Tweet
the root of US decline
December 12 2011 at 02:07pm
By Songezo Zibi
US President Barack Obama is in the political fight of his life as his ratings continue to plummet despite a looming presidential election in November next year. A Democrat, Obama will be facing a yet-to-be-nominated Republican Party candidate.
The Republican primaries will soon commence in Iowa and it is now almost certain that either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will take on Obama next November.
None of the two are considered especially sharp, with Gingrich having a hypocritical streak dating back to the attempt to impeach Clinton for shenanigans with an intern, while Gingrich himself was cheating on his wife.
Romney is not immune either, having championed health care policies remarkably similar to the ones he’s busy criticising Obama for.
Why has history dealt America such a pitiful political hand?
Today’s US congress can’t even pass a national budget without squabbling over ideological positions.
From an outsider’s perspective, it increasingly looks like America is in a decline of its own making.
One of the most obvious reasons is the horror of the 9/11 mass slaughter of civilians in New York.
Stunned to near paralysis that an enemy managed to penetrate the US heartland and commit murder on an industrial scale, America felt it needed to retaliate, and it did.
In its anger, it embarked on courses of action that not only increased its alienation abroad, but cultivated a victim psychology in its citizens which blinds them to government actions that are eroding their country’s credibility and leadership abroad.
Domestically, policies were pursued which began to change the nature of America for the worse.
Disturbing laws such as the recently passed National Defence Authorisation Act move the US further away from the ideals so associated with that nation’s founders.
Under this law, the US army now has the authority to indefinitely detain and torture Americans without charge or trial if it believes them to be terrorists.
This and many regressive actions accelerated the already rapid decline of America’s reputation as a country of openness, laws and the rule of law.
In short, 9/11 has cost America its own professed values and identity. It is a moral shadow of its former self, having started on that slippery slope when it decided to put up its electoral system, congress and senate up for sale to special corporate interests.
And 9/11 also unleashed an age of unreason fuelled by blind patriotism, which produced a herd mentality that now permeates other areas of that country’s society.
In particular, it has prevented Americans from seeking the kind of answers that would help them make rational, informed political decisions at election time, in particular relating to how public finances are spent.
For instance, it was for many years considered unpatriotic to question the validity and cost of the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have cost the US in excess of $1.2 trillion.
This has been financed entirely through borrowing. Meanwhile the US government and congress are trying to trim the country’s $15 trillion debt, but no one is talking about the hundreds of billions expended on wars no one understands any longer.
Instead the Democrats and Republicans are wrangling over which social and health spending programmes should be trimmed at the expense of poorer Americans.
At this point it is important to examine who benefits the most from the wars waged by America in recent years. Halliburton, the company headed by **** Cheney before he took up a job as US vice president to George W Bush – is one of the biggest profiteers from the war.
Together with Blackwater, the largest mercenary outfit in the world and many others, they have been accused by their critics of overcharging US taxpayers, who must now foot the bill for debts incurred to make these companies rich.
In some jurisdictions this glaring coincidence between Cheney’s former job and his vehement pursuit of wars in which his administration outsourced to the tune of billions to his former company would be considered corrupt, but not in the US.
The past year has seen unprecedented economic difficulties in the US, with unemployment rising to levels not seen in decades.
National debt is spiralling out of control and there is an urgent need to get it back under control.
At such times it would appear logical to curb wasteful expenditure without removing crucial social safety nets at a time when poor citizens need them most.
America cannot bring itself to do this, for this would go against what the general political herd has been convinced is the American way – “supporting our troops abroad”.
There is, however, no word on “insisting the troops come home”.
Instead every now and again American citizens have to contend with the possibility of a government shutdown because no new budget has been approved by congress because of silly ideological dogma between the two parties.
How the country expects to maintain global leadership under such circumstances is beyond reason.
In his 1920s tome, Education and the Social Order, British philosopher, Bertrand Russell warned about the dangers of patriotism and herd behaviour in particular as they relate to politics and war.
“Throughout the Western world boys and girls are taught that their most important social loyalty is to the state of which they are citizens, and their duty to the state is to act as its government may direct.
“Lest they should question this doctrine, they are taught false history, false politics, false economics.
“They are led to suppose that all the wars in which their own state has engaged are wars of defence, while wars of foreign states are wars of aggression.”
