When one becomes of an age, one can no longer be sure that common knowledge of his earlier years is still common knowledge. Some forty or fifty years ago Kris Kristofferson wrote a poignant song about loss and the meaninglessness of life titled Me and Bobby McGee. One line in that song that resonated heavily in those days was "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose;" hence, the title of this post.
"Freedom" has been the watchword of the political right in this country designed to carry a massive burden of deception and destruction. It is high time Progressives start dealing with this term instead of shying away from criticizing such a foundation term for Americans.
Freedom has many meanings and those meanings are derived from the context in which the term is used. Absolute freedom in the real world verges on being a contradiction in terms. Absolute freedom would be the freedom of the jungle because this is the world of predator and prey in which only the predator is free. Only the tiger is free, every other creature's freedom is conditional upon not meeting up with the tiger. Does this remind anybody of corporate capitalism? It was this fear of more powerful animals that first encouraged humans to band together for mutual protection. Society was born of the effort to avoid absolute freedom; however, humans living in groups soon found that they needed rules, frequently in the form of taboos or religions. These rules, given the perversity of human nature, had to be enforced, hence the beginning of government. Thus human freedom has meaning only in the context of a society held together by some degree of force. With this understanding of the necessity of government, the next question is how much government. Mankind has fought violently over this issue. I think a useful way to address this issue is to go back to freedom's evolutionary roots, namely, mutual protection.
Mutual protection places a primacy on the group. A fundamental fallacy of the regressives is that one can have freedom without the group. This view, I believe, is considerably a consequence of technology's beneficent impact. In an earlier age, when the frontier was vast and wild, a few people ventured forth, but they formed communities as soon as they could and most people remained in cities and small towns. Go back three or four hundred years and most people in Europe were living in villages and towns. Go back to the Crusades, when most people lived in villages, these societies were so small and compact and fear of wandering too far from the village and its protection was so pronounced that many crusaders never found their way home. The point is that technology has permitted humans to live in such large groups and with a seeming independence of other humans that people now believe that the group is no longer necessary for their protection. In place of the mutually obligated group they now hire the police or arm themselves for individual protection to the detriment of the group. This is one of the ironies arising when humans become their own worst enemy.
One needs, however, to expand the awareness of threats to humankind to see the continuing need of group primacy. We have a planet of increasingly limited resources with a population of seven billion and counting and in which mankind has become its own worst enemy. The threat is enormous, so enormous that we must now consider all humans on this planet as part of a single group, sometimes called a global village. Freedom needs to be defined in the context of this group just as the first humans defined it within the context of the clan. We need the rules which will allow this global village to protect itself from itself. This, needless to say, is a new experience for mankind. It is why some people have argued that to avoid killing ourselves as a species we need an external enemy because that is what societal protection has always meant. There is no external enemy. The enemy is us as Pogo so observantly said.
The regressives have tried to divorce freedom from society and society's necessary governance. The logic is not there so they have used the emotional connotations of freedom to motivate people against their own government. A modicum of thought would quickly reveal that it is not the government that is the problem, despite Reagan's declaration to the contrary, it is who is controlling the government. Our War for Independence was not fought to turn people loose in the jungle as prey, but as the Constitution declares, to form a more perfect union. We wanted a society in which the people had a say in how they are to be governed, but governed they would be.
What does all this mean for Progressives? We must, I think, clearly and repeatedly demonstrate that there is no human freedom without government. We must measure a society by how much freedom is available to every citizen in the society, not just the affluent. We must understand freedom in much clearer terms than is currently the case. Freedom from fear is as essential now as when humans first formed their mutual defense against predators. Freedom from want is as necessary as freedom from assault, because severe want generates violence, not to mention the adverse impact on human development. In short, FDR's Four Freedoms should be added to our Constitution as rights of this country's citizens. There is, of course, no freedom if a single person, i.e. the tiger, is capable of destroying any and all others. Fear is a fundamental enemy of freedom, eclipsed only by the destruction itself. People feared Hitler and his Gestapo and military machine. What they feared was what millions experienced--death. This is why a dictatorship cannot have free citizens. We must make this clear to people
As noted above, we no longer have to fear predation by lions and tigers. We face corporate predators. The casualties of their predation are, in the popular mind, mainly "losers" not casualties. It is doubtful that early humans considered a clan member devoured by a lion a "loser." This is an indication of how grossly we have let corporate and wealthy America distort the popular perception. The corporation, now deemed a person, is the primary predator loose in our society. We must use our society to protect us from this predator as did our ancestors to protect themselves from their predators.
Bob Newhard
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Sea Anchors
As you may know, a sea anchor is a device for stabilizing a ship in the grip of a storm. In the age of sail it was frequently a large sail thrown overboard with a rope attached to the ship. The sail's drag against the water provided sufficient resistance to wave and wind to create a modicum of stability.
As I read of the effort to crush the rising resistance in the Middle East, as I heard President Obama's State of the Union speech, which was so full of platitudes and irrelevancies, and as I read of the eighth secretive meeting of the Koch Brothers and their billionaire/millionaire allies in Rancho Mirage and the fact that two Supreme Court Justices (Scalia and Thomas) have been regular attendees of these political plotting soirées, I was, to put it mildly, at sea. An engulfing chaos seemed to be the reality of the day.
But then I heard Governor Jerry Brown's short, no nonsense, and very knowledgeable speech and read of the Common Cause-led, almost 1000 person protest at the Koch Brothers' event and asked myself "Is the left finally starting to find itself?"
The political left has been abandoned by mainstream politics in this country. The Democratic Party, the Lefts' traditional home, has, sometimes angrily, rejected it despite the critical role it played in getting Obama elected. Obama, like Clinton, is taking the Party to the center as fast as he can. There is nothing in the middle of the road, as Jim Hightower so uniquely said, but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. However, I believe that in the protest against the Koch Brothers' billionaires political plotting and in Jerry Brown's State of the State address the Left may yet mount a major resurgence.
Why so? Let me take the protest at Rancho Mirage first. The protest was reported to have had about 1,000 demonstrators. It was organized by Common Cause. They bussed demonstrators from all over Southern California. It was a well organized effort, but the thing that struck me most forcefully is that unions of low wage earners, e.g. janitors and domestic workers, were providing much of the transportation. The people, in a very basic sense, were involved. This indicated a major shift in union emphasis. In my youth unions were focused on manufacturing workers and as such they were organized in and through the plants where people worked. The corporate business community exported most of those jobs, so the unions began organizing the next lower tier of employee. These people did not work in one place. They worked in a variety of buildings and homes. Yet union membership and organization still worked. I found that fact very heartening. The poor of this country are finding institutions of an earlier age are still viable and they are willing to use them. However, there is a lesson for Progressives here. As with factory workers, until we have government focused on the people's and society's well being, technology will continue to be directed at eliminating jobs and eventually today's union members will face the same fate as yesterday's factory workers. This is why we need a developed, informed and articulated Progressive perspective. We have to stop reacting and anticipate the future. As Dennis Kucinich repeatedly pleaded in the 2008 Presidential election, "Wake up America, wake up" so we should be urging "Wake up Progressives."
Jerry Brown's State of the State address struck me as the first honest, developed, well communicated speech I have heard from a politician in many a decade. Gone were the shibboleths, the euphemisms, the deceptive use of language so common to current political speech. His strategy is solid for these times; take the budget issue to the people. He has made his recommendations and encourages others, so far with no success, to make theirs. As a case in point, he noted the massive resistance by local governments to his proposed elimination of redevelopment agencies. However, in an excellent display of honest politics, he pointed out that these agencies use this tax-payer-supplied money, which could be better used for schools and safety services. Academic research has shown repeatedly what most of us know, that municipal politics and decision making are far more controlled by the local business community than by any other segment. This pot of money, in effect, allowed the business community to spend tax dollars on whatever projects appealed to them. Is it little wonder that the Republicans don't want Brown's proposals, hard as they must be for all of us, taken to the voters?
As we float and bob in this sea of political and social chaos, caused mainly by the manipulations of excessive wealth that now engulfs us, it is both consoling and energizing to see a plank or two that we can grab onto. I think Common Cause and the unions involved in the protest of the Koch brothers' billionaires plot against democracy and the efforts of Jerry Brown to bring sanity and responsibility to California's government should receive strong Progressive support. The image of janitors and domestic servants opposing the third wealthiest people in the country after Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and a people's organization like Common Cause seeking a law suit to have Scalia and Thomas removed from the Supreme Court for unconscionable bias should be energizing to all of us. Let us turn these sea anchors into visionary Progressive foundations.
