Nationwide walkout.
My friend Tepid posts a link to a site which is gathering support for a nationwide work and school walkout in protest over recent U.S. government policy, both foriegn and domestic. Also, a recent New York Times article compares the decline of Rome's democracy and subsequent fall with the current state of affairs here in America. Interesting stuff.
posted by Q. at 11:42:00 AM
6 Comments:
Good to have you back. We were worried sick, young man! I read the Times article and I think that the analogy is seriously flawed. Setting aside the fundamental differences between the Roman republic and our own (ours is far in a way more representative and offers substantial and increasing transparency) I feel that this analogy is flawed almost from the start. There has been no militay manpower buildup since 2001 (in fact there has been a draw-down in the Air Force ranks). As for the "historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive" the only thing that seems histocical about it to me is the way in which history seems to repeat itself. The ebb and flow of that balance of power is well documented. During the Civil War Lincoln famously suspended Habeus Corpus for all citizens and threatened to imprison members of the Supreme Court. In 1917 the Espionage Act was passed making it a crime to lend aid or comfort to the enemy but that led a year later to the Sedition Act which severly restricted criticism of the government during WWI. in 1940 the Smith Act, or Alien Registration Act, was passed making it a crime to be a member of an organization dedicated to overthrowing the US government. As we all know, during WWII rationing limited the purchases that could be made by US citizens and those of Japanese descent were put into camps. (It may also be worth pointing out that we responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor by invading North Africa and Europe in order to expell the Nazis who were brutal and evil but had not actually attacked us...sound familiar?) During the 50's a large number of people's careers were ruined because they were or had been members of the communist party. In the 60s the National Security Agency tapped the phones of US citizens and legal aliens at the behest of the FBI. All of these offenses against the freedoms of the American people have one thing in common. We came to our senses and found ways to make ourselves safe while preserving our freedom. It is in no way useful to engage in hyperbole and name-calling. I find the caricature of Bush as a simian, modern day Mussolini as offensive as those of Clinton leering with one hand down his pants and the other in a peace sign. I think everyone needs to calm down a little bit and put things into perspective. I leave you with a recommendation: the latest cover story in Foreign Policy entitled 9/11: The Day Nothing Much Changed is an excellent read.
I agree that there have been many periods during American history when fear-hysteria and right wing conservativism have been the order of the day. Still and all, I think that there is some merit to the metaphor, nomatter how flawed it may be.
Each swing of the political pendulum seems to bring us to a more extreme state of either "conservativism" or "liberalism", and each time one of these elements comes into power, their rhetoric becomes more distilled.
Eventually, I expect that pendulum to reach a tipping point, whether this is the period during which that will take place or not.
Actually I think that the discourse becomes more vitriolic even as policies move closer and closer to the center. A lot of this back and forth started when the Democratic majority in Congress abused its position early in the Reagan administration through witch hunts against innocent men like Ed Meese, whose reputation was annihilated in spite of his later having been found guilty of absolutely nothing. This during a presidency that featured rhetoric that was extreme at times (Evil Empire, Reaganomics, etc.) but whose foreign policy was often more Truman Doctrine containment (reticence toward throwing total support behind the Solidarity movement in Poland) or downright Kissengerian Realpolitik (support for Hussein's Iraq during their conflict with Iran) than it was idealistic in practice. This was also a fairly centrist movement domestically that appealed to labor unions and "Reaagan Democrats" and engaged in substantial compromises in order to push through Social Security reform. All of this in spite of a rhetoric that was becoming more extreme with each passing year. This continued into the Bush presidency and reached a fever pitch during the Clinton years. This time it was the Republicans turn to froth at the mouth, though. After the congressional role reversal in 1994 it was the Republicans turn to start making wild accusations and hauling people in for an endless series of hearings (think Whitewater...). By the end of his presidency Clinton had been cast as a leering, left wing draft dodger. He was accused of slashing military pay and closing bases. The truth was that, once again, in spite of rhetoric (the half-baked national healthcare plan, don't ask don't tell, etc) Clinton was a competent, centrist who passed comprehensive welfare reform during his terms and was a supporter of free trade. The military drawdown started in 90-91, during the Bush years. The later increases in quality of life and cost of living increases that have been attributed to Bush 43 started in 98-99 during the Clinton Years. The pattern continues to this day. This president is a "big government conservative" which has meant that he has poured money into largely liberal programs like the Department of Education. If you think back to the 2004 campaign there was really no difference between what the candidates were saying when they would talk about really important issues. The difference came when they would talk about "wedge" issues like gay marriage. These parties stand for largely the same things. No serious Democrat has really advocated shutting down these supposedly insidious "NSA wiretapping" programs, just changing the laws so that they are more legal. They aren't in favor of cutting terrorists loose, as has been suggested by many right wing pundits, just of constructing laws that would keep them where they are, or more often of obstructing attempts by the administration to construct those laws so that they can later charge that nothing was done. I really see very little difference between these parties and what they stand for. The difference appears to be in their words and that is simply because one is a power party and the other is the opposition party.
I agree completely with this evaluation. I'm not saying that the Democrats are morally superior in any way to the Republicans. If anything, the only real advantage of having Dems in power would appear to be that they're smart enough to pay other people to kill their enemies, rather than sending our military to do it themselves.
It is also clear that the policy statements made by both parties in the public forum bear little resemblance to the policies that they actually set in place (even less so with the Democrats than with the Republicans).
This, however, isn't really my point. My point is that public opinion, not government policy, will create the problems that will eventually lead to the downfall of this republic. We are in little danger of collapsing economically at this point, and our military is well funded enough that we needn't really fear any foreign power. Like the Romans, we are eating ourselves from the inside, and the polarization of public opinion and the emotional decision making of our most vocal citizens and policy makers will lead to our eventual downfall, regardless of where our foreign or economic policy stands.
I can get behind that. There are definitely times when I think we may have peaked culturally. As for economically I think that if we don't pull our collective heads out of our asses and acknowledge some truths about globalization and the ways that things have changed, we may be playing second fiddle to the Indians and the Chinese before much longer. Of course, then again, the same thing was said about the Japanese in the 80s and that all leveled out, not ot mention the fact that the Chinese have some serious transparency issues to sort out before they can start trying on our shoes and India still has a substantial gap between the haves and have nots that will have to be dealt with.
It's interesting that you should mention globalization. I think that if any single element is going to ccontribute most to a different scenario than that experienced by the romans it will be the sheer force of the networked population of Earth.
Globalization gives us the distinct advantages of diversity and redundancy. If any single nation breaks down, even a major power, there are others to take its place in the overall network. The global societal meltdown would have to be pretty spectacular to take out something as redundant as the internet (which was kind of the point to begin with), and as we saw with the Soviet meltdown, one nation can't necessarily stop the whole show.
None of which means that we'll never see food lines or academic witchhunts in America.
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