In essence, this is America’s problem – patriotism gone wrong, fuelled by false education and information.
For poor Americans to believe it is wrong for their government to help them get back on their feet, for educated citizens to believe it is wrong to question a costly war that feeds the coffers of a few greedy elites; and for politicians to have no shame taking from the poor to feed the rich through expensive wars, a country has to be in a dire intellectual position.
That is why it was possible, however momentary, for intellectual invalids like Herman Cain and Donald Trump to gain public traction as possible presidential candidates.
It also explains why a disciple of poor ethics, false history, economics and politics like Newt Gingrich is a frontrunner today.
Americans see no shame in this because they have been misled to believe that America’s always right, no matter the fool in government.
The world has changed, but America does not appear to believe that it needs to change with it.
With its economic dominance being challenged by China, and in future, India, it can no longer count on an eternal position as a dominant consumer market while, at the same time, being riddled with national and private debt it is politically paralysed to deal with.
With its military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, maimed and demoralised, it can no longer afford to wave guns in the face of every opponent.
However, the very likely election of Gingrich as US president puts to bed all hope that reason might return to either Capitol Hill or the White House.
Obama’s opponents, pretty much like the rest of America that no longer wants him, still live in the old world and believe in an old America that no longer exists.
Their seeming popularity at present suggests an American public that is yet to move on.
This is what will precipitate America’s further decline, not al-Qaeda or Iran’s nuclear programme.
America’s decline would not be a good thing for many in the world who depend on its technological innovations, vast consumer markets and other opportunities.
It however needs to re-assess the foundations of its thinking.
Despite being relative pioneers of the popular democratic order, America needs to recognise its democracy no longer works the way it was intended to.
Special interests control its lawmakers while ideological dogma ensures solutions elude its congress with alarming regularity for the sake of ascent to power.
It needs to find a new way of leading the world by consensus and influence, not the barrel of a gun like it has been used to.
That requires better presidential candidates than the awful lineup for November 2012.
n Songezo Zibi is a member of the Midrand Group
Patriotism: the root of US decline - Sunday Independent | IOL.co.za
December 12 2011 at 02:07pm
By Songezo Zibi
US President Barack Obama is in the political fight of his life as his ratings continue to plummet despite a looming presidential election in November next year. A Democrat, Obama will be facing a yet-to-be-nominated Republican Party candidate.
The Republican primaries will soon commence in Iowa and it is now almost certain that either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will take on Obama next November.
None of the two are considered especially sharp, with Gingrich having a hypocritical streak dating back to the attempt to impeach Clinton for shenanigans with an intern, while Gingrich himself was cheating on his wife.
Romney is not immune either, having championed health care policies remarkably similar to the ones he’s busy criticising Obama for.
Why has history dealt America such a pitiful political hand?
Today’s US congress can’t even pass a national budget without squabbling over ideological positions.
From an outsider’s perspective, it increasingly looks like America is in a decline of its own making.
One of the most obvious reasons is the horror of the 9/11 mass slaughter of civilians in New York.
Stunned to near paralysis that an enemy managed to penetrate the US heartland and commit murder on an industrial scale, America felt it needed to retaliate, and it did.
In its anger, it embarked on courses of action that not only increased its alienation abroad, but cultivated a victim psychology in its citizens which blinds them to government actions that are eroding their country’s credibility and leadership abroad.
Domestically, policies were pursued which began to change the nature of America for the worse.
Disturbing laws such as the recently passed National Defence Authorisation Act move the US further away from the ideals so associated with that nation’s founders.
Under this law, the US army now has the authority to indefinitely detain and torture Americans without charge or trial if it believes them to be terrorists.
This and many regressive actions accelerated the already rapid decline of America’s reputation as a country of openness, laws and the rule of law.
In short, 9/11 has cost America its own professed values and identity. It is a moral shadow of its former self, having started on that slippery slope when it decided to put up its electoral system, congress and senate up for sale to special corporate interests.
And 9/11 also unleashed an age of unreason fuelled by blind patriotism, which produced a herd mentality that now permeates other areas of that country’s society.
In particular, it has prevented Americans from seeking the kind of answers that would help them make rational, informed political decisions at election time, in particular relating to how public finances are spent.
