Like Lobsters Caught in a Trap, Americans Are Held Prisoners By Their Procedural Republic

The news coming out of the USA last week was pretty bleak: another senseless act of indiscriminate violence at the Boston Marathon, where two home-made bombs were detonated amongst the spectators, killing three, including a young child, and maiming hundreds.

Yet, against this backdrop of blood running in the streets, the US Senate was unable to adopt a law that would have made it mandatory to perform a background check on any individual wishing to purchase a semi-automatic weapon. The vote was taken only after a few months after a lone gunman went on a rampage in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, also ignoring the fact that more than 90% of Americans favor the implementation of background checks.

It wasn't the case that the motion didn't have the support of the majority of senators, the vote was 54 in favor and 46 against, but in yet another weird twist of the American political system, a simple majority wasn't sufficient to adopt the legislation.  In short, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster by the opposing political party that effectively defeats the motion.  Instead of letting the minority opposition engage in eternal delaying tactics, the bill was simply dropped.

For the American nation this means that in all likelihood it can expect to witness another mass killing within its immediate future.  Like lobsters caught in a trap, Americans are held prisoner by their procedural republic, a political system that tries to pass itself off as a democratic republic, but in reality is nothing more than a plutocracy.

In fact, because the composition of the American Senate gives an effective veto to states comprising as little as 12% of the electorate, because the entire electoral system is built on the first-past-the-post voting system that discrimates against third-party candidates, because the electoral districts for the House of Representatives are gerrymandered, because it is an electoral college rather than an electotate that determines the outcome of the presidential election, because corporations have the right to spend without limits during electoral campaigns, because voter registration practices effectively suppress voter turnout, the US cannot be considered as a democracy.  In a democracy, it is the many that govern the few; in a plutocracy, it is the few that govern the many.

Taken together the above-mentioned procedures also prevent any meaningful change to the American political system and consequently to the society at large.  Essentially, the US is stuck, despite its incredible technological development, with a social operating system from the 17th century, a way of thinking that dates to the Protestant Reformation and the Pilgrims, and a value system that perpetuates the belief that people get what they deserve, where the rich can wallow in their wealth while the destitute must endure their suffering.

For those at the top the food chain, this hierarchical social system must be maintained at all costs, which includes maintaining the largest military force in the world at public expense and turning a blind eye towards the suffering of those families that are touched directly by the deaths of the appropriately 20,000 Americans killed each year by fire arms. Indeed, the plutocrats show as much concern for their fellow citizens as they do for the lobsters whose fate is to be boiled alive before being served on a plate.

Yet, it costs very little prevent the masses from making any meaningful systemic change. Conservatives need only control only one of the Congressional legislatures or the presidency to bring the entire political system to a standstill.  Since control of all three elected offices is rare, the condition of institutional lock-in has come about. Traditional media sources and social networks may rail at the apparent injustice that regularly surfaces across America, but to no avail because the system is extremely resistant to substantive change.

Like lobsters caught in a trap.

As Public Virtue Collapses Around Me, All I Can Do Is Watch and Write

I live in Quebec, Canada’s only French speaking province.  Here, the socio-economic system was crafted to be extremely resistant to institutional change.  It is what it is.  Most of the people have been duped into believing that they live in a democracy, so I take it is beyond their capacity to come up with an effective response to the realization that they live in the most corrupt province in Canada. 

C’est la vie.

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For my part, I thought change could come through the courts.  I was sadly mistaken.  Trying to point out to a judiciary whose members were often chosen on the basis of their political allegiance, clearly identified by the history of their political donations, that the voting system is fundamentally anti-democratic and an affront to my democratic rights was like trying to explain to fish that the water around them was tainted.  They simply don’t get it, especially when the fish in question have far more food than they could ever possibly eat.

I think that the entire population in Quebec has become resigned to the fact that life here is guided by the principle of take what you can get, and don’t worry if what you do is suspect because most people here really don’t give a shit as long as they got their share.

Let’s face it, the City of Montreal was run by the mob and governed by a mayor who pretended that he had no fucking idea what was going on; judges in Quebec turned to political party bagmen in hopes of getting promoted; and electoral financing laws have been openly flaunted for the last 35 years, with public money being kicked back to engineering and construction firms and the political parties that dole out the contracts.

WTF!!!                                                    

And don’t give me the French bullshit, c’est comme ça.

During the Renaissance, Niccolo Machiavelli and his contemporaries observed that when public virtue in a society is absent, corruption becomes widespread.

Some things never change. 

As a result, I’m better off taking care of my own, enjoying the fruits of empire, and posting the occasional blog.

