Something in the Air

As the US government falls deeper and deeper into a crisis, it seems clear why national forms of government don't last more than a few hundred years (many don't make it twenty). This seems far more in the procelerating world of global technologically, and the United States (which may have the oldest government in existence) is quickly feeling the effects of this exponential change.

Robert Reich has noted an article [1] by the Washington Post: "In About 20 years, half the population will live in eight states." He comments:

The framers of the Constitution – who decided that each state would get 2 senators regardless of population -- never imagined that Americans would bunch up in just a few states. Yet demographers now predict that in two decades, 70 percent of Americans will reside in just 16 states, half in just 8 states. As a result, 30 percent of Americans – who will also happen to be far whiter, older, and more rural -- will control 68 percent of the seats in the U.S. Senate. The House, of course, will still be based on population. So the Senate and House will reflect two different Americas – the America of the distant past, and the America of the present.

Now that two twenty-first century elections have revealed that the original American system is beginning to have internal failures, consideration of the operational limits of the American approach seems appropriate. The over zealous motivation to keep a few states from over-dominating election processes has resulted in a minority of the population now over-dominating.  Once again, we are seeing imbalances of power, as it slides to one group- concentrating in a minority.  This will only get worse, and avoiding crisis requires redistributing this power back across the population as a whole.

Many aspects of our system of government now seem inadequate and over-whelmed by a world in which global contact is in real-time.  At the time of our founding, America was a very large expanse with a widely dispersed population which would be difficult to govern centrally. On the other side, contact with foreign adversaries would be largely limited to border neighbors and a few of our elder European relatives as rivals.  But since we have been able to nuke the entire planet on a few minutes notice, the procedures for regulating our ability to wage war seem immensely outdated.  Not to mention the economic links of global trade, where factors of the economy depend on what other governments do.

Domestically, now that we are all instantly connected, it is a counter-productive hindrance to have protocols which were meant to compensate for the difficulties of direct democracy.  Even if we want to protect the ability for 50 states to having varying legal systems, it seems foolish to choose federal systems based on the outlines of these states, dependent on who lives on what side of which line.  The laws of the nation should be chosen by representative proportions of the population, without consideration of which state each citizen belongs to.  Considerations of minority views (to avoid a majority-decides-all outcome) should be ideological, not geographical.

It would seem wise to presently look into Constitutional modifications in light of historic changes in order to keep the resulting goals achievable rather than waiting for it to break and bring down the country in an unavoidable crisis.

[1] behind paywall

Power

I: Beyond Capitalism I:

In Bit Rot (2016), Douglas Coupland, the preeminent bard of the superficial consumerist culture during the millennial transition, questions the disparity between economic systems in light of the new monolithic state of Global Capitalism:

"[In] the end, the ownership of . . . industry globalizes to the point where there are only a few players, aren't we right back to default Soviet system, where the supply of bread or what have you is centralized and crypto-communist? And in this new system, both power and profit go to the One Percent - the new politburo. It's shield? Globalization is so boring that people fall asleep before they can articulate the issue. Boringness is the superpower of communism. Globalization kills you, but first it puts you to sleep."

Slavoj Zizek has noted how twenty years ago:

possibilities were perceived as open [at] the level of social organization itself. Will capitalism prevail? Will Fascism? Will there be socialism? So social imagination was active at the level of different possibilities of social organization. The idea was maybe we would have fascism, totalitarianism, maybe some Orwellian closed society, maybe the Huxleyan 'Brave New World', maybe liberal capitalism, State capitalism, whatever. Here it was possible to imagine change. Somehow production would go on, it would continue to exploit nature - this was conceived as a a constant.
     Whereas today . . it is . . . exactly the opposite. It's very easy to imagine . . . that somehow all of nature will disintegrate, there will be ecological catastrophe, or whatever: the human race will not go on. What is no longer possible to imagine is that there will be no liberal capitalism; there is no change at that level. So the dream is that maybe there will be no nature, maybe there will be total catastrophe, but liberal capitalism will somehow exist even if the Earth no longer exists. So precisely scenes like this, where you can see how what is visible, what is invisible, what can be imagined, what cannot be imagined, change. This is . . . empirical proof that ideology is at work. . . . the notion of ideology is also always a two-level notion . .. the way to recognize ideology at work is always through denunciation of another ideology. There is never pure, naive ideology. . . .how did we experience the moment of disintegration of communism when we finally got rid of this totalitarian indoctrination and returned to the natural state of things? What is the natural state of things? The free market, multi-party elections, etc.? Precisely, this most spontaneous self-experience of how you are getting rid of some imposed artificial order and returning to some kind of . . . non-ideloigcal natural state of things . . .is the basic . . . gesture of ideology. [1]