Bob Newhard
As I read of the effort to crush the rising resistance in the Middle East, as I heard President Obama's State of the Union speech, which was so full of platitudes and irrelevancies, and as I read of the eighth secretive meeting of the Koch Brothers and their billionaire/millionaire allies in Rancho Mirage and the fact that two Supreme Court Justices (Scalia and Thomas) have been regular attendees of these political plotting soirées, I was, to put it mildly, at sea. An engulfing chaos seemed to be the reality of the day.
But then I heard Governor Jerry Brown's short, no nonsense, and very knowledgeable speech and read of the Common Cause-led, almost 1000 person protest at the Koch Brothers' event and asked myself "Is the left finally starting to find itself?"
The political left has been abandoned by mainstream politics in this country. The Democratic Party, the Lefts' traditional home, has, sometimes angrily, rejected it despite the critical role it played in getting Obama elected. Obama, like Clinton, is taking the Party to the center as fast as he can. There is nothing in the middle of the road, as Jim Hightower so uniquely said, but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. However, I believe that in the protest against the Koch Brothers' billionaires political plotting and in Jerry Brown's State of the State address the Left may yet mount a major resurgence.
Why so? Let me take the protest at Rancho Mirage first. The protest was reported to have had about 1,000 demonstrators. It was organized by Common Cause. They bussed demonstrators from all over Southern California. It was a well organized effort, but the thing that struck me most forcefully is that unions of low wage earners, e.g. janitors and domestic workers, were providing much of the transportation. The people, in a very basic sense, were involved. This indicated a major shift in union emphasis. In my youth unions were focused on manufacturing workers and as such they were organized in and through the plants where people worked. The corporate business community exported most of those jobs, so the unions began organizing the next lower tier of employee. These people did not work in one place. They worked in a variety of buildings and homes. Yet union membership and organization still worked. I found that fact very heartening. The poor of this country are finding institutions of an earlier age are still viable and they are willing to use them. However, there is a lesson for Progressives here. As with factory workers, until we have government focused on the people's and society's well being, technology will continue to be directed at eliminating jobs and eventually today's union members will face the same fate as yesterday's factory workers. This is why we need a developed, informed and articulated Progressive perspective. We have to stop reacting and anticipate the future. As Dennis Kucinich repeatedly pleaded in the 2008 Presidential election, "Wake up America, wake up" so we should be urging "Wake up Progressives."
Jerry Brown's State of the State address struck me as the first honest, developed, well communicated speech I have heard from a politician in many a decade. Gone were the shibboleths, the euphemisms, the deceptive use of language so common to current political speech. His strategy is solid for these times; take the budget issue to the people. He has made his recommendations and encourages others, so far with no success, to make theirs. As a case in point, he noted the massive resistance by local governments to his proposed elimination of redevelopment agencies. However, in an excellent display of honest politics, he pointed out that these agencies use this tax-payer-supplied money, which could be better used for schools and safety services. Academic research has shown repeatedly what most of us know, that municipal politics and decision making are far more controlled by the local business community than by any other segment. This pot of money, in effect, allowed the business community to spend tax dollars on whatever projects appealed to them. Is it little wonder that the Republicans don't want Brown's proposals, hard as they must be for all of us, taken to the voters?
As we float and bob in this sea of political and social chaos, caused mainly by the manipulations of excessive wealth that now engulfs us, it is both consoling and energizing to see a plank or two that we can grab onto. I think Common Cause and the unions involved in the protest of the Koch brothers' billionaires plot against democracy and the efforts of Jerry Brown to bring sanity and responsibility to California's government should receive strong Progressive support. The image of janitors and domestic servants opposing the third wealthiest people in the country after Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and a people's organization like Common Cause seeking a law suit to have Scalia and Thomas removed from the Supreme Court for unconscionable bias should be energizing to all of us. Let us turn these sea anchors into visionary Progressive foundations.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, January 23, 2011
How Did We Get Here?
An observation: consider a recent string of murders--the abortion doctor George Tiller, the guard at the Holocaust museum, the intended slaughter at the progressive Tides Foundation in San Francisco thwarted by Oakland police, the 1998 bombing of the Olympics in Atlanta, and now the slaughter in Tucson. These and more were all committed by white men. Can you imagine the difference in response by this nation if they had all been committed by black men? There would have been an immediate and prolonged search for conspiracy, perhaps even the invention of a conspiracy a la WMDs in Iraq. However, does that mean that there is no conspiracy?
In what follows I will argue that there is a conspiracy of sorts involved in all of these events, although not an obvious one.
The "conspiracy" was called "the Southern Strategy." It was a Republican response to the crushing defeat of Barry Goldwater's presidential bid in 1964. Let me explain. In 1968 Richard Nixon implemented the Republicans' Southern Strategy. This strategy consisted basically of replacing the century-long Democratic "solid South" with a Republican solid South. I should point out that FDR had constant problems with these Dixiecrats and on at least one occasion had to ask Eleanor to cease going to the Southern states and advocating for the civil rights of blacks because he needed their votes in Congress. Southerners were infuriated with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision requiring integration of public schools. They were even more so with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 pushed by Lyndon Johnson. This disaffection, indeed violent opposition, of white Southerners to such Democrat-supported legislation led Nixon and other Republican leaders to strike while the iron was hot. They succeeded. The Republican Party deliberately introduced racism, the single most heinous feature of American culture, into mainstream politics to gain votes. It was almost as if the Civil War had never been fought. For this they should never be forgiven. This is the "conspiracy" that I speak of. The South became Republican in very short order and the Republican Party became dominated by Southerners and the Southern ethos. Interestingly in 2005 Ken Mehlman the then RNC chairman confessed this motive and apologized to the NAACP for doing this.
While racism remained the foundation of the Southern political and social ethos, it was not totally foreign to other parts of the country, indeed to the nation as a whole. In World War II blacks and whites were segregated into separate military units. I found it interesting that the Army's white and black units that built the Alcan Highway competed with each other even though the black units labored with debilitated equipment. However, more than racism was involved. Along with racism Southerners brought a host of long-standing grudges against the North, which was epitomized by the federal government. The federal government was the agent that sent many of the carpet baggers south and they installed blacks in positions of power over whites. While white Southerners eventually got the power back through Jim Crow laws, the resentment remained. There was the oft repeated assertion that the South would rise again and the Confederate flag remained the flag of choice. In this connection, while I have a high regard for Howard Dean, I was appalled when he suggested going south for bubba's gun tooting, rebel flag flying pickup vote. The last thing the Democratic Party needs is an infusion of Southern sentiments.
However the story, as I see it, does not end there. When the Republican Party invited Southern white racists into their party they brought more than a hatred of blacks. They brought a century old hatred of the federal government and they brought their inherent belief that some people are, by nature, better than other people. They brought an ethos of confrontation, which was endemic to their opposition to the federal government. They brought their gun culture reflected in their gun rack pickups. The gun and the rope were their symbols of superiority as practiced by decades of KKK popularity, which spread to the Middle West before retreating again to the south. While these are things found in many parts of our country, they were profoundly developed artifacts of Southern culture. I was stationed for several months in Florida during World War II. I still remember the shock this California boy experienced when he saw separate drinking fountains and public toilet facilities for "negroes" and whites. On one occasion, on a crowded bus, I offered my seat to a black woman overburdened with packages. I was promptly reprimanded by the bus driver. A long history of slavery and a hundred years of Jim Crow become deeply imbedded in a culture, which means they find a wide range of cultural expression. This political use of racism by the GOP is aptly demonstrated by a quote from Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan's campaign manager. "Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."[6]
What perhaps Nixon and other Republican leaders did not anticipate was that these newly minted Republicans would take over their party."
But to continue. These newly minted Southern Republicans quickly took over the Republican Paty, which rapidly moved from negotiation in legislation to confrontation. This is, in my opinion, the source of the political antagonism that so pervasively characterizes today's politics and is decried by so many. An example of the depth of the Republican policy of confrontation can be found in Newt Gingrich's shutdown of federal government non-essential services by withholding funds in a budget dispute with the Clinton administration.
