[Peace-discuss] The Presidential Election Did Not Take Place (comments welcome)

[John W.]

Is this something you're writing for publication, Carl?


On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 10:19 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:

               "The people can vote for whoever they want.
>                        I control the nominations."
>                --Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall, ca. 1870
>
>
> The presidential election campaign was primarily a distraction.  There were
> serious issues presumably at stake, notably the war and the economy, and the
> campaign not only ignored them but purposely obscured them.
>
> The reason's not far to seek.  As the late Australian social scientist Alex
> Carey wrote, "The 20th century was characterized by three developments of
> great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate
> power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting
> corporate power against democracy."  A trillion dollars spent every year on
> marketing in the US -- where political candidates are sold like cars or
> coffee -- has some effect.
>
> The issues were important, and for that very reason could not be submitted
> to the voters for their consideration.  The dirtiest secret of American
> politics -- or at least the most important one -- may not be the
> government's torture policy, filthy as that is, but rather the contradiction
> between the interests of the tiny elite of possessors (perhaps less than 1%
> of the US population) and those of the large majority of the population.
>  But of course it's not *very* secret: as Noam Chomsky points out,
>
>   "This is a business-run society: you market commodities, you market
> candidates. The public are the victims and they know it, and that's why 80%
> think, more or less accurately, that the country is run by a few big
> interests looking after themselves. So people are not deluded, they just
> don't really see any choices..."
>
> --and, as a result, many ignore the distraction thrown up for them by the
> advertising/propaganda industry, the "campaign" (particularly protracted in
> a year when the two major parties are noticeably promoting unpopular
> policies on the war and the economy: there's a lot of distraction to be
> done).  About half of the electorate doesn't vote, in part because they
> think not unreasonably that the outcome of the election will make little
> difference to them and polices won't change much.  Even in the most recent
> presidential election "landslides" -- 1972 and 1984 -- three out of four of
> the eligible voters did *not* vote for the winning candidate (Nixon and
> Reagan, respectively).
>
> Most of the media propaganda that passes for politics in the US is directed
> to what Gore Vidal calls the "chattering classes" -- about a quarter of the
> total US population that makes up what some have called the "tertiary
> bourgeoisie" (cf. "*secondary* school"), i.e., most of those with a
> traditional college education.  Given that the actual ruling class in
> America is that 1% (perhaps a million people), that leaves three quarters of
> the US population generally ignored in the "manufacture of consent" -- and
> they return the favor, as they are meant to.
>
> It has not escaped the attention of our rulers in general that people who
> work long hours and are anxious about their circumstances can spend less
> time finding out how those circumstances are determined, talking to other
> people about it, and doing something about it -- i.e., practicing democracy.
>  The US anti-war movement of the 1960s arose in part from the greater
> prosperity and relative economic equality of that decade in comparison with
> this one. Americans had the leisure to do politics, as the Trilateral
> Commission described in dismay in "The Crisis of Democracy: On the
> Governability of Democracies" (1976). The crisis was that there was too much
> democracy: that had to be stopped, by the counter-policies of neoliberalism.
> American politics in the last thirty years shows that it was.
>
> Of course that 25% of the population who are the especial concern of the
> propaganda system show the effects as well.  It is a surprising fact that,
> throughout the Vietnam War, support for the US government's position was
> directly (not inversely) proportional to years of formal education; that is,
> in spite of the myth that the anti-war movement of those days was confined
> to the colleges, in fact the  college-educated were more likely to support
> administration policy than those without a bachelor's degree.  The
> ideological institutions -- the universities and the media -- were doing
> their job, even though by the end of the 1960s, 70% of Americans came to say
> that the Vietnam War was "fundamentally wrong and immoral," not "a mistake,"
> according to longitudinal studies by the Chicago Council of Foreign
> Relations.
