A Tale Full of Sound & Fury
Life's a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing ~ William Shakespeare
A few months before the US election in November 2020 I boldly asserted in a podcast with my friend Adam Stokes that the outcome would be of pivotal significance to the world. Since then I have not only revised my opinion but, unusually, done a complete about turn. I now believe the election was an irrelevance to most. An amusing diversion at best. Let me explain why...
I have never been interested in party political games or personality politics. When I am called upon to exercise my franchise every few years I examine the policies on offer, cast my vote as best I can, acutely aware that my voice will drown in the crowd of delusional structures and platitudes that is the sham posing as politics today.
I am concerned with the mechanics of government, however, as well as the effectiveness and integrity of the models we use for governance and the shaping of public policy, which are now mainly divorced from the vaudeville of politics.
Given that the Centre for the Future's proof-of-concept project was all about the reimagination of democracy, a theme that continues to resonate with me, it will not come as a surprise to learn that I have been closely monitoring the global outbreak of ultra-right political extremism and the consequent destabilization and erosion of egalitarian ideals in so-called democratic states.
Countries as diverse as India, Hungary, Brazil, Cambodia, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel exhibit authoritarian traits - as does China and most countries in South East Asia of course, though from differing perspectives. Some commentators have referenced similarities between fascism in pre-war Germany and methods used by ultra-right-wing politicians to attack freedom of speech, while trying to control what we see and manipulate how we think. Such comparisons are not naive, nor necessarily mistaken. Indeed, it is possible they do not go far enough. Slipping into fascism, as we know from past experience, will be gradual and barely detectable. Until it is too late.
However, since the early 1970's a new acme of authoritarianism has been keenly pursued, with tacit acceptance from some, irritation by others, but oblivious to most - until recently. This false prophet, a barbarian of self-righteous butchery that puts all other tyrannies to shame, has been impeding most geopolitical endeavours for achieving peace for six decades. Forged in the final years of the 2nd World War I am referring to the dogma, practice, and zealous imposition of US hegemony on the rest of the world.
US supremacism, has led to the widespread erosion of individual rights and a corresponding increase in state power - not just in the US but in countries like Britain, Canada, and Australia, for example, where US primacy, and the notion of moral superiority supporting it, is invariably assumed to be virtuous - along with frustrated bewilderment from countries like Russia, China and, increasingly, even some in the EU.
I am assuming that no state can be morally superior to any other, even when it pursues policies at scale for the greater good and more authentically virtuous than most others. I am construing in that context, that the various power plays, bravado, and strategic deception pitting nuclear-armed US, Chinese, and Russian rivalry in a three-way wrestling match, are an existential threat to the entire human family. There are two reasons for such an assertion - and hence my alarm:
Irrespective of where we reside or what political affiliations we harbour, with each small personal freedom we surrender – whether it is owning our personal data, assuring our privacy, calling out corruption and injustice, or exercising our right to surf online without being spied upon – we shift the scales in favour of the state to control and, at the end of the day dictate, the nature of most human activity at an increasingly granular level.
We know from history that civilizations are best advanced, and that possible collapse is often delayed, through the presence of a rich variety of perspectives and beliefs, rather than the relatively constrained views of a single entity - however influential economically and militarily - condescendingly deciding upon a common destiny for all. Diversity is paramount to endurance.
In spite of inherent tensions between individual autonomy and state control, these factors tend to invigorate each other, thereby adding to social resilience in a typically healthy system. The inter-connected nature of their trajectory today seems to be intensifying following the reflex responses of governments in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. As I often point out, authoritarian agendas are being imposed on a compliant and gullible citizenry with unabashed resolve, many under the smokescreen of fear from propaganda being used to 'ensure' public health and wellbeing.
If applied to the two most prevalent worldviews informing the modern world-system, the Sinic and the Occidental, these same tensions could so easily erupt in an end-game where catastrophe on a global scale becomes totally unavoidable. Yet this dynamic pattern mostly goes unobserved.
It is generally acknowledged that US influence in international diplomacy, starting in the 1950's, was welcome and largely positive. That influence began to turn sour during the final days of the Vietnam War as people everywhere began to realize that the rationale for war was predicated on lies, greed, and selfishness. It was during this era that the US began to lose its moral authority to lead. Its mission to act as a beacon of light for the 'free world' was also tarnished irreparably. The label of 'leader of the free world' is hardly tenable when there is no 'free world' to lead!
In that context I found the unending criticism of Donald Trump as absurd as searching for signs of senility in Joe Biden. Trump was undoubtedly a pathetic President - a narcissistic sociopath and an incurable liar who did almost anything to further his own interests. But he was not exclusively bad. Personal charm aside, the actions of successive presidents, from Harry S. Truman onwards, do not bear close scrutiny from a moral standpoint.
