When Has Howard Dean Been Wrong?

(I'm not sayin' just askin')

"The great western conflation of democracy with capitalism..."

Paul Street is Rustbelt Radical's "Truth Teller of the Year." This is from a piece Street wrote in 2000. I posted something from a recent Street piece on democracy and capitalism earlier in December.

The great western conflation of democracy with capitalism originated with the crisis of European feudalism and the great European and North American bourgeois revolutions of the 17th to l9th centuries. It reached its officially disseminated pinnacle with the Cold War, when U.S. propaganda proclaimed an all-or-nothing global division and struggle between "free world" capitalism headquartered in Washington, DC and expansionist "communist" totalitarianism headquartered in Moscow. This Cold War doctrine provided ideological cover for U. S. sponsorship of numerous pro-capitalist / pro-globalization dictatorships throughout the world. It also disguised the real nature of leading First World states. Beneath outwardly democratic political processes and generally strong civil liberties, those states were fundamentally subject to the command of centralized, hierarchical corporate power and great monied wealth-a condition that persists well into the "post-Cold War era."

This persistence is particularly clear within the supposed national homeland (now as during the Cold War era) of "democratic values." In telling the Chicago Economic Club why "the international community" (the world's leading industrial states, that is) should not shy away from "intervening" in the internal affairs of (as in bombing) "rogue" states like Iraq and Serbia last April, British Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that "when regimes are based on minority rule, they lose their legitimacy." Yet, while Blair would never dream of describing his senior partner the United States as a "minority"-ruled "regime," American reformers express widespread popular sentiment when they describe U.S. elections as de facto "wealth primaries." American candidates without vast financial resources or access to such resources can generally forget about being taken seriously in money- and media-driven campaigns. As most Americans see it, the democratic ideal of "one person, one vote," is negated by the harsh realities of "dollar democracy" and the "golden rule" ("those who have the gold rule"). The candidate-selection and policymaking processes belong primarily to the top 10 percent of Americans that own 73.2 percent of American wealth.

Street's books are available from Paradigm Publishers. His articles can be read on ZNet.

"Patriotism is slavery"

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Leo Tolstoy (1894):

Patriotism today is the cruel tradition of an outlived period, which exists not merely by its inertia, but because the governments and ruling classes, aware that not their power only, but their very existence, depends upon it, persistently excite and maintain it among the people, both by cunning and violence.

[...]

The government assures the people that they are in danger from the invasion of another nation, or from foes in their midst, and that the only way to escape this danger is by the slavish obedience of the people to their government. This fact is seen most prominently during revolutions and dictatorships, but it exists always and everywhere that the power of the government exists. Every government explains its existence, and justifies its deeds of violence, by the argument that if it did not exist the condition of things would be very much worse. After assuring the people of its danger the government subordinates it to control, and when in this condition compels it to attack some other nation. And thus the assurance of the government is corroborated in the eyes of the people, as to the danger of attack from other nations. "Divide et impera."

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, and conscience, and a slavish enthralment to those in power. And as such it is recommended wherever it is preached.

Patriotism is slavery.

[...]

If people would only speak what they think, and not what they do not think, all the superstitions emanating from patriotism would at once drop away with the cruel feelings and violence founded upon it. The hatred and animosity between nations and peoples, fanned by their governments, would cease; the extolling of military heroism, that is of murder, would be at an end; and, what is of most importance, respect for authorities, abandonment to them of the fruits of one's labour, and subordination to them, would cease, since there is no other reason for them but patriotism. And if merely this were to take place, that vast mass of feeble people who are controlled by externals - would sway at once to the side of the new public opinion, which should reign henceforth in place of the old.

The Rich Are Destroying the Earth

One thing's for sure, after the rich get done with the planet, there shall be nothing left for the poor to inherit.

You can read an excerpt here.


Greg Palast:

Kempf gets it: The rising sea level is a direct consequence of rising inequality. Yet the knights of the new world order, like George Bush, Al Gore, or the CEO of a multi-national that is telling you to reduce your carbon footprint from their private jet, want you to believe the solution lies with turning our fate over to enlightened business chieftains. It was, let’s remember, that supreme hot-air salesman, Mr. Gore, who sold us the fable of “free trade,” forcing the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) down our throats. Thanks to Al’s NAFTA, we’re all sucking diesel soot from tractor trailers hauling cheap goods to Wal-Mart, where now laid-off workers from shut-down US factories shop for bargains. It was Gore who ran a crusade against environmental and safety regulations in the Clinton Administration, all in the name of “efficient” (translation: corporate-friendly) government. Dubya Bush only took Al’s get-out-of-the-way-of-markets philosophy to its nasty conclusion.

