January 27, 2010 - No. 19 --
Supplement
From the Party Press
Searching for a Commander in Chief
as Deus Ex Machina
2004 Republican National Convention in New York City
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The following reference material was released on July
11, 2008 in preparation for the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of
Canada (Marxist-Leninist) held in August 2008 and published in TML Daily on November 3, 2008 at
the time of the last U.S. presidential election.
***
Imperialist war is a burning issue. During the U.S.
presidential election campaign great emphasis is placed on war aims and
the definition of the president as commander in chief.
As all-around crisis deepens, the U.S. state (including
its governing institutions, bureaucracy, military) and political system
appear broken, divided and antagonistic to the people. The major
political parties and their media are held in contempt by the
multitudes, while pervasive disinformation and a
general lack of information leave the polity with a deadening sense of
anger confounded by indifference, a feature of depoliticization that
would leave the people open to the worst demagoguery. A political and
economic elite, self-promoted as the 'best and the brightest,' an
emendation of an earlier cast natural aristocracy,
or the elect, the chosen, etc. claim privileges to rule. Furthermore,
this elite grants immunities to itself as protection against incursions
on their 'rights' to hold the monopoly on force by which they rule. In
the face of this elite and its political establishment, the working
class and people stand marginalized within the
polity. However, due to their position in society and the fact that
their claims on society to meet their needs on the basis of their
interests are not satisfied, the working class and people stand in
opposition. They are compelled to awaken and break through the morass.
In order to do so, they must come to terms with how the establishment
came to choose 'the elect' and provide them with a right to the
monopoly of force.
In light of the current situation, the powers that be
are hard pressed to agree on a saviour who can deliver people,
bureaucracy and military enthusiastic for an aim consistent with the
U.S. ruling elite's demand for world leadership and control. The ruling
elites are in search of a Deus ex machina,
a god out of the machinery. It is important to focus not so much on the
character or personality of a candidate, such as Obama, who is put
forward as a messiah-like figure ready to lead the people out of the
desolation of the Bush years, but rather to examine the logic of the
machinery behind the selection process.
The machinery refers to the political system based on the constitution.
Therefore, the election of presidential leadership cannot be understood
apart from analyzing the U.S. constitution and its political system in
the context of the actual historical situation.
At present in the actual historical situation, the
conflict between the forces and social relations of production underlie
the deepening economic crisis, instability and disequilibrium. The
productive forces, including the modern proletariat, exceed by far the
bonds of the capitalist social relations of production
to which they are putatively ensconced and enthralled. This is
especially true of the unfolding scientific, technological and
industrial revolutions, whose development is in the main driven by
competition among capitals. Without benefit to the people, these
productive forces have grown to such an extent that the sustainability
of the natural-social environment is threatened. Such threats result
from capitalist social relations that fetter the productive powers.
Society's fettered productive powers are actually a block to their
organization by society to satisfy the claims of its members in order
to meet their needs at a level consistent with the
stage of social development. If this problem is not sorted out great
tragedies face the people. The U.S. government, with its military and
bureaucracy, does not have an interest in sorting out these questions
to the advantage of the people. A saviour from the machinery would act
accordingly but must also define the
situation and problems of governance in such a way as not to incite
opposition from the people.
In the main, only the claims of the owners of capital
are deemed legitimate. Whomsoever can lay hold of this monopoly of
force also lays claim to legitimacy and the authority to use it in the
name of society. The owners of capital place their claims on society by
virtue of holding the right to the monopoly of force of the state
machinery. Likewise, by claiming legitimacy and the authority to
control the right to use the monopoly of force and coercion, the owners
of capital restrict and limit the claims of the
working class and people. The claims to legitimacy are necessarily
undermined if people in their conditions of life are completely
restricted in terms of the satisfaction of their needs. On this basis,
those who hold the authority that lays claim to legitimately control
the monopoly of force in the name of society is called
into question.
