William Monje's Political Blog

Whom do they represent?

It looks like there are 133 “maverick” Republicans in the House.  That must be kind of embarrassing for a self-acclaimed “maverick” when he is backing the administration’s demands for yet another urgent piece of legislation, something that must be passed right now without thinking about it, kind of like the Patriot Act and the war on Iraq.

But it isn’t just one party.  It seems that all those representatives who voted against this monstrous bailout are simply complying with what their constituents wanted; that is to say that two-thirds of the American public are against it.  That sort of brings a whole new meaning to the word “representative.”  Isn’t it customary to represent those big special interests with all the high-paid lobbyists and all that campaign donation money?  It seems both candidates are disappointed that their party members actually represented the voting public for once.  But that will probably change and things will return to business as usual.  I hope everyone finds that reassuring.

Confronting our Government

I could write endlessly on the presidential candidates and their running mates, everything from demonstrable facts to common rumors to my opinion and commentary, but I doubt I’d say anything that hasn’t been said a million times by all the high-profile, self-acclaimed experts.  I could even tell you which one to vote for or, more easily, which one not to and why not…in my opinion, of course.  That’s an unnecessary exercise, however.

The next president isn’t going to make much difference.  The powers that be will not change.  Everything is in place and it is not going anywhere.  Good intentions, earnest or not, don’t cut it…never did; and we all know the value of political promises—at least we should.  Lobbyists aren’t going away, and corporations will continue to accumulate power and wealth with total support of the government, and we will continue to exalt the nation state above individuality.  One candidate says “Country First” as a poster slogan and speaks endlessly of self-sacrifice and serving a cause greater than oneself, which, righteous as it sounds, is a sales pitch for what exactly?  The other speaks of endless government assistance dependant upon the individual’s self-sacrifice and an established period of fulltime commitment of service to one’s community and/or country to be given first, putting military service on the top of the partial list of identified obligatory servitudes; this is in return for a government reward of $4000 toward a college education.  Perhaps he hasn’t priced the cost of college lately.  And where, exactly, would this money come from?  Politicians love to talk as if the government has endless bucks and it’s all there just for us.  The truth is they don’t have a dime, it all comes from us, and the cost of it getting back to us, or the cost of government itself, is always greater than the actual reward we get for our money.  They do not operate efficiently; as a business they would have gone broke a very long time ago.  In other words, all those promises and campaign slogans all sounds quite righteous, but it is not individual freedom and endeavor as proposed by this nation’s Founders or even enlightened self-interest without enforced-by-contract altruism.  It is a sellout of individuality to an exalted nation state.  In fact, it rather reminds me of Heinlein’s book (and the movie) Starship Troopers, wherein citizenship depended upon military service.  The story was a great example of a certain form of government that people ought to find unwanted but still tend to become enchanted with, probably because it promises order and security; they just fail to ask at what price.

There used to be a word for that kind of government, a government that is in bed with corporate wealth and power; that demands service and devotion to one’s country above and beyond everything else including self and family; that limits its people’s freedoms and liberties and spies upon them without good cause or warrant; that snatches and detains without legitimate warrant and even tortures its prisoners; that practices authoritarian rule at home and imperialism and hegemony around the world, particularly in the interest of those corporations it’s in bed with; and that puts the state first, with grandiose hyperbole, as a greater cause than the cause of individuality and personal liberty.  That word used to be “fascism.”  Unfortunately, the word itself has become virtually meaningless by overuse as a casual insult directed not only at governments—be they fascist or not—but at anyone or anything that seems to disagree with one’s viewpoint, like one’s sixth-grade teacher or mother-in-law.  (There actually is a “Fascist” party in the United States, The United Fascist Union, with a Jackson Grimes running for president.  He is an actor by profession and once played Hitler on a Star Trek episode.  His stand on issues did not strike me as particularly fascist, however, at least not in the “classic” sense of the word.  His name and the party can be Googled.)

Here is the definition according Wikipedia:

Fascism is a term used to describe totalitarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by exalting most commonly the nation state but in some cases the race, and promoting unity, strength and cultural renewal.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, corporativism, militarism, totalitarianism, populism, collectivism, statism, dictatorship, and economic planning. Fascism opposes communism, democracy, liberalism, and conservatism (taking into account that fascists made alliances with conservatives more often than other groups).^{[6][2][1][7][8][9][10]} [Clicking on these links will give the reader the Wikipedia definition of each word.]

