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*ZNet | Social Policy*
*Who Killed My Democracy? On Republicans, Cheese, Mice, Rats, and
Littlepeople
Challenging Times for the War Party in Power*
*by Paul Street; October 15, 2006*
These are dangerous times for the U.S. war party in power. Its
messianic-militarist administration is mired in a disastrous
occupation that has killed many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
and thousands of Americans. The reasons that it has given for
this terrible undertaking have been revealed as transparently false.
More than half the U.S. population now says the war on Iraq is
NOT morally justified. According to a recent New York Times/CBS
poll, a majority of the population now rejects administration’s
efforts to link the war on Iraq with the so-called “war on terror.”
According to a CNN poll in August, 60 percent of the population
opposes the war. Sixty one percent believe that some troops
should be removed before the end of the year and 57 percent want
a timetable for full withdrawal.
The president rejects these policy choices as naïve
“appeasement” – so-called “cut and run” – even while he insists
that the war is being fought on behalf of the idea that
government should reflect the “will of the people.”
Meanwhile, the Republicans’ regressive, hyper-plutocratic
domestic policy is highly unpopular. It stands in sharply and
ironic contrast to its claim to be leading the nation in a war
to save civilization and to advance core “democratic” values.
That policy is a big part of why wages, benefits, and incomes
continue to stagnate for ordinary Americans. It is linked also
to an endemic, increasingly transparent political corruption
that has especially dirtied Republican hands.
The already rich are getting transparently richer than ever, the
poor are getting poorer and the middle is still just scratching
by while the president pours untold billions into the illegal,
mass-murderous, falsely sold and unpopular invasion of
Mesopotamia.
The in-power Republican right seems unable to shake the image of
failure hung on it by Iraq and Hurricane Katrina even with a
mild economic expansion and the surprising lack of a major
terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.
No wonder a big majority of the population now says that the
country would be better off if the current war party in power
was removed from office. Even with the well-known nothingness of
the corporate-neoliberal Democrats, the defeat of the
Republicans in November seems at least possible. If that
happens it could open the door to some very serious
investigations and proceedings against the Cheney-Rove cabal.
Be More Like Mice, Little People
It’s time, perhaps, for the Republicans to call on the services
of Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese? In that
corporate-anthropomorphic masterwork that became a runaway
bestseller at the end of the last millennium, Dr. Johnson helped
millions of Americans move beyond the negative thoughts and
feelings they harbored over the loss of their jobs, earnings,
lives and communities to the inexorable workings of the
corporate economy. His book received rave reviews and gushing
critical praise from such noted literary authorities as IBM,
Exxon, Proctor & Gamble, General Electric and their friend the
U.S. Army,
In Johnson’s story, four characters lived in a giant “maze.”
Two of these characters were mice. One of the mice was named
“Sniff.” The other mouse was named “Scurry.”
The “maze” was Johnson’s clumsy metaphor for the capitalist
marketplace, which he conflated with material life and “the way
things are” in the real world.
Two of the characters were “littlepeople,” no bigger than mice
but endowed with reasoning and language capacities of humans.
The first littleperson was named “Hem.” The second was named “Haw.”
Once upon a long time, the story went, “Sniff,” “Scurry,” “Hem,”
and “Haw” used to get their “cheese” – Johnson’s over-obvious
metaphor for jobs and incomes – at “Cheese Station C.” The
“cheese station” was Johnson’s over-obvious metaphor for the
workplace.
The mice and the “littlepeople” had come to rely on “Station C”
to provide with material security and a place in society. One
traumatic day, however, for reasons that were unclear, the
“cheese” ran out. There was no more “cheese.”
This was Johnson’s clumsy metaphor for corporate downsizing and
deindustrialization, and the disappearance of jobs.
When the “cheese” left, the mice instinctively knew what to do.
They went out into the maze and sniffed and scurried around for
– what else? – “new cheese”
They didn’t worry about other mice left behind or the mouse
community in general. They went out to get “cheese” for themselves.
The “littlepeople” responded in a more problematic and – to use
a favorite term from the New Age 1990s – dysfunctional way,
reflecting the fact that they possessed critical faculties and
moral sensibilities. Like many over-entitled humans, they
wasted emotional, intellectual, and physical energy feeling
angry at the disappearance of their “cheese.” They spent an
inordinate amount of time and effort discussing an irrelevant
and useless question: “Who Moved My Cheese?” They lost precious
vigor fretting over pointless moral abstractions related to the
irrelevant issue of who controlled and abused the “maze” (market).