In an attempt to avoid this situation, large sums of
money are expended to maintain the appearance of legitimacy. Billions
of dollars are being spent in the current presidential election for
this reason. Record amounts of money are 'raised' and spent
specifically in search of a saviour in a seemingly public
manner for a seemingly public office. The search itself is supposed to
bestow legitimacy on the selection process. However, the elites are
looking for someone who can dress up the demand for monopoly right with
a covering of legitimacy. This is a dicey problem. If the governing
party and its leadership are seen as working solely in the interests of
the owners of capital, the claim to legitimacy will be lost amid
cries of corruption and sycophancy. If the promises made to the working
class and people go unmet, claims to legitimacy would be drowned out
with shouts of hypocrisy and mendacity. The machinery desperately needs
a saviour with the attributes of stewardship to oversee the relations
and arrangements of the vast
bureaucracy, military and governing institutions, and stalwartness, the
promise of loyalty to the owners of capital as a class. However, in the
current crisis-ridden situation, from the perspective of the elites,
presidential leadership demands acting and deciding with an "energy"
that is pre-emptive, and that has been
ascribed to presidential dictatorship. However, a president who is
pre-emptive in navigating through unstable conditions in
disequilibrium, establishing his presidential time as the defining
moment, will not necessarily be stalwart, nor is it possible in the
context.
But in these times of crisis with a divided government
and the intense conflict among capital this saviour needs to be a
master conjurer. And all this without confronting the heart of the
problem of legitimacy. If those who govern appear as a self-interested
clique, the claim of a legitimate authority to wield state power with
its monopoly of the instruments of force and coercion begins to look
like the usurper's conceit. Sooner or later, other claims to legitimacy
will be made. And these claims are not necessarily
on the already existing institutions and arrangements. The existence of
alternative claims to legitimacy and authority presage a sovereign
power that no longer passes for being whole and undivided. In such a
situation, neither the governing nor the governed accept the old ways
of life and of doing business; neither
can continue as before. A condition of civil war appears. This
situation might appear farfetched, but this could only be on the basis
that the constitutional foundations of the governing arrangements and
the productive forces can still be harmonized. However, it might be
surmised from the not infrequent use of civil
war quotes that the seriousness of the situation does not escape the
political elite. An example is Obama's plagiarized line from Lincoln,
of America being "the world's last best hope" that might be lost
without change. But what will be the conception of this change? Does
the 18th century constitution provide the
foundations for a political system of such a calibre that it can deal
with the all-around crisis emerging from the clash of the productive
forces and capitalist social relations? Does the constitution as it
emerged from the American Civil War provide for a modern conception of
democracy whereby harmonization of the
conflicting individual, collective and general interests that emerge in
society due to the clash of forces and relations of production can take
place? Does the constitution as it emerged from the period of world
depression, world war and the defeat of fascism allow for the
leadership necessary to deal with the present
actual historical situation? Can an anachronistic and archaic
constitution as the basis for governance in the face of the modern
productive forces avoid the ripping apart of the social fabric? Can the
criticism of presidential usurpations as deviations from the received
constitutional framework prevent an extreme backlash
or will it give rise to its own illusions? Are these questions even
confronted in the search for a god from the machinery?
In order to calmly view and analyze the actual
historical situation during the on-going electoral campaign the
electorate needs to be informed of the state of affairs. An absence of
information necessarily
prevents an objective consideration. As a starting point information
must concern the present situation and what is being revealed. Also,
are the arrangements based on the limits of constitutional law even
capable of addressing the problems of organizing the productive forces
to meet the needs of the people? To date
these questions have not been the concern of presidential leadership.
The reason for this state of affairs neither lies, in the main, with
the mendacity of the candidates or the office holder, nor simply with
the greed or "pathology of power" incurred by the system.
In the U.S., various formulae are being tested during
the present presidential campaign concerning the linkage of military
options and economic crisis. A central tenet of the election campaign
is that the president must be the concentrated expression of political
authority and force behind the following
aspects of governance: revenues, especially access to the manipulation
of the Federal Reserve System and the expropriation of the people's
money accumulated through taxes in the U.S. Treasury; the military,
including overseeing the militarization of the economy and the military
industrial complex, and the guaranteeing
of "monopoly right" to the detriment of the people's rights and civil
liberties. In order to capture and disburse these "jewels" for personal
ambitions and the collective interests of the bourgeoisie, the modus
operandi
of the political system and its party-coalition
organization must be well defined so that
political authority will not be called into question. However, standing
naked, shorn of all its historical accoutrements and rhetorical
flourishes of serving democracy, the people and self-government,
nothing remains but history itself, ironic and cunning. After 220 years
of constitutional government, the American people
face the dangers of a standing army, taxation without representation, a
judiciary promoting executive supremacy, etc. The president's office in
the current situation plays a crucial role in giving definition to the
historical conditions and the basis for sorting out contradictions. But
now, cloaked as a monarch with royal
prerogatives, pushing again for dynasties, etc. the president's office
appears in a form clearly recognizable within the constitutional
framework. However, it is the very form that the constitution was
created to negate. Immediately, opposition surfaces: constitutional
checks and balances are destroyed; the separation
of the powers is negated; the president's office created with only a
tinge of 'necessary monarchical powers,' to act the national leader, is
now an emperor sitting atop an empire, the constitution is being
shredded, etc. But the standard for criticizing the current
developments remains the constitution, which provides the
basis for the conceptions of democracy and governance. This rendition
of fundamental law is out of date and anachronistic in the face of the
complexities of the modern world.
