I get it now: the GOP wants to shut down government to prevent Climate Change!
What? The denialist party is secretly taking climate change more seriously than the world's scientists, who only shout that the sky is falling, without doing anything about it?
What I mean to say: the GOP has a diabolical plan, while denying its existence: respond to climate change by insuring that more and more people are desperately poor, so they can't spend the money that would fuel further climate change: people's consumption would suddenly fall, reducing climate-change-inducing pollution, like CO2. Of course the geniuses who thought up this genius plan would benefit through tax-cuts, so they could keep more of their ill-gotten gains--and consume more, but only the gilded few.
I mean 'ill-gotten' in the sense that fortunes are made by transferring income (legally) from poor to wealthy, and taxes from wealthy to poor.
So only a few can consume to their heart's content, and they have the resources to pay people to protect their interests: from the President on down to key legislators in states, small and large.
An apparent example is the EPA's turning its back on its preliminary findings in Dimock, PA, Pavillion, WY and Parker County, TX: that fracking had contaminated ground water. Instead, it closed those investigations down, and continued to stand by while other parts of the Obama administration, like Interior, promote fracking. Who's being paid off, and by whom?
But it's better still to just shut government down, so that a program that might provide substantial help to a lot of people--and save money--can be repealed, so that taxes for the wealthy can be canceled,
So, instead of government intruding on our lives, it's lack of action will insure that so much less will be spent that we'll be plunged into a stark Depression. Since Republicans insist on cutting Food Stamps, the one program that's helped people survive in this, for the rich only, "recovery;" people will be driven to misery, as well; their consumption will sink to that of an average Bangladeshi. So, all talk of climate change will cease--because everyone else's lowered rate of consumption will dramatically reduce CO2 emissions globally. Then, the world's worst polluters will be able to continue in business, simply by paying off the corrupt political machine. The demand for greater regulation will fail, and will 'obviously' be unnecessary, especially since everyone (who's anyone) will be so much better off, living in their protected enclaves: protected from the chaos and misery beyond their gates.
Sounds like the 21st Century's version of Senatorial rule in the Fifth, when the wealthy ruled in their own interest even as the world was falling about their ears.
Comments welcome.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Is It Possible: Peace Not War?
What would the world be like, if the US relinquished its self-defined role as world policeman and imperial arbiter of power anywhere on the globe?
It looks as if this might actually happen: the American public's opposition to war against Syria, no matter how limited in intent, was so sustained and broad-based, that Congress and even the Senate listened, and then the President heard. Supposedly, even Michelle was against!
John Kerry's statement on Syria giving up chemical weapons was hardly rhetorical, despite his claims. It was an appeal for a way out of the dead end Obama had created by his "red line" remark about chemical weapons use.
Russia didn't want to see its ally bombed, so Putin transformed the "rhetorical" remark into a diplomatic proposal that (so far) has legs. Now Obama is negotiating through Kerry, willing to appeal for a UN solution, and Putin thinks, maybe, he has a chance at the Nobel Peace Prize. Agreement may be near.
But consider how different this is to prior reactions by Presidents at least since Kennedy. Backing down from a threat, or use of force, was considered weakness, and loss of credibility for the US. Hawkish Republicans and Democrats claim this has happened with Obama on Syria: the US has lost face; Russia has won; US credibility is at an all-time low.
What credibility? The US has operated outside international law, arrogating to itself unilateral power to punish transgressors of its power, or challengers to its control, since at least WWII. The most recent demonstration of US reach and ultimate weakness before Syria was the Snowden affair. The US was even able to pressure Cuba and Ecuador against offering asylum to Snowden, and it forced President Evo Morales's plane to divert its course and finally be brought down to be searched, in Portugal. So, Snowden got asylum where he was: in Russia.
Russia is no super-power, but Putin has demonstrated that the US can no longer get its way globally. The US had already lost control over large parts of South America. The sooner the United States of America realizes that it can't control the whole planet, and it would be better not to try, the better off everyone would be. Think of the hundreds of billions of dollars we could spend on aiding our citizens, instead of "Defense." Think of the people around the world who wouldn't be killed, or driven from their homes because they transgressed US interests.
Envision a world in which the very real conflicts within and between nations would be resolved by negotiation, not force of arms. Obama's reversal and Putin's initiative on Syria could lead to very different international relations. The same model--negotiation and world law--should be extended to US relations with Iran, and maybe, finally, to North Korea.
Envision a world in which swords really are beaten into plowshares.
It looks as if this might actually happen: the American public's opposition to war against Syria, no matter how limited in intent, was so sustained and broad-based, that Congress and even the Senate listened, and then the President heard. Supposedly, even Michelle was against!
John Kerry's statement on Syria giving up chemical weapons was hardly rhetorical, despite his claims. It was an appeal for a way out of the dead end Obama had created by his "red line" remark about chemical weapons use.
Russia didn't want to see its ally bombed, so Putin transformed the "rhetorical" remark into a diplomatic proposal that (so far) has legs. Now Obama is negotiating through Kerry, willing to appeal for a UN solution, and Putin thinks, maybe, he has a chance at the Nobel Peace Prize. Agreement may be near.
But consider how different this is to prior reactions by Presidents at least since Kennedy. Backing down from a threat, or use of force, was considered weakness, and loss of credibility for the US. Hawkish Republicans and Democrats claim this has happened with Obama on Syria: the US has lost face; Russia has won; US credibility is at an all-time low.
