America After the Rubicon Crossing 01 January 2017

America After the Rubicon Crossing

Mustafah Dhada

01 January 2017

Today’s America shares three features with Russia, and some of the developed nations, Britain is a case in point here. The rest of the developing world will ultimately come to have some of these features, should they prove susceptible to these trends in race-baited economic nationalism. The three features are the rise of oligarchies; the increase of robots in modes of production; and the social search for identity in knowledge-based economies. 

In the Russian Federation, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 saw its sudden departure from the Afghan stalemate against the CIA-backed mujahideen, whose victory ultimately ushered in the Taliban. Internally it left intact two formidable 74 year old structures, both impregnable to regime change in Russia. One was the nomenklatura, an oligarchy with access to state-controlled resources designed to advance Communism at home and stimulate global change through the Comintern. The other was the KGB, an accomplished apparatus for gathering intelligence to know the enemy within and outside the state; and disseminating misinformation to fracture it with fictional narratives masquerading as authentic facts. 

After the 1991 fall, Soviet ideology crumbled but not the structures that sustained it. They found a new purpose. The former state-appointed oligarchs now had access to a rapidly privatizing economy. The intelligence operatives on the other hand, spread out to occupy governance and control the electorate within and outside the Russian Federation, using cyber technologies, political assassinations, and subversions. By the by, Russia was not the exclusive practitioner of such ethically tainted actions. We too engaged in similar tactics. The last count places us at 74, the number of times we sought to subvert regimes deemed inimical to our national interests. 

Ultimately, these two forces of administration and intelligence coalesced into three forms of oligarchies: one came to gain control of the former state owned corporations dealing in cyber technology, oil, banking, construction, and gas; one took possession of the ethically challenged black market enterprises; and the last set, the renaissance brokers, revived Russia as a viable post-Soviet super power. The confluence of these three forces ultimately gave rise to Putin, a former KGB operative, setting the stage to make post-Soviet Russian Federation Great Again, one that had a clear identity and a two-headed mission: claw back from the Soviet defeat, territories lost during and after Glasnost; and pierce through the NATO, CENTO, and SEATO curtain to expand its global reach. 

The rise of oligarchs in the United States followed a similar ascendancy, practically in the same time frame. Nixon had already racialized the south, thereby laying the electoral foundations for an obstruction-obsessed Republican party. Its dominance by a new white nomenklatura then followed, aided by the forces of secular and religious right. After all, over 40 million people across the social, economic and educational spectra, young and old voted for Trump, unconcerned by his race-gender-and-religion-baiting rhetoric. By the time Reagan came to power, liberalization policies and tax reforms accelerated the concentration of wealth northwards, inverting the base of America’s socio-economic pyramid. 

Several measures at the tail end of the Clinton and the beginning of Bush senior reigns further emaciated the Republic’s middle class, corroded the white working poor’s economic survival in the industrial belt and coal mining states, and dimmed the public’s voting capacity to think critically about policy — all for good reason. The church had remained untaxed, and left free to undermine pluralism in civil society by swinging some of us to the right of a white anti-Islamic Christ, profiting from the believers among us, all in the name of God, counter-evolution, and myth-based anti-science. 

Further, the industrial base of our democracy had shifted to a new normal — knowledge, entertainment, military and law-and-order based economies spearheaded by Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and military-prison industrial complexes. Ultimately, our social media came to dispense for us the hard task of finding ourselves, our identity, meaning and purpose. The assault on tenure, aided by rising costs and lack of investment in education enfeebled our formative capacity to induct our young in the art of critical thinking and forensic construction of arguments. We no longer thought deeply of who we are as individuals, who we are as part of a real community, and who we are as givers-and-takers in a civil society beholden to a nation-state. 

The Facebook “like” button gave us the rush of endorphins we needed. Finger-wagging someone with “You Are Fired” seduced the viewing public to imagine such dignity-stripping aggression as a virtuous expression of effectiveness in corporate at first and then political leadership. The personality cult celebrating, for instance Khardashian’s variously designed body parts steeped in silicone, gave us what we needed — immediate visual gratification of an imagined life under Lady Liberty, one we could not have, but oh we so so wished we had. We became etherial, perfectly cosy in a reality-abnegating bubble. In it we lived with others in a self-reifying collective, hinged to fiction, meme propagation, and butt-twerking culture — images of wrecking ball video come to mind here; and please note twerking here is a metaphor for reflective vacuity and not moral reprehension. 

