In 1984, Orwell is able to transmit the larger geopolitical factors of his dystopian world through a book written by the traitor Goldstein presented to Winston by its real author (or a member of the committee that wrote it) O'Brien. If 1984 the novel was written as the last warning of a dying man to an imperiled world, it is worth reexamining the properties of his new world order to see if there are any parallels in our system. We owe the great visionary that much.
The first principle to explore is that of unconquerable superstates. The US is the most obvious candidate, even if there were dire enemies out there it would be nigh impossible for us to be defeated, conquered, and occupied. But the other two superstates of the book roughly correlate to the present, I have my doubts whether the US even in alliance with another could conquer China or Russia given our current difficulties in foreign operations. The true importance of America's unconquerable status is that we can, and have, allowed our efficiency to atrophy. Orwell is very clear that it is fear of outside enemies that keep a ruling elite sharp and rooting in objective reality. Once this obstacle is removed, a ruling elite is freed to engage in exercises of "reality control" which would cause a normal state to fail in short order.
The US is, according the the Principles, a "self-contained universe" from the perspective of many of its inhabitants. It is incomplete in many ways, but through exercises of reality control these disappear from view. Worthless pieces of paper are accepted for valuable commodities which are rationed through fantasies of "free markets" such as manufactured goods, oil, and tropical agricultural products. I say fantasy because prices are more or less fixed by oligopolistic firms acting as gatekeepers for the necessities of life and it is the housing and service necessities such as health care and education that are really expensive. Though Americans can perceive the feeling of wealth through gadgets, even the poor are clothed and can eat cheap fast food through perverse incentives of our economic system.
The real source of social control is debt instead of simple shortages, intelligent Americans are kept in line through fear of individual crisis and distracted by entertainment. The key to a better life is still education, but for the ruling elite it is more the credentials of education than any skills learned. The killer instinct of members of the upper echelons of corporate life is internalized by many sources and to some degree hereditary, this goes by many names and the sanitized version is known as "entrepreneurial spirit." A key point in Orwell's Principles are the necessity of maintaining a hierarchical society, all methods and features of the system perpetuate this.
As the ultimate value of the ruling elite is not yet power for its own sake, independent thought is tolerated but never allowed to reach a critical mass among the population. While the US went through brief periods of actual imperial expansion and the liquidation of opponents, today discrediting ideas and those presenting them are sufficient to liquidate opposition. There also is a natural competition, pride, and exclusivity among independent thinkers of the left which limits their ability to affect changes to the system. While the Ingsoc party in 1984 sought to freeze history at a most advantageous point, our elite still use the cyclical nature of history to adapt and exploit events.
A pause in this analysis is necessary here, because the system is incomplete. In Orwell's world of 1984, atomic wars, national and civil wars, revolution and counterrevolution baptised the complete takeover of the world by three systems of oligarchic collectivism represented by the superstates of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. But contemporary America has seen a more evolutionary takeover, each high point in the cycle approaching the completion in small steps. Politics and government may be, as John Dewey argued, "the shadow cast on society by big business" but one side has mastered the art of thought and reality control within its ranks that they are approaching convergence. Yes, I mean the republican party and the conservative movement that drives it. In 1984, the only opposition was a shadowy group supposedly led by Goldstein called "the brotherhood" that was everywhere and nowhere, at all times threatening to undermine unity and harmony. This is quite similar to the illusion working class republicans have of the supposed "liberal social elite" Thomas Frank presented in What's the matter with Kansas. But on the surface, the presence of a "loyal opposition" creates a valuable scapegoat for the ruling classes' disasters. It also serves to channel energy from independent thinkers to elite-approved candidates which then disappoint and dissillusion opponents while perhaps making minor cosmetic changes to the social fabric.
Stay tuned for the next installment where we will tackle the problems of continuous warfare, glorification and worship of violence, thought control, the two minutes hate, and the ominous destruction and rewriting of history that characterize at least one half of the American population.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Obama as Goldstein?
I came across this story in MMFA today and it made me chuckle a little. I'm not exactly sure what this tactic is called, inoculation maybe? But a blathering idiot on fox news told the truth by condescendingly "interpreting" the president's words that: "In effect, the president is saying that the American people are a stupid, dissatisfied electorate who are poisoned and brainwashed by Fox News." Of course, this mixes things up by conflating the entire population with the stupid fox audience that is poisoned and brainwashed by fox among other sources. At this point reality doesn't simply have a liberal bias, it is entirely optional.
Why it made me chuckle is that on a whim Saturday night I watched the film version of George Orwell's "1984" starring John Hurt and Richard Burton after downloading and listening to a lecture series on Orwell's life and the world he lived it in. It is hard to hear but the opening sequence of the "two minutes hate" has the audience screaming at video of the trotskyesque Emmanual Goldstein, the traitor to the revolution of Ingsoc (English Socialism) while he basically tells them the truth about the world the party members live in. If you turn on the subtitles you can read what Goldstein says over the din. Basically that the party enslaves you, big brother doesn't exist, the party wages war on the people to preserve its power, that sort of thing. In Oceania, two minutes is all that is required to maintain the allegience of outer party members by stirring them up in a conditioned frenzy against the blasphemer Goldstein. Anyone who questions what the party says by believing Goldstein can be identified and "reeducated" by the thought police in the ministry of love.
There is a difference between what this clown said of course, and how the party operates. First is that the American Goldstein isn't a shadowy figure randomly lobbing contrarian ideas, that guy was killed by fox's Goldstein, who happens to be the president. The other thing is that the party in 1984 could only afford to rile up the faithful for short times because they needed them to maintain control. Fox's audience is largely useless for the ultimate purpose, not of power as an end to itself, but for profit creation. Serving no intrinsic function other than to mindlessly attack reality and their "enemies" conservative foot-soldiers can be riled up and maintained in a state of frantic desperation at all times. And this story is one small aspect of that. In this case, telling them the truth and counting on their conditioning to go berserk at the idea that 2+2=4.
So, despite the president's repeated, and suicidal, attempts to reach out to this party of lunatics, despite policies that would be supported by conservatives in a less fanatical time. Despite getting his funding from the same sources as his opposition, and attacking his opponents in a pale reflection of what they do. He will always remain a traitor to "the American people" and sabotaur/revolutionary desperately trying to undermine our "harmony." "Inadequate information" is what the president actually said, what a milquetoasty way of characterizing the poison and brainwashing served up to the faithful, 24/7 on fox.
At least, for now, when one teabagger believes another can float, there are people outside of the bubble laughing at them.
