Democracy Matters (8 page)

Just as World War II lifted the American economy out of the
Great Depression, the cold war created a military-industrial complex in the United States that produced a vast concentration of military might—unprecedented in human history. Such might tends to intoxicate most, if not all, high-level public officials. To have such power at one’s command is itself nearly inhumane, and to remain anchored in one’s integrity and humility is nearly impossible. We should not be surprised when we get beneath the empty clichés and routine shibboleths so often uttered by American officials to discover that the obsession with power and might is so prevalent. Only the accountability of an informed citizenry and the intractability of a just rule of law can thwart the nihilism of imperial elites—here or anywhere else.

This difficult lesson of the strength of the forces of nihilism within our democracy was taught most graphically by the black freedom movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. He understood it would take tremendous Socratic questioning, prophetic witness, and tragicomic hope to break the back of American apartheid. Yet he also realized it would take even more vision and courage to dismantle the imperial dimensions of the American democratic experiment and to provide genuine equality of opportunity to all. When he said that bombs dropped on Vietnam also landed in American ghettos—and in white Appalachia, on yellow street corners, in red lands, brown barrios, or black hoods—he was highlighting the close link between empire, class, and race; between imperial wars, wealth inequality, and racist practices. He died because his vision and courage were simply too much for the nihilists to stand—especially the FBI. His life—the intersection of love and
democracy—constituted the most powerful threat to the mendacity and hypocrisy of the nihilists drunk with power, driven by greed, or blind to a more democratic future.

King provided Americans with our last great call to conscience about the intertwined evils of race and empire, calling on us to choose between democracy and empire, between democracy and white supremacy, between democracy and corporate plutocracy. (We would add between democracy and patriarchy, homophobia, and ecological abuse.) Since his death, we’ve witnessed a conservative realignment of the citizenry principally owing to racially coded appeals (crime, busing, welfare, affirmative action). We have seen the southernization of American politics and the de facto racial segregation of American schools, churches, and neighborhoods. King’s movement did slay (legal) Jim Crow, yet (actual) Jim Crow Jr. is alive and well. And on the global front, American imperialism rules—with invasions of Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq (though not troubling with U.S.-friendly dictators in Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or China). The overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s ugly totalitarian regime was desirable, yet we supported him for many years and have yet to fulfill any substantive promise of Iraq’s democratization. In this way, our imperial invasion fits a pattern of U.S. interests, not democratic principle.

Americans must realize that America truly has become an empire—a military giant, a financial haven, a political and cultural colossus in the world. The U.S. military budget accounts for over 40 percent of the world’s total military spending. It is six times the size of the military spending of the number two nation (Russia) and
more than that of the next twenty-three nations combined. America is the greatest nuclear power (nine thousand nuclear warheads) and has over 650 military facilities with 1.45 million soldiers in 132 countries (on every continent except Antarctica). And its firepower—missiles, ships, smart bombs, robotic weapons, airplanes, and tanks—is unrivaled in history, past and present. In finance, the U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency—with the stocks on Wall Street constituting two-thirds of the value of the world’s stock markets. The United States is the world’s biggest debtor nation because foreign investors hold their savings and reserves in dollars for security. American trade and budget deficits as well as American consumer debts are sustained by this foreign investment.

The most powerful international financial institutions—the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Multilateral Development Banks—are U.S.-dominated. Yet only 0.2 percent of the total gross national product of the United States goes to foreign aid—more than 50 percent of it to Israel and Egypt. The poorest nations, especially in Africa, receive hardly a drop in the bucket. In global politics, the largely U.S.-financed United Nations is disproportionately influenced by U.S. interests—with its symbolic veto power in the Security Council (along with Russia, China, Britain, and France). And the clever deals, outright bribery, or raw bullying of some of the other 190 nations in the world reflect U.S. political prowess. On the cultural front, the seductive presence of McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, hip-hop, and Hollywood around the world is astounding.

The fundamental question of any serious engagement of
democracy matters in the age of the American empire is how to make the world safe for the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and his secular democratic allies of all colors. If we want to do a better job of promoting democracy around the world, solving difficult problems at the heart of the Middle East, and facing the other challenges to democracy that will inevitably present themselves, then we will need to reckon finally with the depth of racism and imperialism we have inflicted not only on so many of our own people but on the peoples of color around the world as well.

To talk about race and empire in America is to talk about how one musters the courage to think, care, and fight for democracy matters in the face of a monumental eclipse of hope, an unprecedented collapse of meaning, and a flagrant disregard for the viewpoints and aspirations of others. Niggerization in America has always been the test case for examining the nihilistic threats in America. Yet we rarely view niggerization as constitutive of America—just as we rarely think nihilism is integral to America. For so long niggerization has been viewed as marginal and optimism central to America. But in our time, when we push race to the margins we imperil all of us, not just peoples of color. If we are to grapple with the contemporary forces of evangelical, paternalistic, and sentimental nihilism prevailing in the country today, we must draw on the deep well of insight into the scars of our racism and imperialism to be found in the democratic tradition that has run alongside those nihilistic forces. The voices and views of nihilistic imperialism may currently dominate our discourse, but they are not the authentic voice of American democracy.

