Where have the flowers gone?

Choosing the head of a nation’s executive by universal suffrage gives legitimacy but does not necessarily give power. Franklin Roosevelt is reported to have complained to Churchill of how little power he had, compared to that of an English prime minister who is leader of the parliamentary majority. However, in Russia, the elected president seems all-powerful when he is called Putine, and must defer to his prime minister when he is called Medvedev, which confirms the local tradition of personalised power and turns the electoral process into a farce. In France, the president names his prime minister and can define the actions and decisions of government if his party controls the National Assembly. That has not always been the case. And, in many countries, presidents are re-elected continuously and wield the absolute dominion of corruption and force.

The United States are a federation of quasi nations that have their own governments, legislations, particularities and priorities, a patchwork of differences that adapts badly to the bipolar politics in Washington. The president is a party candidate whose election splits the federation into red and blue. But the unanimous party support fades as soon as he begins to legislate. Being elected is one thing and governing is another. The first needs charisma, skills in debate and oration, and spectacular financial backing. The second is a continuous tussle with senate and congress. FDR appealed directly to the people in “fireside chats” on national radio, and shaped opinion to influence the nation’s representatives, LBJ was more adept at arm twisting behind the scenes, and some presidents have been perfect candidates and useless at governing.

The provinces are more conservative than the metropolis. In the US, this means that the urban conglomerates of the North East and South West are more progressive than the rest. New York and Los Angeles are America’s ideological beacons shining on the world, but they represent only themselves. They probably have less influence on ideas inside the Union than they have globally. Their liberal, liberated and multicultural ideals are not shared unanimously by the America in between. Provincials are proud of their difference, tend to be xenophobic and envious of the capital, and prefer central subsidies to cultural and legislative interference. This reflects the ancient opposition between the countryside and the towns that drain wealth and power into the hands of merchants and princes. Wall Street, the White House and Hollywood hold the nation’s reins, but the nation’s support has to be won piecemeal.

Two parties have dominated American politics since the beginning of the Union, when Jefferson’s Republican party opposed the Federalists behind Washington and Hamilton. Then the two sides changed names and programmes in a somewhat confusing manner. The Jeffersonian distrust of centralised executive power was taken up by the Democratic party founded by Andrew Jackson in 1830. And the importance of a unified government, currency and destiny promoted by Hamilton and Adams was the foundation of the new Republican Party that brought Lincoln to the presidency. It all turned around again when the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt expanded government to vast dimensions during the Depression and the war, and obliged the Republicans to adopt the contrary attitude, which had been the programme of the original label. Back to their roots, the Republicans are provincials and Democrats are metropolitans, so that a Democratic candidate may have the advantage for the elections but a Republican president will govern more easily. Hopeless Dubya seemed to do what he wanted, in fact he was just in tune with the Congressional Majority, whereas the clever and suave negotiator BO has had to back down repeatedly because he was playing a different melody.

With regards to social legislation, Lyndon Johnson was arguably the most liberal, not to say socialist, of American presidents (his imperial foreign policies are another matter). Civil and voting rights, immigration, education, stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, gun control, the list is impressive and could go on. This big ugly Texan was born into politics and was involved at the age of twenty-two in campaigning for Democratic Senator Hopkins. Johnson was elected to the House in 1937 and, after a very shady primary, to the Senate in 1948. Elections were not his forte, where he excelled was in political wrangling.

Historians Caro and Dallek consider Lyndon Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader in history. He was unusually proficient at gathering information. One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every Senator stood, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to break him. Robert Baker claimed that Johnson would occasionally send senators on NATO trips in order to avoid their dissenting votes. Central to Johnson's control was "The Treatment", described by two journalists:

The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself — wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.

Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless. (Wikipedia)

Successive presidents relied on Johnson, particularly for his knowledge of, and influence on, the Southern Democrats, a very reactionary group who felt nostalgia for pre-Civil War times. Having easily eliminated him at the 1960 Convention, Kennedy took him as vice-president for the same reasons. Once elected, however, Johnson lost his leadership of the Senate Majority and found himself in a sort of limbo, which lasted until that fatal afternoon in Dallas when a sniper’s bullet put him in the driving seat, a place he might never have occupied otherwise. The next five years saw a torrent of legislative change and, in 1968 when city ghettos were rioting everywhere after the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis, Johnson commented to his press secretary, “What did you expect? I don’t know why we're so surprised. When you put your foot on a man's neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what's he going to do? He's going to knock your block off" (Ibid). Tired and worn, in poor health and bogged down in Vietnam (Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill to-day?), he did not run for a second term, and is said to have preferred Nixon to Humphrey.

