was comprised of millions of individuals seeking to maximize their own interests. One of these, of course, was wealth. In the most extreme expression of this theoretical stance, community and society were hindrances to human wellbeing.  “Government is not the solution, government is the problem,” former President Ronald Reagan suggested.

For the most part, ideas or worldviews, which I call here political cultures, are reflections of the dominant economic and political interests of a society at any given time. But ideas become material forces also such that they serve to justify and legitimate political practices of elites. Sometimes the clash of ideas figures prominently in political argumentation and from time to time one or another of these worldviews gains dominance. 

Two Strands of Democratic Ideas in American History

From the Gilded Age of 1870s until 1929, despite intense class struggle, world war, and imperial expansion, individualism and Social Darwinism dominated popular discourse. Iconic public heroes ranged from Buffalo Bill, to Thomas Edison, to Andrew Carnegie, to Henry Ford. In the 1920s modern consumerism emerged, labor and the left were repressed, and financial speculation grew with virtually no government regulation.

The Great Depression brought an end to the dominance of the individualist political culture of   Locke, Smith, and their conservative descendants. With the mobilization of millions of workers, the rise of the left, a prolific expression of people’s music, photography, painting, and writing, a sense of community and social responsibility became dominant in the political culture. The approximation of the communitarian spirit reflected in the tradition of Rousseau prevailed until the 1970s economic crisis occurred with declining rates of profit and a draconian shift from a manufacturing-based economy to financial speculation.

The Reagan Revolution institutionalized a return to a more crass form of the individualist strand of American political culture. As a character in the movie Wall Street put it “greed is good.” And it is a version of that perspective that has come to dominate the political culture, the popular arts, and the discourse of both political parties ever since.

Consequences of the Demise of the Idea of Community and the Rise of Individualism

In a recent essay in USA Today, conservative pundit George Will praised a speech former Indiana Governor and now President of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels, gave at that institution’s 2016 commencement exercises. Will pointed out that Daniels praised hard work, denied any connection between social support and economic success, and quoted with approval statements by Thomas Edison, Samuel Goldwyn, and an out-of-context Frederick Douglass. Will argued that his friend Daniels could have been responding to an earlier speech by President Obama who made it clear that success also involved luck. Obama was probably referring to what he often has suggested: that no one can succeed alone. In terms of securing education, training, and degrees, it was society that made them possible. Even though hard work and education could not guarantee success because of class, race, and gender impediments, the provision of them by society offered the possibility of personal achievement. No one succeeds without the benefits of community and society.

The Will/Daniels position in opposition to President Obama’s is a reflection of the contradictory character of American political culture. For Will and Daniels, it is individual hard work alone that leads to success. For the President hard work leads to success in the context of commitments by communities and the society at large to provide the opportunity, the venue for success. (Of course, Douglass, who Daniels quoted, was a premier fighter against racism in the nineteenth century. The abolition of slavery was a necessary if not sufficient condition for the achievement of social and economic justice. Hard work existed under slavery but to create a society where all people can thrive, Douglass believed,  a mass movement to overthrow it and the construction a non-racial society was necessary).

The two strands of democratic theory can be examined in the light of contemporary history to see what the consequences of each have been. Since the individualist strand has been predominant since the 1980s, we can conclude that it relates in some way to the following:

1. An enormous increase in income and wealth inequality.

2. Poverty rates, particularly childhood poverty, upwards of 20 percent of the population.

3. Increased crime and rates of incarceration among the most marginalized sectors of society.

4. And monumental increases in police violence, mass killings, and war.

In sum, the strand of democratic theory that has its roots in individualistic and anti-government thinking is one source of America’s twenty-first century political crisis. The loss of community and sense of collective responsibility has left a heavy burden on those who work to create a more just society.

Techniques of Empire; reposted from Diary of a Heartland Radical and The Rag Blog

Sunday, August 29, 2010

TECHNIQUES OF EMPIRE:WHAT IS NEW AND WHAT IS THE SAME OLD STUFF?

Harry Targ

Empires Past

Nations, tribes, armed members of messianic religions from time to time have engaged in conquest of others. Peoples have been slaughtered for their land, their natural resources, their mistaken beliefs. The techniques used to be simple: killing, imprisonment or enslavement, and occupation.

With the rise of capitalism as a global economic system, accumulated resources were used to create modern instruments of war--guns, ships, pollutants, and poisons. As Marx claimed long ago, capitalism was of necessity a global system so nation-states created in the era of economic modernity were compelled to pursue exploitable labor (particularly slaves), natural resources, market opportunities, and investment sites everywhere. Mercenary armies were created to conquer people and land and fight against the mercenary armies of other capitalist countries.

