Origins of the current reaction

[Artemis Bunyon]

ORIGINS OF THE CURRENT REACTION

Throughout history, it has been the fate of every empire, from the greatest to the smallest, to either crumble or fade away. This is because empires are the product of governments, and - contrary to what certain interests would have us believe - governments are the product of men. Humans are imperfect, and no system devised by imperfect creatures can ever be perfect. That includes the United States of America.

This innate imperfection inevitably breeds loopholes. And where there are loopholes, you don't have to wait very long before some individual or group comes along to exploit them.

Today, thousands prosper in industries focused exclusively on finding and exploiting systemic loopholes. In the law, in regulation of trade and industry, and at the commanding heights of global finance, these mercenaries are handsomely rewarded for their work. This filthy lucre blinds the exploiters to the damage they wreak, and seduces ever more citizens to join in the exploitation trade. Eventually, the system itself is imperiled.

Thanks to its Enlightenment principles, which blessed it with a robust and supple pragmatism, America has had a comparatively decent track record when it comes to dealing with systemic exploitation. More often than not, perilous exploits have been dealt with and dangerous loopholes have been closed. The evolutionary process of living up to the ideals set down in the Constitution continues, generation after generation, and for the most part, things change for the better. There are many examples of this.

When, at the end of the 19th century, the shenanigans of Civil War profiteers and industrialist robber barons threatened to usher in a new dawn of unchecked private power, President Theodore Roosevelt "busted the trusts" and introduced his progressive Square Deal. Many of the "captains of industry" who were the targets of these reforms later went on to become great patriots and sincere philanthropists.

Unfortunately, "laissez faire" economics made a comeback within a generation. The results were predictably disastrous. The stock market collapsed, banks failed, foreclosures skyrocketed, and life savings disappeared overnight. People were literally starving in America.

Against an intense onslaught of establishment outrage, Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaigned on an activist, New Deal platform. The broad democratic support he enjoyed was not enough to prevent the American aristocratic elite - who considered Roosevelt a traitor to his class - from attempting to oust him in a paramilitary coup. They wanted to install a leader more in line with Hitler, who - in the early part of his career - had impressed American conservatives with his bold, dynamic leadership and his instinctual understanding of the natural hierarchy of men.

The success of Roosevelt's New Deal and Keynesian economics combined with the monstrous blossoming of European fascism to send American conservatives scurrying for the shadows. There, the few remaining right-wingers not shamed into admitting the error of their ways gave birth to the modern conservative movement that now threatens the world.

Five books, dubbed "the conservative Pentateuch" by political scholar Ted McAllister, form the core, foundational documents of this movement. They are Richard Weaver's ironically titled Ideas Have Consequences, Natural Right and History by Leo Strauss, The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin, The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, and Robert Nisbet's The Quest for Community. All were written during conservatism's mid-century nadir.

Today, after a half-century of evolution, the conservative movement is a broad coalition of absolutist ideologues and their respective devotees. That these disparate groups work so well together is astonishing, considering their often contradictory beliefs. Machiavellian neoconservatives and their corporatist underwriters walk hand in hand with wild-eyed Reconstructionists and Armageddonists, heedless of intellectual and/or spiritual inconsistencies. Each faction, in turn, is comprised of smaller factions. It's a mad stew of counterintuition. And yet, all differences are set aside when they gather in think tank boardrooms to hammer out their plots and plans.

Of course, each faction believes it has all the others under its cunning control. These multiple alliances of convenience are pragmatic only in defense of their unbending absolutism, and the only belief they all have in common is that democracy - the idea that a government's power is only legitimately exercised insofar as it relates to the informed consent of the governed - is a perverse mockery of "natural law."

[RandomKoolzip]

1. You've apparently....uh...thought about this. A lot.

Nice 20th post! Welcome to DU!

[Artemis Bunyon]

6. LOL! That's just the tip of the iceberg

Don't get me started!

[Jim Sagle]

2. Welcome aboard, Artemis.

[Artemis Bunyon]

3. Thank you (eom)

x

[jimshoes]

4. Nice post,

I look forward to reading more of your posts, and welcome to DU. It seems like even with the outright obliteration of German fascism, the seed/root of the movement keeps springing up like a virus that found a way to beat the latest antibiotic. Kind of like the plague with its attendant death and destruction.

[Artemis Bunyon]

5. Thanks! Believe it or not, it was my preamble to a review of F911

KEEP TELLING YOURSELF IT'S ONLY A MOVIE

On Sunday night, my friends and I attended the ten o'clock showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 in a jam-packed suburban megaplex. We had to line up a half hour before show-time, something I haven't had to do since The Empire Strikes Back's opening weekend. The theater was filled with tattooed skateboard punks, cane-walking oldsters and every conceivable demographic in between.

As far as I could tell, audience reaction to the film was universally positive. People laughed, gasped, cried, applauded, gave voice to outrage and sat in stunned, head-shaking silence at all the right places. The film concluded to enthusiastic applause. In the lobby, groups of people lingered to discuss what they'd seen. There was a palpable buzz of division-blurring camaraderie. It was a nice feeling to be among hundreds of people talking politics without having to hear even a single utterance of the phrase: "We should just fuckin' nuke'em all."

I won't spend much time going over the facts and theories Moore puts forth in his film. For the diligent reader, there are few surprises in F9/11, although I must admit to being shocked by the footage of Al Gore rebuffing the Congressional Black Caucus, one by one, as they attempted in vain to lodge an official complaint against the organized Republican disenfranchisement of Florida's minority voters. I knew about it, but had never seen it. Watching that sad parade with three-year hindsight felt like a hammer-punch to the heart.

Cinematically, F9/11 has its problems. Moore loses the plot a couple times, meandering into territory that is tangentially relevant at best. But it's damn good, and it is definitely Moore's finest film. There are incredibly powerful moments that make F9/11 far more than a two-hour edition of The Daily Show, as some of its detractors have dismissed it.

Moore's decision to portray the September 11 attacks by plunging the theater into darkness and pummeling the audience with the blasphemous cacophony of that day's chaos was a masterstroke. The previously unseen footage of Iraqi casualties is handled with a respectful humanity that has been notably absent from the mainstream media since the invasion began. Prior to taking Baghdad, American soldiers - kids, mostly - address the camera directly, showing off the toys their Uncle Sam has given them. To help make the invasion more enjoyable, tanks and helmets are equipped with speakers through which "pump up" music is played. We learn that the soldiers preemptively chose Burn, Motherfucker, Burn as their unofficial anthem.

In the aftermath of Shock and Awe, when the unexpectedly high number of civilian casualties brings the naiveté of their youthful bravado into sharp focus, you get the sense that many would regret the choice.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a film that is suffused with regret. The hilarious regret of a parachute salesman who blows a Today Show appearance by failing to rehearse his model. The disillusioned regret of soldiers callously thrust into kill-or-be-killed situations without the benefit of a clear objective. The heartbroken regret of a mother who encouraged her children to sign up for the military, only to see her son's life wasted in a businessman's war of first resort. The unconscious regret of a complicit, corporate media that has not yet come to terms with the consequences of its dereliction.

And perhaps most importantly, Moore crystallizes the collective, hindsight regret that Americans didn't do more to stop the blatant theft of the White House in 2000. If Moore's film is capable of making this specific regret resonate with the American people, then it might just bring down the illegitimate reactionary force currently occupying Washington DC.

If it succeeds in this, Fahrenheit 9/11 could very well go down in history as the most important film ever made.