Rove and Wolfowitz's role

[Brad Mayer]

Excellent point, Jeet, except pointing to passive acquiescence in 'normal' ruling
class institutions won't go far enough in convincing Doug, I suspect.  They are
embedded institutions, after all, accustomed to routine support of whatever
government policy de jour.  Won't the 'normals' wake up, overcome inertia and oust
the accidental bastards, like say, Nixon with Watergate?  Indeed, one could cite
opposing 'elite' voices in precisely The New Yorker, the Washington Post and in the
Council of Foriegn Relations, suggesting that this institutions are _split_ on the
policies of the Bush camarilla.  But I wax rhetorical.

Here's my quick 'structural' take, in schematic:

1) US is confronted with biggest crisis in political economy (in reality, not in the
academy!) since the Great Depression;
2) Ruling class 'norm' paralyzed in face of this crisis - it doesn't know what to do
(look at Dems and most of Repubs, look at Greenspan, etc);
3) Political vacuum ensues.  You know the cliche about vacuums:  into the void is
sucked the most militant, focused ruling class factions (American Likud, 'Christian'
fundies as the political cooridinadora);
4) "Shock and Awe" ensues;  'normal' ruling class in denial.  We are near the end of
this phase, recognition is dawning;
5) 'Normal' ruling class institutions begin to polarize within and around the
faction in power;  Situation on the cusp of profound ruling class political
realignment;
6) Realignment racket resounds throughout society, throwing some of the masses into
motion;  this opens new fields of political manuver, as has already happened with
the antiwar and Euro opposition;

But behind all this the political-economic crisis that set this chain of events into
motion is still there, requiring some sort of drastic action of one sort or another
to resolve.  Who knows, maybe Bush's 'crazy' colonial adventure will be decisive in
'resolving' it for another ten years.  If not, watch out below!

-Brad Mayer

From: "Jeet Heer" <jeet at sturdynet.com>
Subject: Re: Rove and Wolfowitz's role

Doug Henwood wrote:

        "Much of this is known here, but it is good to have it in one place.
And I think it's a useful counter to the FROP/overaccumulation
explanations of the anti-Iraq campaign, since it shows the
bellicosity emerging from a specific and relatively narrow set of
ideological and even electoral interests, and not the guts of capital."

I'm not sure if this is right; the people driving the bellicosity may come
from small sub-sets within the Republican policy making elite (evangelical
christians, likud-sympathetic zionist), but they've won over a much wider
support base both inside and outside their political party, including many
erstwhile liberals (see The New Yorker, the Washington Post or the Council
of Foreign Relations). Wall Street may not be pushing for the war, but like
much of the ruling class, they're willing to go along for the ride. So the
question should be why are people like Rove and Wolfowitz pushing for war
(we already know the answer pretty much -- they want to teach the Arabs a
lesson), but why a broad spectrum of the ruling class is willing to go along
with such a reckless and potentially dangerious policy.