Cause and effect

A couple of blogs I wrote for www.timbuk3.com which take potshots at the effects of spin on a largely uninformed society. Un-American? by "Iconoclast" Everybody and his brother is "sick to their stomachs" about our recent faux pas of getting caught on film. "It's not the way we do things". It certainly isn't - we are unused to being graphically reminded of what our education, indoctrination and policies can accomplish. "Plausible deniability", the seeming root of our political activity, looses a lot of plausibility if we're actually caught by the camera eye. Of course, there are those who say that the issue is minor, that it has been overblown. And they're right - compared to the actual B52-borne genocide we did 30 years ago in SE Asia, this is nothing. This is nothing compared to My Lai and dozens of similar incidents that our boyz perpetrated back then - incidents punished with suspended sentences IF they made the news. Helicopter interrogations followed by the tiger's leap make the leash seem quite benign. But hell - we're the country that had a few Andersonvilles 140 years ago on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. We've made our share of unmarked mass graves in the Philippines, rubbed out the Indians, and helped dictators around the world to "euthanize" political dissenters by telling them who's dangerous and even how to torture (remember the School of the Americas?). How is this possible? How can it be that when the chips are down we are no better than so many bloody tyrannies throughout history? Is it the water? Americans are human beings, and to expect Americans to act any differently than the rest of humanity is to be over optimistic. In fact we have done quite well considering what we've been up against. To whit: Like all countries we demonize our enemies while putting ourselves on a nationalistic pedestal. "We're better, they're just animals" (or g**ks, ni**ers, w*ps, n*ps, sp*cs, t*welheads, inj*ns, or whoever is the enemy du jour). We train our lowbrow soldiers to hate to the point of killing, turning a bunch of largely uneducated and otherwise useless social rejects (from the perspective of our laissez faire society) into useful tools of coercion. Our society has been taught that titties are bad, violence, blood and gore are OK. Our society is taught that owning weapons is fine - and many people DREAM of the day that they'll be able to realize their potential by blowing away someone who has the temerity to enter our homes unannounced. The flaws of our hero figures are almost always one of victimization. Always a man with Vietnam scars, a family killed by baddies, an abusive father -- never actual character flaws such as Othello's jealousy or even Achilles' heel. IOW, any flaw isn't their fault. So is the torture "un-American"? Seeing that this epithet is being bandied about by our leaders - ones who have been instituting "un-American" policies themselves, the word "irony" comes up short. Remember, our leaders supported apartheid S. Africa for decades, loved Pinochet, Marcos, Somoza, Papa Doc, etc... Remember that we've been invading someone or other almost every year for decades. Remember that we only recall "human rights" when people we don't "like" abuse them -- otherwise we look the other way. So when we're caught on film doing what we've always done, cut the crap already. Or if we're actually squeamish about it and want to actually BE the good guys we like to portray ourselves as, DO something about it. 05/08/2004

Comments

Another bblog... on capitalism

Submitted by iconoclast 555 on March 9, 2006 - 9:45am.

Reality

By Iconoclast_555

The different flavors of the Right have turned the tables on truth.

For years, the Right claimed that Communists and "comsymps" were masters of propaganda, hiding veritable evil behind utopian platitudes. By confusing symbol and reference, they highlighted Comintern political propaganda in an effort to dismiss the far more realistic social messages inherent in progressive thought.

Now, the tables have turned, and with a vengeance.

The conservative economic agenda ranges from "fundamentalist economics" to "free marketdom" depending on the flavor, neocon or paleoconservative. In essence, however, the goal is a return to Laissez Faire capitalism, a system that was a major cause of both the Depression and WWII.

This is nothing new, btw. Since the New Deal, the conservatives have made it quite clear that they would not brook social improvements, anathema because they suppose at least some government control over the economy. In other words, conservatives have defended the interests of their paymasters, business, who would rather have a free hand in making money - albeit over the cadavers of workers.

The Conservatives have adopted a number of propagandistic mantras designed to dupe the electorate into following its scheme. "Market freedom", the concept of "benevolent capitalism" (oxymoron), "less government", "less regulations", can all be translated into "let's go back to the good old days of laissez faire".

