When will we get the message? We don't belong there. Many of our soldiers are either Christian zealots, or clueless about the Muslim society in which they're posted. They shouldn't be dying there.
Long ago, in India, there were a bunch of boys, playing a chase game in one of the large markets in Ahmadabad, in Gujarat. Some of the boys were Hindu; others were Muslim. One of the Hindu boys, running through a tiny Muslim bookseller's stall, accidentally knocked a Quran off a shelf; it fell to the ground. That simple mishap started Hindu-Muslim riots that lasted for weeks, and resulted in over a thousand dead.
Muslims in Ahmadabad are urban sophisticates compared to Muslims in Afghanistan. Islam, unfortunately, has never had a Reformation, so its culture is more like the era of the Catholic Inquisition, at the cusp of Europe's modern era, when The Faith was under siege by the Protestant Reformation. In Islam, the besiegers are secular westernizers, and maybe, missionizing Protestants, like American soldiers.
That is the context: the Quran is hallowed by Muslim believers the way the Bible was treated in Medieval Christian Europe, the way the Talmud was viewed in Medieval Judaism. Is it any wonder that Americans are being killed for the intentional burning of many Qurans on a refuse pile outside America's largest, most notorious prison for Afghan terror suspects?
Yes, intentional. Generals and our President have tried to apologize, and have tried to mollify, by claiming the burning was a mistake, but it wasn't a mistake: the burning was intentional. Terror suspects, to communicate with each other, had written notes in the Qurans, according to early accounts. They had also used them to promulgate jihadist messages. In a war like this, the Qurans had to be destroyed.
American soldiers burning the Qurans may or may not have known that they shouldn't broadcast what they were doing, but it's hard to conceal burning sacks of Qurans, when you have Afghans working with you.
Two Americans, working in the inner sanctum of the Interior Ministry, advisors to the Afghan security forces at the highest level, were shot dead by Afghans, probably incensed by the burning Qurans. Other Americans, more exposed, have also been killed. If Americans can be shot behind Interior's layers of security, there is nowhere they can be safe if Afghans are present. So, Americans are confined to their bases. There are riots, protests and killings all over Afghanistan.
So, what does that tell us but: we don't belong there. We never did. The Soviets discovered the same thing in the 1980's, helped, ironically, by our allies, the mujahedeen, who have transmogrified into our enemies: the Taliban.
Afghanistan was the end of the Soviet Empire; it could well be the end of the American Empire, as well. Can we withdraw gracefully, the way the British did after their second try in 1880, or will we be driven out like the Soviets?
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Is the US Over-Regulated
I never understood the problem with US regulations before, until they were described in the British Economist: Democrats want to regulate business, so that laissez-faire capitalism doesn't run so wild that it destroys society--something it almost did in 2007-8. Republicans want to regulate behavior, i.e. criminal behavior of the lower classes and minorities, and "free business from regulation." Interestingly, the center-right Economist, sees Democrats' priorities as favorably as Republicans,' but damns both--for the way Americans write their laws and consequent regulations.
One example is the Dodd-Frank bill, which is intended to regulate the finance industry to prevent a replay of the collapse in 2008 that led to the Great Recession. It attempts to cover every eventuality, and every kind of financial practice in excruciating detail--it's nearly 900 pages--before most of the actual regulations are written to implement the law. That one was a Democratic monstrosity, but Republicans have done the same kind of thing regulating abortions, for example: bills, which become laws, have become interminably long, and complex.
It may be that the complexity of American regulatory law reflects the growing complexity of our society, but it may also be that laws are so incredibly complex, because our legal system has become so--Americans are exceptionally litigious.
But there may be another reason. In this rigidifying society, Americans have to protect their status, especially their professional status. Even back in the Dark Ages of the 1970's, when I was an academic, professional jargon was necessary to prove your professional standing. I was criticized for writing scholarly articles in plain English! I knew the same was true for my colleagues in other Social Sciences, the Sciences and especially the Humanities.
Not until I had to deal with things like owning property and putting roads across streams, did I realize that government bureaucracies do the same things. I've glimpsed enough to know that corporate bureaucracies are like this, too. There are special ways of speaking or writing that are required for you to fit in. It's called protecting your ass, and everyone else's: your little fiefdom. This is becoming increasingly important as class mobility declines. People, with fewer prospects of advancement, hunker down and protect what they have.
Lawyers have some of the most arcane jargon and grammatical construction of any of the professions. Yet, it's primarily lawyers-turned-politicians who write our laws, and lawyers-turned-bureaucrats who vet the regulations written by legally trained civil servants.
Is it any wonder that the elaboration of laws, their sheer complexity, their piling on laws upon laws to regulate what one simple ordinance might do, has found its greatest flowering in the US? Judicial or managerial judgement is not to be trusted.
Sharpening class lines, and the brittleness that engenders, became pronounced in Fifth Century Rome: the US seems to be following the same trajectory. Moves to simplify laws and regulations are much needed, but probably won't happen: special interests protect themselves.
One example is the Dodd-Frank bill, which is intended to regulate the finance industry to prevent a replay of the collapse in 2008 that led to the Great Recession. It attempts to cover every eventuality, and every kind of financial practice in excruciating detail--it's nearly 900 pages--before most of the actual regulations are written to implement the law. That one was a Democratic monstrosity, but Republicans have done the same kind of thing regulating abortions, for example: bills, which become laws, have become interminably long, and complex.
It may be that the complexity of American regulatory law reflects the growing complexity of our society, but it may also be that laws are so incredibly complex, because our legal system has become so--Americans are exceptionally litigious.
But there may be another reason. In this rigidifying society, Americans have to protect their status, especially their professional status. Even back in the Dark Ages of the 1970's, when I was an academic, professional jargon was necessary to prove your professional standing. I was criticized for writing scholarly articles in plain English! I knew the same was true for my colleagues in other Social Sciences, the Sciences and especially the Humanities.
Not until I had to deal with things like owning property and putting roads across streams, did I realize that government bureaucracies do the same things. I've glimpsed enough to know that corporate bureaucracies are like this, too. There are special ways of speaking or writing that are required for you to fit in. It's called protecting your ass, and everyone else's: your little fiefdom. This is becoming increasingly important as class mobility declines. People, with fewer prospects of advancement, hunker down and protect what they have.
Lawyers have some of the most arcane jargon and grammatical construction of any of the professions. Yet, it's primarily lawyers-turned-politicians who write our laws, and lawyers-turned-bureaucrats who vet the regulations written by legally trained civil servants.
Is it any wonder that the elaboration of laws, their sheer complexity, their piling on laws upon laws to regulate what one simple ordinance might do, has found its greatest flowering in the US? Judicial or managerial judgement is not to be trusted.
Sharpening class lines, and the brittleness that engenders, became pronounced in Fifth Century Rome: the US seems to be following the same trajectory. Moves to simplify laws and regulations are much needed, but probably won't happen: special interests protect themselves.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Generals Lying?
In the waning days of the Soviet Union, an American was travelling from the Black Sea to Moscow, by car; he was lost. He kept seeing huge billboards proclaiming: "You Are On The RIGHT ROAD, Comrade!" When he asked directions, from a farmer on a tractor, he was told to turn around: he was going the wrong way.
Our war in Afghanistan is like that, and in fact, the Soviet war in Afghanistan was like that, too (the point of the article), and was nearly the last straw, because everybody knew the government lied.
Would American generals lie about the Afghan war? Most Americans would have a hard time believing it: that's why Generals like Petraeus and McChrystal get away with it. They prevaricate to the American people, but also to Congress and the President.
First of all, Petraeus and others, with support from the Secretaries of State and Defense, persuaded President Obama to surge troops to Afghanistan, because they fundamentally mis-represented the reason why violence diminished in Iraq after Iraq's surge. Additional troops were only a small part of it; the bigger part was the Sunni Awakening, a response to the incredible brutality of al Qaeda in Iraq, their sometime ally, against Shias and Sunnis alike. They allied with the US to defeat the worse enemy.
In Afghanistan, as Petraeus et al, must have known, there was no significant al Qaeda group brutalizing the population--it was hiding in Pakistan--and there was nothing comparable.
More important, ultimately, the generals, not just Petraeus, have created an information warfare capability that is not only used against our adversaries, but against American public opinion, and even against members of Congress and the administration. With that system, they have systematically lied about the Afghan war, about how well we're doing (not), and even about weapons complexes they are supposed to be developing (are spending billions to develop).
In the Soviet Union, when the generals said they were winning the Afghan war, Soviet citizens knew the opposite must be true, and it was. When generals in the US say that a weapon system has passed all its tests and is ready to be deployed, the claim needs to be examined, since, in a number of cases we know the tests were rigged. When generals say, year after year, that we're winning the war in Afghanistan, that there will be fewer casualties as the surge troops secure the nation, and then we see that casualties rise with the number of troops, should we believe them about winning the war, or believe the opposite?
The beginning of the end of a political system (democracy or dictatorship) is when the people no longer trust the information that comes from their government, especially their armed forces. Unless something changes, that day is coming soon to the American Empire.
Our war in Afghanistan is like that, and in fact, the Soviet war in Afghanistan was like that, too (the point of the article), and was nearly the last straw, because everybody knew the government lied.
Would American generals lie about the Afghan war? Most Americans would have a hard time believing it: that's why Generals like Petraeus and McChrystal get away with it. They prevaricate to the American people, but also to Congress and the President.
First of all, Petraeus and others, with support from the Secretaries of State and Defense, persuaded President Obama to surge troops to Afghanistan, because they fundamentally mis-represented the reason why violence diminished in Iraq after Iraq's surge. Additional troops were only a small part of it; the bigger part was the Sunni Awakening, a response to the incredible brutality of al Qaeda in Iraq, their sometime ally, against Shias and Sunnis alike. They allied with the US to defeat the worse enemy.
In Afghanistan, as Petraeus et al, must have known, there was no significant al Qaeda group brutalizing the population--it was hiding in Pakistan--and there was nothing comparable.
More important, ultimately, the generals, not just Petraeus, have created an information warfare capability that is not only used against our adversaries, but against American public opinion, and even against members of Congress and the administration. With that system, they have systematically lied about the Afghan war, about how well we're doing (not), and even about weapons complexes they are supposed to be developing (are spending billions to develop).
In the Soviet Union, when the generals said they were winning the Afghan war, Soviet citizens knew the opposite must be true, and it was. When generals in the US say that a weapon system has passed all its tests and is ready to be deployed, the claim needs to be examined, since, in a number of cases we know the tests were rigged. When generals say, year after year, that we're winning the war in Afghanistan, that there will be fewer casualties as the surge troops secure the nation, and then we see that casualties rise with the number of troops, should we believe them about winning the war, or believe the opposite?
The beginning of the end of a political system (democracy or dictatorship) is when the people no longer trust the information that comes from their government, especially their armed forces. Unless something changes, that day is coming soon to the American Empire.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Timorous Democrats
Republicans appear, with the help of Cato, Fox "News" and Limbaugh, to have created a whole new (fictional) world, one in which austerity and government lay offs create jobs, in which governments never create jobs, but "job creators" like Willard Romney do. It's an ideological system dependent on economic theories already proved more effective at amassing deficits, not jobs: the Laffer Curve and supply side fiscal policy. They state that taxes should be cut (even more) on the wealthy, and raised for everyone else, to stimulate the "job creators" already flush with cash, while gutting government services to those in need--to get them back to work!
Why are Democrats so timorous in response? They're terrified of the money (and media) against them, so they try to compromise just enough to get money on their side, to survive. That strategy was best embodied in Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council, a temporarily successful attempt to drive the Democratic Party to the center. It was Bill's genius to recognize that he could use some of the moneyed to gain support for a party that had a broader appeal, but was short on cash. Unfortunately, Wall Street was his main source of funds. Obama, too. That means no populist response, except rhetorically, to the bank and housing collapse and timid attempts to alleviate the worst effects. Obama may actually believe what he's saying, but he knows, or has learned, that nothing can be done, unless those who control the purse allow it.
Citizens United made the moneyed even more powerful, those I call Roman Senators here; they can now use their capital to buy the kind of government they want, which is why there will be piles of corporate money on both sides of the aisle.
