The big news this week for political junkies, the kind that pay attention between elections and sometimes naively believe that progress is possible, is that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has announced that he will seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. He has always caucused with the Democratic members of Congress in both houses while a member there, but remains an Independent. If there is one thing you should take away from this post and every discussion about Sanders, it is that he is the real deal. It is hard to look at his life and his record and not see that this is a genuine and sincere leader who really cares about people. Average people, working people, middle-class people; Sanders stands for them and stands against the very wealthy and the powerful interests who have made it so hard to get ahead. He is exactly the kind of person who should be president.
When James Madison wrote about the checks and balances in the Constitution, he made it clear that the people who debated and formulated our government's founding laws knew that the people who would lead and make laws were not angels. Thus, many safeguards were put in place because even the best of intentions can go wrong. Madison would be shocked to see how the men who are furthest from being angels have circumvented those checks on power to ram through all the abuses we have seen in recent history. All while the checks and balances have restrained those closer to the angels from cleaning up the mess or fixing things. Madison knew all about the parasitic courtiers who wrung special favors and privileges out of monarchic governments in the name of mercantilism, he would not be surprised by the web of lobbyists and corrupting money built up around the Capitol. Nor would he be surprised that special interests are able to craft legislation while the public is cannibalized. This blog tries very hard not to believe in white knights who would govern in the public's interest. I have prided myself on being practical, skeptical, and realistic. So believe me when I say I have spent a lot of time thinking about reasons why we should not support Senator Sanders. I can't think of any.
That is not to say I do not see all the potential pitfalls. The right has made it a cottage industry to discredit any possibility of good people running for office, the amount of mud that will be slung against Bernie Sanders and anyone who supports his campaign will be unbelievable. Will any of it stick? Well if the devious and well-funded agents of fox news and the Koch brothers are able to set the terms of debate, yes. But it is a long road to November of 2016, and this time could be the one where we actually start talking to each other. Open and honest debate between real people would go further towards shielding ourselves from their lies than any mainstream campaign damage control method ever. And Senator Sanders will attract the kind of honest, big-hearted people that would never consider getting involved with the standard "business as usual" campaign.
It is high time idealism got an honest chance to change the conversation. We need big ideas with personal ramifications to cut through the usual wedge issues that divide us. It is time to remember that the younger generation are not some species apart, spoiled little brats that can easily be tarred with whatever vice happens to be on the tongue of Bill O'Reilly today, but they are our children and our friends' children, etc. Then we can remember that seniors are our grandparents, not just grumpy gray-haired monsters who believe everything fox news tells them. Instead of worrying about what others are doing that we may not approve of, a new conversation could start asking questions like "why is my cell phone bill so damn high?" "Why do I keep making payments on my credit cards and student loans but the balance never seems to go down?"
These and others are the questions we can ask in a Sanders campaign. These are the questions that need to be asked, and if enough of us start asking them we can finally cut through the supply-side, free-market fantasy and demand that the wealth needs to be shared. That there is nothing so valuable that a CEO can do to warrant their multi-million dollar compensation packages while so many of us struggle just to keep the lights on. The Koch brothers have stated that they plan to spend almost a billion dollars to lie to us and buy the government, so they can keep stealing from us. A Sanders campaign will not shy away from stating that no individual or family should have a billion dollars lying around to buy the government.
Bernie Sanders is the real deal, he has proven it time and again. This country doesn't deserve him, but maybe we can cut the crap for once and get a good leader we can believe in.
Showing posts with label good government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good government. Show all posts
Friday, May 1, 2015
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Reagan: The Problem
I was hoping for more from the title: A Short Breakdown Of How Reagan Broke Our Economy, Killed Jobs, And Rewarded Greed A little more history perhaps, at least an explanation of how political polarization led to Reagan's election and subsequent policy ransacking. But no, all we get from Sarah Wood is an analysis of the symptoms and effects of monopoly on the American people.
What follow in Wood's essay is a fairly standard recitation of the collapse of civil society, the result of economic ruin for the middle class and ever-deepening chasm swallowing working people into poverty.
Here is the salient point of Wood's thesis:
Indented and italicized for no apparent reason and with no supporting source is this gem:
It was small businessmen who irrationally feared and loathed anything that smacked of bargaining with "the help." It was the NFIB that freaked out so hard about the Clinton administration's healthcare reform proposals in 1993, over a portion that required providing bare bones insurance for all employees at a cost of about 10 cents an hour. Twenty years later the fight is still joined at that level. The so-called tea party, if it has any real existence beyond Astroturf, is a rogue's gallery of small business types so it does not matter how dead unions really are this merry band of idiots and racists are frightened beyond belief that their busboys and stockers are just waiting for their fellow minority in the White House to give the word to agitate for fair treatment. This of course will cause utter chaos, the ruin of tea partiers' cult of self-importance, and possibly the violation of our white women.
Sorry folks, but race is, was, and probably will ever be America's original sin. Reagan did not kick off his campaign by memorializing and standing by 'states' rights' in a southern town that murdered several civil rights' activists during the 1960s because he himself had Klansman hoods in his closet, but he knew how to play the game for those that did. Reagan did not let loose his many counterfactual descriptions of "welfare queens" without the certainty of what images these fairy tales would conjure up in the minds of his supporters.
There is so much more to the wrecking of the relatively stable, fair, and equal America built by the Greatest Generation and refined by well-meaning Americans for a half century. But that will have to wait... because dang, that is a big, big story. Historians and lots of very smart people are still in shock that America unraveled this quickly and how far we will continue to fall. I don't mean to knock Sarah Wood or Political Shake for printing her piece, monopoly is a huge problem, but to pretend that there is a silver bullet which can undo all the damage of the last three decades is just naïve.
Reagan’s abandonment of antitrust laws and the refusal of policy makers even today to start enforcing them again is what collapsed our economy and rewarded greed.While this is true, there is much more to it and simply stating that the reaganites gave business the green light to make their greediest dreams come true ignores the context of the times. For example, there were republican presidents before Reagan, why did Nixon or Ford not take their hands off the wheel and allow big business to rip apart the social contract? Events outside the US? Or recent history of that time? History is rarely a simple "A alone causes B." Looking at the 1980s from the perspective of what followed is a fallacy. While you will get no argument from me that non-enforcement of antitrust laws played a great role in the economic polarization of the contemporary US; it is a major source of the vast inequality of wealth and income, the stagnation of the economy as a whole, and ever-growing poverty, one cannot argue that this phenomenon occurred in a vacuum.
What follow in Wood's essay is a fairly standard recitation of the collapse of civil society, the result of economic ruin for the middle class and ever-deepening chasm swallowing working people into poverty.
Here is the salient point of Wood's thesis:
consolidation of industry has stifled our growth. Jobs grow through small business, individual entrepreneurship, and actual competition. However we need laws to allow this to happen which keep markets and wages fair. This doesn’t make me a socialist, this makes me a person in favor of capitalism who appreciates competition, but also appreciates laws that protect the small from being devoured by the large. These laws also protect us from these giant monopolies dictating laws that may potentially harm us (food safety, etc.) so they can increase profits by cutting corners. (Emphasis mine)Ahhh, let's not even pretend to understand the difference between socialism and varying forms of capitalism. Make sure you don't think of any white elephants while reading her essay. Funny how inoculation only works one way, when the Children of Light try it they only end up activating the Children of Darkness' frames. However, somehow anytime a progressive CoL brings up Reagan or God help us George w. bush the wailing of trolls begins. "Oh, of course it is all dubya's fault." Those knee-jerk schmuck declarations that dare you to agree, but reflexively we know what is out-of-bounds. It is the same reflex that all but forces liberals to defend small businesses as bastions of goodness.
Indented and italicized for no apparent reason and with no supporting source is this gem:
The trouble is, and obviously there are exceptions, but most big business prior to the Reagan "revolution" had made peace with organized labor. Consolidated industries, like steel, or energy, or manufacturing were too vulnerable to workers' resistance in the days before subsidized outsourcing. The treaty of Detroit, where management finally conceded labor's right to bargain, meant high wages but no say in how business was run and compared to the days before the treaty had brought relative labor peace.Industry consolidation also cuts down on workers’ rights. This is why Republicans hate and demonize unions. Workers having a voice cuts down on the ability to be greedy.
It was small businessmen who irrationally feared and loathed anything that smacked of bargaining with "the help." It was the NFIB that freaked out so hard about the Clinton administration's healthcare reform proposals in 1993, over a portion that required providing bare bones insurance for all employees at a cost of about 10 cents an hour. Twenty years later the fight is still joined at that level. The so-called tea party, if it has any real existence beyond Astroturf, is a rogue's gallery of small business types so it does not matter how dead unions really are this merry band of idiots and racists are frightened beyond belief that their busboys and stockers are just waiting for their fellow minority in the White House to give the word to agitate for fair treatment. This of course will cause utter chaos, the ruin of tea partiers' cult of self-importance, and possibly the violation of our white women.
Sorry folks, but race is, was, and probably will ever be America's original sin. Reagan did not kick off his campaign by memorializing and standing by 'states' rights' in a southern town that murdered several civil rights' activists during the 1960s because he himself had Klansman hoods in his closet, but he knew how to play the game for those that did. Reagan did not let loose his many counterfactual descriptions of "welfare queens" without the certainty of what images these fairy tales would conjure up in the minds of his supporters.
There is so much more to the wrecking of the relatively stable, fair, and equal America built by the Greatest Generation and refined by well-meaning Americans for a half century. But that will have to wait... because dang, that is a big, big story. Historians and lots of very smart people are still in shock that America unraveled this quickly and how far we will continue to fall. I don't mean to knock Sarah Wood or Political Shake for printing her piece, monopoly is a huge problem, but to pretend that there is a silver bullet which can undo all the damage of the last three decades is just naïve.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
The Long Road
Is the United States experiencing an inexorable decline? Is there nothing to do but sit back and watch? Since 2000, the answer seems to be an undeniable yes. Where to even begin? First, the problems we face are the result of choices made by Americans, from the supreme court edict allowing gwb to take the presidency, to stock market and housing market crashes. Even 9/11 was the result of a choice, in this case the choice of our "leaders" to ignore warnings and take appropriate measures. All the problems in America today resulted from bad decisions, at least, "bad" from the point of view of the majority of Americans. The point being, American decline is largely man-made and not the result of acts of God or even foreign malice. The disaster following Hurricane Katrina could have been minimized by competent leaders acting in the public interest, the same goes for the BP oil spill and the numerous mine accidents. American decline, therefore, is not inexorable, it is the result of decisions made by bad people looking out for their own interest and not the public's.
Does it follow that many problems facing our nation and our people could be solved by replacing the bad people with good leaders who would work in the public's interest? It really remains to be seen. We first need to believe there are good people out there. Then, that they can defeat the bad. Finally, that good leaders can reverse the previous decisions of bad ones. While the problems we face, from corruption and exploitation, to insecurity in all its forms, and the host of environmental issues, were man made and the result of decisions, once made they become part of the real world. It is easy to look the other way while business pollutes, exploits, and steals; it is much harder to punish, rebalance, and clean up the results. As Yoda said, the dark side is not stronger but it is easier, quicker, and more seductive than the light. And as the American Yoda, Ben Franklin, said "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." The hole dug by decades of malice by greedy Americans will take much more work to fill in as it was to dig. But what is the alternative?
All the manifestations of decline are symptoms of a larger problem, lack of trust. This is not some grand revelation entrusted to the GH's of the world, it is apparent everywhere. But lack of trust is the cause of everything else that follows. Why can't good people get elected? People do not trust them. Why don't people believe in the Enlightenment principle that all people are basically good? Lack of trust. This is the age of the anti-hero, the great con, the belief that no one can possibly have any motive other than self-interest. Why do people mistrust unions? Because business has spent countless years and countless dollars implanting the idea that "union bosses" are by definition corrupt, leaders cannot possibly have anyone's interest at heart apart from their own. By contrast, why do people not recognize how badly they are being screwed by rich, greedy businessmen? Because, subconsciously at least, they understand that business may lie about everything else but at its heart they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, make money by any means necessary. That a salesman or a boss or the smiling actor in a commercial is deceiving you is as natural as the lion stalking the gazelle, and for the same reason.
Capitalism in the American sense simply is not possible without dishonesty, and the backstabbing ways of the capitalist trickles down to every other aspect of life. Why do so many possibly otherwise decent people get so insanely bent out of shape over abortion? Because anti-abortion people mistrust the motives of women, the values of self-interest have been so internalized that they are projected onto others without any reasoned articulation or oftentimes even evidence. The only reason a woman would want an abortion is she is selfish and incapable of loving another life, the immorality of speculators screwing each other over transplanted into "the other." Evidence to the contrary just bounces off the frame. All others must by definition be as selfish as we are, shallow and superficial as the dingbats on Jersey Shore or other "reality" show. This is just one example but apply the projection of immorality and lack of trust frame to almost any contentious issue and the process comes out almost the same way.
