THE CONTEXT FOR TRULY UNDERSTANDING THE USA IN 2003 PART II

OR How To Read Between the Lines of the Corporate News, Public Education, and Politics

OR The Story So Far…

“This recommendation (the call for a constitutional convention) was cautiously worded, for Hamilton did not want to raise any unnecessary alarm. He doubtless believed that a complete revolution in the old system was desirable, but he knew that, in the existing state of popular temper, it was not expedient to announce his complete program.”

“Mr. Madison warned the convention that in framing a system which they wished to last for ages they must not lose sight of the changes which the ages would produce in the forms and distribution of property. In advocating a long term in order to give independence and firmness to the Senate, he described these impending changes: "An increase in the population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life and secretly sigh for a more equitable distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former.”

From Charles Beard’s "Framing the Constitution."

A Quick Intro

After ruminating on my earlier plug for Howard Zinn’s “People’s History,” I thought that it might be helpful to try to write a really condensed overview of my understanding of US political history—this is the context in which almost all of my writings should be understood. By and large, I must both credit and suggest not only Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and James Loewen, who deal specifically with history, but also others that I’ve read who deal with deconstructive analysis of other topics such as Susan Faludi, Eric Schlosser, Greg Palast, and others.

Before I go any further, I must point out an assumption that I’m making here: class exists in the United States. Whether you buy this assumption or not (and you’re a fool if you don’t), one thing is undeniable. Most Americans die in approximately the same income bracket and social circumstances into which they were born. A relative few move up, even fewer move down; it is clear, however, that the percentage of Americans who actually somehow change their economic circumstances is so small as to make the observation irrelevant. There is effectively no upward mobility in the US. The “American Dream” is, quite simply, a myth that aids the powerful and oppresses the powerless.

The Overview

The really interesting thing about this so-called revisionist version of history is that it is not particularly sophisticated or difficult to understand. In fact, it makes much more sense than the officially recognized version—it is a story of people trying to do what they perceive to be in their best interests rather than the preferred mythological tales of the weird, altruistic, justice-oriented, super philosophy-heroes that founded the land of freedom against all odds. It’s not even really all that “revisionist;” most of the facts jibe with what we were all taught in high school (for the most part, anyway). The major differences are deciding which facts are the most important and determining what those facts mean.

Here it is:

In the 1780s, wealthy American merchants, bankers, and landowners managed to co-opt and then manage both the rhetoric and political energy of the young nation’s popular revolutionary fervor. In fact, the entire American revolution and establishment of national government can be seen in terms of one plutocracy that dishonestly presented itself as being “of the people” replacing another plutocracy that honestly presented itself as the elite.

All American governments, from federal down to municipal, ultimately reflected the collective will of the new wealthy establishment. By and large, therefore, the role of government in the United States came to be about protecting the property and business interests of the elite while moderating disagreements and conflict between wealthy factions. These functions were (and still are) cloaked in the language of “the people” but usually had more to do with restricting freedom and democracy to the benefit of the wealthy rather than protecting and enhancing such concepts. The founding fathers really were brilliant, just not in the way that we were taught.

“Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.” Thank you, Pete Townshend, for planting the seeds of understanding…

Charles Beard’s “Framing the Constitution” was, I think, the first time that this was understood to be true. It took nearly 125 years for the power of American national myth to be seriously questioned by a respectable scholar. Of course, by then it was too late to even matter. The rule of wealth was already strongly entrenched in the American character—to question the conventional understanding was to piss off not only the powerful, but also the oppressed who had made a strong identity investment in the national myths of democracy and justice.

Now this is not to say that there is not some truth to these powerful national myths. One must admit that the economic and social situation has greatly improved for most rank-and-file Americans since 1776. In every case of social improvement, however, the ruling elite has only cooperated such that the system would not disintegrate. That is to say, greater economic privileges, more civil rights, and fairer political representation have only been achieved by MASSIVE outpourings of popular dissent. The only time that justice is truly done in the United States is when the plutocracy feels very, very threatened—even then, the elitists are generally able to take credit for the political changes, once again wrapping themselves in the pseudo-ideology of American freedom and democracy. In the American political system of managing and directing popular dissent, defeat becomes success.

