JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA’S CIVIL UNREST IS UNLIKELY TO PRODUCE REAL CHANGE IN ANY OF THE MATTERS DISTURBING SO MANY – PROTESTS LIKELY WILL LOSE STEAM GRADUALLY – AMERICAN SOCIETY LITERALLY IS STRUCTURED TO RESIST CHANGE – NONE OF THE COUNTRY’S IMPORTANT INTEREST GROUPS SEE IT AS TO THEIR BENEFIT – WITH COUNTLESS BILLIONS AT RISK, CHANGE IS NOT VIEWED AS A FRIEND - AMERICA’S MAJOR PROBLEM IS ACTUALLY SOMETHING ELSE, ITS DEEP DIVISIONS ALONG MANY LINES – AND THERE IS NO LEADERSHIP, NONE AT ALL, TO BRIDGE THOSE DIVISIONS – AND NOW IT IS SPREADING DIVISION IN THE WORLD

John Chuckman


COMMENT - AMERICA’S DEEPENING DIVIDE


I tend to doubt that the civil unrest in America will result in fundamental reform. The truth is that the set of problems involved is just too massive to be dealt with by anything less than heroic effort, and where is the leadership for such an effort? There is none. Absolutely none.

Disturbing as it is, the civil unrest is not the country’s greatest problem.

America’s greatest problem is a deeply divided society. I do not mean division along party lines, which is to a great extent an artificial division. No, the division is along fundamental lines, and there is absolutely no leadership to bridge those divisions.

The nation’s political system actually contributed to creating some divisions and to deepening others. It is likely incapable of supplying remedies.

It contributed, through taxation and other policies, to an unprecedented, lopsided division of wealth between the One Percent and the great mass of citizens. You do not have to be a socialist advocating for equality of some kind – always an elusive notion – to appreciate that the balance between “haves” and “have-nots” has entered socially destructive territory.

It only exacerbates other existing divisions. After all, America is a highly heterogeneous society, and has always been so. Immigrant-versus-native born divisions. Ethnic and racial divisions. Cultural and religious divisions. Class divisions. And still more.

It is the responsibility of government, any government, to maintain a balance in the distribution of wealth that is healthy for its society. That balance will vary between societies owing to historical, cultural, and other differences. There is no one formula. Close observers know however when things have become badly out of balance, as they very much have in America. It is an ongoing responsibility of government to be aware of the situation and to redress grotesque imbalance.

But we see no impulse for this in American society except for a few voices. America’s underlying deep, narrowly-defined conservativeness and its impulse towards “each man for himself” work against the interests not only of the society as a whole but against even the interests of many of the individuals embracing the ideologies.

If you keep effectively telling great numbers of your people that they are not part of the society and they can influence nothing, the result is absolutely destructive. And that is what America has done for a long time. And I am not thinking only of the stark case of the racial divide. It comes right down to such practical, everyday matters as healthcare. Some get it, others do not, a reality which has been painfully obvious during the pandemic.

It comes down to many everyday matters. Totally decayed neighborhoods, resembling Berlin in 1946, versus extremely refined places to live. Terrible schools versus high-quality schools. Police who behave like an occupying army versus respectable and responsible law enforcement.

The extreme division in wealth is not just about wealth. In America’s money-driven politics, it immediately translates into further political division. It’s a self-reinforcing mechanism. The One Percent gains more leverage over government and its policies daily while the great mass of citizens have no one to speak or act for them.

Democrats pretend to do so in their discussions of various desirable social programs, but it is only a kind of political theater. The Democratic Party is just as dependent on the One Percent for its financing as the Republican Party. I saw a refence in the press a couple of times recently to a meeting Joe Biden attended with some weighty donors, and he is said to have pledged that they would not be affected by economic shifts if he were president. Why not? Some shifting is very much in order.

He is quoted as saying to the donors that if he is elected, “Nothing would fundamentally change" and "No one's standard of living will change."

The Democrats, very much, join the Republicans in the close embrace of war and empire. There is no difference, except in rhetoric, between the two. And the massive, costly unproductive industry of the Pentagon and security services and empire serve the One Percent.

The stronger the institutions of war and empire are in a society, the more strongly the nation becomes committed to hostilities and aggression, which in truth are not in the interest of anyone outside the elites. The false religion of Patriotism is used to keep the crowd motivated to support it.

And the more strongly the society becomes committed against improvements which would benefit all citizens, because resources are limited and the attention and talents of all rising members of the establishment are riveted to where the resources are to be had. Note public improvements do not just serve the ordinary citizens. Better national infrastructure and better education and training improve the entire economy’s international competitiveness.

Look at China’s phenomenal concept of the New Silk Road – also called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a massive set of projects across much of the world that will improve infrastructure and competitiveness while generating employment for many years to come. Brilliant. Compare the concept and its potential to the steady work of destruction by America’s military and security services.

Or for that matter, compare it to Trump’s barren concept of trying to take value away from everyone else in the world through demands, intimidation, tariffs, sanctions, and destructive trade policies. You cannot improve the world’s economic well-being by attacking major parts of it. It truly represents the trade and economic equivalent of America’s endless go-nowhere wars, which serve only to control what is not legitimately America’s to control. It builds precisely nothing.

Although it is not certain, especially given continuing additional brutal police acts, the civil unrest we’ve seen likely will lose its steam gradually. It is very difficult for large movements of this kind to maintain momentum. And in the end, I doubt it will have produced much in the way of meaningful change. America is literally structured to resist change.

Certainly, the military-security complex does not welcome change of any kind except new weapons systems and technologies for spying and controlling.  The One Percent is extremely adverse towards change, especially any change which will cost them something, as all real change must. The political establishment serving the One Percent’s interests does not welcome change. They are comfortably ensconced in a rewarding relationship with the elites they serve and with the military and security institutions who support that service.

America’s divided society is now spreading division through much of the world. It resembles a cancer metastasizing. Division against China. Division against Russia. Division against Iran and others. And it is not a danger only for trade and the cooperation in a world economy needing cooperation to recover from the effects of pandemic. It is a serious danger for war.