In order to counter the money, only the largest and best-managed mass organizations could possibly have an impact. But the only ones on the progressive side not beholden to moneyed interests are labor unions. Before Reagan, they were powerful, although often crippled by graft and sclerosis. Since Reagan, they've been increasingly emasculated. The Scott Walkers in the states have been trying to destroy the only part of American unions that still had much clout: the public employee unions.
Paradoxically, such political abuse may have sparked popular outrage: the protests and recall election drives in Wisconsin, the repeal of Kasich's anti-union law, and finally, the Occupy movement.
The Occupiers may have had some effect on Obama's rhetoric, and may tip some Congressional races. In my district (Senator Gillibrand's former district), a dedicated progressive/Occupy sympathizer, Joel Tyner, is energetically campaigning to run against our Tea Party Congressman. He has enthusiasm, but neither money, nor organization (Gillibrand had both). Joel's problems illustrate how difficult it is to overcome elites bent on imperial overreach.
Move to Amend would repeal Citizens United; that would be only a first step to getting money out of politics.
Why are Democrats so timorous in response? They're terrified of the money (and media) against them, so they try to compromise just enough to get money on their side, to survive. That strategy was best embodied in Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council, a temporarily successful attempt to drive the Democratic Party to the center. It was Bill's genius to recognize that he could use some of the moneyed to gain support for a party that had a broader appeal, but was short on cash. Unfortunately, Wall Street was his main source of funds. Obama, too. That means no populist response, except rhetorically, to the bank and housing collapse and timid attempts to alleviate the worst effects. Obama may actually believe what he's saying, but he knows, or has learned, that nothing can be done, unless those who control the purse allow it.
Citizens United made the moneyed even more powerful, those I call Roman Senators here; they can now use their capital to buy the kind of government they want, which is why there will be piles of corporate money on both sides of the aisle.
In order to counter the money, only the largest and best-managed mass organizations could possibly have an impact. But the only ones on the progressive side not beholden to moneyed interests are labor unions. Before Reagan, they were powerful, although often crippled by graft and sclerosis. Since Reagan, they've been increasingly emasculated. The Scott Walkers in the states have been trying to destroy the only part of American unions that still had much clout: the public employee unions.
Paradoxically, such political abuse may have sparked popular outrage: the protests and recall election drives in Wisconsin, the repeal of Kasich's anti-union law, and finally, the Occupy movement.
The Occupiers may have had some effect on Obama's rhetoric, and may tip some Congressional races. In my district (Senator Gillibrand's former district), a dedicated progressive/Occupy sympathizer, Joel Tyner, is energetically campaigning to run against our Tea Party Congressman. He has enthusiasm, but neither money, nor organization (Gillibrand had both). Joel's problems illustrate how difficult it is to overcome elites bent on imperial overreach.
Move to Amend would repeal Citizens United; that would be only a first step to getting money out of politics.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Attack Syria, Instead of Iran!
Gee, let's see: Syria is smaller than Iraq, which is smaller than Iran, so maybe we should attack Syria, instead of Iran. The US has to attack somebody, doesn't it? Can't you see Republicans thinking this? After all, Romney and all the other monkeys, except Ron Paul, are calling for a much larger Defense budget, and a neat little war would help that along nicely. Further, if we took control of Syria, Iran would have to cave on nukes, wouldn't it? Besides, if we could take over Syria, Israel would be deliriously happy. Republicans do sense that anything they can offer that is more Israel-centric than Obama's strained dialog with Netanyahu, might win them votes among Jews, in places like Florida, and even New York. And campaign funds.
Actually, Syria is closely aligned with Iran, but more importantly, with Russia, and that relationship goes back a long way. So, we attack Syria and Russia might send in materiel, at least, to make Americans bleed.
It's a lot better for the Arabs to lead on this, and for the US to stay the hell out of the way. America's big feet would just mess up the neighborhood even more. The only thing the US should do, is either look for a negotiated peace, or supply the opposition with our best defensive weaponry (if there is such a thing). Or the best of our weaponry that the Free Syrian Army, or whatever they'll call themselves tomorrow, can use given their needs and their skills.
It is true, I think, that the opposition represents a variety of democratic impulses, while Assad's regime represents brutal autocratic rule. Americans should favor democracy, but American business often prefers to dicker with an autocrat--only one or a few to buy off, instead of hundreds in a parliament. American businesses, however, will find it hard to cooperate with an internationally condemned butcher of his own people. And we could have some influence on that, by organizing collective protests, or threatening boycotts.
This is life at the center of a declining empire. The US simply doesn't have the boots to land on the ground to sustain anything meaningful against Assad, especially given the difficulties of the neighborhood. Remember, we helped destroy Russia's Soviet empire by supporting the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Putin might feel that turnabout is fair play. Russia is a Syrian ally, and Putin has been running against western influence since the first time he ran for President. It would probably be popular--as was Reagan's support for the mujahedeen.
I really hope Syria doesn't enter the electoral shouting match, it could initiate the dying gasp of the American Empire and it wouldn't be pretty, sort of like Adrianople, when Fritigern killed the Roman Emperor Valens in 378.
Actually, Syria is closely aligned with Iran, but more importantly, with Russia, and that relationship goes back a long way. So, we attack Syria and Russia might send in materiel, at least, to make Americans bleed.
It's a lot better for the Arabs to lead on this, and for the US to stay the hell out of the way. America's big feet would just mess up the neighborhood even more. The only thing the US should do, is either look for a negotiated peace, or supply the opposition with our best defensive weaponry (if there is such a thing). Or the best of our weaponry that the Free Syrian Army, or whatever they'll call themselves tomorrow, can use given their needs and their skills.
It is true, I think, that the opposition represents a variety of democratic impulses, while Assad's regime represents brutal autocratic rule. Americans should favor democracy, but American business often prefers to dicker with an autocrat--only one or a few to buy off, instead of hundreds in a parliament. American businesses, however, will find it hard to cooperate with an internationally condemned butcher of his own people. And we could have some influence on that, by organizing collective protests, or threatening boycotts.
This is life at the center of a declining empire. The US simply doesn't have the boots to land on the ground to sustain anything meaningful against Assad, especially given the difficulties of the neighborhood. Remember, we helped destroy Russia's Soviet empire by supporting the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Putin might feel that turnabout is fair play. Russia is a Syrian ally, and Putin has been running against western influence since the first time he ran for President. It would probably be popular--as was Reagan's support for the mujahedeen.
I really hope Syria doesn't enter the electoral shouting match, it could initiate the dying gasp of the American Empire and it wouldn't be pretty, sort of like Adrianople, when Fritigern killed the Roman Emperor Valens in 378.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Romney, Again?
I thought someone disconnected his batteries, but surprisingly no one has. Because he has so much money, even a robot can run for President.
Has anyone noticed, besides a small sliver of the well-informed, that we had a coup d'etat back in 2000? Everything since is just elaboration--and global expansion. The wrong man was made President, so that the damage done by Clinton could be reversed, so we'd continue on the road Reagan seduced the nation to follow: lower taxes for the wealthy, fewer regulations world-wide, cutting services to everyone else, enabling corporate interests to prevail.
If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd think 9-11 was just too convenient; perhaps it was. What's important is not whether it was, but how it was used--to enslave us and steal us blind.
Obama was able to win, possibly because he was dependent on Wall Street money. If he'd really run only on the masses of small donations he acclaimed, he might have lost. Wall Street money made his lead large enough that it was difficult to prevent his victory: that amount of fraud would have been too visible. Besides, it was clear, when he signed on to TARP; he knew who held the whip.
But the amount of money in 2008 was miniscule compared to what we'll see this year, because, through Citizens United, the Supremes empowered the moneyed to take control through unlimited funds.
Iowa and Florida were decided by super-pac money, not by campaigners, nor by the issues, Nevada by organization. South Carolina may be the exception. Super-pacs destroyed Gingrich in Iowa, and in Florida, but it's important to remember: Gingrich represents the 1%, Romney speaks for the 0.1%; they have more money to "invest." Gingrich's debate skills won him South Carolina, but ten Adelson millions won't be enough to stem Romney's money avalanche.
The Republican primaries illustrate what happens when money is the most important constituency. Romney's perceived inevitability derives from it. Since the main source of political information is TV, campaign ads costing billions will saturate us during elections.
Media corporations love this windfall; they'll do anything to safeguard it. To billionaires and Wall Street, it's pocket change, and they expect ROI's of ten times or more.
On the other hand, to voters this flood of money and ads proves confusing, mind-numbing, a turn-off: high-flown empty rhetoric from candidates, followed by scummy attacks against the other guy. Democrats, independents and marginal voters are less likely to vote.
Then the coup might be complete: the wealthy in charge. How many billionaires would Mitt name to his cabinet? His election would be the final takeover by Roman Senators, the selfish class.
Obama would likely try to ameliorate inequality, at least; Romney would debate inequality only in "quiet rooms," while excoriating "the politics of envy." With Romney, we'd look even more like late Imperial Rome; we'd be sinking fast.
Has anyone noticed, besides a small sliver of the well-informed, that we had a coup d'etat back in 2000? Everything since is just elaboration--and global expansion. The wrong man was made President, so that the damage done by Clinton could be reversed, so we'd continue on the road Reagan seduced the nation to follow: lower taxes for the wealthy, fewer regulations world-wide, cutting services to everyone else, enabling corporate interests to prevail.
If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd think 9-11 was just too convenient; perhaps it was. What's important is not whether it was, but how it was used--to enslave us and steal us blind.
Obama was able to win, possibly because he was dependent on Wall Street money. If he'd really run only on the masses of small donations he acclaimed, he might have lost. Wall Street money made his lead large enough that it was difficult to prevent his victory: that amount of fraud would have been too visible. Besides, it was clear, when he signed on to TARP; he knew who held the whip.
But the amount of money in 2008 was miniscule compared to what we'll see this year, because, through Citizens United, the Supremes empowered the moneyed to take control through unlimited funds.
Iowa and Florida were decided by super-pac money, not by campaigners, nor by the issues, Nevada by organization. South Carolina may be the exception. Super-pacs destroyed Gingrich in Iowa, and in Florida, but it's important to remember: Gingrich represents the 1%, Romney speaks for the 0.1%; they have more money to "invest." Gingrich's debate skills won him South Carolina, but ten Adelson millions won't be enough to stem Romney's money avalanche.
The Republican primaries illustrate what happens when money is the most important constituency. Romney's perceived inevitability derives from it. Since the main source of political information is TV, campaign ads costing billions will saturate us during elections.
Media corporations love this windfall; they'll do anything to safeguard it. To billionaires and Wall Street, it's pocket change, and they expect ROI's of ten times or more.
On the other hand, to voters this flood of money and ads proves confusing, mind-numbing, a turn-off: high-flown empty rhetoric from candidates, followed by scummy attacks against the other guy. Democrats, independents and marginal voters are less likely to vote.
Then the coup might be complete: the wealthy in charge. How many billionaires would Mitt name to his cabinet? His election would be the final takeover by Roman Senators, the selfish class.
Obama would likely try to ameliorate inequality, at least; Romney would debate inequality only in "quiet rooms," while excoriating "the politics of envy." With Romney, we'd look even more like late Imperial Rome; we'd be sinking fast.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Banks To Get a Tap on the Wrist
Here are some revealing figures: because of the housing boom and bust, created by the recklessness of the large banks and their associates: mortgage service companies, rating agencies, etc., there is $700 billion in negative equity in the housing market today. About 3.5 million Americans are homeless, 18.5 million homes sit vacant, and since 2007, more than 7.5 million homes have been foreclosed.
Here are some more revealing figures: last year, Wall Street lavished $147 billion on bonuses to its executives. Estimated assets of the six largest banks: $7.29-8.7 trillion (with a T) in 2010.
Meanwhile, Obama's US Attorney General Holder is pushing the 50 states' Attorneys General to sign on to a negotiated settlement with the banks, in which the banks will pay penalties to aid in restitution of the housing market they destroyed. The total penalties: $20 billion, a large figure, but compared to the amounts of money controlled by these banks, it's miniscule; compared to the damage they did, it's like swatting at a fly on a raging bull.