But how, you may ask, could an old line political party of the wealthy find common cause with Bible Belt, poorly educated proletariat of the South? I believe the link can be found in the corporation. Let me cite some congruences between the Southern sentiment and corporate desires.
First, and perhaps most fundamental, the Southern hatred for the federal government and the corporate desire to keep government as small and weak as possible, except for the military, bred instant soul mates. When Ronald Reagan said that government was not the solution, but was the problem, he was inciting the energetic support of both groups.
Second, the Southern love of the military coincided with the corporate desire to use the military to gain its global objectives, particularly oil and the military as a source of major profit.
The religious charismatic fundamentalism of the South would seem in irreconcilable opposition to the more modernist churches of the North. I suspect the militarism intimately associated with Southern protestant religion helped as corporations saw an excellent recruitment motivator for its military. There are few greater military motivators than religion. Recruitment went center stage when the military went all volunteer after the Vietnam war.
I also think that as the textile industries of the North moved south for cheaper labor that many in the South viewed the corporation as a means of economic advancement.
These are some of the congruences. I am sure there are many more, possibly more significant than those I have mentioned.
The penetration of Southern culture into national politics by way of its takeover of the Republican Party has been so thorough that I think we are able to say that the South has indeed risen again. In a world of increasing violence-oriented technology I think this cultural, socio/political development poses a significant threat to this nation and the world it still hopes to dominate.
A caveat: When I use the term Southern culture I of course do not mean every white Southerner. Bill Moyers, Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins are all Southerners. However, they all are or were at odds with the culture they were raised in. Molly did, however, write an article in defense of "bubba", whom she felt was misguided, but of good heart.
Cultures generally have three major groups; the fanatic at one end and the skeptic at the other. Most people however are somewhere in the middle, primarily focused on their own lives, taking the culture for granted. However, when cultural values seem threatened they can easily become energized, even to the point of fanaticism. The salient point is that criticism of a culture does not necessarily imply criticism of a particular member of the culture.
In 1944 Gunnar Myrdahl published his 1,500 page landmark study of racism in the United States and its threat to democracy titled An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. In the last two years we have seen the rapid rise of the corporation-created, racist Tea Party. Will we never learn?
Bob Newhard
In what follows I will argue that there is a conspiracy of sorts involved in all of these events, although not an obvious one.
The "conspiracy" was called "the Southern Strategy." It was a Republican response to the crushing defeat of Barry Goldwater's presidential bid in 1964. Let me explain. In 1968 Richard Nixon implemented the Republicans' Southern Strategy. This strategy consisted basically of replacing the century-long Democratic "solid South" with a Republican solid South. I should point out that FDR had constant problems with these Dixiecrats and on at least one occasion had to ask Eleanor to cease going to the Southern states and advocating for the civil rights of blacks because he needed their votes in Congress. Southerners were infuriated with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision requiring integration of public schools. They were even more so with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 pushed by Lyndon Johnson. This disaffection, indeed violent opposition, of white Southerners to such Democrat-supported legislation led Nixon and other Republican leaders to strike while the iron was hot. They succeeded. The Republican Party deliberately introduced racism, the single most heinous feature of American culture, into mainstream politics to gain votes. It was almost as if the Civil War had never been fought. For this they should never be forgiven. This is the "conspiracy" that I speak of. The South became Republican in very short order and the Republican Party became dominated by Southerners and the Southern ethos. Interestingly in 2005 Ken Mehlman the then RNC chairman confessed this motive and apologized to the NAACP for doing this.
While racism remained the foundation of the Southern political and social ethos, it was not totally foreign to other parts of the country, indeed to the nation as a whole. In World War II blacks and whites were segregated into separate military units. I found it interesting that the Army's white and black units that built the Alcan Highway competed with each other even though the black units labored with debilitated equipment. However, more than racism was involved. Along with racism Southerners brought a host of long-standing grudges against the North, which was epitomized by the federal government. The federal government was the agent that sent many of the carpet baggers south and they installed blacks in positions of power over whites. While white Southerners eventually got the power back through Jim Crow laws, the resentment remained. There was the oft repeated assertion that the South would rise again and the Confederate flag remained the flag of choice. In this connection, while I have a high regard for Howard Dean, I was appalled when he suggested going south for bubba's gun tooting, rebel flag flying pickup vote. The last thing the Democratic Party needs is an infusion of Southern sentiments.
However the story, as I see it, does not end there. When the Republican Party invited Southern white racists into their party they brought more than a hatred of blacks. They brought a century old hatred of the federal government and they brought their inherent belief that some people are, by nature, better than other people. They brought an ethos of confrontation, which was endemic to their opposition to the federal government. They brought their gun culture reflected in their gun rack pickups. The gun and the rope were their symbols of superiority as practiced by decades of KKK popularity, which spread to the Middle West before retreating again to the south. While these are things found in many parts of our country, they were profoundly developed artifacts of Southern culture. I was stationed for several months in Florida during World War II. I still remember the shock this California boy experienced when he saw separate drinking fountains and public toilet facilities for "negroes" and whites. On one occasion, on a crowded bus, I offered my seat to a black woman overburdened with packages. I was promptly reprimanded by the bus driver. A long history of slavery and a hundred years of Jim Crow become deeply imbedded in a culture, which means they find a wide range of cultural expression. This political use of racism by the GOP is aptly demonstrated by a quote from Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan's campaign manager. "Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."[6]
What perhaps Nixon and other Republican leaders did not anticipate was that these newly minted Republicans would take over their party."
But to continue. These newly minted Southern Republicans quickly took over the Republican Paty, which rapidly moved from negotiation in legislation to confrontation. This is, in my opinion, the source of the political antagonism that so pervasively characterizes today's politics and is decried by so many. An example of the depth of the Republican policy of confrontation can be found in Newt Gingrich's shutdown of federal government non-essential services by withholding funds in a budget dispute with the Clinton administration.
But how, you may ask, could an old line political party of the wealthy find common cause with Bible Belt, poorly educated proletariat of the South? I believe the link can be found in the corporation. Let me cite some congruences between the Southern sentiment and corporate desires.
First, and perhaps most fundamental, the Southern hatred for the federal government and the corporate desire to keep government as small and weak as possible, except for the military, bred instant soul mates. When Ronald Reagan said that government was not the solution, but was the problem, he was inciting the energetic support of both groups.
Second, the Southern love of the military coincided with the corporate desire to use the military to gain its global objectives, particularly oil and the military as a source of major profit.
The religious charismatic fundamentalism of the South would seem in irreconcilable opposition to the more modernist churches of the North. I suspect the militarism intimately associated with Southern protestant religion helped as corporations saw an excellent recruitment motivator for its military. There are few greater military motivators than religion. Recruitment went center stage when the military went all volunteer after the Vietnam war.
I also think that as the textile industries of the North moved south for cheaper labor that many in the South viewed the corporation as a means of economic advancement.
These are some of the congruences. I am sure there are many more, possibly more significant than those I have mentioned.
The penetration of Southern culture into national politics by way of its takeover of the Republican Party has been so thorough that I think we are able to say that the South has indeed risen again. In a world of increasing violence-oriented technology I think this cultural, socio/political development poses a significant threat to this nation and the world it still hopes to dominate.
A caveat: When I use the term Southern culture I of course do not mean every white Southerner. Bill Moyers, Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins are all Southerners. However, they all are or were at odds with the culture they were raised in. Molly did, however, write an article in defense of "bubba", whom she felt was misguided, but of good heart.
Cultures generally have three major groups; the fanatic at one end and the skeptic at the other. Most people however are somewhere in the middle, primarily focused on their own lives, taking the culture for granted. However, when cultural values seem threatened they can easily become energized, even to the point of fanaticism. The salient point is that criticism of a culture does not necessarily imply criticism of a particular member of the culture.
In 1944 Gunnar Myrdahl published his 1,500 page landmark study of racism in the United States and its threat to democracy titled An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. In the last two years we have seen the rapid rise of the corporation-created, racist Tea Party. Will we never learn?
