The audacity of Hope

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Obama is not a Hitler, but certainly approaches Thatcher, the darling of the upstart Reagan, in his betrayal of the background he grew up in

BY GUI ROCHAT [print_link]

Dame Margaret Thatcher attending Ronald Reagan's funeral. Both were willing and ruthless shills for the world plutocracy.

IT IS TRULY AUDACIOUS and courageous to keep up hope in this world of Obamaniac persuasion. We are forced to believe in a progress which does not exist. In fact the world we live in has been constricted even more than under the administration of the elitist Bush jr., where at least the machinations of the fully bought regime were visible for almost anyone to see. In reaction, the corporate benefactor Obama was elected in the hope that he, due to his belonging to a maligned and oppressed minority, would make a big difference.

Abroad this raised the hope for a change in foreign policy because Obama as a child had grown up outside the US. Ignored thereby is the fact that exactly those who grow up in despised environments later carry a hate with them for their previous circumstances which makes them more reactionary than the class they never belonged to but due to protection and personal ambition entered. One nefarious example is Hitler, who as an illegitimate child in Austria belonged to the petty bourgeoisie which suffered horribly from World War I and instead of becoming part of the socialist movement that tried to adjust for their suffering, chose to go the other way, that of the power holders, who then used him with known results.

Equally with the lower middle class Thatcher, daughter of a small grocery owner, who became the scourge of her own origins and then under the disdainful eye of British redundant royalty worshiped the establishment in idolatry. Obama is not a Hitler, but certainly approaches Thatcher, the darling of the upstart Reagan, in his betrayal of the background he grew up in. It seems to be the destiny of anyone who wants to climb up to power in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which should clearly point out even to the casual observer, what psychology of power means. Leaders are not elected as representatives of the population at large but appointed and created by the permanent power holders in order to further their interests and fight their internecine quarrels.

The worldwide structures of human society are basically the same in every nation, in fact being a nation implies a national ladder of responsibility and power, that is to say the more the responsibility for keeping the status quo is delegated to a leader or leaders, the greater support is given to them from above to direct the masses into compliance with their exploitation. In every nation is a layer of absolute power that is hidden from the public, which regulates the destiny of that nation in local and foreign affairs, often in joint purpose with other nations, as long as the interests of the power holders run along the same lines or if not then in competition or with outright wars.

Great power is thus exercised by the control over great masses of people. The highly developed indoctrination propaganda of the intrusive visual imagery of television news and advertising takes care of convincing the public that their interests are being served and that they are led by responsible leaders.

The leaders are easily interchangeable and given their run as long as they serve the interests of the power class, but supporting them and keeping them in line is a so-called permanent government, the bureaucrats of which every nation has plenty, whose inertia guarantees no sudden and deleterious changes in social oppression, forming a perpetual damper on popular aspirations. The permanent power class has learned as well from the European revolutions as have the masses, actually better, namely that the more things may change, the more they remain the same, that is to say, change is permissible as far as it does not affect their power. As soon as power feels pressure, it will strike back with a vengeance. Deviations like the protests against the Vietnam war which was fought to retain and intimidate the Chinese regime, and to show that non-capitalist models of governance would not be tolerated, are quickly brought to heel by making them out to be a threat to stability and the progress of the common weal.  Then power can relent in superficial victories for the emancipation of oppressed minorities and the acceptance of alternative life styles making it seem to the public that they are advancing in liberation. The freedom to indulge in a daydream of liberty, pursuit of happiness and self determination of the population are as hollow as the head of the large lady with the torch in the harbor of New York.

In every nation these last two centuries populations have been conditioned to be proud of their oppression, to feel that their nation is the best of all possible worlds, often despite a definite unease about the direction in which things are going. But a basic refusal and resistance have been confined to small groups such as the Paris Commune in 1871 and the White Rose in 1942 and of course these are easily contained and bloodily suppressed. Their lesson is not to declare your intentions, nor to hope for support from an artificially alienated public, wherever the sympathies of this public may lie. Even the present-day reactionary militias are a prime example of how not to operate.

The myths of national character and the basic premise on which a nation operates, such as ‘the business of America is free enterprise’ or previously the one about the superiority of the Teutonic race and the ingenuity of the British colonial empire, are but shibboleths used by power to convince that a nation’s manifest destiny is bound up with their hidden Machiavellian plans. These are all a shadow play to hide the fact that humans are the same everywhere with the same aspirations and the same hopes and that these slogans are expressly promoted to serve the elites. As these are in cahoots with their counterparts the world over, none of this nationalist propaganda touches the elites, on the contrary it is being strengthened ceaselessly to distance themselves and their actions from the national and international public. But since elite power runs through cycles like a Spenglerian decline and fall of empires, when challenged it is forced to keep tightening the economic noose till either a competing power prevails or till itself is vanquished by the falling apart of internal cohesion. We are going through such a period, whereby slowly but surely the ties are being tightened, sometimes openly and strongly like under Bush Jr. or stealthily like under the clever Obama. The only progression is therefore a decline in public prosperity and freedom, which is papered over by the promise of democratic progress. The battle of opposing power elites is fluid as partnerships form and dissolve constantly depending on the flow of power and it involves all nations though it has absolutely nothing to do with human productivity or democratic aspirations.

But power never diminishes; it is only in constant flux, moving from one part to another of the world or within a nation. The only indication that the power of the national elite wanes is the accelerated reduction of freedom for a population that supports the structure which holds this system in balance. And that is when there is a chance to temporarily break the ties between appearance and reality, between what is shown to the public and what is actually happening. This is such a time of power transition when the hold of the powers can be challenged, and when the centrifugal and discordant tendencies of the power holders’ policies cannot with ease be contained, and when the public easily glimpses the differences between servitude and self determination.

The lack of logic in public affairs becomes reality while propaganda descends into protestations and speeches that do not convince any longer. The false health care reform is a pseudo accommodation, whereby the public remains unconvinced while both parties perform shadow fights as neither wants to lose corporate support. True power does not interfere, exactly because discord strengthens its hands, but it also dissolves at the same time many of the protective shields it needs to remain effective.  That is where the chink in their outer armor becomes visible and where one can hope for action from the public.

GUI ROCHAT is senior editor with TGP.  He writes often on the nature of the capitalist system, tactics to liberate society from its yoke, and its innumerable toxicities.