Obam-ney and the Bipartisan Consensus

Column by Faisal Moghul.

Exclusive to STR

The late Gore Vidal, known for his acerbic wit, was no believer in the US electoral system:

"There is one political party in this country, and that is the party of money. It has two branches, the Republicans and the Democrats, the chief difference between which is that the Democrats are better at concealing their scorn for the average man."

The giddy pageantry and mindless political theater of US elections mask the systematic assault on civil liberties and divert attention from the real issues – be it criminalizing dissent [6] under the NDAA [7], consolidating the domestic surveillance state [8], assassinating US citizens [9] without due process of law, refusing to close Guantanamo, supporting the Patriot Act, endorsing extraordinary renditions, waging open-ended wars across the globe, engaging in unwarranted saber-rattling against Iran, destroying America’s industrial manufacturing base [10] and persecuting whistleblowers [11] who expose the wrongdoings of their overlords while the country reels under the crushing burden of trillions in debt.

The super-PAC [12] driven American elections are not in any real sense a reflection of the popular will but an illusion of “choice” between two pre-selected spokesmen of the same oligarchy of interests; a periodic public relations stratagem in a managed democracy proffering the voting spectators a false sense of empowerment; the opiate of the “rascal multitude [13]” gripped by Stockholm Syndrome.

As political scientist Thomas Ferguson argues in Investment Theory of Politics [14], the two-party system largely functions as a mediator among competing business interests. At periodic intervals, powerful “investors” gather to select their next spokesman which, in this election, is a contest between the Microsoft, Citibank, and Time-Warner [15]-sponsored lackey on one hand, and the Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Bain Capital [16]-certified pawn on the other.

The old ventriloquist harboring the same agenda is back with a new dummy – the Republicrat: half elephant, half donkey, complete puppet! The correctness of his beliefs or the rectitude of his principles is as irrelevant as the sincerity, or lack thereof, of his purpose.

The Obam-ney paradigm is not concerned with meaningful change, but more about switching to the least objectionable successor – be it the Nobel Peace Warmonger brandishing his “kill list” or the Predator Capitalist Hawk refusing to release his tax records – to preserve the status quo. Grundnorms will not be questioned; meta-rules in favor of the oligarchs will never be challenged. Those who do [17] will find themselves silenced with surprising efficacy.

Unlike the seven famous debates between Lincoln and Douglas in 1858, [18] each of which lasted several hours, presidential “debates” in the era of television-based perception management amount to little more than a regurgitation of “conventional pieties” and an affirmation of “necessary illusions.” Moreover, unlike their predecessors, modern day American voters probably do not have the patience or attention span to withstand an hour of pre-packaged, vacuous sound bites. An educated citizenry is no longer a necessary prerequisite to a vibrant democracy; may the elitist-stooge with the most effective propaganda win.

And before you even think of Obamacare, remember that in 2006 Romney and his advisors [19] were the original architects of the landmark Massachusetts healthcare law that the Obama Administration later adopted as the national model [20] (see here [21]).

On the foreign policy front, regardless of who the next transient occupant of the White House happens to be in November, there will be little change in the bipartisan foreign policy consensus [22] to ensure the continued viability of Pax Americana.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is apparent that there has been no discernable difference between the policies the Obama Administration espouses, and those endorsed by his predecessor George Bush. In fact, Romney’s proposed foreign policy team is a coterie of recycled neocon hacks from the previous Bush Administration [23] who brought us, among other things, the imbroglio in Iraq. The Bus-Ob-Ney juggernaut continues.

Imperialism is incompatible with democratic instincts, which necessitates the use of fear-based politics to control society and suppress dissent. Former national security advisor and master geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski candidly expresses this philosophy in his 1998 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:

“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211) (emphasis added)

Indeed, James Madison was correct in maintaining that, “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will come under the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” Thus, it is no surprise why the expansion of the American empire since 9/11, which now encompasses over half a million military personnel on 700 bases in 120 countries [24], has been simultaneously accompanied by the gradual erosion of core constitutional liberties at home under the pretext of fighting “terrorism.”

The Republicratic agenda is not designed to reexamine fundamental assumptions guiding policymaking – it is meant to exaggerate the apparent dissimilarity of two branches of the same tree. Substituting the White House straw man for the next four years amounts to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic.