UPDATE: There is a predictable symmetry between those who finance presidential campaigns and those who benefit from government economic policy:

The aftermaths of the Great Recession and the Great Depression produced sharply different changes in U.S. incomes that tell us a lot about tax and economic policy.

The 1934 economic rebound was widely shared, with strong income gains for the vast majority, the bottom 90 percent.

In 2010, we saw the opposite as the vast majority lost ground.

National income gained overall in 2010, but all of the gains were among the top 10 percent. Even within those 15.6 million households, the gains were extraordinarily concentrated among the super-rich, the top one percent of the top one percent.

Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain.

And, as you might have guessed, the concentration has intensified in recent decades:

The top one percent enjoyed 45 percent of Clinton-era income growth, 65 percent of Bush-era growth and 93 percent of Obama-era growth, though that is only through 2010.

A more damning indictment of the domestic policies of the Obama administration is hard to imagine.

INITIAL POST: Like many of you, I have pretty much tuned out the 2012 presidential campaign. From the fragments of media coverage that I have encountered, the Republican candidates are fighting about which one is this most militaristic and willing to transfer the most wealth to the top 1%. Meanwhile, President Obama is strategically counterpunching, taking advantage of the nascent economic recovery and opportunities to look reasonable in comparison to the religious right lunacy that periodically erupts during the Republican primaries.

But the real story, the one with the most importance, is the extent of the corruption of the US electoral process, as related by the indefatiguable David Dayen. 5 people are responsible for 25% of all SuperPAC contributions, political action committees that may raise and spend money independent of the candidates, with 200 people are responsible for 80% of them. Through the end of January, SuperPACs have spent nearly as much money on the Republican primary campaign as the candidates themeselves. It is fair to say that Newt Gingrinch would be out of the race if not for the open checkbook of Sheldon Abelson and his wife. Of course, President Obama, unopposed on the Democratic side, has no need for such expenditures at this time, but has endorsed SuperPAC efforts on his behalf.

For a good summary of the tentacular strangulation of the electoral process by SuperPACs, and the relationship of the wealthy donors who finance them to specific Republican candidates, go to this post at I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists. Based upon the most recent information, OpenSecrets.org has determined that 379 SuperPACs have raised over $130 million dollars and spent over $77 million of it in this election cycle, with some of it directed outside of the presidential campaign. At this rate, SuperPAC spending for the entire campaign could exceed $400 million, and this is a conservative estimate, given the explosion of spending that will take place after the Republican and Democratic nominees are selected.

Why, you ask, am I walking through all this reported campaign finance data generated by well meaning journalists and liberal sunshine organizations? I am doing so because it should induce us to ponder whether we can bring about any meaningful change in this country through any participation in the electoral process. Preliminarily, it is essential to observe that this data conclusively pulls down the curtain on that brief period of progressive optimism during 2008, an unwarranted optimism based upon the utopian notion that presidential candidates, like Obama, could fund their campaigns independent of wealthy donors through small donations over the Internet. As reported just after the 2008 campaign by the Campaign Finance Institute, Obama received 74% of his contributions from people who contributed over $200, with large donors, defined as people who contributed over $1,000, providing 80% more funding than small donors, defined as people who contributed $200 or less.

Michael Malbin, the executive director of the Institute, reached the following conclusions from his evaluation of 2004 and 2008 campaign finance data:

. . . While the large donors thus were responsible for much more of Obama's money than either his small or middle range group, he received somewhat less proportionally from large donors than did his rivals or predecessors. Forty-seven percent of Obama's money came from large donors compared to 56% for Kerry and 60% for both Bush and McCain. However, because Obama's 47% is based on a larger total, that means he also raised significantly more large-donor money in absolute terms than any of his rivals or predecessors.

Much of this money was raised the old fashioned way. Since only about 13,000 of those who started out small for Obama ended up crossing the $1,000 threshold, that means the bulk of Obama's $213 million in large-donor contributions during the primaries came from about 85,000 people who started out giving big and stayed there. Much of this large-donor money – perhaps close to a majority – came to the campaign through bundling methods initially perfected by Bush.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) – which in the absence of legally mandated disclosure had to use information provided by the campaigns – 561 bundlers had raised a minimum of $63 million for Obama by mid-August and 534 people had raised a minimum of $75 million for McCain. The bundlers undoubtedly were responsible for more than these amounts because the campaigns reported the bundlers in ranges and CRP's minimum totals were based conservatively on the low end of each range. A reasonable guess might estimate the real amount at about 50% above the minimum – the mid-point for each range – yielding a total of perhaps about $90 million for Obama as of mid-August and more than $100 million for McCain.

It is important to go through this recent history because it provides some insight as to why the Obama presidency adopted a neoliberal, militaristic course instead of a progressive one. Contrary to the public relations associated with the 2008 campaign, Obama was as dependent upon contributions from wealthy donors as past candidates, he was merely able to supplement them more effectively with a large, aggregate amount of small donations because of the enthusiasm generated by the prospect of electing a charismatic, young, potentially progressive, African American president. Obama revealed the true course of his presidency shortly after his election through his appointments of people like Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gates and Timothy Geithner. The naivete of Obama's supporters at the time, still intoxicated with the euphoria of his victory, was almost heartrending. I still remember my KDVS radio program co-host saying, with a straight face, as if were entirely plausible, that Robert Reich would be an excellent choice for Secretary of the Treasury.

Now, the situation, as documented by groups like OpenSecrets.org, is more transparent. Not necessarily worse, but more easily understood. The US electoral process remains dominated by people able to contribute large sums of money, but much of it is received from a shockingly small number of people, as explained by Dayen. Given that the 2008 progressive effort to transform the US socioeconomic system through participation in the Obama campaign has failed, an effort proselytized by an array of people ranging from Bill Fletcher to Barbara Ehrenreich to Tom Hayden to Jesse Jackson to Melissa Harris-Perry to the late Howard Zinn, among others, what is the alternative to another such failed effort? Can we really expect to incrementally democratize the US political system through political and legal reformist endeavors in the face of such concentrated financial power? With the participants of Occupy struggling with internal conflict and police repression, such questions retain their difficulty and their urgency. Difficult, because the possibility of a mass confrontation with US and transnational elites still appears unlikely, urgent, because the distress associated with their violent, rapacious practices shows no sign of abatement.