For example, the constitution created the office of the
president with features borrowed from the British monarchy that could
be exercised in competition with the legislative branch up to its
disavowal. In other words, presidential power comes into its own on the
basis of seizing authority from the Congress
in order to reform the constitutional order at particular historical
moments at which point the president can put forward renewed
definitions of the political system. This constitutional feature of the
presidency is provided in the oath the president takes. On the one
hand, the president swears to execute the office
of the president. On the other hand, the president swears to the best
of his abilities to defend, preserve and protect the constitution. The
first half of the oath confers an absolute prerogative (designed on the
basis of the royal prerogative of the British monarchy) to "break
through the constitutional forms" to the extent
that the president can claim the authority to wield political power,
capture the immense resources of the military and bureaucracy, and
seize the initiative independent of the legislative powers. That is,
the holder of the office can lay claim to presidential powers that can
"create political order," "affirm political order,"
or "break political order" up until the point of impeachment and
removal. The second half of the oath points to the president's tasks
concerning the governing institutions as laid down in the constitution,
relative to his "abilities" -- that is, within the system's checks and
balances rooted in the separation of powers.
And these "abilities" must be applied to the preservation of the state.
In other words, the powers to defend the constitution are relative to
the president's "abilities."
The stark reality facing the ruling elite is that it has
fallen far from its position of majority control of the world's markets
and wealth at the end of WWII,
leaving U.S. imperialism relative to other powers and peoples in
decline, with the real possibility of its demise as an empire builder
extraordinaire. The spectre of major war involving all the powers is
raising its head and, within that head, the thought lurks that the
entire capitalist world system can be threatened along
with the survival of the U.S. state. (A review of Obama's "national
security team" shows that they are responsible for views concerning the
decline of America as a world power and leader.) Their prayers turn
towards their resurrection through a god emerging from the machinery.
However, the machinery is still defined
within the limits set by the U.S. constitution and the struggles that
were influential to its origin and development. From the beginning the
dominant elites, including lawyers, who played a role in the
development of the constitution were engaged in problems such as how to
escape civil war, modulate the conflict between
empire and
Washington DC, January 11, 2008: International Day of Action to Close
Guantanamo.
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republic, provide a definition of democracy, rights,
civil
liberties, etc. The questions emerging today concerning habeas
corpus, torture, state 'infaming' (e.g., witch hunts), spying,
suppression of freedom of speech, etc. were debated from the period of
the origins of the U.S. state, at which time
the people, its congress and armed forces were struggling against the
British empire and its constitutional monarchy.
In order to stabilize the situation and escape
disequilibrium, the ruling elites are engaged in a fight over executive
leadership. Using the years long 'permanent' presidential election
campaign they focus their struggle on capturing the office of the
president, and through the presidency the control of executive
power. A principle reason for control of the state as the "executive
committee of the bourgeoisie" is the need to make predictions amid
great complexity in the conditions of class struggles and intensifying
international rivalries and conflicts. This reason is the concentrated
expression of raison d'etat,
or, as it is currently referred to as, national interest or national
security. A commandment of reason of state is that information for
making predictions must be secret and not shared with the public, while
the integument of the capitalist social relations is further hardened
with disinformation. This secrecy and disinformation
are organized under presidential leadership of innumerable
bureaucracies and networks. On the basis of this state organization,
reason of state is instrumental in making calculations concerning rule
and governance.
