http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/13-8
Published on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 by TomDispatch.com
Mandate of Hell: The Meaning of a Do-Nothing Election
On how not to change the world
by Tom Engelhardt
In the fall of 1948, Harry Truman barnstormed the country by train,
repeatedly bashing a "do-nothing Congress," and so snatched victory
from the jaws of defeat in that year's presidential campaign. This
year, neither presidential candidate focused on blasting a do-nothing
Congress or, in Obama's case, "Republican obstructionism," demanding
that the voters give them a legislative body that would me
We now know the results of such a campaign and, after all the tumult
and the nation's first $6 billion election, they couldn't be more
familiar. Only days later, you can watch a remarkably recognizable
cast of characters from the reelected president and Speaker of the
House John Boehner to the massed pundits of the mainstream media
picking up the pages of a well-thumbed script.
Will it be bipartisanship or the fiscal cliff? Are we going to raise
new revenues via tax reform or raise tax rates for the wealthiest
Americans? Will the president make up with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu or not? Will it be war or something less with
Iran? And so on and so forth. It's the moment the phrase déjà vu
all over again was made for.
A Hell of Our Own Making
When a new Chinese dynasty came to power, it was said that it had
received "the mandate of heaven." We've just passed through an
election campaign that, while the noisiest in memory, was enveloped
in the deepest of silences on issues that truly matter for the
American future. Out of it, a "mandate" has indeed been bestowed not
just on Barack Obama, but on Washington, where a Republican House of
Representatives, far less triumphant but no less fully in the saddle
than the president, faces media reports that its moment is past, that
its members are part of "the biggest loser demographic of the
election," and that its party -- lacking the support of young people,
single women, those with no religious affiliation, Hispanics, African
Americans, and Asian Americans -- is heading for the trash barrel of
history.
If true, that does sound like a mandate for something, sooner or
later -- assuming you happen to have years of demographic patience.
In the meantime, there will be a lot more talk about how the
Republicans need to reorient their party and about a possible "civil
war" over its future. And while we're at it, bet on one thing: we're
also going to hear a ton more talk about how much deeply unhappy
Americans -- the very ones who just reinstalled a government that's a
senatorial blink away from the previous version of the same --
really, really want everyone to make nice and work together.
But isn't it time to cut the b.s., turn off those talking heads, and
ask ourselves: What does election 2012 really mean for us and for
this country?
Let's start with one basic reality: we've just experienced a
do-nothing election that represents a mandate from a special American
kind of hell. (Admittedly, Mitt Romney's election, which would have
put the House of Representatives and Big Energy in the Oval Office,
undoubtedly represented a more venal circle of that fiery
establishment.)
That, in turn, ensures two different but related outcomes, both
little discussed during the campaign: continuing gridlock on almost
any issue that truly matters at home and a continuing
damn-the-Hellfire-missiles, full-speed-ahead permanent state of war
abroad (along with yet more militarization of the "homeland"). The
only winners -- and don't believe the outcries you're hearing about
sequestration "doom" for the military -- are likely to be the
national security complex, the Pentagon, and in a country where
income inequality has long been on the rise, the wealthy. Yes, in
the particular circle of hell to which we're consigned, it's likely
to remain springtime for billionaires and giant weapons manufacturers
from 2012 to 2016.
How do we know that gridlock and a permanent state of war are the
only two paths open to the people's representatives, that Washington
is quite so constrained? Because we've just voted in a near-rerun of
the years 2009-2012, which means that the power to make domestic
policy (except at the edges) will continue to slowly seep out of the
White House, while the power of the president and the national
security state to further abridge evaporating liberties at home and
make war abroad will only be enhanced. The result is likely to be
stasis for the globe's last superpower at a moment when much of the
world -- and the planet itself -- is in the process of tumultuous
transformation.
Here are things not to expect: a major move to rebuild the country's
tattered infrastructure; the genuine downsizing of the American
global military mission; any significant attempt to come to grips
with a changing planet and global warming; and the mobilization of a
younger generation that, as Hurricane Sandy showed, is ready to give
much and do much to help others in need, but in the next four years
will never be called to the colors.
In other words, this country is stuck in a hell of its own making
that passes for everyday life at a moment when the world, for better
and/or worse, is coming unstuck in all sorts of ways.
Fiddling While the Planet Burns
The United States remains a big, powerful, wealthy country that is
slowly hollowing out, breaking down. Meanwhile, on planet Earth, the
global economy is up for grabs. Another meltdown is possible, as the
European, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian economies all continue to
take hits. Power relations have been changing rapidly, from the rise
of Brazil in what was once Washington's "backyard" to the Chinese
miracle (and the military muscle that goes with it). A largely
American system that long helped keep the Greater Middle East, the
energy heartlands of the globe, under grim, autocratic control is
unraveling with unknown consequences. Above all, from increasingly
iceless Arctic waters to ever more extreme weather, rising sea
levels, and the acidification of the oceans, this planet is
undergoing a remarkably rapid transformation based largely on the
release into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide from the burning of
fossil fuels.