Labels: Bailout of Finance Capitalists, Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Liberals, Neoliberalism, Occupy Wall Street, Republicans, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Vote or Die

One of the most striking aspects of the 2012 electoral process is the fact that much of the public has realized that it has nothing to do with real issues of concern. It is now generally recognized as a form of social entertainment. It is, in short, a spectacle, one designed to give a facade of legitimacy to the governance of a country under the control of transnational elites. One pays attention to candidates like Obama, Romney and Gingrich, if at all, as another form of televised sports. And, just as one tunes out the World Series if you don't care about baseball, a lot of people are tuning out the 2012 election because they don't, for good reason, care about mainstream politics.

Spectacles like this are costly, especially when the producers are facing a headwind of indifference, so it comes as no surprise that President Obama will raise an amount of money close to the $770 million he raised for his 2008 campaign. By the early part of January, Romney has raised more than $56 million, an amount that is likely to increase substantially if it becomes likely that he will be the Republican nominee. Gingrich is receiving generous SuperPAC support from right wing, anti-union, arch Zionist Sheldon Abelson and his wife, Miriam, a reward for appalling, ill-informed political positions that he has expressed for decades. Gingrich can also expect an acceleration of contributions if it appears that he will be the nominee.

But this is background noise for most people, because they have already seen through the charade, the self-referentiality of a process whereby the same people who obsess over the debt and Iran enthusiastically promote candidates who mirror their beliefs. I know a number of people involved in partisan politics who follow it closely, including people involved in unions, and I rarely hear them say anything about the campaign. Sacramento, as the capital of California, is a political place, and yet those who one would expect to talk about it avidly are, by and large, silent. On the Internet, I have noticed that the number of comments in response to 2012 campaign posts over at firedoglake are down in comparison to the number of comments in response to 2008 ones, which is to be expected, I guess, but not this much. I should visit DailyKos to confirm, but I don't have the stomach for it. These are expressions of the post-partisan Obama legacy: the recognition that participation in the electoral process is useless.

Political protest strategies have evolved accordingly. Back in the early to mid-1990s, protest organizers worked on the assumption that elected officials could be influenced through public pressure. Hence, the effort against NAFTA. By the late 1990s, people were beginning to question this assumption. The protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1998 announced the introduction of disruptive direct action methods into the mainstream. Radical environmentalists had already discovered the futility of the conventional practices of protest marches, letter writing campaigns and visits to the offices of elected representatives, and they played a prominent role in the shutdown of downtown Seattle. Trade unionists, on the other hand, played the traditional march and rally game, consciously distancing themeselves, with some exceptions, from the police assaults upon locked down protesters in the central city.

Organizers of the protests against the impending Iraq war in February 2003 took the later approach, and, predictably, failed. Direct action undertaken immediately after the start of the war quickly fizzled out. More recently, there was a tremendous effort to push Congress towards the implementation of a meaningful health care reform. Contrary to Obama apologists who blame the victims by saying that we didn't do enough to make it pass a progressive measure, there was a tremendous, broad based effort to pressure the Congress and the White House. Beyond requiring the President and the Democrats in Congress to adopt public relations strategies to conceal their complicity in the bill as passed and adopted, it failed, too.

In the aftermath of the intransigence of the political system, we are now seeing people gravitate towards more confrontational and amorphous methods of protest. In California, UC students, angry over fee increases, dismiss the importunings of UC administrators to lobby the legislature, and instead seize campus buildings, call general strikes and attempt to storm meetings of the regents. Implicit within these actions is a condemnation of the hierarchies of privilege and access that are interwoven within the modernist university. Likewise, people in the East Bay angry over killings by the BART police sought to disrupt transit service, although they have made some effort to address the BART board in an attempt to get rid of these cops entirely.

Of course, Occupy has been the inevitable extension of these protest tactics in the face of the hostility of elected officials. By refusing to make demands, people involved in Occupy have expressed their contempt for the corrupted political process. Nihilism is the consequence of such an entrenched, corrupted elite, and the refusal to make demands is an obvious manifestation of it. Direct action, such as assisting people against threatened foreclosures (an activity that, admittedly, predates Occupy), is another one, as the participants have decided that they must help people themselves because the government will not do otherwise do so. Similarly, the seizures of abandoned buildings and properties undertaken by OWS, Occupy Oakland, and, possibly, Occupy SF, for the purpose of providing shelter and services (again, an activity that predates Occupy), highlight how the government and the economic system rely upon artificially imposed scarcity to generate poverty.

Occupy therefore represents the extent of the accumulated despair experienced by those who have suffered over the course of the ongoing recession, and the willingness of some of the victims to undertake actions that would have been imcomprehensible to them just a few years before. Consistent with this, there is, within Occupy, primarily among its younger participants, an emotional, philosophical rejection of contemporary capitalist society itself, one with echoes of May '68, social movements in South America, and violent protests in Greece and Algeria. It is but a thread, but a logical one in light of the refusal of those in power to address the concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands and the desperation that results from it. But it remains to be seen whether a nihilistic combination of enforced disassocation from the political process and the performance of direct action will provide a way forward to create a new, more humane, more egalitarian society.

Labels: Activism, Democrats, Elections, Neoliberalism, Republicans, Sub-Proletarianization of America, Unions, Vote or Die

Last night, around 9pm, my son was watching a DVD before going to sleep for the night. Nearby, my wife was following the debate on the Senate health care bill over the Internet. Meanwhile, I tried to focus my attention upon reading Beijing Coma.

Even so, I couldn't help but overhear snippets of various speakers like Lamar Alexander, Tom Harkin and John McCain. Of course, they went on and on and on, as if the importance of their declarations rivalled those of Zeus. Brevity is not something for which Senators are known, and, from my limited exposure, they did not disappoint the expectations of the typesetters of the Congressional Record.

