THE POWER OF LIES WEALTH AND FEAR TO SHUT DOWN THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN HISTORY

For those of us who are mystified by the behavior of the Republicans in Congress two recent articles have been useful.  They reveal that a cabal set this confusing project – to overturn The Affordable Care Act, which they have derisively called Obamacare – in the face of all odds, as if they could force the Senate to support their proposals and the President to sign them into law.  From here it seems like a fools errand, tilting at windmills.  But the NYT article about the secret meetings immediately after the last presidential election seeking a strategy to at all costs derail the Affordable Care Act help me to get it.
  
All this is interesting and helpful to me, but merely a revelation of what I had supposed all along.  

What has helped me especially understand it is an article by Joshua Holland [“To Understand the Shutdown You Have to Grasp the Mindset of the GOP Base,” October 5, 2013, by Joshua Holland] who has summarized a survey of Republican groups by the Democracy Corp.  This is what they say about the voting base that supports these Republicans:

The base consists of three kinds of groups. Even though they differ in certain ways, they agree on their fear of a changing society.  For all of them The battle over Obamacare, “goes to the heart of Republican base thinking about the essential political battle.” They think [the …] Democratic Party … is intent on expanding government to increase dependency and therefore electoral support.” So, food stamps for the poor, unemployment benefits, legalizing the illegal immigrants, insuring the uninsured – these policies create dependency.  So they oppose support for the poor, the unemployed, the immigrants, the uninsured.  “They believe this is an electoral strategy — not just a political ideology or economic philosophy. If Obamacare happens, the Republican Party may be lost, in their view,” says Holland.  What especially struck me was the comment that this group is fully aware of how white they are “in a country with growing minorities.” So there indeed is an implicit racist worry in this movement.

They all see Obama as a usurper, a liar, a Marxist, even (as some believe) a Muslim, but they differ in certain ways.  
The Evangelicals are primarily alarmed about the gay rights movement.  
The libertarians hardly believe in government and are strongly pro-business.
The moderates on the other hand disdain the Tea Party elements of the party and scorn Fox News – surely the main source of the notions that Obama is a liar, a Marxist, a Muslim, etc. – but they are concerned about how marginal they are becoming to the GOP. In fact, they see the party as pathetically out of date.

So here we are, a country in the grip of a terrified, paranoid minority who have the wealth and leverage to shut down the whole country.  That the rank and file are animated by fears created by a small cabal makes the scene all the more scary.

THE WASHINGTON CESSPOOL -- WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED?

Watching Bill Moryers’s interview with Mark Leibovich today, on the system of relations in Washington, I learned what I could not have made up, could have have imagined.  Justice is being subverted in DC on a gargantuan and pervasive scale.  Moral sensibility has been dulled all around, not only among the political leaders who are being bought off by the powerful corporations but also among the media.

The details of Liebovich's book are worth repeating, some of them discussed in the interview.  Every person named here should be closely inspected for how he or she has caved into the powerful vortex of corporate interest, which now controls the way our country's wealth is being divvied up.

Here I reproduce Bill Moyers’s critical summation of the situation at the end of the interview: it states so bluntly and vigorously the sense of outrage that the people of this country should feel toward what is happening in Washington [I only wish I could write like him].  Washington is not a place where the interests of the American people are being dutifully served but a place where vultures [the rich and well connected of all sorts] feed on the wealth paid in by the ordinary Americans, distributing the largess in such a way as to insure that blame is so broadly distributed that no one -- no person, no corporation, no industry -- can be held to account.  Most of us don't know how totally our country is dominated by an upper class that includes both parties and even a media that now sucks up to the powerful and connected.

BILL MOYERS: We are so close to losing our democracy to the mercenary class, it’s as if we are leaning way over the rim of the Grand Canyon and all that’s needed is a swift kick in the pants. Look out below. 

The predators in Washington are only this far from monopoly control of our government. They have bought the political system, lock, stock and pork barrel, making change from within impossible. That’s the real joke. 

Sometimes I long for the wit of a Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. They treat this town as burlesque, and with satire and parody show it the disrespect it deserves. We laugh, and punch each other on the arm, and tweet that the rascals got their just dessert. Still, the last laugh always seems to go to the boldface names that populate this town. To them belong the spoils of a looted city. They get the tax breaks, the loopholes, the contracts, the payoffs. 

They fix the system so multimillionaire hedge fund managers and private equity tycoons pay less of a tax rate on their income than school teachers, police and fire fighters, secretaries and janitors. They give subsidies to rich corporate farms and cut food stamps for working people facing hunger. They remove oversight of the wall street casinos, bail out the bankers who torpedo the economy, fight the modest reforms of Dodd-Frank, prolong tax havens for multinationals, and stick it to consumers while rewarding corporations. 

We pay. We pay at the grocery store. We pay at the gas pump. We pay the taxes they write off. Our low-wage workers pay with sweat and deprivation because this town – aloof, self-obsessed, bought off and doing very well, thank you – feels no pain. 

The journalists who could tell us these things rarely do – and some, never. They aren’t blind, simply bedazzled. Watch the evening news – any evening news – or the Sunday talk shows. Listen to the chit-chat of the early risers on morning TV -- and ask yourself if you are learning anything about how this town actually works. 

William Greider, one of our craft’s finest reporters, fierce and unbought, despite a long life in Washington once said that no one can hope to understand what is driving political behavior without asking the kind of gut-level questions politicians ask themselves in private: “Who are the winners in this matter and who are the losers? Who gets the money and who has to pay? Who must be heard on this question and who can be safely ignored?” 

Perhaps they don’t ask these questions because they fear banishment from the parties and perks, from the access that passes as seduction in this town.   

Or perhaps they do not tell us these things because they fear that if the system were exposed for what it is, outraged citizens would descend on this town, and tear it apart with their bare hands. 

The world's most successful gun salesman:

Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, says that he represents the mothers and fathers and families who are gun-owners.  He never mentions the gun manufacturers who are the main sources of funding for the NRA.  LaPierre represents the gun manufacturers of the country and for that his reported income in 2007 was $900.000.  Pretty good work if you can get it.  Do the American families he claims to represent know how much he gets for representing the NRA? 

Do the American people who hear him object to banning automatic weapons know that he is essentially a gun salesman?

What they are not saying ... How this country got into its mess

When it comes to elections we all seem to have short memories.  That may be the reason that politicians say the same things over and over again, and why some of them don't mind contradicting themselves.  But what I don’t understand is why some history has been completely ignored in the recent political debates.  
Here is what I remember about how my country got into the mess it’s in:

• When George W. Bush became President he was given a prize that scarcely any president has ever received in American history:  A budget surplus.                 So what did his administration do with it?  Improve the highway infrastructure?  Update the aging bridges across the country?  Install a national optical fiber system?  Provide the country with comprehensive wi-fi?  No, they gave the money “back” as a "tax cut."  For most people it was a couple hundred dollars; for those with high incomes the return was several thousand dollars; for instance, if your taxable income was between $200,000 and $499,000, your return was $7400 [NYT 10/19/10, from Tax Policy Institute].  So who were the new administration catering to?
• When the 9/11/01 attack took place the Bush administration was given world-wide support and sympathy -- another gift not given to many presidents before him; even in Iran the young people held a minute of silence in honor of the American dead before a soccer game.  And indeed the American attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan was widely supported; no one had much sympathy for the Taliban, and no one cared when thousands of them died and the rest were forced to flee into Pakistan.  But within a year the Bush administrated turned their attention away from that conflict, leaving the job unfinished.  They turned away in order to attack Saddam Hussein in Iraq; they even claimed he had been behind the 9/11/01 attack [remember this?] in order to justify their refocus on Iraq.  So doing, they awakened the many confused and frustrated unemployed young men all over the Middle East, to give them the sense that America was attacking the whole Muslim world -- and a cause to fight for.  The attack on Iraq squandered the good-will of the world, and revived a nearly crushed AlQaeda.  
• The Bush administration made no provision for the costs of the two wars they were involved in.  Those costs were taken off-line when the budget was being discussed; the skyrocketing costs of the wars were hardly discussed in Congress.  In those days Paul Ryan and others who now present themselves as budget hawks signed off on the Bush budgets every time.
• The result was that by the time the Bush administration left office the economy was in the tank -- for many reasons, but one of them was the unfunded wars.  When the Bush administration left office the budget was in deficit.  Their successor was dealt one of the worst hands of any administration since 1930.  

The people who participated in policies that left this country in a mess now present themselves as eager to correct the errors of George W. Bush's successor.  Ryan voted for the profligate policies that caused the deficit that he now deplores.    

Why would the American people want Ryan and those who supported the Bush administration to come back?  How could anyone want them back?

The profligacy of the Bush administration now seems like it was ages in the past -- which is where the Romney/Ryan ticket wants it to be.  Hardly anyone remembers just how our country got to this point.  This story remains unmentioned, and is almost forgotten.  

Oligarchic America: America In the Hands of a Few Rich Families. Bernie Sanders

I'm grateful to Bill Moyers for introducing those of us from the mid-west to Bernie Sanders.  This is a guy who calls a spade a spade.  What a refreshing amount of clarity and honesty he brings to the political discourse.  

His post on July 31 [with my highlights]:  Oligarchy or Democracy?

[W]e are now witnessing the most severe attack on our democratic foundations, both economically and politically, that has been seen in the modern history of our country. In terms of the distribution of wealth and income, in terms of concentration of economic ownership and in terms of political power, fewer and fewer Americans are determining the future of our country. ...  

Economically, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth,  ....  Today, 

• the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America -- 150 million people. 

• Today, one family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, with $89 billion, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America. 

• Today, the top one percent owns 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom 60 percent owns less than two percent. 

• Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just three-tenths of one percent of the wealth of the country.   

• In terms of income distribution, the top one percent earns more income than the bottom 50 percent. 

• Between 1980 and 2005, 80 percent of all new income created in this country went to the top one percent. 

• In 2010 alone, 93 percent of all new income went to the top one percent.  

• In terms of economic power and concentration of ownership, the six largest financial institutions in the country (JP MorganChase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Metlife) own assets equivalent to two-thirds of the GDP of this country -- more than nine trillion dollars. ...

Most of us have a hard time internalizing what has actually happened to our country.  None of us has been even remotely considering the possibility that the country may actually be, already, in the hands of an oligarchy -- a country controlled by a cadre of rich elite.  Isn't that what they have in Burkina Faso?  Central African Republic?  Niger? No wonder our congress, even when they seem to be doing something in the public interest, end up doing something that enables the rich to get richer.

The Question:  what to do about it?

How do we know our political process has not already been cooped by criminal money?

The only thing I can surmise from the way things are going is that the Republican Party has been taken over by a few -- probably not even very many -- super rich individuals and corporations.  It looks like they already have a powerful grip on our political process.  

