Hoax

Posted on January 24, 2012 by camelotkidd

“They’re here.” Just like the evil spirits in the movie Poltergeist, our very own group of malevolent legislators is back to shock, terrorize and dismay with their antics up the hill at the State House.

Utah State Legislators are back for another session, and they have to be some of the dumbest, most ideological bunch of yahoos out there. Now, it’s true that there are lots of other dumb-ass yahoo state legislators in the US, but the Utah bunch brings their very own brand of right wing, tea party, religious, gun crazy kind of yahooism.

Case in point. During last years session, the Republican dominated Utah State Legislature passed a bill proclaiming global warming a hoax.

Not to be upstaged, Mother Nature this winter decided to to send Utah a little message of her own. Salt Lake City, dependent on snowpack for water, had the driest December on record.

Maybe reality really does have a “liberal bias.”

Still, there is definitely a method to their madness. Climate change threatens the world view of the right wing ideologues who run the Utah Legislature. Essentially, they see the idea of global warming as a communist plot to redistribute wealth, and limit the dirty fossil-fuel energy corporations that are their biggest supporters.

They are correct to view climate change as an epochal threat to modern neoliberal capitalism. To deal with the challenge of climate change we will have to curtail globalized free trade and live in a much more local manner. We will have to redistribute wealth from polluting countries to those affected. And we will have to radically curtail corporate power. All these things are anethema to Utah conservatives.

Even more threatening is the thought that governments would have to lead any response to climate change, taking power from the private sector and evoking the threat of communism that keeps Utah State legislators up at night. The reason that the threat of communism evokes such fear and loathing in Utah is related to the fact that he Utah State Legislature is made up primarily of  Mormons, or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Mormons have been fervent anti-communists since early cold-war days, with key leaders in the church leadership belonging to the John Birch Society. Even before, there was a deep antipathy towards labor movements in Utah. Who, the fuck, do you think killed Joe Hill?

Certainly, anti-communism is not unique to Utah. Anti-communism is a salient, unmentioned factor in local and national politics. Yet, Utah has a special blend of anti-communism that will be a topic for future posts.

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Looting

Posted on January 18, 2012 by camelotkidd

Now that the Republican candidates for president have accused front runner Mitt Romney of practicing “vulture capitalism,” I thought I would share a story.

I had a conversation with a client a couple years ago about what he did for a living. (Being a ski instructor means being around the 1 percent on a daily basis.) It turned out that he was an attorney in California who had worked with Mitt Romney. At that point I should have bit my tongue and shut the fuck up. But being stupid, I proceeded to tell him what I thought Mittens had been up to with his stint at Bain Capital–looting. As you might imagine, this did not go over well and we spent the rest of the lift ride in awkward silence.

Today the inter-tubes has a story by  historian Rick Perlstein explaining why Mittens grew up the way he did by comparing him to his father, George Romney, who also ran for president in 1968. The contrast between the father and son and the values they espouse epitomizes how our country has changed for the worse in my lifetime. From a place where we made things and gave Americans of average means an opportunity, to a neo-feudal looters paradise.

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Why Liberalism Sucks Part-2 The “Veal Pen”

Posted on January 14, 2012 by camelotkidd

Jane Hamsher, editor of FireDogLake, has coined the term “Veal Pen” to describe the process by which the Democratic Party disciplines liberals. “The White House controls its left flank and maintains discipline,” so that they can carry out a “neoliberal agenda”

Why would a Democratic Administration, that came into office promising “Hope and Change,” throw liberal supporters under the bus, and not value their help in implementing more liberal policies?

I have a provocative idea–use the propaganda model laid out in Manufacturing Consent, the groundbreaking book, written by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, to illustrate how the Democratic Party limits liberal policies.

The propaganda model, as propagated by Chomsky and Herman, lays out a structural critique of the inherent bias contained within the media. They describe the propaganda model as a way to focus on the “inequality of wealth and power and its effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their message across to the public.”

The five components of their propaganda model, or filters, fall under the following headings: 1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass media firms. 2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media. 3) the reliance of the media on information provided by the government, business, and “experts” funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power. 4) flak as a means of disciplining the media. 5) anti-communism as a national religion and control mechanism.”

