Who Controls This "Democracy"?

Polls show that Americans want to preserve Medicare; they favor raising taxes on the "rich" and corporations, they want us out of Iraq and Afghanistan and at least a bare majority prefer cutting Defense spending to control the budget.

Yet pundits, experts, politicians and decision-makers all propose the opposite: cut taxes on the wealthy, revamp or cut Medicare, urge Iraqis to keep American troops after 2012, and minimize any withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Among the in-crowd in Washington and the major media markets, the burning question of the day is: how to cut the deficit and the debt. Beyond the beltway, where most people live, the deficit isn't the problem: it's jobs.

Nine percent unemployment implies 91% employed, so most are still working--non-workers are not counted. Given declining demand driven by the double-dip housing market and the fall in demand for workers, a large proportion of those employed fear lay-offs and therefore put up with speed-ups, increased workloads, longer hours and stagnant wages. Further, unions are so weak they can't even keep their members' wages abreast of escalating costs of living.

But Republicans ignore the jobs issue, after using it to gain power in Congress in 2010: everyone they know is doing pretty well. Just ignore all that whining about jobs. Eliminate all social programs like Medicare, instead.

Obama is only marginally better.

The debate on alternative budgets demonstrates how skewed our public dialogue has become. It leaves out the only proposed budget to truly cut the deficit, reduce the debt and create jobs. Why is GOP Ryan's budget proposal considered the only serious alternative to Obama's? It would replace Medicare with vouchers and block grants for Medicaid, and wouldn't significantly cut deficits; it might actually raise them, because of Ryan's tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet, it's considered serious. Obama's budget freezes Federal pay, cuts Food stamps, finds savings in Medicare and Medicaid cut-backs and greater efficiencies in health care, and nominally cuts Defense. Obama doesn't raise taxes on the wealthy until after 2012, and he doesn't significantly cut the deficit, either.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus's budget raises income taxes and estate taxes for the top 1% of earners, on high-earners' payroll taxes and corporate taxes, while capital gains are taxed as ordinary income. It cuts healthcare costs through negotiating Medicare pharmaceutical prices, better management and by adding a public option. It cuts defense by bringing the troops home and shifting defense priorities. It also invests $1.66 trillion in job creation, infrastructure and alternative energy. Progressives claim they'd achieve a budget surplus of $30.7 billion by 2021.

So, why isn't it considered a "serious" alternative? Oh, it's only what the people want, but the public "debate" doesn't include what people want, only what the elite wants. They want to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense, like the Roman Senators in the Fifth Century. If they succeed, we'll have a declining empire, mass impoverishment and no democracy.

The World Map: Moral Decline of Empire

Amnesty's map is gray, so much of it, gray because people are arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, and/or dissenters are violently repressed. There are a few white spots; France, Germany, Spain. Ironically, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary. And then there's Canada, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Australia, New Zealand.

The US is gray, as is the UK, China, India, Russia and South Africa, most of Africa, Asia and more than half of Latin America. Yes, America is not an exceptional island of humanity and civil liberties. Bolivia is, and so is Uruguay.

Two years after Obama pledged to close Guantanamo, it's still open for business, still holding people without charges and without justification. And there are still reports of abusive treatment of prisoners. June 3, 2009, Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih succeeded in committing suicide, somehow, despite being on a suicide watch: he and five others had been force-fed through their noses for years.

And then, of course, there is Bradley Manning, who has been confined for almost a year now, has been held in solitary most of that time, with extreme isolation enforced (not even allowed to exercise in his cell, not even allowed clothes some of the time), yet he is still not charged--with anything! Many torture specialists say isolation like this is worse than physical torture; it melts the mind.

Until this spring, we also sent some of our detainees to Mubarak, have him overtly torture for us. Thanks, Hosni! Still, when the Egyptian Spring happened, we reluctantly climbed on and threw Hosni under the bus.

So, the US, even under Barack Obama, is no oasis of humanity. Canada is; Costa Rica is; Chile is; even Paraguay is, but it almost looks, when you look at this gray map of the world, that only minor nations, ones without imperial or regional ambitions--with the exception of France and Germany--can any longer "afford" to honor human rights.

