An American
Regime?
Ian MacFarlane
"Neither
slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, wherein
the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or
any of its territories." If this
sounds vaguely familiar, it should; it is the thirteenth amendment to the
United States Constitution.
Unfortunately, in 1992, a blow was struck against this noble amendment
for which six-hundred thousand Americans died in the 1860's by, of all states,
Maryland. "The Old Line
State" became the first in the U. S. to accept in total the Student
Service Requirement for high school graduating classes, starting with the class
of 1997. For all intents and purposes,
the requirement reduces students to the status of criminals, forcing them to
participate in volunteer activities.
Perhaps the worst
aspect of the situation is that the resistance to it was minimal. For the most part, students state-wide did
little to no protesting, choosing instead to either lie about their hours, or
simply do them. Those with whom I spoke
stated that there was nothing they could do about it anyway.
It is indeed a
terrible day when an American citizen utters the words "There is nothing I
can do about it." For a country
founded on a protest of injustice and grounded in the ideals of freedom, such a
statement should be unthinkable. What
was it that kept students from protesting on a larger level? In a word, fear. The fear of sanctions, most notably the denial of a diploma
without completion of the requirement, as well as withholding senior status for
those who did not have a certain number of hours by twelfth grade, kept
students in line and obedient.
American citizens, and students at that,
living in fear? What ever happened to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
The situation seems to be the type more readily found in George Orwell's
1984; the implication of such
oxy-moronic policies as "mandatory volunteering" is so laughable it
is terrifying. Yet, now, as throughout
history, America has had it's share of totalitarianistic traits and actions. Are there aspects of Orwell's 1984 in the United States of
America? There undeniably are.
One of the most
significant actions taken by the government of Oceania, the socialist state in 1984, is the suppression of ideologies
differing from their own. This, in
fact, is a rather basic, predictable, and necessary action taken by
totalitarian governments which desire to hold on to their absolute control over
the people. If the people know of no
other form of government, they can not be dissatisfied with the one that they
have. Included in the Bill of Rights,
America supposedly promises the right to disagree with the current form of
government. Yet, in practice throughout
American history, this is not always the case.
In the 1920's, Americans were arrested for being Bolsheviks or
Communists, in what came to be know as the Red Scare (s. 1, p. 4). In January of 1920, under the direction of
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, over three thousand people in the US were
arrested in a series of raids, and held without being charged, some for several
weeks (s. 1, p. 192). Thus, in trying
to stifle the rise of communistic or totalitarianistic thought, the US
government engaged in the very type of behaviour which they were trying to
prevent.
Incarceration
without reason or justification happened again in 1942, this time to the large
populations of Japanese immigrants and Japanese-American citizens in the
Western US. Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
often hailed as one of America's most humanitarian presidents because of his
implication of social security and welfare programs, signed the order to inter
127,000 Japanese-Americans in prison camps.
The camps, often with dirt floored bungalows and several families to
each room, were little better then the Nazi camps. Perhaps worst of all is the fact that 80,000 of the
Japanese-Americans were born in the US, yet were still treated as though they
were traitors to the country, even though most were loyal citizens.
The government of
Oceania in 1984 arrests and imprisons
citizens without having to give a reason.
One of the reasons the story is so horrifying to us is that we are used
to freedom from such unjust practices.
Yet, as the arrested "communist sympathisers" of the 1920's
show, we are only free from this sort treatment as long as our beliefs do not
conflict with the US government's ideas.
And, as the Japanese-American interment displays, we may depend on due
process under the law as long as our ancestry is Anglo or Germanic, as the
German-Americans were not subjected to the biases the Japanese-Americans were
during the second world war.
Throughout history,
not only American but world history in general, religion has been a major part
of life for most people. It gives
morals and values, directs actions in this life, gives comfort in times of
trouble, and offers an interpretation of human-kind's greatest fear:
death. Yet, in a totalitarian state,
such as 1984's Oceania, religious
ideologies are abolished and replaced with the ideologies of the state. Although the United States Constitution does
promise a freedom of religion, there are aspects of religious suppression,
quite obvious to those Americans with minority religious affiliations. One only has to turn on the television on a
Sunday afternoon to see the unequal distribution of religions broadcasting
evangelist programs. In 1971, the
executive director of the National Religious Broadcasters, Ben Armstrong,
claimed there was an audience of 130 million viewers for these Christian
programs (s. 3, p. 138). When it comes
to religious programming on television, Christianity clearly has the
monopoly. The Christian Right certainly
seems to want to have a say in what Americans think and do. They are the biggest proponents for
anti-abortion laws, which would take away some freedom of choice from women. They are generally opponents of gay rights,
feeling that discrimination still has a place and purpose in this country. They favour censorship on television (s. 3,
p. 139), perhaps trying to block out programming which depicts un-Christian
lifestyles. A totalitarian state
favours religious atheism, replacing religion with beliefs of the state. The Christian Right seems to be trying to
replace ideas of the state (freedom of choice, religion, lifestyle) with their
religious ones. Were a take-over of the government to come from a
totalitarianistic group, it would quite likely come from the Christian Right.
In fairness to
Christians, however, it should be noted that many feel the US government is
attempting to create an atheistic state, as Oceania did, despite the fact that
America was founded by predominately Christian peoples. They see the government preventing prayer in
schools as an oppression of their religious beliefs, and the secularisation of
the Pledge of Allegiance to omit "under God" as downright horrendous. Perhaps the US government is in fact taking
its first steps towards a totalitarian government in the form of abolishing
religious practices, first in public, and later, in private lives.
