The State of the Union
I don’t own a television, but I did “tune” into President Obama’s State of the Union address the other night via streaming video on my computer. I didn’t watch very long – I quickly tired of the unending applause and shots of Pelosi and Biden jumping up and down, as if on cue, to rouse the audience to more standing ovations. Today, I read the entire address at the Minneapolis Star Tribune site in less than 20 minutes and wondered why it took an hour and five minutes to deliver the address. It must have been all that applause.
So what was my opinion of the address? Not that anyone is paying attention to my ideas, but I think the State of the Union is pretty sorry and Obama didn’t do much more than issue rhetorical platitudes. The only bright spot in the speech for me was when he criticized the Supreme Court for its recent ruling that corporations have the right of free speech. I particularly didn’t like the part where he said he was going to freeze discretionary spending starting in 2011, but said absolutely nothing about the out-of-control military spending in this country.
I’m becoming interested in the idea of hubris and nemesis and in that spirit, I’m offering an essay by Eli Zaretsky, who was born in Brooklyn, New York. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1960 and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1978. His books include, Capitalism, the Family and Personal Life and Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis. He has been a professor of history at Eugene Lang College, part of the New School in New York City, since 1999.
A storm has been building in this country since Bush took office in 2001. Today, we are more indebted, have fewer civil liberties, and are more unhappy than ever. Partisan bickering and finger-pointing are rife and no solutions to our troubles appear to be at hand. Mr. Zaretsky has identified some points to watch. As you read his points, keep in mind that Adolf Hitler’s rise to power did not involve any violence at all. He was elected to office and consolidated his power through legal means. I don’t know how nemesis is going to manifest itself in this country, but the scenario that Mr. Zaretsky outlines could be one possiblity. If you would like to learn more about what he is writing about, I can’t suggest a better source than Dave Neiwert’s blog.
Personally, since I am interested in social justice, I am praying for the opposite of the trend identified by Mr. Zaretsky. But I fear that the followers of Palin, Beck, Robertson, and Limbaugh have the upper hand in what passes for political discourse in this country. If the economy does not improve markedly soon (and I see little possibility that it will do so), it is entirely possible that we will soon be living in a country with startling parallels to Germany in the 1930s.
This essay, by Eli Zaretsky, appeared on the Tikkun Daily Blog on January 23, 2010.
Proto-Fascist Elements in America Today
If I were Barack Obama, I would be frightened right now, not so much because of the likelihood that there would be serious Democratic losses in the 2010 election, or even a strong challenge to my re-election in 2012. No, I would be frightened because I would feel that I was in danger of losing control of my party, of my authority in government generally, and of the respect I had among the American people. I would feel — if I had my pulse on the nation — that the country was in an unstable and volatile situation and that things could go pretty haywire pretty fast, and I wouldn’t be sure if I could control them. I would be frightened that I had taken on a job that was beyond my capacities, if I were Barack Obama.
The fact is that there are proto-fascist elements in America today, and I don’t mean the Tea-Party group or any easy, rightwing target per se. I say “proto” fascist because I don’t want to be alarmist, and because I don’t want to use the term “fascist” as a meaningless insult. There are, however, situations when proto-fascist or extra-legal authoritarian elements do seem to surface, and this is one of them. In what follows, I want to cursorily list a few of these elements and then say a word about what has brought about the present situation.
1. The anti-Congress mood: One of the most marked aspects of societies that move in authoritarian directions is contempt for Congress or Parliament. Although a certain amount of this contempt is typical and normal in a democracy, the present situation is extreme. Furthermore, it is not hard to see the reason for it. The blatant service of both parties to special interests, not just in the health care episode, but in TARP is unprecedented. The idea that Congress would spend a year working on health care, come up with the kind of bill that it did, and then not even pass it is amazing. The idea that it would abet the President in handing the country’s checkbook to the leading banks, without getting anything in return, is even more amazing.
2. Contempt for the President: For quite a while now, it has been clear that the President has very little real support in the country. His polling among African-Americans remains high, and a certain type of wonkish liberal supports him, as do such figures as David Brooks and Ross Douthat, who use their “admiration” for his supposed “thoughtfulness” as spin for their rightwing agenda. However, from the moment he took office he lost the support of the rest of his base, the antiwar folks, the “Left,” however defined, young idealists and the like, even though, understandably, they were reluctant to criticize the first black President. The truth is, however, that he is a weak President, unable to connect emotionally to the ordinary workingman or woman, and this makes for further instability.
3. The Supreme Court is in the hands of a fanatic group of five, with a passionate and unstoppable agenda. The decision on corporate campaign financing is only one example. It is not merely the content of the decision, it is even more the legal opportunism, the drive to turn a small sliver of opportunity into a big, epoch-making decision, the refusal to honor or even really consider precedent, etc. all of which threatens the idea of a nation under law. We already saw the Supreme Court behave in an extra-legal way in installing Bush in the 2000 election. Once again, one of the core elements of stability in any modern democracy, namely the courts, leads in the direction of instability.