In summary, this is not the America that you thought it was. This is not a democracy; we are ruled by the wealthy, despite all appearances. This is how it has always been. This is how it is even now.

I did say that this point of view was pretty simple, didn’t I?

Some Examples

THE CIVIL WAR can be seen in terms of the worst-case scenario for the American plutocracy. The popular uprisings against slavery had come to threaten the existing order among the wealthy elite. That is to say, the elite in the north saw the writing on the wall: abolish slavery or deal with a real revolution that would be very harmful to business stability and rule of wealth. Of course, the elite in the south stood to be completely pushed out of the plutocracy if slavery were abolished, and, therefore, were utterly paranoid about the issue for decades before the Civil War. The Constitutional system was unable to work in the desired way: the resolution of conflict among elites and the management of popular dissent became mutually exclusive of one another--war eventually broke out.

SUFFRAGE is an example of the granting of rights. Simply put, the all-male elites only gave women the vote because the widespread protests of the Suffragettes were seemingly threatening the stability of the nation. Allowing women the vote didn’t really have anything to do with morality from the point of view of the ruling elite; more like “we better save our asses because this is looking a bit scary (and my wife won’t have sex with me).”

LABOR rights had to be violently fought for. Public schools don’t really stress any real understanding of the US labor movement or how very popular it once was. In fact, Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs garnered 900,000 votes for president in 1912 and later got just about the same number of votes while in prison for speaking out against WWI (and, no doubt, for also pissing off the plutocracy). Indeed, the labor movement was perceived by the ruling elite to be a HUGE threat to their system. So they allowed workers just enough rights to diffuse the movement. Otherwise, freedom and justice might break out and then where would the wealthy be?

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT is theoretically almost a combination of the politics preceding the Civil War and the politics of the Labor Movement. That is to say, regional disagreements among wealthy elites converged with massive social upheaval to create the most turbulent times the nation has seen since the 1860s. The result was that the south lost again, but the rule of wealth was preserved and numerous politicians (JFK, to name one) were able to jump on the integration bandwagon and score political points—again, defeat becomes success.

THE VIETNAM WAR is yet another example of massive public dissent forcing the elite to grant concessions to the people. The US lost the war and suffered some loss of international prestige, but the plutocracy persevered.

WATERGATE is, perhaps, one of the most cynical examples of the inner workings of the American plutocracy. Noam Chomsky has pointed out in an interview in the book “Understanding Power” that the Watergate cover up is so utterly insignificant when compared with Nixon’s numerous real crimes (the secret bombings of Cambodia, misuse of the FBI, assassinations of both Americans and foreigners, etc), that the stated reasons for his exit from office cannot possibly be true. Rather, Chomsky speculates that Nixon’s abandonment of the Breton Woods financial agreement (this was the blueprint for the post WWII international economic order) and his freezing of wages and prices (which, interestingly enough, he believed he had to do because of the economic squeeze created by the Vietnam war) greatly offended and burned many powerful economic interests. In other words, Nixon had some very real enemies, but they did not make it onto his list: from the moment that he screwed the financial interests that allowed him to stay in power, his days were numbered.

TODAY the wealthy elite is in the best shape it has been in since the days of the Robber Barons and the political corruption of the late nineteenth century. After over two decades of conservative (a.k.a. wealthy) dismantling of the US social state, after over two decades of a concerted ideological attack on working and oppressed Americans that has manifested itself in the public schools and the elite controlled news media (in fact, the management and redirection of social unrest, or the “manufacture of consent,” as Chomsky and Edward Herman call it, is now a wildly successful near-science), opposition and popular dissent are in near complete disarray. The plutocracy can do almost anything it wants and it does. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are probably the most successful example in American history of the plutocracy co-opting popular unrest and redirecting it toward their own ends. There are, of course, massive demonstrations against the Iraq war, but it remains to be seen if the elite feel threatened—so far, the plutocracy is resting easy…

A Brief Conclusion

Anyway, I hope you get the idea of where I’m coming from: the political reality in America is at the same time both far more complex and far more simple than is popularly understood. Freedom, justice, and democracy all play important roles in the US, but these concepts generally serve as a means to elitists’ ends, rather than as a national end.

Call me crazy, but I think that democracy and freedom are good ideas by themselves. That is what they taught us all in school, after all.

Isn’t it?

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