Bob Newhard
Sunday, January 9, 2011
On a Remedy for the Grossly Lopsided Economy of this Nation and the World
Given that human beings are the most powerful animals on this planet and given that economic inequality has historically been a primary cause of the destructive unleashing of that power, it is imperative that we find a means to eliminate gross disparities of wealth and income. In this connection and others I wish to once again discuss the Tobin Tax, or as it is now frequently called, the transaction tax.
James Tobin was an American Nobel Laureate in economics. He was concerned with the plight of the billions of profoundly and perennially poor humans on earth. He saw this poverty as a function of gross economic inequality, especially between the African continent and the affluent nations of the northern hemisphere. To transfer more of the world's wealth to these impoverished nations and to accomplish several other objectives he proposed a small 0.5 percent tax on one of the least productive of economic activities, the "spot" market portion of the global currency market. In this market national currencies are bought and sold, using immediate transactions, as their relative values constantly change. While it has a non-unique function of providing currency equivalencies for purposes of trade, it is a highly speculative market with no overall regulation. The total global currency market had, as of April 20, 2010, an average daily turnover of an estimated $3.98 trillion dollars. This represents a market growth rate of approximately 20% since 2007. The spot market portion of the total global foreign exchange market, as of April 2010, had an average daily turnover of 1.450 trillion. It operates world wide 24 hours a day every day except weekends. The volume and immediacy of spot market transactions means that computers do a good deal of the investing based on formulas. As such it is a financial playground of the very rich.
As one can see, if this amount of money with this amount of transactions had a transaction tax, not unlike the sales tax you and I pay, a very substantial resource for alleviating the world's suffering and advancing the worldwide quality of life is within our grasp. In fact, Tobin argued that the 0.5 percent tax on spot market transactions would raise the $300 billion dollars a year that the United Nations says is required to eliminate the worst poverty and provide a basic education to all children world wide.
But this is not all that Tobin saw in his proposed tax. By taxing the highly volatile transactions of the spot market the wildest forms of speculation would be suppressed because in the small margins (but immense quantities) of currency trading a small tax would be enough.
Additionally, Tobin saw this process as the beginning of the establishment of a world currency, e.g. a Euro type currency applied world wide. This would not only eliminate speculation in money differentials, it would provide a strong impetus to world peace. National currencies, like national flags, are symbols of national significance. Every nation strenuously defends its currency. One tactic in international conflict is to try to destroy the value of the enemy's currency. A single global currency would also provide an icon around which people would increasingly find their common identity as citizens of one world.
Of course a transaction tax could be applied to any exchange of money. With the sales tax, we decided to tax the monetary value of the goods when they are sold. We, however, refused to tax food because it is too essential to human survival. This suggests a rule for applying transaction taxes, namely, the less important to human well being the higher the transaction tax.
My thoughts on the Tobin Tax, now generally called a transaction tax, were reignited by recent developments, especially in Europe. The transaction tax has become such a hot issue in Europe that the Austrian government says it will go ahead with this tax even if the other countries in the EU do not. The EU is, in effect, demanding more time so a Union-wide Tobin tax can be implemented. The European Union is creating an economic paradigm for a process by which humanity may yet find a way to coexist without a species-destroying conflict.
Bob Newhard
James Tobin was an American Nobel Laureate in economics. He was concerned with the plight of the billions of profoundly and perennially poor humans on earth. He saw this poverty as a function of gross economic inequality, especially between the African continent and the affluent nations of the northern hemisphere. To transfer more of the world's wealth to these impoverished nations and to accomplish several other objectives he proposed a small 0.5 percent tax on one of the least productive of economic activities, the "spot" market portion of the global currency market. In this market national currencies are bought and sold, using immediate transactions, as their relative values constantly change. While it has a non-unique function of providing currency equivalencies for purposes of trade, it is a highly speculative market with no overall regulation. The total global currency market had, as of April 20, 2010, an average daily turnover of an estimated $3.98 trillion dollars. This represents a market growth rate of approximately 20% since 2007. The spot market portion of the total global foreign exchange market, as of April 2010, had an average daily turnover of 1.450 trillion. It operates world wide 24 hours a day every day except weekends. The volume and immediacy of spot market transactions means that computers do a good deal of the investing based on formulas. As such it is a financial playground of the very rich.
As one can see, if this amount of money with this amount of transactions had a transaction tax, not unlike the sales tax you and I pay, a very substantial resource for alleviating the world's suffering and advancing the worldwide quality of life is within our grasp. In fact, Tobin argued that the 0.5 percent tax on spot market transactions would raise the $300 billion dollars a year that the United Nations says is required to eliminate the worst poverty and provide a basic education to all children world wide.
But this is not all that Tobin saw in his proposed tax. By taxing the highly volatile transactions of the spot market the wildest forms of speculation would be suppressed because in the small margins (but immense quantities) of currency trading a small tax would be enough.
Additionally, Tobin saw this process as the beginning of the establishment of a world currency, e.g. a Euro type currency applied world wide. This would not only eliminate speculation in money differentials, it would provide a strong impetus to world peace. National currencies, like national flags, are symbols of national significance. Every nation strenuously defends its currency. One tactic in international conflict is to try to destroy the value of the enemy's currency. A single global currency would also provide an icon around which people would increasingly find their common identity as citizens of one world.
Of course a transaction tax could be applied to any exchange of money. With the sales tax, we decided to tax the monetary value of the goods when they are sold. We, however, refused to tax food because it is too essential to human survival. This suggests a rule for applying transaction taxes, namely, the less important to human well being the higher the transaction tax.
My thoughts on the Tobin Tax, now generally called a transaction tax, were reignited by recent developments, especially in Europe. The transaction tax has become such a hot issue in Europe that the Austrian government says it will go ahead with this tax even if the other countries in the EU do not. The EU is, in effect, demanding more time so a Union-wide Tobin tax can be implemented. The European Union is creating an economic paradigm for a process by which humanity may yet find a way to coexist without a species-destroying conflict.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, December 26, 2010
On Being a Progressive Legislator
"It’s the hardest vote I've taken;" so said Al Franken of his vote for Obama's tax deal with Republicans. Franken explains his vote by declaring in a post on Huffington Post that "This isn't a great deal by any stretch of the imagination. But I got into this line of work because I wanted to stand up for Minnesota families trying to put food on the table and build a better life for their kids. And, for them, the only thing worse than a bad deal would be no deal at all. That's why I voted yes yesterday -- and why I will continue my fight for economic policies that create jobs, address our deficit problem, and build new opportunities for Minnesota." I find thus mea culpa disingenuous, shallow, and short sighted.
Disingenuous, because he would have us believe that those who voted against the Deal did not face the same fundamental issue of deciding between the immediate and the momentous. Does he really believe that Bernie Sanders, who made the role of excessive wealth in producing our current situation so clear in his eight hour filibuster, did not face the same situation?
Shallow, because Franken apparently believes that his job as a progressive is to pass laws for the benefit of the people. That belief leads directly to beltway politics in which the decisions, indeed the debate, is the province of a few elected "representatives." To the contrary, the job of a progressive is to educate and inform his constituency so that they can be the force he or she brings to the national legislature and so that when push comes to shove, as in this case between the wealthy and the rest of us, the people are prepared to fight. Had Franken done what Sanders has done his whole political life, namely meet with small groups of constituents not just at election time but routinely and in that context listened acutely and intelligently putting what he knew to be the case in Washington together with what his people knew to be the case at home and, in discussion, had offered a synthesis to be considered with those of his constituents, had he done these things, as Bernie has, he would not have to indulge in such childish angst. I have watched videos of Bernie interacting with small groups of his constituents. I have watched him conducting a high school class in civics which consisted largely of listening to their answers to questions he posed and responding to questions they posed. Bernie sees the job of the politician as including a large commitment to create an informed, comprehending constituency and listening carefully and intelligently to them. These are things that, I suspect, have never occurred to Al Franken. They are however essential to an effective progressive candidate. In progressivism the people are the power, not money. It is therefore incumbent upon progressive politicians to develop the best informed, most comprehending, constituency possible so that when push comes to shove, when you have to decide between immediate benefits and long-term disaster your people understand and are with you. People will sacrifice the immediate for the future if the alternatives and consequences are clearly laid out. The people who accepted FDR's leadership were not afraid to occupy General Motors' plants in a massive sit down strike. Their wives brought food to them despite the threats from General Motors. Earlier than that workers had to confront hired thugs in the Pullman strike and were machine-gunned in their tents in the Colorado miners' strike.
