INDIANA IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE UNITED STATES:Part 1

Harry Targ

Economic History

The United States burst forward as the superpower after World War II. At that time, 1945, the United States had ¾ of the world’s industrial capacity and 2/3 of its invested capital. The problem for the United States in 1945 was not the dynamism of its economy coming out of the war but whether it could be sustained. What each presidential administration did from the 1940s until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was to support a political and economic system that coupled promotion of super-sized corporations and banks, the globalization of capital, and the provision of a modest safety net for workers and wages that allowed the increase of mass consumption of the goods and services produced by the 200 corporations that accounted for 1/3 of all that was produced on the face of the earth. 

But beginning in the late 1960s, however, the “golden age” of the US economy evaporated. Corporations sought to reverse declining profit rates. Public services were seen as too expensive. Worker rights were challenging profit rates. And as a result of the threat to more and more profits for big corporations and banks, the economy began its shift from investment in manufacturing (with attendant higher paying jobs) to financial speculation. The whole world shifted from prosperity for some to a system of accumulating debt, challenging the rights of workers to form unions, and reducing low cost access to education, health care, and transportation. The US economy, which had led to an income distribution in which there was a broadening middle sector from the 1940s to the 1960s, began its steady transformation to a two-tiered economy based on a tiny percentage of the super-rich and a broadening marginalization of almost everyone else. And during every period from the Golden Age until now inequalities in wealth and income between whites and people of color and men and women continued or grew. 

Politics

In the United States, the long tradition of economic populism and socialist movements, inspired by post-civil war reconstruction, came to fruition in the 1930s when millions of heretofore manufacturing workers successfully organized an industrial labor movement (the Congress of Industrial Organizations or CIO) that demanded a New Deal for them and for the millions more who were unemployed, living on the streets, and traveling across the country to desperately find work in the agricultural fields of California. The New Deal, for all its limitations, brought jobs, Social Security, worker rights, support for the arts, and a codification of peoples’ culture. Perhaps most importantly a vision emerged across the land that the nation was (or should be) a community. This vision was based on the fundamental proposition that human development only occurs when people live, work, and respect each other. Unions were about workers but the idea of union was also about human community. And the struggles for workers’ rights in many locales were paralleled by the movement for racial justice. And after the World War the vision of economic and social justice was greatly expanded and inspired by the Southern civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King became the metaphorical embodiment of the fusion of economic and racial justice and the pursuit of peace.

But, in reaction to a half century of peoples’ struggles for justice, a counter-offensive was launched by market fundamentalists to reverse the gains achieved by workers and people of color. The Goldwater candidacy for president in 1964 was not an aberration but rather a launch pad for a movement to reverse the modestly progressive economic and social policies adopted by the Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, and even the Nixon administration. The old Social Darwinian vision of each against all in the social and economic world, the magic of the marketplace, the belief that government is not the solution but rather it is the problem became common currency in political discourse. The hero of this historic force was Ronald Reagan, elected president in 1980. Many liberals in both parties, with ties to banks and corporations, articulated a softer message, paid homage to the problems of the needy, and were more sympathetic to some women’s, African American, and gay/lesbian rights. But they also supported the dramatic reversal of economic policy embedded in the so-called “Reagan Revolution.” 

The radical right supporters of Reagan built their campaigns around so-called social issues. And the centrists of both the Republican and Democratic Party pursued an economic transformation designed to preserve and enhance profits while sometimes opposing the most egregious recommendations of the radical right. While centrists and the radical right differed on many issues they shared a common commitment to reverse the economic gains workers, people of color, and women had achieved in the prior years.