Reason of state, as it is identified in the U.S. with
presidential authority and executive power comes into conflict with
public opinion, a collective phenomena connected with the polity. The
public opinion of the polity is the space in which the clash between
the popular will and the legal will takes place.
Public opinion, in this sense, is the popular will not yet implemented,
an expression of the public interest, comprised of the individual,
collective and general interests of society. On the other hand, reason
of state is claimed to repose on the legal will implemented and
consecrated on the basis of the sanctity of private
property, and affirmed as the expression of the national interest or
national security, which is said to function in the service of the
supreme interests of the state, in defense of its permanent survival.
Based on an agenda geared towards executive leadership and supremacy
over the law making bodies
of the polity, the U.S. presidential elections are not simply concerned
with selecting a president but also with arguing out how national
interest must trump public interest through innovations involving
executive power.
An aspect of the presidency that has come to the fore
during the last administrations and figures in the current election
campaign, following from the considerations of raison d'etat,
is the president as commander in chief. The president as commander in
chief puts as its first task uniting,
or at least stabilizing, a divided bureaucratic and military machine
that is completely entangled with the largest financial institutions
and monopolies, which face, with deep anxiety, instability and
disequilibrium. In this sense, the establishment needs a leading light
and authority that is of and for the military-bureaucratic
machinery and not in opposition. Without satisfying this need, an
essential raison d'etre for seizing possession of the state
machinery is undermined, namely to concentrate political and economic
power in the hands of monopoly capital, while depriving the working
class and people of all power.
Furthermore, the military bureaucratic machine is the
epitome of the conflict of productive forces and social relations of
production. Intertwined with finance capital, the organization of the
military industrial complex and the militarization of the economy play
key roles in everything and in all aspects
of the economy and politics. Today, every social question is imbued
with a military solution, whether food prices, famines, crises
involving natural, energy and human resources, environmental disasters,
so-called nation building, democracy, etc. According to the apologists
for these current developments, if the war
option is not put front and centre, it will not be possible for the
military and bureaucracy to be stabilized under the control of a
centralized authority wielding its concentrated powers, and dread
thoughts would spread compulsively among the establishment and its
apologists: the continuity of the constitutional order
and the survival of the state are called into question. Yet, continuity
of the constitutional order and the permanence of the state are
undermined by acceding authority for war making powers to the
president. The authorities assigned to the office of the president are
left
particularly ambiguous in the constitution as part of the design to
"energize" a republican form of government that, according to the
founders, was prone to degeneration, corruption and collapse through
the exercise of presidential power. In
the current situation, with the claims of a unitary executive as
commander in chief promoted first and foremost, the president as leader
of the military bureaucratic machine can direct the powers towards the
destruction of the productive forces themselves.
According to the constitution, "the survival of the
state" is primary and absolute, and this is bound up with raison
d'etat. This dual relationship with the fundamental law links the
office of the president with its own time consciousness. On the one
hand there is a regular election held
every four years, with a definite cycle and pattern of re-electing
incumbents or removing them from office based on the political tasks
set by the governing establishment. [Election cycle does not equal
vote. Numerous votes take place within any cycle.] In general it takes
several cycles of the presidency to establish
a particular bureaucratic and military presence. Once established this
bureaucratic and military machinery must either be adapted to further
the ends of a new executive or it must be finished off. This rhythm of
office is geared towards major changes in regime, their consolidation
or their repudiation. In order to set
this historical rhythm, different party systems and party organizations
have been developed. The president has been a key historical agent for
these developments. However, within the rapidly changing historical
times, presidential leadership (or what was referred to as
"presidential dictatorship") must respond to all
the contingent forces and events that appear on the stage of history
threatening the "permanence of the state." Underlying these patterns
and cycles rooted in upholding or "breaking through the constitutional
forms of governing" based on the fundamental law of the constitution is
the law of social development, the
contradiction of the productive forces and the social relations of
production. The clash takes place in historical time periods based on
the developments in the U.S. and internationally. 'Constitutional
time,' linked to the cycles of the political process, clashes with
'historical time,' linked to the developing struggles among
imperialists, imperialism and peoples and nations, capitalists and
workers, etc.
