Elitism and Politics

 

Elitism and Politics

Peter Schultz

 

            Why is conflict so central to political life? To convince us that politics is real. Political life tends toward conflict, and then the conflict makes politics seem real. The bloodier politics becomes, the more real it seems. There must be real differences between Jews and Palestinians given the blood they shed fighting each other. Right? Otherwise, their conflicts would seem like madness, shedding all that blood for what are non-existent, unreal differences.

 

            The point is: Elitism is built into our lives in ways we don’t recognize. For example, by the concept of “politics.” We take it for granted that politics is something real. And, so, as a result of this assumption, elitism seems real because politics, whatever it might be, is elitist. So, because we take politics as real, we take elitism as also real. And, therefore, we also assume that there must be elites!

 

            Caitlin Johnstone, for example, does a marvelous job of reminding us of how propagandized our political lives are. And she is correct. But she doesn’t quite go deep enough because she doesn’t see that at the root of our problems is elitism. Her take on propaganda is somewhat superficial as a result. That elitism is problematic helps us to see that the illusions upon which we build our lives are pervasive, extending far beyond the “public diplomacy,” as it’s called, conducted by politicians and governmental agencies. Elitism is built into our lives in ways that we are, for the most part, unaware of, e.g., the concept of “politics.” Or the concept of “philosophy,” which is taken by many to be the pinnacle of human wisdom. If philosophy is real, then philosophers must be real too and, not surprisingly perhaps, those who are most wise are taken to be the best political rulers.

 

            But what if there are no elites? That is, what if elites are actually social constructs, i.e., groups of persons societies have endowed with special status so that societies are orderly, but who possess no special qualities whether moral or intellectual? And, if there are no elites, then elitism is an illusion. And although it might be taken to be a necessary illusion, still as an illusion it lies at the roots of our political conflicts. And this might be something to think about.  

 

 

The Phoenix Program and Counterterrorism as Politics

 

The Phoenix Program and Counterterrorism as Politics

Peter Schultz

 

            The Phoenix program that was instituted during the Vietnam War represented the culmination of elitist politics. That is, it represented a politics composed of potentially deadly groups who were considered and consider themselves to be elites. So, too, this may be said of counterterrorism generally, which is why counterterrorism was so readily embraced by US elites, by both political and bureaucratic elites, as the way to wage the War on Terror.

 

            Elitism is seductive because (a) elites are composed of allegedly superior human beings; (b) because elite organizations concentrate and convey great power on their members; and (c) because that power is meant to be and will be wielded energetically, with “secrecy and dispatch,” as Alexander Hamilton put it in the Federalist. What reason could there be for granting significant, even great powers to allegedly superior human beings other to have those powers be used with gusto?

 

            Elite arrangements are difficult for human beings, who are political animals, to resist, especially when confronting what are alleged to be “existential threats.” The seductions of sex cannot hold a candle to the seductions of elitism and elitist power. The seductions are so great that even elite savagery will be celebrated. As Hillary Clinton guiltlessly put it regarding the assassination and anal rape of Omar Qaddafi, “we came, we saw, he died.” Or as Barack Obama put it regarding his drone warfare: “Turns out I am pretty good at this killing thing.” Or as Madeleine Albright put it: the deaths of half a million young Iraqi children were worth the imposition of economic sanctions on Iraq. Whereas once decent people admired sexual prowess, now such people admire the savage prowess of our elites. It is an interesting state of affairs.

Ulysses S. Grant's Magic Show

 

Ulysses S. Grant’s Magic Show

Peter Schultz

 

            Grant turned the unspeakable savagery of the Civil War into (a) progress – “We are better off now than we would have been without it and have made more rapid progress than we otherwise should have made” – and (b) into military exceptionalism – “our people have proven themselves to be the most formidable in war of any nationality.” So, we should celebrate the savagery that was the Civil War. Decent folks, morally virtuous persons celebrating savagery. How many times has this happened during the course of American history? How many times has this happened during the course of human history?

