| Can Barack Obama Make the Withering American Democracy Bloom Again? |
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Barack Obama may represent a hope for reviving American democracy, writes Zeki Ergas, but only if he challenges the overwhelming influence of big business, neoliberal globalization and the interests of American imperialism. 23rd June 08 - Zeki Ergas ~ STWR The American Democracy -- through American Imperialism (AI) since the middle of the 19th century (the conquest of New Mexico and California), and, in the last two or three decades, via neo-liberal globalisation (NLG) – has always served the interests of a wealthy oligarchy.[1] But, until recently, it could be argued convincingly that the American people benefited from this hegemonic ‘system’. That is no longer the case. There has been, since the end of the 1980s, perhaps even earlier, a shrinking of the American middle class – and a concomitant expansion of the two extremes: the wealthy and the poor. The withering of the American democracy, which has been constant in the post-World War II era, accelerated during the Reagan years, to reach a zenith or an apex presently, at the end of the two Bush administrations, in 2008. The neo-conservative government of George Bush took advantage of the 9/11 tragedy to, in the name of national security, drastically curtail American civil liberties. That was seen necessary to deal with two ‘situations’: one, healing, after 9/11, the wounded American psyche; and two, creating the conditions that would enable America to promote and defend AI and NLG, which are controlled by a wealthy oligarchy – not only in the US, but also in the other rising great powers (such as China, India, the EU and Brazil). Barack Obama has promised the American people ‘Change that we can believe in.’ That change can be defined conceptually as ‘making the withering American Democracy bloom again.’ But doing that inevitably means ‘dealing’ with AI and NLG. Obama has promised to ‘deal’ with the lobbies – Political Action Committees (PACs) – that defend the interests of Big Business, and have a huge influence in Washington. Other presidents have promised to do so in the past, but have all miserably failed. It is very difficult to win against special interests on the Hill. Assuming that he will be elected President of the United States, in November ’08 – and that he will not be felled by an assassin’s bullet - the relevant big questions are: Can he do it? Will he do it? Will he be allowed to do it? This is a very tough nut to crack, and maybe, regardless of who he is, nobody can crack it. Unless, of course, the American people demands it. Will the American people do it? Will he rise to the challenge of asking the powers that be to change this rotten system? I believe it will happen. Because, at world level, many elements are coalescing to make it happen. The survival of human civilization and of the planet are at stake. AI and NLG cannot go on because they are not sustainable. The world does not have enough natural and energetic resources to sustain it. So when will it happen? Difficult to say, because revolutionary movements have a timing of their own, which cannot be anticipated. Like water in a pan, they simmer for a long time, before coming to a boil, and the lid of the pan flies off, and the revolution begins. I give it no more than a few years before that happens. Meanwhile, concerning the withering of American democracy, I will try to answer the following three questions: 1. How serious is it? 2. How did it happen? and 3. Can it be fixed? How Serious is it? Nine and a half months after the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, a US congressman made (on June 27, 2002) a very remarkable and prophetic speech at the House of Representatives, in which he drew attention to the possibility of a ‘transition to totalitarianism’ in the United States of America. This is so, he argued convincingly, because the American people are losing their ‘civil liberties’.[2] It is generally acknowledged by fair-minded and relatively sophisticated observers that the US has changed radically after that attack which caused tremendous human and material destruction. It was a huge blow to the American psyche. That, I believe, is the main thing. That blow, almost seven years later, still not has been digested. And maybe it will never be, remaining, buried somewhere in the depths of the American psyche, to surface, in the future, at critical moments in the American history. Why has it been such a huge blow to the American psyche? There are several reasons. The sophistication and magnitude of the attack was beyond anything that Americans – and for that matter, the rest of the world -- could have imagined. It just did not fit the preconceived – and prejudiced – ideas of the Americans concerning the Arab and Muslim world. Never had the former imagined that a terrorist organization belonging to the latter could organize such an incredible attack. The Western cognoscenti did not believe it could have the intellectual capacity, and the technological and organisational know-how, to pull