From the late 1970s until today, both political parties pursued “neoliberal” international and domestic policies. Neoliberal policies included; down-sizing government  (except for the military), privatizing public institutions, deregulating economic activity, opposing workers’ rights to form trade unions, revising tax laws to reward the rich and shift the burden of public spending to the economically marginalized, and developing policies that enticed greater investment and financial speculation at the expense of ordinary citizens. These policies have been supported by international financial institutions, banks, and governments all across the globe. In the United States every presidential administration from Reagan through Obama has backed these policies. Both parties, most politicians, leading advocacy groups, corporate and financial cabals such as those organized by the Koch Brothers, and the handful of media conglomerates who control at least half of what we read, watch, and listen to, all have worked to fully institutionalize the neoliberal agenda at home as well as overseas. And importantly, the neoliberal agenda has been most enforced at the level of state government. 

Part 2 will examine the political economy of neoliberalism in one state, Indiana.

HORRIFIC MOMENTS IN UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY

Harry Targ

Political upheaval in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia is reshaping migration trends in Europe. The number of illegal border-crossing detections in the EU started to surge in 2011, as thousands of Tunisians started to arrive at the Italian island of Lampedusa following the onset of the Arab Spring. Sub-Saharan Africans who had previously migrated to Libya followed in 2011–2012, fleeing unrest in the post-Qaddafi era. The most recent surge in detections along the EU's maritime borders has been attributed to the growing numbers of Syrian, Afghan, and Eritrean migrants and refugees. Jeanne Park, “Europe’s Migration Crisis,” CFR Backgrounder,  September 23, 2015, www.cfr.org/migration/eurpes-migration-crisis)

The Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder recognizes the massive crisis of migration brought on by upheavals all across the Global South. It identifies the massive migrations from Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and the Horn of Africa. But, interestingly enough the title suggests that the focus of concern is not as much about the pain and suffering of the people forced to migrate as the problem migration presents to the countries of the European Union.

A dispassionate analysis of the causes of this twenty-first century wave of migration should inevitably lead to what may be referred to as “horrific moments in United States foreign policy.” These horrific moments, since the late 1940s, are central to understanding the pain and suffering of millions of people around the world. Horrific refers to human tragedies of such magnitude that they leave millions killed, injured, displaced, or unable to sustain life because of forces external to their ideas and actions. Moments refers to key policy decisions that reasonable persons can view as instrumental to the development of these human tragedies. United States foreign policy suggests that the United States has made policy decisions that have been inextricably connected to the human tragedies of the last sixty years.

Five such horrific moments in United States foreign policy need to be recognized for their consequences for humankind. First, in 1950 the United States embarked on global military operations in response to conflicts on the Korean peninsula. Korean political life was in disarray after World War II and the United States and the former Soviet Union stepped into the fray to “temporarily’ occupy the North and South. But the growing conflict between Koreans was not started by the two powers but was the result of internal political struggle among the Korean people. The point here is that after North Korean troops invaded South Korea, the United States, officially supported by the then pro-US United Nations, launched a large-scale military response. And, in violation of the UN resolution, the United States took the war to the North. 

The end result of the expanded Korean War was that it set the precedent for United States sending troops anywhere in the world. The war justified dramatic increases in military spending. And it made military spending a permanent fixture of US economic and political life. Most importantly, it destroyed the Korean peninsula, particularly the economic infrastructure in the North; led to millions of Koreans killed, wounded, and displaced; and 37,000 US soldiers killed. The Korean War was the first instance of many in which the United States and the Soviet Union would be fighting the Cold War in the Global South.

Second, the Korean War established the principle that the US would engage in major wars elsewhere as circumstances were seen as necessary. The next war was in Vietnam. The war began in 1950 and the “moment” continued until 1975.  The long agonizing experience involved repeating decisions escalating war: from funding the French colonial overseers of Vietnam; to creating and training a new government in South Vietnam; to sending thousands of specially trained counter-insurgency fighters; to transferring over 500,000 US soldiers to Vietnam; to massive bombing; the dropping of napalm; the killing of 3-4 million Vietnamese people; and unleashing genocidal violence in neighboring Cambodia.