What makes this proposed settlement even more outrageous: the banks wouldn't pay that $20 billion out of their own pockets. "Paying" means they can raise the money by devaluing the Mortgage Backed Securities on their books (but owned by investors), not the mortgages owned by the banks. So, the banks would only pay a tiny fraction even of the bonuses they lavish on themselves, and they wouldn't even use their own money!
Besides the insignificant punishment: the important part for the banks is a guarantee against further investigations into the banks' wrongdoing. There are piles of evidence, and witnesses that crimes of fraud, theft and extortion were committed widely, against millions of homeowners and hundreds of thousands of investors. But with no more investigations, the banks can just keep on doing all the things they did before, like robosigning, fraudulent foreclosures, wrongful evictions and mis-allocation of funds.
Worse, the agreement pushed by Holder and probably supported by Obama, would grant the banks and their officers immunity from additional suits for damages: immunity for the corporations and people who drove this country into the ditch, and hugely enriched themselves in the process!
They might still be liable for criminal prosecution, but the terms haven't yet been agreed to.
No wonder New York's AG, Eric Schneiderman, and about nine other state AG's, refuse to sign on to the proposed settlement; more are considering joining them.
Why would Holder negotiate this? His former law firm works for five of the six banks. Why would Obama? Wall Street provided a large portion of his campaign funds in 2008. Super-pacs can raise unlimited amounts of money for his Republican opponent. If Obama blasts Wall Street rhetorically, but makes a deal with them, he could still raise enough to win.
So, our Roman Senators go scot-free, their dominance remains unchallenged and everyone else is impoverished--and has no recourse, just like fifth century Rome.
Here are some more revealing figures: last year, Wall Street lavished $147 billion on bonuses to its executives. Estimated assets of the six largest banks: $7.29-8.7 trillion (with a T) in 2010.
Meanwhile, Obama's US Attorney General Holder is pushing the 50 states' Attorneys General to sign on to a negotiated settlement with the banks, in which the banks will pay penalties to aid in restitution of the housing market they destroyed. The total penalties: $20 billion, a large figure, but compared to the amounts of money controlled by these banks, it's miniscule; compared to the damage they did, it's like swatting at a fly on a raging bull.
What makes this proposed settlement even more outrageous: the banks wouldn't pay that $20 billion out of their own pockets. "Paying" means they can raise the money by devaluing the Mortgage Backed Securities on their books (but owned by investors), not the mortgages owned by the banks. So, the banks would only pay a tiny fraction even of the bonuses they lavish on themselves, and they wouldn't even use their own money!
Besides the insignificant punishment: the important part for the banks is a guarantee against further investigations into the banks' wrongdoing. There are piles of evidence, and witnesses that crimes of fraud, theft and extortion were committed widely, against millions of homeowners and hundreds of thousands of investors. But with no more investigations, the banks can just keep on doing all the things they did before, like robosigning, fraudulent foreclosures, wrongful evictions and mis-allocation of funds.
Worse, the agreement pushed by Holder and probably supported by Obama, would grant the banks and their officers immunity from additional suits for damages: immunity for the corporations and people who drove this country into the ditch, and hugely enriched themselves in the process!
They might still be liable for criminal prosecution, but the terms haven't yet been agreed to.
No wonder New York's AG, Eric Schneiderman, and about nine other state AG's, refuse to sign on to the proposed settlement; more are considering joining them.
Why would Holder negotiate this? His former law firm works for five of the six banks. Why would Obama? Wall Street provided a large portion of his campaign funds in 2008. Super-pacs can raise unlimited amounts of money for his Republican opponent. If Obama blasts Wall Street rhetorically, but makes a deal with them, he could still raise enough to win.
So, our Roman Senators go scot-free, their dominance remains unchallenged and everyone else is impoverished--and has no recourse, just like fifth century Rome.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Lockouts: Capitalism 2012
Corporations, or rather, their CEO's, are feeling their oats. They're sitting on mountains of profits and can see, from their corner window offices, the endless reserve army of the desperate, just waiting to be asked: work, no matter how badly paid, is better than no work at all.
So, more and more corporations aren't tolerating their union workers any longer: they're locking them out, or threatening to do so. If unions attempt to negotiate for their members, corporations refuse to listen. Instead, they demand: lower wages and benefits; they don't budge. It doesn't matter that their corporations have high profits at current wage levels; they want to cut wages, cut benefits, and claim they'll go out of business, or relocate, or offshore, if they don't get their way, or simply will hire replacement workers. After they make their claim--unsubstantiated by their balance sheets--they lock the doors if unions don't cave. Seventeen have done so in 2011, but before this year, lockouts were rare.
It's the new face of management: take it or leave it: capitalism 2012 style.
What managements want is clear: higher and higher profits, huge salaries for themselves and higher dividends if that will enhance the value of their stock, and incomes. What is also clear: workers may do the work necessary to the corporation, but workers are now fungible, just like money. They can be traded in for cheaper models, just like retiring high interest loans for lower cost ones. There are just so many willing to work, and so few jobs available.
Manufacturing is supposedly reviving in the US. This may be one reason: highly skilled, educated, hard-working (willing to work way more than 40-hour weeks), American workers come cheap, now that unions have been beaten down to the point where they are weak, almost impotent. Strikes are no threat to many corporations: replacement workers, what unions call "scabs," are willing and ready to take the place of strikers, and the authorities will send in the police, armed, armored and dangerous to insure the safety of replacement workers and corporate property. Strikers are no match for them.
There are few political representatives, in this supposed democracy, to stand up for workers' rights. The Occupy movement represents the helplessness many feel in the face of corporate aggression and no countervailing force. What do we get instead? Obama will now take a more populist tone, will pledge to reinvigorate "the middle class," (no one speaks of "workers") and Romney, Gingrich, et al, clearly represent corporate interests and people like themselves with high incomes--Romney's unearned income came to over $20 million in each of the last two years!
This does look like the takeover of a class very like the fifth century's Roman Senators, with inequality growing, not receding. It's a prescription for stagnation and decline--just like the late Roman Empire.
So, more and more corporations aren't tolerating their union workers any longer: they're locking them out, or threatening to do so. If unions attempt to negotiate for their members, corporations refuse to listen. Instead, they demand: lower wages and benefits; they don't budge. It doesn't matter that their corporations have high profits at current wage levels; they want to cut wages, cut benefits, and claim they'll go out of business, or relocate, or offshore, if they don't get their way, or simply will hire replacement workers. After they make their claim--unsubstantiated by their balance sheets--they lock the doors if unions don't cave. Seventeen have done so in 2011, but before this year, lockouts were rare.
It's the new face of management: take it or leave it: capitalism 2012 style.
What managements want is clear: higher and higher profits, huge salaries for themselves and higher dividends if that will enhance the value of their stock, and incomes. What is also clear: workers may do the work necessary to the corporation, but workers are now fungible, just like money. They can be traded in for cheaper models, just like retiring high interest loans for lower cost ones. There are just so many willing to work, and so few jobs available.
Manufacturing is supposedly reviving in the US. This may be one reason: highly skilled, educated, hard-working (willing to work way more than 40-hour weeks), American workers come cheap, now that unions have been beaten down to the point where they are weak, almost impotent. Strikes are no threat to many corporations: replacement workers, what unions call "scabs," are willing and ready to take the place of strikers, and the authorities will send in the police, armed, armored and dangerous to insure the safety of replacement workers and corporate property. Strikers are no match for them.
There are few political representatives, in this supposed democracy, to stand up for workers' rights. The Occupy movement represents the helplessness many feel in the face of corporate aggression and no countervailing force. What do we get instead? Obama will now take a more populist tone, will pledge to reinvigorate "the middle class," (no one speaks of "workers") and Romney, Gingrich, et al, clearly represent corporate interests and people like themselves with high incomes--Romney's unearned income came to over $20 million in each of the last two years!
This does look like the takeover of a class very like the fifth century's Roman Senators, with inequality growing, not receding. It's a prescription for stagnation and decline--just like the late Roman Empire.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Romney, Roman Senator
You wouldn't think that in 21st Century "democracy," one that has stood the test of two and a half centuries, that we would emulate the Roman Empire of the Fifth Century, but Willard (Mitt) Romney is the perfect Roman Senator, like the ones that ran the Empire in its dying days--ran it into the ground.
Perhaps, historically, he's most like Petronius Maximus, the Roman Senator who became Emperor after he arranged the assassination of Valentinian III. He was reputed to be the wealthiest of the wealthy, and Roman Senators (a legal class) had pretty much cornered the wealth of the Empire, in land, slaves, serfs and gold. Maximus lasted less than a year (455). He was literally ripped apart by the mob, in response to the Vandals landing at Ostia, before Vandals earned the meaning of their name, sacking and pillaging (vandalizing) Rome.
Just like those Roman Senators, Willard is to the manor (or manner) born, and just like them, he is a master at draining off wealth from those who have created it. He calls it "creative destruction," but the trail of ruined, looted businesses and lost or down-priced jobs, is a tale of predation. He hasn't made his case that he's created wealth--except his and his class, through financial wizardry and exploitation.
Willard is not the richest of the wealthy, but he's definitely high up in the modern senatorial class, at somewhere around a quarter of a billion dollars; he's not yet a billionaire. His candidacy, however, is emblematic of that class, and of its urge to take over this nation, and as much of the rest of the world as it can.
With Citizens United giving that corporate/senatorial class the perfect tool (its money) to take over, the only thing that stands in its way is Barack Obama and some Democrats, who may not represent the senatorial class quite so slavishly. There is the People, but with our modern version of Roman circuses, the people are lulled into passivity, or taught to follow their natural leaders. Only if Americans can awaken to what is happening in the United States, center of an undeclared, retreating global empire, can the people counterbalance the surge of money on the one side, and the weak reeds on the other.
Romney and the Republicans clearly represent the modern Roman Senators, what the OWS labels "the one percent." The Democrats, while partially bought off, still have some predilection to represent a larger portion of the population. The GOP is explainable in Marxist terms, as I pointed out previously: the party of the emergent super-rich, eager to wield their power.
It would take too much space, this time, to explore the likely results of a GOP takeover, but it could be like the destructive reactionary politics that drove the Empire in mid-Fifth Century Rome. The western Empire "fell" in 476.
Perhaps, historically, he's most like Petronius Maximus, the Roman Senator who became Emperor after he arranged the assassination of Valentinian III. He was reputed to be the wealthiest of the wealthy, and Roman Senators (a legal class) had pretty much cornered the wealth of the Empire, in land, slaves, serfs and gold. Maximus lasted less than a year (455). He was literally ripped apart by the mob, in response to the Vandals landing at Ostia, before Vandals earned the meaning of their name, sacking and pillaging (vandalizing) Rome.
Just like those Roman Senators, Willard is to the manor (or manner) born, and just like them, he is a master at draining off wealth from those who have created it. He calls it "creative destruction," but the trail of ruined, looted businesses and lost or down-priced jobs, is a tale of predation. He hasn't made his case that he's created wealth--except his and his class, through financial wizardry and exploitation.
Willard is not the richest of the wealthy, but he's definitely high up in the modern senatorial class, at somewhere around a quarter of a billion dollars; he's not yet a billionaire. His candidacy, however, is emblematic of that class, and of its urge to take over this nation, and as much of the rest of the world as it can.
With Citizens United giving that corporate/senatorial class the perfect tool (its money) to take over, the only thing that stands in its way is Barack Obama and some Democrats, who may not represent the senatorial class quite so slavishly. There is the People, but with our modern version of Roman circuses, the people are lulled into passivity, or taught to follow their natural leaders. Only if Americans can awaken to what is happening in the United States, center of an undeclared, retreating global empire, can the people counterbalance the surge of money on the one side, and the weak reeds on the other.
Romney and the Republicans clearly represent the modern Roman Senators, what the OWS labels "the one percent." The Democrats, while partially bought off, still have some predilection to represent a larger portion of the population. The GOP is explainable in Marxist terms, as I pointed out previously: the party of the emergent super-rich, eager to wield their power.
