Ted Cruz, in the last Republican “debate,” explained how he was for “legal status” for illegal immigrants, but not amnesty, not citizenship.
That’s when he tipped the GOP’s real game on immigration. He had sponsored an amendment to the immigration bill that he knew was probably a poison pill, but in the debate he simply explained what the amendment would do: grant legal status, but ban citizenship to all illegal immigrants, regardless of reason or duration in the country—legal status after jumping through a series of hoops.
So, all the illegal immigrants throughout Texas should know: Ted Cruz is going to find a way to keep you from ever voting in the United States. This is stealing elections for the next generation. Republicans are a forward-thinking lot.
We all know so many other forms the Republicans have concocted to insure that they win elections, even if they get fewer votes.
First of all, they have all the voting restrictions being piled on, to insure against voter fraud, when it hardly ever existed, anywhere, except in cemeteries in Chicago in the 1960 election. I take it back: corrupt town and city governments bought votes: Heritage Foundation cites 300 cases. Voter ID laws wouldn’t remedy most of those abuses. But they would make it more difficult to vote, if you’re ‘one of those people.’
Voter ID laws proposed are legion, in 19 states they actually passed. Generally, they require that the voter have one of four official ID’s. The most common is a driver’s license, but a lot of poor people don’t drive, especially a lot of poor black people. Some states require a State issued ID. Again, the problem is that some can afford to make the trip to get one, easily, but others can’t afford it, period.
Other kinds of voter restrictions are for reducing early voting, especially early voting on weekends. Black churches had organized their parishioners to turn out on a Sunday, to vote. Can’t have that.
Like the simple 138 word amendment Cruz offered to the Immigration bill that failed in the last Democratic Senate, almost all these election restrictions have a common motive: restrict voters of color—there’s too damn many of them—so that decent white folks can continue to run things their way: the right way of course.
Some Republicans are so dead set at halting the influx of foreigners (with the exception of those with high skills), that they almost have to steal elections, legally, of course.
Gerrymandering congressional and state legislative districts when the GOP gained new majorities in states and Congress in 2010 and again in 2014, has been the most effective means of stealing elections since ol’ Jim Crow. Black and Latino votes are piled as closely together in districts as possible, through strange map configurations, while white majorities are assured in a majority of districts, again through the magical convolutions of Republican map writers.
Abacadabra! The US House of Representatives, and a majority of the nation’s state legislatures are now, apparently, solidly controlled by Republicans, although Democrats received more votes.
Another way to steal elections: a negative campaign gives advantage to the Republican by discouraging voters from turning out: Democratic voters, overwhelmingly.
Illegal theft of elections is also a distinct possibility, especially with the increasing use of computer/scanner technology and internet transmission. Stealing an election from a computer terminal would be a whole lot easier than dumping opposition ballots in the river, and substituting your own. It might even be difficult to know whether it’s happened, or not.
In the last elections there was little electronic fraud uncovered, or, at least, confirmed, but computerized alterations of the vote counts could be subtle algorithms that just alter enough, of a sample of votes, to change the outcome substantially enough that no recount makes sense.
This kind of election fraud might not even be partisan: it might be corporate. It is worrying, that, as voting becomes more dependent on technology, public elections become increasingly dependent on the private corporations that make the machines and their software. “Back doors” to the software that codes and calculates the vote have been found by hackers. But corporations processing the vote through their machinery may have a particular interest they can influence through manipulating the vote—against the candidate calling for their regulation, for example.
Billionaires and corporations are also stealing votes, by spending millions, possibly billions, to disinform, to persuade voters of their viewpoint and their preferred candidates, often through manipulation of data, falsification of facts and invective.
Even if a billionaire engages in none of the above, but still spends many millions of his own money, he is, in effect, trying to steal the election by buying it: because of his inordinate wealth. Buying something that is illegal to buy—unless you spend millions or billions, perhaps. Buying an election used to be called corrupt practices. Except, maybe no longer, in this new world confected by Justices Roberts and Scalia.
Just because it’s legal, doesn’t mean it isn’t stealing, only that we’ve legalized it.
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
The Richest, Most Powerful Nation
In the world.
We spent $672,879,000,000 on war-making in 2012 (we call it "Defense," and don't think about it). That may be why the Department of War became the Department of Defense--although there were bureaucratic reasons, as well. Anyway, we may be the most powerful militarily, but part of the reason for that is that we're somehow persuaded, year after year, to spend on "Defense" as much at least as the five next "most powerful" nations combined. But the most powerful nation cannot control the world.
It shouldn't try. We may be "the richest" nation, but we have a lot of poor people. Nevertheless, we'd rather spend money on military toys and warriors, than on helping to maintain people through unemployment insurance, who still cannot find jobs: there are far fewer jobs than job seekers.
Further, austerity's stupidity is causing disasters all over the world.
Tepid growth in the US compares to what austerity has done to nations like Greece and Spain--despite, in Spain's case, conservative fiscal policy--the result: Depression-level unemployment.
In the US, Republicans boast they forced Democrats to cut off the long-term unemployed. Dismissive phrases they use: "a way of life," "rip off artists," and unemployment is an "easy Street" where "fraud" is "rampant." Democrats are faced with a dilemma that doesn't trouble Republicans. Republicans don't believe in government, anyway, so there's no felt obligation to make it work for people--at least people who aren't CEO's or hedge fund artistes.
Democrats seek the money represented by wealthy and corporate interests, too, but they're torn: they tend to believe that government can be a force for good: FDR was their hero. If in order for government to work at all, the long-term unemployed have to be sacrificed, well, the greater good, some reason….
The bottom line is: the most uncompromising, well-funded side, appealing to a minority of ill-informed white people, gets to call the shots, setting the agenda.
Even the New York Times apparently assumes that Social Security and Medicare are going to have to be cut, despite a growing appeal among progressives for expansion, not contraction of Social Security, in response to the disappearance of private pensions, or fully funded public ones. The media attempt to eliminate any dialog about whether Social Security needs to be expanded, instead of contracted, despite the fact that it's self-funding and the payroll tax, is easily modified. It could be raised on the people paying too little, to make the tax no longer regressive; it subtracts a larger share from earnings below $115,000, than for those above that.
The GOP wages class warfare: progressives must fight back, like Senator Warren, not "go along" with elite greed. Americans should reject the elite's takeover, so reminiscent of the Roman Senators' monopoly of wealth in the Fifth Century.
We spent $672,879,000,000 on war-making in 2012 (we call it "Defense," and don't think about it). That may be why the Department of War became the Department of Defense--although there were bureaucratic reasons, as well. Anyway, we may be the most powerful militarily, but part of the reason for that is that we're somehow persuaded, year after year, to spend on "Defense" as much at least as the five next "most powerful" nations combined. But the most powerful nation cannot control the world.
It shouldn't try. We may be "the richest" nation, but we have a lot of poor people. Nevertheless, we'd rather spend money on military toys and warriors, than on helping to maintain people through unemployment insurance, who still cannot find jobs: there are far fewer jobs than job seekers.
Further, austerity's stupidity is causing disasters all over the world.
Tepid growth in the US compares to what austerity has done to nations like Greece and Spain--despite, in Spain's case, conservative fiscal policy--the result: Depression-level unemployment.
In the US, Republicans boast they forced Democrats to cut off the long-term unemployed. Dismissive phrases they use: "a way of life," "rip off artists," and unemployment is an "easy Street" where "fraud" is "rampant." Democrats are faced with a dilemma that doesn't trouble Republicans. Republicans don't believe in government, anyway, so there's no felt obligation to make it work for people--at least people who aren't CEO's or hedge fund artistes.
Democrats seek the money represented by wealthy and corporate interests, too, but they're torn: they tend to believe that government can be a force for good: FDR was their hero. If in order for government to work at all, the long-term unemployed have to be sacrificed, well, the greater good, some reason….
The bottom line is: the most uncompromising, well-funded side, appealing to a minority of ill-informed white people, gets to call the shots, setting the agenda.
Even the New York Times apparently assumes that Social Security and Medicare are going to have to be cut, despite a growing appeal among progressives for expansion, not contraction of Social Security, in response to the disappearance of private pensions, or fully funded public ones. The media attempt to eliminate any dialog about whether Social Security needs to be expanded, instead of contracted, despite the fact that it's self-funding and the payroll tax, is easily modified. It could be raised on the people paying too little, to make the tax no longer regressive; it subtracts a larger share from earnings below $115,000, than for those above that.
The GOP wages class warfare: progressives must fight back, like Senator Warren, not "go along" with elite greed. Americans should reject the elite's takeover, so reminiscent of the Roman Senators' monopoly of wealth in the Fifth Century.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
What the Hell?
What the hell are people supposed to do, if they can't find a job, because they're still aren't enough of them, because…?
Republicans refuse to extend unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed, and propose cutting $40 billion from the Food Stamps budget, as well as advocating cuts to most social programs, while advocating tax cuts for the wealthy. I'd call that class war.
Face it: the very wealthy, more or less the billionaire class, are using their money, judiciously, to insure that they control government, instead of vice-versa. The rest of us are just obstacles to be run over, with a torrent of dollars, made possible by Citizens United.
Democrats? They don't know what hit 'em. They whimper that not extending the long-term unemployment benefits is unwise, maybe even inhumane, but those at the fount of all Democratic Wisdom say: Democrats will try to pass additional legislation--from the Senate.
Who loses? All of us, even the billionaires, if they'd only see it. If you don't give people other choices, they'll have to turn to crime. They'll either hurt others, themselves, end up in prison, or usually both. The cost to society? Do we really want to spend even more on prisons than we do now? Do we want to put away more and more of the "free people" of these United States, which already has the highest rate of incarceration of any developed nation?
There are better solutions, like spending a little bit now to support the unemployed, and a lot more to create needed jobs. There is no magic to this: it's simply that a nation has to invest in itself if it's going to have a future. Siphoning off all the proceeds into the hands of so few--the .001%--almost guarantees decline.
That's where we're headed if these guys win. Maybe, with victories like Warren's and DiBlasio's, the tide could be turning, but there's always that counter-tide of money.
Only if a large enough enraged mass of people rebel against this absurd system, will it ever change. People have to realize how they're being ripped off, every minute. Finance is the largest siphon, of your money to theirs, but there are others in every sector, siphoning off to them the wealth people create. Almost all the increase in wealth since the financial collapse ended up in the hands of a very few extremely wealthy: even though everyone worked for it.
No one rebelled in Fifth Century Rome. Miscreants were randomly burned alive from public lampposts and the barbarians were invading--as well as defending them.
Rome fell, largely because an extremely wealthy class, the Senators, monopolized wealth, and then refused to pay for maintaining the Empire they ran and from which they'd profited so immensely. Most didn't survive the chaos of barbarian dominance in Europe.
Could that be a lesson, even to the billionaires, perhaps?
Republicans refuse to extend unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed, and propose cutting $40 billion from the Food Stamps budget, as well as advocating cuts to most social programs, while advocating tax cuts for the wealthy. I'd call that class war.
Face it: the very wealthy, more or less the billionaire class, are using their money, judiciously, to insure that they control government, instead of vice-versa. The rest of us are just obstacles to be run over, with a torrent of dollars, made possible by Citizens United.
