Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Corporations Are Parasites
Liberals and Conservatives both agree that modern corporations are a vital and necessary economic force in society. The difference between the two is merely a matter of degree. Conservatives/ Republican Party want to allow corporations free rein to exploit markets without regulatory interference. Liberals/Democratic Party want corporations to be less heavy handed by placing a vaguely defined minimum of regulatory restraints on their exploitative practices.
In the last 100 years corporations have become bigger, richer, more aggressive, and thus more powerful. In the United States, corporations are now the dominant force in civil society. They have become the dominant force because of a Supreme Court decision in 1886 known as Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway where a distinction was made between natural persons (human beings) and legal persons (corporations). The Supreme Court ruled that legal persons had the same rights as natural persons. Then came a succession of Supreme Court rulings expanding the rights of legal persons culminating in a Supreme Court ruling (1976) known as Buckley v. Valeo where the court ruled that money was free speech. Since corporations are the richest private organizations in society, according to Buckley v. Valeo, corporations enjoy the most free speech. The more free speech corporations have the louder corporate voices become drowning out other voices. As a direct result politically, the corporate agenda becomes the agenda because nearly all of the decision makers (Liberals and Conservatives) have become servile lackeys of the corporation.
Conservatives/Republican Party talk incessantly about the need for government to stay out of free markets because the invisible hand of the free markets will ultimately create economic efficiencies through price competition thereby making life better for people in general. In bumper sticker fashion. ”Regulation is Bad. Freedom is Good.” The problem with this economic conception is that it is nothing more than a myth. The American economy is dominated by oligopolies that do not compete over price. Instead these oligopolies compete through advertising: “Buy my stuff and you will save money!”
An oligopoly is a market condition in which the production of identical or similar products is concentrated (to the tune of at least 40% of market share) in a few large firms. Examples of oligopolies in the United States include the steel, aluminum, automobile, gypsum, petroleum, tire, banking, energy, and beer industries. The introduction of new products and processes can create new oligopolies, as in the computer or synthetic fiber industries. Microsoft sells more than 80% of the operating systems in the U.S. market. Oligopolies also exist in service industries, such as the airlines industry and the food industry. Oligopolistic practices include the practice of “dumping” in order to destroy the competition. Several years ago a national hamburger chain moved into a medium size central Texas town. The town had been served by several Mom and Pop hamburger stands for years. Circumventing existing unfair competition laws in place in Texas at the time, the hamburger chain advertised locally that they would take coupons, including super market coupons. The hamburger chains pricing scheme meant that every hamburger sold was sold at a loss. Within two months the Mom and Pop stands went out of business because they could not compete at a price point that was not profitable. After the Mom and Pop stands closed, the chain stopped taking coupons. Price competition ended and the national hamburger chain controlled the entire local market. Months later another hamburger chain moved into the local market but there was no price competition between the two. The same kind of hamburger sold at the same price in each hamburger store.
The raison d'être for corporations is to get bigger, richer, and more powerful. The logical future for corporations is to replace their competitors, dominant and eventually control the entire market, and in the long run, either reduce or even eliminate government regulation. Conservatives applaud and encourage this corporate behavior. It is also no exaggeration to conclude, however, that corporations are at their core irrational, politically anarchistic, and economically parasitic. And like all parasites, corporations will kill their host and in the process commit suicide. The problem for all of us is the fact that the corporate host is civil society and the entire physical planet.
Liberals/Democratic Party will argue that the best way to deal with corporate power is to capture the government and use the legal system to control and moderate corporate excesses. They will say that since the corporation was a legally defined entity, it should not be difficult to legally rein it in or put it out of business all together. These people forget that the modern form of government is an invention of the corporation and at the same time, organically, the modern corporation is an invention of the modern form of government. This can be seen symbolically where the business suit, the uniform of the corporation has become the uniform of the government. Over the last 100 years the entire government has been transformed into a creature that primarily serves the interest of the corporation. It has been the Supreme Court in conjunction with the United States Senate that has managed this transformation over the last 100 years because the Supreme Court and the Senate has been staffed disproportionately with Conservative pro corporate lawyers and businessmen.
For example The Supreme Courts ruling in “Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee (1/21/10) swept away all restrictions on corporate spending thereby allowing corporations to overwhelm the election process. The decision was 5-4 where the five justices (sic) who ruled in favor of corporations are all corporate lawyers or Republican Party operatives. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was a corporate lawyer in his father’s practice in San Francisco and Sacramento. While in Sacramento Kennedy also worked as a lobbyist for Republican Party causes when Edwin Meese, special advisor to Ronald Reagan, advanced his career. Antonin Scalia began his legal career at Jones Day, where he worked from 1961 to 1967. Jones Day is an international law firm specializing in corporate law and is currently the second largest law firm in the United States, with approximately 2,400 lawyers and gross annual revenue in excess of US$1.4 billion. Clarence Thomas was a corporate lawyer in the pesticide and agriculture division of the Monsanto Company. Thomas’ mentor, who also shephered Thomas through the Supreme Court confirmation process, was Senator John Danforth whose grandfather was William H. Danforth the founder of Ralston Purina. Samuel A. Alito also had his career advanced by Attorney General Ed Meese when Meese had Alito appointed Assistant Solicitor General, Deputy Attorney General, and United States Attorney for New Jersey. Chief Justice John Roberts was a corporate lawyer for Hogan & Hartson, the oldest major law firm in Washington D.C. According to Chambers & Partners Global 2008: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business, Hogan & Hartson is recognized globally for its excellence in the following areas: data protection, international trade, real estate investment trusts, life sciences and technology, media and telecommunications.
The key for the future of the planet is to disband the corporation and replace it with an economic system that is not parasitic but sustainable. Just as any attempt to make a pig fly of its own accord, any attempt at reforming the corporation using the modern form of government will certainly never get off the ground.
In the last 100 years corporations have become bigger, richer, more aggressive, and thus more powerful. In the United States, corporations are now the dominant force in civil society. They have become the dominant force because of a Supreme Court decision in 1886 known as Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway where a distinction was made between natural persons (human beings) and legal persons (corporations). The Supreme Court ruled that legal persons had the same rights as natural persons. Then came a succession of Supreme Court rulings expanding the rights of legal persons culminating in a Supreme Court ruling (1976) known as Buckley v. Valeo where the court ruled that money was free speech. Since corporations are the richest private organizations in society, according to Buckley v. Valeo, corporations enjoy the most free speech. The more free speech corporations have the louder corporate voices become drowning out other voices. As a direct result politically, the corporate agenda becomes the agenda because nearly all of the decision makers (Liberals and Conservatives) have become servile lackeys of the corporation.
Conservatives/Republican Party talk incessantly about the need for government to stay out of free markets because the invisible hand of the free markets will ultimately create economic efficiencies through price competition thereby making life better for people in general. In bumper sticker fashion. ”Regulation is Bad. Freedom is Good.” The problem with this economic conception is that it is nothing more than a myth. The American economy is dominated by oligopolies that do not compete over price. Instead these oligopolies compete through advertising: “Buy my stuff and you will save money!”
An oligopoly is a market condition in which the production of identical or similar products is concentrated (to the tune of at least 40% of market share) in a few large firms. Examples of oligopolies in the United States include the steel, aluminum, automobile, gypsum, petroleum, tire, banking, energy, and beer industries. The introduction of new products and processes can create new oligopolies, as in the computer or synthetic fiber industries. Microsoft sells more than 80% of the operating systems in the U.S. market. Oligopolies also exist in service industries, such as the airlines industry and the food industry. Oligopolistic practices include the practice of “dumping” in order to destroy the competition. Several years ago a national hamburger chain moved into a medium size central Texas town. The town had been served by several Mom and Pop hamburger stands for years. Circumventing existing unfair competition laws in place in Texas at the time, the hamburger chain advertised locally that they would take coupons, including super market coupons. The hamburger chains pricing scheme meant that every hamburger sold was sold at a loss. Within two months the Mom and Pop stands went out of business because they could not compete at a price point that was not profitable. After the Mom and Pop stands closed, the chain stopped taking coupons. Price competition ended and the national hamburger chain controlled the entire local market. Months later another hamburger chain moved into the local market but there was no price competition between the two. The same kind of hamburger sold at the same price in each hamburger store.
The raison d'être for corporations is to get bigger, richer, and more powerful. The logical future for corporations is to replace their competitors, dominant and eventually control the entire market, and in the long run, either reduce or even eliminate government regulation. Conservatives applaud and encourage this corporate behavior. It is also no exaggeration to conclude, however, that corporations are at their core irrational, politically anarchistic, and economically parasitic. And like all parasites, corporations will kill their host and in the process commit suicide. The problem for all of us is the fact that the corporate host is civil society and the entire physical planet.
Liberals/Democratic Party will argue that the best way to deal with corporate power is to capture the government and use the legal system to control and moderate corporate excesses. They will say that since the corporation was a legally defined entity, it should not be difficult to legally rein it in or put it out of business all together. These people forget that the modern form of government is an invention of the corporation and at the same time, organically, the modern corporation is an invention of the modern form of government. This can be seen symbolically where the business suit, the uniform of the corporation has become the uniform of the government. Over the last 100 years the entire government has been transformed into a creature that primarily serves the interest of the corporation. It has been the Supreme Court in conjunction with the United States Senate that has managed this transformation over the last 100 years because the Supreme Court and the Senate has been staffed disproportionately with Conservative pro corporate lawyers and businessmen.
For example The Supreme Courts ruling in “Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee (1/21/10) swept away all restrictions on corporate spending thereby allowing corporations to overwhelm the election process. The decision was 5-4 where the five justices (sic) who ruled in favor of corporations are all corporate lawyers or Republican Party operatives. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was a corporate lawyer in his father’s practice in San Francisco and Sacramento. While in Sacramento Kennedy also worked as a lobbyist for Republican Party causes when Edwin Meese, special advisor to Ronald Reagan, advanced his career. Antonin Scalia began his legal career at Jones Day, where he worked from 1961 to 1967. Jones Day is an international law firm specializing in corporate law and is currently the second largest law firm in the United States, with approximately 2,400 lawyers and gross annual revenue in excess of US$1.4 billion. Clarence Thomas was a corporate lawyer in the pesticide and agriculture division of the Monsanto Company. Thomas’ mentor, who also shephered Thomas through the Supreme Court confirmation process, was Senator John Danforth whose grandfather was William H. Danforth the founder of Ralston Purina. Samuel A. Alito also had his career advanced by Attorney General Ed Meese when Meese had Alito appointed Assistant Solicitor General, Deputy Attorney General, and United States Attorney for New Jersey. Chief Justice John Roberts was a corporate lawyer for Hogan & Hartson, the oldest major law firm in Washington D.C. According to Chambers & Partners Global 2008: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business, Hogan & Hartson is recognized globally for its excellence in the following areas: data protection, international trade, real estate investment trusts, life sciences and technology, media and telecommunications.
The key for the future of the planet is to disband the corporation and replace it with an economic system that is not parasitic but sustainable. Just as any attempt to make a pig fly of its own accord, any attempt at reforming the corporation using the modern form of government will certainly never get off the ground.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Whither Haiti
The proto-primates on the political right have been floating their none too subtle racial theories on why Haiti is so backward. On the left liberals and progressives wring their hands and shrug their shoulders offering no explanation why Haiti is such a poor and miserable place. The answer lies in Haiti's long and tortured history.
