Libya, The Technological Imperative

The Turkish Prime Minister said he only wanted reassurance that NATO in Libya would be "brief" and would not "lead to an occupation." Congressional Liberal Democrats and some Republicans, both moderate and Paulian, complained that Obama had consulted with Europe, with the Arab League and with the UN, but not with them.

Even Obama hasn't articulated what he's done in any historical context, like Clinton's attacks on Libya before, in retaliation for a terrorist bombing aided by Qaddafi's government. Only now, Qaddafi massacres his own people.

So, the US was (again) in the lead in a military campaign authorized by the UN, edging a bit into mission creep, and this time it was in part because no one else has the military capability to attack a nation anywhere on the globe. Hold that thought.

The US led in the initial attack, even though Obama and Gates were clearly reluctant to engage in Libya, unless others led, because they didn't want to be involved in a 'third war in the middle east," unless they had a lot of cover.

But there is a technological imperative that thrusts the US military (quite willingly, it seems) into the lead of an operation like Libya's. So, we're damned by the huge expenditures we make on defense (offense, really), into being sucked into any mess anywhere in the world--or at least anywhere in the world where oil might be at stake.

The US spends over 3/4 of a trillion on "Defense," while no one else spends more than about 10% of that (the Chinese), and we consider that 10% worrisome. We can't afford such huge expenditures, as the stupid and vicious budget battles in Congress and the states demonstrate, but only a small minority yet says, we have to cut Defense.

Instead of cutting Defense, we cut pre-school and Medicaid, we cut Pell Grants and Family Planning--while restoring tax cuts at an historically low rate for millionaires.

Our huge Defense establishment demands money, but all that money just gets the US into more trouble. We could be sucked into a Libyan civil war, because we were the only ones with the wherewithal to quickly set up a no-fly, no-tank zone (that’s apparently what it's become). And we've already spent several hundred million to a billion dollars, just in these brief few days after the initial attack. This is when Congress is tortuously attempting to find $70 to $100 billion of budget cuts.

A conservative site noted that empires fall when they can't help getting sucked into military adventures they can't afford. Actually, it took the Romans centuries of impoverishment caused by those wars, before Rome fell, but history moves very fast these days.

Unlike Rome, though, there are an awful lot of us, both liberal and conservative, who see it coming: the Fall of Rome II.

Are There More Nukes in Our Future?

Read the accounts of the ongoing nuclear accidents, or catastrophes (yes, plural) in Japan, and you begin to wonder: why use nuclear at all?

The events were explained to a New York Times reporter by someone who is in the business of promoting the nuclear industry. Despite the source, the series of events in Japan make it very clear: humans don't really know what they're doing! Why, in god's name (or names), doesn't everybody go massively into solar, wind, tidal and other renewable power sources? It's obvious, just from the descriptions of what is breaking down--despite massive safety precautions and safety redundancy--that the nuclear people are brewing up a really powerful stew, and they don't have any control--they only think they do--over whether it boils over and makes a terrible mess.

I always wanted my grandchildren to have three heads.

The US gets about 20% of its power from nukes. But nuclear power plants are incredibly capital intensive. The 50's myth of nearly free energy was upended when it became apparent how dangerous nuclear was. So, to build a nuclear power plant will cost billions, usually billions more than first estimated, and a whole security force and apparatus must be maintained to protect it, since it's a terrorist target and threat. Having nuclear power plants festooning the landscape bolsters our security state. After all, they are dangerous, as Japan is demonstrating.

But why should we build more of them?

“The president believes that meeting our energy needs means relying on a diverse set of energy sources that includes renewables like wind and solar, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear power,” said a White House spokesman, Clark Stevens, several days ago, remarks made in light of the ongoing nuclear catastrophes in Japan.

Note, Obama also wants to rely on "clean coal," even though most experts say it's an oxymoron, but then Illinois, from which he now hails, is a big coal-producing state.

It's really all about who has the money. A nuclear power plant requires lots of money, but its investors arrange it so they can mint it, once it's in operation. A utility is a regulated monopoly, and so, there is a guaranteed return on capital negotiated with the regulators. Ten percent might be considered a "fair return," so, 10% of $10 billion is a lot more than 10% of $100 million. Big profits, even if expensive electricity.

Coal companies also have money. So do the gas frackers, who want to come drill in my neighborhood!

We'll destroy the habitable planet we inherited, because of money, and the power it wields. Some of the earth will become radioactively toxic, some of it will be desert, and some will be flooded, poisoned or freakishly frozen. Huge winds will tear down puny human habitations, just like the tsunami. End of Empire? What about end of civilization?

Can't we just stop being so stupid?

Bastards and Real Bastards

Qaddafi bombs his own unarmed people and destroys towns in order to retake them; in China, human rights activists just disappear: poof. In Attila, as Told to His Scribes, (Chapter Two to appear soon), Attila makes the case that the Romans were worse than he was: and besides, he learned the brutality from them.

Lying kills more than Qaddafi's bombs, only not so suddenly. The misrepresentation of reality perpetrated on Americans by the MSM will result in a lot more deaths than bombs, from diseases not treated, from air pollution, from unmitigated climate change, from car accidents due to poor road maintenance, even from hunger--so draconian are the cuts justified by these lies. Note: Canada permits no Fox-Canada, because it has a law against lying on air.

The biggest lie is that the deficit is the problem. It isn't; it's a short-term solution and needs to be even larger in the near-term--to overcome lagging demand. The secondary lies are that unions are corrupt, wield monopoly power over governments, and are the cause of the budget deficits that--take a deep breath--caused the recession--which is all Obama's fault, of course. Oh, also: seniors are greedy and Social Security will sink us.

Reality Check: Obama's stimulus did prevent us, and perhaps the world, from falling headlong into another Great Depression, but it was compromised away to death and was much too small to pull us out of recession. What we need now, is more spending for job creation, not draconian cuts. Social Security hasn't contributed to the deficits; its "locked box" has been looted for years by politicians, who borrowed the bonds amassed, and replaced them with IOU's. Now they have to be paid back. Slashing the military, or taxing the few who have ripped off everyone else, could pay off the IOU's: both are responsible for them, after all.

In the ongoing budget battle, Obama does know that the stimulus worked, if not enough, and he knows we need more of it. Yet, right off the bat, he freezes Federal workers' wages, and offers to cut Food Stamps, the program that has expanded exponentially--because people need it to get by.

Obama is a politician. When he saw the election results, he listed rightward--offering concessions like the Food Stamps cuts, because people were angry about spending (due to Fox/Limbaugh lies). But nothing he offers will be drastic enough, unless he accepts the whole GOP agenda. If he does that--

We'll need a new party; we'll nationalize the Wisconsin Movement.