Besides the general recognition that ideology is most at work when it appears as the "outside", the escape from all those "other" ideologies, which are obviously artificial constructs over the natural order of things, this analysis reveals the inherent danger within the global system.  When one resides within a system that has no live alternatives, no potential challenges or modifications, positive evolution becomes impossible.  Once the prevailing belief assumes the naturalization of current conditions, any modifications are seen as "false" perversions.  The final defeat of ideology then creates a field that is extremely ideological, and far more dangerous because the presence of this is even more masked.  [2]   Without available criticism, the status quo can be corrupted,  or co-opted to actually pervert it into something beyond its intention. The danger to be avoided is not the particular economic systems, which can be used in alternative ways, but the very structure itself which allows for oppression by totalizing powers. Since nothing outside of Capitalism can even be conceived of, it is seen as naturalized and the most advantageous and evolved system. Anything else would be "false" or morally inferior. But, if the goal is a complete rejection of anything authoritarian, totalitarian or otherwise un-democratic, the focus should not be policies or regulations, but on the threat of power inherent in the system.  This is the point that libertarians refuses to recognize: It is not the ultimate solution to government interference existing at the polar opposite of a continuum, it is merely a mirror image with its own possible extreme radicalizations.  Reduction (or destruction) of government constructs ultimately opens a vacuum for alternative non-governmental actors to seize (without recourse to higher equalizing authority).  The real threat against free democracy, what is to be avoided, is oligarchy, which is just as harmful, and often much more dangerous, than strong government.  The effective outcome for the oppressed is indistinguishable whether the oligarchy is governmental or corporatist elements of the free-market. As Coupland illustrates, what difference does it make if the economic structure is controlled through distributive government or monopolistic powers if the outcome is the same? Holding an idea, a name, in superior regard at all costs does no good if the practical results do not live up to the idea.

II: 1984 (Part I)

This leads to the first of my many points regarding George Orwell's 1984.  It's now become impossible to go a full week without hearing the words "it's 1984" or "it's Orwellian." While considering 1984 as an example of the symbolic structure of ideology which, as a literary work, contained aesthetic form which necessarily negates a conclusive explication of ideology (Chapter 4) [3], I argued that the commonly voiced notion that it is a warning against left-wing politics and centralized government is a misunderstanding, and that such a definitive reading was an example of over-interpretation.  I think now, given recent political events and paradigm shifts, along with the resulting references to Orwell, this is even more significant.  Examining more extra-literary evidence regarding Orwell, all of the meta/contextual relations which fall outside of the aesthetic work, suggests his intentions were aligned with Socialism, thereby requiring that the extent of this error be revealed and analytically addressed.

Though commonly regarded as a prime example of left-wing totalitarian governments of the twentieth-century, the government of Oceania is so far beyond communism that comparisons become incomprehensible, and the relevance to capitalism become just as apparent [3]. As a manifestation of Oligarchical Collectivism, the world of Oceania becomes Orwell's warning about the concentration and abuse of power, not against economic distribution systems. Control has become so ubiquitous (and power inversely so removed from the individuals in  the culture) that the means which sustain the system are no longer important or directly relevant.  With this warning in mind attention must be directed towards obstructing the formation of oligarchy even when that means challenging the superior system  in order to prevent its corruption.  The dispersion of power should be something that both libertarians and Democratic Socialists can agree on (along with anyone valuing human and democratic principles).


