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Egypt, USA
Whatever happens next in Egypt – and that question remains wide open – it’s nice to see the good guys win one once in a while, ain’t it?
If it seems like that’s a rare occurrence these days, that’s because it is.
And if it seems like what happened in Egypt was the product of a long and hard fought battle against the forces of darkness and repression, that’s because it was. The people of that country had to endure thirty years of (just the current) dictatorship before they could finally emerge from underneath that heaviest of stones.
If you have any doubt about whether this is a victory for the forces of light over darkness, just look at the reaction of American neocons. Disingenuously claiming all these years to be champions of democracy and freedom, they are deafeningly silent today (at best), as democracy and freedom triumph in Egypt. I’m not sure which I like better, seeing Egyptians liberated, or seeing neocons exposed and squashed. But why decide? Today I get to enjoy both.
In a way, what has happened in Egypt makes perfect sense. In China, a near-totalitarian dictatorship has offered a grand bargain to its people over that same period of the last thirty years. The government said “We will give you prosperity, in exchange for which, you will shut up and never challenge our authority”. As obnoxious as repression and totalitarianism and wholesale human rights violations are, you cannot say that this was entirely a bad deal for the Chinese public, except in comparison to what it might have been in a more perfect world.
Which largely explains why dissent in China has been scattered and muted all these years. There are tens of millions of Chinese who are members of a brand-spanking-new middle class. They have good educations, good jobs, automobiles, computers and cell phones. They eat meat and they go to movies and concerts. Most of these people’s parents were – quite literally – dirt-poor peasants, living lives no different than their forebears did for millennia. This turnaround represents an astonishing, and astonishingly rapid, transformation of a society, and of the personal life fortunes of individuals. People can readily see the difference, because there was nothing incremental about it. Their parents were raised in the tenth century, they grew up in the twenty-first. What’s more, the future looks bright for increasing individual prosperity, and for increasing national power, in a country where nationalist pride and agitation is rising.
I don’t think that the Chinese government’s repression of political and human rights can last forever, and I especially don’t think it should. Indeed, there is compelling evidence that it is precisely such a process of economic empowerment in societies across the planet that ultimately leads to subsequent demands for political enfranchisement. This makes a lot of sense in the abstract, and it fits with the notions of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which argues that humans only pursue the niceties of art and culture and even freedom once they’ve satisfied the necessities of survival. So I won’t be surprised if the Chinese rise up at some point and demand their freedoms from an autocratic government. But neither am I surprised that they largely have not done so to date. So far, at least, the government has kept up its end of the bargain, and made the Chinese people rich. One can only complain so much about that. And even if you do, good luck finding loads of others to line up behind you, and to risk their newfound prosperity by doing so.
By the same logic, the rising up of educated young people in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran and elsewhere in the region is not a surprise either. They didn’t get the bargain that the Chinese people got. Instead, they got all of the repression and none of the prosperity. And this is precisely what they are now agitating against. Their lives are shitty, and have heretofore shown no signs of changing for the better. Meanwhile, they are ruled over by repressive oligarchs such as Hosni Mubarak, people whose unmitigated desire for increasing wealth – even beyond what they could possibly spend in a lifetime – is as insatiable as it is disgusting. Mubarak is reported to possibly be the richest man on the planet. And yet he was presiding over a vast population of poor people, half of whom live off of less than two dollars a day. Somehow, I don’t think those two facts are coincidental, nor do I believe that the folks in Tahrir Square think so either.
It’s somewhat surprising that people will tolerate such a bad bargain for so long, but of course there are good reasons for that. Tradition is one. If you’ve never known anything different, you might not understand that you can do better. Ignorance of external alternatives is another. If you don’t know what other people have because of poor education, censorship and massive propaganda, you’ll be less inclined to rise up and demand something better for yourself. Then there’s always good old fashioned diversionary tactics. Your problem is caused by the Jews! Or the gays! Or the infidels! Etc. Finally, when all else fails, dictators can get a heckuva lot of mileage out of basic, unadulterated repression. There’s nothing like a secret police wielding various instruments of terror to pacify an angry public and deliver a compliant society.
So, to sum, we have one model out there in the world, where the public has rationally accepted a lack of political freedom in exchange for economic prosperity. And we have another where we can equally well understand a people who suffered with the lack of both in relative silence for decades, for all the reasons listed above. Likewise, we can also understand why they have finally risen up in disgust to demand serious change, especially as a new generation of wired-in young folks could finally come to see what others had and what they didn’t. All these scenarios make a good deal of sense.
