Somewhere Over the Rainbow

When he was in office, Ronnie’s guiding principle was that the poor were poor because they lacked get-up-and-go and that if they’d just get off their asses and stop freeloading off the country they would prosper. Of course, the factory jobs that for decades had been the economic ladder by which the poor climbed out of poverty were being shipped overseas, and it’s kind of hard pulling yourself up by your bootstraps while drawing a minimum wage. But then, Ronnie was a product of the Hollywood Dream Factory, so it figures.

Ronnie’s appeal was that he was the ultimate expression of the angry white male. This is the demographic that was falling all over itself to dump decency in an attempt to ape an ethos defined by the Hollywood western, which bore little or no resemblance to the historical west. Rugged individualism is the ethos of the sociopath, and Ronnie and his gaggle of angry white males made it socially acceptable. Now this sociopathology is gaining an even greater cachet with the rise of the Tea Party.

And, of course, part of this ethos was to destroy the labor unions since they enabled workers to freeload by earning a living wage. It was a milk run for Ronnie because the American labor movement was never anti-capitalist. As Harriet Fraad points out:

Americans accepted the capitalist system in which each generation had relatively prospered. American labor fought for an increasing amount of income that would permit workers to consume more goods and services, a system in which each generation could move to jobs considered more prestigious and lucrative within the capitalists hierarchy.

Since Americans believe that there is no class but the middleclass, the working class came to believe that an above-ground pool and two cars in the garage made it middleclass. So it flocked to a Republican Party that proceeded to screw it. (It never occurred to the labor movement to call a general strike when Ronnie fired the air controllers for striking. That sent a message to our oligarchs that the union movement was on life support and that all they had to do was pull the plug, which they did.)

The death of the labor movement coincided with the death of social mobility. The ability of a man, born in a humble log cabin, to rise to a position of wealth and power also fed into Ronnie’s vision of poverty. The heroes of the Horatio Alger’s novels of young boys achieving middleclass prosperity through hard work, courage, spunk (something Alger was quite fond of) and determination were largely myth. The system was gamed from the get-go, and Ronnie could never understand why a poor person who wasn’t born into the right family, didn’t attend the right school and didn’t know whose ass to kiss couldn’t climb the economic ladder.

So, he came up with the idea to build a fire under the poor by destroying the social safety net that had kept them out of total impoverishment. At the same time, the economic ladder they were suppose to climb kept getting taller and taller as money started to rise towards the top of the pyramid.

But, this is America, where all a poor man need do is strap on his six-shooter, gun down the bad guys and ride into the sunset all the richer for his effort. And if he’s too poor to own a gun, it’s his fault and not the system’s. All he has to do work three minimum-wage jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over his head and in time, prosperity will be his, somewhere over the rainbow where “troubles melt like lemon drops.”

Somewhere.

Changing Batteries and Tilling Fields

There is much talk in progressive circles about restoring democracy to America. All too often this is the closing sentence of a screed that lists the multiple sins afflicting the country. It is a clarion call for a movement, a call that is totally devoid of the nuts and bolts of how we are going to achieve this.

It is the thinking of a technician and reflects the belief that life is basically a machine and that in order to restore democracy all we need do is change a battery, throw a switch or tighten a screw. Unfortunately, life ain’t like that. Life a swarmy mess of currents and counter currents, of contradictions and paradoxes. It moves at its own pace and is painfully slow to change courses. Albert Camus defined the absurd as the interface between our desire for order and predictability and the unpredictable chaos that is life.

Too many progressives, having been raised in a society that values instant gratification above all, become too easily discouraged when they discover that simply advocating for democracy fails to produce it, as if the word were an incantation that could create change as soon as it is uttered.

Christopher Hayes relates a story told by Robert Michaels of a German peasant on his deathbed who tells his sons that there is a great treasure buried in his fields. Upon his death, the sons run out and began madly digging up the fields. The treasure, it turns out, is the bumper crops the fields yield because they have been properly tilled.

