My boss is very proud of a town-hall meeting that was planned and carried out at CCC last year. It was called “Overthrow.”
CCC town-halls are an interesting phenomena. I actually think they are a great educational tool, especially for the type of student population that community colleges tend to serve. These town-halls are planned every semester on a topic that is current and potentially beneficial to CCC students. A number of faculty get selected to be a part of the process who in turn revise their course syllabi to incorporate the ideas that will be covered in the town-hall. Then, based on a competitive process, a number of students get selected to run the show (be a part of the panel) during the actual meeting. A week before the meeting takes place, the faculty and the students start intensive work on the topic and prepare themselves for the event. And finally the event takes place and it is broadcasted through public TV.
The overthrow town-hall was primarily based on a rather journalistic book written by Stephen Kinzer on overthrows by American governments, starting with Hawaii, 1892 and ending with Iraq, 2003 (actually, only the book ends here, we are yet to see if American overthrows stop here too!). The town-hall was organized based on three eras: imperial, covert action and occupation. I watched the video a few days ago. I also have been following Obama’s attempts to “rescue” the economy from sinking deeper in the mud. The combination of both gave me a conjecture that got me started on this piece.
One of the conclusions that the overthrow panel reached—almost unanimously—was that the main problem is the intertwined nature of business and politics in the United States. They all agreed that it is the corporations who are pushing the government to behave solely based on profit-oriented motives. ITT, United Fruit Company and UNOCAL (now merged with Chevron) are just a few among many of those who have influenced the policies of the American government and “forced” it to actively engage in covert and overt interventions in other sovereign countries.
In the meantime, a short discussion took place among the Overthrow panelists about how the action of U.S. government is a function of the people who elect and select them. So the only solution presented at the end was: participation in the democratic process and electing the right person (mind you that this is a few months before the 2008 presidential election). But to what end, I ask! Did these panelists—who are probably among the top 1% of well-educated population of the world—going to send Obama to the oval office to fix the problems and not intervene in any other countries’ business in a harmful way? What can Hussein Obama do to stop this process? Is he for or against the foundations of the current economic and political system (and how much does that matter)? If he were not with them, would he have stood a chance of getting nominated to run as a democratic party’s candidate? Would he have received the support from one of the only two existing parties (by this I mean parties that have a chance of winning the election in the current political set up of the United States) and would he have received the financial and political support that he was granted by those in power (I am not referring to those in the government, but to those with massive politico-economic affluence and influence)? But lets assume that he is a genuine agent of change and wants to change as much as he can (which, by the way, I can see being true).
Now he is in the oval office, what can be done? He has just managed to pass an economic stimulus (or economic recovery) plan in the congress that is meant to avoid the American economy’s possible collapse. But what is this plan? Does it follow the advice of those relatively sane economists who argue that America needs to invest in rebuilding its infrastructure—roads, schools, levies, watershed systems and etc.—to get out of this economic mess? These economists argue that while such an action will have a lasting impact on the American nation both socially and economically, it will create jobs for those most hardly hit by the economic downturn. The package does to some extent address this need but only a miniscule portion (compared to what these economists talk about) of the approved $787 billion is meant for such purposes. According to ProPublica website, only $100 billion of this sum is allocated to “new transportation and infrastructure projects.” And the section allocated to education (nearly $50 billion), has flagged a small fraction of the total for school improvement (and this is assuming that “improvement” is at least partly infrastructural).
Does this package follow the advice of those other relatively sane economists who are in favor of actually re-financing the debts and mortgages of all Americans (the originally $900 billion was apparently enough to pay off all the existing mortgages across the United States) and basically making them indebted to the government rather than to the banks? These economists argue that such a move will not only keep people in their homes, but also increases the cash flow from the bottom up and brings back a huge part of the lost confidence to the financial system. This way, the government would not bail the culprits (financial institutions) out on tax-payer’s money, but would bail out the population (although a relatively well-off portion of the population), using tax-payer’s money. The answer is no!
It seems that this plan does not have any intention of solving the problem from the base. It is primarily built on the basis of the long proven-wrong idea of “trickle down economy.” You inject the money to the top (or rather to the financial sector), the theory claims, and it will reach the bottom soon. Whenever I hear this argument, it reminds me of the myth of economic mobility in America. The interesting thing about these fancy and fashionable theories—that are out of touch with reality—is that they remain discussed among those who are not in need of the benefits of these theories to begin with. That is to say that for obvious reasons it is only the economic and political elite who get to play the agree-disagree game on these theories and not those who are stuck behind the barriers of this economic system. This portion of the population is barred from such discussions by the merit of being kept ignorant, thanks to a deliberately malfunctioning and discriminating system of education and social welfare.
