Rand's Rugged Individualist Myth

Acronym Required

Acronym Required observes science and technology policy.

Rand's Rugged Individualist Myth

By a.r.e. on March 12, 2009 5:59 PM
© 2004-2012 Acronymrequired.com 

 

Quarry in The Quarry

  This is a continuation of our last post "The Galt Gestalt". We admit, one post is probably enough, Ayn Rand has been memorialized quite enough, thank-you very much. Companies like the demolition contractor at the World Trade Towers site proudly name themselves "John Galt this" and "Fountainhead" that. They also name themselves after Howard Roark, and at least one company, an architectural design firm in Minneapolis, named an imaginary "Howard Roark" as a senior partner of the firm.

Thousands of books and hundreds of institutes all over the world celebrate Rand's ideas -- the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, the Ayn Rand Institute, Ayn Rand Society, RebirthofReason.com, Liberty Institute, AtlasShrugged.com, The Atlas Society, The Objectivist Center, Objectivsm 101, Objectivism Reference Center, ObjectivistAcademiccenter.org, AynRandInstitute.ca, and so on.
With all that, who needs more Ayn Rand stuff? Well, the recent outpouring of Randism might benefit from more "balance". The gushing accolades over "Atlas Shrugged" at FOX News and cable news channels -- by announcers who Americanize Rand's first name to "Ann", instead of "Ayn" rhymes with "all mine", or as Rand would say, "swine", might benefit from a more adult reading of her book.

In our post "The Galt Gestalt" we talked about modern day Ayn Rand acolytes -- those who maybe didn't have the opportunity to write books with her like Alan Greenspan, but who still forward her ideas and writing. We admit, we at Acronym Required did read her books -- in junior high school -- as the fiction they are. So we're always surprised that full grown adults actually say that Rand's half a century old books foresaw America's current economic state.
In the "Galt Gestalt", we reviewed the movie "The Fountainhead", with its fallible characters Howard Roark and Dominique, set among quarries and "modern" 1940's buildings -- all Roark's "creations". We challenged Rand's portrayal of Roark as a "creator" rather than a destroyer or terrorist, and questioned how such daft writing by could be misinterpreted for 2009 economic wisdom. We observed that today's coterie of Rand admirers pick and choose the parts of her philosophy they like and disregard the bits that don't fit their political agenda -- like her complete intolerance of mixing religion with politics. Indeed, she warned Reagan on mixing politics with religion:

"What we are seeing is the medievalism of the Puritans all over again, but without their excuse of ignorance....The New Right is not the voice of Americanism. It is the voice of thought control attempting to take over in this country and pervert and undo the actual American revolution....."

You don't hear too much talk of that these days, do you?

Was Roark a "Creator"? Or a Terrorist?
 
Some executives say that "The Fountainhead" is their very favorite work, but maybe they never read it, or maybe they never got to the end. Because incongruously, in "The Fountainhead", Howard Roark blows up buildings with explosives, then defends his crimes by telling a jury some fantastic gobbledygook about great "creators" who stood up to all the men. Each individual scientist or inventor, he intones

"lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement..."

How can a novel where the main character dynamites buildings be seen as a blueprint for America, a nation that reviles people who even associate with those who associated with those who threatened to blow up buildings? There's some irony to the fact that former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, who is actually a respected professor and Chicago community service leader, is labeled a "terrorist" by the same people who hold fictional dynamite wielder Howard Roark as a "hero".


Rand-ites Who Transcend Rand's Scorn
 
Perhaps these people who adulate Rand, the creator of the hero terrorist are just fantastic hypocrites. It's true, everyone, including us, capably cherry-picks their evidence. So just as Rand's most fervent admirers cherry-pick her ideas, she cherry-picked her evidence, her ideals, and her followers. Today's Randites are consistent then in their love, because Rand consistently scorned those who most fervently embraced her ideas. Do they know that Rand dismissed libertarians as "a random collection of emotional hippies-of-the-right who seek to play at politics without philosophy"? It's a dysfunctional relationship, for sure, but they loved and love her just as Howard Roark pined for Dominique in the quarry in the "The Fountainhead" and made statutes in her image while she married other men.