>
> It is quite remarkable that, prescinding from the enthusiasms of the moment
> (Obama v. McCain et al.), polls show that Americans hold political opinions
> of a general social-democratic/New Deal sort -- opinions, it need hardly be
> said, that they do not hear in the media or from Obama, McCain et al.  The
> result is that the two business parties, for all their struggle at
> product-differentiation, like Coke and Pepsi, support largely similar
> policies that are generally to the Right of those favored by a majority of
> the population.  Medical care is just the most obvious example, and is has
> been for decades.
>
> In an important article ("If Obama Loses," August 18, 2008), Paul Street
> writes about "Thomas Frank's widely mentioned but commonly misunderstood
> book on why so many white working class Americans vote for regressive
> Republicans instead of following their supposed natural 'pocketbook'
> interests by backing Democrats. Released just before Bush defeated Kerry
> with no small help from working class whites, Frank's 'What's the Matter
> With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America' (New York: 2004)
> has generally been taken to have argued that the GOP distracts stupid
> 'heartland' (white working-class) voters away from their real economic
> interests with diversionary issues like abortion, guns, and gay rights.
>  Insofar as Democrats bear responsibility for the loss of their former
> working class constituency, Frank is often said to have argued that this was
> due to their excessive liberalism on these and other 'cultural issues'.
>
> "But Frank's argument was more complex or perhaps more simple. At the end
> of his book, in a passage that very few leading commentators seem to have
> read (a shining exception is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman), Frank
> clearly and (in my opinion) correctly blamed the long corporatist shift of
> the Democratic Party to the business-friendly right and away from honest
> discussion of -- and opposition to -- economic and class inequality for much
> of whatever success the GOP achieved in winning over working-class whites."
>
> Street quotes Larry M. Bartels, director of the Center for the Study of
> Democratic Politics at Princeton: "Frank exaggerated white working-class
> voters' susceptibility to cultural diversion: 'In recent presidential
> elections,' [Bartels] notes, 'affluent voters, who tend to be liberal on
> cultural matters, are about twice as likely as middle-class and poor voters
> to make their decisions on the basis of their cultural concerns.' In other
> words, working class white voters don't especially privilege 'cultural
> issues' (God, guns, gays, gender, and abortion) over pocketbook concerns and
> actually do that less than wealthier voters."
>
> Bartels summarizes an effect of the propaganda system. "Small-town people
> of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues.
> Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs
> who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American
> politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites."  It's the tertiary
> bourgeoisie who are (taught to be) distracted by these issues.
>
> Like the presidential election in which they figure, these issues are meant
> to be a distraction -- and they are safe issues from our rulers' point of
> view, because decisions on them do not much affect central governmental
> responsibilities like war and the economy. In our America, policy is
> well-insulated from politics: we have at best a simulacrum of democracy.
> Passionately preferring a candidate who's within the allowable limits of
> debate is a recipe for irrelevance, as it's meant to be.  The show must go
> on; ignore the little man (many men, actually) behind the curtain.
>
>
> THE WAR WAS NOT A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ISSUE
>
> With two-thirds of Americans saying since the beginning of the campaign
> that the war in Iraq was a mistake, one might ask why it was removed as an
> issue.  Why didn't one candidate put himself in opposition to the war and
> promise a real withdrawal from Iraq (which Obama didn't promise)?  That one
> could even have been McCain, once Obama's scenery-chewing over Afghanistan
> and Pakistan ("AfPak," in DC-speak) made it clear to all (except those
> liberals who assumed that he would change in office) that he was not an
> anti-war candidate.  McCain could have protected himself from the charge of
> flip-flopping by off-loading the responsibility to the "commanders on the
> ground' (as they both did anyway) and claim that conditions had changed
> (either for the better or the worse -- it wouldn't matter).