The British empire (“the sun never sets on the British Empire”) was caused by and facilitated the industrial revolution. In the 1880s European imperial powers came together to divide up the African continent. After the first of two world wars in the twentieth century, wars which cost 60 million deaths, the Middle East was divided up among declining powers, Great Britain and France.

The United States joined the imperial fray in the 1890s. It took the Hawaiian Islands, fought Spain to conquer Cuba, occupied other Caribbean Islands, and crushed the independence struggle in the Philippines. Over the next 30 years the United States invaded countries in the Western Hemisphere some 25 times, often leaving US Marines in place for years.

The United States and the Cold War
A variety of imperial techniques became common as the United States fought the Communist enemy during the Cold War. With the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, the first of many “intelligence agencies” were launched to interfere with the political life of countries the U.S. regarded as strategic. CIA money was used to shape elections in democracies such as France and Italy. Money flowed to Christian Democratic Parties created to oppose Socialist campaigns. Also money found its way into anti-Communist trade union federations. This pattern of interference was replicated in Latin America as well and later in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The United States engaged in visible campaigns to create and support military coups; the most critical being in Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s, Brazil and Indonesia in the 1960s, and Chile in the 1970s. And of course U.S. policymakers launched long and brutal wars in Korea and Vietnam leading to four million Asian deaths and 100,000 American soldiers killed.

The pursuit of U.S. empire included some modern strategies as well as conquest and subversion. President Truman, through the Marshall Plan, instituted an expensive campaign of economic and military assistance which would become a staple of U.S. Cold War policy. From the initiation of the Marshall Plan in 1948 with a modest $14 billion aid program to anti-Communist regimes in Europe through the Carter years, $235 billion was provided to selected and strategic imperial partners: first in Europe, then Asia and the Middle East.

President Kennedy contributed to the imperial tool kit; the provision of military advisors, funding for local militaries in countries threatened by revolution (such as in Central America), and training programs for military officers such as in the old School of the Americas. Economic assistance came with strings, the promotion of market-based economies, and opposition to indigenous and Communist political forces, at least as much as local political contexts would allow.

President Reagan was an imperial innovator as well. Constrained by the “Vietnam Syndrome,” public opposition to further Vietnam-style military quagmires, he established policies based upon “low intensity conflict.” Creating and funding local counter-revolutionary armies in places as varied as Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Afghanistan, the U.S. role in conflicts could be kept off the front pages of newspapers. Civil war violence stimulated by U.S. resources would not be “low intensity” in countries where it occurred but it might be considered so in the U.S. Citizens would not learn of the critical U.S. support given to Islamic fundamentalist rebels, including Osama Bin Laden, fighting a pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan in the 1980s until quite recently.

To insure the limited visibility of U.S. global operations, and to reward political allies with government contracts, the Reagan administration dramatically expanded programs privatizing U.S. military operations. Support for the Contra war against the Nicaraguan people involved transferring public funds to private armies and using key foreign policy advisers, such as Colonel Oliver North, as conduits and organizers of networks of private sources of funding for war. Thus began public programs to encourage and stimulate the creation of private companies that would fight America’s wars. The American people had little way of knowing how deeply involved they were in violence around the world and the danger of sinking into new Vietnams.

21st Century Techniques of Empire
The world has come a long way from the days of Roman Legions slogging across land pillaging and killing. The days of nineteenth century colonial rule--clumsy and arrogant with foreign occupants of land lording over exploited local workers--has changed. However, it is important to reflect on the new or more developed techniques of empire, while never forgetting that there are centuries long continuities of techniques of imperial rule.

For starters, Marc Pilisuk reports in Who Benefits From Global Violence and War: Uncovering a Destructive System that the character of war has changed over the years and centuries. Wars today are not usually between nations. Casualties of wars are overwhelmingly civilians rather than soldiers. The weapons used in wars today are more likely than in the past to temporarily or permanently damage the natural habitat as well as kill people. Wars in recent years have been likely to be fought over natural resources. Nations and groups now are more likely to be supplied with weapons produced by a handful of corporations that specialize in the production of military supplies. These weapons are provided by a small number of nations. Finally, wars fought in modern times, the last 100 years, have caused more deaths than any other comparable period of human history.

Pilisuk reports that since World War II 250 wars have occurred causing 50 million deaths and millions homeless. (The United States participated significantly in 75 military interventions).

Recently a number of journalistic and scholarly accounts have added to our understanding of newer techniques of empire, particularly U.S. empire.

