Angels in America

"Now that both the defense and energy industries, having thrown off nearly all vestiges of regulation, regard the US government as their best customer, they have implanted themselves at the helm of the ship of state," Carol Brightman writes toward the end (page 177) of TOTAL INSECURITY: THE MYTH OF AMERICAN OMNIPOTENCE (Verso, May, 2004). Brightman then makes a truly remarkable observation: "There is no longer much government left to defend the interests of lesser institutions, including other businesses, or the welfare of mere citizens, or the actual security of the nation."

Brightman, with this well-documented observation, demolishes the claims made by the right that they are intent on "shrinking" government. Instead, the Republican Party has expanded government into a vast patronage machine in which, amazingly, patronage flows in both directions.

Old time political machines like Tweed's in New York and Daley's in Chicago delivered favors to the little guy to get and keep his vote. The votes of the little guy kept the machine in power so the bosses could make their sweetheart deals and get their kickbacks from those businesses willing to pony up and play along.

The George W. patronage machine doesn't deliver favors to the little guy: no free lunch on election day, no job in the civil service. Instead it pays lip service to the little guy's "issues" come election time. The favors go only to George W.'s cronies in the upper strata of wealth, influence and corporate power. But secondly, and, more to the point, this patronage machine is now actively giving away many of its functions to corporations. How that for a patron? In a masterstroke of efficiency, the government officials hiring corporations to perform what were formerly government functions are the very ones whose portfolios and personal networks (cronies) most stand to benefit from these giveaways.

Take Rumsfeld's 'reorganization' of the military as government give away. In the same way that Congress and the White House have been intent on destroying Social Security in order to benefit their stockjobbing cronies with a windfall of millions of investment dollars into their waiting 401ks, Rumsfeld and Cheney are in the process of giving away pieces of the military to private contractors like Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root. These contractors build the new military bases, serve the food, provide security for military officers and civiilian officials, and give tips on how best to torture prisoners.

Of course the American public is told this is being done under the shop-worn dicta of conservatism that business is much better and more efficient at everything than government. But in fact, these corporations charge top dollar for these services. Futher, coporate employees cannot be ordered into war zones to fix roads and bridges like soldiers can. Is it any wonder that the infrastructure in Iraq is in such bad shape and never seems to get any better?

Expanding on the ramifications of this capture of the US government, Brightman, a few pages later, says: "'Industry and government function as two branches of the same operation -- a military-industrial-congressional complex, if you will -- which in this instance sells off military stock to private cartels..." The instance she is referring to in this case are links between key corporate nodes and the Bush gang such as Halliburton and Dick Cheney (of course), Lockheed-Grumman and Bruce Jackson (Bush's former campaign fund-raiser who now represents the company), Lynne Cheney (who served on Lockheed's board), and Air Force Secretary James Roche, who was for seventeen years a top executive for Northrup Grumman to name just a few.

Brightman argues that business's need for new markets and raw materials has always driven American foreign policy: the Spanish American War was fought for coaling stations in the Philippines to extend the reach of the American merchant and miliary fleet, etc. Now, apparently, business's need for expansion into new markets requires that domestic opportunities be fully exploited, i.e., that the goverment be colonized. Under the George W. regime, the domestic opportunities offered to business have the added advantage of the elimination of the middleman. Now business can get contracts and favors by giving them to themselves! No bidding process! At last, an efficient, business savvy government, just like the Republicans have been promising for years!

The particular "government" of George W. works most profitably and smoothly when the corporate interests of the defense and energy industries most closely coincide. Brightman notes these interests are in often in conflict with the larger economy. "The Bush administration, in effect, is practicing economic warfare on its own economy, including a significant sector of the investor class. And it's doing so with a powerful but risky instrument of late capitalist development... ...the privatization of military, energy, and foreign policy-making by a small group of people who move back and forth between the corporate boards of Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed-Grumman, the Fluor Corporation, Phillips Petroleum, Booz Allen Hamilton, et. al., and the upper echelon of government."

Recently we have seen the results of the privatization of the U.S. government in the spectacle of destitute Americans dead or left for dead in New Orleans. Apparently, under the endlessly hyped free market regime of supply and demand, poor people were found to be in oversupply. This apparently depressed their value and made them unworthy and ineligible for corporate / government assistance. On the other hand, Halliburton and KBR were and continue to be super-eligible for such assistance, so much so that their former employees now in government are assigning to their former (and no doubt future) company, those sweet no-bid government contracts.

Perhaps Katrina at last uncovered for the average American a view of the devastation caused by the much heralded free market angel, this much-exalted spirit of social and economic "justice" who best serves the interests of those least in need of its blessings. Finally, perhaps, the free-market angel was revealed as a destroyer of the poor, infirm, and the elderly, scourge and goad of a struggling middle class.

A bit dated now (May 2004 pub.), but still dead on its description of the heretofore mostly hidden nodes of control of the people's government, TOTAL INSECURITY is a must read for all concerned Americans.