July 12, 2005 by lonbud
In Other News…
Lewis H. Lapham, the Editor in Chief of one of America’s smartest, most engaging monthlies, thoroughly explicates in his July editorial the futility of blaming George W. Bush for everything. Mr. Bush is, of course, doing his level best to do what he’s been told to do –project for the country, and the world, the “powers of the American imagination [and] the strength of the American spirit.”
Insofar as we fail to recognize this, we “do ourselves a disservice, and dishonor the memory of the Alamo and P.T. Barnum.”
Mr. Bush and his administration are but reflections of a democracy that would be wholly unrecognizable to even Richard Nixon, let alone Franklin D. Roosevelt or Thomas Jefferson. Ben Franklin must certainly be spinning in his grave.
In the same issue of the magazine, Ken Silverstein chronicles the many mechanisms by which 15,584 separate “earmarks” –diversions of U.S. Treasury funds directed anonymously by members of both the House and Senate Approriations Committees, often by single line declarations buried in the massive appropriations bills that keep this beast of a nation flapping its wings and flaring its nostrils like none in the annals of recorded time– how that many “earmarks” worth a combined $32.7 billion were attached to appropriations bills in 2004.
These are figures that have doubled since the year 2000, and which amounted to just 2000 earmarks and $10.6 billion in 1998. And there’s all kinds of unseemly lobbyist-campaign contribution-legislation-private beneficiary kinda crap going on –on both sides of the aisle.
Free markets indeed.
Our obvious overwhelming military superiority against any possible combination of other nations in this world cannot protect us from the rot we’ve spawned from within. We may be destined, despite the patriotism of each and every last one of us, to fare no better than the Greeks and Romans, on whose example we’ve based both our institutions and our comportment –despite the self-avowed religious foundation.
And yet, we have mechanisms for addressing these things. In fact, an important one has been on the books since 1789 and –surprise– the Bush administration and many of your favorite name brands and/or stock holdings would like to see it changed, pronto.
It’s called the Alien’s action for tort, and it grants United States courts jurisdiction to hear any claim for the violation of international law –the audacity of which should surprise no one in the current administration.
Lately it’s been invoked to produce a Supreme Court ruling regarding its applicability, and it inspired the American oil conglomerate UNOCAL to settle for tens of millions of dollars the claims of Burmese villagers enslaved and abused by Burmese officials at UNOCAL’s behest while the company completed a gas pipeline through the remote, little-known buddhist nation.
Currently, the likes of Coca-Cola, ChevronTexaco, and ExxonMobile face litigation, and both victims of 9/11 and Afghan and Iraqi victims of torture at U.S. prison camps have sued several military contractors, as well as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld under the law.
USC 28 IV 85 Sec.1350 is decried by the National Foreign Trade Council as a law that could “seriously damage the world economy and discourage companies from rebuilding countries like war-torn Iraq.”
Turd Blossom would seem to be the least of Mr. Bush’s concerns.
Michael Herdegen - July 14, 2005 @ 5:37 am
“Mr. Bush and his administration are but reflections of a democracy that would be wholly unrecognizable to even Richard Nixon, let alone Franklin D. Roosevelt or Thomas Jefferson.”
In what ways ?
What has changed so radically since the 60s ? The 30s ? The 18th century ?
lonbud - July 14, 2005 @ 1:26 pm
Well, in a general sense you are right, Michael. As David Byrne wrote, “same as it ever was“. Wealthy white males promulgate laws to benefit themselves, and apply them inconsistently to maintain social and financial hegemony over the rest of the citizenry, just as they always have.
Nixon would look at our democracy today, at the current administration and the way it operates, and realize he was a man ahead of his time.
FDR would be appalled at the way our sense of social and civic responsibility and interconnectedness has atrophied.
The founders would be disgusted to see how the citizenry has abdicated its imperative to stay informed and to demand accountability in its leaders –in favor of being entertained and “protected” by them.
Michael Herdegen - July 14, 2005 @ 2:38 pm
I’m not sure that the yeoman farmers of Jefferson’s day were any more informed…
It just didn’t matter as much. The vast majority of government was local and state, until the Civil War.
In fact, if the electorate of the day HAD been more informed, the Civil War might have been avoided. It wasn’t inevitable.
Wealthy and connected people exploit and craft laws to their benefit, but that group is no longer just white or male.
There are plenty of female and “of color” important politicians, civic leaders, judges, police chiefs, etc.
Further, it’s often not that the upper classes actively oppress the lower, it’s that the lower self-select through stupid behavior.
Regardless of how poor one is growing up, it’s possible to get a decent education, free, and even get fed while at school, until college. There are many, many routes to college open to minorities and the poor, including a hitch in the military, but plenty of people just live in poverty, getting by on part-time work, grants, and loans, until graduation.
If one goes to college or trade school, and works consistently, and doesn’t live beyond one’s means, it’s entirely possible for ANY poor kid of average intelligence to eventually join the upper middle class, owning a home and driving a luxury car.
Or, anyone, including scions of the middle class, can lay about and/or traffic in drugs.
Being unindustrious or ending up in prison isn’t necessarily the fault of “the man”.