OpEdNews: Many people are afraid those sorts of actions will result in a government crackdown that will make our lives worse.
Hathaway: The crackdown is already happening. Our lives have been slowly getting worse for 30 years. Young workers in the USA are earning less than their parents did. And that trend is spreading now to Europe. The "have a nice life" days are over. We're beginning to get the same treatment as people in the client states.
That's the consolidation stage of capitalism we're in. It swallows up small businesses and independent contractors and turns almost everyone into a worker competing for a decreasing number of low-wage jobs. The libertarians and tea partyers are mad as hell about that because they're losing their privileged position. They want to turn the clock back to the old competitive stage of capitalism, when they still had a chance to make it big. But that's a nostalgic illusion -- those times are gone.
The liberals have their own nostalgic illusion -- that we can turn the clock back to Keynesian capitalism. Back then, from the 1950s through the '70s, wage increases were permitted because they stimulated consumption. But that was only true as long as the primary market for products was the home country. Now the market is global, so low price is more important, which means wages have to be held down. The international workforce is being leveled, and we're on our way to a globalized proletariat. The challenge of capitalism then is going to be to keep us separated. Their think tanks are no doubt working on ways to do that now.
Our worsening situation -- working long hours for low pay, living in a deteriorating society, raising children amid fear and hostility -- is caused by the same forces that drove us to war. Capitalism now manifests as invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan, as privatization and impoverishment in Latin America, and as the destruction of the middle class in the industrial nations. It's the same system operating in different environments.
Rather than sheepishly obeying in hopes of avoiding more punishment, we need to actively resist and take back the power that's been usurped from us. This struggle won't be comfortable, but it will be meaningful. To go along with the system in hopes of having it easier is collaboration, a living death. Better to have a vivid life of opposition. Rebelling is revitalizing
We don't need to live by dominating other countries. In fact we can't live that way anymore. We have to change. And that means taking our government back from the corporations that now run it and restructuring them both to serve human needs instead of private profits. Until that happens we don't have a chance for lasting peace.
OpEdNews: Why do most people reject these ideas?
Hathaway: Most people identify with the system. It's all they know, so they accept it. They're threatened by the thought of major changes. They're afraid of losing what little they have, so they don't want to defy the power structure. Children are raised to love their country. In school they are taught a very selective view of our history and almost nothing about foreign policy. And they're put through patriotic rituals that make them identify the country with their family, especially their fathers, because it's a patriarchal structure. So they react very defensively when the country is criticized That's emotionally painful to them, like an attack on their family.
OpEdNews: Won't these efforts to weaken the US military just lead to a victory of the terrorists?
Hathaway: They probably will take over, and that's unfortunate. But the USA created these terrorists. We trained and armed bin Laden and the Taliban to kill communists in Afghanistan. The civil war we sponsored there killed two million people and brutalized a whole generation of Afghans. We turned these fanatics into the most powerful force in the country, so of course they took over the government. And the USA didn't object to them at all until they refused to let us build a pipeline through the country. Only then did the corporate media start portraying them as these terrible monsters who need to be destroyed.
In Iraq we helped Saddam Hussein come to power and supported him militarily, until he started opposing us. In Iran we overthrew their government in the 1950s because they planned to nationalize the oil industry. We installed the Shah and kept him in power as one of the most brutal dictators in the world. In Libya right after al-Gaddafi came to power as a socialist and nationalized the oil, we started economic warfare against him, subverting his government and trying to overthrow him. We turned him into an enemy. The list goes on and on. In every country where we now have anti-American terrorism, the USA first did terrible things. That's why they hate us. Now we're paying the price for our aggression.
In the USA we blank out this history. But people in those countries are very aware of it. And they're not putting up with it anymore. What we call terrorists are really just people fighting back with the only weapons they have.
Considering the atrocities of US foreign policy, America needs to lose this war -- for its own sake and for the sake of the world. We have to stop dominating other countries.
OpEdNews: If the insurgents take over again, won't they keep attacking us at home?
Hathaway: Our government tries very hard to make us believe that. There's a huge PR campaign to convince us that the Taliban and al Qaeda want to conquer America, force us all to become Muslims. They are portrayed as insane mad-dog killers that we need to exterminate. But that's nonsense. Their actual demands are never published in the Western media because they're so reasonable. Basically they come down to, "Go home and leave us alone. Pull your soldiers, your CIA agents, your missionaries, your corporations out of Muslim territory. If you do that, we'll stop attacking you." Nothing about destroying the West or forcing it to become Islamic. Just that the West should stay in the West. They are fighting a defensive war.
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