They questioned authority and sought fairness, futile endeavors
that prevented them from getting to the real and only thing that
mattered: “finding new cheese.” They worried about the fact
that they had purchased homes and built families and communities
in the vicinity of “Cheese Station C.” They became concerned and
anxious over the meaning of lost jobs/cheese for littlepeople in
general.
They needed to be more like the mice.
They needed to abandon grievance, drop their crippling concern
with justice. They needed to get off their fat littlepeople
buts and realize that life and the maze aren’t fair. They
needed to realize that the marketplace entitles you to nothing
in the way of steady earnings, meaningful work, material
security, and community. They needed to get back into the maze
and find new jobs – any job, anywhere – as soon as possible for
themselves.
They needed to stop worrying about any littlepeople other than
themselves. They needed to stop wondering who runs and profits
most from “the maze.”
They needed to move on.
In Johnson’s fable, one of the littlepeople – “Haw” – gets it.
Unlike “Hem,” “Haw” learns to accept the great core “life”
lessons of classic bourgeois doctrine. He understands that it is
a great error to think that people have rights entitling to
anything more than the privilege to try their luck in the market.
It is a fundamental mistake, “Haw” realizes, to believe that
mere people have any kind of place in society and a right to
live or work with and around other people they care about in any
specific location.
“Haw” learns to drop the human rights fallacy and to get on with
“life.” He learns to stop thinking and feeling in accord with
obsolete “old beliefs” like social justice. He agrees to be more
like a mouse when life – the marketplace – hands him a raw deal.
He learns that resistance is futile. He learns to stop
questioning mysterious corporate power and to jump in accord
with the dictates of hidden capital.
He is cheerfully assimilated into the mindless, hyper-mobile
terror of the global, corporate-neoliberal Animal Farm.
He gets his sniffing and scurrying sneakers on, runs out into
the “maze,” and is rewarded with “new cheese.”
Along the way he leaves a number of messages posted the serve as
what Dr. Johnson calls “The Handwriting on the Wall” for his
recalcitrant throwback friend “Hem,” who just can’t let go of
the old entitlement beliefs.
The messages include the following:
“Movement in a New Direction Helps You Find New Cheese”
“The Quicker You Let Go of Old Cheese, the Sooner you find New
Cheese”
“It is Safer to Search for New Cheese Than to Remain in a
Cheeseless Situation”
“Old Beliefs Do Not Lead You to New Cheese”
“Change Happens: They Keep Moving the Cheese”
“Move With the Cheese and Enjoy It”
Republican Book Proposals for Fall 2006
Millions of grateful readers were enlightened by this marvelous
corporate-anthropomorphic fable, which helped “littlepeople”
stop questioning state-capitalist authority and get on with
personal and animal survival in a neoliberal era when people
realize that ideas of justice and community are no longer
helpful or relevant.
Doc Johnson helped grease the wheels of corporate globalization.
I think the Republicans should hire Johnson or some like-minded
Orwellian to produce a series of quick fables to help keep the
rabble in line during and after the upcoming mid-term elections.
Here are two possible titles and story lines they might wish to
pursue between now and the upcoming elections:
Who Sent My Son Off to Get Maimed in an Imperial Oil War?
Plot: two chipmunk families and two littlepeople families
experience the agony of their sons being blown up by angry
squirrels predictably resisting an illegal, imperial, and
murderous invasion of their oil-rich nation that was ordered by
big powerful Ratpeople named Dick, Bush, and Rummy.
The Ratpeople sent the sons and hundreds of thousands of other
troops off to the squirrels’ nation after some angry ferrets
hijacked some planes and flew them into buildings in the nation
run by the Ratpeople.
The Ratpeople told the chipmunks and the littlepeople that the
ferrets’ criminal action justified invading the squirrels’
nation. They did everything it could to blur the distinction
between squirrels and ferrets. For a while, many of the
chipmunks and littlepeople had a hard time distinguishing
squirrels from ferrets.
The Ratpeople also lied about the dangers posed to chipmunks and
littlepeople by the squirrels’ nation. It claimed that that the
squirrels possessed significant “weapons of mass destruction”
that it was going to share with the angry ferrets and use
against the littlepeople and the chipmunks.
