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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-082
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Imperial Britain:
Fake whistleblower:
Fake illness:
Use as open thread …
Michael Hudson’s posted another recent interview on his website, “The Tight Fist of Special Interests”, dealing with Outlaw US Empire’s domestic politics. Here’s Michael’s description of the Empire’s governmental system:
“So in order to get the Democratic National Committee to designate you as a candidate, you have to outpoll all of your rivals and who can get the most money from the special corporate interests that you are committed to represent. So what you have in the situation in Congress and politics is very different from what you would have in law. If this were a court case to decide what policy they have, if a judge owned stock in a huge coal company, he would have to recuse himself from writing that. But in Democratic politics, the reason that Manchin wouldn’t recuse himself and the recipients of pharmaceutical money won’t recuse themselves is that’s why they get the money because they don’t have it.
Paul Jay
“The thing is, if senators had to recuse themselves because of conflict of interest, you might have only three or four senators left to vote on anything.
Michael Hudson
“That’s the problem right there. So the question is, do we live in a democracy, or do we live in an oligarchy? We live in an oligarchy where it’s sort of pay-to-play, and the largest campaign contributors get to designate who are going to write the laws in their own interest. So that’s what’s paralyzing Biden’s plan. The problem is if you have politicians elected by who can raise the most money from the special interests, how on earth can they get voters to vote for them?
“Well, the job of a politician is to deliver a given segment of voters to the campaign contributors so that they can win over other politicians who don’t get the money from these campaign contributors because they wouldn’t give them all of the special interest favours that politicians are able to get them. So corruption— this used to be considered corruption, but now it’s built into the system as part of the basic system. And that’s not how democracies are supposed to work. [My Emphasis]
Well, none of that’s really surprising to barflies. Here’s Hudson on why Biden’s domestic fix-it plan won’t get enacted:
“So that’s the whole problem: short-termism and long-termism. So Biden’s program, it’s as if it’s a party platform. His three and a half trillion dollar program that remember began as a six and a half trillion dollar program and is way down. The party platform isn’t really what’s achievable. So now you bring in Manchin.
“Well, I think Bernie Sanders made a very good point the other day. He said, well, look what we have right now in the Senate is 48 senators in favour of it. Two against it. When you have 48 to 2, you don’t compromise 50/50. And yet, that’s what they want. They want 50/50. They want no climate controls. They don’t even want to close the loophole on carried interest, which is a huge financial giveaway to Wall Street. And they don’t even want, the senators who receive pharmaceutical funding won’t even let Medicare bargain over drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. So obviously, there’s no way in which the corporate special interests are going to ally themselves with the Democratic voters. And what can Biden say?
“All he can say is, well, we can go to the people and say, well, I’m sorry, we have these two senators. We don’t have a big enough majority to win. But let’s say he gets an even bigger Senate majority. The question, then they’ll get seven senators, ten senators playing the role of five. The Democratic Party has a whole slew of senators just waiting in line between Sinema and Manchin to block really any kind of serious agenda that would serve the overall economy, help serve the world avoid global warming, but will not make money for the companies that are making money on the fact that they’re polluting the atmosphere.” [My Emphasis]
In so many ways, we’re having a repeat of the Catfood Commission, which deals with the fact that Ds aren’t Ds at all but Rs wearing donkey heads–what was the moniker of that troll? If Hudson and Sanders can see what’s happening, then a whole slew of voters can too. Continuing, we get to the main accusation against Biden:
“Biden has made sure to take steps to make sure that there’s no way in which his program can possibly be accepted. He’s killed it at the beginning by appointing special lobbyists in charge of the Democratic National Committee. So he said, look, let me go to the people. I can have this wonderful program, but I’ve made sure that I’ve put the controllers in the Democratic National Committee so that nothing in my program will ever be done. That’s the trick in the full game.” [My Emphasis]
As I wrote above, it’s the Catfood Commission all over again. But it’s not just D voters that need help; it’s all voters, and IMO that’s the big pitfall Ds will face in 2022. After dealing with the irrationality of capitalism and its current dysfunction, Hudson makes this very powerful statement that should be read within the context of current geopolitics:
“So this assumption that whatever the market produces is rational and functional is the bedrock of Western economies. And it’s wrong. And it negates the fact that you really need some government power strong enough to override the special interests. And that takes a very strong government, which is why the free market people have always opposed strong government and why their economic models don’t give any acknowledgement for government investment in infrastructure that Biden wants or any government activity that is able to override that of the rentier class, the financial class, the property-owning class and the corporate monopolists. That’s the problem we have. [My Emphasis]
It ought to be very clear that the domestic situation within the Outlaw US Empire is decidedly Anti-people, Anti-Human, Anti-Development–Pro-Profits only, and only short term profits at that. It’s 100% dysfunctional for ALL voters, well excepting those who are profiting from the current dysfunction. And the obvious question is the one Paul Jay asks next:
“So, what should people do about it?”
Hudson extrapolates on his answer but it all boils down to this one sentence:
“I don’t see how it [the political-economy] can be changed without a change in the system [lock, stock, and barrel–structure and the laws underpinning it all].”
Which as he’s said before given the reality within the Outlaw US Empire now requires a revolution. IMO, Hudson is absolutely correct in essentially saying Biden is an R at heart and enabling the radical arm of the Rs, and that the only genuinely Pro-People Ds are what’re derisively called The Squad, even here by many who don’t know any better. Paul Jay then advocates for resurrecting what never really existed–A Countervailing Power based on Unions– not that he’s wrong about the need, which is an absolute must. Jay isn’t completely naïve:
“From what I’ve seen, if there was a real increase in the number of people that vote, you actually probably could overcome at least much of the gerrymandering. But you’d have to have a really massive increase. There would have to be a real serious campaign to register poor people who, to a large extent, have given up on elections. [My Emphasis]
And just where’s the activism going to come to power such a movement? And as we’re discussing, those new voters need to vote for non-Duopoly candidates as Ds and Rs are essentially one and the same and IMO the vast majority know that. And that’s the basis many of us use to justify our reasoning that what must be accomplished change-wise cannot be done via electoral politics within our current oligarchy. I wrote this before reading what Hudson said next:
“Here’s the problem. The Democratic leaders and local leaders of the States which are in charge of redistricting are almost all actually Republicans.” [My Emphasis]
Hudson reviews yet again why he arrives at this conclusion:
“[I]t would take a political revolution, or at least it would take a new Constitution to do it [Alter the electoral and representational systems].
“The problems are now inherent in the Constitution, as are implemented by the Supreme Court justices who are in place, and they’re going to be in place for quite a long time. So we have a constitutional problem, just like Rome had a constitutional problem. Where you couldn’t have any reform by Julius Caesar or the other reformers, that’s the problem we have today. We’re stuck, and we’re unable to act. And this is what is letting other countries pull ahead of us that don’t have this paralysis problem that America now has politically.” [My Emphasis]
And so we see Hudson framing the constitutional problem as being a Patriotic problem too. IMO, that’s the right tactic to use to get the fed-up voting base to act together for instilling such change is for We the People’s benefit, which is why Trump’s MAGA got the backing it did even though he didn’t really do anything to implement his program. The program was all domestic, no mention of China or Russia, although Europe and the Romans did get some notice.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 25 2021 20:33 utc | 90
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