Response to poverty and empire: Denial

By
Saul Landau                                                                      Read Spanish Version

In
the 1970s, Martin Agronsky, a weekend talk show host in Washington,
finally invited the venerable I.F. (Izzy) Stone to join the
establishment “pundits.” From the early 1950s through the early
1970s, Izzy had raised the basic issues to a readership — no more
than 100,000 — of Stone’s
Weekly.

Izzy
treated inequality
of income as both an axiom of capitalist economic relations and as a
phenomenon sustained by the annual U.S. budget — that is, built into
the “democratic” political system.
He also questioned the veracity of the official U.S.
version
of the Cold War, with the USSR portrayed as the world fortress of
evil seeking to spread its nefarious doctrine everywhere; thus the
need for ever more money for “defense” of the free world. Such
“dangerous” views, which he supported with fact and argument, won
for Stone a position of avoidance by the establishment media — until
he stopped publishing his weekly. Then, establishment journalists
heaped accolades on his “heroic and imaginative journalism.” (See
Myra McPherson, All
Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone,
2006)

As
the TV panel discussed the budget that morning, the mainstream
pundits went as usual straight for the periphery. After they had
offered their banalities, Izzy said the budget reflected the class
propensities of Congress. Thus, he continued, the large corporations
and banks would as always be its major beneficiaries. Silence — for
a seemingly endless second! In TV terms: disaster. Izzy’s first
appearance as a Washington expert also became his last. Some things
you cannot say in the major media or in political discourse — that
is, if you hope to become a TV regular or a major candidate.

The
interminable presidential campaign demonstrated the contemporary
versions of institutionalized denial. For example, most members of
the public and even Congress see desperately poor people every day,
on their way to and from work, in streets, near their homes or from
inside their cars. Yet, they accept an implicitly accepted dogma: do
not, under any conditions, allow the use in political speech of the
words “poor people.”

When
Ohio Congressman Dennis
Kucinich ran in the Democratic Primaries, he took dramatic exception
to these house rules. The media and the political elite trivialized
him and cast him into the margins of lunacy. After Kucinich reported
a sighting of a UFO — not an alien space ship, but something that
could have been a new air force missile — members of the chattering
TV media mocked him, implying that he was a UFO kook. No wonder he
said sympathetic words about poor people and even advocated for them.
Ironically, these superior media critics believed Christ had risen
from his grave and soared to Heaven on Easter.

Do
most voters experience this gap between political rhetoric and
reality as part of reality itself? Does the denial mechanism —
don’t mention the poor — allow Republicans to label their
Democratic rivals “too left,” referring to tax hikes for those
earning over $250,000, and use buzz words (socialist,
redistributionist, and collectivist) as if God had made such “ists”
sinful somewhere in the Ten Commandments? Indeed, Republican
candidates routinely accuse Democrats of practicing “class war”
— meaning the Donkey Party wants to take money from those who have
enormous excesses of filthy lucre and give it to the riff raff,
welfare cheats, lazy bums. Translation: any and all poor people.
Republicans indicate that those below a certain income level do not
even merit description by the word “people,” except in the
context of “those people.” 

Mainstream
Democrats tend to counter Republican “class” attacks with the
awkward defense of claiming not to represent poor people; rather,
they identify with “the middle class,” a verbal veil to cover
their failure to recognize — in speech or deed — the miserable
existence of millions of people, many of whom don’t vote.

In
September 2007, U.S. Federal Poverty Numbers showed 12.5 percent of
Americans — 37.3 million people — living in poverty according to
the U.S. Census Bureau. Food Research and Action Center in 2004
claimed its studies showed almost 40 million U.S. kids experienced
routine hunger during the course of their week.
(http://www.frac.org/Press_Release/10.28.05.html)

To
what class do the 50 million Americans lacking access to health care
belong? Are families earning less than $40,000 a year “middle
class?” In 2006, the bottom 20% earned less than $19,178. Millions
of adults and kids are homeless or a pay check or two away; thousands
live in cars. But presidential aspirants agreed over almost two years
of campaigning on the inherent virtues of that ephemeral “middle
class.” In real life
the number
of poor people increased, but became less visible — not from our
eyes, but for political speech parameters.

