Understanding Rage and Bringing Us Back from the Brink

Many people would look at the phrase “understanding rage” as an oxymoron.  To them rage is irrational.  It’s craziness.   And because it’s not a rational state, it cannot be understood.  It’s true that there is no reasoning with rage.  The rational forces of democracy are not only helpless to hold it in check, the democratic process gives rage the opportunity to assume the ascendancy and control.

But while the emotion of rage is irrational and there is no reasoning with it, the experiences that trigger rage are very rational.   Those experiences can be countered with reasoning if combined with heartfelt mea culpas and action that counters the rational source of the rage.

What is behind rage?  Whether one looks at the white, formerly middle-class now unemployed/underemployed, worker or people of color or Muslims, regardless of country, the cause of rage is exploitation.  People either feel that they have not been given a chance to get what they deserve or have been promised, or they feel that they have lost what they rightfully had.  In either case, an economic or political force is blamed as the exploiter.  

People in general feel used and abused, regardless of their color or status in life.  One could probably safely say that 90 - 95% of people in the U.S. feel exploited in some way.  What they mostly don’t realize is that it’s the top 1% who is doing the exploiting (except for Blacks where the percentage is much higher).  It is they who control the wheels of international commerce and government.  It is they who have brought about the sad state of human life that most of us suffer from.  In a very important way, while circumstances among people vary greatly, most of us are all in the same boat … we just don’t know it.

Those in that top 1% will denigrate such comments as promoting class warfare.  The U.S. has historically been said to be a classless society.  And so to promote class warfare is un-American.

While we have never had a class-structured society as in England or India, to say that we are a classless society is to ignore reality.  At some point, it is necessary to call a spade a spade.

The reader might say, “OK, I can see that this make sense in many situations, for example why Blacks can get so angry, but how does exploitation explain Muslim extremist rage?”  That very pertinent question is actually rather simple to answer.  

The exploitation, or just as important the feeling of exploitation, exists on many levels.  I shall proceed from the more global to the narrower concerns, the former of which feed the latter.  

The forces of Islam controlled or had great influence in much of the Mediterranean region from around 600 - 1200 AD.  Later the Ottoman empire controlled much of the Eastern half of the Mediterranean region for centuries.  Only as the European states became more powerful in the 19th century and colonized northern Africa did the empire weaken.  It finally collapsed after it was on the loosing side of WWI; it’s lands were carved up and controlled by the British and French.  

So after almost 1300 years of great political/military power and cultural preeminence, the Muslim world shrank and sank to a rather insignificant hovel controlled/exploited by the Western powers.  During much of the 20th century, the Muslim countries were treated no better than the European colonies of Africa and Asia.  This is global exploitation #1.

The other aspect of this defeat by the West was religious.  While the conquests of the 19th Century and WWI were political in nature, to the Muslim mind they were a continuation of the Crusades of the 12th century to free the holy land from “infidels.”  And for a Christian, who is an infidel to the Muslim mind, to call Muslims infidels is a great insult both to themselves and their prophet, Muhammed.  This is global exploitation #2.  

We have seen the seemingly irrational rage when western writers or cartoonists, or fallen Muslims such as Salmon Rushdie, have in some way blasphemed or shown a lack of respect for Muhammed and Islam.  Such violent rage, while never condoned, can be understood against this backdrop of historic exploitation and conquest.

These are the main factors that shape the forces of Jihad against the West, only recently  enabled to be vast and deep-reaching through the power of the Internet and other modern technologies.  Layered on top of these global exploitations/defeats, lies a more direct exploitation that explains why movements such as al-Queda or ISIS or Hamas find so many young people willing to both sacrifice themselves to the cause and kill so many innocent people in the process.

Throughout much of the Muslim world, as well as in the West, many young Muslims find themselves at loose ends … they see no future, are poor, and are politically powerless.  In their own countries, there has been little economic development and the problem of income inequality is even worse than in the U.S.  Poverty and the lack of education is widespread.  For most Muslim young people, there is little cause for hope.  This domestic lack of hope lay at the core of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2010-12.  It also, layered on top of historical and current exploitation by Israel, lies at the core of the various Palestinian Intifadas.

