Mean, Real Mean

The Front

Let me be plain: the Bandit, George W. Bush, should never have been selected for, or elected to, high office. Whether his campaign opponents, Al Gore and John Kerry, were worthy of being President is irrelevant. The Bandit is not competent to be President, and never was. He only got by as Governor of Texas because that job is largely ceremonial, not actually functional. Before that, his record as a sports team owner was besmirched by a borderline legal sale of stock. The Bandit was never a successful Texas oil man, but did manage to get lots of family friends, acquaintances and their circles of acquaintances to invest a lot of money in his failing enterprises.

What this shows is that, in America, the scion of a wealthy family can be maintained in business and public office by the judicious use of family money and influence. What the Bandit's record in public office shows is that, once learned, the use of money and influence for personal aggrandizement becomes a habit and a substitute for performance. The Bandit represents the triumph of social snobbery, caste and class, over the classically American "Horatio Alger" story (which, itself, is a deceit). He also represents the exaggeration and glorification of appearance over reality. It matters to the upper classes now in charge whether one wears a morning coat or tuxedo at the appropriate time, how one looks when coming out. It matters how many medals and ribbons festoon military uniforms, not what was actually done. What comes to mind is the Royal Balls which used to be held in St Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna and other European capitals until the final collapse of monarchy in World War I. What happened outside the Court was beyond the Royal ken.

I have suspected from the start, 5 years ago, that the real Executive in this government is VP Dick Cheney. I believe the Bandit is just the nice-guy front man for "the Board" which remains hidden in the background. (Most people say George W Bush is a nice guy; met in person; a country club gentleman.) Cheney is a darker character, whose goals are epitomized in the Conquest of Iraq, the Halliburton contracts, and major tax giveaways to corporations and the rich. He is the point man for the Neo-Cons, including his sidekicks Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The Cheney team has worked together for decades, starting in the Nixon White House. That origin, in itself, should give people the shivers. For example, mostly forgotten today is the real reason Judge Bork's Supreme Court nomination was rejected: after all of Nixon's other appointees had refused to carry out the order, acting Attorney General Bork executed the Saturday Night Massacre. (I am reminded of a story about an ultra-conservative relative, whose justification for such deeds is 'someone has to give the orders.') Interns and graduates of the Nixon White House, including Henry "Realpolitik" Kissinger, are capable of dark deeds; hit men, usually without remorse.

Conservative Culture

In my essay, "Cultural Consistency," I pointed out that cultures are of a piece. From milk, many products may be made, such as butter, cheese and yogurt. However, once the churning or fermenting of milk is started, it is not possible to stop the process. The process destines the product, making the original feed stock useless for any other purpose. One either makes the cheese or throws out (wastes) the whole batch. It's the same with politicians, programs and lots of other human things that can be characterized as a "culture." Once someone turns into a neo-con, you have to take or leave that one in toto. There is no fix for conservatism; it is what it is. There's symmetry: it's the same for liberalism and other systems of belief and behavior.

Modern conservatism was founded in rejection of the French Revolution and a desire for the Restoration of the Ancien Regime. After the Civil War, its natural home in America was among unrepented Confederates and their indoctrinated descendants who believe 'the South will rise again.' With the advent of rampant monopoly capitalism in the late 19^th century, conservatism found another home among plutocrats and their hangers-on. The common factor defining conservatism was the defense of wealth and power, and belief in the superiority of privilege over equality. The old monarchies were based on the idea of Divine Right; more generally, a principle that made some men more fit to rule than other men. Monarchs, aristocrats and plutocrats have never conceded the equality of all human beings, because to do so would strip away their raison d'etre.

The supposed reasons for human inequality are many and never cease to be offered. Charles Murray's infamous book, The Bell Curve, for example, intimated that people of color are really not as smart as whites. In his interview of the casually dressed Barbara Erhenreich on CSPAN, Wall St Journal economics editor Stephen Moore, impeccably dressed, constantly nipped around the edges of her book, Bait and Switch. Among other attacks, he suggested the usual conservative canard, that unemployment benefits "encouraged" people to loaf around home at taxpayer expense, and not look for work. And, of course, there was his central thought that all those welfare benefits demoralized people, reduced productivity and thereby ruin the economy. (Put simply, people are lazy, no goodniks, and need someone to whip them. The Tory Hobbes starting assumption was that the lives of ordinary people are "nasty, foul, brutish and short.")

