| |
The tip off that things were taking a turn for the worst came long
before “homeland” slithered into the lexicon customarily used to refer
to America.
President Bush’s top domestic agenda item after being sworn in as the
nation’s 43rd President in 2001 was a $1.6 trillion tax cut which
benefited the top 1% of the nation’s tax payers. The Senate eventually
passed the cut though it was for only $1.35 trillion over 10 years. By
August 2001, there were $300 and $600 tax rebate checks in the mail for
the chronically over-taxed—which, incidentally, were gradually
re-imposed by State and local governments. Only twice before had such a
government tax give-away happened. By the summer of 2001, with the new
agenda firmly on track, the Bush administration had decided to ditch a
number of international treaties, such as Kyoto, and essentially told
the world that America was running on a bolder, more American centric,
new track into the 22nd century.
"You're thinking of Europe as Germany and
France. I don't, I think that's old Europe."
Then came September 11, 2001.
Out of its ashes rose something called “the American Homeland”,
followed, naturally enough, by the Department of Homeland Security.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin must have flipped over in one of his two graves.
Process history–the capitalist state transforming into the
capitalist-socialist state--had finally gushed up from the sewer of
idiotic dogma to become manifest in America. Freedom, liberty, the rule
of law had allowed 3,000 people on American soil to perish in the
inferno torched by petty, though pretentious, criminals. Kill freedom.
Kill liberty. Adjust the rules of law. America, the homeland. America
The Homeland—finally. After over two hundred years as America the
beautiful, America the brave, America the industrial juggernaut, America
the nation of destiny, America finally became someone’s homeland.
America the beacon of hope and freedom became the States. And then the
war. The War on Terror. The Iraq War. Wars financed on a credit card
because, well, people in the Homeland just don’t like taxes.
As subsequent events suggest, there may have been more to the intended
warm and fuzzy of referring to America as the Homeland. Professor of
economics, Thomas J. DiLorenzo of Loyola College in Maryland, reviews a
book on his web site by another professor, James Bennett of George Mason
University. The book is called
Homeland Security Scams (Transaction Publishers, 2006). To quote
DiLorenzo quoting Bennet: “ Indeed, the very name "Homeland Security"
has an obvious echo of ‘fatherland’, as Professor Bennett ominously
points out. ‘Americans have never used the world ‘homeland’ to describe
their country’ anywhere and at any time. The very word is un-American
and reeks of fascism.” Though bloated with Libertarian dogma which,
under the right circumstances can pass as politics, Bennet goes on to
discuss the cooperate welfare state under “neo-conservatism” wrought by
the desire to defend the Homeland. (Need it be said that “Fatherland”
and “Motherland”, aside from being pedestrian and “old world”, were
sexist?)
Politics as Usual, Democracy as Usual
There is a small percentage of the American electorate who truly believe
that the November 2008 elections are just another bunch of politicians
angling for their little slice of the American pie. Politics as usual,
they say.
The majority of Americans realize that this upcoming election is in fact
another American revolution, or what former Senator Gary Hart of
Colorado, called “a new historical cycle”. Yet, on the surface, the
choice does not seem that stark.
The liberal and young Senator Barack H. Obama against the conservative
and senior Senator John McCain. The fear pitching that propelled the
previous two elections is subdued. Gone is the shrill indignation at the
lack of “morality” in the White House; gone is the chest-thumping
rhetoric of the commander-in-chief just itching to do his job if only
the cowering un-informed would let him. Yes, even the
politicians–members of the American electorate after all–realize that an
American revolution is underway.
As Obama crawled over the top of his democratic primary rivals, John
Edwards and his class-warfare champaign, and Hilary Rodham Clinton and
her return to yesteryear champaign, John McCain sprinted over his rivals
with the simple message that he was a new brand of a generic product. As
of July 2008, Obama and McCain each has an equal footing in the race to
the White House. In the broad perspective of history however, Obama and
McCain are interchangeable. The revolution is occurring despite them.
The “morality” issues pitting Americans against Americans–abortion, gay
rights, marital infidelity–have vaporized under the heat of economic
upheaval, criminals masquerading under the banner of religion and an
American political establishment that is so centered on its own survival
that principles, conservative or liberal, are mere window dressing.
Change by necessity is in the air.