In the West, the terrorist threat from domestic Muslims has varied greatly.  The greatest terrorist expression has been in France, fed by France’s historically notorious failure or even lack of interest in absorbing North African immigrants into its society, and complicated or augmented by the fact that France was the former colonial power and exploiter in the countries from which these immigrants come.  While England has seen one major terrorist attack, and white Britons are certainly seething, Muslims seem to have been treated better there than France.  

Germany was the home of Muhammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attack, and has seen several small isolated terrorist attacks, but it has not experienced what either France or England has.  Muslims seem to be better integrated into German workforce and society.  Also, Germany was not a former colonial power for them.  

In the U.S., while there certainly have been individuals who have volunteered for the Jihadist cause, either abroad on in the U.S., there seems to be far less alienation among young Muslims here both as a result of their greater access to education and opportunity as well as the religious freedom here.  But while we are not part of the historical record I noted, our support of Israel and our more recent post-9/11 military forays into the Arab world aggravate many even more than history.

So given this understanding, how do we move forward?  How does the world come back from the violent, chaotic brink that we seem to be standing on?  The past is past.  We can’t change it.  However, every society can and must clearly acknowledge the past and be heartfelt in their mea culpas.  For example, in my post, “Reflections on Yom Kippur and Mideast Peace,” I noted that Israel must do this, as well as the Palestinians.

But it cannot stop there.  Words or laws will not suffice.  The injury lies far too deep.  There must be action that reverses past decades or centuries of indifference, discrimination, and exploitation.  What that will be will vary for each country.  But until Muslims and all people feel that they are respected and treated as equals, there will be no peace.

Is There No End to Mass Violence?

In just the past few weeks we have witnessed the mass shooting in Orlando, the suicide bombing at the Istanbul airport, the shooting and machete attack in Bangladesh, and now a bombing in Iraq … a total of more than 250 people dead, and as many injured.  And ISIS is connected either directly or indirectly with all.

But ISIS is certainly not the only fomenter of terrorism.   Nor are only Muslims.  Just as  a reminder, the mass shooting at the African-American church in Charleston, SC in June, 2015 which claimed 9 lives was done by a white-supremacist sympathizer.  And while some of the mass shootings in the U.S. have been tied to an ideology, most were more a function of alienation.

There is, however, a common denominator to all of these acts, and it is hate.  And what is usually the cause of hate?  Fear or feelings of abuse, of being taken advantage of; a deep mistrust.  These feelings can be based on reality or imagined; it makes no difference to their power.  But ultimately, all the feelings that cause hate are based on feelings of insecurity.

I have written before that the cause of all abuse and violence, whether within the home or between groups or nations, is insecurity (see my posts, “The Root of all Abuse and Violence - Insecurity” and “Insecurity as the Cause of Social Conflict and International War”).  Although violence is commonly said to be a fact of human nature, as a Buddhist I know that violence and hatred are not man’s nature.  A Sufi (Muslim), a Kabbalist (Jewish), or a Christian mystic would say the same.

Quite the contrary is true.  The problem is that man’s inherent God-essence, his traits of love and compassion that he is born with and are his birthright, has been overwhelmed by all his experiences, starting virtually at birth, that tell him he is not loved, certainly not unconditionally, and that he needs to be more than he is and have more than he has in order to experience happiness and security; all of which breed insecurity.  This message is so consistent and comes from so many sources … family, friends, peers, society … that man’s knowledge of his true self quickly becomes buried under the layers of this learned experience, this debris of life.

I once asked a monk that if man is born essentially perfect, why do we all suffer?  His answer was, “It’s just the way it is.  It’s like the law of thermodynamics.”

This is not, however, to say that it has to be that way, that it is man’s nature.  It is all a function of action and reaction.  Change the action and you change the reaction.  Remove all the actions that cause insecurity, advance instead those that promote self-esteem and self-love, and you nurture a being and a society in which nothing offends, in which fear and hatred cease to exist and instead there is love and compassion towards all.

While there is no question in my mind and heart that this is true … it is telling that all mystics of all religions and all times have been unanimous in this view of things … we are not starting with a blank slate.  We are starting with a world in which insecurity is the prevalent experience and intolerance or worse, as well as the craving for money and power, are the expressions of that insecurity.

Does that mean that it is hopeless?  That there is nothing to be done to change this intolerable state of affairs … not just the senseless mass violence but all the small acts of violence and abuse that are inflicted on others and well as ourselves?

