The Big Squeeze: How Americans Are Being Crushed by Financial Insecurity and Doubt
By David Rosen
AlterNet.com
Americans are living lives of lowered expectation and intensified financial uncertainty.
May 19, 2011 |
� The Great Recession officially started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. It was the gravest financial crisis the nation has faced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Sadly, most Americans have yet to recover.
It fostered what many call the “new normal,” the unspoken sense that America is stuck if not in decline. This new sensibility bears profound consequences; foremost is the recognition that Americans are living lives of lowered expectation and intensified financial uncertainty.
The “American Century” is over. The great historical phase of America’s domestic prosperity and global hegemony is withering. In the decades following the Second World War, American capitalism fashioned the postmodern, and increasingly globalized, world order. In the process, it abandoned America and the American people.
We first witnessed the transfer of jobs overseas, rationalized as “throwaway” or low-skilled jobs. Then came the growing dependency of foreign borrowing, rationalized by the U.S.’s ostensible credit worthiness. Now, America’s great corporations, like GE and GM, are earning more overseas than at home, accompanied by generous domestic tax breaks. More disturbing, the U.S. military-industrial-political establishment repeatedly embarks on doomed “great war” campaigns that rob the nation of its young, its wealth and its ideals.
Domestically, over the last three decades the rich have systematically expropriated the middle-class’s sizable and hard-earned wealth. It has been the most massive transfer of wealth in the nation’s history, with the gravest consequences. It has been a period of legalized robbery.
The decades following WWII witnessed the middle-class accumulating significant wealth as measured in the pride of home ownership, the glamour of a new car, the accomplishment of sending one’s kid to college, the security of good health and assured retirement. It was a period marked by the narrowest income gap separating the rich and the poor in the nation’s history. It fostered the great social, legal, technological and cultural movements that distinguish the post-war era -- civil rights, Roe v. Wade, a man on the moon and the counterculture.
Today, the U.S. is stuck, confronting an historical sea change. Most Americans live at the intersection of earning the next dollar and paying the latest bill. This is the powerful vice of the Big Squeeze, of financial uncertainty and doubt, of living holding one’s breath.
Nearly everyone feels squeezed by the Big Squeeze, excepting, of course, those rolling in dough or too naïve to care. A November 2010 Rasmussen poll found that just over one-third (37 percent) of respondents believe America’s best days are still ahead; sadly, nearly half (47 percent) said the nation’s best days were in the past. A recent New York Times front-page article announced: “New Poll Shows Darkening Mood Across America.” [NYT, April 22, 2011]
Capitalism is being restructured, and in the process, Americans are being disciplined, forced to accept a poorer quality of life. The process of social and personal “reeducation” now being imposed on the vast majority of Americans is the Great Squeeze, it is the process of accepting a qualitatively more miserable life.
* * *
Big Squeeze is revealed in many ways. The clearest examples are the key economic indicators, particularly those detailing the growing income gap and the resulting social consequences. In a recent report, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) finds that, "since 1983 the top 5% of wealth holders consistently held more than 50% of all wealth, but the share increased from 56.1% in 1983 to 63.5% in 2009. The bottom 80% of wealth holders consistently held less than 20% of all wealth, but the share declined from 18.7% in 1983 to 12.8% in 2009."
In simplest terms, the rich have gotten richer, amassing an ever-greater share of social wealth, while the rest of us, especially the poor, have gotten poorer.
EPI’s findings lay out the broad terrain on which the Big Squeeze is played out. More disturbing are the innumerable ways it is experienced in the lives of ordinary Americans.
First and foremost of these ways is the growing wage gap. The U.S. Census Bureau found that while the GDP increased nearly three-fold between 1970 and 2000 (from $3.8 trillion to $9.8 trillion), the average "real weekly wage" fell by 14 percent between 1970 and 1996. The following table documents this income stagnation.
Sector
1970
2003
Gain
Poorest (lowest 20%
$15,126
$17,984
18.9%
Median (50%)
$35,832
$43,318
20.9%
Wealthiest (top 5%)
$95,090
$154,120
62.1%
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2004
As EPI notes, “the typical worker has had stagnating wages for a long time, despite enjoying some wage growth during the economic recovery of the late 1990s.” In the wake of the Great Recession, this situation has only gotten worse.
To compensate for the erosion of earnings among male head-of-household workers, American society adjusted. First, women entered the workforce in ever growing numbers, helping launch the second-generation women’s movement and normalizing the two-income household. Second, Americans went into debt, big-time.
The U.S. Labor Department estimates the female workforce participation grew from two-fifths (40 percent) in 1975 to three-fifth (60 percent) in 2008. It reminds us: “The long-term increase in the female labor force largely reflects the greater frequency of paid work among mothers.”
The income stagnation that affected the vast majority of Americans and characterized the period between 1970 and 2000 was hidden in the gluttony of consumerism. Average consumption per person increased 66 percent during this three-decade period. To pay for this fictitious luxury, Americans went into debt.
During the latter decades of the 20th century, personal debt incurred in home mortgages, car loans, tuition loans and credit-card purchases soared. The Federal Reserve estimated total household debt in 2010 at $13.4 trillion or 116 percent of disposable income; reflecting the Big Squeeze, household debt has declined from the peak year of 2007 – the year before the bubble burst -- when it reached 130 percent. Debt should continue to erode as people hold onto the little they make.
The days of consumer gluttony are over. The ranks of the unemployed and the underemployed are estimated at 14 million. Older workers, including those with a college degree, are especially vulnerable, even those willing to take lower-wage jobs to simply hold on. Lower-skilled younger adults between 18 to 34 years, especially minority people, have witnessed the largest jump in poverty. This has led many to double-up in housing with parents, friends and loved ones, let alone growing numbers calling their car home and, finally, the increasing number of the homeless.
The Big Squeeze is taking its toll on all aspects of the lives of a growing number of Americans. Home ownership is down, as is the savings rate. However, there has been a significant increase in the number of U.S. households receiving food stamps and visiting food banks.
The area of personal life taking the biggest hit is health care, as reflected in the rise in the uninsured and emergency room visits. A 2009 report by the American Optometric Association found more than a third (36 percent) of Americans are limiting their doctor visits, including 63 percent cutting dental visits, 59 percent cutting visits to primary care physician and 52 percent cutting visits to eye doctors. Two years later, things have surely gotten worse. The failure to provide quality health care to a growing segment of Americans will have the gravest impact on the nation’s long-term development.
* * *
Progressive resistance to the Big Squeeze has been slow in coming. The Tea Party movement expressed the first round of popular rage, reflecting the genuine fears of a segment of the aging, insecure, white (often racist) and conservative Christian populace. It screamed loud and was heard.
However, having been organized and funded by well-financed conservative and Republican operatives, the politicians and legislative solutions it championed are turning out to only make worse the lives of an increasing number of the more vulnerable Tea Party proponents. Tea Party ideology and politics is being exposed as a con job.
The response among more self-conscious progressives, the broad moderate citizenry (i.e., the majority of the voting public) and decent, apolitical Americans, has been slow to come to a boil. In light of the uprising in Madison and the growing number of angry constituents greeting Republican Congressmen throughout the country, political resistance is beginning to bubble up.
There is, however, a form of resistance that takes place everyday, but is invisible to the media and traditional political analysis. It occurs at the friction points of the Big Squeeze, where the values and/or authority of the more middle-class or managerial sector rubs up against the reality lived by poor and low-wage working Americans. These are the junctures where everyday class power is exercised and inchoate social struggle is waged.
Lisa Dodson’s recent book, The Moral Underground, analyzes the friction points played out in the social relations that define low-wage jobs, in the classroom and in healthcare institutions. They are the settings where Americans confront profound, often deeply perplexing, moral challenges. These moral confrontations involve those on both sides of the economic and power divide.
Dodson calls these points of resistance to the Big Squeeze the “moral underground.” Everyday, those with power, including managers, supervisors, teachers and health care professionals – and the list can go on and on – make decisions that determine the fate of employees, students or the ill and their families. Dodson sees these points of friction serving as moments for moral resistance to the dictates of business-as-usual. For those in authority, subverting corporate protocols and procedures can involve risking their jobs. And they are doing it.
Resistance to the Big Squeeze will likely intensify over the next two years as the nation builds to the 2012 election. The most visible form of this resistance will likely be protest marches, strikes and other public demonstrations. A new, emboldened progressive movement may well take shape.
As this occurs, we shouldn’t lose sight of the more invisible, but mounting, resistance of the moral underground. As it grows, it may undermine one of the great social fictions grounding American capitalism: That one leaves one’s morals and politics at the office, factory or store door when one enters the job site. This fiction is based on the well-propagated notion that when one sells one’s labor power one leaves one’s personal beliefs and values at home. This social fiction is crumbling under the pressure of the Big Squeeze.
David Rosen regularly contributes to AlterNet, CounterPunch and Filmmaker Magazine; check out www.DavidRosenWrites.com.
/http://www.alternet.org/story/151016/the_big_squeeze%3A_how_americans_are_being_crushed_by_financial_insecurity_and_doubt?page=entire
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
More Bad Arguments
More Bad Arguments: The Roberts Court & Money in Politics
by Ronald Dworkin
New York Review of Books, April 27, 2011
This is the second of two posts examining the Supreme Court’s “step by step” overruling of longstanding precedents and constitutional tradition. The first post discusses the Court’s recent decision to uphold an Arizona tax credit for donations to religious schools.
Consider the Supreme Court’s newest electoral reform case, also from Arizona. In their earlier Citizens United decision the five justices in the majority—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito—guaranteed corporations a constitutional right to use their own capital for political advertising. They said that the point of the First Amendment is to provide the electorate with as much political speech as possible. They did not deny that the political process would be fairer if candidates and political organizations were more equal in their campaign resources. But the First Amendment forbids infringing free speech for the sake of equality, they said, and so “leveling the playing field” is no justification for stopping corporations or anyone else from spending as much on political advertising as they wish. Some commentators said that the Citizens United decision would make little practical difference: though it was wrong in principle, they thought, it would not actually do much harm. They were mistaken: the decision’s impact has already proved dramatic.
The new case—Arizona Free Enterprise Club PAC v. Bennett—gives the five justices another opportunity to protect the power of wealth in politics. Arizona, like many states, offers public financing to election candidates who agree to limit their spending but permits candidates who refuse public funding to spend as much as they wish. In a 1998 referendum following a series of political scandals, Arizona voters adopted a “Clean Elections Act” providing that if a privately funded candidate spends more than a stipulated amount, other candidates who have accepted public financing receive additional campaign funds from the state.
Conservative political organizations challenged the Clean Elections Act: they argue that this act, too, violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment. The Court heard oral argument in the case on March 28; it has not yet announced its decision but the remarks of four of the five conservative justices (Thomas almost never speaks during oral argument) leave little doubt that all five will rule the Clean Elections Act unconstitutional. They agreed with the plaintiffs that the act would “chill” the speech of privately funded candidates who would know that if they spent more than the stipulated limit their opponents would receive additional funding. In that way, they suggested, the act infringes the rights of privately funded candidates to speak as freely as they wish.
This is a bizarre argument. The five justices do not challenge the constitutionality of public funding; they hardly could since such funding obviously increases the amount—as well as the diversity—of political speech. But public funding presumably deters many rich candidates from broadcasting dubious claims they would happily broadcast if their opponents had no money to rebut them. Indeed, public funding for potential opponents might well deter some wealthy individuals from running for office and therefore from campaigning at all. The First Amendment can hardly be thought to guarantee rich politicians and organizations that they will not be effectively opposed, even when the possibility of effective opposition might induce them to say less.