Why it made me chuckle is that on a whim Saturday night I watched the film version of George Orwell's "1984" starring John Hurt and Richard Burton after downloading and listening to a lecture series on Orwell's life and the world he lived it in. It is hard to hear but the opening sequence of the "two minutes hate" has the audience screaming at video of the trotskyesque Emmanual Goldstein, the traitor to the revolution of Ingsoc (English Socialism) while he basically tells them the truth about the world the party members live in. If you turn on the subtitles you can read what Goldstein says over the din. Basically that the party enslaves you, big brother doesn't exist, the party wages war on the people to preserve its power, that sort of thing. In Oceania, two minutes is all that is required to maintain the allegience of outer party members by stirring them up in a conditioned frenzy against the blasphemer Goldstein. Anyone who questions what the party says by believing Goldstein can be identified and "reeducated" by the thought police in the ministry of love.
There is a difference between what this clown said of course, and how the party operates. First is that the American Goldstein isn't a shadowy figure randomly lobbing contrarian ideas, that guy was killed by fox's Goldstein, who happens to be the president. The other thing is that the party in 1984 could only afford to rile up the faithful for short times because they needed them to maintain control. Fox's audience is largely useless for the ultimate purpose, not of power as an end to itself, but for profit creation. Serving no intrinsic function other than to mindlessly attack reality and their "enemies" conservative foot-soldiers can be riled up and maintained in a state of frantic desperation at all times. And this story is one small aspect of that. In this case, telling them the truth and counting on their conditioning to go berserk at the idea that 2+2=4.
So, despite the president's repeated, and suicidal, attempts to reach out to this party of lunatics, despite policies that would be supported by conservatives in a less fanatical time. Despite getting his funding from the same sources as his opposition, and attacking his opponents in a pale reflection of what they do. He will always remain a traitor to "the American people" and sabotaur/revolutionary desperately trying to undermine our "harmony." "Inadequate information" is what the president actually said, what a milquetoasty way of characterizing the poison and brainwashing served up to the faithful, 24/7 on fox.
At least, for now, when one teabagger believes another can float, there are people outside of the bubble laughing at them.
Friday, September 9, 2011
On the utility of Nobility
What would you consider to be a proper way for the government and society of the United States to operate? For the purposes of this post, I have to assume that pragmatism is the only ideology that can serve the needs of Americans. A simple, straightforward practicality of understanding the problems in society and exploring possible solutions without the taint of dogma. The various "isms" in the last 100 years or so have rendered dogmatic rigidity a sure path to destructive consequences; communism, free market conservatism, fascism, militarism, religious fundamentalism and others. Liberalism certainly can exhibit dogmatic rigidity as well, but I have a harder time nailing these aspects down. For the simple reason that liberalism has taken so many different paths and mutated into so many new forms that it is hard to point a finger at one. It is also difficult for a partisan to self-diagnose too, which may explain why liberals today cannot find a consensus position on what to do. The situation in the US today is grave, getting worse and neither side seems to have a clue as to arresting the downward spiral.
It is starting to become obvious that we need an adult in the room, some element that can separate the children and punish the bullies. An element that could represent that national interest over the various special interests. Something that partisans could appeal to for purposes of nation-building from a particular point of view. What I am going to suggest is deeply unsettling to a committed democratic republican like myself, who feels self-government and self-determination are an entrenched and inalienable right for a free people. But here goes, the United States needs a nobility, and even a monarchy. Some element above the petty factionalism and tribalism and oligarchic self-destructive tendencies that are at the core of our decline.
I believe that a de facto nobility already exists, but they act more like robber barons than a responsible and yes, conservative, force grounding what is good in our society. The corporate elite, bankers, and old money families hoovering every scrap of wealth to themselves have no responsibility toward the commonwealth. It is Veblen's leisure class on steroids. But if there was some title or symbol that would seem more desirable than crass lucre, it may not have to be thus. As it stands, the extremely wealthy Americans have nothing to aspire to beyond simple accumulation, and if they can increase their score at the expense of the commoners, that is what they are going to do. There is simply nothing in our system as it stands that can replace this. The old saying "what can you get for the man who has everything?" Has been definitively answered, "more."
It is not as though titles are incompatible with a republic, Roman patricians went to great lengths though acts of charity and service to get various titles, which greatly benefitted the commonwealth. If the elite of America could compete over titles, "Duke of New York, Baron of Kings County, knighthoods" and so on instead of simply where you rank on the Forbes' 400 list, we might get past this relentless crushing of the middle class and all the other evils. What has taken its place? A corporation contributes a fraction of the cost for a new stadium and gets to have its name on it in perpetuity?
I have lost faith in the ability of people in the aggragate to choose leaders wisely, propaganda, demoguagery, and the simple vicious pace of modern life make it too hard for a critical mass to affect change. Although mechanics of bestowing titles is beyond the scope of this proposal, it would have to spring from existing organizations, lots of them, agreeing to knight a de facto aristocrat for clear and continued demonstrations of good works. Great wealth would be a prerequiste, and hereditary transfer of titles a no no. It is a fundamental fact that fortunes are made on the backs of many others, and in any case they already exist, conferring titles would be a way to spread that wealth back. As it stands, there is no way for society to make a claim on great fortunes, and if so-called conservatives succeed in eliminating the estate tax, even that small check on generational transfer will be lost.
Would the financial magnates go for it? Well, maybe not all of them but the score-keeping aspects of the elite leisure class may kick in if all of a sudden they have to start referring to "Sir Warren Buffett" or "Count Bill Gates" at country clubs. I would certainly rather see the evil koch brothers chase a knighthood by building something other than astroturf political pressure campaigns, but that's just me. The guy that wrote the Dilbert comics once wrote an essay arguing that society might get ahead if the rich could trade money for time, paying a premium to travel on a commercial flight without waiting in lines and so forth. Instead of fighting the tide of big money corrupting politics, perhaps it is time for us commoners to find a more productive way to spread the wealth. Big money has succeeded in turning most attempts at good government against the commonwealth by capture and redirection.
The democrats, bless their pointy little heads, seem in some cases to be trying to act as a responsible conservative force against the immature, greedy fanaticism of republicans but not getting there because from president obama on down they want to be above partisanship. If there was a class of nobles that really were above politics, perhaps we could have two opposition parties again instead of one party of bewildered morons and another of fanatics willing to kill the hostages they keep taking. A nobility may be the only way to bring some sense of shame back to what republicans do, no one can call them the idiot ideologues they are without it being diluted by partisan interest. What if boehner and mcconnell had to make their case for destroying society, honestly, to a monarch representing all the people?