I don’t think so.  It would take several generations, but I believe that if people were raised differently, as suggested by my book, Raising a Happy Child, we would develop a mass of people who viewed themselves and the world around them differently, and that would in turn eventually impact how politicians view relations within their country and how world leaders view the relations between their countries and the rest of the world.  It is a change in perspective and attitude that would start small and spread throughout mankind.

Will this ever happen?  Unlikely.  Could it, however, happen?  Yes, if encouraged by those forces with moral authority in the world.

The Brexit Vote - Get a Grip!

If you read the newspapers, even The New York Times, and listened to the media in the first few days after the Brexit vote, you would have thought that the vote to exit the EU meant the end of the world as we know it and a financial downturn.  But neither is even remotely true.

The vote to exit the EU does probably mean a major change or disruption for those living in Great Britain.  Most directly, it will have a pervasive negative impact on the economy, which translates to a loss of jobs and a worsening of people’s financial well-being.  All the talk by Brexit supporters about how Britain will benefit economically and financially from  this action has already been discounted or minimized by them after the vote.  It was all a big lie, but that’s politics.

But for the rest of the world, it’s quite another matter.  The EU will continue to muddle along, with or without Britain.  It was certainly never a driving force for holding the EU together; that’s been the role of Germany and France.  Yes, it means some change in trade with Britain, but probably nothing serious.

The Times spoke about it upending the post-WW II system of European relations.  Hardly!  Britain did not join the EU until 1973, and it never adopted the Euro currency.  The idea behind the EEC (the predecessor of the EU) was to link the countries of Europe so inextricably, first economically, that wars such as had occurred in the past would be virtually impossible.  Since the main antagonists have always been Germany and France, it not impacted at all by the vote.

Unless the Brexit vote encourages other European countries to do likewise, the EU will continue to perform it’s valuable function. (There has always been discontent among many with the EU, and with some good reason.  But on balance, the positive impact always has won the day, and will continue to do so unless the vote is put to the people in a referendum.  Then all bets are off.)  The EU has other problems with potentially more serious impact on its continued viability than the exit of Britain.

As for the United States, Britain may be a vital ally both militarily and financially, but a marginally weaker Britain will not seriously impact the U.S.’ interests at all.  It may make the politics of dealing with the EU more difficult without an inside friend to argue our case, but that may have the positive advantage of our being more careful at how we cultivate our relations with Germany and France, especially.

But while the whole media reaction is somewhat silly, it could have done real harm.  Investors and financial markets have been very volatile this past year and are easily spooked.  By all this fear-mongering, it was feeding the impulse of investors in financial markets around the world to view this change with alarm and to overreact, creating a truly dangerous situation which could have had a real negative impact.  Thankfully, however, after a few days, the markets realized this was much ado about nothing, and have stabilized.

This raises the question of why the media have treated the Brexit vote in the manner they have.  I have the feeling that all this fear-mongering by the media has only one real aim … to sell newspapers and increase media market share.  We are long since past the age when journalism was taken seriously and practiced with ethical standards.  In the modern world, for media as for all other corporations, the only relevant question seems to be, “What sells?”  And I am certainly not the first commentator who has pointed out the dangerous portent that provides for our future well-being.

Incompetent Response by Police in Orlando?

At 2 am, the gunman started shooting in an outdoor area.  At some point not too long thereafter, the timing has not been indicated, the uniformed security officer on site and several police officers opened fire on the gunman who then retreated into the club, apparently holing up in a bathroom with numerous hostages.

Three hours later, around 5 am, the police went in following an armored vehicle which broke a hole in the wall.  In the ensuing firefight, the police shot the gunman dead.

CNN states that the police said they had to wait three hours to assess the situation, get armored vehicles on the scene and make sure they had enough personnel.  This seems beyond incompetent; it exhibits almost callous disregard for the safety of those the police are sworn to protect.  

You have a gunman who has already killed many people before retreating into the building where there are more potential victims.  He has phoned 911 and declared allegiance to ISIS.  Obviously this is a very disturbed, deranged, dangerous man, even if he sounded “calm” in a phone conversation with the police.

Supporters of the police’s response say that this was a hostage situation, and the normal rule is that you don’t blast in for fear of causing loss of life; instead you talk to the gunman.  But this was not a “normal” hostage situation.  He had killed the majority of his victims before going inside and creating a hostage situation.  And the police were not in regular contact with him, talking with him.  And ISIS is known for having no tolerance for homosexuals and executing them.