It's either that, or capitulation to our new masters: corporations and billionaires, the epitome of Fifth Century Roman Senators. Less humane than their predecessors, however, corporations and billionaires assume no responsibility for their slaves and serfs, nor for the world they trash.

Wisconsin As Radical Conservatives See It

Public employee unions are sucking us dry. They control government services, exercising monopoly economic power over the rest of us. They threaten to strike, grabbing high pay and high-cost benefits, because governments don't go bankrupt, they just cave--and raise taxes.

Taxes are theft, especially disproportionate (unfair) taxes on anyone who's made something of himself, and never got a hand out. And their money goes to all those good-for-nothings and scumbags who whine that they can't make it on their own.

So, of course Governor Walker cuts taxes on businesses and people with high incomes. He should; he's helping the people who create jobs.

Those liberals and socialists whine about 'inequality;' sure there's inequality: of skill, smarts and sheer hard work. That's why some people do well and others can't seem to get off the government's tit.

Cutting collective bargaining rights for teachers and such, is urgently needed. It'll curb those monopoly powers they've been abusing, demanding those high wages and killer pensions. They're all lefties, too, and the teachers probably would indoctrinate our kids if we didn't watch them like hawks.

That's why we're going bankrupt, these socialist unions are holding governments hostage.

That's the argument.

First of all, among workers of comparable age and education, public employees are paid slightly less on average. Sometimes, their pensions make up some of the difference, but they aren't extravagantly exploiting the people working in the private sector. And they don't hold governments for ransom.

The reason that private sector workers aren't paid more, and don't have good pensions, is not, at all because of the public employee unions. That doesn't even make sense. It's because private sector employers have been more and more aggressive banning unions, so they can pay workers less, and contribute less to their health care and 401(k)'s (preferred by employers to pensions, because they are only present, not future obligations).

While the wealthy do pay more dollars in income taxes than most, those dollars are a smaller proportion of their incomes, so they hurt less. Our tax system, on the whole (including payroll, sales, sin and property taxes) means: the wealthy pay a smaller proportion of their income the higher it gets.

But Wisconsin isn't about money; it's about power. People with money think they should be able to buy what they want with it, including lax regulations in their industry and cheap hard-working workers who don't talk back. They also want Pax Americana everywhere: it protects their overseas ventures and enables high profits from the huge military resulting.

Why do conservatives think people will simply surrender their rights? Because, many already have? The explosion was inevitable: Americans may be gulled, but they haven't been cowed. Yet.

If the Walkers win, contemporary Roman Senators will try to lord it over the serfs, but will Americans let them?

Serfs Or Citizens?

It is striking: in Wisconsin, Scott Walker insists there's a budget crisis--after cutting taxes for businesses, i.e. the wealthy. Following that, he and his fellow Republicans demand cuts to the salaries and benefits of teachers, and other public employees, and also eliminating their collective bargaining rights--in order to make up the shortfall they helped to create.

In Washington, Republicans insisted on cutting taxes on the wealthy, at a cost of $70 billion a year, and simultaneously declared a budget emergency. House Republicans vow to cut $70 billion from programs like Title X aid to women's health, Head Start, public broadcasting, COPS, the police aid program, community development aid, teachers--

Already, in California, high school class sizes will rise to 60 per classroom.

We are eating our young; we are eating ourselves, to feed the fat of the land.

In Florida, Governor Rick Scott announced he would cut taxes on corporations by $1.7 billion and would cut education funding by--$1.7 billion!

And now the Wisconsin Rump, the Republicans in the Senate without a quorum (they claim one isn't needed for non-budgetary items), met almost in secret, voted to slash collective bargaining rights for public employees, after recasting the bill to strip it of all budgetary implications!

This is where it gets transparent: the rationale for stripping collective bargaining was to cut the budget deficit. Couldn't be done without it, Walker insisted. Now they've stripped collective bargaining and haven't gotten any closer to balancing the budget. Good job, says Walker.

It isn't about budgets; it isn't about deficits; it's about who gets the money. Republicans, funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers, have been elected by that money to insure that the people with money keep more and more of it out of taxes, while simultaneously looting the government and the nation.

It's been a very sophisticated takeover, of ideas, of communication, of governments, by people who have a lot and want it all. Yes, they are greedy, for money and power. They have taken over the Supreme Court. They have taken over more than half the states governments, they have taken over the US House of Representatives, and they have cowed and corrupted enough of the Democratic majority in the Senate, that we've so far seen from it only limp-wristed "compromise" proposals. Ditto the President.

Finally, though, people are beginning to wake up. Thousands are converging on Madison Wisconsin, day after day. And the same things are happening in states like Indiana, Michigan and Ohio rallying against similar and worse proposals. There have been sympathy rallies all over the nation. Even more encouraging: support for unions and for public employees has risen in the polls, even unionized teachers (approved of by 66%).

Rachel Maddow said: "It's a movement."

It might have to be almost a revolution to stop our contemporary Roman Senators from turning us all into serfs!

If They Were Really Democrats

There's a class war going on, and instead of siding with the so-called 'middle class', Democrats are saying, "Okay, okay, cut that nasty ol' deficit! Okay, okay, don't tax people with money, we'll sock it to the kids, seniors, poor--and public employees."

The Republicans were voted in on a wave of anger driven by the falsehoods of Foxvestia, and Limbaugh/Pravda, and by the billions from people like the Koch's and the executive class controlling corporations like Goldman Sachs and Exxon.

Democrats can't win the deficit-cutting game. Whatever concessions Democrats make, they are only furthering the agenda of the class that wants to destroy them, and wants to subject the rest of us to their maleficent control. That's what Walker's war on collective bargaining is about.

What Democrats should be doing, if they really are the Party of the People-- their perennial slogan--is fighting loudly for tax increases on the wealthy. The wealthy may have lost a bit in the recession, but they've amassed more wealth in the last two decades than all the rest of the nation combined. The wealthy made off with all but about 10% of US productivity gains since the 1970's: those gains have been prodigious. That's why the top 1% earns as much income as the bottom 95%. Wages and salaries below the top have been nearly flat since the 1970's, yet the size of our economy has doubled.

Why have Democrats caved? The debate is completely one-sided: Republicans say, cut taxes, period, and cut government spending on programs that help people not corporations. Democrats only counter with: let's not cut it that much.

The anger propelling Republican wins has subsided, according to polls: majorities oppose high-handed policies pushed by Wisconsin Governor Walker and other anti-union Republicans.

Democrats should campaign single-mindedly on growing jobs. They should point out: the stimulus worked, but not enough; more is needed: to go from 190,000 new jobs a month to 300-400,000, to get people back to work, to get the economy moving again. Democrats should point out that Republican deficit-cutting policies: gutting programs, laying off workers, will actually increase deficits and cut jobs since they will likely slow growth. They will also impoverish the nation in the future. Democrats should argue that tax-cuts for the wealthy will go mostly to speculation and investments overseas, not more jobs.