Was there a time when an American President could truthfully say, "We don't torture," "We don't detain people arbitrarily?" FDR could boast the first, but not the second (the Japanese-American detainment camps), but after WWII we could boast both, with the possible exception of Vietnam, until George W. But now, still, with Obama, champion of human rights and peace, both practices are even admitted. Obama has drawn a line: excluding most direct physical torture, including water-boarding, but the treatment of Manning is on his watch, and it's torture, too: for an American citizen who has yet to be charged with a crime!

Such is the cost of Empire. Americans, struggling now to dominate the world, (remember Full Spectrum Dominance?) are now so insecure we have to torture our own to insure our "security." We have to give up our rights and allow our leaders to imprison and torture us arbitrarily (oh, there are rules and regs about how to do it, but still it's arbitrary).

This is life in the American Empire, in its rapid decline.

The Predator Class

The Senators of the Late Roman Empire stole wealth from everyone: the peasants, the middle class, the Emperor and the army, by avoiding taxes, sheltering those who couldn't pay, then enslaving them, and engineering corrupt deals with the army and the government.

Our selfish class has escalated the plunder of the rest of us to an order of magnitude that makes Roman Senators look like petty criminals in comparison.

Fraud permeated the housing market that collapsed in 2007-8; it was endemic at every level. But, the profits and risk escalated with each additional layer of resold, insured, sliced, repackaged, resold "mortgage securities." And where did the original money come from, the funds that underlay this whole wobbly house of cards? Mortgage payments, an increasing number of which were either sub-prime or of questionable soundness, with their fraudulent enticements of low starter rates and escalating payments, no money down but higher and higher interest rates.

The money that underpinned the great mortgage bubble came from the poor, and working middle class. Through bank swindles on those loans, the people were tossed out of their homes and the banks were left holding huge numbers of foreclosed properties.

This wasn't a great deal for the banks, initially, but before the crash, it transferred billions of dollars from the poor and near poor to the very, very rich. In the bailouts, the government handed the banks billions more, so that even if they were left holding hundreds of thousands of homes they couldn't sell, they were able to resume their speculation and create huge profits, mostly out of thin air--and made-up money.

As for the people thrown out of their homes, in many cases for clearly fraudulent reasons, they had nowhere to go. So, the collapse of the housing market, and of the financial system, threw millions out of work. But the so-called stimulus that was supposed to promote job creation--the green jobs touted by candidate Obama--was much too small, due to political timidity, to do much more than keep employment from falling off a cliff. It stabilized unemployment at below 10%. Since, it has slowly crept down to 9% or slightly lower (not counting discouraged workers).

Meanwhile, the bailed-out banks are profiting hugely, in the still largely unregulated financial markets. Corporations are posting huge profits, too, but hiring is very slow: employers would rather squeeze as much as they can out of existing employees.

As if to underline their client status to the banks and corporations, Republicans consistently advocate cutting corporate and high-earner taxes, while bewailing the huge debts incurred from similar tax cuts they adopted previously, and from their unfunded wars. To make up the difference, they propose draconian cuts to entitlements (running surpluses, so far) and to all programs serving anyone not rich.

Debtors prison has already resurfaced: will Republicans try to legalize serfdom next?

Should Dems Compromise Or Fight?

Republicans have thrown down the gauntlet: Ryan's proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program, and Medicaid into a block grant essentially eliminates both popular programs. Earlier, Republicans forced the tax giveaway to millionaires by extending all Bush's tax cuts. Now, they seem to think that Obama and the Democrats will cave before their demands on the debt ceiling negotiations: for huge program cuts in any programs serving the poor, like food stamps, or the middle class, like the mortgage tax deduction, in order to cut taxes on the wealthy even more. In Texas, Republicans debate a major tax cut for yacht owners.

If the Republicans are intransigent, Obama and the Democrats should demonstrate that they attempted reasonable compromise, but Republicans refused, demanding only capitulation.

Ultimately, Republican sponsors, the financial firms and large corporations, will force the hardliners to blink: they don't want the US to default, either.

Democrats should not give up their principles, or let down their constituents, many of whom depend on governments for their livelihood or safety.

