The Republican Party started out in 1854 as an anti-slavery coalition of folks living in the Northeast and upper Midwest who were opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
The first meeting of the new Republican Party was held in a school house in Ripon, Wisconsin. Because the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed slavery to spread outward from the south, northern activists organized themselves around the slogan, “Free Labor, Free Land, Free men!”
Elaborating on the idea of Free Labor, Abraham Lincoln, who became the first President elected by Republican Party in 1860, gave the following annual address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 30, 1859:
“
...But another class of reasoners hold the opinion... that there is no such thing as a free man being fatally fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer.... They hold that labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed; that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed without labor. Hence they hold that labor is the superior and greatly the superior of capital.”
After Lincoln was reelected to the Presidency in 1864, Karl Marx on behalf of the International Working Men’s Association centered in London, England, wrote Lincoln the following letter:
“Sir: We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority...From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class....the working classes of Europe understood at once, even before the fanatic partisanship of the upper classes (in Europe) for the Confederate gentry had given its dismal warning, that the slave holders' rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of property against labor, and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic....The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world”
Karl Marx received the following reply via the American Ambassador to Great Britain Charles Francis Adam:
“I am directed to inform you that the address of the Central Council of your Association, which was duly transmitted through this Legation to the President of the United [States], has been received by him. So far as the sentiments expressed by it are personal, they are accepted by him with a sincere and anxious desire that he may be able to prove himself not unworthy of the confidence which has been recently extended to him by his fellow citizens and by so many of the friends of humanity and progress throughout the world.”
Abraham Lincoln as a leading champion of the rights of the working class? My-oh-my has the Republican Party changed its spots.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
The Unanswered "WHY" behind 9/11
On September 11, 1973 my wife and I were in New Delhi, India. While walking over to the American Express Office in Connaught Circus we picked up a copy of the Times of India and read with horror that the military had overthrown the democratically elected government of Chile. The Hindustan Times, another English language newspaper, had on it’s front page a three panel cartoon showing a military plane dropping a bomb on the the bold face word “Chile” in the first panel, an explosion in the second panel, and the word “CIA” in the third panel. The insight of that three panel cartoon in the Hindustan Times that September morning was confirmed years later when the question of “why” was finally answered.
On September 11, 2001 I was stepping out of shower when my wife called out and said a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. My first thought was that this was a repeat of the tragic accident in 1945 when a Mitchell B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building. While watching the World Trade Center tower burning, we were stunned to see another plane crashing into the second tower. Again my first thought was this was pay back for the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile on September 11th all those years before.
Driving to school that morning my wife and I listened intently to National Public Radio as the various announcers and reporters told us “what,” “when,” “how,” “where,” and after repeating that over and over an announcer finally put forward a possible “who.” Despite the fact there was no credible information as to “who” conducted the attacks, NPR was speculating that the attacks were carried out by al Qaeda. On the other hand no one on NPR that morning attempted to speculate on the “why” question.
At school the “why” question was paramount on everyone’s mind. The overwhelming consensus revolved around some vaguely understood connection between the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and Israel and the Palestinians.
Later at home my wife and I watched the news. CBS played a tape of President George W. Bush’s remarks at Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida immediately following the attacks. President Bush said, “Today, we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country....I have ordered that the full resources of the federal government... conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.” I turned to my wife and said I did not hear the “why” question answered. My wife told me to sit tight because she was certain the “why” question will be answered in due time.
CBS then played another taped message from the President delivered from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana where the President said, “....Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And freedom will be defended.” I again turned to my wife and asked here if she was satisfied with that “why” answer.
Following the Barksdale message CBS News broadcasted an address to the Nation from the Oval Office by President Bush. Bush said in part, “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts....These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat....America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.” The President had elaborated on his Barksdale Air Force Base speech but the answer to the “why” question remained vague and shadowy.
On September 20, 2001, President Bush addressed a Joint Session of Congress Following the 9/11 Attacks. The President said, “Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom....On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country....a world where freedom itself is under attack....Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda.... its goal is remaking the world -- and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere....”
Nine days after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush continued his theme that the terrorist attacks were motivated by al-Qaeda’s hatred of American freedoms. But the President added another new layer to the “why” question when he asserted al-Qaeda had a dream of remaking the world in al-Qaeda’s own image. Again I felt let down and more uneasy then ever because the “why” question was being answered too simplistically. There had to be more to these horrendous terrorist attacks than an enigmatic hatred of American freedoms.
I remained bothered by the failure of President Bush and the corporate news media to answer the “why” question in a more profound and penetrating way. Moreover, President Barack Obama’s lack of interest in the “why” question when he became President of the United States was also disconcerting. I finally resolved to dig deeper myself.
Several years ago I came across an interview with Osama Bin Laden conducted by the PBS show titled Frontline. The Frontline interview was conducted in May 1998 nearly three and a half years before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This is what Bin Laden said, “The call to wage war against America was made because America has spear-headed the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of thousands of its troops to the land of the two Holy Mosques over and above its meddling in its affairs and its politics, and its support of the oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime that is in control. These are the reasons behind the singling out of America as a target. ....They rip us of our wealth and of our resources and of our oil. Our religion is under attack. They kill and murder our brothers. They compromise our honor and our dignity and dare we utter a single word of protest against the injustice, we are called terrorists.” According to Bin Laden, his hatred for America is rooted in American foreign policy in the Middle east particularly where 60,000 American troops had been stationed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia (land of the two Holy Mosques, Mecca and Medina) and the propping up of the Saudi family dictatorship.
Later I discovered a speech given on September 20, 2001 by then former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the U.S. Government Reform Committee. Netanyahu said, “A simple rule prevails here: The success of terrorists in one part of the terror network emboldens terrorists throughout the network. This then is the Who. Now for the Why....the main motivation driving the terror network is an anti-Western hostility that seeks to achieve nothing less than a reversal of history....This hatred is the product of a seething resentment that has simmered for centuries in certain parts of the Arab and Islamic world....(the) West (had) penetrated Islamic realms in North Africa, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.... For them the mission was clear: The West had to be first pushed out of these areas. Pro-western Middle Eastern regimes were toppled in rapid succession, including in Iran....Nothing better illustrates this then Osama bin Laden's call for Jihad against the United States in 1998. He gave as his primary reason not Israel, not the Palestinians, not the 'peace process', but rather the very presence of the United States 'occupying the Land of Islam in the holiest of places' and where is that? 'The Arabian peninsula' says Bin Laden, where America is 'plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, and humiliating its people'. Israel, by the way, comes a distant third....”
Were the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 motivated by al-Qaeda’s deep hatred for American freedoms or was it motivated by American foreign policy in the middle east? Which ever “why” answer one finds compelling, there are, none-the-less, two certainties which have emerged from the terrorist attacks. First, almost 3,000 innocent people died. The United States Government owes the victims and their families a truthful and definitive reason why they died. Second, what ever freedoms we may have enjoyed before September 11, 2001, those freedoms have been abridged by the very same government that claimed it wanted to protect our freedoms. Look no farther then the United States Patriot Act.
On September 11, 2001 I was stepping out of shower when my wife called out and said a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. My first thought was that this was a repeat of the tragic accident in 1945 when a Mitchell B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building. While watching the World Trade Center tower burning, we were stunned to see another plane crashing into the second tower. Again my first thought was this was pay back for the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile on September 11th all those years before.
Driving to school that morning my wife and I listened intently to National Public Radio as the various announcers and reporters told us “what,” “when,” “how,” “where,” and after repeating that over and over an announcer finally put forward a possible “who.” Despite the fact there was no credible information as to “who” conducted the attacks, NPR was speculating that the attacks were carried out by al Qaeda. On the other hand no one on NPR that morning attempted to speculate on the “why” question.
At school the “why” question was paramount on everyone’s mind. The overwhelming consensus revolved around some vaguely understood connection between the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and Israel and the Palestinians.
Later at home my wife and I watched the news. CBS played a tape of President George W. Bush’s remarks at Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida immediately following the attacks. President Bush said, “Today, we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country....I have ordered that the full resources of the federal government... conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.” I turned to my wife and said I did not hear the “why” question answered. My wife told me to sit tight because she was certain the “why” question will be answered in due time.
CBS then played another taped message from the President delivered from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana where the President said, “....Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And freedom will be defended.” I again turned to my wife and asked here if she was satisfied with that “why” answer.
Following the Barksdale message CBS News broadcasted an address to the Nation from the Oval Office by President Bush. Bush said in part, “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts....These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat....America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.” The President had elaborated on his Barksdale Air Force Base speech but the answer to the “why” question remained vague and shadowy.
On September 20, 2001, President Bush addressed a Joint Session of Congress Following the 9/11 Attacks. The President said, “Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom....On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country....a world where freedom itself is under attack....Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda.... its goal is remaking the world -- and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere....”
Nine days after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush continued his theme that the terrorist attacks were motivated by al-Qaeda’s hatred of American freedoms. But the President added another new layer to the “why” question when he asserted al-Qaeda had a dream of remaking the world in al-Qaeda’s own image. Again I felt let down and more uneasy then ever because the “why” question was being answered too simplistically. There had to be more to these horrendous terrorist attacks than an enigmatic hatred of American freedoms.
I remained bothered by the failure of President Bush and the corporate news media to answer the “why” question in a more profound and penetrating way. Moreover, President Barack Obama’s lack of interest in the “why” question when he became President of the United States was also disconcerting. I finally resolved to dig deeper myself.