Michaels went on to say, “Democracy is a treasure that no one will ever discover by deliberate search.” The implication is that democracy is a byproduct, perhaps a byproduct of the effort to build a decent and free society. It is a process that is never finished, the force of which ebbs and flows. It is a process that may go dormant for decades until life becomes so wretched that it springs back to life.

It is a process that is hobbled by a paradox Michaels called The Iron Law of Oligarchy. As Hayes explains it, “In order for any kind of party or, indeed, any institution with a democratic base to exist, it must have an organization that delegates tasks. As this bureaucratic structure develops, it invests a small group of people with enough power that they can then subvert the very mechanisms by which they can be held to account: the party press, party conventions and delegate votes.

Michaels says, “Who says organization, says oligarchy.”

All of this is done in the name of efficiency, and this is the greatest paradox of all: efficiency and freedom are mutually exclusive, which explains why the fields must be constantly tilled and why we will never be free by simply throwing a switch. It’s an unending grind.

Imagine

Progressives have no imagination; the right has plenty. This is why, on every issue, the right constantly out frames the left. The left remains mired in statistics and dry facts while the right soars on imagery, and the fact that the right’s imagery is grounded in distortions and falsehoods in no way diminishes its effectiveness.

George Lakoff argues that “freedom” is the buzzword the right most frequently employs. Of course, their crippled definition of freedom is anything that advances their interests, and they have deftly equated capitalism with freedom even though capitalism thrives best in an authoritarian society, as we are seeing with China.

Lakoff observes that, “The conservatives are wining the framing wars again—by sticking to moral principles as conservatives see them and communicating their view of morality effectively. …We progressives are long on factual analysis, critique, suggestions—and ridicule.” Part of the reason for this could be that the left is crawling with individuals trained in the value-free world of the social sciences and not enough with individuals versed in literature and the humanities.

Because of this, Martin Luther King’s, “I have a dream.” has been reduced to Obama’s “I have a plan.” It doesn’t inspire.

Lakoff suggests making democracy the moral principle around which progressives can rally the troops. However, this is problematic because the word “democracy” has been reduced to a hackneyed expression through over use and the sometimes futile attempts to use it to justify a multitude of sins as in “bringing democracy to the Middle East.”

Progressives would do better to fight for the building of a decent society without which freedom is difficult if not impossible to achieve. A decent society is characterized by four moral absolutes: Do not kill, do not steal, do not lie and do not exploit. This explains why decency is anathema to the corporate state because to survive and grow, the corporate state must kill, steal, lie and exploit.

Ironically, Obama defined the decent society during his campaign. In the following quote, I have substituted “decency” for “democracy:”

[Decency] is about empathy—caring about your fellow citizens, which leads to principles of freedom and fairness for all. Empathy requires both personal and social responsibility. The ethic of excellence means making the world better by making yourself better, your family better, your community better, and your nation better. Government has two moral missions: protection and empowerment for all. To carry them out, government must be by, for and of the people.”

Needless to say Obama left that thought on the podium, jammed between the pages of his inaugural address, and he hasn’t looked at it since. But it sits there beneath the soil, dormant and waiting for the right conditions to germinate, and it is the tears of the dispossessed and the impoverished that will nurture the seed even as the anger of betrayal fertilizes it. With time it will take root and grow in spite of Obama and not because of him.

One thing should be understood—decency has nothing to do with sex. The right tries its damndest to equate the two because in their eyes, cum is ickier than blood. Blood soars and waves the flag of patriotism. Blood is homeland, motherland, and fatherland. Blood sings its ownperverse poetry; it seeks its own purity and destroys all that might contaminate it. Cum, on the other hand, is a post-coital mess to be cleaned up. It’s quite alright to shed blood; just be careful where you dump your load. As the artist Madison Young puts it, “If you can’t fuck it, it’s not a revolution." Though I’m not sure how effective “More Cum; Less Blood” would be as a rallying cry.

