Herbert
Spencer's Evolved Capitalists
By Jason Miller
23 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Assaulting
humanity and the Earth with shocking impunity, the White House’s
Machiavellian acolytes of Strauss shamelessly lead the charge for soulless
corporations, obscenely wealthy individuals, perverse hypocrites of
the Religious Right, a diminishing number of allies, authoritarian regimes
that bow to their will, and their state terrorist proxy in Tel Aviv.
Psychologically and economically
enslaving billions of human beings, facilitating the deaths of millions,
and redefining the word “exploitation”, the relative few
who monopolize most of the world’s material wealth and military
power mercilessly inflict widespread suffering to ensure the perpetuation
of their morally repugnant existences fraught with excess and hedonism.
When satiated to the point
of nausea by their gluttonous over-indulgence, they occasionally spew
torrents of putrid vomit upon the rest of humanity as they purge to
renew their blunted appetites. What a blessing for the have-nots to
receive such a feast!
Remember that the United
States of America was conceived as a constitutional republic by people
who had overthrown a tyrant. Unfortunately, they lacked the foresight
to envision the evolution of a predatory economic system which would
essentially enslave most of the populace to land-lords, creditors, employers,
corporations, a failing health care system, and deeply inculcated materialism.
For years the corporate media
have fostered an environment of perpetual hysteria fueled by the public’s
fear of contrived enemies such as the “God-less Communists”,
and most recently, the “Islamo-Fascists” and “terrorists”.
Serving the dual purpose of manipulating the masses and significantly
boosting the fortunes of the many-tentacled leviathan known as the military
industrial complex, fear-mongering has served the purposes of the ruling
elite to near perfection.
The biggest threat to the
majority of the population in the United States (and the world, for
that matter) is the enemy within. In the malevolent socioeconomic paradigm
spawned and perpetuated by the United States, survival of the fittest
is the reality. And might does indeed make right. Despite ostensibly
enjoying freedom and prosperity, many US citizens pay a devastating
spiritual price, much of their freedom is illusory, and prosperity is
becoming increasingly concentrated into the hands of a few.
People of conscience with
a genuine concern for improving the human condition have struggled since
our nation’s founding to make “idealistic notions”
like Abolition and Women’s Suffrage a reality. Yet in the “land
of the free”, a deeply entrenched White patriarchal plutocracy
has fought tooth and nail to maintain the status quo.
One day the malevolent individuals
comprising the ruling elite may find themselves in Dante’s Ninth
Circle for their betrayal of humanity. Or perhaps the Malebranche will
keep watch over them for eternity in Malebolge. But for now those "evolved
capitalists" consistently abuse their influence over humanity to
maintain their material prosperity, despite the horrific human cost.
Moving from the abstract
to the concrete, consider a mere handful of specific examples of US
“benevolence” and “democracy”. [Note that a
tyrannical socioeconomic system that virtually guarantees that power
(in the form of wealth) remains in the hands of a relative few made
each event or circumstance possible]:
1. The indigenous people
of Turtle Island were nearly driven to extinction.
2. Chattel slavery endured
until the Civil War and institutionalized racism persisted into the
1960’s.
3. Dickensonian Capitalism
manifested itself through miserably low wages, child labor, hazardous
working conditions, employee abuse, and a “Gilded Age” for
the wealthy elite.
4. FDR schemed to draw the
United States into World War II by provoking Japan into attacking Pearl
Harbor (and allowing the attack to happen). On his watch, the United
States also interned 110,000 Japanese Americans and killed hundreds
of thousands of European and Asian civilians. In so doing, the United
States did help take out two ruthless tyrants and a brutal imperialist.
However, toppling Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo enabled two of history’s
most despicable regimes. Stalin and Mao slaughtered tens of millions
as they implemented Stalinism and Maoism. (Unfortunately for reflexive
Red-haters who utilize Mao and Stalin as examples of the “evils
of Communism”, neither of these monsters were actual Communists).
5. Under Truman, the American
Empire annihilated over 200,000 Japanese civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Truman also paved the way for the formation of Israel and the initiation
of the genocide of the Palestinians.
6. LBJ and Nixon oversaw
the deaths of three million Vietnamese and 59,000 US military personnel.