Nor would increased subsidies for publicly funded candidates lower the total amount of speech available to the electorate. Political spending has increased in Arizona since the act was passed, and common sense argues that the act would increase rather than decrease the amount of political speech. Organizations like the Free Enterprise Club can raise much more money than publicly funded candidates would have even with the additional funds the act would provide them. The act would indeed diminish the financial advantage of rich candidates and organizations. But it would hardly erase that advantage and it would therefore be unlikely to stop privately funded candidates and groups from raising and spending what they otherwise would. If so, the act would increase overall speech by providing somewhat more money for poorer candidates to spend.
The transcript reveals a different and more ominous argument that some of the conservative justices seemed to have in mind, however—an argument that would make the impact of the Clean Elections Act on anyone’s speech irrelevant. They repeatedly declared that the real intention of the act was egalitarian—that it was actually designed not to reduce corruption but to make the resources available to different candidates somewhat more equal—and that the act was unconstitutional for that reason.* Roberts put the point this way: “Well, I checked the Citizens’ Clean Elections Commission website this morning, and it says that this act was passed to, quote, ‘level the playing field’ when it comes to running for office. Why isn’t that clear evidence that it’s unconstitutional?”
It is almost always implausible to attribute a single purpose even to an ordinary statute; different legislators might well have had very different intentions and hopes in voting for it. But the Clean Elections Act was adopted in a referendum directly by the Arizona voters and it is worse than implausible to attribute a single or dominant motive to all the many thousands who voted for it. We have no idea, for instance, how many of them wanted just to curb the well-publicized corruption in the state.
But even if we accept that every Arizonan who voted for the act hoped to reduce the advantage of rich candidates and institutions, that assumption would provide no argument for holding it unconstitutional. Past decisions, including Citizens United, held that a legislative desire to reduce the inequality in candidates’ spending cannot rescue a scheme that is otherwise objectionable on First Amendment grounds. Roberts’s declaration in the new case suggests a malign sleight of hand: that an act passed by popular referendum to promote electoral equality will now be condemned by that motive even if there is no other constitutional objection to it. The enthusiasm with which at least three of the conservatives toyed with the idea that equality is just in itself a forbidden goal gives further evidence that they are driven by political convictions wholly alien to the Constitution—convictions that a genuine jurisprudence of principle must reject.
* Scalia, however, rejected that putative principle: “I’m sure that in some of the public financing cases that we’ve heard argued, it was asserted that the purpose was to level the playing field, and that that was an entirely valid purpose.” ?
by Ronald Dworkin
New York Review of Books, April 27, 2011
This is the second of two posts examining the Supreme Court’s “step by step” overruling of longstanding precedents and constitutional tradition. The first post discusses the Court’s recent decision to uphold an Arizona tax credit for donations to religious schools.
Consider the Supreme Court’s newest electoral reform case, also from Arizona. In their earlier Citizens United decision the five justices in the majority—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito—guaranteed corporations a constitutional right to use their own capital for political advertising. They said that the point of the First Amendment is to provide the electorate with as much political speech as possible. They did not deny that the political process would be fairer if candidates and political organizations were more equal in their campaign resources. But the First Amendment forbids infringing free speech for the sake of equality, they said, and so “leveling the playing field” is no justification for stopping corporations or anyone else from spending as much on political advertising as they wish. Some commentators said that the Citizens United decision would make little practical difference: though it was wrong in principle, they thought, it would not actually do much harm. They were mistaken: the decision’s impact has already proved dramatic.
The new case—Arizona Free Enterprise Club PAC v. Bennett—gives the five justices another opportunity to protect the power of wealth in politics. Arizona, like many states, offers public financing to election candidates who agree to limit their spending but permits candidates who refuse public funding to spend as much as they wish. In a 1998 referendum following a series of political scandals, Arizona voters adopted a “Clean Elections Act” providing that if a privately funded candidate spends more than a stipulated amount, other candidates who have accepted public financing receive additional campaign funds from the state.
Conservative political organizations challenged the Clean Elections Act: they argue that this act, too, violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment. The Court heard oral argument in the case on March 28; it has not yet announced its decision but the remarks of four of the five conservative justices (Thomas almost never speaks during oral argument) leave little doubt that all five will rule the Clean Elections Act unconstitutional. They agreed with the plaintiffs that the act would “chill” the speech of privately funded candidates who would know that if they spent more than the stipulated limit their opponents would receive additional funding. In that way, they suggested, the act infringes the rights of privately funded candidates to speak as freely as they wish.
This is a bizarre argument. The five justices do not challenge the constitutionality of public funding; they hardly could since such funding obviously increases the amount—as well as the diversity—of political speech. But public funding presumably deters many rich candidates from broadcasting dubious claims they would happily broadcast if their opponents had no money to rebut them. Indeed, public funding for potential opponents might well deter some wealthy individuals from running for office and therefore from campaigning at all. The First Amendment can hardly be thought to guarantee rich politicians and organizations that they will not be effectively opposed, even when the possibility of effective opposition might induce them to say less.
Nor would increased subsidies for publicly funded candidates lower the total amount of speech available to the electorate. Political spending has increased in Arizona since the act was passed, and common sense argues that the act would increase rather than decrease the amount of political speech. Organizations like the Free Enterprise Club can raise much more money than publicly funded candidates would have even with the additional funds the act would provide them. The act would indeed diminish the financial advantage of rich candidates and organizations. But it would hardly erase that advantage and it would therefore be unlikely to stop privately funded candidates and groups from raising and spending what they otherwise would. If so, the act would increase overall speech by providing somewhat more money for poorer candidates to spend.
The transcript reveals a different and more ominous argument that some of the conservative justices seemed to have in mind, however—an argument that would make the impact of the Clean Elections Act on anyone’s speech irrelevant. They repeatedly declared that the real intention of the act was egalitarian—that it was actually designed not to reduce corruption but to make the resources available to different candidates somewhat more equal—and that the act was unconstitutional for that reason.* Roberts put the point this way: “Well, I checked the Citizens’ Clean Elections Commission website this morning, and it says that this act was passed to, quote, ‘level the playing field’ when it comes to running for office. Why isn’t that clear evidence that it’s unconstitutional?”
It is almost always implausible to attribute a single purpose even to an ordinary statute; different legislators might well have had very different intentions and hopes in voting for it. But the Clean Elections Act was adopted in a referendum directly by the Arizona voters and it is worse than implausible to attribute a single or dominant motive to all the many thousands who voted for it. We have no idea, for instance, how many of them wanted just to curb the well-publicized corruption in the state.
But even if we accept that every Arizonan who voted for the act hoped to reduce the advantage of rich candidates and institutions, that assumption would provide no argument for holding it unconstitutional. Past decisions, including Citizens United, held that a legislative desire to reduce the inequality in candidates’ spending cannot rescue a scheme that is otherwise objectionable on First Amendment grounds. Roberts’s declaration in the new case suggests a malign sleight of hand: that an act passed by popular referendum to promote electoral equality will now be condemned by that motive even if there is no other constitutional objection to it. The enthusiasm with which at least three of the conservatives toyed with the idea that equality is just in itself a forbidden goal gives further evidence that they are driven by political convictions wholly alien to the Constitution—convictions that a genuine jurisprudence of principle must reject.
* Scalia, however, rejected that putative principle: “I’m sure that in some of the public financing cases that we’ve heard argued, it was asserted that the purpose was to level the playing field, and that that was an entirely valid purpose.” ?
Saturday, May 21, 2011
How to Defeat a Corporatocracy
I have eight public arenas that would benefit from a show of solidarity. Got thoughts? Namaste, k8longstory4sbschooltalk.com
AlterNet.com / By Bruce E. Levine May 20, 2011
96 COMMENTS
10 Steps to Defeat the Corporatocracy
The only way to overcome the power of money is regain our courage and solidarity. Here's how to do that.
� Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a "corporatocracy," in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.
Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity.
The elite spend their lives stockpiling money and have the financial clout to bribe, divide and conquer the rest of us. The only way to overcome the power of money is with the power of courage and solidarity. When we regain our guts and solidarity, we can then more wisely select from - and implement - time-honored strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have long used to defeat the elite. So, how do we regain our guts and solidarity?
1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements
Historian Lawrence Goodwyn has studied democratic movements such as Solidarity in Poland, and he has written extensively about the populist movement in the United States that occurred during the end of the 19th century (what he calls "the largest democratic mass movement in American history"). Goodwyn concludes that democratic movements are initiated by people who are neither resigned to the status quo nor intimidated by established powers. For Goodwyn, the cultural and psychological building blocks of democratic movements are individual self-respect and collective self-confidence. Without individual self-respect, we do not believe that we are worthy of power or capable of utilizing power wisely, and we accept as our role being a subject of power. Without collective self-confidence, we do not believe that we can succeed in wresting away power from our rulers.
Thus, it is the job of all of us - from parents, to students, to teachers, to journalists, to clergy, to psychologists, to artists and EVERYBODY who gives a damn about genuine democracy - to create individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.
2. Confront and Transform ALL Institutions that Have Destroyed Individual Self-Respect and Collective Self-Confidence
In "Get Up, Stand Up, " I detail 12 major institutional and cultural areas that have broken people's sprit of resistance, and all are "battlefields for democracy" in which we can fight to regain our individual self-respect and collective self confidence:
• Television
• Isolation and bureaucratization
• "Fundamentalist consumerism" and advertising/propaganda
• Student loan debt and indentured servitude
• Surveillance
• The decline of unions/solidarity among working people
• Greed and a "money-centric" culture
• Fear-based schools that teach obedience
• Psychopathologizing noncompliance
• Elitism via professional training
• The corporate media
• The US electoral system
As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, "All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike."
3. Side Each Day in Every Way With Anti-Authoritarians
We can recover our self-respect and strength by regaining our integrity. This process requires a personal transformation to overcome our sense of powerlessness and fight for what we believe in. Integrity includes acts of courage resisting all illegitimate authorities. We must recognize that in virtually every aspect of our life in every day, we can either be on the side of authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy. Specifically, we can question the legitimacy of government, media, religious, educational and other authorities in our lives, and if we establish that an authority is not legitimate, we can resist it. And we can support others who are resisting illegitimate authorities. A huge part of solidarity comes from supporting others who are resisting the illegitimate authorities in their lives. Walt Whitman had it right: "Resist much, obey little. Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved."
4. Regain Morale by Thinking More Critically About Our Critical Thinking
While we need critical thinking to effectively question and challenge illegitimate authority - and to wisely select the best strategies and tactics to defeat the elite - critical thinking can reveal some ugly truths about reality, which can result in defeatism. Thus, critical thinkers must also think critically about their defeatism, and realize that it can cripple the will and destroy motivation, thus perpetuating the status quo. William James (1842–1910), the psychologist, philosopher, and occasional political activist (member of the Anti-Imperialist League who, during the Spanish-American War, said, "God damn the US for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles!") had a history of pessimism and severe depression, which helped fuel some of his greatest wisdom on how to overcome immobilization. James, a critical thinker, had little stomach for what we now call "positive thinking," but he also came to understand how losing belief in a possible outcome can guarantee its defeat. Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), an Italian political theorist and Marxist activist who was imprisoned by Mussolini, came to the same conclusions. Gramsci's phrase "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" has inspired many critical thinkers, including Noam Chomsky, to maintain their efforts in the face of difficult challenges.