What doesn’t make any sense is what is happening (or, especially, what is not happening) in the United States. This country had it made. In 1945, its economy was equal to the entire rest of the world’s, combined, while the population of the US equals only one-twentieth of the world total. Granted, part of the explanation for that was due to some very unique special circumstances of the time. Nevertheless, the United States was by far and away the richest country on the planet, and even remains so to this day. More importantly, for decades that wealth was distributed in an increasingly egalitarian fashion. From the 1930s through the 1970s, the United States built a massive and robust middle class where hardly any had existed before, and it put a much greater, though certainly imperfect, safety net underneath the poor than had ever previously existed. The differences between rich and poor were narrowing, and government programs were largely fully paid for through a system of adequate taxation, progressively structured.
Moreover, on top of this economic prosperity, the United States maintained an enviable record of democracy and respect for human rights at home (what we do in places like Egypt is another matter altogether). A record way less than perfect, to be sure, but if realistically compared to what could be found in the rest of the world, one that was still enviable.
What’s amazing in our time is to watch as this country trades in its very high level of national prosperity and a reasonably authentic democracy for economic and political systems that every day grow closer to the Mubarak model, even as Egyptians are simultaneously moving in precisely the opposite direction. It is obvious why the people of Egypt would want to trade up for something better. Rather less clear, shall we say, is why the American public has for a generation now consistently chosen to go in the opposite direction.
But that is exactly what has happened. Over the last three decades, as the Chinese middle class expanded and the Egyptian one idled, America’s has been contracting. Is that because the US economy has been stuck in neutral, or worse, in recession? Nope. GDP growth has been pretty darn healthy over those thirty years. It’s just that almost every penny of that growth has gone to the already rich, while the middle, working and poor classes continue to sink. Well, okay, did that maldistribution of wealth occur by accident? No, in fact, it is precisely the result of the public policies we adopted, on issues ranging from taxation to trade to labor relations to regulation to bailouts to spending priorities to corporate welfare. The net result of these has been to produce the greatest transfer of wealth in all of human history – upward, from non-elites to elites.
On the political side, the imperfect democracy of the past has turned into rather a shell of a democracy today. It’s an open question what would happen if the public tried to restore a real democracy to this country, through, say, a constitutional amendment providing for thorough campaign finance reform, with the result of divorcing money from politics and producing legislation crafted in the public interest, not for special interests. It may well be that we’re so far down the line now that such an attempt would be met with violent repression, thus necessitating an Egypt-like reaction from below. Or it may be that such change is still possible. What is absolutely clear, however, is that nobody is talking that talk right now, let alone walking that walk.
One of the most amazing facts about our historical moment is the near complete absence of a progressive narrative anywhere among serious players in our political constellation. Sure, there is the occasional Dennis Kucinich or Bernie Sanders. But, generally, there’s hardly any real difference from one politician to the next on these issues. All we have to choose from is right and righter, dumb and dumber, poor and poorer. Notwithstanding the ludicrous claims of the mouthfoamers on the right that Barack Obama is non-American Muslim socialist, this president is in fact to progressivism what the Monkees were to rock-and-roll. Except that, for all their flaws and artifice, I can actually stand to listen to the Monkees. Increasingly, I can no longer say that about Obama anymore. Despite the fact that when he speaks he says absolutely nothing – or is it precisely because of that fact? – when this human-platitude-production-machine of a president speaks these days, I can barely stand to listen.
Obama is both symptom and cause. It is now fully clear that he is part of the wrecking crew sent to annihilate the standard of living for 300 million people, so that a handful of plutocrats and oligarchs can add third football-field-sized yachts to their existing two. That an individual of his background and promise (not to mention promises) could sell-out so entirely is saddening and maddening, but ultimately more a statement of egregiousness than novelty. It happens a lot. Indeed, Obama didn’t even pioneer that ugly and shameful path. Bill Clinton did.
It isn’t so puzzling that people will sell out when the price is right, even someone emerging from progressive home values, someone who as a minority understands the significance of civil rights issues, someone who by trade has been a community organizer and a scholar of constitutional law. What is more difficult to understand is why the American public decided to spend the last three decades doing precisely the opposite of what the Egyptian public has been doing over the last three weeks. Why voluntarily lower your stand of living? Why voluntarily diminish your democracy? Why oscillate between crude kleptocrats like Reagan and Little Bush, on the one hand, and clever kleptocrats like Clinton and Obama, on the other?
I suspect probably what happened is that as the world emerged from its unnatural condition following World War II, the economic walls tightened a bit around somewhat artificially prosperous middle class Americans. In response, they have been looking for ways ever since to keep from sinking economically, and have accordingly been following snake-oil predators on the right who have been ever happy to sell them a pre-packaged formula of blame-based politics. Again, it’s the gays. It’s the illegal immigrants. It’s the foreign bogeymen. It’s the socialists.