It would take too much space, this time, to explore the likely results of a GOP takeover, but it could be like the destructive reactionary politics that drove the Empire in mid-Fifth Century Rome. The western Empire "fell" in 476.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Reaction and Sharing--Romney, et al
Reactionary means someone whose politics could be characterized as "an action in a reverse direction or manner." Our whole politics is reactionary!
Santorum, and Romney have both endorsed "personhood" legislation: it would ban most methods of contraception. Even conservatives haven't been against contraception for about three decades! Dewey, Eisenhower, Nixon all accepted the New Deal. Nixon expanded the Great Society. Yet, since Reagan, Republicans have progressively dismantled parts of both, helped by Milquetoast Democrats. Now, they want to repeal the Progressive era: cut and flatten taxes further and repeal all regulations.
The Republicans are driven by ideology and money, big money. Romney has recast himself as a conservative, from his moderate stance when he was Governor of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the nation. Reaction may be his more natural mode: he's a very rich man, son of a very rich man, and became wealthier as a predator capitalist.
Why would Republicans drive so far right? Marx would have a good explanation: they represent the rise of an extremely wealthy class, which has cornered (stolen) most of the growth in productivity for the last thirty years. They have done so through corporate-friendly policies, favorable taxation, easy government contracts, imperial protection and the lax oversight they buy.
Romney, who never saw a pink slip and never imagined one until he blithered about it while electioneering, likens criticism of the wealthy expropriating more and more as "the politics of envy."
People who envy the wealthy, don't advocate fairer taxes, they play the lottery and vote Republican. It's people who object to the deck being stacked against them, who advocate progressive policies. They don't want hand-outs, they want fair wages, salaries and opportunities. They want the kind of health care that can keep them healthy. They want their children to have the chance to meet their full potential, too, just like the Romney boys, and they want to be able to retire when they're old and tired, to enjoy what's left of their lives, just as the elder Romneys have done.
That's not envy; that's equal opportunity and humanity. Perhaps, one of the most disturbing aspects of the Republican primary campaigns is the sense that all of the Republican candidates think that equal opportunity is unfair to them; they don't really want to share their cozy little world. Linked with this is an unspoken assumption that we live in a zero-sum world: if the hoi-polloi get more, then they will get less.
They would get less power; they might get less money and they might not, but living in a more egalitarian society has benefits: lower stress, greater safety, more stability, greater predictability, higher productivity and more happiness--for them, too. Studies demonstrate this. They wouldn't lose their riches, but they might save their necks: from revolution, or fascism.
But, like fifth century Roman Senators, our selfish class doesn't want to share.
Santorum, and Romney have both endorsed "personhood" legislation: it would ban most methods of contraception. Even conservatives haven't been against contraception for about three decades! Dewey, Eisenhower, Nixon all accepted the New Deal. Nixon expanded the Great Society. Yet, since Reagan, Republicans have progressively dismantled parts of both, helped by Milquetoast Democrats. Now, they want to repeal the Progressive era: cut and flatten taxes further and repeal all regulations.
The Republicans are driven by ideology and money, big money. Romney has recast himself as a conservative, from his moderate stance when he was Governor of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the nation. Reaction may be his more natural mode: he's a very rich man, son of a very rich man, and became wealthier as a predator capitalist.
Why would Republicans drive so far right? Marx would have a good explanation: they represent the rise of an extremely wealthy class, which has cornered (stolen) most of the growth in productivity for the last thirty years. They have done so through corporate-friendly policies, favorable taxation, easy government contracts, imperial protection and the lax oversight they buy.
Romney, who never saw a pink slip and never imagined one until he blithered about it while electioneering, likens criticism of the wealthy expropriating more and more as "the politics of envy."
People who envy the wealthy, don't advocate fairer taxes, they play the lottery and vote Republican. It's people who object to the deck being stacked against them, who advocate progressive policies. They don't want hand-outs, they want fair wages, salaries and opportunities. They want the kind of health care that can keep them healthy. They want their children to have the chance to meet their full potential, too, just like the Romney boys, and they want to be able to retire when they're old and tired, to enjoy what's left of their lives, just as the elder Romneys have done.
That's not envy; that's equal opportunity and humanity. Perhaps, one of the most disturbing aspects of the Republican primary campaigns is the sense that all of the Republican candidates think that equal opportunity is unfair to them; they don't really want to share their cozy little world. Linked with this is an unspoken assumption that we live in a zero-sum world: if the hoi-polloi get more, then they will get less.
They would get less power; they might get less money and they might not, but living in a more egalitarian society has benefits: lower stress, greater safety, more stability, greater predictability, higher productivity and more happiness--for them, too. Studies demonstrate this. They wouldn't lose their riches, but they might save their necks: from revolution, or fascism.
But, like fifth century Roman Senators, our selfish class doesn't want to share.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Only His Hairdresser
…knows for sure. After seeing the ABC debate in New Hampshire: both Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney must dye their hair, including those carefully crafted perfect gray temples connoting wisdom. Neither projects a real person. Rick Santorum manages to look chinless, despite his long face; he's not quite as robotic as Romney, but still there is something not real about him. Gingrich, the Newt, projects a real person, albeit an unpleasant, even a nasty one. My wife found Rick Perry the only candidate who was at all attractive, but he was oh, so dumb! And then there's Ron Paul: he's not stupid, and he's real, but he's crazy, like a crazy older uncle.
I find it unbelievable that the 1% hasn't found a more personable representative than any of the above, especially Romney, to whom the major money seems to be flowing. Republicans should hire a real actor, like Reagan.
The ABC panel lobbed such softball questions. The classic: Do you, Rick Perry, believe that because you served in the military you'd be the best to lead this country as Commander in Chief?
What's he going to say? "Of course not; I wasn't a General?" Gingrich claims to empathize with every soldier he would send to war, because he was an Army brat growing up. He brushes aside the claim that he got five deferments.
Gingrich came across as the most articulate--and cantankerous--but he made a major booboo at the end: he said he'd be watching Saturday night basketball; it's still the football season.
Every GOP candidate except Ron Paul acts as if he's raring to attack Iran. Each, again except Paul, also states as fact that Iran is developing nuclear weapons: there is no proof that it is, only data that imply it's keeping the option open. Santorum goes everyone one worse. We should attack Iran: our credibility is at stake.
All of the candidates, excepting Ron Paul, also deplore Obama's proposed cuts to Defense: Romney and Santorum want to spend more, although they make pro-forma noises about cutting the deficit. Only Paul addresses our fundamental budget problem with Defense--maybe that's why significant campaign funds come from rank and file military--but his solution--cut almost everything government does--would usher in the Dark Ages, like the Goths' takeover in 476.
If any one of these men becomes President, we'll have a disaster that makes 2008 look like a minor rehearsal. Slash regulations to unleash business--like the deregulation that led to the 2008 collapse? We need more regulations. Cut taxes on "job creators," cut or eliminate the corporate tax--and the "death tax?" Who will pay for the expanded military, the police to enforce abortion and immigration laws and the support for unwanted babies, generated by banning abortions and Santorum's desired elimination of contraception?
The "99%."
These "leaders" are as awful as Honorius and Valentinian III at the tail end of the Roman Empire.
I find it unbelievable that the 1% hasn't found a more personable representative than any of the above, especially Romney, to whom the major money seems to be flowing. Republicans should hire a real actor, like Reagan.
The ABC panel lobbed such softball questions. The classic: Do you, Rick Perry, believe that because you served in the military you'd be the best to lead this country as Commander in Chief?
What's he going to say? "Of course not; I wasn't a General?" Gingrich claims to empathize with every soldier he would send to war, because he was an Army brat growing up. He brushes aside the claim that he got five deferments.
Gingrich came across as the most articulate--and cantankerous--but he made a major booboo at the end: he said he'd be watching Saturday night basketball; it's still the football season.
Every GOP candidate except Ron Paul acts as if he's raring to attack Iran. Each, again except Paul, also states as fact that Iran is developing nuclear weapons: there is no proof that it is, only data that imply it's keeping the option open. Santorum goes everyone one worse. We should attack Iran: our credibility is at stake.
All of the candidates, excepting Ron Paul, also deplore Obama's proposed cuts to Defense: Romney and Santorum want to spend more, although they make pro-forma noises about cutting the deficit. Only Paul addresses our fundamental budget problem with Defense--maybe that's why significant campaign funds come from rank and file military--but his solution--cut almost everything government does--would usher in the Dark Ages, like the Goths' takeover in 476.
If any one of these men becomes President, we'll have a disaster that makes 2008 look like a minor rehearsal. Slash regulations to unleash business--like the deregulation that led to the 2008 collapse? We need more regulations. Cut taxes on "job creators," cut or eliminate the corporate tax--and the "death tax?" Who will pay for the expanded military, the police to enforce abortion and immigration laws and the support for unwanted babies, generated by banning abortions and Santorum's desired elimination of contraception?
The "99%."
These "leaders" are as awful as Honorius and Valentinian III at the tail end of the Roman Empire.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Ron Paul vs Obama
Ron Paul says we should get out of the Middle East (and everywhere else), but is also for dismantling the so-called 'social welfare' state and the IRS!
If Ron Paul were a major candidate, instead of consigned to the "loony right-wing fringe," we could have a real debate: on foreign and military policy, on civil liberties and national security policies, on drug policies and on the function of government.
What is more important: protecting (minimally) the already shredded safety net, or personal liberties? Obama is for the former. However, Obama signed the NDAA, with its provision for indefinite detention by the military of anyone, anywhere in the world, deemed to have some undefined relationship or alignment with al Qaeda, with no right to trial or even Habeas Corpus. Obama is no protector of civil liberties. He has signed the death warrant for democracy, as we have known it.
Just as in the Roman Empire, the military has been given the power of judge, jury and executioner, even though emperor Obama and his successors are supposed to approve their actions. During most of the Roman Empire, the military chose the Emperor: that could happen here. As of now, someone like Ron Paul, who is judged "anti-military" could never become President. Could an anti-military Caesar have become Emperor?
Ron Paul opposed the NDAA, and its predecessors, the Patriot Act and FISA, because they infringed on our civil liberties.
He's opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our involvement in wars and conflicts all over the world. He would dismantle our overseas military empire! Obama is only "winding down" our involvement in the two wars, but is an interventionist in Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and the South China Sea.
Ron Paul has not been particularly forthcoming about racist statements in past newsletters attributed to him. He would also eliminate, like any other Republican, whatever safety net Democrats have already eviscerated. And his economic policy of abolishing the Fed, the IRS and reinstating the gold standard would be disastrous.
But Ron Paul advocates an end to the drug war, legalization, and points out what most black people know and white people deny: the war on drugs is racist and fuels the prison-industrial complex. He was labeled racist, because he was against the Civil Rights Act, ironically, because he's against government controlling everyone's behavior--which is also why he's against drug laws! He's also been tarred with anti-Semitism, probably because he's against slavishly supporting Israel's every policy, but that's also a position with which a lot of progressives, and progressive Jews, agree.
Maybe Ron Paul is racist, anti-Semitic, a disastrous economist and against even Social Security, but he brings into political discussion many issues that have been "off the table" for far too long. He would be the most interesting Republican nominee--he'd likely lose--but he'd bring the empire--and a whole lot more--into question.
If Ron Paul were a major candidate, instead of consigned to the "loony right-wing fringe," we could have a real debate: on foreign and military policy, on civil liberties and national security policies, on drug policies and on the function of government.
What is more important: protecting (minimally) the already shredded safety net, or personal liberties? Obama is for the former. However, Obama signed the NDAA, with its provision for indefinite detention by the military of anyone, anywhere in the world, deemed to have some undefined relationship or alignment with al Qaeda, with no right to trial or even Habeas Corpus. Obama is no protector of civil liberties. He has signed the death warrant for democracy, as we have known it.
Just as in the Roman Empire, the military has been given the power of judge, jury and executioner, even though emperor Obama and his successors are supposed to approve their actions. During most of the Roman Empire, the military chose the Emperor: that could happen here. As of now, someone like Ron Paul, who is judged "anti-military" could never become President. Could an anti-military Caesar have become Emperor?