Overcoming the armies of Spain, Britain, and France, and the divisions between themselves, the slaves, mulattos, and free Blacks came together to fight their common enemy. In 1804, Haiti became an independent nation. Yet Haitians had to continually struggle to maintain their security and their freedom: The hostility of the world's powers formed insurmountable obstacles to the establishment of a healthy nation. The new rulers drawn from the gens de couleur and Black military leaders wanted to establish a profitable economy based on commodity production for export; many tried to reestablish plantations. The majority of former slaves wanted freedom from the humiliation and hardship of plantation labor, and the right to subsistence farming on their own plots of land.
Meanwhile, the world powers, led by the U.S. and the Vatican, would not recognize Haiti's sovereignty. In 1825, France finally agreed to recognize Haiti, but at a price: Haiti was to pay 90 million francs as an indemnity to the French planters who lost their land in the revolution. This saddled Haiti with a debt that crippled its already foundering economy and increased Haitian dependence on France. The U.S. refused to recognize Haiti until 1862 then continued it’s embargo on trade and political relations with this lone Black nation. By the late 1800s, principle and interest on the debt payments made to France amounted to 80% of the Haitian budget.
The new Black nation also faced the constant threat of invasion by the world powers. Haitian writer Michael J. Dash writes of how the U.S. before the Civil War, fearing that the example of a successful slave rising and independence struggle might spread, used its influence in Haiti to promote internally repressive, externally obedient, regimes. In fact the Haitian Revolution did inspired the planned slave revolt in South Carolina of Denmark Vesey in 1822, the slave revolt of Nat Turner in 1831 and militant abolitionists like John Brown and Frederick Douglas. Thus it was no accident that the internal policy of slavery followed by Jim Crow segregation in the United States mirrored U.S. foreign policy regarding Haiti. That foreign policy tended for two centuries to favor any regime which reduced Haiti to an impoverished, peasant community.
In 1904, Teddy Roosevelt began to flex the United States' new found muscle. He "asserted that the Monroe Doctrine carried 'the exercise of an international police power' in the Western Hemisphere." This assertion was quickly recognized as the Roosevelt Corollary and was often cited to exonerate intervention throughout the Caribbean. The Caribbean Basin would become known as "an American lake." If the Caribbean was an American lake, Haiti was to become America's beachfront property.
From 1915 to 1934 the U.S. played a long and devastating role in Haiti, including a brutal nineteen-year military occupation,. Writes Historian Mary Renda: “While in Haiti, marines installed a puppet president, dissolved the legislature at gunpoint, denied freedom of speech, and forced a new constitution on the Caribbean nation, one more favorable to foreign investment. In a series of speeches in his 1920 campaign for Vice President, Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed that he, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1913-1920), wrote the constitution which the U.S. imposed on Haiti in 1915. With the help of the marines, U.S. officials seized customs houses, took control of Haitian finances. U.S. Marines went straight to the Haitian national bank and removed its gold reserves to Citibank in New York City. Meanwhile, marines waged war against insurgents (called cacos) who for several years maintained an armed resistance in the countryside, and imposed a brutal system of forced labor that engendered even more fierce Haitian resistance. By official U.S. estimates, more than 3,000 Haitians were killed during this period; a more thorough accounting reveals that the death toll may have reached 1 1,500.
The attitude of the U.S. government toward the Haitians can best be summed up by the following observations made by successive American Secretaries of State. William Jennings Bryan (1913-1915) infamously said of the Haitian elite "Dear me, think of it! Niggers speaking French." Secretary of State Robert Lansing (1915-1920) believed that "the experience of Liberia and Haiti show that the African race are devoid of any capacity for political organization and lack genius for government.
The U.S. withdrew it’s troops in 1934. Before leaving, however, the U.S. government made a deal with Stenio Vincent, the new Haitian leader. Known as the Executive Accord of August 1933, in exchange for withdrawal of troops and a loan, the U.S. government would maintain supervision of Haitian finances until all outstanding American bonds expired in 1952.
From 1957 until 1986 Haiti was brutalized by the U.S. supported and incredibly corrupt Papa Doc/Baby Doc Duvalier dictatorship. In 1985-86 a powerful uprising swept Haiti again, forcing the U.S. to rescue Baby Doc and fly him to the French Riviera, in order to preserve their basic control of the country through the Haitian Army. A series of military governments followed, known to Haitians as “Duvalierism without Duvalier.”Under the Duvalier dictatorship, between 1973 and 1980, Haiti's debt increased from $53 million to $366 million, while the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty increased from 48 percent in 1976 to 81 percent 1985. Loans were contingent on an economic orientation on agricultural exports and the assembly industry-"The American Plan" which explicitly aimed to cut the ground out from under peasant agriculture by large-scale imports of cheaper U.S. goods, driving hundreds of thousands of peasants into the cities and shantytowns, desperate for work in U.S.-owned assembly plants being set up by the likes of Disney and Kmart, which paid workers 11 cents an hour to make pajamas and t-shirts. The American Plan proved an economic disaster. Official unemployment increased from 22 to 30 percent between 1980 and 1986, and in the same period economic growth showed an annual 2.5 percent decline.
Since the overthrow of the Duvalier dictatorship the United States continues to interfere in the internal affairs of Haiti. The popularly elected Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by the American client Emmanuel “Toto” Constant nine month after his election in 1990. For the next three years a wave of terror was unleashed on the people of Haiti. Duvaliers death squads known as the Tontons Macoutes came out of hiding and began to rip up the networks of mass organization, especially in slums like Cite Soleil, that were Aristide’s base of support. Thousands of his supporters were killed, up to 300,000 went into hiding, and another 60,000 fled the island in makeshift boats many to Florida.The United States again invaded Haiti in 1994 with 20,000 troops. Aristide was brought back to power but only after President Bill Clinton forced Aristide to privatized electricity and phones among other state own businesses.This "deal" was known as the Governors Island Accords.
Another coup overthrew Aristide on February 29, 2004 instigated by France, Canada, and the United States after Aristide tried to undo the Governors Island Accords and simultaneous demanded France pay back, in 2004 value, the 90 million francs Haiti had to pay France in 1825. Again the United States President George W. Bush sent in 1,000 marines to occupy the country. The U.S. military literally kidnapped Aristide and his family and put him on a plane to the Central African Republic, where he was kept as a new regime in Port-au-Prince was consolidated. By March 1, hundreds of U.S. Marines again controlled the capital, and new waves of attacks, often by U.S. soldiers, were unleashed on the people. In June they were replaced by a force of 7,000 UN troops (mainly Brazilian) who have been cited by Human Rights groups as widely practicing “Summary Executions.”
When the former Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz said a century ago: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, and so close to the United States”, he did not know that he would speak for Haiti. Despite the countless natural resources of Haiti, the combined effects of American Imperialism and a predatory Haitian ruling class have conspired to reduce the vast majority of Haitians to unimaginable poverty.
While liberals blind themselves to Haiti's "Danse Macabre" with the United States and Conservatives quote history from John Wayne movies, the people of Haiti, in utter contempt for their tormentors, will continue to fight on. “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la mort!”
January 2010
Overcoming the armies of Spain, Britain, and France, and the divisions between themselves, the slaves, mulattos, and free Blacks came together to fight their common enemy. In 1804, Haiti became an independent nation. Yet Haitians had to continually struggle to maintain their security and their freedom: The hostility of the world's powers formed insurmountable obstacles to the establishment of a healthy nation. The new rulers drawn from the gens de couleur and Black military leaders wanted to establish a profitable economy based on commodity production for export; many tried to reestablish plantations. The majority of former slaves wanted freedom from the humiliation and hardship of plantation labor, and the right to subsistence farming on their own plots of land.
Meanwhile, the world powers, led by the U.S. and the Vatican, would not recognize Haiti's sovereignty. In 1825, France finally agreed to recognize Haiti, but at a price: Haiti was to pay 90 million francs as an indemnity to the French planters who lost their land in the revolution. This saddled Haiti with a debt that crippled its already foundering economy and increased Haitian dependence on France. The U.S. refused to recognize Haiti until 1862 then continued it’s embargo on trade and political relations with this lone Black nation. By the late 1800s, principle and interest on the debt payments made to France amounted to 80% of the Haitian budget.
The new Black nation also faced the constant threat of invasion by the world powers. Haitian writer Michael J. Dash writes of how the U.S. before the Civil War, fearing that the example of a successful slave rising and independence struggle might spread, used its influence in Haiti to promote internally repressive, externally obedient, regimes. In fact the Haitian Revolution did inspired the planned slave revolt in South Carolina of Denmark Vesey in 1822, the slave revolt of Nat Turner in 1831 and militant abolitionists like John Brown and Frederick Douglas. Thus it was no accident that the internal policy of slavery followed by Jim Crow segregation in the United States mirrored U.S. foreign policy regarding Haiti. That foreign policy tended for two centuries to favor any regime which reduced Haiti to an impoverished, peasant community.
In 1904, Teddy Roosevelt began to flex the United States' new found muscle. He "asserted that the Monroe Doctrine carried 'the exercise of an international police power' in the Western Hemisphere." This assertion was quickly recognized as the Roosevelt Corollary and was often cited to exonerate intervention throughout the Caribbean. The Caribbean Basin would become known as "an American lake." If the Caribbean was an American lake, Haiti was to become America's beachfront property.
From 1915 to 1934 the U.S. played a long and devastating role in Haiti, including a brutal nineteen-year military occupation,. Writes Historian Mary Renda: “While in Haiti, marines installed a puppet president, dissolved the legislature at gunpoint, denied freedom of speech, and forced a new constitution on the Caribbean nation, one more favorable to foreign investment. In a series of speeches in his 1920 campaign for Vice President, Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed that he, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1913-1920), wrote the constitution which the U.S. imposed on Haiti in 1915. With the help of the marines, U.S. officials seized customs houses, took control of Haitian finances. U.S. Marines went straight to the Haitian national bank and removed its gold reserves to Citibank in New York City. Meanwhile, marines waged war against insurgents (called cacos) who for several years maintained an armed resistance in the countryside, and imposed a brutal system of forced labor that engendered even more fierce Haitian resistance. By official U.S. estimates, more than 3,000 Haitians were killed during this period; a more thorough accounting reveals that the death toll may have reached 1 1,500.
The attitude of the U.S. government toward the Haitians can best be summed up by the following observations made by successive American Secretaries of State. William Jennings Bryan (1913-1915) infamously said of the Haitian elite "Dear me, think of it! Niggers speaking French." Secretary of State Robert Lansing (1915-1920) believed that "the experience of Liberia and Haiti show that the African race are devoid of any capacity for political organization and lack genius for government.
The U.S. withdrew it’s troops in 1934. Before leaving, however, the U.S. government made a deal with Stenio Vincent, the new Haitian leader. Known as the Executive Accord of August 1933, in exchange for withdrawal of troops and a loan, the U.S. government would maintain supervision of Haitian finances until all outstanding American bonds expired in 1952.
From 1957 until 1986 Haiti was brutalized by the U.S. supported and incredibly corrupt Papa Doc/Baby Doc Duvalier dictatorship. In 1985-86 a powerful uprising swept Haiti again, forcing the U.S. to rescue Baby Doc and fly him to the French Riviera, in order to preserve their basic control of the country through the Haitian Army. A series of military governments followed, known to Haitians as “Duvalierism without Duvalier.”Under the Duvalier dictatorship, between 1973 and 1980, Haiti's debt increased from $53 million to $366 million, while the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty increased from 48 percent in 1976 to 81 percent 1985. Loans were contingent on an economic orientation on agricultural exports and the assembly industry-"The American Plan" which explicitly aimed to cut the ground out from under peasant agriculture by large-scale imports of cheaper U.S. goods, driving hundreds of thousands of peasants into the cities and shantytowns, desperate for work in U.S.-owned assembly plants being set up by the likes of Disney and Kmart, which paid workers 11 cents an hour to make pajamas and t-shirts. The American Plan proved an economic disaster. Official unemployment increased from 22 to 30 percent between 1980 and 1986, and in the same period economic growth showed an annual 2.5 percent decline.