Instead, Yeats describes the Democrats: "the best lack all conviction," while their opponents "are full of passionate intensity." "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last/slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

Democrats shouldn't cave; they should organize, speak smarter and shout louder than Republicans--truth and the issues are on their side, if only they'd champion them.

Class War!

A clueless friend of mine, referring to the protesting workers in Wisconsin, said, "It's all about greed!"

Class war: it's what the budget battles at state and federal levels are really about. In Wisconsin, Governor Walker cut taxes, taxes for business, therefore for the better-off, greatly increasing the deficit; at the same time he demanded not only cuts to state workers' wages and pensions, but insisted: collective bargaining rights for most public employees had to go.

Governor Walker's excuse is the budget shortfall, a good part of which was caused by his tax cuts--to the wealthy. Meanwhile, police, who Walker exempted from losing their collective bargaining rights, are fraternizing with the protesters; they sang Solidarity Forever in the Capitol rotunda! They know what's at stake.

Fox News demonizes public employees as greedy, but its commentators, like Hannity and O'Reilly are members of AFTRA, a union for performers in radio and TV; I bet their pay is much better than the teachers they trash as greedy.

Even in New York, the most unionized state, the new Democratic governor, Cuomo, talks about getting tough with public employee unions, to extract pay and pension give-backs, while vowing never to raise taxes on the wealthy!

At the Federal level, not only does the Republican majority target cuts against women's and children's health programs--among other programs benefiting the middle class and poor--but Obama, tries to make nice with the budget cutters by offering to slash food stamp funds in half!

Only a small minority in Congress supported amendments to the continuing resolution (in lieu of a budget), cutting Pentagon spending, yet defense accounts for more than half of the Federal budget's discretionary spending. And the deficit has grown because Republicans insisted on maintaining Bush tax cuts, including "for millionaires." Top bracket cuts will cost about $800 billion, and trillions if made permanent. And the wealthy won't spend; they'll save, or buy stocks abroad.

Over 9% of workers are officially unemployed, another 10% are probably discouraged workers, but the media ignore both. Meanwhile, workers still working are likely to be over-worked and underpaid: they aren't represented by unions.

The Republican onslaught on public employee unions could weaken the union movement even further. Republicans know, but many Democrats forget: killing unions would drastically weaken support for Democrats.

It's war on Democrats, who don't have a clue, but more importantly, it's a war on anyone who isn't wealthy, who doesn't own substantial parts of the corporate system; who aren't the people whom Marx labeled capitalists.

Why don't Democrats know what's going on? Why do the Cuomos collaborate? Some Democrats are also capitalists--or want the chance to be.

Wisconsin, et al are all out war, and if Corpolicans win, even Coporocrats lose and we'll be turning onto the road trod by effete Roman Senators; they sold Rome to the Barbarians in 476.

It's War on Democrats, Er, Unions

Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey: where next will the anti-union campaigns erupt? They are sponsored by radical, not "Tea Party," pro-corporate Republicans.

Wisconsin demonstrates that they're trampling on dangerous ground. In each state, the basic strategy is the same: we're in fiscal crisis so public employee unions must be defanged. It doesn't matter if the unions cave on the financial demands--they already have in Wisconsin--they still have to become, in effect, not unions: they are to be denied collective bargaining rights.

As a former member of the National Writers Union, I can attest: a union without collective bargaining rights doesn't make headway as a union. A perennial bill to gain those rights for freelancers has never made it out of Congressional Committee. .

Scott Walker exempts police and firemen, saying: they're public safety officers. But the exemption is political: they supported his election. However, even those exempted union members are visibly supporting the protest in Madison. They know what's at stake: their rights in the workplace.

Not long ago Americans were polled about whether they'd join a union at work, if they could: a clear majority said they would. Yet, because of the anti-union subversion and propaganda by business and business associations, private union employment has declined from a post WWII high of nearly one-third of the labor force, to about 8%. Only public employee unions have gained workers, the largest component of union labor, today. Public Employee unions, Rachel Maddow pointed out, are overwhelmingly supportive of Democrats, providing organization, money and numbers.

Is it any wonder that Republicans have painted a great big target on their backs?

In the South, very few private sector workers are unionized, because the states are "right to work," in which union membership is voluntary when you get a job at a union shop. So, why pay dues? Scott Walker's ploy is the first act in bringing "right to work" and no collective bargaining to as many states as possible.

In Indiana, Republicans are proposing to prohibit collective bargaining in construction, as well as taking away rights for public employees. If they can get away with that, pretty soon, unions will have about as much power as the official unions in China! That may be the point: make American labor "competitive" with the Chinese, with corporations in control.

This is why the protests in Wisconsin are so important, and why protests in Indiana, Ohio and New Jersey may soon erupt: Republicans are determined to get their way. They've found a means to please their funders--ranging from billionaires like Koch, to small businesses--while cutting Democrats off at the knees.

Re unions, Scott Walker is as imperious as a Roman Senator towards his slaves, or Qaddafi facing opposition. He will brook no quarter. Workers shouldn't either.

Qaddafi, King of Kings

Compare Qaddafi to Mubarak and Ben Ali: the latter two look mild by comparison and he's held power for 41 years.

Qaddafi has styled himself as leader of a people's revolution, sequentially a pan-Arabist, a pan-Islamist and finally, a pan-Africanist. He recently crowned himself "King of Kings" at a meeting of African nations; he even tried to sponsor an assembly of Kings, but his Ugandan hosts canceled the meeting as contrary to their constitution!

In his activist heyday, he exported, or supported terrorists or terrorism globally: he's just for revolution, of whatever kind--

Unless its his own people rebelling against him.

Recently, he appeared to go a bit zany with his pseudo-king costumes, but seemed to moderate his politics: he negotiated with the US and the EU, gave up his nuclear weapons program and cooperated with international cases against terrorists he had sponsored.

But, as his current resistance demonstrates, Qaddafi hasn't moderated at all. He defends his own power at all costs. As to costs, he's now using Libya's oil money to fly planeloads of mercenaries from African countries, to mow down his opponents.

A survivor of one massacre in Benghazi said the shooting by Qaddafi's forces was not to drive demonstrators away; “it is meant to kill them.” The security forces might have been Libyans of other tribes--it's a tribally divided society--but they were probably "African mercenaries." The just-resigned deputy Ambassador to the UN from Libya pleaded with African states to stop exporting them to kill his countrymen.

Megalomaniacs can drive nations to fiery cataclysms, and Qaddafi appears willing to go that far--"to the last bullet" his son declared.