While Obama articulates “revolution”, McCain has the reputation of being
a revolution–of sorts. It is natural to assume that because of his
youth, Obama would be more amendable to change than McCain; because of
McCain’s prior display of contrary politics, he is judged more adept at
bringing about change. Yet, neither has said or did anything that
separates them from the past endeavors of the politically expedient.
Obama has adroitly and unabashedly moved from rhetoric about change to
the usual lip service about “responsible government”; McCain long ago
moved from his maverick stance to kowtow in the line of the conventional
power elite. Though the presidential campaign has slipped back into the
mediocrity of finding the lesser challenge, the lowest common reference,
the most amorphous “feel good” sentiment, the undercurrents of the
revolution are still there. Both Obama and McCain are dancing in a field
of fissures separating old from new. Though both are keeping their
sights on the final destination–the White House–and giving proper homage
to changing the trajectory of the last eight years, only Obama appears
to see the ground shifting. Therein lies portents of what is to come.
Nationalism and Americanism
Unlike revolutions elsewhere ushering in fundamental changes, American
revolutions are more experiment than exposition. This is why at the most
common of common levels, Obama and McCain are essentially
interchangeable. As necessitated by the American political system, each
must be rooted in what can only be called the American character. The
American character harbors a strong nationalistic perspective. But there
is also the overriding perspective to that character that embraces the
supremacy of the individual over the State. Balancing the two outlooks
is required for a presidential aspirant to navigate through the
political system. America’s current economic and political place in the
world is making such navigation more difficult. Policies and programs
must reflect “American patriotism” and “American values”. “American
patriotism” can quickly become chained to fear, as can any nationalistic
“patriotism”. On the other hand, adherence to a dogma of “individual
freedom”–the Libertarians come to mind--can just as easily become a mask
for all the fears that bedevil an individual psyche or that of a nation.
It is this paradigm that neither Obama nor McCain seem to fully
grasp–yet. The American people however, having tip-toed through the
slurry sewage of nationalism for the past six years, are ready to flush
the Homeland business back into the “old world” drainage ditch from
where it was pumped and get back to the experiment that is America–an
idea, not a place, a goal, not an accomplishment.
Within the next six years, one of the two presidential candidates, as
President, will be forced–as in coerced--to set the course of world
history for the next forty to sixty years. The American people already
know this. “New historical cycles” have been set before. The last time
such a major readjustment occurred was in the 1932 election of Franklin
D. Roosevelt in which he was elected over Herbert Hoover by a 57.4% to
39.7% margin of the popular vote. The 2008 election will be closer and
Barack Obama will most likely prevail. But the effects of the election,
with or without Obama as winner, in the long run, will be even more
momentous and have greater consequences than the 1932 election.
Choice and An Echo
If a nuclear device is detonated anyplace in the middle-east, America
will be forced to choose one of three possible courses of action. This
is the catastrophe driven scenario that would force a fundamental change
in the way America positions itself in the world community. Leader,
facilitator or fortress.
The United States truly became a world power in 1947 when Greece turned
to America to rebuild itself and ward-off the encroaching Soviet Union.
Today, looking at the billions of dollars poured into Afghanistan and
Iraq and the inability of American aid to establish something as simple
as reliable electrical power in the country, the “Leadership” position
might be difficult for America to establish in a catastrophe scenario.
But it is one of the possible responses the next President can make to a
global crisis.
A nuclear terrorist act is not the only catastrophe scenario that would
force a change in America’s position in the world. A really world-wide
natural disaster would propel the same impetus. While a natural disaster
would eliminate one of the three possible courses of action in a
man-made catastrophe, America would still have to position itself.
Eliminate the catastrophe driven scenario entirely and only the drip,
drip, drip of world economic change, terrorist-criminal political
activity and autocratic state-citizen-enslavement is left. Here, the
next President can pick his fight. Of the three propelling forces behind
a “new historical cycle”, only one of the two presidential candidates
would purposely engage a battle in the arena of the mundane.
Historically, it is precisely in this arena that epic defeats and
victory have been waged. It is also in this arena that “young upstarts”
have entered and been forced to “change things”, for better or worst. If
there is a pause in the collective soul of America as the November
elections come, it is based on the legitimate fear–a futile fear in and
of itself–that America and the world is about to take a decisive step in
a new direction and that America must take a position.
|
|