Where do these conservative ideas come from, which demand that Texas cut its budget by about a quarter ($23 billion), to meet its shortfall, at the expense of its children (and its future), while not raising taxes on corporations, or millionaires and billionaires by one cent--and cutting taxes on yachts? Even worse is the spectacle of Florida's Rick Scott, who simultaneously lowered "business" taxes by billions, to be paid for by corresponding billions of cuts in education and unemployment compensation.

In other words, to Republicans, people don't matter, unless they're worth millions or billions. Teachers are overpaid, they argue, and unemployment insurance just encourages laziness.

And what do corporations, millionaires and billionaires do with all this wealth for which they've avoided paying taxes? They speculate, or they buy more "property," or collect ancient coins, or gold bars. Corporations have used their profits to go private, by buying up their outstanding stocks at premium prices. Until this last quarter, they hardly spent any of their excess cash on "creating jobs," except in other parts of the world.

Kathy Hochul, a progressive Democrat, just won a special election for Congress in an upstate New York district that's about as Republican as Nebraska. She won nearly a majority, despite having three opponents, including a Tea Party candidate on the far right, a Republican who dutifully followed the party line on eliminating Medicare, and a Green candidate on the left.

Clearly, Newt was onto something when he backed away from Ryan's Medicare plan, but Republican hard-liners made him eat crow.

Maybe there's hope yet that the great muddled middle will understand that corporatists are not their friends: they represent what I've called "the selfish class" (on this website); supporting them will kill any possibility of democracy, or of a viable middle class. Their way will lead us to our own "476."

Schneiderman for President

We need leaders like Eric Schneiderman, because he's willing to pursue the big banks for driving us into the Great Recession.

I do mean that. The banks created the Great Recession. People were thrown out of work; people were thrown out of their homes, because big banks played such high-stakes fraud with all the nation's mortgages. They sliced them and diced them, sold them and resold them, and cut a lot of corners when they did all this, starting with the higher than usual number of fraudulent mortgages on which these securities were based.

Unemployment still has barely fallen to an official 9%, or a real 16%, the wave of foreclosures on homes seems unending, and is about to get even worse, now that "the paperwork" has been cleared up. Ordinary people are hurting, but it's because of the insane gambling by the banks, with depositors money, their money and money the Fed, a quasi-government entity, virtually gave to them, through extremely low cost loans.

When the banks were in danger of going bankrupt, the Government and the Fed offered $700 billion to bail them out with TARP, and then gave them extraordinary access to virtually costless money from the Fed. The program worked --for the banks and bankers. They're having one of their best years, bonuses are higher than ever, profits are soaring--

But we still have 9-16% unemployment, and we still have a sinking housing market, with millions of people ejected from their homes. During normal times, construction jobs are relatively plentiful. Now they are not; housing starts have fallen off a cliff.

All of this started because the wise-asses at places like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan thought they could play fast and loose with everybody's money. They thought they couldn't lose: until they did, beginning in mid-2007, when the bottom almost fell out of the whole global financial system, and it was because of their reckless behavior.

So far, no one has gone after the banks even for the fraud. I think they're responsible for much more, but at least the fraud has been documented. Still, neither Obama's DOJ, nor the 50 states attorneys general in their suit, have pursued the banks' massive fraud, even though it dwarfs any financial crime in history. That is, until now.

Enter Eric Schneiderman, New York's progressive Attorney General: he's going after Goldman, JP Morgan and Bank of America! I voted for him twice (first, in a five-way primary). The man's been busy in his first year: going after tobacco companies, Medicare fraud, corruption in state contracts, but now? Schneiderman has spurned the "deal" other AG's are negotiating. Instead, he's demanding documentation on the mortgage securitization that destroyed the housing market: he's looking for fraud. Finally, someone is!

Alert to Roman Senators! Slip some coke in Schneiderman's suit-coat; get a pimp to hook him! Your predatory schemes are suddenly at risk!

Medicare Voucher Madness

"Conservatives" persist in saying Medicare has to go! These guys really believe their own lies, the biggest one being that Medicare and Social Security cause the deficit.

An article by John Cogan in the Wall Street Journal (5/12/11), lays out what Republicans are trying to do: persuade us that for our own good, we just can't afford what we've been promised.

What we've been promised, Cogan claims, is an average of a million dollars per couple in combined benefits, while we've only paid in an average of $500,000. He doesn't bother to mention that the latter figure is dollars in the past, and the million is dollars in the future, i.e. inflated dollars with earned, compound interest.