If the CNN statement is a correct paraphrase of what the police said, then I think it’s clear that the policy waited not because they wanted to protect the lives of those inside, but because they wanted the maximum protection for themselves when they went in to confront the lone gunman.

I know that police are not trained in the same way the military are.  Nevertheless, when the situation calls for it, they need to be warriors and protect those they are charged to protect without over-concern for their own safety.  My assessment of the reports I’ve read is that they did not display courage or heroism.

Given the world we live in, police around the country should have clear and uniform directions as to how to respond to various terrorist situations, and they should have the training to enable them to carry out such directions.   These directions should probably come from the FBI.  Further, once such a situation develops, someone from the FBI or military should immediately be put in charge of the operation or at the very least advise the local police what action they should take.

(This post was delayed due to its submission as an op-ed piece elsewhere.)

We Can't Change People, But We Can Control Access to Guns

Why is gun control essential?  Because people are people; many suffer and lash out, some become violent. We can't control people's psychology and what they do or say.  But we can control the availability of weapons that enable them to kill and injure.

The tragedy in Orlando raises many questions, the most basic being whether there is any end or limit to man’s inhumanity to man.  And with this term, I’m not just referring to horrific acts of mass violence such as the Orlando shootings but also the violence that occurs every day, whether randomly inflicted on strangers or directed at someone the perpetrator has a grudge against.  Based on the evidence we see or hear on almost a daily basis, one has to say, no.

Although in posts I have set forth a way to end this epidemic of inhumanity … to make people humane again … it is not a very practical expectation (see “Creating a Safer World for Our Children.”).  No, we must take it as fact that there really is no end or limit to man’s inhumanity to man.

If we can’t stop people from being inhumane, then our only option if we want to end the suffering caused by these acts of inhumanity is to control the tools they use to inflict harm.  (For the purpose of this post, I’m going to limit the discussion to acts of inhumanity that involve physical violence.  The cruel psychological violence that people inflict on each other on a daily basis is also inhumane - see the above referenced post - but that's another matter.)

When we look at the statistics, we see that in the United States guns are the weapon of choice in physically violent acts:  67.7 percent of all murders, 41.3 percent of robberies and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults were conducted with guns.  Each year more than 30,000 people are killed by firearms in the US (about 1/3 are murders, the rest suicides), compared to less than 200 in Canada and the countries of Europe.

Without any question, if we want to end the suffering caused by all this violence we must get rid of the guns that are so readily available.  But what to do about the opposing claim of gun rights and the newly-Supreme-Court-declared 2nd Amendment individual right to bear arms?

People definitely have the right to guns used for hunting and self-defense.  Until recent times that meant a traditional rifle for hunting and some type of pistol for self-defense.  People were able to hunt very successfully with their rifles … if anything it was more of a pure sport … and people were able to defend themselves.

The newer type of automatic guns and assault weapons that are available, with large capacity clips, have added absolutely nothing to the ability to hunt or to defend oneself.  It may give a hunter a bigger charge to be handling these newer guns, but that’s no reason to make them available given the harm that they can inflict.  And automatic pistols have not been shown to be more effective for self-defense that a regular pistol.  It just gives the person a psychological feeling of greater safety.

So, I would argue that given that we cannot change man’s inhumanity to man, all automatic weapons, whether guns or rifles, should be taken off the general market.  They should only be available to the military, police, and others who need such high-powered weapons in the performance of their responsibilities.

Regular guns and rifles should continue to be available to the general public as they are now, with of course appropriate background checks, etc.  All loopholes should be closed.  No one should be able to by a firearm without the required background check.

I know that one cannot expect to stop gun violence by taking all but regular rifles and pistols off the general market, even with effective background checks.  People can still turn violent and those firearms can still be used to great effect in ways other than hunting and self-defense.  But given the place of guns in American culture … the United States is not England or other countries where gun ownership is rare and traditionally strictly controlled … that’s the most that we can expect our government and people to accommodate for the greater good.

But the fact that gun control measures will not eliminate firearm violence is no argument against taking those steps.  Fewer deaths and injuries, especially from these mass shootings, is better than things continuing unchanged.

The NRA says that guns don’t kill people, people kill people.  And while that’s undeniably true … the core problem is the inhumanity of man … it is also true that without automatic weapons fewer people would be killed or suffer grievous injury.