Ron Paul opposed the NDAA, and its predecessors, the Patriot Act and FISA, because they infringed on our civil liberties.
He's opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our involvement in wars and conflicts all over the world. He would dismantle our overseas military empire! Obama is only "winding down" our involvement in the two wars, but is an interventionist in Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and the South China Sea.
Ron Paul has not been particularly forthcoming about racist statements in past newsletters attributed to him. He would also eliminate, like any other Republican, whatever safety net Democrats have already eviscerated. And his economic policy of abolishing the Fed, the IRS and reinstating the gold standard would be disastrous.
But Ron Paul advocates an end to the drug war, legalization, and points out what most black people know and white people deny: the war on drugs is racist and fuels the prison-industrial complex. He was labeled racist, because he was against the Civil Rights Act, ironically, because he's against government controlling everyone's behavior--which is also why he's against drug laws! He's also been tarred with anti-Semitism, probably because he's against slavishly supporting Israel's every policy, but that's also a position with which a lot of progressives, and progressive Jews, agree.
Maybe Ron Paul is racist, anti-Semitic, a disastrous economist and against even Social Security, but he brings into political discussion many issues that have been "off the table" for far too long. He would be the most interesting Republican nominee--he'd likely lose--but he'd bring the empire--and a whole lot more--into question.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Campaigning Against the 1%
What will it take for putative progressive politicians to realize what a gift the Occupy Wall Street movement has offered them? While campaigning against "the one-percent," the OWS has begun to awaken the slumbering giant that is the American public.
I wonder, however, if elected leaders will get the message. I have a friend, Joel Tyner, who holds a position in the local legislature. He now sees his chance: he's campaigning for Congress; his opponent, the incumbent, is a Tea Party Republican elected in the 2010 wave.
I'm not sure my friend will have what it takes, which is a ton of money and good organization, even to be heard, even to be part of the electoral debate. It's no secret that the Republican will not only have sufficient campaign funds, he will also be supported, if necessary, with piles of corporate money. My friend will probably reject special interest funding, and doesn't know many likely wealthy contributors. He'll do things like hold demonstrations outside the Congressman's office; he's known for his publicized hikes to highlight political grievances, yet not even the local newspaper covers him most of the time.
The American political system, as presently constituted, favors the wealthy, and rewards those who side with them. Charles Beard, an American revisionist historian, made the case that the American Constitution was a counter-revolution by the propertied, looking out for their special interests. Their interests included "worthless" war bonds and deeds to western lands issued to Revolutionary War veterans in lieu of pay. George Washington and others bought them up for tiny fractions of their face value. The Constitution insured that the new government would protect their new lands and honor the war bonds, making the speculators--many in the Constitutional Congress--extremely wealthy.
Today we have a continuation of that tradition in Congress's immunity from insider trading laws, which is probably one of the reasons why most Congress-persons and Senators are much wealthier than their constituents.
Any reform, let alone revolution, has to overcome this. Further, it will have to overwhelm party establishments that are set up to protect special interests, rather than represent popular concerns. Only sustained popular mobilization, like the civil rights movement and the suffrage movement, has overcome the entrenched status quo. Effective leaders can help promote change, but our complicated structure tends to keep things the way they were.
If far-reaching reform doesn't happen, the American system ultimately may be overthrown by an enraged 99%; it's what happened in France, Russia, China, etc. Alternatively, the US political and economic system could continue to become increasingly dysfunctional, until it collapses of its own weight, like the Roman Empire. Rome went bankrupt because its Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves: they had extracted all the available wealth from everyone else, but had no sense of obligation to the Empire or society as a whole. Sounds like Wall Street, doesn't it?
I wonder, however, if elected leaders will get the message. I have a friend, Joel Tyner, who holds a position in the local legislature. He now sees his chance: he's campaigning for Congress; his opponent, the incumbent, is a Tea Party Republican elected in the 2010 wave.
I'm not sure my friend will have what it takes, which is a ton of money and good organization, even to be heard, even to be part of the electoral debate. It's no secret that the Republican will not only have sufficient campaign funds, he will also be supported, if necessary, with piles of corporate money. My friend will probably reject special interest funding, and doesn't know many likely wealthy contributors. He'll do things like hold demonstrations outside the Congressman's office; he's known for his publicized hikes to highlight political grievances, yet not even the local newspaper covers him most of the time.
The American political system, as presently constituted, favors the wealthy, and rewards those who side with them. Charles Beard, an American revisionist historian, made the case that the American Constitution was a counter-revolution by the propertied, looking out for their special interests. Their interests included "worthless" war bonds and deeds to western lands issued to Revolutionary War veterans in lieu of pay. George Washington and others bought them up for tiny fractions of their face value. The Constitution insured that the new government would protect their new lands and honor the war bonds, making the speculators--many in the Constitutional Congress--extremely wealthy.
Today we have a continuation of that tradition in Congress's immunity from insider trading laws, which is probably one of the reasons why most Congress-persons and Senators are much wealthier than their constituents.
Any reform, let alone revolution, has to overcome this. Further, it will have to overwhelm party establishments that are set up to protect special interests, rather than represent popular concerns. Only sustained popular mobilization, like the civil rights movement and the suffrage movement, has overcome the entrenched status quo. Effective leaders can help promote change, but our complicated structure tends to keep things the way they were.
If far-reaching reform doesn't happen, the American system ultimately may be overthrown by an enraged 99%; it's what happened in France, Russia, China, etc. Alternatively, the US political and economic system could continue to become increasingly dysfunctional, until it collapses of its own weight, like the Roman Empire. Rome went bankrupt because its Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves: they had extracted all the available wealth from everyone else, but had no sense of obligation to the Empire or society as a whole. Sounds like Wall Street, doesn't it?
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The NDAA: Plunging Downhill
Regardless of who is President, once grabbed, the executive branch never gives up power without a fight: the Imperial Presidency. In other words, Obama will sign the NDAA, which may authorize the President to detain citizens indefinitely (they'll leave it up to the courts to decide if a President can do this) and that's okay, because Obama says he won't use that power!
Would anyone, trust a President Gingrich or Romney with that power? Hell, no one knows what either of them think, especially Romney, who the big boys don't like, but for whom they may have no choice. They don't trust Gingrich, who's fading, and would never consider anti-militarist Ron Paul; their money is where their mouths are, and he'd also disrupt the corrupt games of their primary constituents: the financial industry.
But I'm not so sure Obama wouldn't use those powers in the NDAA.
One of the things that seems to be happening worldwide, is that global protests are now being suppressed with greater and greater ferocity. First, Occupiers were tolerated, then they were penned and arrested, then they were driven out of Zuccotti Park, and a whole lot of other, similar encampments in places like Oakland, Seattle, Tampa, Washington, DC, and even places like Poughkeepsie, NY. Some violence in New York, more in Oakland, pepper spray apparently everywhere, but nothing compared to the beatings and bludgeoning of women in Tahrir Square, and not by police, but by the Army. Their actions were preceded in Bahrain, spearheaded by the Saudi Army. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both recipients of tons of American weapons, and training by the US military.
Now, the NDAA gives power to detain indefinitely, and who gets to take the primary role in combating "terror" in the US? Not the police, not the CIA/FBI, it's the military. If I were paranoid, I'd think the American military was getting ready for a coup d'etat, gaining the power to carry one out legally. I'm not paranoid, and I don't like conspiracy theories as explanations, but I do think the NDAA is setting us up, even if no General or Admiral, or Secretary of Defense even dreams of a military takeover: it makes a military takeover much more possible.
I also think that Obama as President is more than the man, he is the institution, which has a terrible logic of its own: increase the power of the Presidency whenever possible. It's this kind of progression that led to the absolutism of the Roman Emperors and the totalitarianisms of Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union.
But we're starting late down that road: the Empire is beginning to self-destruct. The military is still determined to maintain world dominance, even when we can no longer afford one war against insurgents in one of the poorest nations on the globe.
In 476, the victors against Rome were barbarians. Now, they could be American soldiers.
Would anyone, trust a President Gingrich or Romney with that power? Hell, no one knows what either of them think, especially Romney, who the big boys don't like, but for whom they may have no choice. They don't trust Gingrich, who's fading, and would never consider anti-militarist Ron Paul; their money is where their mouths are, and he'd also disrupt the corrupt games of their primary constituents: the financial industry.
But I'm not so sure Obama wouldn't use those powers in the NDAA.
One of the things that seems to be happening worldwide, is that global protests are now being suppressed with greater and greater ferocity. First, Occupiers were tolerated, then they were penned and arrested, then they were driven out of Zuccotti Park, and a whole lot of other, similar encampments in places like Oakland, Seattle, Tampa, Washington, DC, and even places like Poughkeepsie, NY. Some violence in New York, more in Oakland, pepper spray apparently everywhere, but nothing compared to the beatings and bludgeoning of women in Tahrir Square, and not by police, but by the Army. Their actions were preceded in Bahrain, spearheaded by the Saudi Army. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both recipients of tons of American weapons, and training by the US military.
Now, the NDAA gives power to detain indefinitely, and who gets to take the primary role in combating "terror" in the US? Not the police, not the CIA/FBI, it's the military. If I were paranoid, I'd think the American military was getting ready for a coup d'etat, gaining the power to carry one out legally. I'm not paranoid, and I don't like conspiracy theories as explanations, but I do think the NDAA is setting us up, even if no General or Admiral, or Secretary of Defense even dreams of a military takeover: it makes a military takeover much more possible.
I also think that Obama as President is more than the man, he is the institution, which has a terrible logic of its own: increase the power of the Presidency whenever possible. It's this kind of progression that led to the absolutism of the Roman Emperors and the totalitarianisms of Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union.
But we're starting late down that road: the Empire is beginning to self-destruct. The military is still determined to maintain world dominance, even when we can no longer afford one war against insurgents in one of the poorest nations on the globe.
In 476, the victors against Rome were barbarians. Now, they could be American soldiers.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Cash on the Barrel-head
The world is too much with me
now and then:
The pipeline revisited, the NDAA
indefinite detention, perhaps
me and thee.
Methane fountains in the Siberian Sea--
nothing to worry about
says he,
A Danish scientist.
Who pays his bills?
Obama temporizes, his party caves,
Republicans tie the noose and
the pipeline is saved.
Job-killer they'll say,
if he vetoes it,
Earth poisoner, greens'll say,
if he signs it.
The environmental President
owned by coal and oil;
350 parts per million
long gone
but then,
Gingrich the kook
could say:
it's all for sale.
That's how we do it
in the free market!
now and then:
The pipeline revisited, the NDAA
indefinite detention, perhaps
me and thee.
Methane fountains in the Siberian Sea--
nothing to worry about
says he,
A Danish scientist.
Who pays his bills?
Obama temporizes, his party caves,
Republicans tie the noose and
the pipeline is saved.
Job-killer they'll say,
if he vetoes it,
Earth poisoner, greens'll say,
if he signs it.
The environmental President
owned by coal and oil;
350 parts per million
long gone
but then,
Gingrich the kook
could say:
it's all for sale.
That's how we do it
in the free market!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Congress and Obama
Sabotage the US Constitution
Obama is going to sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that he earlier threatened to veto.
He didn't threaten a veto, because the NDAA declared the whole world at war, including within US borders. His threat wasn't because the NDAA authorized indefinite detention by the military of anyone even suspected of terrorism, even US citizens in the US. It wasn’t because, the NDAA might permit here in the US the kind of assassination carried out against US-Yemeni Anwar al-Awlaki, gunned down by a drone in Yemen.
No, the President threatened a veto because the act presumed to tell him that he had to detain through the military by default, instead of through the CIA and FBI: it was a process thing.
Well, Congress found a way around that little disagreement, but all appear agreed, that the President, at least, should have absolute power in the truly GLOBAL war on terror.
Obama will sign this; the former professor of Constitutional Law will sign it! Whatever happened to right to a lawyer, right to a trial, habeas corpus, the Fifth Amendment's "No person shall ….. be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law?" This is especially true in capital cases. People must be indicted by a Grand Jury, if they are to "be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime."