5. Restore Courage in Young People
The corporatocracy has not only decimated America's labor union movement, it has almost totally broken the spirit of resistance among young Americans - an even more frightening achievement. Historically, young people without family responsibilities have felt most freed up to challenge illegitimate authority. But America's education system creates fear, shame and debt - all killers of the spirit of resistance. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and standardized testing tyranny results in the kind of fear that crushes curiosity, critical thinking and the capacity to constructively resist illegitimate authority. Rebel teachers, parents, and students - in a variety of overt and covert ways - have already stopped complying with corporatocracy schooling. We must also stop shaming intelligent young people who reject college, and we must instead recreate an economy that respects all kinds of intelligence and education. While the corporatocracy exploits student loan debt to both rake in easy money and break young people's spirit of resistance, the rest of us need to rebel against student loan debt and indentured servitude. And parents and mental health professionals need to stop behavior-modifying and medicating young people who are resisting illegitimate authority.
6. Focus on Democracy Battlefields Where the Corporate Elite Don't Have Such a Large Financial Advantage
The emphasis of many activists is on electoral politics, but the elite have a huge advantage in this battlefield, where money controls the US electoral process. By focusing exclusively on electoral politics at the expense of everything else, we: (1) give away power when we focus only on getting leaders elected and become dependent on them; (2) buy into the elite notion that democracy is all about elections; (3) lose sight of the fact that democracy means having influence over all aspects of our lives; and (4) forget that if we have no power in our workplace, in our education and in all our institutions, then there will never be democracy worthy of the name. Thus, we should focus our fight more on the daily institutions we experience. As Wendell Berry said, "If you can control a people's economy, you don't need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant."
7. Heal from "Corporatocracy Abuse" and "Battered People's Syndrome" to Gain Strength
Activists routinely become frustrated when truths about lies, victimization and oppression don't set people free to take action. But when we human beings eat crap for too long, we gradually lose our self-respect to the point that we become psychologically too weak to take action. Many Americans are embarrassed to accept that, after years of corporatocracy subjugation, we have developed "battered people's syndrome" and what Bob Marley called "mental slavery." To emancipate ourselves and others, we must:
• Move out of denial and accept that we are a subjugated people.
• Admit that we have bought into many lies. There is a dignity, humility, and strength in facing the fact that, while we may have once bought into some lies, we no longer do so.
• Forgive ourselves and others for accepting the abuser's lies. Remember the liars we face are often quite good at lying.
• Maintain a sense of humor. Victims of horrific abuse, including those in concentration camps and slave plantations, have discovered that pain can either immobilize us or be transformed by humor into energy.
• Stop beating ourselves up for having been in an abusive relationship. The energy we have is better spent on healing and then working to change the abusive system; this provides more energy, and when we use this energy to provide respect and confidence for others, everybody gets energized.
8. Unite Populists by Rejecting Corporate Media's Political Divisions
The corporate media routinely divides Americans as "liberals," "conservatives" and "moderates," a useful division for the corporatocracy, because no matter which of these groups is the current electoral winner, the corporatocracy retains power. In order to defeat the corporatocracy, it's more useful to divide people in terms of authoritarians versus anti-authoritarians, elitists versus populists and corporatists versus anticorporatists. Both left anti-authoritarians and libertarian anti-authoritarians passionately oppose current US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Wall Street bailout, the PATRIOT Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the so-called "war on drugs" and several other corporatocracy policies. There are differences between anti-authoritarians but, as Ralph Nader and Ron Paul have together recently publicly discussed, we can form coalitions and alliances on these important power-money issues. One example of an anti-authoritarian democratic movement (which I am involved in) is the mental health treatment reform movement, comprised of left anti-authoritarians and libertarians. We all share distrust of Big Pharma and contempt for pseudoscience, and we believe that people deserve truly informed choice regarding treatment. We respect Erich Fromm, the democratic-socialist psychoanalyst, along with Thomas Szasz, the libertarian psychiatrist, both passionate anti-authoritarians who have confronted mental health professionals for using dogma to coerce people.
9. Unite "Comfortable Anti-Authoritarians" and "Afflicted Anti-Authoritarians
This "comfortable-afflicted" continuum is based on the magnitude of pain that one has simply getting through the day. The term comfortable anti-authoritarian is not a pejorative one, but refers to those anti-authoritarians lucky enough to have decent paying and maybe even meaningful jobs, or platforms through which their voices are heard or social supports in their lives. Many of these comfortable anti-authoritarians may know that there are millions of Americans working mindless jobs in order to hold on to their health insurance, or hustling two low-wage jobs to pay college loans, rent and a car payment, or who may be unable to find even a poorly paying, mindless job and are instead helplessly watching eviction or foreclosure and bankruptcy close in on them. However, unless these comfortable anti-authoritarians have once been part of that afflicted class - and remember what it feels like - they may not be able to fully respect the afflicted's emotional state. The afflicted need to recognize that human beings often become passive because they are overwhelmed by pain (not because they are ignorant, stupid, or lazy), and in order to function at all, they often shut down or distract themselves from this pain. Some comfortable anti-authoritarians assume that people's inactions are caused by ignorance. This not only sounds and smells like elitism, it creates resentment for many in the afflicted class who lack the energy to be engaged in any activism. Respect, resources and anything that concretely reduces their level of pain is likely to be far more energizing than a scolding lecture. That's the lesson of many democratic movements, including the Great Populist Revolt.
10. Do Not Let Debate Divide Anti-Authoritarians
Spirited debate is what democracy is all about, but when debate turns to mutual antipathy and divides anti-authoritarians, it plays into the hands of the elite. One such divide among anti-elitists is over the magnitude of change that should be worked for and celebrated. On one extreme are people who think that anything is better than nothing at all. At the other extreme are people who reject any incremental change and hold out for total transformation. We can better unite by asking these questions: Does the change increase individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, and increase one's energy level to pursue even greater democracy? Or does it feel like a sellout that decreases individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, and de-energizes us? Utilizing the criteria of increased self-respect and collective self-confidence, those of us who believe in genuine democracy can more constructively debate whether the change is going to increase strength to gain democracy or is going to take the steam out of a democratic movement. Respecting both sides of this debate makes for greater solidarity and better decisions.
To summarize, democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity. Risk-free green actions - such as shopping from independents, buying local, recycling, composting, consuming less, not watching television and so on - can certainly help counter a dehumanizing world. However, revolutions that truly transform fundamental power inequities and enable us to feel like men and women rather than children and slaves require risk, guts and solidarity.
Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist. His Web site is www.brucelevine.net.
AlterNet.com / By Bruce E. Levine May 20, 2011
96 COMMENTS
10 Steps to Defeat the Corporatocracy
The only way to overcome the power of money is regain our courage and solidarity. Here's how to do that.
� Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a "corporatocracy," in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.
Some activists insist that this political passivity problem is caused by Americans' ignorance due to corporate media propaganda, and others claim that political passivity is caused by the inability to organize due to a lack of money. However, polls show that on the important issues of our day - from senseless wars, to Wall Street bailouts, to corporate tax-dodging, to health insurance rip-offs - the majority of Americans are not ignorant to the reality that they are being screwed. And American history is replete with organizational examples - from the Underground Railroad, to the Great Populist Revolt, to the Flint sit-down strike, to large wildcat strikes a generation ago - of successful rebels who had little money but lots of guts and solidarity.
The elite spend their lives stockpiling money and have the financial clout to bribe, divide and conquer the rest of us. The only way to overcome the power of money is with the power of courage and solidarity. When we regain our guts and solidarity, we can then more wisely select from - and implement - time-honored strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have long used to defeat the elite. So, how do we regain our guts and solidarity?
1. Create the Cultural and Psychological "Building Blocks" for Democratic Movements
Historian Lawrence Goodwyn has studied democratic movements such as Solidarity in Poland, and he has written extensively about the populist movement in the United States that occurred during the end of the 19th century (what he calls "the largest democratic mass movement in American history"). Goodwyn concludes that democratic movements are initiated by people who are neither resigned to the status quo nor intimidated by established powers. For Goodwyn, the cultural and psychological building blocks of democratic movements are individual self-respect and collective self-confidence. Without individual self-respect, we do not believe that we are worthy of power or capable of utilizing power wisely, and we accept as our role being a subject of power. Without collective self-confidence, we do not believe that we can succeed in wresting away power from our rulers.
Thus, it is the job of all of us - from parents, to students, to teachers, to journalists, to clergy, to psychologists, to artists and EVERYBODY who gives a damn about genuine democracy - to create individual self-respect and collective self-confidence.
2. Confront and Transform ALL Institutions that Have Destroyed Individual Self-Respect and Collective Self-Confidence
In "Get Up, Stand Up, " I detail 12 major institutional and cultural areas that have broken people's sprit of resistance, and all are "battlefields for democracy" in which we can fight to regain our individual self-respect and collective self confidence:
• Television
• Isolation and bureaucratization
• "Fundamentalist consumerism" and advertising/propaganda
• Student loan debt and indentured servitude
• Surveillance
• The decline of unions/solidarity among working people
• Greed and a "money-centric" culture
• Fear-based schools that teach obedience
• Psychopathologizing noncompliance
• Elitism via professional training
• The corporate media
• The US electoral system
As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, "All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike."
3. Side Each Day in Every Way With Anti-Authoritarians
We can recover our self-respect and strength by regaining our integrity. This process requires a personal transformation to overcome our sense of powerlessness and fight for what we believe in. Integrity includes acts of courage resisting all illegitimate authorities. We must recognize that in virtually every aspect of our life in every day, we can either be on the side of authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy. Specifically, we can question the legitimacy of government, media, religious, educational and other authorities in our lives, and if we establish that an authority is not legitimate, we can resist it. And we can support others who are resisting illegitimate authorities. A huge part of solidarity comes from supporting others who are resisting the illegitimate authorities in their lives. Walt Whitman had it right: "Resist much, obey little. Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved."
4. Regain Morale by Thinking More Critically About Our Critical Thinking
While we need critical thinking to effectively question and challenge illegitimate authority - and to wisely select the best strategies and tactics to defeat the elite - critical thinking can reveal some ugly truths about reality, which can result in defeatism. Thus, critical thinkers must also think critically about their defeatism, and realize that it can cripple the will and destroy motivation, thus perpetuating the status quo. William James (1842–1910), the psychologist, philosopher, and occasional political activist (member of the Anti-Imperialist League who, during the Spanish-American War, said, "God damn the US for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles!") had a history of pessimism and severe depression, which helped fuel some of his greatest wisdom on how to overcome immobilization. James, a critical thinker, had little stomach for what we now call "positive thinking," but he also came to understand how losing belief in a possible outcome can guarantee its defeat. Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), an Italian political theorist and Marxist activist who was imprisoned by Mussolini, came to the same conclusions. Gramsci's phrase "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" has inspired many critical thinkers, including Noam Chomsky, to maintain their efforts in the face of difficult challenges.
5. Restore Courage in Young People
The corporatocracy has not only decimated America's labor union movement, it has almost totally broken the spirit of resistance among young Americans - an even more frightening achievement. Historically, young people without family responsibilities have felt most freed up to challenge illegitimate authority. But America's education system creates fear, shame and debt - all killers of the spirit of resistance. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and standardized testing tyranny results in the kind of fear that crushes curiosity, critical thinking and the capacity to constructively resist illegitimate authority. Rebel teachers, parents, and students - in a variety of overt and covert ways - have already stopped complying with corporatocracy schooling. We must also stop shaming intelligent young people who reject college, and we must instead recreate an economy that respects all kinds of intelligence and education. While the corporatocracy exploits student loan debt to both rake in easy money and break young people's spirit of resistance, the rest of us need to rebel against student loan debt and indentured servitude. And parents and mental health professionals need to stop behavior-modifying and medicating young people who are resisting illegitimate authority.