The scary part is that so many super PACs that now try to shape the public imagination are funded by unknown sources.  I can appreciate why certain rich individuals would like to remain anonymous when making donations.  But when huge amounts of money are being paid for scandalous, scurrilous, and slanderous advertisements against public figures it looks like money from secret, perhaps even criminal, sources is threatening the whole political process.  

How much democracy has been lost because of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision?  It looks like we are about to find out.  I fear this is the most dangerous election in the history of democracy.  

How do we know that the real sources of these scandalous declarations on TV are not funded by criminal wealth?  Most of us suppose that criminality is weak and marginal in our country.  I doubt it:  Al Capone is still around, in other guises.  A few years ago illicit drugs were believed to be the third largest industry in this country -- industry, not corporation; it was believed only exceeded by the oil industry and the automobile industry.   Moise Naim who has studied criminal behavior for more than ten years, has written a book, Illicit, in which he claims that “networks of stateless traders are changing the world as much as terrorists are, probably more.”  How do we know that these moneys being used for public calumny don't come from foreign sources?  Even non-American criminal sources?  Citizens United stripped the democratic process in this country from the ordinary people and opened it up to whoever has the hard cash to control our electoral process:  from any source, from any country, from any industry.  And the more money the better.  Today the American people have no means of knowing who  controls the political discourse of our country.

Virtually every day we hear about exorbitant amounts from unknown and unknowable sources of funds being spent on negative advertising.  Here is the one I read today:  Thank you ProPublica (in particular Justin Elliott).  If this article doesn't make your hair stand on end you are already inured to scandalous claims on TV.

Revealed: The Dark Money Group Attacking Sen. Sherrod Brownby Justin Elliott  ProPublica, Sept. 7, 2012, 11:12 a.m. 

In May, a previously unknown group started pouring money into Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, considered one of the most important in the country and currently the nation’s most expensive.  The group, the Government Integrity Fund, has spent over $1 million so far on TV ads bashing Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown and praising his Republican opponent, Josh Mandel.
..., the Government Integrity Fund is shrouded in mystery. It isn’t required to reveal donors, nor has it answered questions about who runs the group. The Fund’s barebones website lists no contact information beyond a P.O. Box.
The only name listed on incorporation papers for the group is a Columbus lawyer, William Todd, who told ProPublica, “I really have no role in their affairs.” (In June, Todd also declined to respond to questions from a Huffington Post reporter, citing attorney-client privilege.)
But previously unreported documents filed with an Ohio television station pull back the curtain a bit: the Government Integrity Fund is run by a state lobbyist who in turn employs a former top Mandel staffer.
The lobbyist, Tom Norris, is listed as the Government Integrity Fund’s chairman and treasurer. Norris owns an Ohio lobbying firm, Cap Square Solutions, and last year hired a top Mandel aide, Joel Riter, to work at the firm.
.... The former Mandel aide declined to say whether he is involved with the group that is chaired by his current boss and running ads in support of his former boss... [Read the rest on the original site, linked above.]

I began this note with a swipe at the Republican Party because that party seems to have become shamelessly committed to protecting the rich against the poor, against even the middle class.  This is not the Republican Part I knew as a child.  I grew up in a Republican environment.  I always thought I was Republican or Republican-leaning (at least until Reagan).  I can scarcely believe any of my family today would want to be associated with what the party now stands for:  Protecting the super rich from paying even the slightest premium for the benefits they have enjoyed in a country that provides unexcelled protection from theft and arson, and an infrastructure that enables reasonable and responsible business activity to prosper.  This is not the party of Eisenhour, Taft, Reagan, Ford, or GHW Bush.  To me the marvel is that they are unashamed for what they have been defending:  No shame for the economic wreckage they left the country in in 2008 -- and now no shame for blaming their successor for it.  

How do we know that in fact the super-rich interests of the world -- who have no national loyalty -- have not already seized the Republican Party to make use of it in their interest?  There are legitimate interests for the Republicans to represent responsibly, but the positions they now hold are an embarrassment.  

Ralph Reed: Another view of the religious Far Right

Anyone who watched the Bill Moyers report on the career and activities of Ralph Reed would have been deeply troubled.  What Reed stands for is not the gospel of a homeless man who was unjustly tortured and executed for the sins of the world, which is what he claims, but what seems like a different gospel, one that supports the interests of the well-to-do against those of the weak and underprivileged.  

Few trends are more worrisome than the uses now being made of biblical terms and images in politics. Politicians deliberately and calculatedly proclaim their devotion to God. Would that it were true! — at least I wish that an authentic appreciation of the biblical texts as they are would be reflected in the behavior of our leaders; there is a great absence of discernment and wisdom fitting to the challenges of leadership in the modern world. The Psalmist (139:20, NIV) says, “They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.” Even people who know nothing about the Bible or have no use for it consider the new prominence of religious claims in politics to be cynical, like the psalmist here. We are all disgusted by the pious use of grand moralistic rhetoric by public figures whose life bears no particular evidence of an authentic fear of heaven. The recent past provides examples without number of the callous use of moral claims to justify policies that are animated by the usual incentives: pride, envy, greed, lust.  
Here let us insist what we all intuitively feel, no matter what side we are on: that claims to high minded moral ideals in order to masque the agendas of the rich and powerful, to the detriment of the poor and the weak, debase all that is authentic and good in the world.

Here is some of what Moyers had turned up on the activities of this guy.

