The Great American Disconnect: Seven Fundamental Threats To Our Democracy

By Jed Morey

The story of America, as told to us by the political establishment, is not unlike scripture that attempts to explain our circumstances in a manner that must be accepted as gospel. The truth is that America has been hijacked by powerful special corporate interests whose paths toward profit are lubricated by political accomplices complicit in a scheme that suppresses opportunity and freedom among the masses. Our state of denial has caused us to drift far from the nation we believe ourselves to be while holding tightly to an image of the nation we wish to be.
Such is the state of our disunion. Welcome to The Great American Disconnect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9780989942812

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INTRODUCTION

A seismic shift in the global political system is occurring beneath our feet. Overpopulation and unmitigated consumption have brought the planet to the abyss and climate change has reached the so-called tipping point both in our politics and in our atmosphere. This rapid descent into technological and industrial madness has pitted humans against one another in an epic battle for survival of the fittest, one in which our humanity appears to be dissolving.

This is, of course, nothing new. History is rife with injustices and moments of abject depravity that would make anyone question the innate goodness of humankind. For centuries philosophers and writers, anyone who chronicles world events, have opined about the collapse of civilization and morality. To the societal observer the sky is perpetually falling, but this time is different. For the first time we are fighting against the inevitable loss of natural resources while outfitted with weapons of mass destruction, a deadly combination if ever there was one. And the scraps of resources that we’re fighting over are tainted and toxic.

Our situation is the culmination of a feverishly progressive industrial century in which our ingenuity has been matched in scale only by the problems our creations present. In the simplest of terms, there are too many people for the resources that remain.

But this is not a book about our physical environment. It’s about our political environment and the people who seek to control not only what’s left of our natural resources but of our minds. There is a real and fundamental understanding among the elite business and political leaders that the meek have no shot of inheriting the earth but might be useful in the sacrifice required to control what’s left of it. While it has always been true that to the victor belong the spoils, never before have the spoils been so, well, spoiled.

No other nation in history has been so adroit at acquiring and hoarding resources as the United States of America. The combination of democracy and capitalism in America has been so thoroughly successful with respect to expansion and the accumulation of wealth that we consume a quarter of the world’s resources despite having only 5 percent of the population. This unbelievable ascent to the top of the imperial heap is the result of an insatiable appetite for progress at any cost. This is further underscored by periods of fervent jingoism that rationalize horrific behavior abroad under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy.

From a purely political perspective, the New Millennium has ushered in a resounding victory for democracy and with it, the greatest placebo ever absorbed into the global body politic. Citizens of the world have bought into the hype that the American dream is now available anywhere on the globe and is as attainable as a cubic zirconia necklace on a late-night infomercial. For my money, it is the inimitable H.L. Mencken who captured the folly of American democracy as a means to prosperity nearly a century ago, saying, Of all those ancient promises there is none more comforting than the one to the effect that the lowly shall inherit the earth. It is at the bottom of the dominant religious system of the modern world, and it is at the bottom of the dominant political system. Democracy gives it a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth.

Even Mencken would be impressed by the effectiveness of today’s political hucksters who peddle faux democracy from their ideological apothecaries. Modern-day snake oil salesmen dressed in suits adorned with flag pins on their lapels preach the gospel of the American dream with the zeal of born-again evangelists. Their wide-eyed followers devour their every word believing they too might someday reach the Promised Land.

Gone are the days of dreaming of savings accounts and a pension; this is the era of winning lottery tickets and salvation through instant affluence. The most troubling phenomenon is the Gospel of Jesus Christ as capitalist that has somehow tethered itself to our new collective interpretation of democracy. This mixing of religious and ideological metaphors has seeped into the consciousness of American politics and given life to a bizarre fundamentalist ideology that has inculcated the public with the notion that financial success is the product of divine right. According to this newly adopted testament of faith, Jesus Christ is a champion of corporate rights and free markets who offers his disciples unfettered VIP access to the pearly gates of the hereafter.

All these forms of happiness, of course, are illusory. They don’t last, warned Mencken. The democrat, leaping into the air to flap his wings and praise God, is forever coming down with a thump. The seeds of his disaster lie in his own stupidity; he can never get rid of the naïve delusion—so beautifully Christian!—that happiness is something to be got by taking it away from the other fellow.

It is the idea that only the uncompromising person in the self-righteous pursuit of wealth emerges triumphant in a life that has separated humans from their humanity. Community, environment and the welfare of others have been subjugated by a new dogma that places faith over reason, prosperity over compassion.

