Trump and Emperor Maximus

Donald Trump is awful! But a lot of Republicans think he should run for President: 17%, as many as for Huckabee, only behind Mitt Romney, and 20% of tea party ID'd Republicans expressed support.

Trump has his special quirks, one being his birther schtick, which may or may not be a genuine concern. At least one commentator points out birtherism's racist undertones, or at least that it could encourage racism. Birtherism feeds the fears of whites who cannot believe we elected an African-American President; they want to believe he's an impostor, regardless of all the data proving his birth in Hawaii. Why? Because he's black?

Bitherism and racism are one thing: what's even scarier, however, is that Trump represents the new breed of brash, political billionaire: he dismisses his closest rival, Mitt Romney, as "a small businessman," and claims that he, Trump, is "much, much bigger than he is." And that, dear America, is why he feels he should be President: he has more money.

Romney's business past may come back to haunt him. He's no small businessman: Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped found, buys and sells businesses, and not only employs several hundred, but as with most such firms, it has also been in the business of firing hundreds or more of the purchased companies in order to "streamline" them.

This may be a portent of the kind of politics we'll be offered, either in the next few cycles, or for the foreseeable future. Billionaires vs multi-millionaires, these self-funded candidates run in part to protect the interests of their super-rich brethren, who will probably support them with their own money, too.

I would pair Trump with Roman Emperor: Maximus (ruled 3 months in 455); he was known as the wealthiest of the Senatorial class; he conspired to assassinate Valentinian III, in part, because the Emperor had seduced his reputedly beautiful wife, but also to gain power for himself. His "rule" was a disaster; it gave the Vandal King, Gaiseric, the pretext to sack Rome. "Emperor" Maximus was torn apart by an enraged Roman mob as the Vandals approached.

The question is: will all the money spent by and for someone like Trump/Romney, seduce Americans?

Or, will people begin to get it: the filthy rich want to keep it all for themselves. Congressman Ryan's budget makes clear what the future could begin to look like with people like Trump or Romney in charge. They'd cut taxes on themselves, the wealthy (Ryan calls them "job creators" even when, like Romney they are job destroyers). Those tax cuts would be paid for by draconian cuts to services (including Medicare and Social Security) and cut tax loopholes that benefit the poor and what remains of the middle class.

In late Imperial Rome, the middle class had two options: seek protection from the wealthy, becoming serfs, or escaping to the hills as bandits. Is that what we want?

Stories Win Nations

"Job creators" are being unfairly attacked, their money stolen from them: there are only two kinds of people in the world, producers and users, or parasites.

Parasites control governments everywhere and legally steal from producers, through taxes: governments are intrinsically parasitic. Governments produce nothing; they suck blood out of those who do. If there were no governments, merely security forces to protect property, then free enterprise would truly flourish.

That's why conservatives support tax cuts for the wealthy, and cuts in services for everyone else; they tell each other the above story: it all makes sense. Ayn Rand makes heroes of supposed producers, and villains of anyone who doesn't "produce." Roman Senators thought like that.

The villains are ordinary people, especially those who have the temerity to think they should be paid decently; they support unions because they're greedy and lazy. Roman elites felt that way about slaves. Also, governments unfairly penalize producers by caving into the mob--like weak Roman Emperors.

Unions, of course, are just gangsters, gangs to rip off the honest man's sweat, for which he worked so hard--on his telephone all day! That's why union busting, even with baseball bats and armed guards, is justified.

Paul Ryan is a Randist, apparently. It's likely Ron and Rand Paul are, too. And many tea partiers. Ayn Rand's story (above) doesn't really make sense, but that doesn't matter, it's a framework for the emerging GOP worldview; it makes emotional sense to them.

What doesn't make sense? First, if all but the few are producers, then, workers contribute nothing? What if the mighty entrepreneur hoards his money, pays his workers peanuts, and demands police repression to keep wages down? What if every hero entrepreneur acts likewise, in this perfect Randian world? Who will have the money to buy goods and services? Luxury markets do not a mass-market make. Secondly, if there is no government, who will provide collective goods like roads, rules of the market, standard measures, let alone security for everyone? (Governments do produce quite a lot, actually). Third, would everyone else agree to live in misery because they don't sit behind an Executive desk?

It doesn't matter to radical conservatives whether their arguments make sense. What matters is the story. It's surprising how persuasive it is to people whose interests are diametrically opposed.