In Lakoff’s opinion, a guiding moral principle is what makes the difference between a movement and a coalition. As he explains it, “Coalitions are based on interests. Movements are based on principles. We need a movement that transcends interests and goes beyond coalitions.”

Today, there are three cesspools of rank indecency that are smothering freedom: Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Beltway. And as long as progressives keep their faces buried in specific issues buried beneath dry prose and statistics, these cesspools will continue to stink. Only when there is a movement that cuts across class and ideological lines dedicated to the building of a decent society will the cesspools finally be flushed out and reduced to rubble.

In other words, progressives have to start writing some poetry and using the imaginations God gave them. The public has had enough of coalitions. They are ripe for a movement.

"Reforming" Criminal Prosecution

The finance reform bill painfully working its way through the Senate will have as much of an effect on the financial community as spraying perfume on cockroaches. To the observer, it looks as if stern steps are being taken against the roaches as the spray is pumped into the cracks and crevasses where they hide. The roaches love it.

But now, it appears that the Obama administration is trying to jeopardize the bill by adding some toxins to the perfume, and Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is upset.

According to Wednesday’s New York Times, the White House wants the bill to cap the future size of financial institutions so a bank going belly up won’t threaten to take the economy down with it.

Former fed chief Paul Volker summed it up nicely when he said, “The mandate is to arrange an orderly liquidation or merger—in other words, euthanasia, not a rescue.”

Dodd’s reaction to the administrations gambit speaks volumes about why the United States is saddled with an impotent Congress. “It’s adding to the problems of trying to get a bill done.” He charged that, “The Obama administration ran the risk of derailing months of delicate negotiations over overhauling financial regulations.”

Let me see if I have this straight. The FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) industry committed financial assault on the American public. Because of this assault, home values have plummeted, retirement and savings accounts have been hollowed out, and credit has dried up forcing many small businesses to shut their doors, and Congress is negotiating with the criminals over how they are going to be regulated?

There’s not a felon in the country that wouldn’t jump at an opportunity like that. Instead of jail time we’d have “months of delicate negotiations” over the sentence with the accused making a sizable contribution to the judge’s reelection campaign coffers.

Of course, this coddling of criminals in nothing new to the Beltway. Obama has informed us that he will not investigate possible war crimes committed by the Cheney administrations because it’s time to forget the past and look to the future.

This, also, is a concept the criminals of America would embrace. “Hell, your honor, I did it. But let’s not become mired in the past. It’s time to look forward.”

But I forget—bankers are rich; criminals are poor. Therein lies the difference.

Anybody seen a leader? Anybody?

Frank Rich quotes historian Alan Brinkley who points out that Congress is entering its fourth decade in which it “has failed to deal with any major national problem from infrastructure to education.”

Rich, sometimes the master of understatement, goes on to observe that, “There is also a gaping leadership deficit. A closer look at either Pelosi or Reid shows that there is, not just a leadership vacuum; there is a gaping leadership hole down which meaningful legislation disappears to reemerge diluted to the point of nonexistence.

The Senate Majority Leader chair once occupied by Lyndon Johnson is now a child’s potty seat. Rich notes that Johnson was “able to transform a sleepy, seniority-hobbled, regionally polarized debating society into an often-progressive legislative factory.” And that was with a slim majority and a Republican in the White House.

Much as we may miss a Johnson at the Senate’s helm, the truth is we will never see the likes of him again until we wrest control of Congress away from its corporate masters. No member of Congress can hope to achieve a leadership role unless they have been vetted by the oligarchy.

The days of congressional leadership are over. Corporate managers of the Pelosi/Reid ilk have replaced them. These managers create nothing. Rather, they implement the assorted corporate policies mandated by their masters. And their masters are not going to allow a potentially strong leader near anything that resembles a position of power.

In his column, Rich implies that a repressed Congress is thwarting Obama’s raging, progressive hormones. The truth is that there ain’t none. Obama’s as repressed as Congress when it comes to bucking the country’s corporatacracy. His rhetoric is sound without fury. And that’s the best we can hope for until corporations are stripped of their personhood and constitutional rights.