It's true that Medicare was set up for fiscal disaster; that was done quite cynically by Republicans, with Bush's expansion into Medicare Part D, covering prescriptions, and overpaying insurance companies to participate in Medicare Advantage programs, without providing additional funding. Medicare still cannot negotiate drug prices, under the reform law, because big Pharma found enough Democrats, as well as solid Republican support, to block it.

Republican Ryan was touted, briefly, as "courageous" for daring to call for phasing out Medicare for private insurance vouchers, until he and his cohorts went to their districts and attempted to explain his plan. Then reality hit the fan. People don't believe their lies, or simply don't accept their conclusions: they don't want vouchers; they want Medicare.

And still, "pundits" opine that we can't afford Medicare, and Republican candidates must support Ryan's plan: Gingrich was almost disowned for opposing it.

Almost all other 'developed' nations have publicly provided, or heavily subsidized healthcare, not only for seniors, but for everyone. Their health outcomes are better than ours, yet they cost less, in some cases less than half what Americans pay.

So, why can't the United States, supposedly the richest, most powerful nation on earth, afford health care even for seniors, and retirements as generous as those of other 'developed' nations?

Because we have to spend so much on Defense, or on billionaires?

Let's be clear: Medicare was created because health care for an older person was too expensive for private insurance. Seniors do need more health care; age breaks down our bodies, although, because of superior medical care, more live longer than in past eras. Most seniors, including me, would be excluded from standard health insurance programs, because of "pre-existing conditions." So, our premiums would be sky high, our vouchers would pay only a portion of our real costs, and there is no way that the "magic of the market" would somehow make healthcare affordable.

Medicare replaced by vouchers? I know I'd be bankrupted by it, yet I'm pretty healthy.

But that's the idea: impoverish seniors: one more cohort to turn into serfs, so the new Roman Senators can have more money to play with in the money markets.

The US a Slum for the World's Wealthy

"…we're where Europe comes to slum--in the low-wage factories of the South and the run-down houses of South Los Angeles." LA Times editorial, 5/15/2011

It wasn't always this way. The United States, after World War II, modeled high wage, highly skilled union workers, producing goods for the world, and living well while doing so.

When the US occupied Germany and Japan after World War II, our government exported the highly unionized American model. Part of our rationale was that unions would foster democracy, thereby combating Japanese fascism and German Nazism. Unions would also improve lives, giving them a stake in postwar governments. Today, Germany runs a trade surplus: Germans earn high wages, work shorter hours, have long vacations and are relatively highly unionized (27% vs 9.6% in the US private sector).

And the US? Wages have at best stayed where they were in the early 1970's, while productivity has doubled. Work hours are longer in the US, and vacations get shorter. Meanwhile, our buying power erodes, and we have the priciest, least effective health care system among developed nations. Further, there are US states where unions are so scarce and so scared (like North Carolina: 3.2%) that workers effectively compete with the Chinese for lowest cost manufacturing sites. High unemployment drives down costs further.

The US competes with China for low cost work, while running huge deficits and cutting benefits. China has the largest surplus, but Germany sells high wage goods, and has the second largest surplus in the world; it even keeps its social democratic benefits largely intact under a "conservative" government!

Whether Germany will continue to do so well as union membership declines, is an open question, but greater union clout still makes a political difference. German firms setting up shop in the US, however, (mostly in the South) keep unions out and enforce work conditions unthinkable in Germany. Also, in the US, Deutsche Bank perpetrated mortgage rip-offs it could never have gotten away with in Germany.

All the American talk of cutting deficits and debts is a diversion. We're a mine of money for predatory capitalists the world over; we're also the center of predatory capital on Wall Street.

In the past 30 years, the US has almost done away with its New Deal legacy; coincidentally, unions have been losing ground since Reagan and regulations were stripped from financial institutions--freeing them to fail so spectacularly in 2007-8.

And who pays? Not the banks, not large corporations: everyone else, but especially our children and anyone dependent on government services: ultimately, anyone who is not wealthy.

America is so like Rome before its fall, when Senators governed in their own interests. They drove the peasants and middle class into serfdom, and monopolized the empire's wealth, laying it open to collapse, and, ironically in retrospect, to piecemeal takeover by Germanic invaders.