It works. But more amazing is that it works in the long run. Imagine if you were an alcoholic, and your addiction had caused you to lose your job, lose your family, smash your car and wreck your health. Then imagine that you sat down and thought long and hard about finding a solution for your woes, only to decide that what you obviously needed to do was double the volume of booze you’re sucking down each day. Welcome to America, 2011.
We’ve gone from Reagan rightists, to Gingrich rightists to now Palin rightists, with the Democratic Party and the electorate following along, always one small step behind on this march over a cliff. And each time the radical program of the right not only fails to solve our problems but rather further exacerbates them, we reach for another, bigger bottle of that cheap regressive whiskey. Surprise, surprise, then, when the bottom falls out altogether, just as it is doing now.
If the reverse Egyptian paradigm holds true, we should be expecting the last systemic plank to fall into place sometime soon, that being political repression. You can still say pretty much whatever you want in the United States, though the more truthful you are the smaller your audience will be (the readers of this article will, I’m sure, attest to that, and I thank both of them for doing so!). But that freedom is likely to be tolerated merely as long as it is irrelevant to the existing plutocracy’s maintenance of power. Once political speech actually begins to challenge this order – if it ever does – all bets are off as to whether it will continue to be tolerated. At that point, there will be serious temptation on the part of the master class to add political repression to the existing suite of a hollow middle class and a hollow democracy. We shall see.
Meanwhile, if there’s bad news on the horizon it is that Americans have still not yet understood that the Egyptian paradigm applies equally to the United States. Both are, at core, kleptocratic regimes. In particular, I often find myself dismayed at the lack of consciousness among young people with regard to how prior generations (especially mine) have royally screwed them, partying away our on tax holidays, free wars and unmatched deficit spending, and leaving them instead crumbling infrastructure, a broken national reputation, and a massive pile of our debt in its place. There should be generational (at a minimum) revolution bubbling in this country, but if I mention these notions to my college students, I typically find that the older guy in the room is the only one angry about how they’ve been shafted. Alas, Egyptian kids get it, Americans haven’t gotten there yet.
If there’s good news on the horizon it is that technological development may make it very, very difficult to repress and smash movements for freedom in our time. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the uprisings we’ve seen in Iran and Tunisia and Egypt, led by young folks, have come at the same time as the advent of mass communication through social networking technology. You can still repress people, but it looks like it’s a lot harder to do nowadays, when people don’t need a mainstream media anymore to send and receive information.
That’s a fact that may come in handy some day in the United States.
Part of me hopes not, because it will mean that the shit has finally hit the fan.
But more of me hopes so, because it will mean that the shit has finally hit the fan.
- Posted in
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38 Comments so far
Show AllI have problems with David Michael Green's reasoning. Although he articulates valid comparisons between populations in China, Egypt, and the United States, he falls into several traps. These, in my view, potray gaps in his use of logic.
1. The concept of this "we" factor suggests that most Americans support the policies of the plutocrats in charge. True consent ought to be based on access to accurate information (or "news"). There is no public majority in favor of the banker bailout ball, or the Afghanistan aggressive war done at the president's pleasure, or the rip-off masked as health CARE reform.
2. His mention of the dearth of a progressive voice or vision is offered without any background info as to WHY that is so:
A. Where is any mention of the media bought out by the same corporations that want the U.S. to resemble China in every way possible? How often do any pro-peace or progressive voices get air time to shape a vision or convey an option that deviates from official story-lines?
B. Where is any mention of the vetting process that only brings candidates to the auction block (voting booth) who pass specific moral metrics tests? (These of course must be exceptionally friendly to corporate "interests.")
C. Where is his relating that the U.S. public is the most heavily propagandized one in the world? And that this is seamlessly done through the neat trick of constantly telling the people how FREE they are.
What with free trade, free enterprise, free TV, freedom fries, calorie-free... is any word more undermined in the English language?
Green has a ready wit for identifying symptoms, but a narrow vision when it comes to the causative factors animating these awful outcomes.
Siouxrose,
Well said, Glenn Greenwald has the picture that David Michael Green doesn't want to see. We have a rigged system for the rich and connected in the USA. The rest are screwed. Green says the repression hammer will fall on us soon. I think it already has.
Sound like Soiuxrose's problem is with just one part of Green's reasoning - his non-treatment of the cause of American apathy - or his assumption that the general middle class has knowledge of the kleptocracy but is ignoring it to preserve meager share. Souixrose rightly points out that loss of control of media is front and center. I would add that the difference between Egypt and US is that they have abandoned their propaganda machine, while by and large we continue to suck at its tit.