Aside from superman swooping in to put the fanatics in their place and using force or the threat of force to coerce some of the selfishness out of the system, I don't see much hope for returning to a pragmatic era where America could be truly great again. Nobility could serve some function in this return, it certainly couldn't hurt, if the alternative is continued decline, severe partisanship and the apotheosis of greed and selfishness.
It is starting to become obvious that we need an adult in the room, some element that can separate the children and punish the bullies. An element that could represent that national interest over the various special interests. Something that partisans could appeal to for purposes of nation-building from a particular point of view. What I am going to suggest is deeply unsettling to a committed democratic republican like myself, who feels self-government and self-determination are an entrenched and inalienable right for a free people. But here goes, the United States needs a nobility, and even a monarchy. Some element above the petty factionalism and tribalism and oligarchic self-destructive tendencies that are at the core of our decline.
I believe that a de facto nobility already exists, but they act more like robber barons than a responsible and yes, conservative, force grounding what is good in our society. The corporate elite, bankers, and old money families hoovering every scrap of wealth to themselves have no responsibility toward the commonwealth. It is Veblen's leisure class on steroids. But if there was some title or symbol that would seem more desirable than crass lucre, it may not have to be thus. As it stands, the extremely wealthy Americans have nothing to aspire to beyond simple accumulation, and if they can increase their score at the expense of the commoners, that is what they are going to do. There is simply nothing in our system as it stands that can replace this. The old saying "what can you get for the man who has everything?" Has been definitively answered, "more."
It is not as though titles are incompatible with a republic, Roman patricians went to great lengths though acts of charity and service to get various titles, which greatly benefitted the commonwealth. If the elite of America could compete over titles, "Duke of New York, Baron of Kings County, knighthoods" and so on instead of simply where you rank on the Forbes' 400 list, we might get past this relentless crushing of the middle class and all the other evils. What has taken its place? A corporation contributes a fraction of the cost for a new stadium and gets to have its name on it in perpetuity?
I have lost faith in the ability of people in the aggragate to choose leaders wisely, propaganda, demoguagery, and the simple vicious pace of modern life make it too hard for a critical mass to affect change. Although mechanics of bestowing titles is beyond the scope of this proposal, it would have to spring from existing organizations, lots of them, agreeing to knight a de facto aristocrat for clear and continued demonstrations of good works. Great wealth would be a prerequiste, and hereditary transfer of titles a no no. It is a fundamental fact that fortunes are made on the backs of many others, and in any case they already exist, conferring titles would be a way to spread that wealth back. As it stands, there is no way for society to make a claim on great fortunes, and if so-called conservatives succeed in eliminating the estate tax, even that small check on generational transfer will be lost.
Would the financial magnates go for it? Well, maybe not all of them but the score-keeping aspects of the elite leisure class may kick in if all of a sudden they have to start referring to "Sir Warren Buffett" or "Count Bill Gates" at country clubs. I would certainly rather see the evil koch brothers chase a knighthood by building something other than astroturf political pressure campaigns, but that's just me. The guy that wrote the Dilbert comics once wrote an essay arguing that society might get ahead if the rich could trade money for time, paying a premium to travel on a commercial flight without waiting in lines and so forth. Instead of fighting the tide of big money corrupting politics, perhaps it is time for us commoners to find a more productive way to spread the wealth. Big money has succeeded in turning most attempts at good government against the commonwealth by capture and redirection.
The democrats, bless their pointy little heads, seem in some cases to be trying to act as a responsible conservative force against the immature, greedy fanaticism of republicans but not getting there because from president obama on down they want to be above partisanship. If there was a class of nobles that really were above politics, perhaps we could have two opposition parties again instead of one party of bewildered morons and another of fanatics willing to kill the hostages they keep taking. A nobility may be the only way to bring some sense of shame back to what republicans do, no one can call them the idiot ideologues they are without it being diluted by partisan interest. What if boehner and mcconnell had to make their case for destroying society, honestly, to a monarch representing all the people?
Aside from superman swooping in to put the fanatics in their place and using force or the threat of force to coerce some of the selfishness out of the system, I don't see much hope for returning to a pragmatic era where America could be truly great again. Nobility could serve some function in this return, it certainly couldn't hurt, if the alternative is continued decline, severe partisanship and the apotheosis of greed and selfishness.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Drug testing and the poor
File it under... Take your pick, the relentless crushing of hopes and dreams, the continuing class war, canary in the coal mine, or a last, desperate measure by the deluded rich to keep the little people divided but Barbara Ehrenrich's recent column on the criminalization of poverty should be a real eye-opener. I'd dare all the cruel and mean-spirited people who answered yes on that poll circulating facebook on whether people getting "welfare" should be drug-tested to read it but why waste my time. Just one of those leftover battles from the Great Society and backlash that has persisted as the "culture war" but it is good to ask from time to time why so many Americans feel that hating the poor is so much fun.
Of course, the latest meme circulating in this regard goes like this: "Thank you Florida, Kentucky, and Missouri, which are the first states that will require drug testing when applying for welfare. Some people are crying and calling this unconstitutional. How is this unconstitutional? It's OK to drug test people who WORK for their money but not those who don't?… Re-post this if you'd like to see this done in all 50 states."
It took all of two seconds on google to discover that this was a hoax, or at least hasn't happened yet. A refutation and analysis can be found here. Well, it's not okay to drug test people applying for a job but for some reason people have accepting peeing in a cup as just another inconvenience they will put up with in order to rent themselves. The first thing that pops into my mind on this is, where do people flogging this dumb idea expect the money to come from for this? When I was in the army, we had to pee on command about once a month and sometimes more often. The hq quys told me that they could only afford to actually analyze one out of twenty samples at random and the test itself was ridiculously easy to beat. So what was actually accomplished I don't know, just to keep us scared I suppose. There is a difference between rhetoric and reality, maybe when the price tag comes out this symbolic victory of the welfare hordes will seem slightly more Pyrric than as a rhetorical club to beat them with.
This is my third attempt at writing this post and the updates keep coming. Apparently Florida did implement the drug tests, at a cost to the taxpayers of $178 million, and were only able to kick 2% of applicants off. Florida has one of these new gop governors that is a blatant dictator, suprize suprize, when it comes to passing laws that might help people like the health care reform it takes forever but government moves quite quickly when it is harming people at great expense. Whether this is accurate or not, who knows. Maybe it just illustrates how dysfunctional our government is, or who's interest it serves.