Osama bin Laden Wasn't Killed?

I know people who think the bin Laden assassination was a hoax, otherwise, they argue, why did the Seals ditch the body at sea?

The answer is probably two-fold: it was the Navy Seals, after all, which provided the muscle for the operation. But probably more importantly, a burial at sea, while it can be scrupulously correct in Islamic ritual--reportedly it was--also disposed of the body without thereby creating a martyr's shrine.

That's important on the Indian subcontinent: veneration of a martyr's grave, that becomes a shrine for a saint, in Islam, or an altar to a local god, in Hinduism, has a long and bloody history. Better, people have no specific place for pilgrimage--except the mansion in Abbotabad; that can't be avoided.

In the fifth century, people speculated that Attila didn't die, because he was buried in a secret grave beneath the river Tisza. All the captives who worked to divert the river, and to dig the grave, were summarily executed. Attila as Told to His Scribes on this site.

We've read or heard stories of Jesus's resurrection, or, in the case of Kazantzakis, succumbing to the temptation not to be crucified, and going on, living his life anonymously, somewhere else. There is also Elizabeth Cunningham's Passion of Mary Magdalen, in which Jesus rises again: Cunningham claims: "Maeve put the erection back into the resurrection."

Wait for it: Osama bin Laden will rise again.

What about the legality of the President ordering the assassination of someone who has publicly declared himself an enemy, and boasts that he's attacked us? It's probably stretching the elastic limits of Presidential authority as Commander in Chief, but unfortunately, there are precedents, at least since Wilson, and certainly since Kennedy. JFK apparently approved plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. His own assassination might very well have been blow-back. Lee Harvey Oswald had earlier defected to the USSR and later defended the Cuban Revolution.

The unreal world of government covert action and anti-government terror is a game that supposedly grown people play. Presidents are advised that they must, that it's their responsibility to Protect and Defend, that these super-secret operations are absolutely necessary.

And so, President Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, acted as judge, jury and Commander of the executioner.

If Obama had ordered bin Laden's capture, instead of murder, bin Laden's trial might have become a cause célèbre worldwide, and al Qaeda would have exploited it--to recruit more suicide bombers. Any dispassionate coverage of the trial would have infuriated true believers.

I suspect there is another, simpler reason why bin Laden was killed in the raid: Navy Seals, especially special units like the one which carried out the raid in Abbotabad, are probably trained to kill, not to capture.

Anyway, enough people, including Republican Congressmen, saw the gruesome photos of bin Laden, that we can be sure: he's dead.

Crime and Revolution

Egyptian police are demoralized, according to the New York Times (5/13/11) and a crime wave has swept through the country. People blame the chaos on the revolution.

When you release pressure from a pressure cooker, there's a SWOOF, as air escapes in a rush. Egypt was under authoritarian rule analogous to a pressure cooker. When Mubarak was overthrown, not only human rights workers but also criminals escaped from jails: about two-thirds have been recaptured. However, the police literally don't know what to do, because they were trained for an authoritarian regime and their abuses were exposed (torture and corruption were routine).

Since the US sends billions in aid to Egypt, it's obvious what we should spend it on: re-training the remaining police and training new recruits in democratic procedures (there's a shortage of police; many fled during the Tahrir uprising).

Change causes unforeseen consequences. Unless there is a rational response, there will be an irrational one: reinstitute a dictatorship to re-establish order.

This happened in Russia. The transitional democratic system fell because of terror from the Chechen civil war, and the outrageous corruption of the transition from the Soviet's managed economy to a "free market system." Corruption, fear and Russia's history of powerful rulers, helped create the Putin/Medvedev authoritarian model.

The same thing happened in the late western Roman Empire: chaos (lasting almost a century), led to Diocletian (284-305) creating a totalitarian regime; it limped into the fifth century before it gave up the ghost--to more primitive monarchies first set up by the Goths.

Democracies are messy, as the American experience amply demonstrates, but they are ultimately less fragile; mistakes and disasters call for changes through elections, not complete upheaval. The advantage is that institutions like the police are not destroyed, although they may be reformed, if they have been abusing their power.

