[Lapg] Four More Years: A Post-Mortem

[Faramarz Nabavi]

Four More Years: A Post-Mortem

While there was ample evidence of Republican election sabotage in Florida,
Ohio, and other crucial states prior to the election, there is little
doubt that Bush received a higher proportion of support from Americans in
2004 than he did in 2000. More than ever before, America has proven to be
unique among the nations of the world, though perhaps not in the way many
had hoped.

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How did this happen?

1. The Corporate Media is the Most Powerful Institution in America.

How powerful? More powerful than George Soros, the person who brought the
British pound, the Bank of England, and most of Eastern Europe to its
knees. More powerful than the corporate contributors to either the
Democrats or the Republicans. And without a doubt more powerful than the
peace movement or progressives generally. At a local level, the relentless
onslaught of coverage of petty crime, "business unfriendly laws," "greedy
lawyers," combined with the violence, sexism, racism, desire for wealth,
and hatred toward the poor instilled by the Hollywood entertainment
industry, has hardwired Americans' perspectives and responses toward
societal issues.

The coverage of the Corporate Media during the "Swift Boat Veterans for
Lies" episode, and the disproportionate focus on Kerry's "filp-flopping"
without reference to Bush's actual flip-flops and outright lies played a
crucial role in affecting undecided voters. More generally, the coverage
of the War on Iraq, particularly following the so-called handover to
former CIA asset Iyad Allawi, has let Bush off the hook for disastrous
mistakes. If 9-11 had happened under a President Gore, does anyone really
think he wouldn't have been impeached by now for gross dereliction of
duty, together with the collaboration of the Corporate Media? But there is
a also a deeper dynamic at work.

2. A Deep Fundamental Realignment Has Occurred in the World View of 50% of
Americans.

The long term strategy of owners of Corporate America to embed a
self-centered, hostile individualism into Americans has succeeded. In
response to the civil rights, women's rights, and peace movements of the
'60s and '70s, the leadership of Corporate America set out to build and
fund strong counter-movement with religious fundamentalism and
self-centered materialism at its core, and a deep-seated violent hatred
toward social causes, cooperation, and responsibility as its passion. Half
of America believes that the rest of the world can literally go to hell,
as the "Left Behind" series of Christian novels about the Rapture show.

Before you start feeling smug about California or other "Blue States"
being different, no one in this country is unaffected by this realignment.
Bush won almost 45% of the vote in the Golden State, and probably would
have won a majority had voter registration not soared in the Latino
community over the past decade in response to demogogic attacks on
immigrants.

3. The Democratic Party as an Institution Has Failed to Provide Sufficient
Resistance.

By supporting the PATRIOT Act and the War on Iraq recently, and more
generally by joining in and legitimating the attacks on social welfare,
legal rights, civil rights, and the sovereignty of other nations, the
Democratic Party has muffled its voice as a potential opposition, while
the Republicans have been broadcasting a clear message. Given the choice,
people generally go for those who have a clearer message. Kerry's "nuance"
regarding supporting the authorization to Bush to launch an attack on
Iraq, but not the timing or the manner by which Bush conducted it, failed
to convey a clear position and let Bush off the hook on the most
vulnerable issue - the lies about "weapons of mass destruction" as grounds
for going to war - by saying that even knowing every thing Kerry knows
now, he still would have voted to give Bush that authority. That's where
Kerry lost the election, and not responding quickly and forcefully enough
to the Swift Boat Lies sealed his fate by putting states like Missouri and
West Virginia beyond reach while forcing him to defend his own base in the
upper Midwest.

One other key issue Kerry handed to Bush was the PATRIOT Act, which had
many conservatives upset at the incumbent. When Kerry publicly announced
that he supported "95% of the PATRIOT Act," he not only failed to hammer
away at one of Bush's major weaknesses, he basically endorsed Bush's
approach. And now the same "centrist" corporate Democrats who misadvised
Kerry are going to tell us the reason he didn't succeed was because he
wasn't 100% behind Bush's wars against foreign peoples and civil
liberties.

Nor are third parties a viable alternative at the national level: the
Greens, Libertarians, Naderites, and others are weaker today than they
were four years ago. Objectively, these organizations do not possess the
capacity to seriously challenge power in this country today, nor in the
foreseeable future, even though third parties did several generations ago.
Moreover, the last third party that successfully displaced the previous
political system was the Republican Party itself, so even a party built
orginially on fighting slavery could mutate to become the creature we see
today.

