The Congressman's Letter & Other Moral Miseries

Did I tell you about my friend Cassandra? yeah, like the prophetess! The one that was condemned by a rejected lover to foretell the future but not to be believed... She writes these things from time to time, when things that happen in the world make her mad. It's like spitting, she says, because she earns her life writing, but can't afford to write things like this rant, worth reading!

The Congressman's Letter & Other Moral Miseries
It seems we should feel every type of shame and indignation going, after knowing that lies were used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Or maybe not. After all isn’t an important characteristic of ‘advanced’ societies the idea of realpolitik?

That is, the existence of a political protective shell. One made up of a mixture of relativism, cynicism and pure political calculation. This allows the citizen to ignore his or her own indignation. If such an emotion still exists in his or hers trampled emotional repertoire.

If the public are unable to feel empathy for other people's suffering, and the lies and the interests that cause them, it is because of their new status. Wage slaves. Slaves to debt. It is a type of collective hallucination, one called ‘confidence in the markets’ that keeps them quiet.

But the more deceits we have to tolerate, the worse and the more brutal will be the lies they tell. The more pronounced will be the cynicism that our rulers will expound. In just one week we have had two good samples of this moral baseness. Unfortunately it comes from the people we voted to publicly represent our political will.

First Tony Blair. The second in a trio of liars, was left basically undamaged after his imperial adventure. Repugnant in his baseness, after being re-elected he urged the British people “to forget the past, and to take care of the things that really worry us”.

Since now it is too late to measure the errors, according to Mr Blair, we are told to “forget the past”. Sorry, it is not that easy. Mainly, because that past is still the present. The coalition have left Iraq infinitely worse than before its intervention. They demonstrated that unfortunately, the ‘coalition of the willing’ can surpass even the most bloodthirsty of dictators.

Today’s reality has no quick remedy. But at least repentance and contrition would seem to be inescapable values for a honest politician. The call to look the other way is an abject example of policymaking that despises reality. Instead it looks to impose decisions through stating an opinion in the coarsest way, through fear. And they know that it works.

They frightened the population once by lying about the aggressive capacities of a dictator who no longer served their interests. Now, subtly, they try to frighten us again. Agreeing to forget the past so as not to put in danger a possible resolution of the “authentic problems”.

Shame on you, Mr. Blair, and also shame on all those that voted for him because “that’s the way it is.” It’s just one more example that, collectively, we have lost all reference, all moral norms, all notions of justice. And therefore possibly the right to live peacefully in the world.

The second example of the enormous scorn which they feel about us voters has been shown by the Californian Republican congressman, Daniel Lungren. In a letter in which he asked for the support for oil exploration in Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) Lungren wrote the following.

I feel quite strongly that as long as we have our military in the Middle East fighting so that we can continue to purchase oil from that region, we have an obligation to find alternatives to foreign oil.

Only thanks to the action of the citizen who received it and whom, according to him, had to read the aforementioned paragraph several times before believing what it said, the subject has come to light.

It is a shameless admission of the reasons that took to the U.S.A. to invade Iraq. Taking with them Great Britain, a nation that will soon join the club of petroleum-importing superpowers.

Before notions like these we have to stand strong. To be against it with all our strength, or definitively abandon any aspiration of justice, solidarity and good will between people. Like in Great Britain, in the U.S.A. the political climate no longer is affected by the war in Iraq. Bush was re-elected. People returned to their daily lives, to worry about the truly important things. The mundane.

It is bad enough that the media is no longer interested in it. Subjects disappear from the conscience of an American population that has never felt very interested in separating reality and propaganda. Another success for modern policy, based on the control of information and the sale of fear.

In that new atmosphere, it is no wonder congressman Lungren has relaxed and has put on written record the most obvious thing. That his country invaded another, rich in oil reserves. Just in order to be able to control them.

The worse thing of all, is this. Whatever happens in respect to the really big energy challenges that await to us, we already know the kind of policy that is going to guide the powerful countries in the management of that scenario. Lies, fear, hatred, war.

That is the prescription, and that is the misfortune. Little importance is given to the concerns about technological developments, government initiatives, social efforts to ease the energy situation. Especially if at heart, the winning ideals are those shown by our leaders in Iraq.

First they will lie saying to us that it everything is well. When the situation becomes untenable, when the problems are right in the heat of their term of office, they will play the fear card. They will demand sacrifices from us or everything will be worse. They will point with the finger at the new guilty.

Those that have the oil and whose governments do not allow the entrance of the necessary foreign capital so that we can prune their reserves to the maximum. They already know that we are able to tighten our economic belt.

From the Iraq episode they know that our gullibility is still ample. We may have resigned from any kind of ethical stances, in exchange for maintaining our miserable status quo. Countries will be invaded, new enemies will be declared, they will put price on the heads of those who put our unsustainable way of life in danger. Then war, the old method that never fails, will return.

That is the great danger. In order to transform reality it is necessary to know it first. Lamentably our social model does not allow that. It disguises divergent visions, and if the lie is necessary, will dress reality with whatever consensus is needed.

It demonstrates the practical disappearance of any kind of macroeconomic policy that is not the one that dictated by the godfathers of neo-liberalism. After all, the consumers consume, sweatshops produce, the banks lend, and the wizard apprentices continue experimenting with techniques to obtain a bubble that never explodes.

Denial is perfectly comprehensible, because each step higher, (and recently we have climbed a lot very quickly), the abyss is even deeper. So, do not let us be fooled by their mirage. Do not tolerate it. Even if hurts us in the pocket.

If they are not able to be straight in the days of relative bonanza, what we can hope of them in the days of crisis?