Third, following multiple military and covert operations, the Reagan Administration embarked on a war against Central American peoples leading to about 200,000 deaths, injuries, and thousands set afoot seeking economic and military survival through desperate migrations to the north. Nicaragua was targeted for attack because the President’s neoconservative policy advisors regarded that country as a surrogate of the dreaded Soviet Union. US money and military advisors were allotted to help a dictatorship try to defeat a peasant guerrilla movement in El Salvador. The United States funded Guatemalan militarists who were engaging in a genocidal policy against the indigenous people of that country. Honduras was armed and became the military base for the wars of Central America. 

In the twenty-first century the Bush administration waged war against Afghanistan and Iraq.  The Taliban, who came to power in the 1990s after a long civil war in Afghanistan which began in 1979, created relative stability but were alleged to be partners to the crimes of 9/11. President Bush ordered the Afghanistan government to release Osama Bin Laden to US authorities or face war. When they refused the US attacked that country and thus created permanent instability. The war on Afghanistan is now America’s longest war. And Afghanistan is poorer, more devastated, and less stable than in October, 2001, when the war started.

The lies about why the United States had to make war on Iraq are common knowledge. Even if morality and international law are not brought to the analysis, everything the United States did and is still doing in Iraq has been wrong. After nearly a decade of war, The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) emerged with powerful military force and some popular support and is challenging the Iraqi government, the Kurds, the Turkish government, the Syrian government, and any other outside forces.

If the regional instability brought on by the Afghan and Iraq wars were not enough, the Obama administration, with NATO collaboration, led a massive bombing assault that destroyed the relatively stable Libyan regime setting in motion, internal violence, instability, and emigration.

Several lessons can be drawn from these “horrific moments in United States foreign policy.” The pursuit of United States hegemony has generated violence all across the globe. This violence has destabilized stable political regimes, led to mass slaughter of the peoples of these countries, created opposition forces which now are targeting American citizens and institutions in the affected areas. In addition, the United States and other arms merchants have increased the flow of armaments to Asia, the Persian Gulf the Middle East, and Latin America. The overwhelming casualties of war since the end of World War II have been citizens of the Global South, people of color. In addition, these horrific moments have cost Americans billions of dollars and probably almost one million deaths and injuries sustained by United States soldiers. 

Finally, referring to the migration problem that the Council of Foreign Relations Backgrounder referred to above, much of it is due to the horrific moments in United States foreign policy. The Korean and Vietnam Wars legitimized war strategies and military interventionism to achieve US global goals. These strategies continued in Central America, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya creating a worldwide and desperate population of people fleeing war, ethnic hatreds, and poverty.

THE THREE IDEOLOGIES IN AMERICAN POLITICAL LIFE

Harry R. Targ

The idea of an “ideology” is a complicated one. For some, ideologies are mere rationalizations of interests and preferences. For others, ideologies are bundles of false, maybe dumb ideas. They can come from religion, popular culture, political parties, or simple principles that are used to explain the universe. 

Perhaps the most useful concept of “ideology” is one that refers to a body of interconnected ideas or a system of thought about how the world works. These ideas often explain the meaning of life, how and why society is organized the way it is, and also how it ought to be organized. However, ideas do not come from the ether. They come from class position and concrete interests, background, social status, and education by family, schools, peer groups, and popular culture. 

What is important about ideologies goes beyond which ones are more accurate than others but how ideological clashes might help explain political conflict. As the long and painful presidential election season unfolds, it is useful to analyze the three competing ideologies that dominate current debate. Each has its adherents. Each represents interests. Each explains how the world works in a different way. And each has a different vision of a better future.