The Triumph of The American Matrix

The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games. … Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts. … A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.    (William Gibson, Neuromancer)

When I was in elementary school, there was a quaint map of the world hanging in every classroom courtesy of Neilson Chocolates.  I often found myself gazing at the map awestruck.  The British Empire of which the Dominion of Canada was part of was in pink, comprising 25% of the earth’s land mass.  Feelings of imperial pride would rise whenever I thought that the sun never set on the British Empire and that somehow I shared in the glory of building something marvellous.

But by the time I made it to high school, these maps were no longer to be found.  The British Empire was no more and I was living in a bright and shiny nation called Canada that now had its own flag and had just celebrated its one hundredth birthday.

Little did I know at the time, there was another empire coming into being that would surpass the territorial reach of the colour pink on the Neilson’s map and, in fact, would sever the traditional link between empire and territory.

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I first entered into the American Matrix when I went to see the film Star Wars.  This was no mere movie.  Going to see Star Wars at the time was a global phenomenon that marked the passage into a world that fuelled the imagination of a fantastic future written, produced, and marketed by Americans.

The real force of the film and its sequels, besides the spectacular special effects, was the four billion dollars in world-wide box office receipts and the twenty billion dollars in merchandise sales.  Last year alone, the Star Wars franchise raked in three billion dollars in licensing revenue.

Essentially, what makes the American Empire exceptional is its incredibly seductive soft power.  Without question, the USA still possesses the military might that the rest of the world cannot match and it still controls the way the rules of the global political economy are written and enforced.  The tools of traditional empire are at its disposal.  But what sets it apart is that the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants consent to enter into the American Matrix with the hope of obtaining some version of the American dream.  Play by the rules, in other words accept the notion of the rule of law laid down by Americans, and if you work hard, you too can have some of the stuff that characterizes an almost out-of-this-world material wealth that many Americans seem to enjoy.

Whereas the Brits would hold out the promise of the Christian version of the after-life to entice the conquered peoples to accept British economic domination, the Americans bring a secular science fiction future in the here and now so to convince the world’s peoples that the American way allows for an approximation of heaven on earth.

I know.  As a knowledge worker living in the second decade of the twenty-first century, despite being born into the working class, I am surrounded by affordable luxury that provides a lifestyle that surpasses the material comfort of European royalty living in the nineteenth century.

A house, central heating, central air conditioning, spa, household appliances, two cars, health club membership, yearly vacations, pension, disposable income, food and wine from around the world, an electronic entertainment system that brings an incredible array of cultural performances into the comfort of my own home, the Internet, and several mobile computing devices are all part of my middle class lifestyle.

You could say that I live on the right side of the digital divide, enjoying the fruits of empire.  All this comfort comes about because, along with the vast majority of people around me, we go about our business following the cultural script that the American matrix advances: go to school, get a degree, get a job, get married, buy a house, have some kids, change jobs, retire, enjoy the good life as long as you can, grow old gracefully, leave something for the kids.  And also because we happen to have the good fortune to live in a sparsely inhabited country, extremely rich in natural resources, that shares the longest undefended border in the world with the USA, the most powerful nation on earth.

Deviations from the central script are allowed, but don’t stray too far or you will be bitterly disappointed.  The matrix is very robust and resilient to systemic change.  Why press for democratic reform when you can simply get away from it all by catching a cheap flight to a sun holiday destination?

Don’t get me wrong.  I would gladly take a deep cut to my material comfort in order to be able to participate meaningfully in the political process, but I happen to live in an empire not in a democratic republic.  Either I content myself with casting my habitually wasted vote or I move elsewhere and become a citizen of a country that values democracy.

One other thing to keep in mind is that you don’t actually need to live in the USA to enter and find a comfy place within the American matrix.  In fact, more than half of the American population can only access the cheap entertainment portion of the matrix without being able to realize the product placement in their own lives.  Despite living in close proximity to the cultural elites that built the matrix, the majority of Americans live on the outside, looking in, hoping that one day their fortunes will change.

In a world brought forward by the marriage of free flowing capital with technology, supported by a massive global work force, quality of life is affected but not determined by the nation state where one resides.  Finding a lucrative place within a production chain of either goods or services can be just as important and in many cases even more important.

Even in the richest nations, low-skilled labour barely offers a living wage, and if it does, one’s life will be just a pale comparison of the lives lived by the more fortunate.

In the matrix, hell is receiving constant status updates on Facebook from friends that are having awesome adventures while you worry about whether the electricity is about to be cut off.      

The Economics of Empire

More than four years have passed since the collapse of the world’s financial system.  A crippling economic recession lingers as economic growth continues to be anemic as the economy fluctuates between expansion and contraction.  Yet, stock markets in the US and the UK approach their all-time records with regard to their valuation.

