POLITICS AS VALUES AND DRAMA: Joan Didion and the Kavanaugh hearing

     Joan Didion's POLITICAL FICTIONS remains as relevant as ever in the age of Senate Public TV hearings.   Her book begins with politics of the Dukakis candidacy.  She is eloquent about how insiders create a political message that captures the public response without relating to the issues of the people.  This has become a major occupation of political strategists,  even perhaps by foreign intervention!  Discussing the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, she seems more partisan about the Right marshaling forces against Clinton through Starr.   Didion moves to the left here,  and there is little discussion of the political manipulation of the Clintons toward their opponents.  Their role in politics, for better and worse, has impacted right up to the last election.   The last part of the book is about the rise of the "Religious Right" and here she paints a broad negative picture exploring the effectiveness in this group's rise to power.  
     In this last section, she misses a fundamental point from her own SLOUCHING TO BETHLEHEM:  The 60's was a chaotic time.  The PBS special on the 60s describes the "baby boomer" generation split:  those who smoked dope, had free love, and believed in personal self gratification, and those who studied, stayed home, and believed that self denial and discipline is essential for a good society.   The commentary of Bork, Meese, and Buchanan commenting in the documentary is instructive.   While the narrator extols the 60's rebellion as the seeds of social change in various countries, these men see the events as a failure to respect authority, and self indulgence without any social value.   This is the fundamental conflict of the 60s,  which has become the political world of the 90s and beyond.   It is what fueled the rise of the "Religious Right".  She is correct to see that their media presence is no different than any other political manipulators, just as compromised, but it appeals to the values of certain constituents.  Today,  as cannabis is gradually legalizing across the country,  Sessions still threatens to prosecute its use at the federal level.
     The “rebel” agenda proposes to relax certain social constraints:  pro-abortion,  decriminalize marihuana, provide social rights for gays,  more social and economic recognition for women,  and (some) racial equality.  The opposing view sees "rebels" as “self indulgent”, creating moral chaos,  and is reactive to perceived changes:  women are getting too many abortions, MJ is too freely used,  gays have become a major minority in the population despite AIDS,  and women make up more of the labor force as the needs of the society move away from physically demanding jobs, leaving uneducated White Males behind.  This is the reality of the society changing,  and it is doubtful that liberal views accelerated this, nor that conservative ones will stop it.  The “Conservative” agenda (i.e. “moral majority”, “Religious Right”, “compassionate conservative”) is an attempt to return to a value system that rejects the social changes that have been expanding in the country since the 60s.   There is no evidence that a political system can enact laws, policies or whatever to counteract the prevailing social mores of a society.  There can be a major conflict of legitimacy with the society taking a turn at totalitarianism and then a collapse of the regime.   Will we go through a cycle of South American politics to learn this?  