And who could argue? We credit democracy with ushering in the most technologically innovative century in recorded history. There have also been real victories along the way. America, as it was originally conceived, was a place where inalienable rights were intended exclusively for white, male property owners. But the system was intuitive and flexible enough to allow its citizens to battle one another and hammer out universal suffrage and civil rights. It is also our right to freely and openly criticize the government and protest perceived injustices. No system works perfectly for all of its inhabitants but liberties such as these that we often take for granted are glorious enough to make America’s democratic system enviable by most standards.

But today we are on a path that threatens to turn back the clock in a dangerous way. Capitalism and Christianity, mutually exclusive by design, are no longer distinct from one another under the all-encompassing umbrella of democracy. In order to provide cover for ignominious policies, politicians and pundits routinely reference the Founding Fathers. They consider them omniscient and omnipresent deities, instead of the fallible and mortal beings they were. To question them is to commit heresy. They speak of the Constitution as the testament delivered unto us from on high, never to be doubted or altered. Yet many of the provisions they hold dear are amendments, which implies that the Constitution is amorphous and was always intended as such.

This is not an unpatriotic book, though some will deride this characterization and misinterpret its intent. It is an honest critique of a system of government that allows for its very existence. It is this self-awareness that makes it decidedly hopeful as it comes from a grateful and objective perspective—albeit grateful for the freedom to objectively verbalize our hypocrisy.

I am an insider, an avowed critic of the hand that feeds me. I’m not writing in exile or behind a prison wall, but that is not to say we aren’t metaphorically imprisoned by the image we project of ourselves. Much of what we believe to be true about democracy is belied by our very real actions and circumstances.

Americans are trapped by the conviction that we live in a free society despite having the highest incarceration rate per capita of any nation in the world. We see ourselves as the purveyors of peace and democracy, having defeated the Communist menace and dethroned dictators, yet no other nation in modern times has initiated unprovoked foreign wars more than we have or dropped a nuclear bomb (twice) on its enemies. And many of the dictators we have overthrown were of our own creation yet ceased to be useful in our imperialist endeavors.

We believe in the theory of fair competition and the ability to achieve success through hard work and discipline but we exist within a system that discourages competitiveness and has consolidated 40 percent of the nation’s wealth into the hands of 1 percent of the population.

Our state of denial has caused us to drift far from the nation we believe ourselves to be while holding tightly to an image of the nation we wish to be.

Political leaders bend and twist constitutionality to benefit the corporate state. The U.S. Supreme Court in several decisions over time—culminating in the disastrous Citizens United ruling—has codified corporate personhood, the concept that bestows the same or more rights upon corporations as human beings. The revolving doors between government regulatory bodies and the corporate world spin so quickly and frequently it’s difficult to distinguish between the roles of those who pass through them. Predictably, our regulations have been manipulated or neutered to such an extent that most large corporations avoid government intrusion while small businesses are buried in bureaucracy and red tape. The deck is stacked against the little guy while big business deals from the bottom of it.

The Great American Disconnect explores the democratic creation myth and attempts to verbalize the malaise that has taken hold of our political system. The story of America, as told to us by the political establishment, is not unlike Scripture that purports to explain our existence in terms that must be accepted as Gospel and not questioned. The truth is that America has been hijacked by powerful special corporate interests whose paths toward profit are lubricated by political accomplices complicit in a scheme that suppresses opportunity and freedom among the masses.

This isn’t an indictment of Democrats or Republicans. A two-party system provides only the illusion of choice; particularly given both sides are funded by corporations that pay good money to maintain the status quo. Nor is it an indictment of democracy, as we have lost touch with its meaning. It is neither pro-American nor anti-American, merely a practical, albeit at times, cynical observation of what I believe to be a decidedly dystopian existence.

Over the past few years I have written a column titled Off The Reservation for the Long Island Press, an alternative publication I founded in 2003 and of which I still serve as publisher. The column began as a way to examine societal problems my conscience wouldn’t let go of—issues we sometimes covered in the newspaper that continued to haunt me long after each edition was put to bed. That’s the thing about working with great writers and reporters; their stories refuse to let go once they grab hold of you. All of the unanswered questions posed by the work we do would wind up on my mental drafting table waiting to be pieced together long after my wife and children had retired to bed. Questions led frustratingly to more questions—an unrelenting, unending puzzle with no picture on the box to let me know what it’s supposed to look like.

About three years into writing Off The Reservation, a picture finally began to emerge from fragments of thought, but the picture was eerily distorted as though it was through the looking glass; an alternate reality in which nothing was what it seemed. My apologies for employing a hackneyed device, but political writing is much like peeling an onion. Every layer that is stripped away reveals yet another fetid layer. And, yes, after a while it can even make you cry.