Since the overthrow of the Duvalier dictatorship the United States continues to interfere in the internal affairs of Haiti. The popularly elected Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by the American client Emmanuel “Toto” Constant nine month after his election in 1990. For the next three years a wave of terror was unleashed on the people of Haiti. Duvaliers death squads known as the Tontons Macoutes came out of hiding and began to rip up the networks of mass organization, especially in slums like Cite Soleil, that were Aristide’s base of support. Thousands of his supporters were killed, up to 300,000 went into hiding, and another 60,000 fled the island in makeshift boats many to Florida.The United States again invaded Haiti in 1994 with 20,000 troops. Aristide was brought back to power but only after President Bill Clinton forced Aristide to privatized electricity and phones among other state own businesses.This "deal" was known as the Governors Island Accords.
Another coup overthrew Aristide on February 29, 2004 instigated by France, Canada, and the United States after Aristide tried to undo the Governors Island Accords and simultaneous demanded France pay back, in 2004 value, the 90 million francs Haiti had to pay France in 1825. Again the United States President George W. Bush sent in 1,000 marines to occupy the country. The U.S. military literally kidnapped Aristide and his family and put him on a plane to the Central African Republic, where he was kept as a new regime in Port-au-Prince was consolidated. By March 1, hundreds of U.S. Marines again controlled the capital, and new waves of attacks, often by U.S. soldiers, were unleashed on the people. In June they were replaced by a force of 7,000 UN troops (mainly Brazilian) who have been cited by Human Rights groups as widely practicing “Summary Executions.”
When the former Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz said a century ago: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, and so close to the United States”, he did not know that he would speak for Haiti. Despite the countless natural resources of Haiti, the combined effects of American Imperialism and a predatory Haitian ruling class have conspired to reduce the vast majority of Haitians to unimaginable poverty.
While liberals blind themselves to Haiti's "Danse Macabre" with the United States and Conservatives quote history from John Wayne movies, the people of Haiti, in utter contempt for their tormentors, will continue to fight on. “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la mort!”
January 2010
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Is Obama Really a Democrat or Why Healthcare Reform is a Sham
It had been ten years since the United Kingdom held a general election. Winston Churchill had steered the nation through the most difficult war in Britain’s history. Churchill himself was popular with the electorate so it was widely believed the Conservative Party would sweep to a big victory in the election held on July 5, 1945. To everyone’s surprise the Tories were nearly wiped out losing 190 seats in the House of Commons while the Labour Party gained 239 seats. The Conservative loss was due in part, according to Joe Conason writing in Salon, “...because British voters didn’t trust the Tories to implement the Beveridge report” (which called for a National Health Service).
Later that same year Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill filed for divorce from Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill. Some people speculated that the marriage broke up because Randolph had lost his parliamentary seat that year. Others said while Randolph was doing military service in Cairo during the war, Pamela had an affair with United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, W. Averell Harriman. W. Averell was nearly 30 years older than Pamela. W. Averell returned to the United States in early 1946 after breaking off his relationship with Pamela. Later he would be honored with the title of Mr. Democrat because of his huge influence (read largesse) on the Democratic Party.
In 1909 Harriman inherited a fortune from his father, E.H. Harriman, who owned the Union Pacific Railroad, Wells Fargo, and a slew of other valuable properties. In 1922 W. Averell established the W.A. Harriman & Company bank. Later the bank’s name was changed to Harriman Brothers & Company and later still the bank changed it’s name again to Brown Brothers & Harriman & Co. George Herbert Walker, the great grandfather of President George Bush was president of Harriman & Co. Prescott Bush, President George Bush’s other great grandfather, was a senior partner at Harriman & Co.
Pamela Churchill, after divorcing Randolph (remember him?) went on to have numerous affairs with men of prominence and wealth. In 1971, a day after Pamela’s second husband died, she began a second affair with W. Averell. Six months later W. Averell and Pamela were married. From their marriage forward Pamela, like her wealthy Wall Street husband, became immersed in Democratic Party politics. In 1986 William Averell Harriman died at the ripe old age of 95 years and Pamela inherited 75 million dollars.
Meanwhile, during the 1980’s, the Democratic Party was getting clobbered at the hands of the Republican Party in national election after national election. According to Godfrey Hodgson in his book titled More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century, “By the 1980’s influential leaders in the Democratic Party...especially in the South were coming to accept...the Democrats could never hope to recapture power nationally unless they changed their spots. “ These Democratic Party leaders advocated taking the party to the right. By adopting right-wing positions on policy issues, particularly pro-corporate neoliberal economic policies, these southern and midwestern Democrats believed they could attract more corporate money. “The key group in selling this idea was the (newly formed) Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).”
Aside from a stable of upstart and conservative establishment southern and midwestern Democrats “...the DLC had another valuable asset: the substantial fortune of Pamela Harriman....Mrs. Harriman raised a reported $12 million (during the 1980’s). The considerable influence that (fund raising) brought her, in a party strapped for cash, was thrown toward the DLC. She liked Bill Clinton and helped him to emerge as the leading candidate for 1992.” After Clinton’s victory in the 1992 national election, Pamela Churchill Harriman was appointed United States Ambassador to France. She died in 1997 after suffering a stroke while swimming at the Paris Ritz Hotel.
Dialing forward to the present: The impasse over health care reform within the Senate Democratic Caucus is a direct reflection of the split between the “progressives” who are mainly loyal members of the Democratic National Committee, the DNC, and the pro-corporate DLC. In 2005 Howard Dean was elected Chairman of the DNC. Dean once described the DLC as the "Republican wing of the Democratic Party. DLC leaders were outraged at Dean’s characterization. In 2003 then Senator Barack Obama opposed the DLC stating his support for universal healthcare were at odds with the DLC, "...That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC." After becoming President and appointing more than 50% of his cabinet from the DLC, in May of 2009, President Obama declared to the House New Democrat Coalition (DLC Caucus), "I am a New Democrat." In 2009 (at the direction of President Obama) Howard Dean was succeeded as chairman of the DNC by Tim Kaine, the current Governor of Virginia and leading member of the DLC. Obama also pointedly refused to appoint Dean to any position in his government.
Leading members of the DLC in the Senate, who can now be referred to as “Clintonites,” are Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, and Max Baucus all major players who are responsible for killing Single Payer, The Public Option, and Medicare Buy-in. All these corporate Democrats support the continued corporate monopoly over health care.
So where’s the surprise? Howard Dean had warned the Democrats. When progressive Democrats drag a hollowed out Tory Horse inside their gates, they shouldn’t expect a pleasant party that night.
December 2009
Later that same year Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill filed for divorce from Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill. Some people speculated that the marriage broke up because Randolph had lost his parliamentary seat that year. Others said while Randolph was doing military service in Cairo during the war, Pamela had an affair with United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, W. Averell Harriman. W. Averell was nearly 30 years older than Pamela. W. Averell returned to the United States in early 1946 after breaking off his relationship with Pamela. Later he would be honored with the title of Mr. Democrat because of his huge influence (read largesse) on the Democratic Party.
In 1909 Harriman inherited a fortune from his father, E.H. Harriman, who owned the Union Pacific Railroad, Wells Fargo, and a slew of other valuable properties. In 1922 W. Averell established the W.A. Harriman & Company bank. Later the bank’s name was changed to Harriman Brothers & Company and later still the bank changed it’s name again to Brown Brothers & Harriman & Co. George Herbert Walker, the great grandfather of President George Bush was president of Harriman & Co. Prescott Bush, President George Bush’s other great grandfather, was a senior partner at Harriman & Co.
Pamela Churchill, after divorcing Randolph (remember him?) went on to have numerous affairs with men of prominence and wealth. In 1971, a day after Pamela’s second husband died, she began a second affair with W. Averell. Six months later W. Averell and Pamela were married. From their marriage forward Pamela, like her wealthy Wall Street husband, became immersed in Democratic Party politics. In 1986 William Averell Harriman died at the ripe old age of 95 years and Pamela inherited 75 million dollars.
Meanwhile, during the 1980’s, the Democratic Party was getting clobbered at the hands of the Republican Party in national election after national election. According to Godfrey Hodgson in his book titled More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century, “By the 1980’s influential leaders in the Democratic Party...especially in the South were coming to accept...the Democrats could never hope to recapture power nationally unless they changed their spots. “ These Democratic Party leaders advocated taking the party to the right. By adopting right-wing positions on policy issues, particularly pro-corporate neoliberal economic policies, these southern and midwestern Democrats believed they could attract more corporate money. “The key group in selling this idea was the (newly formed) Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).”
Aside from a stable of upstart and conservative establishment southern and midwestern Democrats “...the DLC had another valuable asset: the substantial fortune of Pamela Harriman....Mrs. Harriman raised a reported $12 million (during the 1980’s). The considerable influence that (fund raising) brought her, in a party strapped for cash, was thrown toward the DLC. She liked Bill Clinton and helped him to emerge as the leading candidate for 1992.” After Clinton’s victory in the 1992 national election, Pamela Churchill Harriman was appointed United States Ambassador to France. She died in 1997 after suffering a stroke while swimming at the Paris Ritz Hotel.
Dialing forward to the present: The impasse over health care reform within the Senate Democratic Caucus is a direct reflection of the split between the “progressives” who are mainly loyal members of the Democratic National Committee, the DNC, and the pro-corporate DLC. In 2005 Howard Dean was elected Chairman of the DNC. Dean once described the DLC as the "Republican wing of the Democratic Party. DLC leaders were outraged at Dean’s characterization. In 2003 then Senator Barack Obama opposed the DLC stating his support for universal healthcare were at odds with the DLC, "...That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC." After becoming President and appointing more than 50% of his cabinet from the DLC, in May of 2009, President Obama declared to the House New Democrat Coalition (DLC Caucus), "I am a New Democrat." In 2009 (at the direction of President Obama) Howard Dean was succeeded as chairman of the DNC by Tim Kaine, the current Governor of Virginia and leading member of the DLC. Obama also pointedly refused to appoint Dean to any position in his government.
Leading members of the DLC in the Senate, who can now be referred to as “Clintonites,” are Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, and Max Baucus all major players who are responsible for killing Single Payer, The Public Option, and Medicare Buy-in. All these corporate Democrats support the continued corporate monopoly over health care.
So where’s the surprise? Howard Dean had warned the Democrats. When progressive Democrats drag a hollowed out Tory Horse inside their gates, they shouldn’t expect a pleasant party that night.
December 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Free Speech is a Myth in America
Dear Wendy
I appreciate your faith in the constitutionally protected principle of “Free Speech.” But I have a different view. Free speech is a myth, an opiate, in America. Free speech in and of itself is meaningless without an audience. Until the internet came along access to that audience was restricted by the owners of the access (newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, movies, etc.). In principle we all have free speech but we do not have the means to distribute that free speech. Thus free speech has been reduced to a commodity to be controlled by a few property owners who own the distribution rights.
When free speech is placed into the domain of property owners, these property owners decide, based upon their own privately held property interest and based upon their particular social class interest (which they call a community interest), what should be distributed for consideration by the masses of people. Rarely will these property owners allow a point of view disseminated that will fly in the face of their own narrowly defined interest. And when they do on those rare occasions, it is because a power struggle has broken out between rival groups within the elite which requires mobilizing the masses temporally in order to prevail in resolving the immediate issue.