Looking at any day's news from 2018 reveals the relevance of 1984 to current events: Just a quick look from today:
"[The Trump administration] is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy here.” - Republican senator Ron Johnson

"Don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news . . . Just remember: what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." - Donald Trump, 2018
 
 compare to:

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." -1984


[1] Interrogating the Real. p76-7
[2] For more on this read: any Zizek, or:
McCooley, Brian J., "Ideological Interpretation and the Aesthetic Nature of Literature" (2017). Culminating Projects in English 87. 
[3] Again, see above.  When I started writing that in 2015, I had no idea that it would become so relevant to the emerging political world of post-truth and "fake news" (and one of the top 2017 sellers).

Russia's Locked Doors (Amerika)

History has apparently come a long way in the last ten years, from when the US was the sole Superpower, and Russia was a regional power dreaming of returning to the global Superpower stage. Now, the US has bowed in allegiance.  Irony officially died this week when Trump attacked Germany for having "too strong " of ties with Russia. Remember four years ago when conservatives suggested President Obama would be committing treason if he negotiated with Iran? Or, when the right lost their minds when President Obama didn't stand up and risk war to aggressively counter Russia's advance into Crimea? (while at the same time denouncing Hillary Clinton as a warhawk) Well, Republicans aren't anything if not schizophrenic. After eight years of hysterical conspiracies about the Muslim-commie Obama, everything they "feared" is actively being implemented. All while being actively embraced.  It seems their modus operandi is to denounce in others (erroneously) exactly what you want.

Where will this end?  Perhaps the plan is a Russian-American Axis which leaves a broken post-Nato Europe.  Perhaps Trump is not President Greg Stillson, as I have suspected. Maybe he is really haunted by the nuclear, tormented to the point of desperation.  Maybe his plan is to surrender the Cold War, after a ridiculous twenty-five year wait past its end.  This would explain his "nuclear" comments during the campaign (and the summit)  and his friendly submissiveness to North Korea, along with his rationalization that it was to prevent a nuclear bomb "falling on your family."  While submissive, it is not friendly in the case of Russia, and this all feels like a beaten, last-ditch attempt at survival in the form of surrender.  Where is Captain Kirk, and what would he do? [1]  And why is any of this necessary? There has been no immanent threat that must be dealt with without the luxury of long-term diplomacy. In any case it is not American strength, and not the aggressive, fearless Reaganism that conservatives demand, and that Trump seemed to exude during the campaign.  If strong and fearless is not a possibility for Trump, the question then becomes why not play the nice guy?  He could be Obama to the ultimate extent.  Rather, he pleases our adversaries while being the abusive spouse to our allies: Canada, Germany, NATO, etc. have all become the scapegoats of a drunken rage.[2]  There appears no rational answer, other than Trump is out to serve Russia.  The only other possibility, one that is not personal to Trump, is that we are in some deep shit that we don't know about. Maybe it's not Trump's personal paranoia of a nightmare nuclear scenario, but an actual blackmail threat. Given the alarms raised this week, perhaps we really are being brought to our knees, and to avoid actual destruction Trump is trying to appease our enemies. This might be the only scenario that makes sense, although it doesn't seem to fit known facts - How could we have come to this point- negotiating from a point of total weakness, even as a Superpower? Beyond the threat of complete computer/digital erasure or electrical system disintegration (and nuclear meltdown), the only un-countered dangers would be new super-weapons reported over the last few years (16 warhead ICBMS, 100 MT drone submarines, nuclear powered cruise missiles). But, using these to extort ransom seems unlikely. This would be too much for a James Bond story. 

Even if Trump is really fighting for our existential survival, his priorities have been clear so far as he has attacked (aggressively) the media, academics and the courts. These are all the institutions that sustain the superior elements of our culture, the pinnacle of our historic development.  Add in alliances and maybe even our military, and not only is our high culture in danger, but our very existence as a civilization is in grave danger regardless of any external threats [3]. The threat of a Russian-American oligarchy would be globally and historically devastating, but this seems the more likely goal and possibly as unwelcome as anything else.

[1] Whatever the conditions that Trump is dealing with, his behavior displays nothing but a weak loser, the very opposite of a strong hero.
[2] Seriously, what kind of asshole does this?  Attack allies and appease adversaries - it's so absurd and plainly stupid that it would be laughable if not unfolding right in front of us.
[3] In another display of extreme irony, it seems that Trump's rejection of our Western European origin is doing more damage to our cultural heritage than Social Justice Warriors are doing on campuses,.