A 1946 View of Good Government

As I watch the following I'm shocked at how much the US (and most countries) have slid toward despotism. This educational film was put together in the aftermath of a horrible struggle against fascism and Nazi power:



The following struck me:

• Looking beyond fine words and noble phrases - This is reaction to the harsh nationalism of the 1930s. But notice how politicians today continue to tout high ideals but when you look at their private lives you find hypocrisy and sleaze, self-serving. (The Republican sex scandals and the current Democrat "ethics" scandals come to mind.


• How many citizens get an even break - Starting with sleazy shows in the 1980s such as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous respect for hard work was replaced by idolization of wealth and power. The rise of "gated communities" is a symptom.


• Equal opportunity for all citizens to develop useful skills & the opportunity to put skills to use - Wow! Currently 10% of the population doesn't even get the opportunity to hold a job. The rising cost of education means that higher education is becoming a privilege of the elite while at the same time is becoming a necessity in the marketplace.


• Democracy can ebb away in communities whose citizens allow power to become concentrated in the hands of bosses - This bit raises in my mind the overweening power of corporations through lobbying in Congress. The fact that those in power have a 95% re-election rate says to me that the real power of citizens via the ballot box has already ebbed away.


• Look beyond the legal formalities of an election in measuring a community on the power scale - As I hear this I think of the bizarre practice of gerrymandering which creates wierdly shaped Congressional districts to entrench one party's power. Sure people get to go through the formality of voting, but if the district is carved up to ensure one voice dominates, it isn't a real election.


• When legislatures become purely ceremonial assemblies only and have no real control over law-making - As I hear this I think of the ludicrous pantomime of "legislative deliberation" currently going on in Congress where a minority filibuster's the legislature to a standstill and when a majority isn't enough to advance legislation but everything requires a "super majority". And I also think of the Republican stunts such as Newt Gingrich bringing Congress to a halt and forcing the shutdown of government because they refused to pass a budget, or the more recent charade of Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning blocking unemployment aid and stopping federal highway contracts because he suddenly got "religion" over balancing the budget (something that didn't bother him when he support Bush in all kinds of unfunded bills that ballooned the deficit).


• If a communities economic distribution becomes slanted - Since the early 1970s the top 1% have moved from having a total income less than half that of the bottom 99% of the population to the situation today where that top 1% gets as much income as the bottom 99% (see this paper). Seems pretty obvious to me that despotism stands a much better chance to get a foothold. And I would argue that Republican political tactics of using fundamentalist Christians to win elections while hiding their real legislative intentions from these dupes. When in power the Republicans don't put right wing Christian social policy into law. Instead they write tax cuts and more tax cuts because the real purpose of the Republicans is a despotism of the very rich, i.e. the Republican legislators are lackeys of the super-rich.


• When farmers lose their farms they lose their independence - The US is no longer an agricultural nation, so when I hear this I translate it to "when workers lose their jobs, they lose their independence". When you can't feed your family, you give up unions and the niceties of civilization in a desperate race to the bottom. Today cities are proud of out-bidding other cities to give tax breaks to big corporations to "lure business" to their locality. But this is simply substituting taxes that would have been paid by corporations into more taxes on the middle and lower classes who have to make up the loss in tax revenue.


• Maintaining economic balance is a challenging problem - I would update this to read "in a recessionary environment where jobs are drying up like puddles under hot noon sun, maintaining a civil society -- schools that provide a full curriculum, public facilities like parks and libraries, etc. become a challenging problem.


• Another sign of a poorly balanced economy is a taxation system that presses heaviest on those least able to pay - The Regan & Bush tax cuts have continually moved taxes onto the backs of middle and lower classes while lifting it from the rich under the argument that you need to "incentivize" the entrepreneurs to strive to build their fortunes. But while this sounds good, the truth is that by their very nature entrepreneurs will struggle hard to get ahead even if burdened. So the entire thrust of public policy over the last 40 years has been misdirected and, as this video points out, is leading the country toward despotism.


• See how a community trains its teachers - The fact that the word "drill" is highlighted on the blackboard is telling. The push of the last 40 years in the swing to the right is away from schools as a place to nurture individual students and bring out their special talents to one where you beat them all down to fit the same mold, you focus on "basics" and don't bother with letting students ask questions or wonder why things must be the way they are. For me, this bit is the heart of this film. In post-Depression, post-WWII America, schools took on a new vision of raising a citizenry who would not fall prey to nationalist despots by encouraging youth to question authority. But starting with the uncomfortable 1960s when a government wanted to squelch unpleasant questions about Vietnam where the US government assassinated a president and support puppet regimes and where an endless war to stop a mythical "domino effect" that would topple supposedly honest governments and replace them with Communist tyranny, there has been a push by the right to stop the educational process of "question authority" and replace it with drill and "back to the basics".


• How dare you question the facts - The idea that if something is "written in a book" then it must be true is certainly a linchpin to despotism. Fundamentalist Christians put this on a pedestal with their "inerrancy of the Bible" when history clearly shows a historical process by which early Christian writings were culled. Books like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of James were tossed out. Odd if the canon was inerrant (and presumably complete from the beginning). See Wikipedia here, here, and here. The Republicans have done something like this by raising the idea of "strict construction" of the Constitution to a pedestal. These are all steps on the way to despotism.


• It is possible for newspapers and other forms of communication to be controlled by private interest - This video shows control of media to satisfy corporate advertisers. But more relevant is the current narrowing of control of media into a small number of hands, such as right wing fanatic Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox News ("fair and balanced"), the Wall Street Journal, and many, many other media in the US through his News Corporation conglomerate.

It is very interesting to me that this educational video was produced in 1946 to arm America's youth against the scourge of fascism. Nazism, and Communism. But these warnings are very, very relevant to today. The US has backed itself into a corner, something unforeseen in 1946. These warnings apply to today but not at a foreign social philsophy, but at a political party in the US that fronts for the interests of a narrow elite of super-rich and corporations in the US.