When Bush was beating the drums for making war on Iraq, a public discussion in all the national newspapers about American imperialism emerged . As soon as the issue was resolved (in favor of Bush and the neocons) the talk about imperialism disappeared. Another more recent example revolves around the financial melt down. Paul Krugman writing in the New York Times (9/6/09) narrowly defined the failure to predict the banking collapse within the profession of economics as due to the ascendancy of the "Freshwater School of Economics" centered around the University of Chicago. But Krugman also pointed out that the "Saltwater Schools" located within east and west coast elite universities also failed to predict the coming disaster. He concluded that “...economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly.” The problem with Krugman’s analysis is his failure to spotlight schools of economics that had predicted the meltdown (e.g. Stagnation Theory centered around Monthly Review Magazine).
The overall long term effect of a small elite controlling the free speech distribution rights is to narrow the public debate. Issues are framed according to what is responsible debate and what lies outside the mainstream. Once an issue has been narrowly framed and widely distributed seeping down to every level in society, anyone attempting to open up and widen the debate within social institutions and at any institutional level are automatically, in a knee jerk fashion, looked upon with suspicion and quickly marginalized. Thus when you wanted to write an anti-Vietnam war piece for the Neff High School newspaper, the pro war/anti war debate had already been resolved in favor of war and the new debate concerned itself with what strategies should be implemented in order to win the war. By 1967 your antiwar views were considered irresponsible.
With the rise of the internet, an avalanche of free speech outlets circumventing the distribution privileges of private owners has emerged. People are able to speak to each other and do it in a wide variety of venues thereby opening up and widening the debate over the issues of the day. Since I don't know enough about how internet information is accessed and distributed I don't know how important the internet really is. Should the internet become a major player in debating important issues uncontrolled by the distribution elites then that would be a victory for real free speech. How long this will be allowed to continue? I suspect, should it become a threat to those elites, controls will be put in place and free speech will again become a controlled commodity, a myth in America.
November 2009
I appreciate your faith in the constitutionally protected principle of “Free Speech.” But I have a different view. Free speech is a myth, an opiate, in America. Free speech in and of itself is meaningless without an audience. Until the internet came along access to that audience was restricted by the owners of the access (newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, movies, etc.). In principle we all have free speech but we do not have the means to distribute that free speech. Thus free speech has been reduced to a commodity to be controlled by a few property owners who own the distribution rights.
When free speech is placed into the domain of property owners, these property owners decide, based upon their own privately held property interest and based upon their particular social class interest (which they call a community interest), what should be distributed for consideration by the masses of people. Rarely will these property owners allow a point of view disseminated that will fly in the face of their own narrowly defined interest. And when they do on those rare occasions, it is because a power struggle has broken out between rival groups within the elite which requires mobilizing the masses temporally in order to prevail in resolving the immediate issue.
When Bush was beating the drums for making war on Iraq, a public discussion in all the national newspapers about American imperialism emerged . As soon as the issue was resolved (in favor of Bush and the neocons) the talk about imperialism disappeared. Another more recent example revolves around the financial melt down. Paul Krugman writing in the New York Times (9/6/09) narrowly defined the failure to predict the banking collapse within the profession of economics as due to the ascendancy of the "Freshwater School of Economics" centered around the University of Chicago. But Krugman also pointed out that the "Saltwater Schools" located within east and west coast elite universities also failed to predict the coming disaster. He concluded that “...economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly.” The problem with Krugman’s analysis is his failure to spotlight schools of economics that had predicted the meltdown (e.g. Stagnation Theory centered around Monthly Review Magazine).
The overall long term effect of a small elite controlling the free speech distribution rights is to narrow the public debate. Issues are framed according to what is responsible debate and what lies outside the mainstream. Once an issue has been narrowly framed and widely distributed seeping down to every level in society, anyone attempting to open up and widen the debate within social institutions and at any institutional level are automatically, in a knee jerk fashion, looked upon with suspicion and quickly marginalized. Thus when you wanted to write an anti-Vietnam war piece for the Neff High School newspaper, the pro war/anti war debate had already been resolved in favor of war and the new debate concerned itself with what strategies should be implemented in order to win the war. By 1967 your antiwar views were considered irresponsible.
With the rise of the internet, an avalanche of free speech outlets circumventing the distribution privileges of private owners has emerged. People are able to speak to each other and do it in a wide variety of venues thereby opening up and widening the debate over the issues of the day. Since I don't know enough about how internet information is accessed and distributed I don't know how important the internet really is. Should the internet become a major player in debating important issues uncontrolled by the distribution elites then that would be a victory for real free speech. How long this will be allowed to continue? I suspect, should it become a threat to those elites, controls will be put in place and free speech will again become a controlled commodity, a myth in America.
November 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
The DLC Again
Hi from Munich
Yes, I have to agree, we had a very interesting evening discussing American politics with you folks. Looking back, however, I realized that I talked too much and I never got to hear about Dutch politics. Most Americans, myself included, know very little about Holland except that one can buy drugs in Amsterdam at places named "Coffee House!" Now I know why I know so little about Holland!!
To underline some of the things I said that evening, The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC: http://www.dlc.org/) represents the right wing of the Democratic Party (Democratic National Committee DNC: http://www.democrats.org/). The DLC was founded in the 1980's in order to deliver the Democratic Party into the arms of the biggest corporations in the United States. The list of Chairmen of the DLC reads like a Who's Who of right-wing Democrats:
Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri (1985 - 1986)
Gov. Chuck Robb of Virginia (1986 - 1988)
Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia (1988 - 1990)
Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas (1990 - 1991)
Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana (1991 - 1993)
Rep. Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma (1993 - 1995)
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (1995 - 2001)
Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana (2001 - 2005)
Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa (2005 - 2007)
Former Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee (2007 - present)
(Note: Joe Lieberman who ran as Al Gore's Vice President nominee in 2004 was a former DLC chairman. Lieberman is going to leave the Democratic Party and will become a Republican).
The present struggle over health care in the U.S. centers on whether there should be government health insurance offered as an alternative to private health insurance (the so-called public option). Private health insurance in the United States is a very, very profitable economic oligopoly. The following list of Senators are DLC members who mostly oppose the public option:
Mark Pryor: Arkansas
Diane Feinstein: California
Thomas Carper: Delaware
Bill Nelson: Florida
Evan Bayh: Indiana
Mary Landrieu: Louisiana
Barbara Mikulski: Maryland
Max Baucus: Montana
Ben Nelson: Nebraska
Kent Conrad: North Dakota
Tim Johnson: South Dakota
John Rockefeller: West Virginia
Herbert Kohl: Wisconsin
Joseph Lieberman: Connecticut
(Note: The following is a story from the Huffington Post demonstrating the convergence of Republicans and DLC members on the issue of narrowing political rights known as FISA: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/875-of-family-dlc-affilia_b_112878.html).
Here is what then Illinois State Senator Obama told the Bruce Dixon, editor of "Black Commentator," about the DLC back in 2003: "I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC,” said Obama. “It does appear that, without my knowledge, the DLC…listed me in their ‘New Democrat’ directory,” Obama continued. “Because I agree that such a directory implies membership, I will be calling the DLC to have my name removed, and appreciate your having brought this fact to my attention.” (http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.html).
In addition to the DLC Senators listed above, The House of Representatives also has right-wing Democrats. The House right-wingers are known collectively as the "Blue Dog" Democrats (http://ndc.crowley.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=54) and the DLC Caucus (http://ndc.crowley.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=54). If you cross check the list you will find many Blue Dogs are also DLCers.
Finally, there are reports that 50% of Obama's government appointments are DLC members including Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff in the White House, and Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior. (Obama also has Republicans in his government including the Defense Secretary and the Transportation Secretary). There are some people who will argue that Obama needs to keep his coalition together therefore DLC appointments are necessary. But what most people outside of the U.S. do not know is that the Democratic Party is not a unified political party but consists of factions (progressive and corporate) and thus a coalition of these factions control and carry on intrigues against each other within the government of the United States.
All-in-all when you add the Republic Party which is openly a political party representing corporate interest, plus the DLC, which also represents corporate interest, you can easily see that a tiny minority of very wealthy people overwhelmingly control the United States government. As for the remaining 95% of the American people, well, we are side-lined forced to be spectators watching the power struggles between powerful people as they argue the best way to get more wealthy and more powerful at the expense of the 95% who have no say whats-so-ever. As for Obama, I think the rest of the world should lower their expectations. Obama is not the "savior" most of the world believes him to be. Obama is no different then any other American president. He will pursue the best interest of Corporate America anywhere and everywhere in the world.
Yes, I have to agree, we had a very interesting evening discussing American politics with you folks. Looking back, however, I realized that I talked too much and I never got to hear about Dutch politics. Most Americans, myself included, know very little about Holland except that one can buy drugs in Amsterdam at places named "Coffee House!" Now I know why I know so little about Holland!!
To underline some of the things I said that evening, The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC: http://www.dlc.org/) represents the right wing of the Democratic Party (Democratic National Committee DNC: http://www.democrats.org/). The DLC was founded in the 1980's in order to deliver the Democratic Party into the arms of the biggest corporations in the United States. The list of Chairmen of the DLC reads like a Who's Who of right-wing Democrats:
Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri (1985 - 1986)
Gov. Chuck Robb of Virginia (1986 - 1988)
Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia (1988 - 1990)
Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas (1990 - 1991)
Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana (1991 - 1993)
Rep. Dave McCurdy of Oklahoma (1993 - 1995)
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (1995 - 2001)
Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana (2001 - 2005)
Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa (2005 - 2007)
Former Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee (2007 - present)
(Note: Joe Lieberman who ran as Al Gore's Vice President nominee in 2004 was a former DLC chairman. Lieberman is going to leave the Democratic Party and will become a Republican).
The present struggle over health care in the U.S. centers on whether there should be government health insurance offered as an alternative to private health insurance (the so-called public option). Private health insurance in the United States is a very, very profitable economic oligopoly. The following list of Senators are DLC members who mostly oppose the public option:
Mark Pryor: Arkansas
Diane Feinstein: California
Thomas Carper: Delaware
Bill Nelson: Florida
Evan Bayh: Indiana
Mary Landrieu: Louisiana
Barbara Mikulski: Maryland
Max Baucus: Montana
Ben Nelson: Nebraska
Kent Conrad: North Dakota
Tim Johnson: South Dakota
John Rockefeller: West Virginia
Herbert Kohl: Wisconsin
Joseph Lieberman: Connecticut
(Note: The following is a story from the Huffington Post demonstrating the convergence of Republicans and DLC members on the issue of narrowing political rights known as FISA: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/875-of-family-dlc-affilia_b_112878.html).
Here is what then Illinois State Senator Obama told the Bruce Dixon, editor of "Black Commentator," about the DLC back in 2003: "I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC,” said Obama. “It does appear that, without my knowledge, the DLC…listed me in their ‘New Democrat’ directory,” Obama continued. “Because I agree that such a directory implies membership, I will be calling the DLC to have my name removed, and appreciate your having brought this fact to my attention.” (http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.html).
In addition to the DLC Senators listed above, The House of Representatives also has right-wing Democrats. The House right-wingers are known collectively as the "Blue Dog" Democrats (http://ndc.crowley.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=54) and the DLC Caucus (http://ndc.crowley.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=54). If you cross check the list you will find many Blue Dogs are also DLCers.
