/EDITOR'S NOTE: The following piece is adapted from a speech Tom Hayden
gave at the Bioneers Conference on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2003./
The chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, has said that
"Intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true. That's not
what intelligence is."
Keep that in mind as I discuss what James Baldwin called the "evidence
of things unseen."
A few weeks ago in Cancun, I watched at the barricades as a South Korean
farmer appeared to shake his fist in militant anger at the dispossession
of his people. I did not see that he was committing ritual suicide
with
a knife. As far as I know, neither did anyone else. Hours later, the
WTO
issued a press release stating its "regret" at what it called the
"self-inflicted" wound that resulted in the farm leader's death. I
began
to wonder how many other deaths we see but do not see. Farmers in India
poisoning themselves with pesticides. Farmers in America quietly
committing suicide. A rise in suicides among American soldiers in Iraq.
These unseen deaths should be seen as signs of the times. They are birth
pangs as well. For example, in the past three weeks some 80 Bolivians
have given their lives -- hardly the first time in their 500-year-long
struggle -- but these /cocoleros/, these sweatshop workers, these
indios, have overthrown the government over globalization issues and
sent their mine-owning, American-trained president packing.
The evidence of things unseen. There is rising a new movement in the
world. It is bigger than the movement of the 1960s. Yet it is barely
seen by the experts and analysts. They look only at the behavior of
institutions and politicians, not the underlying forces that eventually
burst into visibility.
The first strand of this new movement is the global opposition to the
war in Iraq and to an American empire.
One year ago this month, when over 100,000 demonstrators hit the streets
in Washington DC, the New York Times reported that surprisingly few
attended the anti-war march, perhaps out of fear of the sniper. National
Public Radio repeated the story. How could they not see the 100,000?
Apparently because such protests were not supposed to happen anymore.
Both the Times and NPR were forced to apologize a few days later and
report the huge turnout. Then, in another correction, the Times
announced in February that there was a "second superpower" in the world
in addition to the White House, which was world public opinion. By
then
10 million people were demonstrating globally; two million in Rome,
one
million in London, 200,000 in Montreal in 20-degrees-below weather
--
even a brave few in McMurdo Station in Antarctica.
The second strand is the global justice movement, which began with the
Zapatistas on the day NAFTA took effect, then surfaced in Seattle in
1999. Those were called isolated events. Then came Genoa, Quebec City,
Quito, Cancun, the world social forums in Porto Allegre. Far from
isolated events, these were the historic battlegrounds of a new history
being born.
Together these movements mount a challenge to an entire worldview. We
are experiencing an enlargement of dignity, an enlargement of what
we
consider sacred and therefore off the table, not negotiable. The
purported Masters of the Universe are becoming as obsolete as those
who
once claimed the divine right of kings. The earth and its people are
not
for sale; the environment is not just a storehouse of materials for
utilitarian exploitation; and cultural identities can't be replaced
as
if they were commodities, whether the treasures of Babylon or the
rainforests of the Amazon. This movement is saying that diversity will
not be looted.
Why is this happening? No one really knows. Movements arise in mystery
at the margins, eventually change the mainstream, are repressed or
co-opted, and return to the oblivion we call official history.
One explanation is that the globalization of US military and economic
power is globalizing an opposition. It's a dialectic and, as it swirls
and intensifies it can even bring down George Bush.
This new globalization arises, some say, in response to a power vacuum
after the Cold War which the US filled. But contrary to the
end-of-history theorists, the failure and fall of communism did not
mean
the dialectic was dead and that the wretched of the earth would quietly
go away.
But globalization was emerging long before the 90s, before NAFTA and
the
WTO, the World Bank and IMF. The settling of America itself was an
act
of colonization and "development." Then came Manifest Destiny, the
defeat of the Indian tribes, the annexation of the western lands, the
wars with Mexico, the seizure of Hawaii and the Philippines.
For indigenous people the Conquest is not over. Most of our foreign
aid
programs and social policies are only efforts to reform the Conquest,
not end its invisible structure of power relations.
For Muslims, the Crusades are not over. We should ask if the Crusades
are over for President Bush. There was the alleged slip of the tongue
when he described the war on terrorism as a crusade. There was his
Inaugural, blessed by Rev. Franklin Graham, who denounced Muslims and
proudly presided over the quadrupling of missionaries in Iraq since
the
first Gulf War. This week there is the revelation of another Christian
crusader at the pinnacle of the Pentagon, Gen. William Boykin.
To globalize and militarize are the two strategies of the US will to
empire, driving our movements toward a unified opposition.
The National Security Strategy of September 2002, which announced the
Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war, also included the free market, free
trade and the FTAA as principles the Pentagon is bound to advance and
protect. So our official national security policy is about more than
terrorism, nuclear proliferation or legitimate military threats; it
is
about defending what the document proclaims is a "single sustainable
model for national success."
Or as Thomas Friedman, globalization's leading defender, puts it: "The
hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.
McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonnell-Douglas."
Take the example of Iraq today, the complete stripping and privatization
of the public sector (with only oil exempted so far). L. Paul Bremer,
the man who dresses in pinstripe suits and combat boots, who represents
Henry Kissinger's invisible corporate clients, is very clear that his
mission is to replace sovereign Iraqi control of its economy with a
free-market model controlled by absentee foreign owners primarily from
the US. Helping ourselves to the spoils of war is part of our national
security strategy.
While there is growing opposition in this country to the American death
toll and budgetary costs of the Iraqi quagmire, there is virtually
no
debate about our assault on the Iraqi public sector by the writ of
Bremer. Only a deeper joining of the global justice movement with the
peace movement can begin to expose and protest these policies.
Of course these are not new developments. Halliburton is connected to
Kellogg, Brown and Root, the Texas corporation that funded Lyndon
Johnson's rise to power. It also built the airstrips in Vietnam, which
became the corrugated metal fences at the US-Mexico border, and which
is
today reincarnated as a virtual Dick Cheney subsidiary on the
battlefields of Iraq.
Similarly, the author of the so-called "clash of civilizations" thesis,
Samuel Huntington, is the same policy advisor who invented the doctrine
of "forced urbanization" for South Vietnam, deliberately turning a
90-percent peasant culture into an urban "Honda culture" in a decade.
What's new is the audacity of the drive for an American-dominated
planet. "Empire is coming out of the closet" writes Charles Krautheimer.
"What's wrong with dominance?" asks William Kristol. And Max Boot calls
for a return to British-style imperialism complete with "enlightened
administrators in jodhpurs and pith helmets."
All this international expansion is seamlessly tied to the homefront.
It
not only justifies the curtailment of civil liberties and the revival
of
arrogant patriotism among the corporate media, but also unprecedented
increases in military spending, tax cuts and deficits. These are not
overreactions to September 11, or isolated policy excesses, but part
of
a pattern of diminishing democratic rights and defunding democratic
government. They are a backdoor assault on the achievements of the
Great
Society, the New Deal and before that the Progressive movement that
regulated capitalism at the turn of the last century. The Republican
agenda is to return to a society in which market values eclipse and
replace the role of the public sector in the economy.
Take for example Grover Norquist, who fancies himself a generalissimo
in
the conservative revolution. Under the innocuous banner of "tax reform,"
Norquist hopes that enough tax breaks and budget cuts will "drown the
baby in the bathtub."
He's talking about defunding child care, health care, public schools,
public investment in the inner city, public investment in a restored
environment. He sees government, the public sector, as a failure to
be
eradicated, not instead of an institution to protect us from the
failures of the market.
Or take Niall Ferguson, a major advocate of empire and contributor of
many influential articles in the New York Times, who has extolled the
Protestant Ethic as the major difference between America and Europe.
Let
me take you through his clever argument on behalf of a WASP America.
First, he notes that Americans attend church services in far greater
numbers than Europeans, evidence that Max Weber's "protestant ethic"
is
alive and well here. As a result, Americans are inspired to work harder
and longer than the Germans, the French, the Dutch and Norwegians who
are "astonishingly idle," "work-shy" and, of course, "Godless." He
says
the Protestant Ethic is being replaced in Europe by "the spirit of
secularized sloth."
Ferguson is complaining that German workers are on the job just 1,535
hours a year in comparison with virtuous Americans grinding away at
1,976 hours. That difference of over 400 hours worked is the equivalent
of 62 days a year. Ferguson -- and corporate globalization defenders
in
general -- want to stop Europeans from taking long vacations with their
families and retiring earlier to enjoy the quality of life. They want
to
roll back -- they call it reform -- labor gains of the whole past century.
Well, I tell you, if Americans learn to read between the lines and
understand what the conflict with the Europeans is about, they will
reject the scapegoating and bashing that comes out of this Administration.
Instead of looking down our noses at the Europeans, we should be
Europeanizing our approach to work, vacations and leisure time -- and
for that matter, Canadianizing our approach to health care. How's that
for a progressive platform -- longer vacations for all!
Instead, because of cultural brainwashing, a recent survey showed that
19 percent of Americans thought they already were in the top 1 percent
income bracket, and another 20 percent believed they would be
eventually. That's what watching too much television in the center
of
empire can do to your head, and why the struggle is a cultural one,
not
simply political or economic, but a battle over how images and demons
and fantasies are produced and wired into our consciousness.
But there are unseen resources in our history that can fortify us for
this struggle. Thankfully, historians like Howard Zinn have shown us
a
"people's history" that is just as important to restore as our cultural
and environmental resources.
There were those who opposed the original aggression and broken treaties
against the indigenous on these lands. We honor their example. There
were Americans who opposed slavery, who opposed annexation, who opposed
the wars with Cuba and Mexico, who opposed the subordination of women.
