I wrote this essay 4 years ago just before the elections in
2008. Do I feel the election in 2012 will be any different? We will see…
Taking scope of the US
political economic history tied to the corporate elites hegemonic control in
America over the last 100 years, one can understand why Barack Obama has won
the election as part of the Democratic Political Party. By the end of the 19th
Century with legislation such as the Sherman Act, certain industrial
capitalists got favoritism by the government. The New Deal carried this
favoritism as far as our present in the 21st Century by creating the illusion
that Big Business was going to be regulated by the State. Actually, this
allowed Big Business to be protected by the State and to control the State. By
having politics and economics entwined together, individual lives were dictated
by the bottom-line of money first. Robber Barons through the New Deal had a
tunnel into your life under your very nose. Eventually, Television brought and bought them
into your home. The distinction between “political society and civil society, which
is made into and presented as an organic one, whereas in fact it is merely
methodological. Thus it is asserted that economic activity belongs to civil
society” (Antonio Gramsci).
The corporate elite in
America has known that this deliberate conditioning would keep them on top.
They have known that if they do not create the illusion of an opposition party,
the public would inevitably make their own opposition; hence the fabrication of
a two party system creating Democrats and Republicans, Pepsi and Coke (or more
like Coke and Minute Maid). Though presidential faces have changed since the
end of WWII, the bottle is the same, merely different labeling and dress. And
though the Republicans and Democrats have switched executive labels every 4 or
8 years, the same corporate elite have maintained command. From 1945-1976, the
political economic climate was called Keynesian Economics, where the State
appeared to have direct regulation over corporate interests; this is when
companies gained names such as the United Fruit Company, US Steel, Standard
Oil, General Motors, General Electric, even the National Biscuit Company. When
government started to become a liability for the corporate elite under Nixon,
the steps to a new appearance was needed. From around 1977 up until this very
day, the current political economy is known as Neoliberalism.
Reagan and Thatcher pushed
this concept to new global levels, and in its second push Bill Clinton reached
corners of the globe that had not been open before. The catch phrase that was
pushed involved keeping government out of big business and deregulating the
corporate business; and under George W. Bush this deregulation gave the
corporation limitless options.
But what does this have
to do with Obama!? Obama ran under the Democratic Party. As Antonio Gramsci‘s
reference to Machiavelli’s Prince (which is still quite relevant today) is that
the new prince in modern history has not been the individual but the political
party. The individual is indeed a celebrity for both Republican and Democratic
parties as a label on the bottle. With the mainstream use of television, the
face on the screen is highly important. This new face must “represent plastically
and ‘anthropomorphically’ the symbol of the ‘collective will’.” This prince
carries a mass element and a cohesive element, and when the election is over
and the party has taken office, this individual will be politically inept if he
does not work with the corporate elite.
As Gramsci reflects on the Prince,
the words hold a new meaning when Obama becomes the subject:
"Here we
are dealing with a subaltern group, which is prevented by this theory from ever
becoming dominant, or from developing beyond the economic-corporate stage and
rising to the phase of ethical-political hegemony in civil society, and of
domination in the State. In the case of (Neoliberalism), one is dealing with a
fraction of the ruling class, which wishes to modify not the structure of the
State, but merely the government policy; which wishes to reform the laws governing
commerce, but only indirectly those controlling industry. What is at stake is a
rotation in governmental office of the ruling class parties, and not the
foundation and organization of a new political society, and even less of a new
type of civil society" (Gramsci).
Just as after the Nixon era ended and
the Keynesian cycle of political economy rotated into the Neoliberal cycle, the
Bush era is clearly a signal that a rotation is needed again. The Neoliberal
era had bolstered worldwide corporate control over individuals and their
traditional societies; and the extremes of suffering varied depending on how
close the natural resources were to your home; An extreme example, but an absurd film,
absurd in its proximity to contemporary events, is John Cusack’s "War, Inc.".
Since
most of us, Americans, are so far away from the immediate abuse, our acceptance
gives us the luxury to enjoy politics, or not necessarily enjoy but be
brainwashed by television and media to a level of apathy and satire.
This
cyclical political/economic control swallows us with ideology. Whether McCain
had won, or Obama won the election, both will have taken the role and will be
creating new policies to cycle the public back into a Keynesian mode. We have
already seen this in the last three months before the election with the
bailouts to Fanny/Freddy, Wall Street, and government partial takeovers of
banks. Both political parties encouraged this. In the last few years, companies
that were once Rockefeller’s Standard Oil divided by the New Deal into illusory
pieces as Standard Oil of New Jersey and New York, now known as Exxon and
Mobil, have merged back together again. The airline industries are following a
similar breaking apart and coming back together.
We think that we have
diversity in the grocery store, yet the various brands turn out to be owned by
the same corporations: i.e. Unilever owning Ben and Jerry’s, Breyers, Good
Humor, and Klondike. Our media is controlled by an elite handful, from General
Electric owning NBC and all its affiliates, to Disney owning ABC and its
affiliates.
The forced choice of freedom; though there were eight candidates
running for president, only two were allowed to appear significantly and
strategically on television, in debates, and encouraged locally. The
Independent parties not backed by the corporate elite, had little place in
showing their existence to the average citizen. Obama had to have been apart of
the Democratic party if he wanted to make history.
We are allowed to question
the parties and the government, but we cannot question the system; it becomes
absurd.
Yet just today, November 11, 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she
wants ``immediate action'' to give automakers additional aid this would assist
General Motors and Ford. However, these auto-industries have had their chance
in assisting the American public and have shown callous regard for the American
worker, consumer and international labor force for the last thirty years with
annual cuts of 30,000 US workers, unsafe vehicles designed for quantity and not
quality, exploiting factory workers in developing countries with poor
conditions, choosing to sack more energy-efficient vehicles in the 1990’s in
order to maximize profits in the short run at the expense of environment and
health decline. How does the new prince plan to act? Obama has already met this
week with Bush on the issue.
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So almost four years later can I say that my view on policies have changed, has the American public gotten less luxurious, or do I believe that the next election will be any different? I think the excitement that people had in the 2008 election has changed because 'Hope and Change' did not fulfill the public's delusion that a new president would change the economic flight downward. The job market still seems to decline in quality even if occasional ups and downs come in the predictably slim pickings. The Keynesian system has not returned though; instead, Corporate power has gotten sloppier and tighter. Political change is not social change regardless of the face in office. Mother Jones stated, "You don't have to vote to raise hell!", George Carlin stated "Politics Sux!", and Grace Lee Boggs says now is the time to change the system. This upcoming election is not going to be impressive. The amount of voter turnout will significantly be less. Romney is not a McCain image, an image of the legislative branch that sits in a room and talks endlessly without action; Instead, Romney is an image of Big Business at its best and worst. His history of buying up smaller companies and forcing them into bankruptcy and failure, so that he can capitalize on the losses, is a clear reflection of what he will do to the larger economy. Now the choice is to either vote for empty promises of a big business man unconsciously walking the country to bankruptcy, or a legislative voice, who has been a puppet of rhetoric, as all congressmen and senators will always do. I prefer Mother Jones to either of the choices.
