Artist: Elihu Vedder (1836–1923). Photographed 2007 by Carol Highsmith Used with Permission
Our politicians may often look stupid. And some of them surely are. But their advisors and corporate handlers know exactly what they are doing. And you can’t help but admire the way they have perfected the art of lying across the ages.
We all know if you can see their lips beginning to open, a lie is just over the horizon. In fact, because lying is about the only thing they consistently do, we can often get a fairly reliable handle on what is going on by assuming the opposite of anything they say.
Prior to the end of World War II, this country’s military was headed by an outfit surprisingly called exactly what it was, the “Department of War.” In 1947, the National Security Act joined the Department of War with the Department of the Navy to form the new entity known as the “Department of Defense.” Since then, we have fervently “defended” ourselves against North Korea, North Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, poverty, drugs, and terrorism – not a single one of which ever actually attacked us.
Remember the Bush administration’s “Healthy Forest Initiative” which was actually designed to turn over the remaining 4% of our nation’s forests to the logging companies for their short-term profits; or the same administration’s “Clear Skies Initiative” that actually increased the amount of air pollution corporations are allowed to spew into the air?
But why stop with destroying the environment for fun and profit when the same techniques can be used to gut the Bill of Rights and do it right under the peasant’s noses? How about legislation that creates an end-run around all of the most basic due process protections afforded to human beings by the Constitution? Simply vest the power in the President to strip any American citizen of the right to know the charges against him, the right to confront his accusers, the right to the presumption of innocence, the right to an attorney, the right to a speedy trial (or any trial at all for that matter), and the right to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure, all by simply proclaiming that he is an “enemy combatant.” Viewed in a traditional sense, this would be the most un-American of all possible legislation. But what would we call such a draconian, dictatorial law? Let’s call this one the “Patriot Act.”
These folks are nothing if not tenacious. With all of that bull waste flying around, they still found time to convert their original pretense that Iraq had nuclear weapons, into the ambiguous and conveniently easier to frame assertion that it had “weapons of mass destruction,” before lying us into a war. Unfortunately, in its haste to start the war long before the thugs from Saudi Arabia attacked New York City, the Bush administration had already invented the euphemism for that invasion: “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” So they decided to capitalize on the terrorist attack and pretend the reason for the invasion was all about the 9/11 attacks. But they forgot to change the euphemism to something like “Operation Defending the Homeland.”
As it turns out, we were so interested in “freeing” the Iraqi people that we really never intended to leave. That is unless you really believe a foreign nation that intended to leave would have spent $592 million on the biggest embassy on this planet – a 104 acre community with its own movie theater, retail shops, restaurants, schools and fire station. Of course an embassy of that magnitude will need a couple of branch offices with a price tag of $1.5 billion. Our grandchildren picked up the tab for that one too.
No matter. Having gotten away with all these other steaming piles of insult to our intelligence, there was no reason to think the surfs would wonder why “Operation Iraqi Freedom” required permanently entrenching the U.S. presence there by building an embassy that is literally larger than the Vatican in Iraq (where the oil is) while millions of Americans were losing their jobs, their homes, their pensions, and their healthcare back home.
I clearly recall back in 2000, arguing with my conservative friends that Bush was absolutely going to invade Iraq, regardless of what Saddam Hussein said or did. Then in 2002, they actually argued with me that the invasion was all about 9/11. When I pointed out that Bush and Cheney had been determined to invade Iraq since before 9/11, they persisted in asking me, “okay, what was the real reason for the invasion.” I told them I wasn’t sure. But that it most likely had to do with the massive corporate profits to be made by the pre-promised, no-bid contracts awarded to the life-long buddies of the three corporate stooges, Cheney, Bush and Blair.
In retrospect, I now realize that was part of a larger picture. The key to understanding how things got so FUBAR is to stop thinking like a rational human being. The people in charge of our lives simply don’t live in our world. And for all of the pretence and red, white and blue rhetoric, they will never let us into theirs. In their world, we are objects in a toolbox, nothing more and nothing less.
In his famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn proposed an approach to scientific inquiry that he called a “paradigm shift.” As later applied to history, this concept (completely lost on today’s narrow-minded fundamentalists that want to burn, ban or modify classics such as the writings of Mark Twain), acknowledges the fact that events don’t happen in a vacuum. In other words, you cannot truly understand a statement or an event unless you view it in its own historical context. If we want to understand where a writer was coming from, we must first get into his skin and view his world from his perspective.