Ralph Reed: From Purgatory to Power
BILL MOYERS: Welcome. If you watched the Republican Convention in Tampa only on Primetime television you would have missed the story we're about to report. And it's the one that could make the biggest difference on Election Day in November. On the seventh day, we're told, God rested. But not Ralph Reed. There he was, the Sunday before the convention opened, speaking at a rally of his Faith and Freedom Coalition.
RALPH REED: We're here today not just to celebrate faith and freedom but to pray for its survival. And unlike the other side, we haven't gathered in this city this week to anoint a messiah, because you see we already have a messiah. And we're not looking for one here on earth.
BILL MOYERS: Reed's message was directed to conservative Christians Mitt Romney must convert to his cause if he's to be elected president. Romney is a Mormon, a faith many on the religious right consider a cult, even a heresy. There's no love for Romney among these people, but they are united in their loathing of Barack Obama. And that's where Ralph Reed comes in.
RALPH REED: Four years ago, we heard a lot of talk about hope and change. People were fainting at campaign rallies. There were Che Guevera posters hanging in dorm rooms. There was one candidate who stood in front of Greek columns and vowed to heal the planet and cause the oceans to recede. But you see our hope is in something this world doesn't fully understand. We hope for a kingdom yet to come. The hope of a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness. A place where every tear will be wiped away. And every broken heart will be healed. And all the pain and brokenness and poverty and injustice of this world will be gone.
BILL MOYERS: But first there's the devil to chase.
NEWT GINGRICH: I believe that Barack Obama is a direct threat to the survival of the country I grew up in.
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: Dear friends, our religious liberty is at stake in this election, because Obama is at war with all religion in any public place, any public square, any public school.
TED CRUZ: For the first time in centuries the president of the United States has officially declared himself an enemy of traditional marriage between one man and one woman.
BILL MOYERS: You are witness to a modern tale of resurrection. A second-coming. The Bible speaks of Lazarus, raised by Jesus from the grave to walk again among the living. Ralph Reed, too, has been returned to life, political life. But he goes Lazarus one further. Lazarus was a poor man. Reed is rich, and he just keeps getting richer from mixing religion and politics. And that's a story you don't want to miss. ...

[For the rest click on the site above, or watch Bill Moyers and Company, PBS]

Propaganda wars versus truth in the public interest

In the Business section of the New York Times on August 28, 2012, EDUARDO PORTER opens an article, "Unleashing the Campaign Contributions of Corporations" with this statement:

Way back in February of this year, more than two-thirds of Californians believed raising more money from tobacco companies to finance cancer research was a good idea. That was before industry money kicked in.  In just over three months, opponents spent $41 million to defeat the initiative — a proposition to levy an extra $1 on the sale of a pack of cigarettes — five times what its supporters spent. On June 5, it was defeated by 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent.Similar forces in the next couple of months could shape the November elections. All the funds raised for the presidential and Congressional races so far pale in comparison to the money expected to rush in after the party conventions this week and next.

This is what we all fear:  that the few who have money will control the media and other outlets of public information so they can persuade the public to think about issues their way -- enabling them to benefit even if it is not in the public interest.  Some people in our society seem to have so much money they can spend profligately.

A genuine public discourse about vital issues doesn't exist in this society.  What does exist is propaganda -- lies and half-truths that are spouted by various groups and industries in their own interest.  Is a meaningful discussion about vital issues possible in this society?  I wonder.  So far, it isn't happening.  And as long as those who have the where-with-all to dominate the propaganda wars the public is likely to be led into commitments that are quite unreasonable, unrealistic.  Train wreck is inevitable. 

Has it always been this way -- that our societies are formed around fantasies invented by certain economic and political interest groups, with little relevance to the actual world they claim to deal with?   If so, take it as evidence that a kind God exists who for reasons unknown has favored this country, despite the follies of ignorant leaders.  

But if such ways of life continue, we are done for.  Already an abyss looms ahead, real and imminent.  

A billion lost here, a billion lost there ... Can we trust the bankers?

When I read the recent notice that very likely no one will be prosecuted for losing a billion dollars at MF Global I began to wonder if we actually have a meaningful banking industry.  

The last I heard, the amount that J P Morgan has lost in trading has reached “at least $5.8 billion.”  

If no one can be made accountable for losses of a billion dollars in a bank what hope is there that we peons can count on our funds being there when we need them?

What kind of world economy do we actually have?  The one thing that seems obvious is that the bankers who manage to lose a mere billion here or there – a matter that Jamie Dimon of J P Morgan called a “ tempest in a teapot” – are not going to lose out.  It’s the rest of us that are likely to come up short.  

The nature of the Euro Crisis, as Stratfor sees it.

George Friedman, head of Stratfor, has an excellent discussion of the nature of the Euro crisis.  I am not qualified to evaluate his analysis but I find it helpful because most of the more glitzy news seems to me generally misleading, at least superficial.   I here want to register that his discussion has been useful to me.  

Why don't the major television news programs talk about the "libor" scandal?

How tragic it is for our country that the great issues of our times are scarcely covered in the television news!

Look here to see the current inattention of the major news corporations to the  "libor" banking scandal.  

Why don't the news media want to reveal how the banks have ripped off their own clients?  Are their links to the powerful world-oriented corporations so compelling that they don't dare mention it?   

Is it only me that thinks the world is on the brink?

There are so many reasons to worry about what’s happening to our world in our time.  What has struck me recently is how ignorant of what’s going on many of my friends are.  I am alarmed that so many take Fox News to be news; Fox News itself classifies its "news" as Entertainment.  Well, most of the TV outlets have committed themselves to making "news" entertaining rather than informative.  It is not a good place to look for what’s happening to our world. Most of us who get the news on TV are being entertained but not informed.