Qaddafi has, at times, styled himself as a socialist and even an anarchist (but also a monarchist). He recently moved to abolish most government departments and distribute the oil wealth directly to the Libyan people (except for the part he kept for himself and friends, and for contingencies like this, apparently). He also ranted about creating direct democracy and about abolishing the legislature, favoring local tribal councils.

When leaders like Qaddafi or Napoleon speak of "the people," they are only speaking about themselves, and their own divinely or ideologically inspired insights into what 'the people' want. For Qaddafi, rebelling Libyans can't be 'the people;' they must have been suborned by 'foreign powers.'

Libya may become the most radical Arab revolution yet, because of the violence used against it by Qaddafi, but if Qaddafi prevails, using his hired palace guard, the resulting autocracy could be even worse than before.

Qaddafi is as autocratic as the most arbitrary late Roman Emperor; he speaks a radical line, but struts as if he really was King of Kings! His downfall might further open the region to democracy, but not necessarily to American advantage. The US imperial system in the Mideast will be driven further into disarray if Libya finally sheds its mercurial dictator.

Hypocrisy, Insanity, or Protest?

Egyptians and Tunisians have thrown off their tyrants. They demand all the freedoms a democracy can offer. Libyans, Yemenis and Bahrainis are willing to die for those freedoms.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton lectures the world about America's freedoms. Fine. It's good that we've got the rhetoric right, but what's happening while she's speaking? Ray McGovern, a well-known progressive activist, stands up, and turns his back on her. He's saying something, isn't he? He's protesting the foreign policy she represents, and the wars she promotes. McGovern manifests freedom of speech as Hillary speaks: freedom to protest, too, but he also, inadvertently demonstrates the administration's hypocrisy. Hillary calls in Security. Uniforms arrest McGovern and bundle him off.

Maybe, freedom of speech is not getting shot with live ammunition or rubber bullets. It's being arrested for turning your back on the Secretary of State--and then, eventually being sprung by supporters and human rights activists. Oh, I get it. Because we have laws that can be used, sometimes, to defend ordinary citizens, we have freedom and democracy.

It's good we do have those laws, because the powerful are becoming more brazen, regardless of party. It isn't just governments: corporate honchos are flexing their monetary muscles, too. The confrontation in Wisconsin demonstrates the extremes to which the powerful are willing to go: they want to strip union rights from public employees (their lame excuse: cut the state's deficit). Wisconsin brings together both political and corporate elites, since new Governor Scott Walker(R) is a client of the Koch brothers, energy industry billionaires. The Kochs want to destroy unions and government regulations, especially environmental ones.

Most Democrats in power are either hypocrites, like Hillary, or Republican lite, like Obama. In Wisconsin Democrats do know to support the unions--that's obvious. But New York's new Governor, Andrew Cuomo(D), has sounded almost as anti-union as Walker. And Hillary can go on about the virtues of freedoms, and then have McGovern arrested--for a silent protest.

Remember the millions demonstrating against the war in Iraq before we invaded? I was there, but would Bush have listened if we'd occupied Times Square? What if millions came to occupy the National Mall in Washington, or camped outside the White House to protest, what then? Maybe, they'd protest the Afghan war, torture, the security state with its bloated military, the "PATRIOT Act," black prisons and Guantanamo. Maybe, millions would come to protest the skewed political economy: the wealthy getting trillions of taxpayer dollars while the rest of us get laid off, or slashed wages.

Why don't Americans protest like Egyptians? Maybe we have to be reduced to Egyptian wages and unemployment before people will explode. Romans were passive, more concerned with circuses; then, it was too late. Will we sit by, let Fox News' lies wash over us, stay at home and watch TV? Then it, too, will be too late.

Pakistan Versus the US

Our ally, Pakistan, may stand up to the US, yet. Pakistan's government is deciding whether Raymond Davis has US diplomatic immunity.

The circumstances are suggestive. Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis riding motorcycles, while driving alone in a poor area of Lahore not frequented by foreigners. Davis claimed the cyclists tried to rob him, but he was carrying a loaded Glock, so he shot them. An official US diplomatic vehicle rushing to the rescue, ran over and killed another motorcyclist; then it fled the scene. Davis was arrested.

The US insists Davis holds a diplomatic passport, and therefore is immune from prosecution, but Pakistan imprisoned him, and wants to charge him with a double murder. Another suspicious aspect: while the embassy insists Davis is a “technical and administrative” official, he is also ex-Special Forces.

So, what do you think Raymond C. Davis was doing? He was driving with an armed Glock and "other security gear" in a poor part of Lahore, where he was attacked by three armed motorcyclists. I assume they were armed, since Davis claims they were trying to rob him: the account from the NYT doesn't mention arms, but why else would an official US vehicle attempt rescuing him?

The US insists, and will continue to insist, that “technical and administrative” official, the designation under which Davis was issued his visa, has diplomatic immunity as specified, in that precise language, in the Vienna Convention, which governs diplomatic relations among nations. Our lawyers dot their i's.

But this looks more than suggestive: this looks fishy. The US is protecting with diplomatic immunity what looks like an undercover op, something that's not covered by the Vienna Convention--but probably often practiced by countries with intelligence/covert agencies.

Two principles are at stake: whether the US is lying about Davis and covering up a covert op, and whether Pakistan will stand up to the US.

Pakistan is an extremely nationalistic nation, albeit now a nearly failing nuclear state. Pakistan hasn't surged economically like India, but its geography is crucial--to US hegemony--and we have flooded it with military and development aid. As you might expect, a lot of that money has been pocketed by the powerful; Pakistan is extremely poor, except for the few rich.

Further, the democratic government is extremely weak and highly unpopular, and only the Army is well-organized and fairly functional.

What would a weak, unpopular, ostensibly democratic government do, given that the US is already unpopular in Pakistan? The government might face down the US. It would gain popularity for doing so.

A face down would also demonstrate American helplessness. Talk about "credibility!" The American Empire could be the world's next joke, after Mubarak's defiant speech to the Egyptians--the night before he fled. The Romans lost credibility at the battle of Adrianople; the US could lose it in a Pakistani court.

Strange (Congressional) Bedfellows

I called my newly elected Tea Party Congressman, today. I was surprised to discover: we share at least one important idea. If you're going to cut the government's budget, look to the Pentagon. "Yes," said his aide, "the Congressman has been thinking defense should\ be cut."

I would never have heard my former blue-dog Democratic Congress-people, either Scott Murphy or Kirsten Gillibrand, say anything like that. I always got back some mealy-mouthed answer about "supporting the troops."

I can't agree with cutting Head Start, WIC, or the home heating oil winter aid program proposed by the Republicans in the House. I wouldn't be surprised if Congressman Gibson is for all those cuts. And for cuts in Pell Grants, and aid to schools. Krugman called such cuts "eating our seed corn," which seems about right.