US exceptionalism took virtue by the throat and buried it with sanctimonious ceremony during the last years of the 20th century. Under successive administrations, American idealism morphed into distorted and pretentious views of the country's role and importance. From Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, to Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, George H. Bush, George W. Bush, and Obama, American interests were unfailingly assumed to be far more important than the many millions of human lives who were slain or displaced by US aspirations under the brazen display of global leadership.
What is different now is the amount of stress and discomfort Trump's administration caused US citizens - sending an already fractured federation to the very edge of civil conflict. But the election of Biden was a sideshow: significant perhaps to US citizens who want to eradicate their discomfort with this President so as to return to an era where bloodshed and brutality can be out of sight and out of mind. The unremarkable and prosaic Biden comes as a badly needed salve.
For the rest of us it signifies nothing. The Biden succession is almost irrelevant, apart from healing strained relations, reinstating the political status quo with Russia, China and North Korea, and taking climate change more seriously. As before, US warmongering will prevail unabated, its cruel consequences transferred to those who are poor and less able to protect themselves. American atrocities will be concealed by a docile media only too happy to hide the truth from a populace that still believes in the myth of American supremacy. While risks regarding civil war may subside for the time being, the situation for the rest of the world under President Biden could simply be a continuation of the Obama era with drone attacks, military expansionism, bombings, starvation sanctions and cold war escalations expected to persist.
The so-called 'withdrawal' of US troops from Afghanistan is a case in point - in part a deception given the US presence in the region, but also a clear signal that protecting US assets is the most vital imperative. After 20 years of US intervention, there is a very real risk that the country will slip back into the realm of lawlessness with the Afghan government, the Taliban, and perhaps a few other militias, left to sort out the country's fate.
Insane delusions of power never allow reality to intrude for too long. There is no rational reason the US could not function like any other country - playing its own unique role in the community of nations, attending to its own business inside its borders, and refraining from slaughtering those who eat different food, wear different clothes, worship a different god, think differently, or inhabit a land of rich resources that can be raided under the pretext of liberation.
That is most unlikely given that the US cultural mindset has become so normalized that it persists as a totally undiagnosed, thus unopposed, pathological condition. The relentless bloodshed from conflict benefits nobody. Americans acquiesce to unending funding of the war machine because they are either ill-informed or swayed by state propaganda. In fact the only advantages accrue to the industrial-military complex and a few psychopaths. There are no justifiable reasons why the US could not assume parity with other nations - even as China justifiably assumes a more prominent role in world affairs. But that picture is incompatible with the glorious patriotic ending Hollywood might envisage and the plutocrats desire. That requires the US to continue along its current path of mayhem and destruction until all others genuflect in its presence.
For nations like Russia, America and China, or even Israel and North Korea, reuniting with others as equal partners in a new community of nations would be an incredibly humbling task - unlikely for that reason alone. Remaining aloof, exclusive, and rigidly self-determining, is far easier when it has already become an ingrained habit. Humility is never easily acquired - playground bullies not easily distracted or open to rehabilitation. Ultimately it would depend on a political leadership praxis grounded in wisdom.
Replacing propaganda and disinformation with the truth, and overtly valuing that, would be the hardest thing to achieve. Lying repetitively, deflecting lines of inquiry, avoiding direct questions, curtailing access to facts that might contradict official propaganda, threatening whistle blowers, curating internet content, invoking patriotism, using ambiguous catch phrases, stoking fear and discrediting those who speak the truth, all seem to be imperatives for a career in politics these days. The result is a general public totally disengaged and desensitized to the lies and the spin.
In the final analysis I am not especially concerned with the implosion of the US empire, other than my genuine concern for its citizens. Empires come and go after all. Right now it is time to turn our attention to the far East, helping China to shape conditions wherein its legitimate aspirations can be met while also benefitting humanity, and tempering any impulse to conquer all in its path that is bringing the US to its knees. That could well be an even more difficult undertaking of course.
As always my concern is for the ordinary men, women and children who have been and continue to be misled by corrupt visions, self-aggrandizement, and the lure of heroic futures defending the indefensible - carefully crafted myths of guile and self-deception.
I am also worried about my own country. For the most part, Australia's ruling elite are inordinately inept and naive - out of their depth in the nuanced complexity of today's world and unable to look in the mirror of a genocidal past. Living in relative comfort, in a country struggling to find its future role and bearing, they are hampered by blind allegiance to a 20th century empire that only has fear, division, and declining dominion to offer.
That description fits other countries of course. But my greatest fear is that Australia is already on the verge of consigning its future to a conflict with China it cannot possibly win, in the wake of a US empire that is already in its death throes with a cancer from which it is unlikely to recover.