As We Go Marching, Too
by Byron King
December 16, 2003 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "…The United States [is] a great nation, but one that has been in slow liquidation over many decades. The nation is broke, or insolvent to use a technical term. W entered the White House in 2000…but [he] is the inheritor of a historical trend. Borrow-borrow, tax-tax, spend-spend have been the hallmarks of federal governance since the days of the Great Depression. So the ship is moving towards the rocks? What on earth did anyone expect, certainly over the long term?…" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.W. Bush campaigned as a candidate of down-home West Texas values like thrift and hard work, featuring conservatism with a prominent sense of Christian compassion. W campaigned as the candidate of limited-government, a more restrained and even "humble" foreign policy, and as the one who better understood the key elements of national economic growth. I believed him then, during the campaign, and I believe that he believed himself at that time. But three years into office, it seems to this observer that W has morphed into Woodrow Bush on foreign policy and Franklin Delano Bush on domestic policy. (Maybe not FDR entirely. He has not caved-in on at least one important point. We can still own gold for the moment.) And with steel tariffs and recent impediments to trade with China, as well as W's willing complicity with the Fed as it destroys the underlying value of the national currency, there is an whiff of Herbert Hoover Bush in the air. Whence the change? Thinking back to the 2000 campaign, I attended an event with Mr. and Mrs. W. I was close enough to shake W's hand, and even to make a comment to him about flying fast airplanes. And W, a former jet pilot, looked me in the eye and smiled, and he responded very intelligently to my comment. His hand was warm and his attitude was personable, and I decided then and there that I liked him. During the same campaign event, another person asked W what newspapers and books he read. W thought about the question, and then rattled off a long list of quality news sources of national and international scope, and several fine books that he had read of late. He talked about why he liked one news source or another, or this or that book. I liked him even more. "Here is a guy," I thought, "who understands his own humanity and who works at being aware of many important things." But a few months ago, during an interview with television journalist Brit Hume, W said that as president, he does not read many newspapers and relies on his assistants to "brief" him about what he needs to know. Say what? He relies on courtiers for his information? Whoah, cowboy! Now I have to ask, "Who is this guy?" Or does it even matter? Is it now time to revisit John T. Flynn's 1944 forgotten masterpiece, "As We Go Marching"? [Bill Bonner] discussed the first part of "Marching" in a couple of DR columns in September. [He] talked about the consolidation of central power in Italy in the late 19th century, and the laying of the groundwork of that nation's version of "big government." This was the pre-existing political system that was installed, up and running throughout Italy by the early 20th century. After World War I, when Italy was broken by war and war debt, this system was taken over by the "hero" Mussolini, wounded veteran of the vicious Battles of the Caporetto. With the assistance of loyal "arditi," they of the Black Shirts and veterans all of the bloody Isonzo campaign, Mussolini seized control of his nation and set about making history. Or was it history, particularly the history of Italy, that set about making Mussolini? The second part of "As We Go Marching," which [Bonner] did not discuss in the DR, concerns the creation and rise of the proto-welfare state in Bismarck's Germany in the late 1800's, parallel with the building of one of the world's most effective military forces, all rooted in traditions of Prussian militarism. By the time of the outbreak of World War I, the economy of Germany offered its citizens an advanced (for the time) welfare state. And the business and foreign policy of Germany was controlled, in no small measure, by a culture of militarism. The War against the French, commenced in 1914 and expected by all of the political-military savants in Berlin to be a quick and successful repeat of the previous war of 1870, did not proceed as planned. The French retreated, but would not stay defeated. Britain intervened, as did the U.S. at a critical point in time, several years later. The accumulated wealth of generations of Germans was squandered, as were the lives of millions. By the fall of 1918, the German economy was exhausted. Despite there having been no collapse of German fighting forces on the front lines, the German government could no longer support its armies in the field. Thus did the German government make its terms with the Allies. With its militarism failed, and its government-planned economy in ruins, Germany's entire political system was thrown into upheaval. Soon after the Armistice, and in a sullen and cross nation that was embittered by its failure in the War and economically broken by costs and debts of many degrees, the returning Army was put to work keeping peace and control in major urban areas. A not-so-young soldier, wearing an Iron Cross as part of his uniform, was sent to Bavaria to assist in maintaining order. His commanding officer ordered this soldier to attend the political rallies in Munich, and to keep an eye out for any troublemakers. This soldier did as he was told, and frequented the beer halls to listen in on the discussions, and in the process he himself began to make history. Or was he, in turn, made by Germany's history? Absent the history of central state power, the War, the debt, the sense of national frustration, would we know or care otherwise about this decorated German soldier? And now let us leap ahead by many years, to a time when a decent man became the President of the United States, a great nation but one that has been in slow liquidation over many decades. Yes, the collective wisdom is that the U.S. performs noble works whenever it acts and whatever it stoops to do, even to conquer. But the nation is broke, or insolvent to use a technical term. Just like the legendary Pennsylvania Railroad, which lost money for decades, but sold a block of real estate on lower Manhattan whenever it needed some ready cash, the nation suffers from a collective delusion that it can pursue great ambitions and still pay its bills if just given enough time. Perhaps it is not too much to speculate that most other nations in the world could do anything they wanted to do, as well, if they had the ability to spend someone else's money to accomplish the task. W entered the White House in 2000, and yes, in a sense, he makes history every day with everything he does. Even the lunch menus become part of the national archives. But W is the inheritor of a historical trend. W is the titular head of the nation, but it is a nation that is playing the end game of its 70-year experiment with Big Government and national debt. How much control does even a president have? How are his hands tied, his decisions already made for him? How tightly is the rudder of any president's ship of state lashed to a particular track? Borrow-borrow, tax-tax, spend-spend have been the hallmarks of federal governance since the days of the Great Depression. Generations of tax-and-spend Congresses have been complicit, as have dozens of Supreme Court justices, all enabling a long-term drift away from black-letter constitutional federalism, anchored to gold standard moorings. So the ship is moving towards the rocks? What on earth did anyone expect, certainly over the long term? W's critics, such as Hillarita Peron, say that he wants to "dismantle the New Deal." That is not quite the right way to state the case. W is in office at a time when the nation is at the end of the road laid out, starting in 1933, by FDR and his cabal of socialist, state-planning assistants. The New Deal and its progeny is not being "dismantled" under the presidency of W, so much as it is inwardly liquidating (or, put another way, self-destructing) from the burdens of war, national debt, decline of the currency and hollowing out of the industrial economy. Each of these is a long-term historical force of seismic proportions. In "As We Go Marching," John T. Flynn described similar situations in Italy and Germany, and compared them with what was happening in the U.S. circa 1944. I wonder if W is going to write, 60 years later, the final chapter to Mr. Flynn's book. I really do hope and pray that the man who shook my hand and looked me in the eye is up to the task. |