Nietzsche had an enormous influence on European thought and politics with his creation of the Übermensch, the Superman. The end justifies the means on the way to Mt Olympus, which led to Spencerian Social Darwinian. Ayn Rand took up that theme in her books (pre-eminently The Fountainhead), which aim to demonstrate that everything we have results from the work of a few geniuses. It is run-of-the-mill men who prevent our society from reaching ever greater greatness. Conservatives such as William Buckley are fond of Ayn Rand, whose writings preceded Adolph Hitler and World War II. Young people have either forgotten or not been taught that a central tenet of the Fascist and Nazi movements, and Stalinist Communism as well, was the Great Man. During the Twenties and Thirties, there was an active Eugenics Movement, which declared that lots of common people were "morons." All that ended with the discovered horror of the Holocaust. But, there are still lots of ultra-conservatives who will tell you the Holocaust never happened, or that it was not as bad as the Jews would have you believe. Stalinists - who are not really Leftists - still justify the Purges and the ghastly conditions described in Solzhenitsyn's Gulag as necessary to create the Soviet New Man. For all those under the influence of a Nietzschean ideal, the creation of a New Man and a New Order were paramount, well worth the suffering and destruction of lesser creatures.

I have pointed out many times that the single most important principle in conservative philosophy has to be 'I am better than you.' Conservatives need to break equality to justify their political, religious, social and economic views. They could do that with the principle that 'might makes right,' but there is a factual, historical problem. The French Revolution and other events have shown that the forces of equality and democracy are often stronger than those of the authoritarians. So, resting the case for conservatism on the battlefield does not bring about a sure results. (Under the Ancien Regime, only the nobility had weapons, so peasants were easily suppressed.) So, blood and guts has had to give way to grey matter, which caused conservative apologists to work overtime inventing arguments justifying their cause. Thomas Hobbes ingeniously used the aristocratic predilection for violence to invent the "social contract." According to Hobbes, people come together to form the State because they want to end the war of each against all. The personal desire for a safe and peaceful existence overwhelms the desire to expropriate one's neighbors. (Note: the ones doing the raiding are an upper class caste, the military.) The Hobbesian State is an armed truce in which everyone gives up some personal liberty in the hope of longer personal survival. This beginning assigns the most basic function of State: internal and external defense, the police and the military. But the Hobbesian State does not guarantee liberty for all, but only for the parties to the Contract (fortuitously, the ruling class - the winners in the state of nature), and then only in the beginning. Hobbes was a great supporter of the British Monarchy and Aristocracy - the rigidly stratified society of that day, so it should be no surprise that his surmise about the beginnings of the State leads straight to the social class structure he approved (no democracy there).

The trouble with the apologists, including Hobbes (who was a greater philosopher than I), is their ex post facto justification of the desired order. The real bottom line of conservatism is that most conservatives have an entrenched, vested interest in the outcome. They are self-interested, and seldom concerned about the welfare of those who don't belong to their country club. (This supports the notion that a strong component of conservatism is tribalism.) This is not new; it is thousands of years old: "I've got mine. I'm All Right, Jack. The Hell with You." With those attitudes, it should not be surprising that conservative government exists to preserve the upper classes - the good people, those who have - and thereby oppress everyone else. Some conservatives are delighted to persecute those troglodytes who happen to look like people. Others are more sympathetic to the plight of the underclass, so they contribute to the Red Cross and Salvation Army, which salves any burden of conscience they may have. But very few of them actually do anything substantial to relieve the underclass of its burdens, any more than Rome freed its slaves.

Conservatives usually sponsor some form of official religion. The Pharaohs had their State religion, which was upset by the unfortunate reformer Akhenaton. Akhenaton's religion was wiped out within months of his death, because it did not suit the established order. The priests correctly determined that Akhenaton's monotheism undermined the Egyptian State by ending worship of Pharaoh as a god. It certainly ended the huge subsidies paid to the priests. State religion is an important part of European history, particularly for States such as Rome, the Holy Roman Empire and its successor in Vienna, Spain, Italy and even England. The Indian Maharajas were a practical bunch, and contributed to whatever religion was popular. The Chinese government shrewdly stood aside from Buddhism as long as it remained a palliative for the people, but strongly prevented the introduction of any other religious practices which would oppose the true State religion: Confucianism. In all that, I merely echo Karl Marx' famous slogan, "Religion is the opium of the people." I think that is obviously true, and that conservatives know it well. The conservative State uses religion for its own ends.