White Working Class - The Republican Base?

While reading a recent New Yorker, I came upon a sentence that made me stop in disbelief.  “The base of the [Republican] Party, the middle-aged white working class, …”

I was aware that many working class whites had become Reagan Democrats and that many were at the heart of the Tea Party’s strength.  But that things had gone so far that this part of the traditional Democratic base had now become the Republican base stopped me in my tracks.  Was this true?  What in the world had happened?  

As I thought through my answer to this question, I sadly realized that it was true and how it came to be.  The factors:  economic woes, race, class/elitism/intelligence.

The Democratic Party has been the party of the “common” person for most of its history in that it has championed the rights of the worker, immigrants, and the poor, but not Blacks.  Whereas the Republican Party has been the party of the moneyed establishment and was (and still is) steadfastly against any advancement in the rights of the lower classes, including workers.  Not surprisingly, the Democrats were rewarded with the loyal votes of white working-class America.

The first break in this alliance came with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under the leadership of President Johnson and the Democrat-controlled Congress.  Working class whites in the South, together with many white collar whites, left the Democratic Party in droves and became the key to the solid Republican South.  The percentage of working class whites voting Democratic in 1960 and 1964 was 55%; in 1968 and 1972, 35%

While this situation improved during the 70s because of Watergate and a sharp recession, the defection returned with the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan.  White northern and midwestern working class men had begun feeling the pinch of stagnating wages and the loss of jobs.  They were attracted to the “can do it” energy of Reagan, his patriotism, and just him as a person.  He was not an intellectual; he was someone they could relate to.  The Democratic candidates during the period, by comparison, did not have charisma, nor exude energy, nor were they flag-waving patriotic … and they were definitely intellectual and spoke like it.

The economic problems of the white working class also increased their resentment over Democratic support for things like affirmative action, welfare, and women’s rights.  They saw the Party as going to bat for everyone but them.   And so again in 1980 and 1984, working class whites voted Democratic only 35%.

While Bill Clinton (who was more down-to-earth and not so intellectual) did somewhat better, the numbers again went down with Al Gore and John Kerry.  And that has continued in 2008 and 2012 with Obama.

Pre-Civil Rights Act, the issues binding the white working class and the Democratic Party were economic.  In that period, Democratic progressivism was mostly about economic prosperity.  Post-Civil Rights Act, the issues driving them away were their worsening economic situation and the Democratic’s new emphasis on social liberalism, including most recently the advancement of gay rights.

The white working class has always been conservative on social issues.  During the past 40 years they have also come to feel that the Republicans will do a better job with the economy.  And so even though the Republican Party has never shown any real interest or caring for the plight of the working class and instead has done the bidding of corporate America, whose interests are usually diametrically opposed to that of the working class, we see this continued phenomenon of working people voting against their economic interests.

There is evidence that with the Trump candidacy this trend will only increase.   Through his outrageous statements regarding Latino immigration as well as his support for protectionist policies to protect American jobs, he may be attracting even greater white working class support.  

For example. it was reported that in one depressed county in Pennsylvania, working class white Democrats are “flocking to Trump.”  Before the primary, 4,647 Democrats and independents in Luzerne County switched their registration to Republican, nearly four times the number of Republicans and independents who changed their registration to Democrats.  One caveat about this example, since Luzerne County is in the coal region, Hillary Clinton’s ill-advised and much publicized comment about putting a lot of coal miners out of work may have more to do with this switch than Trumps comments.  Nevertheless it is troubling.

In the forward to the 2011 edition of We Still Hold These Truths, I noted the following about the plight of the working class.  (Many today may be surprised to hear blue collar workers referred to as part of the middle class, but for decades they were because their unions provided them with very-well-paying jobs.)

“The middle class is made up mostly of nonprofessionals … people with only a high school degree. As manufacturing and other middle class jobs have disappeared, their standard of living and the quality of their lives has been drifting downward. The recent recession only exacerbated the trend. In March 2011, 12 percent of those with only a high-school diploma were unemployed compared to 4.5 percept of those with college degrees and 2 percent for those with professional degrees. The greatest impact has been on men … in 1967, 97 percent of men 30-50 years old in this cohort were employed; in 2010, just 76 percent were. Not only has this resulted in economic problems for these men and their families, these pressures have brought about greater interpersonal stress, with a resulting increase in divorce rates and other examples of social dysfunction. The greater income inequality that developed during this period has also resulted in heightened actual and felt lifestyle differences between the middle class and those with more income and education.”