The most striking feature of the debate, though, was the mendacity on display by representatives of both parties. Alexander, smooth and polished as always, maligned the bill for provisions that, if included in a bill directed towards the desk of a President Bush, Romney or McCain, he would have enthusiastically supported. McCain, apparently embarrassed by this, focused upon Obama's embrace of secrecy in the negotiations that resulted in the final version, while scrupulously avoiding any substantive engagement. And then there was Harkin, the good liberal, striving mightily to put lipstick on a pig, recharacterizing a mandate to buy insurance on terms set by the insurance industry as the fulfillment of our right to health care, with a reassurance that, if it all doesn't work out, we can fix it.

All three were oblivious to the larger implications of the debate and its outcome. The passage of the health care bill in the Senate is one of the five most important congressional events of the last 20 years, with the others being the narrow passage of the resolution authorizing the Gulf War in 1991, the passage of NAFTA in the face of overwhelming public opposition in 1994, the late 2002 passage of the authorization of force resolution paving the way for the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, and, of course, the October 2008 bailout of the global financial sector. Each of these actions reflected a further dimunintion of the institution's ability to respond to public sentiment during its deliberations, with an accompanying increase in public dissatisfaction. Each also, not coincidentally, also reflected the the marriage between neoliberal economic policy at home with military expansionism abroad.

No doubt, Gaius is correct, the purpose of the Senate, as opposed to the House, is precisely this, to ensure that the majority does not infringe upon the perogatives of elites, but it was never supposed to be this blatant. Accordingly, we are now entering uncharted territory, a period that will be marked by intense populist eruptions against politicians and the government more generally. Liberals, seeing over the horizon, are already in disarray, with Jane Hamsher of firedoglake extending an olive branch to those willing to work with her on specific issues of concern, while Kossacks appear horrified at the prospect of people marching upon the iron triangle in DC with pitchforks. In any event, the notion that Democrats, and by extension, existing establishment relationships, can survive by saying that this health care bill is just the beginning of a larger generational enterprise is ludricrous. Instead, the bill is the last straw for a populace enraged by a government that perpetually socializes the needs of the wealthy while privatizing those of everyone else.

Or, to put it more colorfully, the earthquake at the bottom of the Pacific has already happened, it cannot be reversed, and the only questions remaining are where the tsuanami will strike and the severity of the devastation. Liberals are especially alarmed, because, after having rejected several opportunities in the last 20 years to harnass populism, they are now synonymous with the militaristic plutocracy that runs the country, and, indeed, much of the world, despite, paradoxically, having periodically expressed opposition to some aspects of US foreign policy. Much of the liberal discourse that one encounters at places like DailyKos entails distinguishing liberals as better educated, more rational and less prone to superstitution and bigotries than those who do not agree with them. Needless to say, there is little to support this perspective, but it does have the effect of isolating them for much of the American public.

Most importantly, they have willingly distanced themselves from the everyday economic problems of people, as noted by Sam Smith the other day:

Most of all, however, Obama represented a triumph of a generation of liberals dramatically different from their predecessors, most markedly in their general indifference to issues of economic as well as ethnic equality.

This heavily professional liberal class never once - in the manner of their predecessors of the New Deal and Great Society - took the lead in pressing for economic reforms. It wasn't that they opposed them; they just never seemed to occur to them.

They, after all, had risen in status even as much of the rest of the country was slipping. Over a quarter of a century passed and the best the liberal Democrats could come up with was to slash welfare and raise the age for Social Security.

Obama was the epitome of this new generation: well educated, well connected and well toned in rhetoric. But far distant from the concerns of so many.

Most of us out here in the real world recognize this, even as people in DC do not. Hence, the argument that we will only get worse from the Republicans if we do not turn out for the Democrats in future elections, no matter how odious we find the prospect, has no resonance. People feel defensiveless in the face of a neoliberal onslaught in which members of both political parties participate. There is no political comprehension of the scope of the failure of the Obama economic program, a program in which millions remain unemployed, millions continue to have their homes foreclosed and millions, despite this economic distress, now find themselves handed over to the insurance industry through a requirement that they purchase health insurance.

Through Obama, the Democrats have finally succumbed to the neoliberal state just as it is about to be repudiated. They, not the Republicans, are going to get blamed for the ruthless restructuring of the economy that they are allowing transnational finance to impose upon us. Conversely, the Republicans are going to harvest a bushel of populist votes next fall, as they cynically play the game of serving as a vessel for discontent that will allow them to return to power. It worked for Reagan, it worked for the second Bush, and it will work yet again. But this time, will the public mood tolerate an intensification of the policies that precipitated the current crisis? I doubt it.

And, finally, some liberals get it. Hamsher, through an astute reading of the current climate, is consciously seeking to create a liberal, progressive alternative that is independent of the parties, willing to challenge anyone, Republican or Democrat, who continues to insist upon the current orthodoxy. While she will not say it publicly, she recognizes that Obama has made the old progressive blogosphere slogan, More and Better Democrats, laughable. Naturally, the reaction from many hidebound Kossacks was arrogant and insulting. Hamsher understands that not only liberalism, but the legitimacy of the government itself, are in peril, and that it is essential to slip the establishment noose. Otherwise, the right will run wild.

Will it work? That's hard to say. Liberals and Democrats often resort to fearmongering to impose strict conformity with the neoliberal orientation of the party, and, naturally, they are falling back upon it now. As a leftist, not a liberal and definitely not a Democrat, I read such dystopian alarms with care. People, even those within the tea party scene, cannot be reduced to a simple right, left or center program. Instead, it is critical, as Chomsky recently said, that the left begin to directly engage people who are experiecing severe economic distress so that they can actually improve their lives. An alternative discourse is urgently needed to counter the illusory one provided by the right.

I guess that you could say that I am suggesting a popular front program centered around class conscious economic policies and demilitarization as a means of alleviating the distress of millions of Americans, and, ultimately, billions around the world. No doubt, you consider that strange coming from someone who purports to be anarchist influenced, but the immediate necessity is to address the suffering of people and prevent it from becoming worse, much worse. There is no way to do that in the absence of a political movement that emphasizes such a perspective over party identification, while allowing for the involvement of people all across the spectrum who agree with a radical assertion of personal and economic equality.

