A Call to Action?

There are a lot of comparisons between this Depression and the last one, and the challenges facing Roosevelt then and Obama now. There is, however, one huge difference: the possibility of an actual revolution, based on the political strength of the  Communist Party in virtually every country affected by the collapse of the global financial system.


In fact, the '30s Depression was a powerful recruiting tool, as the failure of western economies seemed to validate Karl Marx's prediction of inevitable collapse of the capitalist system. By the time Roosevelt took office there were probably fewer than 100,000 CP members in the US, but there were millions who thought this might be the last gasp of the ancien regime and good riddance. 


So Roosevelt was working with a dynamic where corporate and finance capitalists were up against a potentially powerful adversary, and he could propose a middle road of evolutionary change that built in limited social safety networks. The oligarchs had little choice, and so went along with it -- for the time being. Once the War was over, it has been the underlying raison d'etre of the capitalist right to overturn the New Deal and re-establish corporate hegemony.


As we know, starting with Reagan, they were able to put in place the elements they were looking for. Specifically, they have created a judiciary with a vastly different style and attitude, one that is dedicated to preserving the prerogatives of wealth and position, and the  dominance of the financial elite. Beyond that (with the help of a compliant news media), they were able to reframe the discussion around the fundamental evil of government and taxes. 


For periods they actually ran the government, or enough of it, that they were able to strip out New Deal limitations and return to "free-market" values and policies. And they blew it. Their ideas about economic governance were put to the test ... and failed.


Many of them have also suffered some pain, but the real blow has fallen on almost every other area of our culture, including many who thought they had achieved the class status that would protect them. All has been sacrificed to protect the few at the top of the pyramid.


Simon Jones' article in The Atlantic this May called it "The Quiet Coup". And it almost sounds as if the meltdown were actually part of the plan to bury the New Deal -- which is exactly what happened. (FYI: Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund during 2007 and 2008. He's one of the money guys. And his analysis is devastating. He also shared it with Bill Moyers earlier this year.)


To those patient oligarchs, government is of no longer of any real consequence in the areas that matter. And with the Supreme Court poised to grant full First Amendment "personhood" to corporations, they will have absolutely nothing to worry about on that score. It will be the new global corporate order -- energy, medicine, military, communications, finance, agriculture, water -- and its only obligation will be to shareholder value. And there is a core part of the right that has aided and abetted this takeover.


With a power grab this naked, this devastating to American (and world) culture, the critical question is why there hasn't been a public uprising. Not the so called Tea Baggers -- they're stuck repeating the lines they got from the oligarchy's mouthpieces. It is the triumph (for now) of emotion over facts, fear over reason. If they were to "win," that would just be another way to bring the whole structure down, which might lead some "strong-man" types to think they could end up in control over a fragmented opposition, left or right.


But then, the safety net put in place by the New Deal and Great Society reforms have meant that we (American workers and "middle: class) haven't yet hit bottom. In a few months -- if more people are on the street, going to bed hungry, seeing their families broken up by this new poverty -- we may see a more public display of indignation, even revolt. And which side will they be on? 


For now, one can only wonder at the right who seems oblivious of what the "fire next time" might mean to them, and to all of us.