The dominant ideology in the United States today, indeed much of the industrial capitalist world, is “neoliberalism.” Neoliberalism has a long history with roots in the founding of classical capitalist economic theory. “Neo” refers to the contemporary manifestation of the classic tradition. Neoliberalism assumes that humankind is comprised of value-maximizing individuals existing in a competitive, sometimes alien social world. Society is a constellation of competing economic actors, in our own day mostly huge corporations and banks. The ideology claims that corporations and banks engage in economic activity in a market place. Through competition some grow and contribute to society and others are unable to compete. It is through market competition of economic actors that individuals sustain themselves and improve their material conditions.

According to neoliberalism, the fundamental institutions and processes in society are markets that promote competition. Political institutions are constructed to protect and enhance market competition. Political institutions must be limited in power, neoliberalism suggests, such that they do not interfere with the workings of the market. Since the 1970s, proponents of neoliberal ideology have advocated downsizing government (except the military), privatizing public institutions, deregulating how markets work, and liberating the citizenry from controls, constraints, and safety nets. Neoliberal policies are usually called austerity policies.

In the end, society is comprised of atomized individuals and corporate economic actors who pursue their own gain and out of this pursuit, the collective good will emerge. Neoliberal ideology is shared by mainstream Democrats and Republicans, professional economists, most of the media, educational institutions, and popular culture.

A new ideology that has emerged from the recent presidential debate might be called the “virtues of wealth” ideology. This perspective suggests that individuals exist in competitive societies and markets reign supreme. And while this is an historical inevitability and as a practical matter a pretty good way to organize society, sometimes the accumulation of wealth fosters greed, avarice, and stupidity. The political system falls prey to the influence of those with large wealth who seek to buy elections, bribe politicians, and in other ways influence the political process by misusing their resources. The ideology about the virtues of wealth suggests that the corruption of accumulated wealth sometimes leads to the rise of incompetence in public policy. Unless there are appropriately wise guardians, accumulated wealth can lead to bad government. During times of extreme misuse of power, new guardians of the public must emerge to correct the errors of government and the economy. 

The best candidates to reconstruct the state come from those who are independently wealthy and who do not have to rely on a donor class to win elections. They are the disinterested wealthy. And in fact they have the freedom by virtue of their wealth to challenge economic and political elites who rule because they secured financial support from others and gained wealth from participating in government. The virtues of wealth ideology allow its believers to challenge the economic ruling class and political elites in such a way as to appeal to the majority who have no wealth or power and who clearly recognize that they are being lied to by the ruling elite. Finally, deeply embedded in this ideology also is a sense of how wealth proves talent and virtue. Conversely those without wealth and privilege by definition lack virtue. In this way, the virtue of wealth ideology is profoundly racist.   During the current two-year presidential race Donald Trump has emerged as the preeminent expression and promoter of the ideology of the virtuous wealthy.

A third ideology, twenty-first century socialism, emphasizes that the interconnection of global problems--from environmental devastation, to class exploitation and growing economic inequality, to racism, sexism, and homophobia, to authoritarianism, and internal and international violence--are intimately connected to the development of the capitalist system. Twenty-first century socialism sees the concentration and centralization of economic power as the driving force in creating a world order dominated by finance capital, a few hundred multinational corporations, and imperial states. 

The ideology of twenty-first century socialism, while recognizing the historic rise to power of global capitalism also recognizes that capitalism generates growing resistance and creates demands for change. The magnitude of resistance varies from epoch to epoch, but it is clear that the totality of what is called history is comprised of the drive to hegemony contradicted by resistance to it. Those who resist engage in education, organization, and agitation to create human unity. 

According to this third ideology, societies are constituted by communities and the presupposition that being human means being part of communities of activity. The belief in community is fundamentally opposed to the neoliberal conceptualization that the basic units of societies, atomized individuals, can only survive by acting independently of others. The vision of twenty-first century socialism is based on the proposition that work should be organized cooperatively and the wealth produced by society should be shared equitably by everyone who helps produce it. Class exploitation, racism, sexism, and homophobia are antithetical to the core of this ideology.