The basic problem that progressives face is: they don't have a compelling story, not anymore. Progressives did have a story, a very compelling one, in the 1930's. It has been waning in strength ever since. The Great Recession didn't revive it, nor did Obama. Big business media won't revive it; it's "anti-business."

A spellbinding movie or novel might create a new story, or revive the old one--union solidarity defeats oppressive bosses; slaves rebel against cruel masters (Spartacus lost). Progressives need a story, badly, or we'll plunge headlong into something far worse than Rome's fall in 476.

Obama and Class War

In his deficit-cutting address Wednesday, Obama's approach to the Defense budget was vague, but at least he pointed to Defense as a large target for cuts that must be made, some by re-examining the mission and role of our military in a "changing world."

Here's an example of his problem: while the administration considers transferring some Egyptian aid from military to economic programs, "some lawmakers fear that would mean cutting sales of U.S. military hardware." [Just Foreign Policy 4/13]. When there's peace, we can't sell arms. That's one reason why the US sticks its nose in globally: to sell arms. Our adventures are not only investments in future arm sales; they are also driven by the defense industry's insatiable appetite for ever-larger Defense budgets.

The arms dynamic is hard to overcome, as our sudden involvement in Libya demonstrates. Our allies are urging a more active role on the US, after it stepped back, making way for Europeans to lead (and pay the costs). But they want us because our huge Defense budget gives us capabilities no one else can bring to bear--in Libya, or elsewhere.

As a Medicare recipient, I've always felt Medicare should negotiate drug prices, but Bush banned negotiated prices; pharmaceutical corporations charge Medicare outrageous prices because they can. Obama proposes allowing Medicare to negotiate prices as a deficit-cutting measure, a clever move. His vision to change the way providers are paid makes sense, too. Real deficit-cutters should like both reforms: they would cut the deficit considerably. Medicare was set up to be a financial train-wreck by Bush/Cheney's prescription drug and privatization schemes (Medicare Advantage programs, etc.).

Obama's deficit cutting approach is reassuring; his riposte to Republican Ryan's deficit-cutting budget proposal was pointed. He declared he'd never permit Ryan's proposed voucher-ization of Medicare.

Even more heartening was Obama's recognition that the wealthy have done well while others still suffer, and they owe it to the nation to make a proportionally greater contribution (through tax hikes), to enable necessary services and investments in the future. The tax cuts proposed by Ryan, he noted, would take from those who needed help and give to those who didn't: not the kind of America Obama (or I) believe in.

Did Obama blame Wall Street? No, but his DOJ is simultaneously pursuing mortgage fraud by Goldman, JP Morgan, Washington Mutual and others--even possible criminal prosecution.

Obama claimed his proposal would cut $4 trillion from the debt--as much as Ryan, but with high-end tax increases, not draconian slashes to services and tax cuts for the wealthy.

It's class war part II. Who will prevail: the new Roman Senators, billionaires like the Koch brothers, represented by Republicans, or Obama, now representing ordinary people? It's a classic choice: Obama's way maintains democracy; Ryan's would usher in something comparable to Rome's last years, with Senators dominant and everyone else impoverished and powerless.

Taxes and Class War

When Republicans insist and some reluctant Democrats agree: we have to cut the deficit and slow the rise in the debt, they look in the wrong direction, on purpose. Certainly, the US is the largest debtor in (and to) the world, and our debt continues to rise, increasingly to Japan and China.

The Republicans' budget guru, Congressman Paul Ryan, wants to cut $6 trillion from government spending in the next ten years--and also cut $4 trillion in taxes to corporations and high-income earners! It becomes more clearly class war when you see his targets for cutting spending: programs that benefit the poor, like education, Medicare and Food Stamps, programs and tax loopholes that benefit the shrinking "middle class," including Medicare, Social Security and mortgage and state income tax deductions. He wants these cuts, and more, to pay for the tax cuts.

The US is a relatively lightly taxed nation, especially for high-income earners and corporations. While conservatives cite the 35% corporate tax rate as the highest in the developed world, two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes, and few pay the full 35%, because of all the loopholes for which they've lobbied strenuously. The total tax breaks for corporations has been estimated to cost $660 billion in the next five years. Further, most high-income earners don't pay much of their taxes at the highest rate (cut by W and continued with Obama's reluctant signature in the tax deal last December). CEO's and other wealthy people earn most of their income in capital gains or dividends, taxed at 15%, about half the rate of "earned income." There are hedge fund directors who earn billions a year, and pay only at the 15% rate; they are hardly over-taxed.

