![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/statoon.jpg\")
\n Catching up on odds and ends from the past week, we came across the
\n notes we took during the President’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday
\n night. We must say, we we quite impressed with his performance, from
\n a purely oratorical and dramatic point of view. The man has clearly been
\n woodshedding his pitch, we are sure with a host of major league pitching
\n coaches and Phded advisors, and the results were impressive. He has almost
\n entirely eliminated the infuriating smirks (they did slip out two or three
\n times, like a naughty toddler sent upstairs to bed who sneaks halfway
\n down the stairs to eavesdrop on the grownups), and replaced it with a
\n warm and sincere-seeming slightly wistful smile, which he flashed with
\n great effect at various members of the crowd as he mentioned them. These
\n artful glances, combined with perfectly timed cutaways to the recipients,
\n created the impression of a caring, engaged leader, and combined with
\n much improved pronunciation and pacing put this speech head and shoulders
\n above the embarrassingly amateurish performances during the Bush-Gore
\n campaign
\n and the early years of his first term.<\/p>\n
As to the content, well, given the willful suspension of disbelief that
\n is the hallmark of modern American culture, we were tremendously reassured
\n by the message of our maximum leader. The Neo-Con land of make-believe in which we live is a brave new world of enlightened political liberation theology. <\/p>\n
Rejoice! We can save Social Security and the flagging stock market at
\n the same time! We are winning the war on terrorism, and will hunt down and eliminate
\n those opposed to our way of life like rabid dogs. We can create a culture
\n of life!<\/p>\n
The beneficent government is protecting African Americans from AIDS!
\n Who knew? We are going to end tyranny in our times. We have no desire
\n or intention to impose our form of government on any other country. Nevertheless,
\n we are going to forcefully promote Democracy around the world.<\/p>\n
We are going to achieve peace in the Middle East, finally, by respecting
\n the right to sovereignty and self-determination of all peoples, which may involve regime
\n change in Iran and Syria.<\/p>\n
The President painted a masterful picture, picking and choosing from
\n a palate of liberty, freedom, democracy and the other core American values.
\n But as the speech wound up, we couldn’t help but notice a few key omissions.
\n For example, there was not a single mention of one key American value,
\n that three-letter linchpin of our economy and geopolitical policy these
\n past hundred years, and for the foreseeable future – O-I-L.<\/p>\n
The reality of what the American political system has morphed into is
\n a new kind of representative democracy, which represents basically
\n the oil and defense industries. This is in accord with the most basic
\n principles of modern statehood, mirrored in various permutations across
\n the board of political systems around the world.<\/p>\n
The business of the modern state is to build things and to blow things up. Given
\n ultimate control of the highest level of generation and utilization of
\n capital, national governments are the biggest players in the first truly
\n worldwide integration of the productive capacity of the entire planet, which
\n we call the global economy. <\/p>\n
Although in theory not profit-making enterprises themselves, national
\n governments nevertheless control the collection and spending of the majority
\n of capital expenditures around the world, and the companies that they
\n favor with their contracts and support are the richest and most powerful
\n on the planet. The owners of the biggest companies involved in building
\n (Haliburton), operating (the oil and energy industry) and defending what
\n we have built while blowing up what our enemies build (the defense
\n industries) have such a vested interest in the budgetary decisions of
\n the national governments that it is little wonder that they have, since
\n their inception, dedicated significant resources to influencing and if
\n possible controlling the politicians who make the spending decisions.<\/p>\n
It is not only in the US and like minded capitalistic democracies where
\n the economic power centers tend to dominate the political policy-makers. In
\n our erstwhile ally Saudi Arabia, for example, in an eerie mirror of our own petrolocracy,
\n the powers behind the throne are the self-same oil industry and the in-house
\n construction empire of the Bin Laden family. Build ’em and blow ’em up, and keep it in the family. Go figure.<\/p>\n
Is it too much of a leap to conclude that the energy industry, near the
\n apex of its historical cycle of oil dependency and economic primacy,
\n would seek to move beyond influencing the politicians who arrive at
\n the top and actually groom and put into place their own wholly-owned
\n subsidiary in the form of an unabashedly oil-drenched and aggressively
\n expansionist administration?<\/p>\n
They are at the top of the heap now, legitimately ensconced in power
\n and feeling their oats after their successful imposition of an apocalyptic
\n vision of an America under siege, but also under courageous leadership
\n determined to carry high the torch of liberty and justice for all. After
\n listening to President Bush Tuesday night, part of us actually wished
\n that his polished but hollow words rang true. What a wonderful world
\n it would be.<\/p>\n
cartoon from Felbers.net<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Catching up on odds and ends from the past week, we came across the notes we took during the President’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night. We must say, we we quite impressed with his performance, from a … Continue reading
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