Global Presence. Pilisuk, Chalmers Johnson (The Sorrows of Empire) and others have estimated that the United States has over 700, perhaps 800 U.S. military installations in more than 40 countries. Some years ago the Pentagon determined that huge Cold War era military bases needed to be replaced with smaller, strategically located bases for rapid mobilization to attend to “trouble-spots” in the Global South. While forward basing in South Asia and in nations formerly part of the Soviet Union has received some attention seven new U.S. bases being established in Colombia (within striking distance of hostile Venezuela) and increased naval operations in the Caribbean have not. In addition, there are some 6,000 domestic military bases, many that anchor the economies of small towns.

Privatization of the U.S. Military. David Isenberg (“Private Military Contractors and U.S. Grand Strategy,” PRIO, Oslo, 2009) refers to “…the U.S. government’s huge and growing reliance on private contractors” which “…constitutes an attempt to circumvent or evade public skepticism about the United States’ self-appointed role as global policemen.” While PMCs provide many services, such as combat, consulting, training armies, and military support, their combat presence in the two major wars of the 21st century, Afghanistan and Iraq, has generated the most, if limited, public attention. Isenberg says that between 1950 and 1989 PMCs participated in 15 conflicts in other countries and from 1990 to 2000 another 80. PMCs were employed in civil wars such as in Angola, Sierre Leone, and the Balkans.

A recent Washington Post investigation compiled a data base, “Top Secret America,” “that found 1,931 intelligence contracting firms” doing top secret work “for 1,271 government organizations at over 10,000 sites.” TSA indicates that 90 percent of the intelligence work is done by 110 contractors. Defense department spokespersons and legislators claim that the United States needs to continue allocating billions of dollars to private contractors to maintain military performance levels that are minimally acceptable.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Nick Turse, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives describes the introduction of unmanned aerial weapons in the 1990s and their current weaponry of choice for the White House and others who prefer antiseptic and bloodless (on our side) technologies to eliminate enemies. New predator drones can be programmed to fly over distant lands and target enemies for unstoppable air strikes. Drones have been increasingly popular as weapons in fighting enemies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.

Connecting drone strikes to assassination teams and other war-making techniques, Shane, Mazzetti, and Worth, (“Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents,” The New York Times, August 16) refer to shadow wars against terrorist targets. “In roughly a dozen countries--from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife--the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.”

Assassinations. The United States has initiated campaigns to identify and assassinate presumed enemies. CIA operatives and private contractors join teams of army specialists under the Joint Special Operations Command (13,000 assassination commandoes around the world) to kill foreigners alleged to be affiliated with terrorists groups. These targets can include U.S. citizens living abroad who have been deemed to be terrorist collaborators. In the Western Hemisphere, the United States, through Latin American military personnel trained at the School of the Americas, has long supported assassination programs that now seem to be “globalized,” that is administered everywhere.

Fred Branfman (Alternet, August 24, 2010) starkly describes the assassination policy: “The truth that many Americans find hard to take is that mass U.S. assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of America’s military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the American people.”

Missionary Humanitarian Interventions. While most techniques of empire involve the direct use of violence, public and private organizations expand the presence of empire through so-called “humanitarian assistance.” While the work of the missionary has often followed the flag, never has such activism impacted so heavily on global politics as today.

For example, The New York Times (July 6, 2010) reported that Christian evangelical groups have transferred substantial amounts of funds to Jewish settlements in occupied territories of the West Bank. Furthermore, fund raising for settlements that stand in the way of the creation of a Palestinian state receive tax exemptions. The newspaper reports on “…at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade.”

The newspaper correctly points out that so-called “humanitarian” and tax deductible donations to entities in other countries tied to U.S. foreign policy are not new. But, the article suggests that donations to the settler movement are special “because of the centrality of the settlement issue in the current talks and the fact that Washington has consistently refused to allow Israel to spend American government aid in the settlements. Tax breaks for the donations remain largely unchallenged, and unexamined by the American government.”

What is New About Imperial Policies
While the general character of imperial policies remains the same, whether the empire is Rome, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain, or the United States, changes in technology, the state system, ideology, and tactical thinking have had their effects.

First, imperial rule has become truly global. From bases in far-off places, to unmanned drones flying over literally millions of targets everywhere, empires operate with no constraints based on geography.

Second, the military has become big business. Private corporations assume a greater share of Department of Defense budgets. Private companies now clean up and cook for the troops, train foreign soldiers, assassinate assumed terrorist enemies, and fight small wars with almost no visibility to publics.
Third, the United States is moving toward fighting wars without soldiers on the ground. Enemies can be identified by computer and military technologists can then push the right buttons to kill the unfortunate targets. Killing has become antiseptic. Killers can say goodbye to the kids in the morning, drive to work, push some buttons, drive home and spend the evening with the family. Meanwhile thousands of miles away there are mourners crying over those just assassinated.

