It is sufficient to repeat a line from within Chapter 20, Assuming the Worst, "These conclusions are based on solid scientific data stretching back over 100 years." The only thing which may change the outcome is the new generation of protesters who rose in 2011 in Occupy Wall Street, and are committed to nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action. This nonviolent approach is repeating in the ongoing protest against police violence in Furguson, MO.
This chapter is, at best, speculative. It addresses the end of the current Winner-Take-All era of Capitalism.
Cliff Potts
November 4, 2014
This chapter is, at best, speculative. It addresses the end of the current Winner-Take-All era of Capitalism.
Wealth, Women, and War is released in accordance with the solidarity principals of Occupy Wall Street adopted on February 9, 2012.
Cliff Potts
November 4, 2014
Assuming the Worst
There is one caveat concerning the possibility of an
escalation of the wars going on in the world today. This is the approach
signified by the move of Halliburton’s headquarters to Dubai . It signifies the possibility that if
the legal or political situation in the United States gets uncertain, those
who are on the top of the economic food chain can escape to a safe location
where they will not be extradited. That thinking would be in error. Even today,
some sixty-two years after the fall of Nazi Germany, Nazi war criminals are
still being hunted down. Alois Brunner, an 88 year old former SS officer, was
tried in absentia in Paris ,
France
During the French Revolution, from 1789 to 1799, at
least 18,000 people fell under the blade of the guillotine. During the purges
of the Communist Party during the Soviet era reports claim that up to one
million people were executed for being on the wrong side of the political
faction. It is not too large a stretch of the imagination that the tools of the
FBI, and Homeland Security, including the Patriot Act, and RICO Act (Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), could be used to prosecute elite
public enemies. It would be foolish to think that any individual can evade
prosecution or retribution forever. The jails are full of today’s socioeconomic
criminals who thought they could get away with their crimes. This is not a
preferable solution. Not for today’s economic prisoners. Not for the corporate
managers.
Halliburton is not a public enemy. As of this writing
there have been allegations, but still no convictions. According to Susan
Cornwell in writing for Reuters reported that, “Halliburton exploited federal
rules to hide details from the public about its contract performance.”[1]
Those who are skilled in business, and have gained,
are not enemies of the state. However, given the right political climate, there
could exist a political need to find and punish those who are perceived to be
criminals. The variables are the nature of the régime, the amount of damage
done, and the general temperament of the people in charge of the prosecutions.
Just as with Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines , Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) of Cambodia , and Saddam Hussein in Iraq ,
the extent of the punishment varies based on the disposition of those who
follow. Marcos was exiled. Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998 hiding from
prosecutors. Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging on December 30, 2006. Only
the most benevolent regime would seize assets and leave the individual to his
self-imposed exile elsewhere. A hard-line regime would be inclined to kidnap,
or assassinate the felon convicted in absentia. Following the Munich
Olympic massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized the
assassination of responsible parties in Lebanon
and Europe . The operation, named Operation
Bayonet, lasted 20 years.
Based on what we are seeing in the United States today, the utter callousness and
cheapness of life, economic deprivation inflicted without concern, the
likelihood of a benevolent, enlightened, forgiving régime coming to power
following an economic collapse in the United States is highly unlikely.
The corporations have sent a message which is loud
and clear. Ethics don’t matter. Greed is good. The people are the enemy. Given
that, is there any wonder that the possibility of retaliation is high, and
given the neutralization techniques, is conceivable?
A recent CNN news clip showing U.S. troops repeatedly shooting at
a fallen Iraqi and recounting how it was “fun” tells more about the condition
of society than any illustration given by Kevin Phillips or Morris Berman. Soon
these men will come back to the United
States where everything has been turned over
to the corporations. What can our expectations be? Can we expect a “kinder” and
“gentler” nation? Can we expect to see young men turning to violence because
they have no other means of finding a place in the economic system?