6. Focus on Democracy Battlefields Where the Corporate Elite Don't Have Such a Large Financial Advantage
The emphasis of many activists is on electoral politics, but the elite have a huge advantage in this battlefield, where money controls the US electoral process. By focusing exclusively on electoral politics at the expense of everything else, we: (1) give away power when we focus only on getting leaders elected and become dependent on them; (2) buy into the elite notion that democracy is all about elections; (3) lose sight of the fact that democracy means having influence over all aspects of our lives; and (4) forget that if we have no power in our workplace, in our education and in all our institutions, then there will never be democracy worthy of the name. Thus, we should focus our fight more on the daily institutions we experience. As Wendell Berry said, "If you can control a people's economy, you don't need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant."
7. Heal from "Corporatocracy Abuse" and "Battered People's Syndrome" to Gain Strength
Activists routinely become frustrated when truths about lies, victimization and oppression don't set people free to take action. But when we human beings eat crap for too long, we gradually lose our self-respect to the point that we become psychologically too weak to take action. Many Americans are embarrassed to accept that, after years of corporatocracy subjugation, we have developed "battered people's syndrome" and what Bob Marley called "mental slavery." To emancipate ourselves and others, we must:
• Move out of denial and accept that we are a subjugated people.
• Admit that we have bought into many lies. There is a dignity, humility, and strength in facing the fact that, while we may have once bought into some lies, we no longer do so.
• Forgive ourselves and others for accepting the abuser's lies. Remember the liars we face are often quite good at lying.
• Maintain a sense of humor. Victims of horrific abuse, including those in concentration camps and slave plantations, have discovered that pain can either immobilize us or be transformed by humor into energy.
• Stop beating ourselves up for having been in an abusive relationship. The energy we have is better spent on healing and then working to change the abusive system; this provides more energy, and when we use this energy to provide respect and confidence for others, everybody gets energized.
8. Unite Populists by Rejecting Corporate Media's Political Divisions
The corporate media routinely divides Americans as "liberals," "conservatives" and "moderates," a useful division for the corporatocracy, because no matter which of these groups is the current electoral winner, the corporatocracy retains power. In order to defeat the corporatocracy, it's more useful to divide people in terms of authoritarians versus anti-authoritarians, elitists versus populists and corporatists versus anticorporatists. Both left anti-authoritarians and libertarian anti-authoritarians passionately oppose current US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Wall Street bailout, the PATRIOT Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the so-called "war on drugs" and several other corporatocracy policies. There are differences between anti-authoritarians but, as Ralph Nader and Ron Paul have together recently publicly discussed, we can form coalitions and alliances on these important power-money issues. One example of an anti-authoritarian democratic movement (which I am involved in) is the mental health treatment reform movement, comprised of left anti-authoritarians and libertarians. We all share distrust of Big Pharma and contempt for pseudoscience, and we believe that people deserve truly informed choice regarding treatment. We respect Erich Fromm, the democratic-socialist psychoanalyst, along with Thomas Szasz, the libertarian psychiatrist, both passionate anti-authoritarians who have confronted mental health professionals for using dogma to coerce people.
9. Unite "Comfortable Anti-Authoritarians" and "Afflicted Anti-Authoritarians
This "comfortable-afflicted" continuum is based on the magnitude of pain that one has simply getting through the day. The term comfortable anti-authoritarian is not a pejorative one, but refers to those anti-authoritarians lucky enough to have decent paying and maybe even meaningful jobs, or platforms through which their voices are heard or social supports in their lives. Many of these comfortable anti-authoritarians may know that there are millions of Americans working mindless jobs in order to hold on to their health insurance, or hustling two low-wage jobs to pay college loans, rent and a car payment, or who may be unable to find even a poorly paying, mindless job and are instead helplessly watching eviction or foreclosure and bankruptcy close in on them. However, unless these comfortable anti-authoritarians have once been part of that afflicted class - and remember what it feels like - they may not be able to fully respect the afflicted's emotional state. The afflicted need to recognize that human beings often become passive because they are overwhelmed by pain (not because they are ignorant, stupid, or lazy), and in order to function at all, they often shut down or distract themselves from this pain. Some comfortable anti-authoritarians assume that people's inactions are caused by ignorance. This not only sounds and smells like elitism, it creates resentment for many in the afflicted class who lack the energy to be engaged in any activism. Respect, resources and anything that concretely reduces their level of pain is likely to be far more energizing than a scolding lecture. That's the lesson of many democratic movements, including the Great Populist Revolt.
10. Do Not Let Debate Divide Anti-Authoritarians
Spirited debate is what democracy is all about, but when debate turns to mutual antipathy and divides anti-authoritarians, it plays into the hands of the elite. One such divide among anti-elitists is over the magnitude of change that should be worked for and celebrated. On one extreme are people who think that anything is better than nothing at all. At the other extreme are people who reject any incremental change and hold out for total transformation. We can better unite by asking these questions: Does the change increase individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, and increase one's energy level to pursue even greater democracy? Or does it feel like a sellout that decreases individual self-respect and collective self-confidence, and de-energizes us? Utilizing the criteria of increased self-respect and collective self-confidence, those of us who believe in genuine democracy can more constructively debate whether the change is going to increase strength to gain democracy or is going to take the steam out of a democratic movement. Respecting both sides of this debate makes for greater solidarity and better decisions.
To summarize, democracy will not be won without guts and solidarity. Risk-free green actions - such as shopping from independents, buying local, recycling, composting, consuming less, not watching television and so on - can certainly help counter a dehumanizing world. However, revolutions that truly transform fundamental power inequities and enable us to feel like men and women rather than children and slaves require risk, guts and solidarity.
Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist. His Web site is www.brucelevine.net.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Do We Have Psychopaths Misruling Our World?
Maverick Media / By Greg Guma
256 COMMENTS
Schwarzenegger, DSK, and Gingrich: Do We Have Psychopaths Misruling Our World?
The serial misbehavior of these men was rationalized and excused for years, but it demonstrates a perpetual problem: ruling class impunity.
May 19, 2011 |
Change.org
� In recent days the political news has been like an episode of some TV drama about high-level corruption – call it Criminal Minds meets The West Wing. The head of the International Monetary Fund – the global financial organization that sets terms for development aid -- was jailed in New York for allegedly assaulting a housemaid sexually at his hotel. Meanwhile, in California news broke that the state’s movie-star governor – known as both the Terminator and the Gropinator – fathered a love-child almost a decade ago and it didn’t come out until he was about to leave office.
Then, of course, there’s the presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich, a poster child for bad behavior, launched last week with a series of disastrous missteps and rationalizations.
What the three men have in common, aside from wielding more influence than they can handle or deserve, is that their serial misbehavior went unchecked for years. In fact, it was rationalized as mere exuberance, frequently excused in “exceptional” people, when it actually demonstrated something else – ruling class impunity.
Ask yourself: Is it possible that these were isolated lapses in judgment? In other words, was this the only time Dominique Strauss-Kahn went after the help, or the only instance of Arnold Schwarzenegger cheating on his wife and exploiting those beneath him? Not too likely. And it’s surely not the only time Gingrich has excused his own bad behavior as a side effect of patriotism – while simultaneously trashing the basic humanity of a political opponent.
If these are patterns, why are millions so fascinated, often even seduced, by people whose behavior actually points to pathology? Perhaps we are wired to be attracted by psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, people so focused on their own central role in whatever takes place that the rest of us are sucked into their reality.
Think about entering a portal and emerging into the head of Donald Trump. What could that level of self-absorption be like? Begin by imagining a complete lack of empathy, one of the tell-tale signs of the psychopath.
Is Trump a psychopath? Well, he does score well on a 20 item checklist. And are there more psychopaths around us than we think? Not just serial killers and the violent type, but successful, powerful psychopaths who will do anything to win and affect our lives in profound ways?
The checklist, a way to help identify potential psychopaths among us, was developed by Bob Hare, a prison psychologist who conducted remarkable experiments and eventually codified his findings. Jon Ronson has provides an excellent history and analysis in his new book, The Psychopath Test.
Here’s the basic list, a collection of tendencies and an analytical tool to spot those who might be functioning psychopaths. The last two items relate specifically to criminals, but you don't have to be caught to have "criminal versatility." Keep in mind that having mild tendencies doesn’t make you a psychopath. But a high score – more than 30 on Hare’s 40 point scale – should be a warning sign. Personally, I give Trump and Gingrich high marks:
1.Glibness, superficial charm
2.Grandiose sense of self-worth
3.Need for stimulation, proneness to boredom
4.Pathological lying
5.Conning, manipulative
6.Lack of remorse or guilt
7.Shallow affect
8.Callous, lack of empathy
9.Parasitic lifestyle
10.Poor behavioral control
11.Promiscuous sexual behavior
12.Early behavior problems
13.Lack of realistic long-term goals
14.Impulsivity
15.Irresponsibility
16.Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
17.Many short-term marital relationships
18.Juvenile delinquency
19.Revocation of conditional release
20.Criminal versatility
In his book, Ronson follows the trail of research about psychopaths, gets to know a few, and sees how they have affected society. For example, he tracks down Toto Constant, former leader of Haitian death squads backed by the CIA, who was given asylum in the US but restricted to Queens. Although the guy was basically in hiding, he still thought he was beloved in Haiti (#2), took no responsibility for his crimes (#16), and badly imitated strong emotions. Since psychopaths don’t experience emotions that same as other people (#7), they often compensate through imitation. But not all are excellent actors. Constant even thought he would someday be called back to “help” Haiti again (#13).
Psychopaths could be the reason the world seems so screwed up. If so, humanity’s tragic flaw may be that a few bad apples – people whose amygdalas don’t fire the right signals to their central nervous systems – really can spoil the whole barrel. Prime examples include the corporate psychopaths who trashed capitalism a few years back. To dig into that group check out Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, by Bob Hare and Paul Babiak. Examining these financial terrorists, you might well conclude that the conspiracy theory about shape-shifting lizards who secretly rule the world isn’t so far off. After all, psychopaths are often social shape-shifters.
So, the question is: Do psychopaths run the country and maybe the world? Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a strong candidate. Among recent presidents Nixon, Bush 2 and Clinton could qualify. The masters of the universe at places like Goldman Sachs are solid choices. And it only takes a few to destabilize a financial system, poison a community or destroy a business. Yet some studies suggest that, percentage-wise, there are more potential psychopaths among CEOs, directors and supervisors than in the general population, or even in prisons.
Who hasn’t known a business type who was borderline, a mercurial tyrant subject to fits of rage and impulsive acts? Or followed a public figure who was charming but also irresponsible, manipulative and self-aggrandizing? The tell-tale signs of the psychopath are often ignored or excused.
In his book, Ronson recalls a meeting with businessman Al Dunlop, a ruthless executive famous for his apparent joy in firing people. Together they go through Hare's psychopath checklist and Dunlop simply redefines many of the traits as aspects of leadership. Impulsiveness becomes quick analysis. Grandiose sense of self-worth? Absolutely, you have to believe in yourself, says Dunlop. Manipulative? Hey, that’s just leadership. Inability to feel deep emotions? Emotions are mostly nonsense, he says. And not feeling remorse frees you up to do great things.
Newt Gingrich would likely have a similar response if confronted with his own psychopathic tendencies. At the moment, he is engaging in a standard strategy – claiming redemption and re-inventing himself. In his case it's an epic rationalization that may not work.
It is widely agreed that Newt is an opportunist and a scoundrel. But that clearly doesn’t disqualify him from becoming president. Warren Harding, the Ohio senator who became president in 1920, carried on a 15-year affair both before and during his presidency. The "other woman," Nan Britton, gave birth to a son.