Later, after all the lies were exposed and it was shown that
650,000 squirrels had needlessly died, the Ratpeople said it was
too late to call off the invasion. Anyone who wanted to end
this mass-murderous action, they said, was an
anti-littlepeople/anti-chipmunk coward who likes to “cut and run.”
Rather than become upset at the terrible injuries suffered by
their sons and the lies that caused them, the chipmunk families
mate to produce new soldiers that the Ratpeople can use in
future illegal wars.
One of the two littlepeople families had worked hard to secure a
lot of cheese in the maze. It agrees to send another one of its
sons in the quest to kill more squirrels and control their
oil. It is rewarded with a big tax-cut from the Ratpeople and
gets a mimeographed letter of thanks from the Rat named Rummy.
The note says “thank you for sacrificing your son’s legs in our
noble effort to free and control the squirrels.”
On the day that this family sent its second son off to kill and
free squirrels, it put up a number of large posters saying:
“It is Safer to Kill and Die than to Remain Alive and Not Kill”
“Change Happens: They Keep Switching the False Reasons for
Their Illegal War”
“Unjust Wars Happen and There’s Nothing You Can Do About it”
“The Quicker You Let Go of Peace and Freedom, the Sooner You
Will Find Peace and Freedom”
“Absurdity and Lies Happen: the Ratpeople Know What They Are Doing”
“Move With the Empire and Enjoy It”
“Old Beliefs Will Not Give Us Global Dominance”
“These Colors Don’t Run”
“Movement in a New Direction Means Fighting Islamic Squirrel and
Ferret Fascism in the Streets of Our Own Country”
“Freedom Isn’t Free”
“United We Stand”
“Support the Troops”
“Love is Hate; War is Peace”
“I am Chipmunk, Hear Me Chirp”
“Some People Think Too Much”
The other littlepeople family does not turn out so well. It
clings to the dysfunctional notion that its injured son was
maimed for no good reason other than to enact the deceptive,
vile, and vicious Ratpeople’s imperial agenda. It can’t let go
of the idea that their son deserved better from “their” government.
It fails to move forward and enjoy life’s opportunities because
of its obsession with the pointless question: “Who Sent My Son
to Get His Legs Blown Off in an Illegal, Imperial and Racist Oil
War?”
As the story ends, it appears that the second family is going to
lose its savings and sanity in pointless, self-destructive
efforts to stop the illegal and murderous occupation and to
unseat the nasty Ratpeople from power. It is crippled by its
attachment to the preposterous notion that it is somehow
entitled not to have its children maimed in criminal and
unnecessary wars.
Who Flooded and Abandoned My City?
Plot: two dog families and two littlepeople families experience
the agony of having their city flooded and losing their homes in
the wake of a tropical storm whose worst consequences could have
been prevented if the federal government run by super-wealthy
Ratpeople had paid adequate attention to maintaining levees and
to emergency preparedness. The city is called Old Metropolis.
The hurricane is called George.
After the city is flooded, the Ratpeople government is unable
and/or unwilling to rescue hundreds of thousands of trapped dogs
and littlepeople for days and days.
Part of the problem is that the governing Ratpeople gave other
wealthy Ratpeople huge tax cuts that reduced government’s
capacity to meet human needs. Another part is that the
governing Ratpeople believe that government has no legitimate
role to play other than fighting wars, repressing dissent, and
paying corporate welfare transfers to other rich and powerful
Ratpeople.
Rather than become upset at the terrible policy actions and
beliefs of the Ratpeople, the two dog families just shake their
mains and lick their wounds. They stay in a cheap federal
kennel for a couple of months and move on in search of a new
doggy treats.
They realize that their homes in Old Metropolis are gone and
that that is the way things go when big storms like Hurricane
George happen. Life isn’t fair.
They find new food, treats, and toys in another metropolis far
away. They are happy to live their new dog lives.
One of the littlepeople families takes its cue from the
contented canines. It leaves the old metropolis behind and never
looks back. A family therapist tells them it would be
self-defeating to spend time and emerging thinking about what
happened to them and other littlepeople and dogs and why.
Those sorts of questions, it learns, are beyond their legitimate
spheres of influence, concern, and understanding. It was
dysfunctional and draining, they determine, to reflect on such
matters.