4. Scapegoating of the Left: One of the strongest bases of a stable democracy is a responsible Left committed to liberal principles and democratic means, but attempting to articulate and bring into politics the interests of the weakest and most deprived members of the society. Contrariwise, one of the elements making for instability is the scapegoating of the Left, their marginalization from the national consensus. In the US, of course, this marginalization dates back to the seventies and eighties, and led to the transformation of the Democratic Party, which many hoped Obama would reverse, but which he deepened. The new factor, however, is the revival of a Left sentiment and a Left consciousness. Watch for liberals blaming the Left for the defeats of Obama, as one of the main signals that the country is on a dangerous path.
5. National Decline: One of the main causes of authoritarian and extra-legal political developments is a country in decline, or trying to reverse some apparently unfair international developments. The United States today is in danger of developing this kind of “decline” mentality. Even when it was far stronger (relatively) than it is today, it operated as a bully, regularly lying to the American people, and using force to get its will without regard for justice, or the “decent opinion of mankind,” as it used to be called. One of the things that made Obama attractive was the idea that he recognized this, and that he would help lead an orderly retreat, which is what the U.S. needs. But that, however, requires that he be strong. He is now far too weak to do that and, besides, we have seen in his Afghanistan decision that even when his Presidency seemed solid he was going to defer to the established powers, like the Pentagon.
6. The Corporate Elites: The US today has the greediest and least public-minded capitalist class of any country in the world. Yes, there might be exceptions that we could argue about such as the oligarchs in Russia in the nineties, or the comprador classes in various stages of Latin American history. Nonetheless, the fact remains, basically, as I stated it. Most Americans, I am sure, would be shocked to learn that in European countries, both Western and Eastern, in China, India and Brazil, and even in Russia, there are relationships and norms that more or less govern the behavior of capitalist corporations. Only in the United States, are greed, grasping, and exploitation celebrated and so-called “class struggle” or “Populism” mocked. Once again, a key element making for stability, a capitalist class that has a sense of responsibility for the national interest is missing, leading to further instability.
In raising these considerations, I am not predicting which way the country will go. I have no idea which way it will go. I do think, however, that some awareness of the dangers that face us is salutary.
Finally, I want to raise a last question: could it have been different? Of course, it could have. The United States has an extraordinary history of progressive reform and change and the 2008 election was potentially a transformative moment, as the election of the first African-American President seemed to suggest it would be. For reasons that remain unfathomable to me, Obama moved in a wholly different direction, and with every step he took he became weaker, and the enemies of a stable democracy became stronger. As to the future, we shall see.
“It is really hard to argue with a rock, after all!”
Jeff, do you mean box of rocks?
Yeah, a huge box of rocks!! (smile)
Well, I think a corporation is, by definition, a creation of the State. I don’t disagree that “a private, voluntary contract could be developed that defines a corporation”, but that is not the same entity as a State backed corporation. Perhaps peas in the same pod, but not identical peas. I don’t have time to read the entry that you linked to right now, but I will try to get to it in the next few days.
Okay, I had to look it up. According to the first definition at the link I added to your quote, it is “granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity”, presumably by a State. If this is the case, I think corporations should not exist, since I don’t believe that monopoly institutions should initiate force to grant some individuals special privileges at the expense of others.
If we take the third definition at that link, “a group of people combined into or acting as one body”, I think it may be possible to have a contract that limits the liability of some parties in a contract. For example, you may start a community organization and place in the membership by-laws something to the effect of, “by associating with this organization, you agree that any liability for damage is limited to the declared assets of the organization, and you will not be entitled to any other assets of members, employees, or investors in the organization.” I might be wrong, though–upon further examination, I might be convinced that this may not be possible–I haven’t studied it enough.
Bottom line: if something can only be sustained by initiating force, I am against it. Anything else people want to do with their lives, is (in my opinion) allowed.
I haven’t read a whole lot about the history of corporations, but if I’m not mistaken, in the early years in this country (say, 1790 – 1820 or so), there were considerable limits on the powers of corporations in favor of the people who lived in the area a corporation existed in. It was only gradually that powerful people altered the charters of the corporations to favor themselves, instead of the original beneficiaries. The Santa Fe railroad case in 1887 was the coup de grace, though corporations had been gaining power for quite a few years before that. Charters can specify anything that is desired but there is a reason that almost all corporations are incorporated in Delaware – lax oversight.
I think the crux of the matter (buried somewhere deep in the comments here) is whether a private, voluntary contract could be developed that defines a corporation, or whether a corporation can only exist when backed by the coercive tools of the state.