This was shortly after the end of World War I. People were disillusioned with Woodrow Wilson, and Democrats deserted the party to give Harding the biggest landslide in US history, 60 percent of the vote. That year Eugene Debs, who was in federal prison, got his best turnout, a million votes. Less than three years later, in the middle of a “goodwill” tour,” Harding dropped dead suddenly in San Francisco. He was replaced in August 1923 by Calvin Coolidge, a native Vermonter and Massachusetts governor who had been picked for vice-president in the original smoke-filled room.
Some people said Harding had been poisoned by his wife, Florence DeWolfe, a cold, snobbish banker’s daughter known as The Duchess. Rumors spread that she was trying to avoid disgrace, possibly even Harding’s impeachment. The administration had become notoriously corrupt. The Duchess fed the rumors by refusing to allow an autopsy.
It remains a mystery to this day. But Harding provided his own epitaph in advance. “I am not fit for this office and never should have been here,” he once admitted. That self-awareness suggests, despite his shortcomings, that at least he wasn’t a psychopath.
The point: if Warren Harding could become president, why not Newt Gingrich or someone equally disturbed? Just think of the future scandals and all the pathological behavior we would get to witness. Bad behavior is, after all, catnip for millions of information consumers. Can they ever really get enough?
This is adapted from Maverick Media’s Rebel News Round Up,* broadcast live at approximately 11:15 a.m. Friday on WOMM (105.9-FM/LP – The Radiator) in Burlington.
256 COMMENTS
Schwarzenegger, DSK, and Gingrich: Do We Have Psychopaths Misruling Our World?
The serial misbehavior of these men was rationalized and excused for years, but it demonstrates a perpetual problem: ruling class impunity.
May 19, 2011 |
Change.org
� In recent days the political news has been like an episode of some TV drama about high-level corruption – call it Criminal Minds meets The West Wing. The head of the International Monetary Fund – the global financial organization that sets terms for development aid -- was jailed in New York for allegedly assaulting a housemaid sexually at his hotel. Meanwhile, in California news broke that the state’s movie-star governor – known as both the Terminator and the Gropinator – fathered a love-child almost a decade ago and it didn’t come out until he was about to leave office.
Then, of course, there’s the presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich, a poster child for bad behavior, launched last week with a series of disastrous missteps and rationalizations.
What the three men have in common, aside from wielding more influence than they can handle or deserve, is that their serial misbehavior went unchecked for years. In fact, it was rationalized as mere exuberance, frequently excused in “exceptional” people, when it actually demonstrated something else – ruling class impunity.
Ask yourself: Is it possible that these were isolated lapses in judgment? In other words, was this the only time Dominique Strauss-Kahn went after the help, or the only instance of Arnold Schwarzenegger cheating on his wife and exploiting those beneath him? Not too likely. And it’s surely not the only time Gingrich has excused his own bad behavior as a side effect of patriotism – while simultaneously trashing the basic humanity of a political opponent.
If these are patterns, why are millions so fascinated, often even seduced, by people whose behavior actually points to pathology? Perhaps we are wired to be attracted by psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, people so focused on their own central role in whatever takes place that the rest of us are sucked into their reality.
Think about entering a portal and emerging into the head of Donald Trump. What could that level of self-absorption be like? Begin by imagining a complete lack of empathy, one of the tell-tale signs of the psychopath.
Is Trump a psychopath? Well, he does score well on a 20 item checklist. And are there more psychopaths around us than we think? Not just serial killers and the violent type, but successful, powerful psychopaths who will do anything to win and affect our lives in profound ways?
The checklist, a way to help identify potential psychopaths among us, was developed by Bob Hare, a prison psychologist who conducted remarkable experiments and eventually codified his findings. Jon Ronson has provides an excellent history and analysis in his new book, The Psychopath Test.
Here’s the basic list, a collection of tendencies and an analytical tool to spot those who might be functioning psychopaths. The last two items relate specifically to criminals, but you don't have to be caught to have "criminal versatility." Keep in mind that having mild tendencies doesn’t make you a psychopath. But a high score – more than 30 on Hare’s 40 point scale – should be a warning sign. Personally, I give Trump and Gingrich high marks:
1.Glibness, superficial charm
2.Grandiose sense of self-worth
3.Need for stimulation, proneness to boredom
4.Pathological lying
5.Conning, manipulative
6.Lack of remorse or guilt
7.Shallow affect
8.Callous, lack of empathy
9.Parasitic lifestyle
10.Poor behavioral control
11.Promiscuous sexual behavior
12.Early behavior problems
13.Lack of realistic long-term goals
14.Impulsivity
15.Irresponsibility
16.Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
17.Many short-term marital relationships
18.Juvenile delinquency
19.Revocation of conditional release
20.Criminal versatility
In his book, Ronson follows the trail of research about psychopaths, gets to know a few, and sees how they have affected society. For example, he tracks down Toto Constant, former leader of Haitian death squads backed by the CIA, who was given asylum in the US but restricted to Queens. Although the guy was basically in hiding, he still thought he was beloved in Haiti (#2), took no responsibility for his crimes (#16), and badly imitated strong emotions. Since psychopaths don’t experience emotions that same as other people (#7), they often compensate through imitation. But not all are excellent actors. Constant even thought he would someday be called back to “help” Haiti again (#13).
Psychopaths could be the reason the world seems so screwed up. If so, humanity’s tragic flaw may be that a few bad apples – people whose amygdalas don’t fire the right signals to their central nervous systems – really can spoil the whole barrel. Prime examples include the corporate psychopaths who trashed capitalism a few years back. To dig into that group check out Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, by Bob Hare and Paul Babiak. Examining these financial terrorists, you might well conclude that the conspiracy theory about shape-shifting lizards who secretly rule the world isn’t so far off. After all, psychopaths are often social shape-shifters.
So, the question is: Do psychopaths run the country and maybe the world? Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a strong candidate. Among recent presidents Nixon, Bush 2 and Clinton could qualify. The masters of the universe at places like Goldman Sachs are solid choices. And it only takes a few to destabilize a financial system, poison a community or destroy a business. Yet some studies suggest that, percentage-wise, there are more potential psychopaths among CEOs, directors and supervisors than in the general population, or even in prisons.
Who hasn’t known a business type who was borderline, a mercurial tyrant subject to fits of rage and impulsive acts? Or followed a public figure who was charming but also irresponsible, manipulative and self-aggrandizing? The tell-tale signs of the psychopath are often ignored or excused.
In his book, Ronson recalls a meeting with businessman Al Dunlop, a ruthless executive famous for his apparent joy in firing people. Together they go through Hare's psychopath checklist and Dunlop simply redefines many of the traits as aspects of leadership. Impulsiveness becomes quick analysis. Grandiose sense of self-worth? Absolutely, you have to believe in yourself, says Dunlop. Manipulative? Hey, that’s just leadership. Inability to feel deep emotions? Emotions are mostly nonsense, he says. And not feeling remorse frees you up to do great things.
Newt Gingrich would likely have a similar response if confronted with his own psychopathic tendencies. At the moment, he is engaging in a standard strategy – claiming redemption and re-inventing himself. In his case it's an epic rationalization that may not work.
It is widely agreed that Newt is an opportunist and a scoundrel. But that clearly doesn’t disqualify him from becoming president. Warren Harding, the Ohio senator who became president in 1920, carried on a 15-year affair both before and during his presidency. The "other woman," Nan Britton, gave birth to a son.
This was shortly after the end of World War I. People were disillusioned with Woodrow Wilson, and Democrats deserted the party to give Harding the biggest landslide in US history, 60 percent of the vote. That year Eugene Debs, who was in federal prison, got his best turnout, a million votes. Less than three years later, in the middle of a “goodwill” tour,” Harding dropped dead suddenly in San Francisco. He was replaced in August 1923 by Calvin Coolidge, a native Vermonter and Massachusetts governor who had been picked for vice-president in the original smoke-filled room.
Some people said Harding had been poisoned by his wife, Florence DeWolfe, a cold, snobbish banker’s daughter known as The Duchess. Rumors spread that she was trying to avoid disgrace, possibly even Harding’s impeachment. The administration had become notoriously corrupt. The Duchess fed the rumors by refusing to allow an autopsy.
It remains a mystery to this day. But Harding provided his own epitaph in advance. “I am not fit for this office and never should have been here,” he once admitted. That self-awareness suggests, despite his shortcomings, that at least he wasn’t a psychopath.
The point: if Warren Harding could become president, why not Newt Gingrich or someone equally disturbed? Just think of the future scandals and all the pathological behavior we would get to witness. Bad behavior is, after all, catnip for millions of information consumers. Can they ever really get enough?
This is adapted from Maverick Media’s Rebel News Round Up,* broadcast live at approximately 11:15 a.m. Friday on WOMM (105.9-FM/LP – The Radiator) in Burlington.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Wikileaks and the Global Revolution
Amnesty International hails WikiLeaks and Guardian as Arab spring 'catalysts'The human rights group predicts a serious fightback from the forces of repression as it releases its annual report
Peter Walker
The Guardian, Friday 13 May 2011
Amnesty International's Salil Shetty said 2010 'was the year repressive governments faced the real possibility their days were numbered'. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA
The world faces a watershed moment in human rights with tyrants and despots coming under increasing pressure from the internet, social networking sites and the activities of WikiLeaks, Amnesty International says in its annual roundup.
The rights group singles out WikiLeaks and the newspapers that pored over its previously confidential government files, among them the Guardian, as a catalyst in a series of uprisings against repressive regimes, notably the overthrow of Tunisia's long-serving president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
"The year 2010 may well be remembered as a watershed year when activists and journalists used new technology to speak truth to power and, in so doing, pushed for greater respect for human rights," Amnesty's secretary general, Salil Shetty, says in an introduction to the document. "It is also the year when repressive governments faced the real possibility that their days were numbered."
But, Shetty adds, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, and elsewhere, remains unpredictable: "There is a serious fightback from the forces of repression. The international community must seize the opportunity for change and ensure that 2011 is not a false dawn for human rights."
The 432-page report reviews 156 countries and territories, of which at least 89 were found to restrict free speech, 98 carried out torture or other ill-treatment and 48 had documented prisoners of conscience.
The report covers only to the end of 2010, and thus only the very beginnings of the so-called Arab spring – Ben Ali was not deposed until mid-January. However, subsequent uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, many spread via mobile phones and social networking, reinforce Amnesty's message about the importance of technology and communication.
A key element had been the work of WikiLeaks in first publishing information about the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then a massive trove of US diplomatic papers, disclosures carried out with newspapers worldwide.
"It took old-fashioned newspaper reporters and political analysts to trawl through the raw data, analyse it, and identify evidence of crimes and violations contained in those documents," Shetty said.
"Leveraging this information, political activists used other new communications tools now easily available on mobile phones and on social networking sites to bring people to the streets to demand accountability."
One example highlighted by Shetty was Tunisia, where WikiLeaks revelations about Ben Ali's corrupt regime combined with rapidly-spreading news of the self-immolation of a disillusioned young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, to spark major protests.
The report also highlights the importance of new technology elsewhere, for example China, where "My father is Li Gang" – the cry of a senior policeman's son after he killed a young woman while drunk driving – became a euphemism on China's tightly controlled internet space for rife nepotism. Similarly, "empty chair" took the place of Liu Xiaobo's name on Chinese web forums after such a chair took the place of the jailed rights activist at the Nobel peace prize ceremony.
Shetty said: "Not since the end of the Cold War have so many repressive governments faced such a challenge to their stranglehold on power. The demand for political and economic rights spreading across the Middle East and North Africa is dramatic proof that all rights are equally important and a universal demand.