Reason for worry about how much has changed in American society appears in our better news sources every day.  Take today’s article in the New York Times by Gretchen Morgenson about Neil Borovsky’s experience as the person who was supposed to police the TARP program.  His new book, she says, tells us how Washington seems to be working these days; well, not working.  Borovsky found little interest in exercising the responsibilities of governance, and more interest in advancing one’s career.  So many of the crucial reforms were never enacted.

Another article in today’s Times, however seeming distant from the above topic, adds to my sense of alarm.  Janine de Giovanni describes how it is possible to live in a city where war is at the doorstep while affairs inside the city are unaffected by it – that is, until something happens that radically forces upon the citizens how serious and dangerous the broader situation is.  I have seen this in many cases:  Friends in cities on the edge of war have often seemed unaware of how much danger lurks nearby, until it breaks into their social setting, often suddenly and tragically.  

It is not merely that the world is a mess that worries me.  It is that so few people around me are paying attention.  I can’t blame them because we are all busy.  We have leaders that are supposed to be doing their part while the rest of us work, doing what we are supposed to be doing.  But as we worked and slept and occasionally looked up long enough to decide who we wanted to vote for, something tragic and perhaps ineluctable has happened:  the system we thought we were living under has been co-opted by powerful forces we had little knowledge of:  powerful interests, mainly in the form of great corporations.  In fact, corporations whose true interests are global not local have intervened in the whole process of governing.  We thought we had a representative government; we elect our representatives to represent our interests in our communities, cities, states, and the federal government, right?  But another kind of element – a whole industry in fact – has intervened in the process of legislation.  It is called lobbying; representatives of the powerful and wealthy members of our society, supported by the wealth of the corporations they control, has intervened to control our government in their interest.  Our “representatives” can’t represent us because they must first pay off the big interests – usually corporate interests – who paid for the expensive process of getting elected.  

That’s why our government is unable to put into place a health system  that adequately serves all our citizens; that’s why the gun lobby can shamelessly keep this country from enacting reasonable weapons legislation (even after yet one more tragic massacre takes place in Colorado); that’s why nothing much has been done to control excess in Wall street, despite the meltdown of 2008 that continues as banks that are supposed to be too big to fail report colossal losses in “one of the greatest financial dramas of all time” (Morgenson); that’s why, in fact, Congress can scarcely pass any legislation.

What is to become of this country? And of the  world?  The most tragic events in history can be repeated in our time – only this time it will be on a global scale.  And in the mean time everyone is busy with their own local and provincial projects.  The shock will come, as it often has, in places where internecine conflict engulfs whole cities, whole societies -- and suddenly, as if without warning.

In fact, warning signs are all around us.

The alarming scale of uncertainty in our times. Meaning what?

Rebecca Berg produced an article in the NYTimes [July 11, 2012], "Fear of Year-End Fiscal Stalemate May Be Having Effect Now" that provides a graph indicating the degree of uncertainty in the marketplace, based on the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index.  It stunned me because it shows that there is far more uncertainty in the current market than existed immediately after 9/11/01.  This market is more spooked by world conditions today than it was on the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What can this mean?

The relation of jobs, economic prosperity and national debt

I am still trying to figure out the Republican argument that the way to create jobs is to shut down government.  That means putting government employees out of work -- that is, adding to the pool of unemployed, right?  It also means allowing the great corporations the freedom to swallow up their smaller and weaker competition; also, to have a powerful influence on public knowledge through television advertising.  How can "jobs" somehow spring from a policy that seems on the face of it to put people out of work and to favor the fat cats who already have plenty of money and jobs?    

Factcheck has a chart of the relation between Federal spending and Receipts going back to 1930.  This is useful in looking at the relation between these two conditions in the national economy and what we know about the impact of various policies on the American economy.  What stands out is how heavily the United States overspent during World War II, but also that despite that heavy expenditure the economy boomed in the next several years, that is, in the 1950s.  By the current arguments promoted these days, especially by the Republican Party, the US economy should have gone into free fall after WWII.  What we know, of course, is that the building after the war, financed by borrowed money, boosted the  economy so that revenues rose sufficiently to pay off the debt.  

Another feature of this chart worth noting is that the one time the United States had a surplus -- note,  a surplus -- was toward the end of the Clinton era.  Clinton should be justly proud of that achievement.  But also note that as soon as George W Bush administration came into office they gave it away:  they cut revenues and let the debts rise.  In fact, if I understand Paul Krugman, that would have been the time actually to have paid down the debt so that the government would have been in a better position to weather any forthcoming storm; to give it away, especially to the well-to-do who scarcely needed it at the time, would seem like squandering an opportunity.  The point is, when the economy is in the doldrums spend to get it going again, then cut back when it is doing well.

What Krugman said tonight on the Newshour seems to be true:  As long as the Republicans had their man in office they didn't worry about overspending; it is merely now that the other party is in office that they have trumpeted the dangerous levels of debt.  If Romney wins then the party who squandered the last opportunity would be back in power -- I would hope not to  do it again [!].   

For what it's worth, I post the chart  here for the interest of anyone trying to figure out how they plan to fix the economy.

"The most misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious decision of the Supreme Court"

Finally a Republican calls a spade a spade.  If any Republican is going to say what everyone else considers tragically obvious it is going to be John McCain.  Thanks, John, for saying what seems so obvious that the need to say it reveals how distorted American political discourse has become.  