Interestingly – could it be mere coincidence? – during the last century war-time presidents were all Democrats, Woodrow Wilson for WW1, Franklin Roosevelt for WW2, Harry Truman in Korea and Kennedy/Johnson in Vietnam. (This suggests that Obama is following tradition in Afghanistan, the difference is that he is fighting a Republican conflict with a professional army). Is there a link between Democratic governments and the American Nation’s acceptance of the trials of war? Or does the situation that precedes actual combat favour Democratic candidates? Wilson was a Virginian who moved North to where the power was. His vision of big centralised government made him the architect of Roosevelt’s New Deal, with whom he shared a penchant for certain aspects of the British Parliament. He criticised the checks and balances of American politics and “a federal system that parcels out power and confuses responsibility” (Ibid).

The importance of centralised control when making war had already been recognised by the Roman Republic, where a dictator would hold the imperium for the duration of the conflict. But perpetual war led to the absolute power of emperors, who were the tools and the promoters of military expansion. Wilson used war to crush the labour movement, by mass arrests, deportations and long jail sentences for IWW members and militant anarchists. Congress voted the Espionage Act that made criticism of the war a criminal offence, and this abuse of the First Amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court. Wilson’s election had been an alternative in a time of deep social unrest, and he was seen by Big Business as a possible solution. The time was ripe for a new relationship between capital, state and labour. Or, as US Steel’s Frank Munsey wrote to Theodor Roosevelt, the state should have a “paternal attitude towards the people” who needed its “support and help” (Howard Zinn). The strategy implemented by Wilson was the usual carrot and stick. His first mandate saw the creation of the Federal Reserve, a reduction of custom-duties, anti-trust legislation and federal loans to farmers. He failed to put a stop to child labour but succeeded in imposing an 8-hour workday. The social unrest did not abate however, and the ardent pacifist of 1916 became a re-elected warmonger in 1917 (after a warm up of gunboat diplomacy and the bombing of Veracruz). There were various avowed and secret reasons for sending troops to Europe, but a large majority of Americans were against involvement, which explains Wilson’s sudden post-election turn around. It was the foundation of the militarised economy denounced by Eisenhower decades later. In 1912 Wilson had seemed favourable to minorities, and the Afro-American community had largely abandoned the Republicans (Lincoln’s party) to vote for him. But they were fooled, the way the pacifists were to be in 1916, as Wilson turned out to be a convinced segregationist who extended the policy to all federal departments.

Social equality is contrary to the separation of capital and labour. But capital needs labour to work and consume, and must constantly maintain the pretence of a common interest and destiny. In times of expansion, emulation is the unifying force. In times of regression, the enemies without and within create the bond. Hence the ideological pendulum that swings back and forth at the rhythm of economic cycles. The libertarian and individualistic program works well when there is innovation and growth, or territorial extensions. Fortunes are there to be made, and those who fail have only themselves to blame. The self-made (sic) billionaire is the living proof that anyone can be wealthy, and anyone is everyone. The filthy rich are the model, and nothing is allowed to hamper their ascension. When the cycle turns down and the social escalator stops, this ideological construct cannot function anymore and capital has to apply plan B. The conversion to austerity and patriotism is not easy, and the call to arms is an attractive path. Like the Roman god Janus, capital has two faces, the broad smile of growth and the stern expression of recession. And the change of countenance needs to be explained and justified. Capitalism cannot blame itself, so some scape-goats have to be found. Rogue bankers, global speculators and feral traders are thrown to the mob (in the past these professions often had ethnic connotations). But, as the cyclical recession deepens and the first sacrificial victims are expended, the next step is to put the nation’s youth in uniform and send them off to war. An external danger is designated along with its fifth-column, and the nation in peril tightens its ranks.

Elected parliaments are supposed to represent the whole gamut of society. But the fundamental division between capital and labour affects the representation and facilitates a two party system. They will be seated to the right or the left of the speaker’s stand, one will be more conservative and the other more liberal, and they will pretend to be the depositaries of Roman or Athenian ideals. They will seem different in opposition and very similar when they hold power. A left liberal democrat minority will support labour, and a right conservative republican minority will support capital. But, as majorities, both will sustain the status quo by whatever means, both will buttress the duality of society and of politics, a divide that determines their existence and gives sense to their lives. The duality of politics reflects that of society, whereas the wielding of power is subjected to the consecutive phases of economic cycles. The strife and uncertainty provoked by the down-turn favour centralised administration and government intervention, a tentacular state that tries to maintain the crumbling blocks of private capitalism, with funds and ever more repressive authoritarian policies. The candidate who advocates this process, whatever the populist trimmings he decorates it with, has the best chance of obtaining a majority. In the present circumstances Democrats have the advantage.

Materialism 2, the Majority World.

Genetic evolution is a very slow process. Adapting to a new or changing environment has to be progressive. For most species change is extinction, which limits them to a particular habitat. They cannot leave it, and if is modified they disappear. Technological evolution changed the rules. It not only shortened the time scale, but it actually depended on new conditions and materials for its progression. Humans swarmed over the five continents and adapted their life styles to the resources they found. For a long time human groups used very similar tools. New techniques had prolonged developments and had time to circulate. The domestication of plants and animals was universal, as were the carving and polishing of stone, ivory and bone. Pottery made a break, because clay and fire-wood are not found together everywhere, but metallurgy was the first act of an ever widening technology gap. Copper, zinc and tin are quite rare, are usually in mineral form and are often deep underground. This meant that a very small number of humans could make and use tools, weapons and protection made of brass and bronze. They were the demi-gods of legends. They were probably the historic Accadian, Cretan and Mycenaean, and the builders of pyramids, of tumuli and stone circles. Then came iron, whose ore is commonplace. At Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps, the coincidence of Neolithic salt mines, rich and abundant iron ore and accessible lignite produced the first known Iron Age society. Since then three thousand years have passed, and technological creation is still the source of wealth and power, and the motor of social change. 