Finally, Franken's defense that he voted for the Deal so hungry people would continue to have food and shelter, if not a job, is even in this context, short sighted. Did he explain to his people that the social security tax, Franken disingenuously refers to it as a payroll tax, was a first step to weaken social security by depriving it of revenue and was intended to condition people to this process? Did he remind them that ever since LBJ used it to fund the Vietnam War they have let government raid their Social Security fund and that Congress had not seen fit to protect these funds by prohibiting their use for other purpose? We now have billions of dollars in IOUs that Congress now says there is no money to repay. Again, by continuing the Bush tax cuts we are transferring even more money to the wealthy. Did Franken lay out the enormity of the debt that this generation is imposing on those very children he seemed so concerned for?
In short, sacrifice, big time, is going to be necessary if the people are to wrest control of America from the wealthy. Due to technology and corporate and political takeover, the wealthy are deeply entrenched in our society. They control the production and distribution of our national product. They control our means of communication. They are heavily in the business of defining life for our citizens. It reminds one of the military's complaint about the difficulty of fighting insurgents because they are so thoroughly integrated into their society. Think of corporations as huge multidimensional insurgents focused on overthrowing our democracy and what we face becomes clearer. The insidious power of these proponents of privilege make it clear why progressives have a primary duty to educate, to communicate and to listen so that the people and the leadership progressively become one.
I have used Bernie Sanders as something of a paradigm of what a progressive politician should look like in our search for more of the same. However, I am conscious of the fact the Sanders functions in a small state with many small towns and it may be said that large states and major cities may not be susceptible to this level of citizen involvement.
To such concerns I would point out that large cities have realized Bernie's style of progressive politics. In the 1960s Saul Alinsky, using collegial and intensive involvement with Chicago's primarily Black poor people was able to develop organizational structures that empowered these people to better their lot through effective political measures. This was done on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. A second way for progressive politicians to emulate Bernie's approach in the context of larger jurisdictions is by focused television or radio engagement. FDR did this on a national scale with his Fireside Chats in which he conveyed to ordinary people the state of things and what was being done. I remember, as a young teenager, our family sitting around our Majestic radio listing to these chats. Everybody respected Roosevelt and knew he would have something of substance to say. Again, you may have noticed that television evangelists are able to accrue a substantial audience by the intimacy they convey over television. That same intimacy can be conveyed over radio. I member (old people are forever uttering that phrase) when the soap opera "Ma Perkins" had a favorite character eliminated. There was massive outrage and mourning. These things demonstrate that we can create the intimacy necessary for politicians and people to work together in a joint effort to educate and improve a world that we have let technology dominate. Progressives need to investigate the use of public access channels on their local television cable stations. They need to investigate low power television, which can provide well-targeted, cheap broadcasting to local communities. Religious groups and now corporations are actively scooping there up. Why have we not seen Amy Goodman, Al Franken, Ralph Nader and other progressives pushing an effort to acquire some of these licenses for progressive purposes? I think the answer is that we are too focused on issues and candidates to focus on the people. We can create an environment for progressive, people-powered, politics to flourish. Where is the organized, MoveOn-like effort to do this?
Bob Newhard
Disingenuous, because he would have us believe that those who voted against the Deal did not face the same fundamental issue of deciding between the immediate and the momentous. Does he really believe that Bernie Sanders, who made the role of excessive wealth in producing our current situation so clear in his eight hour filibuster, did not face the same situation?
Shallow, because Franken apparently believes that his job as a progressive is to pass laws for the benefit of the people. That belief leads directly to beltway politics in which the decisions, indeed the debate, is the province of a few elected "representatives." To the contrary, the job of a progressive is to educate and inform his constituency so that they can be the force he or she brings to the national legislature and so that when push comes to shove, as in this case between the wealthy and the rest of us, the people are prepared to fight. Had Franken done what Sanders has done his whole political life, namely meet with small groups of constituents not just at election time but routinely and in that context listened acutely and intelligently putting what he knew to be the case in Washington together with what his people knew to be the case at home and, in discussion, had offered a synthesis to be considered with those of his constituents, had he done these things, as Bernie has, he would not have to indulge in such childish angst. I have watched videos of Bernie interacting with small groups of his constituents. I have watched him conducting a high school class in civics which consisted largely of listening to their answers to questions he posed and responding to questions they posed. Bernie sees the job of the politician as including a large commitment to create an informed, comprehending constituency and listening carefully and intelligently to them. These are things that, I suspect, have never occurred to Al Franken. They are however essential to an effective progressive candidate. In progressivism the people are the power, not money. It is therefore incumbent upon progressive politicians to develop the best informed, most comprehending, constituency possible so that when push comes to shove, when you have to decide between immediate benefits and long-term disaster your people understand and are with you. People will sacrifice the immediate for the future if the alternatives and consequences are clearly laid out. The people who accepted FDR's leadership were not afraid to occupy General Motors' plants in a massive sit down strike. Their wives brought food to them despite the threats from General Motors. Earlier than that workers had to confront hired thugs in the Pullman strike and were machine-gunned in their tents in the Colorado miners' strike.
Finally, Franken's defense that he voted for the Deal so hungry people would continue to have food and shelter, if not a job, is even in this context, short sighted. Did he explain to his people that the social security tax, Franken disingenuously refers to it as a payroll tax, was a first step to weaken social security by depriving it of revenue and was intended to condition people to this process? Did he remind them that ever since LBJ used it to fund the Vietnam War they have let government raid their Social Security fund and that Congress had not seen fit to protect these funds by prohibiting their use for other purpose? We now have billions of dollars in IOUs that Congress now says there is no money to repay. Again, by continuing the Bush tax cuts we are transferring even more money to the wealthy. Did Franken lay out the enormity of the debt that this generation is imposing on those very children he seemed so concerned for?
In short, sacrifice, big time, is going to be necessary if the people are to wrest control of America from the wealthy. Due to technology and corporate and political takeover, the wealthy are deeply entrenched in our society. They control the production and distribution of our national product. They control our means of communication. They are heavily in the business of defining life for our citizens. It reminds one of the military's complaint about the difficulty of fighting insurgents because they are so thoroughly integrated into their society. Think of corporations as huge multidimensional insurgents focused on overthrowing our democracy and what we face becomes clearer. The insidious power of these proponents of privilege make it clear why progressives have a primary duty to educate, to communicate and to listen so that the people and the leadership progressively become one.
I have used Bernie Sanders as something of a paradigm of what a progressive politician should look like in our search for more of the same. However, I am conscious of the fact the Sanders functions in a small state with many small towns and it may be said that large states and major cities may not be susceptible to this level of citizen involvement.
To such concerns I would point out that large cities have realized Bernie's style of progressive politics. In the 1960s Saul Alinsky, using collegial and intensive involvement with Chicago's primarily Black poor people was able to develop organizational structures that empowered these people to better their lot through effective political measures. This was done on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. A second way for progressive politicians to emulate Bernie's approach in the context of larger jurisdictions is by focused television or radio engagement. FDR did this on a national scale with his Fireside Chats in which he conveyed to ordinary people the state of things and what was being done. I remember, as a young teenager, our family sitting around our Majestic radio listing to these chats. Everybody respected Roosevelt and knew he would have something of substance to say. Again, you may have noticed that television evangelists are able to accrue a substantial audience by the intimacy they convey over television. That same intimacy can be conveyed over radio. I member (old people are forever uttering that phrase) when the soap opera "Ma Perkins" had a favorite character eliminated. There was massive outrage and mourning. These things demonstrate that we can create the intimacy necessary for politicians and people to work together in a joint effort to educate and improve a world that we have let technology dominate. Progressives need to investigate the use of public access channels on their local television cable stations. They need to investigate low power television, which can provide well-targeted, cheap broadcasting to local communities. Religious groups and now corporations are actively scooping there up. Why have we not seen Amy Goodman, Al Franken, Ralph Nader and other progressives pushing an effort to acquire some of these licenses for progressive purposes? I think the answer is that we are too focused on issues and candidates to focus on the people. We can create an environment for progressive, people-powered, politics to flourish. Where is the organized, MoveOn-like effort to do this?