But politics is also the art of cultivating strange bedfellows. There is surprising support, apparently, among the new Tea Party Republicans, for cutting the Defense budget in order to cut the deficit. Obama, most Blue Dog Democrats and mainstream Republicans have all waxed eloquent about ruling out cuts from Defense--except for Gates' minimal recommendations: they support "the troops."

It seems rather hard to swallow, considering that Obama is also proposing to slash food stamps in half (from about $80 billion): the proposed Defense Budget is approximately $553 billion, and together with the separate budgets for wars and intelligence, it weighs in at almost $730 billion (nearly 3/4 of a trillion). For many years, the US has spent more money on Defense than all of the rest of the world combined. Are we safe yet? Why not cut Defense, even if you ignore the perennial findings of huge waste and accounting errors in the Pentagon?

Since Bobby Kennedy, there has been a strong anti-war wing in the Democratic Party, and it has become stronger, relatively, in this Congress, because so many blue dogs went down to defeat, while fewer antiwar Democrats lost their seats.

Now they have natural allies, not just in Ron Paul and Rand Paul, but in Congressmen like Gibson, who was elected as a Tea Party deficit hawk. I don't know if the Pauls supported Gibson, but like them, he's considering defense cuts. I hope he gets together with another Hudson Valley Congressman, Maurice Hinchey, the surviving anti-war Congressman in the region.

Amendments to the continuing resolution, proposed by Congressman Nadler and Polis, would cut the Defense budget by "cutting the empire," i.e. bringing home the troops from Afghanistan (budgeting only for the costs of withdrawal), and radically reducing the troops stationed in Europe.

We could begin our peaceful withdrawal from empire before we are defeated or driven bankrupt. Do we really want to follow Rome, Spain, the USSR? Why not emulate the British Empire's withdrawal (sometimes reluctant) from Asia and Africa? It would make more sense than cutting food stamps.

Is Egypt's Army Democratic?

"We were dwarves under Mubarak," said a protester. "Now we are giants." There are moments in history, in the histories of nations and sometimes moments over much of the world, when people feel like that. The day Mubarak was forced to resign, on February 11, 2011, did feel like that, and not just for Egyptians.

I could go on about how Mubarak's fall is a blow against empire, but it really isn't about that. No matter what happens in Egypt, and that's still up in the air, the revolution peacefully accomplished by millions of people against a repressive and rapacious regime is astounding--and inspiring. But it makes me humble, to realize how many people it took, and with what persistence, and against what odds--and with 300+ dead--heroes of the revolution, perhaps.

I don't know if I'd have had the guts to go to Tahrir Square on one of those early days, nor to persist for 18 days; I know I loathe committees and crowds, and yet I hope I would have been there.

What comes afterward is still open to speculation. The army is now, again, in control, as it has been at each turning point in Egypt since it overthrew King Farouk in 1952. Some speculate that Egypt's senior officers might be more inclined to reconstitute the regime without Mubarak and Suleiman, than to institute true democracy. They have too much to lose: luxurious villas, lucrative industries and power.

But in those 18 days, the Army played a sophisticated game. It appears that the conservative high command knew they had to be careful, since they lead a conscript army, whose lower ranks often seemed to sympathize with the protesters. On the other hand, they want to protect their accustomed and expected perks, so there is a tension between the demands of the protesters and the generals' interests.

If I were an Egyptian general, I would have argued not for repression, but for flexibility. I would have said that the Army could give way over Mubarak and then people won't notice that we still have the same system that rewards us so handsomely.

This may be why some say more protests will be necessary, and they're ready to continue to protest in Tahrir Square. They should if the army simply re-establishes its Mubarak era.

However, given the mass turmoil all over the Middle East, it's hard to see the Egyptian Army turning its back on the popular demands. Old guys like General Tantawi may want to, but even the younger generals know they could have a bloody revolution on their hands if they tried to re-establish the status quo.

As for the American role, if it doesn't adapt to the emerging order, its influence in the Middle East will shrink even faster, and there's goes the Empire!

Palin and the Brothers (Muslim)

Egyptian VP, Suleiman, suggested unspecified “other people” and “an Islamic current” were pushing the young people forward. “It’s not their idea,” he said. “It comes from abroad” (NYT 2/6/11). Rashid Mohammed Rashid, a former minister went further. He said of Americans, "There was so much interference. They shouldn’t actually get involved in this.”

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin claims that, "...surely they know more than the rest of us know, who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak." (ABC 2/6/11) She doesn't like that very much. 'They' clearly refers to Obama/Clinton/Biden.

So, it looks like a consensus between the Egyptian regime and Palin, that Americans are running the show, behind the scenes--or the Muslim Brotherhood is, but we can't support them, because they're Muslim extremists.

A Muslim extremist is not the same as a fundamentalist. The Saudi regime is fundamentalist, and although extremists have spawned there, the monarchy is fighting them as hard as we are. Apparently, the Brotherhood is more moderate than the Saudis; it does not favor extremism.

The Brotherhood is clearly not behind the revolt in Egypt; it is a participant after the fact, and most of the revolutionary activists in Tahrir Square appear to be young, secular and un-supportive of fundamentalists taking power. The Brotherhood has appeared reluctant to take a prominent role in the uprising, even stating that they won't run candidates in the coming elections, either in September or later. They may end up with some power, since they are the best-organized opposition grouping, but that doesn't mean they'll be in a position to order attacks on Israel, or the Coptic Church.

Mubarak has held on to power so long, by cozening his country and the world with the 'extremist threat' and predicting 'chaos' après moi. Palin still buys it. Now, Mubarak's regime is trying to blame all the unrest on 'foreigners,' and Palin assumes Obama is calling the shots. Both sell paranoia. And they feed on each other. Both promote only one American interest--the sale of more American war toys.

In Tahrir Square, today, Muslims kept guard while Coptic Christians had a service, and Coptic Christians, earlier kept guard while Muslims prayed. Where are those extremists?

It's true that Obama/Hillary/Biden/Wisner are pressing Mubarak and the opposition to follow their script for a "peaceful transition," but neither side is listening. The inchoate, but determined and persistent opposition/revolution wants Mubarak out now, and they have good reasons. Mubarak seems determined to stay, even though he won't run again. By staying, he could control the succession, which is precisely why the protesters want him out now.

But if America isn't in control, then the Emperor has no clothes. That's not a bad thing, but most Americans still assume the opposite, and think conspiracy when events prove otherwise. The right wing battens on this paranoia, as they hasten the American Empire's decline.