Some authors reject broad usage of the term or exclude certain parties and regimes.^[11] Following the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, there have been few self-proclaimed fascist groups and individuals. In contemporary political discourse, the term fascist is often used by adherents of some ideologies as a pejorative description of their opponents.

It is a word that gets kicked around a lot, as indicated throughout the Wikipedia article, and is, indeed, grossly misused to the point of losing any real meaning.  But it should be noted that there are defined elements, which are characteristic of fascism as it was practiced by those who actually called it their form of government, elements that can be identified in practice without much difficulty. 

The most common misuse is its application as a pejorative against one’s political opponents, but please note I’ve not applied it to either of the major parties but to the whole of government which is a product of both parties (and I have a particular personal disapproval of our present president, George W. Bush).  Having said that, it is still the people who must take responsibility, having let it happen (we are, if only in theory, a government of the people).  Somehow there seems to be a popular appeal in fascism to the masses in general, particularly their tendency to fault the well educated or what some call “book learnin’,” always pegging them as the “elite” (a derogatory word in great use today), and generally sustaining a culture of anti-intellectualism, as if ignorance and general mediocrity were a democratic virtue, almost a new kind of political correctness.  Although nationalism, militarism, and economic planning are probably the elements of fascism most applicable to our present government, the preceding sentence on ignorance and mediocrity should, in part, help explain the populism part of the greater definition.  We elected a president who appeared to us as a “regular guy,” a C student, not too bright but who read the sports page, not philosophy or classic literature, one the voter would like to have a beer with (although I submit they’ve had a few too many).

The real substance of the argument is found in the second paragraph of Wikipedia’s definition in these words: “nationalism, corporativism, militarism, totalitarianism, populism, collectivism, statism, dictatorship, and economic planning.”  One might particularly consider the elements of “nationalism, corporativism, militarism, statism and economic planning.  The test is finding these elements already in action in either or both parties, most specifically in the whole of government as it is presently operating in this country under the regime of George W. Bush and a Democratic controlled Congress.

Beginning with nationalism, here is a snip from a George Orwell essay:  By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’(1). But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.  (Inasmuch as Orwell was outlawed in the old Soviet Union, it is now copyright free in Russia and most of what he has written is available at that website in both English and Russian.)

There are also quotes from a few thinking people that see nationalism for what it really is.  In most cases, however, the term patriotism is used, although I would accept Orwell’s distinction as quoted above.  It is easy to confuse the two or even guise nationalism in the righteous sounding word “patriotism.”  The following quotes, I believe, better fit the definition of nationalism than patriotism.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them! -- Albert Einstein

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. -- Bertrand Russell

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. -- George Santayana

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. – Voltaire

Returning to Orwell’s essay on Nationalism, here is another aspect of what the word may mean: “It does not necessarily mean loyalty to a government or a country, still less to one's own country, and it is not even strictly necessary that the units in which it deals should actually exist. To name a few obvious examples, Jewry, Islam, Christendom, the Proletariat and the White Race are all of them objects of passionate nationalistic feeling: but their existence can be seriously questioned, and there is no definition of any one of them that would be universally accepted.”  In other words one’s nationalistic passions may not be for a country but for some other group, or “unit,” as Orwell would call it, such as a political party or belief, or one’s religion, for instance.

In that sense we can also tag our political candidates—and their fervent followers—with deeply invested emotion, as opposed to reason, in some other system of belief other than just the nation state.  Each has his party, of course, but that’s to be expected, I suppose.  In both cases, however, as mentioned in my last article (which preceded this one but will read next in this blog), they are both devoted Christians, expressing that devotion almost to the point of making it a religious test, which, of course, would be in conflict with the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution.  It also tends to violate the First Amendment separation of church and state, particularly since one has had to defend his Christianity against accusations of being Muslim, which constitutionally (if nothing else) shouldn’t be an issue.  For the sake of redundancy, if a candidate has to prove his Christianity, we have demanded an religious test, which demonstrates that his opponents, the media, and we as a people do not know and/or understand our own Constitution.  If anything is to be held sacred in this country, it should be our Constitution.

