The Real Theory Of Everything
Or, War As An Advertising Campaign
by Chris Siebert
Published on Monday, June 9, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
commondreams.org
Thomas Friedman recently summed up his views on the aftermath of the war in Iraq with an essay in the New York Times called "A Theory Of Everything".
As with much of what Friedman writes, this column was a tour de force in the field of selective history. In order to correct the record (the Times needs all the help it can get), here is a fairly short alternative theory of everything, which attempts to fill in what Friedman left out:
In The Beginning, Empire
For centuries of human history, empires come and go. About 500 years ago, the British empire expands to the new world, colonizing it for centuries while enslaving millions of African. A rogue element of the British empire breaks off in order to more completely enjoy the fruits of violence. Millions of African, are kept in brutal bondage for another 90 years, more than 5 decades after Great Britain frees its slaves. It takes a bloody civil war to achieve their liberation.
Tens of millions of immigrants are then brought in from around the world in order to provide cheap labor for the money-making feeding frenzy that results from industrialization. In the meantime, the indigenous population is subjected to what is now known as ethnic cleansing and/or genocide, and reduced to small, shattered groups of people living on a fraction of their former land.
In order to satisfy the appetites of the white men who enslaved the Africans and decimated the indigenous population, a huge swath of Mexico is conquered and annexed, followed by the colonization of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and numerous south sea islands. Many nations in Latin America and the Caribbean are taken over for years at a time.
In other instances, commercial interests are sated by the installation and maintenance of authoritarian regimes around the globe. Democratic governments are destroyed in Iran and Chile, and replaced by brutal thugs. Dictatorships are also funded in Cuba, Guatemala, Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Taiwan, and dozens of other nations. The people in each of these nations, who suffer under brutal authoritarian rule, know who pays for the boot on their neck, even though most American people do not. Those who suffer under US-backed dictators learn to hate the nation that props up their tormentors.
The People Fight Back
Still, the worst aspects of this runaway piece of European empire, known as the United States of America, are fought by many of it's own inhabitants. Millions of women, African-Americans, Latino-Americans, gay men and women, and progressive white men are inspired by the wonderful ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and attempt to make American reality fit the ideals.
They fight and die for the end of slavery, the right of women to vote, the direct election of senators, the progressive income tax, the end of child labor, the 40-hour work week, the weekend, the right to form a union and bargain collectively, social security, the end of fascism in Europe and Japan, the creation of the United Nations, the right of African-Americans to vote, medicare, medicaid, the minimum wage, public health and public housing, environmental protection and gay rights.
But the evil forces (for what else can we call slaveholders and the mass-murderers of the indigenous people?) in America fight back. After slavery is ended, the conservative forces fight back and win for 100 years, in the form of Jim Crow. Then, when Jim Crow is finally defeated in the 1960's, the conservative forces fight back yet again, leaving the Democratic party and electing Ronald Reagan and two George Bush's. This brings us to the era that we live in now.
The conservative project of ending 100 years of progressive social legislation, started under Reagan, is continued under a new White House resident, selected in a judicial coup: George "Dubya" Bush. This program is unpopular, and includes the repeal of much of the Progressive era (the progressive income tax), the New Deal (social security, collective bargaining and the United Nations) and the Great society (medicare and medicaid, environmental protection and voting rights-see Florida, 2000).
Long term trends toward peace, international cooperation, democracy, and environmental protection are seen as a direct threat to the interests of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal, and they try to turn back the clock. The 2 Bush's bring us 4 wars in 6 years (one every 18 months) against former CIA clients (Manuel Noriega, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein), largely in the hopes of whittling away at "the Vietnam syndrome", i.e. popular opposition to profitable wars of aggression.
War As An Advertising Campaign
This conservative counter-attack wouldn't stand a chance if it weren't for the fears of many Americans after 9/11. War is undertaken not in self-defense (since all nation states have return addresses, no nation state threatens the US after the collapse of the Soviet Union), but as an advertising campaign. The product is the 19th century American Empire, the target audience is a select group of only about 50 million scared and/or ignorant Americans (out of a worldwide population of over 6 billion people), and the TV commercial is footage of the US armed forces kicking ass.
Amazingly it works. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal invent threats and lie about their policies at home and abroad, from war in Iraq to tax cuts for the rich. 50 million Americans support George Bush, and the remaining 6 billion people on the planet despise and fear him. The international good will gained by the US in the aftermath of 9/11 is completely squandered. American democracy is scaled back, international instability is fomented, and the threat of terrorism increases. The defense and energy industries (led by Bechtel, Halliburton and the Carlyle Group), which run the US government, are pleased, and reap enormous profits.
Progress in our nation and the world is set back decades. But the corporate media compare Bush to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, forgetting that their wars were fought in the midst of massive progressive movements at home and international cooperation (The League of Nations and The United Nations) abroad. The US media is reduced to little more than a cheerleader for war, and becomes the laughing stock of the world, as millions of Americans turn to the BBC for fair and balanced coverage.
But as the Bush team rallies the 50 million Americans that buy it's product, the rest of the world is mobilized against them. As the old union slogan goes, which side are you on?
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Chris Siebert is a blues and jazz piano player and the bandleader for Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers. He lives in San Francisco when he's not on tour in the U.S., Canada, or Japan. He can be reached at lavay@lavaysmith.com |