Why the enduring adoration? Why are sales of "Atlas Shrugged" still booming, aside from the fact that it's impressively thick but vapidly light read -- a delirious combination of Harlequin romance and "For Dummies" -- perfect airplane reading? "Thick book you have there..."

Americans and The Myth of the Rugged Enterprising Individual
 
What is this persevering and hypocritical adulation of Rand? Is it the refusal to let go of the myth of the rugged individual? Historically, the US had some very hardy Americans, Teddy Roosevelt, for instance. Read accounts of his Amazon exploration and shudder at his rugged manliness. But the US and its corporate economy certainly hasn't been a wunderkind of noble individualists recently.
Way back in 1984, Roger Rosenblatt wrote about this strange phenomenon, asking in Time magazine's ("The Rugged Individual Rides Again"): "Why the pretense--why the evident pleasure--in seeing the country as a collection of loners?"
 
Now, twenty-five years later, the myth may be less intact, but politicians still pimp it. It has served the GOP well since Ronald Reagan rode in with his "Morning in America" theme. Perhaps it made sense for Reagan then, 30 or so years ago, because Reagan came up in Hollywood at the same time as Ayn Rand. He seemed to be acting out his fantasy part as the rugged individualist, with his ranch, the far-away (albeit perhaps diseased) look in his eye, and his incessant portrayal of individuals with mythical powers -- "Tear down this wall!" (- another myth).

Two decades later GW Bush didn't ride horses around a ranch like Reagan, but he did purchase that dried out piece of land in Texas, where he would gamely pull on gloves -- Ironclad Icon Series Extreme Duty^TM gloves no doubt -- over soft citified hands so he could hack at brush for rolling cameras. The American rugged male image is very particular, you see, and can't be properly projected from the decks of a Kennebunkport yacht.

Rugged Individual Jumps the Shark
 
If the whole American rugged individualism was seen as "hypocritical" by the mainstream magazine Time, over two decades ago in 1984, it's even more far-fetched played out by GW Bush. And when Bobby Jindal took a stab at the iconic myth the other day the whole idea jumped the shark.
Talking about how he went down to the docks after Hurricane Katrina and saved some people threatened by bureaucracy Jindal deadpanned:

"Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people. There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens."

It took mere hours, if not minutes, for people to uncloak Jindal's lies. You see, for Americans, "enterprising spirit" has been exploited so much that Americans can be skeptical and cynical, especially when it involves someone that doesn't quite look the part.

Interestingly though, while everyone attacked the part of Jindal's story about the Katrina survivors when they found out that Jindal wasn't on the scene at all, the larger myths that his tale served stayed preposterously intact. First, despite his claim, there is no bureaucracy in the US that impedes "enterprising spirit". There is bureaucracy without a doubt. But the federal government largely enables and serves interests of business and corporations, foremost, property rights and laws. Occasionally, like with the Clean Air regulations, the federal government attempts to protect individuals. Obviously, as Jindal's talk unraveled into lies, we recognized just how fantastic the notion that he's the rugged leader leading all the rugged individuals.

Rugged Individual or a Cog in the Machine
 
What's interesting about Rand's perseverance as an American male fantasy is that we're so far from the Cold War era in which Rand became a political fixture. Nevertheless the rugged individual myth is one that the American people still cling to. This myth still matters because it not only nourishes the GOP, it feeds GDP.

