|
Stalemate?
by Rick
lifted from a comment
Uncle, I checked out your link Is There Something Wrong with the System? and found an excellent discussion there at Huffington Post. I would say the system is broken, but that would imply it was working correctly before. That is not to say some things haven’t gotten better for “We, The People”.
In the two to three hundred years that our country has struggled to become an exemplary nation, there certainly have been successes. There have been definite improvements in human dignity regarding race and creed, definite improvements in social programs for the poor, and generally (except during specific instances of war and economic depressions), definite improvements in our standard of living. In fact, overall, one would have to admit that some positive implementations of socialism have improved many lives here in America.
In that respect, as noted months ago, I don’t necessarily subscribe to the “Ratchet Effect” theory, at least as experienced in the long term. The effects of advanced technology and larger populations work together to require additional socialistic solutions no matter what political persuasion one subscribes to.
I have problems with politicians of the left and of the right, with those who call themselves conservative and those who call themselves liberals. In short, I have problems with political labels, and more recently, I have deep misgivings with those who directly support one party over another without true examination of our broken and corrupt “Two Party System”. Political misuse of labels certainly contributes to our broken political system.
Let me explain by an example:
Last week, Vice President Cheney, in a live television interview, was asked if Hillary Clinton, would make a good President. The response from Cheney was quick and short, and although I don’t have the transcript in front of me, if my memory serves me half-way correct, Cheney answered something like the following: “no she would not, she is a Democrat, and I don’t agree with the principles of the Democratic Party”.
There were not any further details from Cheney on exactly what and why Hillary’s principles were insufficient to run the country. With Rush Limbaugh speaking to over 13 million devoted listeners weekly, and Limbaugh’s distinguished use of divisive tactics, how easy it is for millions of “ditto heads” (and a million or so others that these ditto heads influence) to accept Cheney’s poor response.
Our politicians constantly use labels and division to our detriment. In a less obvious and extreme way, our American political system reminds me of Iraq; that is, labels are used by both parties and even by non-party citizens of America, sort of like Iraqis now being allowed to live or die on whether they are Shiite or Sunni.
Are such labels as left or right, so commonly used, so really important here in America, or do they serve a more devious purpose?
Personally, I consider myself a “Conservative”. And I do not see free enterprise as necessarily an enemy of social cooperation. Now before every social progressive shouts me down with personal attacks in all capital letters, let me further say that for example, just off the top of my head, I would have no problem with:
- Socializing American energy (gas, oil, etc.).
- Socializing our communication infrastructure.
- Having a decent socialized medical program available for all.
- Removing and/or changing much of the overly protective copyright/patent rights.
- Federal and State funded/regulated campaigning open to anyone regardless of party or persuasion.
- Removing from corporations, however possible, any political power/influence on our political system and political decision-making.
The last issue is of most importance. Readers here at Moon have heard me time and time again speak out against Corporatism. It is truly, in my mind, a form of Fascism. The problems in America are readily apparent but naturally not addressed by our "elected" representatives.
The academic definition of Fascism is extreme nationalism. But that definition is surely incomplete in today’s global corporate world. Since even before the East India Trading Company, multinational operating corporations have afflicted populations. But such ill consequences have never been on a scale that the poor and marginal of the world are experiencing today. By the term marginal, I am addressing most of us in the developed world.
Regarding my last post concerning Bush’s State of the Union Speech and Webb’s rebuttal, I wish to expound to further explain some points above.
Again, not to beat a dead horse, and definitely Jim Webb is not a dead horse, but I do fault Webb for being part of the system yet not speaking out more clearly against the ills that this system brings – not only to Americans, but to all people of this world.
Examining his speech once more from annie’s link to Crooks & Liars:
First the headline from the linked post:
Sen. Webb’s Democratic Response to the SoTU: The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering
This headline is not too off the mark in summary of the Democratic rebuttal. As noted earlier, no mention of the massive loss of Iraqi lives and treasure.
Concerning Iraq and speech specifics, Jim Webb compares Iraq to the Korean War where Eisenhower called for an end to a bloody stalemate. Looking up “stalemate” synonyms from dictionary.com, one finds: impasse, standoff, standstill.
To be sure, The Iraq War is not a stalemate. And as an aside note, the U.S. continues to maintain troops in Korea, and at some significant cost. Certainly, such an ending for Iraq would have repercussions in the area and would probably not respect the sovereignty of Iraq. And I am not implying that this is what Webb recommends.
