Mitt Romney's bad week

The former governor of Massachusetts had quite a few strikes against him coming into the republican nomination. He's still not loved by his party, more like barely tolerated. Odd choice for a national contender for the presidency, flip-flopper, Yankee, Mormon, "moderate" and that is just the objections made by the rank and file authoritarians. The more information that leaks out about Mitt's financial and class identity, the more independents flee in terror. Romney, presidential candidate, is a member of the 1%.

In earlier days when Thorstein Veblen's ideas were still in the public consciousness, we would understand that Romney is part of and an ideal representative of the leisure class. In every society beyond the hunter/gatherer stage there is an elite segment that produces nothing, that provides nothing, and exists only as part of a self-designated indispensible class that feeds on productive sectors of the society. Priests and warlords constituted this class in ancient societies, nobles were the parasites in the Middle Ages, and speculators make up much of the predatory class in modern times. Mitt Romney made his pile not by building things of value for the most part as head of bain capital, but by cannibalizing productive enterprises built by others. The leisure class served a function in past times, priests were a catalyst holding a nation together, nobles protected the workers from hostile neighbors. What do the vulture capitalists do in the modern US? Is there any function to manipulating currencies, taking over companies, betting on commodity prices, or peddling insider information?

No, the predatory leisure class exists because certain parasites are able to take control of economic levers through ruthless ambition, deceit, and nepotism. They then siphon off as much wealth as they can get away with and compete with each other over who has the most. Power is seductive, if left unchecked these parasites will simply kill their host. Without countervailing forces any elite will degenerate into a leisure class, even in (or perhaps especially in) communist countries like the Soviet Union.

In a way, Americans are lucky that the authoritarians put up this joke of a man romney to run for president. He simply oozes the "I'm not one of you" vibe and even if the felony he committed by lying about bain capital, his engine of destruction, does not result in a perp walk, the defensiveness and equivocation about it that his campaign has demonstrated this week should seal his fate.

It is amazing as well that the president's team has latched onto this line of attack. If they keep it up and the "outsourcing" offensive finds traction (as it should), I will be happy to eat my words about liberal politeness and spineless Democrats. Watching the republicans squirm over stuff they used to brag about makes me think there might be hope for the republic yet. Of course they feel no real shame about all the crimes against Americans committed by the conservatives, but are simply not used to being on the defensive about anything. And the shredding of America's middle class rightly makes the electorate at large angry. Finally, we are getting some bit of truth as to who was really behind the plunder (hint, it wasn't all government's fault).


Then there is romney's debacle while speaking to the NAACP. But wait, didn't romney shore up his base by "standing up to 'them'" and chastising African-Americans for wanting more "free stuff?" Well, yes and no, obviously there are a great number of racists in the gop that needed a little pep talk but the suburban republicans do not want to side with an openly racist party. More than a few of them will find their nominee's speech unsettling enough to stay home, or even switch sides. To say nothing of African-American voters. After lying about when he left bain, and possibly exposing himself to felony charges, even the suggestion that he flew in black supporters is not going to shore up his public integrity.

All in all, it was a bad week for mitt. It should be exciting for those of us who want to keep this man far from the White House and if the president's team can keep it up that might come to pass. But the ruthless, shameless authoritarians are not going to just roll over. The election is still almost four months away, expect awful things to come.

The tax cut obsession

The problem with having one party utterly and ridiculously obsessed with tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy is that the spineless other party tries to get into the act. And looks silly trying it in the process, on top of abandoning the historic principles of progressive taxation and losing any pretense of the moral high ground. Republicans cut taxes for the 1% because that is who they are loyal to, having abandoned any sense of responsibility to the nation a long time ago.

It is also a trap. The corporatist gop has successfully erased any understanding of progressive or regressive taxation so any taxes going up automatically means "your" taxes are going up to the average voter. If the Democrats had a coherent narrative on fairness and justice instead of a jumbled mess of arbitrary statements that change with the times, the trap could finally backfire but that would make sense. In spite of overwhelming evidence that the public wants the rich scumbags who tanked the economic lives of the 99% to pay far, far more in taxes to fix things, we get a half-assed milquetoasty proposal barely defended by the president.