This propaganda model has proven to be a powerful method of media analysis, but how does it apply to the Democratic Party and its influence on liberal or left policies in general?

Let’s substitute the Democratic Party for media, plug it into the propaganda model, and see what we discover.

The first filter is ownership. I wrestled with this one. I mean, who the fuck owns the Democratic Party? But then it hit me. It’s not the ownership per say. Similar to the way that the concentration in ownership of the media eliminates competition, the ownership by the Democrats of the so called “liberal” party in America blocks any other parties from forming that would truly represent the left in America.

The second filter is advertising. The media is largely funded by corporate advertising which imposes a severe limit on their reporting. For the Democratic Party the dominant funders of the party represent the advertisers, and under the Obama Administration that equals Wall Street. The need to raise a lot of money to be elected, ensures that there is a narrow range of policies that are acceptable. Wealthy donors fund Democratic candidates for office and if they are not happy with policies they can cut off funding and or fund other more conservative challengers. Why do you think the Blue Dogs exist?

The third filter is sourcing, or the sources of information that are perceived to be legitimate that the media can safely use within the time constraints imposed by commercials. Can you say–conventional wisdom? This idea of sourcing relates to which voices are given credence and which voices are muzzled. Within the Democratic Party the sources that are dominant are the neoliberal think tanks, such as the the Hamilton Group, the Third Way and the Brookings Institute, etc, that consistently advocate policies that benefit the wealthy and corporations. As for the voices that are muzzled, I’ll let Hamsher take that one “the Obama Administration is corralling big liberal DC interest groups,” making sure that they don’t advocate any policies that challenge their ability to protect Wall Street. “If you criticize the White House on financial issues your funding would dry up.”

The forth filter is “flak,” or what happens to you when you do advocate liberal domestic policies, or alternatives to empire and endless war. Like the media, the Democratic Party is susceptable to pressure from corporate donors, the Pentagon and other powerful government figures, in the form of media statements, e-mails, phone calls, and other modes of complaint or threat. The Obama Administration has shown its clear hostility to liberal policies, with advocacy groups that crossed him confined to the”Veal Pen.” Within the blogosphere there exists Pro-Democratic Party agents like Daily Kos, Booman, Balloon Juice and Move-On that use “flak” to deter any progressives straying from the party line. With Obama’s presidential campaign gearing up we are seeing more and more of this pressure to fall in line and support the President.

The final filter is that of anti-communism. Even though the Soviet Union went out of business and communism has ceased to be a world wide force does not mean that its utility as a tool to demonize has lessoned. As Chomsky and Herman note, “Communism as the ultimate evil has always been the specter haunting property owners, as it threatens the very root of their class position and superior status. This ideology helps mobilize the populace against an enemy, and because the concept is fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten property interests.” Just like the media, the Democratic Party is under great pressure to demonstrate their antipathy to anything that smacks of communism, and this causes them to behave very much like Republicans with their foreign and domestic policies. The fuzziness Chomsky and Herman describe, helps explain the demonization of Occupy Wall Street as some sort of communist threat to the elite.

The practical effect of these five filters are the policies of the Democratic Party. If you’ve been paying attention the last three years you might recognize them. From not prosecuting criminal acts committed by the Bush Administration to healthcare reform, to HAMP, to their policy of coddling bankers, to the surge in Afghanistan, to the torture of prisoners in offshore gulags, to the signing of the National Defense Appropriation Act, to assassination of Americans, to drone strikes, the list goes on. I reserve special condemnation for President Obama using his bully pulpit to spout untrue, right wing bullshit to a nation generally made up of dullards.

This behavior by the present Obama Administration tracks historically. Since President Woodrow Wilson and the Red Scare, the Democratic Party has sought to be a bulwark against radicalism, socialism, and communism, essentially saying politically: this far and no further to the left. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the Democrats have moved ever more to the right, as if to prove Margaret Thatcher correct–“there is no alternative”–to neoliberal capitalism.

Yet the Democratic Party still maintains the fiction that they are the left in America. The Republicans play along with this kabuki by demonizing non-existent liberals and portraying the President as a wild eyed socialist.