The basic contradictions of this epoch remain as do
various geopolitical and regional concerns. This reality holds for
oppressor and oppressed alike; no individual or collective can escape
the inexorable logic of the law of the development of society, the
clash between the social relations and productive
forces. Arising from this conflict, struggles for independence and
against aggression and annexation, along with stirrings of deep
discontent among the working class and people exist. However, at the
present time, contention and collusion among monopolies, oligopolies
and the big powers appears as a principle determinant
in world events.
Along with intensifying trade wars, military adventures
and annexations, fearful talk of an impending depression appears
regularly in the media. Also, the possibility exists of a major war
involving all the great powers, putting their survival at risk, while
threatening the world capitalist system. In fact,
threatened with losing control and ownership of the productive powers,
finance capital is quite willing to carry out their destruction through
war and other means. It is under the conditions of the uneven
development of capitalism and the anarchy of production that
competition among capitals and rivalries among big
powers can reach such a pitch that the colossal productive powers of
society, including whole peoples, are targeted and destroyed by means
of arms, financial speculation, etc.
The capitalist social relations form an integument
covering over the possibilities, negative and positive, in the actual
historical situation. After the fact, some might recognize that the
clash between the productive forces and social relations of production
resulted in the demise of the bipolar division of
the world, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold
war. The general crisis of world capitalism that dated from the Russian
Revolution was finished. However, what might not be recognized is that
a much more profound general crisis is in the offing. These historical
changes are of decisive importance
and demarcate a turning point that is accompanied with great volatility
and violence. The immense pressures that arise from this historical
development force on to the conscience the fact that no individual or
collective can act in the old way. A radical way out of the ensuing
crisis must be found by making new
arrangements and bringing about a new order. At the same time the
owners of finance capital and the oligopolies do not wish for any
encroachment on their monopoly of political and economic power
exercised through the state. On the one hand, a demand of monopoly
capital is for continuity of the status quo and
maintenance of the state, while on the other hand the actual historical
situation demands change, with the intense competition and rivalries
forcing the destruction of all limits and order of the very same state
and international relations.
Every attempt at a "balance of powers"
between
continuity and change wreaks greater violence and anarchy. For example,
the achievements and results of the period of World War II and after
are dissolving. Active liquidation can be seen at work, as for example
in changes to the United Nations, with
the big powers using the security council as a force for colonizing and
a cover for aggression, in open contradiction to its historical
foundations and constitution premised on sovereign nations accepting as
their standard opposition to the crimes against humanity, against the
peace and genocide. Moreover, the threat
of a third world war and the use of nuclear weapons are made by a
number of U.S. leaders, while they push for various economic and
military blocs, coalitions, cartels, secret treaty arrangements, etc.,
as do other powers in competition and collusion with the stated mission
of the UN. The U.S. president and his office
are crucial in defining the international situation and if not opposed
this becomes the definition for an historical period, as was the case
with the cold war. Within the present context, the president must
ensure that the U.S. projection of the preponderance of power remains
paramount. (Use of Israel, Taiwan, etc. to
smash post WWII arrangements, including threats to withdraw from the UN
itself etc.)
In order to bring in new arrangements and to innovate on
the political system and process requires an overall aim and the
necessary steps for achieving it must be set. Strategy and tactics are
established within the actual situation
on the basis of historiography, whatever the social force. A grasp of
historiography is the basis for predicting the tactics needed for a
particular stage of fulfilling an aim. The proletariat has its
historiography starting from the present, gathering up what's relevant
from the past, in order to focus on the concrete conditions,
predicting the tactics needed for opening up a path of progress.
The bourgeoisie has its historiography (that is, among
serious scholars, not their irrational apologists), starting from the
past and projecting into an imagined future. That is, any social force
concerned with political and economic power must make predictions on
the basis of historiography in order to
work out their general strategy and tactics. The office of the
president is devoted to this activity.
Without putting the law of social development at the
centre of considerations, the fight over war aims and the emphasis on
the president as commander in chief cannot be understood as a necessary
means for "breaking through constitutional forms." At the same time, it
is important to pay attention to
the history of the development of the political system and government
in relation to its constitutional foundations, which is limiting and
conservative in nature. In the contemporary situation, the office of
the president and the party organization and system that act as the
agency for governing are placed at the nexus
of the continuity and preservation of the capitalist state, on the one
hand, and of the countervailing forces for changing the form of
governance, on the other hand.