     What makes this political focus on value struggles so troublesome is how it fails to reflect the actual tasks of the government.   Clinton was the archetypal “rebel”,  a self indulgent, brilliant, self motivated person, who was willing to take whatever position necessary to gain his personal power.  Though it seemed that his goal in office was to lead an “inclusive” and caring government,  in fact his administration was often the opposite.  It extended the trend of favoring the grow of wealth for the super rich.  It grew the economy with limited benefit to labor. “Welfare to work” was not a boon to the welfare mothers.  While encouraging minority groups he enacted "law and order" statutes that expanding the mostly Black prison population.  Clinton was busy with his sexual imitation of JFK and his ability to co-opt the center of politics which drove the Republicans farther to the Right.   Also consider the Reagan administrations. Reagan is viewed both during and afterward as a high point in the vision of “conservative” politics and personally given credit for this, though it is  clear that he was in some stage of Alzheimer’s disease, and unclear how much policy was decided by others.   The “invasion” of Grenada, and the Marine debacle in Lebanon were the examples of a poor foreign policy which “took credit” for the “collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism”, a process which began long before that administration, to which they made almost no contribution. The supposedly fiscal conservatives created tax cuts for the wealthy and excessive spending that drove the country into its worse deficits.  Didion’s portrayal of the Reagan administration as a movie script esp the Iran-Contra mess is not far fetched,  and it expresses the underlying wish for a macho, morally black and white story with a successful outcome which is the product of years of watching Hollywood “oaters” by the generation just before the “boomers”.   The movie WAG THE DOG, where script writers and media fabricators create a media distraction for presidential misconduct assumes a public with very limited capacity for ambiguity and discrimination, a public that requires simple one dimension adolescent stage heroes.   Citizens who cannot tolerate moral complexity and balancing competing interests are unable to make careful political decisions.
      Fast forward to the present.  The country elects a president who promises to reverse all the social and economic issues that distress conservatives,  with a joint majority in Congress that grudgingly supports him.  Though not elected by majority, enough people in critical states support this fantasy to vote for a man with no experience in politics,  and marginal success in his business.  They want to believe the fantasy promoted by political operatives that this will correct the imbalances of the last 8+ years.  The results so far suggest the same favoring of the needs of the wealthy over middle and lower class citizens and a total disregard for debt (that only a real estate developer can have).  This simple minded view of world relationships in both the Bush and Clinton eras is exaggerated in the current administration:  America is the "lone superpower" and can tell everyone else what to do.  The failure to recognize how this supports unification against our country is idiotic.   No country is powerful enough to ignore the rest of the world,  nor should be.
     In this context,  the Senate hearings on Kavanaugh are pure political theater.  The idea of holding public hearings on television to assess the reality of accusations against a man is stupid.   Once informed of the accusations, if the committee was unwilling to carry out the personal investigations by professionals to assess this situation,  they should simply have said they were are unwilling to do so.  Instead,  the two characters are the leads in a drama which devolves down to whose fault it is because the investigations have never taken place.  The shallow and mindless grandstanding of the various senators reveals more than anything else the silly and hollow nature of the proceedings.  The hearing pretends to be about values,  but are simply empty political maneuvering about a major decision regarding the Supreme Court.  The country is careening toward a situation in which the balance of power established in the Constitution is systematically undermined.

      Governments must believe the fantasies they spew out to convince voters.  If actions exaggerate the economic and social imbalances while assuring they are reducing them eventually they will hit a wall.  If problems in security and economic stability are addressed with repetitive platitudes instead of exploring the complex changes in policy needed no changes occur.  Reagan becomes a dramatic cowboy hero despite the myriad failures and impotence of his administration.  JFK is champion of a bold new vision, cut down before his prime, despite his inability to move civil rights in the congress,  his dangerous course in Vietnam, the failure in the Bay of Pigs,  and his drug addiction and sexual distractions.  The fifties are idealized as a high point in American moral culture despite the betrayal of personal liberty by HUAC and McCarthy (which ultimately had to be stopped by the US Army!), using FBI data collected by a closet homosexual/transsexual. The nuances of reality are so collapsed in this discourse that no balanced approach to governing society is possible.  The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which have left the Arab world in chaotic turmoil are not so easily dismissed.  In the words of Colin Powell, "If you break it,  you own it."     
     It is no wonder that with increasing frequency we are selecting leaders for the country who portray themselves in fundamentally adolescent terms (and often behave that way as well).   The public is encouraged to believe that the country is weakening because of its failure to fulfill its adolescent dreams (either “rebel” or “conservative”) instead of recognizing that an adult world is never so idealized and must accept compromises to function.