Democrats? They don't know what hit 'em. They whimper that not extending the long-term unemployment benefits is unwise, maybe even inhumane, but those at the fount of all Democratic Wisdom say: Democrats will try to pass additional legislation--from the Senate.
Who loses? All of us, even the billionaires, if they'd only see it. If you don't give people other choices, they'll have to turn to crime. They'll either hurt others, themselves, end up in prison, or usually both. The cost to society? Do we really want to spend even more on prisons than we do now? Do we want to put away more and more of the "free people" of these United States, which already has the highest rate of incarceration of any developed nation?
There are better solutions, like spending a little bit now to support the unemployed, and a lot more to create needed jobs. There is no magic to this: it's simply that a nation has to invest in itself if it's going to have a future. Siphoning off all the proceeds into the hands of so few--the .001%--almost guarantees decline.
That's where we're headed if these guys win. Maybe, with victories like Warren's and DiBlasio's, the tide could be turning, but there's always that counter-tide of money.
Only if a large enough enraged mass of people rebel against this absurd system, will it ever change. People have to realize how they're being ripped off, every minute. Finance is the largest siphon, of your money to theirs, but there are others in every sector, siphoning off to them the wealth people create. Almost all the increase in wealth since the financial collapse ended up in the hands of a very few extremely wealthy: even though everyone worked for it.
No one rebelled in Fifth Century Rome. Miscreants were randomly burned alive from public lampposts and the barbarians were invading--as well as defending them.
Rome fell, largely because an extremely wealthy class, the Senators, monopolized wealth, and then refused to pay for maintaining the Empire they ran and from which they'd profited so immensely. Most didn't survive the chaos of barbarian dominance in Europe.
Could that be a lesson, even to the billionaires, perhaps?
Friday, August 9, 2013
Myths of Deficits and Inequality
Cut taxes on the wealthy, the "job creators," so they can create more jobs, Republican "conservatives" insist.
Here is a direct refutation: the wealthy are hoarding their cash--the top 1% save 37% of their earnings. Rather than creating jobs, by their out-sized savings rate they destroy jobs.
We should cut corporate taxes argues the Chamber of Commerce incessantly, because (by one measure) US taxes are higher than economic competitors like Japan and Germany.
Corporations are also hoarding cash, again cutting jobs: money not spent on consumption or real (as opposed to financial) investments, is jobs not created and wealth not multiplied.
Higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations would capture some of this excess cash to build infrastructure, improve education and hire people in needed jobs.
The US is the fourth most unequal nation among wealthy OECD nations, having a Gini index of .36 compared to the most unequal nation's Gini of .50 (Mexico). 0 would be complete equality, 1.00 represents complete inequality, where only one person received all the income. According to the Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, and even the Economist, inequality is inefficient. Increased inequality drains consumption and investment spending: low consumption drives low investment, drives low job growth.
Repeal Obamacare. The Republican House of Representatives has voted to repeal it 33 or 34 times. Proponents of repeal claim that the program will increase deficits and cut jobs. It's likely that the reverse is true in both instances. While Obamacare will increase some taxes, mostly marginal, it will also save an astonishing amount of money not yet easily calculated. Health care costs, and costs to the government may actually go down, through lower hospital and emergency room costs, and a reduction in treatments needed as people get regular medical care, instead of only going to the doctor (or the emergency room) when a health crisis strikes.
The Congressional Budget Office (not a partisan institution) estimated cost savings from Obamacare that would reduce out-going deficits substantially. In fact, its most prominent recent caveat (reduction of the reduction) was the administration agreeing to a year's delay in the employer mandate (to provide insurance or pay a fee per employee), which CBO estimated to cost the government $10 billion.
So, what's going on here? The Mainstream Media emphasize the Republican message, even though it's the opposite of the truth and makes no economic sense. Higher taxes on the wealthy do not curb growth; they probably stimulate it, up to a point. Obamacare, while far from perfect, does not increase future deficits; it will reduce them.
Why are "conservatives" and Republicans against higher taxes for high incomes? They have high incomes, or are paid by people who do. Ditto the MSM.
Inequality is rising worldwide, in the US faster than most, and the "winners" want to keep it all. They are like Fifth Century Roman Senators, who chose the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, instead of imposing taxes on themselves.
Here is a direct refutation: the wealthy are hoarding their cash--the top 1% save 37% of their earnings. Rather than creating jobs, by their out-sized savings rate they destroy jobs.
We should cut corporate taxes argues the Chamber of Commerce incessantly, because (by one measure) US taxes are higher than economic competitors like Japan and Germany.
Corporations are also hoarding cash, again cutting jobs: money not spent on consumption or real (as opposed to financial) investments, is jobs not created and wealth not multiplied.
Higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations would capture some of this excess cash to build infrastructure, improve education and hire people in needed jobs.
The US is the fourth most unequal nation among wealthy OECD nations, having a Gini index of .36 compared to the most unequal nation's Gini of .50 (Mexico). 0 would be complete equality, 1.00 represents complete inequality, where only one person received all the income. According to the Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, and even the Economist, inequality is inefficient. Increased inequality drains consumption and investment spending: low consumption drives low investment, drives low job growth.
Repeal Obamacare. The Republican House of Representatives has voted to repeal it 33 or 34 times. Proponents of repeal claim that the program will increase deficits and cut jobs. It's likely that the reverse is true in both instances. While Obamacare will increase some taxes, mostly marginal, it will also save an astonishing amount of money not yet easily calculated. Health care costs, and costs to the government may actually go down, through lower hospital and emergency room costs, and a reduction in treatments needed as people get regular medical care, instead of only going to the doctor (or the emergency room) when a health crisis strikes.
The Congressional Budget Office (not a partisan institution) estimated cost savings from Obamacare that would reduce out-going deficits substantially. In fact, its most prominent recent caveat (reduction of the reduction) was the administration agreeing to a year's delay in the employer mandate (to provide insurance or pay a fee per employee), which CBO estimated to cost the government $10 billion.
So, what's going on here? The Mainstream Media emphasize the Republican message, even though it's the opposite of the truth and makes no economic sense. Higher taxes on the wealthy do not curb growth; they probably stimulate it, up to a point. Obamacare, while far from perfect, does not increase future deficits; it will reduce them.
Why are "conservatives" and Republicans against higher taxes for high incomes? They have high incomes, or are paid by people who do. Ditto the MSM.
Inequality is rising worldwide, in the US faster than most, and the "winners" want to keep it all. They are like Fifth Century Roman Senators, who chose the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, instead of imposing taxes on themselves.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Fascism or the Radical Left?
Two Stratfor articles, "Geopolitical Journey: An Empty Highway in Spain," and "Europe: Unemployment and Instability," suggest that there is an underlying problem of social distance and lack of empathy that leads political elites, and the German public, to continue to insist on austerity, because they don't feel the effects the recession is having on others. Germans, for example, can get judgmental about the shiftless southern Europeans, and insist that only they know what's good for everyone: more austerity.
The US faces a similar problem, because of the widening disparity of wealth. The call for austerity among Republicans expresses the preferences of the very wealthy, who want lower taxes and see no utility in "coddling" what Romney labeled the dependent 47%. So, unemployment is not perceived as a problem, either in Germany (as yet), nor among Wall Street bankers, or their socioeconomic cousins, the very wealthy. That's why almost all the debate in Washington centers on austerity: how to accomplish the Sequester more rationally, how to cut more from social programs like SNAP (food-stamps), so that debt and deficits can be reduced. This debate continues, even though there is stubbornly high unemployment, and especially high long-term employment. "Conservatives" see no reason to stimulate job growth, since the stock market is surging, profits are high, and housing prices are rising.
In Europe, the result very well could be radical politics--or worse. Not only has Italy given 25% of its votes to a new untried political party, The Five Star Movement, led by a comedian, but Hungary's right-wing government has passed a law banning all political opposition!
Unemployment rates of 27% (Greece and Spain), or even around 15% (Lithuania, Portugal, Ireland) begins to look really scary, especially when you have youth unemployment at or more than double those rates. As the Stratfor articles mention, this was the climate that created Fascism and Nazism after WWI. The response this time could be as radical, and of either the right or the left (Greek extremist parties are at both ends of the political spectrum).
The apparent quiescence in Spain and other European nations in recession could easily explode, given the seeming hopelessness faced by the unemployed, especially the youth. If I were in their shoes, I'd be tinder for anyone who started yelling that he/she could solve it.
Meanwhile, austerity and the Sequester are destroying the future of both regions.
What this may mean is that the economic/political system in which we exist could undergo radical transformation sometime soon, and it might not be pretty. However, our elites (European, American, Chinese) don't seem to have a clue, which makes all our political systems that much more vulnerable to upheaval.
If there is no transformation, we could go the way of the Late Roman Empire: monopolized wealth by today's equivalent of Roman Senators, and immiseration for everyone else.
The US faces a similar problem, because of the widening disparity of wealth. The call for austerity among Republicans expresses the preferences of the very wealthy, who want lower taxes and see no utility in "coddling" what Romney labeled the dependent 47%. So, unemployment is not perceived as a problem, either in Germany (as yet), nor among Wall Street bankers, or their socioeconomic cousins, the very wealthy. That's why almost all the debate in Washington centers on austerity: how to accomplish the Sequester more rationally, how to cut more from social programs like SNAP (food-stamps), so that debt and deficits can be reduced. This debate continues, even though there is stubbornly high unemployment, and especially high long-term employment. "Conservatives" see no reason to stimulate job growth, since the stock market is surging, profits are high, and housing prices are rising.
In Europe, the result very well could be radical politics--or worse. Not only has Italy given 25% of its votes to a new untried political party, The Five Star Movement, led by a comedian, but Hungary's right-wing government has passed a law banning all political opposition!
Unemployment rates of 27% (Greece and Spain), or even around 15% (Lithuania, Portugal, Ireland) begins to look really scary, especially when you have youth unemployment at or more than double those rates. As the Stratfor articles mention, this was the climate that created Fascism and Nazism after WWI. The response this time could be as radical, and of either the right or the left (Greek extremist parties are at both ends of the political spectrum).
The apparent quiescence in Spain and other European nations in recession could easily explode, given the seeming hopelessness faced by the unemployed, especially the youth. If I were in their shoes, I'd be tinder for anyone who started yelling that he/she could solve it.
Meanwhile, austerity and the Sequester are destroying the future of both regions.
What this may mean is that the economic/political system in which we exist could undergo radical transformation sometime soon, and it might not be pretty. However, our elites (European, American, Chinese) don't seem to have a clue, which makes all our political systems that much more vulnerable to upheaval.
If there is no transformation, we could go the way of the Late Roman Empire: monopolized wealth by today's equivalent of Roman Senators, and immiseration for everyone else.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
A Discarded World
Sunday at sunrise I saw a car parked in our parking lot along the dirt road, not far from houses and an equestrian center. A guy got out, did something with his leg, and then, as I approached, he got back in the car and drove off. There was someone in the passenger seat.
The driver had discarded something and its foil wrapper. He was probably proud of himself: it was an oversized used condom. On his way to church?
That pretty much epitomizes relations with our social, natural and international world. We trash the natural world, we trash each other; we also trash other nations: cancer has skyrocketed in Iraq because our depleted DU munitions litter the landscape. Our military is proud of them; they're more effective than lead or steel in penetrating tank armor. Who cares about the Iraqis?