He was being interviewed on The News Hour by Judy Woodruff and the problem of money in American politics came up.  Here is that part of the interview.

Judy Woodruff:  Is this … just inevitable that we're now in a period where money is going to be playing this dominant role in American politics?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: I'm afraid, at least for the time being, that's going to be the case, because of the most misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious decision of the United States Supreme Court I think in the 21st century [i.e., the decision on Citizens United].  To somehow view money as not having an effect on election, a corrupting effect on election, flies in the face of reality. I just wish one of them had run for county sheriff. . . .

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean one of the justices?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: One of the five Supreme Court justices that voted to invalidate what we know of as McCain-Feingold.

Look, I guarantee you, Judy, there will be scandals. There is too much money washing around political campaigns today. And it will take scandals, and then maybe we can have the Supreme Court go back and revisit this issue.

Remember, the Supreme Court rules on constitutionality. So just passing another law doesn't get it. So I'm afraid we're in for a very bleak period in American politics. You know, we all talk about -- and you just did -- about how much money is in the presidential campaign.

Suppose there's a Senate campaign in a small state, and 10 people get together and decided to contribute $10 million each. You think that wouldn't affect that Senate campaign?

JUDY WOODRUFF: This question of campaign money highlighted today by this -- the announcement that there's a huge amount of money coming in from one donor in the state of Nevada.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Mr. Adelson, who gave large amounts of money to the Gingrich campaign. And much of Mr. Adelson's casino profits that go to him come from this casino in Macau.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Which says what?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Which says that, obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign -- political campaigns.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Because of the profits at the casinos in Macau?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Yes. That is a great deal of money. And, again, we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization that Teddy Roosevelt had that we have to have a limit on the flow of money, and that corporations are not people.  That's why we have different laws that govern corporations than govern individual citizens. And so to say that corporations are people, again, flies in the face of all the traditional Supreme Court decisions that we have made -- that have been made in the past.

Big Oil and a few super-rich are pushing a global crisis--Ferrel of MarketWatch

When a commentator on MarketWatch worries about the same things I worry about it makes me think I might not be as crazy as I have feared. Paul B. Farrell [Big Oil’s civilization-ending pollution push: And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s ‘insane’ plan.] is worried that "Big Oil" will "end civilization" because of its powerful financial grip on political affairs around the world.  This is what he says:

• Are you focused solely on a piece of Big Oil’s estimated $150 billion short-term profits in 2012? Or are you investing for the long term, in a new America, in a sustainable planet for your grand kids, the one our next generation inherits in 2050?
• [We live in] a sharply polarized America, [there is a] deep gap that divides politicians and voters, conservatives and progressives, occupiers and tea partiers, Big Oil and environmentalists, the Super Rich 1% and the 99% rest of Americans.
• [N]o matter who’s elected president, [World War IV] now has its own momentum, it will intensify, and will grow deadlier in the next decades as global population explodes from 7 billion today to 10 billion by 2050 and our depleting natural resources can no longer produce enough food for 10 billion.
• [The US Chamber of Commerce] gets . . . $100 million from deep pockets like Big Oil giants: British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell Oil and dirty-coal giant Massey. And equally significant, more than 50 private and sovereign foreign corporations in India, Bahrain, Germany, Britain, and Canada, all paying dues to the Chamber, money that funds the Chamber’s political ads and lobbyists fighting America’s environmental energy policies, fighting to wipe out regulations that protect the public.
• [The opposition to this influence from the left] is environmental economist Bill McKibben, author of the 1990 classic, “End of Nature,” and founder of 350.org, a “global grassroots movement” of “thousands of volunteer organizers in over 188 countries.” . . . McKibben’s 350.org says “to preserve our planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 392 parts per million to below 350 ppm.” 
• [The] Chamber loves Big Oil’s civilization-ending pollution agenda.  . . .  Thomas Donohue, the chamber’s CEO, delivered his annual State of American Business address mocking government “regulations, mandates and higher taxes.”
• McKibben warns of the chamber’s bias: They were “the biggest political funder in the last election cycle, outspending the Republican and Democratic national committees combined.
• Donohue claimed America has “1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to last at least 200 years. We have 2.7 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to last 120 years. We have 486 billion tons of coal, enough to last more than 450 years, and we need to use more of this strategic resource cleanly and wisely here at home while selling it around the world.”
• [The response] But then what? The world ends? Yes. Actually much sooner. Because waiting till the last minute is suicidal. ThinkProgress.org columnist Brad Johnson even called Donohue’s speech a “Civilization-Ending Pollution Agenda” where “free enterprise requires a future of accelerated, unending global warming.” . . . 
• “[S]cientists have long since concluded that to keep the planet’s temperature rise below a disastrous 2 degrees Celsius, the entire globe can burn, at most, an additional 650 billion tons of CO2. Or about one-third” of what the Chamber, Big Oil, Dirty Coal and Hot Gas propose burning.  . . . “Using tables from the government’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, [NASA scientists] calculated that burning those quantities of coal, gas and oil would raise the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from its current 392 parts per million to almost 650 ppm.” 
• [McKibben:] “For Donohue to recommend blithely increasing it by more than 50% is — well, it’s insane. Every nation on Earth has been conducting negotiations in an attempt to keep CO2 concentrations below 450 ppm; much research indicates we actually need to get back below 350 ppm to stabilize global climate.”  Worse: “Donohue was only talking about American hydrocarbons.” Add in Canada, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait, Venezuela, Norway, China, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil and more, and “his prescription is fundamentally outrageous, at odds with everything we know,” a doomsday scenario “beyond dumb” that “only the most profound global-warming denier could ever embrace.”