We all know the stereotypes of the poor and welfare, so it would be a waste of time to recount them. Noam Chomsky once speculated that if a ruling class wants to institute a dictatorship they need to create a dispised minority that the general public can really be made to fear and hate, then punish that minority to show how the dictatorship is able to protect you. The larger problem that stares our society in the face is that industrial capitalism, with it's ever-increasing pressure to push down labor costs and raise profits, creates a superfluous
population that contributes little to profits and post-crash this population is increasing. The situation is unique in American history, Kevin Phillips has written in several of his last few books that past hegemonic societies (Spain, the Netherlands, and England) in decline experience a similar phenomenon where capital goes abroad in search of greater returns, skilled labor at home atrophies, and inequality increases and calcifies.
Paul Krugman, in The Conscience of a Liberal, generalized that inequality before the New Deal was relatively constant, economic growth raised the income of workers though they never closed the gap. So, industrial workers faced great insecurity but generally their incomes rose. Since the mid-1980s
however, the incomes of regular workers has actually declined adjusted for inflation and almost all growth has gone to the rich. This is a lot of assumptions but especially in light of the sustained campaign to yank away pensions, health benefits and so on from public-sector workers like teachers seems to provide evidence to the frustrations. Enter the right-wing noise machine that stokes fear of the other. This is a very good illustration of what Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about in Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics (Library of Theological Ethics)
many years ago, it is a thesis that requires a good deal of qualification but group identity tends to reinforce group interests and the selfishness of members toward outsiders.
If distilled to a single question, such as "why do so many working class Americans hate the poor?" this leaves out many group dynamics that serve to maintain not just the status quo but continual degradation of the majority of Americans. Looking down on lowere groups must give some comfort in their own declining status as big business sits on its trillions in offshore cash and small business creation stagnates because big banks find it more profitable to invest in speculation than productive enterprises. It is also really painful to look helplessly at the huge bonuses the elite pay themselves, so scolding the masses of welfare queens supposedly hoovering gobs of taxpayer's money is a way of averting one's eyes to real problems.
Anyway, these viral memes and talking points are dropped into the roiling mass of working class ferment like poo bombs by professional intellectual hucksters from places like the heritage foundation and american enterprise institute to prevent and distract from any kind of mass awakening. Maybe I have it all wrong but I sure wish the people who propagate this kind of meme could recognize that they are often one layoff, catastrophic illness or accident away from joining the poor they dispise. What happens when you're the one on the other side, trying to fanangle the bureaucratic nightmare to feed your family because it is the only way to avoid starving in the street?
Just food for thought as we trudge off to the daily grind.
Of course, the latest meme circulating in this regard goes like this: "Thank you Florida, Kentucky, and Missouri, which are the first states that will require drug testing when applying for welfare. Some people are crying and calling this unconstitutional. How is this unconstitutional? It's OK to drug test people who WORK for their money but not those who don't?… Re-post this if you'd like to see this done in all 50 states."
It took all of two seconds on google to discover that this was a hoax, or at least hasn't happened yet. A refutation and analysis can be found here. Well, it's not okay to drug test people applying for a job but for some reason people have accepting peeing in a cup as just another inconvenience they will put up with in order to rent themselves. The first thing that pops into my mind on this is, where do people flogging this dumb idea expect the money to come from for this? When I was in the army, we had to pee on command about once a month and sometimes more often. The hq quys told me that they could only afford to actually analyze one out of twenty samples at random and the test itself was ridiculously easy to beat. So what was actually accomplished I don't know, just to keep us scared I suppose. There is a difference between rhetoric and reality, maybe when the price tag comes out this symbolic victory of the welfare hordes will seem slightly more Pyrric than as a rhetorical club to beat them with.
This is my third attempt at writing this post and the updates keep coming. Apparently Florida did implement the drug tests, at a cost to the taxpayers of $178 million, and were only able to kick 2% of applicants off. Florida has one of these new gop governors that is a blatant dictator, suprize suprize, when it comes to passing laws that might help people like the health care reform it takes forever but government moves quite quickly when it is harming people at great expense. Whether this is accurate or not, who knows. Maybe it just illustrates how dysfunctional our government is, or who's interest it serves.
We all know the stereotypes of the poor and welfare, so it would be a waste of time to recount them. Noam Chomsky once speculated that if a ruling class wants to institute a dictatorship they need to create a dispised minority that the general public can really be made to fear and hate, then punish that minority to show how the dictatorship is able to protect you. The larger problem that stares our society in the face is that industrial capitalism, with it's ever-increasing pressure to push down labor costs and raise profits, creates a superfluous
population that contributes little to profits and post-crash this population is increasing. The situation is unique in American history, Kevin Phillips has written in several of his last few books that past hegemonic societies (Spain, the Netherlands, and England) in decline experience a similar phenomenon where capital goes abroad in search of greater returns, skilled labor at home atrophies, and inequality increases and calcifies.
Paul Krugman, in The Conscience of a Liberal, generalized that inequality before the New Deal was relatively constant, economic growth raised the income of workers though they never closed the gap. So, industrial workers faced great insecurity but generally their incomes rose. Since the mid-1980s
however, the incomes of regular workers has actually declined adjusted for inflation and almost all growth has gone to the rich. This is a lot of assumptions but especially in light of the sustained campaign to yank away pensions, health benefits and so on from public-sector workers like teachers seems to provide evidence to the frustrations. Enter the right-wing noise machine that stokes fear of the other. This is a very good illustration of what Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about in Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics (Library of Theological Ethics) many years ago, it is a thesis that requires a good deal of qualification but group identity tends to reinforce group interests and the selfishness of members toward outsiders.If distilled to a single question, such as "why do so many working class Americans hate the poor?" this leaves out many group dynamics that serve to maintain not just the status quo but continual degradation of the majority of Americans. Looking down on lowere groups must give some comfort in their own declining status as big business sits on its trillions in offshore cash and small business creation stagnates because big banks find it more profitable to invest in speculation than productive enterprises. It is also really painful to look helplessly at the huge bonuses the elite pay themselves, so scolding the masses of welfare queens supposedly hoovering gobs of taxpayer's money is a way of averting one's eyes to real problems.
Anyway, these viral memes and talking points are dropped into the roiling mass of working class ferment like poo bombs by professional intellectual hucksters from places like the heritage foundation and american enterprise institute to prevent and distract from any kind of mass awakening. Maybe I have it all wrong but I sure wish the people who propagate this kind of meme could recognize that they are often one layoff, catastrophic illness or accident away from joining the poor they dispise. What happens when you're the one on the other side, trying to fanangle the bureaucratic nightmare to feed your family because it is the only way to avoid starving in the street?