Another divisive technology had preceded metallurgy and taken on primitive forms in the earliest urban civilisations. A representation of words and numbers was needed as soon as land was parcelled out into individual holdings. The transmission of communal property can be a spoken process accompanying the succession of generations. The transmission of personal property is best done in writing, a record of the proprietor’s wishes that can be referred to after his death, and that also applies for contracts. Urbanisation resulted in writing just about everywhere, whereas phonetic alphabets kept to a small geographical space, appearing in Canaan and spreading from there to the Mediterranean Basin. Phonetic alphabets not only facilitate the learning of reading and writing, they also make printing with movable type a much easier process. In fact, the Gutenberg revolution could only have occurred in Europe, and its propagation is still far from over. Literacy remains a privilege. 

A long time ago, technology began dividing humanity into the have and the have not, and the gap has widened ever since. This differentiation happened between members of a society and between competing societies. As long as writing was done by hand, reading remained an elitist occupation that was similar the world over. The mass production of printing put an end to this exclusive access, and adopted the spoken idiom to appeal to a wider public. Despite the phonetic alphabet, literacy largely excluded the working classes until the 19^th century and was only generalised in the 20^th, just in time to be confronted by the wave of audio and video that has swept the world. The return of sounds and images after the mental voices and pictures of print had a stunning effect on the literate, but the Majority World of illiteracy was only impacted by the visual novelty, as the inner voice of reading was absent. Literacy modifies the message carried by more recent media, with regards to illiteracy. There are two different receptions. The transformation of sounds into signs and back again builds connections between sight and hearing that only take place in the mind. Eyes and ears are separate sense organs that must learn to cooperate inside the brain. This cerebral gymnastic increases participation, objectifies emotions and cools the message. 

Phonetic alphabets make reading and writing easy skills to acquire. Chinese children, who still have to learn numerous ideograms, reach the age of nine without having studied anything else. Literacy is also simplified when a nation is linguistically homogenous. India’s diversity of tongues is a huge handicap for general literacy. The Arabic speaking world has a common language and a phonetic alphabet. Situated at the junction of East and West, it was the hive of inventiveness that inspired the European Renaissance. But, after being ravaged by the Mongols, it was subjected to imperial dominion by the Ottomans and, after 1920, by Europeans and Americans. Nationalism was suppressed along with spoken idioms. Colonial rule and central power meant that the Book was not published in idiomatic form, and no national churches emerged. Reading Koranic Verses and writing Classical Arabic had little to do with the languages spoken and heard, barely more than Medieval Church Latin had in Europe. The sultan’s rule prevented change. It averted the birth of nations and the spread of literacy though all the tools were at hand. (Admittedly, classic Arabic calligraphy lends itself less easily than Greek and Latin letters to movable type setting. It has had to be simplified for print). Even to-day some Arab nations have low rates of literacy because of poverty and the corrupt use of public money. And Koranic schools are of little use, because they teach the orthodox classical version of the Book. 

Some parts of the world had developed primitive forms of writing, and some had no writing at all, when Europeans conquered and colonised them. Some languages disappeared along with those who spoke them, but the others survived and have been transcribed into phonemes by generations of ethnologists. All languages are now written, but vast numbers cannot read the signs. They can access audio and video but not print. A few decades ago, radio and TV seemed destined to submerge the written media. Reading was considered a passé occupation, and the march to universal literacy got bogged down. However, new technology has brought back writing with a vengeance. The Web has assembled trillions of pages of text that can be read almost anywhere, and Twitter has transformed the way news are circulated, in both private and public spheres. Reading and writing skills are more indispensable than ever before. And yet literacy has regressed in many parts of the world, because of prolonged conflicts and government restrictions, and because Hertzian media do not need schooling and are easily controlled. The ideological and political decisions to abandon the spread of literacy have had disastrous results. They have widened the technology gap into a chasm, and have played heedlessly with dangerous tools. The Reichssender was instrumental to the rise of National Socialism in Germany. Just as Radio Mille Collines was instrumental to the Rwandan genocide of 1994. And to-day’s extremist movements everywhere prefer audio and video messages. They have, as always, a predilection for the vituperative harangue of audible words, and shun the participative coolness of print. Domination no longer needs universal literacy, as it is easier to control the diffusion of sound and images than that of print. But reading and writing are an essential element of human technological evolution, and have been for millennia. Why should half of humanity (2/3?) be deprived of that birthright?