One of the serious repercussions of the current war between the two main parties and the government shutdown in the United States is, of course, the possibility of default, which could happen if they cannot come to an agreement to avoid it by Oct. 17. Since the insane do not eat glass, I think that both parties — equally defenders of capitalism, and in particular, Yankee imperialism — will come to a bad compromise at the last moment that will allow the U.S. government to continue getting into debt for a few more years.
Nevertheless, as a preventative measure, China and Japan — and to a lesser extend the European Union — are pressuring Washington’s official channels with growing unease in order to secure the collection of U.S. debt. Since they are the major holders of U.S. Treasury bonds and major creditors as well, they do not want to end up paying for the dispute between Democrats and Republicans. Oil exporting countries — Venezuela and Mexico — that supply the U.S. are also concerned, since an eventual default could severely affect their economies, which depend on the earnings they get from exporting fuel.
Up until now, the irreversible effects of this capitalist struggle in the U.S. fell upon a society that believed heavily in the American dream — ever since the Civil War between the North and South from 1861 and 1865 — that is, in the possibility of growing prosperity, egalitarianism and local democracy within the context of capitalism because God was an American and backed the dollar. Not even the rude awakening of the Great Depression could break that illusion because Roosevelt’s “New Deal” combined large public works and subsidies with a forced entry into a great world war. The often-praised American dream is the main reason why in the United States, in spite of the unrestrained capitalist exploitation and entrenched class struggle between employers and employees, there was never a socialist movement.
During the most intense moments of the postwar era, the illusion of class unity crackled and popped. This is how it happened: It was first seen with the movement for racial equality and later, chiefly with the opposition of the masses to the Vietnam War, which ended with the defeat of the U.S. in that heroic country. Later, as a distorted and distant echo of a combination between the fight against racism and militarism, the war in Iraq, the candidacy of an African-American newcomer, unusually named Barack Hussein Obama and born in Hawaii five months after the marriage of a white Texan and an African, who met while learning to speak Russian, succeeded.
The tea party, the extreme Republican right that rejects social assistance and everything related to solidarity and collectivism, arose in reaction to a mix of a variety of forces: the weakening of the almighty American imperialism — what an important capitalist sector sees as an invasive and demagogic statism — the exacerbated resurfacing of racism and the belief that Americans are God’s chosen people. This true ideological outburst was also expressed in the rise of religious fundamentalism, which rejects the theory of evolution, is guided by the Bible and, therefore, believes that dinosaurs lived 7000 years ago. As with the Nazis, irrationality, nationalism and racism aspire to be the official ideology displacing the Jeffersons and Lincolns.
What is new in this crisis is the big blow to U.S. influence and the decline of its hegemony. However, it continues to be the top economy and military power worldwide, capable of executing a military incursion in any country it pleases — like it just did in Libya and Somalia. Something else that is new is the breakdown of the Demo-Republican oligarchic block because of the birth of a core that is obviously racist, militaristic and opposes social policies. It is the huge and national opposition, which for now is limited to immigrants and the outraged, that could potentially influence the poor and the excluded of all races, who do not believe in the American dream. They have realized they lack rights and a future and are discriminated against, persecuted and repressed by a society that has two tracks: one for wealthy whites and another for the outcasts, like in the society foreseen by Jack London.
Finally, it is also new that the U.S. can no longer be the world’s policeman and simultaneously guarantee peace within its borders. It no longer has the prestige, strength — as demonstrated by its dependence on Russia to find an honorable solution to its war-like bravado in Syria — or sufficient stability and economic means to guarantee its citizens at least education, medical assistance, decent housing and services. It is ailing, according to The New York Times, like Italy with the Berlusconi plague, which causes an important sector of the ruling class that has huge support to stop seeing the general interests of the system, focusing rather on its fascist interests.
The Financial Times offers 20 years of social regression as a perspective and The Economist only 10, as if we were passively allowing ourselves to be crushed. Aged and ailing, American imperialism is a double threat because its weakness pushes it to risk its own skin on escapades and also because it could topple on top of us in the not-too-distant future, crushing the weak and contaminating the planet with its putrefaction.
Amen.