[Peace-discuss] P.S.

[C. G. Estabrook]

John W. wrote:
> ...Chomsky was speaking mostly of domestic issues - though I concede that the
> two are inseparable...

	February 2, 2010
	The Limited Minds of the American Elite
	War, Budgets and Blind Ambition
	By CHRIS FLOYD

The American elite's unbounded, unquestioned, indeed unconscious sense of 
imperial entitlement and dominance -- based ultimately on war, the threat of war 
and the profit from war -- is one of the defining characteristics of our age. 
And if you would like to see a glaring example of this attitude in action, look 
no further than the front page of Tuesday's New York Times, where one David 
Sanger gives us his penetrating "news analysis" of the Administration's 
just-announced $3.8 trillion budget.

Sanger focuses on the huge, continuing deficits that the budget forecasts over 
the next decade. Completely ignoring the plain truth that his own expert source 
tell him later in the story -- that "forecasts 10 years out have no credibility" 
-- Sanger boldly plunges forward to tell us just what it all means. You will not 
be surprised to hear that the upshot of these big deficits is that neither Obama 
nor his successors will be able to spend any money on "new domestic initiatives" 
for years to come. But let's let Sanger, savant and seer, tell it in his own words:

     "In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers 
stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American 
politics and American power.

     "The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent 
of the country’s entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the 
Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, 
but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was 
restored and war spending abated.

     "But the second number, buried deeper in the budget’s projections, is the 
one that really commands attention: By President Obama’s own optimistic 
projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered 
sustainable levels over the next 10 years. …

     "For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is 
clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates 
some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new 
domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the 
possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that 
has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, 
that country’s influence around the world eroded."

What is most interesting here, of course, is not Sanger's noodle-scratching over 
imaginary numbers projected into an unknowable future, but his total and 
apparently completely unconscious adoption of the mindset of militarist empire. 
For as he puzzles and puzzles till his puzzler is sore on how in God's name the 
United States can possibly find any money at all to spend on bettering the lives 
of its citizens over the next 10 years, it becomes clear that Sanger -- like the 
rest of our political and media elite -- literally cannot conceive of an end to 
empire. Our elites and their courtiers literally cannot imagine life without a 
permanent war for global dominance, fueled by a gargantuan war machine spread 
across hundreds and hundreds of bases implanted in more than 100 countries.

And so this consideration, this possible outcome, does not figure in Sanger's 
"analysis" because it cannot: it lies far outside the scope of his 
consciousness. The only possible alternative he can conceive to the empire's 
bloody and bankrupting business as usual is some kind of divine intervention, 
"miraculous growth" or some "miraculous political compromise."

And make no mistake: the "miraculous political compromise" he is talking about 
has nothing to do with ending or even trimming the empire. A "compromise" on 
this issue could only be posited if there was some present conflict over it. But 
both parties are deeply committed to increasing spending on the wars and the war 
machine.

No, by "compromise" Sanger means some sort of "Grand Bargain" between the 
parties to cut Social Security and Medicare, along the lines of the "blue-ribbon 
panel" of entitlement cutters now being pushed by the Obama Administration. The 
first effort to impose this elitist, unaccountable commission failed in the 
Senate a few weeks ago -- although the Republicans have proposed such panels 
before, they didn't like this one because Obama proposed it -- but the idea will 
keep coming back, and Sanger and the elite will doubtless get their "miracle" of 
slashing the remaining bits of the safety net to shreds in due time.

These are the only possibilities for deficit-cutting that Sanger can even 
remotely contemplate: some whiz-bang new gizmo -- or maybe some hot new 
"financial instruments" cooked up by Wall Street -- that will goose the economy 
with a bright new bubble ... or else finally telling our old, sick, vulnerable 
and unfortunate to just crawl off and die already. That's it. That's all that 
our elite can envision.

Yet the ending of the imperial wars and the dismantling of America's global 
military empire -- and its global gulag -- would save trillions of dollars in 
the coming years. Not only from direct military spending, but also from the 
vastly reduced need for "Homeland security" funding in a world where the United 
States was no longer invading foreign lands, killing their people, supporting 
their tyrants -- and inciting revenge and resistance.

This would release a flood of money for any number of "new domestic 
initiatives," while also giving scope for deep tax cuts across the board. 
Working people would thrive, the poor, the sick and the vulnerable would be 
bettered, businesses would grow, opportunity would expand, the care and 
education of our children would be greatly enhanced, our infrastructure could be 
repaired and strengthened, our environment better cleansed and cared for. In 
short, people could keep more of their own money while government spending could 
be directed toward improving the quality of life of all the nation's citizens.

This is no utopian vision. Many problems, much suffering would remain. But it 
would be a better society -- more humane, more just, more secure, more peaceful, 
more prosperous than it is now. Such an alternative is entirely achievable, by 
ordinary humans; it would require no divine miracles, no god-like heroes to 
bring it about.

But such a society is precisely what our elites cannot -- or, to be more 
accurate, will not -- imagine. Because, yes, it would "erode" their "influence" 
around the world to some extent. Although they would still be comfortable, 
coddled and privileged, they could no longer merge their individual psyches with 
the larger entity of a globe-spanning, death-dealing empire -- a connection 
which, although itself a projection of their own brains, gives them a 
forever-inflated sense of worth and importance.

And on a more prosaic level, the end of empire would mean an end to the 
horrendous economic distortion wrought by our war-profiteering industries. Other 
businesses would inevitably come to the fore, economic activity would be spread 
more evenly across more sectors. And so, yes, those who have feasted so 
gluttonously for so long on blood money would not be quite as rich as they are now.

A better world -- not perfect, by no means perfect, but much better -- is 
entirely possible. We could easily dismantle the empire -- carefully, safely, 
with deliberation -- over the next ten years. It is a reasonable, moderate, 
serious option. It would not require violent revolution, or vast social 
upheaval. But our elites do not want this. They can no longer fathom life 
without the exercise -- and worship -- of power that empire entails. They will 
not accept -- or even contemplate -- any alternative to it.

And thus every option and policy we are offered -- whether from right-wing 
Republicans or "progressive" Democrats, or from "serious" news analysts on 
"serious" papers -- must fall within these pathetically cramped, constricted 
mental horizons. Empire -- the imposition of dominion by violence and threat of 
violence, and the financial and moral corruption this breeds, the example it 
sets at every level of society -- is the canker in the body politic. Until it is 
dealt with, there will be no healing, no hope, no change -- just more 
degradation and disaster all down the line.

Chris Floyd is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. His blog, "Empire 
Burlesque," can be found at www.chris-floyd.com.


-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.