Consequently, Drew Westen popped out to shoot spitballs at President Obama and a Democratic Party that just can't win for losing.
"The president and his campaign continue to make unforced errors because they don't have, and never have had since he entered the White House, either an overarching vision that would guide the way they communicate with the American people about the economy or anything else or a competent messaging team that could compensate for their over-reliance on polling where their vision should be." Why polling can be an obstacle and crutch Prof. Westen explains in The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation because polling has a hard time overcoming the ambiguous nature of the feelings voters often have on complex subjects and at best can measure only a limited number of dimensions of their thinking.

I'm going to say something utterly radical here so brace yourself; your taxes are not that high. Amazing right? And neither are the koch bros, mitt romney's, your friend Joe's who owns a auto detailing business, or really anyone else's. It seems like it because so much of our incomes go to crap that would be far more affordable if they actually were the "socialism" we're all trained to abhor.

Imagine, in the 1950s that conservatives idolize the top marginal tax rate was 91%... and somehow we survived. And we didn't have this:



Back then, the public understood that it was business that messed things up and you didn't have this:



Like this asshat:


Isn't it time meatheads like this stopped getting tax cuts and we stopped getting pay cuts and layoffs and decaying schools, roads, bridges, etc?

Tea party symptoms

1. At a debate, you boo a soldier because he is gay.
2. You accuse a decorated Vietnam veteran of “cutting and running.”
3. You accuse Obama of being a Muslim, yet condemn him for going to Jeremiah Wright’s Christian church.
4. You admire Sarah Palin’s keen intellect.
5. You agree with Alabama state senator Scott Beason who referred to blacks as “aborigines.”
6. You are considering moving to Canada to avoid health insurance mandates.
7. You are convinced that Obama is either Hitler, Stalin, the Joker or a combination of all 3.
8. You ascribe marital infidelity to your sense of patriotism.
9. You become hysterical at the thought of Muslims wanting to build a basketball court three blocks from Ground Zero, ignoring the fact that there was a mosque inside the World Trade Center.
10. You believe family values means having children from your first marriage try to convince people that your second wife is lying about your third wife.
11. You believe gay marriage is the “most important issue of our time”.
12. You believe Obama does not like white people.
13. You believe scientists are cross-breeding humans and animals and creating mice with fully functioning human brains.
14. You believe that Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal caused the Great Depression; even though FDR took office 4 years after it began.
15. You believe that gay marriage undermines traditional family values although your religion and family have advocated polygamy.
16. You celebrate Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment, yet deny Obama had anything to do with Osama bin Laden being killed.
17. You cheer at the idea of the uninsured dying.
18. You claim that your sons are doing their “patriotic duty” by supporting you in the election instead of serving in the military.
19. You confuse John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy.
20. You could not explain socialism if your life depended on it.
21. You disparage and call a veteran who is a double amputee “unpatriotic.”
22. You do not understand the difference between people you disagree with and Hitler or Karl Marx.
23. You equate any criticism of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war with not “supporting our troops”.
24. You equate masturbation with adultery.
25. You equate opinion with fact and offer no evidence of your beliefs.
26. You feel emotionally moved whenever Glenn Beck speaks.
27. You get “nauseated” at the idea of “separation of church and state.”
28. You hate the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964.
29. You invoke the threat of “Second Amendment remedies” when you do not get the electoral result that you want.
30. You like to shout-down other citizens at town-hall meetings and call it “proper democratic dialogue.”
31. You love benefits such as the interstate highway system, safe food and drugs, clean water and air, etc. – you just don’t want to pay for any of it.
32. You love having fresh produce on the shelves, nannies and groundskeepers but want the people who provide those services deported – or better yet to “self-deport” themselves.
33. You love to invoke Leviticus 18:22 but suddenly forget your Scripture when it comes to Leviticus 19:18.
34. You make frequent information requests to the Hawaii Department of Vital Records even though you are not a resident of Hawaii.
35. You overlooked eight years of Bush incompetence and criminal destabilization of the economy but decided in less than a day that Obama is the Anti-Christ.
36. You proudly display a sign that reads: “Obama is a M-O-R-A-N” at rallies.
37. You receive Medicare, yet oppose government run healthcare.
38. You strongly oppose the new health care law but have not read it.
39. You support Michelle Bachman signing a pledge that says that black children were better off during slavery.
40. You support the death penalty, the NRA and wars, yet claim to be “Pro-Life.”
41. You think Andrew Breitbart was a legitimate journalist.
42. You think being a teabagger has nothing to do with testicles.
43. You think George Soros wrote 1984.
44. You think health insurance reform somehow affects your 2nd amendment rights.
45. You think it appropriate to arm yourself for political rallies and think armed militias are a great and noble idea.
46. You think that atheists, gays and minorities are not real Americans.
47. You think that Creationism is a valid theory to teach children in science classes.
48. You think that natural disasters are God’s wrath on humanity for homosexuality.
49. You think the Tea Party is a grassroots organization.
50. You’ve ever held a sign that said, “You can have my healthcare when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.”