 

Ulysses Grant on the Civil War

 

Ulysses Grant on the Civil War

Peter Schultz

 

            As reported in Ron Chernow’s long and excellent biography, Grant, Grant is quoted as saying of the Civil War that it was “a punishment for national sins….” Thus, for Grant the war illustrated God’s justice, a justice being enacted in the United States, with the North and Grant serving the divine will. Thus, in a strange way, the war, so understood, should be something to celebrate.

 

            And that is what Grant did. For example, he said: “We are better off now than we would have been without it and have made more rapid progress than we otherwise should have made.” As Chernow expresses Grant’s views: “The war had validated the basic soundness of American institutions.” So, apparently those “national sins” Grant mentioned were aberrations; they were not indicative of a sinfulness that suffused the United States and corrupted its institutions. And, as Grant put it: “…our people have proven themselves to be the most formidable in war of any nationality.”

 

            So, the Civil War wasn’t a savage madness that resulted from deeply flawed, even sinful institutions, including of course the institution of slavery. If one were to take such a view, it would be difficult, even impossible to celebrate the war and those persons, like Grant, who were deemed its “heroes.” Their “heroism” only makes sense if the war makes sense. If the war was madness, then these heroes were madmen, you know, acting like terrorists. But this makes it all the more necessary to celebrate Grant and others as heroes because in that way the war’s savage madness disappears, just as seeing the war as “a punishment for national sins” makes the war’s madness disappear. And thusly the war becomes another glorious chapter in America’s history.

 

           

Elitism and American Politics

 

Elitism and American Politics

Peter Schultz

 

            Douglas Valentine, in his very fine book, The CIA as Organized Crime, asserts that “some of America’s top leaders…evil intentions.”

 

            Wrong. That is not the problem. They have good intentions but because they are elitists their good intentions end up being imperialistic, meaning ultimately cruel and savage. Thus, people with good intentions, decent people, insofar as they embrace elitist policies and or operate within elitist organizations, will end up being imperialists and doing cruel and savage things, like the Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam.

 

            Our top leaders do such things, and most people accept them, not because thoe leaders and those people have “evil intentions.” Both the leaders and the people have good intentions, but being elitists, they end up being imperialists and committed to cruel and savage policies.

 

            Valentine is asserting that America’s top leaders have evil intentions wants to distinguish himself from Seymour Hersh, who, Valentine says, “exonerated his American sources for any mistakes that were made.” Yet Valentine here misses a key point, viz., that Hersh – and many others – exonerate Americans by calling their actions “mistakes.” By calling those actions “mistakes,” Hersh et. al. hides the fact that those actions stemmed from American imperialism, an imperialism like all imperialisms derived from America’s elitism. Calling the US war in Vietnam or Iraq or anywhere a “mistake” exonerates the US of any charge that it was and is imperialistic. And it does so to an extent that an intelligent person like Robert McNamara cannot even entertain the thought that he and the United States were imperialistic. He had “good intentions” so, in his mind, he couldn’t be an imperialist. But clearly, he was imperialistic, and he was because his intentions, however good they might have been, were irrelevant once he had embraced elitism.

 

            Embracing elitism led McNamara, as it has led others, into imperialism, i.e., led him into the cruelty and savagery that always accompanies imperialism. So, without a critique and rejection of elitism, the human condition will remain dire. Great empires might arise on an imperialistic or elitist foundation, presided over by allegedly noble or royal members of highly esteemed elites, but those empires and their elites will be characterized by cruelty and savagery.

Going to the Roots: Elitism

 

Going to the Roots: Elitism

Peter Schultz

 

            Proposition: Political life is flawed, defective, unhealthy insofar as it elitist. Those who blame, e.g., capitalism, communism, socialism, the CIA, racism, sexism, the military-industrial complex, etc., don’t go deeply enough, aren’t radical enough, don’t get to the roots of political troubles. These phenomena are manifestations of elitism and, therefore, it is elitism that lies at the roots of political life and its deficiencies.

 

            Why might this be so? First, because every elite deems itself superior to the un-elite and, therefore, thinks it is entitled to dominate the other(s) and seeks to do so because doing so demonstrates or proves their superiority. In the minds of elitists, might and right go together. Of course, seeking dominance will, inevitably, create conflicts and the elites will be forced to coerce or repress the un-elites.

