The Rhetoric of Omission

          In a 2009 radio interview for WNYC, New York Public Radio, David Harvey differentiates between the “trickle-down” effect in terms of wealth versus quality of life.  Yes, he says, some wealth does indeed trickle down with increases in capitalist accumulation; but this does not ensure that improvements in quality of life trickle down as well.  He explains that capitalists do not actually invest in production as much as in assets and that this enables them to accumulate more and more while doing nothing or very little to improve anyone's life but their own.  Sure, some jobs are created through construction, “but the wage rates were very low, extremely low, and of course, as we know, the social protections were negligible.  So it is not as though well-being trickled down.  A certain sort of job structure was created which was very low wage, very badly protected, which actually then produced goods which allowed the rich to get even richer.”1

          Mr. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs would disagree.  In fact, in a recent Op-Ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, Blankfein adeptly implies quite the opposite.  In “The Business Plan for American Revival,” he suggests that “the Obama administration and large segments of the business community [must] forge a more productive relationship,” and that this will “do wonders for the economy.” He goes on to say, “We in the business community have a responsibility to contribute to a better understanding of the urgency of averting a crippling and self-inflicted recession [and] we also need to talk about the significant opportunities that result from forward-looking change” (A17).  On first read, it is difficult to argue with his seemingly benevolent and disinterested position of looking out for the general interest.  The economy is important; forward-looking change sounds great; but, as seems to be norm in political-economic rhetoric, there is a wealth of information waiting to be mined from the implications of what has been omitted.

            Without explicitly saying it, Blankfein assumes the position that Harvey so lucidly denigrates.  Nowhere in Blankfein’s solicitation of “sensible immigration reform,” “spending cuts, [and] entitlement reform,” or “restor[ing] confidence in public finance,” does he mention what that would look like for the millions of people it is supposedly intended to help.  For instance, immigration reform, to him, is limited to “mak[ing] it easier for talented people to live and work in the U.S.”  Like much of his position, this sounds inarguable, but it is only inarguable because it says so little.  If he were to address the real-life circumstances of the millions of people who live here illegally without having attended college or developing advanced skills, there might be plenty of room to argue.  What might he propose we do with or for them?  Indeed, “spending cuts” and “entitlement reform” function much the same way.  Rather than delineate exactly what these would look like for the people who will be most affected, he simply encourages a “comprehensive and balanced solution.”  Even if such a solution could be achieved, what has gone unaddressed is exactly what the problem is, who it plagues, and how their lives can and should change. 

            Yes, Mr. Blankfein is a businessman first and foremost, so it makes sense for him to stick to an assessment of how government can get out of the way of business in order to facilitate economic growth.  Up to this point, it sounds as though the “trickle-down effect” of wealth is in order and realistic.  But Mr. Blankfein does not outright say that this is the best thing for business, for his business; instead, he says that business leaders “want to see progress and contribute to it” and that “we are all ready to roll up our sleeves and work with the Obama administration and Congress to help fulfill America’s enduring promise.”  Here, he obliquely links a very particular and limited kind of economic growth to the fulfillment of an American “promise.”  What he doesn’t say is what this fulfillment entails. 

            Harvey would have some feedback.  In Rebel Cities, he gives voice to exactly what’s between the lines of Blankfein’s position: that “the economy of wealth-accumulation piggy-backs violently on the economy of dispossession” (25).  What Blankfein does not say is that whatever little wealth trickles down only serves to reproduce the very conditions which sustain the increasing wealth of a few while ensuring the ever-decreasing wealth of the many.  What he does not mention is how reforming the system and spurring growth will directly affect people’s lives.  Will a few be granted crumbs under the pretense of democratic access to the capitalist pursuit while the rest stay mired in state dependence and financial debt cycles?  Or is there another way, a way to look past simply giving the same old system a kick-start to create the same results?  These are tough questions because they require radical changes to a system Mr. Blankfein seeks to preserve.  These are tough problems because any massive solution proposed will undoubtedly be subject to vehement critique.  So it is much easier to say a whole lot of nothing, and that is just what he does. 

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1.  See the above YouTube clip, beginning at 2:48 min.

Works Cited

Blankfein, Lloyd.  “The Business Plan for American Revival.” Opinion-Editorial.  Wall Street

Journal 14 November 2012: A17.  Print.

Harvey, David.  Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution.  London:

Verso, 2012.  Print.

No Terrorists Here

            Randy Martin, author of Empire of Indifference: American War and the Financial Logic of Risk Management, addresses the cause of the lingering conflicts in Afghanistan by linking the United States’ military strategies with its economic strategies.  Specifically, financial risk is broken down, parceled out, and capitalized on by being sold as a commodity, or derivative, in itself (rather than being resolved between the two original parties).  The wars on terror of late are intended to function in much the same way.  American forces break down and strategically engage potential threats under the pretense of spreading freedom and democracy, and by increasing social and political chaos, risk and effects can be calculated and capitalized on.  Martin explains, “The decomposed nation would leave a colonial substrate that would spin off endless conflicts and opportunities.  The old imperial ambition was to consume the colonial whole; the new aspiration attaches to less, while making more if its partial attentions” (123).  The U.S. effectively starts and spreads conflicts without actually achieving any of the “goals” it purports to pursue.  Not only do wars not end, they offer more and more opportunities to achieve desired effects through future conflicts.  So, just as debt is broken down according to calculated risk, parceled out, and re-sold, so, too, are wars now sustained indefinitely while they constantly spawn new conflicts which can then be capitalized on for political and economic purposes.