Bob Newhard
Sunday, December 12, 2010
On Rescuing Hostages
President Obama would have us believe that the best he could do in dealing with Republican's on extending the Bush tax cuts was to save the paltry middle class tax cuts and extend unemployment benefits historically granted when unemployment reached 7.2% which were being held hostage by the Republican concern for the wealthiest one tenth of one percent and their estate tax. This is so putrid with pusillanimity it stinks. Paul Krugman has an excellent analysis of Obama's game plying in an article that can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/opinion/10krugman.html?pagewanted=print
However, I want to consider the undeclared ramifications and implications of this sickening fiasco.
To begin with, the real hostage was not the existing middle class, grievous though their situation is, the real hostage is our democracy. If we let the wealthy of this country continue to call the political tune we will loose the democracy that was born 234 years ago and which so many have fought to preserve from those who would destroy it. As a class, the wealthy of this country and their corporate institutions have made it abundantly clear that they do not want a democracy. They want an oligarchic plutocracy and their religious constituency wants a theocracy. They have suborned every democratic institution we have from our legislature, to the presidency to the Supreme Court. They have corrupted our societal communications and the national dialogue our democracy requires. This is the enemy Lincoln feared; the enemy from within. We are down to our last line of defense; the people in whom democracy ultimately puts its trust. There is no "reaching out" to those who are corrupting our national dialogue with fear and innuendo, who suborn our government with bribes and political payoffs, who divert vast sums from our national productivity to their own satiated ends. This enemy must be put in the searchlight of truth and justice so that its repellent selfishness is clear to all.
The duplicity and manipulativeness of Obama's rescue of the middle class becomes glaringly apparent when we consider that he knew from the day he began to campaign for President that the Bush tax cuts were due to expire during his term in office, if he won. Presumably he knew this was a monstrous gift to the wealthy, which was denying adequate education to the majority of American children, which adversely affected a broad range of government services required by the increasing homeless and jobless population, created by the financial shenanigans of this same wealthy class and, above all, is exacerbating a rapidly increasing wealth gap between the rich and the rest of us that is now threatening the continued existence of our democracy. I repeat, he knew these things going in. This being the case, where was the effort to raise the public consciousness of the seriousness of the threat posed by the excessively rich and the degree to which these tax cuts had contributed to it. Where was the connection between the wealthy recipients of these tax cuts and their financial institutions that created our current "Great Recession?" Where was the effort to use his bully pulpit and oratorical gifts to redress the long standing rule of wealth rather than people in this country? This tax issue was pregnant with all sorts of political potential to greatly improve our society and the quality of life within it. Why was it so tragically wasted?
I think the answer can initially be found in Bill Clinton's administration and the advent of his Democratic Leadership Council. With this came the political notion, that one could win more political battles by "out Republicanizing" the Republicans. Why, one might ask, would Democrats think that winning legislative battles and elections by emulating Republicans be even considered as a strategy. The answer, I believe, is that Democrats had been so often out of power since the Reagan Revolution, that they would do anything, even out-Republican the Republicans, to obtain political power. In brief, an obsession with politcs rather than with the welfare of the people overtook the Democratic Party and, in so doing, rendered it spineless.
I also believe that Clinton came to believe that money was more important than people in getting elected and staying in power. Money could buy television commercials, which politicians found more effective overall than speaking to and mingling with many groups at many places. Jim Hightower in one of his books recounts an episode in which a young congressional candidate, with a very active support group, was invited by the Democratic Party to Washington D. C. along with a number of other promising candidates for orientation and help in developing their campaigns. At the gathering he was introduced to a number of PAC leaders and lobbyists. The group of candidates was told that these were the people they needed to get to know because they provided the money for extensive television ads, etc. They were there, in short, to enable match making between candidates and lobbyists. The young candidate protested that these were the people and this was the process, namely beltway politics, which he and his campaign were opposed to. He was immediately counted out. His primary opponent who had lost to the Republican in the two previous elections received the funding, won the primary and again lost to the Republican. Obama, in my opinion, bought into this Clintonesque, DLC, beltway-centered Democratic politics.
Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee tried to initiate a 50 state rejuvenation of the
Democratic Party structure. This would have done much to distribute Party power and resources more widely. He was vigorously opposed by Rahm Emanuel. One of the first things Obama did was appoint Emanuel as his chief of staff and remove Dean from his chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.
Obama is but one of many who would call themselves Democrats, but who were at best powder-blue dogs.
However, things may be changing. With Nancy Pelosi's refusal to let Obama's tax deal come to the House floor and Bernie Sanders' filibuster challenge not only to Obama's tax deal, but more importantly to the destructive role of excessive wealth in this society, we may have discovered the long-sought political nexus for a Progressive challenge to the Democratic-Republican political duopoly of wealth. Now is the time, I believe, for Progressives to speak out and demand not only government of by and for the people, but that progressive leadership become as bold and energetic as Pelosi and Sanders in their attack on wealth and privilege. Ralph Nader has called for a Progressive candidate to oppose Obama in 2012. Let us end this nightmare of rampant plutocracy and, as Howard Dean urged, return America to its people. Let us rise up and free the hostages. Perhaps we are responding to Denis Kucinich's plea in the 2008 Presidential campaign, "Wake up America, Wake up." Nancy and Bernie may be our alarm clocks.
Bob Newhard
However, I want to consider the undeclared ramifications and implications of this sickening fiasco.
To begin with, the real hostage was not the existing middle class, grievous though their situation is, the real hostage is our democracy. If we let the wealthy of this country continue to call the political tune we will loose the democracy that was born 234 years ago and which so many have fought to preserve from those who would destroy it. As a class, the wealthy of this country and their corporate institutions have made it abundantly clear that they do not want a democracy. They want an oligarchic plutocracy and their religious constituency wants a theocracy. They have suborned every democratic institution we have from our legislature, to the presidency to the Supreme Court. They have corrupted our societal communications and the national dialogue our democracy requires. This is the enemy Lincoln feared; the enemy from within. We are down to our last line of defense; the people in whom democracy ultimately puts its trust. There is no "reaching out" to those who are corrupting our national dialogue with fear and innuendo, who suborn our government with bribes and political payoffs, who divert vast sums from our national productivity to their own satiated ends. This enemy must be put in the searchlight of truth and justice so that its repellent selfishness is clear to all.
The duplicity and manipulativeness of Obama's rescue of the middle class becomes glaringly apparent when we consider that he knew from the day he began to campaign for President that the Bush tax cuts were due to expire during his term in office, if he won. Presumably he knew this was a monstrous gift to the wealthy, which was denying adequate education to the majority of American children, which adversely affected a broad range of government services required by the increasing homeless and jobless population, created by the financial shenanigans of this same wealthy class and, above all, is exacerbating a rapidly increasing wealth gap between the rich and the rest of us that is now threatening the continued existence of our democracy. I repeat, he knew these things going in. This being the case, where was the effort to raise the public consciousness of the seriousness of the threat posed by the excessively rich and the degree to which these tax cuts had contributed to it. Where was the connection between the wealthy recipients of these tax cuts and their financial institutions that created our current "Great Recession?" Where was the effort to use his bully pulpit and oratorical gifts to redress the long standing rule of wealth rather than people in this country? This tax issue was pregnant with all sorts of political potential to greatly improve our society and the quality of life within it. Why was it so tragically wasted?
I think the answer can initially be found in Bill Clinton's administration and the advent of his Democratic Leadership Council. With this came the political notion, that one could win more political battles by "out Republicanizing" the Republicans. Why, one might ask, would Democrats think that winning legislative battles and elections by emulating Republicans be even considered as a strategy. The answer, I believe, is that Democrats had been so often out of power since the Reagan Revolution, that they would do anything, even out-Republican the Republicans, to obtain political power. In brief, an obsession with politcs rather than with the welfare of the people overtook the Democratic Party and, in so doing, rendered it spineless.
I also believe that Clinton came to believe that money was more important than people in getting elected and staying in power. Money could buy television commercials, which politicians found more effective overall than speaking to and mingling with many groups at many places. Jim Hightower in one of his books recounts an episode in which a young congressional candidate, with a very active support group, was invited by the Democratic Party to Washington D. C. along with a number of other promising candidates for orientation and help in developing their campaigns. At the gathering he was introduced to a number of PAC leaders and lobbyists. The group of candidates was told that these were the people they needed to get to know because they provided the money for extensive television ads, etc. They were there, in short, to enable match making between candidates and lobbyists. The young candidate protested that these were the people and this was the process, namely beltway politics, which he and his campaign were opposed to. He was immediately counted out. His primary opponent who had lost to the Republican in the two previous elections received the funding, won the primary and again lost to the Republican. Obama, in my opinion, bought into this Clintonesque, DLC, beltway-centered Democratic politics.
Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee tried to initiate a 50 state rejuvenation of the
Democratic Party structure. This would have done much to distribute Party power and resources more widely. He was vigorously opposed by Rahm Emanuel. One of the first things Obama did was appoint Emanuel as his chief of staff and remove Dean from his chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.
Obama is but one of many who would call themselves Democrats, but who were at best powder-blue dogs.
However, things may be changing. With Nancy Pelosi's refusal to let Obama's tax deal come to the House floor and Bernie Sanders' filibuster challenge not only to Obama's tax deal, but more importantly to the destructive role of excessive wealth in this society, we may have discovered the long-sought political nexus for a Progressive challenge to the Democratic-Republican political duopoly of wealth. Now is the time, I believe, for Progressives to speak out and demand not only government of by and for the people, but that progressive leadership become as bold and energetic as Pelosi and Sanders in their attack on wealth and privilege. Ralph Nader has called for a Progressive candidate to oppose Obama in 2012. Let us end this nightmare of rampant plutocracy and, as Howard Dean urged, return America to its people. Let us rise up and free the hostages. Perhaps we are responding to Denis Kucinich's plea in the 2008 Presidential campaign, "Wake up America, Wake up." Nancy and Bernie may be our alarm clocks.
Bob Newhard
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Depression and War
The other day my wife Eleanor was reading a book on the psychology of decision making. The author rather gratuitously threw in the remark that Roosevelt's New Deal did not end the Great Depression. World War 2 did. We all hear this remark, usually from those who prefer governance by corporations rather than governments of, by, and for the people. This remark is both true and deceptively false.
It is true that Roosevelt's policies did not bring the economy back to the exceptionally high levels preceding the 1929 crash. We should be grateful that it did not because that economy was based on the speculation that led to the depression in the first place..The other day my wife Eleanor was reading a book on the psychology of decision making. The author rather gratuitously threw in the remark that Roosevelt's New Deal did not end the Great Depression. World War 2 did. We all hear this remark, usually from those who prefer governance by corporations rather than governments of, by, and for the people. This remark is both true and deceptively false.
It is true that Roosevelt's policies did not bring the economy back to the exceptionally high levels preceding the 1929 crash. We should be grateful that it did not because that economy was based on the speculation that led to the depression in the first place. However, his policies did bring the economy back about half way by 1935.
The argument is deceptively false because it is meant to imply that government did not bring back the economy. The economy of World War 2 was a government economy, par excellence and vitiates this old conservative argument completely.
The interesting question is, "Why does one form of government spending (war) work so much better than another (peace)?
Examining major economies victimized by the Great Depression, which was world wide, we find that war and the preparation for war, was the effective antidote to the depression. The German economy, which was far worse than ours due in part to the continuing reparations the World War 1 allies imposed, was brought back by Hitler's militarization program. The English by the need to rearm, the United States by the need to rearm, Japan came out of the Great Depression in 1932, perhaps, bcause it had been militarizing since militarism became a dominant feature of Japanese development with the Meiji Restoration of 1869. Its 1905 victory over Russia greatly enhanced its prestige, and culminated in Japan's aggressive colonialism, a hallmark of world powers at the time.
But why is war so much more effective than other efforts to reconvert from major economic downturns? Some would say that war affects everybody. This is to say that, short of war, not everybody is affected seriously by a depression. And this is to say that those least affected, the wealthy, are unwilling and not required to contribute to fight this kind of national calamity to the extent they are in war. I ask why not? The answer to that question, I believe, can be found in American economic mythology, namely, that anyone can be an economic success and if they are not it must be their own fault. My own father, a mechanic who was able to hold on to his job throughout the depression, although at meager pay, looked down on WPA workers who, by his definition, had gone on the dole. The rich have this myth working for them day and night. Poor people will blame each other for their economic plight rather than the wealthy who have caused the situation and continue to profit from it. This is the sad tale of American economic naiveté.
This line of reasoning is, I believe, prima facie evidence that it is the wealthy that insure that this level of societal effort is not launched against depressions. If we now look at some facts surrounding World War 2 that made it effective in finally ending the Great Depression the substance of this argument will be further vindicated.
For one, the federal tax rate on the wealthiest was 94%. It had even been 77% under Herbert Hover. Ronald Reagan dropped it from 70% to 28%. It is now 35% and Obama's effort to raise it to 40% is being labeled "socialist" by Republicans. One of the major reasons the 2nd World War brought back full employment was that the wealthy were required to pay their fair share of the cost of that war. This along with government planning and rationing of resources is the real meaning of World War 2 as an end to the depression. Everyone had to contribute their fair share. This is the democratic method of dealing with economic downturns once under way. Preventing or minimizing those downturns inherent in the capitalist system is a matter of vigilant, continuous regulation so that capitalism's ever present excesses are not allowed to create economic havoc.
One of the best metaphors for capitalism is fire. Capitalism should be viewed as a hazard similar to fire and should be controlled with the same diligence. Capitalism, like fire, can be useful, but also like fire it is very destructive when out of control. Like fire, it must be kept away from combustible fuel, i.e. excess profits that feed a frenzy of speculation; we must have mechanisms at hand when it bursts into flame, i.e. legal fire hoses; it must be subject to constant vigilance and checked on frequently by competent watchdogs. Capitalism is not good or bad, it simply is. We need a population not subject to the blandishments of speculation, but capable of placing capitalism in a place where it can do no harm. Children have been taught the need to protect our environment and it is paying off. Similarly they need to be taught the destructiveness of uncontrolled capitalism and the need and mechanisms for controlling it.
Bob Newhard
However, his policies did bring the economy back about half way by 1935.
The argument is deceptively false because it is meant to imply that government did not bring back the economy. The economy of World War 2 was a government economy, par excellence and vitiates this old conservative argument completely.
The interesting question is, "Why does one form of government spending (war) work so much better than another (peace)?
Examining major economies victimized by the Great Depression, which was world wide, we find that war and the preparation for war, was the effective antidote to the depression. The German economy, which was far worse than ours due in part to the continuing reparations the World War 1 allies imposed, was brought back by Hitler's militarization program. The English by the need to rearm, the United States by the need to rearm, Japan came out of the Great Depression in 1932, perhaps, bcause it had been militarizing since militarism became a dominant feature of Japanese development with the Meiji Restoration of 1869. Its 1905 victory over Russia greatly enhanced its prestige, and culminated in Japan's aggressive colonialism, a hallmark of world powers at the time.
But why is war so much more effective than other efforts to reconvert from major economic downturns? Some would say that war affects everybody. This is to say that, short of war, not everybody is affected seriously by a depression. And this is to say that those least affected, the wealthy, are unwilling and not required to contribute to fight this kind of national calamity to the extent they are in war. I ask why not? The answer to that question, I believe, can be found in American economic mythology, namely, that anyone can be an economic success and if they are not it must be their own fault. My own father, a mechanic who was able to hold on to his job throughout the depression, although at meager pay, looked down on WPA workers who, by his definition, had gone on the dole. The rich have this myth working for them day and night. Poor people will blame each other for their economic plight rather than the wealthy who have caused the situation and continue to profit from it. This is the sad tale of American economic naiveté.
This line of reasoning is, I believe, prima facie evidence that it is the wealthy that insure that this level of societal effort is not launched against depressions. If we now look at some facts surrounding World War 2 that made it effective in finally ending the Great Depression the substance of this argument will be further vindicated.
For one, the federal tax rate on the wealthiest was 94%. It had even been 77% under Herbert Hover. Ronald Reagan dropped it from 70% to 28%. It is now 35% and Obama's effort to raise it to 40% is being labeled "socialist" by Republicans. One of the major reasons the 2nd World War brought back full employment was that the wealthy were required to pay their fair share of the cost of that war. This along with government planning and rationing of resources is the real meaning of World War 2 as an end to the depression. Everyone had to contribute their fair share. This is the democratic method of dealing with economic downturns once under way. Preventing or minimizing those downturns inherent in the capitalist system is a matter of vigilant, continuous regulation so that capitalism's ever present excesses are not allowed to create economic havoc.
