24 October 2015: The Plan to Destroy America
The Plan to Destroy AmericaBy Nat Pernick, M.D.Last revised 20 March 2016
There is a plan underway to destroy the United States from within by undermining the fundamental aspects of what makes America great. There may not be a single person or group behind this plan, and its participants may not appear overtly hostile to US interests. Nevertheless, the elements of this plan will likely affect our ability to respond to major crises, and the damage may not be obvious until too late. The purpose of this paper is to describe and expose the plan, and encourage an effective response.
How best to destroy the United States as a superpower? Military attacks, unless overwhelming, are unlikely to succeed. Osama bin Laden remarked that the 9/11 attacks were more successful than he could have ever imagined (Bumiller E. “BinLaden, on Tape, Boasts of Trade Center Attacks.“ New York Times 14 December 2001). But although they killed 3,000 Americans and may have created a sense of vulnerability (“10years later: How did the 9/11 attacks change America?” Berkley News 9 September 2011), they failed to damage the foundations of American society in any significant way:
If anything, such a tragedy as 9/11 brought about more challenges for the country, consequently, resulting in a more heightened US awareness and increasing stamina to meet these challenges (Jackson O."The Impact of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on the US Economy." Florida Memorial University 8 March 2008).
An effective plan to destroy America would attack fundamental aspects of our political and economic life, namely: (a) political power is disbursed among our 322 million inhabitants, who believe they are capable of shaping public policy through rational discourse, (b) the bulk of the population consists of a relatively prosperous middle and lower class and (c) government devotes considerable efforts towards promoting the general welfare, as articulated in the Preamble to the USConstitution.
This is the plan:
1. Transfer wealth and power from the masses to the few, and create despair in the general public that they can remedy this situation.
2. Weaken important physical infrastructure.
3. Weaken policies and institutions that promote a prosperous and productive American public.
4. Promote irrational thinking regarding public policy.
1. Transfer wealth and power from the masses to the few, and create despair in the general public that they can remedy this situation.
Federal and state governmental policies have caused a massive transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes to the top 1%, who now own 37 percent of all wealth:
This toxic inequality has historical underpinnings but is perpetuated by policies and tax preferences that continue to favor the affluent (ShapiroT et al. “The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining theBlack-White Economic Divide.” BrandeisInstitute on Assets and Social Policy February 2013).
Chief executives of major corporations are also worried (Georgescu P. “Capitalists, Arise: WeNeed to Deal With Income Inequality.” New York Times 7 August 2015). This issue, particularly acute in Michigan (“IncomeInequality Increasing in Michigan.” Oakland Press 27 January 2015), has been widely discussed in the current Presidential campaigns and elsewhere:
A new study shows that the gap in the wealth that different American households have accumulated is more extreme than any at time since the Great Depression (Matthews C. “Wealthinequality in America: It's worse than you think.” Fortune 31 October 2014).
TherouxP. “The Hypocrisy of ‘Helping’ the Poor.” New York Times 2 October 2015.
This is a particular problem because of the dangers of centralized power and wealth. Although centralized power may be more efficient, it risks catastrophe if directed towards an irrational goal. For example, the “efficient” state government in Kansas easily passed the largest tax cuts in their history, certain that the tax revenue would be restored by economic growth (Eligon J. “To Fill Budget Hole, Kansas G.O.P.Considers the Unthinkable: Raising Taxes.” New York Times 29 May 2015). When that failed to occur, the government was in crisis. A system of checks and balances with compromise may be less satisfying, and take longer to make decisions, but it lowers the risk of disastrous decisions.
Concentration of power is also easier to manipulate by anti-American elements. The New York Times recently reported that how Presidential campaigns receive the bulk of their funding from a small group (ConfessoreN et al. “Just 158 families have provided nearly half of the early money forefforts to capture the White House.” NewYork Times 10 October 2015), due in part to the Citizens United decision (CillizzaC. “How Citizens United changed politics, in 7 charts.” Washington Post 22 January 2014). It is theoretically much easier for anti-American interests to influence this small group of powerful people than hundreds of millions of “ordinary” Americans.
Accompanying this concentration of wealth and political power are active efforts to disenfranchise African Americans (Berman A. “The New Nullification Movement.” Nation 11 November 2013, Stables, B. “The Racist Origins of FelonDisenfranchisement.” New York Times14 November 2014), Hispanics, the poor (Cohen A. “How Voter ID Laws Are Being Used toDisenfranchise Minorities and the Poor.” The Atlantic 16 March 2012) and women (Milligan S. “Disenfranchising Women in theLone Star State.” US News and WorldReport 24 October 2013), which assists in concentration of political power.
These massive transfers of wealth have created a sense of hopelessness by the public. Ordinary people feel their voice doesn’t matter, or they have simply given up (DickersonB. “Michigan, Prop 1 headed south together.” Detroit Free Press 2 May 2015).
2. Weaken important physical infrastructure.
The success of the anti-tax movement has had the foreseeable effect of weakening physical infrastructure, including roads, sewers, utilities and public transportation, typically funded or overseen by government taxes (Blodgett H. “Check Out the Gorgeous New Trains in the UK—Too Bad the US Won’t Get Them.” Business Insider 27 March 2013, ”Bridgingthe Gap.” The Economist 28 June2014). Not only is government unable to maintain the status quo, but it is unable to anticipate and plan for likely crises, such as terrorist attacks, climate change or social unrest. The decline in infrastructure are particularly troublesome because their gradual nature does not create the acute need that often drives public action.
3. Weaken policies and institutions that promote a prosperous and productive American public.
There is a widespread movement to damage institutions and policies that promote individual well being. This includes weakening public education (public K-12 schools and public colleges and universities), health care (Medicare / Medicaid / Affordable Care Act, mental health and public health measures) and policies that promote individual economic well being (unionization, minimum wage, overtime, prevailing wage). Individually, these actions are justified as creating a better business climate or balancing the budget, but collectively they damage the capability of the bulk of Americans to live more productive lives. See Hiltzik,M. “From Wisconsin to California, the decline of public higher ed continues.” Los Angeles Times 15 June 2015, Mortenson,T. “State Funding: A Race to the Bottom,” American Council on Education Winter 2012.
4. Promote irrational thinking regarding public policy.
The final ingredient in destroying America is to damage our ability to respond to important problems. Government today wrestles with many issues, but most efforts are about gaining political advantage, and will not solve problems affecting the general welfare. Politicians routinely make false statements about important issues, without any sense of guilt, which is tolerated and even supported by the general public. Should a crisis arise, it is reasonable to assume that our public officials will continue to hide from the truth.
Will the public respond to The Plan to Destroy America, or have we reached an irreversible state of complacency?
Update: The recent crisis with lead in the drinking water in Flint, Michigan illustrates the effects of this plan (see NewYork Times 9 January 2016). The governor replaced Flint's elected government with an Emergency Manager under a new law that had been repealed by referendum (the legislature enacted a similar law afterwards with small differences), who implemented a plan which poisoned the water for Flint residents. Michigan's governor has a unique contribution to irrational thinking. His motto of "relentless positive action", although seemingly helpful, often means that he ignores reality when inconsistent with his desires, as demonstrated by his delay in responding to this crisis.