Every day docile citizens drive off to jobs in their all-terrain SUVs, which perhaps keeps all these workers thinking about how "rugged" they are. Politicians and businesses and economists push the conceit since its certainly an easier populist sell than all the proceeding political-economic models -- monarchy, colonialism, feudalism, slavery, etc. But the myth is outdated.
A global economy needs global leaders, and individuals who work together as "teams", as annoying as that concept is. Today, the enemy is certainly not "the collective", although that might have been a believable enemy for someone who immigrated from the Soviet Union half a century ago. Nor is the enemy "the government", which has secured property laws, patent law, corporate law, free trade, privatization, and an entire infrastructure that serves capitalism and private enterprise. There is no salient enemy. Except perhaps terrorists who explode and burn buildings -- like Roark.

Of course that is not what we hear from media because there would be no television news if not for enemies and wars, and if the market did not first go up, then come down, and if there were not Democrats who opposed Republicans and Republicans who opposed Democrats. How could we go to all our boring jobs day after day if we did not have the network news anchors to break things up, with their histrionics, their drama, and their enemies? This eases the boredom and it helps us feel whole and human, even as so much of what humans do is totally dehumanizing. But lets separate entertainment from information and policy. We are not rugged individuals.
 
Rand & Marx
 
I previously described how Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, like many Rand fans, thought the fiction of "Atlas Shrugged" was "eerily similar" to today's events.

But if anyone believes Rand predicted economic events of today more than half a century ago, you should read more carefully to see how many predictions she made that were just plain wrong. Adjust your attitude slightly and Ayn Rand is no more than a cheap novelist who coincidentally, seemed to get a lot of her ideas from Karl Marx.

On economic ideas, her books advocate capitalism, but her ideas were bounded by her experience, that is, Bolshevik history and the Cold War. Some people see Lenin in her work but it's Marx, whose philosophy Rand opposed mightily, who she seems most often quote. Both Karl Marx and Rand ruminated on the higher purpose that humans sought through fighting nature with labor. For instance, compare Marx's words about the purpose of man, and compare those of Rands's Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead".

• Karl Marx said: "He [man] opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces. in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants."
• Howard Roark said: "The creator's concern is the conquest of nature".

Sixty years ago when Rand wrote her epic stories, humans were still ensconced in what we would dub today as "a war on nature". Indeed many still farmed and fished, though far less than their ancestors. But now in the 21st century humans have decimated so many ecosystems, how can we perpetuate the belief that we humans don't have the upper hand? In fact, our domination is so complete that the North and South poles are collapsing back in on us. Paradoxically, nature still presents challenges, but it's global warming, which is really a fight against ourselves. Our 21st century reality is vastly different than what Rand and Marx knew. Do we benefit as a society from compelling individuals to prove their worth in big highway cruisers?

In addition to their "man against nature" framework, Marx and Rand shared other constructs. Marx had his class struggle as do Rand's followers. Today the internet swirls with talk about "Going Galt", the folly that professional workers should walk off the job if the tax rate increases. Marx and Rand also both used architects to illustrate their vision of the ideal laborer, loner builders who worked for themselves, strictly for their own purposes, for the sake of work.

• Karl Marx, writing on how bees build intricate hives noted, "...what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own..." 
• Howard Roark said: "Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision...His truth was his only motive. His work was his only goal. His creation...gave form to his truth. I am an architect.

Marx bemoaned the fetishization of labor, the degradation of man's work to capital. Similarly, Rand's architect worked motivated by his vision, his creation, his truth. Neither were motivated by pay, never mind taxes. If there is a class struggle, its not against the government, which is printing money to save large corporations as we speak. Most Americans work for these corporations, and even if they're a self-employed electrician, their income is completely entwined with the banks. There are few "creations" to speak of unless the banks making financial instruments counts, and as we've learned, putting rugged individualist cowboys into the world of finance can do real harm.

Ayn Rand and CEOs -- She Completes Them & How Swiftly they Swoon
 
Rand endures partly because she's not part of the curriculum. It's a not so secret society for those who might well have shunned economics. Economics departments don't include Rand in their curricula, yet hundreds of people outside of academia acknowledge how much Ayn Rand influences them. Apparently it doesn't matter to her fans that "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" are cheap potboilers full of hypocritical ideas antithetical to the modern economy.