Margaret Thatcher was known for popularizing a politics epitomized by: "Screw you, Jack! I've got mine." Our "conservatives" are less eloquent.
Sequestration was meant to force Democrats and Republicans to agree to something sensible, but the first adjustment insures that flights aren't delayed, so Congressmen and Senators can get home during their break. Meanwhile, cuts to Head Start, schools, health research, medical care, extended unemployment insurance and to so many other government programs cause far more damaging consequences: lives lost, children untaught, research not done, people driven homeless: long-term costs to everyone--except the wealthy.
And for what? Both the Alesina/Ardagna article on "expansionary austerity," and the Reinhart/Rogoff article positing the economic danger of a 90+% budget deficit--Economists' arguments promoting austerity--have been proven false, while real experiments with it in Greece, Spain, Ireland, the UK and Portugal have demonstrated its destructive effects.
I sent two of Krugman's anti-austerity articles to a fundamentalist friend; he refused to read them: said they were "all false," and "ideologies will never replace the wisdom and power of the Word of God." Facts didn't matter. To him, and apparently to a large contingent of Republicans in Congress, "debt is debt," an evil--except for Defense, or corporations, or mortgages, or….
My friend made money in California real estate, The austerian agenda makes sense to him: why should he pay for losers, driven homeless, and/or jobless by the burst housing bubble; he made money, so what's wrong with them?
People like him, and those much wealthier drive the political agenda. We don't live in a democracy; the powerful listen to the one-percent, not to the rest of us--except, maybe, the 5%. Our contemporary Roman Senatorial class has conquered. High unemployment benefits them: it makes workers compliant; bosses can cut wages and raise their own salaries: life is good.
It will last until either revolution or collapse, the latter from the instability inherent in extreme inequality; it contributed to Rome's fall in 476.
The driver had discarded something and its foil wrapper. He was probably proud of himself: it was an oversized used condom. On his way to church?
That pretty much epitomizes relations with our social, natural and international world. We trash the natural world, we trash each other; we also trash other nations: cancer has skyrocketed in Iraq because our depleted DU munitions litter the landscape. Our military is proud of them; they're more effective than lead or steel in penetrating tank armor. Who cares about the Iraqis?
Margaret Thatcher was known for popularizing a politics epitomized by: "Screw you, Jack! I've got mine." Our "conservatives" are less eloquent.
Sequestration was meant to force Democrats and Republicans to agree to something sensible, but the first adjustment insures that flights aren't delayed, so Congressmen and Senators can get home during their break. Meanwhile, cuts to Head Start, schools, health research, medical care, extended unemployment insurance and to so many other government programs cause far more damaging consequences: lives lost, children untaught, research not done, people driven homeless: long-term costs to everyone--except the wealthy.
And for what? Both the Alesina/Ardagna article on "expansionary austerity," and the Reinhart/Rogoff article positing the economic danger of a 90+% budget deficit--Economists' arguments promoting austerity--have been proven false, while real experiments with it in Greece, Spain, Ireland, the UK and Portugal have demonstrated its destructive effects.
I sent two of Krugman's anti-austerity articles to a fundamentalist friend; he refused to read them: said they were "all false," and "ideologies will never replace the wisdom and power of the Word of God." Facts didn't matter. To him, and apparently to a large contingent of Republicans in Congress, "debt is debt," an evil--except for Defense, or corporations, or mortgages, or….
My friend made money in California real estate, The austerian agenda makes sense to him: why should he pay for losers, driven homeless, and/or jobless by the burst housing bubble; he made money, so what's wrong with them?
People like him, and those much wealthier drive the political agenda. We don't live in a democracy; the powerful listen to the one-percent, not to the rest of us--except, maybe, the 5%. Our contemporary Roman Senatorial class has conquered. High unemployment benefits them: it makes workers compliant; bosses can cut wages and raise their own salaries: life is good.
It will last until either revolution or collapse, the latter from the instability inherent in extreme inequality; it contributed to Rome's fall in 476.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Bad Ideas
George McGovern endorsed a terrible book, The Promise of the Coming Dark Age: it saw the Cambodian Khmer Rouge as the great promise: our communitarian future, in which capitalism would be transmuted into abundance for all.
From 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge murdered a larger share of their people than the Nazis or Stalin: virtually any non-Maoist with education, or anyone from the middle class and any city-dweller. Later, anyone not ideologically "reliable" was eliminated, as well. The total murdered were between 1.7 and 2.3 million out of a population of only 7 million: between a fourth and a third of all Cambodians.
The idea that attracted McGovern was the Khmer Rouge's advocacy for a communitarian (Communist) agrarian society that was supposed to be fully self-sustaining, and purged of all western influence or technology. McGovern, et al ignored the violence, the authoritarianism, the ideological rigidity and the KR's flight from reality.
Finally, Vietnam ousted the KR in 1979, but Cambodia has suffered famines and near social collapse ever since, unable to overcome the KR's nearly successful attempt to destroy urban Cambodia and western education.
The KR glorified their agrarian past, just as the GOP glorifies a Norman Rockwell view of "real America." Ayn Rand, their ideological guru, glorified the unrestrained entrepreneur stifled by big government. As politicians attempt to put her vision into practice, it might not be so bloody as the KR, but many more will be impoverished. Randism inspires Republican enthusiasm for the sequester, in which the poor and middle class lose the services they depend on, while a small elite benefit from the cuts through privatization and lower taxes.
Ever since Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controllers' strike, the corporate wealthy have successfully carried Republicans and many Democrats with them. Since 1980, income and wealth have concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Disasters, like Katrina in New Orleans, and Sandy in New York, and the nationwide implosion of the financial sector in 2008, have accelerated the process. Wall Street was bailed out, but the country as a whole is still only slowly recovering. The vast majority of productivity gains and new wealth created since the implosion has ended up in the pockets of the wealthy; the banks that precipitated the crisis have gotten bigger and wealthier, yet last month only 88,000 private sector jobs were created. The nation needs at least 150,000 per month to recover.
The wealthy want the Government to cut back, not because there is a real, immediate debt crisis, but because continuing high unemployment serves them: it keeps wages low, workers compliant.
Unless there is some revolutionary upheaval, some Hugo Chavez, the takeover of the wealthy corporate class will continue, much like the monopolization of wealth and power in the hands of the Roman Senatorial class in the late 4th and early 5th century. It won't end well.
From 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge murdered a larger share of their people than the Nazis or Stalin: virtually any non-Maoist with education, or anyone from the middle class and any city-dweller. Later, anyone not ideologically "reliable" was eliminated, as well. The total murdered were between 1.7 and 2.3 million out of a population of only 7 million: between a fourth and a third of all Cambodians.
The idea that attracted McGovern was the Khmer Rouge's advocacy for a communitarian (Communist) agrarian society that was supposed to be fully self-sustaining, and purged of all western influence or technology. McGovern, et al ignored the violence, the authoritarianism, the ideological rigidity and the KR's flight from reality.
Finally, Vietnam ousted the KR in 1979, but Cambodia has suffered famines and near social collapse ever since, unable to overcome the KR's nearly successful attempt to destroy urban Cambodia and western education.
The KR glorified their agrarian past, just as the GOP glorifies a Norman Rockwell view of "real America." Ayn Rand, their ideological guru, glorified the unrestrained entrepreneur stifled by big government. As politicians attempt to put her vision into practice, it might not be so bloody as the KR, but many more will be impoverished. Randism inspires Republican enthusiasm for the sequester, in which the poor and middle class lose the services they depend on, while a small elite benefit from the cuts through privatization and lower taxes.
Ever since Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controllers' strike, the corporate wealthy have successfully carried Republicans and many Democrats with them. Since 1980, income and wealth have concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Disasters, like Katrina in New Orleans, and Sandy in New York, and the nationwide implosion of the financial sector in 2008, have accelerated the process. Wall Street was bailed out, but the country as a whole is still only slowly recovering. The vast majority of productivity gains and new wealth created since the implosion has ended up in the pockets of the wealthy; the banks that precipitated the crisis have gotten bigger and wealthier, yet last month only 88,000 private sector jobs were created. The nation needs at least 150,000 per month to recover.
The wealthy want the Government to cut back, not because there is a real, immediate debt crisis, but because continuing high unemployment serves them: it keeps wages low, workers compliant.
Unless there is some revolutionary upheaval, some Hugo Chavez, the takeover of the wealthy corporate class will continue, much like the monopolization of wealth and power in the hands of the Roman Senatorial class in the late 4th and early 5th century. It won't end well.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Gay Marriage, Drones & Inequality
Social progress seems slow, but in societal terms it's probably moving about as fast as it can: acceptance of gays, even if the Supreme Court can't keep up with the changes in society, is lightning fast.
On the other hand, environmental progress is moving in reverse along with economic equality. War and instability have become more destructive, even if there is no "world war."
Post-Citizens United: corporatist conservatives must punch themselves with glee: successes small: sneaking through "the Monsanto protection act" in the Food bill, and big: persuading the chattering classes inside the Beltway that the deficit/debt is an urgent problem that only can be solved by cutting what they derisively call "entitlements," not subsidies to the burgeoning wealthy.
Our media is so skewed towards the agenda of the wealthy and corporations, that it doesn't seem absurd that we're slashing government spending when unemployment is far too high. Our media is more controlled by wealth and corporate interests than it was in Venezuela before Chavez. He opposed it with state-owned media, and selective de-licensing.
US media excoriated Chavez as a dictator, while he won landslides in at least five elections, elections certified by Carter as freer than the US.
Venezuela may have more democracy than we do, since Republicans work assiduously to deny the right to vote to likely opponents, and a Supreme Court Justice derides Voting Rights Act Section 5 as establishing voting rights as a "racial entitlement."
The US claims it's exceptional; it isn't, except in things we shouldn't crow about, like the highest per capita rate of incarceration, the most expensive and least effective health care system, a falling working wage, soaring inequality, and endemic violence fueled by our wide open "gun culture."
We don't, any longer, score high on educational attainment: almost every other OECD nation has higher college graduation rates: the US used to lead.
Our military is exceptional: the US has the world's most effective killing machine--long before we started using drones. But it still loses wars: Vietnam, Iraq (really), and now Afghanistan.
The size of our military is also exceptional, but that demonstrates another American failing: like North Korea, we spend more money on war-making than on any other "discretionary" government function--we substitute brute strength for sense. We value guns over children, even our own children (100+ days since Newtown and no new Federal gun control law). But the Bible is "brought to you by Walmart," an American company. Exceptional!
The American Empire hasn't lasted long; it's failing progressively and making enemies everywhere. Soon the muscle-bound US will be only the second wealthiest nation.
Targeting immigrants and homegrown terrorists with drones, disenfranchising minorities (those we haven't jailed) and the poor, the US is also becoming almost as authoritarian as China, our successful competitor.
On the other hand, environmental progress is moving in reverse along with economic equality. War and instability have become more destructive, even if there is no "world war."
Post-Citizens United: corporatist conservatives must punch themselves with glee: successes small: sneaking through "the Monsanto protection act" in the Food bill, and big: persuading the chattering classes inside the Beltway that the deficit/debt is an urgent problem that only can be solved by cutting what they derisively call "entitlements," not subsidies to the burgeoning wealthy.
Our media is so skewed towards the agenda of the wealthy and corporations, that it doesn't seem absurd that we're slashing government spending when unemployment is far too high. Our media is more controlled by wealth and corporate interests than it was in Venezuela before Chavez. He opposed it with state-owned media, and selective de-licensing.
US media excoriated Chavez as a dictator, while he won landslides in at least five elections, elections certified by Carter as freer than the US.
Venezuela may have more democracy than we do, since Republicans work assiduously to deny the right to vote to likely opponents, and a Supreme Court Justice derides Voting Rights Act Section 5 as establishing voting rights as a "racial entitlement."
The US claims it's exceptional; it isn't, except in things we shouldn't crow about, like the highest per capita rate of incarceration, the most expensive and least effective health care system, a falling working wage, soaring inequality, and endemic violence fueled by our wide open "gun culture."
We don't, any longer, score high on educational attainment: almost every other OECD nation has higher college graduation rates: the US used to lead.
Our military is exceptional: the US has the world's most effective killing machine--long before we started using drones. But it still loses wars: Vietnam, Iraq (really), and now Afghanistan.
The size of our military is also exceptional, but that demonstrates another American failing: like North Korea, we spend more money on war-making than on any other "discretionary" government function--we substitute brute strength for sense. We value guns over children, even our own children (100+ days since Newtown and no new Federal gun control law). But the Bible is "brought to you by Walmart," an American company. Exceptional!
The American Empire hasn't lasted long; it's failing progressively and making enemies everywhere. Soon the muscle-bound US will be only the second wealthiest nation.
Targeting immigrants and homegrown terrorists with drones, disenfranchising minorities (those we haven't jailed) and the poor, the US is also becoming almost as authoritarian as China, our successful competitor.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Next Question:
Why are the Democrats so timid, especially in the face of unapologetic Republican extremism? And this goes for Obama, too. He keeps talking about the "grand bargain" that he wants to negotiate, by compromising with the same Republicans who want to eviscerate any program or service that aids the poor or "middle class," want to repeal Obamacare and are determined to make Obama's presidency a failure, even if he was reelected.
Nader pointed out the obvious, when he identified the "defeatist" Democrats, who took no advantage in 2012 of the incredibly unpopular policies and votes of the Republican Congress, like cutting programs for the poor, while cutting taxes on the rich.
As I pointed out last week, the deficit/debt/austerity politics that roils inside the Beltway is also highly unpopular, except with one demographic: the wealthy. But Democrats, who call themselves The People's Party, are too scared to take a popular stand because they are almost as dependent on wealthy donors as Republicans.
In other words, we live in an extremely corrupt political system: politicians may not get direct payoffs, but they do get wealthy from currying rich people's favor. They don’t organize politics like old Boss Tweed, or Mayor Daley Senior, but they are even more corrupt: their whole agenda, such as it is, justifies and rewards the extremely wealthy--and this is not just the extremist GOP, but the "mainstream" GOP, and some Democrats, as well. Democracy does not come trippingly off the tongue.
However, the Congressional Progressive Caucus offers a no-nonsense alternative to GOP Paul Ryan's vague, reactionary budget and cancels the sequester. Progressives claim their budget, entitled Going to Work, would reduce the deficit in three years by producing 7 million jobs and increasing GDP by 5.7%.
Supporters claim that investing in jobs, in infrastructure, which civil engineers recently pinpointed for much needed repair, in teachers and cops--in people--would reduce the deficit. The budget also raises revenue by closing tax loopholes on higher incomes and raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires, including taxing investment income the same as wages; it's now at preferential low rates. Proponents claim the expansionary budget would cut the deficit by $4.4 trillion. Some of the loopholes to be cut, aside from investment income: $112 billion fossil fuels industry subsidy; $70 billion: food and entertainment corporate deductions; $13 billion: yachts and vacation homes deductions and $25 billion: eliminating a stock options loophole.
The Democratic Senate's budget is timorous by comparison, although at least it protects Medicare and Social Security from cuts. But why can't mainstream Democrats advocate for an expansionary budget to grow revenue? The Fed's Bernanke says we shouldn't cut spending until growth stabilizes; even Republicans admit the "fiscal crisis" is only a future problem.
Because our Roman Senators, the extremely wealthy, control the political debate and promote their interests: lower taxes for them; no protection from their rapacity and reduced/no services for everyone else. They want a society like Fifth Century Rome.
Nader pointed out the obvious, when he identified the "defeatist" Democrats, who took no advantage in 2012 of the incredibly unpopular policies and votes of the Republican Congress, like cutting programs for the poor, while cutting taxes on the rich.
As I pointed out last week, the deficit/debt/austerity politics that roils inside the Beltway is also highly unpopular, except with one demographic: the wealthy. But Democrats, who call themselves The People's Party, are too scared to take a popular stand because they are almost as dependent on wealthy donors as Republicans.
In other words, we live in an extremely corrupt political system: politicians may not get direct payoffs, but they do get wealthy from currying rich people's favor. They don’t organize politics like old Boss Tweed, or Mayor Daley Senior, but they are even more corrupt: their whole agenda, such as it is, justifies and rewards the extremely wealthy--and this is not just the extremist GOP, but the "mainstream" GOP, and some Democrats, as well. Democracy does not come trippingly off the tongue.
However, the Congressional Progressive Caucus offers a no-nonsense alternative to GOP Paul Ryan's vague, reactionary budget and cancels the sequester. Progressives claim their budget, entitled Going to Work, would reduce the deficit in three years by producing 7 million jobs and increasing GDP by 5.7%.
Supporters claim that investing in jobs, in infrastructure, which civil engineers recently pinpointed for much needed repair, in teachers and cops--in people--would reduce the deficit. The budget also raises revenue by closing tax loopholes on higher incomes and raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires, including taxing investment income the same as wages; it's now at preferential low rates. Proponents claim the expansionary budget would cut the deficit by $4.4 trillion. Some of the loopholes to be cut, aside from investment income: $112 billion fossil fuels industry subsidy; $70 billion: food and entertainment corporate deductions; $13 billion: yachts and vacation homes deductions and $25 billion: eliminating a stock options loophole.
The Democratic Senate's budget is timorous by comparison, although at least it protects Medicare and Social Security from cuts. But why can't mainstream Democrats advocate for an expansionary budget to grow revenue? The Fed's Bernanke says we shouldn't cut spending until growth stabilizes; even Republicans admit the "fiscal crisis" is only a future problem.
Because our Roman Senators, the extremely wealthy, control the political debate and promote their interests: lower taxes for them; no protection from their rapacity and reduced/no services for everyone else. They want a society like Fifth Century Rome.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Inauguration-Coronation Vision
The Inauguration displayed history and unity: over 200 years worth, represented by 50 states, with an impressive backdrop for Obama's oath, his speech and the tradition he evoked.
Obama didn't present the soaring emotion of his first inaugural. I don't think it was one of his better speeches, except in the implied substance. After all, inaugural speeches are supposed to lay out a President's broad vision, not his legislative agenda. He said: "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," but he didn't lay out a tax and spending blueprint for righting this wrong--he couldn't have, unless he spoke for hours. Instead, he said, "But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American."
The general thrust of this part of his speech was an implicit rejection of the conservative creed of everyone for himself. Americans, he insisted, over and over, have to pull together.
Obama rejected the partisanship of the past four years, but instead of bipartisanship, he implied that it was the responsibility of Republicans, as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, to make government work for the good of all, rather than blocking its functions, like the previous Republican House and the Senate Republican minority.
He also addressed climate change, and how we had to confront its reality; he plugged for new, alternative forms of energy, urging that America lead rather than follow.
Obama became most emotional over his peroration for civil rights, evoking the dream of "a King," and then championing equal rights for women, and gays.
Instead of specifically naming gun control, he said our "journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."
Obama was following tradition. Inaugurals aren't the place for laying out an agenda, except in the broadest terms, But his vision: of peace, equal opportunity, caring and openness has potential--if he can translate this into concrete action and get it through Congress.
As the NY Times pointed out, it was a liberal vision.
Obama didn't talk about two important issues: the failed and destructive drug war that's been implicitly rejected outright by two states, and more indirectly by a handful more.
Nor did he mention his drone war, which appears to be expanding, not receding, as implied by his statement, "a decade of war is now ending." It's as if it was unmentionable: the American Empire advancing by covert means--hand in hand with his pledge to "support democracy" and peace, world-wide.
Does Obama's vision offer a chance that the US won't suffer the fate of the Roman Empire in 476? Perhaps: but only if Congress can return to its role as a functioning institution.
Obama didn't present the soaring emotion of his first inaugural. I don't think it was one of his better speeches, except in the implied substance. After all, inaugural speeches are supposed to lay out a President's broad vision, not his legislative agenda. He said: "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," but he didn't lay out a tax and spending blueprint for righting this wrong--he couldn't have, unless he spoke for hours. Instead, he said, "But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American."
The general thrust of this part of his speech was an implicit rejection of the conservative creed of everyone for himself. Americans, he insisted, over and over, have to pull together.
Obama rejected the partisanship of the past four years, but instead of bipartisanship, he implied that it was the responsibility of Republicans, as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, to make government work for the good of all, rather than blocking its functions, like the previous Republican House and the Senate Republican minority.
He also addressed climate change, and how we had to confront its reality; he plugged for new, alternative forms of energy, urging that America lead rather than follow.
Obama became most emotional over his peroration for civil rights, evoking the dream of "a King," and then championing equal rights for women, and gays.
Instead of specifically naming gun control, he said our "journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."
Obama was following tradition. Inaugurals aren't the place for laying out an agenda, except in the broadest terms, But his vision: of peace, equal opportunity, caring and openness has potential--if he can translate this into concrete action and get it through Congress.
As the NY Times pointed out, it was a liberal vision.
Obama didn't talk about two important issues: the failed and destructive drug war that's been implicitly rejected outright by two states, and more indirectly by a handful more.
Nor did he mention his drone war, which appears to be expanding, not receding, as implied by his statement, "a decade of war is now ending." It's as if it was unmentionable: the American Empire advancing by covert means--hand in hand with his pledge to "support democracy" and peace, world-wide.
Does Obama's vision offer a chance that the US won't suffer the fate of the Roman Empire in 476? Perhaps: but only if Congress can return to its role as a functioning institution.
Friday, December 21, 2012
US House: No One In Charge
Never raise taxes!
The GOP caucus in the House of Representatives will only be mollified if taxes on the wealthy are cut even more. Further, to reduce Government debt, they demand most cuts to the budget have to come from non-Defense spending, especially programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and food stamps (SNAP) that benefit the middle class and poor, but are unnecessary to the wealthy.
No one seems to be in charge in the House. Speaker Boehner's odious "Plan B," which would have been unacceptable to Democrats and the President, was an attempt to mollify the right-wing extremists in the GOP; still, it didn't pass Boehner's own caucus: it raised taxes on millionaires.
No one is in charge. The President's re-election, an increase in the Democratic minority in the House and of its majority in the Senate, makes no difference within the Republican caucus. This is because the House majority won convincingly in their gerrymandered districts (drawn by state majorities won in the Republican landslide of 2010). Despite receiving fewer votes overall than Democratic Congressional candidates, GOP Congressmen fear, not Democrats--their districts were drawn to be majority Republican--but members of their own party "primarying" them from the right, if they don't follow an extreme right-wing agenda. That means cutting taxes on the wealthy and sticking it to the people Romney tried to stigmatize as the dependent 47% (more like 52%).
The House majority of a majority therefore refuses to compromise, because they'd lose next time round to right-wing challengers if they did. A more moderate majority--of Democrats and pragmatic Republicans--might exist in the House, in theory. However, the majority's leadership controls the House's business, and it's likely that Boehner would block a pragmatic bipartisan majority's proposals from a vote--unless he's willing to risk his Speakership for real statesmanship. That's unlikely.
Therefore, an ideological minority (the House GOP caucus majority) refuses, as of 12/20/12, to allow any tax increases on the wealthy and won't back down from demanding large cuts to social programs, either. So, we could start sliding down the fiscal slope.
Radical Republicans appear truly determined to replay what happened in the Roman Senate in 476, when Roman Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves, and preferred to allow the takeover of the German (Ostrogothic) palace guard. That precipitated the Fall of Rome.
In 2013, taxes will automatically go up--for everyone. Then, if Republicans don't agree to cut taxes on everyone but the wealthy, they will probably cause a renewed recession. Yet, they were the ones who demanded this so-called "fiscal cliff" to cut the debt. Under that default plan, there would be more cuts to the Pentagon than to domestic spending, and entitlements wouldn't be touched. That's why I hope there isn't a bipartisan "grand bargain," except on the above tax "cuts."
Either Republicans have slashed their own throats, or everyone else's as well: welcome to European-style austerity and recession.
The GOP caucus in the House of Representatives will only be mollified if taxes on the wealthy are cut even more. Further, to reduce Government debt, they demand most cuts to the budget have to come from non-Defense spending, especially programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and food stamps (SNAP) that benefit the middle class and poor, but are unnecessary to the wealthy.
No one seems to be in charge in the House. Speaker Boehner's odious "Plan B," which would have been unacceptable to Democrats and the President, was an attempt to mollify the right-wing extremists in the GOP; still, it didn't pass Boehner's own caucus: it raised taxes on millionaires.
No one is in charge. The President's re-election, an increase in the Democratic minority in the House and of its majority in the Senate, makes no difference within the Republican caucus. This is because the House majority won convincingly in their gerrymandered districts (drawn by state majorities won in the Republican landslide of 2010). Despite receiving fewer votes overall than Democratic Congressional candidates, GOP Congressmen fear, not Democrats--their districts were drawn to be majority Republican--but members of their own party "primarying" them from the right, if they don't follow an extreme right-wing agenda. That means cutting taxes on the wealthy and sticking it to the people Romney tried to stigmatize as the dependent 47% (more like 52%).
The House majority of a majority therefore refuses to compromise, because they'd lose next time round to right-wing challengers if they did. A more moderate majority--of Democrats and pragmatic Republicans--might exist in the House, in theory. However, the majority's leadership controls the House's business, and it's likely that Boehner would block a pragmatic bipartisan majority's proposals from a vote--unless he's willing to risk his Speakership for real statesmanship. That's unlikely.
Therefore, an ideological minority (the House GOP caucus majority) refuses, as of 12/20/12, to allow any tax increases on the wealthy and won't back down from demanding large cuts to social programs, either. So, we could start sliding down the fiscal slope.
Radical Republicans appear truly determined to replay what happened in the Roman Senate in 476, when Roman Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves, and preferred to allow the takeover of the German (Ostrogothic) palace guard. That precipitated the Fall of Rome.
In 2013, taxes will automatically go up--for everyone. Then, if Republicans don't agree to cut taxes on everyone but the wealthy, they will probably cause a renewed recession. Yet, they were the ones who demanded this so-called "fiscal cliff" to cut the debt. Under that default plan, there would be more cuts to the Pentagon than to domestic spending, and entitlements wouldn't be touched. That's why I hope there isn't a bipartisan "grand bargain," except on the above tax "cuts."
Either Republicans have slashed their own throats, or everyone else's as well: welcome to European-style austerity and recession.
Monday, November 19, 2012
O'Reilly & Romney on "Gifts and Stuff"
Has anyone else noticed: the line Romney handed his donors--and via a surreptitious recording, the rest of the American people--is the same trotted out on Election night, not by Romney, but by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. It was O'Reilly who blithered on first about why the election was going Obama's way: those "gifts and stuff" Obama had given out to blacks, Hispanics, women, the poor and the middle class.
Romney was simply parroting the nastiness of Fox News and then going further to all but say that 52% of the electorate was dependent on government largess, so of course they voted for Obama. What's a poor powerless multi-multi-millionaire going to do?
Is the Romney-O'Reilly contention true?
What is this "stuff"? Both O'Reilly and Romney speak as if these were bribes given to greedy people, in order for them to vote for Obama. However, when they mention specifics, what do they list: immigration reform, contraception for women, same-sex marriage and higher taxes for, er, "job creators". Unmentioned, except in the Republican primaries was the expansion of Food Stamps (officially SNAP), which has become critical to survival for a lot of people chronically unemployed.
Are these bribes, or are these policy intentions? Immigration reform is something this country has needed for a long time, since it's estimated we have 12 million illegal aliens living in the shadows, and a lot of hiring "under the table," which may work to employers' advantage, but is not a sustainable policy. Is immigration reform a "gift," or is it a needed reform of a broken system?
What is democracy, anyway? Some conservative wags have suggested that Rove and Adelson would have been better off just distributing the money they spent for political ads on directly buying votes. Hah hah.
Same-sex marriage has become something a majority of people feel is justified. So, is Obama's endorsement of it a gift, or a response to changing cultural attitudes?
Contraception for women, paid for by insurance in the ACA, may be seen by O'Reilly as a gift to unmarried women (who voted for Obama by a large margin), but contraception is necessary for women of childbearing age, in order for them to control their own lives. The subsidy means that poor women as well as wealthy ones can decide on their own. Republicans apparently want them "barefoot and pregnant."
So, "gifts" were Democrats offering substantive policies--and Republicans were offering what? God's blessing on a child of rape?
Fox News, it turns out, was giving Romney his lines. Fox is the perfect representative of the .001%, the media arm of our contemporary Roman Senatorial class. Romney's remark about the 47% was how he really thinks. Only now it's 52%, and aren't we lucky enough people knew this, or intuited it, that they didn't vote for this empty shirt!
Romney was simply parroting the nastiness of Fox News and then going further to all but say that 52% of the electorate was dependent on government largess, so of course they voted for Obama. What's a poor powerless multi-multi-millionaire going to do?
Is the Romney-O'Reilly contention true?
What is this "stuff"? Both O'Reilly and Romney speak as if these were bribes given to greedy people, in order for them to vote for Obama. However, when they mention specifics, what do they list: immigration reform, contraception for women, same-sex marriage and higher taxes for, er, "job creators". Unmentioned, except in the Republican primaries was the expansion of Food Stamps (officially SNAP), which has become critical to survival for a lot of people chronically unemployed.
Are these bribes, or are these policy intentions? Immigration reform is something this country has needed for a long time, since it's estimated we have 12 million illegal aliens living in the shadows, and a lot of hiring "under the table," which may work to employers' advantage, but is not a sustainable policy. Is immigration reform a "gift," or is it a needed reform of a broken system?
What is democracy, anyway? Some conservative wags have suggested that Rove and Adelson would have been better off just distributing the money they spent for political ads on directly buying votes. Hah hah.
Same-sex marriage has become something a majority of people feel is justified. So, is Obama's endorsement of it a gift, or a response to changing cultural attitudes?
Contraception for women, paid for by insurance in the ACA, may be seen by O'Reilly as a gift to unmarried women (who voted for Obama by a large margin), but contraception is necessary for women of childbearing age, in order for them to control their own lives. The subsidy means that poor women as well as wealthy ones can decide on their own. Republicans apparently want them "barefoot and pregnant."
So, "gifts" were Democrats offering substantive policies--and Republicans were offering what? God's blessing on a child of rape?
Fox News, it turns out, was giving Romney his lines. Fox is the perfect representative of the .001%, the media arm of our contemporary Roman Senatorial class. Romney's remark about the 47% was how he really thinks. Only now it's 52%, and aren't we lucky enough people knew this, or intuited it, that they didn't vote for this empty shirt!
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Columbus and a Deracinated Carib
Some of my present-day relatives, unknown to me, must mourn the coming of that man, whose name changed over time. He was never known to himself as Christopher Columbus.
Colon stumbled on the Americas. He didn't discover them, since whole societies had been there for thousands of years. The people Colon mistakenly landed amongst were not particularly happy that he did so; he kidnapped, enslaved and killed them. Essentially, Colon, and almost every European following him, until a few enlightened souls in the 19th and 20th centuries, saw the indigenous peoples as sub-humans to be subjugated, enslaved, or eradicated.
Unbeknownst to Colon and to most of his successors until very late, the diseases Europeans brought with them unknowingly were the most effective destroyers of the healthy indigenous peoples. Late, in the 19th century, smallpox-smeared blankets were distributed to the Plains Indians to accomplish one of the most horrendous acts of "ethnic cleansing" ever attempted, perhaps the first biological warfare.
Before Colon, indigenous Americans were about as numerous as people in Europe, according to recent archaeology, yet soon after him, Europeans saw the Americas as nearly empty continents ripe for the picking. The Europeans' diseases preceded them, probably because refugees fleeing each plague spread it everywhere, from the Europeans' common cold, to the flu to small pox to malaria. No one understood diseases, then, not Europeans, not First Americans.
Siphilis, America's contribution to global diseases, didn't kill off whole European populations, but did precipitate mass craziness, like the Inquisition.
Spanish Conquistadores in Florida, shortly after Colon, strung up murdered Indians' bodies, and fed them to their dogs. Even now in the US indigenous transsexuals need protection from whites.
None of my indigenous heritage has been acknowledged by my Venezuelan family, but all you had to do was look at my mother and uncle to see it: straight, coarse black hair, not-white skin (except when sheltered always from the sun, as my grandmother apparently did), high cheekbones and small stature. My grandmother's family couldn't afford to admit its heritage: they were prominent landowners, business people and, reputedly, owners of a pearl fishery off the small island where my mother was born. The Coello's, island people, were probably half-Carib for generations, until my grandfather, a "100% Spanish" Andino, married my grandmother.
Columbus didn't just "discover" America. He set in motion the destruction of a whole hemisphere's cultures and societies, and the reduction of its original inhabitants to genetic remnants; I am one small, deracinated part. He also launched Europe onto the world's stage, and the US extended European dominance with its huge new resources in the hastily emptied hemisphere.
But that is past. Despite Republican posturing, Pax Americana will be more fleeting than Pax Romanum; American resources are stretched thin. The American Empire cannot maintain itself militarily, but Republicans would try: until the last penny of the not-rich has been poured down war's rat-hole--and billionaires escape.
Colon stumbled on the Americas. He didn't discover them, since whole societies had been there for thousands of years. The people Colon mistakenly landed amongst were not particularly happy that he did so; he kidnapped, enslaved and killed them. Essentially, Colon, and almost every European following him, until a few enlightened souls in the 19th and 20th centuries, saw the indigenous peoples as sub-humans to be subjugated, enslaved, or eradicated.
Unbeknownst to Colon and to most of his successors until very late, the diseases Europeans brought with them unknowingly were the most effective destroyers of the healthy indigenous peoples. Late, in the 19th century, smallpox-smeared blankets were distributed to the Plains Indians to accomplish one of the most horrendous acts of "ethnic cleansing" ever attempted, perhaps the first biological warfare.
Before Colon, indigenous Americans were about as numerous as people in Europe, according to recent archaeology, yet soon after him, Europeans saw the Americas as nearly empty continents ripe for the picking. The Europeans' diseases preceded them, probably because refugees fleeing each plague spread it everywhere, from the Europeans' common cold, to the flu to small pox to malaria. No one understood diseases, then, not Europeans, not First Americans.
Siphilis, America's contribution to global diseases, didn't kill off whole European populations, but did precipitate mass craziness, like the Inquisition.
Spanish Conquistadores in Florida, shortly after Colon, strung up murdered Indians' bodies, and fed them to their dogs. Even now in the US indigenous transsexuals need protection from whites.
None of my indigenous heritage has been acknowledged by my Venezuelan family, but all you had to do was look at my mother and uncle to see it: straight, coarse black hair, not-white skin (except when sheltered always from the sun, as my grandmother apparently did), high cheekbones and small stature. My grandmother's family couldn't afford to admit its heritage: they were prominent landowners, business people and, reputedly, owners of a pearl fishery off the small island where my mother was born. The Coello's, island people, were probably half-Carib for generations, until my grandfather, a "100% Spanish" Andino, married my grandmother.
Columbus didn't just "discover" America. He set in motion the destruction of a whole hemisphere's cultures and societies, and the reduction of its original inhabitants to genetic remnants; I am one small, deracinated part. He also launched Europe onto the world's stage, and the US extended European dominance with its huge new resources in the hastily emptied hemisphere.
But that is past. Despite Republican posturing, Pax Americana will be more fleeting than Pax Romanum; American resources are stretched thin. The American Empire cannot maintain itself militarily, but Republicans would try: until the last penny of the not-rich has been poured down war's rat-hole--and billionaires escape.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Every Man For Himself!
The Ik, an African people studied and described by Colin Turnbull best typify the kind of thinking that the radical right wing tea party Republicans idealize: Everyone is out for themselves.
Of course, the Ik were starving much of the time Turnbull lived with them as a "participant observer." They were hunter-gatherers, who depended for most of their protein on the game, big and small, that lived on what had become national parks and wildlife preserves. They were forbidden to hunt for the game, and there was effective enough enforcement of the no hunting ordinances, that the Ik found it difficult to survive. They resisted agriculture.
Curiously, the Ik didn't band together for redress, or for common economic activity, like learning how to raise their own food. Everyone was out for himself, except for the children, who organized themselves into loose bands of age cohorts. They gathered what food they could find, but sometimes it was food they ripped out of the hands of aged members of the tribe, who had found something edible, but were too feeble to defend themselves.
Turnbull witnessed only one wedding, while he was living with the Ik (over a year), but daily instances of the above predatory behavior.
How is this relevant to the current campaign between Democrats and Republicans? The two parties really do represent two different ways of looking at the world, and the "I'm in it for myself and everyone is on his own," is only a little less radically sociopathic than the Ik.
Then, there's the apparent inability of Republicans to recognize the contribution of workers, as opposed to "job creators:" anything even mildly smacking of collective action they opposed. Anti-unionism may be natural to the GOP, but even Democrats who are antagonistic to unions, wouldn't think of celebrating Labor Day the way Majority Leader, Erick Cantor articulated it on a twitter message this September: "“Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.” Nothing about workers, only about entrepreneurs.
The kind of radical sociopathology demonstrated by the Ik, and only a bit less radically, by the GOP, is a symptom of deep distress in society. In the case of the Ik, it was loss of their sources for survival, and Turnbull recommended that the society be forcibly disbanded before it infects others.
In the case of Republicans, the sociopathology may be a reaction to the imminent loss of a demographic majority: whites are fast diminishing as a proportion of the population, and Republicans depend almost exclusively on whites, largely white men. They can't appeal to them without alienating others, and they can't appeal to others (minorities) without losing their appeal to white men.
That may be the major reason for all their attempts to queer the vote.
The relevance to Rome's collapse? The Ik may well be remnants of an even more ancient empire than the Roman: their language appears derived from ancient Egyptian!
Of course, the Ik were starving much of the time Turnbull lived with them as a "participant observer." They were hunter-gatherers, who depended for most of their protein on the game, big and small, that lived on what had become national parks and wildlife preserves. They were forbidden to hunt for the game, and there was effective enough enforcement of the no hunting ordinances, that the Ik found it difficult to survive. They resisted agriculture.
Curiously, the Ik didn't band together for redress, or for common economic activity, like learning how to raise their own food. Everyone was out for himself, except for the children, who organized themselves into loose bands of age cohorts. They gathered what food they could find, but sometimes it was food they ripped out of the hands of aged members of the tribe, who had found something edible, but were too feeble to defend themselves.
Turnbull witnessed only one wedding, while he was living with the Ik (over a year), but daily instances of the above predatory behavior.
How is this relevant to the current campaign between Democrats and Republicans? The two parties really do represent two different ways of looking at the world, and the "I'm in it for myself and everyone is on his own," is only a little less radically sociopathic than the Ik.
Then, there's the apparent inability of Republicans to recognize the contribution of workers, as opposed to "job creators:" anything even mildly smacking of collective action they opposed. Anti-unionism may be natural to the GOP, but even Democrats who are antagonistic to unions, wouldn't think of celebrating Labor Day the way Majority Leader, Erick Cantor articulated it on a twitter message this September: "“Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.” Nothing about workers, only about entrepreneurs.
The kind of radical sociopathology demonstrated by the Ik, and only a bit less radically, by the GOP, is a symptom of deep distress in society. In the case of the Ik, it was loss of their sources for survival, and Turnbull recommended that the society be forcibly disbanded before it infects others.
In the case of Republicans, the sociopathology may be a reaction to the imminent loss of a demographic majority: whites are fast diminishing as a proportion of the population, and Republicans depend almost exclusively on whites, largely white men. They can't appeal to them without alienating others, and they can't appeal to others (minorities) without losing their appeal to white men.
That may be the major reason for all their attempts to queer the vote.
The relevance to Rome's collapse? The Ik may well be remnants of an even more ancient empire than the Roman: their language appears derived from ancient Egyptian!
Saturday, September 22, 2012
906 in Truman's 'Do Nothing Congress', 176 in 2012
Those numbers are for laws passed by the respective Congresses: 1948 and 2012. Truman, who had been given little chance to win the 1948 election, because of the stalemate in Washington, made a nation-wide whistle-stop campaign (trains worked in those days, before the Interstate Highway system), successfully running against the "Do Nothing Congress."
That gives you an idea of how dysfunctional our national political system is today. Congress has been unable to pass major pieces of legislation, and has passed "stop-gap" measures just to "keep the lights on."
Obama is not to blame, and if he had a personality like Harry Truman, he could easily run against the "Do Nothing Congress" of today. Obama does make the point that Congress, specifically the Republicans in Congress, have played an obstructionist role.
The Republican House of Representatives has passed bills, but most of them were only statements of their agenda, with no expectation that the Senate's Democratic majority could accept them, and they haven't. The Democratic Senate, on the other hand has been stalemated by the Republican Senate minority's routine use of the "filibuster," rendering the 41 Republican Senators the controlling bloc, while the less unified and more diverse 59 Democrats (including two independents) have been unable to advance even a portion of their agenda.
A few Republicans have attempted to compromise with Democrats, to bring something workable to the floor, but, like Senator Lugar, they have been defeated in their party primaries, defeated by the accusation of "Republicans in Name Only," or RINO's. No Democrats have lost primaries for similar reasons.
Long ago, when I taught Political Science in Florida, a colleague exclaimed he'd just proven, beyond a doubt, that Democrats and Republicans in Congress voted more frequently along party lines than they did with the other party! In those days (the 1970's), this was a fairly significant finding, because Democrats and Republicans did what is now unthinkable: they worked together on important pieces of legislation. Votes were often not along party lines. Now, among Republicans, it is almost unthinkable for them to vote for any policy proposed by Democrats, even if many, like Obamacare, were originally proposed by Republicans. Democrats break ranks more often, but much more rarely than in the 1970's.
Today we have a Congress that is probably as stalemated as the Congresses that preceded the Civil War. The Republican Senate minority has been open about what they intend: to do anything possible to prevent Obama's re-election, even if that drives us back into the Great Recession and immiserates their constituents. They can always blame everything on the Democrats.
Rome's Senate in the fifth century was even less functional: the Emperors, meaning, their advisors, and Senators as office-holders, made the only meaningful decisions--usually for their own self-interest.
That gives you an idea of how dysfunctional our national political system is today. Congress has been unable to pass major pieces of legislation, and has passed "stop-gap" measures just to "keep the lights on."
Obama is not to blame, and if he had a personality like Harry Truman, he could easily run against the "Do Nothing Congress" of today. Obama does make the point that Congress, specifically the Republicans in Congress, have played an obstructionist role.
The Republican House of Representatives has passed bills, but most of them were only statements of their agenda, with no expectation that the Senate's Democratic majority could accept them, and they haven't. The Democratic Senate, on the other hand has been stalemated by the Republican Senate minority's routine use of the "filibuster," rendering the 41 Republican Senators the controlling bloc, while the less unified and more diverse 59 Democrats (including two independents) have been unable to advance even a portion of their agenda.
A few Republicans have attempted to compromise with Democrats, to bring something workable to the floor, but, like Senator Lugar, they have been defeated in their party primaries, defeated by the accusation of "Republicans in Name Only," or RINO's. No Democrats have lost primaries for similar reasons.
Long ago, when I taught Political Science in Florida, a colleague exclaimed he'd just proven, beyond a doubt, that Democrats and Republicans in Congress voted more frequently along party lines than they did with the other party! In those days (the 1970's), this was a fairly significant finding, because Democrats and Republicans did what is now unthinkable: they worked together on important pieces of legislation. Votes were often not along party lines. Now, among Republicans, it is almost unthinkable for them to vote for any policy proposed by Democrats, even if many, like Obamacare, were originally proposed by Republicans. Democrats break ranks more often, but much more rarely than in the 1970's.
Today we have a Congress that is probably as stalemated as the Congresses that preceded the Civil War. The Republican Senate minority has been open about what they intend: to do anything possible to prevent Obama's re-election, even if that drives us back into the Great Recession and immiserates their constituents. They can always blame everything on the Democrats.
Rome's Senate in the fifth century was even less functional: the Emperors, meaning, their advisors, and Senators as office-holders, made the only meaningful decisions--usually for their own self-interest.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Mitt's Debut
"This president can tell us it was someone else's fault. This president can tell us that the next four years he'll get it right, but this president cannot tell us that you are better off today than when he took office." Mitt Romney's convention address 8/30/2012.
Like much else that Romney and Ryan said, this statement is factually wrong. Things aren't great, but we are better off than we were when the financial system was imploding with the housing market. Further, although unemployment rose after Obama was inaugurated, it fell in response to his policies--just not far enough. The problem was that his policies were too timorous, in part because Obama made attempt after mistaken attempt to compromise with the GOP minorities in both the House and the Senate: mostly the Senate, where the latter wielded its filibuster veto.
His attempts were mistaken, because Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, had made it very clear that his party would do almost whatever it could to insure that Obama would be a one-term President.
Neither Romney, nor Ryan, nor any of the other so-called leaders in the GOP, are willing to admit it now, but they are at least as responsible for the parlous state of the nation as Obama. They blocked whatever initiatives Obama attempted to bring about a recovery of the economy their (and Clinton-Rubin's) extreme laissez-faire policies had brought to the brink.
The GOP's hypocrisy is extraordinary, so the string of falsehoods promulgated by Ryan and then Romney at the convention should not be surprising.
What I do find surprising is the lack of "message control" on the part of the most prominent participants in the Republican Convention. Only the lesser lights, like Susana Martinez and Ann Romney stayed on message: to promote Romney as their standard bearer. Aside from the disastrous "address" of Clint Eastwood, Republican stars like Chris Christie, and even Paul Ryan appeared at best lukewarm in their promotion of their putative nominee.
This leads me to wonder: perhaps Mitt isn't even the super-manager he claims, or perhaps the GOP isn't really uniting behind him, after all. Ron Paul hasn't endorsed him, Clint referred to him as "the other guy" and many others seemed to treat him as an afterthought.
Maybe, the huge financial advantage Republicans have gained from Citizens United and their billionaire "super-pacs" has made them careless. After all, Sheldon Adelson has said he'd spend "whatever it takes" to defeat Obama, so, why worry? They'll just smother the airwaves with their lies.
I hope enough people tune out their distortions, but this is a classic case of the selfish class attempting to take over what had been at best a limited democracy. If their class succeeds, the US, and the world, will look increasingly like the last, fumbling years of the western Roman Empire.
Like much else that Romney and Ryan said, this statement is factually wrong. Things aren't great, but we are better off than we were when the financial system was imploding with the housing market. Further, although unemployment rose after Obama was inaugurated, it fell in response to his policies--just not far enough. The problem was that his policies were too timorous, in part because Obama made attempt after mistaken attempt to compromise with the GOP minorities in both the House and the Senate: mostly the Senate, where the latter wielded its filibuster veto.
His attempts were mistaken, because Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, had made it very clear that his party would do almost whatever it could to insure that Obama would be a one-term President.
Neither Romney, nor Ryan, nor any of the other so-called leaders in the GOP, are willing to admit it now, but they are at least as responsible for the parlous state of the nation as Obama. They blocked whatever initiatives Obama attempted to bring about a recovery of the economy their (and Clinton-Rubin's) extreme laissez-faire policies had brought to the brink.
The GOP's hypocrisy is extraordinary, so the string of falsehoods promulgated by Ryan and then Romney at the convention should not be surprising.
What I do find surprising is the lack of "message control" on the part of the most prominent participants in the Republican Convention. Only the lesser lights, like Susana Martinez and Ann Romney stayed on message: to promote Romney as their standard bearer. Aside from the disastrous "address" of Clint Eastwood, Republican stars like Chris Christie, and even Paul Ryan appeared at best lukewarm in their promotion of their putative nominee.
This leads me to wonder: perhaps Mitt isn't even the super-manager he claims, or perhaps the GOP isn't really uniting behind him, after all. Ron Paul hasn't endorsed him, Clint referred to him as "the other guy" and many others seemed to treat him as an afterthought.
Maybe, the huge financial advantage Republicans have gained from Citizens United and their billionaire "super-pacs" has made them careless. After all, Sheldon Adelson has said he'd spend "whatever it takes" to defeat Obama, so, why worry? They'll just smother the airwaves with their lies.
I hope enough people tune out their distortions, but this is a classic case of the selfish class attempting to take over what had been at best a limited democracy. If their class succeeds, the US, and the world, will look increasingly like the last, fumbling years of the western Roman Empire.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
What Is To Be Done?*
I despair the politics of this era, the lies and distortions that impel it, the money that drives it. Mitt Romney is its perfect symbol; Paul Ryan is the embodiment of its deceptive promises of reaction snake-oil.
The Economist asks, 'Who, really, is Mitt Romney?' I doubt he can answer, except: he's determined to win the Presidency; he has no goal, other than winning it. He's been both a moderate liberal as governor of Massachusetts, and an "extreme conservative," (his own words), while running for President, even after winning the nomination. He was pro-choice, and now, he'll run on a Republican platform in which even rape and incest are not exempt from its absolute ban. He insists, after Akin's blooper, that he'd allow abortion for either reason, but who knows whether he would, or could, given his party.
Romney even threatens a Gold Commission to investigate returning to the Gold Standard--presumably to mollify Ron Paul supporters.
Then Senator, George McGovern, wrote an awful forward to The Promise of the Coming Dark Age: McGovern touted the Khmer Rouge as a beacon! If Mitt is able to buy the Presidency--that's what it would be, a purchase, costing several billion dollars--then the Dark Age could be upon us: the Roman Senators of old couldn't match the callous disregard the elite bear today for the rest of us. Romney would cut services (Food Stamps, Medicaid) for the desperate and cut taxes for his (lightly taxed) class of multimillionaires and billionaires. He'd also increase Defense spending, possibly for fighting another war: Iran, probably, although he'd also start a trade war with China the day he's inaugurated.
Romney appears to have chosen "extreme conservative" over moderate liberal, although he's still claiming he lives in Massachusetts (there is a question whether he did, when he filed taxes and voted in Massachusetts, claiming residence in his son's basement, a possible felony). But Romney still resists political, as well as geographic, definition.
His party tries to rally natives against immigrants, whites against blacks, men against women--its absolutist anti-abortion position is only a small part of that--but all is subsumed in the general war against all who are not owners of significant capital.
Capital is the contemporary version of the gold, land and slaves controlled by Roman Senators in the fourth and fifth centuries. Unlike the wealth of old, however, capital is expandable, and radical. Roman Senators could do only a small fraction of the damage that can be done, is already being done, by our contemporary elites, from eviscerating the safety net, environmental pollution and impoverishing the non-rich, to global warming, global immiseration and buying this election.
Can sanity stop them? Even the sitting President, Obama, doesn't have the money to beat back their misinformation, smears, and outright lies: example, their claim that Obama is reviving welfare.
What is to be done?
*Lenin used the same title.
The Economist asks, 'Who, really, is Mitt Romney?' I doubt he can answer, except: he's determined to win the Presidency; he has no goal, other than winning it. He's been both a moderate liberal as governor of Massachusetts, and an "extreme conservative," (his own words), while running for President, even after winning the nomination. He was pro-choice, and now, he'll run on a Republican platform in which even rape and incest are not exempt from its absolute ban. He insists, after Akin's blooper, that he'd allow abortion for either reason, but who knows whether he would, or could, given his party.
Romney even threatens a Gold Commission to investigate returning to the Gold Standard--presumably to mollify Ron Paul supporters.
Then Senator, George McGovern, wrote an awful forward to The Promise of the Coming Dark Age: McGovern touted the Khmer Rouge as a beacon! If Mitt is able to buy the Presidency--that's what it would be, a purchase, costing several billion dollars--then the Dark Age could be upon us: the Roman Senators of old couldn't match the callous disregard the elite bear today for the rest of us. Romney would cut services (Food Stamps, Medicaid) for the desperate and cut taxes for his (lightly taxed) class of multimillionaires and billionaires. He'd also increase Defense spending, possibly for fighting another war: Iran, probably, although he'd also start a trade war with China the day he's inaugurated.
Romney appears to have chosen "extreme conservative" over moderate liberal, although he's still claiming he lives in Massachusetts (there is a question whether he did, when he filed taxes and voted in Massachusetts, claiming residence in his son's basement, a possible felony). But Romney still resists political, as well as geographic, definition.
His party tries to rally natives against immigrants, whites against blacks, men against women--its absolutist anti-abortion position is only a small part of that--but all is subsumed in the general war against all who are not owners of significant capital.
Capital is the contemporary version of the gold, land and slaves controlled by Roman Senators in the fourth and fifth centuries. Unlike the wealth of old, however, capital is expandable, and radical. Roman Senators could do only a small fraction of the damage that can be done, is already being done, by our contemporary elites, from eviscerating the safety net, environmental pollution and impoverishing the non-rich, to global warming, global immiseration and buying this election.
Can sanity stop them? Even the sitting President, Obama, doesn't have the money to beat back their misinformation, smears, and outright lies: example, their claim that Obama is reviving welfare.
What is to be done?
*Lenin used the same title.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Plantation America
…is what we're entering. It's why the elites no longer seem to care if people are employed, or desperate. It's why a significant portion of the elite is determined to repeal the healthcare law, now that the Supreme Court has upheld it. The hoi-polloi must be driven down, like the slaves of yore.
Sara Robinson (Alternet, 06/28/12) offers an intriguing theory: the wealthy now most articulate, most politically active, increasingly dominant, are from a different aristocracy than men like FDR, or even George H.W. Bush. They have not, she points out, inherited the Puritan-based values of social justice and noblesse oblige, derived mostly from the Northeast. Instead, like the younger Bush and Mitch McConnell, they inherit their ideas from the plantation aristocracy of the Tidewater South, and ultimately from the even more brutal plantation society of the West Indies.
The plantation heritage emphasizes the 'divine right' of the elite to lord it over their slaves--and everyone else, brutally, if necessary. It also rejects the idea that the elite has an obligation to aid those less fortunate, or the later idea that equality is a good: it's not: it's an evil, in their eyes, to be beaten down (literally). Further, freedom, for them, is only individual, and only realized fully by elites, because they should have the freedom to suppress everyone else.
You could go further back and draw parallels between the Puritan vs Plantation aristocracies to the European feudal regimes vs the latifundias lorded over by the Roman Senators towards (and after) the break up of the Roman Empire. The process of Senatorial takeover parallels our own: yeomen peasantry, urban proletariat, and the middle class were all driven into serfdom, under the control of the few Senatorial families monopolizing all wealth. Anyone not of Senatorial rank was treated like a serf.
In feudal society, there was at least the idea that nobility had an obligation to protect and look after their subjects, although this often degenerated into something more like the late Roman system. Its degeneration led to the French Revolution and the English Civil War, but also to social democracy in most of Europe.
It is the southern, plantation ethos that pervades the Tea Party, or rather, its funders, like the Koch brothers and Karl Rove. They are not constrained by ideas of justice, the rule of law or fairness. The Kochs, for example, believe they have a god-given right to pollute the air, water and land and shouldn't have to pay for the damage they do to anyone else; that's their justification for adamantly opposing any kind of environmental regulation: they call this "freedom."
Looked at this way, the contest between conservative and liberal/progressive, between Republican and Democrat, is a contest between two elite cultures, or tribes. The older, more established northeastern ethos appears tired, and lacking conviction. The brash, southern and western tribe pours its resources into gaining dominance.
It doesn't look good.
Sara Robinson (Alternet, 06/28/12) offers an intriguing theory: the wealthy now most articulate, most politically active, increasingly dominant, are from a different aristocracy than men like FDR, or even George H.W. Bush. They have not, she points out, inherited the Puritan-based values of social justice and noblesse oblige, derived mostly from the Northeast. Instead, like the younger Bush and Mitch McConnell, they inherit their ideas from the plantation aristocracy of the Tidewater South, and ultimately from the even more brutal plantation society of the West Indies.
The plantation heritage emphasizes the 'divine right' of the elite to lord it over their slaves--and everyone else, brutally, if necessary. It also rejects the idea that the elite has an obligation to aid those less fortunate, or the later idea that equality is a good: it's not: it's an evil, in their eyes, to be beaten down (literally). Further, freedom, for them, is only individual, and only realized fully by elites, because they should have the freedom to suppress everyone else.
You could go further back and draw parallels between the Puritan vs Plantation aristocracies to the European feudal regimes vs the latifundias lorded over by the Roman Senators towards (and after) the break up of the Roman Empire. The process of Senatorial takeover parallels our own: yeomen peasantry, urban proletariat, and the middle class were all driven into serfdom, under the control of the few Senatorial families monopolizing all wealth. Anyone not of Senatorial rank was treated like a serf.
In feudal society, there was at least the idea that nobility had an obligation to protect and look after their subjects, although this often degenerated into something more like the late Roman system. Its degeneration led to the French Revolution and the English Civil War, but also to social democracy in most of Europe.
It is the southern, plantation ethos that pervades the Tea Party, or rather, its funders, like the Koch brothers and Karl Rove. They are not constrained by ideas of justice, the rule of law or fairness. The Kochs, for example, believe they have a god-given right to pollute the air, water and land and shouldn't have to pay for the damage they do to anyone else; that's their justification for adamantly opposing any kind of environmental regulation: they call this "freedom."
Looked at this way, the contest between conservative and liberal/progressive, between Republican and Democrat, is a contest between two elite cultures, or tribes. The older, more established northeastern ethos appears tired, and lacking conviction. The brash, southern and western tribe pours its resources into gaining dominance.
It doesn't look good.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Stimulus or Austerity
What do we hear from the movers and shakers? Still, austerity.
Greece is imploding, and even if moderates win this Sunday, it's unlikely that they'll be able to force Germany's Angela Merkel to abandon her stance: austerity as the solution to all their economic ills. Spain is now the problem de jour: another bank/bonds crisis, but again, European bonds, the only interim solution, are nixed by Merkel.
Merkel has her reasons. Germans have their history as justification: the Weimar Republic collapsed under inflation that saw the mark tumble to over 1 trillion to the dollar, wiping out the middle class. After that, the Nazis took over.
Ironically, but also logically, some of the beneficiaries of the austerity-driven depression that's overtaking Europe's periphery are politicians of the extreme right, like Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn.
If Germans could realize that their resistance to meaningful bailouts and stimulus to create growth is creating little Weimar's all over Europe, perhaps they'd re-think their reluctance.
Angela's conservatives are in the driver's seat in Europe. In the US, conservatives are in a similar position, even though they don't control the federal government. The tea party dominated Republicans control the House, and effectively stymie any stimulatory policy in the Senate: 41 votes out of 100 = a blocking minority. Plus, by controlling a majority of states, Republicans are able to lay off public employees wholesale--partly to balance budgets, but partly because unionized public employees are the only organized group left that can counter their lock-step promotion of corporate and wealthy/selfish class interests. Conservatives see public employees as "the greatest threat" to the US economy. However, the net effect of state (and local) layoffs has been to offset any growth in employment in the private sector, one of the prime reasons why unemployment went up a notch last month.
Given their antagonism to public employees, it's not surprising that Republicans refuse to allow the major Federal grants (stimulus expenditures) necessary to prevent the layoffs or hire back the teachers and police needed.
The US doesn't have the equivalent of Greece's Golden Dawn or its left-wing Syriza, but Republican intransigence and Democratic waffling surely justify them.
Instead, we have the Koch brothers, Karl Rove and the millionaire/billionaire funded super-pacs on one side, and only the weakened Occupy movement on the other. So, our equivalent of the Nazi takeover of Weimar would put corporations and their owners in control.
Why "only" the Occupy movement? Tom Barrett, the defeated old-line Democrat in Wisconsin is your answer. Centrist resistance may win barely enough votes in the General Election against Koch-Rove billions, but what people really yearn for is the kind of policy (only more so) that Obama campaigned on but only half-delivered. Incremental measures aren't solutions.
Even with Obama, the 1%, or the Selfish Class, face little resistance to their takeover. Long-term depression could result, paralleling the history of the late Roman Empire.
Greece is imploding, and even if moderates win this Sunday, it's unlikely that they'll be able to force Germany's Angela Merkel to abandon her stance: austerity as the solution to all their economic ills. Spain is now the problem de jour: another bank/bonds crisis, but again, European bonds, the only interim solution, are nixed by Merkel.
Merkel has her reasons. Germans have their history as justification: the Weimar Republic collapsed under inflation that saw the mark tumble to over 1 trillion to the dollar, wiping out the middle class. After that, the Nazis took over.
Ironically, but also logically, some of the beneficiaries of the austerity-driven depression that's overtaking Europe's periphery are politicians of the extreme right, like Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn.
If Germans could realize that their resistance to meaningful bailouts and stimulus to create growth is creating little Weimar's all over Europe, perhaps they'd re-think their reluctance.
Angela's conservatives are in the driver's seat in Europe. In the US, conservatives are in a similar position, even though they don't control the federal government. The tea party dominated Republicans control the House, and effectively stymie any stimulatory policy in the Senate: 41 votes out of 100 = a blocking minority. Plus, by controlling a majority of states, Republicans are able to lay off public employees wholesale--partly to balance budgets, but partly because unionized public employees are the only organized group left that can counter their lock-step promotion of corporate and wealthy/selfish class interests. Conservatives see public employees as "the greatest threat" to the US economy. However, the net effect of state (and local) layoffs has been to offset any growth in employment in the private sector, one of the prime reasons why unemployment went up a notch last month.
Given their antagonism to public employees, it's not surprising that Republicans refuse to allow the major Federal grants (stimulus expenditures) necessary to prevent the layoffs or hire back the teachers and police needed.
The US doesn't have the equivalent of Greece's Golden Dawn or its left-wing Syriza, but Republican intransigence and Democratic waffling surely justify them.
Instead, we have the Koch brothers, Karl Rove and the millionaire/billionaire funded super-pacs on one side, and only the weakened Occupy movement on the other. So, our equivalent of the Nazi takeover of Weimar would put corporations and their owners in control.
Why "only" the Occupy movement? Tom Barrett, the defeated old-line Democrat in Wisconsin is your answer. Centrist resistance may win barely enough votes in the General Election against Koch-Rove billions, but what people really yearn for is the kind of policy (only more so) that Obama campaigned on but only half-delivered. Incremental measures aren't solutions.
Even with Obama, the 1%, or the Selfish Class, face little resistance to their takeover. Long-term depression could result, paralleling the history of the late Roman Empire.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Standing Up On Their Hindlegs
And finding, yes, I think, a little spine in there. I'm referring to both Obama and the Democrats in Congress.
Obama insists on tax increases for the wealthy, including his Buffett Rule, that millionaires should pay taxes at the same rate as the middle class. He came out with a surprisingly muscular jobs bill, although it is still far from enough. And then he issued a veto threat (his first?): against any super-committee budget agreement that doesn't include tax increases as well as cuts to programs. His proposal actually is estimated to come 40% from tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, 60 % from expenditure cuts.
Republicans for months have been insisting that: "you can't raise taxes in a recession." Nor on "job creators," their euphemism for the stinking rich, so Obama's position is no longer compromise; it's confrontation. It's as if somebody finally got to him and said: "They'll compromise with you only if it'll guarantee their chances of defeating you in 2012. They're not sincere; give up trying.
Maybe he's given up trying. The Republicans, especially the House backbenchers are every bit as crazy as the radical Republicans after Lincoln's assassination. It's definitely better to show Americans what they really are.
Which brings us to the US House Democrats: they voted against the short-term budget, and so did enough sane Republicans that the government could shut down beginning next Tuesday.
Sane to shut down the government? Democrats?
What the Democrats were voting against was the insistence by the Republican majority that, counter to all past practice, disaster relief should be "paid for" by cuts to other programs. A program Republicans were going to cut was for developing more highly efficient vehicles: it was already creating jobs and was highly popular.
Now, Speaker Boehner is going to have to find a majority, not among the radical cutters, but among the sane. Insisting that disaster relief has to be "paid for," is like saying: "If I help him, I'll have to take the money from you." That's not going to be very popular.
With accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, and Republican crazies denying that humans have anything to do with climate change (it's just sunspots), disaster relief may become our new growth industry. But if you're going to accelerate disasters, at least you should help out the victims. The polluting companies and their shareholders should fund disaster relief from their excessive profits, even if the Kochs, et al deny any responsibility.
The debt-deficit mania, the austerity abroad, military stalemate, the increasingly polarized (and irrational) politics both in the US and in Europe spell rapid decline, not just of the American Empire but of any kind of western pre-eminence.
We do still have a chance to turn things around: Democrats standing up on their hindlegs is a start.
Obama insists on tax increases for the wealthy, including his Buffett Rule, that millionaires should pay taxes at the same rate as the middle class. He came out with a surprisingly muscular jobs bill, although it is still far from enough. And then he issued a veto threat (his first?): against any super-committee budget agreement that doesn't include tax increases as well as cuts to programs. His proposal actually is estimated to come 40% from tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, 60 % from expenditure cuts.
Republicans for months have been insisting that: "you can't raise taxes in a recession." Nor on "job creators," their euphemism for the stinking rich, so Obama's position is no longer compromise; it's confrontation. It's as if somebody finally got to him and said: "They'll compromise with you only if it'll guarantee their chances of defeating you in 2012. They're not sincere; give up trying.
Maybe he's given up trying. The Republicans, especially the House backbenchers are every bit as crazy as the radical Republicans after Lincoln's assassination. It's definitely better to show Americans what they really are.
Which brings us to the US House Democrats: they voted against the short-term budget, and so did enough sane Republicans that the government could shut down beginning next Tuesday.
Sane to shut down the government? Democrats?
What the Democrats were voting against was the insistence by the Republican majority that, counter to all past practice, disaster relief should be "paid for" by cuts to other programs. A program Republicans were going to cut was for developing more highly efficient vehicles: it was already creating jobs and was highly popular.
Now, Speaker Boehner is going to have to find a majority, not among the radical cutters, but among the sane. Insisting that disaster relief has to be "paid for," is like saying: "If I help him, I'll have to take the money from you." That's not going to be very popular.
With accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, and Republican crazies denying that humans have anything to do with climate change (it's just sunspots), disaster relief may become our new growth industry. But if you're going to accelerate disasters, at least you should help out the victims. The polluting companies and their shareholders should fund disaster relief from their excessive profits, even if the Kochs, et al deny any responsibility.
The debt-deficit mania, the austerity abroad, military stalemate, the increasingly polarized (and irrational) politics both in the US and in Europe spell rapid decline, not just of the American Empire but of any kind of western pre-eminence.
We do still have a chance to turn things around: Democrats standing up on their hindlegs is a start.
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