The family members write notes to each other and to other
families saying:
“Change Happens: They Flood the Old Food Bowl and You Have To
Move On.”
“So What if They Didn’t Pay for Adequate Flood Protection?”
“People Are Not Entitled to Being Saved From Floods by Big
Government”
“Abandonment Happens: Go with the Flow”
“The Quicker You Let Go of Old Metropolis, the Sooner you find
New Metropolis”
“It is Safer to Sniff Out High Ground Than to Remain in a Wet
Situation”
“Old Beliefs Do Not Distance You From Floods”
“Too Bad For People Who Get Stuck in Floods and Don’t Move On:
It’s Their Problem”
“Move With the Dog-Bowl and Enjoy It”
“The Color of You Skin Has Nothing to Do With How Quickly You
Can Find Dry Ground”
“When They Make Floods Happen, You Have to Cut and Run”
“Take Care of Yourself: You Could Get Flooded Anytime”
“Bow Wow!”
“Many People are Too Moral and Intellectual”
“Dogs Know the Score”
“You Can Teach and Old Wet Dog New Tricks”
The other littlepeople family is less fortunate. It can’t stop
asking and demanding answers to difficult questions relating to
structures of Ratpeople power and authority. It focuses on
related abuses that led to the devastation of their homes and
city. It becomes suicidal in its determination to fight “those
dirty Republican Rats.” It wastes resources and energy in a
futile effort to rebuild its city and society so that nothing
like what happened after Hurricane George could ever occur again.
It wallows under the spell of the great fallacy that it is
entitled to government protection from social and ecological
disaster.
It is determined to destroy itself and drag others down into the
floodwaters of anger and despair. Consistent with its dangerous
and worn-out concept of social entitlement, it campaigns against
the current war party in power.
Its vote doesn’t mean anything, however, since the hurricane had
has cleared out so many Democratic dogs from its home state that
the winner-take-all electoral count goes to the Ratpeople party.
“Who Killed My Democracy?” and Other Future Titles
I don’t think the Republicans have time to produce more than
these two fables between now and the mid-term elections.
I also don’t want to leave the impression that the Democrats
wouldn’t do well to hire someone like Dr. Johnson to produce
some good Orwellian moral fables to cover their own moral and
policy records. Many Democratic political leaders have been
less than unwilling participants in the creation of the core
corporate-imperial policies that brought us Operation Iraqi
Freedom, Katrina, and other terrible developments that reflect
poorly on the health of the democratic ideal in the United States.
After the elections, American political and economic elites of
both parties might consider producing an extended series of
further and related victim-blaming spin-offs of Who Moved My Cheese?
Titles might include:
Who Bankrupted My Government?
Who Poisoned My Ecosphere?
Who Melted My Polar Ice Caps?
Who Turned My Country into the World’s Most Unequal and
Wealth-Top-Heavy State?
Who Extended My Working Hours to the Point Where I Could No
Longer Participate in Civic Culture and Maintain Nurturing Human
Relationships?
Who Cut My Health Care Benefits?
Who Killed National Health Care?
Who Killed My Democracy?
Who Turned My Country Into a Corporate Plutocracy?
Who Slashed and/or Capped My Wages?
Who Busted My Union?
Who Stole My Retirement?
Who Slandered My Social Security System?
Who Incarcerated My Neighborhood?
Who Made Prisons the Only Growth Industry in My Rural County?
Who Segregated My Metropolitan Area?
Who Re-segregated My Schools?
Who Gentrified My Community?
Who Under-funded My Schools?
Who Reduced My Disproportionately Nonwhite Public School’s
Curriculum to Mindless and Regimented Preparation for
Authoritarian Standardized Tests?
Who Priced Me Out of Higher Education?
Who Commodified My Culture?
Who Commercially Carpet-Bombed My Children?
Who Stole My Civil Liberties?
Who Stole My Civil Rights?
Who Negated My Efforts to Advance Racial Equality?
Who Manufactured and Sold Guns to My Spouse’s Murderer?
Who Crushed the Spiritual Health of My Nation By Investing More
Public Resources in “Defense” Than in Programs of Social Uplift?
Paul Street (paulstreet99@yahoo.com
Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO:
Paradigm, 2004), Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in
the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), and
Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, and Policy in Chicago
(Chicago, 2005) Street’s next book is Racial Oppression in the
Global Metropolis: A Living Black Chicago History (New York, 2007).