In a 2007 article, the New York Times interviewed John A. Allison, CEO of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the US, who said of "Atlas Shrugged".

"I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.'s that 'Atlas Shrugged' has had a significant effect on their business decisions...It offers something other books don't: the principles that apply to business and to life in general. I would call it complete."

And there I was thinking all that math I learned in economics and business classes was so important, when all I needed to read was Rand's overly thick Harlequin romance?

Then in January, 2009, the Times reported that Allison's company BB&T profit fell 26% in the 4th quarter of 2008, and so the bank accepted $3.1 billion in government money". Poof? Just like that? Enterprising spirit of America gone? Rand out the window? To hell with "principles"? Mr. Allison can you comment? Should we shelve Rand next to Marx, now that it's 2009 not 1945?

Worshipping the individual and the market may be what business leaders say they like to hear, but when push comes to shove, it more often than not thrown out as soon as something more self-serving appears.

The American Image Dilemma
 
Rand's ideas don't make for successful individuals any more than they make successful businesses. A few years ago Americans strongly believed in their rugged individualism, as they flipped houses and extracted equity and took out big mortgages from aggrandizing lenders. Now they're feeling a little chastised, mad even. Americans are now in 2009 caught up in the throes of a financial behemoth of their collective making, generated by private banking and enterprises they don't understand. But ironically, what better time to encourage them to feel like rugged individuals again?

But, although "rugged individualism" is evidently music to emasculated workers' ears, it's hard to buy. The USA is, after all, a country where 30% of the people are obese. Rugged doesn't usually come in size 3X stretchy pants. As well, Rand preached "reason" not religion, but 50% of the people believe in the Creator, not the "creator", and will tell you that humans roamed the earth with dinosaurs 6000 years ago. In 2009, the fact that the GOP tries to lead by encouraging this pathetic a level Randian thinking from its citizens doesn't bode well for the nation of "knowledge workers".

But the GOP may be unable to come up with anything else. The party seems superglued to the rugged individual image and in it's service, they've forwarded the most unlikely series of messengers -- Joe the Plumber, Bobby Jindal, Michael Steele, Sarah Palin. Nice try, attempting to be both the party for "one-armed midgets", and the party of rugged individualists a la Reagan? Seriously Republicans and America in general, the individualists, the midgets, and everyone else deserves a more up to date and congruous image.

Of course in the frightening series of public relations debacles by the GOP and their media, Rand actually plays a tiny role. The rugged pioneering individualist myth is a strained fictional construct. But unfortunately, Rand fans and some in the GOP do have one winning strategy, which is to promote the facile idea that far, far less government is better (except military and police). It's a winning strategy because the US (and every other state) will never have no regulation. Government regulation is what ensures "free markets". Therefore Ayn Rand fans have a permanent platform in their cries for less government.

Like the unlikely longevity of the myth of the rugged individualist, now it's painfully obvious that deregulation is not the answer. But it's child's play for Randians to argue that George W. Bush was no Ayn Rand, and we need still less regulation. When we examine the notion however, it's clear that this too is part and parcel of old plot lines from outdated fiction. Although mid-century may be faddish and fine for furniture, if orange plastic chairs and aqua blue polyester are your thing, by any measure, it doesn't work for economic policy.

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Tags:

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The Self-Made Myth: Debunking Conservatives' Favorite -- And Most Dangerous -- Fiction

AlterNet.org

VISIONS  

AlterNet / By Sara Robinson

The Self-Made Myth: Debunking Conservatives' Favorite -- And Most Dangerous -- Fiction

A new book makes a strong case that nobody ever makes it on their own in America.