When it comes to
private lives, the US government has had its share of intrusion. With the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919
(s. 6, p. 718a), the US government set up penalties for the making, selling,
and consumption of alcohol in the United States. Widely opposed, it was finally repealed in 1933. Yet, despite the rampant crime that sprung
up during those years, and the fact that such laws take away a person's basic
right to put what they want in their body, the prohibition of substances
continues even today. Drugs deemed
illegal by the government are controlled and sold by criminals, as alcohol was
during prohibition. Moreover, current
movements against cigarettes and smokers are increasingly oppressive. Although it is fair to prohibit smoking
around those who do not want to breath it indoors, the government is vastly
limiting the areas in which smoking is allowed, even outside. Forcing these health regulations on US
citizens is strangely reminiscent of Oceania's forced exercise programs.
Perhaps the most
offensive policy of Oceania's totalitarian government is their suppression of
information. Because they controlled
the newspapers, they controlled what people thought was the truth, and when a
conflict arose, they changed the records.
Although America is nowhere near as bad, there is certainly evidence of
government secrecy. The most popular
topic in this field, of course, is the UFO controversy, which has dominated
conspiracy theories since the fifties. One take on the situation is the idea
that the government has known about and attempted to cover up the existence and
even visitation of alien life, for fear that it would cause mass hysteria in
the US. Predominant in this belief is
the so called Roswell "incident," in which alien spacecraft
supposedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, and was covered up by the
government.
There is, however,
an opposing view of the situation. It
says that the US government in fact encourages UFO stories, because they draw
attention away from the government's true secrets. The theory says that the strange lights in the sky are secret CIA
spy planes, highly classified and rather expensive, which the government wants
to keep under wraps. Thus, the stories
of little green men divert attention from the true conspiracies (s. 5).
If you believe
either theory, the government is concealing the truth from the people. They are playing both sides against each
other; meanwhile, the American public is still kept in the dark.
A darker side to
the conspiracy theories, one more along the lines of 1984, are those which claim government involvement in some of the
assassinations of the twentieth century.
With the recent death of James Earl Ray, theories again abound
concerning the circumstances of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death. The most prominent one is that King was
killed as part of a government conspiracy to suppress the equal rights
movements of the sixties. Along these
lines is the idea that John Lennon, former Beatle and solo artist, was murdered
not only by Mark David Chapman, but also as a result of a government backlash
against revolutionary thinkers. This
theory was put forth by John Lennon's son, Sean, last month (s. 2). Maybe the most popular assassination
conspiracy theory, however, is the one concerning John F. Kennedy's
murder. Had Lee Harvey Oswald not been
shot, the tide of suspicion might have been staved off. Theories on this murder range from a
government conspiracy on the part of Lyndon B. Johnson, to a Mafia orchestrated
hit, to special orders from alien life.
At this point, the
question now becomes, "Why are people so quick to assume the government is
hiding something?" This question
can be answered several ways. It is
true, the government sometimes intrudes in places it does not belong; personal
consumption of potentially harmful substances, for example. Also, the US government undoubtedly has
certain secrets it keeps from public attention, either to keep it out of enemy
hands, to avoid mass hysteria, or simply because the information has no real
use to the public. If this is
considered shady or totalitarianistic, it is probably just a misinterpretation
of their intentions. In truth, our
government, with all our elected officials, are not out to strictly control the
American public, but rather to guide it along the lines of freedom and security
the constitution promises.
Perhaps it is
simply the nature of citizens to mistrust or dislike our government. No English king, no matter how good a ruler,
was not cursed at behind his back, or resented for drawing taxes from his
subjects. Equally, American citizens
will grumble about the speed limit, moan about their taxes, resent police
officers, and mistrust the government.
Of course, our government was founded on the watchdog ideal, that of
checks and balances, so that those in power are always scrutinised and kept in
check by other branches of government, and the people themselves. Because of this, it is unlikely that America
would ever reach a totalitarian state.
There will always be someone policing the police, so to speak, as the
Rodney King incident aptly proves.
And yet, in this
vein of thinking, have we simply fallen into the trap of a totalitarian
government? Is having faith in the
system after all just the system working at its best to deceive the
public? After all, at the end of 1984, Winston affirmed that he did
indeed after all "love the party."
Can we safely love America without submitting to totalitarian
brainwashing? It seems paranoia will
always have its place in America. I am
not sure who said it first, but I heard it first on The Simpsons: "The price of liberty is eternal
vigilance."
Bibliography: Sources (s.)
1.) Bennett, David H. The Party of Fear: From Nativist
Movements to the New Right in American History. The University of North Carolina press, 1988.
2.)
CNN En Español. Hijo de John Lennon Afirma que el Gobierno
Mató a su Padre (John
Lennon's Son States that the Government Killed His Father). April
13, 1998. Internet: http://cnnenespanol.com/escena/1998/04/13/lennon.ap/mdex.html
3.) Liebman, Robert C. &
Wuthnow, Robert. The New Christian
Right: Mobilization and Legitimation. Aldine Publishing Company.
New York, New York, 1983.
4.) Orwell, George. 1984. Signet Classic. New York,
New York, 1981.
5.) Wilson, Jim. The Secret CIA UFO Files. November, 1997. Internet: http://popularmechanics.com/popmech/sci/9711STMIM.html.
6.) World Book, Inc. The World Book Encyclopedia, P, Volume 15. World Book,
Inc. 1984.