Finally, there are reports that 50% of Obama's government appointments are DLC members including Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff in the White House, and Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior. (Obama also has Republicans in his government including the Defense Secretary and the Transportation Secretary). There are some people who will argue that Obama needs to keep his coalition together therefore DLC appointments are necessary. But what most people outside of the U.S. do not know is that the Democratic Party is not a unified political party but consists of factions (progressive and corporate) and thus a coalition of these factions control and carry on intrigues against each other within the government of the United States.
All-in-all when you add the Republic Party which is openly a political party representing corporate interest, plus the DLC, which also represents corporate interest, you can easily see that a tiny minority of very wealthy people overwhelmingly control the United States government. As for the remaining 95% of the American people, well, we are side-lined forced to be spectators watching the power struggles between powerful people as they argue the best way to get more wealthy and more powerful at the expense of the 95% who have no say whats-so-ever. As for Obama, I think the rest of the world should lower their expectations. Obama is not the "savior" most of the world believes him to be. Obama is no different then any other American president. He will pursue the best interest of Corporate America anywhere and everywhere in the world.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
What Republicans Want
I’ve been trying to figure out what Republicans want. Inspired by a local businessman I decided to make friends with a Republican. So I jumped on the bus and went down to the Chamber of Commerce but they wouldn’t talk to me because I just got off the bus and I wasn’t wearing a gray pinstriped suit. Then I decided to go to the City Hall. No one would talk to me at City Hall because I wasn’t a contractor bearing gifts. Disappointed, I decided to take one last shot at making friends with a Republican so I hot-footed down to the local bar.
Just as I arrived a big burly guy riding a Harley hog pulled up. On his right shoulder was a tattoo of the American flag with a white cross in place of the stars. He was wearing a world war two style German helmet. I walked over to the guy and asked him if he lived in a mansion or a trailer park. He asked me why and I told him I was looking for a Republican to make friends with. He replied that he was a red- state-red-meat Republican through and through.
I offered to buy him a domestic beer if he would tell me what Republicans want. He agreed to my request and said: For the Republicans a smaller government consist of the Pentagon with a trillion dollar budget, the Department of Homeland Security with a trillion dollar budget, and a trillion dollar yearly payment on the interest only portion of the national debt. Voila! A smaller government that sucks up the entire yearly national budget. Everything is deregulated and privatized for profit because the interest on the national debt crowds out all social spending. The rest of the world wont go along? A trillion dollar Pentagon will solve that problem. Pitch forks, torches, and barricades in the streets because there are no social services? Switch on the Patriot Act and send in Homeland Security!
I thanked my new Republican friend for his insights. Before I left I asked my new friend if he knew Sarah Palin. He said he never heard of her.
March 2009
Just as I arrived a big burly guy riding a Harley hog pulled up. On his right shoulder was a tattoo of the American flag with a white cross in place of the stars. He was wearing a world war two style German helmet. I walked over to the guy and asked him if he lived in a mansion or a trailer park. He asked me why and I told him I was looking for a Republican to make friends with. He replied that he was a red- state-red-meat Republican through and through.
I offered to buy him a domestic beer if he would tell me what Republicans want. He agreed to my request and said: For the Republicans a smaller government consist of the Pentagon with a trillion dollar budget, the Department of Homeland Security with a trillion dollar budget, and a trillion dollar yearly payment on the interest only portion of the national debt. Voila! A smaller government that sucks up the entire yearly national budget. Everything is deregulated and privatized for profit because the interest on the national debt crowds out all social spending. The rest of the world wont go along? A trillion dollar Pentagon will solve that problem. Pitch forks, torches, and barricades in the streets because there are no social services? Switch on the Patriot Act and send in Homeland Security!
I thanked my new Republican friend for his insights. Before I left I asked my new friend if he knew Sarah Palin. He said he never heard of her.
March 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Is Barack Obama Nuts?
The writer Rita Mae Brown once wrote, “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results.” In 1963 the laissez-faire economist Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz publish a hugely influential book titled, “Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960.” The ideas presented by Friedman and Schwartz came to be known as “monetarism” because they argued that the supply of money circulating through the economy had a direct effect on the amount of spending (demand). Print more money, people will buy more stuff. Slow down the printing presses and people will buy less stuff.
In the late 1970’s a crisis known as stagflation was gripping the economy. The economy was not growing, more and more people were losing their jobs, but the price of stuff kept rising. Spooked by this contradiction, President Jimmy Carter appointed the “monetarist” and Friedman disciple Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve Bank. Volcker slowed the printing of money, threw the economy into a severe recession, and stopped the weird increases in the price of stuff thereby ending stagflation. Monetarist became the darlings of Washington. When Volcker’s term ended, President Ronald Reagan appointed uber- monetarist and Ayn Rand fan Alan Greenspan to head the Fed. Greenspan was reappointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Presently monetarist Ben Bernanke chairs the Fed.
So what happened to the economy under the direction of the monetarist over the last 30 years? The recession of the early 1980’s has already been mentioned. The national debt increased by 1000%. There was the Garn-St. Germain Act that deregulated and busted the savings and loan industry. That cost the tax payers 900 billion dollars. The stock market crashed in 1987. Next came the recession of 1990-92. In 2000 the “dot-com” boom turned into another bust. Meanwhile monetarist Senator Phil Gramm (his wife sat on the board of ENRON) and Representative James Leach with the help of Clinton’s monetarist Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999. That, in-turn, retarded banking industry regulation causing another boom-bust cycle costing so far more than a trillion dollars.
President Barack Obama has surrounded himself with monetarist Volcker, Bernanke, Christina Romer, Summers, Rubin, and Timothy Geithner among others. Therefore I have a question for Progressives and Liberals: Is Barack Obama nuts?
February 2009
In the late 1970’s a crisis known as stagflation was gripping the economy. The economy was not growing, more and more people were losing their jobs, but the price of stuff kept rising. Spooked by this contradiction, President Jimmy Carter appointed the “monetarist” and Friedman disciple Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve Bank. Volcker slowed the printing of money, threw the economy into a severe recession, and stopped the weird increases in the price of stuff thereby ending stagflation. Monetarist became the darlings of Washington. When Volcker’s term ended, President Ronald Reagan appointed uber- monetarist and Ayn Rand fan Alan Greenspan to head the Fed. Greenspan was reappointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Presently monetarist Ben Bernanke chairs the Fed.
So what happened to the economy under the direction of the monetarist over the last 30 years? The recession of the early 1980’s has already been mentioned. The national debt increased by 1000%. There was the Garn-St. Germain Act that deregulated and busted the savings and loan industry. That cost the tax payers 900 billion dollars. The stock market crashed in 1987. Next came the recession of 1990-92. In 2000 the “dot-com” boom turned into another bust. Meanwhile monetarist Senator Phil Gramm (his wife sat on the board of ENRON) and Representative James Leach with the help of Clinton’s monetarist Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999. That, in-turn, retarded banking industry regulation causing another boom-bust cycle costing so far more than a trillion dollars.
President Barack Obama has surrounded himself with monetarist Volcker, Bernanke, Christina Romer, Summers, Rubin, and Timothy Geithner among others. Therefore I have a question for Progressives and Liberals: Is Barack Obama nuts?
February 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Thinking Out of the Box Republican Party Style
Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 through 1932 put forward this solution to the Great Depression “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.” That’s the spirit Andy! Make everyone pay dearly for the greedy excesses of the “investor class.” Republican Party analysis, such as it is, can be loosely characterized as classical economic thinking. Republicans want to lay off large numbers of government workers and make private sector workers take a 10% pay cut. They tells us that the down turn in local business activity is due to overbearing local regulations. What’s their solution? Why lets all start “thinking out of the box” and deregulate business.
Like the 1930’s the present economic crisis cannot be solved by outdated and simplistic economic strategies. In this era of Reaganomics the financial system has grown exponentially in comparison to the real economy. As a result the financial meltdown is now overwhelming the real economy because the financial system took on too much debt. For example Goldman Sachs leveraged $40 billion of equity to $1.1 trillion. Merrill Lynch leveraged $30 billion into $1 trillion. What the investor class did was to create a mass amount of fictitious capital that could no longer be “valued” after the meltdown.
The looming fear today is that the economy may be sliding into a deflationary-spiral. According to the economist Irving Fisher writing in 1932, “deflation caused by the debt reacts on the debt. Each dollar of debt still unpaid becomes a bigger dollar, and if the over-indebtedness with which we started was great enough, the liquidation of debt cannot keep up with the fall of prices which it caused....prices fall as debtors sell assets to pay their debts, and as prices fall the remaining debts must be repaid in dollars more valuable than the ones borrowed, causing more default, leading to yet lower prices and thus a deflationary-spiral” ....aka Depression!
Stick it to labor and give free rein to management; i.e. unleashing class warfare as original thinking. Boy-oh-boy old Andy Mellon must be cheering from his gold plated casket!
January 2009
Like the 1930’s the present economic crisis cannot be solved by outdated and simplistic economic strategies. In this era of Reaganomics the financial system has grown exponentially in comparison to the real economy. As a result the financial meltdown is now overwhelming the real economy because the financial system took on too much debt. For example Goldman Sachs leveraged $40 billion of equity to $1.1 trillion. Merrill Lynch leveraged $30 billion into $1 trillion. What the investor class did was to create a mass amount of fictitious capital that could no longer be “valued” after the meltdown.
The looming fear today is that the economy may be sliding into a deflationary-spiral. According to the economist Irving Fisher writing in 1932, “deflation caused by the debt reacts on the debt. Each dollar of debt still unpaid becomes a bigger dollar, and if the over-indebtedness with which we started was great enough, the liquidation of debt cannot keep up with the fall of prices which it caused....prices fall as debtors sell assets to pay their debts, and as prices fall the remaining debts must be repaid in dollars more valuable than the ones borrowed, causing more default, leading to yet lower prices and thus a deflationary-spiral” ....aka Depression!
Stick it to labor and give free rein to management; i.e. unleashing class warfare as original thinking. Boy-oh-boy old Andy Mellon must be cheering from his gold plated casket!
January 2009
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sisyphus
The flow of history has cut a new and unexpected channel and a new historical course has been carved out.
For month and months and months I have been telling all my friends that the election for President of the United States is rigged and John McCain will be elected the next President. For me the ruling class was content to continue looting the country ad infinitum and John McCain was going to keep their party going.
Predicting human events is fraught with surprises and this election year is beyond exception. The inability of the Bush administration to contain the continued collapses of the financial markets coupled with the the growing recognition that John McCain has no answers makes it clear to any one with half a brain that we are at a monumental crossroads in American history.
This is what we are facing: deflation of commodity value which means general world wide depression or hyper-inflation which translates into the collapse of the the value of the dollar. Will we have lots of cash but nothing to buy or will we have lots of cash which can’t buy anything? In either case, we the people are in deep kimchee.
A young Afro-American with one cultural foot in Africa and another in America will be the next President of the United States. I no longer have any doubt about the truth of that sentence. The issue now is will Barack Obama succeed ala Franklin Roosevelt and save capitalism from it’s greedy excesses or will he be another clueless free market ideologue like Herbert Hoover and John McCain forever trapped in a business cycle like Sisyphus fatally pushing a rock up hill only to have the rock roll down hill forever and ever. Will America, realizing its historical democratic and republican self, evolve from a dog-eat-dog capitalist economy into a social democracy or will the ungodly rich continue to rob the people in an endless but unstated and officially unrecognized class war.
Better yet could America evolve farther into a full blown Socialist society where justice prevails over profit and all are free to decide their futures; where no one is at the mercy of the economically rich and politically powerful? Or will sociialism come by Revolution? By 2012 we will know.