And, no, I’m not advocating for Republicans, or Libertarians, or Ron Paul. But if you’re advocating for progressive policies you better damn well understand the present political reality.

I know, this is pretty far out stuff. The three people that read my blog probably think I’ve got the tin foil hat on just a little too tight.

But being provocative and challenging conventional wisdom is the whole point of this blog. Right?

Stay tuned in for future episodes when we discuss how little Timmy Geithner is really an alien rather than just a sycophantic suck up.

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Springtime

Posted on January 11, 2012 by camelotkidd

The spousal unit and I watched the Producers last night. It was very funny, but wanted to update their catchy little musical number to comport to our modern milieu.

Springtime for Merkel and Germany.

Austerity for Greece and France.

Sing it with me.

I mean, who needs the Luftwaffe when you have the ECB.

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How Liberalism Came to Suck

Posted on January 7, 2012 by camelotkidd

I set out to write a very short post on the fascinating conversations going through the inter-tubes about the support on the left for Ron Paul.

While this support may be due to his opposition to endless war, torture, assassination of American citizens, and bank bailouts, etc., it has become increasingly clear that the fracas is not really about Ron Paul at all, but about liberalism, and why it came to suck.

Of course, this being no easy matter to unpack–goodbye short post, and hello long linky one.

Matt Stoller got it all going with his argument that support for Ron Paul exposes deep contradictions in American liberalism. According to Matt, liberals have an affinity for centralized war financing, and links the Democratic Party with support for war, empire, and banking.

Of course, this didn’t go over well at the more mainstream Democratic outfits, and so we got David at Digby’s Hullabaloo, calling bullshit.

Noted political scientist, Corey Robin, says the debate over Paul reveals what’s not being said on the left in its discussion of these grave political issues.

Glen Greenwald, the Constitutional lawyer and noted Bush critic argues that while it’s true that no politician on the left is making these critiques, more importantly, that these policies opposed by Paul are the priorities of the Democratic standard bearer–President Obama.

All this raises a larger issue, one that I have been wrestling with since I became politically aware. What the hell happened to American liberalism and how did we get such a shitty Democratic Party?

Historically one can argue that American liberalism foundered because the New Deal coalition was made up, as it were, of disparate partners with different goals and expectations, and was always destined to fail. Perhaps the crack up of the New Deal coalition was caused by LBJ extending civil rights to African-Americans, as Rick Pearlstein posits in his wonderful Nixonland. Perhaps it was the failures of Keynesian economics, revealed by 70’s stagflation. Or perhaps it was the demise of communism and the threat of an alternative to capitalism.

I favor a more trenchant analysis: That the liberalism FDR enacted was a trade off between “taming capitalism and taming the radical attacks on capitalism.” Rather than a “disguised socialist attack on the free market,” as his detractors allege, President Roosevelt saved capitalism with his reforms after it almost destroyed itself. Also, with the Great Depression raging, he was prodded into these incremental reforms by the threat of worker revolt, communism, and policies occurring at the state level–see Huey Long. Similar to the vitriol President Obama received from the bankers after bailing out the “to big to fail banks,” FDR was loathed by those he saved. His enemies even tried to stage a coup and depose him.

Here we are now, with American liberalism represented by the Democratic Party and President Obama. His critics like to label him a Muslim, Socialist, or Kenyan Communist, but me, I’m not so sure.

Like “Glennzilla,” I can see that Ron Paul’s stances on foreign policy, war, drugs, and the Federal Reserve have forced liberals to confront some uncomfortable truths. And while there is no one on the left raising these issues, more ominously, on numerous vital issues President Obama is just as bad or worse than the Republicans.

Look, Republicans are dicks, I get it. They have fully embraced endless war, torture, tax breaks for the wealthy and corporation with savage austerity for everyone else.

There is a push now in American politics for a third party. I would be happy to have a real second party. What we need is an alternative that better represents the rest of the American people, not a Democratic Party whose mantra seems to be “Vote for us because were slightly less dick-like!” Especially repellent is their claim that they don’t want to do these same evil things as conservatives but they have no choice.

These are amazingly complicated topics that I will revisit. Definitely follow the links.

And while I don’t support Ron Paul, I’m glad he is raising these issues, and I hope this causes more debate among the left on how to go forward in these perilous times.

