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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TINA

Posted on December 4, 2011 by camelotkidd

The phrase “there is no alternative,’ proclaimed by Margaret Thatcher about the superiority of neo-liberal capitalism, always pissed me off. I wasn’t very old or sophisticated but I knew it was bullshit. I mean fuck! there are lots of alternatives. We’re talking about economics, which is all about people, who have been known to do things differently.

And I still call bullshit. Heres the deal, the neo-liberals have had thirty years now and how has that worked out? The recent protests against wall street have demonstrated more than anything the great anger at our present system and a hunger for alternatives.

And no, I’m not going to describe their economic system as free market capitalism. There is nothing free about it. It is as controlled just as much, only rather than the gains being widely shared, they are directed to the elite. In their view the system has worked perfectly. Now they just want to hold on to their gains.

Going forward, the most valuable contribution OWS can offer is an alternative. Hell! maybe three or four.

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threat of a good example

Posted on December 2, 2011 by camelotkidd

Occupy Wall Street–OWS, with its anti-hierarchical structure, communal facilities and socialist ethos is deeply threatening to American elites. It is, to recall a forgotten phrase, the threat of a good example.

During the Cold War the Soviet Union and China were totalitarian monstrosities that skillful US propaganda made into the public face of socialism. However, American planners worried that third world countries such as Cuba, Iran, Guatemala, and Chile were as much of a threat as the communist bloc. Whether permitting socialist parties, nationalizing natural resources, or providing free land to the peasants, these governments offered a middle ground between east and west–a good example.

These countries were attacked covertly by the US using black propaganda, economic sabotage, assassinations and death squads. With the exception of Cuba their governments were violently overthrown and replaced with pliant right-wing juntas.

The threat going forward for OWS is that American planners might see them as a domestic “good example” and embrace tactics used during the Cold War. We’ve already seen  the propaganda and excessive police force used. Can economic sabotage, assassinations and death squads be far behind?

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leakage

Posted on December 1, 2011 by camelotkidd

Leakage:

Since WWII the US has effectively functioned as an empire. The Cold War gave our worldwide system of military bases and authoritarian proxies a veneer of respectability, especially coupled with our oft described mission of spreading freedom and democracy. The disappearance of the Soviet Union has changed  the pretense even as our empire expanded. The War on Terror was a godsend to the mainstreaming of empire, with neoconservatives comfortable enough to gloat following the invasion of Iraq.

The problem is what happens on the periphery of an empire always leaks into the core. Running an empire is messy business involving all kinds of dark dealings and evil decisions. Progressives who supported Obama so strongly don’t want to admit this: the President is the manager of our empire with all the duties that entails.

The leakage is starting to become more and more obvious. Its no accident that as our empire struggles to maintain control, the same terrible policies deployed on the periphery, from structural adjustments, to torture, to counterinsurgency are increasingly deployed against American citizens.

It’s therefore useful to understand some of the truths evident to the managers of empire, free from the ubiquitous PR–beacon of freedom, spreader of democracy, nation standing taller, yadda, yadda, that’s been drilled into our heads. George Kennan, a Cold War intellectual bluntly summarized some of these in a policy planning study in 1948.

“We have 50% of the worlds wealth but only 6.3% of its population…Our real task in the coming period is devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain the position of disparity…We should cease talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.”

Kennan was talking about Asia, but these concepts are increasingly being applied in advanced western countries by their elites against their own citizens. I think a big part of OWS is that Americans are discovering that how we’ve been treating brown people over there is how they will be treated. The phrase “chickens coming home to roost” hold more than a little irony.

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