October 2008
For month and months and months I have been telling all my friends that the election for President of the United States is rigged and John McCain will be elected the next President. For me the ruling class was content to continue looting the country ad infinitum and John McCain was going to keep their party going.
Predicting human events is fraught with surprises and this election year is beyond exception. The inability of the Bush administration to contain the continued collapses of the financial markets coupled with the the growing recognition that John McCain has no answers makes it clear to any one with half a brain that we are at a monumental crossroads in American history.
This is what we are facing: deflation of commodity value which means general world wide depression or hyper-inflation which translates into the collapse of the the value of the dollar. Will we have lots of cash but nothing to buy or will we have lots of cash which can’t buy anything? In either case, we the people are in deep kimchee.
A young Afro-American with one cultural foot in Africa and another in America will be the next President of the United States. I no longer have any doubt about the truth of that sentence. The issue now is will Barack Obama succeed ala Franklin Roosevelt and save capitalism from it’s greedy excesses or will he be another clueless free market ideologue like Herbert Hoover and John McCain forever trapped in a business cycle like Sisyphus fatally pushing a rock up hill only to have the rock roll down hill forever and ever. Will America, realizing its historical democratic and republican self, evolve from a dog-eat-dog capitalist economy into a social democracy or will the ungodly rich continue to rob the people in an endless but unstated and officially unrecognized class war.
Better yet could America evolve farther into a full blown Socialist society where justice prevails over profit and all are free to decide their futures; where no one is at the mercy of the economically rich and politically powerful? Or will sociialism come by Revolution? By 2012 we will know.
October 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
McCain the Maverick?
According to the American Heritage Dictionary a maverick is a lone dissenter, a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates. On October 18, 2001 McCain was on the David Letterman Show where he joined the Bush-Cheney invade Iraq chorus:
LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?
MCCAIN: I think we’re doing fine .... I think we’ll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication...some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.”
A maverick is a nonconformist, independent, loner. One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter. On October 28, 2001 McCain was interviewed on CNN where he said,“... Shed a tear and then get on with the business of killing our enemies as quickly as we can and as ruthlessly as we must.....I'm proud of the president and the job that he and his team have done and are doing....I have great confidence in the leadership of this country....the important factor here is that Saddam Hussein continues to acquire weapons of mass destruction. There are credible reports of involvement between Iraqi administration officials, Iraqi officials, and the terrorists. There's very little doubt about what Saddam Hussein is trying to do.”
A maverick is independent in thought and action or exhibiting such independence: maverick politicians; a maverick decision. On December 6, 2001 when asked if the United States might need 100,000 or more troops to invade Iraq, McCain told MSNBC, that a larger invasion force was not necessary agreeing with the positions taken by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and directly contradicting Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki policy of “Great Efficiency, Great Force.”.
The word maverick is thought to be an in allusion to Samuel A. Maverick (1803-70), Texas cattle owner who was negligent in branding his calves. The word evolved from "...calf or yearling found without an owner's brand," to a sense of an "individualist, an unconventional person, masterless."
An unbranded range animal is traditionally considered the property of the first person who brands it. If John McCain and Sara Palin were mavericks, it now appears they have been rounded up by the far right of the Republican Party and both have had the Celtic Cross burnt onto their rumps.
September 2008
LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?
MCCAIN: I think we’re doing fine .... I think we’ll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication...some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.”
A maverick is a nonconformist, independent, loner. One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter. On October 28, 2001 McCain was interviewed on CNN where he said,“... Shed a tear and then get on with the business of killing our enemies as quickly as we can and as ruthlessly as we must.....I'm proud of the president and the job that he and his team have done and are doing....I have great confidence in the leadership of this country....the important factor here is that Saddam Hussein continues to acquire weapons of mass destruction. There are credible reports of involvement between Iraqi administration officials, Iraqi officials, and the terrorists. There's very little doubt about what Saddam Hussein is trying to do.”
A maverick is independent in thought and action or exhibiting such independence: maverick politicians; a maverick decision. On December 6, 2001 when asked if the United States might need 100,000 or more troops to invade Iraq, McCain told MSNBC, that a larger invasion force was not necessary agreeing with the positions taken by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and directly contradicting Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki policy of “Great Efficiency, Great Force.”.
The word maverick is thought to be an in allusion to Samuel A. Maverick (1803-70), Texas cattle owner who was negligent in branding his calves. The word evolved from "...calf or yearling found without an owner's brand," to a sense of an "individualist, an unconventional person, masterless."
An unbranded range animal is traditionally considered the property of the first person who brands it. If John McCain and Sara Palin were mavericks, it now appears they have been rounded up by the far right of the Republican Party and both have had the Celtic Cross burnt onto their rumps.
September 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The DNC and the DLC
In an article by Steven Thomma titled “Liberal Positions Gaining Popularity” pub- lished Friday 22 August 2008 in the McClatchy Newspapers, Thomma says (Demo- crats) are, in short, more liberal than at any time in a generation and eager to end the Reagan era, which dominated not just the other party, but also their own, for nearly three decades (italics added). Thomma last phrase is the key to understanding why Ba- rack Obama choose Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate and why Hillary Clinton was passed over.
Earlier I had argued that two distinct political parties were vying for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States; the more liberal Democratic National Committee (DNC) was represented by Obama while the the Reagan-isk Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) championed Hillary Clinton. At the end of my June letter I wrote, “If Barack Obama becomes the DNCʼs Presidential nominee, will he chose another DNCʼer for Vice President or will he pick a DLC type? The answer to that question will tell us how unified the Democrats really are.”
When I wrote those words I assumed that since the DLC had won two presidential elections (1992 and 1996) and had put forth two more well funded presidential campaigns (DLCers Gore and Lieberman 2000 and DLCer Kerry and Edwards 2004), the DLC was still a mighty force in national politics. Despite the national news mediaʼs obsession with identity politics and itʼs focus on empty distinctions, Obamaʼs choice of Joe Biden, who is not a DLC member, tells us that should the DNC take the presidency in November, the DLC and perhaps after nearly thirty years, reactionary Reaganism, will be quietly declared over and done with.
Thomma concludes his article by writing, “Republican George W. Bush turned into one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history. Just as American revulsion at Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 helped usher in the Reagan era, rejection of the Bush era could help swing the pendulum the other way.” I might add the election of Obama-Biden will also usher out the Clintons once and for all.
August 2008
Earlier I had argued that two distinct political parties were vying for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States; the more liberal Democratic National Committee (DNC) was represented by Obama while the the Reagan-isk Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) championed Hillary Clinton. At the end of my June letter I wrote, “If Barack Obama becomes the DNCʼs Presidential nominee, will he chose another DNCʼer for Vice President or will he pick a DLC type? The answer to that question will tell us how unified the Democrats really are.”
When I wrote those words I assumed that since the DLC had won two presidential elections (1992 and 1996) and had put forth two more well funded presidential campaigns (DLCers Gore and Lieberman 2000 and DLCer Kerry and Edwards 2004), the DLC was still a mighty force in national politics. Despite the national news mediaʼs obsession with identity politics and itʼs focus on empty distinctions, Obamaʼs choice of Joe Biden, who is not a DLC member, tells us that should the DNC take the presidency in November, the DLC and perhaps after nearly thirty years, reactionary Reaganism, will be quietly declared over and done with.
Thomma concludes his article by writing, “Republican George W. Bush turned into one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history. Just as American revulsion at Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 helped usher in the Reagan era, rejection of the Bush era could help swing the pendulum the other way.” I might add the election of Obama-Biden will also usher out the Clintons once and for all.
August 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
“Finance is a gun and politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.”
In the movie Godfather Part III Michael Corleone is trying to leave his mafia connections behind by moving his looted wealth into legitimate businesses. In a moment of candor Michael angrily tells his sister Connie, “The higher I go in society, the more crooked it becomes!”
With oil at $135.00 per barrel and gasoline approaching $5.00 per gallon, there has been a lot of Sturm und Drang among politicians over what is causing these prices. One thing is clear, explaining the entire mess as being due to supply and demand is simply insulting. The actual cause for high oil prices are many and involve a confluence of events that begin with that secret conference Vice President Cheney had with the energy industry during the spring of 2001. During those meetings Cheney agreed to rein in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC is the federal agency that regulates oil trading. The CFTC in 2001 began exempting financial firms from rules that limit speculative buying. The CFTC has also waived regulations on U.S. investors who trade commodities on overseas markets, allowing them to accumulate large quantities of the future oil supply by making purchases on lightly regulated foreign exchanges. Oil futures are then bundled into securities and sold off to investors, mostly big banks and hedge funds.
After deregulating the oil futures market, Bush and Cheney conned the American people into the Iraq war and financed the war on borrowed money thereby weakening the dollar. Since oil is purchased on the international market in dollars, a weaken dollar drove the price of oil up. On top of all these high finance shenanigans, the Federal Reserve continued following it’s policy of low interest rates. Other central banks then drove up their interest rates in order to attract more investment in their currencies which further weaken the dollar. Then Saudi Arabia took a several hundred billion dollar drubbing in the United States sub-prime real estate market.
Finally, the Bush government is pumping millions of barrels of oil into the Strategic Oil Reserve (SOR). If Bush instead pumped out a million barrels per day over the entire summer, the SOR would by depleted by a mere 15% and oil prices would come way down.
Near the climax of the Godfather Part III, Don Lucchesi, interlocker of the Italian political establishment and the mafia, tells Michael Corleone’s bastard nephew Vincent Mancini, “Finance is a gun and politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.” In our America today George Bush and the political establishment are pulling the trigger but only a bang flag pops out.
June 2008
With oil at $135.00 per barrel and gasoline approaching $5.00 per gallon, there has been a lot of Sturm und Drang among politicians over what is causing these prices. One thing is clear, explaining the entire mess as being due to supply and demand is simply insulting. The actual cause for high oil prices are many and involve a confluence of events that begin with that secret conference Vice President Cheney had with the energy industry during the spring of 2001. During those meetings Cheney agreed to rein in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC is the federal agency that regulates oil trading. The CFTC in 2001 began exempting financial firms from rules that limit speculative buying. The CFTC has also waived regulations on U.S. investors who trade commodities on overseas markets, allowing them to accumulate large quantities of the future oil supply by making purchases on lightly regulated foreign exchanges. Oil futures are then bundled into securities and sold off to investors, mostly big banks and hedge funds.
After deregulating the oil futures market, Bush and Cheney conned the American people into the Iraq war and financed the war on borrowed money thereby weakening the dollar. Since oil is purchased on the international market in dollars, a weaken dollar drove the price of oil up. On top of all these high finance shenanigans, the Federal Reserve continued following it’s policy of low interest rates. Other central banks then drove up their interest rates in order to attract more investment in their currencies which further weaken the dollar. Then Saudi Arabia took a several hundred billion dollar drubbing in the United States sub-prime real estate market.
Finally, the Bush government is pumping millions of barrels of oil into the Strategic Oil Reserve (SOR). If Bush instead pumped out a million barrels per day over the entire summer, the SOR would by depleted by a mere 15% and oil prices would come way down.
Near the climax of the Godfather Part III, Don Lucchesi, interlocker of the Italian political establishment and the mafia, tells Michael Corleone’s bastard nephew Vincent Mancini, “Finance is a gun and politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.” In our America today George Bush and the political establishment are pulling the trigger but only a bang flag pops out.
