American Empire: Part Five

The death of Kennedy came at the peak of his power and appeal. Yet if he had stayed in power much longer he probably would not have been remembered so fondly. Kennedy was a man of exceptional personal charm and charisma, I am sure his serial affairs could testify to that. Furthermore he was certainly not a polarising figure. Although his election was one of the closest in US history; Kennedy sought to unite the country in a number of ways. Its funny although I do accept that there is a great deal of truth to the 'Cultural Industry' theory of capitalist societies this does not mean that people do not have freedom to make a choice. Most people follow which section of the elite they chose to blindly trust (I.E. the choice between slightly lefter elites and righter); but nonetheless there is a choice, and the choice is constantly can always change. Kennedy sought to follow the elite consensus of hawkishness towards the Soviets. He scaremongered about a 'missile gap' between the Soviet Union and the United States (one did exist but in the opposite direction). When in charge he pursued a reactionary policy towards Castro, trying to topple his regime repeatedly. Then when it came to the Cuban missile crisis, rather than seeing Khrushchev as merely copying similar US nuclear weapon placements in Turkey (next to the Soviet Union) he pursued a policy that risked Nuclear War. This is classic nuclear brinkmanship of the North Korean style though no one calls it that in the history books because of our all too rosy, naive view of the US place in the world.

Furthermore on the domestic front Kennedy sought to temper the call for civil rights and equality. He was not a vocal advocate of black emancipation, although he met with Martin Luther King advised him to not pursue full emancipation, he thought it would be a pyrrhic victory. Yet again this was classic Kennedy horse trading to appear popular, luckily it worked because the United States remained in a period of unparalleled prosperity. US economic power was largely unopposed in the world, it was at the cutting edge of world manufacturing and the global cultural leader (think Hollywood). By contrast Obama who now seeks to emulate Kennedy faces an elite racked by late imperial profligacy, a nation economically in crisis and politically divided. Therefore a consensus style just appears weak, and rather pathetic. Kennedy's style can also be seen in the massive tax cuts that he pushed through for the rich; his rhetorical device for this was 'A rising tide lifts all boats'. A rather seductive and beguiling phrase; reflexively coming from Socialist roots I disagree. The War on poverty did more to lift boats through redistribution than Kennedy's effective redistribution from the state which predominantly enriches the poor, directly to the rich. Nonetheless in a society founded on a dream of becoming prosperous one can understand why Kennedy's policy would be popular even to those who it did not directly benefit. The aspirant middle class is a phenomenon that all good pollsters talk about nowadays; they are a large bloc of voters who aspire to have a life just like the upper class, therefore they think of themselves in those terms when it comes to government policy even though those policies will give them no short term economic benefits.

There is of course a more old fashioned left wing way of looking at this. The cultural industry is owned by the elite, the elite benefits from tax cuts so therefore sets up foundations, institutes, research centres to educate people in the economic science of why tax cuts are not only good for the rich but for everyone. In a real sense the people who are educated in the goodness of tax cuts can probably see why they are good, they can get a job at a newspaper or university promoting them. So therefore tax cuts are good for them, it gives them a guaranteed income from a rich source! But more importantly these ideas begin to spread throughout civil society, they become a reputable opinion held at least by a substantial minority. These people can then start to create 'false consciousness' amongst the masses, so they start to see tax cuts as in their interests, they start to identify the economic interests of a few rich people as being in the interests of everyone. The national economy itself will benefit, the money will trickle down and everyone will be better off. Its all too funny, whilst this explanation is too simplistic it is undoubtedly true that more heavily taxed developed economies have better social services and lower levels of income inequality (compare Finland with the USA).

The Kennedy presidency ended gruesomely. Yet if he had lived longer it would have ended in a similar way for many other Americans. There was choices that had to be made that were made by his successor. Unresolved foreign policy questions hung in the air, decolonisation (think Africa and Vietnam). Massive unresolved domestic policy questions (health policy, social welfare and racial questions). Lyndon Johnson is not fondly remembered by history, all his successes are forgotten by most people who know his name. He is merely remembered for one reason, Vietnam. For good reason in actual fact, at least in some ways.

When we think of government profligacy surely we must look to George W. Bush in cutting taxes for the rich whilst seeking to wage two wars. Lyndon Johnson went even further, he deployed more troops in Vietnam at the height of the War than the US has at any time in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, this after his predecessor had cut taxes for the rich. Concurrently he pursued some of the most Whiggish policies on the home-front of any US imperial president. He was the David Lloyd George of domestic policy and Cecil Rhodes of foreign policy. The Great Society program was one of the most enlightened programs of the post-war era, it involved a massively redistributive war on poverty and concurrently sought to breakdown one of the biggest courses of privation, discrimination. I do not consider it necessary to tell the complete story of blacks in America, suffice it to say, they were systematically and legally discriminated against. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did much to change this. In this regard Johnson was far less scared than his predecessors' of white opinion. As a result however the democratic party and the white population of America was politically transformed. The American equivalent of the working class Tory (or blue collar reactionary!) emerged. A group of people whose economic interests were almost identical to an ethnic minority, but who empathised with the contrary interests of others in their ethnic group. In real terms the Democratic Party was a coalition of elite interests, northern and southern whites who saw their economic and social interests represented in a progressive and socially conservative Democratic party. This coalition began to crack as blacks started to join the party. It was evident that there would eventually be a fateful choice; in 1948 Hubert H. Humphrey who would become Johnson's vice-president added black emancipation to the Democratic political platform. The result of Johnson's progress was that the Democrats lost the south. They also lost many white voters. They became a minority white party in a nation where the whites were the dominant ethnic group. Thus the American empire would become more reactionary at home and abroad.