Fourth, empires, at least the U.S. empire, can kill with impunity. Targets labeled terrorist can be eliminated by unmanned space weapons, specially trained assassination teams, or average foot soldiers.

Finally, empires can expand and change the destiny of peoples through so-called “humanitarian assistance.” Local goals, good or bad, are furthered by the large financial resources that special interests can bring to other countries.

Empires have had a long and ugly history. Because of technology, economics, and ideology new techniques of empire have been added to the old. The struggle against all empires must continue.

The Rag Blog, August 31, 2010

CHALLENGING OLD IDEAS THIS MEMORIAL DAY: A repost from January 2, 2015

 

Harry Targ

Karl Marx in The German Ideology argued in the 1840s that the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas. Almost one hundred years later theorists from the Frankfort School elaborated on Marx’s idea by developing the theory of the “cultural apparatus.” German sociologist Max Horkheimer wrote:

One function of the entire cultural apparatus at any given period has been to internalize in men [and women] of subordinate position the idea of a necessary domination of some men over others, as determined by the course of history down to the present time. As a result and as a continually renewed condition of this cultural apparatus, the belief in authority is one of the driving forces, sometimes, productive, sometimes obstructive, of human history (quoted in John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, “The Cultural Apparatus of Monopoly Capital,” Monthly Review, July/August, 2013).

Ideas do not spring from the air nor do they arrive untarnished by social reality from Gods and religion. No, as suggested by Marx, Horkheimer, Foster, McChesney, and other theorists, ideas are weapons in the continuous struggle for economic and political domination. Herbert Marcuse added that the “necessary domination” over people comes from pleasure and enticements in addition to threats of force. If the image of pleasure does not mollify the people, then threats  of impending pain can be transmitted from parts of the “cultural apparatus” (education systems, mass media, the internet, patterns of child rearing, religious institutions), thus legitimizing the application of force.

As we prepare for a new year with hope for positive social change, it is worth reflecting on three central concepts communicated through and justified by the “cultural apparatus:” markets, police, and the war system.  Markets offer the image of growing pleasure. Economists and politicians reiterate over and over again that economic development and political stability require the free flow of markets-- buyers and sellers, investors and speculators, workers and bosses, and the commodification of everything. The idea of markets permeates political discussion and is presented to publics as intimately connected to democracy, freedom, and cultural advance. Markets may serve as one mechanism among many to distribute goods and services but are not, as the ideologues suggest, the fundamental way of organizing society. But we hear over and over the promise that markets will bring to all humanity. And market fundamentalists add that government programs, visions of the public good, and community constitute a threat to markets and ultimately human betterment. On television, the internet, in schools, and everywhere in the cultural apparatus people are encouraged to consume, enjoy, think primarily of themselves, and remain obedient to the ongoing order. 

According to the cultural apparatus not all people, because of their own shortcomings, will be beneficiaries of the pleasures of the market. Consequently societies require the construction of police forces to maintain order. In societies where the threat of violence exists, police are necessary to protect the citizenry from the violent, the crazed, and the hateful who see race or exploitation behind their misery. The cultural apparatus communicates images of violence and mayhem in society such that people are convinced that police and prisons are the only institutions that save us from a brutal “state of nature,” based on killing, rape, and robbery. General sentiment, reinforced by the criminal justice system, suggests that for majorities of the US population police should be free to act as they choose. 

Finally, politicians, pundits, security analysts, and many scholars point out that human nature is flawed and as a result there will always be wars. During the brief periods when the United States is not actively engaged in war, policy makers ruminate on how the United States must be prepared for the “next” war. Visions of a peaceful world are beyond the scope of the economic and political system because there are aggressive, greedy, and crazed nations and terrorists in the larger world.

In sum, markets, the police, and the war system constitute key concepts embedded in the cultural apparatus and are central to the interests of the ruling class. The formulation of these key concepts is left purposefully vague here as is the description of the cultural apparatus because every aware participant in the political process can fill in detailed examples. Whether one “consumes” film, videos, computer games, music, television, or print media, examples of the messages about the legitimacy of markets, police, and the war system are readily available. The same self-reflection can be made about the level of centralized control of the cultural institutions that shape peoples’ consciousness.

Therefore, while global corporations, banks, police forces, and militaries constitute material sources of power and control, they are maintained also by core ideas about markets, police, and the war system. In short, ideas matter. Transforming society therefore is about changing ideas and who distributes them as well as the economic and military institutions themselves.  