We honor them in our lives today. The Sierra Club was founded here,
the
Abolitionists, the NAACP, the Suffragettes, the Populists, the emigrant
workers of Lowell who marched for bread and roses, they are present
here
today. We have deep roots in movements against monoliths, monocultures,
monomaniacs and mammon.
Today the converging movements are in sync with the larger body of
public opinion, and spilling over into the mainstream. We see this
in
the phenomenal growth of MoveOn.org <http://www.moveon.org/>, the
grassroots support for Howard Dean, for Dennis Kucinich, in the growing
fear and loathing of the Pentagon, the White House and Fox News.
Despite the spin, despite the play on our patriotic feelings, despite
the legitimate worries about terror, a majority of Americans -- and
a
strong majority of Democrats -- are questioning the purpose of Iraq,
the
credibility of the administration, the needless deaths, the unexpected
costs, and sacrifice of our domestic needs on the altar of empire.
Dissent has even appeared among military families and GIs on the
battlefield, angry about the callous manipulation of the body count
to
justify the President's pledge that the military mission is
"accomplished." Dissent within the military is a sign that the end
is
beginning.
Because public opinion is moving, the Democratic presidential candidates
are changing their themes in a positive direction. Just last year,
the
corporate centrists of the Democratic Party were counseling the
candidates to support the President's war, to divorce themselves from
any allegiances to the 60s, to wait for the Iraq war to end amidst
cheering in Baghdad, and then somehow defeat the president on
incremental issues like prescription drugs for the elderly. Talk about
out of touch.
Now, in response to the public protests and plain questions of
grassroots Democrats, all the Democratic candidates are questioning
the
president on Iraq, his trade agreements and jobs. Think of them as
opportunists if you will, but I think of them as a huge speakers' bureau
carrying our questions and themes to millions of middle Americans.
Each of us may decide to back an individual candidate, and that can
expand our movement. But let's not let ourselves be swallowed in any
single campaign. When the candidates ask for our time and money, let's
also ask them to join our movement around a new vision of what America
can be.
As the global forums have insisted, "Another world is possible," words
embraced by the French foreign minister when the US war was rebuffed
at
the UN. The vision of another world already is becoming manifest in
local struggles:
--A reform of the global trade system
with enforceable standards
to protect sweatshop workers and rainforests,
not simply investors
in video cassettes and privatizers of
water.
--The re-regulation of crony capitalism,
from Enron abuses to
public financing of elections.
--A shift from being the world's leading
arms supplier to greater
investment in the UN's anti-poverty
programs. In JFK's time we
spent one percent of our gross domestic
product on fighting
poverty; today it is 0.13 percent, little
more than zero.
--Resisting the oil, chemical and utility
conglomerates from
Cheney's task force to the Bolivian
pipelines, towards energy
conservation and renewables.
--Promoting grassroots participatory
democracy in decisions that
affect people's lives, as a vital ingredient
in governing.
George Bush can be defeated; even the polls confirm it. But who knows
if
the Democratic Party can defeat him? Who knows if we can bridge the
differences between the Democrats, the Greens and Ralph Nader? Politics
is a power struggle, not an exact reflection of public opinion. But
the
fear and loathing are out there, building, and with enough dedication
in
2004 we can remove this cloud over our future.
We owe it to ourselves, to our progressive traditions, and perhaps most
of all to the world, to prevent a second term for this president. The
way to assure a democratic future politically is to prevent what the
conservatives conceive as a Second Coming. So I ask your righteous
suspicions about electoral politics, set aside your attachments to
any
single candidate, and see this as a powerful convergence of many
campaigns to defeat George Bush. The whole can be greater than the
sum
of its parts.
If we do not succeed, we at least will have reached millions more people
with our message and networking, and we will need that public support
in
the years ahead. Even if our best efforts fall short, remember than
even
those who have the power can be forced to make big concessions.
SDS burned out and McGovern lost, but Nixon had to retreat from Vietnam
and recognize China. There came the vote for 18-year-olds, the end
of
the draft, the creation of the EPA, OSHA, the Clean Air and Water acts.
Bush won the presidency with the help of his Supreme Court, but the
same
Court ruled in favor of the gay-lesbian community against sodomy laws
after 40 years of struggle that began with riots in Greenwich Village.
The recent Court decisions on medical marijuana show the formidable
power of public opinion on the move.
It comes down to recognizing the dignity in all things. Dignity has
intrinsic value, it cannot be violated without a resistance. It cannot
be defeated. Wherever there is life, dignity resists suffocation and
oblivion. That's the world we want. That's the world the world wants.
Not an empire, not even a world of great powers, but a world of
democracies based on dignity.
/Tom Hayden is a progressive activist, author and former California
elected official. His most recent book is "Irish on the Inside."/