The twenty-first century socialist ideology assumes that building human solidarity, working together to create grassroots forms of production and distribution, and struggling for the political empowerment of the people offer the possibility for further human development. Paradoxically more people in the United States and around the world share the ideology of twenty-first century socialism than the other two but currently appear to be the weakest politically of the three ideologies. How to realize the vision embedded in this ideology is the human project of our time.

EXPERIMENTS IN STEM EDUCATION: TWO HIGH SCHOOL MODELS

Harry Targ

Manufacturing Connect represents a partnership between Chicago Public Schools, local manufacturers, the Chicago Teachers’ Union, and the Austin community. Manufacturing Connect is recognized as promising practice for career pathway education and training linked to in-demand careers in manufacturing and related fields. http://www.mfgren.org/signature-programs/austin-polytech-career-program/

Purdue University President Mitch Daniels on Thursday (June 18) announced the university’s plan to open the new STEM-focused charter school in downtown Indianapolis with the possibility of eventually expanding to cities where Purdue has statewide polytechnic centers. The high school curriculum will mirror the transformed Purdue Polytechnic Institute on the West Lafayette campus and serve as a pipeline to the institute. (Purdue News, “Purdue Polytechnic High School to Provide STEM Pipeline,”  June 18, 2015).

Manufacturing Connect in Chicago

The Austin community on the west side of Chicago has experienced industrial decline for years. Once a center of manufacturing, particularly candy, it has become a deindustrialized area of urban decay. A realtor’s website (Area Vibes) estimated that in 2012 household income in the neighborhood was only $35, 847, median earnings for male residents was $28, 486, female residents $25,152. The unemployment rate was 13 per cent. Income per capita was 42.4 percent less than the Chicago average. As recently as the 1960s, the Austin community, currently about 98,000 residents, was mostly white. Now about 95 per cent of the population is African American and Latino.

Austin High School, the neighborhood’s educational anchor, was once a distinguished Chicago high school. The original high school closed in 2007 and was reconfigured as three smaller high schools in 2010.  A grassroots workers organization, Manufacturing Renaissance (MR), contracted with the Chicago Public Schools to establish an educational program at the new Austin Polytech High School. Called Manufacturing Connect (MC) the program educates local young people for skilled jobs and in college preparatory engineering and scientific fields. MC has created a program of instruction, “a career and technical education program,” that is separate from other programs offered by the new high school complex but remains under the authority of the Chicago Public Schools, its appointed principal, and teachers who are members  of the Chicago Teachers Union, Local 1.

The Manufacturing Renaissance MC program is based upon the proposition that manufacturing employment is still vital to the economies of the country and the metropolitan Chicago area. MC indicates that there is more demand for technically-trained workers, college-educated and/or skilled in trades, than high schools and universities are producing. Therefore Manufacturing Renaissance over the last decade has worked to build a coalition of partner organizations who have an interest in revitalizing public education, manufacturing, and neighborhoods such as Austin in Chicago. They believe that stimulating economic growth, and giving young people hope, requires renewed programs of education. The MC program is the first of many MR is creating in urban areas to make education relevant to twenty-first century manufacturing, communities, and youth.

Purdue Polytech in Indianapolis

Purdue University is creating a new high school program for under-served youth in the city of Indianapolis. The Purdue Polytechnic Indianapolis High School that will be open in August, 2017 represents another example of developing education to meet the needs of young people and the larger economy. Some of the features of the Purdue project parallel the Austin example but other elements are unfortunately missing.

Purdue President Mitch Daniels announced that the new STEM-focused charter school in Indianapolis will educate inner-city students in a curriculum that might lead to admission to Purdue University. “Our two basic objectives are to offer an alternative learning environment designed to better prepare students for today’s workplace and to increase significantly the unacceptably low number of Indianapolis Public School students who are qualified to succeed at Purdue.” (Purdue News, June 18, 2015).