It took the French from 1789 to the 1950's, over 150 years, before a stable democratic political system was finally established. Why? The Bourbon regime was disastrous, but the radical revolution overthrowing it was absolute and horrific. Institutions were abolished; new ones started from scratch, while the animosities created by the ensuing regimes took generations to neutralize.

In other words, upheaval, of the wholesale kind, taking place throughout the Middle East, causes many unwelcome changes. It may be a long time before things settle down, but there are ways to promote stability.

Institution building is key. Whether a nation had a poorly functioning police force, or none at all, it needs a force that keeps the peace, is not corrupt, and does not abuse its citizens. Aid to create such institutions, and a civilian-led military, could be much more effective than billions for sophisticated weapons. That's what the US should be doing in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well, instead of occupying them.

Up Against the Wall?

Aren't we all!

Actually, some people are doing very well, thank you-and they want to keep it that way.

Do they worry about $4+ a gallon gas? Of course not. Do they worry that they can't afford to heat their home in the winter? Why should they? Heating bills are nothing, besides, The real question is: Tahiti or Crete? As for oil, they hope it goes higher--they own Exxon, or maybe StatOil: their dividends would rise even more.

A lot of people if they have substantial commutes and substandard wages, worry about $4 gas. Anyone in the northeast, who owns a home and lives near the edge of their income (most people), will worry about heating costs after a winter like the one we just survived.

Yet some people build huge houses: 40,000 square feet or more, and could care less if they cost a lot to heat. If they're also environmentally minded, they might install a geothermal/solar system, and never concern themselves about fuel costs again.

But the rest of us? I'm lucky to have a ready, sustainable supply of firewood, but I'm 72, so I don't expect to be able to get it myself too many winters longer. A lot of people turn their thermostats far below what's comfortable. And some are just cut off. Our power company was nasty when an old, transferred account was overdue.

And then there are the millions who have lost their homes, or are in danger of doing so: underwater, foreclosed, evicted.

The banksters, however, make out like bandits. They financed mortgages they knew were poor risks, made more so by the supercharged costs, and then sold them, over and over again. Their loans were fraudulent, the economy tumbled when their whole house of cards collapsed--and then Bush, succeeded by Obama, bailed them out.

Trillions for banksters, not enough billions for everyone else. The consequences: huge bonuses on Wall Street, soaring corporate profits, but continuing high unemployment and waves of mortgage defaults. The high joblessness keeps wages down, an advantage for any employer, which is why corporate clients--including virtually all Republican Representatives and Senators and many Democrats as well--scream about deficits and debts, but not about jobs, or middle class homes going into default.

Joblessness, and home foreclosures transfer trillions to the perpetrators of this whole scam, especially banks: joblessness keeps wages down, favoring employers, especially large ones, especially ones fending off unionization. Meanwhile, home foreclosures concentrate wealth in financial institutions.

This slow recovery, if it is a recovery, is what the elite prefer; it's why they press for cutting spending, while cutting their taxes. Profits are up and wages are down, so they have increasing power. Cut Food-stamps, public education, heating subsidies: the wealthy don't need them.

Soon, we'll be like Roman Senators and their serfs, but even now, the wealthy get more, and everyone else tries to make do with less.

So, the Wicked Witch is Dead?

Let's notice: Osama bin Laden was not killed in a conventional military operation, and no conventional American or NATO forces are in Pakistan, nor was it a drone attack.

Many opposing war in Afghanistan have advocated tactics like the assault on Abbotabad. I have. It was a military maneuver, to be sure, but it was the kind of action that police forces also do: swooping in on helicopters to take a criminal head of a crime family, which is really what Osama was. Further, the intelligence, while more sophisticated than most police forces, was similar to good detective work.

Meanwhile, we've spent over $1.5 trillion on two wars to "destroy" the terrorists, but covert operations and police work have been the most effective. The question therefore arises: why are 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan?

Why don't we boost our Special Operations forces, and our CIA covert ops, use the kind of surveillance that pinpointed bin Laden's hiding place, and withdraw our troops from a fruitless Afghan war? Even Karzai wants us to go, and there are indications that some Taliban are willing to negotiate: they know they can't win, but we can't either.

Our goal in Afghanistan was to "destroy al Qaeda," but most of its operatives are elsewhere, and we got its honcho in Pakistan, not with full-scale military action, but with covert police action.