April 25, 2012  |  

 

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

The self-made myth is one of the most cherished foundation stones of the conservative theology. Nurtured by Horatio Alger and generations of beloved boys' stories, It sits at the deep black heart of their entire worldview, where it provides the essential justification for a great many other common right-wing beliefs. It feeds the accusation that government is evil because it only exists to redistribute wealth from society's producers (self-made, of course) and its parasites (who refuse to work). It justifies conservative rage against progressives, who are seen as wanting to use government to forcibly take away what belongs to the righteous wealthy. It's piously invoked by hedge fund managers and oil billionaires, who think that being required to reinvest any of their wealth back into the public society that made it possible is "punishing success." It's the foundational belief on which all of Ayn Rand's novels stand.

If you've heard it once from your Fox-watching uncle, you've probably heard it a hundred times. "The government never did anything for me, dammit," he grouses. "Everything I have, I earned. Nobody ever handed me anything. I did it all on my own. I'm a self-made man."

He's just plain wrong. Flat-out, incontrovertibly, inarguably wrong. So profoundly wrong, in fact, that we probably won't be able to change the national discourse on taxes, infrastructure, education, government investment, technology policy, transportation, welfare, or our future prospects as a country until we can effectively convince the country of the monumental wrongness of this one core point. 

The Built-Together Realty
Brian Miller and Mike Lapham have written the book that lays out the basic arguments we can use to begin to set things right. The Self-Made Myth: The Truth About How Government Helps Individuals and Businesses Succeed is a clear, concise, easy-to-read-and-use summary that brings forward a far more accurate argument about government's central role in creating the conditions for economic prosperity and personal opportunity.

Miller, the executive director of United For a Fair Economy, and Lapham, a co-founder of UFE's Responsible Wealth project, argue that the self-made myth absolves our economic leaders from doing anything about inequality, frames fair wages as extortion from deserving producers, and turns the social safety net into a moral hazard that can only promote laziness and sloth. They argue that progressives need to overwrite this fiction with the far more supportable idea of the "built-together reality," which points up the truth that nobody in America ever makes it alone. Every single private fortune can be traced back to basic public investments that have, as Warren Buffet argues in the book, created the most fertile soil on the planet for entrepreneurs to succeed.

To their credit, Miller and Lapham don't ask us to take this point on faith. Right out of the gate, they regale us with three tales of famous "self-made" men -- Donald Trump, Ross Perot and the Koch brothers, whose own stories put the lie to the myth. (This section alone is worth the price of admission -- these guys so did not make it on their own!) Once those treasured right-wing exemplars are thoroughly discredited, the middle of the book offers a welcome corrective: interviews with 14 wealthy Americans -- including well-known names like Warren Buffet, Ben Cohen, Abigail Disney, and Amy Domini, who are very explicit about the ways in which government action laid the groundwork for their success. Over and over, these people credit their wealth to:

* An excellent education received in public schools and universities. Jerry Fiddler of Wind River Software (you're probably running his stuff in your cell phone or car) went to the University of Chicago, and started his computer career at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Bookseller Thelma Kidd got her start at Texas Tech and the University of Michigan. Warren Buffet went to the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Nebraska as an undergrad. And beyond that: several interviewees paid for their educations with federal Pell Grants and Stafford loans.

Over and over, the point gets made: public universities -- and the good public schools that feed them, and the funding programs that put them within financial reach -- have hatched millions of American entrepreneurs who might not have been fledged without that opportunity to get an education.

 * The support of the Small Business Administration and other government agencies. Ben Cohen notes that almost all the business training he and Jerry Greenfield had came from the extension courses at the University of Vermont and Penn State, and small brochures produced by the SBA. And as they spun up, they also got an Urban Development Action Grant from the federal government. Other interviewees started their businesses in incubators or other quarters provided or arranged by their local city governments.

* A strong regulatory environment that protected their businesses from being undercut by competitors willing to cut corners, and ensured that their manufacturing inputs are of consistently high quality. Glynn Lloyd of Boston's City Fresh Foods points out that nobody in the food business can get by without reliable sources of clean water; and that the USDA inspection process is an important piece of his quality control.