We need to solve our deficit and debt problem by raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations and by re-configuring our defense, bringing most of our troops home, shrinking our forces, and recognizing that we can't afford to police the world. Those two measures alone would more than solve our deficit and debt problem, if we also allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices as well as streamline its operations, as planned in the Health Care reform act.

We need to change the conversation. Our income tax is hardly progressive, and overall, our tax system takes more from the poor and middle class than it does from the wealthy. Our tax system hasn't yet become as cruelly inequitable as the Roman system in which the wealthy paid almost nothing and everyone else paid oppressively high taxes, or sold themselves into serfdom. But that's the direction in which Republicans like Paul Ryan want to go. Some Democrats are bought off, because billionaires have a lot of money. Some Democrats don't have a clue. And liberals like Feingold have been driven out by just some of the big boys' money, leading all politicians to draw their own conclusions.

Do ordinary people stand a chance?

Noblesse Oblige

There used to be such a thing as noblesse oblige. I've heard people argue that FDR was its epitome. He was a slightly downwardly mobile aristocrat (they were spending "principle," not just income, FDR lamented). He found empathy for the people out there suffering in the Great Depression, possibly because of his own sudden disability from polio.

Noblesse Oblige makes sense for the elite, FDR argued, although most of his own class disagreed. His argument, the argument of the intellectuals of the New Deal, makes sense today: unless you moderate the extremes of income, unless you make sure the needy are taken care of and unless you ensure that more and more have the opportunity to make something of themselves, you will either have revolution, or fascism. Democracy will die, or be destroyed.

Of course, in the 1930's it was easy to see the alternatives: the USSR and the 1000-year Reich. Today, the elite feel falsely secure: there is no alternative. Communism is dead and Fascism is invisible. Maybe this is what Capitalism Triumphant looks like.

The Nobel economist, Joseph Stiglitz, points out that when a society becomes as unequal as ours, when 1% rule and gain more and more of its wealth--the US today--there is a loss of community. The elite have less and less in common with the lower classes, and reject any need to help them even when they are in dire economic straits. They cut funds to services, which don't serve the elite, like public libraries, Head Start, even Food Stamps and unemployment insurance. And they cut taxes on themselves. After all, it's their money.

The US has a myth of a classless/middle class, mobile society that never really existed; it's now, by income and wealth, the most class stratified of any developed country. Our politics shows that.

While cutting everything else, the elite support the military. Their children won't serve in it, but they can make money on all our military adventures; it's good for business.

The GOP represents the elite rather faithfully, but a good number of Democrats represent them, too, due to bribes (campaign funds) and/or a common class. So far, there are very few like FDR, even among Democrats.

But FDR's argument is relevant: without real reform--and government helping people in need--by creating jobs, for example--the chances for radical revolution increase exponentially. Revolution could be either of the right or of the left, but the elite ultimately lost even with the right-wing totalitarian dictatorships they favored in the past.

Yet, clearly, the GOP doesn't buy FDR's argument.

Most Democrats bought it long ago, but forgot about it.

Protests may be the only way to get even progressives to remember--and act, despite their Wall Street supporters. Otherwise, we'll end up serfs or slaves to the new Roman Senators--until there is an explosion: a Spartacan uprising, or a radical revolution.

Budget Insanity

How can Republicans believe that they'll win votes for "courage" to stand up to the poor on behalf of all those victimized rich guys? Unlike the Beatles' song, they seem to think that money can buy them love.

If Fox and corporations can spin this, then we have wholly entered into a corporate-run nation, in which only the CEO's and billionaires count--perhaps GOP activists will gain perks like the apparatchiks in the Soviet CP, or the higher ups in Germany's NSDAP. The rest of us just better keep our heads low, and work hard for our diminishing crusts of bread.

Congressman Ryan, the GOP budget boss, proposes draconian cuts to services, eventual privatization of Medicare at the likely expense to future seniors, and then proposes cutting high-end tax rates by a whopping 10%, while closing middle class loopholes like the mortgage deduction.