It is an open question whether fundamental change can occur through
electoral politics, given the balance of forces within America today. The
most likely answer is that if social movements become sufficiently strong
(i.e., shift that balance), the electoral system may respond, but
electoral politics is unlikely to lead the way, especially since the
Corporate Media and campaign financing serve as straightjackets for
corporate interests.

4. The Pain Has Not Yet Hit Home.

Despite a huge shift back toward federal bankruptcy, millions of lost jobs
and massive warfare against peoples around the world, from Colombia to
Haiti to Iraq and elsewhere, neither Corporate America nor the average
American have yet suffered major consequences from government policies.
The dollar has declined but not plummeted; the real economy - jobs - has
been poor but not collapsed; and the War on Iraq has been something of a
draw: American forces are not able to fully control the country, but the
Iraqi resistance is not able to force them out either.

The very fact that Ohio almost swung to Kerry, bucking the national trend
toward Bush, does show that those areas hardest hit by job losses are
beginning to stir. But the artificially low interest rates today have
allowed millions to buy new homes on credit they cannot repay, so for the
moment many are comfortable and satisfied, but they will be faced with
personal bankruptcy when either interest rates rise significantly or job
losses increase. When that happens, there may be an opportunity for
progressives to mobilize, but full-blown fascism will be a threat at that
point, the groundwork for which John Ashcroft is building now. And while
1,100 deaths among American soldiers in Iraq is tragic, it is still far
less than the levels in Vietnam.

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What to do now?

1. Build Community.

Ever since the successful social organizing of the union movement during
the Great Depression, when entire cities came to a grinding halt through
general strikes, Corporate America has set out to smash social resistance
in this country by destroying the bonds of community wherever possible and
replacing these with atomized environments based on "nuclear family"
consumers isolated from their neighbors. This has been done through
government policy, such as subsidized home loans, highway construction,
and zoning laws, as well as through advertising saturating every available
medium to instill self-centered materialism over interest in the common
good.

The only antidote to this cancer that will kill the human race and destroy
the planet is to rebuild community. This can be done through a wide
variety of means, and unlike much of our struggles, can be a fun,
inspiring activity that gives us both the collective and individual
strength to move forward.

Community gardens are one form, bringing people together and building
self-help and mutual assistance as a basis for providing two of the most
basic needs for people - food and social interaction - through a mechanism
free of corporate control while restoring the urban environment to a more
natural state. Other ways of building community are through democratic
locally-controlled workers' unions, civil rights groups, music and
artistic gatherings, hobby associations, environmental groups, and
tenant/block associations, among others. Small local groups networked
together regionally, nationally, and globally can develop tremendous reach
and leverage resources. An example from the East Coast:
http://www.greenguerillas.org (these nonviolent "guerrillas" fight weeds,
not wars!)

2. Challenge the Corporate Media.

By building community, we lay the groundwork for challenging the corporate
media. Alternative networks of information are crucial. Revolutions have
been built on the underground dissemination of newspapers, audio tapes and
now DVDs. As America moves more and more towards a police state, direct
face-to-face discussion through friends, family, and small gatherings will
need to increase to get the word out between people regarding issues that
the Corporate Media hides or distorts. Learning more about the rest of the
world and even oppressed people within America through face-to-face
personal contact is critical; relying on corporate and government funded
nonprofits (another form of Corporate Media) as intermediaries to shape
our worldview will leave us perpetually lost and misdirected.

In addition to building our own popular media, we need to directly confort
the Corporate Media and challenge the legitimacy of its very existence.
Not call for reform: they will concede more reforms the more we challenge
the very root of their power. Why should they be allowed to have exclusive
access to the airwaves, or even the presses? Because of wealth and
property? One possible response by Corporate America may be to sell
(privatize) the airwaves permanently to the broadcasters, so we should be
aware that this is going to be an extremely difficult struggle, but
without that struggle we are doomed to disenfranchisement.

As a part of that struggle, we can also demand mandatory equal time in
political campaigns: for every ad that's paid for by a group, the opposing
sides would automatically have the right to the same amount of time on the
same slot. No free speech violations; it's very simple, cheap, direct,
legal, and would level the playing field far more effectively than any
other reform.

Some resources:
Pacifica Radio network - http://www.pacifica.org
Indymedia - http://www.indymedia.org

News itself is not even the most powerful arm of the Corporate Media;
entertainment is. While building community, building alternative popular
entertainment will be vital to challenging the Corporate Media. The
strategy of Corporate Media will be to co-opt as much of it as possible,
just as they have done in the past and present, so we need to be
consciously aware and drive our entertainment directly and openly in
opposition to the Corporate Media.

