Hostage Taking

April 2nd, 2011
by F. Grey Parker
A follow up to "Raise. Taxes. Dammit."

Is there anybody out there who actually remembers the 80s? Seriously. I am not talking about the "Morning in America," "Rocky"-versus-the-mutant-Russian at the box office, skinny-tie-and-fluorescent-shoes 80s.

I am talking about the world as it actually existed.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the Iran-Contra affair. Not in the context of it's having been the worst violation of Constitutional limits in Presidential history. Not through the prism of obvious moral arguments. I have been thinking about it as an exemplar of strategically flawed elite behavior.

We gave the Iranians millions of dollars worth of weapons covertly in a bizarre attempt to get them to exert influence over Hezbollah and secure the release of a handful of American hostages in Lebanon. We also really hoped they would convince the crazy bastards to, you know, maybe stop taking more hostages. Some of our more dubious operators also made a pretty penny off of it on the side.

As fate would have it, surprise, it didn't work. The occasional release of a captive at the cost of treasure and a further destabilized Middle East (not to mention Central America) was generally followed by another kidnapping. This went on, in secret, for several years.

The lesson we failed to learn runs deeper than merely one of unwise military brinkmanship. The behavior of most opaque bureaucracies and their fundamental corruptibility are well illustrated by these events. This is about an insistence on deal making with the untrustworthy. This is about the simple truism that once you pay a ransom, you will be regarded as willing to pay more ransom. This is about having the basic sense to call it a day when a course of action continues to produce the same failed outcomes. This is also about stopping these trade-offs through the application of transparency no matter what benefits the players involved have carved out for themselves in the margins and in spite of the harsh readjustments that naturally follow.

The full failure of all things Reaganesque is on display here. And yet, this flawed thinking threatens us today in other ways. The same willful disregard of both facts as they unfold and the subversion of American traditions has permeated our economic policy.

Jobs creation didn't just recently grind to a halt in America. It has been pretty much collapsed for 10 straight years. In the same period, America has foisted more tax breaks, more new loopholes and more ways for wealth to be transferred from the majority to the minority than at any time in the previous eight decades. All this has been done in the name of promoting "growth." We have been told the same thing during every cycle since 2001; that the hiring will only happen when there is less "uncertainty." We have been lectured-to that we must let the "job creators" keep more of the fruits of our labor. Eventually, we are told to believe, this strategy will result in glorious rewards.

But there has been no positive in this equation for a vast majority of us for a long time. America's corporations basically send in lobbyists who tell our legislators that "growth" and "jobs" are explicitly being held hostage by "job crushing" taxes and social policy. Our representatives pay the ransom with our money. Then, the K street bagmen come back with more demands from the kidnappers. And we pay. And we pay. And we pay. Every time we we pay the ransom, there are still more hostages.

Once in a while, a big to-do is made of some new deal that we are assured represents a sign that we are entering a new period of expansion. Photos are taken of the bureaucrats grinning widely and pronouncing that they "have done it." Ribbons are cut. Here come the good times. But it's all for show. That is to say, the corporations have just released a hostage. The cameras then stop, the plotting recommences and they return to their usual activities.

The hostages here are ourselves. Most of us have still refused to acknowledge that we are, in fact, being held hostage. For some, in particular the so-called "Tea Party," there is also a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome at work. They have been fully subsumed into the world-view of their kidnappers.

How the hell to stop this using the tools at hand is a bigger and more frightening proposition than our nation has faced in a century. We really only have two choices, both horrible. We either drag the system screaming back to reality or we allow it collapse under it's own slothful weight. But choosing our own future has always worked better in America than allowing it to be chosen for us.

We can start by choosing not to pay any more ransoms.