by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka
If asked, most Americans will say they want peace. But they consistently vote for the two parties of war. “Imperial privilege” allows “the U.S. public to ‘shrug off’ the consequences of U.S. wars. They will destroy whole societies while ostensibly rescuing a few “beautiful babies” -- preferably white ones. We must build a new politics around the provable principle that killing other people is dangerous to one’s own moral and physical health.
War, Militarism and No Mainstream Opposition: Different Administration, Same Story
by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka
“It is our bodies that are in the crosshairs of an F-16 in Libya and a Glock 9mm in the hands of a racist cop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”
In the run-up to budget discussions, the Trump Administration floated various proposals for a dramatic increase in military spending on top of the already bloated $596 billion Pentagon budget. This figure doesn’t even represent the true expenditures devoted to war-making and militarism in the $1.1 trillion discretionary side of the national budget. The $596 doesn’t include the $65 billion in veterans spending and $26 billion for nuclear weapons. That brings the total to about $690 billion or 63% of all discretionary spending! To fund this outrageous theft of the peoples’ resources for the military/industrial/complex, the Administration called for unprecedented cuts to various Federal agencies and departments since everything is supposed to be revenue neutral.
Now, a reasonable person might conclude that for an oppositional party that claims to be the voice of the downtrodden and committed to social justice informed by “liberal values,” Trump’s proposals to take a meat cleaver to state agencies in order to increase military spending – and, indeed, his whole budget recommendations -- would be a godsend for Democrats since militarism has a direct impact on working people and the poor. Even Republican president Dwight Eisenhower understood this in what today’s right-wing U.S. culture would read as a radical statement:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
Yet, instead of vigorous opposition and mass mobilizations from the loyal opposition, the Democrat party is still trying to hold the public’s attention with the nonsensical drama related to supposed collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. As though collusion between campaigns and foreign governments is something new -- think Nixon’s efforts to sabotage peace efforts in the ‘68 campaign and the Reagan campaign’s coordination with Iran over the release of U.S. hostages that sunk Carter’s presidency.
“The Democrat party is still trying to hold the public’s attention with the nonsensical drama related to supposed collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.”
What is so incredibly inept about the strategy to keep the focus on Russia is that the issues that could really begin the process of driving a wedge between the Trump administration and the independents and white workers who voted for Obama in ‘08 and ‘12 but voted Trump in 2016 -- the healthcare issue, no support for an increase in minimum wage, tax cuts for the rich -- are there to be exploited if the Democrats were really a serious oppositional party with an alternative reform agenda. This is precisely the point. The Democrat party is not a serious oppositional party.
The absence of any real opposition to the reckless use of U.S. military force -- the attack on Syria, the macho demonstration bombing in Afghanistan, the provocations toward North Korea -- exposed once again the unanimity among the U.S. ruling class and the state on the use of military force as the main strategy to enforce its global interests.
What this means for Black and oppressed people in the capitalist centers in the West and in the Global South is that we cannot afford the luxury of diversionary politics when it is our bodies that are in the crosshairs of an F-16 in Libya and a Glock 9mm in the hands of a racist cop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For us, unrestrained militarism and war has always meant death and destruction.
It also means that attempting to build oppositional coalitions to confront and defeat militarism and neoliberal state austerity cannot depend on effective and consistent support from Democrat Party related structures both inside and outside of the Party, such as many of the nonprofits and labor unions. It even means that it is becoming more difficult to build opposition to war and militarism among the U.S. left and progressives because these sectors, along with the corporate media and the general public, have fallen prey to what Rashna Batliwala Singh and Peter Mathews Wright calls “imperial privilege.”
Imperial privilege is this strange ability on the part of the U.S. public to “shrug off” the consequences experienced by people impacted by the direct and indirect result of U.S. militarism. That is precisely why pro-imperialist politicians like Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren can be designated as “progressives” and vast numbers of voters can rally around a warmonger like Hilary Clinton without suffering much moral distress.
“Imperial privilege makes it possible for even the liberally-inclined to turn a blind eye to the toxic footprint of U.S. militarism at home and abroad.”
It is also why there is not much discussion of the consequences for the people of Korea if through macho posturing the Trump administration sparks a military confrontation on the Korean peninsula, or why there are no calls from the public to stop Saudi war crimes in Yemen -- and why it seems perfectly acceptable that the entire U.S. Senate would sign-on to a letter to the United Nations condemning the UN for its bias against Israel. And it is why “Trump became president” of all the people after ordering the military to engage in an illegal attack on Syria.
According to Batliwala Singh and Mathews Wright:
“Imperial privilege makes it possible for even the liberally-inclined to turn a blind eye to the toxic footprint of U.S. militarism at home and abroad; to fall silent at any mention of the homicidal decisions of an American President; to exclude such matters from public political discussion and to prevent them from influencing their voting patterns in any way.”
So, while Trump only got a $15 billion increase in the budget compromise, the “commonsense” acceptance of war by the public at this point makes it more likely that the Administration will be successful in securing billions more of the public’s resources for war-making in the 2018 budget that will be debated over coming months.
The irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism, fueled by white nationalist sentiment, has produced a toxic, proto-fascist politics. This is the context in which we must build an alternative to the neoliberalism of the Democrats and the nationalist-populism of Trump.
The drive toward war, domestic repression, and the militarization of society can only be stopped by the people. But that will not occur until there is a shift in the culture and consciousness of the public. A shift in which the inherent value of all lives is recognized and a new kind of politics is practiced in which the people are able to recognize that their interests are not the same as the interests of the capitalist oligarchy and that they have a responsibility to victims of U.S. imperialism around the world.
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) https://blackallianceforpeace.com/ and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine.
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