7. Monstrous men like Bush’s
Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who was an instrumental
figure in the Reagan administration’s facilitation of the deaths
of at least 200,000 people in Central America, continue to thrive and
act with impunity.
8. 3,000 people died on 9/11
as a result of the Bush administration’s breath-taking incompetence
(or unproven but highly plausible complicity in the destruction of the
WTC).
9. At least 1,800 human beings
are dead in New Orleans as a result of the Bush Regime’s willful
criminal negligence.
10. Over 2,600 US service
personnel have been sacrificed at the Altar of Mammon and hundreds of
thousands have suffered deep physical and psychological wounds. Many
of these dead or broken people enlisted in the military because the
corporate media and revisionist historians indoctrinated them into believing
that they would be defending their country. Instead, their sacrifices
came to bolster the fortunes of those at the top of the food chain.
Over a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have died. But they are simply
“collateral damage” in the Empire’s “noble cause”
to introduce “democracy” into the Middle East.
11. Psychological torture
methods have been in the CIA’s arsenal since they were developed
through Project MKULTRA and have apparently been used liberally in the
“War on Terror”. Unfortunately for “The Decider”,
torture violates the Geneva Conventions. How can Bush “lead the
free world” if he is not free to torture?
12. The Bush Regime’s
Patriot Act, NSA eavesdropping, assault on habeas corpus, and “free
speech zones” have left the Bill of Rights in tatters.
13. The 2000 Presidential
election was decided by Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court. In 2004,
a powerful corporation with strong ties to the Republican Party ensured
Bush’s continued reign.
In November of 2003, Bush
proclaimed:
"It is no accident that
the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world's
most influential nation was itself a democracy."
To what influential nation
was he referring? I see little evidence of extant meaningful democratic
principles in the United States.
And a recent personal experience
crystallized this perception for me.
On 9/17/06, I attended a
veteran’s rally for Claire McCaskill, the Democratic challenger
to Missouri’s incumbent Republican US Senator, Jim Talent.
As I sat there, the sparse
turn-out reminded me of the tragic demise of the influence of We the
People. Two parties primarily representing the interests of the affluent
have duopolized the political system. Impotence has engendered apathy.
Providing further evidence
that Herbert Spencer’s dream of Social Darwinism is becoming reality
in the United States is the fact that a man like Jim Talent has not
been forcibly removed from office, tarred and feathered. His voting
record as a US Senator clearly demonstrates that he has vigorously devoted
himself to corporate interests, militarism, and the demise of laws and
public programs beneficial to We the People (the majority of his constituency!).
Democracy in the United States,
you say? Where?
Yet it also occurred to me
that within the almost hopelessly corrupt Republocrat system are some
ethical individuals striving on behalf of the poor and working class.
They are few in number, face numerous obstacles, and are limited in
their influence, but they do exist. So I have concluded that participation
in the process and efforts to evoke change are not completely futile.
As the Bush Regime steadily
moves to strengthen Bush’s expansive powers as a unitary executive,
reestablishing a Democratic majority in Congress to eliminate the partisan
rubber-stamp which now exists is the immediate hope for We the People.
I do not support either party, but at least a Democratic majority in
Congress would provide a foil to the Bush administration and would probably
initiate impeachment proceedings against him.
Yet I digress. The focal
point of the rally for McCaskill was the keynote speech by Max Cleland.
And I had the distinct honor of meeting him prior to the event.
“Max Cleland is a truly
admirable individual”, I concluded as I listened to him speak.
Cleland is a man who volunteered
to go to Vietnam on what he had been led to believe was a noble crusade
against the “Communist threat”. He returned home a triple
amputee.
His Silver Star citation
reads:
"Captain Cleland distinguished
himself by exceptionally valorous action on 4 April 1968 … during
an enemy attack near Khe Sanh.
When the battalion command
post came under a heavy enemy rocket and mortar attack, Captain Cleland,
disregarding his own safety, exposed himself to the rocket barrage as
he left his covered position to administer first aid to his wounded
comrades. He then assisted in moving the injured personnel to covered
positions.
Continuing to expose himself,
Captain Cleland organized his men into a work party to repair the battalion
communications equipment, which had been damaged by enemy fire.
His gallant action is in
keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflects
great credit upon himself, his unit and the United States Army."