* Enforceable copyright and intellectual property laws that enabled them to protect good ideas. Abigail Disney recalls that her father, Roy Disney, and her Uncle Walt made and lost one great cartoon character -- Oswald the Rabbit -- because they didn't have copyright protection. They didn't repeat that mistake when Mickey Mouse was born three years later, launching the Disney empire.

* A robust system of roads, ports, airports, and mass transit that enabled them to reliably move their goods both within the US, and around the world. Kim Jordan of New Belgium Brewing (the makers of Fat Tire beer) points out that "Beer is heavy, and it needs to be transported in vehicles. Certainly, the highway system has been important to New Belgium Brewing." Lloyd also points out that Boston's excellent public transit system enables him to draw on a far wider employee base.

* The government's role in creating the Internet, without which almost no modern company can function. Anirvan Chatterjee built Bookfinder.com (now a subsidiary of Amazon.com), the world's biggest online used-book marketplace, an achievement that wouldn't have been remotely imaginable without DARPA, the establishment and enforcement of common protocols, and significant congressional investment in the 1980s to take the Internet commercial.

* The ability to issue public stock in a fair, reliable, regulated marketplace  -- a benefit that raised the value of several interviewees' companies by about 30 percent overnight. Peter Barnes, founder of Working Assets, spoke with concern about the loss of trust in this system over the past decade. "The corporate scandals [Enron and Worldcom] caused people to stop trusting the numbers that companies were reporting. Imagine how much value is created by trust and the whole system that assures that trust?"

Besides the government, most of those interviewed also locate their companies in the context of a large community of customers they utterly depend on for their success. "It takes a village to raise a business," says Nikhil Arora of Back to the Roots, a sustainable products company that came about through partnerships and grants from UC Berkeley, Peet's Coffee and other interested parties.

Others are quick to acknowledge the contributions of their employees, without whom their companies wouldn't exist. When Gun Denhart and her husband sold their company, children's clothier Hanna Andersson, in 2003, they distributed a healthy portion of the sale proceeds to their employees, prorated on the basis of their length of service.

All businesses exist within a vast network of human connections -- customers, vendors, employees, investors, and the communities that support their work. These stories make it clear: saying you did it all yourself and therefore don't owe anybody anything is about as absurd (and self-centered) as saying that you raised yourself from babyhood, without any input from your parents, and therefore don't have any further obligations to your family.

The Role of Luck and Timing

We all know wealth isn't just a matter of hard work, brains or talent. Most of us probably know some hard-working, brilliant, or extraordinarily talented people who aren't being rewarded at anything close to their true value. So perhaps the most intriguing and useful part of the book is a long discussion of the many other factors that go into making someone wealthy -- factors that are blithely brushed off the table whenever the self-made myth is invoked.

Rich conservatives have to downplay the role of luck. After all, if we think they're just lucky, rather than exceptionally deserving of exceptional wealth, we'll be a lot more justified in taxing their fortunes. But luck -- the fortunate choice of parents, for example, or landing the right job or industry at the right time -- plays a huge role in any individual's success. Timing also matters: most of the great fortunes of the 19th century were accumulated by men born during the 1830s, who were of an age to capitalize on the huge economic boom created by the expansion of the railroads after the Civil War. Likewise, the great tech fortunes almost all belong to people born between 1950 and 1955, who were well-positioned to create pioneering companies in the tech boom of the late 1970s and 1980s. Such innovative times don't come along very often; and being born when the stars lined up just so doesn't make you more entitled. It just makes you luckier.

Because Americans in general like to think we're an equal society, we're also quick to discount the importance of race, gender, appearance, class, upbringing, and other essential forms of social capital that can open doors for people who have it -- and close them on those who don't. The self-made myth allows us to deflect our attention from these critical factors, undermining our determination to level the playing field for those who don't start life with a pocket fat with advantages.

What Changes?