But since the whole world is within the battlefield, well, Constitutional rights pfff, who needs them? Said Senator Lindsay Graham of detainees, "They should not be read their Miranda Rights. They should not be given a lawyer." Huffpo 11/29/11.
Thought that just applied to swarthy guys with black beards or heavy five-o'clock shadow? Think again: the enemy isn't specifically described; it could be anyone, if somehow they are suspected--not proven--to be a terrorist threat. Then, there is one hearing, before military officers, but no trial. You could be put away in Guantanamo, or one of the other hell-holes our boys (and girls) have devised--in places like Afghanistan, or converted top security prisons here--and left there for the rest of your life--with no recourse.
Doctor Manette in Tale of Two Cities,, lost his mind during his indefinite detention in the Bastille. That’s the kind of thing that's made legal by the NDAA that Obama now says he will sign.
Roman Emperors held powers that were even more arbitrary, but they couldn't effectively wield them far beyond Rome or, later, Ravenna. Obama could carry out this new writ in any corner of the world.
Except, political analysts say, he's really signing it to forestall Republican criticism that he's soft on terrorism. Right.
He still might use it, even against peaceful Occupiers, or Tea Partiers. Who can say no? Congress gave him the power. And think what could come next: think of President Gingrich with this power!
He didn't threaten a veto, because the NDAA declared the whole world at war, including within US borders. His threat wasn't because the NDAA authorized indefinite detention by the military of anyone even suspected of terrorism, even US citizens in the US. It wasn’t because, the NDAA might permit here in the US the kind of assassination carried out against US-Yemeni Anwar al-Awlaki, gunned down by a drone in Yemen.
No, the President threatened a veto because the act presumed to tell him that he had to detain through the military by default, instead of through the CIA and FBI: it was a process thing.
Well, Congress found a way around that little disagreement, but all appear agreed, that the President, at least, should have absolute power in the truly GLOBAL war on terror.
Obama will sign this; the former professor of Constitutional Law will sign it! Whatever happened to right to a lawyer, right to a trial, habeas corpus, the Fifth Amendment's "No person shall ….. be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law?" This is especially true in capital cases. People must be indicted by a Grand Jury, if they are to "be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime."
But since the whole world is within the battlefield, well, Constitutional rights pfff, who needs them? Said Senator Lindsay Graham of detainees, "They should not be read their Miranda Rights. They should not be given a lawyer." Huffpo 11/29/11.
Thought that just applied to swarthy guys with black beards or heavy five-o'clock shadow? Think again: the enemy isn't specifically described; it could be anyone, if somehow they are suspected--not proven--to be a terrorist threat. Then, there is one hearing, before military officers, but no trial. You could be put away in Guantanamo, or one of the other hell-holes our boys (and girls) have devised--in places like Afghanistan, or converted top security prisons here--and left there for the rest of your life--with no recourse.
Doctor Manette in Tale of Two Cities,, lost his mind during his indefinite detention in the Bastille. That’s the kind of thing that's made legal by the NDAA that Obama now says he will sign.
Roman Emperors held powers that were even more arbitrary, but they couldn't effectively wield them far beyond Rome or, later, Ravenna. Obama could carry out this new writ in any corner of the world.
Except, political analysts say, he's really signing it to forestall Republican criticism that he's soft on terrorism. Right.
He still might use it, even against peaceful Occupiers, or Tea Partiers. Who can say no? Congress gave him the power. And think what could come next: think of President Gingrich with this power!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Life is Complicated For Obama
President Obama claims a number of accomplishments, but some are like finally agreeing to bring US troops home from Iraq. His Defense Secretaries tried hard to keep them there.
Obama can also claim rescinding Don't Ask Don't Tell; he touts his flawed healthcare law and rescuing the economy from collapse, even though the subsequent recovery is like a depression. He hasn't yet raised taxes on the highest incomes, but insists they need to be, not lowered as Republicans demand
How would Obama see himself? I'll bet his greatest disappointment is that despite all his efforts to promote a more civil politics of centrist good sense, his opponents hate him and are doing everything they can to defeat his re-election bid. He also knows that it's not only partisan; it's also racial, plus the Senate and Congress are bought and paid for by the biggest bucks on the planet.
He must love to hear about the sorry parade of Republican candidates, their mishaps and stupidities, but he must grind his teeth to hear Fox's commentators falsifying what's actually happening.
He may, finally, be getting it: he will never reach agreements with Republicans, unless it's to tie the noose around his neck. Boehner and McConnell are subtle, but, secretly, they wish they could lynch this uppity black man.
Why has Obama actually intensified the war in Afghanistan and the drone war over Pakistan? The military and Hillary were for the surge; Biden was for the drone war and against the surge. So, compromise! Have both!
I wonder if Obama credits himself that they got bin Laden: probably. Hillary joked about it. The Republicans try to claim that it only happened because of what George W did before, but they're wrong; Bush closed the bin Laden Section; Obama reopened it.
Obama is a disappointment: he tried to compromise, tried to be the "adult" in the middle, instead of the leftish statesman he projected on the campaign trail. He had progressive ideas, but he's probably more conservative than Nixon, "our last liberal President." Every Republican, however, is to the right of Hoover and even of Coolidge, or Taft.
Yet, it's not at all clear that the majority of Americans are conservative, even many self-identified as such. Most are like the tea partier whose sign shouted: 'Keep your hands off my Medicare', what they want demands liberal, not conservative policies. Except for the crazy religious, most are also socially liberal: hence the abolition of Don't Ask, and the spread of same-sex marriage.
Maybe Obama represents them better than he realizes, in these last years of a tired, crazy, polarized Empire, How many years until the re-play of 476, when the Barbarians took possession of bankrupt Imperial Rome? If Obama is reelected, we'll have a slightly better chance of avoiding that scenario: the Barbarians could be Chinese bankers.
From: MilitaryEducation.org
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Occupy Poughkeepsie Comes Home
Well, a few of its members, who were evicted in the cold, rainy early morning hours when everyone was trying to sleep: 3:30 to be precise. The City had issued eviction notices last week, but when 200+ people showed up to support the Occupiers, the police stood down. They waited and planned patiently. Wednesday morning early, when only about seven Occupiers were onsite, sleeping, at the occupied park, the police came, announced that all of them had to leave and tore down their encampment. They also confiscated all their equipment: blankets, sleeping bags, tarps, anything the seven didn’t immediately grab and carry with them.
The Occupiers were in shock.
We got a call in the morning: could we pick up some of them, since we'd offered a place for them to rest and recuperate. When we went down to the library, where several were waiting, only one man decided to come with us.
It was interesting to get to know him a little. He's in his early 40's, has traveled all over the world, lived in intentional communities, graduated in Sociology, done academic work in Germany and had just been thrown out by his mother; he's also divorced. He doesn't have a job, and finds it difficult to look for one without a phone or a computer. He's obviously bright, thoughtful and very lost.
One of the other Occupiers was younger, hoarse from shouting, and apparently a bit off in the head. He stayed behind to hold signs at the site of the eviction, but had just been downloading something on a library computer about which his colleague remarked: "He claims he can make a billion dollars from it."
While Abe was older and needed a rest, the younger man was bursting with energy, and couldn't leave.
The Occupiers were anything but the stereotyped "dirty hippies," and their occupation had turned the park into a community meeting place, instead of a drug market, its previous incarnation. Crime rates in the area reportedly went down. Yet the police had to evict them, or rather, the City Manager decided that they had to go.
This isn't a meaningful sample of Occupiers. But still, it illustrates something that the Occupy movement exemplifies: the terrible waste of human talent and energy created by our economic and political system. I've seen this before, when I worked in prison. The men I got to know both in nonviolence workshops and in my college classes were bright, engaged, high energy, but barely literate. If they had gotten adequate schooling, what a resource they would have been! Instead, they were costing the State over $40,000 a year.
Maybe empires--Roman, British, Soviet, American--are lost because such people are squandered and thrown away. The OWS is in search of a different solution, where everyone is valued. I hope they/we can find it.
The Occupiers were in shock.
We got a call in the morning: could we pick up some of them, since we'd offered a place for them to rest and recuperate. When we went down to the library, where several were waiting, only one man decided to come with us.
It was interesting to get to know him a little. He's in his early 40's, has traveled all over the world, lived in intentional communities, graduated in Sociology, done academic work in Germany and had just been thrown out by his mother; he's also divorced. He doesn't have a job, and finds it difficult to look for one without a phone or a computer. He's obviously bright, thoughtful and very lost.
One of the other Occupiers was younger, hoarse from shouting, and apparently a bit off in the head. He stayed behind to hold signs at the site of the eviction, but had just been downloading something on a library computer about which his colleague remarked: "He claims he can make a billion dollars from it."
While Abe was older and needed a rest, the younger man was bursting with energy, and couldn't leave.
The Occupiers were anything but the stereotyped "dirty hippies," and their occupation had turned the park into a community meeting place, instead of a drug market, its previous incarnation. Crime rates in the area reportedly went down. Yet the police had to evict them, or rather, the City Manager decided that they had to go.
This isn't a meaningful sample of Occupiers. But still, it illustrates something that the Occupy movement exemplifies: the terrible waste of human talent and energy created by our economic and political system. I've seen this before, when I worked in prison. The men I got to know both in nonviolence workshops and in my college classes were bright, engaged, high energy, but barely literate. If they had gotten adequate schooling, what a resource they would have been! Instead, they were costing the State over $40,000 a year.
Maybe empires--Roman, British, Soviet, American--are lost because such people are squandered and thrown away. The OWS is in search of a different solution, where everyone is valued. I hope they/we can find it.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Job Destroyers II
In a previous post, I wrote that CEO's and takeover specialists like Mitt Romney are the very opposite of job creators: they are job destroyers when they lay off workers, "downsize," pit American workers against foreign workers and "offshore" jobs.
The banks are job destroyers, too, as is the Pentagon.
The banks provide capital to enable CEO's to offshore, for example, and loot industries through the kinds of scams that brought about the derivatives collapse. That particular scam, precipitated by the sub-prime implosion, dried up the booming construction sector, killing many more jobs. Banks also finance the corporate takeovers that cause companies to shed thousands of jobs. They promote these job-killing programs, because they can make handsome profits from them.
The Pentagon is also a job destroyer. That may sound strange, because politicians, especially those with defense industries or military bases within their districts, instantly complain that area jobs will be lost when anyone proposes cuts to defense programs.
The economic principle here is 'opportunity cost.' Numerous studies have found that defense jobs require twice as much capital per worker as non-defense jobs; they are capital intensive. They also don't produce things that enrich the nation; they produce instruments for destruction, mostly for use elsewhere. Incidentally, the move to legalize indefinite detention or assassination of American citizens in the US might mean that the destruction we finance could be our own.
In any case, it costs twice as much to employ a defense worker, or a soldier, as it does to employ a non-defense factory worker and three times as much as employing a teacher or healthcare worker. In some cases, the opportunity cost is much higher: a soldier in Afghanistan costs $1 million a year; it's probable that same million could employ ten teachers. The non-monetary cost is even greater: teachers educate the next generation, soldiers kill people abroad, or terrorize them, or, at best, help foreigners maintain security in their own countries. Meanwhile, children at home are crammed into larger and larger classes, getting less and less of the attention and help they need.
What benefits do we get for sending our military all over the world? Oil is probably cheaper here because of it, but think of what it costs us to accomplish that: three quarters of a trillion dollars a year. Walmart gets its goods mostly from China, where we don't have military influence, but perhaps imported goods would be costlier if there were no global American military presence.
Considering the effect cheap imports have had on our economy and our jobs, I rest my case: the military destroys millions of jobs.
Who benefits? The military brass and the owners of defense industries: the latter are our contemporary Roman Senators, described by the OWS as "the 1%."
Republicans call them "job creators!"
The banks are job destroyers, too, as is the Pentagon.
The banks provide capital to enable CEO's to offshore, for example, and loot industries through the kinds of scams that brought about the derivatives collapse. That particular scam, precipitated by the sub-prime implosion, dried up the booming construction sector, killing many more jobs. Banks also finance the corporate takeovers that cause companies to shed thousands of jobs. They promote these job-killing programs, because they can make handsome profits from them.