"In the 50 years since Amnesty International was born to protect the rights of people detained for their peaceful opinions, there has been a human rights revolution. The call for justice, freedom and dignity has evolved into a global demand that grows stronger every day. The genie is out of the bottle and the forces of repression cannot put it back."
Peter Walker
The Guardian, Friday 13 May 2011
Amnesty International's Salil Shetty said 2010 'was the year repressive governments faced the real possibility their days were numbered'. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA
The world faces a watershed moment in human rights with tyrants and despots coming under increasing pressure from the internet, social networking sites and the activities of WikiLeaks, Amnesty International says in its annual roundup.
The rights group singles out WikiLeaks and the newspapers that pored over its previously confidential government files, among them the Guardian, as a catalyst in a series of uprisings against repressive regimes, notably the overthrow of Tunisia's long-serving president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
"The year 2010 may well be remembered as a watershed year when activists and journalists used new technology to speak truth to power and, in so doing, pushed for greater respect for human rights," Amnesty's secretary general, Salil Shetty, says in an introduction to the document. "It is also the year when repressive governments faced the real possibility that their days were numbered."
But, Shetty adds, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, and elsewhere, remains unpredictable: "There is a serious fightback from the forces of repression. The international community must seize the opportunity for change and ensure that 2011 is not a false dawn for human rights."
The 432-page report reviews 156 countries and territories, of which at least 89 were found to restrict free speech, 98 carried out torture or other ill-treatment and 48 had documented prisoners of conscience.
The report covers only to the end of 2010, and thus only the very beginnings of the so-called Arab spring – Ben Ali was not deposed until mid-January. However, subsequent uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, many spread via mobile phones and social networking, reinforce Amnesty's message about the importance of technology and communication.
A key element had been the work of WikiLeaks in first publishing information about the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then a massive trove of US diplomatic papers, disclosures carried out with newspapers worldwide.
"It took old-fashioned newspaper reporters and political analysts to trawl through the raw data, analyse it, and identify evidence of crimes and violations contained in those documents," Shetty said.
"Leveraging this information, political activists used other new communications tools now easily available on mobile phones and on social networking sites to bring people to the streets to demand accountability."
One example highlighted by Shetty was Tunisia, where WikiLeaks revelations about Ben Ali's corrupt regime combined with rapidly-spreading news of the self-immolation of a disillusioned young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, to spark major protests.
The report also highlights the importance of new technology elsewhere, for example China, where "My father is Li Gang" – the cry of a senior policeman's son after he killed a young woman while drunk driving – became a euphemism on China's tightly controlled internet space for rife nepotism. Similarly, "empty chair" took the place of Liu Xiaobo's name on Chinese web forums after such a chair took the place of the jailed rights activist at the Nobel peace prize ceremony.
Shetty said: "Not since the end of the Cold War have so many repressive governments faced such a challenge to their stranglehold on power. The demand for political and economic rights spreading across the Middle East and North Africa is dramatic proof that all rights are equally important and a universal demand.
"In the 50 years since Amnesty International was born to protect the rights of people detained for their peaceful opinions, there has been a human rights revolution. The call for justice, freedom and dignity has evolved into a global demand that grows stronger every day. The genie is out of the bottle and the forces of repression cannot put it back."
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Why I Can’t Vote For You Again, Mr. President
No More Lesser of Two Evils
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, April 23, 2011
By Stuart S. Light
I see you’re the first one out of the gate in declaring your candidacy for 2012, Mr. President. I suppose I’m not surprised. You’ve left so many unfulfilled promises on the table during your first term that you must be itching to become a lame duck, which would remove that re-election harness and allow you to run free, right? Well, for whatever it’s worth, and I know it isn’t worth more than one vote, you can’t have mine again. Don’t worry, I’ m not going to throw it away by voting for your Republican rival. That would be worse than voting for you, but I’ve promised myself that voting for the lesser of two evils will no longer be an option for me.
I can’t tell you how very sad I am. You earned my vote in 2008 by making me believe. It had nothing to do with the fact that you would become the first black president ever. Your color was simply an accident of birth, just like mine. No, it was your soaring rhetoric, your debating skills, and all the good things you promised to be and do. It seemed like we finally had a chance to elect a sensitive, empathic, intelligent human being to the highest office in the land and that some very significant changes in our society would become possible. It was a time of great hope, and when you won, it was a time of great jubilation.
I know that not everyone felt that way. There were many people who wanted you to lose. And when you didn’t, a great resistance developed in many quarters and forces were joined to make sure that you would fail as president. And you met those forces with an extended hand and a desire for compromise and bipartisanship. And you held onto your belief that you could work with these forces and do good things for the people. You were wrong. Time and again, you were wrong. But you never let go of your illusions, or perhaps you didn’t have the strength to fight for your real principles – those that you proclaimed in all of your elegant and inspirational speeches. Or maybe, and here I go with my political cynicism, those weren’t your real principles after all.
I hope that isn’t the case, but in the end it doesn’t matter all that much. What matters is that in almost every way imaginable you compromised or backed down. That isn’t the president I thought I helped elect. And that certainly isn’t the president that’s going to improve the lives of the great majority of those who need someone that cares more about them then the powerful interests that will fill his re-election war chest.
It seems to always get down to this dynamic in our country, doesn’t it? Courting those that provide the enormous amount of backing that gives one the ability to gain and hold power trumps all the good things one could do with that power. You’ve become just one more link in a long chain of men who couldn’t risk breaking the umbilical cord – another president willing to serve the few that need no serving at the expense of the great many that do. How does one justify voting for someone like that?
The thing about it is this, Mr. President. We have the money to increase the quality of life for all of our citizens. All this talk about deficits is obfuscation and distraction. If you were to take the billions upon billions that we waste on these absurd wars alone … never mind, sir, you already know this. That’s the saddest part of all, you’re an extremely smart man and there’s no chance you can’t see how completely warped our national priorities are. That you would allow this all to be laid on the backs of teachers and poor people is a testimony to your character, not your intelligence.
Self-interest and self-promotion take a great deal of intelligence and you clearly demonstrated that in the campaign of 2008. But the country simply can’t afford that kind of intelligence anymore. It requires a leader with the ability to see the big picture – to recognize how interrelated everything is and how important it is to have a well educated, healthy citizenry to make a real democracy functional. Above all it takes character – the kind Dr. King made reference to those many long years ago. That’s what appears to be lacking in you Mr. President. Its absence was revealed in your first term. I can see no reason whatsoever to believe you’ve earned a second.
In the final analysis it will be quite difficult to sit on the sidelines as a non-presidential voter in 2012. If many of us do that, quite possibly someone with even less character will replace you. But at some point, to preserve one’s own integrity and character, a line has to be drawn. It’s only one vote out of millions but you still had to earn it. You did not.
The author is a Democrat and a writer living in Santa Barbara.
No More Lesser of Two Evils
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, April 23, 2011
By Stuart S. Light
I see you’re the first one out of the gate in declaring your candidacy for 2012, Mr. President. I suppose I’m not surprised. You’ve left so many unfulfilled promises on the table during your first term that you must be itching to become a lame duck, which would remove that re-election harness and allow you to run free, right? Well, for whatever it’s worth, and I know it isn’t worth more than one vote, you can’t have mine again. Don’t worry, I’ m not going to throw it away by voting for your Republican rival. That would be worse than voting for you, but I’ve promised myself that voting for the lesser of two evils will no longer be an option for me.
I can’t tell you how very sad I am. You earned my vote in 2008 by making me believe. It had nothing to do with the fact that you would become the first black president ever. Your color was simply an accident of birth, just like mine. No, it was your soaring rhetoric, your debating skills, and all the good things you promised to be and do. It seemed like we finally had a chance to elect a sensitive, empathic, intelligent human being to the highest office in the land and that some very significant changes in our society would become possible. It was a time of great hope, and when you won, it was a time of great jubilation.
I know that not everyone felt that way. There were many people who wanted you to lose. And when you didn’t, a great resistance developed in many quarters and forces were joined to make sure that you would fail as president. And you met those forces with an extended hand and a desire for compromise and bipartisanship. And you held onto your belief that you could work with these forces and do good things for the people. You were wrong. Time and again, you were wrong. But you never let go of your illusions, or perhaps you didn’t have the strength to fight for your real principles – those that you proclaimed in all of your elegant and inspirational speeches. Or maybe, and here I go with my political cynicism, those weren’t your real principles after all.
I hope that isn’t the case, but in the end it doesn’t matter all that much. What matters is that in almost every way imaginable you compromised or backed down. That isn’t the president I thought I helped elect. And that certainly isn’t the president that’s going to improve the lives of the great majority of those who need someone that cares more about them then the powerful interests that will fill his re-election war chest.
It seems to always get down to this dynamic in our country, doesn’t it? Courting those that provide the enormous amount of backing that gives one the ability to gain and hold power trumps all the good things one could do with that power. You’ve become just one more link in a long chain of men who couldn’t risk breaking the umbilical cord – another president willing to serve the few that need no serving at the expense of the great many that do. How does one justify voting for someone like that?
The thing about it is this, Mr. President. We have the money to increase the quality of life for all of our citizens. All this talk about deficits is obfuscation and distraction. If you were to take the billions upon billions that we waste on these absurd wars alone … never mind, sir, you already know this. That’s the saddest part of all, you’re an extremely smart man and there’s no chance you can’t see how completely warped our national priorities are. That you would allow this all to be laid on the backs of teachers and poor people is a testimony to your character, not your intelligence.
Self-interest and self-promotion take a great deal of intelligence and you clearly demonstrated that in the campaign of 2008. But the country simply can’t afford that kind of intelligence anymore. It requires a leader with the ability to see the big picture – to recognize how interrelated everything is and how important it is to have a well educated, healthy citizenry to make a real democracy functional. Above all it takes character – the kind Dr. King made reference to those many long years ago. That’s what appears to be lacking in you Mr. President. Its absence was revealed in your first term. I can see no reason whatsoever to believe you’ve earned a second.
In the final analysis it will be quite difficult to sit on the sidelines as a non-presidential voter in 2012. If many of us do that, quite possibly someone with even less character will replace you. But at some point, to preserve one’s own integrity and character, a line has to be drawn. It’s only one vote out of millions but you still had to earn it. You did not.
The author is a Democrat and a writer living in Santa Barbara.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Published on Monday, April 11, 2011
by CommonDreams.org And Now, for the Kill
by David Michael Green
One of the more interesting developments in American history is something that actually didn’t happen. But if one wants to gain some appreciation of the degree to which our public sphere has deteriorated over time, it’s worth remembering this non-event.
When Dwight Eisenhower came to the presidency in 1953, it was the first time in an entire generation that a Republican had held the office. Prior to that time, the GOP had led the country into unparalleled economic destruction, refused to do anything about the nightmare they’d created, lost five presidential elections running, and sat on the sidelines while Democratic presidents guided the US through a few slightly consequential events like the Great Depression, World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.
The American Constitutional system – with its potential for divided power – isn’t so big on the notion of responsible government (as one finds in parliamentary systems), where authority, and thus responsibility for outcomes is clearly assigned to a given actor or political party. Nevertheless, we got pretty close to it in 1953, with the exhaustion of Democratic governance, the repudiation of Harry Truman, and the Republican Spring led by the grey, seemingly-above-politics new president, General Eisenhower.
What’s important here is what could have happened, but didn’t. The character of American government had changed radically – the most in the country’s history – during the two decades since Herbert Hoover had been in office. It was now much bigger in size, it did a lot more things than it used to do, and the federal government had usurped responsibility for policy domains formerly primarily in the hands of the states. Most importantly, the ethos underscoring the relationship between the American people and their government had completely changed. In the past, that relationship had been one characterized chiefly by libertarianism, on the one hand, and oligarchical corruption on the other. With the New Deal, the government was for the first time in the business of serving the public interest and providing Americans a much-needed social safety net. In short, the American welfare state was born.