 

            Persuasion will not be sufficient to reconcile the un-elite to the dominance of the ruling elites because – and here is a second reason elitism lies at the roots of political troubles – every manifestation of elitism is based on lies. That is, the justifications offered by elites, any elite, are fabrications, illusions, noble lies that are without foundation in reality. Persuasion or consent based on lies will fail because, eventually, the truth will out; viz., the truth that the ruling elites cannot govern or rule the un-elite better than those others can govern or rule themselves. Elites, any elite, being human, will always look to their own welfare before or instead of looking after the welfare of others, especially of others thought to be inferiors. It isn’t only self-interest that leads them to do this; they do it because, thinking of themselves as superior, they are entitled to do it. Their superiority justifies their injustices towards others. They are superior beings, either in being god-like or in being the handmaidens of the gods or of God. And, so, all forms of elitism end up being unjust, repressive, or even oppressive.

 

            This is true of capitalism, communism, socialism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It’s true of any ordered human society. It wouldn’t be true in a society of friends because in genuine friendships there are no superiors or inferiors. But then political life has very little in common with friendships.

 

            Because most Americans are convinced America is a or even the superior nation, they are among the most elitist people on the planet. And it is this elitism that makes the United States so dangerous, so deadly. It makes the United States, as MLK. Jr. put it, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” He had come to see that what he had called “an American dream” was actually a nightmare that rained destruction and death throughout the world. And changing the elites that control the government in the US will not make the US less dangerous, less deadly. What’s needed is a critique of elitism in all its forms.

 

            But so long as presidents live in the White House – originally called “the President’s palace” – so long as Supreme Court Justices serve for good behavior, so long as congresspersons have no term limits, and so long as the wealthy and the powerful are lionized, no such critique, even if offered, would undermine America’s elitism. The American political order is elitist through and through. Therefore, so too is most thinking in the United States. As we are politically, so too are we intellectually. It’s the nature of we humans, who are political animals.

Helms, LBJ, the Kennedys, and American Politics

 

Helms, LBJ, the Kennedys, and American Politics

Peter Schultz

 

            The following passage is from Jefferson Morley’s book, Scorpions’ Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate: “As antiwar demonstrations grew and race riots spread in the summer of 1967, Johnson demanded to know who was behind it all. ‘LBJ simply could not believe that American youth would on their own be moved to riot in protest against US foreign policy,’ Helms recalled [in his memoirs].” [88-89]

 

            To understand what was going on, it’s necessary to realize that LBJ wasn’t demanding information to support a suspicion he had. He made his demands and made them known so these phenomena would appear as he wanted them to appear. He was “managing perceptions,” not seeking “intell.” He wanted people to perceive these events as inspired conspiracies, inspired by foreign or outside agitators, to which he was forced to respond. He was not acting against “American youth,” but against “foreigners” and “agitators.” He was, therefore, actually trying to protect American youth, not infiltrate their activities in order to control them. The result in the CIA was Operation Chaos, created by Helms, allegedly to hunt for the “intell” LBJ wanted. But actually it was a way to manage perceptions, to make it appear such intelligence existed.

 

            It is often the case that the CIA creates the intelligence it claims to have discovered. So, too, does the White House and other governmental agencies. It even has a name, “public diplomacy.” This serves to create the fear(s) which the government then says it must combat, often via plausibly deniable covert activities, all in the service of “national security.”

 

            To take another example from Scorpions’ Dance: “Johnson skimmed the [CIA] report” about the alleged Kennedys’ anti-Castro activities, including assassination plans. “He [Johnson] came away thinking Kennedy had run ‘a goddamn Murder Incorporated in the Caribbean.” [87-88] Unsurprisingly, LBJ concluded that – because that is why the report was written, to allow LBJ to make such a pronouncement. And, of course, Johnson made sure his pronouncement was made known. Of course, the unrest wasn’t created by Helms, LBJ, et. al. But how it was made to appear was, just as the CIA report was used to construct a narrative about the Kennedys’ alleged “Murder Incorporated” in the Caribbean. As Morley says, with considerable understatement: “The spymaster [Helms] not only knew how to steal and keep secrets. He also knew how to manage perceptions.” [86] Indeed, he did as do presidents and other “public servants.”