To "govern" is to "Direct or strongly influence the behavior" or "Exercise authority". In a democracy, government by and for the people, the goal of "direction" and "authority" should be the greater good.

The economy is the single most important aspect of "the greater good". Food, shelter and health - not to mention the pursuit of happiness in a consumer's world - are dependent on the economy. If the government were to abdicate its authority regarding the economy, precisely the goal of conservatives, the government abdicates its reason for being. If the government caters to a strong minority such as Capital, it is abdicating its reason for being. When a political party uses outrageous propaganda in an effort to dupe voters into adopting policies that are not in their best interests, said party is treasonous.

The Right loves to point at our current affluence, statistics of "growth" and the like, as examples of how "free marketism" is such a success. The fact of the matter is that the improvement of our lot has been attained DESPITE and not BECAUSE of "free marketism".

A little over a century ago we were working 6 days a week. By "we" I mean men, women and children - who worked 12 hours a day for barely subsistence wages. There was plenty of "growth" back then - yet tenement squalor was the social reality behind the statistical veneer.

Various "-isms" arose out of the suffering of the Industrial Revolution. These "-isms" COERCED better conditions for most of the population of 1st world countries - and created the "consumer society" that is the reality of the "American Dream" today.

Make no mistake about it - it took blood, sweat and tears to shave some of Capital's profits and to give a life worth living to the workers. A worthwhile life that incidentally made profits, growth and wealth bigger than ever as well-paid workers actually acquired the wherewithal to buy the products and services that make the capitalistic world go 'round.

Capital has benefited from progressive ideals even more than workers. But as the bottom line is rather blurred and not directly attributable to better working conditions in the subjective account books of corporations, self-seeking shortsightedness takes over.

Modern American affluence was the direct result of the New Deal, trade unionism and the fear of revolution. Yet capital has always been against these movements - fighting against overtime pay, collective negotiation or anything that gets in the way of its hiring workers for as little as possible. "Let others pay more" to make their own products acquirable - capital needs to look at their own subjective bottom line. Short-term expediency reigns.

Communism fell. Trade unionism fell by the wayside in a demand economy where it's always an employers' market. There is sufficient affluence so that the powers-that-be no longer need fear "revolution". And there is no longer a voice that counters the hegemony of capital.

Thus since 1969 only the wealthiest have seen their lots improve, while the remaining 95% of us have had to do with more working hours with less pay. The economy has gone "global", meaning that 1st world workers must "learn to compete" with 3rd world workers - who are shamelessly exploited.

The end result is that the 1st world - home of more or less "mixed economies" - must forsake the hard-won benefits, while capital earns more money than ever....

...Capital learned its lessons over the past couple centuries. It saw the revolutions of 1848 and 1917 (amongst others), read the writing on the wall. They were initially against democracy because they feared that once people had a voice in their governance they would no longer brook exploitation.

The lesson Capital learned was that the electorate is eminently malleable. Base instincts can be appealed to - empty concepts such as "nationalism", "family values" and the plethora of ultimately meaningless concepts that divert attention away from the bottom line. Goebbels was preceded by Disraeli's Primrose League and succeeded by the "Moral Majority" (etc.). Bait & switch is an age-old ploy - as old as democracy itself.

Capital has been all too successful. Always the taskmaster of political conservatism, it has always been the root of righ twing authoritarianism. It has learned that the trappings of power are not as necessary as power itself - and has adapted its message to populistic appeals: it cries "freedom" while holding the reigns of power.

There is no longer any real opposition to laissez faire and to capital-driven populism. We've lived to see no less than 3 decades of erosion of our well-being - and even to see purportedly "progressive" political parties embracing laissez faire. An extremism has won out to the point that "centrist" policies such as Europe's welfare systems are seen as outrageously radical...

... And the end result? The very factors that made the 1st world into something to be emulated are seen as detrimental to society. We are fast on track towards re-creating the very environment that made the opposite extreme (the various "-isms") viable or even desirable. The snake chases its own tail.

Those of us in the center - neither supporters of laissez faire nor the "-isms" - are now considered the radical left-wing extremists, as opposed to being voices of sanity in an insane world. The lessons of history are once again being forgotten.