Personally, I believe that it would be most effective in the form of a non-electoral, direct action protest movement, but that's why you have a popular front, so that liberals, Marxist-Leninists and anarchists can act in ways that they consider most appropriate. I also believe that such a movement, should it succeed, would eventually result in a dramatic transformation of the US, if not its disintegration, much as what in relation to the USSR, given the intensity of the conflict required to dismante the military-industrial complex and redirect resources towards the populace. It is, as Lou Reed sang many, many years ago, the beginning of our new age.

Labels: Activism, Barack Obama, Democrats, firedoglake, Global Recession, Health Care, Liberals, Neoliberalism, Republicans, Sub-Proletarianization of America

On Tuesday, Montana Senator Max Baucus released his proposed Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill. Of course, it's an atrocity, a bill that exploits the health care crisis as yet another opportunity to transfer wealth from workers to finance capitalists. People will be forced to purchase policies that are useless in the event of a serious health problem, despite inadequate subsidies and non-existent cost containment. Furthermore, there is the additional prospect that individuals fortunate enough to have good policies through, say, collective bargaining agreements, will find themselves forced to pay a 35% surcharge in 2013 to help fund the program.

In other words, we face a looming social and political catastrophe, one in which the middle and lower classes are even more impoverished as a result of conscious government policy than they are today. Progressives are also prognosticating a wipe out for the Democrats in the mid-term elections of 2010, and, possibly, a defeat for President Obama in 2012. But this underestimates the peril. It goes beyond political partisanship and economic hardship to the legitimacy of the political system itself.

California is a bellwether for what is likely to come. As a consequence of a distressed economy, a legislature riven by partisan conflict, an unwillingness by legislators to make any decisions that would place their salaries, per diem and car allowances at risk and a governor who substitutes vapid public relations gestures for policy, the public holds the political system in complete contempt. Both the governor and the legislature are extremely unpopular. It is impossible to generate public support for any measures that would resolve the fiscal crisis and preserve essential public sector programs.

Everyone, and every public institution, is quite literally, on their own. If the Congress puts through health care reform on terms dictated by health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and health care providers, and Obama signs it, this is what we can expect nationally. A collapse in progressive support for the political process, resulting in, at best, gridlock, and, at worst, the passage and implementation of more and more regressive social measures. Combine the passage of such a miserable health care reform bill with possibly as many as 40,000 additional troops for Afghanistan, and we will see the ascendency of an irrational, emotionally driven right wing populism that will escape the boundaries set by Rahm Emanuel and other conservative Democrats, and go beyond preventing the passage of any progressive measures during an Obama administration, to destroying his presidency, and perhaps, the existing social fabric of the country.

Labels: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Health Care, Neoliberalism, Republicans, Sub-Proletarianization of America

According to the New York Times:

President Bush flew to Iraq on Sunday, his fourth and final trip to highlight the recently completed security agreement between the United States and the country that has occupied the bulk of his presidency and will to a large extent define his legacy.

But his appearance at a news conference here was interrupted by an Iraqi journalist who shouted in Arabic — “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog” — and threw one of his shoes at the president, who ducked and narrowly avoided being struck.

As chaos ensued, he threw his other shoe, shouting, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” The second shoe also narrowly missed Mr. Bush as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki stuck out a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him.

Labels: Bush, Iraqi Deaths, Occupation of Iraq, Republicans, YouTube

As many of you already know, the state of California is running a budget deficit of approximately $15 billion for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. The legislature is currently conducting a special session to address the problem. In most instances, a revised budget would be sent to the governor with the usual combination of service cuts, tax increases, hiring freezes, and, if unavoidable, public employee layoffs.

But that's not happening here in California. The reason? California requires 2/3 Assembly and Senate approval for the passage of its budget instead of a simple majority. The substantial Democratic majority can't get a budget to the governor's desk without some Republican support. They can't get the Republicans to even discuss it unless they agree to repeal numerous labor, environmental and consumer protections previously enacted by majority vote with the signature of the governor.

Yesterday, the Republicans made their demands quite clear yesterday:

REGULATORY CHANGES

Employment law flexibility

Employee schedule flexibility: Allows employers to avoid paying overtime for working more than eight hours in a day by shortening work schedules on other days.

Expanding health care options for employees (health savings accounts): Opens the health savings account concept to more workers.

Reducing unwarranted litigation: Makes it harder to sue for alleged violations of workplace rules on issues such as meal breaks.

Overtime for high wage earners: Gives employers more flexibility in not paying overtime to workers making $100,000 a year or more.

Meal and rest clarification: Simplifies rules on meal and rest breaks to allow more flexibility for workers and employers to take breaks when practical.

Eliminate "needs test" to allow more apprenticeships: Would allow companies to use more nonunion apprenticeship programs.

Business development

Design-build: Allows state agencies to consolidate contract bidding processes to cover both the design and construction phases.

Public-private partnership: Increases the use of private firms by state agencies when there are economic and efficiency reasons for doing so.

ADA compliance: Gives businesses more leeway in complying with regulations for providing access to the disabled.

Streamline small business certification process for micro businesses and sole proprietorships: Reduces paperwork for one-person or mom-and-pop businesses.

Reclassify "destination management companies" (DMS) as consumers rather than retailers (Senate Bill 1628): Exempts companies that help stage tours, stage shows and deal with airport arrivals from having to collect sales tax.

Streamline the permitting process (THPS, development): Streamlines Timber Harvest Plan regulations to shorten logging permit process.

Contracting out: Allows more use of private companies for state work currently restricted to state workers.

ENVIRONMENTAL FLEXIBILITY

Extending deadlines for engine retrofits (on and off road

Extending deadlines for greenhouse gas regulations (Assembly Bill 32)

Both provide more flexibility for meeting requirements when construction equipment is not in use because of the economic downturn. Both also would lift a requirement that companies fit equipment with clean-air devices that may make the equipment unsafe to operate.