Original can be found at samuel warde's site.
It is fun and healthy to ridicule the utter stupidity from these hateful, low-information authoritarians. It might even help steer one or two away when confronted by their cognitive incoherence. But mostly this plays right into their teary-eyed self-pitying victimhood, you know all of us uberpowerful liberals are calling them dumb again.

Defeated a year ago.

In my last post I was trying to identify the defensive equivocation that Prof. Drew Westen offered as being so damaging to Democrats being displayed by a romney surrogate. I just finished rereading his excellent analysis The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation and thought I had a pretty good handle on how it worked.


Then I read a post he made in huffington post and I want to welcome him to the gloomy club.

"Democrats have always found creative ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, so the title of this piece may unfairly limit the possibilities. And they could win or lose this time for a range of reasons that are largely or entirely out of their control, most importantly who the Republicans nominate for President and whether the economy continues to falter or regains steam.
But there are three ways Democrats could choose to lose, and they are threatening to do all three now. Hopefully they will change their minds before they commit to campaigning for the GOP."

This post was written a year ago and at the rate things change we can examine recent history to see if any of these three have come to pass. The first is obsession with austerity and deficit reduction. Much of Westen's work is more concerned with Democrats. He tends to treat the republicans as they should be treated, like dangerous predators.

"If the deficits Republicans racked up under Ronald Reagan didn't disabuse Democrats of the idea that Republicans care about deficits, surely the near doubling of the national debt under George W. Bush and a Republican Congress should have. Grover Norquist and others could not have been more explicit about the conservative position on debt: make it is big as you can when you're in office, with tax giveaways to all your friends, and you'll tie the hands of Democrats when they take control, at which point you start the shrill screaming again about fiscal responsibility and "entitlement" spending. (Meeting obligations to our seniors, educating our children, and taking care of people who need help are "entitlements," whereas cutting taxes to those who least need it somehow doesn't fall under that rubric -- a term and concept Democrats should stop echoing.)"


Working backwards, entitlements are terms that originally meant something good and noble but has fallen victim to radical attack. By lumping in all social spending under the term "entitlements" the republican assholes have successfully redirected social insurance programs that we all pay for into the catagory of welfare for the undeserving and ungrateful (stereotyping that was also manufactured from selective examples). Thomas Frank also identified and expanded the idea of debt as sabotage. Third world states are often characterized by undemocratic regimes borrowing gobs of money that then disappear into pockets of the leaders and into repressing the population. In the US, the borrowed money is wasted in the ways Prof. Westen describes but also on the repression of Americans through the war on drugs and the reinstatement of slavery that is the private prison industrial complex. Of course, even in the driver's seat, Democrats take the worst course.


In the Political Brain, Westen argues that despite the vehemence with which it is asserted and in the face of all empirical evidence, the republican narrative is utterly incoherent. It would only take the national Democrats finding their spines to challenge the ridiculous premise that tax cuts for rich theives is the key to prosperity. But they don't, and that narrative is maintained so forcefully that it gives republican candidates an automatic start of about 40% of the electorate. This narrative also defines Democrats before they ever get a chance to introduce themselves to the public, which they have to do over and over again because they have no running narrative.

