The last – or ‘civic space’ – occupies the mid ground between government and the rapacious private sector. In terms of set theoretics, imagine circles for ‘government’ and ‘private sector’ respectively – with large intersection of commonality between them. Civic space or the ‘set of civic society’ lies apart from the influence of these two.
It is neither where we vote (more and more influenced by ad-ism and PR, soundbites) or where we buy and sell. It is rather where neighbors, say in New England, converge for public meetings to decide on the location of a homeless shelter, or neighbors pool resources to care for children of low-income workers. Without any government ‘benediction’ or expectation of commercial sector ‘return on investment’.
The tragedy of the 20th (and now 21st ) century is the tragedy of the civic commons. The gradual erosion of civil society is largely eclipsed by corporate and market interests. Either in pursuit of state (or corporate) power, profits or both. Thus, political influence is purchased via the power of the purse (for example in lobbying) and laws enacted to favor these special interests.
Now the confluence of government –market interests has forced those wishing to live within non-coercive spheres of influence to make a Hobson’s choice: Either to side with state power and ‘commandeering of individual rights’ or private power, and its extirpation of what remains of government and its advocacy for the non-elite segment of the populace (i.e. those unable to purchase political influence).
Choose to be passively serviced (and servile) by a massive bureaucratic state wherein the word citizen has little or no resonance (until it’s election time) or submit to the selfishness and barbaric, radical individualism of the private sector – which extols the Social Darwinist refrain of ‘survival of the fittest’.
But what is needed here is to recognize and appreciate that the erosions of civil society didn’t just suddenly begin in the last few years, or even the last decade. No, the seeds were sown long ago.
As George Santayan once noted: "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it".
If we don't understand the past and its influence on our present, it'll make little difference what happens if and when the current 'Neandertals' and reprobates are given the heave-ho. Another set, with perhaps more sophisticated strategies, will just replace them. The people remaining as clueless as ever, since they remain unable to tie current events (i.e. the rise of the global corporate state) to the past.
Thus, the original importance of preserving a global trade network without sacrifice to private monopoly or multi-national power was first recognized by President John F. Kennedy in late 1962 and 1963. He made enormous efforts to stave off incipient private control of the globalization process. As Donald Gibson observes in his must-read monograph(‘Battling Wall Street – The Kennedy Presidency’, Sheridan Square Press, 1994, p. 113):
"John Kennedy declared the 1960s the decade of development. The Alliance for Progress, development aid, low interest loans, nation-to-nation cooperation, and some measure of government planning were some of the ingredients of that policy. Within a few years of Kennedy's death most of this had been abandoned. By the early 1970s, this type of effort and the optimism associated with it had vanished altogether."
The effect was that the task of implementing and governing economic adjustment was assumed by private markets. Power which has grown exponentially since the extripation of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1973. The causal undercurrents and ideology of corporate-state global domination have been well articulated by Gibson, even from before its emergence within ten years of the Kennedy assassination (which many astute observers tie in with financial elite interests) (op. cit. P. 75):
"Kennedy's ideas.. .his view of foreign aid and foreign policy, and his recommendations and actions in a variety of specific areas disrupted or threatened to disrupt an established order. In that established order, in place for most of the century, major government decisions were to serve or at least not disrupt the privately organized hierarchy."
Gibson goes on to point out that the vested interests within this hierarchy were similar to, "if not direct imitations of those of that older British elite rooted in inherited wealth and titles, and organized in the modern world around control of finance and raw materials." (ibid.)
It seems very plausible then, that the slaying of John F. Kennedy set the stage for a global Corporatocracy in which these same elite imperatives would be allowed to subordinate and dominate the interests and welfare of the masses. Imaginary? Take a gander at columnist Jay Bookman's view from his article "New World Disorder - Evident Here and Abroad", in The Baltimore Sun, 1998):
"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences. "
It is also plausible that JFK's death was crucial to the eventual success of the overall plan. Indeed, Gibson notes that these elite banking and financial interests (ibid.) "would have little tolerance for a president who interfered with their decisions or made their interests secondary to the needs of nations or of people in general."
So, one could say that by the time of JFK's assassination, the global tableaux had been set for eventual market domination of the world. With no other fearless national leaders to stand in the way (the last ones assassinated) the goal of worldwide subjugation of national interests to speculative capital, trans-national corporate control and personal debt could proceed apace. One merely had to await the right constellation of pro-market interests, and this was incepted in the Reagan years - reaching its culmination in the early 1990s via bi-partisan support of "neo-liberalism". A philosophy that Jay Bookman's earlier quotation embodies succinctly.
The plan was long range to be sure, but the elites had always been patient. Now they would exercise that patience and sense of noblesse oblige. Again, the payoff being a world of serfs delivered to them by their own governments. These governments themselves hamstrung by the unequal power of differing accords (i.e. GATT, NAFTA) over which they had little option other than to 'sign on'. Accords which could disembowel labor, its pensions and benefits, and lay waste to all social safety nets to protect the more vulnerable citizens. At the same time reckoning hard-won environmental laws as 'trade impediments' to be challenged in a world trade court (WTO).
How many of our currently voting electorate are aware of even a small subset of the above when they cast ballots? Not one in one hundred I'd wager. And if they aren't, if they're so devoid of historical perspective - all the practical appeals in the world won't make a dime's worth of difference. People will still be electing as venal a bunch (who give themselves automatic $4900/yr. wage increases in the dead of night while millions are jobless) as they already have.
Egotistical, Overclass hypocrites who engage in word play for the benefit of the people who elected them, then turn around and cop to corporate money. While pandering and assisting the same market -fascist imperative that JFK fought, and which probably cost him his life.The overall imperative of the market being the ultimate abolition of all governmental, national social insurance systems - whether these be Medicare or Social Security in the United States, or the analogous systems in Germany or Barbados. In each case, the particular system to be replaced by a privatized entity able to generate individual debt, corporate profit and further income inequality. (It is very interesting in this regard that the "Bankruptcy Reform Act" was passed by a majority in 2005, while a legal loophole that permitted creation of CDOs and their diffusion through multiple financial products (e.g. SIVs or "structured investment vehicles") was passed the next year. As we know the last has led directly to the current sub-prime meltdown)
The point is that unless people perceive the historical pattern of consolidating corporate power, tied to events 45 years ago, they will be unable to map a future course that preserves any semblance of civil society. Rather, they'll more than likely be swayed and mentally manipulated into conferring ever more power on the commercial-corporate-government nexus. As this mandate becomes ever more entrenched it is inevitable that those without will challenge the ‘haves’ at some point and demand a rightful piece of the pie.
It will by then become intolerable to do without critical health insurance (because it is either denied or too costly) while some rich dilettante (who inherited his millions) tries to decide whether to drive his Rolls, Lexus or Lamborghini to the Country Club.
To go where we want to go, we need to know where we have been. This includes the inherent lessons in political assassinations such as JFK's. If we don't - then like the proverbial Israelites wandering in the desert- we shall never get to the civic 'promised land'.
You can make book on it.
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