Carl Moyer program changes: Extends a state program that provides funds for voluntarily making equipment "greener" to also cover making some improvements that are required by law.

Regulatory flexibility for agricultural industry: Provides farmers more wiggle room in meeting environmental rules for equipment.

Third party analysis of economic impact of ARB regulations: Allows use of an outside party to determine costs of meeting air quality rules in disputes between private firms and the Air Resources Board.

TAX CREDITS

A new employee tax credit for businesses that hire out-of-work Californians: Creates incentive for hiring unemployed workers.

A manufacturing investment credit to help businesses purchase the equipment they need: Creates incentive for buying new equipment.

Capital gains reduction for businesses that invest in California: Creates a tax break to lure companies that sell to Californians but don't employ Californians.

Modification of the tax code to encourage companies to locate jobs in California: See above

Rarely does one encounter a public political document, as one does here, that confirms the Marxist analysis that capitalism aspires to the the seizure of the powers of the state to flourish. Here, the Republicans want to transform California into one in which taxpayers subsidize the business activities of investors and corporations while rendering it nearly impossible for workers and consumers to challenge their conduct. In effect, they want to carry out a legislative coup to implement a program that has never and could never receive a majority vote of the populace or the legislature independent of the budget crisis.

But that assumes that the Republicans are serious. I doubt it. Instead, it appears that they have deliberately issued a list of impossible demands to prevent approval of a revised budget. If that happens, approximately $5 billion in state construction projects could be halted. My impression is that the Republicans want to force a financial emergency so as to drive California into bankruptcy for the purpose of destroying the power of state labor unions and eliminating spending on social services that they find so abhorrent.

Gaius has posted an illuminating comment on this mentality over at Undemocracy in America. In response to Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's proposal that we should immediately proceed to require a balanced federal budget, he observes that it would not only lead to a global depression, as recognized by Yglesias, but provide a historic opportunity to eliminate the enduring progressive economic measures of the New Deal: Played right by the globo-capitalists, wages would collapse, unions would disappear, and America could be pushed into ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a lot more of what social democracy we actually have.

Pawlenty, unlike California Republicans, is much more subtle about how he is trying to achieve these ends. He emphasizes a balanced budget, while remaining silent about specific assaults upon workers, consumers and the environment. Here in California, the Republicans need not be so circumspect. It is now a race against time. Can the state remain afloat until an incoming Obama administration and a Democratic Congress provides billions in assistance to local governments? Or, will the congressional Republicans, with the assistance of blue dog Democrats, succeed in derailing it? If California is left to its own devices, the rest of the country will soon experience a similar fate.

Labels: California, Global Recession, Neoliberalism, Republicans

A good, concise statement by Carlos Fierro.

An excerpt:

We don’t need another Lincoln, or an Obama; what we need is more Fredrick Douglasses and Harriet Beecher Stowes. We need more Martin Luther Kings, Big Bill Haywoods, and Helen Kellers. We don’t need more FDRs, we need more Eugene Debs. We don’t need more JFKs, we need more Philip Berrigans. We don’t need to look to great men to lead us to the promised land, we need to recognize the power that we, the nameless and “the powerless,” possess when we assert our power rather than make assertions of faith directed at the great leader myths.

Again, the short article is worth reading in its entirety. I do find it curious, though, that Fierro left out John Brown and even the Wobblies. Perhaps, he has pacifist inclinations.

Labels: American Empire, Anarchism, Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Republicans

Eli, over at Left i On the News, yet again helpful on a subject that most Americans want to either rationalize or ignore. Most media commentators, predictably, celebrate it, as they do the worst excesses of the current war on terror.

Labels: "Support the Troops", American Empire, John McCain, Republicans, US Military

Amazing:

Democrats also heard from Laura Tyson, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, who advocated for moving legislation that is being negotiated by leaders of the two parties and the White House. Tyson, who headed the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, is dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkley and serves on several corporate boards, including investment banking company Morgan Stanley.

Tyson got an earful from a number of liberals including Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who advocated a new government fee of .25 percent of every stock transaction to ensure that the government can recoup funds to pay for the aid that it provides to lenders. “If this is truly such a catastrophe, I don’t see how anybody can object to a one-quarter of one percent fee,” DeFazio said. Others who attended the session said that proposal seemed to be gaining little traction.

Tyson rejected DeFazio’s idea and said she believed the government could recoup any funds it pays for troubled investments “deal by deal,” by negotiating terms for financing rather than charging a fee on each transaction.

Pelosi also rebuffed any such short-term step, although she said that future measures may be needed to cover any losses the government ultimately suffers from the acquisition of troubled assets.

“I’m optimistic that it will pay for itself and make money, especially if we take an equity position that makes these companies healthy and they come back and put some money back to the Treasury,” Pelosi said. “That’s a down-the-road thing. But there are some people that seek pay-fors now. I don’t think that position will prevail.”

Does anyone outside of Congress and their enablers really believe that Paulson, Bernanke and Bush are going to accept a bailout that does anything other than saddle the government with the bad debt currently held by global financial institutions? If you have visited this blog recently, you are aware that the proposal is based upon the concept of paying financial instiutions a price for these debt instruments substantially greater than the market one in order to recapitalize them.

Unlike Pelosi, Kos gets it, he thinks that the stock transaction fee proposed by DeFazio could be a good mechanism for paying some, and possibly all, of the costs of the bailout. As he correctly observes, Wall Street is culpable and we are not. Many on Wall Street profited obscenely, we did not. Furthermore, such a fee has been applied with success on numerous occasions throughout American history. And, according to Keynes, the fee has the effect of mitigating the predominance of speculation over enterprise. No matter, the Democratic leadership isn't interested, perhaps, because, since the beginning of the Clinton presidency, they have participated in a bipartisan consensus that actually seeks to subsidize such predominance.

Likewise, does anyone really believe that the equity participation advocated by Pelosi is anything other than a means of seducing the public with the illusion of future repayment? Nancy Pelosi will be remembered for her willingness to politically facilitate the implementation of Bush policies that the Bush administration lacked the ability to effectively design and promote by itself. Of course, the fact that Laura Tyson, a Clintonista who headed the Council of Economic Advisors during Bill's presidency, is insistent that the public pay the bill is utterly predictable.