Looking at Jim Webb’s impressive background, it is discouraging to see Webb, above all people, quoting Eisenhower in such a manner. For most Internet and independent (independent as to thinking, not relating to the political party) thinkers, and I take the liberty of using “we” here, we think of a different quote by Eisenhower, a quote that warns Americans of military/government corporate collusion.
However, looking at the Iraq picture from a political party point of view – from either the Republican or the Democratic Party, such evisceration is exactly what one can expect. The political parties have become nothing more than a cancer upon the American people, feeding on our military tax dollars and the dollars we are all but forced to pay to large corporate entities.
I would like to expand more, but again, time is limited. In summary though, it is not just America’s political system that is broken, but America’s religious institutions, social support systems, and unfortunately, even our culture is diseased with some form of this cancer.
Most surprising, is how this cancer has eaten away our religious institutions. Unimaginable that today we see many -so-called “Christians” accepting the notion of torture for the “common good”. I can only explain this by divisive actions (labeling, i.e. distorting the character and removing the human dignity of the detainee), tactics used by those with influence and power.
As a footnote, I refer again to Webb’s reference of an American and Iraqi “stalemate”. Such a characterization is not just an understatement, but such a comparison was wrong on so many levels. As for the understatement, it is surely wrong to compare evils, such as U.S. to Iraqi body counts, but let not any of us ignore the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives lost. Our collective guilt for lost lives is engraved in stone in a monument that stands before the whole world.
Moreover, the question left unanswered, and not even asked, is: “What exactly is to follow this so called “stalemate”. Any attempt to describe the bleakness of Iraq’s future was avoided, a bleakness due totally by faults of our American Congress and President, and I say this with emphasis that American transgressions were performed by Administrations of both political parties, beginning with the first Gulf War, then the sanctions under both Clinton and Bush, then the second invasion with almost full support of both parties, and now the continued totality of U.S. involvement.
What specifically wasn’t said, with all its implications, is that the puppet Iraqi government can not self-exist in its present form. Again, I am more than unimpressed and more than thoroughly disgusted with both of our major political parties. I cannot even imagine the rage that an Iraqi has towards America.
Stalemate? No, there is no stalemate in Iraq. The stalemate is in our broken political system and culture.
The common conception of political parties changing is that they slowly evolve as the members change their views. This is the driving motivation behind most internet activists on the left. If only they get into the Democratic party, they can elect their people and have them slowly take over! Then we can convince Americans to have universal health care and stop invading countries!
While this is tempting in its lack of stressors or dramatic shock to people’s lives, it’s not the way I view political change. If people are comfortable with their situation, they won’t want change. They will remain essentially conservative, ie, not wanting dramatic changes.
By this view, the Democrats are the essentially conservative party of American politics. Their primary goals are to maintain things like the health care system, gas prices, the American middle-class way of life. Their goals are to keep these things in place, while perhaps making them more efficient or accessible to all. The Republican party, driven by the unholy alliance of anti-tax activists like Grover Norquist, moral majority theocrats, and foreign policy neoconservatives, are the party demanding great changes.
The problem is, most Americans with power (the middle-class and above) are comfortable with their place in the world, and thus will vote “conservatively.” The Republicans have their rhetoric in place for this conservativism, because, well, they’re conservatives in the popular parlance. The Democrats attempt to seize this advantage with their bullshit rhetoric about “american values,” taking back the country,” or “a stronger America!” It’ll be an amusing race between three expert panderers – Edwards, Clinton, or Obama – to come up with the most insipid slogan. I’m half expecting an Obama “America is good!” to counter Edwards’ “Livin’ the American Dream!”
At any rate, the way I view politics is as a crystallization of views focused on certain parties (or sides, as in Left and Right) in a consistent cycle of formulation then shattering. That is, the parties form around collections of views which eventually either are demonstrated to be mutually incompatible, or a new, dramatically different Issue is introduced which makes the previous combination of views seem irrelevant. These are going on currently, I think. The former is occurring in the Republican Party, with the authoritarianism of the neoconservatives and religious blight grating on the libertarian instincts of many in the party. Meanwhile, the Iraq issue is forcing the Democratic Party to crack at the seams, with isolationism appearing in the face of what had been a neoliberal consensus (amongst other things)
These major shifts and redefinitions seem to occur every 30-40 years, and last for 10-15 years. The Civil War, of course, is the most dramatic of them in American history. After that, there was a decent political consensus until the combination of the “progressive” era and new overseas imperialism led to a new one, which was quickly shattered by the Great Depression. Roosevelt managed to create a new political consensus which held until the Vietnam/Civil Rights era broke that, and it reformed into the form that we’re working with currently, with the Republicans standing for “traditional” morality and stronger American exceptionalism, and the Democrats for the neoliberal order with a slightly more egalitarian worldview.
