Bernie
Sanders’ No-Nuclear Option
While
Bernie Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic nomination has once again made some
Americans audacious enough to hope for progressive change, there has been a conspicuous
absence in Sanders’ platform of any intention to revise foreign policy and
connect it to the concern with domestic issues that has dominated his platform
so far. Sanders is yet to tell the American public where he stands on a number
of fundamental foreign policy questions, issues related not only to the use of the
military but also to human rights and independence movements. It may not be
readily apparent to the American public, but domestic problems are all deeply
connected to the US role on the foreign stage over the last seventy years.
Foreign
policy in the 1968 presidential race
This weakness
in Sanders’ campaign is evident if we compare it to one that is similar in many
respects. In 1968, Senator Eugene McCarthy launched a campaign for the
Democratic Party nomination, and like Bernie, he surprised the nation when his
campaign turned into an insurgency that startled the presumptive hares in the
race into panic mode. Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the primary race, and
President Johnson decided not to run for re-election when he noticed the level
of opposition to his Vietnam policy. At the convention, the favorite of the party
leadership, vice president Hubert Humphrey, faced a serious challenge from the
dark horse candidate McCarthy who had risen from obscurity in a matter of
months.
During
the convention in Chicago, protesters on the streets were met with the violent
suppression of a police force under the command of Democratic mayor Richard
Daley. Inside the convention, the party leadership was focused on the need to
nominate a moderate candidate who could beat the Republican candidate, Richard
Nixon, in the November election. The party brass feared that McCarthy wouldn’t
stand a chance running against Nixon, and they did everything possible to make
sure the nomination would go to Humphrey, who lost to Nixon anyway. McCarthy
alleged that the nomination had been rigged by party bosses, and in fact there was a precedent for this much earlier in the 1944 convention when Harry Truman got the vice presidential nomination instead of the New Deal progressive Henry Wallace. That fateful manipulation is seen by some historians as the change that set America on its ruinous path of Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union. [1]
In his article The Ghost of Liberal Democrats Past, Lance Selfa wrote a more thorough account of McCarthy’s campaign, as well as the stories of other leftist Democrat candidates whose platforms disappeared into the mainstream of the party:
In his article The Ghost of Liberal Democrats Past, Lance Selfa wrote a more thorough account of McCarthy’s campaign, as well as the stories of other leftist Democrat candidates whose platforms disappeared into the mainstream of the party:
… it is worth noting that much of what
is being said on the left today about Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was
said about Jackson’s campaigns in the 1980s… consider how the 2000s campaigns
of former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich disappointed their left supporters. Both
Jackson and Kucinich ultimately delivered supporters to the more conservative
Democrats against whom they had mounted their challenges in the first place.
They did this so effectively and seamlessly that it must be said their
campaigns aimed to do this from the start. Candidates like Jackson or Kucinich
occasionally flirted with the rhetoric of breaking with the Democrats, but
their clear commitment in practice was to bring people disenchanted with the
party into the Democratic orbit. And meanwhile, Sanders, for his part, won’t
even use the rhetoric—he has ruled out running outside the Democratic Party… For
those who want to build a stronger left in the U.S., there is no substitute for
the work of… organizing a political alternative independent of the Democratic
Party. [2]
The
starkest difference between McCarthy and Sanders is that the campaign of the
former was almost entirely based on a single foreign policy issue: withdrawal
from Vietnam. Young men from all social strata were eligible for the draft,
even though the lower socio-economic levels and African-Americans were much
more likely to end up in boots on the ground in Vietnam. The draft meant that
every family had a stake in the game, so an anti-war candidate like McCarthy gathered
enough support to be a serious contender for the Democratic nomination. This
may be why the draft was never reinstated. One might think that conservatives
would prefer to have compulsory military service, but a nation with a certain
degree of democratic control can’t be at constant war because draftees, and the
people who care about them, vote against wars that have no obvious connection
to self-defense.
The
focus on foreign policy in 1968 was possible also because domestic issues were,
relative to today, not as much of a concern. Racial inequality was,
legitimately, the main domestic problem, but in other respects it was a
comparative golden era. If there were economic worries, they were coming from
corporations that were beginning to fear the impact of the war on profits.
Many
critics of today’s Republicans point out that on domestic policies, Nixon would
today seem quite liberal, even to the left of Bill Clinton in the 1990s. In
1968, the public education system was functioning, unemployment was low, and government
was spending big on NASA and other research programs. It was before the oil
shock and inflation of the 1970s, and the neoliberal assault on the domestic
and global economy (the promotion of privatization, fiscal austerity,
deregulation, free trade, and reduced government spending) was yet to begin.
