Poor USA: What a Choice!

EDITORIAL, 12 Dec 2011

#195 | Johan Galtung, 12 Dec 2011 - TRANSCEND Media Service

The Occupy Movement is a sign of US sanity.  Leaderless makes it less vulnerable, immensely consciousness-raising, not insisting on any one single analysis or remedy–for the time being.  People so concerned that they sacrifice some personal comfort–gaining togetherness and a sense of meaning, a gift for a democracy.

And what a sign of US insanity their touch with authority was: no leading politicians eager to preach or learn or both, but tear gas, pepper spray, evictions.  In the 1960’s Vietnam era, Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara ultimately left his office to talk sense into demonstrators.  It worked-the other way around.  That the social worker from Chicago, Obama, did not, is a shame.

USA today: for, of and by, not the people, but the top 1%.  And Congress, the twin parties, is not in-between but in the 1%.  To call the USA a democracy is an insult to the word.  The multi-party-national-election show is now on the road, but those elected will not be “accountable”–in the basic sense–to their voters, but to the corporate benefactors that pay for their campaigns.

Moreover, in good conscience, after the Supreme Court’s ruling that campaign money can be subsumed under freedom of expression.  Watch out, violence is also an act of communication. Why not “subsume” it and all three forms of power, force, bribery, and ideas equalized as freedom of expression?  The USA fights wars with carpets of bombs, gold and ideas, so why not also elections?

Democracy is a contract with the voters: “if elected I will try to enact my program.”  That traitor to democracy, Obama, with a rhetoric of change, attracted the underprivileged–blacks, reds, Hispanics, women, youth, workers, and betrayed them all; but not his benefactor Goldman Sachs, favoring bailing them out way above stimulus.

He approved the extension of the Patriot Act, criminalized dissent, increased wire-tapping, spied on Muslim communities, maintained a “Top Secret America” with 1,271 government and 1,931 private organizations spying on citizens from 10,000 locations. He will prosecute the publishers of WikiLeaks, defends the confinement conditions of Bradley Manning, censored books written by former CIA agents, blocked publication of photos of US soldiers abusing prisoners, shields government from review, pleading state secrets, raids peace activists, uses solitary confinement (Quigley).  He maintains the Bush rule, adding to it: Bush+.  A megalomaniac, he sees himself as above the parties, leans toward the Republicans to get them onboard and enacts Republican politics. +.

He extended the Bush warfare from two to at least six countries, switching from overt Pentagon to covert CIA drones warfare, allocates $185 billion to “modernization” of the nuclear arsenal (Norway’s naiveté gave him a peace prize for his rhetoric to the contrary), holds a record in servility to Israel, engaged in an extra-judicial execution of Osama bin Laden, Al-Awlaki, and indirectly Qaddafi (“electioneering-by-assassination” Alexander Cockburn calls it; The Nation, May 30 2011); and, at the same time he presides over a de-developing country with decreasing livelihood by numbers of newborn babies dying, life expectancy for certain categories, the increasing number of families under the poverty line, many suffering hunger (maybe 16 percent of the population).  What priorities!

Some predicted this from his past as a constitutional law professor: what is right is what the judge decides.  As a politician: politics is what Congress decides.  He is the lowest of US presidents in the use of vetoes, only 2.  Roosevelt, indeed a politician, is No. 1 with 635 vetoes, 1 every 7 days (USA Today, 7-9 October 2011).

Robert Reich, in an excellent article “The Rebirth of Social Darwinism” (Nation of Change, 04 December 2012) asks “What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want?”

Not a smaller government, as “most seek a larger national defense and more muscular homeland security”. Search and surveillance inside the USA.  More prisons, more death sentences.  Reich answers: they are not conservatives, but regressives: “they’d rather take the country backwards – before the 1960s and 1970s, and the Environmental Protection Act, Medicare, and Medicaid; before the New Deal, and its provision for Social Security, unemployment insurance, the forty-hour work week, laws against child labor–recognition of trade unions–the America they seek is what we had in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century”.

And that is where social darwinism enters as ideology, says Reich.  William Graham Sumner was professor of political and social science at Yale, the university of Skull and Bones fame, “and brought Charles Darwin to America and twisted him to fit the times–life was a competitive struggle in which only the fittest would survive – and through this struggle society becomes stronger over time–governments should do little or nothing to help those in need because that would interfere with natural selection.”

Primacy to this vision of nature; no sense of structures with their iron grip of human destiny, nor of cultures of compassion. In addition, Reich compares quotes a century old, and more, with quotes from the candidates.  This also applies to Ron Paul.  He wants to save by stopping endless warfare, but also favors the repeal of Obama’s health care plan.  When asked what advice he would give to a young man who had decided not to buy health insurance, but got into a coma: “That’s what freedom is all about: taking your own risks”.