June 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Hillary and Joe Lieberman
Traditionally only two political parties have dominated the competition for power in the United States . What most Americans don’t realize is that since 1985 a third political party has been vying for power and has actually won the Presidency of the United States. The American corporate media ignores this third party pretending that is is nothing more than a wing of one of the other parties. On the far right the Republican National Committee (RNC) dominates. In the center, because there are no viable left-wing social democratic political parties in the United States, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules the roost. In between, employing the strategy of “Triangulation” the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) has staked out its piece of the political landscape.
The present Chairman of the DLC is Harold Ford. Mr. Ford last year lost his bid to represent Tennessee in the United States Senate. Past DLC chairs reads like a whose-who of conservative democrats: Sam Nunn, Bill Clinton, John Breaux, Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Tom Vilsack. Prominent national DLC members today include Max Baucus, Hillary Clinton, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Terry McAuliffe, John Edwards, Rahm Emanuel, Al Gore, and John Kerry. California DLC members are Juanita Millender-McDonald, Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Susan Davis, Cal Dooley, Ellen Tauscher, Gavin Newsom, Jane Harmon, Lois Copps, and Dianne Feinstein.
Paul Wellstone, criticizing the DLC said,"I'm from the democratic wing of the Democrat Party." According to Howard Dean, the present chair of the DNC, DLC operatives actively worked to sabotage his candidacy for the US Presidency in 2004. Senator Barack Obama opposes the DLC. In 2003, he discussed why his positions against NAFTA, the War in Iraq, and in support of universal healthcare were at odds with the DLC, saying that "...these positions make me an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC. That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC."
It was reported in the New York press last summer that Hillary Clinton quietly funneled money into fellow DLC’er Joe Lieberman’s successful campaign to become an Independent Democratic representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate.
If Barack Obama becomes the DNC’s Presidential nominee, will he chose another DNC’er for Vice President or will he pick a DLC type? The answer to that question will tell us how unified the Democrats really are.
June 2008
P.S. Obama picked the DNC Joe Biden for his Vice President. After winning the election in November 2008, Obama stacked his cabinet and under secretariats with DLCer.
The present Chairman of the DLC is Harold Ford. Mr. Ford last year lost his bid to represent Tennessee in the United States Senate. Past DLC chairs reads like a whose-who of conservative democrats: Sam Nunn, Bill Clinton, John Breaux, Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Tom Vilsack. Prominent national DLC members today include Max Baucus, Hillary Clinton, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Terry McAuliffe, John Edwards, Rahm Emanuel, Al Gore, and John Kerry. California DLC members are Juanita Millender-McDonald, Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Susan Davis, Cal Dooley, Ellen Tauscher, Gavin Newsom, Jane Harmon, Lois Copps, and Dianne Feinstein.
Paul Wellstone, criticizing the DLC said,"I'm from the democratic wing of the Democrat Party." According to Howard Dean, the present chair of the DNC, DLC operatives actively worked to sabotage his candidacy for the US Presidency in 2004. Senator Barack Obama opposes the DLC. In 2003, he discussed why his positions against NAFTA, the War in Iraq, and in support of universal healthcare were at odds with the DLC, saying that "...these positions make me an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC. That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC."
It was reported in the New York press last summer that Hillary Clinton quietly funneled money into fellow DLC’er Joe Lieberman’s successful campaign to become an Independent Democratic representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate.
If Barack Obama becomes the DNC’s Presidential nominee, will he chose another DNC’er for Vice President or will he pick a DLC type? The answer to that question will tell us how unified the Democrats really are.
June 2008
P.S. Obama picked the DNC Joe Biden for his Vice President. After winning the election in November 2008, Obama stacked his cabinet and under secretariats with DLCer.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
"an ass-kissing little chicken shit"
Robert Burns writing for the Associated Press in an articlepublish on January 5, 2007 confirmed “President Bush is putting the finishing touches on his new Iraq plan, reshuffling his military leadership in the war-torn country.” The President’s new Iraq plan known as the “Surge” would include an additional “...9,000 troops to be deployed to the Baghdad capital alone.” Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and Gen. George Casey, the chief general in Iraq would be replaced by Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific and Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who headed the effort to train Iraqi security forces.
Writing in The Nation, Michael Klare reported on January 8, 2007 Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey were being replaced because they, “...had opposed an increase in US troops in Iraq and argued for shifting greater responsibility for the fighting to Iraq forces, thereby permitting a gradual American withdrawal....If engagement with Iran and Syria was even remotely on the agenda, Abizaid is exactly the man you'd want on the job at Centcom....if you're thinking instead of using force against Iran and/or Syria, then Admiral Fallon is exactly the man you'd want at Centcom.”
Nine months later Gareth Porter writing for Inter Press Service in an article titled “ Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge,” (9/12/2007) Porter writes Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chicken shit" and added, "I hate people like that", Fallon further demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third naval carrier task force to the Persian Gulf. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.
On March 11, 2008 The New York Times reported, “Adm. William J. Fallon, the top American commander in the Middle East is retiring early.”
On March 13, 2008 The U.S. Navy announced the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) gets underway for a scheduled seven-month deployment to the 5th Fleet area of Operations.
May 2008
Writing in The Nation, Michael Klare reported on January 8, 2007 Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey were being replaced because they, “...had opposed an increase in US troops in Iraq and argued for shifting greater responsibility for the fighting to Iraq forces, thereby permitting a gradual American withdrawal....If engagement with Iran and Syria was even remotely on the agenda, Abizaid is exactly the man you'd want on the job at Centcom....if you're thinking instead of using force against Iran and/or Syria, then Admiral Fallon is exactly the man you'd want at Centcom.”
Nine months later Gareth Porter writing for Inter Press Service in an article titled “ Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge,” (9/12/2007) Porter writes Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chicken shit" and added, "I hate people like that", Fallon further demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third naval carrier task force to the Persian Gulf. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.
On March 11, 2008 The New York Times reported, “Adm. William J. Fallon, the top American commander in the Middle East is retiring early.”
On March 13, 2008 The U.S. Navy announced the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) gets underway for a scheduled seven-month deployment to the 5th Fleet area of Operations.
May 2008
Sunday, October 28, 2007
I Love Nuts
Fall is my favorite season of the year. Fall temperatures dip downward, the air gets dryer, and all the delicious foods growing over the summer are harvested and put on rainbow display in the markets. Fall triumphs in my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, when family and friends gather. Thanksgiving doesn’t require presents to be exchanged or gaudy lights to be hung. Thanksgiving does softly encourage good food, good cheer, and good times to be shared by all. One of my favorite foods of the Fall season are nuts. Chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, every kind of nut, bags and bags of nuts, wonderful nuts, nuts, nuts!
While reading the letter section in the local newspaper last week I came across the opinions of Dennis Myer, Bill Welch, and Arthur Rice. I don’t know who these fellows are but they seem to be members of an ideological junta secretly meeting in a almond grove. Myers tells us our town should get rid of its zoning laws and let “property owners” (a euphemism for big Capitalist), ravage the country side in their pursuit of maximum profits because the abstract market place is far more important than the real live community and it’s “suffocating regulations.” Bill Welch, blows more smoke in our direction by skewering Limousine Liberals (as opposed to what, Limousine Reactionaries) for promoting government interference which may crimp the unfettered pursuit of profits by the “greed is good” Goebbelites. Arthur Rice, kicking up another pother, while at the same time running away from what passes as an intelligent argument and, instead, taking refuge in his delusions and sentimentalities, weeps copious crocodile tears because the “ultra liberals’ of Hollywood are responsible for 9-11, the collapse of the sub-prime market, the 9 trillion dollar national debt, religious fanaticism, and the disappearance of honey bees.
But if Rice bothered to read the publications and newspapers he accuses the rest of us of not reading, he would discover all of these troubles began when Hollywood’s Ronald Reagan and the cravenness George H.W. Bush got elected President and VP twenty seven years ago. Because Rice et.al. have blinded themselves by their own prejudices, they can’t see that by the end of that grotesque mediocrity known as George H. Bush’s term as President of these here United States, the Republican Party will have ruled this country twenty out of twenty eight years.
During the Fall I really hate it when I crack a nut open and find nothing inside.
October 2007
While reading the letter section in the local newspaper last week I came across the opinions of Dennis Myer, Bill Welch, and Arthur Rice. I don’t know who these fellows are but they seem to be members of an ideological junta secretly meeting in a almond grove. Myers tells us our town should get rid of its zoning laws and let “property owners” (a euphemism for big Capitalist), ravage the country side in their pursuit of maximum profits because the abstract market place is far more important than the real live community and it’s “suffocating regulations.” Bill Welch, blows more smoke in our direction by skewering Limousine Liberals (as opposed to what, Limousine Reactionaries) for promoting government interference which may crimp the unfettered pursuit of profits by the “greed is good” Goebbelites. Arthur Rice, kicking up another pother, while at the same time running away from what passes as an intelligent argument and, instead, taking refuge in his delusions and sentimentalities, weeps copious crocodile tears because the “ultra liberals’ of Hollywood are responsible for 9-11, the collapse of the sub-prime market, the 9 trillion dollar national debt, religious fanaticism, and the disappearance of honey bees.
But if Rice bothered to read the publications and newspapers he accuses the rest of us of not reading, he would discover all of these troubles began when Hollywood’s Ronald Reagan and the cravenness George H.W. Bush got elected President and VP twenty seven years ago. Because Rice et.al. have blinded themselves by their own prejudices, they can’t see that by the end of that grotesque mediocrity known as George H. Bush’s term as President of these here United States, the Republican Party will have ruled this country twenty out of twenty eight years.
During the Fall I really hate it when I crack a nut open and find nothing inside.
October 2007
Friday, October 20, 2006
The Liberal Press
Essential elements of the liberal American press are hype, that is to say reporting without analyzing the pronouncements of elected leaders, framing all elections as horse races, and passing off fluff as news. So lets get real. The Dow Jones hit a high of 11,722.98 on January 14, 2000. The Dow Jones was finally able to exceed that number on October 3, 2006 when it closed at 11,727.34. The stock market has been flat for the last 6 years and 10 months increasing by 0.037 %. Where was all that speculative capital? A major part of it has been in the housing market. Now that the housing market has collapsed, capital is hold up in the stock market waiting for an opening in another market. Soon some other market somewhere will be invaded, pillaged, and left a tattered ruin.
The Republicans will retain control of the House and Senate. They will lose some seats but they will stay in control because the real agenda facing the nation requires the erosion of civil rights at home while the powers-that-be extend and firm up their grip on the rest of the world. Imperialism for the world and civil rights at home are incompatible because the same men are making both decisions and they are driven by power and wealth.
But, lets suppose the Democrats do take control of one or both houses. Have you heard anything from any national Democrat leader that tells you they will end the war? Remember in 1968 the American people changed horses in midstream on the promise of ending the Vietnam War and nothing changed as the war dragged on for 6 more years? Because Bush or Rice or Rumsfeld said it does not make it the truth. If you are trying to take over the world and suppress dissent at home, you are not going to be frank about that agenda, are you?
According to Bush, only 30,000 Iraqi’s have died since the invasion. But we now know more than 600,000 Iraqis are dead and Iraq is on schedule with the 2 million Vietnamese deaths during the Vietnam War. Comparing the Iraq War to the Vietnam War will arm the American people with information on the long standing murderous policies of our government. Instead we get the sexual deviancy of Congressmen Mark Foley . The Foley story is a diversion designed to deflect the attention of the American people much like a magician dramatically moves his right hand to draw attention away from the trick hand. The liberal American press entertains and tricks and is exceedingly profitable and not much else.
October 2006
The Republicans will retain control of the House and Senate. They will lose some seats but they will stay in control because the real agenda facing the nation requires the erosion of civil rights at home while the powers-that-be extend and firm up their grip on the rest of the world. Imperialism for the world and civil rights at home are incompatible because the same men are making both decisions and they are driven by power and wealth.