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You’ve Come a Long Way Baby

Posted on January 3, 2012 by camelotkidd

Why is it that majorities of Americans distrust the political establishment, the corporations, and even the media? Could it be that they don’t trust any of these actors to tell them the truth?

Well, they are right to be suspicious. Since the early 20th century US policy makers and corporations have consciously used propaganda, public relations and advertising to sell products and manipulate public opinion.

The Committee on Public Information, more commonly known as the Creel Commission after its director George Creel, was established by the Wilson administration to mobilize public support for World War I. The result was jingoistic Americans and some very valuable lessons for the ruling class. Specifically: how much more effective persuasion was than force in gaining the consent of the public.

One of the prominent members of the Committee on Public Information was Edward Bernays, nephew of pyschiatrist Sigmund Freud. In 1928, drawing on his Creel Commission experience, Bernays wrote a book entitled Propaganda, that called for the “conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses.” He said that for the right kind of democracy to succeed it is the “intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically.”

On the commercial front, Edward Bernays would go on to create numerous advertising campaigns, including an effort to get more woman to smoke cigarettes. In 1929 he had fashionably dressed young women, posing as suffragettes, march in the Easter Parade in New York City, holding cigarettes aloft as “torches of freedom.”

Since then, advertising, public relations and propaganda have been employed to sell lots and lots of cigarettes. American advertising has consistently used the idea of freedom as a way to hawk its products. In 1968, the Phillip Morris tobacco company introduced Virginia Slims, a new line of cigarettes targeted at young professional woman. Their ad campaign was: “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby,” that equated smoking with freedom, liberation and empowerment. This ad campaign was so successful that it resulted in a rapid increase in smoking among young woman.

But these methods of persuasion have also been employed to sell ideas. There has been an ongoing campaign to relentlessly sell the idea of “free enterprise,” or capital accumulation by the wealthy and corporations, as the American way. The accompanying argument is that any interference with this domination of America by business interests is socialism or worse. This theme is so ubiquitous that it’s treated largely as established fact.

But here’s the thing–being a consumer is different that being a citizen. “Free enterprise” doesn’t really confer any sort of freedom or democracy to the average American, mostly it has been a trend towards plutocracy. And smoking Virginia Slims cigarettes doesn’t confer freedom and liberation to young woman, only cancer.

It’s all marketing. We sell politics and ideology just like any other product: relentlessly.

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Skin in the Game

Posted on December 26, 2011 by camelotkidd

What he said.

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Luggage

Posted on December 23, 2011 by camelotkidd

One of the challenging things about blogging is that it entails endless unpacking of conventional wisdom (CW).

What do I mean?

Unpacking is a term that means breaking down and explaining complicated issues, especially issues that go against the accepted CW. A great example right now in our Media Industrial Complex (MIC), is the idea that the “swelling debt” will kill us in our beds if we don’t impose immediate austerity on everyone but bankers. So to counter this CW one has to spend an inordinate amount of time unpacking a counter narrative, and explaining why the CW is full of shit.

Not that I’m complaining. This unpacking is what makes for good writing, and is the core function of political bloggers on the internet.

So stay tuned. There’s lots of luggage out there.

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History Lessons

Posted on December 23, 2011 by camelotkidd

America’s very own historian is at it again. Over the weekend Newt Gingrich vowed that as a future president he would overrule “activist judges” who rule contrary to American cultural heritage. He warned of an uprising against the courts unless they start issuing rulings that he agrees with, and said, he “understood these issues better than lawyers because he’s a historian.”  Newt was talking about a “liberal judge” ruling against prayer in schools or something but his comments raised an interesting question.

Who has used “judicial activism” most effectively in America lately?

The answer, of course, is the opposite of Newt’s declaration.

Now sure, there’s enough truth  in the idea of liberal activist judges and their rulings but these typically are social and cultural issues rather then corporate ones. And with a lazy press, this insidious narrative: that the only “activist judges” are liberal ones giving welfare to blacks, or outlawing religion, or killing babies, becomes conventional wisdom (CW).

Conservatives deploy a different kind of activism, one that benefits corporations, the recent Citizens United case being the latest and most egregious example.