The program is a result of collaboration between a Purdue College,  the Polytechnic Institute; the city of Indianapolis; and USA Funds, a business organized philanthropic foundation. The school start-up funds are being administered by EmployIndy, a “local workforce investment board.” Purdue faculty, primarily from the newly created Polytechnic Institute (formerly the College of Technology) will develop the curriculum. The program will involve “project-based learning focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with a connection between those subjects and real-world challenges.” 

Strengths of the Manufacturing Connect Program

Both programs will bring twenty-first century educational opportunities to urban youth. However, there are several unique strengths of the MC program in terms of educational philosophy and implementation. First the Chicago program has the support, political and monetary, of Chicago manufacturers, the Chicago School Board, and the Chicago Teachers Union. As Dan Swinney (MR Director) wrote: “Austin Polytech is intentionally a public school.”

Second, Austin Polytech was conceived of as an institution that would help rebuild the neighborhood. A thriving school would anchor social networks for young people, stimulate the revitalization of local businesses, and train a work force which could return to the community. 

Third, the MC project relies on the city, the business community, and the teachers union. It regards the teaching staff as a valuable component of the educational process that can give experience and direction to educating neighborhood youth.

Fourth, the training in scientific and engineering skills is calibrated to meet the needs of industry and business in the Austin neighborhood. The MC project is based on the real employment needs of the local economy.

Finally, the MC project is based on the fundamental proposition that the United States economy  will grow or stagnate based on its adaptation to twenty-first century manufacturing. MR believes that to see the U.S. economy as a “post-industrial” economy is to misread the existing context of production and the vital necessities of any modern society. Many jobs may be occasioned by twenty-first century needs, such as developing the skills and mobilizing the resources for a green jobs agenda, but they will still require manufacturing and craft skills. Students trained at Austin Polytech will be trained to fulfill the needs of the new economy, particularly in their own community.

Manufacturing Connect is an example of a more broad-based and meaningful educational program than Purdue Polytech because MC is based on a public/ private partnership; it relies on teachers and their organizations; and it concentrates on educating youth with the hope that they will help develop and serve their communities.

Impacts of 9/11s (reposted from September 1, 2011)

Harry Targ

9/11 in Chile

On the bright and sunny morning of September 11, 1973, aircraft bombed targets in Valparaiso, Chile, and moved on to the capital, Santiago. Following a well-orchestrated plan, tanks rolled into the capital city, occupied the central square, and fired on the Presidential palace. Inside that building, President Salvador Allende broadcast a final address to his people and fatally shot himself as soldiers entered his quarters.

Thousands of Allende supporters were rounded up and held in the city’s soccer stadium and many, including renowned folk singer Victor Jara, were tortured and killed. For the next fifteen years, Chilean workers were stripped of their right to form unions, political parties and elections were eliminated, and the junta led by General Augusto Pinochet ruled with an iron fist all but ignored outside the country until Chileans began to mobilize to protest his scheme to become President for life.

9/11 in the United States

Of course, 9/11/01 was different. The United States was attacked by foreign terrorists, approximately 3,000 citizens and residents were killed at the World Trade Center, over a rural area in Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon. People all over the world expressed their sorrow and sympathy for the victims of the 9/11 attacks as the American people experienced shock and dismay.

But then everything began to change. Within days of the terrorist attacks, members of President Bush’s cabinet began to advocate a military assault on Iraq, a longstanding target of the Washington militarists of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Now is the time, they said, to take out Saddam Hussein, seize control of Iraqi oil fields, and reestablish United States control over the largest share of the oil fields of the Persian Gulf region. Cooler heads prevailed for a time, however. We cannot attack Iraq, critics said, because Iraq had nothing to do with the crimes in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

So it was decided that a war would be waged on Afghanistan, because the headquarters of the shadowy organization Al Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, was said to be in that country. On October 6, 2001, that war was initiated and still goes on although Bin Laden has been killed.