But, lets suppose the Democrats do take control of one or both houses. Have you heard anything from any national Democrat leader that tells you they will end the war? Remember in 1968 the American people changed horses in midstream on the promise of ending the Vietnam War and nothing changed as the war dragged on for 6 more years? Because Bush or Rice or Rumsfeld said it does not make it the truth. If you are trying to take over the world and suppress dissent at home, you are not going to be frank about that agenda, are you?
According to Bush, only 30,000 Iraqi’s have died since the invasion. But we now know more than 600,000 Iraqis are dead and Iraq is on schedule with the 2 million Vietnamese deaths during the Vietnam War. Comparing the Iraq War to the Vietnam War will arm the American people with information on the long standing murderous policies of our government. Instead we get the sexual deviancy of Congressmen Mark Foley . The Foley story is a diversion designed to deflect the attention of the American people much like a magician dramatically moves his right hand to draw attention away from the trick hand. The liberal American press entertains and tricks and is exceedingly profitable and not much else.
October 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Immigrants to America
Before I begin I have to point out that my mother is a post W.W.II German immigrant and my great-great grandparents on my father’s side immigrated to the United States from Italy in the 1870’s. Despite the fact that I was a fourth generation Italian American and a first generation German American, and despite the fact that I spoke German but I did not speak Italian, it was my Italian background that provoked anti-Italian remarks from my classmates at school and from stupid adults in my community. “What sound does sh*t make when it hits the wall?”Guinea, wop, dago, gumba, greaseball, and spic have always been part of my life in America. On the other hand, I have never-ever heard an immigrant make a disparaging remark about my heritage. The people who use words like wop and dago look exactly like the people I saw in the canyon this past weekend. So, as far as I am concerned, you anti-immigrant types are, at your core, and contrary to your self deceptions, bigots and racists.
The following are the myths then the facts about immigrants. Myth: immigrants don’t pay taxes. Fact: Every time an immigrants buys from a store, buys gasoline, and pays rent they pay taxes. Immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion per year in taxes to the Feds, State, and local governments. According to the Social Security Administration immigrants paid $20 billion into Social Security between 1990 and 1998. Myth: immigrants come here to take welfare. Fact: immigrants paid at least $90 billion in taxes every year and take back $5 billion in public benefits. Myth: immigrants are a drain on the economy. Fact: According to the Federal Reserve immigrants net contribution (profits to business) to the US economy is at least $10 billions per year, they come here in prime working age, no public money has been spent on their education and according to a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, they will contribute $500 billion to Social Security over the next 30 years.
I could say something else to all you people bashers but I will refrain and simply point out: put that in your collective pipes and smoke it!
The following are the myths then the facts about immigrants. Myth: immigrants don’t pay taxes. Fact: Every time an immigrants buys from a store, buys gasoline, and pays rent they pay taxes. Immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion per year in taxes to the Feds, State, and local governments. According to the Social Security Administration immigrants paid $20 billion into Social Security between 1990 and 1998. Myth: immigrants come here to take welfare. Fact: immigrants paid at least $90 billion in taxes every year and take back $5 billion in public benefits. Myth: immigrants are a drain on the economy. Fact: According to the Federal Reserve immigrants net contribution (profits to business) to the US economy is at least $10 billions per year, they come here in prime working age, no public money has been spent on their education and according to a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, they will contribute $500 billion to Social Security over the next 30 years.
I could say something else to all you people bashers but I will refrain and simply point out: put that in your collective pipes and smoke it!
Friday, June 30, 2006
American Ruling Class
In the spirit of Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and H.L. Mencken politics can be defined as the tactics of manipulating the many to act in the strategic interest of the few. In the United States the many and the few are usually defined along racial/ethnic lines. The practice of racial politics, however, does nothing but muddy the waters confusing the political tactic of manipulation with long term political strategy of control.
In the United States the economic system pervading every aspect of American society, informing virtually all human relationships is capitalism. With the exception of the very earliest hunter-gatherer societies, every past economic system including capitalism gives rise to social classes. Social classes are rooted in and differentiated by how much wealth each social class owns or controls. According to the Federal Reserve the wealth of the top one percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent. A Federal Reserve study dated March 6, 2006 reports that the consumer debt now exceeds 11.45 trillion dollars, the highest in U.S. history (not to mention the added tax burden on the lower classes by the Federal national debt of 8.5 trillion dollars).
It’s one thing to establish the objective existence of a small wealthy upper class but quite another to show if that upper class is a ruling class conscious of itself and acting in it’s own interests even if their upper class interest is diametrically opposed to the “national interest.” More than a century of academic and scholarly research shows conclusively that the American Upper Class is a Ruling Class. Thorsten Veblen’s 1899 study titled “Theory of the Leisure Class” which was responsible for introducing “conspicuous consumption” into the language is among the earliest works showing the connection between upper class and ruling class. Other studies of the American Upper Class as a ruling class include Ferdinand Lundberg’s “America’s 60 Families” (1938), “The Power Elite” by C. Wright Mills (1956), “The Protestant Establishment” by E. Digby Baltzell (1964), and G. William Domhoff’s study “Who Rules America” (1967, 1983, 1998).
The biggest fear the American Ruling Class faces is the loss of its ability to manipulate the lower classes should the middle and working classes become conscious of itself as distinct classes and begin to act in alliance for it’s collective interest. In other words, above all else the American Ruling Class fears a two sided class war. To suppress class consciousness by spreading “false consciousness” among the lower classes, the American Ruling Class uses it’s manipulative powers to divide and conquer by attacking working class ethnic immigrants (Mexicans), gays (Defense of Marriage Act), women (anti-abortion), flag burners, welfare, teachers, nurses, national health care, minimum vs. living wages , and all those who oppose the Iraq war where working class kids are dying by the thousands. So far class warfare in the United States has been a one sided fight. I suspect the fight may be joined sooner than many think.
In the United States the economic system pervading every aspect of American society, informing virtually all human relationships is capitalism. With the exception of the very earliest hunter-gatherer societies, every past economic system including capitalism gives rise to social classes. Social classes are rooted in and differentiated by how much wealth each social class owns or controls. According to the Federal Reserve the wealth of the top one percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent. A Federal Reserve study dated March 6, 2006 reports that the consumer debt now exceeds 11.45 trillion dollars, the highest in U.S. history (not to mention the added tax burden on the lower classes by the Federal national debt of 8.5 trillion dollars).
It’s one thing to establish the objective existence of a small wealthy upper class but quite another to show if that upper class is a ruling class conscious of itself and acting in it’s own interests even if their upper class interest is diametrically opposed to the “national interest.” More than a century of academic and scholarly research shows conclusively that the American Upper Class is a Ruling Class. Thorsten Veblen’s 1899 study titled “Theory of the Leisure Class” which was responsible for introducing “conspicuous consumption” into the language is among the earliest works showing the connection between upper class and ruling class. Other studies of the American Upper Class as a ruling class include Ferdinand Lundberg’s “America’s 60 Families” (1938), “The Power Elite” by C. Wright Mills (1956), “The Protestant Establishment” by E. Digby Baltzell (1964), and G. William Domhoff’s study “Who Rules America” (1967, 1983, 1998).
The biggest fear the American Ruling Class faces is the loss of its ability to manipulate the lower classes should the middle and working classes become conscious of itself as distinct classes and begin to act in alliance for it’s collective interest. In other words, above all else the American Ruling Class fears a two sided class war. To suppress class consciousness by spreading “false consciousness” among the lower classes, the American Ruling Class uses it’s manipulative powers to divide and conquer by attacking working class ethnic immigrants (Mexicans), gays (Defense of Marriage Act), women (anti-abortion), flag burners, welfare, teachers, nurses, national health care, minimum vs. living wages , and all those who oppose the Iraq war where working class kids are dying by the thousands. So far class warfare in the United States has been a one sided fight. I suspect the fight may be joined sooner than many think.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Racist Immigration Policy
The century following 1820 may be divided into three great periods of immigration to the U.S. During the first period, from 1820 to 1850, most of the immigrants came from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. In Response to this wave of immigration the No-Nothing Party was organized. Their platform included, among other things severe limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries, restricting political office to native-born Americans, mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship, restricting public school teachers to Protestants, and mandating daily Bible readings in public schools (from the Protestant version of the Bible, of course).
In the second period, from 1850 to 1890, Ireland and China supplied a majority of the immigrants. Encouraged by “Nativist” political groups Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which was the climax to more than thirty years of growing anti-Chinese racism. Racial tensions increased as more and more Chinese emigrated, took jobs no one else wanted, and created competition in the job market.
In the final period, from 1890 to 1920 the majority of the immigrants came from Italy and Russia. From 1900 to 1914 more than a million aliens entered the U.S. every year. John J. Simon writing in this months Issue of Monthly Reviews tells us, “Manhattan... in... 1902, was, like today’s city, a locus of great wealth and mean privation. The city’s ruling class were the confident arrogant leaders of the emerging American colossus. Lower Manhattan was headquarters for U.S. finance and industrial monopolies, J. P. Morgan and Standard Oil. The city was a manufacturing center as well. The garment, printing, shipping, and rail industries all needed cheap labor. New York’s population exploded with a flood of newcomers. southern and eastern Europeans poured into dormitory neighborhoods, the Lower East Side, Little Italy, and East Harlem to name a few, overcrowded, noisy, and fetid with garbage....The city was a cacophony of accents and dialects. One person in four spoke almost no English.”
In 1917 Congress passed an immigration law that imposed a literacy test and created an Asiatic Barred Zone to shut out Asians. After World War I a marked increase in racism and the growth of isolationism led to demands for further restrictive legislation. In 1921 and again in 1924 Congress created a quota system for immigrants where aliens from northern and western Europe who were considered racially superior than those from southern and eastern Europe were favored.
Despite Republican Party protestation to the contrary, American immigration policy has always been informed by bigotry and racism.
In the second period, from 1850 to 1890, Ireland and China supplied a majority of the immigrants. Encouraged by “Nativist” political groups Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which was the climax to more than thirty years of growing anti-Chinese racism. Racial tensions increased as more and more Chinese emigrated, took jobs no one else wanted, and created competition in the job market.
In the final period, from 1890 to 1920 the majority of the immigrants came from Italy and Russia. From 1900 to 1914 more than a million aliens entered the U.S. every year. John J. Simon writing in this months Issue of Monthly Reviews tells us, “Manhattan... in... 1902, was, like today’s city, a locus of great wealth and mean privation. The city’s ruling class were the confident arrogant leaders of the emerging American colossus. Lower Manhattan was headquarters for U.S. finance and industrial monopolies, J. P. Morgan and Standard Oil. The city was a manufacturing center as well. The garment, printing, shipping, and rail industries all needed cheap labor. New York’s population exploded with a flood of newcomers. southern and eastern Europeans poured into dormitory neighborhoods, the Lower East Side, Little Italy, and East Harlem to name a few, overcrowded, noisy, and fetid with garbage....The city was a cacophony of accents and dialects. One person in four spoke almost no English.”
In 1917 Congress passed an immigration law that imposed a literacy test and created an Asiatic Barred Zone to shut out Asians. After World War I a marked increase in racism and the growth of isolationism led to demands for further restrictive legislation. In 1921 and again in 1924 Congress created a quota system for immigrants where aliens from northern and western Europe who were considered racially superior than those from southern and eastern Europe were favored.
Despite Republican Party protestation to the contrary, American immigration policy has always been informed by bigotry and racism.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
