Americans Do Not Want Change
By James Rothenberg
25 June,
2008
Countercurrents.org
People simultaneously desire and fear change. This is not a contradiction. The human personality is complex enough to exhibit many complementary tendencies. Public opinion polls seem to reveal that change is desired over a broad range of domestic and foreign policies. That this is the case gives hint to an asymmetry in our political system.
There is an adversarial relationship between the general public and the politicians who represent it. The public thinks of itself, legitimately and rightly, as number one. For politicians number one is re-election. This is an inescapable conclusion in an electoral system that permits of greater than a single term. (Multiple and indefinite-term judges contribute to asymmetries in the judicial system. We don’t allow professional jurors).
It could be argued that indefinite terms are desirable in the case of truly exemplary people but to do so gives lie to their own commencement speeches where they laud the graduates on becoming the next bright faces that will lead this country. The choice is between “lifetime public servants” who remember who they owe and single-termers doing a brief stint of public service who are bound to owe less.
The public is susceptible to overtures of change from politicians. It’s a selling point, the only one they have. Ultimately it means change from him/her to me. While the particulars of this or that change may be discussed, left unstated, and totally absent, is a prior essential. Universal agreement on the starting point. How can one gain an understanding of what something might change to without seeing it for what it is to begin with?
Public opinion polls provide some information that could prove useful in a democracy but it has to make it past the adversary. Politicians feel their job is to shape public opinion, not to conform to it.
“…the role of political leadership is to shape public opinion, not to decline to act because they think opinion is otherwise.” (Secret State Dept. cable from Islamabad, November 28, 1998, relaying conversation between Alan W. Eastham, Jr., Charge Daffaires, and senior Taliban spokesman Wakil Ahmed [remark of Eastham’s])
The unidirectional nature of polling (the responder cannot question the questioner) skews responses in a predictable direction. Take for example polling on Iraq. Is it worth it or not, are we winning or losing, did we make a mistake or not, do you approve or disapprove the way the president is handling it, is victory still possible or not?
Seemingly objective questions such as these arise from a background that has been prepared with state propaganda and illusion, and each question can be responded to with, “What do you mean by that?”
Or consider the question, how well are things going in Iraq? Very well, somewhat well, somewhat badly, very badly, or unsure. Well to Iraqis it is a horror of catastrophic proportion. For the warmongers who started it, things could have gone smoother. For Blackwater, pretty good. See, it depends. Actually, unless you feel confident you know the initial conditions responsible for our aggression, the wisest answer may be “unsure” (generally in the low single-digit percentages). This is simply because if one doesn’t know why we are there, one can’t be expected to know how we are doing.
If we invaded to establish a permanent military presence to gain control over Iraq’s, and by extension the region’s, enormous oil resources, then the answer should be in the “well” spectrum. The war planners knew the takeover would be easy, but not without some aggravation. They underestimated the aggravation (total lives lost, Abu Ghraib torture images, Walter Reed ‘Home of Warrior Care’ flak, etc.), but it hasn’t jeopardized their mission.
But do we really want change? Change in the real America, not the America of myth and hymn. Are we ready to see ourselves as an aggressor nation (roughly 200 US military and clandestine operations in foreign countries in the past two centuries, excluding WW1 and WW2 – Global Policy Forum), a nation that sides with the rich against the poor, that slights the weak in favor of the strong. For over a quarter century, since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households (CIA World Factbook).
To see real change we must begin to think critically of our government, our institutions, our social policy, our foreign policy, and our economic policy. It’s not all bad and much of it is very good, but we must acknowledge the difference. Above all, “tell the children the truth” (Bob Marley, Babylon System). That all governments lie and that all advertisers lie and that governments and advertisers are in the same business and the name of that business is control. And that the greatest tool a child can have for understanding the world is skeptical thought.
Great change relies on questioning some of our fundamental assumptions. It’s a look in the mirror, always tough. There’s a handy way to glimpse the odds on dramatic change occurring in our current electoral system. Percentage wise it is at the low end of the “unsure” figure given above, probably best thought of as “greater than zero”.
Which of these two “greater than zero” chances for dramatic change has the higher probability of success? Electing a Ralph Nader? Or convincing a critical number of Americans to return blank ballots as a signal that they are living under a government that has made voting meaningless?
James Rothenberg
