Some say don’t criticize our leaders or our system until we have a solution. Some say that there’s a simple answer to every problem…and that it’s always wrong. Some say that Obama had no choice, given Bush deficits and our manipulative media. They didn't make him appoint conservative ideologues to the deficit committee in January 2010. He chose to ignore the public option and the progressive budget solution . Will he sign onto the outsourcing corporate tax give-away? .
Is the conservative coalition of theological politics, the Roberts Court and the mass media permanently in control? We humans are hierarchical, often selfish and easily deceived; in the end we all die. Let’s take off our rose-colored glasses and talk about these big but not insoluble problems. The USSR went down without a violent revolution- distorted crony capitalism was waiting and took over. We must construct a new movement able to take advantage of any surprises. The rich will overreach. Increasing inequality will make our system less stable – the deal doesn't extend unemployment benefits. The poor will become poorer, pressure will build up….
Henry Ford and his capitalist peers of the 1920s understood that nobody could buy their products if 90% of the country were destitute. No longer: the top 1% are rich through inheritance or financialization; the few that do make consumer products have better prospects overseas. Globalization and financialization cut the ties between the richest and the other 98% of Americans.
Here's what I see...
Ed Kilgore has a story, disputing claims that many progressives are abandoning Obama. He’s fighting Greenwald & to a lesser extent Jane Hamsher, who can be irritating.
He says, “Team Obama, for better or worse, has chosen a reelection strategy that is guaranteed to upset progressive writers and activists… (It) involves constantly displaying the president's reasonableness as compared to Republicans for the edification of swing voters, even if it looks like weakness, fecklessness, or even treachery to liberals. It will be followed by a general election stretch-drive message of comparative attacks on Republicans as irresponsible extremists, using the impressions built up in 2009-2011 as cannon fodder for the attacks.
This is a risky strategy that has been tried before and sometimes fails. It's entirely legitimate to argue that the price paid in terms of concessions made to conservative demands is far too high to justify it, even it if does work. (If and when) Obama's campaign pivots to a sharp comparative message against the GOP at some point next year, it will be most effective, if it is effective at all, with the rank-and-file progressive voters whose support it has been endangering (if not much actually suffering) for much of the last two years."
Kilgore’s rose-colored glasses prevent him from seeing that the Rs will be even more aggressive next year… Boehner, Cantor and McConnell have tasted blood. The debt ceiling is a gift that will keep on giving. They won’t permit any new taxes, they don’t care that the EPA and science (like the James Webb Space telescope) are flushed down the toilet. There is no money for the unemployed. Obama’s bargaining position in terms of taxes and revenue was strongest in 2009 and has steadily weakened. Paul Ryan will be on the bipartisan master committee. If Obama is re-elected, it may not make much difference- conservatives may control both houses of Congress. They won’t allow a liberal justice if Ruth Ginsburg dies or resigns.
Face the truth. We are in a hellhole but we are not dead.
Madison and Hamilton designed the Constitution to control the rabble. They told Jefferson, who sometimes espoused dangerous views, to stay in France. They created a Senate selected by the landowners, who controlled the state legislatures.
Involuntary taxation for healthcare: There was government spending for healthcare in 1800 and even earlier. The federal government established a system of marine hospitals in 1799, to care for sick and disabled mariners. The costs were paid by taxing the wages of merchant seamen, healthy or not. This followed similar hospitals in the colonies. Virginia used tobacco tax revenue to support a marine hospital in Hampton, VA, starting in 1710. Merchant seamen and foreign trade were critical to the early American economy.
Education: Neither state nor federal government spent one penny on public education in 1800. Eighty percent of Americans worked on farms; education was useful but not essential. However, the Massachusetts legislature gave local school districts the power to levy taxes in 1800. In 1805 the New York Free School Society was founded by Mayor DeWitt Clinton to establish "a free school for the education of poor children who do not belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society." The society relied upon donations, but in a few years, the state legislature began to provide funds. By 1840 most Northern states provided some public education. President Andrew Jackson opposed public education and public highway construction. Public schools came later to the Southern states. My hometown of Galveston, TX had no public schools until 1881. Governmental responses were slow in the 19th century. Government contracts provided little money for business before the Civil War. Crooked contractors took advantage of the government during that war. After the war, enormous government subsidies to the railroads changed the face of America.
The railroads took control of many government policies. This led to the notorious 1886 Supreme Court decision without debate or discussion that that corporations had the same legal rights as people. Former Ku Klux Klansman and later Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in 1938 "in 1886, this Court in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, decided for the first time that the word 'person' in the amendment (14th amendment to the Constitution) did in some instances include corporations. [...] The history of the amendment proves that the people were told that its purpose was to protect weak and helpless human beings and were not told that it was intended to remove corporations in any fashion from the control of state governments. [...] The language of the amendment itself does not support the theory that it was passed for the benefit of corporations.”
In a parliamentary system, the head of state is the majority party leader- debt ceilings make no sense. A higher chamber to check the people's house makes no sense; Sweden has a unicameral parliament. A Parliamentary system is best for quick government action. A unicameral Parliament makes a lot of sense. However, it can still be corrupt and destructive.
Popular election of senators and the ballot initiative process were intended to reduce the power of the wealthy. They worked for a short period of time. But targeted advertising, unknown in 1911, and theological politics gave the rich the levers of control. Theological politics isn’t theocracy; the Chamber of Commerce doesn’t care about your religion. Theological politics means the politics of resentment, of rage against those who got something that you didn’t, the welfare queens that Reagan so genially criticized. Are any union members getting excessively generous pensions? The answer is yes, so crush the unions!
What’s the difference between emotional politics and theological politics? Politics is about priorities. In the interdependent modern world, government action and regulation are much more important than they were in 1800. High school drop outs often can't find jobs, for example. People can be emotional about government decisions, but they should not be theological. Public policy should not be based on hatred and simplistic values. We have all-or-nothing politics. It should be based on ideas like those of Herbert Simon, who wrote about satisficing, bounded rationality and testing policies, Simon would say, take a controversial matter like legalizing marijuana and let some regions try it for a finite time if they want to- see how it turns out.
Can our constitution be amended to a parliamentary system, can we get corporate money out of elections? The Constitution was designed to restrain government action. The landowners wanted government on the sidelines- Grover Norquist has taken this two steps further. There will be no significant amendments with the Roberts court.
Face the truth and prepare for the future. A savage winter is coming.
I agree with Tim Duy, who says that Obama’s attempt to move to the center has been a failure and that the Republicans will move further to the right.
I'll end with one example: we expect cuts in Medicare provider reimbursements. Whether they cut only physician payments or both physician and hospital payments (seems more likely) it will exacerbate the ER problems of my hospital. Tremendous ER crowding, much greater than it was ten years ago, has produced increasing assaults on ER workers. Our ER workers get the message don’t complain or we’ll have to review your job status. Is this a solution- driving ever more people to ERs while strangling the public hospital budgets? Can you support a government that does this?