Other than a few curious Republican comparisons of an American
economy under the Democrats to "Greece," a near obsessive focus on
the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens and three other
Americans in Libya, and various denunciations of China as a currency
manipulator, not a single one of these matters came up in any
meaningful way in the election campaign. In other words, election
2012 boiled down to little more than a massive case of
Washington-style denial. And don't for a second think that that's
just an artifact of election year artifice.
Take climate change, which like the Arab Spring blasted its way into
our unprepared midst in 2011-2012. There was the wildfire season of
all seasons in a parching Southwest and West, a devastating drought
that still hasn't fully lifted in the Midwestern breadbasket (or
corncob) of the country, and a seemingly endless summer that may make
this the hottest year on record for the continental United States.
It was staggering and, if opinion polls are to be believed, noted by
increasing numbers of concerned Americans who could literally feel
the world changing around them.
And yet none of this made global warming an election issue. Month
after month, it was The Great Unmentionable. The silence of
emboldened Republicans plugging their drill-baby-drill and
lay-those-pipelines policies and of cowed Democrats who convinced
themselves that the issue was a no-win zone for the president proved
deafening -- until the campaign's last days. It was then, of course,
that Hurricane Sandy, the "Frankenstorm," swept through my town and
devastated New Jersey. It provided the extreme weather coup de grâce
of 2012. (And yes, there's little doubt that climate-change-induced
rising sea levels contributed to its fury.) Superstorm Sandy also
revealed just how unprepared the U.S. infrastructure is for predicted
climate-change events.
The extremity of Sandy and its 14-foot storm surge was stunning
enough that global warming was suddenly forced out of the closet. It
made magazine covers and gubernatorial press conferences. There was
even a last-minute Romney vs. Sandy web ad ("Tell Mitt Romney:
Climate Change Isn't a Joke"), and in his victory statement on
election night, President Obama did manage to briefly acknowledge the
changed post-Sandy moment, saying, "We want our children to live in
an America that isn't... threatened by the destructive power of a
warming planet."
Still, in just about every sense that matters in Washington, real
planning for climate change is likely to remain off that table on
which all "options" always sit. Expect the president to offer Shell
further support for drilling in Arctic waters, expect a new push for
the Keystone XL pipeline which will transport some of the "dirtiest"
energy from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and so on.
Don't count on anyone doing the obvious: launching the sort of
Apollo-style R&D program that once got us to the moon and might speed
the U.S. and the planet toward an alternative energy economy, or
investing real money in the sort of mitigation projects for the new
weather paradigm that might prevent a coastal city like New York --
or even Washington -- from turning into an uninhabitable disaster
zone in some not so distant future.
Climate science is certainly complex and filled with unknowns. As it
happens, many of those unknowns increasingly seem focused on two
questions: How extreme and how quickly? It's suggested that sea
levels are already rising faster than predicted and some recent
scientific studies indicate that, by century's end, the planet's
average temperature could rise by up to eight degrees Fahrenheit, an
almost unimaginable disaster for humanity.
Whatever the unknowns, certain things are obvious enough. Here, for
instance, is a simple reality: any set of attempts, already ongoing,
to make North America the "Saudi Arabia" of the twenty-first century
in energy production are guaranteed to be a climate-change disaster.
Unfortunately, this election ensures once again that, no matter what
the planetary realities or the actual needs of this country, no
significant money will flow into alteration or mitigation projects.
Among the truly bizarre aspects of this situation, one stands out:
thanks in part to a long-term climate-change-denial campaign,
well-funded by the giant energy companies, the subject has become
"political." The idea that it is a liberal or left-wing "issue,"
rather than a global reality that must be dealt with, is now deeply
embedded. And yet there may never have been a more basic
conservative issue (at least in the older sense of the term): the
preserving, above all else, of what is already most valuable in our
lives. And what qualifies more for that than the health of the
planet on which humanity "grew up"?
The phrase "fiddling while Rome burns" seems to catch something of
the essence of this post-election moment -- and it has special
meaning when the fiddlers turn out to be slipping matches to the
arsonists.
Mobilize Yourself
Just a week after the election, the Republican Party is already
gearing up to produce a new, better-looking, more "diverse,"
better-marketed version of itself for the 2014 and 2016 Hispanic and
Asian American "markets." The Democratic Party is no doubt following
suit. In American politics these days, presidential elections last
at least four years. The first poll for Iowa 2016 is already out.
(Hillary's way ahead). Elections are the big business, sometimes
just about the only significant political business Washington focuses
on with any success, aided and abetted by the media. So look forward
to the $7 billion or $8 billion or $9 billion elections to come and
the ever-greater hoopla surrounding them.
But stop waiting for change, "big" or otherwise, to come from
Washington. It won't. Don't misunderstand me: as the residents of
the Midwestern drought zone and the Jersey shore now know all too
well, change is coming, like it or not. If, however, you want this
country to be something other than its instigator and its victim, if
you want the U.S. to engage a world of danger (and also of
opportunity), you'd better call yourself and your friends and
neighbors to the colors. Don't wait for a Washington focused on its
own well-being in 2014 or 2016. Mobilize yourself. It's time to
occupy this country before it's blown away in a storm.
© 2012 TomDispatch.com
_______________________________________________
Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
