The US is the oligarch of the world. We know it, and statistics show it.
Of countries with the highest military spending in 2022, the US spends more than the next nine countries combined (chart should say “9” instead of “10” countries). Even worse, US military spending is $2,219 per person, more than twelve times the $191 average of the other nine.
Doesn’t this sort of explain why we don’t have healthcare for all and free higher education like other countries? People in the US pay a high price for being the oligarch of the world. And it is not even as high a price as that paid by people around the globe — in terms of low wages, ecological destruction, and the threat of economic and military intervention, such as sanctions and war.
Lyndon Johnson expressed the cost in his memoir in 1971 two years after he left the presidency. The bolding in the excerpt is mine.
“I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved – the Great Society – in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world (Vietnam), then I would lose everything at home. All my programs. All my hopes to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. All my dreams to provide education and medical care to the browns and the blacks and the lame and the poor. But if I left that war and let the communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser, and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.”
— Lyndon Johnson, former US president
Those last lines — when Johnson says “would be seen as” — point to the problem with oligarchs. They think they know best, or that they should seem to know best, and they don’t.
The more we know about the effects of US foreign policy, the more we know that despite what Lyndon Johnson believed, many US “accomplishments” have not done anything worthwhile for anybody anywhere on the entire globe. Consider, for example, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, actually the whole of Latin America, and the nations of Africa.
Cuba. I was at a rally to “Let Cuba Live!” on November 3 in San Francisco (in the photo I’m in the hat and red jacket). At the rally I was reminded of a simple fact: Biden could pick up his pen and undo the ridiculous charge that Cuba is a “State Sponsor of Terrorism.” Obama removed Cuba from that terrorist list in 2015. Trump added Cuba back in 2021 during the week after the January 6 attempted coup! After more than 60 years, most people in the world and even people in the US recognize that it is both ridiculous and cruel to continue the embargo. What keeps Biden from at least going back to the baby steps that Obama took toward normalizing relationships with Cuba? Is Biden afraid he’ll be “seen as a coward” and our nation will be “seen as an appeaser,” as Lyndon Johnson worried?
OPT OUT OF OLIGARCHY
In our lives, how do we opt out of supporting oligarchy? The following is a revised paragraph from last month’s blog, revised to correct the interview link to be the foreign policy discussion between Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, and to include additional sources of information for you.
What can we do? Patronize local restaurants and businesses, mom-and-pop shops. Get a much wider range of perspectives by listening to non-mainstream media. One example is theAnalysis.news, including a recent interview with Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg. Other examples include The Real News Network (where you can find Chris Hedges after media censorship closed down his show in March 2022); Black Agenda Report; Lee Camp; and Popular Resistance. For Latin America, see also Resumen (the source of this blog’s photo) and Alliance for Global Justice with its NicaNotes. Another way to opt out of oligarchy, wherever it’s possible, is to place your votes and your voter registrations with alternatives like the Green Party or Peace and Freedom Party.
GRATITUDE
Gratitude might be the best antidote to worry and despair — gratitude in addition to doing what we can toward the world that we want. No matter how dismal things seem, we can look around and see what’s beautiful and fun, and we can enjoy our connections with people and the natural world. Gratitude for the wonderful things doesn’t mean you aren’t aware of the problems. People in Latin American countries seem to know the value of celebrating — with all ages included, old folks and small children — all the while they are facing much more intense problems in their daily lives than many of us face.
GREEN VOTER GUIDE
In the Green Voter Guide, you’ll get in-depth analysis of state and local candidates (particularly in Alameda County where the guide is produced). As to the state propositions, as usual, those that make it onto the ballot are almost always flawed — it takes a ton of money to get these supposedly grassroots citizens initiatives on the ballot — however; some are clear, while others are such a mixed bag that even people with similar values disagree on whether to support or oppose. I hope that the write-ups in the guide will help.
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