There is good news, however. Yesterday, no deal was reached, preliminary reports to the contrary, as conservative House Republicans sabotaged it. Despite the renewed efforts of the President and congressional leadership to put together a compromise proposal by the end of the weekend, they remain opposed to any proposal based upon the Paulson plan. Conversely, the Democrats are willing to work as long as required, as Pelosi expresed cautious optimism: we hope that it doesn't take long. Naomi Klein and other progressive opponents of the bailout have aptly characterized the willingness of the Democrats to push through such hastily crafted legislation in response to a public emergency manipulated by the White House as a financial 9/11.

Accordingly, we shouldn't be surprised that the Democrats are insistent upon the urgency of passing a bailout, even though the Treasury itself acknowledges that the publicly released $700 billion price tag was not based upon any particular data point, it was just pulled out of thin air. As horrible as it is, it is pretty predictable given the enormity of financial services industry contributions to prominent Democrats, including Obama ($22.5M) and strategically placed House and Senate figures on banking and financial services committees like Chris Dodd ($6M), Barney Frank ($720,000) and Paul Kanjorski ($755,000).

Fortunately, the Democrats are demanding a majority Republican vote in support of the bailout for political cover, and Republican leadership still can't deliver it. Curiously, conservative Republicans seem to be the farthest removed from the pressures of the post-9/11 legislative environment with their confident assurance that we have enough time to thoroughly consider any proposed legislation to deal with the crisis. We can only hope that the red/brown coalition of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans that derailed the budget deal of 1990, came agonizingly close to defeating NAFTA in 1994, and, more recently, stalled immigration reform in 2007, holds firm enough to kill this measure. They will have to resist an extraordinary amount of pressure to do so.

Labels: Bailout of Finance Capitalists, Credit Crunch, Democrats, Housing Bubble, Neoliberalism, Republicans

Glenn Greenwald gets it:

On Saturday morning, I noted -- quoting Atrios -- the almost complete lack of debate over the ever-changing dictates issued by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Last week, whatever Paulson said on any given day -- no bailouts; only selected bailouts; massive $700 billion bailout plan -- immediately became the unchallenged conventional wisdom.

That has all changed. Prominent economists, who had previously been defending Paulson for the most part, began voicing serious doubts about his plan. As the AP put it yesterday: "Many of the same economists and opinion-makers who'd provided a bipartisan sheen of consensus to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's previous moves have quickly begun casting doubts on the wisdom of a policy that would allow Treasury to purchase without oversight hundreds of billions of dollars of difficult-to-price assets from financial institutions." Not only Paul Krugman, who was a skeptic from the start, but conservative economic experts have also now expressed opposition, including former Bush and Romney advisor Greg Mankiw and -- in an excellent column on Saturday -- Sebastian Mallaby, who described the rapid move to embrace Paulson's plan as "extremely dangerous."

And now, some of the most rabid ideologues on the Right are voicing increasingly strident opposition as well. At National Review last night, Newt Gingrich wrote that "watching Washington rush to throw taxpayer money at Wall Street has been sobering and a little frightening" and said he "hopes Congress will slow down and have an open debate." Thereafter, NR's Yuval Levin proclaimed that nobody could read through the Paulson proposal "without concluding that everyone in Washington has lost their minds." In The New York Times today, Bill Kristol said he's "doubtful that the only thing standing between us and a financial panic is for Congress to sign this week, on behalf of the American taxpayer, a $700 billion check over to the Treasury," while Michelle Malkin posted a lengthy alarmist screed warning that "Hank Paulson must be contained."

People with good memories will recall that Republicans, not Democrats, expressed alarm about the risks being assumed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the years. Now, Republicans in close congressional races are being advised to vote against the bailout as so as to distinguish themselves from Bush and the Democrats in Congress.

Right wing Republican opposition is critical to the formation of a majority to delay, and even potentially kill, this bailout. Without it, the Democrats are free to do what they always do, collaborate with the Bush Administration. With it, the Democrats face the prospect of paying a severe political price at the polls. Today, Republican senators like Dole, Bunning and Shelby were especially ascerbic in their condemnations of the plan during an appearance by Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Barnacke before the Senate Banking Committee.

Hat tip to Gaius at Undemocracy in America.

Labels: American Empire, Bailout of Finance Capitalists, Credit Crunch, Democrats, Elections, Housing Bubble, Neoliberalism, Republicans

Al-Qaida is no longer the problem, Americans engaging in civil disobedience are. So are people with video cameras who intend to record the actions of the police. Mass arrests and raids upon residences and convergence centers are required. Please report any suspicious behaviour to the Department of Homeland Security.

Labels: "War on Terror", Activism, Al Qaeda, American Empire, Anarchism, Police, Republicans

Scroll down to Eli's entry on 5/30/05 at 6:29 AM if you don't see it right away. For some reason, clicking on the HTML link, much like Dr. Who's TARDIS, doesn't always take you to the exact location, but merely in the general vicinity.

Labels: "Support the Troops", American Empire, John McCain, Republicans, US Military

Sexual abstinence, it seems, is always for everyone else, not for the people who insist upon it. Accordingly, it reminds me of those who have attacked others for marital infidelity, while enjoying it themselves. Is it possible that we must practice abstinence because they lack the capacity to do it themselves?

In any event, the most recent participant in the moral hypocrisy parade is Sarah Palin, John McCain's selection as his vice presidential running mate. Palin, a public proponent of abstinence only education in the public schools, is someone who has conformed to the moral constraints that she insists should be taught to others . . . well, not quite:

The Palins eloped on Aug. 29, 1988, and their first son, Track, was born eight months later, a fact that Maria Comella of the McCain campaign, declined to elaborate on. “They were high school sweethearts who got married and ended up having five beautiful children together,” Ms. Comella said.