But they are also great at projection. They take whatever it is they are doing, and project it onto liberals.

So this sort of corporate activism on the right passes unnoticed. But it’s been a regular staple since the Powell Memo. 

Don’t know what that is? You’re not alone.

Written in 1971 by corporate attorney, soon to be Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell, this secret document was presented to the US Chamber of Commerce, and became a blueprint for the corporate state we have today. Powell saw great danger in the progressive message of the 60’s and warned that, corporations must organize together and “fund a drive to achieve political power through united action.” As an attorney, he stressed the courts as the key battleground. “The judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.”

Since this memo was written, corporations and their political allies have taken his message to heart. They have quietly funded conservative legal foundations, with the Federalist Society being the most well known, to propagate their corporate legal philosophy: that corporations are people with all the rights inherent.

The Robert’s Court agrees. The Citizen United v FEC case was nothing if not breathtakingly radical with its disregard for precedent and its departure from narrow rulings comporting with established cases, to take a narrow campaign finance issue and decide a much larger one, allowing unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns.

I’m pretty sure that qualifies as judicial activism.

But what do I know. I’m not a historian.

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It’s the Political Economy Stupid

Posted on December 16, 2011 by camelotkidd

Wall Street bankers crashed our economy three years ago, and their “too big to fail banks” received trillions, courtesy of the Federal Reserve. Now they and their political allies are clamoring to cut social programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, extending austerity to millions of unemployed Americans. What the fuck is going on?

In 1992 Bill Clinton’s campaign staff believed that economic issues were the key to winning the Presidency. Their motto was “It’s the Economy Stupid.” It was insightful as a campaign issue during the ongoing recession and helped Clinton prevail.

In our present situation the economy is important, but it does not explain how the US came to have such a radical disparity of wealth, and a policy of bankers uber-alles.

If you listen to conventional wisdom, the wealth disparity in this country is caused by inequities in education and changes in technology. According to this view, the free market system rewards those who do well and punishes those who don’t. But look at any so called economic decision and you will see all kinds of political calculations.

Political economy, almost unheard of anymore, originated in the study of moral philosophy in the 18th century. Unlike economics with its study of mathematic models, and political science with its emphasis on polling and elections, political economy examines how various individuals and groups stand to benefit from the laws and regulations that are made and implemented. Economic and political power has been gained by the class whose interests are most consistently served by the exercise of state power. To use a latin phrase–cui bono?

As Atrios says, “It’s not loopy leftist conspiracy theory to see that there are entrenched economic interests wedded to the government money fire hose.”

Political economy has been largely discredited as Marxist because it dared to look at “unearned income” that was gained by the wealthy elite class through land “rents,” trusts, and monopolies. Todays mainstream economists reject this classical political economic theory of unearned income or “rent,” and claim that everyone earns and hence deserves whatever income and wealth they obtain regardless of how they got it. All rentier income appears to be payment for providing a valuable service to the economy. Another important tenet of political economy is that government should act to minimize these “rents” by taxing them in order to make an economy more efficient. “Classical political economy sought to create an economy free of “unearned income” and free of vested interests using special privileges for “rent extraction.” 

The 30 year coordinated attack on government has turned this concept on its head. The railroad system, the interstate highway and the internet were all government programs that spurred innovation and entrepreneurship, and led to millions of middle class jobs. Now governments must cut taxes on the wealthy and property and sell off infrastructure to private entities. This has indirectly spurred deindustrialization by placing tollbooths on the economies key infrastructures, making it that much more expensive to do business in the US. These rent and tax policies are then taken for granted as exogenous, being political or institutional, and as such excluded from the sphere of  economics. “We are dealing with a purposeful narrow mindedness in regard to how their policies favor the rich.”

Once you understand the concept of political economy, you see rent extraction everywhere. From oligopolistic telecoms providing 2nd world internet speeds, to banks with fees for every service, to health insurance found to be worthless after paying premiums for years. And the financial industry’s business model is basically to extract wealth from investors with a myriad of opaque products.

Our economy has evolved from one that made stuff and provided valuable services to one that basically rips you off if you don’t pay attention. And guess what? It’s not a bug, but a feature.

And the reason it’s a feature–the political economy stupid.

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