Several years ago I came across an interview with Osama Bin Laden conducted by the PBS show titled Frontline. The Frontline interview was conducted in May 1998 nearly three and a half years before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This is what Bin Laden said, “The call to wage war against America was made because America has spear-headed the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of thousands of its troops to the land of the two Holy Mosques over and above its meddling in its affairs and its politics, and its support of the oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime that is in control. These are the reasons behind the singling out of America as a target. ....They rip us of our wealth and of our resources and of our oil. Our religion is under attack. They kill and murder our brothers. They compromise our honor and our dignity and dare we utter a single word of protest against the injustice, we are called terrorists.” According to Bin Laden, his hatred for America is rooted in American foreign policy in the Middle east particularly where 60,000 American troops had been stationed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia (land of the two Holy Mosques, Mecca and Medina) and the propping up of the Saudi family dictatorship.
Later I discovered a speech given on September 20, 2001 by then former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the U.S. Government Reform Committee. Netanyahu said, “A simple rule prevails here: The success of terrorists in one part of the terror network emboldens terrorists throughout the network. This then is the Who. Now for the Why....the main motivation driving the terror network is an anti-Western hostility that seeks to achieve nothing less than a reversal of history....This hatred is the product of a seething resentment that has simmered for centuries in certain parts of the Arab and Islamic world....(the) West (had) penetrated Islamic realms in North Africa, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.... For them the mission was clear: The West had to be first pushed out of these areas. Pro-western Middle Eastern regimes were toppled in rapid succession, including in Iran....Nothing better illustrates this then Osama bin Laden's call for Jihad against the United States in 1998. He gave as his primary reason not Israel, not the Palestinians, not the 'peace process', but rather the very presence of the United States 'occupying the Land of Islam in the holiest of places' and where is that? 'The Arabian peninsula' says Bin Laden, where America is 'plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, and humiliating its people'. Israel, by the way, comes a distant third....”
Were the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 motivated by al-Qaeda’s deep hatred for American freedoms or was it motivated by American foreign policy in the middle east? Which ever “why” answer one finds compelling, there are, none-the-less, two certainties which have emerged from the terrorist attacks. First, almost 3,000 innocent people died. The United States Government owes the victims and their families a truthful and definitive reason why they died. Second, what ever freedoms we may have enjoyed before September 11, 2001, those freedoms have been abridged by the very same government that claimed it wanted to protect our freedoms. Look no farther then the United States Patriot Act.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Well Done Ya'll
I really have to hand it to the Republican-Tea Party. After decades of opposing the social safety net known as the New Deal and the Great Society and after decades of opposing Keynesian Economic Policy, the right wing is on the verge of realizing it's long held dream. Today right-wingers have locked hands circling clock-wise then circling counter-clock-wise, bobbing up then down, genuflecting outward then inward in a New Age Circle Dance celebrating their pending historic victory over Social Security, Medicare, and deficit spending. After more than 70 years of pursuing one failed strategy after another, the tactics settled on by the Republican-Tea Party that proved to be so successful in overturning post Great Depression Democratic Party social policy was really brilliant in terms of its simplicity. The Republican-Tea Party is using Keynesian Economics to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Keynesian Economics!
During the Great Depression beginning in 1929 the capitalist economy appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Karl Marx had predicted that capitalism was a self-destructive economic system. By 1932 Marx's predictions were coming true. Economic growth was going in reverse, poverty was growing exponentially, every major industry was experiencing labor unrest, and the Communist Party USA had more members then the Communist Party USSR! The old economic theory known as laissez-faire capitalism was incapable of providing a road map leading capitalism out of the crisis capitalism had created for itself.
When all seemed lost a little known British economist named John Maynard Keynes published "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money." Keynes argued that to get capitalism out of its on-going crisis the government must "...stimulate the economy through some combination of two approaches: a reduction in interest rates and government investment in infrastructure. Investment by government injects income, which results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment." Keynes also wrote that government spending on such things as basic research, public health, education, and infrastructure could help long-term growth. But Keynes argued, once the crisis was over the debt incurred to stimulate the economy out of the crisis must be paid down in preparation for the next crisis.
In contrast, the traditional Republican Party advocated a policy of fiscal conservatism. The policy goals of fiscal conservatism involved balanced budgets, reduced government spending, free trade, deregulation, lower taxes, and paying down the national debt. Traditional Republicans believed that if they pursued fiscal conservatism it would be possible to unleash a sustainable economic boom that would make the social safety net unnecessary and Keynesian Economics pointless. The fiscal conservatives constantly accused the Keynesians of being tax and spenders.
Because of the success of Keynesian economics, fiscal conservatism never caught on even when traditional Republicans were in power. By the 1980s radical Republicans who could not or would not let go of their fiscal conservative dreams stumbled on a tactic to finally bring Keynes down.