6/02/05

Cont'd

Submitted by iconoclast 555 on March 9, 2006 - 9:46am.

Reality - Symptoms

By Iconoclast_555

The financial wealth of the top one percent of households now exceeds the combined wealth of the bottom 95 percent (Edward N. Wolff, "Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership," a paper for the conference on "Benefits and Mechanisms for Spreading Asset Ownership in the United States," New York University, December 10-12, 1998. In 1995, the financial wealth of the top one percent was greater than the bottom 90 percent.)

The wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans grew by an average $940 million each from 1997-1999 while over a recent 12-year period the net worth of the bottom 40 percent of households declined 80 percent (Forbes 400, October 11, 1999.)

The Federal Reserve found in its latest survey of consumer finances that although median family net worth rose 17.6 percent between 1995 and 1998, family wealth was "substantially below" 1989 levels for all income groups under age 55 (Edward N. Wolff, "Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership," Ibid. The period cited was 1983 to 1995, based on the Federal Reserve's 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances)...

From 1983-1997, only the top five percent of households saw an increase in their net worth while wealth declined for everyone else (Federal Reserve Bulletin, January 2000, p. 6)

As of 1997, the median household financial wealth (marketable assets less home equity) was $11,700, $1,300 lower than in 1989 (idem)

For the first time since the Great Depression, the national savings rate turned negative (during the first quarter of 1999) (Feldstein, chairman of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, was a key architect of supply-side economics).

Economist Robert Frank reports that the top one percent captured 70 percent of all earnings growth since the mid-1970's

On an inflation-adjusted basis, the median hourly wage in 1998 was 7 percent lower than in 1973 - when Richard Nixon was in the White House

The pay gap between top executives and production workers grew from 42:1 in 1980 to 419:1 in 1998 (excluding the value of stock options) (Forbes)

Executive pay at the nation's 365 largest companies rose an average 481 percent from 1990 to 1998 while corporate profits rose 108 percent (Forbes)

Had the typical worker's pay risen in tandem with executive pay, the average production worker would now earn $110,000 a year and the minimum wage would be $22.08 (Forbes).

The work year has expanded by 184 hours since 1970, an additional 4-1/2 weeks on the job for the same or less pay (Juliet S. Schor, The Overworked American (New York: Basic Books, 1992 - Economic Policy Institute found that the annual hours worked expanded by 45 hours from 1989-1994.)

More than 65 million anti-depressant prescriptions were written in 1998.

Parents spend 40 percent less time with their children today than they did thirty years ago

Had increases in the minimum wage kept pace with inflation since the 1960s, the minimum wage would now exceed the earnings of nearly 30 percent of U.S. workers.

According to the Census Bureau, the top fifth of households now claim 49.2 percent of national income while the bottom fifth gets by on 3.6 percent

Except for inflation adjustments, today's poverty formula remains unchanged since 1965 when it was designed by Lyndon Johnson to address severe nutritional deprivation but only if "the housewife is a careful shopper, a skillful cook and a good manager who will prepare all the family's meals at home."

The national poverty rate remains above that for any year in the 1970's.

One in every four preschoolers in the United States now lives in poverty

Raising the poverty threshold to $19,500 (as recommended by the Census Bureau) boosts the poverty rate to a record-high 17 percent, leaving 46 million Americans short of that minimal level.

Nine years into the longest economic expansion in the nation's history, labor's share of the national income remains two to four percentage points below the levels reached in the late 1960's and early 1970's

Household debt as a percentage of personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to an estimated 85 percent in 1997. ...

The world's 200 largest corporations account for 28 percent of global economic activity while employing less than one-quarter of one percent of the global workforce.

Every jet fighter sold by a developed country to a developing country costs the schooling of three million children

In the 1997 fiscal year, the United States exported $8.3 billion of arms to non-democratic countries.

6/02/05

Attacking some mantras

Submitted by iconoclast 555 on March 9, 2006 - 9:49am.

Motherlode of "toldja so's", A Rant

By Iconoclast_555

The suffering of the Gulf Coast has brought to the forefront the bankruptcy of what passes as an "ideology" of the American right.

