How can we deal with the problem of domestic terrorism at its real source: the frustration of a large portion of our nation's population seeing the real American dream--a better life for their children than the one they had--denied? Further, how can we re-engage these individuals as part of our moribund political system, which is absolutely necessary for the revitalization of that system as well as the realization of the American dream for all of us?
The secret is not simply throwing money at a problem. FDR's New Deal, JFK's New Frontier, and LBJ's Great Society never relied simply on throwing money at a problem. Their secret was to get people to throw themselves at the problem and then--once they knew what the problem was--ask for the money to fix it.
The "dollar a year men," Civilian Construction Corps, Works Project Administration, the Peace Corps, VISTA, Project Head Start: all of these relied on getting people involved in solving the problem, not simply giving money to often corrupt local governments or private corporations.
I believe that a strong case can be made that the efficiency of many domestic programs (particularly those initiated under JFK and LBJ), were hampered (especially in the area of education), when the Federal government under President Nixon began handing out block grants (for example to state education departments and local school systems), rather than the area specific funding that had been the practice before. Monies disappeared into administrators' "pet projects," rather than new text and library books, art and music supplies, etc. The number of administrators in schools and school districts grew; the number of teachers per student shrank.
Democracy is a form of government that requires a "hands-on" approach, at every juncture, if it is to work correctly. Unfortunately, Americans have fallen out of the habit of good citizenship, of making certain that their elected representatives truly represent them, and that their "civil servants," remember to be civil to the public, while providing that selfsame public, service. Americans must at the same time remember that their representatives and civil servants are there to serve the American public as a whole, not every American's desire individually. We should always receive an answer from our government, even if sometimes that answer has to be "No."
No, what must be done does not involve dismantling of Big Government, certainly not in its early stages. Big Government will be required to battle the true villain of this piece, what Theodore Roosevelt called Big Business.
Big Business--i.e. the giant multinational corporation--hates democracy, or for that matter any form of republican government where there is not some form of an oligarchy or aristocracy established with special rights above and beyond those of most citizens. It is this privileged class of oligarchs who actually run the government, solely for their own benefit.
Big Business only wants enough education for the lower and middle classes to enable them to work in the giant corporation's factories, mines, stores, and offices, at slightly more than subsistence wages. Big Business does not want its workers to have enough education so that they might start demanding better pay, benefits, and working conditions for themselves or their fellow workers.
Big Business hates competition, in part because they want to pick and choose among the best qualified workers for themselves, rather than risk having to compete for their services, and coincidentally pay a higher wages and benefits for those services. Big Business also hates competition because it reduces their profits at the end of a quarter, profits they are certain by right belong to them.
The right-wing nut cases who constitute the militias and the other previously listed far right domestic movements from which the vast majority of our terrorists spring, are often times the same people who have been most seriously harmed economically by the unscrupulous practices of Big Business in terms of their lives and livelihoods. They're the small businessman who was put out of business by Wal-Mart or Home Depot. They're the factory worker whose job and factory was shipped to China, or India, or Mexico. They're the construction worker who can't find a job because all the major contractors are bidding union costs on labor, hiring illegal immigrants at half price, and pocketing the difference.
And yet these individuals, many of whom are church goers, cannot bring themselves to blame the major corporations who are at the heart of their problem. This is due in part to the pernicious influence of John Calvin and his "Doctrine of the Elect," on so much of the psyche of the America. It is a subject that I first touched upon five years ago in my December 2004 article "Madness," for OnlineJournal.com, and then republished January 29, 2009, here at OpEdNews.com.
Calvin's doctrine is one--borrowing here from "Madness"--which says that the eternally saved are predestined to prosper on Earth and be welcomed in Heaven. This idea has long been used by the rich to justify their greed and inhumanity to the less fortunate. Or to quote John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (from Ron Chenrow's book Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.; 1998; p, 46), "I believe the power to make money is a gift from God to be developed to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe that it is my duty to make money and still more money, and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience"[my ledgers are] sacred books that guide decisions and saved one from fallible emotions."
This is a doctrine that stands in broad contradiction to the one espoused by Jesus of Nazareth in his Sermon on the Mount, not to mention the Works of Corporeal Mercy expressed by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica. John Calvin's essential doctrine is this: that those who are poor are not among the Elect and are destined for the pits of Hell, so we may ignore their problems, for they are the problems of the already damned. This form of materialism has lead to a society best described by British author John Berger: "The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing."
So, these right-wing, potential domestic terrorists feel guilt, because they are not among those blessed with prosperity by God. They have somehow been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It cannot be the fault of the rich (except of course the rich Christ-killing Jews and God-denying liberal atheists, who got their wealth by selling their souls), for they are "God's elect." It must be the Devil and his left-wing henchmen, using the "mud people," and their desire for equality, to drag all of the good right-wing white folk down to their level.
This is the lie that they have been taught their entire lives, by right wing demagogues from Father Coughlin and Strom Thurmond, to Karl Rove and Glen Beck. It's not the white right-wingers fault, or the fault of the rich corporate owners who sent all of the good paying jobs overseas in the interest of one extra cent of profit per share. No, it is the fault of all of the lefties and "mud people" who have ever demanded that the status quo be changed, so that America might become a place where we could find, "liberty and justice for all."
The only way to end domestic terrorism is by renewing the American Dream. All Americans must come to understand that a white mechanic in Queens has much more in common with the black mechanic in Harlem, than he does the white stockbroker in Manhattan. We have to cease permitting the rich from playing off one group of Americans against another. We must strip the rich of their excess political power by taking their money out of the electoral equation. We must re-establish our manufacturing base in order to make certain we have decent jobs for future generations of Americans. We must also provide affordable, comprehensive, universal health care for all Americans so that our industries are no longer at a disadvantage when competing with other western democracies.
