Two kinds of decadence

Why, at a time when people say and the media reports that people are voting their values do we have the most corrupt, aggressive and destructive government in our history? The answer, I believe, lies in a cultural area so heavily glossed by prejudice that it escapes notice.

It is frequently alleged by Christian fundamentalists, the people who have made values a political issue, that contemporary American society is decadent and hence devoid of all moral values. It is difficult not to agree that the charge of decadence is well taken, When amusement so pervasively infiltrates every aspect of our lives, even the news programs; when every effort of Madison Avenue is used to divert attention from underlying realities; when ‘reality shows’ are staged; when, as recently charged, You Tube, MySpace, etc. are turning teenagers into a mass of narcissistic bubbleheads; when despite impending oil shortages this country produces the largest vehicles in its history; when, but one could go on and on. To this the religious right opposes their religion and its values, often called ‘family’ values to gloss their origin and claim extended ‘value’ territory. But does the apposition exist? I will argue that it does not. Fundamentalist religion is as much a part of decadence as the above mentioned cultural characteristics. Decadence is not merely a focus on material things. That has always been the case in American culture. We call it getting ahead.

Jacques Barzun in his book From Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life gives the following definition of decadence. "When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.” I think this reveals a little deeper understanding of decadence than is normally the case. This is a culture that has lost its intellectual curiosity and its attachment to reality. It indicates a society devoid of purpose and thought. This is in contrast to the America of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries when, despite gross inequalities, racism, and women as second class citizens, there was a belief in progress and in the science that obviously made it possible. A decadent society is at great risk, because among other things, it is into this morass that fundamentalism introduces its message of certainty and values of black and white. In contrast to the element of doubt involved in all science and in dealing with reality, fundamentalism offers certainty justified by faith, which is to say certainty supported by nothing more than a belief in certainty. There is no search for understanding or confidence in science as an instrument for investigating reality. Indeed, there is a dispensing with the motion of reality itself in favor of a satisfying myth. This ossifies a culture as it did in the Dark Ages. Decadence and fundamentalism are just two sides of the same coin of giving up. Neville Shute identified this human response to futility in his novel On the Beach. In the novel World War III has taken place and as a result of the nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States has generated an enormous nuclear cloud that is encircling the globe as it is carried by the jet stream. As it progresses eastward communications from the areas in its path begin to go silent. The Australia/New Zealand area will be the last to be destroyed. The final scene in this progress of futility is a gathering of two groups of people on the beach. One group is holding a massive party the other is warning of the immanence of God’s wrath. Both, in terms of reality are futile. The only difference is that one is honest.

This search for certainty at any cost is why values replace knowledge as a societal determinant. Values do not require evidence. They are articulated in terms of absolutes. This is why a society that pursues values at any cost generates absolutist government. Such a society must turn to oppression and violence to impose its values on a world in constant flux. What they wind up with is a society just as decadent as the one they fled, but now dominated by an arbitrary and dictatorial government. A case in point is the banal art of the Nazi regime. This vacuity of a decadent society is one of the major causes of this America’s disastrous adventure into imperialism in the Mideast and the increasing domestic totalitarianism. This adventure was not forced upon us. I submit we accepted it in the profound absence of any other pressing or motivating societal purpose. At root we had nothing else of importance to do. The fundamentalist antidote to decadence is simply another form of decadence compounded by dictatorial rigidity and the human suffering that flows from it.

Bob Newhard

A Progressive Perspective

As proposed in my next to last column I want to investigate the nature of a possible progressive perspective. I hesitate to use the term ideology because it can imply dogmatism and a placing of thought before facts. Let us begin by considering what I think is wrong with the major isms.

It appears to me that the fundamental problem facing any would be concept of a society is how to relate the individual to society so that the individual can realize her/his potential and the society is seen as essential to that end. This means that the human being qua individual must be the continuing focus of whatever efforts the society makes to improve itself. The test for any policy or program is whether the individual is promoted in her/his development. Society should be seen as a vehicle for human self development.

Capitalism, socialism and its dictatorial variant communism have at least one thing in common; they are economic theories and assume all social and other human activities, capacities, etc, are derived from economic activity. The bottom line for these isms is that human products, not humans themselves, are the source of value. This to me is the fundamental flaw that any progressive ideology must address.