Conservative Beliefs

Conservatism, like most political philosophies, is systemic: it is the combination of several elements into a stable compound. In most instances, it is not possible to extract a portion of the compound from the finished structure, or exchange one portion for another. The main components of conservativism are:

Based on the foregoing, it should be obvious that conservatives are naturally authoritarian. They like giving orders and making others do things. That is especially important when what is being done rewards those giving the orders. Being the top dog flatters one's vanity, which is why we have that old saying, "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Because humans are "made like that," the ruling classes have always been the seat of endless abuses throughout history. Imposing "Droit de Seigneur," lords of the Medieval manor privileged themselves to rape women in their charge. Similar behavior has persisted in the workplace to the present day. Killing slaves, serfs and workers who protested or refused service has always been a common practice. The modern version of the death penalty is firing and blacklisting, where the goal is to starve the worker into submission.

While we in First World countries haven't had recent experience with the most egregious of those offenses, those violent acts continue in the sweatshops of Asia and elsewhere.

Indifferent Capitalism

Despite loud protestations to the contrary, conservatism is not a natural ally of capitalism. Conservatism approves the captains of industry and justifies their authority, regardless of what economic structure put them in that position. As in Calvinism, which defines the successful as the Chosen of God, it is success (the end) that matters to conservatives, not the means of obtaining it. For this reason, I classify Stalinists and Fascists together, because they believe in State Socialism or State Capitalism, which are really the same thing in practice, just labeled differently.

Quarrels about the economic system divide conservatives and liberals. We have "social liberals" and "business conservatives." Then there are "social conservatives" and the Religious Right. In the rough and tumble of everyday politics, these different types of liberal and conservative make various, often incongruous or uncomfortable, alliances. Years ago, for example, religiously conservative Catholics were avid liberal Democrats for economic reasons. Now they are fervent right-wing Republicans. The Catholic Church itself is split on these matters, at once advocating programs that usually considered socialist, and then condemning socialism for other reasons, all the while espousing other ideals that are the results of spiritual beliefs.

Economic matters are almost always a political football, to be used to advantage in gaining and holding power. Generally, when times are good, politicians take credit. When times are bad, they blame the other guy. Political liberals and conservatives hold mixed views about the workings of the economy. American conservatives defend a so-called "free enterprise" system, which is neither free nor enterprising. In fact, inspired by well paid lobbyists, conservatives most strongly defend the largest corporations. The United States government is the largest sponsor and client of those corporations. The relationship of the corporations and the American government closely fits the dictionary definition of Fascism, not Capitalism. On the other hand, liberals most often defend the values and interests of "small business;" the so-called "Mom and Pop" operations that actually operate under conditions described in elementary economics textbooks. These small businesses are fierce competitors, but are almost always on the losing end of things: 95+% of them fail within 5 years. Just 1% or less of business startups go on to become medium or large businesses, usually because they have found favor with the government along the way. When they are large enough, those businesses usually move into the conservative camp. Thus there is a natural selection of the have and have-nots. Conservatives always represent those who have and want to keep it, no matter how they got it.

Since the primary value of conservatism is the preservation of the existing order, or even a reactionary desire to return to the status quo ante, conservatives are the natural allies of whoever is on top. That has nothing to do with the means by which those who rose to the top got there. Conservatives strongly approve military and police power, so have no qualms in establishing and subsidizing the huge, state-run enterprises that compose the "military-industrial" complex. Unsurprisingly, the social and political elites are the greatest recipients of government largesse to corporations. That largesse is extended as tax benefits, special subsidies and payments, sole source contracts and a myriad of other programs and grants. One of the quickest ways to become rich, even permanently wealthy, is to obtain a long term government contract or grant, especially a defense contract. All of this amounts to a use of the government to benefit politically influential special interests. It has nothing whatever to do with how the economy actually works.

One of the most ferocious ultra-conservative critics of the government I have ever known was a deceased relative. He ran a very successful business which almost exclusively serviced the military. He denounced high taxes, welfare benefits and just about everything else the government did. Somehow, he never connected those taxes with the payments his company received for goods and services rendered. I think he was typical of most conservatives.

For the foregoing and many other reasons, I think the structural form of the economy is actually not an issue for conservatives. I don't think they care about capitalism, socialism, etc, except for propaganda purposes. The real economic issue is who benefits? That requires resolving the question, who controls it? Conservatives are happy when those questions are answered to suit their interests, and that is is the nub of the matter. The economy is a means, and not an end.

In drawing that conclusion, I note that conservatives have actually controlled the American economy most of the time. So what you see is what they want you to get, and that is not capitalism per book.

Why Bother?

Why I am writing this? Because we are in the process of selecting a Chief Justice. Because we have had a President selected for us, twice. Because conservatives control every aspect of the government.

Because Democrats - the supposed liberals - are a drug addict's angels, collaborating in the demise of democracy and social welfare.

I thought you should know why I and most ordinary people are getting the shaft.