With the basic needs of the public largely met, a greater segment of the
electorate had the luxury of not being pre-occupied with personal economic
survival. They could focus on the big issues that stood a chance of fixing
systemic problems: nuclear disarmament, détente with the Soviet Union, and curtailing
foreign military ventures.
The
economy? It’s foreign policy, stupid
By
1990, the Cold War had apparently ended, but there are still 16,000 nuclear
weapons in the world today. One could ask if eliminating the redundant capacity
for overkill, while leaving thousands of nuclear warheads intact and calling
this “the end of the Cold War,” was merely a ploy to divert public attention
from the excessive military expenditures that were set to continue.
Since
the collapse of the USSR, America has maintained its control of the world, as
the sole remaining superpower, through military and economic means—although
this era may be ending now as China, Russia and BRIC countries are forming
several forms of economic integration outside the American sphere of influence.
The impact America’s imperial era still has on domestic politics should be
obvious because foreign policy requires the labor of the domestic population to
be organized according to its demands. It is a policy which, in addition to
being a method of controlling the world, is also way to feed and house the
population by directing the labor force into military service, national
security agencies and weapons production. In a sense, since WWII it has been
the social safety net, the sector in which one needed a job if one was to have
health insurance, job security, a good salary, and access to decent housing and
schools. As long as this policy succeeded as an economic stimulus for the
private sector and in delivering social benefits to a large segment of the
population, there was little political will to establish other sectors of the
economy and other forms of social security.
In
recent decades, the growing number of people living outside of this security
blanket has created great inequality and social disruption, a trend which has
turned the security apparatus against the domestic population—a downward spiral
in which a security-obsessed nation houses an increasing share of the
population in prisons. A cynic might also say that the increase in domestic
economic insecurity was created deliberately, or welcomed, as a way of
deflecting attention from America’s role in the world so that the problem of
1968 would never be repeated. Back then, when the domestic population wasn’t
kept in such a precarious state, people started paying too much attention to
foreign policy.
A
case in point that illustrates the domestic dependence on the security state is
New Mexico. A recent report in Reveal
(by The Center for Investigative
Reporting) stated:
For New Mexico, the second-poorest
state after Mississippi, nuclear weapons and military bases are undeniably a
lifeblood. Out of the $27.5 billion in federal dollars poured into the state in
2013, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study, about $5 billion went to Los
Alamos, Sandia and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nuclear weapons waste
facility east of Carlsbad, where accidents last year exposed dozens of workers
to radiation. [3]
The
article goes on to describe in depressing detail just how deeply the military
complex is embedded in American life. It is easy to denounce all this as rooted
in corporate greed and the corrupting influence of lobbyists, but the problem
is all the more implacable because no one wants to see the jobs disappear. No
one wants to see Albuquerque breaking bad, or breaking worse than it has
already since the defense cutbacks of the 1990s.
This
is why not even the progressive hero of the hour, Bernie Sanders, is talking
about foreign policy or discussing an alternative to the military economy. He has
some great ideas for reform, but has little to say about how to achieve it.
Higher taxes on the rich and corporations are a good start, but what happens
after that?
Some
commentary in alternative media has noted Sanders’ silence on foreign policy, particularly
his reluctance to say where he stands on Palestine, but the problem goes beyond
this one issue. While the US has failed to support Palestine, it has also
failed to support Tibet, West Papua, and a long list of other human rights
tragedies where the US could do good just by withdrawing economic ties and/or
military support from countries such as Israel, China and Indonesia. Doing the
right thing would require a complete abdication of America’s self-assigned role
as master of the global order, and this would also entail a re-imagining of the
domestic economy. One might add that a principled stance on independence
struggles elsewhere would require America to face up to what is owed to Native
Americans, or to the fact that the Kingdom of Hawaii has been illegally occupied since 1898.
 |
Former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean protest against the past eviction by Britain and the US for the establishment of the Diego Garcia military base. Photo from The Guardian.
|
The
article in Reveal about New Mexico’s
economy gives an idea of what the stakes are. It also raises some mind-bending
questions about the Kafkaesque absurdities that arise from the quest for
security with a stockpile of 5,000 aging, operationally deployed but untestable
nuclear warheads. [4] The defense labs in New Mexico are set to receive
hundreds of billions of dollars for the modernization of the nuclear arsenal,
but because of international agreements and belated environmental awareness,
these weapons can never be tested. They just have to be maintained so that they
are certain to function if they are needed. Nuclear scientists say it is like
maintaining a car in perfect condition but never being able to turn the key. [5]
If it ever were necessary to use the device, it would mean a global nuclear exchange
had begun, which would negate the purpose of having the weapons in the first
place.
