The
paradox of the United States is that, to an extent greater than in any other
economically developed nation, it appears to contain more of the best and
meritorious things in life and also more of the debased and deplorable things,
existing alongside each other.
Any list of the world’s greatest
universities is usually overloaded with American universities in the top ten.
Whereas the level of American political education for the general population
appears to be absolutely deplorable. How does one reconcile these apparently
disparate facts?
This is by way of introducing some
puzzling facts that have been drawn to my attention by the dissident American journalist
and activist Chris Hedges, whose excellent weekly interview programme is on RT Television. Get that, it is on Russia Today, a station that is held up on an almost daily basis
for ridicule and in fear by the atrophied minds in the mainstream information
system, minds that pass for the commentariat in the United States. Hedges
introduces every week a different person of high quality, of both
intellect and morality, of both eloquence and persuasiveness, who has made
his or her life by exposing and struggling against the prevailing mediocrity.
This week he had an interview with a
man I had never heard of or who if I had heard of him before, I had forgotten
all about. His name is Howie Hawkins, and he is one of those unfortunate people
who have stood for President of the United States in the colours of the Green
Party, Ralph Nader being another. Hawkins is still at it, as is Nader, still
advocating for the policies of his party, whose highest vote in any presidential
election has been 2.7 per cent of the votes cast.
Hedges presented to him only one
criticism, that when they organized a presidential campaign, the Green Party usually
gave the appearance of having arrived from the top down, from a following
composed mostly of white, middle-class people, rather than having grown among
the grassroots of ordinary people’s lives.
He admitted it, said they had never yet mastered the art of supporting
people in their immediate needs, thus earning their political support. He
insisted, quite reasonably, that the job of just getting on the ballot was
confronted by countess obstacles, intentionally put in place to prevent third
parties from contending.
He says the Greens need 800,000
signatures, and $1.5 million dollars just to have some coordinators for the volunteers
needed merely to get all those signatures.
“Our first problem is just to get on the ballot.”
And then, when once on the ballot,
they discover they need to have millions of dollars if they are to advertise
what they stand for. It is not for nothing, he suggested, that mainstream
parties are maintained by the untold wealth provided by corporations and individually wealthy entrepreneurs, who
contribute in the expectation that the politician elected will do their
bidding.
These, however, are not the facts
that set me off on this. Rather, the facts that blew my mind were introduced by Hedges, who ran through a
catalogue of serious political issues on which, according to polls, most
Americans agree, but none of which issues is being addressed by either major
party.
Here is his formidable list:
82 per cent believe there is too much
money in politics;
69 per cent believe business has too
much power;
78 per cent believe stronger
enforcement is needed of laws regulating the financial industry;
82 per cent believe inequality in the
U.S. is “big”;
59 per cent favour raising the
minimum amount low-wage workers can make and still obtain a special income tax credit for
low-wage people;
96 per cent believe money in politics
is to blame for the dysfunction of the American system;
76 per cent believe the wealthy
should pay higher taxes;
59 per cent agree with raising the
minimum wage to $12 an hour;
61 per cent approve of labour unions;
60 per cent believe the federal
government should be responsible to make
sure all Americans have health care;
60 per cent believe in expanding Medicare to all;
59 per cent believe there should be
free early-childhood education;
76 per cent are very concerned about
climate disruption;
84 per cent are in favour of
background checks for all gun owners;
58 per cent believe that abortions
should be available in all or most cases.
This
is a formidable list (Hedges says it is excerpted from an article by Peter
Dreier in American Prospect in
November 2017) of public attitudes and yet, as he adds, “none of these issues
are being addressed.”
Hawkins adds: “And that’s the problem
with American politics. Public preferences do not translate into policy,
because the political system responds to the donors and not the voters and
that’s why the Greens have to be still out there.”
If this isn’t a warning to Canadians --- for whom, Pierre Trudeau once told the Washington Press Club members, living
next to the US is like sleeping next to an elephant. “No
matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one
is affected by every twitch and grunt” --- then I don’t know what kind of
warning they need. Canada’s political experience has been --- to quote
philosopher George Grant, writing in the 1950s --- that its business class has
always held itself ready to oppose any serious move to assert Canadian national
objectives.
One might agree or disagree with that, in
general terms, but in the context of North America, where the gnat has to
co-exist with the elephant, it seems to me that to maintain any semblance of
real independence, Canada has to be ready to assert its national objectives
forcefully. Never more so than now, when the United States has fallen into the accidental
black hole of Trump administration, and we find ourselves being subjected to
tariffs on security grounds that have nothing to do with security, and that are
not the actions of a friendly nation.
Under the first Trudeau Prime
Minister efforts were made to divert some part of our trade from the United
States to other partners (following, I might say, the wishes expressed by Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker before the return
of Liberal rule). I remember when
I came to this country in the early 1950s, two things shocked me: one was the
high level of Canadian economy controlled by Americans and their companies, and
the second shocking thing was the equanimity of Canadians in face of this fact.
The Foreign Investment
Review Agency (FIRA) was established by the Trudeau government in 1973 “to ensure that the foreign
acquisition and establishment of businesses in Canada was beneficial to the
country.” Under the new Agency, takeovers were to be assessed based on ”their
contribution to job creation, Canadian participation in management, competition
with existing industries, new technology, and compatibility with federal and
provincial economic policies.” Two of the prime movers in this effort to get
Canadian control over foreign investment were young economists Mel Watkins and
the late James Laxer. But even in the New Democratic Party the proponents of the mild
nationalism expressed by the Trudeau government was responded to with a heavy
hand.The faction known to history as ”the Waffle group”, led by Laxer and
Watkins, was expelled from the NDP by Ontario leader Stephen Lewis, and were never allowed back
into the party. This is a mistake that socialists in the United Kingdom never
made: when the Attlee government came to power in 1945, many of their most
effective ministers -- Stafford Cripps, Aneurin Bevan, Harold Wilson among them
--- were radicals who had been expelled from the party, and allowed back
in.
That timidity of the NDP is a measure
of how close Canada always is of falling into the mauling grip of the American
elephant. As soon as Conservative rule over Canada was re-established by Brian
Mulroney in 1984, the tentative efforts at dispersal of Canada’s economy were
promptly abandoned, and in 1988 an election
was fought over the single question of free trade with the United States. End
of national assertion for Canada.
We are now able to judge more
coherently Justin Trudeau’s boast that “Canada is back” when he was elected
Prime Minister.
So far, the statement appears to have
had little, if any meaning.
Maybe he meant that Canada is on its
back, begging to be tickled by the elephant.
Wel-l-l….wot the hell, wot the hell….
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