Just food for thought as we trudge off to the daily grind.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Safe as Houses
Fallout from the housing bubble and bust has harmed a great number of people here and around the world, like a bursting appendix this speculative trainwreck will continue to ooze poison into the body politic for years if not decades. If you shout loud enough you can make the disaster anyone's fault you like, but blaming poor black people or misguided government policies ignores the speculative predation really at the heart of the collapse. Speculation is the practice of buying things simply to sell them later for a profit, most of the time these investments build value through bubbles and not real value. A certain amount of speculation can be productive in investment markets, but too much can be disasterous.
I've mentioned Matt Taibbi's Griftopia before, but it really is worth repeating. Yes, there were plenty of speculators buying houses with goofy interest-only mortgages and other batty-ass meatheads out there, but home ownership is one of those American traditions built up by the national storytelling and government policy. An awful lot of regular Americans were talked into buying or refinancing by slick con men who then deceived them with the details. Coincidentally, these were the majority of people tossed out onto the street by foreclosure as the government bailed out their banks. Why rescuing the idiot bankers directly when the government could have helped people stay in their homes and bailed out wall street's gambling at the same time is a question for another time. Now, containing the recommendations of very serious people for punishing those foolish enough to believe the propaganda of homeownership aspirations is, well, all that can be done.
Since batshit fascists have hijacked the national debate to "deficit reduction" instead of fixing the economy and all factors relevant to the average American and our limp-wristed president follows dopeily along, we can expect to see lots and lots of articles like this one. The authors are professors at NYU's Stern school of business so the rhetoric is couched in reasonable sounding language but the argument calls for fundamentally reshaping the American economy and thoroughly quashing one major aspect of Americans' expectations and aspirations. The latest sacrifice for the alter of "deficit reduction" is to take away mortgage interest deductions and any other "subsidies" that might help us. Use of that term is telling, it is a "subsidy" if public funds go to public purposes, bailouts of banks and other companies run into the ground by idiot executives, well that is something else. When your evidence that these policies don't help the purpose comes from that reliable bastion of objective research the american enterprise institute, warning flags should go up.
The article pays lip service to the substance of why these subsidies exist but does not name the banks that make out like bandits by enabling "people to borrow more than they could afford so they could buy houses bigger than they needed" but blame, as usual, both sides of the political aisle equally. Equally neglected is the bubble machine that enabled wildcat mortgage brokers and speculators to "make highly leveraged bets on real estate that turned sour and wiped out nearly $8 trillion in household net worth.' Taibbi locates the villain repeatedly blowing bubbles as alan greenspan, but he had a lot of help, mainly from wall street gamblers and their grifter par excellence goldman sachs.
Since the liberal position on ownership subsidies is that it helps reduce income equality, but empirical evidence suggests that the rich gain substantially more from them than the middle class, this justifies doing away with deductions and favorable interest rates from fannie and freddie altogether in the authors' eyes. They offer the fig leaf of extending assistance to renters, which would of course simply put more money into the pockets of landlords. Historically, landlords are pretty much the aggregate epitome of evil, some may be decent, but most simply exploit their tenents. America, with its wide open spaces was diluting the power of landlords, especially after the homestead act was passed and again after WWII when suburbs made modest houses attainable for the working class. Government was instrumental in empowering people to own their own houses and farms at the expense of landlords. Of course, without regulation this would simply transfer the exploitation from landlord to bank.
So, eliminating all these "subsidies" will, fix all that ails us, cut $700 billion in wasteful spending and wrench the dream of having your own castle from lots and lots of people. In their words, "reforming the American housing finance system will improve the budget and stimulate growth and will make a real contribution to our future prosperity." Supposedly steering investment from homes to "areas of the economy that offer higher rates of return, like human capital, infrastructure projects and capital business projects in other industries" will make everything better. Riiight. I guess if you crush people's expectations of meaningful work and getting ahead, while condemming them to tenements, that will unleash a flood of investments in productive capacity. Why not, it's worked so well in the past.
This article smells of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and really shows how much the intellectual "business school" side of academia has been retarded in the age of austerity and perpetual recession. Just like pitting workers against each other, sacrificing social insurance programs we've paid into our whole lives, cutting education committments at all levels in favor of imperial domination, and privatizing military functions at incredible expense to maintain that empire, elite opinion advocates nothing less than eating our seed corn and ensuring our continued decline. Houses stopped being safe with the bursting of the bubble, now our imperial citadel is sinking in the shifting sands of a devestated peasantry, all for the benefit of a tiny minority of the obscenely wealthy. That this kind of milquetoasty tyrannical prescription came from academics and not mouth-breathing teabaggers in the NYTimes and not fox news, gives a pretty good indication of what's in store for the future of our fading republic.
I've mentioned Matt Taibbi's Griftopia before, but it really is worth repeating. Yes, there were plenty of speculators buying houses with goofy interest-only mortgages and other batty-ass meatheads out there, but home ownership is one of those American traditions built up by the national storytelling and government policy. An awful lot of regular Americans were talked into buying or refinancing by slick con men who then deceived them with the details. Coincidentally, these were the majority of people tossed out onto the street by foreclosure as the government bailed out their banks. Why rescuing the idiot bankers directly when the government could have helped people stay in their homes and bailed out wall street's gambling at the same time is a question for another time. Now, containing the recommendations of very serious people for punishing those foolish enough to believe the propaganda of homeownership aspirations is, well, all that can be done.
Since batshit fascists have hijacked the national debate to "deficit reduction" instead of fixing the economy and all factors relevant to the average American and our limp-wristed president follows dopeily along, we can expect to see lots and lots of articles like this one. The authors are professors at NYU's Stern school of business so the rhetoric is couched in reasonable sounding language but the argument calls for fundamentally reshaping the American economy and thoroughly quashing one major aspect of Americans' expectations and aspirations. The latest sacrifice for the alter of "deficit reduction" is to take away mortgage interest deductions and any other "subsidies" that might help us. Use of that term is telling, it is a "subsidy" if public funds go to public purposes, bailouts of banks and other companies run into the ground by idiot executives, well that is something else. When your evidence that these policies don't help the purpose comes from that reliable bastion of objective research the american enterprise institute, warning flags should go up.