Thus
if it is a matter of operating a trillion-dollar economic enterprise on
something that can never be used, we can ask whether this is really a massive fetish
or virtual-reality game that only creates the illusion that meaningful work is
being done. Since the nuclear tests actually are run only on computers, it
seems that the enterprise really is virtual, and nothing but a make-work
program for technocrats. They could just as well be paid their salaries for
playing Second Life for eight hours a day before they return to their suburban
homes in Albuquerque. This virtualization is perhaps an ironic correlate of the
financial system which also no longer has a connection to the production of
tangible goods that people need. However, while a few banks could easily be
eliminated, the bombs overseen by the nuclear labs are real, as is the chance
of an accidental launch. Furthermore, the accumulated nuclear waste from both
the military and “peaceful” uses of the atom poses its own existential threats.
 |
| Future uncertain for cleanup sites dependent upon WIPP |
Bernie
Sanders says he will confront climate change, but he seems unprepared to tell
Americans the really bad news that makes it much harder to imagine that a new New
Deal could repeat the gains in prosperity of the mid-20th century. It is one
thing to admit that global warming is going to be disruptive, but there are no
politicians willing to suggest that life might be harder in a less energy
intensive society, requiring everyone to have less but share more. No one wants
to talk about the other catastrophes developing while we are preoccupied with
the climate. For example, if sea levels rise, a great deal of social disruption
will ensue, and it is doubtful that there will always be competent authorities
watching over spent nuclear fuel during the next century. Seventy years into
the nuclear era, there is still no final disposal site for all the nuclear
waste accumulated from the military and civilian nuclear programs, yet this
issue is completely off the radar during election campaigns. Political
commentators sometimes refer metaphorically to issues that are “too radioactive”
to talk about, but in this case the meaning is quite literal.
Repudiation
of war as a means of settling international disputes
Once
we understand that the United States is capable of creating money and directing
its human resources toward the useless game of nuclear arsenal maintenance and
nuclear waste generation, it is easier to start asking why only such deadly
technologies are considered to have economic value. Could there be another
endeavor for Americans to devote their labor to? What does America want to be
when it grows up? Eventually, empires lose their steam and become ordinary
countries. Rome became Italy, which in its modern constitution “repudiates war
as an instrument offending the liberty of the peoples and as a means for
settling international disputes.” Empires transform themselves or are
transformed by outside forces.
After
WWII, the US occupation forced post-imperial Japan to accept the famous Article
9 of its new made-in-America constitution, which made it, like Italy, renounce foreign
military deployments. Conservative elements have fought against it ever since,
and the present Abe government just succeeded in “re-interpreting” it so that
Japan could join allies under attack in vague ways yet to be defined.[6]
Article
9 didn’t magically make Japan the peace-loving nation that it claims to be. It
is a vassal state, dotted with American military bases and American nuclear
weapons. It has rarely opposed American foreign policy or American sanctions
imposed on “uncooperative” nations, and it has profited from American wars in
Korea and Vietnam. During Gulf War I America asked for military support from
Japan, but it was impossible to get because of the American-imposed
constitution. Instead, Japan agreed to write a check to the American treasury
for $13 billion. [7] When America handed West Papua over to Indonesia in 1967,
Japanese corporations got a share of the natural resources.[8] The same sorts
of benefits went to other American allies who have passively stood by while the
world got carved up. Being a “peace-loving” nation should entail more than just
staying out of the fight while sharing in the spoils and being rewarded for
cooperation. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk on imperial ventures, but
then again, nations that resisted America’s plans have always paid a heavy
price.
Article
9 of the Japanese constitution, flawed though it is because of the circumstances
of its creation, is at least a beacon of hope, embraced by the majority of a
nation that had aspirations for peace after a ruinous quest for empire. America
might be able to start solving its domestic problems if it started downsizing
its military, like Japan, to what is only needed for true self-defense. Some
might say this is ludicrous while Russia and China supposedly pose an
existential threat, but parity with these other powers would mean only having
the same number of foreign military bases as them—that is, almost none. If America
really is destined to lead the world, it could unilaterally start to cut its
nuclear arsenal and set the example for other nuclear powers to follow. If such
a transformation happened, the Department of Defense could finally be concerned
with defense rather than the projection of power to all corners of the globe,
and there would be no need for the Orwellian-named Department of Homeland
Security.