AQ is "hiding in plain sight" in Pakistan, in Yemen, and probably in other places. Covert action like the assault in Abbotabad makes sense against a movement like the formless, territory-less al Qaeda.

The Taliban is not the same thing: it's confined to Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, and is largely a Pashtun movement, aiming at Pashtun control of Afghanistan, or southern Afghanistan and the western tribal areas in Pakistan. It does not threaten the US--unless we're in Afghanistan.

The problem is: the US military doesn't want to forego an expensive war, or a foothold in central Asia. Further, we have clients there who don't want us to leave: they make billions on us. There's also a pipeline route.

Osama bin Laden has already accomplished a good part of his agenda: to bankrupt the world's superpower, and to terrorize us into doing away with a significant part of our freedoms: a beacon for Muslims as well as other peoples.

Our military in Afghanistan results in many civilian casualties, even if more of them are at the hands of the Taliban. Even our reluctant client, President Karzai, says we should leave. Further, our counter-productive actions drive Afghans into the arms of the Taliban--young men whose family-members are killed in poorly targeted attacks on their compounds, or on mistaken bombing raids, or when fathers are summarily hauled off to prison at Bagram.

But will an Empire withdraw before it's defeated? Osama's assassination would give us the excuse.

Jobs, Quantitative Easing and a Capital Strike

Americans elected a Republican House because Democrats let them down, especially on creating jobs. Yet, Republicans think you can make more jobs by radically cutting Government spending, especially for the poor. That hasn't worked for the Tories in Britain, and it makes no sense: there is too little demand for new jobs, already; cutting spending reduces the demand further.

The absence of a strong fiscal policy is at the heart of the problem.

Bernanke began the Fed's Quantitative Easing II (QE 2) as a monetary substitute for the stimulus and job creation the Government should have been doing; QE2 will be completed in June. The Fed will have injected $600 billion in new money into the economy, but unemployment is only slightly lower. The more direct effects are: the stock market has been toying with a 13,000 Dow, and corporations have been meeting and beating profit expectations. The flood of money helped drive gold and silver to historic highs, oil to over $113/barrel; food and other commodity prices are soaring.

QE2 may have driven some of these price hikes through speculation, but hiring was only weakly boosted, and with QE2 ending soon, official unemployment is only a shade under 9%.

The Fed could face a capital strike if it attempted more. It's maintaining interest rates at historic lows, and Bernanke claims inflation will remain low, or even go lower. With S&P threatening to downgrade US debt ratings, with the Street clamoring against monetizing the debt, and Paul Ryan chairing the House Budget Committee, the Fed is unlikely to do more.

QE2 could only accomplish so much, anyway. Bernanke implied at its inception that he preferred a rational Government fiscal policy. QE2 was adopted because it was unlikely Obama and House Republicans would be able to reach an agreement to stimulate the economy.

Instead, we face stalemate. Radical Republicans demand the cuts outlined by Congressman Ryan and more. Speaker Boehner already faced difficulty corralling votes for the 2011 budget compromise. Democrats know they'll lose their base if they cave further to Republican demands. What is needed is what Obama and the Democrats didn't have the courage, or votes in the Senate, to push through in 2009-10: a real jobs bill, and a real takeover of the housing mortgage mess.

Will we hang on until 2013? With no jobs program, only the payroll tax stimulus, and housing markets falling further? Would corporations hire more, with falling demand for goods? Would banks resolve their mortgage mess: admit their fraud and losses? Dream on!

A deadlock on the debt could slam us into a Depression, and a likely Republican takeover. They favor putting corporations in control, much like the monopoly of power held by the Senatorial class of the late Roman Empire. Americans would be reduced to surplus labor, competing with low-wage workers worldwide.

Maybe we'll get bread and circuses?

The Trouble with Royal Weddings

Royal weddings excite the masses, even in this long-lost colony, and even the classes. A surprising number have a craving for pomp and circumstance, and the homey, back-of-the-house type glimpses of the Royals, themselves.

Royal weddings leave me cold, royal gossip does not interest me in the slightest. However, royal weddings, royal this's and royal that’s's do play important political roles.