The article pays lip service to the substance of why these subsidies exist but does not name the banks that make out like bandits by enabling "people to borrow more than they could afford so they could buy houses bigger than they needed" but blame, as usual, both sides of the political aisle equally. Equally neglected is the bubble machine that enabled wildcat mortgage brokers and speculators to "make highly leveraged bets on real estate that turned sour and wiped out nearly $8 trillion in household net worth.' Taibbi locates the villain repeatedly blowing bubbles as alan greenspan, but he had a lot of help, mainly from wall street gamblers and their grifter par excellence goldman sachs.
Since the liberal position on ownership subsidies is that it helps reduce income equality, but empirical evidence suggests that the rich gain substantially more from them than the middle class, this justifies doing away with deductions and favorable interest rates from fannie and freddie altogether in the authors' eyes. They offer the fig leaf of extending assistance to renters, which would of course simply put more money into the pockets of landlords. Historically, landlords are pretty much the aggregate epitome of evil, some may be decent, but most simply exploit their tenents. America, with its wide open spaces was diluting the power of landlords, especially after the homestead act was passed and again after WWII when suburbs made modest houses attainable for the working class. Government was instrumental in empowering people to own their own houses and farms at the expense of landlords. Of course, without regulation this would simply transfer the exploitation from landlord to bank.
So, eliminating all these "subsidies" will, fix all that ails us, cut $700 billion in wasteful spending and wrench the dream of having your own castle from lots and lots of people. In their words, "reforming the American housing finance system will improve the budget and stimulate growth and will make a real contribution to our future prosperity." Supposedly steering investment from homes to "areas of the economy that offer higher rates of return, like human capital, infrastructure projects and capital business projects in other industries" will make everything better. Riiight. I guess if you crush people's expectations of meaningful work and getting ahead, while condemming them to tenements, that will unleash a flood of investments in productive capacity. Why not, it's worked so well in the past.
This article smells of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and really shows how much the intellectual "business school" side of academia has been retarded in the age of austerity and perpetual recession. Just like pitting workers against each other, sacrificing social insurance programs we've paid into our whole lives, cutting education committments at all levels in favor of imperial domination, and privatizing military functions at incredible expense to maintain that empire, elite opinion advocates nothing less than eating our seed corn and ensuring our continued decline. Houses stopped being safe with the bursting of the bubble, now our imperial citadel is sinking in the shifting sands of a devestated peasantry, all for the benefit of a tiny minority of the obscenely wealthy. That this kind of milquetoasty tyrannical prescription came from academics and not mouth-breathing teabaggers in the NYTimes and not fox news, gives a pretty good indication of what's in store for the future of our fading republic.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Defense preparedness
Does anyone remember george w bush accusing the Clinton/Gore administration of falling down on military preparedness during the debates? He claimed that several divisions of the army would have to report "not ready for duty" if called on by the commander in chief. It really showed the extent to which the end of the cold war and peace opened conservatives to make cheap partisan attacks in formerly sacrosanct areas of government. For example, during the reagan administration, despite the unprecedented peacetime defense spending spree the army depended on "roundout brigades" from the reserves and National Guard to fully equip several divisions. So, on the eve of Desert Storm several divisions of the ready deployment force sent to the gulf were fully one third understrength and the Marine Corps had to borrow modern M1A1 tanks from the army to equip its armored units. But president bush I didn't call reagan's patriotism into question, and secdef cheney even praised the former commander-in-chief for bequeathing such a powerful force to the new administration. How far the empire has fallen that the opposition now feels cheap political points can be scored by attacking incumbents on defense.
Not that he ever would have, but Gore could have used an example from a past transition to make bush's party look awful. Those divisions were not ready for duty according to a cold war Pentagon doctrine that required army units to fight a conventional war like that envisioned between the US and USSR across central Europe and immediately extricate itself and deploy to a brushfire type of conflict, the two war doctrine. To say nothing of the Clinton DoD developing the satellite-guided JDAM and unmanned drones that gave the military an integrated cyber capability to project power in a conventional and unconventional sense not true before. Of course, new technologies made this possible but like so many things that went right during the '90s the Clinton administration got credit for these advances mostly by staying out of the way.
The Eisenhower administration depended on a tripwire doctrine or "strategic monism" which held that aggression anywhere could be met with only one response, overwhelming nuclear annihilation. The only alternative was clandestine black ops by the CIA, which were used to overthrow disobedient regimes in Central America and Iran, but not appropriate for say, counterinsurgency campaigns. Putting aside the morality of overthrowing regimes that, while not communist, were not overly friendly to Washington, the US did face an existential threat during the cold war that required defending allies and interests overseas. Eisenhower as president was actually interested in the conservative idea of balanced budgets and as former supreme allied commander during an actual war, he also understood that war isn't fun and shouldn't be pursued for national aggrandizement or adventurism. So in a way, Eisenhower's stripping of military preparedness could be seen as a way to make war an all-or-nothing option to prevent interventions just for the heck of it. In other words, Eisenhower would have been a much better president than gwb or obama.
However, when the Kennedy administration came in Robert McNamara assumed the job of secdef and was aghast at the inadequacy of the armed forces to meet new forms of communist aggression and subversion. According to Arthur Schlesinger in A Thousand Days the special assistant to JFK the new administration inherited a military in which only three of ten army divisions were stationed in the US and only a portion of that ready to deploy, obsolete airlift capacity, and shortages of ammunition and other logistics. However, the 82nd Airborne had many times as many 105 mm cartridges (I have to assume for recoilless rifles, they didn't have any tanks) and heavy mortar shells, weird. Tactical air support from the air force, probably one of the decisive elements of victory in WWII and vital in Korea, was atrophied and what assets they had were obsolete as well. (pp. 306-19)
I'm not attacking the Eisenhower administration for this, and neither were the New Frontiersmen, it was simply their theoretical doctrine at the time. That didn't stop candidate Kennedy from rhetorical attacks about the "missile gap" with the Soviets however, and that was simply a prediction made by Eisenhower's own military intelligence and later shown to be fantasy. An interesting though experiment is to ask
what might have happened were WWII or Korean levels of tactical firepower available to the conventional forces of the US. Eisenhower avoided committing American troops to Suez, Algeria, Indochina, Hungary, and Cuba; all hot spots during the 1950s that could have flared into larger conflicts had the US intervened. There were plenty of hotheads gunning for a fight with the communists during Eisenhower's presidency, simply eliminating the option of conventional intervention may have avoided World War III.