>
> The answer reveals the nature of the presidential candidacy.  Far from
> being driven by the polls, presidential candidates are auditioning for a
> role essentially in the gift of the elite. (The media, owned almost entirely
> by the largest corporations -- there are brave exceptions like *CommonSense*
> -- are the necessary enforcers.) When the contrast between the views of the
> elite and those of the majority becomes clear, the candidates know to take
> up those of the elite.  (In 1992 Clinton was barely elected with a vague
> promise of providing health care as all other industrialized states do.  But
> when it became clear that Americans favored that plan -- "single-payer
> health care" -- when it was explained to them -- the Clinton administration
> replied that it "was not politically possible": i.e., the elite did not
> support it.)
>
> Obama was never for the ending of the war and the withdrawal of the U.S.
> from Iraq.  He was never opposed to the war in principle, just tactically:
> it was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.  But
> "removing the troops now," he said three years ago, "would result in a
> massive bloodbath for both countries," and so couldn't be done.  He
> criticized the hash the Bush administration had made of the war, and
> well-funded Democratic party front groups like MoveOn and Americans Against
> Escalation in Iraq [sic] worked to co-opt the antiwar movement for he
> Democratic party, but Obama could not adopt a principled opposition to the
> war.
>
> The reason was that, for all the effort to use the war against the
> Republicans, the Democrats like the Republicans support the general US
> government policy of which the war in Iraq is a part.  With Israel as its
> "local cop on the beat," as the Nixon administration put it, the US has
> conducted a generation-long war for the control of energy resources in a
> 1500-mile radius around the Persian Gulf -- from the Mediterranean to the
> Indus valley, from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia. That war will
> continue in the coming administration.  And not because the US is dependent
> on Middle East oil: less than 10% of the oil the US imports for domestic
> consumption comes for the Middle East.
>
> Rather, the US goal in every administration for half a century has been to
> secure by means of the control of Middle East oil and gas what Obama foreign
> policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski calls "indirect but politically critical
> leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on
> energy exports from the region." Those economies in Europe and northeast
> Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are the real rivals to US economic
> hegemony, and the control of energy resources gives the US the whip-hand.
>  We will not give it up in the new administration, so the war was not an
> issue.
>
> And it should by now be clear that, whether we call them al-Qaida, Taliban,
> insurgents, terrorists or militants, the people whom we're trying to kill in
> the Middle East are those who want us out of their countries and off of
> their resources.  In order to convince Americans to kill and die and suffer
> in this cause, the Bush administration has repeatedly lied about the
> situation, from trumpeting the non-existent weapons of mass destruction to,
> apparently, forging incriminating letters.  But the new administration will
> continue with the biggest lie, that the US is fighting a "war on terror" --
> as they expand the war to Pakistan, which the Realists believe is the center
> of armed opposition to US control of he Middle East.
>
> There are in fact presidential candidates who -- unlike McCain and Obama --
> have serious things to say about the US government's war policy.  The
> following is from a statement presented to the media on September 10 by Rep.
> Ron Paul, former Republican presidential candidate, joined by Cynthia
> McKinney, Green Party presidential candidate, Chuck Baldwin, Constitution
> Party presidential candidate, and Ralph Nader, independent presidential
> candidate; former Rep. Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party presidential
> candidate, said he also agreed with the statement:
>
>   "The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our
> soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from
> around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East.
> We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for
> attacks on Iran, nor should we reignite the cold war with Russia over
> Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship
> and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the
> threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.
>
>   "We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US
> jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the
> Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the
> notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret
> tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that
> spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must
> reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and
> excessive use of executive orders."
>
>
> THE ECONOMY WAS NOT A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ISSUE
>
> Similarly, the other great issue of the day, represented in the Wall Street
> bailout, saw no real difference between the candidates.  On the economy, as
> on the war, McCain could have employed a rhetorical flanking maneuver and
> taken the popular position in opposition to the bailout, along with the
> House Republicans, painting Obama as a tool of Wall Street (which he clearly
> was: the Obama campaign even received more contributions from Wall Street
> than McCain's did). It would however have taken more guts than McCain had to
> attack Obama on the bailout, as on the war.  More importantly, the elite
> position favored the bailout, despite the fact that constituents' calls to
> congressional representatives were overwhelmingly in opposition.