Rats, Lice and Currency

Rats desert a sinking ship; lice flee a cooling corpse. It is no different with currency. As soon as it begins to sink, value heads for the nearest exit. There is, however, one difference. Rats occupied the ship, the lice were at home on the body, but value hasn’t inhered to our currency for decades. The truth is that our worthless fiat currency was one of the greatest scams ever to be foisted on the world.

It all started in another decade mired in another war. The time was the 70s, and the war was Vietnam. For the first time in the twentieth century, the United States found itself saddled with a trade deficit.

At that time, we were a signatory to the Bretton Woods Agreements which obligated us to keep our currency pegged to gold, i.e., every dollar represented real value. The problem was that we’d printed so much money just to keep up with the cost of losing the war in Vietnam that we only had enough gold to cover twenty percent our the currency in issue.

The solution to that problem was simplicity itself. Nixon simply unpegged the dollar from the value of gold. The liberated paper now represented whatever we could scam the world into thinking it was worth.

Without the albatross of gold handing around its neck, both the dollar and the Dow Jones soared while assets bubbled.

One plus side of a worthless currency is that it is much easier to go into debt. And go into debt we did. Between 1987 and 2005, public and private debt went from $10 trillion to $43 trillion.

Of course there’s the danger that some damn fool will look at the Dow and realize that it’s being denominated in worthless dollars. Once upon a time, the Dow was sitting at 12,200. However, had it been denominated in Euros, it would have dropped to 7300. This simply wouldn’t do.

These days, Obama, Geithner and Bernanke are like tap dancers frantically tapping away in a burning theater, smiles frozen on their faces as they try to convince the audience that the smoke is really fresh air.

To them, reality is whatever they want it to be.

This allows our oligarchs to game the system, which they tout as the actions of a free market. The freedom so cherished by free market ideologues is the freedom to manipulate the free market so it favors their interests.

They find the roller coaster ride that is our economy stimulating. The slow climb up followed by the stomach-churning plunge downward invigorates them. And they expect us to enjoy the ride as much as they do. What they forget is that while they are safely strapped in their seats, we’re clinging to the outside of the car, and a lot of us fall off as the car speeds down towards the bottom.

Oligarchs never do.

The Wages of Prosperity

Those who care wonder how the United States ended up as a militarized security state. Logic dictates that as soon as the Soviet Union fell, the rationale for our bloated defense establishment was no more and we should have seen a massive demobilization, especially in the wake of the Vietnam debacle. But instead, our military has spread like a cancerous growth across the face of the earth.

This growth has not caused much of a ripple because the Pentagon has, in effect, gone underground with its all-volunteer army and private contractors. Without mandatory military service funneling young men into the military, the military does not cause as much of a stir on Main Street as it once did, nor do unpopular and unnecessary wars generate the same level of passion and protest as Vietnam.

Many reasons have be put forth to explain this, and all of them contain an element of truth. However, there is one factor that has been overlooked.

A bloated military establishment is a product of prosperity. As long as I have a good paying job and the benefits I feel entitled to are not touched I will tolerate such an establishment, especially since our colonial wars carry all the impact of a video game.

But, what will happen with the money begins to dry up, when states face bankruptcy and services are cut?

What happens when jobs and homes are lost?

What happens when our military-industrial complex is finally recognized for what it is: an expensive bauble we can no longer afford?

What happens when the public finally realizes that the Pentagon is little more than the world’s largest pork barrel?

Is it possible that the public will finally ask why in the hell we are spending $57,000 a minute on Afghanistan when schools are being shuttered and the ranks of the unemployed swell?

Of course, it’s a sad commentary on our society that when the public finally turns against the military it will be for economic reasons. It never occurs to anyone that the bombing of women and children just to keep our military-industrial complex solvent is morally abhorrent.

But then, if you give a boy a toy he just has to play with it.