In light of this, the Bush administration has not yet
"broken through the constitutional forms," but is actually working
within the limits, though at the extremes, of the constitutional order
of things. What the Bush presidency reveals more than anything is the
naked dictatorial nature of executive power
allowed by the constitution as long as he and his party establishment
are not removed from office. In other words, the Bush administration
reveals more than anything else the archaic, anachronistic and backward
nature of the U.S. constitution and its governing process. The one
possible "innovation" was the development
of the Republican Party machinery as the means to unite the
bureaucracy. The wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the
major wars that earmarked the twentieth century, but the means, as
Wolfowitz pointed out, "to unite the bureaucracy." This "unification,"
a continuation of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton
repudiation of the Roosevelt New Deal and party system, leaves ruin and
destruction in its wake. It also leaves an opposition drooling at the
chance to capture "the unitary executive" of the Bush administration.
This has only brought the constitutional order to the point of
exhaustion.
The need to search for a god from the machinery extends
beyond party considerations. A direct appeal to the people includes
calling for sacrificing their claims on society, in order to overcome
the 'gap' between government self-interest and interests among people.
This is the bourgeoisie's version of
direct democracy, an anti-democratic democracy, with the people
mobilized to wage war against their own interests. The measure of the
"gap" between governed and governing must also take into account the
warring factions of the bureaucracies at all levels of the state and
the branches of the military interminably
connected with finance capital, etc. A "god from the machinery" must
seem to rise above all these warring factions, as well as all the
seemingly intractable conflicts among the working class and people. In
the recent past the electorate was "shrunk" to no contests in a
majority of "red and blue states" with organized
contests in a few so-called swing states. Those elections were directed
primarily to the members of a very extensive bureaucracy in the first
place, with others considered irrelevant. The increased conflicts at
all levels and the legitimacy crisis force an appeal to an "extended"
electorate, which is bombarded with promises
of "obliterating Iran," nuclear war, political assassination, civil
unrest etc. Promoted as a promised celebration of a new awakening of
democracy at a "decisive moment," the selection process appears at this
point of a sordid attempt to mobilize "the democracy" directly under a
national leader from the office of the President, who inherits all the
tools of the executive rule from
predecessors, and in the process by-passes the possibility of
representative bodies of the people in government.
The Call for Change
and the Fight Over War Aims
In the early years of the post-cold war period Clinton
ran for president using the slogan of change.
Change was a casualty of the Clinton years. Following Clinton, a key
feature of the Bush administration was that anarchy was raised to
authority. Based on what's been said so far in the U.S. presidential
campaign of 2008 the questions of change and anarchy as authority are
still central concerns in
the fight for presidential leadership. During the election campaign
Obama is making much of the slogan for "change" in this "defining
moment." Opposition to Obama, including from McCain, claims that the
talk about change is empty rhetoric, mere words, and that "experience"
is needed. Since, national security
(i.e., reason of state) is a chief concern of the elites, so the
argument goes, national interest demands that the U.S. be headed by a
president whose defining characteristic is that of a commander in
chief. Obama, in turn, has charged that the claim of experience is
proof enough that a McCain presidency would be a
continuation of the Bush administration, which is strategically taking
the U.S. in the wrong direction.
Before considering "what change?" or "what experience?"
are being referred to, one thing is clear: debates over war aims and
geopolitics are placed front and centre. The elites are demanding
coherent thinking within the bureaucracy and military in order to
establish "world leadership" and domination
without competitors. Whether this can actually be achieved is another
matter.
Faced with the uncertainties arising from the
disequilibrium and instabilities inherent in the post-cold war period,
following the demise of bipolar division with its own equilibrium, the
U.S. ruling circles are hard pressed to bring all powers into balance
and "obliterate" any opposition to this aim (to
use Hillary Clinton's threat against Iran). At the present time the
projection of an overwhelming "preponderance of power" and military
superiority is the chief approach of the U.S. establishment. Hence, the
emphasis placed on debates over war aims.
The centrality of war aims to the presidential election
campaign can only be understood by grasping the historical context.
Underlying the existing circumstances is the conflict of the social
relations of production and the productive forces. The sources of
knowledge are the struggle of classes (the expression
of the social relations of production) and the struggles for production
and scientific experimentation (the expression of the productive
forces). The source for historiography can be no different. An
important question in this regard is how the candidates view the actual
historical situation.