"the same corporations that want the U.S. to resemble China in every way possible"
Hi Siouxrose. I think that we in the US will be very lucky if the US resembles China 10 years from now, especially with the Republicans wanting to get rid of the EPA, which is responsible for the comparatively better environmental conditions in the US. Green is on the money about the deal the Chinese leadership has reached with the Chinese people and he alluded to why -- the Chinese leadership is afraid of the people. But in the US, the leadership is obviously not afraid of the people, as the plutocrats are quite confident that the fake democracy in place, the various opiates that are available (electronic and pharmaceutical, legal and illegal), the distractions and divisions that they have created, and, above all, the propaganda power of the corporate media have the little people well under control. Unless and until the little people of the US demonstrate to the plutocrats that they are mistaken about this, we can expect more of this downward trend.
Siouxrose, nice lead-off batting from you regarding the key missing points in this otherwise interesting and substantial column by David Green.
You rightly point out some key "gaps" in Green's analysis --- caused primarily by what he doesn't get around to saying in this fairly long article.
While he accurately notes, "What doesn’t make any sense is what is happening (or, especially, what is not happening) in the United States", you and I are struck especially by what is not happening in Green's analysis.
The biggest 'gap' that caught my attention is what I would call the 'gap' between Americans' being fed the perception of 'democracy' and the reality of 'Empire' in the US.
This world's largest 'gap' between the fantasy of 'democracy' and the hidden reality of 'Empire' is supportable only in the US because only here has the psycho-nuclear science of 'weapons-grade propaganda' been successfully 'enriched' with advanced high-speed centrifuges which spin American citizens' minds into believing an entire alternate universe of perfectly synchronized 'Vichy' government and 'Vichy' media.
Sure some other countries muddle and confuse citizens minds into sometimes thinking that things are better than they seem, and that the government is sometimes acting as an empathetic and semi-democratic voice for the people.
But no other country has perfected the propaganda weapons technology of smashing politics and media together and unleashing an uncritical 'mass reaction' with such nuclear explosive power as to totally blow the minds of all citizens to kingdom come in a totally fictional world of 'Vichy' faux-democracy and also fully hide any trace, hint, or public talk of the real Empire death-star.
Neither the Nazi nor Soviet Empire could ever come close to this level of 'weapons grade propaganda'.
Citizens in all other authoritarian, oligrachic, and totalitarian countries feel their own pain and either make the best deal they can (as Green says of Chinese today) or like Egyptian youth revolt. But in the US, in the very belly of the global Empire, we have political pawns who "feel our pain" for us and the people don't even feel the soft-power of 'inverted totalitarianism' (Wolin).
Green does note that, "One of the most amazing facts about our historical moment is the near complete absence of a progressive narrative anywhere among serious players in our political constellation." There is not even a whisper of 'Empire'.
And so, while 'our' CIA uses the GINI Index of Income Inequality as its primary predictor of civil unrest and revolution, the US is far above the GINI of Egypt, Russia, China, and should be in explosive revolt of the masses. --- no rumbling is even felt or mentioned.
The missing element in the CIA's formula for predicting revolution is the GAP between perceived 'democracy' and the deadly reality (albeit well hidden) of Empire.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Democracy over Empire" party headquarters
Very good Siouxrose. Green has the right idea but he seems unable to articulate a more thorough analysis. You went far to do that for him.
There are good reasons why We the People are confused and unable to see our priorities get the attention they need, let alone see them enacted as law and policy.
When we take a good look at the polls, replicated over and over again, we see an electorate far more progressive than our current Congress and president will ever admit and far more progressive than Congress as a whole. It's as if Congress is living in an alternate universe, where We the People don't exist.
They need to write up a new, more fitting, preamble:
"We the Corporations of the United States, in order to form a more perfect oligarchy, establish injustice, insure domestic control, provide the means for corporate plundering, promote welfare for the rich, and secure the blessings of liberty to those with the most money, do ordain this Constitution for the moneyed elite."
*new*
Posted by ralph 442
2011-02-14 19:55
I agree with much of your (and others) criticism of DMG with his exclusions and underdeveloped causes but damn I don't find him entertaining and that goes a long way with me to communicate social and political grievances to the masses (including me).
In this same vain is a rather accomplished writer named James Howard Kuntsler that may be off the mark in many of his tragic predictions (more then likely just a little premature) but I find his dystopic rhetoric spellbinding.