Valentine, the CIA, and Political Life

 

Valentine, the CIA, and Political Life

Peter Schultz

 

            Douglas Valentine, in his book The CIA as Organized Crime, argues that “America has been in an ideological state of siege since 9/11…[after which] all moral and psychological prohibitions…were lifted forever. All the anger and frustration…nurtured during the Vietnam War and the Carter and Clinton administrations was unleashed in a torrent of war mongering.” [293]

 

            Valentine’s argument, which is quite common, was that US war mongering was (1) reactionary and (2) not the default position of the United States. But what if he is wrong? What if the anger and frustration felt stemmed not from alleged “moral and psychological prohibitions,” but rather from political life generally? That is, anger and frustration are parts of political life as normally lived and, hence, aren’t reactionary at all. Political life is in its normal state not characterized by moral and psychological prohibitions, but tends toward conflict, violence, war. And if that is the case, then the political task is or should be leashing and not unleashing governments to minimize such conflicts, violence, and war mongering.

 

            Valentine’s view is more conventional: “ideological states of siege” aren’t normally part of political life, at least not in the United States. They are created by acts such as the attacks of 9/11. By this view, the US wasn’t acting ideologically prior to 9/11, which is an interesting argument given that the US did wage war in Vietnam, while both the Carter and the Clinton administrations also waged war, Carter in Afghanistan and Clinton in Iraq. Given these wars and other US actions, is it plausible to think that the US was not acting ideologically prior to 9/11, as Valentine suggests? But because Valentine assumes that US politics isn’t, normally, ideologically oriented, the CIA appears to him as “organized crime,” as a criminal enterprise. Viewed ideologically, of course, the CIA is just another bureaucratic institution dedicated to ensuring national security.

 

            Two views of political life have become evident. By one, political life is ordinarily ideological, and for that reason is inherently tending toward conflict, violence, and war. By this view, the political task should be minimizing or offsetting these tendencies, pacifying political life as much as possible. Maybe, ala’ Socrates, this could be done by showing up the authorities, or by dissent based on critiques of political life that reveal the limitations of all ideologies and the ignorance of their proponents. Laughing at the ideologically oriented would be useful.

 

            By the other view of political life, while human life does tend toward conflict, violence, and war, these attributes are the result of the anarchical tendencies of human beings. Thus, the political task is to offset these anarchical tendencies by means of well-developed political programs and powerful governments. Such policies and institutions will necessarily rely on ideological appeals if they are to be successful. While problematic, ideological politics holds great promise for ameliorating the human condition.

 

            So, in one view, it is the ideological character of political life that is problematic, to say the least. By the other view, it is the ideological character of political life that holds the promise of redeeming or ameliorating the human condition. It is difficult to see how these differing and conflicting views can be reconciled.

 

            Valentine is, so to speak, caught between these views. He sees, even feels, the problematic character of powerful political organizations like the CIA. For that, he should be praised. And yet he does not see the need to condemn the CIA, except insofar as it is a criminal enterprise. In brief, he doesn’t see that the most basic problem with the CIA isn’t that it resembles or is “organized crime,” but that it is an institution that is driven by ideology, and not by expertise as it claims. A former CIA agent told Valentine that many of the people attracted to CIA were looking for “socially acceptable ways to express their criminal tendencies.” But this is inaccurate. Many of those attracted to the CIA, like most of those attracted to “public service,” are seeking socially acceptable ways to express their ideological convictions, while impressing them on others with or without their consent, both at home and abroad.

 

 

            Machiavelli summed this up succinctly: It is safer to be feared than loved because fear, unlike love, can be instilled in human beings, thereby pacifying them and ameliorating their conditions. And as Machiavelli pointed out, instilling fear and not being hated go together very well, as is evident in these days of the widespread embrace and popularity of the CIA and other agencies that seek to instill fear in people by engaging  in both covert and overt violence, including torture, avowedly on behalf of national security. Our national security state isn’t then a criminal enterprise; it’s an ideological enterprise. And, thus, its abuses, its violence, even its savagery seem necessary, even praiseworthy as evidence of ideological or principled politics.

