When All Hands Are Unclean

The Occupy Together movement made it pretty clear from mid-September that it assigned equal blame to Republicans and Democrats for placing their parties at the beck and call of corporate lobbyists. This baseline position made the efforts by Republicans to claim the Occupy movement was started by ACORN or unions look sort of silly (yeah, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, I'm talkin' to you). What has been fairly predictable since the post-Sept. 11 period, however, is the degree to which Democrats have compromised themselves by making tactical deals with the national security state. We could see this at the local level when cities played host to party conventions or IMF/World Bank meetings. It was often Democratic members of city councils who argued the most vociferously for rules to bar protests or ban the wearing of bandanas within city limits.

The chickens certainly came home to roost at the end of October, as Denver, Atlanta, Nashville, and Portland vied for the title of the city that could look the most like Oakland. And in many cases, the city, county, and state leaders left with the most egg on their faces were liberal Democrats, often members of minority groups. Oakland in particular was graced with the trifecta of Mayor Jean Quan, City Administrator Deanna Santana, and Vice Mayor Ignacio de la Torre, sharing the blame for the out-of-control riot police. It is likely that Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock will look equally pathetic after blame is parceled out for the Oct. 29 melee that put two in the hospital and 20 behind bars. What is equally ironic is that it is often conservative judges, as in the case with Nashville, who keep freeing protesters after police arrest them multiple times, saying the city and county do not have the authority to make such sweeping ordinances preventing free assembly.

Outsiders may say the Occupy movement has gotten out of hand, demanding the kind of crackdown we are seeing nationwide. Are there instances of provocateurs and overly boisterous protesters pushing the lines of police netting? Absolutely. Do some war veterans with PTSD and a few gun owners ignore the Occupy insistence on Gandhian principles of nonviolence? From time to time. But have there been any cases where protesters have attacked police? Don't be ridiculous, particularly when said police are in full body armor.

The militarization of first responders has taken place in the aftermath of Sept. 11 as the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have thrown out money for Joint Terrorism Task Forces, intelligence fusion centers, and tactical SWAT teams in any cities over half a million in population. And the two major parties have been right there taking the money and largesse from such militarization. When New York police from all boroughs staged a near-riot Oct. 28 to prevent Bronx cops from being indicted on ticket-fixing charges, the police attacked the media and representatives from Commissioner Ray Kelly's office. Kelly and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should take this as a warning that the New York Police may no longer be a controllable mob as they confront Occupy Wall Street. Let this be a broader warning for the nation. We may be seeing rogue cops emerge as uncontrollable forces in many cities in the next few months, and some Democrats may regret making such deals with the devil that the Republicans are all too happy to serve. By then, of course, it will be too late to say you are sorry.

The Culture of "No We Can't"

It took less than 48 hours after the president's health-care speech for even the liberal media outlets like NPR and The New York Times to point out the obvious problems of White House numbers for health-care options that were simply unworkable, and the additional problems faced in planning for a surge in Afghanistan that the Democratic Party is loath to approve. It's not just that Obama is being shot by both sides, with the left now taking the place of Joe Wilson. It's that Obama still longs for the days of a 1962 Camelot, and those days ain't comin' back.

I give Obama endless credit for being frank about global warming, the financial meltdown, etc. at times when few in either party (almost none in the Republican) show such ability for forthrightness. The problem is, massive Keynesianism is unlikely to be paid down in an era of declining resources.

Let's face it: the United States is a declining global empire at a time when most capitalist goods-and-service flows will be moving to Asia, but when all nations will face limits to market expansion they have never faced in past decades. U.S. citizens need to start thinking of themselves as UK post-1956 or Germany post-1945. Is there anyone in the political leadership willing to steer citizens in such directions? Are citizens themselves capable of associating American exceptionalism with something other than continuous territorial expansion? I doubt it.

I'm usually bashing exceptionalism as a philosophy, particularly when tied to that "city on a hill" crap. But we can indeed be exceptionalist in an era of decline. In culture, for example, the world is likely to continue to look to the U.S. for most arts ideas and capitalist innovation, unless China manages to make great leaps forward in making Asian consciousness cool. As the Brits discovered in the early 1990s, the UK could still be considered "coolest country in the world" long after its empire collapsed. (Of course, it had to work its way through dark 70s and Thatcherist 80s to get there.) But to come to terms with that, U.S. citizens need to start accepting concepts of financial limits, territorial limits, even consciousness limits (What's that? We can't afford another trip to the moon, let alone Mars?) that politicians will avoid like a Bill O'Reilly appearance.

The Republicans show no tendencies to drop the caveman clubs and the attitude that we can keep our imperial position through might and fight. The Democrats show no willingness to admit that deficits incurred now may be impossible to pay down by mid-century. An effective president might have to be the kind of school marm that preaches austerity and humble spirit to a public that is not going to listen. The leaders we need right about now are the ones we'll never get.

I'm glad Obama infused optimism in a jaded public in 2008, but I'm worried that his supporters don't recognize that Camelot will never be resurrected. (And truth be told, the Kennedy brothers engaged in some pretty nasty covert foreign business behind the scenes during those years.) Does Obama work on health care for six months, re-work the numbers, and say, Hillary-style, "Oh, never mind"? Does he reject a troop surge and approve an exponential increase in armed UAV flights over Afghanistan, thereby limiting body bags but buying into a moral argument that says standoff warfare with massive collateral damage is OK?

I empathize with Obama for the tough choices he will have to make over the next three years. But I feel even more sorrow for the American people, who live by many fairy tales and few facts. They are totally unwilling to recognize the reality that the superpower they grew up with has reached its limits, and that the next 50 years will represent an inevitable decline in political influence and purchasing power.