FOUR LEVELS OF ELECTORAL REALITY

Harry Targ

(Rummaging through old files I found this essay which was written in early December, 2000, after the national election and before the Supreme Court selected George W. Bush to serve as President of the United States. Hopefully the discussion of the four “levels of reality” described below, although written in the winter of 2000, might have some relevance for progressives as we move ahead to the November, 2016 election and beyond. HT)
************************************************
(written in December, 2000)

The recently completed election provides rich data for analyzing the political process and thinking about building an independent political movement for socialism and democracy. We can organize our thoughts around an analysis of four "levels of reality." In terms of this discussion on electoral politics, "levels of reality" refer to realms of human experience that have some relationship to political behavior and consciousness. Each level of reality shapes and constrains political action but by no means determines it in a simplistic manner.

Reality 1: The Economic Ruling Class
Any serious discussion of politics in the United States requires an analysis of the concentration of ownership and control of the wealth of the country. More than 40 percent of the wealth is controlled by the top 1 percent of the population and the top ten percent have incomes equaling the bottom 80 percent. The magnitude of control of wealth and income is also reflected in the estimate that some 200 multinational corporations (59 of which are United States corporations) control 25 percent of all that is produced on the face of the globe. Other measures of the consolidation of wealth are as stark. About $2 trillion is transferred daily in various forms of financial speculation (stocks, bonds, derivatives etc.) and some 40 banking and investment houses control virtually all of these speculative activities.

In class and stratification terms, a qualitative difference can be seen in the quality of life, level of economic security, relative economic and political freedom, of the top twenty percent of income earners and the bottom eighty percent. The former includes the economic ruling class and a layer of middle managers, professionals, ideological image makers, and those at the apex of corporate, educational, military, and governmental institutions. The bottom eighty percent constitute marginalized, alienated, vulnerable, and insecure workers.

Given the consolidation of economic power and the unequal distribution of it between the top 1 percent plus the next 19 percent versus the bottom 80 percent, political institutions inevitably represent and reflect the advantaged. The state most often is controlled or substantially influenced by the ruling class and the top strata. Concretely economic elites become political elites. Competition and conflict in the political system is usually competition and conflict within rather than between classes; the two major political parties represent different sectors of the economic ruling class and top strata. They do not disagree about the virtue and legitimacy of the economic order. They rather compete for control of it and for intra-class rewards. Arguments are most often about tactics, not fundamental differences in public policy. The two dominant political parties, therefore, represent the interests of the economic ruling class, even if they conflict with each other.

Reality 2: The Political Process
It is clear that the political process privileges the rich and powerful. To run for political office requires enormous amounts of money. Laws that guaranteed access for minor candidates to electronic media have been reversed. Campaign finance reform is confronted by resistance from leaders of both political parties.

Along with the financial barriers to participation in the political process are institutional barriers. Third party candidates find it very difficult to get on the ballot. Minor party candidates hardly ever have access to the media. In the current election, marginalized presidential candidate Ralph Nader only became newsworthy when he was framed as a threat to the candidacy of Al Gore. Nader's late season visibility in the media did not include communication of the issues and programs he was articulating

Looking at political institutions further suggests that they were designed to reduce difference, minimize access to radically diverse political views, and provide checks and balances against significant shifts in public policy, The evolution toward a two-party system with winner-take-all elections freeze out small parties, diverse ideologies, and differences from the mainstream dialogue and political contestation. Most democracies encourage a multiplicity of parties and have proportional representation voting systems. Working people, women, and minorities and people holding radical ideologies can be confident that their ideas and interests will receive some consideration and in the event that their views become popular, they can seriously contest for elective office. None of this is characteristic of the United States political system. In short, the U.S. system varies markedly from real democracy. American democracy is really about the right to vote for rich, mostly white males for political office.

Reality 3: Class, Race, and Gender
Examination of voter outcomes suggest in 2000 as they suggest in every election year that class, race, and gender differences are starkly manifested in candidate and party preferences of voters. George Bush and Republicans generally are supported disproportionately by the rich and Al Gore and the Democrats are supported disproportionately by those whose incomes are lower. While many working people know that the United States is really "a one-party state with two right-wings" they have historically responded to the populist rhetoric of Democratic candidates with hope and the expectation that if any of their interests will be served, it will be because of Democratic office holders.

Voting data indicates that an even greater polarization of choices occurs among African American voters and other voters of color who overwhelmingly stand with Democratic candidates, Again, while the promise is greater than the result, and African Americans know this, these voters expect some differences as to public policy, selection of judges, and numbers of nominees of qualified minorities to serve in important governmental positions (It is shocking to realize that no Democratic presidential candidate has gotten majority support from white men since 1964) .

