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.”