The Pentagon is also a job destroyer. That may sound strange, because politicians, especially those with defense industries or military bases within their districts, instantly complain that area jobs will be lost when anyone proposes cuts to defense programs.
The economic principle here is 'opportunity cost.' Numerous studies have found that defense jobs require twice as much capital per worker as non-defense jobs; they are capital intensive. They also don't produce things that enrich the nation; they produce instruments for destruction, mostly for use elsewhere. Incidentally, the move to legalize indefinite detention or assassination of American citizens in the US might mean that the destruction we finance could be our own.
In any case, it costs twice as much to employ a defense worker, or a soldier, as it does to employ a non-defense factory worker and three times as much as employing a teacher or healthcare worker. In some cases, the opportunity cost is much higher: a soldier in Afghanistan costs $1 million a year; it's probable that same million could employ ten teachers. The non-monetary cost is even greater: teachers educate the next generation, soldiers kill people abroad, or terrorize them, or, at best, help foreigners maintain security in their own countries. Meanwhile, children at home are crammed into larger and larger classes, getting less and less of the attention and help they need.
What benefits do we get for sending our military all over the world? Oil is probably cheaper here because of it, but think of what it costs us to accomplish that: three quarters of a trillion dollars a year. Walmart gets its goods mostly from China, where we don't have military influence, but perhaps imported goods would be costlier if there were no global American military presence.
Considering the effect cheap imports have had on our economy and our jobs, I rest my case: the military destroys millions of jobs.
Who benefits? The military brass and the owners of defense industries: the latter are our contemporary Roman Senators, described by the OWS as "the 1%."
Republicans call them "job creators!"
93-7 Guantanamo Here We Come!
That was the margin of passage of the Defense Authorization bill (NDAA) in the Senate, the one that declares the whole world, including the United States, as a global battlefield (between Good and Evil?). This enables the military to take out, by assassination or indefinite detention and torture (therefore 'Guantanamo'), anyone, anywhere in the world, even American citizens in Peoria, if the President secretly declares them a danger to national security.
Remember those novels: The Tale of Two Cities and The Count of Monte Cristo? People were imprisoned indefinitely in dungeons, on the whim of a nobleman. That's what we are approaching today. Due Process? Forgeddaboudit. Innocent until proven guilty? Hah! Right to a jury trial and a lawyer? We lost both some time ago.
It's astounding what rights Americans have given up without a whimper! Because we're terrified of terrorists? Aside from 9-11--a terrorist's wet dream come true--there have been only a few hundred people killed by terrorists in this country and abroad. Many times that number are killed every year on our nation's highways, and nearly as many more are murdered in our cities and towns.
Modern societies, especially imperial ones, should be vigilant and able to protect themselves. But if everyone is to lose their rights, then there is nothing left to defend: we might as well elect the Taliban to a majority in Congress, or elect a dictator, who can order us shot at will, and have himself re-elected for life.
That's what ushered in the Roman Emperor, even though times were good. The Roman Senate's succession and election machinery didn't function: a dictator was better than civil war.
Why are we so scared, now, that we're so readily giving up our freedoms? Less than a hundred Americans may have gone off to fight for a branch of al Qaeda (in Somalia or Yemen), and we're terrified they'll come back and--what? Stage another 9-11?
Security here, already, is enough to stop all but the most determined individual maniac. No security will ever stop every fanatic.
A woman asked Benjamin Franklin, at the close of the Constitutional Convention, if the US would be a republic or a monarchy. "A republic, if you can keep it," he replied.
We've not crowned Obama, and we're unlikely to crown Gingrich or Romney, either (I hope), but we're headed towards elective dictatorship with the NDAA. Obama, by the way, has threatened a veto, because it "micromanages" war against al Qaeda. So, unlike Augustus, Obama may have little stomach to be Imperator. But Newt or Mitt? A salamander or a baseball glove?
The NDAA is a caricature of 1984! It's parallels 31 BC (when Augustus was crowned, replacing the Republic with the Empire), except that this empire is in decline, more like Rome's decades-long run up to 476 (when it "fell" in bankruptcy to the Goths).
We have to stop the NDAA any way we can.
Remember those novels: The Tale of Two Cities and The Count of Monte Cristo? People were imprisoned indefinitely in dungeons, on the whim of a nobleman. That's what we are approaching today. Due Process? Forgeddaboudit. Innocent until proven guilty? Hah! Right to a jury trial and a lawyer? We lost both some time ago.
It's astounding what rights Americans have given up without a whimper! Because we're terrified of terrorists? Aside from 9-11--a terrorist's wet dream come true--there have been only a few hundred people killed by terrorists in this country and abroad. Many times that number are killed every year on our nation's highways, and nearly as many more are murdered in our cities and towns.
Modern societies, especially imperial ones, should be vigilant and able to protect themselves. But if everyone is to lose their rights, then there is nothing left to defend: we might as well elect the Taliban to a majority in Congress, or elect a dictator, who can order us shot at will, and have himself re-elected for life.
That's what ushered in the Roman Emperor, even though times were good. The Roman Senate's succession and election machinery didn't function: a dictator was better than civil war.
Why are we so scared, now, that we're so readily giving up our freedoms? Less than a hundred Americans may have gone off to fight for a branch of al Qaeda (in Somalia or Yemen), and we're terrified they'll come back and--what? Stage another 9-11?
Security here, already, is enough to stop all but the most determined individual maniac. No security will ever stop every fanatic.
A woman asked Benjamin Franklin, at the close of the Constitutional Convention, if the US would be a republic or a monarchy. "A republic, if you can keep it," he replied.
We've not crowned Obama, and we're unlikely to crown Gingrich or Romney, either (I hope), but we're headed towards elective dictatorship with the NDAA. Obama, by the way, has threatened a veto, because it "micromanages" war against al Qaeda. So, unlike Augustus, Obama may have little stomach to be Imperator. But Newt or Mitt? A salamander or a baseball glove?
The NDAA is a caricature of 1984! It's parallels 31 BC (when Augustus was crowned, replacing the Republic with the Empire), except that this empire is in decline, more like Rome's decades-long run up to 476 (when it "fell" in bankruptcy to the Goths).
We have to stop the NDAA any way we can.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Job Destroyers I
The US Chamber says Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown and John Tester are anti-employer, so, it will spend millions against their reelection.
Maybe Brown and Tester are pro-employee, i.e. for most of the people who vote, most of the people who live paycheck to paycheck. There's many, especially now, when wages have been stagnant for 30 years (yes, you read that right; since 1980, when Reagan brought the counter-revolution to the White House).
Sherrod Brown is reputed to be progressive; John Tester says he's a small Montana farmer, and I expect that neither claim he's a businessman. Oh yes, we want Senators who represent employers, says the Chamber.
Why can't employers see that they're killing their golden egg? If no one pays Americans enough for them to afford the "American Lifestyle," then it will go away; has gone away. Henry Ford's brilliant idea to pay workers enough so they could buy his cars, that's gone away even for Ford. CEOs cut jobs and get bonuses for doing so. Now, can't afford means can't afford to buy the goods businesses sell, not piling more on your credit card.
Actually, people did just that on Black Friday, apparently, but that can't go on: wages actually went down last month, and escalating personal debt is what got us into the Great Recession. Let me emphasize: it was personal debt as in mortgages, and the scams run by banks, not public debt. It's true, as conservatives argue, there were policies encouraging banks to lend to lower income people, who were necessarily higher risk. But the reasons for the policy were to promote equality, not a bad reason. However, the banks, in response, invented the sub-prime mortgage, and its very creation built into itself the logic for the financial implosion. Sub primes were inherently unstable, with low sucker introductory payments, and then balloons, or variable interest rates that suddenly escalated. They were also being tendered to people who likely couldn't make the payments unless everything went right.
Nevertheless, "the one percent" saw sub primes as a grand new market to exploit--until they needed Uncle to bail them out. Our equivalent of the Roman Senators of the fifth century, were grabbing more and more of the nation's wealth, with outsourcing and offshoring (destroying jobs, not creating them), so, it was less likely for the sub-primers that things would go right. Inevitably, the unstable market finally collapsed, and all its derivatives with it.
Republicans speak of the 1% as "job creators;" most are the opposite. Mitt Romney is a good example: while running Bain Capital, he oversaw corporate takeovers that stripped down companies, sold off parts, and jettisoned chunks of the workforce. He got rich by destroying jobs! Republicans are the true heirs of Goebbels: if you say black is white often enough people begin to believe it.
Yet, Democrats, said Cornel West last night, are "milquetoasts." Will our Roman Senators prevail with either party?
Comments welcomed.
Maybe Brown and Tester are pro-employee, i.e. for most of the people who vote, most of the people who live paycheck to paycheck. There's many, especially now, when wages have been stagnant for 30 years (yes, you read that right; since 1980, when Reagan brought the counter-revolution to the White House).
Sherrod Brown is reputed to be progressive; John Tester says he's a small Montana farmer, and I expect that neither claim he's a businessman. Oh yes, we want Senators who represent employers, says the Chamber.
Why can't employers see that they're killing their golden egg? If no one pays Americans enough for them to afford the "American Lifestyle," then it will go away; has gone away. Henry Ford's brilliant idea to pay workers enough so they could buy his cars, that's gone away even for Ford. CEOs cut jobs and get bonuses for doing so. Now, can't afford means can't afford to buy the goods businesses sell, not piling more on your credit card.
Actually, people did just that on Black Friday, apparently, but that can't go on: wages actually went down last month, and escalating personal debt is what got us into the Great Recession. Let me emphasize: it was personal debt as in mortgages, and the scams run by banks, not public debt. It's true, as conservatives argue, there were policies encouraging banks to lend to lower income people, who were necessarily higher risk. But the reasons for the policy were to promote equality, not a bad reason. However, the banks, in response, invented the sub-prime mortgage, and its very creation built into itself the logic for the financial implosion. Sub primes were inherently unstable, with low sucker introductory payments, and then balloons, or variable interest rates that suddenly escalated. They were also being tendered to people who likely couldn't make the payments unless everything went right.
Nevertheless, "the one percent" saw sub primes as a grand new market to exploit--until they needed Uncle to bail them out. Our equivalent of the Roman Senators of the fifth century, were grabbing more and more of the nation's wealth, with outsourcing and offshoring (destroying jobs, not creating them), so, it was less likely for the sub-primers that things would go right. Inevitably, the unstable market finally collapsed, and all its derivatives with it.
Republicans speak of the 1% as "job creators;" most are the opposite. Mitt Romney is a good example: while running Bain Capital, he oversaw corporate takeovers that stripped down companies, sold off parts, and jettisoned chunks of the workforce. He got rich by destroying jobs! Republicans are the true heirs of Goebbels: if you say black is white often enough people begin to believe it.
Yet, Democrats, said Cornel West last night, are "milquetoasts." Will our Roman Senators prevail with either party?
Comments welcomed.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Game Over O' Canada!
The Tar Sands in Alberta: Now that the US pipeline is delayed, Robert Redford, at a Toronto Film Festival, exhorted his Canadian colleagues to save Canada, by stopping the Canadian government from permitting a western pipeline route, over the Rockies and the Cascades, through British Columbia's pristine wilderness and an unspoiled coast, to export the dirty oil to China.
Maybe he was wasting his breath. Canada may be more liberal than the US in some ways, but its parliamentary Federal government has been more thoroughly taken over by Karl Rove's type of conservatives than, so far, in the US: both chambers are controlled by absolute Conservative majorities. The Prime Minister closely controls the majority, even vets every public statement made by his Ministers.
And who paid for the Conservatives? Western (Canadian) oil interests (probably also the Kochs, etc.), the interests turning swathes of Alberta's boreal forest into a wasteland, while they mine and cook the tar sands.
The tar sands will still be piped out. Capitalism will hang us all, even after a hard-fought, much touted victory by environmental groups, spearheaded by Bill McKibben's 350.org, to persuade Obama to stop the XL Keystone pipeline from being built from the tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico. Obama, under pressure, put off a decision till 2013. Republicans will probably yell that Obama gave American jobs to Canadians.