The Long Road back to a decent society starts with rebuilding some sense of trust in others. Not everyone is out to screw you over. Many are for certain, and those are the bad people at all levels that got us into this mess in the first place. We, the good people, have to figure out some way to reach out to those who have been screwed over, who have been victimized and build bridges of trust. No, certainly not all people can overcome their programming, and far too many are the con artists and selfish, immoral monsters who are parts of the underlying problem. The latter are the true enemy, the behavior that must be stigmatized, the source of the decline and must be fought tooth and nail if there is any hope. We the good people have allowed the immoral speculators and businessmen to poison society too long. Building a durable trust between well-meaning people with different ideas and different experiences in the spirit of tolerance, respect, and pluralism is the only way to get on that Long Road back.
Does it follow that many problems facing our nation and our people could be solved by replacing the bad people with good leaders who would work in the public's interest? It really remains to be seen. We first need to believe there are good people out there. Then, that they can defeat the bad. Finally, that good leaders can reverse the previous decisions of bad ones. While the problems we face, from corruption and exploitation, to insecurity in all its forms, and the host of environmental issues, were man made and the result of decisions, once made they become part of the real world. It is easy to look the other way while business pollutes, exploits, and steals; it is much harder to punish, rebalance, and clean up the results. As Yoda said, the dark side is not stronger but it is easier, quicker, and more seductive than the light. And as the American Yoda, Ben Franklin, said "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." The hole dug by decades of malice by greedy Americans will take much more work to fill in as it was to dig. But what is the alternative?
All the manifestations of decline are symptoms of a larger problem, lack of trust. This is not some grand revelation entrusted to the GH's of the world, it is apparent everywhere. But lack of trust is the cause of everything else that follows. Why can't good people get elected? People do not trust them. Why don't people believe in the Enlightenment principle that all people are basically good? Lack of trust. This is the age of the anti-hero, the great con, the belief that no one can possibly have any motive other than self-interest. Why do people mistrust unions? Because business has spent countless years and countless dollars implanting the idea that "union bosses" are by definition corrupt, leaders cannot possibly have anyone's interest at heart apart from their own. By contrast, why do people not recognize how badly they are being screwed by rich, greedy businessmen? Because, subconsciously at least, they understand that business may lie about everything else but at its heart they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, make money by any means necessary. That a salesman or a boss or the smiling actor in a commercial is deceiving you is as natural as the lion stalking the gazelle, and for the same reason.
Capitalism in the American sense simply is not possible without dishonesty, and the backstabbing ways of the capitalist trickles down to every other aspect of life. Why do so many possibly otherwise decent people get so insanely bent out of shape over abortion? Because anti-abortion people mistrust the motives of women, the values of self-interest have been so internalized that they are projected onto others without any reasoned articulation or oftentimes even evidence. The only reason a woman would want an abortion is she is selfish and incapable of loving another life, the immorality of speculators screwing each other over transplanted into "the other." Evidence to the contrary just bounces off the frame. All others must by definition be as selfish as we are, shallow and superficial as the dingbats on Jersey Shore or other "reality" show. This is just one example but apply the projection of immorality and lack of trust frame to almost any contentious issue and the process comes out almost the same way.
The Long Road back to a decent society starts with rebuilding some sense of trust in others. Not everyone is out to screw you over. Many are for certain, and those are the bad people at all levels that got us into this mess in the first place. We, the good people, have to figure out some way to reach out to those who have been screwed over, who have been victimized and build bridges of trust. No, certainly not all people can overcome their programming, and far too many are the con artists and selfish, immoral monsters who are parts of the underlying problem. The latter are the true enemy, the behavior that must be stigmatized, the source of the decline and must be fought tooth and nail if there is any hope. We the good people have allowed the immoral speculators and businessmen to poison society too long. Building a durable trust between well-meaning people with different ideas and different experiences in the spirit of tolerance, respect, and pluralism is the only way to get on that Long Road back.
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