So, let's be clear about what he's proposing: take from the poor and middle class, who are hurting from this recession. Take from them some of the services that are enabling them to survive, take from them the loopholes that make middle class tax rates affordable, take from the people who are being thrown out of work, losing their homes--or, know they are at risk for one or both. Take from them the assurance that in their old age, their health care will be there for them.

What does this great subtraction buy? The first thing is tax cuts for the rich and corporations (almost half of which avoid paying any taxes). What will that buy? More speculation, not more jobs. The rich are already sitting on trillions of dollars; they are not investing in job creation--except possibly in places like China or Brazil.

A large enough cut in government spending to reduce the size of government, could also buy a renewed recession--unless we're lucky enough to have a real recovery before it takes effect.

Which brings us to the budget impasse on the 2011 budget: Boehner and his cohorts demand huge cuts, but they also demand programmatic cuts, like defunding NPR and Planned Parenthood. The programmatic cuts won't cut the deficit, so their argument for them is disingenuous. But the huge cuts to states, to services, to health care, to programs could be a recessionary strong right fist to the economy, especially since the tax cuts to everyone have only enabled unemployment to be pushed back a little; the elite aren't investing their gains in jobs; they're just expecting their workers to work harder--without unions, of course.

So, Ryan and Boehner, and those behind them, want to shove us on the economic path built by the late Roman Empire, in which a few own virtually everything, and everyone else is a slave or a serf.

It weakened Rome, too.

Beware Pentagon's Imperial Ambitions

An Undersecretary of Defense, Michele Flournoy, can undermine efforts by Obama and Clinton to initiate negotiations with the Taliban. She let slip on purpose that the Pentagon planned to continue Special Operations counter-terror missions in Afghanistan even after most troops withdraw in 2014, and would retain Bagram Air Base to support them.

One requirement of the Taliban, which is willing to negotiate, is that all foreign forces would leave in any final settlement.

Why does Obama countenance such self-serving, aggrandizing behavior by military spokespeople? So, now we're going to have bases and operations in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, after (most of) our troops have "left?"

Does no one in the Pentagon realize that we can't afford to garrison the world? Now we're expanding operations into Libya. While Obama may intend to limit the operation, to step back from US command to US-dominated NATO command of the Libyan intervention, it's likely the Pentagon will push for more money if Qaddafi continues to resist and his military makes mincemeat of the revolutionaries. We'll have to send in "advisors," "trainers," and weapons, of course.

Obama's rationale for intervention makes moral sense up to a point: to protect civilians. The US does have unique capabilities: to blow up Qaddafi's well-armed militias and artillery units, while never touching feet to the ground. Loyalist forces exhibit no compunction at brutalizing and massacring civilians along the way, so, literally, bombing tank units saves civilian lives.

On the other hand, what Undersecretary Flournoy demonstrates, is the Pentagon's insatiable appetite: for more bases, more operations, on into the future. Secretary Gates has made gestures towards cutting the Defense budget, but his underlings make sure that Defense's budget will keep on growing.

A dangerous world is profitable.

So, it is perfectly reasonable to worry that we'll get further drawn into Libya, and that ten years down the road we'll be holding onto bases in that country, even after we "withdraw."

However, something's happening that is cause for guarded optimism: conservative Republicans are beginning to question the unending spending lavished on the military, when they're struggling to find places to cut the Government budget. And conservative/libertarian Republicans are joining with progressive Democrats to question the Libyan adventure.

Why has it been axiomatic until now: cutting budget deficits requires slashing programs that help people who need help, while not touching the lavish Defense budget, which costs more than all other nations' defense budgets combined? Why, also, is there such muted discussion about the other side of the budget deficit: the lowered tax rates for the extremely wealthy, who not only could afford to pay more, but should, since they have gained virtually 100% of the profits from US productivity gains since 2000, and most from the gains accrued since 1980?

Just as in Rome in the 5th Century, it's the military and the super-rich who will bring us down. Maybe we shouldn't let them.

Political False Advertising

Radical Republicans won elections by claiming that they would create jobs. People in the US either fear losing their jobs, or don't have them at all (about 16% when "discouraged workers" and part-time workers are counted). Therefore, people thought they were voting rationally. But despite their rhetoric, the radical Republicans had a very different agenda: not job creation at all.