Further, women are considerably more likely to support Democrats than Republicans, particularly since large percentages of male voters have deserted the Democratic Party. Women are more likely to support Democrats than Republicans for a variety for reasons including that Democratic administrations have been more likely to appoint women to high governmental positions, to support pro-choice policies and nominees and to give some extra attention to issues of women's rights. Also women are more likely to feel compassion on issues of social justice and war and peace and regard the Democratic candidates as preferable on these issues.

Finally, it may be hypothesized that working class, African Americans, and women are overrepresented among the nearly 100 million registered voters who did not vote on November 7. These probably are motivated by skepticism about the Democrats as well as hostility to Republicans

Reality 4: Political Culture
Political culture refers to the complex of values, beliefs, and perceptions of reality of a given population. Peoples have characteristic ways of understanding the world, including holding ideas about human nature, the role of government, the importance of religion and family and other institutions, and these ideas shape peoples' views on public policies.

Along with divisions based upon class, race, and gender there exist fundamental divisions based upon political culture. The great divisions, the culture wars, between U.S. citizens do not correlate perfectly with class, race, and gender. Often, the "culture wars" divide workers, people of color, and women.

Some fault lines between opposite coalitions involve attitudes about government, the role of religiosity in political life, and a range of differences on controversial issues Perhaps the most important attitude that transcends the divisions by class, race, and gender has to do with citizen conceptions of government. One faction believes that government is an impediment to human wellbeing and it ought to be constrained as much as possible. The other faction, probably less than a majority, conceives of government as having the potential to meet the needs of its citizens. (Those that distrust government generally are more likely to support programs that transfer power from the federal government to state and local institutions). Since the 1970s, the distrust of government that emerged from the Vietnam War and Watergate was reinforced by the Reagan counter-revolution at home and the drive toward neo-liberalism abroad. The crisis of legitimacy of national political institutions has been used by reactionary sectors of the economic ruling class to dramatically reduce the public responsibilities of government to the people at large.

Along with fundamentally different attitudes toward the role of government in society are clusters of attitudes about the relationship between religion and political institutions. The religious right demands that U.S. political institutions represent the perspectives of their religion. Drawing upon religion one coalition infuses political discourse with images of the sanctity of the nuclear family and mobilizes voters around a series of single issues that resonate with many people, including workers, African Americans, and women. The issues that generate so much passion include abortion, prayers in schools, and school vouchers. The other coalition, again crossing class, race, and gender lines, insists upon the separation of church and state, opposes the allocation of public funds to private schools, disagrees with prayers in the schools, and supports a woman's right to choose.

Finally, there are selected single issues cutting across fundamental barriers of class, race, and gender that affect consciousness and behavior. The preeminent single issue in the Midwest is the right to own a gun. Many working people regard any effort to regulate gun sales and use as of greater importance to their freedom than whether their legislators vote to make their states "right-to-work" states. Union leaders often urge their members to ^I' vote their paycheck not their gun" as they struggle to maintain pro-union majorities in state houses.

In sum, we can see an enduring " cultural war" in the U.S. political arena between those who distrust government, bring religious demands to the political process, and oppose abortion and gun control versus those who see government as a tool for improving the human condition, regard religion as solely a private matter, and support choice for women and some form of gun control. While the divisions of class race, and gender are most critical to understanding the real interests of the people, the great cultural divide does shape how people think and act politically in this society. As progressives think about the future politically, the great cultural divisions must be considered.

What Do Progressives Do?
At this writing the president of the United States has not yet been selected. What does seem clear however is that the office of the presidency and the electoral process in year 2000 have been seriously tarnished. It will be very difficult for teams of U.S. democracy "experts" to travel to other countries touting the virtues of American democracy. Also both candidates have made it clear that they stand for little but their own election. Articulation of one or another constitutional principle by either side can only be seen as a crude attempt to justify the quest for power.

While the Nader campaign did less well than his supporters hoped, he has promised that the Green Party will use the energy derived from his candidacy to build a third party movement around the country such that candidates can be run in local, state, and national races in 2002 While for all the reasons listed above such a task is difficult, the time is right for such a mobilization now, This requires constructing Green Parties in all the states of the union and in the thousands of communities where no such party currently exists. Now is the time also to infuse these Green Party formations with a systematic analysis of the U.S. political and economic system drawing upon the various "levels of reality."

Finally, even though the United States is a capitalist society built upon a history of class exploitation, racism, and patriarchy, political culture matters as well. The Greens and the progressive movements in general must address the question of how to transcend the cultural wars barriers (including classism, racism, and sexism among workers, minorities, and women). It must find ways to explain how single issues such as abortion and gun control have been so divisive and that the divisiveness must be overcome. The progressive community has to challenge the anti-government mystification that so pervades political discourse in this country. People should understand that government always has played a decisive role in the economic and social life of the nation and, during some periods in U.S. history played a positive role in defense of workers, African Americans, and women.