On August 7, 2006 four members of the elite Army
Rangers robbed a Bank of America branch in Tacoma ,
Washington armed with fully automatic AK-47s
smuggled in from Afghanistan .
Elliott Sommer, one of the four who holds dual citizenship in Canada and the US ,
is now being held under house arrest in Canada . He says he has evidence
linking the Rangers Task Force 626, a part of the Delta Force, with rape,
murder and other war crimes. Is this a harbinger of things to come?
While the probability of the collapse of globalization
remains undecided, at best, the probability of some kind of extended global or
civil conflict remains high. We are, after all, already at war in two nations.
What happens to a nation which is defined by consumption, without any ethical
framework, when consumption is no longer possible? Moreover, what happens when
such a society deems they are entitled to that consumption? So far the rabid
distrust which we seem to have towards one another has kept us from forming
large bands of opposition in the first part of the new century. However, one
cannot forget the, now dormant, Militia Movement of the 1990s as a parallel of
what could occur again. Whatever one wants to make of those socio-political
groups they did fulfill need at levels two and three of Maslow’s scale. Largely
nonviolent local political movements, infused with new highly trained
individuals coming off the fields of Iraq , there could again be serious
trouble. Tim McVeigh was not the only disgruntled veteran who attempted to
co-opt the movement for his own aims, and in a decaying economy the groups
could listen to a more radical element.
A duly elected president in the post-Bush era, faced
with the same kind of opposition as Mr. Clinton had, equipped with the similar
anti-terrorism legislation as is contained in the Patriot Act, pressing down on
domestic hostility could trigger civil unrest greater than seen in the 1990s.
Abbie Hoffman is no longer here, but many of the old hippies, now conservative,
well heeled and armed are still around. They do know how to organize. In
conjunction with those politically savvy operatives, there is a legion of
experienced smugglers from the War on Drugs which can be tapped, and an array
of soon to be displaced professional troops, and a sloppy economy. A new
administration supported in part by those already bloodied in combat, thinking
in terms of violence to suppress opposition, and considering it “fun” could act
rashly enough to trigger civil upheaval. Is this a mix for domestic insurgency?
Berman does not indicate that it is possible in his writing, but given the
events of the 1990s, and the attitudes, what he is looking for is a decreased
enlightenment, not a nation flung into internal chaos. This is not unlike where
the nation was in the 1850s.
The general decadence as seen on the internet and the
proliferations of sexual oriented business even within Christian communities
also reflects Germany
in the 1920s. Grown adults, many in their 40s and 50s, use the shroud of the
online nickname to live out their fantasies of debased behavior in an
electronic masquerade ball. Many have lost any idea as to how to refrain from
the bizarre and retain some semblance of civility when appropriate. They have
lost the concept of when civility is necessary and acting with decorum is
required. internet behavior has spread into real life. The Future of the Internet II, released by Pew Internet and
American Life Project in September of 2006 indicated that there is at least
this one segment of the population ready to rebel with violence against the
technologies we take for granted.[2]
How valid that prediction is, remains unknown. What we have seen in the cases
of Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold and Seung-Hui Cho what begins on the net, does
not stay on the net. The internet is not the cause of the problem, but only a
window to the magnitude of the general decay in society.
While the probable result of run-away competition in
a capitalist economy remains a global war, there is still the possibility the United States
could erupt in a civil war. The result would be that today’s corporate leaders
could become targets of reprisal as public enemies. While our capability to
devise technology is relatively infinite, the responses to certain stimuli are
somewhat finite and encoded into the physiological nature of the human being.
Cause and effect do play into the equation, and want and deprivation still
force people to alter their social agendas to accept a course of action which
would be unacceptable in less drastic situations. This is not a new concept.
As this section has been titled “Assuming the Worst”
the use of the term “civil war” does not exactly define a possible event. It
does define, for the discussion, the essential end result. The coarseness,
crudeness, vulgarity, and violence do indicate an unraveling of civilization.