>
> The joint statement of the third-party candidates did however depart form
> elite demands on economic issues:
>
>   "We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The
> burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already
> threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills
> as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.
>
>   "We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal
> Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and
> other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit
> out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests
> must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no
> corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for
> their crimes and frauds."
>
>
> POLICY IS INSULATED FROM POLITICS
>
> In the last days of the lesser Bush, it seems that US government policy is
> being made almost entirely within the executive branch, in the clash of two
> factions -- the Neocons, who gained control after the 9/11/01 attacks and
> produced the invasion of Iraq, and the "Realists" (for lack of a better
> name), the foreign-policy establishment that continues as administrations
> come and go. There's no real opposition to the policies that issue from
> their rivalry.  Both the legislative and judicial branches are irrelevant.
> Congress has resigned to the administration its authority to make war, to
> make appropriations (in the bailout of Wall Street) -- and even to make
> criminal law (in the PATRIOT Act, FISA, and MCA); the Supreme Court has made
> decisions on torture and false imprisonment, but ineffectually: the torture
> regime and the secret prisons still exist, and the courts have not released
> prisoners from Guantanamo, originally and openly designed designed to be
> outside the scope of the US courts.
>
> Nothing characterizes the last year of the Bush administration more than
> the break with the Neocon dominance and the reassertion of control by the
> Realists.  The result of incapacity? (Was Bush in fact publicly drunk at the
> Olympics, as rumored on the net?)  Or pique? (The split between the White
> House and the Neocons in the office of the Vice-President may already be in
> place at the time of the Libby affair.)
>
> In any case, Cheney's easy use of Bush as an instrument (seen in the
> investigation the Washington Post had done but wouldn't publish before the
> 2006 election) is no more. That means that the US government is largely back
> in the hands of a foreign policy establishment that brought us wars from
> Kennedy to Clinton.  And their drive for "full spectrum dominance" --
> hegemony, not survival -- may finally make them more dangerous than the
> murderous Neocons. What some psychologists call splitting should be avoided
> ("Since the Neocons are bad, the foreign policy establishment must be good")
> -- noticeable as it may be in the presidential campaign...
>
> There seems to have been a debate within the Bush administration on how
> best to construct the enemy that justifies the continuing US military
> presence in the Middle East: the Neocons wanted to make a bete noire out of
> a pacific and indeed helpful (to US regional interests) Iran, while the
> Realists wanted to do the same with terrorists in Pakistan -- and they seem
> to have the upper hand in both the old and new administration.
>
> Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was perhaps the senior member of the
> foreign policy establishment in the Bush administration, and it seemed clear
> that his people would have charge of the ongoing Middle East War, regardless
> of who the new president was.  Obama even suggested that he would like Gates
> to remain at the Pentagon (and Paulson at the Treasury).  In 2004, Gates
> co-chaired, along with Obama advisor Brzezinski, a Council on Foreign
> Relations task force report entitled, "Iran: Time for a New Approach," the
> main point of which was to advocate a policy of "limited or selective
> engagement with the current Iranian government."
>
> Military action against Pakistan -- which Obama called for more urgently
> than McCain -- was already underway, and Obama's intention was to improve
> upon the "baby steps" (as his adviser said) already taken by the Realists in
> the Bush administration in killing Pakistanis (many of them apparently
> Pushtun babies who would take no more steps).  But it was also clear that
> McCain in office would give way to the Realist consensus in the Pentagon and
> State Department. (Both McCain and Obama said that they will be guided by
> the "commanders on the ground"). The Neocons -- holed up in the OVP and
> concentrating on avoiding prosecution (that's what the Military Commissions
> Act was about) -- have been largely brushed aside.
>
> If one means the consideration of possible policy changes, the presidential
> election did not take place, and the new administration will present a
> strategic continuity with the old, both domestically and in the matter of
> killing foreigners.  God help us.
>
>        ###
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