Had the presidential election gone otherwise, this column would have addressed self-styled “conservatives” on the utter phoniness of movement conservatism’s “small government,” “free market” and “individualist” pretensions. But it didn’t. So instead it is addressed to self-styled “progressives.”
By all means, enjoy yourselves. Get it out of your system.
If it makes you feel any better, I find an Obama victory considerably less horrifying than a Romney victory. The creeping authoritarianism of the security state and the broad outlines of the corporate state alliance would likely have remained the same either way. But the Brownshirts-in-Weimar-Germany cultural vibes of the GOP irregular wing scares the living bejeezus out of me. And Romney strikes me as the worst pathological liar and sociopath I’ve seen on a major party ticket in my lifetime.
I understand Obama’s a dangerous criminal, and I hate him on an intellectual level. But if he weren’t a politician, I’d probably enjoy having a beer with him. Romney, on the other hand, triggers a visceral impulse to inflict bodily harm on him every time I see him. So I can understand where you’re coming from.
Maybe you voted Obama because you favor reproductive choice and marriage equality. Maybe you like Obamacare. If so, I’m not going to argue with you. As an anarchist, I have no objection in principle to voting in self-defense for the corporate stooge you find least personally intolerable.
Just bear in mind that everything about Obama that makes him and his party more tolerable to progressives, also makes him more effective in serving the exploitative agenda of the corporate capitalist ruling class.
Obama represents the “progressive” wing of that ruling class. This wing supports reproductive choice and marriage equality, in part, because its members (whom David Brooks called “bobos,” yuppie managerial-professional types who shop at Whole Foods and listen to NPR) have a Blue State cultural sensibility. But they also understand that a ruling class reflecting evolving majority cultural mores is a good thing.
At one time, the dominant strand of the corporate ruling class used racism and racial division to divide the working class against itself and make it more easily exploitable. But the progressive wing of the ruling class now believes capitalism can function most stably in the long run if the ruling class becomes more multracial in its composition. And frankly, all those red-faced yahoos with the teabags, speaking in tongues and biting the heads off chickens, are just embarrassing.
Then there’s the Nixon to China thing. Back in the ’90s, Thomas Ferguson (in The Golden Rule) speculated that one reason finance-capital shifted its support to Clinton was that only a Democrat could get away with implementing the neoliberal agenda they needed (the GATT Uruguay Round, NAFTA, the DMCA) to consolidate global corporate rule in a post-Soviet world order. Clinton presided over the birth of full-blown neoliberal global capitalism, the decimation of what was left of the American labor movement, the polarization of income to 1920s levels, and the explosion of CEO pay to 500 times that of the average worker. But liberals still wax nostalgic over Clinton as the “Good President.”
The same holds true for Obama. As left-libertarian Arthur Silber recently argued (“Yeah, Yeah, Nobody Knows Anything,” Once Upon a Time, November 5), from a ruling class perspective
“[S]o many people who are not members of the ruling class think that Obama is on their side. Even after Obama has systematically betrayed all those ‘ordinary’ people for the last four years, they still think he’s really on their side. He just couldn’t do what he wanted to do — which happens to be exactly what all those good liberals and progressives wanted him to do — because: a) evil Republicans; b) evil Republicans left a really, really, huge mess; c) evil Republicans kept messing with him; d) evil Republicans kept stealing his toys; and e) evil Republicans.”
So Obama can wax Kennedyesque about growing the economy “from the middle out,” and “working families sitting around the kitchen table.” And in the meantime, he can murder thousands with drones enforcing a corporate world order. He can appoint an economic policy team of recycled human detritus from Citigroup and Goldman-Sachs. He and Biden can rubber stamp the totalitarian RIAA/MPAA “intellectual property” agenda — the state-enforced monopoly by far most structurally central to global corporate power. But as long as he uses vaguely leftish rhetoric, liberals will complacently brandish their “Democrats Care” bumper stickers.
These monstrous things demand justice, regardless of the culprits’ party affiliations. If you feel the rule of this Democratic war criminal and corporate stooge weighs less heavily on your neck than a Republican, I don’t begrudge you your momentary celebration. The question is, what are you going to do now that the election’s over?
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Fantastic Article! Couldn't have said it better myself.
“all those red-faced yahoos with the teabags, speaking in tongues and biting the heads off chickens”
Sometimes your phrases or references are totally bewildering (links here and there to relevant material would help). What are you talking about?
I suspect he's simply repeating a caricature of the more outre Tea Party people which is common among the progressives he's addressing. My own image of Tea Partiers is a 70-ish couple waving American flags and carrying a sign reading, "Keep Government out of Our Medicare."
"And Romney strikes me as the worst pathological liar and sociopath I’ve seen on a major party ticket in my lifetime."
Agreed. And like you, I don't find Obama nearly as creepy or threatening as Romney. But I didn't vote for anyone this year.
I am usually pretty careful about calling people sociopaths or psychopaths. As a former criminal justice major with an interest in forensic psychology, I have done a fair amount of research on the psychopathic personality. One of the better known books on the topic is "Without Conscience," by Canadian Psychologist Dr. Robert Hare. Hare estimates that about 3-4% of the population is psychopathic. So I don't take this label lightly. But damn, I think Romney would score pretty high on the psychopath "check list" (If you have seen the documentary "The Corporation," you will know what I mean by that). I really don't think the man believes in anything, aside from gaining power and getting attention. Romney is whoever he thinks you want him to be. People like Romney can be found in executive suites (public or private) all over the world. When you lack a conscience, you can do great things in a state capitalist society.
But just so I don't look too partisan, here's a classic quote to ensure I remain "fair and balanced":
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged."
— Noam Chomsky
""If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged."
— Noam Chomsky"
Chomsky is an uninformed dumb ass:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws
I get what he means to say and even agree with the sentiment but the Nurenberg Laws were something completely different than what he thinks they were.
The fact that Obama seems more likable is what makes him a more effective sociopath — and, by extension, politician — than Romney. The most dangerous sociopaths are the ones that are the most adept at hiding it.
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I would agree with that statement, but Obama strikes me more as the sort who rationalizes he does. He honestly believes everything he does is right, that there is nothing morally amiss with drone strikes.
Perhaps Chomsky meant the Nuremberg principles. It's a common enough error, but thanks for pointing it out.
The quote is an excerpt from a transcript of a talk that Chomsky delivered, possibly at St. Michael's College, "around 1990." Chomsky is perfectly clear what he means by "the Nuremberg laws" — viz., the international law precedents on war crimes coming out of the Nuremberg and Tokyo international military tribunals. Here's a fuller selection: "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. By violation of the Nuremberg laws I mean the same kind of crimes for which people were hanged in Nuremberg. And Nuremberg means Nuremberg and Tokyo. So first of all you've got to think back as to what people were hanged for at Nuremberg and Tokyo."
Of course, "Nuremberg laws" is often used in English to refer to the Nürnberger Gesetze of 1935, and "Nuremberg principles" or similar locutions are often used to refer to the legal precedents on war crimes and crimes against humanity. But while it's obviously important to distinguish one from the other, successfully distinguishing them is a matter of context and understanding, not a matter of linguistic fiat. It's not as if the phrase "Nuremberg laws" were the actual name of the German racial segregation bills, and which one somebody is referring to is probably something best determined by context, not by arbitrary fiat. And from context it is perfectly clear that Chomsky does know which of the two sets of legal acts he is referring to.
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