I began a series titled The Season of Our Disconnect, tackling issues one by one—the economy, warfare, the price of oil, deregulation, religious fundamentalism—and the gap between perception and reality. Placing individual issues within historical context and attempting to identify the root cause of our attitudes and behavior by seeking precedent for our actions were the most difficult tasks. Seemingly unrelated subjects shared similar circumstances and some of the same protagonists, leading me to the conclusion that we are indeed destined to repeat our failings. On purpose, no less.

As my writing progressed so did my disillusionment with the political establishment and our economic circumstances. The more I challenged conventional wisdom and allowed myself to indulge in clinical analysis the more progressive my thoughts became until I let go of my belief system entirely. By letting go of all pre-conceived notions and learned beliefs I had simply exited the Matrix and began seeing the world for what it is.

Elsewhere on the planet, it seemed, others were breaking free as well. The Arab Spring made America’s bondage even more real. Entire populations were smashing against oppression and unleashing pent-up frustration at a furious pace. The uprisings tore through the Middle East and Northern Africa and continued through Europe, then finally, America. The youth of these nations suddenly awoke to discover they had been misled but possessed the power to alter their circumstances in a powerful way through unity against inequity.

It was as though the world was awakening from a deep slumber. In America the awakening came on the heels of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in the shadow of the towers, where the phantom pain of that day could still be felt. It was as though permission was suddenly granted to a grieving population to live again.

A thought revolution took to the streets. Wall Street was officially Occupied.

All at once it was no longer anti-American to criticize America and a system that had become increasingly diabolical and oppressive. Thousands of Americans, young and old, awoke to find that while we slept a power grab was at play and it was more systemic than anyone could have imagined. But it wasn’t as though it began on Sept. 11, 2001. Rather, a dedicated core of opportunists from neoliberal conservatives to financiers took an existing playbook and shifted into high gear with a plan to consolidate their interests unfettered by oppositional forces that would otherwise have kept them in check.

Unregulated capitalism and free market ideology were immediately linked to personal freedom and democracy. The phrase Homeland Security entered the American lexicon and quickly became an all-encompassing mantra that paved the way for some of the most destructive social and political maneuverings this country has ever seen. And despite significant evidence to the contrary, the economic theories of Milton Friedman and sociopolitical ideas of Ayn Rand came to be viewed as successful and sacrosanct. Any failings of their ideologies were simply blamed on not having pursued them with enough vigor. Voices of reason and caution were summarily shut down in a wave of xenophobia and anyone who questioned our militarism was painted as un-American. Those who attempted to protect consumers by regulating the markets were cast as socialists.

There were signs along the way that Americans were waking up. For a brief moment in 2008 it appeared as though the country was ready to break this pattern of reckless behavior as it was swept up in the idea of the nation’s first black president. Those with liberal sentiments thrust upon him every pent-up possibility of environmentalism, civil rights, and more; impossible standards during even the most normal of circumstances. Such was the state of our desire. But it was the prolonged state of our denial that brought us there. And as the wheels came off of the McCain/Palin ticket, and Barack Obama spread his hopeful message, the economy plummeted into the abyss.

By this time, our disillusionment with war was palpable enough that most had come to believe that we should no longer be involved in the Middle East. Many Americans began to quietly admit that our unbridled enthusiasm to punish those responsible for a terrorist attack on American soil had embroiled us in two nightmarish conflicts that ultimately had little to do with 9/11. At home massive companies were failing. Confidence was plummeting. Jobs were being lost in every state and every sector. Candidate Barack Obama offered fairly pedestrian ideas to stop the bleeding, but had a powerful message of hope that far surpassed any campaign promise.

But victory was fleeting, as the overwhelming reality of two costly and unpopular wars, high unemployment and the nation’s skyrocketing debt overshadowed Obama’s message of hope and change.

Ultimately, the anti-Obama forces have been successful at twisting the administration in knots and painting it as anti-business and anti-capitalist with a socialist agenda hell-bent on redistributing wealth. As president, Barack Obama has done remarkably little to fight this perception and in practical terms the Obama years have been demonstrably conservative. From increased domestic oil exploration and a favorable corporate tax environment to the expansion of executive military privilege, President Obama might rightly be considered one of the great Republican figures of the modern era—a concept not lost on his more liberal base of support. But that’s Barack Obama, the President of the United States. Barack Obama, the man, is a black Democrat, and this is the era of bumper sticker ideology and name-calling. The stigma battle was over before it began.

Barack Obama: the supposed liberal democrat at the helm of a conservative administration presiding over war-weary but terrorist-fearing people living off the government teat they wish to abolish. Nothing makes sense anymore.