These changes had been completely contrary to the politics of the Republican Party, and especially to the politics of the plutocrats in American society (for whom the GOP had long prior become an interest-serving vehicle). They saw Roosevelt as a “traitor to his class”, and they hated him so much they couldn’t even spit out his name. They actually referred to him as “that man”.
All of this is relevant and significant because the GOP had a choice to make in 1953. With their hands on the levers of power for the first time in a long time, they could have undone the New Deal. Some in the party wanted to do so. But by that time both Ike and the bulk of his party had left behind the Neanderthal tendencies of the pre-FDR days and had moved to the center-right. Eisenhower famously discussed his position – and that of others in the GOP – in a 1954 letter to his brother: “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Ah, how very quaint such sentiments now seem in retrospect. Weren’t those just the days, back when even Republicans sorta had a heart with a detectable pulse? Now we live in a very different place. It is a place of destruction and despair. An abattoir where the little people go – all 99 percent of the country, let alone the fully dispensable “human resources” found outside our borders – to be sacrificed on the altar of unparalleled greed.
But that’s just the beginning of the story. We’d be in bad enough shape if it were only Republicans out to destroy us. Then there’s the “Democrats”, including the “socialist” leader of the party, Barack Obama. If we’re remotely honest about it, we’d have to acknowledge that today’s Obama, the former anti-war community organizer, is to the ideological right of yesterday’s Dwight Eisenhower, former five-star general, leader of the Normandy invasion, commander of NATO and head of the Republican Party. As today’s worst elements of the Republican Party (that is, almost all of them) seek to do exactly the things that Eisenhower called “stupid”, there is Obama, facilitating their efforts.
There are the Democrats, continually adding to the pile of tax giveaways for the rich, and therefore adding to the pile of debt which is now being used as a cudgel to force cuts on essential government services, programs despised by the oligarchy since the beginning. There are the Democrats, continually adding to the pile of stupid Middle Eastern wars being fought using resources so scarce that medical care must now be cut for the poor and elderly. There are the Democrats going even further than Republicans in smashing civil liberties and shredding the Bill of Rights. There are the Democrats, as absolutely unwilling as Republicans to remotely face the very real planetary peril of global warming. There are the Democrats, continuing to promulgate the failed Bush education policy of No Child Left Behind. There are the Democrats, turning yet again to corporate ‘solutions’ to health care, which enrich parasitical insurance companies but do nothing for sick people other than to deny them care. There are the Democrats (led by a black man, no less!), joining the chorus of Jesus Freak freaks in denying civil rights to gays.
I think the conservative Eisenhower would sooner have become a German storm trooper than a modern Democrat, let alone a Republican – and on far too many days I’m not sure I can see the difference.
I got a letter this week from my good friend, Barack. I call him by his first name because his note was addressed to “David” and signed “Barack”. I guess we’re old pals, though in my dotage I seem to have neglected to notice that the most powerful and prominent man on Earth somehow became my personal bud-bud. It was a letter to announce that he was launching his 2012 campaign for reelection. He seemed to be laboring under the misconception that I give a shit. He also seemed to think I hadn’t heard.
In fact, the media reported that Barack launched his campaign by announcing it over Twitter, that network of abbreviated bursts of inanity which is ground zero for our national epidemic of narcissism. I think that is totally appropriate that he would make such a momentous announcement in that fashion. Not, mind you, because he’s a cutting-edge sort of fellow, mobilizing the new social media technology for political purposes. But, rather, because that particular outlet of that medium speaks so perfectly to the impossible lightness of being that is our President Tweet.
Anyhow, Barack wrote to tell me that he wants to do a big old grass roots campaign again next year, one that doesn’t start with “expensive TV ads”, but with me – “with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends”. Now those would be some brief goddam conversations, I can tell you. “Hey neighbor, let’s do some organizing for Obama, ‘cause he capitulates so gracefully!” “Hey co-worker, would you like to pay more taxes so that rich people can contribute even less than they already do? Let’s give Barack another term!” I don’t think so.
Then he let me in on a little Team Obama secret that, “In the coming days, supporters like you will begin forging a new organization that we'll build together in cities and towns across the country. And I'll need you to help shape our plan as we create a campaign that's farther reaching, more focused, and more innovative than anything we've built before. We'll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year's fight.”
Wow! That’s awfully flattering. The President of the United States – ol’ Potus himself – wants my help in shaping his plan to create a people-driven, grassroots campaign for “the cause” of giving him a second term. If only I didn’t have other plans for, gosh, well, the entirety of every waking minute in 2012. Looks like, for some reason, that project he has in mind is going to be a big job, too. He goes on to tell me that, “We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. [Oddly, I don’t remember this campaign slogan from 2008.] It never does. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we've made – and make more – we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.”
There’s that word “fight” again. Ol’ Barack, he’s a real fighter, eh?! At least now that there’s an election where something that he wants is at stake. I noticed that he didn’t really seem to fight for anything during his first two years in office, least of all for anything progressive. Even his health care legislation, which is only partially progressive on a good day, didn’t seem to inspire any spunk from the president. Did you ever get the feeling that he wanted it real bad? Do you remember him ever pushing the public to rally hard behind this national necessity, making the urgent case for how it would make the country better off, in the same way that, say, Reagan or Bush pushed hard for their beloved tax cuts, or their wars based on lies? Do you even remember Obama standing up to the insane lies told about him and his legislation, the death panels and government rationing and socialism cant, and so on? For that matter, do you remember Obama ever even defining what shape his own signature bill had to take? Single payer? Public option? Money for stethoscopes?
Predictably, a president who stood for nothing during a period of multiple crises got routed in the midterm election. Even still, did it seem to you like he cared very much about that? I’m starting to develop a new theory about Obama. In 2008 I thought he might be a progressive. Then I thought he was such a wimp that it was just easier for him to capitulate at every turn, rather than to fight for progressive values. Now I think he’s truly regressive in his politics, and is purposefully altering his operating environment to allow him to pursue those policies while still remaining the nominee of a party that’s supposed to be devoted to the people’s interests. “Golly”, he can say to stupid Democratic voters, “I really wanted to be progressive on [Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, health care, education, gay marriage, the budget, the economy, the environment, civil liberties, whatever] but those mean right-wingers won’t let me. And now there’s even more of them than there used to be! What can I do but give in even more?” It’s a perfect formula for anyone with those priorities. Regressivism begets more regressivism, under cover of the long shadow of a genuinely liberal Democratic Party, thirty years dead.
Meanwhile, the current condition of the United States is fantastical, the stuff of legend, the kind of absurdity that no one would find credible enough to buy were it presented as a work of fiction. We have genuine crises, but we ignore them. Instead we squabble about non-issues, while the ship of state rapidly sinks. And who is squabbling? The far left versus the far right? The reds against the blacks? We should be so lucky. No, it’s this faction of political whores carrying water for the oligarchy versus that almost identical faction of political whores carrying water for the oligarchy. Meanwhile, the only seemingly assured ticket to electoral success in our political system on any given day is to have enacted failed policy ideas the day before. And, most bizarre of all, no one will seek to reward the depredations of the political class more rapidly than those who are its victims. Wonderland would seem to Alice quite the paragon of rationality by comparison.
The current budget brouhaha is only the most recent and obvious example of this political pathology par excellence. Think about it. Here’s the real version of what has happened: A decade ago, the United States had the greatest budget surplus ever recorded in human history. Then the regressives came to power. They quickly slashed tax revenues, especially from the rich, borrowing like crack addicts in order to pay for their profligacy. They meanwhile spent gigantic sums on wars based on lies, on hugely increased military spending apart from the wars, on a new Medicare benefit which they insisted on setting up in a way that massively benefitted insurance and pharmaceutical corporations rather than the federal treasury, and on general pork barrel spending, thus driving the national debt up dramatically further, and creating the world’s greatest ever deficits. Let me repeat, it was the GOP who did this. Now these very same people are falsely claiming an electoral mandate to slash spending, screaming that borrowing is an urgent problem which must be addressed at all costs. At the same time, they continue each year to further slash revenues coming in to the government, massively exacerbating the very problem they claim to desperately want to solve.
Their solution is to cut spending on essentials for poor people and the middle class. They have completely taken any form of tax restoration off the table. They won’t dream of reducing military expenditures, which are bloated to an absurd degree. They cannot contemplate allowing the government to buy way cheaper drugs from Canada, or negotiating a bulk price discount for those drugs, let alone rescinding their (socialist) prescription drug benefit plan. They would never accept a reduction in the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on corporate welfare each year for agricultural or sugar or oil or other industries.
Instead, they’re right back at us again, with more of exactly the same formula. Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan continues his (only in über-Wonderland) multi-year run as a media darling, some sort of budgetary guru, some sort of brave truth-teller. He this week released a ten-year plan that is, in fact, astonishing for how cowardly and dishonest it is. It slashes almost every form of domestic spending imaginable, dramatically cuts Medicare for seniors, and turns control of Medicaid over to the fifty states, each of whom can of course then do whatever they want with it. Most amazing of all, while this entire draconian meat-axe of a budget proposal is predicated on the urgent necessity of slashing deficits, Ryan’s plan would gut revenues to the government by lopping almost 30 percent off of top individual and corporate tax rates, taking the top rate down from 35 percent to 25 percent. No wonder, then, that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has calculated that Ryan’s plan would actually increase deficits, the direct opposite of the very rationale that supposedly justifies its existence.
Perhaps most ludicrous of all is the context in which this all arrives, along with the latest budget deal slashing $38 billion in federal spending on domestic programs. The two most urgent problems facing the United States today are global warming and a crappy economy for workers that is probably never going away. But the stuff we argue about has nothing to do with the former, and only exacerbates the latter (because cutting spending will kill the demand in the economy which is precisely what is needed now to stimulate a recovery). We, as a society, could not possibly be more irrelevant to ourselves. And that’s the good news. If only it was just irrelevance.
None of this is random, however. This has been a three decade long process to produce that which our unparalleled greedy rich have craved the most, namely, a return to the good old days when they had everything and the rest of us had nothing. They have been indignant at the very notion of the slight bit of economic egalitarianism America managed to maintain for a couple of generations. They sat on their hands, gnashing their teeth, from the 1930s through the 1970s, because they had to, but now they’ve come back with a vengeance.
Exporting jobs, slashing government programs, moving tax burdens, bankrupting the government, breaking unions, coopting Democrats, creating bogus news media, dumbing down education, fabricating scary bogeymen, stealing elections. It’s all there, man.
Remember when Nixon and Kissinger decided to kill socialism (not to mention lots of people) in Chile by “making the economy scream”?
Welcome to Chile Norte, amigo.
As Scott Walker and Paul Ryan and the rest apply the finishing touches, the job is today almost complete.
And now, for the kill.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
by CommonDreams.org And Now, for the Kill
by David Michael Green
One of the more interesting developments in American history is something that actually didn’t happen. But if one wants to gain some appreciation of the degree to which our public sphere has deteriorated over time, it’s worth remembering this non-event.
When Dwight Eisenhower came to the presidency in 1953, it was the first time in an entire generation that a Republican had held the office. Prior to that time, the GOP had led the country into unparalleled economic destruction, refused to do anything about the nightmare they’d created, lost five presidential elections running, and sat on the sidelines while Democratic presidents guided the US through a few slightly consequential events like the Great Depression, World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.