At the end of the cold war, with the collapse of the
Soviet Union, talk of change was cast in terms of a worldwide "liberal
revolution," the completion and perfection of the liberal state and its
ideology, "the end of history." According to dominant views within the
establishment, the strength of the U.S.
was purportedly based on the size of its economy, its future productive
potential for growth and the superiority of its military. The past
arrangements that dated back to World War II, the defeat of fascism and
before, including the system of governance and party system from the
time of FDR are a roadblock to a
future aggrandized in the eyes of the U.S. ruling circles. The
financial institutions, monopolies and oligopolies demand their removal
or adaptation to changed circumstances. This is especially true of
achievements such as the United Nations. The modus operandi for
carrying
out
these
changes under U.S.
aegis are none too peaceful, as can be seen with the use of Israel, a
creation of the UN whose very legitimacy rests on complying with its
edicts, to destroy any chance for peace in the mid-east and the world,
while threatening to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the
international body.
Any triumphal feelings held by the elites following the
collapse of the Soviet Union in which the future could be made hunky
dory due to the powerful position of the U.S. in the world, are now
dashed. Nearly two decades later new arrangements leading to
equilibrium have not been brought into existence.
A deepening economic crisis fuels serious discussion about depression.
Combined with the fear of the future diminishing potential of its
productive powers, U.S. elites entertain the thought of the
non-sustainability of their situation. In the intense competition among
the biggest monopolies and oligopolies, no matter
how much is accumulated by one over another, in relation to the
capitalist world market as a whole a shortage of capital appears. And
with the great complexity and uncertainty in the world, it is
increasingly difficult for the ruling elites to make predictions about
which tactics can lead to stability, which arrangements
to a new equilibrium, and to whose advantage. Plus ça
change, plus c'est la même chose. The epoch remained the
same for over a century. Will it continue to do so? Will the capitalist
world market continue? Will the states comprising it survive? In light
of these factors, a growing strain of thought focuses
on the problems posed by the decline of U.S. economic and political
power. The debate is not over whether decline is a possibility for the
U.S., but rather how profound it will be and whether this change can be
halted and reversed? The question of decline is a chief
historiographical consideration of the establishment.
As such it undergirds the debate over war aims and the talk of who will
be the agent of change and experience in the service of preserving the
U.S. governing machinery.
The dominant thinking among U.S. elites is known as
realism (or realpolitik). It is an important aspect of the
debate over war aims in light of the grand strategy of establishing an
unquestioned U.S. world leadership and control. An essential concern of
realism focuses on the problem of
anarchy in international relations. Anarchy, in this way of thinking,
is premised on the rejection of any international authority in the form
of political association, instrument or law, such as the United
Nations. The UN's authority for example arose out of the united efforts
of the world's people against fascism. Just
as the international front against fascism was converted into an
anti-communist front during the cold war, first through the efforts of
the U.S. and then the Soviet Union, the UN was converted from an
international body directed against imperialist and colonialist
aggression into the preserve of the major powers in
the Security Council. For the U.S. this activity followed from the fact
that even though the Constitution, in keeping with its republican form
of governance, deemed any treaty entered into a part of the supreme law
of the land, guiding realist thinking posited that no law or treaty
could supervene U.S. national interest
(or national security), which is under the discretionary powers of the
executive.
According to realism, absent international authority and
the achievements of the world's people in the struggles for peace,
independence and the choice of their own path of development and
government, all states face each other in an anarchic state of war.
This is premised on the fact that: states have
a public monopoly on force that can be used against one another; states
uphold their territorial integrity and autonomy, by maintaining
internal peace, order and their survival as their prime aim; in order
to ensure their future survival, states engage in wars, even if their
demise is threatened.
