Catastrophes loom on the horizon: an ecological
catastrophe caused by our reliance on fossil fuels; a nuclear
catastrophe, caused by our reliance on nuclear power; and another kind
of nuclear catastrophe caused by our government’s failure to pursue
nuclear disarmament.
It is unclear whether the first can still be stopped or even
reversed; what is clear is that the danger gets worse as time goes by.
What has taken many decades to develop is not easily undone, and the
longer the task is put off, the harder it becomes. Thresholds have been
crossed; more lie ahead. At this point, doing little or nothing only
makes the problem worse — fast.
But taking bold action would require bold leadership, and there is little of that these days in Washington, DC.
The impending nuclear catastrophes can be blocked at any time. But, here too, our leaders are hardly up to the task.
The good news is that none of these catastrophes are likely to do us
in at one fell swoop; the bad news is that if our politics is ever to
change enough to meet the challenges we face, it will be because ever
more devastating foretastes of greater catastrophes to come increase in
number and severity.
This will mean that the American government would have to take on the
energy industry and the military-industrial complex. This is
impossible so long as it remains in the pockets of both.
Plutocrats are calling the shots; in their own (unenlightened) interests, not ours.
This is why the old slogan – “the only solution, revolution” – has become than ever apt. But ours is not a revolutionary age.
It is not even an age in which far-reaching but non-revolutionary
change — change for the better — is on the agenda. In the Bush-Obama
era, normal politics has become even more futile than it used to be.
Meanwhile, as catastrophes threaten, the body politic has grown
chronically ill; basic rights and liberties are under assault, and the
temptations of empire undo what is most estimable in our political
culture. For security’s sake, much that was worth retaining has been
undone; and we are still more and more at risk.
And it could get worse. Our military juggernaut and the
institutions that comprise our national security state are capable of
wreaking havoc throughout the world to an extent that is without
precedent in human history.
The danger is that this is what will happen
as American economic, political and moral dominance wanes. Wounded
tigers on the loose lash out.
Decline has been in the works for years, but the Bush-Obama wars have
accelerated the pace. It has gotten to the point that, in the current
rift with Russia over Ukraine, even Israel, dependent as it is on
American sufferance, feels free to act in its own interests, not
America’s, in the United Nations.
Britain and France survived the loss of their empires. We can too; a soft landing is possible.
Indeed, if Obama really wanted to be, as he says, “on the right side
of history,” it would be his highest priority. His highest priority
instead is serving his corporate masters.
Inequality is on the rise too; this is a chronic malady that betokens yet another catastrophe.
What the harm is in increasing inequality is not as immediately
obvious as it is in the other cases, and neither is it as clear how the
situation could be rectified if there were the political will. This
impending catastrophe therefore stands apart from the others.
Nevertheless, there is a widespread feeling that something is wrong,
and that the problem is becoming worse. It was this sensibility that
brought the Occupy movements into being.
By now, only a remnant is left; soft repression and the meretricious
pull of the 2012 election did Occupy in. Perhaps this was inevitable.
Being leaderless and non-ideological, there was no clear next step.
Occupy could only wither away.
But it served a purpose. It caused the idea behind the slogan, “we are the ninety-nine percent,” to take root.
Even Barack Obama is trying to horn in. Needless to say, his efforts
are just words, and his proposals are insipid. He is going through the
motions only in order to advance Democrats’ prospects in the 2014
elections. No doubt too, he would like to depoliticize egalitarian
aspirations.
Would he also like to diminish inequality? No doubt, he would; but
only if it could be done in ways that the pillars of American capitalism
would not find threatening. Good luck with that!
The problem the Occupy movements brought to public awareness was not
just that the poor are getting poorer or that the gap between the rich
and the poor is growing. It is that the one percent – actually, the
very top stratum of the one percent – is enriching itself egregiously in
ways that threaten what remains of our rights and liberties and of
government of, by and for the people.
In other words, the danger was – and remains — oligarchy. With a
political class bought and paid for by the hyper-rich, the danger is
acute. Our would-be oligarchs have lots of “free speech” to spend, and
they are not shy about spreading it around.
The Occupy movement gave expression to political aspirations and to a
demand for justice that is implicitly revolutionary. But, at this
point in history, it is not clear what a genuinely revolutionary
politics, adequate to the tasks at hand, would involve. It is urgent,
though, that we find out.
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