Second, Democrats accept the tax cuts line as legitimate. They argue over the merits of tax "relief" as though there is any evidence that the republican network constructed over tax cuts is real. Westen describes this as "waving at the smoke" instead of putting out the fire.

"Every time a corporate CEO gives himself a bonus of 15 million dollars, he's just cut the pay of 15,000 of his employees by $1000 each. That's an extraordinary fact, which does not require a complex grasp of either economics or math to understand.
Want to change the calculus that leads to that kind of greed? It isn't hard to do: Impose increasingly high income taxes for all income above 1 million, 5 million, and 10 million dollars, with a top tax bracket of, say, 75% for all income above 10 million (far less than Eisenhower's 90% tax rate for people we would today consider just above upper-middle class).
What would that do (aside from balancing the budget by next week)? It would change the incentive structure in America back from a third-world country to a first-world one, because 75% of the incentive to treat yourself to an extra Jaguar or two rather than to share some of the benefits of your company's productivity with your workers would disappear. And aside from being more fair to the workers who presumably contributed to the productivity that earned their boss such a big bonus, the benefits to economic growth would be substantial, because there are few better ways to stimulate the economy than to put money in the hands of working and middle class people, who spend most of their income, and to take some of it out of the hands of hedge fund managers and derivatives traders, who don't."

"The third way Democrats could choose to lose faster than you can say "screw your mother" (not in the Freudian sense) is to participate with Republicans in cutting Medicare." Self-evident but it would take some spine to do.

"Just last year, after Democrats passed a health care law that cut half a trillion dollars from Medicare (over the objections of House Democrats, who would instead have had the wealthiest Americans pick up the tab for subsidizing health care for workers their friends pay too poorly to afford it), Republicans all over the country demagogued the issue and ran against Democrats for "trying to take away your Medicare." Because, when you are a predator with no conscience you can say anything. Including just making shit up because you know the opposition has no clear response.

In the end, this is it:


The Democrats have to do it themselves, bloggers like me are a fart in the wind. The media won't defend them and as long as The Democratic Party keeps hoping laundry lists of facts and policy prescriptions unaccompanied by a narrative will get the average person to "get it" we are SOL. The party really should hire some historians to replace the scaly moron consultants in their messaging system, that is what we do. Take primary documents and arrange them into a story. Not me of course, gloom doesn't sell.

Defensive much?

Asking questions is now socialism?

"During an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning, Carlos Gutierrez, a Romney senior adviser and Honorary Co-Chair of his National Hispanic Steering Committee, said that questioning the GOP presidential candidate’s reluctance to turn over his tax returns and come clean about his investments in foreign countries amounts to 'socialism.' Responding to a segment during which Democratic strategist Karen Finney raised concerns about some of Romney’s offshore accounts, Gutierrez said, 'if you are attacking capitalism, then I suppose that we are supporting socialism.'”

Someday it is going to stick that what republicans say is capitalism is just greed, nothing more.

Didn't (R)money also claim we should only talk about income inequality in hushed voices behind closed doors? Likewise, socialism appears to be anything the greediest 1% doesn't like. The more it gets pointed out that this is just as ridiculous and immature as that ancient history (5-10 years ago) when any criticism was "aiding the terrorists." Hopefully the spell doesn't take as long to be broken by spineless Democratic party leaders so the rank and file can spot the silliness.

At least though, defensiveness on the part of the cons is a rare weakness. I doubt the window of criticism will last, not long enough for the battered spouse party to find its voice at any rate.

Why teaching is hard

I will be teaching a critical thinking course pretty soon, first time with this one and I am a little scared. Take this passage from the textbook:

"Congress is right in reducing the taxes of the wealthy more than those

of the working classes. After all, wealthy people not only pay more into

the treasury but they also have a higher standard of living to maintain.

If the cost of soybeans has risen, so also has the cost of caviar; if the

subway fare has increased, so has the maintenance cost of a Rolls-

Royce and a Lear jet. If the government listens to the minor grumbling

and whining of the unemployed, it surely should be responsive to the

plight of the affluent."

