The Language of Empire

By Spencer

A basic maxim in public relations is: If you cannot explain it, you cannot defend it. It basically means that a concept loses public credibility, even if it may be sound, simply because people are unable to understand it.

One of the most viral statements by President-Elect Barack Obama, and the set-up for a debacle to match the Wright Controversy that nearly doomed his presidential campaign, is the fragment of his speech about The National Service Plan.

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

This statement has and continues to spur controversy all over the web. Conservative pundits and bloggers, along with Obama-sceptics on the far left wing, interpret it as a signal that Obama is getting ready to launch a new and unprecedented series of draconian security measures on America.

A Republican congressman, Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia, said on Monday November 9 he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship.

Conservative critics invoke images of Communism, Nazism, Black Panthers and The Praetorian Guard, with a Citizen's Defense Force running rampant in the streets of America to ensure the safety of the population against terrorism.

The Problematic Link to "Security"

The controversy was re-opened as the blogosphere responded to the word "require" in the new presentation of "Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service" on Change.gov, after which the content was edited:

"The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start."

The reality is that the proposal is a product of complex calculations on the societal engineering table, some of which were highlighted in the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina with the deployment of an overstretched National Guard and the use of private security contracter Blackwater.

"Americans Not Asked to Serve After 9/11: President Bush squandered an opportunity to mobilize the American people following 9/11 when he asked Americans only to go shopping", says a statement on BarackObama.com about the national service program.

I am sure Barack Obama meant that President Bush should have seen the lack of preparedness and used the terrorist attack to mobilize the American public for any major destructive event, manmade or natural. But the way it is communicated the underlying calculations behind the national service programme appears to be that of strategic national security.

Currently, 31 AmeriCorps NCCC teams totaling more than 250 members are serving in Texas and Louisiana in response to Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. Hundreds of other AmeriCorps and Senior Corps volunteers are also on the job, providing food and shelter to evacuees, assessing and clearing damage, and managing donations and call centers.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina unleashed a wave of devastation across the Gulf Coast AmeriCorps is still challenged to provide relief.

The Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service addresses the problem of an underfunded AmeriCorps:

"Insufficient Federal Support for Service: While more than 500,000 people have served in AmeriCorps, the program turns away tens of thousands of applicants a year because of limited funding."

The problem with these explanations, however, is that it is difficult to understand what they mean, when you put them in the context of national security and the 9/11 terrorist attack.

This is partly a problem due to the contamination from imperialist language, which has became a political necessity in post-9/11 America, and partly due to an assumption that people are in line with Obama's social programme: They know his books and his background, and they are informed about the horrific deficit on social stability on the American social engineering table, and they are ready to support reforms.

When Obama speaks of a civilian national security force, he obviously speaks of a system that improves the responsiveness to terrorist attacks and other cataclysmic events, from forest fires to hurricanes and tidal waves. Futurologists and climate researchers expect an increased frequency of natural hazards for which the American society or, for that matter, any other society on Earth is unprepared.

The public diplomacy concerning the national service programme, however, is one major example of how the Obama campaign has failed to renew its language, getting stuck in "Bush-ist" terminology and context.

The Convoluted Talk About Non-Profit R&D

Even worse, given the talk about 9-11 and the use of a phrase like a "civilian national security force", is the convoluted talk about underfunded non-profit R&D on BarackObama.com:

"Need for More R&D in Nonprofit Sector: Research and development in the nonprofit sector is limited and there is a disconnect between charitable foundations that can fund innovation and the organizations on the ground that can test new concepts and bring them to scale."

Who on earth even knows what they are talking about? Well, let me give you an educated guess: The link between 9-11/civilian terrorist responsiveness and non-profit R&D is most likely the document "Chemical and Biological Terrorism - Research and Development to Improve Civilian Medical Response" authored by Committee on R&D Needs for Improving Civilian Medical Response to Chemical and Biological Terrorism Incidents, under the Health Science Policy Program of Institute of Medicine and Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Commission on Life Sciences and National Academy Press.

"New Drugs, Diagnostic Tests, and Software Needed to Prepare U.S. Cities for Chemical, Biological Terrorist Attacks", the publication announcement states.

Furthermore...