When the anti-regulation, free-market psychosis leads to illness in our environment, the two connected forces—grotesque market profiteering and planetary corrosion—are made to seem innocuously distinct. Kempf shows us that they are just two arms of the same beast. He suggests we wise up, and quick. The ultimate obstacle to Earth’s salvation is our own naiveté.

"The 2000s could be termed a lost decade for the U.S. economy."

Mark Whitehouse:

The 2000s could be termed a lost decade for the U.S. economy.

The average American's annual income stood at $39,446 as of October 2009, up only 5.3% in inflation-adjusted terms from the end of the 1990s.

That's the slowest growth registered in at least six decades. The average person's net worth fell 13% through September 2009 as stock and home prices plunged. The S&P 500 delivered an inflation-adjusted total return of negative 30% through November 2009.

Meanwhile, income inequality grew. Although it's still too early to gauge the full effect of the most recent financial crisis, as of 2007, the highest-earning 0.1% of the population accounted for 8.2% of all pre-tax income, according to economists Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley. That was up from 6.6% in 1999, and the highest level since 1917.

Land of the free to exploit, home of the greedy rich.

"We're trashing the planet, we're trashing each other, and we're not even havng fun" - Annie Leonard on cap and trade.

She's back with another hard-hitting video.

"If we could just ... clean them up ... we'd have good capitalism again."

Professor Sandra Rein channels Rosa Luxemburg.


I'm not sure we can clean them up but, while we're waiting for the revolution, we can exercise our power as consumers to force companies to behave in the ways we want them to behave.

Marx says you have labor power. You also have wage power, the ability to spend (or withhold) your earnings in the marketplace as you see fit. Your purchasing power isn't only about how much you can spend, it is also the inextinguishable ability to spend money in meaningful, society-altering ways. Indeed, businesses love to say that you, the consumer, are king and that the products and services in the marketplace reflect your consumer choices. They do!

Doesn't that make you feel powerful? What are you going to do with all that power?

Josh Catone has compiled a list of sites to visit to learn more about the companies and products we allow into our lives. Use it! (I advise using the Good Guide with extreme caution - they give high rankings to far too many products from giant corporations and don't do enough to distinguish those products from the ones that come from more socially-responsible companies. Organic and non-organic foods can achieve the same score! That's reprehensible.). Use the excellent data supplied by the Environmental Working Group to make more informed decisions about the products you buy.

"Ethical Consumerism is an important movement toward corporate reform, through which individuals recognize their own role in systems of oppression, and take personal steps toward resistance and positive change."
- Knowmore.org

Instant Empowerment

Hey! You are not a helpless cog in the corporate machine! Every dime you spend speaks volumes. Volumes! After your blog is dismissed, your liberal opinion deemed whiny, your harassing petitions and emails relegated to some governmental spam quarantine, your pocketbook will continue to speak. Every day. Loud and clear!

Use that power to bring about a better planet.

Seeing Red Radio on Climate Change

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Are you listening to Seeing Red Radio? The latest edition features Alison Smith (SWP) on Copenhagen and, as always, great musical interludes.

Rustbelt Radical points to some socialist coverage of Copenhagen.

Will nature survive human nature? Can we avert the climate crisis? Do we avert wars? Genocide? Mass starvation? The past is prologue. What makes anyone think we can collectively transcend our deeply selfish impulses to heal the natural balances we have thrown out of whack? In a world where capitalism is triumphant, billions subscribe to countless religious panaceas, and world population approaches 7 billion, effective action on climate change seems a bridge too far.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.

Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

- Psalm 107 (a.k.a. Wishful Thinking)

"We must find a way to create a viable radical alternative in order to move to a more just and rational system on a permanent basis."

Louis Proyect:

As a rule of thumb, consciousness tends to lag behind historical events. Most people, including those on the left, are reacting to today's crisis through the lenses of the 1980s when American capitalism still had a lot more leeway. In the past 20 years or so, the structural contradictions of the system have grown more pronounced while its ability to bottle up discontent through concessions has decreased. This is a function of the system's inability to provide well-paying jobs in a manufacturing-based economy, the hallmark of FDR's New Deal.