Did
the major Party candidates fear that by mentioning the tens of
millions of wretched of the earth they would lose votes, beget the
ridicule of the media and, most importantly, alienate the major
donors?

No
major candidate called for a national health plan, even as the nation
gets sicker. The media reported that diabetes rates had recently
doubled due in large part to poor diets. Obesity became a recognized
national problem among young people. Meanwhile, the cost of health
care rises, thanks in large part to the ridiculous slice taken off
the top of all bills by the insurance companies and the absurd price
the pharmaceutical oligarchy charges.

Candidates
behaved as if the “U.S. as Number One” belonged to eternity,
although we have become number one in the number of foster children
and have risen in our level of orphans — not to mention the number
of meth-amphetamine labs and people of color behind bars. In the
political debate, the issue of gay marriage actually trumped all
discussions of poverty. Only prayer in school seemed to slide,
temporarily, off the right wing political table — thank God.

As
financial meltdown occurred, spurring a credit freeze, massive
layoffs and a dramatic drop in consumption, candidates and Congress
focused verbal discourse on bailing out banks, brokerages and
insurance companies, the very creators of disaster conditions.
Millions lost homes or are about to while candidates dared not
question aggressive foreign policies. Congressman
Barney
Frank (D-MA) called for reducing the defense budget by 25%. Defense
Secretary Gates warned: such a rash move would jeopardize “our
security.” No pundits questioned his statement. Indeed, rumors fly
that Obama will retain the supposedly moderate Gates as Defense
Secretary.

Has
the blitz of modern media erased memory? Don’t Republicans recall
the venerable Republicans of the 1950s, not Ronald Reagan, but that
pinko Dwight Eisenhower and his fellow Nebraska Republican Senator
Howard Buffett (Warren’s dad)? Buffett and Ike believed that
permanent commitment to fighting “for freedom” — or whatever —
abroad would boomerang and hit this country.

After
he won the 1952 election, Ike swore to end the Korean War. “Every
gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he stated in the
spring of 1953. “This world in arms is not spending money alone. It
is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists,
the hopes of its children. […] This is not a way of life at all in
any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a
cross of iron.”

McCain
promised to stay in Iraq, while expanding troop levels in
Afghanistan. Obama’s campaign speeches emphasized saving $10
billion monthly on the Iraq war, but increasing U.S. military
presence in Afghanistan — while attacking Osama bin Laden and
company in Pakistan.

Muscle-flexing
sentences characterized campaign orations. Didn’t analysts see the
incongruity between more military spending at a time of rising debt
and deficit, as the domestic infrastructure eroded? States and cities
built huge deficits, school boards contracted pedagogic activities —
but money went to banks instead and no major candidate questioned it.

The
establishment monitors of U.S. political discourse forbid mention of
empire and thus cannot admit to its decline. The fact is, “we”
cannot afford to support an empire. “We” remain number one as
“we” slide down the statistical pole in infant mortality, life
expectancy and overall quality of life. As recession grows worse,
“we” hear about how everyone supports “our troops.” No major
political heavy dares quote historian Gabriel Kolko’s conclusion on
the Iraq War. “It confirmed once more the lesson of the past
century: any war, including those fought with high tech weapons, is a
dirty, messy, and protracted affair that quickly goes askew.”
Instead, the U.S. policy elite defend the “Missile Shield” to
“protect the West” against future Iranian missiles. Shades of the
Cold War!

Such
programs and the language that accompanies them vitiates against
Obama’s chances to promote another New Deal, to put people to work
and fix the corroding infrastructure. Obama might well heed the
advice of conservative populist Pat Buchanan — “liquidate the
empire” — rather than allow the establishment figures to
perpetuate the ideology of imperial denial.

Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow, author of A
Bush and Botox World
and producer of forty plus films, available through
http://roundworldproductions.com/Site/Films_by_Saul_Landau_on_DVD.html.