The book winds up with specific policy prescriptions that can bring the built-together reality back into sharper political and cultural focus. The last section shows how abandoning the self-made myth for a built-together reality creates fresh justification for a more progressive income tax, the repeal of the capital gains exemption and raising corporate and inheritance taxes. It also makes a far more compelling philosophical backdrop against which progressives can argue for increased investment in infrastructure, education, a fair minimum wage, a strong social safety net, and better anti-discrimination laws.

But the most striking thing about the book -- implicit throughout, but explicit nowhere -- was the alternative vision of capitalism it offers. Throughout the book, Miller and Lapham seem to be making the tacit case that businesses premised on the built-together reality are simply more fair, more generous, more sustainable, and more humane. While far from perfect (Disney's empire being one case in point), they are, as a group, markedly more aware of the high costs of exploiting their workers, their customers, the economy, or the environment. Owners who believe themselves to be beholden to a community for their success will tend to value and invest back into that community, and they seem to be far more willing to realize when they've got enough and it's time to start giving back.

The implication is clear: if we can interrupt American's long love affair with the self-made myth, we will effectively pull the center tent pole out from under the selfish assumptions that shelter most of the excesses of corporate behavior that characterize our age. This isn't just another point of contention between progressives and conservatives; it's somewhere near the very center of the disconnect between our worldviews. The Self-Made Myth is an essential primer that gives us the language and stories to begin talking about this difference, and the tools to begin to bend that conversation in some new and more hopeful directions.

Sara Robinson, MS, APF is a social futurist and the editor of AlterNet's Vision page. Follow her on Twitter, or subscribe to AlterNet's Vision newsletter for weekly updates.

The Dark Side of America Emerges From the Shadows, Rears its Ugly Head

April 25, 2012 at 14:39:20

The Dark Side of America Emerges From the Shadows, Rears its Ugly Head

By michael payne (about the author)




Dark by codenamezapper.deviantart.com


There is an unsettling element of our society that's always been present. However, it's one that's kept its true nature and intentions partially hidden under the guise of seeming normality. Individuals within that element were seen as somewhat manipulative, authoritarian, overly critical and intolerant of others, and self-righteous, but relatively harmless. In recent times this side of America has emerged as an arrogant, domineering force that is determined to reshape this entire society to fit its own demented ideology.

This is the dark side of America; it's that select element in which morality, ethical behavior, integrity, empathy and honor, among other principles and values, are no longer considered to be of great import. This special breed of Americans no longer even try to hide their true sociopathic nature as they brazenly embrace a doctrine of greed, selfishness, corruption, hatred, a penchant for violence, and a love of war.

But, who, specifically, are these people? How many and what percentage of this nation's population are to be found on this dark side? Well, for starters, when polls are taken on a variety of issues involving important social, economic or political matters it seems as if about 70% of Americans generally are in agreement and there is always somewhere around 30% that favor an entirely opposite view; one that is exemplified by an aggressive, unrelenting, ultra-conservative view of how all American people must live their lives.

We might try to make the case that this 30% of Americans who occupy the dark side are largely     Republicans, but that would not really be fair or totally accurate. Based on Gallup and other polling, Republicans make up about 27% of the total electorate. And to be totally fair not all of them should be accused of being on the dark side because a good number of them are simply misguided, misinformed, politically mind-conditioned people who blindly accept whatever the GOP leadership, Fox News hosts, and Rush Limbaugh tell them.

So this dark side is comprised of a large portion of Republicans but also contains Americans who call themselves independents and, yes, there are more than a few Democrats who fit that category. So, let's get more specific and try to identify those individuals, those groups and organizations who occupy this dark side of America.   They are those:

Who manage the machinery of war and the military empire. In this group are those who generate massive profits from war; those who manufacture the weapons of war that are used to invade and occupy other nations and are sold to nations around the world. Those who make the drones that rain hellfire missiles and death down upon suspected terrorists and innocent civilians alike. To them war is not something that should be engaged in as a last resort after all attempts to settle conflicts peacefully fail. No, war is in their blood, they thrive on it and it is what drives and motivates them.