Yes, our civilization could simply overdrive the system it depends on to the point of collapse.  You might think our leaders are too sensible, too rational to allow that to happen.  Well, considering the way they have behaved in the last decade, what would you expect?

When money and political posturing clash with science.

The debate about global warming – now called climate change – is driven by conflicting interests.  On the one hand there are climate scientists who are concerned that their projections suggest frightening changes coming upon the earth; on the other are the corporate interests that cannot bear for this to be known because it’s bad for business.  So the moneyed interests have turned the issue into a political flash point. 

Actually the issue is not new among those who have been looking at such things.  As far back as twenty-five years ago one of my colleagues showed me a graph of the amounts of CO² levels at various times over the last several thousand years, based on ice cores taken from the Greenland icecap.  What struck me then was the noticeable rise in CO² about 10,000 years ago, which we speculated could have been caused by the invention of slash-burn (or swidden) agriculture.  Neither of us was surprised at the far more dramatic rise in CO² levels beginning in the twentieth century, the time when the automobile was coming into vogue; the amounts have been rising ever since, and dramatically so recently.  At the time, I had no idea what those rising levels might mean for the planet we live on. 

The consensus of the climate scientists is that the earth is warming at an ever faster pace.  The voices contesting this come from outside the community of scholars specializing in global climate.  Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway call those nay-sayers Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury Press, 2010).  Philip Kitcher summarizes their point in his review of “The Climate Change Debates” in Science(vol 328, p. 1230-34, June 4, 2010):  “Opposition to scientifically well-supported claims about  the dangers of cigarette smoking, the difficulties of the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”), the effects of acid rain, the existence of the ozone hole, the problems caused by secondhand smoke, and -- ultimately – the existence of anthropogenic climate change was used in ‘the service of political goals and commercial interests’ to obstruct the transmission to the American public of important information.  Amazingly, the same small cadre of obfuscators figure in all these episodes.”  Oreskes and Conway discovered that scientists tied to particular industries, with strong political connections, have played a disproportionate role in debates about contested issues.  Even though they obtained their stature in fields with little pertinence to the issues in question they have posed as experts, many of them paid by “think tanks” devoted to contesting claims that threaten the interests of powerful corporations and political interests.  The attempt has been to shape the way the public thinks about the natural processes that threaten the world.  In fact, it seems certain that any attempt to deny the processes of nature cannot prevail, at least in the long run.  The world operates according to its own mechanisms, whatever we might think about it.  We cannot create a "reality" by mere rhetoric or ostrich-like denial.  

The task of science of course is to faithfully seek an understanding of the world as it is.  Obviously, if the climate experts are right the earth is facing critical developments that will not go away. 

What most climate scientists foresee is indeed worrisome.  If we consider how the dangerous trends in the world can be turned around, to turn back the trend of CO² production that is causing climate change, we find reasons to consider the situation dire.  That is, there are natural processes and there are social processes.  Anthony Giddens, the sociologist who has joined the debate (The Politics of Climate Change, 2009), puts it this way:  “It will be a colossal task to turn around a society whose whole way of life is constructed around mobility and a ‘natural right’ to consume energy in a profligate way.”  A colossal task, yes.  Turning around a civilization that is hell-bent on carrying on as it always has, driven by institutional conventions that are ensconced and opulently funded will indeed be a Herculean task.  That the system in place will seek to deny scientific findings that threaten it is to be expected.  So why does Giddens add to the above eminently formulated assertion the following codicil: “Yet it isn’t as hopeless an endeavor as it looks”? He provides no evidence to support this claim.  We wonder: Did Giddens reach for a straw to avoid admitting how unlikely such a turn-around is?  It seems obvious enough that what is actually required for the world to transform itself is a huge effort.  So, really, how likely is it?  Minimal.  Is the reality too hideous for Giddens to put it into words? 

Nancy Lindesfarne [Anthropology Today 26(4):1,2 2010] describes the collapse of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, December, 2009:  "No one  ... imagined what shape the Copenhagen Accord would actually take. ... Alone, the heads of five states brazenly decided, in a last minute, back-room fix, to do nothing at all to prevent catastrophic climate change.   These five states are among the world's largest coal consumers.  ... they are all states that would have to change most to address climate change.  In the midst of the global financial crisis, they decided it would just cost too much. ..."  In response to the failure of the Copenhagen talks Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia, called for a World's Peoples Conference on Climate Change and affirmed, "We have two paths: to save capitalism, or to save Mother Earth." 


Capitalism or global collapse:  That's an option our world leaders must never have to face.

Now we know how Congress can be bought off: Another way to subvert democracy

Information Clearing House has posted the transcript of Abramoff's interview with Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" last night.  [Click on the title above for a link to the source.]

Information Clearing House

Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook Or How To Buy Your Own Congressperson.  [An interview with CBS 60 Minutes]

This is a must-read article.  If you combine what has been revealed about the activities of the Koch brothers with what Abramoff tells the world, you can easily envision how it is that our congress is locked up, unable to act in the public interest.  