These are difficult tasks but it may be the case that in the electoral chaos of the moment, progressive forces have a better chance to build an electoral movement now than at any time in the recent past.

 

PLANNING A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 'NEW WORLD ORDER'

Harry Targ

From a Washington Post editorial, May 21, 2016:

HARDLY A day goes by without evidence that the liberal international order of the past seven decades is being eroded. China and Russia are attempting to fashion a world in their own illiberal image…This poses an enormous trial for the next U.S. president. We say trial because no matter who takes the Oval Office, it will demand courage and difficult decisions to save the liberal international order. As a new report from the Center for a New American Security points out, this order is worth saving, and it is worth reminding ourselves why: It generated unprecedented global prosperity, lifting billions of people out of poverty; democratic government, once rare, spread to more than 100 nations; and for seven decades there has been no cataclysmic war among the great powers. No wonder U.S. engagement with the world enjoyed a bipartisan consensus.

The Washington Post editorial quoted above clearly articulates the dominant view envisioned by US foreign policy elites for the years ahead. It in effect constitutes a synthesis of the "neocon" and the "liberal interventionist" wings of the ruling class. In my judgment, with all our attention on primaries, who goes to which bathrooms, and other mystifications, a New Cold War is being planned. Only this time it will have even greater consequences for global violence and devastation of the environment than the first one.

The Post vision of a New World Order built upon a reconstituted United States military and economic hegemony has been a central feature of policymaking at least since the end of World War II even though time after time it has suffered setbacks: from defeat in Vietnam, to radical decolonization across the Global South, and to the rise of competing poles of power in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and even Europe. And despite recent setbacks, grassroots mass mobilizations against neoliberal globalization and austerity policies have risen everywhere, even in the United States. The Washington Post speaks to efforts to reassemble the same constellation of political forces, military resources, and concentrated wealth, that, if anything, is greater than at any time since the establishment of the US “permanent war economy” after the last World War.

Recent US diplomacy illustrates the application of the vision. President Obama remains committed to trade agreements that will open the doors in every country to penetration by the 200 corporations and banks that dominate the global economy. He continues to expand military expenditures and to authorize the development of new generations of nuclear weapons (at the same time as he visits the site of the dropping of the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima). He engages aggressively in words, deeds, and provocative military moves against Russia and China.

Also, he recently visited Cuba, proclaiming the willingness of the United States to help that country shift its economic model to “free market” capitalism and “democracy.” He then traveled to Argentina to give legitimacy to President Macri, recently elected advocate of that country’s return to the neoliberal agenda. Meanwhile the United States encourages those who promote instability in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Honduras and offers continuing support to the long-term violent politics of Colombia.

During the President’s visit to Vietnam, he declared an end to the longstanding US arms embargo against that country and warmly supports that country’s incorporation into the Trans Pacific Partnership. He hopes to construct a military coalition against China, even while criticizing Vietnam’s record on human rights. After Vietnam Obama is scheduled to travel to Hiroshima at a time when new militarist currents have become more popular in Japan and while US troops continue to engage in violent behavior against citizens of Okinawa, where the US has a military base. In addition, US naval vessels patrol the South China Sea.

These trips have been paralleled by the President’s historic trip to the Persian Gulf earlier this year, shoring up the ties with Saudi Arabia which have been a centerpiece of Middle East/Persian Gulf policy since President Roosevelt negotiated a permanent partnership with that country in the spring of 1945. President Obama has resumed a slow but steady escalation of “boots on the ground” in Iraq, continued support for rebels fighting ISIS and at the same time the government of Syria. And to carry out the mission of reconstituting US hegemony drone strikes and bombing missions target enemies in multiple countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

The increasing contradictions of finance and industrial capital grow on a worldwide basis and masses of people in many countries are standing up against the imposition of austerity policies. Also it is becoming clearer to all classes that the natural environment is in peril. But the Washington Post calls for a return to the US global policy that emerged after World War II and which benefited banks, multinational corporations, and the military-industrial complex as millions of people died in war. Only this time, the US imperial model is less likely to succeed, irrespective of the results of the November, 2016 election.

www.heartlandradical.blogspot.com

BASIC PRINCIPLES AND POLITICS: AN OLD-FASHIONED DISCOURSE

Harry Targ

Political activists bring frames of reference to political conversations. These frames are shaped by competing visions of the nature of politics and what proper individual and state behavior should be.