The admin said, at the nadir of the current phase of the disaster, that it didn't want people to die because of bureaucracy. The irony of this statement is not lost on the more politically aware - it was the LACK of a bureaucracy at an effective level and a SURPLUS of bureaucracy on the political level that has been responsible for the torpid relief efforts.

The federal government has grown in spurts: the Civil War created the first strong central government apparatus. The New Deal expanded it exponentially. The 1960's saw some growth - although mostly in government responsibilities. Finally, the current administration schizophrenically loaded a new layer of useless political appointees while removing competencies and budgets.

The American right is on record for wanting to eliminate, as far as possible, the federal government. This is a relatively new aspect of the right and came about as a result of the 1960's; the Goldwater cons were unhappy with the idea of the government meddling in such affairs as the enforcement of civil rights, social programs to help raise the less wealthy, education, etc. As the GOP coddled and captured the Dixiecrats, the concept of "states rights" (a pre-Civil War bagatelle) confirmed the idea of "drowning the government in a bathtub".

Billions have been spent on converting the idea of "less government" into a quasi-cultural meme. Yet the money was spent - because some desire to profit from the absence of government. It is an empty rhetorical flourish because even the most rabid government minimalist can't conceive of a society where the basic services provided by the government were to disappear.

Some have argued that government services should be privatized. Others say that the states should be responsible. Almost all point out that the government is inefficient compared to private enterprise and the competitive marketplace. All three are dead wrong - as the recent disaster shows.

The LA disaster plan that turned out to be a disaster itself was... outsourced. LA does not have the emergency infrastructure and it certainly doesn't have the cash to face such a disaster. The "social darwinists" and assorted cons might say "tough tittie" - but unfortunately a disaster like this one affects the whole nation if not the entire world.

Private enterprise may be initially more efficient but adds a profit margin to expenses as well as corruption - while government inefficiency is due to POLITICAL incompetence. And the unending trend towards corporate consolidation shows that the competitive marketplace for "necessities" eventually ends up with monopolies, friendly duopolies or worse.

If there are any meaningful questions to be asked after this disaster, they shouldn't be about the identities of incompetent political appointees or "tweakings of the system." The real question that needs to be asked is "what should the role of the central government be?".

The "minimalist", "states' rights", "privatized" approach was tested and found to be wanting. Iraq showed the first palpable symptoms of this: poor oversight, corruption, incompetence. This disaster showed that the cons have created a major vacuum in a key area - the power to evaluate, coordinate and effectuate necessary actions in a critical moment.

Another open wound discovered (or re-discovered) is the extreme disparity between the wealthy and the poor. Vietnam starved the "Great Society" of funds and political weight and the cons have since removed itself from any responsibility for improving the lot of the citizens it represents. A disaster, a videotaped beating, a basketball victory - all are capable of igniting riots amongst the nation's poor. If there is any barometer measuring the government's competence, this is it.

The politically aware know the conservative rhetoric all too well. Yet what the conservatives ignore is that their rhetoric is 150 years old and when actually applied, has invariably resulted in absolute failure and incredible suffering.

"Self-help", "charity" (the predecessor of the "faith based" initiatives of today)... were Victorian mantras that utterly failed to improve the squalor of the Industrial Revolution. They were also the basis of the Coolidges, Hardings and Hoovers - which resulted in the Depression. It would be fitting if the likely refugee camps to be built for the survivors of the Gulf disaster were to be called "Dubyavilles" - in allusion to the Depression-era "Hooverville" hovels that dotted the American countryside.

Civilization requires governance and the lack of government is, by definition, anarchy. Spreading government to the local level can be effective in the day-to-day administration but is utterly incapable of dealing with emergencies or of progressing society. And borrowing an argument from the cons themselves, the multiplicity of bureaucracies through decentralization cannot be "efficient".

--------

Since the cleptocratic/corporatist establishment will undoubtedly spend wildly in order to maintain their investment in pulling the wool over their constituents' eyes, I hope that they have to spend a shitload of cash.

With a bit of luck they'll bankrupt themselves in the process.

9/04/05