"Improving the ability of the nation's civilian medical community to respond to a chemical or biological terrorist attack requires more than simply providing cities with military training and equipment, according to a new report from a committee of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. The committee identified more than 60 research and development projects as potentially useful in minimizing the damage caused by a terrorist attack, including new drugs and vaccines to combat anthrax and smallpox, faster and easier-to-use chemical detectors and diagnostic tests, and communications software to improve disease surveillance and to provide information about possible attacks".

The bipartisan push for improved civilian medical responsiveness is likely downplayed for a number of reasons, such as fear of public hysteria, fear of accusations that terrorism threat is used as election propaganda, and the risk that it is all perceived as a measure designed to increase the public tolerance for security or even to install draconian measures.

Does it sound outlandish? Oh, not until you read the summary of the report:

"Knowing who is going to attack, or when and where an attack might take place, is particularly difficult in a civilian setting, the report says. Military officials, for example, may know or suspect that an enemy has a stockpile of biological weapons and could vaccinate soldiers against some of these agents. But in the civilian environment, the enemy, weapon, and time and place of attack are unknown, making this sort of preparation impossible.

Nevertheless, high priority should be placed on preparing for certain types of attacks, the report says. Operations-related research is needed to advise federal authorities on how and where to stockpile antidotes to nerve agents, and on an effective system for distributing them. A vigorous national effort should be mounted to develop, manufacture, and stockpile improved vaccines for anthrax and smallpox, the committee recommended. And an aggressive program should be developed to locate substances to repair or limit the damage caused by vesicants such as mustard gas, which burn and blister body tissues through contact with the skin and lungs."

Non-profit R&D, "civilian national security force"... read: Medical response to a vast airborne chemical or biological terrorist attack on US soil, not ruling out also preemptive measures:

"Knowing who is going to attack, or when and where an attack might take place, is particularly difficult in a civilian setting", the report says.

In any case, convoluted statements like these may fly during an election campaign, where words can be twisted. But running a national effort to improve civilian responsiveness as a secret project is disgraceful to a democratic politician, particularly one running on the platform of "change" and with the apparent openness to public scrutiny that has characterized Obama's public appearances.

It's something for the Democratic administration to remedy, if not because they feel morally obligated, then at least because otherwise they will be forced to.

The Problem use of the word "Universal"

A less exotic criticism of the national service plan is the frequent accusations of the plan for being less than voluntary, at least for students. Few rational commentators dare condemn the rebuilding of the American defenses through increased AmeriCorps funding - or even the highly idealistic Peace Corps founded by Kennedy and Bush's faith based initiative.

The main object of criticism is mostly the method of funding community service through tax credits that would render it practically universal and only technically voluntary.

"Problem number one with grand schemes for universal voluntary public service is that they can't be both universal and voluntary. If everybody has to do it, then it's not voluntary, is it? And if it's truly up to the individual, then it won't be universal", writes Michael Kinsley on Time

Others add that there is ample proof Americans are deeply invested in giving to charity and offering up work hours for voluntary community service. Rewarding community service with considerable economic advantages is translated into punishing students for not participating:

"Putting aside the question of the educational value of community service, there's simply nothing voluntary about forcing middle and high school students to do 50 hours of community service a year. Obama may have carried the youth vote, voters between the ages of 18 and 29, by a 66 to 32 margin, but I bet if kids in middle and high school could vote and they knew about Obama's plan to conscript them into this national community service program, his margin among that age group would have been a lot slimmer although he still would've won handily because the Republicans, thanks to their intransigence on social issues, have lost an entire generation of voter," writes Cliff Mason.

That is the core of the problem, really: The Republican "intrasigence on social issues". The aggregate result of past policies all the way back to WWII has left USA in a state where it urgently needs address the problems on the societal engineering table.

With the current imperialist ambitions USA does not have the option to cut military spendings significantly to allocate funds into a project like Universal Health Care. In order to remain world leader USA cannot afford to make drastic changes in the settings on the economic engineering table, such as a shift to planned or green economics.

The only option left is this mildly coercive method of improving responsiveness and increasing social involvement, a concept so alien to American thinking that it is certain to raise distrust in the population and opposition in Congress - even if a similar agenda was promoted from the GOP platform. The fact that McCain ran on a similar notion of national service should be enough to make leftists dislike the concept.

When you combine the notion of community service with phrases like "patriotism" and "national security" from the platform of federal government you get a picture - even without the images of stoormtroopers in brown shirts - of a setting on the ideological engineering table intended to promote not only relief, but loyalty and morale.