Neoliberals celebrate the long-term performance of the capitalist economic system and urge that state regulations of economic activity be very limited. Neoliberal ideology is supplemented by one of two outlooks on how the United States should behave in the world. Neoconservatives argue that as the world’s dominant power, mostly military, it should use that power to remake other countries in its own image. With power come opportunities and obligations they say. Humanitarian interventionists suggest that the United States role in the world, economically and militarily, should be measured and limited. As “the indispensable nation,” United States power should be used selectively when there are clear humanitarian reasons for doing so. Decisions about when to intervene, of course, are to be determined by the United States itself.

New Deal Liberals, in the tradition of British economist John Maynard Keynes and descendants of sectors of the Democratic Party, see government as a potential positive force to modulate and limit the negative consequences of unbridled capitalism. The historic model is the evolving policy agenda of the Roosevelt Administration which included increased regulation of finance capital, workplace conditions, and worker rights. The transfer of funds to stimulate economic activity was vital.

Economic nationalists are not opposed to a government role in the economy but view it as a tool for protecting domestic manufacturing and finance from the international economy. The promotion of domestic capital and protection from global penetration are hallmarks of this outlook. Economic nationalists are more comfortable with isolationism in foreign affairs and visions of racial supremacy at home (including “American exceptionalism”), although racism has been embedded in all of United States history.

Capitalist critics take the view that the problems of the concentration of capital, income and wealth inequality, racism, patriarchy, and environmental devastation are inevitable byproducts of the workings of the capitalist system. According to this view, in addition to the domestic problems that the vast majority of people face, capitalism is intimately connected to war and imperialism. 

Of course, in the world of real politics discourse involves synthetic and sometimes contradictory elements of these four perspectives. Ordinarily politicians articulate perspectives that fit more than one of these frames or “theories” of the policy process. Oftentimes they proclaim positions that are designed to appeal to particular audiences. 

But there is another way to think about the political process. This way, the bottom line for most progressive activists, emphasizes core values or basic principles. In fact, for most of these activists it is basic principles that inspire people to involve themselves in politics in the first place. These include opposition to:

Killing. Most activists find mass slaughter, over 100 million died in the two World Wars of the twentieth century, despicable. They are aware that millions of Asians were killed by two atomic bombs, wars in Korea and Vietnam and covert operations in Indonesia and the Philippines. Killing today--drones and bombings, coups and terrorist acts against other countries and peoples are paralleled by police shootings and gun violence at home. Culturally violence is celebrated in film, television, and the internet. 

The shift of wealth from its producers to the tiny ruling class. Much of human history since the rise of capitalism as a world system has involved the expropriation of wealth from the many to the few. Capital accumulation has led to monstrous consolidations of wealth and power to a mere several hundred corporations and banks while fifteen to twenty percent of humankind lives in abject poverty and another thirty percent barely earns enough to survive from day to day.

Starvation and inadequate housing, health care, education, and security in old age. On a worldwide basis one or more of these basic needs are not met by up to a third of the human race. And the lack of security against precariousness is characteristic of a large percentage of the United States population impacting particularly on women, people of color, and youth.

Destruction of the environment.  Every day people around the world experience toxicity in air and water, rising water levels, extreme weather patterns, and the transformation of natural landscapes into bricks and mortar, asphalt, holes in the ground, and leveled mountains. 

Lying. Governments lie. Corporate spokespersons lie. Politicians lie. Religious leaders lie. Educators lie. Journalists lie. The perpetuation of economic and political institutions has become the determining motivation for organizational behavior; the pursuit of profit basic. In such an environment populations get angry, cynical, or feel powerless. 

Dehumanization and objectification of human beings. To defuse growing opposition to the spread of human misery and systems of exploitation based on class, race, and gender elites have divided people into categories; pitting one against another. To do so, the complexity of human potentialities has been reduced to stick figures, stereotypes of kinds of people. Given the power of economic, social, and political institutions, the stereotypes of others and ourselves become broadly repeated in the media, cultural institutions, and educational systems. 

These objections to ongoing injustice become, for many, the basis for the development of a progressive political consciousness. People who oppose killing; shifting wealth and income from the many to the few; starvation, and inadequate health care, housing, education, and security in old age; destruction of the environment; lying; and dehumanization and objectification of human beings begin to rise up angry. 

But in addition to anger, progressives can look to the frames of reference, the narratives, the ideologies that pervade political discourse. They can ask which of these adequately address the objections raised. During election seasons, people can ask which, if any, of the candidates, adequately reflect what greater numbers of progressive people are opposing. 

When the basic principles are placed alongside the economic and political institutions that dominate our lives, the ideologies that are used to justify the status quo, and the candidates who are seeking support, what needs to be done, what kinds of organizations must be created to create a better world, and which individuals and groups are most likely to provide leadership and support for building a just society become clear.