Of course, it's not just Republicans who do this. Back in 1964, I hurried back from Europe after the Army, because I felt I had to vote for LBJ to prevent the fire-breathing Goldwater from committing us to a "quagmire in the Asian jungles." That's what LBJ campaigned against. Once elected, he escalated the Vietnam War! This was despite LBJ's apparent belief (revealed posthumously) that the war was doomed. Luckily for me, I was never re-called. We then went on to elect Nixon, who claimed he had a "secret plan" to stop the war! He didn't.

In the current situation, we have Republican Congress-people, Senators, state legislators and Governors, who, once elected, have proceeded to carry out radical agendas that have nothing to do with creating jobs.

How does legalizing the murder of abortion providers create jobs? South Dakota legislators proposed this. How does direct state abolition and takeover of local municipalities create jobs? Michigan's new governor has proposed this. How does abolishing collective bargaining among public employees create jobs? Wisconsin's Senate passed this late one night, in a rump session; Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey and other states are in the process of passing similar laws.

How does redefining rape to require proof of violence create jobs? Congressional Republicans withdrew this proposal, but still want to pass more stringent anti-abortion laws. How does cutting spending on services for poor people, and for their children (like the cuts to food stamps and head start), create jobs? These are part of a campaign to bash the poor, the unions, and any government institution unpopular with conservatives. All have been promoted or passed in the US House, despite Democratic opposition. None create jobs; they destroy them.

The measure that began this process was extending the tax cut for those earning over $250,000, which passed in the post-election session of the last Congress. If the Republicans hadn't extorted that concession from Obama and Reid, there would be $600 billion more in revenue, reducing the need for budget cuts considerably.

Their fiscal austerity costs jobs; it doesn't create them. Further, the moneyed won't hire because of lower taxes; they will hire when there is demand for their products or services. Even then, they might hire in China or Vietnam, not the US. They're rolling in money, anyway: they've stolen virtually all of America's productivity gains for themselves since the 1980's.

Justice would demand a fair share returned, but monopolists are like the Roman Senators of the Fifth Century, (when Rome fell): they want it all--and they think they've purchased it--with their new governments.

Libyan Dilemma

Libya is a progressive's dilemma: the arguments in favor of intervention are humanitarian, but nothing is clear, including the goals of the intervention. The UN Security Council endorsed all actions to protect civilians--presumably from their murderous ruler--yet there is no mandate for ousting Qaddafi.

So, the mission, lobbied for by some of the revolutionaries and Sarkozy, and reluctantly agreed to by Obama and others, is vague and easily expandable. On the other hand, there is clearly a need to stop the megalomaniac from massacring his own people.

In terms of Obama's assertion of Presidential power, I deplore its arbitrary exercise, but Clinton did it and so did W. At least Obama did it multilaterally and urged the Europeans to lead. That the US has to do the initial heavy lifting demonstrates that we're the only nation stupid enough to invest in so much war-making capability. Worse is that there is no real exit agreed to, and the Libyan opposition seems to be a feckless lot that any professional military would sneer at.

I share Friedman's worry that Libya is no nation, but a collection of tribes that could murder each other for generations--just like Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Bahrain. So, will that mean that the US and its European allies will be bogged down in another civil war?

We can't afford it.

What Libya demonstrates most of all, is the danger of a budget and a war machine that's good for little else. Money drives both sides. Qaddafi reportedly didn't invest in his army (he didn't trust it), but in his loyal tribal militias and mercenary forces; he airlifted the latter from operations elsewhere. Money also drives the initial US leadership of the intervention: we have a plethora of the weapon systems needed and the skills to use them, paid for by huge Defense budgets like the approximately $750 billion allocated this year.

Trouble is what the empire buys with all this money. Probably, without international intervention, Qaddafi would have prevailed; he would have unleashed terror on his opponents. Possibly more would die than will die from the intervention. But it's not clear that the intervention will prevent Qaddafi's homicidal repression in large swathes of Libya, unless the intervening powers insert "boots on the ground."

By opposing Qaddafi with weapons, the rebels gave him the advantage. Qaddafi relies on elite militias and mercenaries: only if they defect, would armed revolutionaries gain the advantage. If, like the Egyptian rebels, Libyans continued non-violent resistance, they would have been more morally persuasive than the feckless armed volunteers, who run from tanks and artillery. If Libya were more of a nation, nonviolent protest would have united them as it did in Egypt and Tunisia.

Empires on the way down get sucked into conflicts that bankrupt them. Libya may be another one of these.

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.