What credibility? The US has operated outside international law, arrogating to itself unilateral power to punish transgressors of its power, or challengers to its control, since at least WWII. The most recent demonstration of US reach and ultimate weakness before Syria was the Snowden affair. The US was even able to pressure Cuba and Ecuador against offering asylum to Snowden, and it forced President Evo Morales's plane to divert its course and finally be brought down to be searched, in Portugal. So, Snowden got asylum where he was: in Russia.
Russia is no super-power, but Putin has demonstrated that the US can no longer get its way globally. The US had already lost control over large parts of South America. The sooner the United States of America realizes that it can't control the whole planet, and it would be better not to try, the better off everyone would be. Think of the hundreds of billions of dollars we could spend on aiding our citizens, instead of "Defense." Think of the people around the world who wouldn't be killed, or driven from their homes because they transgressed US interests.
Envision a world in which the very real conflicts within and between nations would be resolved by negotiation, not force of arms. Obama's reversal and Putin's initiative on Syria could lead to very different international relations. The same model--negotiation and world law--should be extended to US relations with Iran, and maybe, finally, to North Korea.
Envision a world in which swords really are beaten into plowshares.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Congress, Obama and War-making
It is extraordinary to realize that Obama's appeal for Congressional support to attack Syria--that's what it is, really--is also one of the first retreats from imperial Presidential powers offered by a sitting President.
But it should awaken us to a fact: this isn't a democracy anymore, any more than Rome's Republic was still a Republic, after Julius Caesar marched on Rome.
The imperial presidency has grown ever since FDR, and growth was only temporarily slowed by former General, President Eisenhower. The last President to really ask for Congressional approval for a foreign adventure was Bush the First. There was a real debate, although the outcome was preordained.
Obama has not grabbed for power, so much as been advised that he has to assert it, since he's President. And, consider what he, or any President, faces: a united front of Defense contractors, Generals, intelligence experts, investors and almost anyone with money. They're almost all of them for war, any war, as long as it's profitable, and any war is hugely profitable, if you're on the right side. No one they know will ever be killed on a battlefield, or blown up by American bombs.
The Roman Empire grew for the same reason: the profits of war. While modern nations don't enslave their captives and sell them on the slave block, or openly pillage conquered cities as Rome did, they use war to win economic control, as the Bush's tried to do in Iraq: capture Iraq's oil wealth through gaining contracts for American corporations to extract the oil.
But the profitability of our last few wars hasn't met expectations. Iraq has been a bust, Afghanistan and Libya also. Is this a sign of a declining empire?
What I see is an authoritarian, elite-corporate-controlled state, in which dissent like mine is simply ignored: dissenters don't have the money to bring lawsuits, or win elections. The corporate controllers are in a position to manufacture public opinion, and, at the same time, to gain almost exclusive access to government officials wielding power. Elected officials are flattered, threatened, and overwhelmed by expensive expertise. They have to do what the powers-that-be want them to do.
In addition, we now have a surveillance state, so no one knows what the State knows about us. However, more are becoming aware that the State could know everything. It was a more primitive version of that power that enabled Stalin to build a totalitarian state under his control.
Obama isn't the Stalin his successor could be; it wouldn't be pretty, since the Empire will continue to retreat, whoever it is. And the military-security-industrial complex will control the power structure.
Unless we can break free of the corporate state, the overwhelming majority of us will be impoverished and virtually enslaved, to feed the hungry imperial maw, even more desperate as war profits dwindle and the world becomes increasingly more difficult to control.
But it should awaken us to a fact: this isn't a democracy anymore, any more than Rome's Republic was still a Republic, after Julius Caesar marched on Rome.
The imperial presidency has grown ever since FDR, and growth was only temporarily slowed by former General, President Eisenhower. The last President to really ask for Congressional approval for a foreign adventure was Bush the First. There was a real debate, although the outcome was preordained.
Obama has not grabbed for power, so much as been advised that he has to assert it, since he's President. And, consider what he, or any President, faces: a united front of Defense contractors, Generals, intelligence experts, investors and almost anyone with money. They're almost all of them for war, any war, as long as it's profitable, and any war is hugely profitable, if you're on the right side. No one they know will ever be killed on a battlefield, or blown up by American bombs.
The Roman Empire grew for the same reason: the profits of war. While modern nations don't enslave their captives and sell them on the slave block, or openly pillage conquered cities as Rome did, they use war to win economic control, as the Bush's tried to do in Iraq: capture Iraq's oil wealth through gaining contracts for American corporations to extract the oil.
But the profitability of our last few wars hasn't met expectations. Iraq has been a bust, Afghanistan and Libya also. Is this a sign of a declining empire?
What I see is an authoritarian, elite-corporate-controlled state, in which dissent like mine is simply ignored: dissenters don't have the money to bring lawsuits, or win elections. The corporate controllers are in a position to manufacture public opinion, and, at the same time, to gain almost exclusive access to government officials wielding power. Elected officials are flattered, threatened, and overwhelmed by expensive expertise. They have to do what the powers-that-be want them to do.
In addition, we now have a surveillance state, so no one knows what the State knows about us. However, more are becoming aware that the State could know everything. It was a more primitive version of that power that enabled Stalin to build a totalitarian state under his control.
Obama isn't the Stalin his successor could be; it wouldn't be pretty, since the Empire will continue to retreat, whoever it is. And the military-security-industrial complex will control the power structure.
Unless we can break free of the corporate state, the overwhelming majority of us will be impoverished and virtually enslaved, to feed the hungry imperial maw, even more desperate as war profits dwindle and the world becomes increasingly more difficult to control.
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