The major shortcoming of our contemporary nihilists—evangelical,
paternalistic, and sentimental ones—is that they lack a substantive democratic vision grounded in a deep commitment to the ideals they profess to uphold. Evangelical nihilists like President Bush and Karl Rove give us a raw and robust imperial vision of America as a lone sheriff unilaterally policing a world more and more dependent on foreign oil, trade, and investment while obscene wealth inequality escalates at home. In short, to them genuine democracy matters little, plutocracy reigns, and empire rules. Paternalistic nihilists such as Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John Kerry put forward a seductive yet weak technocratic vision of America as the economic engine of a global economy that uses its soft (nonmilitary) power to ensure its hegemony while wealth inequality stabilizes (or slightly declines) at home. On this view, democracy matters somewhat, corporate elites reign tempered by some liberal conscience, and empire speaks softly and carries a big stick. Namely, the paternalistic nihilists have all too willingly accepted the script put out by the evangelical nihilists of the American empire, so we, as a mass public, have not engaged in the deep questioning that might have followed 9/11. Ironically, the sentimental nihilists of the media, who ought to have encouraged this questioning, instead all too happily accepted the Bush administration’s script about WMDs and Saddam’s links to Al Qaeda, and relished the media frenzy of war, even as they failed to spotlight the truth about Bush’s tax cuts or put their lens on the environmental and social travesties being inflicted by the administration. They are becoming mere parasites on their evangelical and paternalistic nihilist hosts.

The aim of this book is to put forward a strong democratic vision
and critique, rooted in a deep democratic tradition forged on the nightside of the precious American democratic experiment—a tradition of Socratic examination, prophetic practice, and dark hope. This vision takes us far beyond those of the American nihilists. It is a Socratic-driven, prophetic-centered, tragicomic-tempered, blues-inflected, jazz-saturated vision that posits America as a confident yet humble democratic experiment that should shore up international law and multilateral institutions that preclude imperial arrangements and colonial invasions; that should also promote wealth-sharing and wealth-producing activities among rich and poor nations abroad; and that should facilitate the principled transfer of wealth from well-to-do to working and poor people by massive investments in health care, education, and employment, and the preservation of our environment. On this vision—filtered through the lens of race in America—democracy matters much, hardworking and poor citizens reign, and empire is dismantled so that all nations and peoples can breathe freely and aspire to democracy matters, if they have the courage and vision to do so.

To many, our democratic system seems so broken that they have simply lost faith that their participation could really matter. The politics of self-interest and catering to narrow special interests is so dominant that so many ask themselves, Why vote?

This disaffection stems both from the all-too-true reality of the corruptions of our system and from a deeper psychic disillusionment and disappointment. The political discourse is so formulaic, so tailored into poll-driven, focus-group-approved slogans that don’t really say anything substantive or strike at the core of our lived experience; the lack of authenticity of discourse—and the underlying lack of gravitas, of penetrating insight and wisdom on the part of politicians—is numbing. But we must keep in mind that the disgust so many feel comes from a deep desire to hear more authentic expressions of insights about our lives and more genuine commitments to improving them. Many of us long for expressions of real concern both about the pain of our individual lives and about the common good—hence the power of Bill Clinton’s claim that he felt our pain—as opposed to the blatant catering to base interests and to narrow elite constituencies. We long for a politics that is not about winning a political game but about producing better lives.

The reality of what we get is so far from this that the hope for the kind of authentic voice in our politics that we want to hear has come to seem almost ridiculously naive. And yet, it is the longing for such honest discourse that was surely behind the passion of the early support for Howard Dean. It was no accident that he so energized younger adults in particular—they tend to be less beaten down by
the disillusionments of the system. For this reason the angry anti-Bush rhetoric that Dean had to offer was for a while emotionally satisfying, but it was ultimately too limited. It lacked the substance of deeper insights and a positive democratic vision. Both the Republican “vision” and the Democratic “vision” are deeply problematic. Our national focus has become so dominated by narrow us-versus-them discourse that it has all but drowned out authentic debate over issues. Though many voters are mobilized by the increased polarization of our party politics, there is an underlying disgust about the preoccupation of our political leaders with partisan warfare.

The uninspiring nature of our national political culture has only enhanced the seductiveness of the pursuit of pleasure and of diverting entertainments, and too many of us have turned inward to a disconnected, narrowly circumscribed family and social life. White suburbanites and middle-class blacks (and others) are preoccupied with the daily pursuit of the comfort of their material lives. In many cases they literally wall themselves off into comfortable communities, both physical and social, in which they can safely avert their eyes from the ugly realities that afflict so many of our people. Because they are able to buy the cars and take the vacations they want, they are all too willing to either disregard the political and social dysfunctions afflicting the country or accept facile explanations for them.