As is generally the case, because one finds fault with one concept or philosophy, such as nationalism, they tend toward its opposite, in this case globalization or, in a broader sense, cosmopolitanism.  (Cosmopolitanism has yet another opposite in communitarianism, which in turn opposes individualism, which is further opposed by collectivism; but that’s a whole other story.)  As is also generally the case, opposites tend to be as extreme as the concept to which they are opposed.  That is how I see the opposites in this case.  I am not a believer in a happy medium as such, nor do I consider myself a “moderate,” whatever the hell that is supposed to be, but I do believe there are always alternatives, not necessarily opposites, and if they cannot be found or otherwise recognized, then they must be newly conceived and brought into the scheme of things.  As a side thought on the subject, maybe the real problem is in the suffix “ism.”  Individuality, for instance, seems an unarguably positive sort of utterance, while the word “individualism” has the ring of an adherence to some contrived order.

Speaking of “isms,” I have never been an advocate of socialism, but not absolutely; by that I mean such as fire and police protection, among a few other services, work best as public institutions.  I also tend to lean toward health care, although, like every advocate in the country, I cannot tell you where the money will come from without giving up some other dire necessity put upon the taxpayer, such as a war on Iraq. 

To digress a bit, we sure do value our wars, no matter the cost…well, up to a point.  They are so righteous.  We are actually taken in by the belief that the war on Iraq is, in fact, a matter of self-defense and national security, as if Saddam Hussein really would have invaded us with all those “weapons of mass destruction” we were lied to about and actually believed.  Worse than that, we still believe that killing all those people in Iraq (and our president, according to Bob Woodward, gauges military success by enemy body count) is a matter of national security because the country is full of terrorists who in reality were never there before we invaded.  What’s more they are all radical fundamentalist Muslims, which brings out our most virtuous of all nationalistic passions, our belief in the absolutely most righteous of all religious beliefs, Christianity.  And inasmuch as our present military is tending strongly toward an exclusively fundamentalist Christian establishment (Google military fundamentalist—it’s all about both Islam and the American military) it seems we are about to embark on an all-out holy war. 

Beyond war, and getting back to socialism, at the time of this writing, there is also a massive bailout of financial institutes at the public expense, which, if nothing else, rather leaves universal health care out of the picture, although I suspect just the mention of it will be used to get a few votes even though it ought to be clear we can no longer afford military invasions and occupations, billions in social welfare for millionaires and billionaires, and still treat the sick and injured who cannot afford insurance.  In other words, this government of the people will have to make some decisions about how their Congress spends their money if they want all that government help, which is not really a gift of government but a redistribution of their own money.  But health care is another issue.

The big issue at this time, strangely under the heading of “socialism,” is that bailout and what it actually means.  In this case we are talking about socialism for the extremely wealthy because their extreme wealth seems to be in jeopardy.  Forget that the modest wealth of the average working taxpayer is also in jeopardy.  Worst of all, that is besides the cost, is the fact that it would put all that money, at present a proposed 700 billion dollars, in the hands of one man and one federal agency, meaning Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, a presidential cabinet post, depositing even more control of the people—this time their economy—into the hands of the executive branch, which further fits the dictatorship, and economic planning part of the definition of fascism.

It should also be asked why we could not find the money to improve our infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, or why we could never finance health care or any number of such political promises never honored, but now, suddenly, we have the bucks to bail out multibillionaire crooks and the institutions they used to plunder a multitude of our apparently lesser citizens, meaning the rest of us.

Beyond that, this particular action would be the product of proposed legislation actually written by the Secretary himself and then presented to Congress with the expectation it will be passed into law without question or changes or even evaluation, and with great haste.  One of its provisions is that none of the Secretaries actions can be reviews, not by a court or anyone else.  This administration really thinks we’ll fall for that.  That is the executive branch’s expectation of Congress.  The President himself has addressed the nation and spoken to the need for haste, not caution and thorough evaluation.  But one cannot blame him for his expectations; that is how he got us into Iraq and had such civil-liberties-undermining actions as the Patriot Act imposed upon our freedoms and our pocketbooks.  He is used to expecting Congress to roll over for him.  We have an administration that uses ever crisis that comes along to scare the general public into accepting all it proposes urgently without question.  It is an executive branch grab for absolute power, employing fear mongering as a tactic, defying our founding principles of a balance of powers among the three branches of government, and a certain path to a total dictatorship (if not this administration, one real soon) should we continue to allow it to happen. 

I submit we are becoming a fascist state and no one is willing to confront it and call it for what it is.