As a progressive alternative I propose that we return to the Enlightenment and specifically Thomas Jefferson for whom the human individual is the source of all value. For Jefferson economics ought to be a function of politics; that is the economic structure should support the individual’s independence, which he sees as the economic foundation of democracy and the proper goal of politics. For this reason he proposed a nation of small farmers whose farms made them economically and hence politically independent. This was in contrast to Alexander Hamilton who favored the industrial development of an America in which factory owners, etc. controlled the lives of others, The problem is that, unfortunately, we have the economic structure that Hamilton favored and have lost much of the individual independence that Jefferson sought. The progressive’s problem is how to reform society so that its economic activity is a function of its human values. As noted above, Jefferson hoped to achieve this as a natural consequence of the economic structure he proposed. We may not have such a relatively easy out, but, if I am correct, Jefferson’s view can give us the human platform upon which to build a progressive ideology.

That platform, by placing the individual’s realization of her/his potential as the central goal of society should first identify what practices are destructive of it and what practices are supportive of it. The platform should then begin developing policies to deter the former and promote the latter.

As an example, as Jefferson believed that a democratic society should provide each citizen the opportunity to realize her/his potential, so he also understood and feared the adverse impact that accumulated hereditary wealth would have on other citizens’ access to opportunity. In my judgment progressives need, therefore, to develop polices inhibiting the hereditary accumulation of wealth. In this particular case Kevin Phillips’ book Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich is very useful. I suggest as part of a progressive platform that all wealth accumulated in a lifetime be returned to society to be used in assuring equal access to opportunity by the succeeding generation. It is, of course, argued that people should be able to use their wealth as they please, including passing it on to their children. However, it is here, as in other places, necessary to consider the consequences for other humans in this exercise of freedom. If we believe that the limit of individual freedom is the freedom to dominate others and if accumulated wealth allows an individual to do this, then it is more necessary to a democratic society that accumulated wealth be made available to provide equal opportunity for those of the next generation, Thus the recycling of wealth is beneficial for democracy and for its ultimate concern, the individual. This is but one example of developing a progressive policy from a foundational approach based on the individual’s potential self realization through society. The important thing is to create a conceptual foundation for progressivism that will support its values in a cohesive manner.

Among the more relevant presentations I have found of this notion of progressivism is a speech given in 1940 as the University of California’s Charter Day address by James Conant, the famous President of Harvard University, titled Education for a Classless Society. By “classless” Conant means equal opportunity to realize their potential and he does mean equal, not the glossed over, grotesque, parody that term currently denotes. This document can be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/95sep/ets/edcla.htm. Another source worth pondering is Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, published in 1879. It presented a once very influential economic theory that is concerned to eliminate the great disparity in wealth that capitalism produces without resorting to an all powerful state. Indeed, Henry George was closely associated with the progressives of his day. The Henry George Foundation is carrying on George’s economic analysis program. As they say “The Henry George Foundation has the aim of putting people at the heart of economics.” The Foundation’s web site can be found at http://www.henrygeorgefoundation.org/.

I hope that the foregoing has given some indication why Progressivism needs to toughly think out its intellectually responsible posture in the world of ideas. It is not enough to seek social change without having thoroughly thought out what society would look like if those changes all obtained. As capitalism and communism have indicated, the unintended social consequence can be calamitous.

Bob Newhard

The Depth of Legislative Indifference

I apologize for not writing the column I said I would on a proposed ideology for progressive, but the unconscionable behavior of congressional Democrats in giving Bush the money to continue this war indefinitely is too outrageous to pass without comment.

When Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee whimpers "We don't want to send the message to the troops that Congress does not support them. We're going to support those troops.", I want to ask where is his similar concern for this country’s Constitution and the duty it imposes on him to assert and protect the fundamental role of the Congress in determining whether this country will engage in war. They all took that oath, but we never hear them talk about it. When the founders placed it in the Constitution they did not say implementing it would be easy nor that tough decisions would not have to be made to insure its protection. Where was the resistance that this issue demanded? Where was the filibuster to bring focus, attention and life to this issue that the voters overwhelming demanded in the 2006 election? These people are facilitating the establishment of a dictatorship in this country. Is it possible that the Beltway Democrats are inconceivably timid and have turned their backs on their predecessor’s courage in fighting against the Vietnam aggression and the Great Depression? Do we have a party of wimps or do they march to a different drummer?