Anne Coulter, the mean-spirited
propagandist who has been a gleeful accomplice of the war criminals
in the White House, wrote this of Cleland:
"Max Cleland should
stop allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero who lost his limbs
taking enemy fire on the battlefields of Vietnam….[he] lost three
limbs in an accident during a routine non-combat mission where he was
about to drink beer with friends. He saw a grenade on the ground and
picked it up. He could have done that at Fort Dix. In fact, Cleland
could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman. ...
Luckily for Cleland’s political career and current pomposity about
Bush, he happened to do it while in Vietnam."
Max Cleland served his country
with honor, lost both legs and an arm, and was awarded the Silver Star
for valorous action in combat. He returned home and overcame his physical
limitations, severe depression, and a sorely inadequate VA system. He
went on to a distinguished career in civil service, including stints
as the administrator of the Veteran’s Administration and as a
US Senator from Georgia.
Crusading for veterans, resigning
from the 9/11 Commission to protest stonewalling by the White House,
vehemently expressing his opposition to the illegal Iraqi Occupation,
and campaigning for fellow Democrats, Cleland has suffered the wrath
of the Bush Regime and its sycophants like Coulter.
In 2002, Cleland was “Swift-Boated”
in his re-election bid for the US Senate. Saxby Chambliss took his place.
Chambliss (an ardent supporter of the bellicose agenda of the Bush Regime)
is a chicken-hawk who sat out the Vietnam War with a “bad knee”
but won the Senatorial race with a vicious campaign that portrayed Cleland
as being soft on national defense.
Thanks for your courageous
service, Senator Cleland. We appreciate you sacrificing your body parts.
Now bend over while we stick it to you.
Cleland and the veterans
for whom he advocates so tirelessly are amongst the most grievously
harmed victims of the ruling elite. Lured in by patently false assertions
that they are joining the military to defend their country (or in some
cases conscripted--clearly an act of a “democracy”), US
military personnel have been, and are, mere cannon fodder for the imperialist
war machine. Departing as heroes, veterans often return home to find
themselves treated like yesterday’s garbage.
As Cleland spoke, he voiced
his concerns about the Bush Regime’s numerous abuses of US military
personnel, starting with sending them on a fool’s errand in Iraq
chasing non-existent WMD’s and killing tens of thousands of innocent
civilians. According to Cleland, the Neocon Empire is burning out the
United States military. He assailed the backdoor draft and the misuse
of the National Guard as a fighting force on foreign soil. As he indicated,
National Guard personnel and equipment in Iraq were sorely missed during
Katrina.
Characterizing the Iraqi
Occupation as “Vietnam without water”, Senator Cleland called
for the withdrawal of our troops. He reminded us that the United States
needs to prepare for a flood of about a million returning veterans.
Many of those people will need medical and psychological care, housing
assistance, and job training.
When Cleland finished speaking,
he received a long standing ovation. I continue to applaud him in my
mind when I reflect on his speech. Max Cleland is an inspirational human
being who is one of the millions of US veterans who have been exploited
by the American Empire in a particularly reprehensible way. While the
chicken-hawks and their cheerleaders sit safely on the side-line, members
of America’s poor and working class are thrust into the maelstrom
of war to further the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Jenna and
Barbara Bush won’t see combat action any time soon; in spite of
their father’s repeated assurances that our troops in Iraq are
fighting for a noble cause.
In his recent essay entitled
Why I Hate America, Mickey Z echoed William Blum’s assertion:
"I'm committed to fighting
U.S. foreign policy, the greatest threat to peace and happiness in the
world, and being in the United States is the best place for carrying
out the battle. This is the belly of the beast, and I try to be an ulcer
inside of it."
From my perspective, the
wealthy elite, nearly omnipotent corporations, avarice, impunity, hubris,
and bellicosity are the elements of America that comprise the beast.
And as the beast of my understanding takes the implementation of Herbert
Spencer’s perverse social theory to new heights, there is nowhere
I would rather be than in its belly, striving to be a festering, and
cankerous wound.
Someone needs to persistently
document and decry the myriad foreign and domestic crimes of the American
Empire. Join those of us who are. And perhaps one day justice will be
served.
Jason Miller
is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually
and spiritually. He writes prolifically and his essays have appeared
widely on the Internet. He welcomes constructive correspondence at [email protected]
or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.