Where does Barak Obama stand in all this? Following my prior assumption of good intention on his side, lets analyze why a mere politician, such as Obama, will not be able to go any wild in attacking the problems at their foundations. Before going there, however, I would like to remind us of what happened during the auto-bailout request and its ultimate denial by the congress. This took place a while before Obama was sworn into office. The car industry reached out to the law makers in Washington to save their companies the same way the wall-street was “saved!” The auto industry definitely claims a larger portion of job creation than wall-street and directly benefits a larger (although by definition less wealthy) portion of the population. But why, one should ask, the financial sector managed to get most of what it asked for while the industrial sector—however inefficient and corporate-like—did not get it. Is it that the legislators as well as the politicians in power unanimously see the financial system as their primary source of power (and not the people) and therefore are inclined not to even question the wall-street bailout too much? Is it not that, even if Obama is the cleanest politician on earth, the city group can directly or indirectly threaten to destroy American economy all together—and thus put an end to Obama’s legend—should he not support the bailout? And boy, the city group has the power to cripple the economy if it wants to. And this is in fact the core of the problem. The financial system has taken full control of the economic life of us all and is playing the usurer at the age that very few people would even hear the word “usury” in any context outside the teachings of the Quran or the Bible (and god knows how many of them even know what it means). Yes, despite more efforts, the auto-industry does not get its money and the financial sector gets it twice. And by no means the financial sector is more deserving of the money, but by all means it is the one running the show and therefore dictates what it wishes for.
Now one may claim that wall-street had a larger role in wealth creation and thus added a larger per capita wealth to the whole economy. While accepting this claim, I would like to make clear my stance here: I do not believe that disproportionate wealth creation, however gigantic in magnitude, is inherently positive. I see social injustice and disproportionality in economic wellbeing as the main causes of ill in our world. And I see those who posses massive amounts of wealth (from legitimate or illegitimate sources) complicit in today’s terrible state of affairs from the economic downturn to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the recent Israeli assault on Gaza. It is in fact the economic injustice that fuels the destruction machinery of war: construction and reconstruction, both carried out by the same party!!! Where ever there is opportunity for destruction, they financial system finances it generously. As soon as the destruction comes to a halt (for political or practical reasons), the financial system finances reconstruction efforts.
The conclusion from the overthrow was two-fold: the interconnectedness of business and politics is the problem and corporations are the main culprits. There was no action point attached to the business part of the conclusion, but there was one annexed to the political side of it: we (Americans) have to go out and vote the right person in—which assumes that the person would be able to change the state of the affairs. My whole point here is that: the diagnosis is wrong and therefore the prognosis is based on a flawed premise. If we believe that meddling with other countries’ business for economic gains is wrong, we should be aware that we will need to pay a large premium to change the current. It is in fact the exploitation of other nations—and the poorer strata of the American society—that has allowed for America to prosper as much as she has. Are we ready not to buy cheap food and forego our overly convenient cars to contribute to the fight against the imperialistic agenda? Are Americans ready to let themselves vulnerable to other countries’ military might by getting rid of the American war machine? And many more questions that should be asked and discussed before anyone can claim that they want to contribute to change in the current state of American foreign policy.
My diagnosis in short: it is not the corporations, but the capitalist financial system that has taken over the political realm. The corporations are the actors of the scenarios that the banking and finance industry writes up. The financial system knows no other way to sustain itself except destruction and reconstruction. It funds both sides of each conflict! And the corporations are just the face for this financial system. It has no ideology attached to it!
The corporations are like the military contractors who are not saints, but are born out of a sick political system. I am making this analogy in the sense that although military contractors are to be denounced for their greed and inhuman ways of making money off people’s lives, they are not to be taken for the main culprit. In the case of military contractors, the main culprit is the system that encourages the growth of military contractors in size and influence. And in the case of the economy, it is the financial system that encourages the greed-based behavior of businesses that has led to the emergence of corporations. The capitalist financial system has devised corporations to be its functioning hands while keeping the main problem hidden from the public.
Action plan: the action plan is two fold: the part related to the business aspect of this plan starts on the individual level. We, as responsible citizens of the planet (whatever nationality we like to assign to ourselves), ought to review the ways we contribute to this financial system. We need to make our contributions minimal by using the banking system (financial transactions, taking loans and mortgages and utilizing the credit system) at the minimum possible level. In the meantime, we have to revise our consumption and therefore shopping habits. The more we buy from local producers and independent (non-chain) shops, the less we contribute to corporations. I know these are all difficult and costly actions, especially at the time of economic hardship, but how can we claim to care and not be ready to pay our dues? The business aspect continues with a collective part, which can take various shapes including boycotting large financial institutions, socially irresponsible corporations and informing the public about the ways capitalist financial system is exploiting the world’s resources for the benefit of a miniscule segment of the population.
The political aspect of the action plan starts with identifying the ways in which the financial system has crept into the political arena and is crippling the system by making it overly dependant on itself. The presidential campaigning process is an example of this. It almost looks exactly like a commercial campaign. We need to support those candidates who have minimum possible links with the financial and political establishments and be ready to pay the price. We may need to sacrifice things: The most maverick (definitely not talking about John Mccain) candidate is the most likely to be assassinated, the most reformist candidate is most likely to face resistance from the side of the legislators, and s/he may be the one who will not be able to deliver many of her/his promises merely because the whole system is opposed to her/his approach.
At the end, I would like to reiterate that expecting a politician to make fundamental changes without sacrifices on personal level is an irresponsible and lazy approach to the problem. Iran experienced this (although at a different level) with Mohammad Khatami’s presidency in 1990s and early 2000 and the U.S. is very likely to have a similar experience with Obama—if he is a real agent of change.
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