Then the instructoral part:

"The Distinction Between Literal and Ironic Statement

Not everything that is said is intended to be taken literally. Sometimes, a writer

makes a point by saying the exact opposite of what is meant—that is, by using irony

or satire. Suppose, for example, you encountered this passage in your reading:

On the surface, this certainly looks like a plea on behalf of the rich. But on

closer inspection, it will be seen as a mockery of that plea. The clues are subtle,

to be sure, but undeniable: the reference to the higher standard of living, the

comparison of travel by Rolls-Royce or jet with travel by subway, the reference

to the “plight” of the rich. Such tongue-in-cheek writing can be more biting and

therefore more effective than a direct attack. Yet you must be alert to the subtlety

and not misread it, or the message you receive will be very different from

the message that has been expressed."

What am I going to do if there is a fox news robot in my class that asserts this is correct and shouts down anyone who disagrees? I never took a critical thinking course at university, but plenty of fools that would do exactly as I described crawled out of the woodwork to frustrate everyone else in some classes I did take. Will I be able to control my temper? Will I deal with that kind of situation in a calm but firm manner like my professors did? Or will I come off like a psycho or a wimp?

Large Children

In my ongoing attempt to build a sense of humor I discovered Samuel Warde's site but am slowly realizing I really am the dour Scotsman of popular myth. Maybe I need to get out of the country like Samuel to see the funny side of American decline. What do you make of this picture? I cannot help but be reminded of relatives and coworkers who call themselves conservative but giggle at their own jokes like this one. "Are the Kennedy's gunshy?" Is a good example of the political dick jokes these overgrown middle schoolers pull out. Indecent exposure of willful callousness in my humble opinion.

Conservative means many things but adolescent jerkyness is a new one. In a way it must be nice to have no conscience so you can honestly and truly laugh at your own tactlessness. Freedom to a conservative seems to mean the freedom to throw shit on someone without fear of reprisal and laugh at your victim. And the laughs are bigger the more defenseless the victim. Every one of these dumbass caricatures are stereotypes of right-wing myth, repeated endlessly. The bully needs a rise out of his victim, otherwise it just isn't entertaining. So to many conservatives being on that team is just a way to act like paunchy, balding bullies taking their playground act to bigger venues. "Hey let's make fun of the girl with braces today!" "Tomorrow we'll make the chubby kid with last year's clothes eat a dog turd and kick dirt in his face, it'll be great!"

It is hilarious when the overgrown children beat up on real children, especially when they have a national tv show to do it. Bob Cesca expressed the bully sense of humor and weasels hiding behind "freedom of speech in analyzing this show on fox news called "The Five."

"It’s [The Five] hugely popular. Naturally. It’s everything far-right viewers enjoy. It’s brainless chit-chat. It’s The View with racist dog whistles and nearsighted conservative antagonism and piles of Schlafy-style agitprop. No facts, no details, all crotchety grousing and puerile superficial bomb tossing.
Last week, the formerly conservative 'whiz kid' Jonathan Krohn announced that he had evolved into a more liberal worldview, the conservative movement predictably flipped its shpadoinkle. Like the group of scavengers they are, The Five piled onto the heap of writhing conservative screeching — and with predictably awful form. [Watch the video here, via Mediaite.]
[supposed comedian Greg] Gutfeld began with one of his Bruno-Kirby-as-Lieutenant-Steve from Good Morning, Vietnam versions of a comedy monologue about Krohn. Mercilessly, he suggested that perhaps Krohn should have been driven into the woods and left for dead for his trespass of — yes — changing his mind. I would have been shocked had I not been accustomed to this kind of bullying against kids, given the historical precedent of right-wing jihads against children and political noncombantants (seriously, read this).
Self-consciously, Gutfeld also theorized that liberals use children as untouchable props so they can’t be attacked by morally ambiguous ruffians like Gutfeld. Tiny human shields, they are. You know, like Trig Palin. Regardless of whether that’s the plan, it clearly has never stopped conservatives from giving childen a proverbial toilet-swirly when they dare step into the crosshairs of right-wing demagoguery. Ask Graeme Frost."

"We" as a society, used to understand this kind of "humor" as mental illness, only funny to other sociopaths. But now it is openly and honestly presented as mainstream. Isn't that funny?