The same holds true for making sense out of the seemingly illogical and blatantly foolish words and actions of our boss, our politicians, or of the corporations that own them. Understanding their world view as opposed to the world view held by flesh and blood human beings helps explain why things are as we find them today.
Political advisors and students of history understand the importance of catering to the aristocracy while keeping things just comfortable enough for the peasants to avoid threatening their universe. As Machivelli observed, “All well-ordered states and all wise princes have been diligent in seeking to avoid exasperating the nobles and in keeping the common people satisfied. For this is one of the most important duties that falls to a prince.”
As you know, I often refer back to George Orwell’s classic 1984. As far as I can tell, no one has so accurately and so perfectly described what we now see going on before our eyes. Consider Orwell’s description of this basic historic principle:
If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. . . In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.
The following video is meant as satire. But like all of the best satire, its underlying message is right on point. This principle is just as true in the corporate governance of nations as it is in the workplace.
Essential to this mentality is the constant drum beat to keep the peasants afraid. Granted, money is a factor for as Chris Hedges points out, there really is no business like war business.
The corporations, no matter how badly the wars are going, make huge profits from the conflicts. They have no interest in turning off their money-making machine. Let Iraqis die. Let Afghans die. Let Pakistanis die. Let our own die. And the mandarins in Congress and the White House, along with their court jesters on the television news shows, cynically “feel our pain” and sell us out for bundles of corporate cash.
But the utility of war is deeper than that. War is in fact necessary to keep the riff-raff in their place. According to Machiavelli, it is indespensible to maintaining power. “A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war. . .” Orwell understood the economic and the psychological importance of keeping the people in a state of war. Goods must be produced. But the state should never allow the peasants to derive too much benefit from them. For “if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.”
Clearly, the most efficient way to continue production while not lifting the people out of poverty is to expend it all toward the process of war:
The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labor power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labor that would build several hundred cargo ships.
This it would seem is the missing piece of the puzzle. Why throw two billion dollars a week into a war experts agree we can never win? Why bail out the banks with government money instead of helping them by helping their customers? It’s the best way to keep surfs like you and me from getting comfortable enough to look behind the curtain.
Copyright © 2011, Rick D. Massey, JD
I am always amazed by the blinders of those that are constantly screaming about Bush and his decision to enter into Iraq. My true opinion is that I have not yet decided if it was a good idea or not – I think history will have to decide that.
Just as history will decide if was a good thing that because we were in Korea 60 years ago. So here we are 60 years later and N. Korea has decided to stretch it’s military might once again. This time our military is there and stands ready to be deployed in case of another conflict. And why? Their friends are the Chinese, who, by the way, just launched a stealth fighter and have decided to become more powerful that the US in Naval superiority. I don’t know about you, but that is causing me to have some concerns.
But here is where I start to have a problem with the blaming, most Americans have short memories and really don’t pay much attention to everything – just what the main stream media feeds them.
Do you know where Kosovo is? Do you know that our military men and women have been there since the Clinton Administration? Do you know why? For all the same reasons why Bush went into Iraq – to free the people from tyranny. At least that was what they told us, very briefly, before we went over there to restore order. And this was right after we went into Bosnia – you remember don’t you? The “operation” that was to only last for 1 year? I have friends that are still being deployed to Bosnia. And we went into that country in 1995.
Do you know that Kosovo is surrounded by one of the largest oil reserves in the Balkans? They say that it could rival Saudi Arabia. Does this rhetoric sound familiar?
So why isn’t anyone talking about that? Clinton lied about how long we were going to be there and yet if you say “Bosnia” or “Kosovo” to the American public they have no idea what you are talking about.
We are at a heightened state of war because the 24-hour-a-day-seven-days-a-week news channels need to fill their time. And, I agree, it also helps our government provide the incentive for more Americans to give up freedoms. The American people are afraid and they think the government can help them. Until you change the mindset of the American people from victim to self-reliant, I think we will always be at a state of war. That will take the American people to not ask for more government programs – wow, I don’t see that happening in the near future ESPECIALLY now that we have a government run health care, in addition to welfare, WIC and all of the other “social” programs. Talk about victim-hood!
So as you stew about Iraq and Bush, I will stew about Kosovo and Bosnia and your blindness to the curtains set up by a Democratic President!
