Treason

Power over people

U.S. military adventures have historically combined imperial ambition—the acquisition of territory and colonies, limiting the reach of competing empires and ‘acquiring’ economic resources—‘natural’ resources, existing economic infrastructure and labor, under advantageous terms. The U.S. orchestrated coup in Honduras was for United Fruit, in Chile for ITT, Kennecott and Anaconda Copper and the CIA’s ‘war of attrition’ against Nicaragua in the 1980s to undo the nationalization of Coca Cola facilities. The botched war on and occupation of Iraq was a continuation of imperial designs on Middle Eastern oil by the U.S. and Britain dating from the early twentieth century. All of these and many, many more conflated the economic interests of particular U.S. ‘based’ corporations with the ‘national interest.’

Selling wars of economic conquest as ‘democracy’ and / or ‘freedom’ was an open joke amongst Washington elites for the bulk of recent decades. Presidents hired advertising agencies to devise ‘marketing’ schemes to sell their wars. The visible idiocy of these schemes fed on the psychological trauma fear-mongering and regular mass slaughters in the ‘national interest’ caused the purposely-misinformed populace. The Cold War was perpetuated by successive administrations because the contrived bogeyman of ‘communism’ had been so effectively sold in support of Western economic predation. By putting a ‘political’ patina on imperial wars the hoax / fallacy of political morality became a fundamental part of the American story. And the irony of cynical demagogues selling botched foreign policy as ‘they hate us for our freedoms’ meets its match in dim corporate-state fascists selling totalitarian surveillance to ‘protect’ us from the consequences of botched foreign policy.

It is in this historical context recent disclosures of ‘classified’ government documents led to charges of treason against those making them—Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and others, by ‘official’ Washington. Treason is yet another well-sold term popularly meaning the knowing betrayal of ‘the nation’ as legal construct, historical artifact and broad set of social relations. Those making the charge, President Obama and prominent Senators and Representatives, proclaim themselves empowered to make it as Marketers-in-Chief of imperial power. Deference to unity in ‘nation’ through the charge of treason is a sleight-of-hand to peel-off those the current chair-occupiers of empire wish to exile.

It is no accident the first line of attack against Mr. Snowden was to impugn his credibility by arguing he was a ‘high school dropout’ and a ‘lowly analyst.’ In the first place, this is irrelevant to the disclosures—they in no way depended on Mr. Snowden’s ‘credentials’ because if they did, and the official line was he lacked the credentials to be a credible ‘leaker,’ then he also lacked the credentials to be treasonous.

The American public largely supports this view, but on what basis? Part is no doubt the inculcated premise America is classless, and therefore political-economic power accrues to those who ‘deserve’ it. But as the political and economic catastrophes of recent years amply illustrate—the war on and occupation of Iraq and the financial ‘crisis’ requiring trillions in public largesse to (faux) rectify, fools, liars and thieves are just as likely to inhabit the rarefied environs of power as those who ‘merit’ it.

The evidence of class bases for laws, policing and incarceration resides in plain sight here in the U.S. In addition to the history of U.S. military power being used in corporate interests, bankers and their representatives wrote the banking laws that led to recent catastrophe and they are writing the laws to ‘rectify’ the laws they previously wrote. The official rationale is they know best how to operate ‘their’ businesses despite the fact they still exist on the public dole from their last catastrophe.

So again, it isn’t ‘treason’ or ‘crimes’ Mr. Obama and Ms. Feinstein are reacting to—it is the impudence of ‘the help’ exposing the workings of the political-economic elite to those who might (correctly) see themselves on the other side of them. Mr. Obama’s and NSA chief Keith Alexander’s attempts to link illegal NSA spying on Americans to ‘thwarted’ terrorist attacks had no content behind them. They do however have the history of cynical insiders using contrived ‘others’ to sell their personal and class agendas behind them. This makes the ‘treason’ charged by official Washington acts against the ruling class, not against ‘the nation.’ To be clear, official Washington sees acts by political and economic elites against the rest of the citizenry—domestic spying, illegal murder of citizens and economic predation, being in the public interest and disclosure of those that might challenge ruling class power as against the ‘public’ interest. Positioning the rich as ‘job creators’ places them as necessary to the functioning of ‘the economy’ just as Mr. Obama and Ms. Feinstein place their ‘right’ to murder citizens and illegally spy on us as in the public interest. In recent decades the rich—inherited wealth, corporate executives and financiers, have accrued great fortunes through ‘rentier’ income dependent on economically inefficient (in capitalist economics) market power. Market power is contrary to economic democracy the same way totalitarian government is to political democracy.

The government is but a tool of the rich. Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning aren’t traitors; they are good citizens who assumed the social responsibility to act in the public interest against ruling class interests. The political framing of their actions as ‘treason’ is an effort at willful misdirection.

What the liberals and progressives still unsure of what to make of the disclosures of ‘kill lists’ and NSA spying on American citizens don’t appear to understand is if you aren’t clearly on the inside you’re on the outside– the declared enemies of Mr. Obama and Ms. Feinstein, through these programs. Cornel West frames it well as ‘we are all suspects now.’ The rest of us would benefit from joining with our comrades around the globe on the side of imperial power Washington and Wall Street has placed us on.

Rob Urie is an artist and political economist in New York. His book, Zen Economics, will be published by CP/AK Press in 2014.