Arguments can be made that such an observation is unjustified, however data
presented by Judge Bork, Kevin Philips, Morris Berman, and even John C. Maxwell
all indicate that the U.S. is anything but civilized anymore. At best civil
behavior is but a shrink wrapper over a belligerent core. When people are
threatened there is a finite internal response to that threat. When flight is
not possible then the fight response becomes the only option left. The level of
nondescript violence we see in the United States today is just under
that of the opening days of the Civil War in the 1860s.
What is more likely in current times is some form of
social upheaval. Given that the current patterns parallel both the U.S. Civil
War and the Nazi rise in Germany .
We can expect a new social contract forthcoming as was the case with the
crucible of the Great Depression and World War Two. For society at large, in
the long term of approximately 80 years, it will once again set the boundaries
of understanding as to how we relate to one another. The new social contract
will be forged in the fires ignited by the conflagration of the current one.
However, whatever words one chooses to describe events which will unfold,
without a strong tangible commitment by the corporations, seen by the
population at large, assuring the population that they are equally citizens
concerned about the nation, forging places of opportunity, the corporations
will be labeled as enemies of the people. Based on history they will be hounded
to the grave and the empires they built will be scattered.
It is best to follow Ford’s example now before it is
too late. He succeeded because he cared about his workers even if mistakes were
made. No one is perfect. When he was needed, even though he did personally
sympathize with the Nazi cause, he did support his own nation against the
foreign threat. We are not seeing anything close to this from the corporations
today. What we are seeing is exactly the opposite. Today’s corporations have
failed to realize that they too must act as citizens of the United States, and
not just play lip service to the flag while selling the nation out to the
highest bidder.
These conclusions are based on solid scientific data
stretching back over 100 years. It could be ignored as opinion, but given the
studies which do exist there is a causal link between economics and criminal
activity. Moreover, when a large group of people decide that the economic
conditions warrant it, and there is political movement which gives it a focal
point, individual acts of rebellion can coalesce to produce a revolt against
the status quo.
This is reflected in Robert K. Merton’s 1938 article,
“Social Structure and Anomie.” To summarize the work is to say that when the
cultural goals break down, and the institutional means are no longer valid, the
end result is rebellion.[3]
Merton’s work primarily addresses the individual within society; however,
extrapolation outward to a large segment of the population is not erroneous. As
an individual functions within a given subculture, it is reasonable to assume
that a group can adapt in the same manner as the lone individual. This is seen
in the rise of street gangs. It all honesty this may explain why the corporations
are behaving as if the citizens of the United States are pariahs in
today’s society. The corporations no longer see the institutional means as
being effective in achieving the cultural goals.
Cultural goals are those achievements defined within
a given culture that are acceptable to satisfy the basic drives of human
existence. The institutional means are how we collectively have decided to
achieve those goals. Individual and group conformity occurs when both are
viewed as valid. Innovation occurs when the goals are still considered valid
and the means need to be altered because the means no longer fit the
circumstances with the culture. Ritualism occurs when the goals no longer hold
value but the means are still honored even if they are pointless. Retreatism
occurs when neither the goals nor the means are valued, and there is nothing to
replace either. From retreatism it is only one step to revolution.
Whatever the outcome, conceptually, the U.S.
embroiled in an internal civil conflict of murderous violence is not a
preferable means to a given social end. Not here. Not alien shores.
[1]
Susan Cornwell, Congress saves watchdog on Iraq reconstruction [Reuters],
Friday, December 8th 2006 at 4:15 pm ET
[2]
Anderson, J. (2006, September 24). The Future of the Internet II. Retrieved
June 18, 2008, from Pew Internet and American Life Project .
[3]
Merton, R. K. (2003). Social Structure and Anomie. In F. T. Cullen & R.
Agnew (Eds.), Criminological Theory: Past to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles : Roxbury
Publishing Company.
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