For instance, it was for many years considered unpatriotic to question the validity and cost of the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have cost the US in excess of $1.2 trillion.
This has been financed entirely through borrowing. Meanwhile the US government and congress are trying to trim the country’s $15 trillion debt, but no one is talking about the hundreds of billions expended on wars no one understands any longer.
Instead the Democrats and Republicans are wrangling over which social and health spending programmes should be trimmed at the expense of poorer Americans.
At this point it is important to examine who benefits the most from the wars waged by America in recent years. Halliburton, the company headed by **** Cheney before he took up a job as US vice president to George W Bush – is one of the biggest profiteers from the war.
Together with Blackwater, the largest mercenary outfit in the world and many others, they have been accused by their critics of overcharging US taxpayers, who must now foot the bill for debts incurred to make these companies rich.
In some jurisdictions this glaring coincidence between Cheney’s former job and his vehement pursuit of wars in which his administration outsourced to the tune of billions to his former company would be considered corrupt, but not in the US.
The past year has seen unprecedented economic difficulties in the US, with unemployment rising to levels not seen in decades.
National debt is spiralling out of control and there is an urgent need to get it back under control.
At such times it would appear logical to curb wasteful expenditure without removing crucial social safety nets at a time when poor citizens need them most.
America cannot bring itself to do this, for this would go against what the general political herd has been convinced is the American way – “supporting our troops abroad”.
There is, however, no word on “insisting the troops come home”.
Instead every now and again American citizens have to contend with the possibility of a government shutdown because no new budget has been approved by congress because of silly ideological dogma between the two parties.
How the country expects to maintain global leadership under such circumstances is beyond reason.
In his 1920s tome, Education and the Social Order, British philosopher, Bertrand Russell warned about the dangers of patriotism and herd behaviour in particular as they relate to politics and war.
“Throughout the Western world boys and girls are taught that their most important social loyalty is to the state of which they are citizens, and their duty to the state is to act as its government may direct.
“Lest they should question this doctrine, they are taught false history, false politics, false economics.
“They are led to suppose that all the wars in which their own state has engaged are wars of defence, while wars of foreign states are wars of aggression.”
In essence, this is America’s problem – patriotism gone wrong, fuelled by false education and information.
For poor Americans to believe it is wrong for their government to help them get back on their feet, for educated citizens to believe it is wrong to question a costly war that feeds the coffers of a few greedy elites; and for politicians to have no shame taking from the poor to feed the rich through expensive wars, a country has to be in a dire intellectual position.
That is why it was possible, however momentary, for intellectual invalids like Herman Cain and Donald Trump to gain public traction as possible presidential candidates.
It also explains why a disciple of poor ethics, false history, economics and politics like Newt Gingrich is a frontrunner today.
Americans see no shame in this because they have been misled to believe that America’s always right, no matter the fool in government.
The world has changed, but America does not appear to believe that it needs to change with it.
With its economic dominance being challenged by China, and in future, India, it can no longer count on an eternal position as a dominant consumer market while, at the same time, being riddled with national and private debt it is politically paralysed to deal with.
With its military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, maimed and demoralised, it can no longer afford to wave guns in the face of every opponent.
However, the very likely election of Gingrich as US president puts to bed all hope that reason might return to either Capitol Hill or the White House.
Obama’s opponents, pretty much like the rest of America that no longer wants him, still live in the old world and believe in an old America that no longer exists.
Their seeming popularity at present suggests an American public that is yet to move on.
This is what will precipitate America’s further decline, not al-Qaeda or Iran’s nuclear programme.
America’s decline would not be a good thing for many in the world who depend on its technological innovations, vast consumer markets and other opportunities.
It however needs to re-assess the foundations of its thinking.
Despite being relative pioneers of the popular democratic order, America needs to recognise its democracy no longer works the way it was intended to.
Special interests control its lawmakers while ideological dogma ensures solutions elude its congress with alarming regularity for the sake of ascent to power.
It needs to find a new way of leading the world by consensus and influence, not the barrel of a gun like it has been used to.
That requires better presidential candidates than the awful lineup for November 2012.
n Songezo Zibi is a member of the Midrand Group
Patriotism: the root of US decline - Sunday Independent | IOL.co.za