The US choice is between cholera and pest.  Any exit?

Maybe one.  The Occupy Movement becomes a movement to revive a dying economy, creating thousands of small enterprises, banks for savings, not speculation.  They start a parallel society.

 

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 12 Dec 2011.

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4 Responses to “Poor USA: What a Choice!”

  1. […] *Johan Galtung, The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What?, TRANSCEND University Press, 2009. He is PhD Mathematics and PhD Sociology and holder of several awards, such as Right Livelihood Award (aka Alternative Nobel Peace Prize) 1987. Galtung’s editorial was first published by TRANSCEND Media Service. Go to Original. […]

  2. satoshi says:

    It seems to me that the Occupy Movement is indicating a serious gap between the direct democracy and the indirect democracy. Should the US learn from Switzerland? The similar thing can be said of the ongoing movement in Russia against Putin. Perhaps, it is about time to reconsider the way of democracy.

  3. Ex Pat says:

    MAD RACE

    There is a race on in the USA between the sane and the criminal.

    A race between the rising consciousness, the sanity, humanism, altruism and activism of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the Regressives, who are Fascist.

    The Regressives, exemplified by the “Neo-Con Nazis”; the “Crazies in the Basement” (GW Bush – Bush 1’s term); the Iran-Contra gang. The same sociopaths. The same psychopathic policies. The same criminals, even!

    Who are enabled, supported, encouraged and even directed by elements of the US elite, including billionaires, who set the agenda for both Republican and Democrat governments. Who are themselves apparently sociopaths, if not psychopaths.

    The sane support OWS – at 35% and climbing. The criminal – a tiny fraction of the 1% – apparently incapable of guiding the USA down the route that the Nazis took in 1933, though they have appear to have given it a darned good try!

    THE WAY AHEAD – ‘BROAD, SUNLIT UPLANDS’

    The outcome will decide whether the USA enters ‘Broad sunlit uplands’, or “the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted (Neo-Con Nazi) science.” Or words to that effect. ; ) –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SPxbjV4inw

    Either way, the world will not miss the USUK Empire. We hope!

    Particularly with the extraordinary, amazing, new cultural and economic groupings that Johan Galtung foresees in ‘True Worlds.’

    It’s riveting … and hilarious!

    As a European the schadenfreude is satisfying to an embarrassingly exquisite degree. Maybe the Germans were onto something there. ; )

    – ‘Galtung – “True Worlds” – As told between two planes’ –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJc9D8jEZY8

    PSYCHO

    What is the sane / wise response to encountering a psychopath? ER, steal away, quietly, and hope that he was not even aware of your presence.

    Otherwise, get him before he gets you.

    The Dalai Lama has said that you can’t be a pacifist if you are dead. So you can defend yourself from a murderous attack.

    Neo-Con Nazis – ‘PPs – Psychopathic Personalities’ – Kurt Vonnegut – Truly a prophet in his own country –

    – ‘Custodians of Chaos’, by Kurt Vonnegut – 061706 – Information Clearing House –

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13659.htm

    Psycho(pathic) Personalities – Kurt Vonnegut – ‘Kurt Vonnegut vs !&#*!@’ – 2003 –

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1100.htm

    GORE VIDAL

    JB: Do you think the Bush years were the darkest in American history?
    Gore Vidal: If there were any darker I’d get a tin cup and a big dog.
    JB: So we can only improve then. Does anything give you hope for the future?
    Gore Vidal: No. Well, one thing—I won’t be here. That will be a joy.
    JB:  Do you have any questions for us about the American Humanist Association and what you might like to see us do? 
    Gore Vidal: When are you going to raise an army?

    Gore Vidal interview with The Humanist – those were the best lines – Jan/Feb 2010 –

    http://thehumanist.com/humanist/10_jan_feb/Vidal.html

    It’s unfortunate that the US elite, the 1%, are so _very_ comfortable with the methods of psychopathy – ‘Psycho’ trailer’ –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3-GlvKPcg#t=00m44s

    UP THE USUK EMPIRE !

    Just say “Up yours”, – ER, in deference to Transcend, “No!”, – to USUK Empire fascist insanity!

    – USUK Empire fascism made mainstream by ‘Biggus Dickus,’ (of Wome on the Potomac) — Big Oil tool and US Torture promoter – brought to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Aden, Syria, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Poland, Lithuania and many, many more —

    – “You lucky bastard” – Monty Python – Life of Brian –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TPQ0DEVaEk#t=0m40s