Welcome to the economics of empire.

Previously, the increase in material wealth that came about due to the territorial expansion of imperialism enriched those at the centre of the empire.  Some of this wealth would then trickle down to the population at large.  This was the case in America after the end of the Second World War until the end of the 1970s with the election of Ronald Reagan as President and the ensuing death of the Fordist social contract between business, labour, and government.

For most of America’s history, nation building and empire building went hand in hand, so much so that before the onset of the twentieth century the two forces were indistinguishable.

But things changed.

For the most part, vast numbers of the people inhabiting the United States of America have become victim to the unparalleled success of the American Empire.

Grand Central Station New York

To get a feel for how the paths of the nation and the empire have diverged take a look at how New York’s Grand Central Station and Detroit's Michigan Central Station have fared.  Both were built in the grandiose neo-classical architectural style of the period, but while one continues to be the hub of a dynamic cosmopolitan city, the other lies in ruins.

Michigan Central Station Detroit


 

Today, New York is in fact the financial capital of the global economy spawned by the American Empire.  Detroit, on the other hand, symbolizes the decay of American industry and the American manufacturing sector in a nation that no longer attracts the necessary investments of capital to keep the American economy humming.

Essentially, American-born corporations and those who run them have turned their backs on their homeland because the returns on investments are greater elsewhere in the global economy.

The truth of the matter is that the American investor class is in the process of reducing its own population to a client-state status.  Having pushed the boundaries of empire beyond the limits of geography (total hegemonic domination of the world's military, commercial, and cultural spheres), the proponents of the American Empire have liberated themselves from the social ties that bind them to the nation.

They have, in effect, seceded from the union to pursue the expansion of commercial trade and the accumulation of capital in the virtual matrix of a global economy that runs on an operating system incorporating the rules written by America's elite.

In this matrix, GDP stats emerge but no longer represent significant data for those who no longer live and toil in the real economy.

   

While the American Empire Prospers, the Nation Becomes a War Zone

There are two Americas: the imagined community called the nation otherwise known as the United States of America to which the vast majority believes to include all American citizens and the American Empire, successor to the British Empire, which operates globally for the principle benefit of a corporate plutocracy that over time is becoming less and less American and more transnational in its composition.

Essentially, the proponents of the American Empire feed off the American Nation to advance their goal of continually expanding the volume of global commercial trade in order to extract ever growing revenues, a practice that became well established during the zenith of the British Empire.  In fact, with regard to its development, the American Empire is the second iteration of Anglophone world dominance.  Taken together, we can speak of Anglo-American empire as the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

Learning from their predecessors, the Americans have taken the practice of empire building to a previously unimagined scale.  For example, with regard to military might, there are so many American military bases scattered strategically around the world that no one knows their exact number.  As well, the American financial sector acts as the world's banker, the American economy is by far the world's largest, especially if we include the overseas operations of American-based multinational corporations, and global commerce is conducted by the rules defined by American-led international organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization.

Moreover, the American Empire has achieved what the proponents of the British Empire dreamed of but never could accomplish, the creation of a global cultural hegemony.  For better or worse, the pursuit of the American dream has seduced the world's inhabitants and brought about the realization that the means of attaining that dream entail the organization of a nation's political economy on the basis of the principles and values put forward by the greatest empire on earth.

This is not to say that there isn't a divergence of opinion and belief around the world and upon American soil with regard to cultural practices, but without question the belief that we will all be better off if commercial trade continues to expand has achieved global hegemonic status.

And what of the American Nation?

Well, it's turned into a war zone characterized by a protracted conflict that is being fought on the lines of class.

What makes this war unusual is that it is as if the American Nation has turned upon itself.  Indeed, last year was a remarkable year for mass murders in the USA, even by American standards.  Every year 12,000 Americans are murdered, a number that far exceeds the deaths of American military personnel killed in the line of duty.

To appreciate the class nature of this carnage, I invite you to look at a map provided by the New York Times of the murders committed in the city of Chicago last year along with the demographics.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/02/us/chicago-killings.html

But what makes this civil war especially gruesome is the manner in which the gun violence has escalated in 2012 so to put on display for the nation's eyes the random slaughter of innocent citizens: in particular, the 12 people killed and 59 injured in a Colorado movie theatre, and the 28 killed, including 20 children, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Of significant interest is that the perpetrators of these horrific crimes share similar profiles and their acts of terror bring about the same intended results.  Including the teenagers who ran amok during the Columbine High School massacre and the solitary gunman responsible for the Virginia Tech shootings, the killers are all marginal young males that had little chance of realizing the American dream.  Bereft of hope, they sought out to extinguish any hope of a better life their victims might have.  Each tragedy can be considered to be a cultural 9/11: the targeting of innocent victims to bring about incomprehensible suffering while gaining the attention of a nation who would be otherwise indifferent to their fate.    