Eventually we will see explosive reactions to the inexorable rise of class divisions such as the kind seen in student protests in California against tuition hikes. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, and other "entitlements" will create the kind of antagonisms that made the New Deal or more radical alternatives inevitable. This time we must find a way to create a viable radical alternative in order to move to a more just and rational system on a permanent basis. There is no karma that condemns us to repeat the past, thank goodness.

Abolish the Senate

"...the Senate is not designed to tinker with the status quo, even when voters have decided that tinkering is in order."

Let's abolish the U.S. Senate

Waldo Proffitt

I would like to see us have a national debate on the following proposition:

Resolved that the U.S. Senate is not serving the people well and should be abolished.

I will take the affirmative, making the following case:

The Senate is the result of a compromise in drawing up the Constitution, between the larger states which wanted a legislative body based on population and the smaller states which wanted a legislative body with an equal number of members from each state. So we got both, and on balance, it was worth creating a Senate to gain a Constitution.

But, it has become a very serious threat to our ability to meet the constitutional mandate to "establish justice, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

An example of this threat, currently in the news, is the success of Sen. Joseph Lieberman in preventing a Senate vote on any bill which does not meet the requirements of the private health insurance industry. He is able to do so because Senate rules require 60 votes to curb a filibuster and limit debate.

There is nothing in the Constitution about the 60-vote rule. It's just that -- a rule, which could be changed any day by two-thirds of the members present and voting, but a rule which serves the purposes of enough senators it is not likely to be voted out any time soon.

Designed to resist change

The Senate has 100 members. It's a small club with many perks and rewards. Members, in their own interest, are sensitive about offending other members.

And, the Senate is not designed to tinker with the status quo, even when voters have decided that tinkering is in order. Senators serve six-year terms. One-third of the Senate is elected at each general election, which means that two-thirds of the Senate stays in office after every election.

In 2008, Americans elected a Democratic president and a House with a sizable Democratic majority, and, surprisingly, against the predictions of nearly all the experts, unseated enough Republicans to give Democrats a substantial majority in the Senate, but not enough to avoid the 60-vote rule.

The platforms of the major parties were quite clear about their position on health insurance change, as were the campaign statements of most candidates, so there is no doubt what the voters wanted, and they got it from the president and the House, but not the Senate.

Now, it can be argued that Senate opponents of health insurance reform are voting for what they believe to be in the best interest of the nation, and that is surely true for some of them. But it is surely not true for others. They are voting for what is in the best interest of their major donors.

And this is only one of many examples which could be cited.

Another timely one is restoring financial regulations necessary to prevent another and worse crash than the one from which we may be recovering. The president is in favor. The House has passed a pretty decent bill. The Senate has done nothing. Wall Street speculators are still free to gamble with our money.

A history of obstructionism

And you can go back further. After World War I, the Senate kept the United States from joining the League of Nations, which might -- and I stress might -- have been able to find a way to stop Hitler from conquering most of Europe and precipitating World War II.

[...]

I understand that abolition of the Senate is not likely to happen because it could be done only by amending the Constitution, which would require approval of 38 states.

But, it's worth discussing because, if enough voters get riled up, they might persuade senators to make some very useful changes in the rules and bring the Senate into the 21st century.

Health care got you down? Cheer up with Suzanne Somers!

"We were making wild and crazy love before the ice had settled in our drinks.
It was only two weeks, but we loved.
God how we loved.
Until you had to go back home to your children.
And though it's hard to remember your name, and even your face, I remember it was really beautiful each time."
-Suzanne Somers

Having, for a little while, the hope of a public option and a medicare extension was really beautiful, wasn't it? God how we hoped it would come true. But we all have to go back to reality eventually and forget the fantasies we impose on the Congress of the United States, a Congress which could no more pass a public option than it could stop wearing flag lapel pins and funding endless war.

After this week's death-of-health-care-reform news, I'm blogging to you from somewhere between depression and acceptance (thank you, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross).

• Denial (this isn't happening!)
  
• Anger (why is this happening?)
  
• Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if you bring the public option back!)
  
• Depression (I don't care anymore about your stinking bill.)
  
• Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever shit you send our way next.)