9/11 might not have shattered this crystallization on its own, but Bush’s reactions, both his authoritarianism and his foreign policy, are pushing the issue, as is the increasing awareness of ecological collapse. If new political consensus is created in the next few years, we should attempt to have one of the parties be based around ecological sustainability, anti-authoritarianism, a defensive or even isolationist foreign policy, and economic egalitarianism. Regardless of whether it’s left or right, or Democrat, Republican, or something new.
Posted by: Rowan | Jan 26 2007 17:34 utc | 4
Now, about the 6 point program – a concrete example, and the weight of the conservatism Rowan refered to.
What exactly Rick means by ‘socializing’ is not clear, as it couldn’t be in that type of post, no criticism implied. There are many different models / aspects – e.g. relative freedom for corps but a stupendous redistributive tax, direct or indirect (see the French model), to a wide swath of shareholders (the US model, see pension funds etc.) to ‘nationalized’ schemes for industry / health care, etc. (e.g. Cuba, Venezuela.) Examples are just for flavor, nothing is so black and white.
‘Nationalized’ only implies a different locus of control, presumably one controlled by ‘the people’ but as the right likes to point out, in many instances, simply then run by a class of bureaucratic cadres who often prefer the status quo to innovation (e.g. US energy policy!) mostly because it takes them a long time to reach powerful positions (both in democracies or dictatorships – referring to different regimes vaguely) but also because they are ignorant of the businesses themselves, and are out for numbah one. So they count on stability above all. Progress can scare them or send them into inappropriate overdrive.
And::
The difference between: (from Rick)
1. Socializing American energy (gas, oil, etc.)
3. Having a decent socialized medical program available for all.
3/ Could be achieved, exists in part today (Medicare, free emergency care, health insurance paid by employer, etc.) It is a big Democrat calling card (see Hillary in the past), many State arrangements or attempts right now (Mass.) tend in that direction. Accomplishing it would imply – amongst others, to make things simple – curbing or fixing doctors salaries, cracking down or negotiating with big pharma, introducing some controls, and some competition! where neither exist right now. Of course, much opposition would raise its head, etc. but it is not beyond the realm of imaginable possibilities. The upshot would be that the rich pay for the care of the poor in a much larger proportion; yet the win-win aspect might easily be made clear to all.
By contrast, 1/ seems illusory. (?) The American life style is dependent on American clout, its army and nukes. The US depends on imports and the guns it points, and thus on the concept of the ‘free market’ abroad and thus within its own borders. US energy cannot be ‘nationalised’ as the energy comes in a large part from other countries – Canada, Saudi, Venezuela, to mention only contrasted exporters. If nationalization would change anything, one wonders what. Would the ‘people’ or ‘elected representatives’ force conservation or rationing? Demonstrate for 3 months for light rail? Give up free market principles? Ban SUVs, imported exotic foods? Withdraw immediately from Iraq? No. The Gvmt. might control prices at the pump, to smooth them out. That it could do, while taking care not to cut into oil company profits. Well it is doing that already, I guess.
Posted by: Noirette | Jan 26 2007 19:54 utc | 7
The political apparatus is a stage play performed by well heeled actors.
Whomsoever hires the politicians, whomsoever provides the monies to get them elected, and then to reward them for their government service and their lucrative business or academic or think tank careers after government, are the true patrons of the play. They own the production, and they approve all the scripts.
The 2008 Presidential election is predicted to be the first billion dollar election in US history. That’s how much money it takes to even get to Election Day. That money does not come from we, the people. We are in the audience.
Via the miracle of money being deemed free speech, politicians are almost directly hired by the economic elites to entertain the populace with mythos and drama, with bread and circuses — while behind closed doors they are ever busy constructing and reconstructing the written laws of the land to further tighten the control of the economic elites over the monies, aspirations, and lives of the populace.
When people speak of Corporatism, of the merger of corporations with government to the point where there is no functional difference between them, they are only pointing out the ‘front end’ of the scam.