Christine: Thank you for reading the post and for your comments. I agree with some of your remarks. But I think you overlooked a couple of details. If you read my post carefully (and the others before it) you will realize that I have no blinders where the Democrats are concerned. I supported Obama because we needed to undo the litany of damage that was done to the fundamental rights of all us during the Bush administration. At least he said he was going to be different. Unfortunately, he has continued virtually all of the same practices.
Everyone seems especially sensitive right now. So if anyone says anything bad (and there is plenty of bad to say) about Bush or Cheney the first reaction is often to say “what about what Clinton did” – or “what about what Obama did?” The assumption is that anyone who criticizes Bush will get all defensive if someone says something about Clinton. But in my case, that assumption is wrong.
None of these invasions, including that of Kosovo and Bosnia were honestly conducted because if they were we would help the people we claimed we were there to help, then leave. But we never leave. We invade other countries and dig in. My complaints about Bush and Cheney have nothing to do with the fact that they are Republicans. As Joe Bageant says, the Republicans and the Democrats ultimately belong to the same crime syndicate. The only difference is that they often have different pimps.
So I have no issue with you stewing over the gnats (from a loss of life and economic perspective) of Kosovo and Bosnia as long as you also oppose the camels of Iraq and the assault on our constitutional rights that were engineered by the Bush administration and have been subsequently defended and promoted by the Obama administration. Nothing our country has done could be so morally reprehensible as the torture program that was promoted under Bush, or the overt efforts of Obama to protect them from prosecution. Long after they re-write history to make these dirt bags into heroes, the people of this country will continue to suffer as a result of their policies.
Thanks again for your comments. I always appreciate honest and sincere feedback.
Rick: I want you to know that I used Kosovo and Bosnia as an example of American ignorance, not a measure of well if you are going to say bad things about Bush, I am going to say bad things about Clinton and Obama. And yes, we are sensitive on these subjects because we have become so polarized as a nation. Maybe someday we will all have a common bond which includes a common respect for our country.
You are angry about Iraq because they lied to you about why we went in but more to the point that we don’t leave- how far back into history do you want to go? We didn’t need to go into Germany in WWII, but we did. What was the real reason? To save the Jews? Maybe, but now over close to 70 years later, we are still in Germany. And now those soldiers are known as the greatest generation. And I guess there is no real point to bring up Puerto Rico or any of our other “territories” where the people there don’t want us around.
What we did learn from WWII is that isolationism is not the answer. We wanted to stay on our own soil and not get involved. We were minding our own business when we were attack. And in 2001 we were attacked because we were involved. Hasn’t anyone figured out that the world hates us and it doesn’t matter? We don’t need to be everyone’s friend and I could care less if other countries don’t like us as a country. And I will be damned to have to apologize for our greatness! I would rather that the world fear us than walk all over us.
Man is inherently evil and either you are going to be preemptive or you are going to be licking your wounds. I would rather be preemptive. And yes, if tourture means that we get answers before we are attacked again, then so be it. As for the Patriot Act, let’s be honest, they just made it legal rather than keeping it secret what the government has been doing all of these years. Again, maybe this will preempt an attack.
And as I always say, if you aren’t doing anything wrong, I guess you don’t have to worry about it.
Have a great day.
Christine: I believe you and I and most of the people that rationally discuss these issues do share a common bond which includes respect for our country. What we don’t agree on is where it is and where it is headed. If we all had reliable information (which used to come from professional journalism) there would be more discourse and less finger pointing.
The difference between World War II and every other war we have injected ourselves into since is that in World War II we were actually attacked by another country. Contrary to the Big Brother efforts to re-write history, we were not in it for “save the world” moral reasons. We had known and had been ignoring what was happening to the Jews long before we got involved. Read The Abandonment of the Jews by Wymann. But we did get into it for an honest, morally defendable reason: we were attacked by another country and had no choice other than to defend ourselves. There were subsequent lies about our motives. But they were unnecessary. We actually had a legitimate reason.
The Iraqi war on the other hand, was completely based on corporate greed and the iimplimentation of their wet dream of corporatizing what is left of our democracy. Read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Kline. That we were lied to about the reasons for Iraq is not what bothers me the most. What bothers me the most is that more than 4000 Americans have died and more than 30,000 have been mutilated for life (and God knows how many innocent Iraqis) for absolutely nothing except to divert American tax money into the pockets of Halliburton and whatever other corporate pimps our President was working for at the time.