Realism, in this manner, raises anarchy to authority. In
practice, realist thinking was "linked" (using the terms of the
realists) to the fears of imminent decline. On the one hand,
aggressions, such as against Iraq and Afghanistan, are launched in
order to unite a divided bureaucracy and military; whip
up chauvinism among sections of the people who are disaffected and
marginalized; overcome the Vietnam War syndrome; train a new generation
of officers and combatants; develop new and test new military
techniques and equipment; establish and consolidate networks of bases
and flotillas of battle ships dividing
the world into spheres of influence to be balanced and controlled; test
tactics and work out a grand strategy for a rapidly changing world; use
militarization of the economy as a means to sort out severe balance of
payment deficits and gain economic, political and military control of
the economy; test and probe other
powers and forces in the world, etc. On the other hand, a great
emphasis is placed on preparing for greater wars, including war
involving all the major powers. Such a war would be an attempt to
prevent the continued decline of the U.S. and also prevent the
appearance on the world stage of major competitors. Such
a war would risk the entire capitalist world market system and the
states involved. This situation deserves study. It is what is behind
the war aims debate and the talk of change.
Legitimacy
Legitimacy pertains to conformity to law and here we are
referring to fundamental law and constitution.
Contra those who argue that the Constitution is being savaged by the
current administration, the Bush administration claims, for example,
that their actions and thesis of 'unitary executive' are constitutional
based on the constitutional oath of office to execute the duties of the
office. This part of the oath
functions as the extra-constitutional 'escape clause' for presidential
dictatorship. Extra-constitutional refers to action taken beyond the
scope and control of the institutions established by the constitution.
This particular clause grants the president a field of action based on
the discretion of his office and not the law making
of congress. It is claimed that acting beyond the purview of the
constitution is necessary in order to 'save the state or polity' from
attack, as in circumstances of either insurrection or foreign
aggression. In this sense, saving the state is the prime duty of the
President.
On the other hand, with the second clause of the oath,
the President swears to the best of his abilities to defend, protect
and preserve the Constitution. (Article 2, Section 2 designation of
president as commander in chief.) The president claimed enhanced
authority following the 2001 Authorization from
congress, which not only legitimated war but also in fact suspended the
legislative body's law-making functions, including the defense of habeas
corpus. With the 'logic' of the unitary executive in place,
putatively based on constitutional design of 'separation of powers,'
all functions related to executing
policy and law come under the direction and control of the executive
branch; and this includes use of signing statements, executive orders,
etc. as executive law-making. Furthermore, since the activities of the
vice president are not proscribed by the Constitution, his office is
his to make. In short, the constitution provides
the basis for the extra-legal, and therefore arbitrary, exercise of
power. Extra-legal refers to acts beyond the law, which nonetheless can
be considered 'constitutional' if they are directed towards defending
the American state against purported 'enemies,' foreign and domestic.
In the clash between legal will and popular
will, the popular will can be seen as 'beyond the domain of law making
bodies' (i.e., outside parliament or congress), and must be opposed by
those 'mandated' to hold 'legal authority' by other means, e.g.
torture, 'illegal enemy combatants,' etc.
The activities of the executive propel it to raise
itself above the legislative and leave the judiciary as its appendage
if it takes the risk to amass its 'energy' and lead the vast
bureaucratic and military machinery. In other words, the executive only
comes into its full being with its act of being subjugating all other
offices and branches.
Presidential Power to
Define a Decisive Moment
Legitimacy of the government also pertains to how
demands are justified and claims are made lawful.
Historically, it concerns the refusal on the part of governing
authorities and their apologists to recognize that the constitution was
amended with what came to be called the bill of rights out of the clash
of popular will and legal will as part of the struggle against tyranny,
arbitrary rule and monarchy
in the 18th century; and that at its heart was the definition of
governing power resting on public opinion, as expressed in Amendment 1,
specifically (speech, assembly, petition, worship and against religious
establishment), and developed in 10 amendments taken as a piece.
Amendment 2 refers to the people's militias
and the people's right to bear arms. In the 18th century context and
within its enlightenment movement this could only be understood as an
armed people defending public opinion against tyranny.
Further on, the amendments refer to rights retained by
the states (recognized as republican polities) and the people. The
rising bourgeoisie, in order to consecrate its own independence and to
create a nation state in its image, came forward in the name of the
people and established its state based on
exploitation, slavery, genocide, etc. Now in a moribund state, with
great perversity, Amendment 2 is given as private individuals' rights
to bear arms in defense of American freedoms against 'enemies' domestic
and foreign; and on this basis the government has established the vast
mercenary system, including Blackwater,
etc., with public money expropriated pouring into private pockets, and
impunity promised for every criminal act (murder, torture, pilfering
public property), whether in New Orleans, Iraq, the Mexican border, or
elsewhere.
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Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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