Armed to the teeth with paramilitary weaponry, some of the losers in life's lottery in America have taken to terrorist methods in order to inflict maximum harm upon the nation.  Yet, the Empire continues on with its business, undisturbed by the daily carnage.

For a growing number of Americans just living in the land of the free and the home of the brave means putting oneself and one's loved ones in harm's way.

Democracy in America: How the Big Lie Rolls On and On

I get democracy.  It is a set of political institutions that allows the demos, otherwise known as the multitudes, otherwise known as the people, to self-rule.  By its very nature it is opposed to the rule of the one (monarchy, dictator, emperor) and the rule of the many (aristocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy).

Essentially, we can trace the origins of democracy to the golden age of Athens.  In the words of John Dunn, one of the world’s leading political theorists: “what the term means is that the people hold power and exercise rule.  That was what it meant at Athens, where the claim bore some relation to the truth.  That is what it means today, when it very much appears a thumping falsehood: a bare-faced lie.”

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Thumping falsehood?

Bare-faced lie?

If this were the case, it seems that an incredibly large number of people have been taken in to believe that the United States of America is the world’s greatest democracy.

It takes a slick rhetorical sleight of hand to get that many people to fall for such a big whopper.

So how do they do it?  What’s the trick?

Well, dusting off the cover of a book on rhetoric, what do we find?

Here it is, synecdoche:  a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole or the whole for a part.

Let’s see, in this case, holding elections, a small part and the least democratic of Athenian political institutions reserved for choosing military leaders, is substituted for all of the Athenian political practices that taken together locate power and rule with the people.

So, in other words, if a country like the US holds a lot of elections, it must be democratic?

Excuse me but that’s one mighty big leap of pretzel logic.

Yeah, but it works.

Through in lot of flag waving, asking for God’s benediction, images of virile youth ready to die for their nation and most Americans are more than happy not to insist that their meaningful participation in the process of governance does not extend beyond the time it takes to cast a ballot.

It’s part of the American dream.

You got to be asleep to fall for it.  

Calling Out the Tellers of the Hell-monger's Tale

Enthralled by Mammon, the tellers of the Hell-monger's Tale seek to turn the planet from an earthly paradise into a living hell.  In fact, burning up the world's stock of fossil fuels would make most of the earth inhospitable for humans.

Spurred on by their insatiable greed, they spread their cancerous ideology each time they interpret the unfolding of events within their narrative frame that greed is good:

"Behold the word of the chosen ones: the economy must continue to grow unceasingly for in the absence of economic growth pestilence and plague will sweep the nation.

Damn those who would slow the wheels of economic growth!

Catastrophic climate change you say? Nothing more than heretical cant from the non- believers."

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Sometimes You Have To Say, "Fuck the Economy!"

As you can see, I like the biblical rhetoric of fire and brimstone.  There's something primal about  it.  It speaks directly to our mammalian brain by skipping any engagement of our higher cognitive functions.  It gets you by the balls, so to speak, and gives them a yank.

More than ever, it's time for those who oppose the scorched earth policies of unlimited economic growth to take off the gloves and get dirty.

You could flog the facts and have them read the pertinent information to be found at
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/5-charts-about-climate-change-that-should-have-you-very-very-worried/265554/

However, each time you engage your opponents in a rational manner, citing scientific reports calling for limits to green house gas emissions in order to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius by the end of the century, you lose.

First, most people can't sustain this argument long enough to come to the conclusion that they need to change their consumption patterns.  Second, and much more important, faced with the cognitive dissonance of being presented with facts that don't correspond to their narrative frames, most people, most of the time, will reject the facts and hang on to the frames.  Humans are biologically hard-wired to do so.

So, stop being so nice.  Forgo the facts and attack the frame by tapping into the treasure lore of figurative language to be found in Judeo-Christian texts.

Instead of saying something like, "present economic policies increase the probability that the increased green house gas emissions associated with greater economic activity will put into motion a cascade of effects that will lead to uncontrollable global warming and catastrophic climate change", say something to the effect, "hey, what you want to do is let the rich greedy bastards have their way, letting them turn the earth into a living hell in the process since they believe that they can buy their way into heaven anytime.  No fucking way."

This kind of talk quickens the rhetorical pace.  It is intended to be emotional.  It is intended to engage fast thinking and it certainly gets people's attention.

So, over the holidays do something out of the movie, Fight Club.  Pick a fight with someone who starts talking about the economy by calling them a Hell-monger and see what happens.

Ho, ho, ho.