Weekly Update: Racist and Environmental Chaos Reigns Supreme

The world was filled with chaos of the racist and environmental types this week.

The campaign tried to call some attention to the absurd and delusional position taken by the White House in reaction to BP’s massive oil spill. The White House thinks we need to hold off deciding whether to continue coastal oil drilling depending on what they find caused this tragedy.

“Stupid” is the word that comes to mind. It is outrageously moronic to argue in the face of what will be the worst environmental disaster US history that we should continue doing the same things that caused this tragedy. You see, that would be insane. Rational people look at this and say, “OK, clearly the risks are much greater than we appreciated and obviously we should not do this any longer.” That is what sane people think in the face of significant challenges to old ways of doing things. They use reason and adapt. But of course our political system has nothing whatsoever to do with reason, as it is predicted entirely on corporate profits.

However that is not the only disturbing part of the news this week. The new “immigration” law in Arizona was setting the tone for action on the streets this week. Tens, if not hundred of thousands of people across the country were involved in May Day protests against this new law. The law itself is blatantly unconstitutional, and one imagines it will never survive court challenge.

This raises some interesting and disturbing questions about the law and the reaction to it. Immigration has been the issue the two parties have decided they want to focus on these days. Why? Because immigration as an issue distracts people from the wars and the economy, the issues they don’t want to discuss.

It seems to me that this is not really about immigration at all, but about creating distractions that occupy people and keep them from organizing a revolt against the government for mismanaging the economy and keeping us in these criminal wars.

What is the immigration problem? Apparently, the only problem is that people want immigration to be a problem. I have yet to understand why anyone is worried about immigration. I understand why people worry about how illegal immigrants are treated. I advocate respecting the human rights of all people – all people. What is the problem? We have illegal immigrants? Is that the problem? No, it is as it always has been. My wife is descended from an illegal immigrant (ironically not Mexican but via Mexico). Many of us are. What is the problem?

There is no actual immediate problem. It is created out of thin air by the Republicans in order to give people something to worry about that has no potential to disrupt the war machine. It is pure distraction of no substance.

What is the problem with the new Arizona law? Well, it is unconstitutional and that seems to be a problem. Did thousands of people need to take to the streets to denounce a law the courts will void anyway? Probably not. Why all the excitement then? For exactly the same reasons the Republicans made immigration an issue to begin with – it is an issue that will not disrupt the war machine. So the Democrats can (and did) focus all of this anger and energy on a target that will just go away once any judge looks at it. The Democrats managed to make May Day – the International Workers’ Day – about something that will be fixed in the ordinary course of a judicial challenge. Instead of May Day being about workers’ rights and peace, which is what May Day is supposed to be about, the Democrats (and a network of organizations they dominate) took all that energy and effort and directed it specifically aw! ay from the issues that matter most to working people – peace and jobs.

When you think about it they are quite brilliant really. The level of social control, what Antonio Gramsci called “Hegemony”, is astounding. In the midst of two illegal wars and a depression the big parties managed to eliminate all conversation about the wars and economy even during an election year. They are quite clever, evil, but clever. Gramsci would be stunned at the total hegemonic control that is exerted by our two party duopoly. Now, to be honest we are much closer to Mussolini’s Italy than most of us want to think (the society Gramsci wrote about). We have a network of secret prisons around the world, we actively practice torture, we are illegally occupying two countries and are bombing a third, while threatening a fourth. We are living Mussolini’s philosophy of government quite literally. The Democrats promised peace and respect for human rights – they delivered nothing. And ! still they control all of the popular energy that should be going into open revolts. It is astounding that they can control the American people so well.

This was predicted, years ago, of course. Many astute thinkers predicted that an Obama victory would be the death of progressivism in America. He promised so much and so many felt such hope, and then it all comes crashing down in the reality that he never really intended to do any of that, and as long as the Republicans can seem outright deranged then that will keep progressive forces too afraid to rebel – this is the pinnacle of lesser evil politics. It is the pinnacle of Straussian politics being taken up by both political parties in what looks like a coordinated effort to keep the American people from demanding justice and peace.

This is tragic on many levels but not least because we remain at war, and we are watching our society and economy become something that looks more like the Third World than the First. Some economists say we will look like Mexico in less than 30 years – that is within that time the American middle class will have virtually vanished. And what will the Democrats do to save us? Absolutely nothing because they have no desire to save us (the middle class), they are in it for corporate profits just like the Republicans. Is there anyone who actually believes this is not true? The tragedy is that we, the American people, seem to have been beaten down so completely that we do not have the energy to fight, and then what little energy we have is deviously and maliciously diverted to issues that do not alter the fundamental realities of American politics.

The tragedy is deep and profound.

God help us all! (And I don’t even believe in a god!).

Yours with sorrow,

Richard