My Personal History Collides with Egypt

When Mubarak's supporters attacked Egyptian protesters with sticks and knives, I felt an unwelcome kinship. Most of the pro-government demonstrators are probably goons from the security services; my mother's family was high up in similar institutions in Venezuela when Juan Vicente Gomez was military dictator (1908 to 1935). When Gomez died in 1935 (of natural causes), my Great Uncle Velasco, Governor of Caracas, delayed news of Gomez's death by 24 hours. He needed time to load a gunboat with all his valuables, so he could flee to Costa Rica.
My grandfather was not so foresighted. When he was Gomez's governor in Estado Falcon, he invested in land; when Gomez died, he lost it all.

Velasco was known for a particular form of torture, so it's likely that his appointees' main job was regime security. My mother's father, and almost all his brothers, worked for Velasco. My uncles were probably counterparts to the Cairenes deploying the police goons in mufti, today--not the men wielding sticks and knives, or riding horses and camels into Tahrir Square, but the ones who sent them.

My sympathies go out to the anti-government protesters, who defended themselves with stones.

Deploying the pro-government goons would be something Gomez might have done, but Gomez was always careful to tightly control his military. It was not a conscript army. In Egypt it is, dividing the army into elite officers and civilian soldiers.

The chaos and violence precipitated by Mubarak's followers is probably a tactic for bringing the army over to the President's side. The officers revere order, and order is now being visibly disrupted--by the President's men.

There have been extraordinary stories in both Tunisia and Cairo of the demonstrators/protesters policing themselves; there were even TV scenes of young men cleaning up the trash in Tahrir Square. Other stories told of young men protecting neighborhoods from looting, and of the elaborate but self-deputized efforts of the protesters to screen newcomers, preventing them from bringing weapons into Tahrir Square.

And then on Wednesday, the army let in the pro-Mubarak demonstrators with knives, clubs, and even a few guns.

Either the army still feels constrained when faced by security forces, or it prefers a passive role: letting the protesters protest, and letting the counter-protesters into the square--until it tries to separate them with armored cars. Maybe the army sees itself as Egypt's arbitrator.

The people recruited for the pro-Mubarak demonstrations are like the people who worked for my mother's family. Now, in Venezuela, my cousins are united in their disgust for Chavez.

But it was the people who won for Chavez in Venezuela, after he was toppled in a coup. The Egyptian people can win, too; I hope they have better luck in leaders.

Their triumph will mark another important step in the decline of the American Empire.

Revolution in Egypt

There aren't quite as many people in Tahrir (Liberation) Square as there are particles of snow falling from NY's sky, but the numbers are overwhelming. Al Jazeera estimated that there were at least two million people there on Tuesday (2/1/11), and many were determined to stay the night, insuring ownership of the square.

What is important for Egypt's apparent revolution is that the Army is not blocking it; in fact, it appears to be helping the protesters maintain order. There is an important reason for this, relevant to us: Egypt has a draft, so the army is filled not with professionals, or poverty recruits, as is ours, but with a cross-section of the young men of the nation. Given such a make-up, it would be risky and dangerous for the army to order its soldiers to shoot to kill their fellow Egyptians. The generals could face a general mutiny, an element that helped precipitate the Soviet revolution in Russia.

The question on everyone's mind, from Obama and Hillary to Joe Blow, is what does the likely overthrow of the US's ally of 30 years, President Mubarak, mean for American interests?

First of all, the worst thing the US could do, would be to support Mubarak and drive out the protesters. Second, what the US does short of a misguided intervention is less important; the Egyptian people have clearly made up their minds: Mubarak has to go. What comes next is still up in the air.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been repressed in Egypt since the 1950's, but it seems to be the most organized opposition force. However, the people interviewed in Liberation Square, and in Alexandria, appear to have a more secular bent, so no one knows who will prevail. Further, Mohammed El Baradei, probably an interim figure, is also secular, not an "Islamist."

In any case, Egypt will go in whatever direction it goes, whether through popular pressure or military decision. If the latter, it might be cautiously pro-western. However, if Egypt does have regime change (likely), then there could be a domino effect, and that could affect "our oil." After all, Egypt is the most populous Arab nation, and has been the center of learning in the Middle East for millennia, so the popular overthrow of a pro-western dictator there could have manifold consequences.

One conservative commentator is shrilly warning against $120 oil: even that is possible. It is almost guaranteed, however, that US sponsorship of conservative dictators in the region will no longer insure US regional control.

The Egyptian and Tunisian popular revolutions signal the beginning of the end of the US's current Mideast strategy and tactics. Either, the US adapts to the new facts on the ground, or the popular outpouring will cause a significant weakening of the US Empire. It is one more movement towards a multi-polar world.

Obama-Vision

Obama has called for cutting the deficit, freezing government salaries, and even, cutting corporate taxes (most large corporations don't pay any), joining a throng of right-wingers, and also the Conservatives who took power in the UK not so long ago. But look what's happening in the UK in the wake of huge cuts to the UK government budget.

"It's not enough just to slam on the spending brakes. Measures that cut spending but killed demand would actually make matters worse," said Sir Richard Lambert, outgoing director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. NYT 01/25/11. In the wake of the Conservative/Lib-Dem budget cuts, the UK suffered a decline in GDP in the fourth quarter, after several rising quarters.

The UK made cuts very much like the ones Rep. Ryan proposed in his Republican response to Obama's State of the Union address. How do you stimulate an economy by cutting the government's budget? Market fundamentalists claim government spending crowds out private spending, so if you cut the government, corporate energy will be "unleashed."

This doesn't make much sense right now. In a boom, excess government spending will crowd out private investment. We are not in a boom. While corporations are realizing fair profits--from overseas sales--and the banks are pocketing huge returns, few are hiring, even when there is increasing demand for their products or services; they are demanding more of their current employees, instead--overtime usually, mandatory unless a union is involved, and at regular, not overtime wages unless a union contract requires otherwise.

That's why we still have over 9.5% unemployment officially; it's estimated to be as high as 19% when discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers are counted.

At least Obama proposed only a modest freeze to government, and insisted that it should invest in clean energy, etc. He could have made a strong case for the government as employer of last resort to invest in workers, and in addressing our sliding housing crisis, but he didn't: maybe not "centrist" enough.

One of his signature issues is education, which is logical, when talking about the future, but if the US is going to "win" the future, Race to the Top won't do it. Our children are not successfully competing with the rest of the world, but if we are to "win," they have to, not on standardized tests, but in skills and creative thinking: penalizing teachers won't accomplish that. Encouraging good teaching and supporting teachers would have a better chance--in colleges, too.

Obama's proposals, however, won't "win the future." The US must face its decline, withdraw from empire, and focus on its long-term deficits, not only of government, but of infrastructure, education, skills and trade.