My criticism of this DMG piece is that the all chinese (one can also include india here) sampans are rising with the new found manufacturers wealth, when in fact, it is mostly the upper echelon of owners, managers and stock holders who are pocketing the golden bacon while the workers are slugging it out for their "two cups tea." Naturally it is even worse for the rural peasant who gets neither a cell phone or a full stomach.
Here in Honolulu we see lots of the new chinese rich buying up homes with the plies of monies gotten in exchange for our shopping at the big box stores of walmart, costco, and homedepot. Yes, that new shinny lithium drill-driver is very reasonably priced but where selling a piece of our back yard with every purchase.
What a great phrase you've created, David----"human platitude production machine". And, sadly, that's all he's ever been.
Human Platitude Production Machine. Sounds like the name of a Guided By Voices song.
Apparently it's Ugly Truths Day.
So let's talk a little about Whose Fault Is It?
It's true that American voters have consented to their fate by electing and re-electing those who are screwing them blue (happy choice of color). Oddly enough, in issue polls, solid majorities of Americans support a whole laundry list of progressive ideas - SiouxRose mentions just a few. If they had been voting their values, things would be very different.
Why don't they? Well, we can talk about how stupid and ill-informed they are, but that doesn't explain their expressed positions on the issues. They do know where their bread is buttered, they just don't vote that way.
One of the main reasons is that they don't have the opportunity. (This is "What's the Matter with Kansas", by Thomas Frank.) Fault for that belongs to the Democratic Party, as Mr. Green implies. They are actively against virtually every item on that laundry list, as their ACTIONS (if not their words) prove. That is presumably because they have simply sold their souls to the highest bidder.
Worse yet, most "progressives" have colluded utterly with that betrayal, tying their hopes to a party that has long since (at least since Clinton, as DMG says) become openly right-wing. Among the guilty are David Michael Green himself, at least until the last few months. And, of course, Common Dreams, which actively campaigned for the Platitude in Chief, to the point of censoring comments. Now that particular chicken has come home to roost, and we have a Democratic president who is actually worse, and certainly more repressive, than Bush II.
Like the Egyptians, our ruling party is called the "Democratic Party." Its governing faction is called the New Democrats. Until we make a complete break with it, and probably until we go into the streets as the Egyptians did (which doesn't mean polite, legal demonstrations), we will continue sliding into the 3rd World, even as those who grew up there catch on and change their world.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
www.gp.org
Chrlesthegreen,
Well stated.
I left the Democratic Party an I am now Indenpendent/Green.
There are no good solutions from the Dems--they are sellouts.
It seemed to me, as i was watching the massive demonstrations, that the Egyptians wanted a chance at quality of life, and a quality job: real education, and the time and access to pilot their own country. Note how different that is from a promise of "prosperity, in exchange for which you will shut up..."
I was listening to one of the news programs yesterday, and one of the talking heads noted that the Egyptians were not shouting enraged slogans, but were singing part of a poem that, roughly translated, was: "When the people want to live, Destiny must say yes."
Some days I think that a real problem in the US is that the politicians and much of the media are caught up in a shoot-em-up, get the gold ideology. That makes it easy to blame the people: but, look, listen...is what the American people want really so different? Quality of Life. Quality work. Time to participate, and the education to support their activities as citizens.
I taught in community colleges a long time, and maybe it's just that those students are middle-working-class, but I always found much to admire in them.
I also posted this in another article - I had meant to post here - sorry
Mona Eltahawy an Egytian reporter, was the real star of the Christiane Amanpour 'this Week" show Sunday. None, including Arianna Huffington, George Will, or Robert Keegan(sp?) really understood what took place and Mona had to keep reminding the others.
Her best line , as near as I can remember, was that the Egyptians should come to DC and show the US citizenry how to take back its own government.
curmudgeon99, per Sunday's "This Week" round-table, here's my comment to NYT, CD, etc:
"By far the most interesting Sunday talking-heads 'show' was "This Week", in which the round table with Will, Kagan, et al. discussed and tried to debate the impact of democracy on Egypt --- and by extension, the world.
But since the NYTimes' courage on Friday 2/11 of allowing Kristof and Herbert to throw the twin IEDs of "Avoiding a New Pharaoh" and "When Democracy Weakens" --- "nothing will be the same".
All of Christiane's round table guests were caught looking like pre-2/11 idiots trying to discuss how democracy comes about and works, while not acknowledging that "everything has changed" since 2/11 in really talking truth about the US faux-democracy (BTW, a term which Hillary stole from me).
Yes, this week not only has the 31 year rule of Empire puppet, Mubarak, ended, but through the surprising courage of the NYT, the last 31 years of this Empire headquarters in the US, if not its smooth-talking faux-Emperor here, has no clothes.