The American Constitutional system – with its potential for divided power – isn’t so big on the notion of responsible government (as one finds in parliamentary systems), where authority, and thus responsibility for outcomes is clearly assigned to a given actor or political party. Nevertheless, we got pretty close to it in 1953, with the exhaustion of Democratic governance, the repudiation of Harry Truman, and the Republican Spring led by the grey, seemingly-above-politics new president, General Eisenhower.
What’s important here is what could have happened, but didn’t. The character of American government had changed radically – the most in the country’s history – during the two decades since Herbert Hoover had been in office. It was now much bigger in size, it did a lot more things than it used to do, and the federal government had usurped responsibility for policy domains formerly primarily in the hands of the states. Most importantly, the ethos underscoring the relationship between the American people and their government had completely changed. In the past, that relationship had been one characterized chiefly by libertarianism, on the one hand, and oligarchical corruption on the other. With the New Deal, the government was for the first time in the business of serving the public interest and providing Americans a much-needed social safety net. In short, the American welfare state was born.
These changes had been completely contrary to the politics of the Republican Party, and especially to the politics of the plutocrats in American society (for whom the GOP had long prior become an interest-serving vehicle). They saw Roosevelt as a “traitor to his class”, and they hated him so much they couldn’t even spit out his name. They actually referred to him as “that man”.
All of this is relevant and significant because the GOP had a choice to make in 1953. With their hands on the levers of power for the first time in a long time, they could have undone the New Deal. Some in the party wanted to do so. But by that time both Ike and the bulk of his party had left behind the Neanderthal tendencies of the pre-FDR days and had moved to the center-right. Eisenhower famously discussed his position – and that of others in the GOP – in a 1954 letter to his brother: “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Ah, how very quaint such sentiments now seem in retrospect. Weren’t those just the days, back when even Republicans sorta had a heart with a detectable pulse? Now we live in a very different place. It is a place of destruction and despair. An abattoir where the little people go – all 99 percent of the country, let alone the fully dispensable “human resources” found outside our borders – to be sacrificed on the altar of unparalleled greed.
But that’s just the beginning of the story. We’d be in bad enough shape if it were only Republicans out to destroy us. Then there’s the “Democrats”, including the “socialist” leader of the party, Barack Obama. If we’re remotely honest about it, we’d have to acknowledge that today’s Obama, the former anti-war community organizer, is to the ideological right of yesterday’s Dwight Eisenhower, former five-star general, leader of the Normandy invasion, commander of NATO and head of the Republican Party. As today’s worst elements of the Republican Party (that is, almost all of them) seek to do exactly the things that Eisenhower called “stupid”, there is Obama, facilitating their efforts.
There are the Democrats, continually adding to the pile of tax giveaways for the rich, and therefore adding to the pile of debt which is now being used as a cudgel to force cuts on essential government services, programs despised by the oligarchy since the beginning. There are the Democrats, continually adding to the pile of stupid Middle Eastern wars being fought using resources so scarce that medical care must now be cut for the poor and elderly. There are the Democrats going even further than Republicans in smashing civil liberties and shredding the Bill of Rights. There are the Democrats, as absolutely unwilling as Republicans to remotely face the very real planetary peril of global warming. There are the Democrats, continuing to promulgate the failed Bush education policy of No Child Left Behind. There are the Democrats, turning yet again to corporate ‘solutions’ to health care, which enrich parasitical insurance companies but do nothing for sick people other than to deny them care. There are the Democrats (led by a black man, no less!), joining the chorus of Jesus Freak freaks in denying civil rights to gays.
I think the conservative Eisenhower would sooner have become a German storm trooper than a modern Democrat, let alone a Republican – and on far too many days I’m not sure I can see the difference.
I got a letter this week from my good friend, Barack. I call him by his first name because his note was addressed to “David” and signed “Barack”. I guess we’re old pals, though in my dotage I seem to have neglected to notice that the most powerful and prominent man on Earth somehow became my personal bud-bud. It was a letter to announce that he was launching his 2012 campaign for reelection. He seemed to be laboring under the misconception that I give a shit. He also seemed to think I hadn’t heard.
In fact, the media reported that Barack launched his campaign by announcing it over Twitter, that network of abbreviated bursts of inanity which is ground zero for our national epidemic of narcissism. I think that is totally appropriate that he would make such a momentous announcement in that fashion. Not, mind you, because he’s a cutting-edge sort of fellow, mobilizing the new social media technology for political purposes. But, rather, because that particular outlet of that medium speaks so perfectly to the impossible lightness of being that is our President Tweet.
Anyhow, Barack wrote to tell me that he wants to do a big old grass roots campaign again next year, one that doesn’t start with “expensive TV ads”, but with me – “with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends”. Now those would be some brief goddam conversations, I can tell you. “Hey neighbor, let’s do some organizing for Obama, ‘cause he capitulates so gracefully!” “Hey co-worker, would you like to pay more taxes so that rich people can contribute even less than they already do? Let’s give Barack another term!” I don’t think so.
Then he let me in on a little Team Obama secret that, “In the coming days, supporters like you will begin forging a new organization that we'll build together in cities and towns across the country. And I'll need you to help shape our plan as we create a campaign that's farther reaching, more focused, and more innovative than anything we've built before. We'll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year's fight.”
Wow! That’s awfully flattering. The President of the United States – ol’ Potus himself – wants my help in shaping his plan to create a people-driven, grassroots campaign for “the cause” of giving him a second term. If only I didn’t have other plans for, gosh, well, the entirety of every waking minute in 2012. Looks like, for some reason, that project he has in mind is going to be a big job, too. He goes on to tell me that, “We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. [Oddly, I don’t remember this campaign slogan from 2008.] It never does. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we've made – and make more – we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.”
There’s that word “fight” again. Ol’ Barack, he’s a real fighter, eh?! At least now that there’s an election where something that he wants is at stake. I noticed that he didn’t really seem to fight for anything during his first two years in office, least of all for anything progressive. Even his health care legislation, which is only partially progressive on a good day, didn’t seem to inspire any spunk from the president. Did you ever get the feeling that he wanted it real bad? Do you remember him ever pushing the public to rally hard behind this national necessity, making the urgent case for how it would make the country better off, in the same way that, say, Reagan or Bush pushed hard for their beloved tax cuts, or their wars based on lies? Do you even remember Obama standing up to the insane lies told about him and his legislation, the death panels and government rationing and socialism cant, and so on? For that matter, do you remember Obama ever even defining what shape his own signature bill had to take? Single payer? Public option? Money for stethoscopes?
Predictably, a president who stood for nothing during a period of multiple crises got routed in the midterm election. Even still, did it seem to you like he cared very much about that? I’m starting to develop a new theory about Obama. In 2008 I thought he might be a progressive. Then I thought he was such a wimp that it was just easier for him to capitulate at every turn, rather than to fight for progressive values. Now I think he’s truly regressive in his politics, and is purposefully altering his operating environment to allow him to pursue those policies while still remaining the nominee of a party that’s supposed to be devoted to the people’s interests. “Golly”, he can say to stupid Democratic voters, “I really wanted to be progressive on [Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, health care, education, gay marriage, the budget, the economy, the environment, civil liberties, whatever] but those mean right-wingers won’t let me. And now there’s even more of them than there used to be! What can I do but give in even more?” It’s a perfect formula for anyone with those priorities. Regressivism begets more regressivism, under cover of the long shadow of a genuinely liberal Democratic Party, thirty years dead.
Meanwhile, the current condition of the United States is fantastical, the stuff of legend, the kind of absurdity that no one would find credible enough to buy were it presented as a work of fiction. We have genuine crises, but we ignore them. Instead we squabble about non-issues, while the ship of state rapidly sinks. And who is squabbling? The far left versus the far right? The reds against the blacks? We should be so lucky. No, it’s this faction of political whores carrying water for the oligarchy versus that almost identical faction of political whores carrying water for the oligarchy. Meanwhile, the only seemingly assured ticket to electoral success in our political system on any given day is to have enacted failed policy ideas the day before. And, most bizarre of all, no one will seek to reward the depredations of the political class more rapidly than those who are its victims. Wonderland would seem to Alice quite the paragon of rationality by comparison.
The current budget brouhaha is only the most recent and obvious example of this political pathology par excellence. Think about it. Here’s the real version of what has happened: A decade ago, the United States had the greatest budget surplus ever recorded in human history. Then the regressives came to power. They quickly slashed tax revenues, especially from the rich, borrowing like crack addicts in order to pay for their profligacy. They meanwhile spent gigantic sums on wars based on lies, on hugely increased military spending apart from the wars, on a new Medicare benefit which they insisted on setting up in a way that massively benefitted insurance and pharmaceutical corporations rather than the federal treasury, and on general pork barrel spending, thus driving the national debt up dramatically further, and creating the world’s greatest ever deficits. Let me repeat, it was the GOP who did this. Now these very same people are falsely claiming an electoral mandate to slash spending, screaming that borrowing is an urgent problem which must be addressed at all costs. At the same time, they continue each year to further slash revenues coming in to the government, massively exacerbating the very problem they claim to desperately want to solve.
Their solution is to cut spending on essentials for poor people and the middle class. They have completely taken any form of tax restoration off the table. They won’t dream of reducing military expenditures, which are bloated to an absurd degree. They cannot contemplate allowing the government to buy way cheaper drugs from Canada, or negotiating a bulk price discount for those drugs, let alone rescinding their (socialist) prescription drug benefit plan. They would never accept a reduction in the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on corporate welfare each year for agricultural or sugar or oil or other industries.
Instead, they’re right back at us again, with more of exactly the same formula. Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan continues his (only in über-Wonderland) multi-year run as a media darling, some sort of budgetary guru, some sort of brave truth-teller. He this week released a ten-year plan that is, in fact, astonishing for how cowardly and dishonest it is. It slashes almost every form of domestic spending imaginable, dramatically cuts Medicare for seniors, and turns control of Medicaid over to the fifty states, each of whom can of course then do whatever they want with it. Most amazing of all, while this entire draconian meat-axe of a budget proposal is predicated on the urgent necessity of slashing deficits, Ryan’s plan would gut revenues to the government by lopping almost 30 percent off of top individual and corporate tax rates, taking the top rate down from 35 percent to 25 percent. No wonder, then, that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has calculated that Ryan’s plan would actually increase deficits, the direct opposite of the very rationale that supposedly justifies its existence.
Perhaps most ludicrous of all is the context in which this all arrives, along with the latest budget deal slashing $38 billion in federal spending on domestic programs. The two most urgent problems facing the United States today are global warming and a crappy economy for workers that is probably never going away. But the stuff we argue about has nothing to do with the former, and only exacerbates the latter (because cutting spending will kill the demand in the economy which is precisely what is needed now to stimulate a recovery). We, as a society, could not possibly be more irrelevant to ourselves. And that’s the good news. If only it was just irrelevance.
None of this is random, however. This has been a three decade long process to produce that which our unparalleled greedy rich have craved the most, namely, a return to the good old days when they had everything and the rest of us had nothing. They have been indignant at the very notion of the slight bit of economic egalitarianism America managed to maintain for a couple of generations. They sat on their hands, gnashing their teeth, from the 1930s through the 1970s, because they had to, but now they’ve come back with a vengeance.
Exporting jobs, slashing government programs, moving tax burdens, bankrupting the government, breaking unions, coopting Democrats, creating bogus news media, dumbing down education, fabricating scary bogeymen, stealing elections. It’s all there, man.
Remember when Nixon and Kissinger decided to kill socialism (not to mention lots of people) in Chile by “making the economy scream”?
Welcome to Chile Norte, amigo.
As Scott Walker and Paul Ryan and the rest apply the finishing touches, the job is today almost complete.
And now, for the kill.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
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