Stark Must Read

Arthur Silber writes,

I. The Current Crisis in Historical Context

Because my title refers to "the final descent" of the United States, I must begin by emphasizing an issue I have discussed in many essays. The destruction of the basic political structure of this country has been a continuing project for well over a century. That destruction has been the purpose of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and it reveals itself in two major ways: through a foreign policy of aggressive, non-defensive interventionism overseas, and by means of an increasingly powerful and intrusive government domestically. It is crucial to see the interconnectedness of these two aspects of the authoritarian, corporatist war state. When states make war, they accrue ever greater powers. Those powers are initially justified by appeals to external threats, which threats are almost always exaggerated and often entirely fictitious. Once the state has acquired those powers, it is a simple matter to alter their focus, and to direct them against alleged internal threats. The purpose in both spheres is always the same: to reduce and eventually eliminate challenges to the exercise of state power, whether such challenges are presented by foreign nations or by domestic dissenters. The ultimate goal is absolute power wielded by an omnipotent state.

As I am discussing in "Dominion Over the World," the United States has been a war state since the Spanish-American War. Beginning with that episode in the non-defensive use of brute military power on the world stage, which was soon followed by the U.S. entrance into World War I (a conflict which had posed no serious direct threat to the U.S., but into which this country's leaders consciously and with careful deliberation chose to insert it), the United States has been perpetually preoccupied with war: preparing for war, fighting endless wars either openly or covertly, and then rebuilding after war. War is our major national product; war consumes an increasingly greater proportion of our national wealth and energies. By such means, the state renders its power unassailable. Perpetual war means the state can create endless opportunities to consolidate and expand its already vast powers.

The current administration is notable for its crudity, its boastful, unapologetic cruelty, and its outright stupidity -- but none of its crimes would have been possible without the policies pursued by Democrats and Republicans alike for many preceding decades. As I summarized this issue in "The Empire at Evening":

With the enactment of the Military Commissions Act, we feel only the vanishing warmth of the final traces of the sun's distant rays, and the shadows lengthen and grow darker. We will not see noon again, or even late afternoon, in our lifetimes.

And all this is not because of George W. Bush, although he has hastened events. How could it be remotely conceivable that such an utterly ridiculous figure would bring down the most powerful nation in the world, even with the aid of his corrupt cabal? He, and they, could not; he, too, is a symptom of the rot that has been eroding the country's foundations for at least a century. Do you think so little of the United States that you truly believe the country you imagine still exists could be destroyed by this?

But Bush is the perfect embodiment of what has brought us here: he captures the arrogance, the determined anti-intellectualism and embarrassing incoherence, the insatiable greed for power and the predilection for violence, and the absolute conviction that fortune and God smile upon him and us as upon no other peoples in the entire span of history, in a single, pathetic, laughable imitation of a genuine human being.

George W. Bush is our fate, and our reward. We have earned him.

I wrote that passage almost one year ago. It remains accurate in every respect. The continuing delusions with which many people seek to console themselves and allay their fears cause me to emphasize one sentence in particular, the meaning of which appears to have escaped many people: "Do you think so little of the United States that you truly believe the country you imagine still exists could be destroyed by this?" If the United States in fact had still existed as the viable political entity that many Americans fantasize about, Bush's crimes would never have been possible in the first instance. If the Democrats represented a genuine alternative in terms of fundamental political principles, they would have taken action to reverse those crimes since taking control of Congress. Most critically -- and particularly if the Democrats cared at all about forestalling an attack on Iran, and preventing widening war and the further entrenchment of the authoritarian state -- they would have begun impeachment proceedings.

But the Democrats have not done this, and they will not. As Chris Floyd wrote recently:

[T]he Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

How can this be? The answer is simple: the United States is no longer a democratic country, or even a degraded semblance of one.

I occasionally see comments to the effect that I am something akin to a prophet of doom, and that I am always announcing that we are about to enter hell on earth. In fact, I have always been careful not to say this, precisely because I cannot know the exact schedule and form of our collapse, just as no one can know such details with any certainty. (I also note that Chris Floyd does not say this either, although he speaks for himself on this point, and many others, with great eloquence.) That the collapse of the United States is coming cannot be seriously disputed. Our economy is a house of cards, as it has been for some time. While it might implode overnight depending on events, it might also fray and shred slowly, over a period of decades. There is no way to know.

In the same way, the extent to which the now terrifying police powers of our government will be applied, and the targets against which they will be directed, cannot be known in advance with any specificity. That, too, will depend on countless factors -- whether the Middle East war widens (or more accurately, when it widens, since that will almost certainly happen under a future Democratic administration if Bush unaccountably fails to accomplish the terrible deed), whether there are further terrorist attacks in the U.S. itself and their severity, etc. Too many variables are in play, and they render particular scenarios exercises in fiction. But the general trend is clear; moreover, history tells us the trend is now irreversible, short of the kind of miracle that does not figure in my metaphysics. There will be further and much more destructive war, and the authoritarian state will make its powers known to the general populace in ways that will constantly increase. Only the timing and the details remain to be determined. Still, for the majority of Americans and as I recently observed, life may continue largely unaltered for some years to come.