Thus, Will and Kagan, particularly, were embarrassingly reduced to talking as if 'democracy' were the golden recipe that the US has a monopoly on, while Herbert and Kristof have exposed that the only monopoly this disguised corporatist Empire has is a sweet tasting 'Vichy' pie baked with its most essential ingredient; artificial democracy flavoring!
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Democracy over Empire" party headquarters
amacd, I agree 1000% except for Mona the Egyptian. She had it nailed.
I couldn't agree more with, charlesthegreen. We have a long way to go. I've always believed that a half starved dog, will still faun and lick your hand, but a starving dog will rip your hand off.
Could it be said and of course it could be considered a 'platitude' that ""Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty"". If we decide the other field is greener and more narcotized for comfort, why worry about anything else? It is a self abdicated thing to shirk vigilance that does come from an intentional plan to lull people into unconsciously doing just that.
Could it be that US gun laws have something to do with the apathy of US citizens when faced with outrageous government?
The Egyptians achieved their revolution (may it last!) through non-violent protest. They had no guns (I understand that gun ownership in Egypt is minimal).
US citizens have access to all the guns they want, and that seems to give many of them the idea that, if push ever came to shove, they could defend themselves against a tyrannical government that was intent on taking their freedoms and rights away.
They seem to imagine that owning a Glock pistol with an extra-long magazine (as used to shoot Gabrielle Giffords) will protect them against an Abrams tank or Blackhawk helicopter (as owned by the US Government). Sleeping in Tahrir Square, Cairo, propped against the wheel of a US-supplied Patton or Abrams tank, and the cameras of the world focused upon your head, did a much better job of overthrowing a tyrant.
I question the leading premise that "the good guys have won," for the real battle for Egypt is just beginning as getting rid of Mubarak and Sheik al-Torture was the easy part.
As for parallels with the USA, I would argue that most people in the USA venrate those known as the Founders and their primary document--the 1787 constitution--which is in reality the counter-revolutionary coup that overthrew the operative government and the "constitution of 1776" that had started the USA on the road to a series of decentralized governments within the states and nationally that offered the real promise of self-government from the bottom-up, as opposed to a very powerful centralized government projecting "traditional" top-down governace by a wealthy oligarchy--Stability and Order, as we've heard so much recently. Perhaps Poli-Sci Prof Green will comment on my assertion, which is backed by plenty of evidence in the historical record. Charles Beard just didn't go far enough with his "Economic Interpreatation of the Constitution" and call it the triumph of the counter-revolution. The short essay at the link provides good basic information, http://www.la-articles.org.uk/FL-5-4-3.pdf
Oh God! This is intolerable! A reasonably good article on the flaccid, cowardly inertia of Americans who are being robbed and we get... ENDless discussion of the FINER points of the essay. What about the use of the word "we". Hmmmm, let's dissect that trivial point 'til the sun goes down! And here are some (possible) omissions. Jesus, I'd love to see an Egyptian read these posts just to watch his/her expression of disbelief. "Why don't you... I don't know, DO something? We did." Hell Khalid, we're a fu--ing Debating Society. Y'wanna see something that'll convince you we are NOT up to the level of Egypt? Watch this: Hey, CD'ers. Do you live in Los Angeles? So do I. Let's DO something. Contact Rudy at Rudyspeaks@gmail.com. Let's Demo in front of a bank, leaflet the cars going by, show people that there IS a mob forming, because everything else is insubstantial GAS! ... Oh God, here comes the avalanche (not!)
exactly rudyspeaks, but don't be surprised. As usual, Siouxrose and her court jesters miss the big picture and try to steal an article's thunder by pointing out irrelevant cosmetic disagreements they might have with the author.
Mr. Green should be commended just for the following, forget the rest of the article: "Obama is both symptom and cause. It is now fully clear that he is part of the wrecking crew sent to annihilate the standard of living for 300 million people, so that a handful of plutocrats and oligarchs can add third football-field-sized yachts to their existing two."
I was waiting for this comment. I guess the number of comments it took to get to this one illustrates exactly what's wrong with the US.
I kind of agree with you, but first things first. We need to determine what the definition of "is" is, ya know?
If I lived in LA you'd already have an email from me. Great idea. I'll see if I can get something like that done in the Harrisburg area.
Modern revolution's goal of power transfer from government that represents an elite to electronic democracy, direct and decentralized, that represents the people is only being held back by ingrained conditioning of the public to accept the plutocrat's candidates in deceitful elections backed by a traditional set of rules made by and for the oligarchy to preserve its power and privilege
very well said, eze, congrats on your clarity and pointedness.