Who are destroying our manufacturing sector, our plants and our workforce. If Corporate America is allowed to have its way we will, over a period of time, see the entire American manufacturing sector become a permanent part of China, India and other overseas nations. These highly profitable     mega-corporations have no loyalty to this country or its workers. While they would vehemently deny it, their primary objective, in the long run, is to have this nation's entire workforce, at least what's left of it, working for the minimum wage -- or even lower.

Who pose as objective journalists but are really in the business of conditioning the minds of Americans to remain passive and silent even as they see their nation in a state of deterioration; pseudo-journalists on TV, radio and in newspapers who are experts at twisting and manipulating the news to promote the agenda of those who want to control this nation by destroying its democracy. While there are still some respected, objective journalists in America, the profession of journalism has now been contaminated by the few mammoth media empires that control it and use it to spread the doctrine and propaganda of the corporate world.

Who work to eliminate vitally important social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and others that are in distinct danger to be absorbed and controlled by the political and financial sectors of the dark side. The vast majority of Republicans, joined by some Democrats, together with the masters of corporate finance, are anxious to convert the resources that support and maintain these programs into a part of the gambling operations that go by the name of Wall Street, the stock and bond markets and their speculators.

Who stir up hatred, bigotry, racism, to create deep divisions among the American people. When has America been so very divided by so many opposing elements and factions? Racism, bigotry, homophobia, chauvinism and other manifestations of disdain or hatred of others, instead of being eliminated by a positive evolution of this society, are rapidly increasing. If the news organizations of this nation had acts of hatred and violence removed from their agenda, they would have nothing of real importance to report and they would slowly dry up and wither away.

Who use religion to promote and spread their own brand of polluted political ideology across America. One of the worst terms that I have ever heard is a "sociopathic Christian." Obviously that's not only an oxymoron but it is also a complete possibility because the two words are diametrically opposed. But the term is often used to describe sociopaths who call themselves Christians. And what do we hear from the religious leaders of America, from those should be preaching the message of peace and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you?" Nothing but silence and more silence.

Who shamelessly take corporate $ to keep their political jobs. Pity these weak-kneed, corrupted politicians who have reduced themselves to no more than slaves and facilitators of Corporate America. They live on the dark side of the Congress where funds for the war machine are continuously approved with no discussion or debate, where laws to regulate the financial sector are either watered down or are never even considered; where Corporate America rules with an iron fist, and where this nation's most critical problems have been erased from the Congress' useless agenda.

Who have decided to insult and disrespect the women of America. This is one of the dumbest, most irrational acts in political history. These GOP agents of gender bias and domination have really gone off the deep end as they are in the process of trying to destroy the rights that have taken the women of America so long to obtain; they want to take down Planned Parenthood, eliminate a woman's right to choose, ban the use of contraceptives, and eliminate laws granting equal pay to women, as was recently done by Governor Walker and his Wisconsin GOP controlled legislature. When these political hacks and fools decided to declare war on the women of this nation, they may have committed political suicide; at least we can hope so -- but could America be so very fortunate, so very lucky?

Who blindly support Israel's brutal, overly aggressive military actions in the Middle East and who accept, condone and applaud Israel's cruel and inhuman actions against Palestinians; especially, the barbarous attacks on the people of Gaza. Those who have no sense of empathy or mercy for the Palestinian people who have, for decades, been the victims of suppression and oppression by the government of Israel. Those who relentlessly beat the drums of war against Iran and will do everything in their power to make it happen.
This dark force is a menace to this nation and our democracy; it has the potential power to destroy this nation from within if its twisted ideology is allowed to run rampant and unchecked. If it succeeds in gaining full control over this government then America will become a living hell. It is a force that poses an extreme, imminent danger to the future of America; it is a force that we must combat and take down.

Michael Payne is an independent progressive activist. His articles concentrate on social, economic and political matters as well as American foreign policy. He is a U.S. Army veteran and a graduate of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. His (more...)
 

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