I wrote then that the world the working class knew since WWII has been turned upon down resulting in them being scared, angry, and alienated.  I chided Democrats for not highlighting this important shift in the American social fabric.  They talked about the need to protect the middle class (everyone always does), but the evisceration that had already occurred was not mentioned … Democrats had and have not shown that they feel the pain of the working class …  and practical measures to reverse the trend are not much of anything.

This year, Hillary (assuming she is the nominee) must show that she feels the pain of the working class.  She must distance herself from her Wall Street backers and show that she is willing to fight for measures to protect workers and bring back jobs, even if those measures are against corporate interests.  Although at this point it may well already be too late.  Hillary has been around long enough that people already have a very fixed opinion of her which new-sounding words from her can probably not effectively overcome.

Also, as I have been urging for years, Democrats must expose Republicans for the hypocrites they are.  They never have and they never will do anything to support the American working class.  Trump may make noises that appeal to the working class, but his policies are not Republican Party policies and they will never be enacted.

Even if Hillary can win without these votes because of the changing electoral demographic, the American worker cannot be left in the dust. They are in pain.  They are a natural part of the Democratic Party’s constituency.  Their well-being is important to the economic stability and health of our society.  Republicans will in the end do nothing to help ease their pain.  Democrats must step up to the plate.

What Drives Policy Decisions? - The Theory v The Reality

Since the establishment of representative democracies, the role of government has been to promote and secure the safety and well-being of their people.  As stated in the Declaration of Independence, the first official document stating this concept of government, “That to secure these rights [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  That is at least the theory on paper.

From the beginning, a tactical problem was encountered in that the interests of all the people are rarely, if ever, in agreement.  Added to this complexity are the varied interests of organizations and corporations which, while creatures of the law, nevertheless should also be promoted by government since the law provides for their existence because they are thought to contribute to the good of the whole.  

To deal with this multiplicity of interests, the concept arose of government promoting the greater good.  The question is always whether a policy is in the interest of the people as a whole, or at least not contrary to their interest.  

For example, if a policy is good for wealthy individuals but harmful for the rest of society, then it is not in the greater good.  Likewise, policies that favor particular corporations to the detriment of the public are not in the greater good.  The old saying, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” was debunked many years ago.

However, corporate and public interests are not always at odds.   A policy that favors particular corporations could be in the interest of the people because, for example, it is directly tied to creating jobs or encourages the development of products at a reasonable cost that are needed for the welfare of the people.  

One used to say that policies that promote robust corporate growth are on their face for the greater good because that means more jobs and better wages.  However, in modern times that is not the case.  Policies have fostered corporate growth and profit, but workers have not benefited and even been harmed, either because jobs were sent overseas or because wages stagnated.

Needs and interests are not just competing but are often in conflict.  In its effort to promote the safety and well-being of all, government’s policies need to be balanced so that at a minimum all have their most critical needs met and have the opportunity to prosper.

But what is the reality of government decision making?  While the people do vote for their representatives, it is the corporations through their lobbyists and campaign donations who have control of government.  It is true that Democrats are more attentive to “the public good” than Republicans, but even they are deeply influenced by corporate interests which, while not wiping out their support of various programs or efforts, does often weaken the programs’ effectiveness by lessening their impact on corporations and the corresponding protection afforded the public.

While the influence of corporations has been a recurring issue during our history, it is only in the post-WWII era … remember President Eisenhower’s admonition to beware the growth and influence of the military-industrial complex … and even more so beginning with the Reagan years that corporate influence has become so predominant as to render our representative democracy to a large extent illusion.

To understand the terrible human cost of this development, let’s look at some examples of both domestic and foreign policy.  (Although the Declaration of Independence only deals with the relationship between the American government and its people, these same principles should govern foreign policy decisions by government because ultimately the people are affected.  And also because this is what we say we stand for.)

The most horrendous example in recent foreign policy was of course the Iraq war.  Although the talk was to save U.S. citizens from Saddam’s missiles and the Iraqi people from his tyranny, the reality was that the invasion of Iraq was to enhance corporate interests by gaining control of Iraqi oil and establish a friendly base in that economically and militarily strategic part of the Middle East.  But when we left Iraq, not only had we not gained our corporate and geopolitical goals, but we left a people who were worse off in almost every aspect than they were under Saddam.  