We live within a system where politicians and the media get away with blaming the poor for a failing economy while protecting those who take advantage of regulatory loopholes that strengthen their positions at everyone else’s expense. What’s worse is that many among the oppressed and disaffected have seemingly joined the anti-welfare, anti-poverty chorus in some sort of backwards self-loathing state of being. The once-powerful labor movement has been vilified to such an extent that even though only 11.3 percent of working Americans belong to a union, many believe union labor to be the root of economic evil in America. The working poor and unemployed share in this antipathy toward organized labor instead of blaming the ravenous fiends on Wall Street and Capitol Hill who tighten their grip on the middle class and further policies that widen the economic divide in the nation.

We are victims of a phenomenon a friend of mine refers to as modern-day economic Stockholm syndrome—the poor laborer defending the wealthy financier who steals their pensions, the sick entitlement recipient working for the free market politician who promises to remove the very safety net that supports them.

Our political policies are just as twisted. Our laws equate corporations with people. Our government favors progress at any cost over preservation at every cost. We use food to make fuel while children go hungry, vilify climate science and freely refer to environmentalism as a form of Nazism—as if protecting that which gives life to the planet is somehow evil. We claim to honor our soldiers but where is the honor in deploying them just to protect our oil interests? Where is the honor in reducing their benefits upon their return or seizing their homes while they were away? We attack corporate subsidies for renewable energy while blaming politicians for losing the renewable technology war to the Chinese, who wholly subsidize these industries. An aging middle-class population, which for years paid into the Social Security and Medicare systems, believes such programs should be abolished for future generations. Fiscal conservatives call for more deregulation—the most liberal and irresponsible of economic beliefs—a strategy that nearly led to the collapse of the entire economic system.

The Great American Disconnect is the culmination of five years of examination into a system that has betrayed us. While I focus on seven fundamental threats in particular, it is by no means intended to be a complete analysis of our dysfunction. A more thorough discourse would include an analysis of underlying societal ills that have plagued this nation since its inception. Endemic issues such as racism, ethnocentrism and expansionism are, in fact, at the very core of the threats that are explored in this book. These national characteristics are so core to the American story that they have stubbornly become part of our social and political DNA. Yet any attempt to incorporate these themes into one book is to try and write the unabridged history of the United States.

Instead, I have identified seven particular threats—deregulation, speculation, fundamentalism, militarization, the assault on liberty, incarceration and manufactured consent—that have grown both independently and in concert as a result of the inherent characteristics that have come to define us as a nation. Each threat has appeared at one time or another during our relatively brief history as a country. But, never before has the world witnessed such a dangerous coalescence of destructive forces in such a brief period of time.

I am fortunate to be involved in a profession that has enabled me to contemplate this subject matter. As much as the field of journalism is struggling economically, there is an argument to be made that we are living through a new golden age. Investigative journalists and writers such as Jeremy Scahill, Chris Hedges, Jane Mayer, Matt Taibbi, Alexa O’Brien and the recently deceased Michael Hastings are at the height of their craft. They are, in the words of Thoreau, counter friction to the machine.

Reading their work and collaborating everyday at the Long Island Press with journalists for whom I have the utmost regard, inspired me to draw together the themes that are presented in this book. I have attempted to break with any conformity of thought that is pervasive in today’s media culture, though I’m sure some of it survives. This book is meant to be a journey, not a destination.

Stylistically, I must apologize in advance for any editorial schizophrenia the reader may perceive. As this book is a blend of research, reporting and commentary, it is crafted with a singular voice, but not a distinct style. This is due in large part to my vocation, as one of the benefits of being involved in a relatively small journalistic enterprise is the ability to wear several hats. In addition to serving as publisher of the Press, I have also had the good fortune of not only writing a regular column but penning a handful of cover stories and other reported pieces as well. The two are very different endeavors. The former has allowed me to ruminate on specific topics from the vantage point of an outside observer and draw conclusions. The latter has allowed me to interview sources both on and off the record while adhering to a stricter style of reportage.

Both experiences have informed my opinions, which are undoubtedly subjective and independent, and disciplined me as a writer, albeit in very different ways.

To put one’s perspective on display, whether in a book, on film or perhaps theatrically, requires equal parts courage and hubris. I’ll leave the question of hubris to my critics, as the origin of my courage is more pertinent to the pages that follow.

Writing is very much a solitary affair. The fact that I’m fortunate to have a vehicle to publicize my beliefs does not mean that every one of them was put on display for public consumption. Despite nearly 40 years on this planet, prior to the decision to write this book I possessed embarrassingly little strength to look beyond my immediate circumstances and push beyond convention. But the more I wrote and the further I delved into the issues that consumed me, the more devastating the reality of our political conditions appeared to be, which led to feelings of doubt and isolation. Therefore, the process of self-discovery through writing was actually somewhat of a painful process.

As I chronicled current events and sought to understand their origins and meanings, the story of America wasn’t unfolding before me; it was unraveling. Rather like a child who discovers his parents are mortal and fallible, I was becoming