Thereafter we became who we are by what we consumed, and not by issues and concerns on which we had to reflect lest we got dragged into an abyss of effortless depression. We no longer had to sweat over who had what policy, and which one we thought was better and why, and which one aligned with our philosophy, political purpose, and self-interest to nurture the Republic.

Other measures then followed; all stripped the Republic of plurality and reason. The first measure ushered the Republicans in a Trojan horse. And that horse was gerrymandering. That and super pac financing of both parties subsequently came to threaten the very foundation of the Republic. Once personality and personhood replaced policy and pandering, the use of vitriol and ad hominem on public platforms followed. It began in the early 1990s as hate speech on radio and then television. By 2015, it moved center stage under the guise of political porn. “Grab them by the pussy” became more forgivable than visceral hate of a woman policy wonk/diplomat, whose past was tied unfortunately to a Clinton lineage. Astoundingly, women Trump voters, young and old, could forgive rape allegations of a minor, more so than a woman’s re-crafting of her political destiny to lead the Republic from the ashes of an inappropriately used cigar by her partner when President. Clinton had been objectified by her partner to rise up as a person in her own right only to be slammed as an object, this time of derision no less. This was nasty politics at its prurient best! 

This victory of sexist rendition decapitated the give-and-take politics so vital for pluralist coexistence in a Republic. Ultimately, political porn and hate politics curbed authentic competition for votes over who had the best policies. Voter suppression did not help; nor did the use of quant parsing of electoral intentions in polls, exit polls and focus groups. The ultimate death knell for the Republic as we know it were two events, one under Bush The Young Wreck and not Bush The Timorous Senior, in which the judiciary was invited to determine the collective public will in an election result; and the other was more recent in which the electoral college felt compelled to behave as a chamber of partisan patricians, and not a house of trustees for the Republic. 

However, liberal tax reforms once they took hold after Reagan could only do so much for the rich; in other words, trickle up economics had its pillaging limits. It could not Putinize the super rich and their surrogates, i.e., render them oligarchs. For that you needed to usurp the electoral process, influence policy of a government you helped put in power and then operationalize policies of the executive you helped create by acting as its profit-centric surrogate; the kind of measures put in place to veer Russia away from pluralism to Putinopoly. 

Thereafter, America unravelled as a republic. Unfettered by financial restraints under Citizens United, elections became capital intensive. The elected were now beholden to financial backers, leaving qualified but underfunded candidates orphaned victims of dinar-politics. Efforts to counter this narrative by the likes of Soros proved puny and helpless in the face of the Kochs and his allies. Influential lobbyists ensured no aspect of legislation, governance, and program funding escaped the profit motivators’ scalpel, sometimes under the guise of public accountability. Rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, three areas were left somewhat untouched — Medicare, Social Security, Education, and the Veterans Association federally financed networks. These are now about to be unravelled — as we shall see in a moment.

What truly help accelerate the formative stages of the American oligarchy was the twenty-five year war abroad, and the punishing war on crime on the domestic front. The First Gulf War, 2 August 1990-28 Feb 1991, paved the way for the The First and the Second Afghan Wars of 1991-2001, and 2001-2016; which was immediately followed by The Second Gulf War of 2003-2012, in which we chased phantom WMDs to topple Saddam Hussein. These were enormous undertakings costing us over 37% of our GDP, and was spearheaded by 3.5 million armed men and women, 36.2% composed of minorities inclusive of Hispanics who constituted 10.6% of the total. 

From the point of view of the super rich, this war provided an unprecedented business opportunity valued at US $ 0.8 trillion dollars a year, and expanding. Contracting out non-battlefield operations and logistics then followed under Donald Rumsfeld’s titular chieftaincy, which achieved two objectives: ostensible efficiency in operations and business opportunities for the likes of Halliburton — benefitting people such as Dick Chaney. In effect, we had privatized the periphery of the armed forces, for all intents and purposes. What was left of the core was split into direct combatants, and machine-assisted fighters. Shortly, drones, metal mules, and robots will further alter the composition of our fighters, increasing the prospects of decommissioned filling the ranks of contractors, the Pentagon, federal bureaucracies, and Presidential cabinet appointees. The armed forces then face the real prospect of becoming suppliers of trained women and men for the private sector engaged in warfare. 