Kennedy's commitment to building these tactical forces and expanding asymmetric capabilities such as the special forces made it easier to send troops to Vietnam. Not inevitable of course, but having new toys around makes the temptation harder to resist. Maybe I am projecting contemporary attitudes onto history, an easily made fallacy, it is difficult to imagine a time when American power was used more responsibly than today. At least until LBJ was dragged into Vietnam by Goldwater, his own advisors, and military leaders after JFK put our foot in there. Schlesinger wrote those many years ago that it would have been difficult for JFK to send American troops in to rescue the Bay of Pigs operation because they just weren't available. This seems like a contradiction though because he repeatedly referenced demands that the administration "send in the Marines" to overthrow Castro.
In the end history doesn't give a hard and fast answer to whether preparing for war prevents war or encourages it. But politicians out of power can posture any way they please because they have no responsibility to actually use the power. Once in power, politicians hopefully can gain that responsibility but there is no guarentee.
Not that he ever would have, but Gore could have used an example from a past transition to make bush's party look awful. Those divisions were not ready for duty according to a cold war Pentagon doctrine that required army units to fight a conventional war like that envisioned between the US and USSR across central Europe and immediately extricate itself and deploy to a brushfire type of conflict, the two war doctrine. To say nothing of the Clinton DoD developing the satellite-guided JDAM and unmanned drones that gave the military an integrated cyber capability to project power in a conventional and unconventional sense not true before. Of course, new technologies made this possible but like so many things that went right during the '90s the Clinton administration got credit for these advances mostly by staying out of the way.
The Eisenhower administration depended on a tripwire doctrine or "strategic monism" which held that aggression anywhere could be met with only one response, overwhelming nuclear annihilation. The only alternative was clandestine black ops by the CIA, which were used to overthrow disobedient regimes in Central America and Iran, but not appropriate for say, counterinsurgency campaigns. Putting aside the morality of overthrowing regimes that, while not communist, were not overly friendly to Washington, the US did face an existential threat during the cold war that required defending allies and interests overseas. Eisenhower as president was actually interested in the conservative idea of balanced budgets and as former supreme allied commander during an actual war, he also understood that war isn't fun and shouldn't be pursued for national aggrandizement or adventurism. So in a way, Eisenhower's stripping of military preparedness could be seen as a way to make war an all-or-nothing option to prevent interventions just for the heck of it. In other words, Eisenhower would have been a much better president than gwb or obama.
However, when the Kennedy administration came in Robert McNamara assumed the job of secdef and was aghast at the inadequacy of the armed forces to meet new forms of communist aggression and subversion. According to Arthur Schlesinger in A Thousand Days the special assistant to JFK the new administration inherited a military in which only three of ten army divisions were stationed in the US and only a portion of that ready to deploy, obsolete airlift capacity, and shortages of ammunition and other logistics. However, the 82nd Airborne had many times as many 105 mm cartridges (I have to assume for recoilless rifles, they didn't have any tanks) and heavy mortar shells, weird. Tactical air support from the air force, probably one of the decisive elements of victory in WWII and vital in Korea, was atrophied and what assets they had were obsolete as well. (pp. 306-19)
I'm not attacking the Eisenhower administration for this, and neither were the New Frontiersmen, it was simply their theoretical doctrine at the time. That didn't stop candidate Kennedy from rhetorical attacks about the "missile gap" with the Soviets however, and that was simply a prediction made by Eisenhower's own military intelligence and later shown to be fantasy. An interesting though experiment is to ask
what might have happened were WWII or Korean levels of tactical firepower available to the conventional forces of the US. Eisenhower avoided committing American troops to Suez, Algeria, Indochina, Hungary, and Cuba; all hot spots during the 1950s that could have flared into larger conflicts had the US intervened. There were plenty of hotheads gunning for a fight with the communists during Eisenhower's presidency, simply eliminating the option of conventional intervention may have avoided World War III.Kennedy's commitment to building these tactical forces and expanding asymmetric capabilities such as the special forces made it easier to send troops to Vietnam. Not inevitable of course, but having new toys around makes the temptation harder to resist. Maybe I am projecting contemporary attitudes onto history, an easily made fallacy, it is difficult to imagine a time when American power was used more responsibly than today. At least until LBJ was dragged into Vietnam by Goldwater, his own advisors, and military leaders after JFK put our foot in there. Schlesinger wrote those many years ago that it would have been difficult for JFK to send American troops in to rescue the Bay of Pigs operation because they just weren't available. This seems like a contradiction though because he repeatedly referenced demands that the administration "send in the Marines" to overthrow Castro.
In the end history doesn't give a hard and fast answer to whether preparing for war prevents war or encourages it. But politicians out of power can posture any way they please because they have no responsibility to actually use the power. Once in power, politicians hopefully can gain that responsibility but there is no guarentee.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Three yards and a cloud of dust
Except it was third down and four yards to go. I know sports analogies for politics and government are always problematic and only really reinforce the sports' fan mentality towards politics, but there it is. So, let the gloating by conservatives begin. You know, the ones who deplore "outside money" in races if they come from the "deep-pocketed" unions, but curiously do not see the mountains of corporate cash funding those incredibly deceitful commercials. Anyway, for all those non-Wisconsinites out there, we had an election yesterday. It was the endgame on whether the prissy little shit scott walker will have absolute power to wreck our state.
Checks and balances in government don't work very well when one ideologically radical and completely uniform faction occupies all levers of power. Recall exists because, well, candidates lie. Lying about what you want to do, and then doing pretty much the opposite after taking power tends to piss people off. And in those cases, citizens have the right in our state to challenge them. And for all the dumbasses out there who say "elections have consequences," think for a second how deeply obnoxious that is. Did you assholes sit home and pout when the dreaded "socialist" obama was spending all your grandkids money on bailing out all those "waterdrinkers" who bought too much house? No. But shameless double standards, lying, and abuse of power in service to the "job creators" is the name of the day.
Actual grassroots citizens gathered signatures to recall six republican members of the state senate. These "public servants" were too busy licking the boots of their corporate masters to see how much harm their blind loyalty to gov. walker's agenda of crushing education and meaningful work in our state was doing to the people they are supposed to represent. While two of our state's more obnoxious senators, joe leibham and glenn grothmann, escaped recall for the time being, it was a start to checking the radical right-wing sabotage these scum are inflicting on this former bastion of modernity and progress. The short version is that despite being ignored by the leader of our party and getting little outside help, Wisconsin Democrats did manage to force these recall challenges and win two of them, the same utterly corrupt county clerk who rigged the supreme court election in favor the gop came through for the forces of darkness and prevented the third victory needed to restore some checks and balances in state government.