For example, as style-setters, royal weddings promote the "wedding industry," which pushes cookie-cutter weddings that are way too expensive for most young couples, or their usually strapped parents. The extravagance of the royal wedding this Friday will be recreated thousands of times in imitation over the next few years. And Americans, as well as Brits, Canadians and so on, will want to emulate the winsome couple--to the distress of their bank accounts, which are nowhere near as substantial as Prince William's.

The British Royals are very wealthy, very upper-caste, very white and pretty boring--on purpose, now, after Diana. Their lifestyle is not one most people can afford, but people want to emulate it. To me, that's unfortunate. One example of this unconscious emulation are the sweeping lawns in suburbs and exurbs here--no one mowed lawns until they got a gander at the aristocratic piles in Britain, with broad sweeps of what the British called "shaved grass." Those expanses, and the aped expanses here (where a man sits on a $5000 mower and mows for hours), are simply extravagance, lands that could be used for pasture, vegetables or allowed to grow wild. At Buckingham Palace, goes the story, an admiring American tourist asked a gardener, "How do you grow such a beautiful lawn?" The answer: "Oh, it's easy, Sir. Just keep mowing it for 300 years." I should add: English rain probably helps a lot, too: lawns in Britain, maybe, but in Arizona?

The left wing of the Labour Party wanted to abolish the monarchy until recently. The royals, they argued, epitomize the old class system in which a few are extremely wealthy and the rest may even be poor, but are grateful to the few for their spectacle. Monarchy popularizes a retrograde class system.

My daughter got married on April Fools; she and her groom were married at his mother's smallish house, in the back yard--in costume. Family and friends pitched in to carve hors-d'oeuvres or arrange trays. Everyone wore zany costumes: I was a Roman Senator. I've been to many weddings--my wife, as interfaith minister, officiated at many--but this was the most fun and memorable I've seen. The wedding cost about $1,500.

Too bad Darshann and Peter couldn't be models, instead of Kate and William. A lot of young couples would avoid incurring huge debts. And the elites wouldn't be even more emboldened to act like British aristocracy--which modeled itself after Roman Senators.

The Newsletter Path to Riches

Let's say XXX is a "penny stock"promoted for the day. Promoted by online penny stock newsletter writers. Xxx went up from 1.12 to 1.46 in one day, because of the hype. If you invested $10,000 in Xxx on Monday, it would be worth over $13,035.71 on Tuesday. On Wednesday it went down again. Where is that money from small-time investors going?

Apparently, this speculation is raising money in $500,000 increments, for the man who is Xxx, a professional, who offers services to companies, as a company on the Over the Counter market; it's not clear that there is any more than one man in the company, but he's raised millions this way.

What kinds of services does this one-man company offer: contract advice with other companies, advising and facilitating offshore contracting, "to lower your costs," technology licensing and acquisitions of other companies, i.e. mergers.

Will Xxx rise tomorrow? One of the more revealing statements I've read on these penny newsletter sites is: "It rose to .01 before it fell back to .001, but it's set to rise even further this time."

What's going on here? I've been dabbling in this field for six months, even investing in some of the weightier "penny stocks" promoted; so far I've only lost a few hundred bucks. None of the stocks promoted have gained a dime; one has lost 77% of its value, another 47%. I did not invest in Xxx, but the second loser was a Chinese stock that collapsed when its CEO was caught fiddling the books. I didn't get the news--about the CEO--until too late.

I also invested in a silver mine, but right now, while silver goes through the roof, the mine shares lost 90 cents!

This is a game. The only people who win are either full-time gamblers (they call themselves day traders), or entrepreneurs who manipulate the market to raise money for themselves--or their companies.

But that's the point, isn’t it? They raise money for business enterprises. Small-time investors rush in to strike it rich with the next Microsoft, Google, or Facebook. It's the gamblers who make money on the boobs buying penny stocks to make their fortunes. The gamblers do play a role: they provide incentives to the hungry public, drawing in millions, billions of dollars from small-time investors, who are easily gulled.

But how else do you get rich when the producers of anything tangible, the actual producers, get little more than subsistence? "If the poor don't like being poor, then why don't they get rich?" asked a student in one of my classes. By investing in speculative stocks? It brings money out of the proverbial mattresses, into the hands of entrepreneurs, fiddling CEO's and speculators.

This is Late Capitalism; it's like the 'Late Roman Empire,' where all the gold flowed upward, into the hands of the predatory few.

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.