Best,
Alan
While not disagreeing with Siouxrose and others about a few omissions in Prof.DMG's essay, including every detail would have made the piece even longer than it already is - and it's longer than average already. For the good Prof. to have crossed every t and dotted every i his post would have filled several pages.
I liked the essay, just as it is - most of us are aware of what isn't said anyway.
Re the line:"What doesn’t make any sense is what is happening (or, especially, what is not happening) in the United States." My take on this is that things are simply not bad enough for the vast majority of people yet. Conditions here for most just do not compare with conditions in Egypt.
We travelled - a shortish hop - into North Texas at the weekend to see a concert in a small theater there. Texas isn't hurting a bit, as far as we could see.
Restaurants very busy - at IHOP they were even forming a line to get breakfast - hotels very busy, highways busy, new malls, new stores, town exploding outward. and this was in just one used-to-be small town.
I realise that, in other parts of the country - even in other parts of Texas, and in our state, Oklahoma there is a lot of abject poverty, but not yet for the majority.
There's a way to go before enough people have fire in their bellies sufficient to rebel. That came home to me very clearly at the weekend.
from the article:
~ If there’s good news on the horizon it is that technological development may make it very, very difficult to repress and smash movements for freedom in our time. ~
I see technological development making it easier to repress...
maybe I'm watching a different world than the rest of you...
in the world I inhabit, protests are not successful...
they are allowed...or not allowed...
just because one is allowed to occur, does not mean it is successful...
underlying all non-violent protest is either a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the overarching power structures of human society, and the violent, sadistic tactics used to wrest control of, and wield, such power structures, or a large amount of hypocrisy...
Cornel West was on this week's Real Time with Bill Maher and said "Egypt rebelled 'cause they stopped bending over. You got to stand up straight to see clearly and that's what we got to do in the US." (not an exact quote, but close)
The biggest obstacles to revolt are psychological.
"They have good educations, good jobs, automobiles, computers and cell phones. They eat meat and they go to movies and concerts. "
Are we supposed to get all excited over that? The happiest among us have none of that! We spent the last ten years watching that ideal disintegrate. Try changing your tune, DMG. Try framing your points in terms of what really makes people happy. The Chinese are going down the same road as the USans, after seeing how very idiotic it is! Everyone can see through Follywood. We all saw through it at early ages, 4, 5, 6 years... Worldly plunder turns to worldly mega-plunder! Call a spade a spade.
please see johann hari's feb 10 article in nation...."how to build a progressive tea party"......p.s. has any one given any thought to the recent down time here at cd?
the recent down time, yes...
some left...
I already assumed everything I posted was captured, so don't know what to make of the down time...
posting is voluntary...I have suggested before that organizing, at this point, may be inviting negative attention to a greater degree than effectively mounting resistance...
a net loss...
posting may reach the same place...rather subjective, that...I have no idea how long I will post here...I read what others have to say about things...mostly...
still way too many focused on politics and jobs, and ignoring the killing of the living planet resulting from the stealing and 'owning' of same...too many holding the dollar as both goal and identity, the sole definer of responsibility, and the lone required assuager of guilt and shame...
still too many willing to live removed from the planet, and intentionally blind to the natural and human consequences of their resource use...
still too many ignoring the blatant crime that has created the world around us, and the one-sided mechanisms by which our psychological and physical frameworks are controlled, all ultimately held together by the ever-present, thinly-veiled threat of historically-applied violence to be repeated if and when deemed necessary...
don't tase me, bro...
resistance, in my mind, will come all too spontaneously, and soon, at your current place of residence, allied with your immediate neighbors, not some network of Organizers...
we will, one day, once again eat what is growing around us, and drink the water flowing between...
whether or not that will be under the watching eyes of a Predator drone is the immediate question...
Mr. Green writes,
"I suspect probably what happened is that as the world emerged from its unnatural condition following World War II, the economic walls tightened a bit around somewhat artificially prosperous middle class Americans."
This is probably true, but in my view isn't the primary, or even a large driver of the results we see today. I would argue that the upheaval of the 1960's has more to do with our plight than anything at the end of WWII. In the 1960's we had the civil rights movement where minorities - blacks in particular - were demanding the equality and social justice the deserved. We had the Vietnam war, massive anti-war protests, and the specter of Kent State. The beginnings of the modern feminist movement which saw the founding of NOW. This is the decade that also saw Lyndon Johnson's "War of Poverty".
