Empire in Descent

We’re now barely four weeks from the presidential election in the USA. Recent surveys and projections show Senator Barack Obama with about a five percent lead.

Commentary by Norman Birnbaum

Most people in the rest of the world also support Obama, but they shouldn’t celebrate too early. No one dares to underestimate the effects Obama’s race and education level may have on voters who, for economic or ideological reasons, traditionally support Democrats. In congressional races, Democrats have a ten point lead over Republicans. But because their candidate isn’t able to open a similar lead, the suspicion persists that many American voters still aren’t comfortable with his ancestry or his intelligence. Added to that, no one knows what effect a possible “surprise” similar to one like the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia would have on the election, especially if such a “surprise” were orchestrated from the White House in an attempt to save McCain’s campaign. The prospect of losing the election has made Republicans so desperate that no falsehood is too blatant, no slander so low, no insult to the intelligence of the average American too shameful to prevent them from trying it out. The Republican endgame in this election could well set the future yardstick for the political degeneration of our democracy.

If Obama wins the election, he will be confronted by a situation in which a minimum of four in ten voters expressed their preference for John McCain’s aggressive chauvinism and Sarah Palin’s provincial ignorance. He will also have to master the financial crisis handcrafted by our own financial gurus who are now in charge of solving the problem. Henry Paulson, former CEO of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, currently serves not only as Secretary of the Treasury; in view of George Bush’s passiveness and low popularity, he’s also our de facto president.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in the midst of the Great Depression in 1933, he was able to build on thirty years worth of political and economic reform policies. Obama, in contrast, will inherit only the weak opposition his party presented to the idea of absolute market independence even though the market is currently self-destructing. Obama isn’t the leader of the American left, as the Republicans like to demonize him. He is more a brilliant technocrat inclined to work in concert with the world as it really is.

Should McCain win the election, the possibility of chaos is markedly greater. If he tries to work with the expected Democratic majority in Congress–who will be enmeshed in ideological struggles and demoralized from the loss of the presidency–it’s possible a majority in his party will start supporting his vice-president; it’s the purest form of social Darwinism. The clash of these colliding positions would, in all likelihood, result in some sort of political compromise that would be based on war.

The McCain campaign has repeatedly invoked the name of General David H. Petraeus (the new commander of operations in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan) and could be confident that he would raise no objections to their plans. From there one could conclude that as a reward. Petraeus would be named Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing the independent, thoughtful Admiral Michael G. Mullen. That would clear the road to try solving the financial crisis by military mobilization, accompanied by an abundance of repression. McCain’s call to change the subject away from the economy is a clear indication of what he would attempt as President.

In our country, historical knowledge is the privilege of historians. McCain, therefore, is in position to adopt the same financial policies Herbert Hoover did in the late twenties which led to the economically catastrophic years of the early thirties, namely cutting government spending. Even the European Central Bank and the OECD are thinking more realistically if one considers their change of course regarding the free market ideology.

There is one political concept that, despite being obviously the most reasonable, will probably never make it to the table. The expenditure of $700 billion in a gamble to save the banks is exactly the same amount as the Pentagon’s new yearly budget recently passed by Congress (and additional billions for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t even included in this figure). America spends more “defending” itself that the rest of the world combined, but both parties accept these expenditures as an acceptable component of American Keynesianism. They aren’t in a position to redirect these expenditures into social and scientific investments that would be of far greater benefit to the country. And there is little reason to hope that the budget will ever be restructured in this way. Obama and Biden will certainly pursue more intelligent foreign and defense policies than their competition, but to date, even they have mechanically regurgitated the popular absurdities about Iran. They’ve also promised to escalate the war in Afghanistan and both have sworn unconditional loyalty to Israel. In the long run, however, it will become apparent that the costs for our imperial policies are unsustainable. But there’s not much in the near future that looks like it might do anything to halt our march into the abyss.

However, there is a possibility that pressures from abroad might bring at least a little common sense to the American government. An Obama administration could be encouraged to break with the recent past and it could be made clear to a Republican administration that a unilateral approach would no longer be tolerated. In many countries, large portions of the educated elite had taken our self-delusion at face value. That’s no longer possible. Not only did our banks sell our foreign customers worthless financial paper, we also made our treasury bonds undesirable because of the possibility of a national bankruptcy. The world no longer considers our economic and social models as worthy of emulation. It remains to be seen whether our political and economic elites, and especially those in the European Union, come up with immediate and long-lasting solutions to the American made disaster–a disaster these elites perhaps had anticipated, but foolishly did nothing to prevent.