 

Lincoln"s Second Inaugural and Moral Meaning

 

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and Moral Meaning

Peter Schultz

 

            In reading The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, there occurs this passage that Royster cites in which Lincoln was commenting on his Second Inaugural Address, explaining why he didn’t think it would be immediately popular: “Men are not flattered by being shown that there is a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world.”

 

            Royster then comments: “In this comment [Lincoln] implied, as he had done in the address, that the war, viewed solely as the work of human minds and deeds, had grown incomprehensible. Because the war thwarted the designs, confuted the explanations, and absorbed rather than obeyed the efforts of those who had made it, to say that it acted out men’s purposes alone was to say human activity had no ultimate moral meaning, that there is no God, no cosmic design to events. If, instead, the course of the war were God’s doing, He could reconcile its contradictions, explain its surprises, and validate its bloodshed in some cosmic logic or divinely weighed justice whose clarity and consistency were inaccessible to human minds. There was no other way to believe that what had happened made sense.” [292]  

 

            How to make sense of violence, the inhumanity, the obscenity of the Civil War? Some writers, soldiers and veterans, “did not want to keep to themselves an incommunicable knowledge of the war’s moral structure. They wanted to share widely held notions of what their combat has accomplished. One of their ways of doing so was to tell others what they had done.” [276]

 

            But other “narratives…sought to show how combat had defied or destroyed the conventional workings of perception and thought. These writings offered…what looked like abrogations of laws that people had always trusted in – the logical connection of cause and effect, the continuous existence of matter, the validity of consciousness.” [275]

 

            To cover over, to hide the latter possibilities, romanticizing the war helped. “Romanticizing the war…, exalting a great general…kept the story from becoming one wherein destructiveness ruled all and destruction was the war’s all-important object and result.” [276]

 

            Romanticizing political life requires “heroes” and “villains,” “good guys” and “bad guys,” where the bad guys lose, because then politics “makes sense.” Of course, much of political life involves deciding who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and elections are held to sort these things out. But such romanticizing seems to lead political life to war as well, whose outcomes are thought to determine who are the good guys, who are morally virtuous, and who aren’t. One interesting feature of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural is that he does not characterize the North as morally to superior to the South. Nor does he predict the outcome of the war. He refers, however, to the Almighty’s “justice” as something to be meted out to both North and South. To think otherwise would be “to deny that there is a God governing the world.”   

 

Righteousness and War

 

Righteousness and War

Peter Schultz

 

[The following was originally sent in an email to a friend. Thought I would save it here.]

 

Unaccountability and righteousness go together. In “Oppenheimer” there are scenes of the American people rejoicing when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incinerated, just as they rejoiced when Tokyo or Dresden or Vietnam or Korea were incinerated. Why? Because the killing was taken as evidence of America’s moral virtuousness, of its righteousness, “As Christ died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, The truth is marching on! Glory, glory alleluia!” The mystique of blood sacrifices, human blood sacrifices. The depth of this delusion is mind-boggling. 

 

One implication  of humans being political animals is the righteousness of the mankind; and as a result of this righteousness, violence and war are seen as individual and social blessings, restoring vitality to and the purifying of both individual human beings and societies. In this way, the obscenity of war disappears, replaced by illusions of human virtue, the “hero warrior.” Achilles, that is. 

 

[Plato and Aristotle were out to replace Homer and Achilles. Perhaps Twain sought to replace Joan of Arc through irony, not fully understanding what successfully doing that required. Huck would replace Tom, “the model boy of the town.” But perhaps only the ironic got and get it,] 

 

The pursuit of greatness leads to war, bloodshed, and inhumanity, which when achieved is taken as evidence of moral virtue. Trump’s MAGA should actually be "Make America Virtuous Again." And, of course, the Democrats agree with this agenda. Which explains our endless wars. They are the result of our righteousness, our pursuit of moral virtue, and not of an anti-communism or anti-Islamism created by propagandists.  