I would say that ALL the backlash against the left - and those policies which a strong left defines, comes from the FEAR of those at the very top of society. We all read many fine articles pointing out the origins of such groups as the CATO institute or the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The massive, across the board demanding of an equal and just society from such diverse groups as blacks and minorities, women, students, union workers, and anti-war protesters scared the hell out of those in power and they have been working on keeping these movements separate and fighting among themselves ever since.
Its not that the left has given up. No. The left has simply been outspent and overwhelmed. The left may have people power, but one thing it has seriously underestimated is the power of money - that is the ability of the wealthy to control the means of the working class to put food on the table or a roof over their heads.
Mr. Green also wrote,
"In particular, I often find myself dismayed at the lack of consciousness among young people with regard to how prior generations (especially mine) have royally screwed them, partying away our on tax holidays, free wars and unmatched deficit spending, and leaving them instead crumbling infrastructure, a broken national reputation, and a massive pile of our debt in its place. There should be generational (at a minimum) revolution bubbling in this country, but if I mention these notions to my college students, I typically find that the older guy in the room is the only one angry about how they’ve been shafted."
This has been my experience too. From what I see, far too many of our young adults could care less about any politics no matter the issue. I routinely talk to young college age people who still can not make the simple connection between cutting taxes on the wealthy and why they then have university tuition increases. Many of our young (and not so young) have now been so very completely dumbed down now that they just don't have the capacity to make the connections from our nation's current condition to the underlying causes. (All the proof we need are the either the international educational rankings or how many of our entering college freshmen have to be given remediation - just a fancy word to say they need to be taught what they should have been in primary school).
So instead of working to try to change things they loose themselves in all the hype and entertainment glitz that is peddled by our big media corporations. Reality television shows. Heavily promoted and manufactured movie, television, and music stars. Professional sports with all the attendant "star" and "hero" worship it brings. As far as real news and information goes these young people are the first generation to have been entirely raised on "tabloid" journalism - Fox, CNN, MSNBC - these 24/7 news channels that display a constant barrage of images and banter, but discuss nothing of indepth substance or background. Plenty to see and hear on the latest sensationalized disappearance or murder - but in the middle of massive public protests and uprisings, nothing about the history of U.S. and British overthrows of Middle Eastern democratic governments in the the 1950' or why the people are in popular revolt.
All of this is what the Roman poet Juvenal called "Bread and Circuses" Only today instead of the the government handing out bread with the entertainment, we have to stand in line at the local food bank.
Kudos to David Michael Green for seeing and repeating the truth. I will not quibble with so-called omissions. Just this weekend the Wisconsin governor proposed negating public unions right to collective bargaining and threatened to call out the National Guard. The scary part of this is the amount of support the governor's actions have garnered. Instead of calling for the heads of the banking cabal on a platter our people turn on each other. Welcome to the Matrix.
Again, if we approach America from the standpoint that it already is a fascist state then much of Mr. Green's confusion and angst disappear in the face of stark reality.
Seriously, all progressive/left writers and analysts must start coalescing around this correct narrative that American is already a fascist state or we all just keep spinning around and around and around pointing out the intricacies of living in a fascist state without addressing the main problem which is:
We are living in a fascist state.
I mean, it's like we're standing on the deck of the Titanic debating the faulty nature of its ballast tanks while completely ignoring the fact that the ship is sinking in real time and that we're going down with it.
As I and many posters have repeatedly stated, every description of fascism fits the U.S to a tee right now but yet leftist commentators cling to quaint notions of democracy and elections as if by ignoring the problem everything will just fix itself.
The dialogue will not move forward until we start being honest about where we are and where we are is in a fascist state.
1. Reagan's Greed Is God mantra has fully sunk into the American psyche - every man for himself is the rule of American Life.....
2. couple that with the consumerism of Americans who want the newest Ipod or Ipad
3. No one wants to admit that they are falling behind - hence most poor people believe they are "middle class" and refuse to admit the truth and tune into Dancing w/ the Stars" instead.........
4. The 3rd world has more "community" than Americans do - they still feel for and know their neighbors -
5. most people know that if they do complain they will be ostrasized and their life of paycheck to paycheck existence will be in jeopordy......
Martin Niemöller:
In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
damn if that's not America today -
Excellent article and I agree with the points made. However, to answer the question of why hasn't a revolution similar to the Egyptian revolution happened yet in the US is because of that tiny safety net that still exist. People have food due to food stamp programs and bushvilles or obamavilles haven't sprung up across the country because of the shelter system, welfare and the section 8 programs that still exist. If the Republicans and Democrates have their way through these austerity measures and people begin to starve and live on the streets Egypt will look like a disney theme park in comparison.
So, when are the Chinese people supposed to get this prosperity?