Having offered these introductory observations, I note that certain kinds of incidents can reveal in stark and powerful ways the general state of a culture. The public reaction demonstrates what the majority of people are prepared to accept -- and what the government can get away with. Such incidents are barometers of future political developments: if we are attentive to their messages, they can tell us whether people will passively accept whatever actions the state may take, or if they will offer some resistance if the state acts in ways that are particularly cruel and oppressive. Public commentary and debate also reveal to what extent people are eager and willing to obey, and whether certain individuals will say, "No." As I have put it before, such reactions will tell us whether people are with the resistance -- or with the murderers.

Read the rest...

Must Reads of the day

Chris Floyd with one of the most powerful essays I've read yet and that I'm still trying to get my head around.,

I.
Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live.

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

The annus horribilis of 2007 has turned out to be a year of triumph for the Bush Faction -- the hit men who delivered the coup de grâce to the long-moribund Republic. Bush was written off as a lame duck after the Democrat's November 2006 election "triumph" (in fact, the narrowest of victories eked out despite an orgy of cheating and fixing by the losers), and the subsequent salvo of Establishment consensus from the Iraq Study Group, advocating a de-escalation of the war in Iraq. Then came a series of scandals, investigations, high-profile resignations, even the criminal conviction of a top White House official. But despite all this -- and abysmal poll ratings as well -- over the past eight months Bush and his coupsters have seen every single element of their violent tyranny confirmed, countenanced and extended.

The war which we were told the Democrats and ISG consensus would end or wind down has of course been escalated to its greatest level yet -- more troops, more airstrikes, more mercenaries, more Iraqi captives swelling the mammoth prison camps of the occupying power, more instability destroying the very fabric of Iraqi society. The patently illegal surveillance programs of the authoritarian regime have now been codified into law by the Democratic Congress, which has also let stand the evisceration of habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act, and a raft of other liberty-stripping laws, rules, regulations and executive orders. Bush's self-proclaimed arbitrary power to seize American citizens (and others) without charge and hold them indefinitely -- even kill them -- has likewise been unchallenged by the legislators. Bush has brazenly defied Congressional subpoenas -- and even arbitrarily stripped the Justice Department of the power to enforce them -- to no other reaction than a stern promise from Democratic leaders to "look further into this matter." His spokesmen -- and his "signing statements" -- now openly proclaim his utter disdain for representative government, and assert at every turn his sovereign right to "interpret" -- or ignore -- legislation as he wishes. He retains the right to "interpret" just which interrogation techniques are classified as torture and which are not, while his concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay and his secret CIA prisons -- where those "strenuous" techniques are practiced -- remain open. His increasingly brazen drive to war with Iran has already been endorsed unanimously by the Senate and overwhelmingly by the House, both of which have embraced the specious casus belli concocted by the Bush Regime. And to come full circle, Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are now praising the "military success" of the Iraq escalation -- despite the evident failure of its stated goals by every single measure, including troop deaths, civilian deaths, security, infrastructure, political cohesion and regional stability. This emerging "bipartisan consensus" on the military situation in Iraq (or rather, this utter fantasy concealing a rapidly deteriorating reality) makes it certain that the September "progress report" will be greeted as a justification for continuing the "surge" in one form or another.

It is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement, one of the greatest political feats ever. Despite Bush's standing as one of the most despised presidents in American history, despite a Congress in control of the opposition party, despite a solid majority opposed to his policies and his war, despite an Administration riddled with scandal and crime, despite the glaring rot in the nation's infrastructure and the callous abandonment of one of the nation's major cities to natural disaster and crony greed -- despite all of this, and much more that would have brought down or mortally wounded any government in a democratic country, the Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

How can this be? The answer is simple: the United States is no longer a democratic country, or even a degraded semblance of one.

and Arthur Silber,

The destruction of America has been accomplished in the manner of a particularly skillful and diabolical con game: it has been done completely in the open. No one was fooled or misled. The ruling class has always stated explicitly exactly what they intended to do -- and then they did it. You didn't think they meant it, not really, not all the way down.

But they did. They counted on the great majority of Americans not to believe what was directly before their eyes, or to identify its full, inevitable meaning. Most of you obliged. Most of you still oblige. They could not ask for more.

And most Americans still don't believe the destruction has already occurred, because there is no thunderous crashing of chords, no widespread calamity or destruction (at least, not yet, although we've had some previews) or, as Chris puts it, it won't come "with jackboots and book burnings," or with "tanks on the street." Poor, pitiful, pathetic Americans: it isn't like a movie.

And so it has come to pass. The lives of most Americans will go on as before, for that is the plan and the point. Be careful not to credit the ruling class with too much cleverness or intelligence for having achieved their heinous end, for most of them don't begin to understand what they're doing either. They are moved for the most part by the views of the "consensus," which views come from they not know where, nor do they care about or understand the original reasons. Their concern is much narrower: consolidating and expanding their own power, and that of the State. Their focus is on how power is actualized in the petty, sordid details of their pallid, drab, arid lives. The larger dynamics never concerned them, and they don't give a damn about any of that today.

Even after all this, the Democrats will impeach no one, and they will only accelerate the drive to open conflict with Iran. To do otherwise would be to restrict the power of the State, and their own power. That is the one thing above all else they will never do. And even if, by some undeserved miracle, the Bush administration does not order an attack on Iran, the pattern is now set.

I hope they are both wrong but in light of the book I'm currently reading, I fail to see how they could be.