Perhaps, then, Palin was successful in persuading her 17 year old daughter of the importance of abstinence? Well, again, not quite:

On Monday, Ms. Palin’s announcement of her daughter’s pregnancy was much of what people were murmuring about inside the halls here, at the cocktail hours, even along a route meant for protesters.

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned,” read a statement issued on Monday by Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd. “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

The Palins said that Bristol, who was named for Bristol Bay, the salmon fishery, would marry a man they identified only as Levi, later confirmed to be Levi Johnston, a Wasilla resident. “Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family,” the statement said.

Is is really too much to ask that people like Sarah Palin get their own houses in order before they presume to tell the rest of how to behave?

Back in the day, there was a word for people like Palin: busybodies. It was not complimentary. They were ridiculed, and rightfully so. The classic stereotype was character of Mrs. Kravitz in the 1960s television series, Bewitched. She obssessively looked through the windows of Darrin's house to find proof that his wife, Samantha, was a witch. Her efforts always caused her to look like a buffoon.

Unfortunately, unlike the rest of us, fundamentalists gobble this sort of thing up with a large spoon. Nothing delights them more than someone who has fallen, recovers to see the light of the way of Christ and then insists that our conduct be subjected to a standard to which they have exempted themselves.

Labels: Christian Fundamentalism, John McCain, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Sexuality

As governor of Massachusetts, he pandered to the religious right in anticipation of his run for the presidency by opposing gay marriage and civil unions. Confronted with competition from former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, he criticized Huckabee for providing in-state tuition to the children of undocumented workers who were in the process obtaining citizenship. Most recently, he has made it clear that Muslims need not apply for a Cabinet position in his administration if he becomes President, but that they might be acceptable at lower levels of my administration.

At this point, despite the polls, you'd have to say that Mitt Romney is in trouble. He hasn't even gotten to the Iowa caucuses, and he's already played the cards of scapegoating gays, immigrants and Muslims. Who's left? Probably just African Americans and trial attorneys. No wonder Huckabee is now the flavor of the month.

Labels: Immigration, Mitt Romney, Religion, Republicans

The congressional elections seem like a distant memory. Was it really only about a month ago that the Democrats took control of the House and Senate, carried by a wave of popular sentiment that it is time to get out of Iraq?

Yes, it was, although we can certainly be forgiven for believing that much more time has passed. It just doesn't seem possible that the Democrats could so rapidly abandon a constituency that was so central to their victory.

Faced with the challenge of navigating between rock solid elite support for the war in Iraq as part of a broader based "war on terror", and an electorate that has grown weary of more and more dead soldiers, and more and more wounded ones returning home, many with permanent, debilitating injuries, the Democrats have taken the path of least resistance, cater to the elite. Barely a day passes without some new indication that the Democrats are merely going to craft an Iraqi policy that repackages the Bush Administration's one in shiny new paper.

Before the vote had been completely certified around the country, there was Joe Lieberman, the swing vote in the Senate that the Senate Democratic leadership wanted over Ned Lamont, the vote that keeps them in power, singing duet with John McCain about the need for more troops, not less, the weekend after the election. A week or so later, the House Democrats picked pro-war, pro-occupation member Steny Hoyer for Majority Leader, selecting him over John Murtha, a man who could credibly make the case for withdrawal based upon his credentials as a Marine.

For good measure, to make sure that new Speaker Nancy Pelosi got the message, the House Democrats also placed Illinois member Rahn Emanuel, known for blacklisting of antiwar candidates, in the position of Democratic Caucus Chair. Now, we discover that the newly appointed chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes of Texas, wants 30,000 more troops for Iraq, 10,000 more than sought by Lieberman and McCain.

Shockingly, Reyes regurgitates the same old tired rhetoric that we've heard since they pulled Saddam out of the rabbit hole:

“We’re not going to have stability in Iraq until we eliminate those militias, those private armies,” Reyes said. “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq … We certainly can’t leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan” was before the 2001 invasion by the United States.

Reyes also stressed that there needed to be greater “political accountability” demanded of the Iraqi government. But on the core issue of the U.S. commitment, Reyes—a Vietnam War veteran who partially lost his hearing in that conflict—even compared his position to that of another Vietnam vet, Sen. John McCain, a staunch supporter of the Iraq war. Like Reyes, McCain also has called for an increase in U.S. troop strength. When asked how many additional troops he envisioned sending to Iraq, Reyes replied: “I would say 20,000 to 30,000—for the specific purpose of making sure those militias are dismantled, working in concert with the Iraqi military.”

When a reporter suggested that was not a position that was likely to be popular with many House Democrats, Reyes replied: “Well again, I differ in that I don’t want Iraq to become the next Afghanistan. We could not allow Iraq to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda, for Hamas, for Hizbullah, or anybody else. We cannot allow Iran or Syria to have a free hand in there to further destabilize the Middle East.”

Iraqis, naturally, have a different story to tell, namely that it has been the refusal of the US to end the occupation that has intensified conflict there. But Reyes, like most American politicians, could care less about them. He only refers to them, the indigenous populace, primarily in the context of being violent enemies. Perhaps, a Central Asian guest worker program might be a good solution, whereby Iraqis are encouraged to leave the shattered remains of their own society, to work elsewhere throughout the region, under close supervision, of course, while the US expands its network of military bases and imports more trustworthy people, say, from South Asia, to run the oil industry.

Unfortunately for us, such a crazy approach makes more sense than anything we hear from Congress, or will soon hear from the Iraq Study Group. Upon close reading, Reyes gives the game away: We cannot allow Iran or Syria to have a free hand in there to further destabilize the Middle East. In other words, Reyes, and the Democratic Party generally, are moving to the wrong side of the fault line in regard to the question as to whether we actually start to normalize relations with Iran and Syria as a means of reducing the violence in Iraq.

After all, Reyes said that he was very clear about his position when he spoke with Pelosi prior to being selected as chair of the intelligence committee. It looks like Pelosi may have passed over Jane Harman because she needed someone who was not so reflexively aligned with the pro-occupation position to advocate it effectively in the new Congress, and Reyes, as someone who voted against launching the war in 2003, fit the bill perfectly.