In 1981 the national debt on the day the Republican Ronald Reagan became president was 900 billion dollars. When Reagan left office the national debt rose to 2.4 trillion dollars. By 1988, the country owed more to foreigners than it was owed, and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. Four years later George H.W. Bush got the national debt up to 4.5 trillion dollars. Eight years later at the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, the national debt stood at 5 trillion dollars but Clinton left a 1.2 trillion dollar surplus to his successor, George W. Bush.
During the eight years of George W. Bush's administration, Bush started two wars and paid for them by selling United States Treasury Bonds to the rest of the world. Meanwhile Bush passed the largest tax cut in United States history. Then the Bush administration passed legislation that created Medicare part D and paid for it by, you guessed it, selling U.S. Treasury Bonds. When the economy again returned to crisis mode in September 2008, the Bush Administration created the Troubled Asset Relief Program which used treasury bonds to buy up the debt of private banks. When Bush left office the national debt stood at 13 trillion dollars!
By 2011 the radical Republicans had morphed into the Republican-Tea Party. In violation of the key Keynesian economic principle of paying down debt, the radical Republicans had stumbled on the tactic of borrowing and spending never paying back that which was borrowed. And to add economic insult to economic injury the monies borrowed had to be paid back with interest quietly increasing the sum total of the borrowed monies to foreign governments and foreign banks and private U.S. banks. Because they threw the United States into massive debt the Republican-Tea Party now has the tools to destroy Social Security and Medicare, bring down Keynesians Economics, and lord over the largest transfer of wealth upward in world history. Well down ya'll, well done ya'll!
August 18, 2011
During the Great Depression beginning in 1929 the capitalist economy appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Karl Marx had predicted that capitalism was a self-destructive economic system. By 1932 Marx's predictions were coming true. Economic growth was going in reverse, poverty was growing exponentially, every major industry was experiencing labor unrest, and the Communist Party USA had more members then the Communist Party USSR! The old economic theory known as laissez-faire capitalism was incapable of providing a road map leading capitalism out of the crisis capitalism had created for itself.
When all seemed lost a little known British economist named John Maynard Keynes published "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money." Keynes argued that to get capitalism out of its on-going crisis the government must "...stimulate the economy through some combination of two approaches: a reduction in interest rates and government investment in infrastructure. Investment by government injects income, which results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment." Keynes also wrote that government spending on such things as basic research, public health, education, and infrastructure could help long-term growth. But Keynes argued, once the crisis was over the debt incurred to stimulate the economy out of the crisis must be paid down in preparation for the next crisis.
In contrast, the traditional Republican Party advocated a policy of fiscal conservatism. The policy goals of fiscal conservatism involved balanced budgets, reduced government spending, free trade, deregulation, lower taxes, and paying down the national debt. Traditional Republicans believed that if they pursued fiscal conservatism it would be possible to unleash a sustainable economic boom that would make the social safety net unnecessary and Keynesian Economics pointless. The fiscal conservatives constantly accused the Keynesians of being tax and spenders.
Because of the success of Keynesian economics, fiscal conservatism never caught on even when traditional Republicans were in power. By the 1980s radical Republicans who could not or would not let go of their fiscal conservative dreams stumbled on a tactic to finally bring Keynes down.
In 1981 the national debt on the day the Republican Ronald Reagan became president was 900 billion dollars. When Reagan left office the national debt rose to 2.4 trillion dollars. By 1988, the country owed more to foreigners than it was owed, and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. Four years later George H.W. Bush got the national debt up to 4.5 trillion dollars. Eight years later at the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, the national debt stood at 5 trillion dollars but Clinton left a 1.2 trillion dollar surplus to his successor, George W. Bush.
During the eight years of George W. Bush's administration, Bush started two wars and paid for them by selling United States Treasury Bonds to the rest of the world. Meanwhile Bush passed the largest tax cut in United States history. Then the Bush administration passed legislation that created Medicare part D and paid for it by, you guessed it, selling U.S. Treasury Bonds. When the economy again returned to crisis mode in September 2008, the Bush Administration created the Troubled Asset Relief Program which used treasury bonds to buy up the debt of private banks. When Bush left office the national debt stood at 13 trillion dollars!
By 2011 the radical Republicans had morphed into the Republican-Tea Party. In violation of the key Keynesian economic principle of paying down debt, the radical Republicans had stumbled on the tactic of borrowing and spending never paying back that which was borrowed. And to add economic insult to economic injury the monies borrowed had to be paid back with interest quietly increasing the sum total of the borrowed monies to foreign governments and foreign banks and private U.S. banks. Because they threw the United States into massive debt the Republican-Tea Party now has the tools to destroy Social Security and Medicare, bring down Keynesians Economics, and lord over the largest transfer of wealth upward in world history. Well down ya'll, well done ya'll!
August 18, 2011
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