Perhaps worst of all was the impact on our own people.  The war created another generation of severely damaged, both physically and psychologically, young American men and women.  And it had placed such a burden on this country’s finances that it made future needed investment in our people and in our infrastructure almost impossible.

A more recent example where the welfare of a foreign people was not the concern is Syria.  The U.S. has long wanted to be rid of Assad in Syria.  Not for any concern for the welfare of the Syrian people, but because during the cold war and its aftermath, Syria under Assad was in the Russian sphere of influence and not friendly disposed to American interests, both corporate and geopolitical.  So when the rebellion started, we gladly lent some aid, even though the fight was again not so much to better life for the Syrian people but to change who or what group was in power and control.  Certainly, the Syrian people have done nothing but suffer during this rebellion because no one on either of the various sides really has had any concern for their welfare.  

True, as regards the American people, the Syrian conflict has not had much impact because the U.S. does not have boots on the ground and the cost of our “aid” has been relatively modest.  It appears the government has at least temporarily learned the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan.  And, we have accepted almost no Syrian immigrants, which is a matter I will not go into here.  That burden has been left to Europe.  But the policy approach to the extended Syrian conflict has nevertheless been an unmitigated human disaster.

Domestically, while the impact of a decision-making process concerned more with corporate geopolitical interests than with the welfare of the people has had effects arguably not as dramatic or violent as these foreign policy examples, the effects have been in other ways even more devastating for the American people.

The two domestic examples I will site are the background and aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the politics of transportation policy/energy policy/global warming.  Since the Reagan years, when government was declared to be the problem not the solution, there had been a steady increase in the deregulation of business, which regulation had been put in place to begin with to protect the people.  But regulation interfered with business and their profits, and so it almost became un-American.  

One of the hallmarks of deregulation was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had prevented banks from having both banking and investment operations.  Glass-Steagall was passed during the Depression in an effort to prevent banks from diverting bank assets into speculative operations, to keep them free of the manipulative methods and volatility of the investment market … for the good of the people.  Banks had long chafed under these restrictions, and under the leadership of Republican Senator Phil Gramm the act was repealed and the legislation was signed into law by President Clinton, who had many Wall Street advisors surrounding him, in addition to having received massive amount of campaign donations from Wall Street.

The result was the development by the biggest banks of a whole host of unscrupulous and manipulative investment strategies that benefited their bottom line and amassed huge wealth but screwed the public, even including at times their own customers.  When the bubble inevitably burst, several banks and the economy came crashing down and would have entered a severe depression, were it not for the government bail-outs.

Now one might have hoped that in the aftermath of such clear unethical behavior the government would reimpose strict rules on investment banks.  But even with a Democratic-controlled Congress in the Obama’s administration’s first 2 years, it was a fight to get the Dodd-Frank Act passed, and in the end it was not as strong as it could or should have been because of Democrats’ desire to not “unduly” harm banking interests.  The Act has been further weaken by prolonged fights over implementing regulations which have also turned out often to be far less strict than they should have been.

As for the interrelated policies regarding transportation, energy, and global warming, corporations have again been in control.  Transportation policy has always been a function of what is best for those being regulated (auto manufacturers, railroads, airlines), not the people.  The result is a terrible transportation system which is outdated, environmentally inefficient and provides bad service to the public.  Energy policy likewise has been a creature of corporate wishes, for the most part.  Under Bush II, Vice President Cheney even took the unbelievably bold public move of convening a meeting of energy execs to devise the administration’s energy policy.  No one representing the public was present.  The result not surprisingly was a policy which did not protect the interests of the public nor did it even give a nod towards the issue of global warming.

With regard to global warming itself, I will only say that while there has been to-date a confluence of corporate opposition and, given our addiction to cheap energy, people opposition to necessary measures, there is no doubt in my mind that even had there been a strong and vocal majority in favor of such measures, the corporate world still would have managed to water down almost anything that passed.

As I have said at the conclusion of many prior posts, our system of representative democracy is broken.  The reasons are various, but certainly the outsized influence of money and corporations on policy is a major factor.  The system can only be fixed, and the people’s welfare be protected, with a soft revolution in who has power in Congress.