I was suprized that the outright theft was necessary considering how much money was spent defending darling's seat by national right-wing bribery outfits. The hypocrisy is amazing, but once you shed any vestige of shame, also completely unsuprizing. A few years ago, right after obama's inauguration actually, a local fundamentalist just happened to discover a booklist on our library's website that she didn't happen to like. Her gang of merry censors then dragged us through almost a year's worth of mud, demanding all sorts of censorship and people being fired among other things. The thing that seemed to get her goat the most though, was that the American Library Association came to our library's aid to defend that silly constitutional right to read what you want. So of course she squawked about "outsiders" who don't share our "small-town values" in classic victim-speak. "The big, bad librarians are interfering with our right to force our narrow point-of-view on everyone." Anyway, the library board, composed completely of local residents, voted unanimously to deny her right to censor. So much time and energy wasted simply to keep things the way they were. The hypocrisy of this story of course, was all the while she was whining about the ALA, she was getting support from the Eagle Forum, a notorious censorship and anti-women's rights outfit. But, high priestess phillis schafley shared her "small-town values" so the double standard does not register.
Now, the story leading to these recall attempts is different but shares some outlines. I would be remiss if I did not mention the ultimate bad word "unions." Let's set aside for the moment that falling short after all this effort reveals once and for all, or should in any worldview tethered even slightly to reality, the impotence of organized labor in the face of organized money. We should also set aside what the function of industrial and trade unions in capitalist society and what they accomplished for workers, i.e. the majority of people in our society. In the political realm, unions function as advocates for working people, however imperfectly that strategy may be. It was not enough this time. Probably the last chance for democratic change after the imposition of poll taxes and all the other crap walker pushed down our throats kicks in next time. This state is owned part and parcel by the koch bros. probably forever now. I guess if you have an authoritarian personality that will appeal to you. Perhaps they will let you manage some small part as a feudal lord if you can generate enough profit on the backs of all us serfs for them.
All the protests were about last spring was the very conservative attempt to maintain the status quo. Police, firefighters, teachers, and all the others didn't think it was fair to balance millionaire tax breaks on their backs. But last night proved that organized money will go to any length to fight democracy, social justice, and civilization itself. And they will win.
Democracy is dead, the republic is finished. Welcome to the new dark ages. The last time it phased in slowly too. A steady erosion of human rights and dignity for the benefit of an elite few. When the next generation of historians look at the decline of the American Empire, probably by candlelight in a dilapidated library and hiding from death squads, they will wonder with awe how the financial elite were able to not buy off so many but really turn them into allies. I certainly wonder that now.
As usual, I would love to be proven wrong. I would happily eat my words if there was any hope.
Checks and balances in government don't work very well when one ideologically radical and completely uniform faction occupies all levers of power. Recall exists because, well, candidates lie. Lying about what you want to do, and then doing pretty much the opposite after taking power tends to piss people off. And in those cases, citizens have the right in our state to challenge them. And for all the dumbasses out there who say "elections have consequences," think for a second how deeply obnoxious that is. Did you assholes sit home and pout when the dreaded "socialist" obama was spending all your grandkids money on bailing out all those "waterdrinkers" who bought too much house? No. But shameless double standards, lying, and abuse of power in service to the "job creators" is the name of the day.
Actual grassroots citizens gathered signatures to recall six republican members of the state senate. These "public servants" were too busy licking the boots of their corporate masters to see how much harm their blind loyalty to gov. walker's agenda of crushing education and meaningful work in our state was doing to the people they are supposed to represent. While two of our state's more obnoxious senators, joe leibham and glenn grothmann, escaped recall for the time being, it was a start to checking the radical right-wing sabotage these scum are inflicting on this former bastion of modernity and progress. The short version is that despite being ignored by the leader of our party and getting little outside help, Wisconsin Democrats did manage to force these recall challenges and win two of them, the same utterly corrupt county clerk who rigged the supreme court election in favor the gop came through for the forces of darkness and prevented the third victory needed to restore some checks and balances in state government.
I was suprized that the outright theft was necessary considering how much money was spent defending darling's seat by national right-wing bribery outfits. The hypocrisy is amazing, but once you shed any vestige of shame, also completely unsuprizing. A few years ago, right after obama's inauguration actually, a local fundamentalist just happened to discover a booklist on our library's website that she didn't happen to like. Her gang of merry censors then dragged us through almost a year's worth of mud, demanding all sorts of censorship and people being fired among other things. The thing that seemed to get her goat the most though, was that the American Library Association came to our library's aid to defend that silly constitutional right to read what you want. So of course she squawked about "outsiders" who don't share our "small-town values" in classic victim-speak. "The big, bad librarians are interfering with our right to force our narrow point-of-view on everyone." Anyway, the library board, composed completely of local residents, voted unanimously to deny her right to censor. So much time and energy wasted simply to keep things the way they were. The hypocrisy of this story of course, was all the while she was whining about the ALA, she was getting support from the Eagle Forum, a notorious censorship and anti-women's rights outfit. But, high priestess phillis schafley shared her "small-town values" so the double standard does not register.
Now, the story leading to these recall attempts is different but shares some outlines. I would be remiss if I did not mention the ultimate bad word "unions." Let's set aside for the moment that falling short after all this effort reveals once and for all, or should in any worldview tethered even slightly to reality, the impotence of organized labor in the face of organized money. We should also set aside what the function of industrial and trade unions in capitalist society and what they accomplished for workers, i.e. the majority of people in our society. In the political realm, unions function as advocates for working people, however imperfectly that strategy may be. It was not enough this time. Probably the last chance for democratic change after the imposition of poll taxes and all the other crap walker pushed down our throats kicks in next time. This state is owned part and parcel by the koch bros. probably forever now. I guess if you have an authoritarian personality that will appeal to you. Perhaps they will let you manage some small part as a feudal lord if you can generate enough profit on the backs of all us serfs for them.
All the protests were about last spring was the very conservative attempt to maintain the status quo. Police, firefighters, teachers, and all the others didn't think it was fair to balance millionaire tax breaks on their backs. But last night proved that organized money will go to any length to fight democracy, social justice, and civilization itself. And they will win.
Democracy is dead, the republic is finished. Welcome to the new dark ages. The last time it phased in slowly too. A steady erosion of human rights and dignity for the benefit of an elite few. When the next generation of historians look at the decline of the American Empire, probably by candlelight in a dilapidated library and hiding from death squads, they will wonder with awe how the financial elite were able to not buy off so many but really turn them into allies. I certainly wonder that now.
As usual, I would love to be proven wrong. I would happily eat my words if there was any hope.
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