Similar trend towards privatization ensued on the domestic front. Between 1990 and 2010, private prisons increased by 1,600% bringing in a revenue of 3 billion dollars, a feat that could only be accomplished by increasing the number of incarcerated adults and their recidivist return to prison. By 2013, we had 6.9 million people or 2.8% of the total population incarcerated, 40% of whom were black, and 19% Hispanic. By and large this system benefitted two behemoths, Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Florida-based GEO Group (GEO), and several privately held companies, which include Management & Training Corporation (MTC), Community Education Centers (CEC), LaSalle Southwest Corrections and Emerald Correctional Management. 

This war strengthened the marginalization of minorities and over 2.9 million poor whites in the political process. Put differently, 2.7 million out of total population of 37.6 million blacks were disfranchised; as were 1.3 million out of a population 50.4 million Hispanics. Further, Blacks and Hispanics were paid the maximum of four dollars a day for prison labor, which if sold on the open market as a wage for hire at US $80 dollars a day would have generated roughly US $304.8 million dollars a day! And the prison corporations had this labour pool captive; recidivism ensured that they remained so. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that recidivist rate to be 76.6%. Where in America could you find such a repeat customer base! 

At the root of this problem lay education in prison, or lack thereof. Instead, prisons functioned as university dorms with an informal curriculum, teaching the art of crime as a lived experience. Once out, former inmates preyed on the most marginalized neighborhoods, further victimizing the poor communities. Adding 11.4 million illegal immigrants to the mix as Trump appears to threaten of doing would catapult the private prison corporations’ gross revenue by US $4.9 billion dollars a year. Construction of additional prisons would prove a financial boon for corporate contractors as we face the prospect of a recession given Trump’s avowed intention to give tax breaks to the rich. 

But here, you may well ask, what about the poor whites? Dismissed as a “basket of deplorables,” they were left behind by the post-industrial age, which began its accelerated march on the left coast just when Bush, The Young, took the wrecking ball to Baghdad. Reluctant to emigrate, as the Oakies had done during the Dust Bowl, to where new jobs were to be found, they prayed for deliverance; and God sent them a Man In Black. Obama’s “Hope” message promised deliverance eight years in a row, which failed to materialize. They continued to be where they were, steeped in abject penury. Truthfully, Obama could not deliver, no more than Christ could bring jobs in traditional industries back from the dead. The country had moved to robotics, other cheaper sources of revenue generation, and globalization. At any rate, even if this proved possible, it would have proved futile, since coal is now about to become more expensive than solar energy. 

Further, Republican avowal to obstruct the Obama Presidency saw to its failure to rescue the white working poor. Without jobs they clung to one insular constant — their identity as whites, with poverty as a culture of lived experience; a skin-and-kin society that nurtured the familiar, that resisted change, that was disconnected from the broader national matrix, and that opposed outsiders threatening their sense of who they are as people, white, machistic, salty, gun-friendly, and God-centric. As elections approached, they knew what they needed. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats could deliver. They needed a new Messiah, an outsider untainted by partisanship, who spoke his mind through his pelvis, who said he knew how to win, and was seen as strong and macho and therefore like them, and who could deliver what they wanted, a job on their doorsteps so they could stay put and intact as a people of white culture and identity. It is here that God, or some such antithetical entity, answered their prayers, this time sending them A Gotham Oligarch. 

 

What transpired next was the envy of a fictional thriller writer. The oligarchy in America long time in the making, split into three camps — hedgers, traditionalists, and purists. One supported both candidates, the other firmly opposed Trump, while the more savvy, saw him purely as an opportunity to secure a direct seat at the table, from where they could finally consolidate their political position as a ring to rule us all. So it is not a surprise that the new cabinet reflects the composition that it has. What we are seeing here then is the second and final stage of American unravelling as a Republic. We are indeed entering very firmly the portals of authoritarian kleptocracy.  

Some four years ago, I wrote an article, ‘America: Have We Crossed The Rubicon?” Everything I said then, has sadly come to pass. You are welcome to dip into the the text, which can be found here, https://www.academia.edu/4021960/Mustafah_Dhada_America_Have_We_Crossed_The_Rubicon_Empirical_Current_Affairs_Literary_Journal_Nov_2012_40-48

Let me recap what I said we needed to do to right the ship as we trundled into the second term of the Obama administration; and I quote, 

“At present, democrats do not appear to see this imperative; that the electoral contest is a battle in part over culture and values, and not just over change and not solely against proponents of dogma, and faith-based policies…In days bygone it used to be “it is the economy, stupid.” We then gave change a chance. I wonder if today “it is culture, stupid.” If so, then the age of political ideology may well be over. If that is the case then should “we the people” of the United States of America, consider with the help of technology a magna vox populi? By that I mean bring 311,591,917 citizens of the Republic together as E Pluribus Unum Convention – to talk about who are we as a people…

Further, the inversion of wealth resulting from tax policies asphyxiates opportunity for social ascendance. The culture wars threaten the text of American secular pluralism. God as a narrative in public policy threatens to either determine the course of reproductive rights, or silence discourses on human origins, and on advances and applications of science and technology. The right to bear arms has already traversed its original intentions, from a right birthed in a trough of exigency and need to a right borne out by an influential trilogy of culture, testosterone, and ersatz justice. The present structure for financing elections allows the might of money to manipulate collectively the popular voice of the Republic. The list continues.  

If these issues lead us to revisit and revise any or ALL aspects of the constitution, so be it. If these issues mean convening the largest meeting of people that the republic has ever seen in its history, so be it…our democracy may well need us to imagine the unimaginable. Resorting to magna vox populi as a cultural artifact to break the gridlock is one such idea. Thomas Jefferson would agree with the spirit behind such an idea – and we owe that much to the Founding Fathers. 

Not to recognize the perils we face ahead is to fall silent. Sentient citizenship urges us not to. I say this to echo Rev Martin Luther King, "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for” me – and perhaps for some of you. These then are the views of a citizen of this republic from the canyon below. May the power of its people, watch over all of us.”

The measures I suggested in 2012 would have saved us from the present predicament; they are now a bit too little too late. We have indeed crossed the Rubicon. I believe nothing can now save us from auto-destruction, but a movement from below. The fact that the new leadership under Trump has kleptocratic allies abroad, including Russia, now means any measure to save the Republic from the brink of this disaster will have to include measures to neutralize these and new alliances being formed by the incoming administration overseas.

That leaves me with one issue unaddressed. Will the new administration fulfill what it promised: build a wall, invest in roads et al, incarcerate muslims seen as threats, illegal immigrants et al, bring jobs back, and generally Make America Great Again. Yes, he can surprisingly! And we have already discussed the template for him to follow. It is Rumsfeldian but on a grander scale. Using the army’s privatization as a model, construction companies and contractors could indeed build the wall and roads as a duplex, with tolls and road taxes as a back-ended revenue generator. Similar schemes could be applied to privatize all aspects of government heretofore untouched, which by and large would feed into the coffers of the newly appointed kleptocrats in Trump’s cabinet. Could he deliver his voters jobs in traditional industries? Here he is truly whistling Dixie, unless the white working poor move to seek construction work in the newly formed companies. 

Will this improve life as we know it? Very unlikely. What is most terrifying is how quickly the checks and balances holding the Republic to democratic principles are fast disappearing, allowing room to normalize privately held prohibitive thoughts to be in full display in public spaces. Ultimately, democracy is about feelings, communities, spaces, visuals, signals, celebrations, tolerance, listening, compassion, forgiveness, and above all the warm looks that you get for being who you are in a shared environment and political space. It is ultimately, about the space you make for someone to enter it and thereafter share herself with you over a glass of water or wine irrespective of her skin and kinship values. Ultimately it is the most sacred secular communion allowing for culture and identity to flourish over a matrix of plural co-existence. From my vantage point, of someone of colour who has experienced fascism first hand, these things matter, believe me. They are fast disappearing before our own very eyes, like water in a drought afflicted by global warming. 

We are in for a very rocky ride! I for one, will weep dearly for years to come. Saying good bye to a faithful Republic in its final days of experiential pluralism is truly a pain I never wish I would have to experience — but there you have it.