That won't happen as long as the elite hold on to the status quo that enriched them. What the US needs is a democratic uprising like the one in Tunisia.

Anarchy Right and Left

I read a right-wing paean for anarchy in a libertarian newsletter; it was mirrored by a left-wing article expressing disgust--at corporate anarchy!

The pro-anarchist rhapsodizes about how 'mates' helped each other in the Australian floods, volunteering by the thousands--and then the government comes in, hunts for looters, restores law and order, and worst of all, collects taxes: end of paradise, the renewal of theft.

The leftist describes how the corporations are running Washington, and do the same thing--siphon off the people's wealth--with government collusion, bought and paid for.

So, is it the government, or is it corporations?

Conservative anarchists assume that all taxation is theft. Government service, to them, is an oxymoron. Nothing government does has any economic value. They assume that everything should be provided by 'business.' So, private roads and military would be more efficient? Would every road be a toll road?

What anarchists ignore, are the 300 pound gorillas on the loose, all over the world--the global corporations. Wouldn't they mind if corporations ruled everyone's lives without any government oversight, or intervention? Wouldn't they mind the toxic pharmaceuticals, dangerous toys, dangerous roads, dangerous cars, and above all, dangerous banks?

Why do conservatives, more generally, think that less government, or no government is preferable? These aren't the days of Daniel Boone. Now, there are huge, powerful private institutions--as well as a lot of crooks--predators: human and institutional. Will corporations protect you from other corporations? Their only rationale is greater profit. Ultimately, government's motive (in a democracy) is to please enough voters so that its elected leaders get reelected.

The profit motive does make private enterprise efficient, but there are examples of better government-provided outcomes: health care and utilities abroad and in municipalities are only two. But there are many functions that only a government should do: maintain order, maintain means of transportation, i.e. roads, airports, city streets, public health, ensure that the marketplace is not a shark-pit and then, there's also defense. Should we fire the Pentagon and hire Blackwater/Xe?

That I would go for: dismantle the Pentagon, then don't renew Xe's contract. But seriously, there are a lot of issues that the left and right see in tantalizingly parallel ways.

Doesn't everyone get impatient with bureaucracy? But it's both government and corporate, isn't it. The major difference is that government legalese is usually of legible size.

What we're really facing here is the takeover of corporate gangsters, who buy the government, or enough of its members so that they can continue siphoning off Americans' wealth, regardless of the hardship. Raise taxes on the middle class and poor (Sales taxes, real estate taxes) and cut income taxes on the rich, and on the corporations, from which they derive their wealth. License corporations to do everything, and profit handsomely.

I present to you the Selfish Class, the title of a book you'll find on the referenced site.

Deficit-mongering Endangers Dollar

If you scream about the deficit, but then don't do anything about it, or pass tax cuts that increase it, you actually endanger the nation more than the deficit, itself. The Republicans are forcing this to happen. They are shortening the time before the world's nations will jettison the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency, because US fiscal policy will lose credibility even faster, while the nation will be mired in non-recovery. However, the dollar is likely to lose its special status, anyway, sooner more likely than later.

What matters is not the government deficit, but the trade deficit: the two are not necessarily related. Deficit spending that enhances US jobs, productivity and creativity would actually cut the trade deficit and delay a move away from the dollar. Deficit spending that simply increases our national debt, like the tax cut for the wealthy, will bring us closer to the time when the US Dollar becomes just another currency; it increases our trade deficit and makes the US poorer.

The dollar losing international reserve status will be a very big deal. It will be a disaster for the US, unless the way has been carefully prepared. What's the likelihood of that?

This is what will happen: the US can no longer so freely borrow on international markets: the Fed can't blithely create money as it is doing now with Quantitative Easing. The bigger problem would be: how do we repay (by far) the largest trade deficit in the world? We won't be able to just print dollars for payment. We'll have to earn Renminbi, or Marks or Rials to buy from those places.

Imports will cost much more. Three-dollar gas will be a faint memory: prices would be comparable to Europe's ($5-7 per gallon now), or much higher.

We also won't be able to continue our military mission to control every corner of the globe. That, to me, would be a positive outcome, both for the US and the world. Who would lend to us at the low interest our bonds now pay? Interest costs to maintain our military could bankrupt us, something that happened not only to the Romans, but also led to the overthrow of the Bourbons, ushering in the French Revolution.

Any dollar-denominated asset would be worth much less outside the US. Americans would have to produce more, at lower cost--through subsistence wages, perhaps, or greater efficiency, or probably both--and import less.

Perhaps, an increasingly impoverished majority would demand Equality, as rebelling masses did on the streets of Paris, but it might come too late. The billionaires may have decamped, with their tons of gold (not dollars), just like Tunisia's Ben Ali!

Loss of reserve status could end the American empire. While temporarily poorer, Americans could end up freer and better off--if they throw out the corporate octopus impoverishing us all.

Denigrating Reason

"We're building a grassroots movement to stand up to the special interests and stand up for middle class consumers," says Al Franken, in response to the FCC approval of the Comcast-NBC merger.

I wonder how that will happen. I have a local activist friend, a county legislator, who continuously tries to get people out for demonstrations, to hold signs, to protest--new Democratic Governor Cuomo's conservative economic policies, for example, when he gives the state of the State at a local college. I went to one or two demos, and was embarrassed by how few people there were. My friend even urged me to speak!

How do you mobilize people who work 10-hour days, and then go home to vege out in front of the TV, or on the computer? How do you mobilize people whose lives are isolated, who get most of their contact through TV, and who, moreover, are increasingly influenced by the corporate media?

People are discouraged from thinking in this USA. It's like Steve, my "Christian" fellow alum, whose reaction about anything is "those leftwing intellectuals…" About the economy: "intellectuals and economists" can say all they want, but "I know: debt is debt." When I expose him to a little Keynesian economics--deficits can be investments, if the money goes to enhance the economy--he dismisses all intellectuals--including me, of course. He knows; he's a self-made man (in California real estate).

His antagonism towards thinking parallels the vociferous right wing Commentariat--Palin, Beck, et al. And look how well the politics of ignorance and anger has done in the last election! People voted for Republicans not for what they stood for, apparently. Polls show high support for all the issues Republicans oppose, like health reform, and aid to the unemployed. People voted for Republicans simply because they weren't in power; they were angry. A man demanded of me, as Election Inspector, to produce a list of incumbents up for re-election (I wasn't allowed to give political information), so he could vote against them. Their party affiliation didn't matter; but his ignorance was staggering. He's the corporate elite's template for the perfect voter: ignorant and unthinking. I saw a Republican election observer take him outside; he told him who to vote for.