9/11 REDUX

      Niall Ferguson wrote a piece about 9/11 soon after (Dec2001) that sees the event as a marker in certain trends occurring in the world:  1)    international spread of terrorism with its arrival in NYC so recently  2)    ECONOMIC contraction of the world economy due to the paradoxical segmentation occurring despite efforts at globalization and free trade.  He cited the growing wealth inequity across richer and poorer countries as well as the strain of demand on raw materials esp oil as a source of energy and its long term pressure on the world economy.  He specifically cited the dilemma in Saudi Arabia of decreasing prices at the demand of western allies which contracted the internal economy of the country.   He did not comment on the irony that globalization of economic development would favor the emergence of China and India as it has to challenge US and European dominance.  3)     The shift from informal to formal imperialism in US foreign policy.   He chose to frame this as "imperialism" because he was writing a book comparing US as an imperial power to Britain in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  I think it is more accurate to frame this as the failure to transition from a view of the US as a superpower antagonist to some other role in international relations.  
     He did not explore the subtle interweaving of the three elements:  The spread of terrorism is the globalization of a symptom.   Terrorism arises when a minority attempts to overpower a vastly more powerful majority.   It is the statement that the minority does not see a more legitimate route to power and is always abandoned for legitimate recognition.   The  majority recognizes the power demand for what it is,  and can be caught in a struggle to prevent sharing of power.  When this occurs a totalitarian shift seems inevitable because of the population control needed to manage, and end, terrorism in a country.  And paradoxically,  it ends almost immediately when its power sharing demands are recognized (Ireland, Algeria , etc).   
    The economic changes in the world are about a complex shift in inequities:  in developed countries,  the lower tier of the labor market and middle tier of white collar labor are being devalued down to a level of world wide labor costs.  At the same time, in underdeveloped regions like China and India there is substantial improvement in the economic position of labor in the middle and upper range tiers,  and some improvement in lower tiers as well.   This is a shift of economic activity  across borders,  and not an overall contraction,  but in developed countries it is felt as a contraction.  One would expect that this would lead to terrorism in these countries,  and is probably doing so in individual acts of violence,and more dramatic political changes.
     Islamic terror does not always seem to be primarily religious, and the anti-Americanism provides the focus for this energy,  but not its fundamental source.  The 9/11 bombers were identified out drinking before the attack, not a sign of Islamic purity and tradition.   The US response to challenge terror "completely," in the Bush administration and after,  misses the problem of rising expectations and economic instability.   All those who preached NAFTA and etc are now reaping the whirlwind of rapid and unstable economic changes.   Instead of addressing the root issues in world affairs,  which are north/south issues now tearing apart the UN,  the current administration has set itself in a hardline imperialist position,  the exact response to favor the view of the terrorists about the US role.   When the US does things to ameliorate the north-south divide, as in responding to humanitarian crises in other countries,  it immediately undermines the terrorist position in the local region. 

The President Bush/Secretary Rice  view reframed the north/south issue as "promoting democracy".   This has given rise to the  result that in  deposing the Taliban and Saddam,  we have left the resulting countries in a worse position re economic stability than they were before and less democratic!  ISIS and the horrible mess in Iraq and Syria are the direct consequence that Colin Powell predicted before the 2nd gulf war:  It's the Pottery Barn slogan:  you break it,  you own it.
     It appears that the laws of Karma operate in international affairs:  
1) US deposes the ruler in Iran and install the Shah for more favorable oil relationship
2) The Iranian people revolt and install Khomenei to attack the US and reject the intrusion
3) Saddam H is armed and encouraged to fight Iran as a proxy.
4) He fails but attacks Kuwait instead.  
5) US eliminates  Saddam in two invasions and leaves Iraq in chaos.
6) The residual military and others unite with forces in Syria to create ISIS and recapture the country.  
7) The war to topple ISIS destabilizes both Iraq and Syria and facilitates Russia's re-entry.
A similar Karmic cycle can be drawn for the interventions in Afghanistan that led to Bin Laden.
     The 9/11 attack on the US sent a message that the US interventions could be countered by external agents.  The US responded to this by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2) ignoring the karmic implications.   Bin Laden's goal was to cause fundamental political fragmentation of the US.  The long and unproductive wars in both countries have weakened and divided the country.   The failures of previous administrations has given President Trump the resources to take advantage of the very divided country.  This is not just a disagreement like Vietnam,  whether to fight or not,  it is a loss of national resources:  respect for US interventions,  decimation of the military and the young men and women injured in the endless war,  and the economic costs.
     The lessons of 9/11 have not yet been learned.