Shortly after launching the war on Afghanistan, the neo-cons in the Bush administration began a campaign to convince the American people that we needed to make war on Iraq. Lies were articulated that the Iraqi dictator was really behind the global terrorists who perpetrated 9/11. He had weapons of mass destruction. He was part of a global Islamic fundamentalist cabal. At last, despite evidence to the contrary, the mobilization of millions of Americans against war, growing global resentment against the Bush Doctrine justifying preemptive wars, the United States attacked Iraq in March, 2003. That war too still goes on.

Over the last decade, U.S. military budgets have tripled, thousands of U.S. soldiers have died or sustained irreparable injuries, and an estimated one million Afghan and Iraqi people, mostly civilians, have died. Meanwhile the United States has maintained over 700 military installations around the world, declared the great land and sea area around the globe at the equator the “arc of instability,” and engaged in direct violence or encouraged others to do so, from Colombia to Honduras in the Western Hemisphere, to Ethiopia and Somalia in the Horn of Africa, to Israel, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Libya in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, to Pakistan, and Afghanistan in East Asia. Presidents Bush and Obama have declared that United States military overreach to be in the national interest of the country and to serve the humanitarian interest of the world. Now the U.S. program includes the use of computer operated aircraft, drones, that can target and kill anywhere based on decisions from command headquarters half way around the globe.

Meanwhile at home, the Patriot Act has extended the prerogatives of government to launch a program claiming to be essential to protect the people from domestic terrorists: spying on Americans; incarcerating people from virtually anywhere deemed to be a security threat; and establishing a political climate that intimidates critics of United States foreign policy.

Domestically, the decade since 9/11 has been characterized by sustained assaults on the basic living standards of the bottom 90 percent of the population in terms of wealth and income. Unemployment has risen dramatically. Job growth has ground to a halt. Health care benefits have declined while costs skyrocket. Virtually every public institution in America, except the military, is being threatened by budget cuts: education, libraries, public health facilities, highways and bridges, fire and police protection, environmental quality.

Support for war overseas and at home is stoked by a so-called “war on terrorism” and an anti-government ideology, made popular earlier by the Reagan administration that lionizes Adam Smith’s claims that only the market can satisfy human needs. Following 9/11, the “beast,” government, has been starved even more resulting in increased demand on workers and institutions with reduced resources, offering “proof” that government never works.

Not all have had to sacrifice during this ten-year “war on terror” and its attendant domestic programs. The rich have gotten richer while the income and wealth of 90 percent of the population have experienced economic stagnation or decline. Media monopolization has facilitated the rise of a strata of pundits who simplify and distort the meaning of events since 9/11 by claiming that war is necessary; the terrorist threat is a growing global threat; as a nation and individually we need to arm ourselves; and subliminally it is people of color who constitute the threat to security and well-being.

Where Do We Go From Here

So the United States 9/11 event was not the first. The Chilean 9/11 preceded the U.S. one by 28 years. Its people experienced a brutal military coup. And in the United States mass murder was committed by 19 terrorists. But in both cases the 9/11 event was followed by violence, threats to democracy, and economic shifts from the vast majority of the population to the wealthy and political/military elites. In both cases, draconian economic policies and constraints of civil and political rights were defined as required by threats to the “homeland.”

As the ten-year anniversary of the U.S. 9/11 is remembered, it is critical to reflect upon how the murder of 3,000 citizens and residents was defined as an opening salvo in a perpetual “war on terrorism:” how this war trumps traditional civil liberties afforded by the constitution; how this war must be waged at whatever cost to the lives and economic resources of the country; and, as with the Cold War, military spending must take priority over every other activity for which the government has a role. 9/11/73 caused the Chilean people pain and suffering that they are still working to overcome 28 years later. Unless the American people mobilize to challenge the policies, foreign and domestic, that were justified by the tragedy of 9/11, the United States will continue to move down a similar path the Chilean people traveled after their 9/11.