Behind Corporatism is the debt virus, the deficit-financed nature of modern money. Privately held Central Banks are the ‘back end’ of the scam. Money and finance, credit for consumers and corporations and governments alike is controlled by a few shareholders in each nation’s Central Bank. Often these shareholders are the same across even economically competing nations.
These Central Banks can inflate or deflate at will, can increase or decrease the availability of money at will (by setting interest rates and controlling the availability of loans). The public myth is that the Central Bank struggles mightily to control the mysterious marketplace; it valiantly fights to provide financial stability and monetary consistency to good citizens everywhere, in a never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.
In plain fact, they are in business for themselves, seeking to maximize their profits just as all corporations are sworn to do. They arrange boom and bust business cycles in order to boost their own profits and assets.
The ‘back end’ to the scam of Corporatism is that the economy is controlled and managed for the benefit of the few who already hold most of the capital. They therefore get to dominate and control politics, the media, and government itself toward their own purposes. By the daily operations of fractional reserve lending, and the miracle of compound interest, these capital holdings only grow larger every day, these massive capital accumulations become more and more the sole masters of many millions of lives.
It’s been said that the function of government is the redistribution of wealth. Modern governments are so thoroughly distorted by the amassing of huge international capital funds that they are no longer in possession of this primary power of government. They are not even in a position to look out for, or care for, their own citizens.
The logical result of Corporatism is to invest all power in a CEO, a Boss, a Great Leader. That this person is a puppet for economic masters is never seriously examined or challenged in the stage play called politics. The government whips the public into dramatic commitments to war on this or that noun as if this will improve the public man’s lot in life, while all the while its real work is government by, of and for Friends Of Our Leader (FOOLs).
Corporatism, Fasicism, Totalitarianism — let us step back and describe them all by their common feature, which is ultimate concentration of economic (and therefore political) power in a very few hands. Is it not clear that economic power will be indifferent to which of these political faces it wears, as long as economic power is protected and concentrated?
You cannot tie two elephants to one post. You cannot have two captains on one ship. The people cannot possess a nation that is already private property of a few fortunates who are heirs of monstrous wealth.
It is not possible to contemplate self-government in America, or any nation, where corporations are persons, where money is a private fiefdom, and where free speech is equated with cash.
Posted by: Antifa | Jan 26 2007 20:59 utc | 10
Certainly, as Rowan said, the Democrats (European Socialists..etc) are more conservative that the Repubs.
That is partly because the ‘Dems.’ have a broader base, a more varied base, composed of much more ‘opinions’, desires, and so on; they are thus forced to adopt compromise positions and avoid extremism at all costs. The Repubs. (or the ‘right’ generally), as they rely more strongly on allegiance, on social conformity (conformity to party views as well) can be more slipshod, rougher, more extreme. And extremism in politics often pays.
About issues, yes, and the Repubs. right now are facing muted or overt clashes between the Straussian closet Zionists, the old guard with its carefully calculated yet narrow real-politik, and from the base, anti-authoritarian strands and hard headed business interests. It it all hangs together by a frayed thread it is because of lack of alternatives.
However, after having said the labels need to be junked, there is one difference that is traditional and remains in part: the Democrats represent some minorities (political, cultural, ethnic, class) and the Repub. roots lie with the white men in suits, the rich, those in charge, if I may put it that way. It is the latter group that has always – in the US, and this is very particular to the US – had an interest in creating enemies to promote national cohesion, to wash away the differences, and make US interests uniquely “American” and not those of some group. Offer a supra-ordinate goal…With communism it was a success; foreign policy ran smoothly facing that demon (though in many ways it was all shadows and masks), and at the same time, internal dissidents could be vilified, chased, cast out. Very neat, very simple. The war on drugs was a pathetic failure in that regard, and the present war on ‘terror’, with its stigmatization of a particular ‘racial’ or ‘religious’ group (Arabs etc.) is a confused mess, as that kind of prejudice is contrary to US values.
The Repubs. attempted to substitute racial hate and primitive scare-mongering for foreign policy, as they could not state what the foreign policy was actually about. The Democrats do not dare to denounce this strategy, unmask what is really going on, so are left shuffling about, and going to the extreme of saying it is comprehensible that people attacked (9/11) America…We thus see that both parties are willing to go to great lengths to preserve the status quo, and that the original differences between the two parties wash away because of a common goal that is never mentioned: Preserve unity.
One aspect. (see Antifa… for a broader pov…)
Posted by: Noirette | Jan 27 2007 15:26 utc | 27
|