such a thing off. In addition, Americans did not believe that ‘they’ would dare to attack them, in such a massive scale, on their home turf. Suicide attacks causing perhaps, at a maximum, thirty victims? Yes. But something remotely comparable to 9/11? No. So, that is one big reason that caused the withering of the American democracy. The US had to make sure that it would never happen again. National security became an obsession. The second one has to do with AI+NLG. As mentioned above, the main purpose of the American government has always been the promotion and defence of the interests of the American multinational corporations, including the oil companies, the banks, and the military-industrial complex. The rest of the world -- especially Latin America, Middle East and Asia -- has been made to pay a very high price for it, in the last century or so, when there were no less than the 130 interventions by the US military and the CIA, which have cost more than ten million people their lives. That is the AI part. In the last two or three decades, NLG has come to reinforce it. So what we have now is AI+NLG.[3] So far, AI+NLG cannot be really questioned in the US without the accuser being widely seen as unpatriotic, and even un-American. The mainstream media, controlled by the wealthy oligarchy, propagates the views of the establishment, and influences the public opinion. That is still true at the present time. But cracks are beginning to appear on the façade because the case that AI+NLG serves the interests of the American people can no longer be made convincingly. So, what about the future? As I mentioned above, the American middle class is shrinking, and the two extremes, the rich and the poor, are expanding. That, paradoxically, is a hopeful development for America and the world. Because, if it cannot be stopped – and the sub-prime crisis shows that it may not be – that can result in revolutionary action. So, the answer to the question: How serious is the withering of democracy in America? is: A great deal. How Did It Happen? The neo-cons grabbed power in America in 2000. They have used 9/11 as a pretext to promote the interests of AI+NLG. Neo-conservative ideology says that the use of military force by a great power to promote and defend its economic interests is legitimate. The US was, for about fifteen years, from 1989 to about 2005, the only superpower in the world. Then two things happened that changed that perception: one, the rise of other great powers – China especially; but also Russia and India, and the EU; and two, the US, in spite of its enormous military superiority was unable to win the peace in Iraq.[4] For neo-conservative theory, or ideology, to work, it must be accepted by the American people. The latter must be made to believe that the country’s security is threatened. That, in turn, requires that fear is sown in the hearts of the American people. The Bush administration has done that successfully. As a result, the Bush administration was able to introduce a large number of laws, measures and practices that have wreaked havoc on American civil liberties. I mention a few of the important ones below:[5]
Can it be Fixed? The American oligarchy will not tell the truth and do the right thing, because doing so would be tantamount to cutting off the branch on which they sit. It will continue to support AI+NLG, even if the latter is no longer working to the advantage of the American people. It would be wrong to underestimate the power of the American people. In the past, when things were terribly wrong, during the Great depression, for example, or in the Vietnam War, it showed its mettle. FDR was able to introduce the New Deal, and the Vietnam war came to an end. The American people can do it again. It must do it again. The fate of the whole world may depend on it. Hopefully, Barack Obama will be elected President of the United States in November 2008. His election campaign was based on the promise of : ‘Change that we can believe in.’ Does that mean that he will confront the excesses of the American oligarchy.[6] That he will put the interests of the American people first? Can Barack Obama ‘Make the Withering American Democracy Bloom Again’? I am hoping against hope that Barack Obama will not turn out to have been a fake, or to fall to an assassin’s bullet, and that positive change will happen in America. I do have faith in the American people’s capacity to change. Dr Zeki Ergas is a writer, scholar and social activist. Secretary General of PEN International’s Swiss Romand Center, he is also a member of that organisation’s Writers for Peace Committee and founder of Millennium Solidarity, a small civil society group based in Geneva. Dr Ergas is the author of five books, of which two are novels; he also wrote a large number of academic articles on African development, two dozen or so essays on the need to build a better world, in addition to a number of poems and short stories. He is married, has two sons, and lives in Geneva. He can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Notes:
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