Twenty-five Years after Nineteen Eighty-Four

One of George W. Bush's recurrent fantasies was that if we could simply democratize the whole world, war and terrorism would disappear, rainbows would appear in the sky on cloudless days and the world's rivers would flow with milk and honey.  History does not really support the point of view that democracies are incapable of aggressive war; this simpleton's analysis was part-and-parcel of what I always thought of as Bush's World Book Encyclopedia approach to international relations.  His ideas about the world entered a condition of stasis when he was about 12 years old and never really developed much beyond that.  Thus, America could do what it wanted because it was "good," and apparently bad things that America did were not bad because it was America that did them.  These ideas are familiar to me as relics of my own elementary school years.  In the dichotomous world of America vs. the Soviet Union, it's how we were all taught to think back then.

In point of fact, the 20th Century was probably the high point for liberal democracy worldwide, yet it's possible to argue that the absolutely worst things in human history happened during the same epoch.  The two total wars, the Holocaust, the Stalinist Gulags, the use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution in China. These were all events of mass horror and carnage.  They were also all triumphs of state power over the helplessness of the individual.  One can argue that a great deal of the mischief was caused by totalitarian governments, and I would agree.  The essential problem, however, is that even in those situation where a government is elected democratically, as in the case of the National Socialist Party in Germany in 1933, there is no guarantee that a stable regime dedicated to individual liberty will survive. I'm sure that Iraq will bear this thesis out once they are free from our custodial supervision.

Even here in the good ol' USA, a pretty funky devolution is going on right now. A number of modern thinkers are trying to describe it, and Glenn Greenwald (linked to the right) is one of the best, but it's a murky phenomenon that is difficult to encapsulate in a few words.  In essence, there seems to be an almost complete disconnect between what you might call populist sentiment (majority will) and the actual policies pursued by the federal government.  For years, for example, poll after poll demonstrated that the general American populace was way ahead of the Congressional establishment on the subject of Iraq withdrawal. The people wanted out; yet the Congressional consensus, reinforced by the Beltway media, kept repeating that "no one" wanted a precipitous withdrawal or one that "abandoned" our troops.  So one appropriations bill after another was rubber-stamped by Congress, even after the Democrats took over.

The same nonsense has gone on with the question of investigating/prosecuting the Bush regime for war crimes.  In point of fact, reliable polls demonstrate that about 64% of Americans want the Bush people at least investigated, and a substantial plurality want them prosecuted.  Yet the "official" position, which Obama has adopted, is that "no one" wants to get bogged down in a "partisan" argument and that we must "look forward."

I was reminded of this principle reading Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times today where he mused about the Obama Administrations's obvious reluctance to nationalize banks such as Citigroup and Bank of America, choosing instead to shovel money their way even as it becomes apparent that the bailout sums exceed, by several multiples, the total capitalization of the corporations at their current stock price.  Of course, certain individuals at these banks would take a financial hit if the government assumes control, dismisses management and declares the stock worthless, and it's worth remembering that Wall Street in general donated about $18 million to the Obama election campaign.  And the choice of Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, a fellow club member with all the high rollers on the Street, may also be a telltale sign.  

Still, the Obama campaign was the first presidential campaign in history to eschew entirely public financing, raising about $700 million, and most of that from individuals. It seems like a populist triumph; yet the actual policies of the Obama Administration do not seem to line up with the expressed will of the majority of the American people, as reflected in national polls.  This is a little scary.  What does it even mean to have a choice in candidates if the federal government does whatever the hell it feels like doing despite that "choice?"  

Obama is now going to guide his own surge of troops into Afghanistan. In some vague way, I recall that the war in Afghanistan is supposed to have something to do with the 9/11 attack by a group of Egyptians, Lebanese, UAE, Yemenis and (mostly) Saudis as planned in apartments in Hamburg, Germany starting about a decade ago.  (We probably felt like we couldn't bomb Hamburg again, not after the fire bombing of July 1943.) I wonder if the Afghanistan war, at this point, is not a great deal like the war which Oceania fought in perpetuity against East Asia and Eurasia in 1984.  It transfixes the populace and keeps us in a state of constant anxiety and aggressiveness.  We're at war! It doesn't do to question the government excessively when they are leading us in a fight for our very survival against the Evil-Doers.

So Obama, like Bush before him, has his war, which provides a covering rationale for the continued programs of extraordinary rendition, state secrets, telecom immunity, and, most important of all, no reduction in the massive amounts spent on defense and our 700+ military bases in foreign countries. I am beginning to form the opinion that the stock markets, which continue their elevator ride south to the basement, are reacting because of unconscious perceptions at work in the minds of average Americans. A country which continues its profligate waste of money on imperial nonsense, such as the war in Afghanistan, and which refuses to pay for anything with real money in real time, is not a country which is going to evade financial ruin.  So that while the federal government believes that it is escaping the judgment of the American people by traducing their will, it will not escape the judgment of reality, which has always dealt with similar hubris in the same way.