 

Personal observation: That moral virtue leads to war is confirmed by my brother Charlie’s life and death. No one more wanted to be morally virtuous than Charlie - Mr. Boy Scout, Mr. Let Us Upgrade the Environment at Metuchen High School With Coats and Ties, Mr. President of His Fraternity, and finally Mr. Marine Who Would “Serve”- and Help Save - His Country. He was “a model boy!” 

 

[And then there was his brother, whose ironic campaign slogan for class president Jr. and Sr. years was “I promise to do nothing.” And he won, illustrating the emptiness, the inanity of “student government” in a wholly bureaucratized institution. A lesson you learned later at Assumption. So the money you paid was justified because you did get educated! Just not in the way the bureaucrats wanted you educated! 😎]   

 

Moral Virtue and Its Role in Human Affairs

 

Moral Virtue and Its Role in Human Affairs

Peter Schultz

 

            In reading a wonderfully complex book on the American Civil War by Charles Royster entitled The Destructive War, I came across the following: Thomas Edwin Smith, a Federal officer, wrote “’I used to think war was a science, but it’s a mistake…. the great majority of battles are the result of axident. And the results are the results of axidents.’” [236]

 

            As Royster points out, “Smith’s conclusion would break the link between fighting and attaining [the] spiritual and political benefits war was supposed to bring,” with some significant implications. For example: “Would not accidental victory in accidental battle offer at best an ephemeral glory not only to generals but also to those who believed in them?” [ibid] In fact, if victory is the result of accidents, why glorify generals at all? Except perhaps to reward them while fortifying the myth of their genius, as well as fortifying the myth that war is not an obscenity but a noble human activity?

 

            And there are further implications. If military victories are essentially accidental, then they don’t confirm the virtues of the victors. Nor do those victories confirm the importance of moral virtue(s). Going further afield, if your fate is essentially accidental, then your virtues don’t and can’t explain it. And to attribute your fate to your virtue(s) is vanity. This applies to generals and even armies. It even applies to “great nations.” If greatness is essentially accidental, then achieving it doesn’t speak to a people’s virtue(s). Were a people to attribute their greatness to their virtue(s), that too would be vanity.

 

            By implication then, the question, “What role does “accident” or “chance” play in human affairs?”, is a key question with wide ranging implications, including understanding the role moral virtue plays in human affairs. And, it is here apparently, that Plato and Aristotle, e.g., disagreed with Machiavelli and other “modern political philosophers,” with the latter denying that chance need play a significant role in human affairs. Greatness, political and otherwise, is achievable but only if humans learn, as Machiavelli put it The Prince, “to be able not to be good.”  For Machiavelli, it’s not chance that stands in the way of greatness; it’s goodness. Now that’s something worth thinking about.

Stonewall Jackson and Moral Virtue

 

Stonewall Jackson and Moral Virtue

Peter Schultz

 

            I am currently reading a book The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, about the American Civil War. In it, he as a chapter assessing T.J. “Stonewall” Jackson, where he writes, “Thus Jackson’s demeanor [duty-bound doing God’s will] promoted his fame by a paradox aptly summarized in the Savannah News as ‘the magnificent plainness of ‘Stonewall.’” [71] And quotes a letter Jackson wrote to one of his many correspondents, saying “I have been but the unworthy instrument whom it pleased God to use in accomplishing His purpose.” [70]

 

            As Royster realizes, Jackson’s claim to be God’s instrument has the paradoxical consequence of magnifying Jackson, of making him seem magnificent or characterized by magnanimity. Jackson seemed to resemble what Aristotle labeled “the magnanimous man” in his Ethics; that is, the pinnacle of moral virtue.

 

            This phenomenon has some interesting consequences. For example, according to Royster “If [Jackson] deserved his reputation, he must ever more fully demonstrate the power of will to dominate men and events.” [71-2] Paradoxically, Jackson’s “Virtuosity let to disaster. Wielding power ended in being destroyed. The history of the Confederacy … could later sustain belief in Stonewall’s destiny only by resorting to the imaginary and the hypothetical. Confederate narrative of a larger-than-life figure dominating actual events became narrative of mythical figure … shaping fictional events.” [75-76] This led me to think of the George Bushes, I and II, and their wars in Iraq, assertions of will in the service of a completely fictional event, the New World Order they so righteously proclaimed to be creating.

