Part 3 - Conspiracy theories, government spooks, and Cass Sunstein
By Peter Ewart
Thursday, January 28, 2010 03:45 AM
By Peter Ewart
Previous installments in this series (see Part 1 and Part 2 ) discussed how Cass Sunstein, the well-known legal scholar and advisor to the U.S. president, has put forward proposals for governments to use undercover agents and “dirty tricks” to combat so-called “conspiracy theories” being generated by those he calls “extremists.”
Also discussed was how there are, in fact, very real conspiracies being carried out against the public interest whether they are hatched in the White House, Parliament buildings or boardrooms of multinational corporations.
Why is this the case? How is it that all these conspiracies are taking place? This is a legitimate question – after all, we are said to be living in a democracy where the people of the country are supposed to be in charge.
The facts are very different. Today, it is well-known that the big banks and big business dominate governments, and monopolize the main sectors of the economy, to the extent that even their most slavish apologists must admit it. Indeed, on the individual level, some of these financial and corporate monopolies have such huge power it now dwarfs that of many nation states.
Even members of the U.S. Congress openly acknowledge this state of affairs. Dick Durbin, a leading U.S. senator, has put it bluntly: the big banks “own the U.S. Congress.”
This situation prevails not just in the U.S., but also in Canada, the province of British Columbia and other parts of the world.
The problem with monopoly is that it goes hand in hand with conspiracy, whether this be price fixing, predatory lending, corruption, or other practices. The Robber Barons were the monopolists of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries who were notorious for their ruthless, unprincipled activity and for their conspiracies against their non-monopoly competitors and the public good. They were so bad that governments back then were forced to take some measures against them, including various pieces of anti-trust and anti-monopoly legislation.
Flash forward to 2010. Much of that legislation has been gutted or eliminated, as can be seen in the recent financial crisis on Wall Street. The 21st Century Robber Barons of today dominate government and the economy to an unprecedented degree. And with this domination comes numerous, ongoing, unrelenting conspiracies against the interests of the people, whether it be workers, professionals, small or non-monopoly businesses, or entire communities, regions and even countries.
This domination of government by monopolies has created an extremely dangerous situation whereby giant armament and war production conglomerates have a vested interest in provoking war and conflict throughout the world – these days especially in the Middle East. For example, U.S. armament companies played a big role in the conspiracy to launch wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, and they continue to beat the drum for military action against Iran and other countries.
As recent revelations in Britain are bringing to light for all to see, the launching of the Iraq War was a conspiracy hatched long before 9/11 and involved the highest levels of the American and British governments.
It is, of course, very interesting that a “legal scholar” like Cass Sunstein is proposing action against “conspiracy theorists” who are working to investigate and uncover government and corporate conspiracies, precisely at this time when the most heinous, and even treasonous, conspiracies are being launched at the highest levels.
But the problem is not just that monopolies dominate government. There is also a grave problem with the political process itself, and the two issues are interlinked.
The political parties in Parliament, Congress and the legislatures themselves are like monopolies, working together and conspiring like cartels to keep the citizenry out of the process except as “voting cattle.”
The party-dominated political process is such that we elect party-selected candidates on one day every four years. For the rest of those 1200 or 1400 days, we have an “elected dictatorship.” The people are kept outside the door in the cold. As the Little Richard song goes, “I hear you knockin’ but you can’t come in.”
The political process is such that, during an election campaign, a political party can make practically any sort of promise, yet, once elected, turn around and do the exact opposite, as happened in British Columbia with the sale of BC Rail and the imposition of the HST tax. A government can “prorogue” Parliament in the most anti-democratic way as the federal government in Canada has just done. Or, like the Republicans and Democrats jointly did in the U.S. last year, a government can bailout the billionaire bankers in spite of the fact that the American people were overwhelming against such an action.
Some would argue that this kind of behavior constitutes fraud and breach of trust. But the citizenry have no mechanisms to prohibit it, and it happens time and time again, whether the political party in power presents itself as “left wing” or “right wing”, “Republican” or “Democrat.”
Like the monopoly domination, such a political process breeds conspiracy. At all levels, it creates a political and governmental culture of extreme secrecy and lack of transparency, of “backroom deals” and “plain brown envelopes”. Government, in effect, becomes a captive to special interests and hostile to the vast majority of people.
Is it any wonder that many Americans have contempt for the U.S. Congress or that, as a recent report says, a growing number of Canadians are profoundly “disenchanted” with politics and feel “increasingly alienated from the political process and its institutions.”
It is one of the features of modern life that people want control over the political process and over their livelihoods. The monopolies, with their domination over government, and the established political parties, with their domination of the political process, stand in the way.
We need a new political process, one that has mechanisms to empower the citizenry and that ensures their control over government, as well as restricts the power of the monopolies.
In my opinion, if there is any lesson to be drawn from Cass Sunstein and the anti-democratic actions he is proposing, it is that.
(This article is the last in the series)
Peter Ewart is a columnist, writer and community activist in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
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Posted by: Captain Slashpile on January 28 2010 7:33 AM