Example: Divine Forces Radio (not a religious but a music program) -
http://www.divineforces.org

3. Build Resistance to Corporate Power.

As bonds of community strengthen and people become more aware through
alternative networks of information, the people could mobilize widespread
resistance to corporate power. As with the Corporate Media, the very basis
and legitimacy of corporate power must be challenged:

a. The hierarchial model of corporate organization, based directly on the
military, must be replaced with democratic and partipatory forms of
economic organization in which everyone has a voice and no single person
can control everyone else. Control is key.

b. The ownership of corporations and productive resources has to be placed
among those who produce, consume, and are affected by them. Otherwise, the
intentionally built-in lack of responsibility (joint-stock corporations
were first formed to limit the liability of individual shareholders) will
continue to kill people, waste resources, and destroy the environment.

c. The priorities of economic effort need to be realigned from being based
on abstract units of exchange (money) toward actual basic human necesities
(food, health, shelter, clothing, and social interaction) and away from
desires and activities that are not necessary to stay alive - because many
are dying every day from preventable causes, even in America.

4. Provide Solidarity to Oppressed People.

"Think Globally, Act Locally" is a well-known idea. Though first and
foremost the South African people freed themselves and the Iraqi people
will free themselves, solidarity does help. What does solidarity mean? It
means supporting in a relationship of equals those who are fighting for
survival without trying to be in charge of them, respecting their
indigenous leadership and priorities. The Anti-Apartheid movement placed
pressure on South African corporations, providing additional support
during national general strikes by workers.

The global peace movement, marching with ten million protesters, did not
stop Bush's War on Iraq, but it did place limits on how the war was
conducted by denying Bush military support from most other countries, thus
placing the world's most powerful military in a stalemate against
decentralized bands of guerrillas without significant external material
support - a historic outcome.

Encouraging young Americans to reject military recruiters right now will
also be important in stopping Bush's wars, just as opposition to the draft
was during Vietnam, both by expressing opposition to Bush's War on Iraq
and by reducing the number of soldiers occupying Iraq. Check the American
Friends Service Committee website:
http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/Default.htm

Closer to home, groups such as the Committee In Solidarity with the People
of El Salvador (CISPES) helped prevent a direct US military invasion of
Central America during the '80s, and today the need to provide solidarity
to the people of Haiti in the wake of Bush's invasion and coup against the
democratically-elected government there is crucial - over 10,000 people
are estimated to have been killed or died as a result of the return of
death squads and the dismantlement of local government:
http://www.haitiaction.net

We should all remember that women are oppressed around the world, and that
this oppression takes different forms, where women in first-world
countries can develop oppressive relations toward third-world women both
at home and overseas. Global solidarity with women's movements is
necessary; one clearinghouse for this is http://www.globalwomenstrike.net

Finally, we need to be aware that many nonprofits claiming to act in
solidarity are actually advancing the foreign policy interests of their
governments, as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch do for
Britain and the United States, and that their funding may even be coming
from institutions like the CIA. Their token criticism of their own
governments' policies do not obscure the selective and distorted examples
they broadcast in the corporate media to build support for political and
military intervention, whether against Iraq in 1990 or Yugoslavia,
Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burma, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela,
Iran, Syria, and Sudan over the past decade. This tactic is most effective
when the people are not familiar with the country being targeted.

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Victory is possible.

Even though we are in the middle of a dark tunnel, we should not give up
hope. In 1986, President P.W. Botha of South Africa threatened to the rest
of the world, "Don't push us too far!" Five years later, under pressure
his own party was repealing the Apartheid laws and a few years after that
the oppressed majority elected Nelson Mandela as President and began a
popular transformation of their country. Nearly two decades after that
speech, deep challenges still remain, with the Corporate Media still
powerful, with the majority still empoverished by corporate ownership of
the people's land and resources.

The global Anti-Apartheid movement certainly played a role in helping the
struggle through solidarity efforts, but fundamentally the battle was won
by the people of South Africa themselves through building community,
building alternative networks of information, and directly challenging the
legitimacy of corporate power through unions, general strikes, and
education against colonialism. And the struggle is a long term one, one
that still continues, with each victory following many defeats, followed
by further problems to be addressed.

Though "not everything turns out for the best," and the societal situation
can get worse and worse, peace and prosperity for all are possible. We
have to make it happen.