One of the best metaphors for capitalism is fire. Capitalism should be viewed as a hazard similar to fire and should be controlled with the same diligence. Capitalism, like fire, can be useful, but also like fire it is very destructive when out of control. Like fire, it must be kept away from combustible fuel, i.e. excess profits that feed a frenzy of speculation; we must have mechanisms at hand when it bursts into flame, i.e. legal fire hoses; it must be subject to constant vigilance and checked on frequently by competent watchdogs. Capitalism is not good or bad, it simply is. We need a population not subject to the blandishments of speculation, but capable of placing capitalism in a place where it can do no harm. Children have been taught the need to protect our environment and it is paying off. Similarly they need to be taught the destructiveness of uncontrolled capitalism and the need and mechanisms for controlling it.
Bob Newhard
It is true that Roosevelt's policies did not bring the economy back to the exceptionally high levels preceding the 1929 crash. We should be grateful that it did not because that economy was based on the speculation that led to the depression in the first place..The other day my wife Eleanor was reading a book on the psychology of decision making. The author rather gratuitously threw in the remark that Roosevelt's New Deal did not end the Great Depression. World War 2 did. We all hear this remark, usually from those who prefer governance by corporations rather than governments of, by, and for the people. This remark is both true and deceptively false.
It is true that Roosevelt's policies did not bring the economy back to the exceptionally high levels preceding the 1929 crash. We should be grateful that it did not because that economy was based on the speculation that led to the depression in the first place. However, his policies did bring the economy back about half way by 1935.
The argument is deceptively false because it is meant to imply that government did not bring back the economy. The economy of World War 2 was a government economy, par excellence and vitiates this old conservative argument completely.
The interesting question is, "Why does one form of government spending (war) work so much better than another (peace)?
Examining major economies victimized by the Great Depression, which was world wide, we find that war and the preparation for war, was the effective antidote to the depression. The German economy, which was far worse than ours due in part to the continuing reparations the World War 1 allies imposed, was brought back by Hitler's militarization program. The English by the need to rearm, the United States by the need to rearm, Japan came out of the Great Depression in 1932, perhaps, bcause it had been militarizing since militarism became a dominant feature of Japanese development with the Meiji Restoration of 1869. Its 1905 victory over Russia greatly enhanced its prestige, and culminated in Japan's aggressive colonialism, a hallmark of world powers at the time.
But why is war so much more effective than other efforts to reconvert from major economic downturns? Some would say that war affects everybody. This is to say that, short of war, not everybody is affected seriously by a depression. And this is to say that those least affected, the wealthy, are unwilling and not required to contribute to fight this kind of national calamity to the extent they are in war. I ask why not? The answer to that question, I believe, can be found in American economic mythology, namely, that anyone can be an economic success and if they are not it must be their own fault. My own father, a mechanic who was able to hold on to his job throughout the depression, although at meager pay, looked down on WPA workers who, by his definition, had gone on the dole. The rich have this myth working for them day and night. Poor people will blame each other for their economic plight rather than the wealthy who have caused the situation and continue to profit from it. This is the sad tale of American economic naiveté.
This line of reasoning is, I believe, prima facie evidence that it is the wealthy that insure that this level of societal effort is not launched against depressions. If we now look at some facts surrounding World War 2 that made it effective in finally ending the Great Depression the substance of this argument will be further vindicated.
For one, the federal tax rate on the wealthiest was 94%. It had even been 77% under Herbert Hover. Ronald Reagan dropped it from 70% to 28%. It is now 35% and Obama's effort to raise it to 40% is being labeled "socialist" by Republicans. One of the major reasons the 2nd World War brought back full employment was that the wealthy were required to pay their fair share of the cost of that war. This along with government planning and rationing of resources is the real meaning of World War 2 as an end to the depression. Everyone had to contribute their fair share. This is the democratic method of dealing with economic downturns once under way. Preventing or minimizing those downturns inherent in the capitalist system is a matter of vigilant, continuous regulation so that capitalism's ever present excesses are not allowed to create economic havoc.
One of the best metaphors for capitalism is fire. Capitalism should be viewed as a hazard similar to fire and should be controlled with the same diligence. Capitalism, like fire, can be useful, but also like fire it is very destructive when out of control. Like fire, it must be kept away from combustible fuel, i.e. excess profits that feed a frenzy of speculation; we must have mechanisms at hand when it bursts into flame, i.e. legal fire hoses; it must be subject to constant vigilance and checked on frequently by competent watchdogs. Capitalism is not good or bad, it simply is. We need a population not subject to the blandishments of speculation, but capable of placing capitalism in a place where it can do no harm. Children have been taught the need to protect our environment and it is paying off. Similarly they need to be taught the destructiveness of uncontrolled capitalism and the need and mechanisms for controlling it.
Bob Newhard
However, his policies did bring the economy back about half way by 1935.
The argument is deceptively false because it is meant to imply that government did not bring back the economy. The economy of World War 2 was a government economy, par excellence and vitiates this old conservative argument completely.
The interesting question is, "Why does one form of government spending (war) work so much better than another (peace)?
Examining major economies victimized by the Great Depression, which was world wide, we find that war and the preparation for war, was the effective antidote to the depression. The German economy, which was far worse than ours due in part to the continuing reparations the World War 1 allies imposed, was brought back by Hitler's militarization program. The English by the need to rearm, the United States by the need to rearm, Japan came out of the Great Depression in 1932, perhaps, bcause it had been militarizing since militarism became a dominant feature of Japanese development with the Meiji Restoration of 1869. Its 1905 victory over Russia greatly enhanced its prestige, and culminated in Japan's aggressive colonialism, a hallmark of world powers at the time.
But why is war so much more effective than other efforts to reconvert from major economic downturns? Some would say that war affects everybody. This is to say that, short of war, not everybody is affected seriously by a depression. And this is to say that those least affected, the wealthy, are unwilling and not required to contribute to fight this kind of national calamity to the extent they are in war. I ask why not? The answer to that question, I believe, can be found in American economic mythology, namely, that anyone can be an economic success and if they are not it must be their own fault. My own father, a mechanic who was able to hold on to his job throughout the depression, although at meager pay, looked down on WPA workers who, by his definition, had gone on the dole. The rich have this myth working for them day and night. Poor people will blame each other for their economic plight rather than the wealthy who have caused the situation and continue to profit from it. This is the sad tale of American economic naiveté.
This line of reasoning is, I believe, prima facie evidence that it is the wealthy that insure that this level of societal effort is not launched against depressions. If we now look at some facts surrounding World War 2 that made it effective in finally ending the Great Depression the substance of this argument will be further vindicated.
For one, the federal tax rate on the wealthiest was 94%. It had even been 77% under Herbert Hover. Ronald Reagan dropped it from 70% to 28%. It is now 35% and Obama's effort to raise it to 40% is being labeled "socialist" by Republicans. One of the major reasons the 2nd World War brought back full employment was that the wealthy were required to pay their fair share of the cost of that war. This along with government planning and rationing of resources is the real meaning of World War 2 as an end to the depression. Everyone had to contribute their fair share. This is the democratic method of dealing with economic downturns once under way. Preventing or minimizing those downturns inherent in the capitalist system is a matter of vigilant, continuous regulation so that capitalism's ever present excesses are not allowed to create economic havoc.
One of the best metaphors for capitalism is fire. Capitalism should be viewed as a hazard similar to fire and should be controlled with the same diligence. Capitalism, like fire, can be useful, but also like fire it is very destructive when out of control. Like fire, it must be kept away from combustible fuel, i.e. excess profits that feed a frenzy of speculation; we must have mechanisms at hand when it bursts into flame, i.e. legal fire hoses; it must be subject to constant vigilance and checked on frequently by competent watchdogs. Capitalism is not good or bad, it simply is. We need a population not subject to the blandishments of speculation, but capable of placing capitalism in a place where it can do no harm. Children have been taught the need to protect our environment and it is paying off. Similarly they need to be taught the destructiveness of uncontrolled capitalism and the need and mechanisms for controlling it.
Bob Newhard
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