Two powerful Kansans whose influence is shaping the course of history, in their own interest

An article in Al Jazeera on the Koch brothers, Charles and David, is chilling because it reveals how easy it is for money -- that is, people with lots of money -- to subvert the democratic system in the name of democracy.  To them "democracy" seems to mean the right for those who have the wealth to keep it and control the flow of information in their own interest, to control Congress so as to ensure that they and their enterprises will prosper, whatever it means to others, the rest of the country or the rest of the world.  I reproduce this article here in its entirety to emphasize how such a project works, how the super-rich, if so inclined, can subvert the conventions that are supposed to ensure opportunity for everyone in a society.  Could the Kochs themselves, with all their wealth, be the main forces behind the powerful pull to the right in American politics in the last 30 years?  That they are from a modest middle class neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas, however, prompts me to have another question:  How did they get from there to became what they are now, with their elitist and self-serving agendas?   RLC  [click on the title above for a link to the source.]

Al Jazeera 01 Nov 2011:  “The Koch Brothers:  People and Power asks if the tycoon duo's fortune could put the radical right into the White House.”  By Bob Abeshouse. 

Charles and David Koch are each worth about $25bn, which makes them the fourth richest Americans. When you combine their fortunes, they are the third wealthiest people in the world. Radical libertarians who use their money to oppose government and virtually all regulation as interference with the free market, the Kochs are in a class of their own as players on the American political stage. Their web of influence in the US stretches from state capitals to the halls of congress in Washington DC.
The Koch brothers fueled the conservative Tea Party movement that vigorously opposes Barack Obama, the US president. They fund efforts to derail action on global warming, and support politicians who object to raising taxes on corporations or the wealthy to help fix America’s fiscal problems. According to New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, who wrote a groundbreaking exposé of the Kochs in 2010, they have built a top to bottom operation to shape public policy that has been "incredibly effective. They are so rich that their pockets are almost bottomless, and they can keep pouring money into this whole process".
Koch industries, the second largest privately-held company in the US, is an oil refining, chemical, paper products and financial services company with revenues of a $100bn a year. Virtually every American household has some Koch product - from paper towels and lumber, to Stainmaster carpet and Lycra in sports clothes, to gasoline for cars. The Koch’s political philosophy of rolling back environmental and financial regulations is also beneficial to their business interests.
The Kochs rarely talk to the press, and conduct their affairs behind closed doors. But at a secret meeting of conservative activists and funders the Kochs held in Vail, Colorado this past summer, someone made undercover recordings. One caught Charles Koch urging participants to dig deep into their pockets to defeat Obama. "This is the mother of all wars we've got in the next 18 months," he says, "for the life or death of this country." He called out the names of 31 people at the Vail meeting who each contributed more than $1m over the past 12 months.
In the 2010 congressional elections, the Kochs and their partners spent at least $40m, helping to swing the balance of power in the US House of Representatives towards right-wing Tea Party Republicans. It has been reported that the Kochs are planning to raise and spend more than $200m to defeat Obama in 2012. But the brothers could easily kick in more without anyone knowing due to loopholes in US law.
The Kochs founded and provide millions to Americans for Prosperity, a political organisation that builds grassroots support for conservative causes and candidates. Americans for Prosperity, which has 33 state chapters and claims to have about two million members, has close ties to Tea Party groups and played a key role in opposing Obama's health care initiative.
This year, Americans for Prosperity spent at least half a million dollars supporting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to cut social spending and roll back collective bargaining rights for public employee unions. The legislation passed by Walker makes it more difficult for unions, which are major backers of Democratic candidates, to secure funds for political purposes. Americans for Prosperity is also very active in a battle against unions in Ohio, another important 2012 presidential state. Its president, Tim Phillips, says that the organisation is winning in Wisconsin and around the country "because on the policies of economic freedom, we're right". He refused to tell People and Power reporter Bob Abeshouse how much the organisation is spending to combat the unions.
The Kochs have also poured millions into think tanks and academia to influence the battle over ideas. According to Kert Davies, the director of research for Greenpeace in the US, the Kochs have spent more than $50m since 1998 on "various front groups and think tanks who ... oppose the consensus view that climate change is real, urgent and we have to do something about it". As operators of oil pipelines and refineries, the Kochs have opposed all efforts to encourage alternative sources of energy by imposing a tax on fossil fuels.
Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the CATO Institute, often appears in the media to contest global warming science. CATO was founded by Charles Koch, and the Kochs and their foundations have contributed about $14m to CATO. Since 2009, there has been a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans who see global warming as a serious threat according to Gallup polls. Davies argues that the change can be attributed in large measure to the efforts of scientists like Michaels and others who are funded by the fossil fuel industry.
The Kochs have also promoted their free market ideology and business interests through aggressive lobbying in Washington DC, and financial support of political candidates. Greenpeace has tracked more than $50m that Koch Industries has spent on lobbyists since 2006, when Cap and Trade and other legislation to combat global warming was being considered. The Kochs have been the largest political spender since 2000 in the energy sector, exceeding Exxon, Chevron, and other major players.
The Kochs contributed to 62 of the 87 new members of the US House of Representatives in 2010. Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the Kochs supported have taken the lead in opposing US Environmental Protection Agency efforts to reduce global warming emissions. Other members backed by the Kochs belong to the right-wing Tea Party bloc that took the US to the brink of default in July by refusing to consider a budget deal that would include tax increases.
In 2012, many believe that President Obama can raise a billion dollars for the presidential race, and break all fundraising records. But as Lee Fang of the Center for American Progress tells reporter Bob Abeshouse, in the end it may not matter "because the Koch brothers alone increased their wealth by $11bn in the last two years".

The economic downturn: The scale of the loss

"The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929."

The reason?

"A lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place."  [Al Jazeera, 11/15/11] [Click on the title above for a link to the source.]