As Ann Wright has observed in an article in Truthout, the Democrats have joined in making the Iraqi puppet government the patsy requiring them to finalize their Constitution, which requires that they privatize their oil reserves thus making them available to the major oil companies for whom this war was initiated in the first place. No other Middle East country has done so and the Iraqi’s are obviously loath to give up control of their only significant source of national wealth. If they do not accept the constitution they will not receive the billions promised to rebuild the country we destroyed. Once again it is the corporations and their greed that are the root cause of the deaths of thousands, the diversion of billions of dollars from social needs to war making and generating their most profitable years ever. All this was done with the complicity of the Democratic Parry leadership. No wonder Cindy Sheehan has given up in disgust and fear of the fascist government that awaits this country. I have attached below the article by Ann Wright and a message I sent to selected senators and representatives. We must, I believe, be deeply impressed by the danger we are in if Bush has another 18 months in office and we need to impress our concern vigorously upon those who have the capacity to remedy this situation before it is too late.

Bob Newhard

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What Congress Really Approved: Benchmark No. 1: Privatizing Iraq's Oil for US Companies
By Ann Wright
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Saturday 26 May 2007

On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to continue the war in Iraq. The members called it "supporting the troops." I call it stealing Iraq's oil - the second largest reserves in the world. The "benchmark," or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq's oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.

This threat could not be clearer. If the Iraqi Parliament refuses to pass the privatization legislation, Congress will withhold US reconstruction funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild what the United States has destroyed there. The privatization law, written by American oil company consultants hired by the Bush administration, would leave control with the Iraq National Oil Company for only 17 of the 80 known oil fields. The remainder (two-thirds) of known oil fields, and all yet undiscovered ones, would be up for grabs by the private oil companies of the world (but guess how many would go to United States firms - given to them by the compliant Iraqi government.)

No other nation in the Middle East has privatized its oil. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iran give only limited usage contracts to international oil companies for one or two years. The $12 billion dollar "Support the Troops" legislation passed by Congress requires Iraq, in order to get reconstruction funds from the United States, to privatize its oil resources and put them up for long term (20- to 30-year) contracts.

What does this "Support the Troops" legislation mean for the United States military? Supporting our troops has nothing to do with this bill, other than keeping them there for another 30 years to protect US oil interests. It means that every military service member will need Arabic language training. It means that every soldier and Marine would spend most of his or her career in Iraq. It means that the fourteen permanent bases will get new Taco Bells and Burger Kings! Why? Because the US military will be protecting the US corporate oilfields leased to US companies by the compliant Iraqi government. Our troops will be the guardians of US corporate interests in Iraq for the life of the contracts - for the next thirty years.

With the Bush administration's "Support the Troops" bill and its benchmarks, primarily Benchmark No. 1, we finally have the reason for the US invasion of Iraq: to get easily accessible, cheap, high-grade Iraq oil for US corporations.

Now the choice is for US military personnel and their families to decide whether they want their loved ones to be physically and emotionally injured to protect not our national security, but the financial security of the biggest corporate barons left in our country - the oil companies.

It's a choice for only our military families, because most non-military Americans do not really care whether our volunteer military spends its time protecting corporate oil to fuel our one-person cars. Of course, when a tornado, hurricane, flood or other natural disaster hits in our hometown, we want our National Guard unit back. But on a normal day, who remembers the 180,000 US military or the 150,000 US private contractors in Iraq?

Since the "Surge" began in January, over 500 Americans and 15,000 Iraqis have been killed. By the time September 2007 rolls around for the administration's review of the "surge" plan, another 400 Americans will be dead, as well as another 12,000 Iraqis.

How much more can our military and their families take?

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Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army and US Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She served 16 years in the US diplomatic corps in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Micronesia and Mongolia. She resigned from the US Department of State in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.

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You have by your oath a Constitutional duty to protect this country and its Constitution from executive abuse. You have repeatedly refused to execute this solemn obligation. The latest such abuse was the provision of funds to continue this war unhampered by your constitutionally authorized ability to deny funds. Such a plea as Carl Levin’s that we must protect our troops, erroneous though it is, is no reason to abandon the Constitution. Where was the filibuster to raise this issue to its proper level? When you took that oath nobody said carrying it out would be easy.

We have on our hands a president who gives every indication that he seeks dictatorial powers and that he and his cohorts intend to destroy our democracy from the inside. Constitutionally only you can stop him. Now comes the NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51, which by fiat of directive gives Bush dictatorial power under all sorts of circumstances. In the first place no such powers should be permitted any president without the scrutiny and consent of Congress, including the consequences for our democracy. In the second place the last person in the country to have this power is George W. Bush. The arrogation of power by use of presidential directives and “signings” gives more than ample evidence that this person cannot be trusted with such power. You have until June 8, 2007 to nullify this executive order. DO SO IMMEDIATELY LEST YOU DELIVER THIS NATION IRREVOCABLY INTO THE HANDS OF A DICTATORSHIP.

Robert Newhard

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