Tea Party brews up a political crisis

Only in America could a woman like Christine O’Donnell become, in the words of New York Times columnist Frank Rich, “the brightest all-American media meteor since Balloon Boy”.

Rich views “I am not a witch” O’Donnell as a possible godsend for the Republican party as the US mid-term elections loom on November 2. He could not resist adding that the 41-year-old senatorial candidate for the state of Delaware, who is an evangelical Christian, is perhaps best known “for taking a fearless stand against masturbation, the one national pastime with more fans than baseball”.

Laughable as people like O’Donnell and their primitive right wing views might appear, her meteoric rise, like that of Sarah Palin before her, is an indication of the growing hold of the anti-state, anti-government Tea Party movement within the Republican Party (GOP).

O’Donnell provides the GOP with a symbolic figure – a small-town struggler on low-pay with “proletarian cred”. The reality about the Tea Party, though, is that it is bankrolled by the billionaire Koch family who first made their fortune in dealings with the dictator Joseph Stalin. It is making political capital out of the pain being suffered by millions of Americans as unemployment stands at 10% and repossessions leave whole areas of US towns and cities lifeless.

Behind its populist façade, the Tea Party is actually a plaything of massive corporate interests. Amongst its backers are many from the Forbes list of the super-rich. They include oil barons Robert Rowling and Trevor Rees-Jones, and not least, Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation. Through Fox television, Murdoch provides constant favourable news coverage for the Tea Party. Clearly the interests of these super-rich are nothing to do with the Tea Party’s supposed support for small town and impoverished Americans.

The new breed of Republican leaders also include people such as Nevada candidate Sharron Angle. Angle is another Christian fundamentalist who opposes abortion, no matter what, even for incest and rape. She wants to abolish the following: the Department of Education, Social Security, the Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment of the Arts, housing agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and Planned Parenthood funding. Perhaps surprisingly, Angle is standing against a Tea Party backed candidate.

So where does this leave President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party? Despite their success in passing healthcare, financial legislation and the Recovery Act, the administration’s “Big State” efforts to rescue the economy from meltdown have not stopped the jobs and homes haemorrhage.

While things have taken a slight turn for the better in the latest popularity ratings, the administration confronts a massive melt-down of confidence in a presidency. It began with the highest of hopes and tears of joy when the first-ever African-American was elected only two years ago.

But as the recession turns towards another Great Depression, that euphoria has turned into disappointment and shock. Obama admitted in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine: “We've seen an increase in poverty, and an increase in unemployment, and people's wages and incomes have stagnated.”

Not only is there a distinct possibility that the Republicans will gain control over both Senate and House of Representatives on November 2. Obama is also weathering a major changeover of White House staff.

Behind these harsh realities facing a president hailed for his skills as the great communicator is the historic weakness of the US economy in the face of ruthless competition from China. What we are seeing is a crisis not only for the Democrats but America’s political system as a whole. Some suggest that America is already “ungovernable” and that is likely to be even more the case after the mid-term elections.

Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward has revealed that last November Obama was virtually threatened with mutiny when he tried to overrule the military brass on withdrawal from Afghanistan. A disgruntled military, a possibly lame-duck president and a populist Tea Party working with big business, is a heady cocktail with unpredictable side-effects.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

US secret state out of control

If you think that the American state is all-knowing, all-powerful and always in control, you couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, some of the most sensitive areas of state activity are not actually under the control of federal employees at all but are in the hands of contractors answerable to shareholders.

A significant change in America’s state has placed private sector corporations at the very heart of military and intelligence operations, in a clear breach of the country’s federal rules. These state that contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions."

An effective merger between the secret state and corporations began after the 9.11 attacks. It has flourished to such an extent that no one in Washington can actually put a figure on the numbers involved. Senior members of the Obama administration have expressed their concerns, as well they might.

The scope of the changes is fleshed out by a two-year investigation by the Washington Post called Top Secret America. It estimates the number of contractors who work on top secret programmes at an astonishing 265,000 – almost a third of the total workforce.

There are about 2,000 companies working with 45 government organisations in hundreds of secret locations across America. More than a quarter of the firms came into existence after 2001.

The report warns: “What started as a temporary fix in response to the terrorist attacks has turned into a dependency that calls into question whether the federal workforce includes too many people obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest – and whether the government is still in control of its most sensitive activities.” The investigation shows that:

• Contractors can offer more money – often twice as much – to experienced federal employees than the government is allowed to pay them.
• Contractors cost an estimated 25% more to hire than federal workers.
• At the CIA, employees from 114 firms account for roughly a third of the workforce, or about 10,000 posts.
• Private contractors working for the CIA have recruited spies in Iraq, paid bribes for information in Afghanistan, helped snatch a person in Italy and interrogated detainees held at secret prisons abroad.
• Contractors kill enemy fighters. They spy on foreign governments and eavesdrop on terrorist networks.
• The defence secretary cannot find how out how many contractors work in the civilian side of his department.
• Most contractors do work that is fundamental to an agency's mission. As a result, the government has become dependent on them.
• The National Security Agency, which conducts worldwide electronic surveillance, hires private firms to come up with most of its technological innovations.
• The National Reconnaissance Office cannot produce, launch or maintain its large satellite surveillance systems, which photograph countries such as China, North Korea and Iran, without the four major contractors it works with.
• Each of the 16 intelligence agencies depends on corporations to set up its computer networks, communicate with other agencies' networks, and analyse information. More than 400 companies work exclusively in this area.

The merger between state and corporate interests is a process that has its origins in the period of intense globalisation that took off in the early 1980s. As capital gained its global wings, the capitalist state more and more became the facilitator of their interests. As the financial crash of 2008 demonstrated, the state is duty bound to save the system at any cost.

With the United States in the grip of a worsening economic crisis, and a presidency which is mounting difficulties as a result, the loyalty of the state to federal authorities under a weakened Obama administration is always going to be tested. With the secret state essentially out of control and increasingly driven by shareholder values, any attempt to cut costs or curb power is sure to provoke an unpredictable reaction.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor