Back when men were men and women knew their place, when a white sheet was a badge of honor, there was a region of this country that was ruled, brutally, by a minority--after slavery had been abolished--and after the 14th and 15th Amendments gave all men (not women) the right to vote. Flaming crosses and worse enabled the white minority to rule over 'the colored.' Meanwhile, monopolies overworked white workers in other parts of the country.
The post-Civil War period experienced an explosion of riches--in a few hands, especially the most ruthless. Black people were re-enslaved, through sharecropping, Jim Crow and the prison system.
The post-Civil War period must be the model for the Tea Party, whose activists famously shouted "We Want Our Country Back!" No wonder they see Obama as an abomination: he's like one of those ex-slave, black Senators or Congressmen, run by corrupt carpetbaggers exploiting the South during cursed Reconstruction. Worse, he's better educated than they are.
Post-Reconstruction is the model for the new society they'd like to construct--post-Reconstruction, pre-Progressive Era. It's the reforms and expansions of the franchise beginning with Progressive era that the radical Republicans want to excise.
Before Progressivism, there was no regulation of business: trusts proliferated, monopolies became the industrial norm, and wealth shot upward into fewer and fewer hands.
The great Hudson Valley estates are evidence of their extremes of wealth. Now, our new Roman Senators are more visible on screen than on great estates, but their fortunes dwarf the Gilded Age.
A minority is attempting to rule the rest of us: the Republican majority in the House, elected by fewer votes than the minority Democrats, is holding the rest of government hostage, demanding it "negotiate" with them, i.e. give in to their demands.
If Republicans succeed, if Obama blinks, and uses the occasion to negotiate a "grand bargain" that cuts taxes for the wealthy, cuts Social Security and other earned benefits, as well as further shredding the safety net, then we'll be hurtling back to the 19th century.
We already have monopolies like Monsanto and oligopolies like Wall Street, all of them enabled by government. Unions are almost as helpless as they were before the New Deal. We already have inequalities of wealth as great or greater than in 1900.
Can a determined minority, with money and media, overcome the rights, safeguards and programs Americans won through terrible struggles, starting with the wars on strikers, followed by the sit-downs at factories and later in buses and lunch counters, and despite white terror, won at the ballot box? Will we really let ourselves be poisoned, our land and water despoiled, our labor devalued? Will we allow them to impoverish us?
It happened in Fifth Century Rome; it happened again in the 1870's; it could happen here--with consequences far worse than Romulus Augustulas's defeat, Rome's depopulation, or brutal Jim Crow: think planetary destruction.
Showing posts with label progressives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label progressives. Show all posts
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Monday, October 8, 2012
Gilded Age Reaction or Progressive Reform
Obama has to win re-election simply to allow the possibility of a more progressive politics and to prevent an accelerating slide into a revived Gilded Age of Robber Barons. Mitt not only represents the Robber Barons, he is one.
But Obama has been nearly half-bought himself.
Still, that leaves 50% of him that is open to the interests of the rest of us, not just the billionaires. Consider the XL Tar Sands pipeline. Obama's State Department initially passed on it, but under dramatic pressure by environmental activists--surrounding the White House in linked arms, for example--Obama delayed, but did not cancel the project. His department has pushed for a more environmentally benign route, but Obama still might agree to cancel it altogether--if pressured enough.
Romney would have had the protesters arrested and jailed.
If Obama is re-elected, taxes on the wealthy probably will go up and disincentives for outsourcing and offshoring would be a priority. Romney would cut taxes on the wealthy and would encourage offshoring (which he pioneered). It's also likely that Obama would maintain, or lower, tax rates on those least able to pay, maintain the safety net (unemployment insurance, Medicaid, food stamps and entitlements). Romney wants to gut, privatize and merge most, if not all, of these programs.
If Obama is re-elected, the rights of women and gays will be enhanced. If Romney gets elected, they'll be diminished. The same holds true for minorities and immigrants: their rights would be enhanced with Obama, restricted with Romney.
So, why do people support Romney? Why did the Tea Party so capture the GOP that elder statesmen not ideologically pure enough, like Senator Lugar, go down to defeat in their party's primaries? For all his sweet nothings (lies), Romney's attempts in the first debate at softening the hard right positions he's campaigned on are meaningless: he'd be kept in line by the Republican Congress likely to be elected with him if he won.
Obama is no pure progressive. To pull him leftward, we need Democratic progressives like Sherrod Brown in greater numbers in the House and Senate; both bodies need solid Democratic majorities and progressives must mobilize activists on all the issues important to us. Examples: stopping the imperial creep of our military abroad, and our police at home; pushing alternative energies and stopping fracking cold; passing the Dream Act.
Obama is different from Romney, as Gore was different from W. Gore would have responded to the vast demonstrations against starting the Iraq war; W ignored them.
With the improved job numbers, perhaps Obama has a chance. If he does, we also have a chance: to reverse the slide into the kind of lopsided dominance of the few wealthy that characterized the Roman Senators in the fast declining empire of fifth century Rome.
If Romney and Republicans win, the march towards chaos and impoverishment reminiscent of Rome's fall could look inevitable.
But Obama has been nearly half-bought himself.
Still, that leaves 50% of him that is open to the interests of the rest of us, not just the billionaires. Consider the XL Tar Sands pipeline. Obama's State Department initially passed on it, but under dramatic pressure by environmental activists--surrounding the White House in linked arms, for example--Obama delayed, but did not cancel the project. His department has pushed for a more environmentally benign route, but Obama still might agree to cancel it altogether--if pressured enough.
Romney would have had the protesters arrested and jailed.
If Obama is re-elected, taxes on the wealthy probably will go up and disincentives for outsourcing and offshoring would be a priority. Romney would cut taxes on the wealthy and would encourage offshoring (which he pioneered). It's also likely that Obama would maintain, or lower, tax rates on those least able to pay, maintain the safety net (unemployment insurance, Medicaid, food stamps and entitlements). Romney wants to gut, privatize and merge most, if not all, of these programs.
If Obama is re-elected, the rights of women and gays will be enhanced. If Romney gets elected, they'll be diminished. The same holds true for minorities and immigrants: their rights would be enhanced with Obama, restricted with Romney.
So, why do people support Romney? Why did the Tea Party so capture the GOP that elder statesmen not ideologically pure enough, like Senator Lugar, go down to defeat in their party's primaries? For all his sweet nothings (lies), Romney's attempts in the first debate at softening the hard right positions he's campaigned on are meaningless: he'd be kept in line by the Republican Congress likely to be elected with him if he won.
Obama is no pure progressive. To pull him leftward, we need Democratic progressives like Sherrod Brown in greater numbers in the House and Senate; both bodies need solid Democratic majorities and progressives must mobilize activists on all the issues important to us. Examples: stopping the imperial creep of our military abroad, and our police at home; pushing alternative energies and stopping fracking cold; passing the Dream Act.
Obama is different from Romney, as Gore was different from W. Gore would have responded to the vast demonstrations against starting the Iraq war; W ignored them.
With the improved job numbers, perhaps Obama has a chance. If he does, we also have a chance: to reverse the slide into the kind of lopsided dominance of the few wealthy that characterized the Roman Senators in the fast declining empire of fifth century Rome.
If Romney and Republicans win, the march towards chaos and impoverishment reminiscent of Rome's fall could look inevitable.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Campaigning Against the 1%
What will it take for putative progressive politicians to realize what a gift the Occupy Wall Street movement has offered them? While campaigning against "the one-percent," the OWS has begun to awaken the slumbering giant that is the American public.
I wonder, however, if elected leaders will get the message. I have a friend, Joel Tyner, who holds a position in the local legislature. He now sees his chance: he's campaigning for Congress; his opponent, the incumbent, is a Tea Party Republican elected in the 2010 wave.
I'm not sure my friend will have what it takes, which is a ton of money and good organization, even to be heard, even to be part of the electoral debate. It's no secret that the Republican will not only have sufficient campaign funds, he will also be supported, if necessary, with piles of corporate money. My friend will probably reject special interest funding, and doesn't know many likely wealthy contributors. He'll do things like hold demonstrations outside the Congressman's office; he's known for his publicized hikes to highlight political grievances, yet not even the local newspaper covers him most of the time.
The American political system, as presently constituted, favors the wealthy, and rewards those who side with them. Charles Beard, an American revisionist historian, made the case that the American Constitution was a counter-revolution by the propertied, looking out for their special interests. Their interests included "worthless" war bonds and deeds to western lands issued to Revolutionary War veterans in lieu of pay. George Washington and others bought them up for tiny fractions of their face value. The Constitution insured that the new government would protect their new lands and honor the war bonds, making the speculators--many in the Constitutional Congress--extremely wealthy.
Today we have a continuation of that tradition in Congress's immunity from insider trading laws, which is probably one of the reasons why most Congress-persons and Senators are much wealthier than their constituents.
Any reform, let alone revolution, has to overcome this. Further, it will have to overwhelm party establishments that are set up to protect special interests, rather than represent popular concerns. Only sustained popular mobilization, like the civil rights movement and the suffrage movement, has overcome the entrenched status quo. Effective leaders can help promote change, but our complicated structure tends to keep things the way they were.
If far-reaching reform doesn't happen, the American system ultimately may be overthrown by an enraged 99%; it's what happened in France, Russia, China, etc. Alternatively, the US political and economic system could continue to become increasingly dysfunctional, until it collapses of its own weight, like the Roman Empire. Rome went bankrupt because its Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves: they had extracted all the available wealth from everyone else, but had no sense of obligation to the Empire or society as a whole. Sounds like Wall Street, doesn't it?
I wonder, however, if elected leaders will get the message. I have a friend, Joel Tyner, who holds a position in the local legislature. He now sees his chance: he's campaigning for Congress; his opponent, the incumbent, is a Tea Party Republican elected in the 2010 wave.
I'm not sure my friend will have what it takes, which is a ton of money and good organization, even to be heard, even to be part of the electoral debate. It's no secret that the Republican will not only have sufficient campaign funds, he will also be supported, if necessary, with piles of corporate money. My friend will probably reject special interest funding, and doesn't know many likely wealthy contributors. He'll do things like hold demonstrations outside the Congressman's office; he's known for his publicized hikes to highlight political grievances, yet not even the local newspaper covers him most of the time.
The American political system, as presently constituted, favors the wealthy, and rewards those who side with them. Charles Beard, an American revisionist historian, made the case that the American Constitution was a counter-revolution by the propertied, looking out for their special interests. Their interests included "worthless" war bonds and deeds to western lands issued to Revolutionary War veterans in lieu of pay. George Washington and others bought them up for tiny fractions of their face value. The Constitution insured that the new government would protect their new lands and honor the war bonds, making the speculators--many in the Constitutional Congress--extremely wealthy.
Today we have a continuation of that tradition in Congress's immunity from insider trading laws, which is probably one of the reasons why most Congress-persons and Senators are much wealthier than their constituents.
Any reform, let alone revolution, has to overcome this. Further, it will have to overwhelm party establishments that are set up to protect special interests, rather than represent popular concerns. Only sustained popular mobilization, like the civil rights movement and the suffrage movement, has overcome the entrenched status quo. Effective leaders can help promote change, but our complicated structure tends to keep things the way they were.
If far-reaching reform doesn't happen, the American system ultimately may be overthrown by an enraged 99%; it's what happened in France, Russia, China, etc. Alternatively, the US political and economic system could continue to become increasingly dysfunctional, until it collapses of its own weight, like the Roman Empire. Rome went bankrupt because its Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves: they had extracted all the available wealth from everyone else, but had no sense of obligation to the Empire or society as a whole. Sounds like Wall Street, doesn't it?
Monday, April 18, 2011
Stories Win Nations
"Job creators" are being unfairly attacked, their money stolen from them: there are only two kinds of people in the world, producers and users, or parasites.
Parasites control governments everywhere and legally steal from producers, through taxes: governments are intrinsically parasitic. Governments produce nothing; they suck blood out of those who do. If there were no governments, merely security forces to protect property, then free enterprise would truly flourish.
That's why conservatives support tax cuts for the wealthy, and cuts in services for everyone else; they tell each other the above story: it all makes sense. Ayn Rand makes heroes of supposed producers, and villains of anyone who doesn't "produce." Roman Senators thought like that.
The villains are ordinary people, especially those who have the temerity to think they should be paid decently; they support unions because they're greedy and lazy. Roman elites felt that way about slaves. Also, governments unfairly penalize producers by caving into the mob--like weak Roman Emperors.
Unions, of course, are just gangsters, gangs to rip off the honest man's sweat, for which he worked so hard--on his telephone all day! That's why union busting, even with baseball bats and armed guards, is justified.
Paul Ryan is a Randist, apparently. It's likely Ron and Rand Paul are, too. And many tea partiers. Ayn Rand's story (above) doesn't really make sense, but that doesn't matter, it's a framework for the emerging GOP worldview; it makes emotional sense to them.
What doesn't make sense? First, if all but the few are producers, then, workers contribute nothing? What if the mighty entrepreneur hoards his money, pays his workers peanuts, and demands police repression to keep wages down? What if every hero entrepreneur acts likewise, in this perfect Randian world? Who will have the money to buy goods and services? Luxury markets do not a mass-market make. Secondly, if there is no government, who will provide collective goods like roads, rules of the market, standard measures, let alone security for everyone? (Governments do produce quite a lot, actually). Third, would everyone else agree to live in misery because they don't sit behind an Executive desk?
It doesn't matter to radical conservatives whether their arguments make sense. What matters is the story. It's surprising how persuasive it is to people whose interests are diametrically opposed.
The basic problem that progressives face is: they don't have a compelling story, not anymore. Progressives did have a story, a very compelling one, in the 1930's. It has been waning in strength ever since. The Great Recession didn't revive it, nor did Obama. Big business media won't revive it; it's "anti-business."
A spellbinding movie or novel might create a new story, or revive the old one--union solidarity defeats oppressive bosses; slaves rebel against cruel masters (Spartacus lost). Progressives need a story, badly, or we'll plunge headlong into something far worse than Rome's fall in 476.
Parasites control governments everywhere and legally steal from producers, through taxes: governments are intrinsically parasitic. Governments produce nothing; they suck blood out of those who do. If there were no governments, merely security forces to protect property, then free enterprise would truly flourish.
That's why conservatives support tax cuts for the wealthy, and cuts in services for everyone else; they tell each other the above story: it all makes sense. Ayn Rand makes heroes of supposed producers, and villains of anyone who doesn't "produce." Roman Senators thought like that.
The villains are ordinary people, especially those who have the temerity to think they should be paid decently; they support unions because they're greedy and lazy. Roman elites felt that way about slaves. Also, governments unfairly penalize producers by caving into the mob--like weak Roman Emperors.
Unions, of course, are just gangsters, gangs to rip off the honest man's sweat, for which he worked so hard--on his telephone all day! That's why union busting, even with baseball bats and armed guards, is justified.
Paul Ryan is a Randist, apparently. It's likely Ron and Rand Paul are, too. And many tea partiers. Ayn Rand's story (above) doesn't really make sense, but that doesn't matter, it's a framework for the emerging GOP worldview; it makes emotional sense to them.
What doesn't make sense? First, if all but the few are producers, then, workers contribute nothing? What if the mighty entrepreneur hoards his money, pays his workers peanuts, and demands police repression to keep wages down? What if every hero entrepreneur acts likewise, in this perfect Randian world? Who will have the money to buy goods and services? Luxury markets do not a mass-market make. Secondly, if there is no government, who will provide collective goods like roads, rules of the market, standard measures, let alone security for everyone? (Governments do produce quite a lot, actually). Third, would everyone else agree to live in misery because they don't sit behind an Executive desk?
It doesn't matter to radical conservatives whether their arguments make sense. What matters is the story. It's surprising how persuasive it is to people whose interests are diametrically opposed.
The basic problem that progressives face is: they don't have a compelling story, not anymore. Progressives did have a story, a very compelling one, in the 1930's. It has been waning in strength ever since. The Great Recession didn't revive it, nor did Obama. Big business media won't revive it; it's "anti-business."
A spellbinding movie or novel might create a new story, or revive the old one--union solidarity defeats oppressive bosses; slaves rebel against cruel masters (Spartacus lost). Progressives need a story, badly, or we'll plunge headlong into something far worse than Rome's fall in 476.
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