One can readily draw up the list of usual suspects as to who is prompting them to move in this direction, but that is a rather mundane exercise. Of more importance is the impression that the US feels increasingly threatened by the emergence of Shia power in the region, and, bereft of alternatives, is sliding inexorably towards more aggressive intervention in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, leaving Hamas and Palestine to the Israelis. The situation is considered sufficiently grave that the Democrats are willing to risk being repudiated in 2008 by breaking one of their core commitments.

Labels: Democrats, Occupation of Iraq, Republicans

Yesterday, I participated in the march and rally in support of immigrants' rights in Sacramento. Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people marched to the State Capitol, and through the downtown, in one of the largest protests seen here since Governor Pete Wilson vetoed a gay rights bill, Assembly Bill 101, back in the mid-1990s.

I went over to Southside Park, a gathering place near the interchange for Interstates 5 and 80, about a mile from the Capitol, around 10:00 a.m. For me, it is an evocative location. After struggling through the recession of the mid-1970s, my mother and stepfather were finally able to purchase a home in this lower middle income neighborhood, and lived there until they retired and moved to Nevada. It was, and remains, multiethnic. Before World War II, it was a predominately Japanese American neighborhood. Internment uprooted many of these families and dispersed them.

Upon arrival, I encountered a crowd of about 500 people, predominately, but not exclusively, Latino, and the mood was festive as the organizers attempted to speak to the crowd. The sound system was poor, and I was not able to discern what many of the speakers said, so my attention waundered, and I observed people, many of them families with their children, trickling into the park down walkways in groups of 3, 4 or 6.

They were not activists, but, rather, day laborers, farmworkers, warehouse workers, construction workers, and vendors, along with students, social workers and teachers. And, while they were happy to be together in solidarity, they were angry at the intention of House Republicans to criminalize them and deport them. One common sign read, NO SOY CRIMINAL, and I couldn't help but be amazed at the absurdity of it.

They had built much of this country in the last 50 years, performing some of the most dangerous, physically demanding work, with corporations profitting immensely from their labor, and some had even fought for it, leaving friends behind in the killing fields of Korea, Vietnam and, now, Iraq, but the House Republicans want to arrest them, detain them, perhaps indefintely, in new facilities built by Halliburton, naturally, until they can be expelled.

A country that makes war on Arabs and Muslims is now facing the prospect of initiating a conflict with a substantial portion of its working class. And, so, they were, to quote the title of an Gloria Estefan song, an apparent emerging anthem of the movement, "Coming Out of the Dark". One of the most charming moments was when 4 high school students arrived in the park with a large, simple, crude, spraypainted card board sign, cut into sections. One student was white, one was Latino, one was Asian and the other was black, and each stood, held out a piece, and fit the sign together, until it read, WE ARE THE SAME. It was powerful and spontaneous, all the more so because of its black on brown card board simplicity.

Looking back, I can imagine the four of them together at one of their families' houses earlier that morning, with one of them saying, "we need a sign, a poster, something, we look pitiful . . . ", and then another responded, "let go in the garage . . ", and there they went, breaking down a box, grabbing a can of spray paint, and getting down to business. Maybe, they were from the housing project on the other side of the freeway, maybe they were from Oak Park, maybe they were from Sacramento, McClatchy, Johnson or Burbank high schools. Regardless, they reminded me of that spirit of cross cultural openness and friendship that I have always associated with the best of Sacramento.

Later, the march to the Capitol began. The early morning rain had passed, and the sun was breaking through some of the cloud cover as we walked down sidewalks through streets full of trees with the fresh leaves of spring. Behind me, a young boy, about 6 or 7 years old was walking with his mother. Two or three times, I heard him say, with an affectionate combination of warmth, impatience and firmness, as if he wanted to go out and play, "We want to stay together." I was perplexed, and couldn't put it together with the energy of the march, the crowd, the signs, the police directing traffic, and then, he said it again, and I finally understood.

Labels: Activism, American Culture, Immigration, Republicans, Sacramento

Back on February 3rd, Joe asked for reports from the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference, otherwise known as CPAC 2006. Turns out Paul Craig Roberts did attend, as evidenced by his recent article entitled Conservatives Endorse the Fuhrer Principle.

As a longtime libertarian conservative, Roberts glumly surveyed the brand of conservatism on offer at the conference:

Last week's annual Conservative Political Action Conference signaled the transformation of American conservatism into brownshirtism. A former Justice Department official named Viet Dinh got a standing ovation when he told the CPAC audience that the rule of law mustn't get in the way of President Bush protecting Americans from Osama bin Laden.

Former Republican congressman Bob Barr, who led the House impeachment of President Bill Clinton, reminded the CPAC audience that our first loyalty is to the U.S. Constitution, not to a leader. The question, Barr said, is not one of disloyalty to Bush, but whether America "will remain a nation subject to, and governed by, the rule of law or the whim of men."

The CPAC audience answered that they preferred to be governed by Bush.

Predictable, I guess, but no less troubling when considered along with the unwillingness of the Democratic Party and the federal judiciary to provide any meaningful opposition to the creation of an all powerful presidency unaccountable to anyone. The disclosure of more disturbing photographs of abuse of Abu Ghraib merely serves to highlight the despondent state of politics in America, as Chris Floyd observed the other day:

Of course, these Abu Ghraib photos themselves represent only a small fraction of the atrocities carried out -- in our name -- in secret hell-holes around the globe. The photos depict the raw and brutal dawn of a system that has become progressively more refined, more "professional," now largely removed from the hands of untrained grunts with digital cameras, and instead carried out in secret by CIA agents and other operatives of the America's mammoth "security organs" -- again, acting under presidential orders, and presidential protection.

What shall we say when history asks how such crimes came to be committed in the name of America? Will we say that we stood silently by, shrugging our shoulders, filling our bellies, closing our eyes? Or will we be able to say: We saw. We dissented. We resisted. We condemned.

Unfortunately, as Roberts discovered at CPAC, there is another frightening alternative that Floyd did not consider: enthusiastic support.

Labels: Abu Ghraib, Libertarians, Occupation of Iraq, Republicans