            One of the U.S. military’s strategies, according to Martin, is in dubbing its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan responses to terror.  Martin explains, “the war on terror allows nations and populations to be marked with the occult motives and shadowy intention that have long characterized racial loathing,” and in doing so “racialize(s) [the terrorist] as the bad other or object of risk—risks to freedom, liberty, ways of life, and identity” (165).   These risks must be objectified and managed, and in order to do this, there “is a splitting of a single race into a superrace and a subrace” where the subrace embodies all the darkness and ugliness of the larger race (Martin 135). 

There is ample evidence of this strategy throughout American mass media.  As Martin mentions, the descriptions of Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, and “the hooded torture victims of Abu Ghraib,” all render these men animalistic, vicious, and inhuman.  This is no surprise after years of being inundated with the rhetoric of terror and terrorists in an effort to build and sustain support for a disingenuous war.  What was slightly surprising was that, even after so many years and one of the wars supposedly being over, this strategy has evolved to a whole new level of manipulation. 

As I read the recent Los Angeles Times article, “Afghan Massacre a Hard Case for Army,” I was flooded with mixed feelings.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kandahar-massacre-20121105,0,4945123.story

Murphy and Parker present two distinct threads in their coverage of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ alleged murdering of sixteen Afghani villagers.  The first is “whether there is sufficient evidence to hold [Bales] for a court-martial on charges of premeditated murder” (A4); the second thread draws from witness interviews to make explicit the victims’ and survivors’ suffering, incredulity, and anger.  This is undoubtedly a horrific experience for all involved, and the intensity of the witness accounts, at first, seems to highlight the atrociousness of the antagonist’s actions.  But there is a subtext which overrides the poignant depiction of these villagers’ suffering. 

Although there is no explicit mention of “terror,” Bales’ alleged actions, had they been undertaken by a member of al-Qaeda, would no doubt be attributed to terrorism: according to witness accounts, “he shot and stabbed people as they rose sleepily from their beds, dragged one woman by her hair and leveled his weapon at a shrieking baby’s mouth” (A1).  All signs seem to point to an excellent opportunity to divest the term “terrorist” of its racializing and “othering” effects; to show that anyone can terrorize and anyone can be a victim of terror; and, thus, to show the injustice of basing an entire occupation and war on an invented subrace of “terrorists.” 

Disturbingly, though, even here, those who have been terrorized are the ones indirectly turned into terrorists, and the alleged harbinger of terror, Staff Sgt. Bales, is all but exculpated.  This reversal functions subtly and smoothly.  For each mention of Afghani suffering, the writers hedge against developing too much sympathy for them by playing into American consciousness and values.  For instance, immediately after detailing the body count, Murphy and Parker not so discreetly imply that if prosecutors have any trouble convicting Bales, it will be the Afghanis’ fault.  It will be their fault that they buried the bodies too soon, and that mostly women and children survived and their husbands and fathers are reluctant to have them testify (A4).  In so many words, the writers describe the American justice system as being obstructed by this foreign culture—if only they were more like us, we would be able to do our jobs.

There are two other means by which the authors, as presenting the American military’s perspective, deflect the status of terrorist back to the Afghanis.  Bales’ lawyer, John Henry Browne, explains, “It is not possible to pass judgment on what Bales did or didn’t do in time of war without also looking at what the war did to Bales.” He goes on to say, “I believe we all have a responsibility to Sgt. Bales, and to all these soldiers” (A4).  Here, Sgt. Bales’ alleged actions are not only naturalized and possibly even justified, but, further, the implication is that he is a victim.  If he is the victim, then who is the terrorist?  Conveniently, the blame for this single-handed act is now shifted back to the third party of al-Qaeda and subsumed as a tragedy of the war on terror.  There are no terrorists here, then, and if, by chance, one of “us” undertakes a terrible deed, it is only because he has been terrorized himself.  Has anyone asked whether we can pass judgment on bin Laden for what he did or didn’t do without looking at what his environment and circumstances did to him?  I doubt it.  Nor do I think anyone should.  His actions, just like Bales’ alleged actions, speak for themselves.  Enough said, but the double standard is striking.

Toward the end of the article, the writers bolster the vision of Bales as a victim by quoting one of the victims’ threatening declarations.  In response to the U.S. government’s provision of “$50,000 for each death and $10,000 for each of those injured,” a childless father and widower explains, “If your child dies, what would you expect? Money? No.  Will you expect prison? We don’t want prison… If the court doesn’t go the way we want, we will not accept the decision of the court” (A4).  With this, the inversion of blame and victimhood is made complete; this widower must be a terrorist for not respecting the American justice system, and Bales, in being threatened obliquely, is now even more of a victim. 

Martin, Randy.  Empire of Indifference: American War and the Financial Logic of Risk

Management.  Durham: Duke UP, 2007.  Print.

Murphy, Kim, and Ned Parker.  “Afghan Massacre a Hard Case for Army.”  Los Angeles Times. 

5 Nov. 2012: A1+.  Print.