Post-dystopian Politics in a Pre-Dystopian World

Professor Henry Giroux holds the Global TV Network Chair at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department.  For quite a number of years he has written about the changing nature of the society we live in and how corporations along with financial and political elites are controlling the actions of government in order to enrich and empower the richest and most powerful members of society while the vast majority are left to struggle.

His most recent article (link below), which is incisive and thought provoking, focuses on "violent", authoritative and militaristic government policies and how they negatively impact peoples' ability to live a hopeful and  meaningful life.

The focus of Giroux's article is the US but his comments can equally apply to Canada, as it has been transformed by Conservatives policies under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

To paraphrase from one of the paragraphs in the essay:

Any viable movement [towards a reinvigorated] democracy needs not only to fight manufactured ignorance, economic inequality, racial [and social] injustice but also produce a community that manifests the values of equality, mutual respect [and hope for the future] . . . [things which are] missing in a world that [functions in a paradigm of robber baron capitalism where the pursuit of profit is justified by any means -- even if those means include a hollowed out democracy, environmental degradation, social injustice, human suffering and despair.

I encourage you to read it and pass it on to others.  Only by raising awareness can we hope to mobilize enough people to speak out and take action against politicians who are more than willing to impliment policies which are destroying the limited infrastructure of the compassionate and caring society that was built since the 1960s.  To not act is to condemn Canada to become the sort of society we see in many parts of the U.S. where social Darwinism is a reality. 

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19025-beyond-savage-politics-and-dystopian-nightmares 

© F. Khan.  All Rights Reserved.

Long Ago Dreams of a "New World Order"

February 13, 2013 -- I recently came across this map of the world that was created to illustrate what the "new world order" would look like after the end of World War II.  The map was actually completed before the Japanese attack onPearl Harbor and published on February 25, 1942.

It shows a proposed political division of the world after World War II in the event of an Allied victory in which the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union would rule. The map includes a manifesto describing a "New World Moral Order", along with quotes from U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech.

While there are many points from the policies of the New World Moral Order that are fodder for endless debate, the following three points should be of particular note: 

• To reduce the burden and criminal waste of armaments expenditures everywhere in the world, the U.S.A., with the cooperation of Latin-America, the British Commonwealth of Nations, and the U.S.S.R. shall undertake to guarantee peace to the nations which will be permanently disarmed and demilitarized after the conclusion of the present war.
•  A World Court with punitive powers of absolute boycott, quarantine, blockade and occupation by international police, against lawbreakers of international morality shall be organized.
• In the New World Moral Order which we seek to establish, besides the essential political freedoms, the following fundamental economic changes are imperative:

 (a)   Nationalization of all natural resources and equitable distribution of same to all nations…everywhere in the world;

 (b)   Nationalization of international banking, foreign investments, railroads and power plants….everywhere in the world;

 (c)   Nationalization of all armaments producing establishments by all military powers;

 (d)   Federal control of foreign commerce and shipping;

 (e)   The establishment of a world common monetary system;

 (f)    World wide limitations of interest rates to a maximum of two percent.

This vision of a new world would have seen political domination by three major powers which would have been problematic to say the least.  However, in hindsight the goals of demilitarization, equitable sharing of the world's natural resources among all nations, regulation of international banking and commerce, and nationalization of the arms industry would have been welcomed (whoever was in control) considering what occurred geo-politically and economically in the decades following WW II, and the political and economic state of the world today.

Instead of the political, economic and social benefits that would have been enjoyed had this manifesto been implemented we have today a world which is more militarized, more economically selfish and politically inequitable then any time since World War II.  Today we have a world where 5% of the world's companies control 80% of the planet's economy and resources, and where the profits of corporations are placed ahead of the needs of people.  We have a world where international banking and commerce has become increasingly unregulated over the past several decades resulting in the world-wide economic crisis of 2008.  We have a world where the sale of armaments and military hardware is looked at in terms of its potential for job creation for the countries doing the selling rather then in terms of its potential for inflicting deathand destruction, encouraging militarism and causing political instability in various regions of the world.

Related: Who really contols the world? 

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "When evil men plot, good men must plan . . .When evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice."  Looking at the state of society and the world today one has to wonder if "evil men" are the ones who have taken control of the world.

There is no guarantee that the New World Moral Order would have resulted in a world free of political, economic and social injustices.  The world doesn't work that way given the general falibility and self-serving character of humans.  However, the fact that it was an idea that was discussed at the highest levels, and its details recorded, shows that at one time there were leaders in the world who had a grand vision of a humanity and a world that was less selfish, less greedy and more altruistic then the world which we live in today.

One can only wonder what sort of world it might have been had those plans become reality.

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