The next step is the imagery of projects in Socialist countries - or even the application of socialist work ethics in the national-socialist society of Germany.

The other option, of course - the one that has been tested and is widely responsible for the current shift in public opinion in favour of "change" - is the laissez-faire attitude to the social problems/possible societal disruption or breakdown from random events.

The Problem with Voluntary Community Service

In the light of the enormous social challenges, the prospect of new breakdowns due to natural disasters, the overstretched military and National Guard and the notorious difficulties of the Democratic Party in getting support for Universal Health Care USA the national service plan actually seems like a good idea.

It hasn't been sold well. The main problem is that the presentation has been contaminated by imperialist language, the language a presidential candidate must speak to gain broad support. It is more than a problem of rhetoric, however, because the modus operandii of USA is currently imperialistic, even if USA may not fit every definition of an empire.

Every other policy is automatically perceived through the lens of autocratic power, whether it is the autocratic power of the president or the autocratic power USA wields on the world through its combination of military and economic superiority. In any other context the National Service Plan would make perfect sense. It does not have to be voluntary, even - education is not voluntary, but "required".

Now, I am sure there are lots of conservative pundits pounding on the issue out of partisan zeal, having found a possible Achilles Heel in the seemingly invulnerable Barack Obama. But I am also sure there are lots of people that are legitimately concerned about a drastic change in "the American Way", perceiving a change towards a less free society and a structure that could be exploited for totalitarian purposes - even by a Republican administration that may follow Obama's presidential term(s).

One possible solution to the predicament would be for the government to "encourage" national service, but leave the details of the legislation to the states. The problem with this approach would be that this could lead to vast regional diversity in the implementation of the plan, ranging from too much to nothing at all.

The problem with voluntary community service is that it has nothing to do with the primary targets of the national service plan, to decrease social disruption and to increase responsiveness to future mega-threats. It doesn't man the battle stations.

For morale and loyalty voluntary community service is quite sufficient, I am sure all believers in democracy will agree. But social stability and responsiveness to disaster is not voluntary for a society, even if citizens may insist it should be voluntary for the individual.

The semi-professional and quasi-voluntary system of social and emergency relief is merely necessary due to the imperialist context: The need to keep fuelling American supremacy through a combination of military investments and an unregulated market economy.

The Premises Define the Conclusion

I will not conceal the fact that I consider USA a superpower bordering on empire, but I also consider her a relatively benign empire - much depending on difference in administration - and an empire by accident and, to some degree, by necessity. The controversy about the national service plan, one I expect to grow larger over the next year, cuts to the core of the problem and the great paradox of American governance:

Circumstances compel USA to address the latent social breakdown, but she cannot do that - particularly not in a state of economic crisis - without impairing the very model that has equipped USA with power - wealth, technological superiority and and military strength.

National service is a manageble project, a way to provide social relief and secure responsiveness to the challenges of the 21st century, and as such I think it will be implemented in one form or another. It is also a project that may revitalize the American community, offering enrichening life experience to people - particularly the youth - and fundamentally alter the collective mindset of the American public.

As such it also contains the potential to become a factory for nationalism, spawning brain-washed Americanists that bring their new-found sense of brotherhood and their group-think into not only public offices and corporate management positions, but out to every corner of the world through a new type of neo-conservatism that reacts by cultural imperialism rather than military aggression - or with both at the same time.

It all depends on the premises, and as always my contention is that the pre-requisite for change is a groundswell change in the American attitude to "world". Paradoxically, the fiercest enemies of the national service plan also appears to be the people that are most isolationist, most opposed to USA accepting global responsibility and accountability.

If the Obama administration manages to bring change to Washington, reversing Bush policies and breaking the negative cycle triggered by the Bush doctrine, the national service plan seems harmless at worst and at best a valuable tool for other democratic governments to apply. In a political atmosphere of devotion to universal human rights and the prosperity of all people all over the world, a lot of American concepts are quite attractive.

Reversely, in the context of a continuation of an aggressive and self-serving US foreign policy reaching much further back than Bush, any cultural product coming from America will have the air of something slightly frightening. No different with the national service plan. Without "change", without profound change, it looks like something that could go terribly wrong. I have to agree with the conservatives on that. But in contrast to those, I won't blame Obama.

Spencer is a European analyst, investigating matters of a global significance from the vantage point of international law and human rights.