Sorry–no offense intended! I think of you and I as converging on a similar political position while coming from different starting points–you from the Left and me from the Right (though I don’t think that either of us was very extreme to begin with). The terms Left/Right, Democrat/Republican, Liberal/Conservative, seems to have more to do with the group of people one associates with, though each group has straw man caricatures of the other so they can try to keep the group identity intact.
I also thought you were already doing all the things I suggested for finding common cause with tea partiers (“unplugging from the grid, ignoring the mass media and finding ways to grow and protect your community from the power elite”). My point is, that you and I (and others who feel like we do) are in a position to channel the tea party energy away from railing against the current coercive state and towards building voluntary communities. Not that we have any particular moral duty to change their minds, but we can find allies among them to help with our voluntaryist projects.
No offense taken, Mark. But I would disagree with you that I’m not coming from an extreme starting point!. I am, indeed, dedicating my remaining years to living in peace – I’m through castigating the Tea Party crowd. It is really hard to argue with a rock, after all!
Jeff,
About the time of our discussion over on DR, I lost all sense of direction for the Left/Right distinction in politics. I had always thought the distinction was artificial–speaking points for politicians to pay lip service to while doing whatever suited them–but these days, I can read an article and have little idea of whether its writer came from a traditional Left or Right wing position.
I am starting to believe that the difference is mostly one of language. For example, what I have always called “capitalism” referred to a position that was inherently against corporate collusion, while you used the term to refer to this collusion. It is a sign that we should avoid any words that a politician has ever used!
I saw a YouTube recently of a talking head saying, “The Tea Party movement has no leaders.” She, of course, thought this was a bad thing and that a leader should be coronated immediately and carried to Washington in a swell of electoral victory. I, on the other hand, thought it was saying something wonderful about people realizing that their discontent was precisely with rulers.
It’s not the followers of Palin, et al you need to worry about as much as Palin herself. She’s a puppet, just like Obama, that is in love with the idea of being sooo… popular. She will give popular speeches in front of the cheering crowds, but will realize that if she wants to stay on the podium with the cameras focused on her, she needs something else. She needs the cooperation of media companies and she needs to assure those who run the political industry in Washington that their jobs are not really in trouble. So once the people who love her speeches carry her to Washington, she will act just like every other President has. Gaining access to power requires the cooperation of those already in power.
The tea party movement grew from a core of people who latched on to Ron Paul in the 2008 campaign with his anti-war, pro-liberty position. These people drove the campaign, not Paul. Paul was simply wise enough to know that it confirmed his message. Where the tea party movement really got legs, though, was in the Bush bailouts just before the election. The problem with the bailouts could have been put in pure Left language: Billions of dollars were transferred from wage earners (through taxes and inflation) to corporate elites.
As an aside, the official Ron Paul movement is having a crisis this week because, in the name of coalition building, the politicos running Campaign for Liberty aired a TV commercial supporting a pro-war candidate. See, for example, http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=31963. The strong anarchist streak in the movement takes this as confirmation that politics, played even by the wonderfully Frodo-like Paul, is a rigged game.
If you (as someone coming from the Left) talk politics with tea party people, then the language will drive you to immediate confrontation. But if you talk about unplugging from the grid, ignoring the mass media and finding ways to grow and protect your community from the power elite, you will find kindred spirits.
Well, as you know, Mark, I’m not really coming from the Left. You said the Left/Right distinction is not valid any longer early in your reply, so I’m not sure why you label me at the end. I agree with everything else in your comment, though! However, I don’t talk politics with tea party people – they are too angry and too unfocused in their rage to be able to have a conversation with.
I do ignore the mass media – I don’t own a TV, for instance. Nor do I read the major paper here. Indeed, it is all about protecting ourselves against the power elite – what do you think about a Constitutional Amendment to strip corporations of their personhood? Perhaps the 5 radicals on the Supreme Court have done us all a big favor by really riling up the masses, suffering as they are from the excesses of Wall Street.
We live in interesting times and I think, unfortunately, that it is going to get worse before it gets better. When this country gets its ass whipped in Afghanistan, maybe the people will finally rise up and demand an end to the endless militarism that infects this country. I know, if pigs could fly ….
All this snow. That freaking Obama.
This is sobering reading, Jeff. I will never understand why Obama has gone in the direction he has—such a grave disappointment. And such a scary time for our country. I think, in particular, our downfall is due to (as Mr. Zaretsky says so articulately) the capitalist class that has almost NO sense of responsibility for the national interest or for the well-being of the less fortunate in our midst.
God help us.
This is too close for comfort! I’ve always said what happened in Germany could happen anywhere…including here…if conditions were right. Sadly, the conditions are getting to be right as your post points out so well.