Rove and Wolfowitz's role

Brad Mayer bradley.mayer at sun.com
Sun Feb 23 23:36:44 PST 2003


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.



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