War
and Money
The
economic collapse of Greece has made many people realize that the financial
assault on the country is just another kind of warfare, yet this shouldn’t come
as a surprise. In fact, it appears that markets and warfare were always two
sides of the same coin. The chartalist theory of money claims that money came
into existence because it was a necessity for military expansion. [9] In order
to send armies over long distances, kings needed a way to incentivize local
people along the marching route to resupply the soldiers. Kings made coins with
their likenesses on them, gave them to soldiers who then exchanged them for
food and supplies. For the locals, the coin was a promise by the king to pay
the bearer of the coin at a later time in goods of value. At the same time, the
kings imposed taxes, and people were now doubly incentivized to earn coins—both
for personal profit and to pay taxes to the king. This method succeeded in
creating markets, expanding frontiers, projecting power, and getting previously
independent communities to willingly submit to this new order because
individuals saw in it a possibility of enriching themselves. I don’t see how
any modern-day wage-earner, soldier, citizen or consumer could deny that the
situation is much the same in the modern plutonium and carbon-based economy.
When
people now say that we are at the end of capitalism, that we need a new system
that is yet to be invented, perhaps they are asking for a new kind of currency,
a system for sharing resources, that is de-coupled from the endless creation of
weaponry and military expansion. This is the sort of fundamental issue that
Bernie Sanders and other “radical” candidates seem determined to avoid. Instead
they offer simple slogans about “getting big money out of politics” and giving
Americans “a living wage” without mentioning the transformation of national values
that would be needed to achieve such goals. Perhaps they think it is essential
to dwell on fixing campaign finance reform first before actually talking about the
policies that could arise from a government free of the influence of big money—a
government that apparently exists out there somewhere over the rainbow.
Americans
should be wise to this game by now after the “hopey, changey stuff” [10] they
lived through in 2008, as well as all previous attempts by Democratic Party
outliers to change the system from within. The two-party system in the US is
run by an oligarchy, and with one party clearly no longer competent enough to
run a small-town school board, its remaining purpose is to be a cast of useful
idiots who can keep the center from moving to the left. Hilary Clinton will
adopt some of Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric, but in the later months of the campaign
she will point to a stage full of Republican clowns in order to scare the
electorate into voting for the only “realistic” and “pragmatic” choice. I’ll
leave the last word to Bruce Gagnon who came to similar conclusions after
attending a Sanders rally in early July 2015:
My bullshit meter went off the charts
last night. I’ve seen this song and dance before. But it doesn’t really matter
what I think because those 9,000 mostly liberal democrats left the Civic Center
last night thinking they have found another shining knight on a white horse to
lead them to victory. But victory won’t be within their grasp unless we can
talk about the US imperial war project that is draining our nation, killing
people all over the world, and helping to increase climate change as the
Pentagon has the largest carbon bootprint on the planet. Sure taxes on Wall
Street speculation will help some but until we get our hands on the Pentagon’s
pot of gold nothing really changes around here. [11]
Notes
[1] Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (London: Edbury Press, 2013), ch. 4 and 5.
[2] Lance Selfa, “The Ghost of Liberal Democrats Past,” Socialistworker.org, May 11, 2015.
[3] Len Ackland and Burt
Hubbard, “Obama pledged to reduce nuclear
arsenal, then came this weapon,”
Reveal, Center for Investigative
Reporting, July 14, 2015.
[4]
Arshad Mohammed and Phil Stewart, U.S.
says nuclear arsenal includes 5,113 warheads, Reuters, May 3, 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/03/us-nuclear-treaty-usa-arsenal-idUSTRE64251X20100503?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
[5]
Joseph Masco, Nuclear Borderlands: The
Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico (Princeton University Press,
2006), page 252.
[7]
Hiroshi Nakanishi, “The Gulf War and Japanese Diplomacy,” Nippon.com,
December 6, 2011 http://www.nippon.com/en/features/c00202/
[8] John Pilger, “Secret war against defenceless West Papua,” johnpilger.com, March 9, 2006. http://johnpilger.com/articles/secret-war-against-defenceless-west-papua
[9] David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years, (Melville House, 2011), pages 46-52.
[10] “‘How's
That Hopey, Changey Stuff?’ Palin Asks,” National Public Radio, February 7,
2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123462728
We can thank Sarah Palin
for being right like a broken clock once in a while.
[11] Bruce Gagnon, “Our Night with Bernie,” Dandelion
Salad, July 7, 2015. https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/chris-hedges-bernie-sanders-has-made-no-mention-of-the-military-part-3/
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