“The current corrupt and dysfunctional state
of American politics is about a growing authoritarianism tied to economic,
political, and cultural formations that have hijacked democracy and put in
place structural and ideological forces that constitute a new regime of
politics, not simply a series of bad policies.” Henry A. Giroux
Journalist
Robert Scheer was in Santa Barbara the other night, giving a lecture for the
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. In a career spanning more than four decades,
Scheer has covered plenty of important events, penned a number of books, and
founded the award-winning news website, Truthdig,
which, among other things, provides a platform for the uncompromising work of Chris
Hedges.
At one point
in his talk, Scheer said, “The enemy is us.” Not ISIS or Iran or China. Us. We
are the enemy because of our own stupidity and arrogance. Take military
spending, for example. In fiscal year 2016, according to one report I read, 54%,
or roughly $625 billion, of the discretionary federal budget is devoted to
defense expenditures. More than half the
entire discretionary budget. Education accounts for 6%, or about $74
billion of discretionary spending. The US, of course, outspends every other
nation on the planet on armaments. We are bristling with weaponry, armed to the
gills, ever ready to wage war on our enemy du jour.
Our level of
military spending and our boot print on the globe is grotesque and completely
unsustainable, but our political leaders keep shoveling money at the Pentagon,
despite ample evidence that all this insane spending isn’t making the US any
safer or more secure. While America’s social and practical needs – like
bridges, roads, water systems (think, Flint, Michigan), mass transit, solar
power, wind power, care for the young and the elderly – are allowed to go to
seed, or get sold off to private operators, the politicians continue to sink
billions into hopeless causes like Afghanistan.
Has the
disconnect between the governed and the federal government ever been more pronounced?
The system is now so perverted that the will of the people is ignored without
consequence. Both parties are ruled by the same sources of money: Wall Street
banks, insurance companies, resource extractors, and the military-intelligence-security
complex. The corporate-owned media works in tandem with the power complex,
feeding the public a steady diet of misinformation, spectacle, and trivia. It
takes very little effort to hoodwink the electorate into supporting bogus
military conflicts, not to mention economic policies that make the majority
poorer, enslaves people in debt, and brings ruin, even death (again, think
Flint) to communities.
The regimes
of Uncle Ronnie, Slick Willie, and Cowboy George went too far, created and
unleashed a neo-liberal Frankenstein that today is beyond control. Obama
maintained the beast. Sadly, too many citizens sat passively by as the American
Dream was put to the sword. What happened to American working-class militancy? Who
speaks for average working people now? Nobody. In its rightward march toward
the political center and beyond, the Democratic Party abandoned the working
class. The only use the GOP has for
working people – white ones, anyway – is to stir them up about abortion or gay
marriage or gun control.
The prospect
of a presidential contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton fills me
with despair. Forget choosing between the lesser of two evils. We face a choice
between the lesser of two lessers. Standing on one side is Trump, a boorish
demagogue, nearly a cartoon character, and quite possibly a fascist; on the
other side is Hillary Clinton, an utterly corrupt opportunist with a track
record of failure and mediocrity. This is not good, not good at all. I was
reading something today that opined that people who support Trump honestly
believe that he will restore order in the world. Why, because he’s rich and
talks tough?
Yes, the
enemy is us. The empire decays from within and is destined to totter and fall. The
only question is when.