I find it a little sad, but mostly scary that so many people have been conned into thinking that the way to preserve our rights is to give them all away. There is a big difference between our government breaking its own laws and not being allowed to use its findings as evidence in court, and decalring a law that effectively wipes out the Bill of Rights. Maybe I am a little old fashioned in that respect. But when I was a kid in school I really believed the stories about what made us better than other countries was that we did not torture people or hold our leaders above the law. It is a proven and well established fact that torture gets people to talk – but it does not get useful information out of them. It only gets them to tell you what they think you want to hear. That’s why it is a favorite tool of totalitarian governments – never of free democratic societies.
That is probably our biggest point of disagreement. These people are bought and paid for by the corporations that make the red light cameras, the strip search body scanners, and the high tech cyber spying programs. If you think any of this is motivated by concern for “keeping us safe” we are still miles apart.
Your discussion with Christine is an excellent example of why it’s vital for the people to read and understand history. Orwell’s Big Brother knew history needed re-writing to conform to the Party’s indoctrination. Now we have our own Ministry of Truth in corporate media. “We have always been at war with East Asia, er..Iran.”
Dave: You nailed it. The folks with tea bags hanging from their hats have illusions (or should I say delusions) of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin promoting the very imperialistic crap they actually risked their lives to escape. It is not enough to know the traditional version of history. It takes getting past the silly stories about how brave Columbus was because everyone thought the earth was flat – when in fact everyone except the church already knew the earth was round, to understand how we got here and where we are more than likely headed. No tyrant ever got to first base without first convincing the peasants that they cannot be “safe” until all of their rights have been ceded to the dictator.
Whoever that guy was, the COO of Despair, Inc. — I’ve had supervisors who learned everything they know from him. Who needs benefits or high wages when you have a demoralized workforce that’s scared into blind loyalty.
I don’t know a word that means the opposite of “euphemism,” but the Right has perfected that as well. Along with the “Defense” Department and the “Clear Skies Initiative,” the House is trying repeal the “job-killing health care act” and “job-killing financial reform.” “The American People” don’t want those intrusive laws barging into their personal lives. You understand, of course, than when politicians say “The American People,” they’re referring only to the Wall Street and insurance lobbyists who have financed their re-elections.
Tom: Small world. I too have had supervisors that must have learned at the feet of this guy! Sometimes I feel like that is what is most broken about our political system. After DiBold and the rigged voting scams, the selection of the President against the will of the people by the Supreme Court, and the actions of the “change you can believe in” guy in putting the same clowns in charge of pretending to fix things that created the problems in the first place, it really gets frustrating. I think a lot of people feel so demoralized and powerless that they don’t have the will to put up much of a fight. I suspect more than half of the people in this country are bright enough to gag when they hear these guys mumble about “The American People.” Why don’t they just say the “American Persons” since without personhood of corporations those politicians would have no constituency at all?!
Rick, first of all, most excellent post, dude!
You talk about the masses being kept just comfortable enough, but not so comfortable that they become wealthy. They live in a twilight place where they never question just why it is that they can never seem to get ahead, why they never seem to “get lucky.”
The war on drugs is an excellent example of poverty perpetuated to keep a certain people in their place. It’s no surprise that when drugs hit the scene in the 60′s, and really burst loose in the 70′s and 80′s, that the hardest hit areas were the predominantly black inner cities. That was no accident, it was the culmination of a thousand years of practice in keeping people in their perceived place.
There’s a big picture here. Sometimes, I feel like I’m right on the cusp of it, but I don’t know if I want to see it or not.
Bee: I believe you are absolutely right about the war on drugs. I enjoy watching the series Boardwalk Empire. The similarity between prohibition and the war on drugs is a poster child for why knowing history is so important to understanding where we are and where we are going. Unfortunately, I think you are right about the big picture also. I used to think conspiracy theories did not make sense because too many of these people who can’t agree on anything would have to work together to pull it off. But I wasn’t looking far enough up the ladder. Now that we have gotten to a point where literally a dozen or so corporations control the government and the banks, the idea that they will work together to galvanize their power doesn’t seem so far-fetched at all. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that they would do otherwise. Shortly before he died, George Carlin said “you don’t own anything”, and the guys that do will never let you into their club. He understood the system.