 

            As Royster notes so compellingly: “The Confederate fantasy of Jackson the war-winner, like Jackson’s ambition, put faith in an ever more violent effort at self-creation. Jackson convinced many people, including soldiers whose lives he risked and lost, that God favored his every move.” [77] “The Confederate fantasy of Jackson” is a version of the fantasy of moral virtue and its alleged power and goodness. It’s a fantasy that leads to “ever more violent efforts at self-creation,” not only for persons but also for nations and even world orders and empires. And as a result, the morally virtuous go looking for or even creating situations where ever more violence is called for and even seems endorsed by God. As the life of Stonewall Jackson illustrates, the morally virtuous easily embrace violence in order to prove their virtuosity.

Obama and America's Moral Values

 

Obama and America's Moral Values

Peter Schultz

 

Obama’s State of the Union address, 2016: “The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. Period. It’s not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined.” [Applause, applause!!] 

This reveals as well as anything how Americans understand moral virtue. Moral virtue reveals itself as power, so the most powerful humans are the most morally virtuous.

“Full spectrum dominance” is moral virtue actualized, and especially so when activated. Drone killings, e.g., epitomize moral virtue for Americans. Hiroshima and Nagasaki epitomized America’s moral virtue, as did Dresden, the fire-bombings of Tokyo, the napalming of Vietnam, and the destruction of Iraq and Syria. 

This is why it should be said that America’s moral values corrupt human beings. 

 

Possible Causes of Our Woes, Failures, and Degeneracy: A Quickie

 

Possible Causes of Our Woes, Failures, and Degeneracy: A Quickie

Peter Schultz

 

            Three possibilities as causes of American woes, failures, or degeneracies:

 

1.     Mistakes attributed to the well-intentioned

2.     Conspiracies attributed to the few

3.     America’s righteousness attributed to the morally virtuous

 

 

Mistakes are to be addressed by being more prudent, more careful.

 

Conspiracies are to be addressed by exposure or transparency, along with impeachments, imprisonments, or banishment, physical or social.  

 

The righteousness caused by American moral values is to be addressed philosophically.

How the Veil Works

 

How the Veil Works

Peter Schultz

 

            In a book, The War State, by Michael Swanson, there is this simple sentence describing Frank Wisner, one of the earliest CIA officers: “His anti-Soviet stance, it was said, bordered on obsession.” And, so, because his anti-Sovietism was obsessive, he was led into actions that were hard to defend and that, implicitly, led him to commit suicide after he had been relieved of his duties by the CIA.

 

            But, for a few moments, let us assume that what Swanson and others call Wisner’s “anti-Sovietism” was actually his self-righteousness, his conviction that he was a morally virtuous human being who was therefore justified in exercising his powers against the likes of the Soviets who were not morally virtuous. The question is: What motivated people like Wisner? Was it anti-communism or was their anti-communism just a reflection of their self-righteousness? Was their anti-communism, unknown perhaps even to them, a disguise, the publicly acceptable face of what was in actuality self-righteousness?

 

            It is not unimportant question because, among other things, if what motivated Wisner and other Cold Warriors was self-righteousness, then their actions were not reactionary or defensive. They were not, that is, a reaction to what the Soviets were doing. Rather, their actions were aggressive in that they were warranted not by actions of the Soviets; they were warranted because they were recommended or required because they were righteous, and the morally virtuous want to and will act righteously. Their moral virtue requires them, as it is, to act righteously and failure to act that way is a sign of a lack of moral virtue. Being aggressive for the sake of righteousness might be said to the apex of moral virtue.

 

            Insofar as this is true, then it may be said that the self-righteous, the morally virtuous would welcome, even look for situations calling for them to act righteously. This might be illustrated by President George Bush’s actions after the attacks of 9/11, when he became, it was said, a great leader who rallied the nation when it was most needed. As I recall Bush’s actions in New York, he seemed to display a remarkable enthusiasm, almost as if he was relishing the situation, which was not unpleasant for him. Why? Because the attacks allowed him to display his righteousness, his moral virtue, which he did, thereby validating his worth, his virtue, his righteousness. And, hence, he was quite willing to characterize the attacks as challenges not only to the United States but to Western civilization. The greater the evil, the more praiseworthy are the righteous who seek to eradicate it.