But the real point is: that tar sand oil is going to be developed, no matter what Obama decides, or climate scientists say. It was James Hansen, formerly NASA's top climatologist, who said that if the tar sands are exploited (the equivalent of Saudi Arabia's oil, but much, much dirtier) that for the climate it's "game over."
I hope I'm wrong, but unless there is a massive popular protest in Canada, that physically blocks the westward pipeline, James Hansen may prove prescient. We already see climate change all around us. In the US northeast, there was both freakish weather, including over a foot-deep snowstorm in October with thunder and lightning, and trees turning color later, or curling up brown weeks too early. We've had too much rain, while Texas was literally burning up with drought this summer. Violent storms and tornadoes became more frequent, and hurricanes strengthen more easily.
There is no conspiracy of scientists pushing global warming theory so that governments will be forced to become more socialistic. The money is all on the denialist side, as it is in Canada.
Protests in Canada are just as violently repressed as in the US, and their Prime Minister, Harper, is a fundamentalist Christian. This is what the US will look like if Republicans win both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
The environmental disaster caused by the Roman Empire (Mediterranean deforestation and desertification) will look miniscule compared to the destruction of our benign and livable global climate, unless, somehow, the tar sands exploitation is stopped.
Maybe he was wasting his breath. Canada may be more liberal than the US in some ways, but its parliamentary Federal government has been more thoroughly taken over by Karl Rove's type of conservatives than, so far, in the US: both chambers are controlled by absolute Conservative majorities. The Prime Minister closely controls the majority, even vets every public statement made by his Ministers.
And who paid for the Conservatives? Western (Canadian) oil interests (probably also the Kochs, etc.), the interests turning swathes of Alberta's boreal forest into a wasteland, while they mine and cook the tar sands.
The tar sands will still be piped out. Capitalism will hang us all, even after a hard-fought, much touted victory by environmental groups, spearheaded by Bill McKibben's 350.org, to persuade Obama to stop the XL Keystone pipeline from being built from the tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico. Obama, under pressure, put off a decision till 2013. Republicans will probably yell that Obama gave American jobs to Canadians.
But the real point is: that tar sand oil is going to be developed, no matter what Obama decides, or climate scientists say. It was James Hansen, formerly NASA's top climatologist, who said that if the tar sands are exploited (the equivalent of Saudi Arabia's oil, but much, much dirtier) that for the climate it's "game over."
I hope I'm wrong, but unless there is a massive popular protest in Canada, that physically blocks the westward pipeline, James Hansen may prove prescient. We already see climate change all around us. In the US northeast, there was both freakish weather, including over a foot-deep snowstorm in October with thunder and lightning, and trees turning color later, or curling up brown weeks too early. We've had too much rain, while Texas was literally burning up with drought this summer. Violent storms and tornadoes became more frequent, and hurricanes strengthen more easily.
There is no conspiracy of scientists pushing global warming theory so that governments will be forced to become more socialistic. The money is all on the denialist side, as it is in Canada.
Protests in Canada are just as violently repressed as in the US, and their Prime Minister, Harper, is a fundamentalist Christian. This is what the US will look like if Republicans win both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
The environmental disaster caused by the Roman Empire (Mediterranean deforestation and desertification) will look miniscule compared to the destruction of our benign and livable global climate, unless, somehow, the tar sands exploitation is stopped.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Dodging the Bullet
At least the Democrats on the super-committee didn't cave to the intransigence of the Republican members.
The Republicans claimed that they proposed a compromise, in which they offered tax/revenue increases of $300 billion over 10 years, in addition to their demands to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but their proposal was misleading. It was no compromise, because they also demanded tax cuts totaling many times the $300 billion, by lowering the top income tax rate to 28%.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media seems to buy the Republican line: neither side was willing to compromise. That wasn't true. The Democrats and Obama offered cuts to Medicare that were too large and were offset by tax increases (on the top income earners) that were too small.
It's a good thing that Republicans rejected the Democrats' compromise proposals as too much of a tax increase, and it's a surprise blessing that the Democrats didn't counter with even more capitulation to the Republican agenda of slash, burn and fill the pockets of the super-rich. Perhaps, finally, Democrats are getting the message that you can't compromise with ideological absolutists, who are bent on destroying virtually all programs that benefit anyone but our modern day Roman Senators.
Republicans have become the equivalent of fifth century panegyrists; they sang the praises of the Roman Senators: they had pillaged through politics, instead of legions. Now, we have Republican Congressmen and Senators who yawp about "job creators," even though they're not "creating" jobs. Entrepreneurs and/or corporations do not "create" jobs, they hire people when there is demand for whatever it is they're selling--usually not their creation, either. With the exception of someone like Steve Jobs, most inventors have had their creations ripped off by "entrepreneurs," and haven't profited from their genius. Capitalism rewards people who know how to make money, not people who know how to make things, or think original ideas.
In the fifth century the 1% controlled even more of the wealth: there was much less of it to control. They didn't create wealth; they sequestered it in gold or land. The 1% today can't possibly spend their earnings, nor can they find worthwhile investments in developed nations; they can speculate--hence the wild gyrations of the stock market--and they can invest in developing nations like China, or increasingly, in nations like Vietnam or the Philippines. When they invest in factories, or partnerships in these countries, or service industries like tech assistance in India, they may be hiring, but not in the US.
If they create demand, it isn't here; they are sequestering the wealth, just like the Roman Senators, and just like them, they can't see that the end is coming, because their dominance is unsustainable.
Fairer income distribution, what Republicans label "Socialism," would energize the economy, stimulate demand and wipe out unemployment--and most of the deficit. So, workers should be paid more and executives a lot less.
How would we accomplish that?
The Republicans claimed that they proposed a compromise, in which they offered tax/revenue increases of $300 billion over 10 years, in addition to their demands to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but their proposal was misleading. It was no compromise, because they also demanded tax cuts totaling many times the $300 billion, by lowering the top income tax rate to 28%.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media seems to buy the Republican line: neither side was willing to compromise. That wasn't true. The Democrats and Obama offered cuts to Medicare that were too large and were offset by tax increases (on the top income earners) that were too small.
It's a good thing that Republicans rejected the Democrats' compromise proposals as too much of a tax increase, and it's a surprise blessing that the Democrats didn't counter with even more capitulation to the Republican agenda of slash, burn and fill the pockets of the super-rich. Perhaps, finally, Democrats are getting the message that you can't compromise with ideological absolutists, who are bent on destroying virtually all programs that benefit anyone but our modern day Roman Senators.
Republicans have become the equivalent of fifth century panegyrists; they sang the praises of the Roman Senators: they had pillaged through politics, instead of legions. Now, we have Republican Congressmen and Senators who yawp about "job creators," even though they're not "creating" jobs. Entrepreneurs and/or corporations do not "create" jobs, they hire people when there is demand for whatever it is they're selling--usually not their creation, either. With the exception of someone like Steve Jobs, most inventors have had their creations ripped off by "entrepreneurs," and haven't profited from their genius. Capitalism rewards people who know how to make money, not people who know how to make things, or think original ideas.
In the fifth century the 1% controlled even more of the wealth: there was much less of it to control. They didn't create wealth; they sequestered it in gold or land. The 1% today can't possibly spend their earnings, nor can they find worthwhile investments in developed nations; they can speculate--hence the wild gyrations of the stock market--and they can invest in developing nations like China, or increasingly, in nations like Vietnam or the Philippines. When they invest in factories, or partnerships in these countries, or service industries like tech assistance in India, they may be hiring, but not in the US.
If they create demand, it isn't here; they are sequestering the wealth, just like the Roman Senators, and just like them, they can't see that the end is coming, because their dominance is unsustainable.
Fairer income distribution, what Republicans label "Socialism," would energize the economy, stimulate demand and wipe out unemployment--and most of the deficit. So, workers should be paid more and executives a lot less.
How would we accomplish that?
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Eviction Does NOT = Defeat
What's to become of the OWS movement? The evictions in New York, Oakland, Seattle and other places almost simultaneously bespeak national coordination that was confirmed, inadvertently, by Oakland's mayor, Quan.
But the movement isn't about encampments in various cities. It is about the problems we face as a society, in which a tiny proportion (the one percent) monopolize the growth of wealth in this potentially wealthy world; they demand that people whose incomes are stagnating, or worse, pay the price for any amenities society offers--or do without.
This has been coming for years. Private luxuries proliferated, like toll roads for those who can pay to avoid traffic jams when they commute. Libraries are underfunded, because the wealthy don't need them; they have their own. The same is true of health care: the CEO's etc. have costly insurance policies paid for; why would they be for universal health care that might cost them higher taxes?
An old New Dealer used to say FDR saved Capitalism, because he realized that only by giving people a chance, a stake in the system, could the US in the Great Depression avoid either a Communist revolution or a Fascist takeover. We face the same choices in this Great Recession. Republican conservatives don't recognize that people will revolt, if their only choice is rebellion or misery. Timorous Democrats hardly offer an alternative.
Occupiers, now ousted from some of their encampments, were not slackers, were not losers by choice, when the effective unemployment rate is twice the official rate of 9%, and youth unemployment is higher than that. In addition, young workers are deeply in debt because student aid was reduced and student loans follow you to the grave.
What are people supposed to do, when jobs have been outsourced, along with opportunities? Only the owner class has chances, but even they depend upon people somewhere buying what they're selling. So, occupiers have made a basic point: the system is not working--for them--nor for most who are one job away from disaster.
The Roman Empire had a similar problem, created by the massive import of slaves from its conquests: Roman citizens were driven from jobs and land and the only solution Senators provided was "bread and circuses."
People don't want bread and circuses; they want dignity, meaningful work and a fair share of society's riches. Empires don't provide that; they breed the kind of inequality we're facing, because the tiny international elite, like Halliburton and Xe, grabs all the wealth ripped off in imperial adventures, while honest jobs at home are destroyed.
Evicting the Occupiers won't make that go away; it'll wake people up: the elite don't think about anyone but themselves. The rest of us, the 99%, have to look after each other, have to prevent the modern day Roman Senators from continuing to rip us off and have to claim the wealth we can create together.
But the movement isn't about encampments in various cities. It is about the problems we face as a society, in which a tiny proportion (the one percent) monopolize the growth of wealth in this potentially wealthy world; they demand that people whose incomes are stagnating, or worse, pay the price for any amenities society offers--or do without.
This has been coming for years. Private luxuries proliferated, like toll roads for those who can pay to avoid traffic jams when they commute. Libraries are underfunded, because the wealthy don't need them; they have their own. The same is true of health care: the CEO's etc. have costly insurance policies paid for; why would they be for universal health care that might cost them higher taxes?
An old New Dealer used to say FDR saved Capitalism, because he realized that only by giving people a chance, a stake in the system, could the US in the Great Depression avoid either a Communist revolution or a Fascist takeover. We face the same choices in this Great Recession. Republican conservatives don't recognize that people will revolt, if their only choice is rebellion or misery. Timorous Democrats hardly offer an alternative.
Occupiers, now ousted from some of their encampments, were not slackers, were not losers by choice, when the effective unemployment rate is twice the official rate of 9%, and youth unemployment is higher than that. In addition, young workers are deeply in debt because student aid was reduced and student loans follow you to the grave.
What are people supposed to do, when jobs have been outsourced, along with opportunities? Only the owner class has chances, but even they depend upon people somewhere buying what they're selling. So, occupiers have made a basic point: the system is not working--for them--nor for most who are one job away from disaster.
The Roman Empire had a similar problem, created by the massive import of slaves from its conquests: Roman citizens were driven from jobs and land and the only solution Senators provided was "bread and circuses."
People don't want bread and circuses; they want dignity, meaningful work and a fair share of society's riches. Empires don't provide that; they breed the kind of inequality we're facing, because the tiny international elite, like Halliburton and Xe, grabs all the wealth ripped off in imperial adventures, while honest jobs at home are destroyed.
Evicting the Occupiers won't make that go away; it'll wake people up: the elite don't think about anyone but themselves. The rest of us, the 99%, have to look after each other, have to prevent the modern day Roman Senators from continuing to rip us off and have to claim the wealth we can create together.
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