We have schools that "teach to the test," and universities increasingly funded by corporations to promote their interests. In public schools, thinking is discouraged in favor of rote learning and discipline. I taught in colleges, none of them prestigious. In all of them a student who could think, or who wanted to think was a precious gift. Ironically, there were more of them in my prison classes.

Inmates knew they were being screwed; everyone else just wanted a B.

Our denigration of reason parallels Rome's in the Empire's last centuries.

MLK Hangover

When is an anti-war activist for a war? In the case of Martin Luther King, Jr., apparently, it's 43 years after his death. Yes, the Pentagon celebrated Martin Luther King Day. The address by the Pentagon's Counsel, a friend and classmate of MLK's son, didn't entirely elide King's opposition to the Vietnam war--and war in general-- but Johnson certainly tried to sugarcoat it for those listening. American soldiers as Good Samaritans:

"Those in today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have made the conscious decision to travel a dangerous road, and personally stop and administer aid to those who want peace, freedom and a better place in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in defense of the American people." (Jeh Johnson's Address to the Pentagon on MLK Day).

I would be the first to applaud the unusual military men and women who do "administer aid" in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but wanting "peace, freedom and a better place" in those war-torn countries is not the same as bringing peace. However, the military is brainwashed into thinking that it is.

American planes rain down destruction on both places, as do unpiloted drones in Pakistan and the border areas, Special Ops go out on night raids and kill people, some of whom are labeled "bad guys" after they are killed, while others are hauled off to hell-holes like Bagram, where they are mistreated and/or tortured. How does this bring "peace" and "freedom," how does this create a better place? Too often, innocents, including women and children are killed. Sometimes, Americans have even falsified the carnage afterwards to make it look as if the innocents were "insurgents," placing guns, or explosives paraphernalia near them to incriminate them after the fact.

So many observers have pointed out that every woman and child, every non-combatant killed, or detained in our notorious "black" prisons, creates dozens of supporters of the insurgency, even if many don't know what the insurgency is. Some go over to the other side even with their eyes wide open: they know the brutality of the Taliban, and its retrograde social policies, but they see the US/NATO as worse!

Their conclusion is justified, even if the Taliban are more intentionally brutal than US/NATO forces. It is the US/NATO presence that drives the war; its technology and money makes the destruction possible.

If MLK were alive now, he'd say 'let the Afghans choose their own way.' He'd also denounce the huge sums of money spent by the US on destruction (euphemistically labeled 'Defense.') He would point out, in his resonant voice, that all those hundreds of billions of dollars were snatched from the hands of babes, children, and our future, that if we spend on destruction, instead of education, we'll reap the whirlwind.

That's what the Romans did. They didn't even spend money on their famed roads, only on their 'volunteer' (mercenary) military. Look where that got them!

Serfdom Better than Wage Slavery

My son was not laid off last week, but a lot of people were. They came in to work and were told they no longer had a job: just like that. My son works for a firm that services Wall Street. Instead of growing by 40% in the next year, as its leaders had forecast, its business this year will not grow at all. So, they restructured.

But imagine: working for a firm for years, and then walking in one day and being told, "You don't work here anymore."

The only thing that may drive this small corporation to give at least several months' pay, and decent severances, is to protect its reputation on the Street.

My daughter helped unionize an office of Calpirg's subsidiary, The Fund, only to see this ostensibly progressive non-profit put roadblocks against negotiating a first contract, while management fired the shop members one by one--until finally my daughter lost her job; soon thereafter the division was closed and with it the union shop.

Corporations are people: remember? They can give unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns. They are so humane.

I also helped found a union, back in the days when unions weren't yet targeted for destruction. I played a small part of bringing a union to the University of Central Florida: the faculty voted 80% for. Why? Without a union, department chairs and college deans frequently overrode faculty recommendations, whether it was for hiring, promotion, or tenure. Our chair promoted his favorites.

The union didn't change much, but it was some insurance on job tenure and promotions.

Working in firms like my son's, people have no security. He's paid well, including a nice bonus ("not Wall-Street-size, Dad"), but he could walk in tomorrow, or next Friday, and not have a job!

Does the corporation care for the people who work for it? Even the CEO is expendable, although he's probably careful to have a golden parachute in his contract. But corporations are not people. They use people, and spit them out. If you're lucky, you may have a good job in a corporation for a long time. It used to be that you'd get a pension if you lasted until retirement, but now you and your employer jointly fund a 401K while you work there. If the market goes bust, as it did in 2007-8, then your retirement fund could go bust, too; the switch from pensions to contributory funds is accelerating, expressing employers' lack of concern for employees.

In the hundred years before Rome fell, all but the Senators were reduced to serfs. Employees with no security are more at risk than serfs or slaves, but that's the direction in which we're headed.

Heroism, Viciousness and Social Security

On the one hand, you have the heroism of people like Patricia Maisch in that Arizona crowd, and you have the deranged hatred of the killer, Loughner. And yet, on a scale of viciousness, I would rate Loughner less vicious than the people, both in Congress and in finance, who want to wipe out or weaken the only economic security deprived Americans can count on--Social Security.

Who has Maisch's kind of heroism in the realm of national politics? On the one side, we appear to have the mean and meaner, and on the other, we have people who might have good instincts, but so many are corrupted by politics.

Conservatives claim that the left hates the free enterprise system, hates business and is elitist. This is ironic, since even Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a Socialist, works to bring business to Vermont, and speaks like the New York working class Jew his family was. Democrats do the same: they want to get re-elected.

What the elected tribunes of business claim, is that no regulation is best for business, even when the lack of it led to the crack up of 2007-8, which was surely not good for business--except, ultimately, the big banks. But that's not enough. No, Republicans want to "partially" privatize Social Security, even after the stock-market crash that wiped out so many people's retirement portfolios, and private pension funds.

What is that about? The right-wing enthusiasm for going after Social Security is driven by several different, reinforcing motives. One is simply ideological: it's a government program; it's well-run and popular, thereby giving the lie to the claim that governments can't do anything.

It is not running out of money, either. Down the line, its financing should be tweaked, but a second motive animating the right is all that money: they want to get their hands on it, just like the bailout money, just like the commodities exchanges and currency markets, just like the money of the millions of us suckers, who dabble in the market. But Social Security money would be trillions, and so many more could be sucked dry, by high finance.

But I think there's another reason, one alluded to by Helen Thomas, the recently displaced star White House reporter. She concluded that we shouldn't give the newly empowered Republicans, "the ability to wipe out or even mitigate the only economic security deprived Americans can count on."

Think about that: the only economic security deprived Americans can count on--like a number of my friends. What the movement to privatize would also do, if successful, is render the elderly a new frontier to "invest" in--even down to our last dentures. And it would make us even more vulnerable than most of us are right now.

To the vicious, that's attractive, too: the Populus can then be managed, just as they were in Rome.