 

            And where did his righteousness lead the nation? Eventually, into the invasion of Iraq, which of course had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. But insofar as Bush was being self-righteous, whether Iraq had participated in those attacks was not the crucial or deciding issue. Was attacking Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power justified as a righteous policy? Indeed, for Bush it was if no other reason than Saddam had tried to assassinate Bush’s father. And, as a tyrant, a righteous person or people would want to take Saddam out. So, whether or not Iraq participated in the 9/11 attacks, and whether or not Saddam represented a threat, existential or otherwise, to the United States was not for Bush, the self-righteous defender of family and democracy, the decisive issues. “The decider,” as Bush called himself, decides what the righteous thing is and does it. And only those who lack moral virtue would disagree.

Valentine's Confusion

 

Valentine's Confusion

Peter Schultz

 

            At times in his excellent book, The CIA as Organized Crime, Douglas Valentine fails to adequately understand what is going on. For example: “Through language that deceives, intimidates and coerces, the US government’s covert action programs are ultimately designed to terrorize Americans – to make them feel inferior, infantile and powerless.”  But as he recognizes immediately, this isn’t exactly what is going on: “This is the shadow side of the propaganda that makes them feel exceptional, of their vicarious enjoyment of being Number One; they are also made to feel victimized, and the resulting confusion makes them governable in detrimental ways they would not choose, if they knew the truth.” [401]

 

            But these covert action programs aren’t geared, as Valentine seems to recognize, to “terrorizing Americans” by making “them feel inferior, infantile and powerless.” Quite the opposite, as Valentine says: “the propaganda…makes them feel exceptional,” makes them feel like “Number One.” The best covert action programs, like flying war planes over athletic events or honoring soldiers at such events, seek to empower Americans via patriotic rituals, appealing to them as morally virtuous Americans. Which is why those who refuse to participate in such rituals are deemed morally deficient, unworthy of being Americans and enjoying the benefits of American society.

 

            This is worth clarifying insofar as Valentine’s analysis leads to his conclusion that the problem is that Americans are confused. But the problem isn’t confusion, it’s righteousness. That is, the covert action programs aim to make Americans self-righteous, about themselves, about the nation – “God Bless[ed]America” – and about the government. And in their self-righteousness, Americans become governable. But they aren’t governable because they feel “inferior, infantile and powerless;” rather, they are governable because they feel superior, adult, and all powerful. The rituals prove that and, by participating in them, Americans prove that not only are they morally virtuous but that they are the ones to rule the world. Pax Americana is a blessing to all mankind. 

              

            The same confusion or ambiguity is evident in Valentine’s assessment of the lead up to Bush’s invasion of Iraq. “Needing a pretext to launch a war of aggression…, the Bush regime launched a disinformation campaign to convince Americans that Iraq posed an existential threat.” [401] The emphasis here is on disinformation meant to instill fear and trembling in the American people, as when Rice said spoke about “a mushroom cloud” being “the smoking gun” that would prove the administration’s intelligence.

 

            But the situation is more complicated than that insofar as by hyping alleged Iraqi threats, these campaigns are also hyping American superiority, thereby sowing pride and feeding the righteousness of the American people. It’s as if our elites were saying: “We are so superior that (a) we know what Iraq is doing and (b) we will be able to foil their plans.” Or as Karl Rove put it: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history actors.” We are great and our greatness allows us to, as Tom Paine put it, create the world anew. So, mixed in with covert action programs that instill fear are covert action programs that feed American feelings of superiority, their self-righteousness. As Valentine puts it, “this imperial arrogance has been the nation’s driving force since 1945….” [402] And this arrogance was given expression by Michael Ledeen: “kill them all, [and] let God sort’em out… The entire political world will understand it and applaud it.” [403] Killing them all is, apparently, God’s will.